by Stephen King
“You don’t see a hole in the side of that trailer, do you?” she asked. Even her voice was dreamlike now. It seemed to be issuing from a loudspeaker in the top of Michaela’s head.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “It’s there, all right. Listen, Mickey, Trume called this new stuff Purple Lightning, and I got a sample before the wild woman came on the scene and offed Trume and his sidekick.” Garth was momentarily diverted into reverie. “The guy, he had the stupidest tattoo. That turd from South Park? The one that sings and stuff? It was on his Adam’s apple. Who gets a turd tattoo on his Adam’s apple? You tell me. Even if it’s a witty, singing and dancing turd, it’s still a turd. Everyone who looks at you sees a turd. Not my specialty, but I’ve consulted, and you would not believe what a pain it is to get something like that removed.”
“Garth. Stop. Rewind. The wild woman. Is that the woman people in town are talking about? The one they’re holding at the prison?”
“Uh-huh. She totally Hulked out. I was lucky to get away. But that’s water under the bridge, piss down the sewer pipe, last week’s news, so on and so forth. Doesn’t matter. And we should be grateful for that, trust me. What does matter is this superb crystal. Trume didn’t make it, he got it from Savannah or somewhere, but he was going to make it, dig? Analyze it and then create his own version. He had a two-gallon Baggie of the shit, and it’s in there somewhere. I’m going to find it.”
Michaela hoped so, because resupply was necessary. They had smoked up Garth’s reserves over the last few days, even smoked up the rug-bunnies and a couple of shards they’d found under the couch, Garth insisting that she brush her teeth after every session with the bong. “Because that’s why meth addicts have such bad teeth,” he’d told her. “They get high and forget basic hygiene.”
The stuff hurt her throat, and the euphoric effect had long since worn off, but it kept her awake. Michaela had been almost positive she would fall asleep on the ride out here—it had seemed interminable—but somehow she had managed to stay conscious. And for what? The trailer, balanced crooked on its cement blocks, didn’t exactly look like the Fountain of Awareness. She could only pray that the Purple Lightning wasn’t a fantasy of Garth Flickinger’s dope-addled brain.
“Go ahead,” she said, “but I’m not going in with you. There might be ghosts.”
He looked at her with disapproval. “Mickey, you’re a reporter. A news maven. You know there are no such things as ghosts.”
“I do know that,” Michaela said from the loudspeaker on top of her head, “but in my current state, I might see them anyway.”
“I don’t like leaving you on your own. I won’t be able to slap you if you start nodding off.”
“I’ll slap myself. Go get it. Just try not to be long.”
Garth trotted up the steps, tried the door, and put his shoulder to it when it wouldn’t give. It flew open and he stumbled inside. A moment later he poked his head out the maroon-stained hole in the side of the trailer, a big grin on his face. “Don’t go to sleep, you pretty thing! Remember, I’m going to touch up your nose one of these fine days!”
“In your dreams, buster,” she said, but Garth had already pulled his head back inside. Michaela heard thuds and crashes as he began his search for the elusive Purple Lightning. Which the cops had probably taken and stashed in the evidence locker at the sheriff’s station, if they hadn’t taken it home to their womenfolk.
Michaela wandered to the ruins of the meth-cooking shed. It was surrounded by charred bushes and blackened trees. No meth would be cooked here in the future, purple or otherwise. She wondered if the shed had blown up on its own, as meth-cooking facilities were wont to do, or if the woman who had killed the cookers had blown it up. It was a moot question at this late date, but the woman herself interested Michaela, piqued the natural, seeking curiosity that had made her investigate Anton Dubcek’s dresser drawers when she was eight and eventually led her into journalism, where you got to investigate everybody’s drawers—those in their houses, and those that they wore. That part of her mind was still active, and she had an idea it was keeping her awake as much as Flickinger’s methamphetamine. She had Qs with no As.
Qs like how this whole Aurora business got rolling in the first place. And why, assuming there was a why. Qs about whether or not the world’s women could come back, as Sleeping Beauty had. Not to mention Qs about the woman who had killed the meth dealers, and whose name was, according to some talk they’d overheard at the Squeaky Wheel and in town, either Eve or Evelyn or Ethelyn Black, and who could supposedly sleep and wake again, which made her like no other woman anywhere, unless another existed in Tierra del Fuego or the high Himalayas. This woman might only be a rumor, but Michaela tended to believe there was an element of truth to her. When rumors came to you from different directions, it was wise to pay attention.
If I wasn’t living with one foot in reality and the other in the Land of Nod, Michaela thought, starting up the path beyond the ruined meth shed, I would hie myself to the women’s prison and make some inquiries.
Another Q: Who was running the place up there, now that her mother was asleep? Hicks? Her mother said he had the brain of a gerbil and the spine of a jellyfish. If memory served, Vanessa Lampley was the senior officer on the staff. If Lampley wasn’t there anymore, or if she was snoozing, that left—
Was that humming just in her head? She couldn’t be completely sure, but she didn’t believe so. She thought it was the power lines that ran near here. No big deal. Her eyes, however, were reporting stuff that was harder to dismiss as normal. Glowing splotches like handprints on some of the tree trunks a few feet from the blasted shed. Glowing splotches that looked like footprints on the moss and mulch, as if saying, This way, m’lady. And clumps of moths on many of the branches, perched there and seeming to watch her.
“Boo!” she shouted at one of these clumps. The moths fluttered their wings, but did not take off. Michaela slapped one side of her face, then the other. The moths were still there.
Casually, Michaela turned and looked down the slope toward the shed and the trailer below. She expected to see herself lying on the ground, wrapped in webs, undeniable evidence that she had disconnected from her body and become a spirit. There was nothing, though, except for the ruins and the faint sounds of Garth Flickinger, treasure-hunting his ass off.
She looked back up the path—it was a path, the glowing footprints said so—and saw a fox sitting thirty or forty yards ahead. Its brush was curled neatly around its paws. It was watching her. When she took a hesitant three steps toward it, the fox trotted further up the path, pausing once to glance over its shoulder. It seemed to be grinning amiably.
This way, m’lady.
Michaela followed. The curious part of her was fully awake now, and she felt more aware, more with it, than she had in days. By the time she’d covered another hundred yards, there were so many moths roosting in the trees that the branches were furry with them. There had to be thousands. Hell, tens of thousands. If they attacked her (this brought a memory of Hitchcock’s film about vengeful birds), she’d be smothered. But Michaela didn’t think that was going to happen. The moths were observers, that was all. Sentinels. Outriders. The fox was the leader. But leading her where?
Her trail-guide brought Michaela up a rise, down a narrow dip, up another hill, and through a scrubby stand of birch and alder. The trunks were patched with that weird whiteness. She rubbed her hands over one of the spots. The tips of her fingers glowed briefly, then faded. Had there been cocoons here? Was this their residue? More Qs without As.
When she looked up from her hand, the fox was gone, but that hum was louder. It no longer sounded like power lines to her. It was stronger and more vital. The earth itself was vibrating beneath her shoes. She walked toward the sound, then stopped, awestruck just as Lila Norcross had been on this same spot a bit more than four days before.
Ahead was a clearing. In the center of it, a gnarled tree of many entwined, russet-colored trunks ascend
ed into the heavens. Ferny, prehistoric leaves lolled from its arms. She could smell their spicy aroma, a little like nutmeg, mostly like nothing she had ever smelled in her life. An aviary’s worth of exotic birds roosted in the high branches, whistling and keening and chattering. At the foot was a peacock as large as a child, its iridescent fan spread for Michaela’s delectation.
I am not seeing this, or if I am, all of the sleeping women are seeing it, too. Because I’m like them now. I fell asleep back by the ruins of that meth shed, and a cocoon is weaving around me even as I admire yonder peacock. I must have overlooked myself somehow, that’s all.
What changed her mind was the white tiger. The fox came first, as if leading it. A red snake hung around the tiger’s neck like barbaric jewelry. The snake flicker-flicked its tongue, tasting the air. She could see shadows waxing and waning in the muscles of the tiger’s flanks as it paced toward her. Its enormous green eyes fixed on hers. The fox broke into a trot, and its muzzle scraped against her shin—cool and slightly damp.
Ten minutes before, Michaela would have said she no longer had it in her to jog, let alone run. Now she turned and fled the way she had come in great bounding leaps, batting branches aside and sending clouds of brown moths whirling into the sky. She stumbled to her knees, got up, and ran on. She didn’t turn around, because she was afraid the tiger would be right behind her, its jaws yawning open to bite her in two at the waist.
She emerged from the woods above the meth shed and saw Garth standing by his Mercedes, holding up a large Baggie filled with what looked like purple jewels. “I am part cosmetic surgeon, part motherfucking drug-sniffing dog!” he cried. “Never doubt it! The sucker was taped to a ceiling panel! We shall . . . Mickey? What’s wrong?”
She turned and looked back. The tiger was gone, but the fox was there, its brush once more curled neatly around its paws. “Do you see that?”
“What? That fox? Sure.” His glee evaporated. “Hey, it didn’t bite you, did it?”
“No, it didn’t bite me. But . . . come with me, Garth.”
“What, into the woods? No thanks. Never a Boy Scout. I only have to look at poison ivy to catch it. Chemistry Club was my thing, ha-ha. No surprise there.”
“You have to come. I mean it. It’s important. I need . . . well . . . verification. You won’t catch poison ivy. There’s a path.”
He came, but without any enthusiasm. She led him past the ruined shed and into the trees. The fox just trotted at first, then sprinted ahead, weaving between the trees until it was lost to view. The moths were also gone, but . . .
“There.” She pointed at one of the tracks. “Do you see that? Please tell me you do.”
“Huh,” Garth said. “I’ll be damned.”
He tucked the precious Baggie of Purple Lightning into his unbuttoned shirt and took a knee, examining the luminous footprint. He used a leaf to touch it gingerly, sniffed the residue, then watched the spots fade.
“Is it that cocoon stuff?” Michaela asked. “It is, isn’t it?”
“It might have been once,” Garth said. “Or possibly an exudation of whatever causes the cocoons. I’m just guessing here, but . . .” He got to his feet. He seemed to have forgotten that they had come out here searching for more dope, and Michaela glimpsed the intelligent, probing physician who occasionally roused himself from the king-sized bed of meth inside Garth’s skull. “Listen, you’ve heard the rumors, right? Maybe when we went downtown for more supplies at the grocery?” (Said supplies—beer, Ruffles potato chips, ramen noodles, and an economy-sized tub of sour cream—had been meager. The Shopwell had been open, but pretty much ransacked.)
“Rumors about the woman,” she said. “Of course.”
Garth said, “Maybe we really do have Typhoid Mary right here in Dooling. I know it seems unlikely, all the reports say Aurora started on the other side of the world, but—”
“I think it’s possible,” Michaela said. All her machinery was working again, and at top speed. The feeling was divine. It might not last long, but while it did, she meant to ride it like one of those mechanical bulls. Yahoo, cowgirl. “And there’s something else. I might have found where she came from. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Ten minutes later, they stood at the edge of the clearing. The fox was gone. Ditto tiger and peacock with fabulous tail. Also ditto exotic birds of many colors. The tree was still there, only . . .
“Well,” Garth said, and she could practically hear his attentiveness dwindling away, air whistling out from a punctured floatation device, “it’s a fine old oak, Mickey, I’ll give you that, but otherwise I see nothing special.”
“I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t.” But already she was beginning to wonder. Perhaps she had imagined the moths, too.
“Even if you did, those glowing handprints and footprints are definitely X-Files material.” Garth brightened. “I’ve got all those shows on disc, and they hold up remarkably well, although the cell phones they use in the first two or three seasons are hilarious. Let’s go back to the house and smoke up and watch some, what do you say?”
Michaela did not want to watch The X-Files. What she wanted was to drive to the prison and see if she could score an interview with the woman of the hour. It seemed like an awful lot of work, and it was hard to imagine persuading anyone to let her in looking as she did now (sort of like the Wicked Witch of the West, only in jeans and a shell top), but after what they had seen up here, where that woman had reportedly made her first appearance . . .
“How about a real-life X-File?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s take a ride. I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Maybe we could try this stuff out first?” He shook the Baggie hopefully.
“Soon,” she said. It would have to be soon, because weariness surrounded her. It was like being stuck in a suffocating black bag. But there was one tiny rip in it, and that rip was her curiosity, letting in a shaft of bright light.
“Well . . . okay. I guess.”
Garth led their return down the path. Michaela paused long enough to take a look back over her shoulder, hoping to surprise the amazing tree back into existence. But it was just an oak, broad and tall but not in the least supernatural.
The truth is out there, though, she thought. And maybe I’m not too tired to find it.
7
Nadine Hicks was of the old school; in the days before Aurora she had been wont to introduce herself as “Mrs. Lawrence Hicks,” as though by marrying her husband, she had to some degree become him. Now she was wrapped up like a wedding present and reclining at the dining room table. Set in front of her was an empty plate, an empty glass, napkin and cutlery. After letting Frank into the house, Hicks brought him into the dining room, and the assistant warden sat down at the cherrywood table across from his wife to finish his breakfast.
“I bet you think this is weird,” said Hicks.
No, Frank thought, I don’t think arranging your cocooned wife at the dining table like a giant mummified doll is weird at all. I think it’s, oh, what’s the word? Ah, there it is: insane.
“I’m not going to judge you,” Frank said. “It’s been a big shock. Everyone’s doing the best they can.”
“Well, Officer, I’m just trying to keep to a routine.” Hicks was dressed up in a suit and he’d shaved, but there were huge bags under his eyes and the suit was wrinkled. Of course, everyone’s clothes seemed to be wrinkled now. How many men knew how to iron? Or to fold, for that matter? Frank did, but he didn’t own an iron. Since the separation, he took his clothes to Dooling Dry Cleaners, and if he needed a pair of creased pants in a hurry, he put them under the mattress, lay down for twenty minutes or so, and called it good.
Hicks’s breakfast was chipped beef on toast. “Hope you don’t mind if I eat. Good old shit-on-a-shingle. Moving her around works up an appetite. After this, we’re going to sit out in the yard.” Hicks swiveled to his wife. “Isn’t that right, Nadine?”
They both w
aited a couple of pointless seconds, as if she might respond. Nadine just sat there, though, an alien statue behind her place setting.
“Listen, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Mr. Hicks.”
“It’s fine.” Hicks scooped up a toast point and took a bite. Droplets of white mush and beef splatted down on his knee. “Darn it.” Hicks chuckled through his mouthful. “Running out of clean clothes already. Nadine’s the one who does the laundry. Need you to wake up and get on that, Nadine.” He swallowed his bite, and gave Frank a small, serious nod. “I scoop the litter box and take out the trash on Friday mornings. It’s equitable. A fair division of labor.”
“Sir, I just want to ask you—”
“And I gas up her car. She hates those self-service pumps. I used to tell her, ‘You’ll have to learn if I predecease you, honey.’ And she’d say—”
“I want to ask you about what’s going on at the prison.” Frank also wanted to get away from Lore Hicks as quickly as possible. “There’s a woman there that people are talking about. Her name’s Eve Black. What can you tell me about her?”
Hicks studied his plate. “I would avoid her.”
“So, she’s awake?”
“She was when I left. But yes, I would avoid her.”
“They say that she sleeps and wakes. Is that true?”
“It seemed like she did, but . . .” Hicks, still staring at his plate, angled his head, as if he were suspicious of his shit on toast. “I hate to beat a dead horse, but I would let that one go, Officer.”
“Why do you say that?” Frank was thinking of the moths that had burst up from the clipping of web that Garth Flickinger had lit. And the one that had seemed to fix its eyes on him.