“At least you have that, then.”
“Didn’t help me much in that kitchen, though,” he recalled. And it didn’t help me save Isabelle, he thought.
“But it’s something at least.”
The path wound around a thick grove of trees and then emerged into a small clearing at the edge of a large lake. An old boat dock stretched out over the water. As soon as he saw it, he knew something had changed.
“Speaking of which…”
“What?”
“I just came across a boat dock.”
“And…?”
“The boat’s missing.”
“The foggy man?”
“As far as I know, he’s the only other one who’s been here.”
“That’s not good. Are you sure you took the boat in the dream?”
Eric looked around the clearing. There was a path that led left along the bank, but he didn’t recall going that way. Though the details leading up to it were still piecing themselves together, he was sure he could remember climbing into the boat. He wondered why he would do that. He wasn’t very familiar with boats. The idea of rowing out into the middle of a lake—especially an unfamiliar lake—was a little unnerving.
He moved closer to the path, intending to examine it more closely, and heard the phone crackle. Now it all came back to him. In the dream, he’d tried to go around the lake, but he found that he couldn’t go left or right without losing his cell phone signal and therefore straying off the path. The only option was to use the boat.
“Yeah, I definitely took the boat.”
“So now what are you going to do?”
That was a damn good question. He returned to the dock and peered off into the water. A pair of ducks swam lazily near the shore to the right. Farther away, he spied a second pair. But there was not another dock within sight. No more boats. No way forward. He was confident he couldn’t swim across. “No way forward but by sea and nary a dinghy to me name.”
“Yar. Seems ye be screwed.”
“Yar indeed.”
Eric sighed. He really wished he could catch a break. His heart really wasn’t into this right now.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Come on. You can figure this out. Isn’t there anything in the dream that can help you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You said Grant, Taylor and Annette all acted like they expected you, like they knew you were going to be there. If they aren’t entirely crazy—and you’ve sent me pictures that prove there’s something to what they say—then there must be some kind of force out there behind everything you’re doing. I mean, maybe it’s God. For all we know. That force, whatever it is, must have known that you might run late and that the foggy man would beat you there. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“Sort of…”
“Then I can’t imagine a force that wise and powerful wouldn’t see this happening. There’s got to be another way.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“You.”
“Well, I do hate it when you’re down on yourself.”
Eric smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to hang up and see if I can work this thing out.”
“That’s my guy.”
Eric disconnected the call and stared off the end of the dock for a moment, trying to recall every detail of the dream.
Karen was right. Something was out there, some greater force watching over everything. There had to be. These things were not merely random, after all. They had obviously been set in motion long ago. And this was not the kind of problem that should have gone overlooked by such a power.
And yet, that meant that this greater force had also foreseen that he would meet and then lose Isabelle.
He closed his eyes and forced her from his mind. He couldn’t let himself dwell on that now. Later. He would think about her like she deserved later. Right now, he had a problem to solve.
Opening his eyes again and gazing down at the water where the boat should have been, he could remember every detail of it. It was an ordinary johnboat, green where the paint was still visible. It had only a small trolling motor that was a pain in the ass to start, but it worked.
He remembered pulling away from the shore, using his cell phone for a compass. It let him stay in this world and not drift into the other one.
He recalled looking back toward the dock, half-expecting the boat’s owner to come running out of the woods, shouting at him. But no one was there. It had been silent. The entire shore had been peaceful that night.
The entire shore…
Now he remembered.
He’d scanned the lakeshore up and down as he moved away from the dock. It was about a hundred and fifty yards to the right, which would be his left as he stood on the dock looking out at where he would have been in the dream, looking back. It had been dragged up onto the shore, half-hidden in the brush. Another boat. Smaller than the one that had been tied at the dock, and much older, with no motor.
Any other time, he would have assumed that such a boat would be useless, its bottom likely rusted out, incapable of holding his weight. But if he was right… If Karen was right (and how often was she wrong, really?), then that boat was for him.
Just in case.
Maybe it’s God, Karen had said…
Eric felt a chill creep through his body.
Shaking it off, he turned away from the lake and frowned. Retrieving that other boat was going to be tricky. For one thing, he’d already determined that the path leading over there was sunk into that gray zone between here and the other world. That meant leaving the path, which Grant specifically told him not to do.
He crossed the small clearing and followed the path into the trees. He watched the signal on his cell phone sputter and die in the space of just two steps and then tucked it back into his pocket as he searched the trees around him.
Though the sun still shone brightly overhead, the shade here was deep and cool. The air had a completely different quality. There was a subtle reek that might have been nothing more than a dead fish somewhere along the bank or it might have been a small taste of whatever foul atmosphere blanketed that other world.
How easy would it be to step off the edge and be lost forever?
The very idea was dreadful.
Less than fifty yards from the clearing, the normal sounds of the woods were lost and an eerie silence overcame the area. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he became acutely sure that he was not alone out here.
Somewhere in the trees, something rustled. He thought he heard a branch snap, a whisper of a footstep in the leaves.
He tried to tell himself it was only his imagination, but his experiences so far today had all been powerful examples of why he should never dismiss anything as only a fabrication of his mind.
Yet he somehow managed to make it all the way to the boat without being mauled or disemboweled or viciously leg-humped by something from another world.
The path did not pass directly by the boat. A thicket of brush stood between him and it, effectively hiding it from view except from the perspective of another watercraft, making him wonder once more if it might have been left here specifically for him to find.
Pushing through this brush, he considered how he was going to proceed once he reached the boat. The easiest way would be to simply push it right into the water and climb inside. But sometimes the easy way was also the wrong way. He had no idea where the gray area ended and the other world took over. It was too easy to imagine pushing away from the shore and making his way back toward the dock, only to find himself hopelessly adrift in that dark and hostile world, never to return.
But then again, dragging the boat through this dense brush and then back along the path to the dock did not seem like a reasonable solution, either.