Rick Burroughs - Alan Wake

Wake shook Barry harder. “Time to get up.”

Barry curled up, snoring now.

“Barry! Wake up!”

Barry mumbled something, but slept on.

Wake shook his head. Barry was too heavy to carry, but Wake couldn’t leave him here, not like this. There had been a wheelbarrow outside the trailer; he had spotted it coming in and thought that Rose must be a gardener.

Wake grabbed Barry under the arms and slowly dragged him off the couch. Barry’s boots banged on the carpet and he groaned in his stupor. Wake was sweating now, struggling against Barry’s inert weight as he continued dragging him over the carpet, out the door and down the steps. Wake tripped on the last one, fell onto his back in the dirt. Barry snored away, sprawled on the steps. Wake got up, brushing pine needles off his shirt, rubbing the back of his head where he had whacked his head on the ground. He carefully moved the wheelbarrow into position next to the stairs.

It took four tries to get Barry into the wheelbarrow. Twice he spilled the comatose man onto the ground. The second time it happened Barry muttered, “You’re looking… looking at a lawsuit.”

Finally Wake got him positioned properly, Barry lying on his back in the wheelbarrow, his arms and legs splayed out to the side. Wake fished the car keys out of Barry’s pocket.

“It… it’s the blue Mercedes,” said Barry, eyes closed. “Make sure… sure you don’t ding the door.”

Wake slowly rolled Barry toward the parking lot, grunting with the effort. The wheel in front was big, but partially deflated; Wake had to use all his strength to push it forward, splashing through a puddle. He stopped partway to the parking lot, picked up a manuscript page that lay on the ground, a muddy footprint on it. Wake read it quickly through, folded it up and put it away in his jacket, then lifted the wheelbarrow again. He heard sirens approaching.

Randolph popped out of a nearby trailer, saw Barry lying in the wheelbarrow. He jabbed a finger at Wake. “I don’t know what kind of sick game you two are playing, but you’re going to get it now! I told you, Rose is a nice girl.”

Wake put down the wheelbarrow, straightened up, his back creaking. “What are you talking about?”

“The two of you alone in there with her half the night,” said Randolph, shaking his head. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to?”

A car screeched up in the parking lot, catching Wake and the wheelbarrow in the headlights. A man in a dark blue suit jumped out, stalked over to the security gate. He pounded on the gate. “Open this thing up!”

A couple more police cars pulled up.

“Here they are!!” shouted Randolph. “I’ll get the gate open,” he said, limping toward the lockbox.

The man in the suit flashed a badge. “Agent Nightingale, FBI.” He pointed a pistol at Wake.

“What’s with the gun?” said Wake, taking a step back. He still had the gun he had taken from the kidnapper in his jacket, wondered how he was going to explain that. Car doors slammed in the parking lot, and he saw the flashing lightbars atop the cop cars strobing the night.

“You’re under arrest , Hemingway!” shouted Nightingale, his eyes like hard black stones.

“Hemingway?” Wake wanted to laugh, but the look on Nightingale’s face drove that thought away. The man was deadly serious. “Arrested for what?”

“You… you move… move a muscle and I’ll blow your brains out,” said Nightingale, wagging the pistol.

Wake noted the FBI agent’s slurred speech. As Barry would say, not good .

“Open the gate!” Nightingale stepped back as the gate creaked open. He shook a pair of handcuffs out of his suit jacket, dropped them on the ground. Cursing, he bent down to pick up his cuffs.

Wake looked at Barry sleeping peacefully in the wheelbarrow, then bolted toward the rear of the trailer park.

He heard gunshots behind him and a ceramic deer exploding as he ran past it. This guy was nuts! No way was Wake going to allow himself to be arrested. Not by Nightingale or anybody else. He had to meet the kidnapper at noon.

“Get back here!” said Nightingale. “That… that’s an order!”

Wake heard another gunshot as he leapt over a low fence bordering the park. He ran through the trees, the darkness closing around him. There was shouting behind him, deputies chasing after him.

In the distance he heard Sheriff Breaker yelling at Nightingale over the cruiser radios, telling him he was out of his jurisdiction, the two of them arguing over who had command authority. Wake wasn’t about to turn back. He hated to leave Barry behind, but Barry could take care of himself. He had a knack for it.

Branches raked across Wake’s face as he plunged deeper into the woods. He patted his jacket pocket. He had brought the flashlight with him, but he dared not use it now. It would only give away his position, and besides, his eyes were slowly adjusting to the dim light. He heard more shouts behind him, and Breaker calling his name. Wake increased his speed, fleeing the sheriff as well as Nightingale.

It was up to Wake alone to find Alice. It had always been up to him.

Alice had screamed until she had no voice left to scream. Around her, the darkness was alive. It was cold and wet and malevolent and without end. She was a prisoner, trapped in the dark place. The terror would have burned her mind out, but one thing made her hang on: she could sense Alan in the dark. She could hear him. She could see the words he was writing as flickering shadows. He sensed her, too. He was trying to work his way to her.

“I SEE HIM!” A spotlight speared through the dark woods. “Over here!”

Wake melted back into the trees, bent down as the flashlight beams danced through the darkness.

“Never mind! Wasn’t him.”

“Dammit deputy, get your head in the game.” It was Agent Nightingale’s voice. “Fan out! He’s got to be here somewhere.”

“Sheriff Breaker said—”

“I don’t care what Breaker told you,” said Nightingale. “My authority supersedes any local officer.”

Wake watched as the flashlight beams moved away from his position, still shouting as they crashed through the underbrush. He heard gunshots.

“You see him?” bellowed Nightingale. “You see him?”

“Which way did he go?”

Wake slipped noiselessly through the woods, following a path he wouldn’t have even seen a few days ago.

“Stop firing!” It was Breaker’s voice. “You have no grounds to arrest Mr. Wake.”

“Fan out!” said Nightingale. “He can’t have gotten far.”

Wake left the path, starting down a steep slope, scrambling through the underbrush, tripped and kept going. He wasn’t able to move as quietly as he would have liked, but with all the deputies thrashing through the woods, they probably couldn’t have heard him anyway.

At the bottom of the slope he found himself in a narrow gorge, the rocky sides too steep to climb back up. His only choice was to move forward or back through the gorge; either way he risked being trapped.

Flashlight beams bobbed closer.

Wake stepped toward the rocks, pressed himself against them.

“I saw movement! He’s down there!”

Wake cursed silently as the flashlight beams started toward the gorge. None of the lights were pointed directly at him, but Nightingale and his men seemed to be on to his general position.

A shot from a flare gun lit up the sky, sizzling, then another, turning the world black and white in the glare. Shadows raced through the trees, monstrous silhouettes in the night.