Wildwood Road

by Christopher Golden

  A chill ran through Oliver. He stroked his chin, taking some odd physical comfort in the rasp of the stubble he found there. Something burned in his gut but he had no idea if it was that dread he and Collette had discussed or simple guilt. His throat was still dry and his chest felt hollow, too quiet, as though his heart had paused to let him think. His lifted his eyes to gaze balefully at his sister.

  “I guess running away isn't an option?”

  Collette smiled tenderly. “I think you're a little too old for that.”

  “Pity.”

  He fell into contemplation once again and his sister rose and began to drift about the room as if she were seeing it for the first time. She caressed certain knickknacks that she recognized from their childhood, ran her fingers along the spines of several books, then slid one of the Agatha Christies off the shelf. Oliver took all this in very peripherally and only glanced over at her when she grunted softly in appreciation of the book and then continued to peruse the shelves, paperback clutched against her chest like some talisman.

  Oliver lay back on the sofa, his head against the wall. It would not be a bad life with Julianna. She came from a similar background, but she still understood his dreams. Yet that was the worst of it, in a way, for though she understood what he dreamed of, she had never once considered it more than a dream.

  He closed his eyes and imagined his future in this house or one much like it; his future with this bright, funny, beautiful girl who wanted to marry him and raise a family with him. Perhaps it was the time of year, but images of Christmas mornings came into his head, of his children opening gifts beneath the boughs of a tree Oliver himself would decorate. If they were wealthy, so much the better. He would never have to fear for his children's well-being. That was a worthy pursuit, wasn't it?

  “Shit,” he whispered, one hand on his forehead.

  Collette turned quickly to regard him once more. “What?”

  Before Oliver could reply, a familiar voice boomed out in the hall, shouting his name. Brother and sister turned to stare at the open doorway of the parlor, then Collette glanced at him.

  Oliver took a breath then shouted “In here!”

  Heavy footfalls came nearer and a moment later the doorway was filled with the figure of their father, his face etched with the usual impatience. He was Maximilian Bascombe, after all, and it was not now nor had it ever been his place to go chasing about his own home for his children.

  “I should have thought to look for you here first,” the old man said.

  Old man, Oliver thought. What a quaint expression. It seemed almost insultingly ironic when applied to Max, who at sixty-six was in better shape than Oliver had ever been, salt and pepper hair the only hint at his age. But the phrase had never been associated with age in Oliver's mind. Max had always been the old man in his mind. It was a crass term, reminiscent of bad sixties television. But as formal as they were in the Bascombe home, father seemed too generous an appellation.

  “What's wrong?” Oliver asked.

  “Nothing. I couldn't find Friedle,” the old man replied dismissively. Then he held up a portable telephone Oliver had not noticed at first. “Julianna's on the phone.”

  For a moment Oliver froze. He stared at his father, his mouth slightly open, aware that he must look foolish, as though he had gone catatonic standing there in the parlor. His gaze ticked toward the phone and only when he reached out his hand to receive it did he understand what had happened within him.

  “Thank you,” he offered, more from practice than purpose.

  “Ollie?” Collette ventured, her concern and wonder clear in her tone.

  Oliver cast her a resigned glance, then took the phone from his father. The old man muttered something about wanting to talk to him later on a case that needed to be dealt with before he and Julianna left for their honeymoon in South America. Oliver barely heard him.

  He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” Julianna said, her voice soft and near, as though she spoke to him from a pillow beside his own. “What's shakin'?”

  A melancholy smile spread across his face and Oliver turned his back to his father and his sister.

  “Oh, just celebrating my last night as a bachelor with a bit of perverse revelry.”

  “As is to be expected,” Julianna replied. “I'm just getting rid of the gigolos and the mule myself.”

  Oliver could not help himself. He laughed. Julianna was a wonderful person, kind and beautiful and intelligent. And he had made a promise to her. Wasn't it up to him to keep his own passions alive? His mother had surrendered. And where his father was concerned, Oliver had always done so as well. But that did not mean that his marriage had to be a cage. It was up to him.

  “It's good to hear your voice,” he said.

  At his words, his father retreated into the hallway. Collette came over to kiss her brother on the cheek; she stroked his hair a moment and he saw the regret in her eyes and knew it was for him. He nodded to her. It's going to be okay, he thought, and hoped she would read his mind or at least his expression.

  “So, what are you doing tomorrow?” he asked Julianna as Collette left the room, disappearing into the massive house after their father.

  “Why?” Julianna asked. “Did you have something in mind?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  HOURS LATER, OLIVER WAS STILL in the parlor. It was late enough that Mrs. Gray was long gone, so he had made a trip to the kitchen for some hot cocoa. Somehow, in the short time he was gone, Friedle had come into the parlor and laid a fire in the stone fireplace. When he returned with a large steaming mug, a dollop of whipped cream bobbing on top of the cocoa, the blaze was roaring. Oliver was more than happy to feed new logs into the flames from time to time. Friedle had put a large stack of wood aside for him, and now it was nearly gone. Across the rooom, one window was open several inches and there was something delicious about the combination of the heat of the fire and the chilly winter wind that swirled in. Snow had begun to build up on the windowpane and some landed on the woood floor, slowly melting there.

  This was magic; right here in this room with his cocoa and a worn leatherbound copy of Jack London's The Sea Wolf in his hands. He had rescued the book from its lonely place amongst the other abandoned volumes on these shelves, but it was not the first time. The Sea Wolf was an adventure he had returned to many times over the years. Always in this room, in this chair, beneath this light.

  With the snowstorm raging outside and the house gone quiet now, time slipped away. Oliver might have been twelve again. The fire crackled, casting ghostly orange flickers upon the walls.

  He was lost in the book, adrift upon the sea aboard The Ghost with Wolf Larsen at the helm. All the world had been pushed aside so that Oliver existed now within the pages of The Sea Wolf, far from his concerns about the future and the delicate irony of his love for a woman destined to become, for better or worse, his anchor.

  Oliver had shivered several times before he really noticed how cold it had grown in the parlor. The fire was down to one charred log licked by weak flames. Reluctantly he slipped a finger into his book, dry paper rasping against his skin, and went to kneel before the fireplace. He used a poker to push back the black iron mesh curtain in front of the burning log—the metal would long since have grown too hot to touch—and then carefully arranged two thin logs within.

  The fire began to spread and Oliver picked up another log, this one fat with a thick layer of bark, and placed it diagonally atop the others. For a moment after he had closed the mesh curtain again he remained there, watching the blaze. Then, finger still holding his place in the book, he stood again and started back toward his chair.

  Cold wind raced through the room, trailing chill fingers along the back of his neck. Again Oliver shivered, though this time he noticed it.

  The open window rattled hard in its frame. He glanced over to see that the snow had built up much more than he had realized. One corner of the gap betwe
en window and sash was packed with pure white and enough of it had powdered the floor that it was no longer melting.

  “Damn.”

  Oliver started toward the window. The edge of the Oriental rug was easily six feet from the wall but some of the snow had reached it. He paused to try to brush it away with his shoe but managed only to melt it into the carpet. The window rattled harder, buffeted by the storm. The sound was so loud and abrupt that Oliver jumped a bit and turned to squint in amazement at the snow outside his windows. The night seemed darker than before. The air whipped so hard against the panes of glass now that where it rushed through the opening it howled softly. More snow blew in with every gust.

  “Wow,” he whispered to himself as he stood peering out through the glass. Even in the dark, he could see that what had begun as a light snowfall had become nothing short of a full-fledged blizzard. The snow was thick and plentiful, the ground already completely blanketed with it, and the wind drove it in twisting swirls and waves.

  Oliver held the book up against his chest with his left hand, keeping it away from the open window. For a moment he simply enjoyed the storm. Then the glass rattled again, the window seemed to bow inward as though the storm was trying to get in. He reached out to close the window, but enough snow had built up on the sill that it slid only a fraction of an inch before jamming. He brushed as much of it out as he could. Even then, it seemed frozen in place. Awkwardly, finger still holding his place in The Sea Wolf, he set both hands upon the top of the window and put his weight into it. The window began to slide down.

  A powerful gust slammed against the house, shaking all of the parlor windows, as though in defiance. The open window seized again and he worked hard to force it closed. The storm raged outside, buffeting the walls of the house. The wind that passed through the narrow gap remaining between window and sash fairly shrieked now.

  The wooden frame shook, banging loudly now, and a long crack appeared in the glass, stretching a tendril from one side of the window to the other. Oliver cursed under his breath and let the book fall from his hand. The Sea Wolf struck the damp floor on its spine and something in its binding tore. Oliver barely noticed that he had dropped it, never mind that he had lost his page.

  Swearing again, he struggled to close the window, worried that at any moment the glass might splinter further, even shatter. It would not close that final inch, however, and his fingers were numb with the frigid air, the whipping snow. So cold. It seemed impossible that it could be so cold.

  Oliver paused, suddenly certain that he was not alone in the room. Friedle or Collette, perhaps . . . someone had heard the banging and come to investigate. But no . . . the presence he felt was not within the room, but without.

  He narrowed his gaze and for just that moment, twisting with the currents and eddies of the wind, he saw a figure dancing in the storm, eyes like diamonds staring in at him, a look of pure astonishment upon features carved of ice. All the air went out of Oliver then, as though he had died and his lungs expelled his final breath.

  The wind drove in through that narrow opening with the force of a sliver hurricane. The crack in the glass spread no further, but the storm blew in so hard that it knocked Oliver backward. He stumbled, slipped upon the melting snow, and fell sprawling onto the Oriental rug.

  Snow poured through the opening in the window and swirled and eddied about the parlor as though there were no difference between outside and inside. The storm had knocked, and now it had come in, uninvited. In a steady stream the blizzard slid through the inch-high gap between window and sash and raced around the room. Cold and damp, it slapped against his reading lamp and the bulb exploded, casting the room in darkness save for the light from the fire, which guttered weakly, only the iron mesh curtain keeping it from being doused completely.

  Oliver gasped, sucked icy air into his lungs. His eyes were wide as he gazed about the room. He was too cold for this to be a dream, and his stomach hurt from the gust of solid air that had knocked him down. Splayed there on the carpet, he felt a sense of wonder but it was tainted by a primal fear that welled up now from somewhere deep within him.

  The storm began to churn and then to spin more tightly at the center of the parlor. The fire surrendered and went out, smoke sifting from dead embers and being sucked into the white ice whirlwind that knocked knickknacks off the coffee table and twisted up the rug beneath its feet.

  Oh, Oliver thought. Oh, shit. What the fuck am I still doing here?

  It was as though the frozen wind had numbed his mind as well as his body. No longer. He scrambled to his feet and ran across the parlor, bent to one side to fight the wind. His cocoa mug slid off a side table and shattered on the floor.

  As he ran for the door, a gust of wind rushed past him, nearly knocking him over again, and blew it shut.

  Oliver stood unmoving in the middle of the parlor, staring at the door. There had been purpose behind that wind. He was not alone. The storm was here, but more than the storm.

  He turned slowly. The vortex in front of the dark fireplace was changing, taking shape. Through the snow churning within that whirlwind, Oliver could see a figure, the same that he thought he had seen outside moments ago. A man, or so it seemed, made from ice, his body all perilously sharp edges, dagger fingers and hair that swung and tinkled musically like a crystal chandelier.

  Its eyes gleamed pale blue and with every twist of the vortex, every swing of its arms, it stared directly at him. At first Oliver had thought it was dancing but now he saw that it was carried by the snow, by the storm.

  “God, please, no,” Oliver whispered, shaking his head. “What the hell are you?”

  The vortex slowed and then stopped.

  The snow fell to the floor, blanketing the wood and carpet and furniture.

  The winter man stood, chin proudly lifted, and cast a cold, cruel eye upon Oliver. Then he staggered, icy tread heavy upon the floor, and his sharp features changed. Pale blue eyes narrowed with pain and exhaustion, and Oliver saw that there was a chink out of his left side, like someone had chipped away a large sliver of ice.

  “Help me,” the winter man whispered, voice like the gusting wind.

  Then he fell hard, jagged features scoring the wooden floor. He lay half on the wood and half on the carpet. Where his wound was, water dripped onto the Oriental rug. Mind in a frantic tumult, Oliver stared at that spot and wondered if the winter man was melting.

  Or bleeding.

  WILDWOOD ROAD

  A Bantam Spectra Book / April 2005

  Published by

  Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2005 by Christopher Golden

  Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Golden, Christopher.

  Wildwood Road / Christopher Golden.

  p. cm.

  1. Married people—Fiction. 2. Missing children—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3557.O35927W55 2005

  813'.54—dc22

  2004057357

  www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90144-3

  v3.0

 

 

 
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