Chapter Eight: Planets
SEC:
It took the shaking of the earth above me to realise what had happened. I had been watching the heavens, searching for danger, when conveniently the danger dragged us into its trap, like a long tentacle, not thin and worm-like, but the kind with suckers barbed with little teeth. Except, it was even simpler. This was no trap. This was a creature that hid in the canopy of night, then swooped down, snatched its prey, and dragged it back to its lair to be eaten.
I should have known.
It had been our idea.
I had struggled out of the wires, snapped back to a newly swaying, dripping, pitch-black reality. Blind Sec. Stupid Sec. The past years had been fat years of inactivity. Lazy, wasted years. Retirement. I should have kept a vigil. What I had attempted that morning should have been started on that treacherous winter eighty years ago.
But what could Dalek Sec do? Dalek Sec the outcast? The traitor? Nothing.
The laboratory was dark. The lights had been cut. Confused, sluggish, I opened my eye, and the man-made stalagmites that held up the world above blinked eerily into life.
The writing was everywhere.
ELIZA:
The four of us stand on the edge of the lake now. I have poured through every detail of the past few days in my mind, putting them into words like a poem. Or as a eulogy. Regardless, nobody will hear it.
But there is the present. And the present is alive. For now, at least, the hair prickles on my arm, I can feel my heart somewhere in my throat, in my head. For now, I am alive.
I have three companions. I always imagined that if I was to die, it would be in the arms of somebody I loved. My Dad perhaps, hugging me, telling me that everything was going to be okay. But I heard him just a moment ago; not next to me, but hundreds of miles away, now potentially further. Or with a glorious lover, someone to whom I would have given my heart. We would cling to one another, not letting go until we were no more, perhaps sharing one final, dramatic kiss. It would be a death out of a movie.
Instead; Lewis. A man I barely know. Red haired, skinny, dressed in a suit with a pink waistcoat. His tortoise-shell frames reflect the sky in their glass.
Then my young niece with an unnecessary double name, looking chilly in her pink pyjamas. A relation by blood, but so different in age, in personality, that she may as well be a stranger.
And of course, Sec. Right now, he is a sinewy mollusc of a creature, the most obscure of all my associates. And he appears to be wearing a curtain to preserve whatever modesty he could possibly have. He must have stowed it in his casing, in an emergency, all he would need to do is haul it around himself like a robe. Now is an emergency.
And we are all looking at the sky.
It is hard not to look at, especially as its reflected twin peers out from the lake below. It stretches above us, as it always did, but was difficult to appreciate before as it was not previously filled with planets.
Our atmosphere appears to have been parted, one side alight, the other side a swirling marble of impossible shapes. Take a step back. This is no sky, but an aerial view of a gas giant. Other planets hang behind it, some small, one is ringed. They fill every corner of the vision, dipping below the shadowy tree-lined horizon. But beyond that; a tapestry of fierce infinite design, that no thread and needle could ever hope to capture. There are no stars. There are veins and swirls of gas, however, each stretching across unimaginable distances. There are yellows, dark greens; colours which I did not think painted outer space. I have never been into space. No human could ever have dreamed of going far enough to lose the stars, until now that is.
Of course I have already seen this. I saw it as soon as the earthquake finished outside of my brother's house. But the lights of the city diminished it; it was little more than a smudge.
Is this why Sec has taken us out here?
To enjoy the view? He may as well have. It is spectacular. Impossible. My brain refuses to compute what my eyes see, so I try harder, and when I do understand it, I rapidly fall back into disbelief, lest I lose my sanity.
It is frightening.
At last, the hybrid; the cyclops and medusa at once, tears his gaze away and shakes his head.
"We need to get inside."
"But we're in the middle of nowhere." I reply. Not that I know this. We are in a wood. We may be a kilometre away from human habitation, or a thousand miles. Besides that, this wood could be almost anywhere on earth.
We could be in China for all I know. Or Norway, perhaps. I would like to be in Norway. But Norway, if what Sec says is true, is no longer where it used to be, nor is America.
"Where did you take us?"
"We are in the Catskill mountains." Sec tells us. "I took us out here to be safe. I need to think."
He begins to walk, his bare feet shift through the litter.
I can feel Lewis' eyes staring, torn between the heavens and our guide. He has never seen Sec as the hybrid, as what he really is. Poor boy. It was terrible timing, really.
Norma Jean shuffles next to me. She wears no shoes either. Instinctively, I lift her into a piggy-back, which is a mistake as she is heavier than she was when she was six.
We follow.
As we walk, Sec's casing glides along-side us. It is caught by the eerie phosphoresce of the sky. None of us speak, and we have the small blessing that our guide seems to know where we are. The sudden chill, the smell of warm vegetation and of the water is our language. We listen to our environment. The familiar has become an alien landscape, quite literally.
"Are there wolves out here?" The whisper brushes my ear. Norma Jean has leaned forward on my back, I can feel the warmth of her breath.
"I don't think so." I reply, but I am not sure. We should be safe around the Dalek.
We used to go up to the Catskills when I was a girl for long weekends and holidays. My parents were fond of walking, increasingly less with each other, while Malcolm and I preferred to stay around lakesides and make up games. I haven't been in the mountains for years, and this was certainly not the way in which I expected to return. The fear alone transforms the place. This is not my forest; not anymore. This is not our world.
Presently, there is a sound and Sec comes to a stop. His tentacles twitch, as if he is listening, unsure. I freeze. My niece grips my shoulders and I almost drop her.
There is the sound of feet; four feet, scampering towards us from the dark. A bark echoes, coming closer, and then out of the shadows something, a very large, lupine something leaps at the hybrid. It lands its paws squarely in the middle of his chest, knocking him to the ground. Sec yelps. I expect a flash of blue, a shot from his casing. Nothing comes.
The beast snarls. Norma Jean shrieks. I let her slide from my back.
"Wolf!"
Lewis and I run to help. His attacker is not a wolf, but a dog. It is almost the size of a large pony and snaps viciously at his writhing head. Animals do not like him. It reminds me of the slyther. I can smell it, feel the grease on its hair as I try to haul it off, and with our help the hybrid rolls out from underneath it.
But then, a clicking.
"Who goes there?"
I turn and find myself staring at the double barrel of a rifle. It glints in the starlight. My heart almost bursts with fear.
I leap in front of Norma Jean to protect her.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I shout at the invisible gunman.
The stranger doesn't move. I can see very little of him, only the bulk of a thick jacket, and white wispy hair under a hunting cap.
It is Sec who speaks, edging away from the jaws of the beast.
"Frank! Frank, it's Dalek Sec! I have brought friends! Lower your weapon!"
The weapon remains. The stranger waits in a distrustful silence.
"Heel, Bonnie." He calls.
The dog, still growling thunderously backs away from the hybrid, and licking its chops, saunters to its master's side. It is afraid, I don't have to be able to see it to know that. Animals can sense disaster. I had read that somewhere. They know when there is going to be a hurricane, or an earthquake apparently. I suppose this brute has been having one hell of an evening.
Frank, as the stranger is apparently called, does not move, and nor does his gun.
"You're back then." At long last he growls. "I didn't think I'd see anymore of you, devil."
There is a shifting as Sec tries to sit up. Lewis, after hesitating, helps him to his feet.
At last, the rifle is lowered from my eyes.
I see a short man, wearing a pale shirt under his jacket. His face is lost in a portrait of whiskers and shadow. The dog, a hound of some sort whines. Frank looks at the four of us in turn, and then nods slowly.
"You'd best come indoors then." He tells us.
As he turns, I realise how much I've been shaking. The air has become unnaturally raw, yet I can feel myself sweating.
A calloused hand reaches out, takes mine.
"I didn't mean to scare you ma'am." He grumbles apologetically. "I'm sure, giving the circumstances that you can forgive me for being armed. And the little lady?"
Norma Jean's eyes are as wide and as white as my mother's prized dishes.
"I think I'm going crazy." She says. "I really, really want to go home."
I am led blindly forward by the stranger, and in less than a minute I make out a rectangle of light. Before I know it, I'm stepping onto a wooden veranda, then into a warm, well-lit space which smells of wood smoke. The enormous dog pushes past out legs and settles herself down on a worn woollen rug.
Lewis sidles in, looking around, while Norma Jean, apparently soothed by the normalcy of a man-made place, drinks in the features shyly.
Sec however waits by the door. It is as if he is afraid to enter any further.
I let go of the hand.
The house is some sort of cabin. It is well decorated, with wooded cladding and heavy beams across the ceiling. The walls are lined with shelf after shelf of books, books of every size and variety. The rest of the sitting room is adorned with many items, so worn and varied that they can only have been accumulated through a lengthy lifetime. Photos look wistfully out at us from their frames. There are many chairs, the comfortable kind which have been used by many, and without waiting for an invitation I find myself sinking into one.
I feel as though I have died. Perhaps Thayer's bullet did drain my life out of me after all. Finding myself in this comfy, homely abode of a stranger somehow is the surrealist part of the evening. I want an explanation, but I am too tired.
Frank looks at all of us in turn, then lies the sleek, well looked after weapon carefully onto a low table which is draped by a scarlet throw.
Without really knowing when or why, I drop off.
"Yeah, she's my auntie you see. She is supposed to be taking care of me. I don't know who he is…" Norma Jean is saying.
She is sitting on one of the strangers plush seats, munching casually on a cookie. A chequered blanket has been thrown around her shoulders. She seems calm, seems to have recovered more than the rest of us. I guess it's a thing that kids do well; they can bounce.
She is talking about Lewis. Lewis is perched, a little stiffly, on a dining chair behind where Norma Jean sits. He just looks tired.
Frank is listening to her.
One of his arms rests on his mantel piece, his enormous wolf hound close to his feet. He has lit a fire and the warmth of the flames is delicious, but alarming.
He is very old. His wizened face is marked with liver spots, and his sparse hair is the kind of white which only appears in the very last decades of a person's life. He has a moustache, a short bushy one which sits somewhere between walrus like and stiff. Yet his back is straight, and I can imagine by his clothing, his heavy jacket, thick body warmer and heavy boots that he often goes outside, keeps himself moving. His eyes look young. Or they don't look young, they just look alert. They are a dark wakeful brown, clear of cataracts or any other defects. He looks like the kind of man who is ready to ask questions, or find answers. What has made him like that? Experience I can suppose. But what kind?
He is listening as Norma Jean recounts what happened. I think she likes the attention. She likes being able to put the crazy last hour into her own words.
"That guy; the one with the ball sack head." She points at Sec, who has not moved from his position by the door. He flinches at the crude honesty of her description of him. "He's an alien. He took us here, but I think he can change shape or something. He comes out of a robot which looks like a giant salt shaker. It's out on your porch if you don't believe me, sir."
I sit up, unable to believe that I dozed off.
Frank bends down, tosses another log onto the dwindling flames, then straitens up to look steadily at Sec in the corner.
"Don't worry, I believe you young lady." He says patiently. There is a slight drawl to his voice. It is rich, grandfatherly, every word placed carefully. He is a man who has been among others and knows how to talk effectively to them. "I know better than anyone else in the world what that thing is."
He notices me looking, and lowers his hand from its rest.
"You awake ma'am? Perhaps you'd like something to drink?"
"I'm good, thanks."
But Lewis stirs from his seat, as if wanting something to do.
"I'll get you some water." He calls. Frank raises his eyebrows approvingly.
"Glasses are in the left cupboard above the kettle."
Lewis makes towards the doorway on his left, glancing carefully over his shoulder before disappearing. What does he think he's doing? Is he at a loose end? Does he just want to be useful? Either way, I realise that my tongue is parched, and, yes, I do need a glass of water after all.
"Now, Mister Sec." Frank begins, and he looks politely over to where the hybrid stands. "I think you owe us all a proper explanation. It's bad enough you dragging these good folk hundreds of miles out of the city for no good reason and lodging them in my home without my prior knowledge. I assume you know what's happened to the sky?"
"He said the Earth's been stolen." Norma Jean interjects through a mouthful of crumbs. She speaks very casually. "I don't know what he means though. I think he means that we're all about to die."
Sec appears to be trying to take up as little space as possible in the cabin. He looks incredibly out of place in this homely, lived-in territory. He is like Boo Radley, only a version many times more monstrous than the one invented by Scout, Jem and Dill. He is still only wearing what appears to be the old curtain, wrapped around his fluid, worm-like frame like a toga. I wonder, why did he leave his casing tonight anyway, out here in the woods? Did he want to appear more human? It scares me that he feels that this is an appropriate precaution. I am one of you, it says. Not one of them.
He draws in a deep breath, closes his eye tight. I see the cloth move over his chest, where his breathing holes, like the blow-hole on a whale, sit just below the collar bone.
"The Daleks have moved the Earth into the Medusa Cascade," he begins, "along with twenty-four other planets. They are building a weapon with them, and are about to achieve their final victory. It can only mean that they are the strongest they have been since before the beginning of the Time War. So, yes. I believe that all non-Dalek life may be about to face total annihilation." He trails off. "That is what I believe is happening."
Naturally, we are silent once he finishes speaking. Lewis walks back into the kitchen, a glass of water in his hand. He hands it to me and I take it, hold onto it, and take a sip. He attempts a smile, timid, fleeting, but then looks over at Sec, to whom attention has been diverted.
I think we are taking the news rather well. We have just been told that the world is going to be destroyed.
To be honest, what more could we have expected?
For a long time, Frank stares into the flames, then nods slowly.
"Well." He says meditatively. "That's a terrible shame."
Lewis straightens up. He caught the latter end of Sec's prediction. He seems heated, and it brims over his exhaustion.
"A shame? Is that all you have to say? The end of the world?" He turns to Sec. "Come on, there must be something you can do!"
The hybrid shakes his head.
"No. There is nothing I can do." He looks up, giving Lewis a wan smile. "Right now, all the forces and nations of the planet will be looking at the sky fearing an attack, and even their entirety, they are nothing compared to one Dalek legion."
"That's right," Frank agrees. "I've seen these creatures in action. I know what they can do. And I also know how hard it is to kill just one of them, let alone an entire legion."
This catches my attention, and I look up.
"You have?" I ask. "When? Who exactly are you?"
"Ah, my apologies." The old man tucks his thumbs into his belt. "I am Frank Mendelson. I used to work as a professor of Classical Studies at Yale before I retired, and before that, I flew a fighter plane in the war against Hitler. I came to know Sec during the Great Depression."
"Eliza Birchwood." I answer, nodding to the hybrid. "I'm Sec's probation officer…I guess. Sort of. I stop him from killing people."
"Probation officer, eh?" Frank chuckles dryly, glances at Sec in the corner. "So they finally got hold of you in the end then? Who was it, the FBI?"
Before Sec can attempt a reply, Lewis butts in.
"Mister Mendelson, I'm not sure you appreciate the gravity of the situation here."
"Oh, I appreciate it son. But honestly, I'm not sure what we can do about it."
"We're all about to die."
"Well, I don't know about that."
"For God's sakes-"
"I'm not afraid son," Frank says, and I am mystified by his calmness, "and nor should you be. We've all just got to have a little faith."
He's beginning to sound like my mother, and all at once I give in to an unstoppably wave of hopelessness. I rub my face with my palms.
"Thank you for your hospitality Mister Mendelson; but I doubt that praying to God is going to help us right now."
"He is right. But he is not talking about God."
Sec says this as if his words are a stone, a heavy one, which has been waiting too long before tumbling inevitably off the edge of a precipice. He looks worn, bitter.
I see him ball his nail-less hands into fists. They turn white at the sinewy knuckles.
His emotion, especially coming from a creature as strange as himself, demands all of our attention, and even the wolf hound Bonnie raises her shaggy head to look at him.
"Lewis. Eliza. I took you and the spawn all the way out here to keep you safe. Now, if I knew for certain that we were all going to die, do you think I would have seen the point in doing that?"
Lewis and I glance at each other. He does have a point.
"Go on." I invite.
Sec closes his eye.
"I cannot say that I have faith for anything. But I do have hope, and that is important."
He slumps his posture a little, and addresses Frank Mendelson.
"Frank, we are not alone. You must remember. Who fought my Daleks in 1930? Who defeated them?"
Frank's dark eyes twinkle in recognition.
"As if I'd forget. It was the Doctor of course."
The Doctor. Here he is again. He was mentioned by Sec only this morning.
Sec nods in confirmation.
"He has defeated us before, and as sure as they have always tried to kill him, he will defeat the Daleks again."
"You think so? As many of them as you think? But he's only one man."
"No. He is not. Surely you saw that?"
I stand up. I do not know anything about this conversation, and I can only guess at Frank and Sec's shared history. But I feel helpless at being left out of the conversation.
"Who actually is the Doctor?" I ask firmly. "You told me earlier. You said that he was a time traveller, and that he was your enemy."
I see Lewis, who has been as lost as me, glance up at me, as if wondering why I should know any more than he.
"Oh, nobody knows his name, ma'am." Frank speaks instead of the Hybrid. He warms to his theme, his dark eyes sparkling. "At least, he never told it to me. But he was the cleverest man I have ever met. By far the most crazy too. Oh, we'd all have been killed if it weren't for him. New York, no, the whole world, would never have been the same again."
"1930." I muse. "Let me guess; that was when the Cult of Skaro were doing their experiments in the city?"
Frank nods, and his face darkens with a look of sobriety.
"You're his probation officer. I imagine you already knew."
"Not the whole story. Not until this morning."
Realisation has begun to dawn. I turn to Sec.
"The Doctor; he's the reason why it didn't happen, isn't he?" I ask. "You never mentioned him at all! I thought you'd just had a change of mind."
Norma-Jean has long ago finished her cookie, and has been so far listening to the conversation impassively, legs crossed and her head resting on a hand. But now she looks up.
"What experiments?" She asks, her curiosity shrouded in obvious caution. She looks at me for reassurance.
Sec wears a wretched, hunted expression. Lewis has sat up, and he watches the hybrid with equal question in his eyes.
Frank looks grim.
"It would be better if you didn't know, young lady. But the Doctor put a stop to it."
Frank knows what happened. I realise, and a knife-like cold steals into my chest as I think of it. Frank must have been a witness.
"Is the Doctor a…superhero?" Norma-Jean asks, unbelievingly. "He sounds like one; defeating aliens and stuff. It's like in Spiderman and X Men. I didn't think any of it was real."
"He is not a hero." Sec snaps. Norma-Jean jolts as he interrupts, and watches him with a guarded expression. For the first time since entering he steps away from the wall, and begins to pace. The ridiculous cloth that he wears around his shoulders trails across the floor. It makes him look mad, as well as hellish. If the Doctor, whoever he may be is a hero, then Sec is certainly a villain.
"The Doctor is a predator. He slaughtered an entire Dalek army, my army, as I watched, and the Cult and I were barely able to escape! He has done terrible, terrible things."
He halts. We, his audience, wait. Lewis has narrowed his pale eyes. He looks betrayed. I, myself, am unsure what to think. Everything the hybrid has just said confirms his malevolent past, but I already knew that. I did not know about the Doctor.
"But… he has done great things as well. He is a genius. He has the freedom to do so, and he has the choice to do well. I never did. Not until I did this to myself."
I see Frank swallow. Norma-Jean, seated on her chair seems understandably lost.
The enormous dog lies her head on her paws, whines.
Her crying seems to make Sec aware of himself. He pulls his make-shift garment closer to his body. Nods.
"I know that he will save Earth. He would only be happy to die at last trying to. He will have to find us first, but I cannot doubt him. All we can do is stay here. I don't trust the chaos of the city. Here is safe. We can only wait and hope."
The dog sniffs the air and shuffles closer to the fire. The eerie light from the sky outside plays on the window, like a full moon.
Then, from his corner, Lewis lets out a long, shaky breath. Before anyone can say anything he rises to his feet, and heads towards the screen door. Sec watches him approach, opens his mouth as if to say something. As if to comfort. But Lewis pushes past him, throws open the door, and closes it heavily. It does not slam, but it has a similar effect.
"Is he okay?" Frank asks Sec.
"Of course not." I answer for him. "It's been a long night for all of us. Sec? What you said was true? You really think that this person, this Doctor, is going to come?"
Sec watches the screen door sadly. His explanation's effect on the musician seems to have upset him.
Unable to help myself, as the trust of our friendship makes itself present, I walk over to him.
He looks up at me, his old blue eye filled with a bitter knowing.
"He will."
I put an arm round him. He shivers a little, his lithe figure small under his toga-like robe.
"Good. Now either go back into your casing, or put something else on. You look freezing as well as stupid. Don't worry about Lewis."
"The young man has a lot to think about. We all do." Frank agrees, and I wonder at the warmth in his voice.
I lead us towards the fire, and Bonnie barks, uncomfortable at Sec's proximity. He has a similar, understandable effect on Norma-Jean.
"But why is he here then?" She demands. "He's in league with the Dollarks, or whatever they're called. He said so! And," she adds grudgingly, "I think he keeps calling me spawn!"
Frank lets out a dry cough of a chuckle.
"You certainly have a way with people as ever, Sec."
Sec cannot help himself smiling a little, as if he feels that he does not have the right to be comfortable.
"Mister Sec here is not all Dalek. See, he is also a man I used to know, a Mister Diagoras. He was the meanest man I ever set eyes on. I'd even say he was worse than a Dalek in some ways; he was a traitor. He helped them. I hate to think how the two of you came to be one, Sec, but I'd say in some ways you made a vast improvement of him."
"This guy's nothing to be afraid of Norma," I add, "not while I'm around."
My niece does not look convinced, but she shrugs her shoulders. Her brown eyes look unusually large and watery. She must be so tired.
"Okay…"
This seems to suffice, and Sec visibly relaxes.
With the sudden, uncertain hope in which he has provided, I feel on edge, but as if in an exhausted stupor. Too much has happened and I am spent from worry.
Norma-Jean looks up suddenly.
"D'you know if Mom and Dad are okay?"
God. I had completely forgotten. I fumble in my pockets for my phone, and find them empty. It must still be in the living room back in Brooklyn.
"Where are they going?" Sec asks.
"L.A."
Norma-Jean looks up in horror.
"Don't they get a lot of earthquakes there?" She asks, alarmed. "My teacher Mr Pittard said so in Geography. If we had it bad here, then it'll be really, really bad there!"
I halt my search. Regardless of my phone missing, I wouldn't be able to contact them because…
"They should still be in the air." I realise, with a sigh. "They'll have been flying while the quake was happening. And we know that grandpa's alright."
"Still," Frank announces. "We have an advantage here that no-one else in the US has, and that is that if what you say is true, Mister Sec, then we know what has caused this ungodly phenomena. We need to send out an official warning to the authorities."
I nod.
"Sec, you can do that using your casing, can't you?"
The hybrid, evidently feeling less alienated, nods in the affirmative.
"I can do that easily. I will start right away. I can go through the U.N.I.T. network if necessary. They may or may not recognise Dalek technology. And if they do, then at least they shall know what to expect."
"And I have a telephone out back." Frank assures us. "I've never quite adapted o these new-fangled cell-watcha-ma-call 'ems. Use it for whatever you want."
There is a familiar snapping sound, and Sec pushes quickly off his seat, Norma-Jean leans round to watch him, but I hastily advise her against it.
Moments later he crawls out and makes his way towards the screen door.
Norma-Jean informs me that it is really gross.
When I emerge later to check on Lewis, I see Sec perched, eyestalk glowing upon the dormer on the sloping roof. He stands against the treeline as a now strangely comforting silhouette.
The house is surrounded by a wide, scruffy veranda, and the previous warmth of the weather has brought the scent of pine into the air. Now, the air has enough of a bite to it to cause my breath to frost.
There is a small jetty that stretches out a little way into the lake. Old Frank must use it to rest fishing poles.
On the end of it, I spy Lewis sitting in a drawn in way, his legs dangling over the edge over the water.
I walk over to him. He is shaking, his arms drawn around him, and his jacket doing little to protect him from the cold.
"You might want to come inside." I tell him. "Frank's let out the spare bedroom to my niece, and is letting us sleep on the couches. You look freezing."
The musician shakes his head. His hazel eyes stare out at our alien sky.
When he makes no further reply, I set myself down beside him. I am not too close, but just close enough that he may feel the benefit of me being here. I am wearing a blanket from the house, but still, every inch of my skin prickles.
"I find it quite inspiring, actually." He says, after a while. "Terrible things sometimes are."
"I kind of get what you mean." I say. And he's right. My eyes follow the planets; I count a total sixteen. This does not include the circle closest, which while dark, can only be our moon.
"I didn't know he looked like that." Lewis says. "The hybrid, I mean. I knew he was half human, but…"
I glance back at the roof, and see that Sec has turned his dome head away from us, like a telescope. He can probably hear us, but he has heard whatever we have to say before.
"He's very sensitive about it, if that helps."
Lewis sighs.
"I thought I'd known him since I was a kid. But apparently, I didn't know him at all, after all."
He looks at me with a mixture of pity and hopelessness.
"You get why I thought you ought to keep your distance from him then? He took us all the way out here for no discernible reason. Okay, that Frank guy was good to let us in, but I have no idea who he is."
"I know. I know."
I stare out over the lake. I couldn't point to where we are on a map. We may no longer even be in New York. The erratic, often ludicrous mind of our mutual friend and abductor is something I can take into account, something I have come to understand. I feel violated; I didn't ask to be snatched away like this. I have no control; I cannot contact my parents, or any of my friends.
"I wanted to call my Dad." I admit. "My brother too, once he lands. He'll want to talk to his little girl. Something's wrong with Frank's landline. He's trying to repair it. I guess my Mom deserves to be warned too. They need to get out of the city. Only I imagine that panic will have everyone on the move."
"I guess so."
"I suppose you'd want to call your folks too." I muse.
But Lewis shakes his head.
"I lost contact with my Dad years ago. My Mom's dead."
"I'm sorry. I didn't realise."
His eyes are fixed on the lake. The glare of the sky is reflected in the lenses of his glasses. He bends his head, unhooks them from his ears.
"She died a long time ago. And as for my Dad, well, I'd have to be crazy to want to call him. It's more my friends I'm worried about."
I think of Melanie when he says this, and I feel a lump rise in my throat. To think I only saw her this morning, after so long. We left on a bad foot, her opinion of me probably has soured forever. And now, I don't know what will happen to her. I don't know what will happen to anyone.
"It's a shame." Lewis says, and he lets out a short laugh. "I really did want to see you at the beach. It would have been nice. We could have done something normal together for once."
He looks at me, and in the dark I can make out his face, bony, but the eyes soft, kind. The freckles on his nose make him look boyish. I didn't think I liked boyish, not in white guys, not in anyone. I feel myself smile.
"Who says we can't?" I feel reckless. "We could go right now! There must be a car around here. Drive for miles. Dive straight in. What do we have to lose?"
"You could be right." He pauses. "Well, we do have a lake. That's something."
"Yeah. A lake will do."
We sit outside, saying nothing, both thinking similar things. When at last the cold gets too unbearable, and despite our fear exhaustion slips into our bones, we pick ourselves up and head back into the house.
Frank's carved wooden clock tells us that it is a little past five in the morning.
But there is no dawn for us here.
