31
Something stirred Val from sleep. The white of the room accosted him, and he realized as he awoke the lights were always on here. He rubbed at his eyes. It seemed he hadn’t screamed himself awake, as his throat felt no worse than yesterday. He rubbed at it, wondering why he was up. Once again his mouth tasted terrible, and his stomach gave a malicious growl. Hungry.
He sat up, the floor cold on his feet. Goosebumps stood up on his chest and arms. From the other side of the airlock there was a muffled “thud.” That must have been what woke him, though it didn’t seem loud enough. Maybe Jones I and Jones II were roughhousing out there. Val went to the door, pressed his ear against it.
Nothing. Silence.
It should have sent him back to bed, nothing to worry about. But the silence had a weight, a texture to it that didn’t sit right with him. Tiny hairs stood up on the back of his neck, and the primal region of his hippocampus—or whatever the fuck gland responds to threats—warned him of something out there.
A tiny, metallic tinkling sound came from the other side of the door, the sound of a delicate instrument clattering to the floor and instantly retrieved. Like bells, almost. It meant there was someone there, someone right there outside his door. He took a step back, and then another. Silence. Adrenaline began to pulse through him, he could taste it, bitter and metallic, drowning out the sleepy old-food taste in his mouth. Something smelled like burning out there. Oh, fuck, if this place was burning...He let it trail off, couldn’t finish the thought. When he was in Cambridge with his aunt and uncle their neighbor’s place burned down. He was at school, but one of the kids who’d stayed home sick tantalized them all the next day with stories about the elderly woman on the top floor. They couldn’t get to her, and she screamed and screamed, too scared to jump out the window. He said it smelled like roast pork, but Val guessed he’d read that somewhere.
The upper left corner of the door flexed.
Just a little motion. So slight he almost couldn’t see it. The shadow between white walls and white door grew a little bit bigger, that was the only clue.
He stepped back again, but he was pressed against the table, nowhere else to go. He could barricade himself in the bathroom, but that didn’t seem very useful.
Val had no concept of how quickly or how slowly time was moving. He saw the corner move again, away from him. That shouldn’t be possible. The table dug into the backs of his thighs, but he didn’t know where else to go. He tried to control his breathing, but then the door pulled away from him a bit more.
Someone was peeling the lid back from a can; did that mean he was the treat inside?
He could see through to the airlock now, a sliver of dark. Before he’d had the thought he might be in space, what did this mean if they were pulling the airlock apart? Were all sorts of noxious gasses going to come rushing in, destroying him? He didn’t want to die so far from home.
In a massive burst, the door peeled back, about an eighth of the way. The metal gave a demure little groan. The smell of heat was stronger now.
“Come and get me already!” he shouted, but his voice sounded rough against the quiet, and it made his throat hurt.
The door gained momentum. It gave another heave like the one before, and now Val could see shadows moving. There were things in the airlock, moving around.
The suspense pulled at him, it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t interesting, he was tired of being scared, what the fuck was behind the—
The door pulled back, so over half of the thick metal was peeled back like a can lid.
Two of the aliens, the gray ones, stood there, short, naked, peering at him with luminous almond-shaped eyes. They looked to one another, then to him again. Their little black mouths curled up into smiles.
They say once you see something it’s automatically less scary than not seeing it. The sound, the implication is worse, what you can dream up beats what you can see any day.
These things weren’t supposed to exist. But here they were. Campy little shits that looked too cheesy for even a Fox exposé or an
X-Files
episode. And he’d been with them, they’d taken him to their ship, they’d tested him. He was a part of them.
The stress made Val’s leg muscles shake. Standing was too much for him. A weak gesture, he pushed out at them with his tiny little power. The exertion caused him to fall back, having to catch the tables for support.
The two beings looked at one another, and in simian, loping movements that were somehow dignified, they came over what was left of the door, using the sloped curve as a kind of a ramp.
He couldn’t resist them. Even if he picked up the chair and tried to use it as a weapon.
Valentine. Come with us.
They didn’t speak. The words were in his head. He blinked at them, from one to the other, and then back again, but they favored him with those secretive little smiles and those deep dark eyes, like pools to nowhere.
The corner of the table jabbed into his kidney, and he very slowly relaxed himself off it, not willing to look away from those beings that shouldn’t be. One of them pointed at him with one of its three fingers, it felt too much like the movie E.T. and Val stifled a giggle.
Come with us.
It echoed in his mind, resonating like the hum, an omnipresent thing he couldn’t control.
“No,” he said, his voice still sounding out of place.
You don’t need to speak out loud
.
“Can you read my mind?”
Only when you direct something towards us
.
He wondered if they were lying or not.
Come with us.
He couldn’t tell which of them was speaking at any given time; their resounding mental voices sounded too similar for him to tell them apart.
You can’t stay here
, their voices chorused, bouncing around the inner places in his skull. Val brought his hands to his temples, a familiar movement since the onset of the hum.
Come with us, we can keep you safe.
“I want to stay here,” he said, meaning Earth.
The little smiles flattened out into frowns.
You cannot stay here
.
This is not your home.
They made an unpronounceable sound, and added a possessive to the end
—men will be back soon. It wouldn’t do to have them find us here
.
“Men? Is that the Space Puma?” He felt stupid saying it, but didn’t remember the real name Felix gave it. He didn’t think it was the same thing. Nor did he think Space Puma had a squadron of men.
You know him as your friend Felix
.
“And what do you call him?”
They made the sound again, and Val gave up.
They come now.
Let us take you.
What else was he going to do?
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“Okay. Let’s go. Take me home. I want to go home.” He wondered if they would listen.
They advanced on him. Where were they going? Did they have a car? Felix used cars...these guys were a little less incognito than Felix, though. Strong, knobby, three-fingered hands clamped down on him, and time collapsed in on itself.
It felt like he was being pulled all directions at once, and as soon as the white room went black, he was in the sun. He covered his eyes, aware the aliens weren’t touching him anymore. The hum was on him like an anvil, pressing at him, resonating in his head. He gasped, not exactly in pain, but surprise or maybe shock.
He was in his driveway. There was his truck, there was Kate’s car—was Maria still in the trunk? He hoped not, but couldn’t imagine how or when Kate could have dealt with it on her own.
“How—?”
We master our environment. As you are part of us, you can master yours as well.
He cleared his throat; cast a glance at the house. He didn’t want Kate to look out and see.
You hold the trinity within your DNA. The Tylwyth Teg have searched for one like you. You must not go with them.
Val resisted the urge to parrot the alien’s words back at them.
We wish to bring you with us, back to Ye’Tunatal, to keep you safe from them.
“That’s a planet?”
They nodded their smooth gray heads.
He would be the alien. The rest of his life in a cage. The rest of his life in a cage.
He must have thought it harder than he intended the second time, because one of them spoke in response.
It won’t be like that. Our people will see you are a feeling, thinking being, as we are. We will do our best to make you a useful member of society, as your kind like to be
.
His head spun, and the hum rode it like a tilt-a-whirl.
32
Kate let the shower go cold as she rinsed her hair. It stung her with icy needle droplets but it also felt good, cathartic and punishing all at the same time.
Three days with no word from Val. Three days. Last night she’d even gone to look for Rich, to see if maybe he knew something—either as a cop or a kidnapper. Or a killer. His house had a vacant look to it, and even though she spent ten minutes knocking, on and off, standing in his nice upper class neighborhood, she knew no one was home.
She swung by his station, on route 82, and all the troopers were cool and wary of her. Hadn’t seen him. He didn’t show up for work today. Spence put out an APB on Val, on top of all of this he’d missed his parole meeting.
Val was fucked.
One more day. Tomorrow at dusk she was going to pack it in. It wasn’t as though she’d be hard to find, both Spence and Val had her number. But she couldn’t be here anymore.
She reached down to add some hot water to the mix. The shower curtain exploded around her, wrapping her in a slimy, mildewy bear hug. The curtain caressed her face and she inhaled it, screamed, swung and kicked as a sharp pain shooting into her knee—the kind that made her nauseous and her eyes water—made her stop.
She felt her weight slipping in her kidnapper’s grasp as he fumbled and nearly dropped her. It allowed her a good feel for his size, and she called out his name
. “Let me go, Rich!”
He didn’t. Not right away. They turned some corners, her head banged off a doorframe, and she tried to keep stock of where they were. Definitely still inside. Then he picked her up a bit. And dropped her onto the fake hardwood floor. She landed on her hip and elbow. After the clobbering her head had taken, she could taste shampoo, mildew and blood. She spat, clawed at the shower curtain and pulled it off her head.
“Where is she?” Rich asked. His eyes were bloodshot. Was he on something? She didn’t think so. This was what Rich looked like when he was bereaved. It happened when their foster father died in a truck accident. He devolved into a zombie. A violent zombie on autopilot. That time Rich tracked down the SUV driver who veered into Jim’s truck, it had been Val, she realized, who got him down. He even convinced the yuppie not to press charges. Kate pulled her arms free, keeping herself covered with the shower curtain. It had once been white, but was now a thick brown color. Better that pressed against her skin than let Rich see her.
“Where is your fucking lowlife? It ends. Here. Now.”
“I haven’t seen him in days.”
“Bullshit.”
“I thought you had him.” Kate eyed her bag, not ten feet away, her clothes in it. Then she saw a sparkle under the bed. Maria’s knife. If Rich saw it, she was done. She should’ve sucked it up, done something with the car on her own. She never would have remembered the knife, though. Val, how could you leave me like this?
With a loose fist, Rich punched her in the temple.
White spots spun in her vision, and her stomach bucked. So this was what they meant by seeing stars.
He sunk his fingers into her wet hair and pulled her up. She lost her grip on the slippery shower curtain and it dropped as he pulled her to her knees. Rich made a sound of revulsion—oh thank god—and shoved her towards the bureau.
“Get dressed, you fucking slut. We’re going to find him.”
She pulled on jeans and a tank top fast, no time to worry about a bra or panties. He kicked her in the back while she was bent over, right on her “Valentine” tattoo. Fine. She could deal. She could deal with a lot when she had to.
“Where is he?” Rich asked again. “And where’s my wife? Where’s TJ? He took them all.”
In the span of a few days, Rich’s world had fallen apart.
Kate grabbed one of Val’s button-down shirts just in time as Rich clamped onto her upper arm. He pulled her out of the bedroom and into the living room. The back door hung open, a bright patch of sunlight in the dark hallway.
She scanned the place for anything she could use as a weapon. Her hands were free, as she was lucky he hadn’t cuffed her. He stank, and she hated herself for pitying him. Maria was a bitch, but they had a strange sort of mutual love. They meant a lot to one another. What would she be if she lost Val? Like if he was really gone? The thought sucker punched her, but the sight of the frying pan on the dish drain, where she’d left it after cooking herself some eggs for breakfast, gave her hope. She hadn’t eaten them, but the cooking gave her something to do. As he shoved her again, towards the door this time—
watch the step down
, she reminded herself—she used her free hand to grab it and swing. Too bad it isn’t cast iron, a cheap thing from Wal-Mart. It clanged against his crew cut, denting the pan then clattered to the floor. He let go of her arm and she ran, sprinting for the back door but he was on her, missing the waist of her jeans but snaking a hand around her ankle instead. She fell, but caught herself instead of smashing her face into the floor.
“You want to play, little bitch?”
He yanked her back up, and resumed their trajectory to the front door. “You’re going to take me to him.”
Rich picked up her car keys from the counter as they passed and thrust them at her. Oh no, not in her car. He would know the smell...oh no. She could use the keys and claw at his face, maybe hit an eye, but he was fast and he was inevitable. He was family and she deserved him.
He got a hold of her hair and kicked open the front door. Together they hop-stepped down into the dirt driveway.
And there was Val, his back to them. What was he wearing?
She opened her mouth to call to him, but another sound caught his attention and he turned and looked back at the house.