In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II

by David L. Golemon

  The seventeen-year-old senior hesitated before lifting the needle to the spinning record and looked up. Her face was magical to Dean. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time in clear daylight. Gloria was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. His buddies in school would never believe it, even after he beat the crap out of them that very morning. They had never seen beyond her walking cane and dark glasses before this week had started. He cursed the wasted years.

  She went to the facing of the vault and placed a hand on the cold exterior just below the large combination tumbler lock at its center. Dean watched as she leaned her cheek to the door and, with a hand splayed lovingly on its surface, proceeded to scare the hell out of him. “Alley?” she said in a normal tone of voice.

  “Alley?” Dean said curiously.

  “Yeah, Alley Oop. That’s not its name, but I get the impression its very, very large, so maybe it’s a caveman. Who knows? I just call it Alley Oop. Sometimes it speaks as one person, and other times many of them. Maybe as many voices as twenty or more. I can never be sure. When it’s angry or put out, it’s always one person. When calm, many. At least that’s what I think.”

  Dean just pursed his lips, silently admitting to himself that little Gloria might be nuts. Beautiful, but very much off her rocker. He still smiled at her as though he had never seen such beauty before.

  “If we could have understood what was written in that journal, we wouldn’t be guessing at what it is; we would know,” she said.

  “Let’s just hope that damn ticket seller doesn’t find it before we get it back.”

  “It’ll be safe. It’s under the ticket machine.”

  Dean watched the vault’s facing. “Maybe your friend, or friends, aren’t home tonight.”

  “Alley, come on. We have someone here who wants to meet you.”

  Dean shifted from foot to foot as he thought about what could be inside. “Uh, I don’t know if I do. Don’t you need air in those things in order to, like … breathe?”

  A curious look came over Gloria’s features. “For people, yeah,” she said in her irritatingly smug tone. “Alley?”

  “For people?” he asked nervously.

  Frustrated, Gloria returned to the small record player fronting the vault’s giant door. Gloria lowered the old-fashioned needle to the spinning forty-five vinyl record. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis began playing. Dean’s brows rose as he watched the strange events unfolding before him. He involuntarily took a step back, his black tennis shoes squeaking as he moved. Gloria ignored Dean’s fear and went to the vault’s door once more.

  “I bought this for you. I thought you might like it,” she said, fogging the stainless steel door as she spoke. The song droned on, and Gloria felt her face flush somewhat. “Come on, Alley.” She half turned toward a wide-eyed and fearful Dean. “Believe me, he doesn’t bite. He’s a spoiled jerk for the most part, and he’s mean at times, but when you get to know him, he’s—” She again faltered. “Well, he’s not like his daddy. I kind of like him.”

  Dean was about to say something when a loud and very clear thump sounded through the steel door. It was loud enough that Gloria pulled back and looked at the vault with her unseeing eyes.

  “It doesn’t care for your father—or mine, for that matter. It expresses itself like that. I don’t think it’s a friendly sort of acknowledgment.”

  “Look, Gloria, I don’t know what’s in there, but nothing can live in a sealed vault,” he said, trying hard not to doubt her.

  The song on the record player finished, and Gloria gave her schoolmate a look that said he needed to be a little more open-minded.

  “I never said it was alive, did I?”

  “You have to be nuts to think that.”

  “I’ve been coming here secretly since 1958. Believe me, Mr. Skeptical, it’s in there.” She again leaned into the door and listened. Dean knew that it would be impossible to hear a voice or anything else on the other side of ten inches of stainless steel.

  “Gloria, listen to yourself; you’re talking to an empty box. Not only that, but you’re admitting to talking to it since 1958. People will think you’ve gone on the long sea cruise to insanity.”

  Gloria pulled her ear away from the vault and looked toward Dean blindly through her dark glasses. Her confident look faltered for the first time.

  The boy saw the hurt look. “Hey, I didn’t mean that, but there has to be some other logical explanation for what’s really in there.” He stepped tentatively forward and took her small hand. “Sorry.”

  “It’s in there,” she insisted as Dean hugged her.

  Neither one of them noticed the bright fluorescent lights overhead dim when they made contact. Gloria leaned into Dean and felt his warmth and even his fast-beating heart.

  “This whole thing about the report was to prove to myself that I’m not insane.”

  Before he realized what he was doing, he kissed her. Gloria’s stomach was doing backflips as he very reluctantly parted their embrace. She knew that the two were meant for this. She also knew that she had fallen hard for him.

  Dean swallowed as he took in Gloria. She was standing still, unmoving, unseeing. She closed her eyes behind her dark glasses as she took a step back. Her hands tried to find a chair, but instead her left foot hit the phonograph. The needle jumped, and the turntable turned and Elvis picked up in mid-song as Dean reached out and caught her. He was just pulling her toward him to kiss her again to take the subject as far away from the strange basement as he could when the vault door rattled in its airtight frame. Both he and Gloria jumped and stared at the vault. Dean placed his arm around her shoulders as another loud bang sounded from the vault’s interior. This time, the combination dial spun and then flew off the center of the door and rang sharply off one of the steel tables. They both jumped again as this time the door bent outward.

  “You don’t think Alley’s the jealous type, do you?” Dean said as Gloria became frightened for the first time since starting her sojourns to the old winery years before when she was twelve.

  “I don’t … this has never happened before,” she said.

  They waited for the action to continue, but the vault and its internal activity ceased. Dean held Gloria tighter.

  “The fools did not believe me. I knew you were the key, but they refused to listen.”

  Dean and Gloria felt their blood go cold as they turned to face the German-accented voice. The man was wearing a black trench coat, and he was just removing the wet fedora with his free hand. In the other, he held a Colt .45 semiautomatic aimed at the two.

  “Whoa,” Dean said as he maneuvered Gloria behind him. “Why the gun, Pops?”

  He felt Gloria stiffen behind him.

  The old man looked from the two teenagers to the gun he held. “Yes, rather dramatic, I know, but there are certain men in this town that would like to do me harm. They have tried before, you know? Therefore, the gun.”

  “Dr. Fromm?” Gloria said as she tried to step from behind Dean, but he held his ground and kept her at bay.

  “Yes, I am he. I also know you, my dear. I’ve watched you for four long years.” He kept the gun pointed their way as he moved to a small box on the side of the vault. With darting, nervous looks toward the two startled teens, he lifted a small hatch, and then a roll of paper fell free. He tore it away, making sure his gun hand never wavered. He smiled as he studied the readout.

  “Man, you want to lower that gun? You’re scaring the girl,” Dean said with as much bravado as he could muster.

  Dr. Jürgen Fromm smiled again, the bright fluorescents flashing off his gold bridgework. Dean envisioned the creep in a Nazi uniform or at least the evil white coat seen in movies.

  “You stand only feet away from the greatest discovery in world history, something that, if loose, could devastate any enemy on the planet, and you’re afraid of a little gun?” He laughed aloud. “This graph says that for the four hundred and thirty-sixth time, our littl
e blind girl has received a reaction from the interior—an accomplishment we have not been able to achieve since we moved operations from Europe. I must know what attracts them to you.”

  Gloria wouldn’t be held back any longer. She removed Dean’s restraining hand and then faced the doctor.

  “You say they? There is more than one, isn’t there?”

  Dean did his best to concentrate on the gun aimed their way and consider how he could get them out of there without getting shot like Liberty Valance.

  “Oh, yes, my dear, more than one indeed. There are twenty-seven, to be exact.”

  “Then why do I get the feeling there is only one most times?”

  “They are stronger together. I documented this many years ago, back when they were active for us. When they are frightened or angry, they come together as one. Very powerful.” Fromm became thoughtful. “It all started out as a high-altitude experiment, you see.” The gun moved right along with Fromm as he walked toward a control panel.

  “High altitude? What in the hell is that?” Dean asked as he continually watched the man before him, awaiting an opportunity.

  “The Luftwaffe, or what you would know as the German Air Force, financed my work in the hopes of fighting off high-altitude disorientation for their bomber and fighter pilots. Two groups of subjects in the final test—that’s what is in there, young lady.” He flipped a switch on the control panel, and the sliding door on the farthest end of the vault opened with a soft hum. He kept the gun on them and then waved it toward the vault. “You can see the results of high-altitude sickness inside section two.”

  Gloria turned her head and for the first time was nearly grateful for being blind. She nodded at Dean, who stepped up to the vault and climbed a small boxlike step and looked inside just as Fromm turned on the interior light. He fell back so hard that he stumbled and crashed to the floor. He couldn’t catch his breath as Gloria reached for him in the darkness of her world.

  “Hard at first, is it not? But necessary.”

  Gloria ignored Fromm’s words as she tried and failed to lift Dean from where he sat trying to catch his breath. Finally, he managed it, and his anger showed on his face as Fromm again smiled.

  “You’re a butcher!” Dean finally managed.

  “No, no, no, my American friend; I’m a creator. There were only butchers in camps that killed for no gain. This”—he patted the steel vault lovingly—“is for science and knowledge, not the slaughter of life for no other reason than to kill over prejudice. Science is exacting and has no room for emotion. No, not a butcher, but a creator of life. That in there is life.”

  “All I see are dead people,” Dean said as he began to lose the cool demeanor that he had practiced over many years.

  Gloria straightened. The look was directed at Fromm. “Bodies?”

  Dean finally managed to stand on shaking legs. This was not how he saw his Halloween night unfolding.

  “Yes, bodies. These subjects were older. They were the parents of section B. In a chance experiment before shutting down the project near the war’s end, we decided to induce stress on the last test. We filled one compartment with parents of … of—”

  “Jews,” Gloria said angrily.

  “No, not at all. As I said, young lady, it doesn’t matter the test materials; it only has to do with the results. Purely by accident, but we most assuredly had results. No, not Jews, but families taken in whole from the cities of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, minor folk who would never be missed. We didn’t need Jews, whose fear of death was muted by their treatment and also their knowing that death was as eventual to their kind as the rising of the sun. Their complacency would have skewed the results. No, just families.”

  “What did you do?” Gloria asked with tears welling up under her glasses.

  Fromm hit a second switch, and the gentle hum of a motor returned. This time, a small view port at the front side corner opened. Dean could see the light from inside. He watched Gloria and knew he had to finish this thing. He stepped quickly to the metal step and peered inside. His hand went to his mouth, and then he quickly leaned over, dry-heaved, and stumbled free of the step and rested his head on Gloria’s shoulder, trying to stop from shaking with fear and loathing at what Fromm and his Nazi backers had done.

  “What’s in there?” Gloria asked with a whisper.

  Dean finally got his breathing under control. He swiped at a tear in his eye and faced Dr. Jürgen Fromm.

  “You sick bastard. What did you do?”

  Fromm reached out and flipped both switches, and then the two viewing ports closed.

  “Dean, what have I been talking to in there?” she asked, not knowing if she wanted to really know.

  “Children, a lot of them. All dead, decayed.” His lips trembled. “They look as if they tried to claw their way through solid steel. I saw small scratches in the steel where they tried to get out.”

  “As I said, twenty-seven, to be exact.”

  “Why?” Gloria asked as she took Dean into her arms.

  “As I said, the discovery was all an accident. To place maximum stress on the test subjects, we had seventeen families, some with one or two children at prepubescent age. At seventy-two thousand feet, the parents, inside section A, were deprived of oxygen, and if you don’t know the pain involved, I can assure you it is extreme. During this process, we wanted to see what the stress level was on younger subjects at altitude, so we opened the main viewing port between sections A and sections B housing the children. As their parents in the next room fought for life, dying in the most horrid way you can imagine, the children were witness as their own oxygen depletion was started. Can you imagine the horror a child faces when watching a parent fight for life? Then that terror turned to pain and agony for themselves. The emotion inside these compartments caused a most unusual result. While the parents inside died, the children fought—oh, how they fought to live. We observed not fear in the end but pure hatred—hatred in its purest form. Rage. Magnificent rage.” He gently tossed Dean a pair of heavy, bulky glasses and then threw the switch for section B once more. He adjusted the light setting and gestured for Dean to place the glasses on. He did. “Now see the result your fathers saw in 1945.”

  Dean stepped onto the steel step and, with a nervous look back at Gloria, he looked inside the dark compartment.

  The green-tinted images were all staring at him as he looked inside. Their eyes were dark and their clothing ragged. The ghostly images stood near their physical bodies where they had fallen in agonizing death throes, their greenish skin riddled with pressure breaks in the arms and legs. Their faces were stretched and hung loose on the nearly invisible frames. Still, they watched Dean as if they were curious as to his intent. He removed the glasses and then threw them at Fromm, who simply moved out of the way as they flew by him and hit the control panel. Several lights went off as the glasses broke against the steel.

  “You created ghosts?” he said as he once more placed a protective arm over Gloria.

  “A remarkable feat. Accidental, mind you, but very satisfying.” Fromm moved away from the control panel, but the gun never left the area of Dean’s belly. “Can you imagine terror so complete, hatred so palpable that the spirit refuses to die? The anger that has the power to manifest in a physical form? Needless to say, your army wasn’t that hard to impress; they saw remarkable prospects for a weapon that could infiltrate an enemy stronghold without notice. No, your fathers were quite impressed with my work.”

  “What went wrong?’ Gloria asked as she took Dean’s hand and held it tightly.

  A saddened look came to Fromm’s face. “They ceased their activity five days after transferring the vaults from Eastern Europe. There wasn’t one documented case of spiritual activity at all. Until you,” he said as she took several steps toward Gloria. “You are the key, as demonstrated tonight. They have an affection for you. They react. Now you will demonstrate what you do for your fathers so I can get my project back. It took me four years to
get to this point. The federal authorities finally believe I am dead, and for the first time since they tried to eliminate me, I am here, and now they will see I was right.”

  “That day four years ago, when you caught me down here, that was the day Dean’s father shut you down, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, after your father, Captain Perry, forced him to. But that was also the very day you initiated contact with my children. Now with my journals and with your demonstration, we can move forward with my children.”

  “You have no right to call them that,” Gloria said angrily.

  “I have every right!” he screamed, and Dean pulled Gloria away. Fromm stepped forward and without warning hit Dean in the head. As he collapsed, Fromm placed the .45’s barrel against the back of Dean’s skull. “Now we will have cooperation when your fathers arrive, or our little spoiled friend here gets a bullet. Do we understand each other, Gloria?”

  When she glared up with hatred behind her dark glasses, Fromm became unhinged and slapped her across the face with his free hand. She didn’t cry out, but Dean made to attack as his vision returned from the blow he had received. Fromm once more hit Dean as he dove and missed. Dean sprawled on the cold floor as Gloria crawled to him.

  “I asked if we understood each other.”

  “You son of a bitch, leave him alone!” she said as she threw her body over Dean’s.

  Jürgen Fromm began advancing on the two intruders when he saw something that froze him in place. Silver-colored fluid was spewing all over the top of the vault. The main lines of mercury had been closed, and the pressure behind them exploded into them. The change was so sudden, the old steel-reinforced hoses gave way. Mercury went in all directions as Fromm panicked. He looked around him and then saw what had happened. When Dean threw his glasses at him, they had missed and struck the purge switch for the mercury containment system.

  “My God!” he cried as he ran to the console to reengage the lines, but it was to no avail.

  “What is that?” Gloria screamed over the noise of the escaping mercury.

  “It’s the only thing that keeps my children at bay. Mercury is a natural defense against their force. It will eat them away if they touch it. Even being near it makes them weak!”