Prophet

by Frank Peretti

  The officer was getting just a little impatient. “Like what?”

  John was puzzled by the officer’s inaction. “Well . . . there’s got to be a reason for all this noise.”

  The other officer had come around the car and now both were facing him.

  “Do you have some ID?”

  John took only a moment to realize he didn’t. “Oh, well, no, I’m just wearing my sweatpants . . . I don’t have my wallet on me.”

  Just then Benny pulled up in the NewsSix camera car, a little white fastback with NewsSix and the station’s call letters emblazoned in big red letters on the side.

  “Oh,” John said, relieved. “Here’s Benny Hake, our cameraman. Maybe we can get some reaction from you after you’ve gotten to the bottom of all this.”

  Benny’s arrival seemed to authenticate John’s claims about himself. The officers let the ID question go for the moment, but the officer pressed him. “Mr. Barrett, we need to know the nature of the disturbance. What’s the problem? Where is it?”

  Benny flipped open the back of the car and started pulling out the camera equipment.

  John was unsure of what the officer wanted to know. What more did he need to know, for crying out loud? “Um . . . well, all this started up about fifteen minutes ago—”

  “What started up?” the officer demanded.

  “Well . . . all these voices . . .” Right about then, a suspicion crept into John’s mind that he didn’t want to entertain.

  “What voices, Mr. Barrett?”

  The suspicion became stronger.

  Benny had the camera, the tripod, and a rack of camera lights ready to go, carrying them braced against his shoulder as he approached. “Hey, John, where’s the best place to set up?”

  John looked around, aware of the police officers. Better not block the street, he thought. “Oh, how about there on the sidewalk? We can get a good shot of the street behind me and the squad car.”

  Benny started setting up the camera. The officers were looking all around and exchanging glances with each other. They were also exchanging low mutters.

  One officer asked, “Are you hearing voices, Mr. Barrett?”

  John hesitated. The question was sensible, but he suddenly had the feeling he was being asked if he were crazy. Now that suspicion he’d been trying to resist came flooding in: They don’t hear the voices.

  Impossible. Of course they do.

  “You’re kidding . . .”

  “We haven’t done any kidding so far,” said the officer.

  “You don’t . . .” John looked up and down the street. He noticed the voices were beginning to fade now. “You don’t . . . hear any voices?”

  The two officers looked at each other, their arms crossed, then looked back at him with poker faces. “No, sir. We don’t hear anything.”

  “You don’t hear . . . people crying for help, anything like that?”

  “No, sir.”

  John couldn’t believe it. It just wouldn’t sink in. He turned to Benny. “Benny, you hear all the crying people, right?”

  Benny looked out from behind his camera’s eyepiece. “What’s that?”

  “You hear all the people crying?”

  Benny repeated the question to make sure he’d heard it right. “Do I hear all the people crying?”

  John was desperate. “Yes.”

  “What people?”

  “You don’t hear anything?”

  The officer asked, “Have you been using any drugs tonight, Mr. Barrett?”

  Oh no. This couldn’t be happening. “Well . . . no. I don’t use drugs at all.”

  “Do you live around here?”

  “Well, yes, that’s my apartment right up there.”

  The officers turned to Benny. “Sir? Could you come here please?”

  Benny left the camera and walked over to the squad car.

  “Now . . . you know this guy, right?” the officer asked.

  “Sure,” said Benny.

  “He’s hearing voices.”

  Benny thought that over and then asked John, “You hearing voices, John?”

  John listened, just to be sure. The voices were gone. The street was quiet. He was afraid to answer.

  “Are you hearing voices, Mr. Barrett?” the officer asked.

  John shook his head. He was too troubled to speak.

  “You’re not hearing voices?”

  “Not now,” he muttered.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “I . . . I heard them. I could hear them even after you got here, but now I don’t hear them anymore.”

  “And you haven’t used any drugs lately?”

  John was horrified at the only explanation that came to his mind. “I . . . I used drugs in college. I was into LSD back then. But that was years ago.” He was starting to shake.

  “Well,” said the other officer, “it sounds like you’re hallucinating.”

  John was troubled, mortified. He felt absolutely naked standing there.

  “You okay, John?” Benny asked.

  John couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit anything.

  Finally he said, “I guess there isn’t anything happening then. Sorry.”

  The officer asked, “That’s your apartment up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then if I were you, I’d get off the street and back inside. Go to bed. Sleep it off.”

  “I haven’t used any drugs!” John protested, resenting the insinuation.

  “Could be an LSD flashback,” said Benny. “I’ve heard that people get those sometimes.”

  “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before . . .”

  “Let’s call it a night, guys,” said the officer. “Benny, can you take care of him, make sure he gets inside?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “All right.” The officer nodded to his partner, and they got back in the car.

  While John and Benny stood there, Benny feeling bewildered and John feeling stupid, the police drove off.

  John looked up and down the street, at all the windows in all the homes and apartments. Everything was quiet. Wherever those voices came from, they were gone now. Just gone. Simple as that.

  “It was weird, Benny,” he said. “I mean, it was absolutely real. I was convinced something was going on here. I wouldn’t have called the station if I wasn’t convinced.”

  Benny gathered up the camera and headed back for his car. “Yeah, well . . . it’s pretty weird all right.”

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Well, I’m getting paid for this, so I guess I don’t mind.”

  “Okay. Okay. Uh, say, Benny, could you give me some time to work this thing out? I mean, let me tell Ben about this. I’ll get to a doctor, find out what’s going on . . .”

  “Hey, don’t worry. You can tell the boss about it if you want—it’s none of my business.”

  “Thanks.”

  Benny finished loading the car, said good night, and drove off, leaving John standing there, a lone figure under a streetlamp. The street was quiet again. John paused to take one more look up and down the street and then stood very still, not breathing, just listening.

  There was no sound but the sound of the city. The fear had not left him. He hurried inside, up the stairs, down the hall, and back into his apartment, not resting, not pausing until he had locked and bolted the door and checked every room.

  Then he found a spot on the couch, his back against the wall, the whole living room visible, and tried to calm down. It would end up taking half the night.

  CHAPTER 4

  ED LAKE AND Martin Devin had their meeting, first thing in the morning in Devin’s big office—it used to be Lake’s—with the big oak door closed. It didn’t last long, perhaps fifteen minutes. Then, without a word of good-bye, and with most of the governor’s staff oblivious to what had happened, Lake hurried down the long, paneled hall, past all the well-lit, touched-up portraits of past governors hanging on the walls, and out
into the daylight, never to return. No one took much notice of it. It was typical for Devin or Lake to be out of the office on business for whole days at a time. It was also typical for them to have heated discussions and for one of them—usually Lake—to walk out.

  The governor dropped in on Devin not long after that. “So how did it go?”

  Devin smiled and gave a little shrug, sitting behind his big new desk. “Oh, not altogether pleasant, but I would say we reached a very clear understanding.”

  BARRETT PLUMBING AND Fixtures was a wholesale business in an old warehouse in The City’s south end, a semi-sagging building with peeling blue paint and windmill vents along the roof ridge that whirled and squeaked the same tune all day long. Every once in a while a jet would tiptoe right over the roof on final approach to the airport, and a salesman on the phone would have to ask the caller to say something again. John Barrett Sr. had run this business for the past thirty years, knew everybody who was anybody in plumbing, and could talk sinks, faucets, showers, toilets, rubber washers, and compression fittings with the best of them.

  The warehouse looked like it had to contain close to anything and everything in the world having to do with plumbing. If Dad Barrett or his four employees couldn’t find it somewhere in all those rows of carefully labeled racks, shelves, bins, and boxes, they could sure find something else that would work just as well if not better. Cast iron? No problem. Copper? PVC? ABS? CPVC? They had racks of the stuff both in the warehouse and in the yard out back.

  Yeah, thought John as he eased his Mercedes into the gravel parking area, Dad knows how to run a warehouse and turn a profit. But that’s the part that didn’t make sense. How could a man who worked so hard and did so well as a businessman be so irresponsible with his public image? Hey, marching in a pro-life march and holding a sign was no big deal; even respectable people did that. But this “mad prophet” stuff, this highly visible, public preaching, was getting to be an embarrassment, especially Dad’s vendetta against Governor Slater. It seemed everywhere Slater appeared publicly, Dad was there as well. Slater was even starting to recognize him, and this last time Dad even made it into the governor’s speech.

  John turned off the engine and sat there for a moment, trying to keep cool. It was difficult. All he had to do was think of Dad’s embarrassing behavior and how the resulting stress triggered that ridiculous hallucination last night, and his anger returned. The cops and Benny had to think he was a lunatic. Thanks a lot, Dad.

  Well, now they had an appointment. John had called Dad that morning to say nothing more than “I’ll be there to see you at noon,” and Dad said okay, and now it was noon. John got out of the car and went around to the front entrance.

  The front door had a window so covered with product posters and ads you couldn’t see inside. John swung the door open and triggered the electric eye so that the old buzzer buzzed to let someone know he was there. Not that anyone paid that much notice. The front counter always had plenty of plumbing contractors leaning against it like cowboys in a saloon, asking for obscure parts, placing and picking up orders, swapping stories. Buddy Clemens, the skinny little salesman with the glasses and suspenders, was manning the counter as usual, and right now Jimmie Lopez, the beefy warehouse worker, was helping out. The walls and counter were plastered with more product posters, everything from septic system distribution boxes to fine, gold-plated bathtub faucets. No girls though. Dad never allowed any girlie ads.

  Buddy spotted John and smiled a hello, which John returned. Jimmie had his nose in a thick catalog and didn’t even look up.

  John went around the end of the counter, right at home in this place. “Where’s Dad?”

  Buddy jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Back in the office, I think.” He went back to his customer.

  John ducked down Aisle 7, the shelves of brass fittings towering on either side of him.

  Buddy stole a glance at Jimmie and wiggled his eyebrows. “Here come the fireworks.”

  Jimmie looked back to see John walking briskly down Aisle 7. He said to his customer, “Just a second” and ducked down Aisle 7 himself.

  “Johnny,” he called not too loudly. John was trying to build some momentum, working up to the task. He didn’t like having to stop and turn.

  Jimmie caught up with him and spoke softly. “I know it’s none of my business, but if it’ll help . . . your old man’s really broke up about what happened. He only talked to one salesman early this morning, and he hasn’t come out of the office since. I mean, he’s hurting. And I don’t know why I’m saying this . . . I mean, it’s none of my business, but . . . I guess I just want to ask you to go easy on him.”

  This was typical. As nutty as Dad could be, people who knew him liked him. Maybe Jimmie’s plea helped John ease up . . . a little. He answered politely, “Okay, Jimmie. Thanks.”

  “Thanks, man.” Jimmie hurried back to his customer.

  John went back to building up momentum. He emerged at the other end of the aisle and paused for Chuck Keitzman to go lumbering by on the forklift, hauling a huge bundle of galvanized pipe to the loading dock. That machine had to be as old as John by now, still working, still smelling up the place with exhaust.

  And there, back in the corner of the huge room, was the office, a structure within a structure, several rooms framed in, drywalled, and painted a nondescript off-white. John went to the main door, marked “Office—KEEP DOOR CLOSED,” and went in, closing the door behind him.

  Jill the bookkeeper, a sweet and bubbly, heavy-set gal, greeted him with “Hi, Johnny. He’s back in his office” and then watched with inordinate curiosity as he walked back to the door marked, “THE BOSS.”

  It was ajar. He knocked gently.

  “Yeah, come on in, son.”

  John looked toward the front of the office, and Jill jerked her head back toward her work. He went inside.

  Dad was behind his desk, wearing the same blue coveralls with his name stitched on the left breast. The desk was cluttered with invoices, orders, and a few catalogs, but on top of all that was a portable cassette player with headphones. As John came in, Dad picked up the cassette player and stowed it in a drawer. His eyes were red from crying.

  John noted Dad’s emotional state, but he was armed for bear nevertheless. “Well . . . I was going to take you to lunch, but perhaps . . .”

  “Son, if you don’t mind, I’ve had Jill order us some sandwiches. I figured we’d better just talk in here . . .”

  John was quick to agree. “Yeah, I think so.”

  Dad didn’t raise his voice when he said, “Jill, those sandwiches ought to be ready by now.”

  “Okay, John,” she said.

  “And then we’d like two coffees, all right? One black, one with sugar. Please.”

  “Okay.”

  Dad got up to close the door. “She’s a very attentive lady.”

  He returned to his desk and eased into his chair, rubbing his eyes, then his face, exhaling a slow, mournful sigh. “It’s been quite a morning.” He forced a smile as he looked at John and gave him his full attention. “But my time is yours now, son.”

  John had a decision to make. Should he end it here, forgive Dad, let it go? Or should he deliver what he had come to deliver?

  It had to be done. He would deliver it. All of it. “Well, Dad, I have something to say, and I want you to listen because you need to hear it.”

  Dad rested his elbows on the desk, rested his chin on his clasped hands, and looked at his son. He was ready to listen.

  John could have backed down. His father already seemed broken, not needing any more lashes, but John had anger he needed to vent, anger he’d been saving for a long time. The anger gave him strength; it drove him forward.

  “I saw you on television last night. Several times. The coverage was quite thorough.”

  Dad nodded.

  “Even during my own newscast I saw you standing above the crowd, shouting and railing against the governor like some kind of rabble-rouser.
Then I saw you get involved in a fight, a near riot that jeopardized our reporter, until the cops came and dragged you and your pro-life friends out of there. And during all that, being a professional with a duty to report the news, I had to sit there in front of thousands of people and report . . . report what an absolute fool my father was making of himself. My own father!”

  Dad nodded again, his gaze dropping.

  “I’m . . . I’m more than embarrassed. I’m hurt, I’m mortified, I’m slandered. I’m a public figure in this town with a reputation to preserve, and my worst enemy, my greatest liability, is my own father who just can’t seem to control his behavior in public.

  “I’m not sure how many people at the station know you’re my father. My executive news producer knows, and she rubbed my nose in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had that camera aimed at you just to get at me. And then, when I saw you on the screen, I was so upset I couldn’t read the script right, I asked stupid questions, I looked tense on camera . . .”

  John stopped to take a breath. He still had more. “The producers put you right out front, did you notice? Right at the top of the hour. They slapped me in the face with you. I can imagine the undercurrents going through the newsroom right now. If anyone didn’t know you were my father before this, they probably know now. I don’t know what I’m going to have to face this afternoon at work.”

  John had enough anger to go on all afternoon, but not the time. He jumped to the bottom line. “So I don’t know what you’ve decided, if anything, but my input on this is simple: This kind of behavior has got to stop. Now. It has absolutely got to stop!”

  Dad nodded a third time, then sensed the pause and asked, “May I respond?”

  “You have the floor.”

  Just then Jill knocked on the door.

  “Come on in, Jill.”

  Jill slipped in, tiptoeing for no apparent reason. She set the sandwiches and coffee on the desk ever so quietly and slipped back out, closing the door behind her.

  At the moment neither man made a move for the sandwiches. Neither felt like eating.