intelligence to put us in the right direction. When Doctor Barton was found, he was sent to us first as a patient. Then after months of study and research, we changed in him things that make him…him. He belonged to us then. We controlled him, if you will. We were selfish in our removal of his identity, of course. But it served a purpose. He needed to be more like us, to be able to union with us. We had to help him forget about other instincts he might have—instincts that might help him serve his own intentions.”
Whitmere smiled softly. “We can’t have someone walking in our midst that may be planning on killing us, now can we?”
Darryl blurted out quickly. “Are you serious? Do you have any idea what you just said?”
Whitmere motioned with his hand for Darryl to calm. “It is for your own good that you know what we are up against. It is for your safety. You are otherwise fine.”
Darryl’s mind was racing. Panic had set in quickly. Fear was beginning to paralyze his rationalization. He began missing the small movements Whitmere was making with his hands. “That’s what happened to Adelle! He’ll come for me too!”
“Darryl, calm down.”
“How do you think I’ll be able to?” Darryl was frantically running his fingers across his face and head. “You have a doctor here that has no right to be here. No right to touch us, to be involved in anything!”
“His involvement has led us to be able to save you as we have. Up until now, it was his actions that we’ve relied on. We could not have made it this far without him, to be honest. It’s just unfortunate how things will have to play out now.”
Darryl held a look filled with terror. His body trembled harder. He felt nauseous. His words stumbled into one another. “I want to leave. I can’t stay. Let me out of here. I want to go home.”
Darryl swung his legs over the side of the bed, preparing to stand. The sting against his neck stopped him. He turned, seeing the doctor put something into his pocket. Then he was falling backwards. With his mind spinning and a tingling sensation rushing through his system, Darryl saw Adelle reaching out to him. She was screaming, just as scared as he was now.
She knew.
“It’s for your own good,” Whitmere said.
The doctor swung Darryl’s legs around and helped him into bed. “I will place a guard outside your door at all times. You’ll be fine. Doctor Barton will be found then we can all get back to doing what it is that we are here for.”
The sedative was taking root quickly in Darryl. He was too dizzy to see now. “What is it exactly that you’re…” he trailed off, falling asleep.
Whitmere left the room.
E L E V E N
Darryl dreamt of Doctor Barton. The dream was cast in shadows and chilled with something evil lurking in them. Suddenly Barton appeared. The doctor had taken him under his care, trying to assure that everything would be alright. But even in his dream, Darryl knew better. He fought to escape, but couldn’t move. He was trapped.
He stood then, watching his body begin to change. Barton stood next to him; his smile just as cruel as the cold in his eyes.
Darryl awoke screaming. Looking around, his voice dying into a mere whimper, he scanned the darkness with expectance to find someone. But he was alone; haunted now by only the present. He sat in the deafening silence trying to regain his composure, failing miserably. He couldn’t shake the spinning in his stomach and his head hurt in more ways than one.
Alien.
He could hear Whitmere retelling him over and over. The sound in the doctor’s voice and the calm look in his eyes seemed all too relaxed. Too unaffected, Darryl thought. Too comfortable with doing something wrong.
Panic came in chills, freezing any reasoning that kept Darryl from thinking clearly. It kept him shivering in his bed too scared to move, too scared to trust.
Nervously, he jumped out of bed and raced to the door. It was locked. He stared out into the dark hall. Empty. Quiet. But the panic would not settle. With his fists balled into hammers, he beat against the door.
Angry, he began to scream for someone to come to him. The hall remained desolate. Finally, exhaustion overcame him. His throat was sore, his chest ached, and he began to feel dizzy from the failed efforts. No one was coming.
Darryl staggered back to his bed. His head hung low, his eyes barely open, his sight spun the dark images in the room, twisting their shapes, swirling everything into a black smudge. He slumped into bed, both hands covering his ears. He didn’t understand why no one was there. Before leaving him, Whitmere said there would be a guard outside his door at all times. But he saw for himself that no one was there. The hall was empty.
It occurred to him then why it might be so.
Fighting off the dizzy spell intruding, he turned quickly in his bed. A tall form was moving through the dark; the door behind was closing. The blur was coming fast. Darryl sat upright and yelled; his voice crackled from the strain and he barely made a sound.
“Don’t say a word.” the voice whispered harshly in the dark.
Darryl’s heart pounded like it was going to explode, racing like he was going to choke from it. He turned his head up searching for a face buried in shadow. But he already knew who it was.
“Get away from me!”
“I need you.” Barton whispered back.
Darryl shrank. He hadn’t the strength to fight him. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t.”
“You will.”
Darryl wanted to cry. The tone in the other’s voice was kept carefully low, but stern nonetheless. He wasn’t giving Darryl the option of staying.
“I know what you are.” Darryl’s voice cracked.
“I am just like you, being held against my will, only wanting to go home.”
“Then go.”
Darryl was suddenly afraid he had spoken unwisely. He saw anger in those dark eyes now.
“I’m afraid there’s work to do first. Rise. Now!”
“If you want to kill me, you’ll have to do it right here.”
Barton put his face inches away from Darryl’s. “Kill you? I want to fix you. I want to make you right. Come with me. Let me help you.”
Darryl pushed himself back. “Is that how you took Adelle? By telling her lies?”
“Ask her for yourself.” Barton’s smile was lost in the shadows. “She’s remembering everything. You want to sit and talk with her, share stories, memories perhaps? You do want to remember, don’t you? Come with me, and I can give you what you want.”
“You don’t want to help me,” Darryl spit back.
Barton’s tone was icy. “I want you to help me. In the process, I can help you see things…better.”
“Stay away from me.”
Barton stepped back, disappearing into the darkness. “If you don’t come with me now, you will never see her again. I promise you that.”
Darryl inched his way forward, trying to find the other. He was quiet for a moment. It was a risk, probably a lie to get him. But what if Adelle was in trouble? What if this was the only way to save her?
“What are you going to do with her?”
“The choice is hers.”
A light turned on from somewhere in the hall, breaking their conversation. Barton growled. Darryl saw it as his chance to escape. But as he began to yell, a strong hand covered his mouth, pinning his head onto the bed, smothering any sound he could release.
“You don’t want to do that,” Barton said quietly.
Darryl felt a sting against his arm. A second later Barton bolted off of him and disappeared into the dark. Darryl sat upright. The door was closing again. The room was empty. He stared at the door’s window, waiting for help to arrive. His throat was too sore to scream.
Then the light in the hall disappeared. Barton had killed whoever it was out there, he thought grimly.
Suddenly Darryl felt strange. He began shaking. His heartbeat turned irregular and his temperature dropped. Darryl grabbed his chest in pain, feeling it spread throughou
t his body quickly. Something was wrong.
Alien!
All he could think about was his dream. It had come true. As the pain grew to unbearable heights, Darryl began to black out. The last thing he saw before the darkness overcame him was a man standing over him with a smile.
The dream came instantly. It was the same house, same time of night, same anguish. He heard her sobbing from the other room. As he moved past the broken picture frames and tattered clothing, stepping into the wrecked bedroom where the destruction was even worse, he saw her. Sitting on the floor with her hands in her face, her tears falling into her jeans in large wet splotches, the woman sat crying. He stared at her for a few seconds, but said nothing. He was hot and angry. He knew he had to leave, had to run out and leave the mess that he had created.
He walked out then, stubborn, not looking back, wanting everything to come to an end. Even when her sobbing rose again, her words filled with a desperate plea to return, he hardened his heart past that sliver of want that they shared.
Don’t go back. You can’t go back.
Darryl stood now on the porch, walking fast to his car. His anger, his collapse of who he was, didn’t allow him to feel the wind at his face, to feel that warm comfort he usually enjoyed. He was crying too; because it was over; because it had to be. Because he couldn’t look back and love her like he had promised—like she needed.
Darryl jerked open the door to his car and rushed in, starting it right away, roaring the engine for a few seconds, enjoying the violent scream it made, before looking to the house one last time.
There she stood, alone on the
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