David Morrell - The Shimmer

As he gazed, the distant lights acquired colors-red, green, blue, yellow, and more-all the tints he’d seen on houses and stores in town. Pairs of them merged, becoming larger and brighter. They rose and fell. At the same time, they drifted back and forth across the horizon, as if they floated in a gentle current. They bobbed and pivoted hypnotically.

What am I seeing?

Confused, Page turned toward Costigan, looking for confirmation that his eyes weren’t tricking him, but all the police chief did was spread his hands again.

Page turned back, redirecting his attention to what he saw-or thought he saw-on the horizon. Some of the lights drifted apart, while others continued to merge. They shimmered, gentle and soothing, almost seeming to beckon.

I’ve never seen anything like them, he thought. What are they? Without warning, doubt surged through him. Why didn’t I see them a minute ago? They’ve got to be an optical illusion.

Or maybe I’m so eager to see something out there that I strained my eyes until I saw spots before them. Or else I concentrated until I imagined them. How do I know they’re what Tori sees-or thinks she does?

What do the others think they’re seeing?

Not only seeing, he realized. There was something else associated with the lights, something he couldn’t quite identify. It was just on the edge of his perceptions, a sound that hovered at the limit of his ability to hear it.

As Page stepped off the platform, intending to approach and question a teenaged girl who pointed in delight at the grassland beyond the fence, he became aware of a commotion somewhere in the crowd. A single voice rose above the others.

“Don’t you see how evil they are?” someone demanded.

Page stopped and tried to determine the direction of the voice. It was deep, strong, and angry. It belonged to a man.

“Don’t you realize what they’re doing to you?”

To his right, Page saw sudden movement, people being jostled aside, a tall, heavy man sweeping through them.

“Stop pushing!” someone complained.

“Get your hand off me!” someone else objected.

The voice just sounded angrier. “Don’t you understand that you’re all going to hell?”

“A gun!” a woman wailed. “My God, he has a gun!”

As the word sent a wave of alarm through the crowd, Page responded instantly and crouched. Reaching for the pistol that he almost always carried, he realized with dismay that he’d let Costigan talk him into leaving it in his suitcase back in the rental car, which was parked outside the courthouse.

His palms became sweaty.

Crouching lower, feeling his pulse race, he scanned the panicking crowd and flinched at the loud, ear-torturing crack of a rifle. He saw the muzzle flash among fleeing men and women, revealing what looked like the barrel of an assault weapon.

Crack. The man fired again, aiming beyond the fence. The muzzle flash projected toward the horizon, toward whatever was out there, toward whatever Page had thought he’d seen.

“Go back to hell where you came from!” the man shouted into the distance, and he kept firing.

Page saw enough of the rifle’s silhouette to identify a curved ammunition magazine projecting from the bottom. The profile was that of an AK-47.

Urgently he glanced behind him, toward Costigan, seeing that the police chief had drawn his pistol and was crouching tensely, just as Page was.

The chaos of the crowd now shielded the man with the rifle, and for a moment, he was lost from sight.

Crack. Another muzzle flash projected toward the darkness.

“You’re all damned!” But the gunman was no longer yelling toward whatever had entranced them. Instead he turned and began yelling at the crowd. Page had the sickening realization of what was about to happen.

No!

The man fired directly into the crowd. People screamed and smashed against one another, desperate to escape.

A man tripped.

A woman wailed.

Then Page realized that the man hadn’t tripped. A bullet had dropped him.

The gunman fired yet again.

Page had seldom felt so helpless. Even if he’d had his pistol, the darkness and the commotion would have prevented him from get- ting a shot at the man with the rifle.

Crack. A woman fell.

Crack. A teenaged boy toppled. The crowd’s frightened shouts became so loud that Page almost couldn’t hear the rifle. He saw the barrel swing in his direction.

Tori! he thought desperately. Pivoting, he ran toward the observation platform. Costigan was no longer in sight, but Page didn’t have time to figure out what the police chief was doing.

Tori!

She was on her feet, so overwhelmed that she didn’t have the presence of mind to react. Page had taught her about firearms and had asked her to keep a handgun in her purse. He’d worried about her taking clients out to remote locations where she’d be alone with them, but Tori never carried the gun he’d given her. The truth was, although she was a police officer’s wife, her attitudes were those of a civilian.

He put an arm around her and gripped her tightly, rushing her off the platform. Behind him, a bullet hit a board in the back wall. When she cried out in alarm, he pushed her head down, making her stoop as he rushed her around the corner. This was the side opposite from where Costigan had parked the police car, but Page was relieved to see that vehicles were parked here as well, and he tugged her behind a murky pickup truck.

“Are you okay?” he asked, examining her as best he could in the starlight.

She was too disoriented to answer.

A shot echoed from beyond the observation platform.

“Tori, answer me. Are you hurt?”

His abrupt tone made her flinch, bringing her to awareness.

“I… No. I’m okay. I’m not hit.”

“Thank God. Stay here. Keep behind the engine. Bullets can go through the truck’s doors, but not through the engine. If you think the shooter’s coming in this direction, fall down and pretend you’re dead.”

In the shadows, she stared at him.

“Tori, tell me you understand.”

Beyond the observation deck, two shots were followed by a scream.

She blinked repeatedly. “Keep behind the engine,” she said, swallowing. “If he comes this way, I’m supposed to fall down and pretend I’m dead.”

Crack. The gunman fired again.

“I can’t stay with you,” Page said. “I need to help stop him.”

“Why is he doing this?”

“I don’t know why people do anything.”

The next shot Page heard was a loud pop rather than a crack. A pistol. Costigan must be returning fire, he decided.

He squeezed Tori’s shoulder and ran from the cover of the pickup truck. At once he heard another pistol shot, then a rifle shot.

And a groan. Its raspy edge left no doubt that it came from

Costigan.

The turmoil of his heartbeat contrasted with the slowness he forced upon himself when he reached the corner of the wall. His hands trembled. He fought to control them.

The wooden planks of the wall couldn’t protect him from an AK-47’s high-powered bullet, but at least they concealed him as he crouched beneath the shooter’s eye level and peered around the corner.

The faint light from the opposite side of the observation platform showed him a nightmare. Bodies lay all around. Some twitched, but most remained still.

The shooter stalked among them.

“Came from hell!” He fired down at a head, his rifle’s muzzle flash casting him in a grotesque silhouette. “Going back to hell!”

Where’s Costigan? Page wondered frantically.

He inhaled sharply when he saw the police chief’s body sprawled on the ground halfway between the observation platform and the crowd. Costigan’s pistol lay near his outstretched right hand.