One Door Away From Heaven

Chapter 43

Resplendent in acrylic-heeled sandals and navel opals, these two Cinderellas have no need of a fairy godmother, for they are magical in their own right. Their laughter is musical, infectious, and Curtis can’t help but smile even though they’re laughing at his ridiculous and shakily expressed fear that they might be clones.

They are, of course, identical twins. The one he met outside is named Castoria. The one he encountered second is Polluxia.

“Call me Cass.”

“And call me Polly.”

Polly puts down the big knife with which she was chopping vegetables. Dropping to her knees on the galley floor, with squeaky baby talk and vigorous ear scratching, she reduces Old Teller at once to licking, tail-lashing adulation.

Placing a hand gently on Curtis’s shoulder, Cass brings him out of the lounge and into the galley.

“In Greek mythology,” says Curtis, “Castor and Pollux were the sons of Leda, fathered by Jupiter disguised as a swan. They’re the patron deities of seamen and voyagers. They’re famous warriors, too.”

This knowledgeable recitation surprises the women. They regard him with evident curiosity.

Old Teller turns to stare at him as well, though accusingly, because Polly has stopped the baby talk and the ear scratching.

“They tell us half the kids graduating from high school can’t read,” says Cass, “but you’re mythology savvy in grade school?”

“My mother was big on organic brain augmentation and direct-to-brain megadata downloading,” he explains.

Their expressions cause Curtis to review what he has just said, and he’s chagrined to realize that he revealed more about his true nature and his origins than he ever intended to share with anyone. These two dazzle him, and as with Donella and Gabby, dazzlement seems to evoke in him either a looseness of the tongue or a tangling of the same potentially treacherous organ.

In a lame attempt to distract them from what he revealed, Curtis continues with a harmless lie: “Plus we had a Bible and a useless ‘cyclopedia sold to us by a mercantile porch-squatter.”

Cass plucks a newspaper from the table in the dining nook and hands it to Polly.

Polly’s sparkling eyes widen, and blue beams seem to flash at Curtis as she says, “I didn’t recognize you, sweetie.”

She turns the newspaper so Curtis can see three photos under the headline SAVAGE COLORADO MURDERS TIED TO FUGITIVE DRUG LORDS IN UTAH.

The photos are of the members of the Hammond family. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, shown here, are surely the people who were asleep in their bed, in the quiet farmhouse, when the fugitive boy shamefully took twenty-four dollars from the wallet on the dresser.

The third picture is of Curtis Hammond.

“You’re not dead,” Cass says.

“No,” Curtis replies, which is true as far as it goes.

“You escaped.”

“Not quite yet.”

“Who’re you here with?”

“Nobody but my dog. We’ve pretty much hitched across Utah.”

Polly asks, “Whatever happened at your family’s farm in Colorado — is that all tied to this hullabaloo in Utah?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

Castoria and Polluxia make eye contact, and their connection is as precise as that between a surgical laser and the calculated terminus of its beam, so that Curtis can almost see the scintillant trace of thought passing from one to the other. They share their next question in a duologue that does nothing to diminish his dazzlement:

“It’s not just — “

“—a bunch of—“

“—crazy drug lords—“

“—behind all this—“

“—like the government says—“

“—is it, Curtis?”

His attention bounces from one to the other as he answers the question twice, “No. No.”

When these twins exchange a meaningful look, which they now do again, they seem not to convey just a quick single thought, but whole paragraphs of complex data and opinion. In the womb, fed by the same susurrus river of blood, soothed by the two-note lullaby of the same mother’s heart, gazing eye to eye in dreamy anticipation of the world to come, they had perfected the telemetric stare.

“Over there in Utah—“

“—is the government—“

“—trying to cover up—“

“—contact with—“

“—extraterrestrials?”

“Yes,” Curtis says, because this is the answer they expect and the only one they will believe. If he lies and says that no aliens are involved, they will either know that he is dissembling or will think that he’s merely stupid and that he’s as bamboozled by the government spinmeisters as is everyone else. He’s drawn to Cass and Polly; he likes them partly because Old Yeller likes them, partly because the genes of Curtis Hammond ensure that he likes them, but also because there is a tenderness about them, quite apart from their beauty, that he finds appealing. He doesn’t want them to think that he is either stupid or disposed to lie. “Yes, aliens.”

Cass to Polly, Polly to Cass, blue lasers transmitting unspoken volumes. Then Polly says, “Where are your folks, really?”

“They’re really dead.” His vision blurs with tears of guilt and remorse. Sooner or later, he’d have been forced to stop somewhere, if not at the Hammond farm, then at another, to find clothes and money and a suitable identity. But if he had realized just how close on his tail the hunters had been, he wouldn’t have chosen the Hammond place. “Dead. The newspaper’s right about that.”

To his tears the sisters fly as birds to a nest in a storm. In an instant he’s being hugged and kissed and comforted by Polly, then by Cass, by Polly, by Cass, caught in a spin cycle of sympathy and motherly affection.

In a swoon short of an outright faint, Curtis is conveyed, as if by spirit handlers, into the dining nook, and with what seems to him to be a miraculousness equal to the sun spinning off spangles in the sky over Fatima, a divine refreshment appears in front of him — a tall glass of cold root beer in which floats a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Not forgotten, Old Yeller is served a plate piled with the cubed white meat of chicken, and ice water in a bowl. After cleaning the chicken off the plate nearly as fast as it could have been sucked up by an industrial vacuum cleaner, the dog chews the ice with delight, grinning as she crunches it.

As though image and reflection exist magically side by side, Cass and Polly sit across the table from Curtis in the nook. Four silver earrings dangle, four silver-and-turquoise necklaces shine, four silver bracelets gleam — and four flushed breasts, as smooth as cream, swell with sympathy and concern.

Playing cards are fanned on the table, and Polly gathers them up as she says, “I don’t mean to salt your grief, sweetie, but if we’re going to help, we need to know the situation. Were your folks killed in a cover-up because they saw too much, something like that?”

“Yes, ma’am. Something like that.”

Slipping the deck of cards into a pack bearing the Bicycle logo and setting the pack aside, Polly says, “And evidently you also saw too much.”

“Yes, ma’am. Something like that, ma’am.”

“Please call me Polly, but never ask me if I want a cracker.”

“Okay, ma’— Okay, Polly. But I like crackers, so I’ll eat any you don’t want.”

As Curtis noisily sucks root beer and melting ice cream through a straw, Cass leans forward conspiratorially and whispers ominously, “Did you see an alien spacecraft, Curtis?”

He licks his lips and whispers, “More than one, ma’am.”

“Call me Cass,” she whispers, and now their conversation is firmly established in this sotto-voce mode. “Castoria sounds too much like a bowel medication.”

“I think it’s pretty, Cass.”

“Should I call you Curtis?”

“Sure. That’s who I’m being… who I am.”

“So you saw more than one alien ship. And did you see… honest-to-God aliens?”

“Lots of ‘em. And some not so honest.”

Electrified by this revelation, she leans even farther over the table, and a greater urgency informs her whisper. “You saw aliens, and so the government wants to kill you to keep you from talking.”

Curtis is utterly beguiled by her twinkly-eyed look of childlike excitement, and he doesn’t want to disappoint her. Leaning past his root beer, not quite nose-to-nose with Cass, but close enough to feel her exhilaration, he whispers, “The government would probably lock me away to study me, which might be worse than killing.”

“Because you had contact with aliens?”

“Something like that.”

Polly, who has not leaned over the table and who does not speak in a whisper, looks worriedly at the nearby window. She reaches over her sister’s head, grabs the draw cord, and shuts the short drape as she says, “Curtis, did your parents have an alien encounter, too?”

Although he continues to lean toward Cass, when Curtis shifts his eyes toward Polly, he answers her in a normal tone of voice, as she has spoken to him: “Yes, they did.”

“Of the third kind?” whispers Cass.

“Of the worst kind,” he whispers.

Polly says, “Why didn’t the government want to study them, like they want to study you? Why were they killed?”

“Government didn’t kill them,” Curtis explains.

“Who did?” whispers Cass.

“Alien assassins,” Curtis hisses. “Aliens killed everyone in the house.”

Cass’s eyes are bluer than robin’s eggs and seemingly as big as those in a hen’s nest. She’s briefly breathless. Then: “So… they don’t come in peace to serve mankind.”

“Some do. But not these scalawags.”

“And they’re still after you, aren’t they?” Polly asks.

“From Colorado and clear across Utah,” Curtis admits. “Both them and the FBI. But I’m getting harder to detect all the time.”

“You poor kid,” Cass whispers. “All alone, on the run.”

“I’ve got my dog.”

Getting up from the booth, Polly says, “Now you’ve got us, too. Come on, Cass, let’s pull stakes and hit the road.”

“We haven’t heard his whole story yet,” Cass protests. “There’s aliens and all sorts of spooky stuff.” Still leaning toward Curtis, she drops her voice to a whisper: “All sons of spooky stuff”, right?”

“Spooky stuff,” he confirms, thrilled to see the delight that he has given her with this confirmation.

Polly is adamant. “They’re hunting for him right across the state line. They’re sure to come nosing around here soon. We’ve got to get moving.”

“She’s the alpha twin,” Cass whispers solemnly. “We’ve got to listen to her, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I’m not the alpha twin,” Polly disagrees. “I’m just practical. Curtis, while we get the rig ready to roll, you take a shower. You’re just a little too fragrant. We’ll throw your clothes in the washer.”

He’s reluctant to endanger these sisters, but he accepts their hospitality for three reasons. First, motion is commotion, which makes it harder for his enemies to detect him. Second, but for the big windshield, the motor home is more enclosed than most vehicles; the other windows are small, and the metal shell largely screens his special biological-energy signature from the electronic devices that can detect it. Third, he has been Curtis Hammond for approximately two days, and the longer that he settles into this new life, the harder he is to find, so he probably poses little danger to them.

“My dog could use a bath, too.”

“We’ll give her a good scrubbing later,” Polly promises.

Past the galley, a door stands open to a water closet on the right, which is separate from the rest of the bathroom. On the left, a vertically stacked washer-dryer combination.

Directly ahead is the bathroom door, and beyond it lies the last eighteen feet or so of the motor home. The sole bedroom is accessed through the bath.

Old Yeller stays behind with Polly, and Cass shows Curtis how to work the shower controls. She unwraps a fresh cake of soap and lays out spare towels. “After you’ve undressed, just toss your clothes out the bathroom door, and I’ll wash them.”

“This is very nice of you, ma’am. I mean Cass.”

“Sweetie, don’t be silly. You’ve brought us just what we’ve been needing. We’re girls who like adventure, and you’ve seen aliens.”

How her eyes sparkle on the word adventure, only to sparkle even more bewitchingly on the word aliens. Her face glows with excitement. She all but quivers with expectation, and her body strains against her clothes just as the powerful body of Wonder Woman forever strains against every stitch of her superhero costume.

Alone, Curtis removes his small treasury from his pockets and puts the cash aside on the vanity. He slides open the bathroom door just far enough to toss his clothes out in front of the washer, then slides it firmly shut again.

He is Curtis Hammond enough to blush at being naked here in the sisters’ bathroom. At first this seems to indicate that he’s well settled in his new identity, already more Curtis than he is himself, and becoming more Curtis all the time.

Peering in the mirror, however, he watches his face darken to a shade of scarlet that he’s never noticed in other people, suddenly causing him to question whether he’s fully in control of himself. A blush this fierce is surely beyond the range of human physiological response. He seems to be as red as a lobster cooking in a pot, and he’s convinced that anyone, seeing him like this, would suspect that he’s not who he pretends to be. Furthermore, he looks so sheepish that his expression alone would fill any policeman with suspicion and predispose any jury to convict.

Heart beating fast and hard, counseling himself to remain calm, he steps into the shower before turning on the water, which Cass advised him not to do. It’s immediately so hot that he cries out in pain, stifles the cry, mistakenly cranks the water hotter still, but then over-compensates, and stands in a freezing spray. He’s lobster-bright from top to bottom, and his teeth chatter so hard he could crack walnuts, if he had walnuts, and it’s just as well he doesn’t have walnuts, because the shells would make a mess, and then he’d have that to clean up. Listening to himself babble to himself about walnuts, he’s amazed that he has survived this long. Once more he tells himself to be calm — not that it did much good the last time.

He remembers that Cass advised a quick shower because the motor home isn’t connected to utilities; the system is operating off the vehicle’s storage tanks and the gasoline-powered generator. Because he failed to obtain a precise definition of quick, he’s certain that he’s already used more water than is prudent, so he soaps up as fast as possible, rinses down, remembers his hair, pours shampoo straight from the bottle onto his head, realizes at once that he has seriously overused the product, and stands in rising masses of suds that threaten to fill the shower stall.

To dissolve the suds as quickly as possible, he cranks the water to cold again, and by the time that he finally shuts the spray off, his teeth are rattling like an electric-powered nutcracker once more. He’s sure that he has so drained the motor home’s water system that the vehicle will topple sideways out of balance or suffer some catastrophic failure resulting in great financial loss and possibly even the destruction of human life.

Out of the shower, on the bath mat, vigorously drying himself, he realizes that personal grooming is related to socializing, and he has proven time and again that he’s a lousy socializer. Yet he can’t go through life without a bath, because walking around filthy and stinky is not good socializing, either.

In addition to those worries and woes, he’s still embarrassed about being naked in the sisters’ bathroom, and now he realizes that he will have to wear nothing but a large towel until his clothes are laundered. He turns to the mirror, anxious to see if his face remains an unnatural shade of lobster, and he discovers something far worse than expected in his reflection.

He isn’t being Curtis Hammond.

“Holy howlin’ saints alive.”

In shock, he drops the towel.

More accurately: He is being Curtis Hammond but not entirely, not well, certainly not convincingly enough to pass for human.

Oh, Lord.

The face in the mirror isn’t hideous, but it is stranger than any face in any carnival freak show that ever welcomed gawking rubes into its sawdust-carpeted chambers.

In Colorado, in the farmhouse, beyond the bedroom door with the plaque announcing STARSHIP COMMAND CENTER, this motherless boy had found the used Band-Aid discarded on the nightstand, and the dried blood on the gauze pad had provided him with a perfect opportunity to fashion a disguise. Touching the blood, absorbing it, he’d added Curtis Hammond’s DNA to his repertoire. While the original Curtis continued sleeping, his namesake had fled out of the bedroom window, onto the porch roof, and then here to Castoria and Polluxia’s bathroom, though not directly.

Being Curtis Hammond — in fact, being anyone or anything other than himself — requires a constant biological tension, which produces a unique energy signature that identifies him to those equipped with the proper scanning technology. Day by day, however, as he adjusts to a new identity, sustaining the adopted physical form becomes easier, until after a few weeks or months, his energy signature is virtually indistinguishable from those of other members of the population that he has joined. In this case, that population is humanity.

Stepping closer to the mirror, he wills himself to be Curtis Hammond, not in the half-assed fashion revealed by the mirror, but with conviction and attention to detail.

In the reflection of his face, he watches several peculiar changes occur, but the flesh resists his command.

One slip-up like this can be disastrous. If Cass and Polly were to see him in this condition, they would know that he isn’t Curtis Hammond, that he isn’t of this earth. Then he could probably kiss their generous assistance and their root-beer floats goodbye.

As good as his motives are, he might nevertheless wind up like the stitched-together brute who escaped Dr. Frankenstein’s lab only to be pursued by torch-bearing villagers with zero tolerance for dead bodies revived in creative new formats. He couldn’t imagine Cass and Polly hunting him with torches high, howling for his blood, but there would be no shortage of others eager to take up the chase.

Worse, even a brief lapse in the maintenance of his new identity reestablishes the original biologic tension and makes his unique energy signature as visible to his enemies as it would have been in the minutes immediately following his original transformation into Curtis Hammond, back in Colorado. In essence, with this lapse, he has reset the clock; therefore, he remains highly vulnerable to detection if his savage pursuers cross his path again in the next couple days.

He worriedly studies the mirror as the pleasant features of Curtis Hammond reassert possession of his face, but they return gradually and with stubborn errors of proportion.

As his mother always told him, confidence is the key to the successful maintenance of a new identity. Self-consciousness and self-doubt fade the disguise.

The mystery of Gabby’s panicky exit from the Mercury Mountaineer is solved. Racing across the salt flats, rattled by his inability to calm the ever more offended and loudly blustering caretaker, the boy had suffered a crisis of confidence and for a moment had been less Curtis Hammond than he’d needed to be.

Physical danger doesn’t shake his equanimity. Adventuring, he is comfortable in his new skin. He’s able to be Curtis Hammond with aplomb even in great jeopardy.

Although remaining poised in peril, he is seriously unnerved by socializing. The simple act of showering, with all the complications that arose, reduced him to this imperfect Curtis.

With deep chagrin, he decides that he is the Lucille Ball of shapechangers: physically agile, admirably determined, and recklessly courageous in the pursuit of his goals — but socially inept enough to entertain demanding audiences and to exasperate any Cuban-American bandleader crazy enough to marry him.

Okay. Good. He is being Curtis Hammond once more.

He finishes drying himself, all the while inspecting his body for weirdnesses, but finding none.

A beach towel has been provided as a sarong. He wraps himself in it but feels nonetheless immodest.

Until his clothes are washed and dried, he must stay with Cass and Polly; but as soon as he’s outfitted once more, he’ll slip away with Old Yeller. Now that he can be easily detected by his family’s killers — and perhaps by the FBI, as well, if they have developed the necessary tracking technology — he can’t any longer justify putting the sisters at risk.

No more people should die just because fate brings them into his life at the wrong time.

The hunters are surely coming. Heavily armed. Grimly determined. Thoroughly pissed.