“Can I stay here awhile?” I ask.
“No,” Ryker answers. I’m biting the inside of my cheek when he adds, “I may speak with them before the next time we meet, though,” he says.
“How long is that going to be?” I ask. “Can’t you just drop me back home for a little while? I’ll get some sleep and then you can come back—”
“They won’t make a decision while you’re here,” he interrupts.
All my life I’ve heard people can adapt to almost anything, but I never thought I would start to miss Ryker when I’m not with him. I know it’s just the gratification and the attention that I crave, but it feels more immediate than that.
“How long do we have?” I ask.
The next thing I know, I’m waking up on the couch in the cabin. I can still feel Ryker’s warm embrace.
Chapter 9
Within half an hour of waking, I’m hardly thinking about Ryker or the Arcturians or the sordid arrangement. It never fails. No matter how many times it happens, once I’m up and moving, that other part of my life is just distant white noise, and it still doesn’t feel real to me yet.
Today, though, I’m determined to get some answers.
I start walking around the circle of Lakeview Drive, wondering if anyone will even notice. After walking along this path for what could just as easily have been days as hours, the people up here either think I’m losing my grip on reality and were politely ignoring me, or they know what was happening, and maybe they can fill me in on just what happened to me.
It’s almost noon. I consider going to Max’s, but I feel a bit sorry about the last time I saw Marty. I was startled when he surprised me in the driveway; I think I may have been pretty rude to him. If I’m going to be up here for any extended period, I’m going to be seeing a lot of Marty. He’s the only one with food to sell here in town, and I’m not going to drive however far it is to the nearest grocery store outside of Lake Vespertine.
The only option is to make peace.
When I finally get to the general store, Marty’s at the side of the shop unloading some boxes from the back of his truck. He doesn’t see me until I’m almost next to him.
“Hey Marty,” I say in a quiet voice. “Need a hand?”
He glances over at me as he’s picking up his next box.
“Nah,” he says. “I’m ‘bout done. Change your mind ‘bout those granola bars?”
“Still allergic,” I say, perpetuating the lie that may just save my taste buds’ lives. “I was wondering if you might have a minute to talk.”
Marty sets his box down, stacking it with the rest of today’s delivery. He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and squints in the sun. “What’s on your mind?” he asks.
“Now, I know this is going to sound weird,” I start, and I don’t have any idea where to go from there. While Mrs. Blaylock almost certainly knows about the Arcturians, that doesn’t mean anyone else in town does.
“Kate, what’s wrong?” he asks, his eyebrows drawn together and pulled up in an expression way too full of sadness for what I have to ask.
“It’s nothing, really,” I tell him. “It’s just, I don’t know. I’ve been feeling a little out of it since arriving here—maybe it’s a bug or something. I don’t know. A week or two ago, I found myself walking around Lakeview Drive and I’d apparently been doing that for hours. I guess I was just wondering if you happened to see anything.”
“See anything?” he asks.
I don’t know what more to say without going into the kind of detail that could very well earn me a 72-hour psych hold.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Like did you see me out there, do you happen to know how long I was walking, that kind of thing.”
Marty lifts the bill of his cap and resettles it higher on his forehead as he wipes the sweat from his brow again. “Well, I’ve seen ya going past the store a couple of times, but I can’t say as I’ve seen ya just walking around in circles neither, so I don’t know what to tell ya,” he says.
“Got ya,” I say and I rock back and forth in place, trying to think of how best to get out any more conversation. “Thanks,” I tell him. “I think I’ve just been dealing with exhaustion. It must have been a dream.”
Marty looks down and away before returning his gaze to meet mine, saying, “If you want, I can get the doctor to come by your place. He ain’t expected ‘til later this week to see about getting that Marlinton kid on Ritalin, but I bet he could make a stop before then.”
“The Marlintons had a kid?” I ask.
Marty’s eyes go wide and stay wide. “Can’t be more than six now,” he says. “The girl’s a terror. Since the kid started walking, I’ve lost thousands in damaged merchandise. Parents don’t want to discipline her, though, say they don’t want to stifle that creative mind of hers. I keep telling them there’s a big difference between creative and destructive, but I don’t know. I guess they ain’t seeing it.”
“Huh,” I respond, glancing off in the direction of the Marlinton’s cabin. I don’t know the Marlintons, not well at any rate. The last I’d heard, though, they were talking about getting a divorce. Granted, that would have been about ten years ago now, but I wasn’t expecting them to procreate.
“Anything else I can help ya with?” Marty asks as he positions himself at his tailgate and lifts the next box off the back of the truck.
“Yeah,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck with my hand. “I was wondering: Do you know how I could get four new tires? There was a bit of an incident, and it looks like I’m going to need to replace all of them.”
I might have asked earlier, but I wasn’t sure whether that would be some cause for Mrs. Blaylock to lose her head more completely. Now, though, I’m much more worried about being able to leave when the time comes.
“Well, I keep a couple of spares around for the truck, but I don’t think they’d fit your car,” he says. “I can call up one of my buddies in town, though. He works at one of them big department stores that got everything.”
“If you could,” I say, “that would be great. I’d appreciate it, and of course, I’d pay for the trouble.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“What?” I ask, blinking.
“I mean, I’m sure we can figure something out, a payment plan or something,” he says. “Four new tires ain’t cheap no matter where ya go.”
“Thanks, Marty. I’ll probably be by later to pick up some supplies for the week,” I tell him, and I start off again. He nods and goes about unloading the rest of the merchandise off the truck.
I go by Max’s, but he must be off somewhere in the county on duty, so I start back for home to complete the vast circle of the lake. As I’m walking, though, I can’t help but gaze at the dark waters Mrs. Blaylock was so adamant I never approach. From the current state of my car, though, I don’t think it was the lake that was the issue.
A dozen tiny streams come off the hills and mountains that drain into the lake, though there’s only a single creek leaving it. A fish jumps and is lost again in the dark waters below.
One of the many local legends I heard around here as a kid was that the lake itself is too deep for divers to find the bottom, though I’m pretty sure it’s just that nobody’s tried. The lake is certainly deeper than it is wide, though. Standing on the edge of the lake is like standing on the brink of an abyss, and I suppose in a way, it is. As Nietzsche said, though: that abyss stares right back.
Mrs. Blaylock didn’t need to tell me to stay away from the lake. I’ve been terrified of it since I can remember.
Still, there’s that undeniable draw.
“Hey!” a voice I haven’t heard in a very long time comes from the far side of the road and I turn.
Sitting on a camping chair between two trees is Chartreuse, though I usually just think of her as Mrs. Marty.
“Hey Char,” I answer. “I didn’t even see ya there.”
The woman lifts the mouth of her beer ca
n to hers and throws back her head, draining however much she had left in a matter of a couple of seconds. She crumples up the can with one hand and reaches into her cooler for another one. “Heard you were back in town,” she says as she runs her fingers through her unkempt blonde mullet. “Ol’ Marty won’t shut up about it.”
“Yeah,” I answer. “Gramma Ambra passed, I’m sure you’ve heard.”
“What you doing up here?” she asks.
I furrow my brow. “Gramma Ambra passed,” I repeat. “I’m up here getting her things in order.”
“Apparently, you ain’t picking up what I’m laying down,” the woman says, adjusting one of the straps of her tank top, though if she was concerned with modesty, she might have worn a bra. Seriously, it’s like she’s smuggling pebbles against her tits (her preferred term, not mine.) “What’s taking ya so long?”
“There’s more than I’d expected,” I tell her. “I don’t suppose you happened to talk to her before—”
“Nah,” she says. “I don’t get involved with stuff like that.”
I cock my head. “Stuff like what?” I ask.
“You know,” she says, finishing off her second beer since in the last five minutes, “talking to people when they’re on their way ain’t exactly my specialty.”
“I understand,” I answer.
She squints up at me and, as she vigorously scratches the partially-exposed skin of her left breast, she asks, “Want a beer?”
Most of the time I’ve spent talking to Mrs. Marty, I’ve gotten the impression she does not like me. Then she’ll do something like offer me a beer and I don’t know what to think.
“Not right now,” I tell her, “but maybe a bit later. I’ve got a lot of work to do today, and I am a total lightweight when it comes to—”
“No works fine enough,” she says, reaching into her cooler, but only finding ice. “Damn,” she says. “Hey, would you mind watching this chair ‘til I get back? It looks like I gotta lug another case back from the store.”
Nobody’s going to steal her chair. Nobody would want to take her seat. That camping chair she’s sitting on is about as old as I am, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her when she wasn’t sitting in it. Maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m reasonably confident the woman doesn’t shower. Even if that weren’t the case, crime is nonexistent at Lake Vespertine, minus the occasional shoplifting visitor.
“Sure,” I tell her. “I’ll wait here until you get back.”
I have a hard time saying no to people.
“Great,” she says. “Be back in a minute.”
She gets up and staggers off in the wrong direction before stopping, turning around and with screeching laughter starts off the other way. It’s not until she’s out of sight behind the trees surrounding the lake that I realize it would have taken less time if I’d just offered to get the beer for her.
The first half hour isn’t so bad, but after that, I start to get a bit nervous. I don’t want just to leave. I’ve seen Char when she gets mad, and it’s not the kind of thing I want coming at me. Still, I’m not just going to stand here all day, waiting for her to remember to get back to get her chair.
While I stick to my guns about not standing here guarding a twenty-dollar chair, I do spend the better part of two hours waiting. If I hadn’t noticed the metal rings around the bottom of the chair’s legs, anchoring it to the ground, I probably would have stayed longer.
I get back to the cabin and walk inside finding the three neat stacks comprising all of Gramma’s things not already boxed looking like way too much to manage all by myself. Of course, if I’d had more boxes to put stuff in, I probably would have had everything finished up by now.
Maybe I’ll end up staying here for a while, even after my time is up with Ryker. I don’t know. As awkward as I feel here, though, I still get a tugging feeling in my chest every time I think about never coming back.
The cabin is mine for as long as I want it, but it’s not the only thing I need to survive. Sooner or later, I am going to have to leave this place, but until I do, I’m going to need food and other supplies. I still haven’t called to tell my landlord I’m canceling my lease, much less have I moved anything out of my old place.
For a while, I go about sweeping and dusting the cabin, but eventually I give up. Now would be an excellent time to call one of my friends. You know, if any of them were the type of people who might be willing to give me a hand without the promise of a cash reward. Unfortunately, though, I only seem to attract the takers.
I lie down on the couch to take a load off for a few minutes, but the next time I open my eyes, it’s dark outside.
I’m checking the time on my phone when a bright light invades the cabin, blinding me. At first, I’m excited thinking Ryker’s coming for me, but the light dims a moment later, and I’m still alone in the cabin.
While the light may have dimmed, it didn’t disappear, and I can still see the glowing source of the light at the far end of the lake. I get up and make my way to the door, opening it just enough to peer through the screen door.
The light is steady and, from what little I can see from where I’m standing, it seems to be at least a few feet above the lake. I don’t know why Ryker or his “others” wouldn’t just come into the cabin as they have been. Nevertheless, I leave the cabin and start making my way around the lake.
It’s hard not to feel nervous as I walk. Before I left Ryker the last time, I asked him if I might stay a little longer after… well, you know. I know next to nothing about the Arcturians and their culture, only what they’ve shown and told me themselves.
The strangest thing I notice as I’m hurrying around Lakeview Drive is that the light just above the lake is growing dimmer the closer I come to it. It’s not until I come within sight of the shore that I see someone standing on the beach, facing the lake.
It’s Mrs. Blaylock.
I can see the water coming up to meet the woman’s shoes. There’s something in the light. It’s hard to say whether it’s a solid form or not, but an Arcturian with very pale skin is at the center of the glow.
I’m probably about fifty feet away from the two, and I duck down behind some greenery as I look closer at the scene. The two are looking at each other, but neither is speaking. If they are, I can’t hear anything.
The Arcturian’s head rotates and he’s looking directly at me. I fill with a sense of dread, and somehow I know the being in the light isn’t Ryker. Mrs. Blaylock’s head starts to turn toward me as well before an explosion of light blinds me before disappearing entirely, only a few of what looks like sparks bouncing off the surface of the water before fading.
The flash has left my eyes to adjust again to the darkness, but I still turn and use the edge of the road for guidance as I do what I can to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible. With every step I take, I can hear another coming from behind me.
Chapter 10
I haven’t slept, and it’s not because I napped most of yesterday. Every passing second since I got back to the cabin, I’ve been waiting for something unbelievably bad to happen, though I can only speculate as to what that might be.
By the time the sun is high in the sky, though, I start to feel a little silly. Mrs. Blaylock told me not to go near the lake, probably because she doesn’t think I know about the Arcturians. It was dumb of me to think I was the only one that knew anything.
It still takes me another half hour before I’m ready to get up off the couch and then, only because there’s a knock at the door.
As I walk across the living room, I look around for something to use as a weapon in case one of my shapeless fears decides to take form, but there’s nothing that seems like it would work.
I’m standing in front of the door now, trying to decide whether or not to answer it.
Another knock falls and this time it’s accompanied by a man’s voice, saying, “Hey Kate? I got some news on those tires you asked about yesterday outside the shop. You
home?” It’s Marty.
I open the door.
“Hey there,” he says. “I just wanted to let you know I’ve given my buddy a call, and he thinks he might have something that’ll work for ya.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s great. What does he have?”
“Well, it’s not so much about what he has as what one of his guys has,” Marty answers. “Now, it looks like the guy does not intend to sell just the tires, you know. He’s seeking to sell the whole car, but I got my buddy’s promise that he’s going to see what he can do about it.”
“How much is he selling the tires for, do you know?” I ask.
Marty scratches his forehead, saying, “Well, the car’s like yours, and I think he’s looking to sell it for about five thousand. Just the tires, you’re gonna get a pretty good discount, though…” He stares off into space above my head, his mouth moving as he tries to figure out the math. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple hundred,” he says. “It’s hard to tell how someone’s gonna wanna figure out a cost like that, but I’d say it’d be a better deal than you’d get at a tire shop.”
Alien Romance Box Set: Alien Heart Complete Series (Books 1-4): A SciFi (Science Fiction) Alien Warrior Abduction Invasion Romance Box Set Page 35
