The Shimmer (9 page)

"Sometimes we see only what we expect to see," his father explained. "Sometimes we need to learn to see in a new way."

That made even less sense than the imaginary fish. "I don't know what you . . ."

At once one of the rocks seemed to move a little. Hardly enough to be noticed. Barely a fraction of an inch. But he was certain he'd seen it move. He stepped closer to the glass.

"Ah," Page's father said, apparently detecting his sudden attention.

"I think you're starting to catch on."

"That rock. It . . ."

"But it's not a rock," Page's father emphasized.

The object moved another fraction of an inch, and Page realized that his father was right--it wasn't a rock.

Page saw a head then, and a tentacle, and another. Not that the object moved any more noticeably than before. But Page's vision had changed--or else it was his mind that had shifted focus.

His father said, "Sometimes we see only what we expect to see."

He was beginning to understand. If the only things that were apparent were sand, rocks, underwater plants, and part of a replica of a sunken ship, then the mind took those shapes for granted and didn't bother to recognize what the eyes were seeing.

Amazingly, another rock moved. A patch of sand shifted slightly as well. A section of the sunken ship turned to the side, and one of the plants started walking across the bottom of the tank. The green spikes on it were actually tentacles. Years later, when Page was being trained at the New Mexico police academy, he thought back to that afternoon when he'd realized that there could be a huge difference between what the eyes saw and what was truly before them, that the world was not always what it seemed. Unfortunately, he later discovered, ugliness too often was the truth of what was before him.

But not that afternoon. Excitedly, he began counting the creatures he suddenly noticed. They were everywhere, it seemed.

"One, two, three."

"Four, five, six," his father said.

"Seven, eight, nine," his mother joined in, laughing. That was the summer before she was diagnosed with the breast cancer that would kill her.

His father predicted that there were a dozen cuttlefish in the tank, but in the end Page counted eighteen, weird, ugly-looking creatures with a strange name for a squid, who'd learned to conceal their ugliness and after a while began to seem beautiful. Within minutes he wasn't able to see the sand, rocks, underwater plants, or replica of the sunken ship because so many cuttlefish were in the way.

"How do they hide like that?" he asked his father, grinning in astonishment.

"Nobody knows. Chameleon lizards are famous for being able to assume the colors of objects around them. Spiders can do it, too. But nothing's as good at it--and as quick at it--as cuttlefish."

"Magic," Page said.

"Nature," Page's father corrected him.

Chapter 19.

Page remembered that long-ago afternoon as he strained to look at the darkness beyond the fence while the crowd of strangers before him marveled at things he didn't see. Some complained that they didn't know what the others were getting so excited about, and Page understood their frustration. Was he witnessing a mass hallucination, some kind of group delusion in which people convinced one another that they were seeing something that wasn't there?

But Tori hadn't been with a group when she'd first seen it, and she hadn't been with a group when she'd come here alone after so many years of remembering and dreaming. If there was a delusion, she'd brought it on herself.

Or maybe I'm the one who's deluded, Page thought. Hell, all those years and I couldn't even get my wife to share something so important that it brought her back to the middle of nowhere.

But he had to stay calm.

Remember the cuttlefish, he told himself. Remember what your father told you. "Sometimes we see only what we expect to see. Sometimes we need to learn to see in a new way."

Lord knows, I need to learn to see in a new way.

The reality Page thought he knew had been turned inside out. The marriage he'd thought he had, the life he'd prized--nothing was what it had seemed to be.

Why? Page shouted inwardly. How could I not have seen this coming?

He rose from the bench and stepped to the edge of the observation platform. Vaguely aware of Costigan leaning against the post near him, he stared over the heads of the people in the excited crowd and concentrated on the darkness.

Again he noticed the specks of distant headlights approaching along the road from Mexico. But that couldn't be what the people in the crowd were thrilled about. They were pointing in a different direction altogether.

He studied the brilliant array of stars, surprisingly much brighter and more varied than he was accustomed to in Santa Fe, which was renowned for the clearness of its night sky. Maybe they were why the government had built the radio telescopes nearby. But the people in the crowd weren't pointing toward the stars--their rapt attention was focused entirely on the horizon.

What do they think they're seeing? Page wanted to know.

Remember the cuttlefish, he urged himself.

He focused on the darkness across the grassland.

And saw an almost imperceptible movement, hardly enough to be noticed. . . .

Except that he was sure he had noticed it. Either his eyes had shifted focus or his mind had. It wasn't only movement--it was a change in the darkness.

Without warning, there were tiny lights. Some of what he'd thought were stars weren't in the sky--they were hovering over the grassland.

At first he suspected they might be distant fireflies, about a dozen of them, but they were brighter than fireflies, and as he began to notice them, they increased in size.

They could have been miles away, yet they seemed close, as if he could reach out and touch them, which he tried to do. That was when he realized the people in the crowd weren't just pointing--they, too, were reaching out.

As he gazed, the distant lights acquired colors--red, green, blue, yellow, and more--all the tints he'd seen on houses and stores in town. Pairs of them merged, becoming larger and brighter. They rose and fell. At the same time, they drifted back and forth across the horizon, as if they floated in a gentle current. They bobbed and pivoted hypnotically.

What am I seeing?

Confused, Page turned toward Costigan, looking for confirmation that his eyes weren't tricking him, but all the police chief did was spread his hands again.

Page turned back, redirecting his attention to what he saw--or thought he saw--on the horizon. Some of the lights drifted apart, while others continued to merge. They shimmered, gentle and soothing, almost seeming to beckon.

I've never seen anything like them, he thought. What are they?

Without warning, doubt surged through him. Why didn't I see them a minute ago? They've got to be an optical illusion.

Or maybe I'm so eager to see something out there that I strained my eyes until I saw spots before them. Or else I concentrated until I imagined them. How do I know they're what Tori sees--or thinks she does?

What do the others think they're seeing?

Not only seeing, he realized. There was something else associated with the lights, something he couldn't quite identify. It was just on the edge of his perceptions, a sound that hovered at the limit of his ability to hear it.

As Page stepped off the platform, intending to approach and question a teenaged girl who pointed in delight at the grassland beyond the fence, he became aware of a commotion somewhere in the crowd.

A single voice rose above the others.

"Don't you see how evil they are?" someone demanded.

Page stopped and tried to determine the direction of the voice. It was deep, strong, and angry. It belonged to a man.

"Don't you realize what they're doing to you?"

To his right, Page saw sudden movement, people being jostled aside, a tall, heavy man sweeping through them.

"Stop pushing!" someone complained.

"Get your hand off me!" someone else objected.

The voice just sounded angrier. "Don't you understand that you're all going to hell?"

"A gun!" a woman wailed. "My God, he has a gun!"

As the word sent a wave of alarm through the crowd, Page responded instantly and crouched. Reaching for the pistol that he almost always carried, he realized with dismay that he'd let Costigan talk him into leaving it in his suitcase back in the rental car, which was parked outside the courthouse.

His palms became sweaty.

Crouching lower, feeling his pulse race, he scanned the panicking crowd and flinched at the loud, ear-torturing crack of a rifle. He saw the muzzle flash among fleeing men and women, revealing what looked like the barrel of an assault weapon.

Crack. The man fired again, aiming beyond the fence. The muzzle flash projected toward the horizon, toward whatever was out there, toward whatever Page had thought he'd seen.

"Go back to hell where you came from!" the man shouted into the distance, and he kept firing.

Page saw enough of the rifle's silhouette to identify a curved ammunition magazine projecting from the bottom. The profile was that of an AK-47.

Urgently he glanced behind him, toward Costigan, seeing that the police chief had drawn his pistol and was crouching tensely, just as Page was.

The chaos of the crowd now shielded the man with the rifle, and for a moment, he was lost from sight.

Crack. Another muzzle flash projected toward the darkness.

"You're all damned!" But the gunman was no longer yelling toward whatever had entranced them. Instead he turned and began yelling at the crowd. Page had the sickening realization of what was about to happen.

No!

The man fired directly into the crowd. People screamed and smashed against one another, desperate to escape.

A man tripped.

A woman wailed.

Then Page realized that the man hadn't tripped. A bullet had dropped him.

The gunman fired yet again.

Page had seldom felt so helpless. Even if he'd had his pistol, the darkness and the commotion would have prevented him from getting a shot at the man with the rifle.

Crack. A woman fell.

Crack. A teenaged boy toppled. The crowd's frightened shouts became so loud that Page almost couldn't hear the rifle. He saw the barrel swing in his direction.

Tori! he thought desperately. Pivoting, he ran toward the observation platform. Costigan was no longer in sight, but Page didn't have time to figure out what the police chief was doing.

Tori!

She was on her feet, so overwhelmed that she didn't have the presence of mind to react. Page had taught her about firearms and had asked her to keep a handgun in her purse. He'd worried about her taking clients out to remote locations where she'd be alone with them, but Tori never carried the gun he'd given her. The truth was, although she was a police officer's wife, her attitudes were those of a civilian.

He put an arm around her and gripped her tightly, rushing her off the platform. Behind him, a bullet hit a board in the back wall. When she cried out in alarm, he pushed her head down, making her stoop as he rushed her around the corner. This was the side opposite from where Costigan had parked the police car, but Page was relieved to see that vehicles were parked here as well, and he tugged her behind a murky pickup truck.

"Are you okay?" he asked, examining her as best he could in the starlight.

She was too disoriented to answer.

A shot echoed from beyond the observation platform.

"Tori, answer me. Are you hurt?"

His abrupt tone made her flinch, bringing her to awareness.

"I . . . No. I'm okay. I'm not hit."

"Thank God. Stay here. Keep behind the engine. Bullets can go through the truck's doors, but not through the engine. If you think the shooter's coming in this direction, fall down and pretend you're dead."

In the shadows, she stared at him.

"Tori, tell me you understand."

Beyond the observation deck, two shots were followed by a scream.

She blinked repeatedly. "Keep behind the engine," she said, swallowing. "If he comes this way, I'm supposed to fall down and pretend I'm dead."

Crack. The gunman fired again.

"I can't stay with you," Page said. "I need to help stop him."

"Why is he doing this?"

"I don't know why people do anything."

The next shot Page heard was a loud pop rather than a crack. A pistol. Costigan must be returning fire, he decided.

He squeezed Tori's shoulder and ran from the cover of the pickup truck. At once he heard another pistol shot, then a rifle shot.

And a groan. Its raspy edge left no doubt that it came from Costigan.

Chapter 20.

The turmoil of his heartbeat contrasted with the slowness he forced upon himself when he reached the corner of the wall. His hands trembled. He fought to control them.