by Neal Wooten
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2015
A Kindle Scout selection
Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
Other books by Neal Wooten:
Reternity
The Balance
I’m Not Defective: The Story of Josh
Brad’s Pit: Year One
My Brother, My Judge
Three of Hearts
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
“It’s Hangar 51.”
“Beg pardon?”
Thomas Freeman tugged at the knot on his tie. He had to wear a button extension just to get the collar to fasten around his thick neck, and it was not easy to breathe. “It’s not Area 51. The real place where the aliens crash-landed and the alien autopsies were conducted is officially titled Hangar 51.”
Burt Smellie, the host of the comedy talk show Psycho America, stared across the table at his guest. Coarse black hairs peeked out from the unbuttoned shirt of his three-piece suit. The black hairpiece that perched on his crown did not match the salt-and-pepper strands that grew down the sides and back of his head. His short, heavyset frame almost seemed to balance on his chair. Large gold rings dug into the flesh of his nubby fingers, making them look like sausage links. “Are you sure? I’ve always heard it called Area 51. I have records going back for a long time using the name Area 51.”
Thomas shook his head. “The government installation in Roswell is Hangar 51. Area 51 in Nevada is a decoy used for a tourist attraction. A long time ago, some Hollywood people asked permission to use Hangar 51 in a movie and the government refused. They invented Area 51 for the movie, and it stuck. The media ran with it and now that’s where people think the aliens landed.”
Mr. Smellie opened his eyes and mouth wide to exaggerate his disbelief. “But the government says that too. Why would they do that?”
“Why wouldn’t they? It makes it easier to hide the files. That’s just part of the government cover-up,” Thomas said.
“Oh right,” Mr. Smellie said with a smirk. “Ye old government cover-up.”
The audience laughed.
“Tell me, Mr. Freeman, do you really believe that an alien crash-landed way back in 1950 and the government was able to keep everyone from finding out about it?”
Thomas nodded. “I do.”
“Of course,” Mr. Smellie said. “And all the UFO sightings are real, I suppose.”
“No, of course not.” Thomas cocked his head to one side. “I mean, someone seeing something might be real, but they’re not all alien spacecraft.”
“How many are, then?” Mr. Smellie asked. “Ten percent? Fifty percent? Ninety-nine?”
Thomas adjusted his tie again. “Probably only a very small percentage.”
“And the rest are what—wackos looking for attention?” Mr. Smellie leaned forward and raised his eyebrows.
Thomas shrugged. “I know your thing is to have people on and make fun of them. I know ratings are far more important than anything else. But there have been over two million documented sightings of strange aircraft. The question is, do you believe they’re all fake?”
“I do, I really do,” Mr. Smellie said, to the delight of the people in the studio watching the live broadcast. He certainly knew how to work a crowd. “There have been just as many Bigfoot sightings. Do you believe in Bigfoot?”
“No.”
“Ah,” Mr. Smellie said. “So you believe they’re all wackos too?”
This guy is good, Thomas thought. “I don’t know. Just because I don’t believe in Bigfoot doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
There were a few scattered claps from the audience.
“Fair enough, Mr. Freeman,” Mr. Smellie said. “But tell me, why do you think these aliens spying on us have never made contact?”
“I don’t know. I suspect they will when they’re ready.”
“Okay, good answer,” Mr. Smellie said. The crowd was silent, and he apparently didn’t like that. When they’re silent, it means they’re actually listening to the guest, and that was not something Burt Smellie tolerated. “We’re going to break away for our sponsors, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t go away; we’ll be right back.”
The stage was suddenly illuminated as a woman came out to touch up Mr. Smellie’s makeup.
Thomas tried to adjust his suit. Normally all he ever wore were shorts, T-shirts, or sweats with flip-flops or sandals. He was six feet five and very muscular with a thin waist. He spent six years in the Marines and still put in ten hours a week at the gym lifting heavy weights. This suit, the one he reserved for weddings and funerals, was not him, but he wanted to look good for television. Even his long dark-brown hair was in a ponytail, and his beard and mustache were neat and trimmed. Of course he realized that “looking good” might not be possible for this show. He knew what the show, not to mention the host, was all about, but an author never turns down a chance for publicity, no matter what form it might come in.
He looked around at the cheap set with its flimsy cardboard backdrop. The stage lights were actually draped over metal rafters by their cords. The viewers’ seats were simple folding chairs on a scuffed tile floor. As Thomas looked out over the members of the audience, he suspected they were mostly friends, family, or staff members of Mr. Smellie.
And there was a familiar smell in the room that tickled his olfactory senses. It was the combination of toxic fumes mixed with burned ozone, like an electrical fire. Thomas searched the floor where all the bundles of twisted cables and cords ran in all directions, looking for a telltale sign of white plumes of smoke, but saw nothing. Suddenly the smell hit him harder, and he looked up to see the makeup girl fanning Mr. Smellie with a cardboard handheld fan. That’s when he realized the smell was coming from his gracious host, no doubt a combination of body odor and cheap cologne. “Smellie” was certainly a good name for him.
“You’re doing well,” Mr. Smellie said. “It’s all in fun; give and take.”
Thomas looked up to see Mr. Smellie going through his notes. “Are you talking to me?”
“Of course,” Mr. Smellie answered without looking up. It appeared that Thomas’s answers were not crazy enough for him to make jokes about. He needed to beef it up. That’s why he was skimming through the notes.
The lights dimmed and the show resumed.
“And we’re back. Our guest today is alien enthusiast, alien believer, alien nutcase Thomas Freeman. Thanks again for joining us. I want to shift gears for a moment. Let’s talk about cow mutilations.”
Thomas sat quietly.
<
br /> “Is that okay with you, Mr. Freeman?”
Thomas nodded. “Sure.”
Mr. Smellie smiled as if he had just gotten a big game animal to take the bait. “Now I’ve talked to a lot of crazy alien-conspiracy theorists in my day, and while their delusions come in all shapes and sizes, they all have this one little tidbit in common: cow mutilations are the work of aliens. But looking through your writings, sir, I see that you do not subscribe to that theory. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct.”
Mr. Smellie turned both hands upright, the palms facing the ceiling. “Anything to add?”
“No.”
“Ah come on, Mr. Freeman.” Mr. Smellie pointed to his audience. “Our viewers, the ones who were not dropped on their heads as a baby, want to know what wisdom you possess on this. Please elaborate and enlighten us as to what or who has been causing cow mutilations for the last century.”
Thomas hesitated. He knew what the reaction would be, but he agreed to come on to the show, so he might as well be honest. “The government.”
The crowd went wild with laughter.
Mr. Smellie made funny faces toward the audience and the cameras to milk the most out of it. “Why, pray tell? Why is Uncle Sam messing with my beef?”
The audience continued to laugh and howl.
Oh heck, Thomas thought, let’s get it over with. “There have been ninety-one documented cases of cow mutilations in the last one hundred years. All have UFO sightings accompanying the events and always the same MO―the cows are found dead with one jaw removed, the tongue, sex organs, stomach, anal canal, and all the blood removed. And each time it was done with laser surgery. But in 1957, when the first event was investigated, only the government had access to this technique.”
“Why, Mr. Freeman?” Mr. Smellie asked. “What does the government need with those things?”
“That’s the sixty-four-dollar question, isn’t it?” Thomas asked. “But consider this: the government has a huge problem with toxic and nuclear waste with no legitimate way to disburse it. You know what they do with it now?”
Mr. Smellie thought for a second. “Sell it to my mother-in-law for cooking?”
Thomas and the crowd laughed. “Well, maybe, but a lot of it they bury in steel drums somewhere in Idaho, drums that will decay in a couple of hundred years. This is stuff that has a half life of twenty thousand years, which means only in twenty thousand years will it be safe to reintroduce into the environment.”
“Okay, I’m following you.” Mr. Smellie seemed to forget he was hosting a show making fun of people and started getting into the story. “So what’s the connection to the cow murders?”
“Well,” Thomas continued, “maybe the government has found a better way. What if they were to spread it out over large rural areas? And if you were to introduce a lethal substance to an area and wanted to evaluate what effects it was having, how would you do it?
“How?” Mr. Smellie asked. “Please don’t keep us in suspense.”
Thomas continued. “You would want to study an animal that lives directly off the land, and a cow fits the bill. So what parts would you study?”
Mr. Smellie raised his hand like a schoolkid. “I know. I know. Tongue and jaw. Stomach and sex organs. Blood and anal canal. Am I right? Am I right?”
“You are right,” Thomas said with a smile. “Let’s hear it for him.”
The crowd began to applaud and cheer, and right there Mr. Smellie realized he had lost control of them, something a talk show host should never do. This had to be corrected.
“Thank you. Thank you all.” Mr. Smellie stood up and blew kisses to the crowd. “Tell him what he’s won, Charlie.” Mr. Smellie changed the tone of his voice to impersonate his fictional announcer. “You’ve won a lifetime supply of cow sex organs.”
The audience laughed and clapped.
“And what for Mr. Freeman for inventing this ridiculous fallacy?” Again, in his announcer tone, he said, “Mr. Freeman wins a lifetime supply of cow brains, since he clearly chooses not to use his own.”
The crowd guffawed, and Thomas nodded at his own gullibility and tugged at his collar to allow more airflow.
After the crowd died down, Mr. Smellie continued. “What’s next for you, Thomas Freeman? Any exciting alien adventures on the horizon?”
“Next week a group of us will be picketing the Climatology Department in Washington.”
“Well, that sounds like a hoot,” Mr. Smellie joked. “So clearly the government is causing global warming as well. Right?”
“I don’t believe so,” Thomas answered honestly. “But I think they still keep the information from the public.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Smellie said, making a fist and shaking it above his head. “Power to the people. Power to the people. So what is causing global warming? The last three years have been unbearably hot, yet we’re told that the greenhouse gas problem was solved a decade ago. You might be on to something here.”
“Exactly,” Thomas said. “The creation of GHR1101 has done a lot to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, so why aren’t the temps normalizing?”
“Ah, so it is the government doing it. Just like the killing of our bovines. Is that what you’re saying, Mr. Freeman?”
“No,” Thomas said. “I think it’s aliens.”
Mr. Smellie threw his stack of papers in the air as the audience went wild with laughter. “I can’t win with this guy. Okay, why would aliens be doing it?”
Thomas could feel the blood building up behind his cheeks, but he fought to contain it. “That’s all explained in my new book. Perhaps you’ve read my books.”
“Ah, yes, the books. No, I haven’t gotten around to it. We’ll get to that later. Let’s pretend that my viewers are also normal people who have never read your books. Why would aliens come here?”
“There are several reasons,” Thomas began. “Hopefully they would come to share technology. If they’re carbon-based life forms like us, they might come for food or water. But since the global temperatures have been increasing at an alarming rate, I believe the aliens are terraforming, which means they will be coming to establish settlements.”
“What?” Mr. Smellie shouted. “With humans still here? That would never happen.”
“It’s already happened.”
Mr. Smellie stared at Thomas. “Aliens are already here? Where?”
“Not aliens,” Thomas corrected. “When Europeans first came to America, there were already people here. It didn’t stop them from setting up colonies.”
“Oh my gosh.” Mr. Smellie turned to the camera with his mouth wide open and his hands on his cheeks on each side. “That is so true.” He looked back to Thomas. “That explains my kid’s Thanksgiving painting showing pilgrims, Indians, and aliens.”
The crowd erupted again.
“So tell me, Mr. Freeman, if this manic-depressive apocalyptic vision of yours were to come true, if aliens were to ever come to Earth wanting to take over and live here, would we have anything that could stop them?”
Thomas thought for a second. “Nothing I can think of.”
Mr. Smellie looked back to the main camera. “And there you have it. That’s all the time we have for today. Thanks for tuning in.”
“Mr. Smellie?” Thomas said, holding up his book and tapping the cover.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Smellie said and held up his copy of the book. “Mr. Freeman’s new book is called Mark My Words: They’re Coming. You can find it in most fringe bookstores in the ‘I Can’t Believe the Crap They Publish’ section. Tune in next week when we talk with a woman who claims her tomatoes speak to her.”
And with that the lights came on and the show was over. The audience was dispersed as a woman came over to Thomas to remove the microphone from his lapel.
“That was a great show, Mr. Freeman. You are a natural showman. I believe we’ll hit record ratings with this episode.”
Thomas looked over at Burt Smell
ie, wondering if anything he said was sincere. After the woman removed the small cordless mic, he walked right over and stood almost up against the obnoxious host. Thomas towered above him.
“Uh . . . it’s just a . . . just a show,” Mr. Smellie stammered. He looked around, possibly wondering where security was. He almost fell off his chair as he started panicking. It seemed he was about to call out for help when he noticed Thomas Freeman’s hand extended.
“Thank you for having me, sir,” Thomas said with his hand still waiting.
“Oh yes, of course,” Mr. Smellie said in relief. He reached out and took Thomas’s hand and shook mildly.
Thomas smiled and squeezed . . . and squeezed . . . and squeezed harder until several cracks were heard.
Chapter Two
“What have you gotten yourself into?”
Glenda Eagle sat in her car and stared down the narrow road into the darkness, the path her GPS unit was beckoning her to take. Only the light of the half moon gave a glimpse of the structures down that old industrial street on the outskirts of Los Angeles. A once tall chain-link fence surrounded the perimeter on both sides, but the parts of the fence that remained now lay crumpled on the ground. To the left was a seemingly endless row of old warehouse buildings decorated with a mixture of graffiti and vines, the windows now nothing more than jagged remnants looking like vicious teeth in large, square black mouths. On the right were a half dozen old boxcars rusted to train tracks that went nowhere, no doubt home to drifters and homeless people.
Her heart beat faster as she fought back the foreboding creeping into her thoughts and trying to plant roots in her mind. Think about the payoff, she thought. Think about why you’re here. She took a deep breath and navigated her vehicle into the unknown.
Her headlights offered a temporary reprieve from the bleakness, and as long as she kept her eyes focused in front of her, she felt as if she could continue. The ghostly shadows passing by her peripheral vision told a different tale, and she dared not look. Fighting the urge to turn back, she pressed on.
Something moved in front of her. A large dark figure emerged from an old guard shack to her left. It was a man holding up his right hand. As she neared him, she could see that he was Latino, tall, with a shaved head, large mustache, and unshaven chin. He was scary enough without the butt of the pistol announcing its presence above his belt line.