She realized she was breathing.
Normally.
Richard looked over at her. “Abbie?”
She stared wide-eyed at him. “I can breathe,” she whispered.
Richard gave her a puzzled look, his mind ticking over, then he scanned down his body. He suddenly sat up, hands patting himself down. “I’m . . . not injured,” he said, confused.
They heard Dr. Pellan groan, as he slowly pulled himself to sit up. He stared at the two of them for a moment, dazed, then frantically began to tear open his bloodied shirt and search his bare stomach wildly for signs of the bullets that had penetrated him moments earlier. He stared at Abbie and Richard, stunned.
“The bullets are gone,” he whispered.
The three of them looked around at their assailants. They didn’t move. Abbie rolled Austin’s dead weight off her with a grunt and stumbled shakily to her feet.
“What happened?” she asked, looking down at her torso still drenched in Austin’s blood. “What’s happened?”
Richard, too, got to his feet, surveying the carnage again. The mechanical buzzing sounded louder. The windows rattled a little.
Abbie took deep breaths. She was breathing with such ease. Her lungs had never felt this light before, so free.
“My lungs,” she said, as though thinking aloud. “I can breathe . . . they’re so clear.”
Richard helped Dr. Pellan to his feet.
“I was having an asthma attack,” she continued. “I should be dead. How can I suddenly breathe?”
Richard moved to her and took her gently by the shoulders. “Abbie, it’s alright,” he said softly, pulling her into a hug.
“I should be dead,” she said again into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his back. “Am I dreaming?”
Richard shook his head, moving her back at arm’s length. His green eyes gazed at her, just as concerned as hers were. “No. This isn’t a dream, Abbie. You’re alive. We’re all alive.”
“But they’re not.” She pointed to the three unmoving bodies. Richard released her and they just stared.
“They died before it happened . . .” Dr. Pellan said, astounded, looking at the bodies.
“Before what happened?” Abbie asked.
“It,” Pellan said, still a little dazed, a little shaken. “It must’ve happened again.”
Abbie and Richard stared at him.
“None of us could have survived this.” He indicated the bloodied kitchen, opened his shirt and examined his bullet-free torso. “We were dying, we should not have survived this.” He looked back to Richard and Abbie. “Something made us survive. Something took those bullets from me. Something healed us.”
“But I’m still here,” Abbie said. “They’re Striped Ones.” She pointed to Austin, Langdon and Trent. “They’re dead, so shouldn’t I be, too?”
Richard’s attention suddenly turned to the window. It looked dark out, like the sun had disappeared behind a bank of clouds. He peered out. “The mob across the road, they’re picking themselves off the grou—holy . . .” he said, eyes turning upward. “You need to take a look at this.”
Abbie and Dr. Pellan moved to the window and saw what Richard was looking at: the massive black ship hovering above their town.
“Oh my God . . .” she whispered. “They came back.”
Dr. Pellan nodded vaguely to himself, looking back at the bodies on the floor. “We killed them before it happened,” he said quietly. “We killed them. They were dead. This phenomenon, the aliens, whoever they are . . . they can heal, but they cannot resurrect the dead.”
Abbie, shaking, stared down at Trent and his bloodied back from her knife attack. “Josh?” she suddenly blurted. “Was he dead? Did he die?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. Pellan answered.
“What about Kaitlyn? Charlie?” she asked. “The soldiers were moving in!”
Richard looked back at her. “Let’s go find out!”
*
Stanley moved to stand behind Gavin’s chair. It had been a long twenty-four hours watching as the ship hovered over the town, powerless again to do anything.
But suddenly, the comms had come back online.
And the ship was still there . . .
“What is it?” he asked Gavin.
The technician motioned to a row of screens. “Data, sir,” he said. “A whole lot of data.”
“Like last time? What does that mean?”
“No, they uploaded a whole load of data to our systems. Like, huge! A massive amount of data.”
“But that’s what they did last time,” Stanley said, eyes fixed on the screens and the scrolling information.
“No, sir,” the technician said. “Last time they downloaded our information. They took from us. This time they’re uploading it. They’re giving to us.”
“Giving us what?” Stanley asked. “Viruses? Are they trying to take our systems down?”
“No.” The technician selected one of the packets of data and opened it. He read it for a moment. “Holy shit,” he whispered.
“What?” Stanley said.
The technician looked at him. “It’s in English.” He looked back at the screen. “And Chinese. And Spanish. And . . .”
“What is?”
“I don’t know. It looks like some kind of medical, scientific . . .”
“Beta cells . . .” Dr. Hogarth read aloud over their shoulder. At first sign of the ship reappearing twenty-four hours ago, Stanley had brought her back in. “Pancreas . . . insulin . . .” She glanced at them, then shouldered her way closer to the screen, scrolling down the data. The room sat silent while she scanned through it. Then she paused and stood back up. “This,” she looked at them, “looks like a medical file for someone with diabetes.”
The room stood silent as they stared at her.
“Diabetes?” Stanley screwed his face up.
“Open another data packet,” Rita ordered the technician. He did so and she immediately scanned through the file while the room remained silent. She stood up, a shocked look on her face, pointing to the screen. “This mentions electrical activity in the brain . . . this could be epilepsy.” She moved to the next file, then the next, then the next, before she stopped and turned around, wide-eyed, chest rising and falling with excitement. “Chromosomes,” she whispered to herself. “They’ve been studying us. I . . .” She looked at the screen, then back to them again. “I think these . . . I think these might be cures.”
*
Deputy Leo Cann stood at the door to the storeroom, listening. He was shaking a little. He knew it had happened again. The Occurrence. He’d woken up on the floor. The first thing he did was check to see that Kaitlyn and the children, now hiding in the roof space, were okay. As soon as he’d heard the gunfire earlier, he’d gotten off the chair and made them all climb into the ceiling space. Now that he checked on them, they were still there.
That’s what confused him.
Both he and the baby were Striped Ones. Kaitlyn and the boy were Clean Skins. And they were all still here. No one was missing.
And that’s when he noticed his head felt okay, his face no longer swollen, his ribs no longer hurting.
He clasped hold of the door handle, praying that Claire and Lena were alright; that the ship hadn’t taken them instead.
He heard voices and footsteps and looked up to the manhole in the roof. Kaitlyn peered down and he motioned for her to close the cover. She did, and he grasped hold of the old hammer he found tucked away at the back of a shelf. It would have to do.
Suddenly he felt the doorknob turning.
He stepped back and raised the hammer high, ready to hit Roy or whoever came through that door.
It burst open and there stood the chief, gun aiming in his direction.
“Earl?” he said, shocked.
“Leo!”
“What the hell is happening?”
“It happened again.”
<
br /> “I know. Where’s Roy?” Leo panted.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Where’re the other hostages?”
“Kaitlyn!” Leo whispered loudly up to the roof. Earl’s eyes followed his voice. “It’s okay! You can come down now.”
The hatch shifted and Kaitlyn peered down warily.
Earl glanced at Leo, then waved someone outside forward.
“Help them down,” he ordered the two soldiers who had moved into the room. Then he pulled out a second pistol from his belt and handed it to Leo. “You alright? Your face, it’s . . .”
“Healed,” Leo said taking the gun and giving him a nod of thanks. “You ready?”
Earl gave him a firm nod. “Yeah, let’s finish this.”
*
Richard walked cautiously down the street with Abbie and Dr. Pellan, their eyes fixed on the black ship that covered the sky above them; the wind was whipping around strongly, blowing Abbie’s long hair about her face. The mob across the road watched them, but didn’t try to attack or follow. They were too scared, eyes fixed on the massive ship hovering above the town.
Abbie stuck close to Richard’s side, her hand clinging onto his arm. He found it reassuring. The interzone gate was open and some of the soldiers stood in front of the hardware store, pacing around confused; some were still picking themselves up off the floor; some staring fixedly up into the sky. They, too, were scared. Confused. Stunned.
The mechanical noise coming from the ship suddenly increased in volume and they covered their ears and looked away, as the ground seemed to vibrate beneath their feet. When Richard opened his eyes again, the sunlight was upon him. He looked up into the sky, and it was gone . . . the ship had disappeared.
Just like that.
The three of them stood in the middle of the road staring at each other, staring at the empty sky overhead, but they were strangely calm. They weren’t afraid. The aliens hadn’t stolen anyone this time. Hadn’t killed anyone.
They had healed them.
They had saved their lives.
“Come on,” Richard said.
They turned the corner and moved to the parking area where the mob had originally gathered. Some were still there, but no Striped Ones screamed at them, or came charging at them. Everyone was confused and frightened by what had happened. Richard noted that their stripes seemed faded now, nowhere near the deep red color they’d once been. Abbie’s was lighter, too, he saw.
As they made their way carefully to where Josh, Peter and Karen’s bodies had been, Richard saw they were still lying where they’d fallen. They had died before the second Occurrence. Abbie raised her free hand to cover her mouth as tears fell down her cheeks, the confronting truth of Josh’s death hitting her. Richard pulled her into another hug, wanting to ease her pain.
He looked over Abbie’s crying frame to where Magnus and Roy were. Magnus sat in his wheelchair, staring at his shaking hands. The blotchy eczema that had once clung to his face was gone; the seven stripes that had once stained him were faded. Richard’s eyes grew hard, watching as Magnus slowly, shakily, stood from his wheelchair. Roy moved as if to catch him, but Magnus waved him away and began to take steps.
“Goddamn it, they healed us!” Roy exclaimed, hand held to his cheek. “My face ain’t twitching . . . my gut don’t hurt!”
Magnus took a few more steps, nodding to himself as he stretched his back. A huge smile broke over his face. “Well, I’ll be . . .”
Richard felt a an anger flame up in his belly and Abbie gave voice to his thoughts.
“How could you?” she yelled at Magnus, breaking free of Richard’s arms. “You killed these people! You don’t deserve to be healed!”
“Abbie!” Richard pulled her back to him.
“You’re murderers!” she yelled.
Magnus’ cold stony face turned to hers, as some of those still gathered began to drift away. Shocked and terrified, they were retreating to their homes.
“You said the aliens were going to come back,” she shouted. “Well, guess what? They did! And everything you did was for nothing, because they healed us! They weren’t trying to wipe us out, they were trying to heal us!”
“Screw you!” Roy said, stepping their way.
“No, screw you!” Dr. Pellan said, stepping forward. “No one’s missing this time. They didn’t attack us. They helped us!” He held his hands out, using them to accentuate his words and make them understand. “They were trying to help, that’s all!”
“Get out of my territory, before I kill you, Clean Skin!” Magnus growled.
“There are no territories any more,” Richard told him firmly. “We’ve all been healed. We’re all the same now. Equal. I guarantee you, within hours, those barriers will be down, and you’ll be thrown in jail for what you did. Both of you.” He shot Roy a venomous look.
Roy raised his gun and Richard tensed. However, Roy stopped short as a voice sounded behind him.
“I wouldn’t, Roy.” A bloodied Deputy Cann emerged from the warehouse with a gun pointed firmly at the hardware store owner. “I really wouldn’t!” Leo said, through clenched teeth.
Roy looked over his shoulder at the deputy, shocked to see him. “How’d you get out? Where’d you get that gun?”
The chief emerged behind the deputy, gun raised also. “I told you I wanted my deputy back, Roy.”
“Abbie?” they heard the shaky voice of Kaitlyn calling. She emerged from behind Deputy Cann, holding Charlie to her chest, the hand of Cassius in the other.
“Kaitlyn?” Abbie ran over to her, and the girl fell into Abbie’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably as she stared at the bodies of the Chalmer family on the ground.
Richard looked over at Magnus. “It’s over.”
“Get her!” Magnus barked at Roy, motioning to Kaitlyn. “We’ll do a deal!”
Abbie looked up horrified as Roy lunged and Richard shouted, “No!”
But Deputy Cann fired, hitting Roy in the thigh and dropping him to the ground. “Enough!”
Magnus moved for his chair, but the chief turned his weapon on him.
“Don’t move, Magnus,” he said firmly, giving him a hard stare. “Don’t move!”
Dr. Pellan quickly stepped forward and tore the gun from Roy’s hand. He stood back, facing what was left of the crowd. No one tried to fight them. Instead, the final few now turned and ran away.
Magnus darted a steely, clear-eyed stare from the deputy to the chief and back.
“Do you know who you’re messing with?” Magnus’ voice sounded strange without his phlegmy wheeze.
“Yeah,” the chief nodded, “a murderer who’s going away from a long, long time.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” Magnus’ eyes glinted with satisfaction.
“Yeah, you did,” Richard said. “You may not have pulled the trigger yourself, but you killed with your words of hate, and I will do my damnedest to make sure the penalty is the same.”
“As will I,” Dr. Pellan nodded.
“You?” Magnus questioned doubtfully, then turned to the chief. “These two are wanted by Homeland Security. They’re the ones you should be arresting.”
The chief flicked his eyes to them, but kept his gun on Magnus. “No, I think I got the ones I want right here.”
Richard gave Magnus a satisfied look.
The slight smile on Magnus’ face faltered a little.
“Miss Randell?” the chief called.
“Yeah?” she looked over at him.
“Go tell the soldiers out front that I have Magnus Bracks and Roy Kenny, leaders of the Victoryville massacre.”
Magnus snarled as Abbie moved away from Kaitlyn. She glanced down at Josh’s lifeless, beaten body. He was face down. He’d been shot in the back of the head.
“With pleasure,” she said, taking Cassius’ hand and leading the hostages away.
Afterward
Stanley Barrick sat on his couch sipping a
Scotch on the rocks. His feet were up on the coffee table, his tie loosened, his shirt untucked. He was in somewhat of a numb state, overtired from the craziest eleven days the world had ever seen—two days of blackout, and nine days of meltdown in between.
After the second blackout, the ship had disappeared again. Many believed that it had gone for good this time, that they had done what they had come to do. Others believed it was still out there somewhere, just waiting to descend once more. A whole realm of amateur astronomers were now searching the skies every day, waiting to catch another glimpse. The mechanical buzzing noise reported in the town seemed to have stopped, and the environmental readings seemed normal. However, NASA were continuing to scan the skies and measure the levels of mercury in the air. Watching. Waiting.
Quite honestly, although he’d been expecting it, he was still a little shocked by the second Occurrence and concerned for what this meant for their futures. They had mountains of data to review. It would take them months, maybe years, to go through it all, but early indications were that Rita Hogarth was right. The uploaded data pointed to potential cures for many of the illnesses that plagued mankind. Furthermore, it potentially explained the reason behind the disappearances of the healthy. It would seem that during the blackout of the first Occurrence, the visitors had downloaded our information and studied the healthy, the Striped Ones and the Clean Skins. Given what transpired during the second Occurrence, the theory that the healthy were used to fix those who remained seemed to make sense.
The healthy were, after all, still missing. The aliens had not returned them.
Stanley, like many in the world, wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The fact that these aliens had used the people of Victoryville like this. Yes, they had potentially provided the human race with cures that would save thousands, maybe millions, of lives, but were we supposed to be happy about it? The cost of those cures had been some other thousands of lives.
And for what price? That’s what Stanley worried about the most. Why would alien beings do the human race a favor? There had to be more to it. Wattowski’s theory, that the ship had selected Victoryville because it had been attracted to the high output of mercury in the area, was of interest. Clivecorp had been fined in the past for its high readings of the toxic substance. Analysts were claiming this direct link—the pollutant produced by Clivecorp and the pollutant produced by the ship—could be the driver for their visit, suggesting the “visitors” could want our mercury, and the cures were perhaps some form of prepayment for that.
The Time of the Stripes Page 36