Nightmare City

by Klavan, Andrew

He drove Marie home in the old yellow Mustang Burt had left behind when he went overseas. He wished he had cleaned out the ancient papers and fast-food bags lying all over the floor in the backseat, but whenever he was working on a story, he got so involved he forgot to do stuff like that. He must’ve apologized to Marie for the mess about a hundred times—and every time he turned to say the words to her, he was amazed to see her sitting there, real as life but far more beautiful, in his very own passenger seat.

  They drove up into the hills, the Pacific Ocean falling away below them, the water gleaming under the afternoon sun.

  Marie waved off his apologies. She said she didn’t care about the messy car. Then she said: “I want you to know, I really admire what you did, Tom. Writing that story.”

  “Really? I thought you’d be ticked off like everyone else . . .”

  “I’m not at all. I think it’s brave to tell the truth like that. Not caring what anyone thinks of you. It’s really brave.”

  Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t even glance at her—he didn’t want her to see the look on his face. To have Marie tell him he was brave—it made up for all the nasty looks in the hall, all the nasty comments online, all of it.

  “But what about Gordon?” he asked her. The words came out of his mouth as the thought came into his mind. “I mean, I know he didn’t do anything wrong, but . . . it’s his team. Isn’t he angry at me, too?”

  But Marie shrugged again. “I don’t know how he feels. We haven’t talked about it,” she said.

  The answer surprised him. It was almost as if she didn’t care what Gordon thought. Tom didn’t really want to question this, but it made him so curious he couldn’t help himself. He had to ask: “Speaking of Gordon, how come he couldn’t drive you home? Wasn’t he around?”

  “He’s around,” Marie said offhandedly. “But I wanted you to drive me, that’s all. I feel like I don’t get to see you enough.”

  This time Tom was so surprised he couldn’t help but look over at her. She smiled. And what a sight that was. Amazing.

  He stopped the Mustang in front of her house. It was a sprawling two-story mansion with white curving balconies overlooking the ocean. Really a massive palace of a place. Marie’s father, Dr. Cameron, was one of the most important guys in town—and obviously one of the richest, too. He was always in the newspaper, serving on this board or that, or showing up at some big party for some big charity or other.

  And there he was now, in fact, just stepping out of the black Mercedes parked in the driveway. He looked up and smiled at Tom and Marie and gave them a friendly wave. Marie waved back.

  Then she turned to Tom. “I meant what I said,” she told him. “I admire what you did. And I hope we can see each other more from now on.”

  Somehow Tom managed to hide the thrill he felt. He managed to sound almost cool and calm as he answered, “I would like that. I would like it a lot.”

  Marie gave him another smile—this one so brilliant it may have actually been illegal. “Good,” she said. “Then we have a plan.”

  Tom watched her get out of the car. He watched her walk up the drive to join her father by the front door. He watched her turn and twinkle a final wave at him over her shoulder.

  Amazing, he thought to himself. It was the only word he could come up with, and he thought it again and again: Amazing.

  6.

  Marie!” he cried out now.

  Wild-eyed, he hurried down the hall to her, the images of the shambling monsters out in the fog still filling his brain.

  As he stepped into the kitchen, Marie leapt up from her chair at the round table in the breakfast nook. She rushed into his arms and he held her, his cheek against her golden hair.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” she whispered into his chest.

  Tom let his fear and panic melt into the warm press of her and the sweetness of her perfume. He closed his eyes for a moment, in relief and pleasure. When he opened them, he looked over Marie’s head. Behind the table in the nook, the windows showed the backyard. Everything looked strangely normal out there. The mist was not as thick as it was out front. It obscured the sun, but Tom could still see the backyard grass and the hedges that bordered the Laughlins’ property behind them. Most important, there were no semihuman shapes visible, no threatening figures shuffling and limping toward the house.

  He held Marie away from him so he could look down into her face. “What about you?” he said. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, her crystal eyes glistening. “I’ve been so scared, though. So scared.”

  “Then you saw them? Those—those things in the fog. I’m not imagining them. You saw them, too.”

  Marie turned away from him. She put her hand to her face, rubbed her eyes wearily. “I don’t know what I saw. I was so terrified. I just ran. I just ran to get here, to find you.”

  Even in his fear and confusion, the words filled Tom’s heart. Now, at least, he had a job to do: protect Marie. Keep her safe. Even if nothing else made sense, there was a mission that could guide his actions.

  “I think we should get in my car,” he said. “Get out of here. They could attack the house any minute.”

  Marie turned back to him and shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think they can leave the fog. I think we’re safe in here for now. Safer than we’d be outside, anyway.”

  Tom thought about it. “Do you know what’s happening?” he asked her. “Is it happening all over? I haven’t seen anyone else. No one human, anyway.”

  Marie turned back to him and shook her head. The tears still shone in her eyes. “I’m not sure . . .”

  “I called my mom. I reached her, but she couldn’t hear me.”

  “I know. I talked to my father,” said Marie. “We didn’t have a good connection, but I could make out some of what he was saying. He was the one who sent me here. He said you were the only person who could help us.”

  “Me? I don’t even know what’s going on. Those monsters out there—it’s like—it’s like we’re in a zombie apocalypse.”

  Marie gave a weak laugh. “I don’t think that’s what it is.”

  Tom himself managed a small laugh at the idea. “Right. Probably not.”

  He suddenly felt exhausted. He moved to one of the chairs by the round table and sank down into it. He stared out the window without really seeing anything. He was thinking about that thing—that thing with the hideous face—its claws snatching at him from the fog, nearly grabbing him before he even saw it.

  What was it?

  He shook his head. “You know what it is like, though?” he said softly, almost as if he were speaking to himself, working it out in his mind. “It’s like one of those movies or TV shows where strange things keep happening and after a while, you start to realize that none of it is real. You know? It’s too weird. It can’t be real. It has to be a dream or something. Or maybe the lead character is really dead or he’s gone crazy or somebody slipped him some kind of drug and he’s having a hallucination. You know what I mean? You think that’s what this is: a dream or a hallucination? Or do you think we’re actually dead?”

  He glanced over at her. He took comfort from the warmth and sympathy in her gaze. She stepped forward and put her hand gently on his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure we’re not dead,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  He nodded slowly. “But then what?” he said. “What’s happening, Marie? There has to be a reasonable explanation. Doesn’t there?”

  Marie now sat down in the chair in front of him. She took his two hands in her hands. He found her cool touch soothing. They sat facing each other. He looked deep into her eyes. Even now—still haunted by the memory of those creatures ranging through the fog—by that clawed hand reaching for him—by that deformed and hideous face looming in front of him—even now, the sight of Marie, the sweet beauty of her, made his heart swell. He could not remember a time when he hadn’t longed to be with her.

  “Do you remember the monastery in the woods?
” she asked him.

  The question was so unexpected, so odd, that it was a moment before he could take it in, a moment before he could answer. “Sure,” he said uncertainly. “The Catholic one. The retreat. The one that burned down. St. Mary or something . . .”

  “Santa Maria,” said Marie.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  The Santa Maria Monastery Retreat had been a compound of Spanish-style buildings set around a pretty chapel deep in the forest up on Cold Water Mountain. It was gone now. The so-called Independence Fire that had scorched the hills last July—that had consumed acres and acres of woods up there and destroyed more than a hundred houses—had reduced Santa Maria’s stately buildings, valuable antiques, and tranquil gardens to charred ruins.

  “What about it?” said Tom. “What’s the monastery got to do with anything?”

  “My father says you have to go up there. He says that’s where the answers are and where you’re supposed to be right now. He says if you can get to Santa Maria, you can bring all this craziness to an end.”

  Tom stared at her. “But why?” he said. It made no sense. Tom would do just about anything to get answers, to find out the truth about all this, but . . . go back outside? Out into the fog where those—those things were? And up into the woods on Cold Water Mountain? To the ruins of the monastery? “How can that possibly help?”

  Holding his hands firmly in hers, Marie shook her head. “I’m not sure. Like I said, our connection wasn’t that good. But Daddy said it was important. Urgent, even. He said once you get to the monastery, you’ll know what you have to do to bring this to an end.”

  As Tom went on staring at her, thoughts raced through his mind. Why the monastery? Why the mountain? He was trying to make sense of it. Was it possible that what was happening here was some sort of supernatural, spiritual event? Were those creatures in the fog some kind of demons? Did he have to get up to Santa Maria to call on the power of God to fight them or to call on the angels or something? But why the monastery? And why him? His family had always gone to Hope Church around the corner. It was nondenominational. They weren’t even Catholic!

  “I don’t get it,” he was about to say—but before he could, his phone rang in his pocket. The guitar riff: “The Fightin’ Side of Me.”

  Tom tried to reach for the phone, but Marie gripped his hands even tighter. He saw her eyes flash to his pocket, to the place where the phone was singing.

  “Don’t answer that!” she said, her voice a frightened whisper.

  Confused, he worked one hand free. “What do you mean? I have to answer it. It might be my mom.”

  He reached into his pocket. He felt the phone vibrating there.

  Marie looked at him urgently. “It’s not,” she said. “It’s not your mom. I know it! Don’t answer, Tom. I mean it. Just do what Daddy said. Just get to the woods, get to the monastery. That’s where the answers are! That’s what you want, isn’t it? Answers. That’s what you’re always . . .”

  Tom pulled the phone out. He checked the readout: Number blocked.

  “I’m serious,” said Marie. “Don’t.”

  The urgency of her tone made him hesitate a second. But finally he said, “I have to. It really might be my mom.”

  Marie let go of his other hand. She dropped back against the chair and let out a long breath, giving up.

  Tom answered the phone. “Hello?”

  There was a silent pause. And then—Tom’s heart sped up as he heard the static—that same odd, distant static he’d heard first thing this morning when the phone woke him. Again, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away, some alien place, some frightening place he could not imagine. And again, as he listened, he heard that voice, that woman’s voice, trying to reach him through the noise.

  “I need to talk to you. It’s so important. I need . . .”

  Tom leaned forward, gripping the phone hard in his sweating fingers. He knew that voice—he knew it! It was that woman. The woman in the white blouse who had been standing down at the base of the driveway. The woman who had gazed at him with that peculiarly blank, dead expression—and then vanished into the fog. He didn’t know how he knew it was her, but he knew. Why couldn’t he remember her name?

  “What do you want?” Tom said to her, nearly shouting over the static. “I can barely hear you. What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you . . . ,” the woman said again, but already the static was closing over her voice as the fog had closed over her figure.

  “What do you want?” Tom shouted, more desperately this time as he heard her fading. “Why didn’t you wait for me in the driveway? Why didn’t—”

  But the phone beeped twice: Connection lost. She was gone.

  Tom cried out in frustration.

  “Tom . . . ,” Marie began to say. “Tom, listen to me. You have to listen—”

  But before she could finish, another voice interrupted her.

  “This is your mission! This is what I’ve been trying to tell you about all along . . . The Warrior . . . Do you remember the Warrior?”

  Burt! It was his brother’s voice! It was coming from the basement again. What was happening here? What was going on?

  Tom leapt up out of his chair. Marie jumped up, too, jumped up so quickly her chair fell over behind her, banging loudly against the floor.

  “Tom,” she whispered. “Don’t . . .”

  “That’s Burt,” he said. “Don’t you hear it? That’s Burt’s voice.”

  “It’s not. It can’t be. You know that. Burt is dead,” said Marie.

  “I heard him before. The same way. From down in the basement.”

  “Tom, listen to me, do not go down there.”

  Tom stood looking at her, uncertain. He licked his dry lips. He wanted to help her, to keep her safe. He wanted to do what she said. But it was Burt . . .

  “Marie, I don’t understand any of this,” he said. “Do you know more than you’re telling me? Is there something you don’t want me to know?”

  “All I know is that you have to go to the monastery,” she answered urgently. “That’s where the answers are. You have to find them. You can’t wait any longer. You have to go there now.”

  But Tom could hear Burt shouting again: “This is what I tried to teach you. This is what you have to do . . .”

  And then he said, “This is your mission, Tom.”

  Tom started. Did Burt just call him by name? From the TV? How was that possible? He had to know—he had to find out—where the voice was coming from.

  He looked helplessly at Marie. “I’ve got to look,” he said.

  He turned away from her. He went to the basement door.

  Marie called out behind him in a sharp tone of voice he’d never heard her use before. “Tom! Listen to me! Please! You don’t always have to know everything! You’ve got to stop this!”

  He looked at her. He saw the fear and frustration flashing in her eyes, her bowed mouth twisting in a strange and ugly way. But it didn’t matter. He heard Burt downstairs.

  “Remember the Warrior, Tom.”

  He had to go. He pulled open the door.

  Marie shouted at him: “Tom, I mean it! Don’t!”

  Tom flipped the light switch. He left Marie in the kitchen and thundered quickly down the stairs.

  He hit the basement floor and spun around the corner into the family room, moving fast. He saw the side of the television. He heard Burt’s voice coming from the speakers: “This is what you have to understand! This is what I have to get you to understand . . .”

  His brother sounded so present, so real—so alive!—that it made Tom hurt inside to hear him. He missed his brother so much it was like a physical pain.

  He needed to get around to the front of the TV. He needed to see Burt’s face, to see what he was doing on the video before the whole thing vanished again as it had earlier, before the voice went silent and Burt was gone.

  He took a quick step forward.

  “All along,�
�� said Burt, “this was what I was trying . . .”

  And then, sure enough, the voice stopped, mid-sentence. And the next moment there was another voice: “Dr. Cooper to the ER—stat!”

  “No!” shouted Tom.

  He hadn’t been fast enough. There was that stupid doctor show again!

  And yes, there it was. As he got in front of the TV, he saw the same scene that had been on before.

  The nurse was shouting, “Single GSW to the chest! Clear Trauma One.”

  The doctors and nurses and aides were crowding around the gurney, rolling the gurney frantically down the hospital hallway to the emergency operating room. The patient—the person lying wounded on the gurney—was obscured by the crush of bodies around him as they all hurtled together down the corridor shouting urgently to one another.

  “How’s the pulse?”

  “Sixty and falling fast!”

  Exasperated, Tom’s eyes went heavenward and his shoulders slumped in defeat. The monsters in the fog. The images on TV. Marie telling him to leave everything behind and go to the monastery. What was happening? What was it all about?

  He looked at the TV again. The scene had changed now. The doctors and nurses and aides had pushed the gurney around the corner into a trauma alcove. They were leaning over the patient on the gurney, preparing to lift him onto the operating table.

  “On three,” said a doctor. “One, two, three!”

  All together, as Tom watched, they hoisted the bloody form off the gurney and laid him on the table. When they were done, the cluster of people broke apart, each hurrying into a different corner of the little space, each turning to his own chore, wrangling his own piece of equipment. One nurse grabbed a tray of surgical instruments. A surgeon pulled on a sterile gown. Another nurse hooked up an oxygen tank. For a moment, as they worked, the patient lay alone on the table with no one around him, no one blocking him from view, so that Tom could finally see him, see his face.

  The sight was as shocking as anything he had seen this whole shocking day. Tom’s mouth fell open and the breath came out of him as quickly as if he had been punched. He stared unblinking at the TV, unable to believe what he was looking at, unable for a second or two even to comprehend it.