“What in the hell is happening?” John said as he joined them under the Newberry’s awning.
Lonetree heard the distinctive thump overhead just as a bright flash lit the sky. The large gray bird slowly descended as it chopped the falling rain to mist.
“The National Guard made a Black Hawk available,” the agent next to Kennedy said to John as he shielded his eyes from the driving rain. “As soon as it’s down, you people are out of here.”
Lonetree, for no apparent reason, reached out and pulled Gabriel back and away from the sidewalk, shaking his head when Kennedy asked what he was doing. His eyes were not looking at the descending UH-60 Black Hawk but at the hills above Moreno. In a flash of chain lightning, Gabe saw what John was looking at. The ancient ruins on the hill.
“It’s there, Gabe, I can feel it. It’s watching us right now,” Lonetree said. He looked at Kennedy with consternation. “They are there. It’s driving me crazy! I go from one impression to another. One minute it’s a single presence—the next, many.” He stared at the hills and the ruins they protected.
“Maybe it will stop now that it doesn’t have the president here,” Gabriel said.
“What?” Lonetree said. “You mean Hadley’s gone?”
“Julie didn’t tell you?”
John continued to look up into the dark hills above Moreno and didn’t speak at first. Finally, as the Black Hawk came close enough to the ground that the cascading river of Main Street was sent crashing into the walkway and into Newberry’s and the other buildings facing the road, Lonetree turned and faced Gabriel and the agent in charge.
“Something is wrong. If Hadley has been evacuated, I don’t think that thing up there would have taken it too damn lightly, Gabe. It’s still playing the same game of cat and mouse with us.” He faced the agent. “Have you confirmed that the president is safe?”
“Their communications are all down,” Gabriel said as he also faced the FBI field agent. “They have no idea.”
“Come on. This crap is done. You people don’t know when to stop. Now get your people together, Professor.”
* * *
The Black Hawk came down slowly, being careful that her tail rotor didn’t strike any existing overhang from the buildings on both sides of Main Street. They were aiming for the direct center of the rain-pummeled intersection. The heavily built, four-bladed UH-60 Black Hawk created a powerful blast of wind, making the storm look meek in comparison.
Gabe, John, and the agent watched. Suddenly, all three men turned their heads at exactly the same moment when the red neon light inside the K-Rave window fronting the station flared to life. Then every radio in town, no matter what frequency it was tuned to, began playing a song. The volume for these radios was maxed out at decibel levels these encrypted systems were not capable of producing. Men reached for their radios on their hips but found they could not lower the volumes. Several were so shocked that they tossed their radios away when all of them recognized the old song being broadcast.
I … fall to pieces … each time I see you again … I fall to pieces … how can I be just your friend?
The dead lights in all buildings, regardless of powerlines that had been disabled since the seventies, all flared to life, again shocking everyone in the rain-soaked streets. To a man, they looked around in fear. The Patsy Cline hit from 1961 reverberated even over the rotors and thunder enough so Gabriel and John felt Cline’s voice through the soles of their shoes.
“Look!” Lonetree screamed, pointing. Even the agent in charge saw it coming.
Darkness even blacker than the night was there. It stood between Elm and Jackson Streets. Everyone saw the shape as it stood as if examining the activity. It was enormous. The blackness moved, causing the rain to move with it. Gabriel knew the only reason they could clearly see the entity was because the rain outlined it perfectly. Rivers of water ran off the thing as it stood watching from a distance.
“What the fuck is that?” the agent called out as he moved to the street, drawing his weapon. The others turned and saw what was watching them, and they too advanced on the black shape.
“Get your men back and wave off that damn helicopter!” Kennedy shouted as he grabbed the agent and spun him around.
Lightning flashed as the Patsy Cline song grew still louder. The black thing moved fast. Three agents were hurled out of the way as they watched the giant hand and arm swing out. The agents, Secret Service, and highway patrolmen slammed into buildings to the right and to the left, falling to the street dead or severely injured. The blackness came on toward the intersection.
Lightning flashed and streaked across the skies. Gabriel followed it and saw the glow of light from down the street. His eyes widened when he saw a whole and intact marquee of the Grenada Theater as it flashed its fancy wares to the world. Then the neon lighting blinked out, and the form of the marquee was no longer there. Kennedy couldn’t believe it. The town was also reacting to the entity’s presence.
The Black Hawk pilot must have seen something, because he tried in vain to take the massive bird back up. The tail dipped as the four main rotor blades fought the air for purchase. It slowly reacted. Rain was pushed aside so brutally by the powerful twin turbines of the Black Hawk that the water striking Gabriel and the others stung as if bees had been set loose on them. It climbed a hundred feet before the blackness struck.
They were helpless to stop it from happening. They stared up at the twenty-five-foot-tall swirling currents of black in a human shape. The entity lifted free of the water-covered ground and simply passed through the Black Hawk. The electrical systems failed, and the powerful anticollision lights flared in brightness and then failed. The helicopter hung in the air for a moment, and they could see the panic high in the air of the crew fighting dead controls. The tail boom of the National Guard helicopter spun without the power of her twin engines to keep her in the air. The tail swung, and the tail rotor struck a light pole, shearing off the rotor and five feet of aluminum housing. The main four-bladed rotor of the Black Hawk tipped precariously toward the tall structure of Newberry’s. The Black Hawk overcompensated and went over onto its left side as the pilot tried to miss the fourth floor of Newberry’s but struck it anyway. The rotor sheared away as the main body of the bird spun out of control. The helicopter, with its three crewmen, slammed to the earth in the intersection where it had been trying to land just a moment before. The fuel tanks ruptured, and then as they all watched in horror, the helicopter exploded.
The remaining agents, patrolmen, and Secret Service personnel slammed themselves into a protective ball as they hit the water-covered streets and sidewalks.
Gabriel and John recovered quickly as burning debris filled the rain-swollen air around them. In the confusion, they saw the darkness speed past them, hesitating for the briefest of moments, until Gabe thought the sloth-like form was going to conclude its business with them right then and there. But for a reason Kennedy thought as arrogant, it moved off.
Lightning flashed and thunder exploded over their heads as men ran to the burning helicopter, the fuel-fed flames roaring high into the air.
Every light inside the town of Moreno instantly went dark. The music was cut off like someone had merely unplugged a radio.
The attack was over in a matter of three minutes.
The town of Moreno was slowly being hemmed in. The only way out was down Main Street and fifteen miles to the interstate.
In the eastern sky, they couldn’t see it, but the morning sun broke over the rest of the country, bringing on the new day—that day was Halloween, the thirty-first of October, fifty-five years to the day Dean Hadley and Gloria Perry had accidentally unleashed hell onto the earth.
19
The six survivors of the Supernaturals assisted in collecting the bodies of those killed. Two had looked as if they would make it only to die inside the darkened interior of the old Pacific Bell telephone exchange building. They would join the three helicopter crewmen and three of their bro
thers inside the makeshift morgue of Pacific Bell. John was the last one through with the covered body of George Cordero. He said another Blackfoot death prayer over all the bodies and then angrily turned away.
It was now eight in the morning. The sun was out somewhere, but not in Southern California.
The survivors kept looking at their watches and shaking them on their wrists. Not one of them was working. With the black skies overhead, they could not tell the difference between the current time and midnight the night before.
Gabriel didn’t care. He was exhausted and sat down in the water where he thought the sidewalk began. He was in hip-deep wetness when the agent in charge lifted him from the river that threatened to catch him and send him to Huntington Beach.
“Come on, Professor. Get out of the water,” Agent Haskins said, patting him on the shoulder as he stood Kennedy up.
Gabriel blinked and looked at the agent. He shook his head as he stumbled toward the awning fronting Newbery’s. The agent followed and was joined by Lonetree returning from Pacific Bell.
“Okay, Professor Kennedy, you made your point.”
“Oh, you mean that wasn’t a Russian or Chinese black mass that knocked a four-and-a-half-ton military helicopter out of the sky? I’m glad we were able to convince you,” Lonetree said as he attempted to turn Gabriel away and get him inside to pump him full of coffee. John’s eyes lingered on the agent for a moment, and he was tempted to say something more, but Gabe shook his head.
“I recommend you evacuate your team, Professor. I do have the authority to make you leave for safety reasons. Washington says that’s enough.”
Both Gabe and John stopped and turned. “We’re staying.”
The agent in charge was about to argue when Harvey came through the doors of Newberry’s wiping his hands and staring down the street.
“What in the hell?” Harvey said, stepping past all of them and running into the raging storm. He splashed through the water, and they all saw the man in the mud-covered suit as he stumbled down the street through knee-high water. As they reached for the him, it was the FBI agent who recognized the injured and battered man.
“Jesus, it’s Bob Chapman, one of the president’s protection team,” he said, startled at Bob’s condition.
They assisted Bob and made it to Newberry’s, still splashing through ankle-high water. They made it to a booth and placed the Secret Service agent inside.
“What happened?” FBI agent Haskins asked as he leaned over the mud-caked man in the booth. Harvey hurriedly pushed a cup of steaming coffee in front of the man, who picked it up and drank.
“Let the kid get his senses about him, Hoover Boy,” Harvey said as Lonetree pulled him back. He winked at the older man, and Leach mumbled something but backed off anyway. He joined Bob and Linda and an ever-curious Casper Worthington as they watched the mud-covered agent.
The hot liquid spilled down his face, but he didn’t seem to care. The coffee mixed with blood and mud, and all three coursed down and off his chin. He finally put the cup down as the rest of the Supernaturals and a few of the federal agents gathered around.
“Buried, all of them,” he said, his red eyes finally looking up. “The entire hillside came down on us.”
Haskins leaned over, took the Secret Service agent by the shoulders, and lightly shook him. “The president?”
The man could only shake his head as a coughing spell hit and hit hard. It was Jennifer who stepped forward and then took the man’s vital signs as the others waited impatiently. The coughing fit ended, and the man stared off into space as he tried to focus on what he was being asked.
“He’s near shock,” Jenny said as she raised the agent’s eyelids and checked them.
“Damn it, man, is the president safe?” Haskins asked again, this time more forcefully.
“I couldn’t dig them out. I felt like I was trapped for days. I … I—”
“The president?”
“Gone.” The man looked up and into Haskins’s eyes and held steady. “Did you think I would leave him there? I finally managed to find the med unit. It was on its side. Only the driver’s compartment was above the mud. The driver and the other one were dead. It took me so long to move them. The mud kept caving in, and water was flooding inside.”
He went into a second coughing fit, and Jennifer knew he had swallowed enormous amounts of mud.
“I finally dug into the bay. Found two doctors, both dead. I couldn’t dig out the three nurses. They were in like it was cement. The president’s gurney was there, half-in and half-out of the mud. The president was gone. Just gone. I saw impressions in the mud and handprints on the side of the med unit. He had crawled out on his own through a foot-wide gap between the slide and the window. I don’t know where he is.” He started gasping, trying to hold back tears.
Haskins straightened, slapping his hand on the tabletop. “Get all law enforcement—now. I can’t believe a man who was in as bad of shape as Hadley could crawl out of a mudslide. He’s still in there,” he said angrily, casting an accusing look at the Secret Service agent.
“He’s gone … he walked away. The slide was so bad he had to come back this way.” The voice was starting to drift away as the man slowly succumbed to shock. “We’re trapped here.”
The man slid forward, and Jenny, Julie, and Leonard took the agent and led him into the back where he could lie down.
“I want the hostage rescue team unit with me. They’re better rested than the others. We’ll go to the slide and dig the president out. The rest of the Secret Service and the State boys will start a search of the town.”
“I’ll get my people to help,” Gabriel said as he slowly turned away.
“No, as you said, you have work you have to do. Do it and let’s get the fuck out of here, Professor.” Haskins angrily turned and left Newberry’s with the other agents.
“Well, you heard him,” John said.
Gabriel looked at Leonard, Julie, and Jennifer. Bob, Linda, Harvey, and Casper Worthington, with a wide-eyed Peckerwood at his feet, watched them and knew that this was going to be the longest day of their lives. As the agent said a moment before, they were now trapped and really had no choice. The thoughts were punctuated by a loud crack of thunder, and the lights blinked, dimmed, and then came back full in protest to the electrical assault over their heads. Every person wore the same face. That did not bode well.
Gabriel paced to the window as he was handed a cup of coffee by an admiring Casper Worthington. He laughed a shrill old man’s sound. It was a laugh that caught everyone’s attention.
“What are you cackling like a hen about, you old fool?” Harvey asked.
Casper turned and faced the remaining group. “I was just thinkin’ ’bout the old factory up there,” he said with a sly look back at Kennedy, who turned away from the window to listen. “In all your book readin’ and such, what you people call research”—he looked at Leonard and back at Gabriel—“why didn’t you ever ask the question you needed asking?”
“What question, Mr. Worthington?” Gabe asked, becoming intrigued.
“Well, several questions, really. Remember what we used to talk about after the big explosion at the plant when we both got out of the army after ’Nam, Harvey?”
Harvey Leach was silent as a familiar memory came to him. “Dean and Gloria were asking the same questions that very day, weren’t they? Those strange questions about mercury.”
“Yep,” Casper said with a twinkle in his old eyes. “The first question to you ghost people is, why would the gov’ment finance building a plant in a hidden-away spot like Moreno? Yeah, we know the old story about how the natural elements that made up the formula for mercury were in the ground here, but come on, we all knew even then that was a lie. There was never any digging going on around Moreno. There were no mines. They always said they needed massive amounts of mercury for their products, the gauges and meters, for the aerospace industry. The second question is why, when they had contractors al
ready in place all over California that supplied McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, and such with the very same gauges and meters?”
“Could you please tell us what’s running through that head of yours?” Bob said, growing frustrated.
“Third and most important question is, why did the comp’ny always have a hundred times more mercury on hand than they were ever capable of using? As far as I know, it’s a rather expensive heavy metal. Dean Hadley and Gloria Perry thought to ask. Why not you folks?”
Gabriel and the others didn’t know what to say. Leonard opened his mouth to say something but closed it. He would never hear the end of this from Damian, who was giving him an “I told you so” look.
“How do you know all of that?” Damian asked when he thought Sickles had enough guilt thrown his way.
“He knows all of that because Casper’s daddy was the second-shift foreman at the plant,” Harvey said as he now remembered it all. He moved a few steps as he thought. “I never could figure out why those two were so interested in that damn mercury.”
“Wait, did you say your father had been the second-shift foreman at the plant?” Gabriel asked.
“Was, yeah. He was blown sky-high with the rest of those good people. With my daddy dead and all, I got angry when I was old enough to think about it. Why did they have so much mercury stored there when it was so damn dangerous?”
Gabriel Kennedy looked at John and raised his brows. “Now I guess you have your duty spelled out for you. You now have a starting point besides the journal you saw.”
John nodded as he looked at Jennifer. She was anxious about his next foray into the dreamworld of Moreno but was ready for him to do it.
“And you came up with this mercury question all on your own?” Leonard asked.
Casper Worthington cackled again as he looked at the small black computer genius.
“I watch Doctor Who on the BBC on the cable TV. He’s a genius, you know?” He looked sad for a moment, and Peckerwood ventured over. Casper picked the small Yorkie up and hugged him. “No offense; I’m sure your show was pretty good too,” he said as Harvey placed an arm around the old man’s shoulder and they walked into the kitchen.
In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II Page 33