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Rick Burroughs

ALAN WAKE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Harry Crews, my first writing instructor, who gave me the best critique any young writer could ask for: “I don’t understand what you’re up to, son, but you clearly do, so keep doing what you’re doing. ”

Thanks also to my editor, Tony Elias, for keeping me on track and for getting the jokes.

My appreciation to all the folks at Remedy for creating the world of Alan Wake, to Sam Lake and Mikko Rautalahti for their feedback on the manuscript, to Eric Raab at Tor Books, to Chris Lassen for her design work, and to Jörg Neumann and Brandon Morris at Microsoft Game Studios for making this project possible.

I must also thank my neighbors, the Eagans, for bringing by the bacon and cornmeal biscuits last winter when I was snowed in and couldn’t get out of my driveway. You saved me!

PROLOGUE

WAKE DIDN’T SEE the hitchhiker until it was too late. It was night and he was tired, driving down the coastal road toward the lighthouse, driving too fast, as usual. The hitchhiker seemed to appear right out of the darkness, standing there in the middle of the road, just staring into Wake’s oncoming headlights. Wake didn’t even have time to hit the brakes, reacting only after he heard the thump of metal against flesh.

Shaken, head pounding, Wake got out of the car to check on the hitchhiker. The front end was splattered with blood, the hood crumpled. Steam rose from the crushed radiator. Wake bent over the body of the hitchhiker, the two of them caught in the headlights now as though onstage. The man was dead. Wake put his hand on the hitchhiker’s bloody clothes, wanting to apologize, to explain, to ask the man why he had just stood there unmoving as Wake hurtled at him. It wasn’t the hitchhiker who was going to have to explain his actions, though.

There were no skid marks on the road, Mr. Wake, the police would say. Why didn’t you slam on the brakes? Didn’t you see him? You’re a writer; were you distracted, maybe thinking about your next book? Just for the record, exactly how fast were you going, Mr.

A raven cried out from a nearby tree, and Wake turned, seeing only its eyes in the darkness. When he looked back the hitchhiker was gone. Disappeared. Wake actually put his hand onto the spot where the hitchhiker had been lying, feeling around, as if he might find a hole, a deflated blow-up hitchhiker, some sort of insurance scam fake out, something. There was nothing and nobody there. Just the pavement, cool in the night air.

Wake stood, knees shaking. He looked around, then pushed the car to the side of the road. It was a write-off. He started walking toward the lighthouse in the near distance, trying to stay upright, to stay steady. The man had been there. Wake had hit him. Killed him. So where was the body? Wake turned back. His car was still there, water leaking onto the pavement, the hazard lights flashing against the night. Up ahead, a streetlight lit up a wooden, pedestrian walkway that wound its way to the lighthouse. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to tell the police when he reported the accident.