The Reality Conspiracy (62 page)

Jeff and Karen exchanged glances.

"The riddle of the ages has an answer. I have learned why we are here, what life means, what happens when we die, and why our death is essential to the workings of the universe."

Karen thought she heard a series of quiet sobs coming from the priest. When he continued to speak, his voice was less steady. "For thousands of years mankind has lived an illusion. We have regaled ourselves with the notion that we are the highest form of life on this planet. That the beasts of the field, the fowl, the very earth itself, are there for us to control, to exploit, and to dominate."

He took a deep asthmatic breath. "But we have been . . . wrong.

"Tonight things have . . . changed. Call it Armageddon, Judgment Day, call it whatever you like. The simple truth is that a new order is about to assert itself. And there is n-nothing we can do to oppose it. They . . . the creatures we'll soon confront . . . are as different from us as we are from . . . worms or roaches. They can present themselves as visions. Or invisibly. They can speak directly into our ears or into our minds. And our only action, the only thing we can do, is to let it happen."

"Father," Jeff said gently, "I'm afraid I don't understand. Maybe you're too tired . . . Maybe we shouldn't be talking right now.
 
He inched forward.

"NO! Stay there. Let me finish. You have to know. Everyone has to know. I have to make you understand.

"The Otherworlders, they can come here, but they can't remain for long. To remain, they have to . . . inhabit one of us, they have to possess a human being.

"Ten years ago one such entity tried to inhabit Father Mosely. Its intent was to remain as a gatekeeper, to facilitate the passage from their world to ours. But when it completed the possession, Father Mosely's paralyzing stroke made the body useless. The intruder was forced to remain dormant, trapped in a state much like physical death, until it could be freed.

"McCurdy and his experiments at the Academy inadvertently provided the rituals necessary to give the entity new strength. Eventually it became strong enough to exert its influence on specific individuals, people with a diminished sense of personal identity.

"That's why it could manipulate Lucy Washburn and Herbert Gold. That's why both externalized the same alternate personality, the one who facetiously identified himself as Mr. Splitfoot. By controlling Lucy and Herbert, the entity forced them to kidnap the shell in which it was prisoner: Father Mosely's body.

"At the same time it learned to manipulate the Academy's computer. McCurdy's machine is constructed with experimental substances nearly identical to human flesh—the flesh of our brain matter. The substance is human enough so it could be . . . acquired by the entity. Gradually, through processes we may never understand, it used the computer to continue building its own strength and to, In effect, seduce the system's designer, Dr. McCurdy.

"Now, with all its forces in place, the entity brought Father Mosely's body here to Hobston. Here the forces of its alien domain are most powerful, because here there's an actual entry point to the other realm. And McCurdy summoned a handful of people to be used in the ritual necessary to free it."

"The . . . the dead people," said Karen. "The people who were massacred out there in the field?"

"Yes. But not massacred, Karen, sacrificed. They require deaths to gain strength."

Jeff looked at Karen, then back at the priest. "This entity sacrificed a group of people so it could free itself'?"

"Yes. It needed their strength. The combined strength of all of them. And it needs more still."

"S-so, you're saying that now the spirit that possessed Father Mosely is free?"

Father Sullivan didn't respond.

"So why isn't it over?" Karen's voice rose. "If the darn thing is free, how come this . . . this craziness is still going on?"

"It has to keep the gate open. It's going to provide its kin with free access to our world. And to us."

"Christ, how many of these . . . entities are there?"

"I don't know. There could be fewer than a dozen. There could be billions upon billions. It's entirely possible there is one for each person living on this earth. . . ."

"But, Father, please, how do you know? How can you be sure about this?"

The priest chuckled weakly. "Ah, Karen, you are such a child. Even when you know something, you continue to deny it."

Without moving her eyes from the priest, Karen reached out and took Jeff's hand. Squeezing it hard, she watched Father Sullivan step away from the door frame. He staggered toward the table at the center of the kitchen.

Then she saw a pale white cable behind him.

He's tied up
, she thought.

A rope appeared to be wrapped around his neck like a noose.

When Sullivan took two more halting steps, Karen realized someone was standing behind him. What she had mistaken for a rope was in reality the arm of an impossibly fragile-looking man. He had a hand on Sullivan's back, apparently to steady himself.

He moved along with the priest, one tottering step at a time, approaching them with a painful slowness.

Who was it? She couldn't tell for sure.

Was it McCurdy? No way! The man was too old and delicate. His body seemed twisted, impossibly thin. He hardly seemed alive.

Then Karen saw his hand wasn't on Sullivan's back. Not exactly. It was as if this frail naked corpse had its hand clamped to the back of Sullivan's neck. But as Sullivan drew nearer, Karen perceived something she wanted to deny: the corpse was not holding Sullivan's neck at all; its long, skeletal fingers were actually embedded in the back of the priest's skull.

A scream locked in her throat. She dug her fingers into Jeff's arm.

When the old man's shadowy form met the hall's dull light, he seemed to glow. A luminescence molded itself to him, forming a kind of aura. With great difficulty he raised his arm, stretching his free hand skyward.

The heavens split with a magnificent crash of thunder; the concussion rattled the house. Dishes clattered. Timbers groaned. Lightning blasted the hall into momentary brilliance.

But instead of vanishing, the white electrical glare seemed to swirl within the room. Karen had never seen light behave so strangely. Impossibly, it rotated counterclockwise like shining water in a drain, whirling until it flowed into the tottering old man.

His laugh was a booming demonic howl, a chilling hybrid of triumph and madness.

"Holy shit," Jeff whispered, "I've got to get to that computer!"

He pushed Karen toward the outside door as he turned and bolted for the stairs.

But Karen caught herself. She watched in fascination as the ancient man lifted the priest with one hand and hurled him toward the wall. Sullivan crumbled near Karen's feet.

"Another broken puppet," the skeleton laughed, shaking gore from his fingertips.

Karen felt as if she were being torn in half. Should she run away? Or kneel to help the fallen priest?

What should she do? She didn't know. She couldn't move.

Father Sullivan could not open his eyes. He couldn't feel the floor under him; he no longer sensed temperature in the room. Even his olfactory functions had shut down. His single sensation was that he was hovering weightlessly in the infinite blackness of space. The only thing he'd ever experienced remotely like it was a brief period immersed in the warm liquid of a sensory deprivation tank at St. Mark's College.

But he was not uncomfortable.

Somehow he knew Karen was nearby. He sensed her. And he was sure if he waited, rested a minute, he would be able to speak. He had to warn her. Had to tell her the truth.

But what should he say?

On some diminishing level of functioning intellect, the dying priest realized what had happened to him. The demon-thing had pulled the strength from him, had filled his mind with horrific thoughts, and in so doing, had pushed out his . . .

His what? His essence? His life force? His immortal soul? Thoughts continued, so he knew he was still alive. More than anything, he wanted to pray, but what good would it do?

If he could just summon the strength to speak to Karen. He could tell her. He could explain what he had just learned about the order and reason of the universe.

He reviewed it in his mind, hoping to discover a flaw in the creature's logic.

Was what he had learned really part of the undisclosed secret of Fatima, as the beast had insisted?

Oh my dear God! Sullivan would have wept if it were possible. But no. He had to think. He had to disprove this ugly revelation before he . . . died.

He thought: The human body is home for the soul. Also its protector. And its incubator. The soul matures as the body ages. Mankind's strongest instinct, the will to live, insures the soul's continuation for as many years as possible. Survival is a powerful instinct, genetically encoded, programmed into us long before we are born. It is human nature to allow the soul decades to strengthen, to . . . ripen.

An equally potent instinct is the urge to reproduce. But, the demon-thing had communicated, humankind's function is reproducing soul, not progeny. It is our mission, our purpose, to keep the supply plentiful.

And when we die there is no personal transcendence into Heaven or Hell, our soul merely makes its exit and takes its place in the universe. There it nourishes the things that depend on it for their own sustenance and survival.

The cycles of nature.

The end of the food chain.

It was contrary to everything Sullivan had ever believed.

Could it be true? Was this the hidden revelation of Fatima? If so, perhaps Sullivan should hold his tongue. As the Pope had held his, preserving an illusion designed to make reality endurable.

Or was this another demonic fabrication?

He had to know, had to discover the flaw in the creature's logic. But there was no time!

I . . . can't do it, Father. Please, I can't.

"You can do it. Concentrate, William. Concentrate!" It was Father Mosely's voice. Again Sullivan was a small boy on a chinning bar, not rising, not falling, hanging like a plump apple on a bough. Would he be able to pull himself up and ascend into Heaven? Or drop forever into the black bowels of Hell?

Or—dear God help me!—would he literally be consumed by malignant forces he had just recently come to know?

As consciousness waned, Father Sullivan realized one thing for certain: in a moment he'd learn which it was to be.

Jeff Chandler ran up the stairs toward the bedroom. When he had almost reached the second floor, he faltered. His head began to spin, his vision darkened.

A shadow materialized before him on the stair. A shadow blacker than the night that filled the old house. It loomed directly in his path, filling the entire top of the stairway. He couldn't step around it, though he knew the entrance to the bedroom was directly on the other side, a scant five feet away. He would have to plunge into that concentration of darkness, pass through it. That was the only way to reach McCurdy's terminal.

Uncertain, he turned, looked downstairs.

Karen was assisting the skeletal man. Together they moved toward the foot of the stairs. She looked as if she were in a trance.

Christ, what now? Jeff wondered, watching the strange couple moving closer. Were they coming up to get him?

It was too late. He had no alternative but to press forward, cross that preternatural darkness, and enter the bedroom.

Of course I can pass through it
, he thought.
It's an illusion, a trick to scare me away! It would be no worse than jumping over a puddle.

Battling a crippling fear, Jeff faced the shadow. He thought of himself as a sky diver, petrified before jumping.

He took a deep breath, braced himself, and plunged.

Then he screamed!

When Casey heard her father's cry, she wanted to jump up and run to him.

"Stay here," he had told her. "No matter what, stay here till I come back for you."

But now he was screaming.

Casey knew she could do it. She could get up and walk. She could run to him if she had to. But her father's other warning held her in place. "If you get up it'll own you. You'll be in its debt."

Could that be true? If she'd really regained the use of her legs, wouldn't it be wrong to remain seated at a time like this? Wouldn't it be a sin not to assist her father if he was in trouble?

She remembered the bullet shattering her mother's forehead, fast and final. There was nothing she could have done, yet she'd felt guilty just the same. But now . . . maybe this time.

The little girl beside her made a hissing sound, blinking her eyes frantically.

What was she trying to say? That if Casey got up, something awful would happen to her, too? Something worse than what happened to this pitiful child?

Oh my God, what should I do?

And then she knew.

Casey Chandler did something she had not done since her mother died. She prayed.