Chapter 7
Rasche awoke slowly, his mind hazy; he didn’t really remember where he was.
He lived in Bluecreek, Oregon, he remembered that much-he and his wife, Shari, and their two boys. They’d moved out here to be safe, after that mess in New York.
He wasn’t at home now, though, was he? Whatever he was lying on, it didn’t feel like an ordinary bed. He opened his eyes.
At first he saw only darkness. Then bright light, painfully bright, cut through the dark, blinding him. He closed his eyes again, still trying to collect his thoughts.
That mess back in New York… who were those things, really? What were they? Why were they there? Would they come back?
Would they come back for him?
Schaefer had had them all figured out, but Rasche had never really understood it. Hunters from space, yeah- but why? How did they decide who to hunt? Where would he be safe-anywhere? Was Bluecreek far enough away?
He couldn’t stop thinking about them, couldn’t stop remembering the strange masks and the hideous faces underneath, their yellow flesh and black talons, the dripping blood and mutilated bodies of their victims.
He blinked. He felt as if he had been drugged, had he? He couldn’t remember. He still couldn’t remember where he was, how he had gotten there. He tried to see through the light, through the mental haze.
A mask-he saw a mask hovering over him. And long yellow fingers were reaching toward his face.
It was one of them, he realized-one of those things from outer space!
”He’s awake…” someone said.
Rasche forced himself to act, suddenly and decisively. He wasn’t a young man, he looked overweight and out of shape, but he could still move fast and hard when he needed to, and he moved now, lunging at the thing in the mask, his hands reaching for its throat as he shouted, “Not again! You won’t get away again! This time I’m taking you down with me!”
His foe went over backward and tumbled to the floor. Rasche landed on his opponent’s chest, and that unbearably bright light was behind him instead of in his eyes, so that he could see clearly again.
A woman shrieked, “Sheriff Rasche, please! Stop it!”
Rasche looked down and saw that the shadowy figure wasn’t what he had thought. The mask was white paper over gauze, not alien metal; the throat in his hands was human. The yellow fingers were rubber gloves. And Rasche knew he couldn’t have knocked over one of those alien predators anywhere near so easily. He released his hold.
Then at last the mental haze cleared, and Rasche realized he was kneeling atop his dentist.
”Dr. Krelmore,” he said, suddenly remembering the man’s name.
Krelmore made a choking noise.
”I’m sorry,” Rasche said as he got off his victim. “The gas… I mean…”
”The gas?” Krelmore said as his hygienist helped him up off the floor.
”I was imagining things that weren’t there,” Rasche said. “Hallucinating, I guess.”
”Hallucinating?” Krelmore brushed himself off. “I’m just a dentist, Sheriff, but I never saw anyone react like that just to the gas.” He coughed. “Your filling’s all done, but maybe… maybe you’d be better off consulting, you know, a psychiatrist or something.”
Rasche shook his head. “I’ve seen enough psychiatrists to diagnose the entire state of Florida,” he said. More to himself than the others, he added, “Jesus, I really thought I was over it.” He looked at Dr. Krelmore. “I had this real bad time…” he began.
Then he caught himself. Telling his dentist that he’d been involved in a secret war against alien monsters on the streets of New York was not exactly a good career move.
”Look, Doc,” he said, “I’m really sorry for what happened. I… I’d appreciate it if you could keep this under your hat.” He managed a sickly smile.
”I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, y’know? New place, new job, I’m still getting settled in.”
”Sure,” Krelmore said, rubbing his neck-the red marks left by Rasche’s chokehold were already fading. “Sure, no problem, Sheriff. Your secret’s safe with me.” He forced a weak grin in response to Rasche’s smile. “Every time they show Marathon Man on TV, it’s the same damn thing. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
”Nobody’s ever…” the hygienist began, then stopped as both men turned unhappily to face her, afraid she was going to say something they’d all regret.
”Well, we’ve had some upset patients before,” she said, “but I think you’re the first one to actually take Dr. Krelmore down like that.”
Krelmore’s smile reappeared. “Best two falls out of three?” he asked.
No one quite managed to laugh.
Ten minutes later Rasche was out on the streets of Bluecreek, thinking hard as he automatically scanned his surroundings, cop fashion.
He didn’t like losing control like that. Yeah, he’d been out of it from the gas, but trying to strangle a harmless tooth doctor was not a good sign, even so. He’d been the local sheriff in Bluecreek for a little over four months now, and he’d mostly thought he’d been settling in nicely. He’d thought that he’d left all the freaks and crazies behind when he quit the NYPD and went west, but now he wondered whether maybe one of the craziest hadn’t moved out west right along with him, right inside his own head.
He walked on automatically as he thought, taking in everything around him, unconsciously classifying everyone he saw into one of three categories, the traditional New York cop triage. The three categories were cops, citizens, and scum; back in the Big Apple he’d always seen a mix, but here in Bluecreek he only seemed to see citizens.
That had been the whole point of moving here, of course, but it still didn’t seem entirely natural. He’d spent almost his whole life in New York; if it hadn’t been for those monsters from Planet X, he’d undoubtedly still be there, probably still working homicide or narco with his partner Schaefer, finishing out his time until retirement.
The spaceships and the all-out firefight on Third Avenue had been too much for him, though. He’d left. He’d found the job as sheriff, gathered up Shari and the kids, and come out here where it was safe.
Or safer, anyway. He glanced at the sky. He couldn’t be sure anywhere was really safe, but Bluecreek seemed like a pretty good bet. Rasche had been pleased to get the job offer. He’d sent out his resume from the hospital, and the reply from Bluecreek had been waiting when he was released. He’d grabbed it.
He’d asked Schaef to come with him, but the big man had refused. Rasche had even offered him a job as deputy, and Schaefer had smiled so broadly Rasche thought he might actually laugh which would have been a first, Schaefer actually laughing at anything Rasche said.
Rasche had to admit that the idea of Schaefer playing Barney Fife to Rasche’s Sheriff Taylor was pretty absurd, but he’d kept asking as long as he could.
It hadn’t worked. Schaefer had stayed in New York.
It wasn’t that Schaefer loved the city all that much; he didn’t. Sometimes Rasche thought Schaefer hated the place. And it wasn’t that he’d never lived anywhere else; Schaefer wasn’t a native New Yorker. Rasche thought he’d grown up in Pennsylvania somewhere, though he wasn’t sure-Schaefer had never really said where he came from.
No, Schaefer stayed in New York because he wasn’t going to let those alien things drive him out, and he wasn’t going to let the government order him around. Rasche knew that and understood it, other people had wanted Schaefer to go away, people Schaefer didn’t like, and that was the surest way there was to get Schaef to stay put. As long as the feds wanted Schaefer out of New York, he wasn’t going to leave the city-not for Rasche, not for anyone.
Besides, Rasche thought, Schaefer was still pissed off about the government covering up the mess, still pissed off that they hadn’t told him what had happened to his brother Dutch, the covert operative, after Dutch had disappeared on a rescue mission in Central America. Staying in New York meant that Schaefer would have more
