Nightrise

them — he didn't know why — but he had woken up before they arrived. And he hadn't been alone. Scott had been here with him.
    And — standing next to them — there had been a girl.
    "This is a dream," Jamie muttered to himself. His voice still sounded very small but it was reassuring to hear anything at all. The waves were hitting the shore right in front of him but they were sluggish and hardly made any sound, as if someone had turned down the volume.
    A shaft of light flashed in the sky, far away. A storm. Jamie got to his feet. He was shivering. It wasn't cold — like everything else here, the temperature seemed to be fixed in some sort of neutral — but there was something about the lightning that set his teeth on edge. There it was again. He watched it flicker twice more, white forks of electricity so brilliant that they seemed to tear into the world as if determined to smash it. Somehow he knew that this was no ordinary storm. It was an announcement. Something was happening. It was still far away but soon it would be closer. There was a very slight breeze now. He could feel it, clammy and dead, batting against his face.
    "Scott!" he called out again. At the same time he wished, miserably, that he could wake up right away.
    He heard something on the shingle, over to one side.
    He glanced around, expecting to see his brother, but instead there was a man kneeling beside the edge of the sea, holding a large, flat bowl which he seemed to be filling with water. Jamie had no idea where he had come from. He certainly hadn't been there the moment before. The man was huge — and he was completely gray. His face, his hands, his clothes, even his eyes were the color of stone, and if he hadn't been moving, Jamie would have assumed he was a statue. He was wearing old-fashioned, shapeless pants tied with a leather belt and an open-neck shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He also had a hat — not a cowboy hat but something similar — and boots that came up to his calves. He was completely focused on what he was doing.
    Jamie stood up and went over to him. He was about to speak but his feet, crunching on the shingle, gave him away. The man twisted around and straightened up, and at that moment Jamie saw that he really was huge, at least seven feet tall, with hair curling down to his neck and a face that was hard and craggy and full of anger. He had dropped his bowl. Now there was a large knife in his hand.
    "I'm sorry…" Jamie didn't know why he was apologizing.

    The man looked down at him but said nothing.
    "Can you help me?" Jamie asked.
    "He's gonna kill him," the man said. He had a strange accent. It was American yet strangely old-fashioned, like something in a black-and-white film.
    "Who are you talking about?"
    'You know that. You know who I'm talking about."
    'You mean…Scott?"
    The man nodded. "He's gonna kill him. And it's your job to stop him."
    "But who's going to kill him? You have to help me find him…"
    That was all Jamie had to say. The man suddenly lashed out with the knife. Jamie heard it as it came sweeping through the damp air. Something slammed into the side of his head and he thought he'd been stabbed. But the man had struck with the hilt, not the blade. With a single cry of pain, Jamie was thrown off his feet and went crashing down onto his back. He could feel blood oozing out of his hair and wondered if his skull had been broken. The man stepped forward and loomed over him. He was holding the knife in both hands, as if about to make a sacrifice. Lightning shimmered one last time.
    "Stop him!" the man commanded.
    His hands came plummeting down.
    Jamie woke up.
    His head was throbbing, and for a moment he thought he really had been attacked. He raised a hand and touched it to the side of his skull. There was nothing. No blood. No sign of a wound. He was lying, fully dressed, on a bed. For a moment he lay completely still, allowing his thoughts to swirl around him, separating what was real from what he had dreamed, trying to work out what had happened to him, where he was now and how he had got here. The attack at the theatre. That was real. He remembered the blare of the traffic, the neon lights, the car cutting across the street to pick him up.
    Scott. They had taken him. Jamie sat bolt upright, instantly searching for his brother even though there was little chance that he was anywhere near. But it didn't matter. It was instinctive. He sent out his thoughts, first into this room, then into