Monster

  After some time she felt the wind on her face. The sun, a huge ball of fire in the sky, stung her eyes. Everything seemed strange to her, and yet she knew this place. Her body had grown up here. This was the Earth, and this had been home before she had been consumed by the World. She felt no nostalgia upon returning, only her need to feed.

  In the distance she saw human beings approach. She smiled and waved at them as she stepped away from the vehicle that had brought her to Earth. She spoke to them. They were happy to see her again. They thought she was the one who had left the Earth months earlier to explore the World. They didn't know that the whole time she spoke to them she thought only of how they would taste. Later, in the dark, she would know.

  The sun was too bright. It made her feel weak.

  She was anxious to get inside and sleep.

  And dream.

  She dreamed many dreams. That was all there was in the mind of the World. Nightmare upon nightmare. There was no need to awake, it constantly whispered.

  But her body eventually awoke and went forward with a vengeance.

  Time passed. Nights of feeding. Days of deception. Nights of stalking. Then, in the end, days of hiding, of fleeing. Because in time all the close friends of the body she inhabited were dead and eaten, or else they were like herself, running from those who had begun to suspect that the far-off World was not a place to build a second home but a place to die a death that never ended.

  In the end hiding became much more difficult because as time passed the body changed into a thing that brought terror to those who laid eyes upon it. Yet this new body was superior in many ways. It was stronger; it could fly. She could feed in one spot and be many miles away a short time later. But she had also changed in a manner different from anything that walked the Earth. She could no longer disguise herself or her true purpose. Feeding became difficult, then next to impossible. She began to weaken. The sun became intolerable, and she shunned it in the depths of the Earth. But that was a mistake, for she boxed herself in. With a group of those she had transformed she was cornered in a black cave. Humans in red uniforms broke in. Hand-held weapons that fired beams of burning ruby light flashed before her eyes. One of her kind was hauled into the circle of weapons and decapitated by a beam that cut down everything in its path. Then another of her kind was killed, and still another, until she was all that remained. The humans gathered round her, and there was triumph in their eyes. But she did not beg for mercy. She was a part of the World. It would live forever. More humans would travel from the third planet to the fifth, and more of her kind would take birth. The seeds of the World would spread. In the end its hunger would be satisfied.

  Which was her last thought as her head was sliced from off her body.

  Angela awoke and opened her eyes. She lay all alone on top of her bed. She was freezing cold and had to pull the blankets over her. As she did so she saw Jim sitting naked on the balcony, staring out at the dark water of the lake.

  “Jim,” she called. “Come back to bed.”

  He ignored her. His body was so ghostly in the light of the moon it could have been made of imagination. She’d talk to him in a minute. Now she was hungry. Getting up, she crept into the kitchen.

  The clock read exactly twelve midnight, but the second-hand did not move as she watched it. Broken, she thought – it felt much later than midnight. She opened the icebox and took out two steaks. They sizzled in the pan as she turned up the flame of the stove, but she didn't let them cook long. She just wanted to take the chill off, make them taste as if they had been alive not long before.

  She ate both steaks without asking Jim if he wanted one.

  He could get his own food, she thought.

  Later, when she returned to the bedroom, Jim was no longer on the balcony, or anywhere else. She stepped out into the night and peered at the water, watching the ripples rock back and forth. They were strong in the immediate area; it was as if someone had just dived in.

  “Jim?” she called.

  She had heard no splash.

  And as she waited nobody surfaced.

  “Sethia,” she whispered. The word filled her with dread yet seemed to bring her back to her senses. She turned and walked back into the house. In the bathroom she took the amulet Shining Feather had given her and placed it round her neck. Almost immediately she remembered her nightmare and her long, cold swim with Jim. Her tongue ached in her mouth. He had bitten her. Or had she bitten both of them? She could not be sure.

  Once more, as it had the previous night, her stomach lurched, and she thought she'd vomit up the meat she had just eaten. But the steaks stayed down, and soon she was able to get back into bed and cover herself. She fell asleep holding on to the decapitated bat. Horrible as the gold carving was, it seemed to keep away the bad dreams.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Classes were not in session at the University of Michigan on Sunday. Angela didn't expect them to be. But she drove the two hours to the college with the hope that she'd at least be able to find one person who could tell her how to get hold of Professor Alan Spark, the author of the article she had read on the meteor. Luck was with her. She spoke to only one janitor and two students in the science building and was directed straight to the professor himself. It seemed Spark reserved private tutorial hours on the weekends for his students.

  He was unoccupied when she entered his office. A tall thin man of about forty, he had a trimmed brown moustache and the nervous movements of a bona fide bookworm. Judging by the photographs hanging on his walls, which showed him in various exotic parts of the world, he led an interesting life. He welcomed her and asked her to have a seat. At first he thought she was one of his students. She quickly explained that she was a senior at Point High and that she was doing an article for The Point Herald on the safety of the water she and her classmates were drinking. He asked where she had heard of him, and she showed him the article from the science journal, which she had stolen from the library. He was immediately interested.

  “I can give you my point of view on the matter,” he said. “But I'll have to ask that you keep my name out of your article.”

  “Why's that?” she asked.

  He gave a wry smile. “Because I want to continue to teach at this fine institution of higher learning, and – according to my superiors and my wife – I've created enough controversy in regard to the water in Point Lake. Of course, you remember the illnesses reported among the students at your high school last fall. I assume that's why you're doing your article.”

  “I didn't live in Point then, but I've read about them.”

  “Over thirty students reported various symptoms: nausea, headaches, blurred vision. There were several episodes of fainting. Experts were called in to study the matter: physicians and chemists and the like, I wasn't invited, however, because I was not a favourite of the local school board.”

  “Why didn't they like you?” Angela asked.

  “I had already spoken out against placing the school next to the lake well before it was built. I was specifically worried about having the school's drinking water come from the lake. I didn't believe it was healthy to drink.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “This is where I ran into difficulty with the school board and their assembled experts. I am a geologist. I am not a physician or a biologist or a chemist. My specialty was not viewed as relevant to the matter of the drinking water, although I had done extensive studies on the lake and the local terrain. My specific views, when I finally aired them, were seen as irrelevant. In fact, I could go so far as to say I seriously damaged my reputation as a scientist in general by speaking against the location of the school.”

  “What did you think was wrong with the water?” she asked. He was slow getting to the point, and she was already hungry, although she had eaten in the car before going to look for him. She had eaten pretty much non-stop since she had awakened that morning. It was the only thing that soothed the throbbing inside her head. It was ten times wor
se than it had been the day before. What the hell had Jim done to her last night? she wondered. Besides bite off a chunk of her tongue. Her mouth continued to ache.

  “You have read my article on the meteor that formed Point Lake,” Spark said. “In it I talk about the high magnetic content of the iron ore that was thrown off when the meteor struck the Earth. The effect of that magnetism is strong at the location of the school. It is extremely strong on the bedrock of the lake.” He paused. “Have you ever read about the health problems of people who live next to high-tension electrical wires?”

  “No,” Angela said.

  “They often complain of headaches and fatigue. Not all people, you understand, just some. There are various theories as to why this is so. A popular one is that the electromagnetic balance of the body is upset by the magnetic field the wires give off.”

  “Wires give off magnetic fields?” she asked. He was too much the scientist – he was losing her.

  “Yes,” he said. “A magnetic field is generated in a circular direction around electrical current of a wire. That's simple physics. Now, at Point Lake we have a situation where a large body of water is resting on top of highly magnetic iron ore bedrock. When the plans for the school were being drawn up I raised the point that I thought it might be unhealthy for the students to drink water that had been subjected to a magnetic field on a continuous basis.”

  “Can water become magnetized?” she asked.

  “This is one place where I ran into trouble with the school board and the scientific community as a whole. To answer your question – in the traditional sense, no. You cannot have magnetic water. You need a material such as iron to create a positive and magnetic polarity. By the way, do you know how many polarized atoms are required for an entire iron body to become magnetized?”

  “I can't say that I do,” Angela replied.

  “Less than one in a hundred,” Spark said.

  “Really?” Angela nodded as if she was impressed. What he was saying was interesting, but she wasn't sure where he was going with it. Her stomach growled. Feed me or I will eat you, it seemed to be saying to her.

  “It is a phase transition,” Spark continued. “One moment an iron ore is non-magnetic, and then just a few more atoms are polarized and the whole body of matter becomes magnetic. It’s a fascinating phenomenon. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. I spoke against the students drinking water that had been exposed to such a magnetic field. Even though water itself cannot be made magnetic, there are subtle changes that take place in water that has been exposed to such a field. Water is made up of two hydrogen atoms for every one of oxygen. That arrangement is not changed when water is placed close to a magnet. But the arrangement of the molecules themselves in the water probably does change.”

  “Probably?” Angela asked. “Does it or doesn't it?”

  “That change is debatable, I think it happens. I think the molecules all line up in certain ways, and that affects how the water reacts with other molecules. Other scientists say it doesn't, but in experiments it has been proven that plants that are watered with water that has sat in a magnetic container either die or don't do well.”

  “Then the water must change in some way,” Angela said.

  “That's what I say. The physicians your school board consulted with said I was talking pseudo-science. But there is one thing that is interesting about Point Lake on the surface, that makes it different from any other lake in the area.”

  “What's that?”

  “There are no fish in it. There never have been. No fish, no worms, no aquatic plants. Nothing.”

  “That's interesting,” Angela said. “You'd think that would have sounded an alarm.”

  “It didn't. But let me continue. The magnetism was only one of the things that bothered me about the water in Point Lake. There is also a high concentration of an unidentified fossilized micro-organism in and around the lake.”

  “Are you serious?” Angela asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But I thought the water was thoroughly tested. I didn't read about an unidentified micro-organism.”

  “And you won't read about it anywhere unless I write an article on the matter,” Spark said matter-of-factly. “I've studied this particular organism more closely than anybody.”

  “But didn't other people know about the organism?” Angela asked. “I can't believe they'd let us drink water that had something deadly in it.”

  “Many people knew about the organism, although, except for me, nobody knows its specific qualities. Nobody considered it dangerous.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because, as I said, it is a fossilized organism. It's dead. You cannot be infected by a dead organism.”

  “Then why were you concerned about the organism?” she asked.

  Spark hesitated. “That question opens the door to a mystery, or pseudo-science, depending on how you want to look at it.” He paused. “I don't know if this is the time or place to go into it.”

  Angela leaned forward in her seat. “Please do. I won’t put it in my article if you don't want me to.”

  “If it is of no use to your article, why do you want to hear about it?”

  “Because I'm curious,” Angela said honestly.

  Spark considered. “What inspired you to write this article now, a year after the students' complaints?”

  Angela stared him in the eye. “Students are getting sick again.”

  Spark raised an eyebrow. “I didn't know about that.”

  “We who go there know.”

  “Interesting,” Spark said. “I read about that girl at Point High who shot her friends. Did that have anything to do with what we are discussing?”

  “I think it did,” Angela said.

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “First I'd like to hear what led you to believe that a dead organism could be unhealthy.”

  “Then you will tell me what is happening at the school?”

  “I can tell you what I know,” Angela said

  “Fair enough,” Spark glanced at the door to make sure no one was listening in from the other room. “The organism concerned me because it was not in any book. It has a DNA structure unlike anything on record. In fact, I can go so far as to say it doesn't have DNA in the usual sense.”

  “Wait a second. If it is so different, wouldn't half the biologists in the country be studying it?”

  Spark spoke with anger. “There are four full professors of biology here on this campus. I have been unable to persuade even one of them to peek at this organism.”

  “That seems absurd.”

  “You don't know how badly my reputation was tarnished by my protesting the use of Point Lake as a source of drinking water. When I approached my colleagues about the organism and told them how unique I thought it was, they weren't interested. They thought I was unstable at the least. But to be fair, it is not as if a biologist can glance in a microscope and note the unusual qualities of the organism. It has to be studied for some time. My colleagues didn't want to put in the time. But let me go on. Point Lake is not the only home of this particular organism.”

  “But you said it wasn't in any book.”

  “It isn't,” he said. “But I have found it elsewhere.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “In Chile, in South America. High in the Andes.”

  Angela took in a sharp breath. “Where the other meteor crashed – the one that you mentioned in your article?”

  “That is correct. It is currently called Lake Curro. But in the language of the Ropans who used to live there, it was known as Lake Sentia.”

  “Sethia,” Angela whispered.

  Spark sat up. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I heard you. I see you have done your research. The Manton used to call Point Lake, Sethia, or Bath of Blood. The similarity in the names is disturbing, and I have no way of explaining it. Worse, I have no reasonable way of explaining why the histories of
the two lakes are the same. The Manton considered Point Lake an evil place. They—”

  “I have read the stories,” Angela interrupted.

  “I'm sure you have. You know about the KAtuu?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You might be surprised to learn that the Ropans spoke of a similar race of beings that came from Lake Sentia. They were called the Kalair.”

  “The names.” Angela gasped.

  “Again, similar. I know. It's peculiar, because the Manton and the Ropans have entirely different languages. But as far as the two meteor lakes were concerned, they were speaking the same language.”

  “What were the Kalair supposed to be like?” Angela asked.

  “The legends depict them as being like the KAtuu in many respects. They were evil. They craved human flesh. They could transform people into creatures like themselves.”

  “Could they fly?”

  “I know nothing about that attribute,” Spark said.

  “The Kalair were transformed human beings?” Angela asked.

  Spark hesitated. “It is my understanding from studying the Kalair myths that the original ones were not supposed to be from this planet.”

  “Which planet were they from?” Angela asked.

  “Now we are way off the train of scientific conjecture.”

  “I don't care. Tell me what you know.”

  Spark shrugged. “The Ropans were excellent astronomers. They knew the planets orbited the sun before Western civilization did. They believed the Kalair came from the fifth planet.”

  Most humans would travel from the third planet to the fifth, and more of her kind would take birth.

  Where did that come from? Her dream?

  What an amazing coincidence.