David awoke in his darkened bedroom to moving
shadows. Pale green light shown through his window.
He padded from his bedroom on bare feet and paused at
the top of the basement stairs in the kitchen. The stench of alcohol
warned against going down for help. He continued on his way to the patio
door, peeking through parted curtains.
A glass egg the size of an apartment building hung
suspended in the night sky, centered in its depths by an emerald glimmer
like green fire that left afterimages swirling in his field of vision. The airborne jewel moved out over the slope and stopped above a towering
stand of young spruce. There, a white light dribbled downward, a wiggly,
crawling line of brilliance like something alive, moving faster as it
descended, piercing the trees to the ground, then ascending back into the
object and vanishing.
And then the egg itself began to ascend, slowly at
first. It shot to a higher altitude at an angle and paused for a
time. David gazed up at it, dimly wishing it would stay put long enough
for him to wake his father. Even as he considered the challenge, the
object darted vertically and disappeared into a sky full of stars.
He glanced in dread at the dark stand of spruce, then
turned away on shaky legs. Once in flight, fear pursued him through the
darkened house.
Novels by
William G. Tedford