Otherworld (32 page)

So Esperanza took his equipment and became one of Mexico's most respected ufologists. His grainy photographs of what may be the creature known as the
chupacabra
are considered the best around and have withstood all charges of photographic trickery.

The UFOs keep him in business, though, and in Trumbull, Texas, business is booming. Esperanza already has pictures of several night sky phenomena that, for now, remain unexplained. “There is definitely something occurring here,” he says. “Even the weather here seems to suggest a difference. A psychic I know flew in from Argentina, and he immediately said that there is an energy here, an aura he has felt only a few times before.”

2 Timothy 4:3–4:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

 

“Hey, Margaret. Listen to this!”

Potter Adkins scratched his ear, leaned over his spit-cup, and let loose a load of sunflower seed shells and saliva. The load sprang back on a spittle bungee cord, and he spit it back down. Bulls-eye.

“Margaret? You listenin'?” he called.

Mrs. Adkins switched off the blender and waddled to the kitchen entryway. “What?” she asked.

Potter held up a
National News
over his head.

“Yeah, so?” his wife said. “What's it say this time? Another cyclops baby born? Oil drillers tap into hell again?”

“No,” Potter said, frowning. “It's about Trumbull.”

“Now, Potter. I told you to stop reading that rag.”

“But they got pictures, honey,” he whined. “Pictures and expert testimony and all.”

“Of the UFOs?” Margaret looked doubtful but curious. “Hand it here, nutty,” she said, and before he could, she swiped it away from him.

“Second page,” Potter said.

“It's all smudgy. Cheap newsprint.”

“You can read it. Go 'head.”

Margaret scanned the article. When she finished, a look of complete amazement spread over her face. “Well, I'll be. Looks good, Potty.”

“I hate it when you call me that.”

“Looks pretty good,” she said, ignoring him. “Potty, this looks bona fide.”

“You don't even know what that means,” Potter said, grabbing the tabloid back.

“That looked real. I mean … those pictures! And here! In our little town.”

“There's a rally tomorrow night out front of the courthouse. Nate told me about it. Everybody in town's gonna gather and figure out what to do. We may even see one!”

Margaret's mouth gaped. “You think? Oh, Potty, you think?”

“Maybe,” he muttered. He hated being called Potty.

“But it's so cold. We'll catch pneumonia out there.”

“Hmmph,” Potter grumbled. “That's the government's doing.”

“What?”

 

“That's the government's fault.”

Digger Thomas patted the arm of his rocking chair, hoping to add illustrative support to his claim. He shook his head.

Digger's maid, Rosey, stopped dusting and turned around. “Excuse me?”

“The government. This weather. It's their doing. That's what I think.”

“I think you've plum lost your mind, Mr. Thomas,” Rosey said. And then she added, “If you don't mind me saying so.”

Rosey had worked for the Thomas family for fifteen years, and she had grown accustomed to eighty-year-old Digger waxing philosophical about everything from AIDS and cancer to Waco and Ruby Ridge (and they were all connected, mind you). Everything, he claimed, was the government's fault. Rosey usually nodded, then rolled her eyes when his back was turned. Just a paranoid old man. But this … well, this was something different. The weather? The idea that the government could control the weather was just ludicrous.

“Think what you want, Rosey. Mark my words. It's the government.”

“Uh-huh,” Rosey said, not at all agreeing.

“One of these days they'll come cart me away and label me a nut.”

And they'd be right
, she thought.

“But they'll really be following orders to silence me.”

Why do I even bother?
“Okay, Mr. Thomas. I'll bite. Why do you think the government's controlling the weather?”

“They blew it in Roswell. Didn't count on the story getting out. Now they spread disinformation in every continent to refute UFO claims. They know Trumbull's being visited.”

“And the weather?”

“Come on now, Rosey. The government's been conducting weather experiments since the founding of our great nation. And part of those experiments have been attempts at manipulation. Even back when Jefferson and Franklin joined the secret demonic brotherhood, they tried to use witchcraft to harness the weather. Now they have technology. They've withheld rain from poor white farmers, and now they use their satellites and lasers and whatnots to make it unbelievably cold in Trumbull. Keep us ice-a-phobic Texans indoors while they intercept our visitors.”

“Oh.” Rosey chuckled. “Yeah, that makes perfect sense.”

“You wait and see,” said Digger, and he patted the arm of his rocking chair again. “You'll see. You'll see when they come to get me.”

 

“They'll come to get all of us.”

Ruth Bloker kicked her cat and plopped down onto her plaid couch.

Mittens slinked away, tossing a hurt glance back at her owner.

Ruth sneered at the animal. “They know that I know, kitty,” she said. She picked up her cross-stitch. “They know I know, and they'll be here soon.”

 

“They'll be here very soon.”

Rick Bardwell and his son, Matt, stood in the driveway. Matt practiced his free throws.

“To come get us?” Matt asked.

“Yeah. But we won't need to be afraid. They're peaceful. They'll come down and invite us up. It'll be fun.”

“My teacher says there's no such thing as aliens.”

“Well, Matt, I'm sure your teacher's a nice lady. But I'm your father. You believe
me
, don't you?”

“Well … yeah.”

“And you know I wouldn't lie to you, right?”

As unhappily as possible, nine-year-old Matt said, “Yeah.”

“Okay, then.” Rick retrieved a rebound. “My shot?”

Matt began to cry.

 

Still bound head and foot in her own bedroom, believing that, any minute now, her husband or his crazy new friend would come in and decide it was time for her to die, Gertie Dickey began to cry.

 

Huge clouds gathered and froze over Houston and Trumbull, placing a polar cap on the city sky. And while a small minority of Trumbull citizens blindly suffered the crush of paranoia, others saw things … differently.

Unsolved murders lay fresh on their minds. No amount of delusional hoopla could divert them from the overwhelming sense of fear, the gradual descent of what could only be described as oppression.

There was Matt Bardwell's teacher, Francine Skinner, who more and more felt like moving out of town every day.
Something's very wrong here
, she thought.

There was Abby Diaz, who knelt down beside her hotel room bed and clasped her tiny fingers together. She closed her eyes, eyes that were tired from mourning her father.

“Dear Jesus …” she prayed.