Phantoms of the Moon

by Michael Ciardi

In the recorded annals of Glen Dale’s not-so-illustrious history, very few events had encouraged its inhabitants’ fascination. But the mundane pleasures of the past were soon be forsaken forever. As the pine trees quaked with an unnatural rhythm, the clearing split into sections. The ground folded inward as an escalating spacecraft unsettled everything resting above it. Snow and ice mixed with tossed boulders and chunks of soil as the craft’s glistening chrome veneer pierced the earth.

  Victor barely escaped being entombed by the hurled rubble, but he somehow maneuvered outside the surfacing ship’s range. If he had ever in his lifetime doubted the likelihood of extraterrestrial activity, all of his skepticism dissolved in mere seconds. This leviathan of gleaming metal now stationed as the clearing’s centerpiece, dwarfing the nearby evergreens and everything else within its radius. Victor estimated the structure to be the length of a naval battleship, but half of it was still submerged in the ground. He shielded his eyes from its projected illumination, which most likely alerted people from miles around.

  Inside the craft, Ryan’s inevitable fate had become counterbalanced by a faint hope that he might yet save his friends from a horrific demise. But as moments passed, the chance of any of them escaping grew slimmer. Merely delaying their deaths was not an option for Ryan, but he also realized where his greatest enemy resided. Just beyond the last panel, his true nemesis lurked. And as the hub’s panel began to slowly rise to grant them access inside, Ryan readied himself for his ultimate confrontation.

  “I’ll lead the way from here,” Ryan announced, stepping in front of the huddled pair upon the floor. “No matter what happens to me, Doctor Evans, keep moving forward through the hub. After you cross the room’s main floor, you’ll see a series of ventilation portholes flanking the right wall. You’ll need to climb up these shafts in order to get out of the ship.”

  “What about you, Ryan—aren’t you coming with us?”

  Ryan shook his head solemnly and declared, “Remember me how I was—not as you see me now.”

  The trio eventually made their way into the hub and immediately sensed its primary function in relation to the rest of the spacecraft. Its dome-shaped interior was completely comprised of mirrored tiles. Unlike the silver tiles in the storage facility, these mirrors encompassed the floor as well as the ceiling, and the reflected light created a warped sense of perception to its occupants—at least to those occupants who called themselves human. As Ryan feared, his progress halted abruptly as he progressed over the mirrored floor.

  Until this moment, Ryan had not been hindered by the sight of his transformation, but the hub had been designed to show things—especially living things—as they truly were. Before entering the hub, he envisioned himself as at least partly human because nothing within his line of sight reminded him otherwise. After observing his reflection in the mirrored surroundings, however, Ryan examined his condition with increased shame. Although he tried not to gaze upon the armor-like shell devouring his flesh, the temptation was too overbearing. Perhaps he wanted to scream in defiance, but he made no audible sound. Furthermore, Ryan’s delay in movement left Evans and Hailey stranded at the hub’s far side, scrambling to uncover a visual passage toward the ventilation portholes.

  Before Ryan harnessed the fortitude to rejoin them, the alien presence returned to the hub. Unlike the previous areas within the ship, the spheres had not accompanied the Voice for this final stand. Instead of amplifying from random probes, the Voice now echoed throughout every portion of the room.

  “Project 384500 is now officially aborted. Surrender for termination procedures, Subject X1707.”

  Ryan grappled at his face with both hands, but he could no longer feel the texture of his flesh. “Open the ventilation chamber,” said Ryan, defying the Voice’s command once again. “Release the Earthlings, and then I will surrender to you.”

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “The fugitive specimens have knowledge of our operations. They present a security breach to our future operations.”

  “I won’t let you slaughter them!”

  “Subject X1707, why do you still resist your origins?” questioned the Voice. “You are not one of them. You can never be a part of their world again.”

  “You made me what I am!” Ryan bellowed, still wagging his fists aimlessly into the air. “And now you expect me to pretend that my other life never existed? You may see me as a collaborator to this experimentation, but I never asked for any of this—I never asked to be born! But hear these words: I will never become the monster that you think I am!”

  “Correction,” the Voice responded. “You have formally demonstrated your allegiance to us a long time ago.”

  “Negative,” Ryan denied the Voice. “You can’t tinker with my mind—that’s the one part of me you can’t fully control! I’d never be a part of your ranks!”

  “Correction,” responded the Voice. “You already are.” An intense light then projected on the mirrored tiles closest to Ryan. “Look into the mirrors, Subject X1707—the reflections of the past will prove where you truly belong.”

  Had Ryan been in a securer frame of mind he would have resisted an urge to leer upon the mirrored tiles within the hub. But a weakness within his heart was greater than he presently realized. When he stared upon his reflection, he saw his image slowly fading into obscurity. His own likeness was then replaced by a holographic representation of what he presumed to be his family. His mother, father, and twin brother were stretched out on gurneys in the dissection chamber. They screamed for their lives at first, but mercy was not in company. Death came slowly to them all, and at the hands of a most unexpected source. Beside them, partially hidden by the shadows, a little boy dissected each body with precision. He toiled without emotion, using the surgical devices within the room to extract every viable organ from the lifeless cadavers. When the boy turned into the light, his identity was uncontestable.

  “Identify the image in the hologram, Subject X1707,” commanded the Voice.

  “It can’t be real,” Ryan uttered in disbelief.

  “You are surveying a memory borrowed from your own mind. Specimens 03597, 03097, and 00797 were processed and dissected for analysis by you, Subject X1707.”

  “No! It’s all a lie!” Ryan screamed, but the longer the holograms remained projected into the mirrors, the more he understood that the Voice had only revealed the truth. “I loved them! They were my family!” Though Ryan experienced a degree of pain, he discovered that he no longer had the ability to cry.

  “They were never your family, Subject X1707. The specimens fulfilled their purposes, and you satisfied your obligations to them as well.”

  The holographic memory played out in its entirety upon the mirrored surface, but Ryan did not need to observe anymore of this barbarity. He covered his face with his hands, but screening his eyes from the savagery did not barricade the guilt from his mind. He had no further doubt about who he was, and he could do little to alter the gruesome deeds from ten years ago. Despite this knowledge, he also realized that he had an opportunity to prevent another travesty. The hope of saving Evans and Hailey still lingered in his thoughts.

  As Ryan debated his next course of action, the ship’s vibration became more consistent. The spacecraft’s engines gradually created the energy necessary to propel it from the ground. As this occurred, the hub’s interior walls hummed and flashed in sequence to the ship’s movement. But since the hub provided direct access to the craft’s central generators, Ryan planned to destroy the room’s main circuitry and prevent the ship from flying away. Ryan’s own source of energy, however, served no function in this mirrored environment. When he released the lasers from his eyes again, the beams rebounded harmlessly off the reflective tiles.

  “Surrender now, Subject X1707,” the Voice demanded. “You have extinguished your options.”

  “I’ll never give up,” Ryan stated, breathlessly.

  “Destroy the specimens and your own life will be spared,” the Voice offere
d. “You have nothing else to gain by keeping them alive any longer.”

  “You’re wrong!” Ryan still defied the Voice. “I won’t let you murder them!”

  “Why do you reject your own identity, Subject X1707? Your methods are unprecedented.”

  “But they’re still my methods—not yours!”

  The hub’s floor and walls trembled with a heightened intensity now. This disturbance was forceful enough to knock Evans and Hailey from their feet. Ryan held his position, but he suspected the aliens to initiate another assault within seconds. Rather than reveal their identities or employ additional spheres to the task, the aliens elected to utilize the products of their environment as a way to terminate the threat among them. In this instance, the hub’s mirrored tiles served as a formidable arsenal.

  Without further warning, the tiles dislodged from the walls and ceiling. Once unbound, the mirrored pieces spiraled throughout the entire hub, slicing the air like Frisbees in a plunge toward the intended targets. At first the tiles fell randomly, but then hundreds plummeted at once, peppering the interior like glittering rainfall. When the mirrors hit the floor, each one exploded into a shower of jagged glass. A single shard projected from these tiles had the ability to cut through flesh and bone.

  Ryan maintained his position momentarily, but his new layer of skin served as a deterrent to the aliens’ choice of weapon. Many of the pieces deflected off the solid shell that now coated his body. If these tiles struck Evans and Hailey, however, they would not share a similar fortune. Ryan knew he had only seconds to reach them. The pair had already huddled on the open floor. There was nothing within the room to shield them from the fallen debris. Luckily, the tiles had not yet descended upon them, and Ryan was able to reunite with them unscathed.

  “Keep down!” Ryan told them both. “Stay close together!” By using his own body as a shield, Ryan hunched over their bodies. As the onslaught of glass teemed down over them, the tiles riddled Ryan’s back continuously, but he managed to create a barrier for Evans and Hailey. They had not felt the brunt of this assault. Though Ryan was at first protected from the piercing bits of glass, the protective covering on his body soon chipped away. This exposure left him suspect to the intended damage. Despite the obvious pain he endured in these moments, Ryan managed to locate the entrance to the ventilation portholes at the room’s far corner.

  “Over there,” Ryan shouted, while directing a single laser from his eye. The shot met its mark against an exposed sequence pad attached to the wall. The impact jarred the panel, causing it to lift open just far enough so that a person was able to pass beneath it. “Get beyond that panel and climb into the ventilation shafts,” Ryan told them. “It’s your only chance.”

  The opening was approximately twenty-five feet from where Evans and Hailey crouched upon the hub’s floor. But with the tiles still pouring heavily between the space, it might as well been three miles.

  “You’re coming with us, Ryan!” Evans demanded. “We need you.”

  “No,” Ryan said, wincing in agony. “I’ve done enough damage to the people of your world. I must stay here.”

  “I can help you,” Evans insisted. “I’m sure I can do something.” As Evans uttered these words, he was almost ashamed to admit that he did not really believe his own statement now. But no matter what futility the doctor experienced in this regard, his feelings for Ryan had not changed simply because Ryan had physically transformed. “Human or not,” he said to Ryan, “you’ve shown more decency to us than the best of our kind.”

  “Save yourselves now,” said Ryan. “You have only a few minutes left.”

  As Ryan hovered over them, Evans witnessed the boy’s body contorting in agony as thousands of particles of glass wedged into his flesh. Even if Ryan’s skin was no longer human in its consistency, the life fluid still drained from his limbs and torso. Though exhausted and covered in the Ryan’s blood, Evans had one chance to fulfill his promise to Hailey. As Ryan’s body collapsed on top of them, Evans pivoted his weight and blocked Hailey from the deluge of debris.

  “We have to move—now,” Evans told Hailey. “You have to listen to me, Hailey—whatever happens to me, you have to get to the portholes and climb up the shaft!”

  “I…I can’t do this alone,” she quivered. “I’ll need your help.”

  “I am helping you,” Evans returned. “We don’t have anymore time. I want you to get on your hands and knees and crawl forward—don’t pick your head up. Do you understand?”

  Hailey seemed disjointed in her thoughts, but she followed Evans’s directions without question. While she crawled forward, Evans crouched behind her, balancing his frame just above her to create the same barrier that Ryan had extended to them a few minutes earlier. Ryan had absorbed as many as the shards as possible, but his body was no longer functional. He was not able to move across the floor any further from the point where he suddenly collapsed.

  Evans continued onward with Hailey, and miraculously sustained only a few superficial wounds before reaching the panel. Without looking back to survey the damage, they slunk beneath the opening into the ventilation chamber, granting them temporary shelter from the torrent of glass. Fortunately, this chamber had not been veneered with mirrored tiles. The obstacle in front of them, however, appeared no less daunting.

  The ventilation chamber had the width of about eight feet in diameter. Three portholes permitted access into the shafts, but the opening was barely wide enough to fit one person at a time. Evans struggled momentarily to remove a grate from one of the portholes, but once completing this task, no other impediment prevented either of them from entering it.

  Evans threw the grate aside and then took hold of Hailey’s arm. “You need to climb in there,” he told her, unflinchingly nudging her toward the open porthole.

  “I…I can’t see anything,” said Hailey, squinting into shadowed opening, but any resistance on her part was short-lived. She began to crawl headfirst into the porthole, with Evans guiding her.

  “There’s only one direction,” Evans stated, although he had no way to be certain. “There should be a ladder inside the shaft that you can climb. Keep going until you reach the top.”

  “You’re coming with me—aren’t you, Doctor Evans?”

  “Of course, but you must go first,” said Evans, while glancing back toward the hub. “Listen to me, Hailey,” he then directed, “when you get to the top of the shaft, there’s going to be another grate. You’ll need to knock it off and climb out. That should put you outside the ship. If I’m not up there to meet you in five minutes, I want you to get off the ship—do you understand?”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t care how,” Evans replied adamantly. “Jump if you must, but just get off the damn ship. Is that understood?”

  A look of gratitude bloomed in the girl’s eyes, but Hailey said nothing more to the doctor. She then nodded and proceeded to scoot her body through the porthole. Evans remained in front of the opening as she disappeared into the darkness. He did not need to coax her movement any further at this point. Once she had clearly entered the shaft, Evans turned back toward the adjacent porthole. A potential escape presented itself within three feet from where he stood, but he no longer regarded his own safety—at least not nearly as much as he valued Ryan Hayden’s fate.

  Instead of seeking refuge in the shaft, Evans scrambled back toward the panel, climbed beneath it, and scuttled across the hub’s floor in a last bid to help his fallen friend. Evans maneuvered upon his hands and knees through a field of shattered glass. His palms and legs bleed intensely as fragments of broken mirror tore through his skin. This was not enough to deter him. He eventually positioned next to Ryan amid the rubble. The mirrored tiles had mostly fallen by now, but the damage had already taken its devastating toll upon its sole victim.

  Ryan’s eyes remained half open, but his body had lost too much life fluid by now. Evans cradled the boy in his arms, permitting the gray substance to pool around them. The do
ctor’s face sunk into sorrow upon the realization that Ryan had no intention of surviving this ordeal. He noticed Ryan still breathing, but his exhalation became more torturous with each passing second.

  “I couldn’t just leave you here to die alone,” Evans stated pitifully. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Why…didn’t you listen to me?” Ryan moaned. “You can’t help me. Didn’t I make that clear to you?”

  “I didn’t want to fail you again.”

  “You’ve failed me by not listening, Doctor Evans,” said Ryan faintly. “Now it may be too late to safe yourself.”

  “I’m prepared for that consequence, but I can’t let you die here like this.”

  “Where’s the girl? Did she reach the ventilation chamber?”

  “She did.”

  “Go after her,” Ryan demanded. “Make sure that she is safe. She carries all that’s left of me. Save her—and you’ll save me.”

  “I can’t leave you,” Evans repeated. “I’ve come too far with you to let you leave this world alone.”

  “Do you really wish to die, Doctor Evans?”

  Before Evans had a chance to respond, the panel in front of him closed, thereby sealing him in the hub beside Ryan. Both of them knew that it would not open again. Strangely, Evans did not panic. In fact, he made no effort to resist the terrible fate that surely awaited him.

  “There’s not any nobility in dying because of me,” Ryan told him. “As you I both know well, Doctor Evans, the rest of this world will continue to live. In time, and probably far sooner than you might imagine, we will be forgotten.”

  Perhaps there was no greater fear simmering in a man’s heart than a notion of being forgotten after his time expired on Earth. For a man with a family, this possibility seemed less likely. But for someone such as Evans, the dusty awards and parchments collected throughout his lifetime suddenly seemed insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, the legacy of what he was—both pure and impure—progressed no further than the walls of this unearthly tomb.

  There won’t be anymore families that will suffer like yours,” Evans told Ryan. “Others will know what has happened here tonight. They will learn what I refused to see.”

  “It won’t end here,” said Ryan sadly. “There are too many ships in too many places. They have been watching your kind for centuries.”

  “Then what hope is left for mankind?”

  “I spent many moons searching for hope,” Ryan declared, his voice becoming weaker with each breath. “But most of that time was lost—lost because I looked far and wide for a purpose to my existence. Had I been mindful, I would’ve recognized that one’s salvation is not dependant upon what encompasses him more than it is on what already exists within his mind. You, Doctor Evans, came closer to the truth than I ever did. But you rarely examined yourself, and even now as you near your own inevitable doom, you wonder what will become of those you’ve left behind.”

  As the spacecraft heaved and shifted from the Earth’s soil, Evans simultaneously realized that mankind’s supreme weakness was linked imperviously to his most powerful asset. Showing compassion for his fellow creatures—be them from this world or any other—enabled him to preserve his domain for future generations. But contrarily, this empathy sometimes prevented him from detecting human nature’s darker side. Evans now understood that if he could not observe the duality flourishing within his own mind, he would have surely overlooked it in others.

  Before the craft’s vibration ceased, Evans noticed an assortment of spheres encircling him. Though they appeared menacing in force, he was no longer frightened by their presence. In what he imagined to be his final seconds of life, Evans watched helplessly as Ryan gasped to fill his shredded lungs with air. Ryan’s wait for mercy would not be long. The boy’s breathing suddenly stopped and his already vacant eyes twitched for the last time. Then, as if a part of himself had died beside the boy, Evans lowered his hands and submitted to whatever fate the aliens had devised for him.

  Meanwhile, Hailey successfully navigated the ventilation shaft and reached the grate. This blockage prevented her from repositioning onto the craft’s exterior surface. She would not have normally harnessed the strength to wedge the metal screen from this porthole, but she became invigorated by the starry sky and scent of winter wind pervading through the shaft’s opening. She pounded at the steel surface with her closed fists, ignoring the gashes in her flesh with each successive blow. The grate eventually popped free of its casing and tumbled with a clank onto a metal sheath. With bloodied hands, Hailey clawed her way through the porthole. The winter air collided with her skin, but nothing felt better to her senses.

  At the same time, the spacecraft dislodged the soil still encasing its main engines. It its completeness, the craft hovered nearly two stories high amid the clearing. Earth mixed with snow as the ship’s generators stirred the ground. Lavender and green lights illuminated everything within its range. Victor stood in awe of the spectacle unwinding before his eyes. Despite the sheer marvel of this moment, however, he had not forgotten about the lives that mattered most dearly to him. He called for them each by name, but it was only Hailey who heard his screams. She responded with her own cry for help.

  Hailey emerged from the elevated structure in tears, but she was determined not to die aboard the craft. Once her feet hit the ship’s fuselage, she immediately started to slide down its slanted surface. She continued her descent at a rapid pace, but not out of range of Victor’s watchful eyes. He raced across the ground to assist her, but she had already plunged into a soft mound of snow outside the clearing’s circumference. Unhurt, she turned and glared defiantly at the mechanical monstrosity oscillating in front of her.

  Within seconds, a wind whirled on all sides of the clearing, and following a single multicolored flash lasting no longer than the wink of an eyelid, the spacecraft shot forward into the star-laden sky. In its aftermath, it left a streak of silver light across the heavens, before gradually fading into the full Moon’s glow. Victor initially wanted to stare at the sky longer, but his more immediate concern was Hailey’s safety.

  “Hailey,” he called out frantically, rushing to pull her body from the snow. “Are you okay?”

  She sighed meekly before saying, “Yeah—I think so.”

  Victor leaned down next to her in the snow, overjoyed to see that she had not been harmed. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. “Whatever it was—it’s gone from here now.”

  However valid Victor’s statement was, the aftermath of the ship’s departure remained unforgettable to everyone. Within minutes after the spacecraft vanished, curious onlookers besieged Route 51. Cars and people swarmed over the roadway, arriving from destinations far and near as quickly as news traveled. Curiosity sometimes brought out the worst traits in the best people, and this instance was no exception. They witnessed a forest literally turned upside down—nothing short of an enormous cave-in across nearly two hundred yards of ruptured terrain. Additionally, pine trees lay uprooted along the roadway. Police officials and medical personnel alike had never before surveyed such a complete annihilation of a single habitat. Adding to their confusion, they had no firsthand accounts to explain the crater left behind in the earth.

  If Victor or Hailey planned on talking about what they witnessed, neither of them made their intentions audible at the moment. They had intentionally dodged officials and had gone unnoticed until returning to Hailey’s Mustang. As they ducked into the car, one oversized spectator took interest in their presence. Other than the police, Gary Wescott arrived at the scene after the first reports of a disturbance transmitted over his scanner. While the majority of officers concentrated on the havoc within the clearing, Wescott approached the Mustang where Victor and Hailey had wisely concealed themselves.

  Victor crouched behind the wheel of Hailey’s car, still shivering beside the girl who sat to his right. She was in no condition to drive her own vehicle, and promptly handed the keys to him. Victor
turned the ignition and immediately cranked the car’s heater. Before the temperature inside the car warmed, Wescott tapped his knuckles on the driver’s side window. Victor expected to see a uniformed officer, but instead was greeted by the former chief’s steely-eyed scowl. Hailey had at this point only offered a series of incoherent gestures in Victor’s direction. She was obviously still traumatized by her ordeal.

  Prior to rolling down the window, Victor instructed Hailey to compose her emotions. She tried to comply, but nothing Victor or anyone else said persuaded her to act in any other manner at the moment. Wescott had already pressed his pudgy face against the car’s glass in order to examine its occupants. When it was fairly certain that Wescott planned to initiate some type of inquiry, Victor opened the window reluctantly.

  “Are you looking for someone?” asked Victor, trying to present a casual demeanor.

  “How are you kids doing tonight?” said Wescott, no peering at Hailey more intensely. He immediately observed her soiled clothing and conspicuous behavior. “You appear to be having some problems,” he presumed after noticing the blood on Hailey’s hands.

  “Nope,” said Victor. “No problems whatsoever.” His tone by itself belied his statement.

  “Did you kids see what happened this evening?”

  “How couldn’t we? It’s been a crazy night.”

  “Your girlfriend looks like she might need a doctor,” Wescott declared. “What happened to her?”

  Victor fumbled for a reasonable excuse that would have explained her present injuries, but he did not concoct one quickly enough for Hailey’s peace of mind. She then picked her face out of her hands and offered Wescott a single statement, “I’m fine—I…I fell down.”

  “You look a bit shaken up, Miss. Let the paramedics have a look at you—they’re standing nearby.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Victor shrugged his shoulders innocently and said, “You heard her. She says she’s fine.”

  “Do you mind telling me what the heck went on here tonight?” Wescott asked.

  Victor paused to debate this question. In truth, he was not sure exactly what occurred, but he definitely knew Hailey was not prepared to provide any further information at this time. “It’s all so confusing,” Victor uttered aloud.

  “What’s confusing?” Wescott asked more suspiciously.

  “All of this,” Victor announced. “Take a look around you—we’re just as baffled by this whole situation as you are.”

  Rather than being appeased by Victor’s words, Wescott’s skepticism intensified. “Do you kids know that I was the chief of police for Glen Dale until a few years ago?”

  Victor and Hailey shook their heads simultaneously, but neither of them really cared. “I got a nasty suspicion you kids saw a whole lot more here tonight than you’re willing to admit.”

  “Well, what do you think we saw?” Victor questioned.

  Wescott leaned closer to the open window and whispered, “Something of the likes which this town has never encountered before. Heck, judging by that hole in the ground, I’m thinking that whatever came out of it was bigger than a house.”

  “Maybe even bigger than two houses,” Victor added.

  “I heard the ruckus all the way over in Glen Dale,” Wescott continued, “but nobody expected to stumble across anything quite like this.”

  “I’ll agree with you there,” said Victor, hoping to pacify the man into silence. “It must’ve been something from out of this world.”

  “Uh huh,” Wescott concurred. He obviously attempted to stall the boy in order to gather as much information as possible. “Now what makes you think it was a UFO?”

  “Did I say UFO?” Victor countered, while clutching the steering wheel.

  “Yes—you said it came from out of this world,” Wescott reminded him.

  “That’s just a figure of speech,” said Victor, tightening his grip on the wheel.

  “Regardless of that, I think you kids might want to stick around and help out with this investigation—maybe clear up a few details for the police.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Victor returned. “Besides, I’m already late getting my girlfriend home. Her father is a major pain in my backside, if you know what I mean.”

  Wescott glanced at the girl again. He had no reason to believe that Victor offered a candid account of what transpired. “We’ve had some problems around these parts in the past,” the former chief continued. “I’m sure you kids have heard all the rumors. It doesn’t seem likely that they’re going to stop prattling about this incident any time soon after tonight.”

  “Who knows,” responded Victor with a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s really not up to me to fret about all that stuff. All I want to do now is bring my girlfriend home so that her parents don’t get worried.”

  “Oh,” said Wescott, motioning to the girl’s battered condition. “And how do you suppose her parents will react when they see the condition of their daughter after you bring her home?”

  Hailey sat up straighter in her seat and attempted to brush the matted hair out of her eyes, but in doing so she smeared fresh blood across her cheeks. “I’ve already told you that I’m not hurt. I just fell down.”

  “It looks like you fell in that damn crater,” said Wescott while motioning to the clearing. “I think the medics should make sure you’re all right.”

  “No,” Hailey insisted more defiantly. “Hey, are you a cop or something?”

  “Yes—I mean, I was formally—”

  “That’s right,” Victor remembered. “Formally the chief of Glen Dale. But you’re not a police officer now—right?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Wescott asked.

  “Well, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, sir, but I’m going to leave now, and I don’t really want to talk to you anymore.”

  “Seems to me that things are just starting to get interesting around here,” Wescott returned. He simultaneously tried to find someone with a badge moving around the scene, but the police had already congregated in the clearing.

  “I’m sure we’ll read about it in the papers tomorrow,” Victor assured Wescott as he snapped the car into gear. He then proceeded to drive away.

  Since Wescott had no legal authority to restrain them, he backed away from the Mustang and watched it weave back onto Route 51 between at least thirty other vehicles assembled along the roadside.

  “That’s okay,” Wescott muttered to himself, while glaring at the car’s cherry-colored taillights. “There are plenty of other folks to chat with tonight.” Another thought then crossed Wescott’s mind. But this notion struck him as especially bitter. “I don’t think our little town has heard or seen the last of them,” he grumbled. “Soon the whole damn world is going to know about us.”

  Inside Hailey’s Mustang, the tension still had not dissipated from her body. She quivered for nearly the entire drive back toward Belle Falls, at times clutching at her own legs and arms uncontrollably. She wished it all to be a dream, and kept closing and reopening her eyes with a faint expectation of awakening in her own bed. But warm blood still trickled from the open wounds on her hands, reminding her otherwise. Victor recognized her terrified disposition, but he could not avoid asking the questions that needed to be clarified before this ride was over.

  “Do you know what happened to Ryan and Doctor Evans?” Victor asked.

  Hailey nodded her head a single time and muttered, “They didn’t make it out.”

  “Then they were in that spaceship with you?”

  “Yes—they didn’t make it out,” she reaffirmed.

  “What happened to them? What happened to you?”

  Hailey sensed an overwhelming sadness and rage surging within her at the same time, but she managed to contain her emotions long enough to address Victor’s concerns.

  “Victor,” she said emphatically. “I want you to promise me that you’ll never ask me what happened aboard that ship. I know it�
��s asking a lot of you, but I can’t speak about it. I need to erase it all from my mind.”

  “Other people will ask questions, too,” Victor reminded her. “They’re going to want answers from you and me. What am I going to say to them?”

  “Tell them you can’t remember,” Hailey suggested. “I’m already trying to forget.”

  “I can understand you not wanting to tell others,” said Victor, “but I’m a part of this as much as you are. Ryan was my best friend. Why won’t you tell me what happened?”

  “It’s best you don’t know,” said Hailey shuddering. “No one can ever know. You need to promise me that you’ll never ask me about this again.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Just promise me, Victor.”

  Victor felt pressured by the urgency of Hailey’s request, because he had not even started to process the psychological damage done to all those involved. He decided to approach the matter as diplomatically as he handled everything else in his life. “I can’t promise you that I’ll never ask you about it again, Hailey. But I promise not to ask you again tonight.”

  “Fair enough,” Hailey sighed, while tilting her head against the car’s passenger window, permitting the full Moon to cast a pale glow upon her features.

  “What do you want to do now?” Victor asked her tentatively.

  “Just drive.”

  “Drive where?”

  “I don’t care,” she murmured breathlessly. “Somewhere quiet…somewhere safe—just don’t stop driving until you see the Sun.”

  With those instructions, Victor turned his attention back to the road. A clock on the Mustang’s dashboard radio blinked 12:00 A.M., but he knew it was much later. The scenery aligning Route 51 eventually transformed into a stretch of darkened pastures and abandoned farmyards. Beyond and above these rural regions, hundreds of stars sparkled like polished diamonds across the horizon. In the heaven’s foreground, the Moon contributed its silvery beams to the fields. Victor peered deeply into the celestial world, believing that it never appeared brighter or more significant to his eyes. In these moments, his thoughts naturally returned to his friend, and he clung—perhaps somewhat naively—to a belief that Ryan was somehow still alive and soaring among the jewels of the nighttime sky.

  Before becoming too absorbed by his reflections, Victor’s attention drifted back to his passenger. Hailey had closed her eyes at last. She slept with her hands enlaced across her belly. Moonlight spilled upon her delicate features, giving her skin a pewter-like sheen in the moving vehicle’s shadows. Victor stared at her lovingly, and for perhaps the first time in his lifetime he felt empowered by the present circumstances. Though it was hardly a moment for celebration, for at least a few fleeting seconds Victor finally sensed a degree of control in his life. He was not the messenger anymore, and the promise of what awaited him in the future remained concealed in the unfathomable provinces of space.