Nightmare City (22 page)

The next day was a Sunday. In the afternoon after church, Burt took him to the park and pitched to him. He gave him some tips on his swing, told him how to choke up late in the count. After about an hour, Tom could tell that the lesson had worked. He was whacking the ball better than he ever had, hitting solid singles right over Burt’s head, plus a couple of blasts that would have definitely earned him extra bases in a real game.

“You can be a big hitter if you work at it,” Burt said as
they walked home from the park. The light of the long day was dying as the sun went down toward the ocean.

Tom shrugged. “We play in school sometimes, but it’s not much fun.”

“What do you mean?” Burt asked, surprised. “You don’t like baseball?”

“Not the way Mrs. Lerner plays it. She won’t let us keep score.”

“Oh yeah,” said Burt with a laugh, “I remember Mrs. Lerner.” He did a comical, high-pitched Mrs. Lerner voice that made Tom laugh, too. “‘It doesn’t matter who wins, children. If you don’t try to win, you won’t feel bad when you lose.’”

“That’s her, all right,” said Tom. “She makes the game boring.”

“Well, yeah. ’Cause, I mean, that’s what a game is all about, right? It’s about trying to win. When you’re in a game, you should try to win with everything you’ve got or else there’s no point in playing. You just have to play the bigger game at the same time, that’s all.”

“What do you mean? What bigger game?”

“Well, let’s say you’re playing baseball, right? You want to win, right? You want to win more than anything in the world.”

Tom nodded. That was the way he felt, no matter what Mrs. Lerner said. No matter what Mrs. Lerner said, he was always keeping score in his head, trying to win.

“So you play as hard as you can,” Burt went on. “You practice. You get excellent. You work. You sweat. You play and try to win with everything you have in you.”

“Right.”

“But do you cheat?”

Tom laughed again. “No.”

“Well, why not?” said Burt, giving his eleven-year-old little brother a friendly clap on the back of the head. “I thought you wanted to win more than anything in the world.”

“I do.”

“So why don’t you cheat, if that’s what it takes to win?”

Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. ’Cause I don’t want to be a cheater, that’s why.”

“Exactly. God didn’t make you to be a cheater. He made you to be the most excellent Tom Harding–type guy in the universe. Being that guy he made you—that’s the bigger game. So you play to win the game of baseball with everything you got, but if you lose . . .” He shrugged. “You feel bad for a while, but so what? Feelings are just feelings. The important thing is you keep working at being the excellent Tom Harding. Then even when you lose, even when you feel bad for a while, you can feel good, too, because you’re still winning the bigger game.”

They walked home the rest of the way in silence, as the light continued to die and the air turned a deeper blue and the first stars began to shine.

29.

T
om’s eyes fluttered open. At first he saw nothing but a blurred darkness. Then the indigo evening world swam into focus. He saw the sky. He saw the charred timbers of the chapel ceiling. The blackened walls. He remembered.

The monastery. Dr. Cameron. He’d been shot. He was dying.

Already he didn’t have the strength to move. He didn’t even have the strength to breathe. He could almost feel his
life draining out of him—just as his blood was draining out of him, spreading around him over the chapel floor.

He let his eyes fall closed. He lay still, waiting for the end.
At least it doesn’t hurt
, he thought. He didn’t even feel scared or sorry. He was just tired, that’s all. He just wanted it all to end.

Dear God
, he thought in a farewell prayer,
please comfort my mother. Please give her strength
.

A sunset wind moved over him. It felt refreshing on his face. He heard it whisper in the burned-out branches around him. In his fogged mind, it almost sounded like a voice.

With an effort he opened his eyes again. Was someone there with him in the dusk? Yes. Someone was standing above him, looking down at him. Tom squinted, trying to see through the gloom. Then he realized: no. It was just that painting on the wall. Those painted eyes with the line of blood trickling down beside them.

The eyes gazed at him with enormous sorrow and compassion. Tom tried to smile at them.

Bad day
, he thought up at them.
It seems I’ve been murdered
.

Yes
, the eyes responded at once.
That happens sometimes when you insist on telling the
truth. People don’t always appreciate
it
.

Tom nodded slightly. He wondered whose voice that was.
Was it Burt’s? It sounded a little like Burt. Maybe that’s why there was blood on him. From where the sniper got him.

It’s not so bad really
, Tom told the eyes.
Maybe I’ll get to see you in heaven
.

But when the eyes spoke again, the voice sounded more like Lisa’s voice than Burt’s.

The road to heaven isn’t death, Tommy. It’s life
.

Tom peered up at the eyes through the darkness. His consciousness fading, he thought he saw the whole painting restored in its frame: Christ crucified, the rivulets of blood streaming down from under his crown of thorns.

But
you
died
, Tom said to him. You
died and went to heaven
.

No
, the eyes answered, sounding more like Burt again.
I lived. That’s the whole point. I
lived
. And now you have to live, Tom
.

Tom did not think there was any energy left inside him, any strength with which he could feel anything. But at the words that came down to him from the painting on the wall, he felt something inside him tremble and break open. He felt something rush out of his center and spread through the rest of him, something dark and heavy that he had been keeping inside, keeping secret, secret even from himself, for a long time.

I can’t live!
he confessed to the painting.
That’s the truth.

I don’t know how to live anymore!
He gazed up desperately into the compassionate eyes and his whole soul cried out to them:
I don’t know how to live! I’m so sad! I lost my brother! I’ve lost all my friends! I’ve lost my girl! My heart is broken! I don’t care if I die! I
want
to die! I don’t know how to live anymore!

Tom thought the eyes would grow stern and angry now. He thought they would flash like lightning. What a horrible thing to think, after all.
I want
to
die
. What an awful thing.

But the eyes, gazing back at him with all his own pain inside them, said only,
Remember the Warrior. Play the bigger game
. Tom did not know whose voice this was anymore. Lisa’s or Burt’s or some other’s or all of them together.
That’s what I was trying to tell you
, it went on
. That’s your mission. Live. And don’t
just
live. Live in joy. Even in your sorrow, Tom, live in joy. That’s what I made you for. Remember the Warrior. Play the bigger game
.

As he grew weaker, Tom’s eyes sank shut again. But strangely, he felt relieved. He felt better. He had told the eyes the worst thing in his heart, and the eyes had not condemned him. Not at all. And really, he knew they were right. Deep down, he did want to live. Even with Burt gone, even with everything that had happened, he wanted to feel joy again. It was just that he was so weak, so tired . . .

Something touched his face. Something cold. Wet.

He’s crying for me
, Tom thought hazily.

But it was the rain. It had started again. It spilled down lightly out of the evening sky through the chapel roof and washed over his cheeks, refreshing him a little, giving him a little strength.

Maybe I can still do something
, he thought.
Maybe I can reach my phone, anyway. Maybe I can call for help
.

He felt awfully bad, awfully tired. But he might be able to do that. Just get his phone out of his pocket. Just dial 911.
That couldn’t be so hard
, he thought.

He was wrong, though. It was hard. It was fantastically, amazingly, unbelievably hard. Moving his arm even a little bit required an effort of will greater than any he had ever made. He had to focus every bit of his energy on getting his hand to lift off the floor. Using all his strength, he lifted it—lifted it—then dropped it onto his waist. Now, slowly, slowly, he began to push the hand down toward his pants pocket. The work made him cough weakly. He felt the blood boil and gurgle in his chest. He thought for sure he would collapse and die before he managed actually to reach into the pocket, to get a grip on the edge of his phone. But he did it. He caught the slippery little rectangle of plastic between the tips of his fingers. He began to draw the phone out—and then he lost his hold on it. It slipped from his grasp.

He let out a noise of frustration. He gazed up into the
eyes watching him. The rain pattered down on him gently. He gathered his strength again and willed his hand back down into his pocket. He willed his fingers to pincer the phone again. To work the phone—slowly, ever so slowly—out onto his belt buckle . . .

He had to rest a moment after that. He lay on the floor in the pool of his own blood, gasping and coughing. The eyes watched him sorrowfully from the frame on the wall.

I know, I know
, he told them.
My mission. Right. Live
.

He went back to work. He willed his hand to his phone again. He picked it up off his shirtfront. He lifted it until he could see it there in his hand. He pressed the numbers for the police: 9 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . .

And the readout said:
No service
.

Tom lost what little breath he had and his hand fell back onto his belly, the phone still grasped in his fingers.

No service
.

Sure, of course. He was in the middle of the woods. No cell tower nearby. Trees all around him. The chapel walls around him. No way to get a signal here unless he . . .

Tom nearly laughed in despair at the thought. Yes, he might get a signal if he could move out of the chapel, if he could make it out to that jutting ledge of rock at the edge of the monastery, that natural balcony overlooking the town below. He might get a signal out on the ledge, but how was
he supposed to get there? Fly? He could barely move his hand to his pocket.

He cast an appeal at the eyes looking down on him. The eyes were silent now. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need the eyes to tell him what he had to do. He already knew. He had to try.

He gathered himself for the attempt. If moving his hand had been hard, how much harder was it going to be to get his whole body moving? Another moment of focus, and then, grunting with the explosive effort, he rolled onto his stomach, blood spilling over his lips as he coughed and gasped for air.

He managed to lift his head, to lift his eyes and look out ahead of him. It was hard to see. Harder than ever. It was getting darker. And he was fading. And there was something else, too. What was that? Tom squinted. Stared.

Fog. Yes. Thick fog just beyond the edge of the chapel. The marine layer seemed to have moved in as he was lying there. The cottony white mass had pushed up across the mountain, swallowing the stunted, fire-charred trees until they were nothing but twisted black figures in the depths of the mist. It seemed to Tom the fog was full of such figures, and that they were almost more like hunched, hulking human shapes than like trees. It seemed to him these creatures hunkered in the depths of the fog were waiting for him
to come toward them, pacing like zombies and waiting until they could get their claws on him and devour him. And the look of them, their eyes. They were so . . . so . . .

. . . malevolent
, he thought.

He shook his head trying to clear it, but the fog—and the creatures hulking in the fog—remained. Sweat poured down into his eyes, making them sting. The rain made his hair feel heavy and damp.

He was losing strength fast. If he was going to move, he had to move now. Whatever was in that fog—trees or creatures—whatever—he was going to have to face them, get past them, get to that balcony of rock.

He started crawling. Well,
crawling
was too nice a word for it. Clutching his phone in his hand, he started dragging himself over the chapel floor, elbow and knee forward—drag—the other elbow and knee forward—drag. The effort made him cough again. The cough brought more blood up into his mouth. The blood spilled out, dripping down his chin.

He dragged himself elbow over elbow, inch by inch, toward the edge of the chapel floor. He tumbled off the edge into the dirt, and even though it was hardly any distance at all, he felt like he had fallen off a ten-story building. The landing jolted him and made him cough again. He spit blood, staining the earth.

He rolled over onto his back, exhausted. The rain fell onto his face. The blood gurgled in his throat so that he thought he would strangle on it. With a groan, he rolled over onto his belly again and kept dragging himself through the dirt—right into the fog.

But a strange thing happened now. The fog began to dissolve around him. With every yard of ground Tom crawled, a yard of fog dissipated into a mere drizzle, and the front of the marine layer seemed to recede. The creatures inside the fog fell back with it. Where they had stood, the twisted trees began to appear more clearly on every side of him. Still hanging on to his phone, Tom dragged himself another yard and another, and the mist and its malevolent creatures continued to dissolve around him, the main body of the fog and the things within continued to fall back like an army in retreat. There was the shelf of rock up ahead, now visible as the fog vanished. There were the lights of the town sparkling through the mist in the gathering night below. It took every ounce of his failing will and failing strength to shift his arm and leg forward one more time, to dig his elbow into the ground and brace his knee against the surface and push and push and push himself forward another few inches, another half a foot, but he did it, and then he started the process all over again. The sweat and rain mingled on his forehead. The breath wheezed
and whistled in his closing throat. He thought of nothing, focused on nothing but moving his body through the dirt, beneath the blackened trees, and through the light, cold rain that fell on him as the fog dissolved.