Nightmare City Part 3

Even in his fear and confusion, the words filled Tom's heart. Now, at least, he had a job to do: protect Marie. Keep her safe. Even if nothing else made sense, there was a mission that could guide his actions.

"I think we should get in my car," he said. "Get out of here. They could attack the house any minute."

Marie turned back to him and shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't think they can leave the fog. I think we're safe in here for now. Safer than we'd be outside, anyway."

Tom thought about it. "Do you know what's happening?" he asked her. "Is it happening all over? I haven't seen anyone else. No one human, anyway."

Marie turned back to him and shook her head. The tears still shone in her eyes. "I'm not sure . . ."

"I called my mom. I reached her, but she couldn't hear me."

"I know. I talked to my father," said Marie. "We didn't have a good connection, but I could make out some of what he was saying. He was the one who sent me here. He said you were the only person who could help us."

"Me? I don't even know what's going on. Those monsters out there-it's like-it's like we're in a zombie apocalypse."

Marie gave a weak laugh. "I don't think that's what it is."

Tom himself managed a small laugh at the idea. "Right. Probably not."

He suddenly felt exhausted. He moved to one of the chairs by the round table and sank down into it. He stared out the window without really seeing anything. He was thinking about that thing-that thing with the hideous face-its claws s.n.a.t.c.hing at him from the fog, nearly grabbing him before he even saw it.

What was it?

He shook his head. "You know what it is like, though?" he said softly, almost as if he were speaking to himself, working it out in his mind. "It's like one of those movies or TV shows where strange things keep happening and after a while, you start to realize that none of it is real. You know? It's too weird. It can't be real. It has to be a dream or something. Or maybe the lead character is really dead or he's gone crazy or somebody slipped him some kind of drug and he's having a hallucination. You know what I mean? You think that's what this is: a dream or a hallucination? Or do you think we're actually dead?"

He glanced over at her. He took comfort from the warmth and sympathy in her gaze. She stepped forward and put her hand gently on his shoulder. "I'm pretty sure we're not dead," she said. "Not yet, anyway."

He nodded slowly. "But then what?" he said. "What's happening, Marie? There has to be a reasonable explanation. Doesn't there?"

Marie now sat down in the chair in front of him. She took his two hands in her hands. He found her cool touch soothing. They sat facing each other. He looked deep into her eyes. Even now-still haunted by the memory of those creatures ranging through the fog-by that clawed hand reaching for him-by that deformed and hideous face looming in front of him-even now, the sight of Marie, the sweet beauty of her, made his heart swell. He could not remember a time when he hadn't longed to be with her.

"Do you remember the monastery in the woods?" she asked him.

The question was so unexpected, so odd, that it was a moment before he could take it in, a moment before he could answer. "Sure," he said uncertainly. "The Catholic one. The retreat. The one that burned down. St. Mary or something . . ."

"Santa Maria," said Marie.

"Yeah, that's it."

The Santa Maria Monastery Retreat had been a compound of Spanish-style buildings set around a pretty chapel deep in the forest up on Cold Water Mountain. It was gone now. The so-called Independence Fire that had scorched the hills last July-that had consumed acres and acres of woods up there and destroyed more than a hundred houses-had reduced Santa Maria's stately buildings, valuable antiques, and tranquil gardens to charred ruins.

"What about it?" said Tom. "What's the monastery got to do with anything?"

"My father says you have to go up there. He says that's where the answers are and where you're supposed to be right now. He says if you can get to Santa Maria, you can bring all this craziness to an end."

Tom stared at her. "But why?" he said. It made no sense. Tom would do just about anything to get answers, to find out the truth about all this, but . . . go back outside? Out into the fog where those-those things were? And up into the woods on Cold Water Mountain? To the ruins of the monastery? "How can that possibly help?"

Holding his hands firmly in hers, Marie shook her head. "I'm not sure. Like I said, our connection wasn't that good. But Daddy said it was important. Urgent, even. He said once you get to the monastery, you'll know what you have to do to bring this to an end."

As Tom went on staring at her, thoughts raced through his mind. Why the monastery? Why the mountain? He was trying to make sense of it. Was it possible that what was happening here was some sort of supernatural, spiritual event? Were those creatures in the fog some kind of demons? Did he have to get up to Santa Maria to call on the power of G.o.d to fight them or to call on the angels or something? But why the monastery? And why him? His family had always gone to Hope Church around the corner. It was nondenominational. They weren't even Catholic!

"I don't get it," he was about to say-but before he could, his phone rang in his pocket. The guitar riff: "The Fightin' Side of Me."

Tom tried to reach for the phone, but Marie gripped his hands even tighter. He saw her eyes flash to his pocket, to the place where the phone was singing.

"Don't answer that!" she said, her voice a frightened whisper.

Confused, he worked one hand free. "What do you mean? I have to answer it. It might be my mom."

He reached into his pocket. He felt the phone vibrating there.

Marie looked at him urgently. "It's not," she said. "It's not your mom. I know it! Don't answer, Tom. I mean it. Just do what Daddy said. Just get to the woods, get to the monastery. That's where the answers are! That's what you want, isn't it? Answers. That's what you're always . . ."

Tom pulled the phone out. He checked the readout: Number blocked.

"I'm serious," said Marie. "Don't."

The urgency of her tone made him hesitate a second. But finally he said, "I have to. It really might be my mom."

Marie let go of his other hand. She dropped back against the chair and let out a long breath, giving up.

Tom answered the phone. "h.e.l.lo?"

There was a silent pause. And then-Tom's heart sped up as he heard the static-that same odd, distant static he'd heard first thing this morning when the phone woke him. Again, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away, some alien place, some frightening place he could not imagine. And again, as he listened, he heard that voice, that woman's voice, trying to reach him through the noise.

"I need to talk to you. It's so important. I need . . ."

Tom leaned forward, gripping the phone hard in his sweating fingers. He knew that voice-he knew it! It was that woman. The woman in the white blouse who had been standing down at the base of the driveway. The woman who had gazed at him with that peculiarly blank, dead expression-and then vanished into the fog. He didn't know how he knew it was her, but he knew. Why couldn't he remember her name?

"What do you want?" Tom said to her, nearly shouting over the static. "I can barely hear you. What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you . . . ," the woman said again, but already the static was closing over her voice as the fog had closed over her figure.

"What do you want?" Tom shouted, more desperately this time as he heard her fading. "Why didn't you wait for me in the driveway? Why didn't-"

But the phone beeped twice: Connection lost. She was gone.

Tom cried out in frustration.

"Tom . . . ," Marie began to say. "Tom, listen to me. You have to listen-"

But before she could finish, another voice interrupted her.

"This is your mission! This is what I've been trying to tell you about all along . . . The Warrior . . . Do you remember the Warrior?"

Burt! It was his brother's voice! It was coming from the bas.e.m.e.nt again. What was happening here? What was going on?

Tom leapt up out of his chair. Marie jumped up, too, jumped up so quickly her chair fell over behind her, banging loudly against the floor.

"Tom," she whispered. "Don't . . ."

"That's Burt," he said. "Don't you hear it? That's Burt's voice."

"It's not. It can't be. You know that. Burt is dead," said Marie.

"I heard him before. The same way. From down in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"Tom, listen to me, do not go down there."

Tom stood looking at her, uncertain. He licked his dry lips. He wanted to help her, to keep her safe. He wanted to do what she said. But it was Burt . . .

"Marie, I don't understand any of this," he said. "Do you know more than you're telling me? Is there something you don't want me to know?"

"All I know is that you have to go to the monastery," she answered urgently. "That's where the answers are. You have to find them. You can't wait any longer. You have to go there now."

But Tom could hear Burt shouting again: "This is what I tried to teach you. This is what you have to do . . ."

And then he said, "This is your mission, Tom."

Tom started. Did Burt just call him by name? From the TV? How was that possible? He had to know-he had to find out-where the voice was coming from.

He looked helplessly at Marie. "I've got to look," he said.

He turned away from her. He went to the bas.e.m.e.nt door.

Marie called out behind him in a sharp tone of voice he'd never heard her use before. "Tom! Listen to me! Please! You don't always have to know everything! You've got to stop this!"

He looked at her. He saw the fear and frustration flas.h.i.+ng in her eyes, her bowed mouth twisting in a strange and ugly way. But it didn't matter. He heard Burt downstairs.

"Remember the Warrior, Tom."

He had to go. He pulled open the door.

Marie shouted at him: "Tom, I mean it! Don't!"

Tom flipped the light switch. He left Marie in the kitchen and thundered quickly down the stairs.

He hit the bas.e.m.e.nt floor and spun around the corner into the family room, moving fast. He saw the side of the television. He heard Burt's voice coming from the speakers: "This is what you have to understand! This is what I have to get you to understand . . ."

His brother sounded so present, so real-so alive!-that it made Tom hurt inside to hear him. He missed his brother so much it was like a physical pain.

He needed to get around to the front of the TV. He needed to see Burt's face, to see what he was doing on the video before the whole thing vanished again as it had earlier, before the voice went silent and Burt was gone.

He took a quick step forward.

"All along," said Burt, "this was what I was trying . . ."

And then, sure enough, the voice stopped, mid-sentence. And the next moment there was another voice: "Dr. Cooper to the ER-stat!"

"No!" shouted Tom.

He hadn't been fast enough. There was that stupid doctor show again!

And yes, there it was. As he got in front of the TV, he saw the same scene that had been on before.

The nurse was shouting, "Single GSW to the chest! Clear Trauma One."

The doctors and nurses and aides were crowding around the gurney, rolling the gurney frantically down the hospital hallway to the emergency operating room. The patient-the person lying wounded on the gurney-was obscured by the crush of bodies around him as they all hurtled together down the corridor shouting urgently to one another.

"How's the pulse?"

"Sixty and falling fast!"

Exasperated, Tom's eyes went heavenward and his shoulders slumped in defeat. The monsters in the fog. The images on TV. Marie telling him to leave everything behind and go to the monastery. What was happening? What was it all about?

He looked at the TV again. The scene had changed now. The doctors and nurses and aides had pushed the gurney around the corner into a trauma alcove. They were leaning over the patient on the gurney, preparing to lift him onto the operating table.

"On three," said a doctor. "One, two, three!"

All together, as Tom watched, they hoisted the b.l.o.o.d.y form off the gurney and laid him on the table. When they were done, the cl.u.s.ter of people broke apart, each hurrying into a different corner of the little s.p.a.ce, each turning to his own ch.o.r.e, wrangling his own piece of equipment. One nurse grabbed a tray of surgical instruments. A surgeon pulled on a sterile gown. Another nurse hooked up an oxygen tank. For a moment, as they worked, the patient lay alone on the table with no one around him, no one blocking him from view, so that Tom could finally see him, see his face.

The sight was as shocking as anything he had seen this whole shocking day. Tom's mouth fell open and the breath came out of him as quickly as if he had been punched. He stared unblinking at the TV, unable to believe what he was looking at, unable for a second or two even to comprehend it.

The patient on the gurney: It was Tom. It was Tom himself.

The sight of himself on the TV screen, the sight of himself as a character in his mom's favorite medical show, hit Tom so hard he actually took a step back. He went on staring, went on gaping, second after second as the scene unfolded. He watched as the patient-himself-lay on the table unconscious, his eyes closed. He saw with a growing nausea that his s.h.i.+rt was covered in blood, the stain spreading all the way from his collar to his belt buckle.

And now the nurses were cutting his clothes away with a knife. The place where the bullet had ripped into his body was exposed, his flesh gory and torn. A nurse was stuffing a tube into his throat-it made Tom gag just to watch it. Another nurse was jamming a needle into his arm-he practically felt the sting.

Then, most horrifying of all, a doctor, his face obscured behind a surgical mask, stepped forward and set a scalpel against his skin-Tom's skin. They were going to cut him open on television right before his own eyes. Tom-standing there in the family room, staring at the TV-could almost feel the cold touch of the blade against him.

But all at once the scene went blank. The television turned itself off.

The sudden darkness on the screen snapped Tom's trance. He shook himself as if he were waking up. Without thinking, he turned and found the remote on one of the chairs, lifted it, pointed it at the TV, and tried to turn the show on again. The prospect of watching himself cut open made him sick to his stomach, but he had to know what happened next, had to find out what all this meant.

Training his intense blue eyes on the TV screen by sheer force of will, he pressed the Power b.u.t.ton. Nothing happened. Pressed it again-nothing. He tossed the remote back down onto the chair.

Think, he told himself. Figure it out. Finding answers is what you do. Find them!

But how could he? His own image on the TV. Burt calling him by name. Marie urging him to the burned-out retreat in the woods. Monsters in the fog. How could he put any of it together? How could he make sense out of any of it?