7
Sheppard’s awareness seemed to have split down the middle. Part of him saw Mira sway like a frail tree in a high wind, and the energy or essence or whatever the hell it was slipped out of her. He saw it, saw the glowing somewhat-human shape leave her, and drift toward Allison Hart. The other part of him was aware that the ground beneath them and around them was collapsing and that the Rover was sinking. Unless the hitch snapped, the trailer would be next.
He grabbed Mira around the waist and shoved her toward the door. The trailer moved and shifted with the violence of a sentient creature in its death throes, and water now poured through the window that his bullet had shattered. The lights went out. The trailer door banged shut. He heard Curry shouting, Lia screaming, heard the rain and the collapsing earth and the wild, frantic hammering of his own heart.
Then he and Mira fell out the door and landed in mud and mush and muck. She lay there, unmoving, the trailer now sliding down over the lip of the sinkhole, surrendering to the force of the vortex created by the sinking Rover, and the ground around them collapsing at an alarming rate.
Allie shrieked, hideous sounds that echoed through the darkness, then were abruptly eclipsed.
Sheppard shot to his feet, jerked Mira up, and ran, Mira stumbling alongside him, the mud sucking at his feet, his shoes, his ankles, and directly behind them the ground kept caving in as the sinkhole claimed it. He ran like a man possessed, fleeing what felt to him like nature’s Armageddon. He didn’t stop until he reached the trooper car. He shoved Mira inside, Curry and Lia piled into the back, and Sheppard peeled into reverse, forward, and the tires sprang free.
The cruiser sped down the dirt road, slamming through potholes, rain pelting the windshield, the high beams stripping away the darkness. Just as they came out of the final turn before reaching U.S. 41, the air in front of them glowed, that same eerie glow that had filled the trailer, and there stood Dean, his arms cast open, as if to embrace them all.
The car plunged into the light and Dean vanished, the temperature in the car dropped and the radio came on. Dean’s voice moved through the car like music. Love each other.
Then they shot out on the other side of that light, the radio crackling with static, and Sheppard swerved the car onto the highway.
Epilogue
April 2004
The slope of the shallow hills, the tall, scrawny pines, the dance of light between the trees, the sweet scent of the air: all of it stirred feelings that Mira knew were not her own. They came into town on the wide main street, and even though she had never stepped foot in Cassadaga before, she recognized landmarks. There, the old meeting hall. Here, the grocery store where Dean and Lia used to buy ice cream cones. And over there, the Cassadaga Hotel.
“Turn right just after the hotel,” Mira said.
Sheppard wagged the piece of paper where he’d written the directions that Keith Curry had e-mailed him. “Keith said to turn before the hotel.”
“Just turn somewhere, “Annie said, exasperated. Beside her, Ricki the dog whined, begging to get out, please, it had been a long trip.
“Spirit Lake is on the road after the hotel,” Mira said.
“How do you know that, Mom?” Annie asked. “I thought you’d never been here before.”
“I haven’t.”
“So, this is one of Dean’s downloaded memories?” Annie asked.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Downloaded memories. That was Annie’s term for what had happened to Mira when Dean had borrowed her body. She supposed it fit. She now knew a great deal about Dean Curry—maybe more than she wanted to know—and, through him, about the entire Curry clan, locked in their silent, dysfunctional lives. She understood that Wacko’s obsession with Dean had risen from her murder of little Ray and that its origins went back to some other life. It was as if she felt compelled to make things balance out.
From time to time, his thoughts or feelings got mixed up with her own. So even though she had recovered from pneumonia and from a second surgery on her thigh to remove bullet fragments that Wacko had missed, she hadn’t quite recovered from this strange melding of personalities. But there were some profound compensations.
When she read now for strangers, Dean sometimes came through in the reading. It wasn’t his voice that came through—she wasn’t channeling him—it wasn’t ever as bizarre as what had happened in the trailer. But she could draw on his knowledge, and occasionally she felt Tom’s presence as well. As a result, her work had become more complex and yet more liberating and insightful.
She had a difficult time articulating this to Sheppard, but he was certainly more open to her world after the experience in the trailer. After all, he, Curry, and Lia had seen what she had seen, had heard what she had heard, and had experienced much of what she had experienced. Their worldview had been permanently changed because of it, and their fears about death had been stripped away. But none of them knew what it had felt like when Dean had slipped into her, trying on her body for size, and her own soul, her essence, had stepped out of the way.
She couldn’t explain that to anyone.
Most of the time, she couldn’t even explain it to herself.
Sheppard, in his report to the FBI, hadn’t tried to explain what had happened. He simply reiterated the facts, not the weirdness, and Keith, Lia and Mira had backed up his report with reports of their own.
They drove down the narrow road, past strange, crooked little houses painted in a variety of bold, bright colors. She realized she knew some of the names of people who lived in those houses. “Wait, stop here, for a second,” she said.
Sheppard stopped. “What?” he asked.
“Jean lives here.”
“Okay. Who’s Jean?” Annie asked.
“A medium who gave Dean and Lia information they needed.”
“Can I drive now?” Sheppard asked.
“Sure. Yes, okay. Drive,” Mira murmured, fascinated by all that she saw and felt.
And just ahead was Spirit Lake, a glistening blue eye in the middle of a green marsh. Dean had hiked here during a drought, when the water was low and the ground in the marsh was dry. And there, across the street from the house, that was Ian West’s home. Dean had mowed that lawn, Lia had sat on that porch watching him.
And now, just ahead, the Colby House, where Dean and Lia had stolen time together, two kids living borrowed lives. Cars were parked in the driveway, music rolled out the open windows.
“Sounds like the party has started,” Annie said eagerly, sticking her head out the window. “So tell me, Mom, is this Natasha kid weird?”
“I’ve never met her.”
“But Dean was her father, you should know this.”
“She was just a toddler the last time he saw her. But hey, you’re both about the same age. You’ll get along fine.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.” And Annie and Ricki were the first ones out as soon as the car stopped.
Mira and Sheppard remained in the car a few minutes longer. She gazed at the house, Dean’s feelings and memories of this place rolling through her. The front door of the house opened and Lia, Curry, and a tall, thin man she recognized as Ian West stepped out onto the porch, all of them waving. Curry, she noticed, was holding Lia’s hand.
“So what do you think?” Sheppard asked.
“That they’ll be married by fall,” she replied.
“Yeah? And what about us?”
She squeezed his hand. “A double wedding?”
“I suppose anything is possible,” he said with a laugh. Then they got out of the car and walked up to the house to embrace the rest of Dean Curry’s world.
FIND HUNDREDS OF CLASSIC MYSTERY, THRILLER & METAPHYSICAL TITLES
AND BOOKS FOR EVERY TASTE AND STYLE
From Crossroad Press
Search Amazon.com for Crossroad Press
Or search by author:
Jack Ketchum
Charles L. Grant
Al Sarrantonio
Joe R. Lansdale
Jay Bonansinga (Co-writer of The Walking Dead novels)
David Niall Wilson
Bill Crider
Bill Pronzini
Kevin Randle
Chet Williamson
Tom Piccirilli
Yvonne Navarro
Weston Ochse
Elizabeth Massie
& many, many More
Keep Reading for a Sneak Preview of Aliens in the Backyard
By Trish & Rob MacGregor
SNEAK PREVIEW OF
ALIENS IN THE BACKYARD
By Trish & Rob MacGregor
Introduction
In speculative fiction, the darkness you think about in the privacy of your soul, the thing that terrifies you the most, the shadows that haunt you at four in the morning, the details you know are totally impossible, suddenly happen. You’re Will Smith in Independence Day, watching in horror as the giant shadows of alien spacecraft fall across your planet. Or you’re Dakota Fanning in Steven Spielberg’s mini-series, Taken, a young girl lifted up into a beam of light, abducted by Grays. Or you’re Fox Mulder, who knows the truth is out there because he witnessed the alien abduction of his own sister.
Whether we believe it or not, like it or not, the world of science fiction and fantasy creeps steadily into our daily world. It has caught the attention of mainstream science. Academics are asking what makes people believe in things that have not been proven, that don’t exist. Meanwhile, possibly millions of individuals carry secrets that most are too terrified to reveal. But if they could articulate those secrets in a collective voice, it’s likely they would tell us that aliens are here and that by and large, they are not our friends. They aren’t E.T.
Without a doubt, aliens are embedded in our cultural landscape. You might see a poster on the side of a bus, featuring a Gray with its bulbous head, large black, wraparound eyes and barely noticeable nose and mouth. It’s probably an ad for a new television show or movie. When the History Channel cancelled UFO Hunters after three seasons, thousands signed a petition to bring it back. Instead, it was replaced by Ancient Aliens, another documentary, one that fuses archaeology with alien contact and does so in a spectacular fashion. Movies about alien encounters and TV shows like Spielberg’s Taken or The X-Files, The 4400, and V, have proliferated in the last twenty years. In 2013, more blockbuster UFO/alien movies are scheduled to be released – and one of the most highly anticipated movies is Ender’s Game, based on Orson Scott Card’s novel and starring Harrison Ford.
So it’s not surprising that polls indicate that more than 90 percent of Americans believe that intelligent life exists outside of our world. An MSNBC poll conducted in 2007, asked: Do you believe that UFO sightings are actually visits from extraterrestrials? 63 percent of the respondents said yes.
The alien abduction phenomenon has burgeoned into a sub-culture with its own set of beliefs, a separate reality that suggests we are no longer – and maybe never were – the most advanced species existing on planet Earth. A Roper Organization survey in 2003 found that more than 33 million Americans are abductees. Exactly what these individuals are experiencing, though, is subject to intense debate.
Mainstream scientists reject the idea that the abductions are a physical reality and suggest psychological explanations: hypnogogic dream states, buried memories of childhood abuse, lucid dreaming, events imagined under hypnosis, mass hysteria stimulated by media reports, movies and television shows. Some also suggest these experiences are the result of psychiatric dysfunctions – psychosis, multiple personality disorder, and a variety of other exotic brain disorders. Yet, multiple studies indicate that abductees are no more likely than anyone else to suffer from psychiatric disorders.
Still, it seems that an insurmountable gap exists between what the abductees believe is real and what scientists believe. Abductees – or experiencers, as they often refer to themselves – are convinced they were taken by aliens and were subjected to tests and operations, often aboard a spacecraft. Mainstream scientists contend there is no evidence of intelligent beings existing elsewhere in the universe, much less existing so close to Earth that such beings are abducting people on a regular basis. They don’t accept anecdotal evidence or even video evidence, for that matter, no matter how compelling. You can’t always believe what you see.
No doubt about it, claims that aliens are abducting humans sound over-the-top. Yet, more and more people are coming forward with their stories, some are willing to use their names, and tell us that the absurd, the unreal, is quite real. As the narrator on Ancient Aliens is fond of saying: What if they are right?
After all, the history of science says that science is constantly evolving, altering our concept of what is real and possible as new evidence emerges. That’s the scientific process. For instance, it wasn’t until 200 years ago that science officially accepted the seemingly irrational folk stories, told for centuries, about stones falling from the sky. Well, yes, they do. We call them meteorites and have no doubt about their existence.
Prior to that shift in thinking, stones that fell from the sky were usually explained as volcanic rocks violently spewed out during major eruptions or terrestrial rocks that had been struck by lightning. That’s why they were called “thunderstones.” Scientists didn’t even consider the idea that rocks fell to Earth from outer space; the notion didn’t fit into consensus reality.
With all that in mind, here are some of the abductees and experiencers you will meet.
Connie J Cannon is a retired nurse from St. Augustine, Florida. For years, she was so terrified of ridicule that she kept her experiences to herself and struggled to understand the complexities of what had happened to her. First abducted at the age of four, she is now seventy, is tired of hiding her experiences, and is willing to use her real name. She “came out” in 2010, with a moving and dramatic story about an abduction that happened in 1981 to her and her 12-year-old son, John, when they suddenly found themselves on a military base. We posted The Abduction on our synchronicity blog and it received more than a hundred comments, some of them from other abductees.
Her story is complemented by accounts from several other abductees, who hid this part of their lives for years and are now stepping forward to reveal what happened to them. They talk about their encounters, especially with the now familiar Grays, and without exception, consider their experiences negative. However, some also maintain they have encountered benevolent beings as well, and that the issue of who they are and the nature of their intentions is complex.
In addition to Connie, you’ll meet:
–Charles and Helene Fontaine (pseudonyms), a Canadian couple in their forties, who didn’t even believe in UFOs before their encounter in March 2011.
–Diane Fine (pseudonym) was first taken when she was a toddler and is now in her early fifties. She has worked as a paranormal researcher, corporate bookkeeper, and bookstore manager.
–Bruce Gernon, now in his sixties, is a real estate broker and private pilot whose experience while flying from West Palm Beach to Andros Island in the Bahamas was the subject of a book, The Fog, co-authored by Rob MacGregor.
The thread that ties all these people together is the way their experiences have sculpted and dominated their lives. Connie’s intense need to understand her abductions has taken her into studies of ancient cultures and languages, mathematics, and into the area of death and dying as a hospice nurse. For a time when she was in her twenties, she worked as a pilot and an assistant to a famous NASA-affiliated astrophysicist. She recalls her experiences spontaneously and has never recovered abduction memories through hypnosis. She now has Parkinson’s and suspects it’s related to alien implants in her sinuses and behind her ear. She says X-rays have documented the implants.
The lives of Charles and Helene Fontaine, conservative French Canadian Catholics, have been irrevocably changed by their experience. Charles has struggled with serious bouts of depression. His worldview has been shattered and he and his wife live
in fear of being identified as UFO nuts in their community and where they work. For more than a year after their encounter, Charles remained so terrified of another encounter that he, his wife and daughter all carried vials of holy water for protection.
Diane Fine’s search for answers launched her on a spiritual voyage, specifically into the Nyingama branch of Tibetan Buddhism. She studied under Lama Chodak Gyatso Nupa, who from 1979 to 1990 worked closely with the Dalai Lama. From him, she learned certain meditation and breathing techniques that help ameliorate her terror during and after abductions. Her experiences, like Connie’s, enhanced her intuitive and psychic ability. As a paranormal researcher, Diane has worked with Dr. Stephen Greer, Colin Andrews, and Dr. James Harder of University of California at Berkeley. Diane, like Connie, has some serious health issues that may be related to her abductions.
Bruce Gernon’s experience in the Bermuda Triangle happened in 1970, when he was 24 years old and scouting for real estate in the Bahamas with his dad, a real estate developer. In the forty-two years since, his peculiar encounter has dominated his life. His search for answers has prompted him to investigate several theories about the lenticular-shaped cloud that surrounded his Bonanza A36, caused all the plane’s electronic instruments to malfunction, and somehow created a time and space distortion that enabled him to arrive at his destination far too early.
There’s no question that something has happened to these individuals. Scientists can offer us possible explanations unrelated to aliens, but there are no definitive answers. Many abductees are traumatized by missing memories, inexplicable physical markings and bruises on their bodies, and the sense that something terrifying has happened to them. Many suffer from nightmares, phobias, and depression and most of them are so afraid of being ridiculed, that they don’t even confide in their families and friends.
Total Silence Page 33