Wednesday's Child

Wednesday’s Child

By Jeff Ronay

Summer vacation was almost over. And in a few days, he’d be back at school. But let me begin at the beginning.

Ignatius Mackelroy was, by all appearances, a normal high school freshman living in Terre Haute, Indiana. How normal? Well, he played shortstop on his Little League team, had a crush on the brown-eyed girl who sat next to him in homeroom, and had just passed his temporary driver’s license. He built model rockets and had a small refracting telescope, which he used to gaze at the moon.

He lived in a modest bungalow on Sycamore Street with his parents and a playful cat named Domino. The house had a large maple out front on the tree lawn, just like every other house on the street, and some evenings, Ignatius slipped out at sundown, sat under the tree, and listened to the locusts call while the leaves rippled in the wind.

His eyes would grow heavy, and he’d doze.

Later, he’d drag out his telescope, point it at the first stars to light the summer sky, and then marvel at the dark craters on the moon. Someday, he thought, maybe someday I’ll get there.

Some nights, he’d join the neighborhood kids and cruise his bicycle down the street chasing Ernie’s ice cream truck. He’d laugh as the organ music pitched up as he got closer, and then smile as the sound dopplered down with the truck pulling away.

So, things were pretty normal.

However, when Ignatius was eleven, the dreams began—disturbing dreams and vivid nightmares, so much so that his grades slipped. His parents, justifiably concerned, sent him to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with acute anxiety disorder. He had to attend therapy sessions once a week, and from then on, took a medication designed to level him out.

It worked well for the next four years.

And so, everything, for the most part, in the life of Ignatius Mackelroy stayed pretty much normal.

Pretty much normal, that is, up until the day the first ship landed.

That was Wednesday—spaghetti day.

The family loved spaghetti and meatballs—Mom’s sauce simmered for hours, and the house smelled like a tomato farm with scents of garlic and oregano making his mouth water all day. And on spaghetti days, it was customary for Ignatius to sneak a meatball to the cat when his mother was not looking.

“Here you go, Domino. Now eat up, and whatever you do, don’t let mom see,” he would say.

So, on that Wednesday, spaghetti day, there were the usual side dishes: Garlic bread, pickled tomatoes, green beans in butter, sweetened iced tea, and, for dessert, strawberry shortcake and the six o’clock national news on the TV.

He sat there and watched with his mother and father, as millions of others did across the country.

But when he saw the ship on TV, he shuddered with fear. He jumped up, spilling his iced tea, and stood pointing at the TV.

“Ignatius, what is it? Whatever is the matter?” asked his mother.

“That’s it. That’s the ship I saw in my dream.”

He sprinted to his bedroom and hurried back with a drawing. His hands shook as he handed it to his father.

“Dad, look.”

Then he waited.

His father studied the drawing, comparing it to the TV. Then a look of puzzlement wrinkled his brow.

“Ignatius, where did you get this?”

The boy ignored him.

“They’re not friendly. They’re going to kill everyone.”

His mother’s mouth hung open.

“Jim, do something,” she said.

“Now look, Son,” said his father. “We don’t know anything about the ship. Nobody does. They’re not even sure if there are people inside.”

“There are, and they’re bad. I saw them in my dream. Today’s Wednesday. They come out on Thursday. On Friday, they start killing. Everybody. Then more ships land. All over the world. Dad, I dreamt we drove to the cabin. You took your rifle. We need to go to the cabin. Please, can we go there now?”

His mother pulled out her cellphone.

“I’m calling Doctor Burns.”

“Mom, I don’t need any more therapy—you guys think I’m making this up?”

“Ignatius, you don’t sound like yourself, and you’re scaring us,” she said.

He turned to his father to plead his case.

“Dad, look. Look at the symbol on the side of the ship. How could I make that up?

On the side of the ship was a white circle containing three blue stars, lined up like the three stars in Orion’s belt.

The drawing was a perfect match.

“Look. Even the colors are the same,” said Ignatius.

“And the three blue stars—see how they’re slanted, just like you showed me, Dad, just like the three stars in Orion’s belt. Remember? Do you guys think I drew that by accident?”

His father swallowed hard, realizing the truth.

“Beth, you'd better look at this.”

His father handed her the drawing.

She looked at it. Then at the TV.

“Doctor Burns office,” said her cellphone.

“Sorry, wrong number,” she said.

She hung up the cell with a glazed look in her eyes.

“Jim, what should we do?” she asked.

His father bit his lip.

“We'd better start packing the car,” he said.

For a moment, Ignatius breathed a sigh of relief.

“But shouldn’t we tell somebody?” asked his mother.

“Mom, we tried, but nobody listened. Now, we’ve got to hurry. Don’t you guys believe me?” said Ignatius.

“I believe you,” said his father.

His father squinted, then asked: “Ignatius, in your dream—what happened when we got to the cabin?”

“All I know is we were safe through the weekend. That’s what I remember.”

His father sat for a few seconds, thinking it over.

“Ok, we’ve got enough food and supplies at the cabin for six months. I’m going to gas up the car, then pick up some ammunition for the rifle. Ignatius, I want you to grab the radio, the flashlights, and your laptop. And put Domino in his traveling cage.”

The family cabin was secluded, deep in the woods of Clinton, Indiana, about fifteen miles away.

By the time they loaded the car and made the drive, it was sundown, and the shadows stretched long between the trees. It was quiet as the SUV navigated the dirt roads that led to the cabin.

They turned off and followed a long dirt drive deep into the woods.

The drive curved around and led to the cabin, well hidden from the road behind a large grove of maple and birch trees.

They unloaded the car, and his father parked it behind the cabin.

Finally settled, they sat at the small dining room table.

It was quiet, and they looked at each other. Ignatius clicked on the portable radio tuned to a public news channel. The announcer was serious, and she sounded a bit British.

“Here’s the latest from Reuters—government officials have categorized the ship that landed today on Peterson’s Farm as extraterrestrial and definitely not of this Earth. The FBI, working with state police, has cordoned off a one-half-mile perimeter around the ship for public safety. So far, there has been no contact, and authorities are unable to determine if the ship is manned.”

On Thursday, they sat by the radio again when Reuters reported the visitors' strange appearance.

“At noon today, a door opened on the ship, and officials got their first look at one of the visitors, as they’re now being called. He was described as tall and thin, with large tear-shaped eyes, a flat nose, and a tight-lipped mouth. Witnesses claimed the visitor remained outside for less than a minute, and then abruptly went back inside with the ship’s door closing. During that time, no communication took place.”

“It’s them,” said Ignatius. “I remember those eyes—like two big tears. I looked in them. They were dark, and cold, and empty.”

He looked at his mother.

“They looked right through me, Mom. I tried to scream. But I couldn’t.”

His mother shivered in her chair; she tried to work her jaw, but it felt locked tight with fear. Finally, she stood up and managed…

“We should eat something. I’ll make some food.”

At dinner, no one spoke. They ate macaroni and cheese and peas, and sipped their water as if in a trance.

Domino circled Ignatius’s chair, waiting, and was rewarded when Ignatius snuck him a couple of peas and then surreptitiously dropped a fork of macaroni on the floor. The cat licked it up and purred.

Ignatius looked at the cat and wondered what would happen to him. Who would feed him?

And he wondered what would happen to him and his parents?

Then he sat back and broke the silence.

“I think it starts tomorrow,” he said.

After dinner, Ignatius helped clear the table and wash the dishes. Then they all sat in the living room.

His father sat in his big leather reading chair, loading rifle clips, bullet by bullet. As the man emptied each Remington box on the glass end table, Ignatius watched the bullets dance. They reminded him of hail bouncing on the roof during a storm. He watched as, all together, his father loaded ten rifle clips—their only line of defense if it came to that.

His mother sat on the couch, pretending to read an old Time magazine, but a careful observer would note the pages shook in her hands. And that she shuffled back and forth between the same pages several times.

Ignatius sat opposite across from the two of them in the old rocking chair. The cat sat on his lap, purring as he scratched her under her chin.

It was dark when his father checked his watch.

“Nine o’clock. We should get some sleep.”

“Dad, we need to turn off all the lights,” said Ignatius.

The cabin had two bedrooms, one for Ignatius and the other for his parents. Domino curled up next to Ignatius’s and snuggled on his own blanket.

It was quiet, and somewhere in the night, Ignatius fell asleep.

He dreamed of the visitors again. He saw their faces and their tear-shaped eyes. It was night, and he was in the woods, and once again they were chasing him. He tried to run, but his feet felt as if he were wearing boots made of lead. His legs ached, and he could barely move them.

Something was right behind him, and he tried to scream, but nothing came out.

He woke up in the morning and looked around wide-eyed as he got his bearings. He was back in his regular bedroom in the house on Sycamore Street.

Domino licked his face.

Ignatius got up and hurried to the kitchen, where his mom and dad were sipping their morning coffee. The news was on TV.

“Looks like a small plane crashed out at Peterson’ s farm,” said his father. “Ignatius, you remember, we bought pumpkins out there, last Halloween?”

“What day is it? asked Ignatius.”

His mother stared at him for a few seconds.

“It’s Wednesday, said his mother. Are you ok?”

“Yeah. Just a weird dream. I’m ok.”

He smiled and ran a hand through his hair.

But as Ignatius Mackelroy looked back at the TV, the local reporter broke in.

“Folks, wait a minute. Bob, let’s get close on this. There seems to be some kind of craft that has just landed. It’s not far from us. It’s—well, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

The picture zoomed in: It was a silver craft, and oblong in shape.

A white circle marked its side. Inside the circle—there were three blue stars in a line—like the stars in Orion’s belt.

Ignatius watched his mother sip her coffee, saw his father reading the paper, and heard the cat purr as it stretched in the morning sunlight.

Then he looked back at the screen.

He saw the ship, and the symbol on its side: A white circle with three blue stars in a row—just like Orion’s belt—and he knew what it meant for the four of them:

Summer was over, and so were we.