Nocturnal Emissions (11 page)

“Sounds probable.” Allen joined her under the sheet. “I’m going to drop in on him again after work, tomorrow. I’ve been neglecting him. I’m gonna hound him until he sees a doctor for certain.”

“Maybe there’s a mass hysteria going around lately,” Laurie murmured, burying her profile into her pillow and closing her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t hear about the UFOs people have been seeing in Eastborough, lately?”

“UFOs? Tell me.”

Her eyes opened. “Last week a few people saw them. One was a cop in his patrol car.”

“My God…you know what? When I was getting a coffee today, I heard a young girl say her father saw UFOs last night, during the thunderstorm. I just assumed it was ball lightning they were talking about.”

“That’s probably all it was last week, too,” Laurie said. “Because people saw the UFOs around the time of that other big storm we had.”

“Where did you hear about all this?”

“In the
Eastborough News
. See what you miss reading
USA Today
?

Maybe Jeremy saw that ball lightning or whatever, too. And that’s what put that delusion in his head. Hey…Allen…that scar you saw on his head. Could he have actually been hit by lightning, do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he muttered, t
urning his eyes to their cur
tained bedroom window. Through its translucent veil, the scattered lights of the night city glowed like stars.

««—»»

It was the howling of coyotes that awoke Jeremy Spence.

His eyes snapped open so thoroughly it was as if his eyelids had been entirely sliced away. It wasn’t the first time he had been awakened by coyotes; beyond his back yard, only three cross-wise streets separated his rented house from one of the borders of
Eastborough
Swamp
. But still, it was not something easily acclimated to. The sound was unearthly, haunting—a primeval cry to disturb the dreams of slumbering Yuppies.

The cries died off. But Jeremy lay just as stiff, paralyzed, as if waiting for another sound to be discernible now that the wild canines had ceased their ruckus. Something subtle that had been hidden behind their wails. There was a chittering layer of insect song. And, eventually, the mournful and distant rumbling of a train, like blood rushing through one of night’s black veins. But he had heard all these things before.

He sat up in bed, checked the time on his bedside clock. 2:25 AM. Well, he didn’t have to worry about not getting enough sleep, did he? Not without a job to go to.

Jeremy rose, padded to his bathroom, relieved his bladder. He was too awake now to return to bed, so perhaps he would gape in front of the TV for a while, the next best thing. From one of the stove’s burners he swept up his tea kettle, and began filling it in order to make some instant coffee. As he ran the tap, his eyes idly lifted to the little window over the sink, which looked out into his small, fenced-in yard. Like the other windows in his house, this one was closed and locked.

He had seen lightning bugs out there in the past, flashing their mysterious greenish code of bioluminescence, but tonight his yard was utterly black.

Black trees blended with the black sky, and even the stars seemed swallowed in its immensity. However huge any given star might be, each was impossibly dwarfed by the spaces between them.

And then, just as he decided the kettle was full enough and he began to lower his gaze, there was a light in the darkness after all.

Jeremy instantly dropped the kettle in the sink, and just as instantly regretted the loud clatter, afraid to draw attention to himself. He ducked down below the level of the sink, darted to the wall switch, dowsed the kitchen’s overhead light. Then, with the room plunged into darkness, he moved back to the sink at a stealthy crouch.

The light was still out there, crossing the sky at a leisurely pace. It was an object giving off a soft but clear luminosity. And Jeremy judged its size to be considerable. In shape, it was like a bowl turned upside-down. Circular, but rounded at the top. And its bottom edge was ringed in bluish spots of light.

These seemed to be revolving around its edge, unless it was the entire bowl that was rotating as it coasted.

There was no sound of a far-off motor. The complete silence of the object’s movements might even have been what unsettled Jeremy most.

Just when the drifting object had nearly reached the limits of his vision, it abruptly switched direction—zipped back to the right, zipped again to the left a fraction—then shot straight up out of sight.

“Oh my God,” Jeremy whispered to himself. “Oh my God, oh my God…”

His fumbling hands checked the lock on the window again. Satisfied, he darted to the bathroom to double-check the one in there. From there, on into every room, nearly tripping onto his face several times because he was shutting off lights as he went. Before he left the kitchen, however, he located a flashlight and a large bread knife. Why had he let his brother talk him into giving him his handgun?

Kneeling on the sofa, Jeremy peeled back a curtain just enough to peer out past his little rickety porch. That whitish luminous object did not reappear. But he was not relieved.

What if it had set down somewhere? Somewhere nearby?

A flash of eyes came to Jeremy. Huge, obsidian eyes without iris or sclera.

Eyes like an insect. Like something without a soul. A half-panicked, half-fatalistic whimper squeaked out of Jeremy’s choked throat.

Slowly, he settled himself down on the couch, not relinquishing his grip on either knife or flashlight. And he sat there until dawn came, every few minutes peeking out between the curtains again. Only when the sun’s rays spread sufficiently across the sky did he sleep as last. Even then, his dreams were filled with those unblinking eyes as black as night…dreams that he didn’t watch so much as they watched him.

««—»»

While drinking his morning coffee, and with Laurie’s help, Allen Spence managed to locate last week’s
Eastborough News
. Unfortunately, it was incomplete, and with an embarrassed smile Laurie admitted she
may
have spread some of it down on the floor after their son spilled some juice; they were out of paper towels. “Hey, don’t look at me like that,” she told him.

“They must have the issue at the library, in the periodicals room.”

Sighing, Allen brought the remainder of the paper into the bathroom with him. While he found no articles on UFO sightings, there was one odd story that caught his eye. He might have heard a little about this matter before, but hadn’t paid it any conscious attention until now.

A strange, clear, gel-like “goo” had been discovered across the surface of Eastborough’s
Lake
Pometacomet
. The first assumption had been that it was pollution from EastCoast Pharmaceuticals, which had been forced to pay for the lake’s restoration some years back. A woman walking her dog at the water’s edge had been the first to spot the slime, which took the form of small floating globules, none of them larger than a pea…so many in number that from a distance they seemed to form a vaguely iridescent slick. The woman reported having stopped her dog, a
Newfoundland
, before it could splash in the water as it had enjoyed doing in the past, and had promptly contacted the Massachusetts Department of Health.

Preliminary tests had shown that the tiny gelatinous globules were organic. The EPA had been contacted, and more tests were pending to positively rule out the involvement of EastCoast Pharmaceuticals. Gordon Price of the Massachusetts State Department of Ecology’s hazardous material branch had suggested that the “goo” might be algae or fish eggs, but cautioned that it was too soon to tell for certain. Until tests were completed, Eastborough citizens were being advised not to swim or fish in
Lake
Pometacomet
…which had been named after Chief Sachem Pometacomet, or “King Phillip,” who had waged war against the white man’s colonies. Though nothing out of the ordinary had been reported there, the town reservoir would also be tested for the sake of caution.

Allen did, indeed, stop at the library on the way home from work. He found the recent edition of
The Eastborough News
, made a photocopy of what turned out to be only a short, half whimsical article on the UFO sightings.

Then, in one of the library’s invitingly musty-smelling aisles, he called Laurie from his cell phone, telling her that because he still meant to visit his brother as well, she should go ahead and have dinner without him. He and Jeremy would grab a pizza. “Whatever,” his wife said flatly, and hung up.

Allen didn’t want to stay here long, wanted to get on to Jeremy’s as soon as possible. But he didn’t have long to search before he found something of the nature he was groping for. Amongst books of UFOs, Bigfoot, and other such tabloid fodder he found a book written by an Abraham Villa, with the title of
Cryptids
. In its contents, there was a chapter entitled
Fortean Matters
. And after flipping through that chapter for only several seconds, he knew he must take this book with him.

-FOUR-

“I saw a UFO last night,” Jeremy Spence told Allen, who knew from his lifeless tone of voice and the dull shadowed look of his eyes that he was not kidding his older brother.

For several beats, Allen just stared back at him. Then he said, “Let’s phone in a pizza; I’ll go pick it up. Then you can tell me what you saw. Then I’ll show you a book I took out of the library.”

“What’s it about?”

“UFOs. Aliens. And weird stuff that falls out of the sky. Among other things.”

Jeremy nodded. He knew then that his brother was going to believe what he had seen. Believe that there could be truth behind the figures he saw in his dreams. Once, long ago, for several dizzying moments, they had both believed a blue heron was a pterodactyl. Brothers were not as likely to scoff at each other’s beliefs, even if they later proved to have been misinterpretations. With a deep gratefulness that brought with it a surprising infusion of calm, Jeremy asked, “Pepperoni and extra cheese?”

“Sounds good,” Allen said. They shared the same taste in pizza.

««—»»

“So you think the stuff they found in the lake,” Jeremy said, sitting beside his brother on the sofa with a half-empty
Corona
in his hand, “these little balls of slime…they have something to do with the UFO sightings.”

“Well, it’s pretty suspicious that both weird things have occurred at the same time, don’t you think?” Allen had the book
Cryptids
open across his knees. “Of course it could be something that grew in the water. But what if it isn’t? What if it
fell
from the sky, Jer? You’ve heard reports of that; we used to love stories like that as kids. Look here.” He flipped a few pages in the library book. “One time a red-colored rain fell for thirty minutes straight in the,” he struggled with the pronunciation, “Nghe An province in
Vietnam
.”

“Pollution.”

Allen ignored him, and read, “‘Unidentified viscous substances have been recovered on occasion from crop circles.’” He zig-zagged his finger down the page. “‘In 1876, shreds of meat drifted down from the sky onto a field in
Kentucky
, falling in great volume but covering only an area of 100 yards by 50 yards. The meat was described as tasting like mutton or venison.’”

“Eww,” said Jeremy. “Who would want to try it? Maybe it’s UFOs dumping out the meat they collect from those cattle mutilations, huh?”

“Hey,” Allen looked up at him, “I’m here to help you figure this stuff out, man. Are you taking this less seriously than I am?”

“No,” Jeremy said in a less sarcastic tone. “I’m dead serious…believe me.”

Returning to skimming the book, Allen related, “Another rain of meat occurred in 1968 in
Brazil
.”