He pulled his mask back into place, took a breath, and vanished underwater. The surface became immediately still. He stayed down for more than a minute; when he broke through again he was gasping and spluttering.
No luck. He cursed. It was blacker than the dark side of the moon down there, the water was a bit too cool to be comfortable, and the frigging ancient mask had sprung several unfortunate leaks. He pulled it off his head and wiped his eyes, managing to drop the mask. He reached for it, a small winking light under the cold rind of moon shining so blearily between the breaks in the clouds, and succeeded in washing it farther away. He started for it as it began to sink from sight. Top-of-the-line Undersea Sports or not, it had the floatation powers of your average rock. Jonathan watched helplessly as it slipped out of sight.
He howled curses at the lake and the grass and the trees. Angry, he took a huge breath and dived again, determined not to come up until he had found the chain, or even the pick, anything to let him know this plan wasn’t totally botched.
He was down a minute-fifteen. When he burst up he sounded like a man on the brink of drowning, but he had no chain and he had no pick. All he had was bad luck. He looked up to the moon sliding between the clouds, then closed his eyes in supplication. “Ah, Jesus,” he moaned. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Something moved in the water behind him, some large thing that could not be a fish, frog, even a turtle. It was big and it was coming. Jonathan broke out in gooseflesh, thinking vaguely of the Loch Ness Monster and how awful it would be to discover the Maryville Monster here, alone, out of breath, and about to drown.
He turned around. The bones of his neck creaked like old hinges.
Alison was swimming toward him. That was bad. Jonathan had no desire to see the bloated remains of her or anyone else. Further, she wasn’t exactly swimming, just sort of … coming. This was no shimmering image; it was Alison in the flesh. A broad V of surf went before her as she was propelled toward Jonathan without moving. He turned and began to swim madly for the shore, inexplicable fright surging through his veins like cold lake water.
“Jonathan,” she called out. “Don’t be afraid!”
He was afraid anyway. Everything seemed dim and unreal now. Alison appeared only when danger was close. Jonathan did not want to face danger right now, perhaps never again. His feet struck mud and he waded out of the water, his wet clothes trying to drag him back. He chanced a look over his shoulder.
She was gone.
He turned fully and looked hard at the water. Under a streak of moonlight it was a misty mirror of the sky, scudding clouds chasing across its surface, no ripples or evidence that she had been there.
No ripples or evidence that he had, either.
He began to shiver, confused now, as if this were a dream where impossible things happened that seemed plausible, even commonplace. Was he awake? It was getting hard to remember.
Warm arms snaked around his waist from behind. He gasped, turning with a jerk.
Alison. No ghost drenched in pure light. Just Alison.
“Jonathan, don’t be afraid,” she whispered.
But he was afraid. She was alive and real, not a ghost anymore. He had almost gotten used to that. “You’re not alive,” he said, trying to disengage himself from those warm and solid arms.
“So?” she said. “I’m here anyway.”
She went on tiptoe and kissed him. He kissed her back, hesitant at first, then pressing his lips hard against hers. She was real and touchable and alive. It had to be a dream.
They sank to the grass together, locked in an embrace Jonathan had longed for for so many months, and was getting at last.
Forty minutes later Bruno and Rhino, taking turns with the dull wire cutters, had made a hole large enough for a man to fit through. Bruno straightened, examining one hand and whining about blisters the size of California. Rhino had several too, but wasn’t about to admit it. He picked up the heavy rubber gloves and the crowbar, grunting when a crick lodged itself in his back. God, the perils of turning twenty-one and being old.
He and Bruno stared at each other. Rain still fell in an eternal downpour. The reluctant sentries stood at their posts feeling miserable and stupid, but they weren’t giving up yet. That, at least, was good news.
Rhino stuck the wire cutters in a back pocket of his Levi’s, hoping he would never have to use them again on this dreadful night. He vowed that his dad would receive a brand-new pair come Christmas.
Bruno went down with a grunt and wormed himself through the hole. They had trampled the sparse grass at the base of the hole into muck, and it was through this that he slid, grumbling, whispering inventive curses. Rhino followed, getting a load of cold mud down the front of his pants as he wriggled through. He stood up and looked around.
“Well,” Bruno said after a moment. “Where to, Bwana?”
Rhino shrugged. “We’ve got to find the central switching unit. Remember the big blackout New York had when we were kids? Some idiot had flipped the wrong switch in the central unit, so that’s what we have to find.”
“Why the gloves, then? What the hell’s the crowbar for?”
“You think I’m going to touch a billion volts with my bare hands? Why not stand in a bucket of water while I’m at it? Don’t be an idiot.”
Bruno eyed him, then swept an arm to indicate Rhino should proceed. Rhino did, thinking that any fool who would fool around at a switching station without a flashlight was a fool indeed. He saw a tall metal shed, roughly the size of an outhouse. Red and white signs, gray in this dark, warned everybody to stay away, Authorized Personnel Only. Rhino guessed this was the place. All the other structures here were either doorless or not locked.
They went to it. A fat steel bar ran the width of the door, secured on one end with a huge padlock. Bruno lifted it in his hand, making the hasp rattle. “What about this, O Great White Electrician? The world’s biggest padlock.”
Rhino thought about it. The wire cutters wouldn’t tickle that beast. The crowbar would flee in terror. Only one thing to do, then.
“Pick it,” he said. Lightning ripped across the sky, booming in the west. In the flash Rhino could see the padlock clearly. His heart performed a quick nosedive. It was one of those eighty-dollar Master Lock jobs, the ones that could withstand a bullet. What the hell were they supposed to pick it with?
Bruno voiced the same question.
Rhino deliberated. What else to do? It was here that they needed to be. Horsing around with the other, more unknown stuff might result in electrocution and a deep-fried defensive lineman.
Rhino dug in his pocket. He came out with a small penknife. He handed it to Bruno, who stared at it incredulously.
“With that little Boy Scout knife?”
“Precisely.”
“It’s frigging impossible!”
“Pick it.”
“It’s a felony!”
“No, it’s a lock. Pick it.”
“Why me?”
“’Cause I don’t feel like going to jail.”
“Funny man,” Bruno grunted, took the knife, and went to it.
It was eleven-fifteen, and still raining buckets.
At the park there was no rain at all. Jonathan had fallen asleep in Alison’s arms, lulled there by her warmth and his own weariness. She was caressing his face with gentle fingers, watching him sleep. Suddenly she snapped up to a sitting position. Her eyebrows drew together.
She started shaking Jonathan. “Wake up,” she hissed. “Jonathan, wake up!”
He pulled away, nestling himself deeper into the blankets, not wanting to leave her. The thought of waking up drove a sharp wedge of anxiety into his guts, making sleep even harder to maintain. Rain was beating on the windows of his apartment, the bedroom flashing a harsh and brilliant white whenever lightning cut the sky. He drove his head deeper into his pillow, and slept on.
His television came alive by itself, filling the room with ghostly blue light and the faint hum of electric
ity. The screen showed a bird in a tree. The branches nodded up and down in a gentle breeze. A rather prissy-sounding man was saying …
“… The red-crested nuthatch is one of nature’s most elusive arboreals, with a light, lilting song and …”
Something squawked. The man began to gurgle. There was a loud thump, and he was quiet.
The tree rustled, and the bird flew away.
Horace Pinker crawled up the tree into camera range, scattering small branches and leaves, grinning insanely as always, his orange overalls with their checkered stripe seeming to glow with electric intent. He cupped his hands around his eyes and leaned forward until his face and hands were pressed to the glass face of the TV, like a burglar looking into a window.
And he began to to push himself through it, squeezing out, his head through now, his hands on the carpeted floor now, pulling himself out of the television by digging his fingernails into the nubbles in the carpet, straining, grunting, grinning.
His knees thumped on the floor. He jerked his feet out.
He howled with laughter …
… but Alison was shaking Jonathan in his dream, rattling him around like a corpse, gently slapping his face. His eyes pulled open and he stared at her, confused.
“Huh?”
“Jonathan,” she hissed, “it’s Pinker!”
Jonathan sat up, looking around dizzily. In the mist over the lake he could see those human shapes, changing, shifting. Diane was out there, his foster mother Diane who had died last year, and there was Cooper, and Pac-Man, even the pale ghost of Sally, the little girl Jonathan never had a chance to know.
Diane stretched her hands to him. “Jonathan! Stop sleeping, please!”
“Yeah, man, wake up,” Pac-Man shouted.
Copper loomed up, smiling. “Watch your ass, boy! Don’t get caught napping!”
Jonathan turned to Alison. “I don’t want to go through with this. Why should I go back? Why be away from you and in the madness waiting on the other side?”
Alison ran a hand over his face, still wet from swimming. “You’ve got to, Jonathan, or you’ll die.”
“So I die—who cares? I don’t want to be away from you again.”
She kissed him, and whispered this into his ear: “You’ll never be apart from me again. Never.”
He blinked, confused. Alison turned in an instant into the sparkling white ghost he had seen before, and then she flung herself against him without sound, melting into him with a warm and pleasant sensation. He looked out to the lake and its shifting ghosts, but the ghosts were gone and the mists were gone and the lake was gone …
… and he woke up, jerking bolt upright, the blankets twisted around his legs as if he had struggled in his sleep. He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands as lightning flashed outside. Rain came down in relentless streams, spatting against the windows. He noticed that the television was on, a late-night evangelist spouting warnings to the errant listeners that they’d better send cash or fry for eternity.
“And the Beast shall rise out of the pit and walk among the world, and great shall be the devastation. Woe to the man who is without God, and woe even more to the man or woman who has not contributed to this ministry—who has not dug deep to send cash or check to this anti-Beast brigade of True Believers girding for battle. Send your dollars for Jesus now!”
He put his feet on the floor, disgusted, and padded to the bathroom, where no blood dripped and no talking corpses rose from the bathtub, and got himself a drink of water. He went back and wearily plopped himself down in his relaxation chair. He put his shoes back on and stared blearily at the face of the TV huckster. He was wearing a suit that probably had cost as much as this Barcalounger. His hair was cemented in place with hairspray. His watchband was studded with diamonds. He was raging on about something, but suddenly it didn’t sound quite right.
“Beware the Beast! He is among you—check your perimeter—check your perimeter—check your perimeter—check your perimeter …”
Jonathan gaped at the television as the strange minister’s face grew closer and closer until only his mouth filled the screen. Jonathan felt confused, a twinge of fear plucking at his mind. Check your perimeter? What in the hell—?
His fingers went up to his throat. Something was vibrating there, feeling almost hot. He found a chain and pulled it forward for a better look.
Alison’s golden heart. What in the hell—?
His chair gave a lurch. He looked down while the minister’s chant went on without end.
The chair was sprouting arms. Not chair arms, but thick, sweating arms covered with an obscenity of tattoos, Gothic mumbo jumbo, occult signs, swastikas, and hideous faces. Jonathan leapt upright, an involuntary squawk bursting out of his mouth, the chair still holding on to him with its unbelievable arms that were so much like Pinker’s. He staggered around in a small circle while his chest was being slowly crushed. He turned his head to see what monstrosity was behind the chair, knowing it was Pinker but not quite ready to fight that battle now.
The uppermost upholstery buttons flapped open to reveal slitted, evil eyes. They blinked at him with mindless ferocity. Jonathan screamed and waltzed around while his chair clung to him as if glued. The chair jostled once more, and Jonathan looked back, ready to expect anything but what he saw.
The chair’s back was bulging outward, the form of a skull mashing itself through the vinyl. It became round, padded with flesh, and the face of Horace Pinker peeled out from it, leering at Jonathan, hissing in his ear, laughing.
“This Barcalounger is gonna kick your ass,” he crowed.
Legs clad in Day-Glo orange burst out of the bottom of the chair. Jonathan was thrown through the room and crashed against a wall. He saw stars, but through them he could see the chair stretching and pulling, the fabric groaning, and then it was Pinker, bald head flecked with burns and scabs, upholstery-button eyes gleaming. The power cord to the chair was attached to his side. He seemed to be swelling, puffing up, growing larger as electricity was pumped into him from the wall socket.
His eyes slid shut in ecstasy. Jonathan’s experiences with Pinker had taught him never to hesitate, never to have mercy. He scrambled to his feet and ran at him, hoping at least to bowl him over and pull the plug on his power source.
He slammed into Pinker. A gigantic blast of electricity hurled him back as neatly as if he had jumped from a skyscraper and landed on a trampoline. Blue fire made a tracework around his fingers and hands, burning, sending smoke wafting upward. He screamed again. Pinker was still plugged in, still gaining power. Jonathan charged him once more, swerving at the last moment to veer into the hallway, the stench of his own burning flesh stinging his nostrils. Pinker tore the cord from his body, glowing with power.
Jonathan took two steps toward the front door, which the landlord had replaced at Jonathan’s expense, when Pinker sizzled into existence from the overhead light fixture, which the landlord had not replaced. He dropped to the floor, his eyes full of glee.
“It’s hard to outrun Reddy Kilowatt, asshole!”
He was right. Jonathan ran into the living room, mad panic threatening to reduce him, crush him, overtake his brain. Pinker snapped out of the overhead light fixture in a burst of orange sparks, laughing and prancing. Jonathan tried to swerve, but Pinker was gone and he stumbled over the couch, landing hard on the floor. His teeth clicked and he could taste salty blood on his tongue. He got up, dazed by the noise and the fireworks. Pinker’s laughter seemed to spring from the walls. He popped out of a lamp, exploding the shade, screeching with joy. Jonathan staggered back as he vanished in a cascade of brief electrical fire. Then Pinker flashed alive beside him, one arm still moored to the wall switch by the door. The air in the room grew heavy with acrid smoke. Coughing, Jonathan stumbled out and went for the bedroom.
Pinker was already there, his body crackling and buzzing while sparklets of brilliant orange orbited around him too fast to follow. Jonathan put on the brakes, but too late; he fel
l into Pinker’s open arms. Pinker crunched him in a huge bear hug, howling in his ear.
Jonathan screamed. His body jerked and spasmed out of control as unbearably high voltage surged through him, seeming to blow the top of his head off. He smelled fresh smoke, and knew it was coming from him, wisps of hot smoke roiling out of his nose and mouth. He twisted uselessly back and forth while being baked alive.
He managed to pull an arm free. It twisted and flapped with a life of its own. With effort he was able to grab the heart hanging at his neck. He shoved it in Pinker’s face.
Pinker reeled back with a shout of raw pain. He scrubbed at his face like a chipmunk. Jonathan advanced on him, grinning a bit himself. For the first time good old Horace P. was on the run instead of Jonathan. He backed away, shielding his eyes, his face drawn down into a baby’s sniveling pout.
“Life’s a bitch sometimes,” Jonathan growled, pressing forward.
Pinker looked around, his eyes revealing desperation and … fear. The big bad boogeyman was terrified. Jonathan laughed in his face.
Pinker spun around with a frightened squeal. He dived headfirst into the face of the television, where some old black-and-white cowboy show was airing. The television jittered during his passage, threatening to fall backward. Jonathan watched this with growing understanding. There was, of course, no copycat killer at all. He had known that. Now it was clear that Pinker was loose in the airwaves, able to pop around as he pleased, to butcher as he pleased.
Jonathan wrapped both hands around the tiny golden heart, full of a desperate desire that these atrocities never happen again, even if he had to die to stop them.
“Alison,” he whispered fervently, “if you’re really in me, give me the power to do this!”
He launched himself headfirst at the television, expecting a burst of broken glass and a bleeding head stuck full of shards, an explosion of the mysterious inner workings, possibly a fire.
Shocker Page 16