Rhubarb

by M. H. Van Keuren

  Stewart dug an object out from under a blanket. The staple gun. He fumbled with a catch, made some adjustment, reset the catch, and set it on the bed. “Don’t point that at anything you value,” he said. Martin set a hand on it but didn’t pick it up.

  “There’s another problem,” said Martin. “They’ve closed 360. Is there a back way up to Deaver Creek?”

  “You got your truck?”

  “Yeah, and it’s fully loaded, too.”

  “I doubt you’d make it with that,” said Stewart. “It’s all pretty rough ranch land down that way. But I’ve been thinking.” He nodded to the radio. “Lee Danvers is in town. Been hyping a live show from Brixton tonight.”

  “I know. I’m supposed to be on it,” said Martin.

  “You get over there and convince him, he might have some pull to get you through the roadblock.”

  “His producers have already warned me about talking to him about this stuff,” said Martin. “They’re not going to let me near him if I start talking crazy.”

  “Then take me with you,” said Stewart. “I think I can convince him.”

  When Martin opened the door, Laura gasped to see Stewart on his feet. He put one loafered foot in front of the other, with an arm draped hard over Martin’s shoulders.

  “Are you taking that man to a hospital?” asked Laura. “That’s the only place he should be going.”

  “Do you need anything else?” Martin asked Stewart. Stewart shook his head once, firmly. Martin ignored a demand from Rick.

  On the steps, a coughing fit stopped them for more than a minute. “Is he going to try to climb into your truck?” Milton asked.

  “Have to,” Stewart managed between coughs.

  “Uh-uh,” said Rick. “That’s a company truck. You can’t take passengers.”

  “We can take my car,” said Milton.

  “We’re taking the truck,” said Martin.

  The coughing subsided, and Stewart wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “He’s not getting in that truck,” said Rick, now out on the little porch. Rick repeated his ultimatum and raised a trembling hand like a substitute teacher. Poor Rick. All those useless management-training retreats. There had been no bubbly consultant’s lecture on combating civil disobedience. No ropes course had taught him how to face down active defiance. He had nothing left but his bureaucratic bluster.

  “You take that truck, and it’s your job,” said Rick.

  Martin shut Stewart’s door and rounded the front, thanking Laura and Milton.

  “You take that truck and I’m calling the police,” said Rick. “Grand theft auto. You’ll be held accountable.”

  “Put it in my performance evaluation,” said Martin. He slammed the truck into reverse, backed out, and then headed toward the cattle guard in a cloud of dust.

  “Did you just quit your job?” asked Stewart.

  They rumbled faster across the grating than the taxed suspension liked, and Martin skidded the tires as he turned back toward town. “It might be a good thing if I die in the Kuiper Belt tonight,” he said, giving Stewart a sidelong glance. He chuckled. The old man laughed, too, then leaned his head back in pain.

  Chapter 23

  Martin and Stewart waited to turn right onto Highway 15 for so long that Martin turned his blinker off. Vehicles still flooded in from the west, and to the east, the inundation had backed up in an unforgiving snarl. A constant stream of Wakers waded past on foot as if Lee Danvers was presiding over the Second Coming of Oprah Christ Presley at Herbert’s Corner.

  “Could you walk to the Corner?” asked Martin.

  “Doubt it,” said Stewart. “Can you cross 15? Come at Herbert’s from the north? Maybe Trappers Road over to 360?”

  “Maybe. If I could force our way across,” said Martin. “Or maybe I could get Lee Danvers to come to us.”

  “You have his number?”

  “I’ve got his producer’s number,” said Martin. “But where would we even meet him?” Martin made the call.

  Brian was glad to hear from him. “As you can guess, it’s been crazy. We’ve had to change the location of the broadcast,” he said. Martin’s stomach sank. Lee probably hadn’t made it into town because of the road closure. Martin’s anger swerved into guilt when he remembered that this was kind of all his fault. Telling Jeffrey about the pie. Calling BI and selling them the video. What had he been thinking? Stupid butterfly wings spinning eddies off into the air. “Company that owns Herbert’s Corner said no to the broadcast, so we’re at the Brixton Inn. You know where that is?”

  ~ * * * ~

  Martin had never before seen the Brixton Inn turn on the “No” of the vacancy sign, yet the lobby was strangely deserted. Martin lowered Stewart into a chair at a table in the breakfast area, and Stewart slumped forward. His back rose and fell with the Herculean effort of sucking in his own breath. Martin felt inches taller after finally releasing the man—or man-like being, or being in a man suit. He’d supported Stewart for several hundred yards—which was as close as he could park, even on the meager back streets of Brixton.

  Brenda was leaning on the front desk as if she’d been there for a month, but she helped Martin get Stewart a cup of water. “Do you want me to call someone? A doctor?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” said Martin, dialing Brian’s number again.

  A few minutes later, the lobby door chime binged for a slim, gym-toned man in a button-up shirt and expensive slacks. “Martin?” he asked, and offered his hand. “I’m Brian Buchheit. Pleased to meet you. Is this your father?”

  “This is Stewart. He’s a friend,” said Martin.

  “Oh. I’m glad you found the place. Now, it’s only…” he checked the time on his iPhone, but Martin interrupted.

  “We need to talk to Lee right now.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” said Brian. “As I was saying…”

  “It’s very important,” said Martin. “Is he here?”

  “And I’m telling you it’s not going to happen,” said Brian. “Now, if we’re going to have a problem, we will simply cancel your interview. Lee Danvers maintains a very high professional standard for content on his broadcasts, and he is pleased to offer you a chance to be on the show. He also appreciates his fans. However, he does not have time to deal directly with every listener or guest with a question, a grievance, or even a compelling story. If you have an issue, I would be happy to hear it. But that’s as far as it goes.”

  Martin gripped the staple gun tucked in his belt, but Stewart grunted and shook his head.

  Stewart sucked in a deep breath and pulled himself as tall as he could in the chair. “Brian. What if I told you that we held physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, right here, right now, in this room?”

  Brian laughed. “I’ve heard this one before, guys. I get six calls a day from people who say the same thing.”

  “Not like this, you don’t,” said Stewart.

  “What is it? Show me,” said Brian.

  “Lee has to be here,” said Martin. “I need him to get me up to the Deaver Creek bluff. Once there, I can show him how the portal works and where the vehicles come from.”

  “Is this some ET-phone-home crap?” asked Brian.

  “My stepdaughter’s up there,” said Stewart. “Through the portal. They have her.”

  “Your stepdaughter? They? Aliens? Your stepdaughter has been abducted by aliens? Come on, guys. You can’t do any better than this?” asked Brian. He slid a piece of paper from a folder and set it on the table. “This is the appearance contract, Martin. We’ll need your signature on that prior to…”

  Stewart’s hand landed on Brian’s wrist, and Brian made a sound that might have begun as an English word in his brain, but didn’t escape his throat as such. “Please,” said Stewart.

  “Let go of me,” said Brian.

  “Brenda?” Stewart bellowed.

  “Yes, Mr. Campion?”

  “Come ov
er here, please.” Stewart’s eyes were blazing.

  “What do you need?”

  “Lee Danvers’s room number.”

  “I…I can’t…” said Brenda.

  “You and I both know that Cheryl didn’t run off to Boise,” Stewart said to Brenda, but staring down Brian. “Now, in order to help her, I need to talk to Lee Danvers. If I don’t, she’ll most likely die, and we’ll never see her again. Now, I’m going to ask you again, what room is he in?”

  Brian shook his head at Brenda, but he couldn’t wrench his wrist free. Martin gave her a reassuring nod.

  “They’re in Rooms 209 and 210. They’ve got the adjoining doors,” said Brenda.

  “Thank you, Brenda. Now, listen producer boy, you have two choices. You can take us up there nice and friendly-like. Or Martin and I will go up alone, disintegrate the doors, and talk to Lee without you.”

  Stewart let go of Brian’s wrist, and the producer backed up to the breakfast bar, dark and wiped clean for the day. The waffle maker closed and cool. The cereal rack empty. The icy bowl of juices and yogurts gone. The toaster unplugged. As if it were all waiting for Cheryl to return. “Please,” said Martin.

  “Fine,” said Brian. “Five minutes max. Less, if Lee doesn’t like what he hears.”

  ~ * * * ~

  Lee Danvers was shorter than Martin expected, so much smaller than life, with thinner and less coiffed hair than in all the promotional photos. The photographers had been good. Lee had a nose for radio, not overly large, but somehow cavernous. It was probably what gave his voice its resonance. Martin had always pictured Lee in a suit and tie, but he wore a polo shirt with a wakernation.com logo. Lee took off a pair of reading glasses to examine Martin and Stewart.

  Stewart recovered enough from the stair climb for a last push to a seat on the nearest bed in Lee’s motel room.

  “You’re Martin Wells?” asked Lee.

  “Yes, sir. And this is Stewart Campion. Thank you for seeing us.”

  “What can I do for you? Brian tells me you have proof of extraterrestrial visitation.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Martin. “But what we’re really asking for is help to get a vehicle up to the bluff on Highway 360. We have to get through the portal.”

  Lee glanced at Brian and laughed. “Through it? You’re serious? What makes you think I can help with that?”

  “Sorry. I’m not explaining. We can get through the portal with our truck, but we can’t get to the portal with the road closed. We assumed that you’d have some kind of access arranged,” said Martin.

  “You can actually get through this…portal?” asked Lee.

  “You don’t believe it’s real?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on up there,” said Lee. “What’s this proof of yours?”

  Stewart folded over into a coughing fit.

  “Should he be in a hospital?” asked Lee. Brian checked his iPhone, and Martin felt their patience slipping away.

  “Some water?” asked Martin. Brian returned from the bathroom sink with a plastic cup of tap water and a handful of Kleenex. Martin pressed them into Stewart’s hands as he continued to cough, and then faced Lee. “I’ve been told you don’t want to hear about it, but everything I told you that night I called is true. There are aliens on the other side of the phenomenon down the highway, ready and willing to destroy every human on the planet. They’ve kidnapped this man’s stepdaughter, and we’re trying to rescue her before they kill her, and trying to stop them from moving ahead with their plans for Earth.”

  “Plans for Earth?” asked Lee.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” said Martin.

  “Oh, don’t hold back now,” Lee said and gave Brian a nod. Brian moved to grab Martin’s arm, but Martin shook him off.

  “They’re going to turn the Earth into a giant factory to bake rhubarb pies,” said Martin.

  “Get them out of here,” said Lee. “And he is not coming on the show.” Brian shoved Martin toward the door.

  “Wait,” Stewart bellowed. Everyone froze. “I’m the proof,” he said.

  Brian resumed manhandling Martin toward the door. Lee shouted for them to get out. Martin shoved Brian and turned to see Stewart pluck the cannula out from under his nose.

  “Stewart?” called Martin.

  Stewart groped inside his shirt, even as Brian tried to yank him off the bed. Stewart let Brian pull on one arm, but he clutched a small object in his other hand. Stewart’s eyes met Martin’s for a moment, and then he pressed the object with his thumb.

  Stewart’s skin began to slip off like a silk sheet, migrating toward the little device. Brian staggered back in revulsion. Stewart’s shoes lifted off the floor and then dropped away as the appendages changed shape. His pants twisted, bulged, and then were pulled away by a pair of tentacles with articulated suckers on their wide pads. Another pair deftly unbuttoned and sloughed off Stewart’s shirt. The socks and underwear were peeled away and tossed to the floor on the far side of the bed.

  The glistening body, as gray and translucent as any netted squid, and nearly twice the size of Stewart the man, flopped onto the creaky mattress with a squelch of flesh. Far apart, near the middle of the bulbous, cylindrical body, blinked a pair of glassy, wide eyes, foreign but communicative. A few inches lower, a pair of slitted nostrils swelled open and clamped shut laboriously. Stewart pushed himself to a more comfortable position on the bed and sagged in relief.

  Another man—X-Ray the radio engineer, judging by the headphones—strolled through the pass door from the other room. He screamed and collided with the doorframe trying to back out skeleton-first. Stewart’s black eyes swung in his direction, watched the man leave, and then swept back to Lee Danvers.

  His rough, aged voice emerged from the open nostrils but originated deeper within the mass of his body. “Do you want to hear my story now?” he asked.

  ~ * * * ~

  Brian had locked himself in the bathroom. X-Ray had edged back into the room, having lost his ability to blink or close his mouth. Lee Danvers remained rooted to his spot at the foot of the bed, perhaps by two decades of broadcast experience, although he had dropped his reading glasses.

  As Stewart told his tale, Lee studied Stewart in parts, as if trying to find the zipper. Stewart didn’t have a face to read, as such, but Martin sensed emotion in his wriggling tentacles and hoped Lee noticed it, too. Martin couldn’t get over how much Lee Danvers made three-dimensional flesh was not the Lee Danvers of his mind’s eye. Lee shouldn’t be this bald, nor so much less masculine than his voice. His pants bulged out with a spare tire under his belt. His body pinched to narrow shoulders, and a shadow over his upper lip said he’d spent most of his life with a mustache. Lee began to fidget and open his mouth to speak. He’s too good an interviewer, thought Martin. He knows Stewart’s avoiding all the details.

  “Where are you from?” Lee blurted out.

  “That’s not important,” said Stewart.

  “I think it’s pretty damned important,” Lee said, as if he often interviewed squiddy aliens in motel rooms. Which, for all Martin knew, he did.

  “My species lives on many worlds around this galaxy,” said Stewart.

  “How did you get here?” asked Lee.

  “A transportation network. The portal’s part of it,” said Stewart.

  “And what do you want with us, with Earth?”

  “We told you,” said Stewart.

  “The rhubarb pie?” said Lee.

  “Yes.”

  “And your daughter—or, sorry, your completely human stepdaughter—has this secret recipe?” asked Lee.

  “No, but the others think she does,” said Stewart.

  “And if they get the recipe, they’ll kill us all?” asked Lee. “So who does have this recipe?”

  “No one. The only people who knew it died,” said Stewart. Martin thought one of Stewart’s eyes flicked in his direction.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” asked Lee.

  �
�If anyone had it, we probably wouldn’t be here talking right now,” said Stewart.

  “I suppose that’s true,” said Lee. “I’ve heard a lot of stupid stories in my time, but this one is so…blisteringly stupid, I really don’t know what to believe. No offense.”

  “It’s no joke, I assure you,” said Stewart. “You have my word.” He raised a tentacle toward Lee. Lee backed slightly, then extended his right hand as if Stewart’s tentacle was a frying pan of live scorpions. The suckers on Stewart’s palm flexed open, then hissed shut, leaving a flat blade of pale gray skin. The two appendages met. Stewart’s tentacle wrapped gently around the heel of Lee’s hand. “Everything I’ve told you is the absolute truth,” he said. Then, the tentacle wilted, limp and drained.

  Martin stepped on the oxygen line and picked it up, wondering if Stewart still needed it, or where he’d even position the cannula. It might serve one nostril, or gill slit, or whatever, but not both.

  “You don’t believe me?” asked Stewart.

  “I don’t know what to believe. You’re…pretty believable, but this whole thing is preposterous.”

  “Why preposterous? What’s a sensible reason for my species to come to Earth?” asked Stewart.

  “I don’t know. Exploration? Scientific discovery? Contact?” suggested Lee.

  Stewart made a sound. Laughter, Martin supposed. “A hundred thousand years ago, maybe,” he said. “These days, we come when the numbers add up. The truck drivers take the most economical route, and they like a bit of foreign food. My company’s here because they can make untold profit on a novelty sure to become a dessert staple in trillions of homes. Why did you come to Montana?”

  “I…” said Lee.

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Stewart. “You came to Montana because you could charge your advertisers prime rates for a show done live from an unexplained phenomenon before it becomes yesterday’s news. Which, because you’re a jaded broadcaster used to dealing with such things, you’re sure has a perfectly reasonable explanation or is an elaborate hoax. You don’t care about the truth. You like the cash. You like the attention and the new members dropping twenty-five bucks a pop for annual memberships to the Waker Nation for the exclusive footage. You don’t care that your listeners are trampling this town to death in search of a truth that you never intend to give them.”