I'd put about a hundred miles between me and The Booby Trap when the little orange light by my fuel gauge lit up. There hadn't been any sign of the purple eyed people, but I was still apprehensive to stop.
The black guy in the Navigator had kept in front of me, which made me feel a little better. He seemed to be somewhat aware of what was going on, and he knew my name somehow... I guess he could've overheard me introducing myself to Misty, though, so it was possible that he really didn't know anything more than I did.
Suddenly, there was a loud pop at the back of my tractor accompanied by a cloud of smoke billowing from the nose of my trailer. The heads-up-display mounted on my reefer flashed red -- the unit was no longer running. I wasn't all that concerned, though -- so far as I cared, whatever was back there could melt...
The information sign approaching an exit ahead declared that there was a fuel station with diesel, so I considered pulling off in case it was the last one for a while in this wide open farmland area. I was still thinking about it when the Navigator moved over to take the off ramp. I wasn't sure whether that was a signal that he wanted me to follow or not, but I was curious to know who this man was anyhow -- so I did.
The station was very small, just a simple little shack of a convenience store surrounded by pumps for cars with one lone set of diesel pumps for semis around back. Before I was able to get Big Red pulled up to the fuel island, the Navigator stopped in front of me.
The black man got out and held up his index finger, mouthing the words hold on as he surveyed the place. Seeing as it was two in the morning and there wasn't any truck parking, the joint was empty. Still, the stranger walked around the entirety of the building, scanning with his eyes like he was on a S.W.A.T. team insertion or something. He weaved side to side a little to get a good look at the attendant inside the store; she must've thought he was a lunatic.
Apparently convinced that we were safe, he gave me a thumbs up before getting back in his truck and moving forward enough for me to line my rig up with the pumps. The first thing I did was retrieve my little electronic idol from the passenger seat. It lit up blue immediately, to my relief... Glowing Jesus was back in the saddle. I cautiously stepped out, leaving Big Red's engine churning away in case we had to make a quick exit.
Out of instinct, I jumped up on the catwalk at the back of my tractor to check out the silent reefer unit. I flipped the switch to the off position and then back on, hoping it would simply start back up. The red light on the HUD started flashing immediately, so I manually cleared the error code by jockeying through the computerized menu and tried starting the engine manually. The motor didn't even try to turn over; it clicked and made a grinding noise that didn't sound healthy at all.
When I threw open the guard doors, I saw why immediately. The line between the oil reservoir and the engine was gone... it could've blown out under pressure, or been removed intentionally; I couldn't tell. It was gone, though, which isn't a good thing. As a result, there was filthy black oil all over the engine compartment with what looked like metal shavings sprinkled around like confetti. The engine had run dry and seized; the unit was dead.
The man from the Navigator approached me as I was checking it out.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"My reefer -- it's dead!"
"Will it run?"
"Hell no, the damn thing is shot!"
"Christ -- that means we have less time than I thought! Hurry up and pump the fuel so we can get out of here!"
I obliged, quickly unscrewing the driver's side tank cap. I dug out my fleet card and went to swipe it through the pump terminal only to realize that this was one of those old-school units with no credit card reader.
Removing the nozzle and flipping the on lever, I squeezed the trigger a bit to see if it would work. A little woman inside the station was staring out at me through the large windows as I did, so I held up my card hoping she would turn the system on for me.
"Prepay only after dark!" She said into a silver microphone sprouting out of the counter next to her cash register, her voice being carried over the station's intercom. "And my card machine is out of order, so you'll have to pay cash."
"Shit!" I snapped, tossing the nozzle to the ground in my frustration. "What are we supposed to do now?"
"Just pay her cash!" The black man suggested, standing next to me now and staring right back at the woman.
"Right, let me just get my wallet and pull out twelve hundred bucks! Sorry pal, I don't carry that kind of scratch around with me!"
"Alright." He replied casually. "Then we just go with plan b -- sit tight, I'll be right out."
The man jogged over to the building and marched inside, walking up to the counter. He reached into his back pocket, as though digging for his wallet, as he spoke with the attendant. Whatever he was saying didn't seem to be convincing her of anything, as she was simply shaking her head at him. From his wallet he pulled some sort of paper, definitely wasn't cash, and placed it down on the counter in front of the woman. She seemed to be reading something off of it for a moment, before she eventually looked back up and him and shook her head again.
Seeming frustrated, he held his hand over his brow and rubbed it, then spoke to her again. I was getting anxious at this point. The way he had scoped the place out made me nervous that one of those glowing eyed folks was gonna jump out and grab me at any minute. I picked the fuel nozzle up and jiggled the on switch a couple of times, hoping it would cause something inside to beep and alert him of my discomfort.
Apparently my hijinks did cause some sort of noise on the woman's control board, as she leaned over the console next to her register and pounded on it. The black man saw an opportunity and took it immediately, reaching over the counter and cupping his hands around the back of her head. Then he yanked her down, slamming her face viciously into the counter with all the force and leverage his size gave him.
It looked like something you'd see on one of those security camera shows about shocking hold-ups. I don't know whether she was conscious after the first shot or not, but she was definitely out cold after he yanked her up by the hair and drove her head back down again.
In all my life, I've never seen an innocent woman pummeled like that before... I froze up, just staring at this stranger as he hurled the poor attendant to the floor. At that point, he jumped over the counter and hurriedly looked over the controls. After fiddling with something there for a second, he grabbed the microphone she had spoken to us through and pressed a button that carried his frantic breathing over the loudspeakers.
"Hurry, Randy!" He shouted. "Pump the gas! She's not gonna stay out forever!"
Now I've never stolen anything, but this seemed like an awfully good time to start -- considering everything that had happened. I wasn't thrilled about it, but I flipped the switch on the pump again and started the waterfall of diesel flowing into my tank. Fearing what the man might do should the attendant wake up, I quite literally ran over to the satellite pump and started it up as well.
The man was rummaging around inside the shop for a few minutes before he finally came out. He was carrying several bottles of water, bags of chips and little snack cakes. I gave him a look that he seemed to understand, leading him to shrug his shoulders and defend himself vigorously.
"We can't afford to stop any more than we have to!" He announced. "They're clearly onto us, they will try to stand in our way."
"What the hell are they?" I asked. "Who are you - and what in God's name is in the back of my truck?"
"My name is Evander Hughes, I'm a friend -- and they're the bad guys." He said quickly, handing me a few of the waters and pitching the rest into his truck. "What you're hauling is very important, and must be delivered as soon as is possible. That's all I can tell you right now, Randy, it'll just have to be good enough."
"Bullshit!" I barked. "I don't have the slightest idea what's going on here, but I don't want anything to do with it! I
don't know what you think I'm gonna do -- but once my tanks are full, I intend to drop this trailer right here and race home as quickly as I can! That woman at the bar threatened my son's life -- based on how scared you seem to be, I figure I need to get to him fast!"
"I wish it were that simple, Randy, I really do -- it would make my job a lot easier! It's not gonna work that way, though, and that's just the bottom line! When those tanks are full, you're gonna do just like you're supposed to do... drive that damned truck to Cape Canaveral! I'll be right with you the whole way, I promise... I won't let anything happen to you, you have my word!"
"Yeah -- well what about my son? What about Sammy? Those things are monsters man, and they said they're gonna be after him!"
"They will be -- they'll do whatever they have to do to get you to take this load where they want it! They're savages to the highest degree -- they won't be stopped."
"Perfect - even more reason for me to ditch this trailer, which is now all torn up by the way, and run off to protect my family!"
"If you do that, you'll die." He returned ominously. "We'll all die... me, you, your friend Janet -- and your boy."
"Who the fuck are you?" I shouted, now more furious and enraged than afraid of whatever might be lurking in the darkness. "How do you know my name? How do you know about Janet and Sammy? What the fuck do you want?!"
"I want to survive, Randy -- I want us all to survive! Where is your son?"
"He's in Tampa -- with his mother."
"As soon as we're out of here, you call her... tell her to take him and run! It doesn't matter where -- just get him out of the house and away from anything that you're familiar with. She can't tell you where she is -- where they're going."
"Why not?"
"You remember that coffee you drank when you picked up this load in Oceanside?"
I thought back, the scene at the shipyard seemingly having taken place ages ago after what I'd been through since. "Yeah." I replied, remembering the switcher driver handing me the Styrofoam cup when I woke up. "Yeah, I do remember."
"Do you remember the strange particles at the bottom of the cup? One of them probably went down pretty rough, right?"
"The grounds -- yes, I remember thinking that it must be instant, because there were grounds at the bottom."
"Those weren't coffee grounds, Randy, and the big one wasn't just a chunk of undissolved powder. This is a military operation, buddy, overseen by General Richard Tomlinson and a branch of the army known as DETA... the Department of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs! They couldn't just load you up with something as sensitive as what you've got in that trailer and turn you loose without being sure they had control!"
"Extra-Terrestrial? This is fuckin' crazy! Where's Rod Serling, I know this is the god damned Twilight Zone! They told me I was pulling ice blocks! What the hell was in that coffee?"
"It was a chip... it's inside of you now; monitoring your heartbeat, your synaptic functions, your location -- everything. If you move more than a half a mile from this trailer, it will do what it was designed to... kill you."
"What?" I cried. "That's bullshit! Why the hell would they do something like that?"
"They couldn't risk your cargo falling into the hands of The Phloxans -- the bad guys. The chip was meant to protect you from them just as much as to keep them from getting the load... if they tried to haul you off for torture and interrogation, it would kill you quickly to spare you the misery. It may be able to read your thoughts too -- I don't know. If it can and the others get the information, they'll be able to find your boy. They won't kill you -- but they might hurt him to get to you."
"What stops them from killing me?"
"The chip -- It also links you to what is in your trailer. If you die, it dies... the bad guys definitely don't want that."
"It? You mean to tell me there's something alive in there?"
Before he could answer, the pump clicked and the flow of fuel stopped -- the tanks were full.
"There's no time, Randy! Screw on the caps and let's get out of here before they come!"
Suddenly, we heard a clunk over the speakers in the station's canopy. The both of us looked into the shop, seeing the attendant pulling herself up from the ground by yanking on the microphone's boom.
"Shit!" Hughes exclaimed, the woman's bloodied face rising to reveal fiery violet eyes in her skull. "Let's go, Randy! Let's go NOW!"
I flopped the nozzles on the ground quickly, not bothering to hang them up, and re-capped my tanks. The Navigator squealed off in front of me, Big Red doing her damnedest to get my heavy load rolling as the woman stumbled out of the station.
Hughes rolled right through the red light at the first intersection we encountered, so I followed. We got back on the freeway without delay and pressed on, my heart beating even faster than we were cruising.
I was confused -- and more than just a little. Randy Johnston is a pretty simple man; I don't spend much time thinking about things like extra-terrestrials or the paranormal -- Hell, I don't even believe in ghosts... I didn't know what to think about this Evander Hughes and his crazy story about DETA or whatever it was called, but I knew he didn't appear to be trying to kill me -- and that was more than I could say about the people with the purple eyes.
The bit about the chip inside of me seemed like some science-fiction nonsense, but what information did I have to dispute it? The conspiracy theorists seem to believe all that crap about black helicopters and mind control -- maybe they were right after all? One thing was for sure; I wasn't about to move more than a half a mile from my load until I was absolutely positive that there was no killer chip.
My encounter with Hughes had left me with more questions than answers. He made it clear that Sammy was in danger, though... whatever I did, I had to make sure he was safe.
I tried to call his mother again... her cell still went directly to voicemail, and the home line rang forever. They were likely sleeping again and couldn't hear it, so I had to try something else.
Panic was clouding my mind, so it took a minute for me to decide that I needed to send Janet over to their house. Saying a little prayer, I dialed her number and pressed send. Thank God -- she answered.
"Hello?" She moaned, obviously half asleep.
"Janet!" I spewed out quickly. "Wake up, sweetie, I need your help!"
"Randy?" She continued groggily. "What's wrong, sugar, it's so late!"
"I know girl, and I'm sorry -- but it's an emergency!"
"My God, has something happened to Sammy?"
"No -- well, not yet. He's in trouble though, Misses Jan, and I need you to go wake he and his mother up right now!"
"What for, Randy?"
"There's no time for me to explain - just go wake them up and tell them that they have to get in their car and run! They can't tell me where they're going, they just have to get far away and stay there until I call back and say otherwise, okay?"
"Randy, I don't understand."
"Please Misses Jan!" I shouted. "Please just go -- now! Go tell them they have to leave right away!"
"Okay, sweetheart." She finally conceded. "I'll call you when I get there."
"Thank you, Misses Jan -- I'll tell you more about what's going on once they're out, just hurry!"
As I hung up, I noticed the number for Sun Spot Logistics in my call history. I figured there was a chance that they might know something about what was happening -- who exactly the shipper was and what I was pulling around the country. Desperate for answers of my own, I called them.
After a few rings I got that operator tone -- then a message that the number I had dialed was no longer in service. I called 411, hoping to get another number to reach them at -- but the man I spoke with wasn't able to find anything on file for them at all.
There wasn't anything else I could do -- so I just drove, following behind this Evander Hughes as we raced down the road.
Cha
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