by Ken Warner
“How is he able to disappear from view like that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said.
The flight took a little over four hours. They landed at a small airport in northwest Kansas. There was a small rental car agency next to the airport, so they rented a vehicle and drove to the motel where Brian had booked them adjacent rooms.
Sydney dropped her suitcase in her room, then sat down with Brain in his.
“So, what’s first—contact the couple, or go visit Alien Alley?” she asked.
“Well, Martha’s file mentions the route where the abductions have occurred, but not the specific stretch of road,” he replied. “We’ll need some local guidance.”
“Couple first, it is!”
Brian opened the file on his laptop.
“Ted and Susan Johnson,” Sydney read out loud.
She called the phone number in Martha’s file—this was Ted’s cell phone, but it went to voicemail. Sydney left a message, then tried calling Miguel San Juan again. She got his voicemail, too.
But as she was finishing her message to him, Ted Johnson called her back.
“Hello, Mr. Johnson?”
“Yes, who is this?”
Sydney explained the reason for her call. He was very eager to meet them and tell his story.
“Reckon you could come on over to the homestead now if you’d like,” he said. “We’re both here.”
“Sure,” Sydney replied. “We’ll be right over!”
She closed the phone, and they went out to the car. The Johnson residence was only a few miles up Route 23 from the motel. They parked in the driveway, and Mr. Johnson greeted them on his front porch.
“Come on in,” he said. They followed him into the house.
He introduced them to Mrs. Johnson, and the four of them sat down in their living room.
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us,” said Sydney, “especially on such short notice.”
“It’s no problem at all,” Mr. Johnson said; Mrs. Johnson nodded in agreement.
“We’ve been in contact with Martha McClure,” Sydney told them. “She amassed an enormous collection of interviews with abduction victims, like yourselves. But nobody else she met has been through as many abductions as you folks—six in total if I recall correctly?”
“Seven now,” said Mr. Johnson. “It happened again just a few months after Martha came out last.”
“How is Martha?” asked Mrs. Johnson. “We’ve called her a few times since the most recent incident, but we haven’t heard back.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Sydney. “Martha was murdered recently…”
“Oh, no!” said Mr. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson let out a little scream and covered her mouth with one hand.
“Who did it?” asked Mr. Johnson. “How did it happen?”
Sydney told them about the man in black.
“Have either of you seen a man like that around here? Or do you know of anyone else who has?”
The two of them looked at each other, but both shook their heads.
“No, can’t say that we have,” said Mr. Johnson. “Do you have any idea who he might be?”
“We suspect he is probably a government agent,” Brian told them. “But we don’t know for sure.”
“Martha told me he only seems to show up when people start looking into the abductions,” Sydney added. “And that’s been my experience as well.”
“You mean he’s come after you, too?” asked Mrs. Johnson.
Sydney recounted her interactions with him.
“You’d best be careful, dear,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“Can you tell us about your abduction experiences?” asked Sydney.
“Sure,” said Mr. Johnson, taking a deep breath. “It’s happened pretty much the same way every time.” Mrs. Johnson nodded in agreement. “Always happens at night, and it’s been here on this same road every time.”
“Route 23?” asked Brian.
Mr. Johnson nodded.
“At first, there’s a light in the sky—looks like a bright satellite, moving slowly across the sky. But then it gets brighter and comes toward us.”
“When it gets real close, it’s surrounded by clouds,” said Mrs. Johnson. “And there’s a whole circle of bright lights. And the truck dies at that point, every time.”
“We tried running away the first two times,” said Mr. Johnson. “But it don’t do no good. Stay or go, they come in and hover directly above us, and then there’s this beam of light comes down from the center, and sucks us up into their ship, or whatever it is.”
“We’ve blacked out after that each time,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“Can you recall anything that’s happened once you’ve been on board the vessel?” asked Brian.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Johnson. “Vividly!”
“We always wake up after a time,” said Mr. Johnson. “Couldn’t say how long. But we find ourselves in this room with metal walls, each of us lying on these exam tables, almost right next to each other.”
“And we’re always naked by that time,” said Mrs. Johnson with a little giggle.
“And we can’t move,” added Mr. Johnson. “It’s the oddest feeling—you try to move your arms or your legs, but nothing happens.”
“Have you ever seen anyone else while you’re there?” asked Sydney.
“Yes,” said Mr. Johnson. “These little gray folks—look just like them aliens that took out the cities back east.”
“They’re short and thin,” said Mrs. Johnson, “with abnormally large heads and big, black eyes.”
“How many were there?” asked Brian.
“Three,” said Mrs. Johnson. “Always three. One for each of us, and a third who seemed to be supervising the other two.”
“They’ve done examinations on us,” said Mr. Johnson. “Same damn thing every time. They use these… probes, guess you could call them. Sometimes they just hold them above us, but sometimes they touch them to different places. Put one on our foreheads, and then one on our chests, over our hearts. And then…”
He turned red at that point and didn’t finish his sentence.
Mrs. Johnson looked from him to Sydney and Brian, and then added in a whisper, “and then they examine our nether regions with their probes. It’s mighty uncomfortable. And embarrassing.”
“Yes, and well, I reckon that’s the end of it,” said Mr. Johnson. “We always seem to black out again after that and wake up back in our truck. No sign of anything unusual at that point—no lights in the sky, or nothing like that.”
“That’s interesting,” Sydney observed. “Most abductees aren’t able to recall anything beyond their initial entry inside the spacecraft. But I interviewed one man in Puerto Rico who remembered more—his experience was similar to yours, except that he couldn’t see any aliens—he didn’t see anyone at all. He described the same kind of exam, but for him, the probes seemed to move of their own accord.”
“How bizarre,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“If you don’t mind my saying,” said Sydney tentatively, “I’m struck by how casually you’re able to talk about these experiences. It must have been traumatic for you, I’d imagine.”
“Terrifying,” said Mr. Johnson. “It was downright terrifying, I’d say. The first couple times, at least. Less so, I guess, each time it happens.”
Mrs. Johnson nodded in agreement.
“I’ll never forget that first time,” she said. “I was scared we were going to die. But after so many times, now, they’ve never done us any real harm. I can’t rightly say what it is they want, but they haven’t hurt us in any way. Part of me always worries that they will, of course, but they haven’t yet.”
“When we found out so many others ’round these parts have been through the same thing, that helped too, I reckon,” said Mr. Johnson. “Makes it seem like what happened to us ain’t so out of the ordinary, after all.”
“Martha’s files indicate that there have been at least a hundr
ed abductions in this area,” said Brian. “Have the two of you been in contact with any other abductees?”
“Yes, all the time,” said Mr. Johnson. “We have monthly meetings over at our barn. That’s a few miles up the road, and nearly all of the abductions have taken place between here and our farm. That’s why it’s happened to us so many times—we drive home from the farm every night and take that same route.”
“When’s your next meeting?” asked Sydney.
“Day after next,” said Mr. Johnson. “Friday evening. You’re both welcome to attend if you’d like.”
“We’d like that very much,” she said. “Would it be possible to speak to the whole group?”
“I imagine it would,” he replied with a nod.
“I’d love to go get a look at that section of road,” said Brian, “where the abductions occur. Your farm is… north of here?”
“That’s right,” said Mr. Johnson. “Not much to see this time of day, though. You’ll want to go at night. Tell you what, why don’t the two of you stay for dinner, and I’ll drive y’all up there after we eat?”
“We wouldn’t want to impose,” said Brian.
“Nonsense, dear,” said Mrs. Johnson. “We’d love to share a meal with you. Make yourselves comfortable, and I’ll start cooking. Can we get you anything to drink?”
Sydney and Brian chatted more with Mr. Johnson while Mrs. Johnson busied herself preparing dinner. Once they’d eaten, Sydney and Brian went outside with Mr. Johnson, and the three of them climbed into his pickup truck.
“This is way nicer than yours,” Sydney said to Brian as she sat down behind him. “It’s even got a backseat!”
Mr. Johnson drove them a couple of miles up the road, then pulled over and parked on the shoulder.
“Well, this is the place,” he told them as they got out of the truck.
“Alien Alley,” said Brian.
Mr. Johnson chuckled. “Yep, I reckon you could call it that.”
Sydney could see nothing but cornfields in every direction. The sky was extremely dark, and she had no trouble making out the Milky Way.
“Always starts on a night like this,” said Mr. Johnson as they gazed up at the sky.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light that streaked across the sky, then faded.
“What was that?” Sydney asked.
“Shooting star,” said Mr. Johnson. “See them pretty regular on a clear night like this.”
“It’s actually a meteoroid,” added Brian. “Typically, a fragment of an asteroid, or other rocky debris, burning up as it races through the atmosphere.”
“I prefer Ted’s explanation,” said Sydney. “What about that up there—that little point of light, moving past the other stars? That’s a lot slower.”
“That’s a satellite,” said Brian.
“We’ve seen both types of lights—ones that looked like shooting stars, and ones that looked like satellites, turn into UFOs out here,” Mr. Johnson told them. “Always starts as one or the other.”
They watched the sky quietly for a few minutes. Sydney kept her eye on that satellite, curious to see if it would get any brighter, but it passed out of view without changing in any way.
Several more satellites went by, and they saw a few more shooting stars, but nothing eventful happened. After an hour, Mr. Johnson drove them back to his place. Sydney and Brian said goodnight and went back to their motel.
The two of them came back the next morning to get a look around in the daylight. But there was nothing noteworthy to see here—no evidence that anything unusual happened, especially with such frequency.
On Friday, they met the Johnsons at their farm. They’d set up several rows of chairs inside their barn. By the time the meeting started, there were over fifty people here. Mr. Johnson introduced Sydney and Brian to the group, and then Sydney got up to speak.
She started by telling them about the way she’d first met Martha. Several people expressed shock and sorrow to learn that Martha had been killed. She then told them about her encounters with the man in black and the information they’d been able to gather so far about typical abduction experiences.
“And so, I’m wondering, how many of you all have been abducted?”
Every single person raised a hand.
“How many of you have been abducted more than once?”
Roughly half of the people kept their hands up.
“And how many of you can recall anything about the experience once you’d entered the spacecraft?”
Most of the hands went down, but a few stayed up.
“And for those of you who do remember something, how many saw aliens there?”
Every hand stayed up. Each of them told their story—they’d all seen aliens who sounded precisely like the Malor.
“I’m curious,” Sydney said when they were done, addressing the whole group, “how many of you have had only a single abduction experience?”
Half the hands went up again.
“And how many of you folks can remember anything that happened after initially moving inside the vessel?”
Every hand went down. Sydney found this interesting.
She told them about the drug lord she’d interviewed in Puerto Rico and how he hadn’t seen anyone at all.
They had an open discussion after that, and several more people recounted their experiences. Roughly half of the abductees reported having lost time during their experiences—one woman an entire week. Many had more questions for Sydney about the man in black—nobody in this group had heard of him before.
Once the meeting was done, Sydney and Brian headed back toward the motel. But Brian pulled over on the shoulder when they got to Alien Alley.
“We’re heading out in the morning, so I figured we might as well have one more look while we’re here.”
They both got out and sat on the hood, gazing up at the sky.
“It’s remarkable how homogenous their stories are,” Brian observed.
“I know, right? That drug lord is the only one who had a significantly different experience.”
“That is very curious,” said Brian.
“And he was adamant about it, too,” Sydney replied. “He was one hundred percent certain there were no aliens present, or visible at least, during his experience.”
“It’s also intriguing that only people who have had more than one abduction experience can recall anything from inside the spacecraft.”
“Yeah, definitely,” said Sydney. “It makes me wonder if it’s simply a coincidence, or if there’s a causal relationship there.”
“Hmm.”
They sat for a few minutes, watching the sky. A few satellites went by, and they saw some shooting stars, as well as several airplanes. But no UFOs.
Finally, they went back to the motel.
Chapter Ten: The Real San Juan
Sydney and Brian went out to a little diner for breakfast the next morning. They took a booth in the back corner, and the waiter took their order.
“I think we’ve done what we can here,” said Brian, taking a sip of coffee. “You haven’t heard back from San Juan?”
“I haven’t,” Sydney replied. “I did leave another voicemail last night, and I tried texting him, too. No reply.”
Brian nodded.
“I think we’ll head down to Arizona today regardless. There’s an address for him in Martha’s file.”
“So, what, we just show up on his doorstep?”
“Why not?”
Their food arrived.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” said Sydney. “What the hell do you think the Malor are after? I mean, what’s the point—why are they abducting all these people?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Brian replied. “And I can’t think of any purpose it might serve. They do seem to be very systematic. The exams they’re conducting sound like they’re identical for every abductee.
“But the truth is, we don’t know for sure what they’re
doing in the exams. They’re using probes to measure something, vital signs, perhaps, but we don’t have any way to know for sure. Their tech is surely far more advanced than ours. They could be taking genetic samples—or they could be injecting these people with some sort of chemical or biological agent.”
“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It would be interesting to have one of them undergo a full medical workup with a doctor and see if they can detect anything abnormal that might have resulted from the Malor exam.”
Sydney nodded. “Definitely.”
“Whatever they’re up to, it must require vast amounts of data,” Brian suggested. “It sounds like they’ve been doing this since the 1960s, at least. Martha knew of thousands of abductees—but in all those decades, there could be tens of thousands, or perhaps hundreds of thousands.”
“Well, hopefully, this Miguel San Juan’s got something earthshattering, and we can start cracking this thing!”
“Let’s hope so!”
They flew down to northeastern Arizona later that morning. Bidding Dave farewell, they rented a car and found a motel in the town of Kayenta. Once they’d dropped their bags in their rooms, they set out to find San Juan.
Sydney drove, and Brian navigated.
“We’re going to go north on 163,” he said. “Shouldn’t take long.”
They drove north for fifteen minutes and then found the little side road listed in Martha’s file. A quarter-mile down the road, they located San Juan’s address.
“There’s nothing here,” said Sydney, pulling over to the side of the road.
“How strange,” Brian replied, getting out of the car.
They had a look around the site. A little sign by the side of the road confirmed the address, but there was nothing here. There were several other properties on this road, and they all hosted mobile homes, or in some cases, RV trailers.
Sydney headed to the mobile home on the next lot and knocked on the door. An older woman answered.
“Hi, sorry to disturb you,” said Sydney. “We’re trying to find Miguel San Juan, and the address we had for him is this lot next to you here.”
“You’re a little late,” the woman said. “He picked up and moved a few days ago.”