The Vanishing (4 page)

Despite her shaking hands, Autumn put
the cap back on her water and set it on the counter.

“
Don’t be afraid, Autumn.
Marianne is safe,” the alien assured her.

Alicia laughed. “It said that my
parents are waiting to see me. When I evolve, I’ll be able to cross
into the dimension where those who’ve died reside. I always knew
there were other dimensions.”

“
That is all for now,” the
alien said. “When I return, I will bring more of my kind to get the
process started on the next step in your evolution.” Then it
disappeared.

President Jordan smiled. “That’s
inter-dimensional travel for you.”

For some reason, Autumn wasn’t
reassured about anything. Maybe they took Marianne for their
research? Hadn’t aliens been abducting and experimenting on people
for decades? Marianne had to be somewhere on this planet. The knot
in her stomach tightened.

Alicia jumped out of her chair. “I have
to call my cousin. I wonder if she got called by name too. I’ll be
back.” She took the cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the
number as she left.

Autumn wished she could be as happy
about this as Alicia was, but she wasn’t. Something was wrong.
Maybe she was the only one who sensed it. Rubbing her temples, she
willed the pain killer to start working. When her headache left,
she could figure out what to do next.

Chapter Four

It was a week later when
Autumn saw
him
again. Except this time, she wasn’t at work. This time, she
was sitting on a bench outside the Bismarck capitol, staring at the
red flowers spelling ‘North Dakota’ in front of the legislative
building. She and Marianne used to walk the perimeter of the lawn
and talk. The pain didn’t get easier. As she dabbed the tears from
her eyes with a kleenex, someone whispered,
We’re watching you.

She recognized the voice. It was the
same one she heard her first day back at work. She hadn’t heard it
since. Turning her gaze to the source of the voice, she saw a black
limousine creep under the tunnel at the front entrance. Something
about it made her skin crawl.

A quick look around revealed no other
cars. She debated whether or not she should investigate. Had it not
been for that familiar voice, she would have returned home. Since
no one was in sight, she ran to the entrance and slowed as she
neared the tunnel. She had entered the capitol building through the
doors beneath the steps in the past—before the fateful day when the
World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked on September 11,
2001. That entrance was closed off for good. At least, that’s what
people were led to believe.

She slowed and peered into the tunnel.
The limousine was still there, the engine humming softly. A
security guard stood at the open door and two men got out of the
car. One was the same person who had returned the blouse. Another
was a man she didn’t recognize. They didn’t walk into the building
as she expected. Instead, they turned and waited for the third
person. Only, it wasn’t a person. It was an alien. She shouldn’t
have been surprised to see one. But she was.

As she watched the alien enter the
building, the man from the store glanced in her direction. In the
moment his eyes met hers, the alien also turned to look at her.
Then a white light flashed in front of her eyes and the man and
alien looked away. She blinked. The light hadn’t affected her like
it should have since it was as bright as the sun. She looked back
at the man and alien and realized that they hadn’t seen the light.
In fact, they acted as if they hadn’t even seen her.

But they had to have seen her. They
made eye contact with her! So why didn’t they call her out? She
should have been relieved, so why did the cold feeling of panic
wrap itself like a snake around her heart? Turning around to leave,
she bumped into an elderly man who was taking keys out of his
pocket.

“
You don’t need keys,” she
told him. “The doors are unlocked.”

He looked at her as if she were crazy.
“I’m the janitor. I come here every Sunday, and I’ve always needed
these keys.”

“
But they just entered the
building.”

“
They?” He peered over her
shoulder. “Who is they?”

“
The men and alien from
the limousine.” She glanced back. The tunnel was empty.
Okay. This is getting really spooky.

When she looked at the man, he patted
her on the shoulder and smiled. “It’s been a tough
month.”

She waited until he walked
up the steps above the tunnel before she hurried to her car.
Despite the spring air, she shivered. She slipped into her car,
turned the ignition and blasted the heat.
Something strange is going on. This isn’t right. Something
doesn’t add up.
She glanced at the clear
blue sky. Not a single spaceship was in sight. She saw some footage
of the pyramid-shaped spacecrafts that had emerged over the
capitols of every nation in the world, but those had been the only
ones to descend to Earth. Then they left after ‘representative’
aliens came to speak with the leaders. The government had
dispatched the military to take care of the riots, but other than
that, things were calm. And maybe that wasn’t a good thing. Maybe
it was too calm. Too normal. What if it was the calm before the
storm?

***

Autumn spent the next three days trying
to get the image of the limousine and its occupants out of her
mind. What were they doing at the capitol building...and on a
Sunday...and entering a portion of the building that had been
closed off to everybody since the 9/11 terrorist attack? She
struggled to make sense of it. All the pieces were there—right in
front of her. The vanishing. The aliens. Men taking aliens to
secret meetings on Sunday afternoons.

If the aliens really did
come to open up dialogue, then what was with the secrecy? But then,
was that really a surprise? Should she expect aliens to be honest
when the governments hid their agendas?
Their agendas.
The thought made her
shiver. What if they weren’t there to help?

Autumn glanced up from putting the
sales prices into the computer. Alicia was helping a customer.
Though the aliens hadn’t made an appearance before the entire world
since the televised appearance with President Jordan at the United
Nations, people seemed more at peace about the vanishing.
Obviously, there were some who weren’t, but the general population
accepted it.

Yesterday, the aliens kept the sunlight
going for a full twenty-four hours to give them an example of their
control over the solar system. She glanced down the aisle and saw
the sun had finally shifted to its normal 3pm position. Time had
resumed back to normal. They promised other signs in the days to
come to prove that they were the gods of old, the gods of myths and
legends. Gods who were really aliens.

She returned to the cash register and
entered in the next sales price. It was too much to take in. She
didn’t want to think about it. What she wanted was for her sister
to come back.

Alicia walked up to the counter. “Pink
is your color,” she told the customer before looking at Autumn.
“Don’t you think pink and black look sharp together?”

Forcing a smile, Autumn nodded. “I
always thought red and black together was too bold. Pink is more
subtle.”

“
Plus, it’s on sale, right
Autumn?”

“
25% off.”

The customer took out her debit card.
“In that case, I must have it. I have a job interview, and I want
to look my best.”

“
Good luck.” Alicia swiped
the tag under the scanner. “In this economy, I feel fortunate just
to work in retail.”

“
Oh, the alien told me I’d
get the job.”

“
Really? When?” Autumn
asked.

“
When he gave that speech
at the UN. Well, I guess it could be a ‘she’. It didn’t seem to be
a specific gender. Did you think it was a man or a
woman?”

“
Probably neither,” Autumn
replied.

“
Then how does it
reproduce?”

Autumn shrugged. What did she
care?

Alicia giggled as she put the pantsuit
into the store bag. “Obviously, if it put us here and watched our
evolution, it figured out its own ways for that. Maybe they clone
each other or live forever. You know, I heard that people can
prolong their lives by hundreds of years if they can keep their
bodies in good health. Maybe they figured out the secret. Maybe
that’s part of what they’ll teach us.”

The woman swiped her card and punched
in her pin number. “I certainly am ready for a change. When I was
in college, I consulted a psychic and she told me that in my
future, I would unlock my third eye.” She tapped the middle of her
forehead. “I don’t know exactly what she meant, but I feel that a
sense of destiny is upon me.”

Alicia picked up the receipt and
glanced down at it. “Well, Ms. Hayden, I hope the alien was right
and you get the job.”

Ms. Hayden thanked her, took the bag
and receipt, and left.

Alicia turned to Autumn and squealed.
“Good things are coming our way! I just know it.”

Autumn’s fingers itched to hold a
cigarette. It’d been a bad idea to go back to smoking, and now that
she had, she didn’t know how to quit again. Marianne had given her
the support she needed for the task. And now that Marianne was
gone... Choking back a sob, Autumn picked up her purse. “Do you
mind if I take a break?”

“
Not at all. I’m in such a
good mood that even Hampton can’t get me down today. Go out and
enjoy the fresh air.”

As she walked out of the side entrance,
she wondered, once again, why everyone seemed normal. Instead of
running around and panicking, people were...content. She watched
two women pass by. They talked of what to wear for their upcoming
dates.

Autumn shook her head and
put a cigarette between her lips. Her hands trembled as she lifted
the lighter to the end of her cigarette and lit it.
Am I the only one who fears that something bad is
going on?
She had never felt more alone in
her entire life. Inhaling the smoke, she willed the simple action
to calm her nerves. Once she was done, she threw the cigarette butt
out, sat on the bench, and placed her face in her hands.

“
Are you going crazy
too?”

Startled, she looked up. “Oh, hi Alex.
Did you come to shop?” That was a stupid question. What else would
he be doing there?

“
No. I don’t feel like
shopping. Mind if I sit?” He motioned to the spot next to
her.

She shook her head and scooted over.
After he sat, she asked, “How are you holding up?”

“
I’m not.” He leaned
forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “I feel like I woke up in
a nightmare and can’t get out of it.”

“
I know the feeling.
Marianne always said that I let stress get the best of me.” Even as
she laughed, tears came to her eyes.

He sighed. “I miss her too.”

“
Are we the only ones who
know that something bad happened to her? To all of
them?”

“
It sure seems like
it.”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
“What’s wrong with everyone? Why aren’t they searching for
them?”

“
You don’t believe they
were taken to another planet?”

“
No. Do you?”

“
No. I don’t believe the
aliens are good guys. I don’t know what they did with Marianne and
the others, but I intend to find out.”

She lowered her voice so no one passing
by would overhear. “How are you going to do that?”

“
I’m going to Area
51.”

She stared at him for a
moment.

“
Look, I don’t know if
anything is there or not, but last night when I was trying to
sleep, I kept hearing ‘Area 51’ and when I woke up, one of the
aliens was standing over my bed.” He gave a slight
shiver.

“
Alex, I don’t think these
things are making personal visits to people.”

“
Well, there’s one that
keeps visiting me.”

“
It scares
you.”

“
Why shouldn’t it?” he
snapped. He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I haven’t had a good
night’s sleep ever since the vanishing. The thing is always there,
watching me. Last night was the first time it actually told me
something. Maybe if I go, it’ll leave me alone.”

“
Alex, that’s awful.” This
made her brief encounter with the strange beings seem tame. She
considered her next words. “Do you really think Marianne and the
others are there? Somewhere underground maybe?”

“
I don’t know. But I have
to find out or else I’ll never be at peace again.”

She stared at her hands as she quickly
weighed the pros and cons of her rash decision. Finally, she
realized that she would do anything to get Marianne back, safe and
sound. “Can I go with you?”

Straightening his back, he shot her a
cautious look. “Are you sure?”

“
She’s my sister. If I
don’t take this chance to rescue her, I’ll never be able to live
with myself. When do you plan to leave?”