It was only one word, but it riveted Alan to the spot with dread.
"I know about your sister," said Heath quietly. "I'm sorry for what happened to her. But Springfield Tech may be only the beginning of the nightmare."
How much does he know? Alan thought. If he mentions Mansch…
"If space aliens are responsible for the Brainchildren and their special abilities," Heath went on, "then it's your duty as a citizen of Earth to inform me."
"No more words," said Alan firmly. If I give him another word, he'll say Mansch.
To his relief, Heath held his peace.
Arriving at his house, George laid his candy-filled pouch on the coffee table and started to pull off his gas mask.
"Ewww!" groaned his younger sister, Sal. "Put it back on!"
"Very funny," said George as he tried to untangle a strap that was caught in his antler.
"How did you do, kids?" asked his mother, Mrs. Nordgren.
"Great!" exclaimed Sal, who had dyed her hair and nails black to pose as a vampire. "I got Snickers, Reese's Pieces, Jolly Ranchers, and crystallized ginger. But nobody let me suck their blood."
"Don't eat it all tonight," Mrs. Nordgren warned her. "Remember what I told you about Freaky Krueger."
"Who?" asked George.
"He's an old man with knives for teeth," Sal told him. "He comes on Halloween night, sneaks into bedrooms, drags kids away, and eats them—but only those kids who ate all their trick-or-treat candy."
"That's silly," said George, unzipping his camouflage shirt. "How would he even know?"
"Mom said it, so it must be true," said Sal smugly. "That's why I'm leaving one piece of candy under my pillow, and eating the rest."
George's sleep was interrupted the next morning when his sister rushed in, looking distraught. "My last piece of candy's gone!" she wailed. "I looked under my pillow, and it wasn't there!"
"Maybe the tooth fairy took it," mumbled George.
Tommy and Timmy Tibble, meanwhile, needed a stronger impetus to get out of bed.
"Wake up, boys," said their mother with a dopey smile.
"Ooooohhh…" moaned Tommy.
"I feel terrible," said Timmy, grimacing. "My tummy hurts."
"I wish I'd died in my sleep," said Tommy miserably.
Panicked, Trixie Tibble loaded the boys into her green Volvo and sped to the hospital emergency room.
"Tommy and Timmy will be fine," said the doctor. "They just have stomach-aches from eating too much candy last night."
"Eating too much candy causes stomach-aches?" said Mrs. Tibble incredulously. "I've never read that in Oprah Magazine. Where are you getting your information?"
She marched out of the hospital in a huff, dragging the uncomfortable boys with her. "We'll find another hospital," she told them, "one where the doctors really know medicine."
She was passed on the sidewalk by Augusta Winslow, who carried Petula in a baby sling and clutched some papers in her hand. The rabbit woman made her way to the hospital's billing department, and confronted the clerk indignantly.
"I'd like to know why my insurance company declined coverage of my birthing expenses," she demanded.
The young aardvark woman stopped fawning over Petula, and began to rifle through the files in her cabinet. "Wilson…Windom…Winky…Winslow. Hmm…that's odd. We have a record of your baby's birth, but no record of your pregnancy. No prenatal care, no ultrasounds, nothing. Did you just move to the area?"
"It's complicated to explain," said Augusta. "But I don't see why you'd charge me three thousand dollars, when all you did was examine us and let us go."
"Only three thousand?" the clerk marveled. "What did you do, grow her in your garden?"
"I can't pay this bill," said Augusta, swatting the papers in her hand. "I was just fired from my real estate job."
"What you need is unemployment assistance, ma'am," said the clerk disinterestedly.
"I will not become a welfare mom," Augusta vowed. I've dated welfare moms before—it's not a pretty picture.
By the Saturday after Halloween, the same hospital had a new patient—Tegan Powers, who had been judged stable enough to be transferred from Springfield.
Her family dutifully came to visit her in the afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Powers, and their son Alan, found the girl lying peacefully on a bed, with no alarming electrodes fastened to her forehead. Her face was slightly pallid, and the muscles in her arms and legs had withered.
"My poor little girl," said Mrs. Powers to the physician who had escorted them into the room. "Has she shown any signs of consciousness at all?"
"I'm afraid not," said the doctor in a gentle tone. Behind him, a male nurse with a white cap was washing medical instruments in a sink.
As was his habit, Mr. Powers grasped his daughter's wrist and palm. "I'm back, Tegan," he said soothingly. "I wish you'd wake up, so we can enjoy some quality time together."
Alan stroked his sister's pale cheek. "If it helps, I forgive you for what you tried to do to me," he spoke into her unheeding ears.
"Alan," said his mother curiously, "what did Tegan try to do to you?"
Alan cleared his throat, searching for a reply that didn't include too many details.
"She tried to alter my personality," he answered. "She wanted me to become one of the Brainchildren."
"Alter your personality?" his father mused. "What does that mean? Is this something else that's been removed from our memories?"
The nurse at the sink perked up his floppy ears.
"You know the mind-melding thing she did?" Alan continued. "That's not all she could do. She could enter your mind, put memories there that don't belong, even change the kind of person you are. She did it to Fern."
Uh-oh, he thought. Too much information.
"Fern doesn't seem all that different to me," Mrs. Powers observed.
"If she can plant memories in your mind," said Mr. Powers, "then maybe one of the other Brainchildren can erase memories."
"By God, Jim, you're right," his wife blurted out.
Desperate to change the subject, Alan glanced around the hospital room for something remarkable on which to comment. "That nurse has done nothing but wash stuff ever since we got here," he finally remarked.
"Alan, is there something you're not telling us?" said his father, glaring impatiently.
"Er, I don't know," said Alan, shrugging. "My memory's a bit hazy too."
The nurse laid his wet instruments on a metal platform, then started to tiptoe toward the doorway, careful to keep his face turned away from the Powers family.
"I need to go to the bathroom," said Alan. "Will you excuse me?"
He turned to leave the room, but his first step brought him into a collision with the nurse. Startled, the uniformed man danced to regain his footing, and revealed his bespectacled face to Alan in the process.
"You!" the boy cried in astonishment.
"You didn't see nothin'," the poodle man muttered mysteriously.
"You know him?" Mrs. Powers asked her son.
"He's been spying on us!" said Alan, pointing accusingly at the man in the smock. "Where did you get that nurse uniform?"
"At an after-Halloween sale," admitted Heath Holcombe. "It was fifty percent off—I couldn't resist."
"Stay away from my family!" Alan bellowed at him. "We don't want to be in your stupid newspaper!"
"What newspaper?" asked Mr. Powers.
"He's a reporter for the Weekly Spyglass," Alan told his father. "He's been bugging me since Halloween night."
"It's not what you think," said Heath, raising his hands to calm them. "I came to the hospital to investigate a different patient—a Mr. Raymond Mansch, who somehow lost his memory completely, and became a mental infant. But when I saw my good friend Alan enter the building, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone, figuratively speaking."
He knows about Mansch, thought Alan in despair.
"Figurative or literal," said Mr. Powers threateningly, "you'll stay away from our son, or I'll take out a restraining order against you."
"If you want a story for your tabloid, you can make one up," Mrs. Powers told Heath. "Isn't it all made up anyway?"
"Um…uh…" stammered Heath, slowly raising a finger to point.
Alan and his parents turned to look, keeping the corners of their eyes fixed on Heath in case he tried to flee. Their jaws dropped in unison.
In front of the picture window, a glowing, rectangular pillar of light had materialized. The electrical aura surrounding the phenomenon made the hair of everyone in the room stand on end.
"What is it?" Mrs. Powers wondered.
"It's…it's a…" Heath struggled to say.
"It must be a trick of the sun, or something," Mr. Powers theorized.
The creature that suddenly stepped out of the shaft of light was definitely no trick. It was roughly the size and shape of a human, with the exception of its abnormally long arms. Its head was not a head at all, but an opaque, crystalline sphere. It wore a uniform seemingly woven out of pure silver. To the sash around its waist were attached several alien-looking devices, one of which featured a muzzle and trigger.
Alan had seen such a being before. "It's a Thrag," he said under his breath.
"A what?" said Heath, turning to him abruptly.
Alan closed his mouth firmly. His parents stood motionlessly, not knowing how to react to the apparition. Tegan's eyelids fluttered.
The creature stepped behind the comatose girl's bed, and a booming voice emanated from its round helmet. "Heath Holcombe."
Understandably bashful, the poodle man straightened his glasses and crept forward. "That's me, sir," he replied meekly. "I'm Heath Holcombe."
The alien's elbow bent backwards a surprisingly long way as it reached for the weapon on its belt. Alan gasped as the uniformed being raised its arm and pointed the business end of its gun directly at Heath's head.
"You must die," it declared.
to be continued