Stan Lee pressed his right foot on the gas and the catering truck surged forward. Three seconds later, the butterfly finally took flight.
Mika found herself on her back in the middle of the road, gazing up at the blackness of the sky and wondering why the truck hadn’t stopped. It might have been her imagination, but it was almost like the truck had picked up speed.
Mika tried to lift her head but couldn’t.
Then a woman appeared, wearing a lavender sweater and a white skirt.
“Mom?” Mika said. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Mika, it’s Mommy,” Stan Lee said soothingly. “Is there anything I can do for you, dear?”
“Would you tell me a bedtime story?” Mika asked.
Stan Lee shot Kara a look, and Kara shrugged. “What the hell?” Kara said.
“Sure, I’ll tell you a bedtime story,” Stan Lee said.
Mika felt tears of joy rolling down the sides of her face. It had been so long since she’d seen either of her parents, and now—when she needed her most—her mother had come to put her to bed.
“Once upon a time, there was a king who was exhausted from the rigors of ruling the kingdom,” Stan Lee said. “So, one night, the king snuck out of the castle with his sword, wearing nothing but his colorful night shirt. The king walked and walked all night until—at sunrise—he spied a meadow filled with beautiful flowers.
“The king sat on a rock and pondered the beauty all around him. Then a bee buzzed past and sat on his shoulder. ‘Oh, you think my robe to be a flower!’ the king said and then cut off a piece of his robe. ‘Here then—have a bit of it!’ More bees appeared, and the king was delighted, cutting more and more of his robe and tossing small pieces of fabric into the air. ‘Here, bees! More flowers for you! Take them, take them all!’
“Then, as if by some magical force, the pieces of fabric began to flutter, becoming the colorful silken wings of a thousand butterflies floating into the sky. The king looked down at his robe, now torn and tattered, but he didn’t care. He had just created the most beautiful sight—a sky filled with butterflies.”
Mika tried to move her arms, but they were dead weight—as were her legs. She looked up toward the sky, which was indeed filled with butterflies.
Then a lightness Mika did not know was possible filled her, and she lifted from the ground and followed the butterflies into the light.
“Nice story,” Kara said. “You make that up yourself?”
Stan Lee shook his head. “No, it’s a story my mother used to tell me.”
“It’s nice—in a creepy sort of way.”
“You think I should move her from the middle of the road?” Stan Lee asked.
“Gee, I don’t know,” Kara said. “Would she move you?”
She had a point.
3:13 A.M. EST
ROUTE 41, 10 MILES SOUTH OF
PAMPLICO, SOUTH CAROLINA
YOU DIDN’T THINK I could do it, did you?” Newt asked from behind the steering wheel of the white Chrysler LeBaron.
“What? Jumpstart the car?” Maggie said. “Of course I did. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have challenged you to do it.”
“I bet your fiancé couldn’t do it.”
“Let’s not go there,” Maggie said.
“Fine,” Newt said. “But I’ll bet he couldn’t—unless his name is MacGyver.”
“I think it’s better if we leave Chad out of it,” Maggie said.
“Chad? His name is Chad?”
“Newt, please.”
“Let me guess. He went to Princeton, lives in Georgetown, wears nothing but Brooks Brothers button-downs with brown shoes and striped rugby shirts with white collars from LL Bean. Does he pop the collar up when you’re out at his parents place in Martha’s Vineyard? Dear God, please tell me he doesn’t smoke a pipe.”
Maggie remained silent.
“Well?”
“He never wears brown shoes,” Maggie said. “They’re cordovan. And, no, he didn’t go to Princeton.”
“Yale?”
Maggie did not respond.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“What? What did you think?”
“Nothing, forget it,” Newt said.
“No, you started the conversation—so let’s finish it.”
“Okay,” Newt said. “It just seems obvious that—”
“Look, there’s my car!”
“What?”
“There, up on the right,” Maggie said.
Newt followed the headlight beams up the road and, sure enough, Maggie’s car was parked on the side of the road.
Newt turned the LeBaron’s headlights off and pulled to a stop approximately fifty feet behind Maggie’s sedan. He put the vehicle in park and left the engine running. Just because he got it started once was no guarantee he could do it again.
Maggie grabbed the door handle. “No, I’ll go. Don’t forget, he’s got your gun.”
“That’s why I should go,” Maggie said. “This is my fault and my responsibility.”
“Fine, we’ll go together.”
Maggie approached the car from the passenger side and bent over to stay out of sight as best as possible, while Newt did the same thing on the opposite side of the car.
When Maggie reached the front passenger door, she raised up slowly, looked inside, and saw the man asleep on the front seat of the vehicle—using her coat as a blanket to stay warm.
Newt looked at Maggie through the driver’s side window and shrugged, as if to ask: what do we do?
Maggie held up three fingers.
Then two.
Then one.
Maggie and Newt grabbed the door handles on each side of the vehicle and—fortunately—both doors were unlocked.
The man sat up, totally shocked—and, when he did, Maggie saw the gun on the seat and lunged for it.
So did the man.
But before he could get to the gun, Newt reached in and grabbed the man’s shirt collar from behind and yanked him from the vehicle.
Maggie raced around the vehicle and found Newt and the man wrestling on the ground. Maggie pointed the gun at the man’s face. “Move and die,” Maggie said.
The man froze.
“Where’s the other gun?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t have another—”
Maggie stepped forward and kicked the man in the face and sent him flying back. “Where’s the gun, asshole?”
“It’s under the seat,” the man said.
“How’d you know he had another gun?” Newt asked as he pulled the gun from under the front seat of the car.
“The clerk at the gas station,” Maggie said. “He had to have shot him with something.”
Damn, Newt thought. If he were MacGyver, he would most certainly have thought of that.
3:17 A.M. EST
INSIDE THE PANIC ROOM
ALL TEN OCCUPANTS of the panic room were gathered behind Stormy Boyd at the bank of closed-circuit TV monitors, watching events unfold in various parts of the mansion—including the ballroom where Juniper and the man who’d identified himself as Uncle Tommy were facing off against the dark entity.
Bruce and Koda made eye contact, and Bruce wrapped his arm around Koda. “Good job tonight. I’m proud of you,” Bruce said.
“Yeah,” Koda said. “It was definitely a Restoring Savannah Foundation event people won’t soon forget.”
“Not the dinner,” Bruce said. “I meant everything you did to help save people.”
“Like Krissy?” Koda asked.
Bruce nodded and began to tear up.
“Uh, you might want to turn off the screen on the left,” Noah said quietly to Stormy over his shoulder.
Stormy glanced to his left and saw the screen for the camera mounted outside the front door happened to be pointed toward the windshield of the limousine.
“I can’t turn off a single monitor,” Stormy said. “Not without turning them all off.”
“Don’t turn it off on my account
,” Krissy said. “I’ve been on the Internet. It’s not like I’ve never seen porn.”
Koda removed his tuxedo jacket and draped it over the screen.
“Too bad,” Bunny Whitlock said. “I haven’t seen that much good sex since the private detective I hired caught my second husband with his mistress.”
“Shut up, Bunny,” Bruce said. “Stormy, is that as loud as the volume will go?”
Stormy turned the volume knob all the way to the right, and Fanning’s voice rumbled through the speakers.
“Sure, Tommy, if that’s what you want,” Fanning said. “You want to see what lies beneath?”
“I already know,” Tommy said. “Have you forgotten that I’m just as dead as you are?”
“Did he say he was dead?” Quinn asked.
No one in the panic room responded.
“You’re going to love hell. It’s such a wonderful place of joyous misery. Just say the word, and we’ll go. Just you and me, together again—alone—like the good old days.”
“Well, if you ever stopped talkin’,” Tommy said.
Then everyone in the panic room watched as a layer of what looked like the fog of an early San Francisco morning began rolling across the ballroom floor.
“What is that?” Simon asked. “Is it smoke?”
“It looks like the mist they do on stage at rock concerts,” Krissy said.
“It could be a gas of some kind,” Quinn said.
Bruce looked around the panic room and did a final head count. It was exactly what he’d feared.
“Don’t worry,” Koda said. “The panic room is supposed to be airtight, but we’ve got masks just in case. Right, Dad?”
Bruce did not respond, and it became obvious to everyone there was a problem.
“How many masks do we have?” Koda asked.
“Eight,” Bruce said. “We have eight.”
“Thoughts don’t just matter. They are matter. In the same way that the moon tugs on the oceans, the gravity of your thoughts have pulled both things and people into your life.”
The 31 Immutable Matters
of Life & Death
Episode 28
Battle of Light and Darkness
“Where there is light, there is shadow, so don’t spend your life cursing the darkness. It is impossible to have one without the other.”
–Onyx Webb
THE FOLLOWING EVENTS TAKE PLACE BETWEEN 3:13 A.M. and 8:39 P.M. (EST) ON DECEMBER 21, 2010.
3:13 A.M. EST
ROUTE 17 EAST, OUTSIDE CHARLESTON
BEATRICE WANTED DESPERATELY to open the metal door of the refrigerated compartment she was hiding in and see who took her catering truck, but her fear of being discovered was too great.
Certainly, it couldn’t be a ghost.
Could it?
Whoever it was, they were driving erratically, tossing her from one side to the other without warning. With nothing to hold onto, all Beatrice could do was place her hands against the cold metal walls to steady herself.
The vehicle began to slow, and Beatrice thought she heard a man say, “Should I?”
Whoever it was, they weren’t alone, Beatrice realized.
Then the vehicle accelerated, and she heard a loud thump. Apparently, they’d hit something. A deer, maybe?
A second later, the vehicle slid to a halt—throwing Beatrice forward headfirst against the front wall of the compartment.
Beatrice heard the door open.
Then silence.
Had both people gotten out, or just the one? It didn’t matter. She had to take a chance eventually.
Beatrice cautiously pushed the metal door open and peeked out to see if the second person was still in the truck. They weren’t. She was alone.
Beatrice pulled herself to her feet and looked through the windshield of the truck. Lit by the vehicle’s headlight beams, Beatrice saw a gray-haired woman in a white skirt and lavender sweater standing in the middle of the road.
Then Beatrice saw what they’d hit.
It was a woman, lying motionless in the middle of the road.
Dear God, they’d killed someone.
Beatrice hurried to the back of the truck and opened the rear door, careful to be as quiet as possible, and lowered herself to the icy road, wishing she had grabbed her coat when she ran from the house. But there hadn’t been time.
Maybe she was safer staying in the truck?
No, just go, she thought. Run to the woods and get away. You can deal with everything else later.
Life was filled with surprises, Stan Lee thought as he stood in the middle of the icy road, looking down at the blonde socialite’s lifeless body, her eyes wide open and staring up toward the dark sky.
He’d gotten to kill Mika Flagler after all.
“Nice story,” Kara said. “You make that up yourself?”
Stan Lee shook his head. “No, it’s a story my mother used to tell me.”
“It’s nice—in a creepy sort of way.”
“You think I should move her from the middle of the road?” Stan Lee asked.
“Gee, I don’t know,” Kara said. “Would she move you?”
Kara had a point.
Stan Lee walked back to the catering truck, climbed inside, and immediately noticed the rear door of the truck was open. Could it have been thrown open from the impact of running Mika over?
Unlikely.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Kara asked.
Yes, he was.
Someone had been hiding in the truck—and there was only one person it could be.
Beatrice Shaw.
Stan Lee climbed out of the truck and returned to the middle of the road, following the headlight beams into the dark sea of trees.
“I know you’re hiding out there somewhere, Ms. Shaw,” Stan Lee said loudly. “Don’t worry. I’m in too much of a hurry to go traipsing off into the woods after you. You’re safe for now. But if you say a word to anyone about having seen me, I will come back and fillet you like a freshwater trout. I’ll place a knife into your neck on a diagonal, right behind your ear, and slide the blade all the way down to the bone. We understand each other?”
Beatrice stood behind a tree, listening to the woman—and realized it wasn’t a woman at all.
It was the Southern Gentleman. Dressed like a woman. As if the night wasn’t bizarre enough already.
3:16 A.M. EST
INSIDE THE PANIC ROOM
THERE ARE TEN of us in here, but only eight gas masks?” Simon Prentice said with a tinge of anxiety as he watched the gray fog roll across the ballroom floor on the security monitors. “That means two people are going to have to—”
“There’s no reason to panic,” Koda said, cutting him off. “The safe room is airtight, with its own ventilation system.”
“Then why do they provide the masks?” Alec asked. Koda shot him a look. Alec shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, I’m just saying what everyone is thinking.”
“I won’t be needing one,” Stormy said.
“Why?” the governor stammered. “Wait. Are you—are you saying—?”
“A ghost? Yes,” Quinn said.
“What?” Bruce said. “But you look—?”
“Like a normal person?” Stormy said.
“I think this is a Titanic situation,” Bunny said.
“A Titanic situation?” Bruce asked.
“You know, women and children first,” Bunny said.
“I don’t want a mask just because I’m a girl,” Krissy said. “Maybe we should draw straws—you know, like on Falling Skies when they had to choose who would go on the dangerous mission to—”
“I’m the goddamn governor of Georgia,” the governor said. “I’ve got ten million people counting on me for leadership. I’ve got to—”
“The governor’s right,” Quinn said. “And I’m counting on him to pardon Wyatt Scrogger when we get out of here, so he has to get one.”
“Who in the hell is Wyatt Scrogger?” Bruce said.<
br />
“Okay, how about this?” Bunny said. “I’ll give $1 million to the first person willing to go without a mask so the rest of us can have one.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Bunny,” Bruce said.
“No, no—this is a good idea,” Alec said. “Make it $3 million, and you can have my mask.”
“$2 million,” Bunny said.
“Done,” Alec said.
Bunny pulled out her checkbook. “Does anyone have a pen?”
“God, you’re such a douche,” Krissy said.
“Me? I just gave up my mask,” Alec said.
“Yeah, for $2 million,” Krissy said. “What a hero.”
“Now that we’ve got that handled, could everyone just shut the hell up?” Quinn asked. “I’m trying to hear what my sister is saying.”
“Your sister?” the governor asked. “You mean the girl who saved me is—?”
“Yeah,” Koda said. “That’s Quinn’s dead sister—the one you didn’t believe him about.”
“Christ,” Bruce said. “Is there anyone around here who isn’t dead?”
3:18 A.M. EST
IN THE MANSION BALLROOM
SURE, TOMMY, IF that’s what you want,” Fanning rumbled. “You want to see what lies beneath?”
“I already know what lies beneath,” Tommy said. “Or have you forgotten that I’m just as dead as you are?”
“You’re going to love hell, such a wonderful place of joyous misery. Just say the word, and we’ll go. Just you and me, together again—alone—like the good old days.”
“Well, if you ever stopped talkin’, maybe we could get on with it,” Tommy said
“Making me mad is not a good idea,” Fanning said as a layer of fog began rolling across the ballroom floor.
“Look, he does special effects too,” Tommy said in Juniper’s direction.
“Child’s play compared to the things waiting for you in hell,” Fanning said. “You’d like hell. It’s a veritable carnival of souls down there.”
Onyx Webb 9 Page 19
