With nothing to lose, Tarik unleashed a series of wild blows on the surprised alien. The Skink skillfully stepped back and parried each punch that minimized the impact. This slimer knew how to fight. Tarik was hoping decades of peace between the two races had softened their conquerors to some degree. The luck that brought him this far was gone. He was on his own.
On his own and feeling the onset of battle fatigue. Tarik now realized the warrior’s game. The Skink was going to let Tarik wear himself down, and then probably run a safe distance away, just enough to launch a grenade and end the battle.
The Skink kept taking pokes at Tarik, trying to connect with the spot as he did earlier on Tarik’s left side, between his shoulder and head. That had to be a weak spot in the armor’s design.
Tarik knew at some point the alien would outsmart him and win. Taking the only chance he thought he might have, he faked a punch to the warrior’s helmet. When the Skink’s arms went up to block, Tarik grabbed him around the waist, lifted him up, and slammed him to the earth.
On top of the alien now, he grabbed the arms and held them to the ground, moving his shoulder gun in line with the left side of the alien’s neck.
Point blank, he let the slugs fly directly at the target. Slugs striking transmetal made a horrendous noise. Dirt and rock flew into the air like a geyser, either from ricocheting off the armor, or just plain missing the alien and blasting into rock and dirt. He was too close to the warrior for his HUD to get the best aim.
The Skink struggled to break free of his grip. Tarik, despite the mechanical advantage of his armor, strained with every ounce of his human muscles to keep the alien from escaping.
The slugs kept pounding away, probably totaling in the hundreds by now. But Tarik knew it would take that many of the specially designed slugs to breach transmetal.
The shoulder gun pumped slugs well after the Skink went still. With ammo nearly depleted, Tarik shut down the gun and waited for the dust to settle.
The left side of the Skink’s armor at the neck had deep gashes where the slugs had worn the transmetal away. Surprisingly, the hole breaching the suit was the size of a pebble. At least one slug, or a fragment of one, had found its way in to do the job.
Tarik rolled off the alien and relaxed his tightened muscles. It was over. They had won.
“Tarik?” It was Zax’s voice.
The human looked over and saw his friend and the other Nu-Mans following his path from the escape tunnel. He lifted a hand and waved.
Seven members of his team stepped up. Zax came over and offered a hand.
Tarik reached out and took it. Though he wore transmetal gloves, his hand was still smaller than this gentle giant’s.
“You did an amazing thing here,” Zax said, and then pulled Tarik to his feet.
Looking at the carnage and taking a moment to reflect on the savagery of the last several minutes, Tarik thought so too. “Yeah, it’s more of an amazing thing that I’m still alive.”
“Are you hurt?” Zax asked.
“No. Tired, though, and a bit shaky,” Tarik said.
“Everyone else is gone, and we need to get out of here too,” Garrad said. “This place is going to be crawling with slimies soon.”
“He’s right,” Zax said. “Pair up and evacuate. We’ll meet in two days at the rendezvous point.”
As the group headed toward the tunnel, Tarik looked back at the battle scene one last time. The fragmented transmetal armor of his first two victims, and the two others sprawled out on the ground, all in the shadow of the scout ship. He had just won an impossible battle. Breaking into a Skink facility and completing the mission dwarfed what he had just gone through.
Tarik had survived by not thinking of the consequences and just doing what he knew he needed to do. It was going to be a lot harder to get into that mindset next time.
Chapter 4
The Present
The yellow behemoth lumbered to a stop and hissed angry air. Cole approached slowly, lifting his gaze, and accepting his ultimate fate. The behemoth’s mouth opened wide enough to devour Cole in one bite. With a heavy sigh, he thrust himself into the mighty jaws.
“Good morning, my man,” Mr. Tillus, the school bus driver, said.
“Morning,” Cole said as he took the short steps up. He returned Mr. Tillus’ infectious smile. The old bus driver’s teeth shined as much as his bald head.
The bus started moving as Cole made his way down the aisle. Different day, same old faces. The kid with his head on his book sack finishing his morning sleep. The two girls running their mouths and smacking gum. The bookworm deep into the imaginary world of an author’s mind. The kids plugged into their earbuds and tapping away at phone screens, trying to show their butts off to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately for Cole, there was no one his age on the bus route. Dent County High was next to the middle school. Rural living brought its share of compromises with it. It was either the bus or riding with his father, who was determined to get some personal benefit out of all the taxes he paid.
He found an empty seat about halfway down the aisle and slid his book sack off one shoulder before plopping down and scooting by the window. The landscape scrolled by. Mother Nature still maintained most of the undeveloped land where the road intruded, and telephone poles marked mankind’s territory.
Morning solitude did bring one advantage. The ride gave Cole a good twenty minutes to catch up on his favorite radio show from the previous night. Art Corey hosted Shore to Shore USA, a midnight to 4 a.m. radio show. Cole had a subscription to the Shore Insider, which gave him on-demand access to the previous show, or past shows. He would only have time to listen to the news of the day segment. Art would highlight some of the leading political topics, along with paranormal events around the world that major media shunned. The segment usually ended with a UFO update from Dick Freeport. The report, though, was pretty much the same day to day. Sightings of strange lights in the sky were common all over the country. It was the occasional video that Cole was the most interested in learning of. With all the smartphones all over the world, video of an actual alien craft was sure to surface one day.
The bus ride came to an end with no new news to excite Cole. The first guest was going to talk about Atlantis and promote his book. He would have to wait until bedtime to pick up the show where he left off. Listening to replays of Shore to Shore ferried him to sleep every night. Cole wondered if his subconscious stored the show after he was no longer awake. That would be cool if true.
Thankfully, the bus’ route brought him to the high school first and then traveled the short distance to the middle school. Cole stepped onto the sidewalk after giving Mr. Tillus a quick nod. The behemoth’s mouth snapped shut and hissed irately before rumbling away.
Just another typical morning. The sun not yet climbing over the trees, but a cloudless sky that foretold a bright day. Spring was definitely in the air. The warm weather had resurrected barren trees. The greenery blocked out all memories of the harsh winter. On some level, Cole hoped Climate Change was true. He would love to live in perpetual summer. That opinion, though, he kept to himself. Kids ragged on him enough for his other kooky beliefs. Aliens, bigfoot, and ghosts, not necessarily in that order, were where he devoted his energies.
Kids meandered around the flag pole in front of the school’s main entrance. Others lined up near the front, preferring fresh air rather than what walking the halls offered.
Mr. Buddy Johnson, the janitor, was a portly man somewhere in his forties. One thing’s for sure, the man loved his work, which surprised Cole. It seemed that performing the same menial jobs day after day would get boring. For example, just as soon as he mopped the floor, tens of tennis shoes and boots would bless the effort with scuff marks and dirt. Right now the man was putting a new plastic liner in a trash can, which would be full after lunch. Cole remembered one time when Mr. Buddy was on his hands and knees cleaning up a fresh pile of puke from the middle of a hallway. Before he
could finish, the smell hit one of the students hard enough for them to deposit a load just a few feet over. You would have thought that would have sent Mr. Buddy into an outrage. But the man simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, and soldiered on completing his first task before taking on another.
Hidden in a shadowy corner, Mr. Ritzman kept a vigilant eye, the good one of course, on the morning ongoings. An aura of mystery surrounded that man. For one thing, Mr. Rizman always wore a black suit, dark glasses, white shirt, and a black tie. The sleeves of his jacket were too long; the jacket’s cuffs reaching nearly halfway down his hand. Of course, his shoes and belt were black too. His left hand curiously avoided view at all times. The appendage usually resided in his left jacket pocket or gripped around a pen.
Mr. Ritzman took Mrs. Darby’s place when she left on maternity leave, just a couple of months after a kid two counties over went missing. The odd thing about that was that Ritzman had never substituted at Dent County before. Usually, replacement teachers came from a small pool of regulars. Maybe Ritzman had connections with someone on the school board. As far as teachers go, the man was in no danger of winning any educator of the year award. He had practically zero personality. His robotic delivery had Cole wondering if androids were now a reality.
Two of Cole’s friends were off to the side under the mulberry tree, where they hung out almost every morning before school, weather allowing. They were friends in the loosest sense of the word. Cole was a loner, had been all of his life. This was mainly by choice, but his interests in the weird didn’t attract many like-minded people. Kirk Ford and Dean Setters shared first-hour with him. That was their connection. Beyond that, Cole rarely saw them the rest of the day. Neither of the other two boys played baseball.
Kirk was sort of a sad character. His greasy hair and wrinkled clothes mirrored what was on the inside. Cole imagined his parents neglected him. Kirk’s birth dad split with his mom a few years before and went to live somewhere in Canada. His new dad treated him like he was always in the way. That was probably the reason why Kirk had no desire to pursue education beyond high school. He was determined to join the Army and become a defender of the USA.
The situation bothered Cole because it made him wonder what would happen if his father ever met someone else and got married. Would he get in the way too of their relationship? Maybe at fourteen, it shouldn’t matter. He’d be out of high school in a few years and then hopefully off to college. A boy had to become a man at some point. The thought of living away from home brought a strange emptiness to his stomach.
Dean was the class clown. The problem with that was Dean was rarely actually funny. His antics and comments were better suited for grade school. It was evident, though, that he was his own biggest fan. The boy would break down in hysterical laughter at his own jokes. Often, no one could understand the punchline because of his cackling. Moans and groans from the students did nothing to deter him from striking again at an opportune moment. Cole didn’t know if Dean acted this way for attention, or if in his own way, he was telling everyone else screw you; watch me perform.
“Hiya, guys,” Cole said as he fast-stepped over to his buddies.
“Hey.”
“Top of the morning to you,” Dean said, and then tipped an imaginary hat.
“Dean and I didn’t finish our algebra homework. Did you?” Kirk asked.
“Well, I finished mine, but I don’t think Mr. Ritzman is going to like my answers,” Dean corrected.
Cole wasn’t sure what Dean meant, but rather than ask questions and get long run-around answers, he had learned to bide his time and wait for Dean to let the cat out of the bag. “Yeah, I did it. I got it right here in my book sack.” He pulled the bag off his shoulder and fished out a green notebook. The class had written down eight linear equations from the board on the previous day. Each equation had an unknown variable. The task involved finding X.
“I started working on my homework and got distracted by the TV. They were talking about having mind outside of body experiences and how people’s inner self can travel anywhere in the universe. I fell asleep not long after and didn’t get to see the end. Cole, do you know what that’s called?” Kirk asked.
“Were they going back or forward in time too? If they were, that’s called remote viewing,” Cole said.
“No, I don’t remember any of that,” Kirk said.
“Then, they were talking about astral projection,” Cole said. “Astral projection is an OBE—”
“What?” Kirk interrupted.
“An out of body experience, kind of a form of telepathy, where the consciousness leaves the body and travels anywhere it wants,” Cole said. “The subject’s been brought up on Shore to Shore a few times. Art Corey claims he’s been able to leave his body and float above his bed.”
“I don’t know if I’d like to do that,” Kirk said.
“Why not? Seems kinda fun,” Cole said.
“What happens if your spirit person can’t get back into your body? They’d have to hook up a feeding tube to keep the body alive. You’d be like a ghost wandering around,” Kirk said.
“Hmm, I’ve never heard any kind of story like that. Just don’t try to do it and you’ll have nothing to worry about,” Cole said. “Here, you guys need to hurry before the bell rings.” He had his notebook open to the page with the problems and held it out for them to copy.
Dean pulled out a pencil and started erasing answers in his notebook.
“Wow, Dean. You didn’t get any of them right?” Cole asked.
“I didn’t exactly go to the trouble to try and solve the variable,” Dean said.
“What did you write, then?” Cole asked.
Dean brushed some of the eraser dust from the page and turned it for Cole to see.
“You circled each X and wrote here it is by it?”
“Well, the equation said to find X.”
“Dean, do you take anything seriously in life?” Cole asked.
The boy finished erasing the earlier answers and started copying Cole’s. “Maybe one day. Something you said a minute ago inspired me.”
“Astral projection?”
“No, the remote viewing.”
“Yeah, that does seem pretty interesting. It would be great to be able to remote view what the world was like in prehistoric times or go back and watch the first moon landing,” Kirk said.
“I’m not interested in history. I want to learn how to remote poot,” Dean said.
“Remote poot? That’s not a thing,” Cole said.
“And, maybe one day I’ll make remote pooting a thing. Imagine being able to fart and have it blast out from behind the teacher across the room. Or at church, during the morning prayer, right when your butt’s squirming on the hard pew trying to hold back a load of gas from the cabbage you ate the night before. You could let it rip behind the preacher. Man, that would be a gas!”
Cole got the double entendre but again said nothing to encourage Dean.
Kirk snapped his notebook shut after scribbling the last answer. The first bell rang. “You know, Dean, one day you’re going to push things too far with your so-called humor. Somebody’s going to get enough and whip that butt of yours.”
Dean didn’t look up and continued to write answers. “What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.”
“What do you mean?” Kirk asked.
“Because, Jimmy Fallon.”
“What?” Both Kirk and Cole said at the same time.
Dean continuted, “Jimmy Fallon grew up wanting to be on shows like Saturday Night Live and one day host The Tonight Show. If I have any chance to follow in his footsteps, then I have to keep working on my game until I get it right. Nobody is going to stop me from going after my dream. Not a teacher or a parent or if the whole football team whips my butt. I’m gonna be me, and everyone else will just have to deal with it.”
“Let’s go guys, or we’ll be late,” Cole said, feeling a slight admiration toward Dean’s resolv
e. Still, the boy might want to spend a little more time in the gym, as he was certainly cruising for a bruising.
*
The halls were abuzz with hurriedness as students plodded to their morning destinations. Sneakers slapped and skidded; heels of shoes clomped in discordant rhythm. Guys escorted girls with arms around their waists or holding hands. It was obvious that if you wore a letterman jacket, you more than likely would have a girl by your side. Cole didn’t have a letterman jacket, yet.
Mr. Buddy, the ever diligent janitor with a damp mop in hand, slowly waded through the stream of students flowing down the hallway. The children bobbed and weaved around him, undeterred from their destination.
Cole stood by his open, gray metal locker, which stood six feet high. Inside the door, he had placed a variety of stickers and taped printouts from his computer. The largest picture was the infamous ‘I Want to Believe’ X-files poster. He had watched every episode of the old series and even watched the short run of the remake. Cole did want to believe, but he didn’t want to be some kook that looked for any and every excuse to believe extraterrestrials were real.
The poster showed a classic saucer shaped UFO. Whereas a flying disk was a terrific shape for maneuvering through the atmosphere, it had no advantage in the vacuum of outer space. It seemed logical that interstellar craft would be designed for maximum inner space, sort of like a cube design like the Borg used on Star Trek. Flying disks could only be used as scout ships and not to travel the incredible distances between the stars.
One round sticker had ‘Paranormal Investigator’ surrounding the edges and a white bell curve shaped to look like a spooky ghost. A bumper sticker proclaimed an ‘Alien Hybrid on Board.’ Of course, there were a variety of cryptozoological creature stickers. Chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, the Loch Ness monster, the Moth Man, and bigfoot. One bigfoot bumper sticker read: ‘Bigfoot Saw Me. No One Believed Him.’
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