The Minnesota Candidate (39 page)

“Tom, you’re preaching to the choir.”

Tom pointed upstairs and lowered his voice. “How
does this Naamah fit into things?”

Levitz leaned forward. “Because this is the End
of Days,” he whispered. “The push for a one world government is
Satan’s signal that his time is near. He’s just deploying his
troops.”

“And we’re supposed to stop him?”

“We’re not supposed to do anything, Tom. We have
to stop him. We’re humanity’s last hope.”

“So, we’re going to stop the devil with a ray
gun, is that it?”

Levitz nodded his head. “That pretty much sums
it up.”

“Excuse me, but that sounds pretty farfetched.
Actually, that sounds crazy.”

“Maybe, but not as crazy as you might think;
technology got us into this mess and our only hope is to use that
same technology to get us out.”

Tom sighed and sunk back into his chair. He
pointed to the stack of journals. “You’re the Chosen One,” he said.
“Have you found out what that means, yet?”

Levitz shook his head and smiled. “Not yet, but
the Jewish people have always been considered the chosen ones. I
expect it has something to do with me leading them.”

Tom was about to say something, the words were
right on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them down. “I
guess,” he whispered. “Shouldn’t you call your wife? She has to be
worried sick about you.”

“I’m not calling anyone until I get my hands on
that ray gun. Once I have that, it’ll be clear sailing all the way
to Pennsylvania Avenue. I’ll be a hero and a lock to win the
election. I have big plans, Tom, big plans.”

“I don’t care what you do with that thing, as
long as we shoot Shari, first. Do we have a deal?”

Levitz reached his small hand across the table
and the two shook. “Deal,” he said.

There was the sound of a bedroom door opening
and of footsteps in the hallway. Sam and Chona appeared, followed
by Alice. “Are we ready?” asked Chona.

“I guess,” said Tom. “As ready as we’re ever
going to be. What were you guys talking about?”

“I was teaching class,” said Alice. “You
shouldn’t have skipped it.”

“Maybe someone could have told me about it.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard students
use that same excuse? Tommy, I guess I expected a little more from
you.”

“How come I wasn’t invited?” asked Levitz. “I
was sitting right here.”

“Because,” said Alice with an exasperated sigh,
“you’re the Chosen One. There was no need for you to attend
class.”

Levitz grinned and nodded his head. “It’s good
to be king,” he said.

Tom caught Chona and Sam exchanging a worried
look. He wondered about that and decided to ask them about it,
later. Sam walked into the kitchen and returned with Shari’s blue
cooler. “We got plenty of chow,” he said.

Alice looked upstairs and she managed a smile.
“Shari must be sleeping,” she said, “the poor girl. Chona, you take
the journals. You’re going to need them. Follow the map and find
that ray gun. And for God’s sake, Tom, get your mother and Marie
out of there. They had better not gum this thing up.”

Tom picked up Shari’s keys and he stuffed them
into his pocket. He then led the way out of the house. He walked
into the garage and scooped up the heavy duffel bag. They stood by
the Ford and stared up at the big house. The sky was just turning
pink with the day’s last light. Alice gave them each a hug. She
then waved and sent them on their way. Every hundred feet or so,
Tom would turn his head and see the old schoolteacher was still
waving. He wondered why old people did that.

They climbed the marble staircase and walked
across the veranda to the big door. Tom tried several keys before
he found the one that fit the padlock. Sam grabbed the chain and
pulled it free from the door handle. “I think we should take this,”
he said. “It might come in handy.”

Tom nodded as he tried keys in the door lock.
Finally, there was a satisfying click as one of the keys sank home.
The same key worked on the deadbolt. Slowly, Tom pushed open the
door. They stood in the doorway and stared down into the open pit.
“There’s something you don’t see every day,” said Levitz.

“We’re going to have to use that ladder to
bridge the gap,” said Tom.

From somewhere deep inside the house, a hideous
laughter erupted. To Tom, it sounded as if a thousand voices were
laughing at the same time. “I wonder what’s so funny?” he
asked.

Chapter 28

Blindly, Doris and Marie continued descending
the never-ending staircase. Behind them was the laughter, but they
did their best to ignore it. “If you listen to it,” said Marie, “it
sounds just like the laugh track from Seinfeld.”

“I thought it sounded familiar,” said Doris,
except she didn’t remember hearing this type of laughter in any
episode of the popular television program. The laughter actually
reminded her of the ghoulish skeleton from Tales from the Crypt.
She was thinking this as she caught the faintest glow of light. “I
can see something!” she shouted.

“I can see it, too!” replied Marie.

They quickened their pace and the greenish light
grew brighter with every step they took. Finally, they hit the
bottom of the stairwell. They came to a hallway that disappeared
into a thick green fog. “I don’t like the look of this,” said
Doris.

“Quit acting like a baby,” said Marie. “We can
see, can’t we? Come on, keep moving.”

Doris felt wetness on her shoes, but she did her
best to ignore it. She moved into the green mist, seeing no further
than the toes of her shoes. Marie followed behind her, poking her
with fat fingers, prodding her along. “Stop that,” she said.

“Stop what?” asked Marie.

Marie’s voice seemed further away than Doris had
been expecting. She spun around and saw Marie was nowhere to be
seen. “Stop poking me,” she said.

“I’m not poking you.”

The strange laughter erupted from all around
them. It echoed off of the walls and threatened to burst their
eardrums. What began as high pitched, giddy laughter, ended in
voices so low, and so menacing, that it sent both women scrambling.
With Doris leading the way, they rumbled down the corridor, their
sodden footfalls echoing off the stone walls. The wicked laughter
had stopped, but they continued to run. Doris thought she was about
to die when she saw the white light. Up ahead, the end of the
tunnel glowed with a light as white as new fallen snow. She had
always heard it would be like this. She slowed to a trot,
terrified, yet somewhat excited to see where this next journey took
her.

“Go into… the light!” gasped Marie.

Doris thought about replying with a snappy
answer, but she found that she didn’t have the strength.
I must
have had a heart attack,
she thought to herself,
and it
didn’t even hurt.
Doris wondered about that. She had always
heard that heart attacks hurt like hell, but she hadn’t felt a
thing. The white light was much brighter now and Doris held her
hands up in front of her eyes.

“Almost there,” grunted Marie.

Hearing Marie’s voice frightened Doris. She had
always imagined that they would part ways at this juncture. Marie
had turned her back on the Catholic Church, long ago. She never had
a nice thing to say, nor did she possess an ounce of compassion for
anything or anyone. Marie was going to hell, Doris was sure of it.
Yet, here she was, following Doris into the light. It just didn’t
seem fair. And then Doris thought of another possibility, what if
this light led down to the other place? Doris slowed her pace to a
crawl.

“Move it!” shouted Marie.

With the light blazing in front of her, Doris
pressed her back against the cold stone wall. “Why don’t you lead
the way?” she asked.

Marie cursed as she passed Doris. In the light,
Marie looked as if she had been dead for hours. Her filthy clothes
were torn and ragged, covered in cobwebs. Her skin was pale and her
hair was frazzled. To Doris, Marie looked like something out an old
horror movie. She watched as Marie staggered out of the tunnel. A
moment later, she turned left and disappeared from view.

Doris said a Hail Mary as she caught her breath.
The best she could, she brushed herself off and fixed her hair. She
didn’t want to enter the next world, whichever one it was, looking
like Marie had. She then took a deep breath and began to walk.

Sam and Chona walked hand in hand, just like a
pair of love-struck teenagers. This left Tom and Senator Levitz to
walk together. Carrying their pathetic candles, they ventured ever
deeper into the rancid house. “You know,” said Levitz, “this is the
first time I’ve ever been in here. I had no idea... what a dump.
Wait until the guys at the Country Club hear about this.”

Tom felt a surge of embarrassment for Shari.
“You won’t say a word about this to anyone,” he hissed.

“What do you care about what I say to my
friends? It’s not like you’re ever going to meet them.”

“Shari is my wife and she has suffered enough. I
won’t allow you to soil the memory of her parents.”

Levitz shook his head and gave a little laugh.
“Whatever,” he said.

They continued searching for the stairway that
led down into the laboratory. They slogged through rotting piles of
garbage, scattering vermin of every size and shape. Every dozen
steps, Senator Levitz would boast about being the Chosen One. By
the time they had crossed to the opposite wall, Tom was ready to
throw Levitz out the window. Behind them, the lovebirds were
chatting away, ignoring Tom and his search buddy. Worse, Sam and
Chona attached cutesy pet names to the end of every sentence. Even
in the horrible stench, Tom could hear them stop to exchange a
quick kiss. Tom loathed public displays of affection.

At the wall, Levitz was busy throwing open
doors. Chona pulled herself away from Sam. “You shouldn’t be doing
that,” she said. “There could be a trap behind any of those doors.
We need to consult the journals.”

“We don’t have time for that,” said Levitz,
ignoring Chona.

“If Chona says we consult the journals, that’s
what we do,” said Sam, angrily. “Knock it off!”

Levitz gave Sam a smirk and opened yet another
door. “Who are you to tell me what to do?” he asked, just before he
was swallowed up by the floor. Levitz screamed as he fell down some
kind of chute. Tom and the others rushed over to the edge, but the
little man was gone. Levitz continued to scream until he ran out of
breath. He then began a fresh scream from much deeper in the abyss.
On his fourth scream, when his squealing voice was barely above a
whisper, there was a muffled thud, followed by silence.

“You tried to warn him,” said Tom.

“I was waiting for that to happen,” said Chona.
“It was in the journals.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Tom. “He was
the Chosen One.”

“Yeah,” said Sam, “but Alice never said that was
a good thing. Know what I mean?”

Tom covered his mouth with his free hand. “Do
you think he’s dead?”

Chona chuckled. “If he’s lucky,” she said, “but
I doubt it.”

“We’ve got to get down there,” said Sam. “Alice
said that once we lost Levitz, things would move pretty fast.”

Chona flipped open one of the journals to a
bookmark and she studied the page in the candlelight. “Could you
bring your candle over here, sugar-daddy?”

“Anything you say, baby-doll.”

“Stop it with the pet names,” said Tom, unable
to tolerate it any longer. “You two sound like a couple of
teenagers.”

“I’m sorry,” said Chona, “what did you say?”

“The pet names… could you two just knock it
off?”

“We’ll call each other whatever the hell we
please,” she said. “And I won’t hear another word about it. Just
mind your own damned business.”

“You tell him, honey-pie,” said Sam.

Tom spun around in anger. They were standing
ankle-deep in putrid trash, yet Sam and Chona hardly seemed to
care. Sam snuggled close to Chona, as if they were alone on a
deserted beach. He nuzzled and nibbled at her neck while she
studied the hand-drawn map. Tom stared at the two remaining doors
and decided anyplace was better than where he was. He walked up to
the first door and stood before it.

“Don’t do it,” said Sam.

“Hold on,” said Chona, “I can’t tell which one
it is.”

“You’ll figure it out, sweetie,” said Sam.

Something inside Tom snapped and he grabbed the
doorknob and gave it a savage twist. The door sprang open,
revealing a sterile white stairway. Wordlessly, Tom reached down
for the duffel bag and carrying his candle, he began descending the
stairs.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Sam, from
over Tom’s shoulder. “You could’ve been killed.”

“Sam’s right,” said Chona. “We have to be
careful.”

Tom barely heard them. He took the stairs two at
a time. From what he could see, the clean white stairs went on
forever. Here, the stale air smelled faintly of disinfectant. Tom
was happy for that. He set a blistering pace that kept Sam and
Chona from talking. The stairwell spiraled deeper and deeper into
the bowels of the house. Tom’s legs began to feel rubbery, but he
continued his race to the bottom. He didn’t want to think about
their return trip, should they survive.

His arm and shoulder burned as the weight of the
duffel bag threatened to dislocate them. Without breaking stride,
Tom grabbed the heavy bag with his left hand and took the candle in
his right. His breathing came in jagged gasps. Behind him, Sam and
Chona struggled to keep up. Tom felt as if he were running from
them, which wasn’t too far from the truth. He felt as if he would
throw up if he heard another cheesy pet name. How many flights of
stairs they had taken, Tom could only guess. He was just about
ready to stop, when he saw the stairs end at a heavy steel
door.