Human.4

by Mike A. Lancaster

  “What are you thinking?” Lilly asked. “That maybe the UFOs were the first phase of all this? That maybe there’s some link there?”

  To tell the truth, I don’t know what I was thinking. It just made that weird kind of sense to me. It might have been nothing more than a bizarre coincidence, but maybe “coincidence” was a name given to things by people who just haven’t spotted a connection yet.

  Kate and Mr. Peterson had joined us and were looking at the silos too.

  “I’ve never liked those things,” Kate said. “I’ve always thought they were incredibly ugly.”

  She had a point. Like concrete lighthouses without lights to burn or ships to warn, the silos were local landmarks that probably featured in most travel directions given to non-locals. They were dull and gray and rose far above anything else.

  “I think we should take a closer look,” Lilly said.

  It was kind of nice that she had faith in one of my hunches.

  Kate O’Donnell shook her head.

  “And why would we want to look at a couple of grain silos?” she asked, a sarcastic tone creeping into her voice. “Unless we’re saying that Kyle’s alien invasion is suddenly wheat-based?”

  “Er … because it might be important.” Lilly’s response was sarcastic too.

  “It sounds more like a wild-goose chase to me,” Kate said crossly. “I say we keep walking, see how far this phenomenon extends.”

  Lilly pursed her lips, put her hands on her hips.

  “And I say we go and check out a possible lead,” she said firmly.

  “A lead?” Kate said. “What is this? An American cop show?”

  I thought it might be time to intervene.

  “Look,” I said, “Why don’t you and Mr. Peterson wait here. Lilly and I will go and check out the silos. It’s probably nothing, but …”

  “But?”

  “There might be an answer there,” I finished. “Something other than grain.”

  Kate shook her head.

  “We’ll give you fifteen minutes,” she said. “Then Rodney and I are walking.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, then turned to Lilly. “You up for this?”

  “Of course,” she said, and we set out towards the concrete towers.

  CHAPTER 30

  The sky was darkening, it seemed, with every step we took down the rutted track that led to Naylor’s farm. Empty fields stretched around us on each side and I suddenly felt very vulnerable and afraid.

  There was probably nothing waiting at the end of this side-quest, but that wasn’t the point. At least we were doing something.

  I think Lilly felt this sense of purpose too.

  “Do you even believe in UFOs?” she asked me.

  “Sure,” I said. “It just means the flying object was unidentified. It doesn’t necessarily mean there are aliens aboard.”

  She tutted.

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to know if you thought we were going to find anything, you know, weird, in those silos.”

  It seemed that as soon as Lilly’s words were out there was a sudden, uncanny glow from up ahead. It wasn’t even full dark yet, more like a murky twilight, but we could see a sickly light shining brighter than the air around it, a light that seemed … different … to any light I had seen before. It seemed grainy, somehow, as if it were made of particles in the air up ahead.

  We stopped in our tracks and looked ahead.

  Instinctively I put a protective arm around Lilly’s shoulders. When I realized what I had done I was half expecting her to throw me off, or to say something sarcastic, but she didn’t do either.

  So I hugged her to me, wishing that things were different between us.

  When we got out of this—if we got out of this—I would try to make things up to her.

  I squeezed her shoulder and we walked towards the light.

  CHAPTER 31

  Light is supposed to be reassuring. You learn that when you’re very young. It defeats the bad things creeping around in your room.

  Every parent knows the magic gesture that chases the monsters away.

  Click.

  Let there be light.

  Here, though, light was kind of the problem. It looked wrong and I suddenly remembered what Mr. Peterson had said earlier, about things from this world looking like they belonged on this world; that they followed rules that allowed us to recognize them, allowed us to understand them.

  It had sounded like mad ravings at the time, but now I knew exactly what he had been talking about.

  The light we were walking into didn’t look as if it belonged here at all.

  I had no idea how we should be approaching the silos, how much stealth we needed.

  In the end, however, we just walked perfectly normally towards them.

  Ordinarily, light illuminates pretty much everything in its path, but this seemed more selective in its illumination. It clumped around objects and highlighted them, while leaving empty areas relatively dark.

  Intelligent light? I remember thinking. How is that even possible?

  “Look,” Lilly said, and showed me her arm. “Look at this.”

  I could see Lilly’s bare arm, but I could see more than that. The particles of light had clustered around her limb and I could see dark lines running along the skin, branching off, connecting to other lines, filling Lilly’s arm.

  Then it became clear to me exactly what the light was showing me and I felt a little sick.

  I was seeing through Lilly’s skin to the veins and arteries beneath. I looked closer and could even see the blood pumping through her.

  “You have to admit,” Lilly said, “that this is pretty damned cool.”

  I nodded, suddenly mute.

  “I reckon we’re in the right place,” she said. “Let’s go get a look inside those silos.”

  CHAPTER 32

  We were about twenty meters from the first of the silos when a group of people arrived around the corner in front of us, heading the same way. I gestured for Lilly to get out of sight and jogged for cover at the side of the yard.

  As the group drew closer to us I realized that I knew most of them. Five members of the Naylor family, including old man Naylor himself, were leading a young woman towards the silo.

  Lilly was pointing at the young woman, mouthing something, but there was a rushing sound in my ears and a cold, leaden feeling moving swiftly down my spine.

  I recognized her.

  I recognized her all too well.

  I’d lived next door to her my whole life.

  It was Annette Birnie, Danny’s sister.

  She didn’t look like she was doing too well. Her hair, normally straight and neat and perfectly arranged, was a wild, tangled mess, and the face it framed was pale and drawn. Dark skin ringed her eyes. She was moving in a halting fashion, as if she was in shock, and every few steps one of the Naylor family would push her forwards to hurry her up.

  “She’s one of us,” Lilly whispered with horror in her voice. “She’s one of the zero-point-four and she’s been alone since it happened. We had each other, Kate O’Donnell, Mr. Peterson. She had no one. No one at all.”

  I knew that Lilly was right and felt a horrible pang of sympathy. To have been completely alone through all of this, I couldn’t even begin to think how that must have felt. She must have thought she was losing her mind.

  “We should have found her, helped her,” Lilly said.

  “We didn’t know,” I said. “We just didn’t know.”

  “Danny hypnotized her too,” Lilly said crossly. “We should have known.”

  “He hypnotized her days ago,” I countered. “Why would that have affected her today?”

  Lilly shook her head.

  “We have to help her,” she said, and there was a steely tone to her voice that told me she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  “If you’ve got a plan, I’m all ears,” I said.

  “I distract them, you save Annette,” she
said as if it was the easiest thing in the world she was laying out. “Just like in one of your comic books.”

  “You read comic books?”

  “No, but when we’re out of this I’ll let you show me a couple of comic books to convince me they’re worth my time. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Now stay here. I’ll get them looking the other way.”

  “I should be doing that part of the plan.”

  She shook her head.

  “Annette knows and trusts you.” She smiled wickedly. “She has a lower opinion of me.”

  “Sounds like there’s some history between you.”

  “There’s always history. You know that. Now let’s do this.”

  “You take care of yourself,” I said, but it didn’t seem like enough, and then I was leaning forwards, taking her face in my hands, and kissing her on the lips.

  She kissed back and then it was over and we were both standing there, wondering what had just happened.

  “A kiss for luck?” she said.

  “We’ll call it that for now,” I said breathlessly. “Now go. Distract. We’ve got a friend to rescue.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Lilly clung to the shadows and made her way quickly up the side of the yard, past a row of dilapidated barns, while I just stood there waiting for a chance to get to Annette. I could still feel the ghost impression of Lily’s lips upon mine.

  The Naylor family procession had paused next to the closest silo and old man Naylor was standing in front of the structure. He extended his arms before him and a whole load of those weird filaments tore loose from his hands and adhered to the front of the silo. Suddenly, the surface of the structure started to glow, then peel back, creating an opening, then a door.

  Hell of a way to make an entrance, I thought, and then the new door swished aside.

  The alphabet of hooks and eyes that we saw on Kate O’Donnell’s computer were floating in the air inside the silo, as if they were being projected onto the air itself. They twisted and curled and looked sort of brownish to my eyes. But even as I thought the word brownish, I realized that was about a million miles away from describing the actual color.

  I watched in fascination as the characters of that alphabet changed and mutated before my eyes. I was wondering how it was possible that there could be a language written across the air, and I felt myself taking a step forwards, towards the silo, against my will, as if my body had suddenly broken through of my mind’s control.

  I felt my foot rising up to take another step. I couldn’t stop it.

  And I couldn’t take my eyes off the symbols in the silo.

  My foot took another step.

  I knew that I would be in the sight line of the Naylor family any second, but my body still wasn’t listening. I felt my foot readying itself for another step.

  No. No. No, I tried to tell my foot.

  The foot started moving again.

  “Hey!” I heard Lilly’s voice and it snapped me out of it. I managed to drag my eyes away from the contents of the silo and my foot back from its forwards course.

  I saw the Naylors turn to find the source of the interruption and there she was, Lilly, standing about fifty meters away in the middle of the yard, hands on her hips. I actually smiled when I saw her, she looked so composed and … well, heroic, I guess.

  I saw the Naylor clan react to her arrival with surprise and old man Naylor even stepped away from the silo towards her. His … filaments retracted so fast that their movement was a blur.

  Annette just stood there looking dazed and lost.

  “Hey!” Lilly shouted again. “Any of you weirdos know where a zero-point-four can get a bed for the night?”

  The Naylors looked at her and seemed to confer, although I’m not convinced any of them actually spoke. Then old man Naylor nodded his head towards Lilly.

  I sucked in a deep breath and readied myself.

  The Naylors started towards her but she stood her ground. I felt proud and sick and scared. The Naylors kept moving towards her, and for a horrible couple of seconds I thought the old man was going to stay behind to guard Annette, but then he followed the rest of his clan, and together they moved in on Lilly.

  They were thirty meters away.

  Then they were twenty-five.

  Then twenty.

  It was showtime.

  I broke from the shadows, hunched down, and hurried over to Annette Birnie. She was staring into the silo, her eyes filled with the uncanny alphabet within, and I had to physically touch her on the shoulder to get her to notice me.

  “Annette,” I said calmly. “It’s me. Kyle. I’m here to help you. To get you away from here.”

  She looked at me blankly. For a moment I thought she didn’t even recognize me. Then her eyes seemed to show a sudden awareness and her brow furrowed with confusion.

  “Kyle?” she asked almost robotically. “What are you doing here?”

  “We have to get out of here,” I said. “There’s no time to explain. But there are more of us. There’s me and Lilly and Mrs. O’Donnell and Mr. Peterson. We know what’s happened. We want to help you.”

  “Help me?” Annette’s gaze met mine and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. “No. There’s no help. There is only … in there.” She pointed at the silo.

  “I really don’t think you want to go in there, Annette,” I said.

  I sneaked a quick look over to where the Naylors had almost reached Lilly.

  “You want me?” I heard her yell. “Then you’re going to have to catch me!”

  She turned and ran away from them, deeper into the darkness of the farm.

  Time was running out.

  “Please,” I said. “Come with me.”

  Annette shook her head. Her eyes were wide and all pupils. She looked helpless and defeated.

  “In there I can become one of them,” she said slowly as if explaining something very simple to a rather dull child. “In there it all ends.”

  “You don’t want to be one of them,” I said.

  “Yes. Yes I do.” Annette Birnie looked at me and I saw all the fear that was running through her head, through the dark windows of her eyes. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  I was aware that I was using up all the time Lilly had bought me, but I really hadn’t planned for the contingency of Annette not wanting to come with me. I’d thought that she’d be looking for a way to escape, not looking forward to joining them.

  Another glance over told me that the Naylors weren’t going to give chase. They were standing, looking into the distance, but they weren’t following Lilly.

  “You won’t be alone,” I said in what I thought was a soothing voice. “Come on, we can help you.”

  “Help me?” she said in a puzzled voice. “How do you know what I want?”

  The question baffled me.

  “Look,” I said, taking her arm and trying to drag her away from the silo. “Just come with me—”

  She didn’t let me finish.

  “No!” she said, and she said it very loudly.

  So loudly it attracted the attention of the Naylors.

  Time had completely run out.

  The Naylors had spotted me and were making their way back towards us.

  “You want to be like them?” I asked, a cruel note in my voice.

  Annette’s tears came thick and fast now.

  “That’s all I ever wanted,” she said, and turned on her heel. Before I could stop her she moved into the silo.

  The moment she entered its proximity, the alphabet seemed to sense she was there. I watched, terrified, as the characters started to twist and flex through the air towards her, the hooks extending to reach her with something that looked like hunger.

  “Annette!” I screamed, but she didn’t appear to hear me.

  Instead, she threw her arms apart and made a cross shape of her body—like a sacrifice—and then the hooks and eyes and squiggles and lines closed in around her, superimposing thei
r alien message over her. At first they fizzed and skated across her skin, and then they stopped moving and seemed to sink into her flesh.

  There was a smile on her face as her body absorbed the letters of that terrible language, and I think that scared me more than anything else I was seeing.

  Her smile.

  I turned and ran, back the way Lilly and I had come.

  CHAPTER 34

  Lilly caught up with me before I made it back to the road. She wasn’t even out of breath.

  “Where’s Annette?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “She wouldn’t come,” I said. “She actually wanted to become one of them.”

  I thought Lilly would be angry that I hadn’t persuaded Annette to come, but instead she just nodded.

  “I guess she finally found a way to fit in….”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “A few years ago me and Annette were at camp together. Girl Guides, if you must know, but tell anyone else and you’re dead.

  “Anyway, long story short and all that, we kind of paired up while we were there. We were talking one night, out under the stars, and it was probably because we weren’t really friends that she confided in me.

  “She told me about how she had never felt like she fit in, that there was this huge weight of expectation that everyone put on her, but that no matter how hard she tried she always felt like an outsider, an impostor, a fake. She’d even thought about killing herself because she couldn’t bear the idea of going through life alone.

  “Nothing I said helped, and after camp she never spoke to me again. She showed me a part of herself that was secret, and it would have got in the way if I’d been the one to approach her.”

  Lilly took a deep breath and continued.

  “You did your best, Kyle. You’re a nice guy, you know that?”

  She gave me a smile, but I didn’t feel like a nice guy.

  A nice guy would have found a way to save Annette.

  “So the silo can turn us into one of them?” Lilly said. “Are you tempted?”