Taken

Chapter One

Allie sat silent as the truck sped through the cold New England night. She stared straight ahead but saw everything around her, Mary on one side, Wakeman on the other, busily assembling a five-sided helmet.

“Do you know who I am?” Mary asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Our families go way back,” Mary told her. “Mine and your mom’s and your dad’s. I kind of think that you and I might be the end of all this.”

“We might be just the beginning,” Allie said. She looked at Mary. “Your grandfather wasn’t a very happy man. Why are you trying to be like him?”

Before Mary could answer, Wakeman said, “We’re almost at the airstrip. We better get this thing in place.” He nudged Allie forward and placed the helmet over her head and secured it with a strap. “What can you see?” he asked.

Allie didn’t answer. Everything, she thought.

Lisa’s scream split the air, “Allie! Allie!”

Charlie and Nina darted from the kitchen to where Lisa lay furiously rubbing her eyes.

“I can’t see!” she cried.

“I’m right here in front of you,” Charlie told her. “With Nina.”

Nina slapped Lisa hard, and suddenly the room was visible, Charlie and Nina’s faces hanging like moons above her.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said, staring around. “It was like I was somewhere else, and wherever I was, I couldn’t see a thing. There was something covering my eyes.”

Charlie took her in his arms.

“Are you okay,” Lisa asked. “I mean your…”

“It’s completely healed,” Charlie told her, thinking now of Allie, of the miracle she had so clearly performed. “Twelve hours ago there was a bullet in my lung. I should be dead.”

Lisa looked at Charlie pointedly. “She stopped time, Charlie. Allie stopped time for two hours. She was trying to keep us safe.”

“I know.”

Nina shook her head. “I should have been closer to her at the soccer field,” she said mournfully. “I should have…”

“No,” Lisa said. “I should have known something was… happening. We always had this connection, Allie and me, we always…” She stopped and looked at Charlie. “Where is she, Charlie?” she pleaded. “Where’s my little girl?”

From behind the observation glass, Mary watched as Allie sat alone in the adjoining room, the helmet securely on her head. Wakeman stood beside Mary, his eyes on the little girl.

“She knows we’re in here,” Mary said. “She knows we’re watching her.”

Wakeman nodded. “We haven’t had a chance to talk, Mary.”

Mary held her gaze on Allie. “What do you want to talk about?”

Wakeman opened the door of the room and ushered Mary out into the corridor. “Your father,” he said.

“The craft,” Mary said coldly. “The bodies. He lost them.”

“He couldn’t have stopped what happened,” Wakeman told her.

“He could have tried,” Mary said. She stared Wakeman directly in the eyes.

Wakeman nodded.

“You think I have no remorse, right?” Mary asked him.

“I think you did what you had to do,” Wakeman said.

She could see how deeply he loved her. “Really?”

“Really,” Wakeman said. He leaned in to kiss her, then saw General Beers striding down the corridor.

“You’ve got the girl?” Beers asked.

“Yes,” Mary answered.

The general stepped inside the observation room and stared through the glass to where Allie sat alone, the helmet still on her head.

“You really believe that thing you put on her head is blocking a signal?” General Beers asked.

“Right now they’re in their ship scratching their little gray heads and wondering where in the world their little girl could be,” Wakeman said lightly. “Believe me, the minute we take that shield off, here they come.”

“And you’re confident we can take them down?” Beers asked.

“Wherever they come from,” Wakeman answered. “The minute they enter our time and space, our reality, they are confronted by the laws of our physics. Remember, in 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico, a ship came down when it collided with the Mogul spy balloon. Just a balloon, but it brought down their ship.”

General Beers was clearly satisfied. He motioned Mary and Wakeman to follow him, then led them out of the building.

“You’ve done a fine job,” he said to them. “We will always be indebted to you.”

Mary saw an odd glint in the general’s eyes. “Always?” she asked.

General Beers’ face stiffened. “That’s right.”

“You mean…?”

“I mean you’ve done your part, Ms. Crawford,” the general interrupted. “The little girl is part of a military operation now.”

“A military operation?” Mary shot back angrily. “General, for three generations my family has been preparing for this day. I’ve given my career, no, my whole life over to this.”

The general smiled thinly. “And don’t think we don’t appreciate it,” he said. He looked over Mary’s shoulder, where several trucks were moving toward them. “You’re benched. Go sit down.”

“In a matter of days, we may be able to step inside one of their craft,” Mary protested. “We may be able to meet these… beings. Do you honestly think I’m going to stand by while you take that opportunity from me?”

“You don’t really have a choice,” the general said confidently. He nodded as the truck came to a halt and several soldiers piled out of the back, arms at the ready. “Except for a few clean-up details. Like that doctor in Seattle. And the little girl’s parents.”

“We have people for that,” Mary said.

General Beers’ features hardened. “Don’t think I don’t know what happened to your father,” he said threateningly. Then, with a flourish, he wheeled around to face Wakeman. “You can ride with me, Doctor,” he said.

Wakeman didn’t move. “Ride with you?”

“We need your expertise,” the general explained.

Wakeman looked helplessly at Mary, then back to General Beers.

“I’m not giving you a choice here, Doctor,” Beers told him as the soldiers came forward, surrounding them. “Now let’s get the girl,” he added. “As you can see, her transport is ready.” The general turned his back to Mary. “Just how powerful is this little girl, Doctor?”

“She has demonstrated powers beyond anything we imagined,” Wakeman replied. “She’s capable of manipulating time. She has amazing abilities to screen… to project images from our minds.”

The general looked at him doubtfully.

“She made an entire group of people see something that wasn’t there at all,” Wakeman said. “That’s how powerful she is.”

Mary stepped away as the soldiers entered the building, the general in the lead, Wakeman at his side. She waited in the bright light until they emerged again, Allie with them now, the shield still in place on her head. Within minutes she was gone, and in the wake of her leaving Mary felt a terrible heaviness descend upon her, everything she’d worked for gone, vanished the way the craft had vanished and the bodies had vanished, the way everything had vanished but…

She whirled around, walked quickly to her office, opened the safe and took it out, a small metal artifact, oddly marked, which, as it rested in her hand, suddenly began to glow.

Chapter Two

Allie sat on the bed of the farmhouse where they’d taken her. She could feel the metal helmet, but during the long drive through miles and miles of farmland she’d learned to balance its weight, which was part of the way you had to live, she supposed, dealing with burdens that came out of nowhere and gave no sign of going away.

A nurse had hooked a tube to her arm, and the little pinch of the needle still ached slightly.

Private Pierce seemed to sense her pain.

“How are you doing?” Pierce asked her.

Allie could feel that something lay buried within the chambers of his mind.

“I’m all right,” she said.

Pierce smiled. “You like to read? I keep a copy of Huckleberry Finn. It was my mom’s favorite book. She’d bake us Toll House cookies, and we’d share a whole plate of them while she read.”

“If it wouldn’t make you too sad to remember her, I’d like to hear the story,” Allie said.

Pierce shook his head slowly. “No, it wouldn’t make me sad at all.”

Allie listened attentively as Pierce began to speak. Outside a vast array of military vehicles was assembling, soldiers scurrying into positions where they lay in wait, a whole army in full alert, but for all their weaponry still only men whose fears Allie sensed, fears of death and loneliness, of height and water, of bugs and snakes, and everywhere the fear of being afraid. Wakeman was standing among them, watching all this immense preparation with what Allie sensed, as she drew her mind toward his, a terrible foreboding.

Suddenly, Pierce leaped to attention as Beers entered the room.

“That’ll be all, soldier,” Beers commanded.

“Yes, sir,” Pierce said. He glanced at Allie, and she saw that he didn’t want to leave her alone with these men, but had no choice.

Beers turned to Wakeman. “Are you ready to proceed?”

Wakeman turned toward Allie and smiled. “Magic time,” he said as he removed the helmet and her hair fell loosely to her small shoulders.

Charlie knew nothing else to do, no place else to go. And so he was at her door now, standing with Lisa, waiting for Dr. Penzler to answer his knock.

When she opened it, he knew she had something to hide… or something to fear.

“Come in,” she said, then led Charlie and Lisa into the room, carefully closed the windows and drew the curtains. “You don’t have to worry,” she told them. “No one’s coming here.”

“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

“I work for them, Charlie,” Dr. Penzler said. “I was the one who called them.”

“Tell us where they are,” Lisa demanded. “Tell us where they took Allie.”

Dr. Penzler hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I know you don’t believe me, but I really don’t know. I’ve been calling people. At numbers I was given. But all the numbers have been disconnected.” She glanced from Charlie to Lisa, then back to Charlie. “I have no way of finding them.”

“We trusted you,” Lisa said.

“They told me that I was helping,” Dr. Penzler explained. “That they had proof people who had been taken were in great danger. I thought I was helping.”

Lisa glared at her. “You told them Charlie was here. You told them that Allie was with us and now they have her.”

Dr. Penzler nodded. “Lisa, I’m so sorry,” she said.

Lisa glanced at Charlie, then back to Dr. Penzler. “I want you to regress me,” she said. “Allie and I have this link, and in regression I’ve had these moments where I feel Allie… sense where she is. I want you to help me find her.”

“We’d have to go pretty deep, Lisa,” Dr. Penzler warned.

“Can you get me there?” Lisa asked desperately.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I’d go anywhere to get Allie back.”

Dr. Penzler rose, her face full of resolution. “All right,” she said. “We’ll do it.”

She moved over to Lisa and placed her hands on her forehead. “Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

Lisa did as she was told.

“And another.”

Lisa drew in a second deep breath.

“And a third.”

Lisa took the third breath, even deeper than the previous two, and let it out very slowly.

“Now I want you to go to that place where you and Allie find each other,” Dr. Penzler said. “It’s in your heart and in your head. Can you find it for me?”

“Yes,” Lisa said softly.

“Good,” Dr. Penzler said. “What do you see?”

“Darkness,” Lisa answered. “All I see is darkness.”

“Go ahead. Tell me more.”

“It’s very dark,” Lisa continued. “It smells kind of moldy. But I feel something. There are people waiting. Soldiers.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Waiting,” Lisa began, then stopped. She heard clamps being loosened, felt a strap beneath her chin fall away.

“Waiting for what?” Dr. Penzler repeated.

“They want something,” Lisa answered. “They’re waiting for something.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“It’s a room,” Lisa said. “License plates on the wall. Peeling paint. A calendar with a tractor on… Walling-ton’s… Feed… and… Grain.”

“The license plates, where are they from, Lisa?”

“ Peace Garden State. ND. North Dakota.”

“Tell me more,” Dr. Penzler said urgently. “We’re getting to that place, Lisa.”

Lisa flinched violently and felt something splatter onto her chest. She opened her eyes and saw a stain, red and glistening, then, at her feet, Dr. Penzler’s body, curled and bloody. She looked up and saw a man standing a few feet away, his pistol now aimed at her.

Charlie rushed forward, grabbed a lamp and brought it down on the man’s head, then gathered Lisa into his arms. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

Wakeman stood beside General Beers in the observation room, his eyes on Allie.

“What happens now?” the general asked curtly.

“We wait,” Wakeman answered.

“How long should it take?”

“I don’t know.”

“You believe they’ll come?”

“Absolutely,” Wakeman answered. “But then again, I believe a lot of things.”

Mary walked to the phone in her father’s study and dialed the number.

“Superior Fish,” the technician answered.

“This is Mary Crawford,” she said. “Look at the map. Any new lights?”

A pause, then, “There’s one new light.”

“Where on the map?”

“ North Dakota. Benson Country. Just outside of Brins-made.”

Mary quickly wrote the name on her notepad. “Thank you,” she said.

The roadblock appeared almost out of nowhere, a truck strategically parked, soldiers all around it.

Charlie lifted his foot off the accelerator, and looked at Lisa. He saw her answer in his eyes, that they had no choice but to go on. He pressed down on the accelerator and continued on until he reached the roadblock.

A soldier walked up to their window. “Where you headed?” he asked.

“Brinsmade,” Charlie answered.

“Are you from there?”

“No. We’re visiting a sick cousin.”

“Brinsmade’s been evacuated,” the soldier told him. “You’ll find your cousin at the high school gym over in Leeds.”

Lisa leaned over to get a better view of the man. “Why has Brinsmade been evacuated?” she asked.

“Toxic spill,” the soldier answered. “Truck collided with a train.”

“What kind of spill?”

“They don’t tell me,” the soldier answered. “They just say to keep the cars out.”

“You’re not afraid you’re standing downwind of something?” Charlie asked.

The soldier’s voice hardened. “You folks need to turn around now,” he said. “Like I told you, your cousin is in Leeds.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. He wheeled around and headed away from the roadblock, the soldier now in his rearview mirror, reaching for a field telephone, talking into it. “I have a really bad feeling about this,” he said.

“So, what do we do?”

“We have to get around the roadblock.”

“How?”

“Not alone, that’s for sure.”

They drove to Leeds and stopped at a small bar to think things through. Several men, in hunting clothes, sat at one of the wooden tables. Charlie eyed them a moment, then rose and walked to the bar.

“I need someone who knows the area,” he said.

The bartender nodded toward one of the men at the table. “Dewey Clayton,” he said.

“Thanks,” Charlie said, then turned and strode over to the man the bartender had indicated.

“You’re Mr. Clayton?” he asked.

“That was my dad. I’m Dewey.”

“I’d like to hire your services.”

“You want a guide?”

“I’m told you’re the best.”

“You want to go hunting?”

“In a way, yes.”

“You’re out of luck. We’re shut down. Damn government’s locked us out of our own woods.”

“We know that,” Lisa said as she stepped up beside Charlie.

Dewey looked at her closely, then at Charlie. “But you’ve got some reason you want to go up there anyway?”

“Our daughter,” Charlie said. “She’s lost in the woods?” Dewey asked. “The Army has her.”

“This have something to do with that ‘toxic spill’ that didn’t happen?”

Charlie and Lisa nodded.

Dewey smiled. “We’ll find your little girl,” he said.

Chapter Three

Mary flashed her most winning smile at the approaching soldier.

“How are you?” she asked brightly.

The soldier smiled. “I’m all right, ma’am.”

She indicated the Humvee that blocked the road, the soldiers gathered around it, arms at the ready. “So, what do we have here?”

“Some sort of toxic spill, ma’am,” the soldier answered.

“I’m here to see General Beers,” Mary told him.

“Do you have a clearance?”

“No, I don’t,” Mary said. “But what I do have is information that General Beers needs. It could save thousands of lives.”

The soldier wavered for a moment before responding. “Sorry, ma’am. Not without a clearance.”

Mary looked at him coolly. “I was going to try to run the roadblock. But why don’t you just arrest me?”

“What?”

“Arrest me and have me taken to General Beers.”

The man shook his head. “No one goes in. We detain people here.”

“Then detain me,” Mary said without hesitation. “Detain me and get someone on the phone to General Beers and tell him that Mary Crawford is at the roadblock with some important new information about the project.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that without provocation,” the soldier replied.

Mary smiled girlishly, and with a lightning fast movement grabbed his crotch.

The man’s eyes bulged. “Jesus,” he groaned.

Minutes later she stood before General Beers, Wake-man beside him, clearly both pleased and astonished to see her.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you, Mary?” the general asked.

Mary laughed coldly. “You son of a bitch,” she sneered. “What did you think, that you’d just take the project away from me?” She wheeled furiously toward Wakeman. “And you sold me out,” she cried as she lunged forward and slapped his face. “You worthless bastard!” She slipped the artifact into Wakeman’s hand.

“Take her away,” the general said.

Mary looked at him angrily as two soldiers stepped forward and grabbed her arms.

A few minutes later, just as she’d known he would, Wakeman came out of the building and walked to where she stood, under guard, behind a Humvee.

“I need to talk to Ms. Crawford,” Wakeman told the soldiers.

He waited until they’d left, then said, “It must be their transmitter.” He opened his hand and looked at the artifact. “This is how they send the implant signals up.”

“It’s a lot more than a transmitter,” Mary told him. “I’ve looked at it several times, and it’s changed, Chet. Some of the markings were there in 1947, but some of them are new.”

“New?” Wakeman said, astonished.

“Yes. I think it gathers information. And the way it’s glowing, they must have left it behind for a reason.”

“How long ago did you take the shield off?” Mary asked.

“A day and a half.”

“Nothing’s happened?”

Wakeman shook his head.

“We have this,” Mary said, referring to the artifact. “And we’ve got the little girl. In a way, it’s as if they left both of them.”

“It would be interesting to see what would happen if the two were brought together,” Wakeman said.

Mary smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Moments later Mary knocked at the door of the farmhouse.

Pierce opened it.

“I’m Dr. Crawford,” Mary told him. “The general asked me to take a look at Allie.”

“I wasn’t told anything about it,” Pierce said.

“No, you weren’t,” Mary said authoritatively. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside.”

“But…”

A child’s voice called from inside the farmhouse. “It’s all right.”

Pierce looked into the room’s dark interior. “You sure?”

“She’s not going to hurt me.”

Pierce motioned Mary inside the room, then stepped outside.

Allie sat on the bed, her hair falling freely to her shoulders. So small, Mary thought, and yet so powerful.

“It must be strange for you,” she said. “Finding out how strong you are. All the things you can do.”

“It is a little,” Allie said softly.

“I’ve frightened you a lot,” Mary said. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you.”

“You don’t care if you do,” Allie said.

“That’s not really true,” Mary told her. “I’m not the kind of person who takes any pleasure in frightening people. In hurting them.”

“But you do all those things.”

Mary saw it in her eyes and in the serenity of her posture, an eternal solitude. “They’re not coming, are they?”

“I don’t know,” Allie answered.

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

“Maybe.”

“Would you like to go home?”

“Yes.”

Mary drew the artifact from her pocket. “This is something that belonged to my grandfather,” she said. She held it out to Allie. “Tell me what it says.”

Allie stared at the softly glowing piece of metal.

“You can read it, can’t you?” Mary asked. “Tell me what it says.”

Allie’s gaze lifted from the artifact. “What do you want it to say?”

Mary’s mouth twitched into a snarl. “Pick it up and read it!” she snapped.

“I can’t,” Allie said. “Not yet.”

Mary stared at the glowing metal. The letters were moving now, some information fading from it as other information formed, new symbols rising to its glowing surface as others vanished.

Mary wheeled around and strode out of the farmhouse and back through the woods, where she found General Beers and Wakeman standing by a Humvee, a group of MPs just behind them. The general pushed Wakeman over to Mary’s side.

“If either one of them tries to leave the area,” he said to the soldiers, “shoot them, is that clear?” When he received no response, the general turned. “What…?”

The MPs were standing motionlessly staring up at the sky, watching as balls of blue light descended toward them.

The general grabbed the field telephone. “We have the enemy in sight,” he shouted, his eyes riveted on the sky, where the lights now came together to form a single, brightly glowing spaceship.

For a moment, the general stared at the ship, transfixed.

Pierce rushed forward urgently. “Sir, we’ve got to get the little girl out of here.”

“Get back with the other men,” the general commanded.

“But… sir.”

“Do it now!” the general shouted. He brought the field telephone to his lips. “Fire!” he shouted.

On the hill above the farmhouse, Charlie and Lisa watched in stunned silence as the missiles rose into the dark air. They rose toward the craft in wide arcs, then disappeared into its bright light.

The explosion seemed to come from the depths of the universe, huge and deafening, filling the air with sparkling light that glittered briefly then dissolved to reveal the craft again, its smooth exterior now rippling wildly with wave after wave of oddly shivering light.

“Allie!” Lisa cried.

She glanced, terrified, at Charlie, then raced down the hill toward the farmhouse.

Charlie bolted forward and followed behind her, his eyes still skyward as the craft shook and tottered, as if on the edge of some impossible precipice, then nosed downward in a sharp decline, light spewing in a gleaming mist from its wounded side as it fell and fell, and finally crashed to earth, burying itself in the ground beneath the farmhouse.

“My God,” Lisa said as she stopped dead. “Allie.”

Charlie came to her side, and drew her into his arms. “We can’t go down there”

“But we have to,” Lisa cried.

Charlie held her tightly. “We can’t, Lisa. Wait!”

“But Allie’s in that farmhouse,” Lisa said desperately. “I know she is.”

He watched the soldiers that had begun to move in toward the farmhouse. There were far too many of them. And they were well armed. It was impossible.

“What are we going to do, Charlie?” Lisa whimpered.

“I don’t know,” Charlie answered.

Down the hill, he could see Mary Crawford, staring at the craft, transfixed as it began to glow, slowly at first, then with increasing brightness, until the light was almost blinding. Squinting into the light, Charlie could just make out the figure of Mary Crawford. For a moment, she stood utterly motionless, frozen in awe at the sight before her. Then, suddenly, she bolted toward the craft, running wildly toward the light, her figure growing faint as she approached its most far-flung rays, but running still, moving deeper and deeper into the ever brightening light until she vanished into its blinding shield.