Stotter had been chasing lights in the night sky since he was old enough to drive. As a boy he had listened to his father tell stories about his days in the army. John Stotter had been stationed at the army’s guided missile base at White Sands shortly after the end of World War II where a classified program did test launches of German V-2 rockets. Fifty miles to the east was a nuclear-testing facility at Alamogordo and also nearby was the army’s 509th airfield just outside Roswell, New Mexico.
The story Wesley Stotter enjoyed the most was the one his father told about being on night patrol July 1, 1947, when he watched an alien spaceship fall out of the night sky and slam into the desert. John Stotter had been one of the first to arrive at the crash site. His description of what he saw that night could still raise the hair on Wesley’s arms.
Wesley Stotter would be sixty next year and as a self-professed expert in UFOs he had seen many strange things, but he had yet to experience anything like his father’s close encounter.
Maybe tonight was that night.
The lights stopped before reaching Stotter and hovered over an area of sand dunes. Somewhere in between Stotter knew that the Dismal River snaked through pasture land. The water separated grazing fields from the national forest. Stotter contemplated driving closer but there were no roads. Only sandy, bumpy cattle trails in the tall grass. He couldn’t risk spinning the tires of the Stottermobile and getting stuck in a blowout or scraping off the muffler again like he did two weeks ago.
He loved his Roadmaster. The wood panel had one small scruff—that was all—and the interior was still in pristine condition. Every year he told himself maybe he should get an off-road vehicle, but money was tight these days. His syndicated radio gig didn’t pay much and his UFO Network depended on membership fees.
Stotter missed the days of the Comet Hale-Bopp and cults like Heaven’s Gate stirring up the public. How could you beat or replicate young followers putting on their Nike high-tops, tightening plastic bags over their heads, then lying down and waiting for the spacecraft traveling in the tale of the comet to come and whisk them away to their greater destiny? No one could make up crap that good.
These days the Internet allowed UFO junkies to get their fill 24/7. They didn’t have to depend on Wesley Stotter. But just as the economy was cyclical, so was alien fascination. The more unsure and chaotic the world became, the more people started looking for something to blame their fears on. So Stotter’s webcam investment was giving Stottermania a second life.
He continued his narration for his radio audience, slipping in his characteristic tidbits of history and folklore, the kinds of things his cult following gobbled up.
“This is sacred land,” he said in a soft reverent tone and yes, sure, a bit theatrical. “The Cheyenne hid in these valleys in between sand dunes, surviving a brutal fall and winter in 1878–79. Soldiers from Fort Robinson hunted them down, wanting to imprison them. When that didn’t work, they slaughtered more than sixty men, women, and children right here in these valleys.
“They say the Dismal River ran red with their blood. So you might, indeed, call this hallowed ground. Coincidence that another civilization would hone in and choose the sky over this same valley where the energy of Cheyenne spirits still rise up at twilight? Nope. I don’t think so.”
Stotter’s hands were steady now, the camera tracking the lights. How many minutes had it been? They had remained stationary for so long that anyone first seeing them might simply think they were stars.
Then just as suddenly as they had appeared, they shot out, so quickly Stotter couldn’t move the camera fast enough. They streaked above him, shooting up and out, like meteors, only no jet stream, no cosmic dust was left behind. Without a sound they were gone.
Stotter stayed plastered to the side of the car where he had leaned to hold himself up. His head tilted back, his face to the sky, mouth gaping. Only now did he notice his flannel shirt was glued to his sweat-drenched back. His beard itched and his balding scalp tingled. There was a ringing in his ears and it felt like an electrical surge had passed through him.
He glanced back, expecting the lightning to be close. Instead the thunderheads stayed on the horizon. In the twilight they looked more like mountains than clouds.
He signed off and managed to reach up and click off his microphone. That’s when he heard a voice saying “… asking all emergency personnel … ”
It was his police scanner. Had they seen the lights?
“ … reporting injuries. Southwest side of the forest off Highway 83.”
Wesley Stotter spun around to look at the sky over the national forest. It was in the opposite direction of where he had seen the lights. But it had to be related.
He checked his watch. Then he rammed his equipment back into the duffel bag. Slammed the tailgate, making three attempts before it stuck in place.
He was close enough that he could be one of the first to arrive. He would witness the damage before anyone had a chance to cover it up this time.
FIVE
Maggie recognized the smell from another time, another place. Scorched flesh, singed hair. This is what her father smelled like lying inside his casket. He had been a firefighter, killed in the line of duty. Maggie would never forget the smell of his burned flesh, despite the plastic wrapped around his arms and legs.
The odor was alarming, but it was the moans—soft, wounded cries in the darkness—that unnerved Maggie the most. She wasn’t a first responder. Though she knew CPR, most of her victims didn’t need it. Usually, by the time Maggie arrived, they were dead.
Slices of light from high-powered flashlights caught the huddled figures crouching, hiding. Leaves swirled and skittered away like frightened animals.
Maggie would never forget the looks on their faces. Eyes wide. Lips trembling. Some of them mumbled incoherently. Hands and arms flayed in front of them, jerking under the flashlight beams like stoned dancers under a revolving disco ball.
Maggie had put on her leather jacket before leaving the pickup but her chill came from within. The darkness inside the forest disarmed her, swallowing up everything that the flashlights missed.
The canopy of branches became a moving ceiling, creaking and swaying. Gaps allowed a view of black sky. Once in a while the full moon pierced through the cloud cover—the result a brief and startling streak of sudden illumination.
A tall, thin forest ranger named Hank guided Maggie and Donny. He had met them at the main campground, telling them they wouldn’t be able to get a vehicle down to the site.
“You’re the first to arrive,” he had said with such relief Maggie found herself hoping Donny would know what to do with the injured. Her specialty—heaven forbid it was called on—would be dealing with those who could afford to wait.
“Damn, it’s steep,” Donny kept repeating.
Maggie was thinking the same thing as she followed him down an overgrown trail, feeling more than seeing, grabbing branches before they whipped into her face, missing a few and feeling the sting. How the hell were they going to get the injured back up this path?
By the time the three of them reached a flat clearing, they were breathing hard. Maggie felt sweat trickle down her back despite the cold.
“We’re here to help,” Donny called out so low and gentle Maggie wondered if anyone heard him. “We need to get some light down here, Hank.”
“I’ve got one of my guys bringing down strobes with a mobile generator.”
The dispatcher’s details had been scant. She’d received a 911 call from the forest, but the cell reception kept cutting out so she had trouble deciphering the message. A group of teenagers had been attacked. There were injuries. No, they didn’t know who—or what, she had emphasized—had attacked them. She added that the caller sounded stoned and he wouldn’t tell her why they had been in the forest.
“You’re an EMT, right?” Donny asked Hank.
“Yes, sir.”
“Agent O’Dell?”
“No.”
/> “But you know the basics?”
“Very basics. I’m a little rusty.”
“Let’s do a quick check.”
Donny tipped his flashlight back at himself.
“I’m State Patrolman Donny Fergussen. We’re here to help. You’re not in trouble. If you’re hurt, call out. If someone’s hurt next to you, call out for them.”
Silence. Even the moans went quiet.
An owl hooted. Branches creaked in the breeze.
Finally a voice, a girl’s, thin and high-pitched, yelled, “Over here.”
Another voice, a male from the opposite side of the darkness. “I’m hurt pretty bad.”
Then another girl’s voice, on the verge of tears. “I think he’s dead. He’s not moving. Oh my God, he’s not breathing.”
Donny looked to Hank, the only EMT. The ranger simply said, “I’ll take that one.” He shot his flashlight in the direction and followed the beam.
Donny pointed the opposite way to indicate that he’d take the “hurt pretty bad” male. That left Maggie with only her pen-size Maglite to check the girl. She avoided shining it in their faces, scanning for anyone down and not moving. Two girls huddled together under a tree. Maggie tried to get a take on the area while making her way to them. She walked slowly, acutely aware of not disturbing what could be a crime scene.
Hank had led them down through the forest but on the other side of this clearing Maggie could see the rolling hills of pasture separated from the forest by a barbed-wire fence. And close by there had to be a river—she could hear water.
Her penlight picked up something fluttering in the branches, hanging down from a pine tree about ten feet away. She needed to check on the girls first. Maggie swept the light across the path with slow swipes. Every time the beam brushed close, the girls jerked as if the thin razor of light had sliced them.
“Are you two okay?”
They stared at her with glassy eyes. One finally nodded. The other girl lifted her arm to Maggie and said, “He bit me.”
Maggie bent down a couple of feet in front of them so she could get a better look without startling them again. She traced over the girl’s arm with the penlight, making the girl jump back.
“I won’t hurt you. I just want to see your arm.” Still that blank stare. “I’m Maggie. What’s your name?”
“Amanda,” the girl with the bite mark said and batted the hair out of her face.
Both of the girls were in shock but other than the bite mark Maggie couldn’t see any blood. The other girl’s eyes stared, still wide and unblinking, at something above and beyond Maggie’s head. She turned to track what it was. The dark object hanging from the tree swayed back and forth.
Maggie stood, flicked the penlight up, and pointed as she moved closer. It looked like a dark piece of cloth pierced on the branch. She was almost directly underneath it when she realized it was an owl, hanging upside down.
A dead owl.
Startled, Maggie took a quick step aside and tripped over a log. She lost her balance and fell, hitting the ground hard and dropping her light.
“Agent O’Dell?” She heard Donny call out. “You okay?”
Maggie fumbled in the pine needles, trying to get back up while her hands searched for her penlight. It was still on, about three feet away. She reached for it just as she noticed what it was that she had tripped over.
The beam of light shined directly into the wide-open eyes of a boy who appeared to be dead.
Then he blinked.
SIX
Wesley Stotter knew a back way to the forest. The sandy road became impassable after a little rain but with any luck he’d be out of there by the time those thunderheads arrived.
The grass was almost taller than the Stottermobile. Even the grass growing in the middle of the tire tracks scraped the bottom of his car. The sand sent him sashaying if he went too fast. Yet he pressed down the accelerator. No way could he climb it on foot. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have hesitated. He didn’t mind growing older until he realized one more physical limitation.
Grasses gave way to trees. Back here were oaks instead of ponderosa pine. The leaves had started changing, some had already fallen. The road wound in such tight turns it was impossible to see what was around the next corner. Branches hung low enough to scratch the car’s roof rack. The trees had been planted in straight rows years ago but brush filled in the rows and in the moonlight shadows seemed to spread and devour any openings.
Just a little ways more and he would get to the clearing. A couple more bends to climb around. Then it would be a short hike down to where he believed the radio dispatcher had sent emergency personnel.
He goosed the accelerator a little more, fishtailing in the sand before turning up the next curve. Stotter thought he saw movement to his right between the trees. He slowed and craned his neck to get a better look out the passenger window.
Someone was running. Someone or something.
The front of its face bulged, the back looked hunched. The head swiveled and it looked at Stotter with glowing red eyes.
Then it was gone before Stotter had a chance to decide whether he had really seen anything at all.
He sped up, winding around the trees when a flash of light blinded him.
Stotter slammed on the brakes and held his arms up in front of his face to protect his eyes. The light swept back and forth over the hood. The engine coughed and died. The headlights went dark. He kept one arm up while he fumbled for the keys. Found them and twisted. No response.
The light flashed off. Then came back, piercing him.
A burning sensation raced through his body. His stomach, his lungs, his heart felt like they were on fire. The pain was unbearable, a flame sweeping through his veins. He thought his chest would explode.
And then it stopped.
It took him a minute to unclench his body, to breathe, to open his eyes. That’s when he realized the light was gone, too. Only darkness surrounded the Roadmaster. Darkness and silence.
He tried to look out the windows but his vision had blurred. The light had blinded his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to see a man—or an alien—if he was standing in front of him at the hood of the car.
Stotter grabbed for the key in the ignition and turned it again.
Nothing.
Usually there was enough battery juice left for the dome light. Whatever that beam of light was, it had knocked out the entire electrical system of his vehicle.
He crawled frantically around, locking all the doors. He climbed over the backseat to retrieve his duffel bag, yanked it open, and started pulling out item after item until he found it.
He wrapped shaking arthritic fingers around the handle of a Colt .45.
SEVEN
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Maggie told the boy.
His eyes darted back and forth like a wild animal captured.
“Try not to move,” she said when she saw the barbed wire wrapped around his body. But he hadn’t even attempted to move and she wondered if he couldn’t, either from fear or pain. Like the girls, he was definitely in shock.
She swept her light as discreetly as possible, scanning the length of his body. She had to force herself not to wince when she saw the sharp barbs stuck tight into his arms, his chest … dear God, even his neck. It looked as if someone had rolled the wire around his body, cinching it tight, piercing him deep with every barb. Was it possible he had run into a fence and accidentally wrapped it around himself?
“Ibba … I … so hot,” he stuttered.
Maggie crawled over and sat back on her haunches. For the first time she saw blood. So much blood. She felt it now, slick on her hands and her jeans where she had fallen.
In her ten years as an FBI agent, Maggie had seen cruel and brutal wounds, bloody dismembered bodies, organs left in containers, and only once had she gotten physically ill. But she felt nauseated now. It wasn’t the sight of blood still pouring from a live body but rather her inability to stop it.
She thought she had compartmentalized the memories, but suddenly the images flooded her brain of a long-ago killer making her watch. It wasn’t the splatters of blood or the victims’ screams that haunted her nightmares as much as the sense of complete and utter helplessness. And that’s exactly what she was feeling now.
She considered calling Donny but she was afraid to even raise her voice. She was hesitant to move, because she didn’t want to startle the boy any more than he already was.
Dark pools of blood covered the leaves and pine needles beneath him. His shirt was wet and rusty with it, and yet the overwhelming smell Maggie noticed was not of blood but of singed hair and burned flesh.
She examined the wire again. She couldn’t see a single strand that didn’t have barbs. It wasn’t the plain electric wires that Donny had pointed out to her earlier.
She leaned in close enough to see that the neck wound had congealed blood around the razor-sharp barbs buried in the flesh. That was good. It wasn’t gushing blood, which most likely meant it had not hit the jugular. But his neck muscles bulged against the restraint and a blue vein pulsed against bright red skin.
“Holy crap!” Donny whispered from behind her and Maggie felt a sigh of relief.
The boy’s eyes didn’t look up at the new voice. They stayed on Maggie’s. Hard and tight on her. That was good, too. She had become a focal point for him. Maybe not so good. She had no clue what to do as his focal point.
“I’m not sure if he’s still bleeding,” she said without breaking eye contact and surprised to hear her voice remarkably calm and steady. “He’s definitely in shock.”