Phantoms of the Moon
Page 22
Ryan Hayden had not missed a day of school since he arrived in Belle Falls under the influence of Margaret Banner’s rigid guidance. But all impressive streaks of tenacity ended in time, and such a moment occurred two days ago for this boy. In truth, if Ryan had ever been asked to identify his achievement in attendance, he most likely would not have been aware of his own record. But others noticed, particularly those who had too many spare hours to contemplate their own trivial accomplishments. Prior to Ryan’s arrival in Belle Falls, Victor Walden humbly claimed the honors as the school’s most reliable student. Perhaps Victor secretly relished an opportunity to reclaim his status, but a more immediate matter centered on his friend’s welfare.
Victor had continually implored his best friend to invest in a cell phone years ago, but Ryan refused to conform to a pitfall of being located when he did not wish to be found. In his pursuit to locate Ryan in his absence, Victor made at least six phone calls to the Banners’ residence over a forty-eight hour period. The fact that the telephone went unanswered and his messages ignored did not cause Victor immediate alarm because he was partly knowledgeable of Frank Banner’s oafish demeanor. Normally, Ryan returned Victor’s phone calls within a day, so his state of concern on this morning was well warranted.
Another dilemma for Victor, although certainly of a lesser caliber, was stomaching enough courage to faithfully attend gym class each morning. For an adolescent who did not feel self-confident, the high school locker room served as a spawning ground for the breeders of his belittlement. Victor was a champion competitor in terms of flaunting his trigonometry skills, but the mere mention of athletics caused his knobby knees to buckle convulsively. If someone within range of Victor’s company challenged him to a game of chess, he would have been briskly defeated by the gangly boy’s superior intellect. But sports of any variety showcased abilities that Victor did not have the motivation to refine, and it left him woefully unbalanced when matched against his peers.
To avoid humiliation, Victor typically undressed and changed for gym in the locker room’s corner, near the showering stalls that no one bothered to utilize. He was less likely to encounter the jocks in this area, who habitually insisted on making everyone around them feel as inferior as possible. Almost on a daily basis since his high school years commenced, Victor became the prey of an assortment of half-witted bullies whose primary function in school seemed hitched to provoking misery onto anyone vulnerable. Unfortunately for Victor, he had been conditioned to endure far beyond a normal dosage of abuse.
The punishments inflicted upon Victor rarely turned physical, but he felt the emotional impact of their torturous words just as painfully as a fist to the nose. Typically, Victor merited half the wrath; the other portion had been delivered to Ryan in an equally vicious fashion. But since Ryan had decided to relinquish his attendance record, Victor was forced to face his tormenters alone.
Once undressed in the locker room, Victor became as defenseless as a newborn. He usually listened for the sonorous cackle of one boy in particular, who had used Victor’s ego as a dartboard for his piercing diatribe since they were in the sixth grade. Even after years of bullying almost everyone within his social range, Neil Chandler still had a penchant for disgracing those tinier than him. And since Neil was the captain of the varsity basketball team, he usually had an advantage of peering down upon all those whom he confronted.
Neil was the type of teen-ager who everyone admired until they became better acquainted with him. He was blessed with ample height, all-American looks, and an extravagant mother who spoiled him with things beyond her financial abilities. He was, in essence, a true Adonis among a collection of misfits. His neatly cropped hair always appeared flawlessly styled and shaded to a hue of dark onyx. Additionally, he sported a swarthy glow to his skin, eyes the color of pool water, and his teeth had been polished to perfection after he had his braces removed two years ago. If one searched for a defect in the boy’s appearance, he would have been hard-pressed to discover anything grossly evident. Where other boys his age lacked body mass and muscles, Neil stood gargantuan. His chest, arms, and legs rippled with girth and sinewy veins, which some surmised as the work of a chemically enhanced dietary supplement. Nevertheless, Neil was a specimen of unequaled physical strength, and probably could have dated any girl he sought—providing he kept his mouth shut.
Eventually, however, Neil had to speak, and when he did so he demonstrated the intellectual charm and wit of a wet potato chip. The boy never experienced difficulty getting a girl to go out with him the first time. Second dates, however, were another matter. Most of the female students at Belle Falls High School preferred the fantasy of Neil Chandler much better than the reality.
On this morning, Neil’s plodding footsteps across the locker room’s floor prompted Victor to change back into his regular clothing as hastily as manageable. He did not even take the time to notice that he had slipped his shirt on wrong-side out. Even before being found hiding in the shadow of a locker cabinet, an expectation of embarrassment bloomed in Victor’s eyes. Still, as mortified as he was, Victor never wanted Neil to suspect that he had a capacity to make him cower in such a dishonorable way. Usually Victor avoided any sustained harassment from the imbecile by volunteering to do his math homework.
Up until now, this strategy had kept Neil at bay for a few days. Typically, Neil liked to disguise his own insecurities by showcasing his bullish behavior. An entrance into a locker room usually prompted the fool to slap random metal cabinets for no other reason than to startle those who were not prepared for the clanging disturbance. Another odd but annoying habit dwelled in his pleasure of deliberately squeaking his sneakers against the tiled floor as he progressed between the locker room’s aisles. But today was different, and it took Victor a few minutes to figure out that the reason for Neil’s visitation had more to do with the super-jocks humiliation and less to do with his own.
Neil entered the boy’s locker room in a less boisterous mood. He walked alone, which in itself was as peculiar as his reserved approach. Normally, Neil permitted one or two of his sycophants to hang on either shoulder, hoping to feed off the crumbs of his popularity. Based on Neil’s sullen expression, those in company assumed the varsity letterman had squandered yet another chance to help his hapless team win a game. But Neil’s frustration rooted far deeper beneath his skin and festered like a chain of unbroken pimples sprouting on Victor’s forehead.
The sheer feat of Neil being able to keep his buffoonery relatively suppressed surprised Victor initially. The jock simply stood grim-faced in front of a row of lockers where Victor hurriedly dressed himself. Neil wore the same clothes whether he was at school or home. A pair of dingy sweatpants and a body-hugging nylon shirt suited him continuously five or six days out of every week. The fact that Neil smelled about as noxious as rancid fish on most days never seemed to be brought to his attention. At close range, the boy’s odor was almost intolerable. For fear of being pulverized into oblivion, Victor refrained from pinching his nose shut with his fingers, but that was his immediate instinct after standing in the jock’s presence for ten seconds.
More shocking than Neil’s pungency or unassuming advance into the locker room was the tone of voice he elected to exercise. Neil normally never addressed Victor or anyone else he insulted by using their actual names, but today his voice bounced off Victor’s ears with a delightfully pleasant reverberation.
“You got a second, Victor?” asked Neil, sounding like a little boy begging for a piece of candy. “I need to talk to you about your friend.”
Since Victor only had one true friend, no further clarification of identity was required on Neil’s part. “I haven’t seen Ryan in a couple days,” replied Victor, almost too bluntly for Neil’s temperament.
Neil still attempted to use his polite voice. “I didn’t ask you if you’ve seen him,” he said lowly, “I just wanted to know a few things about the kid.”
“Like what?”
“Like—why is Hailey Gardner so
interested in him all of a sudden?”
Victor really did not have the answer Neil was searching for, but he was a bit annoyed that he had been placed in the middle of this situation. Instead of trying to satisfy Neil’s curiosity, Victor decided to remain silent on the matter. This reaction triggered a more familiar outburst from Neil.
“I’m not messing around with you, moon cheeks,” Neil grunted, abandoning his counterfeit charm almost instantaneously.
Victor forwarded a closed-mouth smile before saying, “Now that’s the type of greeting I expected from you, Neil. I was wondering how long it would take you to get around to insulting my acne condition. At least your eyes work better than your nose.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing at all,” Victor chimed, his voice brimming with sarcasm.
“Look—I didn’t come in here to talk about your zits, pus boy, but I heard rumors that your buddy has been trying to go out with Hailey.”
“You’ve obviously been conversing with the wrong people,” said Victor matter-of-factly.
“You’re the only one who talks to that dork,” Neil countered. “You must know what’s going on.”
“Sorry I can’t help you,” said Victor, “but consider your own words, Neil. If I’m the only person who speaks to Ryan, then why are you so worried about him going out with Hailey Gardner?”
Neil did not possess the intellect or patience to consider a logical point, but he did harbor the brawn to thrash people into giving him what he wanted, even if they did not have it. Victor understood one thing in regard to Neil: any conversation of length quickly became tiresome and dangerous. Since Victor was not in a mood to contend with either outcome, he attempted to squeeze by Neil, who had purposely positioned himself at the end of the locker’s aisle.
“I don’t remember excusing you, crater head,” Neil hissed as he puffed out his chest like an overfilled balloon.
“Another zinger,” jested Victor, slapping his knee sardonically. “I’d really like to stick around and partake in your excellent wit, Neil, but I do have to get to class.”
“You’ll go when I say you can, and not a second sooner.”
Since Victor obviously did not possess the physical prowess to challenge Neil, he realized that it was a pointless endeavor to charge into the bulging obstacle set before him. “Ms Stein doesn’t like it when I’m late for calculus,” Victor remarked, furtively praying that his words served as an indicator for Neil to move out of his way. But Victor had to remember that he dealt with a boy who did not attend any of his classes on a regular basis.
“Let the old spinster wait,” Neil snapped, holding out his tree-truck-sized forearms as if they had been sculpted from marble. “I’m only going to ask you nicely one more time, and you’re gonna tell me what I need to know.”
“And let’s just say, hypothetically speaking, I don’t cooperate—what happens then?”
Not wishing to delay Victor’s suspense, Neil squashed his massive fists together; his popping knuckles sounded like the breakage of withered sticks. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll hit you between your eyes so hard that you’ll be wearing those glasses on the inside of your eye sockets.”
Victor had to confess that a mere proposal of such a consequence was not worth risking. But mercifully, Victor was not forced to make a final decision just yet. Before he uttered another syllable in his own defense, Ryan rushed into the locker room and positioned himself directly behind Neil. It had been rumored in the lore of Belle Falls High that a rather obstinate boy once demonstrated the audacity to oppose Neil’s boorish mannerisms. Though it was a commendable act of bravado on the part of this disillusioned boy, the outcome proved to be too unbearable to recount for the squeamish. Since the Massacre in Parking Lot B, as it came to be called by those who tallied such facts, no one showed the gumption to ever contest Neil’s authority again—no one, that was, until now.
Although it had only been two days since Victor last set eyes upon his friend, Ryan seemed sterner than he remembered. His posture alone indicated that he had undergone some type of transformation of character. He had neither grown in stature nor shape, but an unmistakable confidence projected from the boy’s eyes. He even elected to remove his own eyeglasses as if he expected to encounter a struggle of some variety.
Ryan did not wait for Neil to turn around to acknowledge him. He stated his words to the bully with the same fortitude he displayed in his stance. “Hey, Neil, I heard that you’re looking for me.”
Just as a feral dog turned from its dry bone to devour a juicier steak, Neil pivoted away from Victor and directed his eyes on his intended target. If Ryan was not truly prepared to withstand Neil’s fury, he had only seconds to reconsider. Once Neil faced Ryan, the smaller boy stood little chance of escaping his predicament unscathed.
Ryan formed his words in the deepest voice he mustered, but it was clearly a strain on his throat. “I’d like for you to leave my friend alone,” he said, much to Victor’s astonishment.
“Is that right?” Neil sneered as he clenched his fingers tightly into a wad. “Before you showed up, I was pretty sure that I was looking at a total piece of crap,” he continued, while gesturing toward Victor. He then swayed his eyes back to Ryan and said, “But now I’m positive I am.”
“I don’t think we really have much to discuss, Neil, so why don’t you just walk away and leave us alone?” Ryan’s proposal struck Neil as genuinely amusing, and he eagerly revealed his emotion with a hardy chuckle.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Neil as he took two plundering steps forward so that his hulking shadow cast over Ryan. Even while standing beneath such a menacing gaze, Ryan refused to relinquish his ground. Neil’s lips quivered violently in these seconds, almost looking like a fish pierced by a hook. “I’m going to ask you the same thing I did your creepy friend,” Neil snarled. “Before I stuff you into one of these lockers, I want to know why you’re talking to my girlfriend?”
“Your girlfriend?” Ryan questioned in bewilderment. “Who do you mean?”
Neil leaned over so that his face was within six inches of Ryan’s nose. The stench from Neil’s body became too strenuous to ignore at this range. “Don’t play stupid with me, you skinny weasel,” Neil warned Ryan. “You know who I mean.”
“I’ll assume you’re referring to Hailey,” Ryan declared, but he still did not divulge any relevant emotion to his confronter. “It’s funny how she never mentioned she had a boyfriend—especially one of your status.”
Neil felt cornered by his next statement. “Well, she was sort of my girlfriend not too long ago. We went to the movies a couple of times.”
“Practically an engagement,” Victor piped in with a snicker.
Neil did not bother to turn away from Ryan to reprimand Victor at this stage. He obviously found a better centerpiece to unleash his rage. “Just tell me what’s going on between you and her,” said Neil to Ryan. “I might let you live if you tell me the truth.”
“That’s easy,” said Ryan without pause. “We’re friends—no more or less than that.”
“Friends?” Neil repeated as if he already had reason to doubt Ryan. “Since when did Hailey start hanging out with losers like you?”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset, Neil,” Ryan replied with reasonable flare. “If you are, as you say, Hailey’s boyfriend, then why do you feel threatened by a loser like me?”
“We’re having some issues right now—I’ll admit that. But you know I got a reputation to preserve around here. I can’t have a punk like you making me look bad—got it?”
“No one can do that better than you can,” Ryan retaliated with a sharpness that nearly brought Victor to his knees in awe. By the time Ryan finished talking, Neil’s hands instinctually flung forward into Ryan’s chest. The impact caused Ryan to topple backwards and crash against the lockers. Before he recovered from the blow, Neil lunged forward and clasped his fingers around the boy’s t
hroat.
“Let him go,” Victor shouted, but his demand went seemingly unheard.
“Maybe we’ll do things the hard way,” Neil hissed as he applied pressure to Ryan’s neck. Breaking his vice-like grip was impossible in these seconds. Victor thought to scream for help, but when his voice became louder, Neil squeezed Ryan’s neck like a constrictor suffocating a rat.
Once realizing that Neil had a distinct advantage, Victor quieted himself and squatted on the bench in hope that his submissive posture might inspire the bully to mimic his action. In the meantime, Ryan endured the assault without attempting to retaliate in any fashion.
“I want to tell you something, freak boy,” Neil muttered to Ryan as he clenched the boy’s neck with one gigantic hand. “I always hated your guts—ever since you came to this town. There’s something sneaky about you.”
As Neil’s fingers clamped around Ryan’s throat, the victimized boy remained considerably calm. “Go ahead,” said Ryan, straining to pronounce the words. “You can hit me if you like, Neil, but it’s not going to change anything between you and Hailey.”
“What makes you think you know so much?” Neil asked, but his voice deflated as he pondered the possibility of Ryan’s observation. After a few seconds, Neil released Ryan’s throat without hitting him. Ryan rubbed his reddened neck and then peered at his attacker indignantly. Suddenly, and for reasons that Ryan or Victor could not quite comprehend, Neil appeared pacified in his demeanor.
The bully seemed frazzled as he wobbled backwards momentarily, only barely managing to catch himself before collapsing in a heap. Neil eventually stooped to the bench beside Victor and held his palms over his face as if experiencing an intense migraine. Following a few more seconds of disorientation, Neil admitted that he felt strange.
Victor noticed a cold sweat peppering the back of Neil’s lowered head, but he did not pretend to feel any sympathy for the brute. Ryan granted a small courtesy to the bully by retrieving a dirty towel from the locker room’s floor and tossing it across his lap.
“You’re looking a little anemic, Neil,” Ryan observed. “Maybe you shouldn’t get yourself so worked up over things you can’t control.”
Neil no longer possessed the energy to pursue this argument. Although his mind buzzed with a desire to do something painfully humiliating to Ryan, he sensed his muscles weakening at the proposition. The jock never before experienced such frailty. He continued to encounter dizziness after standing up from the bench. His rickety legs caused him to support his upper body against the locker cabinets for balance. In these moments, he crumbled under the weight of his own body. He forwarded a glare in Ryan’s direction, but it was one mixed with apprehension as much as it was with anger. In the midst of this, Ryan watched in silence as the bully staggered away from the lockers like a wounded animal sprung from a trap.
After Neil’s unceremonious departure, Victor rose to his feet with a similar level of shock etching its way into his expression. “I don’t believe what I just saw,” uttered Victor to himself. He then directed his baffled words at his friend. “What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure,” said Ryan lowly. “He’s obviously not as tough as he thinks he is.”
“Are you joshing me? That’s Neil Chandler—he’s never backed down from an opportunity to inflict pain on someone in his entire lifetime.”
“Until now,” Ryan corrected his friend.
Ryan did not wish to gloat about any short-lived victory; Neil did not seem worth the recognition in his mind. Besides, he came to the locker room to discuss more essential matters with Victor. As Victor’s own nerves settled, he realized that his shirt was on inside out. He fixed it quickly and then reconsidered the events that just occurred.
“Thanks for saving my butt,” said Victor, but with a reserved sense of gratitude. “It just seems that your newfound charisma with Hailey Gardner is causing me more trouble than I bargained for.”
“I don’t see how,” said Ryan. “I still haven’t called her, so I’m just as confused as you are by all this attention.”
“Speaking of calling—I phoned your house six times over the last couple days. Have you been out of town?”
“Only briefly. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been really tired lately, but unable to get any sleep—not fully anyway.”
Victor studied his friend’s face more attentively and detected plum-colored circles enveloping Ryan’s eyes. Victor’s voice softened as he suspected that Ryan suffered from an illness far graver than a bout with insomnia. “You don’t have to listen to me,” Victor suggested, “but maybe you should think about seeing a regular doctor.”
“Why? Do I look sick?”
Victor attempted to be kind but candid with his reply. “Honestly, I’ve seen you look better.”
“Luckily, I’m not entering any beauty pageants,” Ryan joked, but his humor seemed poorly timed after debating the seriousness of the discourse he had yet presented to his friend. “Look, Victor, I know I haven’t been acting like myself lately, and there’s a good reason for it.”
“Should I sit back down for this?” Victor asked, motioning to the bench.
“Not yet,” said Ryan, sheepishly. “I guess the first thing I want to ask you about is the metallic dust I left to have analyzed. Did your father have a chance to look at it yet?”
Victor hesitated with his response, which instantly served as a signal to his friend that he had at least obtained some information on the matter. “I was just about to mention that to you myself,” said Victor, trying to sound casual.
“Did you bring it with you?”
“No, but my father did an analysis on the stuff at his lab. He still has it there with him.”
“What did he find out?” Ryan asked, displaying some eagerness.
Victor shrugged his shoulders and replied, “He couldn’t define what it was—in fact, no one at the lab figured out where it came from.”
Ryan’s enthusiasm diminished slightly, as was expected with a delivery of such unsettling news. Yet he did not express absolute shock by the report either. His friend, however, felt that his assistance in attempting to identify the substance merited the benefit of learning more about it.
“You never did tell me exactly where that stuff came from, Ryan.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Ryan murmured.
“Well, according to my dad and the other chemists, it matters quite a bit. Don’t you still want to know what that material is?”
Ryan’s expression grew increasingly solemn as he considered his friend’s question. He refused to offer a reply right away. Perhaps it was not simply a matter of learning about the nature of the material’s origin that instigated his procrastination. Maybe a rational fear of the unknown kept Ryan’s inquisitiveness suppressed. No matter what the reason for Ryan’s elusive behavior on this issue, Victor now suspected that his friend had much more to divulge than a fistful of silver dust.
“I’m starting to think that you’re not being entirely straight with me,” said Victor, focusing his line of sight firmly on Ryan’s eyes.
Ryan still measured his own words carefully in conjunction with his friend’s temperament. “There are things happening in my life right now that are too big to explain.”
“Then start with the smaller things,” Victor advised objectively. “How about explaining where that dust came from?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Then tell me something you think I can believe.”
Ryan had long suspected that his friendship with Victor hinged to their commitment to communicate openly with each other. At no time in his life had Ryan withheld a single truth from his friend, but on this occasion he felt he was not being completely forthright. An inevitable point of change had sprung upon Ryan and he required Victor’s support in order to see beyond the shadowed recollections of his most defining moment. In an effort to engage Victor’s attention fully, Ryan decided it was best to sit down
on the bench. He encouraged his friend to do the same. After checking his watch twice, Victor eventually complied.
“I’m not sure you’re ready to hear what I have to say,” Ryan started, “but I’ll give it a shot.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, you already know about the strange sightings I’ve witnessed over the past week—”
“More UFO business,” sighed Ryan, rolling his eyes. “I have to tell you, Ryan, these stories are so unlike what I expected from you.”
Ryan sounded increasingly demanding with his words when he said, “Hear me out, Victor. This goes far beyond anything I’ve told you before. I’m not just talking about seeing random flashes of light in the sky—I’m referring to something much more concrete.”
Victor wanted to be as zealous as his friend in regard to the potential sightings, but Ryan’s sudden obsession and willingness to embrace those objects as genuine articles triggered a degree of doubt. In spite of this reservation, Victor believed Ryan deserved a chance to clarify his position.
“Since I can’t think of any way to tell you this without sounding crazy,” Ryan started, “I’ll get right to the point.”
“I’m waiting,” Victor assured his friend.
Ryan’s eyes instinctually pivoted toward the locker room’s ceiling when he spoke. “What’s your opinion about close encounters of the fourth kind?” A prolonged period of silence occurred, as though Victor waited for the delivery of a punch line to a bad joke. But Ryan did not forward the slightest hint of a smile. Contrarily, Victor did not remember a moment where he ever saw his friend appear so resolute in his demeanor.
“You’re really serious?” Victor inquired tentatively.
“Very serious.”
Victor gulped in as much air as his puny lungs held, before releasing a weighted sigh. “Just so we’re clear,” he huffed, “you’re referring to alien abductions?”
Hearing those words spoken aloud normally registered as comical to Ryan’s ears. Yet he now contended that the circumstances surrounding his past did not belong in the realm of rational thought.
“Believe me, Victor, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Based on what I’ve recently learned, it’s a very real possibility that my family was abducted by an alien life form.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why is it so absurd? I’m not the first to suggest such an idea.”
Victor tried to refrain from laughing in his friend’s face, but he tittered from nervous disbelief rather than disrespect. “I know you’ve been through a lot of bad times, Ryan, but this is a little bit too much for me to accept.”
“You’ve tried to convince me in the past that aliens can potentially exist,” Ryan reminded Victor. “Why is it so illogical for you to believe me now?”
“Maybe because you have so many other things going on—”
“Like what?”
“Like your grandfather’s drinking, for instance, and your grandmother dying a couple of years ago—don’t you think I’ve noticed a change in you?”
“They have nothing to do with what I’m proposing,” Ryan assured his friend. “I’ve spent the last two days researching the subject of alien abductions. I can be right about this.”
“Coming from anyone other than you, Ryan, I might’ve entertained the idea for five minutes or so. But I grew up listening to you rant about the stupidity of those who suggested such a thing occurred in your family. Your own grandmother insisted that everyone was insane.”
“Maybe she was wrong. And if she was wrong, then I might’ve been mistaken, too.”
“Is this theory of yours all related to your supposed UFO sightings?”
Ryan pressed both of his hands to the sides of his temples as if trying to repress a severe headache. “I already told you that it’s more than that,” he groaned. “I’ve been having these terrible dreams—about my family.”
“Dreams, as you should know, Ryan, aren’t the basis for reality—no matter how real they may seem.”
“These dreams are different,” Ryan insisted wearily. His voice pitched softer now, as if he expected someone to be eavesdropping. “I’ve seen members of my family in strange places—places I’ve never been before.”
“Are you really trying to make sense out of your dreams?” Victor simpered. “Just last week I dreamt I was scuba diving off the coast of Rio—but I’ve never even been to Brazil, not to mention that I don’t know how to swim. Do you get my point?”
Ryan was wise enough to comprehend Victor’s analogy, but the notion of considering the disappearance of his family in a logical sense had passed. “I don’t blame you for looking at me like I’m nuts, Victor. None of this has been easy for me to accept either. I want to be wrong, but something in my heart tells me otherwise.”
“Okay,” said Victor, trying to maintain an objective position. “Besides your dreams, what proof do you have?”
“Over the years, literally hundreds—maybe thousands—of accounts of alien abductions have been reported. Admittedly, most of those stories were exposed as frauds, but there’s at least one or two percent of them that can’t be proven patently false.”
“Some people believe their own lies,” Victor stated. “They’re typically the best at making up stories.”
“Maybe. But is it possible for people who’ve never met or had any prior media exposure to the other’s story to experience identical visions of an abduction?” Ryan paused to watch Victor process the information. As his friend debated this scenario, Ryan continued to saturate his friend’s mind with facts. “The first publicized case of an alien abduction occurred in Boston in 1961. In this case, the couple had no memory of the incident until undergoing a type of hypnosis that permitted them to remember what they had been apparently conditioned to forget.”
Victor’s face suddenly lit up as if Ryan had revealed the true source of his hypothesis. “I see what’s going on here now,” said Victor assertively. “You’ve been back to see that psychiatrist again—haven’t you?”
Ryan bowed his head briefly, shamefully indicating his continued acquaintance with Doctor Evans, but the connection did not dissuade him from his present beliefs. “I was skeptical about hypnotherapy, too,” Ryan confessed. “But it’s not impossible to think that I’ve been hiding the truth all these years because I wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with the consequences of my ordeal.”
“And what makes you so ready now?” Victor did not wish to express such negativity, but he sensed Ryan’s change in personality being directly linked to his notions on extraterrestrial activity. “You know, at first I thought you going to see a psychiatrist was a good idea, but now I think you’d be better off staying away from anyone who tries to revive your memory. You know those people can make you believe things that never really happened—don’t you?”
“But that still doesn’t explain my dreams,” Ryan persisted. “It’s the same dream over and over, but each time the images become a little bit clearer.”
“How clear?”
“I’ve seen my brother in my dreams,” Ryan admitted, almost regretfully.
“Your twin brother?”
Ryan nodded his chin once. His eyes then appeared partially vacant and watery as he concentrated on his dreams in detail. “He’s standing in a tunnel of some kind, but it’s not an ordinary tunnel. This one is incredibly bright, polished, and constructed of an odd metal. My brother seems lost in here. I keep calling his name, but he’s being lured in another direction. I’m running toward him, but I can’t reach him.”
“And what about your parents—do you see them in your dreams, too?”
A shiver traced down Ryan’s spine as he pondered Victor’s question, causing goose-bumps to bevel the smooth skin on his forearms. “I haven’t seen them yet,” Ryan confessed, “but I’ve sensed their presence. It’s like they’re in that tunnel with Robby and me, or maybe they’re somewhere beyond that passageway in a place neither of us can locate.”
Ryan guessed that his friend would have difficulty digesting such a chunk of information. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” Ryan sulked. “So now you understand why I didn’t tell you about where I found that metallic dust.”
“Is that stuff from your dreams, too?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you’re under the impression that the material is somehow linked to the aliens who supposedly abducted your family?”
There was no feasible way for Ryan to respond to such an inquiry without coming across as ludicrous. The best answer he offered to Victor at this point was another nod of his chin.
“They’ve locked people away for thinking less preposterous thoughts,” mentioned Victor sternly. “I guess I’m just surprised on how suddenly you’ve changed. Two weeks ago, I don’t think I could’ve convinced you of such a scenario.”
“Nothing about this has been easy,” Ryan assured Victor. “And there’s still more to consider.”
“At least I’m certain of that much.”
“If my family was truly abducted, as I believe they were,” Ryan continued, “then it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that they might still be alive.”
“It’s been ten years,” Victor reminded his friend. “That’s a long time.”
“I wouldn’t even propose such an idea if it wasn’t for the fact that none of their bodies were ever found—not even so much as a piece of clothing was located. Since this is the case, I can’t help but to wonder if they’re still out there somewhere—waiting for me to come and rescue them.”
Victor did not fault his friend for clinging to such a desperate notion. After all, the loss of Victor’s own mother, though tragic in nature, at least offered the boy closure. Ryan had never been delivered the unenviable but necessary confirmation of his family’s demise. In this light, ten years seemed ceaselessly woven in the seams of time. Although Victor may not have consciously recognized Ryan’s ongoing turmoil, it was fair to assume that misery still oozed from the boy’s heart like blood from an unstitched wound. As Victor stared into his friend’s eyes, he did not perceive anything in Ryan’s expression that suggested deceitfulness.
“It seems to me that you’re fairly well set on believing what you’ve told me,” said Victor. “But I guess the obvious concern I now have is what do you plan on doing next?”
Ryan had not yet prepared himself for the aftermath of his contentions. “I’m not sure what to do,” he remarked candidly. “But I’d hate to live my life knowing that my family is still trapped somewhere in the vicinity of Glen Dale and I didn’t do what was necessary to save them.”
“I don’t wish to sound cruel,” Victor noted. “In the past, we’ve always thought about things logically, Ryan—that’s what made us different from those who jumped to irrational conclusions. Let’s not forget about reality in this instance, even if we’re talking about members of your family.”
“Reality is a matter of perception. For years, I was conditioned to view things in a structured way, and I now think its kept me from understanding the clues about my past.”
“You mean the silver material?”
“Yeah, but other things as well—the lights in the sky, my dreams, and considering how confined I feel lately. I’m afraid to admit that I’ve become obsessed with the idea that aliens intended to make off with me along with my family.”
“Sounds like definite paranoia to me,” Victor declared as he stood up from the bench. He then glanced at his watch again and realized he was late for class. He had not even heard the late bell ring a few minutes earlier. “Normally I’d advise you to talk this over with your shrink, but I’ve changed my mind. The best advice I can give you now is stay away from anyone who tries to mess with your mind.”
Ryan sensed his friend’s impatience, but he was grateful for the time he spent with him. “Thanks for listening to me, Victor. I needed to get that off my chest.”
“We’re not done talking about this,” said Victor decisively. “Whatever you think is going on, we can work through it together. Just realize that I’m here to talk to you anytime, Ryan. Don’t hesitate to contact me.”
“You’re starting to sound like my doctor,” Ryan smirked.
Victor shook his head half-heartedly and slapped Ryan’s hand once before walking away. Ryan had known Victor long enough to realize that he never extended an offer he did not intend on honoring. After his friend departed, Ryan remained seated alone on the wooden bench. A constant drip of water echoed on the tiled floor from a showerhead Ryan did not see. Each droplet sounded deafening to the boy’s ears as it burst against the locker room’s floor. He held his head again, this time squeezing harder on his temples in a futile effort to muffle the noise.
In actuality, the sudden commotion stirring within Ryan’s brain did not originate from a faulty showering stall. The boy’s true source of discomfort existed in a region within his mind, and no matter how relentlessly he tried to stifle its intensity, its throbbing energy could not be tamed. It continued to become louder. Soon the sensation reached a decibel that demanded a remedy, and perhaps the only cure for such a condition resided in a location Ryan abandoned many years beforehand.