Fear incarnate.
Rasalom's body tilts now until he is floating horizontally in the granite pocket. He spreads his legs and rams his feet against the stone wall and screams as they fuse with the living rock, screams as all the fears, the angers, the hatreds, hostilities, violence, pain, and grief from the vicinity surge into him. He stretches his arms and fuses his fists to the stone, and screams again. It is a scream of ecstasy as new power surges through him, but it is a scream of agony as well. For now the Change within has begun.
He swells. His skin stretches, then splits along his arms and legs, from his genitals to his scalp. As he continues to swell, the skin sloughs off and falls to the floor of the stone pocket like a discarded wrapper.
As the night air caresses his raw flesh, Rasalom screams again with what remains of his mouth.
FRIDAY
1 • IN PROFUNDIS
CNN:
—the sun's behavior continues to baffle astronomers, physicists, and cosmologists. We've been informed that it rose at 5:46 this morning, late again, this time by almost nineteen minutes.
And from New York City, startling news of a huge hole opening in Central Park during the night. We have a camera crew rushing to the scene now and we'll have live footage for you as soon as it is available…
Manhattan
Glaeken stood at the picture window and looked down on the hole in Central Park. Flashing red lights lit the tardy dawn as police cars and fire trucks ringed the lower end of the Park. A barricade had been set up around the entire Sheep Meadow to keep out the curious throngs. Television vans and camera trucks were there with miles of cable and lights that lit the area to noon brightness. Dominating the center of the scene was the hole. It had grown to two hundred feet across and stopped.
He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of it—just for a moment. He swayed with fatigue. He ached for sleep, but even when he lay down, it spurned his bidding.
So tired. He'd thought he'd freed himself from this, escaped the burden of responsibility for this war. But it wouldn't go away. Not till he'd found a successor. Only then would he truly be free.
But he had to have the weapon in order to pass it on. He'd expected some difficulty in reassembling its components, but the task was proving to be more formidable that he'd imagined. At least that fellow Repairman Jack was showing signs of turning his way. Jack had called in the wee hours this morning, telling him about the hole and suggesting that they get together again and have a few more beers. Fine with Glaeken. That at least was a step in the right direction.
First the weapon, then the successor to wield it, then the battle. A battle which, from the looks of things, would be lost before it was begun. But he had to go through the motions.
Behind him he heard Bill hang up the phone and approach the window. Glaeken opened his eyes and rubbed a hand across his face. Had to appear calm and in control at all times. Couldn't let them see the doubt, the dread, the desperation that nipped at his heels. How could he exhort them to maintain belief in themselves if he didn't set the example?
"Finally got through to Nick," Bill said, coming up beside him. "He's coming down here with a team from the university."
"What for?"
"To find out what caused the hole."
"I can save him the trip. Rasalom caused the hole."
"That's not going to do it for Nick." He gazed down at the Park. "I guess this is what you meant when you said his next move would be in the earth."
Glaeken nodded. "And its placement is not random or haphazard."
"Really? Central Park has some significance for Rasalom?"
"Only so far as Central Park is located right outside my window."
You're going to rub my face in it, aren't you, Rasalom?
"It doesn't look real," Bill said. "I feel like I'm in a movie looking at one of those matte paintings they use for special effects."
"It's quite real, believe me."
"I do. They've got close-ups on the TV, by the way. Want to take a look?"
"I've seen these close up before, although never one this big."
"You have? When?"
"Long ago" Ages ago.
"How deep is that thing?"
"Bottomless."
Bill smiled. "No. Really."
Apparently he'd misunderstood, so Glaeken spoke slowly and clearly.
"There is no bottom to that hole," he said. "It is quite literally bottomless."
"But that's impossible. It would have to go all the way through to China or whatever's on the other end."
"The other end doesn't open on this world."
"Come on. Where then?"
"Elsewhere."
Glaeken watched the priest's eyes flick back and forth between him and the hole.
"Elsewhere? Where's elsewhere?"
"No place you'd ever want to visit."
"You can be a little more specific than that, can't you?"
"I wish I could, but the place has no name. And I don't believe there's any way to describe in human terms what the other end of that hole is like."
"I believe I'll change and go down there for a closer look."
"No need to rush. The hole isn't going anywhere. And it's only the first."
"You mean there's going to be more?"
"Many. All over the world. But Rasalom has honored me by opening the first outside my front door."
"I'll see if I can hook up with Nick down there and find out what he knows."
"Just be sure to be back before dark."
Bill smiled. "Okay, Dad."
"I'm quite serious."
His smile faded. "Yeah. I guess you are. Okay. Back before dark."
Glaeken watched Bill hurry to his room. He was fond of the man. He couldn't ask for a better house guest. Bill was always willing to help around the apartment or with Magda when the nurse wasn't around.
As if sensing her name within his thoughts, Magda called from the bedroom.
"Hello? Is anybody there? Have I been left alone to die?"
"Coming, dear."
He took one final look at the hole in the Sheep Meadow, then he headed down the hall.
Magda was sitting up in her bed. She'd been losing weight and her eyes were starting to retreat into her skull. Her face was as lined as his, her hair as white. But her brown eyes were bright with anger.
"Who are you?" she said, switching to her native Hungarian tongue.
"I'm your husband, Magda."
"No, you're not!" She spat the words. "I wouldn't marry such an old man like you! Why, you're old enough to be my father! Where's Glen?"
"Right here. I'm Glen."
"No! Glen's young and strong with red hair!"
He took her hands in his. "Magda, it's me. Glen."
Terror flashed across her face, then her features softened. She smiled.
"Oh, yes. Glen. How could I have forgotten? Where have you been?"
"Right in the next room."
Her expression hardened as her eyes narrowed.
"No you weren't! You've been out seeing other women! Don't deny it! You're out with that nurse! Don't think I don't know what the two of you are up to when you think I'm asleep!"
Glaeken held her hands and let her ramble on. He wanted to cry. After two years he'd have thought he could have adapted to anything, but he couldn't get used to Magda's dementia. None of her ravings were true, yet Magda fully believed her delusions as they passed through the expanding emptiness of her mind, truly meant the hurtful things she said as she spoke them, and that never failed to cut him deeply.
Oh, Magda, my Magda, where have you gone?
Glaeken closed his eyes and recalled Magda as she was when they'd met in 1941. Her soft, even features, her fresh pale skin, glossy chestnut hair, and wide dark eyes, filled with love, tenderness, and intelligence. It was the love, tenderness, and intelligence he mourned for most now. Even after her physical beauty had faded, his love for her had not. For she had remained Magda the poet, Magda the sin
ger, Magda the mandolin player, Magda the scholar who so loved art and music and literature. Her compendium of Rumanian Gypsy music, Songs of the Rom, was still in print, still gracing the shelves of finer bookstores.
Three years ago Magda had started to slip away, to be infiltrated and irreversibly replaced by this mad, incoherent stranger. Her mental status had deteriorated first, but soon she had become physically enfeebled as well. She could not get out of bed by herself now. That made caring for her easier in a way because she could no longer wander at night. In the early stages of her decline Glaeken had found her searching the street below, calling for their pet cat, dead since 1962. After that he'd had to deadbolt the apartment door and remove the knobs from the stove to prevent her from "cooking dinner" at two in the morning.
There were still flashes of the old Magda. She couldn't remember what she had for breakfast—or if she'd even had breakfast—yet now and then she'd recall an incident in their life together from thirty or forty years ago as if it were yesterday. But instead of buoying him, the brief lapses in Magda's dementia only served to deepen Glaeken's depression.
It wasn't fair.
Glaeken had known and loved so many women through the ages, yet each relationship had ended in bitterness. Each in her own way had ended up hating him because she grew old while he stayed young. Finally there had been Magda, the one woman in his seemingly endless life that he would be allowed to grow old with. And they'd had a glorious life, a love that could not be tainted even by the pain of these past few years.
Maybe it was for the best. Magda would spend her final days immune to the horror stalking the world. Her body was as vulnerable as everybody else's, but her mind was impregnable to reality.
He glanced at Magda and saw that she'd fallen asleep again. This was her pattern—a reversal of day and night. Cat naps throughout the day, awake most of the night. Even with the hired nurse and Bill to help, Glaeken existed in a state of constant exhaustion. His heart went out to all the unfortunate spouses of Alzheimer's patients throughout the world who did not have his financial resources. Unless they had a large family of willing helpers, their lives were an endless nightmare.
Nightmare…soon everyone across the globe would know what it was like to live a nightmare.
Gently he lay Magda's head back down on the pillow and tucked the covers in around her. He would not allow a deterioration of her brain to lessen his commitment to her. If their conditions were reversed, she'd be at his side whenever he needed her. He was sure of it. And he would do no less.
All morning he had debated whether or not to warn the media about the hole. Finally, he'd decided against it. He didn't want to attract attention to himself. Besides, they'd write him off as just another doom-monger and ignore him. The end result would be the same: they'd have to learn the hard way.
FNN:
—on the commodities exchanges, prices are up sharply, especially in October beans and orange juice futures, in brisk trading around the globe due to uncertainties about the upcoming growing season…
Nick felt someone tugging at his arm. Reluctantly, he turned away from the hole to face one of the Park cops.
"You Dr. Quinn?" the guy said, shouting over the rattle and roar of the generators.
"Yeah. What's up?"
"Got a priest back in the crowd says you asked him here to say some prayers."
"Priest?" Nick said, baffled. "I didn't ask for any—" And then he knew. He almost laughed in the cop's face. "Oh, yeah. I've been waiting for him. Can you bring him over?"
The cop turned and waved to someone along the barricade. Nick saw a lone figure in black break from the crowd and approach at a quick walk.
He shook Father Bill's hand when he arrived. He'd seen the priest a couple of times since his return from North Carolina but still couldn't get used to how he'd aged during his five years in hiding. Before he disappeared, Nick had got to the point where he'd been calling the priest simply "Bill," but since his return he'd fallen back into the practice of prefixing the name with "Father." He pointed to the cassock and Roman collar.
"I thought you weren't going to wear that anymore."
"So did I. But I've decided the uniform has its uses. Especially when you want special treatment in a crowd."
"So what are you doing here?"
Father Bill smiled. "I came to perform the exorcism," he said in a low voice. "To close this thing up."
"Very funny."
The smile faded. "Seriously, Nick. I would like to get a close-up look at the hole."
"Sure. But stay on the platform. The dirt tends to crumble at the edges."
Nick felt the excitement build all over again as he led Father Bill to the edge. He still couldn't get over it. Something like this—a mysterious two-hundred-foot-wide hole appearing here, practically in his back yard. It was wonderful. He guided him to the railing at the edge of the wooden platform and together they looked down.
He heard Father Bill catch his breath.
"Incredible, isn't it?" Nick said. "I can't believe my luck. And that's all it is. Luck. If I'd been out getting coffee when the boys from Geology had called this morning, someone else might have picked up the phone and they'd be calling the shots here now instead of me. Being in the right place at the right time. That's all it takes."
But Father Bill said nothing. He seemed to be mesmerized by the hole.
Nick knew what the priest was feeling. He'd looked down into that hole a good hundred times since he'd arrived and still couldn't shake how unnatural it seemed.
The walls did it. Too sheer. They didn't look fallen away—more like scooped away. He could see the layers of earth and stone stacked like the cut edge of a trifle. When he'd first looked down he'd expected to see a sort of inverted cone with a rubble-filled bottom. But he couldn't see the bottom. The hole was much deeper than he'd imagined. Half a mile down, he guessed. Maybe deeper. Straight down into darkness. Maybe when the sun got higher they'd be able to see more, but right now it was night down there.
Nick had been to the Grand Canyon last summer and still remembered the vertigo he'd experienced standing at the edge of the look-out for the first time. The giddy, vertical descent of these walls gave him a similar sensation. But he'd been able to see a ribbon of water at the base of the Grand Canyon. Here, with the gentle downdraft flowing around him, he could see only blackness.
The downdraft had bothered him at first. Where could it be going? Then he realized that the air was probably flowing down into the cavity at the edges, and then turning upward and flowing out straight up through the center. That had to be the explanation. It couldn't all be flowing continually downward. There was no place to go.
He straightened up and turned to the priest.
"Well? What do you think of our little sand pit?"
The priest tore his eyes away from the hole and looked at him. He looked frightened.
"How'd it get here, Nick?"
"Don't know. That's for the geology boys to figure out. But already people are making comparisons to those crop circles in England. The tabloids will have a field day. I think The Light has got its whole staff here already."
"Any idea how deep it is?"
"We don't know yet. Geology rigged up a sonic range-finder first thing this morning and pointed it at the bottom, but couldn't get a reading."
"No bottom?" The priest's voice suddenly sounded a little dry.
Nick laughed. "Of course there's a bottom. It's just that echoes from the side walls were interfering with the readings. Geology was stumped, so they called Physics. We could wait till the sun hits zenith and do a sight measurement, but why wait? We've got a new laser that'll bounce a beam off the bottom of that hole and give us a distance reading accurate to within a centimeter."
Father Bill was staring into the hole again as he spoke.
"I have it on good authority that it's bottomless."
"It's deep," Nick said. "But not that deep." And then a thought struck him. "This authority would
n't be the same one that told you about something happening 'in the heavens' now, would it?"
As Father Bill nodded, Nick felt a cold weight settle between his shoulder blades. He gestured toward the hole.
"Come on, now. Bottomless? You can't really believe that."
"I never believed the sun would be rising progressively later each day in mid-spring either. Did you?"
"No, but…"
Bottomless? That was patently impossible. Everything had a top and a bottom, a beginning and an end. That was the way things were. It couldn't be any other way.
Someone tapped him on his shoulder. He turned and found one of the grad students.
"We're ready to shoot."
"Great." He turned to Father Bill. "The laser's set. Wait here. In a few minutes we'll have a reading from the bottom—wherever it is."
Bill watched a moment as Nick hurried away toward some odd-looking contraption suspended on a boom over the hole. He was proud of him. He'd come a long way from the bratty little nine-year-old orphan he'd played chess with back in his early days at St. Francis Home for Boys. He was mature and self-assured—at least in the field of physics. He wondered how he was faring socially. Bill knew Nick was more than a little self-conscious about his appearance—the misshapen skull from when he was abused as an infant, the old acne scars. But a lot of worse-looking men had found the girl of their dreams and lived happily ever after. He hoped that would happen for Nick soon.
He turned back to the hole and stared into its black depths.
What was that Nietzsche quote? If thou gaze into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. That was how he now felt as he looked downward, as if he were gazing inward at his own reclusive darkness. The abyss expanded before him, beckoning. What mysteries, what horrors were sequestered in those misty, chaotic depths? For an instant he was gripped by a mad impulse to step off the edge and let himself fall. If it was truly bottomless as Glaeken had said, he would keep falling. And falling. Imagine the vistas, the wonders he'd see. What would he find? Himself? An endless voyage of self-discovery. How wonderful. How could anyone resist? How on earth could anyone with an iota of character refuse? How—?
Nightworld ac-6 Page 6
