“To make sure we didn’t print anything else. I don’t think they trusted us, but the man who called us never answered his phone again, so we had nothing else to print.”
“What happened to him?”
“What do you think happened?” the man asks.
Henri nods. “So they knew where he lived?”
“They had the phone number we were supposed to call him back on. I’m sure they could have figured it out.”
“Did they threaten you?”
“Hell, yes. They trashed our office. They screwed with my mind. I haven’t been the same since.”
“What’d they do to your mind?”
He closes his eyes and takes another deep breath.
“They didn’t even look real,” he says. “I mean, here are these three men standing in front of us talking in deep, raspy voices, all in trench coats and hats and sunglasses even though it was nighttime. It looked like they were dressed up for a Halloween party or something. They looked funny and out of place, so at first I laughed at them….,” he says, his voice trailing off.
“But the second I laughed I knew I had made a mistake. The other two Mogadorians started towards me with their sunglasses off. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. Those eyes. I had to look, as though something was pulling me there. It was like seeing death. My own death, and the deaths of all the people I know and love. Things weren’t so funny anymore. Not only did I have to witness the deaths, but I could feel them, too. The uncertainty. The pain. The complete and utter terror. I wasn’t in that room anymore. And then came things I’ve always feared as a kid. Images of stuffed animals that came to life, with sharp teeth as mouths, razor blades for claws. The usual stuff all kids are afraid of. Werewolves. Demonic clowns. Giant spiders. I viewed them all through the eyes of a child, and they absolutely terrified me. And every time one of those things bit into me, I could feel its teeth rip the flesh from my body, I could feel the blood pour from the wounds. I couldn’t stop screaming.”
“Did you try to fight back at all?”
“They had two of these little weasel-looking things, fat, with short legs. No bigger than a dog. They were frothing at the mouth. One of the men was holding them on a leash, but you could tell they were hungry for us. They said they would turn them loose if we resisted. I’m telling you, man, these things weren’t from Earth. If they were dogs, big deal, we would have fought back. But I think those things would have eaten us whole despite our size. And they were pulling against the leash, growling, trying to get to us.”
“So you talked?”
“Yes.”
“When did they come back?”
“The night before the next magazine went out, a little over a week ago.”
Henri gives me a concerned look. Only one week ago the Mogadorians were within a hundred miles of where we live. They could still be here somewhere, maybe monitoring the paper. Perhaps that is why Henri has felt their presence of late. Sam stands beside me, taking everything in.
“Why didn’t they just kill you like they did your source?”
“How the hell do I know? Maybe because we publish a respectable paper.”
“How did the man who called know about the Mogadorians?”
“He said he had captured one of them and tortured it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. His phone number was from the area code near Columbus. So north of here. Maybe sixty or eighty miles north.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Yeah. And I wasn’t sure if he was crazy or not, but we had heard rumors about something like this before. He started talking about them wanting to wipe out civilization as we know it, and sometimes he talked so fast that it was hard to make sense of anything he said. One thing he kept repeating was that they were here hunting something, or somebody. Then he started spouting numbers.”
My eyes open wide. “What numbers? What did they mean?”
“I have no idea. Like I said, he was talking so fast that it was all we could do to write it all down.”
“You wrote while he talked?” Henri says.
“Of course we did. We’re journalists,” he says incredulously. “Do you think we make up the stories we write?”
“Yeah, I do,” says Henri.
“Do you still have the notes that you wrote?” I say.
He looks at me and nods. “I’m telling you, they’re worthless. Most of what I wrote are scribbles on their plan to destroy the human race.”
“I need to see them,” I nearly bellow. “Where, where are they?”
He motions towards a desk against one of the walls.
“On the desk. On sticky notes.”
I walk over to the desk, which is covered with papers, and start looking through the sticky notes. I find some very vague notes on the Mogadorians’ hope to conquer Earth. Nothing concrete, no plans or details, just a few indistinct words:
“Overpopulation”
“Earth’s resources”
“Biological warfare?”
“The Planet Mogadore.”
I come to the note I’m looking for. I read it carefully three or four times.
“Why is there a question mark after the number 4?” I ask.
“Because he said something about it but he talked too fast and I didn’t get it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
He shakes his head. I sigh.
“What does ‘SA’ mean?” I ask.
“South America.”
“Did he say where in South America?”
“No.”
I nod, stare at the slip of paper. I wish I could have heard the conversation, that I could have asked questions of my own. Do the Mogadorians really know where Seven is? Are they really following him or her? If so, the Loric charm still holds. I fold the sticky notes and slip them into my back pocket.
“Do you know what the numbers mean?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I have no idea.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says.
“Shut up,” Sam says, and pokes him in the gut with the heavy end of the bat.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I ask.
He thinks about it for a moment, then says, “I think bright light bothers them. It seemed to cause them pain when they took their sunglasses off.”
We hear a noise downstairs. Like someone trying to slowly open the door. We look at each other. I look to the man in the chair.
“Who is that?” I quietly say.
“Them.”
“What?”
“They said they’d be watching. That they knew someone might be coming.”
We hear quiet footsteps on the first floor.
Henri and Sam look at each other, both terrified.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
