“Hurry!” Breaker stood by the back door of the store.
“I’ve written myself into the story. I’m now the protagonist,” said the writer. “It’s the only way to save Alice. I’ll be bound by the events of the story just as much as anyone else. In a horror story it can’t be certain that the hero will suceed or even survive. He almost has to—”
“Wake, move!”
Wake ran toward Breaker. Looked around. “Where’s Barry?”
“Isn’t he with you?” said Breaker.
Wake heard rustling sounds in the dark store. “Barry?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Barry came over from the next aisle, his neck draped with something… it looked like a dozen Hawaiian leis.
An enormous Taken stepped through the front door, charged at them, a pickax raised over his head.
Wake fumbled for his flashlight.
Breaker shot the Taken, once, twice, three times, racking the shotgun to reload after each shot. It had no effect. “Alan?” she said softly.
Wake’s flashlight flickered, died. “Give me your flashlight,” he said to Breaker. “I need the flashlight.”
Breaker shot the Taken again as it rushed them, but the shadows swallowed up the blast and left it unharmed.
Wake grabbed the flashlight from Breaker as she raised the shotgun, but before he could turn it on, the area around the door turned bright, red and green and yellow and white lights flaring.
Nailed in the light, the Taken started to retreat when Breaker fired again, and again, the Taken blasted apart.
“Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas!” shouted Barry, dancing around. As he twirled, the lights blazed around the store, all the pretty colors bouncing off the security mirrors, holding the other Taken at bay in the doorway. “Merry Christmas, one and all!”
Wake stared at Barry. He wasn’t wearing strands of leis around his neck; he was wearing layers and layers of Christmas lights.
“Battery powered, baby!” preened Barry, holding up the battery pack in his hand. He jabbed a finger at the Taken. “Come on! Come here and sit on Santa’s knee!”
Wake hustled him out the back door.
The helicopter sat on the raised concrete pad across the street.
Breaker got to the chopper first, slid into the cockpit while Wake and Barry took up positions around it.
“Christmas tree lights?” said Wake.
“I was feeling… festive,” said Barry.
“Yeah, me too,” said Wake, watching as Taken approached from the surrounding buildings. “Any minute now I’m going to break out the confetti and party balloons.” He shined his flashlight on the nearest Taken, but the beam was weak. He shot it anyway. No effect. “Hey, Sarah, anytime you want to start the engine would be fine with us.”
“Working on it!” yelled Breaker.
The engine turned over. Died.
“Of course,” said Barry, wreathed in flashing red and green lights. “The man with the hook approaches the couple parked in lover’s lane, the car won’t start. The monster shambles toward the girl trying to open the front door, and she can’t find the right key. It’s a hallowed tradition.”
An ax whistled past his head.
“Dammit, I hate tradition.”
He looked back at the helicopter, saw Breaker bent over the controls. “You want to put us out of our misery here, Sheriff?”
The shadows roared over the town, tearing branches off the trees with the raw power of its passing.
The Taken were closer, their guttural voices incoherent and menacing. A Taken in a yellow hard hat beat a sledgehammer against the street, a mindless drumming that tore up chunks of asphalt as he lumbered forward.
The engine turned over, started… died.
“Sarah!”
The engine caught, the blades of the helicopter turning slowly, then faster and faster as Breaker throttled the engine.
“Get in,” Wake said to Barry, keeping the flashlight on the Taken, slowing them down.
“You get in,” said Barry, then thought better of it as a thrown lug wrench grazed his shoulder and shattered one of the bulbs. He ran under the whirling blades and dived into the cockpit of the helicopter.
Breaker turned on the searchlights of the helicopter, the intensity of the beam alone disintegrating the sledgehammer Taken.
Wake climbed into the chopper, holding on tight as Breaker rapidly lifted off, the helicopter banking for a moment, narrowly missing a power line before Breaker righted it.
Barry’s flashing lights reflected off the plastic canopy of the cockpit.
Wake reached over and switched them off.
“Hey,” said Barry.
Breaker flew over the town, lights on, saw glass glittering in the streets from a hundred broken windows. Crashed cars burned at the intersections, oily black smoke joining with the darkness. “You need to do something about this, Alan. You need to do whatever you can.”
Wake turned away from the wreckage below, kept his eyes on abandoned power plant in the distance. It seemed to glow in the night, light pouring from every window. “Just get me to Weaver. I’ll take it from there.”
Mott had checked all of Stucky’s rental cabins. There had been no sign of the Wakes. It was dark when he’d found their car parked at the end of the road by Cauldron Lake. It made no sense. They must have taken a wrong turn, but there was no sign of them, and the car had been there for hours already. Frustrated, Mott stood on the rotten ruin of the footbridge that had once led to Diver’s Isle, before it sank beneath the waves years ago. Hartman wouldn’t be happy.
CHAPTER 24
BREAKER TRIED TO hold the chopper steady through the turbulence that rocked it back and forth as it soared over the treetops. Barry squatted on the tiny jump seat in back of the cramped cockpit, strands of Christmas lights wrapped around his neck, while Wake sat beside Breaker, close enough that none of them had to raise their voices to be heard over the engine noise. They were so relieved to be away from the town, away from the Taken, that they were giddy, eager to banter and pretend that they were out of danger. Even Breaker broke her mask of professionalism and spoke of her fear and frustration when her shotgun blasts alone didn’t bring down the Taken.
“I knew I was hitting them, but… they just kept coming at us,” Breaker kept repeating.
Wake just sat back and enjoyed the moment with the two of them high above the horrors on the ground. The Taken came in all sizes, they carried double-bladed axes and lengths of rebar, they threw hammers and sickles… but none of them flew. If he wasn’t so excited, he’d have dozed off.
“You want to know my favorite part?” said Barry.
“Do we have a choice?” said Wake.
“It was when we were creeping past the hardware store,” said Barry, “and the sparks from the downed power line showered over us, but we had to go through it anyway, to get to the other side. It was like we were walking through a blast furnace.”
“A blast furnace with zombies,” said Breaker.
“Zombies,” said Barry, plucking at the Christmas lights around his neck. He made his face go blank, stretched out his arms. “Must kill… must eat brains…”
Breaker went silent, gave her attention to the controls of the chopper.
“Too close to home?” said Barry. “I get it.”
“We’re here, that’s all that matters,” said Wake.
Isolated pockets of light littered the dark landscape below: barns with overhead lights, homes with the occupants safe behind closed doors, families tucked in for the night with no idea what was happening in the rest of the town. Ignorance, that was one way to have pleasant dreams. Wake almost envied them. The chopper tracked a car that hurtled down the highway, high beams cutting through the night, before Breaker veered off, steering toward the power plant and Cynthia Weaver.
Barry pulled a half-eaten jelly donut out of his parka, offered it to Breaker first, then Wake. When they laughed at him, he shrugged and started eating it himself. “Got t
o keep your strength up,” he said, licking his fingers.
“I’ve got a few cans of double espresso and crème under the jump seat,” said Breaker.
“You’re kidding,” said Wake, reaching under the seat. He pulled out three cans. “You weren’t kidding.” He tossed one to Barry, who bobbled it.
“You see, Mr. Alan Wake,” teased Breaker, “we actually have a few touches of civilization in Bright Falls. Canned coffee, running water, even heard some folks have this new-fangled doohickey called satellite TV.”
Wake opened a can for Breaker. “Sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” Breaker took the can, took a long swallow, her face wild in the lights of the control panel, hair undone. “That’s better.”
Wake watched her, and then turned away.
They flew in silence for several minutes, fueling up on caffeine, all of them thinking about what had happened in the last few hours, how close they had come to dying. How close Barry and Breaker had come to dying, anyway.
The more he learned about the Dark Presence, the more he doubted it wanted him dead. The darkness needed Wake alive… but it didn’t need him aware. It didn’t need him free. The next time he was touched by the darkness, Wake wouldn’t have a chance to write himself a way out. He would be trapped in Bird Leg Cabin forever, writing whatever the Dark Presence wanted, and there would be nothing he could do about it. Dying might be better.
The terrain got steeper underneath them, rugged outcroppings of rock and scraggly trees. No houses down there, hardly any roads, just a few tents scattered around, flapping in the wind. Wake thought again of the Taken he had encountered in the last few days, hunters and trappers and fishermen, wondered if any of them had set up camp out here. Wondered who was waiting for them back home.
“You like New York City?” said Breaker.
“No place like it,” said Barry.
“Most of the time,” said Wake. “It’s got its dangers and pitfalls like anyplace else.” He could see his reflection in the canopy. He looked tired. Looked like he had lost ten pounds. “It’s easy to lose your way too, just like out here. Easy to forget where you’re supposed to be going.”
“No Taken, though,” said Breaker.
“No… no Taken,” said Wake.
“They say we have mutant albino alligators in the sewers,” said Barry. “Not that I believe it.”
“Mutant alligators?” said Breaker.
“The story goes that a lot of people buy these small pet alligators on vacation in Florida,” said Wake. “They get home and a month later they’ve lost their tan and gotten sick of their scaly souvenirs. So they flush the gators down the toilet.”
“Ker-flush,” said Barry, miming a toilet flush.
Wake glanced back at him. “Anyway, supposedly, the alligators all end up in the sewers where they live happily ever after.”
“I love New York,” said Barry.
“You’ve never been there?” said Wake.
“Nope,” said Breaker.
“You should visit sometime,” said Wake. “Alice and I will show you around.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t know,” said Breaker. “My father was a police officer there until he moved to Bright Falls. He told some pretty wild stories about his time there. I used to tease Dad that he was just like Alex Casey.”
“You’ve read my books?” said Wake.
“Sure,” said Breaker. “You’re a pretty good writer, little heavy on the metaphors. Oh, and you seriously need a technical advisor. You had this one scene where Casey flips the safety off a revolver. Gave my dad and me a good laugh.”
“Everybody’s a critic,” said Wake.
“I’m just giving you a hard time,” said Breaker. “I’m in no hurry to visit New York, though. The way my dad talked, I don’t think he missed it.”
“I can understand that,” said Wake. “This is beautiful country. In daylight, anyway.”
Breaker smiled.
“If they ever make a movie about all this,” said Barry, “who do you think would play me?”
“You have a little jelly on the corner of your mouth,” said Wake. “You might want to wipe that away before your Hollywood close-up.”
Barry snagged the jelly with the tip of his pinky, put it in his mouth.
“Who’s that movie star with the three names?” said Breaker.
“Please, don’t encourage him,” said Wake.
“Phillip Seymour…” said Breaker.
“Phillip Seymour Hoffman?” said Barry. “He’s a good actor, but he’s fat.” He patted his gut. “I’m just husky. I was thinking more like—”
The helicopter hit an air pocket.
“Whoa,” yelped Barry.
The helicopter dropped suddenly, falling almost to the treetops before Breaker got control and regained altitude.
“I… I think I’m going to be sick,” moaned Barry, holding his head in his hands.
“You doing okay, Sarah?” said Wake.
“I’m doing fine,” said Breaker. “Just hang on to something. With all the thermals and the sudden gusts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
“If you want to set it down someplace safe,” said Wake, “I can—”
She gave him a withering look that was similar to one Alice occasionally shared with him. “I’m just saying that I can make it to the power plant on foot,” said Wake.
Breaker glared at Wake, her mouth tight. “Look, I… I didn’t mean—”
“I am the county sheriff,” said Breaker, glancing at the controls. “I am responsible for the four thousand people who live in these parts. I talk them out of cutting their throats when they lose their jobs, and I stop them from beating on their wives and children because they’re just mean. I pull tourists off the mountain who think their fancy-ass alpine parkas make them invulnerable to avalanches and crevasses.”
“Sarah—”
“I arrest them when they mess up,” gritted Breaker, “and I release them when they sober up. The people around here are my responsibility, and they’re the best people in the world. We keep the peace here, me and a dozen part-time deputies with community college degrees in law enforcement. We keep the peace.” She looked at Wake, her face tattooed with the red lights from the instrument panel. “Until you showed up, anyway.”
The silence was unbroken except for the steady thumping of the engine, and the rotors cutting through the cold night air.
“I… I didn’t really appreciate that remark about fancy-ass alpine parkas,” said Barry, plucking at his nylon parka. “I’m not even sure I know exactly what a crevasse is, and but I sure wouldn’t go near one.”
Wake laughed and Breaker laughed too, both of them cracking up every time they looked at Barry and his bright red parka.
“What did I say?” said Barry.
Barry knew exactly what he had said and why he had said it. Wake knew it too and so did Breaker, and they were grateful to him for giving them an excuse to dissipate the frustration in the cockpit.
Breaker inclined her head toward Wake, almost touching him. “Sorry.”
“You were right,” said Wake. “This was probably a pretty great town before I showed up.”
“It was a hell of a lot better than it is now,” said Breaker, “but it wasn’t paradise. We’ve always had more than our fair share of disappearances around here, more abandoned cabins with supper on the table, more cars left by the side of the road and no drivers come to claim them.” She shook her head. “I wrote it off to bad luck or people just getting tired of their lives and walking away from it. Now…”
“I’m going to fix things as best I can,” Wake said quietly as the dam loomed in the distance, closer by the moment, the power plant below it brightly lit in the darkness. “I’ll do what I can, that’s a promise.”
“I’ll be happy to stop whatever is in the lake,” said Breaker. “Stop the Dark Presence and get your wife back, safe and sound. I’ll settle for that.”
Wake nodded.
<
br /> “You’ll like Alice, Sheriff,” Barry piped up from the jump seat. “She’s really… tough. Not tough hard, but tough good. Like you. She’s not exactly my biggest fan, but I think the two of you would hit it off.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” said Breaker, gently arcing the helicopter toward the power plant. “See those power cables,” she said, pointing. “That’s the transformer station. I’ll put us down in the area near the river. Plenty of room and it’s away from the lines.”
Wake saw a shadow pass between them and the moon. He peered up at the stars.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?” said Breaker.
“What’s wrong?” said Barry. “Al, something wrong?”
“Not sure,” said Wake. “There’s a… huge flock of ravens circling up ahead.” He pressed his face up against the cockpit, trying to get a better look. “There seem to be more of them joining the flock. Lots of them.”
“You’re worried about birds?” said Breaker.
“This is bad,” said Barry. “I’ve had a run-in with these ravens before.” He switched on the Christmas lights around his neck. “These birds aren’t like pigeons. They’re not looking for a handout.”
Wake kept watch on the ravens. “He’s right, Sarah. I think you should—”
A mass of ravens swooped down on the helicopter, several of them smacking against the cockpit, Wake jerking back at the sound of their beaks striking the hard plastic.
“Son of a…” Breaker took the chopper lower, trying to avoid the swarms of birds that came at her from several directions at once. “Hang on!”
Another flock of ravens flew down at them, beating against the cowling, heading directly into the rotors, black feathers shooting everywhere.
The helicopter engine struggled, regained power.
“Bad, bad, very bad,” chanted Barry, fingering the blue and green bulbs around his neck. “I hate birds, I hate birds, I hate birds.”
Wake flipped on the helicopter’s searchlight, disintegrating a mass of ravens headed directly at them, the birds flaring into dust. Ravens attacked from the sides, flapped through the opening in the cockpit, clawing at their hands and faces. Wake beat at them with the flashlight, turned the beam on one tearing at Breaker’s hair as she tried to pilot them out of danger. The raven disintegrated.
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