“Used to be. In New Jersey.”
“Ever play video games?”
Balenger was desperate to get the information he needed, but his experience as a detective warned him to establish rapport and not rush the person he was interviewing. He had to work to seem calm. “They never appealed to me.”
“Because you think they’re mindless?”
Balenger shrugged.
“I had the same bias,” Professor Graham said, “until, several years ago, one of my students made me an enthusiast. Sometimes, students are smarter than their professors. That particular student changed my life. Forget the content of video games, many of which are indeed mindless. Concentrate on the skills required to win. These games develop our reflexes. They teach our brains to work quicker and master parallel thinking. Some people claim multitasking is bad, but if I can learn to do a lot of things simultaneously and do them well, what’s the harm?”
“The two kids who shot those students at Columbine High School in Colorado were addicted to violent video games.”
“So are a lot of other kids. But out of millions of them—”
“Millions?”
“The video-game industry takes in more money than the movie business. Half the people in this country are players. Out of millions of kids who like violent video games, only a few go on shooting sprees. Clearly other factors turn them into killers. You were a police officer in New Jersey? Where?”
“Asbury Park.”
“I ice-skated in competition there when I was a kid.” The white-haired woman seemed to stare at something above Balenger’s head. “A long time ago.” Her gaze refocused on him. “Anyway, since you were in law enforcement, I’m surprised you don’t play video games. The one I was playing just now is called Doom 3. It’s a version of one of the games the Columbine shooters were addicted to. It’s a type called ‘first-person shooter.” Basically, the player sees everything in the game from behind a gun. I’m a space marine on Mars on a base overrun by demons. When a threat jumps out, I blast it. They jump out often, and they’re very fast. I feel trapped in a labyrinth. Ceilings collapse. I never know what horrors wait behind locked doors.“
Balenger couldn’t help thinking of the Paragon Hotel.
Professor Graham considered him. “I’ve heard that police officers play first-person shooter games as a way of maintaining their reflexes when they’re not on the shooting range, and they often play them to prime themselves before they go on a raid.”
Balenger’s impatience must have showed.
“Sorry. My enthusiasm often gets the better of me. On the phone, you said that Professor Donovan suggested I could help you. My specialty’s the American frontier, but I’m as fascinated by time capsules as he is. What do you want to know?”
Balenger was conscious of how fast his heart pounded as he told her what happened during the lecture in the row house on 19th Street.
“The Manhattan History Club,” she said when he finished. “I never heard of it.”
“Because it doesn’t exist.”
“The coffee was drugged?”
“That’s right. When I regained consciousness, my friend was gone.”
“Your left forearm. What’s the matter? You keep massaging it.”
Balenger peered down. The impulse had become reflexive. “While I was unconscious, someone injected me with a sedative. The place where the needle went in is red and swollen.”
“Sounds like it’s infected. You ought to see a doctor.”
“I don’t have time.” Balenger leaned forward. “Professor Donovan says you know a lot about something called the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”
She looked surprised. “Where on earth did you hear about that?”
“Whoever took my friend left those words as some kind of clue. I think it’s part of a game, an extremely deadly one.” Balenger couldn’t help glancing at the computer.
“The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.” Professor Graham nodded. “It’s fascinated me for years. On January third, 1900, a man named Donald Reich staggered into a town called Cottonwood near the Wind River mountain range in central Wyoming. He was delirious. Not only was the temperature below zero, but snow had been falling for several days. He was taken to the local doctor, who determined that his nose, ears, toes, and fingers had frostbite and would need to be amputated before gangrene spread through his body. In Reich’s few lucid periods, he told an amazing story about traveling on foot from a town called Avalon. The place, located in a valley within the Wind River range, was once a mining town. But after the mine stopped producing, Avalon fell on hard times. It was a hundred miles from Cottonwood, and Reich claimed to have set out on New Year’s Eve, traveling that distance in some of the worst weather in years.”
Balenger listened intently.
“Reich was barely coherent,” Professor Graham continued, “but the doctor was able to learn that he was Avalon’s minister and that the purpose of his desperate journey wasn’t to summon help for the town. He wasn’t seeking medicine to fight an epidemic or trying to get food for a starving community. No, Reich’s motive was to escape.”
Balenger straightened. “Escape from what?”
“Reich kept talking about the new century. Recall the date I gave you. January third, 1900. Three days earlier, the 1800s became the 1900s. The start of the new century terrified him. He kept babbling about being a coward, about how he should have stayed and tried to help, about how he’d damned his soul by surrendering to his fear and running away.”
Balenger felt a nervous ripple in his stomach. “But what on earth so frightened him that he abandoned his congregation and fled a hundred miles in the dead of winter?”
“The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”
9
Balenger’s fingers tightened on the arms of his chair. Amanda, he thought. I need to find you.
“My book The American West at the End of the Nineteenth Century has a chapter devoted to end-of-century hysteria.” Professor Graham went to a bookshelf, pulled out a volume, and flipped through it until she found the section she wanted. “Take a look at the indented material. It comes from Reich. He had handwritten pages stuffed in his clothing.”
Balenger read what she pointed at.
Dec. 31, 1899
The year hurtles to an end. So does the century. I fear I am losing my mind. I do not mean “losing my grasp of reality.” I know perfectly well what is happening. But I am powerless to prevent the outcome. Each day, I have less strength of mind to resist.
On this last day, it is supposedly dawn, but outside there is only the darkness of a howling blizzard. The swirl of shrieking snow matches my confusion. I pray that writing these pages will give me clarity. If not, and if the world impossibly survives for another hundred years, you who find this within the Sepulcher will perhaps understand what I cannot.
Balenger lowered the book. “Sounds insane.”
“The doctor found a dozen scrawled pages in Reich’s clothing. What you read comes from the start of the manuscript.”
Balenger indicated the last sentence. “Reich mentions the Sepulcher.”
“But not its full name. That comes later in the manuscript.”
“What’s this about ‘If the world impossibly survives for another hundred years’?”
The professor spread her aging hands. “Apocalyptic fears are often part of end-of-century hysteria.”
“So, in a failing town in a valley in the middle of nowhere, this minister let his imagination get the better of him. But why did he run? Surely Reich didn’t think he could escape the end of the world by fleeing to another location.”