The Spaceship Next Door

¹³ MEET THE JONESES

Everything slowed down for Annie.

Even in her own house, she was unaccustomed to sitting still and staying put for even a day. Sure, she spent most of her evenings in the living room, rewatching one of the films her mother clung to (somewhat inexplicably, as the movies were not from her childhood at all) until bedtime. But her days were usually new adventures with each sunrise.

Or so she liked to tell herself. The truth was, in the summer she migrated between the same three or four places, and in the other nine months most of her day was spent at school. Still, that was high excitement compared to anything happening in Violet’s day-to-day.

First, there was the Sunday morning awkwardness.

Annie waited until she was reasonably certain her friend was awake before knocking on Vi’s bedroom door to ask about Todd

“Oh, no, he’s not… he’s on vacation,” Violet said, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I’m sorry, it didn’t even occur to me to… I mean, you’re used to not having your dad around, so you probably assumed Todd wasn’t.”

I assumed he wasn’t because he never has been before, Annie thought. This was maybe the second or third time she’d seen him, in six years.

“Maybe, yeah. I don’t mean to pry, Violet, I really don’t, but what was he doing wandering around in the woods at midnight?”

Violet adopted an expression familiar to anyone who’d been embarrassed by their parents at one time or another.

“Oh, that. He does that, I don’t even understand. He has this whole ‘back to nature’ thing he does when he’s on break. He says it’s to compensate for being behind a desk all day. I should have warned you but I don’t even think about it any more. Not that I imagined you being up so late. Didn’t you sleep?”

“A little, yeah. I’m a mess, Vi, don’t mind me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Violet gave her a quick hug. “Now let’s go get some food.”

“Okay. But you’d tell me if your dad was a werewolf, right?”

“No, probably not. It’s not a full moon, though, so I think we’re okay.”

BREAKFAST WAS JUST the two of them. Annie wasn’t sure what part of the house Susan and Todd slept in—there were only a couple of options, really—but wherever it was, they hadn’t emerged yet. That was provided Todd wasn’t out wandering somewhere.

Annie wasn’t sure Susan’s diet even involved food. It certainly didn’t involve condiments.

After breakfast, they returned to the Super to pick up more things, and then back to the house. It was late afternoon when Violet asked Annie if she wanted to help in the garden that Annie realized her best friend in the world was impossibly boring in her natural habitat.

“Sure, I’d love to garden,” Annie lied.

She did a lot of the gardening at her own house because her mother wasn’t strong enough to do everything, but they only grew one crop. She was admittedly curious about what a garden that grew something other than marijuana might look like, but not curious enough to get her hands dirty.

Nonetheless, that was what she ended up doing. It was that or try and find a book to read in the library, but that would have meant getting past Susan, who’d taken the time while they were out shopping to decamp in there once more.

First, Annie tried getting on the Internet. She brought a laptop from home, and knew Violet had one as well, yet when Annie tried connecting to the Wi-Fi, the computer kept failing. So did her phone. Yet with the same password, Vi’s worked fine.

When she asked Violet to help her figure out what was wrong, she said she’d talk to Todd the next time she saw him. When Annie followed that up by asking if she could use Vi’s computer instead, she said, “I’d rather you didn’t,” without elaboration.

Annie wasn’t sure what the big deal was.

Like most Sorrow Falls kids, Annie had only a limited social media presence as herself. (Many of them, she was sure, had pseudonymous identities, although she didn’t.) From the day the ship landed onward, pretty much anyone online who could be identified as a denizen of space invasion ground zero was a target.

Annie kept her public profile low and her interactions few, and gossiped face-to-face instead. But that didn’t mean the Internet wasn’t an excellent way to keep track of the rest of the world, especially from her tiny corner of it. She knew Violet treated the Internet much the same way, albeit with an even lower profile. She couldn’t imagine doing anything on her friend’s computer that Violet would disapprove of.

By late Sunday, then, Annie had literally nothing better to do than work in the garden.

Violet’s garden was a lot larger. It took up enough of the plot in the back of the house to nearly qualify as a proper farm, Annie decided. It was a gross exaggeration, but she was sticking with it, especially after an hour into the weeding. She and Vi did this mostly in silence, broken by periodic “is this a weed or are you growing this intentionally?” conversations brought about by Annie’s general unfamiliarity with vegetable plants.

Todd walked by about eighty minutes in. He came from the woods and headed right through the center of the garden, not apparently noticing either of them.

“Hi, Todd,” Violet said.

“Hello,” he answered, without turning. He went inside.

Annie decided yes, he was exactly as creepy-weird as he seemed the night before.

“Hey, do you remember a lot about your birth dad?” Annie asked.

Vi seemed taken aback by the question. Maybe it was the timing of it—Todd having just walked past—or that it hadn’t been a subject of discussion for a long time. Mostly, Annie was just looking for something to talk about.

She and Vi had been friends for six years. They were perhaps two years into that friendship when Annie became aware of something that would have been obvious sooner to someone with an adult-level grasp of genetics: Violet didn’t look anything like Susan or Todd. It was another two months before she brought it up.

The short version of the explanation was that Violet was adopted. The longer version was that her birth father was a scary man. It wasn’t something twelve-year old Annie ever thought to ask, but there were times when she wondered if the Joneses weren’t living in isolation entirely by choice.

“Objection,” Violet said.

“Grounds?”

“Irrelevance.”

“The court recognizes your objection but asks that the witness respond to the line of inquiry.”

“Annie, you can’t be the attorney and the judge at the same time.”

“Overruled.”

Violet sighed, but was unwilling to face a contempt of court charge.

“I remember a lot about him. Why do you ask?”

“I dunno. Part of me always imagined you were secretly in witness protection up here. And your dad was some mobster and you testified against him.”

“That’s a good story.”

“Thanks, I’ve been working on it for a while.”

“It’s not true, but it’s still a good story.”

Annie threw a chunk of dirt at Vi.

“C’mon, it makes so much sense!”

“You think that’s the answer to why we live up here? The home-schooling, the macro diets, all that?”

“Yes!”

“Sorry. Todd and Susan wanted a certain kind of life and built that life, and I happened to agree with their choices. I like it out here.”

“All right, fine, if he’s not in the mafia, what’s his deal? Is he the president? Is your dad the president?”

“Like Grover Cleveland’s love child? Yes, that’s exactly it.”

“I’m gonna throw more dirt.”

“You make everything so complicated. He isn’t anybody. He just wanted me to have a different kind of life than this. That’s all.”

“And you aren’t hiding from him.”

“I’m not hiding from him. That doesn’t mean I ever want to see him again, either. He had a temper… Annie, I really don’t want to talk about him. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I was just looking for something more interesting than gardening to talk about.”

“There is nothing more important than gardening.”

“I object.”

“Overruled.”

SUNDAY NIGHT WAS SPENT SOMEWHAT NORMALLY, in terms of their friendship: movie night, featuring The Wizard of Oz. There were a hundred plus films from which to choose sitting in Annie’s living room at home, but they all required a VCR, which Violet didn’t have. They agreed that going over to Annie’s to watch something else would end up with them being tempted to just stay overnight there and return in the morning.

Perhaps Ed’s somewhat paranoid concern was rubbing off on Annie, but she decided even if Susan gave them a pass it still wasn’t okay. In case something happened. Nothing was going to happen, but once it was in her head she couldn’t get rid of the idea.

Violet had a copy of her favorite film in a format even older than VCR: she had an honest-to-God 8mm movie theater copy of it, and a movie projector to watch it on. It meant projecting it on the wall of Vi’s bedroom, and changing the reel halfway through, and dealing with the crappy speakers on the projector—so actually, every aspect of the experience was inferior to every other way they’d watched it—but it was fun. It was a new experience, and even though she’d seen the movie a hundred times by now, the technology gave her a chance to pretend it was a new adventure.

Monday was the worst day. There was no more shopping to do, and no more gardening to get done, and Violet couldn’t get the Wi-Fi to let Annie’s devices in. After two hour-long conversations with Carol, Annie gave up and wandered into the library—ignoring Susan—for long enough to grab whatever book she thought might be worth an hour or two of her time. It ended up being a collection of Lovecraft stories.

She knew four or five profoundly nerdy kids who spoke of Lovecraft with the quiet reverence less-nerdy kids reserved for Kurt Cobain, Catcher in the Rye, or the Bible. (Depending on the kid, obviously.) Annie knew exactly nothing of Lovecraft, but his was the only name she recognized on any of the books in the library, so she grabbed it, and spent the afternoon trying to figure out what the big deal was.

She came out of the book a few hours later with a greater appreciation for Poe and a diminished opinion of her nerdy friends. Then she called Carol one more time, went to bed early, and had at least one nightmare involving ancient gods with unpronounceable names.

When she got downstairs the next morning Ed was already there, in the kitchen, chatting with Susan.

She could have kissed him.

“Morning, Annie, how are you?” he greeted.

“Great! Let’s go!”

“I was just… okay,” he said, as she was already past him by then and on the porch. She sat in the passenger’s seat of the car—she was possibly even happier to see the car again—while he finished up having whatever boring conversation he was having in the boring house with boring Susan.

“Everything okay?” he asked, starting the car.

“Super. I’m losing my mind here; let’s go do exciting things. Did you have a fun few days? Tell me every last detail.”

“Um, okay. I saw your library yesterday.”

“Did you? Did you see the mural? What did you think?”

“I’ve seen it before, in pictures, but—”

“Actually, forget that. What happened at the army base? I’ve heard stories.”

“SO ZOMBIES, that’s what you’re telling me.”

“I’m telling you what the information we’ve been collecting has led me to think,” Ed said. “I appreciate how crazy it is.”

“No kidding.”

“But you live in a town with an interstellar vehicle parked in it. Why not zombies too?”

“Sure. And I mean, I’ve been hearing the same stuff, but not from anyone I took seriously.”

Annie told him about Rick Horton and his late-night undead encounter in a cow pasture. Meanwhile, on the other side of the diner, Beth kept shooting glances her way.

They were in a booth in the back of Joanne’s. It was the same one Ed was in the first time they met. They drove to the diner directly from Violet’s, after Ed figured out Annie hadn’t eaten yet (all Vi knew how to do in the kitchen was burn bacon) and before they realized they didn’t have as busy a day as anticipated. The meeting they were supposed to have with Desmond Hollis was pushed to the end of the day, and the plan to head to city hall to speak to a couple of councilmen got blown up when the council canceled the day’s session. No official reason was given for this, and if there was an unofficial reason, Annie had been away from town for too long to hear what it was.

Beth, hopefully, had something on it.

“How long ago was that?” Ed asked.

“I heard the story the day you and I met.”

“I mean, when did your friend see this?”

“Not sure. And he isn’t my friend. I could ask him if I run into him, or we can call Rodney and see if he knows. Might come off as kind of weird though, dialing him up to ask that.”

“You can’t look up Rick?”

“Like I said, he isn’t my friend. And he’s not easy to track down.”

Ed smiled. “Annie Collins, I thought you were friends with everyone in this town.”

“I said I know everyone in this town. I don’t happen to like all of them. He is one such person. But, I can find him if you really want to talk.”

“It’s okay. Probably not important enough to go through the trouble. It’s only that he might have the earliest reported sighting. I thought we might want to establish a timeline.”

“Yeah, well I’m about 50% not sold on the zombie theory right now. And I’m not even supposed to be the adult in this partnership. I’m gonna go say hey to Beth. Maybe come up with a vampire angle instead, while I’m gone.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Beth stepped around the counter when she approached, put down a coffee urn, and gave Annie a big hug.

“You snuck in here without even a hello first!” Beth said, releasing Annie only to smack her on the arm. “I was so worried! When I heard about Carol…”

“She’s fine. She’ll be fine, I mean. I talked to her three times yesterday; she’s in good spirits. Everything positive all the time, you know how she is.”

“Where are you staying? Not home alone, right? I know it’s not with your reporter friend, I would have heard about that.”

“Stop it.”

“Look, any time you want to stay with us, I mean you know my parents already want to adopt you… I mean…”

Beth blushed furiously.

“Not that you need adopting,” Beth said quickly. “I mean Carol…!”

“It’s fine, oh my God calm down. I’m staying with Violet, but I’ll let you know if I need any help, don’t worry.”

“Oh, okay. Have I met Violet?”

“I think probably. She’s a neighbor. Hey, so we were supposed to talk to a few folks down at city hall this morning, but it sounds like they’re closed. Is something up?”

“I don’t think so, I think people are just sick.”

“Like, collectively?”

“No, but there’s something going around. It’s not like they have a lot of hugely important votes going on anyway.”

This was true. Local government’s central function was to make sure the trash was collected and the streets were plowed in the winter. Aside from that, they planned the occasional festival and put up commemorative plaques. The first year after the ship, the council was extremely important and extremely busy, because every day there were five new businesses looking for real estate, and there were liquor licenses and building permits needed everywhere. Not a lot had changed since that year, though.

“Okay, thanks. Hey, we have some folks to talk up down at the mill, can we leave the car around back?”

“Sure, nobody’ll care.”

“No towing, today?”

“No need, it’s Tuesday. Nobody’s around.”

“Thank you, girl. We’ll talk later.”

Annie returned to the table.

“I guess city hall called in sick today,” she said.

“What, all of them?”

Annie shrugged. “It’s a part time job, they probably didn’t have anything cool to vote on, and Beth said there’s something going around.”

“What kind of something?”

“I dunno. Want me to ask? Maybe it’s a zombie plague.”

“You’re not going to drop that any time soon, are you?”

“Looks like no.”