Fire Of Heaven 02 - Threshold Read online

  She never understood why God didn’t simply accomplish his will on his own — why he insisted upon his children joining him, why he allowed them to become the catalyst for releasing the will that he had already determined. But she always thanked him for the opportunity. What a privilege to work side by side with her Creator. What a privilege for the God of the universe to release his awesome will through her frail prayers …

  Once again tears of gratitude sprang to Gerty’s eyes as she remained on her knees, beginning to quietly and persistently pray in tandem with God’s will — not fully knowing what it was but thanking him and worshiping him in advance as he began to accomplish it.

  Brandon raced out of the city on old Highway 17. It twisted and turned, following Hudson Creek some thirty feet below.

  “Whooooeee!” Frank shouted, popping another brew. “Mario baby does it again!”

  But there was little time to celebrate. Brandon had spotted headlights in his rearview mirror. They had just rounded the last bend and were quickly gaining on him. Suddenly, without warning, he cranked the wheel hard to the left and threw the truck into a screeching 180.

  “Oh no,” Del moaned, grabbing the dash for support.

  “Déjà-vu!” Frank shouted.

  Brandon straightened the pickup, hit the gas, and they shot back down the road, heading directly toward the other car.

  Inside the Firebird, Henderson squinted as the glaring headlights approached. He steeled himself. He would not back down. Not this time. He’d been humiliated once, and once was more than enough. He just hoped that the driver of the pickup would be smart enough to know this.

  Brandon pressed harder on the accelerator, and they picked up speed. Del desperately searched the seat beside him. “Where’s my seatbelt? I can’t find my seatbelt!”

  The car and truck bore down upon one another.

  Inside the Firebird no one said a word. They were somber and silent. Henderson flashed his lights on high. “Come on,” he whispered to the driver of the pickup. “Don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid …”

  The lights blinded Brandon as the Firebird approached, steady, veering neither to the left nor to the right. Brandon set his jaw.

  They were seventy yards apart. Sixty. Fifty.

  “Come on,” Henderson whispered under his breath, “come on, come on …”

  Forty. Thirty.

  Suddenly, Brandon knew. He sensed, with complete conviction, that the Firebird would not budge — that if they were to survive, he’d have to back down.

  Twenty yards.

  He yanked the wheel hard, swerving to the right just as the Firebird roared past. Brandon fought the steering as they slid down the highway — until they ran out of asphalt, dropped six feet into a steep ditch, and bounced to a jarring stop.

  A moment of silence passed before Frank observed, “They learn fast.”

  But Brandon wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot. He threw the pickup into first and stomped on the accelerator. The bank was steep and the gravel was loose. The back tires spun, spitting stone and gravel, but the truck barely moved.

  Brandon let up on the gas and wiped his face.

  “Oh, well,” Del offered hopefully.

  Frank remained silent, waiting to see what Brandon would do next.

  Again he pressed the accelerator, and again the tires spun. He pushed harder. The engine roared. The tires threw gravel and whined. Ever so slowly, the pickup began to move. They inched their way up the bank. The tires began to smoke, but Brandon would not let up. At last the tires caught the edge of the asphalt and squealed as they dug in and pushed off.

  Brandon made another U-turn and they were on their way. But the Firebird was nowhere in sight.

  “Where are they?” Del asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Frank assured him, “we’ll find ’em.”

  Del moaned and sank back into the seat.

  A quarter-mile up the road, Henderson had turned the Firebird around and eased it to a stop in the center of the road, directly behind a sharp, blind curve.

  “What are you doing?” one of the hulks in the back seat demanded.

  Without answering, Henderson turned off the engine. He left his lights on and climbed out of the car.

  “What!” Reggie asked. “Are you crazy?”

  “They want to play hardball,” Henderson said, “let ’em play hardball.”

  “Yeah, but —”

  “Relax,” Henderson said. “He’ll see the lights in time. Barely, but he’ll see them.”

  “This is crazy,” Reggie protested.

  But the driver had already pocketed his keys and was heading for the side of the road.

  “Henderson? Henderson!”

  Reggie glanced at the other passengers. It was obvious that they didn’t approve, but it was also obvious that they weren’t going to remain in the car for a debate. They quickly piled out and joined Henderson as he headed up the steep embankment for a better view.

  Back in the pickup, Brandon was a study in concentration. Wherever the Firebird had gone, it couldn’t be far. Up ahead was another curve. He picked up speed. Neither Frank nor Del said a word; their eyes remained fixed on the road.

  Up on the embankment, Henderson and the guys heard the pickup approach. A couple of them fidgeted in concern, but no one spoke.

  Brandon hit the curve. He’d barely started into it when his eyes widened in surprise: His headlights caught a white reflection directly in their path.

  It was Jenny! She was wearing her white gown and holding a lantern.

  He slammed on the brakes and steered hard to avoid her. Unfortunately he was too distracted to see the parked Firebird appear just around the bend.

  “Look out!” Frank shouted. “Look out!”

  Brandon spotted the car and threw the truck in the other direction. It made a three-quarter spin, barely missing the Firebird, and slid to a stop on the far side of the road, just inches from a steep drop-off overlooking Hudson Creek.

  Suddenly everything grew very silent. A dog from a nearby farm began to bark.

  At the top of the bank Henderson gloated. It had gone perfectly. Not only had he humiliated the driver, but he’d also impressed his buddies. He began to slide down the embankment, back to the road. “Come on,” he called. “Nothing worth sticking around here for.”

  The others agreed and followed, laughing and scoffing — more as a release of tension than for humor’s sake. They threw a few gibes and taunts at the distant pickup before finally arriving at the Firebird and piling in. Once inside, Henderson fired up the engine and, after his buddies shouted a couple more oaths for good measure, he took off. He glanced in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of the long-haired driver. The kid was already out of his truck. It would have been nice to stick around, rub his nose in it a bit, but justice had been served. And sticking around to bask in the victory would have definitely been uncool.

  Outside, Brandon barely noticed the Firebird pulling away. He was too busy searching the road. “Jenny!” He raced to the bend where she had stood. “Jenny! Jenny!” He was breathing hard, trying to catch his breath. “Jenny!”

  But nobody was there. He slowed. “Jenny …”

  Peering through the darkness, he searched the bank above him. Nothing. He spun around, looking all directions, then dashed to the other side of the road, looking down toward the creek.

  “Jenny!”

  He blinked back the tears burning his eyes. He held his breath, straining to hear the slightest crack of a twig or rustle of brush. Nothing but crickets and the barking dog.

  “Brandon! Yo, Brandon.” Frank was approaching from the truck.

  But Brandon barely heard as he continued searching the bank, the woods, the creek. “Jenny!”

  “Hey, Bran.” Frank slowed to a stop. “Jenny’s not here, man.”

  Brandon turned to him.

  Frank continued, softer. “She’s dead, man. You know that. She’s not out here. Nobody’s out here.”

&nbs
p; The tears spilled onto Brandon’s cheeks.

  “You all right?”

  Angrily, Brandon swiped at his eyes.

  “Hey, don’t worry ’bout it. We’ll get ’em next time.” Frank forced a grin. “I promise you, ol’ buddy, it’s our turn. We’ll get ’em next.”

  Brandon stood in the road, searching the bank above them, the creek below. Finally, he turned and looked back down the deserted highway. Of course, Frank was right, there was nobody there. Nobody.

  At least, not now.

  It had taken nearly an hour for Sarah to lose herself in her work. But at last she’d been able to pull out of the relentless whirlpool of memories. The anniversary had nearly gotten her, but finally she had managed to pull out. And she’d do her best not to swim so close to those emotional waters again.

  Over the past several minutes, she had begun to feel something else, another emotion. At first she’d thought it was the remains of her little pity party in the shower. But it wasn’t. It was a strange, uneasy feeling, like she was being watched. But that was impossible. It was after 1:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. No one had been in the Institute for hours. Just her. She’d parked her car in the front lot, entered through the lobby, and made sure the door locked behind her.

  Still …

  She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. It was probably exhaustion, or the anniversary, or her nerves — maybe all of the above.

  She redirected her attention to her work. Sitting before the console in Lab One, she stared up at the figures on the monitor’s screen. She sighed and put on her glasses. She was a neurobiologist, not a statistician. But, from the start, Dr. Reichner had made it clear that like all of the other parapsychology labs, they needed to include a “probability value” — the number that indicates the probability of an event happening simply by chance. This creates a standard that all tests can be compared to. For instance, take a test result with a probability value (p) of .05 or less. That simply means that the possibility of it happening by chance is less than five percent, or “p < .05.” That’s the normal cutoff point in PSI research. Anything higher than .05 is not taken seriously, but anything lower, such as “p < .01” (the chances of an event occurring as less than 1 in 100) is considered significant.

  Sarah stared at her figures. She couldn’t be sure, but her best estimate was that the probability value of this week’s events in the lab was somewhere around p < .0000000000001.

  No wonder her nerves were on edge. Maybe she was entitled to be a little paranoid. Something was very weird here.

  For the second time in as many minutes Sarah stole a glance over her shoulder. There was nothing but the equipment and the three-by-seven, one-way mirror looking down on her from the observation room. Yet it was the mirror that caused her the uneasiness. Anybody could be up in that room spying down on her and she would never know it.

  Or would she?

  Like everybody else, hadn’t she, at one time or another, known when someone was watching her? And wasn’t that exactly the feeling she was experiencing now? Once again she tried to shove the thought out of her mind, only this time it wouldn’t budge.

  With a heavy sigh, she pushed herself back from the console. Something had to be done. Reluctantly, she rose, passed through the narrow room directly beside the one-way mirror, and out into the hallway.

  Everything was perfectly still, perfectly normal, except —

  How odd. Hadn’t the door to the observation room been closed earlier? Maybe not. She couldn’t be sure. But they always kept the doors closed overnight and through the weekend to help protect the equipment from dust.

  With more than a little trepidation, she moved toward the observation room door. She thought of calling out, of asking if someone was there. But she was being ridiculous. She stepped up the three stairs leading into the room, then reached around the wall to the light switch and turned it on.

  Light flooded the room. No one was there. Nothing but racks of equipment and the faint hum of the overhead fluorescents. Of course, someone could be hiding behind one of those racks or crouched under the console, or maybe behind the — Stop it, she chided herself. Stop it right now. She turned, hit the lights, and headed back down the steps — but not before firmly closing the door behind her. And locking it.

  She shook her head. Definitely paranoia. Still, even paranoia had some scientific validity. She remembered one of the Russian PSI studies where a subject was placed in a room with a TV camera focused upon him. Galvanic skin response sensors attached to his skin to measure any increased anxiety he might feel. In the next room, another subject sat before a TV monitor. Most of the time the second subject was only shown a test pattern. But at randomly chosen times, the first subject appeared on the monitor and the second subject stared at him. When the experiment was complete and the results analyzed, it was discovered that the first subject’s skin sensors recorded increased anxiety at exactly the same times the viewer had been looking at him on the TV monitor.

  So maybe there was some validity to that uneasy feeling we’ve all had of being watched. What was the old joke — just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you?

  As she reentered the narrow lab and passed along the one-way glass, she did her best to ignore it. She moved back to the console and took her seat.

  And then the room exploded.

  She spun around to see a chair sailing through the one-way mirror as pieces of glass flew in all directions. She leaped back, barely dodging the chair as it smashed into the console behind her. She bolted for the door, trying to get past the gaping hole in the mirror, but the room was too narrow — a hand reached through the hole and grabbed her arm. She cried out and twirled around to see a head emerge through the opening. He was a kid — eyes wild, ragged goatee, stubbly red hair.

  “Where is he?” he screamed.

  Adrenaline surged as Sarah pulled to get away. But the boy hung on — even as she began to drag him through the hole, even as the shards of glass tore into his upper arm.

  “Where is he?”

  “Let me go! Let me —”

  “You are the one!” he screamed. “You are the one, you are not the one!”

  She pulled with all of her might, dragging more of him through the jagged opening. He was bleeding now, but he didn’t notice. “You are the one, you are not the one!”

  He found a foothold and braced himself. Suddenly Sarah could pull no farther. In a panic, she searched the room for something, anything. There, over on the console. A coffee mug. She reached for it, stretching as far as she could.

  “You are the one, you are not the one!”

  At last her fingertips touched the handle. She scooted it, rotating it, until she was able to grab it.

  “You are the one, you are not —”

  She spun around and smashed the mug into his face. It shattered, cutting her hand and slicing into his forehead, but he didn’t seem to notice. Blood streamed down his face, running across his brows, into his eyes, but he didn’t react.

  She stared, astonished.

  His grip tightened on her arm. He began dragging himself through the opening — across the shards of glass, and toward her.

  “You are the one, you are not the one! You are the one, you are not the one!”

  Wild with fear, Sarah fought and pulled, doing anything to get away. She dragged the weight of his body through the opening until he finally tumbled out onto the floor. The fall broke his grip, and she lunged for the door. She nearly made it — until he grabbed her leg. For a terrifying moment he had her. She kicked two, three times until she managed to break free. She staggered out into the hallway, but she could hear him behind her, already struggling to get to his knees.

  “You are the one, you are not the one!”

  She ran down the hall, stumbling in fear until she entered the lobby. She could hear the distant popping and scraping of glass as he staggered out into the hall after her. She fumbled for the lock on the double doors
and was surprised to see one already unlocked. She threw it open and raced toward her car. It was a beater, a ten-year-old Ford Escort, the only car in the parking lot.

  She arrived at her door, gasping for breath, her sweaty hands fumbling with the key. She shoved it into the lock — just as the lobby door flew open.

  She looked up. He’d spotted her and started toward the car.

  She opened the door and threw herself inside.

  “You are the one, you are not the one!”

  She hit the door lock, then shoved the key into the ignition.

  He was nearly there.

  For weeks she’d had trouble with the carburetor, planned on getting it fixed, never found the time. She turned the key, hoping desperately that it would cooperate.

  It didn’t.

  She looked up. He was ten feet away. Through the blood streaming down his face she could see the grin, mocking through crooked teeth.

  She kept turning the key, pumping the gas. “Come on — please, please, please —”

  He arrived and yanked at her door.

  “Please!”

  He banged the glass with his fist and she gave a start. He continued pounding it, again and again, leaving bloody hand marks.

  She kept grinding the starter.

  Through her peripheral vision she saw him step back several feet. He was searching the ground, looking for something to break in with.

  “Come on, come on …”

  He reappeared just as the engine kicked over with a roar. She glanced up; he was coming at the car with a giant rock in his hand.

  She yanked the transmission out of park and stepped on the gas. It fishtailed, her hands so sweaty she could barely hang on to the wheel. There was a loud thud at the back. He’d thrown the rock. She glanced into the rearview mirror. He stood there, swearing at her. Swearing and shouting. Over and over again, shouting:

  “You are the one, you are not the one!

  “You are the one, you are not the one!

  “You are the one, you are not the one!”

  Part Two

  CHAPTER 6

  BRANDON WENT TO CHURCH for the same reason he wore a shirt to the breakfast table: Momma believed that civility required it. Every Sunday morning, the two of them sat in the front pew, just as they had when Dad was the preacher. Only now, Dad sat beside them, in the center aisle, unmoving in his wheelchair.