The Dark at the End

by F. Paul Wilson

Dawn was going crazy with boredom.

  Mind numbing. The only way to describe it. She didn't know how long she could keep up the surveillance on Dr. Heinze before totally losing it and committing mass murder.

  She'd been up since before sunrise, arriving at the doctor's house and watching it until he'd left. She'd followed him to the hospital where she assumed he made morning rounds. She didn't know because she'd stayed outside in the visitor lot with a view of his Lexus in the doctors' lot.

  After an hour and a half or so in the hospital, he'd returned to his car and she'd followed him to the McCready Foundation offices.

  Was all this worth it? She had to wonder if this would ever pay off, if she'd ever see her baby. She could be wasting her time on a total wild-goose -

  Wait. A silver Lexus pulled out of the parking garage, and Dr. Heinze was behind the wheel. Leaving early today. Maybe things were slow at the office. Maybe he had a golf game - no, wait . . . too cold for golf.

  She followed him toward the east side. When he got in line for the Midtown Tunnel, she wanted to scream. She was so not in the mood for the LIE and another trip to Forest Hills. But she hung in, following him through the tunnel and onto the Long Island Expressway. But instead of turning off onto Woodhaven Boulevard like he had yesterday, he kept heading east.

  And farther east.

  Soon they were out of Queens and into Nassau County. And still he kept speeding east.

  Dawn followed. This was something different. This could prove to be nothing, or might be the break she'd been waiting for.

  FRIDAY Chapter 2

  "Hey, I've got an idea," Jack said with all the gosharooty enthusiasm he could muster as he, Weezy, and the Lady cruised south on Route 206. "Let's sing 'Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer'!"

  He'd awakened early feeling pretty decent, considering what he'd gone through the night before. Maybe too decent. His bruises were already fading.

  He'd tried to fall back to sleep but began imagining what he would have gone through if Drexler hadn't gotten cold feet about the Change. The possibilities had made sleep impossible.

  Later he'd rented a Jeep Cherokee for the Jersey trip and now had the wheel. Not the cushiest ride, but this one had a high suspension that would come in handy once they hit the Pine Barrens.

  He thought about their destination, the pyramid. He still couldn't imagine how that fifteen-foot construct of standing triangles with open spaces between them - he remembered Eddie describing it as half a dozen Godzilla pizza slices standing on end - could hide anyone from anything. But real life had been leaving his imagination in the dust lately, so why not?

  "'Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer'!" Weezy said with equal faux glee from the passenger seat. "My favorite! You take the first ten verses by yourself, and then the Lady and I will sing harmony on the rest. "

  "I do not sing," the Lady said from behind him.

  Jack wasn't sure why, but he was glad for that.

  "Neither does Weezy," he said.

  Weezy looked offended. "You don't know that. "

  "You used to howl in the shower when you were staying with me. "

  "I didn't howl. "

  "Caterwaul, then. Whatever it was, you can't call it singing. And 'Hungry Like the Wolf,' of all things. What happened to Bauhaus?"

  She reddened. "I had a closet crush on Simon le Bon. "

  Jack checked his phone. No missed calls.

  "You keep doing that," Weezy said.

  "I'm waiting to hear back from a couple, three charter boats I contacted. "

  Earlier he'd made a few calls to fishing boats in the Coney Island area. No one had answered, so he'd left messages about chartering the boat for a day trip.

  Weezy nodded. "Oh, right. Disposing of the katana. No responses?"

  "March isn't exactly charter fishing season. Gotta be colder than hell out there. "

  "Obviously you left your number. We'll be back by early afternoon. "

  Back from Johnson . . . he hadn't been back to Johnson since his father's funeral, and that had been - what? - a year and a half or so ago. Dad and Mom were buried side by side.

  Weezy turned in her seat. "I've got something serious to discuss. "

  Jack said, "Uh-oh. "

  "It's about Eddie. He wants to join the fight. "

  "Against what?"

  She shrugged. "The Order, the Otherness, whatever we're fighting. "

  "Since when does he know about any of that?"

  "Since yesterday when I spent half the day educating him. "

  "And he's convinced?"

  She nodded. "Pretty much. It's a lot to swallow, but the Compendium is an excellent persuader. "

  Jack hesitated. He didn't want to offend her. "Don't take this wrong, but . . . what's he bringing to the table?"

  "A new way of looking at things, maybe?"

  "Good enough. " He couldn't see a downside. He turned to the Lady. "Any objection?"

  She shook her head. "Not at all. "

  Jack had to smile. "To tell the truth, I can't wait to see his face when we seat him at a table with Mrs. Clevenger. "

  Weezy laughed. "That makes two of us. "

  They passed through Tabernacle and now farms lined the highway.

  "Nothing changes much around here," Weezy said. "I haven't been back in forever and it's like I never left. "

  "Big change up ahead," Jack said.

  "What?"

  "You remember the blinker at 206 and Quakerton Road?"

  "Of course. Johnson didn't rate a full stoplight. "

  "It does now. "

  And it was red when they reached it. As they waited to hang a left, Weezy pointed out the window.

  "Look. The Krauszer's is still here, and Burdett's is now an Exxon. "

  "Well, it is the twenty-first century. "

  Joe Burdett had kept up his Esso sign for decades after the company changed its name. What had once been Sumter's used-car lot was now a discount furniture store.

  Quakerton Road split the north and south halves of Johnson and sported a couple of new stores. USED, where Jack had worked as a kid, was a mom-and-pop drugstore now. Mr. Rosen, his old boss, had died back in the 1990s. The bridge over Quaker Lake was wider but otherwise Old Town looked pretty much the same as it had when they were kids. The two-story stucco box of the Lodge remained unchanged.

  "There's your old place," he said, swinging by the rickety Victorian house where the Lady had lived as Mrs. Clevenger during their childhoods.

  "It needs painting," she said.

  Weezy stared at it as they passed. "We all thought you were a witch. "

  "By most standards, I was. "

  "Wonder who lives there now. "

  "The Meads," the Lady said. "Tom and Alice, and their daughters Selena and Emily. "

  "Can you tell where anybody is at any given time?" Jack said. "I mean, do you keep track of all of us?"

  She shook her head. "The noosphere is a unified consciousness. No identities there. However, when I am near enough to individuals here, I know identities. After all, they help keep me here. "

  Jack noticed with a start that the lightning tree was still standing - how had it lasted so long? - and then they entered the Pine Barrens, the million-plus acres of mostly uninhabited woodland sitting in the belly of New Jersey. Jack steered onto one of the firebreak trails that crisscrossed the area. He experienced the same creepy sensation he'd get when riding his bike into the trees as a kid. The forty-foot scrub pines got thicker and thicker, their crooked, scraggly branches leaning over the path as they crowded its edges. He remembered imagining them shuffling off the path ahead of him and then moving back in to close it off behind.

  Dumb question, but he asked Weezy anyway: "You remember the route?"

  "I think so. "

  He hadn't expected that. "Think so?"

  She smiled. "Just kidding. I remember it exactly. " She tapped her forehe
ad. "The map's right here. "

  He followed her directions on which way to turn as the firebreak trails forked left and right. The NO FISHING / NO HUNTING / NO TRAPPING / NO TRESPASSING signs posted along the way confirmed that they were on land owned by "Old Man Foster," known to them now as Glaeken. But that was about all he knew for sure. He was thoroughly lost by the time she told him to stop.

  He scanned the surrounding trees, which looked pretty much like all the myriad others they'd passed.

  "You sure this is the place?"

  "You remember it as burned out. That was decades ago. "

  The Lady had already stepped out of the car and was starting into the trees. Jack and Weezy hurried after her.

  "You know where you're going?" Weezy said.

  "Of course. "

  Yeah, well, of course.

  Somewhere in all the revived undergrowth - winter bare now - lay the remnants of a burial mound he and Weezy had explored as kids. What they'd found had set a whole deadly chain of events in motion. Sometimes secrets were better left secret.

  The Lady, wearing only a housedress, forged ahead, moving easily through the brush, with nothing snagging her clothing that wasn't clothing. Clouds had moved in and the temperature had dropped, but as usual she didn't appear to notice.

  Then they broke into the pyramid's clearing and Jack had to stop and take it in, just as he had the first time he'd seen it at age fourteen.

  Six huge, elongated triangular megaliths stood in a circle, their bases buried in the sandy soil with their pointed ends jutting skyward and leaning toward each other.

  Godzilla pizza slices . . .

  One had broken off halfway up, but the points of the other five met at the pyramid's apex, fifteen feet above the ground.

  The Lady's new home.

  FRIDAY Chapter 3

  Dawn checked her gas gauge. Getting low. She'd never guessed she'd be driving all the way out to Long Island's South Fork. But no way she could stop. She'd lose Dr. Heinze and never find him again.

  If she'd had unlimited funds she could have bugged his car - was "bugged" the right word? - with some sort of transmitter that would have allowed her to follow him on a GPS map.

  She wondered if he was at all concerned about being followed. He didn't seem to be. No big deal on the LIE, but here on the narrower, slower Montauk Highway, he might notice the same Volvo behind him mile after mile. So she kept a car or two between them.

  She followed him through all the Hamptons - West-, South-, Bridge-, and East - and Amagansett as well. She was wondering if he was going all the way to Montauk Point when his left blinker started flashing and he turned off at someplace called Nuckateague. She started to follow him into the hairpin turn but stopped herself. No. Too, too obvious. She had to be totally careful now because hers was the only other car in sight.

  It killed her to keep driving but she did. But only for an eighth of a mile or so, then she made a U-turn and raced back. Her heart thumped out a dance beat. She'd never heard of Nuckateague and had no idea how big it was. Couldn't be too big because the South Fork was so narrow out here, but Dr. Heinze could be checking on a summer place he owned and have his car garaged before Dawn caught up to him. Then what?

  She turned off at the Nuckateague sign and raced up a narrow blacktop called Nuckateague Drive. She slowed as she came to a street that ran off to the left - Bayberry Drive. Nothing moving there. She pushed on and stopped when her street ended at a T intersection with Dune Drive. She looked right and left - again nothing moving in either direction. She tossed a mental coin and turned right.

  Her tension increased as she ran the length of the waterfront homes with no sign of a silver Lexus. She reached the east end of the road and raced back to the intersection. Only a few houses on the west end of Dune Drive, one of them dominating the waterfront with its own lagoon cut in from the bay. The houses she'd seen so far were just that - houses. This was totally a mansion.

  She drove past it and spotted a silver Lexus with MD plates, parked near the lagoon by what was either a garage or boathouse.

  Gotcha.

  Either pediatric surgery was a very lucrative specialty or Dr. Heinze had some rich friends or relatives.

  Or - hope-hope-hope - he was making a house call.

  Dawn kept moving, then made a quick left into the driveway of a house two lots west and across the street. She twisted in her seat and checked out the mansion. She had a clear view of the front door, the lagoon dock, and the Lexus from here. Perfect.

  Now . . . if she could only stay here.

  She checked out the house before her: a two-story saltbox clad in weathered cedar shakes. It looked empty.

  She left her car running and stepped to the front door where she rang the bell and waited. If someone answered, she'd ask if they knew where so-and-so lived.

  No answer, so she rang again.

  Still no answer.

  Cool.

  She tightened her coat around her against the buffeting wind off the bay - they kept talking about a big storm coming - and checked out the neighbors. Only half a dozen houses down here on the west end of the street, and they all looked deserted. The Lexus was the only car in sight.

  No surprise. Some of these were summer homes, some were year round. But if you could afford to live out here, you probably spent the winter months someplace warm. Like Key Biscayne or Naples, or the Keys.

  She returned to her car, pulled out, then backed in close to the garage so she was half hidden but still had a view. She turned off her engine - save that gas - and settled down to watch.

  Not ten minutes passed before she saw movement around the far side of the house.

  A boat was bobbing down the lagoon toward the dock, moving backward. A small white cabin cruiser, twenty-five feet long, with a couple of fishing rods poking up from the rear and a lone man at the helm. As it eased against the dock, the driver - captain? pilot? - hopped out and grabbed the lines. A big man, bundled up and wearing a slicker against the cold and wet. Something familiar about him . . .

  After he'd tied the lines, he went to a compartment by the transom and pulled out a string of four flat fish. He'd had his head down or turned away since he arrived, but now he raised it. He wore a satisfied grin on a face Dawn knew all too well.

  "Oh . . . my . . . God!" she said aloud.

  Her mouth went dry as her heart doubled its rate.

  Georges . . . Mr. Osala's driver and general gofer.

  If he was here, and Dr. Heinze was here, that could only mean her baby was here too. Probably inside with that bitch Gilda. And maybe Mr. Osala as well.

  What should she do? What could she do?

  She fumbled for her phone. Call Weezy. No, call Jack. He'll know what to do.

  FRIDAY Chapter 4

  Hank stood at the window of his second-floor bedroom and thought about birds. A big, double-hung window. The room sported two of them. Thick, old-fashioned glass with faint ripples through it. But one large bird or a bunch of smaller, determined birds might break through it.

  He had birds on the brain because he'd had that dream again and it was worse than ever.

  He'd expected to dream about Szeto and his Eurotrash enforcers with bullets through their heads. Those three dead bodies tangled on the floor, all staring eyes and punctured foreheads and blood, so much blood . . . he couldn't get the image out of his head.

  The death and blood didn't bother him in the least - really, who gave a shit about Szeto and company? What did bother him was knowing that the guy he'd been looking for all these months had done it. Killed all three - single-handed. Hank was glad now that he'd never found him. Still couldn't figure out how he'd got free. But the guy was back on the streets now, and he knew Hank had gone out to find some tools to mess him up, so it was a good chance he'd be coming for Hank.

  Bad enough, but then the new Kicker Man dream. Not completely new - it start
ed like the others with the K-Man being attacked in the dark by birds or something like birds, unable to fight them off, and finally knocked down and repeatedly buzzed. But it hadn't stopped there. The birds had left the Kicker Man laid out on the ground. As soon as they flew off, worms slid out of the ground and crawled all over the K-Man . . . eating him. They didn't quit till they'd devoured his diamond-shaped head, leaving behind a decapitated stick figure.

  Hank didn't need any gypsy to interpret that dream. The K-Man was Kickerdom, and Hank was its head. Someone wanted Hank's head. And that someone could only be the guy known as Jack.

  Well, Hank Thompson's head was staying right where it was, and the rest of Hank Thompson was staying right here. Neither that Jack guy nor anyone else was going to scare him off.

  Hank was going to take steps.

  FRIDAY Chapter 5

  Jack helped the Lady step over the three-foot-high wall of rectangular slabs - they still reminded Jack of headstones - ringing the pyramid. The three of them stopped and stared at the structure.

  Odd glyphs had been carved in the outer surface of each megalith, and remained faintly visible. He could make out three from this angle:

  Eddie had also called it a giant stone teepee, and that wasn't too far off. But it looked ancient, felt ancient . . . and alien.

  Everything was exactly as he remembered it. No sign of vandalism or evidence that anyone else had discovered it. The absence of litter confirmed that.

  Weezy must have been thinking along the same lines. "Nice to know that some secrets remain secret," she said.

  The Lady approached the pyramid. She stopped at the opening between a pair of the megaliths and stuck her head through.

  "I believe Srem was right," she said as Jack and Weezy came up behind her. "This does have a power of occultation. "

  "Great," Jack said. "Then we won't have to worry about anyone sneaking up on you. "

  She pulled her head back and turned to face them.

  "It might have had the power to hide me completely when it was whole. " She pointed to the broken megalith. "But it is not. "

  Weezy frowned. "But then - ?"

  "It will, however, reduce awareness of me, and diffuse what seeps through. If you have a sensitivity to me, you will know that I exist, but you will not be able to pinpoint my location. "

  Jack grinned. "Perfect. "

  The Lady thrust her arm through the slit. "Let us waste no time then. "