Adam Rausch didn’t leave a message. It was a shameful choice. He was calling his own son, for Christ sake. At first he was relieved when Scotty didn’t pick up. Then the ‘beep’ happened and he didn’t know what to say. How was he supposed to explain his call succinctly with the right framing in the limited seconds allowed by a voicemail? His call was out of left field, unexpected. Heck, it was likely unwanted. And yes, painful, because making contact now would highlight the unforgivable amount of time passed, wasted, where he’d made no contact at all. He hadn’t spoken to Scott in over a year. Hard to casually say ‘Hey, it’s your Dad, what’s up?’ without apologizing, but then any apology is immediately lacking and insensitive. It’s one of those ‘there are no words’ situations. He had no excuse. There’s no reason he couldn’t have checked in with his son once in a while. Adam wasn’t sent off to war, or sequestered in a Federal witness program. He was a capable white collar professional with an office and a phone and a fairly impressive oak desk he dutifully manned forty-plus hours a week.
He should have called before tonight.
He could have called from the phone back in his office. Instead, he got the notion to surprise Scotty with an impromptu visit. Soon as Adam thought of it, all the pieces came together like a perfect plan sitting there all along. It was the middle of Spring quarter. Scotty would definitely be there. And it was a Monday night — well, it would be Tuesday by the time he got there. Point is, it wasn’t a weekend when Scotty might be out with friends or at some party. Yes. Okay. This was happening. Adam would take off after work and just show up, surprise, fun Dad on campus, hey, let’s go grab a steak, put the homework down, let’s go somewhere nice, my treat. He imagined a dinner where they’d each have a martini (had Scotty ever had one? Would be great if he could be there for the first) and dive into real, heartfelt conversation. Maybe order a bottle of good wine. I want to know who you are, what are your dreams, how do you feel about your direction in life? It would be the launch of a new era for them.
He felt excited about it when he grabbed his coat and headed down to his car. There was something crazy and fun about just driving out there on a whim. Why not? He had no obligations at home. His wife was an ex-wife, and she wasn’t even in the same city. He had no meetings the next day, no court dates or calls. It was perfect. It felt like breaking a mold, grabbing life by the horns, whatever the expression was.
He took Route 31 north out of Reno to avoid traffic on 97. At least, that’s what he told himself. And it might even be true, that he was avoiding traffic. Based on Google maps there were slower stretches on 97. There damn sure wasn’t any traffic on 31. Adam was looking at miles of empty highway stretching across the high desert under a stunning night sky, the Milky Way dominating the panoramic expanse above with spectacular clarity, the black silhouette of distant mountains rimming the horizon like the edge of a massive bowl. His Mercedes was the only car speeding across the Summer Lake basin at one in the morning, as a random Monday night gave way to a random Tuesday morning. No doubt about it, Route 31 was clear. It was the scenic way to go. But now, halfway into his nine hour journey, Adam wondered if he chose this way simply because it would take longer and put off the coming confrontation. In fact, thinking about the moment when he hit the junction back in Valley Falls and chose to merge onto 31, he realized that’s all it was. He was putting off the meeting with Scotty. Unconsciously, he opted for the long way.
Too late now.
That’s when he’d decided to call Scotty and give him a heads up. Alone out there speeding through the desert he began to feel like just showing up was maybe not the best idea — maybe it was inconsiderate bordering on obnoxious. He could call and if Scotty had a bad reaction it would be easy to make a detour, find a motel to sleep off the whole plan before turning back. He chickened out when the call went to voice mail. Showing up in person seemed better than leaving some lame message.
So he kept driving.
He rubbed his eyes and finished the last of the coffee in his travel mug.
The orange light in the distance seemed odd. Had it been there long? He couldn’t remember it not being there, but now that he was aware of it, he couldn’t explain what it was. Probably a vehicle. Maybe pulled to the side of the road ahead, because it didn’t seem to be moving. But that didn’t quite make sense, the vehicle explanation, because it was a single light, not two headlights, and its color was a muted orange, almost like a solitary streetlight hovering above the highway, or a dying flashlight shining at him from a stranger on the road.
Of course, lights on a desert highway at night didn’t always make sense. Dry air combined with the vast flatlands can confuse your depth perception. You get ghost lights, where distant headlights can appear to be hovering, and you can’t judge how far away they are. It could be two lights appearing as one because they’re so far away. Once he closed in, the light would reveal itself, maybe a semi truck in the middle of a long haul.
Except the light never got closer. The cruise control kept him at 85, the yellow dashes dividing the highway a steady blur, the wild desert landscape rushing past the edges of his bright LED high beams. But that orange glow remained in the distance. It was the strangest thing. It was just there, independent of his driving toward it. You might think it was a star, but it wasn’t part of the sky. It was closer, more Earthbound. The way it hung above the highway seemed almost threatening, its presence head-on with his bearing.
What the heck was it?
He seemed to be on a collision course, if it weren’t for the odd sense that he would never reach it at all. He blinked his eyes thinking he was imagining it. But there it was, glowing persistently, blinking or not.
The highway lifted, inclined a bit, and the mysterious orange light dipped below the horizon leaving just the black night and a sea of distant stars. Then, as he sped over the crest of the hill and down again, the light was there. It confirmed the source was physically aligned with the landscape, floating some amount of feet above the highway.
“What the fuck,” he said out loud.
He checked his phone and the Google maps app tracking his drive for any explanation of what might be generating the orange glow. There was no town ahead, no landmarks he could attribute to the light. This was the middle of nowhere. 150 miles to Eugene, 25 miles to the next gas station. He was on course and on plan. Except directly ahead was some damn light aiming right at him.
If it was out his left window in the sky over the mountains it wouldn’t be a big deal. Some satellite or Elon Musk rocket experiment. He could enjoy it as a mystery, check on it now and again, but it wouldn’t be a mental obstacle or a growing concern. This was different. The way it hovered directly ahead, right where he had to look, it was aggressively in his view.
Yet it had a softness about it. He could watch it comfortably without squinting. It had the gentle aura of a ghost longing to remain among the living.
He turned on the radio hoping to catch a newscaster in the middle of explaining the mystery: “The light first appeared at 7:15pm just outside the small town of Paisley near Picture Rock Pass, and has been in the sky ever since. Drivers wondering about it can rest assured, authorities are sending a massive amount of firepower to investigate and will destroy it if necessary.” But there were no comforting reports to be found, just static one end of the dial to the other. No stations were broadcasting that he could find.
“What are you?” he said.
I’m just happy to be here.
The answer was in his thoughts. He ‘knew’ the phrase like it was his own idea, a thought occurring to him like any other — have a drink from your travel mug, itch your nose, call that client back . . . Why do any thoughts arise? They just do. He has no agency in their creation.
They say that’s how all decisions happen, that we have no free will. We create stories after the fact, convince ourselves we made decisions when the thought was already there. We rationalize and pretend we had anything to do with it. Adam wasn’t sure he believed that, but that’s how this phrase seemed, like an idea that hits you in the shower. Who knows where it comes from, but it’s there as real as the hot water bearing down. And somehow he knew this answer emanated from the orange glow.
Then another phrase became known to him.
They thought it might be a good time.
Again, Adam ‘heard’ the phrase in his head like a song that plays in your mind and you don’t know why. He found himself responding out loud in his car to nobody: “I don’t know what you mean.”
Then, effortlessly, he did know. He knew it fully and all at once. Like in a dream where you enter an odd place and it isn’t odd to you at all — you simply understand the situation.
Adam had a dream like this a few nights ago, the kind that would make no sense if you tried to describe it. But in the dream it all made sense to him. It was so vivid. He was wandering in a garbage dump, walking the cleared dirt paths between mounds of appliances and bottles and car parts. Only the paths weren’t dirt, but that spongy flooring you find in gyms surrounding racks of free weights. Why was he dreaming about a garbage dump? There was no obvious reason — it’s not like Adam Rausch had ever worked in a garbage dump or even been in one. He must have imagined the place based on scenes in movies or TV shows. But in the dream he understood it was a real garbage dump and knew it went for miles in every direction — yet another element that would be preposterous in reality.
In the dream, Adam was looking for his Converse high tops in the mounds of trash and he was in boxers and a T shirt and, again, it all made sense. He knew a truck had arrived and dumped his sneakers in one of these mounds and he was wandering the dump in his white athletic socks searching for them. He didn’t question it. The whole story was simply there, fully understood.
That’s how it was with this voice in his head. One moment it was speaking like a separate entity and Adam had no idea what it was talking about. The next moment he fully understood, the same way he knew he was in his car driving through the high desert.
And what he understood was this: the orange light hovering above the horizon was projected by alien life forms, reaching him from across the universe, too far away to travel. The voice was one of these life forms, communicating through this signal. This voice was nearing the end of its life span on its home world — Adam understood the alien speaking to him to be very old rather than ill — and this entity was among the few in its world with the resources to afford this opportunity, speaking with Adam through this beam of energy.
It was a lot of information to take in, yet it took no effort at all.
The alien presence felt complex — powerful and confident yet respectful all at once. It wasn’t aggressive. It was here looking for permission.
It won’t work any other way.
“How many of you are there?”
He meant how many of these entities were on Earth right now. Of course, he didn’t need to clarify. The voice understood what he meant. The answer appeared in Adam’s mind: A lot, but exactly how many this entity did not know. The voice was simply a customer in line.
Adam wondered if the voice was male or female. He was thinking it was male for reasons he couldn’t explain.
You are correct.
Adam had pulled to the side of the road and cut his engine. He didn’t remember doing it.
“Are you controlling me?”
No, no. This is only a transmission.
“But you want something from me.”
Our Watchers suspected you might be open to the process.
“The process?”
Yes. We have the ability, through this signal, to bring me there, the essence of me. It will let me live on for a time, past when my body here is gone. It’s truly incredible, that this is even possible. At least for the few who can afford it. But you have to be open to it. You have to let go, stop exerting energy into being here. Only then can they initiate the transition.
“What does that mean? To stop exerting energy?”
It takes energy to exist. You can ease off. You can let go. That will free the space for me to arrive.
“And if I let go, as you ask —”
No, no. I’m not asking. I am simply standing by. Just in case you are open to the transition. Our Watchers targeted you as a likely candidate.
“But I’m trying to understand, if I stop exerting energy towards being here, as you put it, what’s the result? We share my life?”
No, no. There can not be two.
Adam thought of Emily Rausch. The image of her that came to him, she was in those jeans and a white ribbed tank top at a park, sunny day, she was happy — where were they? Some trip they took. She’d kept the Rausch name. After eleven years married it was simply her name. He didn’t remember her even considering going back to the name she had in college. Emily Rausch was how she was known in the world.
Emily used to call once a week at least, even after she moved away. She’d find a reason to touch base. Sometimes she really needed something from him — how to set the sprinklers, log into the Ring camera. But those calls faded. She did not call anymore. He first thought it had been six months since they spoke, then realized their last call was just before Christmas two years ago. Shit.
She was asking him about presents, trying to coordinate.
- Do you know what you’re getting Scotty?
- I haven’t thought about it yet.
- You need to get him something. Don’t just do the gift card.
- I’m not doing a gift card. I’m getting him something, I just haven’t had time to —
- Don’t yell at me.
He hadn’t heard from Emily since. He had the awful thought he did give Scotty a gift card that year. Shit. Did he? He couldn’t remember. What did they even do for Christmas that year? Oh, right. He remembered sitting with Scott in a red plastic booth at the In-N-Out near the casinos, straining to convince himself it was a fun way to share the holiday. He told himself his son felt the same, but in his gut he knew it was one of the most pathetic experiences he’d ever forced his son into. He felt another sting of regret, remembering the look on Scotty’s face. The way the kid stared out the window at the parking lot, the line of cars in line for the drive-through, wishing he was anywhere else.
It seemed like a great idea at the time, having a burger and fries and calling it Christmas. Adam was in the middle of moving to the place on Arlington and he didn’t have his kitchen up and running. He’d promised Kathy they would do Christmas at her place. He wasn’t going to bring Scotty into that mess. How long had it been since he saw Kathy? She took that job in Tahoe, but he never heard what happened after that.
Wow. Time just moved along. Adam survived his days imagining things would be different down the road. Yet he realized, he did nothing to change things. And everyone in his life expected nothing more from him. He just did his job and made his money.
Above the orange glow, he saw the quick flash of a shooting star across the Milky Way. Pretty cool.
* * *
The electronic tones were loud, two jarring notes imitating a domestic doorbell generated from a plastic box above the glass door of the 7-11, alerting the cashier someone came in.
Well. So much for that. Zack’s streak of three shifts in a row without a single customer after Midnight was officially over. He worked the 10-6 graveyard Monday through Thursday. He glanced at the time on his register and saw it was 2:11 AM. The guy who came in was well dressed. Looked like he walked off the set of Shark Tank. Probably on a road trip to somewhere else. No one in Oakridge dressed like that, and definitely not at 2AM.
What was the dude doing? He was standing by the entrance surveying the store like he was thinking of buying the place. He stood and admired the well-stocked shelves of Kit Kats and Jolly Ranchers and Swedish Fish and Cheetos, the refrigerated displays of pre-made sandwiches, ham and cheese on wheat or egg salad or the stale Italian combo. Then he gazed at the back wall of coolers full of Coke Zeros and beer like it was El Dorado, legendary city of gold, and he’d arrived to claim it all.
Was he tearing up? It looked like he might have a tear. But he was smiling.
Zack decided to check in, make sure the dude wasn’t nuts. “Can I help you find something?”
The man looked at Zack, the smile holding on his face, and said, “I’m just happy to be here.”
