The Presence (19 page)

He was going to die, drown alone in the sea!

He thrashed out once more, lunging this time with enough force to jerk himself out of the nightmare world in which he’d been entrapped.

Coming awake, he rolled off the bed and onto the floor, and lay still for a moment, struggling to catch his breath, wrestling against the wraiths that still constricted him.

His sheet!

He tore at it, finally pulling it loose and shucking it off, but still he couldn’t catch his breath.

It was as if the nightmare were still upon him, though he knew he was wide-awake.

Suddenly the darkness of the room was washed away by a blinding glare, and in the sudden whiteness he saw one of the apparitions from the sea, nearly invisible in the surrounding brightness, looming over him.

With a great agonizing gasp, Michael finally succeeded in sucking air into his constricted lungs. Jerking
the window open even as he rose from the floor, he fled out into the night.

“Michael!” Katharine called as her son dove through the window. “Michael, don’t! Let me help you!”

If he heard her, he gave no sign, and by the time she reached the window a second later, he was gone, swallowed up by the darkness as completely as if he’d vanished from the face of the planet.

Wrapping her robe more tightly around her, Katharine found a flashlight and went out onto the veranda, snapping the porch light on, but turning it out again immediately as she realized it blinded her to anything beyond the circle of its own illumination. As her eyes readjusted to the darkness, she switched the flashlight on and played its beam over the small clearing in which the house sat.

Nothing.

Nothing except the shadowy grove of eucalyptus, the ancient trees surrounding her like giants out of a dark fantasy. As the light passed over their twisted trunks, they seemed to come alive, moving in the darkness, their limbs reaching out to her.

No! she told herself. They’re just trees.

“Michael!” she called again. “Michael, come back!”

Again there was no answer, but she was almost certain he must still be able to hear her. And if he was running through the eucalyptus grove, why couldn’t she hear him?

But of course she couldn’t—his bare feet would be all but soundless on the thick carpet of leaves that covered the ground, so sodden from the frequent rain that they barely cracked under the leather soles of shoes.

She circled the house, then went to the edge of the clearing and circled the area again, using the beam of
light to penetrate as deeply as she could into the dense stand of trees.

Finally she returned to the house, but stood on the veranda, trying to decide what to do.

Search the forest?

To go alone into the eucalyptus grove and the rain forest beyond would be to risk getting lost herself.

Call the police?

And tell them what? That her asthmatic son had run away in the middle of the night? When they heard how old he was, they would tell her to call back in the morning.

But what had possessed Michael to run from her that way?

Obviously he’d had another nightmare, and this one must have been far worse than the first. Although she’d barely had a glimpse of him in the moment before he bolted through the open window, she’d seen the terror on his face.

His eyes were wide and his mouth stretched into a rictus of fear as if he were gazing upon the evil countenance of a demon that was attacking him.

But it had been only her, clad in her white robe, reaching out to him.

Then he was gone, diving headfirst through the window, rolling once on the veranda before leaping to his feet and sprinting across the clearing, disappearing into the blackness of the night even before he reached the forest.

If the forest was where he had headed.

And wearing nothing but a pair of Jockey shorts.

For the first time, she despised the isolation of the
house. Why had she ever taken it? There were neighborhoods all over the island where there were streetlights, where she would have seen him running, known at least in which direction he had gone.

Where there were neighbors who might have seen him, too, and been worried about a boy running through the night in nothing but a pair of undershorts.

But up here there was nothing but darkness in which he could easily hide, with only a scattering of houses he could skirt around if he didn’t want to be seen.

Maybe she should just wait.

Maybe, when the terror of the dream had finally released him from its grip, he would come home again.

As Katharine turned to step back into the house through the French doors, she noticed her eyes were stinging. Then, as she rubbed them with her fists, she noticed something else.

The winds had died, and the rustling of the leaves of the eucalyptus trees had stopped. Other than the faint chirping of a few frogs and insects, the night was silent.

And the air had turned heavy, laden with the dust and gases being spewed out from the eruption on the Big Island.

If it was making her eyes sting, what must the vog be doing to Michael? Was that what had happened? Had he awakened to find his lungs choking on the pollution that, until a moment ago, she herself hadn’t even noticed?

She moved through the French doors, closing them behind her, then went through the house and switched on every light, both inside and out, turning the little bungalow into a beacon in the night.

If Michael tried to come home, at least he would be able to see the house.

Then she sat down to wait, already wondering how long she could stay here alone, worrying about him, and whom she would call when finally she could stand it no longer.

But of course she already knew whom she would call.

Rob Silver.

And he would come, and help her, and help Michael.

If, that is, they could find Michael.

Michael moved quickly through the dark shadows cast by the dense groves of trees that lined the road. He’d lost track of time—had no idea how long it had been since he’d fled from the house, no idea what time it might be now.

He could barely remember scrambling through the window, jumping over the railing around the veranda, and dashing across the clearing toward the darkness of the eucalyptus grove, so gripped had he been by the terrors of the dream. His only motivation had been to escape the light, and the apparition that appeared in it. But even after he’d escaped into the protective darkness, he kept running, dodging between the trees until he emerged from the woods and burst out into a grassy field. He’d dropped down to the ground, breathing hard.

Escape!

He had to escape.

But where? Even as the question had formed in his head, so also had the answer: in his mind he saw the cleft in the ravine above the place where his mother had unearthed the strange skeleton.

That’s where he would go.

But how would he find it?

As the terror of the dream began to loosen its clammy grip, he remembered what Josh had told him that afternoon. Somewhere up the road, there was a trail.

He was still more or less following the road, keeping to a few of its twists and turns, but more often than not scrambling up the steep slope where the hairpins were so tight it would take him far longer to follow the pavement. He’d passed half a dozen driveways, and even something that looked like it might be a footpath, but some voice inside him had told him to keep walking, to go farther up. A few yards farther on, though, he stopped abruptly.

For a moment he didn’t know quite why he’d stopped, but a second later he saw it: a narrow track leading off in the general direction of where Takeo Yoshihara’s estate—and his mother’s dig—must lie. But how could he know? What if it was the wrong path? What if it took him in the wrong direction?

Despite his doubts, he began moving along the trail, something inside of him sure that he was going in the right direction. Twenty minutes later the path ended at a rough track. Not hesitating, Michael turned left.

He broke into a trot, the certainty that he was going in the right direction growing stronger with every step. A little farther on he came to a gate, climbed over it, then scrambled over the fence he encountered a few minutes later. It was as if he was following a beacon, though the darkness of the night was barely softened by the dim moon above, its light cut by scudding clouds.

Finally, though, as he came to the clearing that housed the worktables and their canopies, the last of the fear that had gripped him during the nightmare disappeared.

He moved on, a moment later coming to the ancient
campsite where the skeleton lay. Michael knelt for a moment. His eyes fixed on the fleshless features of the skull, and as a silvery ray of moonlight found a tear in the clouds and illuminated the long-dead being’s empty eyes, Michael felt once more the strange sensation come over him, as it had that afternoon, composed partly of familiarity, partly of fear.

Then the ray of moonlight disappeared behind the curtain of clouds, releasing him. Michael rose to his feet and moved into the protective shelter of the long-dead vent.

Tonight the vent was warm—far warmer than the air outside—and Michael felt a soft mist envelop him. He sank down, slumping against the moss-covered rocks.

Soon he was drifting into a dreamless sleep.

He had no idea what woke him up; perhaps a sound, perhaps some sixth sense.

Nor did he have any idea how long he’d been asleep.

But the moment Michael came awake, all his senses were fully alert. He pulled himself into a tight crouch and held perfectly still, listening.

The moon had nearly set and the clouds had thickened. Even so, he could easily make out the shapes of the trees around him, and see the lithe form of a mongoose slip past on the narrow trail that had brought him to the lair in which he hid.

He made no movement, for above the chirping of the insects and the faint mumblings of sleepy birds, another sound was coming to him.

Voices.

Human voices, so low he couldn’t quite make out the words.

But they were coming closer.

Michael rose to his feet, his senses practically tingling with the sensation of gathering danger.

He strained his ears, and finally he could make out a sentence.

“About a quarter of a mile ahead—up where that friend of Dr. Silver’s is working.”

Him!

They were looking for him!

Instinctively, Michael shrank back deeper into the cleft in the ravine’s wall, but a second later realized the trap. If they knew where he was, he’d have no escape.

Darting out into the darkness, he shivered for a moment against the cold of the night, then pushed the chill from his mind, concentrating on only one thing.

Escape.

He moved quickly—far more quickly than when he’d come—leaving the path only a few feet from the entry to the cleft, snaking his way through the dense tangle of the rain forest until he came back to the track a hundred yards from the main clearing where the worktables stood.

He could still hear the voices, but as he listened they became less distinct, and he knew they were no longer coming toward him, but searching for him where he’d been only a few moments ago.

Seizing the opportunity, he turned and fled, loping along the rutted track with an ease that belied the darkness.

Coming to the fence, he climbed over it, then vaulted the gate a minute later. He kept running, his legs pumping in a steady rhythm, his feet making barely any sound as he flew along the track. He came to the path that led off to the right, but instead of turning, he went on, then left the track and made his way across the mountain’s
slope, only coming back to the path when he was a few yards from the point where he’d left the pavement—

When?

How long had it been?

He had no idea.

Suddenly he was exhausted. The muscles in his legs were starting to burn, and his knees and ankles felt as sore as if he’d been running for hours. He was panting, and as he stopped to catch his breath, he listened.

He heard nothing.

Once again he was alone in the night.

As he emerged from the narrow lane leading through the eucalyptus trees, Michael could see his mother standing on the veranda, still clad in her thin white bathrobe. The moment he saw her, he understood part of the panic he’d felt earlier.

What he’d seen in his room hadn’t been one of the apparitions from the dream.

It had only been his mother, switching on the light.

Stupid!

How could he have been so stupid?

Taking a deep breath, he walked out of the grove of trees and into the circle of light that spread from the veranda out into the clearing.

Katharine’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Michael?” Then:
“Michael!
My God, are you all right?” A second later she was off the veranda. “Michael, what happened? Oh, God, I’ve been so frightened! When you went out the window—”

“I’m okay, Mom,” Michael broke in. “I just—I don’t know—it was really weird, and—” They were back on
the veranda now, and his mother was clinging to his arm. “I’m really sorry,” he said.

Katharine pulled Michael into the house and looked anxiously into his face. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked again. “I’ve been so worried. You sounded like you could hardly breathe, and the way you took off—”

Michael pulled away from her grip. “I really feel dumb,” he said, sinking down onto the sofa. He looked up at her. “And you’re gonna be really pissed at me.”

Katharine dropped into the chair opposite him. “Just tell me what happened.”

He tried to tell her about the nightmare, but most of it had vanished from his memory. Still fresh, however, was the vision he’d seen when his terror had finally driven him out of his sleep. “It was you,” he finished. “In that bathrobe. I was barely awake, and that robe makes you look like one of the things that was chasing me in the nightmare.”

“But that’s crazy!” Katharine objected. “I was trying to help you! All I wanted to do was—”

“It doesn’t matter, Mom,” Michael said. “I’m really sorry I scared you.”