Minerva dreamed of her children, and her husband, and her home; of her life before it fell apart, or more correctly was ripped apart — but when she woke, nothing remained of the dream but the tattered ghosts of voices crying, “Mommy, come get us.”
Minerva uncurled from her place on the seat of her buggy and stretched. Her entire body ached. The burned places on her skin were little islands of terrible pain in a sea of duller hurts. Her right cheek felt hot and swollen — she had discovered an antiseptic cream in Darryl’s emergency kit and used that, but it didn’t seem to have helped much.
I must have passed out after I applied the goop, she thought. She wondered how long she’d been out.
Her clothes were damp, and the faintest of lights pinked the horizon in front of her. She had been, she thought, traveling east. Which would make that faint light sunrise... and that would mean she had survived a night sleeping in the open. Lucky. Getting underway as soon as possible seemed a prudent idea. Luck had a nasty way of running out when counted on.
Murp, of course, wasn’t in the bag anymore.
“Murp,” she called softly. She heard no catlike sounds. If Murp were around and safe, she should have no difficulty bringing him to her. The cat was fond of his stomach and had formed an almost spiritual attachment to Tender Vittles. The sound of one of those paper wrappers tearing ought to bring him on the run.
She magicked up a couple packets of the cat food, and while she was at it, a sizzling hot plate of steak and eggs for herself, and some classy silverware to eat it with. Might as well live a little, she couldn’t keep herself from thinking. No telling how much longer I’ll have the opportunity.
A bathtub would have been her next creation — she felt scrungy and disreputable. She suspected she smelled. But the idea of submerging her burned skin in water made her stomach twist into knots; and, too, the faster she got underway, the sooner she’d reach the children.
Murp appeared at her side before she’d even torn the first wrapper. He leapt onto the seat of the buggy next to her and studied her steak with a gimlet eye. She opened the cat food and waved the paper packet under his nose, but he remained unswayed. Murp had apparently decided after what he’d been through, he deserved to live a little, too.
Minerva scratched him between the ears and conjured him up a nice little steak — raw — and sliced it into tiny pieces. He gave her a grateful look before he inhaled the meat, and she felt gratified.
She decided to plan ahead a bit. No one was on the road near her — she could detect no signs of danger. She had no intention of making another roaring-across-the-country-out-of-control joyride. The previous day’s sketch of her vehicle was long gone, of course. She sketched another on her final sheet of vellum, and added an automatic gearshift that included reverse and additional markings on the speedometer, in ten-mile-per-hour increments. “No sense making that same mistake twice.” She also added a dash mount for the compass, so she could see where she was going and where she needed to be at the same time. The improved buggy appeared behind the first.
“Let’s get a move on,” she told the cat. In front of her the sky had pinked up, and the scars on the earth around her were becoming visible. She stared at the black, burned gashes and torn ground that formed a perimeter around her buggy, and shivered. “We made a mess last night, cat. We are damned lucky to still be here.” Murp looked up at her, round-eyed and unconcerned, and mrrrped. God, I’m glad the cat’s here. If I didn’t have him, I wouldn’t have anyone at all to talk to—
That wasn’t quite right anymore, though, was it? Hadn’t Darryl found some way of speaking with her? She seemed to remember that, although the memories might have been false, created by her distress and her wish that such a thing were possible.
“Darryl? Are you there?” she asked. She got no response. She took a deep breath, and said loudly, “Darryl, if you can hear me, say something!”
“Sh-h-h-h-h-h!” She heard him plainly. She nodded thoughtfully. He was there — but this was evidently not a good time. She considered for a moment that he did not have her luxury of being alone in the wilderness — some luxury. Hah! Nevertheless, she could talk to him anytime, whereas she could see he would have to watch his moments.
“Talk to me when you get the chance then,” she said. And added as a wistful afterthought, “I wish you were here.”
He didn’t reply.
She started the buggy and followed the arrow back out to the main road, then east and south. She kept the buggy at about sixty miles per hour, and within a half hour was at a crossroads of sorts. The road she was on continued steadily southeast, its tarmac gleaming in the bright sunshine. Another road crossed it, an overgrown cobblestone-paved track that ran southwest and northeast. To the southwest it didn’t look too bad — not kept up, but there was nothing about it that worried Minerva. To the northeast, the road vanished into weeds and a copse of mangled trees, and the sky above the track hung low and glowering, shimmering with heatwaves and crackling with energy. Thunderheads piled on top of each other, their bellies full and dark and angry.
The compass pointed northeast. Minerva drove tentatively past the intersection, and the needle whipped backwards, almost with angry emphasis, to point at the road she was trying to leave behind.
Of course. It can never be the nice white house with the picket fence, can it? It always has to be the castle ruins on the hill with the booming door knocker and things in the dungeon.
She turned back, reluctance dragging at her gut, and steered the buggy onto the track. She crossed a line there; no sooner had the back tires left the main road that she felt as if she’d walked open-eyed through an enormous spiderweb. Beside her, Murp arched his back and hissed and spat at nothing. Minerva whimpered quietly in the back of her throat and rested one hand on the grip of the flamethrower.
She drove carefully, but as fast as she dared. She felt eyes watching her from the close overgrowth on either side of the road. From time to time as she came around a curve, she would catch sight of something shambling across the track ahead of her. Brush cracked around her, shadows lurked — and the spiderwebby feel of the air became thicker and more pronounced the further into the wasteland she penetrated.
The trees shrank, and became warped and hideous; tumored, gray-leaved. Bare patches of ground appeared — not rich dark earth, but hardscrabble, bleachbone white. Something had sucked the life out of this land and left its wraiths sobbing in the air. Minerva drove by an abandoned cottage, its hipped roof swaybacked, its windows empty and dark; shadows clung to the house like Spanish moss. A bit further on she passed another just like it, and then a clump of them all together; dead places, full of palpable ghosts — even in daylight. Her skin crawled. She constantly felt unseen things that touched her, licked at her skin with damp, slippery tongues, poked and pinched with invisible fingers.
The needle on her compass pointed onward — into worse. Barney and Carol and Jamie were somewhere ahead — and though she yearned with her whole heart to retreat, to find someplace safe to hide, there was no one else who could do what had to be done. Courage isn’t feeling brave, she thought. It’s going on when you’re scared shitless. She kept going.
Murp growled suddenly, stiffened on the seat beside her, and all his fur stood straight out. Then he streaked down to the floor of the buggy and squeezed himself into the duffel bag. This did not seem a cheerful omen to Minerva. She sensed nothing different in the air around her — the place was increasingly awful, but seemed to be growing worse at a steady pace, without anything that would suddenly spook the cat. Still, cats sensed things. She kept driving, trying to look over her shoulder and to both sides at the same time, goosing the accelerator at every straight stretch.
A low, shuddering wail reached out of the ghastly trees to her right and tore straight through her, into her bones. She had never heard a sound like it — and hoped she never would again. She wished for engine noise or road noise — anything to cover it. It went on and on, then died in an awful gurgling sob. That wail seemed to be a signal. From the dying lands to either side of her, shambling two-legged monsters from a demented artist’s post-holocaust nightmare dragged themselves forth. They stared at her, glared at her, while their hands reached out in threat or supplication, and their ragged, sloppy mouths emitted nerve-scraping keening wails.
Oh, no! Her heart pounded up into her throat. There seemed to be hundreds of them moving onto the narrow, weed-choked road. Her finger twitched on the trigger of the flamethrower, but stopped. Dead, dry grass and weeds surrounded her. The flamethrower might clear those hideous shambling things out of her way, but would give her an obstacle that was potentially worse.
She reached for the machine gun — and a sight caught her eye that left her stunned. One of the things held a bundle in its arms — a baby. Its other hand held the hand of a smaller creature. Mother and children. She took her hand from the weapon, and yelled, “Get out of the way!” She slowed just a bit, and the things cleared passage for her, though they still reached out to touch the buggy as it passed and left smears of themselves on the glass.
What happened to the people who had once lived in those desolate houses? Were they killed? Unwoven? Or were they the creatures who stood by the road, awaiting hope and salvation from any source?
“I’m going after the Unweaver!” she yelled. “I’m going to make things right!”
The gurgling wails and the hideous keening rose in pitch and volume. Minerva felt sick.
The nightmare creatures fell behind her, as did the last signs of life. She entered onto a sere and inclement plain where nothing grew, and the air, oppressive before, became parched and sand-laden. The road ran on, a cobblestone ribbon between two seas of dried mudflats; gray earth touched gray sky along a ribbon of billowing seething black that ran from one edge of the horizon to the other. Minerva had never seen anyplace in her life she wanted to go less. But the compass pointed on, so she went on.
Then the voices started.
“Mommy,” Carol whispered, “the crazy man says he’ll hurt us if you come here.”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! I’m so scared! Come get me!” Barney wailed, then screamed — in terror or pain, Minerva couldn’t tell.
“Mom, this guy says you gave us to him because you didn’t want us anymore. He’s lying, isn’t he?” Jamie sounded weary, and hopeless.
Her children, her babies — that bastard was trying to destroy her by hurting them. But he could see her coming. He knew where she was every second — and he could hurt them, she suspected. She was afraid the threat wasn’t an empty one.
She stopped the buggy, turned it off, and stared ahead of her. What could she do? She would have paid good money for an easy answer.
Murp poked his head out of the duffel and yowled. He looked around him and sniffed the air, and his ears plastered themselves flat against his skull. He retreated to the inner world of the bag again. Minerva could feel for him. She wished she could retreat to a nice safe cocoon and still do what had to be done. She wished she could be invisible, or two places at once—
An idea occurred to her. “Darryl,” she said softly, “I need help.”
Darryl didn’t answer. He could still be in an awkward spot and not able to talk, she reasoned. Maybe if I just tell him what I need and let him know I need it fast, he can get to someplace private.
If the Unweaver could hear her whispered requests, she was doomed. Of course, if she couldn’t get through to Darryl, she was probably doomed anyway — and the kids, too.
Sitting in a parked buggy at the edge of a desert, with a hellish storm brewing, Minerva outlined her plan to an absent husband she only hoped could hear her.
* * *
Darryl heard her, all right. Her timing sucked. From what he could tell, there didn’t seem to be much she could do about that, though.
Dr. Folchek settled back into his seat, and scratched something on his notepad. “I see. So you were merely writing fiction, and reading the bits of it out loud to yourself. You did not hear voices speaking to you? That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Look, Doctor. I was at my wife’s funeral yesterday. I know the score. We don’t have to keep dancing around this, while you act like I’m telling you deeply significant stuff.”
“But you are telling me ‘deeply significant stuff,’ Darryl. Do you realize in the hour we’ve talked, you have used all sorts of vague euphemisms relating to your wife and children, but not once have you come out and said the word ‘dead’? Your guilt over not having been at home during this tragedy is evident, as is your denial that they are all, in fact, gone.” The scrawny little bastard smiled slightly, and said, “There. You even have me doing it. I said ‘gone’ when I meant to say ‘dead’.” Folchek steepled his fingers and sighed. “Your responses evidence poor coping mechanisms, some neurotic tendencies, and grave instability. You are aware of the world around you, but you are not, for the moment, living in it.” He picked up his pen and tapped it on the pad. “I’ll point out to you, since you don’t seem to realize it — that writing fiction starring your dead wife is not an appropriate response to day-of-the-funeral stress. It smacks of denial.”
“Dr. Folchek, you’ll pardon me for saying so, but you are full of shit.” Darryl crossed his arms over his chest. “There is no ‘appropriate’ thing to do on the day of your wife’s funeral. Now, I have to go take a leak. You mind?”
“Denial and hostility...” He shook his head sadly. “Of course you may use the restroom, Darryl. Please, be my guest. The door is right behind you.”
Darryl wished the door were down the hall somewhere, but he could hardly ask for a restroom further from the office. Maybe the doctor would have a nice, noisy ventilation fan. Darryl snagged a pencil from the top of a file cabinet on his way in, but Dr. Folchek caught him.
“Please leave the pencils out here, Darryl.” The man’s voice chased after him. “If you wish to write something, you are welcome to write it out here.”
Darryl put the pencil back on the cabinet and swore vehemently under his breath. He went into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and looked for the doorlock. There wasn’t one. There wasn’t a ventilation fan, either. He’d have to keep it quiet. Of course, without a pencil, his plan to write down the things Minerva needed to happen and flush the evidence once he’d written it was, well, down the toilet.
Darryl sat on the commode and looked around the bathroom. There was nothing — nothing — in there he could use to write... or scratch in wood... or smear on the floor.
There was a mirror, placed by someone who apparently enjoyed watching himself crap. Darryl wondered if the shrink himself couldn’t have stood a bit of therapy. Still, it was the first one he’d seen since the day before, when the EMTs brought him to the hospital, and his parents and the ER doctor insisted he stay at least until the shrink could do his evaluation. He’d shared a ward with a real wacko, and the room had not contained anything potentially dangerous.
Darryl looked through Minerva’s eyes at the grim terrain she faced, and at that boiling wall of cloud. “Minerva,” he whispered, as softly as he could, “sweetheart — I’m here. Give me a minute to figure out how to do this, and I’ll have you ready to go.”
He could tell she started at the sound of his voice — his view of the world in front of her jumped, then steadied again. And her voice reached him, calm and practical. “I’ll be right here.”
Darryl scrutinized the bathroom. A sink in a cheap wood cabinet, recessed fluorescent ceiling lighting with a bolted-down wire mesh over it, the toilet, a standard medical-facility hand-soap dispenser, an industrial toilet paper dispenser. The ugly mirror.
He needed to think fast. He could fake constipation if necessary, but even that would only buy him a short time.
He looked at the soap dispenser again. He could hear Folchek rummaging around in the other room. Good — keep the little bastard busy, he thought. He stood and got a good glop of soap on his finger, and with it, began to write on the mirror the things Minerva said she needed.
Minerva, her belongings and the cat became invisible — except to her husband — at the exact instant a double of each of these appeared. The double took the armed buggy, turned around, and retreated back the way Minerva had come. Meanwhile, Minerva, with her cat, her supplies, and a flying carpet that appeared in front of her, and which was also invisible, continued toward the children.
He waited a moment and watched the mirror. A tacky Persian rug with seatbelts appeared in his field of vision. “You got everything you need, Min?” he asked finally.
The scene in the mirror bounced wildly. He caught glimpses of Minerva in the weird peasant clothes he’d seen earlier, sitting in the hell-buggy she’d made, while her hands attached to a different body picked up the duffel, petted the cat, and strapped everything onto the rug. The sensation of viewing two of her was too uncomfortable to be believed. But when she glanced at herself, he looked wistfully. Even burned and filthy and ragged she was beautiful and wonderful, and he missed the hell out of her.
“Okay,” she told him. “The kids’ voices are staying around the buggy. I suppose that means the Unweaver can’t see me. I wish I knew that for sure. It’s the sort of thing I would rather be very sure of.” Her voice wobbled slightly, and she said, “Can’t you come with me? I wish you were here. I’m so scared.”
“I’m scared too,” he told her. “The dragon said the only gate is the one you came through, and I could go through it, but I’d end up the same place you started out.”
“The Stonehenge place?”
“Yes.”
He heard her sigh across worlds. “No good then. You can probably help me more where you are.”
“I know,” he said. “At least, I can if I can get back home.”
She paused as if thinking over the implications of that. “What do you mean, if you can get home?”
“I’m in a bit of trouble over here. But I think I can convince the twit who’s trying to lock me up that I’m sane.”
The bathroom door opened. “I’d say your chances of that were fairly slim, actually, Darryl.”
Darryl jerked around, and met Dr. Folchek’s eyes. “This isn’t what it looks like...” he started.
Dr. Folchek smiled a benign smile and nodded politely. “It never is. The mirror is two-way, you see. I apologize for the invasion of privacy, but I once had a lad kill himself in my bathroom. I’ve taken special precautions to make sure it never happened again.”
Dr. Folchek shook his head sadly. “I confess you came very close to convincing me you were sane. Stressed, but sane. Your sort of psychotic break is frightening, though, Darryl. To be able to keep your personal demons under such control in public, and to give in to them so totally in private—”
“You don’t understand. I’m just as sane as you are.”
“Oh, I’m certain to you everything seems that way. Neurotics worry constantly about how crazy they are; psychotics don’t. They are always certain they’re sane. But Darryl, you must understand that talking to your dead wife and attempting this sort of — er, magical — yes, magical communication with her through writing proves you have suffered a break with the real world. Please understand that a high percentage of people who suffer traumatically induced psychotic breaks recover eventually. And, God knows, the trauma you’ve suffered is enough to induce ...”
Darryl tuned him out. Behind him stood Birkwelch. “So much for making ‘em believe you were normal, eh?”
“Yep,” Darryl said.
“Yep?” Dr. Folchek stopped in mid-harangue and stared at Darryl. “Yep, what?”
“Let’s have some fun. Wiggle your fingers at him,” Birkwelch suggested. “Something magical-looking.”
Darryl grinned, and made a few mystic passes with his hands, and uttered a couple of nonsense syllables. “Hod ka-hooda, nokooda noo,” he intoned — and just for fun, crossed his eyes.
The dragon slowly lifted the doctor off the floor. The doctor began to shout, and then to scream. “Do a circle,” Birkwelch said next.
Darryl slowly traced a circle in the air with his finger, and Birkwelch turned the doctor upside down.
Darryl made shooing motions with his hands, and Birkwelch backed the inverted doctor out into the main office. “They have this all on tape, you know,” Birkwelch said.
“No shit?” Darryl grinned. “That ought to be good for another psychotic break or two.”
“Darryl,” the doctor said, “you must realize that these paranormal abilities are an outgrowth of your psychotic break from reality, and terribly dangerous. Please let me help you.”
Darryl ignored him. He glared at the dragon, who had deposited the screaming doctor, still upside down, into his office chair. “Where the hell were you?”
“Waiting back at the house for you. I did think you would be able to convince these yo-yos you were sane without help from me — probably a lot better than you could with my help.” The dragon snorted a thin puff of smoke into the doctor’s face, and the man began to cough. “Obviously I had too much faith in you.”
“Fuck off,” Darryl said, then grinned. “You can only convince them you’re sane if they want to believe it. This turkey didn’t.” He looked toward the office door. “I imagine all hell is breaking loose out there. How do you propose we get out of here?”
“In the time-honored manner.” The dragon pointed to the doctor’s closet, and Darryl walked over and pulled out a set of scrubs.
“Wear those,” the dragon suggested.
Darryl laughed. “Sure. Why not?” He quickly stripped off his patient gown and put on the scrubs. Birkwelch held the doctor’s feet; Darryl removed his sneakers while the man struggled and screamed. Darryl put them on. “Shit,” he said. “Minerva has feet this size.” He let his heels hang out the back. “Car?”
“I brought mine.”
“That mean you’re driving?”
“I don’t intend to let you drive my car.”
The office door flew open, and several men dressed like Darryl ran in. They stopped when they saw the doctor upside down in his chair.
“I found him like that,” Darryl said. “Babbling about flying. You got him?”
The doctor was screaming, “Stop him! Stop him!”
One of the orderlies nodded and started over to help Folchek, but the other stared at him suspiciously. “And who the hell are you?”
Darryl, primed by years of Minerva’s hospital stories, sighed. “New radiologist. Willy Hill. I need to get back to work.” He nodded to both men, and eased out the door.
“He’s a patient,” Folchek screeched.
Darryl and the dragon darted into the fire escape, and once hidden in the closed stairway, ran like hell.
“Be glad,” the dragon said, “they didn’t stick you on the locked ward. I would have had to take out a wall, and that would have been very hard to explain.”
Darryl concentrated on running. He didn’t bother answering.
They’d made it from the fifth floor down to the second when Darryl heard sirens.
“Ambulance?” he asked Birkwelch.
“Police.” The dragon sounded certain.
Darryl wished there were some sort of window in the stairwell. He wanted to look out into the parking lot and see where the police cars were stopping. “Maybe they’re going to the Emergency Room,” he suggested. “Minerva says the police end up in the ER a lot.”
“That’s on the other side of the building from here.”
“Don’t suppose they’re after us, do you?” Darryl said, though he figured they probably were.
“Nope.” The dragon’s voice was cheerful, and he glanced back at Darryl and grinned. “Not after us at all.”
“Well, good.”
“After you. They can’t see me.”
“I hate dragons,” Darryl muttered.
They hit the bottom landing and charged into the hall. Two police officers stood there, waiting. As Darryl careened into view, they both pulled weapons and aimed them at him.
“He went that way!” Darryl yelled and pointed down the hall.
“Don’t even try it,” the police officer said. “You’re going to have to go back upstairs with us. If you go without any trouble, we won’t have to put handcuffs on you.”
“Birkwelch!” Darryl looked past the police officers to the dragon, who shrugged his wings.
“I can’t stop bullets for you, pal. You’d better go with them for now.” His face rilles flicked up and down. “I’ll see if I can’t figure out a way to spring you.”
Darryl felt bitterness in his heart. “Oh, thanks,” he snarled back at the dragon, as the policemen led him to the elevator. “Thanks just tons.”
* * *
Barney, Jamie, and Carol sat around the crystal ball and watched Mommy coming to rescue them.
“She looks like Sigourney Weaver in Alien,” Jamie said.
“She looks like Rambo,” Barney added. Then he thought about that a second. “Except pretty,” he added.
They cheered her on. Barney yelled and screamed as she’d passed the worm-monsters — who were looking pretty good, he thought. Jamie raised his fists in the air — his victory sign. Carol hugged herself and laughed and shouted.
Mommy was coming. This time, she was going to get them.
In the middle of the picture, a shadow suddenly twisted like smoke. It crowded out the picture of Mommy — and it looked at them with glowing red eyes.
It started to laugh.
“She won’t be coming, children. She isn’t strong enough — and she isn’t brave enough.” The Unweaver kept laughing. “And besides, you’re going to tell her to go back.”
“No, we aren’t,” Jamie said.
“Yes, you are. Would you like to hear?”
The children froze. Suddenly, they heard Carol’s voice.
“Mommy, the crazy man says he’ll hurt us if you come here.”
“That wasn’t me, Mommy,” Carol yelled, but Barney knew it didn’t matter. The Unweebil wouldn’t let her hear the real kid voices. Unless...
Barney did a magic, and yelled, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! I’m so scared! Come get me!” but the Unweebil shot fire out of the crystal and burned him, and he screamed.
“No more of that,” the Unweebil said. “I’ll say what I want said, thank you very much.”
Then Jamie’s voice started without him.
“Mom, this guy says you gave us to him because you didn’t want us anymore. He’s lying, isn’t he?”
“I never said that!” Jamie shrieked.
“Mommy,” Barney’s voice begged, “go back. Or he’s gonna kill us. You gotta go back.”
“No, Mommy. Don’t listen to the Unweebil,” Barney begged. “Please, please, please don’t listen.”
Their voices went on and on without them, saying things they would never have said.
Barney, Carol, and Jamie sat and watched in silence. Their mother parked her buggy on the road and waited. She listened, and from time to time, her mouth moved, but she didn’t really say anything out loud — except to Murp.
And then, as all three of them looked on, she turned around and drove back the way she’d come.
They screamed and pleaded and begged and made every promise they could think of — but finally Carol couldn’t stand it anymore. She stared at the crystal ball and screamed, “Break! Break!”
Barney joined in the chant with her. Then Jamie did, too.
“Break!” they all screamed at the crystal ball. “Break! Break! Break!”
The glass shattered, and the picture of their mother’s retreating back vanished in the shards of broken glass.
“I hate you, Mommy,” Barney whispered.
Carol bit her lip. “I hate you, too.”
“I will never forgive you, and I will never love you again,” Jamie said.
All around him, Barney could hear the Unweebil’s soft, snakey laugh. It didn’t matter anymore, he thought. Nothing mattered.
He started to cry, and threw himself down on the mattress. Jamie and Carol did the same.
“We’re never gonna get out of here now,” Jamie said between sobs. “Never. Never, ever, ever. We’re gonna die here.”
“I know,” Barney said.