Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances

by Margo Bond Collins

  Jace wrenched the wheel over and took the Jeep off the road into a flat, grassy area under a hickory tree. The nuts crunched under his tires, but he managed to avoid any ditches or big rocks in the dark.

  He could just make out Sara’s unhappy face in the gloom. “You going up there?”

  “Guess so.” He didn’t see any other way; he had to look around.

  “Then I’m going with you.”

  “The hell you are!” Jace was about to tell her exactly why she was going to keep her butt planted in that seat when a light winked through the woods above the house.

  Sara saw it, too. “Is that somebody coming down off the ridge?”

  He strained to listen. “It’s a truck on the road, coming down the holler.”

  “Nobody’s lived up there since old Yates Hatfield died.” Sara’s voice was a breath full of fear.

  “Yates died five years ago. Bet you a beer that’s John Lee’s truck.”

  The look on Sara’s face said the same thing he was thinking: What the hell had John Lee been doing up on the ridge?

  Sara grabbed his hand and held on, and they watched as John Lee’s big Ford kicked gravel out of the last curve and roared toward the house. He slowed at the drive and turned in, then accelerated again up the long straightaway, sliding to a dusty stop in front of his trailer. From their shadowed hiding place they could see him get out of the truck and go directly into the front door—alone.

  Jace started to ask Sara for the binoculars that he kept in his glovebox, but he knew they would do him no good. If the woman was sitting up properly in the seat where he could see her, she wouldn’t need help. If she was slumped over, he wouldn’t be able to see a thing. Anyway, the woman wasn’t there. Every instinct he possessed said she was up on the ridge, buried in a shallow hole.

  “Damn, that sonofabitch works fast.”

  “Maybe there’s a still up on the ridge,” Sara said.

  His head whipped around to look at her. “Darlin’, you are a genius!” Because if there was a still, there was a shack. And if there was a shack, there was a chance John Lee’s latest victim was still alive.

  Jace started up the engine and turned on the lights. He didn’t care now if John Lee saw him. He needed speed. He bounced over the grass to the road and took off as fast as he could up the gravel track, taking advantage of the few hundred feet of straight road before he hit the winding way through the woods to the top of the holler. He glanced to his right and saw Sara staring back at John Lee’s trailer.

  “Think he heard us?”

  “Yeah. He’s out on his porch with a shotgun.” She turned back and settled into her seat as they entered the woods. “I couldn’t tell whether he was going for the truck.”

  “I expect he will.” Jace was digging himself in deeper and deeper, he knew. He should be calling in the Logan County boys now, but he still couldn’t bring himself to do it. He prayed they wouldn’t find anything up on that ridge, that John Lee had just taken the poor woman home like he’d said. But Jace’s gut said different.

  Once the woods closed in on both sides, the road hugged the left slope and climbed the ever-steeper cut into the mountainside. Young trees overgrew the diminishing track and swiped at the windshield and doors. If he hadn’t just seen John Lee come down from here, Jace would’ve sworn no one had been over the road in months. But, no, the growth in the roadbed itself had been cleared; the gravel was firm under his vehicle. The track hadn’t been abandoned; John Lee was using it regularly.

  The ascent flattened out near the top of the ridge, and the trees began to thin. “Keep an eye out for that still,” he said, his gaze swiveling to both sides of the dark woods.

  In the next second his usually reliable Jeep jerked to a stop. She didn’t cough, she didn’t sputter. She just died without a sound. No lights, no engine, nothing when he tried to restart her. Before Jace could even muster a curse, the woods, the Jeep, the vault of the sky itself lit up and burned with a light as bright and white as a hundred noontime suns.

  “What the hell?” Blinded, Jace reached out to the woman who was his lifeline.

  Sara’s hand gripped his. “Jace?”

  As abruptly as it had started, the light shut down, plunging the woods into intense darkness. The normal, barely perceptible rustlings and squeaks in the undergrowth, the late-season crickets, the hooting owls, had fallen silent. Jace felt like his ears were plugged with cotton.

  Sara’s voice shook. “What was that?”

  The Jeep came to life again, the interior lights and headlights blinking on. Jace turned the key and the engine started up without a hiccup. He shook his head at the dash, unable to formulate an explanation. Images came unbidden to his mind of his great-grandmother Ida’s “visions” of other worlds and bright lights in the night. Scared the life out of him as a kid.

  While he waited for his heartbeat to slow enough for him to think, Jace peered through the trees. “There’s an old hayfield out on the ridge.” He put the Jeep in gear. “Let’s go see if we can find anything.”

  The vehicle emerged out onto the flattened slope of the meadow, and suddenly they were at the top of the world. The black sky arched overhead, the spray of stars that marked the Milky Way sharp and bright. Jace shivered and double-checked the road in front of him, feeling abruptly weightless in all that star-filled space.

  Sara brought him back down to Earth. “Jace, look! There’s somebody crossing the field.”

  A lone figure moved on the other side of the meadow, no more than a deeper shadow against the starlit sky. Jace could just make out a vehicle parked next to the trees on the other side of the field, where the road continued in a loop around from where he and Sara had emerged from the woods.

  “John Lee has an accomplice?” Sara looked to him for an answer he didn’t have.

  “It looks that way. But what’s he doing out in the field?” And which way would he jump now that he knew someone was on to him?

  Wasn’t but one thing to do. “Hang on.” He punched the command for four-wheel drive and wrestled with the steering wheel once again, taking the Jeep off the road and into the hayfield. He had to cut the man off before he got in his vehicle and made a run for it.

  Sara yelped, grabbing the strap over the door and bracing herself for the rough ride.

  Jace sped over the field, the Jeep bouncing and sliding over the hummocked ground. The man ran as soon as he heard the accelerating engine, but he was a long way from his vehicle, and the footing was treacherous in the dark.

  The Jeep pulled closer, closer to the running man. They got just close enough to see that the big bear of a man was going to be tough to bring down, and Jace swung the vehicle to the left, accelerating to come around in front of him. Finally, he jerked to halt in the man’s path, near enough that the runner stumbled into the hood. Jace grabbed the cuffs he carried in the vehicle and went after the man, who had pivoted and dashed for his own car, now tantalizingly close at the edge of the woods. He didn’t get far before Jace tackled the big sonofabitch, but as soon as the man hit the ground he was fighting back. A fist as big as a small ham smashed into Jace’s jaw, snapping his teeth together. Then an elbow slammed into his ribs, robbing him of breath. He struggled to get a hand to the Beretta he kept in a holster at his ankle, but his opponent kept grabbing his arms, until at last the man had him in a bear hug and was squeezing the life out of him.

  Well, hell, he thought, and used the last weapon available to him—his head. He pulled back and brought his forehead down into the man’s nose, leaving it a bloody mess. The man’s grip relaxed. Jace flipped him to his stomach before he could recover, pulled his arms behind him and reached for the cuffs.

  Then a shotgun boomed from the edge of the nearby woods and dirt kicked up uncomfortably close to Jace’s knee. “Git off him or the next ’un’ll go through your head, asshole.”

  He dropped the cuffs with a curse and raised his hands. “Don’t do anything stupid, John Lee.” He stood up, feeling the weigh
t of that Beretta at his ankle. He couldn’t see Sara in the Jeep; she was keeping her head down. Smart girl.

  “Who you callin’ stupid?” A wiry figure emerged from the shadows and advanced on him, the shotgun at the ready. “Looks I’m the one who got the drop on you, Deputy Dumbass. Back away.”

  Jace stepped back. The man on the ground sat up, swiping at the blood still dripping from his nose.

  John Lee looked down at the man in concern. “You okay, boss?”

  “Shut the fuck up.” The big man lurched to his feet. “I’ve had enough of this borazt. Get them both over here.”

  Holy Christ! Sara! It was all he could do not to look at the Jeep.

  But John Lee was more than a little slow on the uptake. “Both?”

  “Yes, you ignorant Earth . . . uh, hillbilly! He has the girl with him. Go get her and let’s get this over with.” He reached inside his jacket, glanced at his car parked at the edge of the woods and cursed. “Give me that weapon.”

  Jace watched as John Lee handed over the shotgun. Only one gun between the two of them. They might have a chance if he knew his Sara. He tensed, waiting for John Lee to reach the passenger door.

  Then, just like before, the world turned bright, bright white and Jace’s head filled up with the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears. He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his head. Where the hell was it coming from? Nothing could make that kind of light, a light that penetrated his skull and made him want to scream.

  In seconds it was over. One moment as bright as day; the next moment, deepest night. Ears ringing, vision still blanked as his pupils adjusted to the dark, Jace scrabbled for the gun at his ankle, pulled it out of the holster with shaking hands. But before he had a chance to find his opponent in the dark, the big man loomed in front of him, fully recovered, and kicked him in the chest. Then the bear was straddling him with his paws around his throat, and it looked like the lights would go out forever.

  ***

  That ungodly searchlight had fried Sara’s plans to surprise John Lee when he came to get her from the Jeep. Her head was still spinning when the little rat yanked open the door and pulled her out onto the ground.

  But damned if she was going anywhere with him. She attacked his legs from where she was on the cold turf until he finally fell over, yelling bloody murder. Then she just scrambled up on top of him and beat at his face with her fists. Maybe it wasn’t MMA-approved, but it seemed to be getting the job done. John Lee put up a meager defense.

  “I don’t know, I think he’s about finished, don’t you, sweets?”

  The woman’s voice came from somewhere over her shoulder. Sara paused with one fist upraised to turn and look. What the hell?

  “Who are you?” She scanned the field for another vehicle. All she saw was a dark shape lying nearby. “And where the hell did you come from?”

  The woman was small, no more than five-one-or-two, and African-American. “My name is Rayna. I, uh, hitched a ride. Excuse me.” There had been no hurry in her voice, but she moved fast to where it looked like Jace was losing his fight to John Lee’s boss. She put some kind of a weapon (did they make handguns out of clear plastic?) to the man’s head. “Off. Now.” She backed up to let the big man get up and held the weapon on him.

  On the ground beneath Sara, John Lee’s mouth hung open. “Who the fuck is this bitch?” he whispered to her.

  “Got me, but she looks like she’s on our side, not yours.” She pushed off him and stood up. “Get up.” When he found his feet, she pushed him toward his boss so the woman with a gun could cover both of them.

  At their feet, Jace sat up, coughing, his hands to his throat.

  Sara knelt beside him. “You gonna live, honey?” Her hands hovered near him, unsure of whether to touch him, to claim him as she wanted to do.

  He put an end to her doubts by pulling her into his arms. “I wasn’t sure there for a minute,” he whispered into her ear. “Who’s the gal with the toy gun?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” She couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face, though she supposed no one else would think it fit the situation. She tried to get her emotions in check as she pulled Jace to his feet.

  Jace found his Beretta and returned it to his ankle holster. He snatched up the shotgun that had been lost in his scuffle with John Lee’s partner and checked to confirm it was still loaded. Then he pointed it at his two perps and raised a calming hand in the direction of the mysterious stranger with the gun in her hand. She had just finished placing some kind of handcuffs on his prisoners.

  “Well, uh, ma’am. . .”

  “You can just call me Rayna.”

  Jace raised an eyebrow. “Rayna. I’m Deputy Sheriff Jace McCoy. Thanks for the help, but I can take charge of these two now. You can put that away.”

  “Sorry, sweets, it’s not quite that simple.” The tiny woman grinned, a flash of white in her dark face, but she didn’t let go of her grip on that gun. “These men are going with me.”

  “These men are persons of interest in a kidnapping investigation,” Jace shot back. “And despite the fact that you apparently rescued us from them tonight, I have a few questions about how you happen to be up here on this mountain, Rayna, especially since you’re not someone I recognize from Logan County. In fact, if I wasn’t inclined to be charitable, I’d say you were the boss of the whole operation and stepped in to take control when you saw Frick and Frack here had messed things up.”

  Rayna laughed. “You don’t take anything for granted, do you, Deputy?”

  “This is bullshit!” John Lee hollered. “I didn’t do nothin’ ’cept come up here to run a bunch of trespassers off my land. I got a right—”

  “Shut up!” This from both Jace and the big man at the same time. Sara thought Rayna might have joined in, too.

  “So, ma’am,” Jace persisted, “if you’re FBI or DEA or the like, I’ll need to see that badge now.”

  “I suppose you would,” Rayna said. “But since I’m not FBI or DEA, I can’t show you one. Let’s just say I work for a higher authority.”

  Jace cocked his head as if considering what authority might be higher than the U.S. government, but Sara had a more immediate concern. “Aren’t we forgetting something?” When heads turned to look at her, she took a step in the big man’s direction. “Where is Lydia?”

  The grin that spread across his face was pure evil. “She’s long gone, human.”

  Jace moved toward him, as if he’d like to start their wrestling match all over again, but Sara was there first. “Frankenstein, there ain’t no way you got Lydia off this mountain before we got here.” She thumped on the big man’s chest. “So where the hell is she?”

  Before the man could throttle her, Rayna stepped between them and moved her gently back. “Lydia is safe. Trust me.”

  “Why would we trust you?” Sara shrugged off the woman’s grip. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “And where did you come from?” Jace added. “There was no one up here but us before—” He stopped, understanding dawning in his face. “What do you know about those lights?”

  The woman named Rayna started to speak, but was interrupted by a faint ping from her jacket pocket. She pulled out what looked like a standard smart phone and answered it.

  “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that,” she murmured into the phone. Then, “I’m not sure . . . Yes, I did find them, but there are complications . . . No! That’ll just make things worse . . . Give me five minutes.” Then she put the phone away.

  “This has to do with all the disappearances I’ve been following, doesn’t it,” Jace said. “These guys, you, the lights. They’re all connected. Tell me how.”

  Sara gaped at him. Lord knew how he had made this leap in logic. But bingo! he had sure got it, because Rayna was staring at him with a little smile on her face like Jace was the brightest kid in math class. Guess the man wasn’t a sheriff’s deputy for nothing.

  “I can’t tell yo
u that,” Rayna said.

  Jace shrugged. “You can tell me, or you can tell the judge up in Logan Monday morning. I get the idea your friend on the other end of the phone is in a hurry, though.”

  The woman laughed and shook her head. “Okay. Okay, Jace. And—” she looked at Sara and waited. Sara supplied her name. “Sara. Suppose I said something crazy. Like these two guys have been collecting people to sell as slaves to beings from another planet called the Grays. The lights mean the aliens have taken the slaves up to their spaceships. I work for an organization called the Interstellar Council for Abolition and Rescue, Rescue for short. We fight the Grays and sometimes we can return the slaves to their home planets within minutes of when they were Taken. Yes, we can play with the space-time continuum like that. Sometimes the lights are just us returning people.”

  Sara stood with her mouth hanging open. Space aliens? Abducting people for slaves? Rayna didn’t look crazy, but she sure as hell sounded like it. Then she got the joke and started to laugh. Aliens! Sure!

  Sara turned to Jace—and her heart dropped into her stomach. “Wait. You don’t believe this stuff, do you?”

  Jace’s expression was twisted with confusion and despair. “I know it sounds nuts, Sara, but so many people have disappeared. And—do you remember my great-grandma, Ida?”

  “Of course, but—” The one with the crazy stories?

  John Lee was giggling like this was an episode of MY FAVORITE MARTIAN. “Aliens? I been collecting people for little green men? Hee hee hee! Shit, McCoy, they’re only taking them to Cincinnati! Hell, I even seen ’em come back like they never been gone!”

  “Shut up, you ignorant hillbilly!” the big man said. “You’re just digging a hole we’ll never get out of.”

  “Why would you bring them all the way up here to meet your contact if they were only going to Cincinnati, Davis?” Rayna said, her voice dripping disgust. “You brought them here so the ships could take them without being seen. The ones you saw come back were the ones we rescued and returned—to this very place. Your land. You never gave a thought to the lights?”