Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  “Yeah, but that was a war.”

  “And this isn’t?”

  They talked a little about one another. Marvin told her how he got into the electronic surveillance business and Lizzie told him about her brief marriage.

  “He was in Wheatland visiting relatives. We met in church. A nice man, ten years older than myself but such a charming gentleman. He was quite wealthy, too, but that had nothing to do with my attraction to him. I didn’t even know that then. We hit it off immediately and he came back to Wheatland to see me on weekends. That was shortly after my mother had died. After she was gone, I really had nothing holding me there in Wheatland, so when Neville asked me to marry him, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He was killed before I was born. Then, less than two years after we were married, Neville died. He was perfectly healthy, except he had brain cancer and we didn’t know it until it was too late.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, so was I, but I’m glad we had that time together. Anyway, after Neville died, I went back to Wheatland for a while—I’d been living in Napa, but didn’t really feel comfortable there without him—until I finally decided to take the money he’d left me and start the chapel. I’ve been there ever since.”

  They chatted on as Marvin turned on the radio and searched the dial until he found the news. An officious-sounding female voice giving the latest details of the president’s planned movement of troops into the Vatican. The Russian government was playing it safe and had said nothing so far; the British prime minister, however, strongly supported the president’s attempts to root out terrorists and reminded everyone that this could bring a halt to the incredible rise of terrorist activity throughout the world.

  When that story was over, the voice said, “A private plane owned by Reverend Barry Hallway’s Truth and Light Ministries went down this afternoon over a densely wooded area in Colorado. Passengers included Reverend Hallway himself, five members of his staff and a crew of three. There were no survivors.”

  She continued speaking, but her voice was a distant hum to Marvin. He stared open-mouthed into the night, a sudden chill blanketing his back and shoulders as he remembered the prediction made by Hester/Orrin at the San Francisco seminar.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. Then, a moment later, he turned to Lizzie and muttered, “Sorry.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to apologize to me,” she said. “It wasn’t my name you used.”

  Marvin turned to her, a smile coming on slowly, then a quiet chuckle, the shock of the news momentarily forgotten. “You’re okay,” he said. “For a Jesus freak.”

  She laughed. “And you’re okay for someone who doesn’t believe in anything.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I don’t believe in anything.”

  “Well, you didn’t say you did believe in anything. What do you believe in, Mr. Ackroyd?”

  “Uh, well …” He thought awhile, scratching his chin. “I believe in, um … I believe …”

  After a long pause, Lizzie said, “That’s an awfully long pause.” Marvin chuckled. “It’s not good to go through life with no firm spiritual beliefs, Marvin. Marriages dissolve and careers end and the body falls apart and governments crumble. But no one can ever take away your faith, no matter how hard they try.”

  Music played on the radio and they said nothing as Marvin thought about how rare it was to have something that no one could take away.

  5.

  “Talk to you later,” Lauren whispered to Joan, then hung up without taking her eyes from Jordan.

  His makeup was torn from one cheek and part of his forehead and he was bleeding. He dropped his cane and tossed his cap and coat onto the bed, then began to pace the room frantically, running his fingers down his face like claws and ripping away his makeup. He was winded and trembling and his voice cracked and wavered as he asked, “Who were you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” she said quickly … too quickly.

  “Don’t tell me that.” He stopped in front of her and threw the globs of makeup at her feet angrily, leaning forward onto the bed, his arms flanking her as he spat his words through clenched teeth. “Don’t tell me that, dammit, who were you talking to?”

  Lauren shrank away from him. “Juh-Joan Maher.”

  “Who?”

  “Joan, th-the woman we muh-met yesterday. At the diner.”

  “And you were talking to her? Just now?”

  She nodded timidly, suddenly afraid he was going to hit her. He looked monstrous with his makeup dangling from his face like tattered skin.

  “What did you tell her? How much does she know?”

  “I-I was juh-just telling her about N-Nathan. Th-that’s all.”

  “So she knows you have a son. And that we’re not married. Does she know why we’re here?”

  Lauren closed her eyes, sick with dread. She nodded.

  “Son of a bitch!” Jordan barked, pushing himself away from the bed with clenched fists. He rushed to the door and threw the bolt, then faced her. “You wanna get us killed! Huh? What good will we do your son then, huh?”

  Her fear of Jordan suddenly forgotten, she stood and asked, “What did you see?”

  He turned from her and began pacing and removing his makeup again, tossing it carelessly to the floor.

  “Tell me what you saw!”

  “Not … yet. I think I should wait until we’re all together.”

  “Who?”

  “Marvin. Maybe Coogan, because we’re gonna need all the help we can get.” He turned to her angrily. “And since you filled your friend in on everything, we might as well bring her into it, too. Unless, of course, you just spilled your guts to a friend of the Alliance’s.”

  Lauren sank back onto the bed, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

  “Little late now.”

  Her fists clenched slowly. “I just needed someone to talk to. I’m scared.”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you to come.”

  “Oh, well you don’t look very courageous at the moment. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “I … am?” He stopped, looked at his hands, then backed up and plopped into a chair. “Yuh-yes,” he breathed, “I’m scared, too.”

  “What did you see tonight, Jordan?”

  He closed his eyes, shook his head. “I don’t want to go into it right now. But … I will tell you I saw something awful. What’s going on here is more than just some goof ball religion. This is … I don’t know, this is—” He winced when he said the word. “—evil.”

  “What were they doing that was so bad? Please tell me, I can’t wait.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t just what they were doing. There was something going on back there, something evil … a supernatural evil.”

  She felt chilled. “No. That can’t be. It’s just a cult. Evil, maybe, but only because of what it takes from people and does to them and their families.”

  He shook his head and smirked, but it wasn’t a sarcastic smirk; it was one of pity. “You’re wrong. It’s not just that. There is a cave, just like Paul Kragen said. And they do take children there. They sacrifice them to something. They sacrificed a little girl tonight and fed her to some bright, sickening blue light that was coming from a crevice in the cave wall. And I think your husband was there.”

  Lauren stared at him for a long time, then rushed to the bathroom to vomit.

  Jordan sat in the chair as Lauren retched over the toilet. He tried to think of nothing, tried to clear his mind, but he could not. The telephone rang, giving him a start. He’d been expecting Marvin’s call, but the fact that Lauren had told Joan Maher about them worried him and he wondered if someone else could be calling.

  It was Marvin.

  “Where are you?” Jordan asked.

  “The motel in Weed. Wh
at’s wrong, you sound like hell.”

  “Tell you later. Do you think you’re up to an all-nighter?”

  “Well … I am, but there’s something I think you—”

  “There’s a guy I need to call and drag out of bed. It’s risky to bring anybody in on this, I know, but in this case, I think it’s necessary. He might be able to help us. How about if we all meet at your motel room?”

  “Sure. We don’t mind.”

  “We? We who?”

  “Myself and Elizabeth Dayton.”

  “You brought her?”

  “Hey, you just told me yourself that sometimes it’s necessary.”

  “Yeah, but not her. The last thing we need around here is some bible-beating Christian.”

  “Uh, she’s not like that, Jordan. I think you’ll be surprised. She knows some things about Hester Thorne that are, um … pretty scary.”

  “Yeah? Well, so do I.” He sighed, exasperated. “This damned thing is turning into a circus.”

  “Okay. Hey, did you hear about Hallway?”

  “As in Reverend?”

  “Uh-huh. His private plane went down today. He’s dead.” Jordan could say nothing; he had no voice and his throat felt thick.

  “Blew me away, too,” Marvin said. “You think it was a coincidence?”

  “No. Not anymore. Maybe a couple hours ago, but not anymore.”

  “Me either.”

  “Marvin, did you ever eat a bowl of cereal as a kid and then, halfway through it, discover that the cereal was full of bugs?”

  Marvin made a disgusted sound, then said, “Plenty of times.”

  “That’s how I feel about this case.”

  After he hung up, Jordan sat on the bed digesting the news about Reverend Hallway. Everything was going wrong; when he’d taken the case, he’d expected the possibility of a little danger—in dealing with cults, that was much wiser—but he hadn’t expected this. Hester Thorne had also predicted Everett Fiske’s death; in the morning, Jordan would call and warn him.

  Lauren came from the bathroom, walking unsteadily, and seated herself in the chair facing him. She looked pale and washed out. “There’s something I should tell you,” she said, her voice weak.

  Jordan listened as she told him what Joan had said, both yesterday in town and that night on the telephone; she quoted some of it word for word.

  “So she knew I was in danger,” Jordan said.

  “I think so.”

  After a few silent moments Jordan said, “Call her back.”

  6.

  The Evergreen Motor Inn was a modestly priced motel, no different from any other in its class; it offered no luxuries and its rooms were meant to be nothing more than brief resting places for weary travelers. They were not meant to be used as meeting places for groups of six. But that is what Room 9 became that night.

  There were only two chairs positioned at a round table, a small footstool and the bed to serve as seats, but they were sufficient. Lauren and Lizzie were given the chairs while Joan sat on the bed with Coogan and Marvin.

  Joan held Coogan’s hand; he was visibly upset. When Jordan called, he’d been angry at first, complaining about the hour and returning to his accusations that Jordan was a reporter. He’d become much more receptive, however, the moment Jordan said he knew something about Coogan’s granddaughter Katie. He’d finally agreed to meet at the Evergreen and to bring as much hot coffee as he could carry.

  He’d brought it in two containers, which stood on the table between Lauren and Lizzie; he’d also brought several large-size Styrofoam cups and each person in the room had one filled with steaming coffee.

  The air in the room was thick with discomfort; Joan and Lauren fidgeted and smoked along with Coogan, whose Camel trembled between his fingers and Lizzie scratched a fingernail back and forth along the edge of the table. Jordan paced rapidly about the room as he spoke, stopping occasionally to perch a foot on the stool and rest an arm on his knee as his fingers twitched. Marvin was the calmest of the lot.

  Jordan began by explaining everyone’s presence there.

  Coogan interrupted: “Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this in the first place? I would’ve kept quiet and given you all the help I could.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Jordan said. “I had to play it safe.”

  “Yeah. Guess so.”

  Then Jordan told them what he’d seen that night.

  The silence that followed was stifling and it lasted for a couple of minutes. When the implications of Jordan’s story sunk in, Lizzie gasped quietly, reached over and took Lauren’s hand and said, “Sweetie, you must be sick to death with worry.”

  Lauren’s lips were trembling; she looked away and concentrated only on not crying.

  Jordan turned to Marvin and said, “That thing, that monster that knocked me around tonight … I think that explains the Bigfoot headline and the underlined references to Hester Thorne’s son, because I think that thing is her son.”

  “It fits Lumley’s description. He says the kid was always way too big for his age and smelled to high heaven.”

  “But this thing … it looked only vaguely human. It was hideous.” An involuntary shiver passed through Jordan as he remembered. “I’ve been, uh … well, I’ve been thinking. Lumley said that Hester went for walks every morning on their honeymoon. Well, let’s say, um … let’s say she got pregnant on the first night. Let’s say she was carrying Benjamin when she went on those walks and, um … and she found that light. I’m telling you, that light is … it’s sick, it’s bad. If she stood in that light while she was pregnant… well, if X-rays can deform a child while it’s in the womb, why couldn’t that light?”

  “But why would she be hiding him?” Marvin asked.

  “Maybe to use him. Remember the phone call from Bolton? He made references to a monster. Maybe Hester Thorne’s deformed son is a sort of hit man, an intimidator.”

  Coogan had begun to smoke his cigarette rapidly since Jordan had told of the sacrifice. Now he leaned forward, one knee bobbing nervously, and asked, “Mr. Cross, when you called, you, you said th-that you knew something about Katie. Is that true? I mean … whuh-what do you know?”

  Jordan sat on the edge of the dressing table, running fingers through his hair as he frowned. He looked indecisive, pained, and it was a while before he replied.

  “There’s no good way to put this,” he said quietly. “The child they sacrificed was a little girl named Katie Coogan.”

  Coogan stared at him through thick glasses for a long time, then let his head hang as his shoulders began to jerk up and down. “What’d she do?” he sobbed. “What’d she do with them babies? Why?” He took his glasses off and scrubbed his face.

  Joan put an arm around his shoulders and hugged him, tossing an icy accusatory glance at Jordan.

  “I’m very sorry,” Jordan said.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Joan said, barely keeping her voice level. “You should’ve stayed home and kept your nose out of this.” Then, in a heated whisper: “Look what you’ve done!”

  Jordan got off the dressing table and walked over to her. “What I’ve done? I just told him about it is all. He would’ve found out sooner or later.”

  “No he—” She stopped suddenly and turned away from him.

  “I think now would be a good time for you to tell us what you know, Miss Maher.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I mean, tell us what you know about the Alliance. About your experience with them.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “You used to be a member.”

  Joan turned her icy glare to Lauren.

  “Please,” Lauren said. “Please help us. My little boy is in there. You had a daughter, you must have some idea how I feel.”

  Coogan
fought to regain composure; he sat up, wiped his red eyes and sniffed, then put his glasses back on and turned to Joan. “You know something about this?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “You’ve gotta talk about it, honey. You’ve got to. If they’re … if they’re doing things like that—” His voice cracked, “—to them kids … oh dear Jesus, I’m … I …” He stood, staggered toward the bathroom and fell heavily against the wall.

  “Coogan!” Joan shouted, rushing to his side.

  “No, no. I’m okay. Just going to the bathroom. You talk to those folks, okay, honey? For me?” He pushed away from the wall, went into the bathroom and began washing his face.

  “Okay,” she said, her back to the others. She sat on the bed, got one of Coogan’s Camels and lit up. “Okay. I’ve been telling people for a long time that my little girl died of cancer. That’s not true. In fact, I’ve been telling people a lot of things that aren’t true, mostly because I don’t think they’ll understand the way I’ve handled the truth. They’ll say I’m cold and unfeeling, a monster. But I’m not. I’m really not.”

  The others exchanged glances during the long silence that followed until Lauren whispered, “What really happened to your daughter?”

  “Well, after my divorce, Lisa and I—that’s my daughter’s name—were both a mess. We’d been through a lot of abuse. Then we got another kind of abuse from my family because my husband had put up such a good front, no one realized how cruel he was to us and when I left him they thought I had no good reason, and that’s something a good young Catholic woman just doesn’t do. So, over time, I got involved in the Alliance.”

  “How?” Lizzie asked.

  “The same way a lot of people do, I suppose. I needed something, and a friend of mine knew someone whose brother … something like that. I read the literature, went to the seminars, listened to the tapes, and finally quit my job, came to Grover and gave them everything I had … which wasn’t much. Over time, they squeeze more from you if they think you’ve got it, but I didn’t.”

  “That’s what they’ve been doing to my daughter,” Coogan said, coming out of the bathroom scrubbing his neck with a towel.