“Oh, sure”, Frank says.
“You ain’t exactly from around here”, Patty says. “Are you special or something?”
“No, why you say that?’’
“Well you’re just different. Why are ya out here in the middle of no where, all muddy and wet? I mean, I never saw a car back there and you’re walking the same direction I’m going. So what ya doing out here in the middle of no where? There ain’t a town for five miles.”
Think Frank, think…think. What are you going to tell this woman? What are you going to tell her.
“Oh uh…my girl frend and I got in to a fight and she kicked me out of the car.” said Frank.
“I see.” Patty replied.
“Yea, I’m kinda on my own.” Frank replied.
Patty sighs and thinks to herself that maybe Frank could help her out around the ranch. Things had been hard for her to do alone since her mother passed away.
“You know what? If you need a place to stay and a little work, I gotta ranch about 2 miles down. Interested?”
“Sure!” Frank exclaimed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You ain’t a serial killer or anything are ya?”
Frank laughs, “No, I’m not anything like that.”
“Well, you wouldn’t exactly tell me if you were, would you?”
“Well, I guess not.”
Patty was a pretty good judge of character and Frank had a good face.
As they drive down the road, Frank is still and looking out the window at all the beautiful scenery. Patty turns and hit’s the blacktop and guns the truck. The truck moves faster and faster. Fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty. “Oh you’re gonna love this.” Patty says, as they crest a hill and ramp off it flying almost 60 feet in the air. The truck plumetts back down on the street. “You have to excuse me for that. I do that every time I see that one hill. I love to fly. We will be at the ranch here in about 10 minutes. It’s right down the road.”
Frank thinks to himself, “These humans are crazy.”
About that time, Patty turns on to another gravel road while gunning and fishtailing up and down the gravel from left to right. She slows for a touch and guns it again, down the road. She turns at a corner mailbox going thirty and guns it again down a dirt road. Everything’s a blur to Frank’s eyes, as he stares out the window in amazement. Quickly approaching the ranch, Patty starts to slow the truck down. She skids in the gravel drive, does a 180 and puts the truck into park. Patty gets out. Frank just as quickly gets out of the truck feeling lucky to step on solid ground.
Patty says, “Well, this is it. Mom calls the ranch the “Retro Ranch. As you can see it’s not a really big operation. We got twelve steer, eight cows, five dogs and one cat. You know, if you wanna clean up and get out of them dirty wet clothes, you look about the same size as my dad. He left a few things here before he just took off. You’re welcome to em.”
Frank replies, “Really? That’s wonderful. I sure would like to clean up.”
“Yea you can take what you want out of the closet upstairs. Lemme show ya. Come on in.”
Patty opens the door and lets Frank in. The screen door slams as they both enter the ranch house. Patty says, “You’re gonna have to excuse the mess. It’s lived in, . You go ahead and make yourself at home. The bathroom is upstairs to the left and all my dads clothes are in the old bedroom. It’s a junk room really. Has a lot of miscellaneous things up there like packed goods and junk stuff. It’ll be the first room on the right.”
As Frank strolls toward the staircase, he looks at all the pictures on the mantel.
“Is this your family?”
“Oh yea, yea. That’s my mom, dad and cousins.”
“Is this your mom right here?”
“Yea.”
“She’s a very beautiful woman. You look a lot like her. Quite the resemblance.”
“Yea, she died unexpectedly three years back. It was terrible.”
“So you run this ranch all by yourself?”
“It’s not really much of a ranch, but my cousins were helping me for quite awhile. That’s them there.” Patty says as she points to another picture on the mantel. “But they moved back to Des Moines. So I kinda been left on my own. Been tryin’ the best I can, but with the price for the feed and everything, it’s getting outta hand. I been thinking about finding a second job. Just getting to hard to make ends meet. I can’t really pay ya anything, but I can give you a place to stay if you wanna help.”
“Well, I’m not doing nothing else right now.”
Frank thinks to himself. She really thinks I’m human. Maybe I can just lay low here for awhile and check things out to see what opportunities this new world might have.
Patty says, “Go on now and take a shower. You’re filthy! Grab one of those baskets outta that room to put your clothes in. I just did the laundry and there isn’t one in there.
“You got er”, Frank replies and ascends the stairs. As Frank gets to the top of the stairs, he starts to go in the first room on the left. About that time a pitbull charges at him and he quickly shuts the door and runs back down the stairs. Hearing the feinted mumbling of the growls and barks from the pitbull that was in the room, Patty runs out of the kitchen up to the stairs as Frank quickly progresses down them.
“Souning like a little girl.” Patty throws her hands on her knees and laughs out loud. “Oh you must have met Jaws.”
“Jaws?”
“Oh, yea. That’s one of my little babies. Here, he needs to go outside anyway. Let me go get him and take him out.”
Patty runs up the stairs and opens the door. Frank could hear her mumbling sweet, loving puppy talk to Jaws. “Good boy, good boy. Its alright. Come on now.” Patty grabs Jaws by the collar and walks him down the stairs. Jaws is still barking at Frank as Patty turns from the stairwell to the front door. “Come on now. Come on.”
Patty opens the door and pushes Jaws outside and quickly closes the door so he doesn’t run back inside and bite Frank in the ass. As Patty walks away from the door, you can still hear the muffled growls of the dog wanting back in, just to get a taste of Frank.
“I don’t know what it is about the dog, but he really hates you. You better watch your butt. It might become a couple pounds lighter ”
“I’m gonna really try not to disappoint you, Patty.” Frank replies. “I like my ass as is, thank you. Is there anymore surprises before I go up the stairs?”
“No, I think he was the only one in the house. All the other ones are out playing. They don’t come in much. Jaws is a little over protective if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I definitely know what you mean.”
Frank heads upstairs and gets to the room on the left. Searching through the closet, he finds an old flannel shirt, some jeans that look like they might fit and an old pair of boots. Frank leaves the room and goes across the hall to the restroom and goes straight to mirror and drops all his clothes and feels his cheeks at the day old stubble on his cheek and chin feeling the rough texture thinking to himself.
“Amazing, . Who would have knew that just a little while ago, I was no more than light. Now I’m a human being. Well, lets see how this shower works.”
Frank approaches the bathtub and turns on the water. “Waters a little cold.“ He turns the knob to the left. Steam rises from the hot water out of the tub. Frank touches the water again. “Too hot.” Frank turns the knob again to a nice medium heat that he can withstand and slowly takes off his clothes and steps into the shower. Seeing the sliding door, he grabs the towel rack within the shower unit and shuts it to close himself into the shower to bathe. He immediately reaches for the liquid soap canister and pushes the top down as the soap leaks onto the palm of his hand. He punches it again and again getting a nice lather between his fingers and hands and rubs it all up and down his body, feeling the soap on his skin for the very first time, smooth and slick and nice smelling just rubbing vigorously up and down his body just sliding right off of his legs and arms and c
hest as the water beads off from a high stream out of the shower . Soap and water is so invigorating to Frank as he lets the stream of water run down his whole body from the top of his head watching it quickly swirl down the drain and disappear. Frank turns the water off and steps out of the shower unit. He grabs a beach towel off the closet shelf and pats his body dry and starts getting dressed. As he puts on his pants, he sees the mirror all fogged up in the corner and thinks about what he was no more than a few hours ago. He grabs a white T-shirt and throws it over his head and puts his arms through the holes and his head. He pulls it down to its proper position and puts on the flannel shirt, buttons it up and walks out the bathroom. He proceeds toward the kitchen where Patty is now cooking it up on the stove top. The smell of bacon and eggs lingers in the air. As Frank enters the kitchen, the toaster on the counter next to him pops and startles him. Patty catches the moment out of the corner of her eye and laughs out loud. “You think I’d be leary of you, not vice versa. Sit down and catch your breath.”
Frank listens to Patty and sits down at the table and puts his arms up, cuffing his hands together and listens to the feint barking of the dog at the door and the bacon sizzling away on the griddle as Patty slowly breaks the eggs and throws them into the cast iron griddle.
“How do you like your eggs?” Patty asks.
“Umm, over easy?”
“Over easy coming up.”
Frank was surprised that worked. He only heard it one time in a movie a long time ago and always wondered what over easy eggs looked like. Frank looks down at the plate settings. A knife, a fork and a spoon on a napkin, thinking “God, its difficult for these humans to eat. Whenever we ate on L5 we simply just let the force absorb into us from the wall. They have to physically shove it in there mouth, chew it, swallow it up in an organic vessel. Wow, that’s difficult. This human gig is harder than it looks. But humanity makes a pretty big deal about eating. They base their holidays around it. They go to special trips and drives for it. It cant be all that bad. And besides that, its who I am now, so I better get used to it.
Patty removes the eggs from the griddle and puts them on the plate next to the counter and butters the bread from the toaster onto the plate.
“Aw darn it. I busted one!” Patty exclaimed.
“That’s alright. I’ll eat that one.” said Frank.
“Here ya go.”
Patty sets the plate down in front of Franks table setting and slides down the salt and pepper. “There ya go.” Patty says. “Bon appetite.”
Frank looks down at the plate in a quiet panic as he shoves the fork through the white of the egg. Then spearing through it with his fork and shoving it in his mouth, bursts of flavors explode on his tongue from his taste buds. This is the first time Frank has ever tasted anything in his life and he’s loving it. Pretty soon, Frank uses both his hands to eat all the breakfast off his plate. He shovels it in with one hand to the next, barely allowing enough time to chew. He reaches for another pile to shove into his mouth. The bacon crunches between his teeth as he chews. He sops the remainder of the egg yoke up with his toast. But he isn’t finished. He picks up the plate and licks it clean. Patty sits totally stunned, staring at Frank in bewilderment, with her mouth open and eyes bugged. With one last hard swallow, Frank looks up with yoke and bread crumbs on his chin. Patty composes her self and says, “Are you sure you aren’t special? You eat like a 4 year old.”
“That was wonderful.” said Frank.
“Gimme that plate before you break it.” Patty picks up the dishes, takes them to the sink and drops them in the hot water. She brings Frank a paper towel to wipe his face.
“Ok” said Patty, “I’m gonna show you how to feed all these animals and get everything all set up for the next day. Now this stuff is what I want you to do every morning as soon as you get up. Every morning you have to do this. Deal?”
“Deal.” Frank replies.
Patty takes Frank outside as the old white screen door slams shut. As they reach the corner of the house, the dogs commence to receive attention from the owner. Franks a little put off at first, but even Jaws likes a pat on the head after they all smell Frank scent and do whatever dogs do to finally give you the ok.
“You can fill their bowls with that dog food over there in that bucket over by the shovel.” Patty points. Frank tips the bucket into the dog bowls as Patty fills the others with water from the well along with the troughs next to the other animals in the barn.
“Now for the fun part.” Patty said as she hands Frank a pitchfork and they go into the stalls to clean out all the poop.
Patty tells Frank, “You really gotta keep up with it everyday or else it just takes over.”
Frank highly enjoyed the work. Working his muscles and raking the leaves felt quite good outside Energizing.
Putting the tools away in the barn, Frank catches a shadow out of the corner of his right eye, moving far to fast to be one of the other animals in the barn. At that very same moment, all the animals appeared skittish. They started pacing back and forth in their stalls seemingly frightened. Instantly, something bangs in the hayloft. Frank, although startled at first, climbs up the ladder to investigate. He opens the hayloft door. The old hinges give out a loud screech, like a mechanical scream. Frank climbs up shoulder length with the floor and scans the room. Nothing but darkness. He climbs on up. The creaks from the wood snap about. An old leftover bale of hay appears out of the dark in the very back of the barns loft. He continues towards the hay as the creaks from the old boards announce his slow approach. Franks just about to touch the bale of hay when a mouse scurries from behind the bale into a corner of the barn. Frank jumps back, quickly turns around, and then, out of nowhere, standing right in front of him is a lady in a jean jacket. Frank falls to the ground and hits his head on the bale of hay. Shaking his head back and forth to make sure all the bones are still connected, he slowly rises off the floor and looks again for the lady that disappeared from right in front of him.
“What the hell.” Frank wonders.
The vision reappears, to the left. Her nose almost touches his cheek.
“You can see me, can’t you?” the lady asks.
A bead of sweat drops onto Franks nose.
“Yes.” Frank replies.
“Who are you?”
“Frank.”
The lady vanishes again.
Frank slowly walks towards the hayloft door. The creaking is less noisy with each step. Slowly reaching for the hayloft door, he yanks it open and runs down the stairs to the bottom of the barn as fast as he could possibly go, not even bothering to shut the hayloft door. Frank runs into the kitchen of the house. He slams the door, runs to the sink and pours him a glass of water. Frank gulps it down, trying to catch his breath. He slams the glass on the counter and washes his face. As Frank removes the towel from his head, he sees the lady again standing right in front of him. She bursts out, “Don’t you run from me‘’. Tell me who the fuck you are and what are you doing in my house.”
“Your house? This isn’t your house.”
“I paid for the damn thing.”
“This is Patty’s house.”
“Patty’s my daughter, dumb ass.”
“But your dead.”
“Yea, yea well what the hell are you? You’re glowing like a Christmas tree. I been dead long enough to know that humans don’t look like that. And since I’m dead, I’ve seen some weird shit. And you Mr. are weird shit. The guardians said if I seen a mooner to report it immediately. They say mooners glow, just like you’re glowing right now. So who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my house?”
“Yea I’m from the moon. Are there others? Are there truly others that live here?”
“All I know is that if I ever were to run into one of you aliens, I am to report it at the very moment.”
The lady vanishes again.
5
The next morning, Scott decides to go check on Rob at his laboratory. As he enters, he enters a j
ungle.
“What the hell is this?” He sees Rob in a small camouflage booth with the whole front’ s invisibility glass that is only known to anyone who looks at it and already knows what it is. Other than the minute crystal particles on each corner glistens and shines just a little bit, is the only tell tale sign of the invisible glass and Scott just happened to be in the very corner of it. Rob sees him and lets the shield down for him to enter. He says, “Quick, get in. They can see us if we are not in here.” Scott quickly enters. “What are you doing in here anyway?”
“Endurancy tests. The wolves have to be tested thoroughly. I just unfroze them a couple minutes ago. I let out some deer. They are hunting. They love it. Check them out. They all can take out a deer pretty quick no matter where I release them, but the big black one there, Zoth, he takes out five. He is their leader. When we switch over, I am going to use his body for sure.” Scott watches the big black beast as it slowly claws it way down, to the ground, crouched down low, moving ever so quietly at the big buck eating grass and foliage.
“Whoa, that’s wicked, Rob. Look how he is stalking him.”
Under the dark thick canopy he draws near enough to just grab the deer behind a tree. He just stalks and stares at it for a long while. The deer never notices him and just keeps grazing.
“It works like a monitor. You see, they all have the chip so it will show each and every one of them on this monitor. Its like you are really next to them.”
“I know, right.” Scott said.
The ears on the deer perk up in response to a noise that comes from the side. He turns his head towards it. As he does, Zoth completely severs his head with his massive claws. All but one sliver of meat that dangles it as it stumbles and falls. But as it hit’s the ground, another wolf appears that made the noise, for it was not Zoth or Zoth’s area that the deer had looked at. It was the intruder, another wolf, a brown one. But it doesn’t seem to notice the deer at all. No, it is headed right for Zoth. Zoth takes a fighting stance with his paws, digging into the canopy of the earthy floor.
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