The Fellowship for Alien Detection (11 page)

Getting to Fort Bluff late at night meant that Haley needed something to occupy the family through the evening. And as if Garrett Conrad-Wayne was looking over her shoulder, there was something only an hour away from Fort Bluff that couldn't be more perfect.

“There's one more thing,” said Haley, pointing to the map again. “Check out what's just over an hour east of Fort Bluff.”

Allan followed her finger, and then his eyes lit up. Haley was pointing to Memphis, Tennessee, specifically: Graceland. “Oooh,” he said.

“I thought you'd like that,” said Haley. “And guess what? They're even having a karaoke-and-fireworks show there tonight. It's so close to Fort Bluff. I thought we could go to the show.”

“No way,” said Allan. He pretended to hold a microphone to his mouth and sang,
“‘Ohhhhhh, since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell . . .'”

Haley smiled, trying her best not to look nervous. This was going well. “It's a bonus,” she said, “since some people think that Elvis might have been abducted by aliens.”

“That's right!” said Allan. “It might be valuable for your article.” He shifted back into an Elvis voice, talking into the mic.
“I'd just like to take a moment . . . to thank my good friend, little green alien man . . . right over there . . . thank you, thank you very much.”

He looked down at Haley and smiled. “If we leave soon, we could probably make a tour, too.”

Haley felt like it was taking all her energy to move the corners of her mouth into a carefree grin. “Yeah! Sounds good.”

“Okay, cool! I'll go tell your mom.” Allan bounced away, clearly happy about this new development.

Easy
, Haley thought to herself. Lying was becoming all too easy. This was so much more than she'd ever done. But it was almost over.
Once I get through today
, Haley thought, making a deal with herself,
I'll tell them everything, get super grounded or whatever it will take, and never lie again
.

Haley did a little more research, reading about Fort Bluff. After that, she packed up and took a seat on a lounge chair by the pool. She watched the rest of her family emerge, laughing, from the waves, while inside, she tried to control her own waves of worry and guilt, but also anticipation. She hadn't thought it was possible, but that buzzing humming feeling inside had only increased, and it was showing no sign of calming down any time soon.

Memphis, TN, July 4, 9:18 p.m.

In the washed, khaki-colored hours of afternoon, as the car hummed west across Tennessee, Haley had looked over her notes about the missing time towns, studied the road atlas, and found another connection. Each town was pretty isolated from the other towns around it, and that included Fort Bluff.

She did some measurements. All of her missing time towns were at least five or more miles from any other town. This made her wonder if five miles was the limit of the missing time effect. Like, if you stopped your car just over five miles from a town, could you see the missing time event happen and not be caught in it?

This seemed like a random number, until she converted it to kilometers on a whim. Five miles was eight kilometers. And that got her brain working. First, eight and sixteen were related, in that they were both powers of two and even numbers and multiples of two and four. Also, if the missing time extended eight kilometers in any direction from the town, that might mean that eight was the radius of a circle extending around the town, and
that
could mean that the full circle around the town could be sixteen kilometers across. Could a missing time field be both sixteen minutes long and sixteen kilometers wide?

Haley couldn't be sure, but her current theory was that they could get about five miles from Fort Bluff and stop and watch what happened. She couldn't decide how crazy that theory sounded, but it was the best she had. And she still wasn't sure how she would get her parents to take her to the outskirts of town. A clever lie? And even more clever shading of the truth?
Just sneak out of the motel! Why not, at this point? You've already done all this lying, why not just go all the way?

None of the options sounded good. Haley felt like she'd backed herself into a corner, and now she just had to hope that, as with her other discoveries today, the answer would come to her before it was too late.

“So what's the verdict?” Allan asked.

“On what?” Haley asked, her nerves singing.

They were sitting on the hood of their car in the large Graceland parking lot, near Elvis's personal jet, across the street from the mansion itself. They were among lines of cars with people sitting waiting for the fireworks show to begin at 9:30.

A crowd milled back and forth in front of them: parents, kids, grandparents, holding sodas, pretzels, cotton candy, some with stars painted on their cheeks, an Uncle Sam hat here and there. At the far end of the lot was a line of food booths. Besides that, an endless stream of Elvis impersonators paraded on and off a karaoke stage. Haley was beginning to wonder if karaoke was the true American pastime.

Allan was munching on a corn dog. They'd each gotten one, but Haley's hung absently in her hand, two bites taken. “The tour,” said Allan. “Graceland. Did you like it?”

“Oh that,” Haley said. “It was weird.” How else did you explain a house with a jungle-themed living room, a basement room done all in blue and yellow with three televisions, or that whole room devoted to his jewel-studded costumes?

“Agreed,” added Mom. “There's only so much cheese I can take.”

“Cheese?” Dad made a choking sound. “But couldn't you feel the sadness in there? The King's life had such a dark, lonely side. By the end, he was so isolated, so lost. And it killed him, too.”

“How did he do it again?” Mom asked with more interest. Most of her favorite musicians tended to off themselves, like Elliott Smith or Jim Morrison.

“Painkillers,” said Dad.

“Wait,” said Liam. “So he wasn't abducted by aliens?”

“Well, some of
these
people might be alien abductees,” Allan said, nodding to the crowd oozing past them just as two men in shimmery bikinis and Elvis pompadour wigs walked by.

“Ha,” said Haley, but the sound died in her throat. She was wound too tight to laugh.

“How much longer?” Liam asked.

Allan checked his phone. “Ten more minutes.”

“I should use the bathroom,” said Jill. “Haley?”

“Er, yeah,” said Haley. Part of her general buzzing condition all day was that she felt like she needed to go to the bathroom almost constantly. Other near-constant symptoms now were aches in her neck and her shoulders and ankles, in addition to feeling that her stomach was on edge. She also found herself constantly tearing at the skin around her fingernails, and having little mumbling conversations with herself.

Haley slid off the car. She slipped her shoulder bag over her head. She liked having it with her, all her secret information close. She wished she had the computer tablet, too, but it was still in the car.

Haley followed Jill through the crowd, stepping carefully around and over blankets. The light blue of a long evening was finally deepening to purple. The last orange rays were lighting the tip of the jet's tail. The evening air was warm and thick.

The portable bathrooms were on the far side of the lot. They were halfway there when they entered a gap in the crowd. Before them was a giant clown. He had a white face and frizzy green hair. He seemed enormous, made of muscle, which seemed odd for a clown. Haley also noticed that, instead of wearing big clown shoes, he had on high-laced black combat boots. In fact, he had black pants on, too, and only seemed to be dressed as a clown from the waist up. It was not a very professional display.

He held a bundle of multicolored balloons and was just giving one each to a pair of little girls when he spied Haley and stood. The girl he'd been handing a balloon to hadn't quite grasped the string yet, and as the clown turned, the balloon leaped into the night, jerking up and away as if hooked by a fishing line from the sky.

“My balloon!” she wailed.

The clown glanced back at her with a blank but serious and not very clowny look. “Share,” he said in a low voice.

The girls' eyes grew wide and they fled.

He looked back at Haley and held out a balloon for her.

“That wasn't very nice,” she blurted out.

The clown continued holding the balloon toward her. It was lavender and bounced on the light breezes made by people walking to and fro.

“Take it,” he said in that same unfriendly but authoritative monotone. “Please.”

“How much?” Haley asked.

“Free.”

“Ooh, a balloon.” Jill had appeared beside her. “How much?”

“They're free,” said Haley.

“How nice.” Jill reached out, took the balloon, and passed it to Haley. “Come on, kiddo, we don't want to be stuck in a Porta Potti when those fireworks start.”

“Right.” Haley eyed the clown again. He looked back at her blankly.

“Bye,” she said, thinking,
He's weird
.

“Bye,” he replied.

She began to turn when she noticed that there was a small square of paper hanging from a loop at the base of the balloon. Haley turned it up. A hand-scrawled note read:

If this balloon starts to change color, look at the moon.

Haley glanced up. A slim crescent of moon was midway up the evening sky, between the powder blue and the darker purple.

“What's that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“It's part of the show,” said the clown, his voice flat like pavement.

“Um, sure. Okay . . .”

Haley turned and stalked off. She thought about just letting the balloon go, but Liam would like it, and a consequence of her high-strung day was that she'd snapped at him nearly every time he'd gotten within a foot of her. This would be a good peace offering.

They emerged at the long line of blue bathrooms. Only one had its handle turned to green. Haley handed Mom the balloon and went first.

When she came out, Mom gave her the balloon back. “Be right out.”

Haley stood, holding the balloon, people jostling around her.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a female voice announced over a loudspeaker. “The fireworks will be starting in a few minutes.”

Haley felt a vibrating in her pocket. Her phone was ringing. A flash of worry shot through her. Who would be calling her? She pulled it out and checked the caller.

Oh, no. It was Keller. Haley silenced the call and watched the name flashing until it stopped. There was a second of silence. Then a message that she had a new voice mail.

Haley just stared, frozen, at the phone. Then, it vibrated again. A text appeared, from Keller as well.

This is Alex. Debit card records indicate you are in Memphis! Please contact me. New developments and you are in great danger. I've sent someone to assist. Please contact ASAP!

Haley felt like she was shrinking in on herself. She'd been caught. But even more than that: What new developments? Danger? And . . . they were tracking her with the debit card? Someone was coming to assist her? With what? Haley could barely wrap her brain around all this—

And now she heard another sound. A familiar dinging, a sound like sonar. Her mom's phone. Coming from the toilet. . . . And she just knew. Keller was calling Mom. Had to be.

Ohhh, this was it. This was it and it was over! Crap! But not only that, they were in danger, too!

Haley heard the phone ringing. “Mom!” she shouted desperately at the stall. If she could just explain to Mom before she answered, maybe it would be better.

The ringing stopped. And now she heard Jill's muffled voice: “Hello?”

Oh, no, no. Haley was shaking all over, tears starting to leak from her eyes. This was horrible. What was she going to do? What was going to happen?

Silence from the stall. What was Keller telling her mom right now? What was Jill thinking? Oh, she was dead, so dead when her mom came out! Any second now.

But the danger! Haley's eyes darted around. Were there people coming for her? For all of them? She looked for more men like at the mine, but everyone just looked as normal and weird as a crowd dotted with Elvis impersonators would normally look. . . .

Then her sweeping eye noticed something strange. A glow. She looked up.

Her balloon was no longer lavender.

It had begun to glow, a weird neon orange, as if something inside it were lighting up. What did that mean? She tried to remember, but it was like her thoughts were moving slow. Oh, right, the clown. And it had to do with the show. . . . Her thoughts were so sluggish all of a sudden. . . . Right, the note. If the balloon changed color, she was supposed to look at the moon.

Haley turned, and it seemed to take forever. . . . It was like her muscles were taut rubber bands that didn't want to stretch. She looked up into the deepening evening, trying to turn far enough around to see the moon. Above, the balloon was positively radiating now, this brilliant orange, and it reminded her of the light from the mine door. . . .