The Reality Conspiracy (31 page)

"Windows? Gateways? What do you mean?"

"Metaphorical descriptions of real phenomena. Both words suggest openings, places where the division separating the known from the unknown worlds has broken down, or, in some cases, has vanished altogether. The late Ivan Sanderson studied this 'Window' phenomenon—'vile vortices' he called them, somewhat melodramatically—and he identified at least six of them around the world. But as we gather more data we discover there are many, many more. Sanderson identified the biggies. Probably the best known is the so-called Bermuda Triangle. But there are others. For example, so many ships have disappeared in the Devil's Sea off the coast of Japan that even today fishermen are careful to avoid it."

"You believe in that stuff, Jeff?"

"I believe in the data I've seen. There's just so much of it.

"And you're telling me that one of these 'Windows' is in Hobston?" Karen couldn't tell if she was experiencing honest skepticism, or if her mind was literally rebelling, denying, fighting against an uncomfortable truth. Perhaps her suspicion was some atavistic survival instinct that protected the mind rather than the body.

Jeff continued, heedless of her discomfort'. "The fact is, you have at least two Windows here in Vermont, three if you want to count Lake Champlain and that monster people keep seeing there. One is in the southern part of the state, the area around Glastonbury Mountain, near Bennington. But the one in Hobston has always been more . . . active.

"Weird stories associated with both these places go back hundreds of years. In the Hobston area, there were Indian tales involving spirits and monsters. Then, when European settlers began to move in, they discovered what the Indians already knew—that there are some very strange places in this new land. Colonists reported weird lights, eerie screeching, inexplicable odors, giant lizards, and 'wondrous horny beasts.' More recently, in the late forties and early fifties, a total of seven people—some of them lifelong Hobston residents—vanished without a trace. And check this out: in 1987 the only color photo of a Vermont Bigfoot sighting was taken there."

"Bigfoot sightings?" Karen shook her head. "Oh, boy, I think I need another drink."

Jeff held up his hand. "No. Please wait a minute. I know how all this sounds. I know it's a lot to digest at once. But let's not discuss it seriously now, then tomorrow toss it all off as drunken blither."

She stood up. "I'm not drunk."

"No. I know. And neither am I. But you asked me, Karen, and I'm telling you, seriously, soberly: Hobston, Vermont, has had a bad reputation for a long time. Its well-known as a haunted place; it's been perceived that way for hundreds of years. Even its name is almost a sure giveaway. It's an odd quirk of fate, I admit, but the word Hobston comes from 'hob,' which is an old English word meaning 'devil."

"Devil's Town, Vermont . . ."

Jeff shrugged as if to say,
See what I mean?
Then he went to get each of them another drink.

"Karen, Mr. Barnes is here." Laura Welsh peered around the partly open door.

Jarred from her reverie, Karen looked up, bleary-eyed. Automatically, she began to straighten papers on her desk. "Is Jeff Chandler out there, too."

"Yes, he just arrived." Laura stared at her for a moment'. "Karen . . ."

"I'm okay, Laura. I'm just tired, that's all."

"Sure. But if you need anything..

"I know. Thanks."

Laura turned away, almost closing the door. Then she stopped, turned back. "Oh, Karen, Gloria Cook, the woman from Dr. Gudhausen's office, phoned this morning from Boston. I guess she's been in there cleaning the place up, and that sort of thing."

"Yes?"

"She said you had asked her about the therapist Dr. Gudhausen had been trying to get in touch with . . ."

Karen shook her head, confused.

"You know, that friend of Gudhausen's? The Catholic priest . . ."

"Oh yeah, right. Dr. Gudhausen was going to ask him something about Lucy Washburn."

"That's it. Well, Ms. Cook located the name and phone number for you. She's pretty sure the man Dr. Gudhausen had in mind is on the faculty of St. Mark's College in Utica, New York. Want me to set up a phone consultation for you?"

"Oh yes, please." She thought for a minute. "What's his name, do you know?"

"Do I know? 'Course I know. His name's Sullivan, Father William J. Sullivan."

"Nope, no sir, I don't know if I can go along with nothin' like that." Alton Barnes shook his head. His gaze jumped from Jeff Chandler, to Karen, then back to Jeff. "I mean, talking to this lady, to Dr. Bradley here, is one thing, but I don't know about this hypnosis business. Doc Sparker never told me nothin' about no hypnosis." He crossed his arms and sat back, spine pressed tightly against the straight-backed chair.

Alton looked defiantly at Jeff. Jeff looked at Karen. She noted how the patient's eyes automatically gravitated to the man in the room. But, by gosh, she was the doctor, not Jeff, and it was up to her to win Alton's confidence and cooperation.

"Look, Mr. Barnes," she said, "no matter what you may have heard about hypnosis, as I use it here it's little more than a relaxation technique. It's no more painful than deep breathing, and nowhere near as dangerous as a cigarette after dinner. The theory is, the more you can relax, the more you'll be able to recall. You said it yourself: you can't remember anything after you saw that circle of light in the sky."

Alton uncrossed his arms and let his hands fall to his lap. He studied the back of his right hand like a penitent schoolboy in the principal's office. Karen too looked at his fingers. They were sun darkened, leathery, rugged-looking. She noted the gray crescents of dirt under his well-chewed nails.

On the phone, he had displayed only slight resistance to the idea of meeting Jeff and allowing him to sit in on the session. But when they introduced the topic of UFOs. Mr. Barnes had seemed to back off. Now the hypnotism. She was throwing too much at him too fast.

I'll let him alone for a minute
, she decided.
I'll give him time to think. Maybe he'll come around
.

Alton systematically cracked the knuckles of his right hand, one finger at a time. When he finished he said, "I know how you're tryin' to do right by me, Dr. Bradley. I appreciate it and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but . . . you know, this business about gettin' hypnotized, I mean."

"I promise you. Mr. Barnes, hypnotism is nothing like it's portrayed in the movies and on TV. I guarantee you'll remember everything we talk about, and I won't ask you to do anything I wouldn't ask you to do right now. All I really want is to help you remember. When we find out what's bothering you, we'll be a lot further along toward helping you to feel better."

Alton raked the fingers of his right hand through his thick white hair. Then he looked at his hands again. Karen was afraid he'd start cracking the other set of knuckles. In a moment he looked up at Jeff. "And if we find out what I seen really is one a them flyin' saucers of yours, then what?"

Jeff looked to Karen for help. She decided to let him answer this one on his own, and she waited with Mr. Barnes to hear what he'd say.

When Jeff spoke it was directly to Mr. Barnes, never breaking eye contact. "Then we'll know you've had an experience that is shared by literally thousands of other people all over the world. And all three of us will know it's true. As it is now, none of us knows for sure what happened out in those woods."

Again Alton's gaze dropped to his hands.

"How about this, Mr. Barnes," Karen said, "I can record the session on videotape. Then afterward you can watch the whole thing so you can see just how it works,"

He didn't look at her. It was obvious the man was monumentally uncomfortable. And it was her fault, too. Karen began to wish she'd never complicated the therapy by involving Jeff.

Alton Barnes sighed deeply. "Okay, miss," he said in a whisper. Karen felt herself brighten. "Shall we give it a try then?"

"Yup. Now that I chewed on it a little. I recall that's why I come here at the start. So let's give her a whirl and see what comes of it."

"And will it be all right with you if Mr. Chandler observes?"

Alton looked up and smiled. "Sure. Why not? The more the merrier. But you don't need to bother about that tape machine of yours. I trust the both of ya."

"Thank you, sir," said Jeff. The men shook hands as if together they'd won a great battle.

Jeff left the room while Karen went about inducing the hypnotic state in Alton Barnes. She was surprised to see how adept a subject he turned out to be. In spite of his initial unease, he relaxed readily. Within a very few minutes he was in a deep hypnotic trance.

Fewer than twenty minutes after Jeff had left the room, she asked him to join them again. Now, Alton was reclining in one of the chairs by the window. His eyes were closed and he looked very comfortable.

She handed Jeff a yellow legal pad and a pencil so he could make notes or, if need be, pass messages to Karen.

When she took a seat across from Alton, the session began.

"Now, Mr. Barnes," she said, "you will be very comfortable and very relaxed. You are perfectly safe in your soft cozy chair. It'll be easy to recall the events that occurred on November twelfth of last year. You'll be able to see everything clearly; you'll remember everything completely. And you'll be safe all the time. You're perfectly safe and comfortable here in my office. You'll be watching the events, just as if you were reclining at home, watching a television program. Do you feel relaxed, Mr. Barnes?"

"Yes. I'm quite comfortable. Thank you."

"Good. Okay then, now you're going back in time. Back to last year and the first day of hunting season. There is snow on the ground, and you have just entered a clearing in the woods. You're looking for your friend, Stuart Dubois. Now, Mr. Barnes, you see Stuart's footprints in the snow, is that right?"

"Yes. Right."

"Okay. Good. Then what happens . . ."

"The footprints, I see 'em goin' up a little rise and then they just stop. They just . . . they just . . . end. And that scares me a little, 'cause I'm thinkin', they can't just stop like that. I'm standin' there with two weapons in my hands 'cause Stu musta dropped his. That ain't right, Stu droppin' his weapon. And it ain't right the way his tracks just stop like that, right out in the middle of nowhere."

"Go on, Mr. Barnes. What else are you thinking?"

"I'm thinkin' I wants to hightail it outta there. Somethin' ain't right and I want to get the hell away fast. But I can't. I can't because . . . because I know somethin's happened to Stuart, and I'm the only one around that can help him.

"But I'm . . . I'm awful scared. I don't know why, but I'm scared as hell. I keep lookin' at his tracks, just ending like that, arid, and . . . Jeez, I can't find my voice. I try to find my voice so I can call out to him, you know. An' finally I call, 'Stu, hey, Stu.' But my voice ain't comin' out with no real force behind it. I try again:

"'HEY, STU!'

"But I know he ain't gonna answer me. And I look at them tracks, and there ain't nothin', I mean nothin' around he coulda jumped up on, and there ain't no place he could be hidin'. He's jest flat out gone, period.

"Trouble is, they ain't
 
but one direction he coulda gone off in: straight up.

"So I figures I jest better look up. And . . . and . . . I don't wanta look up. Please. I don't wanta look up . . . . Oh . . . ."

"It's all right, Mr. Barnes. You're safe here. You're watching this on a TV screen. You're relaxed and comfortable. It's okay to look up now. You're perfectly safe. Nothing can hurt you. Go ahead. Go ahead and look up."

"Oh . . . I . . . I . . . Yes. Okay. There's . . . I see there's light up there. Oh God, oh God, there's light up there. It's real bright, but it don't make no shadows. And it looks, it looks . . . hot. White-hot. But I can't feel it. I can't feel no heat from it.

"Funny.

"Funny."

"What's funny, Mr. Barnes?"

"The light. I . . . I'm lookin' right into it and it don't hurt my eyes. It looks like . . . kinda like . . . a disk, or somethin'. Bright. Real bright. It looks . . . you know, round . . . like somethin' flyin'. Like one a them Frisbees, or a clay pigeon, maybe. But bigger. It's real big. I'm thinkin', Oh God, oh Lordy God, I don't like this. Oh God, let this not be happenin' . . . ."'

"It's all right, Mr. Barnes. You're perfectly safe. Relax now. Take a breath. That's it. Let the breath push all of the tension out of you . . . ."

"Yeah. Sure. I'm lookin' up. It's . . . I see a big circle of light. Right up over my head now. Must be forty, fifty feet straight up. And it's round. Perfectly round. Like a disk, like a big, glowin' disk.

"But . . . oh . . . it ain't a disk. It's—Oh God no, this can't be—no, it's not a disk at all, it's . . . it's . . . I think it's more like . . . Oh Christ, that's what it is all right. Oh God—"

"What is it, Mr. Barnes? What is it you see?"

"It's . . . it's a hole. That's what it is. It's a big hole in the sky! In the air. A hole. An . . . and it's moving! It's goin' up, and it's goin' west—