The God Project

by John Saul

  “I don’t know what to think. I barely saw her over the weekend. When she wasn’t at her office, she was holed up in the den, and she wouldn’t tell me what she was working on. But I’m sure it had something to do with”—he faltered, then plunged on—“with Julie. And she’s been talking to Lucy Corliss.”

  “Lucy Corliss? Why does that name—oh! The mother of that little boy who’s missing. What’s his name?”

  “Randy. He was a friend of Jason’s. But that’s not what she was talking to Mrs. Corliss about, at least not directly. It seems that Jason and Randy as well as Julie were being studied by some group in Boston.”

  Phyllis’s brows arched skeptically. “What’s unusual about that? These days it seems as if someone’s studying all of us all the time.” Then her expression changed. “Oh, God, she hasn’t come up with some sort of conspiracy theory, has she?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to go—”

  “Has she?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Steve replied, his shoulders sagging.

  Phyllis shook her head sadly. “Have you talked to Arthur about it?” she asked.

  “No. I wanted to talk to you first I guess I was afraid Dr. Wiseman might see what Sally’s doing as some sort of—what? Neurotic behavior?” He groaned. “Oh, Christ, Phyllis, I can hardly believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “And yet we are,” Phyllis replied firmly. “And since we are, the question is, what are we to do about it? Do you want me to talk to Arthur?”

  “Would you?”

  Now it was Phyllis’s turn to sigh. “I suppose so. I have to talk to him anyway. I’m afraid I was quite rude to him at the funeral, and I had no right to be. I owe him an apology. I’ll drop by the clinic this afternoon.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Steve told her. “I know how you hate getting—”

  Phyllis waved his words away. “Don’t be silly. You know I try not to interfere, but I’m still Sally’s mother, and I still worry, even though I try not to show it.” Her expression changed slightly, and her eyes fell appraisingly upon Steve. “What about you? Are you all right? You look terrible.”

  “I’m holding myself together.”

  “See that you continue to,” Phyllis said. She rose to escort her son-in-law to the door. “You’re a man, Steve, and Sally’s going to have to count on you.” Her voice dropped, as if she were about to impart a secret I’ve never thought Sally was as stable as she appears to be, you know. “It’s always seemed to me there were tensions in Sally, and under the wrong circumstances—” She suddenly fell silent, and as he left her house, Steve knew she thought she’d said too much.

  “Want some more coffee?” Sally asked.

  Lucy Corliss shook her head. “What I really want is a drink, but I’ll be damned if I’ll have one this early in the day.” The clock read three twenty, and she had been sitting at Sally’s kitchen table for nearly two hours. She fingered the stack of computer printouts, then leaned back and folded her arms across her chest “So all this might mean something, or it might not,” she said. Sally had already explained the meaning of the computer’s evaluation of its own work.

  “It does,” Sally insisted. “I’m sure it does. It’s just that the damned computer can’t prove it.”

  “So we’re nowhere,” Lucy said. “It looks like something is going on, but we can’t prove it. And you can bet I’ll get nothing out of Randolph. God, how I hate those smooth bastards.”

  “But he said he’d have something for you?”

  “Oh, sure. But you can bet that whatever it is, it won’t be the truth. If there was no secret about what they’re doing, why wouldn’t they have let us know they were studying our children? And they didn’t,” Lucy added bitterly. “I’m one of those people who keeps everything. I even have laundry receipts from Randy’s diaper service. They’re getting yellow, but I have them. Anyway, I went over everything—everything! There’s nothing about a survey, no forms, no requests for permission, nothing! And you know what, Sally? The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Even if it has nothing to do with Randy’s disappearing, the whole idea just gets to me. I mean, if they’ve been watching Randy and Jason, and even Julie, what about us? Are we all being watched? Don’t any of us have any privacy anymore? It’s scary!”

  “It’s the new age,” Sally said quietly. “I don’t think there’s anything any of us can do but get used to it. But what about all these?” she asked, gesturing toward the printouts. “We’ve got to do something about this.”

  Suddenly Lucy had an idea. “Could I have them?” she asked.

  Sally frowned. “What for?”

  “I want to show them to someone,” Lucy replied. Sally started to ask another question, but Lucy held up her hand. “Just trust me,” she said. “I might wind up looking like a fool, but there’s no reason why you should too.”

  The back door slammed open, and Jason appeared. “Hi, Mom,” he called. “I’m—” Then he saw Lucy, and his words died on his lips. “Hi, Mrs. Corliss,” he went on. Suddenly he looked hopeful. “Is Randy back?”

  Lucy had to fight to control the tears that came into her eyes at Jason’s words, but she made herself smile. “Not yet,” she told him, “but I’m sure it won’t be long now. Do you miss him?”

  Jason nodded solemnly. “He’s my best friend. I hope nothing happened to him.”

  Lucy stood up abruptly, picked up the printouts, and started toward the door. “I’ll take good care of these, Sally,” she promised. Then, before either Sally or Jason could say anything more, she was gone. Sally, still seated at the kitchen table, held her arms out to her son.

  “Come here,” she said softly, and Jason, though unsure what his mother wanted, let himself be hugged. “I love you,” Sally whispered. “I love you so much.”

  Jason, wriggling in her arms, suddenly looked up and grinned. “Enough to let me make fudge?” he asked.

  For some reason, the devilish look on her son’s face broke the tension Sally had been living under for over a week, and she began laughing.

  “Sure,” she said, releasing Jason and standing up. “In fact, making fudge seems like the best idea I’ve heard all day!”

  Jason watched as Sally mixed together the milk, sugar, and chocolate, added a dash of salt, and put the pan on the stove.

  “Want me to check the thermometer?” he asked.

  “You can if you want,” Sally said with a shrug. “But it’s never been off yet, has it?”

  “No,” Jason agreed, “but my chemistry book says you should always check your equipment before you start an experiment.”

  “When you’re as old as I am, making fudge isn’t an experiment anymore.”

  Jason filled a pan with water, put the long candy thermometer into it, and set it on a vacant burner. Then he turned the heat on, and while he waited for the water to boil, fished a bottle of pop out of the refrigerator. Sally glared at him.

  “Drink that, and you won’t get to scrape out the pan,” she warned.

  Jason glanced at the stove where the fudge was just barely beginning to heat, then at the bottle in his hand, which was all ready to be drunk. “Aw, Mom,” he muttered.

  “Make up your mind.”

  Reluctantly, Jason put the pop back in the refrigerator. “Dad would have let me drink it,” he complained as he went back to check on his pan of water. It was beginning to simmer, and he climbed up on the kitchen stool to watch the thermometer.

  It read 200 degrees, but even as he watched it, he could see the mercury climbing. He shifted his attention to the fudge. It, too, was beginning to boil.

  “The thermometer’ll be ready in a minute.”

  Sally was buttering a pan. She glanced up, smiling at the intensity with which Jason watched the thermometer.

  “When it gets to two-twelve, let it sit a minute. If it doesn’t go up any farther, it’s reading right. Then you can move it over to the candy pan. But don’t stir the candy!”

  “I know,” Jason said,
his voice filled with scorn. “If you stir it, it crystallizes. Anybody knows that.”

  “You didn’t till I taught you,” Sally teased. She began chopping up some walnuts, but kept an eye on Jason when, a few moments later, he moved the thermometer from the boiling water into the candy. “Now, don’t let the candy go above two-thirty-four.”

  Jason, his eyes glued to the steadily creeping mercury, ignored her.

  He watched as the temperature reached 230 degrees, then 232. He was about to get down from the stool, ready to pick up the pan as soon as it rose two more degrees, when suddenly the temperature seemed to spurt.

  As the red column in the thermometer started past 234, he picked up the pan and groped with his left foot for the step that should have been there.

  It wasn’t.

  Startled, he tried to set the pan back on the stove, but it was too late. His balance was gone, and he tumbled to the floor, the pan of boiling fudge still clutched in his right hand. His scream of fright made Sally look up just in time to see the searing liquid gush over Jason’s arm and spread out on the floor.

  Sally forced back the scream that boiled up from her own throat. She dropped her knife as she scooped Jason up from the floor and instinctively moved him toward the sink. Then she began running cold water while she held his arm under the tap.

  As the brown mess washed away, she saw the blistering skin underneath.

  Jason, strangely still, stared at his arm.

  “Why doesn’t it hurt?” he asked. Then, again, “Why doesn’t it hurt?”

  Pausing only to snatch her car keys from the table and wrap his arm in a towel, Sally rushed Jason out the back door. A moment later she was on her way to the hospital.

  Last time, she had been too late, and her daughter had died.

  This time she would not be too late.

  Jason was her only child now; she would allow nothing to happen to him.

  As Jason sat silently beside her, his arm swathed in a kitchen towel, she sped through the streets of Eastbury.

  Arthur Wiseman was walking Phyllis Paine out to her car. They had talked for nearly an hour, but reached no conclusions. All that had been decided was that for the next few weeks they would keep a careful eye on Sally. And then, as they passed the emergency room, they heard her voice.

  “But I saw it, Dr. Malone,” she was saying, her voice strident, and her face flushed with anger. “I tell you, I saw the blisters. Don’t tell me he’s all right! He’s not all right. He’s burned! Don’t you understand?”

  “Who?” Phyllis demanded. Sally whirled around, staring at her mother in surprise. “Who’s burned?” Phyllis repeated.

  “Mother, what are you doing here?”

  “Never mind that,” Phyllis replied. “Has something happened to Jason?”

  Sally’s eyes brimmed with tears and she nodded. “We were making fudge. He—he slipped, and the fudge poured out all over his arm.” Suddenly she was sobbing, and Phyllis gathered her into her arms. “Oh, Mother, it was horrible. And it was my fault. I should have been doing it myself.”

  “Hush, child,” Phyllis crooned. Her eyes shifted to Mark Malone, who stood to one side, slowly shaking his head. “How bad is it, Doctor?”

  Malone shrugged. “Not that bad at all, Mrs. Paine. In fact, it really doesn’t look like anything.”

  Phyllis Paine’s expression hardened, and a scowl formed on her brow. “Now see here, young man. If that pan of fudge was boiling, the boy must have been hurt. Where is he?”

  Malone nodded toward a small treatment room. Phyllis helped Sally into a chair, then strode toward the door. Inside the little room she found Jason, stripped to the waist, sitting on a table.

  “Hi, Grandma,” he said, grinning at her. “Wanna see my arm?”

  He offered his right arm for her inspection. Phyllis bent over it, examining it carefully. “Well, it doesn’t look like much, does it?”

  Jason shook his head. “And it hardly hurt at all,” he announced proudly. “But it was real hot, Grandma. The thermometer read two hundred and thirty-four. That’s what they call the soft-ball stage. It means that if you drop the fudge in cold water—”

  “I know what it means,” Phyllis said severely. “And I also know what heat like that does to little boys like you. You stay right where you are, young man.” She let go of his arm and returned to the waiting area. Sally, blotting at her eyes with a Kleenex, looked up at her anxiously. “It certainly doesn’t look like much,” Phyllis said.

  Sally’s face crumpled. “But it was blistered,” she whispered, almost to herself. “I saw it, and it was blistered.”

  Over Sally’s head, Phyllis’s eyes met Malone’s. “It seems to me there must be some confusion,” she said. “Apparently it was my grandson who was watching the thermometer, and he must have misread it. It was probably only one hundred and thirty-four.”

  Slowly, Sally’s head came up, and she stared at her mother. “But it wasn’t, Mother,” she said. “It was boiling, and it burned Jason’s arm very badly.” She stood up and went to the treatment room. A moment later she returned, holding Jason by the hand. “I’m sorry you don’t believe me,” she said. She turned to Malone. “Is there any reason for us to stay?”

  “Mrs. Montgomery, it couldn’t have been as bad as you think. You must have been upset—”

  “Of course I was upset,” Sally shot back. “Anyone would have been. But I saw what I saw. Now please answer my question. Does Jason need to stay here or be bandaged?”

  “No—”

  “Thank you,” Sally said, her voice icy. She turned, about to speak to her mother, then paused. There was something about the way her mother and Dr. Wiseman were looking at her that made her feel strange, as if she had just been tested, and found wanting. But then, as they became aware she was watching, their expressions changed. Wiseman extended his hand to Phyllis.

  “Now, if there’s anything else you need, just call me. How about dinner on Wednesday?”

  “Fine, Arthur,” Phyllis replied. She turned to Sally. “Well, shall we go? I’ll follow you home and help you clean up the mess.”

  “Never mind, Mother.” Sally’s voice was cold, but Phyllis ignored it.

  “No arguments! That’s what mothers are for.” But as she guided Sally and Jason out into the parking lot, she glanced back at Arthur Wiseman.

  He looked as worried as she felt.

  Sergeant Carl Bronski stared at the pile of computer printouts, and shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Corliss, but I’m afraid I’m just not following you.”

  Once again Lucy tried to explain what the columns of numbers meant, and once again Bronski listened attentively. When she was done, though, he shook his head sadly.

  “But even you admit it doesn’t really mean anything.”

  “It means that CHILD is up to something,” Lucy replied. “I don’t know what, and I don’t know why, but something’s going on.”

  Bronski nodded tiredly. It had been going on for two hours, and though he understood full well how Lucy Corliss was feeling, he didn’t see what he could do about it. “But if you won’t even tell me where these came from, and if you can’t really explain what they mean, what do you expect me to do?”

  “I expect you to find out what CHILD was doing with my son,” Lucy said. “I expect you to do what you’re supposed to do, and investigate this.”

  “But, Mrs. Corliss, there isn’t anything to investigate. A few pages of numbers that don’t really mean anything. It’s just not something I can use to justify an investigation of an outfit the size of CHILD.”

  There was a long silence. Lucy sank back in her chair. “All right,” she said, her voice suddenly calm. “How about this? How about if I talk to the person I got this information from, and they agree to talk to you, to explain what all this means? Will you at least listen to h—them?”

  Her, Bronski thought. Will I listen to her. But who is she? Another hysterical mother? But if that’s all she is, where’d she ge
t this stuff? Finally, he said, “Okay. You talk to her, and if she wants to talk to me, ITI listen.”

  Seeming satisfied, Lucy Corliss gathered her things together and left the Eastbury police department. But long after she was gone, Carl Bronski sat at his desk, thinking.

  He remembered Randy Corliss very well, and though he had never admitted it to anybody, he had had his private doubts that the boy would run away.

  Yes, he decided, if Lucy Corliss’s friend wanted to talk to him, he would listen.

  Chapter 17

  RANDY CROSSLISS LAY IN BED in a small room at the rear of the main floor of the Academy. His breathing was steady, and all the instruments wired to his small body displayed normal readings. His hands, covered with bandages, rested at his sides. A white-clad figure hovered over him, observing him closely, comparing the readings on the instruments to the evidence displayed by Randy’s physical being.

  Randy’s eyes fluttered slightly, then opened.

  He looked up and frowned uncertainly. Above him, the ceiling was unfamiliar. It was the wrong color, and the cracks in the plaster weren’t in the right places.

  He tried to remember what had happened. He’d been playing a game with his friends, and they’d done something to him, something that had frightened him.

  He’d been running, and then they’d caught him, and—and what?

  The fence. They’d thrown him against the fence, and he’d felt a burning sensation, and—and—

  But there wasn’t any more. After that, it was all a blank.

  Suddenly, a face loomed above him, and he recognized Dr. Hamlin, who seemed to be smiling at him.

  “How are we doing?” he heard Hamlin ask.

  “What happened?” Randy countered. He hated it when people acted like however you felt was how they felt too.

  “You had a little accident,” Dr. Hamlin explained. “Someone left the electricity on in the fence, and you stumbled into it. But you’re going to be fine. Just fine.” He reached out to touch Randy, but Randy suddenly had a vision of Dr. Hamlin holding a scalpel, and cutting into Peter Williams’s brain. He shrank away from the doctor’s hands.