Black

by Ted Dekker

  Panic rolled up his belly. They had to get out of town.

  “Tom?”

  He looked up. “We have to get out of here.”

  She wasn’t listening. Her wet hands hung over the sink, unmoving. Her eyes were fixed on the newspaper to her left.

  “What did you say that virus was called?”

  “What virus? The Raison Strain?”

  “A French company?”

  He walked up to her and looked at the paper. A bold black headline ran across the top:

  CHINA SAYS NO

  “China says no?”

  She lifted the paper, unconcerned with the dark water blotches her hands made on the page. He saw the smaller headline then, halfway down and on the left, the business-page headline:

  FRENCH ASSETS:

  RAISON PHARMACEUTICAL TO ANNOUNCE NEW VACCINE, SELLS U.S. INTERESTS

  Tom took the paper, flipped to the business page, and found the article. The company’s name suddenly seemed to fill the entire page. Raison Pharmaceutical. His pulse pounded.

  “What—” Kara stopped, apparently confused by this new information. She leaned in and quickly read the short story with him.

  Raison Pharmaceutical, a well-known French parent of several smaller companies, had been founded by Jacques de Raison in 1973. The company, which specialized in vaccines and genetic research, had plants in several countries but was headquartered in Bangkok, where it had operated without the restrictions often hampering domestic pharmaceutical companies. The company was best known for its handling of deadly viruses in the process of creating vaccines. Its contracts with the former Soviet Union were at one time quite controversial.

  In the last few years, the firm had become better known for its release of several oral and nasal vaccines. The drugs, based on recombinant DNA research, weren’t dose-restrictive—a fancy way of saying they could be taken in large quantities without side effects. Dibloxin 42, a smallpox vaccine, for example, could be deposited in a country’s water supply, effectively administering the vaccine to the whole population without fear of overdosing any one person, regardless of how much water was consumed. A perfect solution for the Third World.

  Several of the vaccines, however, would be subjected to a whole new gamut of rigorous testing procedures if Congress passed the new legislation introduced by Merton Gains before he became deputy secretary of state.

  Raison advised this morning that in a matter of days it would announce a new multipurpose, airborne vaccine that would effectively eliminate the threat of several problematic diseases worldwide. Dubbed the Raison Vaccine—

  Kara uttered a short gasp at the same time Tom read the sentence.

  “Dubbed the Raison Vaccine, the vaccine promises to revolutionize preventive medicine. Stocks are bound to react to the news, but the gains may be tempered by the announcement that the firm’s Ohio plant will close in the interests of focusing on the Raison Vaccine, developed by the Bangkok facility.”

  The article went on, offering details about the stock market’s anticipated reaction to the news. Tom’s hand trembled slightly.

  “How did you know about this?” Kara asked, looking up.

  “I didn’t .I swear I’ve never seen or heard this name until right now. Except . . .”

  “Except in your dreams. No, that’s impossible.”

  Tom laid the paper down and set his jaw. “Tell me how else I could have known about this.”

  “You must have heard about—”

  “Even if I knew about the company, which I didn’t before last night, there’s no way I could have known about the Raison Vaccine—not with-out reading this paper. But I did!”

  “Then you read the paper or heard it on the news last night.”

  “I didn’t watch the news last night! And you saw the paper outside, exactly where it always is in the morning.”

  She crossed one arm and nibbled at her fingernail, something she did only when she was beyond herself. Tom recalled his discussion about the Raison Strain with Michal as if it had occurred only a moment ago, which wasn’t that far from the truth. For all he knew, he had been asleep under the tree for only a few minutes.

  But this wasn’t really a dream, was it?

  “You’re actually telling me that something’s happening in your dreams that gives you this information?” she demanded. “What else did you learn about the future?”

  He considered that. “Only that the Raison Vaccine has some problems and ends up as a virus called the Raison Strain, which infects most of the world population in a . . .”

  “In a what?”

  Tom scratched his head. “In a very short time.”

  “How short?” She exhaled sharply. “Listen to me, I can’t believe I’m even asking these questions.”

  “In a few weeks, I think.”

  Kara paced the kitchen, still biting her fingernail. “This is just crazy. Yesterday the extent of my life’s challenges consisted of whether I should cut my hair short, but that was before I came home to my crazy brother. Now the mob is breathing down our necks, and it just so happens that the whole world is about to be infected by a virus no one but my dreaming brother knows about. And how, pray tell, does he know about this virus? Simple: Some black bat with red eyes in the real world told him. Excuse me if I don’t don my gas mask posthaste.”

  She was venting, but she was also troubled or she wouldn’t be venting.

  “Not a black bat,” Tom said. “A white one. A Roush. And the Roush have green eyes.”

  “Yes, of course; how silly of me. Green eyes. The bat with green eyes told him. And did I mention the tidbit about this world all being a dream? Well, if it’s a dream, we really don’t have to worry, do we?”

  She had a point there.

  Tom walked into the living room and turned around to see she’d followed him. Her face was pale. She really was worried, wasn’t she?

  “But you don’t believe for a second that you and I are in a dream right now,” he said. “Which can only mean that the other stuff is a dream. Fine. That’s worse. It means this is real. That a virus is about to threaten the world.”

  Kara walked to the window and eased back the drape. She still wasn’t buying it, but her confidence had been shaken.

  “Anyone?” he asked.

  “No.” She released the curtain. “But if I’m to believe you, a few killers from New York are the least of our problems, right?”

  “Look, could you please lose the condescending tone here? I didn’t ask for this. Okay, maybe I did set us up for the mob, but I’ve already begged your forgiveness for that. In the rest of this, I’m as innocent as you. Can I help what my dreams are?”

  “It just sounds so stupid, Thomas. You at least see that, don’t you? It sounds like something a kid would dream up. And frankly, the fact that you’re so . . . youthful isn’t playing in your favor here.”

  Tom said nothing.

  Kara sighed and sat on the arm of the couch. “Okay. Okay, just say that there’s something to your dreams. Exactly what are these dreams about?”

  “For the record, I’m not agreeing that they are dreams,” he said. “At the very least, I have to treat each scenario like it is real. I mean, you want me to treat this room like it’s really here, right? You don’t want me to jump off the balcony. Fine, but believe me, it’s just as real there. I’m sleeping under a tree there right now. But the moment I wake up from my little nap under the tree, I’ll have a whole set of new problems.”

  “Fine,” she said, exasperated. “Fine, let’s pretend both are real. Tell me about this . . . other place.”

  “All of it?”

  “Whatever you think makes sense.”

  “It all makes sense.”

  Tom took a deep breath and told her about waking up in the black forest and about the bats that chased him and the woman he’d met and about the Roush leading him to the village. He didn’t think there was any evil in the colored forest. It seemed confined to the black forest. He told it
all to her, and as he spoke, she listened with an intensity that undermined periodic scoffs until they stopped altogether.

  “So every time you fall asleep in either place, you wake up in the other place?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And there’s no direct time correlation. I mean, you could spend a whole day there and wake up here to find out only a minute had passed.”

  “I think so. I’ve been there for a whole day but not here.”

  She suddenly stood and walked into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” Tom asked.

  “We’re going to test these dreams of yours. And not by jumping over guardrails.”

  “You know how to test this?” He hurried after her.

  She grabbed the newspaper and flipped through it. “Why not? You claim to have gained some knowledge from this place. We’ll see if you can get some more.”

  “How?”

  “Simple. You go back to sleep, get some more information, and then we wake you up to see if you have something we can verify.”

  He blinked. “You think that’s possible?”

  She shrugged. “That’s the point—to find out. You said they have histories of Earth there. You think they would have the results of sporting events?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. Seems kind of trivial.”

  “History loves trivia. If there’s history, it will include sporting events.” She’d stopped on a sports section and glanced down the page. Her eyes stopped and then looked over the paper at him.

  “You know anything about horse racing?” she asked.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Name me a horse that’s on the racing circuit.”

  “Any horse?”

  “Any horse. Just one.”

  “I don’t know any horse. Runner’s Luck?”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not the point. I’m just satisfying myself that you don’t know any of the entries in today’s race.”

  “Which race?”

  “The Kentucky Derby.”

  “That’s running today?” He reached for the paper and she pulled it back.

  “Not a chance. You don’t know the horses racing; let’s not spoil that.” She folded the paper. “The race is in” —she glanced at the clock on the wall—“six hours. No one on Earth knows the winner. You go and talk to your furry friends. If you come back with the name of the horse that wins, I will reconsider this little theory of yours.” A slight smile lifted her small mouth.

  “I don’t know if I can get that kind of detail,” Tom said.

  “Why not? Fly over to the golden library in the sky and ask the attending fuzzball for a bit of history. What can be so hard about that?”

  “What if it’s not a dream? I can’t just do whatever I want there any more than I can do whatever I want here. And the histories are oral. They won’t know who won a race!”

  “You said that some of them knew everything from the histories.”

  “The wise ones. Michal. You think Michal is going to tell me who won the Kentucky Derby this year?”

  “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t sound like something he’d tell me.”

  “Oh, stop it.”

  “I’m sleeping on a hill right now—I can’t just go on some crazy search for something this trivial.”

  “As soon as you fall asleep here, you’ll wake up there,” she said. “You want to prove this to me—here’s your chance.”

  “This is ridiculous. That’s not how it works.”

  “So you’re begging off?”

  “The race is in six hours. What if I can’t go back to sleep over there?”

  “You said there wasn’t necessarily any time correlation. I’ll let you sleep for half an hour, and then I’ll wake you. We can’t afford to sit around here for much longer than that anyway.”

  Tom ran his fingers through his hair. The suggestion sounded absurd to him, yet his own demands that she believe him were as absurd to her. More so. Actually, he had no reason to believe that he couldn’t get the information. Maybe Michal would understand and tell him right away. As long as Kara woke him up in time . . .

  It just might work.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay. How do I fall asleep?”

  She looked at him as if she hadn’t really expected him to agree. “You sure you don’t know any of the horses?”

  “Positive. And even if I did, I wouldn’t know who is going to win, would I?”

  “No.” Kara gave him one last suspicious glance and headed for her bedroom, taking the paper with her. She returned thirty seconds later shaking a bottle of pills.

  “You’re going to drug me?” he asked. “How will you wake me up if I’m conked out? I can’t walk around drugged all day.”

  “I’ve got some pills that will wake you up in a hurry too. It’s admittedly a bit extreme, but I think our situation is a bit extreme, don’t you?”

  She was a nurse, he reminded himself. He could trust her.

  Ten minutes later he lay on the couch, having ingested three large white tablets. They were talking about where they would go. They had to get out of town. To his surprise, Kara was warming to the idea. At least until they figured this all out.

  What . . . what about . . . what . . . the Raison Strain, he was asking her.

  She still wasn’t sold on the Raison Strain. That’s why she’d fed him the pills. Big, monstrous, white pills that were big enough to be . . .

  “Can you tell me which village he comes from?” Michal asked.

  “Not as near as you might imagine. Not as far as you might think.”

  This meant: No, I choose not to tell you at this time.

  “Rachelle has chosen him. I should just lead him into the village?”

  “Why not?”

  This meant: Don’t interfere with the ways of humans.

  Michal shifted on his spindly feet. He dipped his head in reverence. “He concerns me,” he said. “I fear the worst.”

  His master’s voice answered softly, unconcerned. “Don’t waste your time on fear. It’s unbecoming.”

  Two valleys to the east, the man who called himself Thomas Hunter was slumped against a tree, lost in sleep. Dreaming of the histories in vivid detail. Surely this couldn’t be good.

  Michal had left the man and flown to a nearby tree to consider his options. He had to think the situation through carefully. Nothing of the kind had ever happened, at least not in his section of the forest. He couldn’t just usher Thomas into the village and present him to Rachelle with this complete memory loss of his. He didn’t even seem to know Elyon, for heaven’s sake!

  When Hunter fell asleep, Michal decided he must seek higher guidance.

  “He thinks that this might be a dream,” Michal said, looking up. “He thinks that he lives in the histories in a place called Denver, and that he’s dreaming of the colored forest, of all things! He’s got it backward! I tried to tell him, but I’m not sure he believes me entirely.”

  “I’m sure he’ll eventually figure it out. He’s quite smart.”

  “But at this very moment he’s lying against a tree above the village, dreaming that he lives before the Great Deception!” Michal swept his wings behind his back and paced. “He seems to know the histories in stunning detail—a family, a home, even memories. He’s bound to engage Tanis!”

  “Then let him engage Tanis.”

  “But Tanis . . .” Could he say it? Should he say it? “Tanis is teetering!” he blurted out. “I fear a small nudge might push him over the edge. If he and Hunter start talking, there’s no telling how creative Tanis might get.”

  “He was created to create. Let him create.”

  How could he say it so easily, standing there with hardly an expression? Didn’t he know what kind of devastation Tanis could bring them all?

  “Of course I know,” the boy said. Now his soft green eyes shifted. “I knew it fro
m the beginning.”

  Michal felt a lump rise in his throat. “Forgive my fear. I just can’t imagine it. May I at least discourage them? I beg you—”

  “Sure. Discourage them. But let them find their own way.”

  The boy turned and walked to a large white lion. He ran his hand along the lion’s mane, and the beast fell to its belly. He looked out to sea, shielding his eyes from Michal’s sight.

  The Roush wanted to cry. He couldn’t explain the feeling. He had no right to feel such remorse. The boy knew what he was doing. He always had known.

  Michal left the upper lake, circled high, and slowly winged his way to where Thomas Hunter slept under the tree above the village.

  9

  Tom heard the rush of wings and felt himself falling from his dream. Tumbling, tumbling into real light, breathing real air, smelling something that reminded him of gardenias. He opened his eyes.

  Michal was just pulling his wings in, not ten feet away. They were back in the colored forest. He’d been sleeping against a tall amber tree, dreaming as if he lived in the histories of Earth again. This time he’d returned with a challenge from Kara. Something about—

  “It’s been a full day for you, I can see,” Michal said, waddling over. Another rush of wings to Tom’s left announced Gabil, who incorporated a roll into his landing.

  Tom stood up, fully awake. The grass was green; the forest glowed in blues and yellows behind him; the village waited in all its brilliance. He stepped forward, suddenly eager to descend the hill and reconnect with his past.

  “Are we going?”

  “Absolutely going,” Gabil said.

  “Yes,” Michal said. “Although I’m afraid You’ve missed the Gathering.” He looked over his shoulder, and Tom saw the last of a huge group disappearing down a path that led into the trees several miles away. As far as he could see, the village had emptied.

  “I’m terribly sorry, but it will take us too long to catch up. You’d best just wait in the village until they return.”

  “What took you so long?”

  “Perhaps I should have taken you to the village first, but I wanted to make sure. This is quite unusual, I’m sure you must realize. You didn’t drink the water in the black forest, but the Shataiki clearly had some effect on you. Your memory at least. I had to be sure I did the right thing.”