"You were mumbling. I couldn't hear what you said. Then you began
sobbing and thrashing about."
Nick ran his fingers through his hair and over the back of his neck, the
reality of the dream almost too much for him. It wasn't an ordinary
nightmare where he would be running, with a huge monster panting in
pursuit. This was frightening. Like a memory. Like some damned fantastic
memory.
He stood up and patted her shoulder. "Go back to sleep, Beth," he told
her gently. "I'm going downstairs."
"Shall I turn on a light?"
"No. It might cause the neighbors to wonder." He walked to the door of
the bedroom. "The moon is bright enough."
He walked into the hall, feeling his way in the dark places, and down
the stairs into the living room. As he sat in the chair near the window,
he thought about the dream. It bothered him, because it was unlike a
dream; it had the weird consistency and logic of a memory, yet seemed
almost supernatural ... Hell, what kind of thing had huge, yellow eyes
and stood nine feet tall? What sort of a world had a violet sky and
grey-green rocks? The whole damned thing had the scent of a Walt Disney
movie, the colors vivid and sharp, the landscape seemingly done by a
watercolor brush.
_Thista._
Apparently it was some kind of planet and he hoped that Beth was right.
Would it be possible for a man to get so confused via a crack on the
head, that he believed he had lived through the literature he'd once
read? What would he dream about next? _Macbeth?_ _Treasure Island?_
Christ, what a world!
If he could get to a doctor, a headshrinker, it might all be ironed out.
They would get things squared away in a short while, but hell ...
suppose I'm Public Enemy Number One, or something. Thirteen months! In
thirteen months kings have been broken, dynasties crushed ... What had
happened to him in the thirteen months that he had been out of touch?
One thing he was sure of; he hadn't been laying around. In a stretch of
time like that, he had worked, eaten, slept, loved ... Maybe he had
married again! An almost comical thought, compared to the possibility
that he could be a killer, a bank robber; there were a million things
he could have done.
A psychologist? Nope. That was out of the question, until he knew more
about Nicholas Danson. And learning more about himself would be a real
problem. The cabin that Beth had spoken of would probably show him
nothing. After a period of a year, there would be damned little trail
left to hunt along. There would be almost nothing. Whatever had been
there, would have probably been sifted through by the guy, the
detective, Nolan Brice. Brice! Of all the friends for him to have, he
had to be saddled to Brice! He'd have to be real careful where that
character was concerned because the slightest slip would set the cop on
his trail like a blood hound.
The crackup? Now there was something. He would always be stuck with the
question of how he had managed to get out of that mangled mass of metal
with merely cuts and bruises. But he could chalk that up to dumb luck,
or something. The thing that worried him was had he left a clue that
could trace him here? He had burned the flying suit ... he had tried to
cover it up to Andy ... A lot of things about the smashed aircraft
bothered him. Things like the flying suit; it had been made of strange
material; but hell, he'd burned that thing. There would be no problem
with that.
Almost without realizing it, he found himself staring at the car that
was parked on the other side of the street. The streetlight gleamed on
the black paint of the Chevrolet sedan and he thought of what Andy had
told him earlier about the men who had been interested in finding him.
Looking at the car much closer, he could see the two men sitting in it.
The knot of fear returned to his stomach when he saw the light shining
on the driver's blond hair.
The men from Andy's gas station!
"Nick?"
It was Beth. She had followed him down and he could see her framed in
the doorway at the foot of the stairs. She had slipped into a nightgown
that, in the moonlight, was more alluring than if she had been nude. She
started to speak, but he hissed at her for silence.
"Come here, Beth," he instructed, "and don't put on a light."
Her bare feet whispered on the rug as she came to his side in obvious
bewilderment. He pointed out the car and the two men, telling her about
how they had inquired after him at the gas station. She listened
quietly.
"What do they want?" She asked, when he'd finished.
She was sitting on the arm of the chair, leaning against him to study
the car. The soft pressure of her breasts was disturbing and conjured up
memories of early in the evening.
"What do they want?" She asked again.
"I don't know. That's something I have to find out. Listen, give me a
minute to get to the upstairs window. Then snap on the light and move
around. They're probably looking for me and I want to give them the
impression I'm not here."
"All right, Nick."
He got up and threaded his way to the stairs and up to kneel before the
bedroom window that fronted on the street. Through the gap in the
curtains, he could see the car plainly. The light snapped on downstairs.
For a moment, nothing happened; the men merely sat in the car and
watched the house. Finally the car began moving down the street with its
lights out. Then, out of range, the driver flicked on the lights and the
car disappeared. The downstairs light snapped off and a moment later
Beth came into the room.
"Nick?"
"Here."
"Perhaps they saw the crash..." she began, but he cut her off short.
"No one saw me crash."
"I mean, later," she explained. "After all, a wrecked car on a highway
would..."
"Car? Beth, I didn't crack up in a car. I crashed on a wooded mountain
in a private plane."
"Oh, darling, don't be silly! You've never been in a plane in your
life."
In the darkness of the room, Nick could only stare in stunned amazement
at the moonlit outline of his wife.