To the Vanishing Point

11

When people have been married for a long time they develop the ability to sense their partner’s presence or absence, even in the midst of deep sleep. Few scientists will admit to the existence of this marital telepathy — unless they themselves are married.

Alicia awoke and rolled over, squinting sleepily in the dark. "Frank?" She rose halfway, supporting herself on one arm. "Frank, you in the john?" She kept her voice down even though the children were in the other room behind a closed door.

No reply came from the bathroom, nor the chairs nor anywhere else. Enough light seeped around the edges of the curtain for her to make out the dim silhouettes of bed and cheap motel furniture.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Frank was fond of nocturnal walks when he couldn’t sleep. Certainly he had more on his mind than the future of their vacation.

With a sigh she slipped into her robe and went to the front door. The parking lot was mostly empty, dominated by the silent shape of the motor home. Moonlight enabled her to see clear across the street, to shuttered gift shops and real estate offices. The motel office was dark.

No familiar figure bestrode the concrete walkway in front of the rooms. If he wanted a soda he would’ve gone out to the motor home, she reflected. She retreated long enough to slip into a pair of sneakers, knotted the belt of her robe, and started across the lot.

The door to the motor home stood ajar, a figure seated on the lowest step. "Frank?" A face turned up to her and at the same time she saw that the shape was of a man much bigger than her husband.

"Yatahey, Mrs. Sonderberg. Or perhaps I should say good morning. The sun will rejoin us soon."

"Hello, Burnfingers. Have you seen Frank?"

"He’s not with you?" Burnfingers tried to see past her.

She shook her head. "I thought he came out to talk or get something to drink." She looked back toward the motel, trying to remember where the vending machines were located. Even now he might be back in the room, wondering at the empty bed. Well, if he came looking for her this would be the first place he’d check. No point in worrying about it.

"You can’t sleep, either?"

She could just make out Burnfingers’s grin in the moonlight. "I never sleep. Waste of time."

"Oh, now really. Everybody sleeps."

"Not me. You know, if you spend eight hours out of every twenty-four asleep and you live to be eighty years old, you have wasted one third of your entire life."

"Well, I have to sleep." She wondered why she sounded so defensive. Burnfingers’s claim was patently absurd but, of course, he was crazy. It shouldn’t have surprised her. Nothing he said ought to surprise her.

"Sleepy or not, what are you doing out here alone?"

"Talking to the moon. Watching the sky. Standing guard."

"Guard?" She turned sharply. "Is there something out here?"

"No. But if I wasn’t standing guard, there might be."

"Like what?"

He turned to her. "After all you have seen these past couple of days, I would not think you would have to ask such a question, Mrs. Sonderberg."

"Just Alicia, please. It all has been real, hasn’t it?" One hand clutched at the neck of the bathrobe, pulling it tight around her throat.

"Oh, very real. And instructive."

"Instructive?" She laughed nervously. "Didn’t it scare you? Weren’t you frightened? But, then, maybe it wouldn’t scare you. Not after working as a janitor in Hell."

"Many things frighten me, Alicia."

She walked over to lean against the cool exterior of the motor home. "I bet you’ve seen a lot of strange things."

"More than you can imagine. I have worked with goblins as well as with demons, have danced with witches who were pure energy, have attended the Old Ceremonies. I have seen the sleeping places of the Great Old Ones and read the forbidden books. I’ve traded ice for gold with people who had no water and sat at the feet of all the prophets, trying to learn from them. Jesus and Buddha, Moses and Mohammed, Zoroaster and Confucius: all of them."

"Have you?" was all she could say.

"They like to get together and argue. Sometimes they get excited, but they never fight. That would be unbecoming to prophets."

Burnfingers’s talk was starting to make her uneasy. Where the hell was Frank? To change the subject she pointed at his right wrist. "That’s such a beautiful bracelet."

"So you’ve said." He raised his arm so it would catch more of the light. A huge turquoise nugget was set deep in a thick band of sand-cast metal. "Skystone and silver." With a finger he traced the recess in which the turquoise reposed. "This is called a shadowbox. The Navajo like to wear their wealth. I have more jewelry, but it can be awkward to travel with. This piece I wear because my father made it. He was very skilled. I keep it with me always."

"Kind of like a talisman?"

"No. To remind me of him. Sadly, he was quite sane. Not like me. That’s what finished him. It is very difficult for an Indian to stay sane and live in your world, where insanity seems to be the normal state of affairs. Since I am mad, I have no difficulty coping."

"You’ve had a hard life, then." She’d moved nearer and was suddenly aware of his size and strength.

"I would say, rather, an interesting one. Many troubles I could have avoided, but to me boredom is the same as death. I would not have had it any other way."

His black hair was inches from her hands and she found herself wondering what it would be like to stroke it, to run her fingers through it.

Abruptly she drew back. What was wrong with her? Here she was out alone in the middle of the night finding herself attracted to a madman. And he was attractive, dammit! The madness, the wildness she sensed in him, was part of it.

"I’ve got to go look for Frank," she found herself muttering. "I guess he’s gone for a walk somewhere."

Burnfingers knew that Mouse had also gone for a nocturnal stroll, but since he was not completely crazy he sensed that mentioning this would have had a deleterious effect on Alicia Sonderberg’s state of mind. So he kept quiet.

"Want me to come with you?"

"No. No, you stay here. I’m sure I’ll run into him any minute now. I’ll just go back to the room and wait." She left him sitting on the lower step.

As she turned the stern of the motor home, she found herself confronting another male figure. "Frank! You startled me. Where have you b — ?"

It wasn’t Frank. It was over six feet tall and thin as a rail, and though it was obviously straining to look like a man it was having a difficult time of it, as though trying something without sufficient practice beforehand. Multiple fingers kept appearing and vanishing on each hand, like the tentacles of sea anemones retracting and extending in the current. The left side of the face kept trying to melt.

"Good evening," it said, the quavering voice a horrible parody of humanity. "Can I help you find your husbaaaand?"

Alicia took a step backward. As she did so a second figure appeared next to the first. It was much shorter and had stringy white hair that curled and contorted like a handful of worms.

"Is there a problem?" it inquired. It struggled to make itself taller.

She couldn’t find her voice.

"It’s all right." The first figure lurched unsteadily toward her. Instead of walking it seemed to shudder from side to side like a shorter creature toddling on stilts. Long, thin arms reached for her, the fingers rippling bonelessly. "We can take you to him."

Other shapes were materializing behind the first two. Alicia suddenly realized they were grotesque, distorted parodies of the motel manager and his wife. Only then was she finally able to scream.

"Burnfingers!"

The stringy fingers were grasping at her, pulling at her arms and robe, tugging her close. "No!" She tried to push them off, keep them away. "Go away, whatever you are, go away and leave me alone!"

Then Burnfingers was there, appearing like a wraith in their midst. He picked up the smaller of the first two things and threw it twenty feet into the night. Its companion growled and wrapped its arms around Alicia while two others jumped the intruder. Burnfingers ripped the first in half, cleanly, since there was no blood. The other climbed up his back, trying to get at his neck. The Indian leaped into the air, twisted, and landed on his back, crushing his assailant between his bulk and the pavement.

"Get inside!" he yelled at Alicia. "Get inside and lock the door!"

She fought against the monstrosity that held her tight, flailing at the thin body and trying to ignore the awful putrid smell that arose from it, the kind of smell she’d once encountered when she’d left some unwrapped chicken in the pantry for a week. The smell of death and rotten things.

Burnfingers was coming for her when a new shape silently emerged from the darkness behind him. The man-thing held a section of steel pipe in one hand. It made a sickening dull sound as it contacted the back of Burnfingers Begay’s skull. The Indian staggered and turned, only to catch the pipe across his forehead. His eyes rolled up and he toppled forward.

"No, no!" Alicia kept screaming despite the attempts of the creature holding her to muffle her voice with one jerky hand. The fingers stank of decay.

Burnfingers lay unmoving on the pavement, blood forming an expanding pool around his head. Fighting down her nausea, Alicia tried to bite the hand that was gagging her. Her teeth went halfway through the rubbery flesh. The thing turned to other motionless shapes hovering nearby and croaked a command, ignoring the wound.

"Get — the — others."

Alicia redoubled her efforts, to no avail. Her teeth were stuck in the hand that muffled her screams. Despite the fact that she outweighed her captor, she couldn’t break free. It was like being entangled in a spool of runaway bailing wire.

Frank halted, staring in the direction of the motel. "Did you hear that? It sounded like Alicia."

"I did hear it, yes, and I think it was your wife. Her voice was full of fear."

"Christ." He started running, somehow avoiding the trees that loomed up to block his path, trying to pace himself and not wanting to. Mouse kept up with him, her dress billowing around her slim form like a tormented cloud.

The motel was still there. It hadn’t fallen off the edge of the world. They hurried around the side and up the path where not so very long ago he’d gone searching for a song. Once he slipped, felt something complain in his left knee, but regained his footing. By the time they reached the double room he was breathing hard.

The door stood ajar. He flipped the light switch, blinking back the artificial brightness. "Alicia? Damn! Alicia!" She wasn’t in the bathroom, nor in the next room with the children. Wendy and Steven were also gone. There was no sign of a struggle.

"Burnfingers. I never should’ve trusted him. He said he was crazy. I should’ve taken him at his word and dumped him back on the highway."

"I am not sure it was…" But Frank was racing past her, pounding toward the motor home.

A light appeared in the motel office as a door opened. The manager stood silhouetted by the glow from within, squinting into the night. "Hey! What’s going on out there? What’s all that yelling about?"

"Call the police!" Frank shouted at him, not caring what line of reality they were on.

"Police? What d’ya want with the police?"

He was around the back of the motor home then, nearly tripping over a large shape lying on the pavement. His thoughts, which had been settling into a nice, comfortable, vengeful mode, were abruptly busted to hell and gone all over again when he saw what lay at his feet. He stood there, staring. Mouse joined him a moment later.

"Jesus." Considering the amount of blood, he was lucky he hadn’t slipped. Bending over, he lifted one big arm, let it drop limply back to the ground. With Mouse helping him they were able to roll Begay over onto his back.

"I think he’s dead."

Mouse put an ear to Burnfingers’s chest, then wet two fingers and passed them across his lips. "Dead he is."

"But if not him, then who …?"

She rose. "Servants of the Anarchis. The forces of Evil. Had we been here they would have taken us, as well."

"I don’t give a shit about that. If I’d been here maybe they wouldn’t have taken anybody."

"You are a truly brave man, Frank, but you are not a fighter. If Burnfingers Begay could not prevail against them — do not berate yourself."

The elderly figure of the motel manager joined them. He was puffing hard, his robe hanging loose across his bony shoulders. "Holy Bejesus! What happened here? That guy looks dead."

Frank started to reply, until Mouse’s stare induced him to swallow his words. "Could be."

"I’m going for the cops."

"Yeah, you do that." He waited until the old man was out of earshot, looked across at Mouse. "I’m going after them."

"It may be just what they want."

"You don’t have to go."

She shook her head. "We are bound together in the rest of this, Frank. Wherever we go, we must go together."

"Then I guess you’re coming with me, cause I ain’t goin anywhere without my wife and kids."

She sighed. "I know that. I will accompany you."

"Lucky me." He started across the pavement. "I’m gonna throw on some clothes, get my wallet and keys. Keep an eye on the bus until I get back."

"Hurry, Frank Sonderberg."

"Don’t worry." He broke into a jog.

She followed him with her eyes until he vanished into the motel room. Then her gaze dropped to the motionless form at her feet. Poor, crazed Burnfingers Begay. Was he really as mad as he’d claimed? Or was he normal and the rest of the universe slightly unbalanced? She’d met Wanderers before, but never one who’d ranged quite so far or contentedly as he. That huge body had been home to an equally massive spirit. Had it fled, or did it linger still? Burnfingers was a stubborn man.

She knelt and leaned forward until her lips were only a few inches from Burnfingers’s ear, and began to sing in a tremulous whisper. Across the street, the Doberman patrolling the back lot of a hardware store began to howl. He was not an animal easily spooked, but now he railed at the moon until his throat threatened to crack.

His cry was picked up by every dog in town, from poodles to stray mutts to the coyotes fighting over garbage they’d dragged up to their ravines, a mournful canine chorus accompanying the extraordinary sweet sound Mouse poured into a dead man’s head. Its rhythm was subtle and serene, familiar yet unique.

A moment passed; two. The rhythm was echoed by the sudden movement of Burnfingers Begay’s chest, then by a twitching of one hand, and at last by the opening of both eyes as he slowly sat erect. Letting out a long wheeze, he put both hands to his temples and rubbed hard. She sat down on the bottom step of the motor home and regarded him silently, the wind playing with the silken edges of her dress.

"Thank you."

"It was not all me," she explained. "There had to be something left to hear me. It works but rarely. You claim to have no soul. You are lying."

He sounded embarrassed. "I didn’t say I never had one. I just said I didn’t have one at the time. It floats around, like excess baggage." He struggled to his feet, feeling the back of his head. "A mule kicked me. What were they?" He described his attackers as best he could.

"Some local evil, or perhaps from a nearby reality line. They tried to fool you by imitating humanity, at which Evil is always poor. They came looking for a way to divert me from my course. It was only luck that enabled me to escape, but they may have achieved their purpose anyway. They took Frank Sonderberg’s wife and children, didn’t they?"

Burnfingers glanced reflexively at the motel, nodded.

"I feared so. When he returns we will try to find them. He will not go on without them. I did not think he would."

She didn’t ask if he was coming with them. She was correct in her assumptions, of course, but he would have appreciated the request nonetheless.

"I did not know Evil could be subtle, but I ought to. Native Americans know more about subtle evils than most people — though whatever put me on the ground was anything but subtle."

Frank rejoined them, slowing precipitously when he saw Burnfingers Begay standing in the moonlight caressing his neck. Frank’s shirt hung over his belt, the buttons were unfastened, and he’d forgotten to zip his fly. He glanced quickly at Mouse, then back at Burnfingers.

"I thought you were dead."

"Was," said the Indian ruefully. "Colder than Spider Rock. Do not look so shocked, Frank, friend. I have been dead before. It is different each time and always an educational experience, though on the whole I would have to say I prefer the alternative. Strange how darkness can be enlightening."

"But how, who …?" His gaze drifted back to Mouse. Burnfingers nodded solemnly.

"The little lady has some prickly tunes in her harmonic arsenal. I have been sung to sleep before, but never awake. I should not be so surprised. She is a special Mouse."

Frank hesitated the briefest of instants before pushing past him. "I’m going after my family. Who’s coming with me?"

"I must," said Mouse, "but I would help anyway."

Frank paused in the doorway to look back at Burnfingers. "You?"

"Of course I am coming, Frank. What can they do but kill me again?"

"Yeah. Only maybe this time they’ll cut off your ears so you won’t be able to hear her songs." He headed for the driver’s seat, Mouse’s response ringing in his head.

"You don’t need your ears to hear my songs, Frank. You don’t need even a tympanum." She sat down next to him. Burnfingers settled himself between the front seats.

It should be Alicia sitting there, Frank told himself. Gentle, understanding Alicia, who was now being dragged God knew where by the hands of unmentionable things.

Mouse brought him out of his sorrowful lethargy, her hand on his arm, the contact as electrifying as before. "Drive, Frank Sonderberg, and no matter where they have been taken, we will track your family."

"Sure you know what you are getting into?" Burnfingers asked him.

"No." He turned the key in the ignition, heard the engine respond. "I don’t." He nodded out into the not-quite-Utah night. "But that’s my wife and kids out there. Money, security, success — nothing means much without 'em. You wouldn’t understand. You aren’t married; you don’t have kids."

"It is true I am not married, but I do have children. My sense of family is as strong as yours. Now shut up and drive."

"Yeah. Right!" Frank almost wrenched the gear lever loose as he put the motor home in drive.

He pulled out into the main drag, turned toward the interstate. As he did so, a blue and white police cruiser pulled into the parking lot behind them. Frank followed its progress in the rearview mirror.

"Just drive," Mouse instructed him, sensing his uncertainty.

"What if they could help?" His foot let up on the accelerator. The motor home slowed. "This reality line is almost identical to ours."

"Where we are going they cannot follow, and if they did they would not long survive."

"They would not follow, Frank," said Burnfingers, "but they will ask questions you do not want to have to try to answer. They will delay you with reports. They will kill your hopes with bureaucratese. Do not stop for them."

Frank considered the advice of his friends. Resolutely, he turned his gaze away from the rearview and back to the road ahead.

The officers who entered the motel lot didn’t quite know what to expect, but when they saw the pool of blood where Burnfingers Begay had lain, their early morning lethargy was swept aside by professional concern. The motel owner was standing nearby, staring up the road.

"You the guy who called?"

"Yes." The old man didn’t turn to look at the policeman. He was muttering to himself. "That fella was dead. I’m sure of it."

The corporal pushed his cap back on his head. "What man? Who was dead?"

"There was a man lying here and he was dead. His friends said he was dead. Then he got up and walked away."

Suddenly leery of what he’d walked into at four in the morning, the cop walked around to where he could see the speaker’s face. "Then I guess he wasn’t dead after all, was he?"

"No," said the manager slowly, "I guess he wasn’t." He looked down at his feet. "But there’s the blood."

"Somebody’s blood." The corporal turned to his partner. "Guess we better check it out. Where are these people?"

"Gone."

"Gone? Whaddaya mean, gone?"

"They left. With the dead man who wasn’t dead. In their motor home."

The other officer spoke up. "Must be that big rig that was leaving as we were coming in."

"Yes. Yes, that’s the one."

The corporal turned back to his car in disgust. "Let’s go, Jake. Maybe the people in the motor home will make some sense."

They pulled out into the road, burning rubber as they drove off in pursuit of the vehicle they’d passed on arrival. The motel owner was left alone in his quiet parking lot. After a while he looked back down at the rapidly drying pool of blood. Then he went to get a hose to wash it away.

Frank saw the rotating red lights swing into sight in the rearview mirror. "Cops. What do I do now?"

"Keep driving," said Burnfingers.

"Keep driving," said Mouse. "We cannot waste time here, certainly not to answer questions."

"That’s what I thought." He put his foot to the gas. "We won’t lose 'em on the interstate. They’ll catch up and pull us over."

"It depends which on ramp we take," Burnfingers told him.

"We must go the way your family has gone, and they have been taken to a different line. I sense it." Mouse had turned to observe the progress of the pursuing police cruiser. They weren’t going all out. Not yet.

Beneath the hood the big engine rumbled. "They’re catching up already."

"Relax, Frank." Burnfingers smiled confidently. "We will lose them."

Frank nodded ahead. "There’s the on ramp. What do I do?"

"Ignore it. Keep going straight, through the underpass."

Frank sounded uncertain. "That’s just a country road." Burnfingers’s smile widened and that was enough to start Frank’s heart a-pounding. He clung to the wheel for support.

The motor home shot beneath the freeway at sixty miles per hour. Now the police cruiser had its siren going as its occupants realized their quarry had no intention of pulling over voluntarily.

"Junction coming up," said Burnfingers. Frank stared into the night.

"What junction? I can’t see a damn thing!"

He spoke too soon. It materialized out of the darkness, an unmarked fork in the road less than half a mile ahead.

"Left," Mouse yelled, "and don’t slow down!"

"Okay, okay!" Looking in the sideview mirror he could see one of the cops in the pursuit car leaning out and waving wildly, his gestures unmistakable. He wanted them to pull over and stop. What, he wondered, if they started shooting? He was no stunt driver and the motor home no sprint car.

That’s when he saw the fence, the barrier that blocked the road. A pair of yellow warning lights flashed like cat’s eyes in the motor home’s high beams. No wonder the police were frantically driving to stop him.

There was a roaring in his ears, like heavy surf banging a rocky shore. He hung on to the wheel, paralyzed. Mouse yelled at him again and it struck him that this was the first time he’d ever heard her raise her voice in anything other than song.

"Keep going, Frank! Don’t stop now!"

Behind him the police cruiser swerved and twisted across the road, honking furiously, the two men inside doing everything possible to draw the attention of the motor home’s occupants as they wondered why it refused to pull over.

Frank flinched but didn’t cover his eyes. The motor home smashed through the flimsy highway barrier, sending splinters and warning lights and planks flying in all directions. They vanished like feathers in the night. The pavement vanished, too, and they found themselves screaming down a dirt road. At the speed they were traveling, the motor home’s suspension was no match for rain ruts and potholes. Dishes flew out of cabinets to cartwheel wildly across the floor. Plastic glasses bounced and tumbled like debris from a New Year’s party. Burnfingers Begay hung on as best he could while Mouse sat stiffly in her seat, gripping the armrests with delicate fingers.

"Where are we going?" Frank shouted. He heard a loud crack. Something breaking loose underneath, or were their pursuers finally shooting at them? The night-shrouded terrain was rushing by in a wash of head-beam light.

"I’m not sure," Mouse told him, "but wherever it is, we have to get there."

Another barrier appeared ahead, blocking the road. This one was smaller and had red warning lights flashing atop it instead of yellow. Beyond, the mountains and dusty landscape disappeared.

"Keep going," said Burnfingers calmly.

Frank stared at the barrier, his foot easing off the accelerator. "Keep going where? There’s no more road."

Mouse leaned toward him, violet orbs flashing. "This is the way your family’s kidnappers have come. Do you want to find them or not? If we hesitate here we may lose them forever."

His thoughts fought one another like a couple of tomcats in heat as the motor home continued to lose momentum. Behind him the wail of the siren lessened. Apparently the police were convinced he was finally going to pull over. After all, he had no other choice, did he? Frank turned to face her.

"How can I trust you anymore, after what you’ve dragged us into?"

She stared steadily back at him and her voice dropped to its usual breathy whisper. "How can you not trust me?"

Frustrated, he turned to the motor home’s only other occupant. "Burnfingers?"

The Indian shrugged. "The on ramps and off ramps we have to take on this journey don’t always come clearly marked, Frank. This looks promising to me."

"And if it’s the wrong way?"

"This world or another, what’s the difference?"

Frank considered. "I guess the difference is that Alicia and the kids aren’t in this one anymore."

He jammed the accelerator to the floor. The motor home roared forward, straight toward the barrier. This time he was positive he heard warning shots. As they struck the wood he closed his eyes.

The ground ended as cleanly as if it had been cut away with an ax. Far below the cliff he could see trees, a small lake, the lights of another town. A great calmness came over him as the motor home lost velocity and started to tilt down. Behind him Burnfingers Begay yelled a war cry — or maybe it was a prayer.

The police cruiser slowed, stopping well behind the ruined barrier that marked the end of the road. Its siren faded to silence, a dying beast encapsulated in a steel box. The red lights still pulsated atop the roof as the two policemen emerged to walk cautiously to the edge of the cliff. It wasn’t a very high cliff: maybe a hundred fifty feet above the plain below. But there still should have been a smoking, twisted chunk of wreckage at its foot. They looked hard and saw nothing but a few pine trees, scrub brush, and bare rock.

A board that had been knocked loose from the road barrier finally fell from its persistent nail, making the older officer jump at the unexpected noise.

"Get the spot," he growled to his partner.

"But there’s — "

"Just get it."

The younger officer ran back to the car, returned with a six-inch-wide spotlight attached to a long cord. Flipping it on, he played the powerful beam over the rocks far below. It wasn’t really necessary. There was more than enough moonlight to see clearly by. Eventually he turned it off.

"Nothing down there. Nothing."

"That’s right. Nothing."

"So where’d they go?"

The corporal raised his gaze from the base of the cliff. "I don’t know where they went, but we’re not going to ask anybody else, are we?"

"What about the report that old guy at the motel called in, about a dead man?"

"Can’t have a dead man without a body." He glanced unwillingly back over the cliff. "Can’t have anyone without bodies. Maybe they’ll turn up somewhere else."

"Like where?"

"Find out where that thirty-foot motor home went and you’ll have your answer. Me, I’m going to try real hard not to lose any sleep over it." He pushed past the younger officer, who favored the cliff with a last uncertain look before hurrying to join the corporal in the car.

He slid in, shut the door. "It wasn’t a hallucination or something, was it?"

"I don’t know what it was. If it was an illusion, then the motel manager saw it, too. If we try real hard, maybe we can convince ourselves that’s what it was."

The corporal turned the car around, headed back toward town. When they reached the place where the pavement started up again, the younger officer looked to his right. Pieces of wood and glass littered the side of the road.

"Illusions don’t smash highway department barriers."

The corporal kept his gaze resolutely forward. "Shut up," he said.