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Any World You Choose
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5
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Great, now Susan would really think he was a freak. Before she had just
thought him eccentric, perhaps a little moody, now she knew that he had
had a breakdown years earlier.
"Richard, it's mom. Give me a call when you get in okay? Susan called
me, and I've already called Dr. Adams, you can make an appointment
anytime you want. Call me when you get this, I'll be home all day."
He could already hear his mother talking to Suasan. Telling her how
sullen he used to get, how withdrawn. Telling her it wasn't her or
another women. No, it was just poor Richard losing his mind again.
"You can either lay there feeling pitiful Rich, or you can get up and
do something." The voice that came from the machine was a ghost's
voice. Peter's, still the voice of the Peter of his youth, a child's
voice.
He looked at the machine in horror, waiting for the voice to come
again, but the machine only switched off with a quick beep and click.
He pressed playback and heard the messages again, all save Peter's.
Richard had gone after Peter of course. Even as the terror gripped him
in that tiny room of his parent's fishing cabin, the shadows on the
wall dancing around him, the strange song of pain and promised death
carried on the night air. He had shaken it off and followed out the
window, more fearful for his friend than himself.
Peter was the daredevil, the one who danced without fear on the edge of
roofs and bridges. Who had once stared down a neighborhood bully twice
his size and three years older. Peter with his devil's grin and
quicksilver smile and his incredible luck. Always pulling Richard along
as his partner in crime. Richard, the quiet and sullen boy who followed
his friend into adventure, muttering warnings all the way.
Into the night he ran after Peter, under a sky full of stars that were
nothing but pin pricks of light and yet seemed all the more oppresive
to Richard for their vastness. Into the forest where the giant sentinal
trees stood guard against the ages. Into the forest where the shadows
waited for him.
Richard knew the cabin would still be there. That part of his memory
was true even though no other evidence of that night existed. The
fishing cabin up north where his parents had taken the both of them on
vacation when Peter had asked to come along.
It was about a two hour drive with the new interstate, a nice change
from the almost five hours of winding back roads Richard remembered
from his childhood. He had thought about calling his mother or Dr.
Adams before he left, just so neither thought he had done anything
drastic. He had rejected the idea quick enough. After all, he was doing
something drastic, chasing the ghost memory of that long ago night.
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6