The Second Ship (24 page)

Somehow Heather found her way to her locker and then to physics class with the right books, notebook, and pencil. As the class began, Heather stared at her teacher, Mr. Harold, with no more comprehension than a zombie. Unseeing. Unhearing. Beyond emotional exhaustion.

The frequency of Mr. Harold's vocal-cord variations, the amplitude in decibels of each syllable that escaped his mouth, the fluctuations of the classroom air temperature in degrees Kelvin, all formed numbers and equations that cascaded through her mind like water rushing over Niagara Falls. Heather gave up on following the lecture as the beauty and peace of the mathematics washed her brain clean.

Chapter 50

Mark sat up in the darkness, a cold sweat drenching his body. For several seconds he had difficulty remembering where he was, the dark room as unfamiliar to his newly awakened senses as some sleazy Juárez hotel room. The clock shone the time at him in luminescent, bloodred numerals, reminding him of a dimly recalled stained-glass window.

2:03 a.m.

His room. He remembered now. He had gone to bed in his own room, so that must be where he now awakened, even if it seemed thoroughly alien in the post-midnight darkness.

Mark listened to the stillness in the house, his enhanced hearing analyzing the smallest of sounds. Down the hall he could hear the breathing of Jennifer in her room. In his parents’ room, amidst his dad's soft snoring, the sound of his mother’s own rhythmic breath softly whispered.

The old house creaked, issuing a small crackling sound as the timbers adjusted to the wind. Outside, that wind moaned through the pines, the sound rising to a wail before dying out completely.

It had been many a year since he had awakened from a dream in terror, but that was apparently what had just happened. The details of the dream were vague, and when he tried to focus his attention upon them, they drifted away as if they didn’t want to be remembered.

But that was crazy. He did want to remember. In fact, he had a strong feeling that he needed to remember the dream, that somehow his very survival depended upon pulling its contents from the depths of his mind.

That new kid. What was his name? Raul. Yes, that was right. He had been in the dream, although Mark couldn’t think why that would frighten him. All Mark had to do was reach out, grab Raul by the neck, and give a quick squeeze to snap him like a twig. But something in that dream about Raul had scared him.

Mark felt the sweat-soaked bed and received another surprise. Where were the sheets and blankets? Even the bottom sheet was missing.

Mark glanced toward the window. Something was there, blocking his view of the night sky.

An irrational, deep-seated dread consumed him, constricting his chest in bands of iron. The dream. Something in his dream had made its way into his room, had somehow attained physical form in the non-dream world.

Mark struggled to gain control of his thoughts. This was stupid. He was one of the quickest, strongest, and most coordinated people on the planet, with neural enhancements that seemed to be continually growing and refining themselves. But here he sat, bathed in sweat, petrified into inactivity by a dream he couldn’t even remember. And all because of something draped across his window.

Mark forced himself to move his hand toward the lamp on his nightstand, feeling carefully for the pull chain, while keeping his eyes firmly locked on the window.

With a quick tug on the chain, the lamp illuminated a scene that brought him to his feet, his heart thundering in his chest. One of his red sheets had been tied between the curtain rod and his Olympic weight bar, which now lay directly below the window. The other sheet had been tacked to the window frame.

There, silhouetted against the darkness beyond, was the bloodred image of an inverted cross.

Chapter 51

By the time he boarded the bus for school, Mark felt exhausted. It had not taken him long to pull down the bed sheets and remake his bed, but he had been unable to go back to sleep. He had also had no luck in trying to remember the dream.

It was funny, really. He could replay every minute of every day if he so chose. He could read a book he had merely glanced at, even if that glance was a month ago. But the details of his dream whispered at the corners of his mind, only to dissipate like smoke in the wind when he focused on them.

Finally he had given up, pulled out his school books, and done all the assignments for the coming week. That, in itself, was a frightening thing.

Raul. There was something about that little creep that had his subconscious working overtime. It wasn’t that Heather seemed to be infatuated with him. Well, that might have something to do with Mark’s dislike of the guy, but it wasn’t enough to send him into the land of the walking dead.

No. Something else was going on with that dude, and Mark was determined to find out what it was.

The thought of Heather did little to brighten Mark’s mood. He glanced across the bus to the seat where she sat beside Jennifer, smiling and talking to his sister as she always did. She hadn’t been that talkative at the dance last night. Every time he had seen her, she had been draped around Raul out on the dance floor.

A vision of his fist smacking Raul hard enough to send him spinning across the dance floor brought a grim smile to Mark’s lips. Then he shook his head. What was wrong with him today? He didn’t normally take pleasure from imagining beating the crap out of his classmates. With effort he turned his thoughts to other things.

The cold fusion science project was coming along very well. They now had the tank built and were working on the construction of the radiation detection probe, which would also contain what Mark called the subspace tuning fork. In reality it was a doped quartz crystal, carefully mounted in a programmable oscillating circuit.

According to Heather, when in the presence of a small gamma flux, the thing would produce a subspace carrier wave that could be focused wherever they wanted. And that focused subspace signal would induce a real signal at the far end. If Heather’s calculations were correct, which they always were, it would let them put signals on any network in the world. But first, they had to get the damned thing finished.

Mark’s frustration had been building for weeks. There was so much to discover about the Second Ship that he wanted to spend most of his time there. But that wasn’t possible. He, Heather, and Jennifer had to be careful, so they rarely visited it.

Then there were their expanding new abilities. As much as Mark loved playing basketball, it practically made him sick to his stomach to have to hold back from what he could really do. Even his aikido practice wasn’t as good as it could be, mainly because he couldn’t take real classes. He had to rely on what he saw on videotape and read in books for his training. Frustrating.

In the meantime, the Rho Ship sat out there, probed and prodded by people under the domination of Doctor Stephenson, a man who was up to something that he was keeping from the US government. From what Mark had learned about the Rho Ship aliens, that could not be a good thing for this planet.

Flying blind. That was what the three of them had been doing for some time now. They hadn’t even checked if there were more QT recordings. And now this new fling Heather had going with Raul was taking more of her time. Christ. There was just too much important stuff happening for her to be getting involved with anyone right now, much less that dweeb.

Mark squeezed his right hand until his knuckles popped.

“It wasn’t me.” said a voice from across the aisle.

“What?” Mark asked, turning to look at the speaker.

Roger Frederick, a bookish sophomore stared across the aisle of the bus at Mark, his hands raised in mock defense. “Whoever did something to make you mad, it wasn’t me,” Roger said.

“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“Well, the way you were scowling and popping your knuckles, I figured you were about to start cracking heads.”

Mark laughed. “Just thinking about playing the Rockets tonight.”

Roger pretended to wipe his brow. “Good. I wouldn’t want to be them then.”

“Believe me, they won’t want to be themselves either, once we get done with them on the basketball court.”

“Aren’t the district playoffs starting soon?”

“Two weeks.”

“Great. I’m looking forward to watching you play.”

“Thanks.”

The conversation was interrupted by the bus coming to a stop in front of the school. Jennifer and Heather came up beside Mark as he stepped off the bus.

“What was all that about?” Jennifer asked. “I didn’t know you even knew Roger.”

“I don’t. He just started talking to me for some reason. I actually didn’t think the nerd knew what basketball was. Apparently he’s a fan, though.”

Heather patted him on the shoulder. “Wow. That must be exciting for you.”

“Very funny.”

“Oops, there’s Raul. I’ll see you guys in class.”

Mark watched her walk across the steps and take Raul’s hand. Raul’s eyes briefly met his own, and although it was probably only his imagination, it seemed to Mark that Raul had smirked.

“Hey,” said Jennifer, “you’re getting a little rough on pencils aren’t you?”

Mark didn’t remember having taken the pencil from the side of his backpack, but apparently he had been carrying it. Now half of it lay on the ground at his feet, the other half having been crushed into small pieces in his hand.

“Must have gotten a defective one,” said Mark. “I’ll grab another from my locker and meet you at class.”

The tension Mark felt failed to abate as the school day progressed, leaving him feeling as if he were strapped to a medieval rack, each turn of the crank stretching him closer and closer to a snapping point. People around him sensed it and gave him a wide birth. Even Jennifer did her best to stay clear.

As the bell announcing the end of the last class rang and Mark headed for the basketball team meeting, Heather came up to him in the hallway.

“Good luck in the game tonight, Mark. Not that you need it.” Heather smiled, completely unaware of his foul mood.

“I suppose you'll be watching with Raul tonight?” Mark didn’t know why he asked or even why he cared. But he did.

“No, I’ll be sitting with Jennifer. Raul runs a private Bible study a couple of nights a week for some of the kids. Tonight is one of those nights.”

Mark raised an eyebrow. “A private Bible study group?”

Heather nodded. “Raul’s family is very religious, and I guess his miraculous cancer recovery made him even more so. Not surprising considering all he’s been through.”

“If you say so.”

Heather’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “Are you angry with me?”

Mark bit his lip. “No. It’s not you. I just had a hard time sleeping last night so I’ve been grumpy today.”

Heather’s smile returned. “Okay.”

“Listen, I hate to run, but I can’t keep Coach waiting.”

“All right. I’ll be cheering tonight from our regular spot. See you after the game.”

With a wave of her hand, she disappeared into the crowd. For several seconds Mark stared after her, then turned on his heel and headed for the gym.

From the doorway of the biology classroom, Raul Rodriguez watched him go.

Chapter 52

Beyond the walls of the casita, an enclosed patio was all that separated the small guest quarters from the main house. The Rodriguez family had added the small apartment-style cottage to their house as a place for the nurse to stay, during that time when Raul had been on heavy-duty chemotherapy.

Once it became clear that neither chemotherapy nor radiation therapy would save her son, Mrs. Rodriguez had removed the bedroom furniture and converted the main room of the casita into a small chapel, complete with a large altar at the far end. Even the windowpanes had been removed and replaced with stained glass.

The walls were adorned with crosses—hundreds of them, in all shapes and sizes, each with a hanging Jesus nailed through the palms and feet, painted blood running from the wounds, head topped with a bloody crown of thorns.

The altar at the back of the room had recently been removed to make room for a full-size wooden cross. This was a new addition, something Raul had insisted on. It leaned against the back wall at a forty-five degree angle, attached to a track so that it could be cranked up to stand vertically or inclined to a point where someone could lay across it.

Along the walls, candles mounted on small shelves cast flickering shadows that crawled among the crosses like roaches skittering into cracks in the walls.

Sitting on three benches that had been pushed all the way up against the wall sat four young men, all Los Alamos High School students, each of them at least a year older than Raul. Raul, clad in a long, white robe, stood at the head of the chapel, beside the inclined cross that jutted out across the room on its track. He signaled with a slight motion of his right hand, and one of the students rose to throw the deadbolt closed, securing the entrance against interruption.

Raul spoke, his voice resonating with an underlying power and confidence that belied his age.

“Welcome, my brothers. To the three of you who have already entered my service, I extend my blessing.” Raul inclined his head slightly toward the three students who sat on the bench to his right. Turning then to the boy who sat by himself on the center bench, Raul stepped forward.

“And to the new aspirant, I say welcome. You have expressed a willingness to be released from the heavy bonds of worldly doubt, so that I may anoint you as one of the chosen. You desire to witness the miracle, so that you may know that I am come and that the end of times is at hand.”

Raul paused in front of the young man. “Aspirant Roderick Bogan, rise now.”

Rod Bogan stood. He was a senior, his heavy build having earned him years of ridicule from his classmates. That ridicule had taken a toll on his self-confidence, something for which he had tried to compensate by growing his blond hair long and by piercing his nose, eyebrows, tongue, and ears with prominent metal studs. But instead of looking tough, deep in his heart, Rod knew he just looked like a pathetic, fat loser.

Rod also knew what brought him here. It was the changes he had seen in his three friends, who until recently were even bigger losers than he was. Then they had met Raul and been transformed.

Not that they had become popular—far from it. Instead, they had found a heretofore unknown reservoir of inner strength and confidence, as if they knew something nobody else knew, something that made them superior.

Rod wanted that knowledge. He wanted that confidence. Wanted it so badly he could taste it. But now, here in the strange half-light of this chapel of crosses, he felt anything but confident. When his friend Paul slammed the deadbolt shut, it was all Rod could do to keep from screaming.

“Are you familiar with the book of Revelation?” Raul asked.

Rod cleared his throat. “A little.”

Raul smiled. “I am not here tonight to preach you a sermon. I will never preach at you. I will reveal something the book of Revelation promised would come. I will show you the face of God. Mankind is out of time. The end of days is at hand, and I have come to gather the faithful to me, in preparation for Armageddon.”

Rod was confused. He glanced at his friends, but the light shining in their eyes matched the intensity of Raul’s. With a shock, Rod realized they believed what Raul was saying. Unequivocally. Completely.

Raul turned and lay back on the cross, his arms spread out along the crossbeam, palms out, his knees bent, his bare feet positioned one atop the other. Seeing Raul nod his head, the three others rose, Gregg Carter moving to Raul’s right hand, Jacob Harris to his left, and Sherman Wilkes kneeling by Raul’s ankles.

Raul’s voice rang out clear as a bell in the semidarkness. “Kneel, that you may know that you are in the presence of the Lord.”

Before Rod could move, each of his three friends pulled forth a six-inch-long spike. They positioned them over Raul’s outstretched hands and feet. In a ritualistic unison that could have been choreographed, three six-pound sledgehammers struck the spikes, driving them through skin and bone, pounding the metal deep into the thick wooden beams of the cross.

Rod was frozen in place, too stunned to move. Again and again, the hammers rose and fell, pinning the hands to the cross, spiking one foot atop the other to the vertical beam. Blood seeped out around the thick spikes, congealing at a rate that was unnatural, and although Raul’s jaw clenched in pain, he did not cry out.

Having finished the crucifixion, Jacob moved to the crank and began winding it, slowly pulling the cross along its track until it stood erect against the far wall.

Rod stared in openmouthed wonder at the image of Raul dangling from the cross, the light of the dancing candle flames now jumping as if a sudden breeze had entered the room. Rod's legs lost their strength.

As he fell to his knees on the chapel floor, Rod stared up at the crucified form above him.

“My God.”

Raul smiled down at him.

“Yes, Roderick. I am.”