Lost on Mars

by Paul Magrs

  Molly and George were stamping and groaning, complaining about the cold. Their smelly breath came out in long trails of vapour. When I had Da on his own, I decided to broach the subject that had been bothering me for some time. I told him what Annabel Adams had told me, standing in that very spot, late on Hallows Eve.

  Da was pulling blankets over the beasts and he looked at me, surprised, when I finished my account. ‘You believe what this girl told you?’

  ‘She was pretty serious about it. She sure seemed like someone who’d seen something awful down there in the Melville.’

  Da scoffed at me. ‘Lore, you’re telling me that you’d believe a single word that spoiled and pampered Adams child would ever say?’

  I hung my head, ashamed of his mockery. Didn’t sound to me like Annabel was all that spoiled and pampered. Yeah, she had fancy clothes and they let her wear garish face paint and scent, but Annabel was still like their slave, doing scavenging work for them.

  ‘She never heard nor saw anything down there,’ Da insisted, glaring at me. I wasn’t to go blabbing this stuff indoors. I wasn’t to go unsettling Ma, because Ma was coming to the end of her tether. As if she too had been lowered into the dark on a long, fraying rope. But the darkness consisted of her own fears. Some of the wild talk in the air those past few months had just about made her sick. None of us wanted to see Ma get sick again, did we?

  ‘All I’m saying is what Annabel said to me,’ I told him, feeling defeated by Da’s hard expression. ‘And I was figuring that, if there were – well, non-human beings scavenging aboard the Melville … well, maybe that’s who it is, coming into the town at night and making people Disappear … stealing them away and all that.’

  I knew at once that I’d made a mistake. Molly and George mumbled and stirred in their pen as if they could feel the furious tension rising off Da. His face was black with anger as he advanced on me. ‘Lora, I’ve warned you now. You’re putting half-truths together and coming up with dangerous lies.’

  I resolved not to say anything else, but I knew what I knew and what I’d seen. I thought I could trust Da to listen to me; to take me seriously and not to treat me like a little kid. Thank God I never told him about the night Toaster threw Grandma’s eye into the dead lake and the ground opened up to swallow it.

  ‘OK, let’s go back in,’ he said, his smile warming up. ‘You’re missing Aunt Ruby’s tales from the olden days. Come on, cheer up, Lore.’

  He called me ‘Lore’ when he was feeling fond of me.

  ‘I’ve heard enough about the olden days.’ I sounded rude, I knew I did, but I just couldn’t help myself. Why did all the adults hide away from stuff?

  ‘Lore,’ he said, warningly.

  ‘In the olden days they would have believed me,’ I said. ‘Back then they knew the Martians were out there. They didn’t deny it.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Martians? Lora … is that what you’re worrying about?’

  I wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’m not saying I am. Just that … I might be.’

  He sighed. ‘They are long gone. You don’t have to worry about them coming back in the night and snatching people away and eating them.’

  I couldn’t believe he was laughing at me. I burst out, ‘What about Grandma? So where did she go?’

  I met his eyes and he was on the point of tears. Oh no. I never wanted to upset him like that. I wanted to take back each of my stupid, careless words. Forget about the Martian Ghosts and Grandma.

  ‘Lore, your grandma was very old. She was hardly her old self any more, was she? Remember how she’d rave and bust stuff up?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘When she was most like herself, she realised that she was making life harder for us. She was being a burden and she was too proud for that. She loved us all too much. And so that’s why – I believe – she took herself off in the middle of the night. I believe that she went out into the wilderness to die quietly.’

  Da had his hands on my shoulders as he told me this. He was acting like he was disclosing some great adult truth to me. Something he felt I’d grown up enough to hear.

  I nodded, and tried to seem as if I was absorbing everything he was saying. Acting like Grandma was some amazing and noble woman who had sacrificed herself for the good of the rest of us. Inside, though, I was seething. I wanted to yell at him: so, how come she left behind her faulty leg? And what about all the other Disappeared townsfolk? The babies and tramps and husbands and healthy young people? Did they all crawl off into the wilderness to die?

  I could feel the objections piling up in my head. My brain was throbbing with angry logic. For the first time I felt like my Da – my Da who I worshipped – had made himself into a fool. And all for the sake of an easier life.

  He led me back indoors, out of the cold and the whistling dune winds. In the kitchen everyone was singing Adeste Fideles. That was an old song written especially for that time of year, in a language that none of us could understand.

  12

  At the end of the year the Disappearances increased. The town’s leaders simply couldn’t ignore them any more. As Da said, they had all turned a blind eye for far too long. Doctor Eaves Disappeared and that was really serious. He left behind a surgery stuffed with books and potions and mechanical parts, but they were of no use to us now. There was no one in Our Town with any knowledge of how to use them.

  Only when the wife of Sheriff F.E. Baxter went missing did they call a town meeting. Everyone knew that Sheriff Baxter didn’t give two hoots about his wife in her gaudy dresses, always looking elsewhere for male company. But now the Sheriff had to be seen to care, after she’d been carried off into the night. Also, he had given chase, onto Main Street, alerted by his wife’s unholy screaming. Others were woken and looked out of their windows. That night several townsfolk had caught glimpses of the Martian Ghosts, just as I had months previously. Skinny, dried-up things with lamp-like eyes. Mostly nude, but some were wearing stripy garments that flapped behind them as they danced along the lane through pools of shadow.

  As we ate a frugal supper of winter greens and corn bread Da was telling the tales he had heard that day at the Storehouse. About the skinny, giggling men and how they had been seen by Sheriff Baxter and others, carrying away the Sheriff’s screaming wife, Eliza. How she had gurgled and howled. The men in the Storehouse had laughed uneasily as the tale was related. But their laughter was fooling no one. Everyone was frightened.

  ‘You saw the kidnappers, didn’t you?’ Da said to me. ‘You tried to tell me you’d seen them, when we stayed at Aunt Ruby’s. I didn’t listen to you.’

  I nodded and stared down at my plate, flushing. He wouldn’t listen to me. He’d told me to keep it quiet, in case I scared the others. I could feel all their eyes on me – Ma, Ruby and even Hannah – shocked that I’d been carrying such an important secret. Al and Toaster were looking at me too, and I don’t think I’d ever felt more important.

  I nodded again. ‘I saw them. They creep into town and they take folk away, one at a time. Sometimes screaming, sometimes silent-like.’

  Ma’s face was white. The dinner she had so carefully prepared was going stone cold on the plates in front of us. She was rigid, with her hands like claws on her knife and spoon. ‘What do they do with us? When they take us away?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. I’d wondered about it a lot and I knew it couldn’t be anything good.

  ‘Oh, poor Margaret,’ said Ruby softly. At first I didn’t know who she meant, but then I remembered that Margaret was Grandma’s actual name that no one had called her for many years. To Ruby she had always been the same girl. ‘She was always so scared the Martians would get her,’ Ruby revealed, sighing. ‘She said she could glimpse into the future, now and then. And there were lovely things to come, but terrible things, too. And she used to tell me that the Martians would come back and it would be the death of her. I’d tell her to hush her mouth. No one wants to hear awful stuff like that. The Martians w
ere long dead to begin with, I’d say. Even if all of the Martians weren’t exactly dead, then they had retreated so far underground so as to be no real danger to us…’

  All my family were staring at Ruby. The quiet old woman in the patched and stained safari suit had never made such a long speech in all the time I had known her. The words came tumbling out and we could hardly keep up. She was bringing out secrets from the long past.

  ‘M-Martians underground?’ said Ma, looking very troubled.

  ‘That was one theory,’ Ruby shrugged. ‘Just one theory among many. During the first settlement we found cities that had been abandoned. Not ancient cities or cities that had been nuked or burned to the ground or smashed by sandstorms. No, just cities where everyone had seemingly stopped what they were doing, got up, and walked out. There was food on the tables, some folk said, just like our food here. They left things half-done and simply Disappeared themselves.’

  A chill ran through every one of us.

  ‘You knew more about them than you’ve ever told us,’ said Da. ‘I’ve never heard this stuff before.’

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ said Ruby. ‘We’ve spent all these years making this part of the planet our very own. Pretending no one else was ever here. We didn’t want to rake up the past by worrying about who might or might not be still around…’

  Da’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘You must have been crazy! How could you pretend there was no danger?’

  Ruby jumped to her feet, shouting back at him. ‘Because as far as we knew, there was no danger. Every few years or so, one or two people might have Disappeared. Just a paltry few. But the settlement was working out, against the odds. Babies were being born and the colony was expanding. People felt that a handful of Disappearances was a small price to pay, for us getting a whole new planet to live on. And they were usually the sick or the old who were taken, anyway. They were seen as the sacrifices that had to be made.’

  ‘My God,’ said Da, looking horrified.

  ‘You can’t blame me – or Margaret,’ Ruby said. ‘We were just kids then. We were Lora’s age. What could we have said or done that would have made any difference?’

  We all looked at her, until she slumped back down into her seat.

  After that supper and Ruby’s revelations, things weren’t quite the same between Da and our adopted aunt. He no longer trusted her. He made a few remarks along the lines of, was there anything else that we should know? Any other sixty-year-old secrets about our world that she knew but hadn’t cared to tell?

  Evenings at that time would see Da unrolling maps and charts he had found among Grandma’s belongings. The maps were brightly coloured in cheerful shades of orange and red. Some showed how early landings had found the planet in its native state, and others were projecting ahead into the then-future, showing the marvellous cities of glass and steel that mankind intended to establish there.

  ‘It was all meant to be so much grander,’ I heard Da mutter. He studied those maps long and hard. Grandma had always talked about the wealth of materials she had hidden away about the first settlements. But now she was dead, Da was left looking at these naïve versions of a future that had never come.

  Toaster joined him, peering over his shoulder. I saw Da turn on him. ‘Did you know what Ruby knows? About the Martians?’

  Toaster shook his head. ‘No, but my memory circuits are not what they were. I would hate to say anything against Grandma, because she was a very good mistress to me. But, over the years, she did tamper with my memory something rotten. Portions of my mind have been burned out – rather crudely, I must admit. So I am not an entirely reliable witness to the first forty years of my existence. I regret to report it.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Da, looking askance at the sunbed.

  Next thing was, Sheriff Baxter and the town Elders called a town meeting. They were actually going to discuss the Disappearances in an open debate.

  Da told us, ‘We’re all going to be there. The whole Robinson family. And that includes you, Ruby. This is important.’

  13

  All the town was in attendance. Our family – including a slightly unwilling Ruby – took up a long wooden bench quite near the back of the meeting room. Da was grim-faced and quiet, as was Ma. All the other adults present were gabbling away, as if they had been holding back these words for ages and now had received permission to let them all out.

  We faced the stage, where every Christmas we acted out the Jesus story and every Martian Thanksgiving we performed the Tale of Landfall. That stage had been cleared of everything but a long table and sitting at it were the town Elders. It was all the oldest faces in town in one long row, like cabbages growing in a patch.

  For the first time it occurred to me that although Grandma had been ancient, and so was Ruby, neither woman had ever to my knowledge been asked to become one of the town Elders.

  Sheriff Baxter was trying to call the meeting to order. He looked tired and red-eyed. His voice cracked as he shouted over everyone’s noise. When at last they quietened down he outlined what he called some key points about recent developments in town.

  Hannah grew restless, muttering and clambering on Ma’s lap, and to tell the truth I felt much the same. The Sheriff was dressing everything up in unnecessary wordiness as he talked about the important thing being our continued confidence in leadership and personal comfort and safety. Only once did he use the actual word ‘Disappearances’ and pretty quick into his speech I realised – along with everyone else – that he was dancing around the edges of the subject. Minutes passed and he went on talking in vague terms and soon folk were murmuring to each other. Why, his own wife had been borne away into the dark night. You think he’d show a little more gumption and resolve, wouldn’t you now?

  The Sheriff suddenly looked very young and too weak for the job he was supposed to be doing. As Da said, Baxter had never been called upon to deal with anything as serious as this before. Land disputes, drunken brawls, petty thefts – that was all he was used to. At last my Da got to his feet and interrupted him. ‘Er, excuse me, Sheriff Baxter,’ he said, holding up both hands so as to stop the blathering on. All eyes in that meeting room were on my Da. ‘It’s fine to talk about defending our town and night watches and so forth,’ said Da – and he looked round at every worried face in that room. His voice boomed into every corner and held firm and strong. ‘But I think we ought to be talking about what’s really going on here. And by that I mean finding out who or what is causing these Disappearances. Who or what is taking away our folk – like my mother and your wife and all the others. No disrespect intended.’

  The whole gathering burst into spontaneous applause. Da ducked his head and smiled into his beard, embarrassed. The Sheriff on the stage looked mortified. ‘Mr – ah – Robinson. We don’t have access to the kind of knowledge that you’re talking about. We…’

  There came mutinous murmurs from the crowd. ‘Yes, yes we do!’ someone catcalled. Another voice cried out, ‘They have been witnessed! They have been seen in the night, going about their ghastly business!’ ‘Phantoms!’ gasped another and a strange thrill went through me. I should have been scared and more grown-up acting. But I was thoroughly excited.

  ‘It’s the Martians – they’re coming back!’ This was a louder voice, closer to us and we all turned. Vernon Adams stood up, sweating and feverish. He clutched the back of the bench in front of him, his eyes staring crazily round at all of us.

  Either side of him, Mrs Adams and his poor daughter Annabel were in their chintziest frocks, with their hair set in ringlets, as if they thought tonight’s emergency meeting was gonna be some fancy social shindig. Mrs Adams was pulling at her husband’s arm, tugging at his waistcoat. ‘Come off it, Vernon. Please, my dear…’

  But that small, pink-faced man stood firm. He had a bellyful of stuff to say. ‘We’ve been burying our heads in the red desert sands. We all know that there’s an indigenous population here. At least, our older folk do. It’s only sixty-odd yea
rs since they came here from Earth. And yet somehow – in the scrabbling for existence and survival and keeping ourselves going – we’ve limited our horizons and put the wider and deeper world out of our minds.’

  A ripple of fear ran through the room like a desert snake in wet grass.

  ‘We heard them first,’ Mr Adams said. ‘When we were last aboard the Melville. One of our salvage operations. Annabel – my beautiful daughter here – she was deeper within the ship. And she saw them, didn’t you, darling?’

  All eyes moved to the pretty, powdered face of Annabel. ‘Yes, father,’ she said, in her singsong voice. ‘They weren’t human at all. They were tall and skinny and they were laughing.’

  Da voiced everyone’s question, ‘Laughing?’

  Annabel nodded. ‘They went, “Heeee heeeee heeee.”’

  She put on a warbling voice to do that laughing as she’d heard it, and it startled everyone present. It was like the laughing Martians were there in the room with us. Annabel carried on doing it, like she was losing her grip, ‘Heeee heeeeee heeeeeee,’ until her father grasped her shoulder and squeezed hard. Then she got that distant look on her face again and Mrs Adams produced a lacy handkerchief and began crying into it.

  ‘We didn’t listen to our wonderful, darling Annabel at first,’ said Mr Adams. ‘But really we knew. These Martians are out there. Watching us. And laughing.

  ‘And then … last Monday night, they actually came to our shop!

  ‘Now, we lock our doors and windows just as tightly as anyone else. But I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter. They ripped that electronic seal away like it was silver paper round chocolate. The stark truth is, if they want to get inside – then they will.

  ‘We sleep directly above our emporium and there was no mistaking the slapping noise of bare feet on boards. The scrabbling of skinny fingers on the shelves and in the drawers and the barrels. Dirty Martian hands touching our wholesome goods. Fingers rifling and patting, stroking and scratching.