THE COMPANIONS MEET
AROUND THE MIDDLE of the day his eyes started going funny again.
"Damn," Puck Benteen muttered, squinting at the computer screen. The words in front of him were swimming around in one large blur. He couldn't even tell what he'd just been typing.
He swore again and reached for his glasses, a pair of wire-frames which he rarely wore--he didn't really need them--unless his eyes started doing this. Which they had been pretty often lately.
As soon as he put them on the words sorted themselves out and grudgingly returned to their proper places on the monitor. He blinked several times and they cleared up until at last everything was back to normal. He sighed and began typing again, having to stop occasionally to rub his eyes under the glasses, for they still burned.
I've really got to go to the doctor, he thought to himself with a snort. What, am I going blind here or something? He didn't think so, but it was better to be safe than sorry. If he could only find the time.
Lately it seemed as if everything had been going wrong; first his eyes; then his left ear had started acting up--every time he heard something loud it would go in and pierce his brain. He'd taken to wearing a set of heavy headphones every time he went someplace noisy, like the Gen-X Club, where his friend Sidras North worked; he'd used to enjoy going there to do a little work on his laptop, but it had been getting so painful to his head that he had to stay either in his room or in his "lab," down in the basement of the Hub. Then Sunny had started screwing up too; it started giving him weird messages every time he logged in, telling him that certain files couldn't be found or were already open or were invalid or damaged--he was ready to pull out a bat and smash the computer once and for all. [Note--I believe this bit was based on troubles my own computer was giving me at the time. The hard drive was going corrupt, and every time I tried working on my MS Works files I would get weird messages saying the files didn't exist or something. Stupidly, this would not be a problem for Puck because all he would have to do is take the computer apart and fix it himself!] He knew he couldn't do that, though; he practically relied on Sunny for all the information he got on the campus students, and he needed that information to keep two steps ahead of them all. That was what he was known for around here.
And then--certain files did start disappearing. He found he couldn't even access a certain program of his, and had to get to it via another program group, which totally screwed up the settings of his files. [Note--I believe that's what happened to me. I think I had to open them in Wordpad or something. The filenames--such as that of this very story--ended with ".wri."] Oh, well. At least he could get to them, and they were majorly intact. So far.
So he'd started using his computer less, just like his less-frequent visits to the Gen-X; instead he'd taken to sitting in his window reading a book; though most of the time he wouldn't read because it hurt his eyes, so he'd just stare out at the trees. [Note--"his window"? I guess I didn't mean in his dorm room, because as anybody who's read The Scorpio Murders knows, it HAS no windows.] He found he was really starting to get used to the positions of the branches, the placement of every single twig outside. Sometimes he'd try to draw them; he couldn't look at his drawing much because of his eyes, but whenever it was done he'd put on his glasses and look at it under the light, and it would look just like the trees outside.
Then he'd crumple it up and toss it in the garbage, and resume sitting in the window.
Indeed he'd been feeling rather depressed lately; the first snow had fallen last week, and there was to be more of it soon. But that had never depressed him before; his birthday was coming up in a month, and even though that wasn't a major event for him, it was no reason to be depressed. [Note--that dates this story to around early December--seeing as Puck's birthday is January 1. The "first snow" falling in December is unusual for northern Michigan, but maybe it was a drier year than usual? (The weather in my stories is often reflected from real life--meaning, if it's winter when I'm writing a story, then it's often winter in the story itself.)] But he was, and he didn't know why.
He hadn't been able to talk with his friend Anders Carlsson much lately, either; Anders had taken to horseback riding through the woods behind the college, and he preferred to go alone. The two of them had always been pretty solitary people; however, after all that had happened last year, all of the dreams and hypnosis sessions, they'd grown close. This fall and winter, though, they started growing apart again. [Note--the words "last year" in the sentence previous to this are circled in pencil--meaning I had deemed them possibly incorrect some time after the printout was made. I'm too hazy by now on when the stories take place in my timeline or how far apart they were, so I can't offer the correction here.]
Is that why I'm so depressed?
He didn't know; maybe it was. He'd come to rely on Anders a lot during those times, and now A. C. was off doing his own thing; Puck wasn't big on making friends, so he was left pretty much doing his own thing, too.
This semester the two of them didn't have any classes together either, so there wasn't really any time they could talk; Anders was known to hang out at the Gen-X, but of course Puck couldn't go there without coming back with a splitting migraine. [Note--I don't think I knew the difference between "migraine" and "bad headache" back then.] He sighed; it was a lose-lose situation. He guessed he would have to go see the doctor, after all.
He sighed, saving his document and logging out, shutting off the computer and leaning back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. It seemed that, no matter what he tried to do, it would backfire on him. The computer. The club. The trees. Anders. He wondered how Anders was doing right now, anyway. He hadn't seen him for the better part of the week. No doubt he was out horseback riding again, down near the creek--or the stream, as Anders called it. "You say tomayto, I say tomahto," Anders had said when Puck tried to correct him. "You say creek, I say stream. So it's a stream."
So, in Anders's mind, it was a stream. But that didn't tell Puck where in the world he was. He would just have to guess, and leave it at that.
In fact, he was near the "stream," sitting on a rock and tossing pieces of bread down to a pair of ducks swimming in the cold water. He was used to the cold, having come to the U. S. from Sweden, where they got a lot of cold weather. [Note--I know absolutely zip about Sweden.] He just wasn't exactly used to some American customs, but he was learning.
He heard his horse whicker softly, and, shivering, looked up to the west. The sun was going down already; he'd have to get going back to the college. He felt just the slightest bit uneasy being out so late; he'd been out late once before, and he still couldn't remember everything that had happened to him. It was best to leave it at that, and go back to the dorm.
He stood up carefully, putting out his arms to balance himself upon the rock, stepping gingerly over the dead branches littering the bank and going back to his horse. The college had a stable nearby where some were kept, and sort of "rented out" for student use. He hated that term, "rented out"; it didn't seem right when pertaining to a horse. A horse just wasn't something you could rent. But he did, so there was nothing he could do to complain.
He pulled himself up and turned it around, guiding it through the trees back to the stables. It would be a long walk from there to the dorm but he didn't really care; it wasn't as if he had much else to do anyway. His friend Puck (he didn't really think of him as a "friend," as Puck seemed to dislike the word, but there was no other word he could think of) wasn't much of an outdoors person, and had been staying in his room lately; Anders had tried looking for him at the Hub, only to find the door locked. That had puzzled him. Puck had never been away from Sunny for so long. Sunny was like an I. V. he needed or something. He didn't hang out at the club either, so Anders decided he must want to be alone for some reason. He didn't bother questioning it. He was feeling the same way.
By the time he got back to the dorm he was shivering, his ears plugged from the cold air. He tried to sniff only to have them plug up even more, and he growled with irritation. He passed through the lobby, ignoring the few students lounging around talking or watching Oprah, and went on upstairs to his room. [Note--since when is Oprah on in the late afternoon?]
He knocked before entering, though he didn't wait for an answer; he just wanted to warn his roommate, Dino, that he was coming in. Before he'd never thought of doing that, but it looked as if Dino and Sidras, from the club, seemed to be getting close. Well, that was fine. They seemed made for each other, at least. He felt the tiniest bit of jealousy though he didn't know why; he wasn't exactly interested in Sid, and neither was Puck, but he'd sensed the same feelings emanating from his companion once when they'd been at the club, and Dino and Sid had been chattering away, totally oblivious to the two. Maybe it was animal magnetism. Whatever that was.
Dino wasn't inside, so he took of [sic] his coat and tossed it across the foot of the bed. He usually wouldn't do that either; he was always reprimanding Dino whenever Dino couldn't find anything, because he was so messy. Now, however, he was too tired to think about that. Instead he flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, then turned over onto his side and, closing his eyes, drifted off to sleep.
This time she could tell it was a dream--or was it? Was it more like a memory? A flashback? Whatever they called them nowadays?
She was lying down; she couldn't see where she was, but she could sense in the back of her head that she wasn't alone, that there was someone--or more like several someones--out there watching her, just beyond her field of vision. As if she were being examined from a distance.
She couldn't move at all, not even to turn her head. It was already tilted a little to the left so she could see over further that way, but all there was to see was an endless blackness filled with dim fog. She knew they were there. But she couldn't see them.
After several tries, she found she could in fact move her head back to look up, straightening out her neck; she could also move it back to the left, but when she tried to move to the right her neck would just stick, like it had been broken and couldn't go any further.
Whoever they are, they want me to look this way, then.
A very faint movement off to her left. She turned her head as much as she could now; something was coming towards her out of the darkness. As it drew closer she could tell, with a start, that it wasn't like the other things she'd seen; this one was taller, and--
looked like her.
Not like her, as such; but it was one of her kind. A human, at least. She found herself shocked by the fact that there could be another one on board without her knowing about it sooner. She blinked at the light shining down on her, the only light in the room, and tried to see it better.
It was a young man, with brown hair falling down around his face; his eyes were blue, and he was dressed the same way as she was, in one of those slight shifts they gave you before they would give you your normal clothes back. He just paused and looked down at her, and something in his eyes told her that she didn't need to be afraid.
As if reading her thoughts, he bent down so that his forehead was touching hers, and their eyes locked. She felt as if they could both see right into each other's minds. Don't be afraid, he said to her, only he wasn't talking; and even if he had, she wouldn't be able to understand it, as she had the feeling it was in a different language. Instead his words filled her mind, seeming to come from everywhere around her. They won't hurt you. They're only curious. Don't let them frighten you. They're good inside.
Despite her will to remain frightened, her fear dissolved, and she relaxed, though she was still confused at why he was here. Wasn't she the only one? And where on earth could he be from, with a language like that? She didn't think any complete sentences, but her feelings must have convinced him, for he stood up again and looked over his shoulder. She looked too, and could see the other ones surrounding him. For a brief second she began to panic again--Don't touch him! Leave him alone!--but he only looked back down at her and--unbelievably, in this situation--smiled.
She tried to smile back; she wasn't sure she did, as her muscles weren't working, but he tilted his head forward slightly, as if acknowledging this, and, turning, walked away with them. She was left alone again, except for one of the strange beings at her left.
She looked up at it, and wanted to ask it what another human was doing here, but her eyes caught its eyes and then--
--A shrill ringing shattered the dream. Julie Newcomb sat up in bed with a start, gasping and blinking in the morning light. She reached over and shakily shut off the alarm clock, glancing briefly at the time. It was just after ten. With a shiver, she pulled herself out of bed, pulling her nightgown around her tightly to try to ward off the cold.
As she walked across her room to her dresser she stopped, the memory of the dream hitting her like a gale force. She could remember his face this time! Almost frantically, she immediately started searching for a pad of paper and something to draw with; luckily for her there was a pencil stub on the dresser, and she grabbed up her sketchpad, lying on the floor near the closet, and threw herself down on the bed, beginning to draw.
Also luckily she was in the midst of an art course, and had recently learned how to draw faces; she'd never been good at that before but the course had really sharpened her up. As she sketched furiously in the pad she tried to shove all thoughts out of her head, except, of course, for him.
It took her only a few minutes to get it all down; after that she started erasing a bit here, adding a line there, and a few minutes later she found herself staring back at the stranger in her dream. For yet a few more minutes she just sat there, looking at him.
Finally she shook her head and forced herself to set the pad aside; she had to get ready for work. Shaking still, she made her way to the bathroom to take a shower. It was a good thing she worked where she did; it gave her the chance to talk with somebody she knew she'd really need to be talking to this morning.
As soon as she got her break she went to Dr. Pennethorne's office and knocked tentatively on the door. [Note--I got the surname "Pennethorne" from the first name of some guy who wrote an old book on witchcraft.] "Come in!" a voice called, and she went inside, closing the door behind her.
Dr. Pennethorne was at his desk, glancing over some client files. Julie had known him for several years now, and she trusted him well enough to tell him all of her problems, even these weird dreams she'd been having lately. He looked up, and smiled, motioning her to sit down.
"Good morning, Julie," he said, straightening out a file and putting it back in his desk drawer. He began shuffling through the other ones. "What brings you here this morning?"
"Doc, I had that dream again," she said.
He paused, and looked up, as if trying to decide if she were joking or not. Finally, seeing she wasn't, he sighed and locked his fingers.
"Julie, not this again," he said.
"I can't help it!" Julie protested. "I mean, I really think there's something going on here. I don't usually have dreams like this. At least, I didn't use to."
"But do you really think it is what you say?"
"Doc, I don't know what else it could be. I mean, I've been reading through all the books. It all matches exactly."
"But maybe that's just it. Maybe all this reading is going to your head."
She sighed and flounced back in her chair. "Come on, Doc, of all people I thought you'd understand."
He held up his hands. "Okay, okay, Julie. I understand that these dreams are bothering you. It's just that I find it somewhat hard to believe that you're equating them with alien abduction."
She didn't like the way he stressed the last two words; it was as if he were mocking her. She peered up at him to see if he was; the psychologist was all openness. [Note--do they call psychologists "Doctor"? If not, Dr. Pennethorne should be a psychiatrist. I have the same sneaking suspicion about my D4D psychologist character Dr. Leja. Hm.] He must be really good at his job. "Why don't you just tell me what happened this time?" he asked, trying to be helpful.
Julie sat forward again, clasping her hands. "It was the same as all the other times, but this time I could remember him!" she started.
Dr. Pennethorne just gave her a puzzled look. "'Him'? Do you mean one of the beings, or--?"
"No, no, the other person there! The human!" She saw his quick look of disbelief but continued. "I woke up and it was like he was just burned into my brain. I grabbed my drawing pad and drew him. I have it right here." And she reached down and pulled up her sketchpad, handing it across to the psychologist.
Dr. Pennethorne took it and opened it up, skimming past her other drawings to the latest one. He paused, staring at it thoughtfully. He did this for so long that Julie actually started fidgeting, until he murmured, "This is really good, Julie."
"Yeah," Julie said, brushing it off. "I'm taking an art class. But that's what he looked like; have you ever seen him before?"
"His eyes--he looks so pensive. Like he can see right into you." The doctor shook his head to break the stare, looking up at her. "I'm sorry? No--no, I don't believe I've ever seen him before. Why?"
"I don't know!" She took the pad back, stuffing it under her chair with a flustered sigh. "I just know he's real...I know he's out there somewhere, but I don't know who he is and I don't know where the heck he's from. But I don't think he's American or something...in my dream he was kind of talking to me in my head and it wasn't English."
"Then how could you understand him?"
"Well, it's like his thoughts were some other language...but when it's a thought that's being transferred it doesn't matter what language it is, English or Swahili or Martian or whatever, you can just understand it. The basics of it. Maybe not every exact word he says, but the general meaning of it all. You know what I mean?" And she gave him a hopeful look.
Dr. Pennethorne could only smile and shrug slightly. "I don't know, Julie. I've never participated in thought-transferral."
She sighed again and threw up her arms. "Well, if you're really not going to take any of this seriously--" she began, getting up and getting her sketchpad.
To her surprise Dr. Pennethorne stood up too. "Why don't you check out the local colleges?" he suggested. When she looked confused he pointed to her pad. "For your mystery man. Some of the local colleges have lots of exchange students, and maybe you met one once but forgot about it. Maybe that's how he got to be in your dream. Just check out the college rosters and see if he matches anybody. Then you can get this all off your mind. I'm sure once you find out who he is the dreams will stop."
She blinked once, twice. "You really think so?"
Dr. Pennethorne nodded, smiling widely now. "Of course. I'm sure you two just met accidentally, and maybe for some reason he left an impression on you--your drawing sure leaves one on me, if he really looks like that. And because you forgot about it, it was so brief, it's bothering you now that your subconscious remembers him but you don't. Here, I've got a list of colleges right here--" He turned and dug around briefly through his file cabinet, handing her a sheet "--so you just take that and do a little checking up. That should keep you busy."
She looked over the list. There were about four or five local colleges and universities named, as well as the number of students enrolled, and the phone numbers and addresses of the campuses. "You really think that's all it is?"
He nodded confidently, and patted her on the shoulder. "Listen, since you're going to be so busy looking for your mystery man, I'll tell Dr. Langhorn to give you some time off. You look like you could use a vacation."
She gave him a fake dirty look. "Thanks, Dr. Pennethorne. You're so helpful for my self-esteem."
He smiled back. "You can always use a little constructive criticism, my dear Julie." He laughed. "I'll see you later. Tell me when and if you find your mystery man, will you? And good luck."
"Thanks, Dr. Pennethorne," she replied, leaving his office, still studying the sheet. "See you later."
She shut the door behind her and left the building, her eyes never leaving the sheet. This would be a challenge, searching for one person among possible thousands.
But the real challenge was the fact that she still couldn't bring herself to believe that what Dr. Pennethorne had said was right.
She checked out the first college on the list, and found that, yes, they did have exchange students, but no, the majority of them were Hispanic; and the man in her dream was most definitely not Hispanic. His voice hadn't even matched. She thanked the office workers and moved on down the list.
The second college was a small one she'd never heard of, Little Rock University. She puzzled over it, surprised she'd never heard of the place. It wasn't too far away, about a half hour drive over to just outside Charlevoix County. She looked at her watch. There was still enough time in the day to check out another college, and this one should be a cinch, as there were under four hundred students enrolled. [Note--that's smaller than my local high school!] She got in her car and drove away.
She arrived there not long after and, after asking several students on their way to class where the main office was, went inside and made her way there. It was neither too big nor too small, with glass windows facing the hallway so everybody passing by could see the state of confusion within. [Note--LRU's main office is loosely based on the main office at my local high school.] Teachers, office workers, and even some students were constantly dashing about, dropping papers, picking up papers, asking for information, giving out information, and just generally creating havoc. She squeezed through to the counter where a young woman--evidently some kind of student assistant--smiled at her even through all the tumult and asked how she could help her.
"I'm looking for somebody," Julie had to shout over the noise. "An exchange student."
"Do you have his name, ma'am?"
"No. I don't really know who he is. But I know what he looks like."
She knew she sounded stupid, but the desk attendant just punched some words into the computer and looked at the screen. Obviously so much strange stuff went on here her question wasn't out of the ordinary. "Do you have any idea where he's from, ma'am?"
"I'm starting to think European," Julie said. She didn't know how she knew but that sounded about right. He most certainly wasn't Hispanic! "Do you think maybe you could just print me out a list of all the exchange students, and then I could leave you alone? It seems pretty busy around here."
"No problem. In fact I'll do even better than that." The assistant typed in another command and printed out the results. She handed the sheet of paper across the counter to Julie, and shouted, "This is a list of all our male European exchange students. I hope you find who you're looking for. Have a nice day. NEXT!!"
Julie turned away from the counter, staring at the list. It wasn't a very long one. Now she had to find somebody who knew these people and could tell her about them. There probably wouldn't be any better place than the local hangout. And that must be--
She asked for more directions, and some information; the students now on their way from class told her the hottest spot on campus was the Gen-X Club, and one even showed her the way. "Thanks," she said as he left, pushing the door open and entering. [Note--now that I think of it, LRU has at least THREE hotspots--the Gen-X, a Chinese restaurant known as the Indygo Dragon, and the Nuclear O Cafe. And supposedly Sidras North works at all three, I think. What the hell is with this place? And what the hell is with Sid?]
It must have been late lunch for some people, because the place was open. There was music playing, but nobody was dancing because it was only the middle of the day. The place was relatively calm, with its handful of students sitting around eating and studying. A young blond woman was at the counter, humming and sorting glasses. Julie nerved herself and went over to her.
"Ah! Hi!" the woman said, cheerfully enough, as Julie approached. "You must be new here."
"No, actually, I'm only visiting," Julie corrected her.
"Oh! Well in that case, would you like anything to drink? A snack maybe?"
"Yeah. Do you have any kind of tea?"
"Oh, honey, we have all kinds of tea," the woman said, waving her hand. "Just pick your poison." She giggled. "I like that one. I got it from Ozzy. He's a friend of mine. Do you like fruit, or mint, or some kind of wild exotic flavor?"
"Mint would be good."
"All right! You just hold on a moment." She disappeared, returning several minutes later with a tall glass of steaming mint tea. It made Julie's mouth water even before the woman set it down in front of her. As she drank it the woman stared at her curiously.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked.
Julie shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Ah, well, I guess that's just me. I meet so many darn people I can't even keep track of them all." She shrugged fatalistically, causing Julie to laugh, and held out her hand. "I'm Sidras North, but everybody calls me Sid. Welcome to LRU!"
"Julie Newcomb," Julie replied, shaking her hand. "Is everybody here so nice?"
"Oh, no, not the half of it," Sid replied, laughing and blushing slightly. [Note--this scene makes me want to shoot myself. And a bunch of other people.] "We've got some pretty nasty people around here. Usually nothing too bad though. If you don't mind me asking, what're you visiting for?"
"I'm looking for somebody. Somebody I saw once." Julie instinctively reached down to pull out her sketchpad, but found she'd left it in her car. Darn! Instead she handed Sid the list the student assistant had given her. "An exchange student. I don't know who it is though. I was thinking maybe somebody around here might know who I'm looking for."
"Ohhhh," Sid said, looking over the list. "I don't know all these people, but I could show you to somebody who probably does. He used to hang out here. Hasn't lately though, he's been having these really bad headaches." She shrugged sympathetically and handed back the list. "His name's Matthew Benteen. He sometimes hangs out at the Hub--did you see that round stone building out there, with the glass top?"
Julie nodded.
"Well, that's the Hub. He usually hangs out in the basement there. Or in his dorm room. I heard he's been spending a lot of time in the dorm lately. Must be his headaches, poor guy." She started mopping the counter with a stray rag. "Anyway, though, he knows everything about everybody here. He should. I mean, he's the one who's broken into all the files."
Julie tried not to spit out the tea she'd just sipped. "Broken?"
Sid only nodded, as if that were the most normal thing in the world, to have your privacy invaded. "Yeah. He's our resident hacker."
"Oh." Julie nodded.
"Yeah!" Sid continued, shrugging once more. "He probably knows more about anybody than they do themselves. But that needn't worry you, he never really seems to tell anybody what he knows." She smiled. "Except himself."
Julie smiled and nodded again. She sat there while Sid continued cleaning the counter, drinking the rest of her tea. When it was gone she got out her wallet and put the money on the counter. Sid picked it up, inspected it, and raised her eyebrows. "Oh, you need change. There's two extra dollars here."
"No, keep it," Julie said, waving the money back. "Think of it as a tip. For helping me find my way around."
"Well, thanks!" Sid gushed. "Next time you drop by I'll have to make you some of my special Columbian tea! It's like Columbian coffee, only it doesn't taste as bad," she whispered, leaning across the counter. [Note--I haven't a clue if there's any such thing as "Columbian tea." Not that I know much about Columbian coffee, either.]
Julie laughed. "That would be nice. Thanks for the help, Sidras."
"No problem. Drop by again soon!" She waved, then went back to cleaning the counter. Julie left the Gen-X behind, heading for the Hub.
She tried out the Hub first, not feeling like asking any passing students any more questions; not that there were many students passing now, anyway. It was getting on in the day; so far her search hadn't been fruitless, but it hadn't exactly been successful, either. For all she knew the person she was looking for didn't even attend this college. That thought discouraged her for a moment, but she forced herself to continue.
The Hub was empty, and didn't look as if anybody could live in it; she stood there, puzzled, until she noticed the door in the side of the wall, and remembered that Sid had said Matthew Benteen stayed downstairs. She went to the door, opened it, and went inside.
She tiptoed down a flight of narrow, winding stairs, placing her hands upon the cold, damp stone to both sides to steady herself, until she got to the bottom, where there was another door. She put her ear to it, and could hear a faint buzzing sound within, like a printer.
Well, Sid had said he hacked.
She knocked on the door, and called out tentatively, "Mr. Benteen?"
"What?"
The shout startled her, and she jumped back involuntarily. After it was repeated, she crept back down the stairs and pushed open the door slowly, peering timidly inside.
The first thing she saw was a glowing computer screen, the word SUNNY emblazoned at the top. Seated at it was a man about her age, about the age of the person in her drawing, dishwater blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and he was glaring at her furiously.
"What?" he repeated himself, his voice thin and cold as ice.
"Uh--Mr. Benteen?" she stammered. What Sid had said about there being some unpleasant people around the college was suddenly made much more believable by this person, though Sid had never warned her about him being so rude. She tried to tell herself it must be his migraines that were making him so nasty--deep down he was probably a very nice person--
"Yes?" he practically hissed.
"I--uh--I'm looking for some--information about somebody," she continued. She stepped down into the room, and held out the list, stretching out her arm as if he were a snake ready to bite. He took it from her and looked at it. "I'm--trying to find out who these people are. There's somebody I--met before, and I thought--well--"
"Do you want me to look these guys up for you?" he snapped, glaring at her again.
"Well--yeah," Julie stuttered, cowering near the door.
He sighed gustily and turned back to the computer, but didn't type anything. Instead he just leaned over the keyboard, staring at the list.
"Which one're you looking for?" he asked.
"I don't know yet," Julie admitted. She was trying to be careful with what she said; this guy seemed to have a short fuse. "I don't remember the name. I only remember what he looked like."
"Well then, describe him or something."
"Well...he was about your height, I believe, a little taller than me."
"Rules out him," he muttered, picking up a pencil and slashing out a name.
"...And he had brown hair; it wasn't really long, but it wasn't really short either; it was almost like a bowl haircut, but not quite."
"Definitely not him." Two more names were crossed off.
"And he had blue eyes."
He murmured, and crossed off another name or two. Then he looked up at her.
There was a pause.
"And?" he prompted.
"Uh..." She found herself at a loss for words. "That's really all I remember."
He snorted. "Well, great job. There's still six people on the list." He sighed again. "Don't you remember anything else?"
Julie bit her lip; she was on the verge of crying, and that most certainly wouldn't help the situation any. "Uh--I don't think he spoke English. Not as his native tongue."
He crossed off two more names. "Four more."
"And, uh, it was a language I don't know."
"Well, what do you know?" Without waiting for her to answer, he looked back at the list, and asked, "Do you know French?"
"Yeah, a little."
"German?"
"No, it wasn't German."
"How about Russian of any kind?"
"Uh, I don't think it was Russian."
There was a very long pause this time; she pulled her eyes from the floor, which she'd been staring at to avoid his gaze, and saw that he was staring at the list again, with a strange look on his face. After several moments he looked up at her, and the expression he got was very ugly.
"This is some kind of joke, huh?" he pressed. "Let me guess, Alpha Delta?" [Note--"Alpha Delta" is the name of the fraternity of jocks and such at LRU. The only people who like the Alpha Deltans are the Alpha Deltans themselves.]
"Joke?" Julie found herself shaking her head. "No. I've never heard of Alpha Delta. I'm just looking for somebody I met--"
"Met when?"
"I don't know." She searched her memory. "Not too long ago. Maybe in the last month or so."
He gave a short, harsh laugh. "I don't think so, sweetie. Not unless you've been hanging out on campus lately, which I seriously doubt."
She frowned at him. "Why? What makes you say that?"
"Because I know Anders Carlsson," he replied, tapping the list. "And I know you two have not met." [Note--this would have been a fantastic spot to start a new chapter, but stupidly, I did not.]
It took a great deal of prodding and cajoling to get him to tell her what he knew about Anders Carlsson; she had to tell him over and over it wasn't a joke, and that she would be able to recognize him, she'd even drawn a picture from memory. "All right," he said at last, with a sneer, "I'll just show you his picture, and you can tell me what you know."
"Sure," she said, promising to be open if he would. He turned back to the computer and typed in something; a picture came on the screen.
She frowned; yes, this person had brown hair and blue eyes, but it wasn't him. Not the way she remembered.
"Well?" Puck asked, looking up at her. "Now that I've done my part, you've got to hold up to your end of the bargain."
She shook her head slowly. "No, that's not him," she said. "He didn't look at all like that."
"What do you mean? Brown hair, blue eyes? European? Sweetie, if that's not a match, I don't know what is."
"Then show me his real name," Julie snapped. "And my name is Julie."
"Well, good. If we're on a first-name basis now, you can call me Puck."
"Fine. Just bring up his picture."
Instead Puck typed in another code, and several pictures appeared on the screen. "You pick him," he said, leaning back in his chair.
Julie leaned forward to inspect them. It took her only a second to recognize him, and she gasped, half with delight at having finally found him, half with astonishment that he was really real. "That's him! Right there!"
Numbly, Puck brought up the file for her to look over. She bent over him to read it. Name Anders Carlsson, from Sweden (no wonder she'd been unable to recognize the language! Swedish! Yeesh!), same as her age, senior year. She looked at his enlarged picture. It matched her drawing almost exactly, except in his file shot he didn't have that--"pensive" look (she found herself using Dr. Pennethorne's words, for want of a better phrase) that he did in her picture.
Puck turned to her. "You have a drawing of him that you made? Before you came here?"
She nodded, and pulled out the sketchpad, which she'd retrieved from her car before visiting the Hub. Puck flipped through it, and stopped on Anders immediately. She could hear his breath whoosh out from between his clenched teeth.
"God, that's him, all right," he murmured.
"Can you show me where he is?" she asked softly, wishing to be on her way.
He just looked up at her, and stared her in the eye. "How come you know him? I've never seen you before."
"I don't know. We probably just ran into each other somewhere and I remembered him."
"But why're you going to all the trouble to look him up here? I'm assuming you must've looked elsewhere first."
"Yeah, I did. But I just wanted to meet him."
"Why?"
"Because I want to know who he is!" she exclaimed, exasperated. "That's all!"
"You just had a chance meeting with him somewhere. A meeting so brief you didn't even get his name."
"That's right."
"And now all of a sudden you're interested in finding out all about him? Why is that?"
"Because he was in my dream!" Julie nearly screamed.
As the remnants of her yell faded a deep stillness settled over the room. Julie put her hand to her head, rubbing her nose and feeling every inch and [sic] idiot. Now they were going to think her nuts for sure. But Puck only stared at her for a long time, then looked back at the computer screen, and muttered under his breath.
"Shit," he whispered, and flicked off the computer.
"If you're lying about this, then you're gonna find your arms broken, girl or no girl," he muttered to her as they walked across the green together, headed towards the dormitory.
"Give your muscles a break," she replied. "I don't think you'll be exercising them anytime soon."
Puck just snorted, and pushed open the dorm door. He graciously allowed her in first, then followed, shivering off the cold.
She followed him upstairs, having no idea where Anders's room might be. They went to the third floor before he stopped and continued into a hallway. Julie took the time to look around; it looked like any other dormitory hallway, carpeted in tan with doors lining the sides. Some of the doors had funny signs stuck to them; on one with a giant smiley face with a gunshot wound in its forehead, Puck pounded, and continued on, ignoring the muffled shout of "F--k you!!" which came through the door. [Note--my way of working around cuss words too strong for my otherwise PG-13ish stories. Lame, I know. Nowadays I'd probably just say he shouted a nasty curse or something. Ah, and about that smiley face--I had seen such an image on a big sticker or sign once and thought it seemed just like something this character would use. I'm fairly certain that's what it was, a smiley face with a gunshot wound, and not the well-known emblem of the Watchmen comic, which I have since become familiar with. But I could be wrong. All I can say with certainty is the emblem in the story has nothing to do with Watchmen.]
"What was that all about?" Julie asked as he came up to a door near the end of the hallway.
"Just a sort of friend of mine," Puck replied, knocking on the door to Room 408. [Note--the "sort of friend" with the gunshot smiley face is Victor Tasubo. He and Puck are members of Damien's band Radioactive, though Tass probably joins later than this story...but I can't be sure.] There was a slight shuffling noise inside, and the door opened.
For a brief moment Julie felt as if she'd just fallen off the edge of reality, and had entered some strange world consisting entirely of all the things she'd ever imagined but had never really seen, for it seemed as if she were staring face-to-face at her drawing. The man who'd answered the door looked at her, seeing her first, then at Puck, who stood a little to the side. As soon as he broke his gaze she felt herself enter the real world again.
"Hi, A. C.," Puck said.
"Hi," Anders replied, giving Julie a puzzled stare.
He doesn't recognize me! she thought with a touch of panic. But how can he not--?
"Mind if we come in?" Puck cut through her thought.
"Not at all." Anders stepped aside to let them in, shutting the door behind them and looking at Julie again. All she could do was stare back with what she was certain must be a very stupid look. "Should I know something?"
"Maybe," Puck said, also looking at Julie. She gaped at Anders for a moment more, then shook her head furiously to try to clear her thoughts.
"Uh--hi," she said, putting out her hand. Anders took it. "I'm--I'm Julie Newcomb. I'm visiting here."
"Hi," Anders said. "Anders Carlsson."
"I know."
This time Anders frowned and looked at Puck.
Puck only shrugged.
"Uh--" Anders spread out his arms helplessly and shrugged. "I'm sorry, but, why're you here?"
"Just thought I'd visit," Puck said. "I haven't seen you around much."
"Me neither. Sid told me you've been having these headaches."
"Yeah. They're starting to bug me. What've you been up to?"
"Oh. Riding Tanager mostly. Nothing else to do around here except homework." Peering over Puck's shoulder, he noticed Julie holding a sketchpad and looking at it, then up at him. "Uh, Puck..." he murmured. "You're not trying to set me up, are you?"
"Of course not," Puck said. "It's just that Julie here says you two know each other from somewhere. Isn't that right, Julie?"
Julie looked up, and snapped the pad shut, coming forward again. "I believe we do," she said, looking up at him hopefully.
The look Anders gave her was totally blank.
Julie felt her heart sinking. Why doesn't he remember me? her mind cried. He has to!... "I--I drew your picture," she stammered, fumbling with her sketchpad. "I drew it from memory." She held it out to him.
Their hands touched briefly as she passed it to him, but he appeared not to have noticed. Instead he took the pad and studied the drawing there. His eyes grew wide, then squinted with disbelief.
"Holy crap!" he exclaimed.
"So do you recognize her?" Puck asked mildly.
"How the heck did you draw this?" Anders asked with astonishment. "From memory? What picture did you look at?"
"I never saw any pictures," Julie insisted. "I drew it from memory. I assumed we met before."
He looked up at her briefly, hardly able to take his eyes from the drawing, it mesmerized him so. He stared at her for a moment, trying to place her features with every other person he'd met, but nothing registered. "I don't recognize you," he admitted, shaking his head. He looked back at the picture.
Puck smirked at Julie, who could only gape back at Anders, looking as if she'd been betrayed by her own mother. "But--you have to remember me!" she persisted. "I mean, I remember you perfectly--so how can you not remember me?"
He forced himself to look at her again, this time being careful to look her over completely. After a long silence he shook his head slowly; "I'm sorry," he apologized, sincerely, "I really don't recognize you. What, did we meet somewhere before? In the park or something? Maybe you saw me and I didn't see you?"
Julie threw up her hands again. "It wasn't in the park!" she cried. "It was somewhere else."
Anders finally set the sketchpad down, still shaking his head. He put his hands to his temples and tried to clear his thoughts. "Then where?" he asked. "Because I don't remember you."
She started to say what she'd said to Puck; however, something made her voice stick in her throat so she couldn't tell him. What would he say? she thought. He obviously already thinks I'm nuts. "Just...somewhere," she murmured. "Where we both saw each other."
He looked at her again; his eyes were searching, probing, but finding nothing. It was as if he was looking at her like she were a blank wall.
"Like maybe in a dream," Puck hinted. Julie whirled to glare at him; Anders stepped back so abruptly he nearly tripped and fell over the bed. Instantly he was at them.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he nearly screamed at Puck, causing the two of them to back away in surprise. Julie cowered towards Dino's bed. But it was Puck he was fuming at. "What kinds of things have you been telling her? Did you have any time to show her my personal file?"
"It wasn't anything like that--"
"I thought we had a deal! Don't go yakking around outsiders! I thought you'd keep your promises!"
"I never told her anything until she--"
"What? Until she asked to know?"
"Hey!" Julie had to shout. She hated being spoken of as if she were in another zip code. "I'm right here!"
Anders glared at her; the look was so ugly, so totally different from what she'd expected to see that she backed away again. He looked completely different than the man in the picture. [Note--I know, that should be "different from."] He turned to Puck again, pointing a finger at her.
"Did she ask to know how nuts I am?" he demanded, shaking his hand and twirling the other one at his head. "Did she ask to know if I've ever been institutionalized?"
"Damn it, Anders!" Puck snapped back. Julie found it hard to believe that these two were best friends. "I didn't tell her anything. She told me everything. She came to me with that friggin' picture of hers and told me she'd drawn it from memory. She said she saw you in a dream. I didn't say anything."
"Yeah? And I'm supposed to believe you?" Julie felt her heart sinking even more; here she was, standing helplessly by while the person in her dream was screaming at his best friend and not even recognizing her. "God knows you've lied to me before. If you think I'm still some stupid, naive hick-boy foreigner, you'd better bone up on your studies. I've been doing some studying myself since I got here."
"Yeah?" Puck echoed. "So why the hell are you taking it out on me? She's the one who told me this. I assumed you two knew each other. God knows you've probably told Dino all about me."
They sounded so much alike. She couldn't stand to see them argue any more [sic]. She stepped in between them, nearly getting hit when Anders raised his arm, and smacked them both in the chest with the palms of her outstretched hands. They both shut up and looked down at her.
"For your information, he never told me anything," she said to Anders. "What he said is true. I came here looking for you because I had a dream with a person in it. I woke up and drew that picture. I swear I never saw any photographs to copy it from. I'm from out-of-town so it wasn't from a local roster. I checked out the colleges and came here and was told to check out Puck. I described you, I asked for information. He didn't give it. He tried to trick me with someone else's file. I recognized your picture and picked it out. I told him about my dream. He just brought me here to meet you and see if you recognized me." She looked up at him, half-irately, half-hopeful. "And I guess you don't."
For a moment he seemed on the verge of really looking, really looking inside, but then that steely look came back to his eyes and he backed away. "You're right. I don't." He looked up to glare at Puck again. "So now how many people know, huh? Enough to ship me off to the funny farm?"
"Yeah, Anders, like you're nuts," Puck muttered, twirling his finger at his temple. "And I'm nuts too. And so's she. I honestly don't believe one college could harbor so many nuts."
"So you believe her? What makes you do that?"
"Hell, Anders, she said so! She mentioned it! There's no way she could've read about it anywhere, like we wrote it all down!"
"Maybe she went to Al. Maybe she was looking to do something funny so she heard about Al and she went to him, and maybe he with his twisted sense of humor told her about us."
"God!" Puck threw up his arms this time. "Anders, Al's anything but twisted. You know that. He's probably too dense to be twisted. And you know very well he'd never give out information like that."
"Hold on," Julie said, putting up her hands again. She looked from one to the other. "What are you talking about? What do you mean us?--information? Who's Al?"
They both looked at her at the same time, seeming to debate whether to tell her or not. Puck bit his lip. Anders scowled and turned away, going over to sit on his bed.
"Well, it's all out in the open anyway," he said, waving a hand at the air. "You may as well tell her everything."
"I won't unless you really want me to," Puck said.
Anders shrugged viciously. "Go ahead!"
Puck's jaw muscles worked but he said nothing, instead staring at Anders for several minutes. Anders simply lay back on his bed, arms crossed under his head, and stared up at the ceiling. [Note--er...I believe this is a bunkbed. And he's on the bottom. I think.] Puck sighed. "All right," he said, turning back to Julie, his eyes boring into hers. "But what I tell you you can't tell anyone else. You have to promise us that. Do you promise?"
"Yeah," Julie said, subdued. "I promise."
Puck crossed her and sat down on the edge of Anders's bed; Anders continued staring upwards. Julie sat down cross-legged on the floor. "It started around last summer," Puck began. "Anders and I, and all of these other people on campus, started having these weird dreams. We'd see things like lights and stuff. And little people with big eyes." He made rings around his eyes with his hands. "And Anders got this bad nosebleed in the middle of the night. He's never had a nosebleed before. So of course he freaked out. I started getting earaches and I couldn't stand up straight. I kept falling over like my coordination was gone. We were both getting pretty sick. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"
He said it in an irritable voice, stressing it as if he expected the affirmative. For a moment Julie could only stare back at him. As a matter of fact, it did sound familiar to her. It sounded like everything she'd been going through lately. She nodded vaguely for him to go on.
"So I suggested Anders and I go to see Al Goodwin, the hypnotist," Puck went on. "Anders thought it was crazy. He thought everything about aliens was crazy. He didn't believe they were really visiting us and kidnapping us."
"Get on with it," Anders said.
"So we went there, and Al put Anders under. He started remembering things. Like one of his dreams wasn't really a dream after all; it was all fake. It was all something they conjured up to hide what they were really doing. He tried to go back to his first one, when he was twelve, but he couldn't take it. He couldn't get himself to remember it."
"All I know is that it hurt," Anders said from his bed, wincing at the ceiling as he remembered. He tapped the side of his nose "And they put something up there. They put something in."
"That was from another experience," Puck explained, looking back at Julie. His face was completely serious, so she could tell he wasn't joking. It was scary to hear all of this stuff coming from someone so serious. "I was there when Al put him under for that. He was screaming and trying to move, but he couldn't move."
"They had me tied down," Anders said. "It wasn't like I could get up if I wanted to."
Julie felt the blood drain from her face. All of this was getting too familiar...
"And you?" she finally managed to ask Puck. "How are you tied in to all of this?"
Puck sighed tiredly and shrugged, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't really know," he said. "I know that it happened to me too, when I was Anders's age; I think we were both there. At the same time. I think that's where we first met each other. But that was years ago, and Anders lived in Sweden at the time; I lived over here in Michigan. There's no other way we could've met each other."
"So you two were together? At the same time? In the same place?"
Anders rolled his head to look at her and gave her a bitter smile. "I don't know," he said. "I didn't get that far in the session."
Puck sighed again, now rubbing his eyes. "I was there. He couldn't go through with it. All he did was scream like someone was cutting his legs off. I don't know. Maybe they were. Al pulled him out of it early." He let out his breath and looked at Julie. "So," he concluded, with a faint trace of a smile, "do we sound nutty enough yet?"
Julie shook her head slowly. "No," she barely managed to whisper. "You don't sound crazy to me. I thought I was the one who was crazy."
Puck just looked at her; Anders sat up and gave her a look of his own. "How do you mean?" he asked. "Was all of this happening to you, too?"
She shook her head again. "No--it just started up a couple months ago. Not last summer. I started having these weird dreams..."
"Describe them," Puck demanded.
Julie shrugged tiredly. "All I remember is being on some kind of table and I can't move, and I'm looking around and I see someone coming towards me. Not one of them, though. A human. You." She pointed to Anders. "And you just kind of look at me for a minute, then you put your head down so your forehead's touching mine and you tell me not to be afraid. Only you're not talking. You're kind of thinking it. In Swedish," she added, with a smile.
Anders didn't smile back. Something had clicked in the back of his head when she'd mentioned him leaning over to touch her forehead. It seemed familiar somehow...He turned abruptly to Puck. [Note--no space visible between the ellipsis and the next sentence.]
"You know this somehow," he said. "You know something about this."
Puck shrugged once more. "About the forehead-touching? Yeah, I do. I could tell you about it. I remembered that much."
Both of the others looked startled; for a moment Anders looked betrayed. "And you never told me?" he asked with disbelief.
"You never asked. When you and I were together. At twelve. I saw you there."
Anders put out his hands. "And?"
"And I saw you on a table," Puck continued. "And you were scared. So I went over and I touched your forehead. I had to tell you not to be afraid."
A deep silence fell over the room. Both Anders and Julie stared at Puck; then it was Puck at Anders, Anders at Puck, and Julie between the two of them. The silence went on forever.
"I passed it on," Anders finally whispered. "I remembered that. And I passed it on to Julie. To tell her not to be afraid."
Puck cocked his head, a variation of his shrug. "It looks that way."
Anders stared at the bed. "But how come I don't remember anything...I think I'd remember if I met somebody, but I don't." He looked up at Julie again, shaking his head at something just beyond his range of perception. "I don't remember you. I don't remember you at all."
Julie dropped her gaze to her knees and began fiddling her fingers, sighing. She looked up at Puck after a moment. "How many people have you--I mean, how many people know about this?"
"Besides you now?" Anders was the one to reply, and he didn't sound very pleased. "Puck and Sid mostly. Dino a little. A few other people on campus who said the same thing happened to them. Maybe Tass."
"What, now you've been talking to him, too?" Puck said, in an accusatory voice.
Anders shrugged, his eyes still hard. "He asked."
Puck snorted.
"Not like he didn't know anything already."
"Yeah, right."
"Do you still know this Mr. Goodwin?" Julie asked, not only to get an answer, but also to stop their bickering. "The hypnotist?"
"He's more of a hypnotherapist," Puck explained. "He specializes in regression therapy. You know what that is, don't you?"
"I've read about it a little, yeah. It's like going back in time. But I read it doesn't work."
Anders laughed bitterly. "Yeah, right!"
Puck only shrugged. "Well, it seems to work for Al just fine. Why, you want to meet him? He's kind of kooky."
Julie thought a minute, then shrugged. In truth she didn't know what to do. "I don't know. But if this keeps up I think maybe I should."
"Well, to warn you, he's a little weird."
"Yeah," Anders agreed, for once. "He talks to plants all the time."
Puck rolled his eyes. "He's not exactly talking to the plants. He just talks. And talks. And he likes funky electrical gadgets but he doesn't understand them. His house's a mess. He has lots of books about this kind of thing, if you're interested."
"I think I am." Julie stood up; she wanted to get to know Anders better, but decided now wasn't the time; he didn't exactly seem to be feeling the same way. [Note--was she sitting down to begin with...? Hm...] She held out her hand; Puck shook it, and then Anders, but only after a brief pause. She noticed he looked a little wary. She picked up her sketchbook. "Well, maybe I'll see you two later."
"Yeah," Puck said, and that was it. Julie left the room, and the two men in it, behind.
Only after she was gone did Anders turn back to Puck. "Where did you dig her up?" he asked. "How many of us do you actually think there could be?"
Puck shrugged and shot him a vicious look. "How the hell would I know, Anders? She came to me. She showed me that drawing and I flipped out like you. But I didn't tell her about you. She told me about you."
"And how could she do that? Do you really believe we were abducted together?" Puck noted he had been ready to say "taken," but had quickly substituted the other word instead. Again he shrugged.
"I wouldn't know. It's you she said she was with." He stood up to leave, half expecting Anders to jump up after him and either yell at him or ask him another question. Anders just fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Well, see you later, then."
"Yeah," Anders echoed him, and Puck left, shutting the door behind him. [Note--according to the computer screen, the first chapter alone takes up about half of this approximately 120kb file. This, my friends, is a good example of a way too-long chapter.]
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