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she was losing it.
Curiouser and curiouser, she wanted to say, because
she realized that she, Hope Stewart, was Alice in
Wonderland right now, having fallen down the rabbit
hole. It was one of her favorite books, which she
reread every year, and Hope took note that she was
now playing her favorite character. Like Alice, she
would get out of this tunnel and away from these
crazy adventures, and then, maybe it would all turn
out to have been a dream on a golden afternoon.
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dark of the eye
Yeah, right.
She stepped around Monkey's body, not looking
down except to make sure she didn't put her foot
smack dab into him, and then took three more giant
steps toward the room with the light.
And then she heard something.
Footsteps.
Coming from the room.
A great shadow eclipsing the light.
Hope leaned into the catacomb wall — there were
recesses in the wall where bones lay scattered.
Footsteps coming closer.
She pressed herself against the depression in the
rock and earth. Her hands touched bone. Something
else, too, something soft and cold at the same time.
She prayed it wasn't a corpse.
She held her breath as the footsteps came near.
Let me blend into this wall. Let me dissolve. Let me not
be seen.
She shut her good eye.
The person walking had stopped near her.
Probably seeing Monkey's corpse.
It was a man; she heard him mutter under his
breath.
Hope opened her eye for a second. She thought
she recognized that voice.
"Damn it, Lex, is this your work?"
Daddy? Hope thought, and then realized that she
had actually said this aloud.
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douglas clegg
A flashlight flicked on in her direction.
She was blinded by the light.
"Hope?" her father asked. "Baby? Ah, there you
are." He opened his arms, lowering the flashlight,
and came toward her.
Hope Stewart screamed until she thought she had
no voice left.
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chapter 63
Ben Farrell sat halfway up in the motel bed. "Kate?"
He wiped sleep from his eyes. He had really been
tired, and still felt as if a hammer had hit him over
the head. She's in the bathroom, he told himself, won-
dering why the hell he didn't just go back to sleep.
But the motel room door was open.
Again, Kate. Went outside for something. Too tired
to worry about it. A slight chill from the open door.
And then it hit him: he remembered hearing the
door open as he fell asleep, but thinking it was a
dream.
He sat straight up in bed, and as he did, he felt
dizzy and nauseated. He got to his feet and slogged
into the bathroom, feeling like he was running in
slow motion as his stomach heaved. He lifted the toi-
let seat up and vomited.
"Jesus," he gasped, when he was through, but he
felt a little better. He wiped his face off with a towel
and then washed off under the faucet. His stomach
and his arm were still sore. He had a flash of a mem-
ory: turning in bed, someone gripping his arm and
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douglas clegg
stabbing him, right at the sore part of his arm. He
glanced down at his arm and noticed the small red
swelling. A tiny needle prick.
He'd been drugged.
Ben felt as if a truck had hit him going a hundred
and ten.
They had Kate.
They came and got her.
He felt sick again, and clutched the edge of the
sink.
"Come on, old boy, got to help her," he muttered
to his bloodshot reflection in the mirror. The bath-
room began to spin as if it were on a lazy Susan, and
the mirror seemed to become elongated until it
looked like something out of a fun house. He
reached for the doorknob, to steady himself.
Doorknob, door, wall, just hang on to where reality hits,
Benjy. Slide along the wall. That's it, old boy. Make it to the
bed. Good, good, sit for a second and roll across it to the
other side. Now head for the outer door. You can do it. Just
reach out, reach out for the knob, that shiny knob. Got it! He
held tight to the door of the motel room. The morn-
ing light broke through the clouds in jagged light-
ning streaks, brighter than the sunlight had ever
seemed before to him, and there were liquid purples
and greens from the field across the parking lot.
"Tripping," he muttered, half smiling. "I'm on a
fucking trip. I can't believe it. You sons of bitches of
Cthonos. Now, Benjy, don't you dare jump off a build-
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dark of the eye
ing thinking you can fly, 'kay? 'Kay?" He saw his car,
parked just in front of him. The sky colors were turn-
ing, as if in a kaleidoscope, and he had to squint to
see the car clearly because it disappeared every time
the sun came out from behind a cloud. It looked like
a housefly, his car, an orange housefly, although its
wings weren't completely developed, and Ben began
to laugh as he leaned against the hood.
"In-fucking-crediblicious." He giggled.
He reached into his pockets and found that his
keys wriggled in his hand like bloodworms on a fish-
hook.
*
*
*
Once Ben was behind the wheel of the orange
housefly and had managed to get the hooked blood-
worms into the ignition, he realized he didn't know
where the hell he was going.
"Fact," he said, "Kate is gone. Fact: Hope is gone.
Fact: Cthonos has them. Maybe Robert, too. Fact: I
need to go to the police. Where the hell are the
police? Fact: I am on some drug right now, and no
cop is gonna believe any of this. Especially when he
sees me driving a fly." But he turned the worm-keys,
and the fly buzzed to life.
On his windshield was a dead bird, or so he
thought, for it looked something like a bird, but with
a few minor alterations: it had been plucked and
skinned.
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douglas clegg
"What a trip." He shook his head, backing out of
the parking place.
Bram Boatwright stopped running when he got to
AttaBurger. He was winded, and collapsed by the side
of the road, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
The wind actually smelled clean as it shifted, and
dabs of rain fell on his head from a willow. He was
about to laugh, because as he sat there, he saw an
orange Volkswagen bug swerving toward him, and
Bram half expected a dead man to be driving it. To
make sure he didn't get hit, Bram leaped up and
stood back near the low brick wall in front of
AttaBurger so that if the driver crashed into some-
thing, it would be the wall.
But the Volkswagen slowed down, and the man,
his dark hair all wet and curly with sweat, his eyes wild
to the point of being bug-eyed, leaned out the win-
dow and was about to say something, but barfed
instead.
"Oh, gross." Bram gagged, turning away. For some
reason, puking seemed worse than what he'd been
stepping around all morning.
He heard the man say, "Sorry, kid, but somebody
drugged me. You know how to get to the cops?"
Bram ran around and got into the passenger's
seat. "Go," he said.
The man looked at him strangely.
"You really are drugged."
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dark of the eye
"Coming out of it fast, though, kid, with all this
vomiting. I don't even think I'm driving a fly any-
more. Which way?"
"I doubt there's much the sheriff can do. Just
drive, drive out of this town, mister. Let's go, let's go!
Can't you see what's happening? Jesus, look around!"
Bram pointed to the road ahead.
The town was quiet.
"Look, kid," Ben said, "you're gonna have to tell
me where to find this sheriff." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]