Free Castleview by Gene Wolfe Page B

we get to the gate.” It seemed to her that they should have reached it already, but no gate showed in her brights. The road wound down a narrow little valley, hardly more than a gully, that Ann did not remember at all. She asked, “How much farther is it?”
    “Two kilometers, perhaps.”
    How much was that in miles? About a mile and a half, Ann thought, maybe.
    “It seems longer, does it not, by night?”
    “It certainly does,” Ann agreed. Almost against her will, she added, “We went across a little bridge—Wrangler and I, when he was driving the car. You and I haven’t gone over that bridge yet.”
    “And we will not, Dieu le veuille! There is no bridge this way. It was old this bridge, and of wood? One which shook much as you crossed? I fear always that it shall fall with us.”
    Ann nodded grimly.
    “Then you have taken the wrong road from the lodge, madame. You arrived by the back, which is nearer the town and now locked always by Wrangler before the light has gone. This road that we take, it marches to the main gate.”
    “Is that one open?” Ann had forgotten about the padlock; she berated herself for it now. “Can we get back to town that way?”
    “Oh, yes. It is farther, but that is all. You must turn to the right when we reach the big road—the high way, is that what you call him? Then it is—” Lucie grabbed at the top of the dashboard.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “The water! Don’t you see it? Be careful!”
    Born of the rain, an infant stream formed a waterfall over a miniature cliff and cut a dark path across the road. Ann let up on the accelerator, then decided the water could be no more than a couple of inches deep, if that. The Buick’s wheels sent up
geysers left and right, as she drove through it with a scarcely perceptible pause.
    “I am sorry, madame. Once nearly I drowned, when I was a little child—thus I have the fear of waters. I do not know the name in English.”
    “Aquaphobia, I suppose. But the water didn’t really hurt us, now did it?”
    Lucie shook her head. “It terrified me, madame, and that hurts me very much. I would rather I pricked the finger.”
    “Well, let’s hope we don’t have anything worse than that to cross,” Ann said.
    The road wound out of the tiny valley, considerably rutted in places, and crested a small hill. Ann’s dashboard clock read 7:21. Unconsciously she drove faster, until they were rattling through the wet night at nearly thirty miles an hour. Something long—something that was not white but lighter in color than the mud and wet grass—lay beside the road. She slowed and stopped.
    Lucie murmured, “It is nothing, madame. Drive on, please, I beg you.”
    It lay outside the beams of her headlights, a dim hump that might almost have been a small log. Ann rolled down her window and peered at it.
    “Madame, you do not know this place. Terrible things may occur. Go on, for both our sakes.”
    Ann said, “That’s somebody hurt.” She got out, turning on her flashlight. The rain had stopped, leaving behind it a mist and a sense of vague disquiet. When she touched the prone man’s face, her fingertips came away warm and sticky with blood. They got him, she thought, whoever they are. They got him, and they may still be nearby.
    Just as she had once or twice felt that a roast was burning before she could smell it, she felt now that Lucie was about to drive away in the Buick. She had left the keys in the ignition and the engine running. She glanced up; but the French girl was only watching her, her face taut and expressionless.
    “It’s Wrangler,” Ann told her. “Come here, you’ll have to help me.”
     
    “I was supposed to meet my wife and daughter here,” Shields told the hostess at the Golden Dragon. “I’m afraid I’m a little late. Have they been looking for me? I’m Will Shields.”
    The hostess shook her head.
    “My wife’s a little taller than you. Reddish-brown hair, blue raincoat?”
    The hostess said,