The Dark Door by Kate Wilhelm

Author:Kate Wilhelm [Wilhelm, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction Suspense
ISBN: 9780843934168
Publisher: Leisure
Published: 1988-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“Sheriff,” John Loesser said, “they won’t listen to you. That captain won’t believe he can’t just walk in and take charge and put an end to it. That’s what they always think. Would it help if you could get some outsiders to tell them what happened in other places? I mean cops, even army officers.”

“You got names like that?” Sheriff Maschi regarded him with more interest than he had shown before.

“I’ll give you some names,” John said, and sat down on the couch, started to write. His hand was shaking so much his script looked like that of an old man.

Charlie watched him also for a moment. John’s scar was vivid, his face pale; a line of sweat was on his upper lip. “Our resident expert,” he said to the sheriff in a light tone. “He’s been watching this thing happen for several years.” The sheriff made a noncommittal sound.

There were five names on the list John handed over after a minute or two. Names and towns, no phone numbers. “They shouldn’t be too hard to reach. The towns are pretty small, like Grayling.”

The first name was Foster Lee Murphy. John remembered him quite well. He had marched eight men into a plantation mansion that had been turned into an inn and finally abandoned altogether. He remembered the live oak trees shrouded with pale Spanish moss, the wraithlike fog that drifted head high and was warm. He never had felt warm fog before that night. He had watched from behind an oak tree that spread its arms out over a hundred feet, arms as thick as an average tree trunk, also warm. Earth, trees, fog, all warm that night. It had been a noisy night, with insects, a whippoorwill, tree frogs in full voice. And then the shooting. Screams. Foster Lee Murphy had taken eight men in; six ran and stumbled out. At three in the morning of the next day, John had gone in.

He had heard nothing of what the sheriff said on the telephone, but when Maschi hung up, his face was bleak. “Noxious swamp gas,” he said. “Murphy says the official report lists toxic fumes from an upwelling of swamp gas as the cause of the illness there.” He put his finger on the next name. “Luke Hanrahan.”

The hotel had been on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. One man had walked over the edge; one had vanished. John had watched from across the river the fumbling attempts to find the evil by surrounding it first and advancing in a solid line. A great tugboat pushing a long river train of cargo had saved the men. John had felt precisely when it turned off, when it turned on again after everyone had left, but first one man had walked off the bluff; one had gone into the hotel and had not returned, ever.

Maschi said without inflection, “One guy went AWOL; one tripped and fell off a cliff while under the influence of alcohol. Case closed.” He

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