Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  “Tell you what, Nathan,” she said, holding his face in her hands, “why don’t you try some more to find something on TV while your dad and I take a little walk down the hall, okay?”

  “’Kay.” He returned to the television happily and began turning the dial.

  Hester turned to Mark, took his arm, and led him to the door. “Do you mind?” she whispered.

  “Not at all. Is something wrong? You look upset.”

  As they stepped into the corridor outside the room, she shook her head, hooked her arm in his and squeezed. “I’m tired. I always am for a while after a long trance.”

  “So you’re all finished here?”

  She nodded. “Mark, I came to tell you … your wife was at the seminar.”

  “Lauren?” He stopped and faced her, pulling his arm away. “She was … upset.” “She talked to you?”

  “She screamed at me. We had to end early. There was … well, a commotion.”

  She took his arm again and led him around a corner to a small room in which a bright red Coke machine and a cumbersome ice machine both hummed dully.

  “Was she hurt?” Mark asked, with a small jolt of fear.

  “Don’t worry, Mark, nothing happened to her. But … well, your wife is a very hostile woman.”

  “What happened?”

  “She came while I was in trance. I don’t remember any of it, of course, but one of my men told me. She was very angry, screaming obscenities … and I guess she tried to attack me.”

  “Lauren? She would never do that!”

  “She injured some ushers. Not badly, but one of them was—”

  “Where is she now?”

  “A man took her away. Dark hair … maybe brown, but they said it was hard to tell because it was slicked back. Little round glasses, maybe six feet tall or so. A mustache. Sound familiar?”

  “No, no, that doesn’t … a man? No, doesn’t ring a bell. A man …” Mark turned away from her and chewed the knuckle of his thumb, quickly calling up the names of all the men they knew who might fit that description, but could think of no one. Someone he didn’t know about, perhaps?

  A strange and disturbing question was asked rather loudly by his inner voice, so loudly it made him blink hard:

  When was the last time Lauren and I made love?

  Maybe six, eight months ago. Surely not a whole year …

  He wondered for the first time since he and Lauren had been married if she could be seeing someone else. …

  “Mark, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Hester said. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah.”

  “I’m a little concerned.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just a … just something I’m feeling … an impression … maybe from Orrin …”

  “What?” he snapped, immediately shaking his head in silent apology for his tone.

  She placed her right hand on his chest, over his heart. “Something’s coming, Mark. Something … bad.” Putting her other hand on his shoulder, she added, “And somehow, your wife will be a part of it.”

  “What? What are you—”

  “She’ll try to take you away.”

  “Away from—”

  “From your beliefs from what you now know to be the truth. She wants your son, too, Mark. She wants little Nathan. But you listen to me, Mark. You listen. …”

  Vaguely, Mark noticed that Hester was standing much closer to him now, so close he could feel her breath on his chin, and her left hand was squeezing his shoulder, gently at first, then with slowly growing strength, until she was kneading it, clenching it between her strong fingers and thumb. But it didn’t hurt at all because he hardly felt it, and he could no longer hear the hum of the ice machine or even see the glowing red of the Coke machine behind Hester. The room was filled with her alone: her face, her blue eyes sparkling like wet crystals, and her voice, almost a whisper, flat as a Kansas plain but somehow musical, like one long endless note played on some exotic instrument, and soft, so soft he longed to touch it, as a child might a butterfly’s wing …

  … but he only listened because he could do nothing else.

  “You cannot—are you listening, Mark?—you cannot let her take Nathan. She will bury that boy in ignorance like a corpse in a grave. She’ll stunt his spiritual growth. Do you know what a gift you’re giving Nathan? So few are given the truth so early in life. Most people are exposed to lie after lie for so long that when they finally find the truth they let it pass right by them and grow old in their ignorance. Nathan is young, his mind is open, and you have given him the truth, Mark. Don’t let her take it away from him.”

  “Buh … buh …” Mark forced himself to blink once, again, slowly. He took a deep breath and tried to smile, but his lips only trembled. “But you have to understand,” he said, “she’s his mother. She’s worried about him. About me, too, probably.” Quietly, he added, “I … hope. It’s natural for her to be upset. When we get to Grover, I’ll call her and—”

  “Be careful.”

  “I won’t tell her—”

  “She’s waiting for an opening, Mark. Don’t give it to her.” The words could have been spoken maliciously, but they weren’t; she was simply stating a fact in a low, smooth voice, a voice as massaging as her hand on his shoulder.

  He had forgotten she was doing that and suddenly became aware of it again, of how good it felt … and of how close her face was to his … so close that if he moved only slightly, head bowed just a bit … their lips would touch. …

  Mark heard the walls collapsing around him and stiffened,

  stepped back away from Hester, away from her hand and lips and eyes, away from her voice, but—

  —it was only ice cubes falling in the machine and—

  —for half a heartbeat, he was seated on the edge of his bed and Lauren was kneeling before him, both of them crying, Mark saying, “I’ll get help, I promise I will, Lauren, just, please, please, don’t leave me,” and Lauren holding his head in her hands and saying, “How could I, how could I now? I love you too much to leave you now,” and—

  —the electric rush of adrenaline that had suddenly coursed through him slowed and became a thick coating of guilt that clung to him like grease, clogging his pores, oozing between his fingers.

  “I should get back to Nathan,” he said in a cracked voice, turning to leave.

  She took his hand and held him back.

  “You’ve done the right thing, Mark. You know you have. Let yourself be used. Let Nathan be used. Like Orrin uses me. They will, you know. Use you.”

  Massaging again … holding him with her eyes …

  “They have such plans for you and Nathan. You’re different than most. There is …” She paused, tucked her lower lip between her teeth and thought a moment, then went on: “There is something called the Inner Circle, Mark. A core group that … well, a group that is closer to the other levels of existence. You could be a part of the Inner Circle. You and Nathan. You can’t let her stand in the way of that. Can you, Mark?”

  He knew he couldn’t. The guilt was still there, clutching at him, but what he knew—what he wanted—so deep inside him was stronger.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t.”

  As they returned silently to the hotel room and Nathan, their hands stayed together, fingers locked tightly, arms intertwined, and Mark noticed that although her hand was smaller than his and fit nicely in his palm, nearly disappearing within his fingers, it was she who held his hand, not the other way around.

  9.

  Jordan and Marvin spent the next two weeks poring over the material left behind by Harvey Bolton. They went over it again and again, went to the library to find other articles that would back up the material with new information.

  They talked with local television and
newspaper reporters who had done stories on the Universal Enlightened Alliance, who in turn gave them leads on people whose spouses or relatives were living at the Alliance complex in Grover and were not allowed to have any contact with family or friends. Those people had no legal recourse in retrieving their loved ones because the Alliance was doing nothing wrong according to the law; those living there did so by choice and were not being held against their will.

  Although the law could find no fault with the Alliance, the people Jordan and Martin spoke with were certain that there was something insidious about the organization and that something horrible—and perhaps permanently mind-altering—was being done to their loved ones … they just didn’t know what; they all shared this gut reaction, and although they could not specifically define it or prove it, they did not doubt it. Jordan and Marvin found that interesting, but not helpful … yet.

  Along with the other information Bolton had gathered was a computer printout of a segment of the membership of the Alliance. Although it was an incomplete list, Bolton also included a handwritten note giving the Alliance computer’s modem number and password; he pointed out that the password was changed often, but always seemed to be the name of an Ascended Master, a complete list of which was available in Hester Thorne’s book Masters Among Us. Each name on the printout was followed by a great deal of information about that person’s financial, religious, educational, and, if any, criminal background. Some of the names listed were followed by the word withdrawal, which Jordan and Marvin took to mean that person had left the organization, but even the withdrawals were followed by a block of information about that person. Except for one: Simon Ketter. His name was circled in black ink and a question mark was written beside it. The entry read simply:

  Simon Ketter—WITHDRAWAL

  It was odd, but neither of them could come up with a logical explanation for the difference in that one entry, but it wasn’t the only mystery in Harvey Bolton’s collection of information. Jordan read Bolton’s note over and over—

  Tom—

  Read these carefully in the order I’ve stacked them, then tell me: what’s wrong with this picture? Please don’t laugh this off. Give it a chance.

  —but was able to draw no solid conclusions from the stack of material. Only one thing stood out. …

  “Her son,” Jordan muttered one evening, hunched over the material on his office desk.

  “What about him?” Marvin asked from his chair where he was going over some notes.

  “This guy underlined every mention of Hester Thorne’s son Benjamin in all these articles.”

  “And?”

  “The only other thing he underlined has nothing to do with her son.”

  “What is it?” Marvin asked, standing to lean over the desk. Jordan pointed to a headline in a tabloid called the Global Inquisitor. It read:

  BIGFOOT SIGHTING IN NEW AGE PARADISE!

  TOURISTS TERRIFIED BY HULKING BEAST

  NEAR ALLIANCE HEADQUARTERS!

  Marvin grunted and shrugged. “I dunno. According to Hester Thorne, her son is dead. Maybe this reporter guy was a nut case, you ever think of that? Maybe he had a history of drug use. We never thought to ask any questions about him.”

  “I don’t think so. I think he really saw something in all of this. Even if it was just one little thing, he must’ve thought it was important. I just wish he would’ve pointed it out instead of expecting everyone else to see it, too. He’s got interviews here with people who are pissed off at the Alliance, afraid of the Alliance and indifferent toward the Alliance, but…” He leaned back, away from the pool of light his desk lamp cast over the stack of papers, and sighed wearily, “I don’t know. What have we got? Um … well, there’s an article that mentions some woman named Elizabeth Murphy who says she grew up with Hester Thorne and thinks she’s evil or satanic or something. But then, she’s a Christian,” he said, tossing the last word off his tongue like a thick lump of phlegm, “and they think everything is evil and satanic.”

  “Aw, c’mon Jordy,” Marvin said gently as he returned to his chair. “Just because you had some lousy experiences with your parents and their church doesn’t mean they’re all the same, does it?”

  Jordan made a derisive snorting sound.

  With a mischievous smirk, Marvin asked, “You mean you don’t believe in god at all? Not even Satan?”

  “Oh, sure. We get together every once in a while for a few beers. Sometimes Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny show up and we play poker. You know damned well I don’t believe in that crap. I don’t need to because I don’t need an explanation for every little thing that happens.”

  “You think that’s why people cling to those beliefs?”

  “Of course it is,” Jordan snapped, beginning to sound bitter. A frown darkened his face and he was clearly upset by the topic. “If something good happens, it comes from god. If something bad happens, it’s god’s will and Satan’s pleasure. And everything that can’t be understood or explained is evil.”

  “And your belief?”

  “My belief? I am a baptized member of the First Church of Shit Happens.” He waved his hand as if to dismiss the topic, then began looking through the stack of papers again.

  “So, what do you think we ought to do with Mrs. Schroeder?” Marvin asked.

  “I don’t know.” Jordan sounded exasperated. “She calls a dozen times a day, and when she’s not on the phone, she’s dropping by here.”

  “You can hardly blame her. The poor woman’s understandably upset.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but what the hell does she expect me to do?”

  “Anything you can, I think. You need to go a little easier on her. I know she’s annoying, but jeez, Jordy, she’s no more like your ex-wife than Elizabeth Murphy is like your parents, I’m sure.”

  “Well, now she wants to go to Grover with us.”

  “You’re kidding. What’re you gonna do?”

  “Keep saying no, what do you think?”

  “I think we ought to look this Murphy woman up and see what she has to say,” Marvin suggested to change the subject.

  “Yeah, you’re right. That’ll be your job. I’m not up to talking to one of them.”

  Marvin chuckled and shook his head. “If she’s still in Wheatland like the article says, I’ll be able to kill two birds and see Hester Thorne’s parents, too.”

  “Great. First, though, make up a list of all the surveillance equipment you think we might need. Fiske is gonna pay for all of it, of course, so—” He grinned, “—don’t be stingy.”

  “When do we go to Grover?”

  “Well, I figure I’ll go first and get a feel for the place while you’re in Wheatland. Then, once you’ve talked to everybody you can find there, you join me. In any case, I want to get there before the crowds gather for that damned, uh … festival, or whatever the hell she’s having up there.” The five-day-long New World Festival was to begin two weeks from the day Jordan and Marvin had attended Hester Thorne’s seminar in San Francisco and it was sure to be terribly crowded.

  The media had been covering the festival extensively for nearly two months, always comparing it with the Harmonic Convergence of 1987. But each time Hester Thorne assured them that the New World Festival would be very different from, and far more effective than, the Harmonic Convergence. She pointed out that her festival had a single location, rather than several all over the globe, and would therefore generate more positive energy, which would, she hoped, help to heal the earth’s many wounds and speed up the coming of the New Age of Enlightenment.

  The media made a big deal of the fact that many of the residents of Grover were less than excited about the upcoming event, but none of them seemed hostile toward the Alliance itself. In fact, Jordan found it interesting that no matter how hard the reporters tried to stir up anger in the residents—usually with blatant questions like, “
Doesn’t it make you angry that these people have moved into your town and are now bringing even more people into your town?”—their responses were cautious and carefully worded; it reminded him of some of Harvey Bolton’s notes, in which Bolton pointed out that it was obvious the people of Grover were afraid of the Alliance, they just refused to admit it.

  Neither Jordan nor Marvin were looking forward to the festival—they knew it would be crawling with what Marvin called “crystal zombies”—but it was unavoidable.

  While they were preparing for their investigation into the Alliance, Lauren Schroeder was certain that she was losing her mind. She couldn’t stay by herself in the house, so she accepted Glenda’s invitation to stay at her place. Glenda’s husband Pete was sympathetic and generous and treated her like a member of the family even though he and Lauren really didn’t know one another well at all.

  Lauren felt uncomfortable at first, felt as if she were imposing, but that passed after a few days, mostly because she had no other place to go. She could call her parents in Sacramento or her sister in San Diego; she knew they would do anything they could for her. But she didn’t do that. Not yet, not until after she’d learned what Jordan Cross had in mind.

  So she stayed with Glenda and her family. The only problem was that every time she saw Glenda’s two children, every time she heard them laugh in another part of the house or saw one of them run through the room, she felt sick and had to fight not to start sobbing. Since she’d discovered Nathan’s empty bed and closet, every child she saw was Nathan and every child’s voice was his calling for her.

  She feared for Nathan’s welfare—for his life—but her feelings toward Mark were very different. When she thought of Mark, she became angry … furious. When she thought of Hester Thorne, she thought only of revenge. She craved it almost as much as she craved getting Nathan back …

  … which she intended to do whether Jordan Cross helped her or not.

  As Lauren looked forward to her revenge and the rescue of her son, Mark and Nathan were being introduced to their new surroundings in Grover.

  They were separated the first day, something Mark wasn’t expecting and didn’t especially like.