Shadowfires

I
couldn't walk away, put it out of my mind, get on with my life, and just forget about it. Hell, no. I had to work it out, decide if I was a good man or a killer, and then figure what accommodation I could reach with life, with my own conscience. And there was no better place to work it out, to analyze the problem, than right there in the middle of it. Besides, to understand why I stayed on for a second tour, you've
got to understand me, the me that existed then: very young,
idealistic, with patriotism as much a part of me as the color of my
eyes. I loved my country, believed in my country, totally
believed, and I couldn't just shed that belief like… well, like a snake sheds skin.”
    They passed a road sign that said they were sixteen miles from
Running Springs and twenty-three miles from Lake Arrowhead.
    Rachael said, “So you stayed in Nam another whole year?”
    He sighed wearily. “As it turned out… two years.”
In his cabin high above Lake Arrowhead, for a
time that he could not measure, Eric Leben drifted in a peculiar
twilight state, neither awake nor asleep, neither alive nor dead,
while his genetically altered cells increased production of enzymes,
proteins, and other substances that would contribute to the healing
process. Brief dark dreams and unassociated nightmare images
flickered through his mind, like hideous shadows leaping in the
bloody light of tallow candles.
    When at last he rose from his trancelike condition, full of energy
again, he was acutely aware that he had to arm himself and be
prepared for action. His mind was still not entirely clear, his
memory threadbare in places, so he did not know exactly who might be
coming after him, but instinct told him that he was being stalked.
    Sure as hell, someone'll find this place through Sarah Kiel, he told himself.
    That thought jolted him because he could not remember who Sarah
Kiel was. He stood with one hand on a kitchen counter, swaying,
straining to recall the face and identity that went with that
name.
    Sarah Kiel…
    Suddenly he remembered, and he cursed himself for having brought
the damn girl here. The cabin was supposed to be his secret retreat.
He should never have told anyone. One of his problems was that he
needed young women in order to feel young himself, and he always
tried to impress them. Sarah had been impressed by the five-
room cabin, outfitted as it was with all conveniences, the acres of
private woods, and the spectacular view of the lake far below. They'd had good sex outside, on a blanket, under the boughs of an enormous pine, and he had felt wonderfully young. But now Sarah knew about his secret retreat, and through her others-the stalkers whose identities he could not quite fix upon-might learn of the place and come after him.
    With new urgency, Eric pushed away from the counter and headed
toward the door that opened from the kitchen into the garage. He
moved less stiffly than before, with more energy, and his eyes were
less bothered by bright light, and no phantom uncles or insects crept
out of the corners to frighten him; the period of coma had apparently
done him some good. But when he put his hand on the doorknob, he
stopped, jolted by another thought:
    Sarah can't tell anyone about this place because Sarah is dead, I killed her only a few hours ago…
    A wave of horror washed over Eric, and he held fast to the
doorknob as if to anchor himself and prevent the wave from sweeping
him away into permanent darkness, madness. Suddenly he recalled going
to the house in Palm Springs, remembered beating the girl, the naked
girl, mercilessly hammering her with his fists. Images of her bruised
and bleeding face, twisted in terror, flickered through his damaged
memory like slides through a broken stereopticon. But had he actually
killed her? No, no, surely not. He enjoyed playing rough with women,
yes, he could admit that, enjoyed hitting them, liked nothing more
than watching them cower before him, but he would never kill anyone, never had and never would, no, surely not, no, he was a
law-abiding citizen, a social and economic winner, not a thug or
psychopath. Yet he was abruptly assaulted by another unclear but
fearful memory of nailing Sarah to the wall in Rachael's house in Placentia, nailing her naked above the bed as a warning to Rachael, and he shuddered, then realized it had not been Sarah but someone else nailed up on that wall, someone whose name he did not even know, a stranger who