The rain fell steadily. Drenched and weary, Tom trudged up a steep two-lane road. He moved in the shadows of overhanging oak and eucalyptus trees, the cold downpour dripping on him from their leaves.
He looked around, bewildered. It was strange—very strange: he couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. He had stepped out of the school into a raging storm—he remembered that. And he remembered the wind and the lightning and thunder—the incredible intensity of them. But then . . .? There was nothing after that. He was just suddenly here. It was as if there had been some weird skip in the video of his life, a missing transition.
And now? He wasn’t sure. Something felt wrong. Something felt different and strange. He couldn’t quite tell what it was, but he sensed he had entered a new phase of this nightmare.
He trudged on beneath the dripping trees, nearing the top of the hill. From there, he would be able to look down onto the main street of town, Route 190. There would be a little strip of stores, gas stations, and restaurants. The freeway to the right, and the ocean beyond. The high hills to the left, dotted with houses.
A few yards from the crest, Tom stopped. He had heard something. A sort of steady whoosh and whisper. He realized he had been hearing it for some time, but he hadn’t noticed it before because it blended in with the background and because . . . well, because it was so normal. He was used to hearing it every day.
It was the sound of cars on the freeway.
Tom’s lips parted in surprise as he realized this. This was what he’d been missing all this time—all this time he’d been in this bizarre coma-world. The noise of freeway traffic, the songs of birds, the presence of other people. The normal sounds and movements of life. Had they all come back now? What did it mean?
He started walking again, faster, covering the last few yards to the peak of the hill.
He stopped at the crest and looked down into the center of town. A feeling of wonder and hope spread through him. Sure enough, there were cars passing on the freeway down there, just as there usually were. There were cars on 190, too. Cars pausing at the stoplight, moving on when the light turned green. Cars pulling into the diagonal spaces outside the shops and restaurants. Cars stopping at the pump for gas. Just like always.
Another movement caught Tom’s attention and he turned and saw, to his amazement, an actual pedestrian, a sure-enough ordinary normal human being, big as life. It was a woman with a shopping bag coming out of the Easy Mart at the Shell station, heading for her parked SUV. Tom stared at her with wonder, as if she were an angel descended from heaven. And then . . .
Then Tom lifted his eyes and he saw the Pacific. What a wonderful sight it was! The ocean was dark and churning under the gray sky, its waves rising to meet the rain, its whitecaps snapping at the clouds. But the best part was: there was no fog, no marine layer. In fact, now that he thought about it, there was no sign of fog anywhere. No malevolents.
Did that mean he had finally escaped them? Was he getting better? Was he going to live and regain consciousness?
His excitement rose as he started down the hill.
He entered the heart of Springland. He passed the Greenhouse Restaurant on his left. He could see people through the windows of the green clapboard building: more ordinary people sitting at the tables in there eating and talking. He could see people through the window of the antique shop, too. And more people pulling into the Shell station in their cars. It was as if he had returned to the land of the living after a long journey through a barren nightmare.
Just as he reached the corner, a tall, weathered ranchhand came out of the hardware store and moved past Tom toward a black pickup parked at the curb. Tom smiled a greeting at the man, eager to talk to someone, to anyone.
“Hey. How goes it?” Tom said.
The ranchhand took no notice of him. He walked past Tom as if he weren’t there. Got into his truck. Drove away.
Tom sighed. He had wanted so much to hear another human voice, a real, normal human voice. After the ranchhand was gone, he stood on the corner for a second, looking around for someone else to talk to. But there was no one nearby. The rain continued to drench him. His soaked, clammy clothes clung to him uncomfortably. He had to move on. He had to get to 47 Pinewood Lane. The Pinewood Apartments. That’s why he was here. To find Karen Lee, the woman in the white blouse. To hear what it was she so desperately wanted to tell him. The truth he could not remember.
The building called Pinewood Apartments was the only high-rise in town. Tom could see it from here: a white six-story building embedded precariously in the slope of the hills above him, with balconies on every floor overlooking the freeway and the sea.
Tom started toward it, up the road through the rain.
Then suddenly he was standing outside the building. Again, he couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. He had begun walking and then there was a kind of fritz—like static or something—and suddenly he was just here, looking in through the glass doors that led to the building’s lobby. Very freaky. Very strange.
He shook his head, like a dog shaking off water. He was tired, that’s all. Zoning out. He ran his fingers through his hair, combing out the rain. Once he found Karen Lee, things would start to make more sense. Just tired, he told himself again.
Now he was in the lobby. He didn’t remember pushing through the doors, but he must have. He was standing just inside, in a broad open space with both an elevator and a flight of stairs leading upward. There was a semicircular desk in the center. A receptionist stood behind it, a woman of maybe thirty or so. She had long black hair and a severe expression on her face. She looked, Tom thought, like an angry schoolteacher. She stood still, staring sternly at him as if she were about to scold him for not paying attention in class.
He walked toward her.
“Hi. My name is Tom Harding,” he said. “I’m here to see Karen Lee in 6B.”
The woman went on staring at him—staring and frowning. She didn’t seem to approve of him. She wouldn’t even answer.
“Excuse me?” said Tom. “Hello? I’d like to see Miss Lee in 6B.”
Still—no response. Tom felt a weird little charge of anxiety. He remembered the ranchhand who had walked right past him as if he weren’t there. A cold feeling went down his neck, as if someone had put a piece of ice against his skin.
“Miss?” he said out loud to the frowning woman at the reception desk. He waved his hand in front of her face. “Miss, can you hear me?”
And still, the woman didn’t move, didn’t answer. Her eyes shifted a little, and Tom realized with a jolt that she wasn’t really looking at him at all. She was looking through him, as if she didn’t see him, as if he were invisible to her, as if he were . . .
The thought came into Tom’s mind before he could stop it: Am I a ghost? Am I dead? Am I already dead?
Just then the phone on the reception desk rang. Immediately the woman behind the desk responded, picked it up.
“Front desk,” she said in a brisk voice.
She turned her back on Tom and went on talking into the phone.
It was true! She couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him at all!
Tom raised his hands to touch his own chest, as if he might find he had become insubstantial, a phantom. The receptionist went on talking into the phone, oblivious to his presence.
Tom’s anxiety turned to fear. Desperate to prove himself wrong, he moved away from the receptionist. Moved to the elevators. He pressed the Up button. The elevator didn’t light up. Didn’t move.
Of course not.
Because ghosts can’t call elevators, Tom thought.
No, no, no, that couldn’t be right. The elevator was probably broken. He looked around. The stairs. He would use the stairs. He rushed over to them. The receptionist didn’t try to stop him from going up.
Right. Because she doesn’t even know I’m here.
He climbed the stairs quickly with the question repeating and repeating itself in his mind. Did I die? Was that storm the end of me? Am I dead? Am I already dead?
Out of breath, he reached the sixth-floor landing. Karen Lee’s apartment, 6B, was down at the end of the hall. He hurried to it. Knocked at the door. Noticed a doorbell button. Pressed it. He didn’t hear any bell ring.
Of course not.
He knocked again. He called out. “Miss Lee? It’s Tom Harding. From the Sentinel.” No answer. He pounded loudly on the door with his fist. “Miss Lee?”
Panic was rising in him. Am I dead? Am I already dead? He drew back his hand to pound on the door again. But before he could, he heard sounds behind him. A soft clunk. A whir.
He turned around. It was the elevator. It was on the move.
It wasn’t broken, then. He took a few cautious steps down the hall until he could see the numbers above the elevator door. Sure enough, the light was flashing from one number to another as the elevator climbed, from two to three to four. Five. Six.
Tom moved closer. He was right in front of the elevator when it stopped. He was standing and watching as the door slid open.
He could not believe what he saw inside. He gaped wild-eyed, letting out his breath in a single rush.
Tom Harding stood and stared in fear and amazement as Tom Harding stepped out of the elevator into the hall.