by Gary Braver
“We still have to analyze them,” said Dr. Stern at his computer. “But the secretions show that you had a pleasurable experience, unlike the last time.”
“If it’s okay with you,” Luria said, “we’d like to do another run this Friday if that’s good for you.”
He still felt a dull jab of anxiety but agreed. But this time it wasn’t the thousand-dollar fee. He felt an agonizing yearning to get back to the flats with his dad.
42
Warren Gladstone loved the Lord. He loved the Lord with all his heart and soul and mind. He loved the Lord more than anything else in his life, because he knew that God loved him. And with God’s love all things were possible.
Warren had asked the Lord God for water, and the Lord God gave him a river. He’d asked the Lord God for light, and the Lord God gave him the sun. He’d asked the Lord God for a flower, and the Lord God gave him a garden. He’d asked the Lord God to show him the way to defeat the enemy of atheistic science, and the Lord brought him this video.
“Who is he?”
“His name is Zachary Kashian,” Elizabeth said. “He’s a grad student at Northeastern University here in town.”
“Well, this certainly beats a bunch of drug addicts and illegals.”
“We had to start somewhere,” Elizabeth Luria said.
“Except they found hell instead of paradise.”
They met in an elegant suite on the tenth floor of the Taj Boston at the corner of Arlington and Newbury. Because of the commanding view, this was Warren’s favorite venue for their meetings where Elizabeth and Morris Stern would apprise him of their progress. For too long, progress had been an overstatement, with mediocre results at best, sometimes outrageous failures such as the mental impairment or death of test subjects. Some committed suicide, others suffered relapses of suspension because of excessive dosages of tetrodotoxin. Only in the last few months had true progress been made, and Elizabeth had called this meeting to recap the turnaround.
“So, tell me what I’m looking at.” Stern and Byron Cates had brought laptops.
“We’re looking at images from the functional MRI machine whose resolution power is unlike any other on the planet, thanks to your generosity, Reverend.”
Warren cringed whenever Morris Stern addressed him as Reverend, because all he heard was sarcasm. Stern was a hard-nosed scientist whose expertise alone qualified him for the project. He held no spiritual beliefs: He lived in a universe where nothing was sacred. He had been heard saying that religion was the enemy of free thinking and more about death than peace. He had once claimed that all religious conflict reduced to “My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend.” His antireligious stance was rooted in his secular Jewish upbringing. So, having him run the diagnostics was like hiring a blind man to invent a better light bulb. But he knew that Stern would soon prove himself dead wrong and end up singing “Amazing Grace.” Warren lived for that moment.
Stern brought up images on the two separate monitors. “The left shows interaxonal activity from Zack’s brain while in suspension. On the right are brain images of others during flatline. You can see the clear differences.” He scrolled through several different images. “Each of these subjects was flatlined. When we woke them, they claimed to have no NDEs.”
“You’re saying that none of the others had near-death experiences?”
“Correct,” Elizabeth said. “This one is special. Very. His brain electricity is extraordinary.” She nodded for Morris Stern to continue.
“The first time we put him under, he claimed to have no discrete NDE.” Stern moved the mouse, and a video image of the MRI of Zack Kashian’s brain appeared with moving blotches. “A few days later, we put him under again, and you can see the different patterns move from flatlined inactivity to a full OBE. Whatever was going on, his mind appeared to be functioning independently from his brain. Of course, we have to do more work with him before we can draw any conclusions.”
Warren nodded. The godless bastard wouldn’t give an inch. He looked to Elizabeth for a more enlightened interpretation.
“Warren, what we can tell you is all good news. Zack has had three different experiences while in suspension. And the last—his most coherent yet—appears to indicate the presence of another mind—one independent of his own. It’s only in scraps of exterior data, and we still need to run more analyses. But it’s the first time we’ve seen anything approaching something like an external sentience.”
“Hal-le-lu-jah!” Warren said, drawing out the syllables with glee.
“Yes, hallelujah,” Elizabeth said as if taking an oath. “At this stage, he still doesn’t have clear recollections of his NDEs, but the diagnostics indicate great intensity.”
“And we still have a lot of computations to do before drawing any conclusion.” It was Stern, muttering to nobody in particular.
Warren disregarded him like a gnat and glared at the colored mottlings imposed on the schematic of Zack Kashian’s brain. “This fellow may be a godsend … literally.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “He’s got the most active God lobe we’ve ever seen. Last week, he positively identified a root beer logo hidden from view. Then he had two more NDEs that he couldn’t recall but which showed high activity. What distinguished the last one was the emotional profile. His bloodwork showed secretions of chemicals associated with fear followed by serotonin tranquillity.”
“Dare I suggest that he crossed over to heaven?” Warren could see Stern rub his nose in disdain at the suggestion. The man was a godless fool, locked in his own steel-clad tunnel with the cold light of reason burning at one end, a sealed tomb at the other.
“A lovely thought,” Elizabeth said, “and maybe so. But he reported none of the classic experiences: no tunnel, bright lights, no sense of tranquillity. Just playing ball with his father.”
“And his father is dead, correct?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
“So maybe he was interacting with his father’s spirit.”
Before she could respond, Stern cut in. “Or maybe a flash dream just before he woke up.”
Warren nearly spat at Stern.
“We still have more tests to run before we can draw conclusions,” Elizabeth said.
“The point is,” Stern continued, “we haven’t got enough data to determine if sensing a dead loved one is a so-called spiritual experience or long-term memory rising from stimulation of the temporal lobe—the more likely case.”
“You don’t give an inch, do you?”
“I would if I saw the evidence.”
“It’s still very encouraging,” Elizabeth said, trying to end the scrapping.
Warren nodded. “Okay, so what do we know about him?”
“He needs the money.”
“That hardly distinguishes him,” Warren said.
“No, but his father abandoned him and his mother when he was about ten, and he claims to have sensed his presence in the booth test. He hasn’t said it in so many words, but I think he wants to make contact.”
“Don’t we all,” Warren said.
“She means he wants contact with his biological father,” said Stern.
“We would all do well to seek our Heavenly Father, you included,” Warren said. Then he turned to Elizabeth. “So, what’s the next step?”
“To suspend him again. We’ve scheduled him for this Friday.”
“I’d like to meet this young man.” Warren checked his watch. He had a meeting with his accountant in an hour. But there was something in Elizabeth’s face.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” she said, “but we lost another of our colleagues, Roger Devereux. He and his wife, Ruth, were found shot to death—a case of a murder-suicide, according to the police.”
“Good God. How horrible!”
“Yes. We didn’t know of any problems,” Elizabeth said.
“Roger was a good man,” Stern interjected. “He helped design the imaging software. His wife was also a
neurologist who worked with him. It’s a terrible loss.”
“The police have no motive so far. We don’t know what went wrong,” Elizabeth said.
“That’s the third person associated with the project who’s died in the last month.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Although he financed the project and met regularly with the principals, Warren didn’t know others whose work on the project had been contracted for specific tasks. And only the principals and a couple of technicians knew the big picture. It was their way of maintaining security until they had conclusive evidence that he could broadcast to the world. “Could be an unfortunate coincidence,” Warren said. “But you can still carry on without him, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Stern said. “Sarah Wyman is very competent.”
“The other possibility is that these deaths are the result of foul play,” Warren said.
“Foul play? Tom Pomeroy died of a heart attack, and LeAnn Cola from a gas leak.”
“Yes, but those could have been cleverly staged, like this one.”
“But why?”
“Warnings for us to desist.”
“But who would do that?”
“I’m not sure,” Warren said. “But there are enough fundamentalist crazies out there who oppose what we’re doing.” Like every televangelist, he received an occasional nasty letter, telephone call, and e-mail mostly from unenlightened oafs who complained that they made contributions and still had miserable lives. But ever since Warren had begun broadcasting his Day of Jubilation message, he had received scathing responses suggesting an awareness of their research. Possibly some had drawn conclusions from Warren’s online exhortations that Christians embrace science, not fear it; that while atheists look at the rational universe and see accident, the enlightened look at the universe and see the handiwork of a rational Creator. Maybe someone had connected the appeals to his NDE books. “Just in case, I think we should take every precaution. I need not remind you how much is at stake.”
“We have cameras all over the compound. And no one can get in without IDs.”
“Then it might be time for a security service—armed guards, whatever.”
“Okay.”
“If these deaths are deliberate warnings,” Stern said, “it might be wise to back off on the broadcasts. Sending out more sermons about the Day of Jubilation might only fuel the fire.”
Warren looked at Stern, wondering if the man was a wolf in lamb’s clothing. He pretended to be a Jewish rationalist, but he could be one of those Opus Dei or Fraternity of Jesus loonies who had posted threatening, scathing blogs against his NDE writings. The real question was how they knew. “That probably makes sense. When we reach our goal, we’ll come out in full force.”
“In the meantime, we’ll look into security guards,” Elizabeth said.
“Good,” Warren said, and he could see Elizabeth begin to fret.
“Of course,” she said, “that means we’ll need more resources.”
“You’re as subtle as a train wreck, Elizabeth. Send me a bill. In return, I want to know who leaked.”
43
Zack was again back on that beach, but the tide was up, the air was cold, and fog was closing in. Also, the perspective was wrong. Instead of crossing the sandbar, he was looking down from a set of wooden stairs at the far end of the beach and climbing to the cliff top. He knew the area, but the stairs seemed much higher than he remembered. And the beach appeared to stretch forever. Somewhere in the distance was their rental cottage, but he couldn’t make it out. And farther down was the vague impression of the canal. Through the mist, he could hear the muffled groan of the foghorn and see the blinking red eye of the channel marker. Just below, the bay spread into the mist like a sheet of rippled iron.
“Almost there.”
He looked up. His father. He was maybe ten steps ahead of him, climbing to the top. “Dad, wait.”
But his father kept climbing without looking back. “This way.”
Zack’s legs were tired, but he had to keep up because his father had to tell him something. “Dad, slow down.”
But his father didn’t seem to hear him. Or maybe it was the sea breeze in his ears. Winded, Zack fought the heaviness in his legs and pushed on. When he looked up again, the top was only a dozen stairs away. But something was different. His father’s clothes had changed from the swimming trunks and bare back to a brown robe. Where did that come from?
Stranger still, the top was not a clearing with ocean-view homes like he remembered of the Manomet cliffs, but a thick forest. His father’s head was covered with a pointed hood, giving him a disturbing appearance. He turned, but his face was lost in shadows. “This way.” And he cut into the trees.
Zack didn’t actually hear his father’s voice, only in his head. But he was out of breath from the long climb and stopped for a moment. “Wait up.”
But his father continued into the dark thicket.
“Dad, wait, I’m going to lose you.” Panting, he stumbled after him, trying not to lose the figure, trying not to get his feet snagged in the underbrush. “Dad, don’t leave me.”
But his father continued fading into the woods.
“Dad? It’s me, Zack.”
The brown figure disappeared behind trees, then emerged again, moving deeper. With a shock, Zack wondered if his father wasn’t hearing him on purpose. That he didn’t want to tell him something but was trying to lose him. “I’m your son, too!” Suddenly he was filled with hot anger. They killed Jake and left his father a loveless shell of a man. “Why won’t you wait for me?”
He moved as best he could over fallen branches and tree stumps, trying to keep up, not knowing where they were or how these endless woods got up on the Manomet cliffs, and where all the fancy houses went. He kept losing sight of the figure that cut soundlessly through the trees.
Several times Zack called, but his father neither stopped nor called back. And horror filled Zack that he’d never catch up or find his way out of the woods as the sky darkened.
Then Zack lost his father for good. He stopped, hearing nothing but his own panting. No birds or insect sounds. Nothing but the stirring of the wind through the treetops.
For a long moment he stood there, hugging himself against the chilled air.
Suddenly a large winged bird swooped overhead from its perch and sliced through the trees. Some kind of hawk. Zack followed it to a small clearing, where he saw the hooded figure. He was standing motionless, his face lost in opaque shadow, his arms folded into the sleeves. Behind him was a large granite outcropping.
“Dad?”
“How you doing?”
“What?”
“How you feeling?”
Zack squinted at the bright lights of the MRI lab. Sarah, talking from a muffled distance. He tried to sit up, but his head thudded painfully.
“Don’t move until the sedative wears off a little,” she said, peeling the contacts off his chest. At nearby computer terminals sat Drs. Stern and Cates.
“Welcome back.” Dr. Luria’s face appeared above him. Behind her was a videocamera on a tripod, recording everything.
After a few moments, his head cleared and she began asking him the usual questions to test his awareness—his name, where he was. He answered them to their satisfaction.
Then she said, “We recorded some neuroactivity while you were under. Do you remember any of it?”
“I was on a wooden staircase.” He wanted to get it on record while it was still fresh in his mind.
“Did you recognize the locale?”
“Sagamore Beach. The set of stairs at the end leading up to the Manomet cliffs.”
“Were you alone?” Luria asked.
“No. My father was there. He was ahead of me, climbing.” Sarah finished removing the contacts and brushed his hair out of his eyes. He liked the feel of her warm hand. “Then it all changed.”
“Changed? How so?”
“The top of the cliff was all wood
s—thick trees and scrub.” And as best he could, he described the area.
“Did you recognize it?”
“No, just thick woods. But there aren’t any woods like that on the cliffs.”
“So it wasn’t a place you recognized.”
“I don’t know, but it’s not the cliff.”
“Did it feel like an out-of-the-body experience?”
“No, from my own perspective. But it didn’t feel like a dream, you know—things happening in fragments, no timeline. It felt real, like I was in those woods.”
“Following your father.”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No, but I think he wanted me to follow him.”
“How do you know?” Luria asked.
“I don’t know how I know. Just a feeling.” Then Zack turned to Dr. Stern, who was at his computer terminal listening to him intently. “Was it a real NDE?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Stern said. “There was activity in the temporal and parietal lobes, suggesting stimulation from outside.”
“So it’s an NDE? Not a flash dream thing?”
“At this point, it looks as if you weren’t dreaming,” Dr. Luria said. “The dream centers of your brain were dormant, yet there were electrical stimuli that appear to have come from outside your brain.”
“I beg to differ,” said Dr. Stern. “But it could still be a flash dream just as you woke up. Most of the activity takes place at the very end of your suspension.”
Zack could see Luria bristle at Stern. “We’ll have to do another run.”
“Another suspension?” Zack asked.
“Yes. But some other time. It takes twenty-four hours for the sedative to work itself out of your system. Would you be willing in a couple of days?”
If there was anything to the narrative flow of these visions, they were getting darker. He could feel his hesitation, in spite of another $1,000. “I guess.”
“Good. Let us do the analysis, then we’ll call.”