In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II

by David L. Golemon

  Dr. Jürgen Fromm, a man thought gone for many years, avoided the yellow glow of the lights in the alley as he crept along with hands deep in his coat pockets. He followed Gloria inside the Bottom Dollar.

  He had plans on concluding his life’s work in this, the last night in the one-decade-old small town called Moreno.

  21

  The candles placed around the room flickered. Both Leonard and Damian were in the far corner near the computers, and they flinched and watched the flames of the closest candle flicker slowly back to life after being nearly extinguished. They looked at each other with wide eyes. The flashing lightning and the sound of the rain slowly ate away at the veteran investigators’ nerves.

  Everyone in the large second-floor space jumped when they heard a rending of metal near the front wall near the large windows were. Damian and Leonard shot to their feet as the candles blew out.

  “Oh, come on,” Damian said as his eyes adjusted to the total dark.

  The sound of metal on metal echoed on the empty floor as Gabriel and Jennifer tried to see John in the darkness but could only discern a vague outline on the bed. Suddenly, the overhead lights flashed and then went out. They all had fine red dots dancing in their eyes as if they had been surprised by a bright flash of a bulb in a camera. Then the fluorescents buzzed to life, and then just as quickly went out, and then came on and steadied. They all heard the hum of electricity as it once more coursed through the once-busy department store.

  “I sure as hell hope that’s Harvey screwing around downstairs,” Leonard said as he looked around nervously.

  Gabriel moved toward the noise, and Damian fell in step with him as they made their way to the front of the second floor. Gabe flinched at the extreme brightness of the lights and shielded his eyes as he looked up. He could actually feel heat coming off the tubes in waves.

  “Okay, now this is fucked up,” Damian said as he came to a sudden stop.

  Gabe lowered his hand, and his eyes widened. “Not a very clinical observation, but I must say that I concur, that is fucked up.”

  The escalator, looking as if it had just been repaired and cleaned, was running as smoothly as the day it had been installed late in 1958. The rubber handrail slid along silently as the steel stairs folded into one another.

  The lights flickered once more and then came on, making them all flinch in the sudden brightness. When they looked up, the escalator was there as it had been for the past fifty-plus years, broken and silent.

  “Uh, guys, you may want to see this,” Leonard said from the front of the floor. He was staring out into the night and was silhouetted by a bright flash of lightning.

  As Gabe, Damian, Jennifer, and Julie gathered by the thirteen-foot window next to Leonard, they saw the lights of Moreno flickering, first one side of Main Street and then the other. Even past Main they could see lights flare to life in the old abandoned tract homes that had been built for Hadley’s employees and hadn’t had power supplied to them since 1965. It was a brightly illuminated kaleidoscope of lights that reflected off the rain-soaked streets.

  “What’s happening?” Julie asked, her eyes reflecting the strange light show being staged for them. Sparks exploded from long-dead electrical transformers and fell into the water coursing down Main Street.

  “John’s having some kind of effect. Whatever this thing is, it’s reacting.”

  Leonard looked over at Gabriel. “Is that good or bad?” he asked, hoping for an answer he was prepared to hear. Gabriel didn’t answer.

  At the pounding of feet coming up the empty stairwell, they turned as one and saw Casper, Peckerwood, Bob, Linda, and finally Harvey as they came through the door.

  “We can’t get out of here,” Harvey said as he immediately walked to a window and raised a chair up in the air. Gabriel and the others watched wide-eyed as he threw the chair as hard as he could at the window. The foldable steel chair hit the glass and rebounded back into the room. “It’s the same thing on the first floor.”

  “Look!” Julie said as the newcomers to their little party moved over to where they stared out of the front set of smashed windows.

  Down on the street, they saw two men in blue windbreakers as they made their way hurriedly down the street toward the FBI’s new command post inside the old Pacific Bell phone exchange. Before they reached the door, the man on the left was lifted into the air, and his body was thrown as if he weighed nothing at all. They watched in horror as the body flew through the air right at them. The man hit just below the windowsill and then slowly peeled away to fall the thirty feet to the street below. Everyone observing tried to move away, but that didn’t stop them from seeing the end result.

  “You people done pissed something off!” Casper said as he reached down and picked up the trembling Yorkie. Peckerwood shook in the old man’s arms.

  “Leonard, we still don’t have communications with the search teams outside?”

  “Nothing; it’s like our phone service is cut off.”

  “This ain’t no God doing this, at least the kind we used to believe in,” Harvey said as he stepped away from the glass.

  “Damn it, that’s about enough of this crap,” Damian said as he stepped back from the window and pulled his firearm. He took aim and fired three times into the top portion of the window’s crown. The bullets ricocheted off, making all duck and cover.

  “Whoa, Quick Draw,” Leonard said as he finally removed his hands from his ears.

  Damian cursed as he placed the nine-millimeter back into its holster.

  “Look!” Jennifer said.

  All eyes went back to the street. They saw the second man standing and staring their way as if he could see them all perfectly from two hundred feet away. Even beyond him, a few more of the other agents from inside the phone exchange were watching and pounding on the glass window trying in vain to get the FBI agent’s attention as he stared at them.

  “What’s he doing?” Julie asked as they too watched the man standing on the sidewalk after his companion had just been tossed to his death. The agents inside were still pounding on the glass desperately trying to get the man to enter the exchange.

  They saw a small child with a shaved head and ragged clothing walking through the rain right down the center of Main Street. The water was up to the child’s ankles and was rising steadily.

  “Harvey, who in the hell is that?” Damian asked. He pounded on the glass as the agent standing there staring up at them smiling as the child approached. “Are there kids left in this town? I thought you said everyone was gone.”

  Harvey’s eyes widened as he saw the child move with intent toward the unsuspecting agent. The agent was transfixed on the Newberry’s building across the way.

  “There is no one in town and especially no children. The last family moved out yesterday; I told you that.”

  “That’s not a boy; it’s a little girl, and she has company,” Jennifer said as she pointed out the window.

  A bright streak of lightning brightened the darkness that had gathered in Moreno. Down the alleyways and the cross streets came several more children; Gabriel quickly estimated there were at least twenty of them, all with shaved heads and dressed similarly in ragged clothes.

  “Leonard, get to your job!” Gabriel admonished the small man, who stared wide-eyed at the scene below.

  Damian tossed Leonard the camera, and the computer man rapidly took pictures, the flashes bouncing blindingly off the glass.

  The small girl whose bare feet seemed to step on the running waves instead of being submerged by them stepped onto the sidewalk. She looked up at the agent and then turned their way. Julie gasped as another flash of chain lightning illuminated the child’s blank and blackened eyes. The girl smiled and turned away. She tugged on the agent’s leg, and he looked down, his smile never leaving his face. He leaned over, and she whispered in his ear. He nodded, turned to look at his fellow FBI agents inside the building, then turned back to face Newberry’s. He reached into his jacket
and pulled out his service weapon. Without losing the creepy smile, he raised it to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  Linda and Casper screamed as the man collapsed into the gutter and then was partially washed away. The agents tried unsuccessfully to break the glass fronting the exchange. They were all helpless as they watched the small child join the others as they gathered at the center of Main and Jefferson Streets and watched the town. They were in a circle, and as they faced the buildings around them, Leonard continued to shoot photos of them.

  “Good God, Gabe, what is this?” Jennifer asked.

  “I don’t know, but we have to be prepared for anything until John comes back.”

  “Whatever those things are, they’ve come back to finish what they started back in ’62,” Casper said, Peckerwood barking in agreement.

  “I seen them kids before,” Harvey said as he finally managed to turn away from the awful scene outside.

  “What do you mean?” Gabriel asked.

  “That night, we saw them kids. We thought they were all from out of town here to trick-or-treat. They were everywhere. The movies, standing on porches with other town kids. Not harming anyone but also not carrying bags for collecting candy neither. They came in the store. They were at the Grenada Theater. They were everywhere.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Damian asked, cursing the old man’s memory.

  “That’s right, that’s right,” Casper said. “They was standing on our porch that night. You’re right, Harve, they was everywhere.”

  “You too?” Damian asked.

  “I swear, I didn’t remember until just this minute. It’s like it was erased from my mind and then there it was.” He looked at Gabriel. “Doc, that’s the thing that killed us that night.”

  “You mean things, don’t you?” Leonard said as he finally lowered the camera after getting his fill of the strange and haunting children below.

  “No, in the end that night, they were one. They were one when they knocked that helicopter out of the sky. They were one when those federal boys were attacked last night. Now they’re split again.” His eyes were haunted as he looked confused. “That thing didn’t want us to remember until it was ready for us to.”

  “Well, it sure as hell seems like they’re ready now,” Leonard said as his eyes went back to the storm-tossed night and their creepy new company.

  “Leonard, keep trying the radio, the computers, anything you can. Warn the other agents out searching to stay out of the town until this thing has done what it came here to do.”

  “Okay, Prof, I’ll see what I can—”

  The lights went out for the last time.

  * * *

  John Lonetree was not in a normal dreamwalk as he had been a hundred different times since childhood. He knew he was not in control. He was firmly of the belief that either Gloria or something far worse was his tour guide. Instead of being scared, he was fascinated with the images of a split town and his journey through it. Part of him was with Gloria inside the Bottom Dollar, part with Dean inside the police station, and part was somewhere he never expected to be—the factory on the hill. He was now in the same room with the two men he most wanted to hear from.

  * * *

  The plant conference room was empty with the exception of a lone form. He sat at the head of the long conference table and stared out of the window at the rain that was slowly coming to an end. The lights of the town he created were bright from down below. From the plant’s high vantage point, he could see the neon display of the Grenada Theater as the lights played brightly on the shiny sidewalk where teenagers were lining up for the Monster Mash spook show later in the evening. His thoughts were on his son. He pushed the phone away from him after the call from Chief Thomas—another of his club of friends from the war. His men were everywhere in the town’s government, as he always liked to have full control of Moreno. He was about to leave for the police station when the conference room door opened and a familiar face stared in at him.

  “Well, how did your trip to LA go? Find any interesting new music groups?”

  Former captain Franklin Perry entered, being sure to close the door behind him. It didn’t go unnoticed by Robert that Frank reached behind him and then flicked the lock. Evidently, this was a business meeting. Robert eased himself back down into the large chair.

  “I’m sure your cronies in the system informed you where I was at since early this morning.”

  Hadley remained quiet. He raised that right brow of his and that infuriated Perry more than anything. He remained standing as he faced his former friend.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Known what, Frank?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Our good Dr. Jürgen Fromm was never deported back to Germany.”

  Hadley remained silent as he took in Frank. He shook his head sadly.

  “Do you think we would allow him to go back to Germany, or even deport him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes, and then sit looking like fools as he explains where he has been the past seventeen years?” Hadley laughed. “What he has been doing at the behest of the United States government?”

  “You tried to eliminate him, didn’t you?” Perry asked, placing his hands on the back of a chair. By the way his knuckles turned white, it was clear he was angrily expecting the truth from his former colonel.

  “Me? No, not at all. After the agency stopped funding the doctor and his work, I couldn’t have cared less what they did with him.”

  “So, you’re saying Washington authorized his official removal from life?”

  “That’s about the way of it.” Robert watched Perry, whose hands did not relax.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

  “You chose to end your partnership on that day in 1958. You wanted nothing more to do with this madness, so why should I ask advice from a disloyal former officer?”

  “Disloyal, because from the very beginning I was against involving us in this nightmare?”

  “You seemed to have come off almost as well as the rest of us. Or don’t you like the easy life that very same project provided you with?”

  “We’re cursed for doing what we did. This entire town is tainted for it.” He leaned forward, his hands still pressing into the back of the chair. “We’re as guilty as that German maniac for hiding the truth of what he did.”

  Hadley stood from his chair and faced Perry. “It’s all over, Frank.”

  “Yeah? Well, here’s something you didn’t know. Fromm is alive and well and running loose in this country again. It seems your agency friends failed to do their jobs. The crazy bastard escaped and is here somewhere. I’ve seen him on more than one occasion.”

  “That’s absurd; I would have been informed.”

  “Yes, since your friends in higher power have always been so forthcoming in that regard. Don’t you see? We were as evil as that bastard for funding his work and supplying him with work space. A whole town founded on this man’s evil intent! This factory”—he gestured around him—“all for him. We’ve supplied him with mercury to keep that evil alive, and now he’s back.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Hadley said, staring at Frank.

  Perry slammed the chair into the table as he turned away in anger.

  “I will say this: it is perfect timing on your part, Captain.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It seems my son and your daughter have been poking around where they shouldn’t. They came into my house and took the one piece of evidence that could get us all—and I do mean all of us—hanged.”

  “That goddamn journal. You kept it, didn’t you?”

  “I was instructed to keep it. Now they have it. Your snooping daughter and a boy that I have plans for. This could not only ruin his chances for him to be who I think he can be, it could turn him against me. You need to get your head out of your sanctimonious ass, Frank, and talk to that girl of yours. She has designs on my boy, a
nd that will never happen. He needs more than a blind girl on his arm.”

  “Why, you son of a bitch!” Frank said as he moved toward Hadley.

  “You don’t want her involved with Dean; you hate him as much as I despise your arrogance and deep-seated tendency to righteousness.”

  Perry stopped his advance.

  “My boy’s waiting in a jail cell because of what he did to protect that daughter of yours. This I cannot have. I will get with the parents of the boys who have pressed charges against him and settle that little score, but you need to get to town and explain to Gloria why it’s in her best interest as well as yours to give back that journal. My boy would never have had the inclination to do something like this if she hadn’t influenced him. Now I suggest you go get that journal, or we could be in for some embarrassing questions about our postwar activities.”

  “We all should have stopped this back in 1945 when you suggested it after finding Fromm in Yugoslavia. We knew the atrocities he committed in the name of science, and still we all saw a chance to make some money after the war. But we never thought about what was in those vaults and the reasons they existed in the first place.” He turned for the door. “Maybe we deserve what we get.”

  Hadley watched him leave. He picked up the phone and connected to the police department. “Thomas, keep Dean there until I arrive. Then I want you to canvass the entire town. It seems Dr. Fromm isn’t as dead as we were led to believe.” He hung up and sat heavily into his chair.

  He knew the big plans he had for Dean were close to becoming a moot point. The scandal alone would isolate him and his son from the world for the rest of his life.

  “Goddamn you, Fromm, and your little ghosts. You may have just gotten us all hanged.”

  * * *

  Police Chief Thomas hung up the phone, wondering just what sort of trouble was brewing on the busiest night in Moreno’s history. This wasn’t shaping up the way the colonel had planned at all. The chief and several other founding fathers of the town had been assured that Jürgen Fromm and his experiments would vanish forever. He shook his head as he faced Dean sitting in a chair next to his desk. He looked dejected and angry. He went to the wall and removed a large set of keys.