The Stickmen

by Edward Lee

“Wow. You know a lot.”

  Garrett raised a brow. “Well, let’s just say that I think I know a lot, and if I’m wrong…” He didn’t finish the speculation. “Right now we gotta set this bomb off like you promised the Stickmen.”

  “But it didn’t blow up. When I pushed the button. It must be broken.”

  “Well, let’s just check it out…” After a few more moments of inspection, Garrett saw just how close they’d both come to instant death. Jesus. What luck. And again he thanked God, not really knowing if he believed in God. Garrett figured now might be a good time to start.

  He disconnected the main lead and saw that Danny hadn’t properly unshunted the blasting cap, preventing a full electrical circuit. Garrett carefully unwrapped the protective insulation off the cap’s firing wires, then reconnected the lead.

  We see the timer close. Garrett turns the timer indicator to 30 minutes.

  STANDARD DETONATION PROCEDURES (cont. from Line 4, Page 1-a).

  5) Set Timer. [CAUTION: This device requires a minimum safe distance of 2000 meters!]

  6) Enable “Timer-set” to ON position.

  7) Depress safety cover of M34 firing device to activate timer.

  8) Seek safe-distance perimeter!

  Garrett followed the instructions and turned the timer dial to 60 minutes. Now he had everything ready. At least I HOPE I have everything ready… “I think this’ll do it,” he announced. “This will give us plenty of time to get far enough away that we won’t get hurt.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Garrett passed the small firing device to Danny. “Push the button now, Danny. Then we can go.”

  Danny looked at the plastic firing device. His thumb pressed down on the cover—click!—and then the timer began to tick.

  Garrett took the boy’s hand and led him back to the elevator platform. They both took a final glance at the three strange narrow crates sitting just beyond the ticking ADM. Not coffins, Garrett surmised. Not really.

  “Let’s get out of here, Danny. That sound good to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Garrett pushed the power-button on the wall. The motor kicked in and the gears and cables overhead began to squeal.

  Then the elevator began to rise, taking them out.

  ««—»»

  “I never thought I’d get to see the nighttime again,” Danny said in the strangest tone, “or hear the crickets.”

  “No need to worry about that now,” Garrett said. “You’ve got a whole great life ahead of you.” But Garrett’s heart dipped a bit just after he’d said it.

  What kind of life did Danny have awaiting for him? It wasn’t enough that he’d been abducted and manipulated by extraterrestrials—he’d been terrorized by a contract-killer, had witnessed his own parents being savagely murdered. That can fuck a little kid’s head up for life, Garrett realized.

  What really awaited Danny? Foster care, adoption agencies, etc.

  The night-sounds swirled above them. The low moon wanly lit the fields before them. Once they’d left the depot, they’d briskly walked north for a half an hour, Garrett leading them both well-past the minimum safe-distance. Before this night was officially over, there was still a show to see.

  Garrett didn’t want to miss it.

  He’d picked a good spot just past the highest rise. The forestbelt extended past on either side, and now they crouched down behind a substantial hillock. Two miles distant lay the hidden dell that was Area November, Depot 12.

  Garrett lit a much-needed cigarette, then glanced at his watch. They sat with their backs to the bank. “Whatever you do, Danny, keep your eyes closed and don’t look toward the depot.”

  “I guess it would hurt our eyes, huh?”

  “You bet.”

  “But if we can’t look at it, what are we waiting to see?”

  “We want to see what happens after the bomb goes off. I think it should be pretty neat.” Another glance to his watch. Ten seconds… Garrett put his arm around Danny. “It’s almost time, sport. Don’t be scared.”

  “Will it be loud?”

  “I—” The question puzzled Garrett. “I don’t really know. That depot’s pretty strong and deep. We’ll find out in a few seconds…”

  The next lapsed of time seemed more like several minutes. Then a loud bang! echoed from behind them. “This is it!” Garrett exclaimed. “Close your eyes and hang on!” Garrett held the boy tight against him.

  The earth beneath them seemed to tremor slightly, and instead of a cacophonous explosion, what Garrett heard instead was more like a long crackling roar. He felt the air temperature around him rise, and even with his eyes closed and his face pointing away from the bomb, he sensed a flash of light. Then came a vast rustling—shock wave, he thought—as the trees around them began to shake slightly.

  What neither of them saw was the small spectacular fireball that rose from the depot over a mile distant.

  Garrett waited for the roar to drone down, then he looked over his shoulder. “Okay, Danny, it’s safe to look now…”

  The boy turned around, and they both peered over the edge of the hillock.

  A proverbial mushroom cloud unrolled upward. Garrett was surprised how small it seemed. The mushroom’s head looked filled with dark throbs of light.

  Trace fires had broken out around the woods. Garrett wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected small movements in the distance. Damn it! Too far away, too dark!

  Then the darkness gradually turned to light.

  “Look!” Danny shouted, pointing up.

  An immense wedge of broad daylight seemed to cut through the night.

  Good God, Garrett thought.

  A long black tube in the sky, hundreds of feet long. A drone pressed Garrett’s ears as the vehicle hovered, then began to descend several hundred yards down the field.

  Garrett and Danny’s hair blew around as if in a stiff breeze. Garrett note dark-red light wafting like smoke from what he guessed was the ship’s engine vent, and the queer, trapezoid-shaped window at the opposite end.

  And then he noticed—

  “There they are!” Danny exclaimed. “They came out!”

  Garrett peered. They’re still alive, he thought. All of the speculation turned out to be true. Under the craft’s intense illumination, he could see the three thin figures walking away from the exploded depot and into the middle of the field. They walked a bit further, then stopped, their post-like heads looking upward.

  The vehicle landed, and in only moments, its long-lost passengers had been picked up.

  And the ship was gone.

  EPILOGUE

  Distant car horns honked from the street below. Washington, D.C. looked like a pattern of glitter beyond the open window.

  Garrett was back.

  Ever the typified journalist, he sat at his disheveled desk in a sleeveless t-shirt, a lit cigarette hanging off his lips. He was typing madly on his computer keyboard…

  Of the minutia of this case, I can only really speculate. It’s my assertion, however, that the deceased General Norton Swenson, formerly of MJ-12 and the Air Force Aerial Intelligence Commander, was quite right in his decades-old prediction. The skeletons from the Nellis crash weren’t dead bodies at all. They were three alien bodies in hibernation. The detonation of the (Small) Atomic Demolition Munition at the Edgewood Arsenal, via its radioactive flux, sufficed to rejuvenate the skeletons, whereupon they were picked up by a rescue ship.

  Garrett paused, looking absently toward the window. Then he glanced into his kitchen, where Lynn and Jessica, both in jeans and rather provocative tube tops, fastidiously prepared dinner.

  Jesus, those girls are hot. They could make the Pope kick out a stained-glass window…

  “How’s it coming in there, oh great investigative journalist?” Lynn called out.

  “Great. I’m almost done with the rough draft,” he answered. “Psi-Com’s gonna be damn sorry they fired me. Bunch’a boneheads. They got dog food for brains.”

&
nbsp; He grinned to himself at the thought of vindication, then got back to typing.

  Dr. Jessica Truini, Deputy Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia, has already performed initial post-mortem analysis of the alien forearm. That forearm remains in my possession, and once the proper precautions have been taken, it will be released to public scrutiny. What also remains in my possession is a small cylindrical device which seems to be some sort of handheld anti-gravitational implement that the aliens gave to Danny Vander during one of his abductions. It was this device that enabled an eight-year-old boy to shatter military-grade security locks, tear open an electrified fence, and carry off the 300-pound ADM in his bare hands.

  “Hey, Harlan,” Jessica called out. “You want your potatoes mashed or scalloped?”

  Garrett frowned, snapped out of his train of thought. “Mashed, please.”

  He began typing again.

  The ADM itself, being of very low yield inflicted no extensive damage to the perimeter. A Field Assessment Team from the Army Chemical Corp, Radiological Branch, discovered only minor irradiation of the area. No big deal considering the military, for decades, has been testing nuclear weapons hundreds of times more powerful, on U.S. soil. Perhaps that’s what the aliens were originally investigating in the first place, over thirty-five years ago when the first ship crashed on the Nellis Military Reservation near Las Vegas, Nevada. I don’t guess anyone’ll ever know for sure.

  “Hey, Harlan?” Lynn again. “Do you want your string beans steamed or stir-fried?”

  Garrett sighed, then quickly saved his file and shut down his computer. Too many distractions right now, but so what? He could do the final polish later.

  He could make history later.

  “Stir-fried,” he said.

  “So are you finished with your ground-breaking article?” Lynn inquired.

  “Even amid all the distractions around here, yes,” he replied, and lit another cigarette. “But of course this is going to be more than just an article, it’ll be a book too. New York Times best-seller list here we come. Only thing I’m stuck on is the title.” He paused in reflection. “Hey, girls, how’s this sound… The Truth About the Nellis Crash?”

  “Stinks,” Lynn answered.

  Garrett smirked. “Okay. Then how about this? The Mystery of the Edgewood Arsenal?”

  “Clunker,” Jessica contributed.

  Who asked you anyway? Garrett thought. Bimbos. Neither of them know a good thing when they see it…and the good thing is sitting right here.

  Lynn could be heard chopping the ends of the string beans. “But, you know, it’s really too bad about the little boy.”

  “Yeah,” Jessica added. “The poor kid. He’ll never be the same after all that happened to him. I guess he’ll just get put in an orphanage or something.”

  Garrett’s spirit nosedived. The whole thing was a happy ending…except for the part about Danny. Two nights ago, after it had all gone down, Garrett had had no choice but to drop Danny off at the MP station. Too many questions would have been asked if he’d actually taken the boy in himself. But Garrett had promised to keep in touch. What else could he do?

  “I talked to him on the phone today,” Garrett finally answered. “At least his father left him well-provided for. But he’s got no aunts or uncles or grandparents, so it looks like he’ll go into the Army’s foster-care program.”

  “That’s gotta be really tough for a kid that age,” Lynn said.

  “Yeah,” Garrett muttered. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to say it…but he said it anyway. “I’ve been thinking about it, you know?”

  “What?” Jessica asked.

  “I was thinking about maybe…adopting him myself.”

  Lynn and Jessica cackled like witches.

  “Oh, that’s funny?” Garrett objected. “What’s so funny about it?”

  “Be real, Harlan,” Lynn said.

  Then Jessica: “Yeah. You’re not exactly qualified to adopt a child, Harlan.”

  Garrett glared toward the kitchen. “Oh? And why not?”

  “There are state adoption regulations,” Lynn said. “Things like minimum-income requirements.”

  “Face it, Harlan,” Jessica added. “It’s a nice thought, but if you make $6000 in a year, that’s a good year.”

  “And you’d have to make a lot more than that to adopt a child,” Lynn finished with her two cents.

  Garrett ground his teeth in frustration. “Hello? Girl geniuses? It’s true that in the past I haven’t exactly been pulling down the big money. But after I sell this article for fifty grand and the book for half a mil—then I think I just might meet the minimum-income requirements to adopt a kid. Ya think?”

  More cackling laughter bubbled from the kitchen.

  “That’s what you said about your Martin Luther King Assassination story,” Lynn reminded him.

  “And that big book you wrote about Area 51,” Jessica said. “How much did you get for those winners, Harley?”

  Nothing, Garrett admitted. But that didn’t matter. “You’re both just being arbitrary. This story’s gonna sell, and it’s gonna sell big, and I can’t believe you two bird-brains can’t admit that. You’re forgetting what’s in my freezer, aren’t you? A severed alien forearm?”

  “It’ll be debunked, Harlan,” Lynn assured him. “I mean, I know it’s real, Jessica knows it’s real, and you know it’s real—”

  “But you’ll never be able to prove it,” Jessica tacked on.

  Garrett waved a disgusted hand at them. Fuck you both very much. Bitches.

  Then Jessica piped back up. “Let me ask you something even more important. How do you want your steak?”

  “Rare,” Garrett replied. “Rare and bleeding, the same way the both of you left my heart.”

  Still more laughter cackled from the kitchen.

  “Laugh all you want,” he invited. “But look what I’ve got. Not only have I got the story of the century in my hands, not only an I about to bust open the truth about the existence of extraterrestrial life to the whole world… I’ve got my ex-wife and ex-fiancé cooking me dinner.”

  “Two out of three ain’t bad,” Jessica said. And burst out into more laughter.

  Women can be SO malicious, Garrett thought. But what did it matter to him anyway? I’ll show them. I’ll show them both, and then we’ll see who’s laughing. When I’m rich, they’ll both be crawling back to me on their knees.

  “I can’t wait,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What was that, Harlan?” Lynn asked.

  “I said…I have to go to the bathroom. Be right back.”

  Garrett went to do his business, determined not to let their sour grapes get to him. Why should he care what they thought. Garrett knew.

  Garrett knew that this was going all the way.

  Yeah…

  Garrett had never voided his bladder with more satisfaction.

  When he came out of the bathroom, he called out, “Hey, girls? Is that beer cold yet?”

  But no answer followed.

  “Girls?”

  Still no answer. What is this? Where The Boy Aren’t? He walked into the kitchen.

  “Gossiping about me behind my back, huh? Probably trading tales about my pre-eminent skills as a lover—”

  Appetizing aromas filled the air. Grade-A t-bone steaks sizzled in the fry pan. But neither Lynn nor Jessica could be found.

  What is this rinky-dink bullshit?

  He turned, then, and looked into the tiny laundry room

  You gotta be—

  Garrett stared in confusion.

  Lynn sat in the corner.

  Tied up. Gagged. Her eyes wide with fear.

  “What the—”

  A familiar metallic sound clicked behind him, and before he could even think about reacting, a pistol barrel was being pressed firmly against the back of his head.

  Jessica’s voice flow like dark smoke. “Hands in the air. Slow.”

  —shitting me…


  Garrett obeyed the command, after which he slowly turned to see Jessica pointing a pistol in his face.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out, Harlan,” she said. “I told my station chief you probably would, but we decided to chance it anyway. We don’t have any solid ties with DIA; I couldn’t be sure what she would do.”

  Jessica gestured toward the tied-and-gagged Lynn. Then she lead Garrett at gunpoint back into the living room.

  Garrett felt his whole life crumbling around him.

  “She was setting you up, Harlan—”

  “Looks to me like you’re the one setting me up,” he offered, hands high.

  “—but I had to beat her to the punch, make my move now.”

  “Make your move for what?”

  “For the proof, Harlan. You really are dense, aren’t you. That plastic bag in the freezer is coming with me.”

  Rage rose up in Garrett’s bones. “You’re not taking my alien arm!”

  Jessica tittered. “You can’t possibly believe that you would be allowed to keep an extraterrestrial body part. That really is proof, Harlan, and we can’t have the world getting their hands on it.”

  Garrett seethed. “Goddamn you, you—”

  Save it, Harlan,” she said. “You know, for a smart guy, you can be incredibly stupid. You’ve been my case assignment for over a year.

  “A sexual operative,” he realized. “Jesus. So who do you work for? CIA, the Bureau, NSA?”

  “You don’t need to know that, Harlan. Let’s just say that I’m employed by a…compartmentalized cell.”

  “Great. So it was you all along, making me think you loved me.”

  Jessica gave a thin smile. “I was the one who put the direction-finder on your car when you were researching the pay off at the Senate Select Committee. I was the one who planted the electret bugs all over the apartment, and I was the one who had your phones spiked. And that Nevatek job? Who else but me could’ve possibly reported the break-in before it happened?”