This Present Darkness

by Frank E. Peretti

  “Hey, nowhere! I didn’t want anything to do with it, man.”

  “Were you going to the school?”

  “Yeah, taking accounting. Man, when all this started coming down and then Pat killed herself, hey, I got out of there fast. I didn’t want to be next, you know?” He looked at the floor. “My life’s been nothing but hell ever since.”

  “You working?”

  “Yeah, logging crew for Gorst Brothers up above Baker.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think I’d ever see Susan again.”

  Marshall turned to his desk and searched for some paper. “Well, we’ll have to keep in touch. Let me have your number and address, at work and at home.”

  Weed gave Marshall the information. “And if I’m not there, you can probably find me at The Evergreen Tavern in Baker.”

  “Okay, listen, if you hear anything else from Susan you let us know, day or night.” He gave Weed his card with his home phone number added.

  Bernice came back in with the roster.

  “Marshall, you have a call. I think it’s urgent,” she said. Then she turned to Weed. “Kevin, let’s you and I step outside and go through this roster. Maybe we’ll find that guy’s full name.”

  Weed stepped outside with Bernice as Marshall picked up the phone.

  “Hogan,” he said.

  “Hogan, this is Ted Harmel.”

  Marshall scrambled for a pencil. “Hi, Ted. Thank you for calling.”

  “So you talked to Eldon—”

  “And Eldon talked to you?”

  Harmel sighed and said, “You’re in trouble, Hogan. I’ll give you one interview. Got a pencil handy?”

  “I’m ready. Shoot.”

  Bernice had just said good-bye to Weed and seen him to the door when Marshall emerged from his office with a scribbled-on piece of paper in his hand.

  “Any luck?” he asked.

  “Zilch. There are no Thomases of any kind, first or last name.”

  “It’s still a lead though.”

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  Marshall produced the scrap of paper. “Thank God for small favors. That was Ted Harmel.” Bernice brightened considerably as Marshall explained, “He wants to see me tomorrow, and here are the directions. It must be way back in the sticks. The guy is still paranoid as all get-out; I’m surprised he didn’t make me wear a disguise or something.”

  “He wouldn’t say anything about all this?”

  “No, not over the phone. It has to be just the two of us, in private.”

  Marshall leaned over just a little and said, “He’s another one who thinks our phone might be bugged.”

  “So how do we make sure it isn’t?”

  “Make that one of your assignments. Now here’s the rest of them.” Bernice grabbed her notepad off her desk and made her list as Marshall spoke. “Check the New York phone book—”

  “I did. No A. Kaseph listed.”

  “Scratch that one. Next: Check around with the local real estate offices. If Weed’s right about Kaseph looking for property around here, some of those people might know something. And I’d look around in the commercial listings as well.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “And while you’re at it, find out what you can about whoever owns Joe’s Market.”

  “It’s not Joe?”

  “No. The place used to belong to Joe and Angelina Carlucci, c-a-r-l-u-c-c-i. I want to know where they went and who owns the store now. See if you can get some straight answers.”

  “And you were going to check with your friend at the Times …”

  “Yeah, Lemley.” Marshall added a note to his piece of paper.

  “That it?”

  “That’s it for now. In the meantime, let’s get back to running this paper.”

  All the time, all through their meeting with Weed and their following conversation, Carmen sat at her desk busily working and acting like she hadn’t heard a word.

  THE MORNING HAD been tight, with the next issue’s deadline galloping up on them, but by noon the paste-up was ready to go to the printer and the office had a chance to resume its normal pace.

  Marshall put in a call to Lemley, his old comrade-in-arms at the New York Times. Lemley got all the information Marshall had on this strange character Kaseph, saying he’d get right on it. Marshall hung up the phone with one hand and grabbed his suit jacket with the other; his next stop was his afternoon appointment with the reclusive Ted Harmel.

  Bernice drove off for her appointed stops. She parked her red Toyota in the parking lot of what used to be Joe’s Market and was now called the Ashton Mercantile, and went into the store. About a half hour later, she returned to her car and drove away. It had been a wasted trip: no one knew anything, they only worked there, the manager wasn’t in, and they had no idea when he would be back. Some had never heard of Joe Carlucci, some had but didn’t know whatever happened to him. The assistant manager finally asked her to quit bothering all the employees on company time. So much for getting any straight answers.

  Now it was off to the realty offices.

  Johnson-Smythe Realty occupied an old house remodeled into an office on the edge of the business part of town; the house still had a very charming front yard, with a redwood tree standing tall in the middle of it and a quaint, log cabin mailbox out front. It was warm and welcoming inside, and quiet. Two desks occupied what used to be the living room; both were empty at the time. On the walls hung bulletin boards with snapshots of house after house, with cards below each photograph describing the building, the property, the view, nearness to shopping and so forth, and—last but not least—the price. Boy, what people would pay these days for a house!

  At a third desk in what used to be the dining room a young lady stood and smiled at Bernice.

  “Hi, can I help you?” she asked.

  Bernice smiled back, introduced herself, and asked, “I need to ask a question that might seem a little odd, but here goes. Are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Have you done any business with anyone by the name of A. Kaseph in the last year or so?”

  “How do you spell that?”

  Bernice spelled it for her, then explained. “You see, I’m trying to get in touch with him. It’s just a personal matter. I was wondering if you might have a phone number or address or anything.”

  The young lady looked at the name she had just written on a piece of paper and said, “Well, I’m new here, so I sure don’t know, but let me ask Rosemary.”

  “In the meantime, might I have a look through your microfiche?”

  “Sure. You know how to run it?”

  “Yes.”

  The lady went toward the back of the house where Rosemary—apparently the boss lady—had her office in a back bedroom. Bernice could hear Rosemary talking on the phone. Getting an answer from her might take a while.

  Bernice went to the microfiche reader. Where to start? She looked at a map of Ashton and vicinity on the wall and found the location of Joe’s Market. The hundreds of little celluloid plates were arranged by Section, Township, Quarters, and the street numbers. Bernice had to do a lot of looking back and forth to get all the numbers off the map. Finally she thought she might have found the right microfiche to put into the viewer.

  “Excuse me,” came a voice. It was Rosemary, marching down the hall toward her with a grim expression on her face. “Ms. Krueger, I’m afraid the microfiche is only for the use of our staff. If there’s something you’d like me to find for you …”

  Bernice kept cool and tried to keep things flowing. “Sure, I’m sorry. I was trying to find out the new owner of Joe’s Market.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Well, I thought it might be on the machine here somewhere.”

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s been a while since the files have been updated.”

  “Well, could we look anyway?”

  Rosemary totally ignored the question. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?” />
  Bernice stood firm and unshaken. “Well, there was my original question. Have you done any business with anyone named Kaseph in the last year or so?”

  “No, I’ve never heard the name.”

  “Well, perhaps someone else on your staff—”

  “They’ve never heard it either.” Bernice was about to question that, but Rosemary interrupted with, “I would know. I know all their accounts.”

  Bernice thought of one other thing. “You wouldn’t have a—a cross-reference file, would you—”

  “No, we don’t,” Rosemary answered very abruptly. “Now is there anything else?”

  Bernice was tired of being nice. “Well, Rosemary, even if there was, I’m sure you would not be able or willing to supply it. I’m leaving now, so breathe easy.”

  She left hurriedly, feeling very lied to.

  CHAPTER 20

  MARSHALL WAS BEGINNING to worry about his shock absorbers. This old logging road had more potholes than surface; apparently it wasn’t used that much anymore by the logging companies, but was left to hunters and hikers who knew the area well enough to keep from getting lost. Marshall did not. He looked again at the scribbled directions and then at the odometer. Boy, the miles go by slowly on roads like this one!

  Marshall bumped his way around a gravelly corner and finally saw a vehicle ahead, parked alongside the road. Yes, an old Valiant. It was Harmel. Marshall pulled up behind the Valiant and got out. Ted Harmel got out of his car, dressed in clothing for the outdoors: wool shirt, faded jeans, work boots, a wool cap. He looked the way he had sounded: exhausted and very scared.

  “Hogan?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Marshall, extending his hand.

  Harmel shook it and then turned away abruptly. “C’mon with me.”

  Marshall followed Harmel to a trail off the road and they hiked up among the tall timber, picking their way through logs, rocks, and underbrush. Marshall was wearing a suit and his shoes were definitely the wrong kind for this sort of terrain, but he wasn’t about to complain—he’d recaptured the big fish that got away.

  At last Harmel seemed satisfied with their seclusion. He went to a huge fallen log, weathered and bleached by years of changing seasons, and sat down on it. Marshall joined him.

  “I want to thank you for calling me,” Marshall said for an opener.

  “We never had this meeting,” Harmel said bluntly. “Is that an agreement?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Now what do you know about me?”

  “Not much. You used to be the editor of the Clarion, Eugene Baylor and the other college regents were on your case, you and Eldon Strachan are friends …” Marshall reviewed quickly all he had learned, which was mostly what he and Bernice had gleaned from the old Clarion articles.

  Harmel nodded. “Yeah, that’s all true. Eldon and I are still friends. We went through basically the same thing, so that gives us a sort of comradeship. As far as the molesting of Marla Jarred, Adam Jarred’s girl—that was a bizarre set-up. I don’t know who coached her, or how, but somebody got that girl to say all the right words to the police. I do find it significant that the whole matter was settled so quietly. What I was supposed to have done is a felony; you don’t just settle a thing like that quietly.”

  “Why did it happen, Ted? What did you do to bring it on yourself?”

  “I got too involved. You’re right about Juleen and all the others. It’s a secret society, a club, a whole network of people. Nobody has any secrets from anybody else. The eyes of the group are everywhere; they watch what you do, what you say, what you think, how you feel. They’re working toward what they call a Universal Mind, the concept that sooner or later all the inhabitants of the world will make a giant evolutionary leap and meld into one global brain, one transcending consciousness.” Harmel stopped, looked at Marshall. “I’m spilling it as it comes to me. Is it making sense?”

  Marshall had to compare Harmel’s “spillings” with what he already knew. “Every person affiliated with this exclusive network subscribes to these ideas?”

  “Yeah. The whole thing is built around occult ideas, Eastern mysticism, cosmic consciousness. That’s why they meditate and do psychic readings and try to meld their minds together …”

  “Is this what they do in Langstrat’s therapy sessions?”

  “Yes, exactly. Every person who joins the network goes through a certain initiation process. They meet with Juleen and learn to achieve altered states of consciousness, psychic powers, out-of-body experiences. The sessions could involve just one person, or several, but Juleen is at the core of it all, like some kind of guru, and we were all her disciples. We all became like one, growing, interdependent organism, trying to become one with the Universal Mind.”

  “You said something about … melding your minds together?”

  “ESP, telepathy, whatever. Your thoughts are not your own, and neither is your life. You’re only one segment of the whole. Juleen’s highly skilled in such things. She—she knew my every thought. She owned me …” This part became difficult for Harmel to speak about. He grew tense, and his voice faltered and dropped in volume. “Maybe she still does. Sometimes I still hear her calling to me … moving through my brain.”

  “Does she own all the others as well?”

  Harmel nodded. “Yeah, everybody owns everybody, and they won’t stop until they own that whole town. I could see it coming. Anybody who gets in their way suddenly drops out of sight. That’s why I’m still wondering about Edie. Ever since this whole thing started happening, I’ve been leery about anyone just dropping out of the picture suddenly …”

  “What danger would Edie be to them?”

  “Maybe she’s just one more step toward taking you out. I wouldn’t be surprised. They took out Eldon, they took out me, they took out Jefferson …”

  “Who’s Jefferson?”

  “The district judge. I don’t know how they did it, but suddenly he decided he wouldn’t run for reelection. He sold his home, left town, no one’s heard from him since.”

  “And now Baker’s in—”

  “He’s part of the network. He’s owned.”

  “So did you know this at the time you had your little crime settled so quietly?”

  Harmel nodded. “He told me he could make it really rough for me, turn me over to the county prosecutor and then it would be out of his hands. He knew good and well it was a frame-up! He had me checkmated, so I took him up on it. I got out of town.”

  Marshall took out a pad and pen. “Who else do you know that belongs to this bunch?”

  Harmel looked away. “If I tell you too much, they’ll trace it back to me. You’ll have to find out for yourself. All I can do is point you in the right direction. Check the mayor’s office and the town council; see who’s new there and who they replaced. They’ve had a lot of turnover lately.” Marshall made a note of it. “You’ve got Brummel?”

  “Yeah, Brummel, Young, Baker.”

  “Check the county land commissioner, and the president at the Independent Bank, and …” Harmel kept probing his memory. “The county comptroller.”

  “I’ve got him on the list.”

  “The board of regents at the college?”

  “Yeah. Say, wasn’t it the tiff with them that got you run out of town?”

  “That was only part of it. I wasn’t controllable anymore. I got in the way. The network took care of me before I could hurt them. But there’s no way I can prove it. It doesn’t matter anyway. The whole thing’s too big; it’s like a huge organism, a cancer that just keeps spreading. You can’t go after just one part of it like the regents and expect to kill the whole thing. It’s everywhere, at every level. Are you religious?”

  “In a limited sense, I suppose.”

  “Well you’re going to need something to fight it. It’s spiritual, Hogan. It doesn’t listen to reason, or to the law, or to any set of morals but its own. They don’t believe in any God—they are God.” Harmel paused to
calm down and then took off on a different note. “I first got involved with Juleen when I wanted to do a story on some of the so-called research she was doing. I was intrigued by it all—the parapsychology, the strange phenomena she was documenting. I started having these counseling sessions with her myself. I let her read and photograph my aura and my energy field. I let her probe my mind and meld our thoughts. I went into it after a novelty story, actually, but I got hooked. I couldn’t tear myself away from it. After a while I started picking up on some of the same things she was heavily involved in: I’d leave my body, go out into space, talk to my instructors—” Harmel caught himself. “Oh man, that’s right: you’re never going to believe any of this stuff!”

  Marshall was firm—and maybe he did believe it. “Tell me anyway.”

  Harmel gritted his teeth and looked skyward. He fumbled, he stammered, his face went pale. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can tell you. They’ll find out.”

  “Who’ll find out?”

  “The network.”

  “We’re out in the middle of nowhere, Ted!”

  “It doesn’t matter …”

  “You used the word instructors. Who are they?”

  Harmel only sat there, trembling, terror etched in his face. “Hogan,” he said finally, “you just can’t cross them. I can’t tell you! They’ll know about it!”

  “But who are they? Can you at least tell me that?”

  “I don’t even know if they’re real,” Harmel muttered. “They’re just … there, that’s all. Inner teachers, spirit guides, ascended masters … they’re called all kinds of things. But anyone who follows Juleen’s teachings for very long invariably gets mixed up with them. They come from nowhere, they speak to you, sometimes they appear to you when you’re meditating. Sometimes you visualize them yourself, but then they take on a life and personality of their own … it’s not just your imagination anymore.”

  “But what are they?”

  “Beings … entities. Sometimes they’re just like real people, sometimes you only hear a voice, sometimes you only feel them—like spirits, I suppose. Juleen works for them, or maybe they work for her, I don’t know which way it goes. But you can’t hide from them, you can’t run, you can’t get away with anything. They’re part of the network, and the network knows everything, controls everything. Juleen controlled me. She even came between me and Gail. I lost my wife over this whole thing. I started to do everything Juleen told me … she’d call me in the middle of the night and tell me to come over, and I’d come over. She’d tell me not to print a certain story, I wouldn’t print it. She’d tell me what kind of news to cover and I’d print it, just like she said.