Rhubarb (24 page)

“What are you doing, Martin?” he asked himself. But no one
answered as he removed the back of the plywood box, disconnected the radio’s
wires, and twisted the feeds of Stewart’s devices into their place.

“This is all in your head, Martin,” he told himself. Perhaps
Brixton didn’t even exist. Maybe Cheryl was only a pipe dream.
Beyond
Insomnia
had driven him insane—that, or too many miles on empty highways,
too many days counting nails and screws, too many nights sleeping alone in
front of motel televisions. How much Diet Mountain Dew did one have to drink
before hallucinations took hold?

Martin started the engine. He closed the door to let the cab
go dark and checked the devices. No glow. No indicators. No vibration. No
sound. He rechecked the connections.

Martin considered calling Stewart, but he froze when a
high-pitched whine slipped out of hearing range and a glowing plane appeared in
space between the steering wheel and the speedometer. A hovering rectangle of
light—he’d call it blue if it had any color—dotted with three icons: a yellow,
car-shaped one with a grayed-out oval around it, a green hourglass with the two
bulbs separated by a lightning bolt, and something that looked like a garage
door being violated by a thick, red arrow.

Martin checked the parking lot for onlookers. He honestly
didn’t know if he’d shut off the engine to hide the phenomenon or call a
stranger over to confirm that he saw the panel, too. He touched the side of the
square but felt nothing. The pale blue light surrounded his finger as it neared
an icon, but he pulled back before he did something stupid.

That oval icon probably toggled the bubble, that hourglass
one must activate the portal, and the one with the arrow maybe communicated
with the mother ship’s dock. Any of them might signal Jeffrey that Stewart’s
company car was back from the dead. Hell, connecting the devices might have
sent the signal already. Anyway, what did he know? That icon could put a
radioactive crater in the middle of Shelby. That one could whisk his fragile
mammalian body into the vacuum of space. That one could start the invasion of
the self-replicating killer robotic bakers. Choices, choices.

He turned off the engine, and the panel blipped away. Martin
breathed—he hadn’t done that in a while—and wondered what he’d have told Rick
if he’d accidently vaporized the Screwmobile with alien technology.

~ * * * ~

“Waker Nation, it’s time to put on another pot of coffee.
I’m Lee Danvers, and let it never be said that I don’t deliver for you. Tonight
we have something very special: a guest with the most amazing story and with
the most amazing video, which will be shown for the first time in a few
minutes. This story is so incredible that we’re co-broadcasting this
conversation live on wakernation.com. If you’re on the road, you’re going to
want to pull over and log on. This has got to be seen to be believed. So
without further ado, via Skype, Thomas Worthington, you’re on
Beyond
Insomnia
and wakernation.com.”

“Thank you, Lee.”

“Thomas, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”

“Certainly. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m a videographer and
photojournalist, based in Oakland, California. I’ve worked in broadcast
television and done freelance work for my whole career. I’ve shot everything
from weddings to Super Bowls.”

“What exactly has brought you to the Waker Nation?”

“Well, Lee. A little over a week ago you had on a caller who
claimed to have video of a UFO or some kind of vehicle appearing out of nowhere
on a road in Montana.”

“Yes. It’s up at wakernation.com. And—oh—we’ve got the video
playing right now. Nice work, X-ray.”

“Exactly; that video. Now, the caller…

“Martin from Billings.”

“Yes. He sounded a little over the edge, but the video
intrigued me. I’m a professional. I know all the tricks. I know all the
software out there. I can usually spot a fake in a heartbeat, but not this
time.”

“And that’s when you contacted the show.”

“I called and asked to get a look at the raw file of the
video. And one of your kind producers took me up on my offer to see if it had
been edited, graphics added, colors or details enhanced. Debunk it, if you will.”

“And what did you find?”

“Lee, I was amazed to find pristine video. I expected to
find cuts, such as when the camera fell to the ground, or to find editing
artifacts along the edges of the rock and grass along the left side. I expected
to see problems of scale or lighting, shadow angles and such, with the truck
object itself. But, Lee, I found nothing. It appeared to be a completely
authentic capture of an event.”

“Incredible. That’s when you decided to go to Montana?”

“I had to get there and see if this could have been faked
somehow. I packed up my gear, got in the car, and drove almost straight through
to Brixton, Montana.”

“What kind of gear did you bring?”

“I couldn’t be sure of the conditions I’d find, so I brought
everything. Several video cameras and mounts, microphones, extra batteries,
weather cases, lenses, all the usual stuff.”

“What did you do when you got there?”

“A lawyer buddy of mine found out who owns the land from
where the original video was taken, a very nice rancher named Norman Young. He
hadn’t seen the video, but he didn’t seem too surprised. He told me this
stretch of Highway 360 has had a long reputation for weird sightings. He also
said—and I thought this was interesting—that his cattle avoided the area. He
gave me permission to set up on his land.”

“Had he ever seen anything happen on the road?”

“He said he hadn’t, but something in his voice told me that
he might have.”

“Okay. When we come back, more from videographer Thomas
Worthington and the world-exclusive first look at his incredible images from
Brixton, Montana, on wakernation.com and
Beyond Insomnia
. Tonight’s
broadcast is brought to you by…”

“Are you listening to this?” asked Martin. Martin had
practically run off the road trying to call Stewart and turn the volume down on
the commercial at the same time.

“This video guy on BI?” asked Stewart. The commercial on
Stewart’s end was delayed a few seconds over the phone.

“Of course ‘this video guy,’” said Martin. “Did you see
him?”

“I never saw anyone with a video camera,” said Stewart. “But
I’ve been watching Herbert’s Corner, not the portal.”

“Well, it sounds like he got video of a truck coming
through.”

“It might have come while I was asleep or something. I asked
Eileen to call if she ever got a feeling about someone,” said Stewart.

“A feeling? Dammit, Stewart, how could you miss one? Where
are you now?”

“Parked at the Corner, where I’ve been damn near every
waking moment of the last few days.”

“You know we’re running out of time,” said Martin.

Stewart coughed. “If it’s so important, why aren’t you here,
too?”

“I have a job,” said Martin. Because it was so critical that
Shelby and Great Falls got restocked with FastNCo. hardware before the coming
apocalypse. Never fear, Lewistown, I’m coming for you. You’ll have your screws
and nails in time to die.

“I had a job to do, too,” said Stewart.

“Don’t spread the hero stuff on too thick. You were pretty
much on board with exterminating all humans until you met baby Cheryl.” After a
long, wheezing silence, Martin said, “I’m sorry, Stewart. I shouldn’t have said
that.”

“Show’s coming back on,” said Stewart.

“…easy to find. I can attest that the landscape of the
original video is accurate. The highway runs southeast along the north side of
a bluff, rising in elevation, and then passes through an excavated cut in the
top of the hill—there’s rock on both sides—and then makes a sharp turn to the
southwest, descending the other side of the bluff. I found the exact location
‘Martin from Billings’ used to record the original video. The ground had been
disturbed recently, and I found a plastic bottle. Mountain Dew, I think.”

“A wake-up call there. Don’t litter while watching for
UFOs.”

“Exactly. I set one camera there, and then I set up three
more. Two on each side of the cut in the hill. That first evening, I drove
through the gap several times to give myself a benchmark for the lighting
conditions.”

“Is this a well-traveled road?”

“During the day, I’d say it gets a vehicle passing through
there every three to five minutes, but at night it’s more like every ten to
fifteen minutes. That location is about seven miles south of Brixton, which is
a pretty small town. The only traffic light is a blinking yellow, if that gives
you an idea. And from this bluff, you can’t see a single electric light. Not a ranch
house, not a farm, nothing. The stars were incredible.”

“You captured video right away?”

“I’d given myself seven days, but I honestly thought that
I’d get a recording on the first night. I figured one or two trucks would drive
through and their headlights would recreate the effect, proving that the
original video wasn’t what it seemed.”

“But that’s not what you found.”

“The first two days and nights, I got plenty of footage of
vehicles coming through the cut. The Montana Highway Patrol might be interested
to know how many drivers take that curve way too fast. But nothing unusual.
When semis come through that section of road, their headlights make a
definitive, recognizable sweep across the rock. I can tell you now that it is
not the same light as we see on the original video. I ran the footage through
processing software and tried to recreate the bloom of light, but it never
looked close. I began to believe that something had really happened there.”

“Tell us about the third night.”

“He was there for at least three nights,” said Martin.
“When, do you suppose?”

“Couldn’t have been more than a couple of nights ago,” said
Stewart.

“Did they say where he’s calling from?”

“Didn’t hear.”

“You’re not watching this on the website, are you?”

“Website? I’m parked at the Corner,” said Stewart.

“I’m trying to get to my motel as quick as possible,” said
Martin.

“…got very quiet. Eerie. All the insects went silent. And
then I woke up. I’d fallen asleep, slumped over in my back seat. At first, I
thought I was exhausted, but then I remembered the insects. I’d been
unconscious for only about ten minutes. I gathered all the footage from the
cameras, synched all the images together on a split screen, and I couldn’t
believe it. The south side of the hill stayed dark. No trucks came or went that
way. But on the north side, the Brixton side, a bright pinpoint of light
appeared above the road surface in the cut. This point bloomed into what I can
only describe as a sideways fountain of blue light. It shot out a few meters
down the road, and suddenly a semi popped out of nowhere. But a regular truck
like you’d see on any highway in America. It descended the hill and headed
north toward Brixton.”

“And now, the world premiere of the video of this event,
shot by Thomas Worthington, two nights ago outside of Brixton, Montana.”

“I wish I was seeing this.” Martin tapped his cruise control
a whisker faster.

“Maybe it didn’t stop in Brixton,” said Stewart.

“You think it was delivering dishwashers to Helena?” asked
Martin.

“You’re right. You’re right,” Stewart replied.

“Did you follow the truck?”

“I didn’t. By the time I had woken and synched the playback,
it could have driven to the junction at Brixton and gone any direction. I
decided to wait out the night in case it returned.”

“Oh boy, Wakers. You have to stay with us. After this break,
we’ll hear more of his story and see more exclusive video of this incredible
event. Stay awake with us. Now, when I’m out on a lonely highway, it’s always
comforting to know that I’m heading the right way. Our friends at Garmin…”

~ * * * ~

Martin paid lip service to the speed limits in Lewistown,
and bounced, tires squealing, into the motel’s parking lot. He ran into the
lobby with his laptop. As it booted, Martin checked the ceiling for any
indication that he would get Wi-Fi, and saw only a wagon-wheel chandelier. But
the twenty-first century came through for him.

Martin logged into his wakernation.com account and watched
the videos. First, the truck arriving. Then, in the next clip, the same truck,
at least one with the same logo, leaving, about two hours later, according to
this videographer guy. Long enough for a restroom visit, a breakfast special,
and a little chitchat with Eileen. The clip replayed the four synched images in
slow motion, two dark and two of the truck being sucked into the portal. Then
Martin clicked to the main event, the shot that Lee had dragged out the first
two hours of his show to present. It began with the four familiar images of the
Gap, but this time a car, not a truck, materialized out of the bloom. “A black
car,” Thomas Worthington had called it. “And I never saw it return. That means
that whoever, or whatever, it was might still be out there somewhere on Earth.
It was possibly a Cadillac or a…”

“A Lincoln Town Car,” said Martin.

“Hello, Martin,” said Jeffrey.

“You have got to stop doing that,” said Martin. “Scared the
crap out of me.”

“I needed to see you,” said Jeffrey.

“You could have called.”

“Watching that video Lee Danvers got? Nice looking Town Car,
eh?”

“What do you want?”

“To talk to you,” said Jeffrey.

“You made yourself pretty clear at the Perkins,” Martin
said, snapping his laptop shut. “So unless you’re returning Cheryl unharmed and
getting the hell off my planet…”