Departure

By Alan Wake
Edited by Barbara Jagger

1
When Thomas Zane fell for Barbara Jagger,
it happened fast. She was young, vibrant and
beautiful, full of life. He had never been a
very happy man, and without any seeming
effort she had changed all that.
Zane felt good for the first time in his life.
Everything she did was another piece of a
jigsaw puzzle he hadn't even known he'd been
missing.

And best of all, she made the words flow,

strong and sharp. She was his muse.

2
 Zane could feel the poems, taking form,
shaping things. As he experimented, he
imagined he could almost feel the power
surging through the keys of the typewriter.

It exhilarated him, but there was fear, too. If

not for his young assistant, Emil, he would
have given it up.

But Emil convinced him otherwise. He, too,

had a way with words.

3
Zane cut its heart out, but it didn't die. The thing
that wore Barbara's face kept crooning sweet
nothings, sugar laced with poison.
He put on the suit, untied the monster from the
chair. The thing in his arms thrashed weakly, but
he held fast. He stepped outside, off the pier, and
into the dark water, a sinking pinprick of light,
descending toward a bottom that never came.

4
Thomas Zane knew he had to remove all that had
made this horror possible, including himself.
That was the only way to banish the dark
presence he had unleashed and now looked at
him through the eyes of his dead love.
But he also knew that despite his best efforts, it
might someday return, so even as he wrote
himself and his work out of existence, he added
a loophole as insurance, an exception to the rule:
anything of his stored in a shoebox would
remain.

5
The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of
Asgard.

The first verse:

There's an old tale wrought with the mystery of
Tom the Poet and his muse
And a magic lake which gave a life to the words
the poet used
Now, the muse she was his happiness, and he
rhymed about her grace
And told her stories of treasures deep beneath the
blackened waves
'Til in the stillness of one dawn, still in its misty
crown
The muse she went down to the lake, and in the
waves she drowned

6
The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of
Asgard.

The second verse:

The poet came down to the lake to call out to his
dear
When there was no answer he was overcome with
fear
He searched in vain for his treasure lost and too
soon the night would fall
Only his own echo would wail back at his call
And when he swore to bring back his love by
stories he'd create
Nightmares shifted in their sleep in the darkness
of the lake.

7
The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of
Asgard.

The third verse:

In the dead of night she came to him with
darkness in her eyes
Wearing a mourning gown, sweet words as her
disguise
He took her in without a word for he saw his
grave mistake
And vowed them both to silence deep beneath the
lake
Now, if it's real or just a dream one mystery
remains
For it is said, on moonless nights they may still
haunt this place

8
The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of
Asgard.
The chorus:
And now to see your love set free
You will need the witch's cabin key
Find the lady of the light, gone mad with the
night
Find the lady of the light, still racing in the night
That's how you reshape destiny

9
It's 1976. Madness reigns at the Anderson farm.
Contrary to all logic, the headiest ingredient of
their moonshine is unfiltered water from
Cauldron Lake.

The Andersons felt like gods.

Odin can't stop laughing. He contemplates
cutting his eye out.

Tor runs across the field, naked, shrieking,

hammer in his hand, trying to catch lightning.

Their songs have power, something ancient is

stirring in the depths, coming back.

10
Children of the Elder God lyrics by Old Gods of
Asgard.

The first verse and chorus:

Warriors, torchbearers, come redeem our dreams
Shine a light upon this night of otherwordly
fiends
Odin's might be your guide, divorce you from the
sane
Hammer's way will have its say, rise up in their
name
Oh, Memory and Thought
Jet black and clawed
Children of the Elder God
Scourge of light upon the dark

11
Children of the Elder God lyrics by Old Gods of
Asgard.

The second verse and chorus:

Scratching hag, you can rake your claws, and
gnash your crooked teeth
You've taken slaves, like ocean waves, now feel
the ocean seethe
Father Thor, bless this war between the dark and
light
In their songs let their wrongs bring dissolution's
night
Oh, Memory and Thought
Jet black and clawed
Children of the Elder God
Scourge of light upon the dark

12
For decades, the darkness that wore Barbara
Jagger's skin slept fitfully in the dark place that
was its home and prison. It was hungry and in
pain. It dreamed of its nights of glory when the
poet's writing had called it from the depths and
given it a brief, terrible taste of power and
freedom. The rock stars had stirred it from the
deep sleep the poet had sunk it back to in the end.

When it sensed the writer on the ferry, it opened

its eyes

13
For a long time, the Dark Presence had been
weak, sleeping, nothing but a half-forgotten
nightmare or a shadowy flicker in the corner of
an eye in the forest at night; not real enough to
properly exist, and yet too evocative to fade away
completely.

Now it was waking up, the writer like a fly caught

in a spider's web, each jerk and kick vibrating the
strands that led deep into its lair. It was aware of
him now, and it could use him.

All he'd need was a little incentive.

14
For Mott, spying on the writer on the ferry had
been a disappointment. His boss had made Wake
out to be something special. He'd gotten a good,
long look of the wife, though, and liked what he
saw. Mott had fantasized about goading Wake
into a fight, but it hadn't happened. Still, he'd get
his chance to see if the writer had anything in
him.

He'd been promised as much.

15
In spite of its human mask, to describe the Dark
Presence as intelligent would have implied
human qualities on something decidedly
inhuman.

Nonetheless, it found the one spot in the diner

that was dark enough. Some light spilled into the
corridor, ravaging it, but it took the pain, horrible
as it was. The writer would soon fix that. He
would be coming to the one place where it still
had power

16
Some of the Taken retained echoes of their
former selves, but these were just the nerve
twitches of a dead thing. Nothing remained but a
shell, covered and filled with darkness.

In most cases these puppets were enough for the

purpose of the Dark Presence. But for anything
more elaborate, as with the writer, it was
different. It needed his mind. And so rather than
taking him over completely, it merely touched
him.

17
Rose knew she'd been gushing, but right now, she
didn't care. As far as she was concerned, her brief
meeting with Alan Wake was literally the high
point of her life.

She watched as he got in the car with his wife.

She was pretty, confident, at ease with Wake, not
like Rose. They were perfect for each other.

She'd have given anything to be called their

friend.

18
Alice looked through the viewfinder, lining up
the shot. Cauldron Lake was breathtaking.
Something caught her eye: a figure standing in
the shadows behind the cabin, like a thin woman
in a black dress.
She lowered the camera and looked again -- no
one there, just a collection of bushes that looked
vaguely human-shaped. She shook her head and
laughed
Barry had never gotten along with Alice, but he
knew Alan loved her with an almost frightening
intensity. And now something had happened to
Alice -- and here was Al, armed with a gun and
saying things people got put in padded cells for.
It was as if his friend had experienced a massive
psychotic episode and was now totally
disconnected from reality.

It scared the shit out of Barry.

19
I'd first heard the poem in a dream, recited by a
strange UFO-like light. I'd read it again in the
cabin, in a book by Thomas Zane:
For he did not know
That beyond the lake
He called home
Lies a deeper, darker
Ocean green
Where waves are
Both wilder
And more serene
To its ports I've been
To its ports I've been.

20
Alice had screamed until she had no voice left to
scream. Around her, the darkness was alive. It
was cold and wet and malevolent and without
end. She was a prisoner, trapped in the dark
place.

The terror would have burned her mind out, but

one thing made her hang on: she could sense
Alan in the dark. She could hear him. She could
see the words he was writing as flickering
shadows.

He sensed her, too. He was trying to work his

way to her.

21
The darkness that wore Barbara Jagger's face was
furious. The story in the manuscript had been
making it stronger all the time, but now the light
had set the writer free and hurt it, weakened it.

It was only a matter of days before the Dark

Presence would be strong again, but meanwhile,
it would be difficult to recapture the writer.

22
Mott had checked all of Stucky's rental cabins.
There had been no sign of the Wakes. It was dark
when he'd found their car parked at the end of the
road by Cauldron Lake.

It made no sense. They must have taken a wrong

turn, but there was no sign of them, and the car
had already been there for hours already.

Frustrated, Mott stood on the rotten ruin of the

footbridge that had once led to Diver's Isle,
before it sank beneath the waves years ago. The
boss wouldn't be happy.

23
Stucky spat on the garage floor and tried to shake
the cobwebs from his head. Ever since the couple
never showed to pick up the keys, things had
been fuzzy.

Something -- a feeling -- caught his attention.

Stucky looked up and stared as his brain tried in
vain to process the horror before him. He
stumbled back, knocking over a can of oil; a
black pool spread across the floor while he
struggled for a brief moment, then let go as the
unrelenting darkness engulfed him.

24
The hunters were big, thickset men, confident
and at home in the woods. They were feeling
good, running on beer, ghost stories and
camaraderie late into the night.
It did them no good as they were taken by the
Dark Presence, sucked deep into a darkness far
worse than any ghost story they ever told or
heard.

25
Toby knew the smell: it was the man, the nice
man who always gave him treats and never got
tired of playing with him. Toby wagged his tail
in excited anticipation and gave a joyous bark.
Then there was another smell - a wrong smell -
and it was alien enough to stop Toby in his tracks.
Confused, he growled deep in his throat. The
wrong smell came from the nice man. Blind
animal terror pierced the dog's brain an instant
before the axe followed suit.

26
On more than one occasion, Alice tried to explain
to me how it felt to be afraid of the dark. To her,
darkness wasn't simply the absence of light, but
something more tangible than that. It was
something you could touch and feel.

Worse than that, it was something with a mind of

its own, something malicious and malign. For
her, things changed when they were wrapped in
the darkness, they turned into something else,
something foreign, and nothing was safe or
innocent anymore.

I'd never really understood what she meant, until

now.

27
The man turned to face me. His face was covered
in shadows. It was hard to make him out in the
darkness of the forest that surrounded us, but the
axe he lifted was plain to see. It glistened with the
blood of his victim.

He grinned madly. The shadows were alive,

distorting his features.

It was a scene from a nightmare, but I was awake.

28
At the last instant, I changed direction and threw
myself down; the axe splintered the trunk of a
tree.
I stumbled into the pool of bright light. My lungs
burned; I was too exhausted to move. I tensed as
I waited for the killing blow, but it never came. I
raised my head. Nothing moved in the darkness
beyond.
For the moment, bathed in the cold light, I was
safe.

29
The Taken stood before me. It was impossible to
focus on it, as if it stood in a blind spot caused by
a brain tumor or an eye disease. It was bleeding
shadows like ink underwater, like a cloud of
blood from a shark bite.

I was terrified. I squeezed the flashlight like my

life depended on it, willing it to stop it coming
any closer. Suddenly, something gave, and the
light seemed to shine brighter.

30
I turned the corner, afraid of what the flashlight's
beam might reveal. Suddenly, a roughly painted
symbol of a torch glowed in the light. Behind it,
hidden by a rock, sat a battered metal trunk.

It was here for a reason, packed with supplies:

batteries, flares, ammo. Thing you need to make
it through the darkness of the night. Something
left behind by someone who knew what I knew,
and more.

31
I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it.
In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read
it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and
read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes
and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my
eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of
my eyes and read it.

32
At first I kept finding the pages as if by accident.
The book I couldn't remember was either a
terrible and true prophesy, or an act of creation
that had rewritten the world. I began to hunt the
pages, feverishly, for they held the answer to the
mystery.

With it I could save myself.

With it I could save Alice.

33
Shadows stirred and the wind picked up as I ran
through the forest. I felt the Dark Presence
turning its gaze toward me.

Then the moonlight was blotted by dark shadows

that raced violently across the ground, moving
too swiftly to be natural. Darkness gathered
between the trees, and melted again to reveal the
Taken. No natural path had brought them here.

34
Even after all this time, hearing the Night Springs
theme caused a surge of conflicting emotions in
me.
It had been my first real writing gig. Barry had
known a guy who knew a guy, and suddenly I'd
been a semi-regular writer on the show. I'd
always been ashamed of the job, felt it was trash.
I had wanted to be an artist, a novelist.

I'd been naive back then. It had taken a long time

to learn to be proud of the work

35
I stepped into the gas station's garage. It was dark
and quiet. The place was a mess. It looked like
someone trashed the place, or that there'd been
some kind of fight. Light spilled into the room
through an open door at the back, and I made my
way toward it.

Without any warning, I was blinded by a bright

light. An old portable TV on the shelf had come
alive by itself. Impossibly, I could see myself on
the screen, talking like a madman.

36
Danny had stepped out, but what stumbled back
in was something else, something alien, a
monster. Walter tried to kill it, first with his fists,
then a chair.

It wouldn't die; instead, it kept coming,

unaffected by the beating it had taken. After
Walter managed to kick it down the cellar stairs,
fear took over. He ran, got behind the wheel,
gunned the engine. The booze wouldn't make
him forget, but he knew he had to try.

37
Hartman had never felt as anxious as during the
week after Mott had managed to lose the Wakes.
Their car stood by the path that had once led to
Diver's Isle. Hartman thought about Thomas
Zane's cabin in the depths.
It was only a matter of time before Wake started
writing. They had to be found, and fast.

The moment he heard on the police radio that

Sheriff Breaker had picked up Wake, he was
already in his car, driving toward town.

38
There was no misunderstanding, Cauldron Lake
was where Alice and I had stayed, but there was
no cabin and no island. I was missing a week.

What had happened to me?

What had happened to Alice?

I had to get her back. I couldn't face life

without her

39
The logging site was a mess. The modular office
had been pushed out of the cliff.

Deputy Thornton climbed up from the wreckage,

excited, breathing hard from the exertion.
"Nobody there. It's weird. Don't you think that's
weird?"

Bored, Mulligan let out a mighty snort, "Hell, it's

always weird, Thornton. Just a question of
sorting out what kinda weird it is this time
around."

40
"The cabin on Cauldron Lake?" she asked.

The Sheriff looked at me suspiciously. The

early morning light flooded through the
office windows. I would probably never have
gotten out of the woods alive without her
help, but I couldn't tell her the truth of what
I'd faced the previous night. She'd think I was
lying, or crazy. She'd lock me up.

And she wouldn't help me find Alice.

41
Barry Wheeler was bouncing off the walls. He'd
jumped on a plane after his calls were ignored by
both Al and Alice for several days. It could mean
that they were both on a second honeymoon, but
Barry didn't buy it. Al had been way too unstable
for that -- not sleeping, messed up.

Barry had years of experience dealing with Alan

Wake, and he couldn't ignore it; something was
wrong.

42
Nobody in Bright Falls seemed to know where Al
was, but Rose, the waitress at the diner, had seen
him. From what Barry could tell, Al pretty much
fell off the face of the Earth when he left the
diner.

Rose was just the kind of fan that Al hated, but

she really tried to help. She was smart too, knew
a lot of what was going on in the town, knew a
lot about Al, even knew who Barry was.

Barry liked her. That was no big surprise. When

it came to women, Barry and Al rarely saw eye
to eye.

43
Barry took another sip of the heavenly coffee. He
grinned at Rose. Surely, this was love.

Rose gushed on, breathlessly: "The new one will

be a masterpiece. I know it! You must tell him
not to listen to the trolls in the forums saying
"Departure" will never get finished. He should
take his time and make it perfect. I can wait."

44
Sarah didn't care about the legal threats Wake's
agent had made. She let Wake go without
argument because there was something about
him she couldn't quite put her finger on,
something that reminded her of her father.
She didn't think Wake would hurt his wife. Then
she thought about the way he waded into
Hartman, that hair-trigger rage flaring up without
warning.

45
Barry had never gotten along with Alice, but he
knew Alan loved her with an almost frightening
intensity. And now something had happened to
Alice -- and here was Al, armed with a gun and
saying things people got put in padded cells for.
It was as if his friend had experienced a massive
psychotic episode and was now totally
disconnected from reality.

It scared the shit out of Barry.

46
Things were never as simple in real life as in
fiction. I had lost count of the times I had wished
there'd be a clear reason for my writer's block.
Something to fight, something to lash out on.

There wasn't. I was filled with doubt. I was

nothing like the hero in my books. Alex
Casey had gone through his life with single-
minded determination, never wavering from
his goal. Even now, I was angry at myself,
angry at Alice, angry at Barry. I was fumbling
and I had no plan.

47
The Visitor Center was sturdy, but the impact
turned the front of the building into splinters.
Rusty was thrown across the lobby like a rag doll
and hit the far wall hard.

It didn't hurt until he tried to move and saw his

leg bend the wrong way, felt the broken rib
stabbing him on the inside. Rusty howled in pain
and fear, suddenly afraid to die alone.

48
The air in the visitor center was heavy with an
awful smell, as if some rotten drowned thing had
crawled up from its grave.

Rusty kept coughing blood. My eyes were drawn

to the twisted shape of his broken leg. The attack
had been vicious. Max whined in his cage.
Rusty's eyes were wild with fear and terror.

He gasped: "Mr. Wake, it happened just the way

it was on that page."

49
In that last instant of consciousness, Rusty
thought about Rose. He was older than she was;
Rose was barely out of her teens. But she made
him feel young and forget what a train wreck his
long dead marriage had been.

He still wore the ring. He'd been waiting for her

to tell him to take it off.

Now she never would.

50
When Barry saw the darkness attack the Visitor
Center, it made him a believer. The men Al said
he'd shot -- they hadn't been just locals on crank.

Somehow, the world had changed. Like the

channel had been switched without a warning.
You think you're watching a sitcom and you're
really watching a horror show.

When the birds started attacking the cabin, Barry

wasn't surprised, just terrified.

51
Mott knew that Wake was smarter than him;
Wake had more money, a beautiful wife,
everything. And Hartman said Wake was
important. That made him better than Mott. But
Mott was calling the shots now. He'd expected
Wake to whimper and grovel, but instead, he
seemed willing to fight. Mott knew he'd gotten
under Wake's skin.
If only Mott actually had his wife. The thought
made him shiver.

52
The kidnapper fired his gun one last time, and the
shadow vanished into the darkness it had come
from.
"See, nothing to it, Wake."

The thought of Alice in his hands was revolting.

We stood on the wooden platform of Lovers'
Peak, the waterfall and the mountain behind us,
the lights of the radio-mast blinking red in the
heights above. I fought with the urge to take a
swing, forced myself to speak.

"Let's cut the act now. Where's my wife?"

53
I heard them before I saw them, swooping down
from the sky and screeching as they came.

I spun around just as the cloud was upon me. For

an instant, I stared into a hundred dead eyes,
black pearls glittering in the darkness.

I raised the flashlight and the swarm exploded

like fireworks. Feathers burned, turned into ash.
I couldn't hear my scream above theirs.

54
Agent Nightingale didn't want to be in Bright
Falls. These little communities revolted him.
And he didn't like the trees or the coffee. He now
knew that impossible horrors lurked behind the
storefronts and smiles.

He desperately wanted to turn the car around and

just drive until he passed out or ran out of the
road and booze. But he had a job to do. He had a
writer to catch.... at any cost.

55
Sarah trusted her gut, and her gut said agent
Nightingale was an asshole. He felt wrong, and it
wasn't just the smell of stale booze. It was in the
way he flashed his badge, pulled rank, the look in
his eyes when he wanted answers.

Where was Alan Wake? What was this about an

accident? Where was his wife? And most
importantly, why did she let Wake go?

He wouldn't answer her questions. "Federal

business" was all he'd say.

56
Even behind the closed doors and curtains of his
grimy room at the Majestic, the local motel,
Nightingale could feel the locals' eyes on him, the
unrelenting pressure of their judgment.

He forced it out of his mind. For all he knew they

could all be under Wake's spell already. You do
what you have to do to get the job done.

He took comfort from the bottle in his hand:

"Please," he thought, "just let me get through
this."

57
Rose knew that Rusty was in love with her, and
she liked him, too. She liked him a lot. He'd
taught her to dance, and life had certainly taught
her the value of a man who was gentle. He treated
her well, made her smile, made her feel good.

But Rusty wasn't the prince of her dreams, and

that tended to underline the unbearable truth: she
was no closer to that Hollywood magic than he
was

58
Rose didn't know how the strange old lady got in
her trailer. And she looked...wrong, somehow.
The woman showed her teeth in an
approximation of a smile and traced a finger
down Rose's cheek. "Pretty girl," she said.

Rose felt as if she was falling asleep, but her

knees didn't buckle. The crone spoke in a
whisper, her words ice cold and dark in Rose's
ear.

59
Touched by the Dark Presence, Rose was lost in
a dreamland where everything was drawn in
black and grey crayons. The old lady had
promised her that all her wishes would come true.
She would be Alan Wake's muse.

She was smiling so hard it hurt her face. She

crushed a bottle full of sleeping pills into the
coffee.

Deep down inside, she was screaming in terror

60
Mr. Randolph liked Rose, that little smile she
had, how she was still sweet when life had tried
so hard to make her bitter.

It wasn't any of his business what she did in her

trailer, but those strangers -- the writer and his
smartass sidekick -- looked like trouble, and
they'd been in there for hours, way past her
normal bedtime. He reached for the phone and
called the Sheriff's station.

61
The Dark Presence had touched the girl to lure
the writer into a trap. now it was night and he lay
helpless, drugged, lit only by the flickering of the
TV
screen filled with static.

Shadows coalesced in the room as the Dark

Presence leaned close to the writer, ready to
touch him again: "Back to work, boy."

62
For it to be free, the Dark Presence needed the
writer to finish the story. Again and again the
story let it get frustratingly close to the writer
without letting it capture him. It was bound by
the events depicted in the manuscript.

But it could pursue the writer indirectly, put

others on the task, and stop those who would help
him.
It took over everything in its path, made them its
puppets, and sent them after Alan Wake.

63
The FBI agent's command froze me in place. I
considered surrender. It was all falling apart
anyway; I could give in, let someone else deal
with it.

But it felt all wrong. Call it instinct; his posture,

the way he held the gun. He was no friend.

Shots ringing in my ears, I leaped for the hole in

the fence and stumbled into the darkness beyond.

64
Doc sat down heavily. He'd examined Barry and
Rose. Barry was already recovering. Rose was
another story: she was conscious, but she was
barely present, almost delirious, disturbed,
"touched in the head," they used to say.
It wasn't the first time Doc had seen someone in
such a state, but it'd been over thirty years.
Doc poured himself a stiff drink.
He hadn't forgotten a thing.

65
The night had been one desperate situation after
another. I was exhausted and my body felt as
though it had been chewed up and spat out.

The flashlight was heavy in my hand, and each

pull of the trigger sent a painful shock up my arm.
But I was finally out of the woods and things
were looking up.

That's when I heard the chainsaw.

66
Nightingale stared through the broken studio
window into the dark woods. He turned around,
started to walk out, but Maine grabbed his arm.

"Young man, you almost shot me! You don't

shoot off rounds at people like that. What's the
matter with you?"

Nightingale shook his arm free, marched out. His

cheeks burned with rage and humiliation.

67
With Nightingale gone and the night wind
blowing in through the broken studio window,
Maine stared at Sarah. The Sheriff looked away.
Maine's voice shook with barely controlled
anger.

"That boy's doing more drinking than thinking. I

hope you know what you're doing, Sarah. He's
got a sickness in his eyes. You take my word for
it: he wants Wake for a reason, and it's not for
anything good."

68
Deputy Mulligan tuned Thornton's chatter out.
He didn't think writers were particularly useful
people, and a huge manhunt for one struck him
as idiotic, certainly not worth the missed
opportunity for coffee and pie. It wasn't even
clear what the man had done, except run from
them at the trailer park.

Mulligan knew he wasn't alone: the sheriff's

patience with the Fed was running out.

69
The pipe wrenched itself loose from the bridge's
steel framework. Wrapped in darkness, it floated
in midair, twitching spastically. For a moment, I
didn't understand what I was looking at.

The heavy object lurched at me with impossible

force. I threw myself out of the way, but just
barely.

When I turned my flashlight on it, it shook in a

dark rage, before it flew at me again.

70
The bulldozer's engine roared to life. Mud and
rocks flew as it fought for traction. It crashed the
concrete wall and landed heavily in the yard.

If it were an animal, it would've shaken its head

after the impact, fixed its eyes on me, and
charged. Of course, it had no head, nor eyes.
Shadows crawled on its form, twisting it into a
monster.

Then it came for me.

71
Hartman wasn't happy. Mott could see it in his
eyes. He quickly lowered his own: he'd made a
mess of it, and he knew it.

The shame of failure was hard to bear. He hadn't

expected Wake to say he needed more time, and
he'd blurted out "two days," less than Wake had
asked for, to show him who was in charge.

But that wasn't part of Hartman's plan.

72
For a moment, Hartman considered strangling
the idiot. Mott was mean-spirited, but easily
manipulated; an emotional infant who lived for
his approval.

Wake, by contrast, was a far more difficult

subject. Mott had given him too much leash. In
two days, who knew what could happen?
Hartman would have to find a way to rein him in,
and quickly.

73
The darkness surged towards me, sucking
everything loose from the ground into its depths,
tugging at my clothes.
I saw the flare the kidnapper had dropped and
through myself towards it just as I felt my feet
leave the ground. The darkness embraced me
with the force of a tornado. Somehow I managed
to light the flare.
The darkness roared and cast me away. I fell,
towards the dark waters of the lake below.

74
Hartman followed the fall of Alan Wake with his
binoculars. When the writer hit the water, he
ordered Jack to take the boat to him.

The spot was easy to see in the dark even with all
the extra lights in the boat. The flare floated and
kept burning even in the water.

Jack turned the radio louder as the engine

sputtered. The music was rough and clanking,
something the Anderson brothers would no doubt
have enjoyed, but Hartman chose to ignore it.
Wake was finally within his reach

75
Hartman knew he was no creator. He had no
ambitions on that front, and he certainly didn't
want to end up like every artist he had worked
with here: damaged in ways that were hard to
describe, or worse.
It was enough for Hartman to maintain creative
control and provide direction. To be "producer."
That was what most of these people were in need
of, anyway.

Of course, suitable subjects were few and far

between

76
Hartman watched as Wake's features slackened.
The man was bull-headed, no doubt; even lying
on the bed, he's almost broken Hartman's nose the
second time. But with a little time, he could break
Wake down, give him proper direction. Wake
was easily the most promising subject he'd
had...well, since Tom, really.

"Sleep well, Alan," Hartman whispered with a

smile. "Let me take care of you."

He sniffed hard to clear his throbbing nose;

swallowed blood and barely tasted it.

77
I tried to hold on to Alice, but her form melted
away. I was losing control. Dr. Hartman stood in
her place. I wanted to hit him, but my arms were
jelly.

He smiled. It was a reassuring smile and I hated

him for it.

"I had to give you a sedative, don't fight it. You

went through another rough period. Right now
it's very important that you stay calm. We don't
want you to have another episode. You're a
patient at my clinic, have been for a while now.

78
Hartman kept talking, giving Barry the grand
tour, clearly proud of the place. He went on and
on about his hunting trophies, and Barry was
impressed, but he was here on business. He raised
his voice, cut through the monologue.

"Hey, Hartman? Where's Al?"

Hartman stopped in the mid-sentence, annoyed at

the interruption. He nodded at the hulking
orderly standing nearby. The man smiled and
clapped a practiced hand on Barry's shoulder.

79
Hartman hurried down the corridor. He had
disliked leaving Wake when he was surely at his
most susceptible to therapy, but this was not an
ordinary storm. Wake had been writing, and he
had woken something up in the depths of the
lake. Now it was coming for him.

Hartman had naturally prepared for a situation

like this. The idiot brothers would keep Wake
distracted while Hartman double-checked
everything, just to be sure.

80
Lightning flashed behind the windows of
Cauldron Lake Lodge. Tor Anderson laughed
and held the steel hammer above his head. Nurse
Sinclair was trying to calm him down without
success.

Tor grinned madly and shouted: "My hammer's

up! Here's a friendly poke from Mjöllnir,
wench!"
He brought the hammer down with all his might
on Sinclair's head.

"We're on a comeback tour, baby!"

81
I slammed the door shut right in his smug face.
He pleaded for me to open the door. True to form,
the asshole actually thought I would obey.

I had no sympathy left. No guilt, either, not for

him. I took a moment to savor the scream. I bet I
had a smile on my face.

It was all that I had time for.

The Dark Presence was inside the lodge with me.

82
The storm raged on as the Anderson brothers
walked unsteadily away from the clinic with the
other patients in tow, knowing that this time they
wouldn't return. The darkness around them
seethed with horrors, but Tor and Odin were
unafraid.

Their eyes glinted with guile. They knew every

secret path, and there was blood on their hands.
They had fought these shades before.

83
For the moment, Barry was just glad he had
survived the fall. He had been separated from Al,
and there was no easy way to climb back up.

He told himself he'd be okay, okay in the gloomy

forest at night. He would just have to wait a while
for Al to find his way down. Barry turned when
he heard the heavy footsteps and saw the
movement: the man-shaped shadow lunged at
him from the bushes, an axe held high.

Barry screamed and threw up his hand. The

world exploded.

84
When he stopped the car at the Anderson farm,
Walter felt relieved; oblivion was close at hand.
The brothers wouldn't miss a jar of moonshine,
or two, in the booby hatch.

But then he saw the man on the porch, and he

knew who it was.

Driving for his life and knowing it was useless,

he didn't realize he was crying until he couldn't
see the road for the tears.

85
The story I had written in the cabin had come
true. Touched by the Dark Presence, I had written
a horror story, but the end was still missing. The
story was incomplete and the last unfinished page
of the manuscript still sat in the typewriter in the
cabin study.

If I could get back there, if I could read the page,

then I could write my own ending to the story and
save Alice.

86
The Dark Presence followed the choreography
laid out to it in the manuscript, growing stronger
and stronger, moving like a storm from one scene
of destruction to the next.

But it was still bound to follow the story and

chained to the dark place it came from.

When the story reached the end it longed for, it

would finally be free.

87
I stared at the Viking paraphernalia that littered
the area, surrounding an unlikely centerpiece: a
full-sized stage, complete with all the trimmings,
including a dragon. It took a special kind of crazy
to build something like this in a remote field.

When the sky split open with a deafening boom

and the music started blasting, it felt strangely
appropriate.

"Al, be careful! I can see them moving around!

They're coming for you!"

88
Again, Alice's screams rang in the stillness of the
night. I saw myself run toward the cabin,
flashlight in my hand.
I followed my past self. I was an out-of-body
observer, a time traveler in a crazy, drunken
dream. This was the beginning, the night Alice
had disappeared.

The mystery of what had happened during the

missing week was about to reveal itself.

89
Agent Nightingale stared at the passed-out
writer. The man was sleeping off one hell of a
night. Nightingale felt a stab of envy at Wake's
oblivion. But he had a job to do.

He put the gun to Wake's head, and almost

became a murderer.

His hand shook and his throat felt tight and dry.
Biting his teeth, he tried again to pull the trigger.
He lost the nerve.

Wake stirred. Nightingale would have to settle

for an arrest.

90
As the deputies hauled Wake and Wheeler away,
Agent Nightingale eagerly examined the stack of
papers Wake had been carrying. It was
incomplete, a collection of random pages.

But there was enough: he saw his own name in

there, among others. His hands shook with
emotion.
Finally, it was proof. He had been right all along.

91
Nightingale tried to make sense of the
manuscript. It was disjointed and strange. He
didn't understand half of it, but it all rang true,
impossibly true.
He took out his hip flask when he reached the
page that described how he reached the page that
made him take out his hip flask.

It wasn't the booze that made his mind reel.

92
 I stared through the bars of the jail cell. Barry
stood behind me, swaying on his feet, looking as
ill as I felt.
Agent Nightingale stood on the other side of the
bars with Sheriff Breaker. Nightingale had a
stack of manuscript pages in his hand. He seemed
unhinged as he gloated:

"Well, I've got you now, Raymond Chandler. It's

all here, all the evidence, including conspiracy to
murder a federal agent."

93
Nightingale felt the situation veering out of his
control, but the gun at least felt steady in his
hands. He was ready to fire, resolved that he
would let this happen over his dead body--and yet
he hesitated.

He had seen this moment before, read it in the

page. He was transfixed by the déjà vu and the
horror that he was a character in a story someone
had written.

Then the monstrous presence burst in behind him

and dragged him into the night.

94
Barry was in his element, making calls, making
things happen, even if he didn't entirely know
what those things were. He wouldn't let the hot
sheriff chick down, even if every noise he heard
from outside--and he heard plenty--made him
jump. He had only paused to text Al a message,
told him to hurry up.

Suddenly, Barry froze in mid-dial: a window

broke somewhere in the building, and then the
lights went out.

95
Barry got back to his feet inside the Bright Falls
General Store and dusted himself off. Right next
to the cans of baked beans was a locked case
filled with flare guns. And yet, here was a
conveniently placed barrel of crowbars!

Barry's smile widened as he realized that this was

the classic movie scene where the hero had to
gear up and arm himself to the teeth. Barry threw
himself into the role.

96
Sarah was almost starting to relax. Maybe they
could turn this into a win yet.

Suddenly, there was a piercing sound, like a table

saw gone wild, as a hundred birds made out of
shadows swarmed into the rotor.

The chopper bucked wildly and the board lit up,

telling her what she already knew: they were
going down. Barry Wheeler screamed next to
her.

97
Cynthia Weaver worked hard, following her
obsessive rituals--sometimes fighting them,
always giving into them in the end.

She haunted the halls of Bright Falls' abandoned

power plant. She marked her caches with light-
sensitive paint that could only be seen by eyes
that had been touched by darkness and saved by
light like she'd been.

She was preparing defenses and supply lines for

the war she knew would come--the war between
the forces of light and darkness.

98
Making her way through the water pipe alone,
Cynthia was angry at the writer. Foolish young
man, taking unnecessary risks. And the way he
broke the rules! Didn't he understand what was at
stake?

Since the terrible days in the 70s, she hadn't

wavered once, as hard as it had been. She was
tired of protecting the town all these long years
and now only wanted to rest.

99
In the end, Barry wasn't going to shoot Sarah,
they both knew that. Once she had no chance of
catching up to Wake, Barry gave up the gun and
sat down on the floor, shielding his face from the
merciless glare of the Well-Lit Room.
"I don't think I'm ever gonna see him again,"
he said in a weak voice.

Sarah didn't have it in her to be mad at him.

Besides, he was probably right

100
The Dark Presence was no longer trying to
capture the writer so he could create the ending it
wanted.
The writer knew too much. He was too strong,
and he carried a weapon left behind by Thomas
Zane, something that could hurt it.
Now the darkness was doing everything in its
power to simply stop the writer from ever
reaching Cauldron Lake and the dark place it
came from

101
The bottom of Cauldron Lake was a graveyard of
things the lake had claimed in one way or another
over the decades. The Dark Presence brought
them up in its wake, scattering the rotten,
waterlogged hull of an old boat here, the remains
of a long-ago crashed airplane there.

Trees shattered under the impacts. The earth

groaned. It didn't even notice.

102
The dark place I found myself in was unlike
anything I could ever have imagined; it wasn't
solid, it flowed. The was conceptual and
subjective.

For someone else, an artist in another field, it

would have been very different. I could sense the
story of the manuscript all around me, the words
and ideas floating in the air, poised to become
real.

103
After Zane had gone, I stood alone in the shifting
dream that was the dark place. I had to find a way
to the cabin. I had written myself a way through
this place in the manuscript.

I followed the idea of a path. I had written myself

across the ocean that blocked my way, and with
that, there was a bridge to the island beyond. The
idea of the cabin flickered in the underwater
darkness. I willed the cabin to be real.

And it was.

104
105