throat.
'We'd better go on and see the rest of the sights before dark, Aunt Mayzie. Plus, we have all day tomorrow, and I'm sure this lady wants to get back to her work.'
'All right, James. You young folks are always in such a rush. Good luck to you tomorrow, ma'am,” Aunt Mayzie said.
The woman nodded absently, already turning her attention back to her bunting, the heady aroma of flowers rising on the evening breeze.
They walked to the Haynes House, a nineteenth-century home that had been restored as a community center. The music stage had been built on its grassy lawn beneath a big, dying oak that had been throwing down leaves since before the Cherokee hunted the hills. A couple of husky guys in flannel shirts were setting up the sound system, black Marshall stacks that had cones as big as manhole covers. Teenage kids hung from the porch rails of the Haynes House or clustered around the stage, sipping Pepsis and dreaming rock-star fantasies.
Aunt Mayzie pegged up to the Haynes House porch. Hay bales had been scattered around to make seats for a storytelling area, and one end of the porch had been blocked off with hay to muffle the music that would be blaring from the stage the next day. James helped Mayzie up the stairs and she leaned against the Colonial columns that supported the roof.
'Why don't you have a seat, Aunt Mayzie?' James said. She was breathing a little too hard to suit him.
'I'm okay, honey,' she said. 'Just let me look around a little more and catch my breath, then I'll go on home. I know you want to watch the basketball tonight.'
James had forgotten that Georgetown was playing in the tournament. He took it as one more sign that his brain was out of alignment. He had it together now, though. But as long as the hay bales didn't rise up and start walking, he'd be okay.
They went home just as one shimmering edge of the sun hit the far mountains. The clouds tapered out in pink and red swatches, the ridges as bright as hell’s foundry. The evening air was fresh with new life, the blossoms arriving just in time for their namesake festival. He looked past the hills that crowded the town, off toward the distance where the granite face of Bear Claw loomed like a great majestic beast. James thought perhaps moments like this were why Mayzie endured the harsh winters, the isolation, the white world.
The white eyes.
And now, the green eyes.
Eyezzzz.
The alien assimilated the symbol, gathered it into its collection. Shu-shaaa tah-mah-raaa eyezzzz.
The symbols were nonsense, free of any pattern. This planet had no intelligent life. The creature could feed without fear of destroying higher life forms. It was growing faster now, healed from the impact with the soil, its roots and spores spreading. The heart-brain throbbed in unison with its tendrils.
A symbol triggered itself again, repeating, like the pulse of a quasar.
Tah-mah-raaa tah-mah-raaa tah-mah-raaa.
The creature opened itself, let the vibrations of its new home settle into its center. The symbol’s source of origin had grown more intense, nearly meaningful. The creature took that as a sign of healing.
Soon it would have enough strength to contact the others, those also making their journeys across distant space. The closest could join it here and help convert this planet. It was rich in microorganisms, wealthy with cellular activity. The creature was fulfilling its biological imperative.
Growing.
Thriving.
Harvesting.
It shivered in the verdant pleasure of survival and propagation.
Tamara slowed the Toyota and gazed toward the top of Bear Claw. She should be getting back home, she knew. But something about the mountain compelled her to search its slopes. It was an itch, a tingling of some deep-seated knowledge.
She braked slowly, finally able to open her eyes. The world was exactly the same as it had appeared before, only more vivid somehow. The grass along the sloping hills was a swaying green sea, the trees reached for the sky like happy worshipers, and the clouds had stitched themselves into the fabric of the sunset. The air tasted rich and her head swam in its intoxicating glory.
Something pinched her arm and she looked down to see a mosquito perched there, its proboscis needling into her skin. Its wings were slim and irradiant, almost glowing, and its body was jeweled with amber sap. The eyes were bright and she was struck by their intelligence; it appeared to study her in a speculative manner.
As if I’m on the wrong end of the magnifying glass. Well, you’re on the wrong end of a free meal.
Tamara raised a hand from the steering wheel to swat at it. She was suddenly struck blind by darkness, gasping in pain and surprise as her skull reverberated with that phrase she had come to dread:
Shu-shaaa.
And behind it, so fast that it seemed to blur into the same blend of symbols, came Tah-mah-raa.
Her own name.
She clutched her head, the mosquito forgotten. She’d heard that migraine sufferers could become physically incapacitated from the agony of their attacks and wondered if that was what was happening to her. Her stomach knotted in nausea at the intensity of the invasion. The piercing needles withdrew a bit and the pain lessened enough for her to open her eyes.
Brain tumor. Oh God, what if I have a brain tumor, and that’s what’s been causing my delusions? Or what if I’m schizophrenic?
She tilted the rearview mirror and a stranger gazed back, one with wild eyes and tangled hair, a twisted face that would make a convincing textbook picture for a schizophrenic. The pain had moved from the center of her cranium to the back of her eyeballs. She rubbed her forehead and the sharpness receded to a distant, dull throbbing.
When she felt a little better, she rolled down the window and let the cool breeze dry the sweat beneath her eyes. She scratched at her arm, then remembered the mosquito. Its bite had left a grayish-green ring, a tiny red dot of dried blood in the center.
Tah-mah-raaa tah-mah-raaa tah-mah-raaa.
She looked around, confused. Maybe this was how brain tumors progressed, the obscene mutated cells manipulating the healthy cells, multiplying and altering, squeezing out the host cells in their drive to spread. Maybe the thing inside her head was even programmed to know that it was killing its host, but could no more turn away from its silent mission than a hungry mosquito could ignore warm flesh and blood.
No. She was fit and healthy, in the prime of life. Such a thing could never happen to her. She would rather believe Shu-shaaa
— that she was nuts, losing it, having a nervous breakdown.
But, in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t buy that, either. Hearing imaginary voices was one thing. She was quite sure this voice was real.
And she knew now from where it was speaking.
The mountain called to her again. She put the Toyota in gear and headed for the gravel road that her instincts told her climbed the spine of Bear Claw.
Jimmy wanted the last time with Peggy to be special, but it was hard to get intimate with that moron Howard watching. The bills rustled in his shirt pocket and that made him feel a little better. The bed squeaked as Howard and Peggy went at it. Jimmy put on his boots, anxious to leave the room. He was no saint, but there were some things that turned even his stomach.
He opened the hollow door and an old one-eyed bastard in a faded military uniform stood there, his ear cupped to the door. One-Eye was grinning like a possum in a dumpster. Jimmy pushed him backward and closed the door, shutting off the sound of Peggy’s sex factory.
'Who the hell are you?' Jimmy said.
The old man licked his lips. 'Just a concerned neighbor, is all. Thought there might be trouble over
