A man holding a rifle moved slowly out of the tree line and appeared to be looking at the shed. While he was distracted by Sally's loud cries coming from inside, Betty jumped down onto the brick patio. She went to the double doors that led down to the cellar and looked at the rusty padlock that held it shut.
Reaching down she grabbed and squeezed it.
The metal made a soft squeaking noise before popping open. She slid the ruined padlock in her pants pocket and opened a door to the cellar. Taking the sphere down the cellar steps she pulled shut the door behind her.
*****
Colonel Wilcox felt his fingers aching from the bitter cold in the morgue and shoved his hands into the borrowed parka's pockets. He felt something inside and pulled out a pair of thick gloves. Quickly slipping them on, he continued down the narrow hallway checking the drawers for Aswan's name tag. One drawer had a red tag tied to the handle.
Pursuant to Federal Regulation DMP 4521-1964 the remains herein are under no circumstances to be disturbed in any manner, until relatives are contacted, under penalty of law.
Wilcox had seen a few warning tags like this before.
Military personnel, of all service branches, had the right to have their remains returned to their family undisturbed. It was one of the hundreds of forms new soldiers had to fill out during their induction process. Most people never even bothered to sign it and those who did usually had religious reasons for doing so.
Wilcox ignored the tag and pulled open the drawer holding Colonel Aswan Hussein's remains.
Body bags are made out of a thick tough plastic that usually lay flat against the corpse. Sometimes, if body bags containing a corpse were stored out in the sun under hot conditions for an extended period of time they would puff up slightly.
While serving in Iraq at a remote outpost one of the bodies had been mislaid and hadn't been found for three days. The bag in that case looked very similar to Aswan's. The natural decomposition process had released various gases which in turn had inflated the body bag.
Wilcox had been extremely pissed off on that occasion, but standing in the back of a freezing cold morgue he was confused. It just shouldn't look like that. It's like a balloon at some demented birthday party, he thought, reaching for the zipper while at the same time considering just leaving it alone. I know he wasn't human. Aswan even admitted he wasn't. What if it's some kind of poison gas in there? Taking a deep breath, he yanked the zipper down in one swift movement.
A cloud of foul smelling steamy air rushed out making Wilcox back up a few steps. Even while holding his breath, he could smell a combination of burnt and spoiled bacon or ham among other nastier more difficult to recognize aromas. Fighting back the urge to vomit, he peered in the bag and saw most of the body had somehow already decomposed into a vile looking soup of blood, bones, organs, intestines, and small patches of skin.
He checked his watch and realized Aswan had been dead for less than eight hours.
In the lower abdominal area there were several small broken white round things roughly the size of bird eggs. Poking one with the tip of his pen, it bobbed in the soup of fluids. Thinking they might be important, he steered several of the shell fragments alongside what looked like a piece of large intestines.
Gotta find something to put them in, he thought looking around.
A small plastic cooler was at the end of the trailer on the floor.
Hurrying over and lifting it, he felt its lightness and realized it was empty. On the lid it had a sticker with the words 'For Organ Donation use ONLY!' written on it. Under the sticker someone had scribbled with a marker 'Put your beer in an empty drawer'.
Popping the cooler lid open, he tried to fish out some of the shell fragments with his pen but the smell seemed to be getting worse by the moment. His eyes were watering as his stomach rumbled uneasily.
“Fuck it,” he muttered and reached into the soupy mess to scoop them out with his gloved hand.
“Hey, what's that stink down there!?” The orderly called out, from the door to the morgue.
Looking over Wilcox shouted back, “None of your damn busine- Ahhh!”
The private heard Wilcox screaming and yelling for help. He stood irresolute outside the morgue trailer as images of every horror movie about zombies and other monsters flashed through his mind. Nope. This is where some poor sap gets killed running in trying to help. Not me, no thanks.
Deciding prudence was the best course of action, he slammed shut the heavily insulated doors on the back of the refrigerated truck morgue and locked them. Muffled yells, screams, and threats came through the door as the orderly turned and ran away.
*****
Wiggling his toes through the warm mud as he reclined in the large sunken tiled tub, Admiral Branson felt wonderfully relaxed. He'd finished with his lady friends over an hour earlier and had been fighting against his drooping eyelids for most of that time. Yawning, he was considering getting out of the tub when the door to the bathroom was flung open and four military police ran inside.
“What do you think you're doing!?” He bellowed, suddenly wide awake and extremely pissed off.
“Room's clear!” One of them called back through the open doorway.
General Heller and Captain Rockford walked in and looked down at the naked sputtering red faced admiral. “Sergeant, you and your men may wait in the outer room. If the admiral attempts to leave the room without us, you are to shoot him dead immediately. Do you understand?”
“Sir, yes sir,” the sergeant said, before leading his squad out of the bathroom.
General Heller sat down on tiled bench and looked at Rockford. “See if you can find a thermostat for this room, captain. It's a little too stuffy for my taste.”
Rockford nodded and began looking at the walls for the thermostat.
“Brent, I don't know how to put this, so let me be blunt. Aswan Hussein is dead,” Heller said with no expression on his face.
“That's terrible news, but still no excuse for you to come charging in here with your tribe of trained gorillas,” Branson said sulkily, sinking back into the tub.
“Aren't you curious about the circumstances leading to his death? About some of the interesting things he told us before his head was blown apart, perhaps?”
“Please do tell, but if it's not the greatest story I've ever heard I'll have your ass for this,” Branson said, looking down at the mud instead of Heller's face.
“Don't try and play coy Brent. We've played poker together for far too long for that to work. I can see it in your face. How long have you known about and worked with them?”
Captain Rockford had turned down the thermostat and found the bar. He grabbed two bottles of water and handed the general one of them.
“Take notes for me,” Heller said to the captain, as he twisted the cap off his water bottle.
“Sebastian, listen to me. Be reasonable. I can't say anything about this in front of a mere captain,” Branson said, then added, “Would you grab a bottle of water for me too, please?”
“You can call me by my first name again after I get some answers and not before. And Captain Rockford will be staying. He has my fullest confidence. Besides, I'm still tempted to just have you shot and unless you start explaining I might just do it myself,” Heller said, in a soft yet angry tone of voice.
“Unless you want to see my saggy naked body covered in mud going to get it myself, bring me some water,” Branson said.
Rockford handed his bottle to him and opened his notepad.
After sipping some water, Admiral Brent Branson sighed and started to speak while the captain began taking notes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Bad dreams, worse reality
“It's a joke, right?” Dr. Everson asked, as he looked at the small milky white cube set atop the examination table.
“No sir. I'm sorry we had to come get you, but General Heller wanted answers about this thing and so far all we have is a lot of questions,” the young technician said, stifling a ya
wn.
“You woke me up, dragged me out of bed, and drove me to God knows where to look at a paperweight? I'm the head of the University's Physics program. What the heck do I know about knick knacks?”
“Um, well sir, it might be a lot more complicated than I can explain. We have reason to believe it’s actually an object of extra terrestrial origin. You know, something aliens use.”
The doctor looked at him and waited for the punch line.
Doctor Andrew Everson, PhD in theoretical physics scratched his butt with one hand while rubbing at his stubble covered chin with the other and asked for a cup of coffee as he walked over to the table.
Several bright lights were shining down on the worktable with the cube in the center.
He pulled over a clipboard as read through the facts known about it. Origin: Colonel Aswan Hussein. Size: Five centimeters, square. Weight: One gram. Coloration: Milky White. Reflectivity: nil. Magnetic properties: nil. Radioactivity: nil.
Grabbing one of the spotlights, he lowered it to within a few inches of the cube and saw for himself that there was no reflection. Sipping the coffee, he asked for a pair of examination gloves and looked intrigued.
After he slid on the gloves he tapped the cube with a pen asking, “Where is this Hussein guy? I'd like to ask him a few things.”
“He's dead,” the technician said.
“Hmm. That's a shame. Do you have a spectrograph analyzer here?” Everson asked, as he listened to the dull tapping sound coming from the cube as he poked it with his pen.
“Yes sir. Should I get it ready?”
Everson glanced at him over his shoulder and said, “No, I'll just sit here in my pajamas and robe and tap it until I discover everything I need to know.”
“You're being sarcastic, right?”
“Very good. Now get it set up while I go find the bathroom. And have some video cameras set up,” Everson said, as he walked across the trailer floor.
“There's built in camera's already on the walls and ceiling. The feeds go to the command center and our computer server over there in the corner,” he explained, wheeling a large cart to the table.
“Are they recording already?” Everson asked, from the doorway.
“Yes sir, why?”
“I'm just glad I didn't fart or anything for future generations to enjoy,” he said, and laughed walking down the hallway.
*****
“Sheriff, we we're moving up the driveway to the McGee's house when we heard multiple gunshots coming from inside a few seconds ago. Over,” the deputy whispered into his mike as he, his partner, and Shannon Mendez ducked down behind a truck parked in front of the house.
Shannon looked cautiously around the side and saw a flashlight beam and then another in the woods off to the left of the house.
“Roger that. We're probably five minutes from there. Do not move in and don't let Duprat know you're there unless he tries to leave. Secure the perimeter and wait if you can. We're coming as fast as we can. Over and out,” the sheriff's voice came back over the radio.
“Deputy, there's someone over there near the woods,” Mendez whispered, pointing toward the flashlight beams.
“Damn, its gotta be Avery and his buddies. He's gonna fuck this up if Orlando sees him.”
“Looks like they're heading for the back of the house,” she whispered.
“Okay, just a second. You stay here and watch the front. If Orlando comes out let him come down the porch steps then order him onto the ground. If he won't comply take him down, hard. I'm going around back and try to get Avery and his pals to shut off their flashlights,” the deputy whispered to his partner.
“I'm coming with you,” Mendez whispered.
The deputy nodded before stooping over and running across the wet grass alongside the house.
Mendez followed closely, trusting the deputy to watch for any obstructions. She kept her eyes on the brightly lit house. It looked like every light was on inside. She kept hoping it hadn't been Hicks who'd been shot as they ran. He's a pompous asshole, but I hope he's okay.
Hicks wiggled the bobby pin into the lock of the handcuffs and swore breath as he started to sweat. Why does it always look so easy in the movies? he wondered.
Sally felt her heart galloping in her chest while watching the man trying to pick the lock. She had to bite her tongue to keep from making suggestions or telling him to hurry up. It could have been anyone shooting or getting shot at. Thomas and Betty probably aren't home anyway. Besides, if they were here they'd have come looking for me by now.
She heard wet leaves being walked through outside and fought down the urge to scream as the sound grew louder.
Avery held his flashlight beam down and wondered at the small trail of shoe prints in the mud. Having tracked deer for decades he'd been puzzled by the depth of the shoes. Even considering the rain, the tracks were very deep for someone with such a small foot. The only thing that made sense was that whoever made them was very fat or carrying something extremely heavy. Or maybe it's someone fat carrying something heavy, he thought.
Garvins whispered something as they followed the tracks toward the shed.
Avery stopped and whispered, “What?”
“I said, there's someone coming toward us over there,” he whispered back, pointing.
Avery saw two people running stooped over and lowered his rifle. “It's okay,” He managed to say just before the other man with them started firing at the running figures.
A scream came from inside the shed.
One figure fell and the other shouted, “FBI, don't shoot!”
“Aww fuck,” the man who fired said.
Avery wanted to hit him, but turned toward the shed with great difficulty instead. The scream coming from inside sounded like a woman's. He wondered if it belonged to a fat woman with little feet.
When the gun fired and the old lady screamed, Hicks dropped the bobby pin. It bounced off the hood of the riding mower and fell somewhere on the ground. He heard the familiar voice of his partner outside and wondered if she'd been shot. While it was true he'd spent most of the day cursing her for abandoning him that morning, the idea she might be hurt or in danger forced him to feel something for her he thought impossible a minute earlier; concern.
“Shannon! It's me, Hicks! We're locked up in the garage!”
Avery and Garvins spun around and looked at the lock on the door. Avery lifted his rifle and aimed at the padlock.
Grunting and half carrying the wounded deputy, Mendez tried to warn him not to shoot but Avery fired before she was close enough to be heard.
The bullet dented the padlock and ricocheted back into the excited face of Garvins who had been holding the flashlight for his friend.
The group was cast into darkness as Mendez arrived and set the deputy against the wall of the building.
Garvins screamed as he fell back onto the ground rolling around in the muddy leaves.
A great deal of confusion followed as they discovered the flashlight had been broken.
Harrison's frantically repeated questions went unanswered over the unconscious deputy's radio as Garvins howled and writhed in pain.
Betty climbed up the stairs and opened the door to the hallway. In the living room, she saw Orlando nervously looking outside along the edge of the curtains. A soft moan came from the bathroom and through the shattered remains of the door she saw Thomas sprawled across the floor.
Turning back toward the living room, she saw Orlando holding a pistol in his hand still looking out the window. Moving through the hall, almost running, she came up behind him as he started to turn. She reached over, yanked the gun out of his hand, and tossed the surprised man across the room as if he weighed little more than a rag doll.
Finding himself unaccountably flying through the air, he managed a shocked “Wha-” before slamming against Sally's curio cabinet and the wall behind it. Hundreds of obliterated knick knacks crashed to the floor along with the remains of the cabinet and Orlando's un
conscious and slightly lacerated body.
Still distant but fast approaching sirens could be heard along with someone screaming outside.
Staring down at Orlando, Betty stood motionless.
*****
“This is a long story, Sebastian. Would you mind if I got out of this tub of mud and got cleaned up?” Admiral Branson asked.
“I think I like you right where you are, for the time being. Now quit stalling. Tell me what the hell is going on and stop calling me by my first name, damn it. I've had a really bad day and I'm extremely unhappy about this fucked up situation but I promise you this if you don't tell me the truth, this will be your last bath,” General Heller said scowling.
A fart bubble surfaced in the tub and Branson smiled weakly before speaking. “Sorry. Let me begin by assuring you it's nothing sinister or evil. They've been here for a very long time. I found out about them by accident at the end of World War 2. We would have lost that war without their help, by the way.”
“They fought in the war?” Heller asked in disbelief.
“Several wars, over the centuries, actually. From what I understand, since they've been here they've fought off aliens to protect humanity on no less than a dozen different occasions. Not all races of aliens want to live and let live like they do. They're not monsters with an anal probe fetish or a deep burning hunger for human brains either.”
Captain Rockford was busily scribbling down notes, as Heller looked deep in thought. After a few seconds he said, “You say they helped defeat the Nazis in the Second World War. Is there any proof of this?”
“If you remember correctly you'll recall The Tehran Conference, codenamed Eureka, which took place in Iran sometime around late 1943.”
“Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin did have a meeting in Tehran. So what?”
“Did you ever consider it odd that they chose to meet in Iran, of all places?”
Heller shrugged indifferently, as Branson continued, “They went there because if they didn't agree to it, the aliens threatened either to not help the allies or join forces with the Third Reich.”