by David Beers
They were too late, at least for a Stage One containment, but he had figured as much. He feared that whatever was here held intelligence. That was the part that most scared Will, scared him in a way that other assignments hadn’t. Infections infected, but none of the ones before had any real intelligence; they were like moss, growing wherever they found a hospitable environment. Here though, the fact that something so large left only a burnt field, and no impact crater, told him this probably wasn’t a moss. There should have been a massive hole here, one that stretched maybe even all the way to Will’s truck. Nothing, though. Just him, his lantern and pistol, and this circle of faded fire.
“Alright then,” he said aloud, his first words since speaking to the waitress three hours ago.
* * *
Rigley picked the phone up on the second ring, just enough time to see who was calling.
“One second,” she said into the receiver, and then looked up at the people around the table. “I need to take this. We’ll have to reschedule. I’ll have Sarah send you all appointments. Thank you.”
No one raised their eyebrows or showed any sign of discomfort. Rigley knew, in all reality, they were probably ready to leave. Anything to get out of this meeting and the questions she was asking everyone. More than that, what could they say? No? We’d like to finish now, please?
They picked up their things, laptops, tablets, notepads, and headed out the large wooden doors in front of the conference room. Rigley waited until the doors shut completely before she spoke again.
“You’re there?” She asked.
“Yeah, got in last night. Just finished up surveying the area,” Will said.
“And what’d you find?”
“Hard to say for certain yet, but it’s not good, Rigley.”
“No impact?” She asked.
“No, not a single indentation. Whatever came through our atmosphere slowed itself down rapidly. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of miles per hour, slowed down to a standstill within ten or fifteen seconds, if we believe what the satellites are telling us.”
“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” Rigley said. She knew that would be his answer. How could it not be? The world wasn’t in turmoil. Something of that size, at that speed, should have caused serious planet wide disruptions, but there were none. Not a peep. And yet, still, hearing him say it was so much worse. Hearing him say it out loud put everything she had been thinking in clear focus.
“Yeah,” Will answered. “And it’s no longer there. Whatever dropped in left and not the same way it came. It’s in the town.”
“Jesus…” Rigley said, putting her forehead on her left palm. She wouldn’t have said that word in front of anyone that just left this room, and she didn’t want to say it in front of Will either. No one needed to see this, needed to hear her sounding desperate. She hadn’t planned on it; the word just escaped. She forced the slip from her mind, knowing that she couldn’t focus on it now, couldn’t think about what Will’s reaction would be to it. “Okay,” she said, lifting her head up. “What do you need?”
“I’m thinking two scouts. These need to be people that are good, Rigley. The best you have.”
It didn’t sound like he had noticed, heard her momentary desperation. He was worried, but as worried as she was? Maybe, but she could hear it in his voice; he sounded different than when she called him two days ago.
“They’ll be there by noon,” she answered. “Can you find this thing?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “We’ll find it; that won’t be the problem. The problem is going to be if we can contain it.”
He had to contain it. Had to. That’s what Rigley knew, because if he didn’t, then Rigley would have to—don’t go there yet.
The point was, despite her goddamn worrying, that Will had a job to do, just as she did. That Will was down there to ensure that she didn’t have to do anything drastic. He needed to get it together. She might be fretting up here, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t work in Grayson, didn’t mean he could skate. He needed to know the consequences if he messed up, and not just the worry blossoming across her mind.
“I’m giving you forty-eight hours to get it under control. After that, the hammer comes down.”
“Roger,” Will said and hung up the phone, leaving Rigley alone in her office.
The hammer. That’s what this was going to come to—the blooming worry. She could give him ten years, and the hammer would have to come down. They’d used it before on a similar situation, out in the desert, disguised as an atomic bomb test before they dropped the one to end World War II. That was long before her time and there hadn’t been any reason to use it since. Last time it had been in the desert. This time it would be on an American town, and the clean-up of something that massive would be…
She didn’t want to say impossible. Nothing was impossible. But it would be very difficult. People would need to know, people that shouldn’t know about any part of her job. Governments were toppled because of things like this.
But the alternative? A government could collapse if it meant the human race lived on.
Even though she didn’t want to think about it, she knew it was more than that, though. More than her job. More than the government. If she didn’t stop this, if Will didn’t stop this, then she would have to do it again. She swore she wouldn’t, that she would never need to. She swore it on her goddamn child, and if she didn’t get this thing fixed soon, she would have to go back on that promise.
That promise she made to herself and no one else. That promise she didn’t even want to name right now, because in naming it, she reminded herself what she had done all those years ago—in Bolivia.
“It might not be that serious,” she said, leaning back in her chair. Whatever landed didn’t have to be aggressive. It could be…but she knew her mind was going to reject peaceful before she even thought the word. None of the contacts made had ever been peaceful. When things showed up here, they wanted to spread, just like humans. Anytime a human culture met a new human culture, violence occurred as one tried to dominate the other. As far as she could tell, intergalactic cultures were the same.
Rigley regained her composure slowly, the desperation taking a backseat to logic. She would get them out of this, one way or another. And really, if that’s what she needed to do in order to navigate America—the human race, really—out of this predicament, maybe she should go ahead and drop the hammer. Maybe waiting was a mistake, a large one. Just go ahead and call in the team, and leave Grayson, Georgia as a hotspot for the next hundred and fifty years.
Not yet. The entire state would need to evacuate, but most would die before that happened. Florida, South Carolina, and any other surrounding states would get fall out. She would be looking at a fifth of the population removed overnight.
“Two days,” she said aloud, talking to the empty room. “Two days, then we reassess.”
11
Present Day
Bryan didn’t sleep anymore. He didn’t know how, and that was a very, very weird feeling. At first, panic had gripped him, a panic that consumed him. He hadn’t been able to think a single coherent thought—the world, for a few hours, became a haze of crippling terror. He realized now he had fully shut down,. There were no memories from the time his body raised off that orb, his clothes little more than rags, and now he was in his bed, and the…the what? The being? The thing? Whatever the fuck had somehow possessed him, it was finally sleeping.
The thought of sleep made Bryan wonder about his own existence. It took a long time to get to this point, hours of maniacal screams, followed by him screaming purposefully at the thing, then trying to coax it. Now, while it slept, Bryan’s body missing school, he could think some. He felt himself, quite often, heading into that same panic—reverting to a place where he had no control at all—and he immediately reined himself in. He wouldn’t go back there, wouldn’t go to whatever world awaited him in that darkness. Because if he went there, he might not come back out, and if he didn’t c
ome back out, whatever possessed his body would remain inside it forever.
Bryan thought he knew why the thing was sleeping: it seemed to be capable of hyper regeneration. When Bryan left the field—or rather, his body left—he was littered with holes. Tiny red dots that dripped blood down the side of his face and the whole front of his body. He could feel his body still, had a sense of what was happening, and he looked on as the holes covering him healed. What should have needed hospitalization and a month to completely heal, would be closed over and scarless within the next hour. Whatever the thing was doing, it did it to make his body whole again.
It was alien. Bryan didn’t know if that meant it was an alien, only that this goddamn thing wasn’t from Earth. Foreign and invasive. That’s what he had categorized it as when he finally calmed down some, trying to take a cooler look at it. There was intelligence, too, though it hadn’t conversed with him during his screaming fit. Perhaps it hadn’t heard him; perhaps it placed him in some kind of isolation, keeping him away from its consciousness. Bryan didn’t fucking know but it mattered a great deal. If he was isolated, kept from talking to it, then there wasn’t any chance of reasoning, of having a conversation about just what the fuck was happening. There wasn’t any chance of freedom.
He tried searching it while it slept. A large animal slept inside his mind (or was his mind its mind now?), so massive that if he tried to pierce its hide, it would feel nothing at all—less than the tiniest scratch to something so huge. He couldn’t penetrate its hide, though. Couldn’t find out a single fucking thing about it.
Maybe when it woke up, then its defenses would come down some.
So Bryan waited. He waited and let his mind think, unable to really control his thoughts. The all consuming panic had subsided, but the underlying current wouldn’t—not until there was some resolution here. Some goddamn knowledge of what was happening. Still, the current grew large as he waited, racing him down that short corridor which led to madness. The whys, the whats, the hows, all of it unanswerable because THIS FUCKING THING HAD TAKEN OVER HIS FUCKINGBODYANDHECOULDN’TDOANYTHINGABOUTIT.
Calm down, he thought. Calm down. You’re here, inside your mind.
That in itself, was something he couldn’t fully understand. Inside. His. Mind. Bryan couldn’t believe anyone had ever felt like this, because one didn’t go inside their mind, one was their mind. No longer for Bryan, though. He wasn’t sitting in some captain’s chair, controlling everything. He was in a corner, a dark one, looking out at the beast now in charge. His mind wasn’t his; he still had access to his memories, but so did this other thing, this entity. He was a guest in his mind now, and perhaps an unwanted one. Maybe this new thing could get rid of him, discard him like a bug inside a house.
Bryan was given this mind, this body, when he entered this world. He didn’t know if he ever truly possessed anything else, but this mind and body had been his. No one else could lay claim to them, and that was the way the world worked. The way the whole goddamn universe worked.
No longer, though.
It took him time to fully calm down, but eventually the panic subsided, and for a while he sat alone, watching the huge animal sleep.
Until it woke.
All at once, coming to life like a car hooked to jumper cables.
Bryan thought he knew fear before she woke. He thought he knew panic. But what he saw controlling his body, what he saw possessing his mind—he quickly realized everything he had felt was a single grain of salt in the ocean.
Bryan Yetzer, she said, savoring the words like wine. I enjoy your language.
Bryan had no response, had no idea what it even meant that the being was a female and that she was talking to him. Fear paralyzed him.
Stay quiet, Bryan Yetzer. There is a lot to be done yet.
* * *
Morena walked down the steps, the hand she controlled reaching out to the bannister. This body wasn’t tough to get used to; it was a primitive thing, and that meant it lacked the capabilities of her own body. She couldn’t resurrect her own body yet, though she desperately wanted to. The risk was too great right now, using all of that energy to sustain her life, especially given what she might have to do here. If this planet didn’t work out, she didn’t know if she would have the energy necessary to leave this place.
So this body would have to do.
She reached the bottom of the steps and smelled…sustenance. The creature inside her knew what the sustenance was called—bacon and eggs—and his body was already reacting to it. She paused, not moving until she understood exactly what was happening. The body was hungry, meaning it wanted to consume the sustenance.
Makers be blessed, this thing was ancient. The need to consume outside sources to continue living. Morena decided right then she wanted to understand the history of this species, to understand how long this evolution had taken. Depending on the time, she might just wipe out the entirety of them. They might not be worth the sustenance they consume if their genes were that weak.
Still, she would have to eat, if for nothing else than to keep this creature’s body going.
Morena plotted out her way to the kitchen inside Bryan’s head, wanting to be sure where she was heading before she started walking. Once she felt confident about what was expected of her in the next room, she moved forward.
“Good morning, honey,” a female said from the left of the kitchen. Morena didn’t understand, but knew that she didn’t want to stop right here and try to figure it out. She continued walking, making her way to the table where Bryan’s memory told her she should sit. What did it mean, these words—good morning, honey? Communication. That’s what was happening, this woman was talking to her, and she was…showing affection? Yes, that’s what Bryan’s memories relayed to her, though he was in no condition to actually tell Morena himself.
The woman expected Morena to speak back.
“Good morning,” she said as she sat down at the table. She heard someone else coming down the stairs, and continued her rapid assimilation of Bryan’s memories. This was going to be tougher than she thought. When she arrived at the house early in the morning, she was only concerned with healing the holes she made, not with getting a firm grasp of the social aspect of this species. They were social, though, intensely so according to Bryan’s memories.
In this body, there was little she could do to protect herself against an attack. If this body died, it didn’t mean Morena died, but it did make everything else she had planned that much more unlikely. She needed to keep this body safe, at least for a time, and that meant she needed to understand the social structures these creatures lived under.
A male figure, Bryan’s father, walked into the kitchen and Morena turned around to look at him. “Good morning,” she said, trying to mimic her earlier words.
“Hey,” the male figure responded.
Morena looked at the garbs covering her own body and then looked at those of the father. Completely different. Jeans and a t-shirt on the host while the father wore a collared shirt and tie. Her mind was a constant search and a constant observation—trying to match up the things she saw with the things Bryan knew. She had never attempted something like this before, never needed to.
She ate the sustenance, what Bryan called breakfast, while the two other people spoke. She kept quiet, listening, and trying to give answers when they spoke, but mainly just trying to understand. Understand what all of this meant, because Morena needed time. She needed to understand more about this world before she could attempt to bring Briten back.
She would need this Bryan creature to regain some form of consciousness soon. She would need him, though she didn’t like it. She needed him to direct her through this world, at least for a few days.
12
Present Day
Michael opened his eyes before he could identify the noise. He didn’t move, just opened his eyes and stared off the side of his bed.
“Michael, you up?” His father called from outside the locked door.
He probably wasn’t happy about Michael locking his door, but it sounded like he needed something, so he wouldn’t mention it. When his dad wanted something, a lot of Michael’s transgressions could be overlooked, praise God.
“I am now,” Michael said, still not moving.
“I’m hungry. Do you want to drive me to Burger King? I’ll buy yours too.”
Michael looked down at the watch on his wrist, and saw that it was nine in the morning. His father either had started drinking pretty early or was still drunk from last night. He sounded okay though, if a bit slurred, but that was to be expected. He wasn’t angry and that was a blessing Michael couldn’t discount.
“Okay,” he said, knowing that if he said no, hell would break loose in this trailer.
* * *
“The Packers are gonna have a good year this year,” his dad said, looking out the front window. Michael could smell a slight odor of booze, but nothing too strong. It meant Wren probably had a few drinks this morning, but at least he wasn’t trying to drive. Sometimes he’d get in his truck regardless of how many vodka Gatorades he’d drank, and no one could stop him.
Today he’s making smart choices, asking me to drive him and all. Haha.
“You seen the defensive line they put together?” Wren asked.
Michael didn’t look over at him, just kept his hands on the wheel. Of course he hadn’t looked at the Packers’ lineup. He didn’t have the time or inclination to look at it. He couldn’t care less about the Packers or football in general.
“No,” he said.
