by Geoff North
“Who’s your grey friend?”
The witch was impressed. “He’s brave, you have to give him that... Still asking questions and poking his nose into our business even after all this.”
“Yeah… he’s something.” The ghost sat forward. “Let’s see what he makes of this.” White fingers clutched at the eye holes and pulled down. The sheet came off and Stewart screamed. No one instructed him to, no one had to. He screamed until his breath ran out.
“I seem to have that effect on people. It’s the main reason I don’t go out much anymore.”
Wesley’s description hadn’t even come close. Bald and white, yes, that was about it. The black eyes bulged out of their sockets, the size of over-grown plums, lubricated by yellow puss leaking from the corners. His teeth were two rows of rotted brown pegs, behind them a swollen grey tongue. The veins pulsed on his skull and ran down his cheeks, slithering down his neck beneath the sheet. They looked ready to burst. “You want to know more about our little grey friend in the woods? You want me take you there for a repeat of what your dad went through? Or maybe you’d like him to give you the same powers he gave us. Maybe you want to tell people what to do when you want them to… Maybe you want to become just… like… me.”
Somewhere in the terror Stewart found his voice. “I want to go home. I want you to make me forget all this… I just wanna go home… please… I wan-hu-hu-hunh—”. Words gave way to uncontrollable blubbering and Stewart cried.
“Not so brave now, is he?” Allan said.
“No… he isn’t,” Sheila sighed. “Let the kid go. Make him forget and send him home.”
“No. We’re always making people forget. We need to let someone remember. You’ll always remember me, won’t you, Stew? Just in case some other idiot kid gets the bright idea to come snooping around here. We need a guy like Weibe the Dweeb to set ‘em right, hey, Stewy?”
Stewart nodded so hard he heard his neck crack.
“You told him about the thing in the woods. We can’t—it wouldn’t be happy about that.”
“Our little secret, right, Stew?” Stewart nodded again.
Sheila slid off the chair and sat beside the boy. “You’re not going to say a word to your friends? You won’t talk to your mom and dad about it?”
“No… No one. No one. None. I promise. I swear. I swear.”
Allan crawled over on his hands and knees and sat on the coffee table. He leaned down and whispered into Stewart’s face. “And what if one of the kids at school decides to pay us a visit in the future, Stew? What’re you going to tell them?”
His breath smelled worse than the eggs. Stewart had to hold his own as he answered. “I’ll tell them no. I’ll tell them it’s a bad idea. I’ll tell them no one lives here. I’ll make them leave you alone.”
“Good boy.” There was a long pause as Allan continued to breathe his sour scent into Stewart’s face. Stewart felt certain the horrible grey tongue was going to lash out, that the peg-like teeth were going to bite his nose off.
Sheila broke the silence. “Go home, Stewart.”
Stewart shifted along the couch—as far away from Allan as he could get—his numbed buttocks sliding through Leroy’s cold vomit and urine. “Yes… home.”
He made it to the door, his fingers found the knob when Sheila spoke again. “Your father wasn’t a coward.”
Stewart looked back over his shoulder. Allan was still seated at the coffee table, the sheet placed back over his horrible head. The black eye holes were trained on Sheila, giving a warning look.
Sheila wasn’t scared. “He deserves the truth. You of all people should know what a dad means to a little boy.”
“What about him?” Stewart asked. He couldn’t believe he was still in the house. He should’ve been halfway down the lane by now. “What about my Dad?”
“The grey thing made him do it,” Sheila said. “It made him bash his own face against a tree until he dropped. We thought he was dead at first… So much blood.”
“Go home, Stewart,” the ghost whispered. “Get lost.”
He slammed the door and jumped from the porch without taking the steps. Stewart slipped in the puddle of frozen blood left behind from Leroy’s face scrub and fought from laughing out loud. Leroy’s going to look in the mirror tomorrow morning and see a big scabby mess. And he won’t even know how he got it.
He got back to his feet and ran through the yard light’s weak reach. The fog was heavier, the gloom cast from the last bit of light glow was swallowed up by black. Stewart continued to run as fast as he could. Why had the witch told him about his father? How could they torture children, and then at the end of it all, offer some kind words?
Their little grey friend in the woods. It was the one that hurt Dad.
He wasn’t a coward.
Scared shitless, Stewart continued to run. He stumbled from lane to road and headed south for home.
Chapter 15
Grab by the left ear and twist to the right. It wasn’t the first Neanderthal life Becky had to take, and it wouldn’t be the last. That didn’t make murder any easier. Crunch. It felt like breaking a water-logged branch covered in blankets. She lowered the body gently to the ground and looked for the others. Boo and Ann were still high up in the trees, twisted around the dead branches and keeping watch over the hunting savages in the valley below. Allan appeared from a dusty cleft of rocks to the west, dragging the dead cat by its tail. His upper body and arms were a mish-mash of tears and shredded skin. A mixture of human and feline blood streamed down his legs.
He deposited the lion next to the dead Neanderthal. “How many?”
“This is the third one. They’ll be sending more soon,” Becky replied. She placed a particularly large patch of hanging skin from Abe’s bicep back into place. “Are you going to bleed to death?”
“I doubt it.”
The lion had been stalking them for days. The Neanderthals had been hunting the lion. Everyone was starving. Becky waved at the kids and they descended quietly from of the branches. “We’ll have to cover our tracks and make a run for it now.”
“No sense trying to stay hidden. When they find three of their own dead along with the cat, they’ll know something else is out here. They can probably smell us already.”
Boo ran to them and held up two fists. He opened his hands, revealing ten dirty fingers and thumbs. He closed them and opened them again.
“Twenty,” Becky said. “There are at least twenty left below. We could finish them off here. We have the high ground.”
Ann pushed Boo aside and repeated the fist-finger gestures. Her hands opened and closed three times.
“Thirty,” Allan nodded solemnly. “Probably more… too many to take on if we want to keep the children safe. We keep moving.”
They quickly salvaged what they could from the dead lion and moved back into the rocks, picking their way along the forest’s edge a few more miles. Becky pointed to a distant range of hills to the east and the four ran across an open, desolate plain of cracked earth and dust.
It had gone on like this for months—years possibly—walking and running five to ten miles a day, stopping at weak-flowing streams and muddy lakes beginning to freeze over. The sun remained stubbornly hidden most of the time. Their only reminder it still rose and set at all was a slightly brighter smudge crawling along the brown and grey sky. It was getting colder, the days were becoming shorter the farther north they travelled. Boo and Ann remained bundled in furs, surviving off what food and water Becky and Allan could find.
They settled in the hills that night without a fire to warm them. Allan sat a few feet from the children and watched the dark plain they’d crossed for any sign of the hunting Neanderthals.
“What’re you thinking about?” Becky nestled next to him.
“Huh?”
“You haven’t made a peep in hours.” She wrapped the fresh hide of the lion about his shoulders even though he wasn’t cold. “Don’t worry. They’re not going to cross
that plain in the night. They probably lost our scent hours ago. Are you sure we can’t risk a small fire?”
Abe shook his head and glanced over his shoulder at the children asleep under their furs. “Better not. The kids are warm enough and I feel just fine sitting with you in the dark.”
Becky kissed the corner of his mouth.
“I’m all dirty,” he said. “Why would you want to do that?”
“You taste wonderful, and for a guy that doesn’t talk much, you always say the nicest things at the right time.”
He returned the kiss. “Like I love you?”
“Mm-hmm… Things like that.” Becky adjusted the lion hide around them and the two lay back on the hard ground.
Abe knew he was dreaming but it didn’t make the nightmare any less sickening. The grey thing was sitting next to him on the edge of a cliff overlooking a sea of blood. It was tossing a soccer ball back and forth between its tentacle fingers. The black patches on the ball grew into hair, the white stretched into skin. The ball morphed before his eyes and became Sheila’s decapitated head.
Been a little while since we talked… since we chewed the fat.
A finger without knuckles slithered into the wet of his sister’s neck and popped back out dripping red. The black slit in the center of its face became a mouth and the finger slipped inside.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
The finger came out glistening grey. It started tossing the head back and forth again. That’s understandable. You have little to say because you’re stupid. You’re the dumb one in your little crew, aren’t you?
Abe started to cry. He felt like a child but he couldn’t help himself.
Look at the cry-baby. Watch the stupid little baby cry his dumb eyes out.
Abe wiped snot from his nose with the front of a Happy-Face tee-shirt. His mother had given it to him for his seventh birthday. “You can’t… you have no right to say those things. I’ve kept Becky and the children safe… I’ve kept them alive.”
The female has tolerated you. The children think you’re an idiot.
“No. You’re lying. You’re always lying.”
Why have you dragged them along on this ridiculous journey?
“Their people died from the disease you infected us with. They never would’ve survived on their own.”
They would’ve been better off dead. All that lies ahead is frozen wasteland. You would’ve done them a favor by tossing them into the same flames their parents burned in.
“Get out of my head.”
Not until you agree to give up with this futile idea. There’s nothing to gain by marching halfway across the world. You’ll find nothing. Stay where you are. Meet more of your kind and spread the sickness. Your species is finished.
Sheila’s head reverted back to a soccer ball. The black and white patches faded to grey. It looked like a dirty snowball.
“You don’t want us to go home. You’re scared of what we might find.”
Do I look scared?
Its head never stopped vibrating. Even in dream, Abe could still hear the buzz it made, like a nest of hornets waking up a very long way away. Do I look scared? It was a silly dream question. The thing had no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no face at all to express emotion. “I’m going—we’re going home. All four of us. I’m going to find you.”
You will be going alone. The others will not join you.
“Yes, they will.”
The thing placed the soccer-snow ball between it knobby grey knees and placed a finger from each hand into the slit at the center of its head. It pulled hard and made a high-pitched whistle. Boo and Ann appeared before them and walked towards the cliff’s edge.
“Don’t.”
You will stay here? You will abandon this hopeless journey?
“This is a dream…You have no real control. You have no power over anything here.”
Boo took Ann’s hand and stepped off the cliff.
“No!” Abe leaned forward and the alien wrapped an arm around his waist to stop him from plummeting after the children. He watched their bodies topple through the air, end over end, still holding hands. A frothing pink wave crashed into the rocks and claimed them.
You will stay here, on this continent. You will head west and meet new people.
The feel of the thing’s skin against his was revolting. It burned and froze and vibrated.
“I won’t… We won’t.”
Becky was suddenly standing between them, her back to the brown sky and red ocean. “Listen to it, Abe. It’s trying to save us. We can’t go on like this.”
He reached for her leg, attempted to pull her back, but his fingers moved through nothing. He felt so weak. “We have to go home, Becky—we have to see this through.”
She took a step back, her heel over the edge. A bit of loose dirt and dead grass gave way. “Why would I want to do that? It’s not like you really love me. I certainly don’t love you. All of these long months wandering in a dying world... What was the point?”’
He looked up into her eyes. They were no longer blue, but a hopeless shade of grey. Dirty blonde hair blew into her face and swirled about her neck. Her body was thin, far too thin. Her arms and legs like sticks. He could see the ribs poking through her skin, the recess of her stomach was a grey pit. “I love you, Becky… I know you love me. We can make it.”
“How could you love someone so fat?”
“No, Becky! No! I love you, I’ve always loved you. Please don’t do this.”
Her fingers touched his shoulder and suddenly they were standing face to face. “It never would’ve worked between us,” she whispered. “Ann and Boo are dead. You let them die. How could I ever love someone that killed children?”
She stepped back into empty air and the wind caught her skeletal form and held it there before him. He wanted to reach out but his arms no longer worked. Somewhere in the back of his head the grey thing was laughing. “Come back, Becky… Stay with me.”
Her hair turned black, the skin of her face became snow-white. He found her eyes one last time in the tangle and the hopelessness he felt drained away in an instant. The restless ocean became a still lake. She had become someone else. He heard her speak one last time before gravity stole her away.
“It will be our little secret.”
“I love you,” Abe called out.
He turned his head and the alien was still sitting there, tossing the grey and white ball between its fingers.
“I’m not staying here, you little fucker. We’re going to keep moving… all the way to North America… all the way home. Stay in my head if you want. You can’t stop us.”
The grey slit in its face turned down at the corners. It threw the ball into Abe’s face and the cheap rubber surface exploded into clumps of dirty ice and urine-stinking snow.
Abe woke up and saw Becky looking down at him. “You’re not fat.”
“I’ve known that for a while now, but thanks anyway.”
He kissed her eyes, her nose, her mouth, and he ran the fingers of one hand through her blonde hair. “I love you… I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened… I love you so much.”
“I should let you sleep in more often. The attention is wonderful.”
He looked around, the children were missing.
“The kids found something this morning.” She lifted him from the ground and started for the top of the hill. “Come see.”
Abe climbed after her and gasped at the sight waiting beyond. He wondered at first if he was still asleep, if the nightmare had merely shifted in mood and feel. Becky rested her head on his shoulder and a strand of her hair blew into his face. It tickled his nose and he could smell the dust and sea in her hair. This was no dream.
The Pacific Ocean before them wasn’t blood red. It was a deep golden brown, reflecting the somber sky above.
“The kids are safe,” Becky assured him. “There’s a ledge down the cliff a little ways that goes straight down to the water. My G
od, Abe… I’ve never seen the ocean before.”
Abe was smiling now. “Me neither.”
They worked their way down and found Boo and Ann sitting on a high rock, ten feet above the spraying surf. Abe called and they waved. Becky made it to the wet sand and held her hand out for Abe to take. “Together—let’s step into our first ocean together.”
The water sloshed around his ankles and his toes sunk further down into the sand as the small wave receded. It tickled.
The water was water, not blood. Becky splashed the next wave into his face and dove in before he could splash her back. Boo and Ann scrambled from their rock and waded after them. The four swam, and splashed, and laughed.
Abe thought again about his nightmare. The thing was trying to stop them. It was attempting to turn them around, to herd them back across Asia and into prehistoric Europe where many of humanity’s numbers would now be moving. Abe had dreamed of the creature dozens of times. Last night was different. He sensed its fear. That had never happened before. Becky, Boo, and Ann would all die if they kept going the way they were—that’s what it was trying to make Abe believe. Maybe they would all die, but the little grey alien in the woods wouldn’t have any more say in it. They would forge on. They would continue northeast and find North America, or die trying.
And Abe was sure of one more thing the alien didn’t know. As Dream-Becky had stepped back off the cliff, she had changed—become someone else. His twin sister was out there, somewhere. She may have been stuck in the past with them, or she may have communicated to him from the distant future. It didn’t much matter at this point. Sheila had spoken to him, and Abe would find her.
Chapter 16
Allan never went into Abe’s bedroom. He wasn’t allowed. It was the one thing Sheila kept to herself—a final fragment, a twelve by fourteen foot dark space—that reminded her of the life she and the others used to live. Allan had given up on that life, but Sheila held on, and as twisted and sick as he’d become, he let her have it.