This Present Darkness (54 page)

Mark and Steve pulled to a stop on the bridge just in time to look over the side and see the truck sinking wheels-up into the river.

“Score one more for Kaseph,” said Steve.

Another driver in an oncoming car screeched to a halt and jumped out of his auto. Soon another vehicle pulled up. The bridge was starting to get clogged with excited people. Mark and Steve eased away, making their way off the bridge.

“We’ll call the fire department!” Mark shouted out his window.

And away they went, never to be seen or heard from again.

KATE. SANDY. THE
Network. Bernice. Langstrat. The Network. Omni. Kaseph. Kate. Sandy. Bernice.

Marshall’s thoughts went around and around as he stood at the sliding glass door just off the kitchen and watched daylight ebb slowly away from the backyard, from the delicate orange wash of sunset to the sad, ever deepening gray of nightfall.

Maybe it was the longest time he had ever spent in just one spot in his whole life, but maybe this right here and now was the end of the life he had always known. Sure, he had gone through several little attempts at denial, at trying to prove to himself that these cosmic characters, these far-out conspirators, were nothing but wind, but he kept coming back to the cold, hard facts. Harmel was right. Marshall was now out on his ear, like everybody else. Believe it, Hogan. Hey, it’s happened whether you believe it or not!

He was out, just like Harmel, just like Strachan, just like Edie, just like Jefferson, Gregory, the Carluccis, Waller, James, Jacobson …

Marshall rubbed his hand over his head and stopped the train of names and facts coursing through his brain. Such thoughts were beginning to hurt; each one of them seemed to punch him in the stomach as it passed through his brain.

But how did they do it? How could they be so powerful that they actually destroyed lives on a personal level? Was it only coincidence?
Marshall couldn’t settle that question. He was too close to it, having lost his own family and having the Network to blame, but also himself. It would be so easy to blame the conspiracy for tampering with his family and turning his wife and daughter against him, and undoubtedly they had tried it. But where could he draw the line between their responsibility and his?

All he knew was that his family had fallen apart and now he was out, just like all the others.

Wait! There was a noise at the front door. Could it be Kate? He stepped to the kitchen door and looked toward the front room.

Whoever it was ducked around a corner very hurriedly as soon as he showed his face.

“Sandy?” he called.

For a moment there was no answer, but then he heard Sandy reply in a very strange, cold tone of voice, “Yes, Daddy, it’s me.”

He almost broke into a run, but he forced himself to take it easy and walk lightly to her bedroom. He looked in and saw her going through her closet, moving rather hurriedly and nervously, and she showed a definite discomfort at his watching her.

“Where’s Mom?” she asked.

“Well …” he said, trying to come up with an answer. “She’s gone to her mother’s for a while.”

“She’s left you, in other words,” she replied quite directly.

Marshall was direct too. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” He watched her for a while; she was grabbing clothing and belongings and throwing them into a suitcase and some shopping bags. “Looks like you’re leaving too.”

“That’s right,” she said, without slowing down or even looking up. “I felt it coming. I knew what Mom was thinking, and I think she was right. You get along so well all by yourself, we may as well let you have it that way for keeps.”

“Where will you go?”

Sandy looked up at him for the first time, and Marshall was chilled and even sickened by the look in her eyes, a strange, glassy, maniacal expression he had never seen before.

“I’ll never tell you!” she said, and Marshall couldn’t believe the way she said it. It was not Sandy at all.

“Sandy,” he said gently, pleadingly, “can we talk? I won’t put any pressure or demands on you. Could we just talk?”

Those very strange eyes glared at him again and this person who used to be his loving daughter responded with, “I’ll see you in hell!”

Marshall immediately sensed those all too familiar sensations of fear and doom. Some
thing
had come into his house.

HANK ANSWERED THE
door and immediately felt a certain check in his spirit. Carmen stood there. She was dressed neatly and conservatively this time, and her demeanor was much more down to earth; yet Hank had his qualms.

“Well, hi,” he said.

She smiled disarmingly and said, “Hello, Pastor Busche.”

He stepped aside and motioned for her to come in. She stepped inside the door in time to see Mary coming from the kitchen.

“Hello, Mary,” she said.

“Hello,” said Mary. She took an extra step and gave Carmen a loving embrace. “Are you all right?”

“Much better, thank you.” She looked at Hank, and her eyes were full of repentance. “Pastor, I really owe you an apology for the way I acted before. It must have been very alarming for you both.”

Hank hemmed and hawed a little and finally said, “Well, we certainly were concerned for your welfare.”

Mary moved toward the living room and said, “Won’t you have a seat? Can I bring you anything?”

“Thank you, no,” said Carmen, sitting down on the sofa. “I won’t be staying long.”

Hank sat in a chair opposite the sofa and looked at Carmen, praying a mile a minute. Yes, she looked different, like she’d gotten a lot of loose ends finally tied together in her life, and yet … Hank had seen a lot in the last few days, and he had the distinct impression that he was seeing more of the same thing this very moment. There was something about her eyes …

SANDY BACKED UP
a little and narrowed her eyes at Marshall like a
wild bull about to charge. “You get out of my way!”

Marshall remained in the bedroom door, blocking it with his body. “I don’t want a big fight, Sandy. I won’t stand in your way forever. I just want you to think for a moment, okay? Can you just calm down and give me an audience just one last time? Huh?”

She stood there rigidly, breathing heavily through her nose, her lips shut tightly, her body crouched a little. It was simply unreal!

Marshall tried to calm her down with his voice as if approaching a wild horse. “I’ll let you go anywhere you want. It’s your life. But we don’t dare part without saying what needs to be said. I love you, you know.” She didn’t respond to that. “I really do love you. Do you—do you believe that at all?”

“You—you don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Yeah … yeah, I can understand that. I haven’t done very well these past years. But listen, we can put it back together. Why let this thing go in the shape it’s in when we could heal it?”

She looked him over again, observed how he was still standing in the doorway, and said, “Daddy, all I want right now is to get out of here.”

“In a minute, in a minute.” Marshall tried to speak slowly, carefully, gently. “Sandy … I don’t know if I can explain it to you very clearly, but remember what you said yourself about the town that one Saturday, how you thought—what was it? Aliens were taking over the town? Do you remember that?”

She didn’t answer, but she seemed to be listening.

“You don’t know how right you were, how true that theory really was. There are people in this town, Sandy, right now, that want to take the whole town over, and they also want to destroy anyone who gets in their way. Sandy, I’m someone who got in their way.”

Sandy began to shake her head incredulously. She wasn’t buying it.

“Listen to me, Sandy, just listen! Now … I run the paper, see, and I know what they’re up to, and they know that I know, so they’re just doing what they can to destroy me, take away my house, the newspaper, undermine my family!” He looked at her in earnest, but had no idea if any of this was getting through. “All that’s happening to us … it’s what they want! They want this family to fall apart!”

“You’re crazy!” she finally said. “You’re a maniac! Get out of the
way!”

“Sandy, listen to me. They’ve even been using you against me. Did you know those cops in town are trying to find anything they can to put me away? They’re trying to pin a murder rap on me, and it even sounds like they’re accusing me of abusing you! That’s how terrible this whole thing is. You have to understand—”

“But you did it!” Sandy cried. “You know you did it.”

Marshall was stunned. All he could do was stare at her. She
had
to be crazy. “Did
what
, Sandy?”

She actually broke down and tears came to her eyes as she said, “You raped me. You
raped
me!”

CARMEN SEEMED TO
be having a very difficult time getting around to whatever she had come to tell them. “I—I just don’t know how to begin … it’s just so difficult.”

Hank reassured her, “Oh, you’re among friends.”

Carmen looked at Mary sitting at the other end of the sofa, and then at Hank, still sitting opposite her. “Hank, I just can’t live with it anymore.”

Hank said, “Then why don’t you just give it over to Jesus? He’s the Healer, you know. He can take away your regrets and your sorrows, believe me.”

She looked at him and only shook her head incredulously. “Hank, I am not here to play games. It’s time we were truthful and cleared the air once and for all. We’re just not being fair to Mary.”

Hank didn’t know what she was talking about, so he just leaned forward and nodded, his way of telling her he was listening.

She continued, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to say it and get it out. I’m sorry, Hank.” She turned to Mary, her eyes filling with tears, and said, “Mary, for the last several months … ever since our first counseling appointment … Hank and I have been seeing each other on a regular basis.”

Mary asked, “What do you mean by that?”

Carmen turned to Hank and implored him, “Hank, don’t you think you should be the one to tell her?”

“Tell her what?” Hank asked.

Carmen looked at Mary, took her hand, and said, “Mary, Hank and I have been having an affair.”

Mary looked startled, but not very stunned. She did pull her hand away from Carmen’s. Then she looked at Hank.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

Hank took another good look at Carmen and then nodded to Mary. Mary turned directly toward Carmen, and Hank got up out of his chair. They both looked intently at Carmen, and she began to look away from their eyes.

“It’s true!” she insisted. “Tell her, Hank. Please tell her.”

“Spirit,” said Hank firmly, “I command you in the name of Jesus to be silent and come out of her!”

There were fifteen of them, packed into Carmen’s body like crawling, superimposed maggots, boiling, writhing, a tangle of hideous arms, legs, talons, and heads. They began to squirm. Carmen began to squirm. They moaned and cried out, and so did Carmen, her eyes turning glassy and staring blankly.