Repairman Jack [03]-Conspiracies (39 page)

"Look!" he cried. He was pointing at the floor.

"Good Lord!" Kenway said, finally retreating a step.

A hole was opening. The concrete wasn't melting or crumbling, it was simply fading away. But no dirt was visible beneath, just ... hole. And the wider it got, the stronger the breeze against Jack's back, rushing toward the opening.

"Good God!" Lew said. "What is it?"

"What's it look like?" Zaleski said without looking up. "A pizza? It's a fucking hole."

A hole ...

Jack gripped the edges of the step that supported him. His dreams the past two nights had been nightmares about a hole ... one that looked like it wanted to gobble up the world.

"Hey, guys," he said, "I think we should call this off."

"Relax, Jack," Kenway said. "You won't fall in from there."

Idiot, Jack thought. "What if it keeps enlarging?"

"I gotta feeling this ain't the first time this hole has opened," Zaleski said. "And the house is still here, ain't it?"

Jack watched with mounting alarm as the hole kept expanding, widening until the concrete entrapping the rope ladder disappeared, leaving it hanging free over the rim and dangling into the opening.

And then it stopped enlarging.

Jack sagged with relief.

"I think that's it," Zaleski said.

Kenway leaned his body forward but kept his feet where they were. "How deep, I wonder?"

Zaleski inched forward, shuffling his feet nearer and nearer to the edge. "Only one way to find out."

He stopped with his toes perhaps half a foot from the rim, then craned his neck to peer over the edge.

"I see some light way down there and—holy shit!" He jumped back from the edge.

"What?" Lew said. "What's wrong?"

"Look!" Canfield said, pointing to the ladder.

The ropes were moving, vibrating as they stretched over the rim.

"Something's coming," Zaleski said. "Climbing the ladder."

I hope he means someone, Jack thought, backing up another tread on the steps.

He sensed something ugly, something sinister slipping from that hole and coiling through the cellar. He held his breath as the gyrations of the ropes grew more pronounced, and then a single black talon rose above floor level and hooked onto the concrete ... followed by a head ... a dark-haired human head ... with a woman's face ...

"Melanie!" Lew cried and rushed forward.

He grabbed her arms and lifted her from the opening. Then he wrapped her in a bear hug that left her shoes a good foot off the floor.

"Oh, Mel, Mel!" he sobbed. "I've been so worried. Thank God, you're back! Thank
God
!"

Jack couldn't see Melanie's face, but her arms didn't seem to be returning Lew's hug with anywhere near his fervor. Especially the left arm ...

This was the first time Jack had seen Melanie's deformed forearm, and it wasn't what he'd expected. It seemed a little thinner than the right as it tapered down to the wrist; beyond that it stayed rounded instead of flattening into a palm. Lew had told him that all the fingernails had fused, leaving her with one large thick nail. But Jack hadn't pictured this big, sharp, black claw.

She'd supposedly kept it bandaged in public, and now Jack could see why. It was wicked looking.

"Lewis, please," Melanie said in a strained voice. "You're crushing me."

He released her. "Sorry," he said, wiping his eyes. "It's just that I've missed you so."

"You two can snuggle later," Zaleski said. He indicated the hole and the still floating tower. "What is all this, Melanie? And where the hell have you been?"

"Home," she whispered. A strange fevered glow lit in her eyes as she said the word.

Jack eased down the steps for a closer look. Finally he was getting to see the notorious Melanie Ehler in the flesh. She seemed far more intense than her photographs had indicated. Her hair was darker, her black eyebrows thicker, and her thin lips were split into the rapturous grin of a zealot who'd just heard the voice of God.

"Not here," Kenway said. He pointed to the hole. "What's down
there
?"

"Home," she repeated, then turned to Frayne. "It worked. I've found the way to the Otherness. We can go home now."

Canfield clasped his hands together and looked as if he was going to puddle up along with Lew.

"Mel," Lew said, pointing to her arm. "What happened to your nail?"

"It changed," she said, raising her black talon to eye level. "As soon as I got there it changed shape and color ... to the way it's supposed to look."

She looked around and Jack felt something like an electric shock as her gaze locked on him.

"And you must be Repairman Jack," she said.

Jack stepped off the steps onto the floor. "Just Jack'll do."

He glanced at the others, but the "Repairman" remark didn't seem to have registered. They were all still fixated on that hole. Good.

"Thank you so much," she said, stepping forward and extending her hand. "I knew you were the right man for the job."

Jack was about to protest that he'd done very little when Melanie's touch stopped him. Her hand was
cold
.

"Come on, Melanie," Zaleski said. "Enough with this 'home' shit. What's going
on
?"

She stepped back to where she could face everyone. "I've found a gateway to the Otherness," she said.

Kenway snorted. "The
what
?"

"It would take too long to explain fully," she said, "and I've neither the time nor the inclination. Suffice it to say that the single solution to all the mysteries that have plagued you, the answer you've spent so many years searching for, lies on the far side of that opening."

Jack had heard all this from Roma and Canfield. Hadn't believed a word of it before, but now ...

He hooked his arm around the support column at the foot of the stairs and looked around. He still sensed something nasty in the air. Was he the only one?

"Is this that 'Grand Unification' thing you've been talking us to death about?" Zaleski said.

"Yes, Jim," she said with a small, tolerant smile. "It's all there. The secrets behind your UFOs and Majestic-12."

"Yeah, right."

She turned to Kenway. "And for you, Miles ... the identity—and the
real
agenda—of the power behind the New World Order conspiracy."

"I sincerely doubt that," he said huffily.

She looked around. "If only Olive were here."

"She's been missing for days, Mel," Lew said.

Jack watched her closely. She seemed genuinely puzzled and disappointed." Didn't she know?

"That's too bad," she said. "The truth behind her cherished Book of Revelations is on the other side as well."

"All down there?" Zaleski said.

"'Down' isn't quite right. 'Over' there would be more accurate."

"But how?" Lew said. His face had a hurt look. "And why?"

"How?" she said. "I learned from talking to some old timers out in Shoreham, people who had relatives who'd worked in the Tesla lab, that before he sold his property and dismantled his tower, Tesla had buried mysterious steel canisters here and there around his property, and even beyond it."

"After the Tunguska explosion!" Zaleski said. "Must have scared him shitless."

Jack had already heard enough about Nikola Tesla and Tunguska to last a lifetime, but he couldn't bring himself to leave just yet ... not with that tower floating in the air and the hole yawning in the floor. He remembered the holes in his recent nightmares, and wanted to see this one closed before he headed home.

Melanie said, "I don't know if Tesla caused the Tunguska explosion, and I don't really care. But I can tell you this: Nikola Tesla was not the type of man to be frightened by a mere explosion, no matter how powerful. I've suspected all along that something else was at the root of his breakdown. And now I know."

"This ... Otherness?" Kenway said.

Melanie nodded. "Yes. During the year I spent searching for those canisters, I found three. One of them confirmed my suspicions. I gave the others to Ron Clayton and—"

"Clayton?" Jack said. That name rang a bell. "You knew Ronald Clayton?"

Melanie shrugged. "We shared an interest in Tesla. Ron was more interested in his electronics theories."

"I'll bet he was," Jack said, remembering the transmitter he'd seen on a hilltop upstate. Apparently the creep hadn't been the great innovator he'd wanted everybody to believe.

"Whether Tesla's tower was able to broadcast energy is irrelevant," Melanie said. "What I do know, or rather what I have proven"—she gestured toward the hole—"is that it can open a gateway to the Otherness. And I think that's what unhinged Tesla. He made contact, saw what was on the other side, and immediately slammed the door."

"It's that bad?" Lew said.

"Not for me," she said. "And not for Frayne. But for the rest of you ... " She slowly shook her head.

"Hey!" Zaleski said. "How bad can it be?"

"It is the truth ... and the truth at times can be unbearable."

Somewhere in the back of Jack's head another Jack shouted,
You can't
handle
the truth
!

Zaleski stepped to the rim of the hole and peered over the edge. "And you were down there how long?"

"What day is it?" Melanie said.

Jack glanced at his watch. "Just about four A.M. Sunday morning."

"You've been gone almost a week, Mel!" Lew cried.

She shrugged. "Time is different there. It seemed like barely two days."

"Well, if you can fucking handle it," Zaleski said, "so can I." He turned to Kenway. "Whatta y'say, Miles? Want to get up close and personal with Melanie's Grand Unification Theory?"

"I don't know," Kenway said slowly. He sidled to the edge and looked down. "Awfully dark down there."

"You can see some light way down. Besides, you're carrying aren't you?"

Kenway stared at him.

Zaleski snorted a laugh. "Look who I'm asking! Does the Pope wear a cross? Come on, Miles. You're armed and dangerous. Don't be a pussy."

Kenway glared at him, then hitched up his belt. He pointed to the rope ladder. "After you."

Zaleski gave Kenway a thumbs up, then squatted next to the ladder. He grabbed the two ropes, swung his leg over, then started down.

"Is this such a good idea?" Jack said.

"It's a great idea, Jack. You're coming right? Maybe you'll find those missing hours."

"You can have them," Jack said. "Kind of late for spelunking. My job's done here. I think maybe I'll be heading home."

"No!" Melanie said quickly. "I mean, not just yet. I need to talk to you first."

"All right," Zaleski said. "Suit yourself. Here goes nothing."

He started down and disappeared below floor level.

After a few seconds, his voice echoed up from below. "Come on, Miles, you chickenshit bastard. Let's go."

Kenway pulled his .45 automatic from under his sweater, flicked off the safety, then put it away again. He sighed, looked around, and—with much less enthusiasm than Zaleski—started down.

Jack stepped to the edge of the hole and watched the bristling hair atop Kenway's head recede into the depths. Damn, that looked deep.

Lew came up beside him. "I'll be. There
is
some light down there."

"
Way
down," Jack said, spotting the faint flickers.

"Are you sure you don't want to go too?" Melanie said, looking at Jack. She sounded almost ... hopeful.

Jack wondered about that. A moment ago when he'd said he was leaving, she wanted him to stay. Now she seemed to be encouraging him to leave by another route.

"I'm very sure," Jack said. "In fact, I don't think I've ever been so sure of anything in my life. But you said you wanted to talk to me."

Lew jumped in before Melanie could answer. "Before we go any further, I need an answer to something. When I asked you if it was so bad down there, you said, 'Not for me and Frayne.' What did you mean by that?"

Melanie sighed and looked away. Jack saw a touch of sadness and regret in her eyes.

"Lewis ... when I called it 'home,' I wasn't exaggerating. When that gateway opened, and I entered the Otherness, that's exactly what it felt like—coming home. For the first time in my life I felt like I
belonged
. And Frayne will feel it too."

"But I won't?" Lew said, his voice full of hurt.

Zaleski's voice echoed up from the hole then.

"Hey! Something weird down here ... like everything's floating."

Melanie went to the edge and called down. "That means you're almost there. Gravity reverses at the transition point. You'll have to climb
up
the rest of the way."

She waited, and a few seconds later Zaleski's voice came back, tinged with wonder and excitement, teetering on the verge of hysterical laughter.

"Fucking-ay, you're right! This is the weirdest shit I've ever seen!"

"Never mind them," Lew said. "What about me? Why won't I feel like I belong there?"

Melanie turned back to her husband. She spoke matter-of-factly, as if explaining the obvious to a child. "Because you'd be an outsider there, Lewis. You have no Otherness in you."

"Sure I do," he said, pointing to his leg. "I'm not normal. I'm different too. Not as different as you, maybe, but—"

"Different
inside"
she said. "Frayne and I are different right down to our genes. You're completely human, Lewis. We're not. We're hybrids."

Lew looked stunned. His jaw worked a few times before he could speak. "Hybrids?"

"Yes, Lewis. Hybrids." She walked over to Canfield's wheelchair and rested her claw on his shoulder. "Neither of us really belongs here."

Jack noticed how Lew's eyes locked on the spot where his wife was touching Canfield. His heart went out to the guy, but he couldn't help him. Lew was pushing for answers and Melanie was giving them to him.

She could take it a little easier on him, though.

"How?" he said. "When?"

"Late in the winter of 1968, right here in Monroe, the Otherness spawned something in this plane. Frayne and I were just tiny, newly formed masses of cells within our mothers at the time. We were vulnerable to the influence of the Otherness then—our DNA was altered forever as it made its beachhead."