The Distance
Page 23
The tendril remains coiled on my arm, severed from the sphere. It glows for another few seconds and then, blinking, extinguishes. I poke at it. It’s soft and a bit squishy, like cooked noodles. The bright blue fades lighter. The texture hardens and becomes rubbery, just like the mesh netting strewn around the crash site and buried under the craft. Is this the same stuff?
I leave it braceleted around my forearm. Something about it emboldens me, makes me feel stronger, decorated like an Amazon, someone who’s been through the initiation, the rites of passage. Never mind that it happened accidentally when I was poking my head where I shouldn’t have been.
Walking around to the other side of the sphere, I stop short. A viscous liquid, dark and swirling, like oil, drips from the uppermost ring toward the ground, eventually plopping and sinking immediately into the parched soil. But on the path down, it arcs midair, and changes trajectory on its way to the ground. Over and over, a steady drip, straight down, beads up, arcs and slides, like it’s moving over an unseen boulder. I think I am seeing a miracle of physics, or something related to the crashed craft, when I bend for a closer look.
A sharp, chemical, plastic smell invades my brain. The trees behind the arcing shape are blurred, shimmering. Just like the grocery store.
36
POE
The transparent shape shimmers faster as I stare, like it’s being shaken, a quick change in vibration. It’s low to the ground, not moving. Is it injured? The steady rippling, like water, is thrown into turmoil. Is it quivering? One more abrupt shake, and the movement stops. A long face, the texture of old wood, focuses on me, clear, solid. I freeze for a fraction of a second, but it’s long enough to confirm August’s physical description of the face—long, deep lined, gray-brown skin set in a permanent scowl, though the mouth...if there is one, never moves. And the nose—well, there isn’t a nose. It’s the eyes that hold my attention. The flesh around the eyes, which are shaped like oversized avocados, is perfectly still, but the actual eyes swirl with oily color, a mix of deep blue, turquoise, purple and black, full of unwavering loathing. In a strange way, they’re beautiful, but in the way an H.R. Geiger painting is beautiful—horribly so.
Terrified, I back away. Run, I hear Squirt telling me. Run, you fool!
But I don’t. I can’t. My creative mind is taking in the details, exploring possibilities, and marveling at the fact that the thing in the grocery store is real. But I at least have the common sense to back-pedal, stepping over the lower ring and back. It watches me go, its thin neck turning ever so slightly, tracking me with the large, never blinking eyes.
And then I hear it. Crunching from the forest, all around, mixed with the distinct shh of heavy fabric being dragged over dry earth. It’s everywhere, but not like the sounds from the sky. This is different. The mix of sounds have a source. Multiple sources. And I understand what they mean. I’m surrounded. I look back at the still watching creature. Surrounded.
A panicked glance in every direction reveals the same shimmering shapes, just like the grocery store, just like the one frozen next to the craft, oil dripping onto it. Dozens of them. The forest warbles, the motion of it twisting my stomach, a hallucination made real.
Tattooed on my right shoulder is the quote from Dante’s Paradise, “My course is set for an uncharted sea.” Here in the woods, ringed by unknown living things, the words seem whispered in my ear, nearly audible and mocking my pride.
With quavering tree limbs, patches of forest wrinkle wherever the beings move. They crush dried ferns and other low-lying plants. Branches, now brittle and dry, snap and fall to invisible limbs, reaching out to clear a path, the way any person might do.
One by one, the Blur stop, spaced out evenly around us like some transparent ancient Roman forum, waiting to proclaim judgment. The woods go quiet, the snapping and shushing drag to a stop. I wait, holding my breath, the woods warbling around, undulating contours. I try to count. There are at least fifteen of them, but there could be more. There could be hundreds.
My thoughts flicker to the man August found. Steve. He was brutally killed, stabbed through the heart just as August was later stabbed in his shoulder. And Mark nearly was, too. I wondered if it might be a gender thing. Sexist aliens. Willing to physically attack the guys, but leaving me alone. No, they didn’t just leave me alone, they protected me. But why? Whatever the case, I’m starting to think like my luck might have run out, or whatever protection was over me is now gone.
But that’s not how I feel. Here in the trees, with absolutely no way to escape, I feel a remarkable lack of tension. The newly arrived Blur hover, quietly, and I know instinctively that I am merely being observed.
With this knowledge comes the surprising scent of flowers—lilacs, I think—and other plant smells. Basil. Tomato leaves. The pungency of lilies. I turn in a circle, smelling, the shifting breeze carrying what I think are the varying scents of these beings. A tang of something acrid and chemical turns me around, back toward the ship and the lone, wooden-faced Blur, now hidden in its shimmer. They might all look the same, but they definitely don’t smell the same.
The wind picks up and another wave of beautiful, natural smells wash over me, a garden in the middle of all this dry husk land, surrounded by slush and leafy decay.
A few of the Blur drag closer to me. I suck a breath through my clutched tight lips and I decide that’s close enough. I turn to my left, where I think there is an opening, and run into the woods. Before I’m even clear of the parched ring of forest, I slam into something unseen, taking the blow on my shoulder, not my belly. I stagger backward, and it actually does the same.
I stand my ground, knees bent, ready to run.
A face resolves from the shimmer, identical to the Blur that crashed in every way, including the loathing, empty eyes. But it’s not the same.
The fragrant scent released by the impact filters up my nose and triggers recognition.
Roses.
I know you.
The absolute stillness of its face reminds me of a mask, creepy because of its deadness. Tempted, like a naughty, impulsive child confronted with fire, or sharp objects, my hand extends without my assent. The rose scent disorients me, circling, and my breathing slows.
I’m not afraid of you.
I see the thing like Georgia O’Keefe’s painting of the horse skull with the white rose on top of it. Bleak but lovely, a cold beauty, comforting in its stark preternaturalness.
You are the misunderstood one, my protector.
You won’t hurt me.
A brief physical contact that feels no more meaningful or otherworldly than fingertips brushing against anything manmade and earthly—plastic, metal, you name it—and Squirt gives me a vigorous kick. She’s always there to keep me on track, warning me, my responsibility. Use my brain.
The Blur doesn’t move. It seems frozen with surprise, that I would reach out and touch it. With no real, rational reason to stay, I withdraw my hand and back away. The further I get from the still motionless Blur, the more I realize how big an idiot I am. I touched it. For a moment, I trusted it.
These are killers of men, I remind myself, of all mankind. I turn and run into the woods, a steady sustainable pace. The monsters stay behind, not pursuing, not doing anything as far as I can tell. And then it’s all behind me. I end up in my neighbor’s yard, Luke’s former home, and head for the road, following the now cleared pavement back to the house.
I arrive home, soaked, exhausted, and yet intact. Remarkable, really. My mind spins with possibilities. Of what did happen, what could have happened and what it all means.
I need to call August.
Once in the front door, Luke leaps at me, front paws on my shoulders, tongue covering my face. I hug him tight around his broad furry middle while he balances on his back legs, like he’s human. I head upstairs, quickly changing out of my wet clothing and into a pair of my mother’s sweatpants, wool socks and one of my father’s flannel shirts, ready to call August.
“What’s wrong?” he says, worried because I’m calling outside of our regularly scheduled time.
“I’m okay,” I say first, knowing that will be his primary concern. I hear him sigh with relief. “But, unlike you, I don’t make unscheduled calls for nothing.”
“Tell me,” he says. “What happened?”
“You’re never going to believe this,” I say, and I explain the whirlwind of activity in the woods today, starting with the hunting, which he knew about, and ending with the downed...UFO...and my encounter with the Blur.
“I mean, whatever the heck that object was, with the wheel within the wheel and the tentacles, it was completely unearthly. Alien. I think my parents were right all along.”
I still feel uncomfortable talking about my parents’ pasts. We only discussed it once, when Mark revealed his story, which mostly corresponded with mine, except for the two word message.
“We can talk about that, you know,” he says. “You don’t need to keep it all bottled up. It’s weird, I get it, but there isn’t anything that’s not weird anymore. It might be good for you to get it out.”
“And maybe you’ll tell me more about Claire, too,” I say, and quickly regret it. I know what it feels like to lose a parent, all that history erased, a sucking void left behind. But what does it feel like to lose a child? All that hope. That potential? Parental death is a part of life. Of aging. But a child’s? It goes against some kind of natural order. Squirt hasn’t even been born yet, and she already feels like a part of my soul. What would losing her feel like? “Sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s a good point. I’ll tell you more about her. Tomorrow.”
He gets a smile from me, but can’t see it.
“For now, let’s stay on task.”
“Right,” I say, “the spaceship...if that’s what it is.”
“Actually, I’m more interested in why you were allowed to leave. To live. It seems contrary to their nature.”
He’s right. The question of who lives and who dies is uncomfortable, yet tantamount. August and I appear to be immune to, or at least overlooked by, the Blur’s aggressions. Mark, like me, was spared in a pod, but would have later been killed if not for August’s interference. And even after that, the Blur did not kill August.
“I have a theory,” I say, heading downstairs, phone to my ear, Luke by my side. “Maybe there are two sides to the Blur? I mean, just because we’re all humans doesn’t mean we don’t have warring factions among us, right? We’re a big, freaking mess. Or at least we used to be.” I lay down on the braided rug in the living room, my head resting on Luke’s broad side. His belly moves up and down, relaxed. “You know. I’m not a mess. Maybe you still are.” I can feel normal if I can joke.
He ignores the joking, probably tired and not in the mood, but I can’t help myself.
“Huh... What you experienced in the woods today certainly supports the idea. Just because there was a Blur architect behind your survival, and Mark’s, and Steve’s, and who knows what else, doesn’t mean that there aren’t Blur who oppose it. The best laid plans of mice and men...”
“And aliens,” I say. “Often go awry.”
“Right.”
“Quoting poetry, now? August, they were fighting,” I say, confident in my assessment until I realize I never actually saw a battle. “It sounded like a battle, at least.”
August goes quiet again, both of us do, sorting our thoughts.
“The question,” he says, “is why?”
“Why what?”
“Fight. There must be a reason, right? An instigating factor. Part of the opposing plans that intersect. Some action one side is taking that the other is trying to stop. Something both sides want...” The way his voice trails off tells me he’s figured something out. Then I do, too.
I force a laugh. “Yeah, right. Maybe I’m their leader. All hail Overlord Poe.”
He’s silent.
“You’re not laughing,” I say. “Shit. You’re not laughing.”
“We have to consider that they were—”
“They were not fighting over me,” I declare. “Don’t even say it.”
He doesn’t.
Doesn’t need to.
Luke lumbers to his feet to find his water dish in the kitchen, and I have to sit up. Uncomfortable with the conversation’s track, I shift it. “Did you notice how the Blur you encountered smelled?”
“What does that—”
“Just tell me.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then, “Ammonia. Chemically. But what—”
“I think that’s how we can tell them apart. The two sides. I’ve smelled Rose twice now. And the others...they smelled, I don’t know, like nature. Pleasant. But the one at the crash site. It wasn’t ammonia, but it wasn’t good. It smelled industrial. Like you said, chemically. Isn’t that what space smells like?”
He chuckles. “This is why I love you, Poe. I hadn’t thought of that, either. You’re right. There are several accounts of astronauts reporting that the outside of their spacesuits, after a moon or space walking, smell like something burnt, like spent gunpowder. A chemical, ashy smell. I can’t say that I smelled that exactly, but I feel like I have a vague memory of it.” He sighs, sounding like he’s stretching. “You know, too busy kicking ass and stuff. Whatevs.”
I laugh again, and then stop, remembering the smell of the first Blur at the crash site, the dead eyes and sense of foreboding I felt when I first smelled it. “So, nature scented good, chemical scented bad?”
“It might not be that simple,” he says.
“Right, no odor profiling.”
“But we can’t discount it, either.”
Luke trundles back into the room and I grab him as he goes by, pull him close to me. I hold fistfuls of his golden fur, shaking, comforting myself. I’m frightened by the detail I haven’t told August, that I was stupid enough to make contact, that I am unsafe to myself, a threat to Squirt’s security.
“Poe. I think you should go with your intuition. If there are actually two sides to what is happening, or maybe more, who knows, then you need to be ready to protect yourself and Squirt. It sounds like the Blur who have been protecting you, probably the same ones that took your parents, and Mark’s parents, and gave them the knowledge to save you, won today, but I have seen the ruthless nature of the others. They killed Steve. Nearly killed Mark and me. You can’t rely on these rose-scented Blur to always be there.”
“Okay,” I say, pressing my forehead against Luke’s hard scalp, trying to stop my shaking. I take a deep breath. “What do you think I should do?”
“Get ready,” he says.
“For what?”
“A fight.”
37
AUGUST
Walking slowly, on bare feet, it took Mark and me a week to find shoes, and then bikes, my energy waning with each step. We’d argued about whether or not to pimp our rides, so to speak, with panniers, BOB trailers and other equipment which would have let us carry more. But Mark won in the end, making the point that we needed to be as mobile as possible. We might need to quickly ditch the bikes, or carry them through wreckage. Light and mobile was the key, and that meant keeping the backpack on my back, wearing me down.
And then, the rash around my now scarred wound knocked me on my ass. We lost three weeks of travel time, while I laid in a bed, sweating with fever. We tried antibiotics pillaged from a pharmacy, but they seemed to have no effect. The black ring spread wider, radiating pain through my body and out my fingers and toes, until, as though reaching its predetermined terminus, it stopped. The black rash remains, but once it stopped spreading, the symptoms subsided. It’s now a reminder, like a black tattoo, of how dangerous a face-to-face encounter with a Blur can be. On occasion, the black ring will itch, severely. We tri
ed anti-itch ointments, calamine lotion and Benadryl, but nothing helped. The dinner plate-sized ring has faded some, and the itching with it. I feel mostly healthy, but I wake most nights drenched in sweat, and often wake in the morning feeling like I’ve slept inside a pinball machine. Once I’m awake, fed and stretched, I’m back to normal, which is still improving every day.
Losing so much time irks me, but Poe, at least, has been left alone since her encounter with the Blur a few weeks ago. No more battles, or Blur or any sign of them. She has even ventured back out to the grocery store, for canned vegetables and beans for protein, when the rabbit traps failed to catch anything. She said the worst thing about it was the smell, but she took comfort that the smell of rot wasn’t mixed with the scent of rose. She wants to believe that what happened over the woods that day was some kind of final battle, but I don’t think we have that luxury. They must have been here for years, maybe decades before turning against us. When discussing this with Mark, he mentioned Foo Fighters from World War II, and the rash of UFO reports that have surfaced since. So at the very least, they’ve been around since the forties.
We’re finally progressing again, though not nearly as much as I’d like. I tire quickly since the fever, and have to take lot of breaks. “It’s the turtle who wins the race,” Mark said to me once. “Slow and steady.”
He’s right, but we have a rough deadline to make. August—the month—is just two months away, and at our current lumbering pace, we’re barely going to make it on time. We average about 14 miles a day, sometimes less if I’m not feeling well, or the road is blocked. Based on crude calculations and guesstimations, we have about one thousand miles to go. Seventy-one days. I suggested that he go ahead without me. He could get there in a fraction of the time. I nearly had him convinced, but Poe wouldn’t hear of it.