The Shimmer

He screamed.

The illumination came from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.

Raleigh lunged toward the door, unlocked it, and yanked it open. A glare made him shield his eyes.

The team lay before him. Covered with blood, those who were still alive groaned. One man had the strength to aim his M4 at him.

Raleigh stooped to grab the carbine with the grenade launcher but didn’t need to use it-the man with the M4 passed out, his gun clattering to the concrete floor.

Raleigh charged over the bodies, yanked open another door, and raced into the chamber where the now useless Suburbans were parked. The glare was even brighter as he hurried toward the stair- well that led to the surface.

If I run fast enough, maybe I can go far enough.

I wasn’t exposed as long as the rest of the team. Maybe I won’t bleed out.

Chest heaving, he pounded up the stairs. He reached the door to the outside, turned the knob, rammed his shoulder against it, but couldn’t make it budge. He jabbed numbers on a pad next to the door, entering the unlock sequence, but the door still wouldn’t budge.

Of course! Raleigh thought. Without electricity, the code pad can’t work!

Wailing uncontrollably, he hurried down the steps, raised the carbine, and fired a grenade at the door. The explosion threw him off balance. When the smoke cleared, he saw that the door hung askew. A glare showed beyond it.

As blood dripped from his face, he rushed up the stairs, entered the ruins of the hangar, and sprinted outside. Behind him, a massive light intensified, but straight ahead lay the darkness of the road.

Keep ru

He managed only three long, frenzied strides before something bounded from the darkness and struck his chest, knocking him onto his back. Jaws snapped at his neck. The German shepherd. Its face was bloody. In a frenzy, the dog drove its teeth toward Raleigh’s neck.

He grabbed its throat, trying to push it away. It clawed and writhed. He couldn’t keep hold of its blood-slicked fur.

About to tear into his throat, it suddenly stopped and stared be- yond his face. The blood on its muzzle reflected churning lights. With a yelp, it spun and raced into the darkness.

Raleigh struggled to his feet and staggered forward. The impact of falling had knocked his headphones off. The flow of blood had loosened his earplugs. Without their protection, he heard a hiss-crackle- hum behind him.

And something else.

The motor of an airplane.

Of all the stories his grandfather had told him, the one that haunted him the most was about how Raleigh’s great-grandfather had flown a World War I biplane toward the dark horizon in an effort to learn the origin of the lights. As a boy, Raleigh had imagined that biplane going farther and farther away, getting smaller, receding into the distance, becoming only a speck.

Vanishing.

My great-grandfather.

Turning, he was nearly blinded by a wave of lights speeding toward him. In the distance, grassland was ablaze, the flames adding to the glare, the smoke reflecting it. He gaped toward the twisting colors, the dominant hue of which was orange and reminded him of the sun.

Something moved inside them.

A biplane swooped into view, its orange at first indistinguishable from that of the flares around it. The biplane had two seats, one behind the other. In the rear seat, a young man worked the controls. He wore a uniform and goggles. Even at a distance, it was obvious that he was handsome.

He had a mustache. The tail of a scarf floated behind him.

Before Raleigh understood what he was doing, he started along the old airstrip. He knew he ought to run toward the road, but ever since the age of thirteen, all of his thoughts had been about the lights and their secrets.

When he was eighteen, he’d come to this airbase and searched it, finding a way into the underground facility. Like his grandfather, he’d joined the Army with the purpose of rising through military intelligence. At last he’d gained the authority he needed to track down his great-grandfather’s reports about the lights, to follow clues that led him to his grandfather’s reports about the lights.

The biplane swooped nearer.

Without warning, the engine stopped.

The biplane disappeared. It was instantly replaced by a small, single-wing aircraft, a Cessna, the engine of which was silent, its propeller fluttering uselessly. Raleigh saw a man and a woman through the canopy. Their faces were twisted with fear.

The plane was about to crash.

79

One moment, Page was trying to guide the Cessna over the Badlands and onto the murky grass. The next, swirling colors enveloped the plane. If time had seemed prolonged during the gliding descent, it became even more so now.

The Cessna appeared not to be moving.

A beam of light shot from the colors that pulsed on the right side of the aircraft. It produced so much illumination that he could see the collapsed hangars of the old airfield. The beam of light streaked into one of them and angled toward the northwest in the direction of the observatory.

In the distance, the beam surged into the sky, deflected off something-a satellite, Page guessed-and rocketed toward the ground even farther northwest.

“I hear an engine!” Tori shouted.

“It isn’t ours!”

A shadow passed through the colors on his left.

“Another plane!” Page yelled.

Not just another plane. A biplane of a type that dated back to World War I. A young man with a mustache and goggles was behind the controls in the rear seat, the tail of a scarf fluttering behind him.

Other images swirled within the colors: a man herding cattle, a woman on horseback riding along a dark road…

A handsome young man-James Deacon-leaning against a fence, staring toward darkness.

A teenager on a motorcycle racing across a murky field.

Soldiers holding their heads as if they feared their skulls would explode.

Edward Mullen shooting toward the lights, then firing into a crowd.

Tori sitting on a bench at the viewing area, gazing spellbound toward the shadowy distance.

At once all the images vanished, including the biplane. Its engine could no longer be heard.

The Cessna resumed its glide. The lights, which were now behind it, provided enough illumination for Page to see the weeds and dirt on the old runway.

“We’re coming in short!”

The ground rose swiftly.

“Someone’s ahead of us!” Tori yelled.

“What?”

“There’s a man staggering along the runway!”

Page saw him then. Wavering, a man gaped at the Cessna, his head and clothes soaked with what had to be blood.

“Tori, get your door open!” Page yanked up the lever on his own door and pushed. He saw rocks among the weeds before the runway.

The Cessna couldn’t stay in the air any longer. He pulled the controls back, raising the nose, hoping to keep the front wheel above the rocks. The left wheel struck and collapsed. He felt the plane drop on that side. The left wing dragged along the ground, then buckled. Snagging, it caused the fuselage to twist to the left.

The propeller struck earth, a blade breaking off and flipping away, the torque yanking the engine out of its housing. Dust billowed over the canopy. As the fuselage kept tilting violently to the left, Page found that he was lying on his side. The snapping and grinding of metal was matched by the crunch of the plane skidding over dirt. The shock of stopping would have slammed Page’s chest against the controls if his seat belt and shoulder harness hadn’t been tight, but even so, the snap of his chest against the harness made him feel as if he’d been punched.

He had trouble breathing.

“Tori,” he managed to say, “are you all right?”

She didn’t answer.

“Tori?”

“I think I’m okay.”