Nowhere

by Joshua David

  “It’s ok, trust me, it will all be ok.” Richard said as he tried to get used to the small bed that extended out from the wall. He was still in the process of piecing it all together and he knew that Hays would probably never truly understand all of it. He sat and although Hays kept talking, and kept mentioning Larson and the place he was going to to see Larson, Richard kept thinking that he had to form a plan.

  He had to form a plan because Steven would have a plan. He had to form a plan of how to get out of jail, how to get a vehicle, how to get back to the bridge. Most of all though, he had to have a plan for getting back to the red blinking light and when he got there he would need to have a plan to destroy it.

  At that point, Steven or someone else from the AIA might contact him. He would join the ranks of the AIA as one of the freedom fighters against the alien invaders. The mother lovinoids as Steven had delicately put it. But first he would need a plan to get out of the cell and out of the jail.

  Hays must’ve sensed that Richard’s thoughts had drifted elsewhere because he suddenly sighed and stood back up. Placing his hands in the pockets of his coat he said, “Goodbye for now Richard,” Wrapping up his lecture on playing it safe and how this was the best thing for Rich now with a simple,“You should try to get some rest, no one will bother you in here. You may actually find that this is a good place to rest and clear your head.”

  “Ok Doctor Hays, goodbye.” Richard said and gave a smirk and a wave and then he laid down on the bed so that he gave the appearance of following the doctor’s advice.

  Hays looked a little confused and was about to say something, but chose not to and instead turned and walked away. Richard saw him stop and talk to the Sheriff before leaving. When the Sheriff turned around, Richard could see though that the Sheriff had the unmistakable blackening around his eyes, and Richard suddenly knew that his plan needed to happen sooner than later. He might not be as ‘safe’ as Hays may have presumed, and he certainly wouldn’t be getting any rest.

  Doctor Hays left and Richard was all alone to concoct his plan. He sat up and started watching the guards carefully. There was a black deputy walking about who looked like he was a lieutenant, someone higher up in the ranks at least. As Richard focused, he could now see that the lieutenant seemed to be the only one of the bunch that wasn’t one of them. His eyes seemed normal.

  This made Richard begin wondering how they eventually got to someone. Were they body snatching aliens that took the form of their host and then destroyed the original, or were they puppet master type aliens that entered a host like a parasite and took control of them? Were these bodies that Richard saw walking about which looked human, actually human and just being controlled by something? Would destroying the signal break the mesmerizing hold that the aliens had over their host, or were they actually just fully alien and only mimicking human appearances? Destroying the signal might destroy the cloak of camouflage that they had and expose them for what they truly were.

  Man what a wake-up call that would be for the rest of the world. Richard decided that this was probably the case, but couldn’t be for sure. He knew that the world needed to wake up to what was happening though. This notion was only confirmed further when he watched as the Sheriff called the lieutenant into his office and they shut the door. Richard didn’t hear any noise or commotion, there were not the sounds of a scuffle. The office door remained shut for about forty minutes and then suddenly it opened a crack. The lights were out inside and Richard couldn’t see any movement, then suddenly the lights came back on and three men walked out; the Sheriff, another deputy and the lieutenant.

  Richard could tell that something had changed with the lieutenant as he walked away from the cell down the hall towards the front of the station. The lieutenant tilted his head back as he walked, he walked almost marchingly down the hallway, where before there was a slight swagger to his stride. Lastly, Richard could tell that the lieutenant wasn’t looking around as before and turned out of sight like some sort of automated machine.

  This fact stuck with Richard. It was perhaps a weakness that he had discovered. They didn’t behave like any normal animal does, including humans. Any other animal looks around and connects to their surroundings. Its part of the set of imbued instincts in an animal, from the days of being hunted, an animal looks around, because situational awareness keeps you alive. These aliens, they merely stared forward, as if fully knowing where to go and being so focused on the present mission that they forgot about everything else happening around them.

  That’s how Steven stays hidden and how I keep evading them, Richard thought. He looked back up and was startled though as he realized that the lieutenant had silently returned and was standing right outside his cell. It seemed to blow his present theory out of the water as he now realized how stealthily and silently the lieutenant must have been to move so quickly back to him without detection. Richard now found himself wondering if they could read thoughts. Maybe the lieutenant had detected Richards thought of weakness and decided to respond with a display of super stealthy superiority.

  “Your dinner.” The lieutenant said and Richard looked down and realized that he had pushed a small tray of food through the dinner slot in the bars. The man’s face was now darker around the eyes and Richard could almost see the swirling clouds encircling his eyes. Perhaps I just got lazy and didn’t hear him coming because I was deep in thought, Richard thought. Maybe the lieutenant was still just robotically staying on mission and had simply brought him dinner.

  “Thank you…” Richard said as he took the tray.

  The lieutenant sat down in a chair outside the cell and kept staring at Richard. Richard suddenly wondered if this was how it was done.

  “Of course!” Richard exclaimed, and then realized that he couldn’t verbalize any of his thoughts. The enemy was listening intently and watching closely. It had to be that the food was how they got to a person, or at least it was one of the methods. Richard knew now that he couldn’t touch or eat any of it. He would instead wait for the lieutenant to leave and then set the food at the base of the bed so that it could be observed. Would some parasitic alien worm hatch out of the mashed potatoes. Was the barbecue sauce infused with some extraterrestrial mold that would grow inside of him and quickly take control. He would watch for any signs of a contaminant.

  “You aren’t hungry?” The lieutenant asked.

  “No, not particularly, not right now.” Richard said and decided that from this point forward, vending machine food was probably the safest way to go. He would have to be more careful.

  A wheezily, wiry haired deputy came around the corner and walked down toward Richard’s cell.

  “Is he going to eat?” The wiry deputy asked, exposing a row of badly spaced yellow teeth. His eyes were dark and deeply set.

  “No… He isn’t going to eat.” The stormy eyed lieutenant responded. “He says he’s not hungry, but I can tell that he’s not planning to touch it.”

  “Lt. we’ve got to get back out there. Masterson says that he’s got it under control and won’t let anything happen.”

  “Ok…” The large man simply kept staring at Richard. Richard could almost see anger in his eyes as they swirled about vacantly.

  The lieutenant got up and went out down the hallway with the wiry one following closely behind. The station became very still and almost silent. Richard could hear a radio going and the husky sound of Wildman Mike’s voice as it carried through the almost empty Sheriff’s station. Richard felt like he was alone, but knew that couldn’t be the case. He knew that somewhere there was one of them watching him. He put the tray of food down, no exoworms yet, but only time would tell.

  He stood up and began pacing as he formed a loose plan. He knew that if he relaxed he would eventually fall asleep and then he would be vulnerable to any form of contamination. It would have to be sudden and soon, while there was only one of them in the station. It would have to be something not too violent, he wasn’t aiming to get himself shot.
No, stealth and surprise was always better than brute violence.

  “Richard…” A voice called to him. He stopped his pacing and listened. There was no one in the hallway, no one in the adjacent cell. “Richard…,” the voice repeated. It was Steven’s voice and Richard realized it was coming from the small window on the wall outside his cell.

  “Steven?” Richard asked surprised. “Steven, you can’t be here, it’s too dangerous. They’re patrolling the whole area looking for you.”

  “It’s ok, I came here to help you. You’ve got to get back to that radio station and kill the signal. It’s the only way to warn the region that they’re being invaded. People have to see them for what they are.”

  “I’ll come up with a plan somehow. You go on, get gone while you still can.”

  “Use the getaway, it’s your best chance. The next time you’re out of the cell you have to use it.”

  “I left it in the pill bottle, it’s in my car, wherever that is.” Richard responded. “We have to come up with a different…”

  “No, it’s not…”

  “What?”

  “Check your nut sack.”

  “What?!”

  “Check your leg I mean… where I told you to put it.”

  Richard stuck his hand into his pants and felt around for a few seconds. He came up with the little blue pill.

  “I thought I told you to put it in a baggy.” Steven said.

  “I know, I know. I must have been in a hurry and I just didn’t remember putting it there.”

  “Use it. It’s gonna taste like balls now, but use it. It’s the only thing that is going to get you out of this.”

  “Ok, I will. Do you know they almost had me convinced that I was just crazy. I couldn’t see them for awhile, they almost had me fooled. They have Hays fooled, we’re going to have to come back for him when this hits. He’s a good man and we need him on our side.”

  “What!” Steven yelled. “You can’t be serious. I’ve told you… He’s one of them! He must be a leader or something because you can see the others but not him.”

  “I’m sorry, It’s… I’m sorry, I couldn’t remember and he’s done so much for me.”

  “No… he hasn’t, he’s learned how to control you, he’s defending you only because he wants your trust. If you let him into your head, then he’ll get to me and you can’t allow that.”

  “How do you know?…”

  “Don’t ask me how I know.” Steven said. “A better question would be how did Hays know?”

  “Know what?” Richard asked, he was confused now.

  “How did the Good Doctor know where to find you when you were in that corn field. Did you describe the color of the corn to him, or does he know how to trace payphones because I’m still wondering how he knew where you were. I know you didn’t know where you were, and you were three counties away or four, I can’t remember.”

  Richard was in shock… how could Hays have known, as far as he knew, there was no possible way.

  “You’re right. It’s impossible, unless they were tracking me somehow, but then why would it take them so long to locate me, I wouldn’t have even gotten out of town if they had a tracker on me.”

  “They put you there Richard. They caught you and they tried to erase your memory of where you’d been and then they put you there. They keep trying to make you build distrust for yourself. If you don’t trust yourself, then you need them and if you need them, you build trust for them. Hays is destroying you brick by brick, he’s patient and meticulous, and he’s winning this fight as long as you are letting him.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Get out of there. Now start choking on some mashed potatoes until he opens that cell and then chew up and swallow your getaway just as he’s approaching you.”

  “But what if mashed potatoes is how they get you?”

  “What the heck did you just ask me? You know sometimes, Richard, I think you’re just about hopeless. Maybe just dead weight, like maybe I could do this better without you.”

  “No, not the mashed potatoes, but could they put something in them and that’s how they get you?”

  “No, that’s not how they get you, don’t worry. They kill you and then pose as you, but they’re still just aliens hiding behind the human mask of who they replaced. I told you, they are intelligent, everything is psychological with them. If they can’t beat you mentally, then they can’t beat you. Now start choking on some mashed potatoes, make it loud, make it messy and make it work, then throw it all up in the guys face.”

  “Ok…” Richard said. “I can do this.”

  “Just remember to project it. Get it in his face as best you can.”

  Richard turned and looked at the plate of chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes. Knowing that it was clean food made him three times more hungry. He ate the dinner roll, and wolfed down the chicken. Then he crammed as much mashed potatoes in his mouth as he could. He yelled as loud as a mouth full of mashed potatoes would allow, and then clanged around on the bars as much as possible. He heard the spring of a chair raising back up and footsteps in the main part of the station.

  He gave one last blood curdling, mashed potato filled roar before shoving the getaway pill down in his mouth between his molars so he could chomp it hard and swallow it quick. The deputy came down the hallway.

  “What the heck is wrong down here?” He asked.

  “AAAccckkk! AAAccckkk!” Richard blurted gutturally and made the best possible ‘I’m choking’ hand gestures. He leaned down against the bars as if he was about to go unconscious.

  “Oh geez!” the deputy yelled. He fumbled clumsily with the set of keys around his waist and then unlocked the jail cell and went in. Richard chomped down on the getaway pill and swallowed as much of it as he could. He almost really choked at that point as he accidentally swallowed his huge mouthful of mashed potatoes.

  The deputy was in the process of reaching behind him to perform the Heimlich Maneuver when Richard choked on his mashed potato mouth. He coughed at the deputy which became really helpful in zeroing in on the deputy’s face for what was to come next. Suddenly a biley tidal wave of discolored mashed potatoes, minced up chicken, and soggy dinner role erupted out of Richard’s mouth and splashed across the deputy’s face and mouth.

  Steven had been perfectly right in his assessment of how effective the getaway pill was. Richard could acutely distinguish the exact second that the deputy realized that he was being vomited on. He could even see the horror in the deputy’s face as he tasted vomit going into his own mouth.

  The deputy stopped all progress toward Richard and instead dove across the cell to try to get clear of the stream of acidic freedom that Richard was carving. He did his best to maneuver out of the cell while trying to keep his head angled in the general direction of the deputy. The deputy was screaming obscenities between uncontrolled gagging and heaving. Richard slammed the cell door shut, which would buy him even a few more moments. There was a set of automobile keys on the dispatch counter which he snagged as he ran by, trying not to slip in his wet boots. He grabbed a walkie talkie and a police jacket on his way out of the station.

  He could hear the deputy yelling at him, but didn’t look back even for a moment. In the parking lot, he tried his best to wipe his face off, and he put the sheriff’s office coat on. He then clicked the unlock button on the set of keys and realized they were actually the deputy’s personal keys. He was soon climbing into the driver’s seat of an older model green trans am. The guy must have been a mechanic in his hobby time because the thing fired up like it had some supped up engine underneath the hood.

  Richard peeled out of the parking lot, and tried his best to make some distance between him and the station quickly. He would have to be perfectly cautious and incredibly fast this time. He wouldn’t have this opportunity again.

  Chapter 13 : Waking up In the Gas Station

  Richard’s eyes sprang open and suddenly he was staring at three blue walls, his
waking brain for a moment processed this as some giant plastic box which he had somehow been trapped in, but he soon realized that it was instead a bathroom stall.

  He must have fallen asleep on the toilet. He didn’t know where he was, so he tried to gather himself together before stepping out into this new unknown.

  “What’s the last thing I remember?” he asked himself.

  “I remember, escaping…” He told himself. But do I remember driving? he wondered.

  He unlatched the door to the stall and couldn’t help but notice that a small message on the door said “The dogs are not dogs”.

  Did I write that? he wondered as he ran his finger across it. It had been written on the door in magic marker. He fished around in his pockets and produced a permanent marker from his coat. It had to have been me… he thought. I wrote a message to myself because I wasn’t sure that I would remember when I woke up.

  He clearly remembered the important stuff right now at this moment, it was the minute details that were escaping him. Like how did he get here, where was here, and how close was he to his objective.

  He walked out of the stall and used the sink to splash a bit of water on his face to help him wake up.

  “After this is over,” he told himself in the mirror. “you’ve got to stop spending so much time at gas stations.”

  He left the bathroom and had to shield his eyes as the bathroom door gave way to bright daylight. He took a moment to gain his bearings and take in the layout of the store. It was an older style gas station with a small counter space and doors leading out on either side so that pumps could be placed all around the store.

  “Dude, is anyone going to want to go in there after you.” A black haired female clerk with a nose ring suddenly said. “You’ve been in there for like an hour and a half. I thought you had left like three times, but then I’d check and your car would still be here.”