So far, he had made a dozen trips. He’d visited the Moon, and found, to his bemusement, some golf balls and an American flag up there. Good Lord, had Arnold Palmer beaten him to it?
He’d ridden on an asteroid, and skated across the icy rings of Saturn. He had stood on Callisto and stared old man Jupiter in his big red eye. And sometime soon, he might attempt to venture further. To another planetary system maybe, or perhaps another galaxy. The journeys didn’t tire him, and there appeared to be no limits.
He thought of doing it again right now. But there was something plucking at his conscience, stopping him from going that route. He struggled with his memory – which was always hazy – trying to think what it might be.
Ah yes. The town was still in trouble. Something about reality threatening to collapse. But then, what was reality anyway? He wasn’t wholly sure.
So he was worrying about plain nothing, really. It was better to leave such concerns to more prosaic types. He smiled broadly, and then prepared to hurl himself into the firmament again.
Something in the corner of his vision stopped him short. The landscape off in that direction had abruptly changed from white to purple. When he dropped his gaze, he could see that another of those blasted mauve holes had shown up in mid-air, just short of the tangled forest.
It looked to be big enough to drive a truck through, and its edges were wavering and shifting constantly. But nothing came out of it. It simply hung there, no more than a hundred yards away.
Woodard stared at it intently. How precisely to regard it? As an opening to a different dimension, he supposed.
And then the notion struck him, with the force of a hard blow.
A few seconds back, his intention had been to fling himself into the ether and visit some distant planet. But the opportunity that he was now being given was far more spectacular.
He could explore a different universe!
Oh my word, how absolutely splendid. He would curse himself forever if he didn’t take this chance. And so he threw his consciousness toward it.
He had never realized purple had so many different shades. They ranged from the most delicate mauve to a hue approaching black. And there was no other kind of color, anywhere that his eyes went.
This universe was nothing in the slightest like his own. There were no solar systems, and no vacuums yawning in between them. Everything was solid, every available space filled up with purple matter. And you traversed it by means of a giant honeycomb of intersecting tunnels, which appeared to go on forever, and possibly did.
And there seemed to be no up or down into the bargain. As Raine progressed – simply drifting along in a disembodied way – the openings to fresh tunnels came into view, not only to either side but above and below him too. A few creatures like bloated spiders scuttled by, and they were walking upside down. How curious. Gravity here looked like it was pulling in every which direction.
Some of the passageways were crooked. Others were perfectly straight, running away from him into infinity. Raine had never dreamed that such a place existed.
But where were the real inhabitants? Those spiders hadn’t looked particularly smart. Some living dots of violet light went humming past, followed by something considerably larger, a creature with a massive head and clattering circles of rotating teeth.
“Hello?” he tried. “Nice doggie?”
But he had no mouth, so not the slightest sound came out. The beast moved away from him obliviously and disappeared around a corner.
Maybe there was nothing else in this place? But then he heard a noise. It was coming from a long, wide tunnel directly above him. And he thought at first that it was hurried footsteps, but it wasn’t that.
It sounded more like liquid, bubbling furiously. Woodard headed up to take a closer look.
He found himself in an enormous rounded chamber. At the center of the floor, there was a pool of viscid liquid, the surface of which – he’d been right – was churning and frothing angrily. It was surrounded by some three dozen figures who looked only very distantly like men. They had bald, ugly, chunky heads with rounded eyes, and hunched bodies with brittle-looking limbs. The purple color of their skins kept on altering and flowing. Some of them had proper arms, others had tentacles, and a few had swathes of fine violet filaments sprouting from their shoulders.
They were chattering quietly amongst themselves, although in no language Woodard recognized. And were engaged in the most peculiar activity he’d ever come across.
The ones nearest the pool were lifting out bubbles, turning them over, and then repositioning them. That made no sense in the least. The bubbles were returning to the general froth, vanishing the second that they were set down. So why bother moving them in the first place?
These creatures were being extremely serious about it, though. Every time they moved some shining globes around, they’d pause intently – waiting for something to happen – converse, and then try again.
But then they stopped abruptly, all of them at the same time. Had something gone wrong? Raine wondered.
The heads of the entire gathering swung in his direction, their button-like eyes glimmering with alarm. They couldn’t possibly see him – he was invisible. But these beings had sensed his presence.
They didn’t give off any kind of hostile air. And even if they were that thing, he doubted they could harm him in this formless state.
Woodard faltered, and then hailed them with the loud thought, “Greetings, my new chums!”
Several heads twitched.
And then they began answering him, their voices ringing through his mind.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Devries?”
I thought that somebody was talking to me in my dream. And couldn’t understand why my missing family should refer to me by my surname. It didn’t sound like any of their voices. So I responded by burying my head as deeply as I could under my pillow.
“Devries? I need to speak with you.”
The pillow obviously wasn’t thick enough, and so I folded both my arms across it.
“For heaven’s sake, wake up, sport!”
Woody?
I came smartly back to alertness, sitting bolt upright. Woodard Raine’s outline was stood at the foot of my bed, with its eyes glowing. Night still had everything in its dimly moonlit grip. And when I looked across at my alarm clock, it was barely gone four. Which meant I’d had precisely two hours’ sleep.
I dragged a wrist across my eyes.
“Jesus, how did you get in here?” I asked him. And then something else occurred to me. “What are you doing out of your mansion?”
“I’m not,” he replied. “But I’ve acquired the ability to project an image of myself.”
He what? My sleep-deprived brain fought to take in what he’d said. Previously, Raine had only been able to project his voice. And so this was a big step up. He had gone – in terms of sorcery – from radio to television.
And sure enough, when I studied him more closely, it turned out that his shape was partially translucent. I could make out the outline of my bedroom window through his body. The real Woodard Raine was most probably standing in the darkened ballroom of his mansion. Which didn’t change the fact this was the first time he had ever visited my home.
“Okay,” I groaned, giving in to the reality – if you could call it that – of the situation. “What brings you here?”
“I’ve something very urgent to convey.”
In real, practical terms, or only his? But since he’d gone to all this trouble. I couldn’t see the harm in letting him tell me what he thought was up.
“You’ve got my full attention. Go ahead.”
“Ah, no. This is not only for your benefit, Devries. I need to inform everyone concerned.”
I thought I saw him flash a smile, and then his forearms started rising.
“Tell you what,” he suggested. “I’ll bring them here.”
The same way he had last time, when he’d conjured everyo
ne into Raine Manor in one massive flash? I lurched at him urgently.
“No, Woody! Don’t do that! Everyone’s asleep. You’ll scare them half to death.”
Besides which, I had no particular desire to find out what my friends wore when they went to bed. And I explained that to him too.
He muttered, “Ah,” again.
Half a minute later I was getting on the phone and waking everybody up. There are times when magic simply isn’t the best course to take.
They were gathered in my living room in less than an hour. And had come here by whatever means they could, the adepts simply blurring in, the others using vehicles. And there weren’t enough chairs, so several of them perched and hovered, making do.
Cass and Lauren. Willets and Martha. Saul Hobart, who Lauren greeted with a long, deep hug. And Judge Levin too.
The latter couldn’t be much use under the circumstances, but the major adepts of Sycamore Hill would be mightily offended if we left them out of this. They don’t take overly kindly to being ignored.
Washed-out faces peered back at me. Marbled eyeballs, red-rimmed and gummy. None of us are dairy farmers, and we don’t appreciate being roused at four o’ clock on a December morning. Cass looked like she wanted to just crawl into a hole, and the judge was rubbing at the silvery stubble on his chin.
Woody – or at least his image – waited until we were settled down. Revealed in the harsh flush of electric lighting, he had the leaf-shaped ears that were the hallmark of his family, but otherwise looked unremarkable. He was thin, and a little on the short side too. His shoulders were stooped, his hair untidy. If you’d walked into the room and didn’t know him, you would take him for an office clerk. The only things that made him look impressive were those massive golden eyes of his. Which didn’t mean he had no ego.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “I’ve something to convey to you. This very night, I visited the far side,”
I nearly groaned again. He’d brought everybody here to announce that he had gotten into spiritualism? But the man continued at the same insistent rate.
“I mean, I’ve been into the other universe – the one that keeps on trying to swallow up our own.”
Every single head came up.
“How did you get there?” I asked him. “Walk?”
“No. Don’t be ridiculous. But the important thing is this. I’ve communicated with its people. They’re an interesting bunch, and call themselves the Oon. Now, what does such a curious name convey to you?”
An echoing silence fell across the room. Then guess who broke it?
“They rhyme with moon, spoon, and June?” Cassie suggested.
Raine threw her a puzzled glance, not getting the fact that she was being sarcastic.
“No, that’s not it. Can anyone do better?”
He was behaving like a breezy supply teacher on his first day at a grade school. So I lost my patience round about then, and told him to get to the point. It’s a tactic that sometimes works with Woody, and it did on this occasion.
“They’re vaguely humanoid, but not too much like us. They think entirely differently. They can convey whole concepts and emotions with a single word, and use telepathy when it is needed.”
He paused.
“They are, in their own way, a highly scientific race, and mean us no slightest harm. Those few people they’ve taken – Vallencourt’s wife and the rest – they took them to examine them. All of them are perfectly safe, and will be returned to us in due course. As for the predicament that we currently find ourselves in … well, the Oon might turn out to be our salvation.”
The people in my living room had certainly woken up a good deal in the last thirty odd seconds.
“How’s that?” Willets asked.
“They have in their possession an extremely advanced technology which is based upon, of all things, bubbles.”
Based on what now? I hoped to God he hadn’t wigged out and was fantasizing this.
“And they are currently putting the final touches to a machine that ought to mend the wall between our worlds,” he continued.
Everyone went quiet again. This was something no one had foreseen. And something pleasant, for a change. A couple of us cleared our throats.
And then Judge Levin asked, “How close are they to achieving this?”
“Merely a few hours off, if you can believe them, which I do,” Woody beamed back at him.
I wasn’t sure how anyone else felt, but every muscle in my body slumped. We had parted from each other’s company believing there was very little we could do to stop this happening. And now, a light was shining fairly brightly at the far end of the tunnel.
“How can you be sure of that?” was my next question.
“They appear to be incapable of lying. It’s not in their nature. So I’d say that, from our point of view, the matter’s almost solved.”
Which was very good to hear. But left us with the problem, what should we do now?
I stared round at the others. Every single one of us was wide-awake. And the chances of us going back to sleep were in the low percentiles. So we might as well keep ourselves busy, while this whole business was being fixed.
I suggested we split into groups and make a final patrol of the town, keeping a close eye on things until the Oons’ machine could do its stuff.
Saul and Levin nodded. And Martha added, “I don’t see why not.”
Woody’s image disappeared. The rest of us started to filter outside and pair up. At which point, I managed to catch Hobart by the elbow and draw him carefully to one side, where the others could not hear us.
“What’s up, Ross?” he asked me, puzzled.
I stared hard into his eyes.
“I noticed what happened when you first saw Lauren.”
His cheeks flushed slightly and he looked defensive.
“Nothing happened. What are you talking about?”
“It looked to me, the first time you set eyes on her, as if you didn’t recognize her.”
Which was when an awkward grin sprang up on his big face.
“That’s nonsense,” he insisted.
“No, it’s not. You figured out who she was after a short while had passed. You didn’t know her automatically.”
His fixed grin stayed in place, but he was fighting to maintain it. So I studied his eyes for a few seconds more, then threw in the real question I was working at.
“How much of your memory did you get back after the coma?”
His features slumped to an embarrassed frown.
“Practically none of it,” he finally admitted. “I’ve been picking stuff up as I go along. Amelia’s been tutoring me nearly every single day, which is how I knew who Lauren was.”
I hadn’t been expecting any answer quite like that, and I felt flabbergasted.
“You’ve had to relearn your entire life?”
“But there’s an upside to that,” he told me. “I’ve got to know my wife and kids again, and find out why I loved them in the first place.” His smile returned, and it wasn’t nearly so uncomfortable this time. “Not many guys get to do that twice. I’d say that that makes me a very lucky man.”
I was frozen for a moment, then smiled back at the lieutenant. Boy, the top cop in our town was chock full of surprises these days, wasn’t he?
When I glanced over at the others, Cassie had teamed up with Lauren, and Willets with Martha.
“Stick with the judge,” I advised Saul. “He’s not so used to being on the front line.”
“You’re gonna be patrolling on your own?” Saul asked.
“You heard Woods. The problem’s nearly solved.”
At least, I hoped it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY
There was someone else awake and in his car at that hour of the morning. A far less lucky man than Saul.
Ritchie Vallencourt drove down Crealley Street – which was empty save for parked vehicles – then turned right onto Greenwood Terrace. He’d been riding
around in his Camaro ever since the hospital had released him. And a couple of his colleagues had visited him before that, so that he knew precisely what was going on.
His head was still throbbing mildly from the sedation he’d been given. And on top of everything else, he felt humiliated by that fact. Being drugged into submission like some rowdy child? His handsome face was set hard, and his almond eyes were burning.
He was on his own, and knew that. Everybody else had forgotten about Heidi, and was far more concerned with the general safety of this town. And he couldn’t blame them. If he was in their position, he’d have been the same.
But she was his wife, for chrissake. Forsaking all others. Till death do they part. And she wasn’t dead yet, so far as he could tell. So it was up to him to find her, save her.
But the whole time he’d been driving, he’d seen not so much as a single violet flash, much less one of those purple, vaguely man-shaped things emerging. If he could only find one, if he could only put a gun to its head, pull back the hammer, and force the damned subhuman thing to show him where Heidi had been taken.
Her little cousins too. They had to be scared out of their wits. Those purple sons of bitches had a whole big load to answer for. His pulse thumped faster when he thought about it.
A few more flakes of snow came drifting down. Ritchie switched his wipers on, then peered out through the screen, his shoulders hunching and his teeth clenched with frustration. There was nothing he could see but the usual houses and the usual cars. Nix. Absolutely zip. His brow pounded. But then …
He was getting nearer to the open strip of grassland between Maydown Street and Brookley Avenue. It was only the length of a football field and half as narrow. But people walked their dogs there. Children played on its green expanse during the summer months. It was a flat, deserted stretch of white by this time of the year, dotted with footprints, the streetlights around its edges giving it a hollow look.
But as he watched, a point of violet light showed up. It was only the size of a large coin, at first. Then it began swelling in his vision.
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