At first glance, the corpse appeared to be intact. However, a closer look revealed that the back of its head had been crushed against the tree after Joey had struck it with the tractor.
As Harvey finally got a grip on himself, Joey, who had mistaken the other man's shock and alarm for anger, apologized profusely. “So sorry, so sorry! I no see it! It come out of nowhere!“
When Harvey's glare didn't abate, the grounds keeper sheepishly admitted that he was FaceTiming on his phone with his granddaughter at the time.
“Okay, Joey. This is what we’re going to do,” Harvey said, making every effort to conceal his growing excitement.
“You’re going to help me get this over to the infirmary,” he ordered. “And, you’re not going to say a word about this to anyone… Do you understand me? Not one word.”
“Okee, Meester Harvey. I no tell,” Joey promised. He didn’t want to go near the thing, let along touch it, but Harvey threatened to fire him on the spot if he didn’t help him move it.
Harvey was already plotting his next career move, deciding that the first thing he needed to do was to downplay the discovery. This thing was going to make him rich and famous and he had absolutely no intention of sharing the glory.
There was a wagon hitched to the back of the tractor that was filled with the litter, grass and leaves that Joey had collected over the course of the morning. But it was no easy task to wrangle the body into it. The thing's corpse turned out to be surprisingly heavy and unwieldy. As they lifted it off the ground, its weight shifted wildly side to side, like a huge water-filled balloon. Grunting with the effort, they hoisted it over the wagon’s side rail and onto the heap of clippings and trash.
But incredibly, there was more. Once the body had been moved, the objects that had been concealed underneath it were now in plain view. Harvey picked up one of them that was vaguely shaped like a pistol and found it surprisingly light in weight. After noting there was no obvious trigger or other mechanism, he slipped it into his coat pocket. The other object was far heavier. It resembled a large fabric pouch of some sort that was sealed at the top. The thick material was tightly woven, and gave no hint of whatever contents, if any, might be inside. The pouch was charcoal black in color with only a single marking in the center of one side. It was a small, crimson circle that appeared to be a part of the fabric, neither embroidered nor printed.
Harvey sensed even more opportunity and wasted no time in collecting both items, dropping them into the pockets of his lab coat as Joey pretended not to notice. He knew that there were no scheduled deliveries or pickups this morning, and that the chronically late warehouse staff wouldn’t begin to dribble in for at least another half hour. He directed Joey to drive the tractor over to the rear of the nearby warehouse, and to wait for him by the loading bays.
He was beginning to feel that at last, fate had smiled on him. As he hustled to catch up with the tractor, a plan was beginning to form in his mind. A plan that would surely jump-start his stalled career and take him to the top of his profession. Then he would shove that iron-clad contract right up management’s ass.
Two decades ago, Harvey graduated from Beckman University in Huntsville, Alabama with a Masters Degree in chemistry. He had been an indifferent student, and in large part his course completion was motivated by his nagging family and controlling girlfriend. Shortly after graduation and a few false starts in the agricultural industry, he went to work for CronLab, developing insecticides designed to increase crop yield.
Unfortunately for him, his creations, while effective, turned out to be extremely dangerous to handle. A manufacturing problem directly attributable to his lack of oversight turned a dangerous product into deadly one. As a result of his negligence, those products were distributed in a concentration that was extremely toxic. The resulting deaths and disfigurements had become a scandal, costing CronLab tens of millions of dollars.
Harvey had expected to be fired, and was intending to reap the financial rewards of his termination, as outlined in his contract. His plan was to get his career back on track after the uproar had died down. Instead, corporate decided that it would be cheaper to simply transfer him to the Oakwell location and put him in charge of the so called, “satellite research facility.”
After he relocated, he discovered there was no research, no product development, and certainly as far as he was concerned, no future. There, he found himself in charge of a handful of secretaries, maintenance and warehouse staff. It wasn’t long after that, his wife divorced him, blaming his anger for poisoning their marriage.
For a while, he lived in a constant state of depression, but over time things had improved. Forgotten after several corporate mergers and management turnovers, nobody even remembered who he was, or why he was there. And, because of the jobs and money that CronLab brought into the county, the company name had weight. As the highest ranking local executive representing the company, he exploited that influence at every opportunity. After all he had been through, he felt he was entitled to be the big fish in the small pond that he hated so much.
Harvey made Joey wait for him at the rear door of the building while he brought out a gurney from the infirmary. After helping him load the corpse onto it, Joey quickly drove off, presumably happy to still have his job. Harvey covered the creature with a sheet of black plastic and wheeled the gurney down the short hallway.
Making sure there was no one else in sight, he barreled past the warehouse office, selecting a hallway that led through a storage area to the infirmary. The infirmary was infrequently used and had only been built because early on CronLab intended to move their chemical research and development to Oakwell. However, that plan was abandoned when it was decided to convert most of the space to warehouse. The infirmary was adequately equipped, even if everything from aspirin to bandages were well past their expiration dates.
Harvey stood over the corpse on the brightly illuminated examination table and studied the strange creature. The longer he stared, the more confident he was in his first assessment. It was plainly an exo-lifeform and obviously an intelligent one; judging from its garments and the tech it had carried. He turned his attention to the metallic, pistol-like thing that he had recovered, handling it with care. If it was a weapon, he didn’t want to endanger himself, or worse, call attention to what he was up to. So, he set it aside for the moment and turned his scrutiny to the pouch.
When he handled the pouch, it became apparent to him that there was something inside of it. Overwhelmed by his curiosity, he became fixated on what might be inside. He tried to cut the pouch open with the scalpel that he originally intended to use for the dissection, but despite his repeated attempts to cut the fabric, the tool proved to be useless. Although the blade was blunted, the material remained unmarred. Not to be deterred, he persisted, and on closer inspection, he found an almost undetectable seam, where two edges of the fabric met. Here, with some effort, he pushed the scalpel in-between and attempted to pry the closure apart. He struggled with the surprisingly flexible fabric, but finally managed to pull the edges open.
When he looked inside, he gasped in wide-eyed surprise the instant he saw it. It was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen in his entire life. Incredibly, as he stared into its depths he was overcome with emotions that he had never felt before. He reached in and withdrew the enormous diamond from the pouch and turned it round in his hands. The gleaming facets of the jewel drew his gaze deep into its seemingly infinite depths. Whatever it was that he thought he saw there, served only to amplify his exhilaration. The sensation was electric and overwhelming. At that moment, an idea, like a bright blast of light exploded in his mind. He had completely forgotten about the dissection and the body on the gurney. Now, he had bigger plans.
CHAPTER THREE
No Rest for the Wicked
THE MOTEL WAS a relic from the nineteen fifties that looked like it was frozen in time. The worn, asphalt lot was cracked and missing chunks of pavement, and if there were ever an
y painted parking lines, they had disappeared long ago. The motel office stood at the end of the parking lot in the center of two long, rectangular, single story buildings. Even in the growing dusk, JB could see numerous splotches of miss-matched stucco patches and the sections of peeling paint. Undeterred by the appearance of the place, he continued through the lot until he reached the motel office and parked.
Dusk was turning to darkness as JB got out of the truck, but there was more than enough light to see that hardly anybody was staying here. There were numerous empty parking spaces in front of the two buildings. The room doors on both buildings were lined up in a row facing the lot, and he could see that many of them had missing or broken room numbers. Not ideal, but he deemed this place would do for now. Besides, he couldn't afford much else anyways.
JB pulled open the glass door and stepped into the air-conditioned office. Predictably, the lobby portion was sparsely furnished in a fifties decor, complete with orange vinyl chairs and metal side tables. Several wrinkled posters from the local water park adorned the otherwise bare lobby walls. The grimy and long-empty plexiglass brochure holder sitting on top of the counter was as yellowed as the shabby blinds that barely covered the window.
The manager, a man in his late sixties, was sitting at a desk behind the counter and hastily shoved the vodka bottle into a drawer when he saw JB enter. He rose from his desk and shuffled the short distance to the counter on unsteady feet, giving JB a smile that was both toothless and disingenuous.
“What can I do yer for?” the manager said, making an effort to keep the alcohol out of his voice, but with little success.
“Room, one night,” answered JB tersely, in his thick Southern drawl.
The manager craned his neck, looking out the office window at JB’s truck, straining to see if someone else was inside.
“Just you?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yep. Jus’ me,” JB answered flatly.
Satisfied, the manager handed him a piece of paper and said, “Thirty-five dollars. Go ‘head an’ fill out the form. Check out's at ten A.M. sharp. Cash an’ credit cards only… No checks. An' of course, I need to see some ID.”
“Here’s sixty bucks,” JB said, laying the cash on the table. “And y’all’s seen my ID.” He gave the man a hard look.
Without missing a beat, the manager cackled, “Reckon I have!” as he scooped up the money. He reached under the counter and extracted a key. The wooden fob was so worn that the number on it was unreadable. Obviously he was aware of that, because as he slid the key over to JB he said, “Number 25, uh, Mr. Smith. Second unit from the end in the first building.”
As soon as JB turned to leave, the manager retrieved his bottle and took another pull before adding, “You might have to play with the key a bit. The locks can be a taste fussy.”
JB had no problem finding the room, and after a small struggle with the key he managed to open the door. The interior of the room was exactly as he expected. Like the motel office, the furnishings were tacky, and the drapes and bedspread were faded and threadbare from time and wear. The scratched and faded decal on the door declared that it was a non-smoking room. However, JB could smell the tang from the previous decades of nicotine that still lingered despite being painted over. But, all things considered, the room was neat and relatively clean.
He threw his backpack onto a chair and sat down on the bed intending to pull off his boots. When he did, the ancient box-spring sagged considerably under his weight. “Shit. Should’a slept in the truck,” he muttered, and decided to stretch out on the bed without bothering to remove either his boots or his clothes.
Dog tired, he fell asleep in minutes, but even deep in slumber, repressed memories seeped into his sleeping consciousness. A mash up of his past encounters played back inside his sleeping mind. First, there was a burst of bright light that narrowly missed his face. The searing heat from the blast blistered his skin causing the entire side of his face to bubble and blacken. In the next instant, the dream shifts abruptly, and he’s driving Ol’ Blue, guiding the truck instinctively, as if he can sense the coming blast before it occurs. The next pulse of blue-white heat misses the truck, but fells several tall trees alongside the road.
There’s another shift in the dreamscape, and JB is in his truck again, hurtling towards a familiar alien figure standing in the road. It raises its weapon to fire, but somehow again, JB senses the blast before it comes. He swerves Ol’ Blue hard, successfully avoiding another deadly pulse. The truck accelerates and collides with the alien and impales it on the spiked push plate. Suddenly, tiny human skulls, with gnashing teeth and burning red eyes spring from the messy remains of the corpse, flying through the air coming straight at him.
With a start, JB snapped awake. It wasn't the vivid dreams that had roused him, but the loud racket coming from the adjoining motel room. He pulled the pillow over his head, until he realized he was hearing the sounds of a woman screaming. Her shrieks suddenly stopped, interrupted by the soft, but unmistakable pops of silenced rounds.
The sound of the suppressed gunfire got JB quickly to his feet and over to the locked double door that separated the adjacent motel room from his own. He knocked on it hard, three times. “Hey! What’s up? Are y’all okay in there?”
The answer he got was not the one he expected. There was another soft pop and a bullet tore through the door and continued on through his arm.
“Christ!” he barked, more in surprise than pain. He felt nothing as the things in his bloodstream quickly took the affected nerves offline.
He responded immediately, and by the time he splintered the doorframe with a single blow from his boot, the wound in his arm had completely vanished. With the kick, the flimsy doors separating the rooms flew open, revealing a man dressed in full camouflage. He was in the process of looking up from the woman at his feet. The large holes in both her head and chest were leaking blood onto the green, hi-lo carpet.
Without hesitating, the man fired his silenced automatic point blank at JB with astonishing results. His aim was true, but the bullet bounced off the metal “armor” that had instantly coated every inch of JB’s body as he had burst into the room.
The shooter's black, balaclava mask hid much of his shocked expression, but JB's surreal transformation had completely terrified him, compelling him to nearly empty his clip in a blind panic. The slugs ricocheted harmlessly off JB’s armor in all directions until one of them bounced back at the shooter, tearing out a large portion of his carotid artery. With geysers of blood gushing from the gaping wound in his neck, the man crumpled to the floor.
The man continued to bleed out as JB kicked the gun away from the shooter's still twitching hand. He scanned the rest of the room for any additional threats, and as he did so, the metallic coating that had covered his body like a second skin disappeared in an eye blink as it became reabsorbed into JB's body.
The alien things in his bloodstream, the "Sawbonites", as he called them, in addition to repairing his injuries, could modify his body with incredible speed. He had learned how to deploy specific "mods" with a concentrated mental effort, but there were times, like this one, when they seemed to have a mind of their own. He hadn't conjured up the armored skin, his Sawbonites had somehow anticipated the need and made it happen. Just as they had in his dream. As unsettling as that thought was, it wasn’t enough to distract him from the task at hand which was to vet the room. It remained to be seen if the man lying dead beside his victim had been working alone.
He checked the bathroom, and found it empty, there was not even a toothbrush. As he closed the door behind him and reentered the room, he froze when he thought he heard something. The sound was faint, but he listened intently, modifying his ears as he did so. In a heartbeat, the Sawbonites tweaked his auditory nerves and slightly reshaped his ears making them highly directional.
With his augmented hearing, JB quickly located the source of the sound and instantly recognized it. He knew from his own experience that it was the
sound of someone desperately trying to smother their uncontrollable sobs.
JB walked over to the closet in the back of the room and slid the mirrored wardrobe door aside. Huddled inside the closet, in a near fetal position, was a young girl with her face smothered in a blanket. Realizing that her hiding place was now revealed, the girl slowly lifted her face from the blanket. Her brown eyes were wide and her face was rigid with fear. Comprehending, JB stepped aside, giving her a clear view of both the dead woman and her assassin lying on the floor.
Immediately the girl launched herself out of the closet, ignoring JB as she rushed past him and knelt by the woman’s body, wailing softly in despair.
“Maddie! No! No! Noooo!”
As tragic as this was, JB was determined not to get caught up in what was plainly none of his affair. But, before he could turn and leave the room, the girl looked up at him and straight into his eyes.
“Did you kill her?”
JB shook his head. “Nope. He did.”
“What happened?” she demanded.
Ignoring her question, he used his boot to roll the shooter’s body onto its back. He reached down and grabbed the top of the shooter’s mask and yanked it off, revealing the man’s face. He said, “Y'all recognize him?"
"No… I've never seen him before," she said, wiping her eyes.
"Tell that to the cops when they get here. I’m sorry, but I'm won't be waiting around for them.”
The girl got to her feet and turned to JB. Her voice was shaking when she said, "You don't understand! The cops are probably in on it too!"
“I don’t like cops much either,” he replied, walking back through the shattered adjoining doors to his motel room. “But, y’all be safe enough with them."
“No…No way!" she stammered. “You gotta take me with you!"
She brushed back a wisp of her short, blonde hair, and gave him a hard, determined look. JB returned her glare and replied flatly, "I don't get involved in other people's shit.”
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