Gary Brandner

by Doomstalker (v2. 0) (epub)

  "As a matter of fact, yes."

  "Tell me what I can do to put you at ease."

  Kettering looked away until he got himself under control. Then he faced her again. He said, "You can cut out the B-movie dialogue, for a starter."

  Zoara Sol laughed, the chimes rang up and down the scale. "You are a blunt man."

  "Repartee is not one of my strong points."

  "I'd like to know what is your strong point."

  "Cut it out," he said, not really wanting her to.

  "You came here looking for your son."

  "I came to take him back with me."

  "Anyone here is free to leave Harmony Village anytime. There are no locks. No guards."

  "What do you call the guy in the muscle shirt out at the gate?"

  "Bolo? He is our greeter."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I take it your son did not want to leave."

  "He likes it here."

  "Is that so hard to understand? Did you look around? Don't you approve?"

  "I'm not sure what you have going here."

  "Perhaps I can give you a clearer picture. Would you like something to drink?"

  "No thanks."

  Ignoring him, she rose gracefully from the love seat and walked to a cabinet built into the wall. "I'll bet you're a bourbon man."

  "Good guess."

  She took a bottle of Wild Turkey from the shelf, splashed some into an old-fashioned glass, added ice from a wood-grain bucket.

  "It goes with the rest of the image," she said. "Strong, tough, macho. I'll bet you like to hunt and eat your steak rare."

  "You're right about the steak, but I don't shoot unarmed animals."

  "I'm glad to hear that."

  She handed him the glass and sat down again. Her thigh brushed his. Kettering raised the glass to his lips, then set it down on an end table untasted.

  "So what the hell are you doing here?"

  "Just what you see. Providing an alternate life for young people. This generation has not been given much direction."

  "That so?"

  "Ask your son."

  "He's not what you'd call real communicative with me."

  "Hasn't that always been the way with fathers and sons?"

  "The kids here seem to think of you as some kind of a goddess."

  Zoara Sol did not laugh. She did not wave off the idea. She said, "How interesting."

  "Yeah, isn't it."

  "You don't think I'm a goddess, do you, Brian?" She leaned toward him. Sandalwood, subtle but insistent, filled his nostrils.

  "I don't know what you are," he said.

  "Woman would be a good place to begin."

  "That much I can see."

  "Want to see more?"

  It was as though the next few seconds had been cut from the film of his life. Kettering had no sense of movement or conscious decision. His next flash of awareness, after Zoara Sol spoke, was holding the woman in his arms, her body molded against his, his mouth on hers while their tongues met and danced.

  He opened his eyes and looked into the bottomless silvery pools of Zoara Sol. One cool hand played at the back of his neck. The other was at his belt line. Sandalwood and soft chimes.

  Using all his willpower, and feeling an overwhelming pang of regret, he pulled away from her.

  Zoara Sol released him without resistance and watched as he lurched to his feet. Pale hair floated about her head. The shadow smile touched her mouth.

  "Excuse me," he said in a voice that was somebody else's. "I've got to get back."

  That, he thought, had to be about the dumbest single line he had ever delivered.

  Still seated, Zoara Sol extended her hand. He touched her fingers and drew back as though they might burn him.

  "Come again," she said, "when you can stay longer."

  Kettering looked closely for any sign of mockery, but the woman gave no sign that she meant anything other than what she said.

  He nodded, not trusting his voice, and left the cabin. Outside he gulped in the crisp mountain air. It had a sobering effect, and he was able to walk in a fairly steady gait to the clearing where he had left the Camaro.

  Kettering settled himself behind the steering wheel still trying to shake off the feeling of weakness he had come away with. The sensation was like a lingering drunk, but he had left the glass of bourbon untouched on the end table where he set it down.

  No, it was not drink, it was the woman herself. If Zoara Sol had this powerful an effect on him, a man who had been around a few corners, what must she do to the youngsters under her control?

  And was it, after all, bad? All that had happened to him was that he was almost seduced into the bed of a beautiful woman. What would have happened if he had yielded to his instincts? God knows he wanted her. Wanted her so bad he ached. But something held him back. What?

  He might have just walked away from a fuck that he would remember the rest of his life. Or ... or what? Despite the lingering sense of opportunity lost, Kettering had a deeper sense of having barely escaped something dark and sinister beyond his comprehension.

  He leaned back in the seat and sucked in more of the evergreen air. Then he got businesslike and started the engine.

  The gate was open and unattended as he drove through on the way out of Harmony Village. To keep his mind off the way Zoara Sol felt in his arms, Kettering concentrated fiercely on his driving.

  The trees seemed to grow thicker and closer to the narrow road than he had noticed on the way up. The digital dashboard clock read 4:15, but the shadows were heavier than they should be at that hour. A chill had set in. He left the window down to keep himself alert.

  A fir branch swatted the windshield in front of Kettering's face, making him flinch. Another caught the radio antenna on the other side, bent it back, and set it twanging free. He did not remember the trees growing so low along the road.

  Another branch reached out for him. The needles scratched his face through the open window.

  What the hell?

  The trees scraped both sides of the car now, slapping the roof, squealing across the glass. Kettering started to reach down to the console window controls. His hand would not come free of the steering wheel.

  The wheel began to grow hot. Kettering jerked back in the seat. The muscles of his arms strained as he fought to pull his hands away. The skin of his palms was grafted to the steering wheel as the wheel grew hotter. He could smell the flesh starting to cook.

  He slammed his right foot on the brake. The pedal sank to the floor without resistance. The car picked up speed, trees assaulting it on all sides. Kettering fought the blistering wheel to keep from slamming the Camaro into one of the monstrous trees that cavorted along the shoulders of the road, reaching out for him.

  Abruptly the trees vanished. To his left, close enough to reach out and touch, if he could have let go of the steering wheel, was a cliff wall of blasted granite. To his right, seemingly inches beyond the spinning tires, was a sheer drop hundreds of feet to the canyon floor.

  With brake and gas pedal inoperative, Kettering struggled with scorched hands to keep the Camaro on the twisting, plunging, single-lane road. Repeatedly the car banged against the raw outcroppings on the left, and several times lurched sickeningly toward the abyss on the right.

  All of Kettering's concentration, through the pain of his charred hands and the panic of being trapped in the runaway car, was focused on keeping the vehicle on the road. If he could somehow manage to control it, eventually he would have to reach the highway. There, he knew, were emergency chutes angling up from the grade, for drivers of big rigs that lost their brakes. If he could hold his course that long, there was a chance.

  Then the figure loomed ahead of him in the middle of the road. There was a straight stretch between the wall and the dropoff of thirty yards or so, and standing there blocking any possible passage was the creature that had dogged his life.

  Doomstalker.

  As the car bore down upon it, the t
hing seemed to grow. It expanded to twice, then three times the size of a man. The malformed head swung forward, the malignant face leered.

  To jerk the steering wheel now would either send him crashing with explosive force into the rocky cliffside or plunging over the brink into the canyon. Death in every direction. He plunged on toward the face that now filled the windshield.

  Instinctively Kettering tromped once more on the useless brake pedal. Miraculously, it caught. The power brakes grabbed, the tires bit into dirt. Kettering was flung helplessly about the front seat as the Camaro bucked and fishtailed and swerved into a full 360-degree spin. And stopped.

  Slowly he opened his eyes. Every muscle of his body was cable-tense for the crash that had never come. Gradually, painfully, he willed his body to relax. The car was pointing down the hill. The cloud of dust raised by his skidding, whirling stop slowly settled. On the road in front of him stood ... nothing.

  Carefully, finger by finger, he released his grasp on the steering wheel. The flesh of his hands was white with the pressure of his grip, but unbroken and unburned. The wheel was cool to the touch.

  He cautiously tested the brake, the accelerator, the steering mechanism. Everything worked as it was supposed to. He opened the door and stepped shakily out onto the road. The left side of the car, which should have been dented and scraped from repeated collisions with the cliff, was unmarked. How had it escaped damage? Or had the crazy careening ride ever happened?

  Kettering got back into the car. He sat for five minutes, breathing deeply, allowing the shaking of his hands to subside. Then he again started the engine and drove slowly, anxiously, down the mountain.

  Chapter 27

  Trevor Kettering stood at the edge of Harmony Village holding a towel and watched his father's Camaro roll out of the parking field and down the road toward the gate. He had, as always, a sense of frustration after talking with his father. Words unspoken, thoughts unvoiced, feelings unshared. It always seemed that just below the surface there was something the old man was trying to tell him. Something the boy wanted to say back.

  Not that he expected any big hug and hair-tousling scene. That was strictly for TV sitcoms. Or, what the hell, maybe that was what he did want. Ho harm in wanting something, even a fantasy, as long as you knew it was a fantasy. So his father wasn't Ward Cleaver. Trevor wasn't exactly the Beav, either.

  And come right down to it, his relationship with the old man was probably better than most. Some of the kids had real horror stories. At least Trevor's father had never beat on him. That was, if you didn't count some pretty stiff open-handed whacks on the butt when he was little. Trevor readily admitted he deserved those. Some of the other guys had fathers who went at them with fists or worse. One had shown Trevor burn scars on his palms where his mother, for Chrissake, had held his hands to the sandwich grill for swiping a six-pack from the cooler. Another had his jaw broken when the old man came home drunk and clobbered him just for the hell of it.

  No, all things considered, Trevor had it pretty good with his father. His mom too, for that matter. It was plain she was into something weird right now, something with Gabrielle Wister that Trevor really didn't want to know about. But overall, she'd taken pretty good care of him and the old man. No, they were not your typical sitcom family, but better than most.

  So, let's face the big question ... What the hell are you doing here? Harmony Village had seemed like a kicky adventure when they were all gathered around him at The Pit telling him how cool it was and what a great way to lose all the everyday shit kids had to put up with.

  His first sight of the place had been a real downer. Nothing but trees and mountains and those crummy cabins. He was scheming to catch the next ride back down the hill. Then Zoara Sol walked out.

  Zoara Sol. Never in his wildest jackoff fantasies had he thought something like her existed. He did not see how anybody could think straight when she was in the same room. And when she walked out to meet him and the other new kids coming to Harmony Village, the whole landscape changed. The sky, the mountains, the trees, the crummy cabins all of a sudden were beautiful. This was the place he had ached to be all his life. You could not then have dragged him back to the city with a tractor.

  Now, standing alone at the edge of the rustic one-time Boy Scout camp, Trevor was again having doubts. The scenery was again too empty, the village too rustic.

  He used the towel to scrub at his hair, still damp from the Baths. He began to wonder if it wasn't just a little bit chickenshit to run out on your parents when they were having a rough time? Not that he could have done anything about it, but he might have hung around just in case either of them wanted to talk. After all, they didn't run out on him the time the old liquor-store guy fingered him as one of a pair of armed robbers. It turned out to be some asshole who looked faintly like Trevor, but it helped to have his old man and his mom go to bat for him that time.

  "Hey, you mad or something?"

  Trevor started at the sound of the girl's voice. He turned to see Vicki standing behind him. She wore faded cut-off jeans and a tank top. She smiled quizzically.

  "Uh, what?"

  "I asked if you were mad. I looked for you after the Baths, but you left in such a hurry. I thought maybe you were pissed off about something."

  "No, nothing like that," he said. "My dad was here. I just needed to think."

  "I'll bet he wanted to take you away."

  "Something like that."

  "It's incredible how parents get all upset about what we're doing as soon as we leave the old homestead. While we're around they could care less."

  "That's not exactly the way it was. He just ... wanted to know I was okay."

  "Sure, that's what they all say." She frowned. "Hey, you're not thinking of letting them take you away now, are you?"

  "Hey, nobody takes me anywhere. I go where I want to when I want to."

  The girl took his hand. "I love it when you talk like that. Want to go back to your room?"

  Trevor looked down the road where his father had driven away. He said, "Not right now, Vicki. I've got to sort some things out in my head."

  "That sounds serious." Then, after a moment, "Oh, wow!"

  Trevor turned back at her exclamation.

  "Look at her, will you."

  Coming toward them across the clearing, floating, it seemed, was Zoara Sol. She seemed to be surrounded by an aura of light. Trevor could feel the powerful attraction of the silver eyes even from that distance. Suddenly the trees, the sky, the mountains were poetry again.

  Zoara Sol beckoned. Trevor and Vicki floated toward her.

  ***

  Charity Moline came down to meet Kettering when he was halfway up the stairs to his one-room apartment. She stopped in front of him on the second-floor landing and put her hands on his shoulders.

  "How did it go?"

  "How do I look?"

  "That bad?"

  "That bad."

  "Get inside. I'll fix you a drink and you can tell me about it."

  He trudged across the floor and dropped onto the sofa. He could still feel the tension in his arms and shoulders from fighting the steering wheel during the wild ride down the mountain.

  Charity disappeared into the kitchen alcove and returned in a minute with a dark amber glass of Wild Turkey and ice. She placed the glass in his hand and felt his brow.

  "Poor baby, you're a little feverish."

  He took a long swallow of the rich bourbon. "This will help," he said.

  She sat down close to him and massaged the back of his neck with strong, cool fingers. "So, tell me what happened."

  Kettering took a deep breath and began. He told Charity about the encounter with his son and the subsequent conversation with Zoara Sol, leaving out the more sensual parts of the latter.

  She listened intently, easing away the tautness of his muscles. When he emptied his glass, she took it away and refilled it.

  He wound up the story by telling her as best he could remembe
r his sensations as the car careered out of control down the mountain until the figure of the Doomstalker loomed in front of him.

  "I hit the brakes, and this time they took hold. The car spun around and everything was gone. Nobody was in the road, my hands weren't burned, the wheel wasn't even hot. The car didn't have a scratch."

  "What did it?" she said.

  "I am damned if I know."

  "Did you eat or drink anything? It sounds like a hallucinogenic reaction."

  He shook his head. "She gave me a drink, but I didn't touch it."

  Charity waited while he stared down into the glass. He swirled it to make a little whirlpool of bourbon.

  "All I can tell you for sure is that it scared the shit out of me."

  "So you're not utterly fearless."

  "Not even slightly."

  "I'm glad of that," she said. "It makes you more human."

  "Oh, I'm plenty human," he said. "Maybe too much."

  "You're a lucky human," Charity said. "You could have very easily gone over that cliff."

  "Maybe it's not luck at all."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean if this ... this Doomstalker wanted to kill me, that would have been a perfect time. Or half a dozen other times, for that matter. Look what it did to Al Diaz."

  "Okay, so why not you?"

  "You tell me."

  "Let me take a guess. Maybe it's playing with you."

  "Playing?"

  "Punishing you. Getting even for ... who knows what."

  "Well, whatever it's doing, I've learned one thing. I can't stop it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just what I said. It's too strong for me. Maybe for anybody."

  "Would your father have backed down?"

  "He had the power of the Church going for him." Kettering closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache. "And he had something else."

  "What?" Charity leaned toward him.

  "Something ... Ah, the hell with it. I can't remember."

  "So you're giving up?"

  "What do you suggest I do? This ... Doomstalker can do anything it wants. It can be anywhere. It can get into your head. I can't fight it."