Dreams of Light by Patrick Sean Lee (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📖

had their inner motives, drives, and needs.

But this.

Had Charles been conscious, Jerrick’s at-the-moment shocking behavior might have been different. Oh, there was nothing particularly sexual about any of it. I mean, Jerrick seemed to be running his hands along Charles’ body as one might do to someone shivering, half frozen. It was just that…well, a grown man. Two grown men, one helpless. You know.

A sudden banging on the door took us away from the strange rejuvenation efforts of Jerrick on Charles. Denise lay out like a light a few feet away from the bed. I shot my eyes to the door as it swung in, and saw Munster tumble in, Cynthia’s hands hard against his back.

Munster stumbled forward.

“What the fuck?”

Even shocked herself at seeing Jerrick and dead-to-the-world Charles in that compromising position, she slapped Munster on the back of his head.

“Don’t say another word.

“Amelia, what in the name of all that’s holy is going on?”

Holy? There was absolutely nothing holy left in our world. But she obviously needed that question answered…which I certainly couldn’t do. I glanced up at Peter for help. He shrugged. And then he brought a finger to his lips.

Lashawna, Jude, and then Sammie crowded in right behind them. Jerrick finally opened his eyes, stopped doing…well, whatever it was he was doing with his hands and body…and looked over at the gathered, stunned group. He blinked.

“I said we must be alone!” he snapped. “Get out! All of you!”

That last part he spit looking directly at Peter and me with deep anger in his eyes.

I couldn’t help myself.

“But Jerrick, what…”

“I said LEAVE!”

No Rhyme, But Plenty Of Reason

We shuffled off, leaving Jerrick locked with Charles on the bed. I think of all of us, Lashawna was suffering with embarrassment the most. But I didn’t get that. She, of all of us, should have understood…well, what? That her only brother was gay? Like that actually mattered anyway. And too, her relationship with Jude! But who could even say that Jerrick was?

“I don’t think it’s what it looks like,” I tried to console her as we walked downstairs. “I mean…you know.”

Munster was beside himself, of course. Nineteenth century Munster. Cynthia kept telling him to shut it, but he went on anyway.

“Jerrick said he’d help Charles. Despite all other appearances, I believe that’s exactly what he’s doing. And who cares if he…well, loves Charles? Let’s wait and see what happens,” she said to him.

I guessed that made sense. Nothing else did. Lashawna looked up at me when we reached the bottom of the stairs and smiled.

“He’s supposed to be bringing Charles back, Amelia. It just didn’t look…” She stopped, and then she shrugged. “Whatever. You’re right…Jude, she’s right, isn’t she?”

“We’ll wait it out like she says, honey. Who knows? What we do know is that Jerrick isn’t who he used to be. Let’s not question his methods at this late point.

“And Munster, shut your face!” she said turning.

We left the house and sat on the porch, our ears cocked in anticipation of hearing Jerrick shout, “Success!” Everything was normal, peaceful in an odd way. The sun was making its way beyond the trees behind the house. The air itself was warm, but a cool ocean breezed wafted in from the west. I cuddled close to Peter, thanking my lucky stars that we were still together in one piece. Whole and undamaged, even after all we’d been through together.

I flashed to the tower and wondered what grace had prevented me from being...

That's when they appeared.

Sammie saw them first, whizzing up the drive as though they’d parked their landing craft out on the highway, and were late for an urgent appointment, or a massacre-in-waiting at ground zero.

“Look!”

Five of them, and for sure they seemed to be in a hurry.

“Oh shit,” Cynthia said when she lifted her head and followed Sammie’s pointing finger. “What do they want, I wonder?”

“What the hell are they gonna’ do?” Munster followed up.

“Whatever it is, you can bet it has something to do with the traitor they thought they owned,” Peter answered. And that’s as far as our conjecturing went. In a flash they were on us. Those gross tentacles slithering and darting crazily every which way on top of their heads. Three of them skirted by us and flew, literally, into the house. We stood frozen for a moment, scared to death that the two in front of us would attack. They were preparing to do that, right?

Mari suddenly appeared, rushing out of the orchard off to the right. She arrived between us and the aliens, raising her hands toward them, motioning in an agitated way. They backed off slightly, but not far enough for my comfort. I don’t think far enough for hers, either.

“Mari, what the hell is going on?” Peter asked her the second she came to a halt in front of us.

“Peter, I didn’t want this…”

The creatures moved forward again. She pushed her hands at them and waved at them even more furiously. They stopped once more. She returned her attention to Peter, jerking her head back and forth between he and them. “Jerrick forced my hand, though,” she said. “They intend to drag him out…he and Charles.”

“Why?” I asked her. Mari wasn’t frowning or anything threatening. As a matter of fact she looked almost...what?...like one of us again! Sad, apologetic! And scared! Her hands were shaking just a little. She blinked once, and then sighed.

“Look,” she finally said, “you’re safe as long as I’m able to hold them off. These are the ones who have little interest in any of you… who would do you in in a heartbeat. Me too if they were allowed. But the others…” She stopped. My mouth dropped open.

Allowed?

Another group of aliens whisked up the drive like a gigantic storm cloud as she spoke. They gathered around the threatening-looking ugly monsters, their own gross tentacles flapping around. They seemed to be having a conversation. More like an argument.

Mari flashed her soulless eyes at them, and then stepped sideways and back. She was listening, but I could definitely see that there was fear in her face now. She glanced quickly behind her at the tower for some strange reason, and then back to us.

Sammie was clenching Munster so tightly that I thought she’d break his back. If Mari was frightened, Sammie was a hundred times worse. She was terrified by now, bleating, “Munster, do something! Shoot them!”

Munster—“Shh, Sam. Just don’t make a sudden move.”

A second later we heard the sound of feet banging on the hardwood floor inside. Jerrick cursing and pleading. Denise screaming bloody murder.

The group that had gone inside had them, dragging them screaming and kicking outside onto the porch.

We turned our heads in unison the second the noise erupted. With their shimmering appendages that passed for arms and hands, they had Jerrick and Denise firmly in hand—and I use that word loosely. One of them half-carried, half-dragged Charles, his head hanging as if he were either dead already, or still unconscious.

Mari looked to the group of creatures who’d just arrived, a forlorn, pleading in her eyes, her jaw dangling open in shock.

“What, what, Mari?” I screamed. “What are they going to do?”

“They’re going to kill them!” She turned her head quickly after that and said something in that backward foreign language to one of the shimmering things hovering close by her side. A half-second later it replied just as unintelligibly, and then it and another swooshed forward to their alien counterparts who were dragging the three humans out.

Charles’ body hit with a strange, extended thud when the thing that had him in its grasp let loose, and his limp body began its slide down the porch steps. He did this clumsy somersault before coming to rest with his legs splayed open, his arms slumped between them, and his lower back against the nose of the bottom step. Then less than a second later as we all stared, he leaned forward and sideways slowly until gravity took over completely. He collapsed in the gravel onto his side.

Even in the clutches of her own, personal, pissed-off captor, Denise managed to jump up and down, running crazily in place like some sprinter yanked straight up off the track. And contrary to the laws of physics governing sound, she somehow screamed even louder!

So there we all stood. This like anthill of terrified humans being stirred up in a maelstrom of invaders, half of whom seemed maybe not to exactly like us, but intent, nonetheless, on keeping their brothers and sisters from…how did they intend to kill us? Jerk us around like little rag dolls until our brains flew out of our mouths and noses and ears? Maybe they’d just choke us with two or three of their tentacles? Bang our heads on the ground?

I know, I know, that is way gross. And they didn’t do any of those things anyway.

But, here is what the two opposing groups did do.

 

So Sayeth the King and Queen

 

Mari stayed after they left.

I guess that should have surprised me, but it didn’t. It did make Munster raise his eyes in question when half of them finally got tired of scaring us to death and swirled one after another back down the drive, though. Mari watched them retreat. The other half who’d arrived in the nick of time (I still think) gathered around her and spent only a few moments wiggling their gross antennae while she shook her head yes or no, and then spoke back at them in that strange tongue in sudden little outbursts.

Of course Munster asked me what they were talking about. I looked back over my shoulder at him, not really surprised at his question. Or I should say the question only he would be dumb enough to ask me.

“They want to know if you’re okay.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes Munster, seriously.”

Cynthia helped him out.

“No Francis, it’s something much more important. Amelia has no more clue than you or me or anyone else about what they were saying.”

I smiled at her response to him. Something more important than you, Munster? Yes, like the lawn is beginning to get really shaggy crappy, and they want you to mow it. Your car in the ditch is an eyesore and they want you to tow it to a junkyard. They’re shocked and disappointed that they left someone as brilliant as you alive way back when.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved Munster then, and I’m still devoted to him all these years later. It’s just that between his love affair with weapons—the