A Bridge of Years (14 page)

He
left them alone.

Larger
and less numerous was a variation Tom thought of as "machine
mice." These were rodent sized and roughly rodent shaped: bodies
scarab blue and shiny metallic, heads the color of dull ink. They
moved with startling speed, though they seemed to lack legs or feet.
Tom supposed they hovered an eighth of an inch or so over the floor,
but that was only a guess; they scooted away when he tried to touch
or hold them. He saw them sometimes herding the smaller variety
across the floor; or alone, pursuing duties more mysterious.

Saturday—another
moonlit night—he dosed himself with hot black coffee and sat up
watching a late movie. He switched off the lights at one
a.m
.
and stepped cautiously into the damp grass of the back yard, with a
heavy-duty flashlight in his hand and a pair of wading boots to
protect his ankles.

The
machine bugs were there in great numbers—as they had been in his
not-a-dream—fluorescing in the moonlight, a tide of them flowing
from the foundation holes into the deep woods. In pursuit of what?

Tom
debated following them, but decided not to: not now. Not in the dark.

They
wanted his help. They had asked for it.

Disturbing,
that he knew this. It was a form of communication, one he didn't
understand or control,
help
us tom winter
,
they
had said, and they were saying it now. But it wasn't a message he
heard or interpreted, simply a silent understanding that this was
what they wanted. They didn't mean to hurt him. Simply wanted his
help.
What
help,
where?
But
the only answer was a sort of beckoning, as deeply understood as
their other message:
follow
us into the woods.

He
backed away in the darkness, alarmed. He recalled with sudden
vividness the experience of reading Christina Rossetti's "The
Goblin Market," years ago, in one of his mother's books, a
leather-bound volume of Victorian poetry. Reading it and shivering in
his summer bedroom, terrified by the spidery silhouette of the
arbutus outside his window and by the possibilities of nighttime
invitations too eagerly accepted.
No
thank you,
he
thought,
I
believe I'll stay out of the forest for now.

The
machine bugs conveyed no response—except perhaps the dim mental
equivalent of a shrug—and carried on their strange commerce between
the house and the depths of the woods.

The
next morning, when he turned on the TV set, it emitted a crackle of
static, flared suddenly brighter, and displayed a message:

help
us tom winter

Tom
had just stepped out of the shower; he was wearing a bathrobe and
carrying a cup of coffee. He failed to notice when the coffee
splashed over his hand and onto the carpet, though the skin around
the web of his thumb was red for the rest of the day.

The
letters blinked and steadied.

"Jesus
Christ!" he said.

The
TV responded,

help
us

His
first instinct was to get the holy hell out of the house and bolt the
door behind him. He forced himself to resist it.

He
knew the machine bugs had been inside his set; this, he supposed, was
why.

He
took a large step backward and sat down, not quite voluntarily, on
the sofa.

He
licked his lips.

He
said, "Who are you?"

help
us
faded
out. The screen was blank a few seconds; then new letters emerged:

we
are almost complete

Communication,
Tom
thought. His heart was still battering against his ribs. He
remembered a toy he'd once owned—a Magic 8-Ball; you asked it a
question and when you turned it over a message appeared in a little
window:
yes
or
no
or
some cryptic proverb. The letters on his TV screen appeared the same
way, welling up from shadowy depths. The memory was peculiar but
comforting.

He
set aside his coffee cup and thought a moment.

"What
do you want from me?"

Pause.

proteins

complex
carbohydrates

Food,
he
thought. "What for?"

to
finish building us

"What
do you mean—you're not
finished?"

to
finish us

Apparently,
it was the only answer they meant to give. He considered his next
question. "Tell me where you come from." The pause was
longer this time.

tom
winter you don't need to know

"I'm
curious. I
want
to
know."

tom
winter you don't want to know

Well,
maybe not.

He
sat back, managed a sip of coffee, and tried to assemble in his mind
all the questions that had been vexing him since he moved in.

"What
happened to the man who used to live here?"

broken

It
was an odd word, Tom thought. "What do you mean, broken?"

needs
to be repaired

"Is
he here? Where is he?"

follow
us

Into
the woods, they meant. "No. I don't want to do that yet. Are
you—
repairing
him?"

not
finished

"I
found the tunnel behind the wall," Tom said. "Tell me what
it is. Tell me where it goes."

The
pause now was very long indeed—he began to think they'd given up.
Then more letters appeared:

tom
winter a machine

"The
tunnel
is
a machine? I don't understand."

the
tunnel is a machine

"Where
does it go? Does it go anywhere?"

it
goes where it is

"No,
I mean—where does it
lead?"

where
it was aimed

This
was wonderfully uninformative. They couldn't hide from him; they
wanted his help; but they weren't willing—or weren't able—to
answer his most basic questions.

Not
a good deal, he thought. No bargain.

He
said, "I'll think it over."

help
us tom winter

Which
reminded him. One more question. He said, "When you talked to me
before—when we communicated— how did you do that? Before this, I
mean."

help
us
faded
out and the new message appeared moments later—stark, vivid,
matter-of-fact.

we
were inside you

He
sat sharply upright, horrified.

"What
do you mean—those little bug machines, like inside the TV? They
were inside
me?"

He
pictured them performing secret surgery in the night. Cutting him
open—crawling around.
Changing
him.

smaller

"There
are smaller ones?"

too
small to perceive

Microscopic,
Tom interpreted. Still—! "They went
inside
me?
Doing
what?"

to
talk

"Inside
my head?"

to
communicate our needs

Pause.

not
very successful

He
was cold, sweating—he needed to understand this.
"Are
they inside me now?"

no

"Am
I different? Did they change something?"

nothing
changed

not
very successful

Pause.

we
can change you if you like

talk
more directly

"No!
Jesus, no thank you!" Empty screen.

Tom
ran his hand over his face. Too much information to absorb, here. He
thought about machine bugs small enough to slip into his bloodstream.
Machine
germs.
It
was a terrifying concept.

He
conceived another question . . .then
wondered
whether it would be wise to ask.

He
said, "If you
could
have
changed me—changed me so we could talk—why didn't you?"

The
TV set hummed faintly.

too
intrusive

"What
are you saying, that it's
unethical?"

need
permission

"Permission
not granted!"

help
us

Tom
stood and approached the television in small, cautious
sidesteps. Pushing the power switch, he felt like a man trying to
disarm a potent, unfamiliar bomb. His hands were still shaking when
the screen faded to black.

He
stood staring at it a long, frozen moment; then—an afterthought—he
reached down and pulled out the plug.

The
invasion of his television set left him shaken and ambivalent.
On three different occasions he picked up the phone and began dialing
Doug Archer's number. He wanted to talk to someone about this—but
"wanted" was too pallid a word. The need he felt was
physical, almost violent. But so was its parallel urge: the urge to
keep silent. The urge to play these strange cards very close to his
chest.

He
dialed Archer's number three times, and once he let it ring a couple
of times; but he ended up dropping the receiver in its cradle and
turning away. His motives were mixed, and he didn't want to examine
them too closely, but he reasoned that Archer—desperate for some
kind of metaphysical revenge on Belltower, Washington—would
intrude on what had been exclusively Tom's magical playground.

He
liked Archer. Liked him instinctively. But—and here was a thought
he didn't want to consider too closely—maybe that was another
reason for not calling him up. He liked Archer, and he sensed that
getting him involved in all this wouldn't be doing him a favor.
Help
us,
the
machine bugs had said.
Broken,
they
had said.
Need
to be repaired.
The
implication? Something was wrong here. Something had gone wrong
with some very powerful machinery. Tom couldn't turn away; he'd made
his choice. But if he liked Archer—the unwelcome thought
persisted—then maybe he ought to keep him well away from this house
up along the Post Road.