Episode 9 The Strangers

Transcript

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This is Ed Falco on the air, reading The Strangers, a novel in 19 episodes. In episode 8, Severn and the kids traveled first to Millersville. and then Lynchburg, and found that the strangers were busy tearing down most of the town and the city, while going about what appeared to be ordinary human lives in the parts that remained. At the end of their tour observing the strangers, they headed back to the farm. That's where we pick up episode 9. By the time they reached the farmhouse, both kids were sleeping. Vi had pushed her seat back, covered herself with a blanket, and curled up as if she were at home in her bed. Her hair had grown out long and curly over the winter, and had spilled down one side of her face. Severn glanced at her now and then as she slept, taken by how much she had changed since the night of the first lurching. She looked like a kid then. With her short hair and wiry build, now she was looking more and more like a young woman. There were the obvious things, her breasts developing and her limbs growing shapely. But beyond that, there was something in her face now that was no longer childlike, that was in fact womanly and mature. Something that suggested both depth and warmth. Watching Vi, Severn felt a tenderness toward her, a wish that she might grow up to live a full and fulfilling life. And as soon as he thought that, he smiled. That feeling, darker thoughts and darker feelings followed. What chance did any of them have now for anything like a fulfilling life? He could have imagined, when he had thought of the lurchings as a natural catastrophe, a world in which Tommy and Vi started all over again, raising a family together, building a life for themselves in the midst of ruin. He dreamed that there might be other survivors, and thus other families, and in time a new world. A human world begun again, but now, now what hope was there for any of them? He had adjusted to the lurchings. He had built a hopeful narrative for the kids, one in which the world began again, and then this even weirder twist came along. Now he'd have to figure out everything all over again. And so far, he was not making good progress. The only world he could envision now was one in which Tommy and Vi spent a lifetime hiding. A lifetime in which they would never not need him. Before the strangers, all the world's resources were there for the taking. Food, gasoline, goods, whatever they wanted or needed would have been available to them. Now the strangers were tearing things down, taking the world's resources for themselves, and that meant that everything would be different. That meant everything needed to be reconsidered. He'd have to think it all through again and build a different narrative, some kind of story in which Tommy and Vi thrived and prospered. And right then, that night. As the Hummer approached the farmhouse with Vi asleep alongside him and Tommy stretched out in the backseat and Sage half on top of Tommy and half wedged into the seat cushions, at that moment he couldn't dream up a story in which any of them lived anything like a decent life. The night was moonlit and star strewn, bright enough to see nearby things through the dark. Bright enough for the trees and buildings to cast shadows. Severn had taken the highway around Millersville because he hadn't seen another car on the road after leaving Lynchburg, and it occurred to him that perhaps the strangers didn't drive at night, and thus if they saw him driving alone on the road past Millersville, they might know they had missed a few humans. So he drove around Millersville and made another mental note, no night driving. He had begun keeping these notes in diary and he resolved to share them with the kids in the morning and to add their notes to the list. This notion that they needed to observe and thus learn everything they could about the strangers was just about the only thing that seemed clear to Severn. He was both wildly curious about what was happening because it all seemed to verge on the incomprehensible and because he believed their chances of survival would increase incrementally. He parked the Hummer behind the farmhouse next to the back porch, where they had left the ATVs, and he woke the kids. When he opened the back door, Sage jumped out and ran into the yard to do her business, while Tommy sat up and stretched dramatically. There were times and ways in which everything Tommy did appeared to be for an audience, and this was one of them. Vi sat forward and looked wide eyed out the front window at the porch as if she was struggling to figure out where she was. At the back of the Hummer, Severn slipped his old carbine over his shoulder and then handed the two assault rifles to the kids. Vi, not yet fully awake, looked at the assault rifle as if she had no idea why Severn had just handed it to her. Why do I need this to go to bed? For the time being, Severn said, we'll keep these at our sides at all times. Tommy closed his door and said, even when we're sleeping, dude? Quickly he corrected himself and said, I mean, even when we're sleeping? Even when we're sleeping, Severn answered, at least until we have a better sense of what's going on. You mean, how much danger we're in, Vyse said. She worked her arms through the strap of the rifle and started for the house. Tommy followed at her heels. Severn pointed to the ATVs. We're sleeping at the campsite. That's why we set it up before we left. Vyse said, pleading, Oh, please, Severn. Do we have to, tonight? Severn said, yes, we have to. On the trail to the campsite, a mile beyond the road where they'd parked the RV and the ATVs, they trudged through the dark, bent under their backpacks. The moon was bright enough that they hadn't needed flashlights on the road, but once they were in the woods, the treetops cut out too much light and they had to stop and dig the flashlights out of their packs. They walked with three beams of light pointing at the ground in front of them, at the gnarled roots of trees, at the rocks and muddy ground that constituted the trail. The trees around them were thick enough that Severn didn't think they'd be visible from the road, even with the flashlights. At one point, Tommy scared up a bird of some kind, and the thick flapping of wings made all three of them crouch down as if some monster were flying at their heads. What was that? Vi said. It sounded huge. Owl, Tommy said. Probably. I hear them hooting at night. Vi said, Are they that big? Severn said, Can we keep it down, please? When he thought about it for a second, he didn't know why he bothered. Between the flashlight and the sound of them trudging up the trail, a little conversation wasn't going to make things all that much worse. They had done a good enough job camouflaging the campsite that Tommy almost tripped over his own tent. We're here, he said. And he turned and waited for Severn to tell him what to do next. I'll keep watch where we said. When it starts to get light, I'll wake you, Tommy, and you take the next watch. I need to get cleaned up before I can go to sleep, Vi said. I've got mud all over my face. Severn shined the flashlight on Vi. Her face was smudged with dirt and grime from the ATV ride. Tommy behind her had gone into a tent where they were keeping supplies and he came out carrying a red 10 gallon water cooler with a white plastic spigot. Atop the cooler were a pair of washcloths. Vi said, Looks like Tommy's got it covered. Get cleaned up and get some sleep, Severn said. We'll work on a long term plan in the morning. That ought to be interesting, Tommy said. Can't wait to hear. Me too, Vi said. Severn watched the kids as they wet the washcloth and went at the dirt on their faces and in their hair. They seemed to have instantly forgotten him as they washed up in the beams of their flashlights, which they had propped up on top of the water cooler. They stood each on one side of the cooler, bent down to the spigot, and splashed water on their faces as they chatted about what they'd seen in Lynchburg and Millersville. Tommy said something about having to learn bird talk, and then did a terrible imitation of the strangers in the Hummer. Fi laughed. And their conversation turned abruptly to friends and family and what they would think if they could have been with them today. And then they both laughed at what they imagined would be the disbelief if they had somehow to try to tell their friends about all this. A bright bolt of affection lit up Severn as he watched them. Apparently, just about anything imaginable or even unimaginable could happen to them, and they could call up a reserve of spirit that allowed them to not just push on, but to find the heart to laugh and make jokes. When he left them, he followed a trail to the lookout, feeling both grateful and old. Grateful because both kids were holding up as well as they were, and because their spirit was infectious. It made him feel like it was possible to go on. Old, because he couldn't imagine a future for himself that felt worth living. And clearly, the kids did believe in such a future for themselves. They didn't have to say it. They might not even think it. But in the way they talked to each other, the way they shared their feelings with each other, in the way they washed up together, bent over a cooler in the dark of the woods, there was an energy, a spirit. In the midst of this horror, Severn felt in the interactions of Tommy and Vi a kind of joy. A joy at being together, a companionship. He recognized it in the kids, but felt nothing like it in himself. Himself, he felt a deep sense of responsibility. He felt warmth and affection for Tommy and Vi, but he was lonely. And every day, just to keep going, he had to swim up out of an ocean of grief. and climb into his responsibilities. At the lookout spot, Severn leaned over the boulder and gazed down at the farm in moonlight. The scene was idyllic. A red farmhouse, a deep rust in the moonlight, surrounded by fields and barns. The big green John Deere out in the middle of an empty lot cast a shadow over the matching tiller behind it, waiting for Tommy to hook it up. In the corral behind the horse barn, a pair of mirrors stood head to head, probably sleeping. Over it all, an inky black sky thick with stars spread out like a tarp covering the farm and the fields, the horses and the cows, mud and grass, hills and trees, all of it, everything, including Severn on his hilltop lookout, the kids in their tents, and the strangers in Lynchburg and Millersville who had come down out of that blackness to inhabit the earth. Severn had to say that to himself over and over again, because it was so hard to believe. Every once in a while he'd stop and ask himself if there might not be some other possibility, if things might somehow be other than they seemed. Then he remembered the sound of their voices, the way they sang like birds, and he knew they weren't human. And if they weren't human, what else could they be? They had cleansed the earth of its infection by human organisms, and then they had come down out of the blackness of space. Now they were in the process of making Earth their home. In his backpack, Severn found a canteen and took a long drink. In Lynchburg, in all three of the stores that they had driven past, the signs were all in English. Did that mean the strangers could read English? Except for the missing cash registers, which Severn wouldn't have noticed if not for Tommy, everything about the stores appeared unchanged. He closed his eyes and tried to recall what he had seen. A line of customers in Starbucks. A woman behind the counter. She had on a name tag. He could see the oval pin above her breast. Were their names the same as human names? How could that be possible? Or were they wearing the old name tags or the old names? Why would they do that? Had they manufactured new name tags in exactly the same style as the old ones? Would their written language look anything like English? Would he have noticed if the inscription on the badge was something other than cuneiform? Probably not. It was only at a glance and at a distance. Still, it was all so impossible to comprehend. And what did it mean that there were no cash registers? Did they have some other method of exchange? That seemed likely. Coins and bills were already feeling antiquated on the prelurshing's earth. He splashed water on his face and wiped the resulting mud away with his forearm. He'd look like a savage if he could see himself in a mirror, dirt streaked and wild haired. He fished his iPod out of his pack, sat at the base of the boulder to hide the light of the LCD, and flipped through his pictures. Sarah doing this, Sarah doing that, their home, their friends. He had looked through these pictures a hundred times already, his feelings shifting over the long course of the viewings from intense grief early on, to something like nostalgia and warmth, to what he felt now, which was a curiosity about his old life, as if he were reading a history book, only it was his own personal history that was recorded. The warmth and nostalgia were gone. Replaced with something different. Not bitterness, but coldness. Something akin to anger. He flipped through the pictures quickly, touching a face here and there. And then switching to music. Flipping through album covers until he came to Pablo Casals, the cellist he'd listened to the night of the lurchings with Sarah. He considered listening to Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, which he loved. It was the opening, what did you call it, refrain, motif, that phrase that opened the suite and then repeated. He wished that he knew more about music. He wished he knew more about everything. If saving a record of humankind's accomplishments was going to be left to him, well, that would be sad. He knew so little. About music, about art, about science and technology. He had a vague notion of how things worked. Television cameras broke down images into signals which were sent out in waves to television sets that read and interpreted those signals. Computers coded information using ones and zeros. Electricity was the flow of electrons and protons. The knowledge he had of how things worked was tantamount to knowing nothing. He couldn't build a television set or a computer in a million years. He had no practical knowledge. He couldn't build a damn thing for that matter. He knew little or nothing about making anything from a chair or a dresser to let alone a house or a computer. He hadn't ever had to know how to build anything. He bought what he needed. He went to a store, handed someone a credit card, and they gave him a computer. Now he was sorry for that. He was sorry for Vy's and Tommy's sake that he knew so little. He chose Feels Like Home, put his earbuds in, and found himself listening to You Humble Me, Sarah's favorite Norah Jones song. It pained him to hear it, but he waited out the distress and then settled in and listened as he watched the unmoving panorama below him. He didn't really know what he was watching for. A cavalry of strangers marching on the farm? A stranger's cop car rolling toward the farmhouse? Anything really. Anything at all coming down that road wouldn't be good. Scouts or surveyors were most likely. Strangers sent ahead to scout out houses and farms to either inhabit or tear down. He didn't get the tearing down part. Why would they invest their resources in tearing down buildings? First, given where they came from, why didn't they have technology superior to our bulldozers and wrecking balls? That was just about incomprehensible. Why didn't they just zap away with some beam whatever they didn't want, if they felt they had to get rid of it? And again, why? Why were they apparently tearing down and disposing of most of the stuff of humans, houses and cars, and all the things in the houses and cars? Severn laid his head down on top of the boulder. He was standing and thus thought there wouldn't be much danger of sleeping, but he closed his eyes and almost immediately felt himself drifting off. He had a little argument in which one voice said a nap wouldn't be a big deal, nothing was likely to happen, and another voice said it was his responsibility to stay awake and make sure nothing happened. Eventually, he compromised, figuring that as long as he was on his feet, he wouldn't sleep for very long, and so he let himself float away into the comforting darkness. When he opened his eyes again, he had no idea how much time had passed, except that his legs hurt, and And his back ached, and the side of his face that had been pressed into the boulder felt swollen. He found his canteen and poured water over his head. Then he walked around the boulder once, and when he arrived back where he started, he picked up the binoculars and peered down at the horses who were moving around in the corral, a half dozen of them now, out of the barn. One of the colts whinnied in his stall, and then a couple of the mares followed suit. He scanned the barns and corrals for dogs but saw nothing. He climbed up higher on the boulder and scanned the farmhouse and the fields and the barns and the surrounding hills and up and down the road to Millersville and he saw nothing out of the usual. But he did notice that the sky was getting lighter, and he realized that he must have been sleeping for hours. For a while, things grew quiet again, and then birds started chattering as stars disappeared from the sky. He was amazed that he had slept through a big chunk of the night on his feet, with a boulder for a pillow. He knew that he'd been tired. He hadn't slept much at all the night before, but he wouldn't have thought that he was that tired. He considered waking Tommy so that he could go back to his tent and get at least another hour or two of more restful sleep, but he decided against it because, remarkably, he felt pretty good. Sore, but pretty good. He rummaged through his pack, found a bag of breakfast bars and ate two of them slowly while he watched the sky grow lighter. When he was done with his leisurely breakfast, he packed up and scanned at the farm again with the binoculars, intending to take one last look around before waking Tommy. On the road from Millersville, in the distance, a buck trotted into sight. Even from his hilltop vantage point, at least a mile from the road, Severn could tell that the buck was winded from the way it lifted its legs and its head nodded with each breath. It had come out of the darkness around a bend into a clear stretch of road and then stopped abruptly, digging its forelegs into the ground. When Severn steadied himself and focused the binoculars, he saw white swatches of sweat under the buck's neck and on its chest and haunches. He counted ten points on its rack as the big animal lowered its head, turned in a tight circle, and then reared back on its hind legs briefly when something else appeared on the road in front of it. Whatever it was that had come out of that same darkness behind the buck, out from around the bend in the road, Severn didn't recognize. Watching it through the binoculars. Where the creature had stopped and remained motionless, Severn's blood slowed, and all the various functions of his body steadied. He became a quiet, still thing, all observation, as quiet and still as the dark around him. He knew, the way he knew when he first heard the strangers singing voices, that the creature was not of the earth. In size and conformation, it looked like something between a very big dog, a Great Dane sized dog, and a small horse. Its coat was black and short, a sleek second skin, again, like a horse. Its head, though, was the head of a dog, with a short snout, like a pit bull's snout. The pit bull was the closest earthly comparison that came to Severn's mind. The creature had the muscular body of a pit bull, with alert, intelligent eyes, pointed, stiff ears that looked as if they'd been cropped, and ferocity. Along the back of its neck, down to its shoulders, a black mane of long, fine hair stood straight up for a couple of inches, like a mohawk, before falling loosely to either side. While Severn watched in silence, the creature remained perfectly still, its four legs grasping the ground with feet that looked more like claws or talons. It seemed to grip the gravel road, its eyes fixed on the buck with a look that suggested casual interest. Behind the buck, another two of the creatures came into view, moving more like cats than dogs, with a liquidity of movement that reminded of a leopard or a panther. They stalked into view, their bodies hunched and lowered, flowing over the ground. One was pure grey, and the other was a roan, and they varied only slightly in size, both somewhat smaller than the black one that remained motionless, watching the buck. The buck snorted, turned sideways, and bounded into the woods, or tried to bound into the woods. Midway through its leap, with its four legs tucked back, the creatures slammed into it, the grey and the roan, and two more appearing out of nowhere, both bays, one a deeper reddish brown than the other. They hit the buck like bullets, knocking it sideways and over. Moments after it hit the ground, It was already in pieces, the legs severed from the body. Severn took the binoculars away from his eyes, revolted by the savagery of the attack and shocked by the speed of it. The cat like dog creatures must have leapt, must have sprung into the air at the first flexing of the buck's muscles, but they moved so fast that Severn hadn't caught the motion. One instant the Grey and the Roan were crouched on the road, and the next instant there were four of them crashing into the buck and pulling it apart with teeth and claws. When Severn looked again, there was a sixth creature, this one the biggest of the lot, with a mottled brown coat. It came out of the shadows and sat beside the black one which hadn't moved throughout the attack. Once the brown creature was seated beside it, the black one went to the buck and with a single bite and simultaneous swipe of its claws tore open the torso and buried its muzzle in the innards. Only after it had come away with a great mouthful of gore did the brown one follow suit and do the same. From his distant perch, Severn watched the six creatures where they stretched out leisurely in the road, each of them feeding on pieces of the book. They were grouped in pairs. Lying side by side, the grey and the roan, the two bays, the black and the brown. They were not of the earth, but their behavior was recognizable. They reminded of a pride of lions, leisurely feeding on a kill. They moved like cats, too, though faster. One moment they were on the road, the next they were tearing the buck apart. Except for the oddness of the creatures, Pitbull looking things that moved like cats, had claw like feet with talon like digits and were the size of a pony. The scene of their feeding seemed familiar, like something Severn had seen before on a hundred National Geographic specials. As he watched, leaning over the boulder, the binoculars in one hand, the carbine in the other, he went back and forth between fascination at the bestial simplicity of the scene and horror at the ferocity of it, at the ferocity of these creatures. Big and vicious as they were, he thought the automatic rifles and the machine pistols in their arsenal ought to be enough to stop them, if they could get off a shot quickly enough. Given how fast the things moved, that was a big if. He looked down at the surface of the boulder, at the cold, mottled, grey stone. Now he wished that the ATVs were at the campsite instead of a mile away at the trailer. He checked the clip on his carbine and cursed himself for not taking one of the newer assault rifles. It seemed impossible to him that the sudden appearance of these creatures was not connected in some way to yesterday's outing. Why now? Why the night after their car was spotted by two strangers, after Sterling ran off with those strangers, why now do these creatures turn up on the road to the farm? Severn couldn't put the pieces of this particular puzzle together, but he sensed again a kind of dread that reminded him of the first night of the lurchings. He leaned the carbine against the boulder and lifted the binoculars to his eyes with both hands. There, on the moonlit road, the six creatures remained lazily hunched over their kill, their muzzles stained with blood and dripping gore. He watched one of the bays wrestle a chunk of meat from the buck's thigh, and then he spun around. Dropped the binoculars and reached for the carbine as he heard something running at him from behind out of the woods. By the time he realized it was Sage, the binoculars had already clattered over the boulder and landed on the ground. He skittered around the big rock and found the binoculars in the leaves. He was a mile away from the creatures and high above the road, and still he was sure the sound of the binoculars clattering over the boulder would carry. Sage sat beside him and licked his face once before Severn elbowed him away. The binoculars had gone out of focus and he feared that an internal lens might be damaged. He rattled them for the sound of broken glass and when he heard nothing he lifted them to his eyes again and worked the focusing knob until the road came sharply into view. Five of the creatures were standing upright and looking at him as if they were only a few feet away. Upright on their hind They were transformed. They looked as human as they did animal. Severn was reminded of the way a horse appears transformed when it stands up on its hind legs, and the way the chest and shoulders suddenly look human. But horses are obviously off balance standing upright. They lean forward over haunches not meant to carry their full weight. Their forelegs stick out awkwardly, like malformed arms. The creatures on the road below Severn appeared to be perfectly balanced, as comfortable upright as they were on all fours. What had been forelegs now looked like arms hanging loosely at their sides. Their haunches looked like muscular thighs. Their claws were hands. The talons long, weapon like fingers. They looked like something out of human mythology. They weren't the werewolves of legend. Though fur covered and dog faced, and they brought werewolves to mind, nor were they the Egyptian god Anubis, though closer to Anubis than a werewolf. They were a ferocious mix of the two, with the muzzle of a pit bull, the posture of a man, and the hands claw mix of man, wolf, and bird. While Severn watched, the mottled brown creature, the only one of the six not standing, rose on all fours, moved to the front of the pack, and stood. He was the biggest of the creatures, though not by a lot, maybe a few inches. When he stood upright, the transformation was liquid and quick. His haunches and shoulders bulged, shifted, and then settled. Severn could almost see the joints swiveling and snapping into place beneath the skin. In seconds, the mottled brown creature went from a four legged animal to a two legged mix of animal and man. It looked up at Severn, bared its teeth, and screamed. Even over the distance between Severn's hillside perch and the road from Millersville, the sound was clear and sharp, a rattling screech. Like nothing he would have ever expected from a dog like creature, a high pitched, rattling, crow like rumble and squeal. Its effect was to lift Severn instantly to his feet. He bolted, with Sage following, for the kids in the campsite. Awakened by Sage, both Vi and Tommy were already sitting up in their sleeping bags when Severn stumbled into their dark tent. Get up, get dressed, he said, and as succinctly as possible he explained the situation. When he described the creatures as dogs that could walk on two legs like men, Vi pressed the palm of her hands over her ears, as if she couldn't bear to hear it. Tommy said, They walk like us? Severn had left out the slaughter of the buck. And they move fast, he said, really fast. Whoa, Tommy said. So? So we're getting out of here. Where? Vi asked. Where are we going in the middle of the night? It's not the middle of the night. It's almost dawn. Here, Tommy said. He reached into a duffel bag alongside a pile of his gear, withdrew a machine pistol, and handed it to Severn along with a pair of clips. Severn jammed the two extra clips under his belt. He had told Tommy to leave the machine pistols and extra clips at the trailer, and the kid had ignored him. Vi's idea, Tommy said, meaning she had made him take the additional weaponry. Vi, who had been bent over in the shadows by her sleeping bag, turned and crouched in the center of the tent. She had an M16 assault rifle strapped across her chest, a barrette in her belt, and a baseball bat in hand. Tommy and Severn both stared at her. What's the baseball bat for? Tommy asked. In case the M16 and Beretta don't work? Exactly, Vi said. Sage backed into Severn and pressed against his leg. Moments later, a stench filled the air. A smell like rotten meat tinged with human waste. Thick and offensive. Tommy put a hand over his nose. Vi said, Smells like a porta potty. Severn flung back the tent flap and stepped out into a patch of moonlight illuminating the campsite. Sage had followed alongside him, close, her shoulder bumping his leg with each step. Tommy and Vi kept pace behind Severn. They stopped when he raised his hand and stood motionless, listening. Vi whispered, What are we doing? And Tommy touched her shoulder, meaning she should be quiet. The End. The night had turned chilly, with a slight breeze rustling leaves on the ground and in the surrounding trees. Other than the wind, the woods around them were quiet. In the moonlight, the trees and leaves were all patches of darkness, wavering shadows against a sky growing lighter by the moment. Stars, where visible, were rapidly fading. If not for the stench in the air, Severn would have guessed that the creatures had gone on their way. But the smell made it obvious that something was out there, and Severn was betting on it being the same creatures he'd seen take the buck. He looked around him, as if miraculously he might notice some higher ground, some more defensible position. They were in a small clearing in the woods, surrounded by trees and darkness. He could hardly invent a less desirable position given their situation. He waited, hoping the smell would dissipate. When it only grew more intense, he dropped to one knee and signaled for the kids to do the same. They made a small circle with sage between them. They're watching us, Severn said. I feel it. Me too, Vi said. They stink. Why don't we shoot into the woods? Tommy asked. Waste of ammunition, but it might scare them away, Vi sounded like she liked the idea. Really, she said. Severn, don't you think? Severn was considering going along with the kids when the pack appeared around them, emerging out of the shadows. Up close, their claws looked like an eagle's talons. They had paws that were fleshy down to the knuckles and most of the way along each of the six digits. At the tip of each digit, in a place roughly comparable to where a human fingernail would be, an inch long hooked talon protruded. Unlike a human fingernail, which sat atop a finger, their talon seemed to be an extension of the bone within the flesh of each digit. The talon sliced cleanly through ground cover as they moved, so that unlike animals burdened with paws that crunched leaves under their weight, the creatures moved in silence. If not for the vile smell, there would have been nothing to give away their approach. In a small, tight voice, Vi asked, Should we fire? The two bays had stopped the tree line. They were motionless, their eyes on Severn. How many do you see? Severn asked. What color are they? Three, Tommy whispered. One's all gray, the other's mostly gray, and the biggest one's black. They all have green eyes. Same pack, Severn said. He could see the black and the one of the greys, the rhone and his peripheral vision. They too all had green eyes. One's missing, he said. Oh my god, A'isha, her voice quavering, as the mottled brown creature, the biggest of the pack, moved out of the darkness and past the two bays, deeper into the clearing, green eyes glittering in the moonlight. We should just start shooting, Vi said. Severn? Severn recalled the big buck turning and bolting and being torn apart in the air. Don't move, he said. Keep your fingers on the trigger. He was thinking that if they had to start shooting, it would already be too late. The creatures were too close and too fast. The mottled brown seemed to be looking down at Sage. Who was lying flat on the ground, her body pressed into the leaves. She looked back at the creature with abject surrender in her eyes. She looked like a dog who had been repeatedly beaten, gazing up submissively at her abuser. A low, crow like gurgle issued from the brown's throat. Be still, Severn said. I don't think they're going to attack us. That's good, Tommy said, cause they're huge. Vi said, barely audible, I think I might throw up from the smell. Don't, Severn said. When the buck was taken, the model LeBrown hadn't joined the others until the kill was over. That wasn't a whole lot of evidence to go on, but was enough to give Severn hope. Perhaps there wasn't going to be a kill. Behind Severn, another crow like gurgle. And then another. Vi said, I think they're talking to each other. As if in response to Vi, the brown bared his teeth and made a high pitched cat like hiss. That doesn't sound good, Tommy said. And then the others took up the sound, all six of them hissing and baring their teeth. The little bit of hope Severn had been clinging to fell away. If they move, he said. And before he could finish his sentence the first rays of the rising sun cut through the trees and the creatures turned in unison and disappeared. Again. Their movements had been so quick, they were hard to follow. One moment they were there, and the next nothing. Severn and the kids didn't move until a breeze blew away the last of the stench. Vi held her head in her hands and sobbed. Severn knelt in front of her, and Tommy touched her shoulder. Birdsong started up all around, and grew quickly to a raucous chatter. It occurred to Severn that the birds had been quiet throughout the morning and hadn't started up with their racket until the creatures had departed. He made a note of it. He did good, he said to Vi, and he touched her knee. Tommy knelt behind Vi. I thought you said they walked on two legs. They do. Severn crossed his legs under him and sat down. I saw them. They looked like great big dogs to me, Vi said, wiping away tears roughly with her arm, with like bird feet. Tommy looked off into the woods, which were filled now with sunlight filtering through leaves. How come we didn't see them all winter, he asked. I'm guessing they weren't looking for us before and now they are, Severn said. The buck probably provided a treat they couldn't pass up. They may walk upright, but they're still animals. Tommy and Vi said in unison, What buck? After Severn explained about the kill, Vi said, So maybe they were full. They'd just eaten, so they didn't need to bother with us. That's possible. So what? Tommy said. Are they like the stranger's guard dogs? The stranger's sick them on anything they don't want around? Vi turned to face Tommy. You think they'd sick them on us? You think that's what's happening? Tommy looked to Severn for an answer. I don't know, Severn said, but they showed up the day after those stranger kids ran off with Sterling. Like I said, I think they were looking for us. But we don't know that for sure, Vyse said. We don't know anything for sure. But they found us. Tommy sat upright, and they didn't do anything. Maybe they're not going to. Could be, Severn said. Or could be they just weren't hungry after eating the buck, Vi said. So what are we supposed to do, wait and find out whether or not they plan on making a meal of us? No. Severn looked around, taking his bearings. Listen, he added. They look like flesh and bone creatures to me. In that sense, they're no different than any other dangerous animals. These guns, he said, tugging on the machine gun pistol dangling from his neck, should be more than enough to stop them if need be. He noticed that both kids were listening to him closely. The problem, he said, is that they're fast. If they get around us the way they did just now, we won't have a chance. They'd be on us before we could get off a couple of shots at most. So we find the right place, Vi said. Someplace where they can't get close without us knowing. That's what I'm thinking. Severn pulled himself to his feet. With the adrenaline easing out of his system, he remembered again how tired he was. They don't seem to like the daylight, he added. They took off as soon as the sun came up. I'm thinking they're nocturnal. And, Tommy said, so? So I know a farmhouse about ten miles from here. It backs up against a hillside riddled with caves. Sarah and I used to go exploring there. I'm thinking we pack up, hike to the farmhouse, and barricade ourselves in. We'll make sure there's no easy way for them to get to us. We'll have weapons. We should be good. Why not just stay here, Tommy asked. We know the layout better. Vi said, because they already know we're here. Maybe we can lose them. Severn, agreeing with Vi, said it's worth a try. Vi said, maybe they'll forget about us. Not likely, Tommy said. And he looked to Severn. Then why don't we take the ATVs? Too easy to track, Severn said. If they're nocturnal and we put some distance between us, maybe we can buy some time. Vi looked up through the trees at a patch of blue sky. Tommy went back to the tent to gather up his gear. When Severn started to follow Tommy, Vi touched his arm. They can stand and walk like us, she said. How do we know they're not like us in other ways? How do we know they're not intelligent? How do we know they're not human in other ways if they're human in the way they walk? They're animals, Severn said. They're animals that have evolved in a way that allows them to walk on two legs. Exactly, Severn said. Just like us. We walk on two legs. They walk on two legs. That makes them like us. Like humans. Severn found himself getting annoyed with Vi and tried to tamp it down. Walking upright isn't what makes us human. He wasn't managing to sound as even tempered as he hoped. Humans don't hunt in packs and rip apart prey with teeth and claws. Really? Vi said, a touch of teenage insolence in her tone. That's what makes us human? Not only that, Severn gave up on trying to hide his annoyance. We think, he said. We conceptualize. We're self aware. How do we know they don't do all those things? Because they don't have language. How do we know that? Sounded to me exactly like they were talking to each other. Those were screeches and growls. So, at best, it's primitive language. Severn turned away from Vi. For reasons he didn't understand, probably largely because he was tired, he was on the edge of screaming at her. He took a breath and put his hands in his pockets. No opposable thumb, he said. They can't possibly write or have written language. They're animals. Vi looked at Severn, reading his face. In a whisper, she said, We were human before we had written language. Severn wasn't sure that was entirely true. Once again, he was impressed with all he didn't know. Were we entirely human before we even had rudimentary written language? We can talk about all this later. For now, let's get our stuff together. He gestured toward the tent. Vi took a step away, stopped, turned, gave Severn a quick hug around the waist. And then followed Tommy into the tent. That was episode nine 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, 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.