Firewalk

by Chris Roberson

  “But there’s nothing down there,” Daphne objected.

  Izzie ignored her, and turned around to Patrick and Joyce. “What time does the evening tide come in this time of year?”

  Patrick and Joyce exchanged a look.

  “Around now, I think,” Joyce answered, a little uncertainly.

  “Izzie, where do you expect me to go?” Daphne was driving up onto the sidewalk, about to turn onto the pedestrian walkway. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing down here but boardwalk and …”

  “Ivory Point,” Patrick interrupted from the back seat.

  “Exactly.” Izzie nodded. She turned back to Daphne. “We might get a little wet, but I think we can make it.”

  “Wait, you mean to go out there?!” Daphne kept her hands on the wheel, but shot a disbelieving glance in Izzie’s direction. “But why?”

  “Because it may be our best shot,” Izzie answered. “And just might be our only shot, for that matter. We need to put some running water between us and those things. We have to get to that lighthouse.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Concrete planters dotted the end of the pedestrian walkway, preventing anything but foot traffic from continuing on to the boardwalk.

  As Daphne slammed the brakes, her car skidded to a stop just short of the planters. Blot-covered shamblers were already making their way from the intersection down the walkway towards them.

  “Come on!” Izzie jumped out of the passenger side door. “Move!”

  Joyce and Patrick were unfolding themselves from the backseat.

  “I still don’t understand,” Daphne said, shutting the driver’s side door. “Why don’t we just call for backup?”

  Patrick had his radio in his hand. “It’s no good. Still getting some kind of interference.”

  “And I’m not getting any signal,” Joyce said, holding up her phone.

  “This way!” Izzie was already past the planters and heading down the boardwalk, gesturing urgently for the others to follow.

  During warmer months, this stretch of the boardwalk was filled with concession stands, artists with their easels, and buskers with their hats out for coins. But winter was fast approaching, and the wind that blew in from the ocean through the mouth of the bay was biting and cold, so there was hardly anyone about. Just a vagrant searching in trash bins for cans and bottles to redeem, and a couple of teenage hoodlums furtively smoking cigarettes while acting as lookouts for a friend who was tagging the retaining wall with a can of spray paint.

  “Get out of here!” Izzie shouted at the homeless man and the teenagers as she ran by. “Trouble’s coming!”

  The vagrant didn’t even look up, and the teenagers just sneered.

  “Get moving or you’re under arrest!” Patrick shouted, brandishing his pistol and flashing his Recondito PD badge.

  The teenagers scattered, and the tagger tossed the can of spray paint off the boardwalk and into the surf, while the vagrant shuffled away, keeping his head down.

  Izzie reached the bend in the boardwalk that marked the southernmost point of the Oceanview. At low tide, there was a muddy land bridge that connected this spot to the white rocks of Ivory Point, but the tide was coming in, and only a few spits of mud had yet to be submerged.

  “You sure about this?” Daphne said, catching up with her.

  Silhouetted against the moonless sky directly across from where they stood, rose the bulk of the Ivory Point Lighthouse.

  “I hope so,” Izzie answered.

  She glanced back as Patrick and Joyce caught up. Joyce was traveling as quickly as she could with her cane, and Patrick had clearly hung back to make sure she wouldn’t be left behind.

  The blots were already spilling out of the walkway and shambling towards them, the ones from the intersection joined by many of the others, dozens of them in all.

  “If we wait much longer the tide will be too high for us to get across,” Izzie said, stepping off the boardwalk into the ankle-deep water. She held a hand out to Daphne to help her down. “Come on, we need to get across, now!”

  Daphne hopped down into the water, while Patrick helped Joyce step down.

  “Damn,” Joyce muttered, as her feet squelched into the mud. “I loved these boots.”

  “I’ll buy you another pair if we make it out of this in one piece,” Patrick said, taking Joyce’s cane from her hand and putting his arm across her back, helping to steady her.

  Joyce put her arm around Patrick’s shoulder. “I should wear shoes you could afford on a cop’s salary? No, thank you.”

  Izzie had already taken several steps across what remained of the land bridge, and the waters surged higher with each passing moment. She tried to lift her foot to take another step, but suction tugged hard at her shoe and she nearly lost her balance trying to pull it loose.

  “I got you,” Daphne said, grabbing hold of Izzie’s hand. As she helped Izzie regain her balance, a faint smile tugged the corners of her mouth. “I owed you.”

  Ivory Point was only fifty or so feet away from the boardwalk at its closest approach, and by the time they were halfway across that distance the water had already raised to their calves. The salty seawater was bone-chillingly cold, and the tidal surges threatened to sweep them off the land bridge and into the bay.

  When Izzie had last been here five years before with Patrick, Agent Henderson, and the others, they had come at high tide on motorboats in the small hours of the morning, hoping to catch Nicholas Fuller before he managed to kill Francis Zhao. They had arrived too late, of course, but had they waited until the land bridge reappeared at low tide they might not have captured Fuller at all.

  But now she understood why Fuller had used the lighthouse for his gruesome work, and why he had blared speed metal from speakers at the base of the structure and set out a ring of salt around him at the lantern room at the top. Fuller had been a scientist, and it was as if he had reverse engineered how airplanes functioned by studying the practices of a cargo cult.

  Fuller had insisted there was one more before his work was done. He had to find the “student.”

  Had Izzie and Patrick stopped him too soon? And had they been wrong to stop him in the first place?

  All of these thoughts and fears swirled in Izzie’s head as they crossed the final few feet to the shores of Ivory Point, and scrambled up onto the white rocks, shivering with the cold, their shoes heavy with mud and their sodden pants legs plastered to their skin.

  Only when they were safely standing on the white rocks of Ivory Point’s shore did Izzie look back towards the mainland that they’d fled only moments before.

  There on the boardwalk stood a mass of bodies, forty or fifty at least, lined up just short of the surging water’s edge, facing them. The inky blots that marred their exposed flesh had grown so large that scarcely an inch of unblemished skin could be seen. And front and center stood the thing that had been Tyler Campbell in life and the unclothed forms of the six bodies that they had found in the subbasement of the converted warehouse, all of them as silent and immobile as statues.

  “Why didn’t they follow us across?” Daphne said, her hands on her knees while she caught her breath. “I don’t get it.”

  “They can’t cross running water,” Izzie answered. “That’s why Nicholas Fuller brought his victims here to dismember, so that the others wouldn’t come to stop him.”

  “Other what?” Daphne asked.

  “The Ridden.” Patrick had his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his quilted jacket, trying to keep warm. “That’s what we’re calling them, right?”

  Izzie nodded. “Think of it like a kind of possession. They’re being controlled by an outside force, but certain things disrupt that connection. Fire, running water, salt. Loud discordant sounds disorient them, which is why the music from Joyce’s phone worked back there. And silver cuts off the connection entirely, but only while it remains inside the body.”

  “This sounds like werewolf rules,” Daphne shook her hea
d in disbelief, “or vampire shit. What, are you going to tell me that wooden stakes through the heart will stop them, too?”

  “No,” Joyce said, “just complete dismemberment. Even removing their brain doesn’t seem to be sufficient, if there’s enough gray matter left for the nervous system to be tweaked.”

  Izzie looked towards the medical examiner, a little surprised to hear her talking so matter-of-factly about this.

  Joyce noted the look on Izzie’s face, and shrugged. “Occam’s razor. It fits the available facts.”

  “I don’t know about you three,” Patrick said, shivering, “but I am freezing.”

  Izzie turned towards the lighthouse, which loomed above the small residence beside it. “Come on, let’s get inside and out of the wind.”

  The door to the lighthouse was locked, but Patrick thought he could jimmy open the lock without too much trouble.

  “So a cop is breaking and entering,” Joyce asked. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I think we’re well past doing this by the book,” Patrick answered, his expression grim.

  While Patrick worked on the lock, Izzie saw that there was a notice stapled to the wall that stated that the structures and Ivory Point itself were the private property of something called Znth, and that trespassers would be prosecuted.

  “Where have I heard that name before … ?” she wondered aloud.

  “Hmm?” Daphne turned to look in that direction. “Oh, remember, I told you about them. That’s Martin Zotovic’s private equity firm.”

  “The same guy that owns Parasol?” Izzie raised an eyebrow. “What would he want with a disused lighthouse?”

  Daphne shrugged. “Like I told you, his outfit has been buying up all kinds of property in and around the city. I guess this is one of them.”

  “Got it.” Patrick tone was momentarily triumphant as he stood back and pushed the door to the lighthouse open. Then his enthusiasm flagged a bit as he glanced at the others. “Could be I missed my calling, being a cop. Maybe I would have made a better burglar.”

  “Get in, already,” Joyce said, shoving him towards the door. “You were the one complaining about the cold, remember?”

  The ground floor level of the lighthouse was about as Izzie had remembered it. Sealed concrete floor, steel beams supporting concrete walls, a narrow doorway leading to a hall connecting the lighthouse to the modest residence beside it. And dominating the room was a metal staircase that spiraled up into the high ceilinged space to the lantern room above.

  “Should we go through to the living area?” Patrick nodded towards the door. “Might be a little warmer in there.”

  “You can, if you want.” Izzie shook her head, and started for the spiral staircase. “I want to go up to the top, see if I can get a better look at the shore from there.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Daphne said, following close behind.

  Patrick and Joyce exchanged a glance, shrugged, and then fell in step behind them.

  As they ascended several stories’ worth of steps, Izzie could not help but recall the first and only time that she had climbed this staircase. The deafening sound of the speed metal blaring from below, the metal railing cold to the touch, the bright lights spilling out into the gloom from the doorway at the top. And the charnel-house stench that grew stronger with each step she climbed. She had known then that they had arrived too late for Francis Zhao, but had refused to give up hope completely.

  Izzie tensed instinctively when she reached the top of the stairs, as though her body itself was reluctant to pass through the door and into the lantern room. It was a senseless fear, of course. Nicholas Fuller was long dead, not lurking behind the metal door with sword in hand, ready to attack her. But still, Izzie found that her skin crawled with anxiety, and she had to steel her nerves before continuing on.

  She took a deep breath, turned the knob on the door, and walked through the doorway into the lantern room.

  It was dark inside, but with the big glass windows that surrounded the room on all sides, enough light eked in that Izzie managed to find her way to the lighting controls mounted on the wall. She pulled a lever, and the bulb in the big lighthouse lamp overhead began to warm up, sending a warm light spilling out in all directions that grew hotter with each passing second.

  “I guess the generator is still working,” she said aloud as she looked around. “Small favors …”

  With the light on, Izzie could get a better look at the lantern room itself. The glass window through which Nicholas Fuller had crashed when he fell to his death had been boarded up, and someone had tried as much as possible to scrub off the formulae and symbols that Fuller had scrawled on the remaining windows in black ink. The metal plates that formed the floor of the lantern room had been power washed. Although no trace of the pentagrams, hexagrams, and other sigils that Fuller had painted on the floor remained, faint ghosts of the symbols and characters that Fuller had inscribed on the windows could still be seen, like afterimages that linger in one’s vision after the original image has long since faded.

  Izzie was turning in place, trying to orient herself, as Daphne and the others stepped out into the lantern room.

  “Never figured I’d be coming back here,” Patrick said, a look of distaste on his face.

  “That’s north,” Izzie said, turning to the right. She crossed the metal floor, and looked out the window. She could see the Oceanview boardwalk across the way, and it seemed that even more of the blot-covered shamblers had joined the others along the shore, staring silently at them. “Must be at least sixty or seventy of them, now.”

  “But if the only thing keeping them from getting over here is the water,” Joyce said, hand on her chin, “what’s to stop them when the tide goes out?”

  “Sun will be up by then,” Patrick answered. “And the Ink makes them … what’s the word again?”

  “Photophobic,” Izzie supplied.

  “Right.” Patrick nodded. “So chances are they’ll clear out by sunrise.”

  “That’s weird,” Izzie said, rising up on her tiptoes to look past the boardwalk and to the streets beyond. “Looks like there’s some kind of broadcast van over there. You know, the kind that news crews use, with a satellite dish on top?”

  Patrick came to stand beside her, cupping his hands around his eyes and leaning in close to the glass. “I’m not seeing any markings on it, though. And that doesn’t look like the satellite dishes that a news van would have. Looks more like the top of a cell tower. Like a radio transmitter or something.”

  They both turned to look at each other.

  Joyce was looking at her phone. “Still not getting any signal, which is strange, considering how high up we are. I should be getting five bars, easy.”

  “That thing must be what’s blocking our radios and phones,” Izzie said. “Like, it’s broadcasting some kind of interference that’s keeping us from contacting anyone else.”

  “But who’s doing that?” Patrick asked. “And what does it have to do with Ink and the Ridden?”

  “Okay, now will someone explain to me just what the hell is going on?!” Daphne shouted, throwing her hands in the air.

  Izzie exchanged a glance with Patrick and Joyce.

  “Go ahead,” Patrick said, “you seem to have a better handle on this than the rest of us.”

  Izzie nodded, taking a deep breath before answering.

  “The simple truth, Daphne,” she said, “is that the world is much stranger than you thought it was.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Ink isn’t just a drug,” Izzie was explaining. “It is, but it’s more than that. It consumes the brains of the people who take it in bits and pieces, leaving behind ‘vacuoles,’ little pockets of emptiness. And from what we learned tonight, it seems like the Ink is somehow cultivated inside of the brains of ‘hosts,’ and then extracted and sold to new users.”

  “Wait, so this Ink stuff doesn’t just eat people’s brains,” Daphne asked, interrupting Izzie’s e
xplanation, “but it grows in them, too?”

  “That seems to be the case, yeah,” Joyce answered. “The pathology isn’t like anything I’ve seen before.”

  “But where does the Ink come from?” Daphne went on.

  “The people targeted by Nicholas Fuller exhibited the same condition,” Patrick said. “And they were all part of a research team at Ross University that worked on the Undersight project.”

  “There’s an abandoned mine shaft a few miles northeast of town,” Izzie added. “And there seem to be other instances of weirdness and possibly possession associated with that same mine shaft going back at least a century or two, so our best guess is that they were exposed to something down there that … I guess you could say it infected them?” She paused, considering. “I know this will sound crazy, but I sincerely think that whatever force or intelligence it is that’s controlling those people out there is coming into our world from somewhere outside our universe, and the place where it’s getting through is down in that mine shaft.”

  “Wait a minute.” Daphne held up a hand, faced lined with concentration. “A mine shaft northeast of town … You mean the mining claim that Znth bought a couple of years ago?”

  “You mean Zotovic’s company … ?” Izzie began, the implications beginning to take shape in her head.

  “Yeah,” Daphne answered. “It was one of the properties listed in that article that I read. Zotovic convinced the mayor’s office to sell it to his private equity company, in exchange for backing the mayor’s re-election campaign. Something about how he’d worked on some kind of research project there before he dropped out of college …”

  Izzie remembered what Nicholas Fuller had said in that very room, five years before. “I only have one more to go and my work is finished. The student. I have to find him.” And she recalled what Dr. Kono had said about an undergraduate student who was interviewing to join the Undersight team when Fuller had attacked Alice Thompkins, a “Martin Something-or-other.”

  “Izzie, you don’t think … ?” Patrick began.