Disclaimer in Part 1 susieqla@yahoo.com Thrown Back- 13/18 In his mind beset with so many non sequiturs, there was no doubt whatsoever. It was Margot, groping her way along the Cherokee. It was she--the woman he'd fallen head over heels for, faltering her way around the car. She bore no marks nor any blemishes now. In fact, she looked radiant, but, a little spooky, to him. "Margot, I'm coming--it's gonna be all right!" Langly's feet tripped over themselves as he scrambled for her. He ignored the fact that there was something way weird about her overall. Her movement was erratic and jumpy, and when she stopped moving at abrupt intervals, it was as though she was still moving. Max' face was facial confusion in bas-relief. Off to the north, overhead, commercial jet engines were straining to break into cruising altitude. In Max' present state of confusion, he wasn't sure whether it was intergalactic company again paying another visit. He mowed past Langly, sending him sprawling, and made a mad beeline for Margot. If this were she here, now, then who had he delivered into their eager hands moments before? Max blocked out Langly's savage cuss words, and quickened his advance on the woman destined to be made his equal, who shimmered in the cool, still air. A look of dull fascination languished in Margot's doll-like eyes as she slunk nearer to the open door of the driver's side, with her windows of the soul riveted to the laptop's slim screen, wherein a fireworks display of colorful vibrance capered. With the gun still clutched in the good arm's hand, Langly forced himself up from the gravelly ground into a sitting position. His left arm hurt like hell, but he steeled himself to ignore the stabbing throbs as he skewered his lower lip with his upper teeth, lining Max up in imaginary crosshairs. Compressing his thoughts, he squeezed the trigger which didn't budge a fraction to his considerable shock. The firer had fused with the rest of the gun. "Oh, shit!" He dangled the firearm in front of his angry face, then looked away, obeying what his eyes were just picking up, as horror siphoned his breath away. "MARGOT--OHMIGOD! WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" His comprehension froze. "NO!!" Max had failed. He'd tried to snatch her back with the lariat he'd fashioned from his belt, but his toss had missed by degrees, or so he thought. The snaking line had seemed to loop about her, but hadn't caught. It had seemed to pass right through her body. Before he could try again, she was gone. Gone--sucked in whole, into the cavorting carnival of generated, dizzying prismal rainbows. Following the lightning bright flash, she'd evaporated into the thinnest air in less time than it takes to wink. "Esther...." Langly's outcry swallowed up his whine, and a sizzling sibilant sound ensued, filling the deceptive calm. A yawning gap existed between reality and every arcane sci-fi movie he'd ever inhaled, and he muttered something about, "How could she? The witch uploaded her the way she did herself!" The wind was kicking up, and lapped at his flushed cheeks. He began feeling woozy, as though he was going to pass out. "Or is it downloaded?" He stared in utter disbelief. Was he Bellevue bait delusional? Having one of Mulder's bizarrer dreams? "Total weirdness..." Sorrow tinctured his low, dejected tone. "She really did it. Dammit--Nairn took her." His voice fell down the abyss of his esophagus, and he almost choked. "She took away the one chick who could have mattered. W-Why? W-Why'd she..." He couldn't finish as tears swam in his eyes. Max wasn't so easily put off. His rejection of what had just happened, and his attempt to undo it was his undoing. Once his hands had made contact with the computer screen, the AI lashed out, delivering a mega-volt jolt of instant death. His strangled cry of hysteria and his subsequent solid thud against the Cherokee broke Langly out of his sad reverie. In the distance, a siren started shrieking and red beacons flashed as they whirred. Langly came to life after witnessing Max' demise, deciding he wasn't going to hang around for a dragnet to net him. Vacating the area was the best plan. Propping himself up onto his feet, and dragging himself over to the jeep, he avoided like the plague, the smoldering sight of Max' smoking, burnt-out corpse which still crackled. Gingerly, he stepped way around it. He forgot about the hurt in his left arm, which was fractured a hairline. He understood that there had to be some nasty cuts on his face. His right cheek stung much too much for its just being bruised. Afraid to touch the laptop directly himself now, he chanced closing down the screen with Byers' tennis racket which he found after a quick rummage behind the driver's seat. There was no way he wanted to deal with Nairn now, nor ever again. When he started the car up he thought that if a voice sounding even a little like Margot's had came across her trim computer, he would've lost it for sure on the spot. It was a classic peel-out; the smell of burned rubber on the wings of a gravel and dust mushroom cloud choked and lingered in the air. Who said he didn't know when to leave when it was time to go? The gaping hole Langly tore open in the security gate, (of course he'd have to explain about the jeep's mangled grillwork) would be his calling card. Eat his dust. As he sped away from the death scene, an acute sense of loss hounded him. Little did he fully realize just how much of a toll on him this latest loss would take. ||oo|| Shenandoah National Forest Two Days Later. . . 1:22 A.M. She awoke cold. She shivered, pulsating with a dread she couldn't shake, even after taking several deep breaths trying to calm herself. She felt as if she'd been high on a mountain top, and had just fallen to earth. It was pitch black, and the ground she sat upon was damp. The air smelled dank. ....I'm *not* dreaming, nor was I.... But what in the name of all that's rational happened to me? She froze in mid-thought. Nothing made any sense, and the fact that nothing did frightened her. The last thing she remembered was being slammed unconscious. But by whom? Her memory lapsed again, and heightened her fright. For several fitful moments then, she imagined she was dead. ....NO, silly, you're most certainly *not*.... If you were, you wouldn't care about being practically nude.... She pulled the thin tatty blouse, the blouse that once upon a time recently had been new, although to look at it now, one would never have thought so, around her more securely. A lot of good that did. She shielded her semi-exposed breasts with her chilled arms. Her slip--there was no skirt anymore--was in tatters too. She wondered what had become of her bra? When she worked ferverishly to remember, she remembered, caving a little. ....He raped me....Gustin raped me....and left me for dead.... She felt ruined, as though left in the squalor of a back alley in the East End. ....Charles Dickens.... Despite her desperate state of mind, the mere thought of her favorite author's name brought a smile to her lips. ....What would you have me do if I were one of your characters?.... What was she going to do? Out here, wherever here was, shoeless, clueless, and scared stiff. She shivered harder beneath the starry heavens, peering up at stars, the members of constellations which she knew. They'd guide her. If only she could use a tiny fraction of their illumination to light her way out of this...forest? The place had the feel of one, a huge one. When she heard stirrings of hesitant movement some twenty or thirty yards off, her heartbeats stepped up. What was it? Some wild animal who'd picked up her scent? Gustin returning to make sure he'd truly finished her off? She hunkered down deeper in the thick undergrowth, straining to hear more clearly. She rued the savage beating of her heart. Whatever or whoever it was, was sure to hear, and she held her breath as though not breathing would garner her safety. The beating of her heart quickened. Maybe the unknown would go away if she wished hard enough for it to, into the nothingness of deep night. Her resolve to be brave whithered when the sounds sounded too close for comfort. Long, penetrating swathes of beaming light knifed through the thick greenery. One long-range resplendant beam fell upon her hiding place. Timidly, she peeked through the shivering blind, hoping that somehow, she would go unseen. "Hey, over here! Guys!" a booming male voice heralded as the jubilant searcher's blazing beam swept over the spot where she was holed-up. "I think I've found that lost camper..." No you haven't, Margot thought apprehensively. Softly to the teeth-chattering woman her finder said, "You're fine. You're okay now. Everything'll be all right, ma'am." Good-looking woman, he thought, even if she is pretty beat-up. "What's your name? Don't be afraid." He removed his large olive-green jacket and spread it over her carefully. "I'm Tim. Timothy Ducasse at your service, ma'am... C'mon, tell me. What's yours?" When his fellow Rangers joined him, Tim said to them, "She's in shock--" "No-no I'm not." Margot blocked the blinding flashlight light out with her hands, putting them up. Her rescuers got more than an eyeful of her bosom than they should have. "My name's Margot." There was more to it than that she sensed. "Margot?" She didn't know what more to say, and her shivering increased. "Mar-uh?" "That's fine, ma'am; you're doing great. We'll have a transport here shortly to take you to the nearest medical facility. Just relax." He indicated to another Ranger to make that emergency call. "Margot... Mar...Ma..." Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, and began sliding free before she could stop them. "It's going to be all right, Margot." Ducasse dropped to his haunches. He wondered how badly injured she really was. He put his arm around her shoulders, trying to assess. Her shivering intensified, and he fitted his jacket about her more securely. She asked first, and when he said, "Sure," she took his flashlight and began surveying the environs for herself. There was a valid reason for the heavy fragrance of pine. The evergreens' branches were enormous. "Didn't think we'd find you," he whispered, and she nodded, deciding to accept the role of lost hiker, or whatever they thought she was. She gasped when a bolt of recollection shocked her. "A-Aparenridge! I'm Margot Aparenridge. I was kidnapped--" "Kidnapped? Who kidnapped you?" the level gazer, Gerard Dunn asked, as he stepped into them closer, sounding neither doubtful nor a hundred percent convinced. "My deranged boyfriend," Margot echoed, dazedly. "He, he," her voice wobbled as a tiny bell of further recollection dinged in her mind, "he handed me over to deformed creatures. Hideous things. They examined me, probed me like a specimen." She knew how it sounded, bearing the brunt of the three pairs of eyes studying her intently. Shaking her head, she didn't care if she sounded crazy. Her captors, who surprisingly, hadn't kept her long, were the ones she knew would hold her prisoner, one day. She hadn't counted on their setting her free, though, since she'd always reasoned once they had her, she'd be theirs forever. "Creatures?" Dunn asked, with a dulled flatness in his tone. "*Yes* Creatures. Al-aliens," Margot forcefully answered. "You just relax, ma'am," Ducasse assuaged, seeing if Margot was suffering from concussion as his eyes washed over her head after he reclaimed his flashlight. "I'm fine," Margot said testily, "so's my head." Ducasse was feeling for a large bump, or one or two smaller ones. She shook his hand out of her head. "See, what did I tell you?" He could have sworn he'd felt a lump, but seeing how Margot was getting combative, he decided he'd leave any further medical evaluation to the paramedics. "How'd you get away?" Ducasse humored. "The kidnapper... He just let you go? How long ago, if you know? He did this to you?" The Ranger's questions were so much white noise. Margot looked away from him, suddenly feeling very tired. "It's okay, Margot," Ducasse apologized. "Give the girl a chance," Dunn cautioned, giving his workmate a long, telling look. "One step at a time then," Ducasse amended. Margot shrugged, and stared into space contemplatively. There was someone else. Someone aside from Gustin she was trying to recall, but placing a face with a name wasn't happening. When she trusted her voice sufficiently, she replied, "I can't remember all that much." The Rangers fed off each other's curious looks. Ducasse furthered his line of questioning. "Your boyfriend, can you remember his name?" Margot thought hard, still trying to place the face she wanted with the name she wanted. Following several more moments, she said, "His name is...Ri-Richard...Richard Langly." "He did this to you," Dunn spoke up heatedly. Margot frowned, shaking her head, and sounding suddenly childlike said, "No--not *Ringo*." Sounding as confused as he looked, Ducasse said, "Who's Ringo?" "The name of my new boyfriend," Margot fired back. "But I thought your boyfriend's name is Richard like you said," Dunn tossed in, as lost as his associate. "Ringo is his nickname, you sillies," Margot said, looking at them scornfully. One step at a time, Ducasse reminded himself. "Oh...his nickname," the Rangers sounded off by way of delayed sequencing, but still looked as though she was speaking Malay. "So Ringo," Ducasse arched, "did this to you, eh?" "Nothing of the kind," Margot snapped, folding her arms across her chest, blocking their unobstructed view of her generous chest, "Ringo's an angel." Then her face clouded and she grew tearful. "It's Gustin--Gustin Max he's a devil. He did this to me, and--and..." Her voice drowned in the wash of tears that overwhelmed her. "It's okay--it's okay," Ducasse soothed, "it'll all be straightened out. Once you get into warmer clothes, and get some hot food into you, you'll be fine, and the authorities will get to the bottom of this, so don't worry." "I hope those aliens of his take him and never come back," Margot struggled through whimpers. The Rangers let her rant run its course. "'Member those campers back a year ago?" Matt Chenol whispered to his fellow PRs, "the ones who'd been reported as missing?" Chenol was always being told how great his memory was. "Yeah. What about them?" Ducasse raised. "They didn't make much sense either with their talk about aliens, and they were in worse shape than she is." Quickly he thrust in, "No offense, ma'am." Margot gave him a vague look. Langly.... What had happened to Langly?.... Had he ever made it to CRS'? Ducasse shot Chenol a lopsided, 'how many times do I have to tell you' look. It was a look the more junior man understood, but had a hard time shouldering. "Chenol, how long until that medivac gets here?" "ETA, eight to ten minutes more, sir," he promptly replied. "Good," Ducasse said, nodding along with the brand spanking new rookie. What was there about this neck of the woods, he considered, lifting his head, and looking all around. Maybe sometime before the end of autumn, a hand-to-hand ground search could be conducted in an effort to discover what mysteries this particular tract of land held. ||oo|| End Part 13 To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: lgmfanfic-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com