Epsilon, p.14
Epsilon, page 14
Listening for several minutes, she saw a few of the distant places in her mind’s eye. She still wasn’t sure if her connection to the signal and the lights in the sky were a blessing or a curse.
She was once again jolted out of a trance by Leslie sticking her head out of the back door. Seeing her daughter standing still and looking up at the sky, she yelled out Shannon’s name and was relieved when the girl opened her eyes and looked at her mother with a smile.
“Hey, Mom. Let’s get ready! I can’t wait!”
Leslie smiled back and asked, “So, Princess, are you out here waiting for Darth Nader to beam you up?”
Shannon felt a pang of embarrassment. “It’s Darth Vader, not Nader. And they don’t beam people up in Star Wars.” God bless her mother. She tried so hard, but was a train wreck when it came to pop culture after 1975.
The sun was setting at 5:22 p.m. The Demon had already parked at his inconspicuous spot along the edge of the Brooks’ property. That night he didn’t immediately go toward the house. With houseguests and a party atmosphere, he feared a lot of wandering people. All he needed was for Shannon to take her friends outside for some damned reason and stumble into him.
He brought binoculars and watched from a distance. By 5:30, the father figure had arrived in his van. A few girls had been dropped off by their parents already, including the familiar K-Car containing that girl Melissa.
That night had to be the night. Her 15th birthday. He had wondered for 15 years why the Earth birthday mattered. Did they have a calendar on the inside of the ship or something? Maybe it was a way to have the children stay connected to their home planet.
He had to be ready to go.
Leslie was delighted to meet Darla and Dawn. Darla still wore her costume from school. Dawn had compromised and was wearing a t-shirt with a jack-o-lantern on the front. It allowed her explosion of fried hair to remain untouched.
“Dawn, you have such beautiful eyes!” Leslie said. Shannon noticed her mother didn’t mention the hair.
“Thanks Mrs. Brooks,” Dawn said.
“Oh, it’s just ‘Miss,’ or you can just call me Leslie.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Brooks,” Dawn said. Leslie gave up and moved on to the other guests.
Melissa had arrived first and joined Shannon in showing the D&D girls around the bedroom and Shannon’s record collection. They avoided the topic of Heather.
Leslie was sitting in her chair in the living room, bored. The girls did what they always did and ditched her immediately. Then the doorbell rang. She knew who it had to be. So did Shannon. She led the other girls out of her bedroom and watched Leslie open the front door.
Gig was there with his guitar hanging from one shoulder, and his amplifier carried in one hand. He wasn’t wearing his jean jacket. Instead, he had on a jean vest with black leather sleeves and a large patch on the back for a band called Motörhead.
Shannon jumped up and down, eager to introduce Gig to her friends. As she presented each girl, they all looked at him like they had backstage passes to a concert and had just met the lead singer.
“Oh, my Gawd! Shannon, he looks like Jonathan Cain from Journey!” Melissa whispered into Shannon’s ear. “Well, except for the mustache.”
Once he had met all of the girls, he excused himself and said he still had something left in the van. A few moments later, he returned with a long box wrapped in colorful paper. Multicolored balloons and the words ‘Happy Birthday’ decorated the paper.
“Gig, we said no presents!” Leslie scolded.
“Yeah, you didn’t have to get me anything!” Shannon said. But she felt like she might burst if she didn’t unwrap the present immediately. Gig handed it to her.
Shannon sat down on the couch, and the girls flocked around her as she tore the paper off. The box was plain with no markings, so she quickly pulled it open.
Inside was a beautiful electric guitar decorated with an image of the solar system. “It’s a Stratocaster, like mine. Well, except newer. I had a friend do a custom paint job on it for you. Turn it over.”
Shannon, in utter shock, turned the guitar over. On the back was her name in script letters in gold and blue metal flake paint. “Oh. Gig. It’s…” Shannon stopped talking as she struggled to hold back tears. She handed the guitar to Melissa and then stood to hug Gig. “Thank you so much! It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Now, you just need to learn to play. We’ll work on that, okay?” he said, smiling at her.
He playfully lifted one of her Princess Leia earmuffs and said, “Now that’s an awesome costume!”
She thanked him, then said, “Hey! You didn’t wear anything!”
Gig looked surprised as if he suddenly remembered something. “Oh, yeah!” He reached into his jean vest and pulled out a set of devil horns that fit across the top of his head. “There. How’s that? Rock n’ Roll is the devil’s music, right?”
The girls all laughed. Leslie sat silently watching the scene. This was the Gig she remembered from back in the 60s. She had missed him.
Gig began critiquing the other girls’ costumes. Even Melissa had dressed up. She had worn a shiny satin shirt and satin bellbottoms her mother had worn in the 70s during her disco phase. Celeste had safety-pinned the sides of the shirt so it would fit Melissa better. Luckily her mother was short, so the pants weren’t too much of a disaster.
“Let me guess this one,” Gig said, scratching his chin in deep thought. “You’re one of ABBA, and with your dark hair, that would make you Frida!”
Melissa had no idea who Frida was or what she looked like. She had heard of ABBA and even knew a song or two. In reality, she was just dressed as her mother. “Awesome! I can’t believe you got it! Shannon said you knew music!” She hoped her bluff would help her avoid looking like an uninformed kid.
Leslie brought out some birthday cake and took orders for soft drinks. The girls passed around bags of chips while they listened to Gig play guitar. During the concert, Shannon and Melissa went to the restroom together. Melissa told Shannon, “I swear your sort-of-Dad is so hot. I think I just ovulated!”
“Oh, gnarly! You’re so gross!” They both had to bring their laughter under control before returning to the gathering.
Gig took turns instructing the girls on holding the guitar. He showed them one or two simple chords, and each was thrilled when the music roared out of the amplifier.
Leslie went to the bookshelf in the living room and got a VHS tape she had recorded two years earlier. It was a copy of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown that she had taped off of Channel 5. The video and sound quality were terrible, but the girls didn’t care. To everyone’s surprise, Dawn revealed that she had somehow never seen the tv special before.
With bellies full of junk food and nervous systems jangled by sugary sodas, the evening began to wind down by 9 p.m. Leslie had promised to drive all of the girls home before 9:30. It was still a school night, unfortunately.
Gig asked her to let him drive the girls to their homes. He was concerned that Heather’s killer still had not been found. Leslie became slightly indignant. She was no frail woman. He had heard the exact same words and tone back in 1968. So, he relented.
The girls thanked Gig for the entertainment and piled into the Citation. Soon it was turning onto the road toward town. Gig waved goodbye, then got into the van to leave.
The Demon had waited patiently, and it was a good thing. Shannon did show her new friends their backyard briefly. Then, they all went inside and did not return.
He left the car and made his way to the house. From outside, he couldn’t hear most of the conversations. There was occasional laughter, and someone was playing an electric guitar. Probably the van guy.
As the night stretched on and on, he wandered to different windows out of curiosity. There was no safe viewpoint where he could see everything going on in the living room area. The best viewpoint would be the front window to the living room, but that would be extremely dangerous. He could just imagine if some kids showed up trick-or-treating and he was on the porch peeking through the window.
Eventually, the guitar guy opened the front door, went to his van, opened the back, and began putting things inside. The gathering was breaking up.
Under cover of darkness, he hurried back to his car. He took out the binoculars again and watched as Shannon, her mother, and all of her friends got into the Chevy. Mom was carpooling everyone home.
He started the engine and pulled onto the road, traveling past the driveway as they said their goodnights. Further up the road, he pulled off. He set the car up so he could slip in behind them and just look like a car coming from a different area.
Soon, the Citation drove by, and he pulled out behind them. He followed them into town and down a few side streets, all the while trying to keep a block behind.
At the first stop, the girl dressed as a wizard got out. Waving back at the car, she entered her house, and the Citation began to drive off again. Here and there, they passed a few late straggling trick-or-treaters. Most houses had already turned off their porch lights, however.
Several turns later, the car stopped inside a small trailer park. The Demon stopped several yards before the entrance. He could see them from where he sat.
Suddenly he was startled by a tapping on his driver’s side window. He looked up. It was the father-figure guitar player. He looked a bit upset.
The Demon rolled his window down. “Sorry, can I help you with something?”
The guitar player said, “Why are you following that car?”
“What car?”
“Don’t give me that crap. You’ve been following them turn-for-turn since they left their house.” He was clenching his fists.
“Man, I think you’re mistaken.” He glanced into the trailer park and saw the girl in the pumpkin shirt with the huge hair had gotten out and was heading for the door of a doublewide. He didn’t have time to deal with this guy.
The angry man from the Top Hat Drive-In banged his fist on the car door. “I’ve been following the car to keep an eye on them, and I saw you make every turn. Hey… this is a beautiful car. In fact, I recognize it. You were sitting across from the Drive-In when I had lunch a few weeks ago.” He gritted his teeth. “Get the hell out of the car. Now.”
The Demon put on a concerned face and stuttered on purpose. “Uh, Uh, Okay, sir! Please calm down. I wasn’t doing anything.” He opened the door and got out.
The van guy got up close and growled, “You and I might need to talk to a cop. A young girl was murdered around here not long ago, and the whole town is on the lookout for creeps like you.”
The Demon lowered his gaze and whispered, “I know.”
Then he drove the hunting knife deep into Gig’s ribs.
The Citation rolled to a stop at the Brooks’ homestead just before 10 o’clock. Shannon and Leslie went inside and tidied up a bit. The cake had been wiped out, but several bags of potato chips still had some leftovers in the bottoms.
Leslie kept the cardboard box the guitar came in. She often found uses for cardboard in her crafting. She took the wrapping paper out to their trash can, though. Outside, the wind was putting on another show. The temperature was around 50 degrees, and with the wind chill, she wrapped her arms around herself tightly until she could get back inside.
Looking down to shield her eyes from the cutting winds, she couldn’t see the man standing in the field just 20 feet away.
Inside, Shannon had taken off the white Princess Leia dress and the furry earmuffs. She put on her usual t-shirt and shorts combo to relax before bedtime.
Even though they had only seen possibly a dozen trick-or-treaters in the last several years, Leslie always bought at least one bag of candy, just in case. She knew that the year she didn’t buy any would be the year a pack of wandering delinquents would come banging on the door. Without an offering, they would punish her with toilet paper all over the roof and the bushes out in front of the house. Or worse yet, maybe the infamous flaming bag of dog poop.
She took the bowl filled with candy to the couch and sat with her daughter. “Want one?” she asked, holding the decorative bowl out to Shannon.
The 15-year-old girl grimaced and picked a piece out. All of the candy was wrapped in orange or black paper. “Why do you always get these peanut butter things? I don’t know anyone who likes them.”
As the girl popped the peanut butter toffee into her mouth, Leslie said, “Well, you seem to be able to suffer through them. Besides, when I was a girl, your grandma used to always get these. It’s just nostalgia, I guess.”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I wish I could have met her.”
Leslie choked up a bit. “She would have loved you so much, and spoiled you rotten.”
“Now I really wish I had met her!”
They both laughed. When everything grew silent again, Leslie said, “I cannot believe you are actually 15 now. Soon you’ll be out of school and out on your own. You won’t have much use for your old mom anymore. I hope you’ll still come around occasionally.”
“I’ll always come back. You can’t get rid of me for long.”
After another quick hug, they both prepared for bed. Before retiring to her room, Shannon stuck her head into her mother’s bedroom. She said, “You know, you could always give me permission to skip tomorrow. Then we could watch Halloween.”
Leslie had recorded the ‘edited-for-television’ version of the horror movie the previous year. Even that version spooked them both. “Sounds like fun, but I’m exhausted. Maybe we can watch it this Saturday night?”
Shannon scrunched her face up. “Naw, it has to be on Halloween night. It’s not the same otherwise. Goodnight. I love you, Mom. Thanks for tonight. It was an awesome time.”
“Love you, too, baby.”
Shannon closed the door behind her.
She swung by the bathroom and brushed her teeth. Some of the sticky peanut butter candy was jammed into one of her molars. The brush struggled to dislodge it. When it finally came loose, she was amazed it hadn’t taken out one of her fillings with it.
Before falling asleep, Shannon placed her beloved space guitar on display on a shelf above her dresser. It was far more important than the variety of knickknacks and school junk that had been there. She was determined to learn to play it. It was the best present she had ever received and she’d never go anywhere without it.
In the dark of the room, her bedside clock read 11:12. Halloween was coming to a close. It was the night when spirits could visit the land of the living. She hoped that Heather had gotten to see her family. As she thought about the friendship that was ended far too soon, her eyes fluttered, and she drifted away.
The signal brought her out of her sleep. She had never heard it so loudly. The clock read 11:56 p.m. She put on her jeans, her Reebok sneakers, and threw on her windbreaker. It would be cold outside.
As she snuck out the back door, the signal was all around her. She walked out to the field and looked up. The howling winds washed over her, blowing away the anxieties of the last month. It was a Baptism.
Then, with her eyes closed, she felt a pull. Her eyes flew open, and she saw the circling lights overhead. From them came an orange beam. Surprisingly, she wasn’t terrified. She could feel the light peeling back layers within her mind. It was scanning all of her thoughts, desires, and memories. She didn’t fight it. It wasn’t an intrusion. It was trying to get to know her better.
Then the orange light ceased. It was replaced by a bright bluish-white column that completely enveloped her. Just as it surrounded her, something hit her.
A strange man had run up to her and was yelling something. He held onto her tightly. She thought she smelled the same scent left by the shadowy figure that had broken into their house. And for the briefest moment, she felt fear.
The next moment, she was gone.
Epsilon & Omicron
Leslie woke up and went to the kitchen to set out a bowl and a box of cereal for Shannon. She was more than willing to make her daughter bacon and eggs, but she preferred Count Chocula, as always. For herself, she put some toast in the immortal toaster her parents had gotten when Leslie was still just a baby. It would outlive them all. She took the grape jelly out of the fridge for when the toast was ready.
She filled the Mr. Coffee with water, threw in a paper strainer, and spooned some ground coffee into it. Some of her friends drank decaf. Leslie had tried for a while, but she just became a zombie.
While the toast and coffee were doing their thing, Leslie walked over to Shannon’s door. “Hey, Sleepy! Time to get up.” She pushed the door open, but Shannon’s bed was empty.
She looked in the bathroom. Nothing. Looking around, she saw the back door was ajar. Maybe she had gone to the shed or to take something out to the trash can.
Leaning out the back door, she didn’t see her girl.
Panic seeped in.
She began circling the house, yelling her daughter’s name. Once she had covered every square inch inside and out, she grabbed the telephone. First, she called Gig. He might have some suggestions and a level head before she called the police ranting and raving.
There was no answer.
She called the police.
The officer she got tried to explain that they couldn’t consider Shannon a missing person until she had been missing more than 48 hours. She stopped being nice.
“We have a child murderer in this town, and my daughter is missing. She was friends with the murdered girl! Maybe make a damn exception!” But she didn’t use the word ‘damn.’
The policeman tried to cool her down. “Miss Brooks, I understand. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do; I start patrol in a few minutes. I can come…” He was interrupted by another officer saying something in the distance.
