BORN TO RUN
By Midwest Max

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Part One



Michael Guerin was dead.

Liz Parker looked over at Max Evans, driving the car with determination. He hadn’t grieved yet, hadn’t allowed himself the time. In the back seat, Maria Deluca and Max’s sister Isabel were silent. Maria had finally stopped sobbing, but Liz knew she was still an emotional train wreck. Maria’s arms were crossed over her chest in what Liz thought was an attempt to keep herself from shaking. Isabel looked devastated, but Liz hadn’t seen her cry.

Max just stared ahead at the open road and Liz realized she had no idea what he was thinking, what was going through his mind. He had gone into emotional lock-down and slipped straight into the leadership role. She had to admit – he was good at it.

When word came – a phone call from Kyle – that Michael had wrecked his bike popping wheelies on one of Roswell’s back streets, Liz had seen a brief flash of fear, of worry cross Max’s face. Then he moved into action, ordering them to gather belongings as fast as they could. Liz didn’t understand why. She was still in shock over the fact that Michael was lying on a road somewhere with paramedics attempting to save his life. But then Isabel had reacted first, racing for her bedroom and Liz realized Max was serious. They were in danger even though she didn’t understand why.

Michael never made it to the hospital. He died alone, surrounded by strangers, in some alley in the less-appealing section of Roswell. Head injuries. To Liz, it seemed like taking his body to the hospital was not a problem – there would be no blood tests or anything since he was beyond saving.

But there would be blood tests, Max explained. Michael was a teenager, killed in a vehicle accident – the state loved to collect statistics on teens that were killed doing reckless things while intoxicated. There would be an autopsy, there would be toxicology panels and then there would be news flashes about teen aliens living in Roswell.

It was a possibility none of them had ever considered – what would happen to the aliens’ bodies when they died? They’d spent too much time thinking about how they could stay alive rather than come up with a solution if they were unsuccessful.

Sheriff Valenti tried every trick he knew to get custody of Michael’s body without being blatantly obvious that he was attempting to cover something up. He failed. It would only be a matter of time before the blood tests came back abnormal, the government got involved and they started looking for “the others.”

The search would be short. Michael had few friends, and it would not take long before Max and Isabel were uncovered. Maria would be under suspicion because of her relationship with Michael and Liz would be in trouble because of Max.

So there they were – running. How much time, how much space could they put between them and Roswell before those blood tests came back? Liz wished she knew how long it took for the toxicology panels to be processed – then maybe they’d have a clue. But somehow she got the feeling they’d already pronounced themselves guilty - the fact that they bailed out of town was pointing a big red arrow of guilt in their direction. Not that it mattered – at that point it was either admit they were guilty or wait until the authorities figured it out. The outcome was going to be the same.

They left no notes to their parents. There would be no withdrawals with ATM cards that could be traced, no cell phone calls, no pay phone calls, no credit cards. Before they left, Max changed the color of the Chevelle to a nice shade of candy-apple red. Liz almost questioned him on such an obvious, attention-grabbing color, but then she realized that he was trying to make it as far from blue as he could get it. He also altered the license plates to be from Ontario and she had to secretly wonder if that’s where he was heading.

Watching him drive, Liz wondered if he knew where they were heading. He had been oddly silent about the whole thing, but she could practically hear the gears spinning in his head. He had to be on mental overload – too much to think about, all at once. She wanted to put a comforting hand on his leg or something, but the action just seemed inappropriate.

Silently, he pulled the car into a gas station, the first one they’d seen in hours. As he pulled to a stop at the pumps, he turned in his seat to address the others.

“Don’t act guilty,” he stated quietly. “Just go about your business, but don’t loiter. Don’t do anything to attract attention.”

Maria and Isabel both nodded, then climbed out of the car and headed for the restroom. Max reached into his back pocket and pulled some money out of his wallet, then handed it to Liz. For some reason, he didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke to her.

“Ask the attendant for twenty,” he requested. That seemed a bit much, then Liz remembered the car had a huge gas tank and wasn’t really conservative when it came to burning it. “Pick up some food.”

“Anything you want?” she asked him.

He shook his head, paused, then nodded. “Coffee. Black.” Then he climbed out and waited patiently at the pump for her to pay.

As Liz walked to the station, she felt a little hurt at his aloofness. She crossed her arms over her chest to ward off the slight nip in the air – the sun would be down soon and she knew why Max asked for that coffee. He was planning on driving until dawn. She would have helped him drive – so would Iz and Maria. But Liz knew that this was his way of dealing. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand to keep from letting his guard down.

Which was why he couldn’t look at her. That realization almost hit Liz like a steamroller. But it kind of felt good – he knew that she was his emotional safe-haven, that with her he could show any emotion he wanted. And right now he couldn’t afford to do that. If he were to break down, he might not be able to function, to get them out of this. She shouldn’t be offended or hurt, she should be flattered.

Inside the small convenience store, Liz picked up a few things – Evian, pop, chips, coffee – even though none of it looked good. She knew no one felt like eating, but picking up munchies seemed like a normal thing to do. She paid, asked the clerk to set the pump for Max. She didn’t make much conversation with the man but also tried not to look nervous.

Outside, as the pump whined and clinked, she dropped the food into the car then headed to the bathroom in Maria’s and Isabel’s footsteps. Liz waited patiently, and when the door opened she saw that Maria was suddenly brown-haired and Isabel was a red head. Liz’s mouth dropped open involuntarily.

“Want me to do yours?” Isabel asked quietly.

Liz shook her head. The disguise thing seemed a bit overkill. A week from now, when paranoia had fully set it, maybe she would change her mind, but for now she’d stay like she was.

Max made no comment about the girls changing their appearance. He didn’t really speak to any of them at all. He climbed back behind the wheel and quietly left the service station.

Once the sun went down, Maria collapsed again, sobbing uncontrollably. Isabel was a strong woman – she must have been missing Michael horribly, but she still managed to slide over in the seat and hold Maria while she grieved. Liz knew that this would go on for a long time. Maria was barely able to function for a good week after Alex died. The circumstances were now much worse than they were then – Alex wasn’t Maria’s lover, Maria didn’t have to go on the lam after he died.

Listening to her sobs, Liz felt a lump form in her throat. It was true that she was never close to Michael and that they disagreed on more than one occasion, but she understood loss and grief and it tore her apart to hear Maria so broken-hearted. Liz’s eyes were suddenly stinging and she wanted to cry, too. She chanced a glance at Max just in time to see him blink slowly, in agony and then go back to his perpetual straight-ahead stare.

A sudden, faint blue glow from the back seat caught her attention and she glanced over the seat. Maria was nestled in next to Isabel, her head on the alien’s shoulder. Isabel’s hand was opened before them and Liz could see the glow illuminating between her fingers. She couldn’t see what was going on in the palm of her hand, but Maria was staring at it, mesmerized, and Isabel was talking softly to her. And oddly Maria had stopped sobbing and was now only sniffling away the remains of her grief. Slowly, Maria’s eyes drifted shut and Liz got the feeling she had fallen asleep.

Liz noticed Max glance over his shoulder at his sister and give her something resembling a smile, but not quite. She didn’t have a clue what Isabel had just done – an alien form of hypnotism? She wasn’t really sure and she really didn’t care what it was, because the end result was good. Maria was relaxed, resting, and Liz was grateful to Isabel for that.

The blue glow faded and the cabin of the car was dark again, illuminated by only the dash lights. Liz heard Isabel rustle around in the back seat and she assumed she had just covered herself and Maria with a blanket.

Liz couldn’t think about sleeping. All she could think about was Max sitting silently behind the wheel, about Maria’s troubled slumber, about pathologists cutting open Michael Guerin’s body. It pained her to think that he was alone somewhere, on a cold table, while everyone who cared about him had split town. Not that they could have done anything for him at that point, but still, it felt like once again Michael had been abandoned.

Max drank his coffee and drove in silence. Liz had bought six cups and he periodically picked up a new one, heated it with his powers and drank it. She had a new-found admiration for men – they could drive forever without having to stop to pee.

When the sun started to creep over the horizon, Max and Liz were still awake and still both silent. They had driven through the night without speaking a word to one another, but it wasn’t like the silence had been uncomfortable. She was pretty sure that Max knew she was awake and he also knew that he didn’t need to say anything to her. That was the level of comfort they had with one another.

They stopped at another gas station and Liz nearly peed herself when she stood up. Holding it that long just couldn’t be good. Maria and Isabel woke up and Isabel put an arm around Maria to help her to the ladies room. Liz admired Isabel for being so kind with Maria, for being there for her. Liz thought maybe that was Iz’s way of dealing. If she concentrated on Maria’s grief, she didn’t have to pay attention to her own.

Max looked like hell. Pumping the gas, he suddenly looked old, beaten. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks seem to have sunk a bit. Liz wanted to wrap him in her arms and hold him. She had a sudden flash of not more than a week ago, when they were in that exact position on her warm, soft bed. They’d been laughing, kissing, climbing all over one another. She wanted to be back there now, in that bed, not a care in the world.

After depositing Maria back into the car, Isabel walked over to where Max was filling the car.

“Let me drive,” she said, her voice quiet.

Max just shook his head. Isabel stood there for a moment, then got back in the car.

Soon they were on their way again, driving to nowhere in particular. No one even asked where they were going. Liz thought it was because they knew they would never be going to one single place. From now on, they were going to be moving from town to town, resisting putting down roots of any kind. She wondered if Max and Isabel knew that it would come to this some day, that they would hit the road and never be able to return to anywhere they’d left behind. Had they known they were born to run?

So they drove in silence, to an unnamed destination. Max resisted sleeping; the rest of them respected his need to be the driver. Liz knew eventually he would break down physically and he would be unable to keep up the charade, so she just waited for that moment. And when that moment came, she would be there for him. Because when he broke down physically, he would break down emotionally and she had a feeling it would not be pretty.

But for now they ran, moving farther and farther east, away from Roswell, and for some reason Liz couldn’t seem to get Bruce Springsteen out of her head






Part Two



Max stared sightlessly at the shelves before him. His eyes blurred and there was a persistent buzzing in his ears – he was exhausted. Every now and then, the world swayed and he had to put a hand out to steady himself. Reaching out, he grabbed a can of shaving cream off the shelf. He wasn’t really thinking about his actions - he was just moving so he’d stay awake.

“We don’t need that,” came Isabel’s soft voice.

Max regarded her silently as she slid into position beside him.

“The shaving cream,” she clarified, glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone was within earshot. “We won’t need it.” At Max’s blank expression, she gave a little eye roll. “Use your powers to shave,” she whispered. When he still failed to respond, she clarified, “If you can’t do it, I’ll do it for you.”

Max blinked, realized he had absorbed everything his sister had said, but hadn’t given her any indication of that. “What about the others?” He glanced over to the hair care aisle where Maria and Liz were surveying the selection.

“I can do it for them,” Isabel said and gently took the can from his hand and put it back on the shelf. Then she relieved him of the razors also. She noticed his dejected expression and put a hand on his arm – obviously he wasn’t thinking clearly. “It’s okay, Max,” she said without any condescension.

Max looked down at his worn work boots. His feet hurt. Actually, everything hurt. He sighed and noticed Isabel shift something in her hands. A wad of newspapers was folded in half and wedged between her arm and her body.

“What are those?” he asked.

“Wanted to check the national news,” she said. “To see if there was anything…unusual.”

He got it – she was grabbing papers to see if there was news of any alien autopsies taking place back home.

“We need to talk about something,” Isabel said, her tone cautious.

He looked up at her, curious.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she questioned gently and Max looked back down to the floor. After a pause, he shook his head. “We should probably have a plan some time soon,” Isabel continued, tried to keep her voice calm and steady. “We need to have a destination.”

Max looked over the shelves at Liz and Maria. They were along for this horrible ride as a punishment for being good friends. Their fates were now out of their hands and it wasn’t fair.

“It’s not my decision,” he said quietly.

Isabel nodded. “I agree.” She studied him for a moment. “Maybe we don’t need to make that decision right now, but we need to stop.”

Max met her gaze again.

“I’m tired,” she explained, gave a wan smile. “Maria has been a mess and Liz has to be getting pretty worn out, too, Max.” She bit her bottom lip, approached him cautiously. “And you’ve looked better.”

He set his jaw and remained silent.

“We don’t have to stop forever. Just for the night. So we can get some sleep. Please, Max?”

He drew in a breath and felt his head swim again. Slowly, he nodded. “There was a camp ground a few miles back,” he suggested softly. “I threw my tent in the trunk before we left.”

Isabel smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll go get some stuff to make for dinner,” she said and was then gone.

Max looked back to where Liz and Maria had been and looked directly into Liz’s eyes. For one brief moment, he felt a stab of pain, deep down in his gut and he had to look away quickly. She had that amazing ability to pierce his armor, especially now that he was vulnerable, and he needed to avoid her at all costs.

Outside, Max climbed behind the wheel as Isabel tossed bags of supplies into the trunk. He had to give her credit – for being the mall queen she was in Roswell, she was a frugal shopper when the situation called for it. If it had been up to him, he would have bought all sorts of stuff he didn’t need – like razors and shaving cream. But Isabel had been honing her shopping skills for many years, so she was naturally better at it than he was.

Max turned in the seat to address Liz and Maria. “Isabel wants to stop for a while.” He thought he saw relief on Maria’s face. “We’ll go back to that camp ground, get something to eat, get a good night’s sleep. Is that okay?”

Both girls nodded and he turned back around and waited for his sister.

They picked the most remote location to pitch their tent, one where they could use their powers if needed without being seen. Muscles shaking from exhaustion, Max assembled the tent while Liz and Maria gathered firewood. Isabel made numerous trips from the car, hauling food and blankets. When the girls had tossed a good-sized pile of wood into the fire pit, Isabel raised her hand and started the flames with a blast of her powers.

As night fell, the quartet sat around the flickering fire, watched the smoke and sparks drift into the darkening sky. Liz and Maria huddled together, a blanket around their shoulders. Max sat on the other side of the fire, avoiding Liz’s gaze and watching Isabel cook some burgers.

They ate silently, Maria only managing a few bites before she felt nauseous and had to put down her plate. Liz ate most of hers, Isabel cleared her plate and Max’s went untouched. Isabel eyed him with concern but reserved any comment. He did manage to drink some water to prevent becoming dehydrated.

“We should talk,” Max began, his soft voice an intrusion in the night air, and the others turned to look at him. He gave Isabel a weak smile. “We can’t just keep wandering forever,” he told them. “We need to decide where we’re going.”

Liz and Maria exchanged a startled glance and Isabel had to wonder if they’d assumed that Max had had some master plan all figured out in the event they ever had to flee their homes.

“It’s not just my decision,” he stated quietly. “We’re all in this together so we should all get a voice in the plan.” He poked the fire with a stick he’d picked up from the ground. “So, any suggestions? Any preferences?”

“The farther from Roswell, the better,” Isabel said with a sigh.

He nodded. “So, we continue east? Is that agreed?”

The others nodded.

“That’s a start. Somewhere east.”

There was silence as each member considered their destination. Finally, a small smile curved Maria’s full lips.

“Maria?” Max asked.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” she said.

He gave her a little smile in return. “Okay. Everyone want to go to the east coast?”

Another collective nod.

“So, we need a city on the east coast.”

“Boston,” Liz said without hesitation and they all turned to look at her. “I always wanted to do the walking tour,” she explained with a self-conscious, half-hearted giggle.

Max nodded his understanding. “We have a suggestion for Boston. Anyone have any objections or other suggestions?”

Silence.

“Okay, then we go to Boston.”

He started to rise but Isabel put a hand on his arm. “Max, you didn’t get to help decide. I picked east, Maria picked the coast and Liz picked the city. You didn’t have any input.”

He looked across the fire at Liz, met her gaze for the first time and shook his head. “It’s okay, Iz. Boston is fine with me.”

That night, they huddled like a pack of dogs in the tent, which was fine for two people but rather cozy for four. Max slid in behind Liz, but refused to put an arm around her, to allow himself that much contact. Instead, he lay on his side, crossed his arms over his chest and squeezed in behind her, spooning her without touching her with his hands. It was as close as he dared to get.

Later in the night, a chill brushed across Liz’s back and she shuddered against the sudden cold. Still asleep, she instinctively arched her body backwards, seeking heat from Max’s body and found none. Slowly, her eyes cracked open and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. Then she heard the light sounds of Isabel and Maria breathing and remembered – she was in a tent somewhere in Oklahoma, running from alien hunters. And Max was gone.

Worried, she sat up and carefully slid her body from beneath the blankets, shoved her feet into her shoes. Through the thin wall of the tent, she could see the flames of their campfire flickering and she wondered if they hadn’t been asleep for long. Quietly unzipping the tent, she slipped into the night air and shivered.

All thoughts of being cold vanished as she spotted Max sitting by the fire, his back to her, his head in his hands, sobbing silently. A knife twisted in Liz’s heart as she watched Max pour out his grief for his dead friend, his brother, in solitude. She stood there for a long moment, stunned into motionlessness. Then she slowly approached him, touched him on the shoulder.

Max jumped, startled and immediately turned away from her. “No,” he said quietly.

“Max,” Liz said softly as she dropped to her knees beside him.

He made a rough swipe across his face with the back of his hand. “No, Liz. Please.”

“It’s okay, Max,” she soothed as she reached for him. Gently, she turned his face to hers and her heart broke at his expression. He was tired, exhausted, worn out, grief-stricken. His cheeks were soaked with his tears and Liz could only guess how long he’d been sitting out there by himself.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he choked.

She smiled gently at him. “But I want to see you like this,” she assured him. “I want to be here for you, Max. Please don’t push me away.”

He hesitated for a moment, then drew in a deep breath and started crying again. But this time he reached for her, pulled her close to his body. “I miss him so much, Liz. He was my only brother, the only one who was just like me and now he’s gone.”

Liz rocked him gently. “I know,” she said, knowing it didn’t really matter what she said as long as she said something reassuring to him.

“And I am so mad at him,” Max continued. “For being selfish and doing stupid things that took him away from us.” He hiccupped a little gasp. “And I’m mad at myself for being so mad at him. And God, Liz, I could have saved him if I’d been there.”

Liz was suddenly very aware that it wasn’t just grief Max had been fighting with – it was guilt as well. “Max,” she said against his shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”

He pulled away and looked her in the eye. “But, if I had been there –“

“But you weren’t,” she corrected. “You can’t be everywhere at once, Max. You can’t be responsible for everyone you love. It was an accident, sweetheart. There was nothing you could do.”

Max’s eyes clenched in agony and he drew in a deep breath. Liz brushed his hair clear of his forehead and placed a lingering kiss there. Then she kissed his cheek and hesitated, her lips only inches from his. But he moved first, seeking solace in her embrace and soon they were locked together in a lover’s embrace, the fire warming them from the chill night air.

Inside the tent, Isabel’s eyelids fluttered and her body twitched.

“Isabel.”

Slowly, she opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times.

“Isabel, where are you?”

She sat up, her heart suddenly thudding rapidly in her chest. She looked to her left – Maria, Liz and Max were still sleeping beside her.

“Why did you run, Isabel? Tell me where you went.”

Her dark eyes tried to pierce the darkness of the night, but failed. Frantic, her gaze darted from one shadow to the next.

“I love you, Isabel. Tell Maria I love her. That I will always love her.”

Gasping, frantic, Isabel was suddenly awake. A thin stream of sweat was running down her spine and her heart was slamming painfully against her ribs. She looked to her left – Maria was looking at her curiously and Max and Liz were gone. She wiped her hand across her forehead and tried to shake the dream from her head. It was almost as though she had been dreamwalked, like someone had broken into her dreams for a change.

“Are you okay?” Maria asked, her voice throaty with sleep.

Isabel could only stare mutely at her. She was pretty sure Michael Guerin had just tried to contact her.






Part Three



Isabel watched solemnly as Max went about rolling up the tent and shoving it back into its storage bag. Liz and Maria had gone to the river to wash their hair, but Isabel hadn’t felt like joining them. She was still haunted by her dream from the night before.

When Isabel had finally gotten up for the day – she’d never really gone back to sleep after the vision – she’d found Max and Liz curled up like two cats beside the fire. The sight of them locked in each other’s arms had driven home a very sobering fact – being on the run, never putting down any roots, Isabel was unlikely to ever have someone in her life again. Max had Liz. Isabel and Maria had no one.

And that was why she had dreamed of Michael. Or at least that’s what she tried to convince herself. In another lifetime, Michael had been her lover, so it was only natural that she would subconsciously think of him as she was subconsciously realizing that she was now destined to be alone. That had to be it. Because Michael was dead. There was no way that he could have been trying to dream walk her last night. Even though Isabel’s very existence defied logic, she wasn’t open-minded enough to believe that there was such a thing as communication with the dead.

“You okay?” Max asked as he dropped down beside her.

Isabel nodded but didn’t smile. Her attention was drawn back to the newspaper she had in her hands – she was just now getting around to reading the papers she’d picked up at the store the day prior.

“Anything?” Max asked.

She shook her head, heaved a sigh and tossed the paper into the remains of the fire. A large gush of smoke billowed into the air. “It could be it will never be in the paper,” she stated.

“What do you mean?”

“The government covers up everything, Max. Why would they publicize this? Cause a national panic? Admit there really were aliens living in Roswell after all?”

Max nodded his agreement. “They know we’re out here somewhere, Isabel. We have to assume that they are, too.” He looked into the fire pit. “We’ll keep buying papers just to check every now and then.”

Isabel sighed and nodded.

“You sure you’re okay?” Max probed.

This time she attempted a wan smile. “Fine. Didn’t sleep well.” Then her smile grew a little larger. “But you look well rested.”

Max blushed, looked down at his shoes.

Isabel laughed lightly. “It’s okay, Max. You needed the sleep…as long as you took some time out to sleep.”

“Nothing happened,” he responded, a tad more defensive than he’d intended.

“I know. I’m only teasing, little brother.”

He gave her a guilty grin then pushed himself to his feet. “Help me with the rest of the stuff, will you?”

At the river, Liz lathered Maria’s hair with the shampoo they’d bought the day before. They were standing in water up to their waists and Maria was bent over so that the soap didn’t run into her eyes.

“That feels so good,” she sighed, wishing Liz never had to stop.

Liz smiled, her own hair wet and squeaky clean. She had to agree with Maria – washing the road dirt out of her hair had been a near-orgasmic experience.

“Okay, dunk,” Liz said, removing her hands from her friend’s head.

Maria plunged under the water, stayed under the surface for a few moments, then resurfaced with a gasp. Wiping the water from her face, she gave Liz a wide grin. “Oh, that’s so much better.”

The girls climbed out of the water and plopped down on a blanket they’d tossed beside the river. Maria picked up a towel and cleaned her ears out with it, then went about drying her hair.

“Did Max ever wash your hair for you?” she asked.

Liz looked at her silently, shook her head.

Maria allowed herself a small smile. “Michael used to wash mine.”

Liz was genuinely surprised. “He did?”

“Yeah. He did all sorts of sweet things when no one was looking.” She snorted a little laugh. “He never wanted anyone to know he was a softy at heart.” 

Liz gave her friend a sympathetic smile and wrapped an arm around her slim shoulders.

Maria gave a little laugh. “You know, some times I feel like he is still here.” Her voice rose at the end – a question.

Liz eyed her curiously. “What do you mean?”

Maria shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s just like sometimes he’s with me, you know?” She noted Liz’s doubting expression and gave a nervous laugh. “I must sound like a lunatic.”

Liz smiled gently. “You’re not a lunatic, Maria. What you’re feeling is perfectly normal. You loved Michael and now that he’s gone, you’ve got all of these emotions churning around in there.”

“I still love Michael,” Maria corrected, not fond of Liz’s use of the past tense.

“I know you do,” Liz agreed, having meant no harm by her comment. “So, tell me how you know he is still here.”

Maria looked into the distance. “It’s just a feeling…like someone standing behind you. But then I turn around and he’s not there.” She looked frustrated. “Or once when we were in the car, it felt like his fingers on my cheek.” She looked at the ground, then at Liz. “I am a lunatic, aren’t I?”

Liz laughed, but shook her head. “I think Michael will be with you for a very long time, Maria.”

Maria smiled. “You do?”

Liz nodded. “Yep. Now let’s go help Max and Iz pack up. The Boston walking tour awaits us!”


Max slammed the trunk shut and rounded the car to climb behind the driver’s wheel. Liz and Maria had piled into the backseat and were sitting close together; Max imagined that’s what they’d been like as little girls, hanging on one another, but giggling and giddy. He imagined them showing off new nail polish or talking about that cute new boy at school or comparing their first kisses. It was only natural that they were so close, he mused, since neither of them had a sibling.

Max’s sibling was sitting silently beside him in the front passenger seat. As he turned the key in the ignition, he stole a sideways glance at her and gave a little frown. Up until now, Isabel had been keeping a pretty positive attitude, even in spite of the fact that she had lost Michael. Max knew that she would never admit it, but she had always taken care of Michael, felt responsible for him. It was Isabel who ran to his rescue after Hank beat him, it was Isabel who gave him her lunch and went without when she knew he hadn’t eaten in several days, and as much as Isabel watched out for him, Michael had also been watching out for her.

Up until now, Isabel had handled Michael’s departure rather well. But Max was starting to see the signs of stress in his sister – she’d seemed worried or upset about something that morning and Max had been unable to get her to tell him why. Now, as she stared out the side window, he could practically feel the negative vibes emanating from her. It was unlike Isabel to clam up. Usually, she would erupt into what Max used to jokingly call “Mount Isabel” and burst forward with whatever was on her mind. But this wasn’t anger – this was grief.

As he pulled into the freeway, Max thought back to the last dark period in their lives – Alex’s death. Isabel had not withdrawn into herself then. She had acted irrationally, yes, but she hadn’t turned into this incommunicative lump staring into space.

Max nearly jerked with the sudden realization that she was behaving much like he would have. In fact, she was mimicking his exact behavior from the last few days. He looked at her again. Maybe he was over-reacting. Maybe he should just like her come out of this one on her own. Reaching over, he picked up her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

She turned dark, curious eyes to him. But when she saw him looking at her intently, she managed a small smile and returned to her vigil of watching the dust clouds kick up in the side-view mirror.

Halfway through the day – another fuel stop. Maria raced to the restroom while Max fueled the car and Isabel and Liz went in to grab some food. Almost as a reflex, Isabel grabbed one of each of the available newspapers and stuffed them under her arm. She found Liz surveying the potato chips.

“I’m so sick of eating this stuff,” Liz groaned.

Isabel nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Then she smiled. “But Michael could eat chips every day, every meal.”

Liz laughed. “You’re right – he could. Maybe we should get him some” She reached out and picked up a bag of Doritos and put them in her basket.

Isabel stood motionlessly. “What do you mean by that?”

Liz looked up, guilty. “I’m sorry, bad joke. That was insensitive.” She drew in a breath and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Just a conversation Maria and I had this morning.”

Isabel concentrated on trying to look somewhat disinterested. “A conversation about what?”

Liz gave a nervous laugh, obviously embarrassed about slipping. “It was nothing. Maria said that sometimes she feels like Michael’s still here.”

Isabel swallowed. “Why would she say that?”

Liz shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably because she misses him so much.” She could see that her alien counterpart was not satisfied with that answer. “She said sometimes she feels like someone is standing behind her, but then when she turns around there’s no one there.”

Isabel eyed her silently for a moment. “Do…do you feel that way, too?”

Liz’s brow furrowed and she shook her head. No, she wasn’t seeing dead people. “Why, do you?”

The tall alien let out a laugh, a laugh that sounded forced and nervous. “No! No, not at all.” She looked away uncomfortably, then tossed a few more things into the basket. “Come on – we better get moving before Max has a cow that we’ve taken so long.”

As they were on the road again, Isabel replayed their conversation over and over in her head. Maria was feeling something strange, too. Liz wasn’t. But Liz and Michael had never really connected on any level.

That left Max.

Isabel glanced at her brother. Tonight, when they stopped to rest, she was going to violate her personal rule of never dreamwalking him without warning and find if he was getting messages from Michael as well.






Part Four



“Let me in, Max. Let me in.”

Isabel had Max’s driver’s license in one hand, her forefinger of the other touching his photo. She had seen Max take his wallet from his back pocket and toss it into one of his shoes before sliding into his sleeping bag. It was way after two in the morning before they stopped again, and Max had kept his vigil behind the wheel refusing to let anyone else drive, so he’d fallen to sleep nearly immediately. Isabel had waited patiently until she’d heard both Liz’s and Maria’s breathing fall into the rhythmic routine of slumber, then she’d stealthily swiped Max’s wallet from his shoe and retrieved the license.

“Let me in,” she whispered silently to herself. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she was swept onto the dream plane, her thoughts concentrated on her brother. A little part of her was afraid of what she would find in Max’s head – going there was not something she wanted to do very often. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Max himself; she just didn’t think she needed to know him as intimately as his dreams would allow.

And there was a certain amount of guilt attributed to what she was doing. It wasn’t right. She had this amazing power to enter people’s heads whenever she wanted. Abused, she could easily slip right into the same classification as Tess had – evil. Tess had amazing mental powers, too, and in the end she was banished from the planet and Alex was dead because she didn’t respect the gift she had.

Lying in her sleeping bag, her brother’s private property clenched in her hand, Isabel had to wonder if she was any better than Tess. Tess had deceived – now so had Isabel. Tess had lied – now so had Isabel, in a round-about way. Tess had killed – Isabel hadn’t done that, but disrespect for her powers might still lead to very bad things.

Isabel shook her head. All of these thoughts of Tess were distracting her. She needed to concentrate on Max, on getting into his head. She would have to deal with the consequences later.

After a few moments of absolute black on the dream plane, she popped open her eyes to make sure it was indeed Max’s license she held – maybe she’d grabbed his library card or something, because never had she had this much trouble locating someone in the dream world. Getting in, sure, she’d had difficulty – but not locating them. Many times she would find her target, then be unable to penetrate their defenses. But now she was coming up with nothing.

Panic suddenly quickened her heart. Maybe Max was awake. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t out there. Cautiously, she looked over her shoulder, could just see Max’s parted lips as he snored lightly. Isabel gave a little snort and looked back to the license.

Drawing in a breath, she tried again. “Let me in, Max,” she said silently and waited patiently until Max’s subconscious would make itself available.

But that’s not what she got.

What she got made her already-rapid heartbeat increase tenfold. It was another question, spoken pleadingly, even though she couldn’t see the person who delivered it.

“Why did you leave me, Isabel? Where are you?”

Then a command.

“Stop running and wait for me.”



Liz cuddled up beside Max and silently sipped her coffee, his arm coming up around her shoulders and pulling her small body against his. The sun was barely up, but they were planning on hitting the road as soon as possible. She didn’t really understand Max’s urgency – they’d put considerable distance between themselves and New Mexico, they’d changed the color of the car a half dozen times (it was currently black), Iz and Maria had even altered their appearance. Liz was starting to relax a bit, to feel like maybe the long arm of the law wasn’t so long after all.

But Max didn’t seem so convinced. He’d roused them just as the sun was starting to rise and now he was sitting quietly, looking somewhat dazed. Liz knew he was exhausting himself physically, had seen it in his mannerism each morning. Every day he got a little slower, a little quieter. He was running on empty. She’d made a decision – today she was driving and Max was resting. What good was he going to be if he was too weak to help defend them?

Across the picnic table where they all sat eating their breakfast in silence, Liz noticed that Isabel looked quite sickly. Did aliens get the flu? Liz thought that once Iz had told her that they didn’t get sick. If that was the case, then something else was wrong with Isabel. There were dark circles under her eyes and she sporadically shivered, like she had a fever or something. Liz’s brow furrowed with concern and she glanced at Max. Had he noticed?

Liz decided Max hadn’t noticed anything. He was scratching his face and yawning away the night’s sleep. He didn’t look so well himself. Ironically, the person who had been falling apart a few days before – Maria – looked the healthiest of all of them.

“What else is there to do in Boston?” she asked Liz, her voice sounding like an intrusion in the silent morning air.

Liz shrugged her shoulders, nearly took Max under the chin. He smiled drunkenly at her and went back to yawning. “It’s right on the coast,” Liz answered after making sure she hadn’t clipped her boyfriend. “So, I guess all of those oceany kinds of things.”

“Oceany kinds of things?” Maria asked, her nose wrinkled. “What are those?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never lived near the ocean. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” Liz struggled to come up with something people did on the ocean.

“Red Sox,” Max offered. “Fenway Park.” He smiled, obviously happy at the thought.

Maria’s nose wrinkled more. “Sports?”

Liz giggled. “Baseball, to be exact.”

Maria let out a little puff of air. “We don’t need to go to the east coast to see baseball.”

“No, we need to go to the east coast to keep the alien hunters from finding us,” Isabel snapped.

Everyone turned in her direction, startled at the sudden, irritated tone of her voice. Maria looked stricken, like she’d committed some horrid social faux pas. Liz’s mouth dropped open involuntarily and she was speechless. Only Max didn’t appear to react. He looked at his sister for a long silent moment, but Liz could see something in his eyes and it wasn’t anger – it was concern.

“I didn’t mean…” Maria finally began, stammering, putting a hand defensively toward her mouth. “I didn’t mean anything by that, Isabel.”

Isabel locked eyes with her friend briefly, then broke into sobs, jumped from the table and ran away from them. Maria looked helplessly to Max and Liz, then started to get up to follow her. Max reached across the table and put a hand on her arm.

“Let her go,” he said softly.

Liz watched Isabel race away from them, past the tent, going nowhere in particular as long as it was away from her friends and felt a little stab of guilt. Since she’d made the comment about Maria thinking Michael was still around, Isabel had been a mess and Liz felt somewhat responsible for that.


Max finished going through the papers Isabel had purchased the day before, let out a little sigh and threw them into the garage can. Nothing.

But he knew that nothing didn’t always mean nothing. Nothing might just mean they had a silent stalker, someone who knew how to operate covertly. He almost wished that they would find something in the papers, then he could let his fear be real and deal with it. All he had right now was a sneaking suspicion they were being followed.

They should alter their direction. He looked up at Liz and Isabel putting the rest of their stuff in the trunk. Maria was trying to stay as far away from his sister as she could; once they piled into the tight confines of the car, that whole situation might prove to be rather interesting – in the cat fight kind of way.

Max sighed. They didn’t need this right now. His sister was unstable. Maria was afraid of her. And Max needed to tell them he thought they should change directions. It was going to frighten them.

At any other time, he would have told Isabel first, would have discussed with her his thoughts and feelings of being ‘shadowed’ and together they would come up with a solution. Right now he felt like he couldn’t ask her opinion on hair conditioner without her losing it.

As he watched Liz walk toward him, he rethought his approach. Maybe he should keep it under his hat for the time being, let it lie for another day before he talked to the girls.

“Hey,” Liz said when she was within a few yards of him. “We need to talk about something.”

He swallowed. “Liz, if it’s about Isabel –“

“It’s not.”

He raised his eyebrows questioningly, then looked even more confused when she held out her hand, palm up.

“Give me the keys,” she commanded.

He met her gaze again and shook his head.

“Yep,” she pushed. “Hand them over.”

“Liz,” he protested, “I can –“

“ – rest for the day,” she finished for him, then waited patiently. When he didn’t produce the keys, she released an over-exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes playfully to the sky. “Ya know, Evans, I’m not beyond going into your pants and getting them myself.”

Against his will, Max let out a laugh and his face brightened at the thought.

“Give them here.”

He knew there wasn’t much arguing with her. Maybe he did need the rest. Relenting, he pulled the keys from his pocket and placed them in her tiny hand. As they walked to the car, he realized his folly – he’d given in too easily and had just given up the perfect opportunity to get felt up.



Isabel looked out the side window as the sun had started to set behind them. In the front seat, Max was sleeping, as he had most of the day. She’d had so many opportunities to try to get into his head again and she’d been afraid to take any of them, afraid that she would get some more unsolicited messages.

Beside her, Maria was squished all of the way over against the window of the opposite side of the car. Internally, Isabel sighed. She should apologize to her. It wasn’t Maria’s fault that Isabel’s head was seriously messed up. Maria hadn’t deserved Isabel’s little outburst from breakfast.

But she didn’t feel like talking right now. She was concerned with many things, but most of them centered on her experience from the night before. First, she’d been unable to find Max on the dream plane. Then those strange pleadings, spoken in an all-too-familiar voice.

She didn’t want to think about Michael, so she thought about Max instead. Why hadn’t he been on the dream plane? Even though he was exhausted and possibly protecting his thoughts, she still should have been able to find him. She suddenly remembered a photo she’d once stuck in her wallet, a picture that had eventually been buried behind many things out of necessity.

Isabel retrieved her purse from the floor and pulled out her wallet. If she’d remembered this picture last night, she might have been able to skip the guilt of going into Max’s wallet and discovering things about him she didn’t want to know – like he was packing a Trojan in case the Greeks came bearing gifts, so to speak. Her brother preparing to have safe sex was just something she didn’t need to know.

But this photo was one she didn’t like to look at, had avoided, actually. That’s why it was now behind many slips of paper, other pictures and now-useless credit cards.

Prom.

She pulled the picture from its hiding place and a sad smile creased her pretty features. First, she touched her blond hair in the picture, felt bad that her long locks were now red. Then she looked at Alex, felt her heart lurch at his smile, a smile that showed all of his love for life. She avoided looking at Michael all together.

Looking up, Isabel realized that Maria had drifted to sleep as well. Good, she could do this without worrying about an audience. The light in the car had dimmed as well, so Liz behind the wheel probably wouldn’t be able to tell what she was doing, either. Drawing in a deep breath, Isabel touched her brother’s smiling photo and waited.

Nothing.

Frustrated, she let out the breath and frowned. Something was just so wrong. Glancing at the back of Max’s head and wondered if he had some new power, if he was blocking her all of the time now. It seemed unlikely. For all of his closely-guarded secrets, Max was generally pretty honest with his sister.

Isabel’s gaze fell on Maria’s slumped figure again. That was it – if she could get into Maria’s head, then she knew that Max was blocking her.

Isabel drew in another breath and touched Maria’s photo. She expected to be right into the little human’s head, considering that most humans were defenseless in protecting their minds. But instead, Isabel once again felt the void.

A realization crashed over her like a tidal wave and sent a hot jolt of panic throughout her body. She wasn’t being blocked out. Someone was blocking her in.






Part Five



Liz squeezed her eyes tightly shut and let the water from the showerhead pelt into her face. Every ounce of her being was thanking Max Evans for letting his guard down enough to let them stay in a motel for one night. As soon as they’d checked in, Liz had dropped her bags at the door and had run for the shower.

She opened her eyes and looked down at the drain, watched brown water swirl around the drain then get flushed away completely. That mess was coming out of her hair. Biting back disgust, she turned around and tipped her head so that the stream of water was now hitting her in the back of the head, washing away days of road dirt. Apparently hers and Maria’s trips to the various rivers and ponds hadn’t paid off.

Liz’s skin prickled slightly at a sudden draft of cool air and she opened her eyes to see Max sliding into the shower with her. She couldn’t help but smile – she missed this, missed intimacy with him. It was hard to advance or even maintain their relationship while they were all inmates in the Chevelle.

In one hand, Max held a bottle of Nexus shampoo – the good kind – and Liz’s eyes lit up. In the other, he had matching conditioner. She knew that money would be tight, but she also knew he understood the value to the human state of mind to indulge once in awhile, to give yourself a break. So, he’d treated her by picking up some good hair products.

Silently, he took her shoulders and turned her to face to the shower head, tipped her chin upward so that she shampoo wouldn’t run into her eyes. She gave a little giggle at the feel of his hands in her hair, lathering away the dirt and grime. Not two days before, she and Maria had had the discussion of Michael washing Maria’s hair and Liz had reported that she’d never been so lucky as to be on the receiving end of that kindness. Now here she was, having her hair washed by her own loving boyfriend.

Equally as mutely, he turned her back around and let the water wash the soap and dirt from her hair. She opened her eyes when she felt him pull her away from the water so that the mist was barely hitting the backs of her calves. He squirted conditioner into his hands and the massaged it into her hair. When she started to back up to wash it out, he shook his head – with the rough treatment her tresses had taken, she needed to leave it in for a while.

Smiling, Liz took the shampoo bottle from him and reversed positions with him so that he was in the stream of the shower. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his hair and braced herself from the slippery floor of the rub by laying her body against his. He drew in a quick breath and she stopped long enough to meet his gaze. She washed his hair as quickly as she could and pulled him out of the stream, running conditioner through his dark hair.

Then she kissed him. Inexplicably, she felt tears rise to her eyes as his hands came up around her waist, pulling her tight against him. Maybe it was the stress of the last week, the loss of a friend, the closeness of the person she loved more than her own life, but Liz sobbed silently as she kissed him, glad the water was washing away her tears.

The sound of the water, the conditioner drying in their hair, the fact that the water was getting progressively cooler was lost on them. They were bound together, lovers, lost in one another for a seeming eternity.

Later, they lay together atop the worn comforter on the double bed. They were the only ones who had a larger bed – Maria and Isabel had both been awarded their own rooms. Max had thought it unwise to ask them to spend any additional time together, that maybe their “treat” would be to have some privacy from the others.

Liz smoothed her cheek against Max’s hard chest and lay silently, listening to his heart beating slowly, steadily beneath her ear. She felt exhausted, spent, and knew that he was in the same condition as she. Every now and then, because she didn’t want to drift to sleep and have the night end, she would move enough to caress his arm or plant a kiss on his chest.

“I miss him so much, Liz,” Max said, his voice soft, reverberating under her ear. He sounded sad, accepting of Michael’s fate. Liz smiled sadly to herself – Max had moved out of the denial and anger stages of grief and was now letting himself accept it and be sad.

“I know you do,” she said, her words muffled against the smooth skin of his chest.

“All of those stupid, childish fights we had,” he continued, his voice holding no anger, “they seem so petty now.”

Liz lifted her head to regard him. “You are who you are, Max. Michael was who he was. You didn’t always see eye to eye, but sometimes you did.”

Was that true? Max studied his pretty little girlfriend for a few moments and flashes of good times with Michael whizzed through his mind – Michael trying to teach Max to ride his motorcycle and laughing hysterically when Max flopped repeatedly in the alley by their apartment; Max “misplacing” all of Michael’s hair gel in the spiky days, watching his friend nearly have a nervous breakdown; both of them always there for Isabel, watching out for her like brothers. And that’s what they were – he and Michael were brothers. In every sense. They fought, they loved each other, they would do anything to help one another.

“You’re right,” Max agreed quietly with Liz.

Liz watched him a few moments, bit the corner of her mouth. “Max…”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

She didn’t mean what was wrong at that moment. She meant what was on his mind, what had been on his mind for awhile now. Max frowned. This was business he would usually discuss with Isabel, but she was so squirrelly lately that he couldn’t.

“Tell me,” Liz prodded gently.

Max worked his mouth, then drew in a deep breath. “I think we’re being followed.”

Liz shifted her position so that she was lying on her stomach beside him, her eyes wide. “Why do you think that?”

He shrugged. “Just a feeling. Like someone is watching us.” He looked away, then shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s probably nothing.”

“Max, your intuition has always been one of your best gifts,” Liz explained and watched him look away from her again. “We’re not going to Boston, are we?” she asked softly.

Max looked back at her, surprised.

“You think we’re trapping ourselves if we go there.”

Max’s mouth dropped open with the realization that Liz could read him like a book. “Yes,” he answered when he’d finally recovered. Again he shook his head. “I don’t know, Liz. We never had a concrete game plan. We just got in the car and started heading east. When we get to Boston, we’re as far east as we can go. Unless we go across the pond and none of us can afford to apply for passports right now. There will be nowhere left to go.”

Liz gave an amused snort. “Max, if you go north or south, you eventually hit ocean, too.”

“I know that.” He lay silently for a moment, thinking. “But whoever is back there – if someone is back there – they seem to know where we are going. If we altered direction, maybe it would throw them off.”

Liz thought about it for a moment, then nodded her head. “Okay. What do we tell Maria and Isabel?”

Max lifted his free arm, tucked it between his head and the headboard. “I don’t know. Neither of them is acting right these days.”

Now it was Liz’s turn to look surprised. “Neither of them?” she echoed.

Max shook his head.

“Even Maria?” There was no point in questioning his theory on Isabel – they both knew the state of mind she was in.

Max nodded. “She’s not right, Liz.”

Liz thought hard about that. How had Max seen something she hadn’t? Liz was Maria’s best friend – she could read her like a book. If something had been wrong, Liz would have seen it.

“She’s just grieving, Max.”

Max shook his head. “That’s not it. She’s not…” He struggled for the appropriate words. “Right.”

Liz fought with this, but it was hard to argue with Max. It was unlike him to make a comment like that if he didn’t really believe it.

“What do we do?” she asked. “Maybe we could have Isabel dreamwalk…”

They met each other’s gaze and both shook their heads.

“Bad idea,” they said simultaneously and started laughing.

Max brought his arms around her and pulled her back to his body, kissed the top of her head.

“We’ll just wait,” he said against her hair. “Things will work out. Let’s get some sleep.”

Liz slept for awhile, comforted by Max’s warm body, but she awoke in the middle of the night incredibly thirsty. Carefully, she slid from beneath his arm and pulled on her jeans and his T-shirt. Digging in the pocket, she found some change, then slipped silently from their motel room.

The West Virginia night air was cool, a welcome relief to the hot temperatures of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. Liz dragged in a lungful and let it out slowly, reveled in the clean, crisp feeling in her chest. She spotted the soda machines at one end of the string of rooms and started to make her way over to them.

As she counted her change in her palm, she was drawn to the sound of a voice coming from one of the rooms. It sounded a lot like Maria’s voice and the first fear that hit Liz was that she’d used the motel phone to call her mother. Heart thumping a little faster, Liz walked toward the sound until she’d located the door it was coming from.

“I love you, too,” Maria was saying.

Crap, Liz thought and looked quickly to her own door. She should get Max, let him know that they needed to move – now. They never should have left Maria alone with a means to contact anyone back home.

“Why did you go away?”

Liz stopped short and her pretty brow furrowed. Who was Maria talking to? Cautiously, she took a couple of steps to her right where she could just see between the parted curtains of Maria’s room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at the chair. There was no phone in her hand and the chair was empty.

Liz watched in horror as Maria acted out carrying out her end of the conversation.

“Well, I can ask him, but I don’t think Max will let us stop, Michael.”






Part Six



Max was on his feet before he was entirely awake. Blinking, heart pounding, he settled his blurry eyes on Liz, her back against the door she had just slammed, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

“What!” he demanded, his voice coming out loud and frantic.

“It’s Maria,” Liz gasped, catching her breath.

“What?” he repeated, his body trembling from his rude awakening.

“She’s talking to Michael.”

Max stopped, confused in his semi-conscious state, then sank slowly back down to the bed. “What?” he said again, though this time the panic was gone from his voice. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

Liz hurried over to stand before him. “I’m serious, Max! I went to get something to drink and I heard her talking to someone. I thought she’d used to the phone to call home –“

Max dropped his hand and looked at her incredulously. “She used the phone?”

Liz gasped in impatience and lightly slapped him on the cheek. “Wake up, Max!”

He blinked, shook his head. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I looked through the window and she was talking to an empty chair. Then she called Michael by name.” Liz’s voice rose in pitch and came out sounding similar to a howler monkey. “She’s talking to a ghost, Max, because no one is there!”

Sensing panic in his petite girlfriend, Max rose and took her by the arms. “Okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “It’s okay. Tell me what happened.”

They sat together on the bed and Liz recounted her experience of finding Maria talking to an empty chair. Max digested this information, stared at the floor as he tried to make sense of it.

“Does she sleep walk?” he offered.

Liz shook her head.

“And there was really no one there?”

Another shake.

Max rose. “Okay, let’s go talk to her.”

Liz looked up at him with round eyes. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

He shrugged. “What’s the harm in it? She’s not dangerous, Liz.” Maybe a little crazy, but not dangerous, Max thought but didn’t voice that opinion.

They entered the night air once again and Max couldn’t help but look skyward. It was a habit he never thought he’d break – looking to the stars, wondering where his home was. Michael had been borderline obsessed with finding and returning to their birthplace, but Max had only looked at the stars in curiosity, had never yearned to go home.

He was jerked from his reverie as they approached Maria’s room. Slowing down their pace, they listened carefully, could hear nothing coming from within. Closer, they peeked through the divide of the curtains and found the room silent and dark.

Max turned questioning eyes to Liz.

“Don’t look at me like I’m the crazy one,” she whispered. “I know what I saw and heard.”

Max looked at his boot, kicked a stone off the cement walk. “I think we have to go back to plan A, Liz.”

“Plan A?”

“I need to ask Isabel to dreamwalk Maria to see if she can tell what is going on in her head.”

Liz slipped her hand into Max’s. “I’ll go with you.”

Surprisingly, Isabel was awake, sitting up in her bed watching infomercials. Max had observed his sister looking progressively more tired and now he knew why – she hadn’t been sleeping.

“What’s going on?” she asked as Max and Liz sat down at the end of the bed.

As cautiously as he could, Max told Isabel of Maria’s actions, to which Isabel gave a little laugh.

“You think it’s funny?” Max questioned, his dark eyebrows rising slightly.

“When Alex died,” Isabel began, “I saw him everywhere. I talked to him all the time. I don’t find Maria’s behavior unusual. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

Max shared a side-wise glance with Liz and folded his hands in his lap. Drawing in a breath, he then filled Isabel in on his feeling of being followed. At that, she remained silent, her eyes round.

“We don’t know what’s going on here, Isabel,” Max said gently. “I think we need to see if you can dream walk Maria, get in her head and find out what is going on.”

Isabel nearly recoiled at the thought and her actions were not missed on her brother.

“What?” he asked.

Suddenly pale, she got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, shut the door behind her. Liz looked at Max, startled, and he gave her a dumbfounded shrug. When Isabel emerged a few minutes later, she was looking down at her hands, not at her visitors.

“I haven’t been honest with you,” she began in a small voice.

Panic suddenly boiled in Max’s stomach and formed a ball in his throat. “What do you mean?”

She started to pick at her fingernails. “I can’t dreamwalk.”

Max’s brow furrowed. “You’ve lost your powers?”

She shook her head, still staring at her hands. “A few nights ago, someone broke into my dreams.”

“They did? Who?”

She looked up, her gaze unsteady and Max felt she was on the brink of tears. “Michael.”

Max’s mouth dropped open and he was momentarily stunned into silence. “Isabel,” he finally said, his voice gentle. “Michael is dead.”

“I know,” she said quickly. “But it was him – he was there.” She drew in a breath and looked at Liz. “Then the next day Liz told me Maria felt like Michael was still with us.” Isabel looked to the floor. This was the bad part. “So, I started wondering if maybe somehow Michael was trying to contact us and maybe you knew something and just weren’t saying anything.”

Max swallowed hard. “What did you do, Iz?”

She sighed in resignation. “I tried to dreamwalk you.”

Max rose to his feet immediately. “You did what?!”

Liz reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Max,” she started, but he jerked away from her.

“I had to find out,” Isabel said, defending herself.

“I asked you to never do that,” Max said, his voice strained.

“I know, but it was no different than what you’re asking me to do to Maria.”

Max paused, his mouth open for rebuttal. He had no comeback – she was right.

Liz reached up and took Max’s hand, pulled him back down to the bed as silence weighed heavily in the small, dingy room. Clearing her throat, Liz addressed Isabel. “You said you lost your dreamwalking ability. What happened?”

Isabel walked uneasily to the bed and sat back down. “I couldn’t get into Max’s head. Couldn’t even find his dream orb. So the next day I tried to get into Maria’s head and failed. Then I realized that I’ve been penned in somehow. I can’t get out of my own head.”

Tears rose to her dark eyes and Max looked at her with sympathy. All of her strange behaviors now made sense – she had to have been terrified. He reached across the distance between them and took her hand. Startled, she looked up at him warily.

“It’s okay, Isabel,” he began. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re together. We’re here. We aren’t going to let anything happen to you.”

She sniffed, wiped at her tears and gave him a weak smile. Max always knew how to make her feel better. “What do we do about Maria?”

Max glanced at Liz, then back to his sister, shook his head. “I don’t know. For now, we keep her under close watch, don’t let her be alone.”

Liz nodded. “We can do that.”

“Until we find out what is happening, we need to keep our guard up. I don’t know if Maria can be trusted right now.” He caught Liz’s surprised expression and clarified. “We don’t know if Maria is being influenced by some outside source. We don’t tell her we aren’t going to Boston until we know something for sure. Agreed?”

The girls nodded in unison.

“Okay.” Standing, Max took Liz’s hand. Before he left the room, however, he stooped and kissed his sister on the cheek. “We’re only two doors down if you need us.” Then he smiled at her, the brotherly-affection smile he saved only for her, and returned to his own room.



The next day, the quartet was in a carryout picking up supplies for the road. Someone was at Maria’s side the whole time and they felt they were doing a good job of being inconspicuous in their babysitting duties. Hiding her red, tired eyes behind a pair of sunglasses, Isabel flipped through the newspapers the carryout had available – the local paper and USA Today. The papers so far had revealed nothing and she’d given up spending her money on them – it was much cheaper to leaf through them while the others shopped.

Lowering the local paper slightly, Isabel looked over the tops of the sunglasses to watch Maria survey a rack of cookies. Michael loved Oreos. If she picked up Oreos, then something was up…Maria picked up the Oreos and Isabel nearly jumped. Then she frowned. Great, now she was reading something into every one of Maria’s actions. You’re being an idiot, she chided herself. Everyone loves Oreos.

“Anything?” Max said quietly as he slid in beside her.

Isabel flipped the last few pages of the paper. “Nothing. As usual.”

Max gave her a small smile. “I don’t think we’ll find what we’re looking for in a paper…” He voice trailed off and his smile faded away as his gaze drifted over her shoulder.

Isabel looked at him questioningly. “What?” she asked, followed his gaze to the magazine rack, saw nothing of importance.

Max had paled. He brushed past her, gazed at the magazines.

“Max, what?” Isabel repeated, losing her patience.

“Iz, do you remember Men in Black?” Max finally asked.

She shrugged. “Yeah. Alien movie with Tommy Lee and Will Smith. What about it?”

“Do you remember where they got all of their information?”

She thought hard, grew tired of Max’s melodramatics. “Not really. What are you getting at?”

Max reached out, picked up The Globe and held it before her. The headline read, “Dead Man Walks Out of Morgue.”






Part Seven



Max and Isabel sat perched on a picnic table outside of an ice cream store that was near the carryout where they’d picked up road supplies. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, the rag magazine spread across their adjoining laps. Not far away, Liz was keeping Maria occupied with some hair accessories she’d picked up when Max had told her she needed to divert Maria’s attention for awhile.

The headline above the “deadman walking” article read – “Zoinks! UFO Town Overtaken by Zombies!”

Isabel looked worriedly at Max. “Is zoinks really a word?”

He met her gaze and shrugged. “It is if you’re Scooby Do.” He cleared his throat and started to read the article aloud, his voice quiet. “Authorities in the infamous town of Roswell, NM are reporting another paranormal phenomenon. Apparently, a dead man has walked out of the local morgue, leaving no trace behind. The man, unnamed by the authorities but an alleged victim of a motorcycle accident, disappeared the night his body was transferred to the morgue. Sheriff Jim Valenti of the Roswell Sheriff’s Department was only willing to confirm that the morgue has no security cameras that would help explain the man’s disappearance. We here at The Globe think there are no cameras so all of the strange goings-on in that tiny desert town can’t be proven. Can anyone say government cover-up?”

Max looked at the words on the cheap newsprint and frowned.

“What do you think?” Isabel asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to think, Iz.”

“Do you think they somehow lost his body? I mean, do you think the government may have confiscated it?” She grimaced at her own word choice. “Confiscated” made it sound like Michael’s body was contraband.

“I guess they could have,” Max agreed.

“Or do you think maybe Michael is alive?”

Max hated the hopeful look in his sibling’s eyes. He hated it because he knew that in some way she was going to be let down. “I don’t know, Iz. Kyle saw him. He said he was dead. It’s hard to mistake someone being dead.”

Isabel looked even more hopeful. “But what if they had? Made a mistake?”

Max was reluctant. “I guess it’s possible.”

“Kyle would know, Max. Or Jim.”

He met her gaze, dark eyes on dark eyes and knew what she was asking. “You want to call them,” he stated softly.

She nodded her head.

Max looked across the small, well-manicured lawn where Liz and Maria were giggling over a new ‘do that Maria had inflicted on her friend. Maria had been acting strange. Max felt they were being followed. Isabel had lost one of her powers. Things were just not normal.

Did he risk that phone call? If they called, they would be pointing a big blinking finger in their direction. Might as well put up a neon sign that read, “Get Your Free Aliens and Human Fugitives Here!”

“Iz,” he began softly. “I think it’s risky right now.” Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw her shoulders sag. “There are too many unknowns at the moment.” His eyes settled on Maria. “Let’s confront Maria, see what’s going on in her head. Then we can better judge. Okay?” He looked at her, his eyes pleading.

She didn’t want to agree with him, but he was making sense. “Okay,” she relented. “But promise me you’ll consider it.”

He nodded. “I will.”


Maria sat on the opposite side of one of the picnic tables from the others. Max looked at her sympathetically – it looked like they were about to gang up on her. Cautious, he reached across the table and took her hands in his. She looked down at their fingers, then back at him. There was worry in her eyes.

“Maria,” Max began slowly. “We need to talk to you about something.”

Her eyes were round and she nodded her head silently.

Liz glanced at Max, then at Maria. She should be the one to do this so Maria didn’t feel so cornered. Liz put a hand on Max’s arm and he got the message, was relieved to be off the hook.

“I went for a walk last night,” Liz started, looking at her friend. “I went to get a soda and I heard you talking to someone.”

Maria’s expression didn’t change and for one moment Liz wondered if maybe Maria did sleepwalk and remembered none of that had happened.

“Who were you talking to, Maria?”

She looked into her lap and pulled her hands away from Max. They disappeared beneath the table.

Liz exchanged a worried glance with the others. “Maria, was it Michael?”

A moment of silence passed, then Maria made a noise that was half laugh half cry and covered her face with her hands.

Isabel pushed the alarmed look away from her face. “It’s okay if it was, Maria. We just need to know.”

Maria looked up, her eyes round. “You think I’m crazy.” She gave a nervous giggle that made her at least sound a little crazy.

Max shook his head. “No, no we don’t.” Not much. “There’s some other things that have been going on and we just want to know if there’s any validity to them or not. Liz heard you talking to someone, she thought you called them Michael. We just need to know if that’s who you were talking to.”

Maria still wasn’t giving up any information.

“You said you felt like he was still with you,” Liz prompted. “Is he?”

Maria’s slim shoulders rose as she drew in a deep breath, then she nodded her head and her eyes filled with tears.

Max looked at Isabel, his expression worried. “Was he here in person or did you just see him?”

This time Maria shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure anymore. At first I thought I was just imagining that he was here, like I could feel him around me. Then I started hearing his voice.” Her face contorted with her next admission. “Then I started seeing him. I mean really seeing him. Like he was standing right there talking to me.” She wiped at her tears. “Am I crazy?”

The others were too busy contemplating the possibilities to answer her. Maria stopped sniffling, her eyes round.

“Oh, I am,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’ve really lost it this time, haven’t I?”

“Maria, no,” Liz said, reaching beneath the table and producing the paper Max and Isabel had purchased. “Look.”

Maria took the paper, read the headline. Startled, she glanced at the others, then hurriedly started flipping the pages to find the story. Her lips mouthed the words as she read silently, then she quickly looked up to her friends. Her shocked expression displayed every one of the emotions she was feeling.

“What do we do, Max?” Isabel asked.

Max stared at the table top, thinking. He swallowed hard, then looked at his sister. “Did you bring your cell phone?”

Isabel nodded eagerly, clearly happy with the direction this conversation was leading. “I can go get it.”

Max looked at a nearby payphone and wished he knew how cell phone roaming worked. If they used the payphone, there was no doubt in his mind the call would be tracked and the authorities would at least know they were near the east coast. But what if they used Isabel’s cell phone? Could they use the same technology to track them in that instance?

Using the payphone was a definite mistake. Using the cell may or may not be a mistake. His chances were fifty-fifty and Max had to roll the dice this time…and pray that he wasn’t on the losing end.

“Go get it,” he told his sibling.

Isabel was up and running for the car before the words had cleared Max’s lips.

“What are you doing?” Maria asked, eyes round.

“We’re calling Kyle,” Max explained, hoping they were making the right decision.

Liz swallowed, the thought of calling home - somewhere she was starting to miss more than she had anticipated – sending a little spark through her body.

Within seconds, Isabel was back with the cell phone, her expression excited, expectant. “Who?” she asked.

“Kyle,” Max responded and mused that at one point Kyle was the last person he’d have called in a crisis.

Isabel hesitated before dialing the numbers, then pushed her concern aside and quickly hit the speed-dial button that would ring Kyle’s cell phone. Holding the phone to her ear for a few seconds, her lips curved downward into a frown.

“What?” Max asked.

“It says it’s his phone is out of range.” Isabel’s brow furrowed. It figured that Kyle wouldn’t get unlimited roaming. It didn’t figure that he’d be out of range on the roaming he did have.

Max took the phone from Isabel.

“Who are you calling?” she asked.

“Valenti,” he replied as he pushed in the numbers to Jim’s private phone at the sheriff’s station. After only a few rings, Max was greeted with the lawman’s smooth voice. “Sheriff!” he exclaimed into the phone. “We just-“

“Well, good morning, Mr. Green,” Jim interrupted.

Max wasn’t a dummy. He knew when to shut up and listen.

“I was hoping I’d hear from you,” the sheriff continued, his tone friendly. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen handy? I have that number you needed.”

Max snapped his fingers and made a writing motion. Isabel dug in her purse and produced a pen and a piece of scrap paper. “I’m ready,” he said, making his voice business-like and friendly.

“Okay, that number is 555-1615. I spoke to the woman there and she said that she would be in shortly after ten. She’s more than willing to give you a hand with what you need.”

“Great. Thanks, sheriff.”

“No problem, Mr. Green. You have a nice day now.” And the phone went dead.

Max turned off the cell phone and looked up into six anxiously-waiting eyes.

“What did he say?” Isabel was the first to ask.

“The sheriff’s station is being bugged or something – maybe someone was there listening to his conversation.” He looked at the paper in his hand. “He wants us to call this number after ten their time and he’ll tell us what’s going on.” Max glanced at his watch. It was twelve thirty. He wasn’t sure he could make it another half hour without crawling out of his skin.






Part Eight



Max looked at the face of his watched and wondered why it was that when you wanted time to move quickly it appeared to virtually stop. Once he even held the watch to his ear to make sure it was still ticking.

Maria had crossed her legs and folded her arms over her chest and had turned into a quivering ball of nerves.

Isabel made repeated trips to the bathroom, wearing a trail in the grass as she did so.

Liz sat close to Max but was afraid to touch him. She was there. If he needed her.

Finally Maria cleared her throat. “Is it time, Max?” she asked, one hand toying with her necklace.

Another check of the watch showed it was exactly one o’clock, ten o’clock Roswell time. “He said a little after ten,” Max said. “Let’s wait until five after.”

Isabel couldn’t staunch the groan that slipped from her lips. Max gave her a look and she smiled nervously. “Sorry.”

Maria started counting in her head. One-Mississippi-Two-Mississippi-Three-Mississippi…It helped past the time. When she got to sixty, she started over again. That way she would know approximately when it was time to call.

Finally Max drew in a breath and looked down at the phone in his hand. As he read the numbers and pressed the keypad, he could feel all of his female counterparts tense and was a little surprised at the amount of adrenaline rushing through his body.

Three rings and despair started to set in. Maybe the sheriff hadn’t been able to get away or maybe he’d been followed or…

“Hello?” came the familiar, out-of-breath voice of the older man.

“Sheriff!” Max said into the phone. Isabel had nearly crawled on his lap, trying to get closer to the phone. “Where are you?”

“At a pay phone on the corner of Citrus and Grant Street.”

“Were you followed?”

Maria rolled her eyes. To hell with the logistics – find out what happened to Michael!

“No,” the sheriff answered.

“Is the FBI there?” was Max’s next question.

“No,” Jim replied and Max turned a smiling face to Isabel. “Just a bunch of idiot reporters barking for a story. They’re all over the station and I just can’t trust that any of them might not overhear me.”

“Good,” Max said. “Jim, tell me what’s going on.”

“Where are you?”

Max hesitated, wondering if he should give up their location so easily. But Jim was on a pay phone and the likelihood that it was tapped was slim. “West Virginia.” There – that was vague enough. West Virginia was a relatively large state.

“Stay there,” Jim said.

Max raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because they’re on their way.”

They? Max felt his heart quicken in his chest. Who was ‘they’? Had the sheriff switched sides while they were gone? “Who?” Max asked, his voice catching in his throat.

“Kyle and Michael.”

Max’s hand started to shake and he dropped the phone.

“Max?” Isabel said, frightened. Quickly, she reached into his lap and picked up the phone. “Jim? It’s Isabel.”

The sheriff gave a little laugh. “Is Max okay?”

Isabel eyed her brother. He was staring at the tabletop, his eyes somewhat glazed. “I can’t tell. What did you tell him?”

“That Michael is alive.”




Maria was laughing and crying hysterically. Words that made no sense were coming out of her mouth like water through a broken dam. Liz was trying to calm her, but there seemed nothing she could do.

The group had relocated to yet another camp ground and Max and Isabel were sitting by an empty fire pit while Liz tried to corral Maria a few yards away. Jim’s words were still resonating in their heads.

“How can it be?” Isabel finally said.

Max shook his head. Deep within, he felt somewhat guilty that they had abandoned Michael in Roswell, that they had turned tail and run. But he was supposed to be dead. Who could have known he would turn into Lazarus and miraculously awake?

“He had to be dead, right?” Isabel said, still trying to put reason to the unreasonable.

Max shrugged.

“I mean, if he hadn’t been dead, they wouldn’t have sent him to the morgue, right?”

Another shrug.

“But hospitals make mistakes all the time, right?”

A nod this time.

Isabel looked down at her shoes. “Do you think his body just somehow repaired itself?”

Max let out a sigh. “I don’t know, Isabel. Maybe we should just wait and ask him when he gets here.” He felt a shiver up his spine as soon as he’d said the words. Michael was really coming. They’d all be together again. Soon.

“See? See? I wasn’t crazy!” Maria’s hysterical giggle prompted both of the aliens to look up at her as she paced back and forth by the river, pushing Liz away from her.

“We have to do something about her,” Max said.

Isabel nodded. “Awhile ago, I thought she would hyperventilate and pass out and that would be the end of it.”

Max glanced at his sister. “Think you could do that thing you did in the car the first night we were running?”

Isabel withdrew a bit. “She’s scared to death of me right now, Max.” She frowned. “And I know it’s my fault for snapping at her.”

“Then now’s your chance to put things right.”

She stared at him for a moment, hating that he was usually right. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the other girls.

“Maria,” she said, her voice a little stern.

Maria looked at her, eyes wide. “You stay away from me!”

Isabel kept approaching her and Liz backed out of her way. “No. I’m here to make things better for you.”

Maria held up her hands defensively. “I mean it, stay away.”

But now Isabel was right beside her and without warning her hand shot out and grabbed Maria by the wrist. “Look at me.”

Maria tried to wrench herself free, but the taller girl held on tightly.

“Maria, look at me.”

Isabel’s voice was suddenly soft and Maria stopped struggling. She looked up into the alien’s dark eyes and found herself relaxing for some reason.

“Everything is fine,” Isabel said, her voice soothing. “Soon we will see Michael and you’ll see that everything is okay.” Reaching over, she brushed Maria’s disheveled hair away from her face. “See? Isn’t everything okay?”

Maria was silent, her frantic breathing had slowed and she nodded her head obediently.

“You want to look your best for Michael, don’t you?”

Another nod.

“Then let’s go put your hair back the way he likes it.”

Maria willingly let Isabel put her arm around her shoulders and lead her back to the spot where Max had tossed the camping gear. He’d been too stricken to assemble the tent, so Isabel spread one of the sleeping bags on the ground and started Maria’s make-over.

Liz sat down beside Max and watched the other two. “How does she do that?” she asked, her voice sounding confused.

Max shook his head. “Seems like we get a new power every day,” he said. “I think Isabel has this hypnotic thing going on now.”

Liz watched him curiously. “Is that what you think happened with Michael? That he has new powers now?”

Max shrugged. “Maybe. Rising from the dead would be a new power, that’s for sure.” He gave a weak laugh. “Projecting himself and talking to Maria would be a new power.”

Liz smiled and put her arm around his waist. Almost immediately, his arm looped around her shoulders. “You’re worried about this, aren’t you?” she asked.

He looked down at his boots. “What if it’s not really Michael? What if he came back different or something?” He swallowed. “What if it’s a trap?”

Her gaze softened. “The sheriff wouldn’t set a trap for you, Max. Let alone a trap that involved his son.”

Max considered, nodded his head. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m paranoid.”

It was Liz’s turn for a little laugh. “This whole road trip has been about paranoia,” she said. “Maybe you’ve just gotten so used to expecting the worst that you can’t realize this is a good thing.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Your best friend is alive, Max!”

He gave her a gentle smile. “You’re my best friend,” he corrected.

“Okay,” she relented. “Your best boy friend.”

Max laughed. “Well, that makes me sound gay.”

“Don’t blame me,” she teased. “You’re the one who wanted the clarification.”

He reached over and wrapped her in his arms, pulled her tight to his body. Against her ear, he said, “Thank you, Liz. I’ve messed up your life so many times and you’re still here for me.”

“It’s our life,” she corrected against his shoulder. “And you haven’t messed us up. This is where we’re supposed to be, I think.”

He smiled at her, gave her a tender kiss and held her for awhile.

With Maria calmed down, they went about setting up camp again. The sheriff hadn’t known where exactly Michael and Kyle were, only that they were working their way east, so there was no telling how long they would be at the camp site. Somehow the boys knew where the others were and were working their way to that location but Jim couldn’t explain how that could be either.

The group decided to set up watch, with each of them taking a shift. Max wanted the first one, the night shift. He would watch while the others slept. He would watch to find out if Michael was really alive or not. Because even though Liz had tried to reassure him, Max still wasn’t sure they weren’t being lead into a trap.






Part Nine



Max sat motionlessly on the ground beside the fire pit. Around him, he heard the chirp of crickets, the soft rustle of the breeze in the trees. Darkness had fallen hours ago and the stars shown brightly above him. There was no moon and Max had not started a fire; he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention.

A few yards away, the girls were asleep in the tent. Maria had calmed down and had apologized somewhat self-consciously for her earlier frenzy; they’d all let her off the hook. Her emotions were true, honest and she had nothing to be sorry for. They had gone to bed around eleven o’clock and Max guessed by now they must all be sleeping.

He couldn’t sleep. There was no way he could drift off with all of the questions floating around in his head. His dark eyes shifted toward a new sound, his mind quickly processing it as non-threatening and he continued his vigil. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but he was hoping beyond all hope that Michael was truly alive, that this wasn’t a trap.

Since they’d hatched from the pods, it had always been the three of them – Max, Michael and Isabel. Max wasn’t sure how he’d make it through the rest of his life as a duo instead of a trio. A few days ago, when he’d finally come to accept Michael’s demise, he thought that maybe he’d figure something out, that he’d adjust to the new dynamic. But now…now that he knew that there was even the remotest possibility that Michael was somehow alive, he had no idea how he could have ever convinced himself of that.

Their relationship was not the ideal, but it was a functional, family relationship nonetheless. Even though they fought both physically and verbally, they were brothers and they had been essential to each other’s survival. Max found that he would do anything to get his brother back – there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t sacrifice.

A twig snapped off to Max’s left and he immediately processed that sound as threatening and jumped to his feet. His right hand came up in a defensive move, ready to strike. Adrenaline rushing, his eyes darted from one shadow to the next. His body became rigid, motionless, like a lion ready to pounce.

“Think that thing is loaded?” came a whispered voice. A voice Max recognized as belonging to Kyle Valenti.

“I don’t know,” came a reply in an excruciatingly familiar voice. “Why don’t you move and see if he shoots you.”

At any other time, Max might have laughed, but this time he only shifted his weight nervously, waiting for them to show themselves. He had a thought that maybe they wouldn’t show themselves since Isabel had been getting messages from Michael without ever seeing him.

Kyle’s voice again. “Do you know the secret password? Maybe that’s what he wants.”

“Secret password?”

“Don’t you aliens have a secret password? No? Jeez, what kind of club do you guys belong to anyway?”

“Shut up, Kyle.”

Slowly Max’s sight adjusted to the darkness and he could just make out two forms, one tall, one shorter. They both had their hands raised shoulder-high, in the surrender position. Max swallowed.

“It’s okay, Max.” Michael’s voice. “We’re going to step forward. Okay?”

Kyle this time, “We come in peace, earthling.”

Max’s eyes darted to either side of them, looking for additional visitors, anyone they may have brought with them. With a few steps, they were close enough so that he could make out the features of their faces and he felt his knees try to buckle beneath him when he looked at Michael.

“Michael?” he whispered in the night air, his voice trembling slightly.

Michael nodded.

“It’s really him, Max,” Kyle said, pointing a finger at his counterpart.

Michael’s gaze was steady, unwavering. “It’s not a trap,” he said in his usual blunt manner, putting words to Max’s fear. “We’re alone. Why don’t you put down your hand?”

Slowly, Max let his hand drop to his side, but his body was still tense, there was still that rush of energy flowing through him. “How?” he asked, his eyes never leaving his friend.

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know really. I remember spilling. Then I woke up really, really cold.” He cocked his head. “Do you have any idea how cold a morgue can be?” he asked rhetorically, trying to lighten the mood.

Max flashed on his ice bath in the white room, on shivering uncontrollably in a corner in his wet clothes. “Sort of.”

Michael laughed, a short burst of air, a typical Michael laugh. “I was joking.” He glanced around their surroundings and shivered. “Speaking of cold, it’s freezing out here.” Raising his hand, he sent a blast of power into the fire pit and the wood immediately began to crackle.

Kyle let out a satisfied “Yes!” and hurried over to sit by the flames. Max didn’t even look in his direction. He was still staring at Michael.

“I’m not a ghost,” Michael told him honestly. “I’m real.” He held out a hand to his freaked-out friend, offering it in greeting.

Max looked down at his hand, then slowly reached out with his own. They locked hands and Max quickly drew in a breath. He saw many images flash through his mind – visions from their youth, from high school, of Michael’s ‘death’, of his resurrection. In that instant, Max knew there was no doubt that this was Michael, that this was his friend, miraculously returned from the dead. When the flash ended, he was breathing heavily from the sheer power of the images. He met Michael’s eyes and suddenly his whole body was trembling and his knees were surrendering to their need to give out.

Without a word, Michael took him around the upper arm and helped him sit down on the ground beside the now-raging fire. Then he also sat, between Max and Kyle.

“I know it’s a shocker,” he said, tossing a stick into the fire. He figured if he kept talking, he’d break Max out of his traumatized state. “Imagine how I felt.”

“We left you,” Max said, staring at the flames.

Michael nodded. “You did.” He shrugged. “I would have done the same.”

“We shouldn’t have run.”

“Way I see it, you had to.”

“But if we hadn’t-“

“Maxwell, stop that.”

Max looked at him, his eyes full of sorrow, of regret. Michael offered him one of his trademark non-smiles.

“You did what you had to do,” he said casually. “You’re a good leader. You always have been.”

Max looked down at his shoes. Michael had just complimented him. That was unusual. Max wondered if death had changed Michael’s outlook on life.

“I should wake the others,” Max said absent-mindedly.

Michael looked over his shoulder at the tent. “Let them sleep. There’s plenty of time.”

“Got any food?” Kyle asked, leaning around Michael to address Max. “Hotdogs? Chips? Anything?”

Max pointed to a cooler and Kyle scrambled to his knees and flipped the lid.

Michael gave a little laugh. “He’s little but he eats a ton. He ate non-stop all the way across Oklahoma. He’s like a damned Chihuahua.”

Max broke his first smile as he watched Kyle pull out a package of hotdogs, then look around anxiously for a stick.

Behind them, they heard the light rustle of the nylon tent and they turned to see Maria poke her head out. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted slightly in wonder. Nearly silently, she slid out of the tent and stood upright. Michael immediately stood, swallowed hard. They stared for a few brief moments, then Maria was running, her bare feet thumping lightly against the hard ground. She jumped into his arms and he immediately wrapped his arms around her body.

Looking up at them, Max felt the first tightening in his throat. Until now, he had felt like he was in a dream, that Kyle and Michael hadn’t appeared out of the woods like Big Foot and his little brother. But now, seeing Maria’s unabashed emotion at seeing Michael again, it was settling in that this was very real.

“Oh, God,” Maria said into Michael’s shoulder. “It’s really you.” Her words were muffled, but it was obvious she was crying softly.

“It’s me,” Michael said, his own voice choked, as he smoothed her hair.

Both Max and Kyle looked away as Michael and Maria kissed, passionate kisses of lost lovers. Maria pulled away first and thumped Michael hard on the chest with her fist.

“No more bikes, Michael,” she spat, her voice full of emotion. “I mean it. Do you hear me?”

He laughed lightly and gently restrained her wrist. “Yes, I hear you. I promise. No more bikes.”

They kissed again, wrapped in each others’ arms until Michael sat back down and pulled Maria onto his lap, cradling her against him, warming her between the fire and his body.

There was a long period of silence while each of them respected the weight of the situation, the exhausting reunion that had just taken place. Only Kyle made any sound as he rotated a hotdog over the flames.

Finally Michael brushed Maria’s hair away from her face and touched her soft skin with his fingertips.

“You look great,” he said with a small smile.

Maria snorted. “I look a mess. I’ve been crying for days – I’m sure my eyes are all swollen. And this lifestyle doesn’t really cater to having the perfect makeup.”

He shook his head, serious. “No. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Her bottom lip quivered and she buried her head in his shoulder once again. He rocked her gently as he talked to her.

“You look great,” he repeated. “You’ve been taken care of.” He glanced at Max and mouthed the words “Thank you.”

Max gave him a small smile and wished internally that he had been able to provide a better life for Maria over the last week and a half. But Michael seemed grateful that his petite girlfriend was safe and healthy.

Maria pulled back and smacked Michael again. “And no more making me think I’m crazy!” she demanded.

Michael’s eyebrows rose in question.

She waved a hand toward Max. “They heard me talking to you and they all thought I’d flipped my lid, Michael. Don’t do that to me any more.”

Michael blinked, then with a perfectly expressionless face said, “Do what?”

Maria’s eyes widened and she was about to protest when Michael burst out laughing. She gasped, then exclaimed, “Bastard!”

He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. “God, I’ve missed you,” he said into her hair.

Max looked toward the stars. He was just beginning to see the first indication that daylight was breaking. To his left, Kyle was yawning sleepily and Michael looked exhausted. Max himself was starting to feel drained, partly from his all-night vigil and partly from the stress of the situation.

“We have a ton of questions,” Max said quietly, drawing the attention of the others. “But I know that Liz and Isabel want to be in on that conversation, too. Do you guys have blankets and stuff?”

Kyle’s brow furrowed. “What for? We slept in motels all the way here.”

Maria looked at him enviously, thinking of her many nights on the ground and only one night in a dry, comfortable bed.

Max pushed himself to his feet. “Okay. I’ve got some extras in the trunk. We’ll get some sleep. Then in the morning we can talk about what happened.”

As he walked to his car, Max wondered if there would ever be any explanation of Michael still being on this planet that would make any sense at all.






Part Ten



Isabel silently watched Michael washing his face at the edge of the river. She noted every one of his moves, trying to prove to herself that it wasn’t really him, that he was some shape-shifting imposter. But all of his mannerisms – his gait, his carriage, his constant touching of his hair – were one hundred percent Michael.

Beside her, Kyle was yawning and trying to shake the sleep from his mind.

“God, I can’t take my eyes off him,” Isabel breathed, feeling like she was in a dream.

Kyle nodded. “I know. I mean, who could tear their eyes away from something that beautiful?”

Isabel gave him a sideways look and rolled her eyes. Still the same old Kyle. “I mean, I can’t believe he’s here. And I can’t believe you’re here either.”

Kyle shrugged. “The man needed a co-pilot.” He snorted a little laugh. “That’s funny. He’s an alien. He needed a co-pilot…” He caught Isabel’s stare and shrugged. “Never mind.”

That morning, Isabel had crawled out of the tent and realized that the count of bodies sleeping by the fire pit was rather high. Her eyes had landed on Kyle first and then she’d frantically searched the rest of them for Michael. When she’d found him, she’d raced over to him and jumped on him, nearly causing him to roll into the remaining embers in the pit. It was a rude awakening for Michael but a welcome reunion. Then Isabel had set about ripping Max a new one for not waking her.

Her gaze shifted back to the river, where Max was now talking to Michael. Michael nodded his head and together the two boys started back to the fire pit. Liz appeared from inside the tent and sat down by Kyle, Maria right beside her. As soon as Michael sat, Maria eagerly grabbed his hand up in hers and he gave her a gentle smile.

“We should talk,” Max said as he, too, sat. “We need to decide what we’re going to do now.”

Isabel looked at Michael. “I think I’d like to hear what’s already happened first.”

Michael nodded. “Understandable.” He raked a hand through his hair and gave a shrug. “I can’t tell you why I’m here. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if I was really dead.”

Maria flinched at his casual use of the word.

Michael noticed her reaction and tightened his grip on her hand in reassurance. “I remember being on the bike, popping the wheelie, and then seeing nothing but the sky above me. I woke up in the morgue.” He shuddered. “Trust me, you don’t want to wake up in a refrigerated drawer. I wasn’t sure where I was, so I just got up and left.”

“He ended up at my house,” Kyle offered. “When he couldn’t find any of you.”

“What do you remember?” Isabel asked. “From when you were…um…”

“Dead?” Michael asked and she nodded. “I can’t remember anything. It’s not like I was dreaming or I went somewhere else. I just woke up.”

Max looked down at his boots, thinking.

“I guess it’s possible the hospital made a mistake,” Liz suggested. “I guess they could pronounce someone dead when they weren’t.” She didn’t really want to believe that was possible.

Suddenly Max looked up, his eyes bright. “When you woke up, did you have any injuries?”

Michael shook his head.

Max looked at Kyle. “And you said you saw the paramedics working on him?”

Kyle nodded.

“Did he have injuries then?”

Kyle thought back to that afternoon, standing in the hot sun, the heat emanating from the pavement in waves. There had been reflector glass and bits of metal everywhere. And blood. The back of Michael’s head had struck the asphalt and there had been a puddle of blood beneath it. There were also many cuts and bruises on his arms and legs.

He remembered something else - the paramedics had inserted a tracheotomy tube in Michael’s throat. Kyle’s eyes snapped to Michael’s neck and found it unmarred.

Slowly, Kyle nodded his head.

“More than just scrapes?” Max prodded.

Kyle nodded again and put a finger to the base of his throat. “They put one of those tubes in, you know, to open the airway or whatever.”

Michael suddenly felt five pairs of eyes on him, staring at his throat. His hand drifted up and he touched himself, found no hole there. But what freaked him out the most was that he didn’t remember anyone cutting into his windpipe.

Max swallowed hard, tried to find his voice. “It’s like…it’s like you healed yourself, Michael.”

Now all of the eyes shifted to Max.

“How can that be?” Isabel asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s the way we were designed. Maybe it was planned that we be…”

“Indestructible?” Liz offered.

Max nodded slowly.

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Kyle shivered visibly. “Okay, that just gave me the creeps.”

Isabel shook the confusion from her head. “Okay, let’s say for the sake of arguing since we will probably never know for sure anyway that that is really what happened. That doesn’t explain how you found us.”

Michael broke into a very uncharacteristic smile and Kyle gave a little laugh. “I had a homing beacon,” Michael announced.

Max’s gaze shifted to his car, which was now back to its original blue. A homing beacon? Was there something planted in his car?

Liz beat him to the question. “You mean there’s a trace device in the car?”

Michael laughed. “Sort of.” His gaze shifted to Isabel. “I locked on Isabel.”

Isabel’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“The first night I tried to contact you, I got in your head and kind of stayed there.” He looked smug, self-satisfied.

She frowned. “You’ve been reading my mind?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve just had a foot in there so I wouldn’t lose you.”

Her eyes were round. “That’s why I couldn’t dream walk. You weren’t letting me.”

“I couldn’t let you. If you did something like try to dream walk someone back in Roswell, I’d lose the direction and end up in the wrong place. I had to keep you contained.” He frowned. “I’m sorry, Iz.”

Isabel looked at the ground. Never before had anyone tried to control one of her powers. She’d always felt her powers were unique to her and that she had the ultimate control over them. But now Michael had stepped in and robbed her of that security. She felt a warm hand on her arm and looked up.

“I won’t do it again,” he promised. “I got out last night as soon as I got here and saw Max’s car.”

“How were you able to do that?” Max asked, his voice sounding somewhat incredulous.

Michael shrugged, removed his hand from Isabel’s arm. “I don’t know. Maybe what I went through heightened my powers, or gave me new ones.” He looked at her again. “I mean it, Iz. I’m sorry and it won’t happen again. It was the only option I had.”

Isabel nodded without looking at him and Michael knew that he had shattered a little piece of her confidence in him and it might take him a long time to regain it. But he would. If it took him his whole life.

“So what now?” Maria asked, trying to break the tension that was hanging heavily in the air around them. “Where do we go?”

“We can’t go home,” Liz said, thinking about how their initial instinct to flee had been a bad idea in the end.

“I think we can,” Michael said. “Eventually.”

They all turned to look at him, most of them looking surprised.

“There isn’t any FBI in Roswell,” he explained. “Just a bunch of reporters looking for a headline. Once they leave, I think we could return.”

“What about blood test and stuff?” Isabel asked, her brow furrowed.

“They never got to do the autopsy,” Kyle said. “They pronounced Michael dead on arrival at the hospital, so they never took a trauma panel or anything. My dad checked it out. There are no incriminating lab results.”

For the first time in a very long time, Max broke into a wide grin. They could go home if they wanted. Their days of running were over.

“What do we do in the mean time?” Maria asked.

Michael shrugged. “Keep going. Try to think of a good lie for your parents.”

“Go where?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “I always did want to see the ocean.”

Later they packed up the cars – Max’s Chevelle and Kyle’s Mustang – and decided on a route to Boston. When they started to get into the cars, however, Kyle joined the group heading to the Chevelle. Liz looked at him questioningly.

“Let’s give the lovebirds some time alone,” he suggested, motioning with his chin toward the Mustang, where Michael was climbing behind the wheel and Maria was hopping into the passenger seat.

Liz smiled at him, thankful for his friendship and he slung an arm around her shoulders.

“Let’s get this party started,” he said as he opened the car door for her and then climbed in the back seat with her.

Max gave him a look in the rearview mirror, wondered how annoying Kyle would be contained in a car for any length of time.

He had his answer when Kyle threw back his head and yelled, “Get this thing movin’, Evans! ‘Cause tramps like us! Baby, we were born to run!”


THE END