Vanish (13 page)

Helen peered out at the water and shook her head. “He had something… They were doing something to him. He had… burns.… They just appeared out of nowhere on his skin.”

“Burns?”

Helen nodded. “He was in such pain. He wouldn’t let me help him. He ran away, out into the street. I was searching for him all morning.”

Conner held out his wrist and peeled back the gauze. “The burns—did they look like this?”

“No. No, they blistered and bled. They spread all over his body right in front of my eyes.” A tear rolled down Helen’s cheek. “He was in such pain and… and I couldn’t do anything to help him.”

She wiped her eyes.

Conner hesitated, then put his hand on her shoulder. “I think they’re just manipulating us somehow. I saw things too. So did Mitch.”

“But I
felt
him. I
touched
him.…”

Conner nodded. “I know. It seemed real for me, too.”

Helen looked up at him. “What did you see?”

Conner’s jaw tightened. “I saw
my
son. But he died five years ago. It was as real as you are sitting here right now. It happened twice. The second time was when one of those things grabbed my wrist.…”

“What happened?”

“One minute I was outside and… suddenly I was standing in my old house. I could hear Matthew running around and laughing.” Conner fell silent for a moment. “Did you experience any pain?”

“What do you mean?”

Conner described his convulsions, but Helen only shook her head. She hadn’t experienced anything like that. Conner’s worry deepened. What was happening to him? Their experiences were all so similar, except for the convulsions. He was the only one having them. Were these creatures doing something just to him?

Was this all some sort of…

“…experiment,” he said.

“What?”

“What if this is all just some kind of experiment? The hallucinations, my seizures—they’ve got to be doing this for a reason.”

“But why?”

Conner shrugged. “Maybe just to see how we react or to see what makes us angry. Or what frightens us. I don’t know.”

The gray light of dusk was fading, and a milky fog had settled on the dark water. Conner straightened up. “I better fire up the generator before it gets too d—”

Thump!

The boat lurched and shuddered as something bumped hard against the hull.

CONNER AND HELEN steadied themselves against the rail and peered into the water. Nothing moved on the surface.

“What was that?” Helen gasped.

“I don’t know.” Conner said. “I have to get the generator started!”

Mitch slid down the ladder from the bridge. “What happened?”

Conner made his way forward. “Something’s in the water. I can’t see anything out there. Get the engine started; I’ll fire up the generator.”

Mitch swore and climbed back up to the bridge. Conner had set the generator at the bow, where the noise would be minimized. He had strung a series of extension cords to a power strip that was plugged into the generator’s AC output.

He had tested the engine earlier, and after a few tugs of the pull-start, it fired right up. He switched on the power strip, and immediately the fog around them lit up in the bright amber glow of the halogen floodlights. He double-checked the cord connections and the lights, then returned to the back.

“See anything?” he called up to Mitch.

Mitch shook his head. “Can’t see anything in this fog.”

Helen had backed away from the rail. “Let’s just go.”

“Where?” Conner said. “You want to go back to land?”

Devon poked his head over the rail. “Man, anything’s better than just sitting around here.”

Mitch was trying without success to get the boat’s engine started. Conner could hear intermittent curses between the sounds of the engine chugging.

“Don’t flood it,” Conner said.

Mitch muttered something about a lawyer trying to tell a mechanic how to start an engine.

Conner looked over the side. The floodlights lit up the mist but couldn’t penetrate the surface of the water. He tried to aim one of the lights down, into the water, but with no luck. The water was too dark and murky.

After a moment, Helen joined him at the rail. “Do you see anything?”

“No,” Conner said. Then he called again to Mitch. “Does this thing have any underwater lights?”

Mitch nodded toward Devon. “There’s a couple under the bench in the cabin.”

Devon slid down and disappeared inside the cabin. They could hear him rummaging around. He emerged a moment later with a pair of battery-powered light cases, each connected to a length of rope. He held them up. “These them?”

Mitch nodded. “Freddy uses them for night diving.”

Conner turned on the lights and lowered them over the side. A wide ring of light lit up the water on each side of the boat.

“That’s good!” Conner called. He paced from side to side, peering into the water.

Mitch slid down the ladder again, now issuing a steady stream of curses. He ransacked the cabin and dug out a toolbox.

“What’s wrong?” Conner said.

But Mitch appeared in no mood to talk. He loosened the cover to the engine compartment and looked inside.

Back on the bridge, Devon threw up his hands. “Man, that’s just great. Now we’re stranded out here!”

“Everybody just shut up!” Mitch growled as he tinkered with the engine.

Conner paced the deck, gazing out into the mist. A sudden chill came over him. It was the same sensation he’d had the day before in his office. Somewhere in the mist, something was watching them. He felt trapped.

Cornered.

Suddenly, Helen screamed and backed away from the rail. “There’s something in the water!”

Everyone froze.

Conner shook himself back to his senses and rushed to the side where Helen had been watching. “What was it? What did you see?”

Helen’s face was pale, her eyes wide. She tried to answer but her lips only quivered.

Conner grabbed her shoulders and jolted her. “What did you see?”

“I don’t—I don’t know,” she stammered. “It was big!”

Devon swore. “Was it one of those things?”

“I don’t know what it was.…”

“Keep an eye on the left side,” Conner called up to Devon while he peered into the water on the right. “Mitch, we really need to get this engine running.”

“I’m working on it!”

Then Devon said, “There it is! Just went under the boat!”

A large shadow darted out from underneath them, jerking awkwardly side to side. It was distorted in the water, a murky shape, silhouetted by the underwater light.

“Whoa!” Conner shouted. “I see it!”

It was big, but it moved too quickly for him to get a good look. It had no limbs or fins, nor even a tail.

“What is it?” Mitch called out from the engine compartment. “Is it one of them?”

Conner shook his head. His heart was pounding now. “I don’t—it moved too fast. I couldn’t get a good—”

“There’s another one!” Devon called out.

Helen disappeared into the cabin and returned a moment later, rifling through her bag. She pulled out her gun and leaned over the rail, next to Conner.

Under the boat, a shadow emerged, then halted. A moment later it slid laterally along the hull toward the back. Helen fired three shots into the water. The bullets streamed down, missing the target.

Conner pulled her arm back. “You don’t have a clear shot.”

Then the rope from one of the underwater lights tugged and they heard a muffled pop. The water on one side of the boat went black. Conner blinked. He couldn’t see anything now beneath the surface.

“It broke the light,” he said. “They’re breaking the lights!”

A moment later there was another bump under the hull and a second pop.

Devon swore again. “They got the other one!”

Now the water was completely black. Impenetrable. The mist seemed to curl in tighter. The fog thickened, like a glowing curtain in the halogen lamps.

From out of the fog came a heavy thump. The boat rocked slightly, dipping toward the front. Conner scrambled toward the bow. “The generator! They’re going for the generator.”

He stopped suddenly and his eyes widened.

A tall figure squatted at the bow, dripping wet. It stood motionless for a moment, outlined against the fog, as the boat rocked gently. It seemed to tilt its head as if listening for something. Then it bent down, lifted the generator off the deck, and leaped backward over the rail.

Ker-thwoosh!

The extension cords trailed along after it, snapping off the front set of lights and disappearing over the rail. There was a bright pop of electricity, and then all the lights went out.

MITCH SAT IN THE DARKNESS. Somewhere in the distance he heard a woman scream. Voices echoed far away.

Gradually his eyes adjusted and he could make out his surroundings again. But he was no longer on the boat.

Boat? What boat?

His mind staggered, disoriented. He sat on the cedar chest at the foot of his mother’s bed. He could hear her slow, labored breathing and the gurgling of the fluid in her lungs.

“Mom?” His voice was soft. Slightly higher pitched. But it was his voice.

He felt dizzy, sitting on the chest. Like the whole house swooned beneath him. For a moment he had imagined he was a grown man. Had he been dreaming? His mind had felt small, lost inside a large body.…

She stirred beneath the sheets. She was awake, he knew. She rarely slept anymore. A sound came to his ears. Like a mouse’s feet scraping lightly across the kitchen linoleum.

“Mitchy?” She was trying to answer him.

Mitch slid off the chest and went hesitantly to the bedside, swallowing hard to keep from gagging at the musty stench. He kept his eyes lowered. He didn’t want to look at her.

Her hand brushed against his arm. A frail, bony touch.

“Son,” she whispered. “Go on outside.…”

Mitch shook his head. “No, Mom. I don’t feel like it.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“There’s nothing to do outside.” How could he even think of going out when he knew she was in here. Suffering.

“Mitchy,” she said, “I’ll be okay.… I just need a… need a nap.”

Tears stung his eyes. He shook them away.

“I was praying. I asked God to make you well again.”

There was a pause. “God always answers… prayers, Mitch,… but sometimes He… He makes us wait… a little while.”

Mitch squeezed his eyes tight and tears dripped down his cheek. He shook his head. “I don’t think He heard me, Mom.” His voice turned hard. “I don’t think He was even listening.”

“Oh… Mitch… don’t…”

“He doesn’t care if you’re suffering, Mom. Neither does Dad or the doctors. Nobody cares. Nobody but me.”

The door opened and his father strode in, eyes glaring down at Mitch.

“I told you to go
outside
,” he rasped through clenched teeth. “Quit waking her up. She needs her rest!”

Mitch glared back. Defiant. “I don’t want to go outside!”

His father’s eyes widened, then narrowed to slits. His lips trembled, like a volcano ready to erupt. “Don’t talk back to me!” he boomed.

Mitch just folded his arms.

“Mitch!”

Mitch held his ground. He’d make the man force him out. Drag him out by his arm.

“Mitch!”

Mitch frowned. That didn’t sound like his father. The room grew dark.

“Mitch!”

His father’s face was fading. Out of the darkness, two hands clutched Mitch’s shoulders firmly. They shook him.

“Mitch! Get the engine fixed.”

Mitch blinked and shook his head. “What?”

A face appeared where his father’s had been a moment before. A stranger’s face and yet somehow familiar.

“Wake up! Get the boat started!”

Mitch looked around. He was sitting on the boat again. It was dark.…

Memories snapped back into his head. He recognized the face. The lawyer.

Mitch looked down at the socket wrench in his hand and the engine. The boat. The lake. The aliens! The memory of his hallucination faded like a nightmare.

He looked up at Conner. “Get me a flashlight. In the cabinet over the sink.
Quick
!”

Conner dashed off. Mitch could hear him fumbling around inside the dark cabin. There was another person on deck, standing at the rail. The woman was peering into the darkness. Disjointed memories fell back into place like random pieces of a puzzle. Yeah, they had found the woman and a black kid.

A light flashed on inside the cabin. Conner returned a moment later.

Mitch tapped the engine. “Shine it down here.”

He popped the socket wrench onto the spark plug and finished tightening. He had two more to finish. The gaps were charred and filthy, unable to generate any spark. He had tried to scrape some of the debris away with a screwdriver. There was no guarantee they were going to fire any better now.

He glanced up at the lawyer. “What happened to the generator?”

Conner frowned. “They pulled it over the side.”

Mitch’s eyes widened. “Pulled it over?” He was going to ask for a better explanation, but he knew his priority was getting the engine running again. He nodded at the rail. “They’re out there?”

Conner shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”

Mitch tightened the last of the plugs and replaced the wire caps. Then he got up and climbed back onto the bridge. Devon was staring out into the fog. Mitch turned the key. The motor chugged, fired, and died.

He pulled the choke out and was about to try again when he heard something. It was soft at first, coming from the mist. From all around him. He froze. A chill shuddered down his spine. He had heard this before.

Voices.
Whispering
.

He looked down at Conner. “You hear that?”

No one spoke. Conner and Helen stood back to back, staring into the fog.

The whispers seemed to swirl around them. Hundreds of them. Some sounded as if they were right next to him. Others seemed like echoes in the distance. Were they speaking to him or to each other? Mitch strained to hear what they were saying. To catch just a word. But he couldn’t make out anything discernible.