at the perimeter of the lower woods, where he conducted another search
for the camera, the shotgun, and the Discman.
Gone.
He could do without the shotgun. It wasn’t his only defense.
The Discman had served its purpose. He didn’t need it any more.
Besides, he remembered how smoke had seeped from its innards and how
hot the casing had been when he’d unclipped it from his belt. It was
probably ruined.
However, he badly wanted the camcorder, because without it, he had no
proof of what he’d seen. Maybe that was why it had been taken.
In the house again, he made a fresh pot of coffee. What the hell did
he need a prostate for, anyway?
From the desk in the study, he fetched a legal-size tablet of ruled
yellow paper and a couple of ballpoint pens.
He sat at the kitchen table, working on the second pot of coffee and
filling up tablet pages with his neat, strong handwriting. On the
first page, he began with: My name is Eduardo Fernandez, and I have
witnessed a series of strange and unsettling events. I am not much of
a diarist.
Often, I’ve resolved to start a diary with the new year, but I have
always lost interest before the end of January. However, I am
sufficiently worried to put down here everything that I’ve seen and may
yet see in the days to come, so there will be a record in the event
that something happens to me.
He strove to recount his peculiar story in simple terms, with a minimum
of adjectives and no sensationalism. He even avoided speculating about
the nature of the phenomenon or the power behind the creation of the
doorway. In fact, he hesitated to call it a doorway, but he finally
used that term because he knew, on a deep level beyond language and
logic, that a doorway was precisely what it had been. If he died–face
it, if he was killed–before he could obtain proof of these bizarre
goings-on, he hoped that whoever read his account would be impressed by
its cool, calm style and would not disregard it as the ravings of a
demented old man. He became so involved in his writing that he worked
through the lunch hour and well into the afternoon before pausing to
prepare a bite to eat. Because he’d skipped breakfast too, he had
quite an appetite. He sliced a cold chicken breast left over from
dinner the previous night, and he built a couple of tall sandwiches
with cheese, tomato, lettuce, and mustard.
Sandwiches and beer were the perfect meal because that was something he
could eat while still composing in the yellow legal tablet.
By twilight, he had brought the story up to date. He finished with: I
don’t expect to see the doorway again because I suspect it has already
served its purpose. Something has come through it. I wish I knew what
that something was.
Or perhaps I don’t.
CHAPTER NINE.
A sound woke Heather. A soft thunk, then a brief scraping, the source
unidentifiable. She sat straight up in bed, instantly alert.
The night was silent again.
She looked at the clock. Ten minutes past two in the morning.
A few months ago, she would have attributed her apprehension to some
frightening an unremembered dream, and she would have rolled over and
gone back to sleep.
Not any more.
She had fallen asleep atop the covers. Now she didn’t have to
disentangle herself from the blankets before getting out of bed.
For weeks, she had been sleeping in sweat-suits instead of her usual
T-shirt and panties. Even in pyjamas, she would have felt too
vulnerable. Sweats were comfortable enough in bed, and she was dressed
for trouble if something happened in the middle of the night.
Like now.
In spite of the continued silence, she picked up the gun from the
nightstand.
It was a Korth .38 revolver, 120 made in Germany by Waffenfabrik Korth
and perhaps the finest handgun in the world, with tolerances unmatched
by any other maker.
The revolver was one of the weapons she had purchased since the day
Jack had been shot, with the consultation of Alma Bryson. She’d spent