Alien Abduction

by Irving Belateche

  The downside was that I risked being spotted by Rose. But I had no choice.

  So I decided to head to the cluster of trees by going around the back of the guesthouse; there was no reason to risk Rose spotting me before the abduction had even begun.

  That decision changed everything.

  As I was walking along the back of the guesthouse, I saw that a window was cracked open. I didn’t hesitate; this was my chance to tranquilize Wendy in the privacy of her own home. There was no possibility of Rose witnessing it.

  I pushed the window open, climbed into Wendy’s house, and found myself in her bedroom. I didn’t spend any time there. I headed into the living room, which gave way to the front door. After a quick look around, I knew what to do.

  I positioned myself to the side of the front door.

  When Wendy entered, she’d open the door toward me, so I’d be hidden. Then she’d step inside, reach back to close the door behind her, and I’d fire the tranquilizer. It would take effect before the door even closed. I just had to make sure to stay out of her field of vision for a second and a half.

  I pulled the copper straw and tin of pellets from my pocket, and I stuck a pellet in the straw.

  Then I began the vigil. It was a short one. Eight minutes later—eight minutes of wondering why the hell I’d changed my MO now that I had it down, and telling myself it was because I was learning to adapt and that I was more comfortable with this scenario—I heard Wendy’s car rolling up the driveway.

  Though I felt anxious, I had long since stopped feeling panicky when it came to the actual abduction. I’d learned to let my exhilaration, which was now building, take over, rather than my fear. I guess when it came right down to it, practice had given me more confidence, and instead of succumbing to worry and panic, I rode the buzz of the hunt.

  The sound of the car’s engine died, and a few seconds later, a car door slammed. I gripped the copper tube tightly, and I took a couple of slow, calming breaths.

  Twenty seconds later, a key turned in the lock. Then I saw the doorknob twist—and the door swung open toward me.

  I brought the copper straw to my lips, and when I caught sight of Wendy moving past the door—before she reached back to close it—I blew through the straw.

  Instantly she lost her balance and stumbled. She tried to catch herself, but the tranquilizer was too powerful.

  I waited—for exactly a second and a half.

  When she lost consciousness and her body fell toward the floor, I glided forward and caught her. Then I pushed the door closed with my foot, pulled her more securely into my arms, and carried her to the couch. I laid her down and took a few seconds to let the buzz of the hunt wear off.

  The next step was to get her into her car and drive off the property. But I suddenly realized I had the opportunity to improve my plan a hundredfold. I wouldn’t head out right away. I’d wait fifteen minutes, so Rose wouldn’t wonder why her tenant had arrived home and then left seconds later. Instead, it would look like Wendy had come home, taken a few minutes to change, and then headed back out.

  I turned on the lights, as Wendy would have done when she arrived home after dark; Rose would expect to see the lights on back here. Then I went through Wendy’s purse, fished out her car keys, and sat down. I didn’t look at Wendy. I no longer liked to look at the targets. Keeping my eyes averted from them was a form of denial, but it was necessary. It was one of the reasons my confidence was high.

  Instead of staring at the target, I looked over her place. She had good taste, which didn’t surprise me since she worked in an art gallery. The furniture was graceful and warm, and so were the paintings on the walls. I turned my attention to them to pass the time.

  They were original oils of one of the magnificent hillsides of Del Mar. Each painting featured the hillside at a different time of day, from dawn to dusk. You could see how the change in light transformed the hillside. In the dawn’s muted light, everything was just shadows and shapes, full of potential. In the midmorning’s bright light, the hillside was sharp, the colors almost too brilliant to distinguish from one another. In the afternoon’s light, the hill had turned into a swatch of bursting color, with dozens of hues of orange, green, pink, and purple.

  After about fifteen minutes had passed, during which I studied those paintings, I decided it was time to go. I got up, shut off the lights, and walked over to the couch. I scooped Wendy up and headed to the door. There, I stopped and braced myself for the next step: I had to get to the driveway, which was hidden from Rose’s view, as fast as possible.

  I took in a deep breath, let it out, and opened the door—

  Rose was standing on the doorstep, holding a plate covered with aluminum foil.

  Her eyes immediately fell on Wendy, cradled in my arms.

  Then she looked up at me. She wasn’t smiling.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She passed out and I’m taking her to the hospital.” Lame.

  “But why you are back here?” she asked.

  It was clear that she wasn’t buying my lie, but I went on with it anyway. “I came back here to talk to her directly about renting the place. To see she if she was planning to move out soon.”

  “But I don’t under—” she said, then stopped herself, probably concluding that she did understand.

  “I’m calling the police,” she blurted out, and turned to go.

  I let Wendy’s legs drop to the ground, and with my free hand I reached into my pocket and pulled out the copper straw and tin of pellets. But to do what I needed to do, I had to have both hands free.

  So I laid Wendy down on the floor and took off after Rose.

  As I did, I loaded a pellet into the straw. Rose was shuffling across the back yard, trying her damnedest to move quickly, but her age worked against her. I caught up to her in the blink of an eye and shot the tranquilizer pellet into her back.

  The plate she was carrying fell to the ground, and its contents—chicken breast and broccoli—spilled out.

  A second later, Rose was falling into my arms, unconscious.

  I carried her into the guesthouse, stepping over Wendy’s body in the doorway, and placed her on the couch. I wondered if the tranquilizer would affect her in the same way it affected the targets, who were all much younger women.

  Would Rose rest peacefully?

  Or more to the point: Would the tranquilizer kill her because of her age?

  I could see she was breathing, so the answer was no. At least, for now.

  Now what? Time to adapt—again.

  I could revive Rose, but I didn’t like the idea of doing so and then leaving her to her own devices while I trekked up to LA and back with Wendy. What if the revival capsules worked differently on victims that weren’t the intended targets? What if the capsules didn’t wipe out Rose’s memory? What if she came to and remembered she’d witnessed the abduction?

  She’d go to the police.

  I decided it would be far better to revive Rose after returning from LA with Wendy. That way, when Rose came to, Wendy wouldn’t be missing. So even if Rose did remember what happened, Wendy wouldn’t—and I knew this for sure from the other abductions. Wendy wouldn’t be able to confirm Rose’s story, except for the part about fainting. And if Rose went to the police, they’d quickly lose interest in the case: the victim was fine and recalled nothing, and there was no evidence of a crime.

  Also, if I was lucky, the police might suspect Rose had imagined the whole thing due to her advanced age.

  With my decision made, I moved forward as fast I could.

  First, I dealt with a minor detail that for some reason worried me. I went back outside and scooped the chicken and broccoli back onto the plate, using the aluminum foil. Then I buried it all, including the plate, in one of the trash bags in Rose’s trashcan.

  With that done, I got on with the rest of my night.

  On the way to the parking structure, with the latest incarnati
on of Sleeping Beauty riding shotgun, I admitted to myself that there was another reason to wait until after returning from LA to revive Rose—a reason that had influenced my decision even though I hadn’t wanted to think about it. By waiting to revive Rose, I’d given myself the opportunity to ask Abel how I could fix the problem. Of course, this meant admitting to the alien that I’d screwed up. Only then could I ask him for help.

  I’d never told him about my first screw-up—the night the target had seen my face just before she’d lost consciousness. I supposed I could’ve told him about it anytime during the string of successful abductions that had followed. Certainly by then I’d gained a little of the alien’s trust. If I had told him—and survived the consequences—I would have known a little more about how he might react to tonight’s blunder.

  But this blunder was much bigger. And that was one of the very reasons I had to tell Abel about it. Before I did something that made it worse.

  I made it to the parking structure, parked Wendy’s car next to my own, and transferred her over.

  Ten minutes later, I was on the 5, headed back to LA.

  On the trip, I braced myself for my confession. I knew I had no choice but to let Abel know I’d tranquilized an innocent bystander. If I couldn’t find the courage to confess my screw-up to Abel, then I would confess out of fear. The fear that I’d executed this assignment about as far away from “properly” as possible.

  *

  I sat in Abel’s living room, waiting for the alien to harvest whatever it was he was harvesting. I stared at the fireplace and girded myself for my confession. My eyes fell on the poker, tong, and shovel set, and I suddenly flashed onto a horrible image: Abel uncharacteristically getting upset at my stupidity, and lashing out at me by grabbing the fire poker and bashing me to death with it. Wouldn’t that be a far better death than Abel liquefying me in the red cone of light?

  Abel walked into the living room. “You can return the target now,” he said, and immediately turned to leave.

  I wished he had said something more, indicating he wanted to chat, like he’d done on the night of the fifth abduction. That would have made it easier to confess. But he didn’t.

  So I stood up. “I had a slight problem with the target,” I blurted out. Then I clarified my statement. “Actually, not with her, but with her landlord.”

  Abel turned back to me. His large black eye was emotionless, a sea of tranquility. There was just no way to read his reaction.

  I went on. “As I was carrying the target out of her house, I ran into her landlord.” I stopped myself and waited for a reaction. There was none.

  “So I used the tranquilizer on her,” I said.

  Surely my unauthorized use of the tranquilizer would elicit a reaction. Or at least a question.

  But Abel said nothing.

  Cold silence filled the room.

  I wrapped up my confession. “The landlord is safe and sound, and I’m sure no one will find her before I return.” Of course, I had no way of knowing if that was true. One of the many worries that had come up during my drive back to LA was that Rose had a live-in housekeeper. What if that housekeeper had come out to the guesthouse to find out why Rose hadn’t returned?

  Abel still hadn’t said a word, and I didn’t want to continue with my tale of woe. So instead, I went with a question.

  “Do you want more details?” I asked.

  “No.” Abel’s synthesized voice gave no hint of anger.

  I waited for him to say more. To ask a question or two. But what came next wasn’t a question. It was a decree.

  “You have to dispose of the landlord,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I drove back to San Diego with Wendy by my side.

  And murder on my mind.

  I didn’t want to kill Rose, but I also didn’t want to disobey Abel. I wanted to follow orders, but murder was a tough order to follow. I didn’t think I was capable of it. Of course, it wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t think I was capable of kidnapping innocent women.

  Still, murder was different. Very different.

  You have to dispose of the landlord, Abel had said. Without malice or ill will. Just the facts, ma’am.

  And what made this whole mess even worse was finding out how lucrative this assignment was. Wendy must have been a valuable target, a top crop, because Abel had left two hundred fifty thousand dollars in my car—the most I’d ever received for an assignment. So now, instead of wrapping up what could’ve been a lucrative and easy assignment, I was stuck in the middle of a nightmare.

  I pulled into the parking structure, drove up to the fourth level, and switched from my car to Wendy’s car. Less than twenty minutes later, I was approaching Del Mar and caught sight of the Pacific—dark and endless, with glints of gold moonlight streaking its surface. When I had stared out over the Pacific this afternoon, from that beautiful park in Del Mar, I had felt all was well.

  Now, everything had changed.

  Would my life go back to the way it had been this afternoon, or would it take a turn for the worse?

  I couldn’t go through with the murder. That I knew. But I also knew that disobeying Abel carried a huge risk. I was almost a hundred percent sure it would result in my own death.

  As I drove up to Lunela Drive, I concluded that my best option was to revive Rose and then somehow ensure that she wouldn’t implicate me in the crime. And I had a plan to try and make that happen. If I could pull it off, then it would be a case of all’s well that ends well. And if Abel saw that, wouldn’t he agree that no further action was needed? As in, there was no reason to dispose of me.

  Whether I actually believed that or not, I felt I had no other choice.

  I pulled into the driveway and drove to the guesthouse in the back. I carried Wendy inside, where my eyes immediately fell on Rose. She was still on the couch just as I’d left her. Good.

  I put Wendy down on the floor near the front door, so when the time came for her to regain consciousness, she’d be in the same place where she’d fainted.

  Then I approached Rose. She looked ashen, her face completely drained of color, and her cheeks sunken. But the most alarming change in her appearance was her wrinkles. They were no longer smiling, but were frozen into expressionless ridges.

  It was clear that she wasn’t weathering the tranquilizer as well as the other targets had. Her age was probably the cause.

  I bent down to scoop her up—my plan included reviving her in her own home—when the obvious finally registered.

  I stood back up and looked at her again. This time I focused on her chest and stomach, looking for the gentle movement of shallow breathing.

  I didn’t see it, and my stomach tightened.

  Rose was dead.

  Wasn’t she?

  I leaned down, bringing my face close to hers, and then I turned my head so my ear was right over her nose and mouth.

  I listened for shallow breathing.

  I didn’t hear it.

  My face suddenly felt hot, and my stomach tightened further. But I didn’t segue into panicking. Not yet, I told myself. Not at all, if I could help it.

  First, I had to be certain Rose had passed away. I couldn’t just assume she was dead. I knew how to check a person’s pulse from a first aid course I’d taken years ago. I placed my index and middle fingers on the inside of Rose’s wrist, just below her thumb—and waited.

  Rose had no pulse.

  But in desperation—my body was trembling now, as it had on the night of my first abduction—I placed my index and middle fingers on the side of Rose’s neck, just under her jaw. I remembered that this was another way to check a person’s pulse. Maybe Rose’s pulse would be easier to detect here.

  It wasn’t.

  And after thirty seconds or so, I had to accept that Rose was dead.

  I turned from her to look back at Wendy—Sleeping Beauty on the floor—and the correct term for what had happened to Rose entered my thoughts.

 
Rose had been murdered.

  By me.

  I’d murdered her with the tranquilizer pellet. I’d been right: the tranquilizer had affected her far differently than it had affected the intended targets.

  Then Abel’s words came back to me again. You have to dispose of the landlord.

  For the first time, I understood what he’d really meant. He hadn’t meant for me to commit murder. I had already committed murder, and Abel knew it. He’d literally meant for me to dispose of the body.

  Why? I thought. Why can’t I just put the landlord back in her house? Eventually someone—maybe Wendy—would discover her body and conclude that Rose had died of natural causes.

  But if that was true, Abel wouldn’t have issued his edict. There was a reason he didn’t want Rose’s body found. Maybe the alien drug was detectable if the host died, and an autopsy could reveal it.

  Whatever the reason was, it didn’t really matter. My job was not to question why, my job was but to do or die.

  My stomach was tighter than a drum, but I was no longer trembling. At least I hadn’t committed murder. This was an accident: I had panicked when Rose appeared on Wendy’s doorstep, and by panicking, I’d accidentally killed her.

  Whether I truly believed that or not, I needed to stop rationalizing and take action. I needed to make this all go away. Without thinking it through, my gut told me that I had to dispose of Rose’s body before I revived Wendy. But I immediately dismissed the idea of transporting Rose to another location. That would entail too much risk.

  Was it possible to hide her in the main house? Of course it was, but that hardly qualified as disposing of her. Her body would rot, and eventually the smell would be detectable.

  Unless I could bury her in the basement.

  I headed to the main house to see if that was even a possibility. Still worried about the possibility of a live-in housekeeper, I first scoped out the house through the windows.

  There was no sign of a housekeeper.

  Still, I entered the house as quietly as possible and crept up to the second floor to check; at this time of night, a housekeeper might be fast asleep in her bedroom.