MORENO, CALIFORNIA
The mudslide began at 3:20 a.m. and coursed down a small dry-wash area high above the Santa Maria Delarosa mission and winery. The slide was caused by rain that refused to soak in, in certain hardpan areas, and in combination with the softer dried dirt of the region, the wall of mud turned itself into a living thing. It picked up boulders that had been buried in the hillside for a millennium, and that was enough force to speed up the wall of mud and water as it cascaded down the small hills surrounding Moreno.
The crest of liquefied earth slammed into the north wall of ancient adobe and disintegrated it as the wave moved on. The small walnut grove beside the old mission was inundated and swallowed. Then the mud slammed into the rear wall of the mission and the winery. Since the state had reinforced the walls of the mission with the takeover of the property, the slide was pretty much contained. It was in the winery where the world came crashing in. The slide hit the north wall, collapsing it under the onslaught. The wave continued until the old flooring couldn’t withstand the tremendous weight any longer. The ancient wood gave way, and it and the boulder-filled mud slammed into the basement, the rafters of steel and aluminum coming down atop the remains of a laboratory that was never supposed to be.
The old and rusted tanks atop the vault ruptured and spilled out their last remaining fluid. Then the crack in the steel made in Yugoslavia almost eighty years before split and collapsed in on itself. The gases and a thousand pounds of mercury were free to soak into the wet earth of the slide.
Darkness was content to stay isolated while the world outside exploded in thunder and lightning. They knew they were free and would once more have designs on the invasion of Moreno, California. This time, they would remain free by killing anything that threatened them. Even with requests for calm emanating from the bowels of the old Grenada Theater and the vault there, the entity ignored it, grew in power, and waited.
* * *
Bob had been up all night, obsessed with the old DJ’s booth. He had pulled his favorite TV-watching chair over toward the middle of the room, moving several of the half-empty record racks out of the way, and sat, waiting. He was placed in the approximate position the receptionist had occupied many years before. He had a blanket pulled up to his chin as the drumming of the rain on the roof of K-Rave lulled him to only half-wakefulness. The company-issued .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver was tucked firmly between his left leg and the seat cushion. His eyes were fixed on the triple-paned glass of the booth.
Linda shuffled by, lacking for sleep as much as her husband. She had spent the night huddled in the old cast-iron tub in her bathroom, and her mood was witness to the fact it had not been a very comfortable night.
“I’ll ask again, Bob—what are you going to do if it does show up again? Shoot it?” She laughed, but it was without mirth. She slapped the back of the chair but leaned over and kissed his cheek anyway. “We have never once in the years that we have been here had cause to even get those damn guns out of the boxes they were issued in.” She patted the top of his head and then moved to the front window. “Eleven in the morning and it looks like near dark out there.”
It had been raining steadily since the night before. The television reports were saying that the Inland Empire and most of San Bernardino County were under flash flood watch. It was a warning that anyone near the hills had to take most seriously. There had already been reports of massive mudslides near Big Bear and flooding in Los Angeles.
“I’m just hopin’ old Drunk Monk’s Road doesn’t come sliding down in our laps, which it will if the damn rain doesn’t stop.” Linda spied Harvey Leach across the street as he poked his head out of the double glass doors of Newberry’s. He was undoubtedly checking to see if the rainwater was ready to breach the sidewalk and come into the alcove of the old department store. Linda didn’t want to see that happen because they would more than likely be called upon to assist in sandbagging the doors and alcove. Linda waved, and Harvey shook his head and then went back inside. She suspected she, Bob, and Harvey were the last people in Moreno, an unsettling predicament to dwell on. All that was left outside of the townies, as they were now calling themselves, was Casper Worthington.
“Do you want some lunch?” she asked as she finally turned away from the dismal morning. She strolled into the kitchen. She cracked two eggs and put them in the butter she had melted. She again looked up, but Bob still sat motionless.
The sound of movement stopped her speculation. She leaned over the small counter and looked into the reception area. She saw Bob’s head. His hair was splayed out on the top of the easy chair and was undone from its usual ponytail. She then looked toward the booth, and her heart skipped at least five beats that were, at that moment, badly needed.
The light was dim but very visible through the triple-paned glass. She saw the microphone stand that she knew wasn’t there. She saw the rows upon rows of 45 records stacked into wooden shelves behind the console with its two turntables. One was spinning, its arm and needle scratching through the small black disc. Linda swallowed.
“Bob?” she said, but her voice had failed somewhere around the back of her teeth. Then another six or seven heartbeats came up missing when she heard a toilet flush from a small bathroom at the very back of the DJ’s booth that hadn’t been in operable condition since Nixon first took office. “Bob?” she said once more. This time, she could almost see the words exit her mouth. Then she realized that there had been a reason for that. The weather wasn’t that uncomfortably cold for this time of year in Southern California, just a chill that came with bad weather. Today had been no different, but now she saw her breath as she said that one word. She tested it again by blowing through her mouth, and her suspicion was confirmed. The temperature had dropped by at least thirty degrees in the last minute inside the K-Rave radio station.
Linda tried to move her feet but found that her muscles had become frozen. She even smelled burning eggs and butter but still couldn’t move. Her mind was protecting her from a stupid action. Then her face flushed free of blood as she saw the door to the old bathroom open and the same man from the night before came out drying his hands on a paper towel that he then tossed into a wire basket. The light from the small bathroom lit up the booth, and she saw all the detail in horrid clarity. The stacks of records. The turntables and the mic stand. The rolling chair the DJ used, and the mug of coffee that was now steaming on the console. Then she heard the music playing. It was an old rock and country crossover song she remembered from her very early childhood. She couldn’t remember the artist. She knew the song—“Sea of Heartbreak.” It was an Elvis-style song that became very popular. As she watched, the bearded man looked through the glass. Linda thought for sure he would react to Bob’s presence in the chair only feet away from the glass, but he acted as though there was nothing there. The man reached out and hit a switch.
“Roberta, you out there?” he asked, and Linda heard it through an intercom system that had never worked in her entire tenure in Moreno. She looked around just as the DJ was doing for this Roberta. Whoever she was, she was nowhere in sight. Linda turned back in time to see the man reach for something out of view, and then the bottle of J&B whiskey appeared. He poured the amber liquor into his coffee mug. He again looked through the window as if afraid of being observed and then smiled as he sat down in his chair and placed a set of headphones on. The music coming from speakers inside the old reception area was scratching out the song and was winding down.
“That was Don Gibson, ‘Sea of Heartbreak.’ The time here in Moreno is eleven o’clock. You’re listening to Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads here at K-Rave on this dark and stormy Halloween Wednesday, an appropriate setting for tonight’s festivities planned by the good folks at Hadley Corp Gauge and Meter Company. Remember, if it’s raining, Newberry’s has plenty for the kids to do, so parents, don’t go throwing yourselves into Lytle Creek—there’s still hope! So, drop off the teens at the Monster Mash Bash at the Grenada Theater for a night full of frights, and then mosey over to Newberry’s. I’ll be there live and in all my remote glory, so come by and see old Freekin’ Rowdy on this most ghoulish of nights. Now here’s Pat Boone and ‘Moody River.’”
Linda could not move, even as the eggs in the frying pan began smoking. She watched as the DJ swirled in his chair and then downed a good portion of the coffee-and-whiskey mixture. She was terrified thinking that the motionless Bob must have had a heart attack or a stroke at the very least. She saw the man lower the cup and a look of exasperation came over his features. He put the mug down and then hit his intercom switch, automatically lowering the volume of Pat Boone. She even heard the feedback from the interruption.
“Damn persistent, aren’t you?” he said as he leaned forward with his hands on the console. His eyes moved from the spot she knew Bob was sitting at and then over to her. She froze solid. He hit the switch again, obviously frustrated because he wasn’t being answered. “Look, she wasn’t pissed when I tried to warn you before, but there has been a lot of interference from others since then. She won’t be too forgiving after this. You need to leave this place.” He hit the intercom switch again, and the music turned up. He was still taking turns looking from Bob to Linda, who shook her head, still unable to call out Bob’s name. Again, the frustration showed as he hit his infernal switch. “Damn, would it help you if I said the Others are out, and they won’t allow her to have any mercy? Are you two beatniks braindead or something? What will it take to get you to beat feet?”
Linda had hope when the DJ looked down at the soon-to-end Pat Boone hit, when again he looked up angrily.
“I died trying to save those kids in the theater. That’s why I am still here. The Others keep me imprisoned simply because I interfered, as did others. Now get out of here before all hell breaks loose!” Rowdy Rhoads leaned toward the glass, and his appearance changed in seconds.
He burst into bright flames, and his skin crisped and peeled away. His head was smashed in on the left side and looked as if his brains were leaking out of the other. He took a stance as if he were about to hurl himself out of the booth and into Bob’s lap, who still hadn’t moved an inch in the easy chair.
Linda finally managed a horror-movie-type scream as the immolated and partially crushed man launched himself at the glass.
The gunshots echoed in the confines of the radio station. Four shots shattered the triple panes of glass just as Freekin’ Rowdy became airborne. The glass blew inward as Linda’s scream overshadowed even the gunfire.
Then there was nothing. Bob was standing up with the blanket at his feet and the smoking Smith & Wesson pointed at the empty space where the glass had been. The booth was empty and dark. None of the things she had seen earlier were there. No records, no turntables, and most assuredly no Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads.
“Why didn’t you answer me, you son of a bitch?” she screamed as the eggs in the frying pan burst into flames. The smell immediately got her attention, and she retrieved the flaming pan and then slammed it into the small sink, running water on it.
Bob started shaking, and Linda felt horrible. He had been there, watching everything all along, and she supposed with both of them looking like deer caught in the headlights of a car, it pissed Freekin’ Rowdy off enough for him to show his true form.
Linda ran from the kitchen area and then slowed as she approached her husband. She saw him shaking. The gun hadn’t moved from his aiming spot right behind the glass. She easily removed the .38 from his trembling hand, and then his paralysis vanished. He looked at her and shook his head.
“Forget the clothes and other things. Get your purse. We are so outta here!” Bob said as he turned and they both made for the door, he in his pajamas and her in a robe and slippers.
They ran into the pouring rain and started for their beat-up Plymouth Horizon that sat hubcap deep in the rushing water.
“What’s the company going to say?” Linda asked as they neared the car and safety.
“I don’t give a good goddamn what they say. It would take an army to keep me here!”
At precisely that moment, a caravan of black Chevy SUVs with blue flashing lights in their grilles turned the corner from Jefferson onto Main Street. Bob stopped, and the keys to the car fell into the rain-swollen gutter. Linda placed a hand over her mouth as fifteen vehicles and one very large motor home came at them. Several of the black Blazers went down the street, and the others started pulling to the curb. Three of these even blocked the street at Jefferson and Wilks Avenues, placing their vehicles sideways in the road. They watched as men dressed in raincoats and black windbreakers took up station on the sidewalk on both sides of the street while the expensive motor home pulled into a vacant lot near the old Texaco station. That then was surrounded by four California Highway Patrol cars. Men piled out of all the vehicles, and they all were armed. The final blow was the black step van that pulled to the front of Newberry’s, and fifteen FBI hostage rescue team members hopped out and took up station near the flooding sidewalk. Their eyes were roving everywhere and even took in Bob and Linda.
“I think that army you mentioned has just arrived,” Linda said hopelessly.
* * *
After Bob and Linda had been questioned, they were escorted to the radio station, where three FBI agents checked the inside for anyone else. Bob even saw several of them go into Newberry’s to question Harvey. Then they saw a black sedan pull up and two men escorted the very angry walnut farmer, Casper Worthington, and his Yorkie named Peckerwood inside Newberry’s.
Bob was handed back his driver’s license and his contract for Sacramento Security Systems. The agent seemed amused at the state of the so-called security for the town but was polite enough not to say anything to the very harried-looking hippie couple. Overall, the federal authorities found the state of security in the town laughable.
“Now can you tell us what in the hell is going on?” Linda asked as she came from the bedroom with fresh clothes on. She found her bravery again with so many men and women around, but she still sent a nervous glance toward the DJ booth and its windowless frame.
“Someone will be in to explain shortly. There are some people who wish to interview you both.” The agent smiled. “Do you have firearms on the premises?”
“We wouldn’t be very good security if all we could do is throw foul language at trespassers, would we?”
“Gun,” the other agent said as he picked up the Smith & Wesson that had entwined itself in a blanket on the floor. The agent picked it up by the trigger guard and then smelled the barrel. “Recently fired.”
The FBI agent talking to Bob smiled as he nodded at his partner. It was then that he noticed the DJ booth and the shattered window. He faced the smaller man again as Bob pulled his hair back and then applied a rubber band to it and formed a ponytail, much to the agent’s amusement.
“Perhaps you’d better stick to foul language, Mr. Culbertson.”
“Accidental discharge.” Bob eyed his wife, who nodded at the small lie. “Now, why are you here?”
The door opened, and several people that were dressed differently came in shaking rainwater from their clothing and hair. The tall man in the front shook his raincoat and then looked up with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry. I think we’re making a mess here.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Linda said as she moved toward the front door with a mop. She didn’t greet the newcomers as she started swabbing the water from the old linoleum flooring.
“We’ll just hang onto this, sir,” the first agent said as he held the gun up to show the tall man.
“Thank you,” the man with the well-trimmed beard said, looking at the agents. “We just have a few questions for Mr. and Mrs. Culbertson.”
The two agents left the station with a warning look at Bob about firearm safety.
“Wow, this is a blast from the past,” a small black man said as he looked the K-Rave station over.
“Can you please tell me why we are being held here?” Bob asked as he eyed the seven people standing near the door. The two women looked uncomfortable.
“Yes, sir. My name is Professor Gabriel Kennedy. These are my associates, Mr. John Lonetree, Dr. Jennifer Tilden, Mr. Leonard Sickles.” He stepped forward and clicked his heels together. “Mr. George Cordero, Ms. Julie Reilly, and the surly-looking fellow there is Damian Jackson. We’re—”
“The Supernaturals,” Linda said as her mop moved back and forth across the faded flooring. She never looked up from her task. “Knew it as soon as I seen ya.” She looked up and fixed them all with her tired eyes. “I must say, your recent troubles about hoaxes and people faking their experiences fails to hold water, in my humble opinion.” She bent to her mopping. “As a matter of fact, I think your theories on the subject are bullshit,” she said more quietly.
“There’s nothing to do but watch television here. We didn’t have much of a choice; this town has never had cable. We were kind of stuck with what programming we could get out of LA over the air.” Bob looked from person to person and then shook his head.
“Can we have a seat, Mr. Culbertson?” Gabriel asked with a smile after such a good review of their television work.
“You can have this whole fucking town if you want, man.”
Linda appeared with two chairs and placed them in the reception area, pushing a wooden record box out of the way before returning to get more chairs. With everyone seated, Linda brought in coffee after opening a window to get the smell of burned eggs out of the studio. The place was silent, with the exception of the rain falling on the old and battered roof. Everyone waited for Gabriel to speak. Before he did, he pulled out a sheaf of papers.
“This contract says you have a few days to go before your obligation here is fulfilled.” Gabriel looked at the pages and then placed them back into his coat pocket.
“I don’t give a flying f—”
“Whoa,” Linda said as she poured Gabriel’s coffee. “A little early to be rude. After this morning, I think we can dispense with that crap.”
“We have fulfilled the contract. The town is still standing, and it looks as if our relief has arrived. And to be perfectly frank here, you didn’t bring enough men.”
Gabe looked at John, and they both knew something was showing itself in Moreno. The room went silent as George stood up from his chair with coffee cup in hand. He walked straight to the DJ’s booth window as they all watched. Bob looked nervous as George ran his fingers over the empty frame. He closed his eyes. He opened them once again and turned and looked at Bob.
“Bullets can’t harm them, you know.”
Bob swallowed and then turned in his chair and faced Gabriel and John.
“Let’s just say it made me feel a lot better.”
“I know how you feel.” Damian sipped his coffee.
“That’s right, I think I remember you unloading an entire clip of nine-millimeter rounds at something that just laughed at you and kept coming,” Julie said as he smiled at Jackson over her memories of Summer Place.
Damian lowered the coffee cup and smirked. “As Mr. Culbertson said, it made me feel better.”
Gabriel saw the ease in which Damian and Julie disarmed the man sitting with them. Even his wife snickered at the small tale of terror.
“Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads.” Cordero raised his cup and drank coffee. Kennedy could see that he was also doing his part in making the couple feel less like fools. He knew his team was very capable of making people relax in their presence.
“That’s the name he said on the radio this morning. Harvey over at Newberry’s says Rhoads used to be a DJ here until his death,” Linda said, amazed with George.
“Died, October 31, 1962,” George said, turning to see if he were right.
“Old man Leach said the same. We don’t know the particulars, but he did mention that fact,” Bob said, looking at the two men seated right in front of him.
“This morning?” Gabe asked.
“I knew that cat!”
The voice and its tenor made everyone turn and look at Jennifer, who was seated next to Julie.
“Oh, shit.” Leonard partially stood from his chair in fear of Jenny, but Damian made him sit with a warning look. Leonard was never fond of Jennifer’s reaction to an invasion of her mind by one Bobby Lee McKinnon.
Linda, however, stood up and with wide eyes quickly moved away from Jennifer, who had her eyes closed and her head tilted back. John made to move to her side, but Gabriel held him in check. He then turned and held a finger to his lips telling Bob not to speak.
“Met him in LA one summer—1957, I think.” Jenny’s mouth moved, but the voice was that of a man. “Damn talking head. One of those old Payola boys from Chicago. He was drummed out of the big markets along with Alan Freed for taking payoffs for record pushing,” Bobby Lee said.
Most knew that Bobby Lee was referring to the scandal-plagued days of music payola, where money was paid to stations to play certain songs and to push them onto the public. The practice had cost many a station manager and DJ their careers, including the famous Alan Freed, the same man who had coined the phrase rock and roll in Cleveland in the fifties.
“Freekin’ Rowdy was a war vet, and he obviously got a break coming here. Check my Nubian friend on the little TV thing you have.”
Jennifer stopped talking as everyone turned to face Leonard, who was still thinking about the term used to describe him. He had never been called a Nubian before. He finally caught on and then placed the laptop on his thighs after handing a smiling Damian his coffee cup. He typed in his command and then gave the slumbering Jenny a dirty look. “Asshole, Bobby Lee, why don’t you just call me a Negro, like the old days?”
They waited as George continued looking through the empty window space at the interior of the booth.
“Here it is—from the St. Louis army records center. James M. Rhoads, sergeant first class, discharged September 1945.” Leonard looked up with a smile. “He was S-2 for the Fourth Infantry Division, assigned to a special unit of the OSS. Commander was one Colonel Robert Hadley.”
“Small world,” Damian said.
“Crazy as a shit house rat. He said he had seen things that drove him to drinking during his time over there,” Bobby Lee said through Jennifer, who immediately sat up straight in her chair and swiped at her mouth as if she had been caught sleeping and was drooling. “What?” she said as she looked from person to person as they all stared at her. “Was I snoring or something?”
“Or something,” Leonard said with a sideways look at her.
“Man, I don’t know which is worse—this place or you guys,” Bob said, casting a wary eye at his startled wife as she moved back to her chair.
“We grow on you,” Julie said with a concerned smile as she patted Jennifer on the leg.
The door opened, and two agents stepped inside, shaking water from their coats and eliciting a scornful look from Linda. The first man spied Gabriel and came forward.
“This was just faxed in from our field team in Washington. It’s the debrief you requested on men who served with Second Lieutenant Dean Hadley in Vietnam.” The agent looked concerned. “The fax transmission from Washington was spotty, and now we are having trouble with cell service. We still have reliable satellite phones, but everything else is headed south because of this storm.”
“The cell service is always spotty. The hills.” Bob waved his hand in the air.
Kennedy took the offered papers from the agent and then excused the men. He perused them, and then his brows rose.
“What did they dig up?” John asked as he turned and winked at Jennifer, who looked lost after her brief possession from her old friend Bobby Lee McKinnon.
“He served his country with distinction. Not one bad mark in his 201 file.” He moved papers around, and then he settled on the ones he was looking for. “However, his commander, upon interview from an old folks’ home, remembered a different soldier from the one described in his official file. He said, and I quote, ‘The lieutenant was disturbed. A loner. A man who slept very little and disdained the men he served with. He was a frequent volunteer for work outside of his Special Forces regiment. Thirty-six confirmed kills. All in black operations against the North Vietnamese. In 1967, he became unhinged after a visit from a civilian, his father. After that, he was arrested twice by the army’s Criminal Investigation Division for the illegal killing of North Vietnamese nationals.’” Gabriel read ahead. “He was found not guilty in a general court-martial that isn’t mentioned in his file. Although innocent of the charges, which he never denied, our boy was discharged. Honorably.” Gabriel held the papers up a moment and then shook his head.
“May I ask, why are you people in Moreno, and who is that you are talking about?” Bob asked as lightning flashed through the plate glass window.
“Mr. Culbertson, will you and your wife join us for lunch? I assume the food at Newberry’s is passable as such?”
“Harvey’s a good cook, but maybe not too happy to do so today. Now who was that you were talking about, and is this nut on the loose here or what?”
“That nut is here, Mr. Culbertson, but he’s not on the loose. He’s in a motor home being attended to by his physicians.” Gabriel was helped into his raincoat by Julie, who had brought it to him.
“Who?”
“The man who grew up here,” Gabe said, looking at both Bob and Linda. “And that is one thing that I bet old Harvey Leach didn’t tell you.”
“Tell us what?” asked Linda. She was handed her own coat by Damian, who then helped her into it.
“That the president of the United States grew up here and is now back home in Moreno for the first time since 1962.”
Bob looked at Linda as the team of Supernaturals held the door for them.
“I’m asking that lying damn company for that goddamn bonus, damn lying bastards,” Bob said as he and Linda moved out of the station and into the rain.
* * *
None of them saw the flicker of light from the heavily damaged marquee or heard the teenage screams of horror coming from the old collapsed façade of the Grenada Theater.
She knew that the full cast of Moreno’s passion play were present, and the show was about to commence.