ESTRANGESTERS
Chapter Eight
--o0o--

Daria set out in the direction of home, pondering what to do. This is my chance, she thought, possibly my only chance for a while, to work on my control. I'm fast becoming able to do new things, and to do the older things more strongly. I've got to learn to control these powers before I hurt someone, and before I get labeled a freak. And in some cases, learn exacty what those powers are.

The first thing I need to do is learn how not to broadcast my emotions and thoughts like that. But how? I guess I'll have to just try something, approach a person or persons, see how they react, then try something else and approach another test subject, until they don't notice anything.

Daria stopped walking. I can't do that at home, she thought. So either I break grounding, or I stay home and inflict myself on no one but my family until I learn to control it. Or until Mom can't stand it any more and cancels the grounding. Hmmm. Tempting. But will she? Or will she ship me off to a mental ward somewhere? Or call those government guys to come get me?

Dogs suddenly began whining and howling all around her. I guess that last thought spiked my anxiety level. And well it should. If those guys get hold of me while I'm showing undeniable evidence of mental powers, especially powers with obvious military potential, I may never see civilian life again. I can't let them see or hear of me like this. Making a decision, Daria set off toward downtown Lawndale.

--o0o--

Several hours later, after an abortive approach to downtown, a hasty detour to Oak Creek Park and then to the landfill, and finally a walk down Degas Street, a tired but satisfied Daria headed toward home via the quarry overlook road. She had a vague almost-headache in a place where she'd never had a headache before, and a sensation of an energy drain stopped, like a long-tensed muscle she'd finally noticed and consciously relaxed. And even though tired from the mental gymnastics she'd put herself through, she felt a rebuilding of energy, as of a reservoir refilling or a battery recharging.

What's that about, she wondered. I seriously doubt that I actually have a power pack inside me that powers my mental abilities. What I did to that squirrel this morning and all those vermin around the landfill later would take more raw energy than a large car battery could hold, and broadcasting commands and emotions and whatnot has to take some energy. On the other hand, I don't think I'm ready to believe in something like The Force that I can tap into. Well, no need to worry about that now.

Daria was studying her lengthening shadow and wondering if she'd get home before her parents did, when she noticed a vague feeling of unease. She looked around her at the field the dirt road known either as Quarry Overlook Road or Lovers' Lane was currently leading her through. Nothing moved but gently swaying weed tops and a few butterflies, but the feeling intensified to a sense of impending danger. She looked back up the track the way she had come, toward the woods atop what remained of the hill. Just beyond those trees the road ran along the edge of the eighty-some-odd foot drop to the old quarry floor and the small but deep body of water known as Blue Pool. All had been quiet when she'd passed that way not long before...

Then she heard it. Dogs barking. The sound seemed to come from the woods. Many dogs barking. Coming closer.

They burst out of the woods in hot pursuit of a deer, baying like hounds, thirty or more of them. The deer easily outdistanced them, and they stopped and watched, panting, as the deer bounded across the field and disappeared into a far woodlot. When the last flash of its white tail vanished and she turned and continued on her way, her movement attracted the dogs' attention. A single deep woof! from their leader, and they came charging down the slope straight at her, baying at first and then, when she didn't run, deadly silent. The terrible realization struck her that they meant to drag something down and kill it, and she was something they knew they could catch.

Knowing that running was useless, Daria focused on the leader first, and blew his brains out. Then she picked out others in order of their proximity or their scary-looking-ness, The skulls of the first seven burst open most gratifyingly, splattering brains and eyeballs abroad. The next several went down like the squirrel this morning, brains boiled and eyeballs blown out but skulls staying intact. A dozen or more still remained, and still came on at a run, straight at her. They apparently didn't realize she was killing them one by one, and now they were less than a hundred yards away.

I'm getting tired, she thought, I don't have the energy left to blow all their brains out. She tried making one dog trip another, but the dogs were much quicker and more agile than high school boys. An attempt to make them fight each other failed for the same reason. And now they were much closer. She killed the two now in the lead, a pair of big German Shepherds, by destroying their brains with a minimum of wasted energy, but she knew she still wouldn't be able to do that to all of them, not without a break.

She used her power to jab one in the eyes. It stopped and yelped and rubbed its front paws over its eyes. Quickly, she did the same to another six, and they all stopped. She killed the next two with minimal energy expenditure, then poked the last one in the eyes. It stopped, but some of the previous six were coming for her again. Through a rising haze of mental fatigue, Daria focused on the brain of the nearest dog. She caught an image of a brain-shaped, sparkling mass, whose concentrations of tiny sparks probably indicated the actve areas of its brain. Not what she wanted. She tried again. The image changed, the sparkles fading and a more detailed form emerging, a form that resembled a large pecan kernel doing something naughty to a small sweet potato, with some grapes and peas thrown in, all connected by tubes and cables. Quickly Daria focused in on one of the largest tubes, thick-walled and pulsing rhythmically. This was probably it. She visualized a razor-sharp hooked blade slicing a three-inch-long gash in this tube. Her mental image was suddenly obscured by a flood of hot, dark blood.

Out in the field in front of her, the dog yelped, stumbled a few steps, and went down. Daria quickly switched to the next, then the next, slashing open their carotid arteries also.

The last three were almost on her. Without thinking, she reverted to the earliest manifestation of her power, and stopped them in their tracks. Two of them were mongrels; thin, shaggy, and vaguely wolflike, slightly smaller than German Shepherds. They stood, quivering and snarling, apparently still eager to drag her down. Daria shuddered. These dogs had been born wild, probably of wild parents. They were, and would always be, a menace to humans. She pulped the brain of one, then the other, and they dropped in their tracks.

The last dog was a black Labrador, barely out of puppyhood. It was sleek and well-groomed, except for muddy paws and a few burrs, and it was wearing a collar with tags. Daria glared at it and it cringed, as much as it could while immobilized, and made puppy eyes at her. Maybe it's not incorrigible yet, she thought.

She made it walk over to one of the dead dogs and sniff it. "Bad dog!" she said, and sent it feelings of disapproval and what she hoped was doggy guilt. "Bad, bad dog!" She sent it images of the pack chasing a deer and attempting to attack her, and accompanied them with three mental swats on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. "No, no, no!" It cringed and whined, which she allowed, and she caught a mental picture of a yard and a house, and a family with children, and food and water dishes and a doghouse. "Good," she said and thought at it, Yes. Go home!

It didn't need to be told twice. It set out for Lawndale at a dead run. Watching it go, she hoped she'd done the right thing, and that it would resist the call of the wild in the future. Turning, she resumed walking along the dirt road toward her subdivision, but suddenly the dire peril of the last moments, the gruesome agony of the death she'd so narrowly avoided hit her like a ton of cold lasagna. She collapsed to hands and knees and was forced to wait till an uncontrollable fit of shakes passed.

She was nearly to the paved road when the sheriff's car pulled alongside her and stopped. The deputy gave her a once-over, then rolled down his window partway and said, "Afternoon, miss. What are you doing out here?"

"Walking."

"Just walking?" He glanced up the road toward lovers' lane. "I thought you might have had, um, car trouble or something. Would you mind showing me some ID?"

She got out her billfold, removed her student ID card from it and handed it to him. "No, just walking. I live less than a mile from here. Thanks for asking, though."

"This isn't a good place to go walking these days," he said, examining the card. "A pack of feral dogs has been seen around the quarry and adjoining woods a lot lately. There've been reports of them menacing people and attacking pets. A pack of feral dogs can be more dangerous than a pack of wolves, you know, because they have no fear of man." He handed the card back.

"That may not be a problem anymore," she replied, putting away the card, "I saw a bunch of dogs lying in that field back there, and they seemed to be dead."

"Really," he said, looking in the direction her thumb indicated. He reached over and opened the front passenger side door. "Would you mind showing me?"

"Not at all," Daria said, kicking herself mentally as she walked around the car.

--o0o--

"Daria Marie Morgendorffer! What is the meaning of this?"

Oh, crap, I'm in for it now, Daria thought. Helen was standing on the front porch, hands on hips, phone gripped in one hand like a headsman's axe. Quinn peeked out from behind her.

She must have seen the deputy's cruiser pulling away, and no telling what Quinn's been telling her, all on top of the fact that I've been violating my grounding all day. She'll probably make me wear a tracking collar to school now, and have a lock installed on the outside of my door.

"Get in this house right now, young lady!"

Suddenly feeling every mile she'd walked today, Daria wearily trudged up the walk and inside. Helen closed the door as if she were springing a trap and said, "Now explain to me why you were brought here by the police."

"He was keeping me from being eaten by wild dogs."

"Don't you smart off to me, missy! Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?"

A stranger would not have seen the slightest change in Daria's lack of expression, but Quinn recognized the look Daria gave people who'd just said or done something stupid. "A large pack of feral dogs has been causing trouble in this area. Joggers menaced, pets carried off and eaten, that sort of thing. When he saw me walking alone he gave me a ride home. Deputy Jonas Lawson, badge fifty-three, Carter County Sheriff's department. Call and ask him," Daria challenged, staring Helen straight in the eye.

Surprised, Helen asked, "Did you actually see any wild dogs?"

"Yes."

Much of the anger faded from Helen's expression. "And what were they doing?"

"The ones I saw are dead." Daria could almost read Helen's thoughts from the look in her eyes. She didn't want to ask why Daria had said 'are dead' instead of 'were dead'. And she was remembering the strange case of the squirrel that died of a brain blowout this morning. The expression Daria found most interesting, though, was Quinn's. Rather than vindictive as she'd expected, Quinn looked anxious and unhappy. It made her wonder if she was still broadcasting her emotional state.

Helen tried another tack. "Quinn tells me she heard that you left school during first period. Is that true?"

"Yes."

Helen thought she smelled blood and moved in. "And that you were frightening the other students. Is that true?"

Daria glanced at Quinn, who shrugged her shoulders apologetically. Strange. She looks like she's worried I'll get mad at her. What's that about? "Not exactly." She pulled the paper Li had given her out of her pocket and handed it to her mother. "They were disturbed when I was near them. Ms. Li said, quote: "It's as if there's an aura of anxiety and unhappiness around you." She told me to stay away from school as long as that was the case."

Helen looked up from the note. "What? Do you expect me to believe..." She broke off, deterred by Daria's unflinching stare, and read the rest of the note. "What does she mean by that? I don't detect any such aura."

"Good. I've been working on controlling it all day."

Helen glared at her. In a voice dripping sarcasm she said, "Oh, now, let me see if I've got this straight. There was this aura, but you worked hard at controlling it all day, while not in school and not at home, as per the conditions of your grounding, and now it's gone, and its absence is proof that you're telling the truth. Come on, Daria, you can do better than that." Quinn winced at what seemed a devastating broadside of Helen's courtroom prowess.

Of course I can. Alright, try this on for size. Daria began to warm up her angst. Jane. My friend, my first, my only friend. Vanished, snatched away by some strange malevolent... something, quite possibly never to be seen again. Jane, who you wouldn't allow to sleep over last night. Jane is gone.

Daria released the control she'd so recently achieved. Helen gasped and staggered back against the stair railing. Quinn howled and disappeared into the kitchen. Daria heard the side patio door jerked open and then begin to close on its own.

"I didn't say it was gone. I said I've been working on controlling it."

"Oh my God, Daria, what is that?"

"That's what the students were disturbed about. That's why Ms. Li sent me home. That's what I've been trying to suppress all day, and finally succeeded. I can't detect it myself, but I'm guessing it's a sort of broadcast version of my emotional state."

Tears ran down Helen's cheeks. She clamped her hands to the sides of her head and moved unsteadily away. Daria didn't follow her. "Wha... you mean you can't feel that?" Helen asked.

"Of course I feel it, it's how I feel! I just can't tell whether I'm broadcasting it or not."

Having reached what she considered a bearable distance from her, Helen stopped and looked at Daria with dismay and sorrow in her eyes. "Why, Daria? Why do you feel like this? How long have you felt like this?"

Daria stared at her. "Since this morning. Since I got to Jane's house and found out that she's missing. She's been taken, like Jodie and the others. She's gone."

Helen shrank a little under Daria's expressionless gaze. She found it doubly disturbing now that she knew the grief, pain, anger, and loss it concealed. "Oh Daria, I'm sorry. But we don't know that she was taken. Maybe she just went somewhere."

"In nothing but the shorts and t-shirt she slept in? No money, no street clothes, no shoes? And no sketchbook? She'd never voluntarily go anywhere without that."

"Daria, don't look at me like that. She might still have disappeared if I'd let her sleep over last night. And you might have disappeared with her. It's not my fault she's gone."

Daria continued to stare at Helen for a few more seconds, then said, "Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll never know now."

"Daria, could you please, uh, turn that off?"

"I wish. I should be able to stop transmitting it, though. Hang on." Daria lowered her head, grasped her chin in one hand, closed her eyes, and appeared to be concentrating. The intensity of the emotions Helen was feeling began to decline, somewhat unsteadily, but within about fifteen seconds Helen could no longer feel them.

Helen straightened up and put herself in order. "That's much better."

"For you, maybe," Daria muttered.

Helen frowned at her daughter. "We're still left with the question of why you violated your grounding."

Daria cocked an eyebrow at her. "I thought that would be obvious."

"Humor me."

"I did what I believed you would want me to do in the circumstances if you had all the facts. I figured you wouldn't want me to miss any more school than I had to, and I figured if you came home to find me with the 'aura' going full blast and no clue how to control it, you wouldn't be pleased. So I tried to figure out how to get it under control, and I succeeded. To do that, I had to wander around town and observe peoples' reactions, so that's what I did. It was a judgement call."

Helen looked at Daria for a few seconds in silence, then said, "All right. Lord knows I don't want to discourage you from using youor best judgement, unless it goes horribly wrong. But what the heck is that 'aura' anyway, and what caused it? And what did you do to suppress it?"

Daria shrugged. "I don't know what it is. I had it when I got to school this morning. I strongly suspect it was triggered when I found out that Jane had been snatched away in the night. As for how I'm controlling it, there aren't any words to answer that. I guess it's kind of like how some people learn how to consciously control their pulse rate, and others learn to move a cursor around on a monitor screen with brain waves."

Helen paused again in thought. "Hmm. Well, I suppose I should be glad that you were able to deal with it with no more disruption than that. Speaking of this morning, though, what's the story on that squirrel?"

Thinking quickly, Daria concluded that to tell the truth now about the squirrel would lead inevitably to telling the truth about the goings-on between her and Quinn at school, which she and Quinn had already lied about, and which she now regretted. It would have to be done sometime, but not now, she decided.

"You mean that squirrel you were facing off against this morning? Last I saw of it, it was on your hood."

"Daria, I think you've been honest with me so far this evening, and I want you to continue to be. Tell me what happened to that squirrel."

"Mom, just because a strange thing happened to me today doesn't mean I'm responsible for every other strange thing too. That aura thing didn't happen till after I found out that Jane is gone, and anyway, it's a long leap from unintentionally radiating unhappiness and not being able to control it, to intentionally making animals' brains shoot out their ears. I didn't do anything to that squirrel. I didn't have anything against that squirrel. It was your SUV he tinkled on. At the time I was preoccupied with getting to Jane's to see if she was okay."

Helen had to pause again. On the one hand, it seemed ridiculous to think that Daria had killed that squirrel this morning from a distance with some bizarre mental power, but on the other hand, this incident in school this morning... she just didn't have enough information to reach a conclusion. She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and said, "It's late. I'm going to get out of these work clothes. Why don't you order some pizzas, Daria? You know what we all like."

Helen headed for the stairs and Daria went to the kitchen. After she'd called in the order, she just sat there, a captive of fatigue and angst. Pizza, especially Pizza King pizza, made her think of Jane. Would the two of them ever again share a sinfully greasy pepperoni and sausage pizza in their favorite booth at their beloved, slightly grubby hangout?

Tomorrow, she thought, if those FBI guys are still there, I'm going to find out what progress they're making. I'm going to find out what I can do to help, and I'm not going to take no for an answer. Jane is out there somewhere, in who knows what sort of danger, suffering who knows what, and I want her back. First friend I ever have in my whole miserable life, damn it, and almost as soon as I meet her, someone snatches her. Well, I won't stand for it.

The front doorbell roused Daria from dark musings. Helen entered the kitchen, followed by a dorky looking delivery boy carrying the pizzas, followed by Jake and Quinn. With a start, Daria recognized the delivery boy as Artie, the person who had recently claimed to be a UFO abductee on Sick Sad World.

After he set the pizzas down, he noticed and pointed to a mark on Quinn's neck, a mark that Daria had not seen. "Ah, I see you've been abducted too! That's where they insert the heart probe. Hurts like the dickens! When they did me, they stuck another one here," he went on, pointing at his right side, "That's the one that looks around in your abdominal cavity, and it hurts even worse! Then of course they have others that they stick in all your bodily orifices."

Quinn paled and shrank back behind Helen. Helen turned on Artie. "Young man! You can't talk to my daughters like that! I want you out of here right now!" Helen pulled some bills out of her billfold and thrust them at Artie. The frightened delivery boy barely managed to take the money before departing the house at his best speed.

Daria didn't notice his departure. She rushed to Quinn's side and pulled out the tail of her uncharacteristically long tee shirt on the right side. There it was.

"Oh, no." Daria looked up into Quinn's frightened eyes. "Quinn, why didn't you tell me?"

"I tried to, Daria, but this morning you stomped off before I could say anything, I couldn't get near you at school, and then you left and stayed gone all day. But that Artie guy's crazy, right? Please tell me he's crazy!"

"Yeah, he's probably crazy. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he's wrong. So, let me guess. You woke up this morning tireder than when you went to bed, and you had those two marks that feel like half-healed cuts, but you don't remember how you got them."

"Yeah! Except I do remember some stuff. It's not all clear, but..."

"Tell me."

"Well, I was floating over my bed, and then I was floating across the room, and then I was outside, and there was this flash of green light, and I was in this small room with lots of blinky stuff everywhere, and then there was a white flash, and I was in this bigger space with lots of blinky stuff but it was kind of dark, and then these... things put me on a metal table and it was real cold and I realized I was naked, and then they started sticking... things in me and..."

"Gaaah!" Jake remarked.

"Quinn! What in the world are you going on about?" Helen demanded.

"Just listen! I'm telling you!"

"Quinn, that's ridiculous! Have you been watching that awful Sick Disgusting World show?"

"Muh-O-om!"

Daria interrupted. "Mom, Jodie Landon had marks just like those before she disappeared two days ago, and Jane had them yesterday, before she disappeared. The only difference is that Quinn remembers some of what happened to her. I think..."

"Well, this conversation is entirely inappropriate for the dinner table."

"But we're not..."

"Sit down and eat your pizza before it gets cold."

-o0o-

Meanwhile, in a windowless office not too far away, a man sat listening to something over headphones, and occasionally sweeping a practiced eye over a bank of monitor screens. As he reached for a coffee mug, a red LED began blinking on a console before him. He pushed a button under the LED, swung a tiny mic near his mouth, and said, "0153. Line secure. Recording. Go."

A voice in his earphones said, "This is M79 in Lawndale. I just picked up something interesting from the Morgendorffer house. Seems a pizza delivery boy spotted a mark on Quinn Morgendorffer's neck and identified it as a sign that she'd been kidnapped by aliens. The mother freaked and ran him off."

"Uh, copy, M79, was the pizza boy named Artie?"

"Yes, he was."

"Be advised that this Artie is a known local UFO nut and not considered reliable."

"Understood, 0153, but following this, the older sibling, Daria, searched for and found a second similar mark on Quinn's abdomen, in the location Artie said it would be, and also that these marks correspond to marks Daria observed on two recent disappearees, one 'Jodie' and one 'Jane'.

"Copy, M79. Hold one while I cross-check something." Swiveling slightly, the man began typing at a keyboard and referring to two computer screens. He scrolled through a text file, then said, "I have a copy of an FBI report here. Yesterday a Jane Lane reported to FBI officers at Lawndale High School that she observed a set of such marks on one Jodie Landon, a fellow student, a day before Jodie went missing. This was corroborated by Daria. Jane Lane then showed the officers a set of marks, which she said were identical to Jodie's, on her own person. This was also corroborated by Daria. I don't show a Missing Persons report on any Jane from Lawndale. Can you confirm that Jane Lane is the Jane that Daria said is missing?"

"uhh... no, 0153, cannot confirm."

"Hmm. Anything else to report?"

"Yes. Quinn states that she has a partial memory of being abducted and probed last night. She said the marks are from the probing. Two other things, possibly unrelated; the mother suspects Daria of causing the death of a squirrel this morning, in some bizarre manner. Daria denies it. And Daria was sent home from school this morning for, quote, an aura of anxiety and unhappiness, unquote. Instead of going home, she stayed out till almost dark, claiming she was working on controlling her aura, and succeeded. Her mother accepted this explanation after some sort of demonstration."

"What sort?"

"From what I heard, Daria temporarily unsuppressed the aura. Quinn ran from the house and Helen sounded quite distressed."

"Hoo boy. Um, copy, M79. I'll write this up and get it off, and put a tickler on it."

"Shall I go on to my next subject, or stay with the Morgendorffers?"

"Keep monitoring the Morgendorffers for now, and ask again tomorrow if you haven't received further instructions."

"What's the interest in these people?"

"Lemme check... The primary interest is in Daria, some in Quinn. Beyond that, it's strict need to know."

The man disconnected from M79, then turned to his keyboard and brought up a report form on the screen. Fingers poised, he hesitated and grimaced in indecision. Then, bringing up a list of phone numbers, he selected one and hit ENTER.

In a dark sedan on a well-illuminated residential street, the man whose working designator was M79 stared at his cell phone for a few seconds before folding it up and clipping it to his shirt pocket. As he readjusted his headphones, he looked out his windshield, down the street toward the Morgendorffer house. He'd give a lot to know exactly what about Daria was so interesting to some federal agency. One thing he knew. As long as he'd been doing this, no one at 0153 had ever before said 'hoo boy', or anything resembling 'hoo boy' in his hearing.

-o0o-

After dinner, Quinn sought out Daria, and found her staring out the big dormer window above the stairs. "Daria, can you help keep me from getting abducted again?" she asked.

"That's something you should really go to Mom and Dad with."

"I can't talk to Mom! You saw how she was! She was about to call the padded wagon to haul me away, and she may yet!"

"Gosh, Quinn, I'd like to help you, I really would, but I'm just so busy these days trying to keep track of all the lies I've told for you, and looking over my shoulder for approaching goon squads and suchlike."

"Come on. I already promised I won't sic the guys on you if you stop making me hit myself and run into things and do embarrassing stuff."

"It has to be more than that, Quinn. You have to stop acting like my very existence is a mortal insult and embarrassment to you. You have to quit telling people I'm an orphaned distant relative or something. You have to accept me as I am and acknowledge me as your sister."

Quinn looked horrified. "You've got to be kidding!"

Daria's expression hardened. "You want me to go up against an entire race of technologically advanced starfaring aliens for you, while you continue to deny I'm your sister? Enjoy the probes, Princess." She returned her attention to the window.

Quinn paled. "All right, all right, you're my sister! Now will you help me?"

Daria looked back at Quinn and smiled lopsidedly. "Why certainly, Quinn. Anything for my sister. Give me twenty bucks."

"What?"

"For pizza. I'll need to question Artie, as he seems to be the only one besides you with any memory of the abduction experience. And I want you to start writing down everything you can remember about your abduction. We'll go over it later."

-o0o-

Daria was standing at the curb when Artie's battered Yugo pulled up. Artie looked at the house, then at Daria. "Hey, wasn't I just here an hour ago? This is the place with that scary woman, right?"

"This is the place."

"You guys must have really liked those last pizzas. Uh, do I have to go back in there to deliver this?"

"No, Artie, I'll take it in, but if you want a good tip you have to answer a few questions. How many times have you been kidnapped by these aliens?"

--o0o--

Quinn met Daria at the top of the stairs when she returned. "Did you talk to Artie?"

"Yeah."

"So what do you think? Did he really get kidnapped or is he crazy?"

"Both, I think."

"What did he say? Are they going to come back for me?"

"They might. Artie doesn't know why they're interested in us. If they decide they want you, they may come back tonight or tomorrow night."

"Oh, no! Daria, you've got to stop them!"

Daria gave her sister a look. "Don't worry. I'll just call Andrews Air Force Base and scramble a wing of F-15s. I'll order them to fly air cover over the house all night and shoot down anything that looks like a flying saucer."

"Great! Thanks, Da... wait a minute. Are you being sarcasmic?"

"The word is 'sarcastic,' and yes, I am. Why don't you summon some of your admirers to come and guard you tonight?"

"Huh? It doesn't work that way, Daria. If I want them to do something specific, I have to tell them. And I can't, uh, charm them unless they're looking at me or thinking about me. And anyway, there's no way Mom'd let them in the house, much less in my bedroom for the night. I wouldn't either, come to think of it."

"Uh huh. And how did you expect me to stop these aliens from kidnapping you?"

"Well, duh, Daria, you're the mighty brain, as you keep rubbing my face in. Make them shoot each other with their death rays or something. You figure it out."

Daria held back an angry retort. Though she seemed to have remarkably little interest in helping herself here, Quinn was essentially right to let Daria handle it. Only Daria knew her capabilities and even she might not know all of them. "You're gonna have to help me, if you want to stay on this planet. When you were kidnapped last night, you said you remember floating over your bed, and then floating across your room. Did you struggle, or call for help?"

"I tried to but I couldn't. It was like I was molded in a big block of that tough Lawndale High jello. I could just barely move or make a sound at all."

"And then what happened? Did you go through the window?"

"The next thing I remember is being in the small place with all the blinky lights. Wait a minute-- I think I remember looking up at the stars, and right overhead there was this black triangle shape, and there were three blinking lights on it, a white one, a red one, and a blue one. Then there was a really bright greenish one in the middle of the others, and then I was in the small place. I don't remember how I got out of my room."

Daria sighed. Not much, but it's something. Now for the hard part, she thought.

-o0o-

Daria opened her eyes. She had a feeling of approaching danger. She looked around. Her darkened room looked as it always did, except for the slivers of light leaking out of her closet where Quinn was sleeping. ... Daria's boots and sneakers, a stack of books, and a box of rocks sat forlornly outside the door whence they had been evicted.

Lying on her bed fully dressed, Daria unexpectedly felt herself getting drowsy too. Her sense of approaching danger was growing stronger, yet she could scarcely keep her eyes open. She pinched herself on the arm and the feeling receded but did not go away, so she pinched herself on the thigh, harder. That was better.

Something on her desk vibrated for a few seconds, then stopped, as if in sympathy to a low frequency engine note from a passing semi. Then one of her windowpanes began to rattle in its frame. Darioa looked around. There was no sound of a truck, no headlights sliding acroos the window.

Then she heard the faint, tinny sound of music. Recognizing the tune as being on the CD she currently had in her Walkman, she turned on the light, sat up, and picked up the Walkman from the floor to turn it off.

It was off.

Music continued to issue from the headphones. Daria turned it over, popped the battery hatch, and removed the batteries. The music continued to play. Daria staredat the empty battery compartment and felt a cold hand of fear clench in her gut. Trivial as the evidence seemed, she was convinced. They were coming.

What should I do? What can I do? What can a teenage girl, unarmed, with pretty much zero useful knowledge of the enemy, do to prevent an alien abduction? Daria was suddenly very conscious of the hubris of her intentions.

LEDs on her keyboard and then on her tower began to flicker on and off at random. Daria stood up, crossed the room, and opened her closet door. Quinn peeked timidly out from under her blankets. Daria hesitated, then said, "Quinn. They're coming."

Quinn's eyes pleaded for reassurance. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. What I can," Daria replied, then reflected that honesty might not be the best policy in this particular case.

Behind Daria the old TV set mounted to the ceiling, the one for which there was no remote, the one that had not played once since they'd moved here, came on. It cast a bluish glow on her bed. From it came loud music, and a deep, resonant voice sang, "Shoo ba de doo, ba doo, dooby doo..."

Quinn lay there frozen in fear for about half a second, then, at the speed of panic she bolted out of the closet, almost knocking Daria down, and out into the hallway. Regaining her balance, Daria followed her down the hall, almost catching up to her as she paused to heave open the master bedroom door.

The lights were on. Jake lay in the middle of the bed and Helen knelt astraddle him. They were doing it. Quinn gasped. Now I understand, thought Daria in a flash of revelation, The baker in Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark actually wanted to 'softly and suddenly vanish away', because the Snark was definitely a boojum. Oh, God, was it ever.

With a conscious effort, Daria thrust away her useless thoughts of the bizarre interpretation of the strange but fascinating illustration of that old, off-the-wall poem. Quinn, whose shock-induced paralysis had worn off quite quickly, dove for the floor on the non-window side of the bed.

Helen, covering her breasts with one hand and arm while lowering her hips as much as possible, swiveled her head and shoulders around and demanded, "Quinn! What are you doing in here?"

"Gaah!" Jake remarked.

Quinn, in the process of crawling under her parents' bed, screamed, "The aliens! They're here! They've come for me!"

Catching sight of Daria in the doorway, Helen rasped. "Daria! I'm going to wring your neck for terrorizing your sister with those damned alien stories! Get out of here, and take her with you!"

A multitonal whine/hum rich with harmonics, seemed to come from everywhere at once. Brightening white light poured in at the windows, tinged with bluish and reddish flashes. The source of the light was sinking lower, and now was not far above the house.

"Gaah!" Jake remarked again.

Deciding the best thing she could do was stay with Quinn, and not wanting to look at her parents any more than she absolutely had to right now, Daria hit the floor and squeezed under the bed after Quinn. There was more than enough light to see clearly, and Daria suspected that she could've seen Quinn's eyes even without it. Quinn whimpered in terror. Daria put out her hand and Quinn seized it with a grip like an arm-wrestler's.

Suddenly the bed above them rose in the air until they could have stood upright, had they wanted to. From above it came cries of surprise and fear from their parents. Quinn's grip tightened to a degree that Daria would have found incredible under normal circumstances. Her gaze fell on the door to the master bath, and she was tensing for a dash to it when she was enveloped in greenish light. Daria's hand and lower forearm were also in the light, and she could feel the pressure of it, almost as if it were sand. It seemed to squirm and grip, and Quinn's legs were squeezed together, her arms forced down to her sides, her hand pulled away from Daria's in spite of her panic-powered grip. She rose off the floor, rotated till her head pointed toward the front window, and began floating toward it, wrapped in the green beam. She seemed to be trying to struggle, but was unable to, as if bound up in invisible duct tape. She managed to turn her head a little in Daria's direction, and her terrified, pleading eyes locked onto Daria's. Daria Daria scrambled to her knees, reached up and seized her. The beam felt like a ghostly tube of toothpaste. Daria squeezed harder, and slowly her arms forced their way into the beam and got a grip on Quinn. She planted a foot on the window frame and fought against the beam's pull.Quinn slowed, but was still being pulled out. Daria planted her other foot on the windowsill and heaved backwards with all her might.

Quinn's motion halted,and Daria was even able to pull her backwards a couple of inches. From behind and above her, she heard her parents calling their names. Suddenly the window, frame and all, was wrenched out of the wall. It floated outside and then fell away into the front yard. Quinn, with Daria hanging on, floated away from the house and upwards.

Her father's head and shoulders appeared at the jagged window opening. Calling their names, he reached for them, but they were out of reach. He climbed up on the framing that had supported the window, still naked, hanging onto the side with one hand and preparing to launch himself out into space in a possibly suicidal effort to reach them. Helen appeared beside him, also still naked, seized him around the waist, and dragged him back inside. But then she leaned out the ragged opening right beside him, still calling to them, oblivious as he to their state of undress or the possibility of being seen.

I truly hope that's not my last look at Mom and Dad, Daria thought. I'd much rather remember them with their clothes on.

As they rose higher, Daria looked up into the sky. A large part of it was blocked out by a dark triangular shape directly overhead. A white, reddish, or bluish light marked each corner, and they were risint toward an open hatch from which the greenish beam was coming. Daria saw that the craft was actually quite small and conoidal in shape, and closer than she'd thought.

In seconds they rose up through the hatch into a small cabin that fit Quinn's description of a small place with blinking lights. Two aliens at the pointy end of the craft regarded them through large dark eyes. They wore silvery flight suits with dark piping, They had big heads on small bodies, small mouths, very small noses, and no external ears. Their fingers were very long and thin, and their skin was grayish with silvery highlights. Oh, crap, thought Daria, feeling her sphincter tighten, Captured by the Grays. I am so gonna get probed.

She sent them a mental command to put them back in the house, but there was no reaction. She tried to make one hit the other, but that failed as well.

The two Grays were twittering and gesturing, pointing at them and toward a small alcove at the rear of the cabin, pointing upwards, holding up either one or two fingers. One of them operated some controls. They were guided into the empty space and held there, immobile. They continued their discussion. Daria was just wondering if she should let go of Quinn and attempt to force them to land their craft when one of them punched a button on the control panel. An unbearably bright light seemed to shine through her skull and into her brain---

End of Chapter Eight

End of Part One

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