The Presence (22 page)

Katharine gazed at him, trying to absorb the full implication of the report on the screen. “But that means—”

She stopped, leaving it to the astronomer to finish her thought.

“If I’m right,” Howell finally said, “it means there was someone out there.”

“If
you’re right?” Katharine echoed. “You just said the only explanation—”

“I said, it’s
one
explanation,” Howell interrupted. “And certainly my favorite,” he went on, a wry smile twisting his lips, “since finding someone out there would make me the most famous astronomer on the planet. But unfortunately I have a feeling there are about a hundred other explanations, all of them far more probable than what I just told you.” His eyes returned to the computer monitor. “Look, don’t say anything about this to anyone else, okay? There’s not much chance I’m right, and the opposite of being known as the most famous astronomer on the planet is being known as the stupidest. Okay?”

“But if you’re right—” Katharine began, and again the astronomer interrupted her.

“If I’m right, you can testify that you were here when the discovery was made. But I’d just as soon prove it first before talking about it.” He looked up at her. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Katharine agreed.

Another soft electronic signal sounded, and both of
them looked back at the monitor to see that another window had opened in the lower right quadrant of the screen Howell had been studying.

“Well, look at that,” he said. “This morning we both get results.”

Katharine studied the two file names that appeared in the box, both of them stark in their simplicity.

Skull.jpg

Video.avi.

Both of them were annotated with their domain of origin, which was listed as
mishimoto.com.

“I’m almost sure the file names were a lot longer than these,” Katharine said. “It’s as though the computer looked for names that matched what I saw, instead of content.”

Phil Howell shook his head. “You said there was a link on the page with the skull that took you to the video. The file name you saw was probably the one for the page that contained the graphic of the skull, and the link. These would be the files themselves.”

“But how do I find the files themselves?”

“Go back to Rob Silver’s office,” the astronomer told her. “Mishimoto is the name of Takeo Yoshihara’s company, which should mean that mishimoto dot com is the name of his private domain for e-mail purposes. Which means that those files are somewhere on one of Takeo Yoshihara’s own computers.”

“Can you find them from here?”

Howell shrugged. “Maybe, if I were an expert hacker. But it shouldn’t be too hard to find them from Rob’s office, since he’s already inside Yoshihara’s network. As for me, I’m going back to work on my signal. And remember,” he added, nodding toward the computer screen
that was still displaying the results of his own search. “Not a word about this. Please?”

“Not even a hint,” Katharine promised. “And thanks for helping me out. If I find anything, believe me, I’ll let you know.”

“Great,” Howell replied. But by the time Katharine was back in her car less than a minute later, the astronomer had already dismissed the two files from his mind. To him, the strange radio signal from a star fifteen million light-years away was far more interesting than any image of an earthbound skull could ever be.

He was back in the cane field.

The fire was crackling around him, and though he could see no flames, its glow suffused the darkness with a reddish tinge.

He could feel it, creeping toward him from every direction. It was as if he were encircled by hunters so sure of their kill that they no longer felt any need to conceal their presence with silence.

Despite the approaching hunters, he was unafraid.

He could smell the first tendrils of smoke as they slithered into his nostrils and down his throat to his lungs.

But it didn’t smell like smoke—not quite.

Smoke had always made him choke, made his eyes sting and run, left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He breathed deeply of it, drawing it into his lungs as if it were fresh salt air blowing in from the sea on the trade winds. As it flowed into his body, he felt something he’d never experienced before, an exuberance, an exultation that infused his body with a strength and well-being that made him feel invincible.

The crackling of the fire grew louder, but he could hear something else now. A strange moaning sound, as if someone were in great pain. No, not a moaning, but the
whoosh and crackle of the fire, gaining strength as it swept through the cane field, feeding on everything in its path, building on itself. It was like a living force now, rampaging across the earth, creating a great swirling, howling upward draft that sucked every molecule of air in from the surrounding area to feed the growing monster, huge now and continuing to grow, continuing to spread.

Yet still he couldn’t see the flames.

Then, at last, they came.

Only glimpses at first, barely visible flickerings of orange, like the exploring tongues of serpents, poking through the dense thicket of cane that surrounded him.

He felt the first warmth of the fire on his skin, but it was like no fire he’d ever felt before.

This fire seemed to fuel him, to impart its strength to him rather than consume him. Then, as he felt his own being thrive upon the closeness of the throbbing monster’s breath, the foliage around him began to quail before the beast. Everywhere he looked, the leaves and stalks withered before the advancing heat, then burst into flames as they succumbed to the rampaging marauder.

The tendrils of smoke thickened into the bodies of serpents, winding around his body, wrapping him tightly in their coils, but instead of struggling against their grasp, he reveled in the sensation, drawing as much vitality from the tightening spirals of smoke as from the fire itself.

The howling of the maelstrom filled his ears, and the darkness of the night was banished by the shower of embers exploding from the field. Smoke and flame intertwined, whirling around him like a living being.

Entranced, he reached out as if to gather the force of the firestorm to him, and a great cry of ecstasy rose from his throat.

He was no longer the hunted, but now, becoming as one with the inferno around him, he felt the spirit of the fire itself enter his soul.

He stretched to his full height, his legs spread, his arms flung out, and the cry of the hunter bellowed up from the core of his being.…

Jeff Kina’s whole body jerked spasmodically in response to the shout that issued from him and yanked him from the thrall of the dream. Yet as he came awake, the dream stayed with him. The fire’s heat he’d felt only a moment ago was gone, but the smoke was not. The second he opened his eyes, he could see it swirling around him, a gray-brown fog so thick he instinctively closed his eyes against it.

He lay still, his eyes clamped shut, his heart pounding, but no longer from the exultation of the dream.

Now it was pounding with fear.

The dream had been so real, it was exactly as if he’d been back in the cane field, back in the vortex of the fire, just before the men from the yellow truck had grabbed him, and Josh Malani had taken off in his pickup.

In those few seconds—those few moments while he’d stood next to Josh’s truck—he’d felt different than he’d ever felt before in his life.

Part of it had been the fire itself. There had been something about the way the flames ebbed and flowed and danced together that reached into his mind, touched something deep inside him, made him feel almost as if he’d been hypnotized. And as the smoke had filled his nostrils, he’d felt something else.

The restlessness that had plagued him all evening disappeared, and his whole body tingled exactly as it did
when he was finished with his warm-ups at a track meet and ready to run a race.

Then the men from the yellow truck were on him, yelling at him, grabbing him, trying to drag him away from the fire.

He was bigger than they were—much bigger—and his right arm had come up, jerking loose from the hands of one of the men so his fist could plunge into the face of the other. Now, his eyes still closed, he remembered the blood that spurted from the man’s nose, the look of surprise that came into his eyes, and the man’s enraged shout.

But after that, everything was confused. Lights had hit him in the eyes, brilliant halogen lamps that blinded him as thoroughly as if someone had thrown a bag over his head.

After that, his memories were nothing more than impressions.

More lights.

The sound of engines; voices yelling.

Suddenly, more hands were on him, and he was on the ground, pinned down by someone on his chest, someone else on his legs.

Something was pressed over his face, and he struggled to turn his head away, but couldn’t.

Blackness had begun closing around him, and he’d known he was dying.

But now he was awake, and he was not dead.

He lay perfectly still, listening.

He could hear sounds he’d never heard before.

His own heartbeat, pumping blood through his veins. Though he knew it wasn’t possible, he even imagined he heard the sound of his blood itself, whooshing softly as it
coursed through his arteries, the sound changing with every contraction of the chambers of his heart.

He took an inventory of his body, testing every muscle, but moving each of them so slightly as to appear utterly immobile.

Nothing was broken; nothing even hurt.

And he was naked.

He turned his attention away from his own body to the environment around him. Though his eyes were still closed, he could sense there were walls around him, very close by.

And he was alone.

The air around him was moving, and unfamiliar scents were wafting through his nostrils.

Not unpleasant scents, but unfamiliar ones.

At last he opened his right eye—no more than a fraction of an inch—the movement so perfectly executed that no observer could have seen the slight flicker.

Fog.

The same brown fog.

But not fog, for he felt nothing of the cool dampness of fog against his skin.

His eye moved beneath its hooded lid, scanning the area around him, though he was far too uncertain of where he was or what might be nearby to betray himself by any but the slightest movement.

He saw nothing.

He opened both his eyes then, opened them wide, the lids snapping open in an unblinking stare.

He gazed straight ahead, his mind analyzing the data his eyes and ears and nose were gathering, searching for an as-yet-unnoticed enemy that might be lurking in the miasma.

Why didn’t his eyes hurt?

Why weren’t they stinging from the smoky haze, and streaming with tears?

Why wasn’t he coughing and choking on the fumes that swirled around him?

No answer came to him.

He lay inert, only his eyes moving, flicking first in one direction, then in another.

Nothing he saw, nothing he heard, nothing he smelled, betrayed the presence of any other living thing.

Yet he was being watched.

He could feel it with a certain knowledge he’d never experienced before. Despite the evidence of his eyes, and his ears, and his nose, his skin was tingling and his nerves were on edge.

Then he saw it.

Far up, above him, and off to the right.

A camera.

He turned his head to it, staring straight into its lens like a wolf staring into the telescopic sight of a gun.

His eyes never leaving the camera, Jeff Kina slowly gathered himself into a crouch, every movement so subtle and smooth it was barely perceptible.

Had he been in a field of tall grass, barely a blade would have stirred.

He froze, his eyes fixed on the camera, waiting.

Then he sprang, launching himself from the floor on which he lay, his body extending with the grace of a leaping cat, his arms stretching outward as his hands reached for the camera, his legs extending behind him as they hurled his huge frame upward.

And in a split second he slammed against an unseen barrier.

A grunt escaping his lips, he fell back to the floor, pain shooting through his right hip and his left knee as they struck hard against the surface of the tile beneath him.

He lay still, waiting for the pain to ease, then slowly got to his feet and began moving cautiously, his hands and fingers reaching out to explore the strange surroundings.

He was in a box.

A large box, transparent, not cold to the touch.

Plexiglas.

The thick gray-brown fog that swirled around him had kept him from seeing it before, but now, as he made his way around its perimeter for the second time, he could see it as well as feel it.

He was trapped, imprisoned in the box, which seemed to have no entry or exit, except for two vents through which the foglike atmosphere swirled, and a small air Jock, with a door on each side.

He could open the inner door, but not the outer one.

He was imprisoned, like a wild animal.

And to the men who watched the image the camera above him was capturing, a wild animal was exactly what he appeared to be.

A feral creature, pacing the confines of its cage.

Michael was just closing his locker before going to the cafeteria for lunch when he heard the voice behind him.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get scared.”

Michael didn’t need to be told what Rick Pieper was talking about; he’d been growing more and more worried himself all morning, ever since Josh had not turned up at the break after second period, and even after hearing the radio report of Jeff’s disappearance, he’d still half expected to see the big Hawaiian under the banyan tree
where the rest of the track team hung out. But when Jeff failed to appear … “Did you try to call Jeff?” he asked as they started toward the cafeteria.

Rick nodded. “I talked to his mom just before third period. She said he went out around nine last night and didn’t come home. She said she called the cops around four in the morning.”