The Alien Factor

287 Pages·2.421 MB·English

by  Lee, Stan

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THE ALIEN FACTOR
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THE ALIEN FACTOR
STAN LEE
with STAN TIMMONS
ibooks
new york
www.ibooksinc.com
DISTRIBUTED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC
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An Original Publication of ibooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2001 by ibooks, inc., Stan Lee, and Larry Schultz
Special thanks to J. Madison Davis and Larry Schultz,
for service above and beyond the call of duty.
An ibooks, inc. Book
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Distributed by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ibooks, inc.
24 West 25thStreet
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ISBN 1-5901-9629-5
First ibooks, inc. printing October 2001
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Edited by Steven A. Roman
Jacket art copyright © 2001 by John Ennis
Jacket design by Mike Rivilis
Interior design by Westchester Book Composition
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12 OCTOBER 1942
NEAR MESQUER, FRANCE
T
HE SHRIEK rose up in the middle of Marcel’s dream like a furi-
ous dragon breathing vengeance and fire. The earth trembled,
and a blinding light slashed between the seams of the farm-
house shutters. He blinked, thinking at first that it was the light from
a Bosch truck, but the shriek was nothing like an engine. It grew
louder, painfully louder, until it deafened him. He slapped his hands
over his ears and screamed, but he had no voice against the sound.
The shafts of light swept across his room like white-hot swords,
momentarily lighting the picture of his mother and father on the
bureau, his threadbare work gloves, and his plaster figure of Joan of
Arc. The gilt on her upraised sword flashed and her serene face
seemed to move, to look at him before the light passed to the wall,
the door, the chair on which he removed his sabots, and he just had
time to think:
It is God,Marcel thought. It is the angel. I am to be anointed, like
St. Joan. I will save France. I will save my father.
But the shriek exploded into an earthquake, the blast tearing the
shutters off their hinges and tossing him from his bed. He landed
hard on the stone floor. The light ebbed and the shriek was replaced
by a groan, weakening, weakening. He raised himself and made out
that his parents’ picture had been knocked flat. His gloves and
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THE ALIEN FACTOR
bedclothes had been blown to the floor, but the statue of Joan still
held its place, her smile serene, her sword raised, her armored steed
gnashing its teeth as it reared.
I am to be anointed, Marcel thought again. The light faded. He
thought at first he was fainting, but he felt the cold floor, the jab of
one of his sabots in his side. Had he heard the voice of God? Had the
angels told him what he was to do? Did it come like this for St. Joan:
a flash of unnatural light, an unholy sound, and then silence? His
arm tingled. He couldn’t raise his hand. He felt a strange lump in his
forearm and then a grating pain as he moved it. He had broken his
arm when he was thrown from the bed. Was this God’s will? He lay
back, ears ringing, and saw the gentle light of a paraffin lamp out-
side his door.
His grandmother pushed back the door, her face distorted by the
fear of what she might find. She sagged at the sight of the smashed
shutters, but Marcel’s grandfather gripped her upper arm as he
pointed down at Marcel.
“There!” he said, his voice just making it through the ringing in
Marcel’s ear. Marcel raised himself on his good arm as his grand-
mother shoved the lamp into her husband’s wiry hands and dropped
to her knees, clutching the boy’s head against her breasts.
“My boy...My boy...” she sobbed, and Marcel wasn’t certain
whether she was thinking of him or his father, who had gone to mar-
ket one Saturday and never come home.
Marcel pulled away enough to see the tears streaming down his
grandfather’s hatchet face and into his mustache. He had never seen
the old man cry. His throat felt full. He choked on it and felt himself
sobbing as his grandmother took his head in both hands and franti-
cally kissed his nose, his eyes, his salty cheeks. He moaned what he
had called her when he was just beginning to talk. “Papeau...” he
said. “My Papeau...”
“Your Papeau is here,” she whispered. “Papeau is here. Grandpere
is here.”
He sniffed loudly, feeling ashamed for having blubbered. For a
year, after the disapperance of his father, he had been being a man—
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a twelve-year-old man who had sworn to St. Joan that he would
work the farm and keep it right until the day his father returned.
This was the cottage in which Marcel had been born, and his father
before him, and his grandfather. This was the cottage in which his
mother had died, giving birth to a girl who outlived her mother only
by hours. By worldly standards, it wasn’t much, and he had worked
until his hands grew thick and hard. With the bloody blisters of his
feet he had polished the inside of his sabots smooth. But God smiles
on the humble, his Papeau often said, and blesses the sorrows of life
on this earth with bliss in the next.
Grandpere went to the window, cupping the lamp with his hand.
“It must have been a shell,” he said. “A new kind.”
“Or a bomb,” said Papeau. “The English don’t care how many
French they kill.”
Marcel’s grandfather looked at her in anger. “If they kill Bosch,
they can bomb me all they like.” He craned his head out the window.
“Maybe it was an entire plane. Maybe Americans.”
“There might be survivors,” said Marcel. “The pilot.”
“They might need help,” said Grandpere.
“We don’t dare,” said Papeau, squeezing Marcel closer. “The Ger-
mans will swarm like flies.”
“If they turn up, I will help them.”
“Think of the boy,” said Papeau. Grandpere lowered his eyes.
Clearly, the humiliation of being old and powerless as his country
was being violated weighed him down.
“If you ever see flyers, get away from them,” Papeau said to
Marcel.
The boy nodded, then winced. “My arm,” he said. “I think it’s
broken.”
Papeau hugged him again. “Come to the kitchen. Grandpere will
look.” She glanced up. “If he isn’t too busy looking for trouble, that
is.”
“I’ll splint it up good,” the old man said, ignoring her jibe. “I’ve
broken my own arm seven times. If you splint it right, it grows per-
fect, even stronger.”
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There was a distant rattle. Grandpere squinted into the darkness.
“Get away from the window, you old fool!” said Papeau.
“Machine gun,” said the old man.
“Get away from the window!”
Grandpere glanced at the paraffin lamp in his hand and backed
away, stumbling on the pieces of the shutter. “They will shoot at the
light,” he said.
“Help the boy.”
When they got Marcel to his feet, he paused and took a deep
breath. “I thought...I thought it was an angel. The one that came
to St. Joan.”
“You were dreaming, perhaps,” Papeau said gently.
The old man hmmphed and shrugged. “The Bosch must have
brought down a bomber. They were finishing off the flyers with the
machine gun. That must explain it.”
“Help the boy to the kitchen, you old fool,” Papeau said sharply.
“That’s all that concerns us.”
“Get the brandy, woman,” said Grandpere.
As they lurched out of the room, the boy turned back to see the
plaster St. Joan fade into the darkness.
Marcel’s forearm was swollen and blue, but after much painful
squeezing, Grandpere concluded that only one of the bones had
been injured, probably cracked but not broken through. He tightly
bound it with strips of burlap between staves from a five-liter barrel,
then sagged to a chair and tossed back the brandy Marcel had only
sipped. They heard the barking of dogs, shouts, and the cracks of
three rifle shots in the near woods. If there had been flyers, they
were surely dead now. No one spoke. It was nearly dawn.
Grandpere’s head lolled forward and he began to snore. Papeau
went about her morning as if nothing had happened, setting a fire in
the stove, reheating the broth they had eaten for dinner and break-
ing up the hardened bread to soak in the bowl.
Marcel rose from his chair. “Clemence will need milking.”
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“Let your grandfather do it.” She reached to shake him awake,
but Marcel grabbed her arm.
“I can do it. Let him sleep.”
She looked at her husband, then back at Marcel.
“I can do it,” he repeated, wiggling the fingers of his splinted
arm. She nodded. He picked up the milking pail.
“You tell her she’d better start paying her way, or she’ll be stew.”
Marcel smiled and went out into the cold gray morning.
Clemence had once been the pride of his father’s farm, giving strong
calves and gushing enough milk to feed all of them. Now, she was
getting old. The milk had decreased and lost a lot of its richness. If
they could have replaced her, they would have, but they were lucky
to have any cow at all.
He paused in the middle of the farmyard. The barking dogs were
in the forest on the next hill, but there was no excitement in their
voices. They weren’t on a fresh trail.
Abruptly, he knew he was being watched. The hairs on the back
of Marcel’s neck crept up and he spun, expecting to see one of the
Germans behind him.
Nothing. Just his grandmother’s garden patch; and beyond that,
the grave of their old dog, Danton. And yet...
And yet Marcel knew that something was wrong. But what
was it?
Then he realized what it was: the birds weren’t singing to the
sunrise. There was an eerie silence as the wind stirred the trees.
“Who’s there?” said Marcel.
Nothing. He stood quietly for a few moments, part of him afraid
there would be an answer—but none came. He shivered from the cold
mist and walked on to the stable.
Clemence turned her great head toward Marcel as he opened the
door.
“Hello, Madame,” the boy said. “How are you this morning? I
trust your rest was not too—”
He suddenly lost his voice. The feeling had come over him again,
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this time more powerfully. The sensation of fingers caressing the
back of his neck and scalp.
He spun and looked into the farmyard.
Nothing.
He looked back into the stable. Two rows of three stalls on each
side. The workshop in the back, with the warped door half open as
usual. A maul hanging on a nail. A scythe Grandpere had been
sharpening yesterday. There was light in there, too. Grandpere had
either forgotten to close the window or it had been blown open by
the explosion. Heart pounding, he crept back and looked in. The
window was open, but it was still on its hinges. He smelled the oil on
the scythe.
He went back to Clemence. She seemed particularly perky this
morning and when he touched her neck, she suddenly turned her
head and licked him on the ear.
“Hey! Hey!” he said, wiping with his tattered sleeve. “You almost
knocked me over, Madame.” He patted her forehead and kissed her
on the nose.
He slid the bucket under her, drew up the milking stool with his
foot, and blew into his hands to warm them. He felt good, he
thought. His forearm hurt very little, and when he reached for
Clemence’s udder, it felt full. “My, you do require my attentions,
Madame!” He caught two teats and had barely touched them when
they began to gush. Each gentle squeeze brought loud rushes of
milk, again and again. The pail was about to overflow when the
flood finally ceased.
“My God, Madame!” he laughed. “You have escaped the—ah—the
fate you seemed destined for.” He carefully moved the pail away
from her, watching for any sudden movement of her legs. Even in
the blue light of the dawn the milk seemed yellow and rich. He set it
on the floor and dipped his finger in it. It tasted rich, as if it were
half cream. It was so rich, in fact, that he wondered if Clemence had
contracted some odd disease, but it was good, so good, that he
dipped two fingers in it and licked every droplet off.
And then there was a noise, a strange shift in the straw.
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