Rick Burroughs - Alan Wake

He looked out the window. The room was on the third floor of the Cauldron Lake Lodge. Wake had seen photos in the tourist brochures around town, a big rough-hewn wood edifice on Cauldron Lake, with beamed ceilings and knotty pine walls. He walked over, tried the door. It was locked. Wake punched the door, rattling it.

The door opened and Wake stepped back. Hartman stood in the doorway. Birch was right behind him.

“Good evening, Alan,” chirped Hartman. “Are we feeling better now?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m just fine,” said Wake. “You always make house calls with your pet gorilla?”

“How very droll,” said Hartman, rubbing his soft, manicured hands together. “Your hostility is quite understandable. In fact, I would be more concerned if you weren’t suspicious of me. I don’t blame you for it.”

Wake watched him and it was Hartman who finally blinked.

“Why don’t you accompany me?” said Hartman, beckoning. “I’ll reacquaint you with my clinic. We’ll go over everything you might’ve forgotten. A little walk and some fresh air? Yes? It will do you good.”

Wake walked down the corridor with Hartman.

Nurse Birch followed behind.

“I encourage creativity as part of the recovery process here at Cauldron Lake Lodge. I specialize—”

“You specialize in treating artists,” finished Wake. “I remember.”

“Splendid, Alan. I honestly believe we can get your problems under control if we work together.” Hartman lightly plucked a bit of lint off Wake’s shoulder. “Are you willing to try?”

Wake didn’t answer, aware of Birch’s heavy footfalls behind them.

Hartman sighed. “From past experience, I know I need to quickly get to the heart of things after an episode, so I’m just going to say this: Alice is dead.” He stopped, held up his hands, as if to fend off any arguments Wake might have. “I know it’s painful, but you’re going to have to accept it if you have any hope of getting well.”

Wake stared out the window at Cauldron Lake. The late afternoon light illuminated the whitecaps. No boats out in this rough weather.

“Alan?”

Wake didn’t believe Hartman, not for an instant, but he could still feel the drugs he had been given, some cocktail of tranquillizers and antidepressants that left him passive and vulnerable to suggestion. He had to fight with all his will not to agree with everything the doctor said.

“Alice drowned,” said Hartman. “She drowned, and you couldn’t face that. You’re torn apart by guilt, suffering from hallucinations, paranoid delusions, an obsession about light and darkness.” His smile showed small, even teeth.

“Like any artist, you’re a bit of a narcissist. Everything revolves around Alan Wake, yes? Me, me, me. However, in your current state you have taken it to a grandiose level. You’ve constructed an elaborate fantasy in which your writings are actually affecting reality. You believe Alice has been kidnapped. That supernatural forces of darkness are trying to stop you. It’s understandable. Better that she be alive and kidnapped, than dead and drowned, yes?”

Wake nodded involuntarily, his legs rubbery.

“Better that you have the power to save her through your work,” said Hartman, “your wonderful work, than that you be helpless in the face of her death. It is a powerfully seductive scenario for a grieving man; you must not blame yourself for grasping at it, for wanting to believe it to be the truth. Unfortunately, Alan, you are not a god, just an extremely gifted writer. You will have to be content with that. It is what Alice would want for you.”

Wake leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead while waiting for the dizzy spell to stop. The terrible thing, worse than the disorientation and nausea, was that there was a part of him that almost believed Hartman.

“This pain you are feeling—it is progress.” Hartman led Wake through a glass door, to a stone terrace that offered a breathtaking view of Cauldron Lake. A storm was brewing behind Mirror Peak, lightning leaping in dark clouds. They stopped beside a large bronze sundial. “You should understand that apart from the tragic accident with your wife, no one has been killed.”

He stared at the waves rising in the lake, his voice catching. “It… it seems there’s a storm coming.” The lake was reflected in his eyes, and Wake saw something else: fear. “Odd, I… I don’t recall there being a mention of that in the weather forecast. Well, no matter.”

Hartman’s concern, and his attempt to hide it, broke the spell, Wake’s momentary acceptance that Hartman might be telling the truth. That Alice really was dead. That everything else—the Taken, the woman in black, Bird Leg Cabin, all of it—was a product of his anguished imagination. He knew better now.

Hartman led Wake through another door into the main hall of the lodge, a huge room with high, raw-beam ceilings. The walls were covered with antlers and deer heads.

“You were impressed by my trophies when you first arrived here. Remember?” Hartman waited for a response, finally shrugged. “I do love to hunt.”

A scrawny man, quite clearly visible, evidently thinking he was hiding behind furniture in the main hall, darted from one armchair to another, muttering to himself. He jumped out behind a coffee table as Wake and Hartman passed.

“Yah!” He pointed a finger at them. “I got you! I got you both!”

“Emerson, please,” said Hartman.

“I got you good,” said Emerson.

“You sure did,” said Wake, humoring him.

Emerson looked pleased for a moment, then snarled at Wake. “I’m a bad dream, mister. You should be afraid of me. Don’t want to run into me at night, that’s for sure.”

“Please, Emerson,” chided Hartman, “Mr. Wake is upset enough as it is.”

“Okay! Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry.” Emerson looked at Wake. “Boo!” He dashed away, hid behind a table lamp.

“We’re actually making some progress with Emerson,” said Hartman as he and Wake continued their stroll across the hall.

“I could tell,” said Wake.

“He works on… video games,” said Hartman, mouth tightening. “It’s trash, of course, but it does involve some small creative effort, which makes him receptive to my therapeutic methods.” He pointed at a pair of closed double doors. “That’s the entrance to the office wing. Staff only, I’m afraid.” He nodded to a bulky female nurse on the other side of the room. “You might have noticed the typewriter in your room, Alan. You’ve been writing as a part of the therapy. As soon as you feel up to it, you should continue.”

“I’d like that,” said Wake. “Can I see what I wrote before?”

“Of course,” said Hartman, not missing a beat. “Once you are writing again and show signs of progress, we can discuss that.”

Hartman opened another set of doors and took Wake into the dining hall. A sign on the wall read: WELCOME TO THE CAULDRON LAKE LODGE! PLEASE ASK FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO SCHEDULE VISITS BEFOREHAND TO ENSURE THEY DON’T INTERFERE WITH YOUR THERAPY AND/OR PERIODS OF CREATIVITY.

A nearby poster advertised Hartman’s book: “ The Creator’s Dilemma : The engaging new book by Dr. Emil Hartman, the author of the best-selling Creative Flow . His groundbreaking techniques, Engagement Therapy™ and The Flow™ explained in his own words! Now available in bookstores across the country.”

At a small table sat the two white-haired old men Wake had met at the diner his first day in Bright Falls. They were playing a homemade Night Springs board game. The board was a map of a small town. Two white game pieces sat in the middle, surrounded by many black pieces.