The Awakening (8 page)

With Derek helping, they were finished in a few
minutes. Some of the work was outside, and by the time they got in out of the
rain, they were soaked. Ann found two towels and tossed one to Derek. He began
drying his hair and peered at her from under the towel.

“Does the lady want I should make fire?” he asked,
using the only accent he knew; garden variety Igor.

Ann laughed. “Yes, the lady would like that, I think.
The wood’s over there. Be back in a minute.”

Derek began building a fire in the large stone
fireplace, and by the time he had it going to his satisfaction, Ann returned
with two tinkling glasses.

“Thought you might want something to drink,” Ann
said, handing him one of the glasses. “It’s Brandy. It’ll help take some of the
chill out.”

Derek sensed rather than heard the slight hesitation
in her voice, and he watched her thoughtfully as she sat on the carpet beside
him. They were very close to the fire, and he could see highlights of gold and
red move through her hair. An old, empty feeling crept through his chest. He
thought of the last two years, spent drifting over half of the country trying
to convince himself that he was happy.
Hell, a blind man could see it; I’m
afraid. If I don’t stand up for what I want, I fall down, right?

Ann stretched her legs out and leaned her head
against his shoulder, sighing. The scent of her damp hair was warm, and he
kissed the top of her head gently.

“What are you thinking about?” Her voice was soft.
She turned so she could see his face.

“About you.” He brushed the tip of her nose with his
lips. “And about where I fit in, I guess.”

“Where do you want to fit in?” Her eyes were deep in
the dim light, her voice low and serious. After a moment, she rested her head
on his chest. He could feel her warm breath through his shirt. “Derek?” Her
voice was a soft whisper.

“Yes?”

“Make love to me. Do you want me?”

“Yes, I want you.” Derek could feel her small body
tremble in his arms. He raised her face to his with one hand and kissed her,
long and gently. “Yes, I want you very, very much.”

*          *          *

Three miles away, Dr. Wittakin sat staring into his
own fire. He as deep in thought, a forgotten book lying open on his lap. His
mind kept wandering over the discussion he had had with Mike’s small group; there
was something about it that made him feel uneasy. Very uneasy.

The trouble was simple; he didn’t know. No one did. A
practical mind liked practical answers. Something that can be dealt with in the
form of formula and statistics. How about a bit of binomial expansion? Please,
Mr. Spirit, step into my lab and allow us to conduct a comprehensive analysis
on you in the name of science and our meager sanity…

…For I am the sworn enemy of ignorance. I am the
Teacher, here to guide and educate. Educate. Latin. E—out. Ducere—to lead. To
lead out (of darkness?) The darkness is thick, it is malignant. From darkness
ye were made and to darkness ye shall return. Take my hand, for I shall guide
you. Do not tremble so, for it makes your claws click… my word!…

A knot of pitch snapped in the fire, and the old man
sat up, startled. He shook his head and inhaled softly.
You old fool, you’re
going senile. That’s how it is; first weak in the knees, then weak in the head.
He tucked the blanket tighter around his legs and pulled another book from the
shelf.

*          *          *

Mike Dunns put the last touches on a short, makeshift
report and tucked it into a manila envelope. He let it lay on the desk top,
time to time flipping unconsciously over its edge with his thumb. It wasn’t
really a report; it was a list of questions. Lots of questions, no answers.

He lit a cigarette, letting the harsh smoke drag
through his irritated throat, then crossed the small office and opened the
front door. The force of the rain had slackened for the moment, but it still
held a depressive feeling that seeped into his body. He scowled, thinking.
After a moment he flicked the half-finished cigarette out into the darkness.

He was afraid. This was his town, the town where he
lived and enforced the law, and he held the responsibility of making it a good
town and a good place to live. Only people weren’t living, they were dying.

He lit another cigarette and stood watching the rain.
Waiting.

*          *          *

Derek lay on his bed in his dark hotel room. He
looked closely at the luminous dial of his watch; it was almost four o’clock, but he didn’t feel at all sleepy. There was too much to think about, too
much to sort out. And if he didn’t work things out in his head soon, he might
just find himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

When he left Ann at the door of her hotel room, he
hadn’t wanted to let her go. He loved her. Not deeply, but it was love
nevertheless, and he knew it would grow if he let it. He didn’t know if that
was a good thing for either one of them.

He had been so busy chasing his personal shadow dragon
with his shiny sword edged with bitterness that he hadn’t seen where the dragon
was leading him. Possibly straight to its cave, where it had a nice little trap
set for him. Presto! Derek a ‘la King. And if not, what? Derek had a mental
image of himself as an old bearded man in an antique Plymouth convertible
wheelchair, zipping around cackling gleefully waving a bent and rusty sword. It
was not a vision that he relished.

He had enjoyed at least a superficial security in
wandering from place to place, grabbing madly for a roadmap at the first signs
of commitment for any reason, but this growing involvement with Ann was a
direct threat to that security. The way he had been going, nobody but himself
could get hurt. But with Ann, it was a different matter altogether.

He wondered for a moment if he had unintentionally
taken advantage of her, considering her worry and need for reassurance. That
was another problem. He wasn’t sure how she felt, or what she had in mind.
Women had never thrown themselves at him, to say the least, so the idea that
Ann might find him attractive surprised him.

He fell asleep with that pleasing thought on his
mind.

It was noon when Derek entered the diner, and he was still slightly
groggy from his long sleep. He dropped into a chair near the counter. The
waitress was just leaving with his order when Mike’s big body appeared across
the table from him.

“Mind if I join you, Mr. Hanen?” The question really
wasn’t one, but Derek smiled. Mike was the kind of man that was going to do
what he wanted, do it now, and any questions were going to be an afterthought.

“No, I don’t mind, and the name is Derek. Making any
progress on this thing yet?”

Mike shook his head. “No. I feel like I’m playing
some kind of nasty game and I don’t know the roles. All of us are. And the
worst part is I don’t even know who in the hell we’re playing this game with.
I’ve gone over every part and piece having anything to do with this crap, and
all I’ve come up with is that I can’t come up with anything. I need to know
more, before somebody else gets killed.”

“If there’s any way you think I can help you, I’d be
glad to do what I can.”

“Maybe there is. That’s really what I wanted to talk
to you about. When you found the Tomalo boy, was there anything, anything at
all, that might tell us something about what happened? Did you see or hear
anything out of place?”

Derek thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No,
nothing I can think of. We were in pretty much of a hurry to get him to the
doctor’s. You’ve been out there, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I have, but I didn’t find a thing.” Mike
looked down at his coffee for a few seconds, then back at Derek. “I’m thinking
of going back out there today, and I wondered if you’d go along. You know, to
show me how everything was and to recreate the scene, so to speak. Shouldn’t
take too long.”

“Sure, I don’t know why not.”

Derek wolfed down his breakfast and a couple of
scalding cups of coffee. He felt much better and almost awake by the time they
got to Mike’s car.

The rain had fallen off to a light drizzle during the
night, but the sky was still dark and heavy with the promise of more to come.
The air was wet and cold. Derek hoped fervidly that Mike’s driving was good
enough to keep them from getting stuck in any one of the innumerable bad places
in the road. Mike was hoping the same thing.

Behind them the buildings of the town dwindled into
the grey haze and then disappeared altogether. Derek settled into the seat and
looked ahead. It wasn’t far to the part of the river where he and parker had
been fishing, but it seemed to take much longer than it should have. He was
about to ask Mike if they hadn’t possibly taken a wrong turn when Mike eased
the car into a small clearing by the side of the river. It was the place
alright, but it took him a few moments before he began to recognize anything.
Despite the rain, it didn’t look green and inviting anymore. It looked dead.

Mike shut off the engine and leaned back in the seat.
He rummaged for a cigarette, found one and lit it, then waved it at the sky
through the windshield. “Damn rain, I don’t think it’ll ever quit. It just
keeps coming down, making everything miserable. I’ve been thinking lately, if I
was a few years under forty instead of a bunch of years over it, I’d chuck all
of this and hop a freight for Miami. Still might, after all this is over.
Trouble is, I’ve been in this town for a long time. It doesn’t make a good
flyspeck of the map, but I like it and the people in it. I’ve been meaning to
ask you, call it professional curiosity or plain nosiness, what’s it like
traveling around as much as you do? And why?”

Derek gave a wry shrug and watched the rivulets of
water run down the glass. “The ‘why’ is fairly easy; a couple of bad breaks and
a bum marriage as much my fault as anyone else’s. As to what it’s like…” He
shook his head and sighed. “It was interesting at first, until one morning I
woke up and it was a habit. If I had money, I’d travel, and if I didn’t, I’d
work until I did. There are a lot of places that I passed through that the only
thing I could tell you about was the color of the road signs.”

“What happens when you run into a girl? Like Ann.”

Okay, now we get to it.
“Nothing. Meaning that
it didn’t happen, at least until now. I’m not out to get even, if that’s what
you mean.”

“Just for the record, I like that girl. And if I was
younger, I might just lock you up to keep the field clear. Nothing personal,
you understand. As it is, I’m just watching.”

Derek grinned. “That’s fair enough. I like the idea
of someone watching over her. But for now it’s Ann calling the shots, and I’m
doing things her way. Believe it or not, I like her a lot and I don’t want to
see her hurt either. Okay?”

“Okay. Well, let’s get this little show over. We’re
going to get wet before we get dry, so let’s do it.”

They started where Derek and Parker first began
fishing, then sloshed across the shallowest part of the river to the area he
had been when he first saw the boy. Derek told Mike what he could remember.
Mike pushed his way through a few bushes, getting nothing but scratches for his
trouble. Derek led the way back across the river to the spot where he had tried
to resuscitate the boy, but there was nothing left to show that anyone had even
been there.

They decided to search the banks of the river in both
directions, Derek above and Mike below, and meet back at the car when they were
done. The rain was beginning to soak through Derek’s jacket and he shifted it
uncomfortably. He made his way carefully along the river bank, picking his path
through the clinging wet brush.

After twenty minutes of fruitless searching, he gave
up and started back to the car. A protruding root caught his foot before he had
taken a dozen steps, dumping him hand first into the mud. He groaned and got
up, systematically cursing the state, town, weather, broken car, river, Mike,
the root in particular, and his bad luck in general. He moved to the shallow
edge of the river and was just about to plunge his hands into the water when he
noticed a dull reflection; there was something half buried in the sand at the
bottom. Derek slipped his jacket off one arm, rolled up his sleeve, and reached
through the icy water.

It was a curved slab of metal about six inches
square, partially rusted. He could just make out some type of crude engraving
on its surface. There was no question of what it was; it was a piece of
axe-bit, broken through the hollow where the handle had fit. He started to
throw it back into the water, but then stopped and looked at it in his hand.
No,
dummy, better show it to Sherlock. You damn sure don’t know what you’re looking
for.

Mike was already in the car when Derek got back. He
had the engine running so the car was warm, but his sour face showed that he
wasn’t enjoying the warmth or anything else. Derek got in and pulled off his
sopping coat.

“Find anything?” Mike’s voice was as sour as his
face.

“Just this.” Derek handed him the chunk of metal.
“Probably some amateur Paul Bunyon broke his toy and threw it away, but I
thought you might want to see it.”

“There used to be some mining up here, could be
that’s where it came from.” Mike turned it in his hand and studied the
engravings. “Jesus H. Christ! Can’t anything be in English? Every time I turn
around, I’m running into some kind of screwy scribbling, and I’ll be damned if
I’m going to take this out to Wittakin and get another lecture in dime-novel
monsters! Here, you keep it; call it a souvenir or something”

Mike put the car into gear and spun gravel until he
was back on the main road. Derek could see the muscles bunched in the sheriff’s
jaw. It was a good time to say nothing.

For once I’m glad I’m me.
Derek stuffed the
piece of blade into his wet jacket pocket and watched the dismal countryside
slide by. It was depressing.

“Just between you and me, what do you think of our
talk last night?” Mike asked. Derek glanced over at him. He seemed to be
concentrating on the road, but he looked slightly embarrassed.

“You mean with Dr. Witakin?”

“Yeah. Do you buy any of that stuff he was selling?”
Mike looked at Derek out of the corner of his eye when he didn’t answer. “Well,
what do you think?”

Derek answered slowly. “I think there’s something
very strange going on and there’s someone or something very dangerous around,
but I find it hard to believe it’s something like what we were talking about.”
That’s
what I think until it gets dark, anyway.

They finished the drive into town without any more
talk. Mike pulled the car up to the porch of the hotel and sat in thought as
Derek got out. He was almost through the door of the hotel when Mike rolled
down the window of the car and called to him.

“I’m thinking of having a meeting with some of the
men in town, probably at Sam’s place. Can you make it?”

“What time?”

“Oh, about eight I guess. Matter of fact, I’m going
to be out rounding up a few people I want to be there. Want to go along?”

“Sure, why not?

“Okay, I’ll pick you up around six then.”

Derek waved as Mike pulled away. He turned and
stepped into the lobby. Ann was coming down the stairs, smiling and beautiful.
Last night, he had made love to her, but this morning he found it hard to
believe.

“Where have you been all morning? I was going to
treat you to breakfast.”

Derek shrugged wryly. “Been out with Mike. I think
he’s made me his unofficial deputy. I’m going to get myself a Stetson hat and a
pair of six-guns, then run around looking mean and tough.” He moved his feet
apart and hunched over, dangling his bent arms over his hips in a classic TV
gunfighter stance. “Whatcha think? Another marshal Dillon?”

Ann giggled and shook her head. “You’d have to
inspire more confidence than that or you would be sheriffing over a ghost
town.”

*          *          *

It was seven by the time Derek and Mike left the
fifth and last farm house. Three of the men they had talked to had agreed to
help pass the word about the meeting. After some debate, they decided to have
the wives and children gather at one of the farm houses near town so that none
of them would have to be alone.

Mike seemed to be morosely wrestling with some
problem on the drive back to town. Derek thought it best to leave him alone to
sort it out and settled back into the warm car seat. He stretched his legs, the
drone of the heater and the soft rattling of the rain on metal soothing his
nerves, until a soft drowsiness stole over him. He stifled a yawn and closed
his eyes, resting his head against the back of the seat.

“What the shit?”

Derek jerked upright at Mike’s yelp and felt the car
slice madly through the mud, the tires grabbing for traction. The fuzzy twin
cones from the headlights swung wildly over the country side before the car
slid forward on the road again. Derek clutched at the dash to hold himself
still in the seat.

One of the headlights crossed a moving shape an
instant before they felt the impact. The car slid only a couple of feet, then
was still.
Must be a damn cow or…
He glanced at Mike. It had happened
too fast for him to see what they had hit. Mike’s face was sickly pale in the
dash lights, his eyes wide and empty as he stared through the windshield. Derek
reached for Mike’s shoulder.

“There!” Mike’s whisper startled him and he swung his
eyes in the same direction as Mike’s.

There was something in front of the car, and Derek
felt icy tendrils wrap around his spine.

It was standing at the edge of the hood between the
headlights. All Derek could see was the silhouette of what looked like a huge,
deformed man. There wasn’t enough light to see the features, but its eyes
caught enough to reflect. Or glow…

With a rasping, blood chilling snarl, the shape
slammed its fists into the hood. They heard the metal groan and tear and felt
the car shudder. Then whatever it was, was gone.

Steam rose from the exposed engine. Mike’s body shook
for a moment before he could regain control, turning unfocused eyes at Derek.
“You saw…? I’m not…?” He cupped his face in his hands, inhaling hard. “Mother
of god!”

Derek reached passed Mike and flipped on the search
light. He panned it slowly over the ground to the right of the car and then to
the left. The rain and mist kept the light from penetrating more than a few
yards in any direction, but at least the area around the car was clear of
danger. It wasn’t there. He could see the crumbled car hood dimly.

“Whatever the hell it was, looks like it’s gone now.
And that doesn’t make me the least bit unhappy,” Derek said softly, his voice
shaky, he set his hand on Mike’s shoulder and Mike turned toward him, his face
taut. “You okay, Mike?”

“Yeah. I guess so. That… that thing! What was it? In
god’s name, what…?”

“A bad dream straight out of the Twilight Zone. Or
worse. Nothing I’d want to meet personally.” Derek gestured towards the front
of the car. “Did a number on your hood. Should we check?”

“Screw the hood. Let’s just get out of here.” Mike
dropped the transmission in gear and plowed through the mud. “We gotta stop at
my office.”

“Is there something there we need?”

“Yeah. It’s in a bottle in my desk.”

*          *          *

Sam’s place was an unexceptional mid-western beer
bar, complete with neon signs, dim lights, and a dirt parking lot. It was
filled to capacity when Derek and Mike went in. There were mostly work
vehicles; big bent-up pickup trucks that matched their owners’ needs and
personalities.

Usually, the men were rowdy and laughing, putting the
two old, worn pool tables to good use and keeping the bartender busy. But
tonight the mood was tense and serious. A few of the men had been drinking, but
most were sober, and the low growl of conversation showed the consuming worry
of the men.