nothing about them, only thanked him for the ride and watched him leave.
Storm or no storm, he clambered down to the Saunders, moving among the heaving trees.
The little stream flowed normally. Some rain along its path somewhere had sped it up a bit, but that was the only thing in the slightest out of the ordinary.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Nick!”
“I saw you coming down here.”
“Yeah, I—”
“The kid is from the other world.”
He was absolutely so stunned that he couldn’t talk.
“I’ve read your book, Dad, and I know it’s real.”
Nick was a private sort of a kid. Smart, as his grades revealed, but not by nature very social. Wylie and he had a good relationship, though.
“You’ve been reading my book?”
“I read all your stuff.”
“And this kid? You’ve seen him?”
“Come over here, Dad.”
Nick led him a short distance away. They were right before the little rapids. Thunder rolled and wind gusted. Leaves raced past, yellow and red. It was quite amazingly beautiful, Wylie thought, but also completely normal.
“Watch,” Nick said. He picked up a river stone and sailed it out over the water, as if he was trying to skip it but coming in too high.
In its flight, the stone did a very strange thing. It sort of jumped. Not a lot, but it jumped in the air.
Nick tossed another one, and this time his aim must have been better, because the stone completely disappeared. Never hit the water. Was gone.
“My God, Son, when did you discover this?”
“He did it this afternoon.”
“He was here?”
“In your office, Dad. Dad, he’s all dirty and he looks really scared, and I think he’s Trevor. He started reading your book.”
The world heaved, and it wasn’t the storm. “Oh, my God,” Wylie said.
He turned and ran back to the house, Nick following.
“What’s going on,” Brooke yelled as they burst in, “don’t you two know it’s raining?”
“They can use it!” Wylie shouted as he dashed upstairs. “They can use the book!”
“Who? Nick, what’s going on?”
Nick hesitated on the stairs. “The closer we get to the twenty-first, the wider the gateways are opening, and there’s one down on the Saunders, right at the rapids. It’s between our world and Martin’s, and they’re using it. We think his son is. We think it’s Trevor. He tried to come home last night, and came through the gateway instead.”
Wylie said, “If they can read the book, honey, think how it can help them! We can let them know that Samson’s evil—”
“Dad—”
“—we can help them find the wanderers, maybe they can turn this thing around!”
“Dad, I think Trevor came here by accident. That’s why he was so confused and afraid. He thought he was going home. He couldn’t understand why all the furniture had changed, why there were strange people in the house, any of it. Then he stumbled on the book.”
“But he’ll be back. Of course.”
“We can’t know that, Dad.”
Wylie went into the office. Sat before the laptop. “There’s something larger at work, here. Whatever created that gateway. Whatever prevented me from destroying this incredibly precious book.”
“Um, Dad, that would be me and mom.”
“Excuse me?”
Nick nodded. “She has a USB drive she keeps in her pocket. She saves it on that.” He paused for a moment. “Don’t be mad at me, but I wrote the code that prevented you from erasing it.”
“You can program? I didn’t know that.”
“It’s a few lines of code.”
“We need to find Trevor. I need to write about him. Tell him where his dad is, give them a plan of action.”
“It’s better not to talk about this.” Brooke stood in the doorway. She had the drive in her hand.
“But you—we—”
She put her finger to her lips. “Don’t talk about it, either of you. Just let it lie.”
Kelsey came in. She came to her daddy, crawled into his lap.
Silence fell among them. Wylie understood that all was not as it seemed. In fact, nothing was as it seemed. “What’s going on?”
“Wylie…”
Kelsey stuck her face in his. She held him by the ears. “That’s what we don’t ever, never talk about, Daddy.” She shook her head. “Ever, never.” Then she gave him a wet kiss and ran off laughing down the hall.
Nick and Brooke gazed steadily at him. He thought again of poor Nunnally, and how very close to this house that attack had been.
The reptilians had reached Nunnally, and they could come here, too. Five years ago, they’d opened a gateway not far from this house. What would prevent them from following Trevor through the gateway on the river? “We could be in trouble, here,” Wylie said.
“You’ve got that right,” Brooke said.
“But I don’t know what to write about. I don’t know where to take it.”
Brooke said softly, “Trevor. Just think about Trevor.”
Wylie closed his eyes.
“Let yourself happen,” Nick said. “Just let it flow.”
He saw a face. White hair, gray eyes, all crag and grandeur. “Christ, I don’t need Al North!”
Then it came, a flood that blanked his mind, that broke his thought and his will and took him over completely.
Throwing back his head as if he had been slugged hard, he started to type. He watched his fingers fly across the keys. He stared, finally, at the words that were pouring out of him. “Al,” he whispered, “it’s you, it’s gonna be you.”
Outside, the thunder rumbled and sheets of hail came bouncing down, and the trees moaned. Inside, Wiley’s helpless shouts at a man who could not hear him echoed through the house, in the dark of the storm.
Brooke got water for him, and tended him as she always did, while he worked.
Nick went downstairs and saw to the guns.
ELEVEN
DECEMBER 11
MOUNTAIN OF LIES
THE DEEPER INTO CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN Al went, the better he felt. This mission mattered, it was progress, and it might yet bring them a win. He’d had a hell of a time getting out here, but he’d made it at last. The problem hadn’t been finding a jet that worked or even a crew. It had been gathering enough fuel.
But this place, this was the Air Force as it ought to be. These people didn’t feel a constant sense of threat, and you could hear the difference in the firmness of a step, or an easy ripple of laughter in the canteen. Morale here
