But still, I kept on walking. What else could I do? There was always a rise just ahead that obscured some of the landscape beyond. And whenever I couldn’t see exactly what lay ahead, that carved a little space for hope. There could be anything on the other side. An oasis. A river. Maybe even a crystal city with glittering towers. I would only know for sure when I reached the top.
Each time I approached such an obstruction my spirits would rally and I would rush up the last stretch of slope. Going over the top, a vista would open up and there would be more of the same terrain, undulant and bleak, stretching to the horizon. Whoever had designed this little corner of hell for me could not have been any crueler.
***
I walked in a virtual trance for what seemed like days. Fatigue was not an issue. Neither was thirst or hunger. My exertions extracted absolutely no toll from my strange, new spectral body. Because it needed no rest or refreshment, I could walk without stopping. I was the ultimate perpetual motion machine, violating every law of thermodynamics. But I doubt that earthly physics had any bearing on what happened in this world.
Walking was my only possibility of salvation. There was no chance of ever finding anything better if I just up and quit. Once I stopped, it was game over and nothing about my situation would ever change again.
As I walked, I was beginning to get a feel for the pattern and rhythm of the landscape. A massive bulge would be followed by a series of narrower berms and then flats and then more berms and another large bulge. Repeat, ad infinitum.
When I approached the summit of one of the larger swells, an irregularity in the slope caught my eye. I veered and approached it. In another world, I would have never noticed it. It was just a bump. But here, bumps were anomalous.
It was half buried in dunes. I kicked and dug at the powdery sand, uncovering two low walls of stacked blocks forming a single corner, as if someone had started to build a structure and then abandoned it. Or maybe it was just meant to be a two-walled windbreak. The specifics didn’t matter. The point was, this proved that there had been other souls present in this world. This was not my own private Hell.
I sat with my back wedged into the corner of the two walls, glorying in this orthogonal joining of brickwork that could only be human in origin. Each of the blocks was about the size of a shoe box and seemed to be carved from the chalky bedrock that underlay every square inch of this land.
I wondered why someone had even bothered to build this thing. Shelter seemed unnecessary in a place where the elements, however harsh, caused no discomfort. Maybe they did it out of habit. People built walls and roofs because that was what made us people. It was like the solitary and sterile female love bird my grandmother owned had that would constantly build nests out of shredded paper.
At last, I had myself a landmark, though it probably was not very detectable from a distance. I stepped onto the wall and tried to discern the pattern of the land around me so I would be able to find it again. As I stared, I found myself able to decipher more of the subtle character of the surrounding landscape.
Some of the dunes and berms were steeper than their sisters. Some were smooth; others etched by the wind. Some were broadly rounded at the top, some had sharp keels like overturned boats. This place wasn’t as monotonous as it had first appeared.
I saw no other signs of civilization, but there was a cloud of dust in the distance—a big, rolling storm that crept perceptibly across the horizon. Out of curiosity, I turned in its direction even though it meant doubling pretty much back in the direction I had come, traveling against the grain of the terrain.
The same curious rhythm repeated itself, four or five narrow dunes followed by a broad rise descending to a flat. After the third iteration, I approached a rise that was quite a bit larger than the others. I climbed a slope that felt more like a tilted plain than a hillside. This one had altitude.
It also had a vista unlike any other I had yet encountered in this world. When I topped the rise, I paused to catch a breath that didn’t need to be caught and nearly swallowed my tongue. A smear of grayish specks spread across the landscape below, following a broad, dark smudge where the paler dust had been scoured away from the bedrock.
It looked like a scene from the Ngorongoro Crater in the Serengeti, only those weren’t wildebeest down there, they were thousands of bipedal, human forms swarming towards that storm on the horizon, which resembled something like a cross between a haboob and a tornado.
Gripped by a surge of excitement, I took off running, eager to commune with my fellow humans. But as I ran down the slope, voids riddled my limbs. My feet seemed to lift off into the air, though I knew it was impossible. I couldn’t be flying. And I wasn’t. I was doing something even more impossible. I was fading.
Chapter 23: Dunmore
A pressure grew outside my skull that made it feel like it would pop. Spasms racked my limbs. I lurched against the seat belt, gasping and wheezing. I had forgotten how to breathe, and it took me way longer than it should have to rediscover the knack. When warm, life-giving air finally flooded my lungs, I could almost feel every molecule of oxygen swarm into my alveolar capillaries and spread to every corner of my body.
And that thumping in my chest, like a frantic squirrel frantic to escape a cage. I had a heart again!
Ellen flung the wheel to the right and pulled off the road onto a shoulder flanked with massive, beech trees. A low canopy of boughs overhung the road. The headlights barely penetrated the dense forest bracketing us. It made me feel like I was back in Root.
“Are you okay?” said Ellen. “What’s happening? Should I call 911?”
From the back seat, Urszula slapped and patted my back as if trying to clear mucus from a baby with the croup.
I couldn’t talk right away. I coughed and snorted and wheezed until I got the hang of this breathing business again.
“Oh my God,” I said, hoarsely. “You don’t know how glad I am to be here.”
“O-kay,” said Ellen. “And … where else would you be? Were you...? Did you go—?”
“The Deeps,” I said. “I was in the Deeps.”
“That … is not possible,” said Urszula, after a pause.
“You were with us … the whole drive,” said Ellen.
“My body, maybe. But my soul was in the Deeps. We’ve been over this. You know how it works.”
“He is mistaken,” said Urszula. “He could not have returned here … to this place … if what he says is true.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “I was there, and here I am.”
“No. You are wrong,” said Urszula. “Wherever you went, it was not the Deeps.”
“I thought so, too. But then I saw that big ass dust storm. And the mobs of people swarming to it. Just like you described.”
“The Horus? You saw the Horus?”
“I guess that’s what it was. This big bulgy, knobby tornado thingie. And there’s no sun there. Just a glow in the sky. Everything’s all pink and gray. Cold as fuck. Dust everywhere. Does that sound about right?”
“How is this possible?” said Urszula. “How did you return?”
“Like I always do. I faded. And to tell you the truth, that’s got me kind of freaked out. It means I’ll have to go back.”
Urszula smirked at me. “I told you it was not a nice place.”
“It’s … horrible,” I said. “I don’t why I feel so strong about it. I mean, it’s just a desert. But it’s horrible.”
I felt like a traitor to Karla. But I should have listened to Bern and everyone else who tried to talk me out of going. The only good thing about it not being a one way transition like everybody warned me? At least I could come back here for a breather every now and then.
Ellen patted my arm like she was consoling a nervous cat.
Urszula sighed. “One gets used to the place, eventually. I am still not sure I believe you are actually there.”
“How do you want me to prove it? You want a pinch of dust? Christ, how long was I
gone? It felt like … days.”
“No more than a few hours,” said Ellen. “You had offered to drive partway, but we couldn’t wake you. As it is, we’re almost in Salisbury.”
“Dang! Sure felt like a lot longer than that.” I sat there, still panting and sweating, all agitated, almost feverish. I rolled down the window a bit. “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
Ellen was wearing a fleece all zipped up tight. “I think it’s actually kind of chilly,” she said. “I mean … it’s April in Vermont. There are still some snowy patches in the hills.” She reached over and touched my forehead. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I … I could use something to drink.”
Urszula handed me a bottle of water that was two thirds gone and likely laden with her backwash. I didn’t care. I guzzled it down.
“Well, we’re almost at the cottage,” said Ellen. “I’m gonna get back on the road. Okay? The sooner we get there, the sooner we can rest.” She put the Camry in gear and proceeded down the tunnel of trees.
***
My wits returned slowly, and I managed to restore some semblance of calm. It was soothing to watch all that dark forest roll by after the unending glow of the Deeps. Images of that stark landscape stuck with me, almost overwhelming my actual senses.
I had had my window open wide and my head tilted out like a dog, basking in the rush of woodsy air, savoring each balmy breath.
My experience in the Deeps left me with a new appreciation of how much multitasking was involved in running a human body. My skin kept reporting all these little itches requiring attention, muscles and joints registering soreness, all while my bladder sensors vied for attention with the whole barrage of hunger, queasiness and bloating signals flooding out of my gut.
I won’t even get into thermo-regulation and the complexity of sweating pore by pore.
“If you don’t shut that damn window,” said Ellen. “I’m gonna jack up the heat.”
“Sorry.” I rolled it up, reluctantly.
“I think you were never fully there,” said Urszula. “You saw the place, but you did not go through the change. You were just … like a tourist.”
“Oh, I changed alright. I could feel it. I still kind of feel it.”
“Maybe you adapted a little bit, but not fully. You did not commit to that existence. Maybe because of the way you entered”
“I … suppose.” Images of that bleak terrain refused to fade. It was almost as if I had left Billy behind in the Deeps. “All those people chasing the Horus,” I said. “Why? Why do they do that?”
“We call them ‘Seekers.’ Most souls in the Deeps are Seekers. It is encouraged by the powers-that-be.”
“But not you?”
“I was at first, yes … because I knew nothing better. But I became disenchanted after a time. I joined with a group of heretics. We were a minority, but we were not few.”
“These Seekers …. what exactly are they seeking?”
“The Horus, of course. They believe it a gateway to a better place. But in truth, it is merely a condenser of souls. The opposite of the Singularity. Only by bringing it down did we expose the rift to the Liminality.”
“Christ. How do you ever bring down a big ass storm like that?”
“It is not simple. It took massive, collective spell craft … and all the time we were fighting off the Protectors.”
“Protectors? Jeez. Who the fuck are they?”
“Agents of the powers-that-be,” she said. “Angels, I suppose. Serving both as shepherd and sheep dogs.”
“Holy crap. If there’s any chance of me going back, and I think there is—a good chance. You and me need to have a long talk.”
“Certainly,” said Urszula. “But if you can at all resist returning, I recommend that you do. It is one thing to be a visitor. It is another thing entirely to go through the change.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by this change. I thought I had changed plenty in during my transition to the Deeps. And some residue of that change stuck with me, particularly my sensitivity to warmth. But maybe there was more to come. If that was so, I wasn’t looking forward to it. It was going to make life in this world even more difficult.
“We’re getting close,” said Ellen. “Coming up on Fern Lake just ahead. Lake Dunmore’s just a little farther to the north. We’re looking for the turnoff to Hooker Road.”
We zipped past a large car backed into a dirt driveway, facing the road. A flash of headlight briefly illuminated some people sitting in the front seat.
I whipped my head around as we went by. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” said Ellen.
“That car we just passed. Are my eyes fooling me or was that a Cadillac?”
“I didn’t see any car.”
“Well, it was a big old thing. I could have sworn it was a Cadillac.”
“If you’re thinking Wendell, there’s no way he could know about this place,” said Ellen. “They were probably just hikers. There are a lot of trail heads around here. A lot of folks go camping at this place called Silver Lake, perched up in the mountains.”
That one brief glimpse left me feeling all unsettled. “Probably just my imagination acting up.”
“Why don’t we all just calm ourselves down, shall we? The cottage will be a great place to settle our nerves. We can take a day to just relax by the lake and figure out what to do next. Right? I mean, It’s so quiet up here in the off-season. Summer folks don’t start coming up till Memorial Day. We used to come every Spring and help my uncle get things fixed up for the season. Then, we usually had the cabin to ourselves for a week or two in August, depending on how the rentals fell … at least until things started to get weird with my parents and me, last couple years of high school.”
“Does it have electricity?” I said.
“Oh sure. I mean there’s not much more than a hot plate and a grill for cooking. It might be rustic, but it’s plenty cozy. We might need to get a fire going. The mornings are pretty clammy. But … I used to love coming up here. There are these little newts—Red Efts—that come out after rain storms. They’re so cute. Oh! Hey! Here’s the turn off!”
We pulled off State Route 53 onto a well-graded but very narrow dirt road that passed through overhanging hardwoods just beginning to leaf out, weeks behind the oaks and maples in Connecticut. Dense and thorny thickets of multiflora rose encroached on both sides, scratching the doors of the Camry.
“Dang, Ellen. Where you taking us?”
“Don’t worry. This isn’t as remote as it looks. We’re real close to Middlebury. In the morning, I can make a grocery run. Make us a nice brunch And then the rest of the day, we can rest up. No one will bother us up here. There’s no internet. No cable. I don’t even think there’s a land line.”
We passed over the top of a hill dominated by a thick stand of hemlocks, their branches interlocking into an impenetrable barrier. As we slanted down the slope, patches of a broad lake became visible, wavelets twinkling in the moonlight.
“Here it is! Just past that cairn.”
Ellen turned abruptly down a cinder drive, through clearings dominated by the remnants of last year’s garden. The drive ended at a graveled circle surrounding a cluster of white birches. The cottage was a modern looking bungalow clad with cedar shakes. It was cantilevered on the edge of a steep slope leading down to the lake shore. A wide porch furnished with rockers and rattan chairs surrounded it on all sides.
“Whoa!” said Ellen. “Uncle Tommy must have come into some money. This is all new. Not at all like I remember.”
We got out and walked up a flagstone walk to a majestic front door of fine-grained oak with antiqued fittings.
“My, my. Uncle Tommy’s been a busy bee,” said Ellen. “This place has had a complete makeover.” She flicked on the porch light.
I touched the door and my fingers stuck. I touched my hand to my nose and sniffed. “This varnish is still fresh.”
Urszula kicked
around the mulch in a flower bed. She reached down and pulled out a small shrub by the roots.
Ellen shined the small light on her key chain through a window. “Looks like the inside’s been renovated, too.”
She went over to a large gnome figurine, whose sun-faded paint job looked original and tipped it over. The base covered a section of pipe set vertically into the ground. She reached in and pulled out a key.
“I can’t wait to see what Uncle Tommy has done with this place. This is amazing.”
“Are you sure nobody’s living here now?” I said.
“I doubt it,” she said, turning the key in the lock. “Sometimes they rent it to skiers, but this time of year it’s usually vacant.”
She pushed the door open and turned on the lights.
“Oh my God! Look at this place.”
Every room was elegantly appointed. The mud room was lined with hardwood cubbies for shoes and gloves. A pair of suede leather sofas faced a fireplace lined with river stones. A plush Persian rug covered the wide pine floorboards. Oil paintings of landscapes covered the walls.
“This can’t be Uncle Tom’s doing. He would never decorate like this. His idea of fine art is NASCAR and football.”
I followed Ellen into the kitchen, which was equipped with a Sub Zero freezer and a Viking range with a convection oven. The counter tops were set with some sort of exotic granite with inclusions of rosy quartz.
Urszula opened the refrigerator and it was packed with food. I grabbed a carton of milk and checked the date. It was unopened and not even close to expiring.
Urszula stooped and opened the crisper. “There are beets here! And cabbage!”
“Really?”
“Hey, there’s a note here,” said Ellen. “Holy crap! It’s … for you.”
“Me?”
“It’s Wendell. He’s responsible for all of this.”
“But how? Why?”
Ellen scanned the elegant, purplish script penned on fancy linen-textured stationery.
“What does it say?”
“Oh my God! He … he wants you to kill someone.”
I grabbed the letter from her and started reading aloud.
“Dear James and Co.,
Welcome to Uncle Tom’s Villa. Renovations and provisions courtesy of ‘The Sanctuary.’ I would have preferred that you had stayed in Connecticut. It’s closer to the population centers. But hey, no problem. We’ve got business all over.