Aliens in the Allagash

by Gary Striker

  The guys sat back taking stock of what appeared to be very precarious mission. This was going to be no easy walk in the woods.

  “Steve, I have something personal to ask you, very personal”, Jim said as he requested permission to speak. All of the guys appeared to know what the question was, except Steve.

  “Sure, fire away”, Steve said with an inquisitive look.

  “This is none of our business, but… Jane would break if something happened to you. If you hadn’t noticed, she’s crazy in love nuts about you! None of us can figure out why, but we have never seen her like this”, Jim said as everyone enjoyed his sarcastic comment.

  The mood lightened.

  “We all try to look out for her, and now especially that she’s alone. What are you planning to do”, Jim asked?

  Steve absorbed the inquisition and full well understood the meaning of the word ‘family’. This was diametrically opposed to the environment he stepped out of a few days ago. He also knew that these country folks could see through him like an x-ray machine. The trust factor was on the line.

  “Ok boys, you got me, Steve said sheepishly and then added, “Cheyenne, put that knife away”.

  Everyone laughed and then anticipated Steve’s reply in a not so humorous manner.

  “I’m so intoxicated drunk in love with that woman that I’ll need ya’all to help me climb up on one knee to propose!

  Steve looked at the group as they appraised his West Coast wit.

  “I hope that’s what you had in mind”, Steve inquired with his eyebrows raised?

  The group endured with a stoic look of concern, obviously having worked together before.

  “Did I say something wrong”, Steve asked sheepishly as Jim confronted him?

  “You’re dumber than the guy that jumped barefoot into a five gallon bucket of porcupines”, Bob reckoned and went on, “Just what do you think we wanted to hear concerning our little elf”, he said as he mussed Steve’s hair”?

  The gang exploded in a boisterous laugh at the whipping he took, shook congratulatory hands and jostled Steve until he couldn’t take it anymore.

  However, Steve wasn’t done with this group or his West Texas reserves.

  “You know boys, when you’re laying under your bar stool one night feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut, looking up at me wishing you had a friend, you’re going to say, “Gee, I shudda’ been nice to him”!

  The guys roared as they took exception, knowing that Steve could take a beating in the present company as well as dish it out. This was the magic formula. He was in!

  The unanimous acceptance of a total stranger is almost unheard of by the close knit Acadian clan of the north woods. This went further and expectations abounded. Steve realized that he just accepted the heaviest responsibility of his life!

  Jim was satisfied that things were progressing in the right direction and refocused his attention to the business at hand.

  “From what we discussed, I think we are all in agreement that we need to find out more about what’s out there”, Jim said with raised eyebrows as he continued to take notes.

  “That’s right, Gary added, “We need to know where those things live, what they’re doing here, where they came from, what they eat, and by God, what they plan to do with us”!

  The group was in agreement and details of the mission were discussed and decided upon. Everyone knew the risk.

  “Gentleman, “Steve said as he got their attention, “If the Feds get back into the act, they could commandeer this entire territory. We could end up under Marshall Law”!

  “You mean they could take our homes”, Ron asked with a perplexed look?

  “There’s no telling what they might do. If they declare this area off-limits, we’re under evacuation orders and would be lucky to get out with the clothes on our back, if they left us out at all”!

  The boys stood in silence and reflected on generations of families indigenous to the area. The thought of many Acadian families locked in detention centers did not play well with this group.

  “For now, we are being treated as psycho-whacko back woods nuts who got themselves into a fix”, Jim said as he reinstated their position. “Let’s use this to our advantage. When this whole mess blows up, our options evaporate and our liabilities escalate beyond control. We have too many things floating around us now, including Danny’s condition, autopsy results from Clayton, missing persons, and who knows what else they will want to hang us with? And by the way, where’s the train”?

  “He’s right”, Steve affirmed while drawing on seventeen years of investigation experience, ‘Our only way out is a sanity defense, something they couldn’t bury us under, like they did to all those folks out at Area-51. We need to go public with our findings and those findings need to be irrefutable. That’s the purpose of our reconnaissance mission. Another confrontation with those things could kill us in more ways than one. We need to get those State investigators personally involved and then see how they handle it, if they don’t get killed in the process. Let them get screwed, not us”!

  In just a few days, Steve had managed to carve a chunk of real estate out of everyone’s hide. He was now a highly respected member of the local establishment and depended upon heavily. As they were finalizing plans for the mission, Steve’s phone rang.

  “Stand by guys. This is my boss in Los Angeles. They had big trouble yesterday. Ya’all might want to hear this”.

  The crew gathered around as Steve enabled the speaker phone.

  “Hello Cruz, Steve greeted, “I was expecting your call”.

  Cruz was informed as to who was sharing the conversation and why they were included

  .

  “That’s fine Steve, good morning everybody. Darren is here with me in my office. Before we discuss anything about this thing you sent us, can you please tell me what this has to do with Marie’s disappearance?

  “Sure”, Steve affirmed, “I reckon we don’t have anything to lose at this point. I’m going to give it too you short and straight, then you can fire me”.

  “Ok, let’s have it”!

  Steve had considered prolonging the inevitable, but it was fairly obvious that this particular option would implode upon itself. Cruz and Darren were sitting at attention.

  “I took that ray gun, or whatever it is, off of a Martian that I shot. Twice”.

  The guys broke into a silent smile and waited for the quietness to abate.

  “Steve, this is Darren. We’re dealing with some very complicated issues here on this end”.

  “Ok, Doctor McCall, what do you have? I’m assuming I haven’t been fired”?

  Darren McCall earned his credentials in physical chemistry while serving as a research scientist at Quantico and Oak Ridge. He knew his way around particle physics and the laboratories he grew up in.

  “No, you haven’t been fired. Your comments corroborate our findings that the device you found was not designed by foreign governments, or for that matter, by any research organization on earth that we know of”.

  Steve and his group were wide eyed and on edge with expectation, some of which they already preferred not to hear.

  “What are you talking about, Darren”, Steve asked?

  “Preliminary tests confirm that this device was designed for an extremely unique purpose. Our material sciences are limited to matter as we have been able to identify and develop. I believe that this thing of yours goes beyond our knowledge base and was constructed from elements that are, as of yet, unknown to us. This level of research is now our current mission in France with the Hadron Collider”.

  “So what do you have”, Steve asked, as the group in Bob’s shop remained transfixed?

  “”When this thing crashed through the lab bench, broke the foundation, busted our ass, and set off the seismometers, it had attained an extremely dense footprint. Keep in mind that I have not yet discussed this with any of my colleagues or confirmed any of my findings, so anything that I tell you
is purely hypothetical”.

  “Fair enough”, was Steve’s response of approval.

  “Let me attempt to explain this in layman’s terms”, Darren offered, “From my initial electron microscopy examination of the surface material, it was immediately evident that the behavior of the sub-atomic structure was abnormal. The configuration of our known elements are rigid. Nothing changes. Energy levels are consistent and the geometric structures are constant. Enormous amounts of energy are required to induce any variations, such as in radioactive isotopes that we use in atomic weapons”.

  “This is getting pretty heavy”, Steve interrupted, “But we understand what you’re saying, so far”!

  “Hang with me, guys. Here comes a morsel straight out of your high school chemistry books! If you remember the drawings of an atom showing the center structure, the nucleus, and those little charged particles orbiting about the nucleus, the electrons, we know that the atom is mostly wide open spaces. There is so much space that if the nucleus was increased to the size of a golf ball, the electrons would be about the size of a pencil point. The distance between them at this large scale would be about the length of a football field.

  “We’re still following, Darren, but we don’t know where you’re going”, Steve said with an air of uncertainty.

  “What wasn’t presented to you in high school chemistry is the density of these sub-atomic particles. Now bear with me, I’m going to bring it home. If we were able to neutralize the energy differences between these particles and eliminate the space so that one complete atom was not much larger than its nucleus, we would achieve extremely dense matter”.

  “So what does this all mean, Darren”, Steve asked?

  “If we were to stack a pile of these density modified atoms, copper for example, in the space of a penny, the penny would weigh about one hundred and ninety million tons. This is what your ‘ray gun’ is capable of doing”.

  “Hi Darren, this is Jim. I’m detecting that you feel we have a problem, an enormous problem”! Everyone stared at Jim, then at Steve’s phone.

  “You’re right Jim. Try the rest of this on for size”, Darren offered.

  “Your ‘ray gun’, for some unknown reason, became extremely dense for a short period of time for some unknown reason, but it did not change shape. This is a physical impossibility unless additional matter was added to it. This thing generated its own matter to correlate with the change of density, thereby maintaining its original shape and size. Only a living organism would be capable of such a feat”!

  Gary repeated his favorite and most frequently used axiom, “‘Houston, we have a problem’”!

  Cruz went on to explain how the seismic event was recorded as just that, an earthquake. The epicenter was the L.A.P.D. Crime Lab. Not even the lab workers had a clue as to what really happened or had any idea that an extra-terrestrial device was being examined covertly.

  “Guys”, Darren beckoned, “I have a last comment at this time”.

  “Oh shit”, Cheyenne said, “Do we want to hear this”?

  “Fellas, this device, which I will refer to as ‘The Correlator’, is an extremely complex assembly containing billions of parts. We are all very lucky that no one was killed by this contraption. And one last thing, if this were my ‘ray gun’, I’d want it back”!

  The group stared into each other’s eyes, realizing the magnitude of the situation.

  Steve bid Darren farewell, with the expectation that this extra-terrestrial anomaly was about to receive an enormous amount of attention by the scientific community in a very short period of time.

  Cruz was apprised formally that Marie, along with other victims, may have been abducted or accosted by alien life forms, and that these forms have already been witnessed by every member of the group. It helped to explain the condition of her riding partner, Roy Decker, who remained at the sanitarium.

  Aliens in the Allagash

  Chapter 13

  Mobilized

  Steve was reflecting on the events of the last several days. He was also evaluating his new state of affairs and contemplating the value of his recent choices. The group decision was borne out of desperation and self-preservation, a poetic duo, however insane it was. The loss of Bob’s nephew wasn’t helping his rational state of mind, as were the others with the pressures they faced. Finding any sign of Mike was the mission priority along with any information they could collect on their unwelcome visitors.

  They were to approach and observe the east side of Ben Lake during daylight hours. If all went well with the infiltration plan, they would remain after dark. Stealth was of utmost importance and recent encounters provided some information to help that plan, but not necessarily their safety. It was very risky, as heat signatures from their bodies appeared to be a dead giveaway, or so they thought. Steve noticed this when he was observed quickly in total darkness behind the saw mill. They had a plan to alleviate that risk, but any protections that their weapons provided were still questionable.

  Certain specialized equipment was in route for delivery tomorrow from Darren’s laboratory. The group was very committed to the recon mission prior to any State or Federal intervention, which meant there was no turning back. The State investigators were due back in town next week, and that had all the signatures of big trouble in little Wallagrass!

  Steve’s text message alert sounded as he observed the ‘11:30’ display of the time clock while getting into his car.

  “Have time for lunch”, was the extent of the memo from Jane?

  Steve affirmed and was invited to Fiddleheads, a luncheon reimbursement for his missed date with Jim.

  “I promise this will be more romantic for you”, was Jane’s acknowledgement with a smiley emoticon and a pair of red hot lips.

  “You’d say anything for a date”, was Steve’s reply as he left Bob’s parking lot in route for Eagle Lake, sixteen miles south.

  Steve absorbed the wilderness beauty that surrounded him.

  “How could a place so serene be fraught with such danger and perils of the unknown”, Steve contemplated to himself?

  “Well, Clarence, if Superman could save Metropolis, you should be able to save Wallagrass. After all, I’m just a mild mannered investigator working for a great metropolitan cartel”.

  With that thought, the woes and risks of the imminent future seemed to settle as the Town of Eagle Lake came into view.

  Jane opened her car door and stuck her leg out as Steve pulled up next to her in the Fiddleheads parking lot. She pulled her skirt up as he got out of his car.

  “Hey big man, want some leg”, Jane asked with a wink?

  “Sure, baby”, Steve said with a smile. “Let’s go have some chicken. It smells good around here”.

  That’s my perfume, you whack job”, Jane said as she planted a kiss on his lips and led him into Fiddleheads.

  A smiling hostess greeted them with menus in hand. Jane gave her a clandestine nod and a wink.

  “Hi Jane”, the waitress said, “Who’s the dude? What happened to that cute hunk you had in here yesterday”?

  Steve smiled and appreciated the performance.

  “I threw the son-of-a-bitch in the lake with an anchor wrapped around his neck”, Steve answered without a grin.

  “He’s a piece of work”, the waitress said to Jane as she led them to a table.

  “Jane wanted something more private, a lot more private”, Steve requested.

  “Would you like me to set up a table in the men’s room”, she asked?

  A good laugh and introductions followed as Steve pondered his next move. Jane stared Steve in the eyes and put her finger to his lips without saying the word. The waitress noted the extent of obedience that Steve displayed.

  “Was he easy to poddy train”, the waitress asked? “It took me forever with Harold, but they always come around, sooner or later”.

  Fiddleheads is a charming rustic place setting next to Eagle Lake. There was always just enough people around to create a
pleasant mood without the crowds. It was a convenient and local favorite place in the area.

  Lunch was served up and all was well, at least for the moment.

  “I thought you were working today”, Steve asked while downing a homemade French fry?

  “All done”, Jane replied, “These in-service days give us a chance to get the quarterly study plans and grades together along with parent-teacher conferences. The brats show up tomorrow. How did your meeting go”?

  “I reckon that you would have to say interesting”, Steve conjured, “We also talked to Cruz and Darren. The whole deal is something straight out of Superman. That thing we sent back to them is part machine, part Martian”.

  Jane paused with a squint and a curled lip.

  “No kidding”, Steve continued, “Darren said the damn thing behaved like some kind of outer space monster. It almost killed them and created a seismic event. He said that thing I shot will probably want it back”.

  “Are you still going on your Martian hunt”, Jane asked with a half-smile?

  “Yeah, we have a recon mission planned. Darren is sending some lab equipment that he wants us to use back there. The boys have created all kinds of gear to get the job done”.