by Jerry L
Shelly frowned, “I’m not sure.” The stones weren’t talking now.
“I’ll wait five minutes OK?”
Shelly looked towards the motel. It easily contained over one hundred rooms or more. “OK, wait five minutes. If I’m not back by then go ahead and leave Mrs. Floogle will take care of me.”
On the second floor a door opened, framing in its light, a young man in a white Navy uniform. The man came to the rail and looked in Shelly’s direction. Spotting her next to the cab he ran along the balcony and down the stairs, leaving the door to his room open. He approached at a dead run.
“Do you have them?” He asked.
Shelly held out her purse. The man snatched it out of her hands and opened it. He took the stones and dropped them into a white cloth bag. They clinked against others in the bag. The young man opened the door to the taxi and got in. “Take me to the bus station!” he demanded.
The driver said, “Sorry pal. This cab belongs to the ladies.”
Shelly Lynn got in the other side and said, “That’s OK. I was going to the bus station also.”
The driver put the cab in gear and pulled away from the curb.
Shelly Lynn asked, “Where are they going now?”
“Palermo Sicily. My ship leaves tomorrow. I was beginning to worry if the stones were going to make it in time. I’ve spent two weeks gathering the others. Los Angeles, Seattle, Cheyenne Wyoming, Denver, all over the place. They scattered when their ship came apart in the atmosphere. I got all of the ones that were still alive.
In Shelly’s head the stones were jabbering to each other. She could no longer tell the voice of her own stone from the others. It sounded just like a meeting of old friends after many years absence.
The driver dropped them at the bus station and left without asking for money. The stones traveled for free obviously. Shelly bought a ticket for home while the young sailor got on the bus to Virginia for free.
Shelly Lynn got off the bus and put the suitcase in a locker. She then walked up to a policeman standing nearby. “Excuse me officer. My name is Shelly Lynn Coalter and I got on the wrong bus to Mobile a couple of days ago. I’m afraid that my folks might be worried.”
The officer called the station. Her folks and most of Alabama were indeed worried about her. Her story of circuitous bus trips was believed. The three thousand dollars remained in her purse.
Shelly hid the money and eventually was able to dribble it a few dollars at into it into her savings account. It served as the nucleus for her college money. As an adult, Shelly connected the dots from a falling comet over her home to Kansas City to Mobile Alabama to Savanna Georgia to Denver to Cheyenne Wyoming and Seattle. Eventually she traced the line of the crippled space ship around the globe to Palermo Sicily.
She spent every minute of her spare time for the rest of her life connecting the dots while searching along that line drawn on the globe for Mrs. Floogle and the other stones. Stones that spoke to various people in the various languages of the earth.
19: The Rider
Jake was restless, the trip up from the city was long and it seemed to take even far longer than it had in the past, but the breeze blowing down from the high country smelled of cool mountain air.
Gone was the sickly scent associated with metropolitan man, this was the smell of trees and clear streams, the smells of man the hunter, man who ran through the vast woodlands, man intimate with nature
Jack’s revere was abruptly shattered when the 18-wheeler he’d just departed, revved its mighty engine and slowly swung out of the parking lot and onto the two lane blacktop. Jack waved his thanks to the driver as a black cloud of carbon effluence spewed from the twin chrome stacks and Jake shivered as he imagined himself engulfed with fluorocarbons. “A week up here isn’t going to be enough.”
Upon entering the diner, the young man’s first impression was one of windows darkened by grease and smoke. Those few flies not glued to dangling fly paper were lying along the window sills. Products not commercially available for decades were advertized in yellowing signs, and the furnishings consisting of an assortment of fixtures both chrome and out of date. As his eyes adjusted to the semi darkness he knew his first impressions to be true.
The diner didn’t have much business. A couple of old men sat opposite each other in a booth, their cups of coffee sat silently listening to low conversation. As Jake walked past they looked up and then returned to their conversation, Jake thought one of them smelled ill, but the other didn’t seem to notice.
As Jake slid into an empty booth, he saw an old lady and an old man a couple booths further along the row and he heard the old man mutter, “This Goddamn trip is gonna kill me. My Goddamn hemorrhoids are the size of Godamn Niagara Falls.” The old lady nodded her head. She hadn’t heard a word.
Jake plucked a dog-eared menu from a chrome rack that also held salt, pepper, and a half -full bottle of catsup. He quickly scanned the two-page offering and just as quickly closed the plastic cover. The smell of the mimeographed page was nauseating.
An overweight woman of about thirty briskly stepped to the table, set down a glass of ice water and a huge mug, and asked “Coffee?” while pointing a clear glass coffee pot in the general direction of the mug that now commanded the center of the table.
Jake nodded and while she deftly sloshed the mug full of the steaming black liquid, Jake told her, “Steak, rare, no salad, no soup, no bread, just a double order of hash browns!” Then he looked at her and asked, “That OK?”
She nodded her assent and without further word turned and headed toward the area behind the counter and busied herself submitting Jake’s order.
Jake ate the food without appetite and promptly left the diner, again glad to be in the fresh air.
He gulped large lungs full and muttered to himself, he’d expected to be further into the mountains before nightfall overtook him and he didn’t want to set up camp in the dark. Maybe stopping to eat hadn’t been such a good idea but he’d had to take rides when he could get them and his last meal was early that morning. Besides vehicles were moving along the road and it was a couple hours yet to darkness. Jake smiled, he always got this way when he was going into the hills, anxious, apprehensive, a little impatient.
“Excuse me!”
The statement startled Jake and he literally jumped a step sideways. She approached from downwind and he never heard her. He looked down in disbelief, she wore some moccasin-type driving shoe but he still never heard her!
“Excuse me, “ she repeated, and then she asked, “Do you know how to get to Fessler?” She was pretty in a very simple way, green eyes and Ash blonde hair laced through a brunette and red cast. She was trim and almost Jakes height. He was twenty-six and he guessed that she was only a couple years older than him.
Jake, still a little taken aback, started talking,” You just continue on this highway, ‘bout forty miles you take a right on Route 45, watch for an old burned out barn off to the left. little tricky, but keep your eyes peeled, you’ll find it.”
“Uh,” she started to speak then nodded to Jake’s backpack, “You wouldn’t be headed that way would you, maybe keep me from getting too turned around?”
Jake hesitated a moment, shouldered his pack and nodded, “Yeah, I am, thanks?” As the two of them walked toward a red mid-sized sedan, Jake thought to himself, “two hours until sundown!” “I’ll ride about an hour and fifteen minutes into the mountains, hour and a half max, the I get out!” “Yeah,” he thought, “it’ll work just about right!”
Sheila handled the red car surprisingly well, for a woman, and the conversation was light for most if the first hour. Then Jake noticed that she was glancing up at the rear view mirror a bit more often than she had been.
As he turned to look, he heard another vehicle and a couple seconds later a large pick-up truck swing into view. It roared up behind the red sedan and quickly roared passed them, two of its occupants, burly men, hooting and hollering while the driver drunkenly c
areened from one lane to the other.
As they disappeared around a curve, one leaned precariously out the window, waving a can of beer, and shouting the virtues of “a better man than that shit bird!” Shelia seemed not to notice the comment and only remarked that they would probably see them dead alongside the road somewhere.
Jake and Shelia arrived at the Route 45 turn off in just a little over an hour from the time they departed the diner and it was precisely at that point that things started going poorly.
First, Jake noticed that the car was a bit stuffy! As he rolled his window down a bit, Shiela asked if he would like some outside air and he nodded his head as she shifted the ventilation controls mounted on the car’s dashboard. That didn’t help much.
Up ahead the four wheel Drive was parked alongside the narrow road, its three occupants lined up alongside the blacktop, urinating. Apparently they didn’t suspect passerbys, but clearly they nonetheless appeared unmindful. As the red sedan passed by the truck, the three men whooped and rushed to get in. It’s oversized tires sprayed gravel as it lurched onto the road and in pursuit of the sedan.
Then Jake began to notice the odors! The car smelled of oil and gasoline, upholstery and electrical things. Then he began to smell her! “Odd,” he thought, there was no scent of the artificial, not a hint of cologne or perfume, no deodorant, no make-up just a slight scent of soap and the scent of Her!
The pick-up roared up behind the sedan and attempted to pass a couple times before resuming its position on the sedan’s rear bumper. His thoughts weren’t on the truck but the smells. He thought it must be the closed up car but he began to imagine he could smell her perspiration and the smell of her skin! Her hair! Her breath! He imagined he could smell her individual scent!
The truck would fall back a few feet then roar up behind the car, braking at the last instant. The woman had a slightly rigid set to her jaw and both hands gripped the steering wheel. Jake began to perspire slightly and he could feel his pulse and hear it in his ears. He had to get out of the car! He could hear every creak of the chassis, every clunk and rattle.
The smell was becoming overpowering! It was all happening too soon! Nightfall was at least half an hour away. He tried to keep his voice calm; “I was planning to camp right about here.”
He knew how stupid the remark sounded. She was absorbed by driving, never taking her eyes off the road, deftly swinging the sedan around each curve, and never losing speed as they were flung from side to side.
Jake was having problems of his own: he could feel his joints growing tense, and his sight was blurring. He could feel his skin crawl and he could feel the individual hairs on his body.
Her smell was becoming overpowering, she was the primeval female and he could smell her excitement.
“I’ve gotta get out of here!” he literally growled but Sheila had no time to respond. The truck struck the sedan and the car was thrown forward, the back end fishtailed, came around, and the car slid sideways. The woman braked and the car swung back around, straightened for a moment. Jake’s door brushed a tree immediately before the rear quarter panel slapped a second tree.
The seatbelts locked, the airbags exploded in Jakes face, and collapsed. Jake ripped at the door handle but the door wouldn’t move. Jake ripped at the handle again and threw his weight against the door, and was met with a sense of falling headfirst into space.
Jake hit hard, bounced, then slid, his face and hands ripped and torn as he swept past trees and rock, then he struck a tree trunk hard enough to knock the wind from him.
Jake lay there gasping, immense pain tearing through his body, then he heard Shelia’s scream amid gales of male laughter. Jake leapt to his feet and stretched his body, working muscles and sinew, He screamed in pain as joints were jerked into alignment, then he heard a second scream, deeper this time.
Jake bounded up the steep slope, clawing, leaping over fallen trees and boulders, and deftly slipping around those tree trunks standing in his path, his strength and agility grew with each hurdle.
To the two men standing in the light of the truck’s headlights, the beast simply exploded into the world they thought, up a few seconds ago, they owned! The figure in front of them was approximately the size of a man (abet a large man) and it was draped in the remains of trousers, rags of a shirt, and a worn leather jacket whose seams had exploded; but, from there all resemblance to a man could only be described as general. He was heavy through the shoulders and trunk, his neck was thick and short, topped with a dog-like head and its snout was armed with a row of deadly teeth.
The first man only had time to notice the creature’s arms, long, slender, muscular and equipped with three-inch claws before the claws ripped out his intestines with one slash and his neck with the second.
The second man stood frozen, his alcohol-numbed brain trying to grasp the unreality of events; there was no such a thing as a fur-covered, man-beast, except maybe a Werewolf. “Oh shit… it’s a freekin Werewolf.”
The Wolf-man; however, had no thoughts, he moved by instinct. Before the first man started to fall, the Wolf-man leapt in front of the second, and about the time the drunk had his euphony, he had his chest ripped open and his heart ripped out. He had time for only one partial scream before his lungs were shredded.
But the Wolf-man heard another. He spun to the sound and in the twilight saw the third man running toward him. As the Wolf-man leapt toward the third man, the last vestige of humanity swept past his consciousness and he thought it unfortunate that the female hadn’t let him out of the car. She would have survived this. Then the third man stopped abruptly and he was spun sharply around. His back was a lattice of deep gashes. There was a quick movement and his head was thrown away from his jerking body, then his lifeless hulk slumped to the ground.
The Wolf-man crouched, growling as the female stepped from the growing darkness into the ring of the headlights. Her shirt and trousers were shredded and her body still looked more woman than wolf but the change was clearly in progress.
Her nostrils flared as she sucked in his odors, blood, sweat, excitement, and his maleness.
As she flexed her joints painfully into place and the last of her hair changed to fur, she chuckled with the last of her human breath, “I knew when I first smelled you that this would be an interesting week.”
The full moon rose over the distant ridgeline.
20: Scrabblers
Unit 7: Unit 7 to base.
Base: Base here. Unit 7:
I’m Texas Star minus thirty minutes.
Base: 10-4 how’s the star today?
Unit7: The usual -120 degrees C.
Base: 10-4 understand, a balmy -120 C.
Unit 7: Do you have the Comm Mod back on line yet?
Base: That’s a negative unit 7. The power is only at minus 10 now though.
Unit 7: It sees ambient light from maint. Mod will power up as the sun rises.
Base: What was wrong with it?
Unit 7: It was un-plugged.
Base: How is that possible?
Unit 7: It’s not possible, the seals are broken.
Base: Uh... by whom? The planet is un-inhabited!
Unit7: Right.... Wait a second, something’s coming this way.
Base: Uh... what kind of something?
Unit 7: Scrabblers, it looks like. Two of em.
Base: Scrabblers? Shit, how did they get through the field?
Unit 7: With the module down we don’t have a field.
Base: Yeah, I forgot. Well, stay inside of the Maint and they can’t bother you.
Unit 7: I know, but they sure are ugly bastards!
Base: You still have less than a half hour before you can lift off.
Unit 7: Yeah, I know. Here come two more of them.
Base: Uh... two or more and they kill each other right? They’re territorial!
Unit 7: They’re gathering around the Maint. There are six of them now.
Base: Six?
Unit 7: Uh... make
that seven... Uh... eight. A big green one just joined them.
Base: They don’t come in big. Green either. Just your basic gray and mottled tan.
Unit 7: This guy is six meters tall, at least. They come in big and green now.
Base: I just lost the module!
Unit 7: Yeah, the green one just un-plugged it.
Base: Scrabblers can’t do that! They aren’t smart enough.
Unit 7: This one can.
Base: You got five minutes before sun rise, then you can lift off. Hang in there!
Unit 7: Not going to happen, the big one is wrecking the solar panels on the maint.
Base: Oh shit! What’s he doing now?
Unit 7: Prying the air lock open.... Zzzzz.... Crack....! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Base: Unit 7... Unit7... Unit 7!
21: Go Devil 61
The young man left the bar about the time the tall thin man paid his diner tab at the cashier. The younger man actually stepping through the front door only a couple steps ahead of the thin man; but the younger man stopped, apparently fumbling for a cigarette, causing the thin man to step around the younger man. Then with speed and one fluid motion the young man spun directly in the path of the tall man and shoved something into the thin man’s stomach.
The young man snarled. ”Don’t twitch, don’t say a word! Just keep your hands in sight and step over there.” He nodded to an adjoining alley.
The thin man nodded, his gray eyes were emotionless, there was no sign of surprise, no sign of fear, just an icy look then he moved toward the darkness to his left. The gun moved to his back and he was prodded forward, “Look, kid, you want my money, you got it.”
“Shut up!” the young man snarled, “You’ll talk when ah tell you to. Get your hands up”