Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

you and Brendan met, you subconsciously recognized the power in each

  other. On a deep level, you were both reminded of what happened to you

  that July night, the thing you've been forced to forget. And both of

  you wanted to blast those memories into view. So unwittingly you

  generated that weird light, which was a re-creation of the way the moon

  changed from white to red on the night of July 6. It was your

  subconscious trying to jolt the memory through the block."

  Ginger could see that their minds were spinning with all these odd

  ideas, and she wanted to keep them unsettled a while longer, because

  when they were unsettled they were more likely to absorb what she was

  saying. Given time for quiet reflection, the heavy armor of skepticism

  would fall back into place, and her ideas would bounce off.

  Ernie Block shook his head. "Wait a minute. You're losing me now. You

  started all this by suggesting that what turned the moon red was a

  scarlet cloud of some biological contaminant. Then you jumped way the

  hell to one side and started talking about how the thing that happened

  to us was responsible for Dom and Brendan developing these supposed

  powers. Where's the connection? What does biological contamination

  have to do with all this psychic stuff, anyway?"

  Ginger took a deep breath because they had come to the core of her

  theory, the wildest part of it. "What if . . . what if we were

  contaminated by some virus or bacterium that, as a side-effect, causes

  profound chemical or genetic or hormonal changes in its host, changes in

  the host's brain? And what if those changes leave the host with

  something very like psychic powers, even once the infection is gone?"

  They stared at her with a variety of expressions, though not as if they

  thought her mad, and not as if she was too imaginative for her own good.

  Rather, they seemed impressed by the complex chain of logic which she

  had forged and by the inevitability of the final link.

  "Good God," Dom said, "I doubt that it's the right answer, but it's sure

  the prettiest, most neatly constructed theory I ever expect to hear.

  What a concept for a novel! A genetically engineered virus that, as a

  surprise side-effect, causes a sort of forced evolution of the human

  brain, resulting in psychic powers. For the first time in weeks, I have

  a terrific urge to rush to a typewriter. Ginger, if we get out of this

  alive, I'll have to give you a piece of the royalties on the book that's

  sure to grow out of that idea."

  Gently rocking her slumbering daughter, Jorja Monatella said, "But why

  couldn't it be the right answer? Why does it just have to be a terrific

  concept for a novel?"

  "For one thing," Jack Twist said, "if it were true, if we'd been

  contaminated with a virus like that, we'd all have developed psychic

  powers. Right?"

  "Well," Ginger said, "maybe we weren't all contaminated. Or maybe we

  were contaminated, but the virus didn't get a foothold in all of us."

  Faye said, "Or maybe this special side-effect isn't manifested in

  everyone who's infected by the bug."

  "Good thought," Ginger said. She began to pace again: this time, not

  because she was nervous but because she was excited.

  Ned Sarver pushed one hand through his receding hair and said, "Are you

  saying the Army knew about this side-effect of the virus, knew that it

  might cause these changes in some of us?"

  "I don't know," Ginger said. "Maybe they knew. Maybe not."

  "I think not," Ernie said. "Definitely not. From what you found in the

  Sentinel, we know they closed the interstate shortly before the

  'accident' happened, which means it was no accident. So . . . first

  of all, I find it hard to believe our own military would intentionally

  subject us to contamination with a biological-warfare microorganism in a

  hare-brained scheme to test its effectiveness in the field. But even if

  such an atrocity were possible, they wouldn't expose us to a virus that

  could transform us in the way Ginger has suggested. Because, my friends,

  people with strong psychic powers would be a new species, a superior

  breed of humanity. Formidable psychic power would translate directly

  into military, economic, and political power. So if the government knew

  it had a virus that conferred these powers, it would not expose a group

  of ordinary people like us. Not in a million years. That blessing

  would be reserved for those already in positions of high authority, for

  the elite. I agree with Dom: I find the redcloud-of-virus theory quite

  fascinating . . . though unlikely. However, if we were contaminated

  by such a thing, the sideeffect was unknown to the government."

  In light of what Ernie had said, everyone was looking at Brendan and Dom

  with a new appreciation composed equally of awe, uneasiness, wonder,

  respect, and fear. Ginger saw both the priest and the writer squirm

  with the exhilarating yet frightening realization that they might have

  within them the potential for superhuman power, a potential that, if

  fulfilled, would forever separate them from the rest of mankind.

  "No," Dom said, starting to get up in protest, then sitting back down as

  if he did not think his legs would support him. "No, no. You're not

  right, Ginger. I'm no superman, no wizard, no damn . . . freak. If

  you were right, I'd feel it. I'd know it, Ginger."

  Brendan Cronin, equally shaken, said, "I've thought that somehow I've

  been the vehicle for the healing of Emmy and Winton. I've thought that

  something-not God, perhaps, but something-is working through me. I

  never thought of myself as the actual healer. Listen, I was under the

  impression we'd already decided the toxic-spill story was entirely a

  fake, a cover, that what happened to us wasn't an accident of any kind,

  neither chemical nor biological, but something altogether different."

  Jack and Jorja and Faye and Ned started talking at the same time. The

  noise level rose so loud that little Marcie frowned in her sleep, and

  Ginger said, "Wait, wait, wait a minute. There's no point discussing it

  because we can't prove there was such a virus any more than we can prove

  there wasn't one. Not yet. But maybe we can prove the other part."

  "What do you mean?" Sandy Sarver asked.

  Ginger said, "Maybe we can prove Dom and Brendan have the power. Not

  how they got it, but just that they have it."

  Dom was incredulous. "How?"

  "We'll set up a test," Ginger said.

  Dom was absolutely certain that it would not work, that they were

  wasting time, that the whole idea was foolish.

  Yet he was also scared that it would work, and that the proof of his

  power would condemn him to the condition of a freak or at least to a

  life forever closed to ordinary human relationships. If he possessed

  godlike power, no one would ever regard him without wonder and fear. In

  even the most relaxed or intimate moments with friends or lovers, their

  awareness of his extraordinary gifts would intrude, either overtly or in

  an unspoken subtext. Others, perhaps most, would envy or hate him.

  The unfairness of his predicament grated on him. For most of his<
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  thirty-five years, he had been shy and ineffectual, condemned to a drab

  existence by his timidity. Then he had changed, and for fifteen months,

  until his sleepwalking began last October, he'd been outgoing. Now,

  that brief, wonderful season of normality might be passing. If the test

  that Ginger outlined were to prove Dom had somehow acquired psychic

  powers, he would be isolated again, not by his own sense of inferiority,

  as before, but by everyone else's uneasy awareness of his superiority.

  The test. Dom hoped to God he failed.

  He and Brendan Cronin were sitting by themselves at the long table, one

  at each end. Jorja Monatella had put her slumbering daughter in a

  booth, and the girl had not awakened. The adults-all seven, including

  Jorja-stood in a semicircle around the table, back a couple of paces,

  giving Dom and Brendan space to concentrate free of distraction.

  A salt shaker stood on the table in front of Dom. Ginger's test

  required that he concentrate on moving the object without touching it.

  "Just an inch," she had said. "If you can evoke just the slightest

  perceptible motion in the shaker, we'll know you've got the power."

  At the far end of the three joined tables, a pepper shaker stood in

  front of Brendan Cronin. The priest was staring at the small glass

  cylinder as intently as Dom was staring at his

  own shaker, and his round freckled face was filled with a foreboding

  only marginally less grim than Dom's. Although Brendan had denied that

  the hand of God lay behind the miraculous cures and apparitional lights,

  it was clear to Dom that the priest secretly and deeply hoped to

  discover that, in fact, a divine Presence was at work. He wanted to be

  drawn back into his faith, into the bosom of the Church. If the

  miracles proved to be his own work, accomplished by the exertion of

  heretofore unrecognized psychic powers, and if those powers proved to

  have been conferred by a mere germ, as Ginger's crazy-but-canny theory

  would have it, Brendan's yearning for spiritual elevation and holy

  guidance would be unfulfilled.

  The salt shaker.

  Dom fixed his eyes on it and tried to clear every thought from his mind

  except the determined intention to move the shaker. Although he did not

  want to discover that he had these strange talents, he had to make a

  sincere attempt to employ them. He had to know if it were true.

  If the power existed, neither Ginger nor any of the others could suggest

  techniques for tapping it. "But," Ginger had said, "if it can explode

  spontaneously and spectacularly in moments of stress, surely you can

  learn to call upon it and control it whenever and however you desire . .

  . just as a musician can apply his musical talent any time he pleases.

  Or just as you apply your writing talent to the blank page."

  The salt shaker remained motionless, unaffected.

  Dom strove to narrow his attention until that humble glass cylinder-with

  its perforated stainless-steel cap and grainy white contents-was the

  only thing in his universe. He brought all his mind to bear upon it,

  every speck of his will, and tried to push it along the table, strained

  until he realized he was gritting his teeth, fisting his hands.

  Nothing.

  He changed tack. Instead of mentally assaulting the shaker as if he

  were blasting away with a cannon at the mighty walls of a fortress, he

  relaxed and studied the object to get an intimate sense of its size,

  shape, and texture. Perhaps the key was to develop an empathy for the

  shaker. "Empathy" was the word that seemed right to him, though he was

  relating to an inanimate and inorganic object; instead of battling it,

  perhaps he could empathize and somehow . . . induce it to cooperate

  in a short telekinetic journey. Only an inch. He leaned forward

  slightly to better examine the functional simplicity of its design: five

  beveled facets to make it easy to grip and hold; a thick glass bottom to

  provide balance and reduce the frequency of spills; a shiny metal

  cap....

  Nothing. Standing unaffected on the table before him, the shaker seemed

  like the mythical immovable object, heavy beyond weighing, welded

  forever to this spot in space and time.

  But of course, like all forms of matter in the universe, it was not

  immovable, and in some ways it was always moving, never still. After

  all, it was composed of billions of ceaselessly moving atoms, the outer

  parts of which orbited, planetlike, around the billions of sunlike

  nuclei. The salt shaker was engaged in uninterrupted motion on a

  subatomic level, frantically moving within its structure, so it should

  not be difficult to induce it to make one additional movement, one

  little jaunt on the macrocosmic level of human perception, just one

  little hop and skip, just one Dom felt a sudden buoyancy, almost as if

  he himself were going to be moved by some arcane force, but instead-and

  at last-the salt shaker moved. He had become so deeply involved with

  that homely object that he had actually forgotten Ginger and the others;

  he was reminded of their presence when, as one, they gasped and

  exclaimed softly. The shaker did not simply slide one inch along the

  table-or two or ten or twenty. It rose into the air instead, as if

  gravity had ceased to have a claim on it. Like a tiny glass balloon, it

  floated upward: one foot, two, three, and stopped four feet above the

  surface on which, only seconds ago, it had appeared immovable. It

  remained suspended several inches above the eye-level of those who were

  standing, and they stared up at it in awe.

  At the far end of the table, Brendan's pepper shaker rose, too. Mouth

  open, eyes wide, Brendan stared at the rising cylinder. When it stopped

  at precisely the same height as the salt shaker, Brendan finally dared

  to take his eyes from it. He looked at Dom, glanced nervously at the

  pepper shaker again, as if certain it would crash down the moment he

  shifted his gaze, then looked at Dom once more when he realized that

  eye-contact was not required to maintain levitation. several sentiments

  were apparent in the priest's eyes: wonder, amazement, puzzlement, fear,

  and an emotional acknowledgment of the profound brotherhood that existed

  between him and Dom by virtue of the strange power they shared.

  Dom was intrigued that he did not need to strain to keep the salt shaker

  aloft. In fact, it seemed hard to believe that he was actually

  responsible for its magical performance. He was not conscious of either

  possessing or exerting control of the object. He felt no power surging

  in him. Evidently, his telekinetic ability functioned automatically, in

  a fashion similar to respiration and heartbeat.

  Brendan raised his hands. The red rings had reappeared on them.

  Dom looked at his own hands and saw the same inscrutable stigmata

  burning brightly.

  What did they mean?

  Looming overhead, the salt and pepper shakers generated a sense of

  expectancy in Dom even greater than he had felt at the beginning of this

  test. Apparently, the others felt it as well, for they began to urge

 
Dom and Brendan to perform additional feats.

  "Incredible," Ginger said breathlessly. "You've shown us vertical

  movement, levitation. Can you also move them horizontally?"

  "Can you lift something heavier?" Sandy Sarver asked.

  "The light," Ernie said. "Can you generate the red light?"

  Seeking first to accomplish a more modest task than any they had

  proposed, Dom thought about giving the salt shaker a slight spin, and

  immediately it began to twirl in midair, eliciting another gasp from the

  onlookers. A moment later, Brendan's pepper shaker began to spin, too.

  Reflections of the overhead lights glimmered liquidly across the shiny

  metal caps of the spinning dispensers, flashed off the facets of the

  glass, traveled scintillatingly along the edges where one facet met

  another, so the shakers looked like glittery Christmastree ornaments.

  Simultaneously, the two small dispensers began drifting toward one

  another, the horizontal movement Ginger had requested, though Dom was

  not aware of consciously directing the salt shaker on this course. He

  supposed Ginger's suggestion was accepted by his subconscious, which now

  employed psychic energy to accomplish the task, without waiting for him

  to make a conscious effort. It was eerie-the way he controlled the

  shaker yet was unaware of how that control was exerted.

  Above the centermost point of the three joined tables, the salt and

  pepper shakers stopped moving horizontally when they were about ten

  inches apart. They hung side by side, spinning a bit faster than

  before, throwing off spangles of reflected light. Then they began to

  revolve around each other in perfectly circular synchronized orbits. But

  that lasted only a few seconds. Suddenly, the shakers were spinning