True Believers Chapter 13

13
Masks

I BELIEVE YOU'RE STARTING TO CALL THIS A SECOND HOME."

Al was talking as he went around once more, picking up things and putting them down; Anders and Puck wondered if that was a habit of his, and decided it must be. He disappeared into a back room for a moment, and came out again, his arms loaded with books which he dumped all over the dining room table, swiping at a few so they didn't fall. Anders managed to glance at a couple of the titles--Intruders. The Watchers. Secret Life. [Note--all real books which I own!] He didn't need to guess what they were about, as they all had aliens on the front.

"The more I read, the more I realize I don't know," Al said next, and that sounded encouraging. He wiped his hands together and looked at Anders, then at Puck, and then back at Anders. For a brief moment he seemed just the slightest bit confused. "Well. What'll it be this time?"

He makes hypnosis sound like a milkshake, Puck thought. He was surprised when Anders spoke up.

"I was wondering if there's any way I can...you know...remember," he said; what had started out as a somewhat confident comment was reduced to a stammer.

Al cocked his head. Puck was starting to hate him for that. "If you're blocked, then there's no way I can help you. It has to come out on its own."

"'It'?"

"The memory." He looked at Puck. "And you?"

"Nothing," Puck said.

"Can we at least try?" Anders pressed. Al looked back at him. "I mean, it's...it's not really like the most normal thing in the world, but--I think I'd kind of like to know what's going on."

Al grinned at him. "You know, you're more receptive than some people I know."

Anders raised his eyebrows. "Such as?"

"You know Damon, don't you? His brother, Gabriel--"

"Oh." Anders nodded and averted his eyes. "Yeah, I've seen him. He never looks very well."

"I'm sure you've read that newspaper article."

"Somebody passed it around campus." Anders frowned. "I think that was a pretty dirty trick."

"It's us that started it," Puck reminded him. "Remember, not everybody's out there dreaming up our little friends."

Al laughed. "That reminds me of my plants! I'm sorry. You just sounded like me for a moment."

Goodie, Puck thought. Next I'll be galivanting [sic] around with a Chevreul pendulum and telling people they're getting sleepy. [Note--the "Chevreul pendulum" is the official name of the pendulum one would traditionally swing in front of someone's face to hypnotize them. The More You Know!]

"How's Jacob doing?" Anders asked, and Puck was nearly blown into the wall. How in the world had he forgotten about Jacob, that guy who took his horse? His dead horse, now...

Al's smile softened. "He's feeling a little homesick."

"Homesick? Then why doesn't he just go home?"

"It's not quite as easy as that. You want another session?"

"--Yes, please. I think--I think I'd like to find out more."

Al sat down and motioned him to the couch again. This time Puck sat down nearby and stared at his feet. "What do you want to examine this time?" Al asked.

Anders closed his eyes and heard a click. That would be Al's tape recorder, he told himself. "I don't know.... If there's a block, then what should I do?"

"What experience was that?"

"That was the first one. When I was--when I was fifteen."

"Then think of something else."

Anders bit his lip and sat silent for a moment. "I don't know," he said again. "Uh--when I got the nosebleed?"

"All right. Lie down and think of Sweden again."

Anders lay back and tried to think of Sweden, but the green fields wouldn't appear before his eyes as they did before. "It won't come to me," he said, starting to despair.

"Don't get upset. Try to focus on the first thing that comes into your head, and stick with it."

"Okay." He thought--he thought--his head started to ache; it started to pound; the pounding turned to thunder; the thunder turned to a storm. [Note--yes...I made the hypnosis sessions way too quick.]

"Wow," he said.

"What is it?"

"I--I really don't know. Is it raining outside?"

Puck and Al looked at each other. "Do you hear the rain, Anders?" Al asked.

"Yeah! I hear thunder."

"All right, then. It's raining. What time is it?"

"That was fast," Puck commented.

"Well...nighttime. I should think that the rain would cool things down a little. I guess it does, but not as much as I thought it would..."

"He's rambling," Puck said.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm wet, damn it." Anders scowled and shook his arms at the air, as if trying to dry off. "Puck's nuts out there in the middle of the night."

Al looked at Puck; Puck merely smiled and shrugged. "What does that mean, Anders?"

"He's going to get hit by lightning, and sometimes I wish he would." Anders made motions of drying himself off with a towel. "Now my coat's all dirty--I'm supposed to be in bed--"

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to dry this off! Does it always--Lord!"

"What? What's happening, Anders?"

"Do you always get thunder like that?!"

Puck burst out laughing; Al sighed and waved his hand. "Go on, Anders."

"I hate this--I'm never going to get dry." He threw up his arms and gave an exasperated sigh. "I give up. I have to get some sleep. Work tomorrow." Already his speech was growing slower and fainter; he sighed again, but this time it was a tired sigh. He snuggled his head into the couch.

"Don't go to sleep, Anders," Al warned him. "This is a memory. You have to tell me what happens."

"Tired," Anders replied. "Work--to do..." He went silent.

This time the other two stood by and waited. Several moments passed.

"Whoa!" Anders shouted.

Al and Puck jumped, Al nearly knocking over his tape recorder. He put out a hand to right it and sat back down, shaking. "What's going on, Anders?"

"Boom," Anders said. "Gunshots?"

"Huh?" Puck said, confused.

"Thunder?" Al inquired.

"Oh, yeah, I'm in Michigan. Man! Is it just me or is--" He cut himself off, and a look of dismay covered his face. "Yeah, it is just me."

"What do you mean?"

Anders gave a shuddery sigh. "It's that light again," he said.

Puck sat forward in his chair.

Al asked, "Is it the same light as before, or is it different?"

"It's the same." It sounded as if he wished it weren't. "But I thought they were done. When will they be done already?"

"Who do you mean by 'they,' Anders?"

"The people in the walls." A bitter smile quirked at his face. "That's where they're coming from, isn't it? Holy cow!"

Al said nothing; Puck felt like screaming "What?"

Anders glanced sightlessly to his right, then his left. "How do they do that?"

"Do what?"

"I'm floating!"

"You're floating?"

"They're making me float! How do they do that?"

"Describe everything."

"Well--I'm in my room. Dino's asleep."

"Do you try to wake him up?"

"He won't wake up."

Puck felt just the slightest bit queasy.

"And there's these two--things--they're kind of standing on my sides, and they have their hands on my arms--I know they're not lifting me!"

"How do you know that?"

"Well, they're puny. If they tried to lift me up I'm sure they'd break their arms. And they're floating, too."

"What do they look like?"

"Like before. Lord, they're short. If I stood up next to one he'd come just below my chest. Hell, I could knock you down if I could move."

Al and Puck realized he was talking to the creature itself. Anders only sighed.

"Same as always," he said.

"Same what?" Al asked.

"They don't care. I just don't scare them. 'But you can't move,' one of them says. And it's right."

"What else can you see about them?"

"Short. Pale things. Like somebody dipped them in plaster and they're still wet. Kind of grayish." His present thoughts cut in. "Hey, Puck, that's why they call them 'Grays'?"

"Yeah, Anders."

"Uh--big eyes. Like a bug. I can't really see their faces. Whenever I try to look at them I'm looking at their eyes. Uh--they've got really long arms. Thin fingers. Three fingers. A thumb, I think. I can't see their legs. They look exactly the same." He snorted in amazement. "How can they tell each other apart on their driver's IDs?" And he started laughing.

Puck looked at Al. "Stress," was all Al said, and he prompted Anders on. "Go on, Anders. Do they say anything to you?"

"Not really. Just what I've already said. I kind of ask them--I mean, why now? What now? This little one on my left is really annoying. 'We need to look at you. Now stop asking questions.' He's really pissing me off."

Puck smiled faintly.

"Hah! I think I got him mad!" Anders laughed again. "He's giving me the funniest looks--I think he could tell what I was thinking and it ticked him off."

Way to go, Puck cheered him on.

"They're taking me out the window," Anders said.

He fell silent again for several moments. And then, in a barely audible voice,

"Holy shit."

Al glanced up at him from his notetaking; Puck's jaw dropped. He'd never heard Anders use a word like that before.

"Uh," Al said, "what do you mean?"

"I've never seen that sucker before."

"What 'sucker'?"

"I mean--this thing's huge!" He pointed above him. "It's like--it's like, uh, a kind of--like the Gravitron. Lots bigger!"

"Describe it."

"It's--uh--like the Gravitron. HUGE thing! Lots of lights!" He shook his head. "These aren't the same guys as the first time."

"Where is it?"

"The woods! Big thing! Huge! I wonder why everybody else in the friggin' college can't see it from here!"

"What's it doing?"

"Just kind of floating there. But uh--I think it's moving, just a little--Al, all I need is for you to drive the school bus!"

"What?" Al asked, obviously confused.

"A dream he had that night," Puck answered.

"Oh. Well then...go on, Anders."

"Jeez! Light! Like a stairway of light--an elevator or something. We're moving up--wow! Tree branches--" He spat a couple times, swiping at imaginary branches.

"Do you go inside?"

"I am inside," Anders corrected him. "I'm--uh--I could move a little bit, but I really can't now--" He flexed his arms and legs but couldn't raise them. "They're telling me to relax, and it'll be over soon."

"What will be over?"

Anders started to panic. "It's that table again."

"Table? The one they put you on the first time?" [Note--some of Al's questions are terribly leading, I realize.]

"Yeah--only it's not the same because these guys are different. But it looks the same. I mean, I know it does the same thing."

"Describe it."

"I don't want to."

"It'll be better if you do."

"It's--I don't know, long and metallic, kind of; it's hard. Cold. They're--they're putting me on it right now. Jeez! It's cold!"

The next question Al asked caught Puck completely off-guard. "Are you dressed?"

But Anders answered as if it were the most normal question in the world. "Yeah. At least that much is okay."

Al nodded.

"But I can feel this table right through--man! Haven't you ever heard of heat?" Anders shivered. "Their hands are cold, too. They have cold little hands--what are you doing?!"

"What's going on, Anders? Is it the same thing as before?"

"It's I--I don't know--I can't see what--aaaaAAHHHHH!!"

Al dropped his pencil and covered his ears. Puck winced and drew back. Anders twisted his head from side to side and suddenly stopped, but writhed as if he wanted to escape something.

"What are they doing, Anders?" Al had to shout over his screech.

"Sticking--something--" Anders howled again. "BEDSIDE MANNERS!!" He hissed through his teeth and sank back on the couch; suddenly his arms were free again, and he covered his nose.

"God," Puck said. "I know what that is."

"Ooowwww," Anders moaned. "What'd they put up there?"

"What did they do?" Al persisted.

"They stuck something up my nose, damn it!! Those scums STUCK SOMETHING UP MY FRIGGIN' NOSE!!"

Al winced again, still taking notes. "Calm down, Anders. It's just a memory. Do they tell you anything?"

"Why the hell did you do that?" Anders snapped at the air, still holding his nose. He shook his head furiously. "Oh no, I won't let you off with that! I want explanations! I want to know why you just rammed something up my nose!"

"What do they say, Anders?"

"God! Don't they answer anything?" Anders hissed again, this time in fury. "'We must monitor you.' That's all the little scum says. They won't even apologize! Stinking freaks--don't they have any bedside manners?"

Puck tried not to, but again a smile crept up his face. Leave it to Anders to fight till the end--even if it meant simply getting an explanation.

"Does anything else happen after this?"

"No...not much. They kind of help me up--I can get up on my own, thank you." He yanked his arm away from an invisible source, then frowned. "I think they're confused. Hell! The things don't even understand why I'm mad. Haven't you ever heard of emotion?"

"What do they say to that?"

"Well...this one on my left, the little sucker, he just kind of looks at me again. Like, what? He doesn't understand me." He sighed and put his head down again.

"What's happening?"

"They're kind of, floating me down again. I can't remember leaving the ship, uh--UFO whatever; I don't know." Al and Puck looked up, noticing his speech was getting confused. "I hear a beeping somewhere--I don't know--a beeping in my head. I guess they're doing something. I though they were done. I guess they'll never be."

"Never be what, Anders?"

"I don't know...never be done." He sighed again and rubbed his eyes. "Tired."

"Go on."

Anders immediately jumped and gasped. "God! Weird dream."

"What did you dream about, Anders?"

"I was kind of running, to catch this bus, and--uh--" He stopped yawned, running his hands down his face, then drew them back. [Note--there should be a comma after "stopped."] "Holy cow--"

"You might want to wake him up now," Puck cautioned.

Anders screamed. The other two winced and covered their ears in unision [sic]. Either the room had good acoustics, or Anders was a very good screamer.

"What is it?" Al asked.

"God, what happened?" Anders shrieked. "What'd I do?" He started looking around himself wildly, and his closed eyes kept returning to his hands.

"Wake him up! I can explain," Puck said.

"Anders, Anders, when I count to three, you'll wake up," Al said. "We've done this before--as soon as I reach three, you'll come out of it; you won't be panicked, and you'll remember everything you've said here. One, two, three."

Anders's eyes opened, and his breathing slowed; he looked at his hands and, seeing they weren't bloody, let out a sigh of relief. "That was too real!" he said. Then a thought struck him, and he slid his legs off the couch and turned to face the others.

"Al, what was all that?" he asked. "That night I thought I just had a weird dream--but all of that was going on. How could I have had a dream if I was up there with them the whole time?"

"It's called masking," Al replied. "If this whole situation were being perpetrated by aliens, then it's only logical that they'd want you to forget everything that happened; maybe this memory was too strong to just 'forget,' so they attempted to mask it as a dream. Other abductees report this; some remember seeing animals looking at them, animals with large dark eyes--sort of like aliens." He shrugged. "Sort of like your owls."

Anders turned to Puck to ask his opinion; he was startled to see that Puck's face had gone deathly pale. "Puck? Jeez, are you all right?"

"Masking--animals," Puck said, in barely a whisper. "I--" He stopped, and looked at them, first at Anders, then at Al. "I--uh--" He stopped again, his face now turning red. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "It's just--I think maybe it is a little hot out lately."

"That's true," Al agreed, getting up and clearing away his notes and tape recorder. He stretched, and Anders got up and did the same. Puck found himself mechanically following. "How's lemonade sound? I make great lemonade. I just decided to one day, and boom, from then on I can suddenly make it like there's no tomorrow. How about you two go on outside to the porch and cool off, and I'll get some glasses made up?"

"That sounds good," Anders said. "Thanks."

He and Puck made their way through the cluttered house to the porch, on Al's directions; Anders was busy talking about how what he'd remembered might correspond with the dream, but Puck's thoughts were miles away, centered on the dark stare of a snow-white deer.