Alien Abduction

by Irving Belateche

  I complied, and headed out of the room, down the hallway, and into the garage. Every step of the way, I was wondering whether I’d executed the assignment “properly”—properly enough to ensure that Tracy wouldn’t remember the last face she’d seen before passing out.

  I opened the passenger door to my car, and when I bent down to put Tracy into her seat, I saw the bricks of cash: six of them on the driver’s seat. Though I didn’t know how much they added up to, I saw that they were stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and I knew that there were at least a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of those bills.

  Nice, I thought. Very nice.

  I buckled Tracy’s seatbelt, then reached over and grabbed the money.

  I walked around to the back of the car, and as I put the cash in the trunk, a new question came to me: Where did Abel get the cash?

  I was sure that the alien never left his lair, so my bet was that this was an area where his superior technology did all the heavy lifting. He probably siphoned money from bank accounts digitally, converted that money to cash, then had it delivered. Of course, I didn’t care how the alien ran this part of his operation, as long as the bricks of cash kept showing up on my driver’s seat.

  Back on Coldwater, heading down into the Valley, I considered Abel’s instructions: return the target to a place she’s familiar with. The problem was that I wasn’t familiar with the places she was familiar with. I would have been if I’d had more time to trail her. But I needed to work with what I had.

  I came up with her gym. I remembered from profiling her that it was in Burbank, on Alameda, about a mile from her place. Alameda was mostly a street of office buildings, so it would be empty for the night. There might be a dimly lit parking structure near her gym where I could leave her.

  When I hit Ventura, I didn’t turn right onto the boulevard, into the heart of my home turf. Instead, I continued north on Coldwater toward the 101. I’d take the 101 back to Burbank without driving through the streets of Studio City or Valley Village.

  On the 101, I realized I couldn’t leave the target near her gym. Because of her car. She wouldn’t remember where she passed out, but she’d surely realize something was wrong when she regained consciousness in a place she hadn’t driven to. As soon as she saw that her car wasn’t at the gym, she’d know something was up.

  The human mind is easy to fool, Abel had said, unless it’s faced with major unanswered questions. Leaving Tracy at the gym would give rise to a major unanswered question: How the hell did I get here without my car? And in LA, that question would always demand an answer.

  So I had to return her to a location near her apartment. My first thought was to return her to the strip mall—but I didn’t see how that could work. I didn’t see how I could get away with dropping off a comatose woman at a mall. If someone spotted me, they’d follow up on it. And this time the security cameras wouldn’t be recording a boyfriend helping out his diabetic girlfriend. They’d be recording a criminal dumping off his victim.

  As I approached the Pass Avenue exit, I thought this through a little more. I considered leaving Tracy right outside her apartment building. Not on Pass Avenue, where there was a lot of traffic, but on the side street, south of her building. Except that, even on a side street, there was a chance a motorist or a pedestrian might spot me dumping her off. I’d have to time it perfectly.

  Then another flaw in that plan reared its ugly head: even if I could time it perfectly—making sure the coast was clear on the street—a tenant in Tracy’s apartment building, or in one of the other nearby apartment buildings, might peer out their window and spot me.

  What I needed was a truly secluded place to dump her. Unlike the abduction itself, which could be pulled off in plain view, the release back into the wild couldn’t be.

  I approached Tracy’s neighborhood without a fixed plan, but when her apartment came into view, I had a flash. I’d rummage through her purse, fish out her keys, wait until the dead of night—when all the tenants in her building were sleeping—and use those keys to enter her building and then her condo.

  I’d leave her on her own couch, and no one would be the wiser.

  But that crazy flash didn’t even last two seconds. It was a desperate idea, diametrically opposed to what I’d concluded at the very start of this assignment. In no way was I ready to break into anyone’s apartment.

  I looked over at the strip mall, and realized it was my only real option. It was pretty clear that driving aimlessly around Tracy’s neighborhood, with her passed out in my car, was stupid. I’d have to leave her in the strip mall, then get on my way. I promised myself that from here on in, I’d always have a plan about returning the targets before I delivered them to Abel—if I still had the job after this debacle.

  I pulled into the mall parking lot, ready to execute a simple maneuver. My plan was to pull into an open parking space between two cars, far from the security cameras and storefronts. Then I’d get out of my car and casually walk over to the passenger side, checking to make sure no one was close by. If all looked good, I’d open the door, kneel down, out of sight, and pull Tracy out and onto the asphalt. I’d put the capsule in her mouth—the capsule that would revive her—get back into my car, and hightail it out of there.

  She’d regain consciousness a minute later, close to home. I imagined she’d wonder what she was doing in the parking lot, but it would be familiar enough, wouldn’t it? If Abel’s capsule really did its job as advertised, this plan wouldn’t leave Tracy with a major unanswered question. After all, I was releasing the target back into the wild less than fifty yards from where I’d captured her. Her only question would be why she had passed out, which Abel had said was normal.

  I found an open parking space between a Lexus and an SUV, and I pulled in. Not bad, I thought. I was fairly far from the stores, and the SUV acted as a shield. It stood between me and the patrons who were walking along the storefronts.

  But then I realized the downside. Though the SUV was a great shield for my dirty work, it kept me from seeing if the coast was clear. Still, no space would be perfect, and the more I cruised around the parking lot with this unconscious woman at my side, the more I risked one of Tracy’s neighbors spotting her. To the uninitiated, she was just Sleeping Beauty, but to someone who knew her, she was an unconscious captive in a stranger’s car. I’d already gotten away with abducting her on her home court; there was no reason to push my luck.

  I got out of my car, then took a couple of seconds to check out the mall. As long as I was standing up, I could see over the SUV. No one was approaching, but the parking aisle I’d chosen gave way to the Starbucks—not the best choice. There was always a lot of foot traffic going in and out of Starbucks. Still, right now, all looked good, so I got on with the job.

  I hurried over to the passenger side of my car, then checked the Starbucks again. Two hipsters stepped out of the store with large coffees. It figures, I thought. Hipsters would be the main demo loading up on coffee at this time of night. Hopefully they weren’t headed in my direction, but I didn’t wait to find out.

  I knelt down out of sight, opened the passenger door, and unbuckled Tracy. Then I pulled her into my arms and laid her down on the asphalt. I started to shut the door when—thank God—I saw her purse on the floor.

  I grabbed it and placed it beside her.

  When I closed the door, my stomach suddenly tightened with fear. She’d been carrying a canvas bag when I’d abducted her. Shit! That had been left in the dust. The young woman with the heavy eyeliner, who had trailed me with Tracy’s purse, had left behind the canvas bag.

  I’d left behind the canvas bag.

  Again, it was too late to do anything about it. Way too late.

  I pulled the tin box from my pocket, opened it, and grabbed one of the capsules from inside.

  I placed it in Tracy’s mouth.

  Now I had one minute to get the hell out of there.

  I stood up, and my eyes immediately fell on the hipsters. Th
ey were walking down the row of cars toward me—and I was already calculating the distance between us. Was there enough time to pull out before they got too close? I thought there was. But the worst-case scenario was that I’d pull out just as the hipsters got to my parking space. If that happened, they’d be able to connect my car to the woman lying on the blacktop.

  I hurried back around to the driver’s side of my car, slid in, started the engine, and began to back out. I didn’t dare turn the wheel until I was clear of the entire parking space. Running over the target would be a fitting end to my first mission—a bumbling effort that at best could be called a learning experience.

  When I cleared the parked space, I turned the wheel and checked over my shoulder for the hipsters—another mistake. They were ten yards away, chatting with each other and not paying attention to me—until I looked at them.

  One of them glanced at me and made eye contact.

  I looked away, turned the wheel, and drove off. It was appropriate that this assignment had ended the way it had started. Tracy got a look at me during the abduction, and this hipster got a look at me during the return.

  Note to self: avoid amateurish bookends.

  As I pulled out of the parking lot onto Pass Avenue, I wondered if the hipsters had spotted Tracy’s body. She wouldn’t yet have regained consciousness as they walked by her, but they would have passed within fifteen feet of her.

  I’d never know if they had spotted her or not.

  And I hoped I never would.

  Because if I did find out, that meant the hipsters had connected me to the body lying unconscious on the blacktop.

  I didn’t take the 101 home. I didn’t need to. It was now safe for me to drive through my home turf. There was no longer any reason to fear neighbors or acquaintances glancing into my car and spotting Sleeping Beauty.

  On Moorpark, which was a good distance from the scene of the crime, I went back to the word Abel had used when referring to the targets: “crops.” The targets were crops. What did that mean? That humans were nothing but crops to Abel and his species? Crops that grew wild on planet Earth? Was Abel here to harvest these crops?

  I pictured the entire human race as a wheat field. A wheat field that was ambulatory and far more intelligent than your usual wheat field. These crops could think and feel and create a lasting culture. But still, in the end, they were only a wheat field waiting to be harvested.

  But why return the wheat to the field? Why not kill the crop and process it as you would any other crop? That’s what we humans did with our crops.

  This question had an obvious answer.

  You could harvest agricultural crops, kill them, and process them, well within the confines of the law—our laws. But not so if the crops were human. Killing human crops would bring the authorities into the picture. So Abel needed to harvest the crops and return them to keep his operation on the down low.

  But the crop analogy didn’t help when it came to answering the million-dollar question: Why did Abel want the crops at all? What was he taking from the crops? Because he must have been taking something, since the harvest wasn’t really the abduction, was it? The harvest was what he was taking from the humans during those fifteen minutes on the loveseat.

  Maybe Abel would give me the answer if I was patient. Of course, this was contingent upon Abel giving me another assignment. I supposed he’d first want to see how this one played out. He’d want to see if there was any negative fallout. And I’d be checking for that too—scouring the news and checking police blotters to see if Tracy Miles reported her mysterious abduction.

  But the most pressing item on my agenda now was where to stash those bricks of cash. I couldn’t deposit them all at once into our bank accounts, even if I spread it around. That amount of money would definitely raise red flags with both Jenny and the banks. I needed to find a safe place to hide the money.

  This was a high-class problem if ever there was one—and it rekindled the exhilaration I’d felt at the start of this assignment. That elation came soaring back, and with it came a surge of confidence. I’d started my new job, and for better or worse, I had one assignment under my belt.

  JENNY

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I couldn’t wait much longer. I had to tell Eddie about the new job. I’d already waited far too long. So long that I now found myself sitting next to him in the passenger seat, on the way to meet my oncologist, with this lie of omission still hanging between us. We were on the verge of finding out the results of my first round of chemo treatments, and there was this chasm between us—of my own making. I wanted to be of one mind with my husband. Whether the test results were good or bad, I wanted to look Eddie in the eye and discuss what to do next without this dividing us.

  It had already been two weeks since Mimi Quincy had offered me the job—which I’d accepted on the spot. So every time I’d had a conversation with Eddie since then, I’d been lying to him. For how could any conversation be truthful when I was withholding such critical information?

  Sure, I had hidden things from him in the past, but they’d all been minor things with no serious repercussions. Like when Jake had gotten a C on that Calculus test in tenth grade. He hadn’t studied because he’d spent the weekend prior to the test at a friend’s house. He’d asked me not to tell his dad about the grade and promised he’d get an A in the course, which he did.

  But hiding a job from Eddie was different. This was a big deal. Especially because I was only one week away from starting. I buttressed myself and turned to Eddie, ready to spill the beans. But when I saw him, absorbed in his own thoughts, staring ahead at the road, my will weakened. It weakened because I had the feeling Eddie already had enough problems of his own.

  Since he’d started his new job, he’d been more reticent than usual. I suspected this was because he was under tremendous pressure to deliver, and the learning curve was steep. But I also had this uneasy feeling that his position with ADM wasn’t secure—that it was provisional. That though he was paid well, ADM expected him to prove himself before they’d commit to a long-term contract. I even wondered if he’d lied to me—that the job was commission-based and not salaried.

  “I think it’s going to be good news,” Eddie said.

  “I hope so.” The doctor hadn’t given us any hints about the test results.

  “You’ve been feeling pretty good, and that must mean something.”

  “Maybe… but cancer is sneaky.” I’d been feeling good because of the job.

  “Boy, you really don’t want to get your hopes up, do you?”

  “It seems easier to prepare for the worst.”

  He looked over at me and gave me a warm smile. “We’ll be okay no matter what the results are.”

  He was trying to make me feel better, and I appreciated it, but I didn’t have a response. My mind was still on the chasm between us. The longer I waited to tell him about the pilot gig, the bigger our argument would be.

  After about a minute of silence, he turned to me again and said, “Oh, I wanted to tell you: ADM is going to reimburse us directly for our medical expenses. They couldn’t get around the waiting period for the insurance, so to make good on our agreement, they’re paying out of pocket until the waiting period is over.”

  “Great. That’s good.” But that worried me. Was the real problem that the job didn’t include insurance until he proved himself? Was the job provisional? But it felt wrong to be asking questions about his job when I was still being secretive about my own. If I wanted him to be honest about his job, I needed to be honest about mine.

  It was possible that I was just using that line of reasoning as an excuse to do what I had to do: tell him the truth so we could be of one mind when talking to the oncologist. But regardless of what the catalyst really was, I forged ahead.

  “Eddie, I have something to tell you that you might not like,” I said.

  He glanced at me, curious. “Sounds kind of ominous.”

  “Not at all. It’s ju
st that… I made a decision about something, and it’s a decision you’re not going to agree with.”

  “Okay…”

  I could see that he was already getting annoyed. It was time to stop beating around the bush.

  “I took a job on a pilot,” I said, evenly and calmly.

  He reacted immediately: his jaw tightened and his lips pursed. But he didn’t say anything.

  “You’re mad,” I said. “And you have every right to be. I should’ve talked to you about it first.”

  “I don’t want you taking the job,” he said. His voice was forceful, but not raised. Not yet anyhow.

  “I know. But I want the job.”

  “We don’t need the money. And you don’t need the physical strain.”

  “It’s a big-budget show,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “So I’m going to have lots of help.”

  “I still don’t want you to do it.” His voice was louder now—and more insistent.

  “I need to do it.”

  “You don’t need the physical strain.” He pulled into the parking structure next to the medical offices.

  “Eddie, I’m not dead. I’m very much alive, and I can work.”

  “I didn’t say you’re dead. But we talked about this: you wouldn’t work while Hannah and Jake wrap up high school. We agreed to that.”

  “I know, but things have changed. Drastically. I don’t want to sit around the house and think about cancer. Working is the best therapy.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know that I don’t want to sit around the house and wait for test results and count the days between treatments. I know that for sure.”

  “What about Hannah?” he said. He pulled into a parking space, cut the engine, and turned to me. “She needs you around now. She’s making some big decisions on her own and she might need some guidance.”

  “But you support those decisions.”

  “I support her new job—that’s true.”

  “Well, I want you to support my new job.” I got out of the car.