“We
should’ve taken the other route,” Nick muttered. “Slower road but we would’ve gotten there faster.”
“Yeah,
maybe, “Merlin agreed. “Maybe not.”
He
swung off the Interstate and shot down the ramp. “You think Alex is in big trouble?”
“You
say they’ve found bones in the area?
“Could
be unconnected.”
“Nick,
c’mon. Is that likely?”
He
shook his head. “Not with our history.”
“There’s
the turning for San Stefano,” Merlin pointed.
Nick
took the bend fast and put his foot down.
*****
Alex
twisted the ignition key while Philip was still getting in beside her.
“Are
we going to make it?” he asked, peering up at the sky. It was black. It had been a clear early afternoon a few short moments ago and then,
from nowhere, cloud had blotted out the sun.
“We
have to get to the road first and that’s at least a couple of miles. C’mon!” she urged. The engine caught and fired.
Alex shoved it into ‘drive’ and flattened the gas pedal. “Hold on,” she warned as the car leapt
forward.
Philip
clung to the dash and the edge of his seat.
The road looked tantalizingly close yet a distant dream. “When we get there, head away from town,” he
suggested. “We’ll go the long route.”
“Good
idea,” she nodded, her voice tense.
The
sky flickered with lightning and there was a faint grumble of thunder.
It
wasn’t that they didn’t want to enter the phenomenon. They both knew it was more likely to happen than not but neither
felt totally ready. They wanted to know
about the bones, what that meant. They
wanted to tell the others what they’d discovered. They wanted backup. They
wanted to go in on their own terms.
Most of all, they both felt this was cheating. It was being greedy. The
last victims had been snatched less than twenty four hours ago.
“Not
far now,” Alex muttered.
Then
the rain came. It didn’t start gently
with one or two warning drops before a steady increase. It went from dry to instant blindness. The wipers couldn’t clear it. Alex felt a sob choke in her throat as she
was forced to slow right down. She
couldn’t see the road. She couldn’t see
the grass. All she could see was a few inches
of the hood of her car and then a curtain of dirty gray water.
“I
have to – ”
“Keep
going!” Philip ordered.
“I
can’t see!” Alex shouted.
“I’d
rather be in a car wreck than stop in this,” he retorted.
Her
hands gripping the wheel, Alex leaned forward and kept the vehicle moving.
“The
road must be here somewhere,” Philip despaired. “It was close. I saw it.”
“It’s
too late,” she whispered. “We’re in the
interface. Look … ”
There
was a barn. The rain eased up just
enough for them to see it, and what seemed like a parking lot. Vehicles, some new, some rusted heaps, were
abandoned in every direction. Alex
brought her vehicle to a halt.
“We’ll
wait it out here,” she decided. “If the
barn is the one way door, what if we don’t go in? What’ll happen if we wait here?
Maybe the rain will stop and we’ll be free. I’ll call Derek. Tell him
what’s happening.”
She
dug out her cell phone and speed dialed his number. It rang. She almost wept
with relief.
“Alex?”
Derek said.
“Derek! We’re stuck in the rain! There’s a barn here .. and a lot of
abandoned vehicles. I think they all
belong to the missing people.”
There
was no answer.
“Derek? Derek!”
Her voice rose. “Can you hear
me?” Alex looked at the phone and saw
she’d lost the signal.
“Did
he hear you?” Philip asked.
“I
don’t know,” she answered. “I started
to talk to him .. but there’s no signal now.
We’re cut off.”
Philip
sank lower in his seat and folded his arms.
“Then we stay put exactly where we are,” he declared, “and see what
happens. It’s time to put our ideas to
the test.”
*****
Rachel
leaned forward. “What did she say?”
“They’re
stuck in the rain. There’s a barn there
and a lot of abandoned vehicles. She
thinks they all belong to … Then we
were cut off.” He broke into a run
toward the Range Rover.
“Where
are you going?” Rachel demanded, racing after him. “Derek, listen to me! If
you go after her, I could lose you as well an’ I am not able to rescue everyone, not on my own. I need you here with me.”
“I
have to do something, Rachel!”
“Then
call Nick. Tell him what’s
happening. If he’s going straight there
– ”
“He
wouldn’t do that. He’d have a briefing
first.”
“Derek,
Liz is in there. And, now, most likely
Alex too. Nick may not be thinking
straight. Peri will be, but she’s with
him an’ I’ll put money on it that he’s
driving.”
Rachel
caught hold of his arm and dragged him to a halt.
“If
Nick is going straight there, he
deserves to know what we know. Brief
him over the phone while you still can.”
Derek’s
lips clenched together. “It doesn’t
work like that. The bubble marks people
on the outward trip then snares them when they return. Nick hasn’t driven that road once yet. It won’t take him, not this time.”
Rachel shook her head in
disbelief. “Okay .. I have an
idea. Liz Sumner had a terrible
paranormal experience. Maybe the bubble
picked that up. I don’t know any of the
other victims but it’s possible they all had some kind of weird episode in
their past. Or one of the people in
each vehicle had a weird episode. Alex
an’ Philip both certainly have experienced paranormal phenomena. So has Nick. That could be enough to make them shine in the night. An’ Peri is with Nick. Her experience is significantly greater
again, an’ that might be like a signal fire.
Just because you think it usually happens on a return trip doesn’t mean
it always happens. Call Nick now!”
*****
Merlin
leaned forward to peer thru the windshield.
“This
blew up really fast,” she remarked quietly.
He
switched on the wipers. “The end to a
perfect day. Anything else gonna go
wrong?”
“Nick
.. slow down.”
“You
said we had to hurry.”
“An’
now I’m telling you to slow down.
Stop. Turn round an’ go back.”
“This
is the direct route to San Stefano.”
“I’m
getting a real bad feeling here,” she said.
Nick’s
phone began to beep and she answered it because he had to concentrate on the
road.
“Yeah.”
“Peri,
where are you?” Derek asked in a tense voice.
“On
the San Stefano road from the Interstate.”
“Oh
no … ” Derek began, and the line went dead.
“Nick,
stop right now!” Merlin said.
The
rain came down in a sudden wall of water.
Nick swore as he wrestled with the wheel and the brakes. Merlin hunched down, her arms folded, as the
Mustang skidded left then right, and finally slid completely off the road.
“Now
what?” Nick asked. “Who was on the
phone? Derek?”
She
nodded.
“What
did he say?”
“Oh
no. Then we were cut off. Can you back it out onto the road? Head in the other direction?”
He
tried but the wheel just spun on the soaking grass. He tried going forward and steering back toward the tarmac but
the Mustang couldn’t get a grip to go up the slight slope.
“We
wait it out,” Nick decided. “Try
calling him back.”
“There’s
no signal.”
Nick
peered thru the windshield. “I think I
can see something over there. Is it a
tree ..? No, it looks like .. like a
barn, maybe. You wanna go wait in
there?”
Merlin
thought about it. “Nick, I think we’re
at the edge of the interface. The barn
is .. opportune, don’t you think? I
don’t remember seeing one before we slid off the road. We wait here, this rain could go on
forever. We go in there .. we may not
be able to get out again.”
“That’s
the doorway into where Liz is?”
“Downpour
like this .. natural reaction is to go wait somewhere dry, isn’t it?”
He
nodded. “You set?”
“I
may not be able to go in. That means
you’ll be on your own.”
“Then
you go first. If you can’t cross, I
don’t cross either. I won’t go in
without backup.”
“Okay,”
she agreed.
*****
Alex
leaned forward to peer up at the cloud.
The rain didn’t seem to be easing up.
She checked the time. They’d
been sitting here at least twenty minutes.
Of course, out in the real world, she mused, it may have already
stopped. Here, in the limbo between
real and .. whatever, it may just go on and on until we surrender and go into
the barn.
Beside
her, Philip looked like he was sleeping.
For a moment, Alex felt resentful, wondering how anyone in this
situation could just fall asleep. But
then she noticed his lips were moving silently. He was praying and Alex felt guilty that she’d judged him as
lacking.
Philip
was indeed praying and praying hard. He
was asking God for advice, for a sign.
Show me what I should do, he begged.
And, into his mind, there came the image of the Brompton family. Mom, Dad, two children. Happy, smiling. It had been taken at the church picnic the previous summer.
He’d
asked God for the chance to help them, and now God was giving it to him.
Philip’s
eyes opened and he sat up. “We have to
go in there.”
“What?”
Alex exclaimed.
“You
heard me. We have to go in. It’s the only thing we can do.”
“We
could wait here, like you said before.”
Alex shook her head. “I’m not
ready, Philip. The Sumners – ”
“I
feel for them, Alex, just as I feel for Rafael Ramirez and his girlfriend, and
all the other victims, but they’re not why I’m here. I’m here to find the
Bromptons,” Philip pointed out. “Now, I
have gone along with your investigation and, I won’t deny, it’s been
useful. But God has given me a chance. He answered my prayers, Alex. Given me a sign. I have to go in there because it’s the only way I’m going to find
that family. I can go alone, if I
must. Surely, this is the way to find
all the answers to your
questions. It’s the only way to put a
stop to it and free these people.”
She
hesitated, torn. “Okay. Just into the barn and we stay close to the
door so, if it looks like it’s going to stop pouring, we can get out
again. We can always come back, Philip,
and we will .. when we have a better picture.
Okay?”
“Whatever
you say,” he agreed, opening the car door.
Alex
grabbed her purse and ran after him thru the downpour toward the barn. Inside, it was dim and the air was
musty. It was a hay barn, not a shelter
for animals, but it was also dry and leak free.
“Don’t
close the door, not completely,” she said.
Philip
turned away and began to arrange dried grass into a heap so they could sit
down. Alex kept her gaze fixed on the
car, her face resting against the wooden wall, a fine mist of rain drifting in
onto her face. She waited to see if her
theory would work, that the rain would stop now they’d thrown caution to the
wind and left the safety of the car, but, if anything, it only rained
harder. So hard, in fact, that Alex
lost sight of the car for a few seconds.
She frowned, leaning forward, trying to pierce the gray murk with the
power of her mind but it was like fog out there.
“I
can’t see it … ” she whispered.
“What?”
“The
car. It was right there and then the
rain … ” She glanced back and saw he
wasn’t in the least bit distressed.
“You want to stay.”
“I’m
meant to, Alex. God has set me on this
path. I have to walk it to the end.”
She
shrugged helplessly. “Then I guess
we’ll walk it together.”
*****
“Well?”
Rachel asked, her heart in her throat.
“It’s
too late,” Derek replied. “We’ve lost
them as well.”
Her
shoulders fell and she stared helplessly at the rain which was battering the
town. “We can’t just give up. Losing the signal .. well, it could be
atmospheric. The weather. It doesn’t mean we’ve lost the people,
Derek. Okay, maybe Alex an’ Philip, for
now. But Nick an’ Peri .. it could be –
”
“Peri
said they were on the San Stefano road from the Interstate. That
is the highway where everyone else has disappeared in a storm exactly like this
one,” he cut in. “Alex managed to say
there was a barn. I’ve been to the
area, Rachel. It’s a wide open expanse
of grass. There are trees dotted here
and there. No buildings. No barns.
No abandoned vehicles. If there
were, don’t you think the police would have removed them for
investigation? Alex and I theorized
that, when the storm hits, the victims were driving along the highway and the
rain was so bad that they had to stop.
Possibly pull off the road and look for shelter. When plans are disrupted so fast, people
don’t stop to think that they had never seen a barn there before. It’s shelter and they take it. And, thus, they become trapped. Maybe, if they’d stayed in their vehicles,
they might have stayed free.”
“If
Alex was aware of all this, what makes you think she’s gone into the barn? Wouldn’t she have extrapolated the same idea
as you? Stay put, don’t go in. She isn’t like all the others, Derek.”
“No,
she isn’t,” he agreed. “She was
prepared. And she has Philip with
her. Two in the car. An even number. But Philip isn’t here to help Alex. He’s here to find a missing family. He may have insisted.” He
sighed. “Philip can be persuasive at
times, and especially so when he is driven by circumstances.”
*****
Merlin
opened the door a fraction.
Wait,
Aquila ordered.
“Nick,
wait a second.”
I
want to try something first.
“Why?”
Nick asked.
Merlin
shut the door again. “My other half has
an idea.”
They
felt the car tremble and rock on its springs, then move slightly. Then it lifted in the air a few inches and
shifted sideways.
You’re
back on the road. I’ll go on ahead and
act as a pathfinder. You follow me.
“Follow
Aquila,” Merlin said.
Nick
started the engine and eased down on the gas.
Just along the highway, a couple of feet in front of the hood, there was
a bright light which moved ahead of him.
The rain was still bad but now it was starting to ease up a
fraction. Merlin twisted round to look
back at where they’d been. There was no
barn, no sign of any buildings.
“I
think we’re free of it,” she said.
Within
five minutes, the rain had stopped and the black cloud was bubbling away. Despite himself, Nick breathed a sigh of
relief and immediately felt a surge of guilt.
“We
should’ve gone in,” he said.
“Yeah. An’ we will .. but not this time. We could use that briefing first. Then, when we go back, we’ll know what to
expect.” She glanced at him. “More or less, anyway.”
*****
Alex
wasn’t sure how she’d fallen asleep but she knew she woke to a rustling
sound. Her eyes opened to wooden
beams. She sat up quickly, staring in
horror, and then the truth came back.
They’d chosen to do this.
Philip
lay stretched beside her. She shook
him, her fingers numb. “Philip, come
on, wake up. We may be exhausted but I
don’t think this is a good place to sleep.”
He
roused, blinking and squinting. “How
long have we been out?”
“I
don’t know, not for sure. A hour?”
“It
isn’t raining now,” he remarked, scrambling up.
They
slid down the ladder from the hayloft and went to the door.
“Wasn’t
the door on the other side ..?” Alex asked tentatively.
“I
think it was,” he nodded.
Philip
pushed on the door and opened it to a bright day with the sun starting to angle
into the west and evening. He blinked
again in the sudden light. Alex stared
past his shoulder.
“We’re
not in Kansas anymore. We’re not even
in California,” Philip remarked.
A
neat gravel path led away from the barn down a short slope to a neat park. Beyond that, maybe a mile distant, they
glimpsed the roofs of buildings beyond the trees. Buildings, divided by a single road.
Philip
glanced back at her. “We’re in the
bubble.”
Alex
had to agree. The field she and Philip
had surveyed had nothing like this. No
barns. No neat gravel paths, no parks,
no road running thru it, and no town.
She refused to set foot outside the barn though.
“I
want to check out this place first. If
there’s a way back, it has to be here.”
She straightened, meeting his gaze fearlessly. “I take it you do want
to find a way back, Philip?”
“Of course, I do. Alex, I’m not sacrificing myself in some
vainglorious attempt to be a hero.
That’s Nick’s province and I don’t step on his toes.”
She
retraced her steps and began to look for another door, even one which wasn’t
immediately obvious. There was a window
opening up in the hayloft and Alex climbed the ladder again to take a look
outside in the opposite direction.
“Philip
.. the car’s not there. None of the
cars are there. It’s just ..
pasture. Far as the eye can see,” she
reported.
“I
can’t find any other doors down here,” he called up. “Only the big one which leads to the town.”
“My
purse is gone.” Alex rooted around in
the hay and feeling her heart squeeze with fear. “My purse. That means no
cell phone. No car keys. Nothing.”
He
nodded. “All I have in my pockets is
grass seed.”
“Me
too,” she said. “And some small
change.” Alex came back down the
ladder. “I know you want to get out
there, but .. I’m scared. Let’s wait
here for a while, huh? See what
happens?”
Philip
nodded, despite the tearing need he felt to locate the Brompton family. Like Alex, he felt that leaving the barn
would be the ultimate step. All the
time they remained in here, they had some kind of chance to get out again. Maybe all the others had reacted in the same
way until hunger and thirst had driven them out. Philip Callahan and Alex Moreau were made of stronger stuff.
He
stood in the doorway and studied the view.
“Alex
… ”
“What
is it?” she asked, coming to his side.
“It
can’t be all bad here. I can see the
cross on a church.”
*****
Rachel
regarded her Precept who sat with his head in his hands. Derek had wanted to control every aspect of
this investigation and now control had been torn from him. Alex and Philip were missing. Nick and Merlin had accidentally followed
them and no one had an up to date, comprehensive overview. Derek lacked the information Alex had gone
out to determine. Alex lacked the
latest discoveries about the bones. And
Nick was ignorant of all the developments.
Rachel
despaired of what she could say to motivate the man.
There
was a knock on the door. She shook her
head and went to answer it. When she
saw who stood outside, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Derek
… ” she invited.
He
looked around, his eyes listless. Then
he blinked and stood up.
“Nick!”
“We
thought we’d lost you,” Rachel said.
“You
came damn close,” Nick replied as he entered the room. “We slid off the road just after the phone
got cut off.”
“Sit
down,” Derek insisted. “Tell me what
happened.”
“Well,
we were heading along the highway an’ pushing the envelope pretty hard,” Nick
related. “Then it came over very black,
started to rain … I’ve not seen rain
like that, Derek, an’ we’ve both seen it rain.
It was solid. Couldn’t even see
the end of the hood. We slid off the
road an’ it looked like we were stuck there.”
“Could
you see anything at all?” Derek asked eagerly.
“Strangely,
yeah. Wasn’t sure what it was but it
looked like a barn.”
“Any
other vehicles?”
Nick
shook his head. “Just this one
barn. We were gonna try making a run
for it, but Aquila hoisted us back onto the road and then led us to safety. When the rain began to ease up .. the barn
had disappeared.”
“My
God, Nick, you had a very lucky escape,” Derek breathed.
“We
were on the edge of the interface,” Merlin commented. “At least I know now I can get that far and get out again. I don't know if I can get into the barn. If I hadn’t been able to cross – ”
“Nick,
you weren’t going in alone, were you?” Rachel asked in a tight voice.
“I
wanted to but .. Merli an’ me, we’re a partnership. I would’ve held back.”
“Thank
God you did.”
Nick
and Merlin regarded each other. “Alex
said you guys had seen developments – “
“When
did you speak to her?” Derek interrupted.
“About
.. an hour ago, I guess. Maybe ninety
minutes. She told me she an’ Philip
were almost done an’ were about to head back to the car. They were marking out the area ..?”
Derek
nodded. “We believed they were
safe. Obviously, we were wrong.”
Nick
swallowed. “So Alex an’ Philip are
definitely in the bubble.”
“We
must assume so. She managed to call me,
told me they were stuck in the rain, there was a barn there and a lot of
abandoned vehicles.”
Merlin
held up her hands. “Okay, time
out. The briefing I’m getting here is
hopeless. It’s way too fragmented. Can we start at the beginning, please.”
“You
still intend to try getting in there?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah,
we do,” she replied. “But there’ll be a
difference, Rachel. We’ll go in
voluntarily. No way will Nick an’ I be
victims.”
“I
could use some coffee,” Nick remarked.
“An’ something to eat. I skipped
breakfast an’, so far, I haven’t had lunch.”
“Then
we’ll brief you at the diner,” Derek said, rising to his feet. “It’s really very good to see you both. You give me hope.”
*****
Alex
looked at her watch again and frowned.
“That can’t be right,” she muttered.
“What’s
that?” Philip inquired.
“My
watch says it’s about four. Yet it’s
starting to get dark. It’s the summer,
Philip. It doesn’t get dark till a lot
later.”
“Outside,
that’s true,” he agreed. “In here,
well, it’s anyone’s guess what time the sun rises and sets.”
She
halted, sniffing. “Can you smell
anything?”
Philip
sniffed too. “Like .. smoke ..?” he
queried.
Alex’s
eyes were wide as she peered back into the barn. “Fire! There, in the
corner!”
There
was no fire fighting equipment. No
extinguisher, not even a bucket and tap.
They had no choice but to leave.
“Clever,”
Philip said, once they were out on the path.
“Fear is the motivator in this place.”
Alex
craned her neck to look thru the door.
“There’s no fire now. It was a
trick!”
“Can
we get back inside?” Philip asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.
She
lifted her foot to cross the threshold but she couldn’t. It was like an invisible step there, ten
feet high. The way out, always assuming
it was inside the barn, was now
blocked to them.
“That’s it then,” Philip
declared. “Now we can find out what’s going on.”
Alex
shrugged in resignation and followed him down the path.
*****
“So, if Nick had gone in alone, he would have been decapitated in some form of
ritual slaughter,” Merlin remarked.
“Well,”
Rachel replied, “that’s our best guess.”
“Good
thing I listened to you,” Nick commented, grinning.
“It only takes even numbers.” Merlin sat back, frowning. “I don’t understand. A bubble is a random, non-specific event. It doesn’t have the ability to pick an’
choose when it’ll appear or who it’ll take.
It’s a chance phenomenon. Yet
this one … It has rules. Only multiples of two. It pre-selects its victims by previous
exposure to the paranormal.” She shook
her head, her eyes narrowing. “It can’t
be a bubble. It’s a deliberate
construct. Someone’s directing it.”
“Does
that make it easier or tougher?” Nick asked.
“Easier. Think about it,” Merlin invited. “A bubble is total chaos. It’s like trying to stab mist. A deliberate construct doesn’t need to be
fought. You go for the thing controlling
it. Once that’s dead, the construct
collapses.”
“And
you think you can get in,” Rachel pressed.
“Yeah,
I do. A bubble, that’d be tough. But if this construct is pre-selecting based
on paranormal experience, I should walk in, no
trouble.”
“Good,”
Nick declared. “There’s some stuff I don’t understand. How come Alex could see vehicles an’ I
couldn’t?”
Derek
thought about it then quickly sketched a map on a napkin. “This is the highway. About here, two miles away or so, is the
clump of trees where the bones were found.
You say you slid off the road somewhere around here ..?”
Nick
nodded slowly.
“Alex
was going to begin her survey from this area, here, by the trees. She told you she was heading back to the
car. She told me she was stuck in the
rain. The same rainstorm which almost
trapped you and Peri. You never saw her
car or any of the others .. so .. she couldn’t have reached the road. She was driving in this direction,” Derek
surmised, drawing an arrow on his map.
“From the wrong side of the interface.
She saw the vehicles. You were
on the right side, so you didn’t.”
Rachel
was nodding. “It makes sense. If you’d
seen a lot of abandoned vehicles in the middle of nowhere, would you stop? I know I wouldn’t. I’d think it very suspicious.”
“Okay,”
Nick accepted. “Now explain this
one. How come it took Alex this
time? If it’s pre-selecting its victims
on the basis of paranormal experience, why didn’t it take Alex an’ you that
time you were out there with the detective?
Come to that, why didn’t it take the detective as well?”
“Three
of you,” Rachel shuddered.
Derek
considered that question too. “Nick, I
won’t tell you I have the right answers because I just don’t know. But I can make an educated guess. The first time Alex and I went out there
with Detective Redding, we were probably marked but possibly it was the
detective’s car which was painted as a signal.
The next time he drove out there, we weren’t with him and so he wasn’t
taken. Then Alex drove out there again
with Philip. She was pre-selected and her vehicle was marked. They did their investigation and headed back
to the car. When she started to move,
on the return trip, the storm began and they were both taken.”
“How
come we managed to escape?” Nick asked.
“There
could be a couple of reasons,” Rachel replied.
“One, Peri was strong enough to break you free even though you had been
pre-selected and marked.”
“We
hadn’t been down that road before,” he pointed out.
“That’s
down to me,” Merlin confessed. “I’ve
had enough exposure to the paranormal to have any number of doors held open for
me. They saw me coming from miles
away.”
“An’
two, you didn’t trigger the storm, you accidentally encountered Alex’s
storm. Because it wasn’t meant for you,
you didn’t get sucked in.”
They
lapsed into silence. Then Derek asked,
“When will you do it?”
“This
time tomorrow,” Merlin replied.
“Why
wait?” Nick asked, frowning.
“Because
we need to prepare. We’ve had the
briefing. We know phones don’t
work. I’m betting we have to be very
selective about what we choose to take in there with us. Easier doesn’t mean easy, okay? We need to rest up, get some sleep. I need to think, Nick, an’ that’s why we’ll
wait.”
*****
Philip
halted as a man stood up. He’d been
sitting at a small bench about two thirds of the way thru the park, not
apparently doing anything except sitting there and waiting. He smiled pleasantly at them.
“Good
afternoon,” he greeted.
“Good
day to you,” Philip responded. “Do you
know where we are?”
“At
the bottom end of town. A house has
been set aside for you. Just
there. Y’see it?”
“That’s
very generous,” Philip remarked as Alex nodded.
“You
have twenty four hours.”
Alex
swallowed. “For what?”
The
man smiled again. “I’m getting ahead of
myself. First, the admission
procedures. Two of you. That’s good. Now, the entrance fee.”
“The
what?” Philip queried.
“The
entrance fee. You can’t come in without
it.”
“What
is this ..? Some kind of theme park?”
Philip frowned.
“I
don’t know what that is. Please, empty
your pockets. Let’s see if you have
what you need.” He pointed at the
bench.
Philip
glanced at Alex who was looking wary.
He stepped forward and scooped out the grass seed. She did the same plus the small amount of
change she had.
“That’s
all we’ve got,” she said.
He
nodded. “That’s fine. You can go in. Twelve cents and the seed.
That’s great.”
“It
is?” Alex wondered.
“Oh
yes. Now, that’s your house. You may have it for twenty four hours. Then you must announce your choice to the
town and take up residence accordingly.”
“What
choice?” Philip frowned.
The
man blinked. “Why, whether you are good
or evil.”
Philip
began to laugh. “That’s an easy choice
to make.”
“We
don’t need twenty four hours,” Alex agreed.
The
man didn’t react, didn’t join in the laughter.
He looked at them with very solemn eyes.
“So
it’s easy, is it?” he asked. “You don’t
quite understand, I think. You can’t
both choose to be good. Most people
seem to want that. But there’s a reason
there’s two of you. Two sides. If one chooses good, the other must choose
evil. We must have balance. We can’t weight one side against the
other. That wouldn’t be fair now, would
it?”
Philip’s
laughter had faded into stunned silence.
“I
think you’ll need every minute of your twenty four hours,” the man
commented. “This isn’t a choice anyone
can make lightly. Eternal souls are
involved. Go on. You’ll find everything you need to make your
stay very comfortable.”
Alex
took a few steps away then paused.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why
.. what?” the man frowned.
“Why
choose sides at all?”
“Because
you must. It’s the way it’s done.”
Philip
nodded. “And what happens if three, or
five, come thru the barn?”
“Then
they have to choose too.”
“Choose
what?” Alex inquired cautiously.
“Who
will live and who will die.” He smiled
cheerfully. “But you don’t have to
worry about that. There are two of you. A pair.
Nicely balanced .. or you will be, once you’ve talked it over and
reached your decision.”
Alex
clutched Philip’s arm and hurried him away.
“This is a nightmare!” she muttered.
“People have to consciously choose to be good or evil? Most of them can’t make an easy decision,
let alone something like this.”
“You’re
wrong, Alex,” Philip disagreed. “This
isn’t the real world. It’s another
dimension. Everything’s provided for
you here and all you have to do is choose.
A simple choice as well.”
“Really. And what’s your choice going to be?” she demanded. “You’re a priest. You have to choose good and that means I
must choose evil. But why should
I? I don’t want to give away my soul,
Philip. I’ve fought all my adult life
against evil. How can I just ..
surrender now?”
“I
haven’t decided yet,” he announced.
“We’ve got twenty four hours.” Philip
looked up at the sky. “Until sunset
tomorrow.”
They
approached the house which stood alone, apart from the town. Alex couldn’t quite see the road but she
could see the roofs of some beautiful homes.
The setting sun glowed on the shingles and gilded the leaves of the
trees in the yards. And, beyond that,
there was a cloud of decay.
“A
halfway house,” Philip remarked. “Not
one, not the other. Home for us, for
now anyway.”
Alex
shivered. “It’s a prison.”
“No,
it’s a haven.” He glanced round. “Don’t you understand? Haven’t you worked it out yet? This isn’t a nightmare, Alex. It’s a war.”