CHAPTER 7: A PARTING GIFT

When the sun rose on the horizon, Envy was still on watch, huddled over the fire, casting anxious looks down the mountain at what had once been Palmer. Both Rusty and Douglass had fallen soundly asleep, and she didn’t want to wake them to tell them about the massive, lacy silver structure now dominating the Mat-Su Valley.

It looked bigger than any New York skyscraper, with smooth, flowing lines and open, holey architecture that reminded her of filigreed spiderwebbing. It stood where the bluish ‘force field’ had been, built around the massive hole the spacecraft had pounded into the earth.

She’d been watching it for hours, trying to determine what to do about it. She’d seen nothing coming nor going from it, no sign of alien life or spacecraft, but the feeling she was getting from it was making her feel sick to her stomach. Whatever it was, however pretty it was, it didn’t have humanity’s best interests in mind.

She was also trying to figure out how to explain to Rusty that the best course of action probably wasn’t to run down to the Mat-Su’s very first skyscraper and bang on the front door with a backpack of white phosphorus.

Then there was the doctor. One time had been a simple mistake, but he had willfully dumped all their firewood on the fire so that she’d spent a good portion of the night trudging around in deep snow and heavy brush looking for kindling in the dark, all while he slept in her bed.

She knew the exhaustion was making her less than charitable, but she also knew that if he really was blind, he was going to be one hell of a burden on them. If he wasn’t blind, and was just faking it, though, that was even worse. After her hellish night waiting for dawn as he snored in the tent, that would get him dumped down the mountain in a flat second.

She wouldn’t let Rusty kill him, but she was starting to think that maybe the guy really needed an attitude adjustment in the shape of a size-twelve boot up his ass.

When Rusty finally stirred in the tent, Envy had pretty much decided on what to tell him: Yes, it looks pretty. Yes, it looks expensive. Yes, it was built by aliens. No, they weren’t going to go take a look. Until further notice, no-touchy.

“Man, it’s already dawn?” Rusty asked, sounding crestfallen as he crawled out of the tent. “You were supposed to wake me up at six, Miss Travis!”

“Call me Captain—it sounds better,” Envy muttered. “Less BDSM, more Firefly.” Man she was in a bitchy mood.

“Okay, Captain.” Without even missing a beat.

Envy opened her mouth to tell him where he could stuff his attitude, then realized she was probably the one with the attitude, then just shut her mouth before she said something she would regret. “Look,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the turd the alien ship had deposited on their lawn. “Whatever it is, we’re not going down there to figure it out. Not for a few days, at least. It’s giving me the unholy heebie-jeebies.”

“Okay, Captain,” Rusty said, nodding as he looked the thing over.

Envy considered telling him to go back to calling her ‘Miss Travis’, but realized it really didn’t matter. Judging by the intricacy of the gleaming alien edifice, humanity was definitely a few rungs lower on the food chain.

“So what is it?” Rusty asked, staring down at it. “A temple?”

Now there was an idea. “Maybe they want us to worship them?” She glanced over her shoulder at the gorgeous metal lacework towering over the remnants of Palmer, then shook her head and tossed another stick disgustedly on the fire. “Don’t know. Hell, maybe it’s a communications tower.” The structure kinda looked right, but less erector-set and more elfin fortress.

“So…” Rusty offered, “…is it safe to go down there yet?”

That was the most frustrating thing. Sure, the alien ship was gone, but that gut-deep dread of being in the lowlands hadn’t abated whatsoever. If anything, it had gotten worse. Just the idea of going down into the valley right now was making her physically ill.

Or was that the night of no sleep, shivering next to a tiny fire as an alien ship pounded a hole in the Earth?

“I don’t think so,” she admitted. Then she sighed and threw another stick on the fire. “Hell, I know so.”

“So they’re down there,” Rusty said, grimness etching his face, “in that building.”

That didn’t feel right. “Maybe,” she conceded.

“You don’t sound so sure,” Rusty said. His face got a little streak of hope. “Are they gone? Up and left?”

Immediately, she knew that was not the case. “No.” Envy shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure they’re out there somewhere. I just don’t think they’re in that building…or whatever it is.”

Then came the inevitable, “So what do we do now, Captain?”

Envy had spent all morning thinking about that, dozing in and out while sitting with her knees to her chest and shivering. “I think being up here on mountain’s gonna keep us alive somehow,” she said. She grimaced. “Wish I knew more than that.”

Rusty seemed to digest that in silence a moment. Then, from the tent, there was a nervous, “Hey, uh, Miss Travis? Think you could come talk to me for a sec?”

“He’s fakin’ it,” Rusty muttered. “Just didn’t wanna stand watch.”

Envy knew that wasn’t the case, but also knew it would be better if the big man didn’t think Douglass was just slacking off because he was a wimp. “I’ll talk to him. You go get some more firewood—I think we’re gonna be here at least another day.” She got up and went over to the tent and found the doctor exactly where she’d left him, wide-eyed, unseeing, clutching the blanket with both fists.

Seeing his obvious terror, Envy felt a little sorry for him, despite her bad mood. It could have been any of them in his place, she knew, and she supposed she owed him something for that. She got down on her knees and crawled into the tent. “What’s up?” she asked, watching Rusty trudge down the mountainside through the open tent.

“I still can’t see,” Douglass said.

“Nothing?” Envy asked.

His head-shake was her only response.

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Shit. Envy didn’t know what to say. She felt bad about what she’d told him the night before about pulling his weight, but she didn’t feel any different about it this morning. In fact, cranky and sleep-deprived as she was, she felt more likely to ditch him for his next kerosene-dumping episode. How could someone who had gone to Harvard be so damned stupid?

As if sensing her train of thought, Douglass whispered, “I’m really sorry about the kerosene.”

“We’ll find some more,” she muttered, instantly feeling guilty. “You just didn’t know better.” The reality of the situation, however, was making her question whether or not they could afford to drag a blind city-slicker around with them, even if he was a doctor. She knew it was harsh, and inhumane, but she also knew it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to stay alive on a planet without electricity.

Hard…but not impossible.

“You’re not gonna leave me once you guys decide to break camp, right?” Douglass asked, his eyes flickering to stare sightlessly somewhere about six inches to the left of her head.

“Look, the shit hasn’t hit the fan yet,” Envy said. “Nobody’s leaving anybody.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Douglass said. He hesitated, biting his lip. “I’m…hearing…something, and I don’t like it. Been hearing it all morning.”

Probably heard himself snoring in my spot, Envy thought, irritated all over again. “Oh yeah? What are you hearing?”

Douglass swallowed hard. “Screaming.”

Envy squinted at him. “Screaming?”

His eyes flickered closer to her face this time, seeking, but still didn’t focus. “I was waiting to see if you guys noticed it, but nobody said anything, so I figured it was just me.”

“You’re hearing screaming right now?” Envy glanced out over the windswept mountainside, where the only sounds were those of the breeze moving the willow trees and whistling through the grasses.

But Douglass nodded.

She squinted at him. Maybe the poor guy had fizzled something in the blast last night. “What kind of screaming?”

“It’s…” He hesitated, his chest rising and falling slowly as he struggled for words. “It’s like the Earth is screaming.”

“The Earth.”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” he whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut and she saw tears. “Fuck, you two are gonna leave me. I know it.”

“Suck it up and tell me why the Earth is screaming,” Envy said. “Was it screaming when the alien spaceship was slamming into it? When did it start?”

“In the middle of the night,” Douglass said. “It happens every couple minutes or so.” He hesitated again. “And when it screams, my vision goes blue.”

That…was weird. “Uh, well, you’re the doctor. Maybe you hit your head in the first blast.”

“That’s what I thought,” Douglass told her. “Brain damage. Delusions. But when you sit there, talking, I see rainbows.”

“Rainbows.”

Douglass nodded, biting his lip.

The guy was totally off his goddamn rocker, and she was out of patience.

“That’s nice, Douglass. Think you could get out of the sleeping bag for a bit and give me a chance to sleep?”

His fingers tightened reflexively on the fabric, but then he started pulling it away from his body, looking blindly ahead. He crawled from the bag and awkwardly out into the snow.

Immediately, she felt bad, but Envy was tired, cold, and so exhausted she was about to start seeing rainbows of her own. She helped him find a seat next to the fire, then crawled into the bed to pass out for a couple of hours.

It felt like she had been asleep for only twenty minutes before she heard Rusty shout, “Leave her alone! She’s tired, dipshit!”

“She needs to know something,” Douglass said, panting, obviously in some sort of scuffle outside the tent entrance.

“I said back off!” There was a grunt, then someone stumbled and hit the ground hard.

“Leave him alone, Rusty,” Envy said, yanking the tent flap open.

Rusty looked rebuked. “I was just trying to keep him from waking you—”

“Yeah, well, he hit his head and his eyes haven’t adjusted yet, just give him a break.” She went over to Douglass, who was sprawled on the ground, and squatted beside him. “What’s up?” she asked, as his eyes struggled to focus on her.

“The color changed,” Douglass panted like it was the most important thing in the world. “Went from blue to red.”

For the longest time, Envy stared at him until she was absolutely sure she had heard him correctly. “You woke me up because your delusion changed colors.”

“Screams changed too,” he said. “They’re happening all the—” He winced and threw his hands to his ears, moaning and curling into a ball at her feet. “Shit, shit!” he cried, shuddering. “Fuck that hurts so bad, fuck!”

The way his body was contorting didn’t look healthy to Envy, and it cut through her irritation. “What is that, some sort of seizure?” she asked reluctantly.

Gasping, Douglass shook his head. “Never…heard…of anything…like this…” he gritted, grabbing both ears in white-knuckled grips like he wanted to rip them off. Then, all of a sudden, he relaxed completely, gasping. “Oh my God.”

“Uh,” Envy said, glancing at Rusty, “I’m not hearing anything screaming. Are you?”

Rusty was frowning at the doctor. “He hit his head?”

Douglass’s reply was another groan, his whole body bending double as he shuddered, ramming both palms to his head. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” he screamed through gritted teeth. “Oh god fuck!” His whole body was trembling, sweating and completely tensed so rigid that it looked like bones would snap.

Despite herself, Envy stood up, unnerved by the display.

It was over in a minute, and Douglass flopped back, hyperventilating.

“Guys,” Douglass gasped, “I don’t know how much more of that I can stand.”

Rusty snorted and raised a beefy arm to gesture at the empty mountainside around them. “Can’t stand much more of what, city boy? There’s nothing here—”

No sooner had Rusty opened his mouth than the ground beneath their feet started rumbling in the biggest, most terrifying earthquake that Envy had ever experienced in six years in Alaska. It threw her from her feet, then rolled her like a dowel rod across the land, back and forth, uphill. Rolling on the ground beside her, Douglass was screaming for real, now. Even Rusty started letting out a shrill-yet-manly cry as the shaking continued, more violent and fearsome than anything she had even thought possible. She heard the rumble of big rocks falling, dislodged from the mountains around them, but her body was essentially a ping pong ball at the mercy of a vacuum cleaner.

“What’s happening—?” Envy cried, finally managing to flatten out on the ground, spread-eagle, and stay there.

“Earthquake!” Rusty called, his voice chopped up by the rumble.

Thank you, Lieutenant Obvious.

The earthquake kept going, and Douglass kept screaming. Not terrified shrieks, either, but shrieks of pain. Like someone in deep, mindless agony. Even with the ground tossing her around, Envy knew that wasn’t normal.

She wasn’t sure how long it lasted—she didn’t have a working watch—but by the time the earthquake finally passed, Envy had begun to think it wouldn’t. Still, after it was over, she stayed glued to the ground, hot sweat even then cooling on her back, swept away by the easy mountain breeze. Her whole body was shaking with fear and adrenaline, and she wasn’t sure which way was up.

Rusty, for his part, lunged to his feet. “Fourteen minutes, seventeen seconds—whooo-eee!” He actually looked like he’d won the lottery. “That’s gotta be a record!”

Envy, who felt like vomiting from the way the ground had been rolling, swallowed back bile. She gingerly lifted her head to glance at the mountains around her. Some of the higher peaks had collapsed to sheaves of rubble, and a big oblong boulder had rolled to a stop in the blueberry bushes only fifteen feet from where they lay, lichens clinging to its underbelly from where it had once been facing the sky.

That almost killed us and I didn’t even notice, Envy thought, numb.

On the ground beside her, Douglass had devolved into quiet, despondent sobs, his shoulders quaking as he lay curled in a fetal position. She moved closer to him and touched his shoulder. “You okay?”

Eyes squeezed shut against tears, Douglass shook his head.

Envy bit her lip and glanced back down the valley at the looming lattice of alien metalwork. “All right, guys,” she said, “that wasn’t a coincidence.”

“No shit,” Douglass sobbed, with more anger than she was expecting.

“So you think it decided to blow up the planet?” Rusty asked. “Decided to nip us off in the bud, before we could become a threat?”

Seeing the gleaming metal megalith towering over the Mat-Su, Envy knew it would have taken a few thousand years’ advancement before the human species had become any sort of threat. “I don’t think so,” she whispered. But, as much as she tried to piece together a pattern to what was happening, she couldn’t, not even when she tried feeling it out.

“So…” Rusty offered, “is it safe to go down there yet?”

As soon as he said it, the pang of soul-grinding terror that hit Envy brought her to her knees.

It was Douglass, however, who said around sobs, “No. It’s about to get worse…”