He turned, moving through the gloom of his apartment like a wraith in a haunted countryside. A few beams of sunlight slanted through the window and illuminated his dusty book stacks, his ash-strewn coffee table, his ratty sofa and armchair, and finally his desk, where pictures of Lorraine, his mother, father, and himself, stood in a ceremonial circle, staring out from the past.
Plopping into the captain’s chair at his desk, he looked at his ex-wife and stamped out his cigarette in the butt-cluttered ashtray. He sighed. The Rolf Adler case had demanded too much of her. Lorraine could handle a lot, and she always did handle a lot, but that one pushed her over the edge. Pushed them both over. It was mostly all fighting and cold emotional stares during that period. The warmth slowly seeping out of their relationship—sucked away by the mouth of a psychopathic German serial killer which the Times had dubbed “Roaring Rolf” because he liked to roar like a lion while he mutilated his victims.
Rolf recorded his sessions, left tapes for the investigators to find. Later he left tapes for Carl to find. Mostly long diatribes of racism and Nazi propaganda, although some threatened Carl directly. He’d managed to nab Rolf eventually, but it took everything he had, including his job and marriage. In the end, only early retirement remained…
There was a knock at the door and his muscles tensed. Odd. Why should the presence of a visitor alarm him?
He tried to call out Who is it? but his tongue lay dead in his mouth. What the hell is going on?
A shuffling came from the hall. Then the knock again, softer, less enthusiastic. Carl noticed a shadow in the crack at the bottom of the door. A bulbous, unformed writhing, scarcely defined, with no sharp edges. The shadow seemed to be spreading into the apartment, which was of course impossible. Carl sat paralyzed in his captain’s chair. He swore he saw a tide of liquid black lapping toward his bare feet.
A folded piece of paper slid under the door. Then the visitor moved off soundlessly without a single footstep, just wafting down the hall until he was gone—and the tide of terror-soaked darkness with him.
Carl took a breath, able to move again. He yanked open the top drawer of his desk, withdrew his .38, and rushed to the door, avoiding the piece of paper. He flung it open and stepped into the hall, aiming the revolver in both directions.
Nothing. Only the window at the far east end, glowing with empty gray.
The feeling of the visitor lingered in the air, cold and otherworldly. He went back into his apartment and closed the door. The folded sheet of paper beckoned him. Tucking the revolver in his waistline, he bent to retrieve the paper. The moment his fingers grazed the material, he felt a tremor in his bones, as if a tuning fork had sounded in his stomach.
There’s something very wrong about this.
He gently unfolded the paper, remembering how Detective Gawain opened the other note at the crime scene. When he saw the lines of wiggly, bold-faced writing, he knew the person who’d written that note had also written this one.
Detective Sanford:
We appreciate your interest in this case. Your history as a law enforcement agent is not unknown to us. Flattered as we are, we must ask you to reconsider. This isn’t a normal kind of crime. Its implications are far-reaching. Unless you are willing to sacrifice everything, then we urge you to back out.
To proceed would shatter your reality, forcing you to leave behind everything you’ve ever known. The OLD ONE who has presently stepped close to the threshold of the world WILL PASS THROUGH, in this year of our Lord, 2013.
There is no preventing this. There will only be collateral casualties of those foolish enough to stand in the way. We hope you will consider our words with gravity.
Until, and if, we meet,
The Golden Rose Croix Order of Oriphiel.
Carl held himself steady. The cluttered disarray of his apartment spun before his eyes. The ingrained scent of cigarette smoke constricted his lungs. He started coughing, and felt close to passing out.
He carefully placed the note on his desk and returned the revolver to the top drawer, then lumbered down the hall toward the bathroom. He opened the medicine chest and, in a blur, sought the bottle of Xanax. The doc had told him only in cases of emergency.
This is a goddamned emergency.
Unscrewing the lid, he popped two in his mouth. Then he went to his bedroom and flopped on the mattress. The ceiling began to rotate.
It isn’t Rolf Adler, he told himself, closing his eyes as the Xanax took effect. Rolf Adler is locked in prison. He isn’t my responsibility anymore. That time is over.
A little while later, he slept.
***
Standing in the room. Not himself; the other. The one in the tie, white shirt, and black business suit, with patent leather shoes, gold cufflinks, and a glimmering wristwatch, most likely a Rolex. The one whose skin is pale as downy feathers, whose eyes are coal-black marbles.
Carl sits up in the darkness. Where is he? Is he in his bed? Yes. The walls of his bedroom surround him. It’s night. No, it’s day.
It’s both.
Dim-lit gray glows in the sky over Manhattan. Clouds in the window remind him of starbursts and nebulae.
Something else. Something far-flung and distant, yet elusively close, spreading a chimney column of smoke. A rising plume of gray, churning, the inside of which is filled with glaring heat.
What happened? Was there another terrorist attack?
Carl rubs his eyes and turns from the window. His fear has detached itself, unfolded then refolded, now hovering over his head like a halo. He forgets himself. He forgets the world and the smoke.
He forgets everything.
Except the man.
Men like him are unforgettable. They do not adhere to the mundane or the common in life. They are larger, grander; their reach extends wider, their gaze farther. Their thoughts spawn ideas, which they put into action, creating reality.
A series of American men pass through his mind, no two alike. George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X—also American women: Deborah Sampson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Mary Emily Sinclair, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Sandra Day O’Connor.
A lush history of doers and thinkers, whose actions have served to form the country. And this man, this strangely luminous man standing in his bedroom, is one of them. He is an activator. Carl feels his soaring thoughts, senses his protruding forehead thumping with activity, glimpses the fire in his eyes. There is no stopping this man. This man is on a mission of a different kind; his deeds are of extreme importance to the future of humanity.
Carl rubs his eyes again. Is he awake or is he dreaming, is it dark outside or is it light—is he dreaming in darkness? The man is standing beside his bedroom door just across the threshold without being fully in the room. His physique is half shrouded in shadow, as are most of his facial features. But his soul shines forth from the center of his solar plexus, radiating light.
The man lifts a hand, his right, and signs the Holy Mudra; then he lifts his left and makes another sign, which Carl has seen from fans at rock concerts—the Symbol of the Horns.
“Carl,” the man says, lowering both hands. “Carl Sanford. I know you. I am here with you. I am warning you. Take heed.”
“Who are you?”
The man smiles from somewhere, but not with his lips. Tilting his head he says, very softly, very hushed, “Oriphiel.”
Carl recoils, unfit to hear such a word uttered—and from such a heavenly, transcendental mouth. He knows the word; has encountered it in his occult research—just like Heidelberg Castle. And like that mystic castle the name “Oriphiel” is a mystery, a code. One of the Seven Archangels. The Holy Angel of the Divine Judgment.
“I’m dreaming,” Carl says.
The man smiles. “You are.”
“Did you give me the note?”
“No. But my associates did.”
“What do you wan
t?”
“For you to leave off the Adam Francis case,” the man says, “and heed the words of my associates. The time is coming in which all ages shall be concluded and all actions accounted for. In truth, there is no way anyone can stop this from occurring. However, certain souls such as yours are posed to delay matters, if left unchecked. That is why I urge you to withdraw from the case. Finish the book you’re working on. Your work is important. It is going to spread these truths throughout the land.”
Carl smells sulfur and his heart begins to thump. A chill passes through his bones, and his vision smears like mixed paint. His worst fears about the book have just been validated. Someone is keeping tabs on him.
The man smiles, raising an outstretched arm. “Do not fear. In no way does anyone oppose the book. True, it divulges certain secrets meant to stay hidden, but thousands of books already do this. The time has come for such streams to be secreted to the public in earnest. Now is the time of knowledge and decision.”
He gestures to the window. Carl follows with his gaze. “Look closer,” the man says.
Shirking fear, Carl gets to his feet and stands before the window. He surveys tall buildings and the world seems dead. Not a soul lingers on the streets. No cars, taxis, or buses. Only frozen, statue-like immobility and the roiling clouds of destruction in the sky.
“It comes,” the man says, “from the sea.”
“What does?”
“The bringer of the Next Age. The herald of my reign. That which plunges the Earth into darkness in order to prepare my coming. The Old One.”
At these words, the nearby Hudson stretching into the distant Atlantic begins to pitch and sway, to bubble and froth. Huge white-tipped waves spawn, then smash together in heavy sprays. The water turns a dark, brackish purple.
“What is this?” Carl says.
But the question is answered when, in a sudden flash, a gigantic shape rises from the sea. Its shadow arcs over the rooftops and through the sky.
Carl flinches, realizing with horror that the shape is organic. A rubbery surface covered in slime and circular suction cups. This thing is alive, a creature from oceanic depths. More tentacles emerge and extend, until a dozen arc and soar over Manhattan, blotting out the sky. Soon they come crashing down, smashing steel and concrete structures and shaking the Earth’s foundations.
The apartment building trembles and the floor heaves. Carl grabs his bureau to keep balanced. But I’m dreaming, he thinks. People can’t die in their dreams.
“Oh yes they can,” the man replies, reading Carl’s mind. Then he starts to laugh, a horrid, heartless laughter that resonates with ultimate power.
Carl fixes his gaze on the scene outside the window, refusing to believe it, trying to block it from his thoughts. But he cannot deny the motion of the island as the pillaresque tentacles hoist the great fuming mass out of the Atlantic, or the huge black shape rising as a mountain from the water.
And the face—horrid and vast and beaked—surmounted atop this mass, this semi-viscous tentacled being—and the eyes staring out from it: the burning furnace holes of a portal straight to Hell.
Carl sinks to his knees as the man’s laughter fills the room, cutting into him like unending knife swipes.
***
He awoke to thoughts of the Hortus Palatinus. Lush gardens, ornate fountains, castellated towers and soaring rooftops. What significance did the painting hold? If these half-documented histories about its Rosicrucian past were accurate—and even more strange was the fact that it had traveled across the Atlantic and appeared in a Manhattan art museum—then could the Golden Rose Croix Order of Oriphiel be behind its sudden appearance?
Thinking about it fuelled the anxiety in his churning stomach and his mind raced. Obviously he was still recovering from his strange dream (or is it a vision?) and the aftereffects of the Xanax.
The doc had told him too much red wine was bad for his heart—not to mention the damage the Camels were doing to his lungs and ticker—and he’d said to stick with white wine if Carl ever felt like going over his glass-a-day limit. But today wasn’t a white wine kind of day. Carl felt dark, murky, and moody.
He wanted to drink red wine and work on his book—needed to work on it, in fact. Yet he spent most of the morning reviewing the images from his dream: the strange man, the silent city, the horrifying sea creature or behemoth.
The word behemoth seems appropriate.
Around noon he managed to open the document on his laptop entitled American History and the Occult. He’d always been fascinated by occultism. Strange allegories that unfailingly rang true. The interesting cast of characters. The captivating artwork and alchemical plates. Most of all, the rare books.
He’d been introduced to the concepts prevalent in occultism during his years at Northwest Missouri State, but had never really understood them. Still, they provided good fodder for drunken debates at the bar, and they impressed the naïve coeds, which was a plus.
But now he was in a world where these concepts had come to life. First his book, then the Adam Francis murder, and now this bizarre dream. And even if the dream had been his reaction to the Adam Francis crime scene, he still had the letter—and that was good old-fashioned physicality. There was no denying it.
He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. The paper hummed in his fingertips, as though it carried an electric charge. Was that possible?
The brothers of the Golden Rose Croix Order are alchemists, he reminded himself. That’s what they do—they spiritualize inanimate matter. According to the books I’ve read, anyway.
“A lot of good those have done me,” he said to the room. Then he laughed. The wine was making him tipsy. Getting any writing done seemed more and more an unattainable goal. Perhaps it was time to lie on the sofa and doze.
But instead he read through the previous chapters of his book starting with his introduction, in which he highlighted the contemporary “craze” concerning occultism in popular culture. Then, referencing the Dan Brown novels and the sensation they had caused, he spoke about the growing interest in Freemasonry and the rampant paranoia surrounding the brotherhood, dreamed up by the conspiracy theorists and the advent of the worldwide web. Eschewing this angle, he showed how Freemasons had always been a part of American society, and a very influential part. Only recently had the fraternity reached a higher degree of notoriety.
Other topics included the “magical” aspects of Harry Potter, as well as the Indiana Jones movies. Then on to the more wild theories about races of reptilian beings from another dimension secretly controlling the White House, UFO encounter cover-ups by government conspiracies, and even the assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
How much had the philosophies and practices of occultism helped shape the history of the Unites States of America, as well as its present incarnation? The main argument of his book would show the answer to this as being quite significantly.
His colleagues at the Bureau found his interests bizarre, uncharacteristic of a respectable detective. They never understood that Carl considered himself a multifaceted individual, whose inner world was sophisticated and complex.
Only Lorraine had understood him.
And I let her slip away…
She had managed to keep up with him in conversations, which he appreciated. It was one of the reasons he’d been so attracted to her. She received her Master’s in English Literature, although philosophy never much interested her. Not until Carl. After that she could hold her own against his seemingly incoherent babblings about secret societies that possessed the keys to unraveling certain “magical” qualities of reality.
Carl drank more red wine now, finishing off the bottle. He lit a fresh cigarette and re-examined the file containing the comprehensive outline of his book.
Chapter One: A brief history of the Crusades and Knights Templar in Europe during the Middle Ages, and how that Order’s creed went underground after Pope Clement V had them all executed in 1307.
Chapter Two: The development of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Scotland, which, arguably, was started by the survivors of the Templar Order.
Chapter Three: The rise of Masonry throughout Western Europe and its seeming fusion with Rosicrucianism, a lesser known and speculated order of mystical alchemists from Germany.
Chapter Four: The involvement of Freemasons and Rosicrucians in the African slave trade and Chinese Opium Wars.
Chapter Five: Documented involvement of Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and other thinkers in the migration to the New World, as well as the subsequent American Revolution.
Chapter Six: Masonic influences and occult ideologies in the Declaration of Independence and the drawing up of the United States Constitution.
Chapter Seven: America’s occult fathers: George Washington, Ben Franklin, and John Hancock. Masonic, Rosicrucian, and Egyptian-Chaldean influences present within American thoughts and actions.
Chapter Eight: The occult symbolism of the architecture of the United States Capitol and other buildings of Washington D.C.
Chapter Nine: Yale University, Connubial Bliss, and the rise of the Skull and Bones Society, as well as other university fraternities.
Chapter Ten: Bonesmen and the assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
He finished writing chapter ten a week ago, and it had been a painstaking process. He’d been around for the Kennedy assassinations. Thinking about them again tugged at his heartstrings, especially the idea of secret government involvement. He was a patriot and he loved his country.
The remaining chapters of his book would incorporate the present day. Both of the Bushes were Bonesmen, as was John Kerry and various others. Many current Members of Congress were Freemasons. September 11th, the War on Terror, the story of United Fruit, the CIA and the opium trade, etc.
Dreaming In Darkness Page 3