The Leader (2 page)

The commercials ended and the show
came back on, but he hardly noticed. Caught in the limbo state
between being awake and being asleep, he drifted off, enjoying the
simplicity of it all.

“
Kill her.”

He mumbled and turned his
head.

“
They’re laughing at
you.”

His eyes flew open. No one was in the
room with him. Easing out of his chair, he checked the lock on the
apartment door. It was bolted. He made it a point to do a thorough
examination of his apartment every time he came home to make sure
no one was there.

Of course, that didn’t keep out the
alien. But the pills kept that away. How, he didn’t understand. But
they worked, and he wasn’t about to question it; not after his last
encounter when the ghastly thing almost killed him.

So why was he hearing voices? It
couldn’t be someone hiding in the apartment. It couldn’t be the
alien.

The pounding of his heart grew faster,
and he couldn’t determine whether it was from fear or a side effect
of the pill. He sat back in the chair which was now upright and
placed his head in his hands.

I’m not going crazy. I’m
not going crazy.

He rocked back and forth and repeated
those words to himself.

“
The watchers are watching
you.”

He lifted his head and looked at the
TV. The voice came from there. He was sure of it.

The last three minutes of the sitcom
was on. He watched it with apprehension.

The man walked over to his
wife and hugged her. “Hey, don’t worry about it, honey. You can’t
help it if they want to rip your brains out.”

The audience
laughed.

Alex sat up straight and stared at the
scene in horror. This was supposed to be a comedy!

“
It’s the aliens,” the wife
replied. “They’re not what they seem, and they have people working
from the inside. They’re everywhere. Our neighbors are aliens in
disguise.”

“
You have to be careful
what you say and do. They’re onto you. You’ve figured them out,”
her husband said.

She went over to the
window and glanced out of it. “I can see them moving around in the
house. Do you think they assume their natural form when no one’s
watching?”

“
I don’t know.
Maybe.”

“
I have to go find
out.”

“
No. It’s dangerous. If
they see you, they’ll take out your eyeballs and make you watch as
they peel your flesh off and eat it. Then they’ll have their alien
friends over to barbeque the rest of you, and you’ll feel every bit
of the pain as they sink their teeth into every organ of your
body.”

The audience laughed
again.

Gasping for breath, Alex scrambled for
the remote and turned off the TV.

Silence.

Wonderful, blessed silence.

Still panting for air, Alex wiped his
forehead. Sweat literally dripped down his face. His hand trembled.
He blinked several times before he realized he was seeing black
spots. His pulse quickened, and he was sure it wasn’t all fear.
This had to be from the pill. The voices on the TV, his physical
reaction, the low humming sound tickling his ear
drums...

What’s happening to me?
Why can’t I have a normal life anymore?

And so he was back to placing his head
in his hands and rocking back and forth. He struggled to take slow
and even breaths, but what had begun as a slight tremble through
his body became a sudden uncontrollable shaking.

“
Kill her,” the voice
whispered in his head.

He gritted his teeth and tried to hum
aloud. Anything to get rid of the voice as it repeated “Kill her”
over and over.

A sharp pain sliced through the front
part of his brain and trickled down his spine. Screaming, more from
fright than from pain, he leapt off the chair and collapsed onto
the floor. His head hit the side of the table, and he fell into the
bliss of unconsciousness.

***

Autumn practically sped to the
hospital. She burst through the front door and ran to the intensive
care unit, unable to believe that Alex had gone into cardiac
arrest. When she reached the desk to sign in, they allowed her to
put on the gown, gloves, shoe coverings and face mask so she could
go in to see him.

It was an unreal experience to see him
lying in the bed, a tube going down his mouth and two smaller ones
going up his nose. Cords ran under his hospital gown to monitor his
heart rate and other vital signs. A series of IVs were hooked up to
his arms, and she could only guess what they all did, besides feed
him and medicated him.

She stood at the threshold of the
white room and gulped back her tears. Of all people to end up like
this, why did it have to be Alex? He wasn’t even thirty. What were
the chances he had a heart attack?

With uncertain steps, she moved
forward and gingerly touched his hand. “Alex?”

Of course, he wouldn’t respond. He was
unconscious. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, unable to
get enough air under the weight of the mask, but the action
steadied her emotions enough so that she didn’t burst into tears.
She squeezed his hand, willing him to live. Hadn’t there been
enough loss over the past year already?

Opening her eyes, she took another
good look at him. There seemed to be some color in his cheeks. That
was good. And his breathing was steady. He’d pull through this. He
had to.

“
It’s me. Autumn,” she
softly said, wondering if unconscious people had any awareness of
things that went on around them. She leaned forward and brushed
aside a lock of hair that had fallen to his right eye. “I don’t
understand anything that’s happening. Overnight, the world’s
changed, and I don’t recognize anything anymore. You and Alicia are
the only ones I have left. I’ve never felt more alone in my entire
life. Please don’t die on me.”

She choked on her last word as her
tears fell. She couldn’t successfully wipe them away with the mask
on but did her best to clear her vision. When she did, she noticed
the angel standing at the other side of the bed. Once again, he
looked just like an ordinary man. He had neatly trimmed blond hair
and wore a brown suit. She glanced at the nurse who glanced into
the room. She wondered if the nurse would notice the angel, but the
nurse smiled at her and went to the next room.

Autumn turned back to the angel and
dared to ask, “Will Alex live?”

“
Yes.”

Giving a grateful sigh of relief, she
wept some more.

“
He must not take any more
pills,” the angel warned.

Sniffing, she swallowed and asked, “Is
that what did this to him? Did those pills give him a heart
attack?”

“
He didn’t have a heart
attack. That’s how it looks, but it’s not what happened. He was
spiritually attacked.”

“
By what? By one of
those...things...I saw at Area 51?” A chill raced up her spine as
she remembered the dark shadowy figure with the horns and red eyes.
“A demon?”

“
A demon is a disembodied
spirit seeking a home. That one wants him.”

“
Are the aliens demons? Is
that why he sees the alien in his apartment?”

“
They appear as they will
but there are no aliens as you think of them. It’s all an illusion
to make you believe the lie when it comes.”

“
What lie?”

“
Watch the Middle
East.”

Before she could ask anything else, he
vanished. She tried not to let this frustrate her. For once, he was
answering some of her questions. She should just be glad he did
that much. But she wished he would have answered more.

Turning to Alex with renewed hope, she
squeezed his hand again. “You’ll be alright.” Then she laughed.
“Thank God you’re going to be alright.”

Chapter Three

Devon sat beside Vanessa who slept in
a bed at the hospital. He rubbed his forehead. It didn’t surprise
him that she tried to commit suicide. He’d thought of it often
enough. If it wasn’t for the fear of what might or might not lie on
the other side, he would have done it long ago. He recalled his
enthusiasm when he first started working for the government. Giving
a bitter laugh, he rubbed his eyes, a sense of weariness seeping
into his bones. Vanessa had had the same look of optimism and hope.
They signed up to help improve humanity, but they were
systematically destroying it.

Vanessa groaned and her eyes fluttered
open.

Devon jumped out of his chair and went
over to her. “Vanessa?” he softly asked, worried about her state of
mind.

She turned her frightened eyes to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me? The Illuminati...they plan to destroy most
of the population and—”

He pressed his hand over her mouth.
“Don’t. Don’t say it. They may not kill you, but there are things
worse than death,” he whispered. He glanced around the room. Who
knew who...or what...was watching and listening? “It was a bad
dream,” he said in a louder voice. “You’re awake now. Everything’s
going to be fine.” Bile rose up in his throat at the lie, but he
forced the words out, knowing if he didn’t, things would be worse
for her...and for him.

Tears formed in her eyes and fell down
her cheeks. Had she known what she was getting herself into, she
never would have gone to the job interview. She didn’t have to say
it. The message was in her eyes.

Looking away in shame and regret, he
reached across the bed and grabbed some kleenex to wipe her tears
away. This was stupid, of course. No amount of wiping tears would
make the stark reality they were in disappear. They were all
sitting ducks. All they did by cooperating was extend their lives a
little bit longer with the hope they might find a place to hide and
avoid the plans of the world’s elite before they succeeded in
cleansing the Earth from the billions of people they deemed
unworthy of living in the new Earth they planned to
establish.

A nurse walked into the room. “Oh
good. You’re awake,” she told Vanessa with a smile. “How are you
feeling, honey?”

Vanessa turned her eyes to the window
and remained silent. Another tear slid down her cheek.

“
It’s been a rough time,”
Devon said on her behalf, realizing how shallow the words sounded.
The nurse wasn’t in on this. She had no idea what was going on or
about the things that were planned. Devon took a deep breath and
faced the nurse. “She needs to rest.”

The nurse nodded in sympathy. “Poor
thing.” She took out a needle and got ready to insert something
into the IV that was in Vanessa’s arm.

Devon stopped her. “What is
that?”

Surprised, the nurse said, “It’s
something to help her sleep. She needs her rest.”

He caught sight of the words on the
needle and relaxed. It wasn’t anything harmful. “I’m sorry.” Then
he backed away so the nurse could inject his co-worker with the
drug to make her sleep. “You’ll be fine, Vanessa,” he said,
wondering if she got the hidden message meant to assure her that
nothing poisonous was in the substance.

Vanessa didn’t look his way. She just
continued to softly cry.

With a heavy sigh, he said, “I’ll be
back in a couple hours. I have to return to the office.”

Since she didn’t respond, he left the
room and headed down the corridor. How he wished he didn’t have to
go through this. He wished even more Vanessa could get out, but she
was stuck now. She was as much a prisoner as him.

Up ahead, he caught sight of Autumn
walking toward him. He hesitated. He could slip down another
corridor. She hadn’t seen him yet. Her gaze was lowered and she
seemed worried. He wondered why she was here, and more than that,
he wondered why he wanted to talk to her.

He saw a flash of white blink beside
her. She stopped and said something. Devon frowned. It seemed to
him that she was talking to someone, and though he couldn’t see it,
he noted the distortion in the air. There was a current that
emanated from the spot she directed her attention to, and that
current could only be described as a soothing warmth. Whatever it
was, Devon noted there was no evil in it, unlike the sensation he’d
experienced in the car that day he’d seen her at the
mall.

Her gaze went from the thing beside
her to Devon.

Unsure of what to do or say, he stayed
still.

She looked back at the thing and shook
her head.

Even if Devon had no idea what was
going on, he knew that she had no intention of communicating with
him. As if to make it final, she turned around and found another
corridor to go down.

Devon released the breath he’d been
holding. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The last time he saw
Autumn, he called her nuts and told her to see a shrink. And yet,
he felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment. With a heavy
heart, he stepped forward. He had to go to work.

As he passed where she’d been, the
warmth pressed in on his awareness. He turned to the source,
wondering if this was a part of his imagination, but there was a
prickling icy sensation that dug into his arm on his other
side.