It Came from the Sky Read online

  GH: Where? To visit Oswald?

  IH: yea

  IH: see what hes up to

  IH: keep tabs or whatever

  GH: Why don’t YOU go?

  IH: youre the smart one

  IH: youll get more info

  GH: You just want to keep your Sunday free.

  IH: arent i supposed to talk to people

  IH: like spread more alien gossip

  IH: ill be rly busy

  Event: Father Revolts (Cont.)

  Maggie’s head whipped back and forth between Ishmael and me. “Are you two texting each other?”

  I put down my phone. “No.”

  “You guys are so weird.”

  “Be nice to your brothers,” Mother muttered distractedly.

  I glanced at my phone again. As much as it pained me, Ishmael was right. One of us should keep track of Oswald. Keep track of his movements…and maybe of his methods too. A small, perhaps traitorous, part of me still thought I might learn something from him.

  “Mother,” I said. “Could I join you today?”

  She looked up from her planner with an expression that wasn’t outright shock, but was very close. “Of course you can.”

  “Where’s Oz staying anyway?” Ishmael asked.

  “Well, your father wouldn’t let him stay here—which would have been the hospitable thing to do. So he’s out on Crescent Road.”

  There were no hotels on Crescent Road. There wasn’t much of anything.

  “Is he sleeping in a field?” I asked. Based on J. Quincy Oswald’s snazzy clothes and high-end car, that struck me as incongruous.

  “Not in the field. He rented an RV.”

  “Why not stay in town?” He could surely afford a room at Doe Lake Resort, the closest thing Lansburg had to a luxury hotel.

  “That would be fine for him,” Mother said. “But he wants to be close to everyone else.”

  “Everyone else?”

  “The people with him. The other distributors.”

  I met Ishmael’s gaze across the table.

  Oswald had brought people with him. Or maybe they flocked to him after the fact. I thought back to the seminar, the rapt faces gazing at him, cheering and crying, their expressions of awe and worship.

  Maybe he had a contingent of people who followed him everywhere.

  Yes, that seemed right. I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t occurred to me already. Of course J. Quincy Oswald had groupies.

  Interview

  Subject #4, Victor Hofstadt (Father): Kids should have time to be kids. That’s what I always thought. I grew up with a single mom who worked sixty hours a week. I got a job to help her as soon as I was old enough. Baseball was my only break, and I guess that’s why I loved it so much. I wanted my kids to have better lives than that. I wanted to take away their hardships, do everything for them, give them time to chase their dreams. I didn’t realize that by giving them so much, I’d lose myself in the process.

  Event: A Visit to Oswald’s Camp

  Date: Oct. 1 (Sun.)

  The field where J. Quincy Oswald set up camp was on the opposite side of Lansburg. Mother and I passed through the center of town on the way there.

  More people milled around downtown than I’d ever seen before. Reporters carrying notebooks and wearing pristine hiking boots with their business suits, presumably planning a trek into the field to see the crop circle. Seekers with wild hair and rumpled clothes from nights spent sleeping in tents. The usual senior citizen tourist groups, curiously watching the news broadcast that was underway directly in front of the lava lamp.

  I had done this.

  I’d drawn these people to town. I’d given their lives interest and meaning, if only for a short while.

  The tourists and UFO hunters and camera crews might never know I was the one who’d lured them to Lansburg, but that was beside the point. For once, I felt more like a god than a starfish.

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Mother said, pulling me from my reverie.

  I glanced over. Her expression was firm and I immediately tensed. Here it was. The lecture I’d been waiting for, where she admitted she was angry about the havoc I’d caused.

  “There’s a distributor in Pittsburgh on my downline.”

  Or not.

  “She has a son who’s a little older than you,” Mother went on. “He’s studying for a culinary arts degree.”

  “Okay…and?”

  “He’s a nice boy. Very smart. And handsome.”

  Suddenly, I knew what she was getting at.

  “No, Mother,” I said simply. “I told you before, I don’t need you to matchmake.”

  It had been a while since she’d done this, and I thought she’d realized I was never going to take the bait. Never.

  “It’s just that—”

  “I’m capable of dating without your help.”

  Mother’s eyes lit up with hope. “Are you seeing someone?”

  “No,” I replied shortly.

  “You know, I always thought you and Owen Campbell would make a—”

  “I know what you’ve thought.”

  Owen and I had come to a kind of unspoken truce since our argument—at least, I assumed we had, since we were both acting like everything was fine between us. But even if Owen weren’t a factor, I couldn’t imagine anything more excruciating than a blind date set up by one of my parents.

  Mother and I were silent for a long time after that. I considered turning on the radio, despite the fact that 95 percent of what played on it made me cringe. Eventually, she said, “I worry about you, Gideon.”

  I briefly closed my eyes.

  “You’re so isolated,” she went on.

  “I attend high school. It’s impossible to be isolated while attending high school.”

  “How many people do you interact with while you’re there?”

  “I have plenty of friends.”

  “You have Cass.”

  “And Arden,” I pointed out.

  “You’ve never been very welcoming to Arden.”

  Mother was an extrovert. She couldn’t understand that having a small social circle never made me feel like I was lacking. I didn’t want tons of friends. She thought that made me broken, like something was essentially wrong at my core. And I hated that.

  Different humans had different needs.

  For instance: a man of average height and weight with an active lifestyle might require 3,500 calories a day to maintain weight and be functional. Whereas a similarly sized man who was entirely sedentary would require 2,200 calories. Though the men might have the same BMI (body mass index), each has specific caloric needs that fit their unique bodies.

  Social interaction was the same.

  Mother was bolstered by social events. I was the opposite. It didn’t mean anything was wrong with me, just that she and I were made differently.

  “Will you at least consider it?” Mother asked.

  “Consider what?”

  “Going on a date with Alex. I think you’d like him.”

  Resentment welled up inside of me. Why couldn’t she accept me for who I was?

  “I just don’t want you to be one of those people,” she went on.

  I raised my eyebrows. “What people would those be?”

  “Someone who lives for their work and looks back one day and realizes how little life they’ve experienced.”

  I barked out a sharp laugh. Mother lived for work as much as I did. She never even had to work—it was her choice. She went from venture to venture, never able to settle down, because she needed to be in motion, needed to be accomplishing something. She was even willing to overlook an absurd alien story, just because it might help grow her business.

  And I’d experienced plenty of life. It wasn’t
the same way Mother experienced it; it wasn’t made up of personal interactions and social events. But I knew how the world functioned. I knew how nebula became star systems. I knew how hydrogen and helium formed the gas giants, while other atoms formed the terrestrial worlds. I knew Earth’s ideal conditions for life and I knew the Drake equation said there must be other, similar, planets out there.

  I knew about the universe, the wide scope of it.

  That was life. Looking at the sky, seeing stars and planets and galaxies, seeing the intricate way they functioned together, the balance of it. That was an experience. I’d never trade it for a bunch of awkward first dates.

  There was more to life than the human experience. It was so hard to grasp that most people didn’t even try. But you could experience life on a universal scale. On a cosmic scale. You just had to open your mind to it.

  I didn’t tell Mother any of this for two reasons:

  1. She’d probably take it as further proof of my oddness.

  2. We’d arrived at our destination.

  I’d seen some of the Seekers’ campgrounds while traveling around Lansburg, and I assumed J. Quincy Oswald’s setup would be similar. In some ways, it was. There were tents and campers, and a music festival sort of look. Or, at least, what I imagined a music festival would look like.

  But while the Seekers had set up a commune, Oswald had a kingdom. And as with every kingdom, the king had a castle that set him apart from the peasants.

  Calling J. Quincy Oswald’s temporary home an RV was inadequate. It was a palace on wheels, the largest and gaudiest camper I’d ever seen.

  Tents and lesser RVs surrounded Oswald’s grandiose monstrosity, arranged in a series of concentric circles. It reminded me of drawings of wagon trains I’d seen in history class. When stopping for the night, the wagons pulled into a circle, blocking threats. A campfire was lit in the middle, where people could feel warm and protected and safe. Except here, the only thing that needed safekeeping was the great and powerful Oz.

  You could tell how the different distributors were faring in their business endeavors. Those in RVs presumably were doing okay for themselves and were “steadily growing their downline,” as Mother would’ve said. Those in tents, especially the ragged-looking ones at the edge of the circle, maybe not so much. One of the tents had a banner stretched across it, decorated with the myTality™ creed: Forget mortality. It’s not yourtality. It’s myTality!

  I followed Mother as she made her way through the campground. As she passed, people stopped to speak to her. She was recognized and treated with the utmost respect.

  Oswald was king, but Mother wasn’t just a lowly serf. She was his duke or earl or something. I didn’t know if that made me proud or concerned.

  Mother knocked on the door of Oswald’s RV and it immediately swung open.

  “There’s my favorite distributor,” he said. Mother beamed.

  He motioned us inside, where the decor was as obnoxious as I imagined. White leather furniture, softly glowing track lights, marble countertops. (The marble was especially absurd. In an RV, every feature should be chosen for its mass, flexibility, and collapsibility.) The interior of Oswald’s RV probably cost more than most of the homes in Lansburg.

  “So many people have come,” Mother said, gesturing to the field outside.

  “This is an opportunity no one dare miss,” Oswald said solemnly. “You know we’re gettin’ a gift, don’t you, Jane? We’re first in line for something that’s gonna revolutionize the whole world.”

  “I’m honored to be here for it.”

  Was it Oswald’s confidence that drew so many followers to him? If you act like you’re in charge, do you eventually become in charge?

  “And you, Gideon,” Oswald said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “How must it feel to know it all began with you?”

  “I’m rather indifferent to it, actually,” I lied.

  I saw a flicker on Oswald’s face. For a brief moment, his mask dropped. He wasn’t used to being met with apathy. Just as quickly, the moment passed, and his grin returned. “You youngsters never realize the significance of cultural change. You’ll learn.”

  He led Mother to the table where papers and folders were spread out. Before joining them, I took a long look around the RV, hoping to find some sign of…anything, really. Personality. Life. A sign that Oswald wasn’t buying into his own charade. But despite the luxury, the interior was sterile. There was nothing to tell me about Oswald as a person, or what might be happening below the surface.

  I walked to the table, where Mother and Oswald were engaged in conversation. I tried to listen, but my brain shut down when it came to myTality™. I only got bits and pieces:

  —fountain of youth—

  —have to set a price point—

  —potential to become our most successful product—

  Notably absent from the conversation was discussion of the effectiveness of the “extraterrestrial elixir.” No one at the table had illusions about the product, or the aliens being real—so I assumed, anyway—yet neither Oswald nor Mother seemed concerned that they were preparing to sell a lie.

  Maybe I didn’t have room to be self-righteous. Wasn’t that what I’d been doing for weeks?

  Excerpts from Select Media Coverage Sept. 27–Oct. 1

  From the Lansburg six o’clock news (station WLPB-TV):

  Here in Lansburg, speculation runs rampant as more UFO investigators flock to town—culminating with the arrival of J. Quincy Oswald, CEO of the much-debated multi-level marketing company myTality. Sources close to Mr. Oswald claim he’s had direct contact with extraterrestrials, but no more information has been provided.

  From lightbringernews.com:

  The activity has ramped up considerably over the past weeks, with reports of UFOs, alien abductions, and the appearance of a crop circle in David O’Grady’s field. The Light Bringer reached out to Mr. O’Grady for a comment, but he adamantly declined, citing that he “has nothing to say and wants these lunatics off his property.” One has to wonder if there’s something on the farm that Mr. O’Grady is trying to hide.

  From Basin and Range Radio:

  Live from the loneliest corner of the Mojave, you’re listening to Basin and Range Radio, where we keep an eye on the night sky. This is your host, Robert Nash. Tonight, we return to a small Pennsylvania town that’s been a hot spot for alien activity going on three weeks now. We’ve got Arnie Hodges, respected ufologist, waiting on the line to give us the latest updates.

  From The Finance Gurus podcast:

  ROB: Now we’ve talked a lot about J. Quincy Oswald on this show—

  HARVEY: For any first-time listeners, he’s the scumbag CEO of one of America’s fastest-growing pyramid schemes. Whatever you do, kids, do not sign up with myTality.

  ROB: Right now, he’s got something else up his sleeve, though… You want to do the honors, Harvey?

  HARVEY: Do I ever. Boys and girls, J. Quincy Oswald is currently in western Pennsylvania, communicating with aliens.

  ROB: You heard right—aliens.

  HARVEY: Now, we don’t usually stray from personal finance on this show, but we’ve gotta take a moment to discuss what exactly Oswald is doing out there.

  From The Late, Late Show with Johnny Speck:

  Y’all have heard what’s going on in Pennsylvania, right? And I don’t mean the Steelers being favored for another Super Bowl win. Nope, I’m talking aliens. You heard me. Little green men. Look this up. I’m not lyin’. The whole town’s supposedly been abducted by now, and all I’ve gotta say is, those rumors about the mushrooms in rural Pennsylvania must be true!

  Lansburg Close Encounter Statistics as of Oct. 1

  Information gathered from a variety of sources, including: blog posts, news articles, comments on news articles, general word of mouth.

  150: people have seen ligh
ts in the sky

  76: people have had visual contact with an unidentified flying object

  60: people have sensed an extraterrestrial presence

  82: people have been plagued by nightmares

  32: people recall strange experiments being performed on them

  29: people have visited the doctor, citing unexplained bruises or burns

  48: people actually remember being abducted

  38: people think myTality™ is the greatest company in the world

  7: people think the current happenings are “bullshit”

  3: people think Lansburg’s lava lamp is somehow connected to extraterrestrials

  1: person is certain the recent events are heralding the second coming of Christ

  Interlude

  Historical Comparisons of Mass Hysteria

  Perhaps you’re baffled by the situation in Lansburg. How could so many people believe they’d seen flying saucers or been abducted by aliens?

  The simple explanation is mass hysteria—a phenomenon where a group of people shares frenzied emotions, such as excitement or anxiety. These people develop irrational beliefs or become convinced they’re suffering from the same mysterious ailment.

  What happened in Lansburg that autumn wasn’t unprecedented. Allow me to give you a brief overview of some similar occurrences:

  The Dancing Plague (Strasbourg, France, 1518): Numerous people inexplicably dance for days without rest—some of them ultimately dying from exhaustion.

  The Salem Witch Trials (Salem, Massachusetts, 1692–1693): Young women experience strange fits that are attributed to witchcraft. The town is gripped by terror. Eventually suspicion and accusations lead to the execution of twenty “witches.”

  The Halifax Slasher (Halifax, England, 1938): A man prowls the streets, brutally attacking residents. A massive investigation is launched. Eventually, one of the “victims” admits he inflicted damage on himself for attention. Other victims confess they lied too. The Halifax Slasher never actually existed.

  The Laughing Epidemic (Kashasha, Tanzania, 1962): Three teens begin laughing at a joke, and the laughter spreads through their school. This laughing epidemic lasts for weeks, extending to other, nearby schools as well.