by Jerry
“We understand,” Abigail said as the car pulled into the drive. “It took us time to decide to contact you. Will you stay with us while they decide?”
I shook my head automatically. “I can’t. I have other talks scheduled, and other commitments.”
They looked at each other and agreed, then let me go to bed, where the note Melinda had left fluttered in my brief uneasy dreams: “I have to leave, Jack. I think we made a mistake.”
When morning came, the sisters greeted me with a big bowl of hearty home-cooked oatmeal and a glass of milk. It reminded me of my maiden aunt’s house in Glens Falls, where as a child I would hide from the busy world for a few days each summer. As I ate, they asked what the Brysst had said when I met them.
I swallowed the cereal and looked up at the sisters. The game was over. “I’m a fraud,” I said flatly. “The Brysst are a hoax my ex cooked up. She took off and left me stuck with them. Without this con, I’d be flipping burgers somewhere.”
The biological constructs stared immobile at me, not programmed to deal with such unwanted truths. Back on the space ship, the real aliens must have been upset. I felt suspended in time as the sisters stared blankly; when one finally spoke, I felt freed.
“She must have known them. Where is she?”
There was no threat in the words, but I shivered. Were the aliens deaf to my words? Or was it I who had been deaf? Deaf to Melinda and only opening my ears to hear when they had shown me a reality I could not deny?
“Oregon,” I said. Her note had said she was going back. She had shown me the town on a map, the one where once we had sat and traced the wanderings of our lives. It was in the Willamette Valley. She had said it was a beautiful place.
“Can you find her?”
“I don’t know.” Melinda could have wandered far in two years. I stopped before my mind could start down the well-worn path of excuses and lies. Only Melinda would know the truth, and I wanted to know it as much as the Waverlys did. “We’ll have to try.”
While the sisters brewed coffee for me, I left a message telling Angie to cancel the rest of the tour, and booked three seats on a flight to Oregon.
1998
ALIENS ATE MY PICKUP
Mercedes Lackey
Yes’m, I’m serious. Aliens ate my pickup. Only it weren’t really aliens, jest one, even though it was my Chevy four-ton, and he was a little bitty feller, not like some Japanese giant thing . . . an’ he didn’t really eat it, he just kinda chewed it up a little, look, you can see the teeth-marks on the bumper here an’ . . .
Oh, start at the beginin’ ? Well, all right, I guess.
My name? It’s Jed, Jed Pryor. I was born an’ raised on this farm outsida Claremore, been here all my life. Well, ‘cept for when I went t’ OU.
What? Well, heck fire, sure I graduated!
What? Well, what makes you thank Okies tawk funny?
Degree? You bet I gotta degree! I gotta Batchler in Land Management right there on the wall of m’living room and—
Oh, the alien. Yeah, well, it was dark of the moon, middle of this June, when I was out doin’ some night-fishin’ on m’pond. Stocked it about five years ago with black an’ stripy bass, just let ’em be, started fishin’ it this year. I’m tellin’ you, I got a five pounder on m’third cast this spring an’—
Right, the alien. Well, I was out there drownin’ a coupla lures about midnight, makin’ the fish laugh, when wham! all of a sudden the sky lights up like Riverparks on Fourth of July. I mean t’tell you, I haven’t seen nothin’ like that in all my born days! I ‘bout thought them scifi writers lives over on the next farm had gone an’ bought out one’a them fireworks factories in Tennessee again, like they did just before New Years. Boy howdy, that was a night! I swan, it looked like the sky over ol’ Baghdad, let me tell you! Good thing they warned us they was gonna set off some doozies, or—
Right, the night’a them aliens. Well, anyway, the sky lit up, but it was all over in lessn’ a minute, so I figgered it couldn’t be them writers. Now, we get us some weird stuff ev’ry now an’ again, y’know, what with MacDac—that’s MacDonald-Douglas t’you—bein’ right over the county line an’ all, well I just figgered they was testin’ somethin’ that I wasn’t supposed t’ know about an’ I went back t’ drownin’ worms.
What? Why didn’ I think it was a UFO? Ma’am, what makes you thank Okies got hayseeds in their haids? I got a satylite dish on m’front lawn, I watch NASA channel an’ PBS an’ science shows all the time, an’ I got me a subscription t’ Skeptical Inquirer, an’ I ain’t never seen nothin’ t’make me think there was such a thang as UFOs. Nope, I purely don’t believe in ’em. Or I didn’t, anyway.
So, like I was sayin’ I went back t’ murderin’ worms an’ makin’ the bass laugh, an’ finally got tired’a bein’ the main course fer the skeeters an’ chiggers an’ headed back home. I fell inta bed an’ didn’ think nothin’ about it till I walked out next mornin’.
An’ dang if there ain’t a big ol’ mess in the middle’a my best hayfield! What? Oh heckfire, ma’am, it was one’a them crop circle things, like on the cover’a that Led Zeppelin record. Purely ruint m’hay. You cain’t let hay get flattened down like that, spoils it right quick ‘round here if they’s been any dew, an’ it was plenty damp that mornin’.
How’d I feel? Ma’am, I was hot. I figgered it was them scifi writers, foolin’ with me; them city folk, they dunno you cain’t do that t’hay. But they didn’ have no cause t’fool with me like that, we bin pretty good neighbors so far, I even bought their books an’ liked ’em pretty much too, ‘cept for the stuff ‘bout the horses. Ev’body knows a white horse’s deaf as a post, like as not, less’n’ it’s one’a them Lippyzaners. Ain’t no horse gonna go read yer mind, or go ridin’ through fire an’ all like that an’—
Oh, yeah. Well, I got on th’ phone, gonna give ’em what for, an’ turns out they’re gone! One’a them scifi conventions. So it cain’t be them.
Well, shoot, now I dunno what t’think. That’s when I heerd it, under th’ porch. Somethin’ whimperin’, like.
Now y’know what happens when you live out in the country. People dump their dang-blasted strays all th’ time, thinkin’ some farmer’ll take care of ’em. Then like as not they hook up with one’a the dog packs an’ go wild an’ start runnin’ stock. Well, I guess I gotta soft heart t’match my soft head, I take ’em in, most times. Get ’em fixed, let ’em run th’ rabbits outa my garden. Coyotes get ’em sooner or later, but I figger while they’re with me, they at least got t’eat and gotta place t’sleep. So I figgered it was ‘nother dang stray, an’ I better get ‘im out from under th’ porch ‘fore he messes under there an’ it starts t’smell.
So I got down on m’hands an’ knees like a pure durn fool, an’ I whistled an’ coaxed, an’ carried on like some kinda dim bulb, an’ finally that stray come out. But ma’am, what come outa that porch weren’t no dog.
It was about the ugliest thing on six legs I ever seen in my life. Ma’am, that critter looked like somebody done beat out a fire on its face with a ugly stick. Looked like five miles ‘a bad road. Like the reason first cousins hadn’t ought t’get married. Two liddle, squinchy eyes that wuz all pupil, nose like a burnt pancake, jaws like a bear-trap. Hide all mangy and patchy, part scales and part fur, an’ all of it putrid green. No ears that I could see. Six legs, like I said, an’ three tails, two of ’em whippy and ratty, an’ one sorta like a club. It drooled, an’ its nose ran. Id’a been afraid of it, ‘cept it crawled outa there with its three tails ‘tween its legs, whimperin’ an’ wheezin’ an’ lookin’ up at me like it was ‘fraid I was gonna beat it. I figgered, hell, poor critter’s scarder of me than I am of it—an’ if it looks ugly t’me, reckon I must look just’s ugly right back.
So I petted it, an’ it rolled over on its back an’ stuck all six legs in th’air, an’ just acted about like any other pup. I went off t’ the barn an’ got Thang—I ended up callin’ it Thang fer’s long a
s I had it—I got Thang a big ol’ bowl’a dog food, didn’ know what else t’give it. Well, he looked pretty pleased, an’ he ate it right up—but then he sicked it right back up too. I shoulda figgered, I guess, he bein’ from someplace else an’ all, but it was worth a try.
But ‘fore I could try somethin’ else, he started off fer m’bushes. I figgered he was gonna use ’em fer the usual—
But heckfire if he didn’t munch down m’ junipers, an’ then sick them up! Boy howdy, was that a mess! Look, you can see the place right there—
Yes’m, I know. I got th’ stuff tested later, after it was all over. Chemist said th’ closest thang he’d ever seen to’t was somethin’ he called Aquia Reqa or somethin’ like—kind’ve a mix a’ all kinda acids together, real nasty stuff, etches glass an’ everthang.
Anyhow, I reckon gettin’ fed an’ then sickin’ it all back up agin jest made the poor critter ‘bout half crazy bein’ hungry. But next I know, Thang’s took off like a shot, a headin’ fer one’a my chickens!
Well, he caught it, an he ate it down, beak an’ feathers, an’ he sicked it right back up agin’ ‘fore I could stop ‘im.
That made me hot all over agin’. Some dang idjut makes a mess’a my hayfield, then this Thang makes messes all over m’yard, an’ then it eats one’a my chickens. Now I’m a soft man, but there’s one thing I don’t stand for, an’ that’s critters messin’ with the stock. I won’t have no dog that runs cows, sucks eggs, or kills chickens. So I just grabbed me the first thang that I could and I went after that Thang t’lay inta him good. Happens it was a shovel, an’ I whanged him a good one right upside th’ haid ‘fore he’d even finished bein’ sick. Well, it seemed t’hurt him ‘bout as much as a rolled-up paper’ll hurt a pup, so I kept whangin’ him an’ he kept cowerin’ an’ whimperin’ an’ then he grabbed the shovel, the metal end.
An’ he ate it.
He didn’t sick that up, neither.
Well, we looked at each other, an’ he kinda wagged his tails, an’ I kinda forgave ‘im, an’ we went lookin’ fer some more stuff he could eat.
I tell you, I was a pretty happy man ‘fore the day was over. I reckoned I had me th’ answer to one of m’bills. See, I c’n compost ‘bout ev’thang organic, an’ I can turn them aluminum cans in, but the rest of th’ trash I gotta pay for pickup, an’ on a farm, they’s a lot of it what they call hazardous, an’ thats extra. What? Oh, you know, barrels what had chemicals in ’em, bug-killer, weed-killer, fertilizer. That an’ there’s just junk that kinda accumulates. An’ people are always dumpin’ their dang old cars out here, like they dump their dang dogs. Lotsa trash that I cain’t get rid of an’ gotta pay someone t’haul.
But ol’ Thang, he just ate it right up. Plastic an’ metal, yes’m, that was what he et. Didn’ matter how nasty, neither. Fed ‘im them chemical barrels, fed ‘im ol’ spray-paint cans, fed ‘im th’ cans from chargin’ the air-conditioner, he just kept waggin’ his tails an’ lookin’ fer more. That’s how he come t’ chew on my Chevy; I was lookin’ fer somethin’ else t’feed him, an’ he started chawin’ on the bumpers. Look, see them teethmarks? Yes’m, he had him one good set of choppers all right. Naw, I never took thought t’be afraid of him, he was just a big puppy.
Well, like I said, by sundown I was one happy man. I figgered I not only had my trash problem licked, I could purt-near take care of the whole dang county. You know how much them fellers get t’take care’a hazardous waste? Heckfire, all I had t’do was feed it t’ol’ Thang, an’ what came out ‘tother end looked pretty much like ash. I had me a goldmine, that’s how I figgered.
Yeah, I tied ol’ Thang up with what was left of a couch t’chew on an’ a happy grin on his ugly face, an’ I went t’sleep with m’accountin’ program dancin’ magic numbers an m’head.
An’ I woke up with a big, bright light in m’eyes, an’ not able t’move. I kinda passed out, an’ when I came to, Thang was gone, an’ all that was left was the leash an’ collar. All I can figger is that whoever messed up m’hayfield was havin’ a picnic or somethin’ an’ left their doggie by accident. But I reckon they figger I took pretty good care of ‘im, since I ‘spect he weighed ‘bout forty, fifty pounds more when they got ‘im back.
But I ‘spose it ain’t all bad. I gotta friend got a plane, an’ he’s been chargin’ a hunnert bucks t’take people over th’ field, an’ splittin’ it with me after he pays fer the gas. And folks that comes by here, well, I tell ’em, the story, they get kinda excited an . . .
What ma’am? Pictures? Samples? Well sure. It’ll cost you fifty bucks fer a sample’a where Thang got sick, an’ seventy-five fer a picture of the bumper of my Chevy.
Why ma’am, what made you thank Okies was dumb?
THE ROAD TO WEALTH
J.I. Greco
The open road, our home. West on what used to be an interstate in a sixty-year old ’72 Dodge Swinger, doing a hundred and ten. Dave at the wheel; me relaxed, plugged in to the car’s computer, the jack cable draped down my chest, the jack plug chafing the socket behind my right ear.
“I can’t believe we’re driving three thousand miles through war zones and chintzy theme parks just so you can have lunch with some chick you met in VR.”
“She’s not a chick, Jim,” Dave said. “She’s a woman.”
“Yeah, right You only think she’s a woman. Probably she’s a sixty year old ex-con with a tattoo of downtown Baghdad on his back.”
“You’re so damn pessimistic.” He gave his cigarette a final suck, burning it right to the filter, and threw it out the window. Immediately he pulled another cig out and lit it “Besides, I know she’s a female.”
“And just how do you know that? All you’ve seen is a VR avatar.”
“I know her soul. We talk, for hours and hours.”
“From this side of the immersive rig, most of what you two do doesn’t sound like talking.”
“What can I say, we’ve got a very deep relationship.”
“Deeply weird.”
“Jealous?”
“Sickened.”
The car was feeding my cranial bio-comp a host of telemetry data through the jack cable. The data was a neon overlay on my consciousness. A shiny yellow-red blip—a humanoid heat signature a mile up the road—blossomed into the foreground of my perception. “Pedestrian up ahead,” I said. “Ten bucks if you wing ‘im.”
“You still owe me for the last one.”
“I’m good for it.”
“So you say.”
Dave gunned the engine and the Swinger shot forward with a vengeance. A few seconds later we could see the ped in the flesh, walking on the side of the road, carting a tattered backpack. When he heard our engine the ped turned around and put out his thumb.
Damn surfa-hippie, he was making this too easy. I reached for my wallet to get a twenty out. But then Dave swerved around the guy at file last moment, hit the brakes, and skidded to a stop.
I was too shocked to say anything.
The shock just increased when Dave, through my window, asked the guy where he was headed.
“West,” he said, cautious smile on a long, shaggy face. He pushed the brim of a dirty baseball cap with a Daktarisoft logo on it up his forehead. “You?”
“That general direction, yeah. Hop in. Put your bag in the trunk.” Dave pushed the trunk release button, and the hitchhiker went around to the back of the car. While he was out of earshot, I recovered my senses.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Giving the guy a ride.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. You know the rules—the driver gets to choose the radio station, fiddle with the heater, and decide when and where to stop the car, and so on.”
He had me there. Rules are rules. Time to appeal to his sense of logic and reason. “We don’t know anything about this guy. He could be a murderer.”
“Lucky thing we’re both armed to the teeth, then, isn’t it? And you’ve been scanning hi
m the whole time. You would have mentioned if he was packing, or am I wrong?”
“He’s clean, and so’s his bag. But he’s got a couple of implants I can’t identify and two jack plugs. Why the hell does he need two? What, does he plug himself in to two systems at a time?”
“I’d be worried if he didn’t have any implants. Besides, I’ve got a good feeling about him.”
“Not another one of your feelings.”
“You say that like they’re bad things.”
“They are, you’re just not bright enough to realize it.”
“You have to be more open to possibilities. You never know what the universe is going to drop in to your lap.”
I was going to say something extremely hurtful yet surprisingly erudite when I heard the trunk close. A second later the hitchhiker appeared outside my door. “Hi.”
I wasn’t budging.
“I’m Bill,” he said.
I checked my watch.
“Um, can I get in?”
Without any enthusiasm, I got out to let him climb into the back seat When he was settled, I got back in, slamming the door shut and replugging the car in to my cranial socket.
Dave joked the wheel hard to the left and hit the gas. We shot off, gravel, dirt and burning oil clouding behind us. Dave spoke to the image of Bill in the rear-view. “Got any drugs, Bill?”
“No, sorry.”
“Want some?”
“No, thanks. Hey, I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve been walking since Green River. I’m like exhausted. I’d just sort of like to take a nap.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry, should’ve realized. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thanks.”
“This is insane,” I growled, crunching down in my seat I wanted a cigarette, but I’d given them up a year ago, and that only put me in a worse mood. “Freaking insane.”
Dave grinned. “So, what isn’t?”
Six hours later, I was driving when we got to the gas station in Stockton where Dave had arranged to hook up with Salona, his dream girl.
