Stephen Lawhead - The Paradise War

The man stopped a few yards ahead of me. He wore a dark coat and carried a long stick in one hand. In his other he held the leashes of the dogs. And what dogs! Easily the strangest-looking hounds I have ever seen: white, head to tail, but with bright-red ears. They were huge, rawboned beasts, thick through the chest, but long-legged and lean in the hindquarters. The animals appeared to be pulling the man along, and he restraining them, the leads taut in his hand.

«Hello there,» I called to him, bluffing friendliness.

He did not reply. I took a few steps closer. «I'm waiting for my friend,» I explained. The dogs went berserk. In the fading daylight, they seemed to glow, their pale white coats and blood-red ears shimmering in the twilight. Their long snouts flashed sharp teeth as they reared and jerked to get at me. Again I felt like high-tailing it back to the car, locking the doors, and driving away very fast. But I fought down the impulse.

The man watched me impassively, his face all creased and wrinkled like a monkey's, his eyes glittering hard and bright. He did not speak, but with the unholy racket the dogs were making I would not have heard him anyway.

We might have stood there all night long, if I had not made up my mind that, dogs or no dogs, I had to check the cairn one last time. Raising my hand in wary entreaty, I stepped hesitantly forward, «Look,» I shouted, «I'm just going to the cairn down there-« I pointed past him towards the glen and then turned towards the car, «and then I'm going to get in the car and leave-«

When I turned back, the man was stumping away across the field. I did not wait for an explanation, but legged it down the hill. The glen was almost as dark as the inside of the cairn, but once down I had no difficulty fmding the entrance hole in the side. I stuck my head in and hollered a few times and flicked the flashlight around inside. No answer. No sound. Nothing.

«All right, Simon, have it your way,» I hollered, my voice falling dead at my feet. «This time you've gone too far. You've got no one to blame but yourselfi You hear me, Simon? I'm leaving you here!»

I dug his wallet-bulging with cash, credit cards, various forms of identification-from the inner breast pocket of the jacket and pulled out a Barclaycard. I shoved the plastic credit card in a crack between two stones at the entrance to the cairn, where he would be sure to find it. «There you go,» I shouted, my voice loud in the silent glen. «You're a smart guy, Simon. Find your own way home!»

I turned my back on the cairn, climbed from the glen and returned immediately to the car. Halfway across the field, I saw a man in a long yellow coat hurrying along the road. At first, I thought of running to meet him and telling him what had happened. If he lived in the area, he would know about the cairn. Anyway, it seemed I should tell somebody.

And, as I got closer, the man slowed as if to meet me at the car, so we could speak. When I got within shouting distance, I even lifted a hand and called to him. But, at the sound of my voice, the man quickened his pace and hurried on. I reached the car just before he disappeared around a bend in the road, few dozen paces further on.

I shouted again. I know the man heard me, because he turned. Even in the twilight, I could make out his face-if face it was. His features were large, exaggerated, mask-like, With a long, hooked nose, a wide mouth, and absolutely enormous ears sticking out from under an uncombed mat of wild black hair. His eyes were wide and bulging, beneath the single dark arch of a furry brow.

I beheld this singular visage, and all desire to speak to the man fled. My throat seized up and the call froze on my tongue.

He glanced once over his shoulder, then turned away again. Upon reaching the bend, the man disappeared. I do not mean that the bend of the road took him from sight. Strange as it is to tell, he actually seemed to vanish.

I say this because the man's clothing glimmered as he passed from sight. Now it might have been a trick of the fading light. But I swear his coat shimmered, giving off a distinct flash as he departed. That, more than the sight of the man's hideous face, rooted me to the spot. I stood gaping after him, and the sound of the wind rising in the trees gave me such a chill I jumped into the car and drove away.

On the drive back to Oxford, I had a good long time to think things through and convince myself a dozen different ways that Simon deserved getting left behind for his idiot practical joke. I don't know how he managed it, but I knew Simon. If anyone could pull off a stunt like that, he could. Who else would have the talent and the resources to waste on such foolishness? He'd probably been months painstakingly setting up the whole thing behind my back. And it had surely cost him a bundle.

Well, funny joke, Simon. But I've got your car and your wallet, and you're freezing your beezer off in the gloaming. Who's laughing now?

I arrived in Oxford at six o'clock the following morning, red-eyed, exhausted, and quivering with fear lest anyone discover me driving Simon's car and raise the alarm. No one did. The garage where he kept the Jaguar was deserted; there was no one else around. Nevertheless, I retained his jacket and kept his hat pulled over my face as I parked the car and tugged the doors shut. Then I hurried through the gate and across the quad to our staircase.

The sight of Simon Rawnson skulking into college in the wee smalls was such a familiar pantomime, I reckoned, that even if I was seen, it would not raise alarm or comment-not that I cared one way or the other.

Exhausted, I flopped into bed without bothering to undress. I closed my eyes and fell asleep instantly, and would ave stayed asleep the rest of the day if not for the telephone.

The first time it rang, I ignored it. But it rang again a few minutes later and I knew that whoever was on the other end would keep on ringing until someone answered. Blear-eyed and foul tempered, I raised myself up, shuffled to the living room, and picked up the receiver.

«Hullo?»

«Susannah here,» chirped the voice down the wire. «Is that Lewis?»

«Oh, hello, Susannah. How's it going?»

«Fine, thank you. I'd like to speak to Simon.»

«Simon? Uh, he's not here at the moment.»

«Where is he?»

«Well, he's in Scotland, actually.»

«Really?»

«Yeah, thing is, we went up there and he decided to stay, sort of.»

I could hear the sprockets spinning in her head. «He decided to stay in Scotland,» she repeated, her voice oozing disbelief.

«That's right,» I insisted. «We went up Friday morning, you know-«

«I know he broke a lunch date with me,» she said tartly.

«It was the trip, see? We drove up there and, well, he just decided to stay on a few days.» I tried to make it sound like a spur-of-the-moment inspiration on Simon's part.

Susannah, of course, was not buying any of it. «Put Simon on this instant,» she ordered. «Wake up the lazy lizard and put him on, I must talk to him.»

«I would, Susannah, but I can't. He's really not here.»

«Whit's going on, Lewis?» Her tone was glacial.

«What?»

«You heard me. What's going on over there? What sneaky little game are you two playing?»

«Nothing's going on, Susannah. I'd let Simon tell you himself, but he just isn't here.»

«Let me get this straight,» she said. «You and Simon drove all the way to Scotland on Friday and he decided to stay-«

«Well, yeah, see-«

»-when he knew good and well that he had promised to go with me to early communion and then drive up to Milton Keynes for Sunday dinner with my parents?»

«Look, I know how this sounds, but it's the truth, Susannah. Really, I-«

Click! The line went dead.