Stepping into the clearing, the battered Evermore was a sorry sight. Still, it was his home and it represented something far more important to him than that. It was what was beneath the lower deck—secured within an environmentally controlled compartment—that gave him the most hope. Tow found it utterly amazing that it hadn’t been destroyed over the past three years. It alone gave him sufficient motivation to complete his mission—or die trying.
Tow stared at the aft starboard section of the ship and the charred, six-foot-long gash in its hull. He’d procrastinated long enough. Before starting in on the repairs to the emersion-drive, he’d need to deal with the dead crewmembers. No longer entombed in the frigidly cold vacuum of space, the bodies had begun to putrefy—to decompose. He could smell them from outside. Caring about them all still, he dreaded what was to come next.
* * *
Access to the aft-starboard berth compartment was only possible via the outside hull. Months earlier, crossing deep space, he’d contemplated cutting into that damaged section of the ship through the inside primary aft corridor, but there were issues of cabin depressurization. Namely, far too much of the Evermore’s breathable air would be vented out into space. With what air had already been lost, during the last Howsh attack, it left barely sufficient atmosphere for recycling: first pulled through big environmental filters then through the complex, carbon dioxide / oxygenation conversion process.
The Evermore was well stocked with a variety of specialized tools and equipment. Each ship within the armada was required to be totally self-sufficient unto itself. The same philosophy extended to ship areas, like functioning food replicators, a wellness chamber, and the capability to make virtually any repairs to the ship—on the fly.
* * *
The stench had quickly become intolerable. Wearing a lightweight environment suit, it took Tow most of the afternoon to remove the damaged four outer hull panels. Later, prior to his reinstalling them, the open gash—where the plasma strike had occurred—would need to be resealed with a high-strength bonding mixture. He’d have to check the ship’s storage hold to see what was available for that.
One by one, hundreds of cap-bolts were removed with a tool not too dissimilar from any number of hand-held power tools utilized on Earth. The individual outer hull plates came away easily and he stacked them into a nearby pile. With the outer hull plates removed, the inner, far thicker bulkhead wall was clearly visible. Multiple long wavy stress-creases traversed horizontally through its metal siding. Beyond that was the actual berth compartment, comprised of much lighter, less rigid materials that had folded inward from instantaneous depressurization.
The inside bulkhead was one huge piece, comprised of a high-strength metallic compound. Using a hand-held plasma torch, Tow started at the upper left corner of the section, cutting a seven-foot-long vertical swath downward. Completing that, he moved up to the top and initiated a sideways horizontal cut—close to twenty feet long—that took him close to an hour to execute. Halfway done, he stood back, admiring his handiwork.
Annoying flies were everywhere, buzzing and circling. A thought occurred to him: What was he going to do with the crew’s remains? Typically, he would quote a prayer then release them out an airlock into the vastness of space. Tow queried the AI, “What do Earth humans do with their deceased beings’ bodies?”
“The two most popular methods are ground burial and cremation.”
Tow expected as much, for it had been the same on Mahli. He needed to find a nice location, somewhere deep in the trees, then dig seven deep holes.
The last two plasma cuts went faster than the first two. As he neared completion of the fourth cut, the nearly separated one hundred and forty square foot sheet, pushed outward, sagging down. He’d wondered if it would simply drop away, but it stayed put, just barely secured.
Tow moved his tools and equipment out of the way. The next task would require some heavy lifting: Not the physical kind—but the mental kind. The combined weight of objects did matter. He estimated the cutaway piece of metal was easily three hundred pounds. That, and it was an awkward size. Taking five paces back from the Evermore, Tow flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders. Raising both hands, he concentrated. For close to a minute nothing happened. He was out of practice; couldn’t remember the last time he had to move something this substantial using only his mind. And like any unused muscle, it too can atrophy.
Suddenly, there came the sound of metal scraping against metal. And then, finally, the large hull section began to pull free, making a distinct sucking sound. Almost immediately, loose debris within the compressed compartment began to fall onto the ground. Tow continued to mentally levitate the section another five feet away from the ship’s fuselage, moving it off to the left. Its weight was daunting. Tiring, he needed to quickly set it down before it dropped. He then lowered it onto its bottom edge, letting it lean vertically against the trunk of a large nearby tree.
Up until then, Tow had managed to keep his eyes averted from looking into the now-open, multi-berth compartment, and what he surmised would present a most horrific sight. He opened his eyes and gasped. Burning bile retched up from his already queasy stomach. He could almost make out the seven blue-colored individual berths within the distorted and twisted mass. Almost. But it was the entangled appearance of sporadic body parts that hit Tow the hardest. His eyes unwillingly focused on one after another—a seemingly unattached arm—a patch of long brown hair swaying back and forth—as if the congealed mass of metal and berth bedding had somehow sprouted it from somewhere deep within the wreckage. Tow stepped forward, unsure of what he was now looking at. He stopped and brought a hand to his mouth. Two, side-by-side eyes, blankly staring back at him—the crewmember’s face so unimaginably compressed to where it was no more than two, maybe three, inches wide.
Chapter 8
8 across and 10 down: A nine-letter word for Repeated to perfection. Jackie Hansen brought the eraser end of the pencil to her lips and thought about it. Then wrote in, Practiced. She dropped the crossword puzzle to her lap as a middle-aged nurse, wearing light pink scrubs, entered the room and moved to the other side of the bed. The nurse checked the heart monitor, flicked her middle finger several times against the bottom of the hanging IV, before turning her gaze over toward Jackie and smiling.
“You should go home and get some rest, honey. We’ll call you if there’s any change. He’s stable now … there’s nothing you can do here.”
Jackie nodded. Truth was, she was exhausted. Totally spent. Had driven like a bat out of hell to get back here. Seven hours straight behind the wheel. Hadn’t even locked her dorm room door—only grabbed her backpack which doubled as her purse, and her keys, and ran to her car.
Her eyes leveled on the old man’s face. Propped up with several pillows behind his back, he looked different here. The florescent lights exaggerated the etched lines around his mouth and eyes—lines cultivated from working too many years beneath a relentless overhead sun and smiling a broad, contagious-type grin that was present far more often than not.
According to the doctor, her father had suffered a massive myocardial infarction—a heart attack. More precisely, an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction—referred to as a STEMI. She knew what that was.
Feelings of guilt and self-loathing washed over her. He’d been living alone on the ranch far too long—her mother gone ten years now—with no other children, siblings, to help out. Three years ago, she left for college, only returning on breaks and holidays. Down at her feet, her eyes momentarily held on the corners of two pre-med-school books peeking out from the top of her backpack. She instantly felt the pull to dive back into her molecular and cellular biology studies. She could ill afford a day away from her coursework, let alone a week or more.
Looking at him, now, he was still a bear of a man, filling the confines of the narrow hospital bed—looking like a gnarly giant lying asleep there. Still unconscious, he shifted in bed. He’d insisted she follow her dream of
becoming a doctor, stating, what good is having a full-ride scholarship if you’re not going to use it? There was so much she wanted to tell him. As a pre-med student, she was graduating a year early from the University of Tennessee. Accepted into the prestigious Vanderbilt School of Medicine—on track to be a licensed MD in less than four years and hopefully a practicing neurosurgeon two years after that.
But now, she had to figure out how to balance both her obligations to her dad and school. She was the only family her dad had. He’d be laid up in this small, sixty-bed hospital for a week or two, then be convalescing at home after that. He’d need her help—cooking meals, walking to the toilet—shit, taking care of the damn farm animals. Cows don’t milk themselves, her father used to say. Oh God … Frustrated, she kicked out at her backpack.
“Tomorrow we’ll get him up and walking around a bit,” the nurse said, ignoring Jackie’s obvious mini tantrum.
“Um … you can do that, with all the damage done to his heart?” Jackie asked. She quickly glanced at her smartphone and saw two more missed calls had come in. Glancing at the caller I.D. she saw that it was Brian, again. She didn’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with him right now.
“Well, spending weeks lying around in a hospital bed isn’t going to help him recover faster either. Nope … we get our patients up and moving about as quickly as possible.”
Jackie nodded and stood, placing a hand on her father’s foot. Feeling warmth beneath the blanket, she said, “I’ll be back in the morning first thing. You have my cell number …”
They both looked up as the ceiling lights suddenly flickered then went out. As if on cue, heart monitors, including her father’s, began to chime loudly. In the distance, Jackie could hear auto alarms going off, one by one. Then, just as quickly, everything returned to normal—electric lights came back on, heart monitors normalized, and car alarms went silent.
“Been happening like that since last night … more and more often, too. Heard one of the maintenance guys talking about it. Says it’s some electrical issue, external to the hospital. Saw it on the news. Cosmic interference—something like that. He mentioned something about solar flares, you know … from space, the sun. It’s downright disconcerting, is what it is,” she added, looking flustered.
Jackie remembered her own car radio acting up on the drive up from Knoxville.
The nurse motioned she should leave, and said, “If there’s any change … we’ll call. Go on home now, hon … get some rest.”
* * *
Jackie headed for the hospital’s front lobby exit, suddenly conscious she was wearing black, form-fitting gym pants and a purple Lycra sports top. A top revealing more than what was probably appropriate for these conservative southern surroundings. She repositioned her large handbag over her partially exposed cleavage. It hadn’t been intentional garb. Hell, she was on her way to the gym—to work out—when she’d gotten the call from the on-duty nurse at Stone River Hospital.
She felt multiple eyes tracking her progress. A man, covered head to toe in mud—his arm held high up at an awkward angle—smiled a toothless grin in her direction. Dislocated shoulder, she thought. Five will get you ten … the idiot was thrown from his ATV.
“Jackie!”
She turned to see another Tennessee hayseed in the hospital lobby, waving enthusiastically at her, and figured it was someone she’d probably known in high school. She had zero interest in reconnecting with anyone from Woodbury. Flanked by an older, gray-haired woman, there was something about the young man’s manner—his smile. His shirt was neatly buttoned to the collar, his face a mess. The guy had obviously been beaten within an inch of his life. Wait … Could it be? “Cuddy? Is that you?”
He awkwardly ran ahead of his mother, his arms outstretched. Jackie mirrored his smile, prepared for what was about to come. Taking her in his arms, he raised her high off the floor then swung her around. Giving a sudden grunt, he quickly set her down, wincing at the pain he’d caused himself.
“Cuddy … is that really you?” she asked with genuine excitement.
He nodded sheepishly. “I saw you. I knew it was you. I said to myself … that’s my best friend in the whole world. That’s Jackie!”
Joining them, Mrs. Perkins looked pleased to see her, too. She gave Jackie a hug, then pushed her an arm’s length away and held her there. “What are you doing back here? Why aren’t you at school, dear?”
Jackie let out a sigh. Looking back down the hallway that led to the room her father was in, she explained, “Dad … had a heart attack. I drove back here right from school.”
“I’m so sorry. How is he doing? Is he going to be okay?” she asked.
“I think so. I hope so.” Jackie’s eyes became moist and she found it hard to swallow. She looked at Cuddy, who was still beaming at her. He’d gotten so big. Normally, she knew, he’d be handsome, except for that ridiculous, bowl-type haircut and those far too short high-water pants. Jackie wondered if it was no accident he looked like he did. That Mrs. Perkins helped dress him this way, sending a message to anyone who came in close proximity: Back off, people—this boy is severely mentally challenged. Don’t mess with him.
“Where are you off to now, Jackie?”
“Home. To sleep.”
“Tomorrow, you’ll come over for dinner.”
“Oh no, I’m not …”
“I insist, sweetie. I’m making pork chops.”
“And smashed potatoes and leftover peach pie,” Cuddy added.
Jackie smiled, then changed the subject. “What happened to you, Cuddy? Get run over by a herd of buffalo?”
Cuddy’s face turned serious. “I got mugged. That’s what Momma calls it. Mugged.”
“By whom?”
“By Gary Wallahan and Tony Bone.”
“I remember them both, went to my high school. They were bullies … mean bastards back then. Guess they still are. Is that why you’re here … your injuries?”
Cuddy said, “I was bleeding … so I got a few more stitches added to my lip.” He pointed to his still puffy-looking lips and the black Frankenstein-looking sutures. Jackie tried to remember the last time she’d seen Cuddy. It was years ago, when she’d first entered high school. Before then, for close to ten years, she’d been his best friend and protector. Her thoughts traveled back to the barn incident, when she was seven, and she, Kyle and Cuddy were playing up in the loft. Kyle was showing off, acting rowdy. She remembered him pushing Cuddy, who was seven, out of the way, as if it happened yesterday. Like seeing it again, taking place in slow motion, as Cuddy stumbled then fell backward, out into open space. His arms outstretched, as if he were reaching for her. She watched him land hard on his back, unmoving in front of the stall. He looked dead.
Seeing him now, she wondered if things would be different if he had grown up normal—what their relationship would be now? Would they be friends? Something more?
“We eat at six o’clock. Oh … and Kyle’s back home. I’m sure he’d be happy to see you too.”
Jackie was about to decline but thought better of it. She hated cooking for herself and being home alone at the farm didn’t appeal to her in the slightest. “I’ll try to make it. Thank you, six o’clock tomorrow. What should I bring?”
Mrs. Perkins shook her head. “Nothing. Just bring yourself. Maybe you can wear something more fitting; you know … for the ranch.”
Jackie felt her cheeks flush and tugged her handbag higher across her chest.
Those around looked up as lobby lights again began to flicker, and car alarms resumed blaring noisily in the parking lot.
Chapter 9
Tow, spewing and retching, had vomited eleven separate times and counting. He wished there was a way to erase the last three hours and ten minutes from his memory. Even though the bodies were more like gelatinized masses—their internal, skeletal remains still gave them some physicality. Lormin, the captain, had been the worst to see—suffering the least amount of decomposition, he was the most recogniz
able. But he’d done it all, nevertheless. Scraped and cleaned up the remains of the seven entombed crewmembers, then buried their bodies in separate unmarked graves. Just thinking about it, he felt bile burn the back of his throat. Once inner and outer repairs to the starboard berth compartment were completed, Tow removed his fouled environmental suit and incinerated it.
Returning to the babbling brook site, Tow sat naked on a flat rock, watching the stream as it gently flowed past—errant twigs or leaves caught up in small, twirling eddies, only to be freed moments later to continue their journey.
A breeze suddenly kicked up and he felt its light coolness against his skin. Tree branches, thirty feet above, swayed and made a rustling sound. Tow was aware of the AI’s subtle presence—always lurking within his psyche. He knew that the automated brain wanted to remind him of the impending disaster—one that would most assuredly occur if he didn’t get himself moving.
He’d been alerted by the AI only the previous day that the Howsh’s lead ship had entered into high orbit around Earth. Feelings of dread swept over him. Sitting there—nestled within the lush forest—he’d almost forgotten about his terrible plight. The other two Howsh ships, currently completing their terrestrial scans around Mars, would be following within the next day or two. Their hunt for the Evermore now elevated to a new level. If he kept the ship’s propulsion system inactive, quieted, the odds of being discovered were lowered somewhat. On the other hand—to continue onward with his journey, his mission, while still able—he needed to hastily make the necessary repairs, which meant reinitializing the propulsion system.
Tow, inwardly musing and stuck in his head—approaching concerns from different angles—didn’t notice a new presence nearby.
* * *
Cuddy missed Rufus. Looking down, expecting to see him by his side, he was reminded he’d been taken away—in the back of Officer Plumkin’s police cruiser. Momma gave him some easy chores to do this morning—ones that didn’t require heavy lifting due to his bruised ribs.
The Simpleton: An Alien Encounter Page 5
