Cries of the Children(118)

“What the hell is that?” Eric demanded.

“Don’t be afraid!” Steven cried. “It’s only make-believe.”

“It’s real enough for me!” Barbara cried, racing to the door.

Wil stopped her just in time. “You’ll alert the guards!”

They turned to see the “thing” flop forward, just as LaBerge’s fat form stumbled. Moving with unusual grace, LaBerge rolled away, saving himself in the nick of time. He went on screaming, but no one moved to help him. The room was soundproof, so the guards had no idea what was happening.

“Make it go away!” he screamed like a frightened child.

“We can’t,” Steven said. “We didn’t bring it here.”

It must be Marty! Julie thought.

Where is he? Rachel asked. Where did he go?

There seemed to be no sign of the boy anywhere in the room. But there was no time to look for him. The “beast” was pulling itself up to its full height now, an amazing ten or twelve feet. It swung itself around, looking very much like a lasso. This time it caught LaBerge by his legs. The fat man screamed in horror.

“Stop it! Stop!”

And then a strange voice filled the room.

I’ll make it stop. I’ll make it stop when you set my people free.

That doesn’t sound like Marty! Lorraine cried.

“Who is that?” Wil asked.

Everyone turned to him.

“You heard that?” Samantha asked. “But how?”

“It’s coming over the intercom system,” Barbara said, looking up and around.

“Yeah, I heard it too,” Eric said.

The creature was thrashing back and forth, flopping LaBerge about as if he was light as a feather. They noted he had stopped screaming.

“He’s passed out,” Rachel said.

“Maybe he’s dead?” Barbara asked.

Instantly the horrible creature vanished. There were no signs that it had existed at all. LaBerge lay unconscious on the floor, but his pants legs weren’t even crumpled.

For a long time everyone stood in eerie silence.

Then Samantha moved slowly forward to the partitioned area where Marty had been a short time earlier. She reached for the doors of a closet and pulled them open.

Marty sat inside, his body folded up into a ball. Gently Samantha reached in and pulled him out. Cradling him in her arms, she carried him out for the others to see. Barbara’s mouth fell open. Eric shook his head in wonder.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he said.

“Marty isn’t a ‘thing,’ “ Samantha said. “He’s an Ixtauran child. He is what we all—with the exception of Eric, Wil, and Barbara—look like.”

Marty regarded them all with huge aquamarine eyes. He did not speak, or even try to communicate with his mind. He was too weakened to do so.

“Hello, Marty,” Lorraine said in a soft voice. She came forward and touched him, completely without fear.

As if they’d been well-prepared for this moment, the other aliens also surrounded Marty.

“How did you know he was in the closet?” Wil asked.

Samantha smiled at him. “Some of your detective’s talents must have rubbed off on me. I realized that Marty couldn’t have left this room without being seen. The only place he could have hidden was the closet.”

The others gazed at the young male alien, the children touching him in gentle wonder.

“He doesn’t look strong enough to have created that monster,” Rachel commented.

“I think he’s hurt,” Lorraine said. “Sometimes, when he would talk to us through our minds, he would stop. He said they were doing things to him.”

Rachel shuddered visibly. Eric put his arms around his wife, feeling a little unsure about all this “alien” business.

“If he didn’t do it,” Steven said, “then who did?”

They all looked at each other. Then Samantha said in a soft voice:

“There must be others.”

“But how did they get in here?” Barbara asked. “Where are they?”

Eric looked toward the door.

“I don’t know about that,” he said, “but those guards are bound to come back in here at any moment.”

He turned to Marty. Samantha had laid him back down on the examination table, and his eyes were drooping toward sleep. Eric had never seen anything more amazing than this young alien, but he did not have the luxury of time to be either fascinated or repulsed by him. Instead, he leaned toward the being’s tiny ear and said:

“Is there another way out?”

Only one way.

When he didn’t hear Marty, Eric stood up.

“He said ‘only one way,’ “ Lorraine told him.

“That means we’re trapped,” Barbara said.