I thought about that for a second before saying, “I am patient.”
She paused a second, glimmering. I’d seen some of the changelings glow a bit in the dark before, but usually everyone was trying to put as much light as possible on them when they showed up. I was drawn to her in that moment. I really wanted to see what my eyes were straining toward in the somber night. I kept my feet rooted, however. All I could make out was a vague figure, outlined in a lavender-blue haze.
“Do you know the one who slew your father?”
My jaw tensed. Was the thing taunting me? I decided to taunt it in return. “Yes, the Captain blew its jack-o- lantern head off.”
“And do you wish to know of the one that slew your mother?”
I sucked in a gulp of cold air.
“I know the one who did it,” she said.
She almost had me then. I lifted my right boot and placed it down one step closer to her. Then with a great effort of will, I stopped.
“Was it
“Come to me, and you will know the truth.”
My feet wanted to move, but I held them firmly. I reached into my pocket and groped for the pistol the Captain had given me.
“Why don’t you come out on the shore so I can get a better look at you?” I asked, angry now. I pulled the.45 out and thumbed off the safety. I doubted I could thread a slug through all the trees, but then again, maybe it was worth a try.
“The time is not right for you to walk the waters of the lake,” the apparition replied. Perhaps suspecting my murderous thoughts, she turned back into the woods and began that slow processional walk again along same the path we had taken down to the lakeshore. I fell into step again, shadowing her. The gun was in my hand, but I restrained myself. We needed information more than we needed vengeance.
“You are indeed a patient one, my shadow,” she said after a few dozen more steps. “Patience is one of the rarest of virtues.”
I said nothing and concentrated on not tripping over the roots and undergrowth. My eyes had grown accustomed enough to pick out obvious obstacles. It seemed I could see in the gloom where before I could not. My heart quickened in my chest, could it be she had changed my vision somehow? Was I even now
When I looked back for the figure, it was gone. I stopped dead and scanned the forest quietly.
“Changeling? Are you there?”
The breeze stiffened up from the lake and made the highest branches waver and rattle like black fingers beseeching the skies, but there came no answer, no hint of any presence. I had lost her. The natural thing to do was to walk to the spot where she had been, to look about for her, but I held back the urge. Perhaps this was another trick.
I retraced my steps to the lakeshore, and then quietly moved along it to the spot where I thought she might have stood. There, I found a loose pile of stones. My heart accelerated when I noticed that one of the stones was glowing. I reached down and touched it. There was an impression in the stone, like that of a three-pointed hoof.
I gazed at the faintly glimmering stone for a few moments, uncertain. It had a light blue haze about it. The odd thing was that if you looked at it directly, you couldn’t really see anything unusual. Only if you focused your eyes on something else to one side of it did you notice the soft glow.
I took the imprinted stone. It was about as big as my palm. I slid it into my pocket where it felt faintly warm.
Using the rest of the stones, I formed a small pile to mark the spot. When I had finished, I turned and followed the lakeshore eastwards toward Redmoor.
I thought about the thing I’d met in the woods tonight and how in days gone by it would have been described as a succubus, or a ghost, or a siren, or perhaps even a mermaid if found at sea. I wondered about men who’d walked lonely spots like this one in centuries past and encountered such strange things, things I myself would have called a myth or a legend just a few months earlier. It seemed clear to me now that all of those ancient stories and legends were true and full accountings. I felt pity for all those who had been ridiculed and disbelieved throughout time.
Occasionally, my hand strayed to my pocket and I touched the flat, rounded, rough stone. It was still slightly warm.
Ten
The old medical center looked more like a makeshift internment camp than a fortress, and it was only about a quarter of the way finished at that. The Redmoor Medical Center itself had never been much to look at. It was built in the sixties with that cheap cinderblock construction they were so fond of back then. The roof was nearly flat and covered with white gravel and the pinkish-brown trim needed a paintjob. The trees in the parking lot had outgrown their small squares of earth long ago and now their roots lifted up large sections of asphalt like tentacles heaving beneath a frozen black sea. I supposed the place had all looked cool decades ago, but now it was just plain ugly. But for all that, the walls were thick and strong and the few windows it had were high and small and full of reinforcing wire. It was big and probably the sturdiest structure in town, making it a good choice for defensive purposes.
I noted as I walked through the abandoned parking lot that they were planning to make the parking lot and the grassy areas in front of the center all part of the compound. They had made it about a third of the way around with chain link fencing. The fence had been strapped to the line of lampposts and trees that bordered Hagen Street. Big spools of barbed wire lay about the place, I’m sure they planned to decorate the top of the chain links with a generous spiral of wire.
I made it about half-way across the parking lot before a sentry challenged me. It was Erik Foti, he had been sitting in a police cruiser with a shotgun. He wasn’t a real cop, but I think he liked being in the cruiser.
“Hold it!” he shouted, seeing me and scrambling to yank his ear buds off. I wondered if he would go bats when the last cassette player in town died on him. All the digital music players had already died, of course, but the cassettes still worked, I guess because they were simpler. I’d spent years in school with Erik and he’d never been without portable sound of some kind. He had the cruiser door open and his shotgun out before he realized who I was.
“Ah, hello Gannon,” he said relaxing somewhat. He still held his shotgun to his chest, watching me.
“Hello Erik, you got guard duty eh?”
Erik made a face. “Yeah. Go on in, they are expecting you.”
I made my way into the large waiting room, which was full of neglected potted ficus plants, torn up magazines and vinyl furniture. The fish in the aquarium were all dead but for one feisty-looking tiger barb. I was sorry to see the fish go. I had spent a lot of hours poking at that glass when I was a kid.
There were three different nurses stations, one for the dentist, one for the doctor and one for the optometrist. The dentist and the doctor were dead, so I headed for the optometrist’s office. I found from Carlene Mitts, who was playing receptionist, that the optometrist was dead as well, and our pharmacist Beatrice Wilton had taken over the office. Lots of people were in the center and each family was bedding down in a different examination room. It was only about 10 o’clock but most people were quiet and trying to sleep on sleeping bags and cots.
As I walked around the offices, it felt good to see so many people. I hadn’t seen more than a handful of people in one place in a long time. It felt
