“We are with Fred,” she answered, hoping that she was saying the right thing and not just making matters worse for them.
“Fred is dead.”
This is getting us nowhere.
At the corner of her eye she saw something else shift in the dark inside the pickup. There was something else in the passenger seat.
“Janet,” Bill whispered behind her.
“I see it,” she said, softly.
The thing in front of her cocked its head at the sound.
At least I know it reacts to me and it’s not just some kind of recording.
She stepped closer and opened her arms, showing her palms.
“We mean no harm.”
“Weemean,” it replied, and opened out its palms to her. At the same time a second pale figure stepped down out of the pickup. It too spoke.
“Weemean.”
“Janet,” Bill said behind her. “This isn’t fucking
Close Encounters.
Get back here.”
“Weemean,” a third one said as it stepped out of the shed. Two more came into the yard from out of the trees. Once all five were together, they advanced on Janet.
She tried to force down her fear; the nights spent hiding under covers, too scared to look out in case the
Grays
had come for her. There were other times too, when she’d run home in the gloom, scared that a sudden bright light overhead might lead to her being sucked up and away into the sky. Silly girlish worries from a time long past…but all too real here in the dark of the yard.
“Janet!” Bill said, and she heard the fear and worry in that one word. She ignored him, and held her ground as the
Grays
gathered around her.
“We mean you no harm,” she said softly.
“Weemean,” the five said in unison.
The closest one reached out and stroked Janet’s arm. Pain hit her, as if a red-hot poker had been drawn across her skin, the burn coming up immediately in a six-inch, pencil-thin line. She drew her arm away as another
Gray
reached for her.
“Weemean,” the five said, and closed in. One of them grabbed her on the wrist, long fingers circling all the way round, bringing a new flare of pain that was almost unendurable. Janet screamed.
The five
Grays
backed off, as if confused.
“Weemean,” they said.
Janet could barely speak through the pain.
“What do you want?”
She felt Bill’s hand on her shoulder.
“What do you want?” she shouted.
They cocked their heads to one side.
“Weemean.”
They came forward again, long fingers reaching out, as if needing to touch her. When Bill dragged her away, she let him do it.
“Weemean,” the
Grays
said, and came after them.
“Eat shit and die,” a voice replied. Charlie stood in the doorway, waving the flashlight, passing the beam over the pale forms. Where the light hit they melted and flowed. Thin wisps of dark smoke rose from the liquefying flesh.
“Weemean,” they whispered, and as one collapsed into a bubbling mess on the dirt. Within seconds there was nothing left of them, just wet ground and thin smoke that quickly dissipated in the breeze.
* * *
The ache in her arm from the two distinct burns didn’t start to ease until she’d swallowed three strong painkillers from her kit and downed a decent slug of JD. Even then the burns throbbed and beat beneath the bandages and salve she had applied. The wrist was the worst. Her flesh, what remained of it, had blistered and split—the marks where each of the thing’s fingers had gripped showed as bloody weals. She’d made sure Bill did not see the full extent of the damage as she bandaged it, but that didn’t stop him fretting over her.
“We need to get you over to the quarantine room,” Bill said. “They can take care of that…”
“I can take care of it myself,” she said, rather too sharply, and immediately regretted the look of pain she had brought to the sheriff’s face. “Look, Bill. If I go over there, I’d have to stay there. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody comes out. At least here we have a chance of responding if anything happens, if the hum comes back…”
She stopped, struck by a sudden thought.
I didn’t notice that.
Bill raised an eyebrow.
“I know that look. You’ve thought of something?”
She nodded.
“There was no hum. When they came this time, there was no hum. Maybe the two phenomenon aren’t as closely linked as we thought?”
“Does that help us?”
“I don’t see how just yet. But it might.”
“Did you learn
anything?
”
She thought about that.
“Maybe,” she said, holding up her bandaged arm. “I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I didn’t get any impression they meant me harm.”
Bill shook his head.
“Apart from burning you to the bone, you mean?”
“As I said, I don’t think they meant it. I think they were trying to make contact.”
“Well, they did that well enough. What now?”
Janet realized something else. At some point, Bill had stopped being the titular
person in charge
, and the mantle had passed to her. Bill needed something to do, he just didn’t have any reference points in his past to tell him what that might be.
And neither do I
.
But the sheriff was looking at her, still waiting for an answer.
“We don’t know how long we’ll be here,” she said. “Let’s see if we can rustle up some hot food and coffee. It could be a long night.”
That was enough to get Bill moving. She went after him, and together they made toast and enough coffee for two mugs for everybody should they want it. They set it out on the table they’d all sat at earlier. Fred and Sarah immediately started in on the toast, but Ellen Simmons, initially at least, seemed reluctant. She didn’t leave her seat in the corner.
“How do I know it’s not drugged? This could be a trick to make sure I go quietly to the CDC quarantine.”
Charlie came out from behind the bar with a fresh beer in his hand.
“Ellen, if we wanted you unconscious, we’d just hit you on the head. Come on over here and join us. I’ll even taste it first if you’re that paranoid?”
Hunger got the better of her, and Ellen Simmons finally joined them, sitting next to Charlie, the two of them sharing both toast and Charlie’s beer. They all ate sitting round the big table, and while it wasn’t exactly convivial, it was as close to routine as they had managed since the disaster unfolded.
“What’s the plan, Big Bill?” Charlie asked.
Bill immediately looked to Janet and raised an eyebrow.
Looks like I’m up.
“I thought that sitting tight might be our best hope,” she began. “But now I’m not so sure.” She held up her arm, showing the rest of them the fresh bandages. “These things we’ve been seeing are more than simple haunts. They can touch us, burn us. We
should
be okay as long as we stay in the light, but even that’s an assumption on my part, and that’s dangerous.”
“So what do we do?” Fred asked.
“I say we make a run for it,” Ellen Simmons said. Charlie laughed again.
“As I said before, Ellen, you’ve been watching too much cheap television. We’re up against folks with automatic weapons for a start, and God knows what else will come up out of them holes. What do you suggest we use to fight back? A big stick?”
“We could sneak out the back…” Fred said.
The sheriff shook his head.
“It’s not safe in the dark. I think we can all agree on that.”
Everyone around the table went quiet until Ellen Simmons spoke up again.
“So that’s it? We sit here and wait for whatever’s coming to us?”
Nobody replied.
We’re out of ideas. And running out of time.
* * *
Matters were taken out of their hands minutes later. Fred and Charlie had just lit up post-meal cigarettes when they all heard movement outside the front door. Bill waved a hand, asking for quiet, and moved quickly to the door, just as someone turned the handle. Bill pulled the door open.
A slim woman stood there.
She’s not wearing a suit.
It took Janet a second before she recognized the scientist, Mullins. The newcomer walked into the bar and smiled thinly.
“The good news is that all your tests came back clean. The general has told me to get you ready to move out. The wounded are already on their way out of town. You’re next.”
Janet went to the door and looked out, just in time to see two long trucks drive out of the parking lot and away out of sight in the darkness.
“Is that wise?” Janet asked. “What about our
shared
experiences and…”
Mullins interrupted her.
“There’s no physical evidence of anything wrong with you,” she said. “And the general wants to get on with clearing this mess up. You’re moving out.”
“Whether we like it or not?” Charlie said.
Mullins nodded.
“The general isn’t a man to change his mind once it’s made up. And believe me, you’ll be safer as far away from here as you can get.”
Now that’s something I can believe.
To no one’s surprise, Ellen Simmons was the first to move.
“It’s about time too,” she said. “Get me out of here. I’ve got a reporter to find.”
Before they left, the sheriff went through the back and switched off the generator.
“We might yet be coming back,” he said dryly when he returned. Janet herded everyone else out into the parking lot, grateful that it was well-lit by the CDC’s arc lights. She saw that the quarantine area was the only spot that sat in darkness.
“Do we take the bus?” Charlie asked. Janet saw that the older man had a full bottle of JD in one hand, and the flashlight in the other.
“No,” Mullins said. “We have something a bit more secure.”
She led them round the trailer that housed the laboratory. A long, armored troop carrier sat in the corner of the lot, headlights on and engine running. Two men sat up front, a driver and a soldier who made a point of showing them that he had an automatic rifle in his arms.
“For protection,” Mullins said without a hint of irony, and started to shepherd them inside the truck. There were three long seats with a narrow walkway up the left-hand side. Fred and the girl went in the front nearest the driver, Charlie and Ellen Simmons in the middle. Janet pushed Bill up to the rear and got in beside him. Mullins sat beside Fred, just behind the armed man.
“We’ll have you out of here in no time,” the scientist said. She pulled the truck door shut. “All present.”
The driver put the truck in gear and they headed out into another night.
* * *
Bill surprised Janet by taking her hand.
“We shouldn’t be going,” she said softly. “We should be staying, examining whatever it was we
almost
communicated with.”
Bill’s grip on her hand tightened.
“Leave it to these guys,” he said. “I just want you out of harm’s way.”
“These guys are just going to bomb the shit out of it,” Janet said. “We might be looking at something completely new to our experience. And it will be lost forever.”
Bill reached over and turned her face round to look her in the eyes.
“Janet. It took my town…our town. It has killed God knows how many people. And it damned near burned through your arm just an hour ago. And I
still
ain’t convinced we’re not dealing with demons straight from the gates of hell. Maybe it’s best just to let the general do what he’s gotta do?”
Best for whom?
She leaned her head on Bill’s shoulder and closed her eyes, suddenly weary.
The truck had a better suspension than the old bus, the smoothness of the ride bringing some degree of security to the journey. But now they were out of the bar Janet felt exposed, her fears threatening to grip her. She saw them again in her mind’s eye; the too-thin, too-pale figures, reaching for her with fingers that were almost skeletal.
“Fred is dead.”
She heard the phrase in her mind, and at the same time, became aware of fresh wetness at her lip. Her jaw vibrated and a shiver ran the length of her spine.
We’re in trouble.
20
Fred was grateful for one thing. He’d let Sarah get into the truck first. That at least meant that he was between her and the scientist, Mullins.