Crop Circles, Cows, and Crazy Aliens

by steve higgs

  He came through the door and flicked on the lights. Illumination spread across the lockup, at the same time bringing light and creating shadows.

  I stayed still and watched as he crossed to the roller door. It was an old manual door that required the user to hoist and lower the door using a chain. He unhooked the chain and pulled the door open.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand, Bob.’ Said Jack as he went outside to help.

  I stepped out of the shadow I had been standing in but didn't say anything. Instead, I filmed on my phone as the two men wheeled the spaceship back into the lockup. Up close, it was easy to see that the spaceship was a modified microlight aircraft. It was covered in sheets of what appeared to be carbon fibre that shimmered with iridescence under the halogen bulbs. It was shaped to look nothing like a microlight, so from the sky, or from a distance it would look like an alien spacecraft. Likewise, the alien’s spacesuit looked good from a distance, but up close one could see how man -made it was. The cast from the boot matched exactly the bottom of the boots sat next to the suit. They were large rubber wellingtons boots onto which an oversize foot had been moulded.

  I had to admire his ingenuity and wondered if the suit itself had come from an old sci-fi movie or TV series. Maybe one that got cancelled or was never aired. It felt highly probable that costumes and props would be made for failed shows and were then sold off for pennies when the budget got cut.

  Nevertheless, the ruse was over. I tossed the odd metal component I had found in the woods onto the concrete in front of them.

  It made a terrible clanging sound that reverberated off the walls in the silence, causing Jack to jump and Bob to clutch his chest as his heart restarted.

  ‘Did you wonder why your burner stopped working?’ I asked.

  When I arrived an hour ago, I had taken the grand tour of all the fun artefacts I had found inside. One of them was an industrial weed burner with a big circular steel ring attached to the burner end. The ring looked like a giant cookie cutter and I didn't need to measure it to know that it had been used to contain the flames so Jack could make the twelve rings Fred had found in the woods. A spring hanging out of the device showed where the lever arm, for that was what it was, was supposed to fit.

  For the first time since I met him, Jack was without comment.

  I crossed the floor to stop right in front of Jack’s face. He was able to look down at me but there was no mistaking that I had the upper hand.

  ‘Worried Jack?’ I asked. ‘You should be. I already filmed all these props. I can expose you and your show. You took advantage of the odd occurrences in Cliffe Woods and added to them. Scaring people and interfering with a police investigation.’

  He swallowed. ‘What are you going to do?’

  I stared directly into his eyes. I had him, and he knew it. ‘I'm going to watch your show, Jack.'

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You set my uncle as bait. To prove I was wrong and that you were not behind all the alien sightings, you had him dress up and cover for you. He thinks all the alien nonsense is real and he thinks you might actually give him a shot on your show, so he did what you asked and put himself in danger. For you. FOR YOU!' I roared.

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Shut up, Jack.’ My voice had returned to normal volume. ‘It was Bob in the microlight, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You are going to get back on the air, Jack and you are going to make your show as successful as you can, and you are going to do it with your co-host Norbert.’

  He opened his mouth to protest but seeing my expression he closed it again.

  ‘I will do nothing with the footage I have, provided you pay him a fair wage, let's say thirty percent of profits.' Jack's eyes popped out. ‘Does that sound fair to you, Bob?'

  ‘Yeah, thirty percent sounds about right.' Bob replied, suddenly forgetting his coronary distress at the thought of money.

  ‘Thirty percent to each of your team still leaves forty percent to you, Jack. Or nothing. Take your pick.’

  With no choice at all, Jack agreed, and I went home to rest. It had been an odd case.

  The next show had gone on air the following Saturday, with Norbert Nichols getting almost equal air time. He did well too. Better than I had expected.

  Uncle Knobhead had finally found something he might not make a mess of.

  Number 18 Matthew’s Close, Cliffe Woods. Monday, November 14th 1912hrs

  Gordon handed me my cup of tea and took a seat opposite me in his small living room. Sitting next to him was his wife Geraldine. His abrasive nature had made me trepidatious about knocking on his door this evening.

  I had a final part of the mystery to deal with, so even though I was not being paid to solve this element of it, I wanted to do for my own satisfaction.

  Gordon McIntosh’s attitude and demeanour were entirely different here though than they had been whenever we had spoken on the farm. Whether it was his wife’s influence on him, the impact of recent events, or just that he was under no pressure in his home environment I couldn’t tell.

  Whatever the case, he was charming and pleasant now.

  ‘Do you believe you will be able to buy the farm?’ I asked. Gordon had sensed the impending failure of the farm co-operative and had been preparing for it. His meeting with the bank had been to secure a loan against Wendle farm if it came up for sale. He had investors lined up and a grand plan to raise ostriches for meat and llamas for wool.

  ‘I think so, yes. Mr. Fallon was very interested in my ideas when we sat down earlier today. That's not why you came though, is it? On the phone, you said something about lights in the sky.'

  ‘That’s right. You are part of a Falklands war re-enactment team, yes?’

  He took a slurp of his tea. ‘Indeed. We meet twice a week.’

  ‘On Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Replied his wife as Gordon had his cup to his lips again. ‘Are you interested in battle re-enactment?’

  ‘Not exactly. You were a helicopter pilot, so can I assume that your role in the re-enactment is to fly a model helicopter?’

  ‘I didn't give you enough credit, miss. You are quite astute. There are three of us that fly the helicopters, it's devilish hard though, much harder than flying the real thing because you have to do it from the land and judge where each of them is in relation to the others. In the battle for Goose Green, we came in over the coast to drop supplies and report on enemy troop movement.'

  ‘And you have been practising at night over the land near Hogget’s Hill.’ It was a statement because I had already worked it out.

  The war re-enactment bunch might be an odd lot, but not so strange as those that saw the light on the back of the helicopters and thought it was a spaceship. As we chatted and I finished my tea, I listened to Gordon and his wife and their hopes for the future of Wendle Farm. They hadn’t bought it yet, it wasn’t even up for sale and I had to admit I didn’t understand what happened to property when the owners went to jail and couldn’t pay the bills.

  Clearly, Gordon understood the process but I didn’t take much in when he was explaining it to me. I was too busy thinking about how convoluted the plot had been to swindle Kieron out of his farm and how unnecessary. Richard and Glen could have taken the gas from their land with Kieron unable to stop them. For that matter, Glen didn't need to go to the extremes of putting two women into play as the hapless farmer's wives. Why they had gone along with it I would never know.

  They were all in jail with their fate to be determined by a judge. I only felt sorry for the baby.

  Patience had called on Sunday evening to tell me how they had arrested forty-three armed civilians led by a retired Brigadier. BARF was not a government organisation but had presented themselves as one to the community of crazies that paid attention to alien conspiracy theories. I guess if you can believe an alien race want to tamper with our milk, then a secret arm of the British Army which specialises in monitoring the alien t
hreat is hardly a leap at all.

  When my tea was drunk, and Gordon had explained his plans for the farm, I thanked him and his wife for their hospitality, wished them luck and went back to my car.

  It was dark in the countryside as I drove back from Cliffe Woods toward the sprawling Medway Towns ahead of me. Dark enough that I would be able to see any mysterious lights in the sky.

  I leaned forward to squint out of my windscreen and satisfied that there was nothing there to see, I sat back again.

  The case was closed.

  There would be another case tomorrow. In fact, I think Jane said something about an Elf warrior this afternoon.

  The End

  But do check out the next few pages

  Thank you for reading Crop Circles, Cows, and Crazy Aliens. I genuinely hope you enjoyed this book As I enjoyed writing it and have many, many more books planned, for Amanda and other characters.

  Now though, I have a request. As an independently published author, I cannot afford full-page adverts in a National newspaper like James Patterson, so one of my best tools to attract new readers is reviews on the Amazon selling page for my books. Prospective readers what to hear what you think, not listen to the author. If you can spare me two minutes, and have enjoyed this book, please follow this link http://mybook.to/Cropcircles to leave a few words.

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  Note from the Author:

  Hello Reader,

  Well, that’s the book finished. I hope you enjoyed it. Book 1 in this series called Can You Kick a Ghost in the Nuts? is for sale at $0.99 as it the first book in the original series - Paranormal Nonsense where Amanda’s story starts. You can click the links below to grab these while they are going cheap. Please accept my apologies if you get hooked like everyone else has. Don’t forget to grab your FREE copy of Zombie Granny.

  The main character, Amanda Harper, came about as one of those happy twists of fate when readers of my original series wanted to know more about her. She appears as a character in my original Blue Moon Investigation series, in fact, she is the first character to appear in the first book, but she was simply too much fun for me to not create a separate series of adventures for her to lead. You can read The Harper Files without ruining the Blue Moon Investigation series, however if you do like this book, I will tell you that the two series overlap and intertwine and are best read in order. The full reading order can be found at https://stevehiggsbooks.com/

  If you would like to keep up with what I am up to and get a FREE copy of Zombie Granny from the Blue Moon series, then you can sign up to my newsletter service where I will email you a couple of times a month. No spam, I promise, just bargains, discounts and fun.

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  Books by Steve Higgs

  Click the links to find the books in your local Amazon store.

  Blue Moon Investigations

  Paranormal Nonsense

  The Phantom of Barker Mill

  Zombie Granny – a Short Story

  The Klowns of Kent

  Dead Pirates of Cawsand

  The Witches of East Malling

  The Harper Files

  Can I Kick a Ghost in the Nuts?

  In the Doodoo With Voodoo with short story Guys and Dolls

  Crop Circles, Cows and Crazy Aliens

  Coming soon

  Whispers in the Rigging – Blue Moon Book 6

  Paws of the Yeti – Blue Moon Book 7