The Leader

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  Autumn turned back to the angel and dared to ask, “Will Alex live?”

  “Yes.”

  Giving a grateful sigh of relief, she wept some more.

  “He must not take any more pills,” the angel warned.

  Sniffing, she swallowed and asked, “Is that what did this to him? Did those pills give him a heart attack?”

  “He didn’t have a heart attack. That’s how it looks, but it’s not what happened. He was spiritually attacked.”

  “By what? By one of those...things...I saw at Area 51?” A chill raced up her spine as she remembered the dark shadowy figure with the horns and red eyes. “A demon?”

  “A demon is a disembodied spirit seeking a home. That one wants him.”

  “Are the aliens demons? Is that why he sees the alien in his apartment?”

  “They appear as they will but there are no aliens as you think of them. It’s all an illusion to make you believe the lie when it comes.”

  “What lie?”

  “Watch the Middle East.”

  Before she could ask anything else, he vanished. She tried not to let this frustrate her. For once, he was answering some of her questions. She should just be glad he did that much. But she wished he would have answered more.

  Turning to Alex with renewed hope, she squeezed his hand again. “You’ll be alright.” Then she laughed. “Thank God you’re going to be alright.”

  Chapter Three

  Devon sat beside Vanessa who slept in a bed at the hospital. He rubbed his forehead. It didn’t surprise him that she tried to commit suicide. He’d thought of it often enough. If it wasn’t for the fear of what might or might not lie on the other side, he would have done it long ago. He recalled his enthusiasm when he first started working for the government. Giving a bitter laugh, he rubbed his eyes, a sense of weariness seeping into his bones. Vanessa had had the same look of optimism and hope. They signed up to help improve humanity, but they were systematically destroying it.

  Vanessa groaned and her eyes fluttered open.

  Devon jumped out of his chair and went over to her. “Vanessa?” he softly asked, worried about her state of mind.

  She turned her frightened eyes to him. “Why didn’t you tell me? The Illuminati...they plan to destroy most of the population and—”

  He pressed his hand over her mouth. “Don’t. Don’t say it. They may not kill you, but there are things worse than death,” he whispered. He glanced around the room. Who knew who...or what...was watching and listening? “It was a bad dream,” he said in a louder voice. “You’re awake now. Everything’s going to be fine.” Bile rose up in his throat at the lie, but he forced the words out, knowing if he didn’t, things would be worse for her...and for him.

  Tears formed in her eyes and fell down her cheeks. Had she known what she was getting herself into, she never would have gone to the job interview. She didn’t have to say it. The message was in her eyes.

  Looking away in shame and regret, he reached across the bed and grabbed some kleenex to wipe her tears away. This was stupid, of course. No amount of wiping tears would make the stark reality they were in disappear. They were all sitting ducks. All they did by cooperating was extend their lives a little bit longer with the hope they might find a place to hide and avoid the plans of the world’s elite before they succeeded in cleansing the Earth from the billions of people they deemed unworthy of living in the new Earth they planned to establish.

  A nurse walked into the room. “Oh good. You’re awake,” she told Vanessa with a smile. “How are you feeling, honey?”

  Vanessa turned her eyes to the window and remained silent. Another tear slid down her cheek.

  “It’s been a rough time,” Devon said on her behalf, realizing how shallow the words sounded. The nurse wasn’t in on this. She had no idea what was going on or about the things that were planned. Devon took a deep breath and faced the nurse. “She needs to rest.”

  The nurse nodded in sympathy. “Poor thing.” She took out a needle and got ready to insert something into the IV that was in Vanessa’s arm.

  Devon stopped her. “What is that?”

  Surprised, the nurse said, “It’s something to help her sleep. She needs her rest.”

  He caught sight of the words on the needle and relaxed. It wasn’t anything harmful. “I’m sorry.” Then he backed away so the nurse could inject his co-worker with the drug to make her sleep. “You’ll be fine, Vanessa,” he said, wondering if she got the hidden message meant to assure her that nothing poisonous was in the substance.

  Vanessa didn’t look his way. She just continued to softly cry.

  With a heavy sigh, he said, “I’ll be back in a couple hours. I have to return to the office.”

  Since she didn’t respond, he left the room and headed down the corridor. How he wished he didn’t have to go through this. He wished even more Vanessa could get out, but she was stuck now. She was as much a prisoner as him.

  Up ahead, he caught sight of Autumn walking toward him. He hesitated. He could slip down another corridor. She hadn’t seen him yet. Her gaze was lowered and she seemed worried. He wondered why she was here, and more than that, he wondered why he wanted to talk to her.

  He saw a flash of white blink beside her. She stopped and said something. Devon frowned. It seemed to him that she was talking to someone, and though he couldn’t see it, he noted the distortion in the air. There was a current that emanated from the spot she directed her attention to, and that current could only be described as a soothing warmth. Whatever it was, Devon noted there was no evil in it, unlike the sensation he’d experienced in the car that day he’d seen her at the mall.

  Her gaze went from the thing beside her to Devon.

  Unsure of what to do or say, he stayed still.

  She looked back at the thing and shook her head.

  Even if Devon had no idea what was going on, he knew that she had no intention of communicating with him. As if to make it final, she turned around and found another corridor to go down.

  Devon released the breath he’d been holding. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The last time he saw Autumn, he called her nuts and told her to see a shrink. And yet, he felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment. With a heavy heart, he stepped forward. He had to go to work.

  As he passed where she’d been, the warmth pressed in on his awareness. He turned to the source, wondering if this was a part of his imagination, but there was a prickling icy sensation that dug into his arm on his other side.

  He waited for a second and stared long and hard at the air where the warmth flowed. Then a blurry image with white extended wings came into view. The image didn’t clear, no matter how many times he blinked, but he heard a distorted male voice coming from it.

  “What? I don’t understand you,” he told the thing.

  The sharp icy pain in his arm made him wince, but he was determined to make some sense out of this apparition before him.

  “You don’t....” the thing began.

  “I don’t what?”

  “...don’t have to...”

  Devon rubbed his arm, aware that it was going numb, as if someone was squeezing it. “I don’t have to what?” he demanded, willing the thing to finish its sentence.

  “...be a pawn.”

  Then the icy thing lashed out and the warmth departed.

  Devon examined the area where he’d felt the freezing air, but he could not detect anything, either good or bad. Scanning the empty corridor, he wondered what the white-winged thing meant.

  You don’t have to be a pawn.

  His gaze went to the camera hiding in the circular fixture that hovered down from the ceiling. Further down the hallway, in front of the stairwell door, was another camera masked over by an identical fixture. Did the thing mean what he thought? That it referred to how the government had been treating him and Vanessa like pawns? If ever there was a definition of pawns, it was them.

  With another look around the hallway, he headed
for the exit, in a hurry to get out of there.

  Chapter Four

  Alex didn’t want to leave the hospital. It was the first time since the vanishing that he was able to get a good night’s sleep, even if the bed wasn’t very comfortable. The alien wasn’t here. It didn’t hover over his bed and threaten to kill him. He didn’t hear voices or a strange humming sound. He felt no fear. He wished he could stay there forever.

  But he couldn’t, and on the day he was due to go home, he sat in front of the overnight bag Autumn brought over for him a few days before and tried to find the motivation to zip it up. He hated his apartment. But more than that, he hated being alone. If he wasn’t alone, the alien wouldn’t bother him at all.

  Someone knocked on the door, so he called out, “Open.”

  Dr. Reyes opened the door and smiled. “How are you doing, Alex?”

  “Fine, all things considered.” He tried to laugh but it came out in a half-hearted chuckle.

  “Obviously, the last prescription had a serious side effect.” The psychiatrist sat in the chair across from him. “Did you notice any problems before the heart attack?”

  “No. Things were okay before then.”

  “Usually, if there’s a problem with medication, it should appear within a couple days of taking it, and you were on that for two months, right?”

  “Yes. I took two pills a day like you said.” The last thing Alex needed was for the doctor to think he’d been skipping his medication. He wiped his hands on his jeans and took a deep breath. “I didn’t skip any days.”

  “I believe you, Alex. I want to make sure I know exactly what your symptoms were.”

  “Right.” Alex shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “Well, let’s see. I fell asleep watching TV. Then I heard a voice. The people on TV were saying things that could not have been in the script.”

  “So you’re saying that you heard voices from the TV.”

  “Right.”

  “And one of these was the same voice you heard before that?”

  “No. It was a different voice. And the voices on the TV were the actors. They were talking, but they were talking about aliens eating people. But it was a TV sitcom, you know? And the episode was about the woman snooping on her neighbors. It had nothing to do with aliens.”

  “Oh, I know the episode you mean. You’re right. No one in the show mentioned aliens.”

  Alex ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Right. Yeah.” I’m losing it. I’m going crazy. He’s going to confirm that. Maybe it would be a good thing. If he was in a mental ward, maybe the alien would leave him alone.

  “After you heard these voices, what happened?”

  Alex shrugged. “Um...I heard a sound.”

  “What kind of sound?”

  “A humming low sound. Kind of like white noise.”

  He nodded. “Anything else?”

  “I don’t remember much. I was hot all of the sudden, like I’d just stepped into an oven, and I couldn’t see well.”

  “Things got blurry?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. I think there was a sharp pain in the back of my neck, and it felt as if my mind was being ripped open. It all happened so fast, and the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.”

  “Those don’t sound like the symptoms of a heart attack,” Dr. Reyes commented with a frown. “And it doesn’t match the side effects that are possible with that prescription. Do you drink alcohol or take any other medicine?”

  “No.”

  The man leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and said, “Level with me, Alex. I need to know what’s going on for your well-being. Do you take drugs?”

  “What?” Alex practically shouted, hardly believing his ears. “No! How could you even think that?” He fidgeted in his chair and ran his hand through his hair again. “No, I don’t take drugs, and I never have.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just had to ask. You know, to cover all my bases.” He sat up straight. “I can’t explain why that happened to you, but it’s not because of the pills. Nothing in any of the trial studies reported any of those side effects. I think you’re safe going back on the pills. I’m going to write you another prescription. I believe you’re due for a refill anyway.” He stood up and wrote on a pad he dug out from his pocket. He ripped the piece of paper and held it out to him.

  Alex stared at the piece of paper and hesitated. Which was worse? Could it be that the pills were not responsible for this hospital stay? Finally, he took it. When he picked up his prescription, he would carefully read the list of possible side effects.

  “And I think we should look into doing some psychological evaluations. It’s possible we could be dealing with a mental illness.”

  Alex swallowed the lump in his throat. He expected this. Glancing up at his doctor, he asked, “Will I go to the mental ward?”

  Dr. Reyes smiled. “No. Most people with mental disorders take medicine that enables them to cope in the real world. You are mentally capable of going about your life.” He patted Alex on the shoulder. “Be sure to see me for a visit in two days. If you have any complications before then, give me a call. Okay?”

  Alex nodded and stared back down at the paper.

  Once the doctor left, he tucked it into his pocket and got to his feet. He needed to get to it and check out.

  Another gentle knock came from the door.

  A relieved smile crossed his face. “Hi, Autumn.” After the stress and horrors of all he’d been through, he needed a friendly face.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, looking concerned.

  “I guess.” He zipped up his bag and swung it over his shoulder. “Can we stop by a pharmacy to get my prescription filled?”

  She waited for a long moment, as if carefully weighing her words. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Dr. Reyes said they had nothing to do with my heart attack.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I don’t believe you had a heart attack.”

  “The emergency doctor said I had one.”

  “Doctors can be wrong.” She shrugged. “What would happen if you don’t take the pills?”

  “It could come back.”

  “The alien?”

  “Yes.”

  With a heavy sigh, she studied his expression. “It’s not an alien, Alex.”

  “Then what is it?”

  She hesitated for a moment, shifted from one foot to another, and finally said, “It’s a demon.”

  He laughed. “That’s old-time superstitious nonsense.”

  “Is it? You said the thing attacked you and gives off an evil vibe.”

  “Yes, but the aliens aren’t the good guys they’re pretending to be.”

  She shook her head. “The demons are masquerading as aliens.”

  “That’s really farfetched. Weren’t demons around since Jesus’ time? If these things were going around pretending to be aliens, then why haven’t we seen aliens before now?”

  She stood still for a moment and thoughtfully replied, “Well, there was Roswell.”

  “Okay. Fine. That was in 1947. That wasn’t way back in the past.”

  Shrugging, she admitted. “I don’t know why they’re doing it now. I just know they are.”

  “And you know they’re demons because...?”

  “You’re going to laugh, but... Well... There’s this angel I’ve been seeing ever since we went to Area 51.”

  She was right. He couldn’t stop the chuckle that rose up in his throat. “I’m sorry, Autumn. I mean, I get that the aliens aren’t what they seem, but there’s nothing weirdly spiritual going on. These are just things from another planet that aren’t the good guys they’re pretending to be.”

  “How can you be sure?” she asked.

  “Because then there’d have to be a God, and there is no such thing as God. Now look, the idea of other life forms on other planets is realistic. Given the multitude of planets out there, there’s bound to be something.�
�

  She bit her lower lip and glanced uncertainly out the window. “I used to believe that.”

  “And...?”

  Shaking her head, she returned her gaze to him. “I’ve seen too much, been through too much... I see them, Alex. I see an angel and I see dark shadows hovering around certain people. These shadows are sinister. They call themselves The Watchers.”

  “See? There you go.” Relieved to have made his point, he scanned the room for any of his belongings he might have missed while packing. “The aliens would be our watchers. That’s what they’ve been saying. They planted us here and have watched our development as a species.”

  “But wouldn’t that make them good?”

  “Not if they have don’t have good motives. That’s what this is about. Why are they watching us? What do they plan to do with us? Not all parents are good to their children.”

  She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I don’t understand it. Nothing’s made sense since Marianne disappeared.”

  “That was the same time the aliens showed up.” And the same time the alien began hovering over him while he slept at night. He shivered, hating how drastically his life had changed...and not for the better. “I know. Nothing has made sense. It’s like one day our lives were in order, and suddenly we’re spinning out of control.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly how it feels.”

  He sighed. “Look Autumn, you’re my solid connection to any normality that was once in my life. I don’t want to upset you. Can we agree to disagree about the spiritual thing?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. In times like this, we need to stick together. You know, as friends.”

  “I agree.”

  Appearing relieved, she held out her car keys and asked, “Are you ready to go home?”

  No. He wasn’t. But he’d take the pills and be fine, if the side effects listed on the information sheet didn’t include the symptoms he’d experienced that put him in the hospital. If Dr. Reyes was right, then he would take the pills because he couldn’t stand the thought of having to deal with that horrible alien ever again.