Jack Evans’s repeated phone calls to Ryan’s residence had gone unanswered for the entire evening. Two weeks ago, he might have written off this scenario as another failure in his strategy to advance his therapy with the boy. But fourteen days sometimes made a considerable difference in a man’s outlook. In this instance, Evans elected to address the situation proactively rather than wait for Ryan’s next unscheduled appointment. After his initial attempts to contact the boy failed tonight, Evans entered his vehicle and departed from his home in Cloverton. At the time he entered his car, the dashboard’s clock flashed 11:23 P.M. in neon green. Evans estimated to arrive at Ryan’s home in Belle Falls shortly after midnight.
At precisely 12:20 A.M., Evans parked his car in front of the Banners household on Pine Drive. A rash decision to visit a patient’s home was an unprecedented action for the doctor, and he almost felt unjustified in monitoring Ryan’s whereabouts because of a series of unsuccessful attempts to reach him over his cellular phone. Nevertheless, Evans was not able to focus on anything other than Ryan’s plight since his encounter with Professor Collins. The meeting by itself was not persuasive enough for Evans to embrace a notion of aliens unconditionally, but it certainly widened his range of thought to the potentiality of extraterrestrial activity.
When Evans reached the house’s porch step, nothing seemed to be extremely out of the ordinary, save for the front door being noticeably ajar. Considering the late hour, Evans viewed it highly unlikely that Ryan or his grandfather would have neglected to secure the main entrance. Nowadays, even the people in Belle Falls locked their doors before they went to bed. Of course, the possibility existed that Frank had unlatched the door during his reveling. Whatever the cause, Evans planned to investigate the matter thoroughly. After ringing the doorbell several times without receiving an immediate response, he assumed they had either drifted to sleep or simply were not at home. But then a noise and a blue light cast from a television disrupted the home’s quietude.
Evans decided to tap his fist on the door; this gave him a reason to nudge it far enough open so that he was able to peep inside. After administering a purposeful rap on the door’s hardwood surface, it creaked open on its hinge slightly. Evans permitted a well-timed wind to do the rest. He now was afforded with enough space to stick his head between the door and its frame without fully entering the dwelling. After he tested the boundaries of trespassing by extending his upper body through the doorway, his sense of smell was instantaneously repelled by an odor of stale urine.
Apparently, Frank’s incontinence had spread beyond the limitations of his couch. The condition within the residence was obviously objectionable, but also peculiar enough for Evans to suspect other likely abnormalities within the home. Though he was tempted to rush inside, such heedlessness surely invited trouble. After all, he had no way of knowing exactly what state of mind Frank Banner adopted tonight, and he did not wish to provoke an unnecessary confrontation.
Evans shouted Ryan’s name several times before venturing further through the doorway. His calls were met with silence, but he persisted by yelling Frank’s name with an equivalent level of curiosity. He then announced his own name at least twice before shifting his body completely into the home’s uncarpeted foyer.
“It’s Doctor Evans,” he hollered again, “Don’t be alarmed.” Evans then heard a faint moan from a neighboring room—the same room where the television played continuously. “Hello—it’s Doctor Evans,” he repeated, loudly enough so that his voice was distinguishable from the television’s volume. The groan echoed again, this time reverberating through the doctor’s head like a plea for help. Evans procrastinated no longer. He darted toward the distressed voice, disregarding his own welfare in the process. When rounding the corner to survey the room’s interior, he prepared himself for a ghastly scenario.
A scent of fresh vomit greeted the doctor at the room’s threshold. The contributor to this squalor was sprawled upon the floorboards in front of his couch. Frank Banner appeared sickly and disorientated. He murmured a series of words in the general direction of Evans’s shadow. The man’s level of drunkenness was obvious, but his garbled enunciation remained as sloppy as his whiskered face. Evans edged further into the room in order to get an unobstructed glimpse of the room’s filth reflecting through the television’s glow. This situation was far more disturbing than Ryan had ever dared to explain to Evans. Piles of dust mounds and dirt covered the room’s furniture. The rest of the interior was completely littered with empty gin bottles and food containers. Frank situated at the center of this trash-laden sty, seemingly oblivious to desecration encompassing him.
In the middle of all this clutter, one item remained intact. The scrapbook was set upon Frank’s lap and opened to a section that he revisited often, but perhaps not as dishearteningly as he did on this night. He balanced the booklet across his knees with the same gentleness as before. Beside him, now turned upside down on the floor, was the metal box.
Evans approached Frank cautiously, but had not yet decided if the man required medical attention. He stepped gingerly over mounds of crumbled newspaper and rolls of unopened toilet paper in order to get closer to Frank. The tone of the doctor’s voice revealed his apprehension when he announced, “I’m Doctor Evans. Do you remember me, Mr. Banner—I’m Ryan’s psychiatrist.”
Frank may have seemed unaware of Evans’s approach, but he had actually anticipated the doctor’s intervention at some point. “I know who you are,” he grumbled, but his eyes still focused on the scrapbook. “It sure took you long enough to get here.”
“Are you hurt, Mr. Banner? Do you need an ambulance?”
Frank chuckled at what he viewed as a pretense of cordiality on the doctor’s part. “So you’re here to help me?” Frank lifted his head gradually, but his eyeballs appeared dreadfully hollow. “Are you here to save me, good doctor?” he then chortled, with bits of spittle dribbling over his chin.
Evans crept closer to the old man, being mindful to avoid touching anything within the unclean confines. After assessing Frank’s condition, Evans did not notice any visible wounds. Frank’s positioning on the floor seemed to be linked to his inebriation rather than any external injuries.
“Where’s Ryan?” Evans asked, ignoring Frank’s rancidness.
“So you’ve come here to rescue someone after all,” sneered Frank. “Well, you’re too late, Doc. The boy’s gone, but you already knew that—didn’t you?”
Evans appeared confounded by Frank’s accusation. “What are you talking about?” he said. “Is Ryan home or not?”
Frank shook his head pitifully and muttered, “Let’s face it, that boy hasn’t been home in a long, long time.”
Since Frank was evidently in no mood to cooperate, Evans deemed it pointless to continue their conversation. But the scrapbook on Frank’s lap seemed conspicuously out of place among the clutter. After inspecting the booklet more intently, Evans noticed its pages were damp. He at first assumed the old man had spilled a portion of booze on it, but he then directed his stare at Frank’s eyes. In this instance, the gin was not the source of moisture. Instead, teardrops formed from the oldster’s eyes and trickled upon the pages. Evans could not make out the images in the booklet, but he presumed they were significant in an emotional sense to Frank.
“Do you want to tell me where Ryan is?” Evans asked again, this time trying to sound less unsympathetic. “It’s important that I find him.”
“Oh, I’m sure it is,” said Frank snidely. “But the way I see it, Doc, you should have a pretty good idea about where he is. After all, you know his thoughts better than most folks.”
“None of that matters at the moment. I need your help, Mr. Banner. Are you willing to assist me or not?”
Frank was never too drunk or polite to admit that he despised everything to do with psychiatry. Evans arrival in his home tonight only caused his suspicions about the man’s intentions to elevate. “There’s nothing I can do for you,” grumbled Frank. “But maybe you can d
o something for me.”
Although Evans gathered that Frank’s mood was far from temperate, he crouched down to stare into the old man’s eyes directly. “I’m not sure what your opinion of me is, Mr. Banner, but I beg you not to let it interfere with us doing the right thing to help Ryan. He’s going to need us both in order to get well.”
“You don’t understand me,” said Frank. “I have no desire to help that boy.”
Evans seemed befuddled by the comment. He then remarked, “We’re talking about your grandson here, Mr. Banner. How could you not want to help him?”
Frank glared at the doctor as if he was privileged with knowledge that no one else shared with him. Without uttering anything else, the old man extended his scrapbook towards Evans’s eyes. He directed the doctor’s attention to a page in the booklet where his daughter had drawn a picture of twin boys when she was a child. Evans squinted at the crayon drawing momentarily, but espied little value to its pertinence.
“What are you trying to show me?” Evans asked.
“My daughter drew this when she was a little girl,” explained Frank.
“Ryan’s mother?”
“That’s right. It seems that Kim always suspected she would one day give birth to twin boys.”
Evans did not wish to undermine the creativity demonstrated in the picture, but he also knew that children often envisioned themselves as parents. The fact that Kim Hayden visualized herself as a future mother to twins did not register as especially unusual to the doctor. “I don’t understand the point of this,” Evans admitted to Frank.
“You know, Doc, I never thought of my daughter as being a particularly bright kid. In many ways, she was as common as they come. She was not a genius, but there was something about her that I neglected to notice—until many years later. Had I looked closer at her artwork, as you should now, I might’ve been able to see what was hidden from my eyes.”
Acting on Frank’s suggestion, Evans took the scrapbook in hand and brought the page nearer to his face in order to inspect its finer details. Even at close range, the doctor did not detect anything remarkably eye-catching in the drawing. The depicted images seemed simplistically crafted, and all shapes one-dimensional in design. It was not until Frank pointed out the twin boys’ features that Evans’s interest heightened a degree. He noticed that one boy had been drawn with an emotionless expression, but more curiously, the eyes had been colored deep silver.
“You see it now, don’t you, Doc?” Frank muttered knowingly.
Evans weighed other possibilities in his mind to avoid making a hasty conclusion. Since the booklet’s paper was palpably moistened with the oldster’s tears, he assumed the colors had blended together to create an illusion that Ryan’s mother had used a silver crayon on the smaller of the twin’s eyes. Frank assured him that the drawing’s colors had not been contaminated.
“Why does that color mean something to you, Doc?” asked Frank, knowingly.
“The eye color in the drawing strikes me as unusual—I’ll admit that.”
“Yes indeed,” Frank agreed. “What child willfully draws another child with silver eyes—especially one who she views as her own?”
“Are you trying to make a point, Mr. Banner?”
“Why do you ask? Are you trying to deny one?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” returned Evans, but the defensive tone in his voice had vanished by now.
“Tell me what you see in the drawing. Look at it—really look at it!”
“I see precisely what you do, Mr. Banner.”
“Impossible! If that was the case, good Doctor, then why are you still here wasting your time talking to an old, trashed man?”
“What do you propose I do?”
Frank clenched his fists as if he had grasped something fragile by its throat. He squeezed his fingers until his reddened eyeballs blazed with a web of fractured vessels. “Stop him!” he exclaimed. Frank’s voice seethed with urgency now. His tarnished teeth reflected in the television’s light ominously. “Help me put an end to this madness while we still have a chance.”
Although Frank’s rage seemed misguided, Evans sensed a sincerity underlining his words. As a doctor, Evans had encountered such outbursts before, and he generally understood that Frank’s exhibition of fury was not a symptom of his cantankerous disposition more so than a reaction to his genuine fears. If this assessment was indeed accurate, then Evans might have also assumed that Frank’s drunkenness was a way to hibernate from a reality that terrified him like nothing else on Earth.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here,” said Evans, “but I still need to know where Ryan is.” Before Frank attempted to respond, Evans placed the scrapbook back on his lap. “If you’re dealing with problems of your own, I’d be glad to help you later.”
“Maybe you’re not as wise as I thought you were,” said Frank, cradling the booklet as if he had an infant in his arms. “But if you must know, Ryan left here a little while ago.”
“Did he leave alone?”
“No. But whoever took him drove a red Mustang. I didn’t recognize the driver.”
“Do you know where he intended to go?”
Frank shook his head dispassionately, but his eyes hinted to a notion that the doctor could have guessed the answer to his own inquiry if he so desired. Evans might have debated this issue longer, but his attention was suddenly attracted to the sound of another vehicle approaching outside the home. Evans crossed over to the nearest window at the front of the house. He peered between the window’s curtains and noticed a young boy frantically stepping out of an older model Buick.
“We’re you expecting someone else?” Evans asked the old man, but Frank was not responding to any further questions. The old man’s eyes gradually shut, and his slurred syllables were no longer distinguishable. His inebriation had now taken its intended affect. Evans continued to watch the boy as he approached the home as if propelled by a matter of supreme importance.
Rather than squander any more time with Frank, Evans dashed back to the front door to greet the new guest. Perhaps this visitor had a better understanding of what was taking place in this home tonight. Without hesitating, Evans pulled open the front door and met Victor with a placid expression.
Victor had never met Evans personally, but he presumed that the man in the doorway was far too young to be Ryan’s grandfather. Based on Victor’s hesitation, Evans realized that his presence had startled the boy. “It’s okay,” Evans called out to Victor, but not aggressively. “I’m Doctor Evans—Ryan’s psychiatrist.”
Victor peered at the man distrustfully, watching his movement as cautiously as he would any intruder. He then checked his watch briefly before declaring, “Since when do doctors make house calls at 12:45 in the morning?”
“Was Ryan expecting you?”
“Yes—where is he?”
“He’s not here.” Evans stepped out on the porch and closed the door. “His grandfather said he left a short time ago.” He continued to walk off the porch to deal with Victor face-to-face on the sidewalk. After assessing that the boy was most likely Ryan’s friend, Evans asked, “Do you have any idea where he might’ve gone?”
“No, but he couldn’t have gone too far—he doesn’t have a car.”
“Apparently, he drove off in a red Mustang. Does that make sense?”
Victor only knew one person in Belle Falls who owned such a vehicle. It did not take him long to figure out who Ryan left with. “That’s Hailey Gardner’s car,” he said, sounding somewhat baffled and disenchanted at the same time.
“Is she his girlfriend?”
“I suppose you can call her that.”
After offering this explanation, Victor started back toward the curb, but Evans followed in pursuit. He seemed eager to obtain as much information as the boy willingly submitted. In order to formalize their greeting, Evans extended his hand and introduced himself. Victor responded to this gesture by stuffing his hands into his coat�
��s pockets. Evans remained unfazed by the boy’s standoffish demeanor.
“You must be Ryan’s friend,” Evans surmised. “Why else would you arrive here so late?”
“Ryan called me,” responded Victor flatly. “He told me to pick him up.”
“And when did you last speak with him?”
“Less than an hour ago. So you see, I have a reason to be here. But you still haven’t told me why you’re here, Doctor Evans. Did Ryan invite you, too?”
“No,” Evans replied regretfully. “I’m acting on a hunch, but he was already gone when I arrived. As you might’ve guessed, Mr. Banner isn’t exactly being cooperative. He insists that I should know where Ryan is heading, but I don’t.”
Victor’s face whitened slightly, causing Evans to lend attention to this sudden alteration of his flesh. Victor did not attempt to withhold what he believed to be true. “I think I know where he went,” he said tonelessly. “He’s been talking about a lot of crazy stuff lately.”
After Evans processed this information, he was fairly certain on where Ryan intended to go, but he sought to confirm his suspicion by questioning Victor more directly. “Where do you think he went?”
“Why should I tell you?” snapped Victor. “You’re the one putting all those bizarre thoughts in his head. I think the sessions he’s had with you have hurt him more than you realize. He’s never acted so strangely before, and it’s gotten worse since he started to see you again.”
Evans delayed his reaction momentarily to assess if Victor knew as much about Ryan’s disposition as he claimed. He certainly did not wish to reveal anything about his patient’s treatment that Victor had not ascertained on his own. “I don’t even know who you are,” Evans said to Victor. “Maybe we should start over in a more civil manner.”
The doctor extended his hand for a second time, hoping the boy in front of him was capable of suspending his detestation of psychiatrists for a few seconds. Victor still refused to shake Evans’s hand.
“I want to make something clear to you, Doctor,” said Victor sternly. “Whatever tactics you’ve used on Ryan won’t work on me. I don’t believe in your questionable medical tactics.”
“You’re entitled to feel that way,” Evans noted, “but I’m still Ryan’s doctor and I’m here to help him just as you are. I don’t see any reason why we can’t work together to figure out what’s going on here.”
Victor pondered the doctor’s words for a second or two before announcing, “My name is Victor. I’ve known Ryan since he’s lived in Belle Falls.”
“Ah, of course,” said Evans. “Well, Victor, Ryan’s mentioned you to me many times over the years. He’s always spoken very highly of you.”
Victor was neither impressed nor likely to permit the doctor’s favorable words to disarm him of his bitterness. “If we’re going to be truthful here,” Victor stated, “then I’d think you agree that it’s not typical for a doctor to visit his patient on a hunch after midnight. You must know that something is wrong with him, too.”
Evans still found it difficult to discuss the nature of Ryan’s condition with anyone, but he also realized that his ethical restrictions only served as a hindrance in the remedy of this current situation. “We don’t have much time to debate Ryan’s condition, but I think he’s gone to—”
“Glen Dale,” Victor interrupted the doctor. “He told me that on the phone. Hailey must’ve decided to go with him.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted to go there?” asked Evans. He secretly hoped Victor’s response was contrary to what he anticipated.
“Do you really want me to tell you what you already know, Doctor?”
“I’m prepared to admit that Ryan’s statements have been hard to accept. It sounds almost foolish to utter them aloud.”
“Well, then,” replied Victor, “I’ll say them for you. Ryan told me he’s going to search for his parents and twin brother. For some unknown reason, he’s under the impression that they’re still alive and being held captive by alien beings for the past ten years.”
At the very least, Ryan had consistently relayed his story from Evans’s office to his best friend’s ear. A lack of discrepancies in the transferal of facts indicated that the truth—as Ryan believed it—was no longer a product of his subconscious mind. Evans remarked to this notion in predictable fashion. “As farfetched as it might sound to us, Victor, the circumstances are very real to Ryan.”
“Wasn’t it your responsibility to make sure this didn’t happen? We’ve all read the stories on the Internet, Doctor. Ryan never believed any of those accounts until you came back into his life.”
“Blaming me isn’t going to solve our problem now. The longer we wait here and waste our energy bickering, the closer Ryan gets to Glen Dale.”
“And what will he find there, Doctor?”
Three weeks ago Evans’s response would have been more definitive. But tonight, as his eyes shifted to inspect the full Moon’s spray of light, he found no quick reply to alleviate Victor’s concern. His silence lingered long enough to cause Victor to repeat his question more urgently. “What will he find?”
“Nothing,” responded Evans, but almost inaudibly.
“You don’t sound too convinced.”
Evans did not offer a reply this time. Instead, he rushed by Victor and started for his car. His hurriedness prompted Victor to follow in his shadow. “Wait a minute,” exclaimed Victor. “Where are you going?”
Evans spun his head partially toward the boy as he fumbled for the keys in his jacket. “Where do you think? I have to get Ryan back here.”
“You’re going to Glen Dale now?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
After contemplating his available options, Victor conceded that he did not have an alternative solution. But he also peered at Evans as though the man knew something else about Glen Dale that he had not yet divulged. “You’re keeping information from me,” said Victor, accusatorily.
Evans motioned toward his car and rushed around it to open the door. Victor became increasingly suspicious of the doctor’s mannerisms during these seconds. “Tell me what you’re hiding, Doctor—I have a right to know.” Evans still refused to respond. He entered the vehicle and started the engine without hesitating. Before he was able to lock the door, however, Victor jarred the car’s passenger door open and ducked into the front seat beside Evans.
“As I told you, Victor, we don’t have anymore time to waste,” said Evans, clutching the vehicle’s gearshift. “Please get out of the car.”
“I’m coming with you,” Victor declared without a hint of reservation. “Ryan’s my best friend, and if he’s in any sort of danger I want to be there for him.”
“You don’t need to do this, Victor,” Evans advised. “I’m not sure what to expect once I arrive in Glen Dale, but there’s not going to be any heroes. I don’t want to put you in any kind of danger.”
Somehow it seemed strangely appropriate for Victor to embrace this situation now. Hurling himself into the front seat of Evans’s car was a metaphorical occurrence for Victor. In his mind, he had served as a messenger for too long, and taking the backseat in numerous situations throughout his lifetime irked him like never before. At this point in time, there was only one place for Victor, and it suited him well to challenge the doctor on this matter.
“We can sit here all night and negotiate the reasons why I shouldn’t go,” Victor started, “but that will just delay our arrival in Glen Dale.” Victor then pushed the locking mechanism on the car’s door and simultaneously latched his seatbelt to secure himself for the pending journey.
Rather than belabor the issue any further, Evans pulled the vehicle away from the curb and raced down Pine Drive. His decision to allow Victor to accompany him was only a minor courtesy, especially when considering that Victor could have easily followed him in his own car.
As Evans drove onward, he became distracted by the Moon’s dominance in the sky. His attention to this object might h
ave been less bothersome if it was not for Ryan’s own fears shadowing his mind. Evans recalled the boy’s ongoing anxiety, and how it hindered the discourse between them since the onset of their sessions. In those early years, Ryan’s dread of the Moon seemed illogical. As a result, Evans never truly believed that the Moon’s presence was a crucial source to the boy’s nightmares. But tonight afforded a transformation of thought for all those who toiled beneath the lunar light, and Evans was not immune to its mind-altering affects.
During the journey to Glen Dale, Evans kept one eye on the road, but also offered a constant vigilance to Earth’s nearest satellite. Age and wisdom prevented Evans from viewing the Moon as a young boy might imagine it from a moving car’s window. But nevertheless, when traveling along the same route that Ryan rode upon as a child, he sensed the golden eye of eve watching him from afar.
Phantoms of the Moon Page 36
