only smiled at his attempts, mocking them. So he tried to attack her physically, kicking off his blanket, kicking out at her, but despite her apparent solidity, she was not really there. She was a shade, a projection, and he understood suddenly why she had come.
She wanted him to get her out.
She wanted him to help resurrect her.
As soon as the knowledge came, it was accompanied by the certainty that he was going to die.
He tried to run through her, toward the door, toward the hallway outside and freedom. While she was not solid, she had substance. It was as if he hit a wall of ice, and the impact was accompanied by a feeling of deep, dark despair so powerful that it sent him staggering back to the bed.
The expression on her face altered. Her features did not change in any way, did not become monstrous or deformed, but they did not have to. The look on her face was so malevolent, so unlike anything he had ever seen before or even imagined, that he felt his heart leap inside his chest. i Felt the coldness nestle around it
Felt the pain spread through his left side as he fell to the floor gasping, trying to breathe.
He was having a heart attack. She stood there, look thing down at him, watching as excruciating pain spread throughout his body, as the tears came to his eyes and the agony was replaced by an even worse numbness.
She faded away silently, smiling, leaving behind only a cold spot in a room that was growing increasingly dark to him.
Gasping, he tried to move, tried to sit up, tried to reach the phone on the nightstand, but the pain was unbearable, and he could not even move his arm.
The world turned black, disappeared.
He died.
And then he started walking.
Russ Winston stared out of his office window toward the mall, the white phallic spire of the Washington Monument just barely visible over the top of the generic government
building across the street. Outside, the sky was clear blue and cloudless, the January air cool and crisp. On days like today he regretted ever having taken a des job. He wished he had not allowed himself to be promoted through the ranks of the department and was still working outside. Back at Yellowstone, perhaps. Or Arches. Or Zion.
No. --= Not Wolf Canyon. Anyplace but there.
An involuntary shiver passed through him, and he swiveled his chair, looking away from the window. He was too old for the outdoors now anyway. Hell, he was too old for the job he had. Retirement age had come and gone two presidents ago, and he was lucky to have enough pull in the department to be able to remain on even in this position.
Russ looked at the framed photo of the president mounted on the opposite wall. He tried to think of something else, but he no longer had the control of his thoughts that he once had, and against his will, his mind kept coming back to Wolf Canyon.
It had been his first government job. His previous experience had been in construction and cement contracting, and because of that heed been assigned to one of the big dam projects out West. He'd worked there for nearly a decade, moving up the on-site hierarchy through aptitude and a series of fortuitous friendships to the position of shift supervisor.
' They were damming the Rio Verde at the foot of Wolf Canyon. Another, smaller dam had been constructed twenty miles up the river, at the canyon's head, some twenty years before, but it was determined that the reservoir would not be sufficient for Arizona's needs even ten years hence. Another, much bigger dam was needed, one that could also be used to generate electricity for the town of Rio Verde and
the other desert communities spread out across this portion of the state. So the river was diverted, its output cut back to a mere trickle while they completed the project.
There was a town in the canyon between the two dams, a small remote community that had to be evacuated under eminent domain, and the residents screamed bloody murder about being moved, lodging complaint after complaint in Washington, being granted extension after extension, though the outcome of this battle was already a foregone conclusion.
But other than that, it had been smooth sailing, and Russ had enjoyed his dam days. He liked the warm western sun, liked the rugged landscape, liked the easy camaraderie he shared with the other workers.
Only afterward, after it had happened, after it was all over, had his perspective changed.
Then the horror set in.
He had spent the rest of his life denying what had occurred, avoiding any thought of it, and while he had remained in the West for most of his career, even when he transferred to Interior, he had never again gone back to Arizona. Not even to see the Grand Canyon.
He preferred to block out that part of his life.
But he had been thinking about Wolf Canyon more and more often lately.
He told himself that it was because he was getting old, because he was surveying his life and trying to sort through it, the good and the bad, to see how the balance sheet of his actions added up. That was a part of it, of course. But something else was involved as well. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.
And that worried him.
On the way home from work, Russ stopped off at the market and bought a quart of chocolate milk for Cameron. His grandson had seemed somewhat down this past week, and he knew it was because the boy sensed that they would soon be leaving. His father was working again, and it was
only a matter of time before he and his parents would be able to move out of Russ's house and back into a place of their own
Maybe Chocolate milk would cheer him up. Lily was cooking dinner when he arrived home, and he smiled at his daughter-in-law, gave her a quick pat on the back as he put the milk into the fridge. 'Where's Cameron?'
'Playing,' she said. 'He's around.'
'If you see him first, tell him I bought him some chocolate milk.'
She gave Russ a grateful smile. thank's Dad.'
'What are grandfathers for?' He walked back out to the living room and turned on the television to catch the local news. He watched it for a few minutes before becoming disgusted with the anchors' incessant chatter and the parade of soft non stories and switched the channel to
CNN.
Behind him, he heard a thump, and he glanced over his shoulder, over the back of the couch, to see the door to the garage fly open. Cameron dashed out and slammed the door immediately, throwing his body against the door as if to pre vent someone from opening it and entering.
Russ stood, frowning. 'What the--?' Cameron's face was white.
'Grampa! ..... He felt a sinking in his stomach, a tightening in his chest as he walked around the couch to where his grandson stood leaning against the door, panting. 'What is it?'
'there something in the garage! I think it's a monster!' Tom walked in at precisely that moment, throwing his keys on the entryway table, and Russ quickly called his son over. 'Cameron says there's something in the garage.' 'A monster! It tried to attack me!'
Tom gave Russ an amused kids-saythedamedest-thing look over the boy's head, and pried Cameron away from the door. 'Don't worry, sport. We'll find it. Whatever it is.'
Russ was not so sanguine. Maybe it was because he'd
been thinking about Wolf Canyon, but he could not entirely dismiss the boy's fears, and his feelings as Tom opened the door and peered into the semidarkness were closer to his grandson's than his son's.
There was a clatter of pop cans from across the garage. Russ's heart leaped in his chest. He looked over at Tom, and his son hesitated a moment before reaching around the side of the wall and grabbing the long handle of a shovel.
