Chapter Three: The White Dog

“Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they the shadows of things that may be, only?”

-Scrooge, A Christmas Carol

            Hendricks was feeling very punch-drunk. An hour ago (or so he reckoned) he had been convinced that he was about to die horribly. Now he was sitting in a gleaming kitchen, wrapped in a blanket, and talking with what he thought was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. Somehow, it didn’t seem right that those two things should happen in the same evening.

            Helen was washing her face in the sink and drying herself off with a towel, making her black hair tangled and bushy with static electricity. Hendricks had just finished telling her how he had ended up in the sea (though he had left out the white guide, since he really didn’t want her thinking he was crazy and he wasn’t so sure himself on that point). He didn’t trust himself to look at her for too long, but kept his eyes focused on the floor as he spoke and only stole a glance every so often.

            “Wow,” she said, trying to smooth out her hair again with her hand. “You’re really lucky, you know that? Though, sitting out above deck in a storm was pretty stupid.”

            “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’m going to kill Ralph. Uh, that is,” he added quickly as the implications of the statement hit home. “Assuming he’s not already…you know.”

            He trailed off, embarrassed.

            “A boat washed up on the other side of the island,” she told him. “It’s probably yours. Last I heard our people were trying to get the survivors off.”

            “That’s good,” he said. “At least, it’s a good sign…right?”

            Helen grimaced.

            “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

            “So, what do you do here?” he asked to break the awkward silence that ensued.

            “Do you mean me personally, or the island as a whole.”           

            “Both.”

            Helen considered for a moment.

            “Well, I do clerical work; you know, filing, expenses, that sort of thing. The boring stuff…”

            Hendricks briefly thought that it sounded a lot more interesting to him.

            “But the facility itself does medical research,” she went on. “New medicines, technology, that sort of thing. I don’t really know exactly what they’re working on now, because they keep everything very secret.”

            “How come?”           

            “Because they don’t want anyone stealing the technology,” she said. “You see, Dr. Prosser, he’s the man who owns the island, intends to keep his medicines cheap so that they’ll be available for anyone who needs them. But Centron Farms claims to own anything he makes, since he used to work for them, and they’d want to sell it at the highest price they could. So, he set up this island to keep his research out of their hands so that he could be sure it goes to the people who really need it.”

            “Wow,” said Hendricks. “That’s...really admirable.”

            “Isn’t it?” she said. “I was a little skeptical when they first offered me the job, but when I found out what it was all for, well, I couldn’t resist.”

            “Prosser…” Hendricks muttered. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

            “Does it?” Helen asked. “I’d never heard of him before I came to work here.”

            “How did you get this job?”

            Helen grimaced.

            “That’s…kind of a long story.”

            “I’m not going anywhere…”

            “Which I’d rather not tell,” she added.

            “Ah, right.”

            Helen looked at him and sighed.

            “Well, let’s just say I was looking for an opportunity to get away from my family and, as luck would have it, I happened to run into Charles one day.”

            “Who’s Charles?” Hendricks asked, a little more sharply than he had intended.

            “Oh, he’s head of security for the island. Anyway, we ended up talking, I let it slip that I wanted a way to lay low for a while, and he said this might be exactly what I was looking for.”

            Hendricks nodded, trying hard not to jump to any conclusions about this Charles.

            “Why’d you want to get away?” he asked.

            “My mother and I have different…expectations for my life,” she said, a sour note in her voice. “She wants me to go to law school like her, I…”

            She stopped and went slightly red.

            “…I don’t,” she finished lamely.

            “What do you want to do?” Hendricks asked.

            Helen shook her head.

            “Never mind.”

            “Go on,” he said. “I promise I won’t laugh. “Are you….thinking about joining the circus or something?”

            “No!” she laughed. “If I had, I would’ve stayed in law school. I…well, I had some ideas about doing work in lower-income communities.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I mean…well, have you ever been to one of those neighborhoods in Miami? You know, like Little Havana or Overtown?”

            Hendricks felt his stomach tighten a little. Overtown was where he had his breakdown.

            “Sure,” he said as casually as he could. “Lots of times.”

            “Have you talked with the people there?”

            “Er…arresting doesn’t count, does it?”

            “No, it doesn’t.”

            “Then no.”

            “I have,” she said. “And I think I might be able to make their lives a little easier. I was thinking of trying to use some of my connections to find people to, you know, provide low-cost medical care, or good education, or even help patrol the streets and keep crime down; all at low cost, and mostly done from within the community itself.”

She was growing more and more enthusiastic, considering that she hadn’t wanted to talk about it in the first place.

“I have this vision, see? Of a big community center, right next to the church, in the middle of the neighborhood. That’s where we’d bring in the teachers and doctors and lawyers and whoever else we can get a hold of. It’s where people could sign up for schools, or hold neighborhood meetings, or just come to relax and talk. People could drop their kids off after school and not worry about them, they could come there when they were in trouble or just needed some kind of help. And then people in other cities or other neighborhoods would see how well it worked, and they would start up centers of their own and…”

Her face was glowing with enthusiasm as she spoke, which made her even more beautiful. Hendricks watched, mesmerized. Suddenly, though, she seemed to catch herself and stopped.

“Well, anyway,” she said. “That’s what I’m hoping for.” 

“That’s really something,” he said sincerely. “How are you going to go about starting this?”

Helen shrugged. “No idea,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here; I’m trying to come up with a plan to get going, and this job gives me a lot of time to think.”

            “Not very busy then?”

            “Not really,” she shrugged. “There’s just about enough to keep me occupied, but it’s not very, you know, challenging.”

            Hendricks nodded, but as he was trying to come up with a way to keep the conversation going, the door to the kitchen burst open and a soaking-wet Ralph (still wearing his suit and panama hat) flew into the room.

            “Mr. Hendricks!” Ralph exclaimed, pulling him to his feet and into a tight bear-hug (Hendricks could’ve sworn he felt a few ribs crack). “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to learn that you are not dead!”

            “Thanks,” Hendricks gasped as he sat back down, rubbing his ribs. “You too. Is everyone alright?”

            “Everyone is ship-shape!” Ralph replied. “Except for the ship, of course; high and dry and smashed right through the starboard side! That was quite an experience, I can tell you; absolutely thrilling! Incidentally, it’s probably a good thing you didn’t go below deck; I doubt you would have escaped unharmed.”

            “How did you know we were here?” Helen asked.

            “Excuse me, madam,” said Ralph. “I didn’t notice you there. My name is Ralph Zanator; a friend of Mr. Hendricks. May I have the pleasure of your name?”

            “Helen Marshall,” she said, holding out her hand.

            “Helen?” he said, taking and kissing it. “Surely the original? She who launched a thousand ships?”

            “Uh…” Helen seemed completely thrown off by this reception. She was spared having to respond, however, by the arrival of Charles Simon.

            “There you are,” he said to Ralph. Catching sight of Hendricks he asked “Excuse me, who are you?”

            “My fellow passenger,” said Ralph. “The one who was washed overboard.”

            “Oh, excellent!” said Charles. “I was a little worried we’d have to go out in one of the boats and look for you.”

            Another flash of lightning and rumble of thunder emphasized his relief.

            “Welcome to Matoul,” Charles went on. “I was just telling your friends that we’ll be happy to put you up for the night and arrange passage off the island as soon as possible. You may consider this house yours as long as you stay here, save for Dr. Prosser’s study and quarters in the back of the house, of course. We also must ask you not to try to enter the main facility, as I’m sure you will understand. I assume Helen already told you that we’d much prefer to keep anything you see on this island confidential, correct?”

            “Well, that was implied at least,” said Hendricks, glancing at her.

            “Good. Can I show you to your room? I’m sure you must be dead tired.”

            That was a very apt description of how Hendricks felt, but he couldn’t suppress a reluctance to abandon his conversation with Helen. Still, he nodded and stood up to follow Charles.

            “Thanks for everything,” he said to Helen.

            “It was nothing,” she shrugged. “Well, okay, it wasn’t, but I’m happy to help.”

            “Well, uh, good-night then.”

            “See you tomorrow,” she said. Hendricks felt a tiny explosion of happiness at this as Charles led him and Ralph out of the kitchen and into a beautifully paneled and carpeted hallway.

            “By the way,” said Hendricks. “How did you know I was there?”

“I happened to hear you talking as I passed down the hall,” Ralph answered. “And, naturally, I took off running!”

“It’s true,” said Charles, chuckling. “One minute he was right behind me, the next he had vanished. I must admit I was impressed; not many people can get away from me like that.”

Ralph waved an enormous hand dismissively.

“In any case, Mr. Hendricks, my name is Charles Simon, and I’m the head of security for the island…”

“Oh, yeah; Helen told me about you,” said Hendricks. He had to admit, he was relieved to discover that Charles looked to be in his early forties.

“Not everything, I hope,” Charles grinned. “That would be embarrassing.”

“Just that you helped her get her job and that you do security for the island.”

“Does the island require much security?” Ralph asked.

“You might be surprised,” said Charles, leading them upstairs. “Quite apart from corporate espionage – which is a bigger problem than you’d think – there’s also El Jefe.”

             “Oh, yeah,” said Hendricks. El Jefe was a drug kingpin who controlled most of the Caribbean cartels.

            “Exactly,” said Charles. “Of course, he doesn’t have any specific grudge against us, nor we with him (well, apart from the obvious), but we’d be insane not to take certain precautions. In any case, you all can rest easy tonight; you’re perfectly safe here.”

            As if to emphasize this point, he opened a door and gestured for Hendricks to enter.

            “We recovered your luggage from the yacht,” he explained. “It’s already been taken in. Mr. Zanator here insisted.”

            “Of course!” said Ralph. “I knew you’d pop up.”

            The room was small, but well furnished with a dresser, a mirror, and a bed that looked achingly comfortable. The sight made Hendricks realize just how exhausted he really was. Muttering something that might have conveyed “thank you and good night,” Hendricks closed the door, undressed, and sank onto the bed. He hardly had the time to think how comfortable it was before falling into a deep sleep.

            Helen found herself standing on a rock by the ocean. It was evening; the sun was almost set below the horizon in front of her. To her left, some distance along the coast, was a small tower, like a lighthouse. It seemed very important to her somehow; as though it was her home or a beloved sight from her childhood. But as she looked at it, trying to figure out what it meant, a bolt of lightning burst from the ocean and struck the tower. It vanished in a blinding flash and Helen cried out in horror, turning her face from it.

            As she did so, the ocean seemed to erupt and she saw a huge, pure-white snake rising up from the water. It was at least fifty feet long and as she looked at it she saw, with a thrill of fear, that it had no eyes.

            Hissing angrily, the eyeless snake was turning its head this way and that, as though it were searching for something. But before it could find what it was looking for, another snake appeared out of the ground behind Helen. This one was much smaller – only about twenty feet – and was jet-black in color, with silver eyes.

            The white snake screamed in fury as the black snake flared its hood and hissed back. The two charged at each other, Helen ducked and covered her head, but just as they connected, they both vanished.

She looked around and saw that she was no longer on the rocky shoreline, but high on a red mountain, looking out on an endless plain of forests and rocks. The sun was riding high in the sky, causing her to speculate it must be about noon. As she tried to figure out where in the world she was (it looked rather like pictures she had seen of the Australian outback), Helen noticed a red glow on the horizon, almost like a sunset. But as the sun was directly overhead, she knew that couldn’t be it.

The glow increased, growing brighter and brighter, eating up the blue sky like ink poured into water. The ground beneath her feet was began to tremble ever more violently as the glow increased.

Then she saw the fire. It wasn’t just flames, like you might see in a wildfire. It wasn’t flames at all. It was a single, solid red wave of burning heat, stretching from horizon to horizon, as high as the sky itself, and sweeping over the land like a flood, bearing down on her. Helen screamed and covered her face again as she felt the terrible heat wash over her…

The scene changed again. Suddenly, she was in a large, high-ceilinged room. Somber curtains covered the windows and dark drapes hung along the wall. Many people, all dressed in dark, formal clothing, were milling about and talking in low voices. Helen couldn’t catch what they said, but she saw that all of them looked very serious. Some of them were crying. With an unpleasant jolt she realized that they were almost all people she knew; there was her high-school soccer coach, Mrs. Wheeler. There was her best friend, Carol, who was crying. There was her mother’s friend, Frank Woden and his sons.

Helen walked through the crowd, none of whom noticed her.  At the front of the room she found her mother, leaning over a kneeler. For a second, Helen thought she might be asleep. Then, to her shock, she realized her mother was crying uncontrollably. Helen had never seen her mother cry before. Tentatively, she put out a hand and touched her mother’s shoulder. She gave no sign that she felt it.

“Mom?” Helen called softly. “Mom, what is it?”

Then she saw: her mother was crying in front of a picture that was framed in a wreath of flowers. A picture of Helen.

And Helen understood; this was her funeral.

“No,” she gasped. “No! Mom, I’m not dead! I’m fine! I’m…”

Her voice faltered. There was no escaping it: her dreams always came true. She was going to die soon.

The sheer force of this realization struck her like a physical blow, knocking all the air from her lungs. So overwhelming was the shock, the horror of the idea that she would have collapsed in a faint if she hadn’t already been asleep.

She looked at the photo of herself. She recognized it; it was one of the ones that had been taken just after her college graduation. She was smiling broadly, resting her head on her hands, her black hair falling about her face. Her face glowed with happiness, with hope. Where was that hope now, she wondered. She well remembered all the dreams and aspirations she had had in those days; many of them she still had. But now she saw that they were all in vain; she wouldn’t reach any of them.  It was as though a door had been unexpectedly shut in her face, or as though a test that she had been expecting to excel in had been snatched from her hands almost before she had even begun. The weight of the days that she would never see, the experiences she would never know, the things she would never do seemed to pressed down upon her until she felt as though it was all-but crushing her.  

Tears stung her eyes as she looked around at the mourning crowd. They were all suffering so much over her. Their misery was on her account. She felt as though she were already dead; a ghost walking among the living, already eternally cut off from the people she loved.

There wasn’t even a casket; did that mean they never found her body? How had she died?

Helen looked down at her own body; and tried to imagine it all being destroyed so that there was nothing left even to mourn over. She shuddered. It suddenly occurred to her how very fond she was of her own body, as though her hands, hair, stomach, legs, and feet were beloved old friends. That thought seemed even more horrible to her than the prospect of dying was. To be dead was bad enough, but to be simply gone so that there was nothing left of her…that was far, far worse. She hugged herself tightly, as though she saw dark, greedy hands reaching out to snatch her body away from her and was trying, like a child who sees his favorite toy about to be taken away, futilely to protect it, to hold onto it.

Then, as all this was running through her mind, there was a roar like an explosion. The funeral vanished in flames and Helen found herself in her office. A red glow, like the wave of fire she had seen earlier, shone in through the window as though the whole island were ablaze.

The door to her office shuddered as something struck it with a heavy blow. Whatever it was, it gave a high-pitched roar and struck again. The door creaked, and Helen thought it surely must give way soon. Suddenly, terror unlike anything she had ever experienced overwhelmed her. She knew that, whatever that thing was, she did not want it to get in. Stumbling, she backed away from the door, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and It…

“Don’t be afraid.”

Helen turned around. Behind her sat a snow-white dog the size of a small horse. Its hair was long and looked extremely soft, and its eyes were a brilliant shade of gold. The dog glowed with soft, warming light, like the full moon.

“He can’t get in.” The Dog’s lips didn’t move, but Helen understood instantly that he was the one who had spoken. He had a very deep, musical voice.

Helen looked over her shoulder at the door, which was still shuddering under the powerful blows of the Thing outside.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Positive,” he answered. “You see, I’m not letting him. Just like I will not let him stop you from remembering this dream when you awake.”

She looked back at the Dog. He was smiling in a very doggish manner, and she realized that she wasn’t in the least afraid anymore.

“You were the White Guide,” she said. “Weren’t you?”

He nodded.

“Who are you?”

“I am a friend,” he said simply.

“I guessed that much,” she said, managing a small smile. “But I don’t really understand…you’re clearly not just a dream, so…”

“No,” he said. “I’m not just a dream. As a matter of fact, I am almost the opposite of a dream.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll understand when the time is right,” he answered. “For now, I suspect you more pressing concerns.”

The scene at her funeral, almost forgotten in terror and wonder, rushed back upon her with such force that she was almost overwhelmed.

“I’m going to die soon, aren’t I?” she said in a very small voice.

The Dog leaned forward so that its face was level with hers.

“Maybe,” he said. “But not for certain.”

“But my dreams always come true,” she said.

“This one might not,” he answered.

“Might not?” she asked, hardly daring to believe it. “Well, how can I be sure? I mean, what should I do about it?”

“You should get off this island as soon as you can,” he said.

She blinked in shock.

“Why?” she said. “What’s going to happen to it?”

“This place is not what you think it is,” he answered. “And the people are not who they say they are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not permitted to say. But don’t trust them, whatever you do. And get off this island!”

“How am I supposed to do that on my own?”

“You aren’t,” he said. “But I believe you made a new friend this evening, didn’t you?”

Helen thought for a moment.

“You mean Hendricks?”

He nodded.

“You can trust him,” he said. “He will help you.”

Helen privately thought that Hendricks didn’t strike her as being potentially very helpful in this situation.

The Dog touched her forehead with his blood-red tongue, and Helen felt warmth and courage spreading throughout her body.

“Be brave, Helen,” he said. “I’ll be with you.”

Helen woke up, the sweet smell of the Dog’s fur still hanging in the air.

Next Week: 

Chapter Four: Unsure and Untouchable