Human.4

Lilly clung to the shadows and made her way quickly up the side of the yard, past a row of dilapidated barns, while I just stood there waiting for a chance to get to Annette. I could still feel the ghost impression of Lilly’s lips upon mine.

The Naylor family procession had paused next to the closest silo and old man Naylor was standing in front of the structure. He extended his arms before him and a whole load of those weird filaments tore loose from his hands and adhered to the front of the silo. Suddenly, the surface of the structure started to glow, then peel back, creating an opening, then a door.

Hell of a way to make an entrance, I thought, and then the new door swished aside.

The alphabet of hooks and eyes that we saw on Kate O’Donnell’s computer was floating in the air inside the silo, as if the symbols were being projected on to the air itself. They twisted and curled and looked sort of brownish to my eyes. But, even as I said the word 'brownish' to myself, I realized that was about a million miles away from describing the actual color.

I watched in fascination as the characters of that alphabet changed and mutated before my eyes. I was wondering how it was possible that there could be a language written across the air, and I felt myself taking a step forwards, towards the silo, without meaning to, as if my body had suddenly broken free of my mind’s control.

I felt my foot rising up to take another step. I couldn’t stop it.

And I couldn’t take my eyes off the symbols in the silo.

My foot took another step.

I knew that I would be in the sightline of the Naylor family any second, but my body still wasn’t listening. I felt my foot readying itself for another step.

No. No. No, I tried to tell my foot.

The foot started moving again.

'HEY!' I heard Lilly’s voice and it snapped me out of it. I managed to drag my eyes away from the silo and my foot back from its forwards course.

I saw the Naylors turn to find the source of the interruption and there she was, Lilly, standing about fifty meters away in the middle of the yard, hands on her hips. I actually smiled when I saw her, she looked so composed and . . . well, heroic, I guess.

I saw the Naylor clan react to her arrival with surprise and old man Naylor even stepped away from the silo towards her. His… filaments retracted so fast that their movement was a blur.

Annette just stood there, looking dazed and lost.

'HEY!' Lilly shouted again. 'Any of you weirdos know where a zero-point-four can get a bed for the night?'

The Naylors looked at her and seemed to confer, although I’m not convinced any of them actually spoke. Then old man Naylor nodded his head at Lilly.

I sucked in a deep breath and readied myself.

The Naylors started towards her but she stood her ground. I felt proud and sick and scared. The Naylors kept moving forwards, and for a horrible couple of seconds I thought the old man was going to stay behind to guard Annette, but then he followed the rest of his clan, and together they moved in on Lilly.

They were thirty meters away.

Then they were twenty-five.

Then twenty.

It was show time.

I broke from the shadows, hunched down, and hurried over to Annette Birnie. She was staring into the silo, her eyes filled with the uncanny alphabet within, and I had to physically touch her, on the shoulder, to get her to notice me.

'Annette,' I said calmly. 'It’s me. Kyle. I’m here to help you. To get you away from here.'

She looked at me blankly. For a moment I thought she didn’t even recognize me. Then her eyes seemed to show a sudden awareness and her brow furrowed with confusion.

'Kyle?' she asked, almost robotically. 'What are you doing here?'

'We have to get out of here,' I said. 'There’s no time to explain. But there are more of us. There’s me and Lilly and Mrs O’Donnell and Mr Peterson. We know what’s happened. We want to help you.'

'Help me?' Annette’s gaze met mine and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. 'No. There’s no help. There is only… in there.' She pointed at the silo.

'I really don’t think you want to go in there, Annette,' I said.

I sneaked a quick look over to where the Naylors had almost reached Lilly.

'You want me?' I heard her yell. 'Then you’re going to have to catch me!'

She turned and ran away from them, deeper into the darkness of the farm.

Time was running out.

'Please,' I said. 'Come with me.'

Annette shook her head. Her eyes were wide and all pupils. She looked helpless and defeated.

'In there I can become one of them,' she said slowly, as if explaining something very simple to a rather dull child. 'In there it all ends.'

'You don’t want to be one of them,' I said.

'Yes. Yes, I do.' Annette Birnie looked at me and I saw all the fear that was running through her head, through the dark windows of her eyes. 'I don’t want to be alone.'

I was aware that I was using up all the time Lilly had bought me, but I really hadn’t planned for the contingency of Annette not wanting to come with us. I’d thought that she’d be looking for a way to escape, not looking forward to joining them.

Another glance told me that the Naylors weren’t going to give chase. They were standing, looking into the distance, but they weren’t following Lilly.

'You won’t be alone,' I said, in what I thought was a soothing voice. 'Come on, we can help you.'

'Help me?' she said in a puzzled voice. 'How do you know what I want?'

The question baffled me.

'Look,' I said, taking her arm and trying to drag her away from the silo. 'Just come with me…'

She didn’t let me finish.

'NO!' she said, and she said it very loudly.

So loudly it attracted the attention of the Naylors.

Time had completely run out.

The Naylors had spotted me now and were making their way back towards us.

'You want to be like them?' I asked, a cruel note in my voice.

Annette’s tears came thick and fast now.

'That’s all I ever wanted,' she said, and turned on her heel. Before I could stop her she moved into the silo.

The moment she entered, the alphabet seemed to sense she was there.

I watched, terrified, as the characters started to twist and flex through the air towards her, the hooks extending to reach her with something that looked like hunger.

'ANNETTE!' I screamed, but she didn’t appear to hear me.

Instead, she threw her arms apart and made a cross shape of her body—like a sacrifice—and then the hooks and eyes and squiggles and lines closed in around her, superimposing their alien message over her. At first they fizzed and skated across her skin, and then they stopped moving and seemed to sink into her flesh.

There was a smile on her face as her body absorbed the letters of that terrible language, and I think that scared me more than anything else I was seeing.

Her smile.

I turned and ran, back the way Lilly and I had come.

Chapter 34