Strangers

less than half a mile to Vista Valley Road," Parker said, studying the map in the light from the open glove-compartment door.
        Snow drove relentlessly through the yellow cones of the headlights. Now and then, when the wind faltered or briefly changed the angle of its assault, short-lived forms of snow capered in arabesque dances, this way and that, but always dispersing and vanishing like ghostly performers the moment that the wind recovered its momentum and purpose.
        As they started up a steep slope, Parker said softly, "Something came down… And if the government knew enough to close I-80 ahead of the event, they must've been tracking the craft a long time. But I still don't see how they could know where it would come down. I mean, the crew of the ship might've changed its course at any time."
        "Unless it was crashing," Father Wycazik said. "Maybe it was picked up by satellite observation far out in space, monitored for days or weeks. If it approached on an undeviating course that would indicate it wasn't traveling under control, there'd have been time to calculate its point of impact."
        "Oh, no. No. I don't want to think it crashed," Parker said.
        "Nor do I."
        "I want to think they got here alive… all that way."
        When the Jeep Cherokee was halfway up the slope, the tires spun on an especially icy patch of ground, then caught hold and propelled them forward again with a jolt.
        Parker said, "I want to believe Dom and the others didn't just see a ship… but encountered whoever came in it. Imagine. Just imagine…"
        Father Wycazik said, "Whatever happened to them that night in July was very strange indeed, a whole lot stranger than just seeing a ship from another world."
        "You mean… because of Brendan's and Dom's powers?"
        "Yes. Something more happened, more than just contact."
        They topped the crest of the hill and started down the other side. Even through shifting curtains of the storm, Stefan saw the headlights of four vehicles on Vista Valley Road below. All four were stopped and angled every which way, and their blazing beams crisscrossed like gleaming sabers in the snow-bleeding darkness.
        As he drove down toward the gathering, he quickly realized that he was heading into trouble.
        "Machine guns!" Parker said.
        Stefan saw that two of the men below were holding submachine guns on a group of seven people - six adults and one child - who were lined up against the side of a Cherokee that was different only in color from the one Parker had just bought. Eight or ten other men were standing around, a substantial force, obviously military because they were all dressed in the same Arctic-issue uniforms. Stefan had no doubt that these were some of the same forces involved in the closure of I-80 both tonight and eighteen months ago.
        They had turned toward him and were staring uphill, surprised at being interrupted.
        He wanted to swing the Jeep around, gun the engine, and flee, but although he slowed down, he knew there was no point in running. They would come after him.
        Abruptly, he recognized a familiar Irish face among those lined up against the Cherokee. "That's him, Parker! That's Brendan on the end of the lineup."
        "The others must be from the motel," Parker said, leaning forward to peer anxiously through the windshield. "But I don't see Dom."
        Now that he had spotted Brendan, Father Wycazik could not have turned back even if God had opened the mountains for him and provided a highway clear to Canada, as He had parted the Red Sea for Moses. On the other hand, Stefan was unarmed. And as a priest, he would have had little use for a gun even if he had possessed one. Having neither the means nor desire to attack, yet unable to run, he let the Cherokee roll slowly down the hill as he frantically wracked his mind for some course of action that would turn the tables on the soldiers below.
        The same concern had gripped Parker, for he said, "What in the devil are we going to do?"
        Their dilemma was resolved by the soldiers below. To Stefan's astonishment, one of the men with a machine gun opened fire on them.
        

        
        Dom watched as Jack Twist directed the flashlight beam over the chainlink fence, then up to the barbed-wire overhang that thrust out above their heads. They were at that long length of Thunder Hill's perimeter that