by David Wood
He fumbled with the truck’s handle, wrenched it open and fell to the tall grass on the side of the road. Vomit exploded from his mouth, matting down the grass. Two dry heaves followed. As he caught his breath, his thoughts began to clear.
The girls, he thought, forcing away images of Susie’s body. I have to find the girls.
He stood on unsteady legs, waiting for a moment, testing his weight to see if anything was broken. To his surprise he seemed mostly intact, except for the nasty gouge on his forehead. He stumbled up the rise, finding forward movement far more difficult than simply standing.
He fell to his knees and stifled a shout when he found himself looking into the eyes of a very dead deer, its insides uncoiled in the road and crushed by his truck’s tires.
Catching his breath, Beaumont fished out his phone. Thank God, he thought, when the now-cracked screen glowed brightly. He dialed 911 and held the phone to his ear. Nothing. He lowered the phone and looked at the signal indicator.
“Shit,” he said. He was on his own until someone drove by.
He got back to his feet, stumbled a few steps toward town and stopped. The girls were eight and ten. Smart kids, but after an accident, with both of their parents presumed dead, the panicked pair might not have headed for town. They might not even be on the road.
His chest ached as he filled his lungs. He realized he might have a few broken ribs, but he ignored the pain. With a shriek of desperation, he screamed, “Alice! Joy! Can you hear me?”
He staggered, waiting for a reply.
There was only silence. He took another long inhalation and nearly began coughing from the dryness of the air, but turned the urge to cough into a shout, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Joy! Alice!”
He listened, holding his breath. And this time, he got a reply from the south, “Daddy! Help!” Alice’s voice.
They’re headed away from town, was his first thought, but it was quickly followed by, ‘Help?’ Was one of them hurt badly?
He was about to shout again, when Joy’s high pitched voice cut through the night. “Hurry! He has us!”
He has us.
He!
The girls weren’t headed in the wrong direction on their own. They were being taken!
Beaumont took one step in their direction and then realized he was in no condition to fight someone for his daughters. Ignoring the thunderous pain in his body, he ran back to the truck, tore open the door and lunged for the gun rack behind the back seat. The Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun was still securely mounted. Unlike his collection of hunting rifles, the Mossberg was for home defense, or in this case, vehicle defense. He pulled it free and spun around. Without a second thought, he leaned past his wife’s wrecked body, feeling what remained of her head on his shoulder and reached into the already open glove box. He found his spare pair of glasses and put them on. Then he quickly recovered the small box of shells, yanked it out and jumped from the car.
He ran slowly at first, carefully loading six shells into the shotgun. He pumped it once, chambering a round, and then he poured on the steam, running into the dark, which was lit by the full moon above and the LED flashlight mounted on the weapon’s front.
“Girls!” he shouted, hoping to discern which direction to run and how far away they might be.
But there was no reply, so he ran faster...for fifty feet, when he came to a sudden, sliding stop that planted him firmly on his ass. Confused by what had tripped him up, he aimed the shotgun forward, lighting the scene. He kicked back and climbed to his feet, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. The road ended like it was a tomato, cut clean through by a knife. Where the road ended was nothing but sand, for as far at the flashlight could reach.
Sand.
And footprints.
Large footprints.
One set.
And they weren’t just large, they were deep and unsettlingly not human. He tried to think about what, in New Hampshire, could have made such large footprints, but nothing made sense. Not that he could see details. The general shape of the prints was lost in the sand, and that’s what disturbed him the most. Because while the footprints were strange, the sand was something closer to otherworldly.
How did it get here? Where’s the road? The forest? How did this happen?
But, ultimately, his attention remained on the prints. The single set of prints.
The girls are being carried, Phillip Beaumont thought. Blinded by fear for his daughters, he charged ahead, running up the side of a long sand dune that shouldn’t be there, and he disappeared over the other side.
Chapter 10
“Winslow, I hear what you’re saying, and I’m seeing the same thing as you, but there ain’t no way I’m believing we’re not on Earth.” Rule had her arms crossed over her chest. The very notion of what he was saying just felt wrong. Impossible. The man might have been a genius once, but he’d clearly lost his mind. Of course—she glanced up—the moon did look different. “It’s still the moon,” she added, vocalizing her internal debate. “It might look off, but if we were on another planet—which might damn well be the most ridiculous words ever to come outta my mouth—what are the odds it would have a moon just like ours but slightly different?”
Rule was relieved to hear Griffin say, “She’s right.” He took a deep breath. “The air is breathable.” He hopped up and down. “Gravity is the same.” He looked around town. “And as far as I can see, we’re still in Refuge, New Hampshire.”
If Wilson was hearing them, he gave no indication. He just stared at the sky, mumbling to himself.
Carol came around the SUV. She was fully clothed, but looked disheveled and had grass in her hair. It didn’t take much of an imagination to figure out what these two had been up to when things went wacky.
“Becky,” Carol said in greeting. “Griff.”
Rule nearly corrected Carol’s use of her first name, but she was growing tired of the fight. She’d been ‘Becky Rule’ to the folks in town far longer than she’d been ‘Sheriff.’ She’d always been a person of authority—principal of the middle school during her late twenties and early thirties, then president of the Town Council, which was a part-time position, but just one step beneath mayor. She babysat on the side during those days, which coincided with an economic depression in the region, resulting in a higher crime rate and a rash of drunkenness. Bar fights became common. A couple of twenty-somethings drove their Camaro into a tree and died. And then Sheriff Weldon, her predecessor, went and had a heart attack.
It was two days later that her husband, Bernie, a dear sweet man who preferred fishing over talking, was struck down, not more than fifty feet from where Rule now stood. The driver was never found—there wasn’t a Sheriff to lead the search—but witnesses described the female driver as being drunk. That no one recognized the woman or the vehicle meant she was from out of town, but that didn’t change Rule’s reaction to the loss of her high-school sweetheart and long-time companion.
Two years later, after breezing through training, she was unanimously voted in as Sheriff, and with a ferocity no one could have predicted, she set about cleaning up the town. She was a natural leader, an ever present public figure and a world-renowned stickler. In her first year, she and those serving under her, issued more tickets than in the previous five years combined. People drank more responsibly, sped less and there hadn’t been a violent crime in four years. Rule knew she couldn’t take all the credit, though. The government grant and the new construction all around town had also brought a lot of money to the area. Not to folks like Cash, but for most, Refuge had never been as prosperous.
Carol stepped up next to her husband and looked up. “What do you see?”
Unlike Rule or Griffin, Carol got his instant attention. “They’re right. This is still Earth, but not.”
“Explain,” Rule said sternly.
“Well...” He adjusted his glasses and pointed to the night sky. “I see Mars and Venus. They’re out of position for this time of year, bu
t they’re there. And Griff is right about the air and the gravity.” He looked at Rule. “And you’re right about the moon. It’s a statistical impossibility that another planet would have a moon that was the same diameter, equal distance and approximate lumens as Earth’s moon.”
“Could something have changed our perception of space?” Griffin asked. When Winslow just twitched his beard back and forth, Griffin elaborated. “I mean, we’re seeing some pretty crazy visual distortions. Maybe there’s something screwy in the atmosphere? Some kind of gas?”
“Bending the light,” Winslow said. “Distorting the image, so the stars are out of position and the face of the moon looks different?”
Rule didn’t point out that the light bending theory didn’t explain why the half moon was now full, or how it had leapt to an entirely different position in the sky, but all the speculation in the world wasn’t going to calm people down. She heard voices rising from the front of the church. Case in point. “Winslow...” Rule said, and he didn’t reply again.
“Winslow, honey,” Carol said, and he looked right at her. “Becky’s talking to you.”
He turned to face her. “Sorry, this is...ahh, this is pretty exciting.”
Not the words Rule would have chosen, but she might agree in a few days, after she knew everyone was safe. She nodded toward the group gathered around Pastor Dodge at the front of the church. “I need you to go tell them the same thing, that this is all a visual distortion.”
“Created by what?” Winslow asked. “I can’t—”
“Solar flare,” Rule said. She’d seen enough Neil Degrasse Tyson specials to know that a strong solar flare could not only cause the aurora borealis, but could mess with electronics and communications. One more visual distortion added to the mix would be believable to the group by the church, whose science education ranged between Ghost Hunters and the purple dinosaur, Barney, with Barney being the more intelligent of the two.
Winslow shook his head. “But I don’t think that—”
“Don’t matter what you think,” Rule said. “Matters what they think.”
Winslow looked toward the group, whose voices were rising in pitch. He nodded. “To calm things down.”
“Exactly. Just talk some scientific circles around them. Make them feel safe. Then I’ll come over and tell ’em to go home.”
“And then,” he said, “We’ll figure out just what is happening.”
It was a statement. Not a question. But she agreed with every fiber of her being. “Damn straight, we will.”
“Okay,” Winslow said, and he headed toward the crowd, walking in a casual gait that was completely contrary to his tire-squealing arrival. She hoped no one would notice the change, and they would just believe his big words. Hell, if he’d given her an explanation that made any kind of sense, she would have believed him. Would have been happier that way, too. On another planet... She shook her head at the ridiculous turn her night of parking-ticket bliss had taken.
“Hey,” Griff said, touching her elbow.
She could hear his words starting to form, but she cut him off. “If you’re going to talk about other planets or gravity or bending light, save it. I need a mental breather.”
He laughed, and it was about the nicest thing she’d heard all night. She liked to hear him laugh—not because it sounded like anything special, but because she hadn’t heard it much in recent years. She couldn’t help but smile, which made her whole body relax. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been until that moment.
“I have a satellite phone back at the house,” he said, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder. He lived just a few blocks away, like most people in town, not far from Radar’s house. “Something tells me it’s not going to work, either, but I think we need to try.”
“It’s that or drive to Ashland,” she agreed. “But I think I’ll be doing that next.”
“If you do, take Frost,” he said.
“Not sure I should leave the town unattended. Frost will stay at the station with Avalon.”
“And I’m not sure you should be alone tonight.”
Not many people could get away with talking to her so casually. Luckily for Griffin, he was one of the few. She grinned. “You going to run for Mayor?”
“Not a chance,” Griffin said.
“Well, you’re gonna have to, if you want to boss me around.” She gave him a grin to let him know she was teasing and then added, “But I’ll consider it.”
“Be back in twenty,” he said, and he jogged away.
“Make sure Radar and Lisa made it home okay,” she shouted after him, and he waved to let her know he had heard her. She nearly asked him why he wasn’t taking his car, but then she remembered she hadn’t seen it. He’d been searching for Avalon on foot, or, she thought, Walter gave him a courtesy call. He must have run the few blocks to the Brick House, intending to drive her little red number back home.
Loud voices turned her attention back to the church, just as Carol, in a nervous voice said, “Becky...” Winslow was backing away from the small crowd in front of the church. She couldn’t hear the words, but it sounded like he was being scornfully admonished by Pastor Dodge.
Rule sighed, put on her deadpan face and started for the group. She stepped around Winslow and stopped the flow of humanity as though she were Jupiter and they were her moons, unable to break away. “I don’t know what kind of nonsense is being spoken over here, and I don’t really want to know. What Dr. Herman here told you is the truth. Ain’t no way around it.”
“But the sky is red,” someone said, and while it wasn’t said outright, Rule could read between the lines. Red was the color of the Devil, at least as he was portrayed in American pop culture, which also gave angels wings and made Jesus a trim-bearded white man.
“It looks alive,” a woman said. “I feel watched.”
The only thing alive was the paranoia eating these people up. Natural phenomena, no matter how strange, could be reduced to science. Although some declared tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes were God’s wrath, Rule understood that physics dictated such things, whether you believed God created the world or not.
She saw the pastor’s mouth open slowly, but didn’t intend to give that motor-mouth a chance to get revved up. “Now we’ve all had a crazy night. Some interesting things have taken place—” She set her eyes on the pastor, letting him know this next bit was for him, “for some more than others.” She glanced at his lady friend who hung back at the fringe of the group. The woman wilted under the attention and the clear message.
Back to Dodge. “Everyone needs to go home. Go to bed. If you had plans for the fourth, they’re cancelled. If you’re waiting for family or friends from Ashland, chances are they’re going to be delayed on account of the strangeness. So just go to bed, and in the morning, I’ll have answers for all of you. I promise.”
Dodge frowned, but it lasted just a moment before he pushed it away and replaced his true expression with a smile.
How many Sunday mornings does he pull that trick, she wondered.
“You heard the Sheriff,” he said. “Go home. Pray for our missing—”
Our missing? He’s baiting me, she decided, but she let it slide.
“—and thank God we’re all safe,” the pastor continued. “We’ll meet back here first thing in the morning. Seven a.m. We’ll have coffee and donuts in the foyer.”
Coffee and donuts placated a congregation like nothing else on the planet. The group quieted and began dispersing. She wasn’t happy about being told when she’d be addressing the town, but seeing as how she’d likely be awake all night, an early morning meeting would be for the best.
When he finished saying quick goodbyes, Dodge turned to her and said, “Where do we start?”
“You can start by going home and taking your...whatever she is, with you. I don’t want anyone not coming home from Ashland driving on the roads and confusing things.”
They locked eyes for a few seconds. He then
walked away, approached the woman from the bar and handed her his keys. He returned with a snarky grin that Rule nearly slapped off of him. “She knows where I live.”
“I bet she does,” Rule replied. “But you’re still not—”
“Most of this town trusts me more than you, and far more than the Mayor. You’re going to need me to support whatever lie you tell them in the morning, so I want to know what’s really going on.”
That surprised her. “No demons? No Devil? You’re really after the truth?”
“I’m not barring out the supernatural, but I recognize it could be something more...mundane.”
“Or scientific,” Winslow clarified. The two men couldn’t be further apart on the spectrum of personal beliefs. But Dodge gave a nod.
“If that’s the case,” Dodge said. “They’ll swallow it a lot better coming from me.”
“If you get in my way,” Rule said, “I’ll lock you in a cell for the rest of the night.”
“You won’t even know I’m there,” Dodge said with a satisfied grin.
“I’m coming too,” Winslow said, and when Carol began to complain, he added, “Go home. Get some rest. We’ll have it figured out by morning.”
Carol relented, and the pair said their goodbyes before she drove away, leaving Rule in the middle of Main Street with Dodge and Winslow Herman.
Winslow clapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth like he was about to dig into a big plate of baby-back ribs. “So, what’s the plan?”
Rule laid it out for them, plain and simple, so they knew she wasn’t joking. “We’re going to go to the station and have a sit.”
Chapter 11
Griffin Butler saw motion to his right. A rustle of leaves accompanied the shifting shadow behind a thick rhododendron, framed on either side by small white Cape Cod style homes. Standing in the shade of an oak tree, hidden from the nearby streetlight, he paused, gave the neighborhood a quick once over and said, “It’s just me. You can come out.”