Rhubarb

by M. H. Van Keuren

  They had almost reached the back fence when Hank said, “Here she is.” He nodded at a tumbleweed-tangled, car-shaped tarp sandwiched between a sun-bleached, windowless Wagoneer, and a hoodless Firebird, and then ejected a brown splat of tobacco spit into the dust.

  Martin frowned at the tarp until he realized that the old men were staring at him. “What?” he asked.

  “That tarp ain’t gonna move itself,” said Hank.

  A quarter-century of dust and bird poop awaited Martin as he found the edge of the tarp in the weeds. Stagnant water had pooled in the folds, and something rustled in the grass, but he struggled the tarp back over the hood, the roof, and off the back of the trunk. He let it fall and brushed off his hands.

  “What a piece of junk,” Martin said.

  “It’s a 1986 Lincoln Town Car,” said Stewart. “Only got about a thousand miles on it, too.” The corroded paint sketched an odd map of weathered archipelagos on pristine seas. The delaminating vinyl on the rear of the roof probably wouldn’t last past twenty miles per hour once the car got a new set of tires.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. I had accounts scheduled, Stewart.”

  “Everything okay, Stew?” asked Hank.

  “We’re fine. Can you give us a few minutes?”

  “No problem. Just holler.”

  “I thought you said…” said Martin.

  “I said not to get your hopes up,” Stewart interrupted. “Things aren’t always exactly what they seem.”

  Martin checked over his shoulder to make sure Hank was out of earshot. “How long has this been sitting here?”

  “Hopefully everything still works,” said Stewart.

  “Still works? Oh, that’s just great.”

  The driver’s door opened with the creak of metal on metal. Stewart produced a key and turned the ignition but got nothing. “Too much to hope, I suppose,” said Stewart.

  Martin’s stomach growled. All he’d had to eat was half a box of powdered donuts from the gas station several hours ago. If his morning appointments in Havre couldn’t be rescheduled, he’d have to think up a new excuse for Rick. Death in the family? Overslept? Food poisoning? Or maybe something positive this time. Yep, I walked into the grocery store this morning, and I was their millionth customer. Free shopping spree and everything.

  Stewart popped the hood. The engine looked surprisingly clean. A few spider webs, but no visible corrosion or damage, except for a few coral blossoms of acid around the battery terminals. Stewart poked around at some of the hoses and cables.

  “Run up to the garage and ask Hank to borrow his jumper,” said Stewart. “Oh, grab a fire extinguisher, too. Hell, just get Hank back here. He’ll know what to do.”

  ~ * * * ~

  The good news was that Hank preferred to give them the bad news over breakfast at Herbert’s Corner. He even drove them there in his homemade tow truck.

  “Well, bless me, it’s Stewart Campion,” said Lorie. “I ain’t seen you in here in forever. How are you?”

  “Hanging in there,” said Stewart.

  “You’re lookin’ good. You heard from Cheryl at all?”

  “Nope. Still no word,” said Stewart.

  Lorie clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Such a shame. After all you did for that girl. Anyway, what can I get you?”

  “So what’s it going to take?” Stewart asked after Lorie had left with their orders.

  “Might be easier to tell you what don’t need fixin’,” said Hank. But he rattled off a list of nearly every major engine component anyway. Apparently a car, even a new one, shouldn’t sit under a tarp for a quarter-century. The fluids leak out or turn to sludge. Parts freeze up. Hoses and lines clog with gunk.

  “What was that smell?” asked Martin.

  “Think some raccoons been birthing a quiverfull up under there somewhere,” said Hank.

  “How long?” asked Stewart.

  “Three weeks minimum,” said Hank. “Longer if Billings don’t have all the parts.”

  Martin shook his head at Stewart, and stirred more sugar into his coffee.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” said Hank. “Gordon brought his Dodge in yesterday, and he’s got all those cattle to water. Sheriff’s got a couple vehicles need work. I won’t take it personal if you do the work yourself.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Martin. “I can barely change the wiper blades.”

  “I ain’t worked up any costs, but….” Hank shook his head. “It’s a tough call. She’d be a good car if you can clean her up. Told you twenty years ago she shouldn’t sit like that.”

  ~ * * * ~

  Back at the junkyard, Stewart insisted on one last look at the Lincoln. “Help yourself,” Hank said and sauntered to his shop.

  “Can I officially call this a dead end?” Martin asked. “We don’t have time to futz around. Can’t we steal another semi? Force our way on board the facility?”

  “Won’t work,” said Stewart. “It needed to be this one.”

  “Maybe we could get Hank to tow us up there,” said Martin.

  “We’d still need to get the battery and alternator and all that electrical stuff working,” said Stewart. “And I don’t even know if the portal would work if we weren’t moving. I’ve only ever traveled through it at speed. And I don’t know how we’d get off the facility without a working car. But, hell, it’s all moot now.”

  Martin hated this weed-grown altar to futility. Screw the tarp, he thought. Roll down the windows and let the weather in. Let the raccoons make themselves at home. Let it rust and crumble. Maybe someday some squiddy archeologist will dig it up. Its V8 engine might prove that humans were sentient. Whatever’s left of its dated but stylish design would declare that we didn’t deserve extermination. What will they make of their own technology embedded within this hunk of junk? Will that indict our executioners for their crimes? Maybe they’ll erect a monument right here to the sentient species lost to hubris and greed. Or maybe they’ll throw their tentacles up in ambivalence.

  “It’s a shame we can’t just pull out those devices and put them in another car,” said Martin.

  Stewart nodded, and then said, “What did you say?”

  “I said it’s a shame we can’t just pull…”

  “You got a toolbox back in that truck of yours?” Stewart asked.

  “Really?” asked Martin. “That’s all it takes?”

  “Yeah,” said Stewart. “Sorry.”

  “You’re here from another solar system. You’d think you could be the one thinking outside the box,” said Martin.

  A few minutes later, three chunks of black plastic rested on the dusty upholstery of the front seat. Two were identical, cylindrical things with a pair of long wires trailing out of one end. The other resembled a Wi-Fi hub, but without the blinking lights and RJ-45 jacks. It, too, had a pair of wires, but it also had a set of flexible arms that Martin assumed were antennas.

  “That’s the communicator?” Martin asked, as Stewart touched the wires of the hub to the handle of his little glass pingpong paddle non-iPad.

  “And these two make the bubble,” Stewart said and tested their wires. “They all seem to work.”

  “And these wires connect into a car’s electrical system, like they were here? Or do we have to do something special?”

  “Should work on any 12-volt system. They made it all simple enough for guys like me to set up,” said Stewart. “Thought maybe we’d put ’em in my Skylark.”

  “We’re not going to the Kuiper Belt in your Skylark,” said Martin. “My Subaru’s a 2009. If I’m going to die in space, I’d rather do it in a car built in this century.” He picked up one of the pieces. “It’s so light,” he said.

  “Everything my people build is light,” said Stewart. “Less mass, less energy to get it off a planet, less energy to move it. You’ll see when we get up to the production facility. It’s not just us. Parts of your Apollo moon landers were foil thick.”

  “Didn’t know
that,” said Martin.

  Martin found a cardboard box in the back of his truck and secured the alien parts in a drawer emptied of its staples. When he hopped out, Hank was there. “Decided not to buy her?” he asked Martin.

  “Nah, too much work,” said Martin.

  “I tried,” said Stewart.

  “Real shame,” said Hank.

  ~ * * * ~

  “Where are we going now?” asked Stewart, as Martin pointed the Screwmobile back toward Brixton. “Your Subaru in Billings?”

  “I’m heading back up to Havre. I’ve got work. But I’m taking you home first,” said Martin. “We’re not in danger anymore, and besides, you need to stay here and figure out how we’re going to steal a truck.”

  “That’s just a matter of waiting for one to show up,” said Stewart.

  “It’s that easy?” asked Martin.

  “You could’ve done it that night you got arrested.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I’ll need my trinket back.”

  “Your what? Oh,” Martin touched the staple gun, but he kept it on his belt.

  “You need to take me back to Billings anyway,” said Stewart.

  “What? Why? I don’t have time,” said Martin.

  “My car’s still at your place,” said Stewart.

  Martin groaned. Rick was not going to be happy.

  Two and a half hours later, Martin carried the oxygen bottles, mostly empty, to the trunk of the Skylark. “You got someone to fill these for you?” Martin asked.

  “Milton and Laura will help me out,” said Stewart. He grabbed his little duffel bag from the back of the truck and shuffled to his car.

  “Okay,” said Martin. “You got my numbers?” Stewart patted the business card in his shirt pocket. “You call me the second a truck shows up, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Stewart nodded, and Martin took his bag. “Thanks,” said Stewart. Martin dropped the bag in the trunk and closed it.

  “Are we kidding ourselves?” Martin asked. “I mean, do we have any hope? Are we already too late for Cheryl?”

  “Can’t think like that,” said Stewart.

  “I feel like I’m going to wake up any second. Probably in a straightjacket.” Martin sighed. Then he forced himself to hand the staple gun to Stewart. “Are you going to have to kill anyone?”

  “I hope not,” said Stewart. “I’ll set it on stun.”

  “I thought you said this wasn’t Star Trek.”

  Chapter 19

  It was a quiet night in Shelby, Montana, after the hardware stores had closed, but not as quiet as Martin’s cell phone. It had been two days since he’d left Stewart to steal a truck. Martin would have welcomed a call from anyone now, even Rick, to prove that his phone still worked and that he still existed. In his motel room, Martin let a sitcom laugh track chip away at him. Then the baseball highlights. Some strutting crime scene investigators had their turn next. How many talking heads did one TV need?

  The Sandra Bullock movie on HBO was the final straw. Martin turned off the TV, but the soundtrack continued, muffled, on the other side of the wall. He doubted that Neil Armstrong had ever felt this pathetically unprepared, or Yuri Gagarin, or Alan Shepard, or even that Saudi prince who went up on the space shuttle. Should he be training? Sitting in some mock-up simulator of his Subaru? How many gees could he stand? Martin got off the bed, peeked through the curtains, and considered jogging in the fading twilight. Followed by a quick trip to the emergency room for resuscitation. Waiting for Stewart to call was going to be worse than an eternity of Sandra Bullock movies.

  The uncertainty almost made Martin want to call Jeffrey and make a deal. If the aliens shipped the two of them off to another world, Cheryl need never know that he had traded her for the rest of humanity. Besides, what could be more romantic?

  He had to do something.

  Out in the motel’s parking lot, the red and green neon of the Mexican restaurant next door beckoned with the promise of one of those Slurpee machines full of margarita. That was probably a better choice. But Martin unlocked the back of his truck anyway, telling himself for the hundredth time that he shouldn’t.

  Nothing screamed “alien”—or even “foreign”—about the plastic gadgets from Stewart’s Town Car. There were no markings, etchings, odd protrusions, or a sense of anything living inside. None of them had any obvious openings or fasteners, except for the rubbery nipples from which the wires extruded. The fine-gauge wires appeared to be copper, not so different from the ones he’d used to connect his XM radio to the truck’s electrical system.

  Hoax. Fake. Setup. A camera crew was surely about to emerge from a motel room doubled over with laughter. Martin enjoyed these few moments of doubt. Cheryl really had moved to Boise. Jeffrey and Stewart, Doris and Eileen—they had all concocted some small-town episode of Punk’d. The video of the truck emerging from the Gap had been faked, and so had the exploding trash can in Sidney. Even Lee Danvers must be in on it, providing the fake history of Brixton and Big Thunder Valley. “Big Thunder Valley.” Someone must have had a good laugh when they thought up that one.

  “What are you doing, Martin?” he asked himself. But no one answered as he removed the back of the plywood box, disconnected the radio’s wires, and twisted the feeds of Stewart’s devices into their place.

  “This is all in your head, Martin,” he told himself. Perhaps Brixton didn’t even exist. Maybe Cheryl was only a pipe dream. Beyond Insomnia had driven him insane—that, or too many miles on empty highways, too many days counting nails and screws, too many nights sleeping alone in front of motel televisions. How much Diet Mountain Dew did one have to drink before hallucinations took hold?

  Martin started the engine. He closed the door to let the cab go dark and checked the devices. No glow. No indicators. No vibration. No sound. He rechecked the connections.

  Martin considered calling Stewart, but he froze when a high-pitched whine slipped out of hearing range and a glowing plane appeared in space between the steering wheel and the speedometer. A hovering rectangle of light—he’d call it blue if it had any color—dotted with three icons: a yellow, car-shaped one with a grayed-out oval around it, a green hourglass with the two bulbs separated by a lightning bolt, and something that looked like a garage door being violated by a thick, red arrow.

  Martin checked the parking lot for onlookers. He honestly didn’t know if he’d shut off the engine to hide the phenomenon or call a stranger over to confirm that he saw the panel, too. He touched the side of the square but felt nothing. The pale blue light surrounded his finger as it neared an icon, but he pulled back before he did something stupid.

  That oval icon probably toggled the bubble, that hourglass one must activate the portal, and the one with the arrow maybe communicated with the mother ship’s dock. Any of them might signal Jeffrey that Stewart’s company car was back from the dead. Hell, connecting the devices might have sent the signal already. Anyway, what did he know? That icon could put a radioactive crater in the middle of Shelby. That one could whisk his fragile mammalian body into the vacuum of space. That one could start the invasion of the self-replicating killer robotic bakers. Choices, choices.

  He turned off the engine, and the panel blipped away. Martin breathed—he hadn’t done that in a while—and wondered what he’d have told Rick if he’d accidently vaporized the Screwmobile with alien technology.

  ~ * * * ~

  “Waker Nation, it’s time to put on another pot of coffee. I’m Lee Danvers, and let it never be said that I don’t deliver for you. Tonight we have something very special: a guest with the most amazing story and with the most amazing video, which will be shown for the first time in a few minutes. This story is so incredible that we’re co-broadcasting this conversation live on wakernation.com. If you’re on the road, you’re going to want to pull over and log on. This has got to be seen to be believed. So without further ado, via Skype, Thomas Worthington, you’re on Beyond Insomnia and wakernation.com.”
/>   “Thank you, Lee.”

  “Thomas, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”

  “Certainly. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m a videographer and photojournalist, based in Oakland, California. I’ve worked in broadcast television and done freelance work for my whole career. I’ve shot everything from weddings to Super Bowls.”

  “What exactly has brought you to the Waker Nation?”

  “Well, Lee. A little over a week ago you had on a caller who claimed to have video of a UFO or some kind of vehicle appearing out of nowhere on a road in Montana.”

  “Yes. It’s up at wakernation.com. And—oh—we’ve got the video playing right now. Nice work, X-ray.”

  “Exactly; that video. Now, the caller…

  “Martin from Billings.”

  “Yes. He sounded a little over the edge, but the video intrigued me. I’m a professional. I know all the tricks. I know all the software out there. I can usually spot a fake in a heartbeat, but not this time.”

  “And that’s when you contacted the show.”

  “I called and asked to get a look at the raw file of the video. And one of your kind producers took me up on my offer to see if it had been edited, graphics added, colors or details enhanced. Debunk it, if you will.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Lee, I was amazed to find pristine video. I expected to find cuts, such as when the camera fell to the ground, or to find editing artifacts along the edges of the rock and grass along the left side. I expected to see problems of scale or lighting, shadow angles and such, with the truck object itself. But, Lee, I found nothing. It appeared to be a completely authentic capture of an event.”

  “Incredible. That’s when you decided to go to Montana?”

  “I had to get there and see if this could have been faked somehow. I packed up my gear, got in the car, and drove almost straight through to Brixton, Montana.”