David Bischoff and Christopher Lampton - The Seeker

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2024-12-23 0 0 347.51KB 146 页 5.9玖币
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The Seeker by David
Bischoff and Christopher
Lampton
PART ONE: Arrival
CHAPTER 1
I stood behind the pulpit and watched them file smugly into their pews,
as they had obviously done every Sunday of their lives and as their parents
had all done before them. Life in a small town like Middlefield was built
upon such rituals, as I was coming to find out. If you knew everyone who
lived around you and were kept in close proximity to them, you needed
such standards of behavior to keep you from tearing their throats out after
a couple of years. people deviated from those rituals only at their own risk.
In one way, at least, it was comforting—I knew I had a captive audience
for the length of my service. After that was anybody's guess.
Light streaming in through the windows made the front pews hotter
than the shadowed ones in back, which gave everyone an excuse not to sit
close to the front. I wasn't fooled by their excuses; after more than a year
of living in Middlefield I was still an outsider—the minister from the big
city who has invaded the parish of the late lamented Reverend Brand. My
predecessor had served this congregation for close to forty years, and that
was a tough act to follow. The people sat in the back and watched with
vulture eyes, daring me to tell them something Reverend Brand hadn't
said better. Every Sunday was becoming a trial before a stone-faced jury
more than a little inclined toward hanging.
Only Jeanne, my wife, and Karen, our daughter, were in the hot front
pew. Karen, as always, sat on the edge of her seat, leaning forward, biting
her lip and waiting for the platform under the pulpit to break. The wood
creaked dangerously because it was old, but I wasn't worried. It had
supported all the ministers of Middlefield for ninety-three years and I
expected it to last through my time as well.
I smiled encouragingly down at Karen and Jeanne, even though that
meant incurring the displeasure of Mrs. Paulson. That worthy lady,
president of the Women's League, preferred her ministers to be made of
sterner stuff. Hellfire-and-damnation was what she wanted to hear, and
she was already quite disappointed in me because I preferred a gentler,
more introspective approach to faith.
As I looked over the rest of the congregation I was surprised to see, far
to the rear, the face of Jerry Baker watching me expectantly. His unkempt
mane of black hair and his casual clothes seemed terribly out of place
amid the slicked down splendor of the Middlefield people; but then, he
was coming from a different place than they were, both literally and
figuratively. Jerry was from Country Gardens, a "youth commune"—one of
the many mushrooms that had sprouted from the rich and fertile soil
known as the counter-culture. The commune comprised about thirty kids,
many of them runaways from various parts of the country and a few of
them barely into their teens.
About two weeks earlier, Mrs. Paulson and several of her cronies had
persuaded me to visit that secluded little glade on the edge of town, "to
point those poor children toward the light of Christianity." I went with
great reluctance, suspecting that what they really wanted was for me to
send the kids back home to their parents and suggest that they take
regular baths. So I went with my Bible in hand and a prepared speech in
my head, fervently wishing I could be done with it all.
They lived, those kids, in a sprawling farmhouse some four miles
southeast of the church, purchased by the members of the commune with
their own money. It had been described to me by people who had been
there several years before as a ramshackle, dirty old building, so I was
pleasantly surprised, as my car dusted its way up the long driveway, to
note how well they had fixed it up. There were new shingles, a paint job,
considerable rebuilding—the works. I'd had visions of a pig sty just before
slaughtering; instead I saw an elegant American Gothic.
A young girl sat on the porch with a baby in her arms. As I slammed
my car door she looked up and stared at me without surprise. "Hi," she
said, her voice calm and unsuspicious.
"Good morning," I replied. Drawing in a breath, I walked across the
freshly mown lawn and stepped up onto the porch. I found myself
nervously slapping my Bible against my thigh as I moved and made a
conscious effort to stop it. "I'm Gordon Ames."
She brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and looked up at me
with a pleasantly curious expression. I shifted from foot to foot as I
continued on. "I'm the minister from Middlefield, and I've never had the
chance to welcome you folks properly to the community. I'd like to make
up for that oversight." I leaned against a support beam and smiled as
realistically as I could.
She returned the smile. "Great. It's nice to have company. I'll call down
some of our crew. Please, sit down. A couple of the guys are out in the
fields, but I think I can roust a few people from inside."
They turned out to be friendly, all of them. There was some curiosity, at
first, but no hostility. One bearded fellow who couldn't have been more
than nineteen asked, "Are you going to try and convert us?" I told him no,
and the moment the words were out of my mouth I felt like an
unconscionable hypocrite. Conversion was exactly what I'd been sent
there for. Someone passed me a cup of herb tea. We sat and talked, and
the morning soon passed into afternoon. One boy, Jerry Baker, seemed
genuinely interested in my invitation to attend our church services. It was
for him, more than any of the others, that I went through with my little
prepared speech.
I gave them my standard membership pitch: a strong church makes a
good community. I knew the routine backwards and forwards, and I doled
it out smoothly. False modesty aside, I had a very professional delivery.
And if I lacked anything in my own inner convictions, I more than made
up for it in enthusiasm.
They listened politely, without undue interruption. Then, when I'd
finished my spiel, one brooding young man replied, "Life is a search. And
when you don't know where—or even what—something is, you've got to
spread out in different directions to find it. This is our direction. Some of
us are into religion—all different kinds—but we don't like being forced to
believe in a god simply because our neighbors do. Our search is a very
personal thing. We're content because we're creating our own kind of
happiness for ourselves. We haven't had it thrust down our throats by the
society we happen to have been born into." And, having spoken his piece,
he turned and stared off into the distance, somewhere beyond the trees
that bordered their front yard.
They invited me to stay for lunch, but I demurred. I told them I had a
previous engagement, which was a lie, and I left. But the words of that
young man followed me to my car and down the road as I drove home.
I had to admire the courage of those kids. I'd never had the guts to
break out of the social mold in which I'd been set. My entire life seemed
preordained: I was the son of a minister, and it had always been accepted
that I, too, would go into the ministry when I grew up. The world of the
seminary was a comfortable one, because it was easy to learn the correct
answers without having to think seriously about the questions.
Jeanne and I had married young and had a child almost at once, which
seemed the proper thing to do. After college my father wangled me a job
as an assistant in one of the larger churches in Cleveland. Up until then I
had been encased in wombs—first, that of my father's house, and then the
seminary. Now I was on my own, and the drudgery of day-to-day living
began to set in. Up until then, my life had been filled with its own rituals,
but now they were crumbling. I had gotten by on rote so long that there
was little faith left behind it. Suddenly the Christian answers that had
always seemed so sure were foundering.
To keep my life from collapsing around me, I had to make some hard
decisions. I convinced myself that the problems of my faith were due to
living in the city, with its constant stresses and crises. When the
Middlefield opening came my way, I took it, hoping it would restore my
decaying beliefs in God. But, as the following year showed, my problems
were internal rather than external and I was no closer to solving them
than I was before I came. I reacted to situations rather than acting to
prevent them. As far as my life went, I felt like an understudy performing a
role written for someone else. And those kids at the commune had seen
through my sham instantly…
Jeanne cleared her throat and I came back to reality with a start.
Staring out at the congregation, I began, "The text for today is Matthew,
Chapter 12, Verse 38…" I waited for a moment listening to the rustle of
pages and watching old Mr. Paulson, who was usually the last to get there.
He was bent almost double with his nose brushing the page, squinting at
the large print because he was too vain to buy glasses.
When I finished reciting, the congregation sat back down—old Samson
Lockhart was the first down just as he was the last one up. He squirmed
on the bench while his hand sifted through the coins in his pocket for his
quarter contribution. Mary Allen shifted on the bench, just bubbling over
with some juicy gossip she could hardly wait to tell Mrs. Martha Ethan.
The noise began quite softly, like the faraway sound of a car engine
whining on a cold morning. It quickly rose in intensity, though, until
within seconds it was a high-pitched scream tearing at our eardums.
There was a series of loud explosions, and all heads in the church swivelled
to get a better look out of the rear left window.
There was nothing to see, but the sound kept coming anyway. It built
steadily, until it was a solid wave of noise pushing against us with
suffocating force. It encircled our little world inside the church. I could
feel my teeth rattling in sympathetic harmony. High above us one of the
windows shattered, cracking along its full length, and I saw Jeanne bend
protectively over Karen.
Looking over the faces of my congregation, I saw undiluted panic.
Hagar Abrams jumped up screaming, hands clamped tightly over her
ears. Another window shattered, pushed entirely out of its frame, and sent
shards of glass raining down over an empty section of pews.
The sound passed directly overhead, jarring us all with its intensity.
Then there was a roar as though the world were exploding, and I was
knocked to my knees with the shock. In desperation I grabbed for the edge
of the podium, missed it and fell face downward onto the floor.
There were more explosions, long strings of them, like firecrackers at
the Fourth of July picnic. The floor shook violently and far above me there
was the sound of more glass shattering. A light mist of dust and debris
was covering my head and neck, and I hoped that no one had been hurt.
Then it stopped.
The cessation was not a gradual winding down, but an abrupt halt. The
wall of silence that hit our eardrums was almost as painful as the noise
itself. I realized that my entire body was shaking and fought a mental
battle to get myself under control. My forehead was beginning to swell
where it had struck the platform. I had to struggle to get on my feet again.
Most of the congregation was huddled together, frightened, in the
aisles. A few individuals had fallen and others were clinging to the backs of
benches, but no one had been hurt as far as I could tell. Karen and Jeanne
were on the floor in front of their pew, and Jeanne smiled weakly up to
show me they were okay. Karen was trying hard not to cry.
Now that the noise was gone the people had time to think again—and
what they were thinking was far from pleasant. I could read the incipient
panic in their faces. Their fears were as strong as mine, but unless I could
get my own under control I would be facing an hysterical mob within
seconds. Gripping the pulpit so tightly that my knuckles whitened, I
shouted out, "Our Father!" They looked at me dazedly, a hundred pairs of
eyes staring from pale and frightened faces. "Our Father," I repeated, and
I heard them murmur dully in reply.
"Who art in Heaven," I went on. Josh Hanson, the sheriff, stood up and
disappeared through the front door, but I held the others in their pews.
The Amen sounded with almost a relieved sigh from the congregation. By
that time Josh and his deputies had gathered in front of the church. I
made the congregation leave one pew at a time, with those in the rear
exiting first.
When everyone had left I stepped shakily down from the pulpit; Karen
ran into my arms and I scooped her off the floor, holding her as tightly as I
could. Jeanne, looking weak and shaken, followed more slowly, her feet
crunching over the shattered glass. I lowered Karen back to the floor and
put my arm on Jeanne's shoulder. She was trembling and cold, despite the
warmth in the building; I took one of her hands in mine, and she grasped
it tightly.
"What was it, Gordon? Have they dropped some kind of a bomb on us?
I… I thought the whole church was going to fall in."
"It wasn't a bomb," I said, as though I would have known one way or
another. "It could have been a plane crash. There's a field not too far from
here, over in Dayton. It could have been circling for a landing when
something went wrong…" And then I stopped, realizing that I didn't have
the slightest idea what had happened. "Maybe," I added, "we should go
out and take a look."
Her grip tightened further then, and I knew she didn't want me to go;
but I could hear shouts from out front and it occurred to me that I might
be needed. Just then a young boy—John Fisher's son, I think—came
bursting in yelling, "Reverend! Come quick! The woods are on fire!"
I broke loose from Jeanne as gently as I could and started up the aisle.
The entire town seemed to have gathered by the front steps, packed as
closely together as possible and murmuring to one another. I pushed my
way through the mob with Jeanne on one side and Karen on the other.
But it didn't seem that just the woods were on fire. From our position,
the entire state appeared to be going up in a great, billowing cloud of
smoke.
CHAPTER 2
There was a small patch of trees across the field from the church. The
tops of several had been sheared off, as though an immense scythe had cut
across their uppermost branches. At least two trees had toppled violently
against their fellows. A thick column of smoke rose from their rear. For a
moment I thought I saw a glint of metal behind the smoke.
Jeanne clutched my hand. Josh appeared from somewhere in the crowd
and clapped my shoulder. "It looks bad," he said. "Paul has the fire
department on the radio and they're going to try to get some extra
equipment up here from Simpsonville, but I'll tell you, I don't know what
they can do about this." Josh turned and squinted into the late morning
sun.
Paul Mullins, one of Josh's deputies, came bounding up the steps.
"Come on, Josh. We're takin' the squad car over to get a look at what hit.
You comin' or aren't you?"
"Yeah. Hold up a minute, Paul." Josh turned back to me with the grin
of a born soldier about to go into battle. He was enjoying this excitement
and the added importance it brought him. "Why don't you come along,
Reverend? We can always use an extra hand."
Jeanne linked her arm tightly around my elbow. For a moment I
thought I should say I couldn't go, but I changed my mind. If it was a
plane crash there would probably be casualties—and a minister can serve
the hurt or dying as well as a fireman or a sheriff.
"Sure," I said. "I'd like to get a look at it myself." I kissed Jeanne lightly
on the forehead and started down the steps.
"Gordon?" she whispered. I looked back up at her and smiled. She had
sense enough not to say any more.
"I'll be back in a little while, honey. Don't worry. It'll be okay."
A squad car squealed to a halt in front of the steps and Josh squeezed
his way into the driver's seat. I got in the back with Paul. Fred Borden, a
chunky, red-faced farmer, slid over to the passenger's side up front. When
I climbed in, he turned to me and grinned. "That was some sermon you
gave this morning, Rev'rend. It really brought down the house."
Josh stepped on the accelerator and we all sank back into our seats.
Some kids banged on the hood as we pulled out, then we shot out across
the open field like a rock fired from a slingshot. Some people say Josh
watches too many movies about fast-driving policemen; I don't know if it's
true, but I wouldn't be surprised. If we picked our sheriffs by
miles-per-hour instead of votes, Josh would be re-elected by a landslide.
The land beyond the patch of trees was good, fertile farmland. Steve
Stoner grew corn and tomatoes on it— or used to, before today. Josh ran
the squad car into a deep plow rut and we all grabbed for something to
hold onto; then we were back up again and got our first glimpse of what
was causing the smoke.
I'm not sure, really, that I can describe it. The first thing that struck me
about it—that struck all of us about it—was how immense it was. It was as
big as a building, even a large factory. In fact, I would have thought it was
a building of some sort, except that it hadn't been there the day before. It
hadn't even been there that morning.
It was as though two metal spheres—each at least fifty yards in
diameter and shiny, like polished bearings— had been linked together by a
rod at least twice again as long. One of the spheres had cracked open like
an egg. Greasy black smoke poured out and rose into the sky, until it
spread mushroomlike several hundred feet above the ground. Inside, you
could see flames licking along the ragged edges. The other sphere was still
intact, but had been badly scarred by the crash. There were markings on
the sides of both; but not in any language I was familiar with. About
halfway up the intact sphere was what might have been a hatchway, but it
was too far off the ground to be easily reached and too big for a man to
handle by himself.
Fred Borden leaned out the window and gawked at it like a teenager.
"Wheeeee-oooooh! That sure is a big airplane! You ever see anything like
it?"
"Get your fool head in," snapped Josh. "That isn't any airplane. It's too
big, for one thing. And it doesn't have any wings."
Paul nudged my shoulder. "What do you think it is, Reverend?"
"I… I don't know. Maybe some kind of satellite. Or missile…"
Josh looked at me in the rearview mirror. "I never heard of any satellite
like that."
"Hey!" shouted Fred. "Maybe it's that there Skylab. I saw something
about that on television the other night."
Josh slammed on the brakes and we fishtailed wildly through the mud
and grass, sliding to a halt by the low barbed-wire fence that Steve Stoner
had slung along the edge of his cornfield. We all piled out of the squad car,
Josh climbing out last with a microphone in his hand. He said a few words
into it, then hooked it back on the dashboard. None of the rest of us said a
thing.
Even from two or three hundred yards away it seemed to tower over us.
There was an unnatural feeling to it; it looked so out of place there in the
cornfield, like… like a boat in the desert. But I guess that thing would have
seemed out of place just about anywhere on Earth.
Now that we were closer I could see that the spheres weren't made of
any metal I recognized. The material looked a little like fiberglass, but
there was something in it that seemed almost alive, something moving
just below the surface like the changing patterns of color in an oilslick. As
the sun—now almost directly overhead— shone across its surface, it
seemed to glimmer and sparkle. I thought of sunshine on mica—and
remembered when, years ago, I had chipped at large rocks with smaller
ones to see the shiny particles within.
There was a thumping, rattling noise behind us and two more cars slid
to a halt behind ours. A group of teenagers piled out of one; Hagar
Abrams and her husband Jack got out of the other. Then an old Ford
pickup came racing alongside the fence and Steve Stoner waved at us from
the cab. He pulled up beside a copse of bushes and leaped out the door,
shaking his arm furiously at the smoking, glistening thing that lay across
his field. His face was deep red.
"They're burnin' up my crops!" he screamed. "Sheriff Hanson! Ain't you
gonna do somethin' about it?"
"Now hold on, Steve," countered Josh. "We don't even know what that
thing is yet. We've got fire trucks coming, some of them all the way from
Simpsonville. And I told 'em down at the station to call up the guard over
in Wolverton. Now you'd better be patient, 'cause there's nothing we can
do until they get here."
Stoner waved his hands about excitedly. "Maybe there's nothin' you can
do about it…" Before any of us could move he'd grabbed an old rifle from
under the seat of his truck and bounded over the fence, heading toward
that thing out there. Josh yelled after him, but he didn't seem to hear.
Paul let out an exasperated sigh. "You know, he's just fool enough to get
himself hurt out there. Why, I remember one time when he—"
The noise caught us all by surprise. It was a high, keening sound, like a
dog whistle, only it was low enough that we could hear it. It passed
through my head as though it had never touched my ears.
I looked up toward the one intact sphere and saw something move
toward its crest. A section of the shiny surface disengaged itself and
extended outward, like a thick cylindrical antenna—or maybe some kind
of weapon.
There was a burst of light.
I remember, when I was much younger, driving with my family through
the open countryside in a thunderstorm. Bolts of lightning were striking
trees off along the horizon and I was very frightened, even though my
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ScannedbyHighroller.ProofedbyaProofpackProofer.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.TheSeekerbyDavidBischoffandChristopherLamptonPARTONE:ArrivalCHAPTER1Istoodbehindthepulpitandwatchedthemfilesmuglyintotheirpews,astheyhadobviouslydoneeverySundayoftheirlivesandastheirparentshadalldonebeforeth...

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