I answered the call at exactly midnight and groaned. My shift was technically over, and I was on my way back to the station. At this time of night on a Friday, I expected the call to be a domestic dispute or a bar fight, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with wife beaters or drunk rednecks.
“Sheriff?” the tired, monotone voice of Margery said over the radio. “We’ve just received three reports of strange lights in the sky over by Parishville, and the phone lines are lighting up.”
“My shift is over, Marge. Can’t Jake take care of it?”
“Sorry, Harry. The deputy is over at the college, dealing with a bunch of streaking sorority sisters.”
“Well, I guess I’m the lucky one,” I said sarcastically, then added, “I’m on it, Marge.”
I did a U-turn on the old country road and sped toward Parishville. It was about a ten-mile drive, but I could already see the lights Marge had been talking about way off in the distance. The line of trees on the side of the road kept blocking my view, but tit looked like they were coming from a plane or helicopter, the way they were blinking. The only thing that alarmed me was how low they appeared.
I didn’t bother hitting the lightbar so far out, and I wasn’t concerned enough yet to be speeding. I mean, they were just lights in the sky. But the closer I got, the stranger they appeared. They were still a few miles out by the time I reached the town limits, and I could see them quite clearly in the valley. They were flying north to south, low like crop dusters, and they pulsed, red, yellow, and blue.
As I drew closer, I saw lights at the end of the long main street. They just suddenly stopped there above the road. The closer I got, the larger the lights became, and soon it was clear this was no plane or helicopter or any other flying thing I had ever seen.
This was something different.
This was something… hell, I had no idea what it was, but it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my teeth tingle.
I turned on the lights and siren, and gunned it.
“Marge, Harry here. I’m just outside Parishville on Route 37, heading west. I’ve located the source of the lights, but, well, I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at.”
The lights were pulsing slowly, and they suddenly changed to a deep green.
“The colors are changing,” I said.
“Sheriff… me… what… are….”
“You’re breaking up.” I slapped the radio, but I only heard static and a few fractured words.
The craft still wasn’t moving. I stopped forty feet away from it and tried to make sense of what I was seeing. It appeared to be triangular, with three lights, one at the end of each point, and they were pulsing slower and slower. There was no metallic reflection from the underside of the craft, only pure blackness.
The radio hissed, and Marge’s voice came in broken fragments.
The squad car’s lightbar and siren became erratic, and the engine cut out. The steering locked up, and I put the car in park and tried the engine. I kept my eyes glued to the strange craft. Hell, I don’t think I could have looked away if I’d tried.
The craft suddenly shot straight up into the air, stopped, and zipped down the road. The car started on my next try, and I checked the radar gun.
Two hundred fifty miles per hour.
“Holy shit!” I put the car in gear and slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
I shot down the road, reaching 100 miles an hour in less than ten seconds. I really had that pedal floored, and the engine was screaming, but I wasn’t about to let it get away. It disappeared behind the tall pine trees lining the sides of the road. I desperately searched the skies for another glimpse.
Just one more glimpse.
I had to see it again.
Something special had just happened. Whether military or alien, the craft was not something you saw every day. Being in its presence had given me an otherworldly high, and I wanted another hit.
“Marge, you read?”
“Affirmative, Sheriff,” she said, and I heard her smacking her gum.
“I’m in pursuit.” I slowed down and hung a left. The tires screeched around the turn. “I’m on Thompson Road heading south. Tell Jake to get his ass over here, and call McAdams Military Base and see if they’ve got eyes on this thing.”
“You got it, Harry,” she said with a smack of her gum.
The craft suddenly rose up above the trees on my right. It was like the damn thing was playing peekaboo. It was pacing me perfectly. When I slowed down, it slowed down. When I sped up, it sped up.
For the hell of it, I even flashed my headlights, and the damn thing flashed back.
“What the hell are you?”
“Back in black!” AC/DC suddenly screamed out of the speakers and made me jump.
The craft swerved toward me.
I’ve been too long, I’m glad to be back!
The lights were directly above me, and my car started acting like it was possessed.
My headlights flashed like strobe lights, the wipers turned on high and fluid covered the windshield, the siren screeched and whooped, and the lightbar went berserk.
The guitar barked through the static.
My front right tire dipped off the shoulder and hit gravel.
Brian Johnson screamed, I’ve been looking at the sky ’cause it’s getting’ me high.
My steering froze, and I fought the wheel. The fluid on the windows refracted the lightshow, and I didn’t know north from south. The car slid sideways, and I pumped the brakes.
But it was too late.
I hit the ditch at an angle, going about fifty miles an hour, and the car flipped through the air like a circus tumbler.
The last thing I remember was getting a face full of airbag, and seeing those creepy green lights pulsing outside as I rolled in slow motion. I lost consciousness, and when I opened my eyes, dust specks hung motionless all around me, illuminated by the craft’s lights.
I craned my head toward the window and tried to get a better look at the diamond-shaped vessel above me. It was just sitting there about twenty feet up, pulsing and humming and slowly rotating on an invisible axis.
Blood trickled down my forehead and into my left eye, and a wave of nausea washed over me. Time became fragmented. One minute I was drunkenly fumbling with my seatbelt and the next I was waking up again and trying to open the jammed door. The entire ordeal felt like a dream.
The green pulsing lights were soothing, and the hum of the ship resonated in my chest. The pungent smell of gasoline was all around me, but I wasn’t alarmed. I remember only feeling awed as I stared up at the slowly rotating craft.
My feet suddenly tingled like they had fallen asleep. The sensation grew and moved up my legs, my spine, and through my entire body. I looked at my hands sleepily and frowned. They were falling apart. That’s the only way to explain it. They floated upward like dust, first my fingertips, then my hands and arms.
I let out a scream of terror as my body broke into a million pieces. Then I was floating out of my seat like a ghost, through the roof of the car toward that slowly spinning blackness. The green light enveloped me, pulled me closer, and wrapped me in darkness.
When I woke up, I had no idea how much time had passed, and I didn’t know where I was. A bright white light shone down on my face, creating a fragmented haze. Tall gray figures loomed over me. They wore long robes as dusty looking as their skin. The creatures were impossibly tall and skinny, like exclamation points.
I weakly tried to move, but I had no control over my extremities. Only my eyes moved, and I jerked them around as my terror grew. The stench of gasoline still burned my nostrils. I heard only the soft hum I attributed to the ship, and I realized I must be ins
ide it.
I glanced left, and my heart dropped.
Earth was in the window, and it was getting smaller as it grew more distant.
When I glanced right, where the grays were gathered, my terror grew.
The only thing I saw with complete clarity was the laser beam cutting my forearm in half. I didn’t feel any pain, just a slight tugging. Then one of the grays held up my right arm, and I looked at the stump.
I’m not a fainter, but the sight of my cleanly severed arm knocked me out as if I was a swooning lass from a 1950s romance movie.
I was in some shit, that’s for sure.
But the strangest part of the entire ordeal was what happened next.
I opened my eyes and blinked heavily against the glaring sun. I instinctively brought my right hand to my forehead to shade the light. But my hand offered no shade, because it wasn’t there.
“Oh shit!” I cursed and shot to my feet, staring wide-eyed at the metal-capped stump where my forearm used to be.
The shiny metal cap was flat at the end, with three golden circles placed in the shape of a triangle. The cap covered a good six inches up my forearm, and it had grooves around the edges that suggested some kind of prosthetic could be attached to it.
My head spun as I tried to make sense of things. I searched my surroundings, suddenly aware there were other people around, but what I saw made no sense. Either I had been beamed to the best costume party in the world, or I was surrounded by dozens of aliens of different races. They came in all shapes and colors: short and blue, tall and green, hairy with horns, four-legged and ugly as hell, male, female, and some I couldn’t identify as either. I swear one of them had what looked like a limp dick hanging from his forehead like a deflated horn.
One thing we all had in common, however, was a severed arm ending in a silver cap—or in some cases, a severed tentacle.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled to myself.
Directly in front of me, grassland rose steeply to the top of a tall hill. The other aliens and I were positioned neatly around it. The grass was surrounded by a thick forest full of alien flora and fauna. Beyond that was a distant mountain range that circled us completely.
“Welcome, champions from across the galaxy!”
We looked up as a fifty-foot hologram of one of the tall grays I had seen on the ship, come to life atop the hill. The creature was as thin as a pool noodle, and his long praying-mantis arms were spread wide. He wore a gray cloak that matched his skin. The only color came from his big white eyes set with green, elliptical irises. His face and head resembled a turtle’s, with a thin slit of a mouth.
“You have been gathered from the far reaches of the galaxy to compete in the Vorgon Empire’s Survival Games!”
Everyone started asking angry questions, and some even tried to move toward the hill, but they suddenly slammed into some kind of invisible barrier. As the crowd grew angrier, the tall gray alien smiled and raised his arms again.
“Please, please, your questions are not important, for soon all but one of you will be dead.”
Everyone fell silent
Dead? What the hell was he talking about?
We glanced at each other, some with apprehension and others with predatory grins on their alien faces.
The alien beside me was a tall blue female straight out of an intergalactic wet dream. She looked surprisingly human, except for her too-big eyes. Oh, and there was a tail protruding from what looked like a leather skirt.
On my other side was a big hairy creature that looked like the Sasquatch from hell, and I wondered—not for the last time that day—whether I was dreaming.
“Now that I have your attention, I will tell you what you need to know,” said the gray atop the hill, and we fell silent. “You have been chosen because you represent some of the greatest warriors your worlds have to offer.”
Warrior? I had been in the marines four years, and I’d been a sheriff for five, but I didn’t know about being one of Earth’s greatest warriors.
“You may have noticed you are partially missing a limb, and I will explain that shortly. First let me address the question that you all must be thinking: how can you understand what everyone is saying?”
Yup, exactly what I was wondering, bro.
“It is simple. You have been injected with nanobots that have attached to the language locations in your brains. In essence, they are translating my words for you, as they are translating the words of the other warriors around you. But more importantly, the nanobots will help you navigate the arena, receive messages from the game masters, and display the kill count.”
There was a flash of light, and a sharp pain tore through my scalp.
“I have enabled the link. You should all see a skull floating in front of you. Please tap it.”
There was indeed a skull floating in front of me. It was thin, with a long jaw and high forehead, and I realized it was a gray alien skull.
Aliens on each side of me poked the air in front of them. Every single one of them looked surprised by what happened next. I moved my finger over the floating skull , and to my surprise, an interface appeared.
Opponents
Kill Counter
Nanobot Bonuses
“The mental holograms can be interacted with,” said Gray. “Please select opponents.”
I tapped on it, and the names and pictures of twenty-four aliens appeared in a long list.
“Take a moment to make yourself familiar with this,” said Gray. “Please touch one of the pictures in front of you.”
When I saw my own name and picture, I selected it with mounting curiosity.
Harry Warwick
Planet Earth
Soldier/Law Enforcement Officer
I glanced at the smoking hot blue alien chick, then found her on the list and tapped her pic.
Ell’Aharadia’Aquisaria
Planet Ziklon 5
Warrior/Tribal Leader
I regarded her again with newfound respect, and she glanced at me with a cocked brow, as though she had been reading my sheet as well.
I regarded the Sasquatch from hell and tapped.
Urbock Skullthumper
Planet Gorgreckin
Gladiator/Champion
Urbock caught me staring and offered me a sneer.
I scrolled through the list for a few minutes, and the otherworldly feeling steadily grew. There was a little stocky lizard-looking dude, a small winged dragon creature with wicked claws, a green humanoid with webbed feet, a cat woman with a long, bushy tail, and even something that looked like a centaur. I saw a big-ass wolf man, a giant gray-skinned cyclops, and a bunch of other weird-looking freaks.
“You will notice that the kill counter is currently set at zero, but that will soon change.” Gray laced his fingers and let out a slow chuckle, like a cheesy criminal mastermind.
“If I kill you, do I get extra points?” the blue chick beside me asked.
I and a few others laughed, and Gray smirked at her.
“I like your spirit, Ell’Aharadia’Aquisaria,” he said.
“What’s the point of all this?” I asked, and the others shared my sentiment. “Who do you want us to kill?”
Gray scowled at me. “Each other.”
That sent a murmur through the crowd.
“There are twenty-four of you, but only one shall leave this arena alive,” he continued. “You will begin the games with whatever weapons you had on you when you were abducted.”
My utility belt appeared at my feet like Scotty from Star Trek had just beamed it down to me. The other players’ weapons appeared as well. I checked it and found my equipment intact. I had my trusty Glock 22, an extra clip of ammo that held the standard fifteen rounds, a pair of handcuffs, pepper spray, a taser, and a swiss army knife. My cell phone was also on the ground, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting any reception.
A quick image of me on top of the hill saying, “Can you hear me now?” flashed through my head, and I c
ouldn’t help but chuckle as I stashed it in my pocket.
I strapped on my belt and felt the comfortable weight of my sidearm. The blue alien chick picked up a big sword with runes all over the blade. To my left, Sasquatch Dude held a spiked metal club and grinned at me with murder in his eyes.
I made a mental note to put a bullet in his head first.
“The nanobots have other functions. Most notably, they enable you to use lethal prosthetics, which will be dropped into the arena at random intervals along with other supplies, such as food, water, and apex predators.”
An icon of a lizard-like eye appeared, and I tapped it. The 3D image of a beast appeared that looked like a cross between the monster from Alien and a T-Rex. But unlike a T-Rex, it had long front arms with wicked claws at the ends, and its tail curved like a scorpion’s.
“There are other creatures in the arena, so be alert at all times,” Gray said cryptically. A grin spread across his dusty gray face. “Now, without further delay—”
“Excuse me?” I yelled, and he turned furious eyes on me for the interruption.
“What?” he hissed.
“So you expect us to kill each other?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And what’s to stop us from teaming up and kicking you and your cowardly gray hommes asses?”
Blue-skinned Chick laughed, and I offered her a wink. If I was going to get through this thing alive, I was going to have to make some friends.
Gray looked furious. “There is no way out of the arena, and those who attempt it will endure a terrible fate.”
He was full of shit. If there was a way for supplies and apex predators to be dropped into the arena, there was a way out as well.
“And what if we just refuse to fight each other?”
He laughed. “Good luck with that.”
A ring of lights flared around the hill at Gray’s feet, and when they dimmed, there were half a dozen small metal objects on the hillside.
Warwick: Galactic Arena Page 1
