Shownotes Transcript
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Thank you all so much for your continued support. The office of private investigator Belmont J. Bacall was not much to look at. Tucked between a pawn shop and a tax attorney's office in a rundown strip mall east of town, it never saw much foot traffic. Most new jobs, when they came in at all, came in on the phone or over email.
So when the bell over the front door dinged at half past five on a Tuesday evening, it startled the detective, who was, at that moment, only half-dressed, standing behind his desk and facing a mirror on the wall to examine the red, raised rash that had been spreading on his chest the last few weeks. Whoops! Oh, golly! Snatching his dress shirt from the back of his office chair, he hurried to pull it on. Apologies, madam! You've, uh...
caught me at a bit of an inopportune moment there. Not very professional of me." The middle-aged woman in the office doorway had blushed upon seeing the bare-chested P.I., and now looked down at her shoes as she cleared her throat and said, "That's all right. I'm sorry if I startled you. Are you open?" Belmont, who was open to anything that might help him pay the bills, said that indeed he was, and indicated for the lady to take the chair across the desk.
She sat, clutching her purse in her lap. "Thank you, Mr. Bacall." "Please, call me Monty, Mrs." "Kathy is fine." "Kathy?" Monty finished buttoning his shirt and sat, then began to gather and stack the loose mess of papers on his desk. "If you're looking for the services of a private investigator, you've come to the right place."
Kathy was quiet for a few seconds, fidgeting in her seat. She was a decidedly average-looking woman, Monty decided. Fifty-ish. Mousy brown hair with streaks of gray. He could tell she was nervous. "Can I get you anything, ma'am? Water? Coffee?" She shook her head and finally raised her hazel eyes to meet his yellow-gray ones. "Hmm. You know who you look like? Sam Spade. You know Humphrey Bogart's character from The Maltese Falcon?"
"You must get that a lot, being a private eye yourself." "Oh, I think someone's mentioned it before, once or twice," he said, and glancing down, he saw that he had misaligned the buttons on his shirt. Deciding it would be even more awkward to fix them now, he leaned over the desk. "What can I do for you this evening, Kathy?" She took a deep breath. "Well, it's my husband. I need him followed."
Ah, geez. That must sound so cliche. I know in the movies private detectives are always solving murders and whatnot, but I imagine most of your jobs are probably just worried spouses. There's some of that, yeah. The my bread and butter nowadays is insurance fraud. Somebody throws their back out on the job, makes a claim. I see if I can get a snapshot of 'em playing golf or line dancing down at the tipsy cowgirl. That sort of thing. Well, that makes sense.
Monty pulled out a notepad and a pen. "So, your husband's name is?" "Arlo." "Arlo. And why do you need someone to follow Arlo?" She shifted in her chair. "Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning. Which was about a month ago. We had a big fight, and Arlo drove off, and he was in a car accident. And ever since then, he's been acting unusual." "Mhm. And was he injured in this accident?"
She shook her head. "If he had been, like if he'd struck his head, that would be almost a comfort. I know that sounds dreadful, but the alternative? Anyway, he told me what happened, or at least part of it. He said he was driving north, through the state park on that hilly curvy road, you know the one.
And something got in the road, and Arlo swerved. His car went right over the embankment. It was a big drop, almost 30 feet. But Arlo wasn't hurt. But his phone was smashed, so he couldn't call for help. And he couldn't climb back up the embankment. So, he just started walking through the woods. And I guess he got lost and, well, he claims to have encountered something in the woods. Encountered? What exactly?
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Arlo says that it was, you know, an extraterrestrial." Monty's pen froze on the page, and his eyebrows arched. "Your husband thinks he was abducted by aliens?" "Well, not exactly abducted. More like recruited. He said the 'thing' in the woods. It looked human, but it wasn't. And that it needed his help. As in, specifically Arlo's help."
"Which is just silly. Arlo doesn't have any special skills or anything. He's an actor." Monty nodded and continued his note-taking. "Stage, film, television. Yes, all that. Anyway, ever since it happened, Arlo's been leaving the house at night. He drives off, always at midnight, and he doesn't come back until dawn. He's going back to those woods. I track his phone, you see. We… we track each other's phones."
And he won't talk to me about any of it now because, well, for one thing, when he told me what happened, I sort of laughed. But it's getting so out of hand. He's supposed to fly to LA next week for a shoot. His agent is furious. Arlo won't return her calls. And what's your husband's last name? Fontaine. At this revelation, Monty's pen slipped and scratched a black swish across the page. Uh, I'm sorry.
"Are you saying your husband is Academy Award winner Arlo Fontaine?" "Nominee," she corrected. "He didn't win the Oscar, but he has two Primetime Emmys." She blushed. "I know that's probably a surprise. I know I don't look like the wife of a movie star. Arlo and I, we were high school sweethearts, you see. It's been a long journey, our marriage with, you know, road bumps and whatnot."
But he's not a cheater. That's not what this is. Because Arlo doesn't have much of a... That is, he isn't very... Viral. Right. Monty made a final note, then leaned back in his chair. Well, I'll be happy to help you out there, Kathy. I can track your husband's movements, get photographic evidence of... Whatever it is he's doing, but... I gotta be honest with you. I think what you're really gonna need here is the help of...
"A psychologist for your husband." She looked down at her lap. "I know, I will. It's just, before I do, before I risk it all coming out and risk ruining his career, his reputation, I just, I need to be sure. Just in case, you know." "Just in case?" She took in a shaky breath. "In case it's true.
"But I know that's crazy. "Ah, jeez, I just, I wanna see the evidence plainly "and to understand, then I'll know what to do." Monty nodded and grabbed the bottled water on his desk. He raised it in a little toast. "Here's to plain speaking and clear understanding." Across the desk, Kathy grinned. "That's a quote from the Maltese Falcon." Monty choked on his water. Clearing his throat, he sputtered, "Oh, is it? "Maybe."
Wiping his chin, he turned to his computer and loaded up a standard contract to print for her. "So you have seen the movie, Detective?" "Uh, yeah. I think I caught it on TV once. Long ago and far from here." Six hours later, sitting in the driver's seat of his 2003 Honda Odyssey, Monty adjusted the focus of the tripod-mounted camera on the passenger seat, then settled back to finish his cheeseburger.
He had parked three doors down from the Fontaine place, a three-story mid-century modern home with an overgrown yard, and waited to see if, in fact, the famous actor was about to walk out that front door and get into the new Lexus in the driveway. Monty still had his doubts. Kathy's credit card had gone through, so the money was good, but he had felt the need to Google Arlo Fontaine actor family as soon as she left the office.
After clicking through a number of links, it seemed as though her story was at least plausible. For one thing, Monty learned that the actor had been born and raised here in upstate New York, and had moved back to the area a couple years ago, once his kids had all gone off to college. According to Arlo Fontaine's Wikipedia page, he had married young to his high school girlfriend, and he didn't show any record of divorce.
but Monty was unable to find any photos of Kathy or their children online. On the rare occasion that Arlo did attend a film premiere or awards ceremony, he usually went alone, or else took his elderly mother. He seemed like a strange character: handsome, talented, with many accolades, but also extremely private, almost a recluse, and he had never appeared in any tabloid.
Arlo had begun his career as a stage actor in New York City. His big break came in the late 90s when he was cast as Dr. Christian Caldwell in the medical drama "Hartwood Hospital," a character he played for the next decade. He had then made the jump to Hollywood, taking on a lot of small parts with big impacts over the years.
Critics loved him. There were even rumors swirling online that he would soon be joining a certain mega popular superhero franchise as the father of a fan favorite character. Everything Monty found seemed to indicate that the actor's career was steady, if not on the rise. And as Arlo had no public history of mental illness, this sudden story about alien recruitment seemed to come right out of the blue.
Monty still thought the most obvious explanation was an affair. Long marriage, kids gone, that big fight a month ago, and Kathy's comment about the couple tracking each other's phones. It all added up to infidelity. His assertion that Arlo wasn't virile could mean a few different things. The simplest of which was that he could no longer get it up, at least not for his wife of 30 years. He might have a mistress or boy toy on the side.
But meeting them in the woods, seven nights a week, that would be odd. And if, instead, Arlo Fontaine actually did believe he had encountered an extraterrestrial being, well, that would mean he had either undergone a complete mental breakdown, or else, he really did find something out there. Monty checked his watch. 11:59.
He tossed the last bite of burger into his mouth, washed it down with a water bottle, then watched as, at midnight on the dot, a middle-aged man in a sports coat and a pork pie hat emerged from the home, carrying a plastic shopping bag, and walked briskly to the driveway. I'll be darned, mumbled Monty, snapping a few pics as his target climbed into the Lexus. It was Arlo Fontaine, no doubt about it.
Monty waited until the Lexus backed out of the driveway and headed up the street. Then he started up his minivan and followed in pursuit. Out here, there's no one way of doing things. No unwritten rules and no shortage of adventure. Because out here, the only requirement is having fun.
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smooth jazz, dark, sweet, and somber, like a whiskey sour, and cruised north, out of town, and up along a state road, keeping the Lexus's taillights just in view ahead of him. As they made their twisty, turvy way into the forested hills, where the tangled branches of poplars, pines, and sycamores blotted out the stars. An hour into the drive, the Lexus turned right onto a dirt road.
Monty switched off his headlights and pulling up to the turn, gazed after the car. It parked about 50 yards away on the edge of the lane. Monty adjusted the f-stop on his camera and zoomed in, snapping a few shots of Arlo as he exited the car, taking a shopping bag with him and set off into the forest on foot. Once he was out of sight, Monty drove his Odyssey halfway down the dirt road, headlights still off, and parked.
He pulled the camera off its tripod and hung it around his neck, then grabbed his work satchel from the back seat. The bag contained, among other things, a flashlight, a digital night vision monocular, some bottles of water, and a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver. Stepping from the minivan, Monty entered the woods where the actor had vanished. Peering through his monocular, he spotted Arlo's pork pie hat bobbing above the underbrush ahead.
set off in that direction, trying his best not to step on too many twigs. The forest here wasn't hard to navigate. The trees were spaced apart, their leafy canopies filtering starlight and dim shades of blue. Branches swayed and whispered in the breeze. Crickets chirped, and the hoot of a howl rose in the night, haunted and shrill. Monty followed his target up and down half a dozen hills. There was a moment when he worried he had lost the trail.
But a distant splashing sound alerted him to Arlo's location, and heading toward it, Monty spotted muddy footprints on the far side of a shallow creek. Careful not to slip and fall, he hopped stone to stone, crossing the water. Once on the other side, he sniffed at the air, smelling the smoke from a campfire. Peering through his monocular, he saw Arlo reach the top of the incline ahead and disappear on the other side.
Monty followed, and crouching behind a thick tree atop the hill, he looked around its trunk, into a circular glade. The figure of Arlo Fontaine was walking through the clearing, approaching a campfire and a second man, who sat on a tree stump next to the little blaze. Behind the second man, a small tent had been constructed from a tarp and a rope strung between two trees, and there was an axe leaning against a pile of firewood.
As the stranger stood and greeted Arlo Fontaine, speaking too softly for Monty to hear, the detective gazed through his monocular at the rest of the clearing. There was nothing else to see, and yet, when he lowered the night vision scope, his eyes did see something else. Something large and round and perfectly smooth. Parked in the grass and filling up half of the glade, the surface of this giant saucer was glowing softly in the night,
but in a color which has no name in the English language, or indeed, in any human tongue. "What do you know?" Monty murmured under his breath. "Either I'm the luckiest son of a gun on this here blue marble, or the unluckiest." Monty straightened up behind the tree, thinking over his next move. He wouldn't need the camera anymore. However this went down, it wasn't likely to end with another face-to-face with twitchy Mrs. Fontaine back at the office.
This job had just taken a turn, a sharp turn down a pitch black alley in a jet black night, and there was no way to see where the road now led. Monty's only choice was to charge onward, into that unknown, and face whatever emerged from the darkness to greet him.
He set his camera on the ground, then slid the revolver out of his satchel, and pulling up his shirt, he tucked the gun into the back of his pants. He opened a water bottle and downed the whole thing in one long chug. Putting the empty bottle back in the satchel, he took out the flashlight, then set the bag down beside the camera. Steadying himself with a deep breath, Belmont Bacall stepped out from behind the tree and walked toward the two men standing by the campfire.
They weren't facing him, and as he drew nearer, he heard Arlo speaking. "This is hydrocortisone cream, and here's more of the aloe vera. They can be used together if… Evenin' fellas!" They spun to face him, eyes snapping open like deer in headlights, and stood frozen in place. "Thought I might pull up a tree stump and join you boys for a little chinwag." Monty clicked on his flashlight and raised it to one man's face and to the other.
The two men were of identical height and build, though whereas Arlo wore expensive clothes, the second man was dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, sweatpants, and a pair of old white sneakers. Their faces, too, were very alike, yet also unalike.
Arlo Fontaine had aged like wine, with fine wrinkles in all the right places, his cheekbones as high as ever, his jawline just as sharp as when he played Christian Caldwell back in the 90s. His blonde hair had grayed at the temples. The other man didn't have any wrinkles or gray hair, so in that regard, he appeared younger, and yet...
There was something not right about his face, as if a sculptor hadn't quite finished molding the features of a statue before putting it in the kiln. The man's skin was waxy and loose, his eyes off-center, his ears a little too small for his head. And yet, he too was Arlo Fontaine. "Who the hell are you?" barked the real Arlo. He enunciated each word, projecting his voice into the distant trees. "What are you doing here?"
"Relax, Mr. Fontaine. I'm not here to report you fellas for having an open flame in a wooded area. I just wanna talk. The name's Monty. Kathy sent me." At the mention of his wife's name, a crazed look came into Arlo's eyes, and the color drained from his cheeks. For a long second, his mouth hung open and his eyes gleamed with an inner fire. Then he spun and darted to the edge of the glade. Monty cocked his head. "Now what's he on about?"
The actor grabbed something off the ground, turned, and came running back toward the fire, holding the axe over his head. You honey-tongued, home-wrecking son of a bitch! What the? Monty stepped backward, as Arlo brought the axe down in a clumsy swing, tripping over his own feet and face-planting in the dirt, the axe thudding into the ground beside him.
"Cool yourself, Fontaine!" Monty shouted, drawing out his revolver and holding it up in the flashlight's beam. "You see this? This ain't no stage prop. And you, keep your hands where I can see 'em."
Monty stepped forward and kicked the axe away from the actor on the ground. "Get up, Arlo. Go stand next to your buddy. That's right. Now you listen to me and you listen good. I don't know who you think I am, but my name is Monty Bacall. I'm a private investigator. Your wife hired me to check up on you. She's worried. You're a… PI? Kathy hired you? That's right. Oh, goodness!" Arlo looked like he was going to be sick.
"I do apologize. I lost it there for a moment. My brain's been all fuzzy lately, you think?" Monty lowered the gun and turned to the other man. "And then there's our little friend here. You know, when Mrs. Fontaine said her husband had been acting strange lately, I wondered if he'd been swapped out for you. But that's not what's going on here, is it? This is… something else."
For the first time, the other Arlo opened his mouth and said, in a rather grotesque imitation of the actor's voice, "He is healing me." "Healing you? From what exactly?" With trembling hands, the strange man pulled up his sweatshirt to reveal his chest. An ugly, red rash covered the skin, like crimson scales. "It is agony."
Monty sighed. "Mmm-hmm. You don't have to tell me." Monty turned the flashlight to aim at his own chest, and undoing his top two buttons, pulled it open to reveal his own skin and the scaly red rash upon it. The real Arlo gasped. "But then, are you… also?" "Swinging a hit, Mr. Fontaine. I am also." The detective re-buttoned his shirt.
which is why I think I can guess what's happened here. You, sir, he aimed the flashlight at the other Arlo still holding up his sweatshirt, are a new arrival to this backwater little planet. And on your voyage here, you took it upon yourself to study up on the humans of Earth by perusing the radio and television programs they send out.
The man lowered his sweatshirt, looking bashful.
"Don't worry, it happens to the best of us." Monty turned the flashlight again, this time pointing it at his own face so that, for the first time, they both got a good look at him. "But you're… the spitting image of… of…" stammered Arlo. "Humphrey Bogart, circa 1941. Yep. Still. Could've been worse. Could've been Peter Lorre." He aimed the beam back at the other Arlo. "So, what are you calling yourself?
Caldwell. Hmm. Figures. Well, listen here, Caldwell. That man right there? He is not a real healer. Heartwood Hospital isn't even a real place. Those stories are lies. Lies humans tell each other for entertainment. I know that's hard to understand right now. But after a few years in their form, human ways will begin to make more sense. For now, you just gotta take my word for it. But the pain...
"Is real." "Yeah, I know. And it isn't something cortisone or aloe vera gel is gonna fix. The rash, the pain, it's your body's reaction to kappa radiation. Radiation coming from…" Monty lifted his gaze up through the break in the trees around the glade. "To the twinkling stars above." "It's… from her. And it means her searchlights are currently passing over the corner of the galaxy. She's trying to sniff us out."
Caldwell shuddered. Arlo cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to follow here. By 'her' you mean?" Monty closed his eyes. "The Huntress." A breeze arose, velvety and chilled like the soft touch of death. The branches swayed and the fire crackled, spitting embers into the wind. Monty opened his eyes and looked back at Caldwell. "Don't worry. It's happened before. Usually passes in a month or two.
and then your body can start to heal. But in the meantime, best we can do is stay hydrated and try not to scratch. At this suggestion, Caldwell's hands moved automatically to his chest and he began to scratch through his sweatshirt. I said, don't scratch. And listen up, bud. This place, you can't stay here. Upstate New York is my territory, has been for 50 years. If we're spread out, the searchlights don't have much to go on.
They get too many of us close together, and the biometric readings get easier to find. So, you gotta scram. Now, tonight. My recommendation? Hitchhike north, cross the border into Canada. Lot of open space up there. Places to start over, to make a life for yourself. You understand?" Caldwell blinked, mouth hanging open. It was always hard to read the emotions on a newly grown body.
But Monty was starting to wonder if there was also something "off" about this Caldwell guy. In fact, he thought there was a distinct possibility he was dealing with the Great A Moron. His species had those, just like humans, just like everybody. Monty realized he was still holding the revolver. He shoved it into his pocket and turned to Arlo. "There's still the matter of you, the OG you."
"I get how this started. Caldwell tracked you down, made you swerve off the road, begged for your help. But why did you help him, Mr. Fontaine? Why did you keep coming back here?" Arlo exhaled, turning his tired eyes to the fire. Then he shuffled over to the tree stump and sat, pulling off his hat and holding it in his lap. The actor looked haunted, broken, diseased in spirit and mind.
and Monty realized that of the two possibilities he had considered regarding Arlo's current plight, both were true. Arlo Fontaine had found something, and he had undergone a mental breakdown. "Don't rightly know why I'm doing it, Mr. McCall. I know this is all so utterly fantastical, but I suppose it's been a distraction. Yes, a distraction at a time I most desperately needed one.
Monty stepped toward him. "Why, if I may ask?" Arlo gazed into the flames. "Couldn't find my phone one day, and I needed to check the time, so I grabbed Kathy's phone off the table, and on the screen there was a text message from a number I didn't recognize, and I was curious." He squeezed the hat in his hands. "There were so many messages going back months, and images, and videos.
"Videos Kathy took of herself, and videos of the man, and then some of the two of them together." "Oh," Monty interrupted, nodding to himself. "Your wife's the one having the affair. That makes sense. I beg your pardon." "Sorry, bud. Just putting the puzzle together, that's all. Go on. You were saying that there were videos?"
"I assume are the two of them, naked and gyrating and whatnot?" "Yes, yes! I think you get the picture!" the actor shouted, trying to hold back tears. With an effort, he relaxed his grip on his hat and began to smooth it back into shape. "I confronted Kathy. She told me everything, including the fact that I had never satisfied her, that I'd never been enough. And then I just… I drove away."
I didn't know where I was going or what I would do. I just, I knew my life would never be the same. Those images, those videos, they were burned into my mind like, like the flames of this campfire. Monty rolled his eyes. Actors really were a dramatic bunch. Right, said Monty, and he cleared his throat. So that's who you thought I was when I said that Kathy had sent me? Her, uh, lover? Arlo winced.
Don't say lover. All right. Uh, booty call, companion? How is that better? Relax, Pops. I'm not the one humping the missus. I get it. Had to be rough. I guess I can see how you'd jump at the chance to focus on something else. Anything else. But why did you believe Caldwell's story? Arlo glanced up. He proved it to me, of course. Proved it? How? The ship. You know, his, uh, flying saucer.
The actor raised a hand and pointed to the other side of the glade. "It's parked right there, but you can't see it." "Actually, I can. You cannot. You shouldn't be able to sense it at all. So again, why believe him?" Arlo shrugged. "He showed it to me." A chill went through Monty's body, one that had nothing to do with the breeze. "What do you mean, showed it? Oh, you know, he uncloaked the ship temporarily, and then I could see it." Monty's yellow-gray eyes went wide.
Fear and rage, they ignited inside his chest. He spun, marching so close by the fire that his shoes kicked embers across the ground, and advanced on Caldwell. "Explain, now!" He stomped right up to Caldwell and shone the flashlight in his face. "Well, is it true?" Caldwell flinched and recoiled from the glare of the light. "Is what true? Your ship, is it still online?" "Online?"
"Did you not deactivate all its systems as soon as you got here?" Caldwell blinked, and raising a hand, began to scratch at his chest again. Monty clenched his teeth and inhaled through his nostrils. "Please, for the love of Pete, tell me that you at least took out the transponder." "I don't know what that is."
Monty swooned, lightheaded at the rush of adrenaline his body had suddenly produced. "Gimini Christmas!" Monty threw down the flashlight and sprinted toward the saucer. Leaping, he grabbed hold of its central edge, then pulled himself, grunting, onto its roof. "Good heavens!" gasped Arlo. No doubt, transfixed by what, to his human eyes, appeared to be a man crawling midair up an invisible incline.
Monty reached the top of the ship and punched at the circuitry cover. It popped open and he leaned forward, sliding his right arm inside, bending his elbow and grasping to the left. "Is there anything I can help with?" called Arlo. "Yeah," Monty grunted. "You can shut your trap and let me do my thing." His fingers brushed past the ship's gravity compass, then snagged on the tiny, ice-cold transponder cube in its housing.
He reached a little farther in, cringing in pain as his inflamed chest rubbed against the metal, then managed to detach the device and withdrew his arm. He lay for a moment, panting, staring at the transponder. Then he turned and let himself slide smoothly down the ship's roof and off its edge. He landed with his knees bent and marched back over to Caldwell. Do you know what you've done? He asked, holding out the transponder.
Her searchlights have been on us for weeks, and this has been transmitting the entire time. Do you know what that means? Caldwell only stared, his lopsided features flickering in the firelight. It means she is coming. You've let her right here. I... I didn't. Monty tightened his fist around the frigid cube.
"So either you are the biggest blockhead this side of the galactic bulge, or else… or else…" Monty's expression softened. He cocked his head, gazing into the other's frightened face. "How old are you, Caldwell?" "Don't know." "When were you born? Which astro-cycle? Do you remember?" Caldwell blinked, thinking hard. "Um… second neon, maybe?" Monty took a step back and exhaled. "Golly! You're… you're just a kid!"
You must have been, what, an infant when the massacre happened? You grew up in that ship, didn't you? All alone, on a preset course. Your parents must have... Wowzer. Arlo stepped up beside the detective, staring with him at the half-baked face of Caldwell. He's... a child? Yeah, barely that. Monty turned and paced away, the campfire at his back, the transponder cold in his hand.
Arlo followed him, standing sheepishly at his side. You're people, the actor said, his voice low. You're not just visitors on our planet, are you? And you're not here to spy or to conquer or anything like that. You're just trying to survive. You're refugees, yes? Monty slipped the transponder into his left pocket, then stared out into the deep, dark forest around them. He said, in a breathy whisper, that's about the sum of it.
"'And the thing you're running from, it massacred your species, didn't it? This Huntress. What is she, Inspector?' "'What is the Huntress?' Monty turned to the man he had followed here. "'She is... she is the stuff nightmares are made of.' Over by the fire, Caldwell had reached under his sweatshirt to scratch directly at his chest.'
"Hey, I told you!" Monty chided, marching back to him. "No! Scratch it!" He pulled the hand out from under the shirt and shoved it to the side. Caldwell began to mutter, to moan, to tremble and shuffle on his feet. "What the heck am I supposed to do with you, then?" Monty muttered. "You're gonna slow me down, aren't you, Caldwell? Gonna make it impossible to… unless… hmm… yeah, okie dokie!"
Monty pulled the Smith & Wesson revolver from his pocket, cocked back the hammer, and setting the barrel between Caldwell's eyes, he pulled the trigger. The gun roared, and Caldwell's head snapped backward, spraying a mist of blood into the air. Then he fell back, landing with a thud in the dirt.
"'Oh, Lord, no!' screamed Arlo, clasping a hand to his mouth. "'Caldwell! Oh, God, why?' He fell forward onto his knees. Monty, meanwhile, had clenched his teeth in a painful grimace and looked down at the wrist of his right hand, which felt like it had been busted apart by the intense recoil of the heavy revolver. "'Darn it! That hurt!'
He had only bought this particular firearm because it was the one Humphrey Bogart's character used in the 1955 noir thriller The Desperate Hours. Had Monty known what a bitch the recoil would be, he might have picked a daintier gun. "Gotta remember to use two hands with this thing," shaking his head. He tucked the revolver back into his belt, then looked down at the body on the ground. The head was leaking a pool of blood that shone purple in the starlight.
"Why would you?" Arlo sobbed. "Had to be done." "But you said he was just a child." "Relax, Fontaine." "But you killed him." "I didn't," he turned to Arlo, who was still on his knees and shaking his fists in the air. "Listen, consciousness resides in the brain, right? Well, your brain is in your head. His is not."
Hand me the axe." But Arlo didn't move. "Jeez, you really are good for nothing," Monty grumbled, walking over to where the axe lay, then returning to Caldwell. He positioned the body's arms above its head, then yanked the sweatshirt up over the shoulders and across his cross-eyed, bloodied face. Then he walked around to stand on either side of the body's ankles, raised the axe, and swung it down into Caldwell's sternum. "Oh, God!
Monty yanked the axe out, raised it again, and with a grunt, drove it in a little lower on the chest. Leaning over the axe, Monty twisted the handle, and the rashy chest cracked open. Warm blood gushed out and dribbled down both sides of the torso. Monty set aside the axe, wiped sweat from his brow, then crouched over the body and pushed his right hand into the open wound. "Oh heavens," muttered Arlo.
Monty's face screwed up in concentration. He pushed his hand past the slippery right lung, then fingered the outside of the heart. Is this? That's the, whatchamacallit, aorta. So, back here, maybe? Hmm. Ah! Yep, there he is. If I can just...
Getting a better grip, the detective leaned back on his haunches, tugging hard, the body lifting up a few inches. Then there was a snap, and Monty fell backward, blood bursting out to pepper his face and chest. "Got it!" "Oh God, I'm going to be sick." Monty stood, brushed himself off, and walked over to Arlo. "You know the entity you call Caldwell? Well, this is him." He held out the squishy little organ on the palm of his hand.
To Arlo Fontaine, it most closely resembled an uninflated balloon, wrinkled and rubbery, glowing softly magenta, with a few wiry dark hairs sticking out of each end. Oh, said Arlo, peering at it. It wriggled. Hey, he's actually very cute, like a cute baby. Monty considered the little fella for a few more seconds, then slid it into his right pocket and patted the outside gently.
So, said Arlo, climbing up from his knees and sticking his crinkled hat back on his head. What now? Monty gave the night sky another wary glance. Well, if she's almost here, she'll be hungry. She'll want to eat right away or else, or else her temper will be unchecked and too terrible to comprehend. So, I for one am getting the heck out of Dodge, as far away and as fast as I possibly can. And me? Me?
Monty looked down at the actor. "Seriously? You want my advice about your marriage?" "Me? The extraterrestrial that just split open your doppelganger's chest with an axe?" Arlo shrugged. "I mean, if you don't mind." Monty rolled his eyes, then headed across the glade and into the woods at a brisk walk, Arlo close behind him, leaving behind the bloody corpse in the dirt, lying next to the dying fire.
They moved in silence through the hills, Monty leading the way at a vigorous jog. And when at last they reached the dirt road, he slowed, coming alongside the parked Lexus. The actor emerged from the trees with twigs on his sports coat, clutching a stitch at his side. "Wait, but before you go, may I ask one final question?" Monty turned. "As long as it's not about how to pleasure your wife, sure, make it fast.
"No, it's just… I've always… wanted to know." Arlo swallowed, and stepping closer, he whispered, "The pyramids… were they… did your kind… you know?" Monty leaned down and placed his hands on Arlo's shoulders. "Mr. Fontaine, we have machines which can traverse the space between the stars, and knowledge beyond the scope of human imagination." "So? Why would we pile bricks into a triangle?"
Arlo blinked up at the detective. His eyes squinted in concentration. Monty gave him a friendly pat on his left side. "Good luck, Arlo," as he turned and ran toward his own vehicle parked further up the dirt trail. Monty added, under his breath, "You're gonna need it." He pulled open the driver's side door of the Honda Odyssey and, careful not to squish the youngster in his pocket, hopped in and started up the engine.
As he accelerated up the lane, Monty felt just a tiny bit guilty for the little maneuver he had just pulled on Arlo Fontaine. Many of the tricks of the PI trade could come in handy for an alien on the run. The ability to blend into a crowd, the use of disguises, the creation of new identities, and, when the need arose, the subtle art of pickpocketing.
Monty had rarely found the need to pickpocket a target, but he was practiced in the method, and the same principles had applied when doing the opposite and inserting something into a pocket instead. Coming up to the state road, Monty turned right and sped north, deeper into the wilderness.
Behind him, Arlo turned his Lexus left, heading back to town. Completely oblivious to the fact that a small, cubic transponder device now resided in the left-hand pocket of his sport coat. Safe in his minivan, Monty felt his skin prickle. He let out a shaky breath, and a cloud came with it. The air had gone suddenly cold. He had acted just in time.
Leaning over the steering wheel, Monty peered up through the windshield, up at the river of stars visible between the trees. Only, the stars ahead of him, they had vanished, blocked from view as something vast and dark and hideous approached on the wind, and passed above him. She had six great wings of shadow and three long tails of smoke. Her head was all beak and teeth and gaping throat.
and her multitudinous breasts swayed beneath her segmented body as she glided overhead, silent as the black beyond the galaxy's edge. Eyeless, voiceless, the Huntress came, wrought only of appetite and anger, and with a spirit like a raging storm. Monty looked in the rearview mirror and watched as, in the distance behind him, the Lexus lifted silently up off the street.
For the briefest of moments, it hovered in the air. Then the vehicle dissolved into glittering splinters of steel and glass, and there, hanging in the night like a puppet on invisible strings, floated… the actor. Monty could hear his scream, even from afar, as Arlo Fontaine was sucked up into the winged shadow, swallowed by the huntress, wrenched from the bonds of time and space, devoured by darkness.
Monty sped up, swerving along the curvy road in the night, the child wiggling nervously in his pocket. He looked again in the rearview mirror, this time to focus on the reflection of his own yellow-gray eyes. "Look at me, Sam," he said aloud to himself, quoting the film he had watched so many times on his voyage to this planet. "You always think you know what you're doing, but you're too slick for your own good. Someday, you're going to find out."
Someday. Maybe. But not today. No, sir. Not today.
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