Strangers in the Night

by Flex, Raymond S

  As if somebody had cracked open his skull and wrapped his brain in cotton wool.

  Mitts glanced about him.

  The steel bars.

  The letterbox-sized window beyond, and high up on the wall.

  He was back here.

  Back in the prison cell.

  As he eased himself upright once more, Mitts felt a slight twitch of pain in his side, from that gunshot wound. But he forced himself up straight. To sit on the edge of the bunk. When the soles of his feet touched the cold floor tiles, he realised that he had no shoes, or socks.

  He glanced about his cell, and saw that—indeed—there were no shoes in his cell, either.

  He thought back to what Luca had said, about Samantha being worried about the new arrivals going crazy and killing themselves.

  Did they think he might attempt to hang himself with his shoelaces?

  Now that Mitts took in the cell for a second time—now that he seemed to have his senses together a little better than last time—he noted how he was lying on not much more than a concrete block.

  A flimsy mattress laid flat over the surface.

  Only a brown, washed-out blanket to keep him from the cold.

  He felt his temples pulsing.

  He reached up and massaged the afflicted spots with his fingertips. It was what he would do whenever he woke up feeling a migraine coming on . . . usually the result of some strange dream.

  Like the one he had just had.

  Rays of sunlight gleamed in through the window. As if to torment him, the scent of cooking chicken wafted into his cell.

  Even the hint of the buttery water they boiled the meat in brought the juices rising in his mouth. He could hardly bear to sit still.

  So he rose.

  Up to his feet.

  And he stood at the bars, peering out, as if he might be able to see something—anything—at all.

  But he was alone here.

  Only the objective, uncaring concrete surrounding him.

  He reached out and wrapped his fingers about the bars, trying to work out just what had happened. Why he had been brought here. Why that group of armed men, led by Samantha, had stormed Luca’s house.

  Samantha had given him the run of the Village, hadn’t she?

  She’d said that he ‘wouldn’t get far’ if he tried to escape.

  So why had the reaction been so extreme, so brutish?

  He reached up and felt the back of his head. He found the spot where one of the men had beat him with the grip of his gun. There was a welt forming there. Just brushing his fingers over the surface sent a shudder of pain through his stomach.

  So he stopped.

  They had knocked him to the floor.

  While he’d lain there, sprawled out, helpless, someone had wrestled him from behind; smothered a damp cloth over his mouth and nostrils.

  The smell had reminded him of disinfectant, but it had been stronger.

  Much stronger.

  It had seized hold of his mind, turned it around and around until it surrendered to darkness.

  And to dreams.

  The latch on the door jerked.

  Its mechanism emitted a fingernail-curling scrape.

  Mitts breathed in deep—down to his lungs.

  He expected to see Samantha appear there, in the doorway, but she did not.

  Neither was it the muscled man.

  Or—as Mitts had hoped—Luca.

  It was someone else.

  Someone Mitts hadn’t seen before.

  Mitts took the man in.

  He was quite short.

  Stocky.

  Tanned skin.

  Like everyone else in the Village, he wore a dark-green tank top, black jeans.

  But this man’s clothes were in better shape than most.

  His boots were shined up.

  He had a sidearm holstered at his belt.

  Unlike the muscled man, who had used the waistband of his jeans to stow his gun, this man had a nice, crisp leather holster for his weapon.

  The clasp, which kept the weapon secure in the holster, had been left undone.

  Mitts didn’t believe this was a mistake.

  As the man approached the bars, the door—seemingly of itself—slammed shut behind him.

  The man padded toward Mitts, his boots creaking as he went.

  He snorted up some phlegm and spat it out.

  A blob of spit splattered the floor.

  Mitts felt a little of its wet spray against the tops of his bare feet.

  As the man stood before him, only a few centimetres dividing the tips of their noses, Mitts breathed in the scent of musk, and of cologne.

  He supposed this man took pride in being masculine.

  “Dag,” the man spat.

  The man—Dag’s—glare was intense.

  Mitts was so taken off guard he almost missed the outstretched hand sticking through the bars.

  He took hold of Dag’s hand.

  Dag gave him a brutal shake.

  At first, Mitts tried not to show discomfort.

  Pain.

  But, in the end, he realised that he wouldn’t be let loose until he’d shown weakness.

  Submission.

  Mitts flinched.

  Dag smirked, then released Mitts’s hand.

  He turned his back to Mitts and glanced up, casually, to the window above. “Not much of a view, huh?”

  Massaging his afflicted hand, Mitts replied, “No, not really.”

  Dag kept his back to Mitts.

  It seemed as if Dag was creating some sort of mental itinerary of the holding area. As if he was worried Mitts might make off with something and he wanted to be able to call him to account.

  Finally, pursing his lips, Dag turned around.

  In the sunlight, Mitts finally got a good look at Dag’s hair, at the tone of it.

  A greenish-brown colour which, in the right light, might’ve been called bronze.

  Or sewage.

  “Listen up, okay,” Dag said, “I ain’t gonna bullshit you.”

  Mitts felt Dag’s intense eyes on his own.

  Dag was several centimetres shorter than he was. But several years older.

  Perhaps a few years into his thirties.

  He guessed, like a lot of short men, Dag had made a pledge to himself that he wouldn’t allow his height to affect him.

  He had little doubt that, if he tried anything, he would find himself pinned to the floor in a matter of seconds.

  That gun pressed to his temple.

  Dag swabbed his tongue about his mouth, picked out something inside his cheek, wadded it into a neat ball of spit and gobbed it out behind him.

  At least this time he was polite enough to turn his head when he spat . . .

  Mitts stared at the revolting speck of spit on the concrete floor, and then he forced himself to look back at Dag.

  “Now,” Dag continued, “we went on up to the Research Centre, got the orders that you were holed up there for a good time.” He paused, stared into Mitts’s eye, point blank. “Correct?”

  Mitts nodded.

  Dag stared him down.

  Mitts realised, for someone like Dag, a nod wasn’t an acceptable response.

  In the end, Mitts croaked out a weak, “Yes.”

  Dag went on. “We reached the Research Centre at approximately twelve-hundred hours, and proceeded to scout the perimeter.” He glanced at Mitts for a second. “Previously, when we had gone to inspect the Research Centre, we did not know what other kinds of security measures there might be at such a location. So we took the decision to place a DND.”

  “A ‘DND’?” Mitts couldn’t help breaking in.

  Dag smirked a touch, then gave a slight shake of his head.

  He turned his attention downward.

  To the tip of his boot.

  To a scuff mark.

  “ ‘Do Not Disturb’,” Dag eventually stated.

  Dag stayed quiet for a long few moments, again fixated by th
e scuff mark on the toe of his boot.

  His smile grew wider, and then, all at once, he snapped his neck upward.

  Caught Mitts in his glare.

  He thrust his arm through the bars.

  Seizing Mitts by the throat.

  * * *

  Mitts felt the air slowly being choked out of him.

  He felt his chest tighten—his lungs tingling.

  His heart seemed to beat slower, as if swelling up.

  His vision blurred Dag’s features:

  His snub nose.

  The thin layer of perspiration which clung to his forehead.

  Dag squeezed tighter still.

  Mitts could feel consciousness leaving him.

  Darkness loomed at the fringes of his vision.

  All of the visions, all of those dreams, all of them sitting right on the periphery of his consciousness.

  Just . . . one more . . . little squeeze . . . that was all . . . all it would . . . take.

  Without warning, Dag released him.

  Mitts dropped to the concrete ground.

  He landed with a thump on his tailbone.

  He felt pain reverberate up his back.

  As he sat on the floor of the cell, he watched Dag pace about before him, fists clenched down at his thighs. His fingers kneaded the heels of his hands.

  Mitts couldn’t help but feel he wasn’t the one trapped here.

  Dag finally ended his pacing.

  He strode back up to the bars.

  Gripped them tight in his fists.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Mitts swallowed.

  Pain flashed through his throat.

  “Tell you what?”

  “About the creatures,” Dag shot back. “The Strangers.”

  Mitts’s mind swirled.

  The way Dag said it—the way he spoke of them—he could feel the fear.

  It had been a long time since he had heard fear in someone’s voice.

  Not since he had left home, seven years ago.

  Heard his parents’ panicked voices.

  Dag turned his back on Mitts again. “Our nemesis, the reason why we’ve ended up like this, strangers in our own home.”

  “ ‘Strangers’, how?” Mitts replied.

  Dag remained silent for a long while.

  He gazed upward, to the window, once more.

  He squinted as he stared into the direct sunlight.

  Mitts caught the impression that he was waiting to see who would be the first to flinch:

  Himself, or the sun.

  Dag shook his head, then threw up a hand.

  It wasn’t an act of aggression, though.

  More of surrender.

  “Aliens,” Dag continued, “beings from another dimension, whatever the hell you want to call them . . . the point is that they’re here, and that things changed . . . everything changed when they showed up.”

  Mitts felt his mind sharpen.

  He could feel the strength returning to his body.

  His blood seemed to flow with adrenalin now.

  He thought of all the questions he had wanted to ask his parents. About why they’d had to leave their home. About precisely what had happened.

  His parents would evade his questions. He had thought it was because there was some deeply disturbing truth that shouldn’t bother a child’s mind.

  Now, though, he knew why.

  They hadn’t known.

  Like everyone else, they had seen the news reports.

  Panic.

  Everywhere.

  Doctor Heinmein had offered them shelter.

  Told them he could save them.

  That he could save Mitts.

  And so they had gone with him.

  What other explanations had they required?

  “Come on,” Dag said, his voice a little more insistent now, “we’ve been up there, to the Research Centre, we’ve seen the creature in the Autopsy room, near where you snuffed that scientist, doctor guy. You had to have seen the creature.” Dag pressed his lips together so hard that all the blood left them, and they turned a faint shade of blue. “Stop lying to us.”

  “I . . . I . . .” Mitts replied, “I know nothing about them—nothing at all. Only what they look like. I saw one, once. We left our home before I knew anything, before my parents knew anything.”

  Dag tilted his head to one side. “And that doctor, he didn’t tell you anything?”

  Mitts shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I swear that’s the truth.”

  Dag continued to stare hard into Mitts’s eyes for several seconds.

  Mitts saw something—a vein?—twitch in Dag’s eye.

  It was almost like watching a thought fire through his brain; the track changing.

  Dag continued, “And I bet that chewed you up, huh? Him not filling you in on anything?”

  “What?” Mitts said, feeling a touch confused at the turn in the conversation.

  Dag smiled slightly. “Yeah, I bet it did, and you couldn’t stand it, him not telling you what was going on with the wider world—we saw his studies, those studies on your family; some really sick shit.”

  Mitts felt his heart sink in his chest.

  He didn’t want to hear any of this.

  He didn’t want to hear any of this stuff about his family.

  And, much less, he didn’t want to hear anything at all about Heinmein.

  Not for as long as he lived.

  “That’s the problem with scientists,” Dag went on, “turn the whole fucking world into some great big science project.”

  Mitts give his silent agreement.

  Dag shook his head and stared down at the concrete.

  He was quiet for a long time.

  “Wanna know my theory?” Dag said.

  Mitts said nothing.

  The question was rhetorical.

  Dag smirked, half of his mouth rising up his cheek. “I reckon you just lost it totally—flew off the handle.” He glanced back at Mitts. “You know that doctor of yours, that scientist guy? He kept a journal.”

  Mitts shook his head.

  “Yeah, he did,” Dag went on, “pretty thorough one too, and—my, oh my—did he ever have a whole bunch of bile to spill about you; about your brattish behaviour, your stealing those books from that room.”

  Mitts wanted to protest.

  He wanted to defend himself.

  But, at the same time, he realised how futile it would be to do so.

  Dag continued, “Don’t think that we don’t realise everything went tits up on your eighteenth birthday.” He glanced in through the bars, grinned at Mitts. “Happy belated fucking birthday, by the way.”

  Mitts gritted his teeth.

  He glared out from between the bars.

  “No,” Dag went on, “my theory is that you caught yourself a touch of cabin fever, and that was all it took for you to go crazy, tumble the place the hell over. Kill that doctor, that scientist, your family too.”

  This time, Mitts couldn’t resist.

  He felt heat rising up in his cheeks.

  Before thinking, he rushed upward, and toward the bars.

  He made a grab for Dag.

  But Dag was too quick for him.

  With a swift couple of steps backward, he was away from the bars.

  He pulled his sidearm up and out of its holster.

  Pointed it at Mitts’s forehead.

  As Mitts looked beyond the tiny black hole of the pistol, he saw that Dag was smiling widely.

  He was grinning, as if this was just some sort of entertainment.

  Dag held the gun on Mitts for another few seconds, before—still grinning all over—he holstered it. He reached up to his chin, and rubbed his fingers through the days’ old muzzle of stubble. “Don’t you worry about it, though. We can always use a couple of crazies . . . make pretty effective security men in days like these.”

  With a fat-lipped smile, Dag s
hook his head and trudged out the door.

  It slammed with a steel clatter.

  Mitts felt himself slip down to the floor.

  He could feel the tears well up behind his eyes.

  But he pushed them down.

  * * *

  Mitts spent most of his time in the cell staring at the concrete wall opposite.

  He thought about how the conversation with Dag had gone.

  Not well.

  It seemed that everyone suspected Mitts was crazy.

  That he had killed his own family.

  That he had killed Doctor Heinmein in cold blood.

  The smell of cooking chicken was too much to bear.

  No matter how much Mitts reasoned with himself, told himself that he had zero prospect of getting anything to eat, he couldn’t stop his mouth watering.

  He could hear people talking, too, on the other side of the door.

  To begin with he had tried to channel into their words, but had found it impossible.

  As Mitts sat slumped up on the floor of his cell—resting his back against the wall till it went numb—he tried to think how he might prove his innocence.

  He thought about the plethora of cameras back in the Compound.

  And immediately shot that idea down.

  No power.

  It seemed hopeless.

  He was the sole survivor.

  About an hour or so later, he heard the door creak open.

  He turned his attention front and centre, wondering what torture would be coming to greet him.

  As it turned out, it was Luca.

  As always, she was dressed in her dark-green tank top and black jeans.

  He took in afresh her cropped, black hair.

  The pinkish glow to her cheeks.

  This time, though, she wasn’t smiling.

  She seemed nervous.

  She hung back from the bars.

  Mitts’s gaze slipped down to her hand. She clutched a folder; one of those padded ones someone might use for a thin laptop, or for especially important documents.

  Luca brought the folder up to her chest and clutched it tight.

  She managed a thin-lipped smile, but that was all.

  Politeness.

  Mitts slid his knees up to his chest and then wrapped his arms around his legs.

  He glanced away from her, for some reason unable to look her in the eye.

  “Hey,” Luca said.

  Mitts didn’t reply.

  He could feel her gaze upon him.

  On the air, he caught a slight whiff of lilacs: the perfume Mitts had smelled right before the truck had arrived . . . before he had been knocked to the ground.