Moondust - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

 

It took a lot longer to walk her bike with Chris than if she had ridden it home. She opened the door, expecting a lecture about staying out too late. Her mother was sitting at the table, a worried expression on her face.

“Sorry, mama.” Iris said without prompting. 

Her mother rushed over to her and hugged her tightly. “I’m just glad you’re safe, mija.” Iris looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost 10:30. She set the journal on the table and hugged her mother back. 

“Petra’s home too?” Petra spent most evenings at the library, but she would have been home by now. 

“Your father went to pick her up. I stayed here in case you came home.”

Iris could see now how truly worried her mother was. Her eyes were tear-stained, and she could begin to see small wrinkles on her beautiful face. It made Iris want to cry. She didn’t realize how much she had lost track of time.

As usual, the TV was on, but Iris’s mother had not been watching it. It was further proof of how anxious she had been. It made Iris shutter as she focused on the screen. Instead of the night show that her mother usually watched, there was a special report with a reporter speaking from a dark outside location. The cameral showed a scene on a dimly-lit street. There were police cars and yellow tape. A headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen: “Teenage girl abducted”. 

“Another one.” Iris breathed. She studied the screen, trying to figure out what city the report was coming from. The camera angle turned and she could see a building. The sign over the door came into focus. It read “Sparks City Library”. Iris froze. Her eyes moved to see if her mother was watching also. She was still in the kitchen, dishing up leftovers for her. 

The reporter appeared on screen again and began addressing the situation.

“Witnesses report seeing a girl standing next to the streetlight. They said there was a bright flash of light and when they looked again, she was gone. The girl was wearing a Sparks High jacket and jeans. Witnesses say she had dark long hair and a brown backpack.

“No. no. no.” Iris whispered. Iris’s mother was suddenly by her side, watching the report. They both saw her father in the background talking to police. 

“Get in the car.” Her mother ordered. Iris obeyed without hesitation. Dozens of thoughts all crowded her mind at once. Was it Petra? Was it aliens? What did they want with her? What was she going to do about it? She felt anger and fear welling up inside as she realized it had to be Petra. This just couldn’t happen to her intelligent, studious, perfect sister. Iris took a deep breath as they pulled up to the library. Her mother ran straight up to her father. There were several officers searching the parking lot. 

Parking lot? No. Iris knew they would not have come that way. They didn’t need roads. She looked to the side of the building and beyond. There were no houses or even any buildings back there. It was just a bunch of foothills and sagebrush in that direction. That’s where she was going to look. 

A hand reached out and grabbed her arm. Iris jumped and nearly screamed. 

“Hey, it’s me.” Matt stepped into view. 

“Matt!”

“Dad got a call and he rushed out of the house. I knew it was something big, so I went and got Tyler and we followed.” 

Iris nodded.

“What do you think?” He asked next.

“Me? I think we should look over there.” Iris pointed towards the foothills. “If it’s what we think, that would be the way they came.”

Matt nodded to Tyler and the three of them set off. Tyler gave Iris a flashlight.

“These are top grade. They should light everything up, but focus on the ground, we’re probably looking for something pretty small. They don’t usually leave giant tracks behind.” 

They combed through the heat-dried grass. There wasn’t much to go on, especially when you were looking for evidence of an alien spaceship. 

“Hey, guys!” It was Matt. He was several yards to Iris’s right. She ran over to him. She could easily see what he was looking at. There were several burns in the grass. They were in short patches, but she could see another one a few feet away. They followed that burnt patch to another, and then another. The track looked like it went all the way to the library in one direction and up the hill in the other. 

“Let’s see where it goes.” Tyler started up the hill, following the path of burnt grass. Iris and Matt followed, but the burnt patches suddenly stopped halfway up the hill. 

“Where’d it go?” Tyler asked. They looked in every direction, but there was no more sign of the path they were following. Something glinted off the light of Iris’s flashlight. She reached down into the dry grass and picked up a small piece of metal. It looked familiar. She pulled the other piece from her pocket. They two pieces drew themselves together like magnets and then melded together to form one larger piece.

“Whoa, that was awesome.” Iris didn’t realize that Tyler was watching. Matt came jogging up as well.

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“Some kind of metal I guess. I found a piece like that on the side of the road at the other abduction.”

“I didn’t know you found something there.” 

“Chris said it was Folum.” Iris told them.

Matt looked puzzled for a moment. “Didn’t he say something about your Folum friend, that’s what I remember.” 

“Yeah.” Iris admitted finally. She was sick of keeping secrets. She was scared for her sister. It was time to tell him, even if Jam got mad. She needed everyone’s help now. “I know someone who can help.” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. 

Matt and Tyler stared, waiting for her to continue. She looked back at the police and the library. 

“You guys go. I’ll stay here in case anything else comes up.” Tyler offered.

“Tell my mom not to worry. we’ll be back soon.” Iris asked.

“Can do.” Tyler replied with a nod.

 

Iris stood on the back screws of Matt’s bike. When they were alone she spoke.

“The cabin isn’t just where I’ve been hanging out. There are aliens there. I met them a few weeks ago.”

“Iris. You’ve been though a lot tonight.” Matt sighed, pumping the bike petals with all his strength. 

“I’m not making it up. I’ll show you.”

Iris was nervous about taking Matt to see Jam, but there was no other way. Her sister was missing, she was breaking her promise, and now she was one of the unfortunate “crazy” people who claimed they’d seen an alien. She knew Matt wouldn’t say she was crazy, but she wondered if he would think it. 

Time seemed to slow to a crawl for Iris as Matt turned his bike down the old dusty road. She jumped off the bike. It would be too difficult for Matt to carry her on the dirt road. It was dark but she still had the flashlight from Tyler. Matt clamped a hand over hers. 

“Don’t turn it on.” He whispered. Iris knew immediately that something was up. She looked in the direction of the cabin. Iris was sure there was a light shining through the trees. There was. They came into the clearing and the lights to the cabin were on. Iris didn’t even know that there was working electricity in the run-down hunting cabin.

Matt and Iris slowly approached the front door, trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible.  Iris remembered how the cabin looked earlier. Had the intruders come back to keep looking? Iris’s concern was confirmed when the front door swung open. 

“Iris! Come in.” A familiar pale-skinned form stood in the doorway. 

“Chris?” Iris asked in shock.

What’s going on here?” Matt asked. 

“Iris invited me over.” Chris explained.

“No I didn’t.” Iris shot back immediately.

Chris shrugged. Iris tapped a control on her alien phone in her pocket. She needed to contact Jam. She needed to tell him to keep the portal closed. There was no answer. 

“That won’t work.” Chris said with a sly smile. 

“What?”

“They won’t answer.”

Iris knew something was very wrong. Chris had mentioned Jam before and now he knew she was trying to call him. How did he know? How did he find this place? 

“Matt, I think we should go now.” Iris said cautiously. She knew they’d walked in on something, and that Chris wasn’t who he said he was.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that.” Came a menacing voice from behind them all. Matt and Iris spun around. Standing just off the porch was a large man in a business suit. He was flanked by four men in combat suits. Iris swallowed hard.

“Take them.” The man said. 

The men came forward and pushed the two kids into separate cars. The windows in the back were tinted on the inside so that Iris couldn’t see out. She heard someone get into the front of the car and start the engine. She could feel when they left the dirt road and turned onto the smooth main road, but she was sure they turned the other direction, away from Sparks. After an hour or so, the car slowed to a stop. The same men escorted her out of the car and into a large dark garage. Iris thought she saw smooth stone walls and water trickling down one spot in the wall. Matt was there, getting out of other car. They were taken inside and placed in a cell. 

Matt studied his surroundings closely. He had already determined that they were underground by the way the garage smelled. There were a few more cells, all empty except for one. He peered into the cell to make out a strange boy with light gray skin. He was wearing a hoodie so Matt couldn’t see much more. With him was a woman with bronzed olive skin. Her face was hidden is a mass of coppery golden curls, but Matt was instantly sure she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Jam? Phina?” It was Iris who spoke.

“Looks like you were followed, kid.” The boy in the hoodie said.

“I tried to be careful.”

“It was probably that greasy slimeball.” The woman spat, nodding to Chris as he came into the room.

“Where’s my sister?” Iris shot out at Chris. Her fear and anxiety suddenly turned to anger. She wasn’t afraid anymore, she wanted her sister back. 

“You were supposed to believe she was abducted by aliens.” Chris commented in an annoyed tone. “You, the little believer should have been the first to cry that her big sister was taken away by little green men.”

“Guess you failed.” Matt taunted. 

“I didn’t fail!” Chris got suddenly angry. He reached to grab Matt though the bars, but Matt backed up before he could get to him. “I didn’t fail!” He repeated. “I did everything I was supposed to. You were supposed to think it was him!” Chris pointed at the boy in the hoodie.

“A little kid?” Matt asked. Chris laughed. It was a cold, hateful sound.

“You think that thing is a kid?”

“I was supposed to think it was Jam?” Iris cut in.

“I planted the Folum steel for you to find. I made sure he was out chasing something every time an abduction occurred. You didn’t doubt him at all?” Chris spat.

Iris looked at Jam. She did doubt him. She met his eyes, looking sad. “I figured it couldn’t have been him when the cabin was ransacked. Why would he do that? And why would he kidnap my sister. Only an idiot would work with someone and try to take their sister.”

“I’m not an idiot!” Chris roared. 

“It was you, wasn’t it. You’re the one who tore apart the cabin. You were there in the forest that night.” Iris deducted.

“And the night I followed Iris to the cabin. I heard someone in the woods.”

“You think you have it all figured out.” Chris sneered. “You don’t know anything.” He pushed a button and two other men came in. They were the ones in military gear. “Take the girl.” Chris ordered. Matt tried to stand in front of Iris, but he was easily shoved aside by the stronger men. One of them hit him with a baton and he fell against the wall.

“Matt!” Iris shouted. She tried to run to him, but one of the men grabbed her and pulled her from the cell. 

Iris found herself back in a car. She should have been terrified, but she wasn’t. She was angry. She was angry about Matt and about her sister. No one had told her anything about her sister. The car stopped and once again, she was ordered out. She obeyed. At this point, refusing would just get her bumps and bruises. She recognized the place they were at. It was about half an hour drive from Sparks. Right now, they were on a jutting overhang. The rocks formed natural cliffs above the shoreline below. It was sunset and Iris could see the sun floating in the trees to the west, casting long shadows across the dirt and rocks. Chris and the man in the business suit exited from the front seats of the car. 

“Where’s my sister?!” Iris demanded. The man responded by pulling out a gun. Iris closed her mouth and froze.

“You know what this is. But this isn’t like any gun on earth.” He held it up into the failing daylight for Iris to admire. “It’s made of Folum steel, a substance more resilient than anything here on this planet.”

“What do you want?” Iris asked. She didn’t want to sit and let him gloat, she knew there had to be a reason behind it.

“Oh, hasty. Okay then.” He lowered the gun and smiled. “I want to tell you that your sister is just fine. In fact, she’s part of a top-secret research assignment. I want you to stop looking into the matter and convince all your little friends in your little town that she ran away.”

“Why would I do that?”

He walked closer to her and held the gun up as if to answer her question. Then he pointed it at Chris. 

“So you don’t end up like him.”

“Mr. Emerald? What are you doing?” For once, Chris didn’t sound like his overly confident self. He took a step backward towards the edge of the cliff.

“You’re a failure, just like all the rest. You know I don’t keep failures.” He cocked the gun. Iris’s heart was pounding. She froze, unable to move. Then she remembered something. She took a deep breath and forced her fear back. She willed herself to move. She reached into her pocket and felt around for the thumb-sized scrap of metal and closed her fingers around it.

“Mr. Emerald?” Iris asked. As he looked down at her, she grabbed his arm and reached for the gun. He shoved her away. Iris smashed into a rock. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder.

“Stupid girl.” He growled. He re-aimed the gun at Chris and fired. Instead of hitting Chris, the gun exploded in his hand. The large man screamed. He stumbled forward, blinded. His hand was cripple and bleeding. 

Chris took another step back and Mr. Emerald charged at him. Chris tried to get out of the way, but the bigger man caught his sleeve. Mr. Emerald teetered on the edge of the cliff then fell. Chris pulled his shirt free of the man but lost his balance. He could feel his shoes slipping over the edge of the rocky cliff. He reached out but there was nothing nearby to grab. A hand reached out and yanked him forward. Chris stumbled and fell forward to his knees. Iris stood in front of him clutching her shoulder. 

“You saved me?” Chris exhaled. He was on his hands and knees. 

“Yeah?”

“After everything I did?”

“You did some bad things, but you’re still a person.” Iris said simply. She knew she had to try to save him, otherwise if he fell, she would always blame herself. She wasn’t going to have that guilt on her conscience. She reached down to help him up with her good arm. 

“Besides, I need a driver. Can you drive?” Iris asked. Chris looked like he was still processing everything, but Iris was already moving toward the car. 

“I’m a failure, just like he said.” Chris sighed. He looked like a crushed puppy. All the sneering bravado from before was gone.

Iris came back and put a hand on her shoulder. “Not if you help us get out of this alive.”

Chris looked back at the edge of the cliff. 

“I have to check.” He walked back over to the cliff and peered over. Mr. Emerald, his boss who just tried to kill him, was laying lifeless on the rocks below. Chris shivered. “How’d you do it?”

“The gun?”

“Yeah.”

“He said it was Folum steel. I had that scrap of metal I found on the side of the road. I put it in the barrel of the gun. I didn’t know if it would work or not.”

“You put it in the barrel and it melded inside, causing the gun to backfire.”

Iris nodded. 

“Nice.” Chris’s smile was real this time. 

“Let’s go.” 

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