“Okay, that’s good. If anything else is missing to make things livable, I’ll pick up a few things for the tenant at Walmart or the dollar store.”
“Alright then.” Doug said he would leave the key under the front mat. Nick stated he would drop over to Doug’s house with a $500 check in a few days.
Nick felt relieved when he hung up. “Well, that will at least take care of one thing,” he thought. “As long as they don’t find her before then, Amie will at least have a roof over her head.”
Nick told Amie the basics of what Doug had said. She sensed Nick was relieved, but she had misgivings of her own.
“What if I run out of food? What will I do to amuse myself, sitting all alone?”
“My friend Doug said there’s a TV. And I’ll be back to see you in a week or two. It’s not great, I know, but you’ll have to make do. I don’t know what else I can do. Don’t worry, I’ll stock the kitchen up good with supplies. I’ll make sure you have plenty to eat and drink.” Then Nick began to wonder why he was apologizing to Amie and why she was complaining about the accommodations. After all, hadn’t she gotten him into this mess?
Sensing that his anger was returning, Amie quickly stated, “I know you have done everything you can. I really appreciate it with all my heart. I am concerned because it is such a long time for me to stay in hiding. I fear that, by waiting around so long, it will give my government captors much time to find me. And perhaps they will be successful.”
Amie was, in fact, quite worried. Her control over Nick would undoubtedly diminish when he was away from her for a length of time. If government officials should start questioning him, he might cave in to his anxieties about helping her. She could still sense his torn loyalties, even though he had gotten her this far. She would have to insure, somehow, that he remained committed to helping her and would not crack under pressure.
Around noon, Nick got off I-40 at Gallup and onto the ten-mile stretch of old Route 66. The sky was pure azure, and it was warm and dry in the desert sunshine as they got out of the car. Nick stopped at a quaint looking café on the strip, next to a trading company store with intriguing jewelry pieces displayed in their window.
To Nick’s surprise, Amie hopped out of the car, and pressed her face to the window, exclaiming over the beautiful Native American jewelry. Nick ran after her and ushered her back to the safety of the Civic, with its tinted windows. “You already used the restroom a few miles back at the gas station, so you won’t need to go into the cafe with me.”
Amie looked disappointed. “I wanted to look at the lovely things in that shop,” she stated petulantly.
“Sorry, Amie, but I just don’t think that would be a good idea. We don’t know if the police might have released some sort of description about you. I’m really hesitant about sitting in a cafe with you, even this run-down looking old place. Someone might have a camera. Someone could see us together. You have to stay in the car, with the windows rolled up. I’ll get us take-out in the cafe. It won’t be long, I promise.”
“Nick, I need to get out of the car and stretch,” Amie pleaded.
“You can’t get out here, Amie. There are just too many people around. According to the map, there’s a place called Red Rock State Park a few miles up the road from here. We’ll stop there and get out, walk around, and even have a nice outdoor picnic. In the meantime, I’m getting some food and directions to a department store where I can buy you some clothes. So just wait here, please.” Amie sensed Nick was becoming irritated.
Getting back in the car with the food packaged for them in Styrofoam containers, Nick handed Amie a cold drink and drank one himself. Then he drove to the department store where, as he had done with their food and lodging, Nick intended to pay with cash. He knew it was going to be difficult for him buying women’s clothes. Nick would probably get the wrong sizes, but there was no other option in his mind. After consulting Amie about her size, Nick did his best and bought her some socks, two t-shirts, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, sneakers, and a light jacket.
They pressed on, heading to Red Rock Park. On the way, Amie pulled out all the clothes and examined them, and then put on the socks and colorful, child-sized sneakers. Nick caught Amie smiling, and he loosened up and smiled too. “Maybe it’ll work out. God, I hope so,” Nick said to himself.
Arriving at the park, they took their food and began hiking along a dirt trail, hoping to find a good picnic spot. Soon they came to a particularly beautiful vista, and a stone bench had been placed there as an overlook site. It was at this restful spot that Amie suggested they stop to eat. Before gobbling down her food, as Nick was doing with one of his tacos, Amie paused a long while, breathing in the clear air and appreciating the awesome view.
“This kind of scenery is what we call ‘breathtaking’,” Nick offered, between bites.
“On the contrary,” Amie stated. “It is breath-giving. It enhances. You breathe it in and it fills you up. It is as nourishing as this food.”
After a while Amie ate her rice and beans but, when she finished, she seemed in no hurry to continue down the path. She seemed content to sit placidly and take in the beautiful vista.
Up the dusty pathway came an old man, slowly shuffling his way along. Nick pulled out his Tracfone and captured an image of the old man, with the beautiful terrain highlighted in the background. When the elder reached them, he stood for a time admiring the same view before turning to look at them. Feeling rather uncomfortable under the man’s intense gaze, Nick motioned for him to sit down and share their bench, which the old man gratefully accepted.
“I try to get out once a week to walk this pathway,” the elder stated. “These red stones renew my bones, they renew my soul. They are life-giving.”
“Do you live around here?” Nick asked, wondering why he wasn’t feeling all that life rejuvenating stuff that the two on either side of him were obviously feeling.
“All my life. I’m a Zuni Indian,” the old man offered. There was a long pause for a minute or so, and then he continued. “But my mother, she was an Iroquois. And her mother, in her old age, came to live with us down here – on the Zuni Reservation. She used to tell us stories, me and my sister, before we fell asleep at night. One of her tales, which she told us often, was the creation myth. All of this – the earth, the sky, the rocks and trees, the animals and men that walk the land – were created by Sky Woman. She was pregnant and fell from heaven into the waters of Earth below. At that time there existed on Earth only water and the animals that swam in it. But a great turtle saved Sky Woman, when it arose from the water and let her float on its back. Later, after creating the land, Sky Woman gave birth to twins – good and evil – and so life on land began.”
The Native American said no more. Nick felt compelled to respond, “Sounds a bit like the Biblical alternative of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel.”
“There are some similarities,” the Zuni stated. He seemed to have nothing more to say and Nick could think of nothing, so the three sat on the bench in silence.
Amie suddenly mind-spoke to Nick that they should continue along the path.
Nick said to the Zuni, “Well, nice meeting you.” As they passed in front of him to continue on their way, Nick noticed the elderly Indian staring intently at Amie.
“Remember, Sky Woman was saved by the great turtle,” the old man called after them as a reminder.
When they had walked some time in silence Amie said, “That old man we met was some sort of a mystic.”
“You mean like a medicine man or something?”
“Yes, something like that. I tried to read him, but he knew how to completely block my thoughts. The powers of my vest would not work on one such as him.”
And to herself, Amie thought that perhaps the tribal elder had been able to read some of her energy and knew her for what she was.
Chapter 14
The couple started the long, six-hour drive to Amarillo in early afternoon after lingering in the park to enjo
y the fresh air, blue sky, and the incredible red rock scenery. During the drive, the quaint story related by the old Zuni Indian resonated in Nick’s mind. “Maybe I am the turtle, he thought, and Amie is the Sky Woman.” The part about good and evil bounced back and forth in his mind, also. Although he wanted to believe Amie represented good, she had withheld a lot of information from him that revealed itself at moments of her choosing. He began to wonder what else he might not know.
Nick had been troubled by Amie’s mention of “the powers” of her vest. She had said it wouldn’t work on the Indian medicine man, and something about that statement seemed odd. Nick had procured the vest for her so that she could enhance her communication energies to reach a rescue ship. But, apparently it had other functions as well. Nick wondered what other abilities that vest conveyed to Amie.
Amie picked up on Nick’s unease, but remained quiet about it. She sensed now was not the time to offer him reassurance, she’d do that later, after they had stopped for the night. She had watched enough of their television to know how humans thought about sexual relationships.
At the next rest stop, Amie pulled off her blue pantsuit and put on a t-shirt and the body hugging pair of jeans. Nick had done well with his shopping. The clothes fit well. “How do I look?” she asked him somewhat playfully, after coming out of the lady’s restroom.
“Just like any other American woman,” Nick replied. It was the truth. Her facial features excepted, she looked like many women. “Actually,” he thought, “from a distance, a woman might envy her slender frame. Maybe I’ve been a little too cautious in trying to hide her.”
The Air Force Security Captain at Area 51 was notified that investigation of “the incident” had been taken over by the base commander, and it was obvious that everything had been upgraded to a much higher level, with several different government agencies getting involved.
The base commander had special knowledge regarding Amie that few knew, because it had been hushed up at the time. Amie had apparently tried to escape about seven years prior. At that time, she had tried to develop a close relationship with a NASA employee, who went to his supervisor with a confession that he feared Amie was trying to use “mind control” on him with the hope of eventual escape to Sedona, Arizona. The NASA man had been sent packing back to the East Coast, before Amie could do any damage, and the incident was buried amongst the top-secret files. With the previous knowledge about Amie’s intentions in mind, the commander had ordered a roadblock of the main roads into and out of Sedona, just in case.
As the evening wore on, the captain was on the phone with the FBI, several Pentagon bigwigs, and now he had just received a call over his secure line from an NSA special agent who was flying in from DC and would be demanding a briefing on this matter of “highest level national security” first thing in the morning.
“I need to know everything you know and everything you’re in the middle of doing about the search for the inter-planetary being,” the agent demanded, in a brusque manner, when they met the next morning. The tired captain had little time for sleep the previous evening, but it was becoming obvious to him that this investigation was going to be one of the biggest events of his career.
The captain related that most all the passengers on the Janet Fight had been contacted and had apparently noticed nothing unusual. One passenger, Ted Knowles, was of the greatest interest because he had occupied the seat beside the woman posing as Shelley Carson. Knowles had been hard to reach, because he was visiting with friends in Los Angeles, but he had eventually been contacted at 0200 hours. He too appeared unhelpful. He could not seem to remember anything except that he had spoken briefly to his seatmate, whom he insisted was Shelley Carson, and then fell promptly asleep. When pressed about what their conversation had consisted of, the man could not seem to remember a thing. Also, the flight attendant had mentioned having to ask Mr. Knowles to leave the plane, as he apparently had fallen into a deep sleep while on board. Mr. Knowles related that he had felt uncharacteristically dazed and confused upon leaving the plane. This information seemed very odd to the investigators, who wondered if Mr. Knowles had been deliberately placed into some sort of trance.
Something similar had happened to Shelley Carson. She recalled a state of surprise, followed by temporary confusion, after being hugged by the female alien during the conference room party.
Everyone on the X-56 team seemed to concur that the person who seemed to have the best relationship with Amie was Nicholas Rossi, the aerospace liaison for the project. It turned out that Rossi had been on the same 1600 hrs flight, sitting several rows behind Amie. Rossi did not seem to be answering his cell phone and was not presently at either of his residences, nor at his office in Maryland.
It was still not clear where the female alien had gone once she had disembarked the intra-terminal bus at McCarran Airport. Airport cameras showed that a taxi had picked her up, and investigators were still trying to interview the taxi driver. The taxi company dispatch records revealed a person matching Carson’s description had been dropped off at the Excalibur Hotel. Hotel cameras shots were next on the list to be checked and its personnel would be interviewed that morning.
The big question seemed to center on the whereabouts of Nick Rossi. After checking out of MGM Grand, he did not board a plane for BWI in Maryland as usual. He had requested and been granted a ten-day annual leave by his supervisor and had mentioned taking “some time to drive around and see the country”. He had shut off his cell phone and apparently removed the batteries, making his phone untraceable. Strangely, Rossi was also not using his credit card.
Nick pulled into the Holiday Inn Express parking lot off I-40 around eight-thirty at night. Amie waited in the car while he got the room key, then he drove around to the side entrance and they went to their room. Nick felt exhausted. He quickly washed his face to try and remove the fatigue of driving and, even though they would both want something to eat for dinner, he felt the need to lie down “for just a few minutes” to recover from the long day’s drive.
“What is it, Nick? Are you ill?
“Amie, just give me a little rest, will you? Then I’ll get us food. Put on the TV, it won’t bother me.”
Instead of turning on the TV, Amie lowered the lights. She climbed on the bed and straddled Nick, placing her palms over his closed eyelids, while her fingers tapped softly on his forehead.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked.
“I am helping you to revive. Just relax, keep your eyes closed. Let me help you. You will feel much better.”
And Amie was right. Immediately Nick began to hear soft, entrancing music playing in his mind. His body seemed to go limp with relaxation. He began to feel blissful and as calm as if he had spent an hour under the hands of a knowledgeable masseuse. He was breathing deeply now and his mind felt as if it had been switched off. All he could hear was the peaceful music. He fell asleep.
When Nick awoke, he noticed it was a half hour later. Amie had gone into the bathroom to shower, so he got up to get their food. He felt terrific, like he was twenty years younger. All the day’s fatigue had left his body.
Nick returned with a bag of warm Chinese take-out, stir-fried vegetarian dishes for Amie and a container of Kung-Pao chicken for himself, plus a large bottle of Chardonnay. He laid the plastic forks down on the table as well as the paper-wrapped chopsticks. The Asian eating implements immediately intrigued Amie. She had seen them used on TV, but she had never had the experience of using them to eat. Nick demonstrated how to hold them, picking up his food in a clumsy fashion that made him laugh and brought that strange, faint smile to her face. Amie began to use the chopsticks to eat her vegetables with a dexterity that amazed Nick.
“Wow, it’s like you’ve lived in China all your life,” he commented. Again, Amie smiled. She never laughed; it did not seem to be an emotional ability that she could express.
They took long sips of the refreshing, cold wine out of plastic cups filled with ice cubes taken f
rom the icemaker directly outside. Nick was surprised at the quantity of wine that Amie could consume without it seeming to affect her mood very much. He, on the other hand, was becoming extremely mellow.
After dinner, Nick took a shower, shaved and then, clad in his underwear, sprawled on the turned down bed. Polishing off the last gulps of wine, he activated the TV.
Amie came over to his bed and snuggled up beside him. She was wearing her straight-haired, waist-length brunette wig, which made her look very youthful. She wore the t-shirt over her vest, which was long and covered her stomach and bottom, so that Nick could not tell whether she was wearing panties or her special underwear. Nick wondered if the wine and his tiredness from driving were somehow interfering with reality, because she no longer looked like the alien Amie, but more like a svelte, younger, very appealing woman.
Amie clicked off the TV. She didn’t have to do anything else because, in anticipation of one of her “erotic shock” treatments, Nick began to grow an erection. Now, somewhat inebriated, he was not embarrassed and very much looking forward to her plans for him.
Amie began tracing her fingertips over Nick’s chest. Normally, for Nick this would be a mildly pleasant experience, but with Amie’s “special powers” it became wildly erotic. His erection grew and intensified to a point that was reminiscent of his youth.
When Amie removed his underwear, revealing his tumescent penis, Nick just lay there. He was a little in shock, not sure of what to say or do. He had not had such an intense sexual desire in decades.
“Don’t worry Nick, it’s okay, it’s time. I know you’ve wondered about this moment before. Just consider it my gift to you.”
Amie straddled Nick and placed his penis beneath her vagina but without penetration because, in fact, she thought he might be too large and uncomfortable for her. Penetration was not necessary for her to give Nick a wonderful experience. She placed her hands on his shoulders and caressed his neck as she rocked back and forth using her hips to stimulate him. He moaned and fought back the urge to ejaculate. All the while, Amie was reading his thoughts and his state of emotions. When she felt Nick was ready, she sent an energy pulse to his brain through the tips of her fingers.
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