by Terry James
“Yeah, Peanut. Gesundheit!” Clark said, trying to maintain a firm grip on the powerful dog, who pulled him forward with a jerk.
“Guess they won’t be joining us,” Kristi concluded. “Guess they prefer their own company to ours.”
“Well, that’s more than fine with me.”
Clark stopped when the dog stopped and seemed content to remain sniffing one small patch of ground.
Clark took Kristi’s hand and pulled her closer, then put his free arm around her. “You really are something else,” he said, his eyes penetrating deeply into her returned gaze. “I would much rather be here, alone with Kristi Flannigan.”
She wanted to respond, to shout how she felt the same. But for some reason she pulled back. She let her gaze drop from his and turned to kneel and snap her fingers toward Jeddy.
He responded, walking to her and accepting her hug, then sitting in front of her while she stroked his head and playfully pulled at his ears.
“Why are people afraid of rottweilers? He’s the sweetest guy there is,” she said, hugging Jeddy by putting her cheek against the side of his head and pulling him to her.
Clark reached down to take her slender fingers, then nudge her to stand by pulling gently on her hand.
“I’m a sweet guy, too, you know,” he said, again looking into her blue-green eyes.
Their lips met in a soft kiss that made her throat tighten with the flush of emotional rush.
Randall Prouse followed Susie and Christopher Banyon into the room from the balcony. The temperature was dropping, the night invading Alamosa.
“Still haven’t heard from them,” the archaeologist said, seating himself in a chair near the bed closest to the French doors that opened onto the balcony.
“I have a bad feeling, Randy,” Christopher said, sitting across from his friend and crossing one leg over his other knee. “This whole idea seems…to have been a wrong one on my part.”
“That’s nonsense,” Susie said, reaching into the closet to retrieve a rose-red cardigan, then put it over her shoulders. “The Lord has led us every step of the way. We are here for His purposes.”
“Well, there’s such a thing as getting ahead of the Lord, Sweetheart…”
“I agree with her, Chris. The things that happened on that plane—they’re just incredible. How does one explain that to anybody?”
Randy’s words bolstered Christopher’s spirits, and he sat a little straighter, while thinking aloud.
“Certainly, couldn’t be just coincidence that Mark was there to bring that jet safely down. Randy, what on earth happened to those two fellows?”
“Well, they weren’t raptured. We are still here,” Prouse said. “I would be worried if it were just you and me here, Chris. But, Susie’s being here makes me know their … vanishing from the cockpit wasn’t the Rapture. If anyone’s going in that event, it will include our sweet Susie.”
Susie smiled, but changed the subject. “They want Mark and Lori for specific reasons. It has always been about the Lansings and the Morgans.” She spoke as if more to remind herself than to include the men in her conversation.
“And now it’s Lori, Mark, and Morgan in that top-secret mountain area. It’s got to have everything to do with all the beastly things of those years ago, and the recent dreams, visions, or whatever they are. And, we are included, have been brought here as part of it.”
She looked at Randall, then at her husband. “Whatever this is about, the Lord is about to bring it out in the open. Don’t you sense that, Randy?”
“You know,” the archaeologist said, “I’ve been giving it some thought.”
Christopher smiled inwardly, knowing that his big friend had indeed given the matters much thought. Randall Prouse was never without opinion. That was one of his most charismatic qualities.
“And, I’m convinced that these things aren’t altogether from the enemy. In other words, it’s not so one-sided. You are right, Susie.” Randall paced the length of the walkway from the room’s front door to the French doors that opened to the balcony.
“These dark things--the dreams, visions, the kidnappings, or whatever of the Lansing children--these are frightening, extremely troubling. But, you, Chris, were shown, in specific terms, what was happening to them –or apparently so.”
Prouse sat on the end of one of the beds. “Each and every one of us has had a purpose in coming this far, dating all the way back to Jerusalem, to Qumran. That supernatural storm; I don’t know how else to explain it. The storm –the clash between…were they angels? The battle you witnessed just outside the aircraft on our way back to the states. My own UFO experience flying from Denver to New York. All that has happened since you got the idea to get us all together in coming here. The disappearance of those guys from the cockpit; running into this Nigel Saxton guy, with the dog that belongs to the Lansing girl…it’s all positively exciting!”
Christopher couldn’t help laughing. His friend –in his early ‘80s— was as exuberant as ever, as passionate as those days ago in Jerusalem when he hornswoggled the Islamic fanatics during the time of the Six Day War in 1967.
Prouse paid no attention to Christopher’s chuckle; his epiphany was too overpowering to notice. “What I’m saying is that I agree with you, Susie. It’s obvious that the Lord is bringing these things to light at this late hour of human history. But, what excites me is that our God will meet force with force. In other words, He won’t let the dark dominion influence matters involving mankind, without meeting those devilish activities with equal supernatural force from His heavenly realm.”
Knocking on the hotel room door interrupted the archaeologist’s ponderings. Nigel Saxton moved from the hallway into the room upon Susie’s invitation.
“I’ve decided to have another go at them,” he said, looking first at Christopher, then at Randall. “Where are Clark, and the others?”
They had waited longer to leave the wooded area that covered a quarter-mile behind the hotel, and they picked their way back by keeping their eyes on the lights of the distant windows and of the blue lights high atop the light poles bordering the streets of the town.
Clark and Kristi scarcely felt the cold that pervaded Alamosa. The emotions of their growing feelings for each other warmed them, while Jeddy led them toward the lights that shone between the tree trunks ahead.
“Do you think we can find Morgan by doing it the way they are thinking?”
Kristi’s question was one that had been on his mind.
“We can’t do it through the front door. I remember nothing much of what happened to me after drinking that hot chocolate overlooking that strange place, but I won’t be so stupid again as to go in there, thinking there’s nothing to worry about. I’m not sure how we can find her, or find Mom and Dad, but I don’t think we will find out what’s going on by doing it in the open.”
Jeddy stopped at the end of the leash, his fur starting to bristle, his throat emitting a deep growl that grew in resonance with each breath he took.
“What’s wrong, Peanut?”
Clark’s words had no effect on the rottweiler, whose muscles swelled with the intensity of his concentration while he glared into the trees and vegetation ahead.
“Jeddy? What’s wrong, boy?”
Clark moved to the dog, kneeling beside him and fingering his collar.
“What are you doing?” Kristi’s apprehension grew in the darkness that had grown more noticeable within the past minutes.
“I’m setting him free of the leash. There’s something up ahead.”
Clark released the clasp that attached the leash to the metal rings of the collar. When he did, the rottweiler exploded from in front of them. He moved into the darkness, but not straight ahead, as Clark had expected.
“Where did he go?”
“Don’t know,” Clark said, trying the impossible –to locate the mostly black animal in the darkness that now engulfed them. He mentally kicked himself for not bringing a flashlight.
Crackling of the underbrush ahead brought his and Kristi’s senses to full alert. Was it the dog? No. The rottweiler had bolted from their sight in a second –to their right, not toward the area ahead –the direction in which the dog first indicated something was wrong.
“Jeddy?!” Clark’s call brought no response.
“What is it, Clark?”
He gathered Kristi to his side and held her close while still trying to catch a glimpse of the dog, of any movement in the scant light between the tree trunks.
There! A flicker in the lights of the town!
He didn’t know why, and there was no time to analyze why. He forced himself and the girl to the partially snow-covered weeds and grass, hearing the air go out of Kristi when he landed on top of her.
Shots rang out, and he heard the rounds whizzing above them –heard the bullets crash into the trees behind them.
“Stay down, Kristi! For God’s sake, stay down!”
He heard feet shuffling toward them, and heard the assassin pull back the receiver of the pistol for another round of firing.
The woods just ahead erupted with snarling and vicious noises of attack. The man behind the weapon screamed while the rottweiler tore into his body. The panicked gunman popped off several rounds into the woods in reflexive action before the dog’s powerful jaws closed on the side of his face, then his neck.
The man screamed in pain and terror, doing all he could to defend against the rottweiler’s determination to kill him.
Clark, satisfied the man was no longer capable of using the gun, sprang from his protective covering over Kristi.
“Stay down!” he instructed, keeping a low profile while carefully approaching the scene of the fight. The struggle stopped just as he arrived on the site, the dog standing over the gunman’s unconscious form. The rottweiler continued to growl between labored breaths while poised rigidly over the body.
“It’s okay, Jeddy; it’s okay, Peanut.”
The dog let out a slight high-pitched response, and relaxed when Clark tugged on the collar and pulled him away, then attached the leash.
“Good boy!” Clark hugged and roughed the dog’s fur while trying to get a look at the man.
Clark’s boot toe hit something hard, and he felt the object by running his sole over it. The pistol! He reached into the snow and retrieved the weapon.
Holding Jeddy close to the collar, he bent to examine the man, a large man with blood covering his neck and face. Unconscious, he was breathing in low, shallow bursts.
Clark pulled his glove from his hand and reached to the unbloodied side of the face, placing his fingertips just beneath the jaw. The carotid pumped slowly…very slowly.
“Let’s go get Kristi,” he said, turning to walk the 20 feet to where he had left her She met them before they could get to the spot they had crashed into the snow.
“What happened, Clark? Who …what was this about?”
Clark put his arm around her. “Are you okay, Kristi?”
The darkness burst with vision-debilitating light in a fraction of a second. Then the night again encapsulated them.
When their eyes adjusted, they walked to the place where the body lay. But, it was gone. The man, who had been –totally incapacitated—was no longer there!
“Clark! You there, Clark?”
The voice of David Prouse.
“Yes, David, it’s us!”
Moments later, David and Cassie hurried to where they stood.
“What happened?” David asked. “We heard shots.”
“What was that light? Looked like an explosion, but we didn’t hear one,” Cassie put in.
Clark took the flashlight from David’s hand. He directed the shaft of light across the area of the scuffle. The attacker was indeed gone. But, much of his blood remained.
Mark and Lori had been whisked from the monorail as soon as it came to a stop. They knew it, even before the actuality of the things involved set in. All concerns Christopher, Susie, and Randall had held –all worries they, themselves, had harbored--were true.
They had not been asked to do anything since arriving at this strange place; rather were put in quarters that were little more than a cell.
At least they were together, not kept in separate holding rooms –not yet, at least.
“There are things that must be prepared,” Hans Sheivold had told them when they were put in the small room. “Please be patient with us.”
It was the last contact with anyone. It had been more than two hours, and they sat in the sterile room, still in the white, gauze-like attire given them those two hours, and many miles ago.
“Where do you think we are, Mark?” Lori’s question was asked in a voice that betrayed the stress on her emotions, which she had begun to lose control of an hour earlier.
Her husband reached to put his hand on her cheek. “We have to find our girl, Sweetheart. This was the only way we could do that. We are at the center of…whatever they’re up to. It’s not by accident that we’re here. Don’t you think the Lord who got us this far can see to it that we complete our mission? That we find and get our daughter out of this place?”
“Yes. You’re right, of course,” she said, her tone more confident. “I just want Morgan with us.”
“I know. I know, Lori. She’ll be with us soon.”
Mark stood and walked to the place where the wall had slid apart. The crack that ran from the ceiling to floor was almost imperceptible. He had to feel the place where the door halves met with his fingertips.
Like all the other times he had examined the surface of the wall, he turned away in frustration and returned to the small sofa and sat down. The room was painted in white. Its austere décor provided the bare essentials: a bed; two small, white vinyl-covered sofas that faced each other; a white metal chest of drawers framed by polished steel; and a tiny bathroom with a commode, a shower in one of its corners and a triangular sink in the other. Curtains from ceiling to floor, only slightly less white than the rest of the room, hung against one wall. When Lori had pulled them apart more than an hour before, she discovered another wall of white.
“Tell you one thing,” Lori said with wry inflection that helped break the sterility and monotony of their surroundings. “White will never be the same…”
She jumped with a start when the wall parted.
Two large men dressed in black uniforms walked through the opening.
“They are ready for you. Come with us,” one of the men said in a firm voice that somehow, Mark thought, seemed void of humanity.
Mark took Lori’s hand and followed the man who had spoken, while the other uniformed man trailed behind them. The men wore dark, goggle-like eyewear so that their eyes were veiled. Mark noticed that there seemed to be no weapons. He started to ask their destination but decided he would likely receive no response from their robotic escorts.
They walked through several small hallways, then into a large corridor, at the end of which was a massive wall that automatically split apart while they approached. They stood, then, inside a gargantuan chamber that flashed and glinted with light of every imaginable color. The room was a gigantic half-oval, its walls and ceiling unbroken by corners, angles, or windows.
The chamber seemed to be of polished metal, whose shimmering changed in hues from deep copper to silvered chrome from moment to moment.
Despite the lights, the colors, the very atmosphere of the room created a sense of shadows –a dark ambience that somehow defied physical logic, Lori thought.
There was scant human presence at first, but from the moment Mark and Lori entered with their escorts, the chamber began to fill with activity, lab-coated people going about whatever business was at hand. All seemed to have the darkly-tinted, goggle-like eyewear.
They had been given no such eye-coverings. Lori wondered what might cause the need for such covering. And why had she and Mark not been given the protection –if protection was needed?
“Dr. Lansing, Mr. Lansing…”
Hans Sheivold walked to them from somewhere among the now milling crowd of lab-coated people.
“Sorry for such a long wait. But, preparations must be precise for our procedures…”
“What procedures?” Lori’s question was adamant.
“Remember, Dr. Lansing. You and Mr. Lansing were told that you would be asked to help your country. Your cooperation will be most appreciated and rewarded.”
The scientist’s reminder was issued with a grim expression. Many of the others had gathered in a circle around Mark and Lori.
Sheivold reached to his dark goggles and removed them. At the same time, those surrounding them removed theirs. The man’s eyes-- like the eyes of the others—were black--the eyes of something other than human.
Chapter 20
Christopher Banyon signed the credit card purchase slip, replaced the card in his wallet, and walked with Randall Prouse from the store.
“That was quite a bill, Chris,” Randall said.
“Yeah, well, it’s the Lord’s money. Just hope we’re putting it to its best use.”
“That’s why you have it, my friend,” Randall quipped. “He knows you are the only one among us who could handle the responsibility.”
The buying was done, and they walked toward the hotel where the others were preparing for whatever lay ahead. The thought of what the young people might face troubled Christopher.
“I can give them the clothes and things. Only God can give them what’s really needed,” he said, while they stepped off the curb to cross the street.
“Yeah, well, He did that last night in those woods, didn’t He?” Prouse said.
“Yes, yes. Oh, me of little faith,” Banyon said with a chuckle.
“That Saxton guy--he’s a strange one. You think he’s just out here to practice for climbing the Alps, or whatever he claims?”
“Why? Do you think otherwise?” Christopher asked, while stepping upon the other curb and onto the sidewalk that led to the hotel.
“He’s awfully old to be so young, if you know what I mean.”