Ray was staring out the window, but I could tell he was smiling from his posture. I hardly knew anything about the guy, but I felt like I really knew him at the same time. “How about you, Dean?” he asked.
“Not sure if I can top napping in the Oval Office, but I’ll try.” Where would I go, given the chance to be anywhere? “Well, seeing how Carey and I already walked the Yankee Stadium field yesterday, I think having free rein of Vatican City would be quite the experience. I’m by no stretch of the imagination a devout Catholic, but the history behind it amazes me. I’d also like to walk the halls of Buckingham Palace, to see where the Queen sleeps and eats. What does she read? The newspaper? The Ladies Detective Agency books? Does she poop in a golden toilet? I kind of want to know these things.” I felt foolish for a second about that last one, but Ray just laughed.
“Now that’s something I can get behind. Okay, now let’s get trashy, where we knew this conversation was going to go. I want to see Kerry Washington’s house. What music does she listen to? How can I trick her into a date?” Ray laughed and then got a little quiet; I assumed he thought of his late Kate.
“Okay, me sneaking around the Queen’s room is purely historical, you creeping in Kerry’s house, that’s just stalker material. But if I were going to become a stalker on an empty earth, I’d find this guy named Ray Jones’ house in Pittsburgh. I bet that guy has posters of Mario Lemieux on his wall, and Steelers figurines showcased beside the bar in the man cave.”
Ray laughed so hard tears trickled down his face. “You are just so funny. Who would have thought an accountant could have a sense of humor? I guess you have to, to keep yourself from jumping every time you balance a ledger. And for the record, I was never much of a hockey fan. The posters were always of Joe Montana. He never played there, but he was from Pittsburgh and my dad played a year with him back when they were kids, not football but basketball. He was quite the player, if you listen to my dad’s stories. I met him once at a Steelers game. My dad had taken me to a game when I was little, and somehow had connected with Joe. He tousled my hair and signed a 49ers football for me. I still have it… next to my Steelers figurines in the man cave.” This brought on a fresh round of laughing that had me leaking from the eyes. It felt so good to have a laugh in the midst of the insane position we found ourselves in.
It was almost fully dark, but we were nearing the intersection the woman on the CB had mentioned. We turned the radio up, but no signal was coming through. It was as if they had turned their end off. The truck lights were off and we struggled to see where we were going, while trying to avoid the sporadic cars, trucks, and semi-trailers sitting on the freeway.
“What do you think? We’re here. I would think they might be lodged up at a motel or something nearby. Can you check your phone GPS to see if anything pops up close?” I asked Ray.
“Sure,” he said, zooming in on his map, “looks like a Holiday Inn half a mile east of here. We better make this exit and take that overpass. That’s the only hotel nearby. Unless they kept moving or are camping out in a vehicle.”
I really wished I could have tossed my day lights on for a moment, to make the trip easier, but that dream disappeared as quickly as it came. A bright beam of green light shone down from the sky in a perfect cylinder shape. My necklace burned again, and I slammed on the brakes and turned the engine off. Carey whined in the back, and I reached back to pet the shaking dog. He could probably hear something we couldn’t emanating from the beam. Ray’s ring glowed bright, and he covered it with a jacket sitting on the console beside him. We didn’t speak; the only noise in the truck was our quick, panicked breaths and Carey’s near silent moan. The ship above moved the green beam like a searchlight over the area, and it felt like they were there for hours. As if the whole experience wasn’t already stressful enough, we now had to play dead with one of the ships scouring above us.
“Ray, do you think they know we’re here? Maybe the radio drew them in.” Before I finished asking, Ray’s hand darted out and turned the CB off. His eyes were wide, and I realized he hadn’t told me where he was when the people were taken off the Earth.
Carey was trying to hide his head under his paws in the back, making for one of the cutest scenes I’d ever seen in one of the most frightening moments of my life. The world was full of juxtapositions.
“I don’t know what those bastards can sense. We know nothing about them. They might even have heat sensors, or maybe they’re scanning for lifeforms like on Star Trek. Hell, maybe they’re trying to beam us up right now.”
He was right. We knew nothing about them. Just like I’d apparently known nothing about my wife.
The ship was still close by, but the beam was focusing further down the road. I felt my neck loosen up, as if the immediate danger was gone for a moment. I didn’t think the danger would ever be gone, though, not until we solved this and brought the world back.
“I think the ship is leaving,” Ray whispered, and we watched the light move down the road. Soon the pendant cooled, and eventually, the green light on it dimmed to nothing.
All was silent for a moment. Then something knocked on our window.
NINE
Six Years Earlier
There was a knock on the door, and I answered it in my bathrobe. Who could be coming over this early on a Sunday morning? And right after we got back from our honeymoon? I opened the door to a handsome man around the same age as me, and it took a moment to recognize who he was.
“Hello, Dean,” he said as he stepped inside. “How was Aruba?”
“Aruba was great. It rained the whole time, but that just meant we got to stay in…” I stopped when I realized I was oversharing with Janine’s – what – cousin?
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Is Janine in?” He looked uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot lightly.
“Yeah, come on in, Bob. I have coffee in the kitchen – help yourself. Cream’s in the fridge. I’ll go tell Janny that you’re here.”
Bob seemed like a nice enough fellow, but I really hadn’t heard how they were actually related. None of it was clear, but Bob and his wife had come to the wedding a couple weeks ago, and Mary had seemed an absolute delight. If his wife was that cool, then there must be something about Bob that was endearing too. She was a member of the US Air Force, and to me, that was one of the coolest things you could be. That and maybe an astronaut, which Mary could very well end up doing. Apparently, she was an astrophysicist too. I had five bucks on it that she’d quite the high-pressure parenting.
I walked upstairs to find Janine brushing her hair in the en-suite. “Who’s at the door, sweetie?” she asked with a voice like honey. The pressure off our wedding, and a week in seclusion from the rest of the world, had just brought us closer than I could have imagined.
“It’s your cousin Bob. He seems a little off. Not that I know what’s on for the guy.”
She fidgeted with her necklace a moment and told me she’d be right down. I went and shared a cup of coffee with him and when Janine came, I excused myself to let them have a moment. The room had felt tense as I left it, and I made my way to my office; I had some work to do anyway. Without trying to hear what they were saying, I thought I caught him saying I was the wrong man for her, or something along those lines. Then I heard Mary’s name from my wife’s mouth. I never knew exactly what their exchange was that day, but I never saw Bob again.
Carey rushed to the window and barked incessantly at the dark shape outside the truck. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to see who was knocking on the truck window. With the ship just having left, Ray and I were already at wits’ end. I turned the key and pressed the window button, lowering it slightly.