Alan Wake

“I’m Barry, remember me?” He followed the two of them down the corridor, glancing behind him in the darkness. The door banged. “Hey, wait up.”

Wake heard shouting from outside as they walked down the hallway to Breaker’s office; it was a distinctive sound, one he understood only too well, the quavering voice of someone being attacked by a neighbor, a friend, a coworker, and asking why, what had they done? He saw Breaker hesitate, start to go outside and do her duty, but he put a hand on her shoulder, slowly shook his head. Even in the dim light he could see her eyes, saw the acknowledgment of their situation, her inability to help in the face of what they were confronting.

Trash cans and metal news boxes tumbled down the street, their papers blast apart by the darkness, headlines dying in the night. With a whoosh the storm of shadows carried everything straight up in the air, wooden picnic tables and metal signs promising saws sharpened expertly for 20% off, even the parking meters in front of the post office rattled violently in the curb, then launched themselves into the night, trailing concrete and rebar.

Wake and Breaker were thrown against the wall, and Barry was knocked off his feet as the fire engine landed in the middle of the street, dropped from a great height, its tires exploding, the windshield melting down the hood, the shadows so thick on the vehicle that there was no way to see what color it was. It was the color of darkness now, that’s all that mattered.

Wake stared at the fire engine as the siren started screaming again, undulating in triumph, and he thought of the car that Alice had spotted that first day as they drove to the cabin, a convertible sitting in the middle of the woods with a splintered tree driven up through the undercarriage and the ragtop. He and Alice had circled the car, trying to figure out how it could have possibly gotten there. They would have been better off to have driven out of Bright Falls at that moment, tossing the keys to the cabin out the window as they passed the Oh Deer Diner and just kept going.

“Alan?” Breaker stood in front of her office. “Are you coming?”

Wake tore himself from the fire engine, the siren sound reverberating in his skull.

Breaker tried the light switch in her office. Nothing. She went to her desk, tossed Wake a flashlight, rummaged around for others for Barry and one for herself. Wake pointed his flashlight at the ceiling, the reflected light softly illuminating the room. Barry pointed his light directly at his own face, hoping to stay safe in the spotlight. Breaker opened a cabinet on the other side of the room. Breaker handed Wake the shotgun and revolver that Nightingale had taken from him at the Anderson farmhouse. “Well, now are you going to tell me exactly what’s going on in my jurisdiction?”

Wake took a deep breath. “The thing that swept Nightingale away… it’s an entity of some kind, something powerful that lives under the lake. It’s called the Dark Presence.”

“The Dark Presence?”

Wake expected her to mock him, but her tone of voice indicated that she took his statements at face value. He nodded. “It uses darkness somehow… it takes over people, things, uses them. The townsfolk covered in shadows, they’re called Taken. The darkness protects them, so they can’t be hurt by guns or shotguns or anything else unless you burn away the darkness with light.”

“That why you wanted the flashlights?” said Breaker. “With them and the guns we can protect ourselves.”

“You should have seen us last night, Sarah,” said Barry, blinking in the beam from his own flashlight. “Me and Al totally owned the stage at the Anderson farm. I was shooting off fireworks, and manning the stage lights while Al blasted them to bits. We were like… like rock gods.”

The sheriff turned to Wake. “Rock gods?” She had a pretty smile.

Wake blushed. “You had to be there.”

Barry strummed air guitar with the hand holding the flashlight, the beam shooting around the room, glinting off the badge pinned to the sheriff’s chest.

The siren of the fire engine went silent.

Breaker went to her desk and took a small notebook out of a locked drawer. “Wheeler, I need your help.”

“I’m your man.” Barry grinned.

Breaker handed him the notebook. “I need you to call the names on this list while I check the fuse box and see if I can get the power back on. Call those numbers and tell them that you have a message from me. ‘Night Springs.’ Okay? They’ll know what to do.”

“Night Springs? Like the TV show?” Barry checked the list. “Who’s Frank Breaker? He related to you?”

“My father,” said Breaker, walking out the door.

“Is this like a secret society?” called Barry, but Breaker was already gone. “Wow. That is one take-charge lady.”

For the next five minutes, Barry called the names on the list and gave them the message: Night Springs. Most of the time he had to repeat it, but no one argued. No one lingered on the phone either.

“No luck,” said Breaker, hurrying into the office. “The fuse box is totally fried.”

“I need to find Cynthia Weaver,” Wake said to Breaker. “She can help me stop the Dark Presence.”

“Wheeler, did you make contact with everyone on the list?” said Breaker.

“Every one,” said Barry. “I like the whole code-word thing, sheriff. Mucho mysterious.”

Breaker picked up the box of shells from the desk, started loading her shotgun. “What do you think Miss Weaver is going to do for you, Alan?”

Wake shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“The Anderson brothers left us a message in one of their songs,” explained Barry. “They said the Lamp Lady had the answer.”

Breaker raised an eyebrow at Wake, then resumed sliding shells into the side of the shotgun.

“I know what this sounds like,” started Wake, “but—”

“The only time my father ever got really mad at me was when I was ten years old,” said Breaker, “and he heard a rhyme I made up about Miss Weaver—‘Weaver, Weaver, loony believer, scared that the dark is gonna eat her.’ My father sat me down, furious, said Miss Weaver paid attention, which was more than most people in Bright Falls did, and even more importantly, she tried telling people what she knew. Wasn’t her fault that most folks didn’t want to hear it.”

She finished loading the shotgun, racked the slide, the sound echoing. “That was good enough for me. So, if you say Miss Weaver knows how to defeat the Dark Presence, seems to me we need to get to her as soon as —”

One of Breaker’s squad cars tumbled end over end across the street and crashed into the side of the sheriff’s department. A scrap of ceiling panel floated down onto them.

“Miss Weaver lives in the old power plant,” said Breaker, as though nothing had happened. “She’s been living there for years. Illegal occupancy, but no one’s ever complained, and even if they had…” She flicked her badge with a forefinger. “My father used to say that half of law enforcement was knowing when to apply the law and when to apply common sense.”

She carried the shotgun easily in one hand, the barrel pointing toward the floor. “We’ll take the rescue helicopter and see what Miss Weaver has to say.”

“You know how to fly?” said Barry.

“How hard can it be?” said Wake.

“That’s not funny, Al,” said Barry. “You do know though, right, Sheriff?”

Breaker and Wake headed out the door, and Barry hurried after them.

Downtown Bright Falls was a disaster, a combination of Mardi gras revelry and an EF2-level tornado. Crashed cars, broken glass and trash everywhere, a geyser of water spewing from a knocked-over fire hydrant. The DEERFEST! banner drooped almost to ground level. One end of Main Street was blocked by an overturned logging truck, logs strewn like pick-up sticks, the other end closed off by a Deerfest parade float that stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk. Across the street from the police station, sparks showered from a major power outlet that had been hit by a car, sizzling on the wet pavement.