Page 15 of The Space Traveller's Lover
“Any news about Erin? Have they found anything inside the cave?” he glumly asks as if already knowing the answer.
His parents’ sombre faces say it all.
“Do you realise what it means? He took her. He took her!” Sam yells in frustration, jumping out of his bed and abruptly opening the blinds in the tall bay window.
But he’s faced with a group of people leaning against the front iron gates, hectically focusing their cameras on him. Dazzled, he closes the blinds as quickly as he opened them.
“Who are they?” he asks, looking wholly perplexed while pointing at the window.
“They’re reporters from the ARA,” Bill explains. “They want to interview you.”
“We told them you’re not well. We’re trying to keep them at bay,” Martha says, walking towards her son and trying to hug him. “But they won’t go away.”
“Ah! You think the ARA will laugh at me, don’t you?” Sam avoids his mother’s arms, visibly upset.
“My dear,” she continues in a soothing tone, “you have not completely recovered. You may feel all right now, but you’ve woken up from a very long sleep.”
“Yes.” Sheppard tries to calm down his son, putting his arms around Sam’s shoulders. “It seems you are still under the influence of something—”
“How long have I been asleep?” Sam relents, dejectedly staring at his father.
“For the past fourteen hours,” Sheppard calmly says while walking his son towards the bed, followed by Martha.
“What can be making you so drowsy?” Martha ponders. “All the tests were negative … they showed no suspicious chemicals in your body. We’re all baffled.”
As they sit and embrace one another, Sam recalls the last moments with Erin, painstakingly going through his memories once again. He tries but fails to come up with at least a shred of unrefutable evidence. He feels utterly hopeless, realising he’s exhausted all means of trying to convince everyone that he’s telling the truth.
“I remember fearing the worst as the boat surged ever closer to the waterfall … and then, suddenly the boat seemed to stop, held up by some force.”
“But we found you in a completely different place,” Bill tries to clarify.
“I’ve always said the boat was dragged by the strong current and suddenly stopped on the very edge of the waterfall,” Sam counters.
“We found the boat stuck, Sam, tightly wedged in between the rocks—on the side alley,” Bill sternly replies, looking straight into Sam’s eyes.
“Dad, why would I invent this?” Sam keeps firm as he holds his father’s probing gaze. “This is what happened. An alien from the alien aircraft turned up from under the waterfall, took Erin, and left me on the boat. He must have moved it.”
“Sam, who is going to believe such a story? You’re in good health, with no evidence of not eating or drinking for eight days … How can we explain what you’ve been doing all that time? You say the alien kept you immobilised until we found you … but how? And why? Do you want to know the latest rumours going around? Sheppard resignedly says as if he has entirely run out of ideas.
“Do you believe those rumours?” Sam challenges his parents with a deep frown on his face.
“No, absolutely not!” Martha hurriedly replies.
“What are they saying?” Sam asks despondently, sitting upright and folding his arms on his chest.
“They’ve been saying,” Bill starts explaining in a dismissive tone, making it evident that he doesn’t believe it either, “that you prepared everything to take Erin into Diablo’s cave’s dead-end channel, and youkept her hidden against her will. But as she kept rejecting you … you killed her and threw all the evidence … and her body … over the waterfall. Then you waited for rescue, as you knew I would eventually go there looking for you.”
Sam throws himself back against the bed’s headrest. “That doesn’t make any sense!” he protests.
“To them, it makes more sense than the alien story, son,” Martha sombrely adds.
“But why would I want to kill Erin?” Sam insists, sitting up straight and punching the bed with his clenched fists. “I love her.”
However implausible his story seems to be, Sam’s parents do believe him. But they’re not sure if anybody else will.
“We believe you, son. We believe you!” Martha and Bill keep telling Sam as they huddle around him.
“We must go back there, to Diablo’s cave. He’ll come back,” Sam pleads with his father.
