When he opened the fridge again, pulled out another beer, and held it out to her, she said, “No way. How can you drink right now?”
“You should have one. Here, seriously, it’ll make things easier.”
“Ugh. No. I’ve barely eaten today, and it’s stupid to drink when you have the stomach flu.”
“We don’t have the stomach flu.”
She sighed. “What is going on? Stop acting all traumatized and mysterious and just tell me, please, so I can go lie down.”
“Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with us, but I think it had something to do with the light.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I was freaked out this morning. I thought maybe the light was radiation. Because this morning I’m sick as hell and the power was out, and the internet was down. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about the light.” At her horrified expression, he shook his head. “It’s better now. I haven’t thrown up in an hour, and I don’t feel sick anymore. Just—just wired.”
“I . . . don’t think the power was out for me this morning. I don’t remember if I turned on any lights or anything then. No one else saw anything that I can tell, and there’s nothing on the news, right? I mean, not that I’ve found . . .”
“It’s not that,” Ben said. “Or, there is more to it.” His forehead glistened with sweat in the late afternoon light. He rummaged through a drawer by the sink and pulled out a small blue flashlight. “C’mon.”
Andre followed him out to their backyard again. “What are we doing?”
He didn’t answer but stopped at the shed. “Shh!” He turned to her, so serious with a finger to his lips. She laughed.
There was a thudding sound from inside the shed. They both jumped. “I came out here this morning, and the door was open . . . I found something,” he said finally.
“Something?”
“Someone. I don’t know.”
“Wait! What?” Andre tugged at his shirt as he went to open the door. “Whoa, maybe we should call the police, or animal control, depending on whatever you’re talking about.”
He opened the door.
It was a huge shed, made years ago by Ben’s grandfather. It smelled of must and childhood. Ben’s old tricycle leaned against the wall towards them. There were crates with tools stacked haphazardly on makeshift plywood shelves; an old lawn mower; folded deck chairs; rusted patio furniture; a small, round trampoline; boxes of mason jars. In the far corner was an old deck swing, tiny and rusted. A shaft of weak, brownish light drifted down from the small window in the corner.
Seconds passed while Ben waved the light around. “There!” He shined the light in the far left corner, below the window.
“Did you move stuff?” Several boxes had been stacked together and shifted to the right to make a free space where a sort of nest had been formed from an old tablecloth and an opened umbrella.
“No. It made itself at home, I guess.”
“It?”
Andre took a step closer. Something small huddled beneath an old picnic tablecloth. Ben clenched his hands into fists, experiencing the same intoxicating rush he’d had the first time he’d seen it, but now he was emboldened by the presence of Andre and the alcohol in his system. And there was some validation, too. He’d not imagined it.
“What the . . .” Andre stepped forward, squinting.
A figure could barely be made out behind the tablecloth covering it. After a moment, it moved, and there emerged the suggestion of a shoulder, and pale, gossamer hair. The figure was small—too small. The rest of it was slumped down on its knees beneath the tablecloth leaning against the wall. The face was turned away. The top of the tablecloth shifted slightly. Andre blinked and stepped farther into the room, frowning.
What they were seeing did not make sense. Ben’s heart started hammering again, and the whole world turned sideways. He was seasick.
“Maybe . . .” Andre said softly. Then she balked. “Let’s go.” She stumbled back and knocked over a ceramic desk lamp. It didn’t break, but the noise caused the figure in the corner to peek out from beneath the blanket. And then they couldn’t move once they saw a glimpse of its eyes.
“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” Ben said breathlessly, taking a step closer. “Just God. Just look!”
Andre whimpered, her knees wobbled, and she dropped onto them. Ben placed one hand on her shoulder. With his other, he adjusted the flashlight so as not to put a direct spotlight on what was beneath the tablecloth. Andre turned to look at him, and their eyes met for a moment, soaking up the sacred strangeness of it all. The moment had a personality. It was self-aware, poised, and graceful, a drifting soap bubble saying, “Look at me, remember this. Remember when everything changed.” Then Andre’s phone vibrated loudly in her pocket. She pulled it out and silenced it. Ben took a step closer to the figure. He’d only glimpsed the face beneath once, and now the figure was shielded under the tablecloth again.
“Hello?” Andre spoke in an exceedingly gentle voice and shuffled on her knees forward until she was only a few feet from it.
Ben experimented, turning off the flashlight and trying to see with just daylight behind them through the open door and the one tiny window. “It might not understand us,” he whispered. It was too dark without the flashlight. He turned it back on.
“Why do you keep saying ‘it’?” Andre whispered. On her hands and knees, she slowly resumed moving closer and passed Ben. “Hey there,” she said softly. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
And then Andre was only a foot away. Ben cracked his knuckles. Andre reached over to remove the tablecloth, but Ben put his hand on her arm to stop her. Dark possibilities tumbled around in his mind’s eye—talons reaching out, acid being spewed at them. Glacial seconds ticked by. Finally, the creature moved a little, and the cloth dropped from the left side to reveal the flash of a huge golden eye peeking out. It covered itself immediately again.
Andre licked her lips and looked back and forth from Ben to the figure. “I’m going to move this tablecloth, okay?”
He swallowed and gave her a little nod. Andre gently tugged the tablecloth down.
Ben looked away. He heard Andre’s sharp intake of breath and then, softly, “Oh my god.” He finally looked again. At first, the puffy hair concealed most of its face. It wasn’t until he leaned in and saw, really saw, that he could confirm he’d not imagined that first impression. Several hours earlier, he’d stumbled out of the shed in blind terror, a singular panic lancing through his nervous system.
It was not right.
Before them was something like a person, but the eyes were too big in proportion to the rest of the face. The overall shape of the head and face was impossible, like an ostentatiously perfect and beautiful figurine come to life. Large pointed ears rose like beech leaves from either side of the head. The most irrefutably inhuman quality was the diminutive size of its body. It was like a living puppet—larger than a doll, smaller than a child, and lean as an adult.
“Oh my god,” Andre murmured over and over until it turned into a chant. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” She finally put one hand over her mouth and held up the other in a gentle, conciliatory gesture. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” It wasn’t clear if she was talking to the being in front of them or to herself. The creature looked back and forth between them. There was never a question of intelligence. Gears of sophisticated thought obviously worked behind those huge shimmering eyes. “What?” Andre shook her head, unable to fully form a question. “Oh, you’re not possible.”