‘I don’t believe this,’ she said.
Richard didn’t reply. He simply raised his glass and drank. Then he went to the windows and looked out to see the lights of the city. The whole of London was ablaze, the individual lights seeming to join together in darkness, and as they merged, they fused together in his thoughts, making him turn away, shivering. Jenny sat back in her chair, her shabby parka across her lap, her legs still outstretched, attractively long and slim, lethargically mocking him.
‘Five days,’ she said. ‘You said you’ve been here for five days. I didn’t really believe it when you told me, but now I’m convinced.’ She raised both her hands, indicating the squalid room, then the hands dropped to rest on one another as her gaze took him in again. ‘You and the apartment look the same,’ she said. ‘You both look fucking terrible.’
Richard tried to grin and failed; instead, feeling embarrassed, he looked around him before slowly, reluctantly, returning his gaze to Jenny, wondering what he could say to her.
‘It’s a mess all right,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘a bloody mess. What the hell have you been doing all this time. Having an orgy?’
This time Richard managed a grin, a weak offering, not his usual, then his blue gaze, which once had been candid, slid furtively sideways.
‘What are you looking at?’ Jenny asked.
‘Nothing,’ Richard replied.
‘Take a good look,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s worth studying. I’ve never seen the place like this before.’ Her eyes were bright with anger, flecked with steel, wondering over the littered armchairs, the stained settee, the cluttered tables, the bottles dropped carelessly to the floor, the newspapers and magazines. ‘You only got this apartment so cheap,’ she reminded him, ‘because my friend is still holding the lease, Now it’s not a great apartment, but it is pretty good, and I don’t think you’ll impress her too much by turning it into a pigsty.’
Richard finished off his glass of wine, shuddered again and turned away, picked a half-empty bottle off the table and filled his glass and then had another sip.
‘Don’t offer me a drink,’ Jenny said. ‘The sight of you has already put me off it.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t think. You want one?’
‘No.’ Jenny smiled bleakly, not removing her steady gaze from his face. ‘Even your parents think you’re still down in Cornwall. What the hell’s going on?’
Turning away, Richard went to the windows, and stood there for some time, looking out, a man lost in his thoughts.
‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘It seems crazy. I don’t think you’ll believe me.’
‘Try me.’
He turned back to face her, his eyes bloodshot, remote, the light shining on the wine in his glass, the glass visibly shaking.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get to St. Ives. Something happened on the way to St. Ives that I just can’t explain. You’ll probably think I’ve gone mad.’
‘And have you?’
‘What?’
‘Gone mad.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure.’
He shivered again, his gaze slipping furtively sideways, finding the ghost of himself in the squalor, his distraught other half. Then he told her his story, talking hurriedly, almost frantically, pacing to and fro, his hands shaking, spilling wine, running nervous fingers through his uncombed hair, his eyes avoiding her face. Surprisingly, it was now easy to tell the tale – more than easy: a burning necessity – and as he listened to his own voice, as the words came tumbling out, he felt that he was coming apart, losing his old, protected self, changing into someone wiser, less assured, aware of life’s hidden mysteries…
‘That was near King Arthur’s Hall. King Arthur’s Hall is on Bodmin Moor. The last thing I remembered was the blinding white light and those silhouetted figures… Like a dream, a kind of wide-awake vision, not real; and I screamed and then heard myself groaning and had nightmares and woke up… Inexplicably, I was back in Dartmoor.’
He was silent for a moment, as if questioning himself, doubting his own words, then he said, ‘Can you imagine the feeling? I was dazed and scared shitless. It was cold, but I was burning all over – my hands were burnt red. I mean, I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t know what had happened. I walked down the road, hitched a lift with a local, and when I tried to tell him what had happened, he clearly thought I was crazy…’
He tapered off and sucked his breath in, then let it out in a loud sigh. ‘I caught a train and came back here. I saw my burnt face in the mirror. That made me feel even more frightened and I started drinking to keep the fear at bay. I didn’t know what I should do. I didn’t want to tell anyone. The drinking didn’t kill the fear and the fear was something else, something living inside me. What I mean is, it seemed real. It seemed to be a living presence. I could feel it there beside me, right behind me, something tangible, physical… Then I thought about the woman. What had happened to her? She was real, had to be – we spent hours in her car – then both of us, inside the car, were drawn into that spaceship?’
He sucked his breath in again, let it out in another sigh. ‘Spaceship? I don’t know. I know that sounds crazy… But something – something enormous – came down and opened up and then swallowed us… Unbelievable. Ridiculous. I still can’t grasp that it happened. I can’t believe it, yet it had to be real… It just had to be; had to be.
‘So, I stayed here. I had real problems sleeping. I forced myself out every morning, but I couldn’t stay out long. I kept imagining things. I always felt I was being followed. I’d come back to the apartment and start drinking again and hear the walls creaking. I was terrified of sleeping. At night, I’d fall asleep anyway. I dreamed that they were coming to get me, but they never materialized.
‘I wanted to call you, call my parents or the police, but every time my hand reached for the phone the fear would come back in spades. I think it’s going away now. It’s still here, but not so bad. I think the booze is finally burning out the fear – maybe just because you’re here – but I still feel uneasy. What happened out there? What happened to that woman? I awakened three days later on Dartmoor. I have to know where those days went…’
He stopped talking and blinked a few times, saw the light bulb above him, a dazzling sun, blinding him, making him melt down to his essence. He shook his head and licked his lips, glanced at Jenny, turned away, picked a bottle from the table and poured more wine, letting it splash on his wrist. He had a drink and gasped loudly, as if about to choke, then he shuddered and sank into a chair, facing Jenny’s cold gaze.
‘You’re drunk,’ she said.
‘Jesus Christ, is that your answer?’
‘You’re drunk and you’ve been drinking for days and the drink is now talking.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ Richard said.
‘I’m not an idiot,’ Jenny said. ‘What the hell were you doing with that woman in a parked car at night?’
‘What?’
‘Your lady friend. Red hair and green eyes. You and some bitch in her car in the middle of Bodmin Moor.’
‘Damn it, Jenny – ’
‘Bodmin Moor, my love? The middle of desolate Bodmin Moor? Do you really expect me to believe that this woman’s car just broke down? Come on, love, pull the other leg.’
‘It didn’t break down,’ Richard said. ‘That huge flying saucer, or maybe the smaller saucers, made it cut out! Believe me, there was nothing wrong with the car. Those things killed its engine.’
‘Oh, dear God, what a story!’
Richard’s head began to swim, his hands shaking even more, as the logic of her feminine reasoning mocked his pitiful fears. Suddenly he was filled with mirth, an hysterical urge to laugh, bubbling up to his throat and sticking there, almost making him choke. It was just too ridiculous (could she really be jealous?) and he licked his dry lips and blinked repeatedly, trying to keep her in focus.
‘Fuck you,’ she said. ‘That’s why yo
u’ve been drinking. You hitchhike to Cornwall, you get picked up by some tart, you both get drunk and then she makes you an offer that you simply can’t refuse. God, you miserable bastard! What a puritan you must be! You had a bit on the side, a brief fling, and now you just can’t admit it… But UFOs… Oh, Lord!’
She shook her head despairingly, rolled her eyes, crossed her long legs, then gazed around the room with studied interest, as if thinking of other things.
‘It was a UFO,’ Richard said. ‘A big UFO and smaller saucers.’
‘Filled with little green men, no doubt.’
‘Okay, Jenny, fuck it, just forget it. Go to hell. Go on home.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘So I’m drunk.’
‘You should have tried to stay sober. At least sober you’d have thought of a decent story. Now you know what the wine can do.’
Richard stood up, swaying, the room spinning around him, then he steadied himself and went to the table and poured some more wine.
‘I’m going home,’ Jenny said.
Sighing, she stood up, walked across to the bookshelves, ran her finger through the dust, held it up and ostentatiously studied it. She was attractive standing there, slim and elegant in casual clothes, but he looked at her without feeling his former desire for her, only feeling removed from her. It was odd to feel that way. He felt no desire at all. He then realized that he had not thought once of sex during the whole nightmarish five days. Jenny’s presence had not changed that. He still felt sexually dead. He was ruled by his head, by the fear, and all else had been numbed in him. What did he feel? Nothing outside himself. He no longer felt anything but dread, his ever-present, cold terror. Jenny turned around to face him. She was tense and antagonistic: a pretty girl, someone from his past, with no place in his future… someone talking from faraway.
‘I don’t believe this,’ she said.
‘Neither do I’ Richard said.
‘Did you really think I’d fall for that story? Or is the drink just too much for you?’
Suddenly, Richard felt rage, an unreasonable, brutal hatred, recalling the woman in the car, the flying disks by the windows, the beams of light that shone into her eyes and turned her to stone, his own burnt hands and face… Then he stepped up to Jenny, jerked his shirt collar down, lowered his head and then pointed to his neck with a stained, shaking finger.
‘Look!’ he hissed. ‘Damn you, look!’
Jenny was startled by his vehemence, almost pushing him away, her delicate hands flapping loosely in the air and then cupping her face. She glanced briefly at his neck, her brow furrowed, eyes confused, when she saw the livid scar beneath his ear, running under his jawbone.
‘It’s a burn mark,’ she said.
‘Damned right, it’s a burn mark! They shot a beam of light into the car and that’s what it did to me.’
‘Oh, Richard, for God’s sake – ’
He let go of his collar and looked at her with wild eyes, his glass of wine spilling on the floor, further staining the carpet.
‘Fuck it, Jenny, it’s true! Those lights shone into the car. They hypnotized the woman, burned the side of my neck, and then, I swear to God, they did something to the car, took a hold of it somehow, pulled it forward, right into that mother ship. You explain it, Jenny! You tell me!’
He was shouting, flushed crimson, a demented gleam in his eyes, those blue eyes that normally were clear and filled with good humor. Jenny stared at him, transfixed, not quite frightened but nervous, seeing someone other than her familiar Richard, some stranger, a possibly threatening presence. At that moment it became too much to bear – the room’s squalor, his uncommon fury and possible dementia – so she pursed her lips and picked up her parka and tried to hide behind a wall of defiance.
‘I don’t have to explain it, Richard. I don’t believe it and I won’t listen. I don’t know why you’re acting this way and it has me bewildered. But you’re drunk. You’re talking crazy. I won’t accept this bloody nonsense. When you’re sober you can pick up the phone and give me a call. Now I’m going home.’
Richard stumbled toward her, his hand raised to hurl his glass, but he cracked his shin against the coffee table and dropped the glass and cursed loudly. Jenny stepped back, shocked, staring at him with big eyes, then she shook her head sadly from side to side and hurried out of the room. Richard followed her, enraged, but also shaken by his own violence. He raised his hand and shook his fist wildly as she opened the front door.
‘We’re asleep!’ he shouted after her. ‘All of us – we’re asleep! You listen to me, damn it, we’re asleep! We’ll all have to wake up soon!’
He hardly knew what he was shouting, didn’t listen, didn’t care, simply wanting to hear his own voice raging into her silence. The slamming door was his reply – slamming hard: a rebuke – and he cursed and turned back into the room, now horrified by his own performance and shaking even more.
What had happened with Jenny? What the hell had he done? Already the recollection was dreamlike, unreal, slipping out of his reach. The light bulb burned above him, unnaturally bright, mesmerizing, and he blinked and rushed across the room to look down through the windows. He saw Jenny just below him, hurrying along the tarmac path, slinging her parka carelessly across her shoulders as she passed the parked cars. It was dark in the driveway, moonlight filtering through the trees, the fallen leaves drifting around her feet as he walked toward the broken gate. Then she was gone. She had not looked back once. Richard stood there, looking down at the empty darkness, letting the silence embalm him.
Fear. The inexplicable. Dread returned, creeping slyly. Richard found another glass on the table, poured more wine, started drinking. What the hell was he doing? He didn’t normally drink this way. It was funny how quickly you got to needing it, how the fear made your throat go dry. Richard drank and paced the room, his hands shaking, gaze restless, seeing shadows, hearing whisperings in his head, sensing alien presences all around him.
Jenny had left. She had departed and he felt dead. This death was not in Jenny’s departure, but in something much larger. He had died a week ago. The original Richard had disappeared. The new Richard, a haunted creature, sweaty with fear and confusion, was the matrix of something yet to be formed and prepared for an alien world.
Dread and disbelief. A past rendered obsolescent. He glanced up and saw the burning electric bulb, the rings of light surrounding it. All white. Everything. It had started and ended there. His former history, his structured life, his childish belief in an orderly world, had been shattered in the blinding white haze and would never return. He was sane or he was mad. If he was sane, the world was mad. The most fantastic possibilities now arose and left him feeling defenseless.
Richard went back to the windows, looked up at the stars, and was drawn to the vast sweep of the sky. It had happened: he had lived it. Now he understood his fear. It was the fear that it might happen again – or that it might not have happened. He couldn’t separate the two. The two were one and the same. He dreaded learning what the experience might have meant, but feared his ignorance even more.
And what had he shouted at Jenny? What exactly had he meant? We’re all asleep. We’ll all have to wake up soon… What in God’s name did
that mean? Richard shook his head in wonder. He didn’t know what he had meant… Perhaps a belief, possibly just a suspicion, that the fantastic was normal. His farewell. His defiance.
Richard shivered and turned back to face the room. The white telephone gleamed on the table and offered its challenge. Fear. The inexplicable. He couldn’t do it: he couldn’t talk. He thought of Jenny, of her reaction and her departure, and he knew what it meant. If he talked, they would surely think he was mad. No rational being would accept it. Richard trembled and then felt a great hunger that overrode his concern. He had to get out or collapse. He had to return to sanity. He felt spectral, asexual, drained of life, and he had to defeat that. Trembling again, he shook his head and placed his wine g
lass on the table. He glanced around the squalid room, heard the silence, felt the fear, then he reached out and picked up the telephone and dialed the police.
Someone spoke.
Faraway.
Chapter Eight
I retain my contempt. This one emotion is strength. I have needed that strength for many years and will not let it go. What age was I at the time? I think I must have been forty. I still believe it was the explosion over Russia that led to the troubles.
That was 1908. We made a simple mistake. We had a crude form of atomic propulsion and we couldn’t control it. So, we had an explosion. The Tunguska region was devastated. The accident frightened the stock company in New York and that started the problem. Some executive panicked, his panic infected the US government, and they were frightened that the project would be exposed and reacted accordingly. They demanded control of our project. Talked of national security. They made a deal with the corporation in New York and placed us under the military.
The military mind is perverse. It destroys all it touches. Once the military took over our project, I knew it was doomed. An immediate conflict of interests. I presented my case and was rejected. I had dreamed of the Atomic Age, of exploration and research, but the military had only one aim, which was national defense. I knew what that meant: they wanted machines for future wars. And though despising them, I nevertheless worked with them to keep my plants open.
The following years were a nightmare. My contempt for the military deepened. A bottomless pit of paperwork, interdepartmental conflicts, interference of the most ignorant kind, then a cutback in funds. All governments are the same. They lumber along like dinosaurs. Shortsighted, unimaginative, existing only for the moment, they made demands and then cry in protest at the cost, thinking only of votes. Yes, I despise them. That emotion was a luxury. It burned within me all those years and gave me the strength to continue. My contempt lacked morality. But I have never believed in such. Morality, that conceit of free men, is no aid to their progress. So, not moral outrage. No, it wasn’t that. My contempt was for the cowardice and ineptitude that hampered my work.
GENESIS (Projekt Saucer) Page 12
