Part 17 (1/2)
”We'll strike a bargain,” he said. ”Go along with your lover, but don't interfere with how I run the business. You said it yourself: what do I care how you spend your time?”
Go ahead, compromise yourselves, he thought. I'll own you.
She whirled away, strode down the hall, jerked open the bedroom door, snapped on the light.
Nev was right behind her. He stood in the doorway watching as she yanked clothes from drawers and the closet, threw them on the bed.
”Well, what about it?” he asked.
She forced words out of her mouth, knowing they told more than she wanted to reveal. ”All right! Keep the business . . . or whatever. We know what's precious to you.” She turned to face him, near tears and fighting to hide it ”You're the most hateful creature I've ever met! You can't be human.” She put a hand to her mouth. ”I wonder if you are.”
”What's that supposed to . . .” He broke off, stared past her toward the French doors onto the patio. ”Ruth . . .” Her name came out in a strangled gasp.
She whirled.
The French doors stood open to reveal three squat figures clothed in green moving into the room. To Ruth, their heads seemed strangely large, the eyes faintly luminous and frightening. They carried short tubes of silvery metal. There was a disdainful sense of power in the purposeful way they fanned out, pointing those metal tubes casually at the bedroom's occupants.
Ruth found herself wondering with an odd feeling of surprise how they'd opened the French doors without her hearing it.
Behind her, Nev gasped, said: ”See here! Who . . .” His voice trailed off in a frightening hiss, an exhalation as though he were a punctured balloon. A liquid trilling sound poured from the mouth of the creature on Ruth's right
This can't be happening, she thought. Then: They're the creatures who frightened us in the grove! What do they want? What're they doing?
She found suddenly that she couldn't move. Her head felt detached, mind clear, but there were no connections to her body. One of the creatures moved to stand directly in front of her -- a queer little manling in green leotards, his torso partly concealed in a cloudy, bulging roundness that pulsed with a purple inner light. She remembered Andy's description of what he'd seen: ”Glowing eyes . . .”
Andy! She wanted to scream for him, but her voice wouldn't obey. How drifting and soft the world seemed!
Something jerked past her and she saw Nev there walking as though pulled by strings. Her eyes focused on a smudge of powder along his shoulder, a pulsing vein at his temple. He tipped forward suddenly in that strange marionette way, falling rigidly into one of the open French doors. There came the crash and tinkling of broken gla.s.s. The floor around him became bright with flowing red. He twitched, lay still.
The gnome creature in front of her spoke quite distinctly in English: ”An accident, you see?”
She had no voice to answer, only a distant horror somewhere within the powdery billowing that was her self. Ruth closed her eyes, thinking; Andy! Oh, Andy, help me!
Again, she heard one of the creatures speak in that liquid trilling. She tried to open her eyes, couldn't. Waves of darkness began to wash over what remained of her awareness. As unconsciousness came, her mind focused clearly on a single oddly pertinent thought: This can't be happening because no one would believe it. This is nightmare, that's all.
10.
Thurlow sat in the dark car smoking his pipe, wondering what was taking Ruth so long in the house. Should I go in after all? he asked himself. It isn't right that I stay out here while she's in there alone with him. But she said she could handle him.
Did Adele think she could handle Joe?
That's a crazy thought!
It was raining again, a thin drizzle that misted the streetlight at the corner in front of him. He turned, glanced at the house -- lights in the living room, but no sign of movement behind the drawn shades.
When she comes to the door, I'll go up and help her carry whatever . . . no! Dammit, I should go in now. But she must know if she can handle him.
Handle him!