by Geoff North
Abe turned slowly and surveyed the grassy plain and forests beyond. “Whoever dragged them up here travelled a long way. It doesn’t make any sense. It would’ve taken decades.”
“We’re not alone,” Illee said. “We never were. That thing pulled us all from the future. Who’s to say it hasn’t abducted dozens of humans throughout history? Maybe there are more aliens—spread all over the planet, abducting and infecting people—sending them into the past to wipe out humanity on a bigger scale.”
Abe disagreed. “They would only be giving mankind a better chance to survive if they sent more people like us back. No. It was the only one. Its time machine… its spaceship… that’s all there was.”
“Maybe you’re both right,” Becky added. “Maybe that same creature has sent more people into the past over a longer period of time.” She pointed at Illee. “It sent you and your father back decades before us. What if it’s been trapped in the woods a lot longer? What if it’s been stranded there for centuries, grabbing whoever came across it for a thousand years?”
“That’s impossible,” Abe said. “How could it survive so long? And that wound… it didn’t look like it had much time left.”
“It was wounded when we found it,” Illee said. “And holding the soccer ball you threw.”
Becky scooped Adam down from one of the stones and watched as he ran into the circle’s center. “Maybe time works differently for the alien. The way it vibrated, that humming sound it made. It could have suspended itself somehow, you know—because it was injured? Couldn’t it have paused time around it? You know what I’m trying to say?”
Abe and Illee gave her a blank look. They obviously didn’t have a clue.
They left the hill and continued east. Over the next few days the four encountered more small hills littered with more stone circles. At times Becky had the strange sensation they were being watched, an almost supernatural feel the ground and forests they tread across were haunted. They never came across a soul, but still, the feeling persisted.
“I know we’re going in the right direction,” Becky said one afternoon as they stopped to rest along the shore of small lake. “But without a map, how are we expected to find the exact location of where your farm will be in the future. We’re thousands of years in the past. The town of Birdtail doesn’t exist yet—the land will be completely different. How will we know when we’re close? We may have already gone too far and ended up in Ontario, maybe even in one of the northern states.”
“We’ll know,” Abe answered simply.
A herd of wooly mammoths had taken up residence further down shore. The creatures of this time hadn’t had much—if any—contact with human beings. They were unafraid and indifferent to the four. Becky lounged back in the grass and watched them lumber into the water. If there was a chance to return to the twenty-first century, Becky would take it. But a part of her would miss the primal beauty of this untouched land. She secretly hoped they might be stranded here forever. And what would it be like if they could travel home again? Would they magically arrive back at the same moment when they had vanished? Would Sheila and Allan be waiting for them? And what about Adam—how would she explain that to her parents?
Illee took up lead for the rest of the day. She moved slowly but purposefully through the forests, holding Adam’s hand tightly so the boy couldn’t run ahead on his own. Becky kept a wary eye on him throughout and shared her concerns with Abe.
“I’m sure your parents will understand,” Abe said. “We’ve been alone for years.”
“You don’t know my Dad.”
The sun had set behind a heavy bank of grey clouds when they came upon another line of square stones. These stones, however, weren’t set at the top of a hill. They had been placed on the flat ground at the edge of a clearing. Becky counted over two dozen, spaced every ten feet, leading off to the north in a wide crescent that disappeared back into the forest.
Illee and Adam reappeared from the trees south. “The stones continue that way and keep going as far as I can see. If they join all the way round, then it’s the biggest damn circle I’ve ever seen.”
Abe was sitting on one of them and rubbing his fingertips along the cool, uneven surface. “Maybe a mile across in circumference.”
“Diameter,” Becky corrected.
“You know what I mean.” He slid off the rock and gathered Adam into his arms. “Let’s try and get this guy settled down for the night. I have a feeling our journey is over.”
“It’s just another ring of stones,” Becky said. Her heart raced at the thought of not having to travel anymore. And she worried their time here might be coming to an end. “What makes you think this is where we’re supposed to be?”
Abe ignored her and spoke to Illee. “We have to make sure Adam is safe. Becky and I will go on in the morning alone. Once we’ve taken care of… things, we’ll come back for you.”
Illee nodded as she tucked a fur around the small boy’s squirming form in the grass. “He’ll be safe.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Becky took hold of Abe’s arm. “What makes you so sure this is the place?”
Thunder boomed in the west. Abe stared into the gathering dark, towards the circle’s forested center. The first few spatters of rain fell against his forehead and cheeks.
“My teeth hurt.”
Chapter 25
Hank had spent the better part of the afternoon controlling his rage. He’d read somewhere it was the male equivalent to menopause. He couldn’t recall where he’d seen it. Maybe it had been online, or even more likely, it was some bullshit his wife had fed him from one of those crap talk shows. Hank wished he could be more level-headed like Mike. Mike did what had to be done, such as shooting uncooperative hicks in the chest with a dead-eyed smile on his face.
“One more time, Brenda… What secret is this town trying so desperately to hide?”
“It’s Mrs. Taves, and I can’t say.” The waitress was seated in front of a desk across from Hank in the back office of Eldon’s Diner.
Hank rubbed his eyes and wiped the sweat off on his shirt. The humidity was killing him, and like almost everything else in Birdtail, the air-conditioning was out. Mike stepped away from the corner of the desk he’d been leaning against and started towards her. Hank held his hand up. “Not yet, buddy. Brenda here has far too pretty a face to mess up. Be a shame not to give her every chance possible to come clean.”
Hank leaned forward and smiled. His tone softened, and for the first time that day he felt more like his partner. “You do want to cooperate with us, don’t you, Brenda? You don’t want Mike to make an example of you, too… do you?”
Brenda’s eyes shifted to the corner where Brad Weibe’s slumped form was restrained into a third chair. Blood was still dripping from his busted nose and shattered dental implants. “I don’t want you to hurt me… Please don’t hurt me.”
“Then just give us a little something. A name. A place.”
She shook her head and started to cry again.
“It’s no use,” Mike said. “She’s been brainwashed, maybe hypnotized. Are you on, or have you been instructed to take any drugs, Mrs. Taves?” She shook her head again. Mike nodded and rubbed his chin. “No drugs. Has someone instructed you not to talk?” Brenda continued to cry but her head remained still. “Just like the others. Everyone’s remaining tightlipped because someone’s told them to… no chemicals involved.”
A crack of thunder shook the office and Hank felt a migraine setting in. He always knew they were coming by the warm, fuzzy feeling he got at the top of his skull minutes before. “We’ve established that already. Tell me something more useful.”
Mike placed the barrel of his gun against Brenda’s temple making her squeal.
“Not like that,” Hank snapped. “What about the others out front. How many are left?”
“We sent the three teenagers home. That just leaves one more waitress, the owner, and the big school teacher with his cow wife.”
Mike opened the door that separated back room from kitchen, and peeked out past the sinks to the three public booths beyond. “I really don’t want to question her. She’s been really pissed at having to stay.”
“Well maybe we need things more heated. We’re sure as hell not getting anything from anyone else. Bring them in.” Hank made a move with his head indicating Brenda could leave out the back door.
“That’s it?” She asked. Brenda’s face was a patchy pink mess, her cheeks streaked with trails of mascara. “You’re just going to let me go? What about Brad?”
“What about him?”
Her legs shook as she lifted herself from the chair. “Let me take him to the hospital. You’ve beaten him so badly.” As much as she wanted to help, Brenda still went it to the door without him.
“Brad stays.”
“You can’t do this to us. You can’t come barging into our town and hurt people. I’ll—someone will report this.”
“Report it to who?” Hank made a scissor-cutting motion with his fingers. “Your people have cut themselves off from the outside. Go ahead, make a run and see how far you get. Birdtail is now surrounded by my people. The roads are blocked and we have the skies covered as well. No one else comes in, and no one leaves. But something tells me you wouldn’t leave even if you wanted to.” He watched her face go blank, that same dull expression Hank had seen fall over the faces of twenty other residents when the question of leaving was put to them. “Yeah, hit the nail on the head there, didn’t I, Brenda? Now unless you can tell me why you won’t leave town, maybe you should just head on home.”
Brenda took one last look at Brad’s unconscious form and left the restaurant.
Mike came in from the kitchen pushing the gangly school teacher ahead of him. Hank couldn’t help but thinking of him as one of those clowns on stilts. The top of his head was wax-shiny bald and littered with splotchy freckles. A mop of frizzy red hair bulged out around his ears. All that was missing was the red plastic ball at the end of his nose. The three-hundred pound woman trailed in after Mike, flailing her great arms about and huffing for breath.
“You can’t do this to us!” She howled. “This is a free country. How dare you flash your badges and hold us against our wills? What the fuck is the CPA anyway?”
“Central Protection Agency,” Hank said. He stood half out of his chair as the woman sank into the seat Brenda had vacated. Hank sat back down slowly, fearing the woman’s chair would break and continue to settle somewhere into the basement. “You’ve probably never heard of us. We take our jobs very seriously and maintain a low profile keeping nations around the world safe.” There was no CPA but Hank and his crew found it much easier to represent themselves with bullshit titles and credentials. People had a tendency to back down when their ignorance was tested.
“Of course I’ve heard of the CPA. Living in a small town doesn’t automatically make you stupid.” She saw Brad Weibe for the first time. “Is he drunk?”
Mike answered. “Fell out back in the rain and smacked his face into a dumpster.”
The woman craned her head back. “Al—I don’t like this. Tell these men we have to go.”
Albert stood behind his wife and massaged his long fingers into the fat of her neck. “Relax, Greta. I’m sure these gentlemen won’t keep us long. Let’s just cooperate and answer their questions.”
“Well that’s where the problem lies,” Hank looked down the list of names he’d scrawled onto a scrap of paper in front of him. “Mr. Smythe… you teach kindergarten, right?”
Smythe nodded.
“Then maybe you can appreciate the problem I’m having here. Everyone in this town refuses to answer our questions, or at least the questions we most want answered. You know what that’s like, Albert? When those little kids get all shy and clam up? That’s what it’s like with everyone in Birdtail. No one will tell us what’s going on. Why has your entire community cut themselves off? What’s happened… what’s changed to get you all so worked up?”
The dumb look. “I… can’t say.”
A full minute passed as Hank studied the two in front of him. Thunder continued to rumble outside and the rain pelted incessantly against the tin roof. He leaned back and linked his fingers together across his belly. His shirt was damp and hot against his palms. Hank White was well past irritated and the migraine had settled in good. “Here’s what’s going to happen next, Al. My friend here is going to hit your wife. He’s going to hit her hard enough to push that fat, pimply nose back into the rest of her pudding face. If neither one of you start telling us what we want to hear, he’s going to hit her again. You think that slob in the corner is in rough shape? Wait til we’re done with her… you won’t even recognize your wife after ol’ Mikey’s done.”
Greta’s lower lip was quivering, her face and neck rolls were drenched in sweat. “Tell him what he needs to know, Al. Quit being such a pussy.”
Al’s stilt legs were shaking. Hank wondered how long the clown could keep standing. “And when Mike’s finished with her, I’m going to kick the shit out of you myself, Mr. Smythe. Maybe crack that head of yours open with the butt end of my gun. Yeah, that’s right, Al—I have a gun. I’ll empty the goddamn thing into your wife’s gut after her face has been rearranged if the two of you don’t start talking. Then I’ll find more people to pull in here.” Smythe’s legs gave out and he sank to his knees next to his wife. “And since you’ve cut all ties with the rest of the world, no one will come to the rescue. I’ll kill every goddamn one of you. Is that what you want, Al?”
Albert tugged at the fronds of red hair above his ears. “I can’t. I can’t... I can’t say!”
“It all started with the whore,” Greta blubbered.
Hank’s eyebrows rose. “What’s this now?”
“That night at the movie theatre. The little whore and her boyfriend… telling me and Al what to do…Whole town’s gone to shit since.”
“Who, Greta? Who told you what to do? A name.”
“F- Feerce… Little bitch.”
“You’ve done it now,” Albert whispered. “You’ve done it now... You and that big fat mouth of yours.”
Hank stood up. “Send the others home, Mike, and get them to take Mr. Weibe to the hospital along the way.” He grinned at his partner. “Fear’s a powerful thing, buddy. Makes people keep their mouths shut—even when their own lives depend on it sometimes.” He smacked Greta’s wet shoulder a couple of times. “But piss off the wrong woman at the right time? I think Mr. and Mrs. Smythe will be the last people we’ll have to question this afternoon.”
Chapter 26
“Where are they?” Ethan asked. “I’m starving.”
Stewart checked the wall clock above the unplugged television. Five-fifteen. Loren and her mom had left just before four. “You’ve been eating chips and ice cream all afternoon. How can you still be hungry?”
“I’m a growing boy.”
Stewart tossed his cards on the coffee table and stretched back onto the couch. “And you suck at poker.”
“How am I gonna learn if you quit? Come on, Stew, one more hand.”
“Play with yourself.”
“That’s what teenagers do.”
“Quit being a smartass and find something else to eat.”
Ethan groaned and wandered off to the kitchen. Stewart positioned the end pillow beneath his head and closed his eyes. Rainy days always made him sleepy.
Ethan shook him awake. “It’s quarter to seven. All the stores are closed and they’re still not back. I’m getting worried, Stew.”
Stewart was in that half-dazed state where he couldn’t tell PM from AM. He sat up and looked out the window. It was still grey and pouring rain. “Seven at night?”
“As if I’d let you sleep on the couch until morning, of course it’s night.” Ethan’s attention was drawn to something outside. His face lit up. “They’re home. Finally.” His expression darkened just as quickly. “Aw shit, that ain’t them.”
; Stewart watched as an old half ton lurched to a halt in the driveway. Even through the gloom and rain he recognized the driver immediately—the hunched form, the grey skin. That big pulsing vein splitting his ugly skull in two. His mouth went dry and his limbs seized up in fear. “Remember what we talked about, Ethan? Remember the plans we talked about in case Santa came back before Christmas?”
Ethan croaked. “That’s him? Oh, God, Stew… I’m not ready… I can’t do it.”
“We don’t have a choice.” He forced his body off the couch and pushed the boy a little too hard. “Go! Get what you need and meet me at the front door.”
Ethan made a squeaking noise and disappeared back into the kitchen. Stewart peered out the window and saw Bagara motioning him to the truck with one finger. He felt against his jeans for the knife. It wouldn’t be enough. He was halfway to the door when he remembered the Funtak. Stewart found it stuck against the carpet and stuffed two large globs into his ears. Ethan was slipping his runners on by the time he made it to the door.
He shook the boy’s shoulder. “I know you’re not ready for this, neither am I. But it has to done. If we ever want things to be normal again—if you want Loren, your mom and dad back… I mean really back…then we have to see this through.”
Ethan nodded. “I want ‘em back like it used to be, but I’m so freaking scared, Stew.”
Stewart couldn’t read every word from the boy’s lips but the look on his face filled in the rest. “Keep quiet. Let me do all the talking.” The truck horn blared. “Ready or not, we’re doing this.”
They went out into the rain and towards the running truck. Stewart opened the passenger door a crack and waited.
“Don’t just stand there, hop in.”
Stewart slid in allowing just enough room for Ethan to squeeze next to him.
“Just you, Stewy. The kid stays home.”
“What?” He concentrated on the black lips.
“Just you and me. Send the kid back inside.”