Shadowfires

reverence and a passion for
democracy, not only for democracy in the political arena but for
democracy in all things, even in one-to-one relationships. He could
assume the mantle of leadership and dominance if it were conveyed by
mutual unspoken consent; but if his role were made overt, he would
not be able to fulfill it, and the partnership would suffer.
    “I'm in,” Reese repeated, rinsing their coffee cups in the sink. “We're
just two cops on sick leave. So let's go recuperate together.”

----
21 ARROWHEAD
    The sporting-goods store was near the lake.
It was built in the form of a large log cabin, and a rustic wooden
sign advertised bait, tackle, boat rentals, sporting goods. A Coors
sign was in one window, a Miller Lite sign in another. Three cars,
two pickup trucks, and one Jeep stood in the sunny part of the
parking lot, the early-afternoon sun glinting off their chrome and
silvering their windows.
    “Guns,” Ben said when he saw the place. “They might sell guns.”
    “We have guns,” Rachael said.
    Ben drove to the back of the lot, off the macadamed area, onto
gravel that crunched under the tires, then through a thick carpet of
pine needles, finally parking in the concealing shade of one of the
massive evergreens that encircled the property. He saw a slice of the
lake beyond the trees, a few boats on the sun-dappled water, and a
far shore rising up into steep wooded slopes.
    “Your thirty-two isn't exactly a peashooter, but it's not
particularly formidable, either,” Ben told her as he switched off the
engine. “The.357 I took off Baresco is better, next thing to a
cannon, in fact, but a shotgun would be perfect.”
    “Shotgun? Sounds like overkill.”
    “I always prefer to go for overkill when
I'm tracking down a walking dead man,” Ben said, trying to make a joke of it but failing. Rachael's
already haunted eyes were touched by a new bleak tint, and she
shivered.
    “Hey,” he said, “it'll be all right.”
    They got out of the rental car and stood for a moment, breathing
in the clean, sweet mountain air. The day was warm and undisturbed by
even the mildest breeze. The trees stood motionless and silent, as if
their boughs had turned to stone. No cars passed on the road, and no
other people were in sight. No birds flew or sang. The stillness was
deep, perfect, preternatural.
    Ben sensed something ominous in the stillness. It almost seemed to
be an omen, a warning to turn back from the high vastness of the
mountains and retreat to more civilized places, where there was noise
and movement and other people to turn to for help in an emergency.
    Apparently stricken by the same uneasy feeling that gripped Ben,
Rachael said, “Maybe this is nuts. Maybe we should just get out of
here, go away somewhere.”
    “And wait for Eric to recover from his injuries?”
    “Maybe he won't recover enough to function well.”
    “But if he does, he'll come looking for you.”
    She sighed, nodded.
    They crossed the parking lot and went into the store, hoping to
buy a shotgun and some ammunition.
Something strange was happening to Eric,
stranger even than his return from the dead. It started as another
headache, one of the many intense migraines that had come and gone
since his resurrection, and he did not immediately realize there was
a difference about this one, a weirdness. He just squinted his eyes
to block out some of the light that irritated him, and refused to
succumb to the unrelenting and debilitating throbbing that filled his
skull.
    He pulled an armchair in front of the living-room window and took
up a vigil, looking down through the sloping forest, along the dirt
road that led up from the more heavily populated foothills nearer the
lake. If enemies came for him, they would follow the lane at least
part of the way up the slope before sneaking into the woods. As soon
as he saw where they left the road, he would slip out of the cabin by
the back door, move around through the trees, creep in behind the
intruders, and take them by surprise.
    He had hoped that the pounding in his head would subside a bit
when he sat down and leaned back in the big comfortable chair. But it
was getting much worse than anything he had experienced previously.
He felt almost as if his skull were… soft as clay… and as if it were
being hammered into a new shape by every fierce throb. He clenched
his jaws tighter, determined to weather this new adversity.
    Perhaps the headache was made worse by the