newborn.
Others began to growl, to laugh, to back away toward the walls. As the minister did this, he laughed softly. His face was still his own, but it was empty, the eyes glassy, staring.
Bobby came to the center aisle, then trotted up to the pulpit. “Okay, we have the law on our side, we need to do this, people.”
“My baby, my baby is fine. Lucy, you’re fine. She’s fine!” Becky Lindner shook her twelve-year-old. “Lucy! Lucy, don’t you playact!”
The girl, who had been plastic like a catatonic, lunged at her mother, biting as a dog bites when it is cornered and cannot get away. Becky cried out, falling back into the Baker family, and young Timothy Baker caught her in his arms.
Then Carl Bright screamed as he realized that his teenage son Robert, also, was among the wanderers. Martin’s heart was torn by all he was seeing, but the families like this one were the hardest. The Brights lived back in the hills in a comfortable house. In fact, it was only a few miles from their own place. He was a technical writer, she ran an online crafts business.
Without so much as a murmured warning, Mrs. Haggerty leaped on Lindy’s back like a lioness leaping on a wildebeest, and she lurched forward into Martin, and the three of them went down with Mrs. Haggerty ripping Lindy’s hair out in handfuls while her husband, crying out, dragged her off and took her into the aisle.
“Kids, don’t look,” Martin shouted as young Haggerty shot his mother dead.
Lindy and Winnie and Trevor turned and moved to the back of the church. Martin was confused by this. “Lindy? Hey.”
Another shot from the back of the sanctuary, and one of the Desmond boys stood over his father’s body, looking down out of tear-flooded young eyes. “Momma, I did it, I did it,” he cried, and his mother took him to her, and buried him in her embrace.
Phil Knippa, whose wife was gathering at the back of the church with the others who had been ruined, asked Martin, “What happens?”
Martin ran to his family. “Hey, this—”
His Lindy had reached the door. She stood with the others. “Lindy? Oh, no!”
Bobby came up to him. “Hey, come on, guy.”
“But they didn’t—nothing happened to them!” He laughed. “She’s in shock. Hey, Lindy!” He went down to his kids. “See, they’re fine, Bobby, they’re just following their mother. Winnie! Trevor! Stop this! Stop this!”
Phil said, “In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
The new wanderers crowded the entrance, pressing against the doors, slapping them and Lindy and Trevor and Winnie were doing it, too, and then Bobby put his hand on Martin’s shoulder. Martin turned, and when he saw the gun that his dear old friend was offering him, the anguish that ripped his heart caused him to throw his head back and cry out, and in that quiet part of him that is in us all and sees and knows all, a voice said, “This has happened. This is what you have, now.”
Lovers, wives, husbands, children—all circulated among them, trying to communicate with them, and the church was filled with their tears.
Bobby got the door open for them, and they went out into the street…and joined many others, a shocking number, all walking away into the night. Martin thought that it was more than half the town. Three quarters.
They shuffled silently off toward the low water crossing and the back roads that led up into the Smokey Hills, hardly hills at all, but wilder than they looked from a distance.
A few people ran after them, two husbands, a wife, some others who had exchanged death promises. “If it happens to me, don’t let me be like that.” Pacts made in blood and love.
Martin ran, too, touching his love, calling to her, calling to his babies, “Kids, come back here, this is Dad, this is an order!” And to his wife, “Oh, Lindy, wake up, love, wake up, love.”
But they did not wake up, none of them woke up. An arm came around Martin’s shoulder, the arm of somebody he knew vaguely but who now seemed like a savior, and he leaned against this man and wept, and in the street the little clusters of those left behind wept, and the wanderers went on down the street, disappearing into the dark.
Martin ran after them again, and then he stopped, and he went to his knees and he howled her name, “LINDY!” He cried in rage and in anguish as she went off without even a backward glance, taking his babies and his love and all that meant anything to him with her into the night.
The shattered town sank away into the horrible small hours, with weeping in the churches, and the bodies of the destroyed dead lined up with what little dignity could be managed on the lawns. Most of the ruined, though, were not killed, because people did not have it in their hearts to rip the life out of the familiar and the beloved, no matter their state. So they went away, absorbed by the night. When daylight came, people would seek them out, taking water and food to the empty shells of their loved ones, trying to feed them, to talk to them. And they would smile, the wanderers, or sometimes lash out like scared animals, but the followers would stay with them, begging, pleading, praying, trying anything to bring them back. It is an extraordinary anguish to say good-bye to your dead while they are still alive, and many, many people could not do it.
Martin went to his feet. He would not be a follower. He vowed that. He would be a fighter. Somehow, he was going to rescue his love and his children, he was going to go out there into that darkness, and whatever it took, whatever was needed, if he give his blood or his life or his own soul, it mattered not a bit, he would rescue his family.
Toward dawn there was a fall of dew, and morning came pearled with it, on the leaves of autumn and the yellowing late grasses, on the neat houses, the empty streets, and on the wanderers, too, far out in the rustling fields, shining on their pale skin, pearl upon pearl.
FOUR
DECEMBER 2
THE POISONER
WILEY LEAPED UP FROM THE computer, threw open the bottom drawer of the desk, grabbed the booze he kept in there, and just plain poured it down. “Christ, you dummies, can’t you see it’s a damn trick?”
But they had not seen, not even Martin and Lindy. They’d gone to the church, too, they’d made themselves sitting damn ducks and they’d—oh, God, the poor Winters family, and poor Harrow. All those good, decent people.
Wanderers. It was worse than dying. But why was this being done to them and where were they going? He thought that Martin was right about one thing—they were certainly on their way to designated locations. Collection points, though—he was just guessing about that. Maybe they were going to gas chambers or something, God forbid that such a fate would befall Lindy and Winnie. He was crazy about them, that sweet, bright little girl, her mother so full of love and brilliance.
“This is not real,” he said, “I refuse to let this be real.”
Maybe he wasn’t recording events in the other human universe, but creating them. Maybe he was an instrument of the reptilians, and maybe that was why they had came into his life five years ago. They had done something to him. Prepared him. But how?.
He knew that supple movement between parallel universes was involved with belief and the lack thereof. By continuing to deny that UFOs were something real, our own version of NASA had saved us—at least, so far. But not him. Maybe not him.
Thing was, the closer we got to December 21, the easier it became to get through the gateways. And on that day, all hell was going to break loose in the other human universe. That had to be what this was all about. Preparing for the invasion…and maybe here, too, no matter what our version of NASA denied or did not deny.
He clicked through the pages he had written. He knew both more and less than was in the laptop. For example, he knew what was happening in the Far East in Martin’s world, which was a catastrophe so vast that it was, quite simply, unimaginable. He knew, but he couldn’t access any detail. Couldn’t see much. Could feel it
