column blinks on, then off.
“No,” she says. “Not naturally.” She purses her lips and studies the area around the white column. She sees no one. She thinks for a moment, then takes out the Glock. Then she starts off toward the column. She’s uneasy, because one thing Parson said has been bothering her:
It winds around the mesa, through rocks and trees and gullies, and… and some things I cannot describe.
It’s the “things he cannot describe” part that gets to her. It was as if he thought she’d see things that were beyond his conception. And while she doesn’t know Parson that well (and isn’t sure she’ll ever get the chance, now) she doesn’t think there’s much beyond him. Parson seems to be very good at knowing things, so if the things out here confound even him…
She emerges from the shadow of the cliff and sees she is at the base of the hill with the white column. It’s about twelve feet tall, standing perfectly perpendicular to the top of the hill. It looks like it’s made of metal, yet she can’t tell if it’s painted white or if the metal just is white. She’s not sure how long it’s been out here—if it was part of the Coburn operation then the damn thing must be older than she is—but it shows no signs of wear and tear.
For some reason the sight of that tall, white column makes her hair stand on end. It is just too perfect. It’s like the wind turbines she saw in West Texas, so strange and beautiful in an alien way, but even worse: the thing has no business being there, and yet there it is, blinking that violet light.
She considers what to do. She cannot say why she thinks it is dangerous, but she is sure of it. It is doing something in some intangible way, just as the wind turbines were turning and turning.
Against her better judgment, Mona decides to check it out. There is something strangely fascinating about the column, something hypnotic in the way its light keeps blinking on and off. So she starts off toward it, trying to ignore the sick sensation in her gut that suggests this is a damn stupid idea.
Though the column is not that tall it seems to tower over her as she approaches it. She feels a little sick; it’s like the proportions of everything in this country are all thrown off. And there’s something else wrong… something about the shadows on the ground…
Once she’s about twenty feet away from it, she stops. There’s an electrical taste in her mouth that she doesn’t care for, like she’s been sucking on a battery. She squats and studies the column. Its top is smooth and rounded, like it’s a big white bullet sitting on the top of the hill. And though the light keeps blinking, she can see no bulb, not even a hole in its white casing. If it is a casing, that is.
She cocks her head so one ear is toward it. The column is humming, very softly, an electrical sound that seems to pulse a little bit. She smacks her lips. Maybe she’s wrong, but she thinks the electrical taste in her mouth ebbs and flows with the pulse of the hum.
Mona brushes her hair out of her eyes and keeps studying it. She walks around it in a half-circle, trying to see if she can spot a seam or a bolt or a screw in its smooth white surface. She can’t see any, but it’s hard because her hair keeps getting in her face. The wind just doesn’t let up out here.
Then the wind finally drops a bit, a lull in the breeze. Yet Mona’s hair stays right where it is, right in front of her eyes.
She pushes it down and watches, confused, as it slowly rises back up.
She looks down at her arms and sees that every hair there is pointing straight at the column. Then she thinks, pinches a lock of her hair, and holds it taut in front of her face. She watches in amazement as the very tip of the lock slowly lifts to point toward the white column…
It’s static electricity, she realizes. The damn thing must be giving off a crazy-strong static field for it to pull at her from here.
She looks around to see if the field is pulling on anything else, and as she does she sees what’s wrong with the shadows on the ground: though the