Psychlone (7 page)

He was almost asleep when a woman screamed. He jerked up and strangled himself. The covers tightened around his neck as he tried to unwind them. Then he was free. Someone had closed his door, but he heard voices outside anyway. A woman was sobbing.

“My God, she killed her! She got the one in coma—"

Another voice, whispering harshly: “Where did she get the scalpel? All the equipment rooms are supposed to be locked this time of night."

The voices trailed off down the hall. Tim didn't need any more information. It was obvious what had happened. “Keep her away from the kid,” he mouthed through his rewound sheets. “Keep her away from me."

Now he was the last one. Beverly Winegrade—the blond clerk he had had a crush on several months ago—had killed Cynthia. Next she would try to get him, and if she didn't succeed, she would kill herself. That was the way it had been before.

He was the last one to hold out against the insistent voices behind the smiling images of his parents and the man in the uniform.

Maybe Cynthia would join them.

Welcome

And Beverly, eventually. Then they would all come for him. And behind them, controlling them like puppets, would be the voices, screaming in a language he didn't understand.

Fowler slept soundly on the couch. The morning was normal. Ice frosted the front window but no snow had fallen. As he watched, the sun began to warm the glass and melt the crystals. He raised the curtain, stirred the ashes in the fire to make sure they were out, and fixed a cup of coffee.

For the moment he had banished all introspection to a tiny corner for future reference. If he was going to stay at all, he had to accept the situation and whatever came of it. It was difficult.

Subduing the rational had never been easy for Fowler. His problems with love and emotional commitment had shown that. When questions arose that had no clean and bounded answers, like why he should love a particular woman, he fumbled and backed down. Begging the issue wasn't enough—getting away from it completely was the only solution. Even with Dorothy he was more inclined to be glib and clever than to express simple affection. That she put up with such a mask was over half the reason they had lasted together more than a year. Fowler loved her—he was finally willing to admit that much—but was still frightened by the thought.

So it was with the cabin. Whatever had happened here did not have a rational explanation. Jordan Taggart had not been going insane—Henry would have known that, and had not dragged Fowler into the mountains just to humor his father. Something had happened from outside.

The usual crazy-but-acceptable alternatives had occurred to him and been dismissed. There had been no cultists rigging a human sacrifice, or drug-maddened bikers, or any of the other manifold paranoias which hung on the edge of the middle-class mentality.

Something else.

Something he couldn't accept, but couldn't put aside, because the only other alternative was even more bizarre. That left him facing the irrational, but postponing the confrontation until it was unavoidable.

The gravel. Another rain of insects. Perhaps the sound of a woman being murdered, or the things Jordan had seen which Fowler hadn't been told about.

He walked across the gravel drive to the road without incident, noting the yellow-ribboned surveyor's stakes on the gulley around the cabin's rise. He crossed the road and stood for a moment by a meadow of dry grass, then doubled back and found a trail through the pines.

There was nothing unusual about the forest. The path was rough and circuitous, an old horse trail long since ignored and divided by the asphalt road. It took him several dozen yards along the road. The area hadn't been visited by tourists for at least five or six years. Perhaps Jordan had hacked the trail into the shape it was in for his own purposes.

Fowler walked back to the drive and stood in front of the cabin, scrunching his feet into the gravel. With a misplaced sense of boldness, he bent down and cleared a heap of the rocks away until the dark loam beneath was visible. He hefted a handful and squeezed it between his fingers. There were no ants or other ground life, but then it was getting cold. Even now the outside thermometer read forty-eight.

He stamped his boots off by the door and sat in the living room for a few minutes, deciding how to occupy his time. The box of junk food was untouched in the kitchen; he removed a package of Twinkies and took Jordan's portable radio, setting both on the kitchen table. As he chewed, he tried to find listenable stations. The radio had dust all over it, and no wonder—the reception was awful. Only on the shortwave did he find any periodically clear signals, but even those were liable to fade out.

Where do they get their energy?

The question came unbidden. He knew the reasoning behind it, but it still surprised him. “Who?” he asked himself out loud. “Ghosts, of course,” he answered. If he was going to face the supernatural, he had to fit it into his system. He shook his head and grimaced. He'd have to find something more worthwhile to occupy his time, or the questions would get more and more theoretical, making less and less sense.

His suitcase held two popular novels of the literary variety—John Fowles and Graham Greene—and a number of trade journals he hadn't read in the office. Now was the best time to catch up on them. But he didn't want to.

The indecision was almost painful. He blew it away by sitting in a chair, picking out a magazine on software advances and forcing himself to read. By noon he was fed up. He ate lunch—supplemented by a candy bar—and checked his equipment for the third time. Everything was working and all the indications were normal. The outside temperature was sixty degrees.

At two o'clock the temperature was sixty-three. For this time of year, it was warm.

At three o'clock he awoke from a nap and looked around, slightly dazed. Then he remembered where he was. His skin was covered with goosebumps. He put on a coat and looked at the thermometers again. Inside the cabin the air was forty-eight degrees. Outside it was forty. As he watched, the mercury fell to thirty-nine.

He walked to the road and looked toward the south end of the valley. Fog was spilling over the hills like grayish smoke into a bowl.

Brow wrinkled, he returned to the cabin and built a fire.

“Millicent? This is Arnold Trumbauer. Is your husband home?"

“Arnie, you calling all the way from New Mexico?” Millicent Jacobs straightened her graying hair, as she always did when receiving long-distance phone calls, just as if it was a personal visit. Her husband, Franklin, had noticed this and told her she'd do very well when television phones were installed.

“Yes. I have to talk to Franklin. It's very important."

“Certainly. He's out writing in his shed, but if it's important, I'll go get him."

“Please. You know I wouldn't interrupt him for something minor."

She put the phone down on the table and walked through the living room, pulling aside the lace curtains over the side windows on the off chance Franklin was in the garden. Sometimes the writing didn't go well and he'd spend a few minutes gardening to clear away the cobwebs. The writing was going well, apparently. Not even the tools were out.

Franklin Jacobs was a portly, pepper-haired man of sixty, with wide, accusing eyes and a rounded face which seemed incongruous whenever he spoke. His voice, Millicent said, would have been more appropriate coming from Charlton Heston. His office, in the small rear servants’ quarters, was cluttered with stacks of paper and shelves of books. He was tapping away steadily on an old Royal upright, eyebrows meeting above his beaky nose, two index fingers amazingly fast on the keys.

“Frank? Arnie's on the phone."

Jacobs stopped, sighed and turned toward her slightly without taking his eyes off the page. “What is it?"

“Important, he says."

His shoulders slumped and he left the desk reluctantly, weaving a path through stacks of old magazines. His foot caught a shoebox full of correspondence and kicked it into the door, scattering letters.

“I'll get these,” Millicent said, stooping to gather them. “Go talk to Arnie."

Jacobs patted his wife on the fanny as he went by. “You've got to clean this out sometime soon,” she said, ignoring his pass.

“Yes, yes.” He climbed up the steps and took the call on the kitchen extension. “So what is it, you interrupt my masterwork, Arnold?"

“Something you want to know. Very unusual."

“Yes?"

“You know Mr. Tivvor, Mr. Frenk, Miss Unamuno, Mr. Kermit Smith, and Mr. Daniel Jones."

“Yes?"

“Franklin, they're the best psychics in this town. All topnotch."

“I know, I have letters from most of them. All corroborated. Good people. So?"

“They're in the hospital now."

“What? Accident?"

“I don't know. They came down sick just a couple of days ago ... no, not all. Miss Unamuno became ill last night. But she's the least strong, I think, the least capable psychically."

“And?” Jacobs tapped his black-leather shoe on the kitchen linoleum.

“Before I give you my guess, maybe you can suggest something."

“I don't know. What should I suggest?"

“Please don't be obtuse."

“I don't know, Arnie. What?"

“I've only talked to Mr. Frenk. He's a good friend."

“I know. And what did Mr. Frenk have to say?"

“It started with the Lorobu trouble."

“And you think...?"

“I don't want to even guess what happened in Lorobu. You've read about it, of course."

“Yes, yes. I've read."

“The whole world is crazy these days, but this is something else. Anyway, they're all in hospitals in Albuquerque, except for Mr. Jones, who is in Las Vegas—the New Mexico Las Vegas. I think the two things are connected."

“Lorobu and everybody getting sick."

“Yes. I think maybe what happened in Lorobu is important to us, what we're studying."

“Perhaps. You want me to come out there?"

“Yes."

“I will. Get affidavits from all the people you mentioned, if that's possible. I'd like to meet them, too. Can that be arranged?"

“Yes. I don't think there's anything physically wrong with them."

“And make reservations for me at a good hotel. I'll fly out there tomorrow morning. Okay?"

“Fine. I'll get everything ready here, though I don't know about the affidavits—"

“As many as you can. Is that all, Arnold?"

“Yes."

“Then good-bye.” He hung up the phone and turned to face his wife, who was standing by the washing machine.

“I'll be going to New Mexico tomorrow."

“You mentioned that town...” Millicent said.

“Yes,” he said, staring at her fiercely.

Not even the fire was keeping Fowler warm. He let his breath exhale in a thin, pale cloud—not four feet from the crackling blaze—and subdued the chattering of his teeth. In ghost stories, the house or haunted area usually had a central spot or shaft which was cold. But no matter where he went in the cabin, the temperature was bone-chilling. When he put on a jacket and went outside, walking up and down the drive and behind the house, the air was like a touch of dry ice. Inside and out, the temperature was the same. Was the entire valley freezing?

“Of course,” he said. “It's winter. I'm imagining it all.” He squinted hard at the fire. It seemed to be darkening. The lamp on the table next to the recliner was also dimming. “Smoke,” he said. Yet the updraft in the fireplace was strong and the flue was open. It wasn't smoke. “My eyes, then.” He rubbed them experimentally.

For an exercise, he mentally began to convert units of heat into units of mechanical work. He paced the room as he thought. The obvious didn't strike him until the fire was almost black. The rest of the cabin was suffused with a reddish haze, and all direct-lighting sources were hidden as if behind polarizing filters. He pulled back the window curtains and looked outside. The fog was impenetrable.

He began to rattle off old school equations. “One calorie is the heat required to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius.” His chemistry teacher in high school, Mrs. Perry, had been an elderly, dedicated taskmaster with a strong belief in rote learning and laboratory experience. Fowler had pickled up much of his scientific attitude from her, even though he had never made higher than a C in her class. “One calorie is equal to four point one eight times ten to the seventh ergs. The work required to lift one kilogram one meter is nine point eight one times ten to the seventh ergs.” Or, he amended for simplicity, about ten joules, each joule equal to 107 ergs.

He removed a piece of scrap paper from Jordan Taggart's desk drawer and fumbled for a pencil, stopping to rub his gloved hands to keep them warm. The temperature was now below freezing, inside and out. The fire was almost invisible. His eyes stung, and he could barely see to write.

“Got to keep thinking,” he told himself. “Keep figuring.” The remaining pink, marshmallow-covered cupcake on the desk was almost too hard to bite into. Still, he pried a chunk away with his teeth and chewed hard until the marshmallow and cake thawed. His calculations were aimed at something, but he wasn't willing to admit what the point was. “Specific heat of air—what? About a fourth. Fifty meters around the cabin“—about the size of the rise—”and five meters up ... say a square fifty meters on a side.” He penciled the figures and squinted at them. The volume of air in such a region would be twelve thousand five hundred cubic meters, each cubic meter containing a thousand liters, each liter weighing ... how much does air weigh? He whapped his arms together and stamped his feet. About a gram a liter, he recalled, maybe a little more—say one point two grams a liter.

That was about fifteen thousand kilograms of air.

Fifteen thousand kilograms of air dropping to thirty degrees Fahrenheit—"Wait, convert to Celsius.” He computed quickly in his head and wished he had brought a pocket calculator with him. He searched the desk quickly, hoping Jordan might have owned one. No luck.