Season of Strangers (14 page)

Julie got up from the sofa, turning her back on him. “I don't…I don't want to talk about this. Please, Patrick…I think you ought to leave.”

Patrick stood up, too, but instead of heading for the door, she felt his hands on her shoulder, turning her to face him. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. There was nothing tentative, this time, nothing the least bit uncertain. This kiss was all fiery heat and pent-up desire, hard-soft lips and a hot, demanding tongue. Taut muscle bunched against the fullness of her breasts, making her nipples tighten and throb where they pressed against his chest.

Patrick deepened the kiss, taking her mouth as if he owned it, stroking deeply, making the heat in her stomach slide hotly through her limbs. It had been so long….

And never, ever like this.

Her fingers curled into his shirt, her heart hammered, and her mouth molded itself to his. For a moment she kissed him back, tasting the roughness of his tongue, feeling the seductive pressure of his lips, breathing in the subtle male scent of him. Hunger swirled through her, and a need so strong it shook her to the very core. Then doubts began to seep in, blocking the numbing haze of passion. Patrick's hand on her breast sent a fission of heat straight through her, but with it came a cold hard dose of reason.

You shouldn't be doing this!
Damn, she had to stop this from happening before it was too late!

Pressing her palms against his chest, Julie broke away. Breathing too hard, her legs trembling, she backed up several paces, angry at herself for what she had almost let happen yet insanely, in some strange way, disappointed that it hadn't occurred.

“Don't ever…don't ever do that again, Patrick.”

He looked at her but didn't relent. She couldn't recall when he had ever appeared so formidable. “I'll promise you only this. I won't do anything you don't want me to do.”

A funny little sound slipped from her throat. Julie tried not to feel the hot burst of hunger. “Please go,” she said.

He stared at her for long, silent moments, his shoulders a little stiffer, his posture straighter, drawing his tall frame even more upright. “I want to help you with Laura. We can't let what's happening between us affect what's good for her.”

What's happening between us?
What was he talking about? Dear God, she couldn't afford to let anything happen between them. “How could you possibly be good for Laura? For thirty-five years, you haven't been good for
yourself
.”

His mouth curved cynically. “Perhaps that's exactly the reason. Maybe I know better than anyone else what it is to feel so alone.” The clock on the mantel ticked into the silence. He glanced off toward the windows. “Or perhaps it's just that I want to help
you
.”

“I don't need your help. Laura and I will be fine on our own.” She walked over and opened the door. “Good night, Patrick.”

He moved toward the opening, paused a moment in front of her, and his hand came up to her cheek. “You're frightened of me, Julie, but you don't have to be. I won't do anything to hurt you.”

Julie glanced away from him but said nothing more, just stood in silence while he made his way out onto the porch. She watched him descend the stairs, feeling shaken and oddly alone, wondering how her life had suddenly turned upside down.

Wondering what in God's name she was going to do about it.

B
rian Heraldson sat across the desk from the petite redhead and the tall slender blonde. Laura Ferris had insisted her sister come along when she listened for the first time to the tapes of her previous sessions. She told him about the incident at Julie's birthday dinner and repeatedly said that the experiences she remembered had actually occurred.

She was even more convinced when she heard herself on the tape of the previous sessions.

As the tape came to a close, tears welled in her eyes. “They took me,” she whispered, the wetness beginning to roll down her cheeks. “They stripped off my clothes and stuck their instruments inside my body, just like I said on the tape.” She sat there on the gray leather sofa, clutching her sister's hand. “I remember the shuffling sound of their feet on the deck and the next thing I knew they were standing there in the guest room. They didn't come in through the door—they were just suddenly there.”

“Take it easy, Laura,” he said when she began to cry harder. “You're safe in here. No one's going to hurt you.”

Her head came up. She wiped her eyes with the tissue Julie gave her. “You think I'm safe? Well, I don't. I don't think I'm safe anywhere. I think they can take me whenever they want.”

He sat forward in his chair, hoping to deflect her hostility. It bothered him to feel it directed toward him. “What happened after they came into the guest room? During the hypnosis session you couldn't seem to recall.”

“I remember much more since the night of Julie's birthday party. I know they carried me across the deck and down the stairs, across the sand to a place beneath the cliffs. They wrapped me in something…it was pliable, flexible somehow, and it molded itself around me. I remember floating upward, lifting through the air, watching the house recede beneath me. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in that terrible room.”

She sniffed several times, then started crying again. Julie tightened her grip on Laura's hand.

“They examined you…is that right, Laura?”

She nodded, her head hanging forward, a curtain of long pale hair falling over her dark brown eyes. Brian ignored a rush of pity, and an unfamiliar tightening in his chest.

“I felt humiliated…violated. I wanted to kill them for what they were doing.”

“What did they look like?”

Laura's head came up and so did Julie's. Apparently it was the first time anyone had thought to ask.

“I'm…I'm not sure. I don't think they all looked the same. The ones who came into my room were shorter than the others. And those all looked pretty much alike. They were kind of like soldiers, I think.”

“Go on,” he urged gently.

“They had big round heads but their chins were sort of pointed—you know, kind of like the pictures of aliens you see in cartoons, except there was nothing funny about them. And they had huge black, bottomless eyes.”

“Bottomless?” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you looked into them, you couldn't see anything but darkness. Like a great black pool so deep you couldn't see the end.”

“What were they wearing?” Julie asked, studying her sister with renewed interest.

“Dark blue coveralls. Their skin was leathery and gray.” She shivered. “The others were taller. I don't remember much about them, but in time maybe I will. The images are returning, getting a little clearer every day. In a way that's what frightens me most.”

“You're afraid of what you'll recall?” Brian asked.

“Yes. The more I remember, the more certain I am that this really happened.” She shook her head. “I also know that if I mention it, if I tell anyone about it, they're going to think I'm crazy, that I'm some kind of freak.”

Julie turned her gaze in Brian's direction. He noticed that her gray slacks were damp where she'd wiped her sweaty palms. Listening to Laura, Brian found his own palms sweating.

“I know all of this sounds absurd,” Julie said, “but is it possible, Dr. Heraldson, that what Laura thinks happened is real? I read something in the Sunday
Times
…I remember there was a picture on the front of the Parade section, a drawing of an alien like Laura described. I remember they interviewed a number of different people who claimed to be victims of alien abduction.”

“Is it possible Laura might have read the article, too?”

Laura shook her head. “No. I never read the paper. I don't even watch the news. They never report anything but bombings and murders—why would I want to watch that?”

“Is it possible, Doctor?” Julie pressed.

It was a question Brian had been asking himself since Julie had called him at home Sunday morning. She had told him about Laura's wild reaction to the helicopter the night before and he had suggested she come in first thing on Monday.

“I'll be honest with both of you. I don't believe in alien abduction. I don't think Laura was taken aboard a spacecraft full of little gray men. I believe the problem is rooted in Laura's childhood, that whatever it was may have been magnified by the abortion she experienced during her teenage years. Odds are, something happened fairly recently to set these long suppressed anxieties in motion.”

He sat forward in his chair. “On the other hand, there is a growing number of people who claim to have experienced phenomena like Laura has described. I would be remiss in my duties if I discouraged either of you from investigating the possibility that Laura's experiences are real.”

The women stared at him in silence. Brian spun in his chair, pulled open a lower desk drawer, and began to ruffle through the files. When he found what he was looking for, he pulled out the folder and laid it on his desk.

“A colleague of mine, a doctor named Aaron Newburg who went to school with me at USC, had a patient claiming to be a victim of alien abduction. After extensive treatment, the patient remained convinced the events were real. Dr. Newburg put him in touch with a man named Budd Hopkins. Hopkins is touted as one of the main forces behind investigating UFO-alien abductions. Since he lived so far away, Hopkins referred the patient to a psychologist protégé of his named Peter Winters. Winters runs a therapy group here in L.A. for people who claim to be victims.”

Laura straightened, drawing herself up on the sofa. “I don't believe what I'm hearing. Julie said something Saturday night about other people who believed this had happened to them, but at the time I was too upset to listen. Now you're telling me the same thing. If people say they're being abducted, why won't anyone believe them?”

“I'm telling you there are other people who
claim
this has happened. That doesn't mean it's true. In my estimation, the best thing you could do would be to accept these fantasies as delusions and work with me to arrive at the root of the problem. However, if you think it would make you feel better, perhaps you should speak to Dr. Winters. At least among members of his group, you'll be able to tell your story without fear of ridicule.”

Laura bit her lip, her courage suddenly fading. “I don't know…what do you think, Julie?”

The older sister looked pensive, dark-red eyebrows drawn together above the bridge of her upturned, lightly freckled nose. “I think we should definitely speak to Dr. Winters. It couldn't hurt and maybe it will help.”

For the first time that day, Laura smiled, and Brian felt the warmth blaze right through him.

“Yes…” Laura agreed, “let's talk to him. That's exactly what I want to do.”

Brian ignored an unexpected feeling of abandonment, thinking in a way this might be best. So far, he'd been able to keep his attraction for Laura Ferris under tight grips, but every time he saw her, a little more of his control seemed to slip. Perhaps it would be better if she went to someone else, placed herself under another doctor's care.

He resolved then and there, no matter the outcome of Laura's meeting with Peter Winters, he was through as her physician. If she came back to him for treatment, he would refer her to somebody else. And he would stay away from her himself. The last thing he wanted was involvement with a patient. Especially one who believed in little gray men.

 

“Well, what do you think?” Laura asked Julie the moment they walked out of the psychiatrist's office. “Did I do the right thing?”

“I imagine it's too soon to tell.” Julie unlocked the door on the passenger side of her little silver car, then walked around to the driver's side and let herself in. Maybe she should have listened to Dr. Heraldson, supported him in his efforts to convince her sister her memories were just an illusion. She remembered only too well Laura's emotional turmoil in making the decision to have the abortion.

But Tommy Ross was a drifter, a beach bum headed for bigger surf in Hawaii. He'd had no money, no job, and even if he had, he was already long gone before Laura found out she was pregnant. She was only seventeen. Julie was in college, working part-time to pay for books and tuition. Geraldine Ferris, their mother, earned barely enough to put food on the table and cheap clothes on their backs.

And Laura's health wasn't good. Even if she'd let the pregnancy run its course, the doctor said odds were she would miscarry before she reached full term. It seemed a good decision at the time—the only real answer to Laura's dilemma. She had been upset about it, of course, a little bit frightened of what would happen to her in the hospital, but not, Julie believed, to the extent that it would later cause something like this.

Julie thought again of Brian Heraldson. Maybe she should have backed him up, convinced Laura this was all in her head, but something held her back. It was only a feeling, a niggling, intuitive something that made her want to know more before she formed a solid opinion.

“Dr. Heraldson said he would set it up for me to attend the meeting,” Laura said. “Do you think he might come along? I mean…it might be nice to have him there.”

For a moment Julie's gaze swung away from the road, caught a glimpse of Laura's pretty face. “You like him, don't you?”

“I trust him. I don't know why, but I do.”

Julie smiled. “So do I. But I think, at least at first, we ought to do this alone. Dr. Heraldson's mind is already made up. He doesn't believe this could have happened and that might influence your thinking when you speak to Dr. Winters.”

Laura sighed. “I suppose you're right.” They drove along in silence for a while. “Patrick was really nice about this. He doesn't believe me, of course, but at least he tried to help. He's certainly changed since his heart attack.”

Something warm slid into Julie's stomach. “You know Patrick. I'm sure his reformation is only temporary. For his father's sake I wish he'd change for good, but we all know he probably won't.”

“For his father's sake?” Laura pressed. “Or for yours?”

“Don't be silly. I have no interest in Patrick, none whatsoever.” But she couldn't stop the tiny flutter in her heart or the stirring of hope at Laura's words.

 

On Tuesday morning, Val sat at the kitchen table in his penthouse apartment, poring over the pages he had just written in his journal. Much of it recounted the happenings at Julie Ferris's birthday party, the reaction Laura Ferris was having to what she called “the abduction.”

Val frowned as he recalled the events of that night. They had known Earth subjects were often severely affected. He had seen their reactions when they were carried aboard the ship: crying and screaming, begging and pleading, shrinking into themselves in terror. He had seen the follow-up studies, showing their tendency toward suspicion, paranoia, insomnia, and manic-depressive moods. He had seen all of this, and yet he had never understood the way they truly felt.

He had never understood because he wasn't able to experience those feelings himself.

Not until now.

Val scrawled more words on the blue-lined pages of his notebook.

Val set the pen aside and studied the last line he had written. On Toril, there was no such thing as individuality, no perception of privacy, independent thinking, or personal rights and freedoms. Everyone worked for the common good, existed as a part of one common humanity.

Here, the closest Patrick's memory banks could come to the sort of communal existence was to liken Torillian society to a group of bees within a hive. They all pulled together, reacted as one. There was no dissension, no discord. They discussed things, made a decision based on the common good, then acted to carry out that decision. From emergence until death, five hundred years later, they thought of themselves as one, all part of a common entity.