Allan kept himself hidden behind the last line of shrubbery as he studied the fence line for any signs of trouble. Too quiet. No lights, no movement, no sound. Nothing. Including, no Pat. Well, here goes nothing, he thought as he half crawled and half walked towards the fence. He'd only taken the first step or two when he caught his left foot on some invisible obstacle, and in the same moment, felt a sudden push from the rear.
He fell to the ground and tried to roll with the fall but found his attacker pressing heavily on his back. He tried to roll onto his stomach, but his assailant successfully pinned his left arm behind him and caught his right arm over his head in a half-nelson. He was completely immobilized. They had him which meant they must also have Pat and had simply been waiting in ambush for him. If they had them both, the jig was up. He wondered if he'd have the chance to explain to Pat why he had disobeyed her orders before they both were killed. It didn't really matter. He didn't know what he could say to her.
"What are you doing out here?" A strangely familiar voice asked from above him. "I thought I told you to go for help if I wasn't back within an hour." Pat released her half-nelson but gave his left arm a final twist before letting go of it.
"Ouch. Easy there, partner,” Allan whispered as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees and followed Pat into the bushes. Neither of them spoke until they were both back in the car.
"You've got some explaining to do,” Pat said between clinched teeth. "I'm not accustomed to having my partner ignore me."
“So fire me,” Allan replied, suddenly angry now that he knew Pat was out of danger. "I was worried. I just wanted to see if I could find you before I left to go fetch the cops. Did you find out anything?" He asked, hoping she'd take the bait and change the subject.
"I'll say I did,” Pat replied. "Let's get out of here. I'll explain once we’re back at your place. I’ll need to call the airport too."
“The airport?” Allan didn't like the sound of that.
"Yep. We've got to get to Washington, D.C.”
"What about Dawn? Why Washington? What did you find . . .?"
"We'll call my office when we get a chance,” Pat said as she leaned over and turned the keys in the starter for him. "You drive and I'll explain everything to you on the way."
Allan started the car and made a full circle to head back in the direction they'd come. Once they reached the main road, Pat let out a heavy sigh. “You were right about one thing,” she said. “Homlin has TJ.” She told him about the pictures she’d seen on his desk.
They drove for a few minutes with neither one speaking. Finally, Allan said, "I'm sorry I didn't follow orders. I was worried sick about you. I guess I panicked. I promise it won't happen again."
Pat placed her hand on his where it rested on the gearshift knob. "I understand, Allan, and I forgive you this time, but it can’t happen again. From here on out, every step could be a matter of life or death and not just ours, but possibly thousands, even millions of others. The stakes are too high to let our emotions get in the way of sound judgment."
Allan nodded, but even as he did so, he realized he had one other clandestine mission to complete before taking off for D.C., and this one would have to be without Pat. He needed to see his son one last time.
Who Am I - Really
Sunday Evening, Dec. 5
Allan glanced down at the luminescent dial of his watch. 11:07 p.m. Bo promised to meet him here around eleven. I’ll give him until 11:15 before I freak out, Allan thought. A moment later he heard a light tapping on the roof of his car. Bo had arrived.
Allan made sure the cab’s overhead light was turned off before opening the door and climbing out. While they were a long way from the Homlin’s home, there was no telling what kind of surveillance he may have had installed. Better safe than sorry. He climbed out of the car. Even though his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he couldn’t really see his friend until he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped despite himself.
“Sorry, Doc. Wasn’t trying to sneak up on you,” Bo said, but his chuckle suggested otherwise.
“That’s okay. Not your fault. I’m just particularly jumpy tonight,” Allan replied after he caught his breath. “I’m not used to this clandestine business.”
“What’s up?” Bo said, then added, “Oh, that’s right. You can’t really tell me.”
“That’s right. I’m sorry to be so secretive, but the less you know about it the better, just in case we get caught. I sure do appreciate your being willing to help me.”
“Happy to do it. Like I said on the phone, I used to work at the preserve back when the Smileys owned it. Nice place, but even back then it was kind of spooky.”
“Well, how do we proceed?” Allan was anxious to get on with it before he chickened out.
“We’ll go in over there. There’s a rip in the fence that Convoy showed me a while back. We’ll take it slow and easy through the woods and circle around to the back of the main house. There’s an old entranceway into the basement that almost no one knows about. It’s pretty well hidden. If it’s still there, it’ll be pretty easy to gain access to the interior. You’re pretty much on your own from there except…” Bo pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket. “This is a diagram of the floor plan as best I remember it. The first floor is on this side, and the upstairs is on the back. It’s probably not exact but should be pretty close.” He handed the paper to Allan.
Allan took a quick look at it before folding it back up and sticking it in his pocket. “Thanks again, Bo. I’m not sure how I’ll ever repay you…”
“Don’t worry about it, Doc. What are friends for if they can’t occasionally help another friend break into someone’s home? Let’s get going.”
The two men stared down at the clump of overgrown shrubs that, according to Bo, hid the entranceway to the basement of Homlin’s home. “Trust me, Doc, it’s there. It’s even more grown up than when I worked here, so there’s no way anyone could have discovered it. Let me see the map.”
Allan pulled out the map Bo had drawn for him. Bo shined a small penlight on it. “Once you’re in, there should be a set of stairs, right about here, that go up to the first floor, just outside the kitchen area. Your best bet to get to the upstairs would be the back stairs here.” He traced the route with his index finger. “After that, you’re on your own.” He handed the map back to Allan.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping me out…”
Bo raised a hand. “Don’t sweat it.” He handed the penlight to Allan and then turned to leave, then stopped. “Just remember, if you’re caught, you did this all on your own.”
“Sure thing,” Allan replied, but Bo had already disappeared into the darkness.
Bo was right. The cellar door was exactly where he said it would be. It took Allan a couple minutes to clear away the brush so he could open the door, stopping frequently to listen to be sure no one heard him. He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally had the area cleared enough to try lifting the door, and after a moment of hesitation, it opened with a squeaking on its rusty hinges that felt loud enough to be heard back at his clinic. He froze, waiting and listening. After a minute, he lifted the door a few more inches and waited again. Finally, he had the door open enough to slip through. As he did so, he switched on the penlight. Just like me to stage a breaking and entering in the middle of the night and forget to bring a decent light, he thought as he made he way down the rickety stairs, brushing spider webs away from his face as he did so. Luckily, the light Bo had left for him gave off a high intensity beam that made it easy to find his way.
As he entered the basement he looked around until he found the stairs Bo had pointed out to him. So far so good. The light cast creepy shadows around him, made even creepier by the thick growth of spider webs. Was that the scurrying of roaches, he heard, or something larger? He decided it was best not to investigate. He really didn’t want to know what he might be sharing the basement with, so he stumbled his way straight to the stairs an
d straight up, pausing at the top to listen.
All’s quiet on the western front, he thought, wondering where such weird memories came from and why they had to suddenly appear in moments of stress. He placed his hand on the doorknob, then paused to say a short prayer before attempting to turn it. Please, God, let it be unlocked. It was.
He pushed the door open a couple inches and peered out into the darkened hallway. When he didn’t see anyone, he pushed the door open enough to slip through. At least I had enough sense to wear tennis shoes, he thought as he crept down the hall towards the kitchen…at least where the kitchen was on his map, but he never reached the kitchen to find out. He came to the rear stairs first. How am I ever going to find TJ? He wondered as he took one step at a time. Homlin’s home was large. He’d heard that there were at least six bedrooms, most if not all of them upstairs. That meant that it was likely that Homlin and his goon squad had their own bedrooms. It’d be just my luck to end up dropping in on Homlin. He’d wondered about this before, and each time, he’d finally concluded that he’d just have to cross that bridge when he came to it. And now I’m at that bridge, he thought as he reached the top of the stairs.
He was just about to step out into the hallway when something stopped him — a feeling that he was no longer alone. He switched off the light. A moment later he heard a shuffling of feet that verified his suspicion, followed a moment later by a voice.
“Did you check on the kid?” Someone asked.
“Yeah, that’s where I just came from,” another voice responded. “What else would I be doing down there? Don’t understand why Homlin insisted on putting the squirt so far away from the rest of us. Just makes that much more work for me.”
“He said he wanted the boy to have a good view from the front of the house. I don’t have the foggiest idea why,” the other voice replied. “At least the kid seems okay with the arrangements. At least you don’t have to get up every three hours to feed him his gruel.”
Allan stayed hidden in the stairwell, a tightening sensation building in his chest that was at least partially relieved when he remembered to breathe. Gruel every three hours? What was that about? At least he had a better idea where he’d find TJ. He waited until well after the lights in the hallway had been cut off and the sound of a house shutting down for the night diminished to only the creaking of old wooden joints. He switched on the penlight but kept the lighted end partially covered. He wanted his eyes adjusted to the dark as much as possible and just enough light to navigate without tripping over anything. He felt strangely safe in the stairwell, especially when compared to stepping out into the hallway where just a few minutes before two of Homlin’s goons had stood. But TJ isn’t coming to me here, he thought as he squared his shoulders and snuck a look down the hall.
He stepped back to take a final look at Bo’s map. The floor plan was simple. The hallway split the upstairs in half with rooms running off of either side. According to the goons, TJ should be in one of the bedrooms closest to the front of the house. At least I have a fifty-fifty chance of getting the right one, he thought as he stepped back out into the hallway and slowly made his way past the other rooms. He kept his eyes focused on the outlines of a window he could just make out at the far end. When he was finally standing in front of the window looking out over a moonless view of the preserve, he allowed himself to take another deep breath. One last bridge, he thought. But how do I decide which room to try? The old eenie-meenie-miney-moe approach seemed just a little too unscientific for such an important decision, but was there any other way?
He decided to try using his senses first. He stepped over to the door to his right first, and gently placed his ear against it. Closing his eyes, he listened for any sound that might alert him to the bedroom being occupied by a small boy. After about thirty seconds he stepped across the hall and repeated the same thing on the left-hand door. Nothing on either one. But wait a minute. There had been something different about the two doors — not a sound difference but a very slight odor difference. The right-hand door had smelled just like you’d expect an old, musty house to smell, but at the left-hand door Allan thought he picked up a slightly pungent, almost soured smell. As he checked the two doors again, he remembered what one of the goons had said about feeding the kid gruel every three hours. Could this be the smell of the alien gruel?
Realizing it was the best information he had to go on, he returned to the second door, and gently turned the knob. He kept the penlight on and partially covered with his hands to minimize the lighting. Closing the door behind him, he turned and looked around the room. As he did so, he heard a slight click of the table lamp turning on. There before him, leaning over in the bed was an older boy than he’d expected — older yes, but very definitely TJ, just as Todd had looked at five or six.
With just a moment of hesitation, Allan smiled his most benevolent smile developed over years of giving pet owners bad news about their beloved pets. “Hello son.”
“Daddy?” TJ replied, blinking his eyes as they adjusted to the sudden light. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” Allan replied taking a step towards the bed but stopping when he noticed the look on TJ’s face change from confused to frightened. Wow, has he grown, Allan thought. He looks years older. I bet he’s old enough to start school. “Ssshh, it’s okay, son. I’m not going to hurt you. I just needed to talk with you, but we must be quiet. Okay?”
“But what are you doing here?” TJ asked as his gaze flitted around the room like a wild animal looking for a way to escape.
What am I doing here? Allan had been asking himself a similar question since he’d gotten the idea to come. What did he hope to accomplish after all? Suddenly, staring at the boy who, despite growing substantially since he’d last seen him, still looked remarkably like Todd, he knew the answer.
“I’ve come to take you home,” he replied.
“But I am home,” TJ replied.
The simple statement sent a shiver through Allan. He decided to try another tactic.
“Are they treating you okay? It appears they’re feeding you well.”
“Yeah, I guess, but it’s mostly that yucky gruel stuff. It’s supposed to help me grow faster.”
“Well, it sure seems to be working. I hardly recognized you.”
There was a long pause during which the two of them stared at each other. Finally, Allan asked, “Are you happy here?”
TJ shrugged. “It’s all right, I guess.”
“You called me ‘Daddy’ when you first saw me. Do you know what it means?”
TJ shrugged again. “Yeah, it means…daddy…I mean, like I’m part of you, but you’re not really my daddy, are you?”
Allan thought about how to answer that. “Well, not exactly, but I was there when you were born, so in some ways you could say I’m your dad.” More than Homlin, he almost said, but then decided against it.
“But I don’t really have a daddy, do I?” TJ asked, staring intently at him.
It was Allan’s turn to shrug. “Well, no, I guess not — least not as far as I know, but I was raising you as my son. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
TJ smiled just a little at that. “How’s Kendra?” he asked.
“Okay, but she misses you. I told her you went back to my brother’s.”
There was another long pause.
“Who am I?” TJ finally asked, “And where do I belong? I mean, I’m not really your son, though I look like he did, and I feel kinda like you’re my…daddy, I guess. But then I have this…this feeling that I’m supposed to be here…with Dr. Homlin, and he tells me I’m one of them, and that feels right and not so right too.”
The pained, confused look on TJ’s face made Allan’s heart ache. Maybe his coming here was a bad idea after all. What right did he have to put this young boy through such a difficult decision?
“I do know one thing,” TJ continued. “I like your food a lot more. I miss my Cheerios.”
Allan laughed, and a moment la
ter, TJ joined him. After the laughter died down, he decided to try again.
“Come home with me, son, and you can have all the Cheerios you want. Kendra misses you…I miss you. Won’t you come home with me?”
TJ seemed to consider it for several seconds before replying. “I think I better stay here, at least for a while. Maybe I can come visit you later, if that would be okay with you.”
That’s sure as hell never going to happen, Allan thought. Homlin would never let his new recruit out of his sight; I may as well let TJ have something to hold onto.
Allan realized he’d said his piece. What more could he say to convince TJ to come with him, especially when he wasn’t sure it was what was best for the boy?
“Yeah, maybe you can do that,” he finally replied.
TJ nodded. “Yeah, I’ll come visit you someday soon.”
“Well, okay. Guess I’ll just have to send that case of Cheerios back to the store.”
TJ eyes twinkled for a minute, then realized it was a joke. “Yeah, or give it to Kendra. She seemed to like them pretty well herself.”
“I better be going,” Allan said. “Don’t want to overstay my welcome.” He turned towards the door.
“You might want to go out the window, Daddy,” TJ said. “It’s a pretty easy climb down, and it would save you going back by the others’ bedrooms. I don’t think they’d be too excited to see you here.”
As Allan leaned against his car, he glanced at the luminescent dial of his watch — almost one a.m. His exhaustion from two late nights was made worse by a feeling of hopelessness and defeat. Time to face the facts, like Pat said. My son is dead…has been dead for years. Whoever or whatever I was just talking with is not my son. When would those facts finally land as the truth? He didn’t know, but he felt like tonight had been an important step in the right direction. Or was he simply fooling himself again?
FreeForm: An Alien Invasion Romance Series (FreeForm Series Book 1) Page 17