And so now she stood in a new apartment, embarked upon what she thought must surely be a new direction in life.
“You said you’d tell me,” she said to Tom. “About these people, and why you think they’re looking for me.”
Tom’s expression turned serious. “From your description, I’m sure that the man who came to see you was Eric Crawford. His father was an Army colonel named Owen Crawford. It was Owen who came after your father.”
“Why was Owen Crawford looking for my father?”
“Because he thought he might be… proof.”
“Of what?”
“That people had been… taken,” Tom answered.
“By…?”
“Yes,” Tom said.
“And my mom, does she know about all this?”
“She knows that your father was very… special. But this alien thing? No. She thinks I’m out of my mind.”
Lisa suddenly felt strangely burdened, like one who’d been given a deadly secret she could not share.
Tom touched her face. “Listen, if you need me, put a personal ad in
Lisa nodded.
“You’re going to be all right, Lisa,” Tom assured her.
He hugged her, then headed for the door.
“Thanks,” Lisa said.
“And believe me,” Tom added. “No one’s going to find you.”
She waved good-bye as he left the room. She knew that he’d believed everything he’d just told her, especially that she was going to be fine, that no one was ever going to find her, not the people from the government, and certainly not the aliens. She could only hope that he was right.
Charlie had not been able to stop thinking about his father since his death, and now, with the war medals in his hand, he felt closer than ever, as if his father were with him, standing over him, watching from some great distance.
“Your dad never kept his own medals,” his mother told him. “These are your grandfather’s from World War II.” She looked at them lovingly, as if they connected him to Jesse rather than his grandfather. “He carried them every day of his life. They were in his pocket when he died.”
Charlie looked down at the box that had held Russell Keys’ medals. A photograph lay at the bottom of the box. He took it out and looked at it closely.
“It’s a picture of your father,” Amelia said. “When he was eight years old. I think the guy with him is his stepfather.” She studied the photograph and Charlie could see a dark recollection form in her mind. “Oh yes,” she said quietly. “This was the time your father went to the carnival. His stepfather took him. He said it was the most terrifying thing he ever went through. Worse than anything in Vietnam.” Her fingers held the photograph gingerly, like something that might at any moment burst into flame. “It was one of those… traveling carnivals,” she added, “with rides that spin you around.”
“Is that what scared him?” Charlie asked. “The rides?”
Amelia shook her head, her gaze fixed on the picture, staring at it as if through a rent in time. “No, it was the carnies,” she said. One finger slid over to a tall slender figure who slouched, smoking, beside a ticket booth. “Like him.”
She handed Charlie the photograph, and as he peered at it, his hand reflexively moved to the red scar behind his ear. “What was wrong with Dad?” he asked.
“He had a… brain disorder. He believed certain things.”
“What things?”
“He’s dead, Charlie,” Amelia said. “Do you really want to remember that part of him?”
“I want whatever I can get.”
“All right,” Amelia said. “He believed that he’d been taken by aliens. Lots of times.”
Charlie glanced at the photograph, the carny whose face he recognized. “But the people we’re hiding from, they’re not… aliens.”
“No,” Amelia said. “They believe in them, though. They believe that your father was taken by them and that’s why they wanted him.”
“How about you?” Charlie asked. “What do you believe?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia said. “Your father thought that the aliens were his guardian angels. That they protected him. Because they wanted something. He believed that they saved him in Vietnam.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “And he believed that they were coming for you.”
Charlie’s eyes fell upon the carny. “They have come for me. More than once,” he said. He saw the terror crawl into his mother’s eyes. “But you know what, Mom? None of this scares me anymore. It just makes me mad.”
She smiled, and he could see the pride she had in him, and the pride his father would have had.
“If they come for me again,” Charlie added determinedly, “I won’t go without a fight.”
Lisa set the drums down just inside the door. She’d lugged them for blocks, but it had been worth it, because she’d actually gotten a job with a band. The band wasn’t much, and she’d been the only drummer to show up for a tryout. She hadn’t been very good either. In fact, the leader of the band had told her that she “sucked,” but that if she could “unsuck” in a week she could join them for a hotel gig.
Lisa started to close the door, then was startled to notice the band’s guitar player standing behind her, his eyes on the “I Married a Monster From Outer Space” poster she’d tacked to the wall.
“I remember the night before I left home,” he said. “I was sleeping in the bed I’d slept in since I was nine. All my stuff still on my walls. I’m lying there thinking how weird it is, this is exactly like it’s always been and tomorrow it will be different forever. Do you know what I mean?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lisa said.
“You do?”
“That’s exactly what happened to me.” Lisa smiled. “I expect to wake up any minute in my old room.” She made a slow turn, taking in the cramped, but oddly cozy room, and as she turned the old walls changed into something bright and gleaming, and she was… now back in her room, staring first at the poster, then at the doorway, which was empty now, the guitar player abruptly vanished… if he’d ever been there at all.
Eric pulled up to the fish cannery, observed its rusty tin roof and dilapidated exterior. He smiled. Very good, he thought.
Inside the cannery, banks of monitors lined the walls, their screens gleaming brightly as people bustled about, the whole atmosphere so feverishly active and intently focused that it reminded him of Houston Mission Control.
“Welcome back,” Wakeman said as he made his way through the welter of machinery and technicians. “How was California?”
“Sunny,” Eric replied. “Very sunny.”
Wakeman turned serious. “I’ve got earth-shattering news, Eric. Are you ready?”
Eric nodded.
“I was wrong,” Wakeman said with a delighted laugh. “I took all the money the generals threw at us and I told my guys to build me something that will pick up the impulse signals from the implants. Remember, those faint little
