Alan Wake

Wake stumbled, fell to one knee. A dozen ravens shrieked around him, clawing at his face, deafening him with the sound of their beating wings.

“Al!”

Wake snapped one of the flares, and the birds around him blazed in the flash of light. He staggered toward the porch as another wave of ravens launched themselves at him from the trees, wheeling upward and then abruptly down for maximum effect. Wake twisted the other flare as they dive-bombed, waved it overhead, and swept them into nonexistence. He stood there blinking, half-blinded from the glare.

Wake felt a hand on him, dragging him up onto the porch and into the cabin. The door slammed behind him.

“Jeez, big guy, you had me worried out there,” puffed Barry, his face scratched and swollen. “Thought those birds were going to make a scarecrow out of you.”

“Scarecrows… scarecrows are supposed to scare birds away,” said Wake, so tired he could hardly stand. “Those birds looked scared to you?”

“What, you think this is the time to correct my metaphors?” said Barry. “Hey?” He looked concerned. “What’s with the shotgun?”

“It’s been a long night,” said Wake.

“Tell me about it,” said Barry. “I thought the pigeons back home were like flying rats, but these birds, they’re worse. It’s like they… they want to hurt us. That’s nuts, isn’t it, Al? I mean, that doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Wake didn’t answer. He slipped the shotgun into the closet, put the boxes of shells on the shelf. He kept the revolver and extra ammo in his jacket.

Barry sat down on the couch. Reached for the beer bottle that rested on the coffee table, almost knocked it over. “I—I don’t like it here, Al.”

Wake sat heavily beside him. He took the beer from Barry’s hand.

“Sure, go ahead,” said Barry, watching as Wake finished the rest of it, drained the bottle, and tossed it aside. “I was thinking of cutting back, anyway.”

Wake belched and closed his eyes.

Stucky spat on the garage floor and tried to shake the cobwebs from his head. Ever since the couple from New York City never showed to pick up the keys, things had been fuzzy. Something—a feeling—caught his attention. Stucky looked up and stared, unable to turn away as his brain tried in vain to process the horror before him. He stumbled back, knocking over a can of oil; a black pool spread across the floor. He struggled for a brief moment, then let go as the unrelenting darkness engulfed him.

CHAPTER 12

WAKE STARED AT his yellow legal pad. Four hours ago he had written the words DEPARTURE, by Alan Wake at the top of the page, underlining it three times. The rest of the page was still blank. His fingers were cramped from gripping the ballpoint pen, his head throbbed, but he hadn’t written a word. Not one word. Alice had brought him to Bright Falls hoping to jump-start his writing, but he still was locked in, even now when writing was the only way to free her.

The clock was ticking, Alice’s very survival at stake, and he stayed poised over the table, waiting in vain for some inspiration, some thought… anything that might save her. He glanced over at the crumpled and flattened manuscript pages on the desk, the pages found in the woods, at the logging camp… at Stucky’s gas station. Had he really started the book, started it during the missing week after Alice was kidnapped, a week he had no memory of?

He rubbed the bump on his head, wincing at the memory of the impact that caused it. Why was finishing the book so important to the kidnapper, so important that it was the only ransom he demanded? The man didn’t seem like much of a reader. There was someone else behind him, pulling the strings.

Two years of writer’s block were nothing compared to this. He couldn’t scrawl a single word, not even to save Alice. Now he had two days to complete the manuscript and deliver it to him at the Bright Falls coal mine. Two days.

At least Barry wasn’t here to distract him with offers of aspirin, canned chicken soup, coffee, whatever you need, Al, just say the word. A few hours earlier, Wake had finally convinced Barry to drive into town and ask around, see if anyone recognized the kidnapper from Wake’s description. It was a long shot, but Bright Falls was a small town. Maybe everyone really did know everyone. Wake had watched through the window as Barry drove off, relieved at being left alone to work, but also oddly uneasy. Barry was the only one he trusted, his only connection here with life outside of Bright Falls.

Wake yawned. It was unfair of him to push Barry out the door and Wake knew it. It hadn’t been easy for Barry, particularly when they went by the lodge this morning and saw the mess from last night. The mess, an oddly sanitary term for the blood splashed across one corner of the main room where Rusty had been hacked to pieces by one of the Taken. No body, of course; Rusty himself had become a Taken, and Wake had killed him. Nothing to show for it other than a huge hole in the wall of the lodge.

The sheriff had stared at the hole, hands on her hips, stared at the dried blood too, then started cataloging the crime scene, directing her deputies. That much blood it had to be a crime scene.

The workers at the lodge had stood around gawking, coming up with various scenarios. That the earthquake that everyone in the area had felt had collapsed the wall, crushing Rusty. That a bear had come in to drag away the body. Others offered up the possibility that a drunk logger had driven a loader into the wall, accidentally killing Rusty, and then got rid of the body, hoping to hide the crime. Or an angry spirit had done it, that’s what one of the old-timers said, a grandpa in a red wool cap with a mouthful of chaw. An angry spirit, he repeated; his mama had told him stories when he was a kid, stories about things from the woods that snatched the unwary, snatched disobedient children too. The crowd laughed at the old-timer and Deputy Mulligan joked back that it was probably Buck-Toothed Charlie come to life. But Wake didn’t laugh. He knew better.

The sheriff had asked Wake if he had heard anything last night, seen anything, and he lied to her, said no, he’d been exhausted and turned in early. He wasn’t sure she believed him.

Without even noticing it was happening, Wake’s chin drifted lower as he struggled to stay awake…

Wake beat on the typewriter and the typewriter beat on him, click-clacking away in Bird Leg Cabin, bent over the desk in the upstairs study, typing as fast as he could. His fingers ached from pounding on the keys of the manual typewriter, his manual typewriter, the one Alice had brought with them, the sound of it as familiar as his own breathing. He tore at the keys in a frenzy, desperate for completion, sensing someone behind him, looking over his shoulder, but Wake couldn’t turn to see who it was, wouldn’t turn if he could. All that mattered was that he keep writing. His fingers flew.

Wake jerked as a horn beeped, someone really leaning on it. He rubbed his eyes, looking around in disbelief. He was back in the living room of the Elderwood park cabin, his neck stiff, his shoulders sore, but here, not in Bird Leg Cabin. He saw Barry pull up outside, waving from the front seat of the car. Wake looked down, saw the legal pad in front of him still blank. The pencil he had been holding lay snapped in half on the table. Wake wanted to cry. Wanted to scream in anger and frustration.

A wasted afternoon and he had no time to waste, not if he wanted to get Alice back. He kicked the desk in frustration, cracking the bottom drawer. He leaned down and opened it, the handle falling off. But that wasn’t all. Stacked neatly in the rear of the drawer were three new manuscript pages. Hands trembling, Wake picked up one.

Barry got back to his feet inside the Bright Falls General Store and dusted himself off. Right next to the cans of baked beans was a locked case filled with flare guns. And yet, here was a conveniently placed barrel