David Morrell - The Shimmer

After the war ended in November 1918, he returned home in time for Christmas. Snow fell-unusual but not impossible in that area of Texas. He had survived thirty-nine dogfights with German aviators and thanked God that he was able to be with his wife and son. But even though he was finally safe, he had nightmares. Not about the war, though. Instead his disturbing dreams made him experience the floating, drifting sensation of the lights. Each evening he went out to stare at them. In March 1919, he purchased a biplane that had been used in the war, many of which had become available at cheap prices because the military no longer needed them.

A week after he took possession of the plane, he took off at dusk from the now overgrown airstrip where he’d trained pilots three years earlier. As the darkness thickened, he flew toward the lights. The sound of his engine receded into the gloom.

Neither he nor the plane was ever seen again.

In the dank complex beneath the abandoned airbase, Col. Warren Raleigh remembered seeing photographs of a dashing young man in a uniform, a strong-looking woman next to him, a biplane in the background. He remembered hearing about the Rostov lights and his great-grandfather’s mysterious disappearance.

Raleigh’s great-grandmother had raised her son alone, demonstrating the strength that had drawn her husband to her. Her only show of emotion came each night. While her parents took care of the baby, she went out to the area where her husband had disappeared. She watched the lights, waiting for him to return.

Night after night, winter and spring, she stared at them.

Inexplicably, her face became red and swollen. Blisters developed. One night, when strands of her hair began to fall out, she finally did something she would never have imagined doing-she took her son, moved from the once reassuring area where she’d grown up, and rented an apartment in noisy, disturbing El Paso. There she learned to be a seamstress, sewing at home while looking after her son.

El Paso led to Denver, Chicago, and finally Boston as she tried to get farther and farther from the lights. Despite the passage of years, she never remarried.

She died from skin cancer.

A voice interrupted Raleigh’s thoughts.

“Sir, Fort… is… call… you.”

He peered up from his desk. His earplugs muffled sounds. “Say again, Lieutenant?”

“Fort Meade wants you on the phone. Scrambler code 2.”

As Raleigh reached for the phone on his desk, the lieutenant continued, “And even though it isn’t night yet, we’re getting extremely powerful readings.”

Raleigh nodded. This time he didn’t take the risk of removing an earplug as he pressed a button on his phone and engaged the scrambler.

“Colonel Raleigh here.”

“This is Borden,” a woman’s voice said faintly. She was the director of the weapons research team at Raleigh’s headquarters near the fortress-like National Security Agency in Maryland. “We’re receiving unusually strong readings from the observatory.”

“Yes, one of my people here just told me we’re getting strong readings, also.”

Borden’s voice continued, “I reviewed the data parameters for previous versions of this study. As we know, the pattern’s cyclical. Some- times the signals are almost impossible to detect. Other times they’re pronounced. But until now, the highs and lows have been in the same range. These are the highest readings we’ve ever seen-and that includes what happened where you are, back in 1945. The reason I contacted you isn’t just to make a report. I’m asking you to reconsider your strategy.” She paused. “Colonel, are you certain you want to stay at your location?”

Raleigh found the question touching. One of his many secrets was that he and Borden met each month at a Baltimore hotel room, where they allowed themselves to pretend they had emotions unrelated to their careers. Her question wasn’t merely about protecting the pro- gram. It suggested that she was actually concerned about his safety.

“Colonel, can you hear me?” Borden’s voice asked.

“Yes,” he finally said, “I hear you. Thank you for your input, but I’ll be staying. All these years, this is where the program has been headed. Without a team on-site, we’ll never know the truth. I can’t leave.”

This wasn’t just where the program had been headed, though. It was where his life had been headed since he’d first heard about the lights when he was a boy.

Twenty seconds after the explosions, Page’s cell phone rang. He and Tori were staring toward the sky in the direction from which the shock waves had come. He pulled the phone from his belt and pressed the answer button.

“Did you hear them?” Medrano’s voice asked urgently.

“A small one, a big one, then another small one,” Page replied. “From the northwest. The only thing over there is the observatory.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too. Where are you?”

“The airport.”

“Big surprise. I finally figured you were planning to use your plane tonight. A private plane can go just about anywhere, right?”

“Just about.”

“The nearest Highway Patrol chopper is ninety minutes away. I can’t wait that long. I want you to fly toward those explosions and find out what the hell happened.”

“The problem is,” Page said, “one of the places a private plane can’t go is prohibited airspace.”

“You’re telling me the observatory’s off-limits?”

“Usually a prohibited area has something to do with national security. I have no idea what that observatory has to do with any of that, but at the very least, I could lose my pilot’s license if I fly in there.”

“I can’t go in there, either,” Medrano said. “That’s federal property. I don’t have the jurisdiction to send in cruisers. Listen, I’ll try to get permission from the FBI. While I’m waiting, can you at least fly along the boundary of that area-maybe get high enough to try to see what happened?”

“That I can do. I have a police radio in my plane. What’s your frequency?”

Page wrote down the number, pressed the disconnect button, and returned his phone to his belt.

He looked at Tori. “This could be dangerous. You might want to think about not going up with me.”

“Could you use an extra set of eyes?”

“Always.”

“Then you’ve got company.”

A bullet tore up dirt near Brent’s left cheek. He flinched and ducked his head lower.

Where he lay was a sandy trough that might have been a dry creek bed. The parched land had absorbed the water from yesterday’s storm except that there seemed to be a puddle under him, soaking him. Then he realized that what he felt was the wet crotch of his pants where his bladder had let go.

The only thing that kept him from panicking was the television cam- era. I’m not going to lose this chance. He angled it up toward the black smoke that billowed from the downed helicopter. Then he pivoted to the right and aimed the camera toward the smoking ruin of the news van.

Now comes the hard part-staying alive to show this to somebody, he thought.

Anita was sprawled between him and the burning van. Her head lolled, and she looked weaker.

He squirmed toward her, stopping when he was halfway there. The guard at the observatory had a large area to scan with his rifle. From this new position, Brent hoped to be able to ease the camera over the edge of the trough and record what the gunman was up to.

Need to do something. I’m not just going to lie here.

He took a deep breath, braced his trembling muscles, and cautiously showed himself. Through the camera’s viewfinder, he saw the guard turning in his direction and raising the rifle. Brent managed to get down just before three bullets blasted dirt above him.