Alien Roadkill-Dealbreaker

by Steve Zuckerman

  "Y'all wait here. I'm gonna check the place out," JB said, shutting off the engine.

  "So, you think Harvey is the one behind all of this?" LuAnne asked.

  "Yep, seems that way," he replied, getting out of the truck. As he shut the door behind him he added, "I left the keys for y'all this time. Just in case."

  LuAnne smiled and nodded her head. "Thanks. But, I'm sure you'll be okay. Somehow you always manage to land on your feet." In a softer voice, she added, "Still, watch your ass, JB."

  "Always," he said as he jogged away from the truck and back up the road.

  There was no way to be inconspicuous, even though he kept to the far side of the shoulder while he covered the short distance to the mailbox that marked Harvey's driveway. He left the road, keeping close to the thick grove of trees on either side of the driveway as he approached the house.

  After he had gone about fifty yards further, the trees thinned until he entered a wide clearing where the house sat. Carefully avoiding any direct line of sight with the windows, he slowly made his way over to the front of the house. It was quiet, and if there was anybody home he couldn't tell because the drawn curtains made seeing inside impossible. He decided to go around to the back of the house, hoping to find some place where he could peek inside unobserved.

  Attached to the rear of the house was a large, uncovered back porch. Twenty feet away, a rusting wood chipper was stationed in front of a small tool shed and alongside an old stake-bed truck. He was headed over to it when he heard the sound of a door being opened and quickly ducked down behind the wood chipper.

  From his hiding place, he saw a portly, balding man with a thin ponytail open the back door and walk down the porch steps towards the stake-bed. JB recognized him as the man LuAnne pointed out in the video, Harvey Matthews. Very much alive, he was hoisting two large, black plastic trash bags, one in each hand. From his vantage point JB watched as Matthews lugged the bags over to the truck and threw them into the stake-bed alongside a pile of other black garbage bags. When Matthews returned inside the house, JB decided that he needed to see what Harvey had been loading onto his truck.

  After waiting a few more minutes to make sure Matthews wasn't coming back out again, he got up to leave his hiding place and pushed off against the wood chipper. His hand came away damp. When he examined his hand and the chipper more closely, he realized that he had mistaken the almost-dried blood for rust.

  He stealthily crept over to the stake-bed truck and quietly climbed onto the open tailgate and into the truck bed. He zeroed in on one of the bags that Matthews had just tossed in and carefully opened it.

  Inside the bag were boots and various articles of camo clothing, an ominous sign itself. However, even more chilling was the pool of gore that had seeped through a small rip in another one of the trash bags beneath the one he had opened. It immediately brought to mind the bloody wood chipper. That revelation was the last thought he had before the world suddenly went dark.

  When JB awoke he found that he was bound with rope to a wooden chair, his hands zip-tied behind him. His breath was ragged, and his vision was blurred. He felt like his lungs were on fire, and the bump on the back of his head hurt like hell. Even in his groggy state it only took milliseconds for the thought to register. Everything that had just happened to him was absolutely, positively impossible.

  So, he wasn't totally surprised when nothing happened as he tried to modify his hands to free himself. His Sawbonites weren't working, that much was abundantly clear. He had no clue as to why, except he felt like he was being smothered. He coughed up a ball of dark brown phlegm and spat it out on the floor, noting that his chair sat atop a large, square plastic drop cloth. A part of his brain told him that made sense, as the carpet beneath was practically immaculate. Did aliens like their carpets clean? He knew he wasn't thinking very clearly now, and it was getting harder to catch his breath. He didn't know that his body was beginning to generate massive amount of histamines. JB's inflamed lungs were already filling with fluid as his white blood cell response reacted to his Sawbonites going offline. He was drowning in his own antibodies.

  He strained feebly at the ropes that held him, struck by the ironic thought that where alien tentacles failed, stout rope had succeeded. His strength had failed him, and he recognized that he was growing weaker by the second. It was also difficult for him to see, for his swollen eyes were tearing uncontrollably, blurring his sight.

  "Oh, you're awake," said a voice, coming from the other end of the room. Given JB's circumstances, the casual and friendly tone of the man's remark made his words all the more sinister.

  JB blinked away enough moisture from his eyes to barely make out the form of Harvey Matthews, sitting at the dining room table.

  "That's good," Matthews continued, as he rose from his chair to approach his prisoner.

  "Because I need to know why you're here… I need to know everything you know and who you've told it too. And I need to know fast."

  As Matthews drew closer to him, JB grew even weaker; gulping air in short, ragged gasps.

  Matthews saw that JB's eyes were beginning to roll up into his head. He smiled and said affably, "I must have hit you harder than I thought." But then an instant later, his face became contorted with rage. He got right into JB's face, seizing him by his T-shirt and pulling him close until they were eye to eye.

  "Who are you?" he screamed, spraying spittle all over JB's face.

  JB was too weak to answer, but it made no difference to the other man who didn't wait for him to reply. "Have you come for it?" he screamed.

  JB could hardly manage to whisper. "Come for what? The body?" he croaked.

  "You think me a fool? No, you've come to steal it from me! Haven't you?" Matthews said shrilly, his voice tinged with madness.

  JB, drifting in and out of consciousness, wasn't even aware when Matthews released his shirt and retreated back to the kitchen table. He pulled the alien pouch from his sweater pocket and extracted the diamond from it, placing it on the table in JB's line of sight.

  "This is as close as you're ever going to get to it!" Matthews taunted. There was no humor in his laugh.

  JB's head lurched forward as much as his bonds would allow and began to dry heave. He knew he was running out of time, it was becoming harder and harder to breathe. Even if he gave a damn about what Matthews was ranting on about, his eyes were still tearing so heavily he couldn't see what it was that had Matthews so worked up.

  ”Well, I suppose it doesn't matter,” Matthews sighed, as he composed himself. “I'll be in the wind and you’ll be in the chipper before anyone is the wiser," he said more calmly than before.

  "But, I have a little something for you first.” Harvey pulled on a pair of latex gloves and said, "Consider it a parting gift."

  He moistened a cotton ball from a small glass bottle and acknowledging JB's obvious distress he added, “Even though it looks like you're mostly dead already, I can’t wait around for you to die.”

  JB was beyond caring. His ears were ringing and his eyesight was dimming. It was over. His Sawbonites couldn't protect him anymore.

  Matthews rose from his chair and approached JB with the cotton ball in his outstretched, gloved hand. He said, "I don't know what your part in this is, but it ends right here and now."

  The cotton ball was only inches away from JB's skin when he thought he heard the sound of the front door opening, and then another sound. He vaguely recognized the sound of water being boiled out of the air.

  He couldn't see the white-hot lance of blue light that cut and cauterized Harvey Matthews into two separate pieces. Nor could he see what was left of him fall to the floor in opposite directions. However, JB, barely conscious and still partially blind, thought he saw LuAnne enter the room. He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but she was holding one of the slender silver objects from his toolbox in her hands. Then, the world went black again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Deal

  "JB. JB."
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  IT was LuAnne's voice calling him back. He opened his eyes and blinked away the moisture. His vision was clearing, and his breathing was beginning to return to normal. An instant later, he jerked with a start as his confusion lifted and he was struck by the memory of what had just happened. It took him another moment to realize that he wasn't bound to the chair anymore. He was now lying on the couch with LuAnne looking down at him.

  “LuAnne?” he wheezed in a hoarse whisper.

  She must have untied him, he supposed, but he wondered how she could have possibly moved him over to the couch. He was twice her size.

  “Hey JB, you're gonna be all right. Your medical protocols… Your Sawbonites are coming back on line.”

  He could only stare at her, thinking that he might have imagined the entire chain of events. Except that, remaining on the floor behind her were the remains of Harvey Mathews.

  "I'm sorry about deceiving you, but it was necessary for my survival," LuAnne said. Or at least JB thought she did, but her voice was different. In a burst of realization, he became aware that LuAnne's voice was resonating in his head, not in his ears.

  "This," she said, holding up the pouch, “is critical to my Har and I am the only one able to take it safely to its intended destination.”

  JB, sitting up the couch rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head to get the cobwebs out. He cleared his throat, but he couldn’t keep the confusion out of his voice. “Har? What are y’all talkin’ about?”

  "I don't have much time to explain, but I’ll try,” she replied. “Inside this pouch is a container. It is designed so that only the intended recipient can open it, and only a courier can handle it. It is purposely dangerous to any autonomous technology, including your Sawbonites, that are within its proximity unless it is in the possession of the courier. Now, you’re safe.”

  As he "heard" the words, his mind also received visual images that provided context for what she was telling him. The container she was talking about looked like an enormous and brilliantly radiant diamond. He couldn’t begin to vocalize the name of the container, but without any further explanation, he knew that as long as "LuAnne" carried it he was protected from its lethal influence. The radiation it emitted was not only toxic to his Sawbonites, but also to humans in general. He now understood that with repeated exposure, the container disrupted electrical activity in the human brain, creating damage that was both unpredictable and irreversible. It had gradually driven Harvey insane, and had he lived, he would have eventually suffered a horrible death.

  JB was going to ask about ten different questions at once, but before he could, the equivalent of a laugh rang in his head.

  "JB, I'm sorry I had to fool you into helping us. But, I needed your protection to get the container back. As you now know, couriers have no medical protocols to keep us safe.”

  LuAnne began to glow, at first a shimmer, then becoming increasing brighter until she was engulfed in a light that refracted every color of the rainbow. Abruptly, the light was extinguished, and now, in the place where LuAnne had stood was a formless blob of translucent jelly, twice her size.

  Her voice in his head continued with a note of amusement, “I’m sure you wouldn't have lent me a hand if I looked like this.”

  JB opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

  “As you would say… My ride is here. I’m leaving you with everything I think you should know… For now,” she said, fading away into nothingness.

  As she dematerialized, a rush of understanding flooded JB’s brain with images, thoughts and memories that weren’t his. Among other things, he had been offered a deal. A deal that he had been warned not to refuse.

  He pondered all of this and more as he rose to his feet from the couch and tested his balance. His strength was returning as his Sawbonites began to function again, readjusting his body chemistry and swiftly undoing the damage from his system’s immunosuppressive reactions.

  As he closed the front door behind him, he gave no further thought to Harvey or the men who had done his killing for him. Instead, he was single-mindedly contemplating the overwhelming amount of information that had been placed into his mind.

  Now, there was no mystery as to how the alien in the video had died. It was enormously complicated, but he knew the entire story as if he had been there. More importantly, he also knew his part in all of this wasn’t over by a long shot.

  Among the information LuAnne had imparted to him, was his awareness that there were two factions of off-worlders… Each with their own competing agendas on Earth. These factions, which she had called “Hars”, were not outwardly adversarial, but each side employed every means to press their advantage. LuAnne, a courier for one Har, was intercepted and the container stolen before it could reach its intended destination.

  As it happened, the thief was accidentally killed at CronLab before the container could fall into the wrong hands. As she had intimated when she was in human form, the thief had died of its injuries because it had no medical protocols in its system. Otherwise, it would have fared no better than JB did when he got near to the container.

  LuAnne, had then sought him out, using his Sawbonites to find him, so he could help her get the container back. The mental message that was imprinted on his brain also included the fact that the faction which had stolen the container was also the one that was hunting him. But it was the last part of the mental impression that gave him pause.

  LuAnne, on behalf of her Har, Har-Skela, had offered him a proposition that he was in no position to refuse. From Har-Skela’s point of view it was a simple matter of common interests. His part of the deal was to allow his Sawbonites to draw the attention of their common enemy, known as Har-Kankar, in order to distract and destroy them… Effectively disrupting their activities on his planet while keeping their "hands" clean. In return, Har-Skela promised him that Earth would be safe, although there was no mention of exactly what it would be safe from, nor was there a guarantee that he would be around to see it.

  Embedded in these revelations were the many reasons why LuAnne’s faction, Har-Skela, wouldn’t or couldn’t help him overtly. The order of Hars was an ancient and complex civilization all of which made little sense to him. However, even more vexing, was while he understood that something big was at stake, he had absolutely no idea what it was. LuAnne had given him just enough information to play his role… No more and no less.

  There were other gaping holes in what he knew. For instance, he wondered what either faction was doing on Earth in the first place. And, there was the question of what was inside the container that LuAnne was supposed to deliver.

  "Jesus," he thought. "Are they fuckin' with me?" But, he knew that the only way he'd find out was to go along and take the deal, at least for now.

  As his thoughts turned back to LuAnne, JB was struck by the fact that even though he had seen her true nature, all of the images that she had placed in his mind were of her in human form. He wondered if she had done that on purpose.

  Among the other memories that she had conveyed with the speed of thought were more explanations. First, there had been no Aunt Maddie and no murder at the motel. LuAnne planted those experiences in his mind while he had been asleep in his motel room. She had taken the form of a young girl, and carefully constructed her character with details drawn from his own subconsciousness. She had intentionally absorbed all of his vocabulary, his likes and dislikes in order to gain his trust and sympathy.

  The assassin at the motel and his rescue of “LuAnne” had all been the product of a waking dream implanted in his brain. Now that he knew all of this, he couldn’t help but feel upset at how expertly he had been played… And by an alien, no less.

  But, there was one very last thought that had been impressed into his memory, separate from all the rest. He knew this one was private, for him alone. The sensation of warmth that had accompanied the implanted thought was as unmistakable as the warning it held for him. He heard the words in his head as i
f she were still there talking to him.

  “JB, Remember, nothing is as it seems. Trust wisely."

  He didn't know whether he imagined the laugh or not before she added, "And, don’t forget… Watch your ass.”

  He remained lost in his thoughts as he walked back to his truck and pulled out onto the road. JB knew his options were between few and none, but even so, he wasn't happy about being a pawn in somebody else's game. Whatever the truth really was, he wouldn’t rest until he found out. That meant that his deal with Har-Skela would also bear close watching. He figured that by simply remaining alive, he would be honoring his side of the arrangement… Not that he had a choice. He was a marked man either way.

  All of these thoughts were racing through his brain when he heard the sound of a cell phone ringing. Puzzled, because he didn't own one, he pulled over to the side of the road and looked around the cab of the truck as the phone continued to ring. He found "Aunt Maddie's" cell phone in the glove compartment.

  "Yeah?" he said warily.

  "That you 'Cuz?" said the voice on the other end of the line.

  "Huh? Who is this?"

  "JB? It me, Cousin Terry, what up?"

  "How the hell did you get this number?" JB stammered.

  "What are you talking about? You called me!” insisted Cousin Terry. "Left me a message to call you back. Got yourself a new cell phone? You told me once you had no use for them things!"