Authors: George Earl Parker
This confirmation of his suspicions got him thinking; it was a whole new ball game now.
It’s time to take matters into my own hands
, he reasoned. Why on earth did he need to share his discovery with Kurt Angstrom at all? His half-brother had been against him his whole life, and now he was trying to control him under the guise of helping him! The man was false; he was a fake, he was bogus, he was phony, he was ersatz.
Where did that thought come from
? he wondered. It seemed to leap into his head from outside, and he was quite sure he didn’t think it. He shook his head trying to clear his mind. Was he tired? He must be; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. Had he eaten lately? He couldn’t remember that either. He would do so soon, he resolved; but right now he had business to attend to.
He leaned over and picked up the telephone. He had not spoken to his half-brother since the unfortunate incident in the asylum, and although he had acted very grateful at the time, the intervening year had aroused nothing but suspicion in his heart and his mind.
He dialed the number and glanced at the three kids on the screen. They were involved in an intense argument. He lowered the volume of the monitor just as the ringing in his ear was interrupted by the voice of Kurt Angstrom.
“Hello,” said his half-brother.
“Hello,” he echoed.
“Ah, Doctor Leitz, how pleasant to hear your voice,” Angstrom lied.
“Yes, it’s been a long time,” Leitz replied. “We must get together soon.”
All of this false
affection is sickening
, Leitz thought, and he wondered if he could really trust anything anyone said anymore.
“I wanted to congratulate you on your brilliant achievement,” Kurt Angstrom oozed. “But I was waiting until we were together, and I could do it in person.”
“Well, thanks. Everything is working perfectly, and I will soon have your Stone of Knowledge distilled into an elixir of life,” declared Doctor Leitz.
“And the boy!” Angstrom exclaimed. “An unexpected by-product, but a welcome one. Incredible!”
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” Doctor Leitz sighed. “I feel I may have made a grave error of judgment.”
“Really?” Angstrom said, suspicion coloring his voice.
“Yes. I’ve been observing John Smith, and I no longer believe the experiment had the effect upon him that I surmised,” Leitz lied.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Although I must admit I found the idea slightly preposterous myself,” Angstrom chuckled.
“I am sorry if I’ve caused any inconvenience. But sometimes I do jump to erroneous conclusions.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Angstrom said. “But keep the boy there; someone will be down to have a word with him and smooth things over.”
“Thank you, Doctor Angstrom,” Leitz said with fake sincerity.
“Good-bye, Doctor Leitz,” Angstrom said lightly.
Leitz returned the telephone to its cradle and turned back to the monitor just as the door to the vault inched open. “Yes, come on, little children, you’re mine now,” he laughed.
He was rolling the dice on the future and the stakes were high, but if his gamble was successful, the payoff was the world. He deserved recognition for his great discovery, and he deserved to reap the rich rewards of fame and fortune. After all, history was littered with adventurous inventors who had been kicked to the side of the road by wily businessmen, and he was determined that would not be his fate. As for Kurt Angstrom, he would crush him like the insect he was.
All is fair in love and war
, he mused. His strategy was simple; strike first and strike hard, and while your enemies stumble around wondering what happened, cut them down like dogs.
***
Kurt Angstrom sat in the darkness of his cocoon clutching the dead phone in his hand, livid with fury. Despite his own great intelligence, once again his half-brother was threatening to ruin his meticulously organized plan. It had been this way all his life, and even though he knew he should expect it to happen, he never anticipated it. This time he had assumed that because of the control worm, Doctor Aaron Leitz was his puppet, but his brother had once again slipped his strings and was about to become a nuisance.
“What do you think?” he asked Miss Moon.
She sat in the chair opposite him, clutching the extension in her hand. “He’s lying.”
“Of course he is; he was always rather transparent in that department,” Angstrom confided. He was not prepared for this eventuality so early in the game, and now circumstances left him no alternative; he had to become involved with the operation to protect both his personal and financial investment. “We must go there,” Angstrom ordered.
“I’ll make the arrangements,” Miss Moon said quietly.
His rage was fueled, and gripping the armrests of his wheelchair in frustration he squeezed and shook uncontrollably.
I must not be foiled again,
he thought. He was poised to change history, so close to success he could taste it. He was about to take his revenge on every cruel trick life and his half-brother had ever played upon him, and nothing could interfere with that. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
***
The three kids had managed to convince themselves that all hope was lost, and they knew there was absolutely nothing they could do against big men with guns. They stared stonily at the figure entering the vault from the darkness, each of them expecting the worst.
“What is this? A Greek tragedy?” John asked as he stepped into the light, and even though they were incredibly pleased to see him, their tongues were stuck to the roofs of their mouths. Not one of them could say a word.
“Come on,” he encouraged. “I’m responsible for you guys, and I have to get you out of here. This isn’t your fight.” He stared at them staring at him. “This is real freaky, you guys; none of you have been this quiet for this long since I’ve known you. Don’t disappoint me now.”
Like a stone dropped into a pond, waves of reality rippled through their conscious minds. When they realized his appearance wasn’t a trick, or a mass hallucination, they rushed him. Kate draped herself around his neck, as Tex tackled them both down to the ground with a thump, and Cal danced around them punching his fist into the empty air like a maniac.
“Yeah,” Cal screamed. “I was right, I was right.”
“I knew it all the time,” Tex shouted. “I was only kidding when I thought I killed him.”
“Don’t ever do that again, or you’re gonna be in big trouble,” Kate said with relief.
John laid his head back on the floor and grinned. “That’s more like it,” he said. “You really had me worried.”
He was far from happy; who could be happy in a situation like this? But he did feel comfortable being back in the real world, with real kids, in real danger. “Okay! That’s it, we gotta go,” John said as he and Kate stood up.
“Where are we?” Cal asked.
“I don’t know,” John replied, “but we’ll find out.”
Kate pushed the door open and stared into the blackness. “It’s really dark out there,” she said skeptically.
“Listen! How did you leave the room?” asked Tex inquisitively.
“If I told you, you’d never believe me,” John said.
“It was aliens, wasn’t it?” Cal prompted, hoping he could sway the answer.
“No, it wasn’t,” John said calmly.
“You must tell us,” Tex urged. “It’s the coolest thing I ever saw.”
“Not now, okay? Later,” John said firmly.
Cal and Tex resigned themselves to waiting for the answer, but they didn’t like it.
“Maybe we should get out of here before anybody comes back,” Kate worried.
“Yeah, she’s right,” echoed John. “We’ve got a long way to go, and a lot to do.”
Cal and Tex suddenly realized they weren’t in control anymore, if indeed they ever had been. As for Kate, she didn’t care; she just stuck close to John as the four of them filed slowly out of the bright white room into the forbidding darkness.
***
Doctor Leitz smiled; his plan was afoot and everything was working perfectly. He had donned his protective silver suit and he had a gun in his hand. Spinning the ammunition chamber, he checked to make sure the gun was fully loaded—it was. He pushed the gun into his belt and grabbed his helmet.
Opening the control box, he pushed the button that activated the laboratory. The shades came down and covered the windows, and the bright steel laboratory surfaces and equipment spun into place, filling the room. Glancing over his shoulder at the monitor, he saw the four kids were leaving the vault. His time had come at last…no more would he be the supplicant, the little brother who appeared out of the blue and stole his mother’s love from his sibling. From now on he would stand tall and proud, no more slinking in shadows. He was a force to be reckoned with: a renowned physicist with an extraordinary secret divined from the literal heart of the universe.
His plan was simple; he would run the experiment again on the three unaffected children. If the procedure was safe, he would subject himself to its unadulterated splendor. Yes, he would be magnificent. He called out to his young wards as he imagined them disoriented and lost in the darkness. “Come, my little ones, do not be afraid, your appointment with destiny awaits.” His laughter exploded and echoed around the laboratory; it bounced from wall to ceiling to floor, and doubled, tripled, and quadrupled until the room sounded like a monkey house at feeding time.
INTO THE DARK
The darkness swallowed the four kids whole and sucked the bravery out of them before they had even taken a half dozen steps. It shut down logic and opened up the carnival ground of imagination, where all the rides were wild, and all the sideshows guaranteed to instill maximum terror. John immediately realized they had slowed down to a snail’s pace, and behind him he felt a hand grab onto his shirt.
“Hold onto the person in front of you,” Kate instructed.
“We already are,” Cal piped up from behind her.
John had his arms stretched out in front of him, and he slowly waved them from side to side, searching for obstacles. It was like being a blind person. All of his other faculties were working perfectly, but his sight was useless, and it didn’t help that his mind kept telling him something unknown could jump him at any moment.
As they inched along, they all harbored the same feelings, but none of them wanted to admit it. Around them they could hear scuffling noises off to each side—the patter of tiny little feet, and the dragging of tails. It was a sound they wanted to get away from as soon as they could, but they were now moving at the pace of a worm.
“Maybe we should sing a song,” John suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Tex agreed. He was at the end of the line, and he felt vulnerable from behind.
“That’s a great idea!” seconded Cal. “But what shall we sing?”
“We can make something up,” Kate said.
“Alright,” John urged. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, I’ve been taking piano lessons for a long while,” she said nervously, “and I know the best songs have three chords. This is kind of a rousing ballad, to keep our spirits up.” She cleared her throat briefly and began singing:
When your heart is heavy
and everything feels bad,
don’t lose your courage,
it’s all that you have.
don’t let panic fool you, and don’t run away,
keep searching for a light in the darkness.
Once they all got the idea, the guys joined her in the chorus:
Searching for a light in the darkness,
searching for a light in the darkness,
searching for a light in the darkness,
keep searching for a light in the darkness.
It was working; they had something to take their minds off their woes.
“Let me try,” Tex volunteered:
When fear is behind you,
and trouble’s ahead,
don’t let it blind you,
keep up your strength,
don’t let suspicion stand in your way,
keep searching for a light in the darkness.
Again everyone joined in:
Searching for a light in the darkness,
searching for a light in the darkness,
searching for a light in the darkness,
keep searching for a light in the darkness.
“I’ve got the bridge,” shouted Cal:
Don’t give up, and don’t give in,
you’ll only lose your way,
remember that the darkest night
is followed by the day.
“Then there’s a guitar solo,” suggested John, “Dwaaang, dwaayang, dwaaang, dwaaang, dwaayang, dwaaang.”
“And then a drum fill,” said Kate, “boomp, boomp, tish, boomp, abombalomba, bombalomba, bang.”
“Yeah! And I’ve got the last verse,” John said:
Life can be messy,
and life can be tough,
but one thing’s for sure,
you just can’t ever get enough,