Nevada

Okay, this is really kinda funny! This story is very much like another I’d written, “A Sermon Unleashed“! Even the main characters’ names were the same!

I had no idea!

Well, okay, obviously, I must have known this back in 1989, when I’d written both of these…but had forgotten years later. So…I changed the names of the characters in this story. It’s also funny, but I seemed to have used the name “Phil” a lot. So, I must have taken some of the better lines from “Sermon” and incorporated them into this one, figuring “Sermon” wasn’t as good and would never see the light of day….

Now, the major difference between the two of these stories, is that most of what happened in this story…actually happened!

My mom used to write for the Las Vegas, Nevada publication, The Vegas Visitor. This website looks like it might be the one…and is still around…but I’m not sure. Anyway, my mom was writing an article about UFO sightings and about one that was supposed to have been an upcoming one. And I had come to visit her, so she asked if I wanted to come along (or I asked to…), so I ended up going with her to the supposed “UFO landing” site.

Everything I’d written about pretty much happened as I’d experienced it at that Mile Marker 15 site out in the middle of nowhere…except for the “weird fiction” parts I’d created. The in-the-dark conversations…the “crystal healing” session (I actually did see and hear the crystal spark in the dark)…the lights in the sky and the conversations about them…the drivers who stopped by to ask what was going on…yup, it all happened as described. My attitude was my character Neal’s attitude.

So, here is “Blue Diamond Exit, Mile Marker 15.” It’s unpublished…and pardon the resemblance to “A Sermon Unleashed”…though they aren’t quite the same….

 

Blue Diamond Exit, Mile Marker 15

© F. P. Dorchak, 1989

 

“It’s up just ahead—see that ’76’ sign—it’s that exit!” Annie Jackson blurted. A tilted crescent moon, with edges that resembled horns, hung overhead in the Nevada desert night.

“Okay, I see it,” Neal, her husband, impatiently replied, the soft orange glow of the dash bouncing off his face.

Their un-air-conditioned truck rattled south along I-15, windows rolled down. They had been at the somewhat tedious pace for nearly half an hour now. Neal stared at the blue reflective sign that read “BLUE DIAMOND EXIT, NEXT RIGHT.” He looked over to his wife. She was still turned toward the window and lost in thought to the stars. There was magic in the air…at least for one of them…and there was still some fifteen more miles yet to go….

Neal’s mind drifted. He thought about the stark contrast of where he was twenty minutes ago compared to where he was now. About the harsh traffic and lights of Las Vegas left behind. About his present wild goose-chase. There was very little civilization out here, aside from occasional gas stations and all the secret and non-secret stuff Nellis AFB had. It was a decidedly eerie darkness. A place with no “Strip” and no casinos.

And ahead was Nevada 95.

Neal looked over again and saw Annie’s long blonde hair billow out the window as she stared up into the night sky, her head actually poked a little out the window. There had been a time when he had actually been crazy about her hair. Her skin. Her—

At one time he had been crazy about a lot of things.

Annie pulled her head back in and looked to him. Neal returned a thin smile.

He really wasn’t into this. It was all horse-shit. But not to Annie—no, she knew. She was told she was being groomed for an elevated position within the group.

The Group.

Neal had met “The Group,” all right. He had gone to one of their meetings and found himself totally turned off by its entirely charismatic approach. Their leader, Ed Horton (whom Neal had quickly come to call “Mr. Ed,”) was made out to be some kind of a god because of his “privileged knowledge” about aliens and UFO’s.

UFO’s indeed.

And just how far was Annie intending to go with all this, anyway? And groomed for what position?

Well, it wouldn’t be long before they’d both find out. Mile marker 15, the supposed site of a previous visitation and subsequent abduction, (or abscess-tion more like) was where they were all about to meet. The rest of her group. Marker 15 was scheduled for another visitation tonight.

Everyone knew this because they were told.

By Mr. Ed.

Aliens. Not the kind in need of blue (now pink) cards and 7 years residency, nope, not those kind.

Aliens from the stars.

Those kind.

The kind that come flying down from the sky in nifty little space ships; the kind the government repeatedly tells us aren’t there—wherever “there” is—and the kind that are also reportedly locked up in some sort of secret-secret-secret government installation at Langley, Virginia, dealing a give-and-take hand with certain high government officials.

Those kind.

At least this was what Mr. Ed would have everyone believe. And his sources were reliable. Very, very reliable.

“Really,” Annie had grown very adept at saying.

Neal had come to cringe at that word.

And his sources? They ranged from “other people” to the National Inquirer. He also counted himself. He’d seen things, he’d tell his followers. Highly-Top-Secret- and-extremely-classified-things.

“Did you ever think that it could all be a clever form of disinformation by the government—for whatever the reason?” Neal had once tried arguing. It wasn’t that Neal wasn’t a believer in extraterrestrial existences, or even pro-government, for that matter, but the whole extraterrestrial thing had become so trashed by the media that it was hard to believe anything without first seeing and touching the evidence. And when you have to get your information from people who get orgasms at the smallest flicker of light in the night sky, well, the credibility factor does much far more than just drop.

 

Onward they drove, down the off-ramp and past the exit sign, the 76 truck-stop sliding off behind and to the right of them. I-15 continued on into the darkness, and into California’s Mojave Desert.

Annie passively viewed the glow of the 76 station as they left it behind. It was dark ahead of them. Very dark. And dark behind them. Very dark, indeed. They had, for all practical purposes, left behind the comforts of civilization for the harsh realities of the Nevada desert, and this was to be their last sign of civilization on their trip west.

 

The temperature slowly began its climb upward, and Annie instinctively went for the window handle. Her winding down of the window was quickly brought to a halt when she realized it was already rolled down as far as it would go. All this punishment and because Neal hadn’t felt the need to buy an air-conditioner for the damned truck.

It was too expensive, he said.

They could get by without it, he said.

Well, it would be better to live with a little less money than to die of heat exhaustion, she said.

Annie cast him an unnoticed scowl.

Finally away from the lights of the 76 station and totally engulfed by the darkness, Neal switched to high-beams. He had never been out this way before and he looked to the dark shapes rising and falling to either side of them with great trepidation….

 

It had all started three months ago. Annie had glimpsed an ad-article written in the Vegas Visitor, a publication given to her by a friend of a friend. It talked about “Space Intelligence—see it for yourself and YOU be the judge!”

All that in one header.

There was to be a seminar held at the Las Vegas Hilton. Annie was amazed that a hotel of such caliber would even consider hosting such a function, but, doubt it or not, it was there, and she went. It was her first encounter with the man her husband unaffectionately now referred to as “Mr. Ed.”

Ed Horton was a narrowly built six-footer, with a back bent over in a slight hunch. His countenance was not one of “Hi, I’m here! Pay attention to me!” but more of “I’m here—and who gives a shit?” The weirdest thing about him was that his face didn’t quite match the picture of him her mind had painted. It was more like an entirely separate entity, a backdrop to thick eyebrows and watery eyes, with a head covered in a wild silvery mane. And he always seemed to have his hands cupped, giving you the impression that his hands weren’t exactly attractive. But it was when he opened his mouth that the horse-feathers really began to fly, and his real charisma would suddenly make itself known. He had a voice that was deep and dark.

Hypnotic.

And it came from a mouth full of teeth. When he spoke his eyes took on a new light, and they focused on everyone. There was no place to hide. If he saw you waver, he’d hook your eyes and bring you in deeper. He did stuff like

“…you’re open-minded, aren’t you? You believe in certain things you can’t see, don’t you?”

They’d all nod aloud or to themselves.

“Faith,” Ed would undertone, “faith.” He would then take up a new stance on stage and turn away, only to swing back around and zero in on a particular skeptic he had spotted earlier, his focus intense.

“There are trillions of other planets and star systems out there. Trillions! Just by the Law of Averages alone—just by basic statistics!—how can you discount that there aren’t other planets out there…with intelligence on them?”

Then he’d gesticulate to his right eye and continue, “can you look me straight into the eye and tell me that you believe we are the only life forms in this almighty cosmos?”

He’d stop. Wait for a reply.

The reply.

His subject would feel the heat of everyone’s stare and chuckle to him or herself. He’d reply in the negative, knowing full well the hopelessness of the situation. Ed would drop his hands with a sigh of relief, pleased with both the win and the manipulation. Everyone else in the room would nod knowingly, silently (re!)affirming to themselves that he did have a point.

The entire scene was reminiscent of a religious sermon—but that didn’t stop Ed. No, sir, Ed goes on. And on. All the Eds of the world do. The group always gets smaller, but there still would be a gathering of the few who wanted to “learn more.” To become of the “in-crowd.”

One of the Chosen.

 

Annie was the topic that time around, and she had gradually become Ed’s right-hand topic. Ed’s eyes always lit up around her. He saw the flaming potential she possessed.

Annie had come to the seminar on a whim, for want of nothing better to do. She had been bored. But from where first came boredom, now grew a cause, a movement, something outside her marriage she could attach herself to. Something she really wanted to believe in and become a part of. And she had also found a person who seemed to have the inside track on esoterica. After all, he didn’t seem to be benefitting from any ulterior motives…and he was a fairly well-to-do man to begin with. Ed said he had heard of extraterrestrial visitations years ago, and had decided to do a little of his own investigations. What he had found was that he couldn’t discount all of it. He had become converted to the cause. His Mentor, it was rumored, was abducted somewhere in New Mexico, least that’s what ol Ed alluded to, never actually coming right out and saying so….

He always just kinda smiled and wandered away.

Neal and Annie came to an intersection in the straight, flat road to Blue Diamond. The crossroad went off to their right and quickly dumped out of their sight. It was down there that there was supposed to be a Vegas camera crew. Ready to catch any aliens who would just happen to land and want to play for the cameras.

They went straight.

“Annie, what if these aliens of yours don’t show? What are you going to do then? What are you going to say?” Neal asked.

Annie looked him straight in the eye.

“Ed says it would just mean that they weren’t ready.”

Annie smiled triumphantly, but the glow from the dash gave her face more of a maniacal look to it.

“Annie—listen to yourself, will you? That’s a cop out, and you know it! You were told that the aliens would land tonight—no ifs, ands, or buts.”

Annie continued to smile, adjusting it out the window. She shook her head slowly, like one of the converted.

“Ed said there would be times like this. That there would be those who would try to shake our beliefs.”

“Oh, fuck ‘our beliefs.’ You’re out there, Annie, waaay the fuck out there. I really don’t like this at all.”

“If there are too many people there with negative vibes—”

“—oh right, I’d forgotten about that part—”

“—the aliens won’t land.”

“Oh right: ‘bad vibes, Zandor, no land.’ Get real, Annie, why should that deter them from making an appearance? They’re so advanced with their space ships and all—”

“—Neal! You just don’t understand, do you? It hurts them! Literally hurts them, Neal, like loud noises hurt us! Bad vibrations and negative thoughts can actually kill them!”

Annie glared across the cab at Neal. He took one last glance at her before he returned his attention back to the road.

Fuck this shit.

“Annie, I wish you could see yourself, I really do. That’s such a lame argument and you know it. If it was that important for aliens to land and make themselves known, don’t you think they’d do it anyway—or at least make some sort of shielding device to protect their precious little minds?”

Annie had long since ignored his words, and instead studied the stars above, the hot wind tossing her hair in and out of the cab.

Neal’s light suddenly danced off reflectors up ahead. He slowed the truck down a bit, dropping a gear. Off to the side of the road he spotted the green and white mile marker post. Fifteen. He saw a van and several cars pulled over to the right of the road. Off the road a little farther to the right, some twenty feet out, was another car. Its reflectors also danced before his lights. Neal pulled his Ford to a stop just behind the van. Looking to the rear to make sure no one was coming up on him, he turned the truck around and faced it back in the direction they had just come from (“just in case,” he’d told Annie).

Once out of the truck, they noticed there were several people milling around beside the van, apparently making a regular party out of the evening. Neal glanced back up the road in the direction they would have continued if hadn’t they stopped and saw that there were other groups. These seemed, maybe only because of the distance, generally quieter, thereby attracting less attention. The group directly in front of them actually seemed to be showing off.

It was when he turned to Annie that he noticed just how utterly dark it was. It always seemed darker in places where one was unfamiliar. He looked off to the northeast, where the twinkling lights of Las Vegas lay. A dark shape absorbed some of its brilliance. A mountain.

“Well, at least it’s a beautiful night to stargaze,” he mumbled absentmindedly, looking up into the night sky.

Annie looked at him through the darkness. His tone was more reconciliatory. Relaxed.

She remembered the times they had gone out stargazing, just the two of them. Remembered the love they had shared beneath the stars, and for a moment felt herself grow weak. She longed for how things had been. For the love they had so believed in, and had so shared.

But that was only momentary.

Her resolve returned once she heard someone utter Ed’s name.

“Ed Horton?” Annie queried back into the darkness. Popping her head up, she headed off in the direction of the conversation. Neal remained. Watched the sky. It was so black. It brought him back to his days as a kid when he would brave the cold night air and early morning hours for a glimpse of Andromeda. Or the Magellanic Clouds.

That seemed so long ago.

Presently all he could see were all sorts of lights as they floated across the sky. Red and blue, or just plain white. He knew aircraft when he saw them, but sometimes he saw extremely faint lights that buzzed across the sky. Satellites. A sure test of good eyesight they were. Of course he also knew that by not looking directly at things in the night sky you could sometimes see them better. He didn’t really know why that was, just that it worked. Something about peripheral vision and rods and cones.

Neal looked back towards that van. They were such a boisterous group of partiers. And there were only about five of them. One thing he could tell right off was that they all smoked cigarettes. And, judging by their conversation, he also figured one wasn’t quite eighteen, one was the “matriarch,” easily in her mid-thirties, and the other three were somewhere in their twenties. The teenager was a girl. The other three consisted of one guy, and two girls, all of wide girth.

Suddenly Neal noticed something which filled him with an acute sense of dread. Situated between himself and the group sat a lone individual. It was like driving directly into the sun and finding that the vehicle directly in front of you had suddenly stopped. This man said nothing. Kept to himself.

If anything was obvious about this man, it was that that he wasn’t with the van’s group.

The man sat in what Neal thought to be a lawn chair (it squeaked and appeared to have that characteristically unsteady wobble), and stared straight ahead, or so his silhouette showed. And had Neal the eyes of a nocturnal desert-dweller he would have also seen the faint smile that also pursed the stranger’s dark lips.

“Neal?” Annie’s voice.

“Yes—yes, what is it?”

He was almost annoyed that his train of thought had been broken. Annie’s shadow quickly came into view. Though he couldn’t physically make it out yet, he knew she had that annoying sparkle in her eyes; that telling tone in her voice. She always got this way before and after one of her meetings.

God, this whole thing smelled.

Something wasn’t right. It had all the ear-markings of a religious Saving.

Or worse.

He kept thinking: should have brought the gun; should have brought that gun.

“What is it, honey?” Neal again asked.

“Those people over there said that Ed said the aliens would come up over that mountain there,” she said, pointing north, towards some low hills.

“Fine.” Great, he was losing her big-time and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“God, I can’t wait, honey! It’s going to be sooo neat! Just think of it—aliens, landing—and we’ll be the first to see them! God, I hope Channel 5 picks them up!” Annie rubbed her arms and scanned the horizon. The best Neal could muster was an eyeball rollback. He got back into the truck.

Window still down, Neal listened in on the group at the van. They talked about all-things-Alien. Ed’s name came up. Again. And again. Mr. Ed, Neal thought, and laughed to himself. Yup, Mr. Ed, straight from the horse’s ass, yuck, yuck, yuck.

“What’s so funny, Neal?” Annie asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just laughing to myself.”

Annie shrugged her shoulders and looked back to the stars.

The group at the van grew more talkative. Quite animated, in fact.

“Should we take out the crystals and have Martha do her stuff?” one asked.

“Sure!” resounded another. It sounded like the teenager. Votes in, a flashlight switched on. Neal could just make out the shapes that moved about, some larger than others. The silent individual between them continued his muted vigil. It was almost as if Neal could have walked right through him and not have spotted him, let alone disturb him. He was like a ghost—only partially there.

Martha was seated in her own chair, apparently acting most modest about her crystal talents, Neal mused—but he knew she was just playing the audience.

“C’mon, Martha,” another challenged, “show us what you can do!”

Martha moved. She must have been a big hunk of a woman, three-hundred pounds easy, Neal thought. Why her shape took up two, if not three normal-sized people shadows.

“Okay, I’ll do it. Bill, you got the crystals?”

A flashlight moved towards the van.

“Sure—just a minute! They’re in a box back here.” Bill fetched like an obedient clone.

“What do you do with them, Martha?” asked the teenager.

Neal watched the light from the flashlight dance into the chunk of darkness that was the van. He saw its beam periodically come into view through the windows as Bill presumably rummaged about inside. Neal also saw that the lone figure in the chair between them shifted a bit. His chair again squeaked.

So he can move.

“Oh, I run them over the length of a person’s body and it rejuvenates them,” Martha said, pulling Neal’s attention back to the group. “The crystals give off a spark, and you can feel new energy flowing through you.”

“Really?”

The girl’s use of the word made Neal sick.

“Here’s they are, Martha,” Bill said, and brought out the box. The group huddled around it.

Neal strained for a futile look. Martha, Neal assumed, since he really couldn’t see, brought out a crystal from the container.

“Okay, who’s first?”

Bill answered first. Neal imagined frowns forming on the girls’ faces. What a wiener.

“How about Tina, she’s never had it done to her before,” someone else was heard to say.

Martha turned towards Tina.

“Tina? How about it?”

Neal could only assume Tina looked to the others.

“Well…sure—why not?”

Large Martha got up and went over to Tina.

“Okay, Tina, just turn your back to me and relax. Now breathe deeply.”

Tina did as commanded.

The shape in the folding chair smiled, though Neal still couldn’t see it.

Neal watched the massively silhouetted matriarch move the crystal up and around Tina’s back. There were distinct clicking sounds, accompanied by little sparks of blue light that periodically popped out from the crystal. Neal straightened up in his seat and strained again for a better view.

How the hell did she do that?

“That stuff really works, you know,” Annie said coming up from behind Neal. Her sudden appearance once more sent Neal into orbit. Damn how she had an annoying habit of doing that. But, Annie, he had found, had also been taking an interest in what was going on. Still, he’d have to remind her to stop surprising him in the dark like that.

To the moon, Annie…to the moon …

“Right. How does it spark?” Neal asked.

“It’s the properties of the crystal. I know you don’t believe in it, but it works. You can see for yourself,” she said, pointing.

Neal sat back down into his seat and felt a bit silly at having been caught.

“Yeah, sure.”

 

It had now been a good hour and a half, and still there were no sightings. No silver spaceships; no little green men. Nuttin. But the crowd had not dwindled, in fact it had even gained some as time had went on, and there had even been one mildly amusing situation that had transpired.

Some people who had been driving by (to where, God only knew) stopped alongside the van to ask what was going on. All night long that group had been espousing, rather loudly and proudly, how important this alien landing was going to be—never even questioning that there might not even be one. So as this car stops to ask what was going on, the questioner never even got the politeness of an acknowledgement. Just silence. Heavy and embarrassed silence.

Fucking hypocrites, Neal mused, don’t even have enough conviction in their own cause to tell others about it.

He laughed.

The man in the folding chair continued to sit.

Unmoving.

 

Well, as much as Neal enjoyed the outdoors, this was getting to be much too bogus for him to take any longer. Getting out of the truck, he went in search of Annie, who happened to be only a few feet away on a nearby rise.

“Just how long are we supposed to wait out here, anyway?” he asked, coming up alongside.

“I guess ’til midnight,” she said hesitantly. “Maybe there’s stuff going on at the other location, you know, where the camera crew is?”

Neal rolled his eyes skyward, shook his head, and returned to the truck. The things he did for—

love?

Again finding himself alone and in the darkness (which he actually found quite comforting), he looked back to the van. Shifting position and sticking his head out the window to better eavesdrop with, he heard the group seriously considering if the planes flying overhead were actually flying saucers or not. Bill, the man of the group, was the one the others turned to for their answers. The group’s “expert.”

“They’re out there, outta gas, and with no road map,” Neal said, and pulled his head back inside the cab.

 

A gentle breeze drifted through Neal’s truck. It actually felt like it had cooled off some. On the breeze rode the scent of cactus. He decided to get out and stretch his legs some. As he did, he listened to the sound his feet made as they crunched on the hard desert dirt beneath. It all seemed too real, like the whole scene was out of a film noir (Ted Turner’s colorized and rotting soul notwithstanding).

Looking up, he crammed his hands deep into his jeans pockets. There was, he spotted, an extremely faint light bugging across the stars. He sighed, knowing full well it wasn’t an alien spacecraft but a good ole earth orbiting satellite.

He was getting bored.

Then he decided—why not, why not just go over and meet this mystery person who never moved, breathed, or talked, and introduce himself. Maybe strike up a conversation. It would at least pass some time.

“Annie, I’m going to go over to say ‘hi’ to that fella over there.”

Annie looked towards the silhouette.

“Okay. But be careful, honey. I’ll be watching you, okay?”

Neal smiled. “Sure.” He wandered over, but still focused most of his attention to the stars. And the crunch the desert noir made beneath him.

 

“Hi. My name’s Neal. How’re you doing?”

The figure moved, but only slightly, and looked up to him.

“Pleased to meet you. ‘Name’s Angus. How’re you doing tonight?”

Neal casually knelt down alongside the silhouette’s chair.

“Oh, I’m fine I guess. I’m here with my wife, Annie.” He pointed and figure looked off in that direction. “In fact I’m more here for her than this crazy UFO thing.”

The man settled back heavily into his chair.

“You seem pretty quiet—you with anyone? Ever heard of Ed Horton?”

“Yes, oh, yes, I’m here with a few others. They’re around somewhere.

“And yes, I know Ed.”

A sudden commotion ran out from among the van’s group. Neal and the man both looked over. Neal guessed the guy was in his mid- to late thirties. Strapping. His voice gave a definite presence of power.

“Hey, Bill, will ya’ look at that?” one of the van groupies asked. It was Martha, Neal figured. He also noticed how she actually got up and out of her chair. “What is that? Is it them, Bill, is it?”

Of course everyone else in the area heard them, and they all looked towards the low mountains to the north. Neal also saw the light there, seemingly perched atop the low peak. He also saw another light that quickly came in from the west to meet it.

“Those can’t be airplanes, can they, Bill?”

There was a moment of silence before Bill again passed judgement.

“Nope, they’re not airplanes.”

A man of decision.

“I thought not!” agreed another. In no time people began getting out of their cars, and somewhere Neal knew that Annie was also moving to join them. In no time the van group all trudged noisily past Neal and his silent partner, and over to the vehicle to the right of them, off in the dirt.

“Bill—I think it’s them! I really think it’s them, Bill!” Martha exclaimed. Her little gathering following excitedly behind her like a precession of ducks. They met up with the other group, of which Annie was one. The light in the west still moved towards the stationary one over the hill.

“There’re really here! It’s them!” Tina cried, her shrill voice once again causing Neal to feel nauseated.

“Oh, God, I’m getting goose-bumps!” Martha cried, “this is it, really it!”

Neal, now back to his feet, couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.

Angus regarded him curiously.

“They’re getting orgasms over goddammed helicopters!” Neal shouted. “Goddamned helicopters!”

Now Neal heard Angus making a noise. He was chuckling. Neal still couldn’t quite make out Angus’s face, but it seemed, if this could be true, that his face was thick. Neal and Angus looked at each other through the darkness, and both laughed. Angus’s laugh seemed deeply guttural, almost primitive, and in a distant corner of Neal’s unconsciousness this caused him to cringe. Neal wasn’t sure if his mind was playing tricks on him in the darkness, or if, in fact, Angus was really deformed in some way—which would explain why he choose to keep by himself. Neal just got the idea that Angus’s mouth was distended, or gave the appearance of being distended.

The easterly moving chopper finally met up with the stationary one, and together they then continued their journey southeast. Neal laughed harder and found he couldn’t stop. He was utterly dumbfounded that there were still people as gullible as these appeared to be.

“Fucking helicopters!”

It was at this point that someone in the crowd picked up on it—and it sounded like, of all people, Martha. Her view had suddenly changed.

“Well, I-I think this is a helicopter, Bill. God, I really do think so. Yep, it’s a helicopter, all right, just as I figured…”

The hub-bub abruptly came to an end. There was a lot of mumbling and tail tucking, and then the crowd quickly dispersed. Just like that. Neal and Angus continued laughing as the group quickly ambled on past, several of the disgruntled and darkened faces turning to them as they passed.

“Angus, I can’t believe there are people out there that are that stupid!”

“Oh, but I can, Neal. Ed and I deal with them all the time.”

“You do?”

“Sure do. These people here believe that they’re here to witness a grand alien visitation. Look at them—pathetic, hopeless little creatures.” Angus again chuckled, and this time there was no mistaking it. It was heavy with spite.

Evil.

Neal looked at him.

“You mean,” Neal asked, “this isn’t…real? None of this …”

“Nope. At least not in the manner they’re expecting.”

Neal felt a large portion of his universe begin to crumble. His legs had gone rubbery.

“H-how do you kn-know this?”

Angus again chuckled, and this one was worse than before.

“Because I made it all up.”

Angus’s voice thundered above their conversation and carried to the group at the van. To those surrounding them. It was a laugh that was unabashed and wicked. Neal’s eyes froze on Angus’s dark form. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he indeed saw Angus’s face change—that it was still in the process of that change—whatever that meant. It didn’t make sense to Neal because he wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary, but now that it was happening, it clicked somewhere within him.

“In a way, Neal, I feel sorry for you. You’re not gullible and stupid like they are,” Angus said, forcing thick words out of an extended mouth. It was like his tongue was impeding his speech.

And in the next instant, Neal felt a powerful force strike him. It came from a hairy and unthinkably powerful fist, and it clobbered him like a flying slab of concrete to the chest. He hit his head on something hard, and that was all he knew.

The blackness got blacker.

 

“What’s going on here?” someone asked out of the darkness.

Flashlights clicked on everywhere. Annie turned, quickly retreated back to the truck. She heard something. Felt something at her feet. She had just managed to dodge out of the path of some rushing thing, and saw it as went for the group she had just left.

“Neal? Neal?”

No answer.

The crowd behind her was suddenly hit by a flurry of fangs and claws that ripped into weak, atrophied human flesh. The shrieks cut the air to ribbons and the group split apart. No matter where anyone ran they all seemed to blunder into more of the same. Hitting the mêlée blind like a brick wall at night.

The attacks came from everywhere.

Were everywhere.

It was dark. The pack liked it that way.

Annie continued to call for Neal. Never saw him on the ground, only ten feet away, bleeding and unconscious.

The shrieks increased, found no refuge from the continually growing feeding frenzy. Annie heard other groups up the road going through the same butchery. She even saw several of the van group as they tried to rush into their van. One, a fat lady, collapsed before she could get to it. Closely behind her Annie saw two huge forms. One of them wasted no time in falling upon her limp form, and the other continued on into the van and violently rocked it until its hunger was satisfied.

The crowd Annie had been with was in the midst of its own attack. She saw silhouettes ripped apart. She was in a nightmare. This couldn’t be real. She felt something roll up and against her foot, and looked down. It rolled to a stop.

She didn’t really want to look at it.

 

Gradually the sounds of struggle died, and the only sounds that remained were those of quiet tearing and mastication. Squinting, Annie thought she saw several human forms as they ran off into the night, but everywhere she looked she found no Neal.

The rocking of the van had ceased a long time ago, and she found herself standing up and alongside her truck.

The un-air-conditioned one.

Annie slowly backed up into the driver’s side. For some odd reason, she had been spared. She didn’t even attempt to second-guess why. She was given a way out, and by God, she was going to take it.

But what about Neal?

Inching her way into the cab of the truck, Annie ducked low, silently crying Neal’s name. Tears ran down her face as she started the vehicle, and the sudden turn-on scared her. The jerk told her the vehicle was already in gear. Dirt and gravel spat out from the tires as the truck dug out two deep channels on their exit. Several of the spitting stones had hit Neal’s still unconscious frame.

A hairy head popped up from within the vehicle off to the truck’s left, but went back down and continued on with its business. Several of the other werewolves also looked up at Annie as she made her getaway, and one even began to give chase.

But Angus called him off.

She could go. They had plenty for tonight and there would be plenty of time for her later.

There was always time.

Annie never once hit her brakes as she headed back to I-15.

 

Neal lay in the dirt, blood pooling against his back as it sluced out from the van. All around him lay chunks of the slaughter. The breeze was still warm, but now it carried with it a sickly sweet aroma.

And the silence was deafening, hollow echoes of screams and agony still hanging thick in the air.

There were no more crystals.

No more stargazers.

And no more cigarettes. Only mutilated bodies and a horrible stench.

Neal’s eyes strained around in their sockets. His noise twitched. He could still feel his face pressed into the dirt. He was afraid to move. It turned out he didn’t have to worry about that for long, because his consciousness was short-lived and he fell away back into his dark void.

In the sky above came a point of light. It was faint at first, but quickly grew. The light came down and hovered momentarily, scanning the terrain. Silently the craft maneuvered over Neal’s body and another light emerged from beneath its belly. It locked onto Neal’s form. As this light slowly faded, so did Neal, and the craft hummed above the desert a moment longer before it shot back up into the stars and disappeared.

Dust whisked alongside the deserted road. The blood that had been pooling up against Neal had now finally broke through its meniscus and branched out into chaotic little patterns in the sand.

There was always time for more.

Always.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.