“Come on,” she said. “Let’s follow them.”
Lucky led the way down the stairs and he stopped at the bottom landing door and listened. He could hear nothing. He turned the handle and then the earth started to shake. That ripping noise he heard earlier started up and then the door was torn from his grasp. Elise stood on the other side with a pistol in her hand. Lucky could see Bart and Benjamin standing just outside the Plexiglas chamber where that unexplained void stood stark and open. Elise smiled at them.
“We were just looking for you.”
~ ~ ~
Jake waited with Peter as the first of the team approached the front door. Jake wasn’t sure how they operated but it seemed they were fearless. When the point man could not open the lock, (Jake could see it was a biometric lock from where he crouched) the second man applied some kind of compound to the lock mechanism and then pulled back. A small explosion popped in the quiet of the night and the door swung open. Two of the men swept in. A larger explosion followed and then chaos.
“Shit!” Peter said, and looked to Jake. “Stay here!” He dashed off.
Jake watched one of the men who had entered the house stagger out of the door and collapse on the step just as Peter reached him. He knelt down, examined the man, and then stood, his sub-machine gun at the ready. The other man did not emerge. Peter signaled others from the team and they approached the door cautiously, first one, then the other entering. Jake could hear shouts of ‘Clear!’ and then the rest of the team entered followed by Peter. Jake wondered if he was to follow.
Bodey and Winslow came running over in a crouch and stopped next to him.
“I don’t think that guy is alive,” Bodey said, pointing to the man on the stoop.
“Jake, this is bad,” Winslow said, her eyes darting all around her. The local sheriff and his deputies looked confused too, not sure whether to help or keep their distance.
“Whatever happens, you two stay here,” Jake said, and stood.
“Where the hell are you going?” Bodey said grabbing his arm.
“I’m following Smith. Like I’m supposed to.” This sounded lame even to Jake.
“Peter would not want you in there and you know it. You need to wait until it’s clear.”
Jake shook his head and before Bodey could stop him, he ran off to the house. Another explosion rocked the night just as Jake reached the door and he stumbled into the frame, trying to regain his balance. Gunfire erupted and then stopped, suddenly, as “Cease fire!” was shouted from somewhere within. Jake took a deep breath and stepped into the house.
Smoke and dust hung in the entranceway and Jake could see another man lying inside. He was bloody and torn and did not move. Jake was sure the man was dead. Shouts could be heard further inside the house, but no one moved in the immediate area around Jake. Suddenly, somebody ran through the door from the outside and tumbled into Jake, knocking him down. Bodey looked wild eyed at the dead man but held his ground. Jake pointed frantically back outside but Bodey shook his head. He wasn’t leaving.
Jake turned and surveyed the room. A staircase was just to the right and Jake could hear footsteps from above as someone quickly searched the upstairs. The kitchen lay directly in front of them and a door leading to a dark void was slowly swinging on its hinges. Jake pointed toward it and Bodey nodded.
They moved through the kitchen with Jake leading the way and more shouts found their way up from what appeared to be a basement. Jake peered down into the dark and then took a step into the doorway. A vibration started in his feet and grew stronger as shouts grew louder from below. A low growl emanated from beneath them and grew to a huge ripping roar as Jake looked at Bodey and they both knew what was happening. They bolted down three flights of stairs and found themselves behind six armed men and Peter as they attempted to breach the door. Peter saw them and shouted, “Jake! Upstairs! Now!”
Jake shook his head and took cover behind the stairwell as one of the men applied some type of plastic explosive to this door mechanism as well. Bodey came over and crouched down next to him. Jake remembered what happened at the front door and he hoped they were far enough away from any booby-trap that may be sprung. The ‘Pop!’ as the charge blew was louder inside the small stairwell, but the door swung open to a maelstrom of sound and debris. The men rushed in and Jake followed.
The men stood inside the moderate sized room, their mouths hanging open not sure what to do next as they stared at the ten foot dimensional rip gaping wide in the center of a Plexiglas chamber. The opening was holding, though there was no one in the chair, or in the lab. Peter seemed to be the only one not in shock besides Jake and Bodey. Jake ran to the console area with Bodey following close behind, looked over the equipment assessing the layout, and started flipping switches while Bodey worked at the computer console. Peter joined them and shouted over the noise, “Why is it still open?”
“I’m not sure,” Jake shouted. “We’re trying to shut it down.”
Peter watched Jake and Bodey work on the equipment but the opening remained. Jake shrugged his shoulders and went to Bodey’s side. “Can we reboot the system? Will that shut it down?”
“The system is not running,” Bodey said. “I’m booting it now. They must have discovered some way to keep the rip open. I wouldn’t think that would be possible without a catalyst or something.”
“You mean without the NDE to augment it?”
Bodey nodded. “I don’t know if we can close it.”
The noise of the opening seemed to be settling down and the room began to quiet, yet the opening remained just as large as before but with a ripple coursing periodically across its surface. Almost as if there was a kind of membrane over it, keeping it from spilling over.
Jake went and stood in the doorway to the chamber and stared into the void. It was pulsing a dull orange color but that was all he could see. Peter sent some of the men through another door, but they returned empty handed and reported the rooms clear. The men from upstairs joined the group here in the basement and Jake could tell they had found no one either. The house was empty. Jake surmised all of this from their actions more than from their words and as he stood alone at the entrance to the chamber, he knew what had happened.
Peter walked over and stood next to him. “My men say that my other two operatives were here also but there is no sign of them now. I don’t want to guess at what happened, but it seems fairly obvious, Jake. My question is how?”
“They are part of it now,” Jake said, staring into the void as if it held all the answers.
“What are they part of?” Peter asked.
“They cannot be stopped. They will not die. The balance has been disrupted and the door has swung open to the wrong side.”
“You’re not making sense,” Peter grabbed him and shook him out of his trance. “Why is this still open and how can we shut it down?”
Jake looked into Peter’s eyes. “I’ll have to stop it.” Jake turned and walked toward the void. He could hear it now as he got closer. That voice. Oily and stealthy. Whispering in his ear. Telling him it was futile. That he could not stop it. The voice did not tell the truth and Jake knew that. He knew it was lying. His ear was tingling. He also knew that the voice belonged to the void. It belonged there and Jake did not. Jake stepped into the opening and it closed behind him with a thundering clap.
Chapter 32
Maddy sat in the lab and tried to concentrate on the puzzle. She had been staring at the same clue for twenty minutes. Eight across. She read the clue over again and it still didn’t seem to register.
She should be tired. She should be exhausted. But she was neither. She was wide awake and nothing was going to soothe her soul. Nothing except hearing from Jake.
After she had talked with him around 2:00 a.m., she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone wrong. She expected to hear from him again and when she hadn’t, she called her mom, packed the kids up in the middle of the night, forwarded the phone to her cell, and drov
e to her parents’ house. She dropped the kids off and headed to the lab where she now sat waiting to hear something or be of some help. Nothing had happened and Jake had not called.
She kept staring at her cell phone, willing it to ring. She would start dialing his number and then stop, unsure whether she was putting him in jeopardy by causing his phone to ring or vibrate. She picked it up again and pushed the familiar numbers, but then set it down without hitting send. She’d just have to wait.
She got up and paced, glancing at the clock again and seeing that two minutes had passed since the last time she looked. It was 6:45 in the morning and her world was on hold. Light was beginning to leak in through the door as dawn broke in Orange Park, but it did not make her feel any better. In fact it made her feel worse. If he was just asleep and had forgotten to call her, she would be pissed at him. She’d tell him she loved him, but then she would lay into him.
A noise behind her startled her and she walked over to the console and stared. The system was booting up and she hadn’t touched it.
Standing in front of the computer, she watched it go through the start-up sequence and then a screen appeared she had never seen before. It loaded a file from somewhere on the network and then it began playing it. Something was not right. She went to the mouse and clicked cancel, but it did not respond. She tried shutting the program down and it gave her an error. The video playing on the screens was one she recognized, but she couldn’t place it. A boy held a pillow and he was crying as he placed it over another younger boy’s face, smothering him.
She pressed the abort button and nothing happened. The system was heating up now and a slight vibration could be felt in the floor. She suddenly remembered who the video belonged to.
“Oh no!” She went to the power panel and began flipping switches but the system remained on. A ripping noise tore through the air and she stood there with her mouth open not understanding how this could be happening. No one was in the chair. No one was having a Near Death Experience. In fact, no one was in here with her at all. It didn’t make sense.
Purple light erupted from the air above the chair in the chamber and the dimensional rip opened with a blast of sound. She ducked reflexively and then slowly stood as the void opened completely from floor to ceiling. It was the biggest one she had seen. A man stepped from within it followed by a woman. They looked dazed as they took in their surroundings. Another man and women were pushed forward out of the opening by a large man with a horribly scarred face. He grabbed them both and held them tight. The woman stumbled and fell but was picked up and held by the scarred man. They all wore gloves.
Then Benjamin Tolaver stepped from the void and she gasped. How?
The first two noticed her in the lab and walked briskly to her.
The man spoke. “You must be Maddy.”
~ ~ ~
Peter reached for Jake as he entered the portal, but was too late. The void collapsed behind him and Peter was thrown back against the wall from the force. It had been like a breath of hot air. Only with claws. One of his men was next to him in a hurry and he helped him to his feet. Bodey ran up. “What’d he do?”
“He’s gone,” Peter said and glanced at the empty space where the void had been and then turned away.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Bodey said and went into the chamber looking around as if he could somehow find Jake hidden under the chair or behind the table. Peter approached his Lieutenant and gave him instructions. “I want this house secured and then an inventory taken. I want the generator shut down and all remaining power severed. I do not want these machines to come back on. The civilians, with the exception of Bodey and Winslow, will not be allowed access. This is under our control now. The sheriff and his men can go home.”
“He won’t like that.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
The Lieutenant nodded and left to perform his job. Winslow entered and went to Bodey. He was trying to explain to her what had happened but she didn’t seem to accept it. Peter’s special cell phone vibrated and he answered it. “Smith.”
“General, we have another instance of an EMP at the Florida Location. It was quite large and lasted over seven minutes. It just went cold again.”
“I expected as much, but you say it is now cold?”
“Yes sir.”
“Were you picking up the EMP here in Jackson Hole as well?”
“Yes sir. It went cold at the same time. Approximately 4 minutes ago.”
About the time Jake entered the void and it shut behind him.
“Any orders sir?”
Peter hesitated. He wasn’t sure what that order would be. If the group that had been manning this lab was in Florida, he would have a hard time catching them this far behind. Peter couldn’t compete with dimensional travel unless they could predict the location of a future jump. “No. Nothing now. I’ll be cleaning up here and determining the next best choice of action shortly. Out.”
Peter went over to Bodey and Winslow who were bent over the computer console looking at data. “The power is going to be cut in a moment,” Peter said. “Any idea what went on here?”
“I need the power to remain on, General,” Bodey said. “I won’t be able to access this system if we have no power.”
“How long do you need? I don’t want some new portal opening up when we don’t expect it. I can give you a little time.”
“I may not need much. I have a theory, I just want to confirm it.”
“What can you tell me? Jake was talking nonsense before he stepped through that hole and I don’t really know if he was coherent or not.”
“What did he say?”
“He said ‘they were a part of it. They cannot die. The door had swung open to the other side.’ Mean anything to you?”
Bodey nodded slowly and pulled up a file. “He mentioned something to me before we tried to shut the power down here. He thought this group had manipulated power of another dimension and basically became immortal.”
“How can that be?”
“I only work here, General. Jake would know all of that. He’s been over there. But I think they made a deal with some force that controls that dimension. A force we might associate with evil. A force I would not want to sell my soul to. Jake hinted at two separate dimensions on the other side, separated by the thinnest membrane. A balance that is kept so one side does not rupture into the other. That’s why Jake was adamant about coming. He felt the balance had been disrupted and the system was at risk of rupturing across dimensions.”
Peter shook his head. “You’re saying there is a good and bad side. A heaven and hell.”
“If you believe that sort of thing, yes,” Bodey said.
“Seems hard to ignore now doesn’t it?”
“It can be explained with science. Quantum physics and all of that…at least some of it can,” Bodey corrected.
“So, where is Jake now and can I assume that the group that was here is now in Orange Park? They used this dark dimension as a kind of time travel?”
“Yes sir. When two portals are open at the same time, you can travel between them instantly. As for Jake, when he entered the portal while it was being held open because of an imbalance, he created balance and the portals closed. At least that’s what I think happened.”
“Did he go to Orange Park too?”
Bodey shook his head slowly. “He’s probably still in there…wherever that is.”
“What makes you think these people are immortal?”
“I didn’t think that. Jake did. And he didn’t explain himself. I haven’t witnessed anything to back that up. As a matter of fact, I’ve only met two of them. A woman and a hideously scarred man. And that was back in Orange Park.”
Peter nodded and turned to go. He stopped and asked one more question. “How are they getting these portals to open at will? Especially remotely. I’m assuming someone had to open the one in Orange Park at the same time.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find now, Genera
l. There should be something here. If I had to guess I would say that they have died already in the past and are somehow able to create the catalyst just from that experience. Or, a worst case scenario is they’ve developed some type of software that can trigger the system into a type of overload. If that is the case, they have a lot more control over that opening than we think.”
Chapter 33
Jake was lost. He knew where he was, even though this place was nowhere, but this nowhere was beyond what his senses could tell him and he floated in a void of despair and loneliness. Nothing existed here. Nothing but him. He was alone with himself in the diffuse red light and nothing moved, talked, or made a sound. It was as if he was the only thing of substance that ever existed. Ever.
He was not hungry and did not eat. He did not sleep because he was not tired, but he also could not track time. It did not exist in here. There was nothing to indicate the passing of it and therefore he did not know if time actually passed or moved at a speed he could not detect.
Maddy seemed to dominate his thoughts and he held onto her vision like a life raft keeping him afloat in a sea of nothingness. Sometimes he felt he could see every curve of her face, every freckle on her skin and every strand of her hair and other times he could not even remember what she looked like. He was lost and had no way to find his way home.
When he stepped through the portal into the darkness, he saw a brief bright light at a great distance. He knew it to be the other opening. But when he stepped toward it, the portal shut behind him and the one in the distance closed with it, shrouding him in a darkness that was so deep he lost all sense of direction. Slowly, at least he thought it happened slowly, though there was no way to tell, a dim red glow began to show itself and finally grew to a diffuse light that let him see his hands and feet. At least he still had a body.
The voice had remained suspiciously quiet. He had heard it whispering to him as he stood on the threshold of the void. It spoke to him and he closed his mind to it, though it leaked through anyway. He knew it would be back. It was just a matter of time.
Near Sighted (A Jake Townsend Science Fiction, Action and Adventure, Thriller Series Book 2) Page 20