After only a moment, Karen called him back.  “Remind me not to have you bring home milk and eggs.”

“Freaky, right?”

“That is definitely some ugly livestock.”

“So I’m not crazy?”

“Apparently not.  These things are disgusting.  What are they?  They look dead.  This is…”

“Crazy?”

“Well…yeah.”

“I know it is.”

“Do you really think you’ve gone fifty miles?”

“I don’t know.  I only have Grant’s word on that.  But the first barn was gone when I came out the other end and so was the cornfield.  I can’t say it’s actually fifty miles, but I definitely went farther than I should have.”

“That’s so weird.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“But why you?  I mean, if all this stuff is real, then why you of all people?”

“I can’t even begin to tell you that.”

The trees began to crowd the path around him.  The road was less defined here, just as Grant had described.  Soon he’d have to start looking for the other path, the one that was difficult to see.

“This is all really crazy.”

“I know.  But I think Grant was right.  I feel like if I don’t do this now, I may never stop getting up in the middle of the night and rushing out the door.  And that’s a pretty lousy way to live a life.”

“I guess it would be.”

He reached the end of the visible road and stopped.  “Hey, I’m going to get off of here again so I can find this path.  I’ll talk to you in a little bit.”

“Okay.  Be careful.”

“I will.”

Eric pocketed the phone and turned slowly around, searching the forest.  At first, he saw nothing but trees and brush.  There was no sign of another path.  But then he spotted it.  It was to the right, almost completely overgrown, virtually invisible.  From where he stood, however, he could see the way the trees lined up on either side of it, like a seam in a quilt.

He pushed through the brush and made his way along this secret path.

This was all familiar.  He remembered this place from his dream.  According to Grant, this meant he was on the right path.  In the dream, it was two days ago.  That explained the discrepancies in the barn, why the chickens weren’t in the same places.  They were wherever they would have been two days ago.  On the other hand, the other creatures hadn’t moved, justifying his hunch that the bloated things were incapable of moving around even within their own stalls.

He could hardly believe he was accepting this nonsense.

He pushed on, shoving through the dense foliage, thinking about his dream.  He’d been drawn all the way to Annette’s field by his peculiar urge to get in the car and drive (and then later get out of the car and walk) until he arrived at the gate in her back yard.  But the dream didn’t begin until he stood at the edge of the cornfield, looking up at the barn.  He wondered how it was that he knew the way to the barn when it didn’t seem to be a part of the dream.  Was it simply a part of the dream that remained forgotten?  Or had there been other forces at work in guiding him here?

He would probably never know for sure.

When the brush had thinned enough that he no longer needed both hands to push through it, Eric withdrew his phone again and fumbled through the address book Karen programmed into it for him until he found his brother’s number.

“What’s up?” answered Paul.

“Hey.  I need a huge favor.”

“How huge?”

“Pretty damn inconvenient.”

“What do you need?”

“I need you to go pick up my PT Cruiser for me.”

“Okay.  Where is it?”

Eric gave him directions on how to find it as he followed the faint trail up the side of a hill.

“What the hell’s your car doing way out there?”

“It’s a real long story.”

“If you say so.  Where are you?”

“About fifty miles northwest of where I parked.  I think.”

“What are you driving?”

“Didn’t say I was driving.”

“Wait…what?”

“I’m out in the woods right now.  Don’t worry about it.  I just need you to pick up the Cruiser.  I think I’m going to have to find another ride when I’m done here.”

“What the hell are you doing in the woods?”

“Like I said, it’s a really long story.  Will you do it?”

“Sure.  Yeah.  I can do it.”

“Thanks.  I owe you.”

“Yes you do.  Does Karen know where you are?”

“Yes, Karen knows where I am.”

“You’re seriously acting weird today.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The phone crackled as he approached the top of the hill and he took it away from his ear long enough to look at the display and see that he was again losing the signal.  When he put it back to his ear, Paul was saying something.  His voice stuttered through the static.

“What was that?”

“I said it’ll be a couple of hours before I can drive out there.”

“That’s okay.”  He hadn’t expected him to leave immediately.  Paul owned his own construction business.  He had the freedom to leave work to run errands, which was why Eric called him instead of having Karen take care of it, but he didn’t expect him to drop everything and go.  “There’s no huge rush.  Listen, my phone’s cutting out so…I’m…”  He trailed off as he crested the top of the hill and looked down off the other side.  “Whoa.”

“What?”

Before him lay a landscape vastly different from the cornfields and forests he’d seen so far.  The path continued down the other side of the hill, widening as it went.  The trees thinned.  Rocks jutted up from the ground.  About two hundred yards in front of him, the earth was split by a wide gorge.

“Eric?  What’s going on?  Are you still there?”

“Yeah.  But I’ve got to let you go.  I’m losing my signal.”

“Okay.  Call me later, though, okay?  Let me know what’s going on.”

“Yeah.  Sure.”

Eric disconnected the call and stood staring at the gorge that blocked his path.  The road led right up to the ledge, where a dangerous-looking rope bridge waited to carry him to the other side.

Chapter Eight

Eric made his way down the hill and stood at the end of the bridge.  It was a simple suspension bridge, with old, wooden slats that he wasn’t sure would hold his weight.  But at least the bridge was supported with thick cables and not flimsy ropes, as he’d first thought.  Still, it inspired very little confidence as a means of safe crossing.

Was he really expected to use this thing?  Grant never said anything about risking his life on a terrifying deathtrap.  That seemed like something that should come up.

Several fat crows were perched along the cables of the bridge, a murder of bad omens.

He looked down into the gorge.  There was water at the bottom, but if it was a hundred feet deep or only a few inches, he couldn’t tell.  Either way, he had no desire to test his high diving abilities.

The terrain here was strikingly different from the farmland he’d become familiar with.  Was this the gray area Grant was talking about?  Or was he looking at some of Wisconsin’s natural glacial features.  The cell phone remained dead, and that odd chill was in the air again, suggesting that he was no longer in the Wisconsin he knew.  At least not entirely.  But the sun still shined brightly in the sky and nothing more sinister than the architectural deathtrap waited to claim him.

Eighty feet above the surface of the water, the bridge was clearly the product of an evil and deranged mind.

Gingerly stepping out onto the planks, he felt it immediately begin to sway beneath his weight.  The crows took flight, apparently smart enough to know the makings of a disaster when they saw it.

It was frightening as hell.  Yet even as he eased his weight out onto it, he realized he had done this all before.

In his dream.

At least he knew he was going the right way.  Now he only hoped that he wouldn’t get out over the middle of this gorge and suddenly recall that his dream ended with him plummeting to his death.