David Morrell
Scavenger
Epigraph
I had monuments made of bronze, lapis lazuli, alabaster and white limestone and inscriptions of baked clay… and I deposited them in the foundations and left them for future times.
I had an assignment the other day. Someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that was going to be opened in Los Angeles a hundred years from now… It sounded like an easy assignment. They suggested I write something about the problems and issues of the day, and I set out to do so, riding down the coast in an automobile, looking at the blue Pacific out on one side and the Santa Ynez Mountains on the other, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was going to be that beautiful a hundred years from now as it was on that summer day. And then, as I tried to write… let your minds turn to that task. You’re going to write for people a hundred years from now who know all about us. We know nothing about them. We don’t know what kind of world they’ll be living in.
Acknowledgments
Authors don’t work in a vacuum. Scavenger wouldn’t have been written without support from a lot of people. I’m grateful to the following:
Jane Dystel, Miriam Goderich, Michael Bourret, and the good folks at Dystel Goderich Literary Management.
Roger Cooper, Chris Nakamura, Peter Costanzo, and the rest of the team at Vanguard Press and the Perseus Books Group.
Nanci Kalanta at horrorworld.org.
Eric Gray and Mike Volpe at Jet Aviation, Teterboro Airport.
Sarie Morrell. The last name’s the same as mine for a reason. She’s my daughter. But she’s also my friend and one of the most inventive book publicists I know.
LEVEL ONE
THE CRYPT OF CIVILIZATION
1
He no longer called her by his dead wife’s name, even though the resemblance was strong enough to make his heart ache. Sometimes, when he woke and found her sitting next to his hospital bed, he thought he was hallucinating.
“What’s my name?” she asked.
“Amanda,” he was careful to answer.
“Excellent,” a doctor said. The watchful man never mentioned his specialty, but Balenger assumed he was a psychiatrist. “I think you’re ready to be released.”
2
The taxi entered the Park Slope district of Brooklyn. Trying not to stare at Amanda’s long blonde hair and soft blue eyes that reminded him so much of Diane, Balenger forced himself to peer out the window. He saw a huge stone arch with a statue at the top: a winged woman with flowing robes.
“Grand Army Plaza,” Amanda explained. “You like history, so you’ll appreciate that the arch commemorates the end of the Civil War.”
Even her voice reminded him of Diane.
“All those trees — that’s Prospect Park over there,” she continued.
Down a narrow street, the taxi stopped in the middle of a row of four-story brownstones. While Amanda paid the fare, Balenger mustered the effort to get out. He felt the cold bite of a late October wind. His legs and ribs throbbed as did the abrasions on his hands.
“My apartment’s on the third floor.” Amanda pointed. “The one with the stone railing.”
“I thought you said you worked in a book store in Manhattan. This is an upscale district. How can you afford—” The answer quickly occurred to him. “Your father helps.”
“He never stopped hoping, never stopped paying the rent all the months I was missing.”
As Balenger climbed the eight steps, which felt like eighty, his knees became unsteady. Even though the wooden door was freshly painted brown, it gave the impression of age. Amanda put a key in the lock.
“Wait,” Balenger said.
“Need to catch your breath?”
In fact, he did, but that wasn’t his motive for stopping her. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Do you have another place to go, anyone else to take care of you?”
In both cases, the answer was “no.” During the previous year, while Balenger searched for his missing wife, he stayed in cheap motel rooms and could afford to eat only once a day, mostly sandwiches from fast-food restaurants. His savings account was drained. He had no one and nothing.
“You barely know me,” he told her.
“You risked your life for me,” Amanda responded. “Without you, I’d be dead. What else do I need to know?”
Neither commented that at the time Balenger believed the woman he saved was his wife.
“We’ll try it for a few days.” Amanda unlocked the door.
3
The apartment had one bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen. The ceiling was high, with molding around it. The floors were hardwood. Although everything looked bright and well-maintained, Balenger again had the sense of age.
“While we were in the hospital, my father stocked the refrigerator and the cupboards,” Amanda said. “Do you want something to eat?”
Balenger sank onto the leather sofa. Before he could answer, exhaustion overwhelmed him.
When he woke, it was dark outside. A blanket was over him. Amanda helped him to reach the bathroom and return to the sofa.
“I’ll heat up some soup,” she told him.
Afterward, she changed his bandages and dressings.
“While you were asleep, I went out and bought some pajamas for you.” She helped him put on the top, frowning at his injuries.
4
A nightmare jerked him awake, memories of shots and screams. Through frightened eyes, he saw Amanda hurry from the bedroom. “I’m here,” she assured him. In the pale light from a corner lamp, she looked even more like Diane, making him wonder if impossibly Diane’s spirit had merged with Amanda’s. She held his hand until his heart stopped racing. “I’m here,” she repeated. He lapsed back into a troubled sleep.
A cry from the bedroom jolted him upright. Wincing, he mustered the strength to rise from the sofa and struggle through the doorway, where he saw Amanda thrash beneath the covers, fighting her own nightmares. He stroked her hair, trying to tell her she was safe from the darkness and violence and fear, safe from the Paragon Hotel. Clang. In the back of his haunted memory, a flap of sheet metal slammed against the side of an abandoned building, clang, the mournful, rhythmic toll of doom.
He fell asleep next to her, the two of them holding one another. The next night was the same. And the next. They always had a light on. They kept the bedroom door open. Closed rooms gave them the sweats. Two weeks later, they became lovers.
5
He managed increasingly long walks. One gray December afternoon, as he returned from the snow-covered monuments in Grand Army Plaza, two men got out of a car in front of the brownstone. They wore somber overcoats. Their faces had pinched expressions. The cold air made their breath white with frost.
“Frank Balenger?” the taller man asked.
“Who wants to know?”
They pulled out identification: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY.
“Sign this.” When they reached the apartment, the heavier agent handed Balenger a pen and a document.