Authors: Whitley Strieber
“Wait a minute.” He puffed on the cigar. “Sarajevo. Mean anything?”
Martin couldn’t think what it might be. He shook his head.
“World War One?” Wylie asked. “World War Two?”
Martin was mystified.
“Dad,” Trevor said, “they have huge wars here.” He pointed to a blood-spattered bookcase. “War books,” he said. “I’ve read some of them.”
“Look, we’ve been at war on this little earth of ours ever since the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914.”
“An archduke? Assassinated? That’s hard to credit.”
“You still have them, don’t you?”
“Of course. And Cuba is an American colony and there is no Fidel in the colonial leadership, and this business of an obscure historical figure’s gimcrack philosophy meaning anything-“
“Communism was the scourge of our world for seventy years,” Wylie said. “It took half a billion lives, and the world wars three hundred million more. It’s been carnage.”
Martin looked at the wall of the family room, dominated by its gun case. “We have too few of these.”
“You’re not wrong there,” Brooke said. “Violence attracts violence.”
Nick picked up what looked like a hand cannon that was lying on a table. He blew on the barrel. “Doesn’t it, though, Mom?” he said.
No child would ever address an adult like that at home, least of all one of his parents. “Wylie,” Martin said, “I’m wondering if you have any specific ideas about what we might do? Given your own toughness.”
“The shitheels are tough, too, and we’re likely to take a beating from ‘em, big time. And soon.”
“But you’ll-you’ll shoot.”
“Buddy, I seem to recall that your president tried a hydrogen bomb on Easter Island and it didn’t do jack shit. That isn’t exactly a lack of aggression, there, not by my definition. But the fact that it didn’t work-when I wrote those words, I have to tell you that I felt sick. Real, real sick. Because a hydrogen bomb is the best we’ve got, too.”
“However, if your world is at war all the time, you won’t have a British Battle Group demanding an explanation, will you? Not like us. By the time we got the superpowers to take an interest, it was all over.”
“The first wanderers were in England.”
“It takes a big empire like that a long time to act. In this case, too long, even if there was anything they could’ve done.”
“Wylie,” Trevor asked, “do you know why we’re here?”
“You had a conference last night and decided that you wanted to open up direct communications. Problem is, I have no more idea than you do what’s gonna help. I mean, you are already looking at one hell of a megadisaster. I don’t see how you can do anything. I have to tell you, I think you folks are done.”
Trevor asked, “Without the computer, can you still write?”
“No kid, I cannot. I tried using Nick’s laptop and Brooke’s laptop and Kelsey’s pink Mac, and nothing came. Nothing at all. Whatever magic there was, there ain’t.”
“Which we sensed,” Trevor said, “and why we came. Because we knew that things were going wrong for you.”
“You people are so-I don’t know, precise. The way you go about things, moving slowly from A to B to C-do you think you might be a little slower than we are? Mentally. Not quite as smart?”
“We’re not as aggressive,” Martin said. “Obviously, given all your wars, the communists, the smoke breathing, which I interpret as domination-symbolic-“
“Speak Greek. Your English is for shit.”
“Actually, I do have a little Greek. I’ve done some dig dating there, you see. Dating the Acropolis, which turned out to be noncontroversial, unlike some of my other work.”
“Which I know all about, of course. We have strange ruins here, too. Same ones. Plus very similar legends. A war in the sky, a great flood, all of that.”
“Meaning that they were here, too.”
“Momma,” Kelsey asked, “when are we gonna kill the man in the crawl space?”
“What man?” Trevor asked quickly.
“Dad’s got this really fucked-up guy from your universe trapped in our crawl space. He’s human, so we have this cop we know, he’s on his way to take a look.”
“It’s Al North, isn’t it? General North?”
“He’s in rather iffy shape,” Wylie said. “But I’m not gonna go killin’ people without the cops say it’s okay. If you get my drift.”
“Could we question him?” Trevor asked.
“Sure, waterboard the fucker, for all I care.” He sucked on the cigar, pulled it out of his mouth. “Use this on his eyes. Make ‘im chatty as hell, be my guest.”
Trevor took the thing from him, held it. “How would we?”
Nick laughed.
Wylie said, “Waterboarding is a form of torture, makes the chappie you’re curious about think he’s drowning. And as far as that cigar you’re holding is concerned, boy, you stick the business end of that thing in the sore eyesocket General Al is nursing, my guess is he’ll tell you more than his address.”
Trevor thrust the thing away from himself.
Wylie caught it before it could touch the floor. “Cuban, remember?” He sucked it, made a great cloud of smoke. “A thing of beauty.” He got up and strode across the room and into the kitchen.
Martin reflected that he might be a writer by trade, but he had the speed and power of a soldier about him. The boy did, too, and with her hard-set lips, the woman looked as if she could kill a man as soon as look at him. Only the little girl seemed vulnerable, or perhaps that was just because her cuddle toy was also called Bearish, and Winnie had been such a gentle child.
Wylie opened a trapdoor. “Howya doin’ down there, General? We’re gonna torture you in a min’, just wanted to let you know.” He closed the trap. “It’s called softening ‘em up.”
“He’s not playing with a full deck, Dad,” Nick said.
“Always remember this son, if they’re just playing with a half a deck it don’t matter as long as it’s your half, or even one card, if it’s the card you need.”
“We have no idea how to deal with Al North,” Nick said. “And neither do they.”
Silence followed. It was true enough.
Wylie opened his cell phone, dialed. “Where in fuck’s name are you, Matthew? I just finished your last Partagas, incidentally.” He listened. “Well, I’m telling you, the weirdness index up here has just shot through the roof. You need to put the fricking donut back in the fricking box and get your ass moving.” He hung up. “You know, I’m not saying a whole lot on the phone, so he thinks I’m bullshitting him some way, but I gotta tell you-” He stopped. Suddenly the bravado blew away like so much sea foam. He closed his eyes. Shook his head. “I saved my family,” he said softly, “me and my boy did.” Then he sat down. He took a long drag on the cigar.
A truck came bounding up to the house, its gears grinding as it negotiated the steep driveway. It came to a stop. “Ah, wait until the gentleman of the law does his body count.”
A tall man in a police uniform opened the front door and came in, using the same striding, aggressive walk that, it seemed to Martin, characterized them all.
“What in hell kind of a Hummer is that,” he said as he entered. Then he sniffed the air. He looked toward Brooke. “He dope you up or something?”
“He’s getting a reward for saving our lives.”
“From what? Some drug dealer’s fancy Hummer? Man, that’s a U.S. Army vehicle, full scale. You don’t see many of those puppies around. And in limo paint, no less.” He looked at Wylie. “Don’t tell me you purchased that thing? Buddy, that is gonna piss me off.”
“Matt, I want you to turn around and look at that man standing in front of the fireplace trying not to wet his pants. I want you to look into his eyes and tell me what you see there.”
The lean, narrow-faced man turned, and as he did, Martin saw that he did not carry a small firearm like Bobby, but a gun almost as big as the family’s hand cannon. Martin looked to the pistol and the great ham of a hand dangling beside it, then, reluctantly, up to the face. He let Matt look into his eyes.
“What happened to you?”
“I-it’s-“
“It’s a rapid evolutionary change induced by extreme species stress,” Wylie said. “That would be correct, wouldn’t it, Martin?”
“I would say so.”
“But, uh, excuse me, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” He thrust out his hand. “I’m Matt. Uh, hi.”
“Hi.”
“You-” He motioned with his chin, an expressive gesture.
“That’s right, we’re from over there. This is my son, Trevor.”
“So you’re the one lost Lindy and Winnie. Oh, Jesus, you poor guy.”
“Matt, I would recommend a very stiff scotch, but we don’t have time. What we do have is one of his compadres tied up in our crawl space. A very weird, very altered piece of work that used to be a general over there in their version of the U.S. Air Force, but is now a sort of monster designed to be able to function freely in both universes, apparently by being made into a cut-up mess. You wouldn’t believe it. I mean-you remember the guy downstate with the mutilated face?”
“Nunnally. Sure do.”
“The missing pieces have been sewn onto this man.”
“What?”
“Sewn onto him to provide a physical connection with our universe. Give him greater freedom of action. The theory. In fact, bullshit. It’s the seraph who have trouble moving around in our universe, not people. And he’s people. Was.”
“Okay, I’m getting an occasional word. There is a man in your crawl space that has-Nunnally-Nunnally’s body parts-“
“In a misbegotten attempt to enable him to function more freely in our universe.”
“And this is Martin and his kid.”
“Yessir.”
Matt looked at them again. He held out his hand. Martin shook it. “Wow,” Matt said. “You sure this is for real, Wylie?”
“Oh, yes, and what we need is for Frankenstein down in the cellar to tell these people something-what, Martin? What might he know that would help you?”
“If we could stop the seraph coming through, that would help us. If we could understand how to close their gateways, that would help us. Anything at all.”
“You’ve read the part about Samson’s journey to Abaddon?” Wylie asked. “Do you see a vulnerability there anywhere?”
“They’re in a hurry. So we need to slow them down,” Martin replied.
“Thing is, I also keep seeing an ending to my book, and in it I see these filthy huge cities full of starving seraph, and they are in your world. I do not see New York and Washington and London. Sorry, fellas, but I just don’t. What I see there is open ocean. Right now, looks like you lose.”
“Can this man extract information? Does he know these techniques?” Martin asked.
“He knows ‘em, Martin,” Wylie said. “He’s served in the Mideast in his time.”
“So you’ll torture General North for us?” Martin asked.
“I can’t do that!” Matt burst out.
“You gotta, buddy,” Wylie said. “Because once the seraph finish with these guys, we’re next.”
“We’ll cut their hearts out,” Matt muttered.
“What we’ve been through here, believe me, it will be mutual. No, we don’t wanna have them show up here, believe me. And this North cat is the key. So you are gonna help us. You are gonna devote five minutes to this effort.”
“It’s totally illegal!”
“He doesn’t exist in this universe, therefore has no legal standing. Therefore, Nick, go get your skateboard. I think we can do this with a skateboard and a towel.”
“I am not going to waterboard a goddamn general in any goddamn air force!”
“Yeah, you are.” Wylie pulled the trapdoor open. A stench of urine and blood rose from the crawl space. He looked inside. “Good morning, again, General. Visitors!”
General North’s eyes stared. His chest did not move. Wylie knew it at once: Al North was dead.
TWENTY
DECEMBER 20
THE GOOD SOLDIER
GENERAL AL NORTH HAD NEVER experienced pain like this. Although he had seen torture in Lebanon-men getting phosphorus splinters jammed under their fingernails and lit-he did not think for a moment that their pain, as awful as it was, approached this.
He was screaming, he knew that objectively, as if from a distance, but he also knew that no sound was coming out. He’d come into this strange place-a parallel universe, he had come eventually to realize-faithful to his orders, to carry out an assassination. He’d never expected to be asked to do such a thing, but this was war and we were desperate and the military and intelligence communities were in chaos, so, yes, he got why he had been called upon, and he resolved to do his duty.
Something is wrong!
He lay listening to the voices overhead. The man he had been sent to kill had proved to be a tiger, and his son was just as ferocious. Very frankly, they had overpowered Al, who was not a small man, and had excellent personal combat skills. He had not expected an adversary ready, willing, and able to gouge out eyes with his bare hands, or a child who would pick up a damn handgun the size of an anvil and just literally blow a grown man’s guts out. A child!
They’re not the enemy!
What was that? It was like part of his mind was yelling at him from behind a closed door. He had to get the hell up and get back out there, because those folks needed killing and they were still walking around. He was going to do them all. Massacre them, the women, too. Kill them all.
Don’t!
Yeah, that’s great, disobey a lawful order transmitted to you in person by your commanding officer, who also happened to be the acting commander in chief. He did not like Tom Samson, never had. The president had made a grave mistake giving him his appointment. But this was wartime and they’d just about had it, and under such circumstances you have no choice but to trust your superior officer.
You trust your own soul!
That voice-it was saying something. “Soldier,” perhaps. “Soldier, you’re dying,” that’s what it was saying.
He had not completed his mission and he had to get out of this hole and do the damn deed!
He fought to rise, could not. He closed his working eye, took a breath, then pressed downward with both hands. Rivers of agony swept up and down his arms and through his bubbling chest. His head went light. He fell back. His heart was thundering. Below the waist, no sensation at all.
He’d seen others in the house, he’d seen a Hummer come up.