Chapter 3

Winston followed Nell outside. She climbed in an old Jeep and roared out of the diner parking lot, tires spinning gravel at him. He hurried over to his beat up Subaru and cranked it up. Turning west and heading out of town, he chugged along behind her. They reached the edge of town, passing a weathered wooden sign saying, “Welcome to Jupiter, Biggest Star in the Blue Ridge.” Winston grunted. He had written several editorials calling attention to the fact that Jupiter wasn’t a star but a planet and suggesting that a more accurate sign be erected, but his suggestions had gone nowhere.

Several miles out, they turned off the main road and headed south. They turned again, this time onto a gravel road, and soon Winston was bouncing and swaying on the deeply rutted road that wound up and up. On one side, the hillside rose steeply, with tall pines mixed with maples and locusts climbing toward the sky. On the other side of the road, a narrow shoulder gave way to a meadow that fell away hundreds of feet to a rocky floor. Off in the distance he could see blue-gray mountains rising to the clouds in the early morning sun. What a lousy beautiful day, he thought sourly.

The Jeep ahead turned again, and he bounced after Nell down a narrow, twisting lane even more rutted than the road. They went past a hand-lettered sign that read “KEEP OUT: TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT REPEATEDLY.” Whatever happened to welcome mats, he wondered.

He pulled to a stop behind her Jeep next to a cabin set back in the trees. He got out and breathed in the cool morning air. He walked in front of the cabin and gazed out at the view. It was stunning. A field of grass flowed down to a small creek, which meandered along the valley. On the far side of the creek, the land rose in a series of ridges fringed with rocky outcroppings. Behind the ridges, tree-covered mountains loomed, stately and regal as they presided over their more ephemeral subjects.

“Nice place,” Winston commented.

Nell only nodded. “C’mon,” she said, and stalked off down the hill. Winston followed until she stopped before a large ring of burned grass.

“Look at that,” she said, gesturing at the circle.

Winston stooped down and peered at a singed area. “Looks like someone’s had a fire here,” he offered lamely, straightening up.

Nell looked at him as though he were a Neanderthal catching his first glimpse of fire. He swallowed, and to cover up his discomfort he walked the circumference of the circle, trying to look as though he were an expert in … whatever. Did they have fire ring experts, he wondered. He guessed the ring of burned grass was a couple of feet wide and maybe 50 feet or more across. It looked like a giant had set a cup of coffee down on the meadow for a moment. He looked back at Nell standing on the other side of the ring.

“Aliens,” she said so softly that Winston had to strain to hear.

He looked up at the sky. Save for two crows winging by, it appeared empty.

“Look, Ms., ah, Fleck,” he said. “I’m not sure this is much to go on. I mean, yes, we have a burned ring here in the grass and all, but that in of itself does not provide evidence that, uh, anything of an extraterrestrial nature happened here.” He scratched his nose. Jesus, he thought, I sound like a lawyer. This was his bitterest self-criticism, since like all responsible journalists, Winston hated lawyers with a passion.

“Now look here, Mr. Moss. Are you or are you not in the news business?” Nell asked briskly. When Winston nodded, she continued and he heard rising anger in her voice, “Well, then, this is news, isn’t it? It’s not every day you have someone visited by aliens from another planet, is it? With proof that they landed a space ship right in someone’s front yard, is it? What other kind of news is more important than that? What else you got to put in that rag of yours?”

“Hey, c’mon, it’s not a rag. We put out a good product,” he said defensively. “As it so happens, tomorrow’s paper will have a, let me see, a wrapup of Monday night’s school board meeting, and we’ve got a great little feature story on a cat who goes to the bathroom in a toilet. You ought to see the pictures we got on that one.” He stopped when he realized Nell was looking at him smugly, her arms folded. “The school board approved a new reading list for sixth-graders,” he added hopefully.

She continued to stare at him scornfully. He sighed. “O.K. O.K. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll hear you out, check around, and see what’s what. I can’t promise I’ll do a story. Wait here, I’ve got to get my camera in the car.”

He trudged back up the hill and retrieved his camera from the back seat. He took several shots of the burned ring, with Nell posed beside it. When he was finished, they walked back up to the cabin, and Winston pulled his notebook and pen from his back pocket.

“All right, I need to ask you a few questions. Mind if I sit down?” Nell shrugged, so he lowered himself onto the steps. She remained standing.

“So, tell me again exactly what happened.” She told him in detail the events of the night before.

“So you say two of these aliens were headed toward you, when all of a sudden they fired some kind of paralyzing laser beam at you?” he asked, careful to keep any hint of disbelief out of his voice.

“Exactly,” she said. “They had these laser lights, shining them every which way, and then they shined one of them on me. I was sitting right there in my rocker,” she pointed behind Winston and he twisted around to see, “and started to stand up when the light hit me and, whammo, everything went black.”

“So you don’t know what happened after that? I mean, you don’t know what these aliens did?”

“Not really.”

“Do you think they went inside your house?”

“It didn’t look like anything was disturbed,” she said.

“I see.” Winston paused, and looked at his notes. “So you don’t remember if they took you aboard their craft?” He looked up at her.

“No, I don’t remember anything like that.” She strained to remember. “But I think I kind of vaguely remember them leaning over me. I remember lights flashing in my eyes.”

“Did they, um,” Winston cleared his throat as he searched for the proper phrasing, “touch you do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I ... “ She stopped and looked at him. She studied his face intently, and a frightened look suddenly came into her eyes. She looked down at herself. “I ... you mean ... I don’t ... do you think ... “ She looked back at him, horror now etched on her face. “Oh my God!” she whispered. “They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Those fiends!”

“Now, Ms. Fleck, I’m sure...” Winston stopped. “How about I leave any of that out of the story for now? We don’t want anyone conjecturing...”

But Nell wasn’t listening anymore. She was pacing around in front of the steps, clasping her hands and moaning. She muttered something, and Winston thought he heard her say something about “be fruitful and multiply, I bet that’s what they’re doing here.”

Suddenly, Nell stopped and wheeled to face him. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her face once again emotionless. She stood ramrod straight. “What’s important is that the citizenry are warned. We need to alert the populace no matter what. Because,” she leaned down toward him, “they’ll be back.”

***