Rushed (12 page)

“Yeah, I definitely took the boat.” 

“So now what are you going to do?”

That was a damn good question.  He returned to the dock and peered off into the water.  A pair of ducks swam lazily near the shore to the right.  Farther away, he spied a second pair.  But there was not another dock within sight.  No more boats.  No way forward.  He was confident he couldn’t swim across.  “No way forward but by sea and nary a dinghy to me name.”

“Yar.  Seems ye be screwed.” 

“Yar indeed.” 

Eric sighed.  He really wished he could catch a break.  His heart really wasn’t into this right now. 

“You okay?”

“No.”

“Come on.  You can figure this out.  Isn’t there anything in the dream that can help you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You said Grant, Taylor and Annette all acted like they expected you, like they
knew
you were going to be there.  If they aren’t entirely crazy—and you’ve sent me
pictures
that prove there’s
something
to what they say—then there must be some kind of force out there behind everything you’re doing.  I mean, maybe it’s God.  For all we know.  That force,
whatever
it is, must have known that you might run late and that the foggy man would beat you there.  Doesn’t that make sense?”

“Sort of…”

“Then I can’t imagine a force that wise and powerful wouldn’t see this happening.  There’s got to be another way.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“You.”

“Well, I do hate it when you’re down on yourself.”

Eric smiled.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m going to hang up and see if I can work this thing out.”

“That’s my guy.”

Eric disconnected the call and stared off the end of the dock for a moment, trying to recall every detail of the dream. 

Karen was right.  Something was out there, some greater force watching over everything.  There had to be.  These things were not merely random, after all.  They had obviously been set in motion long ago.  And this was not the kind of problem that should have gone overlooked by such a power. 

And yet, that meant that this greater force had also foreseen that he would meet and then lose Isabelle. 

He closed his eyes and forced her from his mind.  He couldn’t let himself dwell on that now.  Later.  He would think about her like she deserved
later
.  Right now, he had a problem to solve. 

Opening his eyes again and gazing down at the water where the boat should have been, he could remember every detail of it.  It was an ordinary johnboat, green where the paint was still visible.  It had only a small trolling motor that was a pain in the ass to start, but it worked. 

He remembered pulling away from the shore, using his cell phone for a compass.  It let him stay in this world and not drift into the other one. 

He recalled looking back toward the dock, half-expecting the boat’s owner to come running out of the woods, shouting at him.  But no one was there.  It had been silent.  The entire shore had been peaceful that night. 

The entire shore…

Now he remembered. 

He’d scanned the lakeshore up and down as he moved away from the dock.  It was about a hundred and fifty yards to the right, which would be his left as he stood on the dock looking out at where he would have been in the dream, looking back.  It had been dragged up onto the shore, half-hidden in the brush.  Another boat.  Smaller than the one that had been tied at the dock, and much older, with no motor. 

Any other time, he would have assumed that such a boat would be useless, its bottom likely rusted out, incapable of holding his weight.  But if he was right…  If
Karen
was right (and how often was she wrong, really?), then that boat was for
him
. 

Just in case. 

Maybe it’s God
, Karen had said… 

Eric felt a chill creep through his body. 

Shaking it off, he turned away from the lake and frowned.  Retrieving that other boat was going to be tricky.  For one thing, he’d already determined that the path leading over there was sunk into that gray zone between here and the other world.  That meant leaving the path, which Grant specifically told him not to do. 

He crossed the small clearing and followed the path into the trees.  He watched the signal on his cell phone sputter and die in the space of just two steps and then tucked it back into his pocket as he searched the trees around him. 

Though the sun still shone brightly overhead, the shade here was deep and cool.  The air had a completely different quality.  There was a subtle reek that might have been nothing more than a dead fish somewhere along the bank or it might have been a small taste of whatever foul atmosphere blanketed that other world. 

How easy would it be to step off the edge and be lost forever? 

The very idea was dreadful.

Less than fifty yards from the clearing, the normal sounds of the woods were lost and an eerie silence overcame the area.  The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he became acutely sure that he was not alone out here. 

Somewhere in the trees, something rustled.  He thought he heard a branch snap, a whisper of a footstep in the leaves. 

He tried to tell himself it was only his imagination, but his experiences so far today had all been powerful examples of why he should never dismiss anything as only a fabrication of his mind. 

Yet he somehow managed to make it all the way to the boat without being mauled or disemboweled or viciously leg-humped by something from another world. 

The path did not pass directly by the boat.  A thicket of brush stood between him and it, effectively hiding it from view except from the perspective of another watercraft, making him wonder once more if it might have been left here specifically for him to find.

Pushing through this brush, he considered how he was going to proceed once he reached the boat.  The easiest way would be to simply push it right into the water and climb inside.  But sometimes the easy way was also the wrong way.  He had no idea where the gray area ended and the other world took over.  It was too easy to imagine pushing away from the shore and making his way back toward the dock, only to find himself hopelessly adrift in that dark and hostile world, never to return. 

But then again, dragging the boat through this dense brush and then back along the path to the dock did not seem like a reasonable solution, either. 

Arriving at the boat, he peered inside.  The bottom was badly rusted.  Given a choice, he would not have risked it.  But he wasn’t left with a lot of options. 

At least it actually
had
a bottom. 

Something rustled loudly in the branches of a nearby tree and Eric looked up in time to see a large, ape-like shape settle there. 

Chapter Fourteen

Covered in shaggy red fur, it looked a little like an orangutan except for its enormous hands and ghastly face.  The moment he met its crazed, yellow eyes, it exposed a ghastly mouthful of massive teeth and uttered the most terrifying shriek he had ever heard in his life (which, given the events of only the past few hours, was actually saying something). 

The question of whether it would be better to backtrack with the boat and launch it from the dock or simply cast off from where it sat became utterly moot.  So did any concern he had about the seaworthiness of the craft.  Taking hold of the port side, he shoved it backward into the water and threw himself into it as the Stephen King equivalent of Curious George dropped from its branch and came loping after him, shrieking insanely. 

Managing somehow to position himself upright in the boat without capsizing it, he immediately realized that there were no oars with which to row to safety.  Swearing loudly, Eric turned and plunged his right arm into the water, splashing wildly in an effort to make the boat move. 

Meanwhile, Furious George continued his noisy tantrum.  Long arms flailing wildly, massive teeth exposed, the angry creature charged out into the water, splashing and shrieking.

Eric didn’t seem to be going anywhere.  The boat began to turn lazily, slowly spinning in a circle as if utterly unconcerned about the angry monkey that apparently wanted to eat its passenger. 

But even as Eric began to realize the futility of his crazed paddling, he also noticed that the creature refused to follow him any farther than a few feet from the shore.  Peering back over the side of the boat, Eric realized that the thing did not seem able—or at least particularly willing—to swim, which was a stroke of amazing luck since it turned out that he made a lousy propulsion system for a boat. 

Somehow managing to point the bow toward the dock while keeping one eye on his angry, hairy friend, he allowed himself a moment to ponder the best route forward.  He considered removing his shoe and using it as an oar.  They were
already
soaked from his awkward boarding of the boat as he scrambled to escape the creature.  But he decided that they wouldn’t offer much more surface area for pushing the water than did the palms of his hands. 

He also evaluated the boat, noting that it
did
seem to be taking on water, but not catastrophically.  He could probably keep it afloat indefinitely as long as he took a moment now and then to bail the vessel. 

Furious George, still shrieking, turned and splashed back up onto the shore again, apparently having determined that he had made his point. 

Relieved to see the beast leave, Eric bent over and paddled on one side of the boat and then the other, gradually pushing himself toward the dock.  He was concentrating on this task when something heavy clanged against the side of the boat.  Looking up again, Eric watched as George picked up a second rock and hurled it at him, this time striking the surface of the water three feet in front of him. 

A third sailed over his head. 

“Hey!” he shouted.

George didn’t seem terribly fazed by this exclamation.  He picked up a larger stone this time and bounced it off the side of the boat.

Eric swore loudly and paddled faster. 

Another rock landed loudly inside the boat in front of him. 

“Knock it off!” he yelled.  The words were barely out of his mouth before he felt the next rock sting his right knee and he fired off a particularly insulting insinuation about the ape’s parentage. 

The creature threw its hands in the air and shrieked at him again, showing him all of its awful teeth.  They were huge.  He couldn’t quite fathom how they all fit in the damn thing’s mouth.  It didn’t seem possible. 

Swallowing those enormous teeth back into its mouth, the hateful thing snatched up another stone and sent it hurdling straight at Eric’s face. 

He threw his arms up to shield himself and felt it bounce off his right elbow with a sharp sting. 

“Don’t make me come over there and kick your ass!”

George was so terrified that he chucked an even larger rock.  Luckily, it fell short. 

Apparently, he wasn’t going to talk his way out of this mess.  Keeping one eye on the creature to watch for incoming headshots, Eric continued paddling, now trying to aim the boat farther from the shoreline.  Twice he had to duck incoming stones, but for the most part George turned out to be a terrible pitcher. 

He did not fail to appreciate how lucky he was. 

When he’d moved far enough out into the lake that none of the thrown rocks reached the boat, the beast threw its huge hands up and shrieked at him again. 

Eric replied by showing him both his middle fingers and suggesting that it should copulate with itself. 

It was important to occasionally vent one’s frustrations.  It was healthy. 

Remembering his phone, he quickly pulled it out, checked that it was still dry and snapped a picture of the beast.  A pissed-off monkey was going to go great in his scrapbook with the mutant livestock and big-headed coyote-deer. 

He returned the phone to his pocket and resumed paddling.  Slowly, he made his way back to the dock, ignoring the primal shrieks from the shoreline. 

He would have liked to have tied the boat off at the dock and gone in search of something to use as an oar, but he didn’t dare return to the shore for fear that Furious George might still be sore about his impolite language.  He suspected that it might not be able to come all the way into this world.  Otherwise, what kept it from attacking him before he went searching for the boat?  What kept it from wandering into the nearest town and terrifying the locals?  Or climbing the nearest water tower and swatting at passing airplanes?  But he didn’t dare make any assumptions. 

Deciding it was better to not take any chances, Eric resigned himself to making do with only his hands to paddle the boat. 

Using his dream as a guide and frequently checking the phone to make sure he hadn’t drifted into that other place, he slowly crept across the surface of the lake. 

When his arms had grown sufficiently tired and while he was still much closer to the dock than the far side of the lake, he decided to take a break.  He sent his picture of George to Karen and waited for her to call him, which only took a couple minutes. 

He let her know that she was right, that once he accepted that there must be a solution to the problem, he was able to find one. 

Karen was happy to have helped (and even happier, he suspected, to be right).  She was also disturbed by the nasty monkey.  “That is one ugly primate,” she declared. 

“It had an even uglier disposition.”

“So where are you now?”

“Out on the lake.”

“Still?”

“It’s slow going with no oars.”

“I’ll bet.”

“And I have to stop occasionally to bail water.”

“That’s not good.”

“No.  But it’s a slow leak.  I think I can stay ahead of it.” 

“Any idea yet where you’re headed?”

“I remember crossing the lake.  I still can’t recall where I ended up.”

“Well at least you’re on the right track.”

“Hopefully my new monkey friend isn’t waiting for me on the other side.”

“That would suck.”

“It would.  And he’d probably have enough time to beat me there, too.  In the dream, my boat had a motor.”

“Dream You gets all the breaks.”

“He really does.  He was always much more popular than me in high school, too.”

Eric wiped the sweat from his brow.  It had been hot most of the day, but it was particularly hot out here in this boat, with the sun beating down on him.  He bent over the side and began to paddle again as he talked.  At least the water was cool on his skin. 

“By the way, I did an internet search for ‘Gold Sunshine Resort’ while I was waiting for you to finish trading insults with your monkey.”

“He
so
started it.”

“I couldn’t find any news reports or anything,” she continued, “but I did find a missing persons report for an Isabelle Albin.” 

Isabelle…

“Says she went missing from Gold Sunshine Resort in nineteen-seventy-
eight at the age of thirteen.  That’s really sad.”

“Is there a picture?”

“There is.”

“I have a picture, too.”

“You do?”

“I snapped it while we were waiting for Altrusk and his devil house to calm down so we could make a run for it.”

“There’s something you don’t hear every day.”

“It’s a day of firsts all around.”

“It is.  Send me the picture.  I want to see.”

Eric hung up and sent her the picture.  In just a few seconds the phone rang again. 

“That is just freaky!”

“Same girl?”  As if he really needed to ask.

“It is.  I can’t believe it.  This is totally nuts.” 

“That’s just the kind of day I’m having.”

“Crazy,” she said again.  “I can’t believe she’s been there this whole time.”

“I know.” 

“Wow.”

“Did you find anything about Isaac Altrusk?”

“I didn’t.  I should look for him.”

“Isabelle said it was a fake name.  He was a con artist before he became…whatever he is now.”  Eric recalled Isabelle telling him that he used to be Isaac Altrusk, but now he was just
Altrusk
.  Her words were no less creepy now than they were then. 

“I’ll see if I can find anything.  You keep that boat on top of the water.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” 

“Bye.”

Eric pocketed the phone and resumed his paddling.  A full minute had not passed before the phone rang and he had to stop again to answer it.  This time it was Paul.

“Hey.  I just turned off the Interstate down here, looking for your Cruiser.”

“That was fast.”

“I finished early.  I brought Kevin to drive my truck back.”  Kevin was Paul’s nineteen-year-old son. 

“Thanks a lot.  I appreciate it.”

“Sure thing.  What’s going on, anyway, where are you?”

He considered lying, but he didn’t see the point.  “I’m in a leaky old boat, trying to make my way across a lake without any oars.”

“Okay…” said Paul.  “That’s…um… 
Okay
.  So you’re okay, then?  Doing all right?”

“Yeah.  Just tiring.  Hard to row with your hands.”

“Have you tried using your shoes?”

“Thought about it.  But a shoe doesn’t have much more surface area than your hand, when you think about it.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” 

Eric smiled.  It was always fun tripping up his brother.  Thinking of Isabelle, he asked, “So you think I’m completely bugshit yet?”

“I wouldn’t say
completely
.  Yet.”

“What did Karen tell you?”

“Just about the dream.”

“It was more than a dream.  It was all real.”

“Real, huh?”

“Yeah.  Everything’s coming back to me.  And then some.  You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen today.  I don’t even know where to start.  The mutant livestock.  The wardrobe monster.  The nudist resort.  I was almost eaten by a goddamn
house
!”

“
Nudist
resort?”

“Really?  All those things I just said and
that’s
what you want to hear about?”

“I’ve never been to a nudist resort,” Paul pouted.

In the background, Eric heard Kevin announce that
he
wanted to check out the nudist resort.

“You’d make an awful nudist,” Paul affectionately informed his son.

Eric heard Kevin point out that nobody would want to see Paul’s fat ass naked, either.

“It’s been abandoned since the seventies,” Eric said.

“Bummer.”

“You don’t believe a word I’m saying, do you?”

“I believe something’s going on,” Paul assured him. 

“Right.  Well then, hang up.”

“What?”

“Hang up.  I’ve got something I want to send you.”

“Okay…”

Eric disconnected the call and located his picture of the ape creature.  He sent it to Paul’s phone and then resumed paddling while he waited for him to call back.  It didn’t take long. 

“Hello?”

“What the hell is that thing?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I just barely got into this boat before it tore my face off.”

“That’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen!”

In the background, he heard Kevin exclaim something about the thing’s wicked-looking teeth using more expletives than strictly necessary. 

“I wish I could tell you it’s the freakiest thing
I’ve
ever seen, but this guy’s not even close to the same level of freak as Altrusk.”