David Morrell - The Shimmer

Brent grabbed the toppled ladder and propped it against the truck. The tremor in his right hand alarmed him. Feeling faint, he struggled up. At the top, he noted that the station’s helicopter had activated its landing lights, illuminating the crowd.

Hoarse from the blow to the side of his throat, he spoke into his lapel mike, describing what he saw. “The people at the back are forcing everyone ahead. Those in the middle are being crushed. The ones in front are being squeezed against the barbed-wire fence.”

Brent heard wood cracking.

“I think the fence is about to…”

Several posts snapped. The fence collapsed. The people in front dropped with it, screaming as they fell onto the barbed wire. The rest of the crowd surged over their backs, charging into the field.

In the distance, the lights continued to shimmer.

“I hear a sound,” Brent said into his microphone. “Luther Hamilton mentioned that sometimes a sound accompanies the lights. I wonder if that’s happening now. No, I’m wrong. The sound has nothing to do with the lights. It’s-”

Standing next to a car at the side of the dark road, Page gaped toward the observation area, where the crowd was out of control. If he’d been alone, he’d have run to help the police, although he couldn’t imagine how even ten times as many officers would be able to handle what he was witnessing.

Right now, Tori was all he cared about.

“You were right to stay away from the crowd,” he said.

He turned.

She wasn’t next to him.

He frowned toward the shadowy road, then stepped toward the space between the parked cars, but he still didn’t see her.

“Tori?”

He hurried back to her Saturn. She wasn’t inside. He studied the darkness on the far side of the row of parked cars. No sign of her.

“Tori!”

Page doubted that she’d have gone toward the crowd, which had become a single mass that was trampling over the barbed-wire fence, crushing people, and disappearing into the night.

But if she hadn’t gone in that direction, there was only one other possibility.

Thunder rumbled.

Page swung toward the murky grassland and ran toward it. Tori had been right when she’d guessed that the observation area was an arbitrary spot from which to try to see the lights. They could be detected from other points along the road, and tonight, to his surprise, he’d had no trouble spotting them. When Tori had pointed excitedly toward the dark horizon, he’d seen them immediately.

I must have learned to see them, he thought. The way I learned to see the cuttlefish.

Or am I just fooling myself?

In the distance, the colors bobbed and drifted. Not only did Page see them much more quickly than on the previous night, but he also saw them more clearly. It was as if a haze had been removed from his eyes. Radiant, they swirled, far away and yet close. His skin seemed to ripple.

“Tori!”

Thunder rumbled louder, the storm approaching rapidly.

Page made his way toward the fence. Thanks to his pilot training, he knew that the best way to see at night was to try to detect objects from the periphery of his vision. Staring straight ahead at something in the darkness achieved less results than if he worked to detect it from the corners of his eyes because the eye cells designed for night vision, known as rods, were located on the eye’s perimeter.

He looked obliquely past the barbed wire. To his right, he heard shouts from the viewing area. Over there, wraith-like shadows moved farther into the grassland, attracted to the lights. He also heard groans.

“Damn it, I told you to stop shoving me!” someone yelled.

Lightning flashed, revealing silhouettes in a struggle. A man punched another man in the stomach. When the second man doubled over, the first man knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the head. Other people grappled in similar frenzied fights, so many that Page knew he couldn’t stop them.

Then darkness swooped back, seeming deeper than before because Page’s night vision was compromised. Unable to wait for his eyes to adjust, he gripped a post and climbed it, using the barbed wire as a ladder, jumping to the ground on the other side. His holstered hand- gun dug into him.

“Tori!”

A sudden wind hurled dust into his face. He raised his left arm to shield his eyes and moved forward into the murky field. Scrub grass crunched under his sneakers. A drop of rain struck his nose.

He almost tripped over a rock. When he regained his balance, he shifted ahead and tried to continue in a straight line toward the distant lights. The dust made him shut his eyes for a moment. More drops of rain pelted his forehead.

The next flash of lightning revealed silhouettes closer ahead. Once the crowd had reached the field, everyone had separated, desperate to avoid the crush of people that had propelled them over the toppled fence. They looked confused, as if they suddenly realized where they were.

Thunder shook Page’s chest. Then he was sightless again, over- whelmed by darkness.

The next moment, the storm unloaded, the force of the downpour making him stoop. Shockingly cold, it enveloped him, obliterating the distant lights. Without them, he had no bearings. Even the lights back at the observation platform were no longer visible.

“Tori!”

Gusts whipped his face. His wet clothes clung to his skin, the cold rain making him shiver. The next flash of lightning struck nearby. He saw its multiple forks and heard a crack. The two-second blaze of light revealed a figure stumbling ahead of him. Then darkness enveloped him again. Propelled by thunder, he shifted toward where his memory told him he’d seen the figure.

Abruptly they collided. He knew at once that the figure was Tori. Ten years of marriage made it impossible for him not to be able to recognize the feel of her body in the dark.

“Thank God, I found you,” he said. “Come on. We need to get back to the car.”

“No.”

The rumble of thunder made him think he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What?”

“Leave me alone.”

“You’re not safe out here.”

Page gripped Tori’s hand, but the rain slicked her skin, and she was able to pull away, rushing from him.

“Tori!” he yelled. “We need to get back to the car!”

For a panicked moment, Page couldn’t see her. Then lightning revealed her outline, and he charged after her.

“Tori, you could get killed out here!”

Page grabbed her shoulders. Standing behind her, he tried to turn her in the direction from which he’d come. She rammed her elbow into his stomach, knocking him away.

The unexpected blow made him struggle to breathe. Holding him- self, he realized that she’d disappeared again.

The next time lightning flashed, he saw that she’d gone much farther than he’d expected. He ran to catch up to her. Again he grabbed her from behind, but this time, his arms pinned her elbows to her sides. He linked his hands around her stomach and lifted her, trying to carry her backward.

She kicked her heels against his knees. When the pain in his legs made him drop her, she spun.

“You bastard, don’t take me away from the lights again!”

“Again?”

“If you’d let me stay, if you hadn’t grabbed me and shoved me into the car-”

Stunned, Page realized she thought he was someone else. “Tori, I’m not your father.”

“All I want to do is see the lights! You son of a bitch, you’re always yelling at Mom! You’re always trying to touch me!”

Page was shocked by this further revelation.

“Tori, your father died a long time ago! It’s me! Your husband! I love you!”

Lightning showed her frenzied features as she drew back her fist. Drenched by the rain, he waited for the blow.