Abduction

by Rodman Philbrick

  “I had to grab her sooner than I planned,” Cassandra reported. “She had found an entrance. Luke was too far off for me to get him at the same time.”

  “What?” Quentin’s head swiveled toward a dyzych standing in another door, one that opened into the interior of the ship. Mandy had not even noticed the alien. “I thought it was supposed to be impossible to detect an entrance.”

  “Luke won’t find it,” Cassandra assured him. “It was the merest accident that she did. He’s not looking in the right way.”

  “Not that it matters,” Quentin said irritably. “Our work will be completed tonight.”

  He was interrupted by a dyzych carrying a steaming tray. The alien set it down on the table beside Quentin. The aroma, something like wet fur and hot, dirty socks, turned Mandy’s stomach.

  The dyzych lifted the cover. It was rat, skinned but still recognizable. Cockroaches, sluggish but not dead, garnished the plates.

  Disgusting as the food was, Mandy felt a prick of excitement. In a few moments Quentin and his dyzych friends could be writhing in poisoned pain on the floor.

  Quentin chose the largest plate. The serving alien handed another to the silent dyzych in the doorway and the last to Cassandra.

  She smiled and waved it off. “I’ve become a vegetarian,” she said.

  Quentin shot her an irritated glance. Then he turned to the serving dyzych. “Has the gassing begun?” he asked.

  The alien chittered and Quentin looked satisfied. He wafted his hand dismissively in Cassandra’s direction. “Then get Luke now. I’ve waited this long, I want everything perfect. And that means Luke the Puke must be here to watch me enjoy what he never will.”

  Mandy’s mind shut down. There was no longer room for any thought but that of escape. She lunged for the door.

  Cassandra whipped out an arm, but Quentin stopped her. “No,” he commanded.

  Mandy reached the door.

  “Mandy,” Quentin barked. “Stop.”

  Instantly, every muscle in her body seized up. Her body was rigid but her momentum carried her forward.

  She saw the floor coming up to meet her. But she couldn’t raise her arms to break her fall.

  Mandy shut her eyes.

  Cassandra caught her inches before her face hit the metal floor.

  Quentin laughed. “You’re too sentimental,” he told Cassandra. “It’s a weakness.”

  “That’s me,” Cassandra answered bitterly. She propped Mandy’s rigid body in a corner. “Sentimental.”

  Cassandra went out to fetch Luke. Quentin turned his full attention on Mandy. An icy desolation blew through her, whistling out hollow bones.

  Quentin eased back in his leather armchair, swinging his leg indolently. Quickly, he bit into the rat.

  A smile twitched over his lips as he chewed. With every crunch of his teeth, he crawled a little farther into her brain. He was taking his time, reveling in her horror.

  To Mandy, the creeping invasion was like a killing tide, poisoning everything it touched on its slow, unstoppable rise. Inside herself, she scrambled for higher ground.

  But the evil blackness rose, lapping at her feet, then higher.

  In her mind, Quentin watched, fascinated, as she was engulfed.

  “Shall I tell you what we are doing?” His glee fed her fear, like gasoline dripped on a smoldering fire. “The dyzychs have created a heavier-than-air gas.” He laughed, and spurts of flame seared the inside of her mind. “No, not poison. A sleeping gas.”

  He popped a roach inside his mouth, crunched. “Once the doltish population is unconscious, my loyal army of skinheads will be unleashed.”

  Quentin’s eyes bored into her intently. “I’m sending them to your house first, Mandy. They will be armed. With a tool you are familiar with. I have christened it the Implant Gun. Your parents, and the rest of sleepy Greenfield, will dedicate the remainder of their lives to the dyzychs.”

  For an instant, Mandy forgot her own plight, overwhelmed by this new horror. It no longer mattered if Quentin and the dyzychs were all incapacitated by food poisoning. Quentin had won.

  Quentin sighed dramatically. “Unfortunately, those lives will be brief. The nasty Others are coming, you see. The Others, sworn enemies of the dyzychs, cannot afford to let any dyzych slaves survive.”

  Quentin paused. In her mind, he projected a vivid image of blood, murder, and carnage. The Others, however, were only large shadowy forms.

  “While the Others are busy wiping out Greenfield, the dyzychs will attack them. An ambush. Clever, isn’t it? My idea, naturally.” Quentin gnawed on a leg bone. “But you, Mandy my mate, will be safe with me. I have saved your life.” He laughed. “And I expect the proper gratitude.”

  Mandy conjured up all the loathing she could and tried to spit in his face.

  In reply, Quentin reanimated her body. He turned her toward the big bed. Flames licked the inside of her skin. She was burning up with his corrosive joy.

  “Don’t worry, Mandy.” Quentin’s words were unspoken. They sounded only inside her head. “I’m in no hurry. We have lots of time and I want to savor every second.”

  Mandy watched herself walk over, lie down. Her brain reeled. Her chest tightened. Yet her body breathed normally.

  It was like there were two of her.

  “I told you, Mandy”—Quentin spoke aloud this time, the words echoing a second time inside her head—“I don’t need you willing. Just conscious.”

  He put down his plate. Stood.

  Brown rat gravy dribbled down his chin.

  Her revulsion invigorated him.

  He came toward her. She scrambled desperately to escape.

  But her body just lay there, inert and exposed.

  Quentin’s heat sucked oxygen from her lungs.

  He bent over her, his grease-stained lips parted.

  “Are you ready, my love? We’ll start with a kiss.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Luke raced to where he had last seen Mandy.

  He wanted to shout out her name again and again, but he knew it was no use. It would only bring the skinheads. Or the dyzychs.

  He ran back and forth over the limestone formations, feet slipping, panic building. His head spun. How could she disappear without a trace?

  His feet skidded on a sandy patch. His legs went out from under him and he landed on his tailbone. The pain traveled up his spine, leaving him gasping.

  Luke knew he couldn’t afford to hurt himself. He had to think. Maybe Mandy had found the ship.

  Or maybe she had been captured before she could cry out.

  Either way, the ship was here. Somewhere.

  Luke cursed the darkness.

  He tried to tell himself the darkness hid him. But as soon as he formed the thought, he felt eyes. The hairs rose on the back of his neck, down his arms.

  His head swiveled. Nothing moved. All he could see was the desolate desert of rock.

  But the eyes watched him.

  His mind was playing tricks. Games he had no time for.

  Shrugging his shoulders against the eery discomfort, he put the feeling out of his mind.

  He crawled slowly over the ground, concentrating only on his task. His fingers explored every inch. He tried to imagine how Mandy would have gone about it. Luke pried at cracks, pressed his palm into depressions.

  He looked for little piles of rock dust, imagining they might lie around like the excavations of ants.

  And he kept his eye on the sky, remembering the bat-wind whoosh and the shadow he might have seen.

  It was as he turned his head between Earth and sky that he saw the gleam. It was gone before he was sure he’d seen it. But Luke worked his way carefully in its direction.

  The gleam didn’t come again. His desperation was making him imagine things. Luke worked his jaw, his muscles rigid with tension.

  He had to find Mandy.

  He saw something dark wedged in a crack. He pried at it, but his finger was too thick. Out of
the corner of his eye, he spotted an odd little pile of objects.

  Dark things against the lighter limestone.

  Crawling hurriedly, Luke kept his eyes trained. Unblinking, as if the objects might vanish before he could reach them.

  His fingers closed over the small, black squares. Instantly he knew what they were. A chill settled over him. Mandy’s magnets. Without them, she was helpless.

  At the same time, his skin prickled with excitement. Now he knew where she had been. He ran his hands over the limestone, searching.

  This was where he had seen the gleam.

  Suddenly Luke paused. Mandy had disappeared. Lost her magnets. Something had been waiting here. Something had snatched her.

  Without moving, he surveyed the ground and found a good-size rock. He took out his knife. Flattening himself against the rock wall, he twisted his head, looking for what Mandy had discovered.

  Once his eyes picked up the tiny reflection, the hairline crack was revealed.

  Stretching his arm full length, Luke ran his knife blade along the crack.

  There was no sound.

  But suddenly a yawning blackness appeared.

  He felt the air behind him move an instant before he heard it.

  The flap of giant bat wings.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Mandy frantically searched her mind for a way out. There had to be some way to get her control back.

  But Quentin leaned slowly closer. His eyes looked like chips of filthy polar ice. But burning, too. Impossible. But they did burn.

  Those eyes seared holes in her brain.

  Quentin licked his lips.

  Mandy’s heart battered her ribs. Her skin broke out in goose bumps.

  The tip of Quentin’s tongue flicked out at her.

  A chittering buzz suddenly came from the door.

  Never had such an unpleasant noise sounded so wonderful to Mandy.

  Quentin’s face tightened in an angry snarl. His eyes snapped toward the door. “What is it?”

  Mandy was still immobile. She couldn’t turn her head. But, strangely, she could see the dyzych through Quentin’s eyes.

  To her surprise, she realized Quentin viewed the aliens much as the dyzychs viewed humans. As a means to an end. With no significance in themselves.

  The dyzych’s answer affected Quentin profoundly. His anger blazed, but there was a peculiar stillness to it. Almost an uncertainty.

  Abruptly, Quentin withdrew from her head.

  “You’re all sick? How can that be?”

  The alien’s answer trailed off in a sputtering hiss, like air escaping from a tire.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mandy could see the creature slump weakly against the doorjamb.

  “Ridiculous,” Quentin spat. “And impossible. I raised those animals myself. Besides, I probably ate more than any of you, and I’m not sick.”

  But a brief spasm crossed Quentin’s face. Mandy felt his iron grip slip. Just a little.

  She could move her head. But she didn’t want to remind him she was there. Mandy tried not to breathe too much or even move her eyes.

  Quentin strode toward the door. “If you dyzychs can’t handle it, I’ll get my boys to pump the gas. Without the sleeping gas, the plan has no chance. We’ll be caught here like sitting ducks.” A beat. “Or you will be, anyway,” he added cruelly.

  The dyzych bleated.

  “Sitting ducks,” Quentin repeated. “It means—oh, never mind.” His voice faded as he hurried away down the hall.

  Mandy felt herself slip back into her muscles and bones. She shook off the residue of Quentin’s presence with a body-shaking shudder.

  She sat up. The dyzych remained leaning in the doorway, looking weak and ill. Quentin had left it to watch her. Its big insect eyes turned slowly toward her.

  The eyes were dull. The alien chittered weakly. Froth dribbled from its lipless mouth. It put up a hand. A warning probably. But its boneless legs collapsed under it like melting wax.

  The dyzych slumped down the side of the door. It lay in a quivering puddle across the opening.

  Mandy’s mind worked feverishly. She had to get out of here.

  She jumped off the bed. It would be no problem finding her way back to the entrance in the rock. Somehow she would get it open. Find Luke.

  She started toward the door, eyeing the dyzych warily. She and Luke would come back into the ship. There was no longer time to go for help. But the aliens were incapacitated, or nearly so.

  There was still a chance to beat them.

  Mandy stepped over the dyzych quickly. It slowly lunged for her, but she easily evaded its reach.

  The alien started to struggle upright. Mandy backed hurriedly down the hallway, keeping an eye on it.

  She was almost at the first turn. Then an unfamiliar voice spoke behind her.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” It was a thin girlish voice. With an edge.

  Before Mandy could turn, the long arms wrapped her like whipcord. Mandy glimpsed a tattoo on the boneless hand: LOVE.

  Quentin’s skinhead girl.

  With a flick, the arms slammed Mandy against the limestone wall of the passage.

  She heard her ribs crunch against the impact. Her breath was knocked out of her.

  The skinhead girl was grinning. She no longer had a human face. The lipless mouth stretched grotesquely, exposing small, sharp teeth. Her skin was gray and rubbery. But it was her eyes that riveted Mandy’s horrified attention.

  “Humans are so breakable,” the girlish voice said cheerfully. “The dyzych body is much superior.”

  Mandy sprawled on the floor. The Lucy-creature stood over her. Her faceted black insect eyes glittered brilliantly even in the dimness.

  She grinned. “Q sent me to watch you.” She hauled Mandy to her feet and threw her back into the room she’d so recently escaped from.

  The sick dyzych dribbled and crawled into a corner. It curled there, apparently unconscious.

  “What happened to that one?” Lucy asked, staring down at it.

  Mandy felt a glimmer of hope. “I don’t know. Why don’t you sit down. Have something to eat. Quentin rushed off without finishing his meal.”

  The Lucy-creature’s eyes flicked toward the half-eaten food. Her tongue slipped out between her small teeth. Then she took in the room. “This is yours?” Her voice shrilled with angry disbelief. “All I get is a capsule.”

  “It’s not mine,” Mandy said quickly. “It’s Quentin’s.”

  Lucy suddenly advanced. Her arms flashed in a blur. Mandy found herself knocked against the wall.

  “Q thinks he can still control me. He can’t. That’s another advantage we human dyzychs have.” The alien eyes flashed cold fire. “I think I’ll leave him a little surprise. His special plaything, all cold and lifeless.”

  Mandy pressed herself against the wall. Her brain scrambled. “Can’t we talk about this? You can eat and we can talk it over.”

  “I already ate.” Lucy advanced toward her, pinning Mandy with those awful eyes. “And after I strangle you, I’ll eat again.”

  A wave of despair washed through Mandy. The rat and roach poison must not work on humans. Quentin, too, had seemed unaffected.

  It was her last thought. Lucy’s muscled fingers closed around her neck.

  Mandy had never even seen the arms move, that time. She struggled to speak, but black spots danced before her eyes.

  The spots swam together.

  Mandy’s sight dimmed.

  Thought ceased.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Luke dove through the opening in the rock. Into blackness. In midair, he twisted his body and kicked.

  His feet connected with something. He heard a pained grunt of surprise. As the stone door slid shut, he caught a glimpse of Cassandra sprawled on the rock. Outside.

  Luke sprang to his feet and sprinted down the dim passageway. He knew he wouldn’t have much time. As soon as Cassandra regained her breath, she’d b
e after him.

  Adrenaline coursed through him. He came to a fork. He immediately turned right, never noticing the strands of blond hair scattered across the entrance to the other passage.

  The stone hallway twisted and turned so that Luke soon lost all sense of direction. He began to worry as his heartbeat subsided slightly.

  Where was the ship? Maybe he should go back, take the other fork.

  But it made no sense to have a passage dug through the rock if it didn’t lead somewhere. He kept going.

  Rounding yet another bend, Luke stopped short. He was in a wide, low-ceilinged cavern. Filling the cavern was a gleaming, silvery ship like nothing seen on Earth.

  It was round and low, but sleek. A faint humming noise came from it. Luke stared, awestruck.

  Suddenly a deeper noise thrummed. It shook Luke from his trance.

  Something was happening.

  Cautiously he approached the ship, aware that a fast-moving dyzych could grab him before he even saw its shimmery presence.

  But nothing stopped him. He did not even feel the eyes he had sensed outside. He was alone.

  There was a hatch. With a tremor equal parts fear and confidence, Luke reached up and grasped what appeared to be a handle.

  The hatch instantly swung wide.

  Luke jumped, his heart in his mouth. The thrumming noise was louder. But nothing lunged out at him.

  He hauled himself up into the opening. And almost fell backwards from fright.

  The room was full of dyzychs.

  Clutching the door frame, Luke steadied himself. Something was wrong. The aliens were lying on the floor, rocking feebly. Although their eyes turned toward him, they were dull.

  He felt anger coming off them—and also helplessness. The poison had worked!

  Energized, Luke sprang inside. He picked his way over the alien forms, toward the interior of the ship. His heart swelled with vengeful pride.

  He would track the source of the sinister humming noise and shut it down. He would destroy the heart of the alien ship—the command module.

  Then he would find Mandy. Together they would grab Quentin and force him to reveal the aliens’ plans.

  While confidence bubbled through his blood, Luke did not get foolhardy. He remembered his promise not to be heroic, and moved cautiously. He listened carefully.