Allie.”
She nodded, and stretched her hand to his, but by the time she touched it, the hand had faded, simply guttered out like a candle, five fingers now only four, each with a double joint. She drew her gaze up his body, human skin now vanished, all human features resolved into a smooth, metallic gray.
Chapter Two
The interior of the motel was dingy, but Mary gave no notice of it. She was busy at her laptop. “They’re not registering, Chet,” she said.
Wakeman lay on the bed, his hand behind his head, feet stretched out before him. “I know,” he said.
Mary looked at him, astonished. “You know?”
“Shut off. No signal.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“I was getting there.”
“How about their friend in the backseat?” Mary asked.
“Probably shut off too.” Wakeman pulled himself up and opened his own laptop. “Look at this,” he said, motioning Mary to his side. “The sightings are starting again. Lights in the sky. Centered over Idaho and Nebraska.”
Mary stared at the screen. “Then we’d better get ready.”
Wakeman shook his head. “You can’t do anything, Mary.” He seemed to recall the way she’d looked at the gas station, the pistol she’d leveled so firmly at Allie’s head. “You would have shot Allie, wouldn’t you?”
“I would have stopped her anyway I could,” Mary admitted.
“You’re not going to let it go, are you?”
“I can’t.”
He gazed at her sadly, as if she were already lost to him. “Do you know the story of Medusa?”
“If you look at her, you turn to stone,” Mary said.
“Unless you know the secret, in which case, you can kill her,” Wakeman said.
“Is this going somewhere, Chet?” Mary asked impatiently.
“I used to think we could do something together. New science, maybe, or just get the better of them somehow. But, Mary, we’re not ready to be anything but spectators in this. If we try for more, we’ll-well-we’ll turn to stone.”
Mary shook her head firmly. “I’m not giving up, Chet. I’m going to find that little girl, and I’m going to be more than a witness to this.”
“But, Mary…”
She turned away and watched the screen of her laptop, where scores of new reports were coming in, strange lights appearing everywhere. “Maybe they don’t know where she is either,” she said.
“That’s a thought, isn’t it,” Wakeman said.
She looked at him. “Will you help me or not?”
Wakeman nodded. “All right, let’s think about it then. Suppose they don’t know where she is because her signal is turned off.”
“But how would they have lost her? She’s with one of them.”
“That’s a very good question,” Wakeman admitted. “What are you thinking?”
Mary considered this a moment, then said, “The man who was driving the car back at the station. That was Tom Clarke. Lisa’s uncle.”
“I thought I recognized him. He’s getting a little long in the tooth.”
“I had the office upload all my grandfather’s files, everything we had on Tom Clarke. You know my grandfather went to Texas once.”
“And got the bejesus scared out of him by Jacob Clarke.”
“Tom Clarke still owns his mother’s farmhouse. The place where my grandfather went to get Jacob.”
“You think that’s where they’ve gone?”
“I’m all for taking a look.”
“What if they’re there?” Wakeman asked. “Then what?”
The look in Mary’s eyes gave him the only answer he needed.
When Mary entered the shower, Wakeman picked up the receiver and dialed information. “For Austin, Texas. Tom Clarke.” He dialed Tom’s number, but got only the answering machine.
By the time he began to leave his message, the bullet had struck, and the phone was dropping from his hand.
Mary stood above his fallen body, her eyes glistening. She knew that no one would ever love her as he had loved her, and the fact that she could put such love aside had now sealed her fate.
She placed the gun on the small table beside the bed, picked the phone off the floor and dialed the number.
“General Beers’ office.”
“I’d like to speak to General Beers,” Mary said. “Tell him Mary Crawford is calling.”
Moments later, the general arrived. He glanced at Wakeman’s body, then at Mary.
There was no need to conceal anything, and so she told it all in a wild rush, everything that had happened to her, to Wakeman, everything they’d learned and everything they had surmised, down to Wakeman himself, how he’d changed, gone over to the “visitors,” so that she’d had no choice but…
“Dear God,” Beers breathed. “You are one cold and nasty bitch, Mary.”
“Will you help me?”
The general peered at her darkly. “When we’re through with all this, I’m going to see that you’re held accountable for what you’ve done,” he said.
Mary made no protest, and because of that, understood that she was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. “Do you want to know how we can find Allie?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” Beers said sharply. “Tell me.”
“You’ve been monitoring the reports from the northwest?” Mary asked. “The lights?”
“So far that’s all they’ve been.”
“Dr. Wakeman believed that this is it. They’re coming for Allie.”
“Why don’t they just take her then?”
“Because right at this moment, they don’t know where she is.”
“But she’s with one of them, the one from the gas station.”
“Maybe he’s the one who shut her off. Maybe he’s the one who’s protecting her.”
“Why would he be doing that?”
“Remorse?” Mary asked.
The general considered this silently for a moment, then said, “Go on.”
“I came after Allie in a parking lot,” Mary said. “She got away from me in a car with the help of that alien. She’s spent, General. And she’s also alone. At least until… they find her.”
“You want to get her before they do,” the general said.
“I want to finish what we started,” Mary said grimly. “Right now you need someone who understands what you might be dealing with. Right now, you need me with you.”
General Beers studied her a moment. “I want you to know that it disgusts me that I have to work with you,” he said finally.
Mary smiled thinly. “I can understand that,” she said.
Tom and Charlie stood outside the farmhouse, staring silently into the surrounding fields. After a time, Lisa came out to join them.
