David Morrell - The Shimmer

“Scalp wounds are terrible bleeders. Mrs. Page, I heard that you picked up my gun and made good use of it. You saved the lives of a lot of people. You’re remarkable.”

Tori looked away.

“Sorry. It wasn’t my intention to upset you.” Costigan changed the subject. “I don’t suppose either of you has any cigarettes.”

“Afraid not,” she said, looking at him again.

“Just as well. They won’t let me smoke in here anyhow.”

“It’s a good time to quit,” Tori said.

“Yeah, this wound gives me motivation to stick around as long as I can.” Costigan looked at Page. “Before the shooting started, you seemed to see the lights.”

Page could tell that Tori was waiting for his answer.

“I did.”

“I’m impressed,” Costigan said. “Not everybody does. Your wife sure saw them.”

“Yes.” Tori sounded as if she spoke about a lover.

“But I’m still not sure what it is I saw,” Page added. “What’s happening here, Chief? What are they?”

Costigan pressed a button. A motor under the bed made a whirring sound and raised his head a little more.

“I’ve heard every kind of explanation you can imagine. Everything from ball lightning to pranksters. If it’s pranksters, they’re good at it. When I came to town to be the chief after my father was killed…”

The harsh memory made Costigan pause. He gradually refocused his thoughts.

“Well, I spent a lot of nights out there, looking for people with flashlights or lanterns or whatever. That’s a long way to go for a practical joke. I never saw cars parked along the side roads, and I never heard any noises I couldn’t identify. It would take at least a half- dozen people to pull off a prank like that, and I don’t know how they could do it quietly. What’s more, it’s hard to keep a secret. After all these years, someone in town would have hinted about what they were doing. And how many pranksters have the determination to do it night after night after night?”

“What I saw wasn’t flashlights or lanterns or pranksters,” Tori said.

“No, but there still has to be some explanation. I’m not sure you’re going to like this, Mrs. Page.”

“Please call me Tori. What am I not going to like?”

“I don’t think there’s anything magical about the lights. On occasion researchers have come here, some from as far away as Japan. They’ve set up all kinds of scientific instruments, machines that analyzed light and measured distance and… I don’t pretend to understand it. The best explanation they could come up with is a temperature inversion.”

“A what?”

“I said you wouldn’t like it. A temperature inversion. The way it was explained to me is, we’re five thousand feet above sea level. At this altitude, when the sun sets after a hot day, there can be as much as a fifty-degree difference between the daytime and nighttime temperatures. That causes an inversion of hot air on top of cold. Under certain conditions, distant lights-from a moving car or a train-can bounce back and forth through the layers. The lights get magnified. They shift up and down and right and left.”

“But why would they change colors?”

“The scientists didn’t explain that.”

“Do the lights appear in the winter?” Tori persisted. “If so, then there wouldn’t be as big a difference between the day and night temperatures. So how could there be a temperature inversion in cold weather?”

“The scientists didn’t explain that, either.” Costigan gingerly touched his bandaged head. “This headache… Harriett Ward.”

“Excuse me?” The statement seemed to come out of nowhere. Page worried that Costigan was having trouble keeping his thoughts straight.

“Harriett’s the person to talk to about the lights. She’s the local ex- pert. She runs an antiques store a block south of the courthouse. Lives in a couple of rooms in the back. Given everything that’s happening, I doubt many locals will go out this evening, even if it is Friday night. You’ll probably catch her at home.”

The sign had old-fashioned lettering: WEST TEXAS ANTIQUES.

As Tori parked in front, Page noticed a hutch, a rocking chair, and a wooden sink in the store’s window. The frame around the window was painted a pastel blue that contrasted with the yellow on the art gallery to the left and the green on the coffee shop to the right.

“Reminds me of the lights,” Tori said.

They looked up the wide street toward the courthouse, where numerous vehicles were parked, including several television broadcast trucks. Page estimated that a couple of hundred people stood in front of the steps, presumably listening to Captain Medrano conducting the press conference.

“My rental car’s still parked up there. I can’t get it until they leave,” Page explained to Tori.

The lowering sun cast the street in a crimson glow.

A pickup truck stopped. A teenaged boy leaned from the passenger window.

“Supposed to be some weird lights around here. We came all the way from Lubbock to see them. You know where they’re at?”

“We’re strangers,” Page said. “Just visiting a friend.”

A boy in the middle told the driver, “Ed, let’s go ask somebody else. Try that crowd up there.”

As the truck drove away, Page knocked on the wooden doorframe and peered through the window toward the shadows in the store.

“Maybe the chief’s wrong and she’s out for the evening,” he said.

But after he knocked again, a door opened in the back of the store. A figure approached, passing old tables and cabinets. The figure had white hair that was cut short, like a man’s. Then a light came on, and the person stepped close enough for Page to see a lean woman in her sixties. She wore cowboy boots, jeans, a work shirt, and a leather vest. Her skin was brown and wrinkled from exposure to the sun.

When she unlocked the door and peered out, Page noticed a wed- ding band.

“Mrs. Ward, my name’s-”

“Dan Page. And your wife’s name is Tori.” The woman shook hands with them. “Chief Costigan phoned to say you were coming. Come in. And please call me Harriett.”

Won over by the friendliness, Page motioned for Tori to go first, then followed the two women toward the back of the store. He noticed old rifles on a rack on the wall. The wooden floor creaked. Everything smelled of the past.

“I was about to have a drink, but I hate to drink alone,” Harriett said. “So I hope you’ll join me.”

She closed the door after they entered a small living room that was sparsely furnished. The rug had a sunburst pattern. Page didn’t see any indication that a man lived there. Thinking of the wedding band Harriett wore, he concluded that she was a widow.

“I’ve got vodka, bourbon, and tequila,” she said.

“What are you having?” Tori asked.

“Tequila on the rocks.”

“I’ll have the same.”

Page was surprised. Tori seldom drank hard alcohol.

“Tequila for you also?” Harriett asked him.

“Just a little. I haven’t eaten anything in a while.”

Harriett’s boot heels thumped on the wooden floor as she went into a small kitchen. He heard the clink of ice cubes being dropped into glasses and the splash of liquid being poured over the ice.

“The chief tells me you’re interested in hearing about the lights,” Harriett said, returning with two glasses.

“According to him, you’re the local expert,” Page replied.

“I did a lot of research, if that’s what he means.” Harriett went back for the third glass and also brought a bag of tortilla chips, which she handed to Page. “I dug into history and found hundreds of re- ports, a lot of them from the old days. But nobody’s really an expert when it comes to the lights. Nobody really understands them.”