“Hey bear, talk to me. What do you think? Will we make it through the winter?”
The cub was indifferent as Brody put several more pieces of wood in the stove. In less than a minute the entire cabin filled up with smoke and he had to run outside for some air. Something was plugging the stove pipe. He broke a branch off a tree and threw it on the roof and then climbed up and commenced to poke it down into the stove pipe and he ended up with a face full of smoke which made him cough.
The cub was now standing near the side of the cabin as if he was trying to get up on the roof with Brody. He looked down at him and almost fell off the roof. “Don't worry little fella I'm coming down.”
He climbed down as the cub watched. Brody had to wait until the smoke cleared out of the cabin but now he could see all the cracks because of the smoke escaping and so he decided to fill in the holes with wood chips. Although it was summer he knew that winter would arrive soon enough and it was best to be prepared. After he finished he sat on a log near the cabin and looked miserable. He started to cry as he talked to the bear and then pretended that the bear was talking back to him.
“Don't cry,” said the bear.
“But I miss Jayden,” said Brody. “He could be lonely out there or lost or even eaten by one of your people.”
“I'll bet he tastes delicious,” said the bear.
Brody looked at the bear. “What?”
The bear looked as though he hadn't said anything. “I didn't say nothing about him tasting delicious.”
“Okay. He's only been gone since yesterday and I'm already lonely.” Brody blew his nose on his shirt. He cried a little more and then stopped. Jayden would be okay or he wouldn't but there was nothing he could do about it now.
“When I get bigger I'm gonna eat you,” said the bear.
Brody looked up and stared at the cub. “What did you say?”
“I said when I get bigger I'll greet you,” said the bear.
“Oh.”
The bear nodded. “You make an awful ugly mother.”
“Hey! Do you want me to take you over my knee? I don't want to but I'll do it if I have to.”
“I'll take you over my knee and eat you,” said the bear.
The sound of a large branch cracking echoed through the quietness of the forest catching Brody's attention. The noise had come from the direction of a large oak tree and it looked like someone might be hiding behind it. He ran into the cabin as fast as he could, tripped and fell on his way in and then peeked out through one of the remaining cracks to see what he could see. He assumed that it was the police and that he would be sleeping in jail tonight. If the intruder was sneaking up he probably wasn't friendly. If he was captured by the police what would happen to his bear? With no one to ask Brody didn't know what to do. In life there were a million questions but not a million answers.
If it was the law they might shoot his bear. That made Brody's heart so heavy that he didn't even want to think about it. How could he make a run for it with the cub? What would Jayden do?
Chapter Fourty-Eight
THE CLOSER THEY GOT TO THE STRANGE PLANET the more frightened they got. The aliens were likely to be hideous and they could end up as guinea pigs being dissected for all they knew. Just because they were advanced didn't mean they would be friendly.
“What freaking planet is that?” Sam asked.
Wherever they were the stars appeared to be in strange formations and clusters. Nothing out there looked familiar. Four bright stars to the right formed a perfect square. A green, purple and red nebula was visible to the left and it was beautiful but also disturbing. They were headed toward some unknown planet that was getting closer and closer. They all stood silently staring as the planet got closer. It was all so overwhelming that they struggled to understand the implications of it all. Perhaps this was going to be the end of the line for all of them.
“Where the hell are we?” said Michael. “I don't wanna land on a freaking alien planet.”
Sam shook his head. The adventure was now officially a nightmare. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
Jake wasn't sure what to think. “If we could only control this freaking saucer.”
“That's probably the saucer's home planet,” said Randy. “With real aliens that might or might not eat us. Might or might not dissect us like a frog.”
Sam couldn't take his eyes off that fascinating planet. In its own way it was beautiful. They had already gone where no one had ever been before, seen stuff that no astronaut had ever observed and none of them could even guess what the planet had in store for them.
Michael fainted and everyone just ignored him.
Johnny rubbed his forehead. “Boy am I ever sorry I joined this club. I should have joined the skydiving without a parachute club.”
“God only knows what's down there,” said Jake. “I wanna go home.”
Johnny talked directly to the ship. “Come on saucer take us home. Please!”
Randy shook his head as the unknown planet was getting closer and closer. “Wonder what makes their oceans green like that?”
“It's probably all the sea monsters puking up in it.” Jake imagined it. “This place could have real fire breathing dragons for all we know.”
“How cool would that be,” said Randy. “As long as they didn't breathe fire at us.”
Michael got back up and steadied himself against Sam's shoulder. “What happened?”
“I'm scared,” said Randy.
“Me too,” said Sam.
Michael nodded. “Me three.”
Jake nodded. “Me four.
“Me five,” said Johnny. “I don't wanna see no freaking ugly aliens with bug eyes and eight spider legs licking their lips!”
A sphere floated out of the floor and beeped happily. It finally said two words that they could understand. “Home world.”
“Hey, it talked!” Sam shouted. “No, no, no! You don't understand! We don't want to go to your home world! We want to go to our home! Take us back to planet Earth!”
“Let me at it!” screamed Michael. “I'm gonna teach it a lesson.” Michael tried to punch it but it easily dodged him and gave him a slight shock from a purple streak of electricity and then the others held him back.
Randy pushed Michael back. “Are you crazy? Don't piss it off! It'll disintegrate all of us!”
“I'd rather be disintegrated than eaten by aliens!” Michael screamed.
They entered the gray planet's atmosphere and went through green and gray clouds. Something big and dark flew by but it had been so fast that none of them could make it out. It appeared to have been some sort of flying blob.
“What the hell was that?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Jake sat on the floor looking frightened. “I'm not going out there.”
“Me neither,” said Sam.
Randy stomped his foot. “You guys think you're not going out there but I didn't want to go out when we were on Mars and it pushed me out and believe me I didn't want to go out. If it wants us out there were going out.”
Michael smiled. “I can't believe I was on Mars! This is so freaking crazy!”
“I wanna go home,” said Johnny.
The ship flew through a strange multicolored sky, over a mountain range with bright red rocks. On several different areas of the mountains they could see strange looking beasts moving around and two of them were fighting one another. They were bizarre beings that looked like furry cubes with round eyes and feelers that were touching the ground. They moved in short fast bursts.
“Hey look,” said Michael. “Square horses.”
“I don't know what the hell those things are but they are not horses.” Sam couldn't take his eyes off of them until they were suddenly over the mountain and heading for what looked like a city of different shapes. Each building was surrounded by its own purple haze. The tallest structure was a metallic looking pyramid with rectangular windows with a bluish fog coming out of it. Another
almost identical saucer flew low and slow over the pyramid and then disappeared behind it.
Randy repeatedly shook his head as he talked to himself. “Come on Randy you can join our club it'll be fun. We have a flying saucer. You want to see it? It'll take us to another planet where aliens will have us for dinner! Sure let's go. Let's go get eaten!”
The saucer landed in front of the pyramid and there was complete silence for several minutes. They all just stared at the front of the pyramid expecting something to happen. Then a sphere floated out of the wall inside the saucer and went outside. Another identical sphere also left the ship and it surprised them.
“Hey, there was more than one of them in here.” Sam was surprised and suddenly found himself inside the bubble. “Oh no!” Even though he didn't want to go outside the bubble took him out nonetheless. The bubbles brought the others out as well and they found themselves standing in front of the pyramid.
“Butt probing time,” Randy whispered.
“Be quiet,” said Sam. “Don't give them any ideas.”
They all found themselves outside the pyramid, immediately noticing how fresh the air smelled and it even had a slight taste to it; Randy thought that it tasted like the purest water. If one was dying of thirst in the desert and drank a glass of cold water he thought that's what it would have tasted like. Jake thought it tasted like heaven. Sam wondered what the point of the bubble was if they could breathe the air, unless it was protecting them from microbes and such. Michael bent down and picked up some grains of sand; the grains felt a little like Styrofoam. He put a handful of it in his pocket and the others did so as well. When Randy examined the sand he thought the grains were alive or charged or something. Since scientists back on Earth might not be able to figure it out he imaged that he had little chance. What a strange world.
Suddenly a sphere exited right through the wall of the pyramid, and then another and another, until they were surrounded by more than fifty spheres. Apparently they were all interested in seeing the humans. They all appeared to be identical except for two that were such a pretty blue color. Some of them touched each other and then moved off to touch others, perhaps they were talking. Maybe they were saying how strange the five of them looked?
Sam shook his head. “What is it with all these flying balls?”
Randy looked at Johnny. “Do you really think these things could be their people? I wonder if their babies are little balls.”
“I guess anything is possible,” said Johnny. “I can't freaking believe we're on another planet! Look how weird that tree looks.”
The so-called tree was about fifty feet tall with its roots feeling around on the ground as if they were searching for something. At the top of it was a green web that had caught a large flying insect-like thing in it.
“This is so freaking cool,” said Michael.
The globes surrounded them and commenced to make contact. One globe rolled up Randy's left arm and then down the back of his neck following his spine. Another was right on top of Sam's head; he could feel it up there but had no idea what it was doing. Four of the spheres were huddled together making weird buzzing noises as if they were talking to one another. Then they all left and headed back inside the pyramid, but then one came out and squeaked at them and went back inside.
“It wants us to follow it,” said Sam.
They all followed it in, right through the walls of the pyramid just like magic. Inside the floor was covered in about two inches of gray fog. A slide of sorts led up to the second floor. A bluish light that repeatedly altered its shades of blue was up close to the ceiling; it circled around following no particular path. And then a gray sphere that was larger than all the rest rolled down the slide and hit the floor with a thump, dispersing the fog. A brown blob made its way through the room where it suddenly stopped; looking as if something was trapped inside of it. Then two bony hands tore open a hole in the top of the blob where a green head that was dripping slime emerged. It had five pink eyes and a mouth but said nothing. They all wanted to run away but couldn't seem to manage it. It stared at the boys for almost a minute and then it simply continued on its way.
The larger sphere was engaging in conversation with the other globes, and the noises that it was making sounded concerned. It rolled through the wall down a narrow corridor and the other spheres and the boys followed it. Then they ended up in another room that was like a giant pyramid. Inside the new area were more than five hundred spheres that were floating in there; the larger one had centered itself in the middle of the room. All the entities were commutating with one another until the large sphere jumped and let itself hit the floor hard and then the room became silent. Out of it came a 3d image showing the saucer travelling to the planet they were on.
“Is that us in the saucer?” Randy asked.
“Affirmative,” said the big sphere. It then showed a triangular ship travelling to another planet, at first the other planet was blurry but soon became a crystal clear image of the Earth with its moon circling it.
“That's our planet and our moon,” Jake shouted.
“Affirmative.”
They watched as the large triangular ship approached the Earth and then emitted a beam that struck the Earth on its equator and then the planet blew up into a million chunks of rock and debris.
“What the hell!” said Sam. “You guys are going to blow up the Earth?”
“Negative.”
Johnny cocked his head as he thought. “Someone else is going to blow up the Earth?”
“Affirmative.”
Jake looked puzzled. “Have they already blown it up?”
“Negative.”
Michael wondered if it was true. “Can you stop them?”
“Negative.” The sphere spun for several seconds and then halted. “You them stop.”
“Is it saying that we have to stop them?” Randy asked.
“How the hell can we stop them?” Michael screamed.
The 3d imaged showed five dots getting out of the saucer and getting into another ship that was shaped like a kite. It showed the kite hitting the larger triangular ship and destroying it but the ship that looked like a kite had completely vanished as well.
“So let me see if I have this straight,” said Randy. “We get in that other ship and hit the big triangular spaceship and save the Earth?”
“Affirmative.”
Sam nodded. “And we're all killed in the process?”
“Unknown.”
Michael fainted.
Jake looked down at Michael. “I say we just leave him here.”
Chapter Fourty-Nine
THE MASSIVE TRIANGULAR SPACESHIP entered the solar system. It slowed and went into orbit around Neptune. The aliens appreciated the beautiful blue color of the planet and scanned the Great Dark Spot as well as the rest of the planet, but after completing the scan they decided all that ice and rock was of no use to them. There was nothing on the large planet that interested them and they weren't about to expend the necessary energy to destroy it.
Inside the alien ship they detected several war ships approaching. Battle stations were engaged as walls lit up to show the oncoming aggressors. Weapons were readied to fire. As the enormous ship pulled out of orbit several blue-flame spiral ships attacked it, as if from out of nowhere, shooting balls of electric blue energy, obviously doing damage to the monster ship as debris fields flew off it with each hit. The back right bottom corner of it was hit and a pyramid shaped piece broke off and drifted away. The monster spacecraft released a ball of red energy and out of that ball came another larger sphere that dragged the other one with it, hitting two of the four blue spirals, destroying them instantly. The spirals were an ancient civilization that had been attacked several times and were now out to destroy their enemy but it was easier stated than accomplished.
The two remaining spirals would not be deterred and went in closer before commencing to attack the mile long white rectangular protuberances on the surface of the spacecraf
t, and with each one destroyed glass-like shards floated away into the blackness of space. Over a hundred robotic guns crawled out of the monster ship and commenced to strafe the spirals, and within minutes they were cut to pieces.
The ship departed Neptune and continued on its journey toward planet Earth.
Chapter Fifty
WITH THE SUN PUSHING ITS WAY OVER THE HORIZON to welcome another morning without Randy, John and Stella hit the trail heading into the forest in search of their son. The families of the other lost boys had also ventured into the forest in search of their children days ago but at that time Randy's parents figured that the police would find them but now they had to go and see if they couldn't find him. John had a Winchester rifle on his back and even though they were most likely wasting their time they simply couldn't sit around doing nothing. Where the police hadn't any success locating them they figured their chances were slim but it gave them something positive to do.
Time had slowed to a crawl for Randy's parents and they would both struggle with his disappearance forever if they didn't find him. They had tried to get Harold or one of the others to show them where they had last seen Randy, but it was understandable that their parents wouldn't permit it. John's brother Fred was back at the house just in case he returned or he received important news.
The two carried backpacks and supplies just in case. They knew that they had to turn off the trail to the right about a mile down but that was about it. They had no idea how they were supposed to find him in such vast wilderness but they couldn't take one more reporter pounding at their door in search of a sob story. Stella knew that kids went missing every year and some were never seen again and all her thoughts were of the negative variety, but at least out here, putting one foot in front of the other, she was doing something to at least partially occupy her mind.
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