Shifting Read online

  I saw then that the book had the look of an old library book, and many yellow bits of paper stuck up from it at different angles with notes scrawled on them. After a moment she began to read:

  In ancient days the dog was looked upon as man’s best friend, and the enemy of all supernatural beings: fairies, giants, hags, and monsters of the sea and the Underworld. When the seasons changed on the four “quarter days” of the year, and the whole world, as the folks believed, was thrown into confusion, the fairies and other spirits broke loose and went about plundering houses and barns and stealing children. At such times the dogs were watchful and active, and howled warning when they saw any of the supernatural creatures. They even attacked the fairies, and sometimes after such fights they returned home with all the hair scraped off their bodies, if they returned at all.

  She looked up at me very seriously, as if what she had read had great and obvious importance.

  I nodded solemnly, thinking all the while, what the hell does that mean?

  “How many dogs do we have?” she asked me.

  I let slip my confusion. “Um, none here, I expect.”‘

  “People tend to try to save them, don’t they?”

  “Yes, well, the things…” I trailed off. “Not many survived, I guess.”

  “Try none,” she said somewhat smugly. “When was the last time you heard one bark, or howl at night?”

  I shook my head, it had been weeks.

  She nodded and opened the book again to a new passage.

  Knee-deep she waded in the pool—

  The Banshee robed in green—

  Singing her song the whole night long,

  She washed the linen clean;

  The linen that must wrap the dead

  She beetled on a stone;

  She washed with dripping hands, blood-red,

  Low singing all alone:

  The Banshee I with second sight,

  Singing in the cold starlight;

  I wash the death-clothes pure and white,

  For Fergus More must die to-night

  She gazed at me bemusedly for a bit and closed the book. “You still don’t get it, do you?” she asked. “I had thought that you would, out of all of them.”

  This statement irked me just a bit. “Okay, you are saying that these old legends are like what is happening now, I get that.”

  “More than that. I think things have turned again, back—back to the old days when superstition ruled the minds of men. But what we didn’t know was that it ruled for a reason. It ruled because those fantastic creatures and stories were all real, or at least most of them. The thing you saw at the lake, it would have been called a Banshee, or a Hag, or Mermaid perhaps in years gone by, depending on where and when you were, but everyone everywhere was familiar with that type of creature.

  “This time, I think however, is very different,” she continued, paging through her book. “This time I think it is worse. It’s like the Ice Ages, I believe, these magical times, they come and go. Usually, it is small waves of magic that don’t warp history much, like the little Ice Age that just ended a few centuries ago. Between the year 1550 and 1850, the world was much cooler than it is now. I think the Magical Ages are like that, these ages of the supernatural. They come and they go and are forgotten until the next time.

  “But this is a bad one, this time. Like the Ice Age ten millennia ago that froze those mammoths in Siberia so fast that they still had grass and flowers in their mouths. They were flash-frozen. In a few years, the glaciers grew dramatically and cataclysmically. The world froze over and thousands of species died out forever. Most of the big mammals died out. And now this age, with its increase in the supernatural, is like that time. Cataclysmic.”

  “Okay, so then why are there no fossils of things like these monsters we’ve been encountering?”

  “Good! Good point,” she said, rising. For the first time, she seemed animated. She got up and paced. I noticed as she walked that she had a slight limp, but decided now was not the time to interrupt. Mostly, I was glad to see some distance between her and that pistol.

  “I suppose I could flippantly ask in return what you think a tyrannosaurus or a giant sloth really was, if not a monster, but the real answer is, of course, that I don’t know. But perhaps, just perhaps, these warped creatures don’t leave remains because when the effect fades, it changes the creatures—including their bones or what-not—back into their original form.”

  I made an appreciative face. “Like you say, we have no idea, but that’s as good as any.”

  “Do you know what percentage of the cultures of Earth over the last thousand years has had tales of supernatural creatures and occurrences?”

  “All of them?”

  “Exactly. Not all of them are identical, mind you, although certain themes tend to come up again and again.”

  “So, Doc,” I said, “what should we do?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. She sagged down again into her chair. “I think it’s the end. We will descend into barbarism at best, become extinct at worst. This time, the supernatural is so powerful, life is not just more interesting, it’s like a nightmare. I’ve yet to find any way we can survive it, and I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet.”

  I nodded, but took one thing to heart. “Well, even if we all survive as just changelings of some sort or another, eventually, our descendants will go back to what they once were.”

  She frowned deeply at that. “Provided some survive.”

  “Of course.”

  She nodded, taking to the idea. “You are right. Quite right, I hadn’t extrapolated far enough.”

  She smiled then, looking fully at me for the first time. “You’ve given me peace of mind in the form of a tiny ray of hope. Thank you, Gannon. You are a natural leader, you know. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got one more duty this day.”

  I stood up and put my hand on my saber. “Give me the gun and I’ll be on my way,” I told her.

  She moved her hand near the pistol slowly. I took a step toward her. She looked at my hand on the hilt of my saber and laughed.

  “Going to cut me if I kill myself, eh? Ironic, don’t you think boy? If ever there was a time and place where suicide was easier for a person, I don’t know it. All I have to do is take a walk in the woods and it will all be over shortly.”

  “That would be a brave death.”

  She frowned again. “So I’m a coward? You don’t see what I do, Gannon, you don’t see the future clearly.”

  She took up the pistol and toyed with it. I saw it was a cheap-looking .32 caliber semi-automatic. She put it down on a pile of maps she had been working on with a clunk and I snatched it up. I tucked it into my pocket and walked out. As I did so, I found the flat stone I had picked up on the lakeshore. It was still there, and it still felt warm, although that could have been from my body heat.

  I pulled the stone out and flashed it at Wilton. She recoiled slightly. “Why are you afraid of this thing?”

  “It’s enchanted, I think,” she said.

  “What can you do with an enchanted rock?”

  She shrugged. “Try throwing it at one of them, or if it is rough enough, use it to sharpen up that pig-sticker of yours. I don’t care.”

  I hefted it and nodded. “Why don’t you go check on Holly again?” I suggested.

  She nodded and got up. She looked old and bent, but not broken anymore. She limped away to the examination rooms. I opened my mouth to ask about her limp, but shut it again. I’d asked enough.

  Sixteen

  I went back to my empty cot and closed the door. I didn’t want anyone to see this.

  I pulled the stone out of my pocket again and here, in the darkness, it glimmered plainly. I took out my saber and ran the stone along the edge. It was indeed rough enough to use as a grinding stone. Usually, one would have used a softer stone like soapstone, but it worked quite well. After scraping each side perhaps twenty times, I thought to see the faintest blu
e glimmer along my blade. I chewed my lip and breathed harder, feeling like I was doing something evil, but fun, like finding dad’s playboys as a kid. I scratched at the blade more, and the faint glimmer turned into a glow.

  I put the stone back into my pocket, sheathed my weapon and went to check on things at the front entrance. The fog outside looked even thicker, if anything. It looked like someone had pressed a gauzy blanket against the glass. Only a few feet of gray concrete walkway was visible outside now. Erik Foti was in the lobby peering out dubiously at nothing. He gripped and re-gripped his shotgun nervously. He glanced at me as I walked up.

  “Yeah, I know, guard duty.”

  “Hmm,” I said, “looks kinda strange out there. Is everyone inside?”

  “Everyone except for Brigman, he found nothing wrong in here and went outside to check the fuse box. He thinks maybe one of the trees fell over in the storm and hit the lines that came up from the basement.”

  “He’s out there in that? Alone?”

  “Yeah, well…” Eric trailed off. None of us wanted to go out there. It wasn’t the roiling fog itself, exactly, it was the things that might be out there in the that stuff. The things you wouldn’t be able to see.

  “How long has he been gone?”

  Erik paused before answering, and then he sighed. “Too long.”

  I nodded, and swallowed. “I’m going out. I’ll just sweep around the building once and see what’s up.”

  Erik’s face worked, I looked at him and he was flushed, his cheeks purple. “No,” he said quietly, putting a hand out in front of me, “I’ll go, I should have gone already. I’m on duty.”

  “Erik, it’s cool—”

  “No, no, it’s not. You went for that girl and I chickened. I’m going to do this one.”

  I nodded. “I’ll stand right here. Let me know if something is wrong.”

  He glanced at me again quickly and nodded. Then he grinned. “I’m not gonna scream, don’t worry.”

  I chuckled politely.

  Then he edged open the door, and a white tendril of smoky vapor curled into the waiting room. He slipped outside and the fog ate him up.

  He went to the right. I noted that, in case he didn’t come back and we had to look for him. He went around to the right, I repeated in my mind so I wouldn’t forget.

  I cracked open the door, even though I didn’t want to, and listened. It couldn’t have been much past two in the afternoon, but you’d never know it looking out there.

  Vance came up next to me. “There you are, what—?”

  I put up a hand and shushed him. For once, he actually fell silent, not an easy thing for Vance, I knew. He and I listened at the cracked doorway like thieves.

  We waited and strained our ears and listened. A minute passed, then another, I think, before I heard anything special. What I finally heard wasn’t the welcome sound of shoes on wet pavement coming back home to us, but instead something that sounded like the creaking and twanging of guitar wires breaking in unison.

  Vance and I looked at each other.

  “What?” he asked in a hushed tone. Somehow, we both wanted to keep quiet.

  “The chain link fence,” I whispered back, envisioning something out there, ripping slowly through the fencing that the last of Redmoor’s citizens had hastily erected.

  More wires creaked and twisted and snapped. Then there was a jangling sound that could only be the chain links coiling up, and a crash that reminded me of the sound a trashcan makes when it is knocked over and spilling its contents. A figure loomed in the fog and we both drew back a pace. I saw a round belly and a red axe. It was Mr. Brigman.

  “Something—” he panted, pushing in through the doors, “Something’s out there. Something big.” I didn’t like the emphasis he put on this last word.

  “Where’s Erik? Did he find you?”

  “Yeah, he did, he went to check it out. Something was messing with the fence line. We worked so hard on that fence. It’s not even finished yet. Anything that wanted to could just go around. Why would they want to tear up the fence? Why not go around?”

  This simple question seemed to really bother him. But I didn’t have any answers, so I didn’t try to give him one. The things were mad, who knew why they did anything?

  Faces started to appear behind us at the three nurses’ stations. Everyone seemed to stay behind the reception desks, as if somehow a four-foot tall wooden structure with a Formica countertop would protect them. The Nelsons were there, and Monika and Mrs. Hatchell and even Doc Wilton, plus about a half dozen others. They were all dark oval faces and bright big eyes in the gray light. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was listening. We were Neanderthals huddled in our cave while a saber tooth nosed around outside.

  Everyone hung back, that is, except for Holly Nelson. She came forward slowly to join us. In her hand she had that screwdriver. Her lips were pressed in a narrow line as she studied the fog outside. I almost smiled, she was a fighter, all right. I found it interesting in a detached way that no one called her back to safety. She looked much older now with a bandaged head, a hunter’s jacket and blue jeans on. She had as much right to play this game her own way now as any of us did. There wasn’t really any safe spot anymore, and all of us knew it. I realized that kids were going to be growing up very fast in this new world.

  I drew my saber then, and it rasped out of the sheathe with a long sighing sound. I rested the blade on my shoulder and pushed open the door another few inches. The mist swirled and broke up enough for me to see glimpses of the nearest cars parked just a dozen feet away.

  “Erik?” I hissed. Something moved out there, and for a second I thought something had heard me. I listened to what could only be the crunching, tinkling sound of glass breaking. It was probably a car window caving in.

  I had my head out, then a foot. Then I figured screw it, and stepped out into the fog.

  It was colder out there than I had realized, and the fog had a funny, almost seaside smell to it. The odor was faintly swampy, like rotting organic material and stale water. I could see further out here, the windows had been fogged up with condensation. Outside, it was not so bad, I could make out cars for about twenty feet off, but the chain link was at least a hundred feet away, I calculated from memory.

  I heard the door open and a murmur came from behind me. I had an audience. Vance poked his head out behind me.

  “Friggin hero,” he muttered in annoyance.

  I almost muttered back, faithful sidekick, but figured, just in case, it wasn’t worth getting slaughtered.

  “Vance?” I heard a weak, desperate cry. His voice came from somewhere ahead of us in the thick mist. It didn’t even sound like Erik’s voice really, but it had to be him.

  “Make a run for it, Erik,” I told him. “Come to my voice.”

  In reaction to my words there was a crunching noise and huge thumping, bashing sounds. Two cars at the edge of my vision shifted. Tires screeched and I saw a bumper spin around. I realized that the entire car had spun with it, as if an elephant had lunged and knocked it aside.

  Then finally, I heard the distinct sound of a car door popping open and there came the welcome sound of rapid footsteps out there somewhere in the fog.

  “Come to my voice, this way, this way,” I said, speaking louder than I wanted too. I stepped forward and I felt Vance and Brigman come out behind me. I had to give Erik a direction to run, to guide him with my voice. “This way, man, over here, run it!”

  I heard him trip and curse. Then he came out of the fog, crawling, scrambling, and dragging one foot. He still had his shotgun and his face was a death’s mask. Something huge thundered forward after him, we still couldn’t see it in the fog, but we heard its fantastically heavy tread and heard what had to be the chain link fence it was dragging. The fence clattered and jangled as it swept over the cars like a bridal train.

  I ran out to take his hand.

  “Oh sweet Mary—” sobbed Erik. I had time to see that his face and arms were
bloody and his shirt was mostly missing. His haunted eyes met mine and then it had him.

  When I first saw it, I really thought something had swung down a branch or a log, using it like a club to strike him on the back. It took me a slow second to realize that the wooden thing was a hand. A huge, claw-shaped hand with three foot-long fingers like a pitchfork. The hand stabbed down, grabbed Erik’s legs, and lifted him upward.

  Erik twisted as he was lifted from the ground and got off one shot with his shotgun. A chunk of bark sprayed as if he had hit a tree, which of course, he had.

  The thing in the parking lot was an ash tree come to life, just as we had read about in the newspaper stories. The ash looked nothing like a man in the shape of a tree. It was just an ash tree that could move. The thing’s bark was grayish-brown with black cracks that ran down in runnels over its body. The bark slipped over the wood and seemed more flexible than any normal tree, more like thick, armored skin. The roots, festooned with clumps of fresh black earth, writhed about like questing tentacles. It seemed to walk on its roots—or more exactly: it glided on them, as if it rode upon a thousand snake-bellies. The roots flailed and flipped and grabbed at the cars they passed by. Behind the tree dragged the chain link fence we had hoped would protect us. It wore the fence like a cloak of woven, jangling steel.

  I charged the monster and chopped with my saber at the massive arm. I was shocked to see the blade sink in more than an inch. Had the glowing stone really sharpened the edge? Fluid, smelling like fresh sap, welled up from the cut. The thing shuddered a bit, either from pain or rage. It did not cry out, because it had no voice. The upper branches that jutted up into the fog far above me swayed and shivered. Its bright yellow leaves rustled.

  I looked up at the trunk expecting to see a face, but there was none. There were no eyes, there was no nose. But there was a maw. On the side of the trunk, about eight feet up, a chomping, grinding hole made chewing motions. I had no doubt that was the destination it had in mind for its prey.