Bentley Little - The Walking

Fred Tunney awoke in the middle of the night to see a woman at the foot of his bed, a beautiful woman with long straight black hair, a perfect smile, and the most evil eyes he had ever beheld.

He knew instantly who she was, and he said her name, though he had never before met her, had never before seen her and had only heard about her from his parents.

Her smile grew wider and the smile, he saw, was evil too. He was frightened, of course, and surprised, but this had not come entirely out of the blue. For the past several months, he'd been dreaming about the old days, about the town, about magic, and about a wall of water that he could not escape and that bore down on him as his feet remained cemented to the floor of his bedroom. Now she was here.

His parents had always feared this would happen, and no matter how far they had run, the specter of the town and the curse had followed them, had hung over everything they'd done. He himself had never believed any of it, had thought they were overreacting, but he had been only a child when they left the town, and obviously they had possessed knowledge he had not.

He knew that now.

Fred sat up against the headboard, not taking his eyes

Off the woman. He could feel the power radiating from her, washing over him in waves that were the sensory equivalent of darkness. He was chilled to the bone, afraid in a way that he had never thought possible. She spoke his name. i "Fred." :

The fact that she knew who he was terrified him even more, and he pulled his knees up, preparing to throw off the covers and run like hell out of the room.

She was too fast for him, though. In one fluid movement she was around the side of the bed and next to him, cutting off his avenue of escape.

He could feel the coldness coming off her, and he looked up, into those horrify evil eyes, and he knew that he was only the latest victim. She was coming for all of them, one at a time, coming after all of the residents of the town, all of the residents who had escaped.

Her smile broadened as if in acknowledgment, and in a flash of insight that came from somewhere other than himself, he understood that. she was not just coming for them. She was after the builders, too. All of the government people who'd worked on the project.

A thought intruded on his mind. No, not a thought. An image. A headless body lying in a watery tomb. "Fred," she said again. And reached for him.

He tried to call on his powers, tried to right her off, but it had been too long and he had forgotten how. She only smiled at his attempts, mocking them. So he tried to attack her physically, kicking off his blanket, kicking out at her, but despite her apparent solidity, she was not really there. She was a shade, a projection, and he understood suddenly why she had come.

She wanted him to get her out.

She wanted him to help resurrect her.

As soon as the knowledge came, it was accompanied by the certainty that he was going to die.

He tried to run through her, toward the door, toward the hallway outside and freedom. While she was not solid, she had substance. It was as if he hit a wall of ice, and the impact was accompanied by a feeling of deep, dark despair so powerful that it sent him staggering back to the bed.

The expression on her face altered. Her features did not change in any way, did not become monstrous or deformed, but they did not have to. The look on her face was so malevolent, so unlike anything he had ever seen before or even imagined, that he felt his heart leap inside his chest. i Felt the coldness nestle around it

Felt the pain spread through his left side as he fell to the floor gasping, trying to breathe.

He was having a heart attack. She stood there, look thing down at him, watching as excruciating pain spread throughout his body, as the tears came to his eyes and the agony was replaced by an even worse numbness.

She faded away silently, smiling, leaving behind only a cold spot in a room that was growing increasingly dark to him.

Gasping, he tried to move, tried to sit up, tried to reach the phone on the nightstand, but the pain was unbearable, and he could not even move his arm.

The world turned black, disappeared.

He died.

And then he started walking.

Russ Winston stared out of his office window toward the mall, the white phallic spire of the Washington Monument just barely visible over the top of the generic government

building across the street. Outside, the sky was clear blue and cloudless, the January air cool and crisp. On days like today he regretted ever having taken a des job. He wished he had not allowed himself to be promoted through the ranks of the department and was still working outside. Back at Yellowstone, perhaps. Or Arches. Or Zion.

No. --= Not Wolf Canyon. Anyplace but there.

An involuntary shiver passed through him, and he swiveled his chair, looking away from the window. He was too old for the outdoors now anyway. Hell, he was too old for the job he had. Retirement age had come and gone two presidents ago, and he was lucky to have enough pull in the department to be able to remain on even in this position.

Russ looked at the framed photo of the president mounted on the opposite wall. He tried to think of something else, but he no longer had the control of his thoughts that he once had, and against his will, his mind kept coming back to Wolf Canyon.

It had been his first government job. His previous experience had been in construction and cement contracting, and because of that heed been assigned to one of the big dam projects out West. He'd worked there for nearly a decade, moving up the on-site hierarchy through aptitude and a series of fortuitous friendships to the position of shift supervisor.

' They were damming the Rio Verde at the foot of Wolf Canyon. Another, smaller dam had been constructed twenty miles up the river, at the canyon's head, some twenty years before, but it was determined that the reservoir would not be sufficient for Arizona's needs even ten years hence. Another, much bigger dam was needed, one that could also be used to generate electricity for the town of Rio Verde and

the other desert communities spread out across this portion of the state. So the river was diverted, its output cut back to a mere trickle while they completed the project.

There was a town in the canyon between the two dams, a small remote community that had to be evacuated under eminent domain, and the residents screamed bloody murder about being moved, lodging complaint after complaint in Washington, being granted extension after extension, though the outcome of this battle was already a foregone conclusion.

But other than that, it had been smooth sailing, and Russ had enjoyed his dam days. He liked the warm western sun, liked the rugged landscape, liked the easy camaraderie he shared with the other workers.

Only afterward, after it had happened, after it was all over, had his perspective changed.

Then the horror set in.

He had spent the rest of his life denying what had occurred, avoiding any thought of it, and while he had remained in the West for most of his career, even when he transferred to Interior, he had never again gone back to Arizona. Not even to see the Grand Canyon.

He preferred to block out that part of his life.

But he had been thinking about Wolf Canyon more and more often lately.

He told himself that it was because he was getting old, because he was surveying his life and trying to sort through it, the good and the bad, to see how the balance sheet of his actions added up. That was a part of it, of course. But something else was involved as well. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

And that worried him.

On the way home from work, Russ stopped off at the market and bought a quart of chocolate milk for Cameron. His grandson had seemed somewhat down this past week, and he knew it was because the boy sensed that they would soon be leaving. His father was working again, and it was