by Ike Hamill
“I’m beginning to think there’s something screwy going on here,” Vernon said. He looked at Bruce.
Again, he was reminded of Elmer Fudd.
Again, he frowned to stifle a nervous laugh. Vernon took the keys from the ignition and handed them to Bruce. From his pocket, Vernon pulled a second set of keys. Bruce recognized these—they belonged to his sedan.
That’s where Vernon headed. He left the door to the van open and slipped behind the wheel of Wendy’s car. Bruce didn’t bother to follow him. He stood in the driveway and watched while Vernon cranked that vehicle. It wouldn’t start either. Bruce’s eyes turned back to the house. It was hard to look at. The shifting surface make him feel seasick. There was nothing to fix his eye on.
“Anything else? Motorcycle?” Vernon asked.
Bruce shook his head. The big man closed his eyes and took in a breath.
When he opened his eyes, he immediately started walking towards the road.
“Vernon,” Bruce called. “Take the path. It’s faster.” He pointed.
Vernon nodded and changed course. He seemed to be talking to himself, but it was loud enough for Bruce to hear. “I’ll haul them out on my back if I have to. There has to be a goddamn working car somewhere around here. I should hook a trailer up to that Polhemus broad. She goes better’n my truck anyways.”
Again, Bruce was running behind Vernon, trying to keep up. He stole a couple of glances back at his house. It hurt his eyes to look at it, but his brain refused to believe in it when he wasn’t looking. It seemed like it would be back to normal, but then he would look and it was still crawling and shifting.
“This day can’t get any stranger,” Bruce said.
Vernon turned and looked at him. They were right on the margin of the yard. Vernon had stopped just before the path that led through the patch of woods.
“You’re right,” Vernon said.
“Pardon?”
“This day couldn’t get any stranger. It started weird and then it got worse,” he said. He nodded as if he was agreeing with himself and wanted Bruce to join him. “The deer, the truck, the rock, and then the lumber yard. By the time I was racing home, it almost seemed like a dream.”
Bruce shook his head. “Dreams are never this consistent. Reality shifts in a dream. Nothing stays constant.”
Vernon pointed back towards the house.
“Point taken,” Bruce said.
“Do I run, or hunker down and try to wait it out?” Vernon asked.
Bruce shrank back from the question. He wasn’t ready to have Vernon’s confidence invested in him. But he wanted to answer. At least he wanted to have something intelligent to say.
“You won’t regret trying,” Bruce said.
Vernon looked disappointed. He turned back to the trail and began walking quickly through the woods. Bruce tried to keep up.
Chapter 26 : Dunn
[ Control ]
THIRTY SECONDS WAS ALL that Mary Dunn needed. She just need one-half of one minute without pain and then she could cope with whatever else the day was going to bring. Ricky was looking more like himself again. Now that he was in dry clothes and had caught his breath, he looked much better. Mary wished she could say the same. She hurt all over. Her hands and her neck were on fire with friction burns. Her ankle was only holding together because it was so swollen that the joint wouldn’t move.
“George!” she yelled. Her youngest showed up a few seconds later. “Watch your brother for me.”
Mary made her way around the corner and slipped into Louise’s office. There was a private bathroom off the back. Mary locked herself in so she could have a moment of peace.
She didn’t make it the full thirty-seconds. Mary stood back up when she heard her husband’s rumbling voice through the walls.
“Where’s your mom?” Vernon asked.
Mary came out through the door.
“We got wheels?” she asked.
Vernon shook his head. “Nothing we found works. We can keep trying, but I don’t think we’re going to find a car that runs.”
Sometimes it seemed like she could communicate with her husband just with a glance. She searched his eyes. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.
“What?” she asked him. “What are we supposed to do?”
“I’m open to suggestions,” he said. “You’d think the park would be crawling with cops, but there’s not a soul out there. Nothing runs and the phones are out. I’m fresh out of ideas.”
Mary thought about it for a second. It seemed like everyone, not just her family, was waiting to hear what she would say. The rest of them would have to make their own way. Her first priority was caring for her own.
“Let’s get home, Vernon,” she said. “Ricky looks okay and I’ll live. We’ll wait it out and let the world sort itself.”
Vernon nodded. “Let me go scout it first. There are some strange things afoot. George, you stay here and help your mom.”
“I want to go,” George said.
“I know you do,” Vernon said. “I’ll be back in two shakes.” He turned and was gone before George could object. George ran to the window next to the maple syrup display. Standing next to the door, Bruce Hazard looked just as left out as little George. Bruce went to confer with Wendy, who was over near one of the collections of knick-knacks.
Sarah came back to Ricky and crouched down in front of him again. She looked like a peasant about to swear her fealty.
“Ricky? Can you tell again what happened? How did you get stuck up there?”
“Oh, no,” Mary said. “You girls go on and find something else to do. Ricky has had a trying day, and mine hasn’t been much better. We’ll all be better off if we can move forward and stop looking back.”
Sarah turned her attention up to Mary.
“Mrs. Dunn, don’t you think it’s crucial that we figure out what is going on? Do you want something else to happen before we’ve had a chance to make some sense of everything?”
“Ricky took one of his tricks too far. He’ll stay out of trouble as long as he remembers that,” Mary said.
Sarah frowned at her. Mary liked the girl well enough, but thought that Sarah would do well to get out from under her dad’s influence and maybe pick up some manners.
“Mrs. Dunn,” Sarah started.
“Nope,” Mary said. “That’s enough. Give Ricky some room. He needs a little space, okay? Like I said—tough day so far.”
Sarah looked ready to argue, but Lily Hazard took her arm and coaxed her away. The two girls formed their own little committee over near the pillows and sachets.
“George? What did I say?” Mary asked. “Didn’t I ask you to come over here and see to your brother?”
“That’s just while you were in the bathroom,” he said. He kept his nose pressed to the window.
“Now I’m asking you again. Please come over here and see to your brother.”
She heard him grunt before he came away from the window. Mary’s mother had a saying: “If everyone around you is grumpy, it’s probably you who’s making them that way.” Her father had a more colorful version of the same. Mary recognized the truth of it, and had enough sense to know when her mother had a point.
She looked at Ricky. He seemed okay. He was clearly tired, but he didn’t seem out of sorts aside from that.
Mary went over to her youngest son, George. She leaned over to get her face close to his. “I know you wanted to go with him, but your dad moves really fast when he’s on his own. I’m certain he just wanted to get there and back so he could collect us up and we will all go home.”
“I’m not worried about him,” George said.
“No?”
“No,” George said. His face was still up against the glass. “I’m worried about them.” He stabbed at the pane with his finger and pressed so hard his fingernail turned white.
“I don’t know what you’re pointing at, George,” she said.
“That’s one of the things I’m
worried about,” he said.
Mary stood up straight.
[ Return ]
“Girls,” Mary called to Lily and Sarah. Over towards the knick-knacks, Wendy perked up, like Mary was addressing her. Mary waved to Lily and Sarah. “George sees something out there. I don’t see it. I want to know what you see.”
Mary sensed the arrival of others. She glanced back to see Wendy and Bruce hovering behind her. She didn’t need their opinion. She was looking for a younger perspective.
“Yes,” Lily said.
“What are you talking about?” Sarah asked her friend.
“Right there,” Lily said. When she pointed through the window, George nodded.
“I don’t see it,” Sarah said.
“I don’t either,” Mary said. “Describe what you see.”
“It’s a bug,” George said.
“Over by the woods,” Lily said. “There’s a thing about the size of a football. I’ve seen one before. Gerard caught one near my house.”
“Dingus?” Mary asked.
When Lily nodded, Mary said, “Oh, brother.”
“Wait, but what is it?” Sarah asked. “What are you looking at?”
“I don’t know if I can describe it. It was the size of a football, and it was gray, or metal colored I guess.”
“It’s a robot,” Gerard said. Trina ushered him through the door. She closed it behind herself. In her wet clothes and with her hair flattened to her head, she looked old and worn out. “We’re going to have to get out of here right away.”
“Nonsense,” Wendy said.
Mary looked around at her. Between Gerard Dingus and Wendy Hazard, Mary was inclined to disagree with both of them. Unfortunately, they already disagreed with each other.
“No, Mom, he might be right,” Lily said. “I saw it too.”
“I thought you didn’t know what you saw,” her father said.
Lily looked away.
“Forget I asked,” Mary said. She didn’t like the way that Bruce and Wendy dismissed their daughter. It was uncomfortable to watch.
“I’m not sure we should forget about it,” Bruce said.
“Whose side are you on?” Mary asked him.
“I didn’t dispute that there’s something out there,” Bruce said. “I’m simply questioning if ‘robot’ is the right term for it.” He was rubbing his hands together while he talked. “I saw some things back at the house.”
He held out his hands to Mary, as if beseeching her. “Your husband saw them too. I would describe them as bugs.” He gestured towards George.
He looked back to his own daughter. “They were not the size of a football. They were much smaller.”
“Maybe they were different,” George said.
Mary looked between them. The four people—George, Lily, Gerard, and Bruce—couldn’t have been more different, but they were all talking about seeing strange things. It was like they had been hypnotized. They had been taken in by a compelling trick, like Ricky’s trick at the end of the show. People could convince themselves of anything.
“Let’s say you saw something,” Mary said. Bruce began to object, but Mary put up her hands to stop him. “The one thing we know for sure, is we don’t know, right? Help will come. Until then, I suggest that we hold tight right here. We’ve got four walls and a roof.”
The last thing that Mary wanted was for everyone to go their separate ways. If there really was something dangerous outside, she wanted plenty of help dealing with it. Once Vernon got back, they could all disperse. Until he did, she was vulnerable. Her ankle was in bad shape, and she had one son who was still in shock.
“That’s a bad idea,” Gerard said.
The door opened again and John pushed through. As soon as he was through the door, he pushed it closed and moved away. When he turned towards Mary, she caught her breath. He was as white as a sheet.
“John, what’s wrong?”
“Everything,” he said.
They moved John over to the other husband chair, next to Ricky. Louise found him a glass of water. His color came back as he got his breathing under control and sipped the water. Trina put her hand on his shoulder and looked down at his wet clothes.
“You didn’t make it home?” Trina asked.
John shook his head. He looked up at her. “Thank God that Rose took Josie and Ruth shopping.”
He looked down at his glass of water. When he looked up again, he had to swallow several times before he could go on.
“They’re taking them all, but I think…” He couldn’t go on.
Mary had a million questions just based on that sentence fragment, but she held her tongue and waited, like the rest of them. She glanced at George and saw that he was still at his post, looking through the window. That was fine. George didn’t need to see John Endicott looking as frightened as a child.
John whispered his next statement, like he was ashamed of what he had to say. “I thought I saw them take Rose. It wasn’t her, but I thought it was from the back.”
“Start at the beginning, John,” Mary said.
John shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. His hands trembled so badly that Mary reached for the glass of water. John jerked back from her touch.
“Tell us what happened,” Mary said. She turned to Lily and Sarah. “You girls go watch out the window with George, okay?” The fear that had infected John Endicott was powerful. She didn’t want it spreading to the girls.
He nodded and swallowed one more time. His voice was shaky at first, but as he spoke, it evened out quickly.
Chapter 27 : Endicott
[ Trouble ]
“I MADE IT UP to Farnham’s place before I suspected any trouble. In hindsight, it was strange that there was nobody out on the street. It seemed like everyone just disappeared after the show. When I got to Farnham’s I saw a crowd between the house and the shed. I headed for them, just to see what was going on. They were all looking towards the back yard. I figured there must have been something really interesting going on back there the way they were all focused on it.”
John paused to take another sip of water.
“I got about two steps into the lawn when I stepped on one of them. It was a cellphone, I guess. As soon as I saw that first one, I saw others. I must have seen a dozen of them strewn across Farnham’s lawn. I suppose I looked at the people with fresh eyes. I could imagine all those people gathered to look at something, but it was troubling to think that they all had the idea to drop their phones at the same time on the way. I started to say, ‘Hey there,’ to the people nearest the back. That’s when one of the women fell to her knees. My mother used to like those TV churches on Sunday. It was like that, the way the woman dropped.”
“How many people were there, John?” Mary asked.
He shrugged. “Hard sayin’. If I had to guess, I’d say a hundred.”
“Did you recognize anyone?”
He shook his head. “Not at first. But when that woman fell to her knees, that’s when I thought I saw Rose. I should have known better. I didn’t recognize her shirt or shorts, but the hair and the shape of the woman looked like my Rose. I ran forward and began to press my way into the crowd. People didn’t look at me as I squeezed by them. I only had eyes for Rose—or what I thought was her. I shouted her name as I grabbed her shoulder to turn her. That’s when I saw what they had done.”
John stopped. He slumped down in his chair with the memory. Trina reached forward to comfort him again, but she stopped short of touching him.
“It’s okay, John,” Trina said. “She’s shopping with the girls, right? Rose is okay.”
“I wish I could get in touch with her to be sure,” John said.
Mary moved forward to cut off the conversation that John and Trina were having. John looked up to her reluctantly. He knew what she was going to ask.
“John, what was happening with the woman in Farnham’s lawn? Why didn’t you make it home?”
He closed his eyes and took a breath
before he could answer. He cringed when he remembered the image of her. When he spoke, his voice was just above a whisper.
“I don’t know what it was, but it was covering her whole face. The tendrils went right into her skin. I could see them pulsing down the front of her neck. I can’t say for sure, but I think it was feeding off of her. It seemed like she was deflating right in front of me. She was withering away as it sucked her dry, pumping her out from the inside.”
“What?” Mary asked. Even she seemed surprised by the anger in her tone.
He reacted to her question as if she had slapped him across the face. His eyes went wide.
“I’m not making it up, Mary. There was a machine clamped to her face. It was sucking the life right out of that woman. I couldn’t see much, but I could tell it wasn’t my Rose. When I turned around, I saw that they all had the things attached to them. On some people, the machine was lashed onto their chest. On the men, it was either on the belly or the groin.”
He swallowed again. He heard his own throat click. He was out of saliva. John took another sip of water.
“And it was sucking out their guts,” Mary stated.
“I never said that,” John said. It came out like a croak.
“Well what did you say?” Mary asked.
John looked to his left when the kid spoke. Until that point, Ricky had seemed barely there.
“I thought it was me,” Ricky said.
“What do you mean, baby?” Mary asked. “What are you saying?”
“I thought I had power. It was using me.”
“Who, Ricky? What are you talking about?” Mary asked.
Mary crossed her arms. “This is great,” she said. “George? Any sign of your father yet?” she called. Over at the window, George turned and shook his head. He went back to watching out the window.
“Can I get more water?” John asked. He raised his glass and Louise took it from his hand. She disappeared through a doorway.
“What else did you see, John?” Trina asked.
John shook his head. Louise handed him the refilled glass and he took a gulp.