Jeremy Finley - The Dark Above

Please let his family either be disconnected or completely unaware. Even if they wake up to the news, it was still at least a five-hour drive from Nashville. He had to get in, get out, and be long gone before they would arrive.

He rushed at a crouch. The cotton stretched to six feet, but he could still clear it with his height. He started moving through the rows, doing his best not to make the stalks completely shake. It was not out of the question to suspect that drones would be launched at daylight. He once opened his dorm room window only to hear the buzzing of a tricopter hovering outside.

It meant passing through row after row, holding the shafts to keep them from quivering too much, even if it meant scrapes from the bolls.

He finally emerged at the edge of the yard, where he could see the frame of the trailer outlined by the lights of the cameras. The farmer from whom he rented the place dumped it among the crops intentionally; he’d told his wife he needed a place for him and his workers to cool off in the worst of the summer heat. In reality, he’d moved his girlfriend in for lunchtime visits, until his wife one day showed up with Chinese takeout. Needing to make some extra money to pay alimony, he’d advertised for a renter.

The photographers’ lights were focused on the front of the trailer, leaving enough darkness in the back for him to slip through to reach the back door.

William fumbled with his keys, thankful for the landlord’s lack of interest in providing security or outdoor lighting.

He quietly closed the door and turned around to see a small shape sitting on the couch.

The lights from outside, set on stands to brighten the faces of the reporters preparing for the morning news, shone through the blinds to reveal a girl, her legs barely touching the floor. Her hair was done up in braids with white hair ties.

William gaped for a second. “How did you get in here?”

“Mr. Chance, please forgive the intrusion.”

He jumped at the woman’s voice. She stood up from where she was sitting on the edge of one of his mismatched chairs, thick round glasses pushed up to contain a mane of curly hair, wearing a dark vest with some kind of emblem. “I am so sorry to bust in here like this. I cannot get her to leave. For a little girl who has barely made a peep in the last twenty-four hours, she’s a stubborn one. When we pulled up down the street just a few minutes ago, she got out and ran through the fields. I could barely keep up. She just walked around the back and let herself in. Lily said she could find you, and she was right.”

He wanted to pound himself on the forehead. In his haste to leave last night, he’d never locked the back door.

“I don’t know who you people are, but you’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

The girl stared at him without blinking, the whites of her eyes contrasting sharply to her dark black skin. She wore shorts and a T-shirt with a cat on the front and the word “cool” written above it.

“Again, I am so sorry,” the woman continued. “We wanted to call you but there was no number—”

William moved past her. “You’ve got to go.”

“I’m Lois Jumper.” She followed him down the hall. “That’s Lily in your living room. I’m an agent with the Investigative Services Branch of the National Park Service–”

“Lady, I’m going to need you not to follow me,” William said as he entered his bedroom, closing the door.

“I know this is unorthodox, it certainly is for us,” she said through the door. “But you have to understand. Rangers found that girl in the middle of the national park in North Dakota less than two days ago. Mr. Chance, we have no idea where she came from. She barely speaks. It’s like she just appeared out of nowhere.”

He’d heard so many stories like this over the years. People at Target, in the line at Bobbie’s Dairy Dip, in the beer garden at M.L. Rose. People with fantastical or bizarre stories, from sharks with two heads to the Taos Hum. The worst was always the stories about a missing loved one. Do you think it’s aliens?

His mother would always respond like an angry lioness, all five foot two of her. Please don’t , she would intervene. Please don’t bother my son.

He’d had his own disastrous exchanges, especially when people insulted his family. Once some frat guy at a bar had pointed his finger at his brother Brian, slurring, “Aren’t you the one who stopped talking for like a year? You missed the aliens by this much .” William had hit him squarely in the jaw, and Brian had yanked him out before police had been called.

“You have to leave. Please,” William called out. He stuffed some jeans and T-shirts into a backpack and reached under the bed to pull out the wad of cash he kept stashed in a plastic bag.

“Mr. Chance, Lily has barely spoken beyond saying her first name. We’ve tried to figure out where she came from. When I took her to my office, she was given a phone to play a game while we began our investigation, and she suddenly started talking. She showed us the alert about your appearance and kept saying, ‘He knows, he knows.’ Over and over. She said she could find you. Given the seriousness of this, I got the authority to fly us here on a red-eye. Sir, you’ve got to understand that you’re our only hope at this point. And there’s more. I don’t know if you’re following what’s happening in North Dakota—”

William slid the bag onto his back and opened the door, breezing past her. “Lady, I’ve never seen that girl in my life—”

He almost ran into the girl, who was standing at the end of the hallway.

“Excuse me,” William said, moving around her and heading for the door.

“Mr. Chance, please. She can describe you with incredible detail. She knew how to get into this trailer. We need to understand what she’s talking about. She won’t elaborate, but indicates you know her—”

“Lady!” William turned around to find the girl now standing just two feet behind him. “I cannot help you. I have no explanation for you. You are breaking and entering, and I could call the cops.”

“I am a cop, Mr. Chance. I’m a federal criminal investigator, and right now, you’re our only lead in the case of a little girl found in the middle of an empty canyon that happens to be the center of a major disaster—”

“I wish I could help. I’ve never been to North Dakota, and I’ve never seen her before. And unless you’ve got a warrant, you can’t be in here.”

Lois hustled towards him as he opened the door. “She also keeps repeating the same thing over and over that troubles us even more. Mr. Chance, please don’t make me use my arrest privileges—”

“I come from a long line of lawyers, ma’am,” he said, stepping out. “I know what it takes to make an arrest, and you don’t have it….”

His words choked in his throat. On the far eastern corner of the yard, a group of shapes began to step out from the cotton.

Crap. People are starting to sneak around through the fields.

“This is private property!” he called out, sprinting down the stairs. “You’re trespassing!”

“Mr. Chance, stop!” Lois ordered.

Another voice, deeper and definitely male, yelled his name.

This is now completely out of control, he thought as he leapt through the cotton. At least the emerging crowd was coming from the east and the Jeep was parked beyond the western edge of the fields.

You can get to the Jeep. You can get to the Jeep.

He ran, heedless of trying to pass through undetected. Halfway through the fifth row he heard the sound of someone following behind and hissing through their teeth at the pain.

He turned to the little girl, pulling one of the hard bracts from a cotton boll off her shirt.