The Klaatu Terminus by Pete Hautman Page A

sticks to the fire and it flared brightly. Tucker realized that there were now more than a dozen men and women squatting around the flames listening. He noticed there were no children.
    Tucker asked, “These boggseys that made everybody into Klaatu, are they the same people who have my friend?”
    “They are their mothers’ mothers’ mothers’ children, yes.”
    “Why would they want her? Do they want to turn her into a Klaatu?”
    Marta shrugged. “Who knows what the boggseys want. I do not even understand what my own children want. A pitchfork? Bah. We are not farmers.” She glared again at Malo, who looked away angrily.
    “Where do I find these boggseys?” Tucker asked.
    Marta gestured vaguely. “Harmony is near. I will have Malo take you there in the morning.”
    “Take me now.”
    “It is too dangerous. The trap you blundered into is there for a reason.
El tigre
is a hungry beast. Tonight, you sleep in Malo’s bed.” She stood up. “No more stories.” She walked tiredly to one of the huts and disappeared inside. By ones and twos, the other men and women also retired to their huts, leaving only Malo and Tucker by the fire.
    “I don’t want to take your bed,” Tucker said. “I can sleep here by the fire.”
    Malo snorted and gave him a baleful look. “Marta speaks.” He pointed to one of the huts. “My bed is yours. I will tend the flame.”

H OPEWELL , A UGUST, 1997 CE
    W EEKS PASSED WITHOUT K OSH SEEING E MILY . H E SPENT
his time working at Red’s, working on his bike, and keeping the house up.
    Ronnie Becker had his court hearing and got off with probation. If he managed to make it to eighteen without getting into more trouble, his record would be cleared.
    “You won’t turn eighteen until January,” Kosh pointed out. “When was the last time you went six months without getting in trouble?”
    Ronnie laughed. “I’ll be extra careful,” he said. “I told the judge Jesus would be watching me.”
    “Yeah, but watching you do what?”
    “The way I figure it, God wanted me to get off with probation, so I guess I owe him one. Or maybe God owed me one for letting me get caught. Next time I go to church I’ll have to ask him.”
    Ronnie’s peculiar epistemology was of little interest to Kosh. Adrian’s over-the-top piety had put him off religion at an early age. He wasn’t even sure he believed in God.
    “Anyways, as soon as I can get a little scratch together, I’m leaving town,” Ronnie said. “Arnold is making my life hell.”
    Arnold was Ronnie’s father.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Anywhere. You want to come?”
    “No thanks,” Kosh said.
    Occasionally, Kosh performed odd jobs for his neighbors — anything that required a strong back and the willingness to work cheap. Chuck Beamon, a bachelor farmer who had inherited a small spread from his mother, called Kosh one day and asked him to help with a fence repair. Kosh stopped by the next morning.
    “Strangest thing,” Chuck said as they toted tools and a roll of fencing across his soybean field. “You remember I told you about that guy being chased by a pink pig? The guy wearing the black coat? Well, this here is where I seen him, and the other day, I’m out and . . . well, you’ll see.”
    They reached the edge of the field, which was bounded by a six-foot-tall welded wire fence. As they followed the fence line, Kosh remarked that it seemed an odd sort of fence for a soybean field. Chuck explained that he’d put it up because Henry Hall’s pigs kept raiding his beans. “They make one heck of a mess,” he said. “Course, Henry, he won’t do nothin’ about it. But lookie down here.”
    A perfectly round four-foot section of the fence was missing. Not broken, not collapsed, not hanging loose, but simply gone. A perfect circle of missing fence.
    “Now, don’t you think that’s peculiar?” Chuck said.
    “I do,” said Kosh. He examined the ends of the cut wires. His first thought was that it was a practical