Nightwalk 2 Read online

  Now I understood why the government “erased” Roger Chandra, and also why all his former lab assistants met unfortunate accidents.

  They wanted this thing, and all information related to it, gone. Vanished. Buried so deep down a top-secret hole it would never see the light of day again. And as much as it galled my soul to admit it, I couldn’t blame them.

  The fact I had secretly collected information relating to Chandra’s work, and then considered releasing it on the internet still made my stomach twist.

  But that was not Darla’s problem, and I had no intention of sharing it with her.

  Besides, another issue now came to our attention.

  “Did you see that?” She pointed ahead and to the right.

  I followed her gesture and saw a glimmer of light. Something was definitely ahead.

  At the moment, we traveled between the greenbelt and the large undeveloped lot. This meant we had a solid wall of trees and brush on both sides. We couldn’t see them because we walked down the middle of the highway, putting the trees a bit outside the reach of my flare.

  But judging by the angle of the light ahead, it waited somewhere on the right side of the highway, and it blinked in and out of existence due to us seeing it through the trees. I started the process of placing it in my mental map, but Darla beat me to it.

  “It’s the church,” she said in hushed tone. “There are lights on in the church.”

  “Or it’s on fire,” I murmured, frowning at the decidedly orange glimmers that winked on and off.

  “No, a big fire would cast light out onto the highway. And now I’m seeing more than one. The light must be coming through the windows of the church.”

  I didn’t like that. I’m not going to say I was terribly surprised, but I really didn’t like it all the same. It confirmed a couple of suspicions of mine, and raised a couple more.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I murmured. “But the flood pond should be getting close, too. Shouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it’s almost directly across the street from the church.”

  What a coincidence.

  “Then let’s start heading toward its side of the highway,” I urged.

  From that point we moved at an angle away from the approaching gleams of light. Getting nearer the wall of trees in the greenbelt made me nervous, although not as nervous as what we approached on the other side of the highway. Darla had reservations as well. But when she gave voice to them, they weren’t the ones I would have expected.

  “But there are probably people in the church,” she objected. “They will be hiding in there and they don’t know what’s about to happen. You could change that. You could save them all.”

  “I don’t think so.” I replied, eying the growing lights with a wary eye.

  “No?”

  “No,” I confirmed. “As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t want anything from that church making it to the pipe.”

  Right about then we reached an angle where the church began to come out from behind the trees of the undeveloped lot. While it sat back in a somewhat wooded lot of its own, it’s trees were wider spaced and had no brush between them.

  The Coventry Assembly was a church favored by many of the upper middle-class denizens of the area. A long time back, before the neighborhood had been built, it had been a simple Southern Baptist Church on the rural outskirts of town. But as the city moved in and the demographics changed, it shuttered its doors as the church followed its congregation to new locales.

  The building had sat empty and boarded up for many years before being bought and restored by its current owners. Now it was a non-denominational church tailored to the more modern and less scripture-bound sensibilities of its current congregation. It was still a simple, L-shaped, white wooden building with a steeple and a high-pitched roof crowning the auditorium wing, with an attached annex of classrooms forming the other. But at the moment, all we could see of the structure were the tall, angular windows on the side of the main auditorium.

  They were all we needed to see.

  They glowed a strange, unearthly shade which I can only describe as “infernal orange.” When seen through the trees I thought maybe it had been light from a fire set in the auditorium, but this came from no fire. Nor anything else I could imagine. It glared out the windows with surprising intensity but illuminated nothing on the outside. This gave the effect of the tall, hell-lit windows floating unattached in the darkness.

  But the flickering in that light had nothing to do with flames. It came as the result of shadows that moved and twisted against the windows in a disturbingly rhythmic fashion. Strange, contorted shadows. Some of those silhouetted forms may have been human, but I really hoped they weren’t.

  Making matters worse, the presence of the malignant juggernaut hovering in the sky now seemed more concentrated than ever. It felt as if the invisible, writhing ceiling had now descended until it squirmed right above the reach of my light. It was here, seething in the darkness around us, but even more so dancing in the unholy light across the highway.

  “What in the…”

  “Shhhhh!” I warned. “I’m pretty sure the thing in the sky is centered over the church. That’s where its attention is right now.”

  “Are you sure? How do you know this?”

  “Nevermind. The important thing is it’s very close, but it’s looking elsewhere.” I now pointed forward. “Let’s keep our eye on the prize and not change that.”

  She followed my gesture, and even though she knew it had to be coming she still covered her mouth and her eyes widened with emotion.

  “Oh my god,” Darla gasped behind her hand, “there it is.”

  It wasn’t much to see, but just ahead of us the corner of a low chain-link fence emerged from the darkness. Just that, and nothing more. Yet knowing it for what it was made it the most beautiful sight in the world.

  It was the border of the flood pond.

  We had made it.

  ###

  It was a lucky shot, but I was due a little luck.

  The torch arced through the air and landed in the bottom of the flood pond, less than ten feet from the pipe. It didn’t shine as bright as a flare, but even in the mist-filled depression it revealed what we needed to see most. A three-foot-wide concrete pipe jutting from the grassy slope. Otherwise the place lay empty.

  “It’s clear,” I declared in a soft voice. “Go.”

  Lupe started helping David, who made a slow and shambolic effort of climbing over the short fence. At the same time, I took the baby and held it while Darla did a surprisingly spry job of scaling the barrier. She was definitely ready to get out of there.

  I handed the baby over the fence to her, then held up my hand for her to wait a second. Pulling the pencil stub from my hatband, I bent and snatched a used burger wrapper from where I spied it caught in the fence. Then I knelt, using my leg as a writing surface, and did a quick scribble on it before rising and handing it to her.

  “One last thing,” I said, as she looked from the wrapper to me with a puzzled expression. “The post office box I wrote on that paper isn’t mine yet, but it will be. I’m giving this to you because there’s one more thing you need to know, and something I want you to do. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed slowly.

  “For me, it is July the first, just a couple of days short of two years from now. After that day passes, I want you to check the internet for the next week to see if I suddenly dropped dead at my home. I’m nowhere near Stephen King, but I’m read widely enough there should be some mention of it. If I did, then that means I didn’t make it and you’ve got eight to ten years left before the world goes to hell. You’ll just have to decide for yourself how to live those years.”

  She started to interrupt but I pressed onward.

  “But, if I’m still alive and kicking then it means I succeeded. If that happens, then I want you to write to this address and let me know what happened with you guys. I’m not asking you t
o be pen pals or anything; I just want to know how things worked out. Can you do that for me?”

  She looked down at the address in her hand and back at me with a narrow expression.

  “I suppose. You’re not coming down to the pipe with us?”

  “I’m afraid not. Here is where we part ways. I’ve got a man to meet.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait for him at the pipe?”

  “Not in this case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Jason Hallett is the same thing I am. He’s a wild card. And now that we’ve made it this far, I don’t want him anywhere near you guys.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  I winced at the delay. But since she had provided the questions that helped me figure this thing out, it seemed only right to explain.

  “Okay, I’ll make this quick, but then you’ve got to go. Back at the Rocketwash, you pointed out some very severe problems with the situation as I understood it. How could the man in white expect me to stop somebody who would destroy the world, especially when I couldn’t alter the fate of somebody like Mickey? And if he wanted it done, why not simply do it himself? And why wait two years and then recruit me? It didn’t make any sense.”

  “It still doesn’t make sense!”

  “Ah, but it does. It just requires a different understanding of the situation. The reason I can stop Jason Hallett is because he didn’t destroy the world in the first place. As a matter of fact, he never made it out of Coventry Woods alive… at least not until tonight.”

  “HUH?”

  “Remember, crazy as it sounds, this is actually the past and tonight is really July the first, two years from now. And something from the present decided to go back two years to change a particular outcome for its own purposes. Bad purposes. Something enormously powerful, and something floating right above us this very moment. And that’s also why the man in white didn’t kill Hallett himself. I don’t think he considers us worth the open confrontation that personal interference on his part would instigate. So he chose to send an agent of his own, and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “But…”

  “No, that’s enough. Time’s up, Darla. You need to get to the pipe.

  She bit off what she intended to say and looked down where Lupe and David waited by the conduit. Lupe had the torch and peered inside, while David leaned like a half-empty sack of potatoes against the pipe itself. Then she looked back at me, then back at the pipe. She didn’t appear happy about my explanation, but this was simply no time for a discussion.

  “Right,” she replied. Then, without further ado, she turned and started making her way down the grassy slope to join the others.

  And that was it.

  No goodbyes, no well wishes, no thanks. Not even a “Hey, try not to die while saving the world.”

  But that’s okay. I wasn’t surprised. She was who she was, and at least that had turned out to be more than I thought two years ago. Besides, the idea had only been to get her out of here. Who she chose to be was her business. Not to mention, she still had losses and wounds of her own to heal.

  I watched her reach the others and then gesture toward the pipe. Lupe entered first, shotgun at ready… then David… then Darla with the baby. Four new refugees from an old disaster. They didn’t amount to much… a nameless infant, an injured orphan, a likely illegal immigrant, and a widowed trophy wife. Small fry in the grand scheme of things. But if they were lucky, maybe they were just small enough for History to greet their continued existence with a disinterested shrug.

  I wished them Godspeed, and all the luck in the world.

  As I did, the night began to change around me. Not visibly, but I felt the presence of the giant in the sky start to change. The godlike colossus was on the move. It began to lessen… to diminish. Even though I could not see the twisting roof made by the titan’s base up in the darkness, I could feel the pressure from it decrease.

  The abomination was receding, rising higher into the sky.

  It had done what it came here to do. It had put its pawn in play, and it was getting the hell out of Dodge.

  Now I had to go kill him all over again.

  Chapter Twelve: Endgames

  I was waiting for Jason Hallett, with my gun drawn but pointed at the ground, when he came out the door of the church.

  I stood out on the sidewalk leading to the main entrance, and he paused at the top of the short flight of steps after exiting the door. The flare burned where I had tossed it on the walkway between us, illuminating us both in its harsh glare.

  He didn’t look at all like I expected.

  He was a tall, distinguished-looking man wearing a bloody white dress shirt and gray slacks. The loosened tie and slender briefcase he carried in his right hand gave him the appearance of a businessman. He looked to be in his mid to late fifties, and if it weren’t for the empty shoulder holster I would have suspected him to be one of the myriad professionals living in Coventry Woods.

  We studied each other for a long couple of seconds, and in the end, he spoke first.

  “Just so you know,” he spoke in a surprisingly cultured voice, “I am unarmed. I can see you’ve been through a lot, and I’m sure you’re not in the mood for taking chances, but I am no threat to you.”

  Nice. But the fact he stood there talking to me told me more than his words, and I wanted to narrow down what it meant.

  “On the other hand,” I replied, “I’m obviously armed and possibly dangerous… yet you came out anyway. The smart choice would have been to wait in the church and see what I would do next. How come you didn’t do that? You strike me as the smart type.”

  That was obviously not the response he expected. He probably thought I would either threaten him to stay away, or offer to let him join me for protection. Those were the two normal reactions when people met tonight. Instead, I had gone a completely different direction.

  “I try to have a little faith in my fellow man,” he answered carefully, and took a slow first step down the short stairs.

  “Really?” I gestured at his bloodstained front, “That bullet hole in your shirt didn’t give you any second thoughts? It sure looks educational to me.”

  He fingered the hole absently with his free hand, but his eyes never left my face.

  “Yes. I suppose there are some badly frightened and unhinged people out there with firearms tonight. Hardly surprising under the circumstances.”

  “Yet under those same circumstances you left shelter to step out and talk to an armed stranger. You forget fast. Heal fast, too.”

  Now he frowned as he took a second slow step down.

  “Is there a point to this inquisition? You are obviously not frightened, at least not to the point of being unhinged, and our time could be better spent than continuing this absurd little show.”

  Maybe he was right. There was only one acceptable ending written for “this absurd little show” anyway. How much did the details matter after all?

  I raised my gun and he paused in the middle of taking the third step down. That put him halfway down the steps and between the wrought iron railings. A sitting duck.

  He knew it too.

  “Just so you know,” he spoke in a tight but controlled voice, “I am a federal agent, and accosting or interfering with me would have severe consequences.”

  Oh.

  I guess that also fit the man in white’s description of “a member of your law enforcement establishment” as much as a police officer. I remembered there being an FBI man walking in front of my house two years ago. This wasn’t the same guy, although there could have easily been others at the scene. But I wanted to nail this thing down solid.

  “Oh, yeah? Just for the record, who are you?”

  “I told you…”

  “You gave me a job title,” I snapped, “and one that doesn’t mean a goddamned thing at the moment. Now, once again, who… are… you?”

  “I am Special Agent Jason Hallett
,” he spoke in a slow, rich timbre, “but as you so astutely observed, that means nothing under the current circumstances. Now, may I ask who you are, and why we are having this conversation?”

  Target confirmed.

  And that’s all you really needed to know, the coldly rational side of my mind spoke up. Shoot him. Don’t say another word, and don’t screw around. Just sight down the barrel and pull the trigger. Simple as that.

  Yeah, right. Simple as that.

  I hadn’t done it against Justin, and he had a pistol pointed back in my face. Jason Hallett didn’t have a weapon. I would be gunning down an unarmed man who offered me no harm.

  But the man in white said the world needed me to do this, and he had never lied to me. So what choice did I have?

  “It doesn’t matter,” I forced out, “this just has to happen. Nothing personal.”

  Clenching my jaw hard, I sighted down the barrel.

  I have to give Hallett credit. He saw what I was working myself up to do and still managed to keep his composure.

  “I see,” he said with an air of resignation, yet firmly met my eyes over the gunsights. “But it still seems only right I should know the name of my executioner.”

  Goddammit, pull the freaking trigger!

  “Chandra,” I growled, more to buy myself time than anything else. “Roger Chandra.”

  For the first time since we met, Hallett looked taken aback. He took a step back and stared at me open-mouthed for a second. Then he recollected himself and favored me with a scathing look.

  “You are not Roger Chandra,” he bristled. “Tell me what your association with him is, right now.”

  His suddenly officious tone came in sharp contrast to before, but it was the small movement he almost immediately tried to hide that caught my attention. When he had stepped back, he made the tiniest protective gesture toward his briefcase.