Alan Wake

him.

The hunter saw Wake too. He moaned, rose up on one elbow, beckoning.

Wake hurried toward him. As he got closer he could see there was something wrong with the hunter. The man’s shirt wasn’t red plaid, it was a plain gray shirt splattered with blood.

“Help me, Mister,” blubbered the hunter, crawling toward Wake. “For the love of God, help…”

Someone stepped out of the shadows, a tall, rangy man in boots and work clothes, with a single-bladed ax resting on one shoulder. He ambled toward the hunter. “Carl… Stucky,” he said, his voice contorted as though he were suffering through a convulsion. “Pleased to… meet you.”

Wake stared at the man with the ax inching toward the hunter. This was Carl Stucky, the man who they had rented the cabin from?

“Stucky… why are you doing this?” cried the hunter, fumbling with the rifle. “You… you know me.”

Stucky moved closer, stepped into the moonlight at the end of the row of logs, but the shadows seemed to cling to him, clothing him in an oily darkness. Blood dripped from the blade of the ax, blood black as night.

“Hey!” shouted Wake, looking around for a weapon. “Leave him alone!”

Stucky didn’t react to Wake’s voice. “I offer premium cabins,” he squawked at the hunter, dragging out the word as he raised the ax. “Premium cabins in the Bright Falls area.”

Lying on the ground, the hunter raised the rifle, tried to hold it steady. He had bushy eyebrows and they knitted with the effort. He fired once, threw the bolt and fired again, the bullets hitting Stucky square in the chest.

The gunshots rocked Stucky for an instant, but had no other effect. His body bent backwards slightly as he hefted the ax and then swung it down with full force.

Wake flinched as the ax cleaved through the hunter’s midsection; a slaughterhouse sound, moist and solid, spraying blood. Stucky put one foot on the hunter’s neck as he struggled to pull the ax free, and Wake saw the hunter’s eyelashes flutter in the dim light, his finger curling helplessly. Stucky jerked the ax out of the man, left rib bones glinting in the sawdust. He turned to Wake, his face a mask of shifting shadows. Things crawled in the dark of his eyes, but there was nothing human there.

Wake backed up.

“Car-llllll Stucky, pleased to meet you.”

“Did you take Alice?” demanded Wake. “Did you do something to her?”

“Premium cabins for rent.” Stucky shambled toward him.

“You son of a bitch. What… what did you do with Alice?”

“Preeeeemium cabins,” hissed Stucky, hefting the ax. “But a non-refundable reservation deposit is required.”

Wake tripped, sprawled in the sawdust, and scrambled back up again. He looked around now, wanting to run back to the gap in the fence. Even the darkness of the forest was more inviting than this place, but he wasn’t sure which direction to go, afraid he was going to be caught in a box canyon of logs with Stucky coming toward him. All he knew was that he had to get to the trailer. There would be a phone inside and maybe a weapon… something.

“You fail to arrive,” snarled Stucky, his face a torrent of shadows as he closed the gap between them, “you lose the deposit.”

Wake ran. He dodged between the stacks of logs, emerged into a clearing, and stood there, looking around, trying to decide how to get to the trailer. He darted between two long rows of logs, panting now, more from fear than exertion. He glanced behind him. No Stucky. He slowed slightly, cried out as a shadow crossed over him, Stucky leaping from atop one row to another, cackling.

“During your stay, I recommend Nordic walking!”

Wake made a break for it, heard Stucky land heavily behind him, but didn’t look back.

“Proven health benefits!”

The office was just ahead. A sign on the outside wall declared: 87 DAYS SINCE A WORK-RELATED ACCIDENT. THINK! SAFETY FIRST. Wake scrambled up the steps, taking them two at a time. He threw open the door, slammed it behind him, and locked it.

The ax blade crashed through the door, barely missing Wake’s face. The ax squeaked, glinting in the light, as Stucky twisted it free.

Wake pushed a file cabinet over, blocked the door as the blade slammed through it again. He looked frantically around the office, grabbed a heavy metal flashlight off a desk strewn with time cards and Styrofoam coffee cups. A revolver was visible in a half-opened drawer. The hunter’s rifle had been useless against Stucky, but Wake snatched it up anyway, emptied a box of ammo into his jacket pocket too. He heard Stucky walk away from the door, lurching down the stairs.

Wake picked up the telephone, praying for a dial tone. Yes! He dialed 911. While the phone at the other end rang, he bent down, picked up a paper from the floor. Another manuscript page for Departure. Of course. Bread crumbs for Hansel and Gretel, only Gretel was missing. He stuffed the page in his pocket, angry now as the 911 line continued to ring. “Answer the goddamned—”

“Deputy Janes, Bright Falls Sheriff’s Station, how may I—?”

“I need help! I’m in—”

“Sir, what’s the—?”

The line went dead. Through the window, Wake could see the phone line dangling from the pole outside, torn loose. He looked up when he heard an engine roar to life. A bulldozer rumbled toward the trailer, smoke belching from the exhaust pipes of the diesel engine.

The trailer rocked as the bulldozer slammed into it. The trailer lurched, windows shattering. The lights went out.

The trailer backed up, took another run, full-throttle this time. The blade of the bulldozer punched through a wall of the office, the engine revving as it slowly pushed the trailer toward the ravine. One wall buckled as the trailer tore free of its foundation, digging furrows in the earth as it was pushed closer and closer to the edge of the ravine.

Wake made his way to the back door of the trailer. It was stuck. He kicked it until it flung open and he leapt out.

He was lying with his face in the sawdust, heart pounding, as the trailer tumbled over the edge, the bulldozer roaring after it. There was complete silence for a moment or two before Wake heard the bulldozer crash onto the rocks far below.

He sat there, trying to catch his breath, trying to make sense of what had happened. Stucky had killed a hunter, then tried to kill him. No reason for any of it, but Stucky was dead now, had to be dead. Wake was out of danger. His heart still pounding, Wake reached into his jacket and pulled out the manuscript page he had grabbed from the desk in the trailer.

The Taken stood before me. It was impossible to focus on it… It was bleeding shadows like ink underwater, like a cloud of blood from a shark bite. I was terrified. I squeezed the flashlight, willing the Taken to not come any closer. Suddenly something gave and the light seemed to shine brighter.

Wake got up slowly, legs wobbly. The page… the page seemed connected to his fight with Stucky. “Bleeding shadows…” That’s what Stucky had looked like, the essence of darkness. Wake turned on his flashlight, the light soothing. Light and darkness. But the word in the manuscript… Taken. Taken by what?

Wake walked unsteadily through the gap in the fence torn by the bulldozer and peered over the edge of the precipice. The bulldozer was dimly visible, lying upside-down at the bottom of the ravine, its headlights still on.

A raven cawed from somewhere in the darkness, the sound echoing, and Wake turned, walked back into the logging camp. He could see the glow of the gas station through the trees, still far away, but closer. There would be a phone there, maybe an attendant working late.