The Influence

by Bentley Little

  She’d invited him for dinner, and he’d promised to be there by six, but things had come up. Shortly before five, he’d gotten an email from National Floor Mats. As Alex had predicted, he’d been offered a work-for-hire job, helping put together a needs assessment for the company’s proposed expansion, and while the consulting position was only for six months, the pay was decent and, as his friend had pointed out, it would boost his resume with more current credentials, He’d immediately emailed back his acceptance, then called Alex to thank him for his help.

  By the time he got off the phone, it was nearly six. On the way to her place, already running late, he’d encountered an improbable accident: a fenderbender involving a very masculine looking woman in a beat-up pickup truck, and that internet mogul’s model wife, who was driving a Cadillac SUV. The vehicles were blocking the narrow road, and the two women were standing toe-to-toe in the dirt, lit by headlights, arguing and one push away from a fight. It was all Ross could do to get them to calm down, exchange insurance information and finally agree to move on.

  “You’re a witness!” the model yelled at Ross as she got into her SUV. “I’m calling you for my court case!”

  The pickup driver shook her head. “Crazy stupid bitch.”

  Ross got back in his own car.

  To top it off, his cell phone was dead—again—so he couldn’t even call Jill and tell her that he would be late.

  As a result, dinner was ready and lukewarm by the time he got to her house. He expected Jill to be mad at him, and wouldn’t have blamed her if she was, but she didn’t seem to mind his tardiness and greeted him with a big kiss. She seemed a little on edge as she led him into the kitchen, and he found out why when they started eating and she told him about the reappearance of her dog.

  “Here in the kitchen?” Ross said incredulously.

  “And then he took off.” Jill took a bite of her stir-fried chicken, was silent for a moment. “I still don’t know how the door got open. It was closed. And locked. Puka certainly couldn’t open it.”

  “Did you call the police? Are there police around here to call?”

  “No and no.”

  Ross frowned. “What happens if there’s a crime? You have to be able to call someone.”

  “The county sheriff, I guess. They’re the ones looking for Dylan Ingram. You heard about that, didn’t you?”

  Ross nodded grimly. “His mom’s one of Lita’s friends.”

  “Do you think he’s…?”

  “I don’t know what happened to him. Hopefully, they’ll find him and he’ll be okay. I guess the searchers told his mom that last year they rescued a boy who’d gotten lost in the desert and was out there by himself for over a week. In the summer. So if he’s just lost, there’s a good chance he’s still okay.”

  “If he’s just lost.”

  The implication of that hung in the air.

  Jill sighed. “I’m not sure I like it here anymore. I’m not sure I feel safe.”

  “You can come back with me tonight.”

  “It’s not just tonight. And it’s not just this house. It’s…Magdalena.”

  His pulse was racing. Was this his cue? Should he invite her to come back with him to Phoenix, suggest that they move in together? Probably not. It was too early, too fast. But while he hadn’t planned to leave anytime soon, eventually he’d be returning to the real world, and if he could get her to come with him, that would be amazing.

  The moment passed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just jittery after what happened.”

  “Understandable.”

  Jill smiled. “So how are things in your neck of the woods?”

  He would have told her the truth, would have described those monsters being hatched from chickens’ eggs, but she was in a fragile state and he didn’t want to alarm her any more than she already was. So he lied and told her everything was fine, then switched the subject to the meal they were eating, which was outrageously delicious. She told him how it was a recipe adapted from something she’d seen on Iron Chef, talked about her love of food, described her latest pastry concoction: a jigsaw-puzzle cookie that could be used up to four times without breaking.

  They shared one of the jigsaw cookies for dessert—a four-piece puzzle that looked like the statue of liberty, and that they took apart and put together again before eating—and though he thought she’d mellowed out a bit, he could tell from Jill’s body language as they walked out to the living room afterward that she was still nervous. She tried to smile. “I was going to give you a break, and just stay in tonight and watch a movie. I even picked it out—” She held up a DVD of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

  “Good choice,” he said admiringly.

  “—but I want to get out of the house. Do you mind if we take a walk?”

  “I’ve been looking forward to it,” he told her.

  “Really?”

  “Well…I’ve been expecting it. That’s almost the same, right?”

  She laughed, a real laugh, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Get walking, buddy.”

  They didn’t head back toward town this time. Instead, Jill led him down a road that led in the opposite direction, further into the desert. They both had flashlights but didn’t really need them; the moon was out, the sky was clear and the rocky land before them was bathed in a bluish glow.

  “My mom called this afternoon,” Jill said as they strolled. “I almost told her what happened, but at the last minute, I didn’t. I didn’t want to worry her. Isn’t that weird, though? I was going to tell my mom because I wanted her help. Here I am, an adult, and for some reason, I still think that my mom, who isn’t even here, who lives two hundred miles away, can somehow save me, can tell me what to do to solve my problems.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’m not an adult.”

  “I know you’ve mentioned your mom before,” he said, “but what about your dad? Is he…?”

  “He’s alive.”

  “But you’re not close.”

  They walked for a moment without speaking. Finally, Jill took a deep breath. “When I was in high school, I worked at this clothing store in the mall. The other girls warned me the very first day about things I might encounter. They’d recently found a small webcam in one of the dressing rooms and the guy had been arrested. They also told me about this one pervert who would call up and make obscene phone calls. I’d been there around a month, I guess, when it happened to me. This man called up, and I answered the phone. ‘Do you like big cocks?’ he asked. ‘Do you like to suck big dirty cocks?’

  “It was my dad. I recognized his voice. I hung up right away, but I never answered the phone again. I always made sure someone else did it. I didn’t turn him in, either. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mom, even though I wanted to.

  “About a month later, he called the store again when I wasn’t there, and I guess someone told the police, and they were able to trace back the call.” She exhaled deeply. “They arrested my dad, and my mom divorced him, and I don’t know what happened to him after that, and I don’t care.”

  Ross didn’t know what to say.

  “The thing is, he knew I worked at that store. He knew I’d just gotten a job there. And I always wondered if he knew it was me when I answered the phone, if he wanted to say those things to me.”

  “Jesus.”

  “So, no, my dad and I aren’t close.”

  There was nothing to be said after that, and they continued on in silence. The night was chilly, but he knew that was not what was making her shiver, and he put his arm around Jill’s shoulder, drawing her to him. Her hand snaked around his waist, and they walked that way for awhile.

  Ahead, on the road before them, was a big black lump. Training their lights on the object, they saw that it was a cow.

  Only it had…changed.

  Jill’s hand clutched his arm tightly as they beheld the sight. While the animal appeared at first glance to be dead, it was not. It was moving. Possessing no legs, it
was pulling its bulk across the dirt by inching forward like a grossly overweight and wrongly shaped worm. The two of them stayed where they were, coming no closer, watching in horror as it struggled to cross the road. The cow was making noise, but the sound that issued from its wide open mouth was closer to a squeal than a moo. Its head, misshapen and elongated, flopped wildly from side to side as it lurched forward.

  Ross was the first to speak. “What happened?”

  “What’s happening?” Jill responded, and he understood that she was referring not just to the monstrosity in front of them but to everything that seemed to be occurring lately. His skin prickled.

  The cow cried out, reached the side of the road and rolled into a low ditch. In the stillness of the night air, they could hear its bulk rustling the weeds and brush as it pushed itself into the desert.

  “Let’s turn around,” Jill said, sickened.

  He didn’t argue, and they headed back the way they’d come, both of them glancing over their shoulders periodically to make sure something else wasn’t on the road and following behind. He thought of the chickens and the eggs and wondered what could possibly be causing such horrors. He was an engineer, so he knew the idea was stupid, but he’d seen a lot of science fiction films and his gut theory was radiation. There was no radioactive agent on earth that could cause such a variety of selective deformities in such a short amount of time—and the Palo Verde nuclear power plant was west of Phoenix, on the way to California, the nearest military base, Fort Huachuca, about fifty miles away in Sierra Vista—but the human brain never let facts get in the way of fears. “Maybe there’s some sort of secret government lab out here,” he said aloud, looking over at Jill in the darkness to try and gauge her reaction. “Maybe there’s been a leak and something’s spreading out and contaminating the environment.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but sounded doubtful.

  “What do you think’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think there’s a…scientific explanation,” she said.

  For some reason, the image of that black flying thing crossed his mind. “What do you mean?”

  “My friend Cissy tried to get me to go to church with her on Sunday. She said God was punishing Magdalena for its sins.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “I didn’t,” Jill said.

  “And now?”

  “I don’t think God’s punishing Magdalena. I don’t think there’s a curse on the town. But something’s going on that I don’t think anyone has an explanation for.”

  Ross thought again of that thing in the sky.

  “I’m not superstitious, but I’m open-minded, and when I see things like that…” She gestured behind them, leaving her thought unfinished.

  He had no response.

  They walked quickly back to her house, keeping a close watch on the road for anything else that might jump, slink or crawl in front of them. They made it back safely, and Jill walked from room to room, turning on all the lights. Whatever romantic mood had been generated earlier was long gone, but they had sex anyway, a quick desperate coupling on the living room floor, the only sounds in the otherwise quiet house an occasional grunt and the frantic slapping of skin. Afterward, he asked again if she wanted to stay with him for the night—or if she wanted him to stay with her—but Jill shook her head and told him she was okay, although she did ask him to wait outside until she’d locked all the doors and was safely in bed. He patrolled the house and the yard, made sure everything was all right, then tapped twice on her bedroom window with their pre-arranged signal before getting into his car and heading out. The other neighbors all seemed to be home—their lights were on at least—and that made him feel a little better, but he called her when he arrived back at the shack, just to make sure she was all right.

  She was. She was in bed and reading, the TV on in the background, and he said goodnight to her once again before getting undressed and crawling into bed himself.

  Closing his eyes, he tried not to hear the chickens outside, and tried to pretend to himself that their clucking didn’t sound like laughter.

  SEVENTEEN

  Cameron had come inside the house for lunch and was eating a melted cheese and bacon sandwich when the phone rang. He considered not answering—was there really anyone he wanted to talk to right now?—but he picked up the phone anyway, and it was Jack Judd. His friend did not sound so friendly today, and when the other rancher announced that he was coming over, along with Cal Denholm, Jim Haack and Joe Portis, Cameron knew the reason why.

  He wolfed down the rest of his sandwich, took a fortifying swig of Coors and went out to the porch to call Jorge. His foreman came over, but didn’t hurry the way he usually did. He kind of sauntered up, in a way that seemed almost deliberately disrespectful. Come to think of it, Jorge had been acting uppity for several days now, not showing the proper respect. On this ranch, that sort of behavior required punishment, so as soon as he stepped onto the porch, Cameron punched Jorge hard in the stomach. The other man doubled over, gasping for breath. “When I call you,” Cameron said in a low angry voice, leaning forward so he could be heard more clearly, “you come. Do you understand, maricon?”

  “Si,” Jorge said, straightening up, but even that word was spoken in a snide, insolent manner.

  Cameron would have beat the shit out of the fucking wetback then and there, but Jack and the others were coming, and he needed help. “Get all the men together,” he ordered. “Now. I want them out here guarding the smokehouse. Jack and Cal and Joe are coming over and I think they might want to do something. You have to stop them if they try.”

  For once, the two of them were on the same page. Jorge’s insolence disappeared, replaced by a determination so fierce that it took Cameron aback. He was glad to see such resolve, but it frightened him a little, and he wondered for the first time if that Catholic priest was right, if maybe they should bury the body instead of keeping it in the smokehouse. The feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived, though, and Jorge nodded his compliance before heading toward the barn, shouting orders in Spanish.

  Cameron went back into the house to finish off his beer, then stood on the porch, waiting. He could track the arrival of the other ranchers by the moving cloud of dust kicked up by their trucks, and he walked down the steps to meet the men as they got out of their vehicles, slamming the doors.

  It was Jack who spoke first. “Six more head last night, Cameron. Half my herd is gone.”

  “I know. Same thing’s happening to me.”

  “We’re going broke here!”

  “I told you, we need to find out—”

  Joe interrupted him. “We all know what’s causing it, Cameron. It’s that thing.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Bullshit!” Joe said.

  “Even my men are scared,” Jack continued. “I’m losing as many hands as cattle. Two more ran off yesterday.”

  All of them had lost workers, it turned out.

  Cameron said nothing. Looking toward the smokehouse at his own men gathered there, he realized that there were several hands he didn’t recognize. Jorge was talking to one of them, and he was pretty sure it was Cal’s foreman.

  Their workers were coming to his ranch.

  He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t need any more hands, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pay any wages for additional men.

  Jack must have seen where he was looking. Squinting, he peered at the area in front of the smokehouse. “Holy shit. Is that Pepe? And Julio?”

  “I guess they’re not that scared,” Cameron said drily.

  “You’re stealing our workers!”

  “I’m not stealing anything. I didn’t even know they were there until now, and I don’t want ’em. Take ’em back, they’re all yours.”

  Cal spoke for the first time. His voice was low and grim. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but our workers are defecting to you, our cattle are dying—”

  “Mi
ne are, too,” Cameron pointed out.

  “—and we’re losing money by the minute. At the same time, Lee Roberts—who had what? five or six head?—now has twenty. I don’t know where he got the money, but I saw the stock supplier’s truck over at his place, and when I asked him what was what, he said that he was expanding his herd and that he also had two out-of-season foals. Fucking Birkenstock Shane with his organic pea patch of land has made a deal with some sort of new age winery to supply grapes. All these little pissants are suddenly making money hand over fist.”

  “And our herds are dropping like flies!” Joe said.

  “They’re not just dying,” Jack said quietly, and all of them knew what he was talking about. Cameron thought of those bright red moths.

  Joe glared at him. “So fuck you, Cameron. I don’t give a shit what you say. We need to destroy that thing.”

  He’d been getting more alarmed and had actually been thinking the same thing. But he wasn’t about to concede the point to Joe Portis. Glancing back at the smokehouse and the men positioned protectively around it, his reservations disappeared. Somewhere in his brain, he thought dully that there was something wrong with that. All of his fears had suddenly been wiped clean, and that was not normal, not right. But he knew as well that it was evidence of tremendous power, power that could be harnessed and used—if he could only figure out how to do so.

  He turned toward the other ranchers with renewed determination. “You’re not touching it,” he said.

  Joe took a step forward. “The shit we’re not!”

  Like a dictator general, Cameron held up his hand, snapped his fingers and pointed forward. Jorge and the men behind him started forward, threateningly. “The shit you are.”

  Jack tried to appeal to reason. “It’s putting us in the poorhouse. You, too. It’s knocking everything out of whack. It was a mistake to keep it. We should have burned it or buried it that first night.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  “But we should.”

  “Things’ll turn around,” Cameron promised. “It’s ours. We just need to figure out how to make it work for us instead of against us.”