November 22, 1963, Dallas
ell watched as her cop surveyed his surroundings. Though she B couldn’t read his mind, she guessed his thoughts.
Casey Peterson got a chill when looking up at the seven-story book depository building, just as Bell had during her reconnoiter last evening. She saw him shake his shoulders to dispel the chill, and then he looked south, past the building. He couldn’t see it, but he knew Elm Street was there. Between his parking lot and Elm 22
street was a narrow green area: some trees and a raised grassy area, contoured to follow the graceful curve of Elm Street as it turned slightly south in passing the book depository, and then back westerly again once it cleared the parking lot.
Casey’s orders were to be observant, note anything that looked unusual, notify his sergeant of anything deemed critical, but “don’t be tying up the radio with bullshit chatter. If ya call me it damn well better be important!”
Casey Peterson’s Sergeant didn’t know it, but he couldn’t have picked a better cop to guard that parking lot on that day. Each characteristic that went into Casey’s personality, and made him who he was, would all come into play on this day.
For as long as Casey lived, he would remember this day as the worst of his life.
Determined to do a good job, to earn every penny of his over-time pay despite the mundane nature of the assignment, Casey Ray Peterson was the definition of observant. Though he guarded a mere parking lot, he knew the parking lot gave access to the narrow green area, and the green area gave access to Elm Street, where the thirty-fifth President of the United States would pass while Peterson stood watch. If harm came to the president, it would not be from the north side of Elm Street.
Peterson noted the positions of his two fellow officers and the areas they patrolled. Few people passed through the parking lot, as it wasn’t a convenient path to the plaza, but he scrutinized those few who did. He noticed the flat tire on the ‘57 Chevy three rows away from the book building, seventh from the near end. He memorized the approach and back entrance to the book depository, and he took a mental snapshot of the window positions on the back of the building so he’d know if anyone opened or closed one. He scrutinized each vehicle in the lot for signs that anyone might be inside them.
He even checked the sky for evil approaching from that quarter. He checked everything.
So it would have upset him to know that even though his eyes passed right over her, Peterson did not notice the tall, slim young 23
woman, her long black hair in a loose braid, standing quietly in the shade beneath the trees in the green area between the parking lot and Elm Street.
As Peterson finished one leg of his patrol, he checked his watch. 12:22 PM. He’d been walking his route for a half hour. The motorcade had been due in Dealey Plaza at 12:10, or so the local papers had stated. It had surprised Casey when he’d read it. He thought publishing the route and timing of a president’s movements would be considered a security problem.
The papers must have been wrong, however, or perhaps the motorcade had been delayed, because Casey was certain it had not traveled on Elm Street yet. He couldn’t see Elm from his patrol area, but he was sure he would hear and see enough to know when the main event occurred. That he hadn’t been told to stand down yet was all he needed to know. Maybe the papers had just been guessing, or perhaps the president’s security team had changed the route at the last minute. Good for them. Can’t be too careful these days.
He made a visual sweep left and right, turned 180 degrees and took two steps in the opposite direction. Then he heard the voice for the first time. It said, “TURN NOW.”
Casey would only tell one person in the entire world about that voice. Hearing voices in one’s head is not something one blabs to just anyone, so Casey would place that subject on a need-to-know basis, and only one person would ever need to know that.
He didn’t dwell long on the how or why of it. He trusted the voice, accepted that it belonged to the forces of good, even though it felt as if the voice were his own voice, and he knew that could be a trick. He turned his head and shoulders to look behind him, just in time to glimpse a man disappearing behind a Chevy panel truck thirty yards away. He saw the lower half of the left leg, dark trousers, and the lower half of the left arm, a dark, heavy-textured, long-sleeved shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. The man carried a long object, like an instrument case, in his right hand. Casey only saw the trailing foot or so.
Casey knew immediately and with no doubt that the man had 24
concealed himself. Had he been walking upright, his direction of travel would have rendered him visible to Casey for several seconds before Casey made his turn. Casey would have been looking right at him.
He spun about and called out, “Police! You there, behind the truck, show yourself!” Aware that the other two members of his team had heard his shout, Casey placed his hand on the butt of his weapon and hurried to the back of the truck. He peeked around. No one was there. Quickly moving to the front, he noticed furtive movement in his peripheral vision, off to his left, and he turned his head in time to see the back door of the book depository easing closed. The closest of Casey’s fellow officers held both of his hands out to the side, palms up, as if to ask, “What’s up?”
Casey motioned toward the building and shouted, “Gonna check something out. Cover for me?” Not waiting for Ron’s answer, he barked a quick, “Thanks,” over his shoulder as he turned and ran toward the building, because something inside of him was yelling
“HURRY HURRY TWELVE THIRTY TWELVE THIRTY!” He also didn’t want to start a discussion with Ron about whether he should abandon his post. He already knew how this would look tomorrow morning, and he made himself not think of it. He checked his watch as he ran. 12:24.
Bell watched from her spot as the young cop began sprinting toward the back door of the tall building, satisfied she had made the correct decisions. She’d seen the nervous-looking man with the trombone case and directed the cop to turn at just the right moment to see him. His instincts took over from there. She would only need to keep him moving fast enough. Time was critical.
Sprinting toward the rear door of the book building as fast as he could, Casey Peterson wondered what he would do if he found the door locked. He’d always been resourceful, able to view a problem from every angle and find a solution. Not always an elegant solution, but a solution. As he ran toward the back door of the book 25
building, his mind went over the options he’d have if he found the door locked.
There wasn’t another door in the back. He couldn’t run around to the front, not so much because it might cause a scene—a cop running pellmell down the street in advance of a presidential motorcade—but because he just didn’t have time. The little voice in his head was clear on that. NOW NOW NOW TWELVE THIRTY
TWELVE THIRTY echoed repeatedly in his head, bolder and louder with every passing second. From his earlier reconnoiter, Casey had learned enough about the building and grounds to know, without looking, that none of the windows were low enough for him to gain access through one of them. He could knock frantically on the back door and hope someone inside would hear it and open the door. He wouldn’t be able to wait more than a few seconds, however, before he would have to use his only remaining option, a dangerous option, and it would be better not to have drawn people toward the door if he had to use that option. His conclusion: if he found the door locked, he’d have to blast away at the lock with his weapon, weaken it enough to allow him to break in.
The seconds spent running to the back door gave Casey plenty of time to consider the consequences if this whole thing went south on him; if it turned out he had chased an employee of the book building who had a gig playing trombone with a local band that night after work. Oh boy, six months on the job, shooting an innocent door lock in the middle of a presidential visit. The City of Dallas would not take this lightly. They’d run him out of town. He’d never work as a police officer again…
As Bell watched in disbelief, her cop came to a sudden halt, stood for only an instant, and then crumpled to the sidewalk, fifteen feet from the back door of the tall building. In that same instant she felt an assault to her mind, so powerful she flinched and stumbled backward. She recognized the aura. She had expelled something eerily similar from her mind two months ago, in September.
26
CHAPTER 4 Two months earlier, Sep 1963
September 14, 1963, Dutchyville, GA
he’d been in the kitchen of the big old house where she still S lived with her dad, Brit Houston. Not her biological dad, of course. She’d left her real parents behind in Afghanistan seventeen years earlier. She believed it had been necessary that she go to the U.S., but the reasons were never clear. She kept in touch with Saji Tal, and she knew Saji relayed news of her to her parents. That had been—and continued to be—her only contact with them. In any way that mattered, Brit had been her dad since the age of three. A wid-ower with two nearly grown daughters, he had accepted Bell whole-heartedly and without reservation. Caterina and Adriana had left home a few years later, just as Bell was maturing into what would become a long career as a classical cellist. With only Bell to dote upon, Brit had slid easily into the role of manager, which included management of her concert schedule. That’s why he’d been curious about the five days Bell had blocked off in her calendar in the third week of November 1963, with only an uppercase letter D as explanation.
The first time he had asked about it, Bell couldn’t recall why 27
she’d blocked out those five days, and she told Brit as much. But she’d felt uneasy about erasing the D. She asked Brit to leave it in place until she remembered. As 1963 rolled on, Brit became insistent he be allowed to schedule those five days smack in the middle of her season. She fought the urge to snap at him until September 14, in the kitchen of the big old house, when she did snap, big time, and that told them all they needed to know about the mysterious five days in November.
Over the past few years, Brit had convinced himself that Bell had outgrown those vaguely mysterious abilities he couldn’t explain, or perhaps they had never really existed. But on that day in September, he had recognized something in her demeanor, a subtle thing he’d witnessed three times before.
1946, 1948, 1955
The first had occurred in his driveway in 1946 on the very day Bell had arrived in the large, black Lincoln Continental, and it was only borderline strange. Brit had written it off as a coincidence.
About two years later, the mother of Bell’s best friend, Sally, had been saved from an abusive spouse. That incident had hinted more convincingly that Bell might have paranormal abilities. He tried to speak to her about it, but she was still very young then. She hadn’t discovered the leakage yet, and wouldn’t for several more years. Brit let the issue drop.
Then, when Bell was twelve, in 1955, she had saved a dozen children from burning to death in a cabin at a horse-riding camp.
Brit had been there, had watched the event unfold, and he could no longer deny the implications of what he had seen. The incident had exhausted her, so he had driven back to their motel and put her to bed. She had fallen to sleep immediately, but Brit had lay awake thinking for a long time.
He decided it may have been a mistake to pretend there was nothing extraordinary about his little Bell. He had noticed little things, like how easily she won people over, and he couldn’t recall her ever arguing with anyone. These things, considered on their 28
own, wouldn’t have been noteworthy. However, judged with the scene in his driveway the day she arrived and the incidents at Sally’s house and horse camp, Brit realized he should have played a larger role in whatever went on behind his daughter’s age-wised eyes.
The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, they had walked to a small park, chose a picnic table in the shade, and Brit asked Bell about the incident. She had closed her eyes then, and Brit saw tears leaking through her tightly closed lids. “Bell, what’s wrong?”
She had covered her eyes with her closed fists, and said, “God!
I saw it Dad! The fire! It was horri… horrible…”
Not understanding, Brit had said, “Well, we both saw it. Not that bad, and they handled it thanks to you.”
“No. Not this fire. When we saw the lantern. Starting then. I saw a different outcome. I didn’t even know until this morning. I saw… Oh God!” Tears in her eyes, she had spoken in spurts. “I saw what would have happened, Dad… I… Kids were on… f… Fire!
Kids on fire! My God! It’s still horrid. I still see it.”
Unable to control her emotions, Bell had bent forward and wailed into her hands. She’d reacted as if she’d witnessed an actual human tragedy, Brit realized. He took firm hold of her shoulder and did his best to comfort her. He had looked at his young daughter that morning, and he realized she had aged on that day. Her pain had been real. He had offered her the same words he would offer anyone who had experienced a loss, stating first that he knew it wouldn’t help at all right now. But he would be here to talk to, and help however he could.
Bell had recovered quickly from the trauma of the horse camp incident, but the insight she had gained gave rise to her dawning awareness that her journey had not ended, and probably never would. She matured early. By her mid-teens, Bell began to accept her uniqueness with quiet reservation. She accepted that it would rule her life, even if she one day learned the secret to ruling it.
Though she saw no reason to worry her dad about it, Bell knew that with each passing year her potential grew stronger. She felt it within her, like an arm or leg, a part of her she could not deny. She 29
grew comfortable with it, as it grew within her.
Because she didn’t want to alarm him, and because she began to feel proprietarily toward the workings of her mind, she began censoring what she shared with her dad after the horse camp incident. It would have worried him to know that in the years after that incident she had coaxed out more of the data buried in her subconscious. While Bell’s body would mature at a typical pace, and would stop growing at the appropriate time, the abilities of her mind would continue to grow for decades.
On that day in September 1963, when Bell had snapped at him, it had caught him by surprise. He had looked at her in profile as she turned away from him to stare out a window onto the back terrace, and he had realized two things. The first: Bell would engage this next incident. The second: she would engage it as an adult. A most capable adult, twenty years old in two months. She’d grown so fast.
He couldn’t believe it.
“Dad, I’m sorry for snapping like that. I just didn’t know until you forced me to confront it just now. I never suspected. It’s been so long, I thought we…”
“I know. I’m sorry too. I should have noticed earlier. It caught us both off guard. But hey, maybe we can do this together, you and me, huh?”
She had closed her eyes and didn’t move for five seconds.
When she opened them, she had gone to Brit, looked him in the eye, and said, “Um… Dad… I… I have to. Do it alone. I have to go to Dallas alone.”
“Dallas? D for Dallas. Ok.” Then, hopefully, he’d added, “But you’ll need a chauffeur, right?”
Stepping back from him, Bell had closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to glean more of the information she knew must be buried in her subconscious. She had quite a surprise, instead. In a dizzying two or three seconds, she sensed, for the first time ever, another presence. It was, at first, like the inner self she knew so well, but she quickly realized this was different. This was not of her. It 30
felt dark and malignant. She felt it probing, unsure of where it was.
She sensed it felt secure in its right to be here, and it regarded her as little more than habitat, medium, foliage.
She didn’t like it there. She wanted it out, and even as that thought formed she’d felt a small, tiny grain of will, a tiny spark of energy that started in the most primitive part of her mind and grew upward and outward into an expanding cone that lifted with it all that was not of her. It built to sonic speed and power, and as it approached the new presence it accelerated a thousand times, an infinity of speed and power that hit with world-crushing force that expelled the presence cleanly and completely, thrust it back on its path, back over light years of space and time with such unabated speed and power that it had to have hurt, no matter what manner of being it was.
Then that terrible, blinding force had recoiled softly back within her, settled comfortably into her core with a soothing sigh, and went to sleep, leaving her calm and confident once again.
Bell had straightened her back, standing taller now, unconcerned for herself, searching only for words that would ease his worry, allow him, to allow her, to face this unknown alone.
“Dynamics. I’m sorry. You would change the dynamics, and I would fail. I must go alone, but I know I’ll be safe. I got on top of it. I won’t be caught on the wrong side of anything. I promise.”
Seeing he was still worried, knowing he would continue trying to be part of the Dallas incident, she had reached out and took his hand. She issued no directives. Nothing traveled between them, unless you counted that which can pass between two such as these, where one exudes confidence from her every pore, and the other can read the first so well.
“Ok then, that’s that.” He had walked to the counter where he’d left her opened appointment book. “The five D-days end the day before your birthday. Your 20th. I’ve been planning it for months.
You wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“I won’t, Dad. Not for the world.”
31
CHAPTER 5 The Present November 22, 1963, Dallas
he recognized the aura, identical to the entity she had expelled S in September. It tinted all she saw with a dark malignance.
She felt it probing, buffeting her mind, seeking a point of entry. At the same time, she felt the terrible, blinding force that lived in the most primitive part of her mind. Even now it pushed outward, protected her from the dark assault with a thin layer of clarity. She could see it all in her mind: the delicate, ethereal clarity protecting her, and the dark malignance beating against that vaporous clarity, threatening to overwhelm and engulf her just as it had her cop, still lying prone on the sidewalk.
In desperation, with failure suddenly looming large, she pushed back with an instinctive reflex she’d only just that moment discovered, gratified when the clarity pulsed outward in dazzling bright-ness. The darkness receded. She could see the boundary, halfway across the parking lot, as if the air beyond were tinted with smoke from a fire. It still covered her cop, over 100 yards away from her.
She focused on him, and tried to extend the clarity, but she couldn’t envelope him. She was too far away.
He was in complete darkness, heard no sound, smelled no odors. Casey didn’t know he’d fallen, felt no pain from the fall. His fully functioning mind, with no sensory inputs, could only spin in confusion, as if a mad scientist had plucked it living from his skull and suspended it in his laboratory flask.
She was about to run to Casey when she discovered the source of the dark malignance. An evil-looking man, who became visible only now, thirty feet away, walking fast, closing on her, a three-foot length of iron pipe in his right hand.
The entity had chosen a surrogate here on Earth.
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