The Reality Conspiracy (46 page)

I will not beg! (Is that my pride and thus my failing?)

But how am I to fight? Please, dear God, help me to know what I must do. Do not desert me, I pray. If it is Your will that I must fail, please let the one who finds this book have an understanding greater than my own.

The thing is demonic, but I am convinced it is not a demon. At first it feigned great fear when I took crucifix in hand. When I commanded it to leave in the name of Jesus Christ, it would vanish for hours, even days at a time.

And for a while I thought He had put an end to things.

Later, when it dropped its pretense, the wooden crucifix exploded in my fist. Upon opening the pyx, I saw it was seething with maggots. The name of the Savior evoked gales of hideous laughter. Each utterance brought the sensation of burning to my lips and tongue.

With God's help I would challenge a demon. But this is something else, as old, as cunning, but impervious to the very forces of light that should repel it.

But I will not beg!

I cannot leave the grounds. We are stranded together by a terrible bond. Sometimes I think it is trying to chase me away, so that by taking my leave I will allow it to follow. I cannot loose this thing into the community. I must contain it here, I must.

Young Barry brings my supplies and runs my errands. I fear for the boy; he has seen too much. I dread that by accepting his help, I have guaranteed his destruction. God help me. God forgive me. And please, dear Lord, I beg You—spare the boy.

Perhaps there is some small protection in that I have sworn him to secrecy. No one must discover what we have here. Young Barry understands this; he knows he must be strong.

As I must. As must we all.

It is my greatest sadness that the mass can no longer be celebrated publicly at St. Joe's.

My parishioners, whose good works I have seen as they struggle to nurture their young in a Christian environment, must learn nothing of this. I fear the consequence. It is not boastfully that I say I have heard some of them cite me as an example to their children. What if they discover their priest can be so easily undone by things preternatural? In their eyes would not the Church itself seem beaten? There would no longer be a sanctuary for them, as there is no sanctuary for me.

What am I saying? And to whom? I feel that madness is near. Fatigue and pain are all that I know, all that I trust. Is this a blasphemy? Or does it put these thoughts in my head?

I reflect—and I do little else now that I accept how helpless I am—I try to put the thing in a historical perspective. I am not the first. It has long been known within the Church that such events as these are not uncommon. Men have too often been tormented by evil things. And we have called them demons. Devils. Evil spirits.

But am I too cloistered in my thinking? Over the centuries, mankind has been visited by myriad unworldly creatures, and they have been known by many different names: the Titans were replaced by the Olympians. Then the Christian God arrived with His hierarchy of angels and their unholy counterparts. And what of the faerie faith? It is still with us though now the wee folk and their faerie mounds go by more modern names: extraterrestrials and their fantastic alien crafts. The spirits of the dead that spoke through nineteenth-century mediums now communicate through channels. They no longer claim to be our ancestors; some even claim they have never lived.

Is there a truth in all of this?

Things appear different but things do not change. New faces replace old, but the voice is always the same.

I have heard talk of other dimensions, other "levels" of reality outside the teachings of the church. I do not have the education to understand these notions as scientific concepts, yet they compel me to ask: Could this world be home to so many diverse supernatural residents? What of our poltergeists, our hairy man-beasts, water monsters, and ghostly visitations? What of all things supernatural and strange?

Could it be that they are one?

Could it be that they lie, as Satan is known to lie, and that all things that speak articulate but a single truth—that their name is in fact Legion?

I weaken; I fear my faith is at risk. I fear my mind is not my own. I cry for my immortal soul.

But these questions torture me. Could the voice that addressed Moses from the burning bush be of the Legion? Could the shining presence that made itself known to Bernadette be among them, too? Could the Ouija board, the tarot, and the crystal ball speak and deceive? Could all mystical utterances rise from a single unearthly tongue?

If so, then I am not damned. Nor are we all. But in that knowledge we cannot rejoice, for our true fate could be far more appalling than damnation.

"Absolutely terrifying," Karen whispered. "That poor man." Though her education and training argued against it, Karen found herself believing what the old priest had written. She looked at Jeff and at Father Sullivan, trying to gauge their responses, feeling a little embarrassed about her own.

"Sadly," Sullivan said, "it sounds like schizophrenia. A month ago I would have dismissed it just that simply. But now—"

Jeff closed the Bible and tossed it onto Sullivan's desk. "Sounds to me like Father Mosely came to pretty much the same conclusion we did at the Academy: that consistent with all sorts of religious, supernatural, and occult evidence, there really is a parallel dimension. And on certain occasions, under certain circumstances, we can interact with it."

"Yes," said Sullivan, "apparently your computer is the device that makes it possible."

Jeff nodded. "And if we can accept an unseen world, it's not too much of an imaginative leap to guess there are beings that inhabit it, whether they're angels, demons, or something completely unheard of."

"It's too weird," Karen said, denial and wonder warring in her mind.

"Yes," said Jeff. "but it's a notion as old as history. The Academy's data entry staff input hundreds of volumes of information from hundreds of cults and sects and mystical traditions dating back thousands of years. Certain traditions, ancient traditions, have elaborate explanations of different forms of matter. At first they sound like superstitious mumbo-jumbo because they're expressed in forgotten vocabularies and defunct jargons. But when the computer translates everything into a common language, what do we find? That many bygone teachings are concerned with advanced physics, nuclear energy, atomic structure, and other things our state-of-the-art science is only beginning to discover.

"The ancients also knew the human eye can only see a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum—from violet to red. So other worlds could exist, they just couldn't see them. But someone at the Academy made an interesting observation: many modern UFO sightings are described as going through color changes: first they appear as purple blobs, then descend the visible spectrum until they turn red—at that point they seem to get solid, just as if—"

"Something is passing from one dimension to another," Sullivan finished the thought.

Jeff nodded.

Karen felt herself holding back, as if resisting getting suckered into a paranoid's elaborate fantasy. "These supposed beings? What are they made of? Some alternate form of matter?"

"Who knows," Jeff replied. "Maybe Father Sullivan's term 'spirit' applies. My guess is they're not solid and physically stable. When they make themselves known in our three-dimensional world, they're probably nothing more than temporary manipulations of energy. That's how they can assume different forms, anything from a wolf to a ship to some iridescent god as big as Mount Mansfield."

"But it doesn't sound as if Father Mosely ever saw anything." Karen's mind wrestled with the alien ideas.

"Maybe not," Sullivan agreed, "but millions of people have. And thousands of books have been written about the encounters. I'm not talking about drug freaks, schizophrenics, and charlatans, either. I'm talking about a whole range of credible people: insurance salesmen, factory workers, elementary school teachers, government officials, and just plain folks by the thousands. They meet these creatures and their lives are changed forever . . ."

"Like Father Mosely," Karen whispered.

"Right. Exactly," said Father Sullivan. "Think of the impact such encounters have had on my line of work. You know, most religions were founded as a result of encounters with angels and demons. Take Mohammed. Until he was forty years old, he was just an Arab tradesman. Then he started having visions and conversations with supernatural messengers. The experience led him to organize the Muslim religion and to write the Koran. Think about the Mormons and their golden tablets. The angel Moroni. The founders of the Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses claimed communication with supernatural beings who offered amazing prophecies. . . ."

"If it's all true," said Karen, "if any of it's true, what do you suppose these . . . these creatures want with us?"

Jeff shrugged his shoulders. "Based on what Father Mosely says, it seems they are . . . connected to us in some way we don't, or can't, understand. He calls it 'a terrible bond,' remember?"

"If this world is indeed God's creation," Sullivan said, "then all creatures—flesh or spirit—play a role in the grand design, even these—"

"Maybe," Jeff went on. "But even if we can't guess their motives, we know they try to confuse us. They mislead and misinform, and they play crazy head games with us. Over the centuries, in one disguise or another, they've taught us, and tormented us. They've influenced our religion and our philosophy. No doubt they watched our long, hard climb from the mud all the way to the moon. Yet they never say why; they never tell the truth. All I know, all I believe, is that they're here, and we're here, and we seem to be inseparable."

Karen looked around, wondering if invisible creatures could be in the room with them now, watching, listening, maybe laughing at their conjecture? She hugged her shoulders as she spoke. "Why don't they just contact us and level with us?"

"A better question," said Jeff, "is why don't they leave us alone? Apparently—for whatever reason—they can't."

Karen felt a chill. Her mind wanted to wander to safer topics, but she forced herself to speak. "To me, the implications are more than terrifying. I . . . I mean everything we believe. Everything we know and possess and value might be . . . something else. Something . . . different, Science, religion, ethical humanitarian beliefs, the evolution of consciousness and conscience, everything could be . . . wrong."

"That's the notion that came to terrify Father Mosely," said Father Sullivan, lighting a cigarette. "It made him doubt his faith."

"Pretty sobering, isn't it." Jeff wasn't smiling. "It could be that the only thing we know for sure, the one and only reality, is that a parahuman race exists alongside us. Period. End of discussion."

"All of a sudden the idea of magic doesn't seem so farfetched," said Karen, "So how does the Academy and the computer fit into the picture?"

Jeff swigged the last of his beer and put the empty bottle down. "Just like this: Magicians seek to manipulate our world by influencing unknown forces. Perhaps these 'forces' are the invisible residents of a parallel dimension—what Father Sullivan calls spirits. Magic seeks to enslave them. Apparently, when these invisible residents enter our dimension they can manipulate energy in ways we don't understand. That's how they assume physical form—any physical form they want to!"

"Right," said Father Sullivan. "And if they can control our perception, then they can control our reality. More than one political system—from the sun kings to the divine right monarchs to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich—has subscribed to the idea that not only do these invisible worlds exist, but mankind can either control, or be controlled by their invisible residents."

"I'm pretty sure that's what the Academy's up to," said Jeff. "Using McCurdy's computer as a weapon of war, we can control, possibly dominate the denizens of the parallel world. Think of it! Thanks to McCurdy, the United States may now be on the verge of commanding an infinite army of lethal, preternatural soldiers! Why, it's the most significant advance in warfare since we split the atom!"

"And by far the most terrifying," Sullivan said. "It could be uncontrollable. Irreversible. . . ."

Karen looked down at the empty beer bottle in her hand. A hush fell over the room.

She gave a quick cry of surprise.

Someone pounded on the door.

Jeff and Father Sullivan jumped to their feet at the same time. Dread hardened Jeff's eyes as he stared at the door. "Oh Christ," he whispered, "this is it."

Karen glanced at her watch. 10:25. She took a deep breath, held it, ordered herself to be calm.

Pounding continued. Constantly, allowing no time to respond.

With Jeff and Karen in tow, Sullivan crossed to the entryway. He opened the door to the mudroom, then stepped to the outside door. With his hand on the key, he glanced over his shoulder. Was he as frightened as he looked?

Louder now, the pounding persisted.

Sullivan spoke in a tense whisper, "Jeff, Karen, maybe you'd better move back."

Neither argued. They stepped away from the cloak room and out of sight.

Then Karen heard the metallic grind of the lock turning, the screech of long disused hinges as Sullivan pulled open the outside door.