Alien Roadkill-Dealbreaker

by Steve Zuckerman

  As she spoke of her murdered aunt, her voice trailed off and she turned to look out her side window again. When she looked back, there were fresh tears in her eyes. "That road is 'bout a half a mile back. We need to turn around.“

  "On it," said JB.

  He put the truck in gear and doubled back onto the highway. Just to be safe, he waited until the pickup had traveled a few hundred yards before he snapped his headlights back on.

  LuAnne had reached into the front pockets of her overalls, perhaps expecting to find tissues to blow her nose, but instead her fingers closed around something else. When she pulled her hand out of the pocket, she held a cellphone in it.

  “What the hell!” LuAnne exclaimed in surprise. “This is Aunt Maddy's phone. She must have slipped it into my pocket!"

  As she studied the phone, JB kept his attention on the road, trying not to be distracted by the bright glow from the display.

  There was a side road coming up ahead, but he couldn't tell much more than that. From what he could see, it looked narrow and poorly paved.

  “That it?” JB asked.

  “Uh huh,” she replied absently. Distracted by her efforts with the phone, she was hunched over the screen, studying it intently. A moment later she gasped and started to yell. "Pull over! Pull over! Holy shit, you won't fucking believe this!"

  JB, shocked more by her ferocity than her choice of words, quickly did as she asked. As soon as the pickup slid to a stop, LuAnne held up the phone. JB unsuccessfully tried to make sense of the fuzzy, still image on the display.

  "What the hell are y’all lookin’ at?” he asked.

  "It's a video Aunt Maddie took with her phone. And, I think it's what got her killed!"

  She pressed a button on the screen and the fuzzy image began to move. The picture bobbled around a bit before it steadied and the subject gradually came into focus. When it did, JB drew a sharp, involuntary gasp of recognition… And disbelief.

  "Shit! That can't be right!"

  In the video there was a table and a man examining what was lying on it.

  "What do ya mean? Do ya think it's fake?" protested LuAnne. "Maddie'd never do that!"

  On the contrary, JB didn't think the video was fake, he knew better, although he was puzzled by it all the same. The man in the video was facing away from the camera, completely absorbed by the thing spread out on the table in front of him. The creature was barely humanoid in shape and nearly as tall as it was wide. The egg shaped body had no neck. The three-sided head looked vaguely like an insect’s, an impression reinforced by the flaccid, knobby antenna-like stalks that sprouted from it. The tangles of long tentacles that extended in bunches from the bottom and sides of the bulbous body flopped limply over the edge of the table.

  The thing appeared to be clothed, but it wasn’t clear where the garment ended and the mottled, bluish-green skin began. JB, who instantly recognized the thing lying on the table, knew from experience that when damaged or even severed, those tentacles would grow back very quickly. That was knowledge he had acquired the hard way, nearly at the cost of his life. He had absolutely no doubt that the alien on the table was identical to the off-worlders that were hunting him.

  However, his expression of surprise and disbelief arose not from the alien itself, but from the fact that it was dead and apparently whole. JB had learned from his many harrowing and narrow escapes that any injury suffered by the alien would have been immediately repaired by the being's own Sawbonites.

  Fixing injuries was what the little critters were supposed to do, which was the reason why the damn aliens were so incredibly hard to kill, another fact he had learned the hard way. Even when he did manage to kill them, the remains had always dissolved away, leaving little or no trace. Also, with their death, any equipment they carried and left behind became deactivated immediately. Yet, unlike any of the off-worlders he had ever seen, this one was lying dead, and in one piece. And, from what he could see, it had suffered no massive injuries.

  Over the last month, JB had barely survived no less than a dozen attempts on his life from these creatures, so his interest in how and why the thing died immediately fired him up. What he saw in the video implied that there might be an easier way to kill the things. If that was indeed the case, then he needed to know about it… And the sooner, the better.

  The video abruptly stopped as the man, who was apparently unaware that he was being photographed, began to turn around.

  Mistaking JB's silence for skepticism, LuAnne played it back a second time.

  “Well?" she asked.

  When JB still didn't answer, she said, "I think I recognize the man standing in the video. The hair’s a dead giveaway. It's Harvey, my aunt's boss, at CronLab, and I’m pretty positive that’s the company infirmary."

  "Are y'all sure?" JB asked, his interest now apparent.

  "About Harvey? Oh yeah. Can't see his face, but that’s his twelve-strander ponytail for sure. He thinks he’s cool, but he’s a total slime… He's always hitting on Maddie… I mean, he was.”

  As she said her aunt’s name, the faraway look returned to her eyes, and she returned her gaze out the side window.

  "No, I mean, are y'all sure about the place," JB asked, more interested than she expected. His sudden insistence surprised her.

  “What?” It took her a second to process his question. "Oh yeah. Totally sure. I was visiting Maddie once at work an' cut myself on a sharp piece of metal. She took me over to the infirmary to get a band-aid. That's how I know it was where the video was taken."

  “It's at Cronlab, right? So, how do we get there?" JB asked, his voice growing in intensity. While he didn't believe in coincidence, there was no denying that this turn of events was a big one, and he was hoping he might use it to his advantage. The information might hold a key to his very survival.

  LuAnne’s reaction was immediate this time. She looked at him sharply, her face livid with disbelief.

  ”Excuse me? You want to go there? Are you fuckin' insane? Haven't you heard a thing I've been saying? They're trying to kill me and now you want me to take you there?" She was shouting now.

  "Well, this here's important," JB said firmly. "I gotta get over there.“

  “Well, you fuckin’ do that… By yourself! Jus’ let me out right now!" She yelled, grabbing at the door handle.

  Angrily, she fumbled the door open, but surprisingly, she didn't move to get out. In spite of her anger, she looked like she was going to cry again, but JB wasn't about to be deterred. "Hey, if y'all don't wanna come, I get it, but gimme directions. I gotta get there before anything happens to that body."

  LuAnne, her hand still on the open door, considered her options. None of them looked very good to her. She exhaled hard in resignation and glared at him for a long while before she spoke. "I'll only take you there on one condition."

  "And that is?"

  "I won't go near that place. I’ll get you close, but that's all.“

  “Okay. That’s all I’m askin’," he replied. He waited, looking at her seriously before he asked, “So then, which way do we go to get there from here?”

  LuAnne looked away from him and down at her hands. Then she sighed, shaking her head and exhaling loudly as she tried to compose herself. “I can’t believe I’m doin’ this!" she protested. Reluctantly, she added, "Keep goin' on this road. It'll take us in the right direction. I'll tell ya when to turn."

  JB pulled back onto the road and continued ahead. It was only an hour before dawn, but it was still dark, which was why the faint pinpricks of light reflected in his oversized sideview mirror captured his attention. He sped up a bit more, but the lights were quickly gaining on them.

  "I think we got company," he said warily. The words were hardly out of his mouth when a burst of gunfire erupted behind them from the white SUV that was coming up fast.

  He swerved the truck side to side in what he hoped were unpredictable patterns to avoid the barrage of bullets being fired by their pursuers. The vehicle behi
nd them was also maneuvering in an attempt to match the truck's movements. As it swerved, JB caught a glimpse of the shooter. He was hanging out the passenger window firing his automatic rifle in short bursts. However, the rough road, and JB’s evasive driving were equally responsible for fouling the shooter’s aim. The SUV bounced wildly when it swerved to avoid a large pothole, which caused the shooter to nearly lose his grip on the weapon.

  Now, the shooter had decided to conserve his ammunition, waiting until the SUV could draw closer to the truck. JB didn’t have time to speculate on how this was going to end, but right now, it wasn't looking good. Then, unexpectedly, JB suddenly became aware of another deadly threat.

  The Sawbonites in JB's system, on their own, had detected the danger and made him aware of the sound coming from up ahead. JB didn't immediately recognize what he was hearing, only that he had become viscerally aware of the faint sound being amplified for his benefit. As he focused on it, he realized that it was a sound that he had heard once before, seconds before he was almost incinerated by a massive blast from an alien weapon.

  In that moment, JB instantly understood the Sawbonites’ warning. Up ahead on the road, a large pulse of energy was being prepared for discharge by another shooter… An alien one. The revelation distracted him for a only second, but that was all it took to give the gunman behind him an opportunity to fire again.

  LuAnne screamed as a bullet tore through the back window between their heads and exited through the windshield. The wind howled through the large hole joining the cacophony of the shaking and shuddering as the truck flew down the rough road. It would have been impossible for JB to concentrate on the far-away sound coming from the alien device, but his Sawbonites had adjusted the fine hairs in his inner ear to isolate the frequencies of the charging weapon. It was crazy, he thought, that he was able to hear the sound more clearly than he could see the road ahead through the spiderweb cracks in what remained of the windshield.

  "They're gonna kill us!" LuAnne shrieked.

  He made the choice and deployed his eye mods, ignoring LuAnne's wide-eyed expression of disbelief as he extended both of his eyes out several inches.

  "What the…!" she exclaimed, whether it was in surprise or horror JB couldn't tell.

  He didn't care if she saw him modify his body, he could explain later… If they were both still alive. JB needed every advantage he could think of, because what he had in mind depended on his timing. It had to be as close to perfect as possible or they were toast.

  "Hold on!" he yelled.

  His warning was punctuated by another bullet that exploded through the already shattered back window and ripped an additional chunk out of the windshield. JB knew however, that the bullets coming from behind paled in comparison to what was waiting for them up ahead. He ignored the threat on their tail and directed his complete and undivided attention on the silhouette standing in the road that only his modified eyes could see.

  Hundreds of yards ahead, the alien had positioned itself almost dead center in the road. The weapon it aimed at Ol' Blue was bulky and heavy enough that it needed to be supported by several clusters of its mottled tentacles. While it monitored the progress of the charging weapon, the off-worlder released a pheromone that could be the human equivalent of a smile. It had no sense of sight or sound as humans know it. Instead, the six, semi-transparent sensory organs on its triangular head could sense and interpret all types of vibrations and wavelengths across the spectrum. The alien could "see" waves of light, air, and even solid matter. At this moment, it was paying close attention to the specialized vibrations that represented the weapon's growing readiness.

  With the help of his Sawbonites, JB could hear the extremely high-pitched whine also, and knew he was running out of time. With every fleeting second, the sound was growing steadily louder and higher in pitch, well above the range of human hearing. The weapon would be ready to fire very soon.

  JB continued to swerve the pickup from side to side. Between the rough road and his unpredictable maneuvering, he had so far, managed to avoid being struck by any of the sporadic gunfire behind them. The shooting suddenly paused again, as the SUV began to accelerate, rapidly closing the gap between them. Their pursuers had plainly decided that they weren't going to waste any more ammunition until they got close enough for a better shot.

  It was now or never, JB thought. He gunned the truck and kept swerving even as the rough road grew rougher. Despite the pickup's heavy duty shock absorbers he and LuAnne were bouncing around hard on their seats. Ol' Blue's oversized tires threw chunks of decomposing pavement in every direction as JB punched the gas and prayed it wasn’t too late to put his plan into action.

  He figured his Sawbonites were tweaking his hormone levels to keep him calm, because otherwise he would be completely unnerved. He pushed every other thought and distraction out of his head as he concentrated on the strange sound of the weapon energizing ahead.

  Despite the pickup's increased speed, the more powerful, late model SUV was gaining ground. JB was only partially aware this and while he expected the gunfire would resume, he was also confident that because the SUV was bouncing on the rough road even more than they were, the spray of bullets would likely go wild. Although one shot managed to strike Ol’ Blue’s tailgate, JB ignored it, concentrating completely on the sound coming from the alien weapon up ahead. Then the moment came that he had been anticipating… The moment when the sound abruptly stopped. Scant milliseconds afterwards, with a swiftness made possible by his enhanced reflexes, JB cut the wheel hard left. The truck skidded off onto the shoulder before the driver of the SUV could mimic his move.

  Almost simultaneously, the pulse of blue-white heat from the alien's weapon sliced through the atmosphere, boiling the moisture out of the air from where JB's truck had been a heartbeat earlier. Exposed by JB’s swift and unexpected maneuver, the SUV caught the full force of the energy pulse head on. The vehicle exploded into a superheated ball of flame and then evaporated completely. The large smoking crater in the road was all that remained.

  JB punched the accelerator and swerved back onto the road so fast that Ol' Blue tipped up on two wheels, almost flipping the truck. He righted the truck quickly and all four tires bit into the decaying roadway gaining speed as it barreled down the road. The passenger sideview mirror had been melted into slag where it had been slightly grazed by the energy pulse, but he didn't notice. JB floored the truck, ignoring the violent shaking as they flew over potholes and chunks of loose concrete and asphalt.

  "What are you doing?" LuAnne yelled over the shrieking wind roaring through the broken windshield.

  "Gotta get there first," JB answered tersely. "Before it can fire again… It’s our only chance." He reached under the dash and pulled up on the lever.

  On the oversized, rectangular push plate mounted over the front bumper, dozens of sharpened, steel spikes emerged. He stomped on the accelerator pedal, but it was already down to the floor. Intentionally, he didn't tune into the sound of the energizing weapon ahead. Instead, he concentrated on the sound of the big truck's engine winding out. He didn’t need to glance at his aftermarket tachometer. He knew the needle was pinned well past the red line.

  Up ahead, the alien monitored the charge indicator on its weapon intently, unconsciously emitting pheromones of frustration and nervousness as the truck barreled down on it. The weapon it had been ordered to use was excellent at long ranges and left virtually nothing behind, but the long recovery time was a drawback. It was thinking that it could have killed the Abomination twice already with just about anything else in its arsenal. However, its orders were clear… Total annihilation was required. Nothing less. It was fortunate that after the weapon had been warmed up, all of the subsequent recharging intervals were far shorter.

  Anticipating the readiness of its weapon, the alien leveled it directly at the oncoming conveyance, now mere yards ahead, resolving not to miss again. The vibrations ceased, indicating the charge had completed and it fired with
out hesitating, but it was still too late. The blast of blue-white heat went skywards with the impact, as the alien was shattered and scattered with a sickening smack, leaving what was left impaled on Ol' Blue's deadly front bumper.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Into the Fire

  "WHAT THE FUCK did we just hit?" LuAnne exclaimed, as she watched JB retract his eye mod. She continued, stammering, "And what… What… What did you… What happened to your eyes?"

  JB didn't answer her as he braked and slowed, rolling Ol' Blue to a stop. His body was still vibrating. “Stay in the truck," he ordered as he opened his door and hurried out to the front of the pickup.

  Mangled by the dozens of steel spikes, the outworlder's body was too badly damaged for the millions of infinitesimally tiny robots in its system to repair. As JB watched, the alien's medical protocols trickled out of their dying host in shining streams that cascaded together, finally converging into a glowing, vaporous cloud. He stood his ground calmly as the iridescent mass came directly at him.

  Once the cloud reached his feet, it enveloped JB from head to toe. He felt a warm, familiar sensation as the alien tech slipped through the molecules of his skin and into every system in his body. At the same time, the off-worlder's corpse had begun to dissolve away, its weapon clattering to the ground after the tentacle grasping it had evaporated. All of the alien’s remains had disappeared. Only the splotches of wet, purplish stains on the spiked push plate were left and even those had begun to fade.

  "What the fuck!” shouted LuAnne, who had not been content to remain in the truck. Evidently, she had seen everything and was gaping incredulously at JB. She said, "What the hell is going one?"

  "That was one of them aliens, like the one y’all showed me in the video," he replied.

  "But that cloud thing that was all around you? What the fuck was that?" she demanded, looking closely at him. Without waiting for him to answer she screamed, "Are you even human?" It wasn't a question. It was an accusation.