At the Twilight's Last Gleaming (25 page)

But while I was suitably thrown into shock and disbelief, I was also spurred into outrage.

Something had to be done.

“They’ve kidnapped the President!” I cried.

“Yes they have,” came a voice from across the room. “I was afraid of this. Emory. Are you awake, boy?”

I realized then that I could turn my head. I did so, and I saw, moving across the room like a shadow flitting across a field of statues, Senator Clarke coming toward me.

“Yes,” said a voice. “Yes, father. I’m just shaking off the effects of that book. If I could only have done it sooner —”

“It was strong to me as well, across the other side of the room,” said Senator Clarke. “I had hoped this would not happen and would not catch us unprepared. Fortunately, Emory, all is not lost.”

“Emory! Senator Clarke!” I said.

I lifted my arm and looked at my hand. I was astonished I was able to accomplish that. It took much effort, but I did it.

I felt as though I were rising from some deep depth of sleep, shaking off lethargy, functioning slowly — but functioning.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” I insisted.

“Welcome to the Dark and the Shadows,” said another voice. I turned and I saw Senator Clarke, stepping around to where Emory stood looking grim but determined. “I’m not sure what role you’re supposed to play Rebecca, but it we can use all the help we can get.”

I looked over and saw the two of them standing there, in front of me, animate among the other, frozen in the foreground and the background.

And then it hit me.

“There
are
vampires!” I said. “And — you — you and Emory! You are vampires!”

“But first and foremost, my dear, Democrats — and patriots!” said Senator Clarke.

“There are worse things, believe me,” said Cheryl.

I put my hand up to my neck, which I realized was pulsing. But it wasn’t pulsing with pain. It felt good. It felt…..powerful. It felt like it was glowing with purpose.

I turned to Emory.

“You bit me!” I said. “You sucked my blood!”

“No,” said Emory.

“No, no, no, that’s all right. It was…it was amazing!” I rubbed my neck. “And is that why I’m not frozen now like the others. I don’t think I’m a vampire — but I’ve been infected somehow….changed.”

Emory looked abashed. “I didn’t bite you, Rebecca.”

“That’s right, he didn’t” came a voice.

I turned.

There was Harold, standing beside me.

Harold wasn’t frozen!

He looked like he’d just woken up. He was rubbing the top of turtleneck sweater. “The Senator bit you. Just like he bit me.”

“Young man, I am truly sorry about that, but you did intrude,” said the Senator. “But now, I’m glad you did. We have —”

“What? I don’t get it —” I said.

“It was all that talking you did about Emory being a vampire. Your neck wounds and all,” said Harold. “I believed you. I believed you and yesterday I went over to confront Emory on the subject. And instead I ran into Senator Clarke.”

“There is no time! No time for this!” said Senator Clarke. “We must stop Canthorpe. We must jump through this portal and stop Canthorpe!”

“What, from kidnapping President Johnson?” I said.

Senator Clarke’s eyes darkened. “Stop him from doing worse. Much worse!”

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

I
WAS REELING.

First I meet the President of the United States in my high school.

Then the President of the United States is grabbed and taken through some kind of portal into some dark place by the Principal of the High School.

Then I find out that in fact I have been bitten by a vampire — but not the one I wanted to have bitten me! And then, to boot, that vampire — a Senator! — had bitten my best friend as well.

“Worse?” I said.

“Yes,” said Senator Clarke. “He’s been kidnapped by werewolves.”

“What,” said Harold. “And vampires are the good guys?”

Emory said, “I would not phrase it precisely like that.” He drew up to his full height, looking rather majestic and valiantly fierce. “There’s no time to discuss it. My father is right. We have to stop this.”

“Stop what?” said Harold.

But such was the power of the moment and the conviction of what these two Southern Americans were saying, that I knew — I just knew — that they were right.

“Come on, Harold!” I grabbed him and pulled us both through the doorway into the dark dimension.

W
E FELL INTO nothingness.

Or at least that’s how it felt at first.

Gravity seemed to let go its grip on us. We were plunging through a cloud-laced sky, head over heels.

Harold was too surprised to scream. B the time either of us even had an inkling of having any kind of reaction, gravity reasserted itself and we landed gently, feet first on solid substance.

Some kind of weird ground fog swirled about our feet. Dark stars and twisted shapes lurked and murked around us. There was the smell of cardamom and cinnamon and dank earth with the whisper of saffron and charcoal.

I pushed Harold aside.

Something seemed to be telling me what to do.

Something instinctual — and something beyond instinct.

“Oh, man — you’ve done it now!” said Harold. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know, but we seem to have come down. And we don’t want the others to land on top of us, do we?”

“No way,” said Harold.

He obliged and we scooted away from our misty, moisty landing spot.

Sure enough, the others came down. They seemed to materialize out of the cloudy stuff overhead and thump down softly in front of us.

Senator Clarke.

Cheryl Ames.

Emory Clarke.

One. Two. Three.

They landed, knees bent. Slowly they rose up, like some kind of dark team, faces strong and resolute.

I shivered.

For a moment, I felt dizzy and frightened. I was swimming, I knew, well out of my depth.

But then, some kind of flinty steel renewed itself up my backbone. I knew were were doing the right thing. And it wasn’t entirely because of whatever charge I’d received from a vampires bite. I’d felt it in the firmness and sincerity of the President of the United States’ handshake.

I’d been all around the world, and sometimes I’d felt I never really had a home. A true home. But know I knew I did.

The renewal of my resolve charged me up.

“What do we have to do?” I said.

“I’d very much like to know what’s happening!” said Harold, obviously not as filled with conviction as me.

The Senator — looking somehow much younger now, and much stronger — gazed around him. He bent his long head back, and his patrician nostrils twitched, as though smelling out the situation.

“There will time later to explain.” A finger stabbed out. “Come. This way.”

He looked all the world to me know like Sherlock Holmes must have looked to Doctor Watson in some foggy Victorian London alley, pointing out the way to correctly pursue his latest Moriarty before some horrible plot could hatch.

We scurried after him.

We were traveling, it seemed, in some weird combination of chiarascuro corridors. It felt very
Alice in Wonderland
— no, very like an old silent movie I saw called
Cat and the Canary
with slanted ceiling and tilted hallways. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t Crossland Senior High School.

We ran along for a ways, my heart in my throat. I was so swept up in the moment, I didn’t have time to think clearly or to be too afraid. The President must be saved! came the thought. The President must be saved! But as the weird landscape whizzed by and the adrenaline dried up, it wasn’t doubt or even weariness that crept in — but fear at the oddness, fear at the total strangeness.

What was this place?

“What is this place?” said Harold as we halted at a forking of corridors, while Senator Clarke paused, seemingly to get his bearing.

“It’s another dimension,” said Cheryl, her voice trembling a bit. “It’s kind of outside space and time. We can only endure it a while.”

“It intersect with every point of our planet,” said Emory. “Yet is generally inaccessible, save for penetration effected by what you might call “the magical”.

“Those books,” I said. “Were they some kind of spell casters?”

“No reason to go into the technology of it now,” said Senator Clarke, catching his breath. “Suffice it to say that Canthorpe and his minions have kidnapped the President. And not for ransom or for any length of time that can be measured in Earthly dimensional chronometers. The intention will be, in fact, to bring him back and dust him off and let him give his speech and let him be on his way —”

“So what are we doing here?” objected Harold.

“What troubles our cause,” said Senator Clarke, “are the changes the creatures intend to effect upon President Johnson in the interim. Changes they have effected before!”

“What?” I said.

“Oh man — what — kind of like
The Manchurian Candidate
?” said Harold.

The Manchurian Candidate
was a famous book and movie of the early 1960’s about an American soldier brainwashed by the Red Chinese, who then runs for American political office.

“The comparison,” said Senator Clarke, “is not unwarranted.”

“But you say they’re werewolves?” said Harold. “Why would Bela Lugosi want to stop Lon Chaney, Jr?”

Senator Clarke jerked a bit, as though suddenly distracted.

His ears pricked up a bit.

And then he became Sherlock Holmes again.

“This way,” he whispered. “Quickly!”

He sprinted off, and if we didn’t want to get lost (which I certainly didn’t, not in this place) we had to follow.

We followed.

A few more twists, a few more turns and then suddenly, we were in some larger chamber. Great bowled ceiling swept up from ribbed ways. Along the sides of the walls, clung tentacles of cords of sort, of various shapes, sizes and colors. The rolling mists at our feet seemed heavier, thicker.

“There!” said Senator Clarke.

He pointed.

President Johnson was seated in some sort of chair, with his back against the wall. The cords or tentacles or whatever they were that clung to the wall like circuitry on some board wrapped around him. From this wall dangled a helmet. It was fitted snugly around the President’s head. Strands of disheveled hair poked out from the edge of the metal. His arms were all akimbo. His bold red tie hung out from his expensive blue jacket like a leering tongue. His face was pale.

I gasped.

“Oh dear,” I said. “He doesn’t look good. Is he sick?”

Senator Clarke hurried to his side. He knelt and grabbed up the President’s arm. His hands found the President’s wrist, and he felt for a pulse.

“He’s fine. But you’re right, he doesn’t look good. I must remove this apparatus, though, immediately before any kind of brainwashing can be effected.”

Harold looked around nervously. “Where the heck is Canthorpe?”

“Obviously he and his henchman are off to procure some needed implement.” Senator Clarke’s hands fixed on the helmet and worked with it. The attachments and helmet off surprisingly easily. Then, one by one, somehow the Senator removed the other attachments.

The President moaned.

“Lyndon!” said Senator Clarke. “Lyndon, wake up!” His delicate hands slapped the President’s face gently but firmly. Receiving no immediate response, he worked more diligently. Soon, he got a response.

President Johnson’s eyes fluttered upon. Those dark eyes looked out blearily into this strange world.

“Another heart attack!” he yelped. His eyes fixed upon me. He grabbed my arm. “Bird! Don’t leave me, Bird!”

Well, I certainly wasn’t Lady Bird Johnson, his wife and I certainly wasn’t Lynda Bird Johnson, his daughter. But I was honored to have the President think so.

“So sir. I’m just Rebecca Williams of Crossland Senior High School.”

“Crossland High,” he said. He felt his chest and seemed relieved that there was no pains happening there. “Oh yeah. Mah speech. I remember now.” His eyes alighted on Senator Clarke. “Clarke, you son of a bitch. What the hell is goin’ on!”

“Lyndon, we’ve got a problem,” said the Senator. “You’ve been kidnapped to a very strange place and we’ve got to get you out .”