Alien Home Page 15

  Mike rang the bell again. It chimed the opening bars to the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah. In several minutes interior lights flicked on then the porch light. Meganvilia whisked open the curtains and looked through the diamond-shaped glass panel. He pulled open the door. He wore a long, flowing pink nightgown and held a baseball bat. Ray, wearing black boxer shorts, stood behind him hefting a shotgun.

  Meganvilia’s steady gaze took in the both of them for only a second or two. Drag queen he might be, but not for him the useless frenzy of an effeminate gay man in a cheap television sitcom.

  Meganvilia and Ray helped Mike carry Joe to the couch. When he was resting with blankets around him and a pillow behind his head, Meganvilia placed a large hand on a substantial hip, extended his other arm, pointed a finger on that hand at Mike, and said, “Michael, as you know I’m not given to hysterical over reactions, waving my arms over my head, or screaming endlessly and pointlessly at the vicissitudes of the universe, as perhaps a frightened teen in a cheap horror movie might.” He drew a deep breath, “But dear, sweet, angel, darling, Michael, you do know there is an unearthly blue glow enveloping you and your husband?”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “The color is fabulous for you, matches your eyes. It is, however, a trifle unusual, especially at this hour of the day.”

  “I’ll explain.”

  “Grand, I love early morning confessions.” Meganvilia lowered all the shades and shut all the curtains to prevent the unearthly aura from being seen from the street.

  The three of them retired to the kitchen. The blue glow expanded as Mike moved.

  “Where’s Jack?” Mike asked.

  “He must still be asleep,” Meganvilia said. He put on a pot of coffee.

  “That kid can sleep through anything,” Mike said.

  “What’s going on?” Meganvilia asked.

  Mike was exhausted, tired of lying, frightened at the attack, terrified of the future. He took a deep breath and shook his head.

  Meganvilia waited for the coffee to filter through and then poured them each a cup. He sat down next to Mike at the teak wood kitchen table that Ray had built. He poured two different kinds of diet sugar into his mug, which had “drag queens rule” in garish red letters on the side. He stirred with a silver spoon and took a sip. Meganvilia patted Mike’s arm and said, “What you’re trying so hard to say is Joe’s an alien, and you’re in trouble.”

  Ray raised his eyebrows. “What!” he exclaimed.

  Mike said, “Jack told.”

  “No, my dear. The sweet child was the model of discretion. You’re dealing with Meganvilia here. I figured it out years ago.”

  “How?”

  “You never told me,” Ray said.

  “Well, okay, it was more of a hunch than real knowledge. Of course, that blue glow pretty well confirms the insight.” He touched Ray’s hand. “I didn’t tell you because I know how you hate when I mix wild speculation with gossip and salacious rumors which, frankly, I believe is a wonderful combination.” He paused. “And I figured it was a secret too big to be carelessly blabbing even to someone I love so dearly.”

  Ray snorted. “Bullshit.”

  “Your conclusions were right,” Mike said, “but what made you suspicious in the first place?”

  “Well, mostly it was what you guys didn’t say. I don’t remember when I started putting it together. It’s just you never mentioned any of Joe’s friends or lovers from before meeting you.”

  “That’s not suspicious,” Mike said.

  “It was a beginning. People would ask where he was from. They’d get a general answer, never anything specific. He didn’t talk about his parents, a part of the country, or a specific school, what he studied but never where. Same about his job. Sure, he’d say he was a cop and talk about his arrests but never about where or when or for how long he’d been a police officer, and he wasn’t doing cop work anymore. You guys said he was an inventor, and he worked in that rat trap on Irving Park Road, and computers did get fixed, but we never saw an invention. I’m far too discreet to inquire about money, costs, income, who’s supporting whom, but besides that, nothing ever seemed to get built. For sure nothing ever got sold. If anyone asked, people got generalities about computers and technology. No family, no background, no job, what’s not to be suspicious about?”

  “He was conceived in a laboratory, incubated in a test tube, and raised by official nurturers.”

  “Good for him,” Meganvilia said. He tapped the well-manicured fingers of his left hand on his mug. “That little roundish-phone-like thing both of you have in your pockets was suspicious. I’ve seen it when you reach for change or keys. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Each of these things could be explained,” Ray said.

  “No, no, my dear, they could be lied about, but our Mike is a little bit of a saint about not lying to good friends.”

  “But why come to the conclusion he’s an alien?” Mike asked. “Maybe he’s a convicted felon with a lurid past he didn’t want to talk about.”

  “I’m very good at telling if people lie by either commission or omission. He also didn’t strike me as the criminal type. Maybe I got suspicious because I’ve seen too many episodes of the X-Files. I also figured I could be wrong. This weekend kind of confirmed it. Why the hell would you walk out on your nephew’s match? Why drive through a blizzard? If it was a family emergency, you would have told me. You called after you left, but I got squat for a message. As I asked a moment ago, what’s not to be suspicious about? And you know the cardinal corollary of good gossip, the fewer the facts, the more wide open and fanciful the speculation can be.”

  “You made a lucky guess,” Ray mumbled.

  “That too,” Meganvilia said. “What is that blue glow?”

  “It’s an energy field.” Mike gave them the highlights of the story from Joe’s first appearance at the restaurant where Mike and Meganvilia worked. Mike finished, “I love him. I want us both to live, together if possible. I know it sounds sappy-noble, but if it means his life, I will sacrifice my happiness.”

  Meganvilia hugged him. “Of course you would, dear. What an adventure! And to have to keep it to yourself! I hope you’ve been taking notes. A volume published at your death would make millions for your heirs.”

  Ray said, “That’s kind of ghoulish.”

  Mike said, “There’s more.” He drew a deep breath. “I told you Jack’s dad is dead.” He gulped. “I killed him.” He told them the story about what had happened at the apartment.

  When he finished, Meganvilia got out of his chair and hugged him. Ray shook Mike’s hand.

  Meganvilia sat back down and said, “You poor man, and Jack didn’t tell us the story. How horrible for him to have witnessed it.”

  Jack said, “I’m glad he’s dead.” The teenager stood in the doorway to the kitchen. He wore only white boxer shorts, white athletic socks, and a gray Chicago Cubs T-shirt.

  “What woke you up?” Mike asked.

  “I was hungry.”

  “Don’t you feed this poor thing?” Meganvilia asked. “He’s done nothing but stuff himself since he arrived.” He began rummaging in the refrigerator. “What would you like?”

  “It’s okay,” Jack said. “The energy field is up. What’s happened, Uncle Mike? Are you under attack? Is Joe…” He hesitated, glanced at Ray and Meganvilia. “Is he sick again?”

  “They know everything,” Mike said.

  “Oh.” Jack pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “Why’d you tell?”

  “We’re in trouble.” He leaned close to his nephew and put his hand on his arm. “Do you want to talk about what happened to your dad?”

  Jack hung his head for a moment, looked up, and caught Mike’s eye. “I feel like this huge weight has been lifted from my life.” Their eyes locked for long moments of silence. “You’re my real dad in all the real, important ways. You did what was right.” He patted Mike’s hand. Jack paused then r
esumed. “Are you okay with… what you did?”

  “I’m glad I did it. There wasn’t a choice. I’d do it again. I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep you safe, always.” He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

  “No one has ever done so much for me, cared so much, risked so much, thank you.” Jack moved over and hugged his uncle. When they’d unclinched, and Jack was back on his chair, he looked at Meganvilia and Ray and said, “And thank you both.”

  Meganvilia said, “You’re welcome, and remember, Mike is our hero too.”

  Mike said, “A hero that feels like shit and is scared out of his mind.”

  Meganvilia responded, “My dear, that fits perfectly all the definitions of a hero I’ve ever read.”

  Mike said, “Thanks, I think. I don’t feel heroic. I just wish I knew what to do next.”

  Jack gave him a brief smile. “What’s happened since I left?”

  Mike told them about the past few hours from the police at the apartment to shuffling down the street and up the stairs here with Joe in his arms. At the end he said, “They’re very likely going to succeed in capturing us. Whatever strength or limits my power has, it probably won’t stop them for long. My primary concern is making sure you’re safe.”

  Jack asked, “What happens if I go with you and Joe?”

  “Joe didn’t know. Certainly you’d be a prisoner like me, maybe executed, maybe an oddity in a freak show, maybe someone to be experimented on. It’s too big of a risk. I’d rather you stay here.”

  “Jack could stay with us,” Ray said.

  “The custody agreement is pretty rigid,” Mike said. “It’s Joe and me, or it’s back to court. He’d probably have to go back to my sister Rosemary.”

  “I won’t go back to her,” Jack said.

  Mike said, “With your dad out of the way, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.”

  “And get to know her ever expanding list of boyfriends?” Jack said, “No thanks. I’ve got a suggestion. I looked this up years ago when I dreamed of getting away from my dad. It was a deal about becoming an emancipated minor before I was seventeen, and anyway, I’ll be eighteen in just a couple weeks. I could be on my own.”

  “You’re still in school,” Mike said. “How would you support yourself? I thought you wanted to finish high school and go to college.”

  “I do. I still can. It’d be hard work. I could do it.”

  “You’ve been through enough. Abandonment by us is a poor option.”

  “I’m not seeing lots of choices,” Meganvilia said.

  Ray repeated, “He can live here. It is not a problem. We’d love to have him.”

  “Yes,” Meganvilia added. “And if his mother tries to cause a problem, he simply reminds her that by the time she gets a lawyer and gets a court date, he’ll be eighteen, and she’ll have no say in the matter.”

  “I have savings,” Mike said. “You can draw from them to pay his expenses. There should be enough to pay most of his college costs if he doesn’t get a scholarship.”

  “You can’t just give up your savings for me,” Jack said.

  “I’ve been planning for your future. You’re as much of a son as I’ll ever have. What I’ve got is yours. My mom’s name is on the accounts as well as mine. She’ll be able to get access to them.”

  “You’ll have nothing,” Jack said.

  “I’m afraid I may never need anything, not anything from Earth.”

  That line stopped all conversation for several moments.

  Mike sighed. “Do you think being kidnapped and taken on a zillion light year adventure is a good cause for getting leave from work?”

  Meganvilia said, “I’ll talk to them, and don’t worry about Jack’s bills. We’ll bring him up right and help pay his college bills too.”

  “He eats a lot,” Mike said.

  Ray said, “So does Meganvilia.”

  “Darling.” Meganvilia patted his hand.

  Joe staggered into the kitchen. Mike leapt to his feet to support him. Jack brought another chair over to the table. Joe sat down. With his elbows on the table and his head propped in his hands, he eyed the assemblage. “Everybody knows?” he asked.

  “I gave them the whole story.”

  Joe nodded and tried to stand.

  “You need rest,” Mike said.

  Joe said, “We need to get out of here before we endanger these people. There must be at least three more aliens, and they must have some way of tracking me.”

  “Four,” Mike said. “You were unconscious for the one on the exit ramp of the parking garage.”

  “Why aren’t they here then?” Meganvilia asked.

  Joe said, “We cannot just beam ourselves from spot to spot on the planet. Such technology doesn’t exist. They have the same problem getting around as I did when I showed up. They don’t own a car. Stealing one could easily draw attention to themselves.”

  “People steal zillions of cars a day,” Meganvilia said.

  Joe said, “I don’t have time to debate the fine points of interplanetary infiltration. The point is, I think they can track us, but I don’t know for sure that they can. I’ve done all I could with my communicator. I think I’ve stopped them, at least for a while, but I think the farther away we get the better. I’ve got to have time.”

  Ray hefted the shotgun. “Doesn’t sound like this is near enough.”

  Meganvilia added, “They’ve never seen a drag queen unleash his full fury, although I’ve never tried to stop an intergalactic attack.”

  Joe gave a wan smile. “I wish it were that simple.”

  Meganvilia said, “It’s supposed to be thirty below zero out there and worse with the wind chill. You can’t possibly think of doing anything tonight.”

  Joe stood up. “We have no choice.” He looked at Mike. “Have you made provisions for Jack?”

  Mike looked at Jack. They both looked at Meganvilia who said, “We’ll take care of him.”

  “What do we tell grandma and grandpa?” Jack asked.

  “I’ll call them,” Mike said. “I’ll think of something. I don’t want to leave Jack stuck making explanations.”

  Jack asked, “Do we say anything about aliens?”

  “I don’t see how,” Mike said.

  Meganvilia added, “Don’t worry about us or explanations. You’re the ones in danger.”

  Joe said, “We need to go.”

  Everyone was on their feet by this time. They moved toward the front door.

  “Where are we going?” Mike asked.

  Another significant pause. Meganvilia grabbed a set of keys off a board behind the kitchen door. He tossed them to Mike. He said, “These are for my cabin in Wisconsin near Wilmot. Go there, the place you stopped at last summer? You were there for my ‘Fruit of the Wood’ party. Do you remember the way?” He grabbed some paper. “I’ll draw you a map.”

  “Hurry!” Joe said.

  While Meganvilia sketched a map, Mike talked to Jack. “I don’t know what fatherly advice to give. I’m not sure if I’ll be back or when.” He felt his eyes become teary. Mike drew himself up. He said, “You’re a good kid, a good man. You know how to be strong and kind. Always remember, I love you.”

  Jack engulfed him in a fierce embrace. “I love you, Uncle Mike.”

  Meganvilia finished the map. After intense hugs all around, Joe and Mike headed for the door. In the front hall Meganvilia said, “Whatever you need, call day or night.” Another hug from Jack, and Mike and Joe hurried into the night.

  Mike wasn’t sure it was a great idea to rush off to Meganvilia’s cabin. Joe had said he might have been able to block the other alien’s tracking them, and it could give them time. More important, it was away from Jack and those he loved. If there was going to be danger, destruction, or death, Mike didn’t want it near anyone else he loved and cared for. Off to the woods they would go and hope for the best, what little hope there was.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  No aliens leapt at them as they scrambled to the c
ar. They struggled forward with Joe’s arm around Mike’s shoulder. The old car started on the first turn of the key. Mike had put in a new battery and alternator the previous fall. The tires were new and the engine rebuilt.

  “How come they haven’t found us yet?” Mike asked.

  “A mixture of the hyper technological and the mundane. I took two of their communicators. The others probably have them, but with me in possession of new ones they have to be careful. Also they have not been able to defeat Vov’s protection field triggered by that thing we put in your skull.” He drew a deep breath. “Yet. I wish I could have made more of them.”