And then there was that moment between them on the couch . . . had he been about to kiss her? She wasn’t sure of her feelings. If it had been the Josh in Mona’s Cafe a week ago, then maybe. However, she wasn’t sure about the Josh of the last couple of days. He seemed to be a different person. Or maybe just a different version; one that was adapting to its surroundings. One that thought he was adapting to survive.
She kept picturing Peter’s silhouette, too, at the front door of his home, watching her as they’d discovered the graffiti on her house. That image seemed to float there, haunting her. She pictured Karen hiding down in their basement, waiting to come out. She thought of Kaitlyn sitting on the couch that first day, with her then-unnamed son in her arms, terrified. She pictured the image of Shonda-May, her neighbor, pulling away from the curtains. She recalled her conversation with that reporter Richard Keene over the phone. She kept hearing his calming voice saying, “I’m looking for the truth, Abbie.”
She thought of her parents, then, and her sister, and had to wonder again where they were. Wonder whether they were alright. Wonder if they were dead. Six days had passed. The house was so lonely without them. Ghostly. Every creak in the wood sounded amplified, every silence felt like a sentence, a curse.
She looked at the items on the bedside table. She’d brought pieces of her family into the room with her, to stay by her side at night. Her father’s baseball cap, her sister’s perfume, her mother’s cell phone that she kept charged.
What would she do if they really were dead? If they weren’t coming back? What would she do if her entire family had been wiped out? How could she face tomorrow knowing that for sure? That any hope of them returning alive was gone. How would she adapt to survive without them? This town and her family had been all she’d known. Was that enough to enable her to survive any turn of events? Maybe Josh was right. Maybe she was naive. Maybe it was time she grew up and faced the real world.
But how could she face this life alone?
Marked.
Segregated.
Would she even get a chance at life? Or would these aliens return and take it from her? Was she just waiting things out, not knowing her true fate? She’d heard the rumors and the debates, seen the protestors, seen the strange people holding signs and welcoming the aliens back. She’d seen what people were saying about Victoryville on social media. These strangers, speaking with such authority about the town and its people, what we should and shouldn’t have done.
So what would happen if the aliens did come back? What would they do to those left behind in Victoryville? Take more? Or kill more?
She felt tears begin to run down her cheeks, but didn’t wipe them away. There was something soothing about them, consoling. Something she could use to exhaust her, to tire her out enough to push her over the precipice into sleep. She clung to her tears in the hope she would fall asleep and then waken to find it had just been a bad dream. But she knew that wouldn’t happen.
Six days . . .
It had been too long to be a lie.
And among everything else that troubled her mind were thoughts of what Josh was getting caught up in with Magnus and Roy, right now, and what news would be awaiting her in the morning.
*
Dr. Lysart Pellan awoke in the darkness to the sound of his phone ringing. He picked up the handset beside his bed.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Pellan, it’s Richard. I’ve made my decision.”
Lysart sat up a little, resting on an elbow, and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the clock and saw it was 2.59 a.m. When he’d parted with Keene earlier that evening, no decision had been made as to whether to run with the story or not. Lysart had simply told the reporter what he knew and Keene had agreed to take some time to think the matter over before making the critical decision. But now, it would seem it had been made.
“I’m going to run the story,” Richard told him.
Lysart nodded to himself in the darkness. “I see.”
“I’m writing it now. It should be finished in a few hours. I’ll then record my post and send it to my editor with instructions not to go live with it until later this afternoon. That will give us time to hide in case they send the military for us.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry for the late call. Or early, as the case may be,” he laughed quietly, tiredly. “I just wanted to let you know, so you had as much time as possible to put plans into motion.”
“Thank you.”
“No. Thank you, Dr. Pellan. You’re right. The people need to know this. They need to be with their loved ones. They shouldn’t be separated. Whatever caused this . . .” Keene sighed sadly. “Whatever caused this, if they come back . . . God knows who will be left. If time is short, then people need to make the most of it and be with their loved ones.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you have family in Victoryville?”
Lysart pictured his daughters in his mind. “No.”
“Then where will you go? Do you have a place to go?”
“Yes,” Lysart assured him, “I’ll find somewhere.”
“Yeah. It’s probably best you don’t tell me.”
“Do you have a safe place, Mr. Keene?”
“I’ll find somewhere . . .”
“Very well,” Lysart told him. “Stay safe, Mr. Keene.”
“You too, Dr. Pellan. Again, thank you.”
“Write well, Mr. Keene. Write carefully. Speak truthfully.”
“I will.”
With that they ended the call and Lysart placed the phone down on his bedside table. He threw his sheets back and dropped his legs to the floor, letting out a small huff of resignation for what he knew in his heart had to be done.
Day Seven
Richard stood in the empty bathroom and squeezed his tired eyes shut. “Yes, I know what I’m doing.”
“Kid, this is serious shit you got here,” Harry hissed quietly into the phone, as though trying to hide his voice from others. “Are you sure this is true? If we run with this and it’s not—”
“It is.”
“There could be all kinds of repercussions from this, you understand? And I’m not just talking about the government here. Who knows how the people will react when they find out they’ve been lied to.”
“Hopefully they’ll react with relief that they’re not contagious and reunite with their loved ones.”
“Yeah, most will. But some will be damned angry with the government for withholding the truth and keeping them apart!”
“Only for a moment. Only until their brains wrap around the real reason as to why they did this, why they tried to keep this secret.”
“To tell you the truth, that’s what I have the biggest issue with here,” Harry told him. “That they think these goddamn fucking aliens will come back. That’s why they’re keeping the town quarantined?”
“The authorities can’t find a reason for the categorization, Harry. They’re scared.”
“But does this necessarily mean the aliens’ll come back?”
“No one knows, Harry. But they went to the trouble of categorizing people. And if they do come back, the government knows that they’ll be powerless to do anything about it, so they’re just going to leave Victoryville chained up to the post like some sacrificial goat, and hope that keeps these aliens away from everyone else.”
“Goddamn aliens. Never thought I would see the day that shit came true.”
Richard felt his shoulders soften with inevitability. “Don’t use the word ‘aliens’. Try ‘extraterrestrials’. It sounds better. Friendlier. I hope.”
“Does it? Still sounds rather fucked up to me.”
Richard sighed heavily. He slumped down on the closed lid of the toilet. “Oh, it’s fucked up, alright.”
“I’m sorry, kid. Listen to me going on, when I’m here miles away and you’re the one stuck there.”
“It’s okay, Harry. You got a right
to worry too.”
There was a pause on Harry’s end, then a ruffling muffled sound as though he were running his free hand over his face.
“You’re sure about this?” Harry asked again. “You’re one hundred percent sure you want to go with this and put a big freaking target on your back?”
Richard stared at the bathroom floor. He pictured Lisa and Benny’s faces. Pictured the faces on the walls showing images of the missing. He recalled the couple he’d witnessed waving to each other over the barricade. Then he remembered that footage of Abbie Randell running out to shelter Kaitlyn Manner and her newborn baby. The Clean Skin teenage girl who had just given birth to her first child, separated from her mother and removed from her home thanks to the Victoryville quarantine.
“Yes,” Richard said firmly. “If these things are coming back and there’s a chance that I could die, then I want to do what I can before that happens. I want my death to count. I want the truth to be told. The Striped Ones aren’t contagious.” He stood up and stared at his reflection in the mirror. “I’m prepared to face the consequences. Are you?”
Richard heard a tapping noise as Harry thought things over one last time.
“The scoop of the century?” Harry asked. “Sure. I’ll run with it. My days are numbered anyway.”
Richard smiled regretfully.
“You better get to hiding, kid,” Harry said.
“I’m just about to leave. Make sure you don’t run it until 5.00 p.m. to give me a few hours’ head start to disappear as best I can in this town.”
“Will do.”
“You, ah, better watch your back, too, Harry.”
“I’m the captain, kid. It’s my job to go down with the ship. Get out of here,” he said, then swiftly hung up.
Richard stared at himself in the mirror one last time. He took a deep breath, quickly pocketed his phone, and headed for the nearest exit.
*
Stanley Barrick watched the TV in disbelief. He closed his eyes and lowered his head into this hands. “Jesus Christ . . .”
“Mr. Barrick?” Colin called from the doorway. “The president’s office is on the phone.”
Stanley exhaled heavily. “I bet it is.”
*
Abbie’s mouth fell open and her whole body went numb. She collapsed to the carpeted floor on her knees, as she stared, glued to the TV. There was silence around her. It was as if the whole world had paused. Nothing moved, no one spoke. It seemed as though every living thing in existence held its breath and hung on every single word of the news report airing. And this was the second time it was being shown. It was as if the news station knew that people would not understand the first time, that they would need to hear it again. And again.
The reporter, Richard Keene, spoke into the camera. He sat before a plain background, framed from the chest up. He spoke slowly, carefully, in that calming voice she recalled from their phone conversation. His green eyes held a sadness to them, his unshaven face and unkempt curly hair seeming to confirm the state of his address. He was telling the world bad news, trying to break it as calmly as he could. And what he had to say was, to put it mildly, earth-shattering.
Richard spoke to camera as though he sat in a confessional box: a home video, a final broadcast from a man who would never be seen again. Abbie’s eyes glazed over as the information pounded through her head and her heart, while the rest of her body sat numb. The welts weren’t due to any virus or bacteria. They weren’t due to any radiation or the like. There was no contagion. They had no answer for it. All they knew was that the people of Victoryville had been categorized by the visitors, as though part of some kind of experiment.
“It’s really true?” Kaitlyn’s voice was light and shaky with shock, as she reached for the remote. “Do you have instant replay?” Kaitlyn fumbled with the remote and replayed the report again, clearly needing to hear it one more time.
Abbie stared at the TV and saw her face reflected in Richard Keene’s. She raised her hand to her face, to her welt, trying to view it in the reflection. It wasn’t clear though, and she needed to see it now more than anything. She quickly stood and ran upstairs to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, she moved straight up to the mirror over the basin, and her eyes fixed on the stripe running down her chin and neck. Again she raised her hand to her face and ran her fingertips along the welt, right down to where it ended over her heart.
So it was true. There was a reason why only some of them had been left marked.
The aliens had categorized the Striped Ones as defective.
The thought scared her immensely. That those things, whatever they were, had done this to her on purpose. That this was not just some random side effect of their visit. Not an alien contagion accidentally transferred, nor a kind of radiation that only some people had been susceptible to. These aliens had weeded her out from the others—the Clean Skins—and branded her as inferior. According to what Keene had said, all those marked with the welts were ill in some way. The Clean Skins were carriers of defective genes, and all those missing had been healthy. Her family, mother, father, sister, had been healthy. And for this they’d paid the price. They had been taken.
She stared at the stripe, noting that it seemed so much darker now, as though the truth behind it had branded her further. This one stripe, marking her as damaged goods. Her asthma, something she’d never been ashamed of before, was now to be forcibly worn like a badge of indignity for all to see.
She felt herself shaking at the enormity of it. This phenomenon that had changed Victoryville in the blink of the eye, had also categorized the town in the blink of an eye. She suddenly thought of the three stripes branding Josh: his epilepsy, his seafood allergy, his nut allergy. She wondered what Peter’s stripes were for? Or Charlie’s? She wondered what defective gene Kaitlyn carried. Is that why Charlie was striped? Did she pass something onto her son? Or did he receive it from his absent father?
“Tell me what’s going on?” Kaitlyn tearily demanded from the doorway, cradling Charlie. “What does this mean? What’s going to happen to us?”
Abbie turned to face her and saw the fear in the girl’s eyes: a teenage first-time mom with her few days’ old son. It was such a strange picture. This girl, so young, so naive, yet she had this baby to take care of. A child with a child.
Kaitlyn pointed to Abbie’s welt. “Is that because of your asthma?”
Abbie nodded.
“Well, what’s wrong with Charlie? They said he was fine in the hospital?”
“Kaitlyn—”
“What’s wrong with me?” She was crying now. “I gave him something, didn’t I? I’m a Clean Skin. That means I made Charlie sick, didn’t I?”
“Kaitlyn,” Abbie said, taking hold of her shoulders, “don’t panic! It might not be anything to worry about.”
“But he’s striped! That means he’s sick!”
“That doesn’t mean it’s bad!” Abbie said firmly. “Look at me, I’ve had asthma my whole life, but I’m fine. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing!”
“But what about what did this? They said they might come back?” she sobbed, bordering on hysterical. “Are they going to hurt you and Charlie? Why did they mark you?”
Abbie stared at her, gripping the girl’s shoulders firmly, but had no answer. The truth was, she wondered the same thing. What the hell did this mean? Why had the aliens marked them? And what the hell would they do when they came back?
*
Dr. Lysart Pellan felt his shoulders slump as he watched the news in the cheap out-of-the-way motel he’d found in the Striped Zone. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d traveled here through the early hours, scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and chin, hat worn low over his eyes, trying to stay hidden. He’d surreptitiously made his way back to that parking lot he’d been in with Richard, found the sewer gate, and made his way through the dark, murky tunnel until he’d made it to the other side.
K
nowing that Harvey, the CDC, and the government, would soon work out that he was the one who had fed Richard the information, staying in the Clean Zone was no longer an option. He found a motel, took a room, and had been waiting nervously for the news to break.
Second thoughts were flooding through him now as he watched the TV and saw the chaos breaking out, not just in Victoryville, but across the world. The people of Victoryville were angry at the lies they’d been told, scared at the probable reason the government was keeping them prisoner in the town. Residents began to gather along the Victoryville barricade between the zones, tensions rapidly rising. Some Victoryville residents were barricading themselves in their homes. Others stood peacefully not far from the growing mobs, holding signs and imploring whatever did this to return to Earth. More people from surrounding towns were fleeing, crashing through roadblocks and creating even worse traffic jams than when the phenomenon had first occurred.
They were no longer scared of a contagion. They were scared that the aliens would return for those they’d categorized.
And it was Lysart’s fault.
To make matters worse, a new story was breaking, reporting that an arrest had been made at Bateson Dermacell. And there, Lysart saw, was Cheung being taken away by soldiers for questioning. Cheung! He had forgotten about poor, innocent, Cheung.
This isn’t what he had wanted. He didn’t want the violence, the death. He’d intended that the truth would set them free, that families would be reunited. He wanted to be allowed to see his own family. He wanted to be with them while he could, in case whatever did this, returned. He wanted Victoryville and the world to unite, not segregate further.
He stood shakily and turned the TV off, unable to watch the footage any longer, unable to listen to that strange mechanical grinding noise any longer. He moved over to the minibar in his room, grabbing the first bottle his hands took hold of and tearing the cap off, guzzling the fiery liquid within, desperate to calm himself. Desperate to try and wash away the horrendous mistake he’d made.
*
Abbie stared at Josh as he paced her living room. As soon as he’d heard the news he’d knocked on her door. When she answered it, the two of them couldn’t help staring at the other’s stripes.
The Time of the Stripes Page 23