This was perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
From the porch she heard Donny say, “We have an ambulance on the way.”
“Thanks,” Dead Man said. “That will be perfect.”
Both he and Donny chuckled slightly, but Lacey thought they were right.
Perfect.
A former college professor turned bartender, Doc finds himself trying to save his friends from a ghost under a lake in the wilderness of Idaho.
From diving into a ghost town buried under a lake to trying to stay alive on the sinking deck of the Titanic, this time-travel science fiction novel reads like a rollercoaster ride with all the twists and turns.
First published in paperback in 1989 from Warner Questar Books, Dean Wesley Smith’s first published novel gives a lot of hints of his future series and his bestselling career spanning over a hundred and fifty novels.
Published here in its original form, without any changes, just as Dean wrote it almost thirty years ago.
LAYING THE MUSIC TO REST
Part 4
CHAPTER SIX
Monumental Lodge
June 28, 1990
I awoke to Fred banging on my door and announcing breakfast. I was amazed that I hadn’t had nightmares all night. But in fact, I had slept right through and felt something just short of what I am sure death feels like.
Somehow I crawled out of bed without screaming from all the stiff muscles. I felt a little better after a good, hot shower. Not much, but a little.
Fred was cooking the best-smelling bacon I could have ever imagined as I eased my sore body down the stairs. I was the last to arrive. Constance, Steven, and Susan were all sitting at the kitchen table reading newspapers.
“Morning,” Constance said as I hit the bottom of the stairs and padded across the room in my bare feet. “Sleep okay?”
“Like a drunk,” I said. “How about you, Fred?”
“Didn’t even notice Constance’s snoring.”
“That’s because I was awake listening to yours,” she said without looking up from her paper.
“Coffee on the stove,” Fred said, pointing with a fork at the pot.
I glanced at one of the newspapers as I passed the table. The date at the top was yesterday’s. “Where’d you get the papers?”
“Mail drop this morning,” Fred said. “Didn’t you hear the plane?”
“I didn’t hear a thing from the time my head hit that pillow to the time you knocked on the door. Nothing.”
“Plane drops off our mail, guest arrivals, and newspapers twice a week in the clearing above the lake. If we’re not there to wave at it, or have already put a red flag on one of the small trees beside the meadow, they send in the rescue squad. It’s kind of our safety net in case something really bad goes wrong and neither one of us can get to help. The guy lives down in Yellow Pine and he also lets us know when guests are on their way in. He’s our contact with the real world.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Considering how far out in the boondocks this is.”
“Oh, we’re not that bad,” Constance said. “There are ranches down on the Middle Fork that are a hundred miles from the nearest road.”
“But don’t they have airstrips?” I asked as I filled my cup and went over to the table. “Morning,” I said as Susan looked up.
“Some of them,” Constance said.
“Good morning,” Susan said without so much as a smile. She went back to reading her paper. She was obviously still mad at me for laughing at her last night. Hell, with a story like her “I’m a time traveler from the future” one, what did she expect? I’d tried to be open-minded. I’d listened as long as I could keep a straight face. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have lasted longer.
I studied her for a moment. She looked tired. Last night, after our “talk,” I hadn’t told anyone about her strange rantings. I had been too damn pooped to fight it through. Fred had asked me what went on and I had told him I’d give him a good laugh in the morning. I had mentioned keeping the mirror with me, but he suggested a safer place under a floorboard in their bedroom. So that’s where we had put it. I noticed that it was now back sitting on the fireplace. I also noticed that Susan’s pack was leaning against the wall.
Somewhere in the middle of my shower, I had decided that we should let Susan play with the mirror before I told Fred and Constance her story. It made more sense that way. Let her prove herself nuts without me doing or saying a thing. Maybe then we could get on to something that might help.
Nothing was mentioned about the mirror until after everyone was finished reading the paper and stuffing themselves on Fred’s incredibly good bacon, eggs, and home-baked bread. I swore three times I couldn’t eat another bite and then found myself, because of the smell of the bread or the taste of the bacon, taking more.
Somehow, I finally pulled myself away from the table and motioned for Fred that he should join me out on the front porch as I staggered for the front door.
The sun wasn’t yet above the mountain, leaving the porch buried in shadows and a sharp, cold bite in the air. It felt refreshing. I did a few quick stretches to try to loosen a dozen more sore muscles, then went over to the log rail and leaned on it. This morning the water looked blue-gray. My imagination still could not grasp the fact that there used to be a town sitting there. It was too much a picture postcard lake to have such a strange history.
Behind me, Fred pulled the front door closed. “Great breakfast,” I said. I tapped my stomach. If I survived this trip, I was going to be doing sit-ups for a month.
“Thanks,” he said. “You find out any more about our guest last night? I noticed you two were being a little cold to each other over breakfast. She turn your pass down?”
“Didn’t even give it a try. You know I like redheads. This one is too weird to make an exception.”
“That bad, huh? I have an uneasy feeling about her myself.”
“Totally crazy doesn’t come close. She now claims she’s from the future. Or something like that. It all sounded more like the ravings of an asylum escapee. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“You have got to be kidding.” Fred’s eyes were wide.
I shook my head. “Nope. She was dead serious. And she wants to try a few things with the mirror.”
Fred shook his head. “Not a chance this side of hell. Let’s get her on a horse and headed back up that trail.”
“Hang on. I was figuring we should let her play with it for a few minutes. Let her play out her fantasy and then send her packing.”
Fred laughed. “That does make more sense. But we can’t let her hurt it.”
“I doubt she would. She seems to think it’s incredibly important.”
“Hell, what more did she say? The bacon in my stomach is twisting with curiosity.”
I laughed. “Do me a favor and let me wait a little longer. I think you’ll end up with most of it as she plays with the mirror. Besides, if you and Constance are asking her questions we can twist her up in no time. No one could keep a story like hers straight for long. It was too off the wall.”
Fred nodded. “So we let her do what she wants with the mirror, within reason. We’ll both stay close to her, in case. She’s crazy enough to try anything.”
“You called it,” I said.
I took one more quick look down at the lake and then held the door open for Fred as we went back inside.
***
I told Susan that we had decided she was free to try her experiments, as long as she didn’t damage the mirror. I took the mirror off the mantel and laid it glass up on the coffee table. Then I sat down on the couch beside the table so that I could easily reach the mirror.
“Thanks,” she said, and nodded at me as she leaned the pack against the overstuffed chair and sat down.
Fred came over and stood in front of the fireplace with its small daytime fire. When I looked up, he nodded at me and then at the rifle leaning beside the fireplace behind him. He
was ready for anything. Smart man.
Constance and Steven sat down on the other couch.
“Exactly what is it you’re trying to do?” Fred asked.
Susan glanced at me.
“I haven’t told them a thing,” I said, and then smiled. She didn’t look happy.
She picked up the mirror, studied it for a moment, and then glanced up at Fred. “I’m trying to trigger this device and go where the ghost’s lover went.”
“And where might that be?” Fred asked. Fred was playing it a lot straighter than I could. He wasn’t even smiling.
Susan shrugged. “I’m not really sure. Any one of two dozen or so places.” Carefully, she rubbed her hand along the back of the mirror, then looked into the glass and laid the mirror on the table.
We all waited in silence.
Nothing.
“Damn,” she said. “There has to be some sequence of events that wouldn’t often occur naturally, but would occur with enough frequency to pull the required number of people.”
“You know where these places are?” I asked.
Susan nodded. “Of course.”
“Then why don’t you go directly there, instead of through the mirror? Would seem to make more sense.”
“We can’t. All the original locations are shielded from us. The only way in is through the original devices.”
“Are they all mirrors?”
“No,” she said. “But they are all glass of some sort or another. It’s the special glass that with a boost of power warps time and allows passage through it.”
“So you mean to say this mirror is a machine of some sort?” Constance asked. “I don’t see how that can be. It’s too small.”
“Not really a machine. More like what the doctor said earlier. A focus. In very crude terms, the glass works like a magnifying glass works on the sun’s rays. This glass focuses spatiotemporal currents, time waves if you will. Somehow, with the right sequence of events, a burst of power from a source location is triggered and pulls the person who triggers it through the glass and to the source. It’s the same principle that our return devices work on. Only hidden.”
“Your return what?” Fred asked.
Again Susan looked over at me, then back up at Fred. “My people use something similar.” She took the mirror and rubbed the handle a few times, then looked into it and again laid it face up on the table.
We waited. I noticed that Susan seemed to be holding her breath.
Again, nothing happened.
“Maybe Gretchen turned down the marriage proposal,” Constance said. “Try turning it facedown.”
Both Fred and I gave Constance a hard look and she shrugged.
Susan nodded and started to again pick up the mirror. But as she reached for it, the air in front of the coffee table shimmered and the ghost appeared. She spooked me almost as bad as she had the day before. Only this time I kept my seat on the couch near the mirror. As she firmed up, the room temperature dropped twenty degrees. I could see why all the lodge guests had left.
I glanced over at Steven as Fred made a hasty retreat around the back of the couch and away from the ghost. Steven again had that glassy-eyed look and was slumped back against the couch, staring off at the ceiling.
The ghost stood and looked at the mirror for a moment, as if checking to make sure it was all right. Then she faded out and was gone.
Constance rushed over to Steven as he slowly shook his head. I felt sorry for him. It was bad enough having that ghost pop in and out, but being able to sense her, read her thoughts, must have been awful. I was glad it was him instead of me.
Susan stared at Steven. “Did you get anything more from her?”
Steven nodded. “Constance was right,” he said, his voice again very weak. “Alex put his image in the mirror, then gave it to Gretchen. She turned the mirror facedown.”
“Was there anything else?” Susan asked. “Just before he looked into the mirror?”
“No,” Steven said after a short pause. “I have this picture of him simply wiping the mirror off, looking into it, and handing it to Gretchen. She turned him down and that was when he left. She wants him to return.”
Steven’s answer seemed to have satisfied Susan. She held the mirror up in front of her and rubbed the frame along the right side as she kept her image in it. Then she turned it facedown.
And waited. Nothing.
She picked the mirror back up and tried rubbing the left side.
Nothing.
On the third try she found what she was looking for. She held the mirror up in front of her and ran her hand completely around the frame. As if she were cleaning it with a rag, she started at the handle and went clockwise around and back to the handle.
Then she laid the mirror facedown on the table.
Suddenly, she smiled, grabbed her pack, and pulled it up in her lap.
I grabbed the mirror, pulling it out of her reach. She seemed to think she was going somewhere and I didn’t want her taking the mirror with her.
She didn’t. She saw my action and smiled at me. She faded, shimmering as if we were looking at her through heat waves coming off hot desert sand.
“Thanks,” she said to me, nodding at the mirror. “Keep it safe. Others will want to use it very soon.” Her voice sounded as if she had shouted it down a long tunnel and the look in her eyes was one of success. An ugly look that chilled me almost as much as the ghost had.
She faded and I could see the chair through her.
Then she was gone.
You could have cut the silence and tension in that room with a dull knife.
“Holy shit,” Fred said softly.
I laid the mirror back down on the coffee table, being very careful to make sure it was facing up. Then I stood on what felt like rubber legs and headed for Fred’s liquor cabinet. If there was ever a reason to have a drink before lunch, this was it.
I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Monumental Cemetery
June 28, 1990
All people in the world, unless they go through life doing absolutely nothing, and I have known just such people, have a few moments in their lives when their world changes direction. For most, the shifts are gradual, like a slow curve on an interstate highway. The change of direction isn’t really noted unless in hindsight. “Oh, hey. Isn’t it amazing that I was going to be a heart surgeon and now I’m selling real estate?” People like that never really know the exact time the change took place. It just did.
But changes in my life have been along the line of running into a brick wall. I’ve run into a number of small brick walls in my life. But only two major ones. The first was the exact moment Fred told me Carla was dead. Killed in a stupid car accident. I knew without a doubt that at that moment, my life had completely changed. And it had.
The second time was today. When I laid that mirror back on that table and headed for the bar, I knew without a doubt that my life would never be the same. That the easy, don’t feel-or-do-anything way of life of the last few years at the Garden Lounge had suddenly ended.
I flopped down on the couch after I had made myself a drink, downed it, made one each for Steven, Constance, and Fred, then made myself a second. Where the hell had Susan gone? I stared at the empty chair and then at the mirror. Was she in the same place as Alex, a man who had supposedly disappeared eighty years earlier? Where the hell would that be? In 1990, there were very few places in the world that could hide a large number of people for eighty years. Let alone a few dozen such places.
Fred dropped onto the other couch and stared at the mirror. “Maybe you should tell us what she said last night.”
“You know, I didn’t believe one word she said. I do now and I’m scared to death.”
“That bad, huh?” Fred asked.
I nodded and motioned for Constance and Steven to sit down. This was going to take a while.
Susan’s chair was left open, as if she might appear a
t any moment. It took about thirty minutes to relay what Susan had told me the night before. Now I wished I had asked more questions, because damned if I could answer half of the ones the three of them threw at me. I just hadn’t believed her, so I hadn’t bothered. Instead I had laughed.
But I told them what I could remember of her story about how she was from the near future and how all of the people then were descendants of what she called seed groups, people taken randomly from our culture. She had said there were four such main groups. When I had asked her why she had been trying to find the mirror, she’d tried to explain a little about how her world was in conflict, with both sides trying to find the original groups of the other.
When I had managed to ask her what had happened to our present world, she wouldn’t say. But she made it very clear that during her time, there were only the seed groups left.
“Pretty farfetched,” Fred said after I was finished with the part of her story about how one of the groups called Lomax was a genetically altered group. “What do you make of it all?”
I pointed at the empty chair. “After that, I don’t know what to think. It makes sense that something like we witnessed with Susan happened to the ghost’s lover. Would tend to shake anyone up, especially someone in 1909. Shook the hell out of me, and I’ve watched a dozen ‘Beam me up, Scotties’ on television.”
“I agree,” Fred said. “It would explain the ghost’s lover disappearing.”
“And it would also explain,” Steven said, “why Gretchen was so traumatized into waiting around for him after she was killed.”
“So how come these seed groups are fighting?” Fred asked. “And why are they looking for these mirrors?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t let her get that far.”
“Do you think we’re going to blow ourselves up?” Constance asked, her voice low.
“I read the morning paper. Nothing major seems to be going on at the moment. But you never know. There are a lot of crazies in this world.”
Smith's Monthly #31 Page 3
