THE PEOPLE FROM THE SKY 

PART III

THE DEAD DON'T TREMBLE:

UNQUESTIONED ANSWERS

  Wolfgang Haverstraw parked his county-owned sedan in the very spot from which Yessenia Mendes' Honda was towed earlier that night. He put the car in park, turned off the headlights, and killed the engine. He watched through the window at the nothingness beyond it; trees that weren't there, a lake whose waters rippled the reflection of the moon, mountains and hills that hid behind the darkness, afraid to show themselves for one reason or another. He sat there, watching, listening, wondering and hoping all at the same time. All the while his skin shivered on his bones.

   He turned on the hazards, relaxed into his seat and listened to the calls of the coyotes, the whispers of whippoorwills and the lamenting of the lake, none of which seemed to pose any threat. No, the real threat was the darkness; and maybe not just the darkness, but the flicker of a second between the darkness and the yellow beam of the flashing hazard lights  - a method that Haverstraw hoped would beckon the thing he saw in the picture.

   The thing he thought he saw in the picture.

   Being that as it may, Haverstraw would be the first to tell you that he was getting old, that his eyes (having depended on his ever-changing prescription spectacles for far too long) were no longer the potent microscopes they'd been in his youth, or even when he'd first become a police officer twenty-years ago. He'd be the first to tell you that even he, Wolfgang Haverstraw, Chase Township's Chief Lieutenant, was capable of mistaking one oblong, shadowy object standing between two trees to be another. After all, Wolfgang Haverstraw wasn't so easy to convince anymore.

   Surrounded by darkness, loathe to be afraid, Haverstraw noticed a possessive sadness had begun to traverse his skin, his veins. Loneliness, he imagined, but something more. Something deeper.

   The girl he'd just finished interrogating, Yessenia Mendes, whom he somehow knew, beyond all of his experience of reason, was innocent of murdering her boyfriend, reminded him of someone he'd known; someone he'd been missing.

   He clicked the map light on, adjusted it so that it shone on a picture taped to the dashboard, illuminating the snapshot as if the light were coming from within it instead of beyond. The girl in the picture, twenty years old - just like Yessenia - smiled emphatically. A yellow cap sat slightly askew on her head. Draped over her shoulders was a matching gown.

   Wolfgang wanted to break down, to surrender his face into his palms and let the tears that he'd been suppressing for twenty-odd years flow. He didn't, though. And it wasn't because he didn't want to. He couldn't. He'd seen too many people break down and cry; people who'd murdered and raped and starved children to death, people who didn't deserve the sympathy they sought with tears and sorrowful moans; people who didn't deserve rehabilitation or second chances; people who didn't deserve to live amongst the rest of us who are compassionate, who help others, who let others be; people who deserved retribution. He couldn't - that is to say, he refused to - join their sub-societal ranks; to not be like them.

   Instead he reached out, ran his finger across the picture. "Lorraine," he whispered, and the sound of her name playing back to him sounded like ‘the rain'. But that was okay because sometimes he'd hear her voice in the rain, hear her singing to him ‘Daddy, I'm okay.'

   He turned the light off, focused on the lake and the gradual throb of the hazard lights. To his far right, on the north side of the lake, a pair of high-beams cut through the darkness, pulsating through dense clusters of trees, bushes and grass. The lights stopped, clicked to low-beams, then died.

   Into the mic of a two-way radio, Haverstraw whispered: "How you doin' out there, Corson?"

   A loud crack came through the speaker. Haverstraw dipped the volume down.

   "All's clear, so far." Replied a woman's voice.

   "Same here. You got Nate with you?"

   "Yep."

   "What about that Mendes girl?"

   "Let her go, like you said. Just dropped her off so she could get her car. I still don't know why you didn't keep it for evidence, or keep her in custody."

   "Didn't need it. The kid died outside of the car, not inside, so it's not a crime scene. Besides, that girl didn't kill him." He looked at the picture again, now a rectangular shadow in the darkness, and for a second he could see Yessenia Mendes there, smiling at him, donned in cap and gown, just as young and innocent as Lorraine. He repeated it, more for his own ears than anything else: "She didn't kill him. Go ahead, set your hazards."

   "Ten-four."

   In the far distance, out of the same spot from which the high-beams died, the yellow pulsing of hazard lights commenced, amazingly almost in exact accord with Haverstraw's.

   The glow of the moon rested on the lake in placid undulations, almost ghostly. Haverstraw was thinking of the body they'd found behind the trees, the one the coroner identified as Dr. Anton J. Percival, one of the NASA scientists who'd been on the craft they'd lost contact with the a day ago. How was it possible? Haverstraw didn't know, but was sure there had to be some kind of solid explanation for it, void of supernatural and / or quantum mechanical theories. There simply was no such thing, in Haverstraw's eyes. Things didn't just happen. There was always a reason; always an explanation, and most often those explanations were based on provable facts; provable, that is, by realistic tangibles.

   Bluntly put, there was no such thing as ghosts. No, not according to the reasonable theories of Wolfgang Haverstraw. Dead people just didn't appear from underneath the ground, or from out of the sky for that matter. Dead people didn't just appear, and living people didn't just disappear, either.

   Lorraine didn't just disappear. She was out there, somewhere. Haverstraw knew that, despite his chagrin that he had nothing tangible on which to base his assumptions. Lorraine was out there, he was sure. He just didn't know where. Hadn't known where for eighteen years.

   The discovery of Dr. Percival's body in the woods had gotten Wolfgang wondering. Firstly, he theorized that perhaps NASA had lied about having sent him to space in the first place. Could they have just made him up? A scientific conspiracy or coverup, perhaps? Maybe they killed him...or tried to kill him. Maybe they thought he was dead, brought him out to Shore Lake to dispose of his body. Disposal by fire, perhaps. Maybe he was just unconscious, woke up engulfed in flames, came upon the Sanchez kid, thought he was the one who tried to kill him, attacked him, burned them both to a crisp.

   Possible? Haverstraw's brain continued winding.

   But how much sense would that have made? Because, really, why of all places in the country would any evil NASA ill-conspirators come to Shore Lake to dispose of a body? And furthermore, why would any evil NASA ill-conspirators ever even want to get rid of someone? Why would NASA even breed evil ill-conspirators?

   It didn't make sense, but that was okay. Somewhere there was an answer. It was just a matter of finding it.

   The hazards continued pulsing in fours, from two sides of the lake. Nothing showed up, though. Not so much as an owl or a coyote or a whippoorwill. Certainly nothing that even remotely resembled what Haverstraw saw - thought he saw - in the picture.

   Nothing really made sense right now, not the picture, nor the web of possibilities swirling in Haverstraw's rigid mind. That Mendes girl's testimony certainly didn't make any sense, and suddenly he found himself wondering if he'd made the wrong decision in letting her go.

   There was an answer, though, somewhere.Mendes wouldn't run, that was for sure. And Haverstraw knew that if for some reason he'd have to go looking for her, she wouldn't be hard to find.

   To all questions there were answers, according to Wolfgang Haverstraw. Some answers just had to be weeded out, sometimes even dug up. He'd find one, though. Of that he was certain.

   The thing in the picture, barely a silhouette in the beam of orange light, could have been anything - or nothing at all. A trick of light, perhaps; the shadow of a branch?  A hungry coyote peering over a bush, the scent of frying flesh far too strong to ignore?  If it was a man, Haverstraw thought, it would be highly doubtful that he'd still be around, especially after having either witnessed (or committed?) two fiery murders.

   "We just wasting our time out here, Corson?" He asked through the two-way.

   "Maybe. Maybe not. Hard to say. You really think that was something in that picture?"

   "I don't know what I think anymore, Stac."

   "I tell ya, being out here's really got me thinking about Uncle Jack."

   Haverstraw smiled for a moment, remembering Anastasia Corson's infectiously jovial Uncle Jack, a former Chase Township Deputy who died a few weeks after Lorriane disappeared. He was singed in a fire, not far from where they currently sat, staking out Shore Lake. Wolfgang's smile faded, however, when he recalled the day he had to identify Jack Corson's seared remains.

   "Good ole' Uncle Jackie." He paused, excavating through his emotions, searching for something warmly humorous to follow with. He almost had nothing, then said "I always knew there'd be another Corson on my team. Jackie was too good. I knew his bloodline just had to be cut out for this ****. So, when you go and have a kid, you make sure you train him to take after you two."

   "I need a man to have a kid." Anastasia replied, her voice uncharacteristically buoyant.

   With good nature, Wolfgang replied. "Anytime you're ready, Stacy Corson. You know where my office is."

   "I'm looking to have a kid, Wolf. Not Robo-Cop."

   Haverstraw broke into a short laugh, making certain his thumb had released the speak button on the mic. No one on his team had ever heard him laugh, even when he was being droll, which was often but not usual. Laughter was a sign of vulnerability. When you let people inside of you, you have to open the door into the cell that you've carefully constructed around yourself. For him, that just wasn't feasible. No one ever saw him laugh, nor did anyone ever see him cry. Many believed he wore his beard so heavily for that very reason. The beard, like the walls he'd built around himself, served as a mask.

   He took his eyes off of the lake for a moment to set the mic down, and was startled by the sound of rippling water followed by a low muted rumble. When he looked up, the reflection of the moon in the water was distorted, a watery puzzle of misplaced pieces.

   "D'you hear that, Stac?"

   "Not only did I hear it, I saw it!"

   "Saw what?"

   No answer.

   "Stacy! Come in!"

   Silence. No cracking of short waves over the radio, no failed attempts at communication. Nothing except the pulse of her hazards coming from the north side of the lake.

   "Anastasia Corson! Talk to me!"

** ** ** **

   It would have been better if it were a dream, but when Martin Culver awoke suddenly in the middle of the night, clutching his tee-shirt, his heart pounding like a fist against a wall, the only thing he could remember was blackness. Nothing more had been etched in his mind, certainly no remnants of any dream or nightmare he might have had. Even so, something was haunting him. A painful, empty feeling that made him feel as if he were drowning in oxygen, like a fish void of water. He turned to his wife as she slept - or pretended to sleep - and quietly slipped out of bed. She had to be asleep. He'd watched earlier as she downed two percocet. The drugs mixed with the exhaustion of tears meant she'd be asleep for a while.

   He tip-toed to the bathroom, locked the door behind him. He leaned over the sink and splashed warm water onto his sweaty face. He looked at his reflection for a moment, shocked and dismayed by what was looking back at him. It wasn't him. That was for sure. It wasn't, but it was. He looked considerably older than his sixty-two years. His face was pale and drawn; the face of a living corpse.

   His breath came in short bursts. His heart felt as if it were working too hard. Maybe it was another heart attack. He knew the feeling. Maybe his heart was finally ready to retire. And if it was, he wouldn't fight it. He wouldn't try to live. He'd done that before, and look at where that got him; A grieving old man suffering through a pain no human should ever know. Sure, Barbara had the pills. She'd sleep it off. Wake up in another time, another world. But pills just mask pain. They put a blanket over the real wound, like a band aid. They have no real healing power, just the ability to cover up that which is slowly killing you.

   He hadn't seen tears in his own eyes since the first heart attack five years ago. They looked different, his eyes. Not so brown anymore, but a lighter shade of watery gold. They looked like the eyes of a drunkard, a man fumbling his way through a crowded bar, or a crowded world.

   Yet the tears, flowing quietly now, did his body justice. He felt a little lighter now, as if through his eyes came not only a watery discharge, but a peppering of the pain that gripped him. Sort of like the way passing gas can relieve pressure from the stomach. It didn't necessarily feel good, but it felt better at least.

   "My God," He whispered, then caught himself. "No. You're not my God. Not anymore."

He fumbled into the neck of his tank top and pulled on the gold crucifix his daughter had given him five years ago, right after his heart attack. He held it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment and withheld a domineering wave of rage. He clenched his teeth, held his breath, then yanked the chain from his neck and dropped it into the drain.

   "I'm so sorry...but I had to do it."

He was sorry, but not to the God with whom he was angry. He was sorry to the daughter that had given him the chain. He watched her in his mind, kneeling beside his hospital bed, her eyes (my eyes, he thought) large and round, watching him with the adoration of a child, yet with the capacity of an adult. She'd placed it around his neck, fiddled with it until it was secure, and prayed over it. He remembered it like it was yesterday, but wished it could be tomorrow.

   But tomorrows are never promised, are they? Only yesterdays.

   And now, she was gone. Lost forever somewhere far above the world. Her body, hovering in a place no one would admit; her sou,l in a place he no longer believed existed. Angry, ignoring the rattling of his heart, he closed his fist and put it through the mirror, sending a spider's web of cracks in the glass. His fist bled from tiny cuts in which glass had been wedged, but he didn't care. He almost liked the pain. It diverted the pain he was feeling in his soul, and it made him feel less guilty about still being alive. Maybe, judging by the aching in his chest, he wouldn't be for long.

   But it was taking too long. Sleep would do wonders right now, but how? How could he sleep, knowing that his daughter was dead? That he'd never again see her face, hear her voice or hold her in his arms?  And not only was she dead, but her body was lost, either somewhere far above the ozone layer or far below sea level, according to NASA, anyway. Yeah, sure. They'd lost contact with the shuttle. Tell me another one, he thought.Just another cover-up to yet another fuck-up. Martin Culver had never trusted the government - neither republicans, nor democrats - and he certainly didn't trust government funded operations, either. NASA, according to him, was just as bad as the CIA. Government-funded criminals. As far as he was concerned, NASA should have been shut down after the Challenger incident in '86, let alone the Columbia disaster in '03. He'd warned Sheryl, even begged her not to go. But he was never one to hold his children from their dreams. He always told Sheryl reach for the stars. She took it literally.

   And now she was gone. He wouldn't even be able to give her a proper burial. Her body was...lost. The word caught in his throat. Lost. Impossible. Im-fucking-possible. He closed his eyes, brought his bloody hands to his face and wept for his daughter; wept like a baby for  a bottle.

   After he'd washed the blood from his hands, he stammered into the closet in his bedroom. Barbara slept, blissfully unaware of his presence; her consciousness drowned by medication. He hated the way she looked, so peaceful despite the horror of the last forty- eight hours. The sight of her made him sick to his stomach. He leaned over and coughed up sour phlegm.

   Pestered, he rummaged through some old shoe boxes until he came across his .45. He held it, now thinking the unthinkable. The pain was too much to bear now. And his heart, though struggling to keep its beat, didn't seem ready to give in. Of course, God wouldn't have it that way. Heart attacks only come when life is good, when family is there, when love is present. At times of irrevocable distress, the heart fights, the soul fights, even when everything else inside wants to give up. But not now. Not when the cross is too unbeareable to carry. So now, Martin would take God's place. He'd have to become his own God. Catholics say suicide is wrong; that to take one's own life is to destroy the greatest gift God could have ever given. But God takes gifts away, too, doesn't he? God takes lives. So what's the difference? Martin furrowed his brow, raised his fist to the sky and tightened it. Small droplets of blood oozed from the cuts.

   "I hate you," He said, and loaded the magazine into the clip. "I hate you for doing this to me. For taking my only child from me; for not taking me when you had the ******* chance." He released the safety from the gun and walked out of the closet. "Well, I'm on my way. And I have a few things I want to say to you!"

   He sucked on the barrel. The taste of metal made him twinge a little. It tasted like blood. He laughed at the irony. Soon, that would be all he would taste.

   He watched Barbara as she lie before him, almost comatose. How could she look so rested, so peaceful? Did she even care? How could she sleep through that kind of pain? Even horse tranquilizers wouldn't have been able to calm Martin into that deep a sleep. He wondered whether or not she was dreaming. And if so, of what? Was she dreaming of Sheryl? Did she even care? He watched the smugness of her face; her lips pressed together, almost in a smirk. Her eyelids appeared glued together, and her nostrils flared open as she breathed shallow breaths. She appeared as if she were in hibernation.

   He was jealous of her. Of how calm she seemed. Of how much she looked like Sheryl. He'd always doted over the resemblance, but now it just made him livid. He had to leave this place, had to do it now, couldn't just wait around for his heart to give out. The safety was off. One click and it would be over. Just like that, in a flash. He'd never feel a thing.

   He pressed his finger against the trigger and was amazed at how steady it was. He clicked it and it exploded in his palm. There was a brief flash of light, then total darkness, accompanied by a horrible silence.

   When the darkness faded, a fine mist lingering before him. He could smell something, but wasn't readily able to identify it. A burned smell, like a clutch or...or gunpowder? Slowly, the darkness opened up to a setting that was familiar, yet strange, almost like an ethereal reality. Was he a ghost? Was there really no afterlife? Would he be stuck here, between The Earth and mortality for eternity, unnoticed? Is this what really happens after you're dead?

   He felt himself shaking, but of course that was ridiculous. The dead do not tremble.  He brought his hand up, watched it though eyes that were earthly. He moved his fingers, watched as his palm quivered before him. Something wasn't right. He felt as if he'd made the biggest mistake of his life.

   He did.

   He looked down, saw his .45 resting on the floor beside his slippers. Smoke drifted from the barrel. He followed it as it billowed upward, noticed blood on the carpet. The stains, at first appearing in tiny spots, panned out into a broader trail that led his eyes to the bed, in which lie a woman that looked as terribly familiar as the room. The top of her skull had been shattered open. The wall behind her was red, plastered with thick globs of clotted tissue, some of which clung, and some of which slithered easily down like miniature serpents descending to hell. He shrieked, clapped his bloody palm to his mouth in disbelief. He was chagrined to feel his heart pounding.

   He hated how she looked, snug in her bed, as if nothing happened.

   But now he felt differently.

   His mind raced. His body thwarted as the adrenaline kicked in. Surely his heart couldn't survive this. How could it? He was not in the greatest health, after all. Ate three eggs with breakfast every morning, toast with butter, a burger for lunch, pizza for dinner, cheesecake for dessert. His heart would never be able to take this. Never. Come on, dammit! Give out! You ******* stupid organ, give out!!!

   But God had other plans for him.

   Was it divine intervention? Maybe, though he doubted that. Divine intervention, more often than not, turned out peaceably, without harm. Looking around, it was clear that wasn't the case. Something else had happened. Was it that he just couldn't stand the sight of her, anymore? Was the pain of losing his daughter so great that...

   Forget the questions. He clicked the magazine open, stared blankly at the bloody mess before him and shoved the pistol back into his mouth. This is it. No turning back! He eased his index finger onto the trigger...

   The doorbell. The ******* doorbell.

   "Now, Martin!" He urged himself.

   Again. Urgent.

   Who was ringing the bell at this hour?

   The bell rang again, twice this time. Three times in a row. Whoever was at the door needed him to answer it.

   Four times.

   "Goddamn it!" He lowered the pistol, still conscious of the safety being off, and crept to the window. He peered over to the porch. Standing in front of the door, someone waited at the door, cloaked in a shadow. That was all he could really tell from his vantage point.

   He panicked. Someone had heard the gun go off. Maybe it was Ms. Reynolds from next door. She was always nosing around in other people's business. He steadied the pistol and crept across the foyer. He approached the front door with irrational caution, a man gripped by insanity. He was prepared to use the pistol if need be. He didn't care anymore. His life was over. There was nothing more to lose.

   Beyond the window of the door stood a dark figure. Something didn't seem right about it. It looked odd, distorted. It's silhouette looked deformed. He raised the pistol and pointed it. His finger was steady on the grip, his mind mad in his skull. He laughed at how absurd it was that he was actually going to answer the door. He should have pulled the trigger, gotten it over with. Who cares if anyone heard the shot? It wouldn't matter to him where he would have been.

   He reached out to the knob with one hand, steadied the pistol with the other.

   "Who's there?"

   In response, the doorbell rang again.

   He thumbed the lock. His left hand trembled. His right hand still calm and steady on the pistol. He pulled the door back. His breath caught in his throat. He shut his eyes, not wanting to see the face of whoever he was about to kill.

   The door finished with a croak that was followed by a soft voice whispering a single word.

   "Daddy?"

Story Continues In:
The People From The Sky IV: (FORTHCOMING)

Keyword: The people from the sky man on the moon fire on the lake the dead don't tremble

Report this story | Add to Favorites | Send to Friends | Author's Profile

No Comments posted

Comments (3)

Posted by Dr Lucifer 2008-08-21 05:30:55 Wow I was hooked from beginning to end. The only thing that threw me was the relationship of the first half to the second. I didn't get it. But the writing was great! + Report this comment
Posted by philneale1952 2008-08-21 05:36:27 My Kind of Story You're stepping outside the bounds with this this one, and I'm running to catch up but I will get there. I found the plot to be everything that I used to watch about 10 years ago when the X-Files was at it height. The detail was impressive, and switching scenarios leant just enough confusion to keep me on my toes without losing the plot. The knife edge at the end was pretty damned good too. Phil + Report this comment
Posted by Trish Ridgeway 2008-10-27 20:30:31 Bravo! I just want to tell you that from the very first sentence you had me hook, line, and sinker. I am so happy to have found this link and your blog on our mutual friend's site. + Report this comment

Post a comment

Post a comment