“That’s right.”

“Given that I was expecting you two days ago, I’d guess you resisted the urge that night and the next.”

“Yeah.  I did.”

“That can be good or bad.  Things change from day to day.  Some of the things that weren’t there two days ago will be there today and things that were there two days ago will be long gone now.  But you already know that, don’t you.”

He did, in fact, know this.  None of this was information he hadn’t already worked out for himself.

“I’m guessing by the fact that you’re still in pretty good shape but look like you’ve just seen the reaper, that your most recent memory showed you something you’re glad you missed.”

“Yeah.  Big cat.”

“Fluffy thing?  Might be cute if it wasn’t so terrifying?”

“That’s it all right.”

“Yeah that’ll do it.  I take it you survived long enough in the dream to make it here.”

He had the strangest feeling that the little man already knew very well that he did, that he had known it long before he arrived.  But he responded anyway:  “I did.”

The little man smiled broadly again.  “And I’ll bet that, until now, the trip you took in your dream was much less burdensome than what you’ve been going through.”

Eric nodded.  With the sole exception of the strange bite-mark he’d obtained in the area he missed while detouring through Father Billy’s neck of the woods, Dream Eric hadn’t run into anything truly terrifying.  “Can you tell me what I’m doing here?  What am I looking for at the cathedral?  Why do I have to go through all this?”

Still, the gas station attendant smiled at him.  “Frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Yes.  It is.”

“All right.  There’s something hidden in the cathedral, something you have to retrieve.”

“Why?  Why me?  Why not you?”

“It’s on a high shelf.”

Eric stared at him for a moment.

“A joke,” the little man assured him.  “The truth is simply that you were chosen.”

“By who?”

“By powers far beyond your understanding.”

“All of this is far beyond my understanding.”

The little man laughed, but Eric wasn’t joking.  How was he supposed to accomplish anything?  He wasn’t even sure yet if he’d survived all this in his dream.  “What is the cathedral?  Grant told me it was at the exact point where two worlds meet.  A singularity.”

“That’s right.  The cathedral surrounds that singularity.  The conflicting energies, as you’ve been experiencing them as you’ve made your way through the fissure, come to a pinnacle in that one spot.  Everything changes there.  All that you know ceases to exist as you approach that singularity.  That makes it the perfect place to hide something no one should ever find.”

“So there’s something hidden there?  Something real?”

“Actually, there are two things.  One is hidden in the singularity.  The other…  Well…  Somewhere else.  Both are actually quite useless on their own.  One requires the other.”

“Okay…  So then what’s the point?”

“The point is that somebody, somewhere, has found the location of the other thing.  And it would be apocalyptically bad for the same people to locate both things.  That’s why you’re here.  Your one job is to make sure it doesn’t get found.  Even if it means claiming it for yourself.”

“But what makes me special enough to have whatever’s hidden in the cathedral?”

“You were chosen to find it.  That’s what makes you special enough.”

Eric fell silent as he tried to decide if this made any sense.

“Trust me.  You have all you need to succeed at this.  I mean, look at you.  You’re faring much better than you did in your dream.”

That was true.  He could still type.  He could still hitchhike ambidextrously.  He could still flip a double-bird when a single wasn’t enough to express just how he felt.  And he could still play cowboys and Indians with imaginary twin forty-fives.  Eric looked across the desk and said, “Father Billy…  He said the guy he used to work for was in the business of finding things.  He was after what’s in the cathedral, wasn’t he?”

“Yes and no.  Technically, he was only investigating whether something existed there.  He didn’t find it.  But the organization that he works for is persistent.  They’re the ones who’ve located the…other thing we were talking about.”

“You’re not going to tell me what these things are, are you?”

“Nope.”

Eric sighed.

“All things in their time.”

“Right.”

The two of them fell silent for a moment.  Memories from his dream passed before him.  He saw the little man tending to him, telling him many of the same things he was telling him now, about the thing hidden in the cathedral, about the people who wanted to claim the thing and its mysterious counterpart.  But in the dream, he told him all these things without being asked.  Dream Eric was in no shape to ask any questions.

He recalled the pain.  It was surprisingly vivid.  He kept rubbing his right hand.

Looking across the desk again, Eric said, “What am I supposed to do with this thing?  If these guys who are looking for it already have the other half, what’s going to stop them from just hunting me down and taking it from me?”

“First of all,” replied the little man.  “I never said they had the other one.  I only said they had located it.  As long as they don’t have this one, the other one is useless to them.  They’ll never expend the energy and resources to retrieve it.”

“So it’s pretty safe wherever it is?”

With his broadest smile yet, the little man replied, “You’d be amazed.”

“I see.”

“Secondly, they won’t come to take it from you.  I can assure you that.  They won’t know you have it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Trust me.”

It was strange, but Eric found that he really did trust this man.  There was simply something about him.  He was special somehow.  Meaningful.  If that made any sense.

“Directly behind this station is a narrow path.  It’s little more than a game trail.  Follow it and it’ll take you to an old salvage yard.  There’ll be scroungers there, but they shouldn’t bother you if you don’t get too close.”

Scroungers?  That was good.  He was worried there wouldn’t be any more freaky creatures to deal with.

“Edgar will meet you there.  He’ll show you the final road, the one that’ll take you to the cathedral.”

Eric sat there, staring at his nearly empty coke can, pondering all that he’d heard.  The attendant did not rush him.  He sat patiently behind his desk, continuously smiling.

He recalled the dream.  Like now, this man had told him all these things and sent him on ahead.  His head fuzzy with morphine, still weak from loss of blood, Dream Eric had barely understood everything that he was told.  Specifically, he realized, he’d neglected to ask the only question that really mattered.  So he asked it now:  “If I make it to the cathedral…will I survive?”

For the first time since they met, the little man’s smile disappeared.  He stared back at Eric with an expression that was actually quite sad.  “That’ll be entirely up to you,” he said.

“Father Billy said that you told him no one who enters the cathedral ever leaves alive.  You told him it would claim anyone who went looking for its secrets.”

“I might have said something like that once, yes.”

“Then how is that up to me?”

His smile returning, the gas station attendant replied, “It’s always up to you.”

Eric didn’t understand.  But he clearly wasn’t going to get any more than this.  He drained the rest of his coke and glanced around for a garbage bin.  There didn’t seem to be one.

“Just leave it anywhere.  I’ll toss it in the recycling bin next time I go out.”

Eric placed it on the corner of the desk and stood up.  “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re quite welcome.”  Then, leaning forward, the little man added, “For everything.”