The Tesla Gate (24 page)

“When I heard they were planning to start rounding Impals up and relocating them, that troubled me, but the reasoning scared the hell out of me.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward me, “They said the Constitution didn't grant rights to the deceased, only the living. I guess their definition of living is different from mine. I feel pretty alive,” he said, patting his cheeks.

That had been my thought exactly, but to now hear it confirmed I felt like a hole was torn out of my gut. I swallowed hard. My throat had started feeling better, as long as I was careful when I swallowed or didn't talk too loud or too long, but that unprepared gulp set my throat on fire again.

“They said that we would soon have an overcrowding problem and we needed to take preemptive action for the good of the living and the Impals before it got out of hand. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was included in that.” He paused and placed his hands together in front of his mouth like he was in prayer. “Please understand, I didn't run because of my own cowardice, although I do admit to being afraid. I ran so I could warn as many people and Impals as I could, because I felt it was going to get much worse.”

“How much worse?” I croaked, my throat still burning.

Lincoln shook his head and frowned as if he were considering the best way to couch his answer. After several long moments he spoke slowly, barely above a whisper.

“I overheard one of the president's advisors, Garrison, he was a general or something. He was telling another man, a Dr. Winder, that they had come up with a way to get rid of the Impals, to send them back where they belong.”

CHAPTER 26

Historical Significance

“To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.”

—Horace Mann

My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. The very thing I had been worried about, Seth and the other Impals leaving, the government was now trying to expedite.

“How?” I asked.

“I don't know,” admitted Lincoln. “They had been discussing theories of how we were here. They had Einstein, trying to figure out the secret of our appearance.”

“He cooperated?” I asked incredulously, I couldn't believe that to be true, not after the couple of times I had heard him on the radio; he had been clearly disturbed by developing events.

“Well at first, he had no reason not to. Everyone was curious as to what had happened, including Impals. But as time went on, his mood changed; he was less and less engaged in discussions, until eventually he stopped coming to meetings all together.”

“Did they take him off for relocation with other Impals?”

Lincoln shrugged.

“I don't know, maybe, but … I hope not. I guess it's possible if he refused to cooperate,” he said with a troubled frown.

I closed my eyes and focused on the background noise, the low murmur of Impals bedding down for the night, and the sometimes distant and sometimes very near drip of water echoing melodiously through the cave. It was not that melodious when you really honed in on it, it was maddening. I felt physically and spiritually ill, there was no other way to explain it. Refocusing did little to hinder my troubled thoughts. Things were much, much worse than I imagined.

After several long moments I reopened my eyes and looked at Lincoln. He was looking at me sympathetically.

“I know you're worried about Seth,” he said. “I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to see that no harm comes to him.”

My mind was swirling with a cesspool of terrible thoughts, try as I might I couldn't get a single positive thought to come to the surface. I looked over at Seth, who was sleeping peacefully with his head on the table. Jackson was curled up on his feet. This view of my sweet little son and his dog unhinged my mouth, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Why am I the only flesher here?”

Lincoln looked at me surprised; a slight hint of bemusement washed across his face.

“Because we knew you could be trusted,” he said.

“How?” I demanded.

He stroked his beard and smiled wanly.

“Because Mollie puts a great deal of stock in her friend Lizzie's opinion, I guess. Plus, you have a son whom you love very much who is, forgive me, part of the oppressed class.”

I looked at him blankly for a long time. Deep down I knew he was right; how could you predict how anyone was going to react unless they stood to lose something, namely a dearly departed loved one? Even then, nothing was certain. This was uncharted territory in human history. I felt a bizarre mix of emotions swelling inside. I felt pride in what seemed to be acceptance from my hero and the Impal community-at-large. This mixed unnervingly with a gripping panic on the thought that my son could be taken away in any case, regardless of whether the phenomenon did or did not pass, taken away by mere human ignorance.

At that moment I heard the sound of the hidden door opening, and a minute later, the slow shuffling steps of Mollie gingerly traversing the stairs. I looked up to see her emerge from the shadows accompanied by Esther on one side and what appeared to be a family of Impals following closely behind. There were a man, woman, and a little girl who I guessed to be ten or eleven years of age. They all wore tired and frightened expressions on their silvery faces. Their clothing suggested that they were recently deceased, especially since the little girl wore Arizona jeans and a polka dot Tommy Hilfiger blouse.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Mollie said, taking special care not to wake the sleeping Seth. “This is the Lieblong family: Mark, Susan, and their daughter, Samantha.”

They all nodded sheepishly, their eyes darting nervously around the cave. That is, until their gaze seemed to fall on Lincoln at the same time. Their confused expressions melded into the same bewildered countenance of unified recognition.

“Hello,” Lincoln and I said together.

I'm sure Mollie saw their looks of celebrity infatuation because she quickly ushered them off toward the beds on the far wall of the cave.

“Don't go, I'll be right back,” Mollie promised with a wink as she took the silvery hand of Samantha and urged her to follow. I had no idea where I would possibly go.

She showed the Lieblongs to their beds and stayed to chat with them for a few minutes. Shortly they all took seats on their respective beds and sat there with looks of utter perplexity, occasionally casting a furtive glance in our direction.

The Lieblongs were clearly out of their element; they were frightened and confused. I guessed that it had been a short time, maybe a few hours, since they were separated from their mortal tether. Something terrible had happened to this family and it had not been that long ago. I suddenly remembered the family that Seth and I had seen the day we left on our trip: the victims of a terrible car wreck. They were Impals standing next to their bodies, which were covered on the side of the road. They wore the same bewildered expressions as the Lieblongs.

Once the Lieblongs were somewhat settled in, Mollie tottered back over to Lincoln and me. Try as I might, I couldn't stifle an enormous yawn as she approached. It not only reminded me of how tired I was but also that my throat still hurt.

“I know you must be tired,” she said. She looked lovingly at Seth as he peacefully stirred in his sleep. “I know that little fellow is.”

“Well, this old fellow definitely is,” Lincoln proclaimed, stretching his long lanky arms into the air. “I think it's time to hit the rack!” He turned and shook my hand and then delicately kissed Mollie's hand, causing her to blush noticeably in the low light. “Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!” he advised as he strolled toward the beds.

“Well, Thomas, I have a special place prepared upstairs for you and Seth,” Mollie said giving Lincoln a final wave before he reached his bed.

I looked over my shoulder at the rows of Impals, some sleeping, some sitting up and a few milling about, quietly visiting with fellow Impal insomniacs. Lincoln was already stretched out on his bed, his head underneath the pillow I would guess to filter out the ambient noise in the cave, or, maybe that was just his quirk. I felt guilty.

“Why do Seth and I get to sleep upstairs when they all have to stay down here?” I asked.

Mollie smiled.

“Lizzie was right about you. You are a good man,” she said patting my shoulder with a gnarled hand. She looked at Esther and nodded. Esther gently scooped Seth up, taking special care not to wake him and headed toward the stairs. Mollie gently took my hand and led me in the same direction. “Sleeping down here is not very conducive to we fleshers' good health,” she said with a suppressed laugh.

“I thought souls,” I said, taking special care to use the right word in the presence of our host, “I thought they felt much the same things we do.”

“They do, they do,” Mollie agreed, patting my arm. “But they are not susceptible to heat, cold, and wetness as we are. They don't have to worry about such bothersome things as colds, flu, or pneumonia,” she said.

In our short walk out of the cave and to a second floor bedroom in Mollie's impressively large home, I learned a great deal about the house and history of the tunnel, getting much more detail than I did in my discussion with Lincoln.

There was a small cave discovered in the early 1800s underneath the then fledgling city of Washington, D.C. A townhouse was built by a wealthy resident over the cave, and it was used as a wine and root cellar by the owner until just a few short years after the War of 1812. The traumatic experience of the British marching into the city and burning most of the Federal buildings convinced many in the government that an escape route was needed in case anything like that ever occurred again. The cave was a few short blocks from the White House, so it would be an ideal route by which to evacuate the president.

Construction was started sometime in 1815, funded by a secret measure passed by Congress. A newly formed coal mining company that had just started prospecting in the Appalachian Mountains was tapped to construct the tunnel. They began digging in the cave under the city, and in just a little over a year, they broke into another cavern system—the one under Mollie's house. They were pleasantly surprised that the cave under Mollie's was completely stable and had a natural exit, or entrance, depending on your perspective.

The natural opening was hidden for many years by selectively planted trees and shrubs, and a small military guard post was constructed to guard it. In 1850, the government built the existing house over the cave because some believed it would make the escape tunnel less conspicuous and give the president a temporary headquarters if needed in the event of an evacuation from the city.

The less practical proponents thought the president needed a nice place to rest and clean up after a crawl through a nasty tunnel. In truth it became a vacation home to many in the government or a retreat for Congressmen and their mistresses. I guess little has changed in the last 150 years.

The truly incredible thing about it all was that the tunnel was kept such a tight secret up until the time it was abandoned by the government in the 1880s that it has been all but forgotten by history. I certainly don't remember studying about the president's subterranean escape tunnel in school, or even seeing some obscure television program on the History Channel. No, according to Mollie, there are only a handful of people with knowledge of the tunnel.

“How did you happen on this house?” I asked.

“I married into it,” she said with a modest smile.

It turned out that Mollie had married a man by the name of Shainard Hartje shortly after moving to Landover after she and Lizzie Chenowith parted ways. The house had been in the Hartje family for 100 years and they had kept the tunnel a closely guarded secret, not with the motive of protecting classified information but to keep tourists and gawkers away.

“Shay, that's what I called him, passed away almost 30 years ago,” she said as we slowly ascended the ornate staircase. “He was a good man with a good heart, just not a very strong one, I'm afraid.”

“I'm sorry, did he—” I broke off the question when I realized how stupid it was.

She gave me an appraising look and then smiled faintly.

“Did he stay? No, I'm sorry to say he did not, although I have talked to him a few times in the past 30 years.”

“How?” I asked, forgetting some of what Miss Chenowith had told me.

Mollie gestured to Esther, whom was gently laying Seth down on a large mahogany covered bed in a room to the right of the second floor landing. It reminded me of my upstairs landing except it was much larger and much fancier.

“My spirit guide,” she said. “Didn't Lizzie tell you about Shasta?”

I shrugged. It seemed like she had mentioned something about how spirit guides work but I had either forgotten it or didn't comprehend in the first place.

Mollie hobbled over to a high backed chair in the corner covered in yellow fabric festooned with tiny red roses. She plopped down alarmingly like a sack of potatoes and motioned for me to come and sit on the matching loveseat nearby. When I obliged, she leaned as far out as she could using her cane for support and spoke to me in a low voice like she didn't want anyone overhearing.

“People like Lizzie and me are called mediums, but that is actually a misnomer. Our spirit guide could be more accurately described as a medium.”

I looked at her with blank incomprehension washing over my face. She continued.

“We have a strong bond to the spirit guide, and as a result of that link we are able to tap in on connections the spirit guide makes.”

“Connections?” I asked.

“Yes, many spirits that have chosen to remain will speak to me freely, but many more are a little shy or just don't want to be bothered. That's where Esther comes in; she is able to be a little more persuasive than I can, since she is like them.”

I looked over to see Esther watching us as she sat on the side of the bed, nervously stroking Seth's hair as he slept. She looked anxious, like she wanted us to hurry and finish our conversation. I didn't know whether it bothered her that Mollie was discussing their relationship or if she was just as tired as I was and was eager to call it a night. She returned my look with a faint smile.

“I see,” I said, turning my attention back to Mollie. “So she acts like a medium between you and spirits that are shy or antisocial?” I intended that question to be sincere but with a little dry humor thrown in. I'm not sure Mollie took it that way.

“No, not antisocial, they're just people who want to be left alone even though their loved ones want to talk to them. I think it's too painful for them to focus on their past lives. It's sad, really, and this whole event, or phenomenon, or whatever you want to call it, has been the hardest on them. They no longer have a choice.”

I nodded my head and offered an apologetic smile.

Mollie looked at me with a stern expression, one that made me feel as if I were being scolded by my grandmother. But she wasn't scolding; she was trying as best she could to educate an ignorant ex-skeptic like myself.

“A spirit guide is most literally a medium when they are communicating with someone who has passed on, someone who has chosen to go through the door, so to speak.”

My heart skipped a beat when I thought of how Seth had told me about the doors and that his mother had chosen to go through hers. Could it be possible that I still might be able to communicate with my beloved Ann, even though she had chosen to move on?