She considered. “I think people enjoy these events mainly because they bring back childhood memories,” she said.
“Yes. It does seem familiar,” Lionel said.
“Really? What about it?”
He paused, searching his mind. “The smells,” he said at last.
Avery nodded. It was smells for her, as welclass="underline" deep fat fryers, popcorn. “Do you remember anything from the time before you were abducted?”
“Adopted,” he corrected her.
“Right, adopted. What about your family?”
He shook his head.
“Do you ever wonder what kind of people they were?”
“The kind of people who wouldn’t look for me,” he said coldly.
“Wait a minute. You don’t know that. For all you know, your mother might have cried her eyes out when you disappeared.”
He stared at her. She realized she had spoken with more emotion than she had intended. The subject had touched a nerve. “Sorry,” she muttered, and got up. “I’m tired. Can we head back?”
“Sure,” he said, and followed her without question.
That night she couldn’t sleep. She lay watching the pattern from the lights outside on the ceiling, but her mind was on the back of the bus. Up to now she had slept without thinking of the strangeness just beyond the door, but tonight it bothered her.
About 3:00 AM she roused from a doze at the sound of Lionel’s quiet footstep going past her. She lay silent as he eased the bus door open. When he had gone outside she rose and looked to see what he was doing. He walked away from the bus toward a maintenance shed and some dumpsters. She debated whether to follow him; it was just what she had scolded him for doing to her. But concern for his safety won out, and she took a flashlight from the driver’s console, put it in the pocket of a windbreaker, and followed.
At first she thought she had lost him. The parking lot was motionless and quiet. A slight breeze stirred the pines on the edge of the road. Then she heard a scuffling sound ahead, a thump, and a soft crack. At first she stood listening, but when there was no more sound, she crept forward. Rounding the dumpster, she saw in its shadow a figure crouched on the ground. Unable to make out what was going on, she switched on the flashlight.
Lionel turned, his eyes wild and hostile. Dangling from his hand was the limp body of a cat, its head ripped off. His face was smeared with its blood. Watching her, he deliberately ripped a bite of cat meat from the body with his teeth and swallowed.
“Lionel!” she cried out in horror. “Put that down!”
He turned away, trying to hide his prey like an animal. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm, and he spun fiercely around, as if to fight her. His eyes looked utterly alien. She stepped back. “It’s me, Avery,” she said.
He looked down at the mangled carcass in his hand, then dropped it, rose, and backed away. Once again taking his arm, Avery guided him away from the dumpsters, back to the bus. Inside, she led him to the kitchen sink. “Wash,” she ordered, then went to firmly close the bus door.
Her heart was pounding, and she kept the heavy flashlight in her hand for security. But when she came back, she saw he was trembling so hard he had dropped the soap and was leaning against the sink for support. Seeing that his face was still smeared with blood, she took a paper towel and wiped him off, then dried his hands. He sank onto the bench by the kitchen table. She stood watching him, arms crossed, waiting for him to speak. He didn’t.
“So what was that about?” she said sternly.
He shook his head.
“Cats aren’t food,” she said. “They’re living beings.”
Still he didn’t speak.
“Have you been sneaking out at night all along?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t know… I just thought… I wanted to see what it would feel like.”
“You mean Mr. Burbage wanted to see what it would feel like,” she said.
“Maybe,” he admitted.
“Well, people don’t do things like that.”
He was looking ill. She grabbed his arm and hustled him into the bathroom, aiming him at the toilet. She left him there vomiting, and started shoving belongings into her backpack. As she swung it onto her shoulder, he staggered to the bathroom door.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “I can’t sleep here, knowing you do things like that.”
He looked dumbstruck. She pushed past him and out the door. She was striding away across the gravel parking lot when he called after her, “Avery! You can’t leave.”
She wheeled around. “Can’t I? Just watch me.”
He left the bus and followed her. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t care,” she said.
“I won’t do it again.”
“Who’s talking, you or him?”
A light went on in the RV next to them. She realized they were making a late-night scene like trailer-park trash, attracting attention. This wasn’t an argument they could have in public. And now that she was out here, she realized she had no place to go. So she shooed Lionel back toward the bus.
Once inside, she said, “This is the thing, Lionel. This whole situation is creeping me out. You can’t make any promises as long as he’s in charge. Maybe next time he’ll want to see what it feels like to kill me in my sleep, and you won’t be able to stop him.”
Lionel looked disturbed. “He won’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“I just… do.”
“That’s not good enough. I need to see him.”
Avery wasn’t sure why she had blurted it out, except that living with an invisible, ever-present passenger had become intolerable. As long as she didn’t know what the door in the back of the bus concealed, she couldn’t be at ease.
He shook his head. “That won’t help.”
She crossed her arms and said, “I can’t stay unless I know what he is.”
Lionel’s face took on an introspective look, as if he were consulting his conscience. At last he said, “You’d have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Avery hadn’t really expected him to consent, and now felt a nervous tremor. She dropped her pack on the bed and gripped her hands into fists. “All right.”
He led the way to the back of the bus and eased the door open as if fearing to disturb the occupant within. She followed him in. The small room was dimly lit and there was an earthy smell. All the crates he had brought in must have been folded up and put away, because none were visible. There was an unmade bed, and beside it a clear box like an aquarium tank, holding something she could not quite make out. When Lionel turned on a light, she saw what the tank contained.
It looked most like a coral or sponge—a yellowish, rounded growth the size of half a beach ball, resting on a bed of wood chips and dead leaves. Lionel picked up a spray bottle and misted it tenderly. It responded by expanding as if breathing.
“That’s Mr. Burbage?” Avery whispered.
Lionel nodded. “Part of him. The most important part.”
The alien seemed insignificant, something she could destroy with a bottle of bleach. “Can he move?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Lionel said. “Not the way we do.”
She waited for him to explain. At first he seemed reluctant, but he finally said, “They are colonies of cells with a complicated life cycle. This is the final stage of their development, when they become most complex and organized. After this, they dissolve into the earth. The cells don’t die; they go on to form other coalitions. But the individual is lost. Just like us, I suppose.”
What she was feeling, she realized, was disappointment. In spite of all Lionel had told her, she had hoped there would be some way of communicating. Before, she had not truly believed that the alien could be insentient. Now she did. In fact, she found it hard to believe that it could think at all.