by Elise Sax
“What about rats?”
I shuddered. “Yes, rats, but…”
“Heights, closed-in spaces, door-to-door salesmen?”
“Yes, all of that, but that’s normal stuff to be afraid of. I mean other stuff doesn’t scare me. I’m not afraid of New Sun Petroleum. Well, maybe a little, but…Oh, hell. I’m going to follow him. I’ll talk to you later.”
I skulked out of the house, following Wade. He slipped into the back of a large black Mercedes. I fumbled in my purse for my keys and got in my Altima. I started my car just as his Mercedes pulled away from the curb.
“I’m not afraid of anything. I’m not afraid of anything,” I repeated, as I followed them out of town and onto a back road. I turned the air conditioning on full blast. Fantasizing about getting justice for Jimmy and making Silas proud of me, I drove ten miles, following Wade’s Mercedes. “He thinks he can scare me,” I said out loud. “But he can’t and nobody can. I’m an independent, strong woman. Nothing scares me.”
The air conditioning sputtered, and there was a noise coming from the vent. “Don’t you dare break,” I told the air conditioning. “I can deal with murderers and exploding toilets, but I need cold air.” It made another noise, and suddenly the vent grate popped out and fell in my lap.
“What the hell?” I said and peered into the vent, as I continued to follow the Mercedes.
When I was a kid, I lived in a series of foster homes. None of them lasted long. Maybe because I would organize their closets in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. I also had a penchant for alphabetizing everything in the kitchen, and nobody likes allspice blocking their garlic salt. I was an orphan, but otherwise, I had a pretty normal life before I married. But since then, nothing’s been normal. And since I moved to Goodnight, my toilet exploded, I fondled a married man’s breasts, a woman vanished in front of my eyes, and my employee died in my arms. None of that could be considered normal.
But looking into my car’s air-conditioning vent and seeing eyes staring back at me pushed normal completely out of my life. At first, I thought everyone was right and I really was crazy. But then the eyes got closer, and I saw the tongue.
I screamed.
I had been doing a lot of screaming lately.
Like something out of a horror movie, a slithering, large snake pushed its way out of the vent, its tongue seemingly focused on me. I tried to shrink away from it, but there was nowhere to go, and I couldn’t swat at it because I didn’t want to touch it. The snake was coming at me like I was lunch.
I edged my hands away from the snake and hit the steering wheel, making the car swerve violently. I stomped on the brake, but my foot slipped, and I hit the gas instead. I tried to right the car, but the snake had wrapped itself around the steering wheel.
Would I prefer to die in a car crash or touch a snake?
I now knew the answer.
Chapter 5
I kept screaming, and the car kept going. It went off the road and down into a long ravine, finally coming to a stop when it reached a hill. The snake appeared totally unconcerned and unwrapped half of its body from the steering wheel and seemed to levitate in the air. Its tongue focused on me again, and I knew the snake was ready to strike.
“Who does this happen to?” I moaned. I shut my eyes for a moment and wished that I was hallucinating or already dead and was in hell. Anything but this.
The snake made a terrifying noise, and even though I was scared to move, my hand flew to the door handle, and miraculously, the door opened and I fell out without being bitten by the snake.
I struggled to stand in the brush, and I ran backward a safe distance away with my eyes never leaving the car to see if the snake followed me out of the car. It didn’t.
The front of my car was decimated, and the hood was folded like an accordion. I was unhurt, and the airbag hadn’t deployed, but now there was smoke coming out from under the folded hood. My purse with my cellphone was in the car, and I was in the middle of nowhere, where there were probably more snakes.
“Me and my buttinski self. Look what I’ve gotten myself into. I’ll be stuck here forever,” I said out loud.
But I was wrong. A minute later, a beat-up pickup truck stopped at the top of the ravine. The driver’s door opened with a loud creak, and a tall man stepped out.
Boone.
What were the odds?
“Sonofabitch,” I heard him say. He climbed easily down the ravine and checked me for injuries. “You’re a one-woman wrecking ball. What happened?”
I pointed at the car. “Snake. A snake attacked me. It was hiding in the air-conditioning vent. It was going to kill me.”
“What?”
“It was lying in wait. It wanted me dead.”
Boone put his hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.”
“Snake! Snake!”
“All right. I’ll check,” he said, walking toward my car. I followed him, using his body as a shield against venomous reptiles.
“Does this happen often in New Mexico?”
“I’ve never heard of a snake in an air-conditioning vent. You’ve brought a lot of firsts with you. It’s probably just a king snake. Totally harmless. It went in there to sleep, probably, and you woke it up.”
“It made a sound. A scary, murderous sound.”
“You probably just thought it did. Imagined it.”
The car door was open, and he ducked his head in. “I don’t see anything,” he said.
“It’s still in there. I’ve been watching.”
“Nothing. I see the vent’s plastic covering on the seat, though.”
“See? Proof.”
He ducked down, spying under the seat. “Nothing. Whatever you saw is long gone. I told you so. It’s the altitude sickness. It’s playing tricks on your…Sonofabitch!”
He flew backward, like he was pulled with a rope, and hit into me hard. We both landed in the brush. He rolled over, lying on top of me and supporting his weight on his forearms. “There’s a rattlesnake in there,” he said breathlessly. His eyes were wild.
“A rattlesnake? They’re poisonous. Did it bite you? I told you so!”
“It’s huge. Half of it was wrapped around the gear shift. It was perfectly camouflaged. I almost put my hand on it. Then, it rattled, and I realized it was there.”
“The sound! I told you there was a murderous sound!”
“I’ve had a lot of close encounters with rattlesnakes, but that was the closest.”
“You’re on top of me.” He was nestled between my legs. I could feel his entire hard body. It was definitely an R-rated moment.
His eyes re-focused, and I could practically see the gears in his mind shift. His pupils widened into large, black saucers. His breathing stopped, and I noticed that mine did, too. It was one of those life-altering moments, depending on what path one took.
“Sorry,” he muttered and rolled off me, obviously on the less involved path. He sat next to me in the brush and ran his fingers through his thick hair. “I guess the sheriff wouldn’t like me being on top of his girl.”
I sat up. “I’m not his girl. I just met him.”
“I know what I saw.”
His expression changed again. He was impatient with me and maybe combative. He stood up and slapped the dirt off his jeans. Putting his hand out to me, I took it, and he helped me up. “I’ll call a pal who’s a snake wrangler, and then we can get a tow truck to get your car to a shop.”
“That sounds expensive. And long. I have two stories to write today.”
“Fine. I won’t help you,” he said, marching up the hill to his truck. I followed him.
“Wait. Wait. You have a truck. Can you give me a ride to the UFO Shop?”
“You are the world’s most stubborn woman. Just wait here for the tow truck.”
“I have to write all the stories. Silas said so. I don’t have the time or money to deal with a tow truck.” I reached him and yanked on his arm, turning him around. �
��I’m a damsel in distress. You can’t not help a damsel in distress. It’s a law.”
“You’re mistaking me for someone in a big hat and a shiny badge.”
“What do you have against the sheriff?”
“He’s an asshole.”
“That’s funny. He said the same thing about you.”
Boone threw his head back and laughed. He had a great laugh. Loud and infectious. “Fine. I’ll drive you. Get in the truck.”
I hopped in before he had a chance to change his mind. I looked back at my car in the ravine as we drove away. My insurance rates were going to skyrocket, and it would take forever to fix the Altima. Goodnight had been one disaster after another. I was more than a little tempted to forget about my inheritance and move back to California. But there wasn’t anything for me there, either. I was starting a new life and not making a big success at it.
My thoughts moved from my failures to Wade. He had gotten away, and I didn’t know what he had spoken about with Rocco.
I distracted myself by examining Boone’s truck, which was a mess. There were tools strewn on the floor, and the seats were covered in a thick layer of dust. My stomach growled, and I regretted not eating at the Sanchez family’s house.
“What were you doing out here?” Boone asked.
“Driving.”
“Outside of town?”
“I was tailing someone.”
“Tailing? Who? The invisible woman?”
I adjusted myself in the dusty seat. “For your information, I was tailing a suspect in Jimmy’s murder.”
“Since when was Jimmy murdered?”
“Since…well, he was too young to die naturally, and I’ll know more this afternoon. Meanwhile, Wade at New Sun Petroleum is suspect number one.”
“Oh, that bastard. He’s suspect number one for a lot of things, I’ll give you that.”
We got back to Goodnight UFOs in a few minutes, and I convinced Boone to go in with me because I still needed a ride after.
There were a few customers at the shop, who had traveled in from Colorado for the sale. Norton was delighted that I returned and had brought Boone with me. “You finally going to get the ET socks, Boone?” Norton asked him.
“I’m giving my landlady a ride. She crashed her car, and a snake tried to kill her.”
“I’ve got a picture of an alien that tried to kill me,” Norton said. “I’ll sell it to you for three hundred dollars. That’s a deal in the extraterrestrial business.”
“May I interview you about the sale?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. Come on back, and I’ll show you the UFO piece.”
Boone grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from next to the cash register and handed them to me. “I’ll wait here and read the Martians Daily magazine,” he told me.
I followed Norton to the stockroom in the back, which was a huge cavern with rows of metal shelving with merchandise on it. In the corner was an old beat-up desk and chair. He sat down. “I have to get it out of the safe,” he told me and worked the combination on a small safe. He opened it and pulled out a piece of metal. “Be careful with it,” he said, handing it to me. “It’s part of one of the original ships. You know about the arrival in the fifties, right?”
I wanted to say yes, but I had no idea about the arrival, and I knew that Silas would crucify me if I returned without the who, what, where, when, how, and why.
“No. Was there a sighting?”
Norton’s face brightened, full of the excitement about the arrival. “The entire town saw them,” he breathed. “Can you imagine? The entire town.”
I tried to imagine an entire town seeing UFOs. Of course, I figured they were really secret Air Force planes, or maybe the town was high on a funny mushroom. But I had seen Star Trek and Star Wars, and I couldn’t resist the idea of an alien invasion.
“What did they see?” I asked.
“The entire intergalactic army from the Vega quadrant,” he breathed and threw his hands up for traumatic effect.
“There’s an intergalactic army?”
“Look at this,” he said, pulling a framed photo from under a stack of paper on his desk. He handed it to me. Most of the picture was black, but it had a series of white dots on it. “You can’t look at that and not believe. Am I right?”
“What is it?”
“The army. The aliens from Vega. The Vegans. Where do you think the name for Las Vegas came from? They had an advance guard here, and they funded their invasion with mob money, working for Bugsy Siegel.”
I wrote furiously on the pad of paper. What a story! I was definitely going to get a Pulitzer.
“Is that where vegans come from? The ones who don’t eat meat?” I asked.
“No, as far as I can tell, those are just crazy people who don’t like bacon.”
I kept writing. “Does the government know about this?”
“Don’t get me started about the government.”
“So what happened when the Vegans invaded?”
“Well, they didn’t land. Vegans have a terrible phobia of snakes, and that year we were having a weird population explosion of rattlesnakes. They scared them away. If you ask me, I think the rattlesnake thing was just a strategy by the Andromedans.”
“The who?”
“The Andromedans. You know, the aliens who have already infiltrated American society. I think they shipped in the snakes to scare the Vegans away so they wouldn’t compete with them. The Andromedans have it good. They invented the Ziploc, you know. They didn’t want to lose that income stream.”
“Holy crap. There was a rattlesnake in my air-conditioning vent today.”
Norton pointed at me. “It’s happening again.” He looked up at the ceiling, as if he expected aliens to be flying over his head. I looked up, too. “The rattlesnakes are the first step. I have to rally the Goodnight UFOs social media group. We might be seeing a new arrival by the Vegans.”
I scribbled furiously on the pad of paper. “Holy crap.”
Boone ran into the room. “Matilda, hurry. Come look.”
He took my hand and ran me out of the room. “Shhh,” he whispered and pushed me behind a tower of tin hats. His arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me in so that my back was up against his front. “Look,” he whispered into my ear. “It’s Wade, and he’s talking to Mabel.”
“The woman who runs the pool?”
“She runs half of the town. Rocco runs the other half. Wade and his goons fund it all.”
“Holy crap. It’s a conspiracy. This is Watergate wrapped in Teapot Dome.”
“Wade seems very active today. Like he’s running scared. I think you might be right. I think Jimmy was murdered, and Wade had something to do with it.”
“I told you. You thought I was crazy.”
We tried to listen in to the conversation, but the shop had spooky alien music piped in, and it was drowning out the voices. “We’re going to have to follow him,” I said. “Blow this thing wide open.”
“God help me. You’re starting to make sense.”
Wade handed something to Mabel, and she put it in her purse. Then, Wade left the store. Meanwhile, Mabel leaned down and tied her shoe.
“What’re we doing?” Norton asked, tapping me on the shoulder and making me jump. Boone let me go and stepped back.
“Nothing. Nothing,” Boone said.
Norton handed me a cordless phone. “It’s Silas. He wants to talk to you.”
“Hello?” I said into the phone.
“Are you done over there? You’re supposed to be at the fish pedicure story. Remember, you’re picking up the slack.”
“I might have a lead on Wade.”
“Let me worry about Wade.”
“But…”
“Did you get the UFO sale story?” Silas interrupted.
“Oh, yes. It’s a good one.”
“Fine. Now go let some fish eat your feet and be back here pronto. Where’s your cellphone?”
“A snake got it.”
/>
“See you soon.”
“I have to get a fish pedicure,” I said, watching Mabel leave the UFOs store. “Where’s the fish pedicure place?”
“You’re asking me?” Boone asked. “I didn’t even know that fish had feet.”
“It’s at the rec center,” Norton said. “Mabel’s running it. She’s trying to bring some of the spa business that Santa Fe has. I was going to go, but I have the sale to handle.”
He gestured around the store. The four customers from Colorado were looking at the book section of the store. Otherwise, there was no one there.
Boone drove me the few blocks to the rec center. When we walked inside, Boone stopped at a vending machine and bought three bottles of water. “Here. Drink them all. You need to keep hydrated when you have altitude sickness,” he said, handing me the bottles.
“All of this?”
“Drink up.”
It didn’t take us long to find where the fish pedicures were taking place. Unlike the UFOs sale, a large crowd had turned out to have fish eat their feet. They were waiting in the hallway for the door to the room to be opened. I had brought the pad of paper and pen from the UFOs shop, and I took it out of my pocket to start interviewing.
“Hello there, Matilda,” Adele from the diner greeted me before I had a chance to ask the first question. “Where were you today? Don’t you like my diner?”
“I forgot to eat today,” I said. My stomach growled, proving my point. “It’s been a big day.”
“You’re telling me. The entire town wants to know if you killed Jimmy Sanchez with your vagina.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“That’s my cue. I’m going to find the men’s room. I’ll be back,” Boone said.
As soon as he was gone, Adele pulled me aside. “Are you and Boone a thing? Faye told me that you and Amos were hot and heavy. I never believed the Jimmy thing. Why eat hamburger when you can have a steak. Am I right?”
“Uh…”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t think that Jimmy tried something with you and his heart stopped with just the thought of it.”
“That’s not what happened.” At least I didn’t think so. But maybe it did. I needed more information. I wasn’t getting very far in my investigation. Maybe Klee was right about me not being ready to do big articles.
