Alien Roadkill-Homecoming

by Steve Zuckerman

  “Again?” JB asked himself, as he realized it was the second time today he had seen the same shape. Coincidence… Or were his Sawbonites trying to tell him something?

  “Whatja say, Tucker?” said Paul, motioning to JB to get out of the truck.

  “Nothin,” said JB as he got out of the car. “I was just wonderin’ where y’all want to be diggin’. That tree looks to be standing in about three feet of water.”

  “Shit,” Paul swore as he followed JB out of the truck. He still had his gun trained on JB, but his full attention was on the tree. It stood beyond a broad swath of rushes and reeds that camouflaged the watery edge of the swamp. The fog had almost disappeared, and it was evident that the tree was partially submerged.

  Paul swore again and complained, “Ralph didn’t say nothing about no swamp.”

  Wade had come around from the back of the pickup with a shovel in each hand. When he saw what they were looking at, he said, “Jesus! I thought you said it was buried at the damn tree! What do we do now, Bro? It’s probably long gone by now!”

  “Hold on! I’m tryin’ to think!” Paul said, trying not to sound as frantic as he suddenly felt. He was so preoccupied with the problem at hand that he had forgotten JB and had lowered his weapon.

  “It couldn’t be buried there,” said JB, pointing at the tree. “This here patch of swampland has always been here. Maybe the water level varies a couple of inches every season but look at the roots stickin’ outta the water. That tree has never seen dry land.”

  “Maybe it’s not the right tree,” Wade said.

  The disappointment had sapped Paul’s manic energy and his mood had swung back hard in the other direction.

  “It’s gotta be the right tree! It’s exactly as Ralph said it would be. He said it was at the tree.”

  JB ignored the fact Paul had lowered his weapon because at that moment he found he had been sucked into the mystery too. He couldn’t help but offer his two-cents also. He said, “Hell if that’s ‘zactly what he said, it don’t mean it has to be buried.”

  “Huh, I’m not following,” Paul said.

  “Maybe what he meant is, whatever you’re looking for is inside the tree. It’s hollowed out, ‘least what’s left of it is.”

  Paul gave him an appraising glance and said, “Tucker, you’re smarter than you look. Guess you’ll have to get out there and see.” He motioned with his gun towards the swamp.

  “Lucky for you it’s a little early in the season for gators!” said Wade.

  “Been an early spring,” JB replied, not so eager to get wet in any event. “This is a pretty open stretch of water. That’s where them critters like to hang out.”

  “Well, then you best keep your splashin’ down,” Paul said with a sneer. “Now get goin’! An’ remember… I’m a good enough shot to hit ya at this distance, so don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Hey, where I’m gonna run to? Nothing but swamp in nearly every direction.”

  Paul didn’t lower his weapon. He said, “So far you’ve played it pretty cool Tucker, you’d best keep it that way.”

  “Alright, but, do y’all know what I’m ‘a gonna be lookin’ for?” JB asked.

  “You’ll know when you find it,” Paul replied. “Of that, I’m damn sure.”

  Without replying, JB began walking through the cattails and rushes. With every step he took, the turgid water grew deeper and deeper. He moved as silently as he could because it had been warmer than usual this year, and an alligator with a whole winter’s worth of hunger was the last thing he wanted to run into. Sawbonites or no.

  By the time JB had reached the cloven tree, the water was a few inches above his waist, and every insect in the night air was buzzing around his head. For a brief moment, he wondered what would happen if a mosquito got a snootful of Sawbonites… That is until he realized that somehow they were preventing the insects from biting.

  He was soon standing directly in front of the trunk where the two split halves remained joined. That junction was just below JB’s eye-level, which gave him a good view of inside the trunk. The interior was hollow, charred black, and nearly filled with water, the surface of which was covered with rotted leaves and decaying algae. He looked carefully, satisfying himself that there was no other possible hiding place before he plunged his hand into the slimy muck.

  He reached in, all the way to up his shoulder until he felt his fingers touch the bottom of the hollow. He explored cautiously, not knowing what to expect until his hand brushed up against something solid. It was buried in the silt, but his fingers quickly found the edges of what he thought might be a box. He worked it free of the mud and shook it as he brought it to the surface, casting off whatever bits of mud still clung to it.

  “You find something, Tucker?” Paul shouted.

  “Maybe so,” replied JB, loud enough for the others to hear. “I’ll let you decide if it’s what y’all’s lookin’ for.”

  JB worked his way back to more solid ground, examining the item in his hands as he did so. The box had at one time been a cookie tin, but now was so consumed by rust that the metal was gone in places. Through the ragged holes in the tin, he could see that something was wrapped in oilcloth inside it. It was hard for him to gauge the weight as water and muck were still draining from it, but it wasn’t insubstantial.

  “Jesus!” said Paul, who had walked out into the water to take it from JB. “It’s not what I thought it was!”

  Realizing he couldn’t keep his gun on JB and open the contents of the tin, he handed it back to JB once they both reached dry ground.

  “Open it,” ordered Paul. “Otherwise I’d have to shoot you, an’ I’m not one to break a promise easily.”

  “I appreciate that,” JB replied as he knelt down and placed the tin on the ground.

  Wade, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet, suddenly spoke. He said, “Hey, shouldn’t we be careful?”

  “About what?” Paul scoffed. “Cash is good wet or dry!”

  “Well, let’s see,” JB said and set about working off the lid. It broke away in pieces when he finally pulled it off, revealing the contents inside.

  The oilskin package was about the size of a brick, suggesting a thick stack of bills. JB didn’t wait for Paul to direct him to remove it. The oilskin had been carefully wrapped around the contents four or five times. As he slowly unwrapped them, the package became smaller and smaller. Regardless, everyone held their breath as JB peeled off the last layer.

  “Fucck!” bellowed Paul in dismay.

  “What?” exclaimed Wade, almost simultaneously.

  JB thought it looked like a large, triangular belt buckle, except it was too thin and lacked any provisions to attach it to a belt. Its shiny finish was unmarred and perfectly flat, except for the smaller triangle that appeared to be slightly embossed in the center of it. Despite the way it was stored, it strangely bore no trace of tarnish or rust.

  “Ralph! You fucker!” Paul railed, livid. “That asshole pulled my fuckin’ leg for twelve years! All the time he was tellin’ me it was the ‘key to millions’!” He reached down to grab the object from where it lay on the oilcloth, intending to hurl it into the swamp.

  “Hold on, Paul!” yelled his brother. “If the damn thing didn’t have no value, that Ralph fella wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of hiding it.”

  JB expected Paul to ignore his brother, but instead, Paul stopped short of grabbing the object and gave his brother a look of surprise.

  “Whoa, Wade… Ya know, that’s the most intelligent thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”

  There was something about the triangular object that seemed familiar to JB, though he couldn’t really place it. Then a thought crossed his mind. It was one he didn’t like.

  “I just don’t get it!” Paul growled in equal amounts of anger and disappointment. “Ralph was kinda out there, but he always said that his stash was the most valuable thing in the whole world. How is that, the ‘key to millions’?”


  While he was complaining, Wade had reached out and grabbed the object to examine it more closely.

  “Maybe it’s silver? Or maybe even platinum!” he said, raising the object to his chest. “Jewelry, maybe?”

  At that moment, the triangle snapped onto the center of Wade’s chest, like a refrigerator magnet. “Get it off me! Get this fuckin’ thing offa me!” he screamed in a voice mixed with horror and fear.

  He clawed desperately at the object on his chest to no avail. The small triangle in the object’s center began to glow blood red, and Wade’s expression went completely slack, his eyes staring blankly straight ahead.

  “Wade!” yelled Paul, suddenly alarmed by this unexpected turn of events. He had forgotten JB completely as he went to his brother’s aid, though he was still holding the gun as he reached for the object on his brother’s chest.

  As soon as he touched it, the red triangle began to pulse, and Wade’s eyes lost their three-mile stare. Suddenly, his beefy arm came up and back, striking Paul hard with his elbow. Paul staggered back with the unexpected blow and the gun in his hand went off.

  The wild shot went upwards, tearing through Wade’s neck. Ignoring the fountains of arterial blood pumping from his wound, Wade stepped forward to where his brother lay dazed on the ground and snapped his neck with a single, powerful blow from his boot. With machine-like determination, he managed several steps towards JB before he bled out, sprawling on the ground only feet from his brother.

  JB turned over Wade’s body with his boot. The metal triangle fell away from his chest and onto the ground. JB picked up the object and without hesitation threw it a considerable distance before it splashed into the waters of the swamp. He wasn’t sure what he’d do next… He wasn’t comfortable leaving the bodies for the alligators, so he resolved to call 911 as soon as he hit the main highway. He searched Wade and pocketed his cell phone.

  JB was certain that the device that Wade had activated when he jokingly placed it near his chest was off-world tech. He asked himself again how he was always stumbling into situations like this. He didn’t believe in coincidences… Especially where aliens were concerned. JB got back into his truck thinking about the “key to millions”. He was convinced that it had nothing to do with money, and the ominous implications dominated his thoughts as he changed into a pair of dry jeans he retrieved from his backpack and got back into his truck.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jaws of Defeat

  JB WASTED NO time getting onto North Carolina Route 64, the highway that runs from the Tennessee State line to the Outer Banks. Once he reached it, he made a call to 911 from Wade’s cell reporting a truck crash on old highway 21. JB kept the call short and tossed the phone out the window when he was done.

  He reflected on the near non-stop events of the last twenty-four hours. First, his trailer was destroyed in an alien ambush, yet another attempt on his life. Then, he’s truck-jacked by a couple of brothers, one of which is an escaped convict. Next, they unwittingly force him to retrieve an alien object at gunpoint, one that ultimately brings violent death to both of them.

  He wasn’t sure that any of it was connected, but he had a nagging feeling that it was. Only he had no idea how, or why these events could be related. He was left only with the image of Wade coming towards him, seemingly unaware of his mortal wound, profoundly etched in his mind. If he couldn’t unsee it, he could at least turn his attention back onto the road. JB had become so used to the surreal nature of his new life that very little surprised him anymore. But this was both surprising and disturbing.

  It took more effort than he thought to cast those dark ruminations from his mind. But thankfully, he saw no law enforcement on the highway before he reached the bridge that spanned the nearly three-mile width of the Alligator River. He drove over the two-lane bridge and onto the twenty-eight mile stretch through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

  Tourist season on the Outer Banks had yet to begin, and due to the late hour, the traffic had thinned considerably. As he crossed over the bridge, JB felt as if he and Ol’ Blue were the only ones on the road.

  After the bridge, the highway narrowed, and the roadway threaded through a landscape of dense vegetation, turgid bogs, and shallow marshes. Here and there groves of towering trees peppered the wetlands, many of them standing on tall, twisted roots that had been grotesquely deformed by time and weather. In the daytime, this was considered a spectacular drive, but at night, it was no place to become stranded. There was no cell reception and no one nearby for miles.

  That was the thought crossing his mind when JB felt a jerk and heard the flapping that his suddenly flat, right rear tire was making. He cursed and pulled off the highway onto the dirt. He set the parking brake and got out to survey the damage, but when he caught a good look at the tire, he immediately jumped into a crouch behind the rear of the pickup. The sidewall of the tire had been melted, not punctured. That, he knew only meant one thing. Aliens. Again.

  JB kept low behind the rear of the pickup and modified his ears. His augmented hearing detected a faint rustling of underbrush coming from the opposite side of the road. He risked a look, peering under the truck after altering his eyes with his night vision mod. Unfortunately, he saw what he expected to see… The silhouette of an all-too-familiar figure, as it parted the tall bushes on the other side of the road with one of its long tentacles. Quietly and without hesitation, it stepped out onto the wide, graveled shoulder.

  Unlike the alien who had tried to kill him at the trailer, he recognized this alien as undoubtedly belonging to Har-Kankar, the off-world faction that was relentlessly hunting him. The alien was shorter than JB, standing nearly five feet in height off the ground.

  The alien’s bulbous torso was supported on clusters of tentacles that served both as arms and legs. It had no neck, and it’s relatively small, triangular head appeared immovable. However, the six, short flexible stalks that sprouted from the top of it were rotating independently in all directions. Slowly and deliberately, the alien hunter advanced towards where JB had hunkered down.

  With his retinas finely tuned by his Sawbonites, JB could see every detail of the creature as it cautiously progressed. It was clothed in a metallic, mesh fabric that covered nearly all of it. In the places where its flesh was exposed, the skin looked pale blue and shiny, mottled with dark splotches of bilious-looking hues of green, yellow and grey.

  Having reached a point to where it was about ten yards away from where JB had taken cover, the alien abruptly halted. It stood motionless except for the six, knobbed, stalks on the top of its head that were rotating even more rapidly than they had been before. Suddenly, and with astonishing speed, it produced and fired its weapon in a single quick motion.

  The weapon discharged a pencil-thin pulse of intense heat that made the moist air sizzle as it tore through the pickup bed, mere inches from JB’s head. JB jumped up and ran, seeking cover in the thick vegetation behind him. He plowed through the tangled brush in a full-out run, as another blast struck close by. He redoubled his speed, ignoring the damage that was being inflicted on his clothes and skin in his headlong flight.

  The Sawbonites in his bloodstream had gone into action also, quickly repairing the scraped and torn flesh rent by the thorny branches and wiry underbrush as JB crashed through them. His medical robots were also keeping his hormonal levels even and suppressing the flood of adrenaline and cortisol that could prevent him from thinking clearly.

  Even over the considerable noise that he was making in his onward rush, JB could hear that the alien wasn’t far behind. He knew that it would shortly emerge from the thick wall of tall reeds and rushes that separated the marshes from the highway. He could only think of one way that he might yet survive this encounter, even though it had a high probability of failure. But, as bad as it was, that was the only plan that he had.

  Reaching the edge of the marsh, JB made a beeline towards a thick grove of trees. Many of them were centuries old, and their huge trunks rose
out of the muddy waters like giant statues. The enormous canopy created by their moss-covered branches was substantial enough to blot out the stars in the sky. He continued running, slogging into the shallow water knowing that his pursuer was gaining on him with every passing second.

  He burst through clouds of mosquitos and biting flies. As usual, they avoided him, thanks to his Sawbonites, but their presence gave him hope. It was one of the many signs that the swamp was beginning to come awake; a result of the unseasonably warm February weather. It was something he was counting on.

  When JB reached deeper water, he began thrashing around as loudly as he could while he waded through it. His boots were getting sucked into the mud, slowing his progress in the knee-high water, but he forged ahead redoubling his efforts, knowing that absolute annihilation was at his heels.

  Retreating through the muddy waters, JB made sure that he kept to the cover of the trees. He pressed forward into the swamp this way, going as fast as he could, moving from tree to tree along his line of sight. He didn’t intend to give the alien an opportunity to take another shot. He had no interest in finding out whether one or two well-placed cauterizing blasts could take him out permanently, Sawbonites or not. He was well aware that just like the aliens he killed, he could be damaged beyond repair. He considered it highly unlikely that his Sawbonites could grow him a new head if he ever became separated from the one he had.

  Another blast from behind him took a big chunk out of the tree that he had kept at his back. JB ignored the hot spray of debris that showered him and kept churning the water forcefully with every one of his Sawbonite enhanced steps. He looked back, and to his dismay, he saw the off-worlder propelling itself effortlessly with its tentacles through the water, coming up fast.

  The instant that JB broke cover to look, the alien fired several more blasts, one after another. He kept moving, even as the tree trunk behind him burst into flame, ignited by the superheated bolts of energy that were intended for him. The bright light from the conflagration might have blinded JB, but his Sawbonites had instantly reversed his night vision modification and desensitized his retinas so swiftly that he was hardly aware of the adjustment.