~ * * * ~
Why had the Montana Department of Transportation cut Highway 360 through the eastern slope of this unnamed bluff? Was it simply a civil engineering decision? Or were the engineers influenced to make something perfect for an alien purpose? Or were they aliens themselves? Martin waited for answers in a folding chair on a hillside, reeking of bug spray. At sundown, Martin had parked his Subaru about a mile to the south on a rough gate-access track, well out of view from the highway. He hoped it wouldn’t annoy the rancher whose land he’d trekked across.
Martin dug a Snickers out of his backpack, and as he took his first bite, headlights appeared from the north. Binoculars. An SUV. A Chevy Suburban, maybe. The headlights blinked out of view at about the moment that the sound of the car reached Martin. The SUV appeared again on the hill. Then, as it entered the Gap, its high beams lit up the ragged rock to an unnatural brightness. And then it was gone.
Martin strained, listening. Did it disappear? He held his breath until the slashes of white light, chased by red, reappeared over the hill, continuing south.
Martin took another bite of candy and slapped at an insect on his elbow.
A tuft of grass rustled a few dark yards away, and Martin felt a bit of adrenaline. The incessant wing fluttering and leg rubbing of the insects he could deal with, but not the other noises. A prairie dog might as well be a mastodon. Was that a wren landing on some sagebrush or a herd of pissed-off pronghorn? Worse were the things he would never hear. His primate brain conjured up wolves or a stalking lion. Get to a tree, it urged. Get in the car and shut the doors. Nothing will get you in that little nest of leaves you call an apartment. But as no attacks materialized, fear soon subsided into complacence.
A few cars passed through the Gap. And fewer trucks. Martin took video with the camera he’d picked up at a pawnshop a few days ago—a pretty good one, a Sony. He hoped it hadn’t been stolen. Martin stuffed the Snickers wrapper into his backpack. Pack it in, pack it out. Two cars, a Volvo and a Saturn, rolled through in quick succession. Martin cracked open his bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, took a swig, and as he settled it into the chair’s cup holder, he felt the effect of all the liquid he’d had on the road up here.
He scanned north and south. Empty road. The nearest tree was probably a cottonwood a mile away down along Deaver Creek, but it wouldn’t be needed. The spattering under a future tumbleweed sounded unnaturally loud in this immense dome of nature. He felt at once large and insignificant. The stars didn’t care. Nor did the Earth. He was simply another little part of the fresh water cycle.
A bright light and a truck filled the Gap. Martin swore as he dribbled the last of his business on his pants. As he zipped up, he glimpsed a sky-blue sleeper cab and a trailer from a company called Cal-Can Trucking, with a red maple leaf in the logo. Where had it come from? Martin froze, unsure, as it headed north toward Brixton. When it was out of sight, he grabbed up all his gear as if his body had made up his mind without him. He snatched up his chair and ran to his car, faster than he should have for his cardiovascular health, his ankles, and his minuscule flashlight.
Martin rolled to a stop at the junction, and although the crossing was clear, he waited. Herbert’s Corner waited. This might be it, Martin thought.
All week, he’d thought about what he’d say.
“Hi, are you an alien?” No.
“Welcome to Earth, can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Maybe.
“Rhubarb pie?” Shudder.
“I know this may sound crazy, but…” Stop right there.
“So, where’re you from?” Gah. Should it be this hard?
Martin crossed Highway 15 and drove around the back of Herbert’s Corner. He crawled to a halt on the far side of the truck lot, out of reach of the lights. He turned off the engine. The truck had parked among the others.
Martin treaded as quietly as possible on the gravel. The sky-blue Peterbilt had a chrome grille larger than his kitchen. The engine popped and pinged as it cooled. The Cal-Can trailer had those aerodynamic flaps hung between the front and rear sets of wheels. The back doors were padlocked. Martin checked for anyone coming from the truck stop and then grabbed the handhold and hoisted himself onto the cab’s footstep. In the dim parking lot light, he couldn’t see much more than a steering wheel, a giant pack of sunflower seeds on the dashboard, and a Burger King bag in the passenger seat. A CB radio hung from the ceiling. The door was solid, the glass was glass. The cab rocked under his weight.
“Hey,” called a voice, “what’re you doing?”
Martin stumbled down and scrambled toward the end of the truck. The voice called again. Flight said to get back to his car as fast as possible. Fight agreed and curled up into a little whimpering ball.
Martin sneaked around the next truck and crouched behind a set of tires. The trucker checked the driver’s door, circled the rig, and then jogged back to the building.
Martin got the hell out of there. About a quarter-mile south on 360, he turned onto Birdbath Road, where his binoculars would provide a pretty good view of the Corner.
About five minutes later, Martin watched as a sheriff’s vehicle arrived and took a slow circuit around the gas station. A deputy got out and strolled inside. He emerged a few moments later with Gary and the truck driver. The driver indicated someone about Martin’s height lurking near his rig. The deputy walked the perimeter with his giant Maglite flashlight and returned to Gary and the driver with his verdict. They all shrugged, shook their heads, and headed back inside.
~ * * * ~
The next afternoon, Martin reprovisioned himself and arrived at the ranch access road near twilight. He followed his own foot tracks up the hill to the vantage point and set down his chair. The western sky was a tapestry of orange and yellow under wisps of clouds rarely seen off a canvas. The first stars and planets twinkled in the east over the Gap, with a bright quarter moon. The bugs buzzed around his cloud of Off! as if to welcome him.
Thank you, Subway, for making breakfast sandwiches all day long, Martin thought as he munched his flatbread. He let the insects have the lettuce that fell out. An offering.
Martin supposed that the relatively heavy northbound Sunday evening traffic was people coming home from a day shopping in Billings. Not too many people came south from Brixton. And few trucks came from either direction. But after a couple of hours, even the northbound traffic slowed to a trickle. He’d videoed only four trucks by the time he’d finished his second Diet Mountain Dew and opened a third.
It cracked and hissed, and the insects fell quiet.
The hairs rose on the back of Martin’s neck. Diet Mountain Dew overflowed the cap and ran over his hand. He felt something in his gut, like when a car with a month’s salary worth of subwoofers in the trunk pulls up next to you in traffic—but not audible, more ethereal. He missed the chair’s cup holder, and the foaming bottle fell onto the dirt. He groped for his camera, not taking his eyes off the Gap. He hurriedly pressed buttons until he got it on. A single cricket chirped twice and stopped.
Martin awoke, his face in the dirt a few inches from an ancient cow pie. He got to his feet to find the camera still wrapped around his hand, still recording. With sticky fingers, he fumbled with the playback controls. His whole life narrowed to that two-inch screen in the middle of the dark Montana rangeland.
He had recorded his muttering efforts to find the Gap in the view; then the camera had settled, shakily, onto the moonlit arc of crumbling rock. Then the view blurred again, and stopped a moment later, tilted and half-blocked by a tuft of grass and a rock. The autofocus ratcheted back and forth, searching for something of significance. A minute later, a bright light flared the screen white. The light turned blue, and the lens focused on a yawning electric mouth. A uvula of light spat out a boxy form. The light sucked away in an instant, leaving the blurred object and streaks of running lights. It left the frame in a half-second. Martin rewound clumsily, failed to freeze on the moment in the first attempt, but then got it: a blur of a
red tractor pulling a blank trailer.
Martin ran back to the Subaru and floored it to Brixton, gasping, sweating, with his heart trying to claw its way out of his chest.
Chapter 11
While last Sunday there had been three trucks in the Herbert’s Corner lot, tonight there was only one. The One. It had to be. A red Freightliner, its trailer blank on both sides. The only identifying markings indicated that the load might be corrosive, and that both the truck and the trailer were licensed in Kentucky.
Martin managed to get into the Herbert’s Corner restroom without being seen. He washed his dirt-encrusted hand, then swiped at the smudges on his face and clothes with a wet paper towel until he was relatively presentable.
The man at the counter was about Martin’s height and size. He sported a Freddie Mercury mustache and a pork pie hat. His shirt bragged that he been to the Harley-Davidson store in Omaha. He had the heels of his cowboy boots hooked over the stool’s footrest.
Martin took a stool a couple down, and they exchanged friendly nods.
The driver had ordered a club sandwich, french fries, a Pepsi, a pickle wedge, and a side of potato salad. Eileen emerged from the kitchen and raised one eyebrow at Martin.
“What happened to you?” she asked, reluctantly pouring him a cup of coffee.
“I was hiking,” said Martin. He flicked his eyes over to the other diner, and she rolled her eyes. “Fell down.”
No, she mouthed. “What can I get you?”
He nodded discretely. Yes. “You got any of that rhubarb pie?” he asked.
Eileen eyed him coldly. Martin grinned and forced himself to keep his gaze on her. In his peripheral vision, he thought he saw the driver stop chewing.
“Now, you know we don’t have any of that,” said Eileen. “I got peach, pecan, chocolate cream, banana cream, and I may still have a slice of apple.”
“The peach sounds okay,” said Martin. “Warm, with a scoop of ice cream.”
Martin stirred Sweet’N Low into his coffee. “They used to have the best rhubarb pie in here,” he said. The driver acknowledged him with a nod. “My dad used to bring me in here just for the pie. I was only a kid, but I still miss it.” The driver chewed thoughtfully. Martin thought he might speak, but he took another bite of his sandwich.
“You ever come here when they had that rhubarb pie?” Martin asked.
The driver stared for a moment, then nodded slowly. A chill rode up Martin’s back.
Eileen returned with a little white plate. She’d topped the pie with Reddi-wip, but no ice cream. “You better eat quick and get home. Ain’t you got work in the morning?”
Martin shrugged. “We were just talking about the rhubarb pie you used to serve here. Long time ago. Seems…sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Glen,” the man said.
“Seems Glen remembers having it, too. Good stuff.”
“You ever getting that on the menu again?” Glen asked. He spoke in a surprising accent. Texas, maybe? An odd choice for an alien, but so was the hat.
“We get our pies from a big bakery over in Great Falls now. Don’t think they do rhubarb,” said Eileen.
“That’s too bad,” said Glen. He turned back to his meal.
That’s enough, Eileen mouthed to Martin. “Enjoy your pie.”
Martin waited until Eileen returned to the kitchen. “Quiet tonight.”
Glen nodded and chewed.
“Where you headed?” Martin asked.
“Wherever the company sends me,” Glen replied.
“I heard that,” said Martin.
Martin finished his pie at about the same time Glen scraped the last of his fries through a swirl of ketchup. Glen took a long sip at the dregs of his Pepsi, got up, and looked over the check Eileen had left tented on the counter. He licked his teeth behind his lips as he dug in a back pocket for a wallet.
“You heading out again?” Martin asked.
“In a few,” said Glen. “Thought I’d clean up while I got the chance.” He nodded toward the ceiling and the second-floor showers.
“You have a safe drive,” said Martin.
After Glen paid, Eileen took Martin’s coffee away. “This stops now,” she said. “You’ve got no business comin’ in here and doin’ this.”
“I talked to him,” said Martin. “What’s the big deal?”
“So he remembers the pie. Don’t mean he’s…”
“An alien? You didn’t see what I saw down on 360,” said Martin.
“And what exactly did you see?”
“I blacked out, but I got it on video. Well, sort of. There’s a bright, kind of swirly light, then poof, the truck appears.”
“So you didn’t see it? You need to let that poor man be. He’s probably got a long drive comin’, and he doesn’t need you freakin’ him out.”
The back door jingled, and Glen headed upstairs with a black gym bag. Martin tossed a five on the counter.
“That was you sneakin’ around last night, wasn’t it?” Eileen asked. “I will call the sheriff.”
“Thanks for the pie.”
In all respects, the red Freightliner appeared to be a perfectly normal truck, one of the newer models with aerodynamic styling. Other than being a bit cleaner than a truck had a right to be this far from civilization, there was nothing immediately amiss. Martin hunkered down for a peek under the trailer. Everything felt solid and freakishly normal. It was roadworthy, but he wouldn’t call it spaceworthy.
Martin checked that the coast was clear and climbed up between the tractor and the trailer, almost certain that he’d cross through some sort of force field, or bump into a disguised hull. A set of snow chains, real enough, hung on the all-too-solid back wall of the cab. The air smelled like a blend of oil, diesel exhaust, and hydraulic fluid, as it should.
There were handholds inside the rig’s aerodynamic cowling, and for a moment, Martin considered hiding there, trying to hang on to the next destination. He wondered if he’d have the stamina to keep his grip, and to endure the exposure, like that guy who sneaked into Area 51. Then he remembered where spaceships went. It didn’t matter how much ninja sniper training he had, he’d end up a floating Martinsicle to be splatted and swiped across the windshield of the next ship to come along. Great plan.
Martin hopped down. Still no sign of Glen. On a whim, he checked the driver’s door handle. It opened. This might be the only chance he’d ever get. He stepped up on the running board to poke his head inside the cab.
A lumbar support pad had been strapped to the high, bucket captain’s seat, and the cab was full of all the expected paraphernalia: a CB, a couple of transmitters, probably to talk to interstate weigh stations. But no slimy, chitinous, or biological surfaces. Nothing squelched or oozed. Nor was it a Buck Rogers cardboard interior with washing machine dials and oscilloscope screens.
An odd smell—something musky but tangy, like a ferret-and-pineapple smoothie—gave Martin his first real evidence. Then he traced the odor to the Playboy air freshener hanging from the radio dial.
Martin poked at the bed in the sleeper and checked under the tangle of dark sheets, a flannel-lined sleeping bag, and a crocheted throw blanket. Toolboxes and a few plastic grocery bags choked the narrow floor space. Glen had a penchant for Funyuns.
Martin studied the dash in increasing desperation. It couldn’t be just a truck. This truck, or ship, or whatever, had been spat out on a tongue of plasma. Martin wondered how someone would draw a graphic for a control knob that changed a semi into a spaceship and back.
Martin sat in the driver’s seat knowing he had squeezed every drop of luck out of this situation. He could make out the shape of his Subaru in the dark. The coast was still clear. But what then? What if Glen drove right back to the Gap and into the alien vortex? How would that help Cheryl? All Martin would have would be a nutty story and some blurry video to sell to the Discovery Channel. Martin dug out his keys and clicked the fob toward his car. The lights flashed and the horn squeake
d once as the doors locked. Martin climbed into the bed in the back and concealed himself under the pile of bedding.
With every breath, the air under the sleeping bag smelled more and more like hamster cage and failure. Every second he stayed made it more dangerous to give in to good sense. When he heard the footfalls on the gravel outside the truck, Martin almost threw up his peach pie. The cab rocked, and a door opened. Glen grunted and harrumphed as he settled into his seat and closed the door. He began to hum an unidentifiable tune. He clicked, plunked, and shuffled, and then the engine rumbled with a torqued roar that settled into a bladder-trembling vibration.
Every second the truck idled, Martin felt his resolve melting away. He gave himself to the count of three to throw back the covers and cry uncle, when, with a healthy growl, the truck lurched into gear. Martin followed his inner ear out across the lot and through a right turn onto 360. The truck’s brakes squeaked them to a stop at the junction. If Doris was right, Glen would drive his disguised spaceship straight, back toward the Gap. What if that didn’t happen? Martin hated to think. Damn you, Stewart. Why did you have to come to my apartment? And Doris and Eileen, you ridiculous busybodies. Where would I be without your guidance? Oh, yeah, safe in bed.
Another truck grumbled by, and the cab rocked in the buffeting wake of wind. Go straight, Martin willed. Go straight. A bit of static and unintelligible chatter crackled over the CB, but Martin didn’t hear a blinker. Then another roar and buffet of wind.
The cab lurched and gears engaged. The rig rolled forward slowly, too slowly. Martin feared it would turn, but it picked up speed and bounced straight across the junction onto 360 southbound proper. Martin bit back a cheer. Then he remembered that in a few minutes he’d be sucked into the Gap’s electric maw. He probably should have thought this through a little more.
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