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The aliens. General Crytor, the damned Reptilian leader who had transported Ivor to the mothership back in the seventies, was still using him for experiments. To do his bidding. Like a goddamned slave. The invisible chip those alien bastards had implanted in Ivor’s body forced him to do Crytor’s bidding and was probably the reason his arthritis was so bad. Well, that and the damned cold. Even
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with his thick jacket and a stocking cap, boots, and gloves he felt the bone-piercing cold that his little nips of Jim Beam hadn’t been able to ward off. Damned orange two-legged freaks with their lizard heads and snakelike eyes. Crytor, he was the worst of the lot, the leader, but there had been others, too, who had cocked their heads like vile orange crows as they poked and prodded him with their needles and probes. It was amazing he’d survived. Those lipless extraterrestrials had done experiments on him, examining everything ranging from his lungs to his testicles.
Ivor doubted, after the abduction, that he could father any more children.
“Reptilian sons of bitches!” he hissed into the cold winter air, and the wind seemed to laugh and shriek at him, as if it, too, thought him crazy. Maybe that was good. He wasn’t sure how much Crytor knew of his thoughts, but the general surely could hear his words, and Ivor had felt the wrath of the Reptilian’s punishment many times before—headaches that would take a grown man to his knees. Crack!
The sound, like the blast from a rifle of a poacher hunting in these woods, or a car backfiring up on the country road, reverberated through the forest. Damned idiots with their guns.
Now, those were the crazies.
He kept walking. Though no one in Grizzly Falls believed his alien story, not even Doc Norwood who treated him, Ivor knew what he knew. The fact that he’d been found, near naked, with an empty bottle of whiskey near him, had convinced everyone who 150
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knew his tale that he was just a drunk, that he’d been hallucinating.
“Hallucinating, my ass,” he said and winced at a pain in his temple. Crytor again. The Reptilian seemed to have as much objection to swearing as his wife, Lila, had. Rest her soul. He made a quick sign of the cross over his old down jacket and kept on trudging. He wasn’t Catholic, wasn’t even certain about God, but he had his own brand of reverence and it had become a habit whenever he thought about his wife, or spoke her name, to make the sign of the cross over his chest. It made him feel better.
Sometimes those Catholics got things right. The snow was coming down in heavy flurries and his glasses were beginning to steam. Where the hell was Crytor prodding him this time? It worried him because on his last trek into the mountains, when the damned aliens were forcing him into the wilderness, he’d run across a dead girl, stark naked, tied to a tree. Jesus, that was freaky. And about as bad as what he’d feared his fate was to be: that he would be transported to the mothership once again. At that thought his hands began to shake uncontrollably. Hell, he couldn’t go back there. Couldn’t! This time, he might not survive. Using his teeth, he tore off one glove, then reached into his jacket pocket and unscrewed the lid of his flask as the memory of the dead girl crossed his mind. Asian. Probably in life she’d been pretty. But when Ivor had found her, her lips had been purple, her skin blue, her eyes glassy, her black hair stiff and covered with snow. Wendy Ito.
That had been her name.
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He’d been interviewed by the cops, then the reporters. Of course, the whole alien abduction thing had come up, as it had before. In the seventies he’d sold his story to a magazine, but he wonde
red if he could write a book about his experiences. Oh, hell, that would really piss old Crytor off. Ivor glanced around the frozen wilderness. Everything covered in white. The falling snow a veil that made it hard to distinguish anything farther than ten feet in front of him.
He took a couple of long pulls of whiskey, felt the warmth of the liquor slide down his throat. He was about to put the flask away, then took another swallow. Couldn’t hurt. Not out here in this damned snow forest.
Winter wonderland, Lila had called the Montana wilderness. Just like the song. Ivor had never believed it and had kicked himself to hell and back for not taking that roughneck job in Texas he’d been offered thirty-five years before. Lila had pitched a fit. Wasn’t about to leave her ailing mother or pull their son out of a school where he was “doin’ just fine.” So Ivor had stuck it out at the mine, Hubert Long’s copper mine, as long as he could. Until Lila had up and died on him in ’78 and goddamned Crytor had abducted him in ’79. After that, Ivor had lost his free will. Had never been able to move to the Lone Star State or anywhere warm, for that matter.
Now, his skin crawled just being on Hubert’s land.
Nothing ever good came from being close to the Longs; he was certain of it. Had told Lila years ago and she’d pooh-poohed him. “You don’t know what 152
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you’re talkin’ about,” she’d said as she’d climbed into their old Dodge on her way to work as a barkeep at the Spot, their favorite tavern. “Hubert’s okay and he’s not cheap. Always leaves a big tip.”
Ivor hadn’t been convinced. One more swallow of whiskey, then he capped the flask. It was damn near empty. He knew he’d filled it before he’d started on this mission to only God knew where and truth to tell, he felt a little wobbly. Just Crytor and his damned prod. Jamming his glove onto his hand again, Ivor crossed the creek, wondering why he let Crytor manipulate him, why he’d been the one chosen that day.
He didn’t have much time to speculate as he spied the big house. Hell, it would take six or seven, maybe even eight of his little houses to make up the size of the mammoth structure. Pitched gable roofs, three stories, windows that sparkled from dormers. And this was just Hubert’s hunting lodge, one of the homes he had sprinkled throughout the country. Some people were just too rich.
He stopped, realized he was in the creek, and took a step. Nearly fell as he reached the opposite bank.
A few lights were on, he thought, though his glasses had begun to fog. Probably the housekeeper, Clementine, and her oddball of a son Russ . . . no, that wasn’t right. Ross. Yeah, that was it. Ross. Though he was pushing twenty or so, he still lived with his mother. Somewhere inside Hubert Long’s private estate. Oh, hell, who could blame them?
Ivor struggled up the steep bank, his walking stick not much help. He had to grab onto a root
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