Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) (17 page)

“I don’t
know,” she’d said.

That time
it wasn’t a lie.

After
Joe’s call, she thought about going to work the next day, but finally decided
against it. Her work ethic chafed her constantly.

I
wouldn’t be worth a shit anyway in this state of mind,
she thought.
I’ve got to get over this. I’ve got to put it behind me.

She’d
been thinking about how to do that all day and had come up with a couple of
options. It was one of those decisions that didn’t have a favorable side
because it was dull and murky and gray no matter which way you went. It had to
be done, though, and with the water from the shower head pounding her neck, she
made her decision. She’d find one of those geek-laden UFO groups and tell her
story. She was sure that if nothing else, she could vent her story there and be
believed.

She
couldn’t carry the weight of what had happened alone. It weighed her down
mentally and was draining her physically, too. The long sleep, the loss of
appetite and the general malaise were all symptoms of traumatic loss. She knew
that. But it was the sheer freakishness of the abduction itself that pressed
down on Linda Purdy’s psyche the hardest. It was bizarre, inexplicable and
unfair. The fact that these aliens came from who knew how many light years
distant and landed right on top of her Phil was just unbearable in it
awfulness. The catharsis of telling her story, of getting it out without ridicule,
might do her a world of good. She was sure Lynch would have agreed with her.

She’d
booted Phil’s computer, went out on the web and found a local group that had
regular meetings by open invitation. There was little fanfare and no dues or
fees. Perfect. She just wanted to spill her guts. She was prepared to relate
the facts, calmly and objectively and when she was through, she’d leave. Doing
that would cleanse her and revitalize her. What she didn’t want to do was get
caught up in some cluster of oddballs who used UFOs as a pretense or front for
a social club or as a source of income for somebody. This one claimed to be
small and met locally—another plus—in Hawthorne on Wednesday nights. She’d
gotten lucky. She didn’t think she could have found a more convenient group for
her purposes.

It was
Wednesday and she figured the sooner she got this over with the better. She’d
go tonight.

She went
back to bed about noon and slept until three. When she woke up the second time,
she had a little appetite and made herself some frozen waffles. She couldn’t
finish them. They had no taste.

The
address was a really nice two-story hacienda off Crenshaw. That surprised her.
She hadn’t known what to expect, but in the back of her mind she’d envisioned
one of those two story, flat-sided apartments with concrete and wrought-iron
stairs and a big name in raised script on the side. The appearance of the entry
way suggested a good deal of money on the other side of the door. The driveway
and the street in front of the house were jammed with parked cars. She wasn’t
crazy about the implied size of the gathering, but she could live with that.
There would probably be booze of some kind and if she felt her resolve fade she
wasn’t above giving it a lift with a shot of something with alcohol in it. She
parked the Jeep a few houses down, gathered up her notes, photos and drawings
and walked back. She walked fast and with a purpose. She’d get this thing
behind her real quick.

The
portico was beautifully finished with Mexican pavers and turquoise and red wall
tiles. The big double door gleamed with a thousand coats of varnish. The pots
that held the plants on either side of the door weren’t the big cheap, plain
ones available at WalMart but the big expensive, ornate ones available at the
better nurseries in town.

The woman
who answered the door seemed normal enough. She greeted Linda with an even
smile and extended a well-manicured hand.

“I’m June
Williams,” she said smiling.

Linda
took the hand and felt the strong grip and hardy handshake, but she wasn’t too
crazy about the way the woman seemed to pull Linda in through the door before
letting go.

“Linda
Purdy. Hi.”

“I’m glad
you came. We like seeing new faces.”

“Thank
you. I’m looking forward to it.”

June led
Linda through the hardwood hallway and into a large sunken living area
overlooking the pool. The pool was bordered by an immaculate floral garden that
blossomed with flowers. The decor in the living area was homey, but rich and
extremely tasteful. Linda knew something about good taste and how much it could
cost. In order to put herself through school, she’d worked for her aunt
Margaret, an interior decorator with some notable clients. This woman
obviously had an ample supply of both good taste and money. The largest sectional
sofa Linda had ever seen wrapped around a huge sandstone coffee table. It
occurred to her that the sectional was in fact two identical sectional sets
pieced together to achieve the enormous size.

Good idea
, Linda thought.

She
counted six or seven guests dispersed evenly around the table. There were
coffee cups and tall iced drinks on the table.

“Everyone,
this is Linda Purdy,” June said with a big grin. “Linda Purdy, our group of
weirdoes.” Linda lifted her hand into a “how” and mouthed a smiling, silent
“hello.” First names came at her so fast, she couldn’t have remembered them if
she’d tried.

“There’s
nothing wrong with associating with geeks, June,” one of the male names said.
“Didn’t your mother tell you that?”

“Just the
opposite,” June replied. That brought some chuckles. Linda smiled painfully and
headed for the sofa.

“We’re
very informal here, Linda. Help yourself to the kitchen. There’s soda and wine
and some beer, I think, in the refrigerator and a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Thank
you. Maybe later,” Linda said a little stiffly. She hoped she hadn’t seemed
abrupt with June, but she had a lot on her mind and wanted to get started.

“Notes,
huh? Looks like you’ve brought some interesting stuff,” the man named Jim said,
leaning over to take a look.

Linda
thought the remark somewhat intrusive and gathered her stuff up into a neat
pile. She could feel him admiring her face. She’d felt that sensation from
strange men her whole life. He would come on to her before the night was out,
she was fairly sure. Her right eye was showing, and there was nothing she could
do to prevent it. She could almost hear the words forming in his head.

“That’s
the most interesting eye I’ve ever seen . . .” he said.

“Heterochromia. Just my right, see,”
she said, straining for politeness and turning so he could see both. “See,” she
said, letting him get a good look. “It’s a familial trait I’m told. It shows
up in the women in my family every few generations, they say.”

“That’s amazing . . . ”

Oh, please.

Her right
eye was exactly half dark brown and half pale, translucent blue. The blue
portion formed an electric, moon-shaped crescent that framed the brown part.
It gave her a decidedly witchy look, she knew, especially in the right light.
It was downright disconcerting if you weren’t prepared for it.

“I
suppose it is. I’m used to it. But thank you.”

She
fumbled with her stuff a little more, hoping he’d get off the subject of her
freak’s eye. He seemed to get the point and said nothing more about it, but she
could still feel him poking at it with his own eyes, feeling at it like some
antique-shop curio.

“You seem
to be well-prepared for something tonight,” he said, finally putting the
curiosity down.

“You
could say that,” Linda said, trying to be polite. “I have a story to tell.”

There,
she thought,
that wasn’t so hard. See?

She’d
said it just a little loud, loud enough to carry over the background chatter,
and she searched the faces of the others to see if she’d gotten anyone’s
attention. She had, all of them. “It’s a pretty good one,” she added with a
stiff grin.

“I love a
good story,” a handsome man named George Greenbaum said. “I say we let Linda
tell it.”

“Hear,
hear,” someone said.

“Works
for me,” added another.

“Story!
Story!” someone else said kindly.

Linda
shuffled her stuff around and looked around the room and smiled like a statue.
The faces were open, eager, smart and attentive. More than anything, they were
concerned and willing to listen.

“Okay,
here goes then . . .” she said.

She
looked down at her notes and photos and didn’t see them at all. She tried to
get it all into some order anyhow, pulling the photos out of the folder and
laying them out in neat rows. Before she got the fifth one down, she stopped
and stared at its nothingness. She was aware that the photo was shaking in her
unsteady hand but couldn’t make it stop. She dropped the photo and watched it
float out of her hand like a leaf. She started to cry.

She cried
so hard and so loudly that she had to bury her face in her hands to hide the
sound and the tears from the eyes and ears of the kind onlookers. She cried
from the hurt and she cried from the injustice and she cried from the anger and
she cried from the loss of it all. She cried so wetly that she could feel the
tears pooling against her palms and running into her scrunched up mouth and
down the inside of her wrists. Try as she might, she couldn’t say it, so she
spoke the word
goddamnit
clearly in her mind, over and over while she cried.

June was
there and put her arm around her and helped her up without saying a word. The
others sat stock still and watched with worried brows or pursed lips as June
led her away. Bent and crying, she let June lead her down the hallway and into
the bedroom. June sat her gently down on the bed and Linda sat there and cried
until she couldn’t cry any more.

After the
cry she got slowly up and found the bathroom. She wiped her face with tissue
because she didn’t want to leave mascara on June’ towels. While she was
straightening up, she could hear conversation coming from the living area so
she knew the group had managed somehow without its sobbing new member.

Christ, I
feel idiotic,
she thought.
Cool as
a cucumber, that’s me.

When she
walked out of the bathroom and down the hall, the conversation stopped before
she could even see the living area and she knew it was because they could hear
her coming down the noisy hardwood hall.

“Sorry
about that,” she said taking her place on the sofa again. “I guess I’m still a
little shook up.”

“It’s
okay,” someone said.

“You
bet,” said another.

She
fiddled with her drawings and photos. She realized that the group was giving
her the right-of-way with their silence, waiting for her to begin her tale again.

Linda
took a deep breath.

“My . . .
my friend . . . my good friend . . . was abducted by aliens last Saturday night
from a hilltop cabin in Kern County.” She coughed and let that sink in and just
to be on the safe side, she studied a few of the faces for what she considered
to be the normal, but to her the unacceptable reaction of
mirth
to what she’d
said.

For the
amount of disbelief she received, she could have said “I drive a Jeep,” or “I
like toast.” Nobody twitched.

Linda
continued for the next two hours, presenting the evidence in great detail. They
asked questions about every aspect of Phil, the terrain, the weather, the
cabin, the guns. Linda responded to each one with an iron certainty.

“There
were no other tire tracks at all?” Jim asked.

“None at
that end of the canyon. Just Phil’s. I followed them all the way up and the
last mile of the road had only one clear set. It rained lightly Thursday night,
just enough to smooth out the road. There were some other tracks down below,
and nothing but Phil’s up at our end of the canyon.”

“And
there is no other way into the canyon—by car or truck that is?” A thin woman
named Vivian asked.

“None. No
way.”

“Could he
have been target shooting . . . or . . . I don’t know . . . something else?” the
youngest participant, Dean Something, asked. “There’s never been anything in
the literature about a real physical confrontation like that. Never.”

Two or
three people groaned.

“No. He
wouldn’t be target shooting there,” George volunteered. “She already said he’s
got a range up on the ridge behind the cabin. Right?”

“Right,”
Linda replied. “And Phil would never leave his spent brass on the ground like
that. Never.”

“Can we get the blood and tissue
sample for analysis?” George wanted to know. “You said his uncle has them.”
Linda thought about that one. Did she really want to pur-