The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension (The Second Coming Chronicles Book 1)

by Terry James

  “Soueast, ‘bout a mile and a half,” Maddow said.

  “You got a light?” he asked.

  “No,” Mark said.

  “Gonna need one afore long.”

  The old man jumped from the dock into the back seat of the boat. He lifted a panel from the floor, pulled out a long flashlight, and tossed it to Mark.

  “What do I owe you, Mr. Maddow?” Mark said.

  “Just bring it back sometime. I’ll be at the shop. I probably shouldn’t,” he groused, “but I trust you. Any boy that takes as good care of his old daddy as you gotta be trustworthy.”

  “Thanks,” Mark said, thinking, while smiling to himself, that Shad Maddow’s hard-crusted facade was not as thick as it at first seemed.

  “Unhitch me, boy,” Maddow said, restarting the old boat’s inboard engine.

  Mark pulled the rope loop from the big mooring post, and threw the line to the old man, who reeled it in.

  “I’ll get the light back to you!” Mark shouted to be heard above the inboard’s roaring.

  “See that ya do!” Shad Maddow yelled back and turned his eyes out to sea.

  Laura Morgan walked into the huge, high-ceilinged parlor, sipping on a mug filled with coffee.

  “The phone is working,” she said, standing in the middle of the room looking at her husband, who had been dozing.

  James sat up from the burgundy, velour-covered Queen Anne-style sofa and rubbed his eyes. “Can’t get enough sleep,” he said, yawning.

  “Dr. Kirban says you will feel groggy off and on for a long time,” Laura said.

  She walked to the sofa and sat beside him. “Want a sip?” she said, offering the mug to him.

  “No, thanks, Super L,” he said, standing, and stretching. “I’ll have a cup later.”

  He looked at Lori, who was curled up on a smaller sofa against one wall.

  “Still our little girl,” James said, admiring her from the center of the room.

  “She’s worn herself out wishing for Mark,” Laura said. “Maybe we can find out something.”

  Laura was startled when the phone rang loudly on the table several feet away. Finally, after hours of being out of service for the fourth time since it was hooked up, the phone was working again.

  Lori sat up, rubbing her emotion-swollen eyes, and blinking through slitted lids to see her mother pick up the receiver of the ancient, black phone.

  “Hello?”

  A smile came on her mother’s face, and Lori sat forward to hear the one-sided conversation.

  “Thank the Lord! Christopher--you just don’t know what it means hearing your voice…Where are you?”

  Laura’s eyes widened. “Boston? When will you arrive at Portland?”

  She listened to Christopher, while James sat beside Lori.

  “It will be Mark on that phone, next,” he said, patting his daughter’s arm.

  “I hope so, Dad,” she said, clinging to his arm and resting her head against his shoulder.

  “He wants to be with you as badly as you want to see him, Sunshine. He’ll do whatever necessary to find you.”

  He was pleased that his words brought a quick, but genuine grin to her face.

  When she finished the phone conversation, Laura said, “Chris and Susie are at Logan in Boston. They kept trying to get us until the phone was working again. They will land in Portland about 11:40 tonight. Should be able to get a ride here by early morning.”

  “He hasn’t tried to contact you through the Air Force, has he?” James asked, standing and trying to clear the cobwebs from his thinking.

  “No. They know better than that,” Laura said, walking to her husband and embracing him.

  “They won’t stop until they get at us,” James said. “Cooper will protect his operation at all cost. I can’t figure how we’ve gotten this far.”

  “The Lord, that’s how,” Laura said.

  Gessel Kirban walked into the parlor, beaming. “I have done it,” he said with excitement. “I have adapted the house’s electricity to serve my experiments!”

  “What does that mean?” Lori asked, amused at the usually serious Israeli scientist’s burst of exhilaration.

  “What it means, my dear young woman, is that the precognition device is again functional. I can, perhaps, begin to learn its secrets, which they have kept hidden.”

  “They? You mean the government?”

  James Morgan’s question sobered the expression on the scientist’s face. Kirban considered a second, then said, “No, no. It is, I believe, a very, small group of self-interested people who actually know the precognition neuro-diviner’s special attributes.”

  “You talking about Cooper?” James asked with surprise in his voice. He had considered the whole United States clandestine planning to be at the heart of the problem.

  “I am convinced that these matters, these technologies, have evolved from as far back as Roswell in 1947, maybe even earlier,” Kirban said. “But, these things involve interdimensional traffic. Not extraterrestrial interlopers. Mr. Cooper is probably but one of several, in a very hush-hush group that knows the truth.”

  “Bene elohim,” Laura said. “They’re the angels that fell, with Lucifer.”

  Gessel Kirban smiled, slightly, and with a mild air of condescension in his voice said, “Well, my dear Laura, we shall have to study about that a bit more.”

  The climb up the sloping cliff wall on the stone steps that spiraled their way to the top was arduous.

  His father was exhausted. Mark, who had to carry him most of the way, then return to the bottom for the rest of their bags, sat on his duffel bag catching his breath and letting his thumping heart find its normal beat.

  Mark struggled to his feet after a minute’s rest. “Come on, Dad. Let’s see if I’m nuts, doing what some dream tells me to do.”

  He did feel nuts. But, nothing else made sense, either. He had never heard of Sharkton, Maine or Crab Cove Road. Yet here they were, standing, bags in one hand, and over shoulder, with Dad in the other, looking both ways down Crab Cove Road. South led to Sharkton, north led to the bluff, where Shad Maddow said there would be a dilapidated house…

  “Spooky” Maddow had called it.

  His Dad needed rest. Even if the house was dilapidated, they could, maybe, rest on the porch, or in a room for the night. Tomorrow, they could walk the mile and a half into Sharkton down this same road.

  Shadows had all but quenched the sun’s lingering rays, the Atlantic growing darker by the second. Yet the scant light continued to provide a gorgeous vista, Lori thought, seeing the ocean go from dark purple close to the shoreline far below, to an orange-red on its farthest horizon.

  She stood before the ceiling to knee-level window in the old home’s northeastern turret, imagining how she would begin the painting she planned. This time of evening would be impossible. The project would take too long. She would have but a half-hour or so to catch the magnificent gradations of hues. Taking into account the weather--whether clouds, or clear skies--the wait for just the right minutes to complete such an oil painting made a project at this time of evening impossible. She would have a look in the morning. The dawning sun on the horizon should be as beautiful and would provide more time to paint each day.

  Lori’s eyes saw the golden-red turn lavender, but her mind saw only Mark’s face on her imaginary canvas.

  She turned, and for the hundredth time today, wiped a tear from her face. She walked down the few stairs and traversed the hallway that circled the home’s upper floor. The light was dim from two low-wattage lamps attached to the wall by brass fixtures. Such a house should frighten her, should seem more forbidding, she thought, smiling to herself.

  “But, who cared? How could anything a ghost do be worse than being here, not knowing about Mark?”

  Her thoughts brought her to the southern turret, and she stepped inside the rounded room after springing up the several steps. She would check the vista this window presented. Maybe the painting could be eve
n more appealing as a landscape from this high perspective.

  The rutted, graveled road disappeared into the thick cluster of trees. The dusky hour all but obscured the little road, but its brighter appearance than the sea-grass bounding it on either side made it stand out from the surrounding terrain.

  Something moved along the road. Yes. Two people, one taller, carrying something. The other, stooped and shuffling beside the taller one.

  “Somebody’s here. Lights on all over the place,” Mark said. “Ghosts don’t need lights, do they, Dad?”

  Clark Lansing said nothing, his expression unchanging.

  Mark looked upward to the turret. Someone looked down at them. Someone with a sleek, feminine form, framed nicely by the turret’s light.

  “Let’s see what we’ve got here, Dad,” he said, nudging his father’s arm while they moved again toward the old house.

  Several lights came on, displaying a rounded wall, along which the row of lights illuminated the porch that curved around the house. The porch had a number of spindle-hewn columns that supported the spined and spiked porch roof at points 8 feet apart.

  “Spooky would be the right word, if not for all the lights, huh?” Mark said to his father, whose only acknowledgement was to cut his eyes upward toward the home’s many gables and spires.

  The front door opened, and James Morgan stepped onto the porch. He squinted to better see the visitors.

  “Who are you?” he questioned, worrying that it might be a surreptitious way to win their confidence with two apparent strangers, rather than a force of many.

  “Mark Lansing!” Mark shouted from more than 80 feet down the road. “This is my Dad, Clark Lansing!”

  Mark Lansing. The name pierced his recovering memory. Clark Lansing. Could it be?

  James quickly calculated the possibilities, the probabilities. If these were Mark and Clark Lansing, how could they have found them? Were they, either accidentally, or under duress, leading Cooper and the Taos goons to the fugitives they sought?

  James scanned the forested area behind the two men for any signs of anyone who might have accompanied them. He listened to try to hear movement. Only the chirp of crickets and other night creatures.

  “Mark! Is it really you?!” James yelled, deciding there was no threat.

  Lori burst from the doorway when she heard Mark’s name. She took the porch steps in two bounds, ran by her father, and sprinted to her objective.

  Mark dropped the duffel bag from his shoulder, and the two smaller bags he carried in his left hand. He released his father’s arm to catch Lori, who threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He held her suspended from the road in their joyous embrace. “Oh Mark!” Lori could say no more, her words becoming sobs of happiness. Their reunion melted into a lingering kiss that removed from their presence, for that long moment, consciousness of everything and everyone around them.

  When Mark slowly put Lori’s feet on the road, Laura hugged them both and kissed Mark.

  James Morgan, who had grabbed Clark Lansing by his arm when his friend started to wander off in the direction of the house, led Mark’s father back toward the group, while offering his hand.

  “I don’t know how you knew we were here, Mark, but I’ve never been happier to see a fellow jet jockey,” Lori’s father said, shaking Mark’s hand.

  Lori walked with Mark toward the old house, her cheek against his chest, both arms around him, feeling the hard muscles of his body move beneath the sweat shirt he wore, feeling his strong right arm hold her to himself. She released her grip around his waist just long enough to again remove tears from her cheek with a slender index finger.

  Boston’s Logan Airport was closed in by a heavy fog. The voice echoed loudly from the speakers throughout the passenger lounge.

  “American Airlines Flight 327 to Portland, Maine has been cancelled due to weather conditions.”

  “I knew they were going to cancel,” Christopher Banyon said, plopping the Boston Globe onto the empty chair next to his in frustration.

  “Passengers need to check the American Airline counter for rescheduling air travel to Portland,” the male voice said.

  “You wouldn’t want them to fly if it’s not safe, Chris,” Susie said from her chair to his right.

  “Guess not,” he said, appreciating her calming effect on his fraying nerves.

  It had been a trying time, the last weeks. Giving up the church he loved. Getting involved in the crazy things happening to him, to the Morgans…

  “God wants us here, now, or else we would be on our way,” Susie said while thumbing the pages of a Look magazine.

  “We were in the worst possible storm,” he said, almost as if to himself.

  “But, that was then…this is now, Chris,” his wife said. “The Lord wants us here, not in the air right now. Can’t you see that?”

  “Wish I could,” Christopher said. “I’ve never had patience. Must be an object lesson.”

  “Why don’t you see what kind of help they can give at the American desk?” she asked, patting his hand while it rested on the arm of the chair.

  “Yeah, I better do that,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Christopher returned after several minutes.

  “They say the next American flight to Portland is scheduled for in the morning at 8:30. If the fog lifts…”

  “That’s that, then. We can’t do anything about it for now, so just relax, okay?”

  “They will put us in a room nearby. She gave me a voucher,” Christopher said. “We’ll have to pick up our luggage.”

  They retrieved their several suitcases and began walking toward the glass doors to find a taxi.

  Christopher stumbled, almost fell, but regained his balance.

  “What’s wrong, Chris?!”

  Susie tried to steady him, seeing that his eyes seemed to show confusion.

  “I…I don’t know, hon…I feel really light-headed, I guess…”

  “No wonder, you’ve had nothing to eat but a tuna fish sandwich at noon,” she said, continuing to hold his arm and hand.

  “Think I’ll go to the men’s room, splash a little cool water on my face,” he said, seeming to regain his sensibility.

  “You sure? Shouldn’t you wait a few minutes?” His wife brushed his forehead then his cheek with her fingertips.

  “You’re really clammy, Chris. We’d better sit you down for a few minutes.”

  “No. I’ll be fine. I’ll be right back,” he said, looking, then seeing the black strip jutting out from above the hallway opening marked in thin, white letters, “RESTROOMS.” When he reached for the appropriate door, his thoughts became surreal, his head feeling as if it would explode.

  “Lord, help me!” he said, feeling his senses darken and his body begin to collapse to the hard tile floor.

  His thoughts then regathered, his vision cleared. He stood for a moment, one hand against the wall, the other holding his forehead between thumb and fingertips. If only he could get to the sink --splash cool water on his face--all would be okay.

  Christopher looked at the door, then back toward the lounge area. His vision was pinpoint, as if he looked through the big end of a telescope. He shook his head, trying to make the blackness surrounding the pinpoint of sight dissipate.

  His surroundings appeared totally different to him now. The lounge, as best he could see it, was a hundred times busier. It was bigger, brighter, with people scurrying in every direction.

  He again shook his head, trying to clear his vision. Unable to do so, he pushed on the door to the men’s room. He stumbled through the opening, then through another set of double doors, pausing to steady his movement by resting the palm of his right hand on one wall. He must find the basin and wash his senses back into his spinning brain.

  The restroom was bigger, brighter than the others. Its fixtures and layout looked nothing like what he remembered in the other restrooms he had visited in Logan, or in any other airport, for tha
t matter…

  Three men, dark-complected men--probably South American…maybe Middle-Eastern--had been talking quietly when he entered. They stopped talking when he came fully into the room. They looked at him, their eyes penetrating, piercing, while he tried to straighten and walk normally. They probably thought he had been drinking…

  They watched him with eyes of distrust. One said something in a language he didn’t understand, and, after following him with their dark eyes while he moved to the sink, one of the three said something, and they left the washroom.

  Christopher prayed, asked that he not be on the verge of a stroke, a heart attack, or something that would end his life with Susie.

  He remembered the men had had something in their hands. They had thrown something in the trash-can in one corner, before exiting the men’s room. While he dried his face with the paper towels, he glanced in the bin.

  Christopher felt better, the water having helped his reeling mind find its center of balance. He threw the wadded-up towel in the can, seeing three rectangular boxes just beneath the crumpled paper. He picked two of the empty packages from the can and looked them over. Each had a picture of something. He couldn’t see clearly, his vision blurred. The boxes had an instrument of some sort pictured on one side. He shook his head and blinked but couldn’t bring the objects into focus.

  The three dark-complected men had been discussing the packages, he thought. His weakness and surreal thoughts had to be from lack of food, he decided. Probably a drop in blood sugar level, or something. … He felt better, much better.

  His eyesight was not yet back to normal, but the black fuzziness was clearing. He looked into the bright, stainless framed mirror that covered most of the wall. This was, indeed, unlike any restroom he had ever seen…