by Nate Johnson
A new truth rushed through Nolan, this was the source of the werewolf stories. These animals had shown up in human history across cultures and throughout time. Cheevers, or his predecessors, had been studying earth for generations, thousands of years maybe. They and their companions had roamed the world searching for something worth taking, something that would make an invasion justified.
They had used and abused countless thousands to find what they wanted. And now Nolan had just delivered it on a silver platter. His head that is.
Chapter Twelve
The Zork took a step into the room, his head shifting back and forth as if trying to understand what stood before it. Nolan frantically scanned trying to find out what was going to happen, trying to read its mind.
“You won’t have much luck there,” Cheevers said, stepping out of the shadows from the closet.
The alien looked at Nolan and raised an eyebrow. “What? You thought you could walk in here, and I wouldn’t know it? Really, you humans amaze me sometimes. You think you’re so special. That you can achieve things way beyond your capability. And I swear you Americans are the worse,” he said shaking his head. While my pet may not be able to read you. He knows where you are, he can feel your presence at least.
Stepping around the boy, he made his way to stand next to his pet and rested a hand on its head, gently rubbing the fur. The beast dropped his hindquarters to the floor and seemed to melt under his master’s hand.
Nolan’s nerves were on fire, his mind flew about searching for an escape. What had he been thinking? He’d walked in here like this was some kind of Scooby Doo cartoon, and it had ended up like a scene from a Van Helsing horror flick. The sense of failure was complete and not unknown. Once again he had screwed up.
Taking a deep breath, he reached out with his mind and tried to read his nemesis. A picture of Nolan strapped down on a metal table flashed into his mind. While he watched, the Zork walked to the edge of the table and tore into his guts, shoving his long snout up under his rib cage to pull his heart out and gulp it down in one bite.
Nolan’s insides rolled over, and he felt the bile rise in his throat, threatening to explode across the room. Maybe if he was lucky, he could get this Cheevers guy in the face. But he pushed it back down, swallowing hard and mentally locking away the vision.
Raising rock solid shields, he blocked out the thoughts entering his mind. He couldn’t deal with this crap on too many levels. It was all too confusing. If Cheevers wanted him dead, he would have killed him long before now. He needed him for something.
That became Nolan’s lifeline, his salvation. Focusing on that thought, he threw up barriers against the alien visions.
“Why me? I understand about the whole mind reading thing, but you’ve got the Zork, why do you need me?”
Cheevers seemed to consider the questions, looking down at the Zork for permission.
“You’re correct, the animal can read our minds, and we can read theirs. Unfortunately, that means any other Chultag can read them also,” the alien shrugged his narrow shoulders as if that explained everything.
Nolan quickly raised his eyebrows indicating his lack of understanding. Inside he was scrambling to figure a way out to get away, judging the distance to the windows. Could he dive through the glass before the beast got him? He had a vision of the thing dragging him back into the room. Its huge jaws clamped around his ankle.
“You can read us, but we can’t read you. Do you realize how valuable that makes you?” Cheevers said. “You will tell us what we want to know while keeping our secrets. It is beautiful.”
Nolan blanched. They wanted him for the same reason his own government would want him. To use him, chained and controlled. A weapon to manipulate and field against their enemies. Would he ever get away from them? Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?
“How did you find out about me?” he asked.
“The police report. The one about when you found the body. You gave them my description, I know you hadn’t seen me. I hadn’t left the house except to walk him,” he said, indicating the beast next to him. “A little digging and a few tests showed where you might have the capabilities. The big question was why I couldn’t scan you. Turnabout is fair play and all that. But no, nothing. That’s why I had you brought in. I needed to know if it was possible. But neither of us could pick up anything, you’re as tight as a bank vault. Nothing gets out, even when we raised your stress levels. Even when you were with the girl. Nothing.”
The memory of the metal whip across his back made his muscles tighten up, and he winced involuntarily.
“That’s why?” Nolan asked, casually taking a step to his left.
Cheevers nodded his big bulbous head.
“I can also tell when you have your shields up. That part is easy to read. A few stray thoughts on my part and you start wetting your pants. Figuratively of course.” The alien looked down at his pet. Nolan could tell he was sending his thoughts to the Zork. He didn’t need to be a mind reader to understand the body language. The beast stood up and took a step towards the boy.
Nolan took two running steps and jumped for the window, praying it was one of the ones with a dormer just outside. He raised his hands into fists like Superman and flew through the air, his eyes closed and shoulders ready.
He never made it, his fists and then his head hit a fur covered wall of Zork. The animal had moved amazingly fast and blocked his escape. The unmovable wall snuffed at the puny human and used the back of his paw to swat him to the side. Nolan hit the ground with a thud and rolled over to his back and looked up at gaping jaws that hovered over his throat.
He froze, holding his breath, one false move and those sharp fangs would clamp shut around his windpipe and tear it out at the roots.
Both of them stayed in place, neither moved. The Zork was waiting for release, permission to finish the kill. Nolan could feel the beast’s yearning desire to rip and rend this puny creature to bite sized chunks. He could also feel Cheevers mentally calming the beast down. Telling it to hold off, that there would be other opportunities. The beast seemed to accept the direction, then changed his mind.
The monster brought his long gray snout with its razor sharp yellow teeth to Nolan’s neck and hesitated mere millimeters away before slowly drawing the tooth across the surface of the boy’s skin. A small trickle of blood began to pool, then spill over and start to drip onto his shirt collar. The beast looked him in the eye and thought,
“You are mine, I will eat you for my dinner, and you are mine.”
Nolan shivered and scrunched his neck trying to stop the bleeding. His stomach convulsed as he had to fight not to throw up. Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the sickening thoughts, all the while trying to figure some way out.
“Hold him there,” Cheevers said to his pet then left the room and returned a few moments later with a long piece of rope. About six feet long, both ends burnt black.
He turned Nolan over and pulled his hands behind his back, tying them together and lifting him to his feet. The alien cackled as he led him from the room.
Nolan hung his head and tried to figure out how he had missed them. He had seen the guy asleep in his chair, but the chair had been empty with him hiding in the shadows. At no time had he received a thought about the guy hiding, nor about the Zork in the hallway.
A feeling of guilty inadequacy washed through Nolan as he walked through the door. Marla had been right, he should have let the police help. He lowered his barriers again and scanned the monsters next to him.
The Zork was thinking about the hunt, red, juicy flesh. Cheevers was thinking about his success at capturing the boy and about how he would use him to gain favor with the council. Then he thought about the Girl. She knew about him. Was she a danger? No, he would be gone before she could do anything. The rendezvous was scheduled for tomorrow night.
Nolan’s heart raced as he realized he had less than twenty-four hours before he lost everything. The thought of no
more Marla sent a sickening lump to the bottom of his stomach that threatened to explode.
He would be dead to this world, and no one would really care except maybe for Marla. A girl like her wouldn’t have any problems moving on, she’d have a thousand guys waiting in line to step into his shoes.
It hurt thinking about it. Never again would he see her smile at him like he was the most important thing in the world. Never again catch the scent of her perfume of lavender and roses.
Swallowing hard, he complied with Cheevers leading him back down the stairs. The Zork followed closely behind sniffing and snuffing as he padded down each step. His warm, fetid breath, brushed the back of Nolan’s neck, making him shiver with every step. The beast was getting hungry, he could feel the pangs in the animal’s gut.
Cheevers stopped before the door under the stairs and brought out a small gold chain containing a square block of silver metal. He held it up to the center of the door. Nolan heard a deep click and door swung open on its own.
They stepped inside onto a landing at the top of some old creaky wooden stairs leading down into a cavernous room.
As they descended Nolan saw that the room was huge, the square feet way bigger than the house above, expanding on each side of the house. The room was interspersed with metal columns about fifteen feet apart. Each column holding up a massive cross iron crossbeam. Sitting in the middle of the concrete floor was a craft of some kind. Nolan’s insides tumbled when he realized it might be a spaceship.
No other way around it. There was nothing else it could be. It was about thirty feet long and ten feet high. Made up of some kind of glistening metal with a pointy front and rounded back end. Resting two feet above the concrete floor, the vessel floated in the air like a giant helium balloon.
Nolan knew next to nothing about spaceships, but he’d read enough science fiction to know that this had to be one. There didn’t appear to be any means of propulsion, just smooth metal covering the entire ship. No windscreen. He felt his heart drop to his pants, this was for real.
They really were taking him away forever.
A quick scan told him that Cheevers viewed the ship as a tool. Nothing more than a method to get from the earth to a rendezvous spot in space where he would be picked up. Nolan shook his head, he thought of his rusty old pick-up. Imagine having a sweet vehicle like this and thinking it was nothing more than a tool. What a waste.
Cheevers dragged him past the ship and into the corner where he pushed him into a wooden chair and told the Zork to stand guard. Checking the rope, Cheevers cursed under his breath then untied his hands so that he could tie them directly to the chair legs.
The beast monitored him the entire time, daring him to move. Cheevers smiled and left the basement. A silent dread settled over the room.
Nolan read the animal’s dedication and acceptance that lunch would be delayed. The mangy thing plopped his hind quarters down and sat before Nolan, looking at him like he would be an excellent snack if he weren't going to get a lunch that is.
The beast’s gut gurgled as it licked its lips. Nolan's mouth went dry, and he had a hard time swallowing. His heart raced as he searched for an out. An escape, some way to get away.
Tearing his eyes away from that yellow stare, Nolan looked down at the gray concrete floor and let his mind wander. He let himself be flooded by the noise coming from the beast and from Cheevers upstairs working on his reports. He let his mind drift, jumping from item to thought to idea.
He thought of the ship before him, wondering about its propulsion. That shifted his thoughts to his truck and how it felt having Marla sit next to him while he drove down the road, the feeling of pride and wonderment when people saw them together. His mind drifted to driving in the Cascades and stopping at a restaurant for a big bowl of blue Jell-O. He thought about what it would be like serving his new masters. His mind rebelled, He imagined cutting them down with a wooden club.
He remembered the night he had taken Marla to the movies and how it felt to sit in the dark next to each other, sharing a box of popcorn. Their hands meeting together, had sent a shiver up her arm and made her want to cry with happiness. Wait….
How could he know what she had felt, he hadn’t been scanning her? She hadn’t told him.
Blue Jell-O popped into his mind again. Why was that? … A big platter of Blue Jell-O was placed on the council table under the two-moon sky.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t get the bowl of Jell-O out of his thoughts. He brought his eyes back up to look at the Zork. Nothing had changed, those dirty yellow orbs squinted at him without emotion, hiding the sick, hungry thoughts tripping through its brain. The animal was replaced by a huge pile of shimmering blue Jell-O, jiggling and shining in the florescent lights.
Nolan looked up.
“There aren’t any fluorescent lights,” he said to himself in confusion.
The Zork tilted his head as if trying to figure out what he wanted. Nolan shook his head again trying to clear it of the images of blue Jell-O.
“Marla!” he screamed in surprise. She was trying to reach him. He could feel the soft curve of her mind, smell the lavender and roses of her shampoo. She was close and wanted him in her mind. She was telling him it was okay, they were coming.
He put up barriers, huge metal walls to block out everything but her, and focused on the sound of her thoughts.
It was almost too easy, her mind was so different, so identifiable that he could have picked it out of a stadium full of people. It had a soft, curvy, comfortable feel to it. As if he had come home and welcomed with open arms.
She was thinking about Blue Jell-o, all kinds of Blue Jell-o, Long Jell-O, Tall Jell-O, short, fat, runny, hard. Any and every kind of Blue Jell-O. She was remembering how it had been the last time he had read her, back in their room. Then she smiled to herself as she thought about how that room had brought them together. Her mind jumped to him stepping out of the bathroom without his shirt and how her heart had stopped, and she had felt all mushy and soft inside. That thought started to lead to her imagining him undress….. Blue Jell-O. She had to stay focused on the blue Jell-O. She had to let him know they were on their way. Detective Washington and her mother. They were coming to help, they believed her. Blue Jell-O.
She was focusing on Blue Jell-O to stop her mind wandering to parts she didn’t want him reading. A happiness bubbled up in his chest as he laughed out loud.
They were on the road, pulling into the spot behind the van. He couldn’t believe this, she had convinced them. The fact that he could pick her up from so far away was a bit of a shock, He wondered if the monster before him was rebroadcasting like he did with Cheevers. Or was it the special bond, the love he felt for Marla that let him hear her from so far away.
The Zork seemed to grow bored and lay down, resting his head on his front paws the beast sighed and closed his eyes.
Nolan could only pick up a feeling of tiredness and boredom from the animal. Smiling to himself, he nodded his head and quietly sang lullabies to get the thing to fall asleep. No way did the beast know Marla was coming to the rescue.
While watching the creature, he silently twisted his wrists, trying to work the rope loose. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get past the animal in front of him, but he had to warn them. Somehow he had to let them know where he was. They need to stay away. Cheevers didn’t need them, He’d feed them to the Zork without a second thought.
His mind wandered back to Marla’s, and he had to fight not to laugh out loud, the happiness pushing through him was so great.
She had developed a pattern, a few seconds of Blue Jell-O, followed by a vision of Detective Washington with his gun drawn telling the two women to stay behind and her mom getting all puffed up at the insult. Washington tried to tell her it wasn’t a man/woman thing it was a cop/civilian thing. Mrs. Jackson had looked at him like he was an idiot for even trying and said “It doesn’t matter, that boy needs help now. We don’t have time to wait.”
No
lan’s eyes grew into the size of baseballs as he saw Mrs. Jackson push past the detective and start up the hill.
He’d thought for sure the woman would hate his guts for endangering her daughter. He had seen that look before. It was the same look Marla got when she saw injustice. That determined, get out of my way look that made his heart melt and opened him to the specialness of Mrs. Jackson.
Laughing to himself he shook his head as he continued to twist his wrists. Sweat was starting to mix with a thin trickle of blood. The ropes were getting slippery. The chair felt firm, solid. But if he pulled, maybe he could break away.
Feeling a renewed sense of hope he shifted in his chair to get better leverage. The Zork immediately lifted his head to stare at the boy.
Nolan froze, a quick scan showed him about the animals curiosity as it checked its surroundings, looking for any sense of danger. Finding none, it laid its head back down and closed its eyes.
The ropes were burning now, but he’d gotten one of them to loosen a little. He knew if he could finish, the other would come free in an instant.
His mind could see through Marla’s eyes as she studied the front the house. A whiff of another voice entered his head, and he saw what Mrs. Jackson saw when she looked at Detective Washington. Gritting his teeth he threw up a quick barrier, no way was he going there.
Returning to Marla, he saw Washington stick out his hand and gently push Marla behind him then whisper, “I don’t want him to see you until after you tell me if it was the guy or not, okay?”
Marla nodded then sent, “We’re coming Nolan, hang in there, please be all right.” The feeling of love that accompanied the thought sent his heart into overdrive. He took a deep breath and prepared himself.
A sharp “Ding Dong” from the doorbell rang throughout the house.
Chapter Thirteen