Aliens on Aventine Hill

Creatures of Static [Part 2]

Alice stared up at the ceiling as she absentmindedly fingered the locket around her neck. She'd been working at prying it open all day, all to no avail, but she had given up now and resigned herself to staring thoughtlessly ahead.

It wasn't as if the answer was contained within.

It wasn't as if there was any riddle she really had to solve. She'd already puzzled everything out, hadn't she? Jimmy had found no evidence of aliens in the river, not she'd asked him to. And while they were the only thing that explained the mysterious lights, Alice was growing less convinced each day that she had ever seen the lights at all. The stray beam of a flashlight, the sudden appearance of the moon from behind the clouds, some perfectly mundane light had become twisted into something unearthly in her imagination. Joseph had simply wanted to keep Grayson from finding out they were there...

Yeah, that was it. Wasn't it?

The hallway phone was ringing. Alice pushed herself to her feet and hurried to beat her mother to it. It was close, but she grabbed the handset first, held it to her ear and waved her mother off with feigned annoyance.

"Hello?"

"Hey! Alice?"

Jimmy.

Who else? She'd given all her Portland friends her new number, sent them the admittedly boring postcards they'd had for sale in the AC student store, but none of them had called. Not that she really wanted them to, Alice supposed. Jimmy's friends were something of an upgrade, despite what her parents believed. And Jimmy? There was no denying he was easy on the eyes, and Alice liked the way he tasted.

But staying with them—staying with Jimmy—meant living as if that night had never happened. She'd proven herself to them; she had their respect, but she would lose it if she spoke one word about aliens. Or ghosts for that matter.

"Alice?"

"Sorry, it's me," she shook away the thought and leaned against the wallpaper.

"Oh, good," Jimmy laughed. "I was kinda starting to worry I'd punched in the number wrong..."

She laughed back half-heartedly, "No, I was just a little lost in thought..."

"Oh," his voice fell, "Am I interrupting something?"

"No, no," she reassured him. "I guess I didn't sleep well or something... Hey, you wouldn't be opposed to grabbing a milkshake, would you? Just the two of us?"

"Oh, hey, great minds must think alike," his answer was a little too quick, a little too desperate, as if he was afraid to press the previous matter, "I was just gonna ask that. I'll pick you up in five?"

"Perfect," she agreed, though before Jimmy could hang up, she cleared her throat and lowered her voice, "Hey, are you busy tonight?"

Jimmy choked, "What? Tonight?"

"Yeah," Alice felt blood color her cheeks. He was misunderstanding. She had known he would, but she couldn't help thinking of a similar misunderstanding not too long ago with... She twisted her fingers into the phone cord, "Do you have plans tonight?"

"I've got work, but I can wiggle my way out of that," there was a sort of hungry smile in his voice. She frowned at it, at the tone that said I didn't think you were that kinda girl, but said nothing. It'd be easier if he didn't know why she was really asking:

Yesterday, he'd accidentally let slip that Aventine's "Lovers' Lane" was also on Aventine Hill, not too far from the Ghost House.

"Well, maybe," she crooned, twirling the one cord on her pinky finger and checking to make sure her mother was out of earshot, "after it gets dark, you could swing by..."

"Uh-huh."

"For stargazing..."

"Uh-huh, stargazing," she pictured him, leaned against his own wall, and saw him run a hand through his hair, run his tongue along his teeth, "Yeah. Yeah, I could do that."

Alice thanked him and bid him a momentary goodbye, before sauntering back to her room and picking up her Polaroid camera. Plenty of film. Good. She would need it. It didn't take the best pictures in the dark, but if the aliens—the Cælonauts, Joseph had called them—were there, she would have the light to help her.

Alice didn't care what it cost her. The doubt was too much to bear. She had to know the truth of it. Aliens. That's what they'd told her. So she'd look for them, and if she failed to find them, then she'd find the next truth and she'd try and prove that.

Because she had to know.

* * *

Roman wondered if the man across the street could see his face in the window. He was pale and dressed in a dark suit that made his skin seem even whiter. All around him the neighborhood was in pastel Technicolor, but he was in black and white. The black sunglasses beneath his bowler hat made his eyes insectoid and inscrutable, but Roman felt certain his gaze was locked on the picture window.

Roman shrank back against the sheer curtains but did not hide. If they were here, it was because they knew he was here. Like Remy had always been afraid of.

Fleming had been in the middle of reading out a question prompt for today's Jeopardy! when the TV screeched, and the picture blurred into static. Lola looked up from her magazine with a frustrated sigh and got up to fiddle with the antennae, "This gosh dang thing! I swear!"

Roman startled as the sound of gunfire filled the room, mingling with dying screams. He glanced over his shoulder. Bonanza. The cowboys appeared for a moment from the static ocean, firing pistols at unseen enemies, before foundering again beneath the snow.

"Huh, so that's how it's going to be, is it?" Lola rolled up her periodical and whacked the top of the TV. It sputtered unhappily, but Lola put her hands on her hips and sneered unsympathetically, "That's right, and I'll do it again if you don't..."

Her eyes caught on Roman's expression, and her face contorted with concern, "Oh, Baby, what's wrong? It's just some funny signal, just like always. It'll go back..."

Roman silently went back to looking out the window, afraid that in the few seconds he had taken his gaze away the man might've advanced. But no, he was still where Roman had left him, leaning coolly against the flank of his shiny black car with his hands all laced together in front of him. It seemed almost as if he were waiting for someone.

"There's a man watching us."

Lola froze, fingers still tangled up in the rabbit ears. She waved him away from the window and lifted the curtain, "Let me look, Roman."

He slipped off the couch and crawled over to the television, ignoring the antennae to scry into the static. He nodded at it, rose and gently adjusted the rabbit ears back into position. Fleming came back to read off another prompt.

Lola's brow furrowed as she peered out the window, "It really does look like he's watching us, doesn't he?"

She drew the blackout curtains closed, trapping them in shadow, and hurried off to the kitchen, him close on her heels. She grabbed the yellow handset of the phone and inhaled sharply, only to hesitate at the last moment.

"Roman," she took him by the shoulders, "Do you know that man out there?"

He slowly shook his head.

Lola let out the breath she'd been holding, cursed under her breath and blushed, and then set about dialing a number. She waved a reassuring hand at Roman, "I'm sure Ms. Grubb knows exactly who he... Oh, hello, Gertrude. Yes, it's Lola Corbett, across the street..."

Roman stopped listening. His footsteps were feather-soft on the carpet as he slunk away. The noise was rising up over him like dark water. Up, up, up above his head, cloaking him. Lola prattled on the phone; it hissed back. The static overtook Fleming, roiling like a storm. The blood was rushing in his ears.

The doorbell rang.

And then there was nothing but silence.