The Reality Conspiracy (57 page)

Whoa
, she thought,
this was the worst attack ever! What's happening to me, anyway?

Supported by the rock, she worked her way to her feet. Her legs felt like leaden weights, her arms numb as fence posts.

From where she stood she had a perfect view of the pale brilliance of the floating light. It moved slowly from the mountainside toward the gathering of spectators.

Heart pounding, she asked over and over, What can it be?

Her first impulse was to run, join the circle of observers in order to be with Jeff and Casey. Maybe they could tell her what was going on. But she couldn't ignore the potential danger in such an act. Instead, perhaps she should go to the house? That could be dangerous, too, but at least she could do it covertly.

With a mounting sense of dread, Karen realized she was absolutely alone.

She glanced at the house, hoping to see Alton returning. He said he'd be right back, she thought, so where is he?

How long had he been gone? She couldn't tell. She couldn't even guess the length of time she'd waited, locked in her terrified trance. What should she do now?

The old place appeared dark, lifeless. Something must be going on in there. Something bad. First Father Sullivan had entered, then Alton Barnes had followed. Neither had returned.

A cold spring of fear wound tightly in Karen's stomach.

She had to do something. She couldn't stay here. Not alone, not with that thing in the sky getting closer and closer.

Another moment of indecision held her in place.

J
eff watched the incandescence move with the lighter than air grace of a zeppelin—silent, smooth, slow, and steady.

As it got closer, it became less obscured by the damp air and rain. Now the amorphous cloud had taken on shape. It looked solid, a floating disk moving silently beneath black clouds.

He guessed it was halfway between the mountain and the crowd.

Jeff realized he hadn't been breathing. Tense throat muscles had locked it shut. He gulped in air, felt his heart pounding like a tom-tom.

So great was his rising terror that he might have turned, run away, abandoned his daughter and the crowd, his mind and heart and spirit empty of everything but the frenzy of escape. He might have done that were it not for the warm reality of Casey's hand on his own.

"Good God, Casey, what's happening?"

His eyes, her eyes, and every eye in that dark field locked on the circle of light as it came closer and closer.

A few moments and it would be above their heads.

K
aren thought of the scene from
Close Encounters
when the giant spacecraft appeared in the desert.
That's exactly what this looks like
, she thought,
it must be a hundred feet across!

Then she noticed an odd detail far more unsettling than the vision itself. Why didn't something as big and as bright project its light on the earth below? The assembly of onlookers appeared as three-dimensional shadows when the light passed over them.

That didn't make sense!

Could all this be an illusion? Could it be some kind of spotlight or a movie projected on the screen of clouds? Was it an ingenious magician's trick that looked real but wasn't there at all, like the holographic flames in Dr. Gudhausen's fireplace?

Then Karen observed something else: it wasn't raining beneath the light.

That means it's solid!

Holy cow! This was no vision, no optical illusion. The thing was large and round and silent. It sheltered the crowd from the rain like a giant umbrella.

It's gotta be a UFO
, she thought.
Holy Jeez, something's making contact!

"Feel it!" The ranting man went on, "Feel the warmth and power of the Light."

Three members of the crowd dropped to their knees. Karen spotted Jeff and Casey. Oddly, Casey's head was down, her hand covered her eyes as if she were praying.

Karen checked to insure that no one in the crowd was looking in her direction, then she ran through the rain toward the porch of the farmhouse.

T
he moment Alton left with the child, Father Sullivan moved to a rain-spattered window from which he could see Jeff and Casey in the flashing distance.

When he identified them in the crowd, breath snagged in his throat. His lungs and heart seemed to suffer the icy grip of an alien force as he studied the strange drama playing out before him. The whole sky was awash with illuminated haze as if some powerful celestial spotlight were piercing the thick storm clouds from above. Silhouetted trees, wind-thrashed and tall, danced maniacally as if the forest were alive.

In the field, shadowy shapes cowered on their knees, or stared skyward, transfixed, dumbfounded. As if on cue, a trio of shadows broke away from the cluster and ran toward parked cars at the roadside.

Sullivan's mind confirmed what his soul knew: this was not the work of the Lord. Something fierce, maybe unstoppable, was taking its course.

Urgency seized him—he had to protect Jeff and Casey, he had to save them. For reasons he did not completely understand, he would willingly risk his life to get them out of here before.

Before what?

He took a breath, tried to concentrate.

What was really happening out there?

He'd often remarked that in an institution as fraught with mysteries as the Roman Catholic Church, it was tempting to stop searching for solutions. Much easier to abandon the questing mind for the comfortable complacency of blind faith. If voluntarily lobotomized, it might be possible to accept this travesty as some kind of revelation, some kind of miracle.

No!

His mind and soul and spirit screamed that this had nothing to do with the church, or God, or even Ronald Boudreau's angelic visitation. That was no angel in the woods.

This was no miracle.

It was a dumb show, a gaudy deception. Instinct told him it had something to do with the demonic presence Father Mosely had battled in the church.

Yes, this too was a manifestation of evil. Real. Tangible. Deadly and absolutely corrupt. Sullivan watched evil operating before his disbelieving eyes. In all his life, nothing had prepared him for anything like this. No one ever told him he'd someday meet evil face-to-face.

He took a deep breath, trying to focus his thoughts. Was he the only one who recognized this malignancy for what it was? Was he the only one who could fight it?

Sullivan's heart pounded like a frenzied fist.
So this is what it's all about. This is the culmination of a lifetime in the priesthood. This is the battle for which we all prepare, but so few of us undertake. Today is the day I've been training for all my life
.

But he had one more piece of information to gather before he launched any sort of an attack. Almost immobile in the clutch of mounting terror, Father Sullivan once more turned his gaze to the last locked door in the farmhouse kitchen.

Karen stopped in the middle of the dooryard when she saw Alton Barnes leave the house. He carried something bulky in his arms. Thank God he was all right!

He ran down the steps toward her, making no attempt to conceal himself as she hurried to meet him.

"Father Sullivan's okay," he blurted as soon as he was within hearing distance. "He's gonna keep an eye on Jeff and Casey. Come on, miss, we're gettin' out of here. We gotta get this girl to the hospital and we gotta call the police."

Karen fell in step behind him, rushing toward Alton's car. "Who's this?" Karen asked.

"Some kid we found in the house. Something awful's happened to her. We gotta get her to a doctor."

"Is she all right? Hold on a minute, let me have a look."

"I'm not so sure you wanna, miss."

Without pausing, Alton hugged the child tightly and hurried on his way.

From the doorway of the dark bedroom, Father Sullivan studied the nearly invisible form on the bed. It didn't move; there was no sound of breathing. Was this another murder victim like those in the kitchen?

Holding his breath, he stepped closer, sensing a rapid temperature change. odd, it was so much colder in the bedroom. When he finally inhaled, the air was ripe with a feculent odor. The body on the bed must be a corpse; had to be.

Squinting into the gloom, Sullivan stepped slowly to the foot of the bed. The corpse was a spidery old man lying beneath a sheet. His skin appeared brown, leathery. His face and upper body were crisscrossed with deep wrinkles like bloodless cuts.

Sullivan was about to utter a prayer when something moved!

The head turned almost invisibly on the pillow. One eye opened. Just a bit. It seemed to glow in the shadow-shrouded face.

And there was a whispered growl, "Father Sullivan, pray for me." Then a wheezing chuckle.

Sullivan's muscles locked. Somehow the voice sounded vaguely familiar.

"Come in, William, I've been waiting for you."

He stepped closer, walking along the side of the bed. It was too dark to recognize the man beneath the sheet.

He realized his flashlight was in his hand, but it was off. When he pushed the switch nothing happened.

The air became fouler with each step. He swallowed rapidly, an effort to short-circuit his reflex to vomit.

As he neared the reclining man, he experienced a sensation of inexplicable dread, as if he had touched something completely unclean and totally unhuman. The feeling rippled in nauseating waves through his stomach. His hands shook; his legs felt weak. It was nearly impossible to find his voice. "W-who is it?" he asked tentatively. "Do I know you?"

The voice came from far away. "You will recognize me, but you do not know me." A hint of delicate laughter rumbled from the dark man in the bed. "Strike a match. William. I'm best seen in firelight."

The cold sting of rain had stopped. Jeff's skin tingled as he looked up. The thing was directly overhead.

He squinted needlessly against light that did not hurt his eyes. As he watched, every muscle tensed; his blood froze in his veins. His own voice spoke clearly in his mind, Hold on, don't move, don't panic.

In spite of numbing cold and damp discomfort, a feeling of misplaced tranquility passed through him. It was akin to the relaxing sensation of sinking slowly into a warm pool.

Still staring, the light seemed different now!

Though it had not changed, perhaps he had: his vision had improved, his mind seemed oddly sharper. It was as if he were not looking at a thing at all, but at a lighted emptiness, an illuminated passageway. He saw a bright tunnel that ran, not through earth and rock, but through time and space, and on to an infinitely distant world.

Jeff might have closed his eyes, basked in that tranquilizing light, but his mind said, No! Don't buy it; you're not thinking clearly. Hold back. Look away.

But he could not look away.

All the while, in some barely functioning pocket of rational consciousness, Jeff knew the hypnotic thing in the air was soothing him, influencing his thoughts as it was influencing those around him. He fought, trying to concentrate, trying to understand, to analyze.
Resist
, he told himself.
Resist
.

Images from his research moved in and out of focus. He recalled that bright tunnel of light sometimes perceived by dying people. He remembered their reports that a comforting contentment beckoned from the unseen end of the luminous passageway. It lulled them with infinite gentility until they were called back, rudely, only to waken with a profound sense of peace and no more fear of death . . .

Don't move. Hold on.

Jeff imagined the circular hole in the sky that Alton Barnes had described, a hole through which his friend Stuart had been pulled, kicking and screaming. . . .

Don't move. Don't speak.

And there were the lights, the fiery globes that had zipped through the skies since before the time of Ezekiel, continuing their celestial light show unabated until . . . tonight . . . when the air above Hobston was thick with them.

Spacecraft? Witchcraft? The glowing eyes of demons peering hungrily from the heavens?

If he stared long enough, he knew, the light would pull him to it and he would understand everything.

Hold on. Please. Don't let go.

Sullivan patted the pockets of his jacket and pants until he found a butane lighter. He flicked it on. Light flared. His hand trembled and he almost dropped it. "N-no. Oh no! This is impossible."

The chuckle again.

"Impossible, William? Hardly. Even if you were exceptionally dull-witted, the events of today would have taught you that nothing is. impossible. You do recognize me, don't you, son?"

Son? The word was uttered with a chilling contempt.

Orange light played on the man's face as Sullivan stared aghast. The butane lighter grew strangely heavy, as if every reserve of strength had drained from him.