Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  … not even of Nathan, who was in the woods once again with several other children, in the middle of another of what Hester called “drills.” Hester taught them that before the New Age began, there would be a time of great upheaval, which would very likely include a war in which the United States would be the target of an invasion, perhaps even a nuclear attack. Food and weapons—knives and spears that would not be dependent on ammunition, would kill silently and had been left at the foot of the crevice to bask in its blue glow for twenty-four hours and “absorb purity,” Hester said—had been hidden in the woods and shelters had been prepared for the children. They were taught to fight and kill in classes held twice daily. Hester told them the responsibility of preserving and upholding the truths taught by Orrin could one day fall on their shoulders and they had to be prepared. In the event of an invasion, they would have to fight and kill the enemy, but if there were a nuclear attack, it would be even worse; people they normally trusted would become desperate for food, so desperate that once there was no more food, those people would try to kill and eat them. Such thoughts terrified Nathan. He’d never heard of such things, not from his parents or books or even television. If that might happen, then of course he wanted to be ready, but he’d always thought it was adults who fought and killed, not children. But if Orrin told Hester and Hester told them, it must be true.

  Grover was quiet and insects hovered in small clouds around the few streetlights.

  And deep in the cave behind the Sleeping Woman Inn, blue light pulsed from the crevice as Benjamin Thorne hunched on a rock in a dark nook within the cave wall where the light could not reach him. It frightened him sometimes, made him see bad things in his head, and he avoided it whenever he could.

  Benjamin sat in the dark, waiting for someone to come give him something to do. Just waiting.

  8.

  By the time Jordan and Marvin returned to the Evergreen Motel, it was almost two a.m. and the others were getting tired. Joan had already dozed off on the bed, drained by the experience of telling her story—her true story—for the first time in years. Coogan would sit in one of the chairs until he began to nod off, then get up and pace, agitated and perspiring, until he finally sat down again, only to repeat the process. Lauren and Lizzie talked endlessly, Lauren mostly to ease the tension brought about by her frayed nerves, Lizzie to calm her.

  “Okay, think you got it?” Marvin asked Jordan as they walked into the room.

  “Yeah.”

  “And remember, as soon as you know or have a good guess as to which phone in the building a line goes to, jot down the number on the dial and some ID for the phone, whether it’s the phone in accounting, or the mailroom, or whatever.”

  “I’ve got it,” Jordan said, closing the door and turning to the others. “So, have you folks got anything?”

  Joan awoke with a start and Coogan leaned forward taking a deep breath, trying to act as though he hadn’t been nodding off.

  “Well,” Lizzie said, standing, “none of us have been able to find anything in this stack of any significance, but—” She picked up the computer printout, “—we’re all pretty intrigued by this. Do you have any idea how old it is?”

  “It’s from last year, probably late in the year,” Jordan said.

  “Would it be possible to get a more recent one? Maybe one that’s more complete?”

  Marvin shrugged. “I brought my computer. I can give it a try. But we’d need a copy of Hester Thorne’s book Masters Among Us, because the password is always—”

  “Yes,” Lizzie said, going to one of her suitcases across the room and removing a paperback book. “I brought a few of Hester’s books from my collection. I thought I might get her to sign them,” she added with a smirk.

  “See, Jordy?” Marvin said. “I told you she’d be able to help us.”

  Jordan rolled his eyes.

  Marvin got his laptop computer, printer and modem from the closet and put them on the bed. Lizzie opened the book to the appendix titled “Index of Masters.”

  “Would you like me to read these to you?” she asked.

  Once he’d turned on the computer, called the number, placed the receiver in the modem and run his fingers over the keyboard a few times as he watched the screen, he said, “Okay, go ahead.”

  She read the names one at a time—names like Ishtar and St. Germain and Love-and-Peace, Joseph and Paul and Lazaris—and he typed them in, nodding for her to go on when a name was rejected, until she read Ramtha.

  “Bingo!” Marvin said. Once his fingers had chattered over the keys again, the list of members appeared on the screen and the printer began to make busy chirping sounds. They waited.

  By the time the printer stopped, Marvin’s hands were already poised over the keyboard to terminate the connection with the Alliance computer. Then he tore the stream of paper away from the printer and said, “Let’s see what we got.”

  They went over the list from top to bottom, taking turns reading the names and information aloud in tired voices.

  Simon Better was no longer listed but there was one entry exactly like his. Walter Oland was listed simply as a withdrawal with no further information or withdrawal date given.

  “What do you think?” Marvin asked Jordan.

  “I don’t know. It could be lots of things. Better left the Alliance sometime last year, probably because they knew it would take a while for him to wiggle his way into Hallway’s camp and get a job as his private pilot.”

  “If it’s even the same Simon Better.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, we don’t know when Walter Oland was withdrawn. He could have been a withdrawal when that other printout was made, but we don’t have all of it. He could also be out there giving a hand to Hester Thorne’s prediction about Edmond Fiske.”

  “Or,” Joan said, “maybe he just pissed them off and they killed him.”

  “He could be a real withdrawal, you know,” Lizzie suggested.

  “Maybe,” Jordan said. “But I’ve got a feeling I’m right.” They continued down the list with Lauren reading the entries aloud until—

  —her voice broke suddenly and she gasped, “Oh, my god.”

  The others leaned forward to see for themselves what had startled her, but she read it aloud anyway, her voice trembling.

  “Schroeder, Mark. Withdrawal. Schroeder, Nathan. Withdrawal.”

  “But he was there.” Jordan said. “He was there tonight. I heard Hester introduce him to the others. Why would he and Nathan be listed as withdrawals?”

  Lauren backed away from them and plopped into a chair, a hand pressed over her mouth. “They’ve killed him,” she murmured into her palm. “My god, they’ve killed my little boy.”

  “Now, you don’t know that,” Lizzie said, going to her side. “B-but then, why does it say—”

  “We don’t know why yet, but we don’t know that they’ve killed him, either. For all we know, that means he’s leaving here. Maybe tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

  The others watched silently as Lauren simply stared at her hands in her lap.

  9.

  Jordan was still awake when early daylight began to ooze across the sky. Lauren slept deeply beside him, her breaths coming in small whispery snores. He’d bought a bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills at the drugstore the day before and she’d taken one before going to bed.

  They had broken up just half an hour after discovering Mark and Nathan Schroeder on the computer printout. They’d agreed to meet in Grover in the morning, then Lizzie had accepted Coogan’s invitation to stay in his spare bedroom and Joan had gone home.

  Jordan hoped they were all sleeping better than he.

  Birds were chattering outside the window and daylight had arrived. Jordan crept out of bed and put on his robe. He looked out the window, paced around the room awhile, then opened the case that contained tele
phone surveillance equipment.

  He knew it was too early for it but, just out of curiosity, he put on the headphones, took Marvin’s small notebook and pencil from the case, flipped a couple of switches on the machine and listened. When he heard nothing, he turned the dial from 1 to 2, then from 2 to 3. He found only silence on every line. There was nothing. He’d been right; it was too early. He doubted anybody was in the building at this hour, and he’d probably—

  —a sound.

  Jordan froze, listened.

  It was a soft electronic warbling, the familiar sound of another telephone ringing at the other end. Someone in the headquarters building was making a call, and judging from the quiet hiss on the line, it was a long-distance call.

  In the middle of the third ring, a male voice said, “Hello?”

  “Hello.” It was Hester; that velvety voice was unmistakable.

  It sounded to Jordan as if she were trying to sound sexy, seductive.

  Then, very respectfully. “Oh … hello.”

  “It’s time,” she said.

  After a long pause: “All right.”

  The connection was cut.

  They’d hung up.

  SIX

  CONFRONTATIONS

  1.

  It was a cloudless day and the early-morning chill wore off quickly in the bright heat of the sun.

  The Lemurian Diner was packed by eight o’clock and people had to stand just inside the doorway and wait for tables. The Garden Terrace, the diner at the other end of town, was doing identical business. Even Pancho’s Cantina, a Mexican restaurant that normally opened at eleven, was serving huevos rancheros and chili omelettes to a full house.

  But by the time Coogan and Lizzie walked down the hill into town, they’d already had breakfast. Coogan had assumed he would be up long before Lizzie—he was used to rising early to open the store and turn on the pumps—but he’d awakened to the smell of eggs cooking and coffee brewing.

  They’d eaten breakfast together, Coogan feeling oddly comfortable with this stranger. She told him about the chapel she ran and they talked about their religious beliefs, and finally, the topic of Coogan’s daughter came up. But he avoided it; it was too early in the morning after a restless night to stir up that pain.

  Coogan called Bobby in early and walked Lizzie down the hill toward Penny Park.

  “We have the same spiritual beliefs, Mr. Coogan,” Lizzie began after a long pause between them as they walked, but he didn’t let her go on.

  “Oh, please, call me Coogan. Everybody does. Sometimes I forget I have a first name and sign my checks that way, but everybody takes them anyway.”

  “Okay, Coogan. We’re both Christians, so you don’t have to feel funny talking about your beliefs with me. So. What do you really think is going on here in Grover? What do you really think of the Alliance?”

  He considered the question for a while, stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I can’t really put my finger on it, Lizzie. I may be a Christian, but I’m not a biblical scholar, so I’m not sure how it all fits in, but … I think it’s evil. There’s something wrong with it, but it’s so deep … it’s almost impossible to see it.”

  She nodded. “Jesus once said that when Satan lies, it’s perfectly natural because he is the Father of Lies. Not the brother of lies or the best friend. The father. He invented them, he’s got the patent. So of course it’s almost impossible to see what’s wrong with the Alliance.”

  “Well … what is it?”

  “In everything your daughter has been taught, what are the two things that come up again and again? You don’t die, you re-embody, you come back as someone else. And in all of those lives you get to live, you never have to worry about answering to some invisible, judgmental god because you are your own god and you judge yourself.”

  “Yep,” Coogan said firmly. “That business has bugged me from the beginning.”

  “It’s the firstborn son of the Father of Lies. He used it to get Eve to eat the fruit in the garden. He told her ‘ye shall not surely die,’ and ‘ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ You won’t really die and you’ll be able to be your own judge, your own god, so you won’t need any other.”

  Coogan slowed his pace as he was struck by a deep chill and his skin suddenly felt too tight on his body. Why hadn’t he seen it before? He’d learned about the original lie in Sunday school when he was a tiny boy; why hadn’t he made the connection?

  He stopped on the sidewalk and faced her. “Then … then we’re really sticking our fist into a hornet’s nest. I mean, I knew something was wrong with it, I knew it was bad, but … but this … what with human sacrifice and … well, this is …”

  “You look afraid, Coogan. Don’t do that. We have to have faith. God’s not going to abandon us. Somewhere out there, He’s cheering this conversation on. But, of course, it won’t be easy. Our friends might think we’re a little crazy. Marvin and Mr. Cross and the ladies. But we can’t just sit back and shut up because we’re afraid of a little criticism, can we?” She put an arm around him good-naturedly and they continued walking. “We need them and they need us. And with prayers and patience, we’ll get along. I’ve been looking forward to this for some time. Hester Thorne probably hasn’t thought about me once since she was a little girl. But I’ve been thinking about her a lot over the years. In fact—” She nodded toward the park up ahead, which was filled with people right out to the edge of the curbs, “—she might be over there right now. Shall we? This should be fun.”

  Applause broke out in the crowd now and then, and as they got closer, they could hear a woman’s voice speaking through a sound system. It wasn’t Hester.

  “Sounds like the actress,” Coogan said.

  “Ah, yes. Sheila I’m-a-star-therefore-I’m-right-Bennet.”

  Coogan was right. Sheila Bennet stood in the gazebo and had the microphones to herself and she was fielding questions from the press. The reporters were gathered at her feet with microphones held out and cameras aimed. Behind them and all through the park stood fans and onlookers. Seated in a chair behind the actress, wearing her usual flowing white silk suit, Hester Thorne listened to her friend respond to the reporters’ questions and smiled gently at the surrounding crowd.

  Once they’d shouldered their way through the crowd until they were standing just behind the reporters, Coogan glanced at Lizzie. She was staring up at Hester with a smile very similar to the one on Hester’s face. After a few minutes had passed, Hester began to squirm in her chair and turned her eyes from Sheila Bennet to the people directly in front of the gazebo. She glanced over the heads of the reporters until her eyes met Lizzie’s.

  Coogan felt that chill again when he saw some of the gentleness crumble away from Hester’s face. Her eyebrows curled downward and her eyes narrowed briefly to slits.

  Lizzie’s expression remained the same: gentle, relaxed and smiling.

  Hester’s eyes seemed to hold as much confusion as suspicion. It’s been a long time, Coogan thought. She doesn’t recognize her yet.

  The sounds around him—Sheila Bennet’s voice and the questioning reporters competing to be heard—faded away as Coogan watched the two women stare at one another, their eyes locked in a silent confrontation that went unnoticed by the crowd, and then—

  —applause broke out suddenly and Coogan flinched as his surroundings rushed in on him. Sheila Bennet backed away from the microphone, smiling and bowing slightly and Hester Thorne stepped in her place as the applause died down.

  “I hope you’ll all join us,” she said, “at the Sleeping Woman Inn, where we’re having a pancake breakfast. We’ll be passing out programs listing all the activities taking place in the next few days and there will be a few words from Orrin. It’s going on right now, it’s absolutely free and I hope you’ll all come! Thank you.”

  The crowd began to disperse immediately.
Hester leaned toward Sheila Bennet, said something in her ear and left the gazebo, smiling as she headed toward them with two of her white-suited men not far behind.

  Hester dodged reporters and cameramen as they gathered their equipment. She moved at a casual pace, smiling as she shouldered her way through and around small groups of people talking and laughing; she nodded to those who greeted her, but never took her eyes from the tall heavyset woman in the yellow cotton sun dress.

  She was accustomed to seeing familiar faces in an audience and they never bothered her, not even the ones whose names she couldn’t remember. But there was something about this woman … about the way she stared at Hester … the odd smile she wore … something familiar. She had no idea of what importance the woman could possibly be—she looked like someone who went to garage sales every weekend—but something about her was important enough for Hester’s inner voice to speak up and tell her to go see the woman … but with caution.

  Like everyone else, Hester had a small voice in her mind, the voice that chided, argued, cajoled, mocked and cautioned. It was her conscience, her own voice and it was with her always. But like everyone else, she had another inner voice. It was softer, it was male, and it was the voice she listened to and followed, even if it disagreed with her own … but that almost never happened anymore. The voice was Orrin’s.

  “Excuse me,” she said pleasantly as she approached the woman, glancing briefly at the familiar old man who stood beside her, “but don’t I know you?”

  Hester resisted the urge to recoil when the woman’s smile grew, although she wasn’t sure why she felt that way.

  “It’s been a long time, Hester,” the woman said as she offered her hand to shake. “I’m Lizzie. Lizzie Dayton? From school?”

  Hester tilted her head back slowly, lips parted in their cautious smile, as she eyed Lizzie. Yes, the name was vaguely familiar, but—

  She is an agent of the enemy, the voice inside her whispered. She has the smile and the confidence of the Great Lie and she has come to defame you and do damage to the truth.