Becoming Page 9

  He kissed her lips, tasting the salty discharge of her pain.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  “Promise you’ll both make it back.”

  “I promise.”

  She squeezed his hand and climbed inside the cab of the still running truck.

  He watched her shimmy across to the driver’s side, slip the vehicle into DRIVE, and look to him.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Love you, too.”

  He took a step back as she let off the brake and drove away.

  Cheli had been out here. He knew it. He just needed to find her before it was too fucking late.

  He also needed to let the sheriff know what was going on.

  He reached for his cell and realized he’d left it in the truck.

  A scream erupted from his left.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Clint helped Jennifer to sit up.

  “Whoa, whoa… I’ve gotcha. Hold onto my arm.”

  She didn’t smile. She raised her chin and gazed into his eyes.

  “Hey, you’re gonna be okay, all right? I’m going to take care of you.”

  She stared at him. He couldn’t help but think of that old saying: the lights are on but nobody is home.

  That’s just what it was like. Like she was here, but not.

  “Jennifer. Your name’s Jennifer. Do you remember?”

  Something was wrong with her.

  He knew it, felt it as sure as a night of his father’s intrusions.

  Backing away, her eyes followed him.

  She stood and walked past him. He followed her to the back door.

  “Wait.”

  She opened the door and stepped outside.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  She continued toward the lake.

  The early morning wind swept across his itchy flesh. A gray dawn on the horizon cast the lake in a melancholy darkness as he watched Jennifer walk away. Sadness and rage slammed head on. He’d brought her here, he’d chosen her, not them, not that creature bitch at the bottom of the lake. Starting after her, he used the power she’d afforded. One tentacle went hurling through the air, wrapping around her arms, the other went for her feet.

  She halted. The air between them changed. A fog that hadn’t been there seconds ago appeared, rapidly approaching as she stamped on the appendage at her feet. She turned, her eyes ablaze with the emerald light of the gift.

  “No….no! You’re mine,” he said.

  Her arms shot upward, breaking his embrace. Her hand extended, reaching for the tentacle beneath her sneakers.

  Clint pulled free stumbling back toward his home.

  She took a step forward and stopped.

  He was trembling.

  Coward.

  Jack Truman’s voice echoed in his mind.

  The light faded from Jennifer’s eyes. She turned, walked to the end of the dock, and went in.

  The chirps of birds resumed, welcoming the new day. He hadn’t noticed their silence, and wasn’t sure he was prepared for what was to come.

  True fear didn’t hit him until he noticed the disturbed earth at the edge of his property. The spot where he’d buried the broken body of his father.

  Shaking his head, the muscles of his jaw dead as dead, Clint’s back hit the house.

  The small, defenseless boy making his paralyzing return.

  There was no option: he needed to leave Avalon and never look back.

  PART TWO:

  A CHANGE HAS COME

  Chapter Nineteen

  Avalon, Maine fell silent. The clouds seemed to take residence over the small town. Summer was over. Fall’s chill was on its way setting the stage for the dead season. The normally quiet streets were empty. People missed work. Had it not been the weekend, many Avalon children would have been absent from school. Were it Sunday, church service would have met an all-time low in attendance. Pastor Josef Hernandez would have worried. Only, Jason Rotenberg and his son Kyle had paid their heavenly neighbor a visit last night and taken the pastor and his new wife, Helen, to the lake. There was a new service underway. An evil upon the Earth had come up from below and she was hungry.

  Gunner Tisdale never made it back to the sheriff’s station with Deputy Horner’s car. The drunken father of the missing Neilson girl stood in the center of the road. Gunner slowed to a stop and yelled out to him. Neilson walked as if in a trance toward his driver’s side window. He didn’t look well. Gunner thought he might need to get the man to the hospital in Jackson, but Gunner’s heart seized when Neilson’s eyes blossomed into bright green spotlights.

  Ginny Neilson appeared next to her husband. After showing Gunner the light as it were, he sat down, then slumped over between them as they drove the tow truck with the cop car out to the lake

  .

  Greg Hickey accompanied Deputy Horner to the station. When David Crowley saw the deputy with the missing Hickey boy in tow, he nearly toppled from his seat within the dispatch cubby. Deputy Vern Crawford, fresh from shitting his brains out along with the bad Mexican food his girlfriend had delivered him for supper, gasped when he noticed the odd couple standing in the doorway. When Deputy Horner shoved his hand inside David Crowley’s mouth and hauled the old dispatcher over the counter, Vern Crawford pulled his gun. Vern begged his fellow deputy to stop. He’d been about to pull the trigger when the Hickey boy appeared beside him, eyes aglow, hand impossibly extended. When it was finished, Horner dragged the two men to Deputy Crawford’s cruiser.

  Next, they pulled up to the home of Jake Newman.

  Greg nodded. Horner got out of the car, disappearing into the house.

  Ten minutes later, Horner carried his lover’s limp body to the car.

  Daylight on its way, the night had been a success on all accounts.

  Their taillights had just begun to fade to darkness as Sheriff Davis pulled in behind Newman’s Audi.

  Chapter Twenty

  Shane reached for his pistol, ready to blow whatever was at the window into next week.

  “Sheriff Davis! They’re coming!”

  Shane opened the door gesturing for Russ James to back away.

  “Jesus, Russ, you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing?”

  The man always had a crazy, yet gentle, look in his eye beneath a head full of straw-colored curls. He reminded Shane of Gene Wilder, only less funny.

  “I seen them tonight. Coming for people. I just know it. They’re taking them.”

  “Calm down a minute, Russ. Now, just who is it you saw?”

  Russ started fondling his mouth and chin, his hands trembling as his eyes zoned out.

  “Just take your time and think.”

  “They were aliens.”

  Oh boy.

  “But they were dressed up like people from town.” His eyes cleared as he turned his gaze to Shane’s. “You know who it was? Your Deputy and that missing boy.”

  “Hold on, hold on. Do you mean Greg Hickey? The boy who disappeared by the lake?”

  “Yes! But it’s not him. Not really, Sheriff.” He turned his attention to the gray sky. “It’s them.”

  “Okay, Russ, and the deputy. Which one of deputies did you see?”

  “The kid. Don’t recall his name, but it was the young white one.”

  Horner.

  “Good, good, Russ. Now, what did you see them doing? And where did you see them doing it?”

  Russ turned around looking off toward the hollow shell that used to be Henry’s Auto Shop. Henry Brewer past away nearly a decade ago. His son was killed in action in Afghanistan shortly after. With no one to keep the place going, Henry’s wife closed it down, and moved with her family down south somewhere. The small garage was left to rot.

  “I was over there, hiding past the old dumpster when I saw them. They came here and parked right where you are now.” Russ spun toward the house. “Then, your deputy, or the one that’s wearin’ your deputy went in. He dragged that man that lives here out naked. Looked de
ad, too.”

  “What did he do with him?”

  “Put his body in the car. Then the boy”

  “The Hickey kid?”

  “Yes, the missing boy got out and I swear he looked right at me. Wanted me just like the naked fella. They’re taking them. They’re taking us all. One by one.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “One by one. We will become….”

  “Which way did they go?”

  “Oh, Sheriff.”

  Damn it. He was losing him.

  He grabbed Russ by the shoulders.

  “Think back a minute, Russ. When they got in the car. Which way did they leave?”

  Russ’s lost gaze focused upon him.

  “Away, Sheriff. They’ve come to take us all away.”

  “Russ, do you have someplace to go?”

  “Can you and I go back to my hiding space?”

  Shane contemplated what to make of it all, and whether he should keep Russ with him to protect the loon or let him fend for himself.

  “I’m gonna go, Sheriff. You just don’t trust no one, you hear? No one is who they are.”

  He let Russ walk away.

  “You be careful, Russ.”

  “One by one….one by one…”

  Headlamps bloomed in the distance. A vehicle was coming up fast. Russ James saw it and ran. Shane opened his car door, ready to pursue if it didn’t slow down. Sure enough, the big blue blur whizzed by going well over the forty mile an hour limit.

  He slipped behind the wheel, cranked the engine, hit the lights and siren, and chased after the Ford Econoline van.

  Just what I need, all this crazy shit happening tonight and Clint Truman is trying to get the hell out of Dodge. And in a goddamn hurry.

  Barreling down the road, passing the empty police station, Truman refused to slow or pull over. At least it was early; they were the only two vehicles on the road. Still, the other early birds would be leaving for work anytime now. He needed to end this before Truman smashed into somebody.

  Pulling up behind him, Shane weaved left and zoomed ahead. Getting in front of him, he tapped the brakes. The van swerved and then slowed.

  Shane hurried from his cruiser, gun raised. Side-stepping, keeping along the shoulder across from the driver’s side until he could see Truman clutching the steering wheel for dear life.

  “Come on out and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “I just want to go.”

  “Out of the car, I said, hands high, nice and slow.”

  “You don’t understand, Sheriff.”

  “You do like I said, hands high, come on outta the van. We’ll talk.”

  Truman still held the wheel. Shane could see him huffin’ and puffin’. The kid wasn’t getting out. He made his choice a split second before Shane was ready.

  The van swerved along the opposite shoulder, scraping up the side of his cruiser.

  Shane stopped out front of his car and aimed and fired at the back tires. He missed once, but not the second time.

  Sparks and rubber flew, but the van kept going.

  He wouldn’t get far.

  Shane jumped in his car and followed.

  Truman was spooked. He was running. And as far as the “you wouldn’t understand” part, after tonight, Shane figured he just might.

  “One by one, we’ll all become.”

  The damn creepy rhetoric from Russ James whispered in his ear.

  Truman forced the vehicle a lot farther than Shane thought possible. As the van finally slowed to its death crawl, he sped up. Last thing he needed was to be chasing Truman on foot. And he knew the damn fool would let him shoot before he’d give up and surrender.

  Sure enough, the brake lights came to life, followed by the door flying open.

  “You little shit.”

  The cruiser came to a stop just beside the open door; Truman hopped the hood like the good ol’ Duke boys, and took off.

  Shane hopped out and gave chase with everything his old body had.

  He was just as surprised as Truman when he caught up and tackled him to the ground fifty feet from their vehicles.

  Shane wrestled him, able to draw his hands behind his back quick enough to cuff him.

  He got up and pulled Truman with him.

  “Now just stop it,” he said.

  Shane stood, his back to the headlights. Truman’s pale features were in the spotlight.

  He hadn’t figured the kid for a drug addict, but these days you never could tell. He’d arrested junkies on their deathbeds. Husks of humans, impossibly thin, bruised and off-colored, blackened or missing teeth. Truman looked just like them.

  “Let me go and you’ll never see me again.”

  “Afraid I can’t do that, besides, Big Blue back there ain’t going very far on three wheels.”

  “Then you might as well shoot me. Come on, do it.”

  “What I need you to do is shut the hell up, calm down a damn minute, and talk to me.” He lowered his gun. “Okay?”

  The kid seemed out of energy.

  “Now, first thing: Why you tearing through my town like you just killed somebody.”

  “I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Now, you’re just gonna have to let me decide what I’m believin’ tonight and what I’m not.”

  “I could show you.”

  “How’s that?”

  Shane stepped back. Sure as hell, Truman’s eyes began to glow.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Michele heard a door open behind her. Keeping low, she scurried around the disheveled hedges and watched as Kyle Rotenberg and his father emerged from their home. Neither looked her way. She watched as they headed down the street and up the next driveway.

  What are you two doing?

  She crept back around the hedge and tip-toed over to the Rotenberg’s house, so she could get a better view of where the duo went. Just as she leaned forward to catch a glimpse, she heard the sound of glass shattering. She pulled back, then leaned forward again in time to see Kyle crawling through a window. The front door opened as he let his father inside.

  Shivering from the cold settling over town, she surveyed the yard. The neighbors had a shed. If she could get to it, she could maybe see what they were doing. She had a feeling it was a lot more than breaking and entering.

  Not thinking about it, she ran. She reached the shed, her heart racing. She was nerved up as hell, but also somewhat exhilarated.

  What would Veronica Mars do?

  Admittedly, living your life like a TV show probably wasn’t the best idea, but life wasn’t exactly being “normal” right now.

  Her gaze zigzagged from window to window.

  Green lights bloomed behind one of the upstairs windows.

  “Oh shit.”

  Back against the shed, eyes closed, she tried to calm herself.

  Okay. First Greg, then Aunt Ginny, probably Uncle Mike and Laura…the Rotenberg’s and now whoever lived here. Okay, so they’re infecting them…with something, and what? For what purpose?

  The door opened. She peered around the corner and watched as they hauled two people out and placed them into the SUV in the driveway. After they loaded the bodies they climbed into the truck and backed out into the road. She watched as they drove away, pulling into another driveway down the street.

  They’re gonna go from house to house.

  Another chill ran through her, goose bumps spread across her skin. Her long-sleeve shirt didn’t seem like enough. She needed a coat or a sweatshirt and she knew just where to grab one.

  She walked as fast as her sneakered feet would carry her back to the Rotenberg’s.

  The place was unlocked.

  First order of business–find a working phone. She was surprised to find the kitchen and living areas fairly neat and clean. No phones. Venturing upstairs, she wound up in Mr. Rotenberg’s bedroom. His iPhone was plugged in on his nightstand.

  The device refused to turn on.

&n
bsp; She followed the cord to the plug in the wall and found it torn. The ruined end was covered in dark slime.

  “As if.”

  She looked around the room and saw the open closet full of sweatshirts. She selected a navy blue Patriots hoodie and put it on.

  As she was rolling up the cuffs, she heard a vehicle approaching.

  Her heart hammered a thunderstorm in her chest.

  Crossing the darkened room, she eased beside the window and peeked down to the street below.

  “Dad?”

  Relieved to see him, she also felt a pang of fear. He needed to be warned. She needed to make him understand that what they were dealing with wasn’t natural.

  Michele had almost made it to the door way when the hand clenched her ankle.

  Screaming as she fell, she kicked wildly at the thing beneath the bed.

  It let her go. She scurried backwards and stood frozen in the doorway.

  Someone was crying.

  “Please, don’t leave me here.”

  “Alice? Is that you?”

  Alice Rotenberg crawled out from her hiding spot and rain into Michele’s arms.

  She must have been six, maybe seven. God, what had she seen?

  “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you. Come on, we need to go.”

  “No.” The girl pulled away. “We can’t go out there.” She shook her head side to side, backing toward the bed.

  “Listen to me, Alice. My dad is outside.”

  “So is mine. Kyle, too. They’re not right. They’re not right.”

  “Hello?”

  “Dad, up here. We’re up here.”

  Alice pulled away, dropped to the floor and disappeared.

  “Cheli?”

  “Dad.”

  Her father grabbed her and hugged her tight against his chest. She inhaled the scent of his deodorant, Old Spice, the scent she got it for him every Father’s Day and Christmas since she could remember.

  He kissed the top of her head and held her away from him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “Wait, Alice.”