The Night the Heads Came

by William Sleator

  I remember what Herman and some of the other people at the meeting said about being abducted more than once. I know that’s what’s happening to me. I keep getting closer and closer to the place where I woke up yesterday morning. At any moment the car’s going to break down. And then the little green men will come and overpower me and—

  But those little green men were a false memory, planted in my mind by Dr. Viridian. The meeting tonight convinced me of that—and now I am being brought back here in only two days, when in the false memory the aliens said they’d be back in a week. So the benign little green men in their antiseptic spaceship isn’t what’s going to happen. Something unknown is going to happen—something my conscious brain ran away from. Maybe something a lot worse than what the doctor got me to remember under hypnosis.

  And then, ahead of me, someone is waving frantically at me from the side of the road. It’s Tim. There’s something different about him, but things are too crazy right now for me to pinpoint exactly what it is, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s him. And now, suddenly, I’m in control of what I’m doing. I brake as fast as I safely can, hoping the van isn’t going to rear-end me.

  I’m going too fast to be able to stop exactly where Tim is; I pull over about ten yards ahead of him. He is already running for my car, clutching his portfolio.

  Someone from the van is running after him—or maybe more than one person; it’s hard to tell. I push open the passenger door and Tim hurls himself inside, shouting in an oddly deep voice, “Get away from here! Hurry!”

  Dr. Viridian is outside, reaching for Tim’s portfolio. Tim slams his door shut. Dr. Viridian whips his hand away just in time to keep it from getting caught in the door. I swerve onto the road. “What’s going on?” I ask Tim, turning toward him.

  He doesn’t answer, slumping back in the seat.

  Dr. Viridian must have rushed back to the van, because it’s already pulling out onto the road. It’s going really fast now, not just following, but desperately trying to catch up with us. I floor the accelerator, but the van is getting closer.

  Tim is still just sitting there with his eyes closed.

  “Tim! What is—” I start to ask him again.

  And then, in the rearview mirror, I see the van’s headlights blink out. It stops moving. In a few seconds it’s far behind us.

  “What happened? Why did the van die? Where were you? What’s going on?” I ask Tim, continually turning to look at him, then back to the road.

  He doesn’t answer me, lolling back in the seat, gasping for breath, his portfolio in his lap. I can’t see him very well because it’s so dark outside the car. But now that the van isn’t chasing us and I can concentrate on studying him a little more closely, it suddenly hits me exactly what it is that’s different about him. I look quickly away from him, feeling sick to my stomach and chills on the back of my neck at the same time.

  Tim is taller than he was two days ago and thinner. His shirt is loose on him, but the sleeves are too short, and the bottom barely reaches his waist.

  He still isn’t saying anything. I take a couple of deep breaths and force myself to look back at him. There’s no doubt about it. He’s taller. He’s lost a lot of weight. His nose is more prominent. I remember his oddly deep voice when he was shouting at me just now. I’m not imagining this. Tim is older.

  I turn away from him again. I don’t know what to say to him. I keep driving, feeling panicky, not thinking about where I’m going.

  Finally Tim rolls his head over on the seat and says, in his new deep voice, “The Others. Why you bring The Others? Why you tell them? Not supposed to.”

  “The Others?”

  “The ones in van. Very dangerous. And now they saw what I look like.” His voice is husky, like someone who just woke up, but there is also that tone of whining complaint in it. “You made bad mistake, Leo.”

  All at once I’m angry. “I made a mistake? I didn’t do anything except what … what whoever delivered you here made me do. It must have been them who were controlling me, right? Bringing me here to pick you up, making me drive here without knowing why, like some kind of zombie. Did you know they did that to me? Do you think it was fun? There was nothing I could do about Dr. Viridian following me.”

  He sits slowly up in the seat, staring at me. “You know their names? They get you on their side? How much you tell them?”

  “If I’m on anybody’s side, I’m on your side, jerk! After all I’ve been through—like with your wonderful father, for instance—all you can do is accuse me of giving away somebody’s secrets that I don’t know anything about!”

  “Oh, God, my father,” he says and groans, sounding more like his old self. “Everything I saw, everything that’s changed, everything that’s going on—and I think I still dread dealing with him almost more than anything else. Funny …”

  “But what have you seen, what’s changed, what’s going on?” I glance over at him again, then back to the road. “You’re older; I know that much. How … how long have you been away?”

  “Thousands of years, Earth time, is what they said.”

  “Thousands of years?”

  “We were traveling a lot—traveling really fast. Time dilation, you know … Only was a couple of years to us. So that’s how much I aged.”

  “Yeah, but … How could you have been gone for thousands of years Earth time when you came back in only two days?”

  “They brought me right back to this wonderful moment, of course,” he says, as though it’s stupid of me not to know that. His voice is a little clearer now, less garbled. “Time travel, Leo—otherwise you never would have seen me again. We were gone all that time, and then they just came back to right now. Why are they punishing me like this, making me come back here?” He laughs briefly, without humor, and shakes his head. “And of course they leave it up to me to figure out how to explain how I got older. Typical.”

  “Who’s they?” I ask him.

  He giggles again. “How much do you remember?” he asks me.

  “Uh, now wait a minute,” I say, suddenly angrier than before. I start slowing the car down. “What’s so funny? Am I getting the feeling that you’re not going to tell me what happened to you, what’s really going on? That you’re just going to ask me what I remember? Because if that’s what you’re planning, you can get out of this car right now.”

  “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you,” he says in a placating voice. “But first I gotta find out what you remember, how much you know, what happened while I was gone. Only two days for you, right? If I tell you anything else before I hear your story, it might affect what you tell me.”

  What he says makes sense, but I’m still afraid he won’t tell me everything once he’s heard my story. Can I trust this new version of Tim? I try to come up with some threat to make sure he keeps his promise. “Okay. But if I tell you my story, and then you don’t tell me yours, I’ll go straight to The Others and I’ll—”

  “You wouldn’t!” he says.

  “Just keep your part of the bargain.”

  “I said I would!”

  I speed up again. I tell him about blacking out the night he disappeared, about talking to his parents and the two cops and what his father and mother were like. I describe going to Dr. Viridian, the man who was chasing him just now, and being hypnotized and what I remembered then.

  He snorts when he hears the green-men story.

  “Just wait a minute!” I say hotly. I tell him why I doubted the story myself, and about being questioned by the police, and then going to the meeting tonight, and what was so peculiar about the stories everybody told. “So I figured all the stories were fake. That these hypnotists—I guess they’re the ones you call The Others—changed our memories. First, so that none of us would know what really happened to us. And second, so that no one else would believe anything really happened to us at all. It seems like they don’t want anybody to believe we were abducted by aliens.”

  “Pretty clever,”
he says, nodding. “And really clever of you to figure it out so fast, in only a couple of years, Leo; I’ve gotta hand it to you.”

  “It was only two days for me, remember? You just said so yourself.”

  “Oh, yeah. Only two days. That’s right. So go on.”

  “And then when I left the meeting, something made me drive here and pick you up. I couldn’t help it that the green van was following me. It was like I was being controlled by something.”

  “Squeeze your right earlobe,” Tim says.

  I do—and begin to panic again. “There’s something in there, a hard little lump!” I say, my voice rising.

  “They put it in you that night, when you were on the ship … so long ago.”

  “Yeah, but what is it?” I ask him, not liking having it there at all. “Something that makes it so they can control me?”

  “Sometimes, to a certain extent, yeah, if absolutely necessary. Because of The Others. They don’t like The Others.”

  “Who’s they?” I ask him.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Look, I told you my story. Now you have to tell me something!”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Who’s they?” I scream at him.

  “The heads,” Tim says.

  When he says the word, I get a very ominous, surreal kind of feeling, like a flash of a memory from a bad dream. “The heads?” I say. “Is that who took us that night? Is that who you were with all this time?”

  “What time is it here?” he asks me.

  I sigh, because he’s still avoiding telling me what happened to him, but I look at my watch. I can hardly believe it. “Oh, no, it’s after two! I completely forgot about the time. My parents must be going nuts after what happened the other night and you disappearing and everything. We’ve got to get back.”

  “All right,” Tim says, not sounding happy about it. “But could we go back to your house instead of mine? I’d like to go there first for a while, to kind of get ready to deal with my parents.”

  “Okay, I’ll take you to my house on one condition: You tell me what happened to you,” I say. “I’ll start driving home now, and while I’m driving you talk—and talk fast.”

  And finally, while we’re driving home, he tells me his story.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “They loved my drawings!” Tim says, his voice suddenly more animated.

  “Huh?” I say, not understanding what he’s talking about.

  “The heads. They loved my drawings. That’s why they kept me. They decided they wanted to make me into a really great artist.”

  “Uh, now wait a minute,” I say very carefully. “You’re telling me these aliens—these heads—kept you for all that time just because they liked your drawings?”

  “Sure,” he says brightly. “They love the whole idea of art—especially because I could do it with my own hands. The heads can’t do anything like that, of course. And the bodies—well, the bodies can only do practical things, nothing artistic. Oh, sure, the pictures I was drawing all that time ago were really naive. I mean, creatures with superhero bodies and animal heads, you know?” He shakes his head and laughs. Then his voice grows excited again. “But they saw the potential in them, Leo! So they took me around, all over. I mean they gave me a real education. They showed me so many things to draw—amazing things.” He squeezes his portfolio. “You want to see, Leo?” he says eagerly. “You’re the only person I’m allowed to show them to. You could pull over somewhere and take a look at—”

  “Sure, sure, later,” I say, still completely mystified. If it weren’t for the fact that he is so clearly older than he was two days ago, I wouldn’t begin to believe any of this—and I still don’t know if I trust him. “These heads. Are they the ones who abducted all those other people too? Is that what they’re doing here, looking for artists?”

  “Oh, they take other people too, for short times,” he says in an offhand way. “But not because they’re looking for artists. Don’t be silly, Leo! It was just a lucky break that I happened to have my portfolio and—”

  “But then why do they go around abducting people? Are they doing scientific experiments on us or trying to save the Earth or take over the Earth or—”

  “The Earth? Oh, come on!” He flaps his hand at me as though what I’m saying is completely ridiculous. “They couldn’t care less about the Earth. This planet is completely irrelevant. So anyway—the beginning was so long ago—once they got me to calm down, they told me my drawings were—”

  “But if the Earth is completely irrelevant, then why did they abduct all those people? They must have done it for a reason.”

  He blinks, then shrugs. “I dunno. It’s just something they do. I got the feeling that what they do with people might have something to do with … The Others.” When he says “The Others,” his voice changes, grows hushed, and he stares off into the distance for a moment. Then he continues more slowly. “They never told me exactly what they do with people, or why. It’s some kind of secret. I just know that The Others are their enemies, and dangerous. There’s all these things they don’t want The Others to know. But so many wonderful things were happening that pretty soon I just stopped asking about it. The first planet they took me to was amazing, Leo! The creatures there!” He opens his portfolio and starts quickly thumbing through it.

  “Those people in the van that you were so afraid of. You said they were The Others?”

  “Uh-huh.” He’s still looking through his portfolio.

  “But Dr. Viridian and Dr. Pierce are people, Tim. The Others—the enemies of the heads—are they Earth people, human beings?”

  “No, no, no!” he says, as though I’m being stupid again. “They’re some other kind of alien.”

  “So how could you tell Dr. Viridian was one of The Others if he looked just like a person?”

  “Because they told me The Others might try to get me, so I figured it was them. The Others are shape changers—they can disguise themselves. It’s not that interesting, Leo, and I’m not supposed to talk about it. I wish I could see better, so I could find that drawing!”

  In a way, it’s typical: Tim has always been obsessed with his artwork—and himself. But it’s also odd that when I first picked him up he was so afraid of Dr. Viridian and whoever else was in the van, and now that we’re temporarily away from them, he dismisses them; he doesn’t want to talk about them. Has he been brainwashed or something? Whatever the reason, I’m having trouble learning anything from him that might help us—such as how much danger we’re really in.

  “Tim, just forget about your drawings for a minute. It’s too dark to see them anyway. Can you concentrate on what I’m saying? Tim! This is important.”

  He sighs. But he closes the portfolio and turns and looks at me. “Yeah?” he says.

  “Don’t you remember what I told you, about what happened while you were gone? The ones you say are The Others hypnotized the people who were abducted by the heads. The Others took their memories. They might know a lot more than the heads realize. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He nods. “Sure. I haven’t forgotten English, Leo.”

  His insouciance is more frightening than it would be if he were still terrified, simply because it’s so irrational. He really must be brainwashed. “Look. If the heads are telling you the truth, don’t you think they’d want to know what The Others found out?” I ask him, trying to be logical. “Like, what their enemies know about them? Not to mention we’re not safe from The Others. They know my name. They know what you look like. That broken-down van won’t stop them for very long. How are we going to hide from them? If this is true, why aren’t you thinking about that? Aren’t you afraid of what they’ll do to us if they catch us—especially to you, because you were with the heads for so long?”

  “Sure I am,” he says.

  I groan in frustration. “I mean, why did the heads just drop you back here, right in the middle of their enemies? Are they really going
to protect you—and me? Is this part of some kind of plan, or what?”

  “I already told you, Leo. I don’t know very much about those things. That was all a secret from me.”

  “Did the heads make the green van stop?”

  “They must have!” he says impatiently. “Look, all I know about that stuff is that The Others are dangerous. And I’m trying to tell you what I do know, the amazing things I did see. And you just keep worrying about The Others. Why worry about them now? They’re not following us.” He turns and looks out the back window and gestures. “See? There are no other cars on the road.”

  It’s like he’s a crazy person. He’s not reacting to the situation he’s describing. “Yeah, but they will be following us, Tim.” I’m trying to be patient. “And what are we going to do when they catch up with us?”

  We’re on a different road now, closer to home. “Look, there’s an all-night gas station,” Tim says. “We’ll be able to see my drawings under the lights there. Don’t you want to look at just a few?”

  I want to get home because of my parents and also because we might be a little safer there. Still, I am curious about his drawings. And once we get home, if we make it home, and have to deal with our parents—especially Tim’s father—we won’t have a chance to sit around looking at Tim’s drawings. “Five minutes,” I say and pull into the gas station.

  “Of course the colors will look all wrong here, because of the bad lighting,” he says. “But you should be able to get some idea.”

  When I see the first drawing, my heart sinks. Tim really is crazy; it’s just a lot of scribbles.

  But I keep looking. And as I do, the pictures begin to emerge—pictures that are all the more realistic and three-dimensional because they do consist of so many complex lines and cross-hatchings. I see several views of a rough-hewn city; all the buildings are carved out of translucent gems of various colors. It is a mountainous, vertical city designed for creatures who can fly: There are entrances to the buildings at all levels and no stairways or ramps or elevators. The bodies of the birdlike creatures flocking among the buildings are very small in relation to their wings, but their bald heads are quite large.