S1, E8 The Strangers

In the previous Episode,  Severn went into Millersville, where he encountered what he came to believe was an alien species inhabiting the town. On his return to the farm, he told Tommy and Vi what he’d seen, and they packed up supplies and moved out of the house to camp atop a nearby hill, where they’d have a view of anyone approaching the farm. The plan was for all three of them to visit Millersville the following day, so that the kids could see what Severn had seen. That’s where we pick up Episode 8.

Transcript

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This is Ed Falco on the air, reading The Strangers, a novel in 18 episodes. In the previous episode, Severn went into Millersville, where he encountered what he came to believe was an alien species inhabiting the town. On his return to the farm, he told Tommy and Vi what he'd seen, and they'd packed up supplies and moved out of the house to camp atop a nearby hill, where they'd have a view of anyone approaching the farm. The plan was for all three of them to visit Millersville the following day, so that the kids could see what Severn had seen. That's where we pick up A'isha. By late afternoon of the day following Severn's trip to Millersville, the RV was parked behind a stand of trees at the end of a dirt road halfway up a wooded hillside. From there, Severn and the kids had used ATVs to carry supplies the rest of the way up the hill. They'd cleared out a small campsite where they'd planned on spending the nights, and they'd found a spot nearby with a panoramic view of the farmhouse and the road. Once the hidden campsite was set up and the RV loaded, They went about getting ready for the drive to Millersville. The day was again warm, and the air was full of bird chatter and the earthy smell of spring growth. When they were ready to go, Tommy herded the dogs into the back seat with Vi, and Severn placed the rifles in the cargo area. On the road to town, Vi pulled out an expensive pair of binoculars that Severn recognized. Where did you get those? he asked. Tommy said, I found them in your father in law's study. They're awesome. Look at this, Vi said, and placed the binoculars in front of him, in his forward field of view. Press this button, she said, and it makes the shaking stop. Severn had given Ray, Sarah's father, those binoculars as a gift for his seventieth birthday. That's the image stabilization button, Severn said to Vi. I looked around for those. I thought Ray had taken them with him to Maine. Maine, Tommy said? That's where he was traveling with his wife during the lurchings. Severn didn't bother to explain that he had found Rey's traveling foe cached on his computer and Tommy didn't bother to ask. They were a little heavy is the only problem, Vi said, as she held them to her eyes. She scanned the road and the nearby fields and the thickly treed hills a little farther on in the distance. Severn said, let me know if you see anything unusual. You think so, Vi said, the sarcasm thick and more than a little dismissive. Severn was nervous about this trip, but working hard not to show it. Yesterday felt like a dream to him, but today he knew what they were doing. The creatures had not seemed dangerous at all. In fact, they reminded him of a Christian service community. Those people who built houses for the less fortunate. Church group people. He guessed it was because he had seen them working together repairing houses, or because he had seen families in homes and shopping in what was left of the town. But there was something more than that too. The sound of their voices, that bird song, was sweet and musical, not in the least threatening. But now, driving toward Millersville, he was nervous, much like Vi, about getting anywhere near them again. So when he glanced into the back seat, he was amazed to see that Tommy was sleeping. Horses, Vi said. She pointed off into the fields to her right. Oh my god, she said, look at how many. In the back seat, Tommy said, where? As if he hadn't been sleeping at all. Severn pulled the car to the side of the road. Horses, a huge herd of them, were coming down the hills into the field. It looked like there might be as many as a hundred in the herd. Dude, Tommy said, as Vi handed him the binoculars. There's like a thousand of them. Severn watched with the kids as horses poured down off the wooded hill and into the cleared fields like a long, thick stream. They were coming down two and three abreast out of the woods off a wide trail and spilled into a field thick with weeds and brush, a lush field green with grass and foliage. Severn said to the kids, What do you suppose they all came from? Tommy said, What do you mean? I mean, how did they make it through the winter with no one to feed them? Severn asked for the binoculars, and when Tommy handed them to him, he saw that the horses looked not just healthy, but groomed. Their manes were long and untangled, and their coats were satiny. Tommy said, they forage, dude, just like they did before people were around to feed them. Severn piloted the car onto the road and didn't say anything else. He was thinking, though, that those horses did not look like animals who had foraged through a tough winter. They looked like they had been stabled and fed and cared for, and only recently turned loose. The whole great herd of them, to forage in the spring fields. It took them more than an hour to travel the 30 miles to Millersville. The road had been covered with debris the whole way, and it wasn't until they reached the outskirts of the town that they found the trees cleared. At first, Millersville appeared as abandoned and neglected as it did when they made their trip for supplies soon after the lurchings. The only thing Severn guessed that the kids would notice different was the lack of an overwhelming stench clouding the air. The dogs, though, seemed to be agitated by something. They kept jumping from one side of the car to the other, from front to back, as if they heard or smelled something. When the first car passed them going the other way, Both kids sat up stiff and straight, and Vi grabbed the dashboard as if to brace herself against the shock. Tommy said, Dude, you weren't kidding. Vi said, Did you see her? She was young. Vi was referring to the driver. She was a young woman with blonde hair, wearing wraparound sunglasses. The car had gone by fast, but Severn noted her hair and sunglasses, the yellow halter top she had on, the white slacks. No jewelry. He made a note of that. He didn't think he had seen jewelry on any of them. The car was a Lexus, late model. What else did you notice, he asked Vi. Tommy, what did you see? Tommy said, my heart's pounding. Vi said, me too. Severn said, that's okay. I almost fainted when I first saw them. Vi said, I believed you, Severn. But I don't think I really believed you. Tommy said, she looked completely normal. I didn't see anything. Except for the way they walk and the way they talk, they're like us. Severn was following a route he had taken before, years before, when he and Sarah had visited family and friends here, in a development on a ridge with a view of the town below. Or I shouldn't say that, he added. All I've noticed so far is the walk and the speech. There may be more. We need to be observant. We need to notice every little thing and keep track of it. Why? Tommy asked. I mean, he added quickly, I know we want to learn as much as we can about them, but is there something else? Just that, Severn said. Basically, he stopped a minute to think about what he was going to say next. He didn't like the sentences that were forming in his mind, but he spit one out anyway. These beings are our enemies, he said. They look nice enough, but we have to assume that we're like dirt to them. Something to be cleaned up. That's cheerful, Levi said. So are we like what, Tommy said, looking for their weaknesses? He put his arm around Sterling, who had suddenly started whining. I think Sterling's got to go. We're gathering information, Severn said. They were approaching Acoff's Ridge, a development where he had once visited friends of his in laws. For now, he said, sounding more despairing than he would have wanted, that's all I can think of to do, hiding and gathering information, trying to figure out what to do next. She was driving a hot car, Tommy said. Lexus IS 5. They like, start at 60 grand. Severn checked the street signs, looking for something familiar. So far all I've seen them driving is late model expensive cars. He was going slow and peering at each house as they passed. Tommy said, what are you looking for? You think some of them might be in these houses? I'm looking for a particular place, Severn said. Good point. Severn drove to the end of the block and pulled into the driveway of the biggest house, a two story white Victorian that looked like it had been built last week, despite a dangling gutter pipe and a broken second floor window, a deck with toppled rocking chairs wrapped around the house, and the fields and flowers surrounding it had obviously been lawns and gardens. All the houses in the development had views down into Millersville and the surrounding countryside. He cut the engine, stepped out into the driveway and looked around. From inside the car, Vi said, Are there going to be bodies in there? At this point, there's probably nothing left but bones, Vi. It shouldn't be as bad as it was. Tommy asked, Can I let the dogs out? Let them do their business, Severn said. Then we'll leave them in the car. Tommy let the dogs out and they both ran in circles for a while before taking off toward the woods behind the house. Severn said, Don't let them get too far. And Tommy trotted off after them. Vi went around to the back of the car, where she started to pull out the assault rifles. Severn stopped her. He put his hand on her shoulder and pushed the rifles back into the storage area behind the back seats. We're not taking the weapons, he said, and he closed the door. Why not? They don't carry weapons. We carry them. It'd be like pinning a sign on our chest. What about dogs? Before Severn could answer, Tommy came running back with Sterling and Sage at his heels. You gotta see this, he said. They're like tearing down the whole town. Severn opened the back door and called the dogs. Once they were in the car, he took the binoculars from the front seat, left all the windows half open, and followed Tommy around the house and along a short trail through woods to a rock cliff that overlooked Millersville. Town was miles away below them, but the low drone of bulldozers lifted up on the air, mixed with the nearby sound of wind and trees. Vi, besides Severn, asked for the binoculars and then leaned against a boulder and peered down at Millersville. Severn didn't need the glasses to see that most of the town had been leveled. It appeared that everything was being torn down but a handful of houses here and there, like the pair of houses he had come across the day before. He counted five bulldozers at work and a half dozen dump trucks. From the height of the ridge, the bulldozers looked like hungry insects chewing up block after block of homes, spewing mouthfuls of debris into the backs of pickup trucks. The dump trucks were green, and they were flowing like lines of ants out of and into a huge, empty lot on the north end of town. Severn gestured for the binoculars. Behind him, the dogs were making a racket in the car, barking and howling non stop. He asked Vi, How long do you think they've been here? And then he focused the binoculars on the lot where the dump trucks were unloading. Five raw, cinderblock, windowless buildings, each square and about the size and height of a large barn, were lined in a long semicircle. Trucks climbed up the roof on ramps, navigating around the circular opening that looked like a short chimney. backed up, and dumped their loads into that hole, and then drove down the opposite ramp and started on their way to pick up another load. Severn Count had five loads of debris dumped in the few minutes they'd been watching. Half the town's been razed by set. They've got to be at it a good while, Tommy said. When was the last time we were here? Not since it started snowing, Levi said. November sometime. Then over the winter, Severn said, without taking the binoculars away from his eyes. Nine thousand people lived here, and they've raised half the town over the winter through all that weather. Can I look? Tommy held out his hands for the binoculars. The real question is why, he added. Why are they tearing everything down? Severn took another few seconds with the binoculars and then handed them to Tommy. Those cinder block buildings are the only structures they've built. Everything else they're repairing or tearing down. Fi looked back through the trees toward the dogs who continued to bark and whine as if outraged at being locked up in the car. What do you think? She asked Severn. What do you think they're doing? Severn shook his head as if he were entertaining some possibilities, but nothing really added up. Look at this, Tommy said, and he pointed toward the dumping lot. He put his arm around Vi's shoulder and guided her as she lifted the binoculars to her eyes. It's a caravan, Vi said. Tommy asked Severn, Do you see it? Severn nodded. A long line of cars wound its way toward the dumping lot. He followed the slow moving procession of brightly colored vehicles as it appeared and disappeared along the tree lined roads. Twenty or so vehicles, bumper to bumper. Severn's heart leaped at the thought that somehow there might be human beings in those cars. He had no idea why he thought it, except that they were average looking vehicles, pickup trucks and SUVs, Chevys and Fords and Hondas, and not the high end cars he already associated with the strangers. As they watched, the cars approached and then entered the lot, and one by one they climbed the ramp to the last of the five cinder block buildings. This building, Severn noticed, was slightly different than the others. The circle of the cinderblock chimney had a break in it about six feet long and a slight decline leading down into a hole. One by one the cars drove to the edge of that decline. The driver exited the vehicle and rolled the car into the hole. Then he walked around the circle and down the opposite ramp to a waiting truck. They're throwing away the old crap, Tommy said. They're keeping the good stuff for themselves. Why would they bother, Severn asked. What would be the point? Bits me, Tommy said. More than that, Fai said. Where's it all going? Severn had already had the same thought. The buildings weren't big enough to hold even a tiny fraction of the debris that was being dumped into them. When he'd scanned the town and the surrounding country for piles of debris, he'd found nothing. Most of the raised buildings looked to have been simply flattened and their basements filled in with dirt. In many of the empty lots, he could already see grass growing, patchy and untended. Tommy said, maybe there's like a huge deep hole under the cinder block. They'd have to be really deep, Severn said. Vi said, you'd need some serious equipment to dig holes that deep, and I don't see anything but bulldozers and dump trucks. Maybe it came and already went, Tom, he said, the Sirius equipment. Or maybe, Vyse said, we don't know what they've got. Maybe they zap some beam down from their spaceship and blow a hole into the center of the earth. At this point anything's possible, Severn said, but nothing's making any sense. They zap a hole to the center of the earth and then build a simple cinder block building over it? They have the technology to do something like that, but they have to tear down buildings with bulldozers and haul debris away in dump trucks? Point, Tami said. Doesn't add up. So again, Vi said. Where's it all going? All three of them were silent for a while as they watched the cars being rolled one by one into the mouth of the building. Vi went back to watching the strangers as they walked down the ramp to the truck. They do walk funny, she said softly, as if talking to herself. Hey, Tommy said. Dogs stopped barking. Severn and Vi each turned, as if their movements were synchronized to look back through the woods toward the car. Tommy said, maybe they finally gave up. Everything was silent. The breeze, which had been constant, blowing up over the hillside and through the trees, stopped, as did the chatter of birds and small animals. And in all that silence the three of them heard, distinctly, the sound of a car door opening and closing. Can't be our car, Vi said, her voice catching with her heartbeat. The dogs would be going crazy. Unless somebody let them out, Tommy said, speaking softly, as if concerned about being overheard. They'd still be barking, Vi said. Both Severn, waiting to be told what to do. Vi's eyes were furious. She didn't have to say what she was thinking, that Severn was a jerk for not taking the weapons. They're not armed either, and I'm not really ready to start shooting at them anyway. Why not, Vyse spit out. They haven't done enough? Severn held Vyse's gaze another second, but his thoughts had already moved elsewhere. If there are strangers anywhere near the Hummer, he said, we'll find another car somewhere. There's still plenty around, and take that back to the farm. What about Sage and Sterling? I don't know. Let's see what's going on before we get ahead of ourselves. The Hummer, when they peeked out at it from the woods between the ridge and the house, appeared to be abandoned. Severn crouched behind a tree a few feet in front of Tommy and Vi. Their vehicle waited unattended on the black driveway, huge and yellow, framed by the big white Victorian and the green fields that were once lawns. The The road ended ten feet beyond the house, where thickly treed woods sloped down a gentle hillside toward town. Severn watched the car in the woods and waited. With the binoculars, he scanned the house and every window, as well as the woods and the two trailheads that led into the woods and down the hill. When several minutes then passed and no one saw movement at all, he signaled the kids to join him. I'll go first, he whispered. I don't see anybody anywhere, but if there's trouble, I'll run in one direction and you run in the opposite. Then we can find cars and meet back at the farm. That's crazy if I shot back. We don't want to split up. If they don't have weapons, we should just kick their asses and get out of here. Tommy said, Vi's right, Severn. We've got the assault rifles in the back of the Hummer. At least we can defend ourselves in that way. Really? Severn said to both. Have you guys ever shot anybody? Both kids looked at him blankly before Tommy said, Have you? And Vi added, They're not anybody anyway. They're monsters. Severn said, With as much authority as he could call up, I don't see anybody. I don't think there's going to be any trouble. But if there is, you do what I said. He picked himself up and walked out toward the Hummer. When he had gone only a few feet, Sage jumped out from behind the vehicle, barked once, and then took off for him. Severn kept his eye on the houses and the woods as the big dog ran toward him. He saw a flock of starlings take off out of the crown of a willow. They swooped up in a dark cloud, soared, and looped. He was braced for Sage, but she knocked him backward on his butt anyway, and proceeded to bark and lick his face. By the time he pulled himself to his feet, both kids were standing beside him. Tommy said, Where's Sterling? Where's whoever let the dogs out, Vi said, is what I'm thinking. In the Hummer, nothing was disturbed. The guns lay where they left them, in the cargo compartment, next to a pair of camo jackets and a big steel belted cooler with food and drinks. Vi's black Atlanta Falcon sweatshirt laid draped over the console, her bright red Falcon's cap atop it, and her baseball bat leaning against the front passenger seat. The end. It was getting late and the breeze was kicking up leaves and blowing them out of the woods and onto the road. Vi retrieved her sweatshirt and cap and put them on. Severn and Tommy took her lead and put on their camo jackets. Tommy asked the time and Vi found her iPod in the pocket of her sweatshirt was a little after six. She looked at her earbuds wistfully. As if she would like nothing better than to put them on and listen to some music. She asked Severn, what do we do now? Severn took the rifles out of the back of the Hummer, handed them to the kids, and slipped the old carbine over his shoulder. Whoever let the dogs out already saw these. Vyse said, we need to get out of here. She held the rifle out in front of her like she wanted to put it back in the car and go. Tommy said, we can't just leave Sterling. He left us, Vyse said. Sage is right here. That's cold. If I looked away from Tommy and down to Sage who barked and then looked off to the trail head where she stopped and looked back, severance said, thinks she's trying to tell us something. Tommy said we should go. Meaning they should follow the trail and look for Sterling. Oh, right. Vice said we'll go looking for Sterling in the woods when it's about to get dark. Severn. I'll go. Tommy said, Severen looked up at the big Victorian toward the second floor windows. I'm not going in there. I said, reading his mind. I've got enough riding corpses stuck in my head. She stopped abruptly and spun around to face Sage, who barked once, as if to ask what they were waiting for. Severn knew what Vi was talking about. So did Tommy. They all still dreamed regularly of decomposing corpses. All the ones they had seen during the lurchings. All the ones they had buried in the weeks after. You two stay here, he said. He gestured toward the house. I should have a good view from the second story windows. I'll see what I can see. Tommy grimaced, seemed to consider arguing, and then clapped his hands to call for Sage. When Sage ignored him, both kids walked after her. And Severn started for the house. Be careful, Vi said, turning to face Severn. She walked backwards a few steps and looked up at the house with dread. Tommy glanced back at Severn before he jogged away towards Sage with his arms open, enticing her. The interior of the Victorium was thick with mildew and multicolored mold. The walls were splotched green and orange and red, and the furniture sagged under a sheen of mold like glistening fur. The stench reminded him of the greenhouse's root cellar in the nurseries of upstate New York, where he worked one summer as a teenager. In the living room, part of the ceiling had given way and collapsed in a soggy mess of plaster and sheet rock. When he climbed the slippery stairs to the second floor, he found a back window shattered and the length of gutter pipe sticking through it. All the rain of the lurchings and the storms of the winter had spilled into this lovely old Victorian through a length of wind ripped gutter. With no one to work the simple repairs of a broken window and a wayward gutter pipe, the interior of the house wound up ruined beyond salvage. In a room that was once a study, skeletal remains lay scattered on the floor in front of a green mold encrusted rosewood desk. The remains were human, and Severn guessed an animal or animals had been at them, since there didn't seem to be enough bones beyond the skull and pelvis to constitute a full skeleton. A long, white length of leg bone that looked to Severn like a tibia lay next to a built in hardwood bookcase that covered one full wall, ceiling to floor. Like everything else, the bookcase was moldy, along with the books that lined the shelves. The study's lone window ran almost the full length of the back wall and looked down on Millersville on the yellow bugs still chopping away at what were once people's homes, while the green ones carried away the artifacts of their lives like so much garbage. A pen lay next to an open notebook on the desk. Severn took a second to flip through its rotted pages. Hints here and there of blue ink indicated that the person who once sat at this desk, surrounded by his or her books, had filled several pages with a writing, of which all that remained was mold and a few squiggles of blue ink. A small balcony off the master bedroom looked down over a long, slow slope of hillside intersected near the bottom by a single road, at the end of which were a pair of houses, each built on lots of a couple of acres. The houses are what Sarah used to call McMansions or Starter Castles. Each house had two cars in the driveway. Severn trained his binoculars on the windows and caught view of a stranger walking through what looked like an upstairs bedroom. Far away as she was, he He could still see her clearly. She was young, with long dark hair pulled back, slick and wet. She wore a white robe and slippers. While he watched, she pulled clothes from a dresser, tossed them onto a neatly made bed, flicked off the robe, and sat down on the bed to first pull on panties and then wrap a bra around her waist, hook it up, spin it around. Severn's first response was to note that physiologically strangers, at least women strangers, were identical to humans. His second response was a memory of Sarah getting into her bra, which she did in the same manner, hooking it up first in front of her and then spinning it around and pulling it over her breasts. The memory felt like a snake wrapping around his body and slowly crushing him. When a moment later, a young man walked into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, Severn watched him too as he dressed, and again, physiologically, at least on the outside, he was identical to humans. Severn dropped the binoculars to his chest and was about to leave the balcony when he saw a flash of color in the woods near the bottom of the hill. He trained the binoculars on the area, found nothing, dropped them to his chest again, and then saw two figures bolt out of the woods and run toward the nearest house. Through the binoculars he could see that they were young, a boy and a girl, maybe teenagers, and Sterling was with them. The boy kept looking back over his shoulder as if he expected or feared that someone was following him. They came out of the woods and jogged into a field of waist high brush and weed. Running, their gait wasn't unusual, though they did seem to be fast, really fast. With Sterling at their heels, they tore across the field, leaping over boulders and logs like a couple of track stars. Because he was forced to go around boulders and brush he couldn't leap, Sterling was having a hard time keeping up with them. He looked like a dog chasing deer. The boy made it to the house first and held open the door for the girl and Sterling. Once they had disappeared behind walls, Severn scanned the windows of the house. He saw nothing and hurried back to the car. Tommy asked as soon as Severn exited the house, He was doing jumping jacks alongside the car. See anything? Vi, kneeling on the hood of the vehicle, grinned at Tommy, as if simultaneously amused and chagrined by him. Time to get out of here. Severn gestured for the kids to get in the car. I said that a half hour ago. Vi jumped down from the hood. Why, Tommy said. What about Sterling? Sterling took off with a couple of strangers. He did what? Vi hurried into the back seat, tossing the rifle in first. We're leaving him? Tommy asked. Sage was already in the car, standing in the cargo area, barked and whined. When Severn started the engine, Severn backed outta the driveway. He said, sorry, Sage man. Tommy said, and he flung his head into the back crest as if he were trying to snap his own neck. They just took him, dude, they just walked away with our dog and we're like, we can't do anything. He was running with them. Severance said. They didn't have him on a leash. So, he's a dog. What does he know? He'd go with anybody who offered him a treat. That doesn't mean he's their dog and they can just take him. Vi said, gently, as if she didn't want to upset Tommy any further but couldn't keep her thoughts to herself. But Sage didn't go. Sage stayed put and waited for us. To Tommy, Severn said, I'm sorry we seem to have lost Sterling, but I'm more concerned about the way those kids were running. Those stranger kids. Fi leaned into the front seat. Because they saw the guns? Maybe the guns, Severn said. I could be wrong, but they looked like they were running away from something. They were running and looking back over their shoulders. Tommy said, You think seeing rifles would scare them? Might have, Severn said. So what are you thinking, Vi asked. Because they saw weapons they might know about us? I don't know. Severn kept to the back roads as he headed toward the highway. I could be all wrong, he said. But why would they be running like that? And why would they let our dogs loose? That's like I said, Tommy said. Why would they take off with somebody else's dogs? I mean, that can't be cool, can it? He added solemnly, as if making a pronouncement, We have to go back for Sterling. He twisted around to look at Vi in the backseat. Aren't you upset about this, he said? Are you cool with, I don't know, like, fine, let them take him? When Vi didn't answer, Severn said, Maybe we can come back tomorrow and see if we can lure him away from them. They might have let him run free, Vi said, Sounding distracted and distant, And we can snatch him back. We could leave some meat in the woods by the house, Tommy said, and wait for him to sniff it out. That might work, Severn said. We need to observe anyway. Without being observed ourselves, Vi said, and leaned into the front again. Severn noticed, first thing, after merging onto the highway from the on ramp that the road was cleared of debris. They were heading west, and the roadway was unobstructed and empty. On the side of the highway, or in the median, where Severn might have expected brush and debris to be piled high, there was only the natural landscape, trees and grass, yuccas and dogwoods and redbuds, tall grass waved in a light breeze, lush from the winter's heavy rains, and the green of the hillside softened against the fading light of a blue sky. A line of fat white clouds, low and slow moving, rolled toward them out of the east, coming inland off the ocean. This highway was never heavily traveled, but still Severn would have expected, before the lurchings, to see at least a few cars on even a short trip. So far they hadn't seen another soul. In the occasional houses they passed, tucked in atop a hill, or in the farmhouses surrounded by overgrown fields, there were no signs of life. Vi said to Severn, If those strangers did realize somehow that we were humans, do you think they'll come looking for us? We've got guns and ammo, Tommy said. We loaded up the pickup. Tommy was talking about the gun supply store they had found soon after the lurchings. They had loaded the bed of the pickup with enough guns and ammunition for a small militia. Severn said, I don't know what to think. Tommy said, It's a nightmare. He added, Have you ever shot anyone, Severn? Have you ever killed anybody? Vi said, as if she were talking to the air, what kind of a question is that? Severn said, same one I asked you guys earlier, I guess. He shifted his weight in the driver's seat. He had indeed shot and killed someone. His guard unit had been activated in the lead up to the Iraq war, and he had, one day, Soon after arriving in Iraq and a few weeks after shock and awe, found himself speeding through a village in a convoy of Humvees while the locals shot at him from windows and rooftops. He fired back blindly for the most part, except for a single moment, just as they were about to exit the last of the village buildings. In that moment, a figure jumped out from behind a wall and pointed an ancient bolt action rifle at the Humvee. Severn fired a short burst that tore upward through the guy's chest and into his neck and face. It all happened in a second, but long enough to burn itself into Severn's memory. Severn said, My National Guard unit was deployed in the Iraq War. I was in combat there on a couple of occasions. Vi said, I'd have no trouble shooting any of these strangers. My whole family's dead because of them. It's not like I want to do it, she said, but I'd have no problem with it, especially if it was a live or die situation. Me neither, Tommy said. I'm not into violence, but I'll shoot them if I have to. Vi said, out of nowhere, I feel guilty about not burying Iris and Rose. I have these dreams sometimes where they're like Suddenly she was emotional. One moment she sounded composed and the next her words were choked. They're like all decomposed and they're trying to pull me out to the backyard and they've each got like these shovels. She stopped and with a single breath composed herself. I should have asked you to let me bury them before we left. Tommy said, Think of the house as a mausoleum, Vi. All the kids are together there now, like they were that night. When Vi didn't answer he went on. We were having a blast that night. He spun around to face her. You were so pissed because Iris wouldn't let you hang out with us, you stomped off to bed. It was like, nine o'clock. Vyse said, Iris always treated me like a baby, and then the car fell silent again. It was getting dark, and they were at the outer edges of Lynchburg proper before the first car appeared on the highway, entering in front of them from an on ramp. Here we go, Severn said, and Tommy sat up straight, suddenly interested in his surroundings. Ahead of him, in the near distance, Severn saw two cars stopped at a traffic light, a sight as ordinary as mud before the lurchings, that hit now like an unexpected slap in the face. They have electricity, he said. The traffic lights are working. I don't see lights anyplace else, Vyse said. No lights on anywhere around us. The light turned green before Severn had to stop, but he slowed down anyway, keeping as much distance between them and the cars as possible. Weiss said, A BMW and a Mercedes. How do these guys even know which cars are the best? Tommy said, Porsche, check it out, and pointed to the rearview mirror at a car coming up on them. In a pattern that mirrored what they'd seen in Millersville, the outskirts of Lynchburg appeared to be abandoned. The houses and developments were empty, and there were only a few cars on the road. As they neared the center of the city, the number of cars on the highway increased until there were dozens of them, and they were all, every car they passed, late model, top of the line vehicles, not a reasonably priced model among them, not a Honda Civic, or Toyota Corolla, or a Ford Taurus in the mix. Tommy said, he noticed there isn't a single pickup truck on the road, and that's, like, usually half of what you see around here, so they're probably not farming by, said. Severn said, They've got to get their food somewhere. Somebody needs to be farming. How do we know that, Ami said. How do we know they even eat? Maybe they're like plants. They get their nourishment from the sun. Plants eat, Vi said. They soak up food out of the ground. Their bodies are exactly like ours, Severn said. I'm betting they eat and digest and eliminate food same as we do. We don't know for sure their bodies are exactly like ours, Vi said. I mean, it looks like it, but I saw a pair of them naked, Severn said. There's no difference, down to the details. When did you see that? When I had the binoculars and I was looking for Sterling. I had a view of the bedroom window, and I saw a couple getting out of the shower. Dude, you're like a peeping Tom, Vi said. Grow up, Tommy. Near the center of the city. The first of the heavy equipment started showing up. Tractors and bulldozers, and then wrecking balls and cranes. They were parked and inactive in the midst of acres of rubble. Tommy said, They're tearing down Lynchburg, too. Severn said, Not all of it, I'll bet. This is making me nervous, Spy said. I'm glad it's at least getting dark. The number of cars on the road had picked up quickly. Dozens of vehicles entered and exited the highway. All the vehicles had at least two passengers. No one, Severn noticed, was driving alone. In most of the cars, they were what looked to be families. A pair of adults in the front seat, one or more kids in the back. Everyone appeared healthy. No one, Severn noticed, looked older than forty, and most of the adults appeared to be in their twenties or thirties. They're all wearing nice clothes that I can see. Tommy peered out his window, getting a look at each passing car. I mean, not like fancy, he added, but I haven't seen anybody yet that looked like they were wearing old clothes or anything. Vi said, I haven't seen anybody yet in a tuxedo either. So, Tommy said, what's that mean? How is it, Severn asked, that they're all dressed exactly like us? We're not seeing guys wearing blouses or weirdly matched clothes, like dress pants and a Hawaiian shirt. Do you know what I mean? Not really, Tommy said. Vi said, he means that they seem to know everything about us, including the way we dress. Exactly, Severn said. If I threw you down in the midst of some aboriginal culture, somewhat, like primitive tribe, Vai said, would you know how they dressed, Severn asked? You see my point? They're living in our houses, wearing our clothes, it's like they just stepped into our lives. Tommy said, it's not like anything, dude, they did. Look around you, here they are. At the center of town, as Severn had already guessed would be the case, Lynchburg was intact. Buildings fanned out on either side of the highway along a web of paved streets, shooting out through all the ordinary stuff of a small city. Shopping centers, strip malls, civic buildings, churches, apartment houses, motels, movie theaters. On a highway bridge over a criss cross of arteries, Severn counted fifty cars in a quick scan of the roadways, and then a moment later, They were driving past what looked like a small park where dozens of strangers were gathered around a pair of outdoor grills. Each of the grills was attended by men and women in white chef's outfits, including the funny floppy hats. They're having a picnic, Tommy said. Vi said, There are thousands of them. She looked off past the park to the network of roads and buildings beyond. Look at that. Severn gestured toward a circle of several men and women, boys and girls in a church parking lot tossing a frisbee. They were dressed neatly in casual clothes, the men in slacks and short sleeved shirts. The one of them was wearing shorts and sandals. Two of the women wore bright dresses and another had on khaki shorts and a yellow blouse. They looked like a church group, relaxing after services. Ends 1 Once they were off the bridge and past the park and the church, street lights went on over the highway and at the same moment lights went on in the houses and stores and shopping centers all around them. Oh man, Tommy said, they've definitely got the power back. All three of them looked up at the lights overhead and in the surrounding buildings as if they had never seen such a thing before. Even Sage, who had been traveling quietly in the cargo area, seemed impressed. She stood up and barked at the back window. They've got the grid online, Severn said. Which means that they've got the power plants working. But those lights came on all at once, Vyse said, even in the buildings. So what's that mean? The electricity only comes on at night, except for traffic lights? Maybe, Severn said. Well, the lights are set to go on at a certain time, or like a photosensitive thing, Tommy said. When it starts to get dark, the lights go on automatically, and, Severn added, in designated areas. He pointed out the front window to the highway in front of them, where the street lights ended, though the highway continued. So, like what? Tommy said. The power is not back all the way yet, and they're conserving it? I have no idea, Severn said, but listen, he put a hand over Vi's forearm. I'd like to get a little closer before we go home. Why? Vi said. She pulled her arm away. What do you mean, closer? I want to drive through one of the shopping centers. We'll cruise through, he said. I'd like to see what's going on in those stores. Like, what are they buying, Tommy said? I saw a theater that looked open. Are those guys watching our movies, dude? Really? I saw a Starbucks, Severn said. Are they ordering cinnamon spice mochas with whipped cream? It's too weird, Vi. Don't you think? I don't know what I think, Vi said. Except that I know I don't want to get anywhere near these creatures. Out from under the streetlights and away from the center of the city, the traffic thinned quickly. Severn drove on for another couple of miles in silence until they were once again the only car on the road. Along the way, they passed a pair of dumping lots, and Severn recognized immediately the windowless concrete buildings with their wide ramps up to the roofs. Again, he noticed that there were no piles of debris anywhere, though he had seen acres of flattened buildings on the way into the city. Tommy said, Where are we going, Sev? Shouldn't we turn around if we're going home? Vi asked. As much a request as a question. Severn exited the highway and then drove to the head of the on ramp, where he stopped the car and cut the engine and the lights. In front of them, he could see the lights of the city center, and beside him he could see house lights on here and there in a development that climbed a long stretch of hillside up into the night. Severn had stopped to talk with Vi. He had noticed, however, in looking up at the developments, that only a tiny fraction of the houses had lights on and that they were spread throughout the larger black mass of the hillside. He made a note and added it to the growing list he was keeping. They didn't congregate in one block or one area. They spread out, choosing their homes. What are we doing? Vi asked. But going back through Lynchburg, Severn said, I'm going to drive slowly through one of the shopping centers, and you guys are going to make careful observations and take notes. He met Vi's eyes and added, We're not going to do anything dangerous. We're not going to stop. We won't get out of the car. We weren't doing anything dangerous before we lost Sterling either, she said. Tommy said, We'll get Sterling back tomorrow. To Severn, he said. Can we get ice cream? I saw a Ben Jerry's. Vi turned casually to face Tommy. You think that's funny? She said. Are you a complete idiot, Tommy? Don't you realize they might kill us? Aren't you afraid of dying? I'm not an idiot, Tommy said. And I'm not afraid of dying either. Everybody we know is dead. It's good company. Vi said, oh please, and slumped back in her seat. The first shopping center they came to was the one with the Starbucks. Severn exited the highway onto a traffic circle that led to a service road that led in turn to the shopping center. A handful of cars were coming out of the parking lots as Severn approached traffic light. He hadn't had to stop for a traffic light in a long while, but his foot automatically went for the brake as the light turned yellow, and then he found himself one in the line of a half dozen cars. While he was waiting for the light to turn green, another Hummer pulled up alongside. In the passenger seat, a young woman turned to look at him. She was beautiful, with deep chocolate skin and piercing dark eyes. Her hair was cropped short, almost to the scalp. Alongside her, behind the steering wheel, a man in a suit was looking up at the light, waiting for it to turn. In the back, a toddler slept in a car seat. They all had the same deep chocolate skin. The light took forever. Severn turned away from the young woman and bent toward Vi. He whispered, don't speak, and nodded at Tommy to be sure he had heard. When he straightened out behind the wheel, he saw out of the corner of his eye, as he had feared that the young woman was lowering her window and leaning out a little, as if trying to get his attention. The light, it seemed, was never going to change. Severn ruffled Vi's hair, as if he were kidding with her, which allowed him to turn his back to the woman. Vi smiled, playing along, and Severn lifted himself up a little in his seat, meaning to block the stranger's view of her. He shook his head at Vi. He hadn't yet seen any of the stranger's smile. He feared it was a gesture that might give them away as human. He should have told the kids. He was a fool not to have told them. When the loud sound of Birdsong came into the car through the closed windows, Vi looked as though she might throw up. Tommy whispered through closed lips, Dude. And the word was all exclamation point. In the cargo area, Sage jumped to her feet and barked. Severn worried about the rifles, though he knew they were covered. The bird's song stopped and then was followed by a pair of singing voices. One of them the deep baritone of a male. Sage barked again and this time Tommy tried to quiet her by putting his arm around her neck. She jumped out of the cargo area and into the back seat, landing partly on the seat cushions and partly on Tommy. The singing grew louder. Sage barked again, rapidly. And then the singing stopped. The light was never going to change. And then it did. The glow at the top of the Hummer's windshield changed from red to green and Severn quickly followed the car in front of him into a long, narrow stretch of parking lot. Dude, Tommy said, once they were away from the others, they were looking right at me. What did they want, Vi asked, her voice scratchy. Severn was busy keeping an eye on the Hummer, which had also pulled into the shopping center but was moving away from them toward the brightly lit entrance of a Target department store. I have no clue, he said, but everything seems okay. That's them over there. He pointed to the target, and then all three of them watched as the young woman unstrapped the toddler from the car and handed him off to the man, who carried the child on his shoulder into the department store, the woman by his side. While they watched, others entered and exited the store, coming and going from their cars. Vi said to Severn, I told you this was dangerous. Can we please go home now? Tommy said, What do you think they were trying to say to us? Before anyone could answer, he added, I think it was something about Sage. They're like all chirping away at us, and then Sage barks at them and they stop. Maybe they're afraid of dogs, Vi said. They weren't afraid of Sterling, Tommy said. Severn started up the Hummer. I don't know, he said. Another mystery. He pulled out of the parking space and pointed to a line of stores side by side, directly off the lot. A Starbucks, a Kinko's, a men's warehouse. We're going to drive by those stores slowly on the way out. Great. Vi clasped her hands in her lap in a small gesture of resignation. Then we're out of here, right? Promise. Severn drove away from the nearest exit. And then turned around and came back, piloting the car slowly past the stores. He took his eyes off the road twice to sneak looks into the storefronts, and he saw what appeared to be a girl sending a fax into Kinko's, and a line of strangers waiting to be served coffee in the Starbucks. Both sights amazed him. Then he was past the stores, out the exit, and on the highway, heading back to the farmhouse. Severn said, what did you guys see? Dude, Tommy said, it looked like what it looked like, I mean, just what you'd expect. People in the Kinko's doing Kinko things, in the Starbucks getting drinks. In the clothing store getting clothes. If I said, there was a girl sending a fax in the kinkos. I saw her feeding the paper into the fax machine. She was an older teenager, maybe early twenties. She had jean shorts and a halter top and sandals. She looked hot, like, you know, she was dressing to be seen, not just to put clothes on. So, whatever that means. There were four other people in the store. Two of them were dark skinned and two were light skinned, like the girl. One guy was looking at something on a rack, one guy was working at the computer, and another girl was making copies of something on one of the store copiers. Exactly, Tommy said. That's what I meant. Severn glanced at Tommy in the rearview. For all his sarcasm and tough talk, the kid's face was angelic. His skin was smooth and creamy, moored here and there, near his chin by a few red splotches, and framed by long, satiny, dark hair. Severn knew by the rapidity with which they were going through shampoos and conditioners back at the farmhouse that the kid washed and conditioned his hair regularly. Overall he was tidy, and though like just about every teenager he'd ever known, he was given to wearing sneakers, jeans, and tees. His sneakers, jeans, and tees were clean, neat, and wrinkle free. Severn said, So what do you read from that, Tommy? If the guy was on the computer, does that mean the internet is up and running? If she was faxing something, she had to be faxing it somewhere, Tommy said. So phone lines are working. We don't know. She was using the internet, I said. But since the phone lines are working, and they've got the electric grid powered up, probably they do. Probably they got everything working, internet and all. It's baffling, Severn said. What are they faxing? What are they buying in kinkos? Who's running the kinkos? Did they just arrive here and slip right into everything in our culture? Our whole society? Businesses? Recreation? Religion? Government? We don't know any of that, Vi said. It's not like we've seen priests and ministers. We didn't see anyone in the churches. Tommy said, we didn't see cops either. No police cars or anything like that. But they were playing frisbee, Severn said. And they were shopping at Target and buying coffee at Starbucks. But I said, the pastry shelves were filled in at Starbucks. I saw cakes and cookies, so somebody's baking, Severn said. And somebody's delivering baked goods. Dude, Tommy shouted, no cash registers. I knew there was something, but it didn't click until just now. All three stores, no cash registers. No cash exchanged. You're right, Vi said. Then she said again as if confirming it. That's right. No one reached into a pocket or a pocketbook for a credit card or a wallet or anything like that. The women behind the counter handed them their coffee and they walked away. And there was no cash register behind the counter at Starbucks, Tommy said. The other two, I don't know so well, so maybe they don't have cash registers on the counters, but every Starbucks is the same. They have cash registers right next to the place where you get your stuff. And there was no cash register there. He's right, Vice said to Severn. To Tommy, she said, I missed that. Nice going. I guess you're not a complete idiot. Dude, Tommy said. What I mean, Vi added, is that I apologize for calling you an idiot. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Dude, Tommy said again. Vi seemed to bite her tongue, unsure whether she should say what she was about to say, but then spit it out. But really, Tommy, seriously. If you could say dude less often, that would really be great. Amen, Severn said. Dude, Tommy said. I'll try. That was episode 8 of The Strangers. New episodes will be available twice a week on Mondays and Fridays until the novel is completed. If you want to read ahead, click here. An inexpensive digital edition of The Strangers is available from Amazon, Barnes Noble, and other online bookstores. This podcast is an experiment in alternatives to traditional publishing. If you'd like to support it, and more like it in the future, please consider becoming a subscriber or supporter. If enough listeners choose to do so, That will go a long way to help ensuring the podcast's success and continuation. In any event, this is Ed Falco, I wrote The Strangers, and I hope you'll come back for the next episode.