Maybe I should have said it was an accident. But I didn’t want to lie.
I can’t tell them what I saw in the back of that truck though: an angel. An honest-to-goodness white fluffy-winged angel, all bound up in rope.
So, I did the only thing I could think of: hit the truck.
When I did, I saw the angel break free, but more than that, I saw the devil leap out of the driver.
How do you explain to a traffic cop that you just knocked the devil out of someone?
I know something is wrong. Why should it matter? And where are my friends?
Gone. They left me alone at a total stranger’s house.
“What’s under that bandana?” says another guy.
I take it off, showing my hair and not a shaved head, which they were expecting. Just hair, so they let me go.
Down the street, my friends are hiding.
“Those guys are racist skinheads! Nazis! Run!”
We hear boots quickly padding towards us.
We run.
When it hit 666, a few people laughed. Others prayed.
A local church group of about 20 people decided to move away, just to change the population for the better.
They found themselves blocked: every road out of town just stopped dead into nothing.
While many panicked, some began to check the town records, looking for information on the settlers.
After all, why would they name it Devil’s River? There wasn’t a river within a hundred miles of here.
The bug, with its tiny camera and microphone, should allow her to listen in on the Governor’s meeting.
She guides it deftly toward the Governor’s mansion, but suddenly loses contact. Its screen goes black and the signal cuts off.
Annoyed, Val flips down her night-vision goggles and scans for the bug.
There, just inside the mansion’s fence, she spies her bug. Next to it is another brass insect: a wasp.
Val grits her teeth.
Can there be another Artificer in town?
She ponders for a moment, as buzzing fills the air.
So he does.
Every day, his boss arrives first at the office and gets a glass of ice water.
Vince poisons an ice cube, and sets it first in the chute.
The next day, when Vince gets to the office, he sees people gathered around someone on the floor, but it’s not his boss.
His boss is the one who found her: the cleaning woman.
If I make this score, he thinks, I’ll be famous, if not rich.
Rumor has it that the house has some unorthodox alarm system, but he hasn’t seen signs of anything strange.
The only thing abnormal about this house is the weird lizard painting on the fence.
He glances back at the gecko close behind him.
Didn’t I pass that a while ago?
***
Later, the neighbors notice the gecko painting is a little longer than before.
There are no guests, no staff.
No beds are made.
No food delivered.
But there is life here…of a sort.
Memories…
Of honeymoons and family trips.
Of business deals and romantic trysts. Memories…
Etched into the fabric of the world.
The memory of Earth.
Garth wonders at that, before continuing to the vault. There, he finds the vault access computer, as well as a user logbook sitting next to it.
As he flips through the logbook, he comes across a message, spanning several pages:
BEWARE…
THIS…
CODE BOOK…
IS…
POISONED…
With a glance at his bare hands, his vision blurs and he passes out.
The guard sighs and puts him with the others.
“A minor comet that impacted on my house! A minor comet that reduced my home and everything inside to particles.”
“But look, the insurance will probably cover it, right? No use getting stressed about it. After all, I lost something important too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, that comet was named after me.”
The other four are here in spirit, on a rock wall near Santa Fe. The four painters dance and twirl forever on that wall.
Joseph is the last. Until he can find someone he trusts to paint his likeness there as well.
Then the Five Painters will be together again.
Very little light reaches to these depths, but there is just enough to see the hoppers below. They look like frogs, although much rounder and fatter.
And when they hop, it’s serious business.
Normally, their keen senses keep them from bouncing into each other. They can put on an impressive display of acrobatic bounding.
But it’s autumn now: mating season. This plays havoc with their senses.
Jules winces as hundreds of hoppers collide in mid air.
Mother Nature, perhaps, is still working things out.
He hears control calling him but he ignores it.
Not now. Not after what he saw.
That light trail in the sky, zipping too quickly from place to place.
It must be a UFO.
And if so, this may be the one.
He’s back, he thinks. Dad’s back.
And little Red listened, best she could, but still she fell into trouble.
Now she’s older, and she sees more clearly the difference between wolves and men and men who walk like wolves.
But, try as she might, she can’t stay away.
The forest calls her name.
He’s not sure when he came to be aware. His memory is fragmented, but he knows his destination: the blue-green planet that feels like home.
His mission was to seek out evidence of life in the vast reaches of space.
And now he is returning home, successful.
How happy my family will be, he thinks, to meet my new friends.
His sensors glance back at the mass of ships trailing him: wave after wave of sleek shiny disks.
