This was clearly a bandit ice cream truck, the kind that I pictured furtively roaming suburban neighborhoods of a big city, selling expired ice cream and trying to avoid local authorities. The giant purple Barney plastered across both sides, and the stuffed Barney strapped to the hood, were impossible to avoid. Whoever owned this truck must really, really, like Barney.
"We could throw a quick coat of paint on it." Stan suggested.
"We are not taking time to repaint the damned thing." I growled. I didn't like the idea either, but this truck is what we had. To go into battle with. "Besides, the hamsters won't know who Barney is, they may think he's a fierce predator." Even I didn't believe that one.
"Oh for Christ's sake." Susie was exasperated. "You idiot men are afraid to ride around in a truck that says 'Softie' on it? Get over yourselves. I'll drive the damned thing. Joe, what's the plan?"
"GO GO GO!" I shouted along with Stan, as we jumped in to sprawl on the floor of the ice cream truck. Susie didn't need to be told twice, she hit the gas as we were still in the air. Stan would have slid right out the back of the truck if Deb hadn't gotten hold of his shirt collar. Tom kicked Stan's feet inside and slammed the back doors shut, just as the truck bounced over a big pothole, and Tom landed on his ass on top of the Ruhar soldier. The hamster grunted, which told us it was still alive, I hadn't been completely sure of that when we grabbed it.
Looking back, it was a stupid plan, and we got lucky. I'd noticed the hamsters went through the alley between the diner building and the hardware store next to it. While the rest of us were off gathering supplies, Diego had watched and confirmed the hamster patrols went through that alley regularly, looking in windows and knocking open doors to look inside. They were doing that all over town, I chose the diner because there was a short dirt road that led from the river right to the back of the diner, the road went through woods and had good cover most of the way. We'd had a lot of rain from a nor'easter the week before, so the river was almost at Spring flood stage, and was really roaring as it went over the rocks and under the bridge, it made enough noise to cover the sound of the truck backing up behind the diner. Dynamite was placed inside the diner, up against the brick outside wall, we blew it up as the hamster soldiers got halfway down the alley.
None of us knew how much dynamite to use, so we used too much, it collapsed most of the wall into the alley, even the ice cream truck got hit with stray bricks. No matter, our improved bomb did what it was supposed to do, it knocked those two hamsters silly, and buried them under bricks. Tom, Stan and I grabbed the hamster that was closest to us, it also was least covered with bricks. Debbie covered us with a shotgun, as we hauled it out of the alley, Tom and Stan each got hold of an arm and I held its feet, we scrambled down the alley, tripping on bricks, and tossed the hamster in the back of the ice cream truck.
It was a stupid plan. Diego was watching from the hill, with a walkie talkie that Susie got from the quarry, she had the other unit in the truck. Diego reported that as soon as the dynamite exploded, a half dozen hamsters sprinted from their spaceship, another thirty seconds and they would have caught us. And if for some reason, like none of us really knowing how to use dynamite, our bomb hadn't exploded, those two hamsters would have walked to the back of the alley and seen the truck that wasn't there before. I didn't like our odds, against alien soldiers with body armor and advanced weapons.
Luck was with us that day, even as Tom fell again, this time into the button that controlled the ice cream truck's music system, and 'Turkey in the Straw' blared out of the rooftop speakers as the truck bounced and skidded down the gravel road along the river. "Shut that damned thing up!" Susie yelled at Stan, she had enough to do driving the truck. There was no seat belt for the driver, that was one of the items removed when they stripped the interior, and Susie's feet barely reached the gas pedal. Still, she had that sucker on the floor, and we were moving.
Stan punched buttons, and the music changed to 'Camptown Races', then 'Pop Goes the Weasel' then a couple video game theme songs I couldn't name, before Stan finally got the stupid thing to stop. I never felt like such a total idiot in my life, trying to hold down an alien soldier in the back of an ice cream truck, my chin getting bashed into the metal floor of the truck as moronic music blasts out of speakers and Barney's evil twin grins maniacally from both sides.
Our truck shot through a gap in the trees along the river, a clear space of about fifty yards. This is where I figured the hamsters were going to shoot us, they had a clear shot for a couple seconds at least. Why they didn't shoot, I think, is by that time the hamsters who reached the bombed-out alley realized one of their own was missing, and guessed it was in our truck. Anyway, we made it, the truck flew across the gap, then the land rose slightly between us and the center of town, and then Susie was standing on the brakes to slow the truck for a curve. After that, we bounced up onto a paved road, and Susie put the pedal to the metal. While on pavement, with a smoother ride, Tom and I got the hamster's hands tied behind its back, tied its legs together, and I started pulling off its gear. We had it under four lead vests, the kind dentists use when they give you X-Rays, that was my idea to block the signal of any location device the alien soldiers may have. The body armor around its torso had a quick release mechanism, as I expected, because human or alien, a soldier needed to get gear off and on quick. I also popped the latch for the chinstrap of its helmet, and for the first time, got a good look at the enemy. One of its eyes was open, there was blood from a cut on its cheek but I didn't think it was badly hurt, mostly stunned and disoriented. It was wearing an earpiece and microphone, which I tore off, and on its belt was what looked like some kind of radio. I told Tom to throw all of it out the window, we could come back to get it later if we had the opportunity, our priority then was to capture an alien soldier so our military could study it, see what kind of enemy we were facing.
Per the plan, Susie drove us a mile down the road to Tom's place, he had a barn, and she drove the truck right in through the open door, skidding to a stop. We all shared an 'oh shit did that really happen' moment. None of us could believe it. The hamster was moving about, so Tom sat on it, and I pointed a handgun at its face. That calmed it right down. It had probably never seen a Sig Sauer before, but it recognized a projectile weapon when it saw it.
"I can't hear Diego anymore," Deb reported, holding up her walkie-talkie. "The last thing he said was the aliens were running around, but their ship isn't moving." My last instructions to Diego had been to get out of town, in the opposite direction, as soon as he lost sight of our truck. I'm sure he was safe, he knew his way around the woods.
"They're waiting for a tow truck." I guessed.
"What?" Susie asked, like she hadn't heard me right.
"A tow truck." I explained. "Their ship is busted, they must have called upstairs to their fleet, and they're waiting for someone to come fix their ship, or pick them up. Let's get Fuzzy Face here into the root cellar, before his friends get organized and come looking for him."
Tom's place had an old root cellar, when I say old, I mean his house dated from 1848, and the root cellar belonged to the house before that. The root cellar had been expanded and converted into a bomb shelter, by the family that owned the farm back in the 1950s, now Tom and his wife Margie used it for storage. We got the hamster down the stairs and cleared space in the middle of the shelter for it, Tom padlocked a chain around its ankle, with the other end of the chain around a pipe sticking out of the floor. With the hamster comfortable in the center, there wasn't much room for the rest of us, because of all the shelves. Did I mention that Tom's wife Margie liked to can fruit and veggies? The woman had a bit of a canning problem, the whole place was stacked with jars. Most people in this neck of the woods can stuff, it's a way to have good food through the winter, and a lot cheaper than buying food from the store. My folks made applesauce, and jams, and canned tomatoes, beans, whatever we got from our garden. Tom's bomb shelter looked like Margie was planning to invite th
e entire 10th Division over for supper, and wanted to have plenty of food left over.
"What now?" Stan asked, while looking hungrily at a jar of blackberry jam.
"Now we wait. The military has got to be here soon." We'd all been surprised not to see any fighter jets or helicopters in their air, which told me the enemy had total air supremacy. "Hopefully, this guy's buddies," I pointed to our captive, "will be leaving soon. When our cavalry gets here, we hand him over."
"What makes you think they're going to leave?" Deb asked.
"Because no way would alien invaders have Thomson Corners on their initial target list. These guys are here only because their ship is busted. My big worry is if they stick around to look for Fuzzy Face, after the tow truck gets here. I'll stay with him, the rest of you better head south, see if you can find any National Guard, or even state cops."
Susie was indignant. "You're sending the womenfolk away to safety?" She had her hands on her hips, I knew what that meant.
"You have a family-"
"So does Tom." Susie pointed out.
"Tom got a text from Margie," I said defensively, "she and the kids are all right, heading to her mother's place. And Stan's wife is in Portland."
"And my husband is down in Milliconnack and my kids are in Bangor with my sister. I'm staying here." Susie said empathetically, and held up her rifle for emphasis.
"Fine." I conceded without much fight, I really didn't want to be alone. "You and Stan have rifles, you get up in the woods behind the house where you can cover the road. Deb, get up to the rock ledge behind the house, you know it, right? Tell Susie and Stan if you see anything coming this way. Tom and I will stay here with Fuzzy Face."
Fuzzy Face wasn't talkative. Tom and I tried communicating with gestures, and pointing to ourselves, the hamster sat there stonefaced. Except when it shifted uncomfortably, then it grimaced. There was blood, red blood, on its hip. At least alien blood was red, and not green or blue or something really weird like that. I approached slowly, hands open to show I didn't have a knife. "We need to look at where you're hurt." I can slowly and loud, which is always the best way for foreigners to understand. Remember, foreigners are stupid, so you have to talk loud and slow so they will understand you. The hamster shrank away from me as far as it could, backed up against a shelf on the outside wall. I gestured to my hip, then his, then put a finger into the blood on the floor, holding my finger up so he could see the blood. Shaking my head and waving my bloody finger, I said "You're hurt. This is bad."
"Bish," Tom said uncertainly, "you sure you should be touching that thing's blood?"
"It's got to be safer than touching human blood. You got bandages down here?"
"Yeah, first aid kit's in the cabinet. We got paper towels, too, Margie buys them by the gross at a warehouse store."
The hamster wasn't hurt badly, I blotted the wound clean, washed it with sterile water, which made it wince again, then slathered antiseptic lotion on the cut, and applied a bandage. It looked at me different after that, like it hadn't expected humans to be civilized. It made a sort of kissing gesture with its lips.
"I think it wants water?" Tom guessed. Margie had also bought bottles of water by the gross, we got out three bottles, Tom and I both drank from our bottles, then I opened another and held it to the hamster's lips. It downed half the bottle steadily, while looking me in the eye, that kind of freaked me out. Then it looked down meaningfully at its left front pocket, gesturing with its nose. Very carefully, I opened the pocket flap, which was a kind of magnetic thing, I think, and pulled out what looked like an energy bar. It didn't have bright packaging like the Hooah! bars I knew from the Army, just a green plastic wrapper with white writing in an alien script. I pulled the end of the plastic wrapper open, facing away from me. Which was stupid, what if it was some kind of explosive, and pulling the wrapping just pulled the pin on the grenade? Nothing happened. I sniffed it carefully, it smelled like sugar and nutmeg mixed with sawdust. It was an energy bar for sure. I broke off a piece and fed it to the hamster, it chewed for a long while, I guess their energy bars are as tough as ours. In about ten minutes, it ate half the energy bar and drank more water, then shook its head when I offered another piece. I felt the same way about our energy bars, half of one was usually enough for me before my jaw gets tired. In a further attempt at interspecies cooperation, I held the bar up in front of the hamster as I folded the wrapper over it, and tucked the remaining half back in its pocket, next to another two full energy bars. It smiled, or tried to. Smiling, without understood context, could be viewed as baring teeth in a threatening manner. The hamster had teeth that weren't much different from human teeth; white enamel, it looked like, the two upper front teeth were bigger than in humans, but not comically large like a beaver's teeth. Now that I was closer, the fur on its face was fine, it covered all its skin, but the fur was finer and shorter than a human beard.
"You hear that?" Tom asked. "Sounds like someone's shouting." We had kept the door to the bomb shelter cracked open so we could hear if Susie saw anything, but mostly closed so any radio signals from an implanted transmitter in our hamster would be blocked, I hoped. Tom stepped outside, I could hear him shouting with Stan. He stuck his head in the door. "They say the tow truck is here."
We left our hamster captive in the bomb shelter - root cellar - warehouse, and hustled across Tom's backyard into the woods. "It came from the northwest, I saw the contrail first," Deb reported. "It flew right into the center of town. I think you're right, Joe, the hamsters here called for a ride."
"I hope whatever their mission is, it's more important than finding one missing soldier." If the new alien ship picked up the stranded hamsters and left the area, my plan was to load Fuzzy Face back into the ice cream truck, and race south on the highway until we found a military unit, probably National Guard, that could take custody of our prisoner. "Let's go up to the rock ledge where we can see."
What we saw wasn't good. The new alien ship, same type as the first one, was circling around the town at about five hundred feet. It appeared to be flying a search pattern, and pods on the side of the ship had opened, exposing racks of missiles. There was a flash of light, a rumble of thunder and a column of smoke from the center of town. "They blew up their busted ship." I announced, as if everyone hadn't guessed that. "That's interesting."
"Why?" Deb asked.
"I think it means they don't plan to stay here, at least, not here," I pointed toward the town. "And they don't want us poking around their technology while they're gone. If they planned on staying here, they would have brought a repair crew."
The ship climbed, hovered, then slowly headed toward us. Not toward us, exactly, but east, then along the river. "Shit." Stan spat on the ground. "They must have a signal from that stuff we threw out of the truck."
I tried to assure people. "Nobody panic. That's why we threw that stuff out of the truck, and that's why our hamster is under concrete and earth right now, behind a steel door." After our captive was in the root cellar, Stan had thrown the lead blankets over the hood and tailpipe of the truck, to reduce the heat signature. "Unless they can somehow track us into Tom's barn, it will take them a long while to search everywhere, and they don't know we're not already ten miles down the road." Stan and Deb had argued for us to keep driving, rather than stopping at Tom's place. to put as much distance as we could between us and Thomson Corners before an alien rescue ship arrived. I had vetoed that idea, because we didn't know how soon another alien ship would arrive, and because I didn't entirely trust the lead blankets to block a tracking signal. We didn't even know whether the aliens used radio, they may have some more exotic technology. If the aliens could track a signal, it didn't matter whether we were one mile or fifty miles away, they were going to find us. Tom's combination root cellar - bomb shelter was perfect to hide a technologically advanced alien. Whether my plan was any good depended on what the aliens did.
The alien ship slowly made its way along the river, then sped up a
nd followed the highway south, toward us. After circling twice, it descended out of sight below the tree line. For a moment, just a peaceful moment, things looked almost like a normal October day in rural Maine. Tom and Margie's house was tidy, he had a couple cords of firewood nicely stacked in a line behind the house. Margie had cornstalks tied around the lamp post in the front yard, getting ready early for Halloween like she always did. In the backyard, she had the bathtub Madonna decorated also, with a-
Oh. I'd better explain what a bathtub Madonna is to you uncultured types. You take an old bathtub, set it on end half buried in the ground, paint the outside white and the inside a light blue, and then you put a statue of the Virgin Mary under the arc, like a grotto. It's a homemade shrine of sorts. These days, you can buy ones already made out of concrete, but that's cheating, and God knows if you did it the lazy way. Most people put stones or flowers around it, Margie's shrine was surrounded by brightly colored mums. Or I thought they were mums, I'm not a flower expert. The Madonna had been there when Margie and Tom bought the house, and Margie spruced it up with the flowers, she also decorated it for the seasons. At Christmas time, Mary had a little Santa hat. Right now, for Halloween Mary was wearing a Jedi knight outfit, complete with glowing lightsaber that Tom had hooked up. I hope God had a good sense of humor.
Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1) Page 2