The assassin moved slowly, keeping to the cover of the shadows as he came closer to verify that he had successfully taken down his prey. Only when he was yards away from the trailer did he venture out from the tree line and into the clearing. Looking from side to side, he moved his weapon in tandem with his gaze as he advanced towards the trailer.
JB remained still, watching as the man cautiously ventured closer. He knew his timing had to be almost perfect, or he’d lose the element of surprise. Then, suddenly the man froze in his tracks and looked straight in JB’s direction. As hard as it was, JB resisted the impulse to move. A heartbeat later, an enormous rat ran away from the pile of rubbish that had slid or fallen to the bottom of the “V” and disappeared into the brush. The man waited a bit more before he warily resumed his careful approach.
He was less than six feet away when JB threw himself as hard as he could at the trailer’s interior wall, striking it at the highest point he could reach. The impact toppled over the already off-balanced half-trailer from its now useless foundation and into a sideways roll. The resulting avalanche of aluminum and wood framing caught the man by surprise, knocking him down and burying him under the twisted remains of the trailer.
JB was able to crawl out through a tear in the wreckage and sprinted towards where he had parked Ol’ Blue. Behind him, the man was also working his way out from under the debris. With surprising quickness, he had regained his feet after pushing away the pieces of plywood and aluminum paneling. JB had just reached his truck and was opening the door when the man spotted him. At that moment, the man Realized he wasn’t holding his weapon and began to scour through the wreckage at his feet searching for it. JB instantly accessed the situation in a single glance. It told him everything he needed to know. He still had a chance.
He fired up Ol’ Blue and punched the accelerator. He red-lined his engine in first gear before he shifted into second, aiming the truck directly at the man who was now beginning to flicker like a broken fluorescent bulb. The oversized truck wheels ripped up chunks of the beer can pavement as it hurtled forward. The flickering around the man had abruptly stopped and revealed an all too familiar shape. In the next moment, one of the alien’s tentacles had managed to retrieve what it was searching for and raised the weapon into firing position.
With a wet, sickening crunch, the big Ford collided with the alien as it fired. Its weapon discharged, but the pulse went wild, slicing through a grove of old oaks, felling two and leaving several more smoldering. Impaled on Ol’ Blue’s steel spikes, the off-worlder struggled like a pinned moth, but its efforts only caused it to become even more mangled. By virtue of its own weight and Earth’s gravity, the flailing alien completely tore itself apart on the sharp and narrowly spaced spikes.
JB stood over the alien’s ruined carcass and watched as the off-worlder’s medical protocols fled their dead host. Now, its Sawbonites would be heading towards him. JB had begun to doubt that the alien critters were naturally attracted to him somehow. Instead, he suspected that his Sawbonites were communicating with them by some means. While he didn’t know whether they were broadcasting an invitation or a command, the result had always been the same.
The hundreds of millions of incredibly small robots that rose from the gore of the alien’s shredded remains, becoming visible only after they coalesced into a ragged, iridescent cloud. Like a glowing swarm of bees, they rapidly reached JB, enveloping him and penetrating his body, slipping between the spaces in the molecules of his skin.
At that exact moment, his cell phone rang again. The caller ID read: “T. Tucker”, but JB didn’t bother to look, he knew who it was. Waiting until all of the Sawbonites had been wholly absorbed, he answered on the fourth ring and was prepared to have his ears chewed off.
“Damn it, JB, don’cha ever return your phone calls? You haven’t even set up your voicemail!” yelled the angry voice on the other end.
“Jeez, Terry, I totally forgot,” JB said sheepishly. “Got kinda busy… You know how it is.”
“You? Busy? Bullshit! More likely you was off on another bender. I dunno why I expected ya to call me back!” scolded his cousin in a softer tone. With a laugh, he added, “Same Ol’ JB!”
JB waited a second before he decided what to say. He wanted to tell Terry he had saved his life yet again with his unanswered phone call, along with a million other things. But instead, he said, “I ain’t ‘xactly the same, actually. Which, is something I wanna talk to y’all about, see I…”
“Hell! Again?” interrupted Terry. “It’s always somethin’ with ya, Cuz! What? Are you out of meth?”
“No, Terr, this is different. I’ve changed, likely in more ways than y’all can imagine. I don’t drink or do drugs no more.”
JB didn’t have to see Terry’s face as his skepticism in his voice was loud and clear. “Shit! You? On the wagon? That I gotta see!”
“Honest, swear it’s true.”
“Well glad to hear it. I didn’t save you from your pappy just for you to kill y’self with that shit.”
“There’s a mess more, Terr, that I gotta tell ya. I need t’ get down to see y’all while there’s still time.”
Terry’s tone changed abruptly to one of concern. He asked, “What the hell are you talking about, Cuz, you sick or something?”
“No, no,” JB protested, “Nothin’ like that.”
“Well, if you’re comin’ down for a visit, ya couldn’t have timed it better. Shit, that’s why I called ya in the first place. Wanted to invite ya down for our annual pig-pull.”
“Really? Are you an’ Colin still into the Righteous Sons thing?”
Terry chuckled and said, “Hell yeah! The cause is stronger than ever! So, are you bullshitting me about coming down, or can I count on seein’ ya?“
“No Bullshit. I’m on my way down tonight. Jus’ got back to Pappy’s trailer an’ found out it got trashed when I was away.”
“Damn! Sorry to hear ‘bout that, but it’s about time you moved on. Really, I don’t know how ya stayed there as long as you did.” There was a long pause before he added, “Not a lot of happy memories.”
“True enough, Terr. You’re right. Time to move on,” JB agreed.
“Hell, you know you can stay with us as long as you like, Cuz. We’d love to have ya,” offered Terry.
“Thanks, Terr. Don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay, but I’ll see y’all real soon.”
As he ended the call, he thought about how he was going to explain everything to his cousin. Terry wasn’t exactly someone who had a lot of imagination. In fact, JB thought it was more likely that his cousin would never believe him anyway. Even so, he owed his cousin Terry a debt he could never repay. If his days were numbered, then he needed to tell his story and say goodbye while he still had the chance.
CHAPTER THREE
Blast from the Past
AFTER HE PUT the phone back into his pocket, JB stood for a long while, contemplating the complete destruction of his trailer and his options going forward. Incredibly, the aliens who were hunting him had somehow managed to find and ransack his trailer. Then, it had been a simple matter for them to wait until he returned. They probably expected the condition of the trailer to distract him and catch him off guard, which, of course, it did. If he hadn’t dropped his phone when Terry called, he would have been caught directly in the energy blast. The odd thing was, he usually wasn’t that clumsy, which led him to think about something else.
He had to ask himself if luck had simply intervened or if his Sawbonites had been able to tune into a threat of which he wasn’t aware. More and more he realized that whatever he thought he knew about his Sawbonites was only the tip of the iceberg. Regardless, he was grateful to be still alive. Once more he had survived, if just barely. Surprisingly, he felt no regret that the last vestiges of his old life had been destroyed in the process. Now, the fact that he had to move on filled him with an overwhelming sense of relief. He had long since concluded that his past wasn’t worth h
anging on to anyways.
While these thoughts ran through his head, he watched the alien’s body decay into purple slime. In JB’s experiences, alien bodies invariably broke down rapidly after their death, dissolving away in mere minutes. Also, after an alien died, any device or hardware they might have brought with them became inoperative. From what little he had learned about alien devices, JB deduced that the “medical protocols”, as the alien “LuAnne” had referred to them, weren’t supposed to desert their host on their death. Instead, they were supposed to deactivate, right along with everything else.
That added to the puzzle, because, only recently he had begun to realize that his Sawbonites weren’t the critters he had supposed them to be. He had pieced together enough information to realize that they were tiny machines, smart enough to perform their medical functions, and in his body, much more. So, the question remained, if the dead alien’s Sawbonites were only hardware, why hadn’t they immediately shut down? He was beginning to believe that the Sawbonites inside him had everything to do with it.
In his system, they had evolved and adapted. There was no question that the sub-molecular machines had rewritten all of the rules about how they were supposed to work, and especially what they were designed to do. That was why the Har-Kankar were relentlessly committed to hunting him down. He had also concluded that the hostile alien faction had to be completely unnerved by the implication that their technology had done all of this by itself. And if JB had to guess, he was sure that his Sawbonites had changed in ways that their builders had never imagined. If that was the case, JB figured the Har-Kankar might be more scared of their tech than they were of him. He wondered if that aspect should worry him too.
Then, of course, there was the “deal” he had made with the Har-Skela. He had no idea what their agenda was, or even why they and the Har-Kankar were at odds with each other. As far as he was concerned, the only difference between the two feuding off-world factions might be that Har-Kankar wanted to kill him now, and Har-Skela might be planning to kill him later… After he outlived his usefulness. However, now, Har-Skela needed him alive to continue thwarting Har-Kankar’s plans… Whatever they were.
The alien that he briefly knew as “LuAnne” had warned him that nothing was as it seemed. But, considering that she had fooled him into thinking she was human, that was a massive understatement in of itself. She was also the one who had delivered Har-Skela’s proposal. Of course, he had no other options except to accept it. She had also left him the cell phone, though he had no idea who was paying the bill. Maybe they were using it to keep tabs on him too. Whatever the truth was, he thought that by the time he figured it all out, it would be too late to do anything about it anyway.
He found himself considering what to do with the now useless weapon on the ground at his feet. It was a thick, black cylinder, a little more than a yard in length that lacked any discernible features. One end appeared to be more rounded than the other, but otherwise, it looked perfectly uniform. He picked it up and found it was heavier than he anticipated. The material felt like smooth metal and reflected light like glass.
What happened next was completely unexpected. The weapon began to grow hot in his hands, and he dropped it reflexively. Several long moments after it hit the ground, it broke apart into gravel-sized pieces that melted together into a puddle of slag; something JB had never seen before. Evidently, the Har-Kankar weren’t taking any chances with this piece of alien tech, which in itself was an interesting development.
When he got back into the truck, he sat there with the engine still running, wondering about what he had just seen. Perhaps he had leaped to the wrong conclusion about the “souvenirs” he had retrieved in the past. However, the last thing he wanted to do was play around with alien weaponry, so he put those thoughts aside and began thinking about his visit to Cousin Terry’s.
He was long past ever feeling safe, but he reasoned that he’d be just as safe down there as anywhere else. Perhaps even safer. The folks that hung out with Cousin Terry and his partner Colin Trench were usually heavily armed and more than eager to ply their weapons. It was a given that there would be a whole bunch of them attending the pig-pull picnic tomorrow.
Terry and Colin lived together on the Trench Family Estate on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The old Victorian home and grounds had been in the hands of the Trench family for generations, going back to the time of Blackbeard the pirate. There had been rumors that much of the Trench family’s wealth came from intentionally misplacing lights on shore to lure ships onto the rocks, then salvaging the cargo that washed ashore. That stretch of the Atlantic coastline had earned its name, “Shipwreck Alley”, for good reasons.
However, over many generations, the Trench fortunes had waned considerably, and over time very little remained. The trusts had been depleted; everything of value had been sold or pawned, and the house and grounds had come to reflect the years of neglect. The two-story house sat on three acres that at one time had been magnificently landscaped. Now, the elaborately tended gardens had long since disappeared, and the grounds were overgrown with whatever native plants had managed to grow there.
Trench House, once a stately, Victorian jewel on the island had fared just as poorly. The white, wooden siding on the house had yellowed with age, and many of the boards were cracked and rotted. Even so, the structure still retained a certain dignity and charm, especially if one didn’t look too closely. It had also been a candidate for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, but that was impossible, owing to its current occupant.
Presently, Colin Trench now used the estate as the home base of his militia movement, “The Righteous Sons of Real Freedom”. He was the figurehead and organizer of the group that boasted of many dedicated followers who enthusiastically financed the cause that he led and managed. The platform of the RSORF was straightforward and simple to understand, a critical point considering the demographics of their membership. Guns and alcohol of any kind were very, very good… Government of any kind was very, very bad. Trench kept the faithful fired up with his impassioned videos on social media, and the true believers kept their donations coming.
Regardless of his crazy shenanigans, Cousin Terry was the only kin JB had in the world, but there was much more to it. Besides being the person that JB had looked up to as long as he could remember, Cousin Terry had saved him more than once from the sadistic predilections of his father.
Cousin Terry’s father, Billy-Dean, and JB’s pappy, Willie-Dean, rarely spoke to each other right up until the day that Billy-Dean went to meet his maker. In the lawyer’s waiting room, at the reading of Billy-Dean’s will, the two cousins met for the first time. Up until then, neither knew the other existed. At the time, JB was eight and Terry was fourteen.
Both of the Tucker brothers had well-deserved reputations for being all-around sons-of-bitches who became far worse if they had been drinking, which was most of the time. Billy-Dean, Terry’s papa, had been short-tempered and prone to taking out his demons on both his son and his wife. It never dawned on him that Terry, at thirteen, after a considerable growth spurt would be able to fight back. So, no one was more surprised than he was when his son, who had now filled out his athletic six-foot-three frame at one hundred ninety pounds, stepped in to stop his papa from slapping around his mama.
In a blind rage, fueled by years of abuse, Terry gave Billy-Dean the beating of his life, starting off by nearly cracking his skull with a headbutt. After that, Billy-Dean never laid a hand on either of them ever again, but the damage was done. Soon afterward, Terry and his momma moved out when she filed for divorce.
Up to that time, Terry had been home-schooled. However, when his mama moved out and got a job, she insisted that Terry get a mainstream education. When he entered high school, he could hardly read, but his skill on the football field made up for his deficits in the classroom. At the time he and JB met in the attorney’s waiting room, Terry was considered a rising star with a brigh
t future.
When the adults followed the attorney into his office, the cousins found themselves alone. JB had managed a weak, “Hi,” but Terry gave him a big smile and extended his hand. It was the first time anyone had offered JB a handshake in genuine greeting or treated him as an equal.
No one had bothered to introduce the two to each other. However, after an awkward silence, JB and Terry began a conversation, in the course of which they discovered that they were cousins. Even more revealing, there was a bond being forged by what was being left unsaid. Terry had instantly related to the haunted look in JB’s sunken eyes, and he didn’t need to see the bruises to know that JB was the victim of violence at home. Terry knew how abusive his own papa had been, and figured his uncle was far worse.
The cousins spoke about the usual stuff at first, but at some point in the conversation, Terry asked JB point-blank if his pappy, Willie-Dean, was beating on him. JB didn’t reply at that, but Cousin Terry offered that his papa had beat on him too. JB still didn’t say anything, but Terry didn’t expect him to. Instead, he said, “Know how I made it stop? One day I woke up bigger and stronger than that asshole, and punched his lights out!” He added, “I hope he rots in Hell!”
Hearing all of this gave JB a tiny glimmer of hope. He thought that perhaps one day he’d be big enough to fight back too. He was empowered enough from hearing his cousin’s story to confide that, indeed, his life was an endless nightmare. He reticently shared that his pappy liked to get drunk and chase him down in his ’88 Oldsmobile; nudging him with the car’s bumper when he couldn’t keep far enough ahead.
Alien Roadkill-Homecoming Page 2
