The HUM: The complete novel

by Michael Christopher Carter

  Carys literally took a step back in astonishment. “Wool for… mation?” she broke the word into two parts, so unfathomable was its emergence from Ebe’s lips. He was an enigma. That was undoubtable.

  She thought she better phone Marco, just to let him know the wool would be gone by the time he came home, and dialled his direct number. Carys detected reluctance, but he agreed to come home for dinner.

  “You won’t believe what Ebe can do now!” she gushed, excitedly telling him about Ebe’s speech: his clear ‘Marco,’ and ‘wool formation.’

  Marco seemed less than impressed, reacting with understandable scepticism. Logically, she supposed, it made more sense his crazy wife was imagining things: that Ebe was making long overdue guttural noises which she’d misinterpreted as actual words. But she couldn’t help but be insulted.

  She was in the middle of organising the ingredients for her speciality, ‘moules marniere,’ when the front door flew open to a cheerful sounding Marco.

  “Something smells fantastic!” he announced as he bounded into the kitchen, flourishing fresh flowers from behind his back. “I’m sorry I left you to cope on your own last night,”

  She bristled with anger now. Trying to control it, not wanting to discourage the magnanimous gesture of his apology and flowers, but she found she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Why didn’t you believe me?” Her stare would pierce lead. “Why would I make up stories about Ebe? To impress you? Or do you think I’m just sooo screwed up..?”

  Marco struggled to answer. Mouth opening and closing in an attempt to speak before his brain had constructed anything, he was forced to listen to more from his furious wife.

  “If you did think I was cracking up, why would you leave me on my own? You know how I can get! You know what can happen!”

  Things were not going how he’d planned. He knew he shouldn’t have left last night, but he’d needed some breathing space. It had been selfish.

  Carys knew her insistence Ebe had constructed that woollen… thing was preposterous. It was more than that, it was a physical impossibility. He wasn’t tall enough to reach. And as for balancing the chairs on top of one other? Well, he had enough trouble sitting on a chair without falling off. How was Marco expected to believe that suddenly he’d developed super-human strength and dexterity?

  He couldn’t put his own clothes on, and was not even vaguely capable of tying his shoelaces. Now she was expecting him to believe he’d constructed something with intricate knots, she herself would find impossible?

  She knew she was being unreasonable, but it was the truth, and she desperately wanted him to believe her. She’d believe him if he told her something similar. Maybe.

  Her doing it in a bi-polar frenzy, and forgetting she’d done it seemed more plausible. It wasn’t just that it made more sense. It was the only explanation that made any sense at all.

  But she knew the truth. She couldn’t stop herself from knowing just to make it convenient for Marco to believe. And so she continued letting him know just how he had wronged her.

  “Because you disrupted the formation…” Carys persisted, “They made it into the house. They almost took Ebe!” she finished tersely.

  “Wa… Wait…What? Who?” he must have been sure it would be something nonsensical from his crazy wife. Carys knew that it sounded insane. Marco had called her that only last night. But if he was going to be a crutch in her times of need, then he needed to accept her, and she needed to be honest.

  She took a deep breath. “The woollen structure Ebe made, it was special.” Marco raised his eyes. Regretting it at once, he tried to recover by coughing and covering his mouth. Carys glared at him and continued.

  “You can scoff, but you only saw it later. You didn’t see the patterns, like corn circles. When the midday sun struck the kitchen window, Ebe seemed to know it was time for… I don’t even know, but he opened the front door and all these shapes appeared.” Marco couldn’t hide his scepticism.

  “Ebe sat in the middle of the lounge in a circle he’d created by moving the chairs on top of the table…”she babbled on. “It was the only spot downstairs that didn’t have any of the patterns on. He sat there until the sun moved, and then we went out for lunch. That’s when I realised it was summer solstice! He’d done all of it to take advantage of the sun in a very particular way. It really is incredible, Marco.”

  Marco listened patiently in silence. It was preferable to becoming involved in a crazy conversation. When would she stop this outlandishness?”

  “Then that the humming noise came. I know what you think about that, but I’ve heard it a lot in my life, and it always means the same thing.” Marco stifled a sigh. “When I was a child, not much older than Ebe is now, they came for me. The humming noise had been around for days. Everybody heard it, not just me. They came for me and did awful things to me.”

  “Did what things?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s only snippets of memory, now. Them standing over me; futuristic looking machinery.”

  “And by ‘them’ you mean…”

  “Yes. I can’t think of anything else they could’ve been. They were aliens, yes.” It felt good to be honest.

  “The humming noise came again when I was out on my first ‘date’ with that arsehole, Stephen Holmes. He can’t remember what happened. We both saw indiscernible figures… I remember waking up in my bed, not a clue how I’d got there, and then…” she paused for breath. “I moved here, and discovered I was pregnant! Stephen isn’t Ebe’s father. One of them is. You must believe me now.”

  Expectation for Marco’s response grew unbearable. He was clearly floundering. Was that a squint or a frown? What was he thinking?

  “They came again last night and tried to take Ebe,” she said when her pause was left silent for too long. “I think his wool thing was designed to stop them somehow, but you damaged it!

  “I thought I’d lost him forever… that they’d taken him away from me and I’d never see him again. But this morning… he was back in bed with me!” Marco snorted, but nothing could suppress her wide grin at the next revelation. “And now he can speak. He never spoke before, and now he can, he really can!”

  Was she having some sort of bipolar episode? Marco wondered. That was one of her symptoms, wasn’t it? Fast talking and strange conspiracy theories? He decided to try to help by giving an alternative, more plausible explanation. There was no benefit in pretending she had a point. It was important to confront her and make her see sense. Only then would she be willing to get the psychiatric help she so clearly needed.

  “Listen,” he began, ominously. “I’m not sure I believe in all this alien stuff. Hear me out though.”

  Carys sat, prepared to listen. “Go on,” she invited.

  “We may as well start at the beginning,” he said calmly, trying not to sound patronising. “You’ve told me before about your experience when you were Ebe’s age. You said how everyone had told you it was just a dream. A waking nightmare.

  “Well if we assume there’s no such thing as aliens, just for a minute, then ‘waking nightmare’ doesn’t sound too bad an explanation, does it?” he raised his eyebrows. He didn’t wait for Carys’s agreement before ploughing on. “Your mum’s reaction made it seem real to you, because you were so young.”

  Carys looked unconvinced, but she had agreed to listen.

  “When you were raped by that…, and I won’t believe you weren’t,” he said in reply to Carys’s rising eyebrows. “He took advantage of your beliefs to get himself off the hook. It’s so obvious. I didn’t think you actually believed what you were saying yourself. I thought you just didn’t want that boy involved with Ebe. Especially as you’d just met me.

  “You can’t really believe Ebe has an E.T. for a dad?! Come on, mun! I know he’s a little bit strange, and his development has been, shall we say ‘challenging’; but you were raped by that boy and that’s all there is to it.”

  Carys nodded slowly.

  “
With all those thoughts in your young head, it’s no wonder you’ve seen things the way you have. As for Ebe’s web. I think you must have made it yourself,” he asserted. “You must not remember doing it, that’s all.”

  “Why would I do that?” Carys asked indignantly.

  “Why would Ebe?” he argued. “How could he possibly understand things you don’t?” he stressed. “You must have subconsciously known it was summer solstice, and made your wool creation, and then… I don’t know. You must not be… well,” he concluded.

  So he still thought she was insane, Carys thought. “What about the carpet scuffs? And the marks on the wall?”

  “I’m not saying things didn’t happen,” he mollified. “I’m not saying the wardrobe wasn’t moved. I’m saying that I think you did it. You did all of it, and you just don’t remember.”

  “But Marco. I saw them! Very clearly, I saw them!” she fumed. “Creatures with big eyes, and grey, hairless skin. There were even taller ones that seemed to be in charge. I saw them, Marco. I didn’t imagine it!”

  Marco didn’t want to upset her too much, but had to sustain his explanation in order for it to be of any use.

  “It isn’t the first time you’ve ‘seen’ things, people, though is it? It probably won’t be the last. You know with your borderline disorder that when you get too stressed you have hallucinations, don’t you? That humming noise, whatever it is, must be an instant trigger because of your past. It doesn’t make it real though.” He smiled reassuringly at his wife.

  Carys began to object. She knew what had happened, even if Marco didn’t. Just because it sounded like nonsense didn’t mean it was nonsense. Expecting her rejection of his theory, Marco gave her an ultimatum.

  “I know it all seems so real to you. I know,” he said with false authority. “I just can’t accept that aliens are what all this is about. No-one will,” he stated assuredly.

  He was right about that, conceded Carys.

  “If you can see… If you can see I’m right, well…” said Marco. “I can get you help. Everything can be alright.”

  Carys thought for a moment. There was nobody to tell and nobody she wanted to tell. No-one could do anything. She didn’t want to lose Marco for no reason. Her own beliefs were of little consequence weren’t they? She smiled reassuringly back at him before answering.

  “Yes. Of course. You’re right.”

  Beaming at her, weight lifting from his shoulders, he noticeably relaxed. Reaching out, he put his hand on hers.

  “Thank you,” he said, recognising how hard it was for her to go along with him.

  At just the perfect moment to break the tension, Ebe came rushing in.

  “Mummaay! Mumaay? Wot iss dinner?”

  “Moules mariniere,” she answered, and not waiting to see if he understood she simplified it, “Mussels, a type of seafood, in a creamy source. Yum Yum!” she declared, and he grinned at her.

  “Yum yum,” he repeated. He turned to Marco. He appeared not to have noticed him come home. Turning back to Carys he said. “Marco no angwee anymore?” he turned away from Carys again but not quite back to Marco.

  “Sorry, Marco. I know you not like Ebe’s woollen formation,” he said, addressing Marco but not making eye contact.

  Marco looked at Ebe in stunned silence. Where he should have reassured him, or at least accepted his apology, he said nothing. He teetered on his chair before finally speaking.

  “Bloody Hell!” he roared, inappropriately for the son of a minister. The tension broken, Carys began to laugh. Ebe joined her, and poor Marco had no choice but to join in too. Ebe’s laugh was very infectious.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  July, 2022.

  Marco’s Surprise

  It had been a difficult year. They thought it was just another symptom of her ongoing mental illness. Why it would suddenly rage again, when it had been so well controlled for such a long time, was a subject Geraint and Carys were considering taking legal action about.

  It was too painful to drag it all up and go through all the details, but there was still time. But if they could prove it was the fault of the medical profession, it wouldn’t offer much comfort now. Diane’s enormous raging tumour took hold of her brain, and ultimately killed her within months of being diagnosed.

  If things could have been different. If when her speech started to slur, someone had suspected the truth instead of blaming side effects of her medication as the culprit. A C.T. scan was booked a couple of times, but then been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. There was a letter asking if she still required an appointment, but Diane had ignored it.

  She suspected all was not right, and quite frankly did not want to know. But if she had known, could they have removed more of the tumour? It was all conjecture, and unbearably painful at that. Today, Carys was determined to be cheerful.

  She had surprised herself, and Marco with her coping skills. She’d stayed out of hospital, and not resorted to harming herself, remaining on quite an even keel.

  The Amish man and the Rebecca showed themselves, but hadn’t had much to say. She could see them from the corner of her eye drifting to sleep, but they weren’t real, and she was determined to take no notice of them should they spout forth their usual venomous counsel.

  Perhaps that was why they’d remained silent. More likely, it was the tweaking of her medication after telling her psychiatrist her concerns. He’d said grief was natural and would take its time. It was unavoidable, but to make some adjustments to see her through was probably a good idea.

  She had packed everything with her because they were staying the night at a quite magnificent country hotel on the outskirts of the University City of Cambridge, according to its description online. It seemed most appropriate, given the nature of their visit.

  She was so proud of her son. Now it was his graduation, from Cambridge no less, she couldn’t help but think back to when he couldn’t even speak at all…

  Having spoken his first words, he carried on learning more and more, but pronounced words oddly. He had joined school at the same time as the other children. A recommended delay, for him to catch up with his speech and language difficulties, hadn’t proved necessary.

  Whilst he was behind the other children, it had been decided he was a clever boy and would be able to attend mainstream school, with help. He was awarded twenty hours a week LSA support, plus additional lessons specifically targeting his needs.

  He made it most of his way through his first few years with a continued diagnosis of a speech and language disorder. The school staff talked, and Carys and Marco talked, and at the parents evening at the end of one of the spring terms, they talked to each other. There was, they all agreed, something more going on.

  “He’s a genius,” his teacher announced. She was new to Ebe and still getting used to his funny ways, Carys remembered. “Don’t get me wrong,” she had said. “He has his difficulties. There was a time when I thought he might be…” she struggled for a polite way to express her initial impression. “Lacking in intelligence. He wouldn’t tackle the maths problems set, and we assumed they were a little advanced for him. Not a bit of it! They must have bored him to tears.” She paused for breath and actively calmed herself before continuing

  “We were using the computers, if you remember signing a form allowing Ebe to have lessons browsing the internet and such like?” Carys and Marco nodded their recollection, and Miss Simpson continued her narrative.

  “Well,” she said. “Ebe absolutely loved it. He doesn’t much enjoy playing outside with the other children. He prefers to stay near his LSA, so it wasn’t a great surprise when he seemed to want to stay and use the computer over his lunch break. Sarah, the LSA agreed to stay with him. It was just so nice to see him so animated.”

  Carys and Marco carried on nodding.

  “He managed to negotiate the web effortlessly, and it started to become a bit of a regular thing. As his competence became more established, Sarah took more of a
back seat. To be honest she said he was better at it than her!”

  Marco and Carys grinned, expecting this was the reason for her having declared him a genius. They were wrong.

  “He started to do a bit more with it, exploring the other functions of the computer. Within a week or so he seemed to know what every button on the windows platform did and started looking at the code behind it. That’s what he told Sarah, anyway.” She could barely contain her excitement as she told further of Ebe’s success.

  “We do little talks in front of the class once a week. Children might bring something in from home, or just chat about something they like to do. It’s kind of ‘show and tell’ but they don’t have to bring anything.” She looked intently at Ebe’s parents.

  “Ebe has, understandably, been reluctant to become involved. We try to encourage him because it is a good way for the children to get to know one another,” she said.

  “With his speech difficulties we didn’t push him too far, but one day he announced he had something to show us. We were all intrigued as he guided us to join him at the computer where he showed us…” she was overcome with pride and excitement.

  “Showed you what?” asked Carys. Miss Simpson led the pair of them over to the computer in the corner of the room.

  “I hope I can demonstrate,” she said. “Ah yes. Here it is.” And she clicked on something with the mouse cursor.

  “It isn’t that clear,” she said. “The graphics need some imagination to interpret.”

  Carys and Marco looked at the monitor. Miss Simpson was right. It wasn’t clear what they were looking at.

  “Ebe explained what was going on, surprisingly eloquently. No, actually, incredibly advanced for anyone,” she amended, “not just someone with his difficulties. He used words I just did not expect him to.”

  She pointed at part of the screen. “It’s a simulator. A kind of game. The aim, I think is to guide yourself, that is, the point of view of the camera, into a portal, or black hole or something. Once the portal is discovered the graphics disappeared. Ebe explained that he didn’t know what was through the doorway so he hadn’t made it. He said we could use our imaginations!”