by Robert Reed
I heard him knocking in the morning’s stillness. Once, then again.
No one answered. He came to the back of the house, and I saw the way he walked, so straight and yet tired, and he mounted the porch and knocked and knocked, then he turned and shot a look down at me. I felt his eyes. I didn’t think he could see me—he was watching the treehouse—but with my binoculars I could see his weathered face and his red unblinking eyes, his mouth set and hard gray whiskers starting to cover his chin.
Lillith arrived in a second car. She got out and joined him, and I watched them talking and gesturing. Jack said, “What’s going on?”
“Just peoplewatching.”
He was sitting up now. “I had this dream. What to hear?”
“Sure.”
Jack stood and pulled the flask from the freezer. He took a long drink and farted once and said, “I was a snake. You know?”
Lillith and Dr. Samuelson were walking to the front of the Wellses’ house, to the front porch, and I heard them knocking hard on the door, without pauses.
“Are you listening, Ryder?”
“You were a snake?”
“In the dream, yeah.” He sat on the bench and rubbed his face. He farted again. “I’ve had the same dream…I don’t know how many times. I’m always a snake out hunting. I’m always smelling things with my tongue. This time I was in the grass, slipping along, and you know what I saw? I saw you.”
“Me?”
“Just lying on your back in the grass, Ryder. I saw your face in the bright sunshine, just so plain, and when I came past you, you turned and looked at me, right at me, and said, ‘I know you.’”
I couldn’t hear anyone knocking on any doors now. They must have gotten someone up out of bed at last, and now they were inside. I could see Marshall coming down the hill on his bike. He rode up to Cody’s house and vanished, and then Lillith and Dr. Samuelson appeared again. They were talking. I pressed the binoculars to my eyes, trying to read their lips. Lillith glanced at the Wellses’ house, just once, and then they climbed into their plain little cars and drove out of sight.
“What else happened?” I asked. “In the dream.”
“Nothing.” He looked at me and asked, “Who are you watching now?”
Marshall had reappeared, Cody beside him. They were coming toward us. Marshall was tense and pale. I couldn’t tell much about Cody. Her face looked wooden, I thought. She seemed so very short beside Marshall, and Marshall was even clumsier than usual. I loved him for being clumsy, I realized, and I felt so very glad that they were walking our way. For a slippery strange moment I was actually thrilled, knowing all of us would survive…that Dr. Florida had some wonderful plan and we’d be saved in some wonderful fashion.
“It’s them,” said Jack.
I put down the binoculars and looked at Jack. I studied his face and the way he slouched forward. He was just a kid, I thought. A little kid, and scared. Sure. “What do you want to do today?” he asked. As if he could pick and choose.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s hunt snakes, okay?” He brightened and said, “The four of us. And Beth too. How about that?”
I said, “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
I didn’t say anything.
Marshall shouted, “Ryder!”
Cody shouted, “Ryder!”
Jack looked at his hands and said, “We don’t have to decide yet, I guess.”
“Your mom said you were down here,” Marshall explained. “She sounded nervous as hell on the phone. So I told her we’d come get you and explain things, only then she said you knew it already. That lady, Lillith, had come by yesterday and told you to be ready.”
Cody was sitting beside Jack. She was holding him like she had held me yesterday, to comfort him. The morning’s chill was finished, the air blowing hot through the windows, and I was so very tired that I felt sick and cold and numb.
Marshall was on the floor. “You didn’t tell me,” he said.
I shrugged.
“You told Cody. Not me.” He wanted to be angry, only everything was too crazy. He sat with his knees up near his mouth, and he said, “I guess it doesn’t matter, huh?” and he shrugged too.
Marshall had been crying. I could tell.
“How did Lillith explain things?” I asked.
“She told my folks about the eggs coming for us. Maybe the orbiting defenses would get them, but in case not we ought to be ready for the very worst. Soon.”
“Did she say where we’d go?” I wondered.
“Not really.” He shook his head, his lips pressed together. “I guess somewhere in space and they don’t want us telling anyone. Not anyone. It’s all some huge secret.”
Cody said, “There’s Beth,” and I lifted my eyes. Beth was crossing the bottoms, and I expected her to be crying worse than any of us. Only she wasn’t. When she was below us her face was almost calm. She had a strange look to her eyes and around her quiet mouth. She climbed up to us and sat at the game table, sighing, and Marshall asked, “You’ve heard?” with a careful voice.
She seemed deaf.
Marshall said, “Beth?”
She blinked and told us, “I’m not leaving them,” and bit her lower lip. Then she nodded, satisfied.
“What?” said Cody.
“What did you say?” asked Marshall.
I said, “Beth? What happened?” I went to her and touched her face, my own hands shaking, and she felt so warm to the touch. She started to cry, but only slightly. “Who came to your house?” I wondered.
“A man.”
“Dr. Samuelson?”
She nodded and gently pressed my hands away from her. “He stood on our porch and talked to them…telling them there wasn’t much time and if they wanted me to live, if they loved me, I needed to be packed and ready in a few hours.” She sobbed. “I heard everything.” She picked at her tears and said, “Quit,” to herself, and she stopped crying.
“What did your folks say?” asked Cody.
“They need me.” She wasn’t answering the question. She was speaking without thinking, without doubts, saying, “He scared them,” as if that was somehow wrong. “They didn’t have time to think…but I can’t just go! I can’t leave them here, can I? I’m not going to do it.”
“You’ve got to go,” Marshall told her. “All of us are going.”
“They’ll come get you,” I said. I was too tired to be scared, the numbness insulating me. I told her and everyone, “They won’t let you decide. Not if your folks say yes—”
“I’ll hide,” said Beth.
“Hide where?” asked Marshall, skeptical.
“In the woods. Anywhere.” She had given it careful thought, I realized. She said, “There are plenty of places.”
“And then what?” he persisted.
“They’ll stop looking for me and I can go home again. When it’s too late for them to make me leave.”
Cody made a sound. It might have been a word choked off inside her throat, or it might have been nothing. Just a sound. She seemed angry now. She told us, “I don’t want to leave my moms, either. I’ve been up all night thinking about it, and I don’t.”
I blinked and turned to face her.
Marshall said, “You’re nuts!”
“We don’t know the hounds are going to make it here,” she said. “And do you know where we’re going? Huh, Marshall?”
“Florida’s trying to save us,” he said. “Like Ryder said. You can’t just say no.”
“Why not?”
Marshall didn’t know why not. His face filled with color, his mouth pressed into a tight pink line.
“I’ll hide you,” Cody promised Beth. “Don’t worry.” She was using her smoothest, surest voice. She didn’t want to leave her family, not now, and when she spoke with that voice I myself saw a glimmer of choice. I hadn’t even imagined that I could do what I wanted. Not until then.
“They’ll be here in a couple days,” said Beth. “The h
ounds. I heard it on the news.” She hummed a soft note, fuzzy and dark. “If we can just stay down here that long, maybe—”
“I’m going,” Marshall declared.
“So go,” said Cody.
“I will.” He licked his lips and looked concerned. He wished one of us would argue with him, or that he could change Beth’s mind, or Cody’s. “I am going to leave,” he repeated.
“So leave,” said Cody.
“Soon.”
“Ryder?” said Cody. “Ryder? Do you want to know what I think?” She touched me. “The rest of us are invited because of you. It’s you that Florida wants to save.”
Jack said, “Why?” and stared at me.
“Because I can remember certain things,” I admitted. I felt absolutely certain. “Later,” I said, “when it’s over, I’m supposed to tell people what happened. The true story. That’s what he wants me to do.”
“That’s what I figure,” said Cody.
I started to breathe harder, the blood in my face and my heart pounding, and they were looking at me. All four of them were watching me. Marshall said, “When everything’s destroyed, you’ll be the one people go to. So they don’t forget. Sure,” and he blew air between his knees with his eyes fixed on me.
Beth asked, “Are you going to leave now? Ryder?”
I looked at Beth.
“Stay if you want,” said Cody. “Or find Florida and go.”
And I heard myself saying, “No.” I said, “No, I m staying.”
Dr. Samuelson drove a van onto the graveled road. It was nearly noon. I saw his suit and his bright gray hair and a dark little briefcase in one hand, and for a long moment he stood gazing down at the pasture. Then he turned and went to the Wellses’ front door. We couldn’t hear him knocking, since the wind was too loud. Maybe he didn’t have to knock this time. Maybe someone was waiting for him.
“I bet he’s looking for you, Jack,” said Marshall. “Then all of us.”
Cody said, “Anyone else? Anyone see anyone else?”
Everyone was holding binoculars. There was nobody until Dr. Samuelson reappeared, coming out of the back door. He didn’t have the briefcase anymore. He paused and stared down at the oak, and us, and I felt his eyes playing across us. Cody said, “Down. Now,” and we hunkered on the floor, waiting.
I saw the pasture through a tiny crack in the wall.
Dr. Samuelson didn’t like the long walk. He seemed old and heavy, sweating hard enough to soak his good clothes. He said, “Kids?” to us. “Can you hear me? Kids?” I saw a strange bright redness to his face. Then he was below us, and I couldn’t see him anymore.
Nothing happened for a long moment.
He was waiting, I knew. Standing and waiting for us to jump.
Then I heard him sliding down the slope, kicking loose clods of earth and the soft dust, and Jack pressed his face against the opposite wall, peering through another crack. Jack motioned when he saw Dr. Samuelson. Very softly, almost without breath, he said, “He’s looking up.” Then he said, “Now he’s just looking around.”
We waited.
Finally Dr. Samuelson climbed back up the slope and crossed the pasture, whirling before he got too far away from us. He had hoped to catch sight of us, I suppose. But we were down and hiding. He was frustrated, maybe angry, but he didn’t say anything. He went to the van and drove it himself, leaving in the direction of my house.
I wondered what had been inside that briefcase. The briefcase he had left inside the Wellses’ house.
I sat up and looked at nothing in particular, thinking hard.
Cody said, “We need weapons,” and waited. Then she said, “If we’re going to make a stand, then we’ll need more than we’ve got.”
Nobody spoke.
“In case they do find us,” she told us.
Beth said, “Can’t we just run somewhere else?” Her eyes were big and round and sorry for things.
Marshall muttered something about leaving us. Now.
“Ryder? Jack?” said Cody. “We’re going to do this fast.”
The three of us climbed out of the oak and crossed the bottoms, each carrying a bucket. We gathered chunks of concrete from the slabs—chunks that would fill a hand—and then we climbed past the slabs, needing more ammunition. We found the old brick well and the concrete cap and the dead tree beside them. The cap had been blasted to one side—I tried to imagine such an explosion—and I smelled the dead fire and crept up to the edge of the well. Shards of bricks were everywhere. I could see sunlight falling into the shaft, but when I bent forward my shadow blotted out the light. Was the dragon dead? I couldn’t tell. I was looking at how the intact bricks were stacked, with plenty of slots where little feet could cling. Then Cody said, “Ryder?” and shook me. “Come on! We’ve got to go.”
She carried my bucket for me.
The van appeared when we were climbing the oak. It came straight down onto the pasture this time, its engine racing, and I crawled up into the big room, panting. Cody was pulling up the last bucket, pulling the rope hand over hand, and the van jerked to a stop and my folks climbed out. Dr. Samuelson was behind them. Marshall was watching the van with binoculars, saying, “Ryder? I think your suitcases are in the back, aren’t they?”
I saw them. My folks had packed for me; I was ready to leave.
Cody said, “Help me, Jack,” and she spilled concrete and bricks onto the floor, one bucket and then the other two. She said, “The slingshots, Jack. They’re there,” and she pointed at a cabinet. “Marbles too.”
Mom called, “Ryder?” when she was close.
“Come down, son,” said Dad. “Right now, would you?”
They looked limp and tired, but they also seemed remarkably brave to me. I imagined them sitting with Lillith, listening while she explained what would happen to the earth and them, but not to me. I couldn’t imagine either of them saying, “Take us too, please. Save us!” I tried to picture such a thing, and I just couldn’t.
Mom said, “You’ve got to go, honey.”
Jack poured marbles into a big stew can.
“Climb on down! All of you kids!” said Dad.
Dr. Samuelson told us, “A flight is being readied. At the mansion. You’ll be leaving for Hawaii just as soon as possible—”
“No!” cried Cody. “We won’t!” She stood at a window and held a piece of raw concrete in one hand, in view. “We’ve voted and decided to stay up here.” Jack was behind her, setting slingshots on the game table; and I watched how neatly he put them in a row, just so, Cody shouting, “Now you people just stay away. Please.”
I looked at my folks. “Dr. Samuelson?” I said. “We want them to come too. Our parents.”
Beth made a sound.
“Honey!” cried Mom. “There’s no room for us.”
I couldn’t picture them asking for themselves, no, and so I had to ask for them. Wasn’t that right? I watched Dr. Samuelson. “Tell Dr. Florida what we want. Please, sir?”
Dr. Samuelson straightened. He shook his head and said, “No.”
I felt unsure of my next step.
Marshall said, “Let me leave,” with his voice barely more than a faint whisper. “Right now.”
“Go on,” said Cody. “We won’t stop you.”
Marshall didn’t move.
Dad said, “Son? This is no time to be noble. Why don’t you climb down and bring your friends? Please?” He made a slow, sad sound. Then he turned away. He put his hands in the small of his back, not showing us his face.
Mom shouted, “Ryder! Come down here now!”
Cody stood beside me.
Mom said, “Cody, dear? Would you please, please make him come down? Do what you want, but don’t pull him under too—”
“Gwinn,” said Dad. He tried to hold her, and she pushed at Dad. She told me, “I want you standing here in one minute! Do you understand me?”
“Dr. Florida’s waiting,” said Dr. Samuelson. “He’s counting on your cooperation, and he
wants a last word with you—”
“He’s not going with us?” I asked.
“No.” Dr. Samuelson shook his head. “His duty is here, son.”
“So where are we going?” asked Cody. “Why not tell us?”
“Not now. Not here.”
And Cody turned to me. “Look. He’s scared.” She halfway smiled and turned back to Dr. Samuelson, saying, “Bring Florida. We want to talk to him here!”
Dr. Samuelson turned as if someone might be listening to us. He was very much afraid.
“We aren’t budging until then!” said Cody.
Dr. Samuelson couldn’t stand it anymore. He straightened once again, declaring, “You’re not in any position to make demands, young lady—”
And Cody threw the piece of concrete overhand. Not hard, not for Cody, but the gray thing streaked through the air and struck the van’s windshield, the glass bursting inward and collapsing. Dr. Samuelson was startled, ducking too late and then tensing for the next blow. He expected to be the target. It was my father who told him, “Easy, easy. She’s just trying to rattle us,” and he offered him his hand.
Dr. Samuelson accepted it, rising now.
Dad told me, “We’ll be back, son.”
And behind me, speaking with some certainty, Marshall said, “All right. Okay. I’ll stick it out with you guys. For now.”
Thirteen
We ate snowballs to slake our thirst and Jack’s canned food for lunch, and we watched TV for a little while. They were fighting spark-hounds on the moon now. We saw a live hunt, the militia patrolling inside an armored wagon that came over a low rise and almost collided with an injured hound. I saw the angry alien face and its wings extended for no reason, one wing and part of its body misshapened, apparently melted, and the deadly tail gone. The nuclear blasts had left it crippled.
Cody guessed they were showing us an easy fight. She said they might have spotted this hound beforehand, and the victory was supposed to make people feel better everywhere. Bolstering courage and that sort of shit, she said.
The hound shouted in the vacuum, making no sound. The wagon halted and the militia began to fire. I saw the hound’s enormous mouth extending and the rasping tongue dangling outward, explosive bullets bursting in its face and chest and the enormous wings. Its glaring eyes were inhuman, I thought. I heard people talking on radios, telling one another to keep firing and don’t let up and drive the bastard down. Now! The hound tried to leap, only its legs were too weak. It could barely stand against the moon’s weak pull. Then the bullets pierced its armor and its salmon-colored meat shattered, and I saw sparks from its opened bloodless belly and its three-fingered hands trying to close the wounds. None of us could believe the thing was alive, not after so much, and then it was down and thankfully dead and the people inside the wagon cheered. I halfway smiled myself, for a minute. Then there came a sudden motion and flash, the wagon rolled over on its side, the TV image spun and people screamed and there came a second flash, brighter now, and a section of a wall melted as a bolt of brilliant white bored its way through—