F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

"Bottomless."

Bill smiled. "No. Really."

Apparently he'd misunderstood, so Glaeken spoke slowly and clearly.

"There is no bottom to that hole," he said. "It is quite literally bottomless."

"But that's impossible. It would have to go all the way through to China or whatever's on the other end."

"The other end doesn't open on this world."

"Come on. Where then?"

"Elsewhere."

Glaeken watched the priest's eyes flick back and forth between him and the hole.

"Elsewhere? Where's elsewhere?"

"No place you'd ever want to visit."

"You can be a little more specific than that, can't you?"

"I wish I could, but the place has no name. And I don't believe there's any way to describe in human terms what the other end of that hole is like."

"I believe I'll change and go down there for a closer look."

"No need to rush. The hole isn't going anywhere. And it's only the first."

"You mean there's going to be more?"

"Many. All over the world. But Rasalom has honored me by opening the first outside my front door."

"I'll see if I can hook up with Nick down there and find out what he knows."

"Just be sure to be back before dark."

Bill smiled. "Okay, Dad."

"I'm quite serious."

His smile faded. "Yeah. I guess you are. Okay. Back before dark."

Glaeken watched Bill hurry to his room. He was fond of the man. He couldn't ask for a better house guest. Bill was always willing to help around the apartment or with Magda when the nurse wasn't around.

As if sensing her name within his thoughts, Magda called from the bedroom.

"Hello? Is anybody there? Have I been left alone to die?"

"Coming, dear."

He took one final look at the hole in the Sheep Meadow, then he headed down the hall.

Magda was sitting up in her bed. She'd been losing weight and her eyes were starting to retreat into her skull. Her face was as lined as his, her hair as white. But her brown eyes were bright with anger.

"Who are you?" she said, switching to her native Hungarian tongue.

"I'm your husband, Magda."

"No, you're not!" She spat the words. "I wouldn't marry such an old man like you! Why, you're old enough to be my father! Where's Glen?"

"Right here. I'm Glen."

"No! Glen's young and strong with red hair!"

He took her hands in his. "Magda, it's me. Glen."

Terror flashed across her face, then her features softened. She smiled.

"Oh, yes. Glen. How could I have forgotten? Where have you been?"

"Right in the next room."

Her expression hardened as her eyes narrowed.

"No you weren't! You've been out seeing other women! Don't deny it! You're out with that nurse! Don't think I don't know what the two of you are up to when you think I'm asleep!"

Glaeken held her hands and let her ramble on. He wanted to cry. After two years he'd have thought he could have adapted to anything, but he couldn't get used to Magda's dementia. None of her ravings were true, yet Magda fully believed her delusions as they passed through the expanding emptiness of her mind, truly meant the hurtful things she said as she spoke them, and that never failed to cut him deeply.

Oh, Magda, my Magda, where have you gone?

Glaeken closed his eyes and recalled Magda as she was when they'd met in 1941. Her soft, even features, her fresh pale skin, glossy chestnut hair, and wide dark eyes, filled with love, tenderness, and intelligence. It was the love, tenderness, and intelligence he mourned for most now. Even after her physical beauty had faded, his love for her had not. For she had remained Magda the poet, Magda the singer, Magda the mandolin player, Magda the scholar who so loved art and music and literature. Her compendium of Rumanian Gypsy music, Songs of the Rom, was still in print, still gracing the shelves of finer bookstores.

Three years ago Magda had started to slip away, to be infiltrated and irreversibly replaced by this mad, incoherent stranger. Her mental status had deteriorated first, but soon she had become physically enfeebled as well. She could not get out of bed by herself now. That made caring for her easier in a way because she could no longer wander at night. In the early stages of her decline Glaeken had found her searching the street below, calling for their pet cat, dead since 1962. After that he'd had to deadbolt the apartment door and remove the knobs from the stove to prevent her from "cooking dinner" at two in the morning.

There were still flashes of the old Magda. She couldn't remember what she had for breakfast—or if she'd even had breakfast—yet now and then she'd recall an incident in their life together from thirty or forty years ago as if it were yesterday. But instead of buoying him, the brief lapses in Magda's dementia only served to deepen Glaeken's depression.

It wasn't fair.

Glaeken had known and loved so many women through the ages, yet each relationship had ended in bitterness. Each in her own way had ended up hating him because she grew old while he stayed young. Finally there had been Magda, the one woman in his seemingly endless life that he would be allowed to grow old with. And they'd had a glorious life, a love that could not be tainted even by the pain of these past few years.

Maybe it was for the best. Magda would spend her final days immune to the horror stalking the world. Her body was as vulnerable as everybody else's, but her mind was impregnable to reality.

He glanced at Magda and saw that she'd fallen asleep again. This was her pattern—a reversal of day and night. Cat naps throughout the day, awake most of the night. Even with the hired nurse and Bill to help, Glaeken existed in a state of constant exhaustion. His heart went out to all the unfortunate spouses of Alzheimer's patients throughout the world who did not have his financial resources. Unless they had a large family of willing helpers, their lives were an endless nightmare.

Nightmare…soon everyone across the globe would know what it was like to live a nightmare.

Gently he lay Magda's head back down on the pillow and tucked the covers in around her. He would not allow a deterioration of her brain to lessen his commitment to her. If their conditions were reversed, she'd be at his side whenever he needed her. He was sure of it. And he would do no less.

All morning he had debated whether or not to warn the media about the hole. Finally, he'd decided against it. He didn't want to attract attention to himself. Besides, they'd write him off as just another doom-monger and ignore him. The end result would be the same: they'd have to learn the hard way.

FNN:

—on the commodities exchanges, prices are up sharply, especially in October beans and orange juice futures, in brisk trading around the globe due to uncertainties about the upcoming growing season…

Nick felt someone tugging at his arm. Reluctantly, he turned away from the hole to face one of the Park cops.

"You Dr. Quinn?" the guy said, shouting over the rattle and roar of the generators.

"Yeah. What's up?"

"Got a priest back in the crowd says you asked him here to say some prayers."

"Priest?" Nick said, baffled. "I didn't ask for any—" And then he knew. He almost laughed in the cop's face. "Oh, yeah. I've been waiting for him. Can you bring him over?"

The cop turned and waved to someone along the barricade. Nick saw a lone figure in black break from the crowd and approach at a quick walk.

He shook Father Bill's hand when he arrived. He'd seen the priest a couple of times since his return from North Carolina but still couldn't get used to how he'd aged during his five years in hiding. Before he disappeared, Nick had got to the point where he'd been calling the priest simply "Bill," but since his return he'd fallen back into the practice of prefixing the name with "Father." He pointed to the cassock and Roman collar.