Chapter 26

The upholstery of the love seat was slippery and cool. Kettering felt awkward seated next to the poised, self-assured woman. The silver eyes never left him. A smile touched the corners of her pale pink mouth.

"Are you uncomfortable, Brian?" Her voice was soothing, like muted chimes.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Tell me what I can do to put you at ease."

Kettering looked away until he got himself under control. Then he faced her again. He said, "You can cut out the B-movie dialogue, for a starter."

Zoara Sol laughed, the chimes rang up and down the scale. "You are a blunt man."

"Repartee is not one of my strong points."

"I'd like to know what is your strong point."

"Cut it out," he said, not really wanting her to.

"You came here looking for your son."

"I came to take him back with me."

"Anyone here is free to leave Harmony Village anytime. There are no locks. No guards."

"What do you call the guy in the muscle shirt out at the gate?"

"Bolo? He is our greeter."

"Uh-huh."

"I take it your son did not want to leave."

"He likes it here."

"Is that so hard to understand? Did you look around? Don't you approve?"

"I'm not sure what you have going here."

"Perhaps I can give you a clearer picture. Would you like something to drink?"

"No thanks."

Ignoring him, she rose gracefully from the love seat and walked to a cabinet built into the wall. "I'll bet you're a bourbon man."

"Good guess."

She took a bottle of Wild Turkey from the shelf, splashed some into an old-fashioned glass, added ice from a wood-grain bucket.

"It goes with the rest of the image," she said. "Strong, tough, macho. I'll bet you like to hunt and eat your steak rare."

"You're right about the steak, but I don't shoot unarmed animals."

"I'm glad to hear that."

She handed him the glass and sat down again. Her thigh brushed his. Kettering raised the glass to his lips, then set it down on an end table untasted.

"So what the hell are you doing here?"

"Just what you see. Providing an alternate life for young people. This generation has not been given much direction."

"That so?"

"Ask your son."

"He's not what you'd call real communicative with me."

"Hasn't that always been the way with fathers and sons?"

"The kids here seem to think of you as some kind of a goddess."

Zoara Sol did not laugh. She did not wave off the idea. She said, "How interesting."

"Yeah, isn't it."

"You don't think I'm a goddess, do you, Brian?" She leaned toward him. Sandalwood, subtle but insistent, filled his nostrils.

"I don't know what you are," he said.

"Woman would be a good place to begin."

"That much I can see."

"Want to see more?"

It was as though the next few seconds had been cut from the film of his life. Kettering had no sense of movement or conscious decision. His next flash of awareness, after Zoara Sol spoke, was holding the woman in his arms, her body molded against his, his mouth on hers while their tongues met and danced.

He opened his eyes and looked into the bottomless silvery pools of Zoara Sol. One cool hand played at the back of his neck. The other was at his belt line. Sandalwood and soft chimes.

Using all his willpower, and feeling an overwhelming pang of regret, he pulled away from her.

Zoara Sol released him without resistance and watched as he lurched to his feet. Pale hair floated about her head. The shadow smile touched her mouth.

"Excuse me," he said in a voice that was somebody else's. "I've got to get back."

That, he thought, had to be about the dumbest single line he had ever delivered.

Still seated, Zoara Sol extended her hand. He touched her fingers and drew back as though they might burn him.

"Come again," she said, "when you can stay longer."

Kettering looked closely for any sign of mockery, but the woman gave no sign that she meant anything other than what she said.

He nodded, not trusting his voice, and left the cabin. Outside he gulped in the crisp mountain air. It had a sobering effect, and he was able to walk in a fairly steady gait to the clearing where he had left the Camaro.

Kettering settled himself behind the steering wheel still trying to shake off the feeling of weakness he had come away with. The sensation was like a lingering drunk, but he had left the glass of bourbon untouched on the end table where he set it down.

No, it was not drink, it was the woman herself. If Zoara Sol had this powerful an effect on him, a man who had been around a few corners, what must she do to the youngsters under her control?

And was it, after all, bad? All that had happened to him was that he was almost seduced into the bed of a beautiful woman. What would have happened if he had yielded to his instincts? God knows he wanted her. Wanted her so bad he ached. But something held him back. What?

He might have just walked away from a fuck that he would remember the rest of his life. Or ... or what? Despite the lingering sense of opportunity lost, Kettering had a deeper sense of having barely escaped something dark and sinister beyond his comprehension.

He leaned back in the seat and sucked in more of the evergreen air. Then he got businesslike and started the engine.

The gate was open and unattended as he drove through on the way out of Harmony Village. To keep his mind off the way Zoara Sol felt in his arms, Kettering concentrated fiercely on his driving.

The trees seemed to grow thicker and closer to the narrow road than he had noticed on the way up. The digital dashboard clock read 4:15, but the shadows were heavier than they should be at that hour. A chill had set in. He left the window down to keep himself alert.

A fir branch swatted the windshield in front of Kettering's face, making him flinch. Another caught the radio antenna on the other side, bent it back, and set it twanging free. He did not remember the trees growing so low along the road.

Another branch reached out for him. The needles scratched his face through the open window.

What the hell?

The trees scraped both sides of the car now, slapping the roof, squealing across the glass. Kettering started to reach down to the console window controls. His hand would not come free of the steering wheel.

The wheel began to grow hot. Kettering jerked back in the seat. The muscles of his arms strained as he fought to pull his hands away. The skin of his palms was grafted to the steering wheel as the wheel grew hotter. He could smell the flesh starting to cook.

He slammed his right foot on the brake. The pedal sank to the floor without resistance. The car picked up speed, trees assaulting it on all sides. Kettering fought the blistering wheel to keep from slamming the Camaro into one of the monstrous trees that cavorted along the shoulders of the road, reaching out for him.

Abruptly the trees vanished. To his left, close enough to reach out and touch, if he could have let go of the steering wheel, was a cliff wall of blasted granite. To his right, seemingly inches beyond the spinning tires, was a sheer drop hundreds of feet to the canyon floor.

With brake and gas pedal inoperative, Kettering struggled with scorched hands to keep the Camaro on the twisting, plunging, single-lane road. Repeatedly the car banged against the raw outcroppings on the left, and several times lurched sickeningly toward the abyss on the right.

All of Kettering's concentration, through the pain of his charred hands and the panic of being trapped in the runaway car, was focused on keeping the vehicle on the road. If he could somehow manage to control it, eventually he would have to reach the highway. There, he knew, were emergency chutes angling up from the grade, for drivers of big rigs that lost their brakes. If he could hold his course that long, there was a chance.

Then the figure loomed ahead of him in the middle of the road. There was a straight stretch between the wall and the dropoff of thirty yards or so, and standing there blocking any possible passage was the creature that had dogged his life.

Doomstalker.

As the car bore down upon it, the thing seemed to grow. It expanded to twice, then three times the size of a man. The malformed head swung forward, the malignant face leered.

To jerk the steering wheel now would either send him crashing with explosive force into the rocky cliffside or plunging over the brink into the canyon. Death in every direction. He plunged on toward the face that now filled the windshield.

Instinctively Kettering tromped once more on the useless brake pedal. Miraculously, it caught. The power brakes grabbed, the tires bit into dirt. Kettering was flung helplessly about the front seat as the Camaro bucked and fishtailed and swerved into a full 360-degree spin. And stopped.

Slowly he opened his eyes. Every muscle of his body was cable-tense for the crash that had never come. Gradually, painfully, he willed his body to relax. The car was pointing down the hill. The cloud of dust raised by his skidding, whirling stop slowly settled. On the road in front of him stood ... nothing.

Carefully, finger by finger, he released his grasp on the steering wheel. The flesh of his hands was white with the pressure of his grip, but unbroken and unburned. The wheel was cool to the touch.

He cautiously tested the brake, the accelerator, the steering mechanism. Everything worked as it was supposed to. He opened the door and stepped shakily out onto the road. The left side of the car, which should have been dented and scraped from repeated collisions with the cliff, was unmarked. How had it escaped damage? Or had the crazy careening ride ever happened?

Kettering got back into the car. He sat for five minutes, breathing deeply, allowing the shaking of his hands to subside. Then he again started the engine and drove slowly, anxiously, down the mountain.