The Darkest Night

by Mike Ramon

Chapter Nineteen

  When dawn broke the group (only Harry had managed to get any more sleep) went to the Denny’s off of State Street and got breakfast. Tom didn’t think he’d be able to eat a single bite due to the nervous butterflies that had made his stomach their home, but when the food was served he found that he could eat plenty. Everyone ate well, as if the events of the previous night (or early morning, rather) has left them all famished. Once during the meal the thought popped up in his head, We’re eating like it’s our last meal. He ran from the thought, not wanting it to ruin the general jovial mood at the table. He figured they must look like a strange bunch sitting together, most of them with red marks on their faces where they had been touched by the mystery fluid, but their waitress didn’t say anything about it. Maybe she was just too bored or caught up in the story of her own life to notice.

  Tom excused himself when they were finishing up their breakfast, stepping outside to make a phone call. The call was answered before the first ring had ended; Tom figured that Frankie must have been up and ready, waiting for some word.

  “Are you there yet?” Frankie asked.

  “No. We were getting a bite to eat, but we’re just about done here.”

  “I don’t suppose that you guys have changed your minds about letting me come with you?”

  “No, Frankie. That would be a bad idea. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  Tom didn’t believe that Frankie thought it was right at all.

  “Tell me about last night,” Frankie said eagerly.

  Tom told the story, and Frankie listened quietly until he finished.

  “Creepy stuff,” Frankie said when Tom was done.

  “Yeah, well, just be glad I took you home.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Tom could almost picture the boy sitting in his bedroom, holding the phone to his ear and rolling his eyes. At that moment the others started filing out of the Denny’s.

  “Looks like you got out of paying your share of the bill, Tom,” Patricia joked.

  “I’ll pay you back,” he said, but she waved his offer away.

  “Was that Patricia?” Frankie spoke into his ear.

  “Yeah. Listen, I just wanted to bring you up to speed. We’re going to head over to the Home shortly. Just sit tight; I’ll try to keep you in the loop. Okay?”

  Frankie didn’t say anything.

  “Frankie?”

  “Okay.”

  “All right. Talk to you later. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Tom hit the END button and stuffed the phone into his pocket.

  The gang piled into Patricia’s car with Patricia behind the wheel, Tom in the front passenger seat, and the others in back. Harry took up most of the back seat, so Katie had to sit on Jack’s lap. It took them fifteen minutes to get to the Home, and when they did they found that the gate at the entrance to the parking lot was chained shut, the chain and padlock both ancient and rusted.

  “What do you think we should do?” Tom asked, back in the car after inspecting the lock and chain.

  “There’s an opening in the fence, right?” Patricia said. “We could park the car nearby and walk back, then slip through the fence.”

  “Don’t forget about the equipment in the trunk, dearie,” Harry piped up from the back seat. “It would be a bitch to lug it all around.”

  “Well, what do you suggest, then?” Patricia asked, looking at Harry’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

  “Give me a minute,” Harry said. “Pop the trunk, Trisha.”

  Harry opened his door and got out of the car. Patricia looked at Tom, and Tom shrugged his shoulders. Patricia did as Harry asked, hitting the button to release the trunk. They could hear Harry rooting around in the trunk for a while, then Harry came around the side of the car and walked to the gate, raising up the tire iron he had found in the trunk.

  “Never leave him without one,” he said with a smile.

  Harry gripped the tire iron with both hands, raised it up high, and slammed the pointed end down on the padlock, making a loud metallic clang that seemed to vibrate in his teeth. Patricia and Tom swiveled in their seats, looking to see if the noise had attracted any unwanted attention. The opposite side of the street was an open lot, and the nearest house was about fifty yards away. They observed no looky-loos.

  Katie and Jack seemed unconcerned about the racket that the big man was making.

  Harry tried again and this time the padlock broke free and went clattering to the ground. Harry turned and set the tire iron on the hood of the car, then moved back to the gate and unwound the chain. When he had pulled it free of the fence he slid the gate open before grabbing up the tire iron, moving around to the back of the car and putting both the tire iron and chain in the trunk. He closed the trunk and came around, folding his frame back into the car.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked.

  “I just wish you could have made a little more noise,” Tom said.

  “Oh, shut up,” Harry spit back.

  Patricia drove through, and as they passed through the gate they all felt a strange, prickly feeling up their spines, each thinking that they alone had felt it. Patricia stopped the car just inside the entrance.

  “Someone should probably close the gate,” she suggested.

  “You’re up to bat, Tommy Boy,” Harry said from the back seat.

  Tom mumbled something under his breath as he got out of the car and walked back to close the gate, then came back and got into the car, slamming his door shut. Patricia took her foot off the break and pressed down gently on the gas pedal, and the car rolled slowly through the parking lot.

  “Where should I park?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Tom said.

  “I mean that it’s probably best if people passing by on the street don’t see a car just sitting here. They may get curious.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about that,” Tom said. “The property is surrounded by chain-link fencing all around, and will be visible no matter where we park. We’ll just have to hope that nobody cares enough to get nosy if they see the car. I don’t think this is the type of place that people pay much attention to, anyway.”

  Patricia parked in a spot near the front of the Home, and they all climbed out of the car. Katie and Jack were especially glad to be out of the car due to the cramped conditions, and they both took time to stretch out their legs. Patricia leaned into the car and hit the button to open the trunk again.

  “Do you guys need help with your stuff?” she called to Harry.

  “Why don’t you girls go and see if you can get the door open up there, and us big strong men will carry the equipment,” Harry said.

  “You’re right; it would be a shame if one of us were to break a nail,” Patricia said.

  “I’d be happy to switch places with you,” Tom told her.

  “Um, actually it’s okay; I kind of like it that you guys are going to do the mule work.”

  Patricia and Katie walked up the stone steps to the front door of the Home as the three men gathered around the open trunk of the car. Three large hardside suitcases were crammed into the trunk; the sight of them made Tom think of the game Tetris, where you have to fit blocks of various shapes and sizes together.

  “The door is unlocked,” Patricia called to them. “We’ll see you inside.”

  Patricia and Katie went inside, and Tom felt a nervous flutter at the thought of Patricia actually being inside the place. He supposed he would have to get used to the idea, especially since they all might just be spending the night there.

  “Well, boys; we’ll each take one,” Harry announced.

  Harry reached down and wrestled one of the suitcases out of the trunk, and Jack took another. Tom closed the trunk after taking out the past piece of luggage and followed the other two men up the stairs and into the building. The luggage was heavy but not overly so, and Tom wondered what was inside.

  When
they were all inside the building Katie shut the door behind them. Just inside the front door there was a wide open space with a high ceiling; it reminded Tom of a hotel lobby.

  “This looks like a good place to set up camp,” Harry said. “And what a break; we don’t have to lug this shit to Timbuktu and back.”

  The men set their luggage down. Tom massaged a knot out of the small of his back.

  “Oh, it wasn’t that heavy,” Harry bellowed at Tom.

  Bellowing seemed to be his normal way of talking, and the sound of his voice echoed back at them from the walls and ceiling, bouncing around for a moment before fading away. Everyone but Harry looked around nervously, afraid that the man might have awakened something out of a terrible slumber. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, however, and Tom was glad for it; he didn’t think he was ready yet to deal with whatever unknown things that dwelt within those walls.

  Harry and his two assistants took charge of one piece of luggage each, setting them down flat on the ground and opening them up, then unpacking various pieces of equipment and setting them up around the room. Some of the stuff they unpacked were easily recognizable: several cameras (some still, some video), two laptops, a few standing lights that reminded Tom of the ones they used while shooting movies, various cords. Other things were arcane to Tom and Patricia: a bell-shaped device with an antenna sprouting from its top, some kind of meter, something that looked like a divining rod.

  “Do you think we might strike oil?” Tom asked, nodding his head toward the divining rod-like device that Harry held in his hands.

  Harry looked at him for a moment as if he couldn’t comprehend what Tom was saying, then looked at the rod, then shook his head, groaning. That was the only response that Tom was going to get.

  Patricia had wandered away from the group. The lobby sprouted off in two directions, with one hallway going right and one going left. Patricia was standing near the entrance to the hallway leading off to the right, and she stood looking down its length.

  “See anything interesting?” Tom called to her.

  “Nope; just a hallway. There’s a staircase leading up to the second floor.”

  She rejoined the group in the center of the room.

  “We’re almost done here,” Harry announced, though no one had asked.

  Soon all of the equipment was out of the suitcases and set up. Some of the cameras were unconnected to anything, and some of them were attached by wires to the laptops. The bell-shaped device and the lights were hooked up to a large portable battery; the bell-thing was also connected to one of the laptops.

  “What is that thing?” Tom asked Harry.

  “It measures plasmic energy levels in the surrounding air and sends the readings to the computer, where the data is recorded in real time,” Harry answered matter-of-factly.

  “Oh. I guess I should have known that.”

  Harry, Jack and Katie spent some time at the laptops, Harry manning one on his own, and Katie and Jack switching off on the other one. Harry would say only that they had to “check all the levels”, whatever the hall that meant. When they were all done they stood around, looking about the room.

  “What now?” Patricia asked.

  “Well, our presence alone is a pretty big welcome flag,” Harry said. “Now we just have to wait for contact. Until then there’s not much to do. Fear not, however; I came prepared for a long wait.”

  He reached down into one of the suitcases and picked something out, holding it up for all to see. It was a pack of Bicycle playing cards.

  “Who here feels like a game of poker?”