Alan Wake

by Rick Burroughs

  Alan Wake

  Rick Burroughs

  Yet another video-game-based book.

  Rick Burroughs

  ALAN WAKE

  To my brother, James, wherever you are

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Harry Crews, my first writing instructor, who gave me the best critique any young writer could ask for: “I don’t understand what you’re up to, son, but you clearly do, so keep doing what you’re doing.”

  Thanks also to my editor, Tony Elias, for keeping me on track and for getting the jokes.

  My appreciation to all the folks at Remedy for creating the world of Alan Wake, to Sam Lake and Mikko Rautalahti for their feedback on the manuscript, to Eric Raab at Tor Books, to Chris Lassen for her design work, and to Jörg Neumann and Brandon Morris at Microsoft Game Studios for making this project possible.

  I must also thank my neighbors, the Eagans, for bringing by the bacon and cornmeal biscuits last winter when I was snowed in and couldn’t get out of my driveway. You saved me!

  PROLOGUE

  WAKE DIDN’T SEE the hitchhiker until it was too late. It was night and he was tired, driving down the coastal road toward the lighthouse, driving too fast, as usual. The hitchhiker seemed to appear right out of the darkness, standing there in the middle of the road, just staring into Wake’s oncoming headlights. Wake didn’t even have time to hit the brakes, reacting only after he heard the thump of metal against flesh.

  Shaken, head pounding, Wake got out of the car to check on the hitchhiker. The front end was splattered with blood, the hood crumpled. Steam rose from the crushed radiator. Wake bent over the body of the hitchhiker, the two of them caught in the headlights now as though onstage. The man was dead. Wake put his hand on the hitchhiker’s bloody clothes, wanting to apologize, to explain, to ask the man why he had just stood there unmoving as Wake hurtled at him. It wasn’t the hitchhiker who was going to have to explain his actions, though.

  There were no skid marks on the road, Mr. Wake, the police would say. Why didn’t you slam on the brakes? Didn’t you see him? You’re a writer; were you distracted, maybe thinking about your next book? Just for the record, exactly how fast were you going, Mr. Wake? Had you been drinking before the accident? Taken any pills? You look tired.

  A raven cried out from a nearby tree, and Wake turned, seeing only its eyes in the darkness. When he looked back the hitchhiker was gone. Disappeared. Wake actually put his hand onto the spot where the hitchhiker had been lying, feeling around, as if he might find a hole, a deflated blow-up hitchhiker, some sort of insurance scam fake out, something. There was nothing and nobody there. Just the pavement, cool in the night air.

  Wake stood, knees shaking. He looked around, then pushed the car to the side of the road. It was a write-off. He started walking toward the lighthouse in the near distance, trying to stay upright, to stay steady. The man had been there. Wake had hit him. Killed him. So where was the body? Wake turned back. His car was still there, water leaking onto the pavement, the hazard lights flashing against the night. Up ahead, a streetlight lit up a wooden, pedestrian walkway that wound its way to the lighthouse. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to tell the police when he reported the accident.

  A streetlight exploded as Wake walked under it.

  Son of a bitch, he thought, covering his head as tiny bits of broken glass drifted down around him like snow. He looked back again to his car. Froze.

  The hitchhiker was there. Standing in front of the car, covered in blood and shadows. He had something in his hand. An ax. He strode toward Wake.

  Wake couldn’t move.

  A streetlight farther down the road exploded, then another, and another still.

  “You don’t even recognize me, do you?” said the hitchhiker, disgusted. “You think you can play with people’s lives, kill them when it adds to the drama?” He hefted the ax, his clothes spotted with gore. “Well, you’re in the story now, Wake, and you’re going to suffer for your art. Let’s see how you like that.”

  Wake recognized the hitchhiker now. He was a character in a story Wake had written when he was first starting out. An innocent man run down at the start of the story, a driver walking away in the night. He had never finished the story, but his character had now escaped off the page and was coming for vengeance.

  Wake started to run, his feet pounding on the wooden walkway as he raced toward the lighthouse.

  “What’s your hurry?” mocked the hitchhiker, coming after him. “I thought you liked horror stories.”

  Wake kept running, his footsteps drumming on the wooden slats, the lighthouse a beacon in the night.

  “What kind of a writer are you?” called the hitchhiker.

  The planks in the walkway were cracked and weathered, whole sections missing so that Wake had to jump over the gaps. Up ahead was a rickety footbridge that stretched over a chasm; the ocean crashed on the boulders below in a spray of foam.

  “Mr. Wake!” A young man in a college letterman’s jacket waved from the far side of the footbridge. “Hurry!”

  Wake glanced behind him. The hitchhiker was closing in, the ax cleaving the air.

  “Hurry, Mr. Wake!” shouted the young man.

  Wake ran. Partway across the bridge, his leg broke through one of the rotting planks. He clung to the railing, pulled himself up. He limped across the remainder of the bridge.

  The young man grabbed his arm, led him toward a dark cabin at the base of the lighthouse. “It’s me, Mr. Wake. Clay Steward, don’t you remember?”

  “I don’t know you…” Wake shook him off.

  “You’re a joke, Wake!” shouted the hitchhiker, halfway across the bridge.

  “Get inside,” said Steward, pushing Wake up the steps of the cabin. “Turn on the lights, I’ll stop him.”

  Wake rushed into the cabin and fumbled for the light switch. He cried out as the door slammed shut behind him. Through the window he could see Steward standing by the front porch, holding a revolver as the hitchhiker approached.

  “Steward!” shouted Wake. “Get in here!”

  “Stay where you are, Mr. Wake,” said Steward, voice cracking. “Just put all the lights on!”

  “Come inside…” Wake tugged at the door, trying to open it, but it stayed shut. “Steward!”

  The hitchhiker rushed at Steward, swinging the ax with both hands.

  Wake struggled against the door, but couldn’t budge it.

  Steward fired the revolver. The bullets staggered the hitchhiker for an instant, but he shrugged it off. Steward fired again. “Why… why won’t you die?” Steward wailed, emptying the revolver, each shot hitting the hitchhiker.

  Wake watched as the hitchhiker hurtled forward and drove his ax deep into Steward’s chest, splitting the gold letter on the young man’s jacket.

  Steward let out an awful moan and sank to his knees.

  “No!” shouted Wake, beating on the window so hard it vibrated.

  The hitchhiker braced his foot against Steward’s chest and jerked the ax free. Its steel head dripped blood.

  Steward fell forward onto his face.

  The hitchhiker lifted the ax again, swung it down with all his strength into the center of the young man’s back.

  Wake finally found the light switch. He flicked it on but the lights stayed off. He flicked the switch off and on, off and on, but the cabin remained dark.

  The hitchhiker wrenched the axblade out of Steward’s back and started to slowly walk up the stairs to the front door of the dark cabin.

  The cabin began to shake gently at first, then harder and harder, grinding on the foundation, as though gripped by some enormous hand. The hitchhiker had disappeared from the front porch, as though his work were done and he was no longer needed. There was a r
oaring in his ears, and Wake wasn’t sure if it came from outside the cabin or inside his own head. The windows slowly cracked, then blew out, the wind howling through the cabin. The door flew open, upending furniture, scattering papers.

  The cabin groaned, started to come apart. Light poured in through the collapsing walls and Wake ran down the front steps, onto the dead grass around the cabin, out into the light. The roaring sound was gone now. Wake blinked in a powerful light that hovered over him, caught. There was a form inside the light, a man, a space explorer, a deep-sea diver. The figure spoke to him, the voice sounding like it was coming from a great distance away, as though the Diver was struggling to be heard.

  “I have something important to tell you.”

  Wake tried to speak, but the light… it was too bright, scattering his thoughts.

  “It goes like this:

  For he did not know / That beyond the lake he called home / Lies a deeper, darker ocean green / Where waves are both wilder / And more serene / To its ports I’ve been / To its ports I’ve been. Do you understand?”

  “An ocean green? N-no,” said Wake. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I entered your dream to teach you. The darkness is dangerous. It’s sleeping now, but when it feels you coming, it will wake up.”

  “What will wake up?” Wake looked around. The hitchhiker was back, the bloody ax in his hand. He stood on the very edge of the light, just inside the darkness, eager to cross over. As Wake watched, the darkness grew blacker, more intense, shiny as oil. Wake looked back at the Diver.

  “You are safe in the light. The darkness cannot hurt you there.”

  The light flickered and Wake screamed.

  CHAPTER 1

  “ALAN?”

  Wake heard Alice calling to him through his nightmare. He slowly floated up toward the sound of her voice, still drowsy.

  “Alan, wake up. Come see where we are. It’s so beautiful.”

  Wake opened his eyes, squinting in the sunlight. Through the car’s open window, he saw Alice beckoning from the nearby railing of the ferry. She wore tight jeans and black boots, her light-brown hair billowing over the upturned collar of her black leather jacket. Whatever she was looking at, it wasn’t nearly as beautiful as what he was seeing. She waved again and he got out of the car and walked across the deck toward her, feeling the low engine vibration through the soles of his feet.

  “I didn’t want you to miss this,” said Alice, pointing.

  It took an effort to tear his eyes from her, but he followed her direction, saw an immense forest stretching out on each side of the water, the biggest trees that he had ever seen, so tall and thick he couldn’t see the forest floor.

  “Old-growth timber,” said Alice. “Hundreds of years old, never been cut. Not much of that left anymore.”

  “Forest primeval, I get it,” said Wake. “Welcome to sasquatch country.” He looked down at the dark-green water churning around the ferry. He buttoned up his gray tweed coat. Even with the hoodie underneath, he was shivering. The sun seemed to seek Alice out, but he was always cold. Wake’s face was long and angular, with a cleft in his chin and a three-day stubble like a rock star on a bender. His eyes were blue, very alert, volatile even. He told Alice once that if he had a tattoo it would read: Born Pissed Off. She told him he needn’t bother. One look at him and people figured that out fast enough.

  A fallen tree drifted up ahead, a gnarly elm bobbing gently along on the currents. Its thick trunk and broad leaves made it seem out of place among all the tall timber, and Wake, ever curious, wondered how it ended up here, what had torn it out by the roots. A huge raven perched atop one limb, fluttering its glossy black wings as it pecked at something, peck, peck, peck. Wake leaned forward, straining to see what the raven was so interested in. The raven cocked its head, as though aware of Wake’s gaze, then bent down, pulling up something white and stringy in its beak.

  “We should be arriving in Bright Falls in about twenty minutes,” said Alice, basking in the light.

  The raven’s greedy cawing echoed across the water as the elm drifted closer, and Wake finally saw what the raven was working at, a child’s tennis shoe caught in the branches, the bird tugging at the laces. Alice turned as the raven flapped off. “Wow, that’s one gigantic crow.”

  “Yeah,” Wake said softly.

  “Honey, are you okay? You look so… pale.”

  “Just my imagination messing with me. As usual.” Wake ran a hand through his dark hair. She worried about him, worried about his moods, and especially about his temper. He gave her reason to. In the distance he could make out the outlines of a small town nestled in the bay. Had to be Bright Falls.

  Alice took her camera from her purse. “Why don’t you stand next to that old guy beside the pickup? I’ll take a picture of you with the woods in the background.”

  “You know I hate having my picture taken,” said Wake.

  “Suffering is good for the soul,” Alice said playfully. “Don’t you want to get to heaven?”

  “Not unless you’re there with me,” teased Wake.

  “Well, I’m staying here,” said Alice. “You’re the one who’s going over there so I can snap a picture.”

  Wake walked over to the older man. The bed of the blue pickup had a fresh deer carcass in it. Cute. He looked at the older man. “Hi.”

  “You picked a good time to come to Bright Falls,” confided the older man, a short, balding fellow, his watery blue eyes crinkling behind round glasses.

  “Really?” said Wake. Alice waved at him to move closer to the man.

  “Yup, a very good time.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Wake.

  The man pushed back his glasses with a forefinger. “I mean, lucky you.”

  Wake took a deep breath. The persistence of geezers was a universal constant as certain as gravity or the speed of light. “Okay, why am I lucky?”

  The older man showed his dentures in triumph. “Deerfest is just two weeks away.”

  “Deerfest, huh,” said Wake, having no idea what the man was talking about. “Did you hear that, honey? Deerfest!”

  “Forgive my bad manners, I’m Pat Maine.” The man stuck out his hand.

  “I’m Alan—”

  “Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Wake,” said Maine, pumping away with his damp, pillowy hand. “We read books around here, too.” He smiled at his little joke. “When’s that next novel of yours coming out? Seems like we’ve been waiting—”

  “Working on it,” snapped Wake.

  “Of course, can’t rush the creative process, can you?” said Maine. “I hope this isn’t too presumptuous of me, but I’m the night host at the local radio station. Any chance I could get an interview? A best-selling author doesn’t come through these parts very often, and—”

  “I’m on vacation with my wife,” said Wake. “Trying to keep a low profile.”

  “I understand completely,” said Maine, winking. “Still, you change your mind, I’m an easy man to find.”

  Wake walked back to Alice.

  “I got some good shots,” said Alice, pushing her hair back. “Nice to see you making friends.”

  “Yeah, we swapped bundt-cake recipes,” said Wake.

  Alice lightly punched him in the arm. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. You might actually enjoy yourself.”

  Wake didn’t respond. He stood shoulder to shoulder beside her at the railing, eyes half closed, enjoying the sensation of her wind-blown hair tickling his face.

  He had lied to Pat Maine about his next book. He hadn’t written a word in two years, and had no idea if he would ever write again, but standing beside Alice, Wake put aside all thoughts of the books he had written, and the books he might never write, put aside the frustration that tore at him night and day. There was just him and Alice. That was enough. For this one perfect moment, that was all he needed.

  “Oh yuck,” Alice said softly.

  “What?” said Wake, not wanting
to look, wanting to stay where he was, smelling her perfume and forgetting everything else.

  “There’s the creepiest guy watching us,” said Alice.

  Wake opened his eyes, the perfect moment gone now, popped like a soap bubble on a summer afternoon. He saw a grubby man in his forties staring at them from the far end of the ferry, an insolent grin on his face. The man wore camouflage pants and a hunting vest, a stained ball cap and scuffed work boots. A cigarette dangled from his lower lip.

  He started walking slowly toward the man. “Do you have a problem?” Wake challenged, raising his voice to be heard over the rumbling engines.

  The man didn’t react, just took a long, slow drag on his cigarette, and kept staring.

  “Alan, don’t,” said Alice. “Stay here. This is no way to start a vacation.”

  Wake allowed Alice to steer him back to their car, neither of them saying a word until they were both inside.

  “You… you scare me sometimes,” said Alice.

  Wake watched the vein at the base of her throat pulse, angry at himself for upsetting her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Men like that… they’re not worth worrying about,” said Alice. She squeezed his hand. “You just have to learn to back away.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Wake. “The world will eat you alive if you let it.”

  “That’s not true,” said Alice. “Most people are good.”

  Wake snorted.

  “Alan Wake, they most certainly are.”

  “What about the ones who aren’t good?” said Wake, looking past her as the town came clearly into view, a collection of bright storefronts and a few small houses scattered across the surrounding hills. People and cars waited at the ferry dock. He turned back to her. “What about the ones who want to hurt us?”

  “Why would anyone want to hurt us?”

  Wake reached over and kissed her. “Envy. Who wouldn’t want what we have?”