One of them pushed a cart over to the far side of Dee's table. Jenny saw a tray of gleaming instruments.
God-no, Jenny thought.
Dee collapsed back on the table, exhausted.
Another being picked up something long and shiny from the tray, examined it with lustrous black eyes. It flexed the thing a few times like a painter making practice runs with a brush. It seemed dissatisfied, although with its masklike face Jenny didn't know how she could tell this. Then it casually flicked the thing up Dee's thigh and Dee screamed.
It was like hearing your father scream. Jenny was so frightened that she tried to get up, and only succeeded in disarranging her legs slightly. One of the beings repositioned them carefully, stretching her feet toward the bottom corners of the table.
She had never felt so open, so utterly vulnerable.
Dee's black spandex legging gaped where the thing had cut it. Jenny could see blood.
The being handed the instrument to one of the others, which took it away. If they were talking or communicating, Jenny couldn't sense it. Certainly nobody tried to communicate with Dee or Jenny.
They were moving around again. One of them-the same one who had cut Dee?-took up a new instrument and went to Jenny's table. With a swift, deft movement the being touched the instrument to Jenny's hand. Jenny felt a pinch.
Then the probe went in her ear. Outraged, Jenny tried to roll her head away, but small hands-strong as claws inside mushroom flesh-held her forehead. She felt the probe go in deeper, and she squirmed frantically. It touched her eardrum and hurt like a Q-tip stabbed too deep.
She was completely helpless. Whatever they wanted to do to her, they would do.
Tears of pain and fury trickled out of her eyes, down her temples. They put the probe in her other ear. One of them dabbed at her eye, holding the lid open. Jenny felt the touch of cool metal against her eyeball.
"It's just a dream," she called to Dee, almost sobbing, when the probe was withdrawn. "It's not real!"
She couldn't hear any answer from the other table.
What kind of game was this, where you didn't have a chance? Julian had talked about "getting through" the nightmares, but Jenny didn't think that meant just waiting for them to pass. She was supposed to do something, but she didn't know what, and she couldn't move. And she didn't think she and Dee were going to survive this if they just lay here.
"What do you want from us?" she shouted. "What are we supposed to do?"
There was a shifting among the Visitors. A new kind of being had arrived. Taller than the others, clearly in command, with skin as white as wax. Its fingers were twice as long as a human's. Although Jenny got only a glimpse of its face, it looked more menacing than the other kind, its features even more exaggerated.
It picked something up from the instrument cart and went over to the far side of Dee's table. It looked up at Jenny, and she saw its eyes were blue.
Not glittering black like the other beings' eyes. Blue lakes endlessly deep, deep as a mountain is high. Eyes that looked inside you.
Jenny stared back, her own eyes widening.
Then she saw what it was holding. A needle. Wire-thin, murderously long, longer than the needle for a spinal tap. The tall Visitor was holding it over Dee's stomach.
Dee's stomach was heaving wildly in a fight for breath. Her khaki T-shirt was sticking to her body as she writhed in a futile attempt to escape. Her sweat-soaked hair glistened like mica in the light.
"Don't touch her!" Jenny cried. To watch it happen to Dee was worse than having it happen to herself.
The needle hovered just below Dee's navel. Dee's abdomen went concave trying to avoid it. Dee made rocking, shifting motions as if trying to shimmy up the table, but she only moved in place. The light above her intensified, and abruptly her struggles became weaker.
"You bastard! Leave her alone!"
What can I do? Jenny thought. She had to stop this-but how?
The light.
It came to her suddenly. The light above her had dimmed as Dee's had brightened. Maybe she could move now. And if she could move -
She began to rock.
She had some control over her body. Not much. Her arms and legs were still useless, like huge pieces of dead meat attached to her. But she could move her trunk and her head and neck. Using all her strength, she rocked