“We’re both big fans,” said Martin. Lee looked at Martin like he’d forgotten about him and then collapsed into a desk chair.
“Are there any more of you?” asked Lee. “Or others?”
“No. I’m the only one on the planet right now. As far as I know. And there aren’t any others. No Grays. No Reptoids. Only me,” said Stewart.
Through a long quiet, Lee studied the carpet, then the horrible pattern of the bedspread, then a focal point a million miles past. Then he found Stewart again.
“I’m glad you came to me, but…” said Lee. He looked at X-Ray, then at Martin, then at the bathroom door where his producer was probably shivering fetal in the tub.
“You can’t put this on the radio,” said Stewart, stating a fact, not a demand.
“That’s right,” said Lee. “I have a section in my contracts, my company’s insurance documents, in every deal with my sponsors. My lawyers call it the ‘War of the Worlds’ clause.”
“You can’t start a panic,” said Stewart.
“I even have a—let’s call it a verbal agreement—with certain representatives of the United States military, that if I am ever in this exact situation, I’m supposed to call them immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“We’re not asking for publicity. We only need your help getting up to the portal,” said Martin.
“And what makes you think I can help?” asked Lee.
“We figured you’d be going up there later to do the show. That you’d have a deal with the Highway Patrol to get past the roadblock,” said Martin.
Lee laughed a sad little chuckle. “I hate to tell you, but I don’t have any such deal. We’re not exactly the Montana Highway Patrol’s favorite people right now.”
Chapter 24
A piteous, burbling, low-frequency moan emanated from deep inside Stewart. Then he began to cough. His body contracted. Hot air and flecks of phlegm spurted out his nostrils. He bent near his middle and rolled over to cough into the bedspread, tentacles flailing with each spasm.
“Stewart?” Martin put a hand on his back.
X-Ray said, “He’s going to die. Aren’t you going to call anyone?”
“Who do you want me to call exactly? 911?” asked Lee.
“911. The government. You gotta know someone who can…”
“Who can what?” asked Lee.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked X-Ray.
“He’s old,” Martin fired over his shoulder. “He’s been squeezed in that skin since the eighties, and this isn’t exactly his home environment.”
“He can’t die here. He can’t die here,” said X-Ray. “You have to call…”
Lee grabbed X-Ray’s collar. “You think the United States government is going to nurse him back to health and let him get back to shuffleboard at the retirement home? I’m not calling anyone.”
“Martin,” Stewart choked out.
“What? Everyone, quiet.” Martin climbed onto the bed to get nearer. Stewart coughed a few more times, then his body relaxed.
“Martin,” he said again.
“Yes, Stewart. I’m here.”
“You can’t waste any more time. If he can’t help you, you have to go. Get Cheryl,” said Stewart. “Save her.”
“I can’t do it by myself. I don’t…”
“Martin. I can’t,” said Stewart.
“What do I do?” asked Martin.
“I don’t know,” said Stewart. “But you’re the only…”
“Stewart?”
“Oh my god, he’s dead,” said X-Ray.
Stewart’s body swelled and deflated, and the nostrils slapped open and sucked closed with sticky effort. “He’s not dead,” said Lee.
Martin got off the bed and found himself face to face with Lee Danvers. “I have to go,” said Martin. “And I have to leave him…”
“No,” said Lee.
“What? I can’t move him,” said Martin.
“I mean, wait,” said Lee. He grabbed X-Ray by the arm and dragged him toward the bathroom. He pounded on the door. “Brian, open this door right now. Or you can kiss your job goodbye.”
Lee pounded again, and then the doorknob clicked. Lee pushed the door open before Brian had second thoughts. Martin felt a welcome waft of cool air. Brian must have opened the bathroom window but found it too small to escape through. Lee shoved X-Ray in before him and closed the door.
Stewart stirred with a rill of tentacles. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“They’re arguing,” said Martin. “Trying to decide what to do about you, I think. Are you sure you can’t move? Maybe get that skin thing back on?”
Stewart moaned and waved a tentacle. The device whacked against the wall and bounced on the floor. “It’s useless now,” said Stewart.
“I’m sorry,” said Martin.
“What for?” asked Stewart.
“Making you come here. Everything, really.”
“It was my decision to take off the dermis,” said Stewart.
“Are you going to die?”
“Probably.” Stewart’s nearest eye noticed the oxygen line in Martin’s hand. “That still putting out oh-two?”
A few minutes later, Lee emerged from the bathroom with his team, Shaken and Stirred.
“I’m not dead yet,” Stewart told them. He was holding the cannula under one of his nostrils with several tentacles.
“I’m coming with you,” said Lee. X-Ray squeezed around Martin and disappeared into the other room.
“Really?” asked Martin.
“Brian and X-Ray will watch your friend until we get back, and they’re not going to call anyone,” said Lee.
“I don’t understand,” said Martin.
“You said you couldn’t do it alone, so I’m coming with you,” said Lee.
“Um…and you know what we’re about to do?” asked Martin.
“We’re going to drive through the portal down the highway, pop out on the other side, and rescue his daughter from a couple of aliens.”
“Stepdaughter,” said Martin.
“Oh, you think that’s the salient detail I need to get right?” asked Lee.
X-Ray returned with an open backpack. He fished around, checking the contents. “Okay, your iPad, a camera, an audio recorder. Everything’s charged,” he said.
“And you’re set up to broadcast a call from my cell?” asked Lee.
“Should be. Call and I’ll run a check,” said X-Ray.
“You’re putting this on the radio?” asked Martin. “We did mention that we might end up out in the Kuiper Belt with some pissed-off squids and no way back. How’s that going to sit with your lawyers?”
“I didn’t come to Brixton to sit in some fleabag motel room.” Lee zipped the pack shut and slung it over his shoulder.
“I don’t know about this,” said Martin.
“You came to me. You want my help or not?” asked Lee.
“Martin,” said Stewart. “Take him with you. He can help.”
Side by side with Lee under the motel’s carport, Martin said, “It’s not a fleabag.”
“No?” asked Lee.
“They have a good breakfast,” said Martin.
“Great,” Lee said.
As they walked along the parking lot that was Highway 15, Martin worried that someone would recognize Lee and delay them, but Lee was a radio star. “Which one is yours?” Lee asked as they turned down the side street.
Martin pointed. “The FastNCo. truck.”
“Not exactly what I was expecting, but okay,” said Lee. “You a salesman?”
Was he? It seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d picked up Rick at the airport, or even since he’d abandoned him at Stewart’s house. “Account rep,” said Martin. “Nothing to do as I drive around but listen to you. I got XM so I could hear your show 24/7.”
Lee smirked. “You know, I always figured that if I did this show long enough, something would eventually be true. But honestly, I did
n’t think it would be this one.”
“None of it’s true?” asked Martin.
“I can’t help that my audience takes it all a little too seriously,” said Lee.
“But then why do you keep spreading it all around?”
“Because I’ve got an ex-wife and two kids in college, a new wife and kid, a mortgage, and a staff of thirty-two to keep paid,” said Lee.
“Oh,” said Martin. “Is that why you’re coming along? For ratings? More blurry video for wakernation.com?”
“This is what I do,” said Lee.
“I suppose,” said Martin. “But that’s not why I’m going.”
“I won’t get in your way,” said Lee.
Martin climbed into the back of his truck and dug out the radio box, cringing as he moved Rick’s overnight bag out of the way.
Lee whistled, and said, “Lotta hardware.”
“Here.” Martin handed the box down to Lee and turned to find his tools.
“What’s this?” Lee asked.
“It’s you,” said Martin. “They wouldn’t let me put XM in the fleet truck, so I had to improvise.”
“But they’re going to let you take their truck to the Kuiper Belt?” asked Lee.
“This probably won’t fall under the ‘incidental personal use’ section in the FastNCo. employee fleet manual, no,” said Martin.
“Even though it’s an emergency?” asked Lee.
“Don’t remember,” said Martin, hopping down. “Don’t care anymore.”
A few minutes later, as Martin lay on his back under the passenger-side dashboard, Lee asked, “Have we figured out how we’re going to get out to this portal thing?”
“Been thinking about that,” said Martin. “We have to assume that they’ll have all the roads blocked, even the dirt ones, anything on the GPS maps. But there’s got to be some kind of back way.”
“So we’re just going to head out in that direction?” asked Lee. Martin shimmied out from under the dashboard and turned on the ignition. Lee gaped when the plane of glowing alien icons slid into existence behind the steering wheel.
“Mount up,” said Martin. “I thought we’d talk to someone local first.”
~ * * * ~
“She’s going to be happy to see you,” Martin said as he opened the screen door. He knocked, then called, “Doris. It’s Martin Wells. I’m not going to tell you not to bring your shotgun this time.”
“Shotgun?” asked Lee.
Doris answered the door, wearing a simple dress, a loose cardigan, and a double-barreled shotgun thicker than her forearm. “Martin? And who’s this with you?”
“Doris Solberg, this is Lee Danvers,” said Martin.
The barrels rose a few inches. “That ain’t Lee Danvers,” she said.
“Good evening, Miss Solberg. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Lee said in a smooth, familiar baritone that made Martin’s eyes widen along with Doris’s. “May we come in?”
“Of course. Where are my manners? My, oh my, Lee Danvers in my house,” she tittered as she stepped aside.
“We can’t stay long,” said Martin.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked. She scuttered into the kitchen, then back. She slapped at Lee’s hand. “You’re not tall enough.”
“So says my mother,” said Lee.
“Probably makes up for it in other ways,” Doris said to Martin. Martin cringed.
“I made another pie,” Doris called. “I been makin’ them every couple days.”
“Found that secret ingredient yet?” Martin asked.
“Now, you know I haven’t,” said Doris. “I was saving this one for Wanda’s grandkids, but…”
“This is the pie?” Lee asked.
“Not the pie,” said Martin. “But close.”
Doris herded Lee to the head of her kitchen table with a piece of pie on her best china. She served one to Martin and then, heedless of their protests, hurried away to put on a pot of coffee. “You’re going to be up all night. I ain’t lettin’ you leave here without a cup of my coffee. I got a Thermos around here somewhere. I’ll make you some for the road. You all heading down to Deaver Creek and all the commotion?”
“That’s what we came to talk about,” said Martin.
“Excellent pie, ma’am,” said Lee.
“Ma’am?” said Doris, blushing. “Now, you call me Doris.”
“Doris it is,” said Lee.
Doris giggled and muttered to herself.
Does she know…? Lee mouthed to Martin, waving his fork at the ceiling. Martin nodded. “I have to tell you, Doris,” Lee said, “it’s very good—but is, was, the special pie so much better?”
“Does he know…everything?” she asked Martin, waggling a pie server at the ceiling.
“Oh, he knows,” said Martin.
“Good. I could never imagine leaving Brixton, because I’d sound like a ravin’ loon anywhere else. Anyways, I couldn’t taste any difference, but the aliens…? They’d shiver and quiver and order up another slice.”
“But you don’t know the secret?” asked Lee.
“Lord, I’ve tried to figure it out,” said Doris, shaking her head. “Eat up.”
“We hoped you might know a back way to Highway 360 from here,” said Martin. “The Highway Patrol has it all blocked off, and…I’m trying to help Lee get up there to do his show.”
Doris chewed her lips in Martin’s direction, then turned back to her burbling coffee pot. “It’s worse than that,” she said. “Eileen called a bit ago. Said they’re bringing in the National Guard. They’re lining up trucks near the Corner.” She looked squarely at Lee. “Now, you know that whoever that is, it ain’t the National Guard.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Martin.
“A few minutes before you knocked,” said Doris.
Outside, the sun was setting. “We’d better get going,” Martin said to Lee, and then asked Doris. “Can you help us?”
Chapter 25
Directions from Doris Solberg’s house to somewhere about a quarter-mile north of the Deaver Creek bridge on Highway 360
“First, you go about three, maybe four miles south on this road right out here. You’ll pass the Mitchell place. Then the old drive to the Lazy W. You’ll want to go a little ways more to Juniper Road. There’s no sign, but Edgar Wilcox has got a No Trespassing sign there. Ignore it, he’s harmless. He just don’t like people much. And watch out for his bull. His boy’s always leaving the gates open. Juniper’ll go east for a while, then bend north, then back west, but soon you’ll be heading east again. Now, here’s where it gets tricky…”
~ * * * ~
“Are we there yet?” asked Lee.
Martin stopped the truck about twenty feet away from a gate at what appeared to be the end of the road, and rechecked his hastily sketched map. “This should be the last one, or second-to-last,” said Martin. “360’s right over there somewhere.” The next gate, theoretically a half-mile away, on the other side of this pasture, opened onto a minor turnout along the highway.
Martin’s arms felt like jelly from handling the truck over washboard roads ruined by rain, and from navigating tracks worn by ranchers on four-by-fours and trailing herds. Martin put the truck in park, and reached over Lee for the shake-up flashlight in the glove compartment.
Martin rattled the flashlight as he and Lee waded through the grass to the gate, then switched it on. Lee groaned when the feeble light landed on the latch, and the chain, and the lock.
“I hope you’ve got a pair of bolt cutters back in the truck,” said Lee.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Martin.
Lee checked his cell phone for the thousandth time.
“Still no bars?” asked Martin. “I told you, it’ll get better as we get near the highway.”
“Could you ram through?” asked Lee. “It’s almost broadcast time.”
“No,” said Martin.
“Then what… What’s that?” asked Lee. “A staple gun?”
“We should probably step back by the truck,” said Martin.
From behind the driver’s door, Martin aimed the staple gun over the hood. He squeezed, and earned a snapping ka-chunk. He’d hoped there’d be a beam of light in the dark, that the morning sunlight had washed out the special effects when he’d shot at Jeffrey, but nothing came out. No cohesive bolt of blue, or red, or green. Not even a staple.
The fence post exploded. Lee and Martin ducked but couldn’t help but watch as barbed wires twanged loose like razor-thin kraken arms in a cloud of splinters. The gate twisted away, ripping grass and metal alike. A narrow fifty-yard strip of grass and brush beyond the gate erupted in a wall of flame. A sage bush blasted out of the ground, roots and all, and landed charred and flickering a hundred feet away.
“Whoa. Ho. Ho,” Martin laughed.
“Holy crap. I thought you were joking,” said Lee.
“It’s Stewart’s.” Martin handed it to Lee for inspection.
“It’s a FastNCo. brand,” said Lee.
“He was hiding in plain sight,” Martin said, taking back the gun.
The padlock and the chain were still intact, hanging limp from the bent, relocated gate. The post had been reduced to a shattered, charred stump. Little flames still flickered along the strip of burned grass.
“We might be able to squeeze through here,” said Martin. He pushed on the gate, but it would have taken more strength than he possessed to move it farther. He looked back for help, but Lee was already in the truck, checking his phone again. That’s why they call them bumpers, Martin supposed.
The loaded truck bottomed out more than once. Grass and sagebrush kept up a constant scraping sweep under the floorboards. For one stretch, Lee had to get out and walk ahead, picking their way around an impassable patch with the flashlight.
“How much farther?” Martin asked as they climbed what seemed like the third rise too far. “I feel like we should be in North Dakota by now.”
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