Rhubarb (8 page)

“If this isn’t as good as your mom’s pie, I don’t know if
I’d even want to try hers,” said Martin. “It might ruin every other dessert for
me forever.”

“Give me a break,” said Cheryl.

“Seriously. Your mom could have been the next Mrs. Fields.”

“Mrs. Fields bakes cookies,” Cheryl said.

“Your mom could have had a rhubarb pie empire.”

Cheryl wrinkled her nose. “Have you ever eaten a frozen
pie?”

“Sure. That’s what we always had.”

“Chewing-gum crust. Waxy gelatin goo for filling. They’re
all chemicals. Oh, and good luck finding a frozen rhubarb pie.”

“I like ’em okay.”

Cheryl shook her head. “Poor thing. Are you staying in town
tonight?”

“No, I need to get back to Billings,” he said. He’d
deliberately not booked a room, ninety-nine percent in case of an evening so
disastrous that he could never eat breakfast at the Brixton Inn again, and one
percent in case the evening went extremely well. Well, maybe ninety/ten. But by
luck or instinct, he’d made exactly the right decision. Not needy, not
expectant. Mature. Employed. “I have to work Bozeman tomorrow.”

Martin thanked her as she took away the empty plates. Her
home felt different now. Cozy, not cramped, with a bit of the mystique—if one
could use that word in a single-wide—peeled back.

At the door, she presented him with the leftover pie,
foil-topped and on a dishtowel.

“I insist,” said Cheryl. “I don’t need to eat the whole
thing. And if Stewart finds it, he will literally dump it in the trash. Take
it. Bring the plate back next time you’re in town. Careful though, it’s still
hot.”

“Thanks. For dinner, for this. Everything.”

“Thanks for bringing the wine. That was a treat. And, of
course, the roadside assistance.”

“No problem,” said Martin.

On the first step down the porch, he turned and said, “I
feel like I’ve got a second chance here, so I’m going to take it. I’d really
like the chance to get to know you better. I know you’ve got a lot going on,
and I do, too. But who knows? This is Brixton, after all. Weirder things have
happened.”

She sighed, but it sounded friendly, harmless. He steeled
himself to be rejected again, and resolved to be okay with that.

“Hold on,” she said, and ducked inside. Martin shifted the
pie on his scorched palms. She returned and set a little scrap of paper on top
of the foil.

“Call me,” she said. “We’ll see.”

“Thanks. I will,” said Martin, maneuvering a thumb over the
paper to keep it from blowing away. He crunched down the gravel drive,
surprised with every footfall that his feet were touching the ground.

~ * * * ~

A few minutes later, as Martin filled a 54-ounce cup with
Diet Mountain Dew out of the fountain at the Herbert’s Corner store, Lorie
appeared, her eyebrows leaping off her forehead.

“Stewart at bingo. You two alone for almost two hours,” she
said.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Martin. “I was a perfect
gentleman, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied.

“Don’t you have some waitressing to do?” he asked, jamming a
big straw through the lid. “Sorry, Lorie, but there may be some things you will
never know.”

“You go on believing that,” she called after him as he
headed to the register. He turned, threw his arms wide in triumph, and they
both laughed.

“…and paralyzed. I was conscious. I felt several presences
in the room with me. I wanted to scream, to call for my husband, but I couldn’t
make a sound.”

“That must have been terrifying.”

“At first, but then I not so much heard as felt a voice in
my head, telling me that everything was going to be all right.”

“Can you describe the voice?”

“I remember it being masculine, but also soothing, almost
motherly. I’m not sure that it spoke English, but I understood everything.”

“Now, you didn’t stay in the room.”

“All that first part, the lights, the waking, and the
helplessness, was as if I was being prepared to be taken somewhere else. And
then came a very bright light. I couldn’t close my eyes, and I remember the
voice urging me to ignore the pain. It would be over very soon.”

“Your husband didn’t experience anything?”

“Nothing. They must have done something to keep him asleep,
or he’s the heaviest sleeper in the world, Lee.”

“After the bright light, where were you? What did you see?”

“Someplace very cold, and hard. I felt naked, but I couldn’t
move, couldn’t see my body. There were devices above me, like you might see at
a dentist’s office, but none of them made any sense.”

“What about the presences? Did you still feel them?”

“I could. But more concrete, like they were in the room with
me, not like spirit presences anymore. I don’t know how long I laid there until
finally they looked down over me. They had gray skin. No hair. And their eyes
were large, silvery things.”

“On the video of your session under hypnosis, it seemed like
the fear returned at this moment.”

“It did. The voice told me that they had to do some tests,
and that they were necessary. And the devices on the ceiling began to move
toward me.”

“Could you communicate? Did the presence listen to your
thoughts or sense your fear?”

“If it heard me, it did nothing to help me. I felt a
pressure on the sides of my head, and I heard a very high-pitched sound, like a
dentist’s drill. And I felt them doing things to various parts of my body.”

“Was any of it painful?”

“I sensed that it should have been, but I didn’t feel any
actual pain. Still, I begged them to stop in my thoughts.”

“How long did this go on?”

“It’s impossible to say. Minutes? Hours? I remember feeling
relief when the machines lifted away. And then I woke up in my own bed.”

“Now, you didn’t realize right away what had happened.”

“I woke up exhausted, but at first I had no memory of the
event. Then I began to have nightmares, these terrible images in my head. These
recurring feelings were so powerful that I was sure that something had happened
to me.”

“And that’s when you discovered regressive-hypnosis therapy
and Dr. Yeardley?”

“I’d never heard about it before, but I did some research
online and called her. After only a few sessions, she helped me remember
clearly what happened that night, and also to recall that I’d been taken many
times, as young as eight years old.”

“Incredible. Incredible. When we come back we’ll hear more
of Carrie’s story. And joining us later will be Dr. Marsha Yeardley, a
psychotherapist and noted expert on alien abduction. And we’ll ask Carrie the
question, ‘Why her?’ Stay tuned, Waker Nation. This is Lee Danvers. And you’re
Beyond Insomnia.”

~ * * * ~

“Who’s this idiot?” Martin asked himself. A car was
approaching in his lane, passing a semi, and rapidly running out of space on
this two-lane road. Martin backed off the cruise control, but it wasn’t going
to be enough. He hit the brakes. Too close for comfort, the car swerved back
into its lane. A familiar Lincoln Town Car flashed by.

“Jeffrey,” Martin cursed. The semi roared by, clearly
annoyed, if Martin cared to anthropomorphize.

Martin’s phone warbled. He let it ring as he got the cruise
control back up to speed. “Nice driving, Candy Man,” he said when he finally
answered.

“Don’t give me that. I moved over in plenty of time,” said
Jeffrey. Martin pictured him, reclined, a single wrist on the steering wheel,
his irritating Bluetooth glowing in his ear.

“What do you want?” Martin asked.

“Long time no see. How’s the job hunt going?”

“Poorly,” said Martin.

“Well’s dry, man. No one’s hiring. And no one’s quitting.
Someone’s going to have to die for you to get an opening.”

“Keep driving like that and I can have your job,” said
Martin.

“Funny. And speaking of funny, I heard something else
hilarious,” said Jeffrey.

“What’s that?” Martin asked, bracing himself.

“Heard you got lucky in Brixton a couple weeks ago.”

“I did not ‘get lucky.’ And please don’t be spreading that
around.”

“So what did happen?” asked Jeffrey.

“Her car broke down. I stopped to help. She had me over to
dinner to thank me.”

“And that’s all? Everyone in Brixton’s got their own theory
of the evening’s events,” said Jeffrey.

“That’s because they don’t have anything better to do,” said
Martin.

“Everyone’s talking about the two hours you spent at her
place without her stepfather around. Inquiring minds want to know,” said
Jeffrey.

“We had dessert,” said Martin. “And we talked.”

“Uh-huh. What did you have for dessert?”

“She baked a rhubarb pie,” said Martin.

“She did what?”

“She baked a pie,” said Martin. “Everyone told me she’s a
lousy cook, but it was really good.”

“I’m sure it was,” said Jeffrey. “You’re sticking with this
rhubarb pie alibi?”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Martin. And he did.

~ * * * ~

“Now, Lee, we hear a lot about the physical evidence: the
interlaced but undamaged stalks, the lack of tracks leading in and out of the
sites, the magnetic resonance, as well as the frequent reports of aerial
lights, but for me, the most compelling part is the obvious communication
inherent in all crop circles. Each holds such precision, such insistence, such
a lack of subtlety, that it’s impossible that they have no purpose.”

“Are there commonalities to suggest that all these
occurrences are linked?”

“Many commonalities. I’ve studied hundreds of circles in
dozens of countries. It appears that the physical process that creates them is
similar everywhere. And we see many recurring graphic motifs, if not nearly
identical designs.”

“In your books and on your website, you come down firmly on
the side of what you term ‘purposeful instigation,’ that they are made by an
intelligence. How do you respond to those who suggest that crop circles have
natural origins? Particularly Diderot’s equations that suggest localized
crystallization of water vapor?”

“Diderot’s fractal weather theory is, in my opinion, deeply
flawed. He based his theory off observation of early morning frost crystals at
very few sites. It doesn’t hold up. I debated him about this issue a few months
ago in Brisbane.”

“If there’s a video of that debate, we’ll get a link up on
wakernation.com. Let’s take a call. Sarasota Springs, you’re Beyond Insomnia.”

“Oh, hi. Lee? This is Vern from Sarasota Springs.”

“Welcome, Vern. What’s your question for Tom Burlingame?”

“Yeah. These crop circles freak me out, man. I agree with
you totally. I mean, they’re so clearly, I mean, aliens are totally trying to
tell us something. Have you ever talked to anyone at the NSA where they got all
them really smart code-breakers? Seems like they should stop listening to all
our phone calls and figure out these messages instead. Sure be a better use of
my tax dollars.”

“Thank you, Vern. Tom, what about using technology to
decipher the circles?”

“It’s clearly the goal, but we’re still a few years away.
I’ve been writing program algorithms to analyze the data. Many of these
patterns are so complex that it’s going to take significant supercomputer time
to sort it all out.”

“Best guess, Tom: Who is sending these messages, and what are
they saying?”

“Who? Good question. But we can make a few observations.
They are mathematically oriented, and communicative, but also very shy. The
meaning of individual circles may be elusive, but the overall message is, I
think, one of peace. The designs are so beautiful. The messengers certainly
understand that we appreciate beauty. If the messages were warnings or threats,
I think we could discern that from the context. Someone out there is not only
saying hello, but telling us that we belong with a larger community.”

“A wonderful thought. I hope you’re right. Can you stay with
us through the break and take a few more calls?”

“Certainly, but if a report comes in, I may need to leave.
The time window for study on circle phenomena is very small.”

“We all understand. Stay up with us through this short
commercial break, Insomniacs. We’ll be right back.”

~ * * * ~

Martin’s phone waited on the hotel room desk next to the
most precious piece of paper he had ever held. Nothing else, not his birth
certificate, not his first driver’s license, not his passport, had come close.
It held all the promise of an unsigned Declaration of Independence, an
unblessed Magna Carta, a ticket that matched the Powerball. The phone’s dark
screen reflected the desk lamp’s bulb like a single eye.

What’s the problem here? Pick me up and dial,
it
seemed to say.

What if she gave me the number of the Chinese takeout place
in Lewistown?

She wouldn’t do that. She knows you’ll be coming back to
Brixton.

You’re right. Everything’s fine.

Of course I’m right, I’m a smartphone. Now, call her
already. If it gets much later it’ll be creepy. Come on. Pull yourself
together. No excuses.

Okay. But maybe I should be somewhere else, so it sounds
like I’m having fun.

You have talked on a cell phone before, right? Fun sounds
are distracting. The only acceptable background noises for this kind of phone
call are ocean surf, you preparing a meal in a noncommercial kitchen, or a
hospital PA paging you to the OR.

Maybe I should change my shirt. I remember hearing once that
your clothes make a difference in how you sound on the phone.

Oh, good grief. Are you wearing pants? Then let’s do
this.

I need to think out what I’m going to say.