Instantly he felt charged. But undecided. Should he go back? Should he see what was happening to him and Mandy? Or should he explore the ship further?
The thought of going back to the examining room filled him with dread. He was helpless to stop them.
Luke turned the other way. Maybe he could find a way out. A way to stop these creatures permanently.
He felt for the doorway the alien had come though and slipped inside. For a minute he couldn’t breathe.
The room was filled with aliens.
Luke reminded himself they couldn’t see him. But he still felt horribly exposed as he floated to the ceiling. From there he had a view of the whole room.
Aliens in small groups stood at high counters or sat at small tables. They were eating. This was the cafeteria.
The aliens’ eyes were dulled with absorption. Their plates of food were reflected darkly in the opaque facets of their eyes. All of them seemed to be eating the same thing. Some kind of brown mass.
Luke wanted to heave. There were things moving on the plates. As Luke swooped closer, he saw something small scurry off onto a table.
An alien, its arm a blur, speared the small creature with a pointed silver stick. It stuck the wiggling thing in its mouth.
Luke turned away, sickened. He found himself facing a wall stacked with glass boxes. Inside, fat black rats could barely turn around. Other boxes contained swarms of huge, sluggish cockroaches.
Dinner.
He’d seen enough. But as he headed back toward the door, it opened. Voices. Luke felt ice in his veins. One of the voices was unmistakably human—and familiar.
“Don’t rush it, dude, I’m hungry. They’re not going anywhere.” Quentin entered. Looking around, his own eyes glittered more than the giant orbs of the aliens. “Just a snack.”
Luke pressed against the wall. There was nowhere to hide. He tried to shrink himself very small. For some reason, the thought of Quentin spying him was even scarier than being caught by the aliens.
But Quentin looked right through Luke. He walked over to one of the glass boxes and pulled out a rat. The alien accompanying him said something in its chittering buzz.
Quentin turned on him, scowling. He held up the wiggling rat. “Monotonous? Are you complaining? I’ll have you know many earthlings would consider such food a delicacy. Pure protein.”
Savagely, Quentin bared his strong, white teeth and in one bite decapitated the rat. He threw his head back and let blood spurt into his open mouth.
“Of course,” he said, licking blood off his lips, “you can always go out and get your own food. See if you can find any before you suffocate from oxygen deprivation.”
Quentin grinned and breathed deep. “I love the energy high I get in this place. The extra oxygen always makes me feel so jaunty and carefree.”
He cast the body of the rat aside and turned his attention to its head. He thrust out his tongue. As Luke watched, the tongue elongated. Quentin probed the skull of the rat with the slender tip, finally securing a small, glistening morsel.
“The brains are always the best part,” he said, smacking his lips. “Now, let’s go inspect the new recruits.”
Quentin headed for the door, trailed by the alien. At the door, Quentin stopped.
“Don’t you forget,” he said flatly, warning the alien.
He looked up and took in the whole room with the jut of his chin. He raised his voice. “Don’t any of you dyzychs forget,” he shouted in a tone as cold as death itself. “You need me more than I need you.”
Luke knew he had to follow them. But he felt he needed a minute to recoup. He floated near the ceiling, trying to calm himself. Icy jitters raced up and down his spine.
He couldn’t help noticing many of the aliens had stopped eating. Some had pushed away half-finished plates. Maybe they were just bored with rat—or else Quentin had taken away their appetites.
Luke took in a deep breath …
… and was suddenly yanked back through the closed door. The passageway blurred past him.
His arms and legs flailed in panic.
They’d found him out!
Chapter Twenty-three
Mandy jerked awake and sat up in the sleeping bag, instantly panicked.
“Luke, wake up! Luke!” She looked at her watch but it was too dark to see. “I can’t believe we fell asleep. At least nothing happened.”
Luke groaned. “We’re back,” he said.
The hair on the back of Mandy’s neck prickled. Luke sounded surprised, relieved.
“It must be that our spirits get pulled back inside when they send us back,” Luke continued.
“What are you talking about?” Mandy asked. “What time is it?”
“It’s two o’clock in the morning, Mandy, but we weren’t sleeping. We were abducted,” Luke explained patiently. “It happened just like Cassandra said it would. I could see and hear everything, but the aliens had no idea. I’m sorry, I couldn’t wake you in time.”
Mandy couldn’t believe her ears. She felt hollow inside. “Aliens? Luke, are you listening to yourself? Look at us—we’re still in our sleeping bags. Nothing happened. You had a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t a dream or a hallucination.” Luke spilled it all out, every outlandish detail. To Mandy, he seemed like a born-again zombie.
Mandy’s mind was reeling. Luke’s mind had snapped. She was the only one still sane.
Her mind groped for inconsistencies, the types of things that seemed real only in dreams. She had to make Luke see. Otherwise, she would be all alone again.
“If all these, um, aliens make is a buzzy noise, how could Quentin communicate with them?” Mandy asked. “Not to mention, how did he ever hook up with them in the first place? What would they need with a human?”
Luke shook his head. “I don’t know, but I suppose it probably has to do with what you were saying earlier. Quentin’s psychic powers.”
Mandy’s spirits plummeted further. She had planted this awful seed herself.
Suddenly, Luke looked at her, his eyes wide and horrified. “Mandy, I just had a terrible thought. The way Quentin talked to them. Swaggering. As if he was in charge. What if the aliens are here because of him? Because they need him?”
“Oh, please, Luke. Why would they need a sociopathic creep like Quentin?”
“Maybe to herd in the human subjects for their experiments. People like us.”
Suddenly Mandy had an idea of her own. She couldn’t wait to get home.
“Home? But your parents think you’re at Sue Ellen’s,” Luke argued. “You can’t go home.”
Mandy shrugged impatiently. She rolled up her sleeping bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I have to. Before it gets light. My parents will be asleep and I can get in through the basement. I’ll tell them I couldn’t sleep and came home at dawn.”
“But why?” Luke asked. “What’s the rush?”
She was touched that he didn’t want her to go. “You think you were whisked to a spaceship, right?”
“We,” Luke told her. “We both were.”
“Whatever. It can’t be far away. I know the sky around here like the back of my hand,” Mandy said. “If there’s a spaceship out there, I’ll find it.”
Luke suddenly shared her enthusiasm. They grabbed their gear and headed for the road. The wires buzzed softly, as if even they were sleeping.
“Call me when you find it,” Luke said. “Then we can figure out what to do next.”
“Sure.” Mandy was hoping that with first light, Luke would come to his senses. Even the most vivid dreams dissolved when the sun shone on them. Usually.
She had no trouble getting back into the house, and got the telescope up onto the roof without too much noise. Because she didn’t expect to find anything, she was even more careful than she ordinarily would be.
Mandy played her telescope over every inch of sky. And then she did it again. And again. Until the sun came up and the stars disappeared.
; She called Luke. “You said it took only a few minutes to reach the ship,” she reminded him. “Then where is it? All the stars and planets are in place. There’s nothing up there that shouldn’t be. No UFOs.”
She tried to keep any hint of smugness out of her voice.
But Luke didn’t seem disappointed. Quite the opposite.
“Then it’s on the ground,” he said excitedly. “That means we can find it. Something that big can’t be easy to hide. Mandy, it’s probably near where I chased the alien and got zapped in the woods. Quentin said they can’t go far in our atmosphere. Not enough oxygen. They can’t leave the ship for long, which is why they need Quentin.”
Mandy felt exhausted. She craved sleep. But she couldn’t let Luke go alone.
She argued with herself. There was nothing to find, so why not let him go? Quentin and his merry band of skinhead thugs, that’s why. Quentin might not be a wanna-be alien, but there was something evil going on with him.
Mandy had no doubt it was dangerous. In the real world.
She talked Luke into letting her get a couple hours sleep. They met at the high-tension junction just after lunch.
It was immediately obvious that the daylight hadn’t diminished Luke’s belief in alien abduction one bit. “We should split up for efficiency,” he said.
“No way,” Mandy balked. She was not tramping around in the woods by herself. “What if something happened to one of us?”
Luke didn’t seem too disappointed. But it was a wasted afternoon. No aliens, no danger, just a lot of scratchy bushes.
Mandy got home exhausted. She was in no mood to have Luke call to remind her not to sleep.
“Drink plenty of coffee,” he instructed. “Go to bed before ten, but don’t fall asleep. Okay? Together we’ll find a way out of this.”
It was his last sentence that made her go along.
She drank three cups of coffee and still felt drowsy. So she drank a fourth. All the caffeine seemed to kick in about ten minutes later.
Nerves jangling, she put on her only pair of pajamas. If the power surge scrambled her brain, she might sleepwalk again. And if Quentin was waiting, she wanted to be wearing more than a T-shirt and panties.
At the mere thought of his name, a sudden image hit Mandy like a fist. Quentin, snaky tongue whiplashing, coming for her. Another figure in the background, eyes like a giant fly’s.
The hallucination was gone in a second, but Mandy sat down on the edge of her bed, shaking. She wished she was with Luke. She should have found some way they could spend the night together again.
She got up. It was nine-thirty. She grabbed her desk chair and wedged the top of it under her doorknob. That might not stop her from sleepwalking, but maybe the noise would wake her parents.
Getting into bed, she realized she couldn’t even read. But what was stopping her? She wouldn’t be sleeping. And Luke wouldn’t know she hadn’t actually pretended to sleep.
But maybe Quentin would.
Mandy turned out the light. Immediately, images floated up in the darkness. Creatures with huge, cold eyes and pale, boneless limbs. Strange, gleaming instruments.
And Quentin, lifting her shirt with his serpentine tongue.
Mandy jerked out her arm to turn on the light.
But there already was light. Her room was filling with it.
Mandy’s arm fell back on the bed. The light was cool, like gray dawn. Her room was empty.
Brighter light flashed outside her window. Mandy shut her eyes. Suddenly terrified, she stopped breathing.
In her mind, she heard Cassandra. “Hold your breath. Keep your eyes closed.”
Her body was rigid. Mandy tried to relax her muscles.
This wasn’t really happening. Just another horrible hallucination. In a few seconds she was going to turn on her lamp.
Then the covers slid off. Mandy stifled a scream.
She felt her body lift off the bed.
Chapter Twenty-four
This wasn’t happening.
Nevertheless, Mandy continued to hold her breath when she felt the mist hit her face. She was braced for the cold fall of thick liquid that Luke had described. It molded her arms to her sides.
She didn’t panic when the shell hardened, encasing her body. Luke had prepared her well. Too well. It was his hallucination she was having. Somehow she was dreaming his dream.
Oh, well. Her own nightmare might have been worse.
An abrupt sensation of acceleration cut off her thoughts. Her stomach pressed sickeningly against her backbone as she was hurled through space.
But the unpleasant sensation was brief, as Luke had promised. Then she was inside. Mandy wondered: Would Luke be here, too?
Mandy hoped she wouldn’t have to suffer through this experience on her own.
“Mandy,” Luke’s voice called anxiously. “Are you awake?”
Mandy opened her eyes and there he was, hovering. Beyond him—no, through him—she could see his body, and the large machine removing his carapace.
“I’m awake,” Mandy whispered. Experimentally, she tried rolling. There was the slightest tug of resistance, and then she was free and weightless.
She kind of liked it.
Mandy smiled at Luke. She kicked to float up beside him and overshot, knocking her head on the ceiling. She was surprised to discover it didn’t hurt.
Luke rose, still looking anxious.
“I’ve read about astral projections,” Mandy said. “I always wondered how it would feel. I suppose this is it.”
“Astral projection?” Luke wrinkled his nose. “Isn’t that some New Age thing?”
Mandy shrugged. “I guess. Although it’s nothing new. Some people claim their astral selves leave their bodies and travel during sleep. I always thought it sounded cool. Sleep is such a waste of time.”
She looked around. “This really is clinical-looking. And so gray. Even the light is dim and silvery. There’s no color at all. Usually I dream in vivid color.”
“Dream? I wondered why you seem so calm about all this,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Mandy, this is not a dream.”
“Says you. Come on, let’s go find some aliens.” Mandy twisted around, spinning in the air. “Where’s the door?”
Luke led the way. He took her first to the control room, but naturally the symbols meant no more to her than they had to him.
She didn’t see her first alien until they reached the “roachateria,” as Luke dubbed it. A wave of revulsion washed over her. It was a visceral feeling, twisting her guts.
It was the aliens’ eyes that bothered her, even more than their revolting eating habits. Obviously the creatures were intelligent, but their huge eyes were as empty as any insect’s.
“That was as far as I got last night,” Luke said as they left. “From here on, everything is new to both of us.”
A hatch opened in the wall, spilling silvery light over the passageway. An alien came out and turned down the hall away from Luke and Mandy, leaving the door open.
Mandy was surprised to notice how gracefully the alien creature moved. Even though its limbs looked unnaturally slender under the oversize head, the creature seemed almost to glide, its motion was so smooth.
With a kick, Mandy followed Luke toward the open hatchway. She found that she liked astral flying. It was, as Luke had said, a bit like swimming.
Except air didn’t have the resistance of water. As usual, she overflew her target and had to come back.
“It’s another examining room. A laboratory,” Luke told her. “There’s nobody here.”
“It looks like they’re prepping it,” Mandy said, eyeing the instruments positioned around an empty space. Computers were humming, although the screens were blank.
Mandy felt a prickle of unease. She had to remind herself it was only a dream. “I wonder if it’s for us,” she said.
“There isn’t room for both of us,” Luke pointed out.
As he spoke, they heard a trundling sound in the pa
ssageway. It was accompanied by a chittering noise—like grasshoppers crawling over one another.
Goose bumps rose on Mandy’s astral flesh. “What’s that awful noise?”
“The buzzing sound? That’s how they talk. The aliens.”
“It vibrates inside me,” Mandy complained. “Like insect legs scraping the inside of my scalp.”
“Really? It doesn’t have that effect on me,” Luke said.
The sound grew louder. Mandy shuddered and rose to a corner of the ceiling. She had to fight the urge to flee.
Suddenly, the aliens were in the room. They wheeled a gurney into place. She couldn’t see who it was; the aliens blocked her view.
“Mrs. Grundy!” Luke exclaimed in surprise.
“What?” Mandy swooped down. Too fast. Unable to stop, she plunged right through an alien’s head. Her wheeling arms churned the body on the gurney before she was able to slip sideways.
Although she felt no flesh and the aliens gave no indication of sensing anything unusual, the experience nauseated her. She reached for Luke to steady herself, but her hand passed through him. She cartwheeled once more before coming to a shaky stop.
“Make small movements,” Luke said, but he seemed hardly conscious of her distress. His attention was focused on the aliens.
Mandy pulled up beside him. Mrs. Grundy was unconscious. She was dressed in an old cotton nightgown, with a rip in one short sleeve. Clearly, she had not been expecting company.
The aliens were attaching wires to the old lady’s head. The wires were tipped with small needles, like tacks, which the creatures pressed into her scalp.
Mandy noticed that the aliens’ arms seemed boneless, bending in odd, fluid ways. They also seemed to elongate and shorten at will. It reminded her of something. She wasn’t sure what.
“What could they want with her?” Mandy asked in a small voice. She felt it was her fault the old librarian was here in her nightmare.
Luke and Mandy both stiffened at the sound of approaching footsteps in the hall. The aliens didn’t make footstep sounds.
“Quentin,” breathed Luke.
Abduction Page 11