found himself moving along the old foresters path that crossed the top of the little draw where, five years ago almost to the day, he’d noticed that odd light.
He stopped, looked down the draw. He had encountered them just there, just fifty feet down. It had looked like an old witch’s cottage that he’d never seen before. Glowing, infinitely sinister.
Curious, thinking maybe he had squatters in his woods, he’d walked up to it, and the next thing he knew, he was grabbed by scaly hands, he was being glared at by the most terrible eyes he had ever seen, he was being manhandled—and yes, the infamous rectal probe had taken place—and then he was on the ground, the little cottage was gone, and there was a crackling electricity in the air.
At least, that’s what he remembered in his conscious mind. His dreams were a different story. In his dreams, there were towering emotions of loss and longing, and Brooke was involved, but she had sworn that she’d seen nothing that night, heard nothing.
He moved up the dark path, shining his light ahead, looking for the cigar cave. A smoke was what he needed. He had a gargle station in the garage, which he’d use before he got in bed with Brooke. Cigar breath and he’d be on the couch, and he was way too tired for that.
He shone his light on the trees that loomed around him, the oaks with their golden leaves, the red maples, the gnarled pitch pines that began to appear as he climbed farther up the ridge.
He was maybe fifty yards from the cave when he became aware of a more solid shape up ahead.
He stopped, peered into the dark. Matt was on duty tonight, so maybe it was a deer. And yet, the form—it looked like a man standing real close to the trunk of that oak.
Oh, shit, what if the reptilians knew that he was writing about their invasion, and they didn’t like it?
Hardly daring to do it, his hands shaking so much he could barely manage it, he got the flashlight pointed in the direction of the figure.
—which did not move.
Was it a branch? What was that?
He stepped closer. “Hello?”
It leaped out at him.
He fell back, he lost the light, and then the figure was on him, glaring down at him—and laughing.
“Godddamn it!”
“Oh, man, Wiley, Wiley, oh Christ, this is rich! It’s rich!”
Wiley got to his feet. “You call yourself a cop? Out here wasting taxpayer money like this—what if there’s a lost kitten or something down in the town? What will you do?”
“That flashlight! How many batteries in that thing?”
“A few.”
“Beka says to me, who’s got a searchlight up on the ridge behind the Dale’s house? That’s what it looks like. I mean, they were concerned over in Holcomb, they thought we had a fire goin’ up this way.”
“Holcomb is fifteen miles from here.”
“I rest my case.”
“You saw my flashlight from your house?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you got out here in what—five minutes? I don’t think so. You’ve been out here for a while, because you’re raiding the Cubans, you shit.”
“You’re raiding ’em, too, you shit. Otherwise, why would you be out here yourself?”
“Bastard.”
“You’re the bastard, because you can afford the damn things and they’re a precious luxury to a poor cop.”
“I’m hardly rich.”
“Your kids are in an exclusive private school in K.C. Not to mention the Jeepazine with which you convey them to said school daily.”
“It’s moderately customized.”
“TV in a Jeep is very froufrou for rural Kansas, buddy. Look, let’s go down to my wife’s roadhouse and get hammered. We can take cigars with us, the place is closed, nobody’s gonna know.”
“Brooke’s gonna get suspicious if I stay out here too long. And as for coming home drunk, that’s been done one too many times.”
“Man, I have to admit I’d like to be pussy—whipped by your ball and chain.”
“You think?”
They began to wander back, both of them planning future cigar raids, hopefully more successful ones. The point was to smoke more than half of the cigars. The guy who did that was the winner.
As they reached the ridge that overlooked Wiley’s house, he noticed, in his office, a light. It came, glowed bright, then went.
He stopped. “You see that?”
“Actually, yeah.”
“Given that my family’s asleep, I’m concerned.”
The light came again, flickered, and was gone.
“Looks like you got a short workin’ in there.”
As he scrambled down the ridge to the house, Matt stayed right with him. He was a reprobate, but he was also a dutiful cop.
They arrived at the edge of Wiley’s yard. His pool stood still and silent. The light flashed bright, and there was a sputtering sound from the open window.
They went in through the screen door. Matt dug the fire extinguisher out of the closet while Wiley dashed up to his office.
He looked at the desk, at the cords running down behind it. Nothing was sparking.
“So what is it?” Matt asked, coming in.
Could it have been the reptilians, maybe here to wreck the book? They’d broken through before, for sure. Sort of broken through.
Matt bent down and brought up a frayed cord. He shook it and it sparked. “Sadie do this?”
Their Burmese cat was a notorious cord chewer. “I forgot to close the door.”
“She could’ve burned down your family, buddy.”
“Thanks for helping me, Matt.”
They said their good-byes, and Matt went clomping off down the stairs.
Wiley started to leave the office, but was stopped by sounds that should not be there. Footsteps. Somebody pacing in the bedroom. But Brooke was asleep.
He realized that he was hearing Lindy Winters.
Their world was not an inch away, not a millimeter. If the physicists were right, they were infinitely close, and yet it would take more energy than existed in both universes together to enable them to make contact.
Except…the physicists appeared to be wrong, didn’t they?
Wiley sat down in his chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and when he did, Martin’s universe seemed to settle around him, caressing him like a living, complex fog.
The lenses were hooks, and they had hooked into Martin’s world, and it would not be long before they hooked into this one, too.
When he opened his eyes, nearly two hours had passed. It was nearly one. He needed to sleep, but he felt kind of sick inside, like somebody in a crashing plane would feel, waiting for the impact.
They were coming. That’s what this was all about.
In the other human world, NASA had announced that UFOs were real. Apparently, that had changed the balance, enabling the reptilians to enter on a tide of belief.
So far, that did not seem like anything our NASA was likely to do.
Now he understood why the government denied the obvious UFO reality. Somebody down deep in its secret corridors must know that belief counts, that it is the oil in the hinges of the doors between the worlds.
He heard another sound, coming in from outside. Metallic. Very faint, though. What was that?
It came again, faded again. He went to the window, leaned against the screen, trying to hear more
