by J. Blanes
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“It was too early in the morning, and I couldn’t wait for you to wake up. I was too anxious to see what was there.”
“And what will you do next?” Keira already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from him.
“I’ll rest tonight; I’m really tired. Today, because I rushed without thinking, I made many mistakes. I left my GPS, and I should’ve brought food and water, although in my defense, I didn’t know it was so desolate there. Tomorrow I’ll go back, more relaxed and better prepared for the trip. I’ll find an alternate route with my GPS.”
It was exactly what Keira wanted to hear. “Excellent idea, we’ll go with you,” she announced at once.
“What?” both guys exclaimed.
“Wait a moment,” Dylan complained, shaking his head. “Who says I’ll go?” He could understand the love for riding and fishing, but going to a desert in the middle of nowhere was not even on his list of hated outdoor activities.
“Yeah, you should listen to him.” It was Albert’s turn for complains. “Who says I want company this time?”
“I don’t care what Dylan does, but I’ll go. Imagine that there’s something really interesting out there! I want to be the first reporter on site.” Keira was smiling, already picturing the headlines in her mind. “I want the exclusive.”
“And what if we don’t find anything there?”
“Then I’ll just take some beautiful desert pictures. It’s a win-win situation for me, so you won’t convince me to stay here.” Then, she approached Albert and stared threateningly at him. “And forget about leaving without me,” she threatened, “or I’ll kill you when you get back. And you.” She looked at Dylan now. “Aren’t you even a little curious about this?”
“Not in the least,” he lied, trying to persuade himself that the whole thing was some kind of crazy fantasy inside Albert’s head. “I’ll stay here, playing video games, like today. I’ll never go into some hellish dusty badlands.”
Keira looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a twisted smile.
FOUR
“I should’ve stayed at the farm,” Dylan complained. He had motion sickness from the wobbly, sharp pickup movements. On top of it, he had opened the window and stuck his head out, trying to alleviate his symptoms, only to be hit in the face by an extraordinary amount of sand and dust. He hastily closed the window while coughing as uncontrollably as Albert and Keira laughed. He still wondered how he had let Keira persuade him to come along on this nightmare.
The alternate route Albert had found was completely uneven and filled with holes, much worse than the one he had taken the day before. At first, it seemed a better option, as this road was at the bottom of the canyon instead of the top, so there were no more risks of landslides or falling off a cliff. However, as the road progressed farther into the canyon, it stopped being a road at all. Now, even the big pickup struggled to advance between the immense rocks that blocked the way and the no-less-impressive holes that Dylan thought went deep down straight to hell. Their progress was difficult and slow, but Albert was determined to reach his destination at all costs.
“The GPS says it’s only a matter of minutes now,” he said, trying to comfort Dylan. “We can stop and take a break if you want.”
“No way,” Dylan replied grumpily. “I don’t want to die scorched in this hellhole. Let’s get it done and go back as soon as possible.”
“OK, no need to be so grouchy.” Albert smiled.
“Grouchy…” Dylan mumbled.
The GPS was not exactly right. Someone had programmed—either by error or because of a twisted sense of humor—that the road they were traveling was a secondary, almost-decent road instead of the rocky terrain they were suffering. Albert even wondered if that all was part of the same hoax. It took almost an hour more to get to their objective than it had taken him yesterday.
“There’s nothing here.” Dylan said when they arrived, with an “I told you so” tone.
“Let’s look around.” Albert was not convinced yet. “The coordinates aren’t that accurate, and it could be anywhere inside a couple of hundred yards’ radius.”
“We can cover more terrain if we split up,” Keira proposed.
Albert shook his head. “We only have one GPS, and we could easily get lost in this maze of rocks.”
“You’re right,” Keira agreed after looking around.
“We’ll try to cover the most terrain possible by walking in a spiral pattern,” Albert suggested. “If for some reason we get separated, call or text each other.”
“That’d be a problem.” Keira was looking at her phone. “It says there’s no service here.” She let them see her phone screen.
“Great!” Dylan snapped. “What if Detective Powell calls? He’ll believe something had happened to us when nobody answers.”
“He won’t call so soon.” Keira quickly dismissed the idea. “He said it would take several days to clear things up.” The last thing she wanted was Albert having second thoughts because of them. “We’re already here. Let’s finish what we started.”
Dylan said nothing. He knew better than to confront her in an open discussion, as it would only delay the inevitable.
Keira spoke again. “What should we be looking for?”
Albert didn’t really know. “Just anything out of the ordinary, I think. Something odd, weird…”
“Alien…” Dylan interrupted.
“Yeah, that too,” Albert agreed, smiling.
“OK, let’s go.” Keira was not one to dabble in small talk when there were more pressing matters at hand.
“How long do we have to search?” Dylan was already hungry, and delaying his lunch for too long worried him.
“We’ll walk for about fifteen or twenty minutes.” Although he wasn’t sure, Albert guessed it should be a reasonable amount of time. “If we haven’t found anything by that time, it’ll be pointless to continue.” Dylan found it reasonable, too, and accepted it without more complaints.
They followed their planned route. The terrain was easier to walk than it was to drive on, but its constant ups and downs strained their legs to the limit, especially Albert and Dylan’s untrained ones. The unseasonably hot spring day didn’t help either. In his first ten minutes of walking, Dylan had already emptied his bottle of water and was sweating profusely. If it were up to him, he would have sent to hell all aliens and their signals; but his sense of duty and friendship prevailed, and he kept going forward.
Half an hour later, they huddled in front of the pickup. They were sweating and tired, with their faces showing their frustration.
Keira, who was in better shape and bore the exercise much better than her male friends, spoke first. “Sorry, Albert, there’s really nothing special here, only rocks and more rocks.”
“That confirms it was just a prank,” Albert admitted, visibly defeated. He was now as eager as Dylan to go home.
Dylan’s stomach gurgled. “Let’s eat,” he suggested.
Everybody welcomed the idea. As there was not a single decent bit of shade in miles, they got back in the pickup, turned on the air conditioning, and comfortably ate the sandwiches they had brought with them.
“Let’s go home,” Albert proposed after finishing his meal.
“Not so fast,” Keira objected. “I came here to take some pictures, alien or not, and I won’t leave without them.” Before they could argue, she got out the pickup with her camera and stretched herself. Albert and Dylan soon followed.
“When we were at the river, you spent almost four hours taking pictures,” Dylan snapped. “Do you really expect us to wait here for you this time?”
“No, of course not,” she replied, smiling. “This time you’ll have to come with me.”
“And why would we?”
“Because I can get lost,” she said
calmly, “or there could be another bear.”
“I don’t think so.” Dylan was talking louder. “You know, unlike humans, bears are intelligent creatures that don’t go near places like this, much less wander willingly taking pictures of some stupid rock.” He paused for a second and then added, “And you can’t get lost if you bring the GPS with you, can you?”
“So, you acknowledge that I’ll go anyway.”
“You’re a lost cause.” Dylan turned around and got back in the pickup.
“What about you?” she asked Albert.
“You helped me today, so it’s only fair that I do the same for you,” he replied. “Let me fetch the GPS.” He thought for a second before speaking again. “You know, Dylan’s right about one thing; we can’t stay here much longer.”
“I know,” she agreed. “I was just teasing him.”
“I see,” Albert said, nodding slightly. “Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s see…” she pondered while looking around. “Let’s go that way.” She pointed at one of the canyon walls. “We can go there, take some pictures on our way, and come back in less than an hour,” she said.
“OK, let’s go.”
On their way to the canyon walls, Keira made many stops, taking pictures of every little thing that caught her attention. From small, insignificant plants to huge rocks with funny shapes, nothing escaped her photographic eye. Despite all her stops, they reached the base of the wall in less than twenty minutes. They were about to go back when a noise came from behind. Keira turned around, expecting to find another wild animal threatening them.
“What the…!” she exclaimed in surprise.
“It was too boring over there, so…” Dylan said unconvincingly.
He had been following them at a distance, like an angry child who does not want to go somewhere but cannot stay behind either. Keira wanted to be angry with him. He had scared her to death, but she smiled instead. Dylan’s childish behavior always aroused mixed feelings in her. Sometimes it felt like she was taking care of a spoiled child and, sometimes, like he was taking care of her in a funny, sweet, and caring way.
Albert was about to say something unpleasant to Dylan, but he restrained himself. Even reluctantly, Dylan had also come to help him today, and he owed him for that. “Let’s go back,” he said instead.
“Instead of wandering around, we can go back faster if we follow the base of the wall for a few minutes and then turn left, straight to the pickup,” Dylan suggested. His desire to go back as fast as possible had sharpened his sense of direction.
“You’re right,” Albert agreed, looking at his GPS. “We’ve been following a curve. If we go that way, we could save a lot of time.”
Keira also welcomed the idea. The route Dylan suggested offered an opportunity to take new pictures from a different perspective.
In fact, it turned out to be better than she expected. At this time in the afternoon, the canyon wall provided pleasant shade, and there were plenty of interesting, shadowy forms to capture with her camera. Especially attractive to her, for their quantity and variety, were the curves, caves, cracks, and crevices in the canyon wall.
“I think we never got here this morning,” she said. The place seemed unfamiliar to her, and she would have remembered.
“You’re right,” Albert agreed. “It was a little far out to the west from our morning route.”
“Look at this!” Dylan shouted. He had been walking a few yards in front of them. From Keira and Albert’s perspective, it seemed like he was staring directly at the wall.
They quickly approached him, and what they saw left them speechless. They had reached a section of the wall that suddenly retreated into the cliff. Through a narrow opening, they could see a circular enclosure where the cliff walls surrounded a big portion of terrain, which Albert guessed had more than hundred yards in diameter. The view from their position was wonderful, like observing the main center hall of a huge, roofless cathedral from its front door.
“Wow! It’s magnificent,” Keira exclaimed in awe, and Albert shared her admiration in silence. Only Dylan, now past his initial amazement, seemed not to care anymore about that natural wonder. “OK, let’s move on,” he said.
“Are you crazy?” Keira snapped. “This is by far the most beautiful place we’ve seen in a long time.” She crossed through the opening and walked toward the area’s center. Albert and Dylan followed her soon after.
She walked slowly, taking pictures in every direction, engaged in finding each shot’s best angle. Albert was also captivated, looking up at the imposing walls. It was then that they heard Dylan’s shout.
“What the…!”
Albert and Keira turned around to look at him. He looked perplexed and scared, and he was barely moving. He was pointing at an area near the wall. When Albert and Keira turned to see what it was, they couldn’t believe their eyes.
“Wow!” they both exclaimed. Albert instinctively put his body in front of Keira, protecting her from whatever danger might exist.
About a hundred yards in front of them, in a dark corner near the wall where just seconds ago had been only rocks, there was now some kind of airplane or spaceship. It was too dark to know for sure, but it was similar to the space shuttles used by NASA, although bigger and different.
“What…what the hell is that?” Dylan managed to ask in a trembling voice. “And where did it come from?”
Nobody answered, because nobody had a clue. Albert’s scientific mind was swiftly trying in vain to process and explain the information his eyes were providing him. “Keira, you’d better go back with Dylan.” He gently pushed her toward Dylan’s position. Instead of moving, she grabbed her camera and started getting pictures of the ship.
“What are you doing? This is not the time for that!” Dylan shouted at her, but she ignored him.
Albert’s curiosity was also bigger than his fear, and he started walking slowly toward the ship. Keira grabbed his arm.
“Where are you going? We don’t know if it’s safe,” she warned him.
“I need to examine it closely,” he replied. He didn’t have to say anything else. His pleading eyes told her everything she needed to know. “Just go back to the pickup with Dylan. I’ll come back soon.” It was obvious to her that Albert didn’t intend to keep his word.
She looked at him and nodded. She knew this could be his dream come true, and he would never let it go without having explored every inch of that thing. She walked back up to Dylan’s position.
“What’s he doing?” he asked her, looking at Albert walking toward the ship.
She disregarded his question. “Come on, let’s move back a little.”
As they were retreating, Albert shouted, “Wow!” When they looked back, they thought they had gone completely crazy. Albert was now looking at them in total confusion with his mouth open. Dylan rubbed his eyes in disbelief while Keira remained motionless.
The spaceship, or whatever it was, was nowhere to be seen.
Keira composed herself enough to turn on her camera and look at the pictures she had taken a few seconds ago. The ship was perfectly visible on them, a little blurry but visible nevertheless. She sighed in relief; at least they weren’t crazy. She showed Dylan the pictures.
Albert also approached to look at them, as he, too, was doubting his senses. They all raised their heads and stared incredulously, first at each other, and then gradually at the place where the ship had been no more than a few seconds before.
“What the hell is going on?” Dylan asked.
“It must be a trick,” Keira said. “Some sort of projection.” She instinctively looked up, trying to find the culprits. “Maybe we’re overreacting.”
“You’re right,” Albert agreed. “It could be all part of the same hoax.” His voice betrayed his skepticism. But it was too real and felt too physical to be a sim
ple projection. “I’ll go look again,” he said finally. “Wait here.”
“No, I’ll go with you,” Dylan offered uncharacteristically, surprising both Albert and Keira. “What?” he blurted out, uneasy at the way they were looking at him.
“Nothing.” Albert dismissed him with a frown in his face. They both stared inquiringly at Keira.
“If you think I’ll wait here alone, you should revise your thinking process,” she said defiantly.
“OK, we’ll go together,” Dylan accepted. “I’ll go first. Follow me, but keep your distance, just in case something…”
He wasn’t able to finish. Albert had already started walking ahead of them, leaving no room for more discussion. A few steps farther along, he stopped and turned around. “Remember, as Dylan wisely said, keep your distance,” he warned them, stopping them in their tracks just as they were about to follow him. Then, he resumed walking. Dylan and Keira followed him a few yards behind.
As Albert approached the spot where the ship had been standing, he noticed something strange. He knew something wasn’t right but couldn’t pinpoint what. He was now just a few steps from his target, and he stopped and stared at the whole place, carefully examining it. There was nothing, just the walls rising to the sky. Then, suddenly, a piece of white metal covered his whole field of vision, startling him and making him fall backward.
“Are you OK?” Dylan shouted from behind.
“Yes!” Albert exclaimed, still trying to register what happened.
Keira and Dylan were just as stunned as he was. This time, that thing had appeared out of nothing in front of their eyes, without making any sound or any kind of warning. It just appeared. They could clearly see now that it was some kind of spaceship.
Dylan studied it with interest, as a good mechanic would any unknown machine that fell into his hands. Its length from tail to nose was about half an average transoceanic passenger plane, but it was taller, about the same height as two tall people, one on top of the other. But the first thing that caught his attention was that it had no exhaust of any kind, no propellers, no turbines, nothing that resembled an engine or indicated the presence of one. Almost as intriguing was the lack of any other common features for this kind of ship. Instead, it rested directly on the ground, as it didn’t have any type of undercarriage, and he could not see any wings or stabilizers, the wings that should be at the tail. It couldn’t have had have stabilizers anyway, because it had no tail at all, at least not like planes have. Instead, its place was taken by a peculiar kind of curved, long structure, bent from back to front, shaped like a scorpion tail. In fact, this weird tail was the most remarkable feature the ship had, as well as the most contrasting one. To Dylan, the whole ship resembled a plane fuselage, without wings or anything protruding from it except for a relatively sized scorpion tail on top. If this was in fact a spaceship, how it moved or flew was beyond his comprehension.
