He nearly fell after his foot located a calf-deep impression in the ground. His nerves did a jig at the image of himself bathed head-to-toe in swamp-water. He peered this way and that way into the woods, and then walked left to the perimeter of the woods, stopping only to look back at the spot where he stumbled. From this distance he could see the depression that nearly sent him packing. It triggered across the wildflowers and weeds into the woods. He moved to his left even further and saw an identical trail about five feet from the other, running parallel, also leading into the woods.
Tire tracks, Leonard saw--any cop, even a child would know--and he waffled through the knee-high thickets to where the tracks eventually permeated the woods.
Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch, he thought. There it was, like Noah’s Ark peeking out of the snow on Mt. Ararat. Earl’s cruiser. Twenty feet away and nestled against the first of many large pines flowing back for as far as he could see. She’s a genius. What better place to hide than right under our noses? She’d done a pretty efficient job camouflaging the vehicle. Leonard’s guess was that after checking in, Pamela came to the easy assumption that Joe-manager wouldn’t venture out beyond the safety of his cubby-hole to investigate a snapped twig or falling branch in the woods. J-M was probably too wrapped up in his own little world to really notice at all. Let the babe get away. Fine specimen, if ya’ ask me. Long brown hair, pretty eyes. Might find her type on the cover of one of them ladies’ magazines.
She’d taken her time giving it the cover it needed, so it seemed. The car was fully blanketed in mud and brush, only a few small nooks of white paint showing through the purposeful mess. The earthy veil would keep it cloaked until morning, maybe even longer. Question was, then: why was she still here?
Leonard’s racing blood set his legs into motion. He tackled the waist-high growth with the bent intent of a football player recovering a fumble. His feet flicked showers of dirty water and mud across his pants, spotting him to the thighs as if he’d gone a few rounds with a saturated paint roller. The small branch of a dead tree poked his thigh and he winced. When he reached the rear of the motel, he circled back around the side, leaving wet tracks behind on the concrete pathway. He passed the dumpster. Stopped. Looked at it with the curiosity of a vagabond. The compulsion to peer inside was instant. Strong.
He walked over, stepped up on a hinge and peeked over the edge.
Sitting atop four or five fat trash bags were her clothes. Denim jeans, a plaid shirt, socks, and a pair of sneakers. They were heavily doused with mud, pine needles, and bits of rotted leaves.
Undeniable proof, right here. Sitting smack-dab in the pudding.
In seconds he was back standing before room 2.
He took a deep breath, and for a moment realized he should have called Reese and Kevin over for back-up. Just in case.
But he was too late for that.
The door to room 2 swung open. And Pamela Bergin was there.
And so was...
Encounter
The cop from the condo, Richard thought, their eyes locking for a fleeting yet dramatically intimidating moment. A million thoughts tortured his mind, like could my timing be any worse? and if I’d listened to Pam like she asked we’d be two steps ahead of the cops. But he hadn’t taken any heed to Pamela’s warning, and as a reward won the booby prize: a second-row seat to a very exclusive engagement: Officer Leonard Moldofsky from the Fairview Police department, live and in person at the Jamesway Inn.
He guessed that the cop had been persistent in looking for him all this time. He certainly hadn’t been floating around these naked parts having a day of trout and bass in the local stream. No. He was up here fishing for Sparke, and found more than he could have ever hoped for, like Richard Sparke’s dead body on display near the trough in Bledson State Park.
And in that unique moment when they subjectively secured each other’s stares, Richard saw his own face looking back at him (it wasn’t as if he were peering into the eyes of the man in black. It was the parallel exhibition of awe and amazement he saw in the cop’s face, features seized with uncontrollable astonishment, like Richard’s). And in his like expression, Richard’s own visage displayed true fear, indicating that the time had come to be taken away once and for all, locked up as a murderer, a fugitive.
The dreadful feelings were too much for his jaded body to handle. His knees turned to jelly. For balance he grabbed the top of the television--in this moment Richard had an odd vision of Moldofsky’s blanching face going from white back to pink, then red, and then all the way white again, a conceivable result to an over-zealous twist of the contrast knob on the television, though only in his dreams--but he was momentarily saved from kissing the carpet. The mirror image of fear on the cop, the color falling out of his face as if he’d just seen a ghost, along with the paralysis it seemingly delivered, was equally stirring as his own fear of the moment, allowing him a moment’s chance to steady his trembling body and make a move.
He’s scared, Richard thought, because he’s been up in the mountains, he’s seen the body of the man in black. Thought it was me. But now he’s not so sure that was really me. Because I’m here. Maybe, just maybe, his pale face tells no lie. Maybe he really thinks I’m a ghost?
Pamela slammed the door in his jaw-slackened face. She fumbled as she attached the chain-lock, then stepped away and wrestled with her knapsack until it was free from her back. She placed it on the ground and started rummaging through it, silent in her performance.
“Now what?” Richard asked. “What do we do now?”
For the first time, Richard noticed her trembling. But it didn’t seem to impede her train of thought; her confidence showed through her aggressive actions. Whatever rabbit she was pulling out of her hat, she believed it to be a more viable alternative than gunning down the cop, or tearing down camp for a smooth and easy trip into police custody. “You should have listened to me earlier,” she said after a few uneasy seconds.
The cop started banging on the door, finally, following a rather odd length of silence. His muffled voice thudded through like a boxer’s jabs. “Pamela, I just want to talk for a moment. No one’s going to jail, no one’s going to get hurt. It’s about Richard...we found his body up in the mountains. He’s dead.” Didn’t he just see me? Richard thought. No, Richard. He just saw your ghost.
Pamela stopped searching her knapsack. She stared tentatively at the door like a cat might eye a spray-bottle, then peered at Richard, even grinning a touch at the mention of finding Richard’s body.
“They still don’t know. That’s good.”
“Know what?”
The cop raised his voice. “Ms, Bergin, I’ll ask you for the last time. Open this door at once.” His voice, although still broken, carried formidable threat. One pop from his gun, and he’d be inside. He won’t do that. He’ll assume we’re armed, call for backup first. We have some time...
And it was at the instant of this thought that the whole world began to change for Richard Sparke, that the doorway to his answers began opening up.
Pamela unzipped the large pocket of her knapsack, the one Richard toyed with while sleepwalking last night. She reached inside and pulled out a very odd-looking contraption. Richard stared at it with the same fascination a child would setting eyes upon an elephant at the zoo, knowing that somehow this thing had something to do with his dreams, his sleepwalking, everything. Although the device was small, about the size of a shoebox, it possessed a grand identity. There were a hundred or more details that drew one’s immediate curiosity to it; the most obvious of these were the mercury-like orbs floating on its metallic surface like water nits, and the capillary-thin lights twisting about its viewable interior like tiny bolts of lightning on an endless race to nowhere. On and on, the list of awesome features went: wires that pulsed like veins; a small glowing sphere protruding from one end that looked eerily like a human brain. When Pam picked it up, held it, cradled it in her forearms, it appeared alive, hugging her back as if
thankful to be free from the dark depths of its canvas enclosure.
Richard was awed. He opened his mouth to speak, the words surfacing with the broken stagger of a ghoul reaching out from its grave. “What--what is that?”
Suddenly the door opened up, making a loud crack, the chain measuring only three inches of leeway. “Pamela, undo the chain so we can speak.” Richard found himself peering through the gap in the door, seeing the cop. The cop looked back at him, his jaw hanging like a loose gear, saliva glistening on his bottom lip.
Pamela, still fidgeting with the device, yelled, “Don’t look at him, Richard!” but Richard couldn’t help but be drawn to Officer Leonard Moldofsky. He couldn’t put a finger on his sudden sentiment. Maybe it was because he was immediately impressed with the cop, with the drive that brought him here, his discriminating ability to eventually hunt Richard down. Or perhaps it was because Richard wanted to tell Moldofsky that he was just an innocent victim, and nothing else. A pawn in someone else’s sick game. There’d be no time to argue the thought.
The cop’s face fell limp. He rubbed his eyes and opened them again, seemingly nonplussed. His prior sighting was now fully reaffirmed: Richard Sparke was indeed here in room 2 at the Jamesway Inn. Alive and kicking.
“Jesus Christ...is that you, Sparke?”
Richard nodded, but was immediately distracted by a high-pitched whistling noise. It sounded something like an alerting tea kettle. It emanated from the device in Pam’s arms, and grew to deafening proportions. Pamela sat back, yelling through the din, “Richard! Come here, next to me!” She tugged on his leg and he hunkered down alongside her, realizing that he’d heard this noise in the past, right before the...the...
Oh my God...
“What the hell is going on?” Richard yelled.
The door made another slamming noise, open, shut, open, shut, the chain doing its damnedest to hem in the urging Moldofsky.
Pam held Richard tightly, peering into the device. Like a sunrise on a flat horizon, bright blue beams of light
(the blue light!)
filled the room. They spread out in segmented wave patterns that grew thicker and thicker until the beams coalesced into a singular totality. It vibrated, tossing oscillating patterns upon the walls and ceiling like glowing confetti. Soon the light brightened, buried the far wall, covering the bathroom, the mirror, the coat rack. It raced across the ceiling in a flow of aquamarine luminescence that seemed convincing enough to swim in. A smoldering metal odor filled the room, something reminiscent of the smell arising from a quick halt on a train’s brakes.
The room began to shake. Richard heard Moldofsky yelling, slamming the door back and forth. He saw the latch holding the chain start to loosen from the wall. His tongue was sour with the metallic reek, his eyes lost in thick blue light. He held Pamela tightly as the light engulfed them. It’s eating me, Richard thought, every hair on his body standing at attention. His teeth hurt, his testicles hurt, it became difficult to breathe. Finally, he yelled, “What’s happening?!”
He heard Moldofsky yelling the same exact thing.
Pam looked at Richard briefly, eyes like slits. Her cheeks vibrated in the sudden storm of wind. “We’re going to the place I told you about...”
Richard tried to speak again but the maelstrom wouldn’t let him. He could do nothing else at the moment but close his eyes and surrender himself to the mirage of his dreams.
The blue light.
Darkness
The blue light flooded the room in an instant, as if someone had opened up a dam holding it back. Leonard refused to shield his eyes once the lock gave way, pinning his teary sights on the two bodies crouched on the floor in the center of the room, Pamela Bergin and, well, what appeared to be Richard Sparke. Of course there could only be one Richard Sparke, so either this individual or the person whose body was found in Bledson state Park was the twin-nemesis Delaney referred to in his studies. The impossible seemed to have taken the role of the probable now. Just like that.
The light’s source generated at a point near the forms of Pamela and Richard. It was hot against his skin, filling the room with a smoky-alkaline odor. He stepped forward, screaming into the whistling din. Surely the uproar had attracted Kevin and Reese, who were most likely smart enough to keep their distance, and unaware that Leonard had just walked into the center of it.
His hair blew in circles. He shielded his eyes, not from the light but from the dirt and debris flying around the room. Now he was second guessing his decision to force entry into the room. He tried to tell himself that there really hadn’t been a choice at the moment, that he’d been compelled by an inner force, a desire to discover the strange truth of the matter, and that choosing to walk away at this defining moment would make him a failure.
He pulled his hands from his eyes and gazed at the silhouettes of Pam and Richard, watching them as they faded into nothing in a mere five seconds, five...four...three...two...one, now they’re gone. He could feel his heart slipping away as the image before him diminished, and then looking up he could see the pulsing blue light darkening at the corners, folding into itself, leaving the stark regularity of the ceiling and walls in its wake like a flattened landscape falling away from a tornado’s furor.
Tears of pure frustration followed those of pain and irritation, and like a beggar of mercy before the pulpit, Leonard dove forward toward the spot where Pam and Richard had kneeled.
Something happened. His body shook. His insides roiled like curdling milk in time-lapse. His hair stood on end. He felt like throwing up, thought he did but it was so hard to tell what might be happening in such a moment where he played hostage to some metaphysical malevolence. His hearing caught only white noise, his eyes saw only blue light...and then, darkness ruled.
Pure utter darkness.
Home
First, gray.
Then a sliver of light. Dull at first but growing like the sun’s first glimpse over a flat horizon. The light rushed into Leonard’s eyes like bitter acid, biting the surface regardless of his attempt to shutter them. He felt a growing discomfort--pain--first at his face, then his hands. In an attempt to look around, the pain traveled to his eyes, drawing tears which cooled and comforted and allowed him to slowly take in the vista surrounding him. First, the light, which grew to gold then cleared, bringing forth a landscape rather familiar to him. Then, the grass beneath him. Beyond, a stretch of sand. Hulking figures stoic in the soft earth, blind yet seemingly peering at him: a stranger in these parts temporarily lost in his own mind.
The pain ate at him, and he brought his hands up to his still-blinded eyes, rubbed them until the tears dried and brought forth full sight of the environment.
Hemmingway Park. Fairview. The playground.
Leonard climbed to his feet, staggered like a man after a binge, then steadied himself as his equilibrium found an acceptable level. He leaned against a sycamore tree, gazing at his hands, the reddened skin burned from high temperature, it seemed. With similar discomfort, he imagined his face carrying the same tender cast. His uniform, it was hot to the touch too, and when he rubbed his hand against his chest it came away with a coating of fine blue-colored dust.
Blue, he thought. There was a blue light in Pamela Bergin’s motel room. Or was it Richard Sparke’s room? There’d been blue dust at every scene. And here it is, on me. What does it mean? What the hell does anything mean? Might want to pack it all in, Leonard, head home and settle into my boring life, which doesn’t seem so bad right now.
Leonard paced across a flat of grass to a thin cement walkway, which took him to the edge of the park. A few mothers pulled their eyes off their frolicking children to gape at one of Fairview’s finest tackling the sidewalk with all the grace of one of its half-dozen homeless stock.
How did I get here?
He exited the park through an inlet in the encircling fence. Once free of the park, he checked for his personal belongings. Everything he’d had on his person before being sucked into
the blue light--a light ninety miles away, mind you--was still there: his gun and belt, his cell phone, badge, keys, and wallet. He checked the wallet and found all the contents still inside. The only item he didn’t bear was his hand-held, which he’d left in the motel room before leaving.
Okay, I was sucked into that blue light in the motel room, and now I’m back home. And I don’t remember how I got here. What the hell is going on?
He walked up Culver, then up Breton Avenue and Oakland Street, all the while replaying the events in his head leading up until the moment he stepped into the blue light. Richard Sparke, the seemingly mild-mannered (and now, seemingly dead; or recently resurrected) man who was wrapped up in truly mysterious circumstances that, to even the hard-edged probing type like Leonard, were nearly impossible to interpret. Nothing was for certain now. Except for the fact that Leonard was very tired, fatigued, and confused. With leaden legs he continued through the neighborhood and considered for a moment returning to the precinct, to his desk where he’d be able to sit down and report the extraordinary event to Reese and Kevin, whom he could only conclude had driven him home.
Instead, with barely enough strength to walk, he staggered three more blocks to Gaston Street, to house number 12. He stared at it for a moment then marched up the walkway and climbed the three steps leading to the front door of his home.
Sleepwalker Page 29