Taken

At di

“You’re not hungry?” she asked.

“Breakfast lasted me all day,” John answered.

“You didn’t eat any of it,” Tom said accusingly. “I saw your plate.”

John kept his eyes on Sally. “Your headache?” he asked.

“It’s gone.”

John smiled. He looked curiously relieved. “That’s good,” he said.

For the next few minutes, Sally cautiously asked a few questions. She found out that John was from Des Moines, that he’d been working here and there at whatever job he could find. His answers were carefully thought out, and she sensed that he was checking some invisible notebook before each answer, making sure that it was right, and only then giving it: a process done at lightning speed, and yet, a process.

All the while Tom stared at John suspiciously, and with a hint of hostility.

“They’re looking for someone,” Tom said.

John’s eyes swept over to him.

“Some Army men came to the school today,” Tom continued. “They said to be on the lookout for a deserter, that he’d killed a truck driver a few days ago.”

John gazed into Tom’s eyes for a moment, then shifted to the window. “It’s beautiful country,” he said to Sally. “Would you like to take a walk?”

She nodded softly, and everything Tom had just said, all the alarm it should have caused in her, abruptly vanished. “Yes,” she said. “A walk would be nice.”

They left the children at the table, Tom still staring accusingly at John, daring him to reveal himself.

They mounted a nearby slope in the cool air. Sally felt strangely light, as if she were floating just above the earth, the bottoms of her feet lightly brushing the upturned grass.

“You’re a very special woman,” John said. “You need to believe me when I tell you that.” He stopped and looked at her pointedly. “I’ve done some things,” he admitted. “Hurt people.”

She saw how troubled he was, how desperately he sought peace. She felt herself give way to him, took his hand. “Come with me,” she said.

In the shed, clothed in darkness, she made love to him as she had never made love to anyone, softly and sweetly, yet with a strange abandon, possessing even as she was possessed, gaming ground as she gave it up, like a soldier who senses victory in surrender.

Tom stood at his bedroom window, peering down at the shed, his sister beside him, watching him silently.

“Let’s find his clothes,” Tom said darkly.

“But he’s supposed to be dangerous,” Becky told him fearfully.

Tom seemed not to hear her. He threw himself on the floor and peered under the bed. Nothing.

“Look at this,” Becky said.

Tom got to his feet. “What?”

Becky handed him the magazine. “It’s a weird magazine.”

Tom looked at the magazine. It was called Famous Fantastic Mysteries. He turned the page. The first story was called “The Visitor,” and the illustration showed a strong, handsome man with a young woman in his arms.

“It’s him,” Tom said.

“It’s who?”

Tom whirled around to see the man in the doorway.

“It’s who?” John repeated.

Tom drew back and made for the door, but John caught him and lifted him, their faces almost touching.

“Listen to me,” John said. “You think you know something, but you don’t.”

Tom squirmed violently in John’s arms. “Let me go,” he cried. “Let me go.”

Becky bolted forward and began kicking John’s shins, but he seemed not to feel the hard point of her shoes, and kept his eyes riveted to Tom. “My business here is almost done,” he said.

Tom’s nose started to bleed.

“I’m sorry,” John said. He slowly returned Tom to the ground. “I didn’t mean to hurt…”

Tom wiped his nose and stared, horrified at the blood.

“Tom, I…”

Tom whirled around and bolted from the room, Becky rushing out just behind him, just as Sally came into it.

“What’s with them?” Sally said lightly as they rushed past her.

John shrugged.

Something in John’s face changed, a sudden shadow passing over it, and Sally sensed that a dark thought had crossed his mind.

“Tyler, my boss at the restaurant,” she said. “He called to tell me that soldiers are looking for a deserter from an Army base in New Mexico.”

John said nothing, but only picked up the magazine Tom had dropped at his feet.

“I know that you came from someplace farther away than that,” Sally said. “They’ll be coming for you soon, won’t they?”

John nodded silently, glancing away for a moment before returning his gaze to her.

Sally plucked a lone star earring from her ear. “These were my grandmother’s. Will you take one with you?” She stepped over and took his hand and saw that it had changed. Now it had only four fingers and each finger had an extra joint. She knew that she should be horrified, that horror would be the normal reaction. But she felt no horror, only that he’d revealed something to her, deepened their intimacy. In doing so, he had taken her into his world, and she believed that some part of her would always live there.

“I’d better go,” John said. “I don’t think I can keep from hurting you if you’re with me.”

She walked him out to the porch, watched as he stepped into the yard, noted that he did not look back. She lifted her hand, but did not say good-bye.

Then she walked back into the house, and in an instant she knew that he was gone. She returned to the porch, glancing up at the sky where she saw two large blue orbs flying in formation across the heavens. She sat down in a chair, and she was still there, sitting quietly, when Tom and Becky came home. She could tell from their faces that they’d also seen the strange lights in the night sky.

Later, just as di

“I’m Owen Crawford,” the soldier said. “Army Intelligence.”

Sally nodded.

“He’s gone, hasn’t he?” Owen said.

“He has,” Sally answered.

She could tell that the soldier knew who the stranger was, that he was not a deserter from an Army base, but something else entirely. Something that defied understanding and had bestowed on her a wisdom and sweetness that was deeper than anything on earth.

“Home?” he asked.

“Yes, home.”

The soldier nodded. “Then I guess I’m too late,” he said, and with those words, tipped his hat and walked away.

She watched him drive off, then tucked Tom and Becky into bed. She knew that her children probably thought her crazy.

But she knew differently.

She’d seen the four-fingered hand, seen his powers, and even now felt him stir inside her, something left behind, so small she could barely feel its pressure inside her, so small… but growing.

Russell lay in bed, tossing fitfully. Johnson was screaming, and he was rolling out of the bed and onto the floor, reaching for the trigger, firing, firing, firing, until suddenly, he was bathed in light, and he saw that the light came from the creatures in the tent, the Germans who were no longer Germans, he saw now, but something… other… small, with large pear-shaped heads, huge almond-shaped eyes, and long fingers that hung from spindly hands.

He bolted up in bed, wide awake, eyes staring into the darkness. Sweat cascaded down his back with the cool curious touch of bony fingers. Not Germans, he thought desperately, not Germans at all.

Owen headed down the corridor, then stopped. She was there again. That woman. Sue. He pivoted quickly, bent upon a hasty escape, but found himself face to face with Howard.