The Reality Conspiracy (44 page)

How far could they have traveled? Blindfolded, direction had been impossible to determine, but they could be no more than thirty to forty-five minutes outside Burlington. Somewhere in the countryside. But where?

She recalled her terror when he'd abandoned her, handcuffed and unseeing, in the car. Waiting there, for hours it seemed, she'd heard the sharp crack of a gunshot—a sound she'd always recognize for sure.

Then he'd come back, pulled her from the car, put her in her chair, and bumped her up a set of stairs to this second-floor bedroom.

Now what was he doing? The briefcase held some kind of portable computer that he'd placed on top of the vanity.

Completely engrossed, he clicked his tongue as he worked. "Do you follow the afternoon soaps, Miss Chandler?" He looked at her as if he'd made another joke.

She glared at him.

"What say we tune in and see what your father and Karen Bradley are up to? Would you like that? Maybe we'll ask them to join us."

Casey turned away, biting her lower lip.

"Not going to talk to me, eh? Why's that? Your father tell you not to talk to strangers?"

Casey said nothing.

"Well, I'm hardly a stranger," he said. "In fact, I'm your father's boss. My name's McCurdy."

A
s Karen told Father Sullivan about Lucy, she watched Jeff become more withdrawn. He'd dropped out of the conversation. Worry dulled his eyes as he repeatedly glanced at the silent telephone. Karen knew his thoughts were only of Casey.

She had to draw Jeff out. "Why don't you tell Father Sullivan what you told me about the dates."

Jeff looked at her blankly. "What dates?"

"What you noticed about the opening day of hunting season."

"Oh, right." She could see his heart wasn't in it. "That was November twelfth, last year, the day that man in California was executed via computer. It was also the day Alton Barnes and his friend were in the woods hunting here in Hobston. I don't know exactly how the two events are related, but the coincidence seems odd to me. See, the man in California died and Mr. Barnes's friend vanished that same day. And roughly at the same time."

Jeff went on to explain how Stuart Dubois's footprints ended and how, under hypnosis, Alton recalled a white light that seemed to lift the old man off the ground and pull him into it.

"Here's what bothers me," Jeff said, "to the casual observer there could be no relationship between a computer in Boston and a man dying on the West Coast. But I know differently; I have the videotape to prove it.

"As I told Karen, Hobston keeps coming up in my research at the Academy. Strange things have always happened here. Not just UFOs but phantoms in the woods, Bigfoot sightings, odd noises with no apparent source. Supposedly there was even a rain of stones sometime toward the end of the last century. And your story about Father Mosely and his demon is a good case in point."

"Why Hobston?" the priest said.

"If what I suspect is true, if the Academy has actually managed to harness these . . . these magical powers by using the computer, then one thing we know about the laws of magic applies: Whatever is sent out, comes back. It's an occult variation of Newton's law of motion—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

"Right," Sullivan said. "Medieval magicians protected themselves from recoil by constructing protective circles around the invocation area. They knew the psychic and physical dangers of crossing that circle! It's a cause and effect principle: energy used to create the effect had to be expended somewhere. It might come back in the form of a storm, a disease, an avalanche, a lightning bolt—"

Karen was surprised. "Jeez, Father Sullivan, how come you know so much about magic?"

He gave a short chuckle. "The fact is, Karen, I wrote a book about it—
Mania, Magic and Religion
. I've studied magic as both a psychological phenomenon and as a component of religious demonology."

As the priest paused to light another cigarette. Karen remembered! The book she had seen in Dr. Gudhausen's office. The smiling priest on the dust jacket, it was Father Sullivan!
Odd
, she thought.
Odd I should end up sitting in his office like this. What a weird coincidence.

"Believe it or not," the priest went on, "both applications were essential to my work at St. Mark's College. Heavens, we had kids messing with Ouija boards, dabbling in the black arts, studying Satanism, witchcraft, voodoo, you name it. Most of them didn't know the dangers they were flirting with. I had to do what I could to keep ahead of them."

He cleared his throat. "You see, magic is not merely some kind of spontaneous physical reaction to uttered words, rituals, and burning candles—one doesn't say 'Presto!' and cause an enemy to vanish. There has to be an intermediary. One useful definition of magic is that it is the science of controlling the secret forces of nature. It is the harnessing of some unknown, but apparently very real power."

"This business about spirit that you were explaining before," Karen asked, "you mean magic can actually control spirit?"'

"That's a terrifying notion, Karen. But it may be partially accurate. Maybe that's why the Church differentiates between good spirit and evil spirit. It would be theologically destructive if we believed human beings could manipulate the spirit of good. If magic works, then it works by the manipulation of evil.

"Like any power, magic requires a source, a battery. One explanation is that black magicians, through certain rituals—anything from chanting to sacrifice—can gain the cooperation of evil spirits, demons that exist in another dimension, outside our physical realm. If the magician wants wealth, the demons can bring it. If the magician wants to make someone ill, the demons can accomplish that as well. How? We don't really know."

"Do you really believe that, Father Sullivan? Do you believe these other dimensions can exist?"

Sullivan smiled at Karen, but not condescendingly. "Of course, I believe it. Anyone who believes in Heaven and Hell believes in other dimensions. In my line of work, we're just not in the habit of using the word 'dimension,' but that's what we're talking about just the same. I think what Jeff is suggesting—and please correct me if I'm wrong—is that every time a magical force is invoked, the barrier between our world and the next is somehow weakened. If the barrier is especially thin here in Hobston, then this is where the breakdown will be most obvious. Am I right, Jeff?"

"Yes, that's my best guess. It sounds off the wall, but I suspect every time they use that computer in Boston, they open the Hobston door a little wider."

"But, Jeff," Karen said, again experiencing that unfamiliar tension provoked by alien ideas, "what makes you believe there's a relationship?"

"Call it a hunch, Karen. I mean, who would have ever guessed a blast of Right Guard would lead to a hole in the ozone layer? McCurdy and his Academy boys just don't know what they're dealing with; they have no way of visualizing the consequence of their acts. And if they really are opening that interdimensional door, it's scary as hell to think about what they might be letting in."

C
asey had to go to the bathroom very badly. She pressed her legs together using the added strength of her hands and arms. At the same time, she didn't want to voice this need to McCurdy.

He was still sitting in front of the computer. She'd watched his back for a long time. The freckled dome of his bald head was bright with perspiration. The ring of red hair was a rusty halo. He seemed totally engrossed in the changing patterns of color on the monitor. Now and then he'd click his tongue and nod his head as if he were reading information on the display. But Casey could see nothing there, nothing but the multicolored screen swirling and changing in meaningless motifs.

At length McCurdy turned around with an expression of great satisfaction on his face. "Well, my dear young lady, it's time to send for your father."

She could hold her silence no longer. "Why did you bring me here? What do you want?"

"Ah-ha, so you can speak!"

"What do you want with me? What about my father?"

"We have a meeting scheduled. We have important business to conduct."

"What business?"

"The Lord's work, my dear. You'll see soon enough. You kids today are all so terribly impatient. Can't sit still; can't concentrate. You must learn important things take time. The Lord works at his own pace, Miss Chandler, not yours."

Casey's anger mounted; now she was more angry than afraid.

"Why won't you tell me what's going on?" Then, with sudden inspiration, she changed her tack. As a timid afterthought, she whispered, "I'm scared."

He stood up, walked over to her, and took a seat on the bed. With fewer than three feet between them, she could smell his body odor and his rancid cigarette breath. "There's nothing to be afraid of," he said gently, reaching over to pat her knee. "Soon everything is going to change. Improve. You're going to be able to walk again. Wouldn't you like that?"

Hope leapt inside her. She controlled it. Pushed it back out of sight where it belonged. Her head drew away from his stream of smelly exhalation.

"What do you mean?"

"Young lady, the Lord's work is just beginning. Some of us—you, me, your father—we are put here as His helpers. We all have missions. He has something important for each of us to do."

Dad had often talked about Dr. McCurdy's religious fundamentalism. "It's like he's got a Bible in one hand and a bomb in the other. But it doesn't seem to interfere with his work."

Casey wondered if Dad would feel the same if he saw Dr. McCurdy now.

Fear spread like a paralyzing drug. Casey dared say nothing more. Karen might know how to talk to this man, but Casey sure didn't. Something in his manner was more than frightening. Beneath his soft speech and eccentric behavior, Casey sensed something uncompromising, something totally dangerous.

She tried to sound sweetly demure. "But why would God want you to take me away from my father? Why would He want you to bring me here?"

"Very simple: you received a calling. When the Lord wants you, He calls. And you couldn't come on your own, now could you? So He asked me to help."

"I . . . I don't understand."

McCurdy exhaled loudly through his nose, a sound of impatience. "You will. Soon. Now you must be patient, my dear. There are great changes coming. We're entering an age of miracles. A world of miracles. There will be new prophets, new visions, new beginnings. Some of us have been chosen. We will be the shepherds of the New Light. The Lord talks to me, my dear. He tells me what is right. He tells me all the things to come."

McCurdy's eyes danced. They were alive with fire. "This is an age of great sin and corruption. God's earth is black with the stain of evil. People are born without souls. Darkness fills them, and they do the work of Satan. The Lord cleansed this earth before. He called down the purifying waters of a great flood. But now—" Excited tones softened to a coaxing calm. "You, my dear, are still innocent. You have nothing to fear. When you stand up it will be a sign to the others. When you walk, they will follow where you lead."

McCurdy fairly blazed with manic fervor. "I should kneel before you now. I should thank you for what you will do for God's children."

Casey gripped the arms of her wheelchair. She didn't want to see his eager grin and his blazing eyes. She was terrified of the forces that filled him.

"The Lord speaks to me." McCurdy said. "He tells me of the things to come. Shows me the great new world where the good will walk in the light and the corrupt will sink into the darkest bowels of the earth."

"I have to go to the bathroom," Casey told him.

W
hen he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, Alton Barnes knew his capacity for terror was about to be tested. The image of his Korean interrogator, still vivid after forty years, jumped full force into his mind. Frantically, he tugged at the cords binding him to the kitchen chair. It did no good.

Things had been so crazy lately. They'd grown impossibly crazier when Dr. Bradley drove up with that terrible message about Jeffrey's daughter.

Missing.

Kidnapped. Now he was afraid there was no way out for any of them. If only he had left Daisy Dubois's farmhouse when he'd had the chance. If he'd just gone back to town with the young couple . . . If he'd returned straightaway to his car and driven off . . .

But then, how could he have refused when he thought Daisy was asking him for help? It was all so . . . inevitable . . . .

McCurdy walked into the room and took a seat across the table from Alton. He was all business. "We can do this in either of two ways," he said in calm, deceptively conversational tones. "In the end, one way or the other, you are going to see the wisdom of what I'm about to propose. You've been sent here to help us. But maybe you don't realize that yet."

Alton looked at the gore-splattered dead man on the floor, then at the bestial little girl watching him like a guard dog. He looked back at McCurdy, who appeared no more malevolent than an executive at a conference table.