CHAPTER 9.

The spirit hovered in the searing daylight air. It had been tracking Ed Miller for some time, ever since he had come up the road from Taylor Lake, lugging his fishing gear and lurching like he was about to fall. The midday sun burned like molten lava, sucking any moisture from the atmosphere. Ed was mumbling, his speech a litany of the errors of this world, how the lake was too crowded these days, and how hot it was, but the form in the air could not explain the action of sound being carried in the wind, nor the meaning in the words.

Ed stumbled off the road onto a narrow path that cut through the trees, cursing as he fell to one knee. He wasn't really old, but a hard life had left him scarred, and his bones groaned upon impact. Ed tottered back to his feet and retrieved the pole and tackle box, which had tumbled out in front of him. Swearing, he started up the path again.

As the spirit kept pace with Ed, it could tell that he had become aware of something out of the ordinary. Ed's pace, at first leisurely, had suddenly quickened, and he had stopped grumbling. The fishing rod in his right hand, that had previously dangled without threat, now pointed forward, as if Ed were wielding a sword.

The presence knew Ed. The man's ethereal past, his blood, his past generations, were calling to it. If the presence had familiarity with any good emotion, it would've experienced a sense of pleasure, or at least a sense of rightness. But the form knew only that it wanted release, and that the being down there, walking along a faint path in the woods, would help it achieve its goal.

Ed began muttering again, the words still without a context for the spirit. But it sensed the fear stemming from the human below.

"d.a.m.n spooks," Ed said, his eyes darting into the trees. "'s like a ghost or somethin'."

The spirit moved closer, narrowing the gap between hunter and hunted.

Ed stopped and pulled a bottle out of the tackle box. He put it to his lips and took a long swig. The maple-colored liquid slid down his throat, its fire easing his jangled nerves.

"What's that?" he whirled around, pointing the fishing rod at the empty trail behind him. "Who's there?" He didn't see or hear anything, but in a court of law, he'd have sworn something was there. He bent his head and used his shirt sleeve to wipe sweat from his brow, careful not to tip the bottle in his hand.

"You ain't getting none of my hooch," he called out. His words echoed off into the trees with a hollow sound. The air stirred around him. It felt hot and toxic. And dangerous.

"Samuel," he said, referring to his friend, "I'm warnin' you. If you try anything stupid, I..." He didn't know what he would do, so he let the sentence hang unfinished along with the threatening impression that surrounded him.

He turned back around and started walking again, gear in one hand, bottle in the other. "I gotta get back home and get some food. That'll clear my head."

Suddenly a sensation of dread pa.s.sed through him. He shuddered.

Then in a swift motion, the dread turned into terror. He felt a crushing weight on his chest, felt his breath pushed from his lungs. His heart twisted coldly, the blood in his veins like ice. He bent backwards with the weight of the force thrust upon him. He looked up at the sky, and in a fleeting, pain-filled moment, he saw only an absence of light. A shadow enveloped him as the fishing pole, tackle box, and bottle dropped to the ground.

He shrieked, but the black nothingness captured the sounds of his screams, and they died in the darkness.

CHAPTER 10.

After Rory left the general store, he strolled down the dock to his boat, whistling as he went, thinking about his impending date with Anna. He was glad she'd said yes. He smiled as he bent down to untie his boat.

"They're coming."

Rory leapt into the air, one hand pressed to his thumping heart.

"Geez, Brewster! You scared me half to death!" Rory had been so preoccupied with Anna that he hadn't heard the old man approach. "What the h.e.l.l?"

Brewster narrowed his gaze and fixed it pointedly on Rory. The whites in his eyes looked menacing. "You watch out, boy. There's danger across the lake."

Rory had regained his composure, and now his fear was surmounted by anger. "Yeah, right. Because Burgess Barton went crazy and disappeared. You think you could've picked a different time to tell me that?"

"People thought he went crazy," Brewster said carefully, his body erect, muscles taut. "But that's not true."

"Oh no?" Just as quickly as it flared up, Rory's anger dissipated. He put a hand on Brewster's shoulder, but the old man shook it off. "Things are changing." He stared out into the clear blue sky. "Can't you tell?"

Rory shook his head.

"One has to gather them first. He'll call them, bring the rest together."

"What're you talking about?"

Brewster ignored the question. "Your cabin," he said cryptically. "He was there, and he knew. Just like I know."

"Who?"

"Burgess Barton." Brewster suddenly leaned closer, studying Rory. "When they come, they'll try and get you. They'll call for you, but you gotta fight back, like Barton did. You fight back, you hear?"

Rory felt a pressure in his chest, anxiety looming within him. "Who'll come?"

But Brewster went on. "He tried to stop them. He chronicled it. You look for that, because it's there. Maybe in the mine. But it's there. You find it."

"Find what? What am I supposed to look for?"

"It's there," Brewster said. "People think I'm a fool. But I'm not." He suddenly looked like the old man he was. His face sagged as he gazed at Rory before turning on his heels.

"Wait," Rory said, grabbing at him. But Brewster ignored him, shuffling off down the dock, his shoulders hunched, strands of his white hair flowing around his head.

Rory's good mood drifted off across the lake, swept away by Brewster's outburst. "What was that all about?" he asked himself. He got into his boat and rowed back to the cabin, the air hot and still around him. The lake looked as smooth as polished marble. By the time he arrived at the cabin, he was exhausted. "Whew. I'm out of shape," he muttered as he went up the path from the dock. The long road trip west had caught up to him.

He took a stack of articles that he'd gotten from the University library, went out onto the porch and sat in the sun for a while, taking pleasure in the fact that no boats ventured this far out, that he had some solitude from the tourists of the Crossing. He tried to concentrate on his research, but his encounter with Old Man Brewster kept interfering. What did Brewster mean about looking for something? Look for what? And what was that business about a chronicle? He read a few pages, wondering if they would hold a clue to what Brewster had said, but his eyes began to droop. He finally stopped reading and decided to take a nap. With a huge yawn, he dragged himself into the house and into the bedroom. He sprawled on the bed, thoughts of Brewster mulling around in his head.

He stared at the ceiling, aware of the complete silence. Soon the heat enveloped him. His eyelids closed and he fell asleep.

He awoke an hour later with a start. He'd been dreaming. Not a good dream that left you wishing it was real. This dream was vividly real and a true nightmare.

He was in the woods north of the cabin, picking his way through the rough terrain that was so familiar it was as if he'd lived here before. He knew exactly where he was heading and he couldn't stop himself from going there. Walls of green trees surrounded him, and he knew that he shouldn't have any idea which way to turn, but paradoxically, he did know where to turn.

He arrived at a mineshaft, nothing more than a gaping hole in the side of the mountain, so covered with underbrush that it was impossible to see unless you knew it was there. Just behind the foliage, huge beams, so new that sap oozed from cracks in the wood, supported the opening, which beckoned like the black mouth of a ghoul. The mine was unfamiliar to Rory, but he found it as if he had been there a thousand times.

Then he was inside the mine tunnel, floating down, down, down. He kept falling and he couldn't stop himself, nor could he see. He landed in a cavernous underground room, holding a pickaxe in one hand and a burning torch in the other. His faded overalls were covered in dirt. He began to search. The cave concealed something and it was imperative that he find it. Tributary tunnels forked out in several directions and he had to choose one. But just as he made a decision and was about to enter one of the pa.s.sageways where he knew the object was, an evil-smelling gust of wind snuffed out his torch. Yet the shallow glow from the torch remained, pale light bouncing off the rock walls. Shivers of fear ripped through him. He tried to scream but he couldn't make any sound.

He turned to run and plowed right into a tall man who blocked his way. The man was almost a mirror image of himself, with the same wavy dark hair and blue eyes, dressed in the same dirt-covered overalls, with the pickaxe and torch in his hands. The man was talking to him, his puckered lips moving quickly, his jaw working furiously. But no sound came out of his mouth.

As Rory stared at him, the man raised his arms. The mining tools were gone, and in their place the man held a revolver. Rory tried to run but his feet were stuck to the rocky floor. The man fixed his gaze on him, and as he watched, the man's eyes rolled up into his head, and his skin turned molten red and black as it fell from his face in flecks. Blood dripped down off the man's skull as his jawbones clacked together, rotten teeth forming a ghostly chatter. Then the jaws opened wide and screams ripped through a gaping hole, tearing through the tunnel like a windstorm.

The cave disappeared, and Rory was suddenly standing behind the cabin, only it was the original one-room cabin that Barton had built, with the tall chimney and rough-hewn walls, and an outhouse at the edge of the clearing. Gray matter covered the walls, the substance shifting as if it were alive. Rory walked around the cabin and stood on the path leading up to it.

He started up to the front door, but stopped when he heard a noise behind him. He turned and looked out over the lake. He saw no boats, and heavy clouds hung low over the water, obscuring the buildings on the other sh.o.r.e. The sound intensified, a cacophony of voices shrieking at him. Then, bluish bodies broke the clear surface of the water, ghouls with sunken faces and arms hanging limply at their sides. They glided toward him, their piercing cries coming from deep within their souls.

Rory rolled into a sitting position, the sheets rumpled underneath him, his breaths coming in short gasps. He looked at the clock. Just after eleven in the morning. He got up and went into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, then went into the kitchen.

He tried to a.n.a.lyze the dream while he made coffee. Running into Old Man Brewster must've triggered it, he thought as he waited for the coffee to brew. Once it was ready, he poured a cup and took it to the table, sitting down facing the window where he could look out beyond the porch and over the rocky sh.o.r.e, all the way toward Taylor Crossing.

He understood that in the dream he was the miner, with the garb and tools. In the day since he'd been here, he'd heard stories about Barton supposedly mining somewhere near the cabin, and he was curious about where the mine was, if it existed at all. That must've crept into his subconscious and come out in the dream, he thought as he took a sip of coffee.

His hands grew clammy as he thought of the cave and tunnels. He set the cup down and rubbed his palms on his jeans, hoping the flashback he was having would be wiped away with the sweat on his hands. The mist. A tunnel that turned into a mist. But the darkness of the mist, its very essence that begged for light, brought fear to him even now.

He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to think rationally. It wasn't hard to tie that part of the dream to what he'd seen in New York, right before the car struck him. That evil he'd seen was the same one in the dream. Was it coming to visit him again? It felt like that right now. He thought about what Brewster said. They're coming. Who? Those ghouls coming out of the lake? And what in the world did all this have to do with him? Strange things were going on in his own life, he knew that, but he couldn't explain any of it or see if it related to Taylor Crossing.

He got up and went outside. The temperature was rising, even in the shade of the tree branches that hung over the porch. Something about the heat bothered him, but he couldn't think what. Then he remembered. The article he'd read in the New York Public Library mentioned that it was unseasonably hot at the time that the townspeople disappeared. Did it mean anything that it was so hot now?

Too many weird things were happening to him. The voices, the dream. Old Man Brewster's ravings about strange things happening and mysterious stuff coming. He wanted to chalk it all up to coincidence, but he couldn't.

"What the h.e.l.l did that old man mean?" he muttered, flinging the dregs from his coffee cup onto the dirt off the porch.

He went back inside and grabbed some of the research material he'd been reading earlier, but he still couldn't concentrate. One has to gather them first, the old man's words seemed to supplant the words on the page he held. Who gathers whom?

He was sitting at the table in the kitchen, staring pensively into s.p.a.ce, when he thought he heard a noise, someone calling him. Only it sounded like it came from a great distance away. He stopped and listened. He could hear his heart thud in his ears.

He got up and went out on the porch. The boats on the dock were still there, far off, and a breeze rustled the water into an uneven, dune-like surface. He stood perfectly still, but no boats approached and no one called out to him.

"I'm going crazy," he muttered, going back into the cabin.

Then he stopped cold. He heard it again, almost a whisper, just beyond his hearing. He turned around and surveyed the living room area. Everything was the way it had been since he first got there.

He walked through the room and into the hall. And then he heard it a third time. A voice, almost crying, in the distance, but he couldn't make out any words.

"Who's there?" he said to the emptiness, waiting a minute. He thought he heard something, an answer maybe, and then it was gone. He flashed on a memory, Broadway near Times Square. Then it too was gone. He laughed uneasily. "Now I sound like the people I write about." But he knew he heard something. And it shook him.

Geez, he thought. Brewster was right. The old man's words replayed in his mind: They'll try and get you. They'll call for you.

Who?

CHAPTER 11.

The spirit had come from the ancient days after the Great Flood, surviving in this plane, striving for the next. And now it was more than a presence. It had become flesh and blood, its evil intertwined with Ed Miller. It had awareness of this present world. It was within this time and s.p.a.ce. And yet it knew of other times and other s.p.a.ces, ethereal memories woven within the soul of the man. They were one now, and with this body, the spirit could begin to achieve its goal of entering that other s.p.a.ce, of being released from its captivity in this realm.

Ed stood in the middle of a clearing in the woods, controlled by the force that had taken over. He faced toward the sun that shone like a beacon in the blue heavens. It burned intensely, a full orb observing the scene below, while the giant pine trees watched over what was about to occur. A sudden breeze stirred the dry gra.s.s at his feet while the rest of the woods stayed eerily still.

Ed knelt down and closed his eyes, breathing slowly, willing himself into an empty state where only he and the spirit resided. Past and present merged. Then the man sat back on his haunches. He was unaware of the moving gra.s.s. The smell of pine and dry dirt did not penetrate his near-catatonic state. The remote cry of a frightened animal meant nothing to him.

He began to visualize. First an abyss bathed in total blackness, a cavernous grave. Then water rushing over it like an eternal seal. Out of that blackness came a wave of spectral beings, shadows flying in the night. And finally, evil. A malevolence with all the powers of darkness at hand.

Ed opened his eyes. He stared into the sky with a vacuous gaze. The air around him turned hot and void of substance, as if the oxygen, carbon dioxide and other elements had been sucked away. It had no smell, other than of death. The noises of the woods grew silent, retreating from the threat of evil that invaded the forest. The man inhaled the dead air. Then he beckoned for the evil to come.

Darkness flowed into the sky above him. The sun was blotted out behind the menacing shadows. In the small clearing, a whirlwind of fire sprang up from the center of the clearing and surrounded him, whipping about him furiously. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the maelstrom swirled up into the blue above, a quick flash in time. The air remained stale, and the sounds of the forest were silenced. But the presence of evil lingered. And man and spirit knew.

They were coming.

CHAPTER 12.

Old Man Brewster ambled along Main Street, cursing at the cars lined up along the sh.o.r.e of Taylor Lake.

d.a.m.n these people, he thought to himself. Don't know any better than to come to this G.o.dforsaken place. He halted and stared out at a fisherman in a wooden boat, his legs dangling out into the water, fishing pole waving back and forth in a poor attempt to attract fish.

"Don't know nothin', do ya," Brewster muttered to himself. His white cotton shirt stuck to him, wet patches under his arms and on his back. Hotter than h.e.l.l, he thought, drying his lined face with his shirttail.

And then he saw it. Over the hillside from the Crossing, darkness rocketed out of the sky like a black tornado that was suddenly sucked into the atmosphere, disappearing in an instant. He felt a jolt of pure evil hit him, coming out of nowhere, knocking him nearly senseless for a moment. He swore savagely. It's started, he thought. He wiped sweat from his face again. And they're takin' the moisture right outta the air. A car drove by, nearly running him over, coating him with dust. He coughed harshly.

All these d.a.m.n people, he thought again. He squinted and watched the car disappear up the road.

He heard snickering and turned to notice a group of hikers outside the general store eyeing him curiously. He waved a bony hand dismissively at them, noticing that their looks turned slightly mean. Fools, he thought, hitching his jeans up. Don't know what they're doing up here. They should watch out.

"Don't know what you're doing here anyway," he said out loud. They all turned and busied themselves with loading their backpacks, stealing glances at him over their shoulders. One of the girls in the group laughed, then quickly covered her mouth.

"Ha!" Brewster gloated, thinking he'd embarra.s.sed her.

Another car drove up Main Street, parking at the Silver Dollar Cafe. A family of four got out and went inside. Daddy was right, he thought. Give any fool an excuse, and they'll come running to this place. Even if they could smell the danger, they'd still come. These days they flocked here for the lake and the hiking. But Brewster remembered his daddy talking about his daddy, and how all the fool people came because of the gold. Even when there wasn't any more to be found, they still came. Smelling that ore. Hoping to strike it rich. But hoping to be rich and dying poor were two different things, at least that's how Brewster saw it.

He stared out over the mountains at the mine tailings speckled amongst the trees. Ever since he'd come back to the Crossing all those years ago, he'd wondered about this place. He knew people looked at him like he was a shovel-full short of filling a hole, but he was smarter than he appeared. He'd returned because he hated big cities, hated people, their music, their barking dogs, and their car noise. The d.a.m.n noise. But now he had come to an understanding. All these years living here, and he finally knew why his daddy never wanted to come back to the Crossing, why he preferred living in his broken-down trailer outside of Nederland.

Brewster shook his head, not noticing that the hikers were making their way toward him. All those years growing up, listening to his daddy rant and rave. He knew that talk his daddy gave years ago, could hear it like it was yesterday.