“Great. Just when I was dreaming about a guest spot on ‘Larry King Live.’”
“Tough day, huh?”
'Lousy. Patterson's just about unbearable. The great Oompah Loompah strikes again. And that same crappy music over and over.'
'At least it's radio work.'
'Well, I'm getting a little too old to try and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And it looks like the big time is just going to pass Bobby Lee right on by.'
He’d referred to his on-air handle, which meant that he was stuck inside himself again, dwelling on his own problems, and wouldn’t have any room in his soul for Tamara’s. For their mutual problems. 'Now, Robert, we've been over this a hundred times already. Stick with what you like.'
Tamara rubbed Robert's hairy chest and snuggled against his shoulder. 'Besides, you’re not getting older, you're just getting better. You'll make it one day, just wait and see.'
Robert's hand dropped to her belly and caressed its way up to her breasts. She felt a small stir under her skin and her pulse accelerated. But the Gloomies hovered in the back of her mind like old ghosts, ghosts of her father and half-buried memories, and bad things yet to crawl from the shadows.
'Robert, I don't think-'
She gasped in involuntary arousal. Then the Gloomies crested and crashed like a tidal wave, sweeping the shores of her mind.
Shu-shaaa.
She took Robert's hand from her chest and held it. 'I'm sorry, I'm just not in the mood tonight.'
Robert puffed like a schoolboy who had been denied a toy. 'What's wrong?'
'The Gloomies. You know.'
She felt him tense in anger and then relax. Oh, just her being crazy again, he was probably thinking. Nothing serious.
'Honey, that was so many years ago,” he finally said. “You've got to stop blaming yourself.'
'I can't help it.'
Robert sighed and then was quiet as the rain drummed off the roof, its fury seeming to diminish along with their passion. Tamara looked out the window, trying to give her anxiety a shape in the darkness.
In a few minutes, Robert was snoring but Tamara was more wide-awake than before. She was worried that she would have the dream again, the one where her family was swallowed by… by… she wasn't sure what.
She only knew that she was alone with the Gloomies. And she could tell they were ready to dance the night away.
The alien snatched the faint vibration out of the air, testing it, tasting it.
Maz-zaaa.
Another symbol. It added it to the shu-shaaa, this planet’s original symbol. The maz-zaaa had been less distinct, as if radiated from a distant constellation. Perhaps it had no meaning. Perhaps none of this planet’s life forms were intelligent enough to combine multiple symbols. Perhaps this planet had nothing to offer besides its nutrients.
Now that the alien had grown comfortable in the cave, roots spreading through the forest and siphoning energy, it allowed a moment to open its pulsing center to the strange world that surrounded it.
The oxygen mixture swirled through the vegetation above and a soft hydrogen-oxygen mixture pelted the skin of the planet. Static electricity caused the alien’s tendrils to tingle. A small creature raced across the soil, its passage echoing through the alien’s cave. The vibrations were almost painful, and the alien slipped back into a state of rest, focusing on that strange symbol shu-shaaa.
CHAPTER THREE
It was turning out to be one of those nightmare shifts. First, the printer had gone berserk and started eating the AP feed so he couldn't read the weather copy, and then Melvin Patterson, the station GM, had popped into the studio to chew his rear about skipping around in the playlist. Now this squeaky birdbrain was calling in to report some green lights. Robert Leon, known to WRNC's listening audience as 'Bobby Lee,' let out a sigh and pressed the phone more tightly to his ear.
'I haven't heard anything about it, ma'am,' he said, wondering why in the hell she had called the radio station. Didn't she have any friends, for God's sake?
'Ain't you got no other reports of ‘em?' The voice on the other end of the phone screeched like fingernails across a blackboard. 'Up around Bear Claw?'
'Not that I know of. You may want to try the local authorities, ma’am.'
Robert looked at the countdown cue on the Denon CD player. Twelve more seconds of Mariah Carey trying to shatter glass. He rubbed his forehead.
'But they's lights, don't you see?” the caller said. “Up in the woods. Might be one of them UFO's I been hearing about.'
Why would an intelligent alien species want to land in Windshake? Robert slid a CD into the second player.
'Maybe you ought to videotape it and send it in to Unsolved Mysteries,' he said. 'Listen, I've got to go. Bye, now, and thanks for listening to WRNC.”
He hung up the phone and flipped the mic switch over at the same time. He drew air down into his abdomen, the way he had learned in college, and belted out in his artificially cheery baritone.
'That was 'Dream Lover' by Mariah Carey.'
And I hope you were smart enough to turn your radio off before she really got rolling.
'It's fourteen minutes after eleven and forty-one degrees in the High Country under cloudy skies. Bobby Lee here sharing your day with you.'
Only because I can't find a better job.
'You're listening to AM 1220, WRNC, your source for local news and sports.”
Because all our sponsors ARE the news or else their sons play on the high school football team.
'Coming up after the break, I'll have a look at the weather.'
Let the radio crap on your head for three more minutes just so I can tell you what you would already know if you had enough sense to look out the window. And I'm really being a flaming asswipe today, so I'll shut up now.
Robert punched the button on the cart player. Save-a-Ton was having a sale on spare ribs. The cart machine held three spots that fired off in sequence, so Robert had time to leave the control room and catch a couple of drags off a cigarette. He swung open the back door and stood under the small awning, watching the weeds wilt in the gravel parking lot.
Betty Turnbill, the station secretary, stepped out beside him.
'Mornin', Bobby.' She batted her false eyelashes. 'Mind if I join you?'
'It's a free country,' Robert said, sucking smoke into his lungs. Betty tucked a cigarette between her rose- painted lips and leaned forward, expecting a light. Her red bouffant wiggled slightly as she shook her shoulders.
It was the first time Robert had ever seen her hair actually move. Well, except for that one time, but it had been dark then. And he was positive he'd be reminded of that for the rest of his career at WRNC.
Robert fumbled in his pockets and drew out a Bic and put fire to the end of Betty's Virginia Slim. She puffed, making caves in her hollow jaws, and exhaled a curling gray pillar of smoke. Robert looked at her. Her hazel irises clashed miserably with her aqua eye shadow, and the blush on her cheekbones looked as if it had been applied with a putty knife. She drew the cigarette away from her mouth and tiny clumps of lipstick clung to the butt. The sight made the coffee in his stomach gurgle and roil.
She jutted her tiny chin toward him and smiled. The aroma of her Elizabeth Taylor perfume hung around the doorway despite the brisk wind. Robert guessed the fragrance was probably heavier than air, and didn't drift away
