A Soft Barren Aftershock by F. Paul Wilson

All that had supposedly changed in modern times, except in the most isolated area of the Pines. We had stumbled upon one of those areas. Except that the deformities here were extraordinary. I’d seen a few of the in-breds in my youth. There’d been something subtly odd about them, but nothing that terribly startling. These folk would stop you in your tracks.

  “Let’s head for the Jeep while they’re yucking it up,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.

  “No. Wait. This is fascinating. Besides, we need their help.”

  He spoke to the group as a whole and asked their aid in freeing the Jeep.

  Somebody said, “Sugar sand,” and this was repeated all around. But they willingly set their shoulders against the Wrangler and we were on hard ground again in minutes.

  “Where do you live?” Creighton said to anyone who was listening.

  Someone said, “Town,” and as one they all pointed east, toward the sun. It was also the direction the lights had been headed last night.

  “Will you show me?”

  They nodded and jabbered and tugged on our sleeves, anxious to show us.

  “Really, Jon,” I said. “We should get you to—”

  “My arm can wait. This won’t take long.”

  We followed the group in a generally uphill direction along a circuitous footpath unnavigable by any vehicle other than a motorcycle. The trees thickened and soon we were in shade. And then those trees opened up and we were in their “town.”

  A haze of blue woodsmoke hung over a ramshackle collection of shanties made of scrap lumber and sheet metal. Garbage everywhere, and everyone coming out to look at the strangers. I’d never seen such squalor.

  The fellow with the lopsided head who’d asked about the Jeep before pulled Creighton toward one of the shacks.

  “Hey, mister, you know about machines. How come this don’t work?”

  He had an old TV set inside his one-room hut. He turned the knobs back and forth.

  “Don’t work. No pictures.”

  “You need electricity,” Creighton told him.

  “Got it. Got it. Got it.”

  He led us around to the back to show us the length of wire he had strung from a tree to the roof of the shack.

  Creighton turned to me with stricken eyes.

  “This is awful. No one should have to live like this. Can we do anything for them?”

  His compassion surprised me. I’d never thought there was room for anyone else’s concerns in his self-absorbed life. But then, Jonathan Creighton had always been a motherlode of surprises.

  “Not much. They all look pretty content to me. Seem to have their own little community. If you bring them to the government’s attention they’ll be split up and most of them will probably be placed in institutions or group homes. I guess the best you can do is give them whatever you can think of to make the living easier here.”

  Creighton nodded, still staring around him.

  “Speaking of ‘here,’ ” he said, unshouldering his knapsack, “let’s find out where we are.”

  The misshapen locals stared in frank awe and admiration as he took his readings. Someone asked him, “What is that thing?” a hundred times. At least. Another asked “What happened to your arm?” an equal number of times. Creighton was heroically patient with everyone. He knelt on the ground to transfer his readings to the map, then looked up at me.

  “Know where we are?”

  “The other side of Razorback Hill, I’d say.”

  “You got it.”

  He stood up and gathered the locals around him.

  “I’m looking for a special place around here,” he said.

  Most of them nodded eagerly. Someone said, “We know every place there is around here, I reckon.”

  “Good. I’m looking for a place where nothing grows. Do you know a place like that?”

  It was as if all of these people had a common plug and Creighton had just pulled it. The lights went out, the shades came down, the “Open” signs flipped to “Closed.” They began to turn away.

  “What’d I say?” he said, turning his anxious, bewildered eyes on me. “What’d I sayV’

  “You’re starting to sound like Ray Charles,” I told him. “Obviously they want nothing to do with this ‘place where nothing grows’ you’re talking about. What’s this all about, Jon?”

  He ignored my question and laid his good hand on the shoulder of one of the small-headed men.

  “Won’t you take me there if you know where it is?”

  “We know where it is,” the fellow said in a squeaky voice. “But we never go there so we can’t take you there. How can we take you there if we never go there?”

  “You never go there? Why not?”

  The others had stopped and were listening to the exchange. The small-headed fellow looked around at his neighbors and gave them a look that asked how stupid could anyone be? Then he turned back to Creighton.

  “We don’t go there ‘cause nobody goes there.”

  “What’s your name?” Creighton said.

  “Fred.”

  “Fred, my name is Jon, and I’ll give you . . .” He patted his pockets, then tore the watch off his wrist. “I’ll give you this beautiful watch that you don’t have to wind—see how the numbers change with every second?—if you’ll take me to a place where you do go and point out the place where nothing grows. How’s that sound?”

  Fred took the watch and held it up close to his right eye, then smiled.

  “Come on! I’ll show you!”

  Creighton took off after Fred, and I took off after Creighton.

  Again we were led along a circuitous path, this one even narrower than before, becoming less well defined as we went along. I noticed the trees becoming fewer in number and more stunted and gnarled, and the underbrush thinning out, the leaves fewer and curled on their edges. We followed Fred until he halted as abruptly as if he had run into an invisible wall. I saw why: the footpath we’d been following stopped here. He pointed ahead through what was left of the trees and underbrush.

  “The bald spot’s over yonder atop that there rise.”

  He turned and hurried back along the path.

  Bald spot?

  Creighton looked at me, then shrugged.

  “Got your machete handy, Mac?”

  “No, Bwana.”

  “Too bad. I guess we’ll just have to bull our way through.”

  He rewrapped his burned arm and pushed ahead. It wasn’t such rough going. The underbrush thinned out quickly and so we had an easier time of it than I’d anticipated. Soon we broke into a small field lined with scrappy weeds and occupied by the scattered, painfully gnarled trunks of dead trees. And in the center of the field was a patch of bare sand.

  . . . a place where nothing grows . . .

  Creighton hurried ahead. I held back, restrained by a sense of foreboding. The same something deep within me that had feared the pine lights feared this place as well. Something was wrong here, as if Nature had been careless, had made a mistake in this place and had never quite been able to rectify it.

  As if . . .

  What was I thinking? It was an empty field. No eerie lights buzzing through the sky. No birds, either, for that matter. So what? The sun was up, a breeze was blowing—or at least it had been a moment ago.

  Overruling my instincts, I followed Creighton. I touched the tortured trunk of one of the dead trees as I passed. It was hard and cold, like stone. A petrified tree. In the Pinelands.

  I hurried ahead and caught up to Creighton at the edge of the “bald spot.” He was staring at it as if in a trance. The spot was a rough oval, maybe thirty feet across. Nothing grew in that oval. Nothing.

  “Look at that pristine sand,” he said in a whisper. “Birds don’t fly over it, insects and animals don’t walk on it. Only the wind touches and shapes it. That’s the way sand looked at the beginning of time.”

  It had always been my impression that sand wasn’t yet sand at the beginning of time, but I didn’t arg
ue with him. He was on a roll. I remembered from college: You don’t stop Crazy Creighton when he’s on a roll.

  I saw what he meant, though. The sand was rippled like water, like sand must look in areas of the Sahara far off the trade routes. I saw animal tracks leading up to it and then turning aside. Creighton was right: nothing trod this soil.

  Except Creighton.

  Without warning he stepped across the invisible line and walked to the center of the bald spot. He spread his arms, looked up at the sky, and whirled in dizzying circles. His eyes were aglow, his expression rapturous. He looked stoned out of his mind.

  “This is it! I’ve found it! This is the place!”

  “What place, Jon?”

  I stood at the edge of the spot, unwilling to cross over, talking in the flat tone you might use to coax a druggie back from a bad trip, or a jumper down from a ledge.

  “Where it all comes together and all comes apart! Where the Truth is revealed!”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Jon?”

  I was tired and uneasy and I wanted to go home. I’d had enough, and I guessed my voice showed it. The rapture faded. Abruptly, he was sober.

  “Nothing, Mac. Nothing. Just let me take a few readings and we’re out of here.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard this morning.”

  He shot me a quick glance. I didn’t know if it conveyed annoyance or disappointment. And I didn’t care.

  8. Spreading Infection

  I got us back to a paved road without too much difficulty. We spoke little on the way home. He dropped me off at my house and promised to see a doctor before the day was out.

  “What’s next for you?” I said as I closed the passenger door and looked at him through the open window.

  I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to guide him back into the Pines again. I was sure he hadn’t been straight with me about his research. I didn’t know what he was after, but I knew it wasn’t the Jersey Devil. A part of me said it was better not to know, that this man was a juggernaut on a date with disaster.

  “I’m not sure. I may go back and see those people, the ones on the far side of Razorback Hill. Maybe bring them some clothing, some food.” Against my will, I was touched.

  “That would be nice. Just don’t bring them toaster cakes or microwave dinners.”

  He laughed. “I won’t.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  He hesitated, looking uncertain.

  “A place called the Laurelton Circle Motor Inn.”

  “I know it.”

  A tiny place. Sporting the name of a traffic circle that no longer existed. “I’m staying in room five if you need to get hold of me but . . . can you do me a favor? If anybody comes looking for me, don’t tell them where I am. Don’t tell them you’ve even seen me.”

  “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

  “A misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  “You wouldn’t want to elaborate on that, would you?” His expression was bleak. “The less you know, Mac, the better.”

  “Like everything else these past two days, right?” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Me, too. Look. Stop by before you head back to Razorback. I may have a few old things I can donate to those folks.”

  He waved with his burned hand, and then he was off.

  Creighton stopped by a few days later on his way back to Razorback Hill. His left arm was heavily bandaged in gauze. “You were right,” he said. “It got infected.”

  I gave him some old sweaters and shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans that no longer fit the way they should.

  A few days later I bumped into him in the housewares aisle at Pathmark. He’d picked up some canned goods and was buying a couple of can openers for the Razorback folks. His left arm was bandaged as before, but I was concerned to see that there was gauze on his right hand now.

  “The infection spread a little, but the doctor says it’s okay. He’s got me on this new antibiotic. Sure to kill it off.”

  Looking more closely now in the supermarket’s fluorescent glare, I saw that he was pale and sweaty. He seemed to have lost weight.

  “Who’s your doctor?”

  “Guy up in Neptune. A specialist.”

  “In pine light burns?”

  His laugh was a bit too loud, a tad too long.

  “No! Infections.”

  I wondered. But Jon Creighton was a big boy now. I couldn’t be his mother.

  I picked out some canned goods myself, checked out behind Creighton, and gave the bagful to him.

  “Give them my best,” I told him.

  He smiled wanly and hurried off.

  At the very tail end of August I was driving down Brick Boulevard when I spotted his Wrangler idling at the Burger King drive-thru window. I pulled into the lot and walked over.

  “Jon!” I said through the window and saw him jump.

  “Oh, Mac. Don’t ever do that!”

  He looked relieved, but he didn’t look terribly glad to see me. His face seemed thinner, but maybe that was because of the beard he had started to grow. A fugitive’s beard.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was wondering if you wanted to get together for some real lunch.”

  “Oh. Well. Thanks, but I’ve got a lot of errands to run. Maybe some other time.”

  Despite the heat, he was wearing corduroy pants and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. I noticed that both his hands were still wrapped in gauze. An alarm went off inside me.

  “Isn’t that infection cleared up yet?”

  “It’s coming along slowly, but it’s coming.”

  I glanced down at his feet and noticed that his ankles looked thick. His sneakers were unlaced, their tongues lolling out as the sides stretched to accommodate his swollen feet.

  “What happened to your feet?”

  “A little edema. Side effect of the medicine. Look, Mac, I’ve got to run.” He threw the Wrangler into gear. “I’ll call you soon.”

  It was a couple of weeks after Labor Day and I’d been thinking about Creighton a lot. I was worried about him, and was realizing that I still harbored deeper feelings for him than I cared to admit.

  Then the state trooper showed up at my office. He was big and intimidating behind his dark glasses; his haircut came within a millimeter of complete baldness. He held out a grainy photo of Jon Creighton.

  “Do you know this man?” he said in a deep voice.

  My mouth was dry as I wondered if he was going to ask me if I was involved in whatever Creighton had done; or worse: if I’d care to come down and identify the body.

  “Sure. We went to college together.”

  “Have you seen him in the past month.”

  I didn’t hesitate. I did the stand-up thing.

  “Nope. Not since graduation.”

  “We have reason to believe he’s in the area. If you see him, contact the state police or your local police immediately.”

  “What’s he done, officer?”

  He turned and started toward the door without deigning to answer. That brand of arrogance never failed to set something off in me.

  “I asked you a question, officer. I expect the courtesy of a reply.”

  He turned and looked at me, then shrugged. Some of the Dirty Harry facade slipped away with the shrug.

  “Why not?” he said. “He’s wanted for grand theft.”

  Oh, great.

  “What did he steal?”

  “A book.”

  “A book?”

  “Yeah. Would you believe it? We’ve got rapes and murders and armed robberies, but this book is given a priority. I don’t care how valuable it is or how much some university in Massachusetts wants it, it’s only a book. But the Massachusetts people are really hot to get it back. Their governor got to our governor and. . . well, you know how it goes. We found his car abandoned out near Lakehurst a while back, so we know he’s been through here.”

  “You think he’s on foot?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe
he rented or stole another car. We’re running it down now.”

  “If he shows up, I’ll let you know.”

  “Do that. I get the impression that if he gives the book back in one piece, all will be forgiven.”

  “I’ll tell him that if I get the chance.”

  As soon as he was gone, I got on the phone to Creighton’s motel. His voice was thick when he said hello.

  “Jon! The state cops were just here looking for you!”

  He mumbled a few words I didn’t understand. Something was wrong. I hung up and headed for my car.

  There are only about twenty rooms in that particular motel. I spotted the Wrangler backed into a space at the far end of the tiny parking lot. Number five was on a corner of the first floor. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the knob. I knocked on the door twice and got no answer. I tried the knob. It turned.

  It was dark inside except for the daylight I’d let in. And that light revealed a disaster area. The room looked like the inside of a dumpster behind a block of fast-food stores. Smelled like one, too. There were pizza boxes, hamburger wrappers, submarine sleeves, Chinese food cartons, a sampling from every place in the area that delivered. And it was hot. Either the air conditioner had quit or it hadn’t been turned on.

  “Jon?” I flipped on the light. “Jon, are you here?”

  He was in a chair in a corner on the far side of the bed, huddled under a pile of blankets. Papers and maps were piled on the night table beside him. His face, where visible above his matted beard, was pale and drawn. He looked as if he’d lost thirty pounds. I slammed the door closed and stood there, stunned.

  “My God, Jon, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.” His hoarse, thick voice said otherwise. “What are you doing here, Mac?”

  “I came to tell you that the state police are cruising around with photos of you, but I can see that’s the least of your problems! You’re really sick!” I reached for the phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “No! Mac, please don’t!”

  The terror and soul-wrenching anguish in his voice stopped me. I stared at him but still kept a grip on the receiver.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m begging you not to!”

  “But you’re sick, you could be dying, you’re out of your head!”