Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  But that changed.

  The voice darkened; it became broader, richer. Deeper. It became male.

  Jordan cocked his head to listen for the disguise, for the trace of Hester Thorne remaining in the velvety baritone. It was not there.

  Very good, he thought.

  The note, sung in an open-mouthed Aahhh, wobbled, changed shape, then faded, becoming spoken words.

  “It is Orrin who speaks to you through this vessel of flesh and blood and I come to you in the spirit of love that bind you all, that brings you together and sets you free, that transforms you from the many into the one, the love that is the blood that flows through the veins of the Godbody, as it is and forever shall be. Greeeeetings, sweet souls!”

  It was all spoken rapidly and in one breath, with a sing-song rhythm that somehow did not sound childish; perhaps because of the full, melodious voice and the strange accent, apparently a mixture of many accents, some vaguely familiar to Jordan, others completely alien.

  Some in the audience, already familiar with the routine, responded—“Greetings, Orrin!”—almost simultaneously.

  Jordan and Marvin exchanged eye-rolling glances.

  As she continued, Hester Thorne’s eyes moved back and forth over the audience, massaging the body of attentive listeners before her. She waved her arms in odd, jerky movements as she spoke in the voice of Orrin, fingers rigid and pulled together tightly; each movement seemed to have meaning, as if she were performing some obscure sign language to interpret her words.

  “I come to you in the body of the entity you call Hester Thorne so that you may know that other beings live and function outside of the body, without the encumbrance of flesh, as you shall also be in a future existence and have been in existences past. I bring you the truth that has been denied you, the truth that calms all fears and soothes all pain, the truth that will set you free from the bonds of this weary, close-minded planet of disease and despair. If you embrace it, this truth shall fill you with happiness and hope. But also … fear.”

  Orrin—No, not Orrin, Jordan chided himself, Hester Thorne—Hester scanned the crowd a moment, frowning, lower lip tucked out like a pouting child’s.

  “For some time now, I have shared my message with countless souls on this level. I have spoken of immortality, of incarnations past and to come, of worlds known to you but not remembered. But time grows short for those of you in this existence and now I must reveal the whole truth: a future that may be prevented, but a future dark and frightening. I beg you take heed, and take heart. Armed with the truth, you will find within you godness and further assemble the Godbody, as it is and forever shall be. This future I have spoken of holds much grief for this vessel known as Hester Thorne. I ask that you show her love and support. Surround her with godness. Give to her your love. But above all, follow her, for her words are my words, and my words are truth.”

  Jordan leaned toward Marvin and whispered, “What is this?”

  “Got me. Every time I’ve heard about her, she’s talking love and peace and enough saccharine to give you diabetes. This is new stuff, far as I know.”

  “Many will persecute the vessel Hester Thorne,” she went on, and they turned again toward the stage. “Followers who have been faithful and instrumental in spreading the truth shall denounce her, call her a spreader of lies; they shall accuse her of inflaming fear in the masses, and some will call her mad. But they shall be wrong. Many of them will see their errors and recant. Many, however, will not and their stubbornness and ignorance shall be their undoing. Already the wrath descends. Not the wrath of their empty god but the wrath of their ignorance. Even as we meet here tonight, the shadow of that wrath is growing over one disbeliever in particular who has repeatedly attacked this vessel Hester Thorne before millions. The wrath of his own ignorance is falling on Reverend Barry Hallway and with every passing moment, the reverend’s end approaches. Only if he acknowledges the truth and withdraws his hateful words and false accusations will he be spared.”

  A smattering of gasps rose from the crowd as heads leaned together and voices murmured.

  Jordan tried not to gape at the woman in shock. “Are you hearing this?” he hissed at Marvin.

  “This woman’s got balls,” Marvin whispered back. “She’s kicking a hornet’s nest with that stuff. Hallway’s been denouncing her for quite a while, but he’s never said she was gonna die.”

  “You, sweet souls, must aid her with all your strength,” she continued. “To do this, your path must be made clear by laying waste to one of the countless lies imposed upon you by your leaders, your clergy and lawmen. The lie of right and wrong, the falsehood of morality. There is no right and wrong, only truth and falsehood.”

  Jordan fidgeted in his seat, disturbed as much by what he was hearing as what he was seeing: eyes locked on the woman in front, necks stiff with attention, faces like sponges that absorbed every drop of what they were hearing.

  “Lawmen,” he breathed, feeling a headache coming on.

  There is no right and wrong … no right and wrong. …

  Good lord, he thought, does she know what she’s doing? What she’s saying?

  The rattle of a door being pushed open came from the rear of the ballroom and sibilant whispers slithered through the silence.

  “That which is true,” Hester Thorne/Orrin continued, “must be uplifted and followed. That which is false must be discarded. The test is simple. If it does not further the spread of this message, if it does not coincide with and support that which is relayed through the vessel Hester Thorne, it is false.”

  Jordan felt a cigarette craving crawl up his throat and begin to knock against his teeth. Surely, he hoped, no one would take her that seriously.

  The whispers from the back continued, became more urgent.

  “Many will try to undermine the truth, for ignorance is the only—“

  A female voice suddenly cut through the room, coming from the back: “Will you get the fuck out of my way!”

  The voice was followed by a powerful slap—a hand meeting flesh—that bounced off the walls.

  As if directed by one mind, every head in the ballroom turned toward the commotion, including those of Jordan and Marvin.

  One of the vanilla-suited men was hunched on one knee, his hand massaging the side of his face, while two others hurried by him in pursuit of a woman who stalked through the shadowy room toward the front, light playing off her tear-streaked face. Her dark blond hair was flat against her skull with a dull sheen to it, as if unwashed, and although she moved quickly, her shoulders looked heavy, tired. She wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt that was improperly buttoned so that it hung crookedly on her lean frame, black acid-washed jeans and sneakers. Her fists were tight at her sides, swinging rhythmically with each step, and her cheeks puffed with furious exhalations.

  The two men behind her closed in.

  Voices whispered, questioned, and complained.

  Jordan spun around to look at Hester Thorne. He expected the intrusion to have jarred her out of her performance, but she remained in character, on the cushions, face blank as an untouched canvas, her eyes following the woman along the center aisle toward the stage. Not even the vaguest hint of surprise infiltrated her calm. Jordan looked to the rear again.

  The first man to reach the woman gripped her elbow firmly and was about to speak when she swung around, pulling her arm behind her, and caught him in the jaw with her right fist. The man stumbled backward, falling across three laps in the audience, and several people stood from their seats, surprised and curious.

  She was ready for the second man and stepped forward to meet him, kicking up her right foot and hooking it between his legs. The man’s mouth yawned open and his tongue curled out, eyes bugging as he doubled over with retching sound and fell hard on his behind.

  Jordan was impressed; the woman’s movements, although effective, were
untrained and held no expertise, only raw energy, a lot of rage and a good deal of luck.

  Beside him, Marvin chuckled, “What the hell …”

  “Where’s my son?” the woman demanded in a cracked but strong voice, heading up the aisle with long angry strides, not missing a step as she brushed some strands of hair from her forehead with the back of a hand. “What have you done with my son?”

  The audience abandoned their murmuring and broke into full voice, chattering as they stood from their seats and looked around, wondering, perhaps, if this was part of the program.

  Jordan stood, too, keeping his eyes on the woman, who seemed not to notice the crowd at all.

  Hester Thorne remained unfazed.

  “Whatever you seek, sweet soul,” she said, “you must know that—”

  “I didn’t come for your fucking show, I came for my son! You can keep my husband, but I want my son! Now!”

  “I ask that you would cease to—”

  “I won’t cease shit, lady, until you—” The woman swallowed her voice and broke into a run and there was an explosion of activity, so sudden that Jordan’s head darted bird-like all around to take it all in.

  Within seconds, and all at once:

  Hester Thorne’s face lost its serenity as the intruder bounded toward the stage; her eyes widened first, then narrowed as her eyebrows swooped downward and she slapped her hands onto her thighs, elbows jutting outward, and stood so smoothly she appeared to grow out of the floor like a tree, suddenly seeming taller and broader than before and—

  —doors slammed open in back and three more ice-cream-suited men came in, running toward the woman as—

  —more people stood and shouted and—

  —the woman reached the steps that led up to the stage where Hester Thorne stood, her eyes flaming indignantly as she opened her mouth as if to yawn and—

  —the rectangular fluorescent shop lights suspended from chains overhead began to flicker like strobes and Jordan looked up to see several of them swaying left to right. From Jordan’s far left there was a sound like an air-filled paper bag popping and one of the swaying light panels blinked out as an explosion of sparks rained over the audience and one end of the light broke away from its chain and dangled precariously as—

  —another light blew out and showered sparks and another and several more, and screams rang out from the confused and frightened crowd and chairs clanged together as sparks shimmered overhead like fireworks on the Fourth of July, but—

  —Jordan noticed that the sparks were not falling downward but were fluttering horizontally like fireflies bobbing on an evening breeze and—

  —then Jordan felt it and he turned to Marvin, who was now standing beside him, and he felt it, too: an icy, strangely damp breeze that grew in strength to become a hefty wind that blew the sparks around the room, tossed papers and mussed hair. But there was something else … perhaps a coincidence that had nothing to do with the inexplicable wind …

  Jordan felt nauseated and light-headed and gripped the back of the chair in front of him, closing his eyes for just a moment, but—

  —horrifying images flashed behind his eyelids, hazy grey images of butchery and death that came and went so quickly they barely registered, and Jordan opened his eyes with a gasp, and—

  —he saw the others around him reacting to the wind, their arms raised, hair blowing, women clutching children to their sides, some people covering their ears or eyes with their hands. Even the ice-cream suits seemed stunned and confused; one stood with his arm shielding his face while another stood beside him, simultaneously wearing a frown and looking startled as he stared at the stage. And then—

  —the wind stopped.

  “Jordy,” Marvin said, gripping Jordan’s elbow, “what the hell is this?”

  Jordan simply shook his head as he looked around.

  There were a few lights still on, but the room was considerably darker than before. The audience was scattering, knocking chairs over and pushing one another out of the way. Several of the ice-cream-suited men were trying to calm people down and get them to return to their seats.

  The woman who had burst in and apparently started the confusion, however, seemed unaware of it. She bounded up the stage steps two at a time, shouting words that could not be heard above the voices of the crowd.

  Jordan looked to his left and saw three men coming, one in the lead, two behind, and those two, at the same moment, pulled aside their lapels with their left hands and began to reach inside their coats with their right.

  It was an unmistakable movement, one Jordan had seen before.

  They were reaching for guns. “Something?” Marvin barked.

  “Looks like it. C’mon,” Jordan said over his shoulder, loudly so Marvin could hear him above the voices, and they moved forward, shoving their way down the clogged row toward the center aisle.

  The woman on the stage halted, two feet in front of Hester Thorne, who clutched her lapel microphone and tore it away. Her mouth worked silently, violently, and somewhere, a window shattered. Then another, and another. As shards of glass chimed, screams rose from the audience, and the woman, her back to the audience now, fell down the steps. Although she had not been touched, she plunged backward as if she’d been struck hard in the stomach, bent in the middle with her arms and legs following her outstretched.

  Jordan reached the center aisle as the three men stopped just a few feet away from him. The one in the lead spun around and held up a hand. It was a gesture of command and both men behind him dropped their hands from their coats. The center aisle was crowded with people heading for the rear exits, but Jordan and Marvin jogged around them toward the woman lying on her back at the foot of the steps. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he was certain of what he didn’t want to do: draw attention to himself. Maybe this woman was just some lunatic who had come in off the street, but if not, he wanted to hear what she had to say, and he wanted to get to her without being noticed.

  She was propped up on her elbows, staring at Hester Thorne, who stood at the edge of the stage, right arm outstretched rigidly, lips squirming.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Jordan saw the three men closing in and said to Marvin, “Hold them off.”

  Marvin immediately fell to the floor in the path of the three men; one of them tripped over him and Marvin bellowed “Sonofabitch, you tryna kill me? I’ll sue you bastards from here to—”

  Jordan bent down, scooped his arms under the woman’s shoulders and lifted her to her feet. Without hesitating, he turned her to the right and began pushing her along the stage toward the side exit.

  Walking crab-like along the edge of the stage above them, arm still held out, Hester Thorne jabbered on, her lips writhing madly, her voice a senseless buzz in all the noise. And her eyes …

  From their distance, it might have seemed like little more than anger to the audience—those paying attention, any way—but what Jordan saw in Hester Thorne’s eyes looked more like steaming, bilious hatred. Perhaps even more than that, something more threatening, more violent.

  Something went off inside Jordan, an internal fingersnap; he’d found something, even if he wasn’t sure what it was yet.

  Then the lights went out and something passed swiftly through the air, something invisible that went rapidly from the stage toward the back of the room, like a wave of static electricity that stiffened the hairs at the base of Jordan’s skull. It was hard to tell in all the confusion, but it sounded like a couple more bulbs had blown. There were screams in the darkness and chairs clanged as they were knocked together.

  The auxiliary lights kicked on a few seconds later, glaring and harsh, dancing shadows through the room like marionettes controlled by madmen, and Jordan pushed forward, swinging his arm around the woman’s shoulders. She moved clumsily, as if in a daze, pulling away then slamming into him, then pulling awa
y again.

  Jordan looked over his shoulder for Marvin, but couldn’t see through the crowd scattering for the exits; he figured Marvin had succeeded in holding off the suits because no one was coming after them.

  He got her out of the ballroom, into the corridor and down the bank of elevators where he punched the DOWN button.

  The woman didn’t struggle or protest, just frowned as she stared, open-mouthed, at the gold- and rust-colored hexagonal patterns in the carpet, shaking her head pathetically.

  “She has my son,” she breathed as Jordan looked around for signs of trouble. “She has my son and—”

  “We’ll get downstairs, miss, and—”

  “—and she’s going to do some—something horrible to him.”

  “—we’ll talk, okay?”

  He removed his arm and took a step away from her, not looking at her anymore. She was crying and tears made him fidget. He swiped a hand down his face, sighing, wishing Marvin and the elevator would hurry up and hoping this disturbed woman wasn’t one of those greasy-haired people he saw so often roaming the streets around his office, picking invisible lint from their ragged clothes and rambling on and on about relatives who owed them money and ex-spouses who owed them apologies. He stuffed his hands in his back pockets and stared at the elevator doors, and was caught completely off guard when the woman threw herself at him and clutched his sweater in her fists, pleading in a whisper, “You’ve gotta help me. Please. You’ve gotta help me get my son back. My Nathan. Please.”

  Jordan lifted his hands to touch her but didn’t, not quite; they stopped an inch from her shoulders and he tried to speak but couldn’t, suddenly wanting to be home, away from this woman and the Universal Enlightened Alliance.

  “Look, lady,” he began, but Marvin hurried around a corner and down the corridor, huffing, with the hum of a crowd not far behind him.

  “Whatta you say we get the hell out of here,” he gasped.

  The elevator doors rumbled open and they got in.