Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  “Why are you watching this?” Lauren asked.

  Mark jerked around again, as if startled. He shrugged and said, “Well, I promised Arnold I would. I’ll be up in a minute, honey.” Then back to the television.

  Lauren went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

  When the alarm went off the next morning, she sat up and found herself alone in bed. She put on her robe and went downstairs.

  Mark was still in front of the television, sitting Indian-style on the floor and scribbling in the notebook that lay open on his lap. He had not changed his clothes and the videotape was still playing.

  The woman was sitting on a cushion on the stage now, sitting exactly as Mark was, her eyes wide and her voice now deep and curled by an odd accent.

  “—to worship one true god is a lie. There is no one true god. There is one Godbody, as it is, but the Godbody is made up of many parts and each part is equally important as the next. You, my dear seeking souls, are those parts. Each of you is a god, each being one part in a greater whole, as it is and forever shall be. Embrace your godness, children. Live it, nourish it, and share that godness—share that one true god that you are—with the souls around you. …”

  As she spoke in her strange voice, the woman moved her arms in jerky motions, up, down, out at her sides, as if she were performing some odd stationary dance.

  Lauren said, “What are you doing, Mark?”

  Mark was so startled that he shot to his feet and the notebook flopped to the floor. He glanced at Lauren, then his eyes darted around the room, coming back to her again. A smile tried to break through, fluttering the ends of his mouth rapidly, like batwings, and he said, “Lauren, you scared me. I thought you went to bed.”

  “I just got up. It’s six o’clock.”

  “Really? Jeez, I guess—” He chuckled. “—I sort of lost track of time.”

  “Have you been watching that thing all night?”

  “Oh, that. Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Well … it’s interesting.”

  Lauren crossed the room and picked up the notebook. “You’ve been taking notes?”

  “Well … it’s interesting.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Lauren whispered, staring at the screen. “You stayed up all night watching this shit? Over and over?”

  He looked hurt. “It’s not shit. Do you think I’d stay up all night watching it if I thought it was shit?”

  “Well, it looks like shit to me.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t if you watched it.”

  “How many times does she ask for money? Is there a toll-free number?”

  “She doesn’t ask for any money.”

  “Well, I wonder how much the people in the audience had to pay.”

  “It was a free seminar.”

  She shook her head and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Mark showered and dressed and went straight to work without waiting for breakfast.

  When she got home from work that afternoon, Lauren watched some of the tape and tried—she honestly tried—to make some sense out of what the woman had to say, but could not. It was all parapsychological out-of-the-body pseudo-metaphysical double talk, the kind of thing that went over big in Marin County and certain parts of Los Angeles, but not with Lauren Schroeder. She had been raised in a home that clung to no spiritual or religious beliefs; her father had been chairman of the science department at Stanford and had always taught her that if she couldn’t see it and it couldn’t be proven beyond a doubt, then it wasn’t worth her time.

  On the back of the videotape was a picture of the woman with a short paragraph below it. “Hester Thorne, founder of the Universal Enlightened Alliance, lives in Grover, California, where all are welcome to come visit or live in unity and harmony to discover and celebrate their individual godness at the foot of majestic Mount Shasta.”

  When she looked for Mark’s notes, she couldn’t find them. He’d taken them to work with him.

  The subject did not come up at dinner that night, and Lauren hoped it never would again; she hoped that Mark’s interest in the tape had been fleeting, the result of a tiring evening talking to too many people about things in which he had no interest.

  She was wrong.

  Later that week, she found another videotape in the bedroom. It had that woman on the box, Hester Thorne, but was a different tape entirely. It was titled, Messages from Orrin: Finding the Light.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked Mark when he came upstairs.

  “Arnold.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he offered to loan it to me and I wanted to see it.”

  “That’s what I mean. Why would you want to see it?”

  He sighed and thought about his answer before he spoke. “Because I think she has something to say that I need to hear.”

  Lauren wanted to say, What could she possibly say that anyone would need to hear? Surely you don’t take any of that malarky seriously! Surely you’re more intelligent than that! But she didn’t because she didn’t want to sound like a nag.

  Then he began to bring home the books. He didn’t talk about them, but she saw them, saw him reading them. Each of them was written by Hester Thorne and each had the symbol of the Universal Enlightened Alliance in the top right corner of the cover: a silver sphere impaled on a golden crescent moon in the center of an oval crystal.

  Mark was behaving differently, too. He seemed preoccupied, distant, and talked little at the dinner table, which was not like him at all.

  Worried, Lauren called Dr. Burbage.

  “I wouldn’t worry if I were you, Lauren,” the doctor said soothingly. “In fact, what Mark is going through right now is quite natural. He has just recovered from a very serious addiction, an addiction that took up a very big space in his life. Now it’s gone. That leaves a very big empty space, and Mark is looking for something to fill it. Now, I’m not advocating any of these New Age philosophies, but neither do I scoff at them. If it works, don’t fix it. What videotapes has he been watching, anyway?”

  “Some woman named Thorne, Hester Thorne. Um, The Universal, um-“

  “Universal Enlightened Alliance, yes. You mean you haven’t heard of it? It’s become quite popular since Sheila Bennet has become involved.”

  “The actress?”

  “Mm-hm. She’s brought it into the public eye and it’s taken off. Maybe Hester Thorne’s philosophy has something that appeals to Mark. Maybe if you found out what that is, you’d understand it and wouldn’t worry so much.”

  But Lauren didn’t understand it and she certainly had no desire to waste her time trying to figure it out. Dr. Burbage said there was a very good chance Mark’s interest in the Alliance would pass, so she decided to wait for that to happen.

  It never did. In fact, it got worse.

  The books Mark continued to bring home were filled with colorful pictures and illustrations that caught Nathan’s eye. He began to page through them carefully, reverently, asking Mark endless questions about them, all of which Mark answered gladly. Nathan was especially fascinated by what he called the “magic crystals” pictured in the book and by the idea that a man who had lived and died countless centuries ago could speak through a woman who was alive today.

  Lauren had nothing against Nathan indulging in entertaining fantasies; she read to him nightly and his favorites were the Oz books and the Chronicles of Narnia. She was happy to know that Nathan had an active and healthy imagination and she wanted to keep it alive. But she made sure he knew the difference between fantasy and reality and didn’t confuse the two.

  Mark, it was beginning to seem, did not know the difference and he was passing his confusion to their son.

  “Mark, I don’t like it.”

  “Why not? It’s not hurting him, or anything, there’s nothing-“

 
“Look. If you want to believe in this … this … stuff, that’s your business. You haven’t pestered me with it, and I appreciate that, Mark, I really do. But Nathan is very impressionable and you’re his father. He’ll believe anything you tell him.”

  “Why shouldn’t he believe it?”

  “Because it’s—” She started to say bullshit, but decided that was too harsh. “Because he shouldn’t. You know that, Mark. He’s just too young.”

  Mark shook his head slowly. “You know, when I was growing up, my parents thought the same thing. They were confirmed atheists and they stood between me and anything … spiritual. They didn’t want me exposed to or polluted by any of the things they thought were bullshit. So I grew up without it, all of it, church, Sunday school, prayer, all that stuff. The other kids around me, though, they had something … special. They went to church on Sundays and they said their prayers at night and at Christmas they celebrated the birth of Christ. I felt I was missing something. I’ve always felt that way. And now I’ve found this, the Alliance, and … it works for me. It all fits up here—” He tapped his temple. “—I wish I could make you understand that. Nathan asks me questions about it and I’m not going to tell him to go away, you want me to do that? He wants to know. I’m going to tell him.”

  “But he doesn’t understand it, Mark. He takes it all so seriously, the magic crystals and the channeling and—”

  “I take it seriously.”

  Without choosing her words, Lauren snapped at him: “Then you’ve got a problem, Mark, and I don’t want you to give it to Nathan!”

  It turned into a shouting match that lasted late into the night, and Mark would not speak to her the next morning, a Friday.

  So, naturally, she was surprised when he called her that evening, sounding cheerful, and told her to pack a few things because they were going away for the weekend.

  She thought it was odd, but hoped it was just a way for Mark to apologize indirectly, maybe even a good sign, a sign he was trying to close the small gap that had been caused by his newfound spirituality.

  She packed a few things, Mark came home a couple hours early, and they drove north. Mark would not tell her where they were going, saying he wanted it to be a surprise, but the farther north they drove, the less surprised Lauren thought she would be when they arrived.

  Ninety minutes after sunset, they passed a sign that red GROVER - 33 mi., and Lauren could barely get the question out.

  “Mark? Are we … by any chance … going to Grover?”

  He grinned. “You guessed!”

  Nathan leaned forward in the backseat and exclaimed, “That’s where the magic crystals are!”

  “That’s right, Nathe.”

  “No,” Lauren said quietly. “We’re not going there.”

  “But I already made reser—”

  “We are not going there, Mark.”

  “I made reservations at a beautiful hotel. And it’s inexpensive, too. It’s gorgeous up there, you’ll see. Just wait till we get there.”

  She said no more, for Nathan’s sake, but her stomach was in knots and she decided that if Mark tried to push the Alliance on her for a whole weekend, she and Nathan would take a bus home.

  The hotel was located on the north side of Grover, a small, quaint mountain town scattered with patches of snow left over from winter. Mark drove through a white wrought-iron gate and down a narrow road that curved through a dark sanctuary of pines. Lauren saw glimpses of light between the branches and tree trunks. The light grew and grew until they rounded the final curve, and—

  —Lauren gasped.

  The hotel was bathed in light, a massive Gothic building with turrets and spires; it formed a U surrounded by sheets of bright green grass and a forest of fragrant pines. Behind the hotel stood Mount Shasta, still draped in white; when viewed from the proper angle, the mountain resembled a robust woman lying on her back, knees hugged to her chest, hence the hotel’s name: Sleeping Woman Inn.

  But that was not what made Lauren gasp.

  In front of the hotel at the center of the U-shaped drive stood an enormous sculpture. It was an oval crystal, ten, maybe twelve feet tall, and inside it glimmered a flawless silver sphere impaled on a golden crescent moon. Words were carved into the well-lighted granite base:

  THE UNIVERSAL ENLIGHTENED ALLIANCE WELCOMES YOU

  With fear trembling her voice, Lauren whispered, “They own the hotel.”

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Mark asked, smiling, as he slowed the car to a stop in front of the entrance. “Okay, Nathe, let’s go. We’re here.”

  “Yaaaay!” Nathan shouted, excited, scrambling out of the car.

  Their bags were carried inside by a man in a grey uniform, smiling, silver-haired, and pleasant.

  But Lauren didn’t care how pleasant he was. She hated him because he was a part of what she saw as a sort of conspiracy against her, against all she believed in, and most importantly, against the way she wanted to raise Nathan, who was foremost in her mind. She was afraid he would be tainted by their visit there, and she intended to get him out.

  They went to their room, which was beautiful—

  —“I thought you said this was inexpensive,” Lauren grumbled as they unpacked—

  —then Mark said, “Anybody hungry?”

  They were all hungry, and Mark led them downstairs. Lauren thought they were going to a restaurant, but no …

  They went, instead, into an expansive ballroom where there were tables of food, and—

  —tables of crystals and tables of literature and tables of videotapes.

  A convention, Lauren thought, this is a fucking convention! When she was a little girl, Lauren’s brother, Carl, was a science-fiction fanatic and dragged her to a science-fiction convention once. It was crowded with fat smelly people who clogged the hotel elevators and crowded around dealers’ tables selling plastic ray guns and Star Trek insignias and back issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines. Some of them were just kids, but many were older, in their twenties and up, and most of those, Lauren was willing to bet, still lived with their parents, didn’t have jobs or ambitions or even enough drive to get off their asses and bathe. They probably spent all their time stuffing their faces while they devoured science-fiction magazines and books, comic books and watched reruns of old sci-fi television shows as if they were documentaries. They had torn down the wall that separated fantasy and reality and turned their backs on the latter.

  She suddenly had the same feeling as she walked into the ballroom of the Sleeping Woman Hotel, and she wanted to leave more than ever, but desperate to keep peace in her family, she vowed to give it a little more time.

  The ballroom was crowded with people who seemed to take all of this seriously—which made it even worse for Lauren—who stood around eating cold cuts from paper plates and talking about discovering their godness and healing themselves of serious physical ailments. She stayed close to Mark and held tightly to Nathan’s hand as they stood in line for food and she resisted the temptation to shout at Mark for leading them to believe they were taking a weekend vacation when they were really attending a gathering of genetically defective people who thought so little of themselves that they felt the need to turn to a system of belief that was nothing more than a elaborate and expensive fantasy contrived by a woman who was tired of spending her days washing dishes and slicing vegetables.

  As they walked away from the buffet table, Mark stopped suddenly and Lauren sensed his tension. She looked up to meet the eyes of a tall blond woman who smiled first at Mark, then Lauren, then Mark again.

  “Welcome,” the woman said, holding out her hand.

  Mark took it, shook gently, smiling stupidly like a schoolboy with a stomach-churning crush on his teacher.

  “I’m Hester Thorne,” the woman said.

  “Yes,” Mark replied nervously. “I know. It’s
… a pleasure, um, to meet you.”

  Lauren stiffened.

  “Where are you from?” the woman asked.

  “We’re from Los Gatos. Near San Jose?”

  “Ah, yes, the Silicon Valley. Do you work with computers?”

  “No. I work at the Diego Nuclear Power Plant.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Really? How interesting.”

  “Um … Mark, my name is Mark Schroeder and this is my wife Lauren. And my son Nathan.”

  “You’re the lady in the magic crystal books,” Nathan said, awestruck.

  The woman laughed and hugged him to her.

  Lauren’s blood chilled and she gently pulled her son away from the woman.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet all of you. Thank you for coming.” She turned to Mark. “I’d like to talk to you for a while before you leave. I’m very interested in your work. It’s such an important part of our time.”

  Then she walked away.

  If that had been all, Lauren might have done nothing, might have stuck it out like a trooper, telling herself she was just indulging her husband’s hobby, as she’d indulged her brother’s as a child. But when she looked at Mark, she saw him staring after the woman, saw his eyes glinting with awe and admiration and—

  —No, no, she thought hopefully, you’re just imagining it, just pushing your anger onto him—

  —was that affection in his eyes? Was that the way he used to stare at her, at Lauren, before they were married?

  She began to tremble and leaned toward him to whisper, “Will you excuse me for a second?”

  “Sure, honey,” he said, his eyes never leaving the woman’s back as she disappeared into the crowd.

  She hurried to the room, called a cab, packed her things and Nathan’s, leaving Mark’s, and carried them down to the lobby, dropping them at the desk. She returned to the ballroom to find Mark deeply involved in a conversation about Orrin with one of the other visitors, took Nathan’s hand and whispered, “Honey, Nathe has to go to the bathroom.”