Winter Moon

that something--don't even think about what it might be launched an

assault on the house. The Micro Uzi and the Korth .38 were on the

counter by the sink.

Toby sat at the table, sipping hot chocolate from a mug, and the dog

was lying at his feet. The boy was no longer in a trance state, was

entirely disconnected from the mysterious invader of dreams, yet he was

uncharacteristically subdued.

? Although Toby had been fine yesterday afternoon and evening,

following the apparently far more extensive assault he had suffered in

the graveyard, Heather worried about him. He had come away from that

first experience with no conscious memory of it, but the trauma of

total mental enslavement had to have left scars deep in the mind, the

effects of which might become evident only over a period of weeks or

months. And he did remember the second attempt at control, because

this time the puppetmaster hadn't succeeded in either dominating him or

repressing the memory of the telepathic invasion. The encounter she'd

had with the creature in a dream the night before last had been

frightening and so repulsive that she had been overcome with nausea.

Toby's experiences with it, much more intimate than her own, must have

been immeasurably more terrifying and affecting.

Moving restively from one window to the other, Heather stopped behind

Toby's chair, put her hands on his thin shoulders, gave him a squeeze,

smoothed his hair, kissed the top of his head. Nothing must happen to

him. Unbearable to think of him being touched by that thing, whatever

it was and whatever it might look like, or by one of its puppets.

Intolerable. She would do anything to prevent that. Anything. She

would die to prevent it.

Jack looked up from the tablet after quickly reading the first three or

four pages. His face was as white as the snowscape. "Why didn't you

tell me about this when you found it?"

"Because of the way he'd hidden it in the freezer, I thought it must be

personal, private, none of our business. Seemed like something only

Paul Youngblood ought to see."

"You should've showed it to me."

"Hey, you didn't tell me about what happened in the cemetery," she

said, "and that's a hell of a lot bigger .."I'm sorry." You didn't

share what Paul and Travis told you. that was wrong. But now you know

everything. yes, finally." She had been furious that he'd withheld

such things from her, but she hadn't been able to sustain her anger,

she could not rekindle it now. Because, of course she was equally

guilty. She'd not told him about the unease she'd felt during the

entire tour of the property yesterday afternoon. The premonitions of

violence and the unprecedented intensity of her nightmare. Certain

that something had been in the back stairwell she'd gone into Toby's

room the night before all the years they had been married, there had

not been as many gaps in their communication with each-other since

they'd come to Quartermass Ranch. They wanted their new life not

merely to work but to be ct, and they had been unwilling to express

doubts observations. For that failure to reach out to each , though

motivated by the best intentions, they might pay with their lives.

Indicating the tablet, she said, "Is it anything?" It's everything I

think. The start of it. His account what he saw." He Spot-read to

them about the waves of virtually palpable sound that had awakened

Eduardo Fernandez in the night, about the spectral light in the

woods.

"I thought it would've come from the sky, a ship," she said. "You

expect ... after all the movies, all the books, you expect them to come

in massive ships."

"When you're talking about extraterrestrials, alien means truly

different, deeply strange," Jack said. "Eduardo makes that point on

the first page. Deeply strange, beyond easy comprehension. Nothing we

could imagine--including ships."

"I'm scared about what might happen, what I might have to do," Toby

said. A blast of wind skirled under the back porch roof, as shrill as

an electronic shriek, as questing and insistent as a living creature.

Heather crouched at Toby's side. "We'll be okay, honey. Now that we

know something's out there, and a little bit about what it is, we'll

handle it."

She wished she could be half as confident as she sounded. "But I

shouldn't be scared."

Looking up from the tablet, Jack said, "Nothing shameful about being

afraid, kiddo."

"You're never afraid," the boy said. "Wrong. I'm scared half to death

right now." That revelation amazed Toby. "You are? But you're a

hero."

"Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not. But theres nothing unique about being

a hero," Jack said.

"Most people are heroes. Your mom's a hero, so are you."

"Me?"

"For the way you handled this past year. Took courage to deal with

everything." didn't feel brave."

"Truly brave people never do." said, "Lots of people are heroes even

if they it dodge bullets or chase bad guys." People who go to work

every day, make sacrifices for their families, and get through life

without hurting people if they can help it--those are the real heroes,"