“I just needed my own identity,” Becky said. “Someplace where I wasn’t Tom Clarke’s little sister.”
“The brother shadow?” Eric asked. “Me, too. The sun rose and set on my brother, Sam.”
“I guess a lot of people do that,” Becky said. “They’re just kids trying to get away from home and they wind up smack dab in the middle of their lives before they know what hit them.”
The plane landed on a deserted airstrip with only a few Quonset huts surrounded by the desert waste.
“I want to show you something,” Eric told her.
They exited the plane and walked across the airstrip to a large building. The interior corridor was brightly lit, and at the end of it, Eric opened a door and ushered Becky inside.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” Eric said as he switched on the light.
Becky stared in disbelief at a large specimen jar, the small body trapped inside it, with pear-shaped head and almond eyes, now closed in death, so that it seemed to sleep on a cloud of unknowing.
“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?” Eric whispered. He drew Becky nearer to the jar. “I come here sometimes by myself. I sit and stare at him. I keep feeling that if I stare at it long enough, I’ll be able to understand.”
Becky’s hand lifted to her throat. “Thank you, Eric, for showing me this.”
He touched her hair. “I wasn’t going to, but…” He trailed off, drawing her into his arms.
“What’s happening to us?” she asked.
“Listen, Becky,” Eric told her. “I want you to come with me.”
“Where?”
“I’ve got a spot picked out in Maine. The gawkers will still come to the desert. They’ll see the same experimental planes and think they’re seeing flying saucers.” He drew his arms more tightly around her. “The trucks leave Groom Lake tomorrow. They’ll sneak across the desert to avoid your brother and his friends.”
She looked at him seriously. “Tom says you’ve taken people. Experimented on them.”
His embrace tightened.
“I swear to you, Becky,” he said. “I have never in my life done anything to harm anyone.”
The first kiss was tender, the second more passionate, the third so blinding in its hunger, that he could tell thatt.
Becky had lost track of where she was. The odd and unexpected thing was he felt himself lose track too, and not only of Becky, but of the room around him, the lights and machines, and even the small creature in the clear glass jar, who watched him now with open eyes.
Chapter Three
It had all happened so fast, and even now, as Jesse sat in the passenger seat, watching the unfamiliar landscape, he could scarcely comprehend the series of events. First Dr. Traub had told him that his deposit was not disintegrating as quickly as he’d hoped. Then he’d introduced a Dr. Patterson from the Brazel Clinic, the place Traub said he had to go in order to have the tumor removed. Patterson had given him only enough time to call home, speak to Charlie and hear the frantic voice of a young boy who missed his father terribly.
“Big country,” the driver said. He was tall and very thin and wore a wrinkled sweatshirt, which seemed strange for a guy who claimed to be a doctor.
“Yeah,” Jesse answered dully.
“We’ll take care of that thing in your head,” the driver assured him. “And once that’s done, no more little gray men.”
“I’m ready,” Jesse said wearily.
They drove on in silence for a few moments. Jesse once again went over the last few days, the accident, the lights, the way he’d told Amelia everything, how she’d taken him to Dr. Traub, the whole story of his…
He stopped. Little gray men? He’d never told Dr. Traub anything about “gray” men.
He turned to the driver. “Little gray men? I never said anything to Traub about little gray men.”
The man shrugged. “Educated guess.”
Jesse nodded, steeled himself for what he had to do, and then did it.
The blow came hard and fierce and the man’s head slammed into the side window, his sweatshirt flapping up to reveal the forty-five tucked in his belt.
Jesse grabbed the pistol, wheeled the car around in a wrenching turn and headed back toward Missouri, thinking only of Charlie now, determined to get back to his son, before his son was… taken.
Charlie stood before his class, reciting proudly. “That’s one small step for mankind… I mean for man… one giant step for mankind.” He looked out over the other children in his class, his eyes on the empty chair where he imagined his father sitting, beaming proudly.
Then the door opened, and he was there. His father.
“I can’t believe you came,” Charlie said excitedly. He rushed down the aisle and leaped into Jesse’s arms.
“We have to go now,” his father said, lowering him to the ground, then tugging him swiftly out of the classroom, down the corridor and finally into the car.
“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.
His father didn’t answer, but only pressed down hard on the accelerator, the car now hurtling down the highway until it reached a place Charlie recognized from pictures in the paper, the place where the accident had happened, and where his father suddenly pulled the car over, slammed on the brakes, and brought the car to a screeching halt.
“Dad?” Charlie asked. “Why are we stopping here?”
His father took his hand and quickly urged him out of the car and toward the adjoining field, a wall of wheat undulating weirdly in the distance, his father moving fast now, as if under some invisible lash.
Another sound. Another car.
Charlie looked back over his shoulder and saw his father’s car slide to a stop on the side of the road, then another man get out, identical… his father!
“Dad?” Charlie asked, glancing up at the man who held his hand in a tight grip.
Jesse ran toward him. “Charlie, get away from the field,” he called frantically. “Come over here to me.”
The other father stopped dead and wheeled around to face Jesse. “He’s not your father,” he said to Charlie.
“Don’t listen to him,” Jesse cried.
Charlie looked from one to the other.
“Charlie, it’s me,” the man who held his hand said.
“He’s not me,” Jesse called to him desperately. “It’s going to be all right. Charlie, he’s not me.”
“Charlie, I’m your dad,” the man holding his hand said firmly.
“No,” Jesse shouted. “He’s making me from your head, from your picture of me.”
Charlie glanced back at the man who stood a few yards away begging him not to go into the field.
“Remember last month?” the man called to him loudly. “I cut myself shaving and I didn’t know it. I came down to the breakfast table with blood all over the side of my face, and you and mom…”
Charlie glanced up at the man who still held his hand. Blood had begun to drip from a cut on his cheek. “You’re not…” Charlie began, then stopped, as a group of men suddenly emerged from the wheat.
“Dad!” Charlie screamed, trying to tug free of the man’s grip.
But the man held him tightly.
“
Jesse came to in a hospital room, his eyes barely able to focus, as if they’d been seared by the light. Through the blur he made out Amelia and Charlie beside the bed.
