Psychlone (13 page)

“He was killed—” Miss Unamuno began. She paled and put her hand to her mouth. “No, he was shot down and taken prisoner."

Silvera looked at her steadily, then turned and picked up his file cards. “You people are as spooky as this town. If you're cleared, will you be willing to work as civilian contractors?"

Jacobs hesitated, then nodded.

Tim sat quietly in the principal's outer office while his brother talked inside. He could guess what they were saying: Tim is sensitive, Tim may have nightmares, this is a new experience for him. He felt very helpless. He was homesick, but of course there was no home to go back to.

Except with us, Tim

And he knew that was no good, because all those voices were dead. Somehow they had established an outpost in his head where they could talk to him, pester him, but they were not anyplace he could go while he was still alive.

“I want to be alive,” he said softly to himself, biting his lower lip and looking around. The secretary hadn't heard; she smiled at him. She was pretty. He didn't want anything to happen to people like her. Something had to be done, but he didn't know what just yet. He had to talk to important people, people who would believe him. If he said anything more to doctors or to Rick he would simply be put in a hospital for good. He couldn't do anything in a hospital. He had seen shows on TV about such hospitals. Even if you said you were sane they laughed at you and beat you up. The doctors in Albuquerque had been a little bit like that. Everything you said was suspect to them, even if you only wanted to go to the bathroom in the middle of talking. “Are you trying to avoid something, Tim?” they had asked.

I'm trying to avoid you. And them.

Rick came out of the inner office and the principal followed him. The principal was a tall, big-boned man with a dry, light hand grip. His hair was feathery and there wasn't much of it, so he oiled it carefully and made each strand count. His eyes were friendly and he probably knew everything there was to know about kids.

“Tim, I think you're going to have a good time here,” he said. Tim nodded.

“I've taken Tim around the school, so he knows the classes and everything,” Rick said.

“Just in case, let's give him a map and introduce him to the first class,” the principal said.

It was just after lunch. His first class after lunch was Utah history, he discovered. The teacher was a young woman with a hairstyle remarkably like Suzanne's. They went through the uncomfortable ritual of introducing Tim and all the kids looked at him blankly, trying to decide where he would fit. Most didn't care much one way or the other. That was okay. He preferred to be ignored. Rick left.

The teacher assigned Tim a seat, promised to give him a textbook as soon as they could bring one up from the repository, and spent an awkward five minutes trying to fill him in on Utah history up to the point they'd reached, about 1890.

What would Brigham Young have done about Lorobu? Tim had seen a movie about Brigham Young and what had happened to the Mormons, being driven from state to state. He was sorry he'd missed the best part of the class. He had liked history as Mr. Parker had taught it in Lorobu.

Mr. Parker is still with us, Tim

The next class was arithmetic and he talked to a boy with glasses who told him what the teacher was like (the kids stayed in the room but the history teacher went away and the arithmetic teacher came in; he would also stay for civics, the boy said). The boy's name was Archie Gerald. Tim thought that was a funny name but didn't say anything. They both liked to build models.

“I got to stop that kind of kid's stuff soon,” Tim said.

“Why?” Archie asked.

“Time to grow up."

“That's a funny thing. Why would anyone want to be a grownup?"

“Reasons,” Tim said. Archie didn't have time to press him. The new teacher arrived and the kids became quiet. The teacher noticed Tim and said hello to him, then marked his position in the class. Tim was a little ahead of the school in arithmetic for his grade. He settled back to cover old territory, feeling better now that he had met Archie.

After civics, Archie walked with him to the front of the school, where the buses and parents in cars picked up all the kids. They talked about football for a little bit, but neither of them cared very much, so then they talked about television, which was a better subject. Tim noticed that Archie had a limp and Archie explained he'd had an accident as a little boy. “I lost my foot under a train,” he said.

“Geez!” For a moment, Tim couldn't think of anything to say. “That must have hurt."

“Hurt like hell,” Archie said. “But I was only four and I don't remember too much. So now I got a fake foot. I do pretty well on it. You'll even see me at recess. I play mean tether ball. Want to play tomorrow?"

“Yeah, sure."

“Where do you live?"

“I'm not sure how far it is from here. It's on a street called Marchand."

“Sure—I know where that is. I live about three miles away. Maybe we could get together on the weekends."

“That'd be great,” Tim said. He saw Rick's car. “Gotta go."

“Sure. See you."

Tim started to walk to the curb, then stopped and turned. “Hey,” he said.

“Yeah?"

“Everything's pretty normal around here, isn't it?"

“What do you mean?"

“Like, everybody's nice, and all that sort of stuff, aren't they?"

“Sure,” Archie said. “See you."

Tim got into the car and Rick asked him how everything went. “Fine,” Tim said. “I met somebody named Archie. He's a nice guy."

“Good,” Rick said. “You'll like it here."

That was the problem, Tim thought. If anything happened to these people, it would be awful.

Prohaska groaned and sat up in the bed, then fell back. His face was badly swollen and the cuts and scratches radiated around his nose like a starburst. He had two deep gouges in his chest—from the boar's fangs, apparently—and he was now shirtless and bandaged. “What happened?” the reporter asked, his voice muffled by puffy lips.

“You opened the door,” Fowler said.

“An animal jumped on me. How did you get it out?"

Fowler held up a small plastic bag filled with gravel. “With a shovel, mostly,” he said. Prohaska tried to focus on Fowler sitting in a chair next to the bed, then gave it up as a bad job. “You're lucky,” Fowler said. “Your eyes aren't hurt bad—just scratches on the lids. Most of it is bruises and shallow cuts. You'll be sore for a week or two."

“What was it?” Prohaska asked.

“A pig. A large boar—very large. Four or five feet at the shoulders, built like a nightmare. Built out of a nightmare, too, I'd say."

“Is it gone?"

“I don't know. There's enough gravel in the driveway to build one or two dozen of them. If it runs out of that, then it might go to dirt and sticks. Either way, I'm not going outside until daylight."

The reporter felt his face tenderly and groaned again. “All this for a curiosity story,” he said.

“Go back to sleep if you can."

“Brave guy. Stay in the house alone with an injured man. Why don't we try to leave?"

“Because the cars are wrecked,” Fowler said. “Windows smashed, hoods caved in. I haven't gone out to see if they're drivable, but I doubt it."

“Calling out?"

Fowler took the bedroom phone extension off its receiver and held it to Prohaska's ear. A sound like the rush of wind hissed out of the earpiece.

“What is it?” Prohaska asked.

“I don't know. I found it when I tried to put through a call to Dot—Dorothy, my friend in Los Angeles. No luck. We're stuck until someone comes to get us. Or we can hike out in the morning, if this thing isn't still busy."

“Is it snowing?"

“No. Clear as a bell and fairly warm for this time of year. Snow is out for the next few days, and that may be in our favor. We can walk out of here and hitch a ride on the upper highway. Not many cars pass through the valley."

Prohaska closed his eyes and folded his hands on his chest, then winced.

“You've been gouged in two places around the sternum, but they're clean now."

“I should get a tetanus shot."

“Maybe. We'll see when we get into town. For now, sleep."

“Sleep, and dream,” Prohaska said, his voice fading. Fowler tucked the blankets in around the reporter's shoulders and stood back. His face was lined with worry and fatigue. It was almost midnight. The microwave level had dropped from its earlier plateau, and the climate of the valley appeared to be back to normal, but that was no guarantee the night was going to be quiet. He needed to sleep, but didn't dare.

In the living room, his equipment waited faithfully, the chart recorder humming slightly. It would be time to put in a new roll of paper soon—perhaps an hour or so. He wondered what good the records were going to do. If something showed up on the photographs, how would they interpret it? What would all of the information mean when it was assembled? He sat down in the La-Z-Boy and pulled the recliner back, then picked up one of Jordan Taggart's books.

Tomorrow, if the schedule was being followed, the new dam would release overflow water into the valley. The lower driveway, just before the highway, would be flooded to the depth of a foot or so.

Jordan Taggart's cabin would sit on an island of two acres, surrounded by a slow, shallow river. The stream boundaries had been marked by stakes and flags. His eyes closed and the book started to slip from his hands. Then he sat up abruptly, grabbed the book, and cursed in surprise.

Somewhere in Taggart's library, he had read that vampires couldn't cross running water. He searched the shelf for the particular book and located it—The Vampire in Europe, by Montague Summers. It quoted an extensive passage from Apuleius’ Golden Ass about an early vampire. Fowler began to search through the other books for more documentation.

And then he found it, in an old, crumbling paperback on witchcraft and black magic. Spirits and the undead could not cross running water.

“It's a conductor,” he mused, putting a piece of paper into the book as a placemark. “It shorts them out. They can't cross over it if they're bound to the Earth.” He was beginning to feel excited, but the tiredness was overcoming the new energy and he lay back, eyes blinking. If the thing returned, it would announce itself. Sleep was very important to health. At three in the morning, Fowler slept and the chart recorder ran out of paper.

Old.

Living with magnetic flux, born in other spaces, not a part of the human progress. A separate, predatory thing, always angry, cunning but not bright ... as creative as the moulds in the forest floor. Master of the germ, the weak, delighter in decay. A thing halfway, yet on neither side. Primal hater. Antithesis. Opponent. Plague.

Something roared and he awoke. Outside, it was bright. Fowler looked at his watch and groaned. Eleven-thirty in the morning. There was a car in the drive.

He got off the couch and peered outside. A sheriff's car, two people inside. Shaking his head, resigned, he walked to the back bedroom and looked in on Prohaska. The reporter was tangled in his sheets and blankets. Like Fowler, he must have had unpleasant dreams. Fowler gently shook him awake. The swelling had gone down. Prohaska looked at him through gluey eyes and managed a weak smile.

“They're on to us,” Fowler said.

“What?"

“The sheriff is here."

“Christ."

“Are you strong enough to get up?"

“I think so. Ouch—these bandages are tight."

“Just as well that they're here. We'll get you to a hospital and let professionals look you over."

The knock on the front door was familiar and even welcome this time. He straightened his clothes and looked at his hair briefly in the bathroom mirror—noticing the tub was clean today—then went to answer.

He swung the door open. “Yes?” The sheriff looked at him, frowning indecisively. Dorothy left the car and walked to the cabin.

“You're Lawrence Fowler?"

“Yes, sir."

The sheriff was about thirty, husky and not to be fooled with. Dorothy stood in the middle of the drive, among the potholes and bare spots, looking around, frightened.

“My name is Parkins, Howard Parkins. What the hell are you doing here, Mr. Fowler?"

“I'm playing amateur investigator,” Fowler said, smiling weakly.

“No ... I mean, what happened around the cabin?"

Fowler stepped out of the door and looked at the clearing and woods. Besides the wreckage of the cars, the underbrush and trees around the cabin looked like a thousand bears had been set loose on them. The bark was stripped from the trunks, the branches broken and bent and bare, and the turf lay scattered in yard-wide divots.

“I'm not sure,” Fowler said. “I was asleep."

The sheriff shook his head and walked back to the car. “I'm going to call in, say you're all right. Is there a reporter here with you?"

“Sam Prohaska, yes. He was injured last night—not serious, I think."

Dorothy approached him, hands clasped in front of her. “There was no call,” she said, her lips tight. “I was very worried. I flew up here and chartered a flight to Lone Pine ... Larry, there's water over the road now."

“I know. A dam overflow."

“What happened to the trees?"

“Same thing, I think, that happened to the cars. I don't know whether it happened last night or this morning. I must have been zonked. Prohaska was attacked last night."

“By what?"

“A giant boar.” He couldn't prevent himself from laughing. He leaned against the doorjamb, feeling relief and anxiety and a bubbleheaded lightness he couldn't explain.

“Oh, Larry,” Dorothy said, touching his face with one cool hand. She was wearing a safari suit tailored to fit, with high-fashion leather hiking boots that came to her calves. Her hair was dishevelled. He took her in his arms but she didn't come easily, seeming to resist, then give in complacently. He caught the signals right away. She was furious with him but didn't want to show it.

The sheriff returned and Dorothy broke from his embrace.