by Kris Ashton
Derek made a three-sixty-degree study of the street, just in case they had missed someone (literally), and then got out of the car. Hank followed soon after. They both walked around to inspect the front bumper and grille. The solid steel had some dings and dents but no major damage.
“Where’s all the blood?” Hank said.
“There is some blood,” Derek answered, pointing to a smear on the edge of the bonnet and a general splattering across the bumper bar.
“We just ran over six people three or four times. The human body contains five quarts of blood. What’s here—a couple of fluid ounces?”
Derek had to agree. The sharper edges had dug out pieces of flesh and quite a bit of hair, but next to no blood. “Well, what fucking difference does it make as long as the car still runs okay? Let’s get the hell out of here before more of them turn up.”
They hurried over to Deputy Benson’s car, giving the mangled bodies—some of them still twitching—a generous berth. That twitching reminded Derek of an animal in its final death throes…or perhaps a malfunctioning robot.
By some wonder of luck the keys Grayson had given them did indeed open the car they were supposed to open, and the car in question started with a single twist of the ignition. Derek backed the cruiser out of the drive and weaved around the bodies in the street until he came alongside Barkley. Hank wound down his window. Barkley did not turn to face them.
“Hey, Barkley!” Derek yelled to be heard through the glass. “Barkley!”
With some effort Barkley turned his head on what appeared to be a rusty neck. He blinked his reddened eyes several times and then rolled down his own window.
“You gonna be all right, man?” Derek said.
Barkley seemed to give this question deep consideration. He nodded.
“You did well,” Hank said.
“Yeah, you did,” Derek echoed.
While he did not smile, Barkley’s face brightened a shade or two.
Derek took the CB radio mike off the rack and held it up so Barkley could see it. “I reckon we should call in every half an hour, just so we know everything’s A-OK. That way the sheriff will know where we’re at, as well.”
Barkley nodded.
“Good luck, man.”
“You, too,” Barkley said.
Derek pressed the accelerator and waited until they were a few car lengths back before he said, “Shit, I hope that cat holds it together.”
He indicated left and as he slowed to the intersection Hank said, “Do you mind if we make another small side trip?”
“A side trip to where?”
“Actually, it’s more of a back-track than a side trip. I’d like to see if Denise is…well, still one of us. Don’t worry about it if you think it’ll get you in dutch with Sheriff Grayson.”
“Fuck Sheriff Grayson—I’m helping him because it’s the right thing to do, not because he’s my new ‘boss’. Point the way, man.”
Hank directed him back to Featherstone Avenue. Neither man discussed the scenery they passed on the way.
“Drive right up to the door,” Hank said.
Derek steered the car off the driveway and onto the grass to create the shortest possible passage between the cruiser and the front door. He handed Hank the service revolver. “Be careful,” he said.
“I will. Thanks.”
For the love of God, Derek thought, don’t hesitate to fire.
Hank tugged on the handle, opening the door to its first catch. He made a prairie dog inspection of his surroundings and then pushed the door fully ajar. He skipped up to the house and took a set of keys from his pocket. He let himself in and closed the door behind him.
Derek kept sentry, wishing his forehead had a ring of eyes instead of the standard-issue two. He switched between his rearview mirrors and Hank’s front door every three seconds or so. With each look back he expected to see hordes of women converging, as stealthy as death adders moving through a drift of leaves.
A minute passed, then two, then three.
“Come on, Hank,” Derek said.
When five minutes had elapsed, true worry took root in his heart. How long did it take to search a single-story house? Ten seconds per room, times ten rooms…one hundred seconds. Less than two minutes for sure. True, no gunshots had been fired, but what if Denise had taken her husband by surprise? Sprung out of a closet, eyes dead but full of purpose, and cold-cocked him with a rolling pin or jabbed him with an egg?
Derek squirmed in his seat. “One more minute,” he said.
One more minute and then what? Hightail it out of there and leave his new friend to whatever grisly fate had befallen him?
To do otherwise, to go in there unarmed and try to play hero, would be an upstanding case of insanity.
Please, don’t let it come to that.
The front door opened…and then nothing. Derek’s heart stood at the entrance to his mouth and pulsed, sending blasts of adrenaline through his limbs.
Something emerged from the shadowy hall.
Hank carried armloads of fresh vegetables, tinned foods and even a few cans of beer. He grinned in spite of the situation and peered around his load so as to pick his way safely down the front steps.
Derek fell back in his seat, gasping. His armpits had grown moist and not just with the car’s trapped heat.
“Open the trunk,” Hank said.
Derek took the keys from the ignition and opened the cruiser’s cavernous boot. Even with a spare tire and all kinds of police equipment, it could comfortably sleep an adult—were said adult bereft of more agreeable sleeping quarters.
“Jesus, Hank,” he said, falling against the rear panel. “You gave me a fucking heart attack. I thought you were never coming out.”
“Take this,” Hank said, the gun dangling from his finger by its trigger guard. “I couldn’t see the point in letting this food go to waste.” He started to pack it into the boot. “Then I dropped the lot as I was trying to open the front door. Sorry if I gave you a fright.”
“A fright? I’ll be lucky if I don’t get gray hairs.”
Hank chuckled. “Sorry.”
“So you didn’t find…”
“No.”
Derek shut his eyes and drew a deep, cleansing breath. He felt bad for Hank and that added another sandbag to his own burden of woe. When he opened his eyes again someone was approaching them from the neighboring yard.
“Hank!” he screamed. He leveled the gun and his finger quivered on the trigger, a single brain signal from squeeze and discharge.
Hank’s hand slapped down on Derek’s forearms and had the gun gone off it would have fired its deadly payload into the lawn.
“It’s a kid,” Derek said, as if he had never seen one before. The child had an unkempt mop of hair—Beatle hair it might have been called a couple of years earlier. Above his freckled nose he had two brown eyes filled to bursting with fear and confusion.
“Mr Woods?” the kid said. “Have you seen my mom and dad?”
“I’m sorry, Stan, I haven’t,” Hank said. “Are you okay? Are you hungry or anything?”
Stan shook his head, his tangled curls dusting his forehead. “Do you know what’s going on? Do you know where everyone is?”
“Something bad is going down here, kid,” Derek said.
Stan shot him a mistrustful glance and looked back at Hank, whom he obviously believed to be a more reliable source.
“Mr Brolin’s right, Stan. Something bad is going down here, but I think you already know that, don’t you?”
Stan nodded, his fragile composure threatening to break up.
“When was the last time you saw your parents?”
“Dad was up watching the news last night, but he didn’t look well, you know? And Mom had been in bed all weekend. When I got up this morning, they were gone. I’ve been searching for them all day but no one will help me.”
Hank licked his lips. “Who else have you seen today?”
“I tried to speak to Mr
Wickerman,” Stan said, pointing to a house across the road, “but he was like Mom. It was almost like he didn’t know who I was or something. He seemed in a real hurry to get somewhere. And I saw Mrs Cuddy and she had somewhere to go as well, but she gave me this—she said it might help.”
Stan reached into his pocket and pulled out an egg.
“Whoa, Jesus!” Derek said, taking a defensive backward step. His legs banged up against the cruiser’s bumper. “Jesus, kid!”
“Throw it away, Stan,” Hank said. “Throw it in the bushes there where no one can find it.”
Stan looked reluctant to do so. “But Mrs Cuddy said it would help track down my mom and dad.”
“She lied,” Hank said, taking a cautious step forward and raising his hand up as if to steady the situation. “That’s one of the things that’s making the people in this town sick. You need to get rid of it right away.”
“It’s not making me sick.”
“No, I can see that. None of the kids are sick. For some reason these eggs or whatever they are only hurt grown-ups. We want to help you, but we can’t have you carrying that thing around with you. Okay?”
Stan held up the egg, as if willing it to perform its promised magic, and then threw it into the hedge that divided Hank’s house from his neighbor’s.
“I’m sorry, Stan,” Hank said. “We’ve all had a bad time of it for the past couple of days. But we’re working with Sheriff Grayson to try and fix whatever the problem is.”
The boy’s eyes shined at the name of the law. “You are?”
“That’s right,” Derek said. “We’re fully commissioned deputies. We’ve got the gun and the badge and everything.”
“You want to ride in a police car?” Hank said, giving the trunk a mock polish with his elbow.
“Sure!”
Hank opened the back door for their new passenger and he slid across into the center of the wide seat, his excitement for the moment superseding his worry. Derek wished he was still young enough to put his life in the hands of others with such unquestioning faith.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to take him with us, man?” Derek said over the roof of the car. “We don’t know what we’re going to be up against.”
“Seems to me we don’t have a choice. We can’t just leave him here.”
Are we going to pick up every kid we come across? Derek thought. But Hank appeared to have some sort of history with the boy, so he dropped it.
They climbed into the cruiser and headed for the western end of the county.
With its towering doorway, intricate plate-glass windows and imposing likeness of a crucified Jesus set above the altar, Father Bronson’s church had always carried itself with an aloof dignity and majesty; the antithesis of the softer, simpler buildings sprouting up around the country. When you came to Father Bronson’s church, you came to worship. But today it struggled to maintain its superior air as children chased one another down the aisle and climbed around on the robust, upright pews as though they were jungle gym equipment. Its acoustic architecture, which usually conducted hymns or Father Bronson’s propounding voice, now resounded with the shrill raucousness of young chatter and laughter.
Upon finding Father Bronson unchanged and mentally competent with several children in his care, Bert had spent the better part of his day ferrying children to the shelter of the church. Some of the older kids—none looked more than ten or eleven—refused his offer of refuge and guardianship. But more than sixty, or twelve trips’ worth, had been happy or even grateful to go with him. He had also broken into a couple of stores and acquired a trunk full of provisions, which were now stacked up against a wall in Father Bronson’s private residence. The fuel gauge on Barkley’s car pointed to just over a quarter. Enough to get him to his meeting with Richard and back to Fletch’s gas station…if Fletch still played for their team.
“When I’ve gone, don’t open this door for anyone,” Bert said. “As soon as I’ve learned as much as the feds want to tell me, I’ll see about collecting up some more kids.” He twirled his hat in his hands. “If I ever needed proof of God, I guess finding you today would more than do.”
Father Bronson smiled. “Acts of God are rarely in the places we look for them, Sheriff Grayson. And it would be a poor thing if my preservation were deemed a miracle.”
“Well, it’s a miracle to me,” Bert said. He looked at his watch. “I have to go now, Father. I’ll get back here as soon as I can. Good luck.”
Father Bronson observed the rabble of children overgrowing his church. “It’s not so different to Sunday School,” he said with a wink.
Now that he had collected up the kids, Bert felt less useless, less like a butterfly impaled on fate’s pinboard. He drove onto Main Street buoyed by something approaching hope—not quite the real thing, but a convincing imitation nonetheless. He worked up a healthy anger at the eggs speckling the bitumen and littering the footpaths; he wanted to get a god-sized broom and sweep his town clean.
He passed the reactor’s access road and wondered how many employees—if any—had arrived at its gates that morning and turned away puzzled. Probably not many, if the rest of Bald Eagle was a guide.
As the reactor’s towers shrank in his mirrors, a new scene expanded in the windshield, big and ugly. His cruiser had been parked across both lanes as instructed. Its flashers cast a blue lighthouse beam across a large black van and two jeeps that had formed a second roadblock beyond the original. Marcus Barkley stood shielded behind the driver’s side door of the cruiser, his gun pointed at three men in dark suits. The men in the dark suits (one of whom went by the name Richard Warland) had their superior government-issue handguns drawn and their sights trained on Barkley’s ginger coconut of a head. Richard shouted something and Barkley shouted something back.
Bert drove up close and stepped out. Barkley turned around to see who had arrived and Bert half expected the civvy’s head to be blown off its neck.
“Drop your weapon now!” Richard screamed.
“Thank God you’re here, Sheriff!” Barkley said. “Tell these dumb sons of bitches that I’m—”
“It’s all right, Richard, he’s with me,” Bert said. “Barkley, put that goddamned gun away before you end up dead.”
“This asshole is really with you?” Richard said. “I thought he had stolen your car and your badge.”
“Don’t you call me an asshole! If there’s an asshole around here, it’s y—”
“Everyone just put their guns away,” Bert said, raising his foghorn voice. He snatched Barkley’s gun from his shaky hand, clicked the safety on, and gave it back to him. Upon seeing this, Richard and his cohorts opened their jackets and replaced their weapons in their shoulder holsters.
Bert and Richard met between the two roadblock walls and shook hands. “If you’ve got this pansy holding the fort here, who’s at the other end?”
“Trust me, Richard, you don’t want to know. Now, how about you tell me what the hell is going on?”
“We should talk alone. Come back to the van with me.” Richard looked at Barkley and then to the shaded, unsmiling faces of his operatives. “You kids play nice, now.”
“This concerns me, too,” Barkley said. “Why don’t I get to sit in on the, uh, briefing?”
“Briefing,” Richard repeated, glancing at Bert and then turning his back.
“Don’t worry, Barkley, you’ll get your briefing,” Bert said. “If you need to know it, I’ll be sure to tell you. But this is a matter of national security and if you find out things you shouldn’t know…well.”
Bert held up his hands and shrugged, letting Barkley read into the gesture anything he wanted. Whatever he did read into it cooled his eagerness to be included. His face fell and he held onto the cruiser door as if for comfort. “Okay,” he said.
Bert followed Richard back to the van. It was much longer and wider than any van available on the open market, a huge steel bear of custom-built engineering. Richard slid back the door and i
nvited Bert to step in.
One side of the interior had been kitted out with surveillance equipment—two television monitors, two sets of headphones and an array of gadgetry Bert had neither seen nor ever imagined. The opposing wall supported an armory of automatic weapons, everything from Baretta handguns up to the M-16s the GIs were using over in ’Nam. A bazooka stood in the far corner like some sort of destructive drainpipe.
Richard dragged the door shut and a fluorescent light blinked into life above their heads. “Take a seat,” he said, pointing to one of two chairs.
Bert sat down, glad as hell the government agent in his company also happened to be an old friend. “So… ADETI,” he said.
Richard sat as well, but he looked jumpy, ready to spring out of his seat at any moment. “It stands for Agency for Defense Against Extra-Terrestrial Invasion. Look, it’s probably best if you tell me how much you know and then I can fill in the gaps. If I know how.”
Those final four words brought back Bert’s sense of helplessness. All at once he wanted to yell at Richard, to tell him the people in charge were supposed to know what was going on and have the answers. But instead of vitriol, when he opened his mouth a tale of his wretched week spilled out. He talked for almost twenty minutes, leaving nothing out—not even the shameful situation his daughter had been in before Bald Eagle fell to pieces. He finished with a dry throat and his hands locked in a death grip to keep them from trembling.
“Gosh, Bert, I wish I had some good news for you, but it’s only going to get worse—I think you need to brace yourself for that.”
“How can it possibly get worse?”
Richard declined to answer that. He settled back in his seat and sighed. “Here’s what we know. You’re not far wrong in calling those silver things eggs. They don’t really correspond with anything we have here on earth, but they’re closest to spores, I guess. This Brolin character was telling the truth—the spore or egg would have come down like a meteor. We don’t know where they come from exactly, but we do know they come from outer space.”
Bert felt drunk. “Outer space?”