Heritage and Shimmer Read Online Free Page A

the
headstone,” pointed Beverly. “That woman was beautiful.”
     
    Simon nodded. “They really painted her up
like a real looker.”
     
    “Was she the nurse who first tended to the
alien?” Jayce asked. “Was she the woman who so courageously tried
to show the alien a little compassion?”
     
    Simon pointed to the button installed atop
the headstone. “You better listen to what the Starwatch wants you
to hear.”
     
    The projector’s glass eye winked and floated
an attractive figure of a smiling, young woman into the air. The
woman’s face was the same as that captured in the photograph taped
to the headstone, and the lady wore a nurse’s blue smock and clean,
white tennis shoes. The holographic woman smiled timidly before she
spoke.
     
    “My name is Lori Page, and I worked at the
county emergency care center. I administered first aid to the alien
after it was carried into town.”
     
    Beverly shook her head. “I would never have
done such a thing.”
     
    Jayce chuckled. “The people of New Bethany
probably didn’t know the alien was a threat yet, Bev. It probably
took them a little while to realize an invasion was happening, and
that woman was just doing the best she could out of the goodness of
her heart. The Starwatch says that the care that woman tried giving
to that creature proved that we’re a better type of species than
those aliens.”
     
    Simon chuckled before the faceless narrator’s
voice spoke from the headstone’s speakers.
     
    “Lori Page took great risks when she gave
what comfort she could to the alien carried into New Bethany. Due
to her exposure to that invader, Ms. Page contracted a contagion
that rendered our modern medicine powerless. Ms. Page suffered for
the mercy she still administered to that alien, and she gave her
life to show humanity’s great compassion. Though we have little
means to know if Ms. Page’s mercy eased the alien’s suffering, her
mercy represents the best of us.”
     
    Simon covered his mouth with his swollen
hands, but his twisted fingers failed to suffocate his laughter as
the caretaker wheezed for breath.
     
    “What’s so funny about that?” Jayce growled.
“That woman died at a very young age thanks to that alien. Just
think about all she lost to show a little kindness.”
     
    “I think what that woman did was very noble,”
added Beverly.
     
    Simon caught enough breath to speak. “Lots of
visitors call Lori Page noble. They call her all kinds of nice
things that folks in town never called her before Starwatch erected
all these headstones in this cemetery. But I remember how it was.
Lori didn’t lift a hand to help the alien those three boys chained
to a truck bumper and dragged all the way back into town. She
screamed she wouldn’t do a thing to help ease that pitiful
creature’s hurt. She locked herself in her home, and the rest of us
didn’t have the stomach to look at the pain in that alien’s
oversized eyes. We couldn’t look at that alien’s mangled and broken
limbs. Lori’s actions shouldn’t have surprised any of us, seeing
how she never took her famous bedside manner with her into her
work.”
     
    “You’re a stinking liar!” Jayce hissed. “Say
one more thing and I’m going to knock your ass onto the ground, old
man or not.”
     
    The laughter vanished from Simon’s eyes. “I
don’t doubt you would try, son. Nor would you be the first guest to
this memorial to try.”
     
    “He’s not worth it, Jayce.”
     
    Beverly stepped between her husband and
Simon. The visit to the memorial was meant to be only a short
diversion from their drive to the mountains, only a short
distraction from the drive to the stone cottage of Jayce’s mother,
where the two of them would wed before enjoying a short honeymoon
before her new husband returned to Starwatch and his duties.
Beverly feared Jayce might lose his temper. She would hate to see
him strike the old man for mumbling such horrible things about the
dead. No matter how