"Part of what?"
Jeff was too agitated to see what Karen saw. As she listened to her patient, observed his unfamiliar mannerisms and odd speech patterns, she knew something extraordinary had occurred. Whatever it was had been powerful enough to influence Alton's behavior quite dramatically. He was more than simply tired, he was under the influence of something. When he spoke it was as if he were in some kind of trance. Was it drug-induced? Or a spontaneous flashback to the hypnotic state? She just couldn't judge. She had to learn more. A telling look from Father Sullivan said he could see it, too.
"Hold on, Jeff," the priest said. "Let Mr. Barnes tell his story."
"Hold on nothing! If Casey's up there with McCurdy, I'm going. You can't expect me to sit around here and—"
As Jeff rose and started to move toward the door, Alton jumped up as if he were on springs. "I can't let you do that, Jeffrey. Not yet."
Jeff started to detour around him. "Christ, Al, that son of a bitch kidnapped my daughter—"
Before Jeff took another step, Alton's right arm leapt with the force of a pneumatic hammer. His fist connected with the side of Jeff's head, and Jeff went down.
Karen screamed, "Jeff!" as Sullivan stepped between her and Alton. She grabbed the priest's arm, cowering behind him in terror and surprise. What this kindhearted man had done was completely out of character.
Alton's eyes darted back and forth in manic confusion. "I . . . I'm sorry," he said, looking at the unconscious man at his feet. "I . . . I didn't mean . . . I don't know what—"
"Please, just sit down, Mr. Barnes. Please." Sullivan spoke with calm authority.
Again Al returned to the sofa. "I never meant . . ."
"I know," Sullivan said. "Please, just take a deep breath and try to relax."
Karen knelt to examine Jeff. His pulse was fine. He was breathing normally. When she spoke, he groaned and started to come around.
She looked up at Alton. His sad eyes showed deep concern. His lower lip trembled. "Jeffrey, I'm sorry. I don't know what come over me."
Karen helped Jeff sit up. He appeared dizzy and disoriented. He shook his head, wincing in pain.
Alton's foot tapped, his hand massaged his thigh, his gaze flitted around the room. His tanned skin had paled to a sickly white. "I never done nothin' like that before. Can't tell you how sorry I am, how ashamed. . . ."
"Jeff's okay, Mr. Barnes," Karen soothed. "We know you didn't mean it. You're tired. Upset. We're all jumpy. This has been a horrible day for everybody."
"Can't understand what come over me. . . ."
"Mr. Barnes." Father Sullivan spoke in calm, steady tones. "You said you had come here to tell us something. You said you'd come here to explain . . ."
"Yessir." Alton drew his palm across his mouth. "What I come to say is it ain't chance and it ain't coincidence that brung us here tonight. All of it, every step of the way, was worked out a long, long time ago. Each of us is part of a plan, part of a design. We each got a role to play in the change that's comin'.
"Stu Dubois, he always tried to make a God-fearin' man of me, same as he was. Now I understand; ol' Stu was right all the time. Jes' tonight I got me a little glimpse of how the pieces fit together, how the whole world and every one of us in it is like a great big piece of machinery. It all fits together snug as can be. I seen it. I seen it all at once. An' now I understand it. Pretty quick, you'll see it, too. Ain't that right. Father?"
Sullivan reacted with a start. "Yes, perhaps it is." He cleared his throat. "I believe each of us has a role in God's plan. Is that what you mean?"
"Yep. And you believe in miracles, too, don't you, Father?" Karen could see Alton wasn't baiting the priest. He was talking to him as if they shared some secret understanding.
"Yes," Sullivan hesitated, "but the Church is pretty conservative about what we'll call a miracle. We believe they're possible, we believe they happen, but only by the will of God."
"Then you ain't gonna be as surprised as I was to learn what's goin' on right now."
"And this is what you've come here to tell us?"
"That's right. I'm gonna prepare you. That's my job. Always figgered somethin' big, important like this, would be up to somebody else. Somebody special. A fella who can lead other men. But no sir, it's my job this time. And after I prepare you, then, one at a time, each of us is gonna go up there and go through our change."
Our change? What could he mean? Karen studied the priest, wondering how he was assessing this. His expression didn't offer a clue.
Our change? Alton had sure changed. Had his fear been so great, his terror so deep-rooted? Had she underestimated the extent of his pain? Suddenly this kindly, down-to-earth Vermonter seemed dangerously disturbed. In fact, she thought he should be in a hospital. In just the course of the afternoon and evening, he had lost touch with reality. To some degree, she felt it was her fault. She felt she had failed him.
She was grateful to Father Sullivan for handling the situation; things had progressed well beyond her competence level.
"Our change?" said Sullivan.
"It's what ya call a 'spiritual miracle.' That's what you Cath'lics call 'em, anyways. It's when God comes down and He makes some kinda change in the human spirit and the human mind. Like in the Bible when St. Paul has his change of heart, what ya call his conversion. That's exactly what happened to me. Exactly. I never used to believe. Then I saw. . . ."
"Mr. Barnes, you referred specifically to a spiritual miracle. How many types of miracles are there?"
Sullivan seemed onto something.
"Miracles? Jest five."
"What are the others, do you know?"
"Sure. I guess. There's miracles that happen to things that ain't alive. You know, like one loaf of bread feedin' hundreds of people. Or like some statue bleedin' or cryin', maybe. And a'course there's miracles happenin' to livin' things that ain't human. Like in plagues. You know, locusts, flies, beetles, frogs, stuff like that. And then there's miracles of faith, like what you call the Eucharist. You know, when Jesus shows up in the bread and wine.
"And—you wait and see, now—there's healing-type miracles. Miracles of the human body. Like what happens in them shrines you read about. Sick people get better. Cripples get up and walk. That's all five, ain't it?"
"Yes. Yes, it is." Sullivan looked intensely wrapped up in this strange dialogue. "You sound like you've been to catechism."
Alton smiled shyly.
"How do you know about the classification of miracles, Mr. Barnes?"
"I jes' know."
"You just . . . ?" Sullivan broke concentration to look at Karen. It was a colleague-to-colleague appeal—what's going on here? Help me out, won't you?—but Karen had nothing to offer. She just sat beside Jeff, holding his hand, watching and wondering.
"Mr. Barnes," Sullivan began a new approach, "what are these changes that you say we'll be going through?"
"Oh, they're good ones, don't you worry. Each of us is gonna learn how to help when the time comes. Each of us has been picked. selected. We each have a special something to offer. Like Mr. Chandler's daughter, she's very lucky. She's gonna show the world a miracle of the human body."
Alton smiled at Jeff. "She's gonna get right up and walk, Jeffrey, and there'll be no question about it. You wait and see."
Karen felt Jeff's muscles tense. She massaged his shoulder, encouraging him to be patient.
"So, Al," Jeff sounded falsely calm, "are you saying Casey is still up to Daisy Dubois's house? That Skipp McCurdy is . . . keeping her up there?"
Father Sullivan reacted to the question. His reaction was identical to Karen's. Jeff had said the wrong thing and she knew exactly where it was heading. She strengthened her grip on Jeff's hand, knowing it would do no good.
"She was just the first of us to be summoned," Alton explained patiently. "We'll all have our turn. You'll see."
Jeff made as if to stand up. "There's no point sitting around here waiting to take turns. I'm going up th
ere right now. I'm going to talk to McCurdy."
"No sir." Alton said. His fingers curled into a fist. His arias flexed, his eyes narrowed. Karen pulled on Jeff's arm, making it impossible for him to rise. If he stood up, she knew Alton would hit him again.
She saw Sullivan square off, ready to tackle Mr. Barnes.
Jeff kept his seat.
Karen had been holding her breath. When she breathed again, she was panting. She cleared her throat, everyone looked at her.
"Mr. Barnes?" she said.
He smiled, eyes twinkling merrily as if nothing had happened. "Yes, miss?"
"Has Dr. Sparker put you on any medications you didn't tell me about?"
He shook his head. "Medications? No, miss. I'd've told you. But this ain't comin' from no medication, don't you worry about that. I know it's tough for you to understand right now. But you'll see soon enough. And that's a promise."
Completely delusional.
A drug could have been administered without his knowing it, but that wasn't the whole problem. The way he'd kept reflexing to stop Jeff from leaving suggested something else. Maybe, she thought, maybe it's worth a try.
She stepped directly in front of Alton and, with a finger under his chin, lifted his head so they were looking eye to eye.
"Mr. Barnes?"
"Yes, miss?"
"Are you relaxed?"
"Am I—? Why, yes, sure. . . ."
Without breaking eye contact, she said, "You're much sleepier than the last time, aren't you?"
Alton's eyes closed. His head sagged forward.
Jeff stared at the sleeping man in confusion. "W-what happened?"
"He's in a trance."
"How'd you—"
"Posthypnotic suggestion. When I hypnotized him for the therapy session in my office, I left him with a suggestion that would make it easier to invoke the trance at our next meeting. I figured, why not try it now? 'You're much sleepier than the last time, aren't you,' was my trigger phrase. Thank God, it worked."
"Thank God is right," Sullivan said. "And good thinking, Dr. Bradley."
Jeff still looked confused, "But what made you think—"
"The more I watched him, the more I began to suspect he might be responding to suggestions. Not mine, but somebody's. That's how he was acting, don't you think, Father Sullivan? Especially the way he'd tense up, ready to fight, every time you threatened to leave. It was as if he wasn't supposed to let us go. Then it occurred to me someone else might've used hypnosis on him, too. Luckily, I was the first to put him in a trance. If I hadn't been, I bet he wouldn't have responded this time."
Sullivan looked at the sleeping man. "You're right, Karen, he does act as if someone's been messing with his subconscious. Thanks to you, I think we're going to start getting to the bottom of things now. Would you like to question him, or should I?"
Karen shrugged. "I'm not sure what to ask. I don't have any idea what's going on."
"Join the club." Sullivan thought a moment. "Jeff, is it possible McCurdy and the Academy are involved in any brainwashing or mind manipulation experiments?"
Jeff shook his head. He didn't know. "He keeps talking about that light. It's what he saw in the woods last November. Apparently he saw it again this afternoon."
"Well," Sullivan said, "something powerful sure got to Mr. Barnes. Let's see if we can find out what it was."
In the darkness, parked across the street from the rectory, McCurdy observed the people inside the lighted rooms.
As he watched the house, he saw all things. The great globe of the world, slick with oceans, spinning in infinite space, its island continents dappled with cities, houses, people, animals, vegetation, individual grains of sand, all encased in a delicate membrane of atmosphere. And above, wrapping it again, the Light, its tiny golden beams shining down to each human soul. He saw all existence as an organized system, with everything interconnected.
He saw it all at once. Everything. There was no difference between one thing and another. The mitochondria in living cells converting oxygen to energy; tectonic masses of land moving minutely; interrelated societies changing vastly with each new birth or death. . . .
He visualized the perfect coalescence of myriad independent actions, each easily dismissed as insignificant, random, and unassociated. Some were taking place hundreds of years ago. Some thousands.
Others occurred only moments before.
An African moth flapped its wings; hurricane winds leveled an Indian village. The Maine tide feasted on sandy shore; the earth yawned on Pitcairn Island. An Arab child vanished in Israel. A pterodactyl streaked through the Texas skies.
For McCurdy it all was part of the great, bright, whirling, flowing truth. In his crystal vision, all diverse actions harmonized with elegant precision. He could see an ingenious master plan. No chance, no coincidence, had brought Jeffrey Chandler to the Academy three years ago. It was not some random act of violence that left Jeff's wife dead and his daughter helpless in a wheelchair. Each action was related, each reaction calculated, and McCurdy could see it all perfectly. He could see the ultrafine individual strands that made up the vast, elaborate tapestry of what's real.
He saw Dr. Karen Bradley mindlessly pursuing her profession with a compulsion she had never stopped to analyze or examine. She had no way of knowing she'd been selected to play an intricately choreographed role in the most important drama in the history of the world.
The priest, Father William J. Sullivan, a man of God—who knew nothing about man and less about God—applying his limited intellect and the pretense of his faith, hoping to comprehend that which he could never grasp nor expect to change.
And then there were the disposable people, the soulless ones: Alton Barnes, Lucy Washburn, Jerry Finny, Herbert Gold, Daisy Dubois, Beth Damon, and a billion billion others. They would burn like candles, lighting the pathway to the new day.
McCurdy laughed quietly in the dark vehicle. Staring at the door to the rectory, he knew it would open momentarily. Then the next act in the drama would begin.
Alton Barnes's eyes were open. He glared at the ceiling, cringing from something no one else could see.
Karen and Father Sullivan crowded closely beside the seated man. Jeff had faded into the background early in the hypnosis session.
"It's okay, Mr. Barnes," said Karen, watching him cower from the unseen light. "You're safe and comfortable. You're watching it on a television screen. Nothing can hurt you. Now, you're in the kitchen at the Dubois farmhouse. . . ."
Alton's lips trembled. "It's . . . it's above my head, coming down, coming closer. Oh! It . . . It's passin' right over me like some kinda mouth swallowin' me up! And inside . . . oh, it's dark in here. And there's voices, speakin', whisperin' right into my mind . . .
"Relax, Mr. Barnes. That's right. Now what are the voices saying?" Karen looked at Father Sullivan as she spoke. He shook his head, puzzled. Both moved closer to the seated man.
"Horrible things. Talkin' about horrible things they want to do to me, to hurt me . . . scare me. I try to hold on. I know they can't really hurt me because I'm tied up in a chair, and they're . . . they're just in my head, in my mind, like some kinda bad dream. But somehow—I know I ain't imaginin' it—they're talking' to me from outside. From somewhere far away. But I'm hearin' 'em in my mind. It's like they're tryin' to pull me away. Like somehow they can pull me right out of my body. And I'm scared they really can. If they do, what if I can't hold on? What if I can't get back?"
He gulped a few rapid breaths, his barrel chest heaving and falling. "And one of 'em tells me, this's what happens when you die. You fly out of your body and into this other place. A place that's all around us, but it's . . . different. And all of a sudden, I can see it! I can see that other place! The place beyond the light. And, oh, it's beautiful! There's so much color and shine, and the sky's just as clear as the glass on a pocket watch. And flowers, beautiful flowers like nothin' I ever seen before."
Alton's eyes narrowed; tears sw
elled at their corners. He smiled and his voice softened'. "There's Stuart! He's smilin' and wavin' and he's all sorta glowin' like some kind of angel. 'Stuart!' I says. And he says to me, 'See there, Alton, didn't I tell ya it was gonna be fine? Didn't I promise?' And it is fine. That's the thing, it's jest as fine as can be.
"See, I'd passed right on by them bad ones that wanted to hurt me. And now I'm in— Well, I guess it's what you call Heaven. An' Stuart's tellin' me, 'See there, Alton, ain't It just as pretty as I always tried to tell ya?'
"And he says, 'Now you go on back, but keep listenin' to what I tell ya. 'Cause now you know I ain't lyin' about none of it. An' I'll be right there with ya, jest you wait and see. I'll tell ya what you gotta do every step of the way. It may seem wrong, and it may seem bad. But that's just how it'll seem. 'Cause now you seen where folks come to when they die. You know better'n anyone that none of it's bad or wrong, it's jest the road we gotta take to get from there to here. This here's the new beginnin', and you got yourself a job to do.' That's just what he says to me, 'You got yourself a job to do.'"
Alton Barnes fell silent. For a few moments no one spoke.
"Hal-lu-cin-a-tions?" Sullivan silently mouthed the word.
Karen shrugged. She didn't know. Maybe it was real. Maybe this was what happened when people had a vision. Maybe this was an honest-to-God religious experience?
"Mr. Barnes," she said, "when you came to join us here tonight, you wouldn't let Jeff leave. Why wouldn't you let him leave this house?"
"'Cause his daughter, she's got a job to do, too. So's Jeffrey. Right now they just ain't supposed to be doin' it together."
"I see. Can you tell me about these jobs they have to do?"
"I don't know no more about it than you do, miss. All I know's that each of us has a part to play. Beyond that, we all gotta wait an' see."
"Okay, Mr. Barnes," Karen said as she stood up. "You just rest now. Relax and rest."
Her eyes met those of Father Sullivan. He shook his head as if to say, I don't understand any of it, but it's sad. It's very, very sad.
The room seemed to shake as the grandfather clock began to strike midnight.
The Reality Conspiracy Page 33