by Ken Warner
“I agree,” he said, turning back to her again. “And see if you can talk them into getting a full medical work-up,” he added. “Every abductee with any memory of their experience has reported that the aliens have done some sort of physical exam. I’d be very curious to see if they’ve done anything that might leave a trace—any sort of procedure, or injection, for example.”
“Will do,” said Sydney.
“Oh, and let them know we’ll pay for it if need be. If they end up doing any sort of radiology, that could get quite expensive.”
“Got it!”
They agreed she’d fly out there first thing in the morning.
Sydney called Miguel to give him the news, too.
“I’m heading back out to Kansas tomorrow,” she said. “I’m going to meet with the Johnsons and see what else we can find out.”
“I could meet you there if you think you might want some company,” he suggested.
“Sure, but how far are you from there?”
“Well… it’s probably a twelve-hour drive, more or less. But if I hit the road at dawn, I’ll make there in time for supper.”
“Oh, that’s crazy,” she said. “I can’t ask you to come that far.”
“Nah, it’d be my pleasure. Nothing tying me down here, remember?”
Brian dropped Sydney off at the airport the next morning. He gave her the login information for the onboard Wi-Fi. Sydney rechecked the UFO forums during the flight, and sure enough, there were two new abductions reports. The Johnsons weren’t alone.
Once they’d landed, Sydney rented a car and drove out to the same motel where they’d stayed the last time. She called Mr. Johnson to let him know she was in town, and he invited her to come over for a visit.
She arrived there fifteen minutes later. The Johnsons greeted her at the door and invited her inside. They had a seat in their living room.
“So, Ted, you gave me the basic rundown over the phone,” said Sydney. “But was there anything different about this abduction compared to your previous experiences?”
“No, not a thing,” said Mrs. Johnson. “It was the gray aliens, as always. And they did their exam, and we ended up back in our truck when it was over.”
“Fascinating,” said Sydney. “I was talking to my boss, and we were wondering if the two of you would be willing to see a doctor for a full medical workup?”
“What for?” asked Mr. Johnson. “We feel fine.”
“It would be interesting to find out what exactly it is that the aliens are doing during their exams. If they’re performing any type of procedure, for example—if the probes they’re using aren’t only taking measurements but also doing something to your bodies—or injecting something—a full exam may be able to find some evidence of that. And don’t worry about the cost—my boss is willing to cover the expense.”
“Well, yes, I suppose we could do that,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“Agreed,” Mr. Johnson said with a nod. “If they have been doing something to us, I’d sure like to know about it.”
“Great,” said Sydney. “Here’s what I’m thinking. Ask for a physical to start with. And a full-body MRI. If they’ve implanted anything, it would certainly show up that way. And blood work—have them do a full metabolic panel. That’s a good place to start—if anything is off, they can do a follow-up.”
Mrs. Johnson wrote down her suggestions.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll call our doctor today and schedule the physicals. We’ll have to find somewhere that does MRIs, but I’m sure our doctor will know where to go.”
“Excellent,” said Sydney. “Thank you. And keep me posted!”
Sydney drove back to the motel. She sent Miguel a text to find out when he expected to arrive but didn’t get a reply. By six o’clock, her stomach was rumbling, and she started looking for a place to eat.
But finally, Miguel sent her a text.
“Hey, just rolled into town. You wanna get some grub?”
“Hell, yes,” she replied. “What kind of GRUB do you feel like?”
They ended up meeting at a Chinese restaurant in the outskirts of town.
“Hello again,” he said, pulling her into a hug.
“Good to see you,” she said.
“Figure this must be the only Chinese joint in a hundred-mile radius,” he said as they went inside. “But I’m starving, and I didn’t see too many eateries on my way in.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Oh, I parked the trailer at a campground nearby.”
They ordered their food and sat down at one of the only two tables here. Sydney guessed it was probably mostly a take-out place, but it would do.
She told him about her encounter with the man in black.
“Well, that about proves my point, doesn’t it?” he said. “Must be these cat-eyed aliens doing the abductions. Only they got some way to make themselves look like these other aliens.”
“That could be,” she agreed. “We also know they can make themselves invisible somehow. And the abductee I met down in San Juan said he couldn’t see any aliens at all—the probes seemed to move around him of their own accord.”
“How do you move forward here?” he asked. “You say I’m the only one who can recall being moved out of the UFO. And them military types couldn’t find anything else down around Monument Valley. What next?”
“That’s a good question,” said Sydney. “We do know that this area right here has seen much more alien activity than anywhere else we know about. So, I figured it would be a good idea to investigate more around here.
“There’s this one stretch of road where the abductions keep happening. I’d like to head over there in the morning and have another look around. Maybe there’s something that we missed last time.”
“Why don’t we meet up for breakfast in the morning, and I’ll head over there with ya?” he suggested.
“Sounds like a plan!”
Their food arrived, and the conversation turned to Miguel’s road trip to the area. When they were done, they headed outside.
“Alright then,” said Miguel. “There’s a little diner in town; you wanna meet there for breakfast?”
“Sure—we ate there last time I was here. It’s pretty good. How’s nine o’clock?”
“That works. I’ll see you then!”
For a moment, she thought about inviting him back to her motel room. But she immediately thought better of it—she should probably get to know him more first and make sure he wasn’t working for a drug lord or anything like that.
“Good night,” she said with a smile.
Chapter Fourteen: Route 23
Sydney went to bed but could not fall asleep. For almost two hours, she tossed and turned.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the abductions. Was the man in black from some kind of alien species? And was that species responsible for what was going on?
She finally gave up on getting any sleep. Rolling out of bed, she got dressed and went out to the car. She drove to the area of Route 23 where the Johnsons reported all of their abduction experiences taking place.
It was foggy here, making it difficult to see very far. She pulled over to the side of the road and turned the car off.
Getting out, she wandered up the road a bit. It was too dark and foggy to see anything very well—and she wasn’t sure what she’d expect to find here, even in the daylight.
There were a couple of farmhouses nearby, barely visible through the fog, and a few barns. She saw a light turn on inside the front porch of one of the farmhouses, but there were no other signs of life here.
Was there something about this particular location that attracted the aliens’ attention? The land was flat and open here—fields stretched out as far as the eye could see in every direction. But that was true of vast areas of the Midwest. What was it about this stretch of road that set it apart?
Sydney could come up with no answers.
She walked a little farther up the road
. Suddenly, she heard a faint buzzing noise coming from the field to her right. She stopped in her tracks, staring across the area to try and see the source of the noise, but it was impossible through the fog.
Sydney started moving back toward her car. Then, she noticed a light in the same area that the sound was coming from. She broke into a run.
She reached the car, got inside, and started the engine; the light kept coming closer. She threw the car into gear and took off down the road. The fog made it impossible to go very fast, but the light was converging on her position.
Sydney slammed the brakes, did a quick K-turn, and headed back in the direction of her motel. But the light tracked her progress, growing ever closer.
As she passed one of the farmhouses, the light overtook her, moving closer to the road. She hit the brakes again, watching in terror.
The light drew closer. Suddenly it dropped out of the sky, stopping directly in front of her windshield. Sydney screamed.
But then she got a closer look—this was a drone.
She sat back in her seat, letting out a huge sigh of relief.
Getting out of the car, she got a closer look at the thing. It was larger than other drones she’d seen and had six separate rotors. Suddenly, it took off toward the farmhouse.
Sydney followed it. Someone called out to her: “Sorry about that!”
As she drew closer to the house, she saw a teenage boy approaching her.
“Didn’t mean to scare ya,” he said sheepishly.
“And how do you know I was scared?”
“Well, I heard you scream, so…”
Sydney chuckled.
“We don’t get people ’round here too often, so I was just curious to see who it was.”
“Gotcha,” she said. “Guess I’d be curious, too.”
“Yeah… so, who are you?” he asked with an awkward laugh.
“Sydney,” she said. “This might sound strange, but I’m out here looking into some, ah, alien abductions that keep happening in this area.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “Well, that ain’t strange at all. We see UFOs quite a bit here—more than cars passing through, I’d say. I’m Owen, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Owen. Have you seen UFOs yourself?”
“Many times,” he said. “That’s part of why I bought the drone. My mom never wanted to spend the money for one, but now I got my own job, I was able to save up and get one myself.”
“Have you managed to capture a UFO on video?”
“Not yet, but I’ve only had the drone about a week now. Haven’t seen any UFOs yet since I got it. But they come around at least a couple times a month, so I reckon it’s only a matter of time.”
“Have you ever seen one of the UFOs abduct someone?”
“Yeah, once,” he said. “Last year. I was walking home from a friend’s house, coming up this stretch of road right here. Saw this strange light in the sky—that’s usually how it always starts when a UFO shows up. But it came down close to the road, over this pickup truck.
“Looked like the truck died, or at least the man driving it turned it off for some reason. He got outta the car, and this light came down from the UFO, and I saw him fly up right into the bottom of the thing.
“I wanted to get a closer look, but I ain’t gonna lie, I was scared outta my mind. I hid in the cornfield when I saw the thing coming down over the road.
“But anyway, suddenly, the thing disappeared. I didn’t see where it went; it was just gone. I went over to see about the man’s truck, but that was gone, too.”
“The truck was gone, too?” she asked. “Where did it go?”
“Couldn’t tell ya,” he said. “Didn’t see it anywhere.”
“Did it fly up into the UFO, too?”
“Not that I saw,” he said. “I guess it might have, but it was hard to see from where I was hiding.
“Anyway, that was the only time I ever saw them take anyone. I’ve heard it happens quite a bit ’round here, but I don’t know.”
“Do you think you could stay in touch with me and let me know if you get anything on video with your drone?” she asked. “Anything at all—just a UFO, or an abduction, whatever?”
“Sure, I could,” he said.
They exchanged phone numbers, and Sydney headed back to her car. She decided she’d had enough excitement for one night.
She headed back toward the motel. But before she’d gone more than a quarter of a mile, a bright light appeared in her rearview mirror. There was no car behind her—the light was in the sky.
“Oh, no…”
She stepped on the gas, but the light kept up with her. Looking in her side-view mirror, she realized it was a ring of lights.
There was a dirt road on the right—she hit the brakes and skidded sideways, turning onto that. She floored it and moved into the cornfields.
The object in the sky had followed her. She’d gone only a few hundred feet down the dirt road when her car died. She came to a stop and tried to start it again, but it was dead. The headlights had shut off, and not even the dome light would turn on.
“What the hell?” she said out loud.
She got out of the car. The ring of light was directly overhead.
“Oh, shit!”
She took off at a run, farther into the fields. Looking back, she could see the light was following her. It was dead quiet—she couldn’t hear any engines or anything, which she found strange. She would have expected something that large moving through the air to be noisy.
She turned down an aisle of corn stalks and ran as fast as she could, hardly able to see where she was going. But it was futile—the UFO stayed directly above her.
Suddenly, a spotlight shot down from the center of the craft, directly on her. She stopped and looked up, and a moment later found herself rising into the air.
In one instant, she found herself inside some sort of chamber with metal walls; in the next, there was a buzzing noise, and everything went black, and she knew no more.
Miguel woke up and stretched. He glanced over at the clock—seven-thirty. Plenty of time.
He stepped out of the trailer and took a deep breath of the chill morning air. The campground was in an open field off the main road. There were about a dozen other trailers parked here. At least a few of them looked like they’d been here a very long time.
It was only ten minutes to the diner, so he got dressed and went for a quick run. He went only a couple of miles up the road and then turned around.
The land here was flat for miles around, and he could see nothing but cornfields, broken up by the occasional farmhouse or barn. He couldn’t imagine living here long-term. Over the years, he’d fallen in love with Arizona—there was beauty in the desert, unrivaled by anywhere else he’d ever traveled.
Back at his trailer, he showered and got dressed, then headed into town to meet Sydney. He arrived a few minutes before nine. Going inside, he grabbed them a booth in the far corner.
The waitress came by to take his order.
“Oh, I’m waiting for someone,” he told her. “She should be here soon.”
“Coffee in the meantime?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
She came back with the coffee a minute later.
Miguel finished the cup, and there was still no sign of Sydney. It was about ten minutes after nine, now.
He sent her a text. But several more minutes went by with no reply. He tried calling her, but it went straight to voicemail.
“Weird,” he said out loud. “She didn’t seem like the type to stand a fella up.”
He paid for his coffee and then went out to his truck. She hadn’t told him the name of the motel where she was staying. But he checked on his phone, and there was only one place anywhere close by. He headed out and arrived there ten minutes later.
The place was pretty rundown. There were a dozen rooms, all with direct access from the parking lot. Only a few cars were parked here, none of them Sydney’s rent
al car.
He checked with the office, but the woman there didn’t know anything.
“Very strange,” he said out loud.
He tried texting and calling again, to no avail.
“I don’t get it,” he muttered.
Sydney had told him the name of the couple who had been abducted—the Johnsons. A pretty common name, unfortunately. He looked them up online. There were only two Johnsons in the area and only one on Route 23. He put their address into his GPS and headed out to their house.
He knocked on the door when he arrived, and Mr. Johnson answered.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “My name is Miguel San Juan—I’m a friend of Sydney Hastings. I was supposed to meet her at the diner for breakfast this morning, but she didn’t show up. I’ve tried calling her and what not, but I can’t reach her, and well, I’m getting a little worried. I don’t suppose you folks have heard from her today?”
“No, can’t say we have. She came out here yesterday during the day, but we haven’t heard from her since then. When did you hear from her last?”
“Met up with her for dinner last night,” he said, looking out across the fields. “I checked at the motel, but her car wasn’t there.”
“That is concerning,” said Mr. Johnson. He gave Miguel his phone number and asked him to keep him updated.
“Will do,” said Miguel. “Thank you.”
He drove back to the diner to make sure she hadn’t turned up there and then checked the motel one more time. But Sydney was nowhere to be found.
Miguel thought of contacting her boss, but other than his first name, Brian, he knew nothing about him—not his last name, nor his address or the name of his company.
He went back to his trailer and waited a couple more hours, hoping that maybe she would call him back or answer his text. But by that afternoon, he still hadn’t had any contact.
Checking online, he found the town was so small that it didn’t have its own police department. The next town over had one, but he doubted they’d have jurisdiction here. It looked like the county sheriff would be his best bet. Their office was only about twenty minutes away, down Route 23, so Miguel headed there.
