by Gina Ranalli
The tickling, they both knew, usually ended up in a make-out session, but before it could, a rustling sound caught their attention and they both stopped horsing around and glanced skyward.
“Holy . . .” John’s voice trailed off as his eyes widened, first with surprise and then alarm.
The thing in the sky made a beeline as if to dive bomb the young lovers, but then swooped back into the air, circling above before dipping low once more.
When Jackie could find her voice, she whispered, “What is it?”
John had no answer and could only shake his head, staring at the creature, illuminated only by the sheer brightness of the moon. It was no bird, that was for sure. Not unless it was a pterodactyl or something. But that was ridiculous. Those things had been extinct for millions of years and besides, this creature looked nothing at all like a bird. It had no beak.
The closest thing it resembled was a human.
A human with wings, each with a span of at least five feet.
But it was no human either. The glowing orange eyes were enough to confirm that much.
The teens gazed up, transfixed by the utterly silent display of aerodynamics hovering above them.
Jackie whispered, “It’s . . . watching us.”
Whatever it was, it began to drift higher and higher into the sky and she sensed John relax a little more the further into the distance it got.
When it was nearly out of sight, the kids were able to breathe again and John said, “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice.
They both leapt from the back of the pickup and raced around to opposite sides of the cab, leaping inside as if a demon had been nipping at their heels.
For all they knew, one had been.
They both slammed their doors in unison and John cranked the engine, revving it a moment before throwing it into gear and peeling out of the parking lot.
Jackie leaned forward in her seat, peering through the windshield up at the sky. “John! It’s coming back!”
“Crap!” He pressed down on the accelerator and the engine roared, lurching the truck forward at a speed that both of them knew was unsafe.
The creature dove straight down into the road ahead of them, causing both teens to scream as John twisted the wheel to the left in order to avoid smashing into the thing. Jackie knocked into his shoulder before managing to straighten herself up again.
The near-miss, however, turned out to not be much of a near-miss at all, because the creature never actually landed on the road. It hovered about it for a mere instant before shooting skyward again, straight up, its wings billowing like a cape, making Jackie think—somewhat absurdly—of Superman.
She leaned forward again, hands braced against the dashboard. “What does it want?”
There was no time to ponder the question as a loud thud rocked the truck from behind and both kids looked over their shoulders to see the creature in the bed, wings spread wide, perhaps to help it maintain its balance.
John cursed and returned his attention to the road, but Jackie was struck mute by what she saw.
It couldn’t be real. There was just no way.
With the creature being as close as it was, she could clearly make out details that had been impossible to see before.
It was like a giant insect. Its limbs and torso were too thin and angular to be anything else. The wings, though black, seemed almost sheer, as if they were made of some thin fabric. Nylon perhaps.
The creature stepped forward, flapping its wings several times, its eerie orange eyes seemingly fixed on Jackie’s, and as it drew closer, she made out the very fine fuzz that covered its entire body.
Mesmerized, she jumped when John suddenly shouted, “Hang on!”
The truck lurched left, then right, then left again, weaving back and forth across the thankfully empty road.
“What are you doing?” Jackie screamed, bouncing around the cab and wishing she’d put on her safety belt.
“Trying to shake it out!”
“Well, don’t—”
Jackie was cut short when John, in his panic, swerved too close to the shoulder of the road and drove them into a culvert with the sound of screeching brakes and grunts of pain.
The truck stalled and it took them both a moment to gather their wits. A couple seconds later, John reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She rubbed a sore spot on her head, which was already swelling into a lump. “Yeah, I think so. You?”
“Yeah.”
They both turned in their seats expecting to see the creature still in the bed of the truck, but it was gone and there was no sign of it anywhere in the road or on either shoulder of it.
Whatever the thing was, it had simply vanished, just as quickly as it had arrived.
Chapter 5
Sheriff Steven Collie sat with his legs propped up on his desk, a cold cup of coffee resting on his belly, idly looking around his office, bored.
He should have left for home close to an hour ago, but the idea of facing Sheila’s wrath kept delaying his departure. That woman just didn’t know when to let something rest. She was peeved that he had gone and bought a motorcycle without consulting her first, which he supposed was wrong, but it had been nine days ago now, and she was still on his case about it. She was probably at home right this instant, watching Letterman in the dark and eying the clock, wondering where he was and formulating in her mind just how she would lay into him again when he finally returned from work.
The sheriff sighed, finished the coffee, and grimaced. Dang, the stuff was nasty. Like sewer sludge, which was probably just as well, since he shouldn’t have been drinking it so late in the first place.
He swung his booted feet from his desk and rose from his swivel chair, tossing the cup in the waste basket.
Exiting his office, he regarded the officers he had assigned the nightshift to. Burke, a big, burly bear of a man who could easily have passed as a sasquatch if he’d chosen to do so. He was easily the hairiest son of a gun Collie had ever seen and was forever picking foreign matter from his bushy beard.
Burke sat at his desk, staring at a computer screen and thoughtfully stroking his beard.
“You’d better not be playing World of Warcraft again, Burke,” Collie told him.
Barely giving his superior officer a glance, Burke grunted and went back to whatever it was he was doing.
At another desk, Luke Clark was scribbling something in a report until the phone next to him rang. He picked it up and said, “Lockwood, P.D.,” listened for a moment and then frowned.
Luke was young, in his mid-twenties, but Collie thought he was an outstanding officer and would probably go far in the field if he ever got off his butt and moved out of this town. The only complaint he could make against the younger man was those dang sideburns he insisted on wearing. They made him look like a young Elvis, which Collie wasn’t sure was the best look for an officer of the law. But one thing was for sure: the ladies sure seemed to like it. The kid practically had a new girl on his arm every week.
“Can you repeat that description for me, ma’am?” Clark said, his frown deepening. “Uh huh.” He jotted things down as he listened.
To get his attention, Collie snapped his fingers and raised his eyebrows when Clark glanced up. Clark shook his head and went back to his writing. Collie scratched his grizzled cheek as he waited patiently to find out what—if anything—was really going on, since other than breaking up a drunken brawl or annoying teenagers by emptying their beer cans, not much ever happened in Lockwood.
“Black, you say?” Clark asked, piquing the interest of now not only Collie, but Burke as well, who looked up from his computer. Though there weren’t too many African-American folks in Lockwood, every so often some hillbilly with an imagined grudge would start hassling one of them and it always turned out to be a major headache for all involved.
Collie folded his arms and hoped this wasn’t going to be
one of those nights and silently cursed himself for not bugging out earlier.
After a few more minutes on the phone, Clark said, “Okay, ma’am. We’ll get someone out there right away. You just keep calm and sit tight until we get there.”
He hung up and slumped back in his chair as if he’d been performing exhausting manual labor.
“What’s up?” Collie asked him.
“You’re not gonna believe this, Sheriff,” Clark told him, shaking his head slowly. He paused for so long that it didn’t appear is if he’d continued, but at last he said, “That was a woman out near the marsh.” His brown eyes looked suddenly tired. “Said she saw an alien running down her street.”
There was a moment of silence and then both Collie and Burke burst into laughter.
Clark waited for the chuckling to subside before continuing. “She’s convinced. Some black, spidery thing, she said. With . . . orange eyes.”
The other two men laughed all the harder.
“An alien?” Burke asked. “Like . . . from outer space? That kind of alien?”
Clark shrugged. “That’s what the lady said.”
“She afraid of getting probed?” Burke laughed even harder at his own joke.
“One of us should go out there, Sheriff,” Clark said, ignoring Burke. “She didn’t sound crazy.”
“Are you kidding me?” Collie asked. “She saw a space alien running down the street, but she didn’t sound crazy?”
“This moon stuff has everybody acting weird,” Burke said. “My kids have been acting like wild chimps the last couple of days and my next door neighbor decided to chop down two oaks that’d been in his front yard forever. Those trees were three hundred years old if they were a day.”
Clark rose from his desk and reached for his hat. “If it’s all the same to you, Sheriff, I’d like to take a ride out there and see what’s what.”
“You’re telling me you believe this woman?” Collie asked incredulously.
“I don’t know. But I believe she saw something strange.”
Both Collie and Burke stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Probably some kid in a jogging suit,” Collie said.
“That’s what she said!” Clark pointed a finger at the sheriff. “Said she thought at first it was a jogger, but when it got closer—no way was it a jogger or anything else she’d ever seen.”
Collie stifled a groan before clearing his throat. “All right, then. You go talk to her. But the second she says anything about a UFO, I want you back here, pronto, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Be safe.”
“Try not to get abducted, bro!” Burke called after Clark as he exited the tiny station.
Sniffing, Collie briefly considered going with Clark and letting Burke man the station for a few. Anything to delay the next blowup with Sheila.
He was almost about to say as much when the telephone rang again.
Chapter 6
A loud thud startled Helen Sender from an already fitful doze. She opened her eyes, the nightlight from the adjoining bathroom making it relatively easy to see in the bedroom. Beside her, her husband Roger snored softly, which was unlike him. Usually he snored like a freight train and she had long ago grown accustomed to getting half as much sleep as he did because of it. After almost fifty-one years of marriage, she rarely ever gave it a second thought.
She listened to the house, wondering what could have made the thud in the first place. Though it didn’t sound windy outside, she supposed it was possible that a branch had fallen from one the pines on their property. It had happened before.
After another minute passed, she was ready to dismiss the noise and try to go back to sleep, but suddenly a different sound aroused her attention.
It came from the ceiling of the bedroom, an odd creaking, scratching sound.
Something was moving around in the attic. A softer thud than the first caused her to sit up and shake her husband’s shoulder.
“Roger,” she whispered. “Wake up.”
“Erm . . .” he grumbled, stirring a bit.
She shook him harder. “Roger! There’s something in the attic.”
As if in confirmation of her statement, more scraping sounds came from above. Whatever it was must have been directly over their bedroom.
Roger groaned. “What now?”
These days, at the age of seventy-six, he was more grouchy than not, another thing she had learned to live with.
“In the attic,” she repeated. “An animal of some kind.”
“Animal?” He sat up on his elbows, his white hair standing up in wild, messy corkscrews.
Together in the dim room, the elderly couple listened to the movement above them.
“Maybe it’s a burglar,” Helen suggested softly.
Roger remained silent, looking intently at the ceiling. After a few more creaks and thuds, he finally said, “Well, it ain’t no animal, I can tell you that.”
He tossed the sheet aside and swung his feet out of bed, standing in the striped pajamas their daughter had given him as a Christmas gift just this past year.
He moved across the bedroom and opened the closet door.
“What are you doing?” Helen asked.
“You just stay here,” he told her as he brought out his hunting rifle. “I’m gonna go see what’s what.”
“Roger, don’t be ridiculous. I’m going to call 911.”
He grunted. “For what? Probably nothing? May be just another dang ’coon got in somehow and we’ll look like crazy old fools.”
“You said so yourself it was no animal,” she said. “Maybe it’s a drug addict?”
“Just stay here,” he ordered and left the room, his rifle at the ready.
Crazy old fool is right, Helen thought as she got out of bed and quietly followed her husband into the hall.
She found him already standing beneath the hatch in the ceiling. He pulled on the cord and a tiny staircase dropped to allow access to the attic.
Helen snapped on the hallway light and whispered, “Just what are you planning to do?”
“What do you think? I’m going up there to see what the devil is going on!”
“You’ll probably shoot yourself in the foot.”
More scrabbling sounds from above caused Roger’s annoyed expression to turn to one of nervousness. Nothing angered him more than being nervous, a trait he’d had probably his entire life. Their poor children had always had to withstand a bout of his yelling whenever they’d injured themselves instead of consoling words of comfort. They’d been lucky Helen was more even tempered and now she hoped she could calm her husband down the way she had back in those days long ago.
“Roger, I think—”
He interrupted her by shouting up at the hatch. “I got a gun down here and I’m coming up! You’d best be gone by the time I get up there, ’lessen you want a new hole in your belly!”
Helen grimaced, but said nothing. One minute he was insisting it wasn’t an animal, then it was, then it wasn’t again. She refrained from asking him why he was yelling and threatening a ’coon, if he was so sure they shouldn’t be calling the sheriff right now.
“You have to the count of five!” Roger yelled.
Helen pressed her lips together hard as he placed a foot on the first step towards the rectangle of darkness above them.
“One!” Roger immediately began to climb the rickety steps, mumbling “I ain’t even counting to two.”
Genuinely frightened now, Helen could only watch. Roger had been tottery on his feet on the best of days for several years now and watching him climb those flimsy stairs while holding a hunting rifle was just about enough to give her a heart attack, never mind that something truly dangerous could be waiting up there in the dark.
They hadn’t heard any more sounds since Roger had shouted the first time, which gave her a very bad feeling indeed. Would an animal hear shouting and then freeze in place? She supposed so, if it had been fr
ightened and sensed a predator. But, it just seemed . . . strange.
She held her breath as her husband disappeared into the attic, not even daring to whisper to him to be careful, afraid of either irritating him or causing him to jump and lose his footing.
Once he was gone from sight, she decided to dare a few steps of the rickety stairs herself. Above her she heard the soft click of a light bulb chain being pulled and the rectangle was now full of light.
Out of sight, Roger said, “Okay, now, I’m not playing with you, fool. Come out where I can see you.”
Helen waited for more, but there was nothing save the soft sound of Roger’s shuffling around in his bare feet.
“What is it?” she called up after hearing very little movement for too many long seconds. Their attic was spacious and loaded with forty-some-odd-years of junk. Plenty of hiding spaces, she imagined.
“The windows up here ain’t even broke,” Roger called back.
Helen rose a few more steps until her head was poking into the attic’s entrance.
Roger stood with his back to her, the rifle held loosely in both wrinkled hands. He moved forward, ducking beneath low hanging eaves until he was on the far side of the attic.
He looked up and took a startled step back. “What in the world . . .” He trailed off and Helen knew he’d spotted something.
“Is it a ’coon?” she asked.
The sound of her voice caused him to turn to her, the color drained from his worn, tired face. His eyes widened and she knew something was very, very wrong. She’d never seen him look so terrified and in the next instant, he was raising the rifle, pointing the muzzle in her direction.
She gasped and turned her head, saw a swift shadow of movement that caused her to cry out in alarm, instinctively ducking down and covering her head with her arms. The fright was enough to cause her to lose her balance on the ladder and she plummeted the nine feet to the floor as she heard her husband shout along with the deafening sound of the rifle blast.