The Ambrose Beacon

by Alena Gouveia

  Chapter 6

  Saturday Morning, January 8th

  Jerry stirred in bed as light appeared through his eyelids. As his mind awoke, he detected a familiar scent that made him think of home, no matter where he was. It was bacon. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, wondering what time it was. The clock on the nightstand displayed seven-thirty in the morning. He wondered why Harper was making breakfast so early on a Saturday. The family usually slept in on the weekend until around nine, unless one of the children had some kind of activity to attend.

  As Jerry walked to his bathroom, he remembered his promise to Vaughan that he would take him to sign up for karate lessons. He knew immediately that this was the reason for such an early breakfast and he couldn’t help but be silently grateful to his brother-in-law. His constant devotion to the family made it difficult for Jerry to stay angry with him, in spite of his infuriating nature. Jerry felt guilty for doubting what Harper had told him the night before. He had no logical reason to doubt what Harper had told him. The story had not been implausible. Had the lights gone out when Jerry had been home, and if he had heard the same sound of a wolf howling, he would have done the same thing. Sending the children to the basement made sense. It was the safest area of the house. But why send them before the lights had gone out? His guilt at doubting his brother-in-law was overruled by his instincts. Harper’s story didn’t add up.

  After brushing his teeth and washing his face, Jerry changed from his pajamas and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. A steaming cup of coffee was waiting on the table and Harper was finishing up a pan of scrambled eggs. Jerry yawned as he set the table with three settings and looked over as Harper brought the food to the table. He noticed that Harper seemed completely awake, as he always did. Jerry realized suddenly that in the years that he had known Harper, he had never seen him sleep. He was always the last to bed after the rest of the family had turned in and he was always awake and bustling about no matter how early Jerry rose.

  He thought of Arianna and how he had never seen her sleep. He remembered waking up to see her smiling down at him, bright-eyed as if she hadn’t slept and hadn’t needed it. She would tell him how she loved to watch him sleep as if she thought sleeping itself was peculiar. He had always wondered how she had been able to seem so energetic with what could only have been a few hours of sleep each day. Her brother appeared to have the same sleeping habits and it had no more effect on his energy level than it had on her. Then Vaughan walked into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and Jerry’s thoughts returned to breakfast.

  Jerry sat down and made himself a plate as Vaughan began to shovel food into his mouth. Harper served himself a small portion of each dish and began to eat slowly. That was another trait that he shared with his sister. Both of them ate sparingly, but seemed to relish each bite. It was as if they ate for the sheer pleasure of the food and the nutrition of the food itself was secondary. He had accepted this trait in his wife as just one of the many idiosyncrasies that made her unique, and he ignored it in her brother because of what he did for Jerry’s family. But he knew that it was unusual. And with everything that had been happening in the past two days, he wondered if there were other things about his brother-in-law to which he should pay closer attention.

  “Dad, are you going to stay at the practice with me,” Vaughan asked.

  Jerry stared back at his son for a moment before he processed what had been asked. He hesitated for a moment, wondering what he should say. His renewed communication with Vaughan was precarious and he didn’t want to do anything to damage it, even if it was unintentional.

  “Do you want me to stay?” he finally asked in response.

  Vaughan looked back at his plate as he answered, “Only if you want to. If you have something else to do today, it’s cool.”

  Jerry thought that he sensed the true meaning behind what Vaughan had said and hoped that he was right as he responded, “I’d actually like to stay and check it out with you, if it’s okay with you.

  “That’s cool,” Vaughan said.

  Harper wasn’t able to hide the brief smile that crossed his face and Jerry couldn’t help but do the same.

  Cole heard his name being called as his shoulder was shaken gently. He opened his eyes to see Billie staring back at him, her bright blue eyes huge but still red-rimmed with sleep.

  “I had a bad dream,” she said without being asked.

  Cole held up the blanket without saying anything and Billie crawled under it and snuggled up against him. The thermostat in the house kept the house colder at night, and though the cold didn’t bother him, he still felt it. The warmth under the blanket made him sleepy in the best possible way, and he hoped it would erase the memory of whatever dream Billie had. He kissed the back of her head and wrapped his arms around his little sister, feeling her shiver slightly.

  “Do you want to talk about your dream,?” he asked as he held her tightly.

  Billie nodded and then started to share her dream. Cole’s slight concern that he would fall back asleep was quickly pushed aside as he listened to his baby sister’s disturbing nightmare.

  “Mommy was in the dream again,” Billie said. This wasn’t unusual, as Billie had fairly frequent dreams about their mother, in spite of the fact that she had barely known her. What was strange to Cole was that Billie always described their mother perfectly. And it wasn’t just the physical description, which Billie could have gotten from any of the numerous pictures of her throughout the house. What was strange was that Billie always described their mother’s personality as if she had known her, and had even used some of the phrases that their mother had regularly used. She had died when Billie was barely two years old, so she shouldn’t have remembered such things. But Billie was an odd little girl in some ways. She could be far more serious than most children her age, and seemed to understand things that should have been beyond her maturity and experience.

  “But this time there was someone else in the dream with us,” Billie continued. “It was a man – a really scary man.” She got quiet for a moment and Cole felt her shiver just once before continuing, “His face was blurry, so I couldn’t see who he was. He was like a giant, but he was normal-sized, like you.”

  Cole wasn’t sure what she meant by this at first, but then realized that she was trying to describe someone whose presence was powerful. He had seen people like that before and thought the description fit.

  “What is the man doing in the dream?” Cole asked.

  Billie sighed before answering, “He just looked at us at first. But then he started to chase us. And then you and Dinah, and Vaughan, and Louis were running with me and mommy. And the man kept chasing us.” Cole felt Billie pull into herself and he pulled her closer to him.

  “And then Uncle Harper tried to stop the man, but the man ripped him like a piece of paper and there was blood and stuff all over the place,” she said quietly.

  Cole winced at the graphic image and wondered where Billie could have seen such an image that it would appear in her dream. He wanted to ask her if she had been watching scary movies with someone, but he didn’t want to interrupt her.

  She was silent for a moment before continuing in a whisper, “And then Daddy tried to stop him. And the man grabbed Daddy and threw him hard and I heard a noise like when you crack your knuckles. And then Daddy didn’t move.”

  Cole felt his heart start to race at the description of his father being murdered. He knew that this was far too graphic of a nightmare for such a small child and worried again about where she could have seen such images.

  “We all kept running, but the man kept chasing us. Mommy told me that I could stop the man, but that I would have to do something that was going to be very hard.”

  Cole felt wetness on his arm and realized that Billie was crying. He wanted to stop her and to tell her to go back to sleep, but he wasn’t sure if it was better for her to get everything
out or if it was doing more damage for her to recount the terrifying dream. He felt powerless to help her. But she continued before he could decide on the best course of action.

  “I told mommy that I’d do whatever she told me, but she wouldn’t tell me what to do.” Billie sobbed a little before she continued, “She kept yelling at me and she was crying, but she wouldn’t tell me what to do.”

  Billie grew still suddenly and Cole thought for a moment that she had fallen asleep. But then he heard her whisper, “And then the man caught mommy. And he twisted her neck and she fell down. And then I woke up.”

  They were both quiet for a minute as Cole tried to think of something to say. He was deeply disturbed by what Billie had described. No six-year old child should have such dreams and he worried about the effect that it could have on her.

  “Billie, have you had this dream before?” he asked quietly.

  He felt her nod before she answered, “The night the lights went out.”

  Cole thought suddenly of his conversation with his uncle the night before out by the wood shed. He had felt the searching presence then and once before when the lights had gone out. And Billie had had her nightmares on both nights. He knew without a doubt that the two were connected and decided that he had to share Billie’s dream with his uncle.

  He heard the deep breathing that told him that Billie had fallen back asleep and he prayed silently that her dreams would be untroubled. He wanted to tell Uncle Harper immediately about her dreams, but didn’t want to disturb his baby sister. Before long, he had fallen back asleep and his breathing became as deep as hers.

  Dinah finished the last set of pushups in her morning routine and looked at the clock above her bedroom desk. The hands indicated that it was a few minutes past nine, which meant that her siblings would be waking up soon. She had awoken when she heard Vaughan and her father leaving and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. As she did every morning, she had begun her series of exercises that got her blood running before breakfast. Her stomach growled and she realized suddenly how hungry she was.

  She stood up and saw her reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall. She liked the effect that her exercise regime was starting to have on her body. Her muscles were toned under her ebony skin and she could see them flexing as she turned one way and then the other in front of the mirror. But the change to her body hadn’t only been one that she could see. Her strength had increased a great deal, as well. While the increase was normal from such regular exercise, she knew that the degree to which her strength had increased was not.

  She thought of what had happened at school that Monday when she had gone to the bathroom during history class. She had gone to the single, unisex bathroom that was closest to the class and tugged on the handle. At first, it hadn’t budged, but she remembered that this was the door that frequently stuck. She had braced one hand on the wall next to the handle and pulled harder on the door. It refused to budge for a second, but then suddenly flew open with a loud cracking sound. Dinah had stared in shock as she saw the gaping hole above the handle where the deadbolt had been. It was then that she had noticed the yellow maintenance sign on the door that said it had been out of order. She had released the handle in shock and hurried back to her class, hoping that no one had seen her.

  Up until that point, her strength had seemed to be gaining steadily, at a pace that was to be expected from the regular exercise in which she engaged. But the incident with the door made her worry that something else was happening. She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to think of a logical explanation for what had happened, but could find none. And it had troubled her mind since it had happened. Hoping that it had been some kind of fluke, she stood up from the bed and turned around to face it. The bed was a hand-carved, four-poster wooden bed that weighed several hundred pounds. It had taken several men to assemble it when her father had given it to her a few years before as a birthday present. She seldom vacuumed under it, since it had been impossible to move and wasn’t high enough from the ground to fit the vacuum underneath it.

  Sure that she knew what would happen, she bent down and reached under the footboard. She flexed her legs and prepared for the resistance that she would feel from the weight of the bed. Instead, she lifted it easily. She could feel the weight of the bed and knew that there had been no inexplicable change in its mass that had resulted in her ability to lift it. She had just grown stronger somehow.

  She held the bed for a moment before deciding to test her theory a little further. She released one of her hands and felt the weight of the bed transfer to her right arm alone. This time she felt a slight strain, but not enough that she couldn’t have held it with one arm for several minutes. She slowly lowered the bed to the ground before moving to sit on its edge again to try to process what was happening to her. The first thing that went through her mind was the worry that she wouldn’t be able to control her newfound strength. If this was the case, she could easily, even if accidentally, hurt someone. This possibility was unacceptable to her.

  As quickly as her concern had started, Dinah pushed it aside with the determination that she would learn to control her strength. She had never been someone who could worry about things for more than a moment. Worrying was Cole’s thing, not hers. She had never failed at anything if she had truly given it her best effort and she decided that there was no reason to believe that this situation would be any different. If she was going to control this new power, she would have to train herself to do it. She was not foolish enough to believe that it was going to be easy, but she had little doubt that she would succeed.

  Dinah tried to think of a plan of attack and the first thing she thought of made perfect sense. If she was going to control it, she had to test the limits of her strength. She looked around her bedroom, trying to think of the best way to test just how powerful she had become. Her eyes landed on the empty barbell that she used to lift weights. It was about four feet long, weighed forty pounds and was solid metal. She thought of the characters in movies that she had seen bend steel bars as displays of their superhuman strength and decided to see if she could do the same.

  She picked up the bar and felt the coolness of it in her hands. It was solid and heavy, though its weight was nothing to her. She wondered how it was possible that something so heavy could bend by the strength of a person and decided that it probably wasn’t. But there was only one way to find out for sure.

  Spreading her grip to near the end of each side, she began to press down with each hand while staring at the center and looking for a sign that it was working. At first, nothing happened. But as she continued to increase the amount of pressure on the bar, she could see the middle start to bow upwards slightly. She smiled in triumph as she flexed her muscles as hard as she could. The bar began to bend quicker and she heard a faint creaking sound. It wasn’t the same sound that she had heard in the movies, but she knew that the solid metal was being reshaped by her strength.

  A loud snapping sound broke her concentration a split-second before the bar split into two pieces. A flashing piece of metal flew toward her face and she instinctively closed her eyes just before she felt a sting on her left cheek. In spite of her shock, she managed to hold on to either end of the bar that had been ripped in half. Her ears were ringing from the snapping sound and she hoped that no one in the house had heard anything. It would have been hard to explain something that even she still couldn’t believe had happened.

  As if on cue, her bedroom door flew open and Cole ran through, followed closely by Louis. “What happened?!” Cole asked with obvious worry on his face.

  She saw Louis standing behind Cole and his eyes were huge as he stared at the pieces of the barbell still clutched in her hands.

  “Did you break that, Dinah?” Louis asked in disbelief.

  She looked down numbly at the bars and then gently placed them on the ground while she tried to think of how she should answ
er.

  “Um, it broke when I was working out,” she finally answered.

  Louis looked back at her in confusion. “You were working out without any weights on the bar? I’ve seen you lift it with tons of weight like it was nothing.” He pointed at her cheek as he added, “Hey, you’re cheek’s bleeding!”

  Dinah reached up and felt her cheek, which stung when she touched it. She pulled her hand away and looked at it. A bright red spot of blood was smeared on her fingers. Cole walked over to her and looked closely at her face.

  “It’s not deep, but we should clean it out,” Cole said as he looked at her. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew something was going on. He could always sense those kinds of things without being told anything.

  Louis looked up at her with suspicion and asked again, “How could it have broken with no weights on it?”

  Dinah looked at Cole, hoping that he would save her from Louis’ questions.

  It must have been obvious that she needed help because he gently pushed Louis toward the door as he told him, “Louis, go watch TV. I want to talk to Dinah alone.”

  “But there’s nothing on TV, Cole,” Louis whined.

  Cole looked down at Louis with a look that said not to argue. “Then put on a DVD. Just go. Now.”

  Louis’ shoulders slumped in defeat as he turned around and walked from the room, complaining the entire time. “Everyone’s always telling me to leave like I’m a little kid or something. I can keep a secret just as good….”

  Cole closed the door behind him and they could no longer here the whining of their little brother. He looked at her and she couldn’t look away. “That story was too lame for even Louis to buy it. What really happened?” he asked.

  Dinah tried to think of some kind of lead-in that would prepare Cole for the implausible story that she was about to tell. But she could think of nothing that would make him more likely to believe her, so she decided to just get it out.

  “I wanted to see if I could bend the bar, but I couldn’t,” she said while looking at him from lowered eyes. “It didn’t bend, but I broke it in half.” She looked him fully in the face, waiting for him to respond. He just stared back at her as if he was waiting for her to say something else.

  “Very funny, Dinah,” he said while shaking his head. “You didn’t want Louis to hear this? He at least would have appreciated the joke.”

  His tone made her feel defensive. She didn’t like being called a liar. “I’m not joking, Cole. I tried to bend the bar and it broke in half,” she said adamantly. She looked around the room for something else to use to prove to him what had happened, but there was nothing else in the room that would make the same point. And there was nothing that she wanted to break just to prove a point.

  She leaned back against the bed and thought about how she had tested her strength before breaking the bar. “Watch this,” she told him as she leaned down and gripped the foot of the bed. She lifted it easily, just as she had the first time. She held it in one hand for a moment and looked at him to prove her point.

  Cole frowned in confusion as he watched her place the bed back on the bedroom floor. “Big deal, Dinah,” he told her. “And what does lifting your bed have to do with how your barbell broke?” She could hear in his voice that he was losing patience, which was rare for Cole. She wondered what had put him in a bad mood so early on a Saturday morning. His bad mood seemed to be making him a little dense, as well, so she explained.

  “You try picking it up,” she said, daring him not to.

  He looked at her in silent frustration for a moment before he finally sighed and answered, “All right. Get off of the edge first, though. I’m not that strong.”

  Dinah rolled her eyes at him as she stood up and made space for him along the foot of the bed. Cole was strong – stronger than he liked to admit. She had seen him carrying loads of firewood that made his father struggle. And she knew that her father was a very strong man. Cole bent down and reached under the front of the bed. She saw him brace himself and then try to lift the bed. It didn’t move at first and he looked over at her, the confusion obvious on his face. He braced himself again and she could see his muscles straining as his face turned red. But all that he could do was lift the bed a few inches before he dropped it back down again.

  He was breathing hard as he asked her, “How…how did you do that?” He looked suspicious for a minute and looked at the bed as if expecting her to reveal some kind of gimmick or trick. He looked back at her with narrowed eyes. “Do that again.”

  Dinah walked over to the bed and looked right at him as she easily lifted it again, held it with one hand and then gently lowered it to the ground.

  Cole stared at her with his mouth open slightly before closing it. “Okay, seriously. How did you do that?”

  She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve just been getting stronger...,” she said as she looked up at him. “…a lot stronger.” She looked down at her hands as she told him the story of the door at school. When she had finished, she looked back up at him and asked, “What if I can’t control it? What if…what if something like the door happens again? Or, what if I accidentally hurt someone, Cole?”

  Cole moved over to the bed, sat next to her and put his arm around her. “Don’t worry, Dinah,” he said soothingly. He was quiet for a moment before he seemed to come to a decision. “You’ll just need to learn to control it,” he told her. “I know you can do it.” He looked at the pieces of the barbell on the ground and sighed. “Now, what are we gonna tell Louis? You know he has a big mouth.”

  For the first time since her brothers had entered her room, Dinah smiled. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll remind him that I caught him watching that rated R movie that he wasn’t supposed to watch.” She looked at Cole with a completely neutral expression. “I don’t think he’d want Dad to know about that, do you?”

  Cole’s expression was disapproving as he told her, “Dinah, that’s blackmail.”

  She widened her eyes in mock indignation. “It’s coercion, which is totally different! Besides, he needs to start to learn when to keep his mouth shut. He blabs too much.” Her expression became serious again and she looked at Cole in silence for a second. “Don’t tell Dad or Uncle Harper, okay?” she pleaded. “Please?”

  Cole thought about refusing his sister’s request. He didn’t think the problem was serious enough to bring to his father. Not yet, at least. But he worried about keeping something like this from Uncle Harper. He couldn’t help but think that this was related to the strange things that had been happening lately. Everything seemed to be happening at once, or at least escalating at once. He suspected that his sister’s strength had been increasing for some time and he had been able to sense Cody’s thoughts since his uncle had brought him home years before. But his senses had grown stronger lately, especially during the past week. And he guessed this to be the same case with Dinah. She continued to look at him with eyes widened in supplication and he realized that he hadn’t answered her.

  “I won’t say anything unless you let me,” he told her finally. Dinah’s secret wasn’t his to tell. At least, not yet.

  Jerry stared at his son in amazement. He had watched Vaughan stretch with the beginner’s class and then start to learn some of the basic moves. Each time the sensei, Mr. Tanaka demonstrated, Vaughan copied it exactly the first time. Within twenty minutes of the beginner lesson, Mr. Tanaka had begun to notice how quickly Vaughan was learning. He had called over one of his assistants to lead the class and had pulled Vaughan aside to the edge of one of the mats. He had then walked Vaughan through a series of increasingly complex moves, which Vaughan performed flawlessly.

  Mr. Tanaka walked over to Jerry and introduced himself. “Mr. Ambrose..”

  “Please, call me Jerry,” he told him.

  Mr. Tanaka nodded before continuing, “Jerry, your son shows an amazing ap
titude for karate. I’ve never seen anyone learn as quickly as he does.” He looked slightly uncomfortable for a minute before adding, “I would not normally ask this, but I want to test how far Vaughan can go. I’d like to do some light sparring with him to see how he reacts to me actually throwing punches and kicks at him. I assure you I will be very careful.”

  Jerry wasn’t sure how to respond. He was a little worried about the thought of an actual sensei sparring with his son on his first day of karate lessons, but he had to admit that Vaughan looked to be a natural. And for some reason he trusted Mr. Tanaka and knew that he would be very careful with his son. “As long as Vaughan’s okay with it and you’re careful, it’s okay with me,” he answered.

  He looked over to see his son looking at him expectantly. Jerry smiled and flashed him a thumbs-up as Mr. Tanaka walked over to him. Vaughan smiled back and nodded, his back straightening in what Jerry hoped was confidence. Mr. Tanaka showed Vaughan some moves that Jerry recognized from academy training as defensive moves. When Vaughan had demonstrated that he could do each of the moves, Mr. Tanaka assumed a fighting stance and said something to Vaughan that Jerry couldn’t hear. Vaughan nodded at him and assumed a similar stance, though where Mr. Tanaka looked solid and immovable; Vaughan looked like a jungle cat ready to pounce.

  Mr. Tanaka started throwing a series of punches at Vaughan that he easily blocked. Jerry could see instantly that the sensei was holding back, but as Vaughan continued to easily block each of the blows, his level of effort appeared to increase. But he could also see that Vaughan was holding back, as well. He hadn’t made any offensive moves and Jerry suspected that his son’s sensitive nature was making him hold back. He knew that Vaughan didn’t want to accidentally hurt his sensei.

  As if he had sensed the same thing, Mr. Tanaka said something to Vaughan. He hesitated briefly and that momentary lapse nearly allowed one of the sensei’s kicks to land. But Vaughan moved aside at the last minute and then he began to attack between blocking. What had begun as a friendly sparring match began to intensify as they both threw punches and kicks at an increasing pace and with increased ferocity. They dodged around each other and both of them blocked the few attacks that weren’t evaded.

  The other activity in the room stopped as everyone watched the sensei and student spar each other. It was like watching two masters fighting and reminded Jerry of some of the martial arts films he had seen. Mr. Tanaka was clearly more experienced and had a larger repertoire of moves, but Vaughan seemed to be able to guess what his sensei was going to do before he did it. The fight continued to intensify as both combatants began to sweat and their breath quickened.

  Finally, Mr. Tanaka yelled, “Stop!” He and Vaughan both stopped and stepped apart from each other. The sensei was breathing hard as he looked at Vaughan for a moment with a look of wonderment and then bowed deeply to him. Vaughan hurriedly did the same as the entire class erupted in applause and cheers. And then he looked over at his father and gave him the biggest smile that Jerry had seen on his son’s face in a very long time. Jerry joined in the applause and smiled back at him in amazement. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. Vaughan had sparred with an expert in karate and held his own. But that thought was quickly overruled by the realization that he and his son had managed to create a bridge to repair their relationship in the most unexpected way. But how it had happened didn’t matter to Jerry. For the first time since Arianna had died, he felt like he was getting his son back.