2012 by Whitley Strieber Read Free Book Online Page B

of them planning future cigar raids, hopefully more successful ones. The point was to smoke more than half of the cigars. The guy who did that was the winner.
    As they reached the ridge that overlooked Wiley’s house, he noticed, in his office, a light. It came, glowed bright, then went.
    He stopped. “You see that?”
    “Actually, yeah.”
    “Given that my family’s asleep, I’m concerned.”
    The light came again, flickered, and was gone.
    “Looks like you got a short workin’ in there.”
    As he scrambled down the ridge to the house, Matt stayed right with him. He was a reprobate, but he was also a dutiful cop.
    They arrived at the edge of Wiley’s yard. His pool stood still and silent. The light flashed bright, and there was a sputtering sound from the open window.
    They went in through the screen door. Matt dug the fire extinguisher out of the closet while Wiley dashed up to his office.
    He looked at the desk, at the cords running down behind it. Nothing was sparking.
    “So what is it?” Matt asked, coming in.
    Could it have been the reptilians, maybe here to wreck the book? They’d broken through before, for sure. Sort of broken through.
    Matt bent down and brought up a frayed cord. He shook it and it sparked. “Sadie do this?”
    Their Burmese cat was a notorious cord chewer. “I forgot to close the door.”
    “She could’ve burned down your family, buddy.”
    “Thanks for helping me, Matt.”
    They said their good-byes, and Matt went clomping off down the stairs.
    Wiley started to leave the office, but was stopped by sounds that should not be there. Footsteps. Somebody pacing in the bedroom. But Brooke was asleep.
    He realized that he was hearing Lindy Winters.
    Their world was not an inch away, not a millimeter. If the physicists were right, they were infinitely close, and yet it would take more energy than existed in both universes together to enable them to make contact.
    Except…the physicists appeared to be wrong, didn’t they?
    Wiley sat down in his chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and when he did, Martin’s universe seemed to settle around him, caressing him like a living, complex fog.
    The lenses were hooks, and they had hooked into Martin’s world, and it would not be long before they hooked into this one, too.
    When he opened his eyes, nearly two hours had passed. It was nearly one. He needed to sleep, but he felt kind of sick inside, like somebody in a crashing plane would feel, waiting for the impact.
    They were coming. That’s what this was all about.
    In the other human world, NASA had announced that UFOs were real. Apparently, that had changed the balance, enabling the reptilians to enter on a tide of belief.
    So far, that did not seem like anything our NASA was likely to do.
    Now he understood why the government denied the obvious UFO reality. Somebody down deep in its secret corridors must know that belief counts, that it is the oil in the hinges of the doors between the worlds.
    He heard another sound, coming in from outside. Metallic. Very faint, though. What was that?
    It came again, faded again. He went to the window, leaned against the screen, trying to hear more clearly.
    And there it was again, more distinct this time, and this time he could tell what it was-the unmistakable ringing of church bells. On a good day, you could hear them from out here in the hills, but who would be ringing them at this hour?
    Matt lived closer to town, maybe he could hear better.
    He picked up the phone, then hesitated. It was late and he was going to make Matt mad. But how could he not? Matt was the police chief and, at the moment, the town’s only cop. If somebody was ringing the bell of one of the churches, maybe it was because he couldn’t make a call.
    He dialed, listened.
    “Yeah?”
    “Hey, I wake you up?”
    “I sit by the phone all night waitin’ for you, you stupid fuck. So what in hell do you want?”
    “Would you do me the favor of going to your window and tell me