In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II

by David L. Golemon

“Your good name stops at the front of my door, boy. As Charlie said, two bits,” said a good-looking man walking in from the back as he wiped his hands on a dirty towel. He tossed it over his shoulder to hang as Dean produced the quarter for his drink and plopped the coin on the bar. “Now, what are you doing in here? I don’t like kids hanging out. Looks bad, and we both know your father would crap his pants if he caught you in here.”

  Dean smiled before he sipped his Coke.

  “I told him to pick me up here, and you know that,” came the sweet voice of a girl as she came through the same door as her father had a moment before. She smiled at the older man as she eased her way around and felt for her father. She found his back, turned him away from his little confrontation, and then went to her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “You know that because I told you yesterday I was going to be stuck with him for a school assignment. I don’t like it either, believe me.”

  “Gloria?” Kennedy asked John.

  The girl kissed her dad and slipped her dark glasses on, shutting out the view of her magnificent blue eyes. Dean swallowed more of his Coke and then turned white when the man came directly to him.

  “Where are you going?” he asked Dean, who looked to them like he wanted to leave in the worst way.

  “All these years that you’ve been my father’s limited partner, and you don’t even trust his son? What is the world coming to? President Kennedy and old Nikita learned to work things out. Why can’t you and my father?” Dean said as he placed his Coke down on the bar. They all noticed the boy really did expect, or at least hope, for an answer, but Gloria’s father stood silently in front of him. They could also see that the father had little love for the boy or the father Gloria’s dad had served with.

  Gloria stepped closer to Dean and leaned across the bar. Her head tilted as she smiled. “It’s too late tonight to go where it is we need to go,” she whispered. “No one goes there after dark. Tomorrow morning will do. In daylight,” she said with an aura of mystery lacing her words. “Now go away, Richie Rich; you can hang out with the common folk someplace else.”

  Dean looked embarrassed and remained silent as Gloria left the bar and then went into the tavern proper. He watched as she walked about the barroom, talking with the patrons sitting at small, round tables.

  “She is something, isn’t she? Confident for her condition,” Jenny said as she watched the girl move from table to table, removing empties and speaking with each of her father’s customers.

  “Told you,” John said.

  Kennedy stepped closer to the bar so he could see the exchange between Gloria’s father and the boy.

  “Look, boy, the situation between me and your father is better left alone. As for you, I know how you drive and how you treat people. Do I have to tell you what I would do to you if something happened to my little girl?”

  The look from the teenager actually moved the emotions of those watching him. They saw real hurt in Dean’s eyes that made this scene very interesting.

  “I would never allow anything to happen to Gloria.”

  They could see he was serious.

  “I hear how you and the others at school talk about those kids that are different. I hear you’re the biggest mouth there is.” The man leaned in closer to Dean. “That’s what I hear.”

  “Dad, stop it,” Gloria said as she stepped to the bar and placed empties there with no difficulty. “I’ll be a minute, and then we can talk about what we have to do tomorrow. Right now, Charlie wants to play something for me,” she said while facing the bar. “Tomorrow we can go exploring if you have the courage.”

  “And just where is that?” her father asked as he poured a beer from the tap and handed it to the man sitting next to Dean.

  “Can we drink while in this state?” George asked, wanting a shot of bourbon so badly he could feel the jitters in his body. If I had a body, he thought.

  “How about we find out how this thing has so much power behind it that it can pull us, at least temporarily, into its world? Or a mirror image of its world,” John said as he turned and joined Jenny at the piano, where Gloria waited.

  “She wants to take me to the place she’s writing about for her Halloween story. No big deal.”

  Her father raised a brow and then fixed Dean with a look. “Everything concerning my daughter is a big deal.”

  They could see that Dean wanted to say something, but he held off as he too turned to watch Gloria.

  Charlie, the man that was just relieved at the bar by Gloria’s father, came in and then handed the young blind girl a sheet of paper. “Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads said it came in yesterday,” he said as he pulled out the piano stool and sat.

  Gloria smiled as she ran her hand over the sheet music. “Can you play it?”

  “It’s not that complicated,” Charlie said as he took the sheet music from her small hands. “You sure you know the words?”

  “Are you kidding?” Gloria said as she stepped around the piano.

  The men and women in the bar became aware that Frank Perry’s little girl was about to sing.

  To the ghostly visitors to the Moreno of the past, it looked that this was a regular event at the Bottom Dollar. They could see by the smile that finally etched its way across Frank’s gruff and tanned face that he encouraged her to do so, even in a shady bar with people twice her age. Even Dean forgot about his interrogation and stepped to a nearby table and sat down, interested in what Gloria was up to. He didn’t know this side of the girl he always knew but rarely spoke to. He looked from the anticipatory smiles of the customers to the girl. She seemed to be entering into a world Dean never knew existed for her.

  “Just play it at the right speed: slow. I don’t have Neil Sedaka’s voice and pacing.”

  “You would embarrass Sedaka,” Charlie said as he raised the keyboard cover and started jingling the ivories.

  To Jennifer, all of this seemed so familiar with her haunting memories of Bobby Lee McKinnon still fresh in her mind. Even John saw the connection and held her that much tighter as a familiar refrain from an old song started to be hashed out by the burly bartender. Far slower than the original, it had everyone’s attention—especially Dean, who didn’t even know Gloria could sing.

  The song was slow and her voice was full of real talent as she opened with the haunting words from decades before their time. The Supernaturals knew them well.

  Don’t take your love … away from me … don’t you leave my heart in misery …

  Everyone, real or dream, could not believe their ears at the soft, melodic voice. It carried well across the small barroom. Even Dean turned and looked at her adoring father as words and song came from her mouth. John nudged Jenny, and they both saw the smile form on the spoiled kid’s face as he realized how talented this girl was. Gabriel smiled. Leonard and Damian did the same, as did Julie and George. They were enraptured by Gloria as she sang sitting next to Charlie, who was grinning from ear to ear as he played.

  If you go, then I’ll be blue…’cause breaking up is hard to do …

  Dean was staring at Gloria as her father stepped from behind the bar, listening to his little girl. The customers weren’t just being polite because it was the owner’s daughter; they had never heard a voice like Gloria’s before.

  The song slowly dwindled, and the barroom was completely silent. They saw the girl become uncomfortable, and they called out to her and clapped their hands together as she stood up and then leaned down and kissed Charlie’s cheek. She gave them all a fancy curtsy, her knees bending until the hem of her skirt touched the top of her black-and-white saddle shoes with her plaid shoestrings. Embarrassed, she walked back to the bar, feeling her way carefully to where her father greeted her with a bear hug, lifting her from the floor. Dean stood and looked absolutely miserable at the way her father adored his daughter. The group could see the interest in Dean’s eyes.

  “Man, that girl can sing!”

  Everyone, with the exception of the materially real
people, turned and looked at Jenny when the male voice exited her mouth. It was Bobby Lee commenting.

  “Sorry,” Jenny said in her real voice as she placed a small hand over her mouth. “That was like a burp I couldn’t hold back. I guess the young lady’s song met with Bobby Lee’s approval, and he never, ever gave anyone credit for anything if he had nothing to with writing it or singing it.”

  Gabriel smiled as he realized that Bobby Lee was with them and that the ghost might come in handy, especially the period they found themselves lost and scared to death in.

  “For now, I’m just going to explain my assignment to Howard Hughes Jr. here. I’ll have him drop me off at home.” She kissed her father, who was busy glaring at Dean.

  “Think we ought to follow?” George asked. “Watch that damn kid,” he said direly, and both teens left the bar. The others followed them out. They watched Gloria chuck off Dean’s hand when he tried to assist her to the car.

  They heard the Corvette rev to full life, but they noticed the sound faded before the car pulled away. It was like the sounds were now coming from a great distance. John felt his legs go weak, as did the others. Leonard fell to the cracked sidewalk and then saw the light fade from the sky and just as quickly return.

  “What’s happening?” Damian asked as he tried to lean against a parking meter and then shocked when his hand passed right through and he fell into the gutter.

  “It’s weak,” John said, shaking his head. He felt his eyes growing heavy. “It has expended a lot of its power in getting us here.”

  Gabriel and Julie tried to remain standing, but Julie fell first at Kennedy’s feet. As he felt his legs start to go, a man wearing a brown fedora stepped up to him. The hands reached out and steadied his shaking frame. Gabe felt the pressure of the man’s hands on his chest, and he looked up as he steadied. The man’s eyes were dark, and he smiled, showing gold caps and filings. The wire-rimmed glasses reflected Gabe’s image, which was shocking, since he knew he shouldn’t be able to see himself inside the dream. The man had stained teeth but was well dressed in a gray jacket and white shirt buttoned all the way to the collar.

  “Yes, it fades. Your time here is at an end.”

  Gabriel tried to focus. He half turned and saw John and the others staring up from where their legs had given out. He saw that they were just as startled as he was.

  “Powerful, are they not?” the man said in an accent Kennedy knew well. The man was German. The words were thick with disdain for Gabriel and his people. “I thought I had caged them, but I was fooling myself.” The man moved his hands from Gabe’s chest to grab his collar and shake him until his drooping eyes fluttered back open. “They toy with your mind. They are powerful, just as my work said they were. Now I am believed.” The man laughed and then let go of Gabriel, who fell backward toward the sidewalk. “Let the boy go; they always win in the end, and the girl cannot assist you. She is blind in many more ways than just the loss of sight.” Again, the laughter, but this time, Kennedy heard it as his own lights faded and he once again fell through time and space. “She’s the cause of it all. The little bitch ruined my work and killed us all!” The last words echoed in Gabe’s brain as he vanished into nothingness.

  * * *

  The first person in the room Gabriel checked on was the president. After such an active awakening, Hadley lay with eyes closed. Two went to the president’s bedside, and the others assisted the members of the Supernaturals to their feet and into chairs or sitting positions on the floor.

  “Amazing brain activity for thirty-two seconds,” one of the military doctors said as he read the EKG readout.

  Gabriel heard the fact repeated three or four times before it registered in his mind. John Lonetree, with Jennifer leaning heavily against him, wandered over. They both looked to Kennedy like they had been through hell’s e-ticket vision of dreaming.

  “Thirty-two seconds?” Gabe asked as he removed the EKG tape from the doctor’s hand and scanned it for the obvious mistake.

  “Yes, that was the duration of the event.”

  “Thirty-two seconds?” Leonard moved his small frame from the floor to a chair. He now had a headache that pounded the space between his eyes and the back of his head.

  “You mean while Hadley was dreaming, we were only gone thirty-two seconds?” Jenny asked incredulously.

  “Wait, my watch says we were in here for twenty-five minutes, at the very least,” Julie said as she helped the much larger Damian to sit in a chair, where he rubbed his temples.

  “Mine says the same thing,” the former state policemen said as he finally chanced a look up into the bright lights of the room.

  “We know through clinical testing that dreams are naturally short in duration. This proves we were not actually in Moreno,” Gabriel said, leaning over and raising Hadley’s eyelids to check for dilation. “The human brain dreams it, compacts it, and displays the dream, all to keep it short in duration, or the human mind could never totally be at rest. It’s a defense mechanism against the dream running in real time. It would exhaust the mind even in sleep.”

  “That’s yet to be proven,” one of the younger doctors said from the president’s side.

  George Cordero tapped the doctor on the shoulder as he came close to the president to see if he could get a feel for the man’s current state of mind. “You see the professor there?” he asked as he too leaned over Hadley. “He says it’s true, so it is. He has many more years of study about the human mind than all of you put together.” George felt Hadley’s wrist and then closed his eyes. He opened them and looked at Gabe, shaking his head. “I get nothing, not even a sparkle of thought. He’s deep again.”

  Kennedy shook his head, deep in thought, as the doctors looked at him strangely.

  “How could this have happened, John?” Julie asked as she handed Damian a glass of water.

  “This wasn’t me. Something knew what I can do and expanded on that. It took us; I had nothing to with it.” He stepped aside and forced Gabriel toward a more reclusive corner of the room. “Gabe, this thing, whatever it is, is far more powerful than we first thought. I felt more than one presence. It was like they want to relive this thing all over again.”

  “The man at the end of the dream?”

  “What man?” John asked, because he hadn’t the foggiest notion of what Kennedy was talking about.

  “He means the German guy with the bad teeth,” Damian said, raising the glass of water and sipping the coldness. He lowered the glass and faced the two men as the others gathered around them. “I saw him before I started to go bonkers. How did that fella see you, Gabriel?”

  Kennedy looked to John. “Have you ever made contact like that before?”

  “I have never interacted. I am dealing with human thought when I dreamwalk. I have little or no control where the subjects take me. Hell, they have little control themselves. But remember, this was not a dream. I suspect we were seeing a real memory.”

  “Whose memory?” Jenny asked. “It had to have been the younger Hadley; he was there.”

  “We just don’t know enough.” Gabriel turned and looked at the doctors as they gave Hadley an exam. He turned back and faced his very scared people. “We need to delay our trip west. At least until John is capable of finding out more.”

  “Oh, no, not another attempt at dreamwalking. We don’t even know if John’s really in control on this one. I say no; it’s too risky. Whatever kidnapped us was not doing it to show us a good time. It did it because it could. A sort of nice way of warning us that we can’t control it.”

  John kissed the top of Jennifer’s head and looked at Kennedy. “I think it used a lot of power to do what it did. I felt it toward the end of our journey. It was weakened by the act of taking us mentally to Moreno. Now is the time to act when it can’t get in the way. Only this time, I have to find a way to get to Gloria. I have a deep suspicion that all of this revolves around her, not just because of a teenage infatuation but because her part in the
dream was the key point. I think it was Gloria’s memory that we shared, not Dean’s.”

  “Too much guesswork. If I were still a cop, I would have to say no, there’s not enough evidence to support your conclusions and that we need to delve deeper.”

  They turned and saw that Damian had regained his strength. The man never had been through anything like that with the exception of the events at Summer Place. They could all see the adventure did not sit well with the former Pennsylvania detective.

  “And a little futile,” Jennifer said, angry at the chances John was willing to take for the unconscionable bastard lying in the bed. “You need to link with your subject, but unfortunately there is no subject in which to accomplish that. From what Leonard said, Gloria Perry was on the casualty list from Halloween night in 1962, so that makes your point moot.”

  “She’s right,” John said, giving Jenny a sour look for dashing their hopes so quickly. “I have nothing to connect with in regard to Gloria.”

  “I do.”

  They all turned and saw Catherine Hadley standing in the open doorway with a cordon of hostage rescue team men around her. Hadley’s personal assistant was there also, and she handed the First Lady a small black box as she stepped in and politely closed the door.

  “And suddenly you know far more things about your husband’s past than you let on,” Damian said, smelling a rat.

  Catherine looked at Damian and shook her head. “Just what was I supposed to do, Mr. Jackson? Cry out that my husband, the most powerful man in the world, was so obsessed with a teenage crush that it drove him insane? That he risked everything this country had because of a guilt complex he has about killing that very girl? I don’t think so,” she said as she handed Kennedy the small black box and then turned but hesitated for a moment. “That was in a safe-deposit box in New York. I didn’t find it until an asset check by my legal team. Evidently, Dean kept them all these years. You wanted a physical and material connection to that child from his past? You now have it.” She started for the door. “I have informed the medical staff of your wish to continue.”