The
 
 

2

night
 
 

3

air
 
 

4

(Okay, okay, Dan Brown's chapters weren't this short, but they sure seemed like they were.)
 
 

5

The night air hung heavy in the glare of the spotlights above the stage where KANSAS had just finished their first-ever concert in Culpeper, Virginia.  The high school football stadium had been the venue for the show, and the progressive quintet had been remarkably tight during their performance: drummer Phil Ehart had pounded out the tempo without missing a beat, guitarist Rich Williams had filled the humid air with his trademark "wall of sound," bassist Billy Greer had thumped out music's intricate rhythms while singing lead and backup, singer and keyboardist Steve Walsh had nailed every note he reached for (and had even treated the enthusiastic crowd to a handstand during the encore), and newly returned guitarist/violinist David Ragsdale had stepped back into the band so effortlessly it was as if his nine-year absence had never even happened.

The highlight of the show had been the unexpected inclusion of the song "How My Soul Cries Out for You" from the band's 1979 album Monolith, complete with a stuffed dummy falling to the stage from the lighting assembly during the instrumental part.  Of course, maybe only three people in the crowd had even been aware that Kansas had pulled such a humorous stunt during their original tour in support of the album; the rest of the crowd had paid little heed to the dummy's descent, dismissing it as some weird in-joke.  One of those longtime fans who did remember this bit of trivia and got the joke was 43-year-old Michael Brooks, a dashing computer service technician and resident of Culpeper who along with his beautiful wife Beverly and their five children had been the first to buy tickets to the evening's show.  Now, as the crowd was dispersing, their oldest son Jeff noticed that the dummy was still lying where it had fallen.  Since there had been no sound equipment in that area of the stage, there were no roadies packing up between the Brooks clan and the sprawled dummy.  Laughing, the family decided to have a look and climbed up on the stage and walked over to the spot where it lay.

"Hey," Jeff said, "maybe we can take a picture of ourselves with the dummy."

"Yeah," second-oldest Michael Talley added, "we could all lie down on the stage around it."

"And I could twist my right leg behind my head for the picture," chimed in third son Graham, who had a reputation of being something of a contortionist and who bore the nickname "Monkey-Man."

"Maybe Emily and I could get on either side and you could take a close-up picture of our faces with the dummy between us," older daughter Katherine suggested.

"Ooh, I don't want to lie down on that dirty stage," youngest one Emily replied.

"We'll just see what we can do, guys," father Michael said to his brood.  "We're probably not supposed to be up here anyway."

"Honey," Beverly said, "look at that dummy.  Someone dressed him up."

The dummy was indeed dressed up, and rather oddly at that.  Its style of clothing looked like something from out of the Old West: a dingy brown coat that reached to its knees; dusty, well worn boots on its feet; a double holster holding a gun on its right hip and a sword on its left.  The dummy had landed on its back, its arms splaying out to either side.  Each leg was bent at the knee, the left leg more so than the right.  Its head was turned slightly to its right, its unkempt hair and bushy beard framing a scowling face and open mouth that seemed locked in a silent, eternal roar.  But what was most striking was what the dummy gripped tightly in each hand: a rifle in the right, an open book in the left.

"Look, Dad," Katherine said, kneeling on the dummy's left side and examining the book.  "He's holding a Bible."

"He sure is," her father said, "and it's turned to the beginning of the book of Revelation.  Not only that, but he's got his thumb on chapter one, verse eight."  Michael knelt down and tilted his head to read the text.  "'"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.'  That's strange.  And guys, look," he added, pointing to the dummy's other hand, "he's also holding a thunderstick."

"'Thunderstick'?" his son Michael Talley piped up.  "You actually said, 'Thunderstick'?  That, Dad, is a Winchester thirty-ought-six."

"Hmm, you're right," the chastened father replied.  "This is all really strange."

"Honey," Beverly said, speaking for the first time since they had approached the dummy, "I seem to think that I've seen something like this before."

"You have," her husband said, straightening to his feet.  "This dummy is dressed up, outfitted and laid out to look like that famous mural in the Kansas state house: John Steuart Curry's painting of John Brown... The Abolitionist Man.  That painting was also used as the cover of the first Kansas album."

"That's where I've seen it," Bev replied.  "In your CD collection."

"Well, then, maybe this really isn't so strange," said Jeff.  "After all, this was a Kansas concert and this character represents the state of Kansas and the band Kansas.  Maybe it's all just part of a joke."

"Maybe," his father said, an intrigued look on his face.  "A joke that only I would get."

"Still," said Graham, twisting his right foot behind his head and balancing on his left leg like a pelican, "someone went to a lot of trouble to do this to him."

"Unless," his dad said, "the dummy did this to itself."

"What?"  exclaimed Emily.  "That makes no sense at all, Daddy."

"No," Michael replied, "but it would make for an interesting plot twist... especially if this whole setup with the dummy and his clothing and the Bible and the thunder--um, the Winchester 30.06 represented some kind of hidden code here that we're supposed to figure out.  All we're missing now is a secret message written on the floor in invisible, black-light ink."

At that moment the roadies, finishing their breakdown of the band's equipment, killed the lights, plunging the stage into darkness.  The young girls shrieked in the sudden gloom.

"Calm down, girls, Mommy and Daddy are here.  Jeff, Michael, Graham, do any of you have a flashlight on you?" the older Michael asked.

"No," they responded in unison.

"Here," said Bev, opening her purse and fishing around inside it.  "Let's use this."

"What's that?" her husband asked.

"It's a black light penlight I keep on my key chain," she said, turning on the beam.  "It's real handy at night if the car's auto-unlock system isn't working right and I need to use the key in the dark.  Also, it conveniently illuminates hidden messages written in invisible, black-light ink.  After all, you never know when you might run into a secret message that you're supposed to figure out that's written in invisible, black-light ink."

"Why would you think that there would be an invisible messages written in..." her husband asked, his voice trailing off.  "Just what all do you carry in that purse, honey?" the bemused Michael asked.

"More than you'll ever understand, dear," she said.  "Now let's see what we can find."  Bev moved toward the sprawled dummy, the narrow beam of the penlight forming a tight circle of deep blue light where it fell.

"Honey," complained Michael, "it makes no sense to think that there would be a hidden message written anywhere near this dummy."

"It makes just as much sense as your suggestion that the dummy did this to itself," she said, chuckling.  "Besides, you're the one who brought up hidden messages in the first place."

"Good point," he said.  "But still..."

"Mom!  Look!" exclaimed Jeff.  "There's something glowing on the stage next to the dummy!"

"It looks like writing!" shouted Emily.

"It is!" said the younger Michael excitedly.  "Numbers and words!"

There were indeed numbers and words written on the stage next to the fallen dummy, fluorescing eerily in the penlight's narrow beam.

"Now how did you know there was going to be a secret message here, honey?" Michael asked.

"It's a convenient plot twist, dear," Bev replied.  "It's to keep the readers interested in the story."

"To keep the readers interested..." Michael whispered to himself.  "Honey, what readers are you...?"

"Look at all the words and numbers!" Katherine interrupted as her mother swung the light's beam to and fro across the floor next to the dummy, illuminating a few numbers here, a few letters there, at a time.

"Pull the light back, honey," her husband said.  "Let's see all of them at once."

Bev held the penlight above her head, the beam diffusing into a dim, soft circle of blue on the stage and revealing all of the numbers and letters together in glowing luminescence.  But the whole message they revealed in their otherworldly glow only added to the uncertainty of the scene:

"Well, that explains everything," the younger Michael sighed facetiously.

"That makes no sense at all," his father muttered.

"Who on earth would have left a message like this?  And why?" Bev whispered, mystified.

"How are we ever going to figure it out?" Katherine asked, dejection in her ten-year-old voice.

"The only way we ever find the shortcut to the answers that we seek," said the older Michael, straightening to his feet.  "To the Internet!"

"The Internet?" Jeff asked.

"Sure," his dad replied, taking out a pen and writing the cryptic message down on the back of a bank deposit slip he had found in his wallet.  "We'll just 'Google' these clues and the vast storehouse of knowledge that is the Information Superhighway will reveal the mystery unto us... I hope."

"Can we 'Google' it tomorrow, Dad?" the younger Michael asked, yawning.  "It's getting late and tomorrow's a school day."

"Sure thing," his father replied, walking toward the edge of the stage.  "Come on, guys, let's get into our big new Ford Econoline E-350 twelve-seater monster van and go home."

The kids mumbled their agreement and began to follow their father.  The older Michael started to step off the stage when he noticed that his wife wasn't with them.

"Go on and get in the van.  I'll go get Mommy."

Michael walked back over to where his wife was standing over the dummy.  Her penlight's beam still shone on the floor.

"Hey," Michael said, coming up behind her.  "Think you can figure out those numbers and words on your own?"

"No," she said, "I found something else.  More writing."

"More writing?" Michael asked, surprised.  "I didn't see any more writing besides what we found at first."

"It's separated a bit from the first message.  You and the kids were standing on top of it.  I saw it when you all walked away.  Look."

Michael's eyes followed the blacklight beam to the floor as his wife held the light high over her head, illuminating both the first message and the one she had found herself.  But rather than clarifying the first nonsensical message, the new writing only added to the mystery: