“They aren’t people. Please, can I call my mommy?”
“Why are they mad, William?”
“I already showed you.”
The man opened the folder in front of him and drew out a few pieces of paper. He looked directly into the camera and indicated to the photographer to zoom in. The lens focused, and the picture came into closer view.
“William, can you confirm that you drew these?” He slid the pictures over to William.
“Uh-huh.”
“Tell me what you’ve drawn. We know how they share memories, so you don’t have to explain that. All we need to know is what you saw from them.”
I heard William sigh. I leaned in closer to the screen, seeing on the top sheet several stick figures inside a building. “Those… are the people they sent back. But… you trapped them here.”
The man pointed to another group of stick figures walking on a hill. “Then who are these other people?”
“That’s what all the people they brought back are supposed to be doing. Moving around. Not stuck here and in the other places you keep them.”
“You mean everyone… with the bump like yours?”
William nodded. “Will it go away? It hurts.”
“In time, it goes away. Back to the people who are supposed to be walking around, why do you have those lines around their heads?”
As the camera zoomed in closer, I saw what appeared to be waves coming from the heads of the figures. “That’s what some of us are supposed to be doing.”
“Some of you? But not all of you? Why?”
“Because… they haven’t flipped the switch on everybody yet.”
“What does that mean?”
William waited a moment and then took the man’s pen from where it lay and added waves around all the heads. “They’re almost ready for everyone to start together. But they had to be spread out. So they went to see where everybody was, and found out… that you stopped them.”
“Stopped them from what?”
William reached over and touched the bottom of the picture, where a few stick figures lay on the ground, their eyes marked with Xs instead of dots.
“William, listen to me. I know this is hard to understand. Do the people in the stars know why we’re containing the people they’ve returned—in hospitals?”
“Do I get to leave the hospital? I wanna go home.”
“Of course.”
“The monsters showed me how you trapped the people here and in all the other places like this. But the people they send back are not supposed to be trapped—they’re supposed to go everywhere and cause trouble, with what the monsters put in here,” William said, gently touching the back of his head and then reaching out for the rest of his drawings.
The camera moved in, showing more of William’s stick figures. People emitting the waves were standing under dark clouds from which tornadoes were descending.
“Some of them make bad storms.”
He turned the page. More stick figures, but this time standing with crudely drawn cows cut in half among what I thought at first was weeds, but then realized were plants with yellowed seeds in the ground.
“Some of them make our food so it’s bad for us to eat.”
The next picture was especially disturbing to know my grandson had drawn. One stick figure stood on a hill while people below were shooting at each other. A red crayon had been used to draw the blood.
“Some of them… just make other people so mad they fight and hurt each other. And then the rest… make people get sick. Just to see how well it all works. And when the tests are done, they’ll flip the switch, and they’ll all do it at the same time.”
“But we’ve seen time and time again it doesn’t happen to everyone,” the man said, clearly thinking out loud in exasperation. “Why? Why only trigger some people and not all? What’s the tactic?”
William waved his little hand across the picture. “Some get turned on now. Some get turned on at the end, when everyone is in place. They’re supposed to be all over the world; that was their plan. The ones that get triggered now… the monsters wanted to see what each one of them could do on their own, how far… uh… their…”
“Range?”
“Range would reach.” William snapped his fingers. “That’s the plan. The monsters pick us up, put the bump in our heads, drop us back off, and then go back to the stars for a while. But this time, when they returned to see where everyone was, they found out you messed up their tests. They’re so mad.”
He then pulled out the last picture. Another stick figure, this time of a man shaking, his mouth shaped like an O and his eyes forced shut. Arrows rained down in a single line from the stars to the man’s head, all while he held his hands over his ears in obvious pain. Once again, a red crayon indicated blood, this time seeping between the man’s fingers.
“I don’t want them to flip my switch. They showed me how it hurts your head, how your ears bleed. How the sound is so loud in your head, you can’t hear anything else. Have you seen it happen to the people here?”
“We have, to some of them. We try to keep them away from everyone when it starts. We want to find a way to stop it, or maybe even prevent it.”
“That will only make them madder if you do that.”
The man rubbed his face. “You keep saying that. How do you know they’re so mad?”
William finally looked up. “Because they’re coming back for us.”
The room rocked again.
I rushed to my feet, carrying the open computer to use as a light source. I have to get him. I have to get him out.
I shone the computer light along the wall to the corner, and then over the door frame. I found the handle. I might have to get under it to see if there’s some way to loosen it—
When I yanked down on the handle, the door immediately opened. When the power went out, all the automatic locks had been shut off as well.
Good God, Lynn! Wanting to throw the computer in frustration with myself for not thinking of that earlier, I instead set it down and shoved the door open, stepping out to strange, multicolored lights beginning to flicker through sparse windows. I inhaled sharply, seeing the hallway jammed with people all wearing the same gray pajamas, wandering or standing still.
I rushed through them, nearly colliding with a man who was pacing, a look of utter confusion on his face. I thought of the dozens of rooms I’d passed before finding William; people without memories, already unable to remember how to do anything, now completely confused as to what was happening.
I edged along the wall. 216, 215, 214, 213, 212—
I seized the handle and pushed open the door. “William?”
“Yes?” a small voice came from the blackness.
“Honey, it’s your nanna. I’m here in the door. Can you come to me?”
I expected him to hesitate, but in a moment be was right in front of me.
“My sweet boy.” I knelt down to hug him.
“Why did they take me away from you? Josh said that we were going to play UNO until it was time for bed, but then everything started shaking and he ran out and the doors locked. I hate it when the doors lock at night. Why are all the lights out? Why is everything shaking?”
“I don’t know, honey, but I really want to go. Let’s go find Miss Cliff.”
“What if they find us again? Will they take me away from you? Hey, those other boys in that picture you gave me, do they like Transformers?”
“They love Transformers. And they have dozens of them, and you can play with all of them as much as you want. But we have to go.”
He let me take his hand and step out into the hall.
“Why is everyone out of their rooms?” he asked. “I wonder if my friends are out too. They’re in a different building. My room used to be there until they moved me over here tonight.”