The Mural. Michael Mallory

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СКАЧАТЬ as she approached and held his arms out, and Althea melted into them. He smelled of paint and tobacco, as he always had, but now there was a faint new odor, that of gunpowder. “I’ve missed you, darling,” Althea said, her voice shaky, not with age, but with emotion. “Howard, have you come for me? Am I dying?”

      “Not yet, Pookie,” he answered softly, and her heart melted. That had been his private name for her. No one else on earth knew of that name. “I’ve come to tell you that there is something you must do first.”

      “Tell me and I’ll do it, Howard. I’ll do anything for you.”

      “You must help defeat it.”

      “What must I help defeat?”

      “The legion.”

      “What legion?”

      “We thought we took care of it way back when, but the gateway has been opened again.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “You have to make yourself understand,” Howard replied. “It will not be easy, but you will have help. You will not be alone. There will be a little girl.”

      “Howard, please tell me what are you talking about!”

      “It’s fighting me...the legion...I don’t have much time. Look for the little girl at Tarelton, California.” Howard said, stepping back from her. “And be brave, Althea. Don’t give in to it.”

      “Howard!”

      Her long dead love was gone now, like he had never been there. The only signs of life in the basement room were simulated ones: the painted figures on each wall, which had been rendered in the style of a public art mural, the kind Howard used to create before the war. Althea looked from one face to another, and then put her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry.

      The painted figures all slowly turned to face her.

      I’m dreaming I’m dreaming I’m dreaming I’m dreaming, she chanted to herself, but that did nothing to eliminate her fear.

      A shadow in her peripheral vision caused her to look down the seemingly endless corridor. Another figure was standing there, one that was all black. She could not make out features of any kind, but she could see that the shadow was moving. It was coming toward her, very quickly. Althea began to back up, keeping her eyes on the dark figure. As the black figure passed the pictures, the painted figures within them withered and rotted.

      That was when Althea screamed. She turned and started running down the corridor, never daring to look back, too frightened to slow down. She ran as fast as she did when she and Bernia used to have races up the drive from the street. Ahead now she could see the stairs leading up to the mysterious door of her house. Behind her, she could hear the footfalls of the dark figure chasing her, as well as the moans of the figures on the wall.

      Why can’t I wake up?

      She got to the base of the stairs and sprinted up, taking two steps at a time, until she reached the top. Althea was about to bolt through the door, when it violently slammed shut in her face. She felt the pressure of the wooden door hitting her flesh, but no pain. Then she fell backwards.

      She expected to hit the steps with her back at any moment, but that moment never came. Instead she continued to fall helplessly through the air, like she was falling down a mine shaft. She opened her mouth to cry out....

      But Althea Kinchloe did not cry out as her eyes opened and she bounced tensely on her bed, as though she had just landed there from a height. Her nightgown was sopping wet, but it was from sweat, not one of the bladder accidents she occasionally had in her sleep. She reached for her forehead and found that her hair was wet as well, like she had just emerged from the shower. Her heart was pounding almost audibly. “Dear Lord in Heaven,” she moaned, closing her eyes again, and wondering whether or not she should call the emergency room.

      No, that would be foolish, she decided. There was no pain, only discomfort. And fear. In fact, in her ninety-three years of life, she could not remember a dream that had been so thoroughly terrifying. She glanced at the digital clock beside her bed: it was 4:37 a.m.

      “I doubt I’m going to get back to sleep,” she told herself, getting out of bed and shuffling to the bathroom to dry herself off. Putting her damp nightgown into the sink, Althea clad herself in her cotton robe, walked into the dark living room and seated herself on the sofa. She searched the cushions for the television remote, finally found it, and switched on the new, impossibly large set that her grandson had bought for her, more for light and noise than entertainment. The programming choices were nothing special this time of night, anyway, mostly those thirty-minute commercials for real estate classes or vacuum cleaners or weight-loss programs. But just having something with sound in front of her might help her to forget the terrible dream.

      No. You mustn’t forget, you cannot forget, my darling, I will not let you, a voice whispered in her mind.

      “Lord, have mercy,” Althea uttered. Fine; she would not forget. Rising, she walked into the dining room, where she had a small desk and an upright typewriter that she had had since business school. Taking a clean sheet of paper, she fed it into the roller of the Underwood. There was no doubt that she was awake. She was in her dining room, wide awake. And Howard’s voice had just spoken to her.

      “If remembering that dream is that important to you, Howard, I guess I’ll have to do it,” she said aloud, and then reprimanded herself. She had better be careful about talking to empty rooms, or letting anyone, particularly the kids, know that she was following the instructions of her long-dead lover, or else they might declare her senile and put her away into one of those horrible living facilities. If that happened, she would not be able to help anybody. Dying facilities was what they were.

      As she started to peck out the details of her nightmare onto the paper, Althea’s fear began to subside, and a welcoming calm came over her. She felt that she was doing the right thing. She still did not understand what the nightmare meant, if it really meant anything at all, but if it was important to Howard, it was important to her, too. He would not lie to her.

      He was still the one she would have trusted above anyone else on earth.

      Alive or dead.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      The tall trees blocked out a good portion of the sun, making it seem much darker, though Jack was relieved that the misty fog that had made yesterday’s visit to the woods so uncomfortable had gone. He and Dani Lindstrom had bumped and bounced their way to the spot where the road was blocked by the fallen tree and then got out. “We’ll have to fight our way through a tangle of brush a ways up,” Jack told her, “so I hope you’re not wearing anything delicate.”

      “I left my chiffon prom dress back at the motel,” Dani said, grinning.

      The hike seemed easier this time, perhaps because Jack knew where he was going, though the new day revealed nothing that Jack had not noticed before. The city hall building was now more visible from other parts of the ghost town, but that could be attributed to the lack of fog. Jack snapped pictures all the way along as they hiked into the main part of the village. Once they had reached the city hall, Dani said: “Wow, look at this place.” She started to trot up the steps, but Jack stopped her.

      “There’s no light in there,” he said, pulling out his flashlight, “and you have to be really careful. СКАЧАТЬ