Forever Twilight, Patrick Sean Lee [christmas read aloud txt] 📗

So Here's The Plan

 

Denise, Cynthia, and Celia stayed at Bernie’s side that night, trading off sleeping, checking on him, fussing over him because, as worthless as his existence was, it was still a human life. Denise and Cynthia’s take on the matter. I couldn’t help but wonder that if he did pull through, what would he be like when he finally woke from his delirium?

Can a leopard change its spots?

Anyway, of our original group, Peter certainly knew what a pig Bernie was. Of our recent additions, surely Jude and Sammie. Now Kayla and Celia, although she couldn’t see his black soul to spite the nose on her face.

After the hour-long conversation with Kayla on the porch step, Peter had gone down the drive to the gate, closed it, and then reset the wire and alarm in the kitchen. Back to normal.

Hah!

Bernie had quieted down pretty much by the time we climbed the stairs with Sammie and Kayla. We situated Kayla in the bedroom with Sammie, and then crossed the hall and entered our bedroom.

I slept some, tucked close to Peter’s stomach. My ears were focused, though, on any noise that might sneak through the window. A rustling of fallen leaves, a shoosh that might mean one of the Pleians had swooped down on our compound. The sudden blare of the alarm bell that would wake the dead.

During those hours, between fits of dozing off and waking, I ran a hundred different scenarios through my mind of what we could do stop the destruction taking place only a few miles away. That first. Twice I rose, padded to the window, and peered out over the trees. Northeast. The curtain of death, hard at work, no doubt, although it looked the same as it had the first time I caught sight of it. I’ll bet those creatures and their grinding machinery didn’t sleep. Had Jerrick said anything about their timetable? I couldn’t remember his exact words if he had. Something ominous, though.

The next morning, post-breakfast (during which time I informed everyone of my half-brilliantly conceived plan), we paired up and set off once again from our peaceful, doomed farm.

Someone had to get close to the Aurora without being seen, get some idea of its actual size. Listen to it. Maybe toss a rock or twig into it. See if it disappeared in a flash of light and smoke.

“If it’s eating up the land inside as it works its way outward, there can’t be any question that trying to get through it would incinerate you!” Charles nixed the idea.

“Maybe. Probably. Still, we have to find out.”

“I’ll go,” Munster, ever the stupidly fearless one among us, said.

“No. You take Kayla. We’ll drop you off at the avocado farm. Go up to the thing Mari and the rest are living in. Call for her and Jerrick. Beg them to come back here, and if there’s anything still human in them, ask them to help us. See if the truck and your car aren’t totally destroyed. If they aren’t, bring the truck back. At least the truck.”

“They did help us,” Kayla said. “If they hadn’t fucking arrived when they did, Bernie’d be dead.”

“Maybe that wasn’t helping us,” I told her. Celia scowled and let out a hard breath of disgust at my cruel take concerning Bernie’s salvation.

“Anyway, they know what he is, even if you don’t. Getting you and Celia to drag him here might have been their curse on the rest of us.”

Celia’s reaction was swift and predictable. “Fuck you, Amelia.”

Cynthia squeezed her eyes closed at that comment, and nodded her head back and forth slowly. She'd pretty much broken Munster of his foul mouth, now she had Kayla and Celia coaching it back to life. I noticed, and turned my attention to the sweet one among us.

“Keep an eye on Bernie with Denise. Whatever.”

We rose from the table, placed the plates and silverware onto the sink counter, and began to leave to be about the business of destroying the first of the Auroras.

“It’s another bad idea, Amelia. Let’s put our heads together and…” Charles began when we’d gotten halfway down the hall.

“You have a better plan? Anyone?” I cut him off. No, of course there couldn’t be one. We had to act, saddled with Bernie or otherwise. I waved his suggestion off. I was calling the shots this time.

“Jesus. Well at least take the walkie-talkies, and KEEP THEM TURNED ON THIS TIME!”

“Promise,” I said. “Lock the gate behind us.”

”Yeah, you can never tell if another Bernie might show up,” Peter quipped.

“Fuck you too, Peter whatever-the-hell-your-last-name-is.”

“It’s Forsythe,” he said with a smile.

“Just fuck you.”

 

We should have let Munster bring a tank back from Pendleton like he wanted to months ago. The Pleians didn’t seem to have been too good at destroying vehicles. Maybe they didn’t even care all that much about them. Mechanical devices didn’t breathe. Something like that might come in handy today. We were stuck with Peter’s Mercedes, and a plan that, like Charles said, could be fatal. Probably would be. But hey. We piled into the sedan—all shiny and comfortable—and struck out.

Squawk. You there, Amelia?

“Yes.”

Squawk. Munster? Your unit on?

“Yeah. Go pick some oranges or somethin’, Chuck. We got it under control.”

Kayla giggled.

Squawk. Just checking.

Peter dropped the duo off at the road leading up to the House-Of-Half-Humans. Munster was armed to the teeth. You could never tell, he must have thought. He waved goodbye and good luck, and then off they walked, Kayla cussing a blue streak.

Peter and I backtracked to the freeway entrance near Marysville at seventy miles per hour, not even slowing at the wreck-congested on ramp. As closely as I could recall, the road leading up to the curtain I’d seen was only a few miles north.

“Here it is, I think. Take this exit. Slow down!”

The paved street ended at a wooden barrier a few miles up. We parked and got out. Walked around the barrier to the narrow dirt path that climbed gently at first, wound around almost aimlessly, but finally changed into a sharply steepening rise. It took us an hour to approach the summit through the dark-green leaved trees. Three-quarters of the way into the climb, I wondered if my too-quick calculation of where the cancerous Aurora lay had been off by an exit or two. The sky above, though, told me it hadn’t been. A strange darkening. Or light-darkening. Pulsating colors each time the trees thinned enough so that I could actually see the sky. Ahead of us an equally strange mistiness grew. Fog filled with acid? I crossed my fingers. We plunged forward into it. Relief. My lungs felt fine.

My heart hammered when we stepped into suddenly level ground. Twigs and dead leaves crackled, and I prayed that any alien who might be hanging around, inside or outside the light barrier ten feet away, wouldn’t notice. An ugly humming dominated the audio world. A lot like when I’d gotten close to high voltage transformers before they died in the invasion. These sounds were lower-toned, though, matching the vibrations of colored lights running as far as I could see to the left and right of where we stood.

“What do you think?” Peter whispered. It sounded like, “Want a drink?” And I was standing so close to him that my hip touched his.

“No thanks. We didn’t bring any water anyway.” I spoke in a louder voice. “Lets jam a stick into the ground a foot outside this thing. Then you go left, I’ll go right. See if we can find where it turns. Or meet one another on the backside. When we get back here, we’ll see how fast this thing is moving.”

He gave me a look, but finally understood, despite the water thing. He scrounged around, found two sticks and a palm-sized rock, and then pounded both into the ground, the second one a foot behind the first.

“Good idea.”

“We don’t split up. We stay together,” he said tossing the rock aside.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Sorry. Let’s go.”

Shades of scouring that neighborhood back in Marysville in search of Daddy back when. No Bernie-Beast here, though. Just smarter, more vicious monsters. Somehwere.

Squawk.

Not Now!

Where are you?

I raised the walkie-talkie. “Shut up, Charles! We’re okay. We’re here. Don’t alert them with your voice! We’ll keep you posted when it’s safe. Don’t call again!”

Squawk. Sorry.

We began to circle the perimeter. Slow going. The ground butting up against the hem of light was plowed ahead of its advance. Furrows running horizontally, like a gigantic earth mover was pushing it up and out of the way. It gave me the creeps. I desperately wanted to see what was beyond the wall. Then again, I didn’t. I had to, though. No, we could stay out here and observe. That would be enough.

As we walked, I barely noticed the curvature of the wall. Very gradual, and very even. No discernable breaks in its surface. That made sense. No door in or out. I wondered…

I stopped after a few hundred feet, picked a small, fallen branch up from the plowed ground, and took a deep breath. I glanced at Peter, and then threw it at the shimmering curtain of light.

“Holy smoke! It went through!” he sputtered.

“Yeah. That answers part of the question.”

I found another branch, a longer one this time, and stepped closer to the wall.

“Here goes nothing.” I jammed it in. Half of its length, but I didn’t let go this time. No electric-like current raced up into my hand. No smoke or fire or even a sound beyond the constant humming filling the air around us. I pulled it back out, expecting to see that what had been engulfed inside would be gone. But the branch came out just as it had been when I pushed it through. Even the few dried up leaves that clung to it were still in place.

Peter smiled at me. And then he frowned and shook his head. “Don’t even think about it.”

I raised the branch.

“It looks fine to me.”

“Yeah? Well you have a brain and a heart and…no, you’re not going to do it.”

I narrowed my eyes. He saw that. Before I could object, he dashed the foot or so to the wall, lifted his hand, and plunged it in. No scream. He pushed his entire arm through, left it there for a few seconds, and then yanked it back out. He opened and closed his fingers.

‘Whoa!”

“They tingle. My whole arm, in fact.”

His eyes were digging straight through me. Hard, with that I’m-so-your-protector look plastered on his face.

“Better I sacrifice a hand or an arm than take the chance you’d lose…Probably your whole body.”

“I love you. You know that, right?”

“Yes, but you’re not going in. God only knows who or what is on the other side. We’ve seen enough. Let’s go back and see if this thing has eaten either of the sticks. After that, we’ll get back to the farm. Talk about what to do next where we’re safe.”

“You know I have to go in, Peter. We came to find out what’s making this thing tick. Find a way to…”

“No. We leave. Now.”

He started to lift his hand to take hold of me. I stepped forward before he could catch hold, and then I leapt.

“Goddamit, Amelia!”

Oh.

Crap.

His voice sounded so far away.