David Morrell - The Shimmer

“Part of the reason you were chosen for this assignment is that you’re experts in electronics. Behind the door to your right, you’ll find a monitoring station. It was state-of-the-art three years ago. The equipment we brought will bring it up to speed. But before you install it, I want you to take the closed-circuit cameras you unpacked and mount them on overhead corners in every room and corridor. I want every inch of this facility-including the latrines-to be visible on surveillance screens and every second of what happens down here to be recorded. If we’re going to make history, it needs to be documented.

“Each of you will wear your sidearm at all times. You’ll also make sure that one of the M4s you unpacked is close to you wherever you go. In addition, you’ll wear shooter’s earplugs.”

Raleigh noted the puzzled look Lockhart gave him.

“Sergeant, do you have a question?”

“Sir, are you expecting us to come under attack?”

“Just taking precautions, given the instability we’ve seen outside. As far as the earplugs are concerned, there are certain audio characteristics to this project that can have… let’s call them damaging effects.”

A door opened behind Raleigh. He turned to see one of the team members bringing in the dog trainer and the German shepherd. They’d come down via a stairwell-its electronically controlled hatch was concealed among the hangar’s piles of wreckage. All three were soaked.

“Any problems up there?” Raleigh asked.

“No, sir,” the dog trainer responded. “Nobody came near this area. The crowd was too distracted by what was happening at the viewing area down the road. Things got crazy there. Then the storm started, and everybody left.”

“Through that door, you’ll find dry clothes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As the trainer and the German shepherd left the area, Raleigh motioned for Lockhart to come over.

Raleigh kept his voice low. “If the dog acts strangely in any way, no matter how slight…”

“Yes, sir?”

“Shoot it.”

The Saturn’s windshield wipers flapped heavily in the strengthening downpour that pounded the roof and obscured the headlights. Shivering, Tori almost missed the motel’s entrance. She turned, drove through rain-churned puddles, and stopped at unit 11. After she and Page ran to the door, Page unlocked it and held it open for her with- out entering.

“Go ahead, take a bath,” he said. “Put on some warm clothes. I’ll drive back to the Rib Palace and get some hot coffee for us.”

“But you’re as cold as I am. Why should I go first? That isn’t fair.”

“The last thing you need is to get sick before your surgery. How about hot soup? You want some?”

Tori barely hesitated. “Yes. That would be great.”

Page hurried back through the drenching rain and got into the car, turning up the heater.

Fifteen minutes later, he returned, setting Styrofoam containers of coffee and soup on the unit’s small table. The bathroom door was closed. Hearing the splash of water in the tub, he quickly took off his dripping clothes. The room didn’t have a closet, but it did have hangers on a rod. He hung his clothes there and dried himself with a blanket he found on a shelf. Even with the blanket draped around him, he couldn’t stop shaking.

He hadn’t packed a lot of clothes and was forced to put on the jeans and shirt he’d worn the night before. They still had the odor of smoke, but at least they were dry.

When Tori came out of the bathroom, she found him huddled under the covers of his bed, trying to keep his fingers steady while he used both hands to grip his container of coffee.

She wore her usual T-shirt and boxer shorts. Her towel-dried hair was combed back. “Your turn.”

“Somehow the idea of getting wet again doesn’t appeal to me. I think I’ll wait until I’m a little warmer.”

“I still feel shaky. What kind of soup did you get?”

“In a place like the Rib Palace, they had only one choice-they call it Fiery Beef.”

“Sounds like exactly what I need.”

She pulled a blanket off her bed, wrapped it around her, and sat at the table, opening the container of soup. Watching her, Page sipped his coffee and felt the hot liquid against his bruised lip. She didn’t say anything all the while she ate, spooning the soup quickly. Then she opened the coffee, and while she drank it, she remained silent. Finally she turned to him, her features strained with confusion. “If it hadn’t been for the storm, I’d have walked forever to try to reach the lights.”

“No,” Page said. “If it hadn’t been for me.”

“I couldn’t resist. They seemed to be calling me.”

He considered what she’d said, then gave her an extremely direct look.

“Let’s pack and get out of here. Not tomorrow. Right now. We can be at your mother’s house by morning. Are you ready to do that?”

Tori lowered her head and didn’t reply, in effect giving him an answer. He remembered what had happened in the field. After what she had said and done to him, he wasn’t about to try to force her to leave. He wasn’t even certain he could force her to leave. So he came to a decision.

“In that case, I need to be a cop a while longer. This has gone way past the point where I can just let things keep controlling us. I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

Page jerked awake, struck anew by the stark reality of what Tori had told him about her cancer and by what had happened the night before.

So much to adjust to.

Sunlight crept past the cheap drapes, but he didn’t feel at all rested, even though a glance at the bedside clock showed him that the time was 1:14 and that he’d slept another twelve hours.

This time Tori remained in her bed.

Groggy, he went into the bathroom, softly closed the door, and shaved, running the water as little as possible, trying not to make noise.

When he came out, Tori was putting on a pair of slacks.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he said.

“It wasn’t a good sleep.”

“The same with me.” He touched the shirt and jeans that he’d put on a hangar. “Still wet.” He glanced down at the clothes he’d slept in. Wrinkled, they continued to retain the odor of the fire two nights earlier.

“Looks like we need to do some shopping,” Tori concluded.

When they stepped from the room and faced the harsh sunlight, Page was troubled by the number of vehicles streaming past the motel-many more than on the previous day. It took even longer for Tori to find a break in the traffic and steer the Saturn onto the road.

In town, the streets were filled with cars. All the parking spaces were occupied. Tori let Page out in front of a store called the Out – fitter, where there were so many tourists that he had to wait fifteen minutes to pay for new clothes. It took another fifteen minutes to get into a dressing room. He put on a pair of pants, a T-shirt, and a shirt to wear over it-something that would conceal his handgun. When he came out with his old clothes in a shopping bag, he heard a customer talking to a female clerk.

“Do people really see lights around here?”

“Yes,” the clerk answered. “But it’s been years since I went looking for them.”

“Aren’t you curious what they are?” the customer asked.

“When I was a kid. But I got used to them.”

As Page walked toward the front of the store, he heard another customer telling a different clerk, “My wife has diabetes. We heard this place makes miracles happen, like at Lourdes. If she sees the lights, she’ll be cured.”

Page went out to the sidewalk, where Tori was waiting with two sandwiches and two bottles of water from a restaurant next door.