Attack of the Rockoids

by Gene Steinberg

  The carburetor seemed all right, but clearly something was wrong. Well, the repair shop did say he needed a little engine work. Maybe later, if he survived this trip.

  Now he’d have to keep a brisk pace to catch up with Gonzales that evening.

  Maybe I should just give up…This is nuts!

  Whenever the thought of quitting occurred to Ray, he saw in his mind’s eye the lovely vision of that alien woman and felt her anguish, and he realized a little backfiring wasn’t going to stop him.

  He closed the hood, perhaps a little too abruptly, jumped into the seat and sped away.

  Not before he seemed to feel that “presence” again, and he turned around, as usual, to find nothing.

  Crack!

  That damn backfire again!

  At this point, he turned up the radio, hoping the noise wouldn’t bother him so much. Now if only that damn racket hadn’t caught the attention of the local highway patrol; Ray could only hope.

  As the miles slowly passed, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, Ray began to get the nagging feeling he’d attracted someone’s attention. Every so often, he could swear he saw a black car behind him, and whenever he moved into another lane, the car seemed to follow.

  Ray knew that was ridiculous. Why would anyone be watching him? Surely not to see if he had plans to break into a top-secret government installation and investigate what was going on in a secret laboratory? Yeah, sure.

  He only got that silly idea yesterday.

  All sorts of paranoid feelings began influencing Ray’s state of mind as the trip continued. He had a high security clearance when he was in the military. Maybe they’d been watching him all these years, tapping his phone, tailing him on his travels, waiting for him to do something suspicious. Ray had always lived a quiet life, hardly ever associated with people, dated rarely. Was his girl friend Patricia a spy too?

  What about Manny? Could the old soldier, his father’s closest friend, have betrayed him? No, that couldn’t be—not Manny!

  Ray laughed at Manny’s final words—Trust me. Could he really trust anyone?

  Ray tried his best not to think about the worst case scenario. He had a mission to accomplish.

  He paid more than a casual glance to his rear view mirror. The black car seemed to be gone, or whoever was tailing him decided to be a bit more discreet.

  Damn! Damn!

  As night fell, Ray started closing on his destination. Feeling a bit drowsy, he pulled into the first truck stop for a quick coffee and sandwich. As he paid for his dinner at the takeout counter, Ray’s paranoia began creeping on him again; he looked around furtively and saw nothing suspicious.

  He got in his Mustang and took off, but kept taking wary glances at the rear view mirror just in case. The backfiring routine began getting worse. Any time he’d put his foot on the brake to slow the car down, and abruptly accelerate, it went off again—bang!

  Soon he became comfortable, however, and turned up the music again—just in time to see a half dozen green lights flashing in the sky, star-like, hardly greater than pinpoints. They didn’t seem to move in any particular direction, just stayed aloft without apparent motion.

  After this short period of calm, the tension mounted again, so palpable Ray could almost touch it.

  All sorts of ideas began to seem reasonable. Maybe some weather balloons, or perhaps the folks at the base were just testing some sort of secret weapon. Maybe they were doing an aerial surveillance of the perimeter of the base, looking for crazy folk who might get the idea to break in—crazy folk like Ray Perkins.

  Again, for perhaps the hundredth time during the trip, Ray began to wonder whether he should give it all up and go home.

  Once again, the image of the beautiful woman filled his consciousness and he again seemed to feel her presence, as if she were near. He felt her anguish, when she sensed the deaths of millions as if she had died herself, as she continued to call out to him—to save her? What did she want from him? Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

  Ray then wondered what sort of person could sense the deaths of others in the way this woman could. Who was she? What was she? Human? Well, not quite, but that face, a face that was so glorious, so lovely. He could just imagine her walking into a restaurant, by his side, holding his hand. What would they think? Could she…would she…associate with the likes of him?

  The lights were gone….

  Ray breathed a sigh of relief again, but kept a careful watch in case any other strange things appeared. He was very, very close now, and the lights of the base were nearly visible. Just around the bend…

  He saw it, in his rear view mirror. Flashing lights, this time just a few feet above the surface of the ground, not far behind him and closing fast. He turned down the radio, and a second later, he heard sirens wailing.

  From his rear view mirror, Ray could clearly see a police car was pursuing him. He broke into a sweat and started fumbling for his wallet with his right hand. It dropped onto the passenger’s seat, and he clumsily pulled it open while trying to concentrate on the winding roadway ahead.

  Yes, the license was in there, and he carried the insurance and registration papers in his glove compartment. At least he thought he did; he popped open the glove compartment just to be sure.

  Sure enough, the documents were there.

  Ray checked the speedometer. He was always a cautious driver and rarely ventured more than a mile or two above the speed limit—at least since he left the military, where he was considered a real “hot rod”—so it couldn’t be that…unless Nevada state troopers were more intolerant of slight speed liberties than he suspected.

  No, it couldn’t be!

  Perhaps the car was from Air Force intelligence, and some military folk were going to pull him over and ask some nasty, pointed questions about why someone in a “classic” car was driving near a top-secret military base at ten o’clock at night. Ray would have to conjure up some really creative excuses to explain that one.

  No sense trying to avoid it. Ray began to slow his car and looked for an emergency lane, as the police car tracked his every movement.

  He found a place to face the music. He pulled over to the emergency lane and stopped. Now Ray had his work cut out for him. He mulled over every conceivable story he could as to why he was out there. The road led directly to Nellis Air Force base and he was traveling at a straight clip, not slowly, as if appearing to look for another exit somewhere. Well, I suppose I could just tell them I got lost and act confused. Of course, then they’d think I was high…

  A flashlight blinded him as he struggled to lower the recalcitrant left window and identify his pursuer.

  The beam flashed so intensely he couldn’t see more than a dark shadow standing on the roadway just a couple of feet from him. Ray blinked, straining to see who was there. He saw a large, thick hand moving toward him as the inevitable request was heard in a dark, intense voice. “License and registration, please.”

  “Is there a problem, Officer?”

  There was only silence as Ray opened his glove compartment, pulled out the papers, and handed them, along with his driver’s license, to the officer.

  Was this really a police officer or an agent from Nellis? His fears of phone taps and covert surveillance seemed more realistic with each passing moment.

  Ray listened hard; he could barely hear the engine of the patrol car that lay motionless behind his vehicle.

  The figure brandishing the flashlight had apparently retreated to his own vehicle. Ray couldn’t hear the sound of footsteps over the chug-chug-chugging of his Mustang’s engine at idle. He turned to peer through the car’s rear window to see what that person was doing.

  Between the bright lights of the patrol car, which seemed to have its high beams on, and its dark interior, Ray could only see the dark figure of someone inside. He imagined the person checking the license and registration on a mobile computer or of a dispatch station being radioed.

  “Mr. Perkins?”


  The voice startled him, and he nearly jumped in fright. His eyes opened wide now, a blinding flashlight shining in his eyes.

  The man was apparently holding the flashlight with his left hand and his right hand, clearly holding Ray’s license and registration, was suddenly thrust inside the open window.

  He reached out and grabbed the papers, trying to time his movements to seem casual. His hand almost began to shake, but he managed to control the motions.

  “Did you notice your left rear tail light isn’t working, Mr. Perkins?”

  “It’s not?” Ray recovered enough to manage a smile of relief. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “You’ve got to get it fixed right away, bud. Otherwise you’ll get a ticket.”

  “No problem. I’ll have it done soon as I find a service station.”

  “Okay, just be sure I don’t catch you this way again. You’re getting really close to the military base.”

  “I was taking a shortcut, that’s all. I’ll head back to the main highway.”

  “Yes, it’ll be much safer that way. It’s pretty rough terrain without four-wheel drive, and you never know what might turn up on these back roads.”

  The flashlight abruptly withdrawn, Ray managed to stop squinting long enough to let his eyes recover gently. He sat in silence as the officer returned to his vehicle, which soon made a U-turn and sped away.

  Ray hadn’t realized how tightly wound he was. It took several minutes for his breathing to slow, his heart to stop pounding, and for the sweat to stop pouring down his face. He grabbed a tissue from the back seat and wiped his forehead.

  He slowly began to drive back towards his destination, not fully satisfied the encounter with the patrol car was so innocuous. Perhaps they weren’t just checking him out. He thought of that veiled warning: “You never know what might turn up on these back roads.”

  Maybe that policeman was really someone from the Air Force base after all. Maybe he just stopped him as a ruse to see what he was up to, and get his personal identification. Even now, Ray’s military record may have been broadcast to the security team he expected to find at Nellis. Perhaps they were already warned about his arrival and were waiting to grab him.

  At this point, having come this far, he just didn’t care. What could they do to him that years of recurring nightmares and sleepless nights hadn’t done? After all the torture he’d faced, perhaps a few years in prison would be a relief….

  This is ridiculous. I’ve got to stop thinking that way! Depression is not going to help me right now.

  Ray shook his head again, hoping to clear those thoughts from his mind, but without much success.

  He could see searchlights just ahead, apparently focused on a large fence that flanked a stone wall of some sort. Both lined the perimeter of a huge installation of low buildings that surrounded what appeared to be a huge hangar, a hangar housing…what?

  He imagined all sorts of top-secret craft might exist there. Stealth fighters, silent jet engines, sophisticated jamming devices, maybe even devices spawned from some sort of alien technology.

  It wasn’t just the supermarket tabloids that were filled with claims, gossip, and “informed speculation” about such things. Some of the legitimate news organizations got into the act.

  The lights were not bright enough to pick out details, but Ray couldn’t miss the large guardhouse that lay just around a curve on the road right in front of the fence.

  Ray felt thoroughly exhausted, emotionally drained, and longed for a hot shower and a few hours of sleep. None of these options seemed to be on his plate for a very, very long time, even if he got out of this place without getting caught.

  Ray began to look for a place to conceal his car among the bushes lining the side of the road. He switched the headlights to high beams for a split second to get a better view.

  He nearly ran down a dark figure of a man who suddenly appeared directly in front of him.

  He veered his car to the side of the road and kicked up a large pile of dust as he struggled to bring the vehicle to a stop before it struck a nearby tree trunk.

  He gritted his teeth as his car’s brakes put up a nasty squeal.

  Ray was about to reach for a flashlight from the glove compartment when the figure caught up to him, a slender, bespectacled, gray-haired man of medium height, wearing old, dark-colored battle fatigues. The face was clean-shaven, with just a few wrinkles around his mouth, flashing that unmistakable grin. It was Colonel Gonzales.

  Ray got out of his car, slammed the door, and said in a low almost embarrassed voice, “Damn it, sir, I could have killed you.”

  “And you’re still a sorry-looking soldier.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Ray responded with a broad smile and a sharp salute.

  In a rush, Ray began to recite every irritating element of the trip, but Gonzales shushed him. “We don’t have time for chitchat. Your car kicked up a hell of a fuss over there. It’s bound to attract attention.”

  The old soldier’s voice took on an unexpected note of authority, “All right, now, take a look at this.”

  It wasn’t a request; it sounded like an order, and Ray had to obey his commanding officer.

  With casual efficiency, Gonzales handed him a map; hardly more than a crumpled piece of white paper, showing a crude ink drawing of the base. Ray stared at it in the dim light of the overhead searchlights. He saw entrance points clearly labeled “Suggested Routes,” an elevator and something labeled “Laboratory.”

  “Where the hell did you get this?”

  “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.” Gonzales smiled. “I got it from the same person who made arrangements for you to get inside that base. Let me tell you, it cost me a whole lot of favors to old friends and almost ten thousand bucks.”

  “I can repay you….”

  “No you can’t….”

  “I insist….”

  Gonzales shook his head.

  “I owe you one.”

  Gonzales just shook his head again. He quickly changed the subject, motioning toward Ray to look at the map. “Now listen carefully. Once you’ve entered the compound, walk right to the old hangar just ahead. There should be enough shrubbery around for you to stay away from prying eyes.”

  Ray looked at the tattered piece of paper that had estimated distances and locations noted in thick dark ink. Gonzales was nothing, if not thorough.

  “Once you get inside the hangar…if you get inside, that is…you’ll find a small elevator. See, it’s there on the map, at the rear of the hangar. Hidden somewhere to the left of the elevator is a security panel; it looks just like the keypad on a phone. Just remember the numbers seven, fourteen, and seventy, press enter and you’ll be home free. Once you’re inside, it should take you down to Level S4, where the alien bodies are supposedly hidden—or at least that’s what the UFO buffs think. Still want to do it?” asked Gonzales.

  Ray nodded his head, took a long look at the desert and the sparse shrubs, spying his faithful Mustang in the distance. He had a sinking feeling it would be a long time before he saw any of this again, a feeling he couldn’t shake however hard he tried.

  He looked around and began to take a more studied look at the “infamous” Nellis Air Force Base. He had read about all those rumors about Area 51, but here was the real thing. It didn’t look all that strange, at least not from the outside.

  They walked slowly, almost on tiptoe to avoid kicking up dust on the gravel surface, or possibly making too much noise. They were just to the left of the base’s main entrance, closing in. Gonzales seemed totally oblivious to his surroundings. The old soldier just continued a steady pace, showing no visible emotion. Ray, however, couldn’t miss the unmistakable signs that his older companion was quite as nervous as he. He could clearly see the sweat dripping down Gonzales’ back and face. Perhaps the veteran soldier just managed to hide his emotions a little better.

  They were only a few yards away from the fence.

 
; Ray couldn’t miss the thin wires covering the fence, clearly indicating they were electrified, and he assumed other protection measures were present. Motion detectors, infrared cameras, and advanced security devices he couldn’t even imagine.

  “Time is short, Ray. You can look around once I get you inside.”

  Ray nodded, and Gonzales led him dangerously close to the fence, just a few feet away from the guardhouse. “Come. I had them shut down the power for a couple of minutes.”

  Without a second’s thought, they walked right up to the fence. Ray trusted Gonzales enough to know the security measures had been temporarily disabled.

  Suddenly, without warning, part of the fence started pulling away, revealing the stone wall and a walkway leading to what appeared to be a door.

  As Ray prepared to start moving inside the compound, Gonzales held up his hand, in a warning gesture.

  “Getting in there is easy. Then there’s the hard part.”

  Ray groaned. That was not what he wanted to hear.

  “The second problem—well, hopefully the security guards are mostly asleep now,” whispered Gonzales. “They are on call at night, but they usually nod off by this time unless they hear the alarm….”

  Gonzales stopped, took out his cell phone, and dialed a number. Ray saw a sentry enter the guardhouse, pick up a phone, and say a few words. In response, Gonzales uttered some barely understandable syllables that Ray took to be some sort of password.

  Gonzales pulled out a small flashlight from his right rear pocket, turning it on and off three times. Within seconds, a couple of flashes were seen from inside the compound, evidently in acknowledgement.

  The old soldier smiled at Ray.

  “That’s it, Manny? My freedom depends on a few flashes of light?”

  “Light brings hope, Ray; maybe it’s a good omen for the future.”

  Ray said nothing for a moment. His voice seemed hollow, as if it came from someone else, “I suppose we’d better get going.”