Alan Wake

wind cut through him, wondering if he had the courage to do what needed to be done.

Wake took out the page from the Bright-Lit Room, the page from the book that Thomas Zane had written.

With the Clicker firmly in his hand, Alan finally slept like a baby, safe from harm. Now, almost thirty years later, Alan thought of this, as he stood on the rim of Cauldron Lake, the Clicker in his hand. He took a deep breath and jumped.

The surface of the lake hummed louder, crackling with black energy. A whirlwind howled across the lake, a black vortex of wrecked cars and pickups, uprooted trees and billboards twisted beyond recognition. The whirlwind grew larger, rising higher and higher into the sky as it hovered above the lake, the sound deafening now. The stars were going out, one by one.

Wake took out the flare gun that Weaver had given him. She was right about him needing it, like she was about so many things. A light to guide him into the darkness. He shot the flare gun skyward, saw it burst in the whirlwind, causing the blackness to recoil. The flare descended slowly, illuminating the lake. He took a last look around, inhaled deeply… then did just what the page said he had done.

He jumped into the water, sinking down, down, down. His breath ran low and the light from the flare faded overhead, but he kept going, allowing himself to sink deeper and deeper into the black depths, and when his breath ran out he ignored it, shivering as he fell through the icy water. The island was down here someplace, hidden deep below Cauldron Lake, far beyond the reality of sun and trees, of diners with friendly waitresses and sheriffs who kept the peace. There was no peace under Cauldron Lake, no law, no order.

He saw a light of the Diver, the spaceman. Thomas Zane floated beside him now, his face through the glass windows of his copper helmet surrounded by light. Wake basked in the radiance, strengthened by it.

“It wasn’t my Barbara,” said Zane, speaking between deep breaths of his respirator. “I cut its heart out when I realized it wasn’t her, but I didn’t stop it. It has no heart.”

“I know.” Wake could see another Wake at the edge of the light, the man dressed identically to him, same trousers, same hoodie, same coat. Wake’s doppelganger, the Wake he had seen typing away in the cabin while Jagger urged him on. The Wake he had been unable to warn, unable to dissuade from writing.

“Don’t mind him,” said Zane, the sound of the respirator louder now.

The other Wake smirked at Wake.

“He’s Mr. Scratch,” said Zane. “Your friends will meet him when you’re gone.”

“What does that…?” started Wake, looking into the other Wake’s eyes, feeling as though he were floating.

The other Wake reached out for Wake, their fingertips almost touching, and then Wake was falling slowly. He could see the cabin below him now as he drifted down, leaving Zane and Mr. Scratch behind. He was walking toward the cabin now. Bird Leg Cabin, that ugly warren built on twisted sticks and misery. Wake was on the island again, Diver’s Isle, and whether he was still underwater or back on the surface, he couldn’t say.

The lake raged now, whitecaps churning the surface. The island shook, groaned, as the wind howled around him, beating against him so hard that he had to lean forward to stand. The landscape of the island was distorted, the surfaces tilted unnaturally. On the island, the trees were inverted, gnarly roots reaching upward, a perfect mirror image of the cabin’s foundation of branches. Wake watched as enormous rocks floated past his face, sent them skittering away with a slap of his hand. The island was like the toy chest of a deranged child, where nothing obeyed the rules of reality… nothing save the cabin. The cabin didn’t need to play with tricks of nature, its very essence was unnatural.

Wake clutched the Clicker in his hand as he started up the worn steps of the cabin.

A black geyser exploded from the lake, a black rain drenching Wake, chilling him to the bone.

Wake entered the cabin. All the furniture downstairs was gone, washed away, except for a large rocking horse, its paint peeling, face decayed, the red yarn mane rotting. It rocked slowly back and forth as Wake carefully approached. The floors of the cabin were cracked, plaster slaking off the bare walls. At the bottom of the stairs, blocking his way up, stood Barbara Jagger.

“All you had to do was write what I told you to write,” said Jagger, and her voice was like the cawing of the ravens. “But you were disobedient.”

“Very disobedient,” said Wake.

“I don’t like the tone of your voice,” said Jagger. “Not one little bit.”

The rocking horse rocked faster.

“You’re never going to get your Alice back, now,” said Jagger.

“You were never going to give her back,” said Wake.

The door to the cabin slammed shut.

Wake could see the hole where her heart had been cut out, just as Thomas Zane had said. Her eyes were filled with dark water, the hole in her chest ringed with tiny gray snails. She had drowned decades ago; the Dark Presence didn’t have to hide the fact now, not in the cabin.

“Do you think you’re the only creator in the world?” sneered Jagger. “I’ll find a new face to wear. Someone else who can dream me free.”

The rocking horse rocked back and forth, faster and faster, the floor creaking, bits of its rotted mane floating away.

Wake wasn’t afraid now. For the first time in years, he wasn’t afraid.

“I don’t need you,” snarled Jagger.

Wake stepped toward Jagger, put one arm around her, holding her close. She was colder than the lake, but he held on as she resisted. He thrust the Clicker into the hole in her chest and flipped the switch.

Shrieking, Jagger threw back her head. Light burst from her chest, hot, white light, brighter than the sun. Light boiled out of her eyes, shot from her agonized, open mouth, burning away the darkness.

Wake held the Clicker in place while Jagger shuddered, her black lace veil rough against him as she disintegrated.

The rocking horse had fallen over. One of its glass eyes rolled slowly across the wood floor, coming to a stop against Wake’s boot.

Dust motes floated down around on Wake, glinting in the light

He took the steps two at a time, hurrying upstairs and into the study. The typewriter waited on the desk for him, his familiar manual typewriter, a half-written page in the roller. The last page of the manuscript for Departure. He could sense Alice’s presence close by, almost close enough to touch. He understood what he had to do. He knew the ending he had to write. There was light and there was darkness. Cause and effect. Guilt and atonement. The scales always had to balance. The price must be paid. That’s where Zane had gone wrong. He had thought it would be easy.

Wake sat down and started typing.

EPILOGUE

NOT A RIPPLE stirred the surface of Cauldron Lake, no fish leapt from its depths, no dragonflies bobbed above its shallows. Even the solitary red-tailed hawk floating high overhead kept its distance. It was a lake of black glass, cold and perfect and dead.

Ever vigilant, the hawk dipped slightly, curious now at the bubbles rising from one spot in the lake. It moved lower as the bubbles grew larger, the lake boiling.

“It’s not a lake… it’s an ocean,” he said, so clearly it was as if he were right beside her.

Alice burst up from the darkness of the lake, burst into the sunlight, coughing, rolling over, her face in the light. She tread water, gasping for breath. She waited… and waited, squinting in the bright light. Exhausted and shivering, she swam slowly toward shore. She made it to the rocks, clinging to the round boulders ringing the lake, resting, when she felt strong hands pull her onto the land. Alice opened her eyes, saw a pretty woman in a gray sheriff’s uniform. Alice clung to her, coughing up water while the sheriff patted her back.