by Brian Bakos
to happen? He’s just another prisoner, like the rest of us.
“Eddie,” I say.
“Yeah?”
He turns toward me with this odd look in his eyes, like he isn’t actually there anymore. As if the real kid is already spinning through outer space, all frozen, and has left behind an empty shell.
“Snap out of it, Eddie!” I say.
He shakes his head, and the tough little kid returns.
“What do you want, Amanda?” he says.
“I can’t believe Kintz One,” I say. “I think his story about us is just an exaggeration – like the one Melissa told.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Eddie says, but he doesn’t sound very convinced.
“Hadn’t we’d better ask him?” I say.
Eddied nods. “Yeah, good idea.”
I want Quentin to join us, but he just stands off to the side with this blank look on his face. So does Tommy. They are strong boys, if they know what they’re up against, but this nightmare is beyond all understanding. Melissa stays with Kintz One, holding on to him like he’s a big stuffed toy.
Eddie takes the communicator and speaks into it. Alien words come pouring out instead of pictures.
“Good,” Eddie says to me, “I was hoping for this. It saves time.”
Kintz One looks up, he doesn’t seem to understand. Eddie speaks again, very slow this time and loud enough for me to hear the English words.
“How do you know that the guard will toss us out?” he asks.
Kintz One understands now. He untangles himself from Melissa and takes the communicator. After adjusting the thing a little, he begins to speak. The American-style voice that comes out the narrow end is soft and mellow, and heartbreakingly sad.
I hope to hear some doubt in it, but Kintz One sounds dead certain about his answer.
“We saw the guard throw away the captives from our first stop.” He chokes back tears. “The enemy does not desire any witnesses. B-besides ... ”
He is sobbing full force now and cannot continue. His sister, Kintz A, takes the communicator from him.
“This ship cannot support any more biological life forms,” she says in a beautiful, tinkling voice. “Otherwise, the foe would have taken more hostages or perhaps sent an additional guard.”
The awful truth finally slams into us full force, and my denial strategy falls apart like a broken clock.
“Ohhh!” Melissa wails.
She faints dead away. Kintz One grabs her and eases her to the floor.
I feel very light-headed myself, and my knees start to give out.
“Amanda!” Eddie cries.
I grab hold of him to keep from falling over. He wraps an arm around my waist, and I duck my head down to get some blood flowing back into it. Maybe I do blank out for a few seconds, but I am soon back in horrid reality.
I try to picture the great warriors in my family so as to buck myself up. I think of my dad, Ace Searles, in his jet fighter battling the enemy MIGs over Korea – too strong and courageous to give up, even when his plane was shot out from under him.
I think of my great aunt Tania sniping at the Nazis in Russia, enduring all sorts of cold and hardship. I wish I had her golden hero star with me now to give me courage!
Quentin and Tommy stay frozen with shock, their eyes wide and blank. Only Eddie seems unfazed by our approaching doom.
“Well ... I’ve had a crappy life until now,” he says, “so it only makes sense that it’ll end crappy. At least I made some friends.”
Three: Desperate Measures
16. The Investigation Begins
I feel better a couple of minutes later – at least I don’t seem ready to pass out any longer. I raise my head back up.
“Are you okay now, Amanda?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m ... fine.”
That’s the lie of the century.
He takes his arm off my waist and I stand alone now, swaying about as if I’m on the deck of a bucking ship. Eddie prepares to grab me again, but I manage to keep upright. I shake some life back into my arms and legs. My head is still pretty numb, though.
What’s wrong with us? We just received a death sentence, and we aren’t trying to do anything about it.
Quentin and Tommy just sit together by the bikes not saying a word, as if somebody has kicked the stuffing out of them. Nearby, Melissa is conscious again and crying softly on Kintz One’s shoulder. I myself am practically done for. We’re acting like members of the Cream Puff Club!
Eddie is proving to be the toughest, but he’s all wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself.
“Hey, it’s too bad you’ve had a crappy life, Eddie,” I say, “but that’s no reason to give up on it.”
I think this might get a rise out of him, but he just gives me this odd, sad little look.
“Yeah, right,” he says.
“I mean, all of us have troubles,” I say. “We just have to keep going, don’t we? We’ve got to figure some way out of this.”
Eddie nods, as if he agrees with me but is throwing in the towel anyway. He shuffles off alone into the darkness.
Some spirit-crunching power is in the air, hovering over us like a giant vulture. I can almost smell the stinky breeze when it flaps its wings. It’s sucking away our will power.
I need to be thinking full blast, but my head is loaded with cobwebs. I have to get away from this depressing group – they are draining off what little energy I still have left. Most important, I need to find out some details about our prison. How can we possibly escape from it without more information?
But I’m so tired! The long bike ride, all that running from the phantom men, the terrible happenings inside the Tire Giant. Anybody would be used up, wouldn’t they? My brain is all fogged, and my body desperately needs rest.
Why don’t I lie down – just for a little while? Close my eyes, sleep. I deserve it. Maybe I’ll never have to open my eyes again, and ...
I have sunk all the way down before I realize what’s happening. But the final thump against the floor jars some sense back into me.
“Eddie!” I shout.
My voice echoes and bounces. Eddie emerges from the shadows.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Help me up, please.”
Eddie reaches down and yanks me back to my feet.
“Thanks, Eddie.”
I brush myself off, stamping my feet all the while to get my circulation going better.
“Don’t let me do that again, okay, Eddie?”
“Sure, Amanda, I’ll watch out for you.”
I smack my hands against my cheeks to help clear my head. Well, that doesn’t accomplish much besides stinging my face a little. I look toward Quentin, Tommy, and Melissa, but none of them are paying attention to me. I could probably drop dead without being noticed.
I turn back toward Eddie.
“What do you know about this place?” I ask.
“Not much.”
“You’ve been inside a few days, haven’t you?” I say. “Didn’t you even look around?”
“I was pretty busy working on the communicator,” Eddie says. “That didn’t leave much time for exploring.”
He pulls a paper-back Webster’s dictionary from a pocket inside his jacket. I can’t help being amazed, even with all the other incredible stuff going on.
“I took this from the Children’s Home,” he says. “I always wanted to know a lot of big words so that people would think I’m smart.”
He gives me the dictionary. It’s just like the ones we have at school and feels like a dear old friend in the middle of all this alien horror.
I stroke its battered cover, then open it up. The words Property of are stamped on the title page. The name below has been scribbled out and Edward J. Hawkes is written in its place.
“So, the communicator has these words now?” I say.
“Yeah, we finally scanned them all in.”
I hand back the dictionary. Eddie replaces it in his
pocket with great respect. From another inside pocket he produces a second paperback book. Does he have a whole library in that jacket?
“We used this one, too,” he says.
It is The Adventures of King Arthur. Inside are pictures of knights and ladies along with lots of old-fashioned talk such as: ‘Fear not, fair damsel, for I shall defend thee.’
So, where is that guy in the shining armor when we need him?
“Anything else?” I ask.
Eddie shakes his head.
“There wasn’t time to get more books,” he says. “I had to make a quick getaway.”
Yeah, ‘quick getaway’ – those are the sweetest words in the English language right now.
“I’ve been sick a lot, too,” Eddie says. “That awful food they have, you know. It’s not designed for humans.”
“Mmm.”
Eddie does look a bit starved out, come to think of it.
“I thought the hamburger blobs at the Children’s Home were bad,” Eddie says, “but I’d sure like some of them now.”
I remember that we’ve missed lunch, but I’m too keyed up to be hungry, not even for hamburger blobs.
“How about the guard?” I ask. “Has he been around?”
“No,” Eddie replies. “Kintz One says that the ship runs automatic. The guard never leaves his own area unless there’s some big problem.”
“Can you tell me anything else?”
Eddie shakes his head again.
“Nothing you don’t already know, Amanda.”
So ... I’m back to square one. If my human friends can’t help me, then that only leaves the aliens, doesn’t it?
“Excuse me, Eddie,” I say, “I think I’ll go check things out for myself.”
“Do you want me to come along?”
I hesitate. Of course I want some company; my human friends are too down in the dumps to be helpful, though, and I need to be maximum sharp. Like my dad says:
“You’ll never pull anyone up to your own level, but they can sure drag you down to theirs.”
Why isn’t Dad here to handle things?
“No thanks, Eddie,” I say. “I’ll let you know if I need help.”
I start walking toward Kintz One and Melissa. I’m all stiff and slow, as if I’m a hundred years old.
Fat chance of that, I don’t know if I’ll survive the next hundred minutes.
17. Alien Conference
By the time I arrive at Kintz One, I have loosened up a little, but I’m not exactly a well-oiled machine just yet. More like a rusty old bike rolling on flat tires.
Kintz One doesn’t look as if he’d be much help. He is still all teary with Melissa, and he doesn’t even notice me standing beside them. These aliens seem to have only two settings – either they are motionless and creepy, like manikins, or else they are blubbering tears all over the place.
Nearby, Tommy and Quentin watch indifferently. I don’t even try to talk with them because they would only slow me down.
I take the communicator from Kintz One. He won’t need it now because he and Melissa are speaking in the universal language of pain. The thing is heavier than I expected. Good. I feel a bit more solid myself just holding onto it.
Then I approach the three Kintz girls. They are standing nearby clinging to each other like statues of lost lambs. Their glittery eyes seem to be following my every move.
At least I think they’re nearby. But the more I walk, the farther away they seem to get. Space is all messed up in this awful place. I don’t know if I’m moving in a straight line or going around in circles.
Finally, I just stop where I am and wave to them. Quick at that, they are right beside me; I never even saw them move. They just stand there gaping at me through their dark button eyes. You’d almost think they’ve never seen an alien before – which is what I am, at least from their viewpoint.
If this were the normal world, I’d say that Kintz A is about the same age as me – although she seems older than that in some ways. The twins look two or three years younger than her. But who can tell? This situation is light years away from normal.
I can’t get over the little rings pierced through their ears, lips, and noses. Did that hurt? I’ve only seen pierced earrings on old people before – like my Grandma Lenin.
The girls cock their heads a little, as if to say, “Get on with it, already.”
I raise the communicator toward my mouth. Little swirls of light sparkle inside the opening, like mini galaxies in outer space. A weird, tingly feeling spreads over my skin.
“Hi,” I say into the device, “my name is Amanda Searles.”
A horrible racket exits the other end, as if I’m talking through a busted radio speaker. I say “Amanda” again, and a blast comes out that I can scarcely recognize as my name.
The girls seem to understand me well enough, though. They all curtsy and say something friendly-ish in their alien language. It sounds a lot better than the noise I just made.
Kintz A holds out a hand. It is small and delicate, and so pale that it almost seems like milk glass. The fingers are rather long, and so is her arm, like on all the aliens. I give her the communicator.
“We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Amanda,” she says in her tinkling voice. “How may we be of assistance?”
So, I’m ‘Lady Amanda’ now? I like the sound of this King Arthur style language. It helps to create a make-believe atmosphere.
I must hold onto that idea. If I can look at this place as some sort of fantasy land – or a TV show – if I can just forget the danger for a while, then maybe I can think better. I take the communicator back.
“There must be some way out of this death trap,” I say. “I want to look around and find one.”
Is that the hint of a smile on Kintz A’s face? I return the communicator.
“Ah, you Earth Americans have spirit!” she says. “I was counting upon that.”
“You’ll help us, then?” I ask.
“Of course we shall, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says. “We are all within the identical waterborne transportation apparatus, are we not?”
She’s probably trying to say that we’re all in the same boat, but there’s no time to waste figuring it out.
“Yeah, something like that,” I say.
I ask her many questions about our prison, but she doesn’t know a lot more than Eddie did. She does tell me that:
The ship runs automatically along a fixed route.
It has stopped here so that some sort of repair or maintenance can take place.
The guard doesn’t run the ship, he just keeps an eye on things.
Robots do the routine chores.
The guard never comes by unless there’s a big problem.
The last big problem occurred when Kintz One tried to sabotage the previous takeoff. The scene hadn’t been pretty.
“I thought the guard intended to slay my brother,” Kintz A says, “but his orders obviously did not permit that. He did inflict much pain, however.”
We pass the communicator between ourselves easily. Sometimes we don’t even need it, we just understand each other by intuition. The younger girls don’t say much, and when they do talk, Kintz A translates for them.
I’m beginning to feel much stronger and more alert. Kintz A is vibrating some energy back into me with her warm, upbeat attitude. The gloom vulture that has been perching on my shoulder takes off. I’m thinking clearly again!
Why don’t I know somebody like Kintz A back home? She has ‘Best Friend’ written all over her.
Until now, Melissa has always been my best friend – though she’s usually more like a dull toothache that you kind of get used to. But just when I can’t stand her spoiled brat routine another second, she’ll come through for me in some incredible way. Like when she ...
But there isn’t time to think about my old life now.
“You were floating around in a ball of light when we first saw you,” I say. “Can
you do that again?”
“Of course we can,” Kintz A says. “We merely direct the energy fields from the ship’s power units to our own purposes.”
“I was wondering how you did that,” I say.
“It is a capability we females possess in this environment,” Kintz A says. “We could scarcely do so elsewhere, however. Should you visit us in our home world, you would find our capabilities to be much more limited.”
“Well, maybe some other time,” I say.
“Nor would you find our males to be so electrical,” Kintz A say. “Such a violent display as we witnessed during the fight could hardly be duplicated under normal circumstances.”
“Is that so?”
“I think it is merely a supercharged expression of their mating energy, using power from the ship’s units,” Kintz A says.
I really don’t want to hear any more about that. Or is she just teasing me? The blank expression on her face doesn’t change, but maybe I heard some humor in her voice. What a lousy time for humor!
“I’d like to ride in the glow ball and see the rest of this ship,” I say. “Can you take me with you?”
“Why yes, my lady. That is as easy as determining the square root of four,” Kintz A says.
With my revived brain I understand that we have to accomplish two things:
First, we have to create some ‘big problem’ for the guard so that he’ll come out after us. That way, we can fight him.
Second, we have to prevent any takeoff until we can get out of the ship.
These objectives are tied together, we can’t have one without the other. If we beat the guard, we might be able to get off this ship. Maybe we can even send the Kintz back to their home world. I need to find out how.
“Can we get going?” I say.
Kintz A motions toward me with her long arm.
“Come, Lady Amanda. We must all stand closely together.”
Oh boy, I wonder, what am I getting into?
But it’s too late for second thoughts – the die is cast, whatever that means. I find myself stepping forward. Then I’m surrounded by Kintz A’s arms. I am jammed together with the three aliens, staring into their blank faces.
Kintz A closes her eyes. Her face takes on this weird, flickering glow, like the fluorescent tube in our bathroom when it’s burning out. Then blinding light explodes around us.
18. Psycho Elevator
“Ahhh!”
My voice stays behind as we shoot up into the darkness on a psycho elevator ride. My stomach flips like a burger on a hot grill. It’s a good thing I missed lunch, otherwise I’d be throwing up – and from this high, I wouldn’t miss anybody.
“Goodness!” Kintz A says.
She slows our steep climb, and I am able to gulp my stomach back down to where it belongs.
“My apologies, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says. “There is far more power available now than there was earlier.”
All around us is excruciating bright, much worse than at the beach on a hot, cloudless day. I place my arms in front of my face to protect myself from it.
Through the painful light, I can see the hands on my watch doing the maniac whirl, then they stop dead, then they start moving again. The air smells like a Fourth of July sparkler, and something else ...
A terrible memory bubbles up from my brain:
We were at the cemetery visiting that spooky, cold, white mausoleum building where Grandma Searles is buried high in the wall. We came back outside after putting some flowers into her bronze urn, and we were walking past the regular graves back to our car.
“I really loved Grandma and all,” I’d told my dad, “but please don’t ever bring me here