Chapter 2

The woman was the most beautiful Winston Moss had ever seen in his 37 years. Stunning brown hair tumbled down around smooth shoulders, framing a face that could grace any fashion magazine. Her breasts were full and firm, the nipples pink and erect. They swayed gently as she leaned over him, and he felt the heat building. Her hair tickled his chest as she lowered herself with a shrill ringing.

“Wha?” he mumbled as the vision evaporated. “No! Come back. Wait!”

The ringing again.

Muttering curses, Winston thrashed around in his bed, trying to untangle his covers. Freeing one arm, he smashed it down on his nightstand, fingers scrambling for the alarm button on his clock-radio. Through sleep-caked eyes, he dimly made out the readout. He thought the first number was a 5. The ringing persisted. Goddamn high technology, he groused. So many damn little buttons on these damn little radios, I can't ever find the right one. Punching madly, he was rewarded by the radio suddenly blaring to life. Someone on National Public Radio was telling him that trouble was brewing in the Mideast. This is news? he thought.

The ringing hadn't stopped. Goddamnit all to fucking hell, he thought. The phone. It had to be the phone. He reached past the clock-radio dispensing the early morning news, noting in the far recesses of his brain that now the readout was flashing 9:43, and grabbed the phone off its cradle.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Moss?”

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Moss with the Weekly Planet?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. The very one.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Uh, no. No. I, uh, was just getting up.”

He looked at his clock-radio. It was still flashing, but now the number read 10:06. He picked it up and shook it. The blinking stopped, but the readout read 17:92. NPR was telling him something about evidence linking the president to wealthy businesspeople.

“Uh, could you tell me what time it is?”

There was a pause at the other end. “Almost 6. You know, I can hardly hear you. What's all that noise?”

“Um, nothing. Could you hold on a moment?” He cradled the phone to his chest and turned the volume knob on the radio. It snapped off in his hand. He looked at it. Carefully, he placed it back on the nightstand. Then he picked up the radio and jerked the plug out of the wall. It was still telling him about shenanigans in the nation's capital, but now 93:17 was blinking at him. He stuffed the thing under his pillow.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

“Yes. Mr. Moss, this is Nell Fleck. I live out Bear Creek Road. I ... I need to talk to you. Or someone.”

Something in her tone caught his attention. He sat up straight in bed, and fumbled by the phone for the pad and pen he always kept there. He knew the woman only vaguely; she had the reputation of being an odd character. Lived out in the woods by herself in some decrepit cabin.

“What about?”

“Er, um, I'd rather not talk about it over the phone.”

“O.K. Look, I haven't had my breakfast yet. How about we meet at J.D.'s in half and hour. Can you make it by then?”

“Yes. I'll be there.”

The line went dead. He put the phone back in its cradle and ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed. He looked down at his bed and saw the tail end of an electric cord protruding from his pillow like a snake. Muffled voices emanated from under the pillow. He stood up and threw the covers up over the pillow before heading toward the shower.

***

He had just started on his coffee when she came in. She was older than Winston, with a wild mop of mousy brown hair going gray. She had a broad face broken by a thin mouth and a nose slightly too large. She was wearing no makeup or jewelry, and had wrapped her large frame in some type of old Army jacket. Jeans and muddy boots completed her ensemble.

“You're Moss.” It was not a question. She sat down across from him in the booth and stared at him. He looked back and noticed that her eyes had a hooded look. She continued to stare right at him, and with relief he looked up as Doreen the waitress came up with a pot of coffee.

“You want some?” She asked. It came out “Yawant sum?”

In response, Nell took her gaze off Winston and flipped over her coffee cup.

Doreen poured. “There's cream and sugar on the table.” She turned to go.

“Honey.”

“S'cuse me?” Doreen turned back around, her eyebrows reaching up toward her blonde-out-of-the-bottle hair piled high on her head.

“Honey. I prefer honey with my coffee.”

“Sure thing ... Honey.” Doreen laughed, looking relieved.

“And some hot sauce.”

“Hot sauce?” Doreen looked confused.

“You know, like Tabasco?”

“Tabasco? You want Tabasco sauce in your coffee?”

Nell turned her head to look at the waitress. Doreen reflexively took a step back as the older woman's gaze fixed on her. “Or Texas Pete.”

“Sure thing.” Doreen left, shaking her head.

“Mr. Moss.” Nell swiveled back to face him. “I have a story for you.”

“A story?” It came out sounding lame even to Winston. He couldn't help it, though; something about this woman unnerved him. He reached in his coat pocket and withdrew his pad and pen. “What kind of a story?”

Nell licked her lips and leaned forward conspiratorially. “A big one. The biggest one your little newspaper has ever had.”

Winston began to feel a little better. He was on familiar ground now; he had heard this song and dance about the story of the century a thousand times. He said nothing but sipped his coffee.

“Mr. Moss, what would you say if I told you that we are not alone?”

Before he could stop himself, Winston swiveled his head and surveyed the diner, which was half-filled with the early-bird crowd. “We're not?”

“No.” At that moment, Doreen returned and set down a plastic bear filled with honey and a small bottle of hot sauce.

“You’uns ready to order?” she asked brightly.

Nell glared at her, and Winston hastily ordered some eggs, hash browns and a side of bacon. Diet be dammed, he thought, this was not starting out to be much of a day.

“And you, ma'am?”

“I want some pancakes with blueberries. No syrup.”

“Yes ma'am, blueberry pancakes. You sure you don't want any syrup? We got maple or ...”

“No, I don't want blueberry pancakes. I want pancakes with blueberries. On the side.”

Doreen bit her lip. “I'm not sure we can do that, ma'am.”

“What do you mean you can't do that? If you can put blueberries in the pancakes before you cook them, you can leave them out until the pancakes are done and then put them on the plate.”

Doreen pondered this. “I'm not sure J.D. can do that. It's not on the menu, you know.” She looked triumphant.

“Look. You tell the cook to make me some blueberry pancakes. But when he gets ready to add the blueberries, tell him to hold the damn things in his hand until the pancakes are done. Then he can add them.”

Doreen looked troubled. “Well, I’ll tell him,” she said, although it came out “Whale, aw'll tale him.” “But he probably ain't goin' to like it none.” She disappeared through a door to the kitchen.

“As I was saying, Mr. Moss, I have learned we are not alone.” Winston watched in fascination as she shook the hot sauce into her coffee. She then squirted some honey from the plastic bear onto her index finger, gulped some coffee, and sucked the honey off her finger.

“Ah, well, doesn't that go without saying, Ms. ah,” he looked down at his note pad, “Fleck?”

“I'm not talking about these kind of nitwit people,” she hissed, throwing out one arm to take in the other diners. “I'm talking about up there.” She waved toward the ceiling.

Winston felt he was on thin ice, but he plunged ahead anyway. “You mean on the roof?”

Nell looked at him like he was a worm who had crawled up on the table. “No, you idiot, I mean from beyond. Out there.” She waved her arm around again.

Winston leaned over and looked up out the plate glass window that fronted J.D.'s. All he saw was a lightening sky framed against the green mountains, a few clouds scuttling away to the east. He looked back at Nell, who was gingerly rubbing a spot on her head.

“You mean...”

She nodded. “From out there.”

Winston sighed. What a lousy fucking day this was going to be. Christ, why hadn't he met this woman at his office? Much easier to kiss her off there. Now he was committed to at least consuming breakfast with this nut case.

“You're talking about creatures from outer space?” he asked, careful to keep his voice down. No sense in everyone in town knowing how nutty this woman was, or letting any of that screwiness rub off on him by association. He watched as she repeated her coffee-and-honey ritual.

“I'm not sure where they're from,” she said, licking honey off her lips. “But I know where they've been.” She leaned forward again. “I've seen them. They landed at my place yesterday evening.” She leaned back as Doreen reappeared with plates clutched in her arms.

“Here you'uns go. Your eggs, and here's your pancakes ma'am. With your blueberries on the side. J.D. says to tell you that next time, you need to order the fruit plate with a side of pancakes.” She stalked off back to the kitchen.

Nell mashed the berries into a paste and spread them on her pancakes. “Mr. Moss, what I'm telling you is that a spaceship landed in front of my cabin last night, and two alien creatures got out. It was one of those close encounter things.”

“What did they do?” Winston asked around a mouthful of eggs.

Nell sat back and ate some pancakes. She looked out the window. “Well, now, I'm not exactly positive.” It was the first time Winston had noticed her looking at all abashed.

“You're not sure what they did, but you say you saw them. I'm not sure I understand.” Winston attacked his hash browns with gusto.

“Well, you see, it was dark. And there were a lot of lights. And I couldn't see too well. And I think they zapped me.”

Winston stopped chewing. “They zapped you? You mean with a ray gun?”

“Something like that. I'm not sure. It's all kind of fuzzy.”

Winston picked at his eggs. “Ms., ah, Fleck, you have to realize that a story like this, well, I'm not sure how this would look in print. I'm not sure people would, well, believe you.”

“But they must. You have to convince them. We have to warn people.”

“Warn them?”

“Yes. Clearly, these are not some young aliens out joyriding and having a little fun with the locals. Don't you see? It's got to be a scouting mission. There's got to be more of them.” She looked at him solemnly. “An invasion.”

Winston stuffed the last piece of bacon in his mouth and washed it down with some coffee. “Look, Ms. Fleck, this is all fine and good, but you know, I can't print a story like that without some proof. You just can't go around alarming people unnecessarily. We in the print media have a responsibility to the public, and that responsibility includes printing only the facts, the unvarnished truth, in an objective manner. Unfounded supposition and sensationalized fiction have no place in serious journalism.” It sounded pretty self-righteous even to Winston, but it was his pat speech in cases like this and was a high-sounding way of blowing people off.

She stared straight at him, and he felt uncomfortable again. “I have proof.”

“Oh?” he stammered.

“Yes.” She swigged the last of her coffee and squirted honey into her mouth directly from the plastic bear. “But you'll have to come out to my place to see it.”

Fuck, thought Winston. This was going to be a really rotten day.

Chapter 1

Nell had just fired up her after-dinner joint, sucking in the sweet smoke along with the cool mountain air, when the night sky exploded.

With practiced paranoia, she gulped down the smoldering joint. It scorched her throat as she swallowed, and she coughed out smoke. But the discomfort was ignored as she stared with disbelief at the scene unfolding in the meadow in front of her cabin.

Amid an unholy screeching and whining, a kaleidoscope of swirling lights slowly descended from the sky, obliterating the brilliant panorama of stars that had been visible only moments before. Nell sat transfixed in her worn wooden rocker on her porch, gaping at the sight. Lights of red and green and gold twirled around an even more brightly lit center, which pulsed with a pounding regularity that washed over her small cabin, illuminating the rustic porch with its sagging floor and pots of geraniums hanging from the rough-hewn beams overhead.

The screaming lights slowed their descent, seeming to hover about a hundred feet from the ground, as though surveying the immediate area. Nell's cabin was set on a hillside nestled in a grove of trees, overlooking a gently sloping meadow that fell away to a rocky creek, its reassuring rush drowned out by the cacophony overhead. The rotating lights had slowed their dizzying spinning, but the brightly lit center continued its relentless pulse. Their brilliance forced Nell to shield her eyes with her hand, but she didn't dare close her eyes against the glare for fear of missing something. She felt an odd combination of fear and excitement, chills racing up and down her spine while sweat trickled down her ribs. She tried to will herself to her feet, but her legs felt numb and disinclined to obey orders from a brain focused on the spectacular sight ahead.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the swirling lights lowered themselves toward the ground. The screeching rose in intensity until it became more of a high-pitched whine. Abruptly, the revolving lights spun to a stop as the whining reversed itself and dropped in pitch. The colored lights continued to flicker as the noise idled down. Suddenly, silence returned, but it was not the familiar, comfortable silence of the mountain nighttime, filled with all manner of creaking and groaning and squeaking, but the absolute, stunning silence of deafness. Her legs still not responding, Nell realized she was still shielding her eyes against a now muted glare, so she dug her finger into her right ear to see if it was still working. Distantly, she could hear the faint tinkling of her creek. She sat motionless, watching the lights, and thought that they must be the most beautiful things she had ever beheld in her life. Not that her life had contained much beauty, she reflected ruefully.

She realized with a start that what she was looking at was some sort of strange flying craft, unlike anything she had ever seen. Behind the lights she could begin to make out a dim outline, a rounded shape perhaps a hundred feet wide, looking vaguely like two cereal bowls stuck together. It was, she suddenly recognized, the classic shape of a flying saucer.

She swallowed nervously, her throat dry and stinging from the now-forgotten joint. This was a sight no mere cannabis could ever hope to induce. Her fingers gripped the arms of her old rocker, but still she made no move. She considered the shotgun inside, safely leaning against the corner of her small living room. For the first time in years, she wished she had a camera. As she considered her options, a soft whirring broke the stillness of the night, and something seemed to move on the strange craft sitting in her meadow. She strained to see what was happening, but all she could make out was indistinct movement by a formless shape. The flickering lights of the craft made shadows dance around the meadow and off the nearby trees. She realized she might be hidden from view; her evenings on the porch viewing the dazzling night sky were done in the dark, with all the lights in her cabin extinguished. And the cabin was tucked away in the trees, with even the meadow side partially shielded by a big old hemlock. The craft was a good 50 yards from where she was sitting, halfway between the cabin and the creek.

She tensed. Something was moving. Something was definitely exiting the craft. Craft, smaft, she thought. This was a frigging UFO. A goddamned flying fucking saucer. She couldn't believe it. She had always thought those close encounters types were fruitcakes of the first degree, poor pathetic creatures so craving of something unusual in their drab lives that they imagined meetings with extraterrestrials rather than get off their butts and make something interesting of their lives. A crazy thought flitted through her head: Maybe Elvis is on board.

She strangled a cry as another shape joined the first in climbing out of the saucer. The lights threw weird reflections from their figures, but Nell could see enough to realize that they were humanoid in shape. Sort of. She squinted but could not make out any other details. Now there was movement. The pair moved together toward the side of the UFO, their long shadows jerking around the meadow. They disappeared behind the flashing bulk, and a moment later reappeared around the other side. It looked like they had two legs, Nell thought, but she couldn't be sure. Perhaps they were stalks. Or tentacles. They moved with an alien jerkiness. Probably not used to our gravity, Nell thought. She wondered where they had come from, how far they had traveled. What they wanted.

She suddenly felt the fear rising in her. Sweat soaked her sweatshirt and ran in rivulets down her sides and between her breasts. Oh Christ, she thought with sudden terror, what were all those stories about aliens performing all sorts of perverted sexual acts on unsuspecting Earth women?

She clenched her teeth in fear. The two shapes were definitely moving toward her. They had separated, but both were heading her way. They cast long shadows, and as light bounced off one she thought she could make out a shiny angular head that reminded her of a praying mantis. Shit, she thought, they're insectoid aliens. Probably meat-eaters. RUN! her brain screamed, but she shivered and could not rise. The one approaching on the left had at least three arm-like appendages, she thought. Twin beams of bright light burst from each figure like lasers, cutting the darkness ahead of them. The lights played over the ground between the creatures and Nell, then found the steps to her porch. The beams froze on the steps, not five feet from where Nell was sitting. Then, as though choreographed dancers, the lights rose gracefully step by step, climbing closer to Nell's seat. She looked down in frozen horror as the twin beams climbed the last step and flowed across the wood planking to her feet. She felt as though her feet were on fire, but she did not dare move a muscle. She whimpered softly as the lights continued their inexorable rise up her shins to her lap, caught her hands squeezing the arms of her rocker so tightly she thought they would splinter, up her sweat-soaked chest and finally locked on her face. The lights hit her like a bolt of energy. Dazzled and blinded, her brain screaming at her to do something, anything, anything but sit there like a side of beef waiting to be carved up or worse, she choked out an anguished cry and leapt to her feet, her mind desperately trying to decide whether to go for the shotgun inside or to charge the alien creatures and make for the nearby safety of the woods.

She never had a chance for her brain to formulate a plan on the run. Her wild leap from her rocker had catapulted her straight up in the air, but her ascent had been prematurely halted by a spider plant cascading forth from a hanging ceramic pot she had hung there just that morning. A hollow thunk cracked the pot, spilling dirt on the porch and sending the spider plant swaying wildly. Nell had a vision of exploding light and a sharp pain before darkness descended completely.