Piercing the Darkness

by Frank E. Peretti

  “You’ve never heard of the place.”

  “Just wondering.”

  Ed stood away from the car and gave a little wave as the Buick drove away. Mose just watched with a smile on his face.

  Ed nodded with great conviction. “He’s a reporter, Mose. I can tell.”

  TOM WAS READING through some notes he’d made for some upcoming interrogatories. Wayne Corrigan said the ACFA probably would skirt having to answer most of them, but he was going to ask them anyway. He had a lot of questions to ask those characters, and it was going to start right here.

  There was a knock on the door. He closed the folder and tucked it away on the bookshelf.

  Then he opened the door. His first thought was that he was facing another set of reporters, but these two were probably married, the way they stood next to each other. The man was tall and strong-looking, about middle-aged, dressed casually. His wife was attractive, also dressed casually, but exuding a quiet dignity.

  “Tom Harris?” the big man asked.

  “Yes,” he answered, and made no effort to hide his wariness of these two strangers. “And just who are you?”

  “The name is Marshall Hogan, and this is my wife Kate. We’ve come a long way, and we’d like to talk to you.”

  CHAPTER 17

  TOM MADE A lunch of it. He invited Mark and Cathy, Ben and Bev, and Wayne Corrigan. Corrigan was in court and couldn’t make it, but the others got right over there. They pooled their sandwiches, chips, salad, and soft drinks and met with the two out-of-towners in Tom’s backyard for a meeting of the minds, a serious checking-out of this Marshall Hogan. Sure, he was a Christian, and sure, he’d been through an interesting spiritual battle himself, but he was also a member of the press, and by now the press was not considered friendly or trustworthy.

  They sat in a circle of chairs in the yard, munching on sandwiches and talking seriously. Marshall recounted in crisp, news-copy fashion the adventure he’d had in the town of Ashton. They were amazed. Naturally, the occult-based conspiracy to take over Ashton and the thwarting of that conspiracy went unreported in the national media. No one sitting in the yard that day had ever heard of the place or what happened there.

  “And I never would have heard of you people either,” he said, “if the whole thing didn’t have such scandal potential. Hey, this kind of stuff the press calls news. It sells papers, and that’s how it got to me, over the news wire. From what I read in the wire copy—reading between the lines, of course—you folks are up against the same thing we were facing, only worse.”

  Mark asked, “So you weren’t disillusioned by the reports of our ‘outrageous religious behavior’?”

  “Maybe you are outrageous. Maybe you’re like too many Christians who see a demon under every doily. Maybe you deserve the lawsuit and the press you’re getting.” Marshall looked every one of them in the eye as he spoke. “Or maybe this whole thing is legit. If it is, then I might stick around and do what I can to help you out. I’ve got a young gal who can run that paper while I’m away; I can take care of my own expenses up to a point. I’m a good snoop, I know how to dig things up, and I know how to fight. If this thing is what it looks like, then I’m ready to make myself available, and so is Kate.”

  Could this be an answer to prayer? Mark was willing to explore it further, and the others agreed. They decided to tell Marshall the details of the lawsuit and the strange incident with Amber Brandon that started the whole thing. Marshall listened intently to the whole story, and he appeared to believe it.

  Then Marshall asked, “So did Amethyst ever show up again?”

  Tom thought about that question. “Not in the same way. Amber stayed quiet, but she was still really strange—depressed, edgy, unattentive. She couldn’t sit still during our morning devotions, and she couldn’t stand hearing the Word of God. Now we know why. Amethyst wouldn’t manifest at the school anymore, but she never really left.”

  “A tougher case than you figured on, I suppose?”

  Tom turned to Cathy Howard. “Why don’t you tell him about what Alice Buckmeier told you?”

  “Alice Buckmeier’s a widow who attends our church. She’s a dear,” Cathy explained. “It wasn’t too long ago, just about the same time this lawsuit began, that Alice was in the Post Office mailing a package when she heard this big commotion and saw Amber screaming at a woman patron. Lucy Brandon—the postmaster—came out of the back room and tried to quiet Amber down, but she just kept screaming, and Alice says Amber was prancing like a horse again, just running circles around the woman and screaming at her and scaring her to death. The woman ran away really frightened, and Alice was just . . . she just stood there, just blown away.”

  “Who was the woman?”

  Cathy shrugged. “Alice didn’t know; she never saw her before. Anyway, Lucy Brandon chased Amber around the Post Office lobby for a long time, and I guess Amber finally calmed down and acted like nothing happened, like a total personality switch. Now that sounds . . . well . . .”

  Marshall whistled at the story. “This is getting more convincing all the time.”

  Tom shook his head sadly. “Just try convincing the rest of the world.”

  “Right.” Marshall pulled some news clippings from his attaché case. “The Hampton County Star seems to have you all figured out.”

  “And most of the big papers too,” said Mark. “It’s gone out over UPI and AP. I imagine the whole country’s buzzing about it now.”

  “Oh sure. I see they’re cashing in on the child abuse angle: ‘Child Victims of Bizarre Fundamentalist Behavior.’ Nice. Or how about this one from the East Coast: ‘Religion as Abuse: Behind the Doors of a Private School.’ Oh, I was going to ask you about this one: ‘Christian School Responds to Court Order.’ It says here that you still hadn’t decided if you would obey the court order or not. Where’s that quote? Oh. ‘“We must obey the laws of God rather than the laws of men,” said Pastor Mark Howard.’”

  Mark nodded and had to laugh. “Yes, I did say those words, but I think my entire statement was that we had heard from both sides of the question, and that some said we should obey God’s appointed authorities, and some said we must obey the laws of God rather than the laws of men. I guess they caught the last part of my statement but not the first.”

  “So what did you decide?”

  “For now, we’ll submit to the court order. We figure it would be in our best interests until this lawsuit is settled. Then we’ll just have to look at the question again.”

  Bev piped up, “Just goes to show how people with the power can decide what we know and what we don’t know. It’s just like what happened to Ben.”

  “That’s nothing . . .” Ben started to say.

  Bev was indignant. “Nothin’? It’s got you out of a job, babe, and I don’t call that nothin’!”

  Cathy was in Bev’s camp. “There’s some other hanky-panky going on right in the Police Department. A lady was killed a few weeks ago, and they’re calling it a suicide, but Ben thinks it was a murder, and now they’re just covering it all up.”

  “And the Star’s coverin’ it up too,” said Bev. “Did you see that little puny article calling the whole thing a suicide?” Marshall only began to shake his head. “Well there. See, you didn’t see it either. They didn’t want anyone to see it.”

  Marshall got a question in. “Ben, what happened to your job?”

  “They canned him,” said Bev. “He knew too much.”

  Ben laughed and put his arm around Bev. “That’s the way I see it, yes.”

  Marshall considered that. “Okay. Maybe we’ll talk some more about that later. But let’s get back to the core of this problem, and that’s Amber. Tom, you said something about her claiming to have learned all this stuff in her class at the elementary school . . .”

  “Right. Miss Brewer’s class. I can believe it. The schools have been experimenting with a lot of new curricula. It could be that some kind of thinly cloaked occultism got in.”

&
nbsp; “What do you know about Miss Brewer?”

  “Zilch. I think she’s new this year.”

  Cathy confirmed that. “Yes, she’s new. I have some friends who know her.”

  “All right, we’ll have to talk to them and see what they know. Miss Brewer may have brought a curriculum in with her, or maybe the school board’s trying out something new. In any case, it would be nice to know how Amber got the way she is, and to be able to prove it. How about it, Kate? Feel like paying Miss Brewer a visit?”

  She looked up from her notes and smiled at the thought of the adventure. “Looking forward to it.”

  “Now . . . people of like interests tend to clump together, just like we’re doing right now, and that’s called networking. Once they get networked, they start working together, and that gives them a lot of clout they didn’t have before. I’d like to know how much this town is networked by any occult or cosmic-type groups. They might already be in the schools. Maybe they’ve infiltrated into other areas of power as well.”

  “There’s LifeCircle,” Mark said.

  “Some kind of occult fellowship?”

  “Oh yes. You hear a lot about them around town, and they sell herbs and mystical, holistic literature down at the Mercantile. They call themselves something like, ‘a supportive circle of friends devoted to personal growth and evolvement.’”

  “Who belongs to this bunch?”

  They all started looking at each other. No one knew for sure who was involved in it.

  “I don’t know anyone right offhand,” Mark explained. “They don’t function much in public; they’re not very visible.”

  “What about Miss Brewer?”

  No one knew.

  “How about Lucy Brandon?”

  No answer.

  “Well, we’d better find out then. We can’t see anything yet, and it may not be just this LifeCircle outfit, but what we’re looking for is some kind of connection, some kind of link-up between these ACFA guys, Claire Johanson, Lucy Brandon, Miss Brewer, and ultimately Amber. We’ve got to know the enemy before we can deal with him.” Marshall finished the last few drops of root beer. “And I guess you know this is a spiritual battle. How are things in that department? Do you have some good prayer warriors?”

  The reaction wasn’t immediately affirmative. There was doubt all around, on every face.

  Mark tried to explain. “It’s been tough because of the lawsuit, because of the accusations leveled at Tom. The people here today are all praying, but the church is really struggling with this whole thing, and there are a lot of very unhappy people. I’m still trying to get a handle on all the talk going around.”

  “So they’re talking and not praying?”

  Mark nodded. “That’s about it.”

  Marshall thought about that and nodded. “Sounds like a smart move on Satan’s part. If he can divide the church and split you into camps, his job will be a picnic.”

  “Well,” said Mark, “we can sure pray now, just us. I know we’re together on this thing.”

  “Yeah, let’s do it,” said Ben.

  They prayed, and took quite a bit of time at it. Marshall and Kate joined them, and that meant a lot to everyone. There was definitely a unity here, a oneness of spirit. This big man from far away and his wife were not strangers at all, but fellow-combatants. This was the hand of God.

  Not long after Mark said the final “Amen,” Marshall popped the final question. “So how does it sound to you? You want to deal us in, and see what develops?”

  By now they were ready. Mark extended his hand, and he and Marshall shook on it. “We have fellowship, brother.”

  “All right, then. I’ve got a few projects in mind already. Cathy, see what your friends can tell us about Miss Brewer, and then Kate will drop in and visit her in person. Bev, we’ll need to talk to Alice Buckmeier about that incident in the Post Office and hopefully get some more details from her; maybe then we can find out where Amber got this little horse friend and what we’re really dealing with. I’ll see if I can check out this LifeCircle bunch and find out who’s involved.”

  It sounded good to them all.

  The group began to break up. Cathy and Bev started clearing plates from the picnic table. Mark and Tom started folding up the furniture.

  “Oh, Ben . . .” said Marshall, and Ben joined him by the back fence. Marshall leaned on the fence and looked out over a wide, green pasture bordering Tom’s yard. “You were a cop, huh?”

  “Yes. Was. They let me go about two weeks ago.”

  “Because you were getting too close to something they were trying to cover up?”

  Ben smiled apologetically. “Well . . . in retrospect, I don’t know for sure. It just seemed fishy to me.”

  “Let’s say you were onto something. Tell me what.”

  Ben looked out at some Holsteins grazing lazily in the distance. “I’ve no idea, Marshall. It was simply that the deceased, a woman named Sally Roe, was killed quite violently—at least that’s how the evidence looked to me. There were signs of a struggle, a shirt stained with blood, some spilled goat feed—the body was found in a goat pen, the body itself was flung on the floor as if there had been a violent struggle. The medical examiner attributed the death to asphyxiation by hanging, the same as Sergeant Mulligan’s initial conclusion, but I don’t think that conclusion matched the situation found at the scene. When the landlady, Mrs. Potter, found the body, it wasn’t hanging from the rafters; it didn’t have a rope around its neck, nor was any rope tied to the rafters. The deceased did have a rope in her hand. And the body was flung in the straw, just as we first found it. I’m also bothered by the fact that when the call first came in, Sergeant Mulligan referred to it as a suicide before we even drove out there, and I know I gave him no information at the time to that effect.

  “Add to that a disturbing development that I uncovered by talking to some people who knew Roe before her death: the description they gave me of Sally Roe doesn’t match the description of the woman we found in that goat shed, which raises some frightening implications. The whole thing doesn’t make sense at all, and I’m still disturbed about it.”

  “I see you have moles in this part of the country too,” said Marshall, pointing out some new molehills in the yard.

  Ben was a little disappointed. Apparently his concerns were unimportant to this man who claimed to be so interested in the problems he and his friends were facing. “Well . . . yeah. They’re tough to get rid of. When they come up in my yard, I just keep scooping up the hills so they don’t kill the grass. It’s about all you can do.”

  Brother, thought Ben, what a stupid conversation this is becoming.

  “Looks like the neighbors have them too.” Marshall pointed at several molehills out in the pasture.

  “Yeah, they get around,” said Ben, ready to end this letdown of a conversation, starting to look around.

  “Two different pieces of property here,” said Marshall, looking up and down the fence. “Tom has a mole, and the farmer over there has a mole.” Then Marshall looked at Ben for a moment, waiting for Ben’s full attention. “How much you wanna bet that the molehills in this yard and the molehills in that pasture were made by the same mole?”

  Ben stopped any other thoughts and paid attention. This guy was making a point that sounded interesting.

  Marshall enhanced his point. “Ben, from up here on top of the ground, we think in terms of property lines, of separate domains. Tom has his yard, the farmer has his pasture, and the two domains are separated by this fence. But what about the mole? The fence doesn’t stop him; he just goes wherever he wants and pushes up his little hills, and as far as he’s concerned, it’s just one big piece of ground.”

  “Keep going,” said Ben.

  Marshall smiled, his eyes squinting a bit in the sun, the breeze blowing his red hair. “The Good Shepherd Academy has a problem, and you have a problem. The Academy has a mole, and you have a mole. I’m suggesting that it might be the same mole. We’re
talking spiritual warfare here; spirits don’t care about whose yard it is, or where our fences might be.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’ll feel a whole lot better if you and I can find out all we can about this Sally Roe.”

  Ben felt better. “You know, I was hoping someone would see it this way.”

  “I think Bev already did.”

  Ben carefully considered that. “She sure did.” Then he dug up a buried idea. “I was going to run a criminal check on Roe before I got fired. I think I could still run a check; I have a friend with the police in Westhaven who could do it for me.”

  Marshall looked at the molehills again. “Can’t wait to see it.”

  CHAPTER 18

  SYBIL DENNING WAS a kind and sociable person, and she never seemed to be at a loss for words and topics. She and Sally spent the better part of the morning wandering about the grounds of the Omega Center for Educational Studies as Mrs. Denning pointed out all the buildings, their purpose, and what new projects were currently underway.

  “This plaza should be ready in a few weeks,” she said, pointing to a large patio the size of a basketball court, but without any markings and bordered by newly planted hedges. “The Tai Chi Chuan program has gained such popularity that we thought it fitting to create an effective space for it.”

  They walked further. “This is the performance theater. It seats about four hundred, and is our showcase for any performing arts such as music, movement, dance, poetry, drama, and so forth. Oh, and down here . . .” They came to a large stone-and-glass structure. “This is our healing arts center. We’ve had our various workshops in classrooms all over the campus, but since last year we’ve tried to consolidate the research in one building. We’re trying new holistic approaches to the immune system, as well as nutritional therapy, and then homeopathy, crystals, vibrational healing, even Tibetan medicine—that’s a course I plan to take while I’m here. Listen, are you hungry? It’s almost time for lunch, and I’m sure the Galvins will have something ready.”