The Evolutionist

by Rena Mason

  “Focus. They’re not monsters.”

  “Not human.” They’ll try and drown me again. Oh, shit! I’m already deep in the indigo.

  “They won’t hurt you. Don’t be afraid. You’re right, they’re not human. Look closer.”

  “Human shapes but wet shadows.”

  “What are we, Stacy?”

  “Not real.”

  “Yes. Yes, we’re real. Tell me what you see!”

  “Aliens.” There it is. Let it be done now. Wake me up.

  Like he’s reading my mind again, he counts. “One, two, three.”

  Everything snaps back to red. I sit up and stare at the wall. My heart flutters while I hyperventilate, trying to catch my breath. I was drowning, smothering in cold. I put my hands over my face to help slow my respiration. Something cool and slimy is across my forehead. I bring my hand down to take a look. It’s slick, clear, and somewhat opalescent. I think it could be the same stuff that made my hand sticky before. I rub it between my fingers. It’s definitely not sweat. I put it up to my nose and sniff. It has a sweet smell—Dr. Light’s.

  “Stacy, are you all right?”

  “No. Dr. Light. I’m not. I’m fucking crazy! And you’re making me worse.” I’ve added crying to my huffing and puffing. I’m delirious now. I have to get out of here before I pass out. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go!” I reach down and grab my purse.

  He jumps up from his chair, lunges toward me and reaches out. His slimy cold fingertips brush across my arm as I make a run for the door. “Stacy, stop!”

  I turn around and look at him. Trying hard to ignore his big black eyes, his dripping wet skin. The floor underneath me almost seems agitated, like it’s alive and angry. I focus on the door again. “I can’t”

  “Come back.” I hear him yell as I round the bare desk up front.

  “I won’t!”

  “Come back to us…”

  The sun is extremely bright. I grab a pair of sunglasses from my purse and put them on. Then I’m in the car, squealing out of the lot. Tearing down a dirt road I’ve never seen before. Thankful I drive a big SUV, grateful I got out of there when I did.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I’m speeding through traffic on the highway when I regain my senses enough to know where I am. I’ve got to slow down. Relax. The exit sign for the grocery store I’d gone to for my Valium prescription stands out like a beacon. I turn off, park in the lot, then think about what happened and what my options are now.

  An eerie calm pervades the car. The desert sun shining through the windows should have me feeling warm, but I’m not. I’m chilled to the bone. No doubt Dr. Light’s to blame. I wonder what that cold slime was he put on my head? It feels like it’s in my body now. The icy goo reminds me of the gel they put on my belly for an ultrasound when I was pregnant. Maybe Dr. Light had me hooked up to some kind of brain monitor I never noticed before. I don’t think so, though. I’m sure I would have seen it, those machines aren’t small.

  It is perfectly still in the car—a deafening quiet. The tones, they’re gone. I close my eyes, sink back, and exhale with relief. A faint whisper tickles the hairs on the back of my neck. I snap up, whip around, and check the backseat. Nothing’s there. No one is nearby. In the distance, I see people walking to and from their cars, but I made sure to park far from the storefront traffic.

  More whispers speak but in different voices. “Hello,” I say aloud. “Who’s there?”

  I gasp at the thought. It’s them. The twenty-six. Only now, their music is spoken. I listen in, concentrate. “Come back to us,” I hear. “There is danger.”

  “Shit!” I put my hands up over my ears, but it continues. “Stop it,” I shout. Jesus, this is it. I’ve completely gone insane. I’m hearing voices. It’s schizophrenia. I hum, turn up the radio. It helps a little, makes their words harder to distinguish. A man walks by pushing an empty shopping cart. He stares at me through the window.

  I’m going to need a new shrink.

  What do I do until then? Cally…someone normal has to hear me out, a person that knows me, who wouldn’t consider me crazy. I dial her cell, and the phone rings, but she doesn’t pick up. Neither does her voicemail. That can’t be right. I hang up and try their home number. There’s no answer, only more ringing.

  This just doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s not real.

  Desperate, I dial Tara. There is no way I’m calling Jordan after seeing that email she sent to Jon. She seems to be flirting with him more than a friend should and behind my back. I’m not ready to deal with that, yet.

  “Hello?” Tara answers.

  “It’s me…Stacy.”

  “I know it’s you, Sweetie. What is it?”

  “Have you spoken to Cally lately? I can’t get in touch…”

  “I haven’t talked to Cally since I told her the bad news.”

  “What bad news?”

  “Not getting the show. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “What? No. When did you talk to her?”

  “After your dinner last night. How was it by the way? Cally didn’t say much about it.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. No one’s told me anything.”

  “Well, we didn’t get the Housewives show. They gave it to the girls in Green Valley. It’s all Jordan’s fault, fucking alcoholic.”

  “Jordan? Is she all right?”

  “I haven’t called her since she told me Samuel didn’t come back from his convention.”

  “What?”

  “Samuel left her. Aren’t you listening?”

  “Yes!”

  “Sorry. It’s just that I’ve been down ever since I heard about the show.”

  “I understand, but…do you think I should call her?”

  “No. She doesn’t want to talk about it. I told her to get into rehab. She hung up on me.”

  “Ah.” But she wants to talk with Jon…

  “I’ve got to go, but I wouldn’t worry. Everybody will be fine. We always recover.”

  “Okay. Bye, Tara.”

  Not much of that conversation made any sense. It was disjointed, somber, and got me nowhere closer to Cally. I feel like I’ve been struck by lightning. Nothing is right. I’m out of sorts. Instead of healing, I’m getting worse, everything is.

  Jon...

  If I call him though, he’ll send me straight to the hospital, and I have to…oh shit, it’s almost twelve-thirty. Patrick. How long have I been sitting here? Several cars have parked nearby. The store’s business is picking up. In a car opposite mine, a woman is waiting in the passenger seat. She pretends like she’s not looking my way, but I can see her eyes directed at me. She must think I’m nuts sitting all alone talking to Tara, talking to myself.

  I exit the parking lot then head back to the highway, to Patrick’s school.

  * * *

  “How was your day?” I say.

  “Fine…” He stares out the window then turns his head and looks at me. “Mom, can you take me home first and then go get Grandma and Grandpa?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

  “Grandpa always has to ride up front with you, and Grandma’s perfume stinks.”

  I laugh. “I never liked the smell of it either. Red something or other, it’s really strong. And I think that’s why Grandpa rides shotgun. I’m sure they won’t mind if you don’t greet them at the airport.”

  * * *

  It’s a good thing Patrick stayed home, too. Holiday traffic is full on, making it a hectic mess getting to the airport via the highway. I purposely ignored it when I passed the exit for Dr. Light’s office. It was hard, but I kept my hands at ten and two and studied the cars ahead.

  I can’t help hearing the voices, listening to them. Now and then certain words stand out. Something about the sun, communicating. I wonder if that’s what they’d been repeating when they were the tones. It makes me think of the sunspots Patrick mentioned forever ago. He said they might affect cell phone signals. If that is what they mean, it still doesn’t mak
e sense to me. They don’t need to call—they’re already in my head.

  I get damn lucky, and a car pulls out as I’m pulling into the airport parking garage. The timing couldn’t be any better. According to the monitors, their flight landed early. I’m glad I gave myself plenty of time to get here.

  My mom and dad are easy to spot in a crowd. She will have on a long heavy coat and he will be in a turtleneck with a cable-knit sweater over it, even though they checked the weather reports a million times before they packed and got on the plane.

  “Where’s Patrick?” my mom asks with her arms around me in a gentle hug.

  “He wasn’t feeling good.”

  “Boy’s not sick is he?” my dad says. “I don’t want your mother catching something. She always gets the flu after we leave here.”

  Typical dad—Ignore the fact that she loves going to casinos and mingling with strangers from around the world.

  “No, he’s not sick. He was just tired.”

  “Well, you should’ve said that first,” my mom says. “And why didn’t you tell us you were having such warm weather?”

  I smile and grind my molars. I swear, as soon as Patrick can drive, this is going to become his responsibility.

  My dad walks over to the luggage carousel and watches the bags slide down the ramp.

  “You look terrible, dear. I didn’t want to say anything in front of your father, but my goodness, have you been eating?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you look so thin and frail. I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “How do you know? Have you gone to a doctor? And I don’t mean Jon.”

  “Yes. I have.” My parents won’t recognize Jon as a real doctor, because he’s family.

  “It’s worse than I thought if you’ve already been to a doctor. What did they say?”

  “That I’m fine. They didn’t find anything. I’ve been having trouble sleeping is all.”

  “You drink too much coffee.”

  “I didn’t use to.”

  “It’s not good for you. You need to cut back.”

  My father walks up rolling their big suitcase behind him. “Stacy’s been to a doctor, dear. She’s sick.”

  So much for keeping it from him.

  “What’s that?” he says.

  “Stacy’s sick, honey.”

  He gives me a quick sideways glance. “She looks fine to me. Stop your worrying.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I stretch up and kiss him on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too,” he says.

  Oddly enough, I’m happier about them being here than I thought I would be. I can live with them thinking I look exhausted. They know I’m busy planning parties, preparing for the holidays, and for their visits. My haggard appearance should make it all the more convincing. If they were silent and said nothing, then I would have to worry. Sometimes, I forget that my mom has nothing better to do than trouble herself about us. We are really all they’ve got.

  Traffic has lightened up considerably for the drive home. Normally, it’s a twenty to thirty minute stretch from the house to the airport, but it took me over an hour this afternoon. My mom is in the back seat complaining about the flight, and my dad stares out the window and nods in agreement, occasionally. It’s his way of listening, even though he isn’t. I’m sure he’s busy thinking about his golf swing and whether or not Jon has been playing enough to give him a good round.

  I still can’t believe the musical tones have turned into words I actually understand. I catch myself listening to them again and turn up the radio. Come back to us—would have to mean that I was with them before. It’s complete lunacy.

  Since I’m with my parents, I decide to take the long way home, keep off the freeway. They like to look around, and to be honest, I’m perfectly good about not seeing the exit for Dr. Light’s office again so soon. I stop at a red light on Flamingo Boulevard.

  “You’ve never taken me to this casino,” my mom says, gazing out like a kid looking into a candy store. “It looks lovely.”

  “A lot of the locals go there, because it’s away from the strip.”

  “Do they win?”

  “I don’t know. Our friends don’t gamble.”

  “You should ask them sometime. Maybe they’re acquainted with someone who does. I’d like to know.”

  “We can go there, if you want.”

  “I’ll let you surprise me.”

  Which really means, yes, take me there.

  “What’re we having for dinner tonight?” she says.

  “Jon’s bringing home take-out from that place you like.”

  “Oh.”

  I glance at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her eyes are transfixed on the tower of beckoning lights.

  “Do you feel like going out after?” she says.

  “No, Mom. I’ve still got a lot of prep work to do for the turkey.”

  “What if I help you?”

  “Relax, dear,” my dad says. “You’ll have plenty of time to get robbed by the one-armed bandits while we’re here.”

  My mom rolls her eyes but doesn’t stop staring out the window.

  “This is a long light,” Dad says.

  “No kidding,” I say.

  Finally, it turns green, and I speed away. She eventually snaps out of it and asks me what needs to be done for tomorrow. My mom hardly cares whether or not I cook a turkey with the fixings. It’s the time it takes to prepare everything and clean up afterwards, she worries about. Less time cooking and cleaning, means more time spent at the casinos.

  Lucky me, she loves to gamble, but fortunately, I didn’t inherit her genes for that. Besides, gambling in Vegas takes on a different meaning when you live here. It’s actually frowned upon. People may do it but nobody ever talks about it. You learn to get over it quick or risk losing it all. I’ve never minded taking my mom to the casinos when she comes. She enjoys it, and we usually have a good time, especially if she’s winning.

  My dad doesn’t like to gamble. He prefers to spend time with Jon. They have heated conversations about politics and sports, topics of which my mom and I have no interest. I’m thankful that my dad and Jon get along so well. Compromise is why my parents’ marriage has endured, and they’re a wonderful testament to why my own marriage continues to persevere. Maybe.

  I get a tense feeling of unrest whenever I’m anywhere near the strip. Jon thinks it has something to do with all of the electric energy it takes to keep everything lit, like living close to an electrical substation. He says it’s been linked to causing cancer. That, on top of the nuclear testing they used to do, makes Nevada a real radioactive hotspot.

  It’s comical in a way, how Dr. Light has me seeing aliens. Area 51 is famous for them. I’ve never believed any of that crap, not a shred of solid evidence. Does the facility exist? Yeah, but it’s secretive, I think, because they test new airplanes out there. It makes perfect sense.

  * * *

  When I’m finished cleaning up after dinner, I start bringing stuff in from the garage refrigerator. Then I get to work on some of the side dishes for tomorrow.

  “If you don’t need me for anything, I’m going to shower then go to bed,” Mom says. She stands next to me at the counter and leans over to see what I’m doing.

  “No. I’m fine. Get some rest.” I knew she would be too tired to go out once we got home.

  “Goodnight.” She shuffles her way down the hall. “Don’t stay up too late.”

  The men watch TV and talk for a while. Patrick has been hiding in his room since he scoffed his dinner. Dad eventually gets up and says he’s going to check on Mom, but doesn’t come back out.

  Jon gets up and walks over to me. “Is there anything I can help with? It’s getting late.”

  “No. I’m almost done, but thanks. Thanks for picking up dinner tonight, too and the turkey.”

  “You’re welcome,” he says. Then he kisses my cheek.
“You coming to bed soon?”

  “In a few minutes. Are you?”

  “Of course, that’s why I want you to come, too.”

  “It’s just that you’ve been spending a lot of time in the office lately.”

  “I’ve been busy and I’m sorry, but I’ve got the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving. I promise to stay out of there.”

  I turn my head and look him square in the eyes. He means it. I move closer and kiss his warm soft lips. He puts his arms around me and pulls me against him. Then he moves his head back. “Sure you don’t want to come to bed with me now?”

  “Let me finish. I’ll be quick.”

  He releases me. “Okay,” he says as he walks away. “I’ll wait.”

  When he’s gone, I do my best to hurry and cover the food. I put the cranberry sauce and turkey back into the refrigerator along with everything else. Then I wash more dishes and throw out the trash. By the time I get upstairs he is sound asleep and snoring under the covers.

  So much for that.

  Watching the comforter rise and fall with his breath makes me jealous. It’s been so long since I’ve slept like that. It doesn’t seem fair. These past months are nothing but a blur. Before the tears in my eyes have a chance to fall, I walk into the bathroom and undress.

  After a hot shower, I put on my nightshirt then take two of the tiny blue pills. “Screw you,” I whisper to their voices. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.” I am determined to get some sleep, because right now, I’m thankful for nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A breathy whisper fills the air. “Danger…” The word echoes around the room then settles and stays as if it were a solid thing with weight.

  “What danger?” I say. I turn over, sit up. “Jon?”

  His back is to me, and he is still asleep.

  It’s them—the others. I lie back down and pull the covers up to my neck. I wonder if this is a dream or if it is just the voices. They are the presence I feel in the room. The danger that draws near, that encircles the bed.