The Fifth Profession

see this, Rachel. It's the strangest building. So many styles. The whole thing's a fifth of a mile long.”

He crested the peak, veered past a rock, and braked, his seat belt squeezing his chest. The Taurus skidded.

He stared in disbelief.

Ahead, the road stopped. Beyond, there was nothing. Except boulders and brilliantly colored trees.

“What?”

“You took another wrong road,” Akira said.

“No. This was the road.”

“Day versus night. You can't be certain. Try it again.” Savage did.

And when he'd eliminated every left road up from Medford Gap, he stopped outside a tavern.

A group of men stood next to the entrance, adjusting their caps, spitting tobacco juice.

“The Medford Gap Mountain Retreat. How do I get there?” Savage asked.

“Mountain Retreat?” A gaunt man squinted. “Never heard of the fucking thing.”

9

Savage drove faster, unable to control his urge to flee. With tunnel vision, he stared at the broken line down the middle of the narrow road, oblivious to the glorious orange, red, and yellow of the trees on the flanking towering slopes.

“But it was there!” Savage drove even faster. “Akira and I both saw it. We slept there. We ate there. We guarded Kamichi along every corridor! Three nights! Three days!”

“Soold,” Akira said. “The wagon-wheel chandeliers. The ancient staircase. I can still smell the must in the lobby. And the smoke from the logs in the parlor's fireplace.”

“But it isn't there,” Rachel said.

The Taurus squealed around a bend. Struggling with the steering wheel, Savage suddenly realized he was doing seventy. He eased his foot from the gas pedal. Beyond a bare ridge-a sign said BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS-he saw an abandoned service station, its sign dangling, its windows broken, and pulled off the road, stopping at the concrete slabs where fuel pumps once had stood.

“We asked a dozen different people.” Though Savage no longer drove, he continued to clutch the steering wheel. “None of them had the faintest idea what we were talking about.”

He felt smothered. Jerking the driver's door open, he lunged from the car, filling his lungs with fresh air.

Akira and Rachel joined him.

“This isn't some small hotel so far from Medford Gap that the locals might not have heard of it.” Savage stared toward the bluffs beyond the service station but was too preoccupied to notice them. “It's a major tourist attraction, so close that Medford Gap's part of its name.”

“And we checked every road that led to the top of the mountain,” Akira said.

“We even drove back up the road that you're sure is the one you used six months ago,” Rachel said. “We searched the trees in case there'd been a fire. But there wasn't any charred wreckage. A half-year isn't enough time for the forest to hide evidence of the building.”

“No,” Savage said. “The forest couldn't have hidden a burnt-out cabin, let alone a massive hotel. And the fire would have been spectacular. The local population couldn't possibly forget it so fast. Even if there had been a fire, it wouldn't have destroyed the lake beside the hotel. But the lake's not there either!”

“And yet we're certain both the hotel and the lake were there,” Akira said.

“Certain?” Savage asked. “Just as we're certain we saw each other die? But we didn't.”

“And”-Akira hesitated-“the Mountain Retreat never existed.”

Savage exhaled, nodding. “I feel like…What I described last night in the hotel. Jamais vu. Nothing seems real. I can't trust my senses. It's as if I'm losing my mind.”

“What happened to us?” Akira asked.

“And where?” Savage scowled. “And why?”

“Keep retracing your steps,” Rachel said. “Where did you go from here?”

“A hospital,” Savage said.

“Mine was in Harrisburg,” Akira said. “A hundred miles south. I had to be flown by helicopter.”

“ Harrisburg?” Savage's hands and feet became numb. “You never mentioned…”

“It didn't occur to me. The look in your eyes. Don't tell me you were flown there as well.”

“Did your doctor have blond hair?”

“Yes.”

“And freckles?”

“And glasses?”

“And his name was…?”

“ Hamilton.”

“Shit,” Savage said.

They raced toward the car.

10

“What's keeping her?” Akira asked.

“It's been only ten minutes.” Savage had let Rachel out when he couldn't find a parking space. He'd been driving repeatedly around the block. Still, despite his assurance to Akira, Savage's need to protect her-coupled with his growing affection for her-made him nervous by her absence.

Midafternoon. Traffic accumulated. Savage reached an intersection, turned right, and sat straighter, pointing.

“Yes,” Akira said. “Good. There she is.”

Relieved, Savage watched her hurry from the Harrisburg public library, glimpse the Taurus, and quickly get in. He drove on.

“I checked the phone book,” she said. “Here's a photocopy of the city map. And a list of the hospitals in the area. But this'll take longer than you expected. There are several. You're sure you don't remember the name of the hospital?”

“No one ever mentioned it,” Akira said.

“But the name must have been stenciled on the sheets and the gowns.”

“I was groggy from Demerol,” Savage said. “If the name was on the sheets, I didn't notice.”

Akira studied the list and read it to Savage. “Community General Osteopathic Hospital. Harrisburg Hospital. Harrisburg State Hospital.”

“Osteopathic?” Savage said. “Isn't that something like chiropractic?”

“No, osteopathic medicine's a theory that most illness is caused by pressure from injured muscles and displaced bones,” Akira said.

Savage thought about it and shook his head. “Let's try…”

11