CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter One - Prologue
Chapter Two - Family Plot
Chapter Three - Blast from the Past
Chapter Four - The Road not Taken
Chapter Five - Jaws of Defeat
Chapter Six - The Trench Family Estate
Chapter Seven - Party Time
Chapter Eight - Underground Movement
Chapter Nine - Trap
Author’s Note
A Preview of “Realization” Alien Roadkill Vol. 3
About the Author
Dedication
For Michelle, my children and all aliens everywhere.
Special thanks to Eric, John and Caryn for your unwavering help and support.
Copyright 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are entirely products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Descriptions of towns, buildings, places and things may or may not be accurate.
CHAPTER ONE
Prologue
JIM BOB TUCKER, or JB, as he liked to be called, had been at the wheel of his pickup for the last ten hours, driving without a break. He was eager to get back to the trailer that he called home after being away for so long. His decision to return wasn’t made lightly, but he had grown more and more indifferent to the constant threats on his life. He was finished. Finished with his failed strategy, and done trying to keep one step ahead of his relentless pursuers. Bone weary and mentally exhausted, the stress of needing to remain super vigilant twenty-four/seven was taking its toll. It wasn’t just about being sick of fast food, or showering in gas station restrooms or even having to dodge alien death-rays. What had begun as a random altercation on a backcountry road had become a game of intergalactic intrigue. He was in way over his head, and while the stakes were undoubtedly high, he had no idea what they actually were. These were matters a simple man like himself could only guess at. But, now, he was beyond that. He just didn’t care anymore.
He had no illusions… He knew that his fatigue was as much spiritual as it was physical and mental. It was a condition utterly untreatable by the tiny alien machines that populated his bloodstream. His “Sawbonites”, as he called them, had the ability to instantly heal serious injuries and to physically alter his body. However, improving his state of mind was well beyond the capabilities of even their artificial intelligence.
JB hadn’t been back to the old trailer he called home since the night he became infected with the alien tech. He had been out pursuing what used to be his favorite pastime… Driving the back roads drunk and stoned, hunting for luckless animals to run down with his truck, “Ol’ Blue”.
On that night he aimed his pickup at what he thought was a possum, but it wasn’t. The thing he smacked into was an alien, an off-world being that was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. As it died, hundreds of millions of impossibly tiny robots abandoned the alien corpse and entered JB’s bloodstream. While it became a life-altering event for JB, it also sent shockwaves of panic through those who had designed the tech.
The medical protocols that had found their way into his body were a routine precaution that all off-world travelers relied on to immediately address any medical emergencies they might suffer “in the field”. As such, they were never intended to be compatible with anything other than the lifeforms for which they were designed. JB should have died instantly, drowning in his own histamines. But instead, something else happened, something unprecedented, even by alien standards.
Perhaps it was some unknown quality about JB’s blood that protected him from death, but whatever the reason, the tiny machines thrived in their new biological environment and were even able to expand the limits of their artificial intelligence… In itself, an extraordinary accomplishment. Once they had established themselves in his system, the legions of robots in his body immediately went to work, rebuilding every part of JB that needed fixing. They decoded his DNA and used the information as a roadmap to repair anything that didn’t conform to his original organic design.
With astonishing precision and speed his Sawbonites erased old scars, healed poorly set bones and reversed the deterioration from many years of drug and alcohol abuse. They even reconstructed parts of JB’s brain that had been damaged during his horrific childhood, reshaping his dented skull, rebuilding nerve tissue and rebalancing his brain chemistry.
The mix of alien technology and human biology had resulted in several more unexpected consequences. The most dramatic of these was the ability of the Sawbonites to modify JB’s body at his command. However, there were also times that they would deploy certain physical “modifications” on their own… Especially if it was in the best interests of their host’s survival. Considering that he was being hunted by one faction of aliens, the Har-Kankar, and recruited by another, the Har-Skela, their intervention had saved his life more than once.
While JB had come to learn all of this mostly at the risk of his life, there were still many more questions that he didn’t have answers to. It had always been his assumption that the aliens from Har-Kankar were hunting him because he had stolen their tech, but it was beginning to occur to him there might be other reasons also… Not that it mattered. After all, he thought, dead for any reason is still dead.
However, he had been told by one alien that he had helped, though unwittingly, that Har-Kankar was but one of two competing alien factions, the other one being the Har-Skela. Each of them had their own, as yet unknown, agenda for Earth, and because of his Sawbonites, JB had found himself caught up in the middle of it.
The alien had also warned him not to trust either of the Hars, but whether he liked it or not, in the end, he had no choice. He had accepted the proposal from Har-Skela, which coincidently, aligned with his desire to live.
To hold up his end of the bargain, all he had to do was continue his efforts to harass and disrupt the efforts of Har-Kankar on Earth, even as they hunted him. That meant in addition to staying alive, Har-Skela expected him to ramp up his one-man war against their rival. In return, they promised Earth would be safe, but they never exactly said from what.
It was a shit deal, and the notion of a backwoods country boy fighting hi-tech aliens singlehandedly was as crazy as it was depressing. He figured this would only end one way, and he wondered if Har-Skela would hold up their end of the deal after he was dead. He had no doubts that despite his best efforts, the Har-Kankar hunting him down would eventually succeed and he, along with his uber-medical protocols, would cease to exist. But what then? Was Earth going to be invaded? Destroyed? His biggest frustration was that he was in no position to even guess.
JB knew the pressure and the uncertainty were getting to him. Over the last few weeks, there had been no more attacks, which was something that had made his dark mood only worse. He tried to keep alert, but his nerves were shot, and he was aware that he was approaching the limit of his endurance. Still, he was determined that when death came for him, he would be ready.
CHAPTER TWO
Family Plot
IN THE MID-1970s, JB Tucker’s grandfather unhitched his trailer somewhere deep in the southernmost section of the Great Dismal Swamp. At that time it was, as it is today, a National Park and wildlife refuge set aside for the public. To Grampa Tucker, public land meant precisely that, and so he never thought of himself as a squatte
r, but only as a citizen who was exercising his right to unlimited access. Due partly to the old man’s ingenuity, he, and the next two generations of Tuckers that lived there afterward had remained undiscovered and undisturbed ever since.
The Tucker’s trailer was secreted on a small plot of dry land in a remote part of the swamp that was surrounded by marshland and nearly impenetrable undergrowth. The only access was effectively disguised to prevent accidental discovery by the casual swamp explorer or a random park ranger’s patrol.
Over the years, Grampa Tucker’s trailer had been patched, repaired and eventually replaced by JB’s father, Willie-Dean Tucker. JB had been born and raised in that cramped trailer, spending much of his early years growing up with no electricity and only kerosene lanterns for light. As much as he had hated it then, it had still been his home. He had no explanation as to why he felt a need to return to this place, only that the urge was impossible to ignore.
He quickly found the turnoff to the long abandoned logging road that ran almost dead center through the wetlands. The dirt road was overgrown with ground cover and ferns, all which meant that no one had driven this way, at least in the short term. Here, vegetation grew at an explosive rate, fueled by the heat and humidity, so whatever was being crushed under his Ford’s oversized tires would come back quickly. In a matter of weeks, there would be no trace of his passing.
While some of the memories from his past were fuzzy at best, JB still knew every inch of these old roads by heart, having driven them blind drunk more often than not. Even so, it took a bit more effort than he expected to find the entrance to the hidden access road that led to the old trailer. New growth had covered the entrance since the last time he had been there, but he knew he was in the right place. The phony National Park survey marker poking out of the tangle of red chokeberry confirmed it.
He got out of his pickup and began to pull the vines off of the fallen oak tree trunk that disguised and blocked the access road. He found the hidden locking latch and unhooked it as he had done hundreds of times before. Then, with a shove, the massive tree trunk swung aside, although not as easily as he remembered. The huge tree was actually a clever gate that pivoted with the help of a concealed counterbalance. Grampa had planned and built well, and to the best of JB’s knowledge, the location remained a secret, except from close friends and family.
Once he drove past the open gate, he stopped and got out to swing the tree back into its original position. He climbed back into his truck and continued driving for a short distance until he reached the unlikely clearing where the Tucker family had squatted for so many years.
Much of the clearing was paved with two generations worth of flattened beer cans, now rusted and smothered by plants that grew unabated around and through every possible crack and crevice. Over the years the makeshift paving had become deeply embedded into the ground and remained firmly in place as JB’s pickup rolled over them. He stopped the truck and stared straight ahead into the late afternoon shadows cast from the surrounding trees. Before his alien encounter he used to joke that the early sunset cut into his daylight drinking time, a thought that now struck him as stupidly ironic, considering everything that had happened to him.
Even in the softened shadows of the gathering dusk, the trailer wasn’t a pretty sight. It was an aluminum Road-Rammer, an ’82 model, twenty-five feet in length with an extension on one side that could be cranked out to double the interior width. However, the mechanism had never worked properly, and since day one the extension had been frozen in the closed position.
All of the trailer’s tires had rotted off in the oppressive climate of the swamp, and for the last decade, the trailer was held up by four makeshift foundations, one under each corner. Little more than tall stacks of assorted bricks and rocks, the supports were slightly shaky but secure overall… At least enough to keep the trailer high off the perennially moist ground.
JB didn’t immediately get out of the truck. He kept the motor running while he scanned the area looking for any movement. It was one of the many precautions he had come to practice routinely. Unhurried, he carefully studied his surroundings. The long silhouettes that were cast by the cypress and pine ringing the clearing revealed little, but his Sawbonites adjusted the sensitivity of his retinas like the exposure setting on a camera, allowing him to see deep into the shadows. Satisfied that he saw nothing that struck him as unusual or threatening, he switched off the ignition and climbed out of his pickup.
That was when he realized his attention had been in the wrong place. That became immediately apparent to him as he approached the trailer and rushed up the steps. The door was ajar and unlocked. Definitely not the way he left it. Cautiously, he pushed it open the rest of the way and chanced a look inside. The place was utterly trashed, but not by humans, or aliens. That is, not unless they had taken to shitting all over the floor and everything else in sight.
Many of the cabinet doors were ripped off their hinges and those that weren’t were crisscrossed with claw marks. The shredded remains of boxes and food packaging were strewn all over the floor amidst a wide assortment of animal droppings that were mixed together with pieces of splintered cabinetry and chunks of mattress foam. JB was entirely sure that he didn’t forget to lock the door when he left.
Had someone broken in and left the door open? That would explain how his trailer had become an all-you-could-eat buffet for every animal in the swamp. But, if that was the case, it only raised more questions. First off, it struck him as hardly likely that anyone would stumble onto this place. It was in the middle of nowhere and almost entirely surrounded by swamp. But then, even if they found the clearing and the trailer, how did they get here? There was only one way to drive in, and that was through the secret gate. However, JB had seen for himself that the gate hadn’t been moved for quite some time, a fact that seemed to eliminate that possibility.
If the intruder didn’t drive in, that meant they either got there by walking the twelve-mile route that JB had driven or by hiking cross-country, which was even less likely. The seven-mile cross-country route would lead them straight through wetland forests and alligator-infested swamps.
For a fleeting moment, he considered that perhaps a large animal broke down the door looking for food. But, another explanation sprang into his head. The revelation caused JB’s Sawbonites to tweak his body chemistry so he wouldn’t feel the sudden pit that should have formed in his stomach, but couldn’t. There was only one other possible explanation left that made any sense… He had walked into a trap.
The very moment he was struck by that realization, the phone in his pocket rang. Startled and surprised by the loud ring-tone, he grabbed at the back pocket of his jeans only to have the phone slip out of his grasp, still ringing. He turned around and crouched down to retrieve his phone, an act that saved his life.
The burst of blue-white light was so hot that it sliced through the aluminum trailer like a welding torch cutting through a stick of butter. The energy pulse sliced through the entire width of the trailer, right where JB had been standing before he had dropped his phone. Even so, the intense heat had burnt away a large patch of hair on his head, leaving behind third-degree burns. He paid no attention to his wounds and experienced no pain, as his Sawbonites had rewired the affected nerves at the same time they began repairing the damage to his body. In seconds they had finished healing his burnt scalp and regrown the missing hair, but this he also ignored, concentrating on his balance as the floor shifted under his feet.
Cut in two by the energy pulse, the trailer had collapsed in the middle, crashing down onto the ground. Both ends of the trailer remained precariously balanced on their makeshift foundations, forming a “V” from the wreckage. JB expected another blast, but minutes passed, and none came. Except for an occasional creak or groan coming from the settling wreckage, it was quiet.
Too quiet, he thought as his brain noted that the usually incessant sounds of crickets and frogs had become conspicuously absent. It was a givea
way that his would-be assassin was most likely somewhere outside… Patiently waiting to confirm the kill, or perhaps hanging back, letting JB make the first move and then striking again. Either way, he had no intention of remaining a sitting duck.
JB carefully “spider crawled” his way over to a window that faced towards the swamp. He moved precisely because of the precarious angle of the floor. If the trailer were to wobble, it would reveal that he was still alive and he would lose any tactical advantage his presumed death might afford him. Whatever he was going to do, it needed to be done fast. Keeping low, he carefully drew back the filthy curtain only the slightest amount and peered out. The afternoon shadows had deepened, filling in the spaces between the centuries-old trees that stood between the trailer and the edge of the swamp. With a thought, JB had his Sawbonites modify his vision. Both of his eyes extended out several inches while his pupils and corneas expanded to accommodate the longer focal length. With another thought, he increased his retina’s sensitivity to include a broader spectrum of the wavelengths beyond visible light.
He saw no movement, but he was more sure than ever that the off-worlder that fired the energy burst was out there, biding its time. He decided to wait for the alien to make the next move and remained motionless, crouched down so that his eyes were level with the bottom of the window frame. He held that position, confident that he remained unseen, for what seemed like a very long time. Then finally, his patience was rewarded with a brief reflection from something moving towards the clearing, just past the tree line. He adjusted his modified eyes, and for the first time, JB got a look at his attacker.
He was surprised at what he saw, to say the least. The man approaching the trailer wore a plaid, long-sleeved flannel shirt that matched his camouflage pants and baseball cap. The tiny reflection JB had seen had come from the weapon that he carried like a rifle, except the device in his hands was a long cylinder that sparkled like glass. It was not a weapon that one would find at the local sporting goods store nor anywhere else on Earth.
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