The darkness was thick and impenetrable, and it seemed to Charlie that Lisa’s eyes floated in that blackness, small blue orbs, moist and curiously intense, staring out into the woods and down the slope to where the craft still lay buried in the earth, the lights of the farmhouse shining softly just beyond it.
“I should have gotten her out of there,” she said to him. “My daughter’s in the farmhouse. I need to get down there.”
Charlie noticed that she’d said “my” daughter, not “their” daughter, though he knew that is what Allie was. He looked at Dewey, who stood, still transfixed, as if replaying what they’d all seen only a few minutes before, the descent of the craft, then its crash, and finally the light that had swept out of it, rolled over the woman who’d fled across the field, a light that had somehow… taken her.
Dewey shook his head. “You’re on your own,” he said determinedly. “I’m just a hunting guide.”
Charlie saw that he meant it, that the courage Dewey had shown earlier had been wrenched from him, taken, it seemed, by the same light that had swept over Mary Crawford.
“Just show us how to get down before you go, okay?” Charlie asked.
Dewey nodded.
Charlie turned back to Lisa, and noticed that her eyes had changed, that they seemed powerfully focused on something he could not see at all. “What is it, Lisa?” he asked.
Before she could answer, Charlie heard a rustling all around him. He looked up and saw a group of soldiers closing in.
“Put up your hands,” one of them shouted.
Charlie rose slowly, his hands in the air.
“You’re under arrest,” the soldier shouted.
Lisa got to her feet with a strange grace, and Charlie saw that she was no longer crying, no longer afraid.
“What is it?” he asked desperately.
“Allie’s all right,” Lisa said. Her voice seemed to come to him from far away, and there was a strange wonder in her eyes. “She’s all right, but she’s doing something… very… very… hard.”
“She’s working really hard at something,” Wakeman said. He watched the monitors that lined the wall of the trailer, the evidence they showed of the raging torrents of Allie’s brain, a storm that for all its force and fury, remained locked inside her, so that her face gave so sign of it, but remained as motionless as the eye of a hurricane. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
General Beers stood beside him, his gaze moving from monitor to monitor, from the image of Allie that flickered on one of the screens, a little girl, seated in the bare room of a farmhouse, locked in dark concentration, to a second screen that showed the exterior of the craft, surrounded by armed men who seemed poised to enter it.
Wakeman glanced again at the first screen. He could almost see the volcanic intensity of Allie’s mind, the way it seemed at the edge of explosion.
“It’s time to get her,” he said.
Beers picked up the microphone, gave the order.
On the monitor, Wakeman watched as the soldiers began to close in upon the craft. Their movements were slow and hesitant despite their lethal arms, as if they sensed that their weapons were useless against the force they confronted, archaic as bows and arrows, the primitive armor of a primitive creature. “They’re scared to death,” he said.
Beers’ eyes fixed on the monitor as the soldiers moved forward, slowly tightening the circle around the craft. They took short, cautious steps, their fingers gripped tightly to their weapons, as if they were moving in on a trapped and wounded animal of ferocious strength, a tiger that might at any moment charge toward them at inhuman speed.
Then, suddenly, the craft began to glow, and the soldiers stopped, and crouched low on the ground, as if momentarily blinded by the building light.
Beers snapped up the microphone. “What’s happening?” he demanded.
“This is Walker, sir,” a voice called back. “Some kind of opening has appeared in the craft.”
Beers’ eyes shot over to the monitor. The glow had intensified, as if the craft were readying itself for some terrible defense. “Enter with extreme caution,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Walker answered.
On the monitor, Beers and Wakeman watched as the soldiers closed in upon the craft, then moved beneath it, toward the opening.
Then, abruptly, the monitor went blank.
Wakeman’s eyes shot from one monitor to the next, each of them now going blank in turn, as if switched off by invisible hands. “We’re blind,” he said.
Beers snatched up the microphone. “ Walker, what’s going on?” he demanded.
Walker ’s voice came through the scratchy dissonance. “We’re in the craft,” he said, his voice locked in unearthly wonder. “And there’s this woman.”
“What?” Beers cried.
“An old woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“With cookies,” Walker said. “Pierce says…” His voice bore a world of awe on its quiet whisper. “Pierce says it’s his mother, sir.”
“ Walker,” the general barked. “Listen to me, I…”
“I know she isn’t real,” Walker stammered, “but…”
Suddenly a quiet voice came over the microphone. “Would any of you nice people like one of my Toll House cookies?”
“Dear God,” Wakeman whispered.
“Just keep moving!” Beers ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
Suddenly one of the monitors flashed on, revealing the craft, still glowing softly, but now around a central core of light that seemed to lead into it beckoningly, like a door.
“Sir, we’re in some sort of corridor,” Walker said. “It’s all light in here.”
“They’re flying blind,” Wakeman said.
The monitor flickered briefly. “We’re losing you,” Beers said.
Suddenly a wild scream broke through the static.
“Cockroaches!”
Beers glared at the still flickering monitor. “What the hell is going on there, Walker?”
“They’re all over,” Walker screamed. “Get off! Get off!”
Then, suddenly, the screaming stopped.
“ Walker, they’re not real,” Beers cried. “ Walker, it’s in your head. Walker?”
Walker ’s voice was filled with dark amazement. “They’re gone,” he whispered. “They ran away… into the light.” He laughed lightly, a man trying to regain his courage. “Did I mention I was scared of rabid dogs and cobras?” A pause, then, “Okay, we’re going on now.”
“What are you seeing?” Beers asked.
“Light,” Walker replied. “Like a corridor… of light. Then a room… and…”
“What?”
“A kitchen. Pierce is having cookies with his mother.”
Mary watched as the glass door slid open. She smiled at the man who stepped into the room, carrying a plate of Toll House cookies. “Have a cookie,” he said. “They’re very good.”
Mary stared at him, amazed.
The man’s gaze was very soft and sweet, as if, in this light, all the great tumult of his life, all the evil he had done, had evaporated, leaving only the best part of himself behind. “I see your father in you, but not enough to ruin things,” he said.
“Grandfather,” Mary said quietly.
“You’ve done all right to get this far,” Owen said.
“How is this happening?”
“They go into your head and pull things out,” Owen explained. “You’ve seen pictures of me. You have an idea of how you want me to be. In my day, we called them projections. Now you call them screen memories.”
“There’s so much I want to ask you,” Mary said. “But I suppose I’d just be asking myself.”
“Give it a try,” Owen said. “You might find something out about yourself you never knew.”
Mary nodded gently, her eyes suddenly moist. “I’ve done terrible things,” she said.
“You had to.”
“Why? To learn about them? To see them?”
“Because of your overwhelming sense of their power. Because you know, you truly know, that the future lies with them.”
Mary shook her head.
“You’ve got another idea?” Owen asked.
“They made this girl…” Mary said. “Allie. Because they weren’t complete without us… without something that we could give them.”
“Either way, their power is what compels you. You want to be part of that power… at any cost.” He smiled. “You don’t need that doctor boyfriend of yours anymore, Mary. You know more than he does. Trust your gut instincts, and you’ll be fine.”
“You’re me,” Mary said. “You’re saying what I want you to say.”
“I’m saying what you know.”
She looked at him pointedly. “What I see is a man who couldn’t live up to his dreams.”
“What do you mean?”
“You had this all in your hands. The whole thing. You had Jacob Clarke. You had him and you let him go.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“He scared you,” Mary told him. “That little boy scared you so badly that you let him go.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You saw something that scared you, and you ran.”
“You want to know what scared me so badly, Mary?” Owen asked. “Is that what you came to find out?”
“Yes, damn it,” Mary exclaimed. “That’s what I want to know.”
Owen smiled thinly, a dark purpose crawling into his eyes. “Then look at me, Mary.” His eyes narrowed darkly. “Look at me.”
The soldier opened the door of the trailer and pushed Charlie and Lisa inside.
“We found these two in the woods not far from the farmhouse,” the soldier said.
Charlie glanced up, taking in the wall of flickering monitors that rose just behind General Beers and Wake-man.
“My God,” Wakeman said.
“You know these people?” the general asked.
“They’re Allie’s parents.”
The general glared at Wakeman, then turned back to the soldier. “Find some place for them where they won’t get in anybody’s way,” he commanded. His eyes shifted to Wakeman, then back to the soldier. “Take him, too,” he said.
Within minutes they were in a small shed, an armed guard posted at the door.
“So, you’re Charlie,” Wakeman said with a strange smile. “You don’t use the last name Keys, do you?”
Charlie said nothing.
“My name’s Wakeman. And I happen to know that a great deal of money and technology went into looking for you.”
Charlie glared at him.
“You’d like to knock me on my ass, wouldn’t you?” Wakeman asked. “That’s what they liked about the Keyses. That you guys had ‘tude.”
Lisa moaned and Charlie turned toward where she lay, dazed, beside him.
“All these voices,” she said exhaustedly. “More and more… it’s too hard… just a little longer.”
He could see that Lisa was in some other place, far away, and that in some impossible way, she was with Allie.
“A lot of work,” Lisa said, almost frantically. “This is too hard!”
Mary sat in front of a wall, soldiers all around her, but keeping their distance, afraid to move in. Her eyes were eerily vacant, the light that had once danced in them, now part of the larger and more brilliant light that encircled her. She sat in silence, utterly indifferent to the subtle movement that rippled through the surrounding light like ghostly fingers beneath a luminous veil. She could see the soldiers shrink back as the radiant walls began to weave and churn, giving birth to the thousands of small creatures that hung on the luminescent walls, wriggling like neon worms on hooks of light. She sensed the terror in the fleeing men… and she smiled.
Lisa could feel the desperate concentration of Allie’s mind. “Very hard,” she repeated softly. “She is doing something very hard.”
Charlie brought his face close to hers. “What are you seeing, Lisa?”
She seemed not to hear him. “Come on,” she whispered urgently, and with a strange note of encouragement, as if offering the full measure of her own will to the fierce needs of her daughter. “Come on, come on.”
“Jesus,” Wakeman said as he looked out the small window of the shed.
Charlie rushed to the window and stared out.
The soldiers who’d been guarding the shed were now frozen in awe, as the craft, glowing brightly, began to lift out of the scarred earthen pit that held it, inching backward and upward… rising!
“There are men in there,” Wakeman said.
The craft continued to rise into the enveloping darkness, rising and rising until it reached high above the farmhouse and the awestruck men who surrounded it. Then it paused, as if to enjoy the view from the high aerie of its power, and leveled off, all its lights whirling rapidly, a vast engine brought back to full throttle, a wounded craft miraculously restored.
“Allie,” Lisa whispered.
The craft continued to hover silently. Then a beam of light, brighter than any emitted before it, fierce and blinding, shot down to the farmhouse with laser-sharp perfection, carrying a crystalline beauty to the earth, sweeping around the farmhouse and tugging it upward from its ancient foundation.
Lisa moaned, as if the weight of the farmhouse were on her shoulders. But Charlie knew that Lisa’s burden was only a reflection, light and unsubstantial, compared to the vast weight Allie bore upward, huge and crushing, as Atlas bore the world.
He stepped outside the shed, his eyes fixed on the unreal and impossible vision beyond it, a farmhouse tearing away from its foundations, rising slowly upward as if drawn into the sky by huge, but invisible cables.
“They’re taking it,” Wakeman breathed.
And instantly they did, the farmhouse now encased in a shimmering wrap of light that suddenly coalesced into a single, fiery ball and vanished into the upper sky, away and away, fleeing the earth as if it were a dark stranger of terrible intent.
Lisa moaned again, then collapsed in utter exhaustion.
Charlie hurried over to her and drew her into his arms.
“It’s all right,” Lisa said. “It’s all right.”
She struggled to her feet, and with Charlie’s help, gazed out at the dark field, a few figures now standing, dazed, beneath the very place from which the craft had disappeared: Mary, surrounded by soldiers, all of them thunderstruck and staring about, as if looking for what was missing.