Seize the Night

more crushed flat by depression.
    “Computer analysis revealed that the red sky was an accurate color. Not an error in the video system. And the trees that framed the view of the sky … they were gray and black. Not in shadow. That was the true color. Of the bark. The leaves. Mostly black mottled with gray. We called them trees not because they looked like trees as we know them, but because they were more analogous to trees than to anything else. They were sleek … succulent … less like vegetation than like flesh. Maybe some form of fungus. I don't know. Nobody knew. Eight hours of unchanging red sky and the same black trees—and then something in the sky. Flying. This thing. Flying low. So fast. Only a few frames of it, the image blurred because of its speed. Enhanced it, of course. With the computers. It still wasn't entirely clear. Clear enough. There were lots of opinions. Lots of interpretations. Arguments. Debates. I knew what it was. I think most of us knew, on some deep level, the moment we saw it enhanced. We just couldn't accept it. Psychological block. We argued our way right through the truth, until the truth was behind us and we didn't have to see it anymore. I deluded myself, like all the rest, but I don't delude myself anymore.”
    He settled into silence. A gurgle and splash indicated that he was pouring something out of a bottle into a glass.
    He took a drink of it.
    In silence, Bobby and I sucked at our beers.
    I wondered if you could get beer in this world of the red sky and the fleshy black trees. Although I like a beer occasionally, I would have no difficulty living without it. Now, however, this bottle of Corona in my hand was the avatar of all the countless humble pleasures of daily life, of all that could be lost through human arrogance, and I held fast to it as though it were more precious than diamonds, which in one sense it was.
    Delacroix began to speak in that incomprehensible tongue again, and this time he murmured the same few words over and over, as though chanting in a whisper. As before, though I couldn't understand one word, there was a familiarity in these syllables and in the cadence of his speech that sent a corkscrew chill through the hollows of my spine.
    “He's drunk or kooking out,” Bobby said. “Maybe both.”
    When I began to worry that Delacroix would not continue with his revelations, he switched to English.
    “Should never have sent a manned expedition across. Wasn't on the schedule. Not for years, maybe not ever. But there was another project at Wyvern, one of many others, where something went wrong I don't know what. Something big. Most of the projects, I think … they're just money burning machines. But something went too right in this one. The top brass were scared shitless. Lot of pressure came down on us, pressure for the Mystery Train to speed up. They wanted a good look at the future. To see whether there was any future. They didn't quite put it that way, but everyone involved with the train thought that was their motivation. To see whether this screw up on the other project was going to have major consequences. So against everyone's better judgment, or almost everyone's, we put together the first expedition.”
    Another silence.
    Then more rhythmic, whispery chanting. Bobby said, “There's your mom, bro. The other project, the one that got the top brass scared about the future.”
    “So she wasn't part of the Mystery Train.”
    “The train was just … reconnaissance. Or that's all it was meant to be. But something went way wrong there, too. In fact, maybe what went wrong with the train was the worse of the two.”
    I said, “What do you think was on that videotape? The flying thing, I mean.”
    “I'm hoping the man is gonna tell us.”
    The whispering continued for a minute or more, and in the middle of it, Delacroix hit the stop button.
    When he resumed recording, he was in a new location. The sound quality wasn't as good as before, and there was a steady background noise.
    “Car engine,” Bobby said.
    Engine noise, a faint whistle of wind, and the hum of tires racing over pavement, Delacroix was on the move.
    His driver's license had given an address in Monterey, a couple hours up the coast. He must have left his family's bodies there.
    A whispering arose. Delacroix was talking to himself in such a low voice that we could barely discern he was speaking in the unknown language.
    Gradually, the muttering faded away.
    After a silence, when he