The Fellowship for Alien Detection (8 page)

“Night sun descending,” the woman said in a whispered monotone. “Night sun . . . night sun comes to earth, swallowed by the earth. . . . Night sun comes to earth . . . comes home. . . .”

Her arms were folded, her fingers twitching. Her pink sneakers tapped on the dirt floor.

“Hey, Mom,” said Steph. She leaned down and rubbed her mother's shoulder. “That fellowship girl is here.”

“Night sun descending and we are in the stars,” said Steph's mom, her body rocking back and forth. “We are one with space and the sun comes home . . . um, huh?” Her eyes seemed to clear up, like she'd pushed through fog. “Suza?”

“No, Mom,” said Steph, “this is that girl, Haley. The one who wanted to interview us.”

Steph's mom looked at Haley. Just looked, and Haley felt a kind of hollow sadness open up inside her. She felt a pang of guilt, too, for acting so annoyed about her own mom, and her concern for Haley's safety.

Mom's hand shot out and she clutched Steph's arm. Still looking at Haley, she asked, “Does she know the sun's come home?” Her arm started to shake, then her whole body.

“Yes, Mom, she knows,” said Steph, and she looked seriously at Haley. “Don't you?”

“I—” Steph's eyes seemed to say
play along
. “I do, yeah.”

Steph's mom smiled. “The sun is home,” she said, and the thought caused a sweet smile to break out, but at the same time, she started to cry. “Daughter for sun. Suza . . .”

She clasped her hands, fingers twitching over one another, and stared back off into space. “Night sun descending to earth and we are in the stars, we are in the stars and the sun comes home, we give our daughters for sun, we . . .”

Haley just stared, her body feeling tight, trying to understand.

“It's a dream,” said Steph.

Haley finally broke her gaze and turned to Steph. “What do you mean?”

“What she's describing: the sun falling to earth, all that stuff, it's from a dream she's had. I know, 'cause I've had it, too.” Steph nodded to Gabe. “We all have, ever since the night of the missing time.”

“You're all having the same dream,” Haley repeated, trying to make sure she was understanding.

“More like a vision. A memory, we think,” said Steph.

“A memory of what?”

Steph glanced up the aisles. “How much time do you have?”

“Um . . .” Haley checked her phone. It had been about ten minutes. “Some?”

Steph thrust her arms forward, tossing Vonnegut toward Gabe. “Watch them,” she ordered, indicating Mom with her chin. She turned to Haley. “I can show you, if you want. But we have to take a walk.”

Steph was stepping backward. Haley saw a small door back beyond the refreshments.

“Where?” Haley asked.

Steph glanced around the barn again, almost like she was wary of eavesdropping ears. “I'll tell you on the way. You coming?”

Haley felt a flutter in her gut. Her thoughts started to spiral. Was this a good idea? Or was it crazy? She glanced back out over the sea of people. Could she be sure that Mom had really left the barn? Maybe she had taken up a post somewhere to keep an eye on her. But Haley didn't see her. Still, how late could she be before her mom came looking for her? And what would Jill think if she met Steph's mom, saw how damaged she was, and learned why? She would freak. It would be the end of the trip, Haley felt sure of it. And maybe she'd be right. This was serious stuff, maybe too serious, and it was also risky to just go off with Steph. Maybe she shouldn't—

Stop!
she shouted at herself. No, she had not endured a day of car and hotel with Liam and her parents, watched others get the internships she wanted, and on and on, to
not
follow this story now. Garrett Conrad-Wayne wouldn't panic right now, he'd focus!
Look
at this woman, at this girl, and now at this mystery of the shared dream. Haley was onto something here. Something big. And it was hers to figure out and solve.

Haley took a big breath. “I can't be long, but, okay,” she said, and she followed Steph out the back door of the barn.

Amber, PA, July 3, 10:41 a.m.

“The dream started right after that night,” said Steph as they exited the barn into the brilliant hazy sunlight. “Not everyone in town will admit it, but you can tell by how everyone reacts when it comes up. Nobody really knew we were all having the same dream at first, but then, a few weeks later, this woman in town painted a picture that she said was from a dream. It showed this giant orange falling star in the night sky, and when her husband saw it, he freaked out, and then they posted it online and everybody remembered it like we'd all seen it before.”

Haley rushed to get alongside Steph. They were walking across a vacant dirt space behind the barns. The sounds of the fair were quickly growing distant behind them and being replaced by the drone of summer bugs. “What do people think it was?”

“There are a lot of different theories. Mostly that it was a UFO coming down, but that's not how I remember it. I remember it more like my mom said: like a little glowing sun floating down from the sky. My view of it was from the river walk area. This neon orange kind of light appears and lowers over the hills to the south. Then it disappears.”

They reached a chain-link fence and Steph started to haul herself over. Haley followed. The rusty links were hot to the touch. A leg of her capris snagged on the top, and there was a tearing sound as she dropped down into tall grass on the other side. Ahead was a thick grove of leafy trees, damp-looking shade beneath.

“This way,” said Steph.

Haley considered the dark forest and wondered again if this was such a good idea, but she followed.

“There's more to the dream,” said Steph. “After the falling star thing, everybody has this weird feeling of being in space, like, there are stars everywhere, above and below, except all the light is tinted orange like that sun star thing; it's like you're looking out from inside the star. But then it's weird because at the same time it's like there are rocks all around, rock walls and machinery and then space and people. It's confusing for everyone.”

They were in the trees now, pushing through clutching undergrowth. Soon they joined up with a soft brown path. The air was like a damp cloth, blanketing Haley. Sweat beaded on her skin, soaked through her button-down shirt. Dirt was clumping in her sandals, and she made a stern note to herself that a real, ready-for-anything journalist would have at least worn sneakers. Bug spray, too, as mosquitoes were beginning to orbit her head and trying to land behind her ears.

Part of the dream sounded familiar to her. “I've read stuff on the Missing website where people say they've had visions of being aboard an alien spaceship, with all this light and stars. Your dream sounds like that.”

“Yeah, people at other missing time sites have had the falling star dream. And everybody comes to that conclusion that it's because we were taken into space. But Gabe and I have a different theory.”

“A theory about what?” Haley asked.

“That's what I'm gonna show you.” The path climbed a short hill and then started down. They reached the edge of the trees. At the bottom of a short slope of sharp, flat rock slabs was a twisting dirt road. It ran from their left to right and ended at a fence. On the other side of the fence, the road continued briefly to a rock wall, and an old, partly caved mine tunnel that was crisscrossed with warped boards.

Haley followed Steph as they shuffled down the slope. She stopped at the fence. “Me and Gabe and our friends used to climb around in these mines. They've been closed for a bunch of years, but you can follow some of the tunnels. It's a good place to go if you don't want anyone to hassle you. Anyway, Gabe and I thought that the caves in the dream kinda looked like the mines. So a few weeks after the incident, we came down to take a look.”

“What did you find?” Haley asked.

“First, we found this.” Steph pointed to the gate. It was warped and half-rusted, with a clunky old chain wrapped around the bars, but that chain was fastened with a brand-new-looking padlock with a keypad and a flashing red light.

Haley saw that there was a small sign attached to the fence. It read:

DANGER! UNSAFE MINE

NO TRESPASSING

Private Property of

UCA

United Consolidated Amalgamations

She took a picture of it with her phone.

“The next thing is in there.” Steph was starting to climb over this fence, too. Haley checked the time. Seventeen minutes since she'd told her mom twenty . . . She grabbed the fence and started up. Great, now she was trespassing, too. But at this point, there was no way she was turning back.

They dropped down to the other side.

“So, you think, what, that the orange light that fell from the sky is in here?”

Steph didn't respond. They reached the mine entrance and ducked between the diagonal boards.

Inside, the air was cool and moist. Within a few feet, the daylight had faded to near total darkness. “What about mine shafts and stuff?” Haley asked nervously. Flashlight, that had to go on the ready-for-anything list, too.

“Used to be an issue, but not anymore. Look.” Steph had stopped just at the edge of the dim light.

Haley reached her. It took a moment for her eyes to get used to the dark, but then she saw it. A door. A solid, sleek steel door, housed in a similarly sleek steel frame that blocked off the entire tunnel. The metal was smooth and had a strange kind of shine, an oily rainbow pattern like Haley had seen on the inside of seashells.

The door had only two features: two round, black disc shapes at about chest height. Haley stepped forward and ran her hand over the door, from the cool, dry-feeling steel down over one of the glassy black discs. Actually, she saw that they weren't quite round. They almost looked like they were meant to put your hands on. Haley tried it, pressing her palms against the smooth surfaces. They felt warm . . . but nothing happened.

She looked back at Steph. “I'm guessing you're going to tell me that this door didn't used to be here,” said Haley.

“Nope. Not until after that night.”

Haley stepped back to Steph's distance, surveying the sheer wall. “So, let me say this all out loud: There's a moment of missing time, and afterward everyone has this vision of a light falling from the sky. After that, there's this new secret door in an abandoned mine tunnel. And so you think that . . . someone put something down here?”

“Not someone,” said Steph, “aliens.”

Haley nodded, but maybe just for her own sanity, she had to voice another idea. “Well, what about the mining company that owns this place? Could they have—”

“What?” Steph snapped. “Stopped time? Lowered something from space? And taken my sister? What kind of mining company does that?”

“No, you're right, I just—”

“Besides, Gabe and I sussed them out online and it's just some giant corporation and there's like nothing about them out there other than profit reports and stuff.”

Another thought struck Haley. “I haven't read about any mining stuff on the blogs. Have you told anyone about this door? Or your theory?”

Steph shook her head. “No. Feel free, but we're not.”

“Why?”

“Because we're being watched. All of us. Probably you, too. And there are stories online that people who have new theories go missing. Rumors are that there are agents.”

“Agents of . . .”

“
Them
. But by all means, if you want to report it in your little story, go ahead, but they already got my sister. They're not getting me, or anyone else I care about.”

“What do these agents look like?”

“Nobody knows. If you see them, it's too late.”

Haley considered this. Considered everything. That she was standing in a mine in Pennsylvania looking at a strange door. That she had been told a lot in the last—she checked her phone—oh man, twenty-four minutes, none of which she could verify. She knew Suza Raines was real, the missing time was real, this door was real, the sadness she'd seen on Steph's face before, the mother . . . But could the rest of it really be true?

Haley aimed her phone at the door and snapped the photo. The flash burst through the cavern, momentarily blinding her. As the light faded, she looked at the photo. It was good. She'd send it to Alex tonight.

But now she noticed something else. An orange light in her vision.

“Um,” said Steph, her voice a bare whisper.

Haley looked up. At first she had to blink leftover flash out of her eyes, but then she saw that those two black discs in the door were no longer black. They'd begun to ignite in a magmalike orange.

Haley took a step back.