Rising Fears (18 page)

He knew that they didn’t like him; knew they
couldn’t
like him. But he still reveled in the fact that, finally, someone was
listening
to him.

Albert smiled at her. Rock-solid babe. "The right question is why did we
see
Mr. Jones die? Why him specifically, and Ox, and Miss Hatty, and Sarah? Why did we see what happened to them, but not see what happened to everyone else?"

He waited for a moment. Surprisingly, it was Sheriff Meeks – whom Albert had always thought to be a bit slow in the head, people who talked as little as the sheriff did were generally either slow or shy – who came up with the answer.

"It’s because we knew," said Sheriff Meeks.

Albert nodded. "We knew what they feared," he said. "So we saw how they died. Because whatever is doing this…"

"…wants us to know what’s coming," said Miss Harris.

Albert nodded, then felt himself grow a bit downcast. "But
why
it wants us to know…that I haven’t figured out yet."

Again, Sheriff Meeks surprised him. "Time slows down," said the sheriff.

"What?" said Albert.

"I remember –" began the sheriff, then stopped himself from saying something. A second later, he said, "The worst part of fear is knowing what’s going to happen, and not being able to stop it."

"And being alone while it happens," added Lenore.

Albert nodded. "Like we are," he said. He again felt the crushing loneliness that had always followed him, the despair of knowing that no one would or could ever really love him. He nodded curtly, suddenly anxious to again prove his worth to the sheriff and Miss Harris so they wouldn’t ditch him out here.

He went inside his house.

***

Jason felt himself grow cold as he realized what fear did. He remembered The Dream, and the reality behind it; remembered how in every instance time slowed so that he couldn’t stop the shots, couldn’t stop the sick bastard from gunning down Elizabeth and Aaron.

If he’d only gotten there in time, they wouldn’t be gone right now.

It was his fault. They were gone and it was his fault.

He pushed that thought away as they entered the basement. Albert – he was a good kid, one that deserved better than he’d been given in life – hooked up his camcorder to some of the editing equipment he had in the basement and hit several buttons.

A large computer screen lit up. Haunting images flashed: the clocktower hands, blurred too fast. The flash of the ghost that had wandered past the Sheriff’s station in the mist, strange points on its head. The shriek of Jason’s own walkie-talkie.

Albert hit another button, and this time the scene appeared in slow motion. The clock reappeared, still moving fast, but this time clear enough to see that it was moving forward. The shape of the wraith in the mist, moving slower and appearing more solid, but still unrecognizable. The feedback of the walkie-talkie, lower pitched but still sounding like a fork scraping across plates.

Albert typed a bit, and this time the screen showed the clock in super slow motion. It appeared to be moving normally.

"So that’s why all the clocks seemed blurred?" Jason said.

The kid nodded. "The digital clocks were all moving too fast to see. Or better said, we were moving too
slow
to see them continue to move normally."

"What about the ghosts?" asked Lenore, and Jason nodded. What
were
they?

Albert clicked a mouse and the scene jumped ahead, to the spot where the ghost walked by. Only in slow motion it wasn’t a ghost.

Jason gaped.

It was a cop. The "horns" were now visible as the points on the officer’s hat. A gas mask was slung around his neck, and the goggles reminded Jason of the large eyes of the phantoms that he had glimpsed from time to time.

Albert stopped the playback with the officer frozen on the screen. "What do you want to bet that on the last day of the Harappan civilization everyone was scared shitless? War, famine, destruction, all the things we are afraid of today. It got to be too much, and their fears came alive to them. To us."

Albert clicked the mouse again and the playback continued. The cop raised his walkie-talkie and Jason suddenly realized why his own device had screeched so often when the "ghosts" had passed nearby: he was picking up on the transmissions of the cops’ walkie-talkies.

"No good," the cop said in a weird voice that Jason recognized was an effect of the time slowdown. "No one in the Sheriff’s station, either. It’s like the whole town just…disappeared."

"
We
disappeared," said Albert excitedly. "Not them,
us
. All those phantoms are probably cops, national guardsmen, people come to find out what happened to our town. Because we haven’t completely disappeared. We’re just moving slower than they are, in some parallel universe that just barely touches ours…a place existing solely through our fears."

"I still don’t understand why we would be moving so slow," said Lenore.

Jason cringed internally, remembering the night of the shooting. He had run and re-run the distance a million times in his mind, and each time he was moving too slow. Too slow. Aloud, he said, "Because fear slows down time for us. Anticipation stretches it out."

"And fear lives in that environment, in that place of slow-time," Albert said. "So our time slows down, which means that real time – the rest of the world’s time – passes faster than we can keep up. To them, we disappear."

"Until we die," said Lenore. "Then I bet we reappear to them. That’s why the ghosts congregate around the dead bodies: it’s the cops, investigating a body they’ve found; probably one that just appeared out of nowhere."

A thought struck Jason, and he grew coldly angry. "Then why am
I
here?" he demanded.

"Because of whatever you fear," said Albert.

"There’s nothing I’m afraid of," said Jason.

"There must be something," said Lenore. "Everyone’s afraid of something." Looking sad, as though she pitied him, the schoolteacher reached out to touch his arm.

Jason wheeled on her. "There’s nothing!" he almost shouted. He pulled something from his pocket: the shining bullet that he always kept there; the bullet he had almost used to blow his own brains out before this had all started. "When all you’ve got left is the bullet you made from the ones that killed everything you ever loved…." His voice trailed off and he felt his eyes glistening. "There’s nothing left to fear when that happens."

Lenore tried to hold his hand. "Sheriff, I’m so sorry."

"Sorry won’t bring them back!" he shouted, throwing her hand off his. Then he wheeled on Albert. "And you, kid: if this is powered by fear, then where’s
your
fear?" Without waiting for an answer he unplugged the camcorder. "This is crazy. You’re crazy."

Albert’s face went white, but Jason didn’t care. All he could think about was his family, lost forever. He had nothing
to
fear, because only the living had things to lose, and he had left their ranks years ago.

The boy was mumbling something, clearly trying to come up with words that would help, but Lenore said sharply, "Just leave him alone for a second, Albert." Her worry for Jason was clear on her face.

Albert backed away. Then he screamed.

Jason snapped out of his self-pity instantly, turning to see what new horror could be coming for them. And saw himself.

What? he thought. But it was true: he saw a vision of himself emerging from the shadows. It grabbed Albert and yanked him toward the stairwell. Jason blinked, trying to fathom what was going on. Before he could interpret the strange vision he was seeing, another
Lenore
stepped out of the shadows, too. Both doppelgangers converged on Albert.

The boy screamed. "No! No!"

Jason went to help him, and felt Lenore close behind. But before they could take more than a few steps, the lights went out, plunging everything into darkness. Albert was still screaming, and Jason could barely make out the shadowed figures of his and Lenore’s twins yanking the struggling kid up the stairs. He ran after them, up the stairs and out into the foyer, but the shadow versions of himself and Lenore were too fast. They yanked Albert out of the house and the door slammed shut behind them.

The mist writhed outside the broken bay window. "No, no, nooooooooooooo!" Albert was screaming. "Don’t do it! Don’t do it, I swear I didn’t mean to do anything, I –"

And then the screams ceased with a cry and a wet gurgle as of a throat being cut. The mist withdrew slightly. Jason got ready to jump out the bay window, but felt a light hand on his arm. It was Lenore. She was crying.

She shook her head. "
We
killed him."

Jason realized how close to tears she was. "No," he said. "Whatever did this may have looked like us, but it wasn’t me." He took her hand in his. "And it wasn’t you, either, okay?"

Lenore jumped as a phantom passed by the window. Jason laughed wryly. "Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. It’s just a cop."

The wind billowed, driving some of the mist into the house. Then it withdrew, leaving something behind. A note. Crayon.

yoU R NEXT

Lenore instantly began to shake with fear. "He’s here," she whispered. "Cowles is here."

Jason looked out the window again. The mist roiled and rolled angrily. "No, he’s not," he said, trying to reassure Lenore though he did not feel very safe or certain himself.

"He’s here," she insisted. "He’s coming."

"It’s just fear," said Jason, and felt bitterness rise up inside him. He had no fear. Nothing to live for, nothing to lose. "Fear is just like everything else," he continued. "It dies if you let it." He couldn’t hide the bitterness in his words, even as he tried to impart a measure of hope to Lenore.

"I want to live, Jason," said Lenore, her gaze whipping back and forth between his face and the mist outside. "He’s here, he’ll find me, he’ll
finish
me this time."

"No, he won’t," said Jason.

"He will," she insisted.

"No, he won’t," he said again. "I won’t
let
him." And as he said that, the words bloomed inside him. He
did
have something to live for, after all. He gathered Lenore into his arms and held her tightly. "I won’t let him."

He felt Lenore go rigid in his embrace for a moment, then she relaxed and melted into him. They gave one another what solace could be given in this terror, and Jason felt life return in some small measure to his heart.

***

***

Jason drew his gun and aimed it out the window. He pushed Lenore behind him, shielding her from her fear as best he could.

But it was no use. The force that powered Cowles’ existence did not center on him, it centered on Lenore. So when she moved behind Jason, the thug appeared there suddenly, grabbing her away and then yanking her out into the mist before Jason could react. He wanted to shoot the man, but the struggling form of Lenore was in the way and he didn’t want to hit her.

So he leapt out the window after them, running headfirst into the mist that had thickened even further. He could hear Lenore screaming, an aural beacon in the fog that he followed as rapidly as he could.

He saw shadows all around, but no Lenore. Then…there! A kicking foot, reminiscent of another kicking foot, dragged into an alley.

Jason threw off the cobwebs of memory and pursued Lenore and her kidnapper.

"Help, Jason!" screamed Lenore. "Hel –" And then her voice cut off and she was silent.

Jason had no time to despair; no time to think what he could do. In the instant that Lenore went silent, a pair of shadows moved out of the mist. Only these were not the police or guardsmen who were patrolling the empty town of Rising. It was a woman and her child, a mother and her son.

It was too much. All thoughts of Lenore fled in an instant as he engulfed his family in an embrace. He smiled, lost in his wife’s loving eyes, then tousled his son’s hair.

"I’m sorry," he said. "I’m so sorry."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Shh. It’s all right, sweetheart."

She kissed him, long and deep…and then Jason pulled away. He looked at her deeply and said the hardest words he had ever said: "You’re not real."

"We could be," said Aaron, and the little boy’s voice, while still Aaron’s, now carried an undertone of madness and despair. A voice from Hell that tried to masquerade as a small piece of Heaven.