Rushed (25 page)

“Are you stuck here forever?”

Edgar shrugged.  “Couldn’t tell you.  Haven’t been here forever yet.  I sure as hell
hope
I’m not.  I
hope
we get to move on when
you
finish what you came to do.”

“If I succeed.” 

“If you succeed.”

Eric stared at the man as he moved on from one vehicle to the next.  It was difficult to grasp the idea that he was speaking to a ghost, even more difficult to believe that Taylor, Grant and Annette had all been nothing more than spirits.  They had all seemed so real, so tangible.  But now that he thought about it, they’d all appeared as if out of nowhere.  Though they had each interacted with their environments in some way—Annette had her laundry, Grant his tractor, Taylor his tools and Edgar these long-discarded vehicles—he hadn’t touched any of them himself.  Not one of them had offered to shake his hand. 

One thing bothered him, though. 

“What about Ethan?”

Edgar sighed.  “Annette’s still waiting for him to come home, isn’t she?”  He lifted the hood on an old Chrysler and peered in at the long-rusted engine.  “But he never came home.  Took a turn for the worst.  Died in the middle of the night while she was asleep at home.  Couldn’t accept it.  She died just a few months later, still refusing to believe he wasn’t coming home, and that’s how she exists now, always waiting for him to come back home to her.  She just couldn’t handle it.  She couldn’t take losing someone again.”

Eric recalled the way Annette talked to him about her father’s death, as if he weren’t a complete stranger.  It wasn’t hard to imagine how difficult it might be to keep losing people you loved so much.  “But why isn’t Ethan here with her?”

“Because he died in a hospital bed, some twenty miles away.  She died in her home, here in the fissure.  He moved on.  He escaped while the rest of us were trapped.  And poor Annette ended up trapped twice.  Once here in the fissure and once inside herself.” 

THAT IS SO SAD!

It
was
sad.  It was probably the saddest thing Eric had ever heard in his life.  He felt terrible for poor Annette. 

Edgar stood and silently stared at the rusted engine of the Chrysler as a scrounger wormed its way up and over the fender.  It looked like a cross between a lizard and a bug, about thirty inches long, with six frog-like feet on very short stubs of legs.  It had no tail and no neck, only a snake-like head with a wide, toothless mouth and great, blank eyes that, like the rest of its body, were a muddy brown. 

The old man watched the creepy creature flop gracelessly into the grass.  “They ain’t got no teeth, but you still don’t want to get bit by one.  Their saliva’s toxic.  Might not kill you, necessarily, but it’d feel like your skin was on fire.  You’d have terrible hallucinations and there’s a good chance you could go blind.”

Now Eric’s skin was crawling.  His eyes swept the grass around him, alert for dark shapes creeping toward him. 

Edgar grinned.  “Don’t worry.  They rarely bite people.  They mostly eat bugs and rodents.  You’d pretty much have to step on one to goad it into biting you.”

Eric still wanted to get out of the salvage yard and as far away from the scroungers as possible. 

His cell phone buzzed inside his pocket, but he chose to ignore it.  He did not like the idea of further dividing his attention in a field full of venomous scroungers.  His luck today wasn’t the worst it could have been, seeing that he was still alive, but it also wasn’t the kind he’d want to take on a weekend in Vegas. 

“So you’ll be heading for the cathedral now, I take it.”

“I don’t see any other alternative.  I keep hearing that the dream will drive me crazy.”

“It might.  Or it might not.  That would be up to you, I guess, whether you’re strong enough to take it.  But for sure, the only way to make it stop is to go to the cathedral.  You do that and one way or another you won’t have that dream again.”

“One way or another…  Nice.”

“You wanted me to be truthful.”

“I did.”

Edgar lowered the Chrysler’s hood again and began walking between the isles of long-forgotten vehicles.  Eric walked with him.  “Straight ahead is the old driveway.  You can just make it out.  About half a mile ahead, it’ll clear out and you’ll find yourself on a dirt path.  Don’t even think about turning around.  Try to follow the road back to here and you’ll be lost forever in the other world.”

“One way road.  Got it.”  After all he’d seen he did not doubt this to be true for even a second.  “By the way, how far have I gone now?”

“You’re in the extreme northwest of Wisconsin now.”

That was a long way from where he started. 

“By the time you get to the cathedral, you’ll be somewhere in northern Minnesota.  No one’s sure exactly where it is.  You technically can’t even get there from here.  The only way to reach the cathedral is to walk the entire length of the fissure, starting at Annette’s house.”

Annette’s house.  That was where the dream began…

Eric nodded.  If he’d been told he was in the Congo, he’d have little reason to doubt it. 

“Like the others, I’ll be leaving you to go on alone.”

Eric turned and looked at the old man.  “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Edgar looked back at him.  He did not wear any question on his expression.  He did not even pretend ignorance.  He only waited.

“You and the others.  You’re not just random, are you?  It’s no coincidence that you all lived and died in the fissure.  You have a connection to the cathedral.”

Edgar did not lie.  “We do.”

“Are you at least going to tell me what it is?”

Edgar considered it for a moment.  Eric didn’t think he would respond, that this information was simply not for him to have.  But he was about to be surprised. 

“This thing you’re looking for, the thing that’s hidden inside the cathedral…we were the ones who put it there.  Nearly a hundred years ago.”

This caught Eric off guard.  “You put it there?”  He’d assumed that whatever was at the cathedral had simply always been there, or at the very least that it had been there for untold ages.  He never even considered the possibility that someone had walked this path before him. 

“I had a dream just like yours once.  We all did.  Except there were six of us.  There was me and Taylor, Grant, Annette and Ethan.  We were the five who survived the trip.  And we all stayed here to make sure what we left there remained safe.  Only Ethan moved on when he died.  The rest of us are here still.”

“And you’re still not going to tell me what it is you put there, are you?”

“Can’t.  We never knew what it was.  We weren’t allowed to see it.  We all followed our dreams and we all ended up in the same Illinois hayfield, gathered around a curious little clay pot.  Each of us knew somehow that we weren’t allowed to open the lid and look inside.”

“So the six of you carried it north.  All the way to the cathedral.  And one of you died along the way.”

“Ben.”

“His name was Ben?”

Edgar nodded. 

Eric started to ask what became of him, but he found he did not want to know.  Somehow, he felt that knowing what happened to Ben would only make the task ahead of him harder. 

Edgar was staring at him now, studying him.  “How have you done in your dream?  Are you better today than you would have been?”

Eric remembered his mangled hand.  His head fuzzy with morphine, he never learned Edgar’s secrets in the dream.  He’d only learned the way forward and stumbled blindly on.  He recalled the three golems, the foggy man.  But he also recalled Father Billy.  Isabelle.  “I’m definitely better off today,” he replied. 

“Good.  Our dreams were different, too.  Some things were better.  Some things were worse.  To this day, I’m not sure which was better.”

The two of them reached the edge of the salvage yard and stopped.  Eric could see where the old drive used to be by the gap in the trees, but the brush and branches had crowded it until it was barely recognizable.  If he wasn’t careful, he could easily wander off the path and get lost forever. 

“Off you go,” Edgar said.  “Might as well get on with it.”

Eric nodded.  He considered asking if he should expect to run into more creatures between here and the cathedral, but decided he was better off not knowing.  As long as he remained aware of the possibilities, he was as prepared as he was ever going to get.  “Thank you,” he said, but as he turned, he found that Edgar had already turned away and was walking back toward the salvage yard.  Like the others, he did not disappear.  He simply walked away like a man still of flesh and blood.  He lifted a hand in a silent wave. 

Finally, Eric understood his apparent fondness for the cars.  They were just like him:  long forgotten. 

Pulling the phone from his pocket, he snapped a picture of the old man, just to see what would happen.  He examined the picture and then watched as Edgar strolled off between the vehicles. 

Turning away and pushing into the brush that had overrun the driveway, Eric wondered if he, too, would eventually become one of these many forgotten things. 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Eric had only walked about a hundred paces beyond the edge of the salvage yard when his cell phone rang again.  It was Paul.

“How’s the standoff?”

“Over,” replied Paul.  “Stupid thing ran off as soon as it heard Kevin’s truck.”

“Anticlimactic.”

“No shit.  It would’ve been nice if it’d stuck around long enough to make it look like I wasn’t just
imagining
the damn thing.”

“You got pictures at least.”

“I did…  But pictures can be faked.  I would’ve rather had Kevin run the little freak over.  Then I’d have
real
proof.”

“Someone would’ve argued that it must be endangered.  Then there’d be hell to pay.”

“I guess.  But it bit me!  How do I know I don’t have rabies or something?”

“I don’t think it was rabid.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m pretty certain.”

“Fine.  Can’t believe I wasted almost my whole day sweating in a stupid cabin.”

“Well I told you not to go.”

“I think we already covered that.”

“Just making sure I made my point.”

“You made your point.”

“Good.”

“What about you?  Where are you?”

“Northern Minnesota, somewhere, I think.”  Technically, he was most likely still in Northwestern Wisconsin, since he’d only just left Edgar behind.  But at any moment he could jump forward. 

“Damn, you’re moving.”

“I know.”

“Do you know how much farther you have left to go?”

“I should be arriving at the cathedral soon…”

“Then what?”

“No idea.  I’m flying by the seat of my pants here.”

“You’re doing considerably better than I did.”

“Well, I
was
chosen
for this.”

“Oh aren’t you special.”

“Apparently I am.”

“Right.”

Eric grinned.  “I’ll probably be something of a legend around here…  You’ll be the dumb brother who got chased by a mutant baby rhino.”

“Nice.”

“Over time it’ll probably evolve, like legends do.  I’ll be all buff and manly, spouting cool one-liners as I battle all the monsters with my bare hands.  Instead of a cabin, you’ll be hiding in a tree.  Crying.  It’ll make a great bedtime story.”

Paul chuckled.  “That sounds like just my luck.”

“I may start the tree rumor myself.”

“Shithead.”

Eric laughed.  It was a humorous thought.  He could almost imagine that all those epic heroes of literature were really only awkward people like him who stumbled along strange paths just like this one. 

Paul laughed too.  It was hard not to.  It had been such an odd day for them both.  “I’m going to hang up and try to sleep a little.  I’m exhausted and I still have to drive my truck home.”

“Lucky.  I’m going to go find this probably terrifying cathedral and try not to die.”

Paul didn’t find this funny.  “Be careful,” he said. 

“I intend to.”

“Let me know you’re okay.”

“I will.”

Eric said goodbye and hung up.  It was a relief knowing that Paul was no longer in the fissure.  It was one less thing for him to think about as he made his way through the trees toward his goal. 

The cathedral. 

He kept thinking of Father Billy and his prediction that he would “die screaming in the festering asshole of the almighty cathedral.”  It was funny how the most vulgar of descriptions were the ones you remembered most clearly.  And Father Billy had obviously possessed a talent for turning vulgarity into poignant honesty.

He claimed that no one who entered the cathedral would survive.  He said the gas station attendant told him that it would claim anyone who went looking for its secrets.  And the gas station attendant had admitted to saying as much. 

Yet he was still urged onward, a lamb to slaughter. 

Eric pushed on, ignoring the hot dread he felt growing deep in his belly. 

The cell phone rang again.  It was Karen. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m not dead so I can’t complain.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

“Sorry.”

“Hey, I did a search for Taylor Parlorn in some family tree databases and I got a hit in the same county as Gold Sunshine Resort.  It might be a relative.”

“Let me guess, the guy died in the sixties?”

“Um…  Yeah.  How did you know?”

“It wasn’t a relative.”

“I don’t understand.”

Eric told her about Edgar and the revelations that their conversation had spawned. 

“Wait…  So you’re telling me these people were all
ghosts
?”

“I’m pretty certain of it.”

“That’s crazy.  You don’t even believe in ghosts.”

“I
didn’t
.  Now…  Well, things change.”

“Maybe they were lying to you.  Maybe it’s all a trick.”

“I don’t think so.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I took a picture of Edgar before I left.”

“Really…?”

“I’ll send it now.”

“Okay.”

Eric hung up and sent the picture to her.  A moment later, she called him again. 

“That’s so weird.  Is that where he was standing?”

“It was.”  The picture showed clearly the salvage yard and the dozens of rusted vehicles.  But where Edgar had been walking away from him, there was nothing more than a faint blurring, as if the lens had been dirty. 

“But that picture of Isabelle wasn’t like that.”

“Isabelle isn’t dead.  She’s…  Well…  Something else.”

“I guess so…”

“You don’t really believe it.”

“I do,” she argued.

“Not really.”

“I…  Well…  I don’t know.  It’s hard.  It’s all so…”

“Weird.  Yeah.  I got that.”

“I’m sorry.  It’s hard.  But I don’t
not
believe you.  I know you’re not lying to me.”

“Well that’s a start.”

“I just…”

“I know.  The alternatives aren’t very appealing.  Either I’m telling you the absolute truth and it’s going against everything you’ve ever believed possible, or it’s all a lie, in which case either I’m completely insane and making this all up as I go, or somebody’s totally screwing with my head.  Believe me, I’ve considered the possibilities.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“That’s good.”

“I just wish you were home already.”

“Me too.  But it looks like I’ve got one more stop to make.”

“The cathedral.”

“Yeah.  It’s up ahead somewhere.  And I’m sure I’ll be losing my connection soon.”

Looking around, he realized that the landscape was already changing.  The brush was thinning out, the grass beneath his feet quickly thinning to bare earth.  The trees were receding, the terrain growing rocky again. 

“I’m going to have to go.  I doubt you’ll hear from me again before I get to the cathedral.”

“I’m scared,” she confessed, finally letting out the words that she’d been bottling up all day. 

“I know.  Me too.  But there’s literally no way back.”  He glanced over his shoulder and realized that the brush he’d just pushed through was far less overgrown.  The path that lay behind him was not the same path he’d just walked.  Like Edgar told him, this was a one-way road.

“Please be careful,” Karen begged.  Her voice crackled.  The connection was nearly gone. 

“I will.  I promise.  Now I’ve got to go.”

She said something else, but her voice was lost in static.  He did not dare try to back up to find the signal again.  Instead, he just said, “Bye Karen,” and hung up the phone. 

Before him, an earthen path wound through the familiar rocky terrain of the fissure.  The trees thinned away until there were none standing before him and he was climbing a steep hill in a mostly barren landscape. 

He remembered climbing this hill in his dream.  He was afraid.  His mind was cloudy.  His mangled hand throbbed ceaselessly. 

He still couldn’t remember what waited beyond the crest of the hill, but there was a sick dread creeping up from the depths of his gut. 

His cell phone rang. 

That could only be Isabelle. 

“The cathedral is just on the other side of that hill,” she warned him.  “You’re almost there.”

“Can you see everything I see?”

“Not
see
it, exactly.  I just know it’s there.  I can feel what you feel.  And right now you feel like you’re walking into the gates of hell.”

Eric had to admit that her ability to read his feelings was dead-accurate.  The gates of hell made a perfectly adequate description. 

“I just wanted you to know that I’m with you.  And I’ll stay with you.  No matter what.”

Eric smiled.  “Thanks, Isabelle.  That
does
make it feel a little better.”

“I know,” she replied.  “I can tell.”

“In my dream, I was almost killed back in that canyon.”

“You were.  You lost most of your hand.”

“I did.  But in the dream, I arrived before the foggy man.  He wasn’t here.  I never had to run from his golems.  I didn’t get my shoulder torn up on the roof of Altrusk’s house.”

“That’s right.”

“I also never found
you
.”

“I’m glad you didn’t come two days ago.”

“Me too.” 

Eric was halfway up the hill now.  Soon he would have his first look at the cathedral.  He hoped the sight alone wasn’t going to be enough to kill him, but after all he’d been through, he wouldn’t be a damned bit surprised. 

“Listen,” Isabelle said.  “I know you’re scared, and I know you’re not sure you can do this, and you’re right to not feel confident.  This fissure…it’s really messed up.  The other world, the one that’s smashed up against ours, it’s a bad place.  It’s the worst kind of nightmare you can imagine.  And whatever you find in there, it’s probably going to be even worse.”

“You think so?”

“I do.  The fissure is concentrated there.  The two worlds are so smashed together that it pervades reality.  It takes the bad from that world and it magnifies it.”

“Sounds like a blast.”  Eric was breathing harder now.  He was growing tired.  This hill was steeper than it looked.

“And the foggy man will be there somewhere, too.  He’ll be waiting for you.  You need to be careful of him.”

“No kidding.”

“Seriously, Eric.  He’s bad news.”

Eric stopped walking.  “Did you figure something out about him?”

“No.  Not exactly.  I felt something back at the factory.  Something disturbing.  It took a while for me to figure out what it was.  But now I think I get it.  It’s not
him
I was feeling. 
He’s
not what you have to fear.  He’s no devil.  But the people he works for…  I can’t really explain it, but there’s something terribly
wrong
about them.  And he’s afraid of them.  He’s going to be desperate not to fail them.”

Moving forward again, Eric said.  “Is he already in the cathedral?”

“I don’t know for sure.  But I
am
sure he’s nearby.  You need to be very careful.”

“Believe me, I intend to be.”

“Good.”

“But can I really hope to beat something as bad as that?”

“There’s always hope.  And I’ve realized something since I got away from Altrusk.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve realized there’s a thread of order in the universe, a thread that connects us all, and one that’s way too intricate to be there by accident.  We’re not alone.  And I really don’t think you’re here just to die.”

“I sure hope not.”

“Do more than just hope, Eric. 
Believe
.  I need you to look back on all that’s happened today.  Every detail.  You have to realize that there’s more to all this than a bunch of creepy ghosts and a wonky dream.  There’s a reason you’re here today and not two days ago.  I’m part of that reason.  That cat was part of that reason.  The foggy man is also part of that reason.  I think it’s the same reason
you’re
the person who had the dream and not some Olympic athlete or super-genius.”

“Thanks, Isabelle.  You’re right.  I have to believe I’m not just here to die.”

“Don’t forget it.  Not even if it all seems lost.”

“I won’t.  I promise.”

“Good.”