Читать книгу Advent Of Darkness - Gary Caplan - Страница 4

The car's headlights cut through the darkness of the night on the empty road outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. John Gideon sat behind the wheel, rubbing his eyes, his mind weary from several hours of travel. He was a tall man with a lean but powerful build, surfer good looks, and shoulder-length blond hair.

He had just completed the qualifying exams for his master's degree and his thesis project, which were the culmination of twenty-four months of full-time study at Temple University in Philadelphia.

World prehistory, Stone Age Europe, and archeological methods and theories still jangled in his brain, giving him a headache. Still, he had to laugh slightly at the course his life had taken. A few years earlier, he had left his home state of California and joined the military, not because he did not want to go to college, but because he felt almost compelled to serve. Because of his exceptional intelligence and his athletic ability, he had a few unique opportunities, including gathering intelligence for his company and later Fifty-Eighth Infantry, and that was when his tour of duty got interesting. For three years, he worked both in combat situations and non-combat situations of gathering of military intelligence. During his time in the military, he was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action against enemy forces. In 1970, he got out, wanting to put the horror of the past behind him. That year, he enrolled in one of Philadelphia's university's archeological sciences program because he thought that the study of "old stuff" would be sufficiently different. After three years of hell, archaeology would seem like heaven.

Now, here he was six years later, having completed college with honors and recently earned a master's degree, on his way to a doctorate.

He let out a bored sigh and looked up at the sky. In the darkness above, rain-filled nimbus clouds moved in to block the light of the stars.

It's going to rain, he thought to himself.

Cursing softly at the rotten change in the weather, he flipped on the radio and tuned it to the local pop music station, which was playing "Disco Duck."

God, I'm really beginning to hate that song, he thought as it mercifully faded out to be replaced by Rod Stewart's newest hit, "Tonight's the Night."

Now, that's more like it, he thought.

Soon, he found himself tapping unconsciously on the steering wheel and humming to himself. With a quick downward thrust, he shifted into fourth gear as he thought of trying to beat the rain.

Cool air blew on his face, tousling his light golden-blond hair and easing the stifling summer night air. Glancing at the clock on the dash, he saw it was five minutes to eight.

Thunder rumbled across the heavens, and the night sky flashed with lightning, though the storm was still minutes away.

Gideon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. As a rule, he liked lonely country roads during daylight. There were farms and cows and trees and stuff to look at, good for relieving the monotonous boredom of a long road trip. However, at night, the darkness and shadows made everything mysterious and spooky. Trees loomed from either side of the road, their appearance suddenly gnarled and misshapen when lit by the flashes of lightning. No longer the homes of happy squirrels and twittering birds, they became twisted, evil creatures one only encountered in a fairy tale about wicked witches and goblins.

Somewhat shaken by his thoughts, he downshifted and continued at a safe and steady forty-five miles per hour. It was then, more or less, that he realized with slight apprehension that his seemed to be the only car on the road. He had not passed, nor had he seen, another car for over an hour.

He thought that was a bit odd.

He looked into his rearview mirror.

Nothing.

Nervously, he looked about and began eyeing the dreadful trees again.

Then, as he turned his eyes back to the road before him, the headlight beams caught a man suddenly stepping out onto the road about one hundred yards in front of his oncoming car.

With his heart suddenly leaping into his throat, Gideon quickly lay down on the horn and slammed down hard on the brakes. He steered the wheel to the right. The Mustang's tires screeched to a reluctant halt.

The man stood on the road, motionless, as if he did not realize he had been only a few seconds away from being road kill, and looked at the car.

No, not at the car.

At me!

The engine rumbled idly as Gideon and the man looked at each other.

Was the man crazy? He was wearing some kind of robe, like a fancy housecoat. Red, he thought. He had a tightly cropped black beard and blue-gray eyes.

Piercing eyes. No fear in them.

Lucid, sane, determined.

Clearing his mind, Gideon leaned out the window and opened his mouth to speak, but the strange man in the road spoke first. His voice was clear and strong, though halted and strained, as if English was not his first language.

"John…Gid…eon."

It was not a question but rather a confirmation. Gideon stiffened warily at hearing his own name from this stranger's lips.

Thunder and lightning crashed overhead. Rain began to pour down from the sky in torrents. The storm had decided to break.

"Who?" he began.

"They…come…for you!" the man continued; his steady gaze seemed to grow even harder. "They have breached…the barrier, and they…have found…your scent. You are…in great danger!"

Gideon opened the door at this and began to step out of the car. He was shaken but resolute. He was going to find out who this person was and how he knew his name.

"Who the hell are you, man? Do you realize I nearly ran you over? What are you, stoned? And what the hell's all this about? 'They'? Who's they?" he asked in a voice loud enough to be heard over the storm.

Instead of responding, the man cocked his head as if listening to the storm. Rain dripped off his upturned face in torrents.

"They…are…near…Very…close now. You must go, John Gideon! Now!"

"Who is coming, mister?" shouted Gideon, his voice now raised in frustrated anger, as well as in an attempt to be heard over the storm.

The man returned his gaze to Gideon.

"Gorghuan!" the man shouted. "Run, you fool! Get back in your…car and drive! Now!"

"Who or what is a gorghuan?" asked Gideon.

The tall man stared at Gideon wildly for a second and then composed himself and said in a low, matter-of-fact voice, "Something you do not want to meet on a lonely road at night."

Gideon realized that the man's English had gotten much better in the past minute or so, but then he heard something over the storm that sent a shiver down his spine.

It sounded like an unnatural baying howl.

He shuddered. This whole thing was seriously beginning to creep him out. The man again cocked his head, listening to the storm.

Did he hear that weird noise too?

As he looked at the wet, darkened road behind Gideon, the man's face slumped in defeat, and he said, "It is too late. They are here."

Gideon turned to look behind him and froze in terror at what he saw rushing toward him.

In the distance, he could make out three large four-legged black shapes running at full speed toward him. The faint huffing, growling sound coming from them was similar to that of a large predatory cat or dog. Their eyes burned with a red light, piercing the rainy darkness like infernal headlights.

"Holy shit!"

He turned back to the man. However, as he did so, he saw a strange light beginning to radiate from him, a pulsing light that streamed with rainbow hues. The man's expression turned from hardened determination to surprise and disbelief.

"No! Emissaries of the ancient enemy! I cannot help you now," he said as the light from his body began to fade. "This spellweave has been interrupted. I will try to retrieve you farther on down the road."

And with that, he was gone.

The monstrous dog-things were now only seconds away from the car bumper. Without thinking, he leaped back into the car, floored the clutch, and threw the stick shift into second. The car lurched forward as he leaned hard on the accelerator. The rear tires spun wildly, smoking and screeching as they tried to latch on to the slick road surface. The car fishtailed left and then right. Something slammed into the back of the car, and there was the sound of metal being ripped free somewhere as the car shot forward. He looked back in the rearview mirror and saw one of the receding creatures grappling with what looked like his rear bumper in its jaws. However, the other two were still in hard pursuit, their massive legs pistoning like a freight train. And they are gaining on me!

"Let's see if you bastards can go sixty!" he shouted into the mirror. He buckled his seat belt, shifted into third, and floored the accelerator.

The night was lit for a second or two by a powerful flash of lightning, and he saw that the creatures were losing ground. The speedometer was reading fifty and rising. He looked back again.

The creatures were falling farther behind, shrinking rapidly.

He glanced at the road before him and then back into the rearview mirror again.

They were now only two ever-decreasing spots on the road.

He turned his attention to the road ahead of him and then shot a nervous glance back into the rearview mirror.

Ahead was what appeared to be a tunnel, and as he rapidly approached it, he thought that the surrounding rain had begun to take on a faint reddish tint. He entered the tunnel and felt an immediate sensation of engulfment within its total darkness. Even his headlights were useless. It felt like floating in space. Flashing, multihued lights appeared at the other end of the tunnel. Streaks of light shot past him, through him, and around him and then disappeared into the void far behind him.

Sensations of weightlessness gripped him as the entire diameter of the tunnel seemed to expand at first and then shrink. The rain around the car took on the same fluctuating colors as the onrushing lights; the entire event took less than a minute.

Then just as he felt he was going to lose both his mind and the contents of his stomach, a light as bright as day stabbed at his eyes, blinding him. As he shot out of the tunnel at sixty-five miles per hour, he realized he was no longer driving on tarmac but had somehow found himself on an eight-foot-wide cobblestone path in broad daylight!

A large fallen tree lay across the path ahead, blocking it.

Eyes widened in terror, for the second time in moments, he instinctively slammed on the brakes and wrenched hard to the right to avoid hitting a fast-approaching obstacle in the road. Unfortunately, this time around, there was a ditch to the right that led down to a small riverbank. The car tilted at a harsh angle and toppled over the bank.

Metal screamed, tires blew, and glass shattered as the car rolled three times before finally coming to rest in a smoking ruin on the lower bank of the river.

When his head cleared, Gideon found himself hanging upside down, held by his safety belt. He realized that it had probably saved his life.

Thanks to the combat medical training he received in the army and the CPR and first-aid courses he had taken a few months back, he realized the seat belt had indeed saved his life, but he was not without injury. He had excruciating pain in his left arm when he tried to move it to open the door. Probably a broken arm, he thought. It also hurts to take deep breaths, a sign of a possible rib injury. Quickly, he checked his legs, chest, and head with his other arm. The wet trickle of blood crept up his temple and into his hairline. His face hurt in several places. Probably glass fragments. He also realized that he had a head wound and was probably in shock.

He unbuckled his seat belt and painfully dropped to the upside-down roof of the car. The pain in his ribs and arm coursed through his throbbing head like a Roman candle. As he moved away from the car, the throbbing gave way to a wave of nausea and light-headedness.

He dismissed this as the effects of shock. He felt heavy, as if the pull of gravity had somewhat increased, and he felt pressure on his ears, reminding him of snorkeling or scuba diving. Slowly, he began to crawl up out of the ditch. His legs wobbled rebelliously beneath him as he walked several paces away, and then he toppled to his knees.

He looked back toward where he came through and saw, not a tunnel, but a slowly shrinking gray-black hole, floating just above the ground. Surrounding this hole were dozens of strange rune like symbols that glowed brightly as they stood, apparently of their own volition, in the air.

Suddenly, a loud whumpf pulled his attention away from the strange sight. The crash had ruptured the gas tank, and the Mustang suddenly went up like a bonfire in a burst of flame and smoke. The force of the concussive blast, coupled with the searing wave of heat, was enough to push him over the edge of consciousness, and everything started to fall away as the blackness rushed over him.

With a short, ragged moan, Gideon's eyes rolled up, and he pitched forward onto his face.

He twitched once, twice.

Then he lay still.