Moondust Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2

Iris finished her dinner quickly. Her mother was watching the news. 

“Ah, what’s this world coming to?” Her mother asked. Iris looked at the TV. There had been a kidnapping. Some teenagers walking home at night when a someone came racing down the road. According to one of the girls, they all screamed and jumped out of the way. She remembered her friend being lifted off her feet but didn’t see anyone pick her up. Then the car flew off. The reporter paused a moment before continuing. “She said it looked like it was flying. The psychologist working with her determined that due to her panicked state, she might have been confused.”

“She was abducted.” Iris whispered under her breath. 

“What’s that?” Her mother asked.

“I’m finished, I’m going to my room.” Iris said instead.

The first thing Iris did after opening her laptop was check the daily UFO sightings. It was a habit. The university magazines she was supposed to look at were already forgotten. She scanned though the reports. There were sightings in Albania, Turkey, China, and several in the USA. There! Halfway down the list was Sparks. Two separate people witnessed white lights low to the ground speeding thought the trees. One at 11pm and the other just a few minutes later. Maybe the teenager had been abducted.

 

Tomorrow took forever to come. Iris had so many theories wandering around her mind that she couldn’t sleep. When morning finally came, she was up before her parents, or so she thought. She crept to the kitchen. She knew how to twist the doorknob so that it made no sound. 

“Iris!” Mother’s voice was sharp. Iris jumped and stifled a short yip of surprise. 

“Uh, morning, mom.” Iris called back. Her mother arms folded across her chest in a serious manner. 

“Did you look at those schools?” 

“Uh, I planned on it.”

“You know I want what’s best for you. If you don’t prepare now, you won’t be ready when the time comes. Petra started looking for universities at your age.” 

Anger welled up inside of Iris. Petra was her perfect older sister. Why was she always being compared to Petra?

“Petra is just the best, isn’t she?” She commented out before she could stop herself.

“Iris! Watch your mouth. I’m not saying you need to make any decisions, but you need to at least think about it.”

“I am!” Iris thought about it all the time. She thought about how smart her sister was and how always knew what she was doing. Iris changed her mind every few weeks. There were very few careers that held her interest for very long. Her elementary school held career day every year, which her mother attended with her enthusiastically. Iris, however, just left the event confused. Not a single thing interested her. “I want to research UFOs.” She said quietly. She knew by the look on her mother’s face that this was not an acceptable answer. She had been interested in UFOs and aliens ever since she had seen something fly across the sky a year ago. It was at night and there were rotating blue lights twinkling in a circle around the object. It stopped near the edge of the forest and hovered for a moment before shooting straight up and disappearing. At the time, she tried telling her parents, her friends, everyone, but no one really believed her. Well, Matt did. He was her best friend after all. Since then, Iris had learned everything she could on the subject, scouring the internet for information on extra-terrestrial visitors.

“That’s not a real job.” Her mother said in an obvious tone. All Iris could see was her interests being brushed aside for what her mother considered important. 

“Why not?”

 Her mother’s face grew impatient. “You still have a long time to decide, but you need to at least be able to tell the difference between make believe and reality.”

“They are real!” Iris insisted, frustration added to her anger. 

“Get your head on straight, Iris!” Her mother was losing her calm now.

“Why do you want me to choose and then not let me choose?” Frustrated tears came to Iris’s eyes. 

“Because you’re acting like a child.”

Iris reached her tipping point. She stormed out of the kitchen to the garage. Her mother shouted after her, but she didn’t stop. She picked up her bike and rode as the tears streamed down her face. She didn’t have a plan, she just rode. 

 

Eventually, she found herself at the dirt path leading to the cabin. She looked down the path strewn with pine needles. It wound off into the trees. She wanted to go there. She could almost feel the cabin calling to her, drawing her in. Almost as if on auto-pilot, Iris turned her bike and followed the path into the woods. She set her bike down at the end of the path. Her thoughts drifted back to the missing person. What if she’d just been kidnapped by some nasty people? What if they were using the cabin? She suddenly stopped, hesitating. She took a deep breath and gathered her courage. She slowly stepped onto the first wood-plank step, careful of any squeaking from the old wood. The air around here was still. She could feel her heart pounding as she reached the porch and held her hand out for the doorknob. She turned it gingerly at first, but it didn’t budge. It could be locked or just stuck. She tried again, a little more forceful, but to no avail. The door was locked. Iris huffed in defeat. Her gaze fell to the left, and she made her way around to the side of the cabin. It was possible there was another door at the back or even a window that was open. The more the cabin posed a problem, the more she wanted to know what was inside. There was a window, but a black plastic sheet was covering it from the inside. She continued. There was a back door, but it, too was locked. Iris walked back to the front. She sat down on the old wooden porch and huffed. Her mind drifted back to the abduction case.

Alien abductions sounds nice about now.

Then, from the corner of her eye, a black shadow appeared from behind a tree.  It was the black cat.

“Hello.” Iris greeted as it crept up the stairs. It walked up to her and sat, examining her with bright yellow-green eyes. Then, it walked to the door, scratched the post next it and nudged at the door. 

“No one’s home.” Iris called to the sleek black feline. She felt her heart jump as the door creaked open just a crack and the cat disappeared inside. Iris was on her feet in an instant.

“Hello?” She called. There was no answer. She didn’t want to be rude, but the door was open. She inched towards the open door. 

“Is anyone here?” Her heart was beating faster. Her mind told her to turn and run back to her bike, to get out of there as fast as possible, but her curiosity wouldn’t let her flee. She touched the door and pushed slightly. It creaked loudly. She peered inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She looked around. There was an old sofa and broken coffee table to the left and a small kitchen to the right. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. The cat sat on the sofa, its eyes shining and fixed on Iris. Iris slid through the doorway. There was no way someone had been here recently, the dust on the floor was as thick as it was on the furniture. That wasn’t quite true, there was a path in the dusty floor from the door that disappeared into the room in the back. It looked like someone had walked that way several times. She followed the tracks on the floor. They ended at a hunter’s gun cabinet along the wall in the back room. It was a safe with a heavy door locked in place. She checked it. The door was locked tight. Someone must be keeping something in there. Or someone. Iris shivered.

She felt something rub up against her leg and she let out a short scream. It was the cat. 

“Don’t do that!” She scolded, calming down. A soft “click” sounded in the room and Iris turned back to the safe. The three-pronged handle in the center of the safe began turning slowly. Iris backed up slowly, but the cat held its ground. The door to the safe swung open and a kid stepped out. He was about Iris’s height, maybe a hair taller. He wore a New York hoodie with the hood pulled over his head. He had large sunglasses. They were so big that it made him look cartoonish. 

“Hello?” It came out like a question. The boy jumped and frowned. Iris couldn’t see much of his skin because of all the clothes he was wearing, but his mouth and jaw were visible and looked very pale. She wondered if he were bundled up because he was sick. 

“What are you doing here?” He snapped.

“I followed your cat.”

“Bast!” The boy looked down at the black cat, who paid him no mind at all. The boy re-focused on Iris.

    “You can’t be here.” He said, stepping back into the safe. Iris wasn’t listening, she was looking into the safe behind him. She could see a long row of shelves. She knew the safe was backed up against the outside wall of the cabin. There was no way it was that big on the inside. 

    “How is there another room back there?” She asked. 

    “That’s none of your business.” The boy retorted. He began closing the door.

    “Is this where that girl went, the one that got abducted?” Iris asked, grabbing the safe door before it closed. The boy froze in his tracks.

    “Someone else got abducted?” He asked.

    “Last night.”

    “Where?”

    “On the outskirts, not far from here.”

    “And you’re stupid enough to go snooping around out here by yourself?” The boy’s tone was acid.

    “What do you mean by someone else being abducted?” Iris asked, ignoring the ill-mannered comment. “Are there more? What do you know?”

     “Nothing!” He yanked the door from her grip.

     “Wait!” Iris said desperately. “I want to help! I’ve been following abductions for a long time.” He paused and looked at her.

     “You’re what, ten years old? What’s a long time? Three minutes?”

     “I’m fourteen and I’m not going home!” Iris shot back, determined. He paused again, considering her. Finally, he sighed.

     “Alright, come on. But! You can’t tell anyone about this!”

     “What? I won’t.” She promised.

     “Good because if you do, I’ll abduct you.” He took his glasses off to reveal giant black almond-shaped eyes. Iris took a sharp breath. She was staring into the face of an alien. She forced herself to exhale and nodded. Then she followed the alien into the room beyond the safe.

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