The Everborn (6 page)

I set the letter aside and fled from my office. I called for my wife, but Melony did not answer. Heading down the upstairs hall, I entered the bedroom, but all that lay before me was a vacant bed. Down the stairs, my living room and kitchen seemed dark and empty even as my fingers found the knobby protrusion of wall switch and announced my intrusion with an instant rupture of light. The revealing peacefulness mocked me in response, as though my own home wished to be left undisturbed and that nothing was wrong except what was only in my mind.

I continued to call for Melony. For anyone. I spread wide the pleated doors of the pantry, doubled back and into the den, even probed the closets and behind the bathroom shower curtain. Hell, I would’ve checked the kitchen cabinets if it had occurred to me. I refused to believe I was alone. Alone like
this
.

After rambling about the back yard and patio, I surveyed the quiet, evening street from the driveway. I opened the garage to inspect both our cars, both nestled safely within, and I re-entered the house through its inside door.

At that point I remembered the letter at my wife’s typewriter, and I cursed myself for not having fully read it at the start. In despondent grief, I realized that this letter could very well be some sort of ransom note, and that Melony was in danger. I thought impetuously of friends and colleagues, of phoning for help. Indeed, it was as though some fiend had slipped me drugs, for the inner workings of my head grew throbbing and feverish. And I had emerged into hell.

Rushing up the stairs and returning to my wife’s desk in frantic assault, I grasped the message. And I read it word for word.

URGENT 1/2/95

To Maxwell J. Polito, world

renown investigator of

UFO phenomena:

If I had no conception of what all of this was, compared to what I know to be real, I would have right then and there abandoned this insanity and phoned for the police.

I’m grateful I didn’t give in to that impulse. Knowing what I know now, it would have been the wrong thing to do. Terribly, horribly wrong. Even at that sudden suspension of time, before my eyes contended for the message’s final sentences, my comprehension overpowered me. As the letter stated, I had no choice but to accept its explanation. Its very existence, though cloaked in numbing mystery, seemed so rational yet so utterly impossible.

I was beginning to recollect fragments of what had happened before the hollow black of sleep delivered me into this present dilemma. I found myself horrified with each recollection that surfaced, with each clue and faded vision.

I recalled my ongoing attempt to achieve what could have been my crowning glory, the discovery that would earn me a permanent place in the forefront of human scientific history. After twenty-six years of professional research, I was on the verge of providing mankind with indisputable proof that there exists among us a race of nonhuman beings, living as we do, appearing as we appear.

In pursuit of this proof I was led to the attic of a certain fundamentalist church in the city of Lawndale, located somewhere below Los Angeles. I did not remember anything else before I awoke amidst the drifting vapors of disturbing dream, inside the office of my home, dozens of miles away.

I knew that this letter was authored by someone or something linked with my own research. This was, by my own personal instincts, no prank. I could not explain what had exactly happened to me, nor what was happening still. Perhaps the letter had been placed along with me at my wife’s desk, though the reasoning behind where I found it was no more clear than the reasoning behind where I found myself. But my acceptance of this typewritten conundrum as the gospel truth provided little remedy for my near-crippling distress. In a way, it fueled it. I still didn’t know what to expect.

I felt much the same as when one is awed by the impossible feats of a master magician. Everyone knows what to expect of a master magician, for experience dictates that we should expect the impossible
from
him. We anticipate unexplainable acts that further and further defy what we know to be real. We may even invest both time and money to watch him perform as we sit tottering within creaky, cushioned theatre seats, fully prepared for an onslaught of things we could never truly prepare for. But regardless of what he performs, we do not flee the theatre in deranged panic when he divides a young lady into thirds with a hacksaw.

Even when that young lady happens to be you.

I must take the letter seriously, for I have made this theatre seat my own, and I intend to sit through the show. At least, now that I have reason to believe what I am dealing with here are my own master magicians and now my wife’s involved.

I should add that it is no longer entirely true that man fears what he fails to understand. These days, man lines up to buy tickets for it.

Somewhere down this line I had stood to buy tickets, never expecting that my response to a show of hands would lead this volunteer to center stage, let alone never dreaming that the magician might choose to confide in me a few of his secrets.

The letter ended:

2.

Maxwell Gets A Grip

It was as though they had recalled my sanity and this letter was my receipt to run down and pick up a new one.

When I finished the letter, the very mention of my wife’s involvement rendered me nauseous. I could not allow my anxiety to invoke further morbid imaginings, and I fought to refuse any notion that Melony had fallen into mishap. If the matters expressed within the letter were truly as I perceived them, there could be no doubt she had been safe all along.

What tormented me was my not knowing for sure. All the letter revealed was that she needed me and I was to be on my way shortly. If I gave in to any further panic, it would surely slow my departure, if not paralyze it. If only I could grab hold of the reins of my rampant senses and conquer this madness, I could approach this situation with all the disciplined conduct I normally should have. I needed respect and reverence, as this promised to be the climax of twenty-six years of ambitious exploration, the ultimate discovery of our age. With that in mind, I should expect myself to be as anxious and as giddy as a child.

I should be any of these things, any and all, but I wasn’t.

Re-examining the letter, welcoming now its contents and working my mental disarray into a serene compliance, I sat within the brown leather of Melony’s desk chair and found myself slowly relaxing, giving in. It occurred to me that I should be grateful, for I could have been further disadvantaged by awakening elsewhere, in an environment totally alien to me. I could’ve found myself soiled and ragged and staring up euphorically at a family of spotted llamas in some grassy Peruvian valley, for all I knew. Or worse.

Whatever I had been through, the very fact that I ended up here, inside my own home, perhaps even placed here purposely and thoughtfully, eased my mind. It comforted me in a way so intensely relieving that I was not at first aware of my own tears.

And the letter....

What if I had opened my eyes to the letter’s author, without there ever having been a letter to prepare me for what I would see?

Rising from the office chair, my body still trembling from the aftershocks of nervousness, I gazed about the room. I realized I was nearly freezing, and moved to shut the side window. I paused to take in a few breaths of the outside ocean air.

After this, I turned to the red digits of the clock radio roosted atop a corner file cabinet. It read 8:16 p.m. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour earlier when I was first embraced by this chaos; looking at the ordeal then as I did, my recent actions felt almost primal, racing about the house as though my ass was ablaze.

The letter stated I had been murdered. Although I could not bring myself to fully face the memories of my fateful attic visit, I knew that what happened to me there was why I was here now. Despite this, and despite its accompanying dread, I felt suddenly very much alive.

I was
home
.

And I knew what I needed to do.

***

Back to the master magician again, if only but for another moment. Is it such a crime to ask how he does it, to allow him to make you think for awhile? I found I needed only a
little
while to collect my thoughts, to be a bit more rational, to get a grip. If I was to truly encounter something extraordinary tonight, I needed to prepare, to become focused.

Whoever awaited my arrival wasn’t going anywhere. Or was he?

I didn’t need to know right then how this master magician accomplished
anything
, for this I knew would be answered in due time. What I wanted to know was how I would go about following the letter’s instructions; it wouldn’t be as simple as taking the Mustang for a drive.

Was I really
dead
? Where had my body
been
for the past four months? How did I end up home?

The clothes I wore were newly washed and pressed. My black leather shoes glistened as though new, and the knitted brown and beige sweater rolled up to my elbows had that lemon-fresh scent I always pretended to fancy. The pockets of my beige cotton trousers held loose change in their right front, and from the left I retrieved my handmade “
Communion
” alien key chain baring its proper assortment of keys. There was also a half-empty packet of plain M&Ms, a favorite inside joke Melony and I shared from our initials and our favorite munchies as well. I slid my wallet from my rear for likewise inspection. My license, business and credit cards were untouched, and I disclosed four twenty-dollar bills and a few ones within the main pouch.

Curious, I optioned to explore the house only to confirm my inklings. During my previous stampede I failed to notice how remarkably tidy everything was. Naturally, one does not pause to appreciate the spotless linoleum when he suddenly fears his wife has been abducted. But free of immediate alarm, I was beginning to take oddly delightful notice of my surroundings, and was able to finally evaluate my circumstances with a reasonably sound mind.