by Ray Garton
“Well, Officer Kenney and I are looking for a boy. David Gardiner. Know him?”
“Of course.” She looked at both of them carefully. She recognized their names; they were the ones David had told her about. They seemed normal enough, but . . . “Has something happened to him?” she asked, feigning concern.
“Don’t know, ma’am,” Kenney said. “His parents can’t find him. They gave us a call. He hasn’t been here, has he?”
“Of course not,” she said. “And I shouldn’t be here, either. I have to get to the post office before it closes and then I have to meet a friend. I’m running short of time, so—” Her best smile. “—if you don’t mind, I’m going to take off.”
“Ma’am,” Chief Ward said. “Do you have any reason to believe the boy might be in the neighborhood?”
She shook her head and chuckled. “I said I don’t know where he is. I’m the school nurse, not the resident sitter.” She stepped between them onto the porch, pulled the door shut, and locked it. “Sorry I can’t help you. I hope he’s all right, but I really do have to go.”
The policemen did not smile; they looked at one another for a moment, Chief Ward tilting his head oddly. Something had been silently communicated, Linda realized.
“Have a good day,” she said, heading for her car. As she got behind the wheel, she thought, They are pretty strange. She started the ignition and backed out, drove down the road and around a corner, then pulled onto the shoulder and parked in a shaded area. Remaining behind the wheel, tapping her fingers thoughtfully, she whispered, “David, where are you?”
David was across the road from Linda’s house, hidden in the shadows of the trees. When he’d spotted the police car, he’d hidden himself well. Linda’s car was nowhere in sight and the chief and Kenney were walking up and down the street, their eyes scanning the yards in the neighborhood. He knew they were looking for him.
But where was Linda? In the house, perhaps, being held by one of them? Had they taken her somewhere else?
Maybe they’ve got her in the ship, he thought. Maybe they’re putting one of those things in her—
His thoughts were shattered as a hand reached from behind and clamped over his mouth, pulling him hard into the bushes . . .
C H A P T E R
Nine
When David tried to scream, Linda whispered into his ear, “Quiet, David, sshhhh!”
David’s rigid body relaxed when he knew it was only Linda and he turned around and hugged her with relief. “I found ’em!” he exclaimed breathlessly.
“David, calm down,” she said, taking his hand and leading him through the woods along the edge of the road. “We’re in trouble. I’ve parked my car down here off the road. We’ll have to—”
“But I saw them!” he went on. “They were bigger than anything I’ve ever seen!”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “God, they probably think I’ve kidnaped you,” she muttered to herself, exasperated.
“They tried to catch me! They chased me through a tunnel! They nearly killed me!”
Linda stopped and looked down at him with concern. “What? Who?”
“Those . . . things! They’re huge, ugly, slimy . . .” David searched his memory for something similar, something to which he could compare the drones that had chased him. “Giant Mr. Potato Heads!” he exclaimed.
“Hold it, just slow down, David, I don’t understand—”
“I’ll show you! You can see for yourself!” He grabbed her hand and dragged her toward her car. “Get in!”
Linda sighed as she got behind the wheel. David got in beside her, bouncing on the seat with excitement.
“C’mon, let’s go!” he said.
Linda started the car and got on the road.
“David,” she said softly, “tell me . . . you’re not a crazy child, are you?” She quickly added, “I mean, on the phone, your parents told me you’d seen a psychiatrist, remember?”
David’s heart sank. He knew it had to come up again sooner or later.
“Only a few times,” he said. “I was having bad dreams every night and Mom and Dad were—turn right here—they were worried that something was wrong. So they sent me to this Dr. Wycliffe.”
“Did it help?”
“No,” David said pointedly. “He was crazy himself. He wore this too-pay. You know, fake hair? And he never talked to me, he just asked questions. When I asked him a question, he would just ask another question, almost like I wasn’t even there, and . . . and . . .” He turned toward her, his vision blurring with tears. “Linda, please, I don’t want to go back to him. Don’t let them send me. I’m not crazy! I really saw this. You’ll believe me when you see it!”
“Okay, okay, calm down. Just tell me how to get there.”
David directed her to the opposite side of the sand pit.
“Okay, slow down here,” he said. “Mrs. McKeltch might still be around.”
But the van was gone. Linda parked several yards away from the spot where Mrs. McKeltch had left her van earlier and they got out. David took her hand again, hopping from one foot to the other as he tugged on her arm. “C’mon, c’mon!” He led her to the hillside, to—
The tunnel was gone.
“This is the spot!” David said, his throat clenching slightly, making his voice high and squeaky. “It was here!”
“I don’t see anything,” Linda said. Her voice was soft, but firm, as if her suspicions had been confirmed.
“But it was here! I saw it! I went inside!” He went to the side of the hill where the tunnel had been and pressed his hands to the hard, cold earth. Solid. Undisturbed. There was even grass growing from the spot that earlier had been the mouth of the tunnel. “It’s gone,” David whispered. He turned to Linda; she was looking at him skeptically, eyes narrow, her hands folded behind her back. “I swear it was here,” he insisted, but his voice was not as forceful as before.
“But it’s not, David.”
He looked at the hillside again, remembering the things that had chased him, the creature that had slithered out of its hole and come to rest on its altar.
“They moved it!” David said with certainty, spinning to face Linda. “They can do that—move tunnels!”
“Oh, David, this is just too . . . crazy. It’s crazy!”
“But you saw the Band-Aids on their necks!”
“Yes, David, but they were just Band-Aids. That’s all.”
“Okay. Then we have to go to the hill.” He began running toward Copper Hill, toward the sand pit, without waiting for Linda. Over his shoulder, he called, “C’mon! I know a path!”
“Oh, all right,” Linda sighed, hurrying to keep up with him.
They took a path that led around the pit and up Copper Hill.
“Careful,” David said, panting, “they may be watching.”
Trying to remain unseen, they climbed to the crest of the hill. Linda leaned against a tree, exhausted.
David turned toward his house, looking for some sign of his parents, but saw nothing. The back door was open, which was odd. But David paid it little attention; nothing was as it should be. Turning, he looked out over the sand pit. The white sand was smooth and undisturbed; it looked warm and inviting in the sun.
“Now, tell me, David,” Linda said, trying to catch her breath, “does it look to you like anything landed there?”
David searched in desperation for something that would convince her, but he saw nothing. A gentle wind blew, hissing through the trees above them; fleecy white clouds moved lethargically across the blue sky.
“David,” Linda said, hunching down in front of him and taking his hands, “listen to me. We’re in trouble, both of us. I’ve helped you run away, do you understand? Now I can make up some story that will smooth things over. You could back me up.”
David started to shake his head and protest, but Linda pulled him closer to her.
“Shush, listen to me. Your house is right down there. Why don’t you let me take you home and tell your parents som
ething that will calm them down? So they won’t be so mad at us?” She raised her eyebrows and smiled slightly, her face kind and hopeful. “What do you say, David?”
He felt hollow inside. He’d lost her trust. She thought that he was crazy. David wanted to run, but he had nowhere to go. He wanted to make her believe him, but he had nothing to prove his claim—until he looked down the hill again at his house.
A white NASA Jeep was pulling up the driveway.
“Get down!” David warned, dropping to his knees behind a tree and pulling Linda with him. “Look.”
As they watched, two men in orange jump suits got out of the Jeep. One held a detector of some sort. It looked like a metal detector, the kind people used at the beach to find coins buried in the sand.
“Those are space agency technicians,” David whispered. “What are they doing here?”
The men walked toward the front door, disappearing on the other side of the house.
David and Linda watched silently, waiting.
After a few moments, David’s dad appeared at the back door, the two men coming out behind him. Dad pointed up toward Copper Hill, making David and Linda duck self-consciously, completely out of sight. When David heard the screen door squeak shut, he peeked out again.
The two men were coming up the path. The one in the lead held the detector out before him, sweeping it over the ground as they walked up the path.
David tapped Linda’s arm and jerked his head to the right; they moved silently from the tree to a patch of brush farther from the trail. Well hidden, they watched the men come over the crest of the hill, moving the detector in an arc from one side of the path to the other. They went down the other side and hopped off the short bank onto the sand.
The sand pit was big, about fifty yards across, and if they were going to search the whole thing, David knew they would be there for a while.
“What do you think they’re looking for?” Linda asked.
“Something Dad told them about, I guess. But what?”
The men stayed close together, their eyes on the detector’s gauges. Apparently something registered, because they huddled close to the device, one man pointing to a gauge. Excited now, they fanned out on the sand, their backs to one another as they searched. One of them called out over his shoulder, the other nodded.
Realization suddenly struck David hard. These men were not looking for them; he and Linda had no reason to hide from them. The two NASA men were walking into a trap! Dad had given them some story, told them something he knew would interest them enough to get them out on the sand, which was exactly where he wanted them because—
With no warning, the sand beneath the man with the detector began to whirl, creating a vortex that first spun him around, then began to suck him in. He dropped the detector and threw his arms up, opened his mouth to scream, but only had time to gasp—it was a long, ragged gasp, terrified and final.
The other man turned swiftly; his partner and the detector were gone and the whirlpool of sand was traveling across the pit toward him, moving with the speed and ease of a tornado. The man began to run for the embankment, but the sand beneath his feet shifted and swirled, making him sway this way and that until he tripped and fell.
“Oh my God!” Linda shouted, standing.
His arms straight up as he was sucked into the sand, the man screamed like a child, struggling against whatever was pulling him down.
He was gone.
The sand leveled, smoothed, and became still. It looked as if it had never been disturbed.
David and Linda stared open-mouthed at the pit for a long, silent moment. Then Linda grabbed David’s shoulder firmly and began pulling him back the way they had come.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said tremulously.
“Where are we going?” David asked as they got into the car.
“To a phone,” Linda said breathlessly, starting the engine. With her hands gripping the wheel hard, she turned to David. Tears sparkled in her eyes. “David, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For . . . not believing you. Something horrible is happening. It may not be what you think, but something’s wrong.” She jerked the gearshift and drove over the bumpy ground toward the paved road.
“What are we going to—” David swallowed his words as Linda slammed on the brakes. The car lurched to a halt in a cloud of dust.
As if from nowhere, the W. C. Menzies Elementary School bus rumbled before them, speeding down the road with Mrs. McKeltch at the wheel, hunched forward, her eyes narrowed and her jaw set.
Time seemed to slow down for David as he watched the bus drive by in a kind of slow motion. Mrs. McKeltch did not see them; she kept her eyes on the road, her neck straight and stiff. The bus was full of students, their faces in profile in the windows, familiar and yet . . . David realized with a sickening feeling that they were not really his classmates, his friends, not anymore. Eyes forward, mouths closed, they sat rigidly in their seats; there was no activity, there were no smiles. Although he was in Linda’s car, David knew that, inside, the filled bus was silent as a tomb. And then he spotted Doug.
“Doug!” David screamed, throwing himself forward in the seat, clutching the dashboard desperately. “Doug, no!”
His best friend sat stiffly by the window, his mouth a firm, straight line; he was not talking, he was not laughing.
They had Doug.
“Oh, Jesus,” Linda groaned painfully as the bus disappeared.
David did not hear her. He was trying hard not to cry, trying to hold back the tears that came from knowing he was the only one left. Mrs. McKeltch had taken them all. That could only mean that she’d want him even more now.
“What are we going to do?” David whispered, his voice raspy.
“We’re going to get help.”
Linda waited a moment, giving the bus a chance to get well ahead of them, then she pulled onto the road, kicking up dirt behind her.
“Who’re you gonna call?” David asked.
“The state police. They’re probably the safest bet.”
“But what if . . .” David took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
“I know what you’re thinking, and that’s a definite possibility. We’ll just have to be careful and take our chances, won’t we?”
He nodded silently, wiping his eyes. David felt a pain unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It wasn’t like twisting an ankle in kick ball. It wasn’t like falling off a bike and getting skinned up. It eclipsed the biting pain in his knee. This pain was deep; it came from the very center of him, churning around inside him like a volcano on the brink of eruption. Tears came, but as a reaction, not a release. This was a pain for which there was no balm, no pill, no cure.
“Doug,” he began, a sob hitching in his throat. “Doug was my best friend.”
Linda looked over at him and lifted her foot from the pedal slightly, making the speeding car slow a bit. She reached over and took his hand, holding it tightly in hers.
“I know, David,” she said, her voice soothing. “But . . . as cold as it sounds . . . we can’t think about that now. We have to do something so this won’t happen to anyone else—whatever it is.”
Needing desperately to be close to someone, David slid over in the seat and Linda put her arm around him. He pressed his face into her shoulder. She felt warm and soft and he let his tears flow freely, realizing suddenly that she might be all he had left in the world.
“I’m scared,” he spoke into her shoulder.
“I know, David. So am I.”
In town, Linda pulled into a Taco Bell parking lot, turned off the ignition, and grabbed her purse.
“You stay here,” she said. “I’ll be right over there at the pay phone. I won’t be long.” Opening the door, she started to get out, then stopped and turned back to him. “Duck down. Stay out of sight.” She slammed the door and headed for the pay phone, fishing through her purse for change.
David watched her as
she hurried across the parking lot. His tears were gone, but the pain was not. It ate away at him insistently, like a vulture tearing the flesh from a corpse.
It was warm inside the car and as he slinked down in the seat, he cranked the window down, letting in the gentle, cooling breeze. He considered turning on the radio, but thought better of it; he didn’t want to attract any attention. He closed his eyes and leaned back his head, trying to relax, trying to calm his jagged nerves. It felt good, the warm sun on his face, his arms limp at his sides, his eyes closed, locking his mind in a soothing blackness speckled with spots of dark color . . .
As if from a great distance, David heard something pull into the parking lot . . . a truck maybe.
It stopped, its engine idled.
Footsteps . . .
Silence for a while, with just the breeze, the sunlight, and the darkness in his head.
The warmth suddenly disappeared as someone stepped up to the door. Thinking Linda had come back, David opened his eyes as a hand shot through the open window and gripped his collar, jerking him against the door.
“You missed the field trip, David Gardiner!” Mrs. McKeltch hissed, her prunish lips wriggling around her yellow teeth, her eyes narrow pits, the sunlight shining through stray wisps of her hair.
Panic shot through David like a jolt of electricity and he pulled away from her grasp, momentarily surprised when he succeeded. He threw himself behind the wheel and fumbled with the door handle as Mrs. McKeltch’s feet clumped heavily on the pavement. David got the door open as she stormed around the front of the car, her hands reaching out for him. He didn’t bother to close the door, he just tried to run.
She grabbed his shoulders and lifted him off the ground; his legs kicked out before him as he struggled within her powerful arms.
“You get an F for the day,” she grunted through clenched teeth, dragging him toward the bus.
David spotted Doug standing in the open door of the bus, one hand on the rail, the other at his side; he wore that same sickly expression David had seen on his own dad’s face. For a moment, David became limp in Mrs. McKeltch’s hold.
