Unidentified (13 page)

Diego nodded, conceding defeat here. His mind raced ahead of him, considering what the nurse had just said. Talk to Stephanie’s parents. He had little option at this point, but he already knew that his chances of explaining himself to them were slim.

“Thank you for your time,” Diego said softly as he backed away from the reception desk and headed for the doors.

***

Evans stared down at his laptop screen. He’d set it out on the table in the interrogation room. A cable ran from the video camera to the computer. To his left, Mitchell sat with a cup of hot chocolate O’Conner had brought to her. O’Conner now sat to Evans’s right.

Blinking the fatigue away, Evans scrolled through the video file he’d just copied from the small camcorder’s internal hard drive. He tried to suppresses a yawn, but it fought its way out anyway. At last, he reached the area where he could see the lights flicker and go out. He scrubbed back in the video and hit play.

“Here,” he said to the two women.

On the computer screen appeared the image of Mitchell sitting across from Evans. The view came from just over Evan’s right shoulder. Mitchell was under hypnosis, she moved her head back and forth in apparent agitation.

“Look at them for what they really are,” came Evans’s voice through the tiny laptop speakers.

“I’m too scared,” Mitchell responded in the video.

“Wow, I look like shit,” Mitchell muttered next to him.

“I’d say all things considered,” O’Conner offered, “you look quite good.”

On the computer screen, Mitchell began to shake and twitch with increased intensity. The lights flickered.

Mitchell leaned in, staring at the screen intently now. Evans was sure that in spite of seeing the evidence before her, it would be hard for her to believe what she was about to see. Hell, it was hard for him to believe it.

“What do you see, Nicole?” the Evans in the video asked.

Here it was. Mitchell slowly leveled her head and locked eyes with Evans, who was just to the left of the camera. The lights flickered again in the video.

“
Derelinquas nos esse. Non venimus ad te,”
said Mitchell in the video.

Sitting next to him, Mitchell brought a hand up to her mouth. Her eyes were wide with shock.

The Evans in the video asked, “What did you say?”

Again, Mitchell repeated the strange phrase, her voice still unnaturally deep even through the tiny speakers. Evans leaned in. Something about those words seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. In the moment, he’d been too focused on Mitchell’s wellbeing. Now that she was safely sitting next to him and out of her hypnotic state, his mind felt free to focus on these strange words. That is, focus as well as he could given just how damn tired he was. He desperately wanted to sleep. He pushed the thought of sleep from his mind for the moment and waited to hear the words again.

“Nicole,” The video Evans said, “Focus. Hear my voice.”

The screen went black as the video captured the moment when they lights went out completely. A split second later, the screen filled with multi-color digital blocks. The sound became choppy and distorted. Something was wrong!

“What the hell happened?” O’Conner asked.

Just as quickly as it came, the glitches or interference in the video cleared. The screen still dark, what little could be seen continuously blurred and sharpened as the little camcorder had desperately searched for anything to focus on in the darkness.

“… count back from ten and you are going to wake up,” Evans’s voice came from the speakers suddenly. “Ten.”

“Derelinquas nos esse! Non venimus ad te!”
The barely visible shape of Mitchell on the computer screen screamed.

Mitchell stood suddenly, moving away from the computer screen. Her hand still covered her mouth. Glancing back, Evans could see tears welling up in her eyes, but she stared at the screen nonetheless from where she stood now.

Looking back at the computer, Evans tapped the spacebar. The video stopped. He stared off into space, lost in thought as he tried to pinpoint what seemed familiar about those words.

“I don’t remember that,” Mitchell said. “I remember the exam table and the grey beings. But I don’t remember yelling. What did I say?”

Evans looked back at her. He could see the terror in her eyes. She now had the memories—if they were indeed memories—that had surfaced during the hypnosis. But she, like Stephanie, had said something she had no memory of saying. Just what was going on here? Evans turned back to the computer and hit the spacebar again. The video continued.

From the speakers emitted the deep and distorted voice supposedly belonging to Mitchell screaming out that strange phrase again. Evans pounced on the spacebar. Silence returned to the room. The two woman stared at him as his jaw dropped and recognition washed over him.

“It’s Latin,” he whispered.

He glanced over at Mitchell.

Mitchell shook her head and said, “I don’t know Latin.”

“But I used to,” he said. “Catholic preparatory school. My Latin is rusty, but …”

He pulled up a web browser on the laptop and punched in a search for a Latin to English translator. Finding one, he poised his fingers over the keys.

“Let me see,” he muttered. “derelinquas.”

He tapped out the word, “derelincuas.” Then shaking his head, he hit the backspace key several times and tried again. “Derelinquas” with a Q. Slowly, he continued the process of typing out the words of the phrase Mitchell had said several times. Finally, he reached the end.

He hit enter and stared at the screen. The translation read, “Leave us be. We will not come to you.” O’Conner and Mitchell leaned in close now to stare at the screen with him.

“What the hell does that mean?” O’Conner said.

“Latin is a bit tricky,” Evans said. “It doesn’t work exactly like English. It’s been a long time since I’ve even thought about it. But I think it’s a warning.”

“A warning?” Mitchell frowned, still staring at the screen.

“Yeah,” Evans pointed. “‘Leave us be.’ That part is pretty straight forward. The next phrase is a little tricky. The present tense and past tense can be hard to figure out, especially with so little context. But I think the point is, they’re not interested in you.”

He looked at Mitchell now. “You’re not their target,” he said.

“Or maybe you’re not,” she sighed. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. Point is, we know who their target is. But they have us cornered now. I don’t think we have any way of stopping them.”

Even as fatigued as he was, Evans couldn’t help but make the observation that both he and Mitchell were now talking about “them” as if they might actually believe aliens were behind all of this. Or maybe it was that he was coming around to Mitchell’s theory that there was someone behind this? He had to admit this was getting incredibly bizarre.

Mitchell pressed her lips together and shook her head, her eyes still locked on the screen. Sighing again, she turned and jerked the door open and walked out of the room. Evans looked over at O’Conner. He hated to admit it, but Mitchell was right. They were in no better position now to stop these monsters—of whatever kind they might be—than they had been before. And now, Mitchell was flooded with disturbing visions of an alien abduction that may or may not have actually happened. But either way, the emotional scars it ripped open were nonetheless quite real. Guilt washed over Evans. It was followed by sheer exhaustion. All of a sudden, he was consumed with a desire to fall asleep as much out of fatigue as out of a desperate longing to escape the horrible weight of his guilt.

Forcing himself to his feet, he gathered his things. He and Mitchell had to get back to the motel. And then … who the hell knew?

***

Mitchell drove. Her eyes felt dry. Her body ached all over. She desperately wanted to shower, but knew she lacked the energy. Her hair felt disgusting. A slight taste of bile still lingered in her mouth.

Evans sat in the passenger seat. They drove in silence for several minutes; the motel wasn’t far. She pulled the car into the parking lot of the motel and turned it off. For a moment, neither of them moved. Finally, Evans looked over at her.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Just need sleep,” she said, looking straight ahead.

She swung open her door and unbuckled her seatbelt. As she got out of the car, Evans followed. They both slammed their doors shut. The sound echoed off the building. In the sky, the glow of a new day could be seen. But Mitchell wanted just to close her eyes, just to forget the day that had happened. She moved to her door.

“If you need anything …” Evans said.

“Yeah,” she said dismissively before he could say anymore. She wasn’t in the mood for any of this. She just wanted to be alone.

“Nicole,” Evans said, his voice low. “I’m sorry. I should not have done the hypnosis. I should have just …“

“I told you to do it,” she said flatly as she looked at him. “You were just doing what I asked you to do. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

Evans opened his mouth, but stopped short of saying anything else. He seemed worn out. His shoulders dropped a little. His eyes were more than just tired. They were apologetic, moving over the sight of her with pity and sorrow. No, he wasn’t just tired, he seemed defeated. But she had nothing left inside of her in that moment to deal with him.

“Good night, Evans,” she said.

Turning to her door, she plunged her key into the lock and opened it. She never looked back. She crossed the threshold, pulled the key from the door, and closed it behind her. Once inside, she looked at the door carefully. She threw the deadbolt, then she placed the chain in place.

Leaning her head against the door, she felt the tears come. With her complete exhaustion came now an inability to hold in any of her emotions. Her legs gave out and she slowly crumpled to the floor. There she lay, weeping. She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, but eventually, she managed to move herself to the bed. She removed none of her borrowed clothes. She did not pull the covers back on the bed; she merely curled up in tight ball. She had cried herself to sleep before, but never like this.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Somewhere in the dark haze that was her mind, the ding of her cell phone receiving a text registered, but it wasn’t nearly enough to rouse Mitchell from her fretful sleep. Her body’s exhaustion dragged her into a deep sleep against her mind’s will. Her mind, unsure how to process the events of the past nights, replayed nightmarish visions over and over: black eyes, grey hands with long fingers reaching out, instruments with sharp points, black eyes carefully taking in every inch of her body.

It might have been a moment later or an hour later, but her phone rang now. She stirred in bed. The last nightmare suddenly evaporating like an exhaled breath on a cold day. She fought the weight of her own body which still needed more sleep. She got up and found her bag by the door. Her phone was in it, still ringing. Picking it up, she answered without looking. Her eyes were too unfocused still to bother with trying to see who was calling.

“This is Agent Mitchell,” she managed in a hoarse voice.

“Mitchell, this is Assistant Director Reynolds,” said a stern male voice on the other end. “I just got off the phone with the North Woodstock Chief of Police. He’s not exactly pleased with what’s been going on up there.”

She swallowed what little saliva she had in her already dry mouth and said, “I can explain everything. It will all be in my case report.”

“No it won’t,” Reynolds said flatly. “You pack up right now and get back to Boston!”

She felt suddenly dizzy. Breathing became difficult, as if the air was being sucked from the room. “Sir, please, let me explain.”

“You can explain when you report to me in person tomorrow.”

What could she do? Everything was falling apart, but she could stop this. She still felt sure of that. “Sir, I need more time. I am close to catching whoever is doing this! I know he’s going to strike in the next 24 hours.”

She heard the Assistant Director sigh on the other end. She looked over at a sliver of sunlight that was managing to cut through a slight gap between the drawn curtains. Dust in the room swirled in that little shaft of light. It faded a little as a cloud somewhere far off came between her and the sun.

“Nicole,” the Assistant Director said, “I know you’ve been through a lot. I really do. But I shit you not, if you don’t get back to Boston right now I won’t have any choice but to fire you. It’s out of my hands. With everything going on, there are already too many eyes on the Bureau, particularly in Boston, you hear me? Don’t do anything stupid. Don't draw any more attention to our department. You’re hanging by a very tiny thread as it is. Just go get that damn shrink you dragged along with you and the two of you get back right now!”

The shaft of light was completely gone now. She stared down at the spot of the red carpet where it had been. “Okay,” she managed to say through her clenched throat. A fresh tear travelled down her cheek, tickling its way to the corner of her mouth.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Reynolds said with a little more gentleness.

The line went dead.

Mitchell blinked back more tears and looked down at the phone. Sure enough, a text had come in. But she’d missed it. It had been from Anthony. It read, “What’s going on? Asst. Dir. is pissed!!!”

So apparently word was getting around. She was a liability now. The Bureau wouldn’t let that slide. She could hear it already, allegations that she was unstable and should not have been allowed back to work so soon. They would question everything Evans had done in his therapy sessions with her. They might even do all they could to discredit Evans. They needed someone to blame; it was better to blame an outsider. She’d fucked this up beyond her worst nightmares. She could see it already. If she indeed wasn’t yet fired, she at least was officially no longer a field agent. She’d have a nice safe desk job tucked away somewhere. Maybe she’d get to make phone calls to forensic accountants who were investigating the shady dealings of some of the larger financial institutions on the East Coast. Or maybe they’d have her combing through files on hard drives in order to locate sensitive information from apprehended suspects. At any rate, she would never be out in the field again, that she was sure of.

And Evans … she just hoped she could make sure they forgot about him.

She tossed the phone on her bed. It was running low on battery. But she could charge it in the car on their way home. She stopped suddenly at this thought. Am I really giving in to this? Am I really just going home now? But what choice did she have? What did she really have to go on that could stop all of this from happening?

She sat on the corner of the bed, her whole body feeling heavy. Her legs and arms still ached as if she’d overexerted them recently. She sighed, thinking. What if I just leave now and Stephanie is taken? Could she really live with this? She had felt so certain that being kidnapped last night was a monumental blunder on the part of whomever was behind all of this. She thought for sure the hypnosis would have led to some significant insight. Instead, it had become a waking nightmare that now followed her about like a lingering dark cloud that not only blocked all light from her, but made everything somehow heavier.

Another frightening thought attacked her now: What if I’m wrong about all of this? What if Stephanie is not taken? What if Evans is right and Stephanie just needs professional psychiatric help? She would most definitely lose her job if she stayed and nothing at all happened. But she pushed those nagging thoughts from her mind. Something had definitely happened to her last night. That was real! How could she possibly doubt Stephanie’s story now? How could she doubt it after last night’s events?

So, what? I believe in aliens now? She shook her head, trying to shake off this new nagging thought. Every option before her seemed to lead to a dead end. How had she gotten in so deep, gotten so tangled up in this mess? When she was seventeen, she’d taken a dive into a deep dark pool from a high platform at night. She had been with some friends. In a effort to assert her independence and adventurous spirit, she was the first to take the dive from the thirty-foot platform. She went in feet first. But the angle of her body entering the water and the force of the impact twisted her about as she plunged deep into the dark water. The water had been incredibly cold. She had flailed her arms as she fell from the thirty-foot platform in an attempt to keep her body upright. When she hit the water, the underside of her arms smacked the water with an incredible force. Even as her body was driven into the water, the skin on her arms was stung sharply. Beneath the surface, in pain and disoriented, she panicked. Which way was up? How could she get back to the surface? That’s how she felt sitting there in the motel room now. Which way was up? Which option made sense? Would she come out of this alive?

She pushed it all from her mind and focused on this moment. What could she do now? She could shower.

Standing, she shed the layers of borrowed clothing O’Conner had provided to her. Naked, she walked to the bathroom. She stopped, however, in front of the full length mirror on the wall next to the bathroom door. She stood there, looking at herself. Her hair was an awful tangled mess. She couldn’t recall when it had looked this bad. Her body seemed weighed down, as if it had aged unnaturally overnight. On her stomach and ribs was the old familiar scar, but now she felt somehow detached from her own body as she stood there. Something had happened to her. And now, it was as if this thing, her own body, wasn’t even hers any more. Her hands balled up into tight fists. What did they do to me?

A dark image entered her mind. She stood in her uniform before two naked men tied to a wooden beam. As she circled them, looking them up and down with contempt, she could feel the shame and hatred. Their bloodshot glaring eyes followed her as she circled. She had found no specific pleasure in their nakedness other than their total humiliation. If they weren’t going to talk, they could deal with the humiliation … and another long waterboarding session. As she circled, the patched up wound on her torso hurt. She liked that it hurt. It kept her from forgetting what these men had done, but there was a moment, when she made eye contact with one of the men as her eyes had traveled up his battered body. For a split second, she saw a wounded and shamed man, a violated man.

Standing there looking at her own naked body recalling what she’d experienced through the hypnosis, she felt her stomach turn. Looking into the reflection of her eyes, she didn’t see her own eyes any more. She saw only that man’s eyes, frozen in that moment of violation and shame.

She looked away, replacing the shame with the only feeling that felt powerful enough, the only feeling that felt right, self-hatred. Then a thought occurred to her. Did she have any marks? Like Tommy and Stephanie, had any marks been made on her body? She returned to the mirror and reached up to run her hand on the back of her neck. She felt nothing there. She ran her hands about around her jaw, down her neck, around her breasts—which were also sore, a common occurrence among female alien abductees, she noted—and down her side to her hips.

She felt something. Bumps protruded from her skin. She twisted around to look at her waistline at her right lower back. Something was there. Her heart raced now. This can’t really be happening, she protested. She drew closer to the mirror, hardly able to breathe. Finally, she managed to look at what was on her skin. There were two bumps alright, one larger than the other. She ran her fingers over them. Finally, she sighed with frustration and relief. They were insect bites. They looked nothing like the distinct marks that had been found on Tommy and Stephanie.

She stepped back from the mirror and laughed at herself. You’re really losing your goddamn mind, girl! She forced a laugh again. Then tears came to her eyes. Wiping them away, she stepped into the bathroom and threw on the shower. She stared at the falling water as slowly the steam began to fill the small bathroom. She just stared for a long time before stepping in. And even then, she just stood there for a very long time. She was only brought out of this state when she noticed blood mingling with the water on the shower floor. Looking down, she realize the blood trailed down her body. Touching her face, she found where it came from. Her nose was bleeding.

***

Mitchell stepped out of the door to her motel room. The air was humid given the previous day’s rain. The temperature had quickly risen as well, so the slight breeze that confronted her outside was dense with humidity. It was late in the day already. Almost a whole day had passed. She’d slept for quite some time. She now wore dark wash jeans and a short sleeve grey shirt. She had applied minimal make-up, wishing only to mask the dark rings under her eyes. Beyond that, she felt no desire to waste her time and what little energy remained. She would just be driving with Evans back to Boston. Then she’d go home. And then what?

She stepped up to Evan’s door. How would she tell him? How would he take it? If they left now, they’d likely hit traffic around Boston. At least they would be headed against the general flow of traffic as they would be headed into the city while most people would be headed out at the end of the day. All the same, she still faced more than two hours in the car, alone with Evans. And she was sure he’d want to talk about her situation, though she wasn’t exactly sure she was ready to talk about it. But what other choice did she have? She stared at the door and took a deep breathe.

She raised her hand, about to knock, when she felt fingers grasp her right shoulder. In her mind, all she could see was the image of one of those creature’s lanky grey hands with cold long slender fingers and it made her skin crawl. It was only a split second, but it was enough to completely shake her. She whirled about, heart racing, ready for a fight, ready to take this thing down where it stood. She was blind with rage and fear.

“I’m sorry,” came Diego’s voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She blinked and her eyes focused on the man standing there, right hand still raised where he had touched her on her shoulder. He lowered it slowly, his wide eyes fixed on her. He seemed nearly as startled as she was. He also looked quite worn out. His hair was matted down and oily. What had he been up to?

“I asked Chief Wilson where I could find you,” Diego said. “We need to talk.”

***

Evans had been sitting on the bed, laptop open, notebook out, pouring over notes again. He’d gotten up several hours ago, showered, walked to a nearby convenience store and grabbed something to eat. After last night, he didn’t want to disturb Mitchell. He figured when she was ready to pick things up again, she would get him. But the day wore on. He took a break from the case, walked the short distance to the town. He explored the small park next to the river that ran through North Woodstock. The whole time, he kept checking his phone, wondering when she might call him. When she didn’t, he ducked into the Chinese restaurant across from the tavern and grabbed more food to go. He returned to his dank motel room, ate, and began looking over his notes again, making new notes, new speculations, trying to make sense of what had happened last night. That was what he was doing when he heard a knock on his door.

Now he stood next to Mitchell. They looked at Diego who sat in the one chair in the room. The man appeared to have had his own long night and day. Evans wondered if he’d even been home.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Diego said softly in his accent. “I didn’t know for sure who to turn to at this point. I tried to talk to Stephanie’s parents, but her father insists she has been through enough, that she is just a very sick girl who needs help. I think he just doesn’t want to call any more attention to her, or to their family.”