by Jay Brushett
STEVE WRAPPED THE GLOVED fingers of both hands around the exposed surface of the orb and lifted. He knew better than to touch it with his bare hands. The object came free from the soil.
He held it aloft, mesmerized.
That’s when he saw the other flashlight, saw Jimmy in the backwash from that light. Saw his hideous demonic features — his true features — in the cast shadows. Steve watched as Jimmy crossed to the boy, to free him.
They wouldn’t take it. Steve wouldn’t let them take it.
“No!” Steve called out, still grasping his prize. He would never put it down. With effort — pushing past the pain he felt — he managed to get to his feet and stumbled out of the hole.
Lurching and staggering he ran for Jimmy.
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IT WAS GOING TOWARD The Selected.
It would make Contact.
The Process would complete.
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“NOOOOOO!” STEVE HOWLED AS he rammed his shoulder into Jimmy’s back.
Jimmy fell, caught completely unaware, hitting the ground with a thud. A whoompf escaped his lips as the wind was knocked out of him.
“Jimmy!” a woman screamed from a few metres away, behind Steve. It was immediately followed by a thud-clank as something metallic struck the ground.
He wheeled around to see.
It was that bitch, the demon that had been with Jimmy earlier. And the other one, the tall bastard, was there too. He carried a staff, or was it a pitchfork? They were both racing toward him, anger on their long faces. Their sharp, shadowy claws were reaching, grasping for him. To take his prize. To kill him.
They wouldn’t get him.
Steve saw Jimmy’s flashlight laying at his feet.
He grabbed it, tucked the orb against his side with one arm, and ran into the woods, away from his pursuers.
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BRAD HAD REACHED OUT his hands, had sensed it only mere centimetres away from his fingertips. He didn’t know why, didn’t know anything other than he had to touch it, had to complete The Process.
But now it was gone. Again.
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“HE HAS IT! STEVE has it!” Larry screamed, gesturing with his shovel, as Steve disappeared into the trees. “We have to follow him!”
Rhonda was kneeling next to Jimmy, turning him over.
“Fuck that, we have to help Jimmy!”
Larry looked at the spot where Steve had disappeared, wobbled in that direction, unsure of what to do.
Then he looked at Brad, at the boy, clutching a small orb in his hand. A sphere the colour of the probe, catching the light in the same shifting way.
Of course, he understood now. Brad had a conduit to the probe, had a connection with it that Larry hadn’t, a physical connection. Larry had only had that connection in that moment, so long ago, when they had both been in contact with the probe.
“Help me, God damn it!” Rhonda screamed up at him.
It was too late, Larry had decided. But he knew it wasn’t a decision at all. No, his fate had been sealed, the same as Brad’s since that day all those years ago. He threw down the shovel and made for Brad.
Rhonda watched the light from the flashlights dance across the small ball. Immediately she knew it was part of the probe. And she knew it was most definitely alien. Her child’s brain hadn’t known enough to see the probe for what it was, but now she knew. Now she understood more how the world, and the things in it, worked. Nothing of this world ever looked like that.
Larry tore the orb from Brad’s hand, peeling back the boy’s small but strong fingers.
“Larry, what the fuck?!” Rhonda asked, confusion and worry on her face. Her hand rested on Jimmy, on the only real thing she had in her life lately. She could feel the warmth of his body beneath his shirt. What the fuck did she care about some stupid probe?
Then Larry was gone, through the trees, swallowed up, exactly as Steve had been.
“Larry! You sonofabitch!” Rhonda called after him.
It might have been Rhonda’s cry or coincidence as his body fixed itself, but it was then that Jimmy opened his eyes.
“What hit me?” Jimmy asked as he collected himself, his back and head throbbing.
“Steve,” Rhonda said, forgetting Larry’s betrayal for a moment.
“I should have seen him… I saw Brad and just reacted.”
“It’s okay, you’re okay.” She smiled down at him as he rubbed his head. “You are okay, aren’t you?”
Jimmy looked around. “I think so.” There was the tree with the almost catatonic Brad lashed to it and the hole with Steve’s flashlight still shining up from it.
“Where’s Steve?” A pause. “Where’s Larry?!”
“Gone, both of them. Steve ran off after he attacked you. Larry, the bastard, grabbed some small ball from Brad’s hand and took off after him.”
“Small ball?” Jimmy asked, confused.
“Brad was gripping it like his life depended on it. It was white, like the larger thing… the probe. I think it was a part of it.”
“The probe?” Jimmy looked again at the hole. “Steve has it? The probe?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it,” Jimmy said, getting to his feet.
“Hey, you should take it easy.”
“I can’t,” he saw her pained expression, “I will… but now, we have to get Brad free. And then help Larry.”
“He didn’t help you,” she muttered.
“Larry has this small ball, whatever it is. Steve has the probe. Look what it did to Brad!” Jimmy spread his arm, indicating the silent young boy. “Who knows what will happen if Larry has both of them at once, he might end up fried — empty — like Brad!”
“Okay,” Rhonda said, “what do we do?”
“We help our friend,” Jimmy said.
He looked at Brad by the light of Rhonda’s flashlight. It was Brad, one hundred percent, without a doubt. As he had been: ten years old. But the fire, the energy that had been Brad’s trademark, were gone. His eyes were open but there was no light there. They stared, glassy and empty.
He removed the gag from Brad’s mouth and cupped the young boy’s cool face in his dirt-streaked hands. He looked into that face for any recognition, any hint that his friend was still in there.
“We help our friend,” he said again. “Finally.”
He started untying the ropes while Rhonda held the flashlight and made sure Brad didn’t fall over.
Chapter 6
MANY TIMES, OVER MANY years, Steve had passed through these woods in the dark. He had the flashlight pointed ahead and the large white sphere tucked under his arm. But he knew the direction, knew many of the large trees when he came to them. His progress was swift. He was making excellent time, would be back to the playground before too long. Once there it was only a matter of running, as fast as he could, back to his house.
What then?
He would figure that out then. Now he had to move.
Every now and then, from behind him, there came the snap of a breaking branch or the heavy rustle of them moving. Someone, something, was chasing him. It wasn’t Jimmy, no, he wouldn’t have been able to recover so fast. Most likely it was the tall one. He was coming for Steve’s prize.
Steve pushed his legs harder. He had to try and increase the gap between himself and the creature pursuing him. He had stirred the nest, stolen the forbidden fruit from Eden.
But at God’s behest. Yes, he didn’t do it for himself. Brad, his body at least, was here, to guide him, to aid in finding the thing now cradled in his arms. He had to keep it safe. It would keep the world safe. He didn’t know how but he knew it was so.
So he ran faster, ignoring the burning in his legs and lungs and the whipping branches that scratched his face.
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LARRY WOULD SOMETIMES CATCH a glimpse of Steve in the beam of his flashlight. Then the man would be gone again; he was fast. Larry pressed on. He scrambled over large stones and pushed against tree trunks, anything to get a burst of speed.
He would catch Steve, he had no doubt. Larry wasn’t certain but he thought he could sometimes hear the other man’s intense breathing. Steve would need to stop soon. Not Larry though, he ran almost every day.
And when he did so his mind was awash with visions of distant stars, as it was all the time. All the times when he didn’t force those images away. Running was his outlet, when he let the visions free. He ran, not thinking, letting the images come. The colossally distant vistas of red giants, white dwarfs, nebulae, asteroids and planets ran like a movie through his head. It was as if he was there, could feel the cold and black of space enveloping him, punctuated by the intense heat of solar radiation.
It was enticing, no, addictive. And it pushed him on, in his career, pushed him to understand more and more of what he could see in his mind. And now he did understand. Not everything, no, but much, much more. With his work, even without the probe, he’d someday be able to know what he was looking at and where it was.
He would have the key to the map the aliens had planted in his brain: the path the probe had travelled across the black to this lonely world.
But even sooner he would have the probe itself. Gripped in his hand was the small orb — the key to that device. He didn’t know how he knew that but know it he did. He would bring the two spheres together and knowledge would be his.
Peace would be his. Finally, he would be able to close his eyes and not see the fiery tendrils of distant stars.
It was a race and he would win, had to win, for his sanity. He squeezed the small sphere harder, his knuckles white, and increased his speed. The trees flashed by all around him, branches brushed his legs and chest. He hardly noticed any of it.
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BRAD WAS FREE. THE ropes that had held him lay on the ground at the base of the tree.
Rhonda crouched next to him, gripping him by the shoulders, making sure he didn’t run off. He made motions to do so but they were feeble attempts. Jimmy stood nearby, looking down at them.
“He doesn’t appear to be hurt,” Rhonda said, inspecting him. “So what now?” She asked, turning to look at Jimmy.
He sighed. “We let him go.”
“What?” Rhonda asked, increasing her grip on the young boy’s shoulders. If it hurt him he gave no sign, his face remained blank.
“Rhonda, look at him. He’s not Brad, not like this.”
The glassy eyes stared back, unfocused, at her own. Again, he tilted a little, edging in the direction Steve and Larry had gone.
“So, what, we let him go and maybe lose him all over again?”
“You see him, he wants to go, wants to follow them.”
“So, we should let him? Why don’t we all go, the three of us? We’ll follow the others, find them, sort this out.”
Jimmy shook his head. “We’ll follow, sure, but this isn’t about us. It’s about him,” he nodded toward Brad, “and Larry. It always has been.”
“Since that day,” Rhonda said.
“Exactly.”
“Okay,” she said. She held Brad’s shoulders a second longer. Then she pulled him close, clutching him to her chest, before releasing him.
Brad hesitated a second, wobbling there, looking as if he might fall over at any moment. Then he tilted his head as if listening to something. Like a dog does, Jimmy found himself thinking. Catching some unheard signal, Brad’s head jerked around, toward the woods. Then his body caught up and he was off without a sound, his tiny form slipping between the tree trunks.
Rhonda started to follow. Jimmy caught her by the wrist.
“Aren’t we going to follow him?” she asked.
“Yes, but not that way, we’re just as likely to get lost. We have a car.”
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BY THE TIME STEVE’S feet hit the gravel of the playground the sky had lightened.
There was no sign of the sun yet, but a pale grey had replaced the black of night. The air was still, quiet; the birds hadn’t yet begun their morning ritual. The only sound was the crunching of Steve’s feet on the small stones.
Steve didn’t notice, didn’t care. His heart, which felt like it might explode at any second, raced to keep up with his feet.
It was no good, he had to stop, had to take a break. It was okay, he must have put some distance between himself and the tall man.
The swing-less swing set was ahead of him. He crossed to it and leaned heavily on one of the rusty metal poles, his back to the woods. He let his flashlight fall to the ground and clutched the object to his chest with both arms. His breath came in shallow and ragged bursts.
He needed to turn around, needed to be able to see, needed to keep a look out for his pursuer.
In a moment.
He would rest here a minute first.
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MAY 21, 2005
It starting warming up a couple weeks ago. Since then Steven and I have been letting the boy have his little ball when it starts shifting. It’s the Devil’s work, I swear. It changes from being a baseball into that white thing. Black magic, that’s what it is.
Anyway, we let him take it, and he runs off into the woods of course. We follow along. By the time we get to the spot he’s found IT. Steven hides it every night, like George showed him, to keep anyone else from stumbling across it.
While the boy has his little heart-to-heart with Satan we sit there, chatting. Steven is his father’s son. He loves his brother. I try to tell him that Bradley, my Bradley, is dead, gone. Just not buried. That’s all.
But he still has hope. That’s sweet. If a little stupid.
After these past few years of coming here off and on — we do use the ropes a bit more these days — I can understand what George was saying a bit more.
That glowing, shimmering ball, the big one, does get into your head a bit. There’s something about it that makes you want to pick it up.
It turns blue when the boy touches it. I can’t say why. But it definitely knows he’s there.
I don’t know if I can stand it much longer.
I try to resist but I want to grab it, to scream at the Devil. The fact that it’s so tempting tells me it’s evil. It has to be.
We should destroy it.
If it is from Hell, fire probably won’t do anything.
Crush it? Maybe. But we’d have to take it somewhere and do that. No, can’t risk that.
And, if we did destroy it, what would happen to the boy? If it was the worst case, if he finally departed, would that be so bad?
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THE TREES POSED NO obstacle for Brad. He wasn’t even aware there were trees, wasn’t aware of anything other than The Call.
It rang in his head. If he deviated from the correct course it went to static and, when he corrected his path, it was clear and strong again.
He followed and made tiny adjustments with every step. His legs were strong from years of such excursions. Brad wasn’t aware of it, but his brother had fed him well — as difficult as the feeding was. Steve had cared for him as best as he could, for such a broken man.
The gap between Brad and the older men was closing. Efficiency and directness were beating out sheer speed. Of course, Brad had no idea there were other men, he only followed The Call.
It pounded in his head, compelling him on.
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LARRY BURST FROM THE trees into the open space of the playground. He slowed, surveying the area. The weak, early morning light seemed bright to him now that he was out from under the
trees. He discarded the now unnecessary flashlight.
There was Steve, leaning on the swing set.
He was resting! Larry couldn’t believe his luck. He needed to act before his chance evaporated and Steve was off again. If the man managed to get back to his house it would be tricky, more difficult to sort things out. They didn’t need the police or any other such group involved. That would complicate matters quite a bit.
He ran straight for Steve.
At the sound of Larry’s approach the man turned, stepping away from the swing rail.
Larry, getting closer with each step, saw the probe clutched to Steve’s chest.
The probe was his freedom, his way out from a preordained life. He was sick of seeing the stars, always the stars. He had thought it was a blessing, and it had been, had given him a purpose.
But now it was a curse. He had no choice, no say in what he did. He felt compelled — no better than Brad setting off each night — to heed a mission given to him by the aliens.
He wanted to complete that mission, fulfill it. The probe was the key to that.
And there it was, only metres from him now.
“Yaaaaaa!” he yelled as he neared the other man. He reached his hands out, ready to grasp the probe with his free hand and push the smaller orb against it. He wouldn’t wait, wouldn’t waste time trying to figure out what would happen. No, this wasn’t about science, not about hypotheses. This was about instinct, instinct fed to him by the probe decades before.
Steve’s eyes went wide, unsure of what to do. At the last moment he heaved his body away, pulling the probe with him.
Larry went careening past him but managed to grab Steve’s shirt as he went by. Both men tumbled to the ground, sliding across the rough gravel.