Fifty-five
Gene Packerson bolted awake to the pounding at the
front door. The panicky voice crying out his name sounded for all the
world like David Hartman. It hardly seemed likely that a boy so sickly
could have come so far into town on his own, or gotten so excited without
putting himself in the hospital.
Sheila protested sleepily as he began the reluctant
task of disengaging himself from her warm body.
"Gene, honey?"
"Cease and desist, child. We have company."
He threw on his robe and rushed through the house to
silence the infernal racket. He threw the door open and drew back in
alarm. Reflexively, he clawed for the security of a nonexistent sidearm.
"Mom and Dad need help!" David Hartman cried. "It's
back again! It's going to take her! Gene, I need a ride to the house!"
Maybe he had suffered a stroke during the course of
his lovemaking. He had been more than willing to risk it. What else
could explain the lapse in his memory? Hadn't David Hartman been a small,
frail boy?
Tires screamed in the near distance. His gaze rose
over the boy's shoulder and focused on the town beyond.
The rest of the world had gone equally mad. Horns
blared across town, some close-by, and a vast chorus of them further
away. The streets were filling with traffic. No more than a block away,
tires squealed again followed by the distinctive sound of metal crumpling
and shattered plastic and glass raining to the pavement. Engines roared
in the night. Even more strangely, a sickly green light from somewhere
overhead sent shadows crawling through the darkness.
Gene turned numbly away and left the door hanging
open. He returned to the bedroom to dress.
"Gene, what's the matter?" Sheila purred, confident
that he'd be crawling back into bed after their brief interruption.
Gene sat to pull on his boots. He cringed as he
brushed against the stitches in his leg. "Do you know the Hartman boy?"
Sheila sat up and switched gears in an instant. "I
know about him is all."
"Never mind." He reached for his holster and slung
it about his waist. "I've gotta make a run up to the Ridge. Give the
office a call and see if you can figure out what in hell is going on.
We're in deep shit. I think the world is coming to an end."
Gene hurried back outside. He avoided studying the
boy too closely, wondering if perhaps he had made a foolish mistake all
along. This was some stranger who bore a passing resemblance to David.
It couldn't be David Hartman.
David noticed his anguished, distrustful look on the
way to the car. "It's really me, Gene. It's kind of hard to explain."
David Hartman had grown a half foot in the past day
or two. How could that be explained?
Gene paused alongside his car and looked toward the
Ridge in growing confusion. The stand of trees stood like a sentinel
against the horizon during the day. Why would they be visible at night?
And then he glanced up, remembering the sickly glow illuminating the
shadows.
"Oh, my God!"
It was a glass egg with a green star in the middle,
growing in size as it descended. He suspected it was very far up still,
and very large. He could see, though, that it was going to come down over
the Ridge. The stand of trees that had so mysteriously disappeared one
morning were now illuminated like a church steeple caught in the glare of
a hundred spotlights.
"Gene, we've got to hurry! It's going to get Mom!"
Mom. Marlene Hartman, deceased. Maybe John Hartman
would have that badly needed explanation of the past weeks event's now.
It was at least clear that the Hartman family had been the source of the
madness all along.
The glass egg came down and Eagle Junction panicked.
People spilled from their homes and fled in their cars half dressed, or
dressed not at all. They backed over fences and trash cans in their haste
to escape. Others without immediate transportation stood in frantic
clusters on their front lawns and pointed to the heavens.
With his emergency lights flashing and his siren
wailing, he drove against the traffic fleeing the approaching phenomenon.
Much of the oncoming traffic had swung into his own lane, or even onto the
sidewalks, to broaden the escape routes to the coastal highway. Gene
drove on lawns and through fences to avoid the worst of the congestion.
He would have preferred to join the crowd moving in the opposite direction.
Outside town, he had the highway all to himself. The
only cars he saw were those that had rolled into the ditches and injured
or killed their passengers. Approaching the Ridge, the night turned to a
pale semblance of daylight with a green sun in the sky.
"Don't stop!" David cried. "I've got to get to the
house! My mom's in trouble!"
But he had lost his nerve. He let the car coast to
the side of the road and stall, his eyes glued in horror to the descending
light filling the heavens.
David gave a wail of frustration and bolted from the
car. He raced up the slope on foot trailing a long black shadow. Gene
watched him go, numb with astonishment. He had never seen the boy move so
fast. Not only did the boy have no fear of the light, he seemed to know
what it was.
It had come back, David had said.
Gene sat alone on the highway in growing agitation.
He had to do something. The old temptations to take the easy way out had
to end. The welfare of Eagle Junction was his responsibility. He had
shirked those responsibilities too many times in the past. He could not
do so now, not with an old friend in need of help.
"Shit," he said softly. He started car. The wheels
were still spinning when he swung up the road to the Ridge.
