• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Trawley nodded.

Case unfolded his arms and scratched his head.

“Well, this is all too bizarre,” he said.

“You mean it’s creepy,” said Freeboard.

“It’s so hard to accept that you knew Morna’s name,” pondered Case.

Dare looked up. “What did you say?”

“Accept.”

And now Freeboard was staring at Case intently, her eyes growing wide with some jarring realization.

“Accept,” Dare murmured to himself.

The quiet word was affecting him strangely. Why?

“Just so baffling,” said Case: “Three people with the same déjà vu; with jamais vu, in fact.”

Freeboard rose from the back of the sofa, perplexity and nascent alarm in her eyes. “Hey, wait a second! What the fuck is going on here?” she demanded. Her tone was belligerent and angry.

“Yes, we’re trying to figure that out,” Case said blandly.

Freeboard strode up to him, stopped and examined his face.

“You’re not Gabriel Case!” she declared.

Dare turned to her, taken aback.

“What on earth are you saying, Joanie?”

“I’m saying this guy is a fake! He’s not Case!”

Dare looked at Case and became more confused, for he read his expression as fond, perhaps pitying.

“Are you bleeding mad, Joan?” he exclaimed.

Freeboard whirled on him.

“Terry, I’ve seen pictures of the man! I’ve talked to him!”

“Then why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

“Who gives a shit, Terry! Who cares! All I know is, this man isn’t Dr. Case!”

“Yes, it is!” insisted Dare.

“It is not!”

“It is! He looks exactly the same as every other time before: the same scar, the same—!”

The author abruptly broke off as the meaning of his words began to register upon him. “What on earth?” he whispered, shaken.

“Terry, what is it?” asked Freeboard tremulously.

She’d seen the look on Dare’s face and felt a dread.

“What in God’s name is happening to us?” breathed Trawley.

Stunned, Dare slowly stood up.

“This keeps happening again and again,” he said numbly.

Freeboard walked over to Dare, her face ashen.

“What is it? What’s wrong with us, Terry? Tell me!”

But the author was staring at Case, transfixed.

“Who are you?” he asked him in a weak, dead voice.

Freeboard and Trawley turned their heads to look at Case.

“Yes, who are you?” the psychic repeated dully.

Case scrutinized each of their faces intently. “Come with me,” he said gravely. “1 have something to show you. I think that perhaps you’re now ready. Will you come? We’ll just go for a pleasant little walk on the beach.”

The trio stood motionless and silent. Something submissive had entered their beings. Their eyes and their postures had changed. They looked crumpled.

Case turned a kindly look to Freeboard.

“You seem tired, Joan,” he said to her gently. “Are you tired?”

She shook her head mutely.

“Then come,” said Case. “Let’s go.”

Staring and moving as if in a reverie, the trio followed Case outside. It was dawn but a heavy fog enshrouded them. Another storm was on the way: swift gray clouds scudded low above the river, and far to the north they could see dim lightning flashes, brief bright souls in the dark. Case escorted them in silence through the grove of oaks and to the path along the river where Trawley and Freeboard once ventured but then mysteriously had stopped. And now, as they neared the sharp bend in the shoreline, it was Dare who first halted, staring quietly ahead. The others stopped with him, uncertain, apprehensive. A gusting breeze ruffled Trawley’s dress.

“Do you wish to continue?” Case asked softly.

No one answered. No one moved. Then at last it was Freeboard who broke away from them and strode toward the curve in the shoreline. One by one, then, slightly faltering, the psychic and the author followed. Apprehensive but satisfied, Case stayed behind. He looked to his right. Then he walked to a marshy, reeded area, where he parted a clump of brush and stared sadly at the tiny, sun-bleached skeletons of what appeared to have been two dogs. He looked up at a sound from around the bend. A horrified shriek. Freeboard. Case sighed and looked regretful, shaking his head. He hastened to catch up with