MORENO, CALIFORNIA
OCTOBER 31, 2017
Gabriel, Julie, John, Leonard, Jennifer, and Damian stood rooted as Lonetree said a prayer in his native tongue for his ancestors to guide the lost and tormented soul of George Cordero to a place where he could finally be happy. They all had their moments with the small clairvoyant through the years, but they all knew because of his strange ability, George was always mere inches away from suicide. He hated the fact that he could read people and their darkest thoughts. He not only lost faith in himself but ordinary people because of those thoughts. Now they hoped the man could find the peace in death that he could never begin to find in life.
Bob, Linda, Casper Worthington, and even Peckerwood stood silently by the doorway leading downstairs. They saw the hurt as they said goodbye to Gabriel and the Group’s friend.
Over the sounds of thunder and the flashes of bright lightning, Gabriel heard the sound that ended the small prayer for George. He went to the window that looked down onto Main Street and saw men running from their hiding places. The unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors overrode the power of the storm.
Gabriel turned away from the window. “Leonard, is there anything on those worthless radios?”
Sickles hurriedly moved away from the group to his makeshift desk and tried to listen to the walkie-talkie they had been issued. He listened and then looked at Kennedy, shaking his head. Damian listened too, but heard nothing but static. He tried to call out, only to be answered by return static.
“This damn weather has screwed everything up. Even the satellite phone is out,” Damian said as he leaned over and saw that Leonard had also checked the computer systems. He looked up and shook his head again. “We have nothing.”
Gabe turned away from the window. “Okay, Julie, come with me. We’ll find out what’s happening.” He had to speak loudly over the thumping of the rotors. It sounded as if the helicopter was coming straight down onto Main Street. “John, get ready. Jennifer, get our medical supplies organized. Prepare John’s kicker.” He turned back to Leonard and Damian. “This thing may think it’s in control, but I suspect that its partner in crime is not amiable to that fact. Whatever wants us here is in direct opposition to something else that enjoys killing.”
“Great,” Damian said, wincing as thunder broke directly overhead.
* * *
Gabriel and Julie were met at the double doors of Newberry’s by the lead field agent in charge, Haskins. The FBI agent was out of breath and was soaked to the bone. He had to shout to be heard over the storm raging over their heads and the large military-type helicopter that was hidden above them in the raging winds and swirling black sky.
“I’m ordering an evacuation for my people, the Secret Service, and the state authorities.” The heavy thumping of the helicopter was starting to make a decibel gain on the storm sweeping the Southland. The agent leaned in closer to Kennedy. “We were finally able to get through to Washington an hour ago, and our earlier request was officially granted by a federal judge. The Justice Department obtained a warrant returning the president’s care back into federal hands. Our dear First Lady can now go kiss another judge’s ass, but he’d better be higher in rank than the federal judge in Los Angeles.”
“When are you moving the president out?” Julie asked, trying to shield her face from the windblown rain.
“As I just told you, the warrant only made the move official; unofficially, we moved Hadley out of here an hour ago. He should be safe and under better medical care than he was here. His blood pressure was dropping dangerously low, and as you know, we are having trouble with communications.”
Gabriel looked out at the men running down the sidewalks as they gathered on either side of Main Street. They were all watching the skies.
“My team wants to stick it out. We have work to do here,” Gabriel replied. “I’ll ask the townspeople to leave with you, but we have a job to do—not only for the president but because we lost people.”
“Brave, but foolish. Get your people together, Professor; we leave in ten. Your group and the townies will be the first lifted out. Now get them down here.”
“Look, we need—” Julie began.
“You need to get your people ready to move!” the agent shouted over the din. “The locals say this entire hillside could come down at any time. They heard reports of hills like these coming down in Chino and in Riverside. The whole damn state is being drowned. The water has no place to go!”
Gabe turned to Julie and nodded that she should go inside and warn the others.
“We’ll lose our one chance at getting to the bottom of this!” she shouted back angrily.
“That’s an order, young lady. Get yourselves and those townspeople out of here!”
Julie gave the agent a dirty look but turned and went back inside Newberry’s.
As Gabriel was about to resume his protest against their leaving, several men—some FBI, some California Highway Patrol—ran into the main intersection of town from where they had been waiting on the sidewalks. One old-fashioned traffic signal hung suspended from thick cables centered in the roadway forty feet in the air. Several men tossed burning red flares into the road, where they were immediately swept up in the rush of water cascading down Main Street. They tried again, this time closer to the inundated sidewalks. Some stayed, and some were swept away. Soon they had both sidewalks bright red with burning flares.
“How did you get through to the helicopter?” Gabriel asked, realizing what the federal authorities were attempting.
“It was ordered in by the State boys earlier, just in case. Good thing, with every electronic piece of equipment being knocked out by this damn electrical storm. Our radios and satellite phones should not be affected this way. We have to assume they may be getting jammed, and that would mean an outside force at work. We can’t take the chance any longer; the president has to be moved!” the agent shouted.
Kennedy ducked as a very distinctive pop sounded over the thunder. His eyes widened when he saw two men, one agent and one highway patrolman, shooting their pistols seemingly straight up into the air. Then Gabriel realized what they were doing. They were trying to shoot the cable that held the old traffic light in place over the intersection. Five bullets missed, the sixth struck the cable and produced the bright sparks of a ricochet. Both men took more careful aim and fired again. This time, the cable was hit dead center, and the traffic signal and its supporting cables crashed down into the street. Kennedy had to shake his head when the two gunmen high-fived each other and then ran for the sidewalk. Several more men came forward and started shining powerful lights into the air and waving them around in an arc.
“What in the hell is happening?” John said as he joined them under the Newberry’s awning.
Lonetree heard the distinctive thump overhead just as a bright flash lit the sky. The large gray bird slowly descended as it chopped the falling rain to mist.
“The National Guard made a Black Hawk available,” the agent next to Kennedy said to John as he shielded his eyes from the driving rain. “As soon as it’s down, you people are out of here.”
Lonetree, for no apparent reason, reached out and pulled Gabriel back and away from the sidewalk, shaking his head when Kennedy asked what he was doing. His eyes were not looking at the descending UH-60 Black Hawk but at the hills above Moreno. In a flash of chain lightning, Gabe saw what John was looking at. The ancient ruins on the hill.
“It’s there, Gabe, I can feel it. It’s watching us right now,” Lonetree said. He looked at Kennedy with consternation. “They are there. It’s driving me crazy! I go from one impression to another. One minute it’s a single presence—the next, many.” He stared at the hills and the ruins they protected.
“Maybe it will stop now that it doesn’t have the president here,” Gabriel said.
“What?” Lonetree said. “You mean Hadley’s gone?”
“Julie didn’t tell you?”
John continued to look up into the dark hills above Moreno and didn’t speak at first. Finally, as the Black Hawk came close enough to the ground that the cascading river of Main Street was sent crashing into the walkway and into Newberry’s and the other buildings facing the road, Lonetree turned and faced Gabriel and the agent in charge.
“Something is wrong. If Hadley has been evacuated, I don’t think that thing up there would have taken it too damn lightly, Gabe. It’s still playing the same game of cat and mouse with us.” He faced the agent. “Have you confirmed that the president is safe?”
“Their communications are all down,” Gabriel said as he also faced the FBI field agent. “They have no idea.”
“Come on. This crap is done. You people don’t know when to stop. Now get your people together, Professor.”
* * *
The Black Hawk came down slowly, being careful that her tail rotor didn’t strike any existing overhang from the buildings on both sides of Main Street. They were aiming for the direct center of the rain-pummeled intersection. The heavily built, four-bladed UH-60 Black Hawk created a powerful blast of wind, making the storm look meek in comparison.
Gabe, John, and the agent watched. Suddenly, all three men turned their heads at exactly the same moment when the red neon light inside the K-Rave window fronting the station flared to life. Then every radio in town, no matter what frequency it was tuned to, began playing a song. The volume for these radios was maxed out at decibel levels these encrypted systems were not capable of producing. Men reached for their radios on their hips but found they could not lower the volumes. Several were so shocked that they tossed their radios away when all of them recognized the old song being broadcast.
I … fall to pieces … each time I see you again … I fall to pieces … how can I be just your friend?
The dead lights in all buildings, regardless of powerlines that had been disabled since the seventies, all flared to life, again shocking everyone in the rain-soaked streets. To a man, they looked around in fear. The Patsy Cline hit from 1961 reverberated even over the rotors and thunder enough so Gabriel and John felt Cline’s voice through the soles of their shoes.
“Look!” Lonetree screamed, pointing. Even the agent in charge saw it coming.
Darkness even blacker than the night was there. It stood between Elm and Jackson Streets. Everyone saw the shape as it stood as if examining the activity. It was enormous. The blackness moved, causing the rain to move with it. Gabriel knew the only reason they could clearly see the entity was because the rain outlined it perfectly. Rivers of water ran off the thing as it stood watching from a distance.
“What the fuck is that?” the agent called out as he moved to the street, drawing his weapon. The others turned and saw what was watching them, and they too advanced on the black shape.
“Get your men back and wave off that damn helicopter!” Kennedy shouted as he grabbed the agent and spun him around.
Lightning flashed as the Patsy Cline song grew still louder. The black thing moved fast. Three agents were hurled out of the way as they watched the giant hand and arm swing out. The agents, Secret Service, and highway patrolmen slammed into buildings to the right and to the left, falling to the street dead or severely injured. The blackness came on toward the intersection.
Lightning flashed and streaked across the skies. Gabriel followed it and saw the glow of light from down the street. His eyes widened when he saw a whole and intact marquee of the Grenada Theater as it flashed its fancy wares to the world. Then the neon lighting blinked out, and the form of the marquee was no longer there. Kennedy couldn’t believe it. The town was also reacting to the entity’s presence.
The Black Hawk pilot must have seen something, because he tried in vain to take the massive bird back up. The tail dipped as the four main rotor blades fought the air for purchase. It slowly reacted. Rain was pushed aside so brutally by the powerful twin turbines of the Black Hawk that the water striking Gabriel and the others stung as if bees had been set loose on them. It climbed a hundred feet before the blackness struck.
They were helpless to stop it from happening. They stared up at the twenty-five-foot-tall swirling currents of black in a human shape. The entity lifted free of the water-covered ground and simply passed through the Black Hawk. The electrical systems failed, and the powerful anticollision lights flared in brightness and then failed. The helicopter hung in the air for a moment, and they could see the panic high in the air of the crew fighting dead controls. The tail boom of the National Guard helicopter spun without the power of her twin engines to keep her in the air. The tail swung, and the tail rotor struck a light pole, shearing off the rotor and five feet of aluminum housing. The main four-bladed rotor of the Black Hawk tipped precariously toward the tall structure of Newberry’s. The Black Hawk overcompensated and went over onto its left side as the pilot tried to miss the fourth floor of Newberry’s but struck it anyway. The rotor sheared away as the main body of the bird spun out of control. The helicopter, with its three crewmen, slammed to the earth in the intersection where it had been trying to land just a moment before. The fuel tanks ruptured, and then as they all watched in horror, the helicopter exploded.
The remaining agents, patrolmen, and Secret Service personnel slammed themselves into a protective ball as they hit the water-covered streets and sidewalks.
Gabriel and John recovered quickly as burning debris filled the rain-swollen air around them. In the confusion, they saw the darkness speed past them, hesitating for the briefest of moments, until Gabe thought the sloth-like form was going to conclude its business with them right then and there. But for a reason Kennedy thought as arrogant, it moved off.
Lightning flashed and thunder exploded over their heads as men ran to the burning helicopter, the fuel-fed flames roaring high into the air.
Every light inside the town of Moreno instantly went dark. The music was cut off like someone had merely unplugged a radio.
The attack was over in a matter of three minutes.
The town of Moreno was slowly being hemmed in. The only way out was down Main Street and fifteen miles to the interstate.
In the eastern sky, they couldn’t see it, but the morning sun broke over the rest of the country, bringing on the new day—that day was Halloween, the thirty-first of October, fifty-five years to the day Dean Hadley and Gloria Perry had accidentally unleashed hell onto the earth.