I left Jim's Bar just after 1 a.m. I was a bit tipsy but losing that feeling quick, due to how cool it was outside. I strolled on up to my car and dug deep in the pocket of my jeans to pull out my keys.
I started up the car and pulled away slowly, enjoying the sound of the gravel beneath my wheels crunching under its weight. Then in my rearview, I caught sight of Missy Tulane running awkwardly across the rocks barefoot with shoes in hand, in hopes of reaching me before I sped off. I had the mind to, but only a passing thought.
"Ya mind givin' a lady a ride home?" she asked, quite intoxicated herself.
"Yeah, where is she?" I faked looking around the property for another person.
"Asshole" she muttered. I had to pull away, yep her breath was that bad. I leaned over my passenger seat to pop open my glove box and pull out a traveler's size bottle of Listerine, then sit back up and hand it to her. She looked at me questioningly.
"Here, go gargle with this by the bushes over there" I told her and pointed to the bushes by the entrance to the bar. It's just that if she got the feeling she was gonna puke from the smell, she could do it over there and not in my car.
She mean mugged me, but took the bottle and walked back towards the bar. I watched her as she did as I instructed her to. Yup, sure enough she burped and tasted it. I could see the wretched look on her face. I yelled out the window to her "Chew it back!!" she glanced my way and threw me the finger. I had to laugh, Missy is a riot, but takes jabs like a champ.
When she made it back to the car and got in, I asked her for my bottle back. She hurled it at my head, hitting me on the side near my ear. "There's your freaking bottle, asshole" she told me as she slammed the passenger side door and crossed her arms on her chest to sulk. I smiled apologetically her way, but nope she wasn't having it.
I put the stick shift into drive and slowly got the car moving again.
About 20 minutes into our drive, Missy and I were having a blast singing along to the songs on the radio to see who could go the longest without lousing up the lyrics.
Up ahead we saw some flashing lights, road blocks, and a few cop cars parked alongside the ditch. A cop was waving his hands in the air indicating for me to stop, so I slowed to a stop. I recognized the cop coming up to my window, it was my childhood friend, Dougie O'Keefe.
"Where ya headed to, Boomer" he asked.
I grinned at hearing the nickname he gave me back in the day. We could play some mean baseball, and I had the luck to blast a ball hotter than a rocket, over the fence at the ballpark we used to play at. Hence the name Boomer, that's what the balls sounded like after I hit them with my bat, like a very loud BOOM!!
"Taking Missy home, then headed to my own. Why what's up, is this one of them sobriety checkpoints?" I asked. There was a look of concern on my old friend's face, he looked distracted.
"Nah man, you good. Keep it moving and don't stop once you hit the highway. Ain't nothing out here for you to see" he replied, so I got my car moving again.
Once we had them far away from view, Missy told me she had to pee. "Ah man, are you kidding me, girl? Ya can't hold it till you get home?'' She smiled at me and shook her head no.
"C'mon Boomer, please? It'll only take a second" she pleaded. So I turned off my lights and pulled off to the side. She smiled at me and got out of the car. She walked into the dark woods just past where I'd parked it. "I'll be back" she winked at me, then turned to keep walking.
"Hey, don't start that screaming crap, if one of them forest critters get curious about you and wanna scratch your ass" I told her.
"Very funny" she called back. A few moments later she asked if I had any paper napkins in my car. I went to dig some out and followed the sound of her voice till I reached her, and handed them over the bushes to her.
I turned around to give her some privacy. Funny, I swear I'd just seen something dash past us. Maybe too, I'm just tired. I stayed looking around till she came out from hiding. I took her by the wrist to lead her back to the car. But she pulled to release herself from my grip. But wrapped her hand around my arm, to hold me back.
I turned to look at her, "What's the problem? We need to get out of here".
"Hold up, don't be in such a rush" she told me, flashing bedroom eyes at me.
She leaned against a tree, and pulled me to her. We embraced and entangled our tongues in a long kiss. She put her hands over mine, directing where she wanted them to go exploring over her body. Then I heard a branch break from somewhere close by. I stopped kissing her and told her "Look we can get frisky back in my car, I just think out here is not the place for this" I told her.
"Oh okay, fine" she said, letting me hear the disappointment in her tone. I turned to walk back towards my car assuming she was behind me. I heard a gasp, and turned around quickly to see if she was still walking behind me, she wasn't.
"Missy? Quit screwing around girl, or I'm gonna leave you out here".
Damnit!! I went looking for her in the woods, calling out to her. I walked a little further in, and heard something, like it was feeding nearby. What I came across there chilled me to the bone.
I backed up and tripped over something causing me to fall on my ass. Whatever it was, crawled over to me, we were face to face. It looked me over with its huge glowing eyes. It didn't have eyelids for it to blink, but I saw some shift in its eyes. It looked at me curiously.
My first thought was," That's it!! I'm toast !!" as I'd lie in wait for my inevitable death. But nope, I wasn't gonna go out like that.
I pulled my knees to my chest, then kicked that thing off me. It shrieked as it flew back and hit a tree behind it. But the thing scampered up the tree and hung off one of the branches to stare at me. It shifted its neck around in no normal way that I've ever seen, except maybe on an owl.
Then the thing opened its mouth so far and wide, it could swallow anyone's head. It let out another shrill shriek then pushed itself off the branch and disappeared, scampering into the woods, just like that.
By this time I was on my feet and trekking back to my car. Damnit, where was Missy? I kept running till I tripped over something. I got up on my feet and realized I was but 50 feet from my car door.
Then I saw Missy, or rather what was left of her and some other creepy bastard walking away from her half eaten corpse. This thing was different from the other one I just ran from. What the hell were they? How many of these things were running loose out there?
I've never been scared in all my life. Poor Missy. Then it hits me. Could that have been what the cops were investigating when we showed up? Dougie did look bothered by something, I know it wasn't us.
I'll go back to where they are and show them Missy. I fired up the car and burned out, spinning a donut till I was driving in the direction I had come from. When I arrived at the roadblock, I jumped from my car with the ignition still idling.
"Hey !! Dougie!! Sergeant Burke!! Anyone??" I yelled half-delirious. No one was out there, they must've all gone into the woods. I tried my best to follow their footprints embedded into the moist ground. I wanted to yell for them again, but didn't want to put them in danger either.
I dashed as quickly and frantically as I could, looking for the group of 5 cops I'd seen earlier. A million things were running through my mind, but would anybody believe me if I spoke on it?
There was a clearing up ahead and some bright lights. Maybe they were there? Maybe they found the spaceship and were investigating? I ran almost breathless then pulled up short, when I came across the grisly scene. These things were in a group clustered around the fallen bodies of four of the cops.
The bright lights indeed were that of their space ship. They turned to look at me, all of them. I took a quick scan of the bodies laid out before them. Dougie wasn't one of them, he was still out there somewhere. I had to find him, and help him if I could.
I turned and tried to make a mad dash for the woods again, but something caught me, some kind of paralyzing force that knocked me off my feet and dragged me face down back to where these things stood.
Oh bloody hell, I was ready to piss my pants when they finally got me in their circle, flipped me over onto my back with their telekinetic powers and kept me still. I was choking, I felt my throat was getting squeezed harder and harder by the moment.
One bent over me with their hand in my face. It was hard to say if that one was the same one I had kicked off myself earlier.
Next thing I know, this ugly bastard was messing with my head. It caused me to have some strange sensation in my head that hurt and burned at the same time. I gnashed my teeth together in pain, since I couldn't make a sound. I could hear something, almost static.
Whispers, murmurings.
It was trying to communicate with me, but this thing was gonna fry my fucking brain in the process. I heard the voices and recognized a couple of them.
Dougie and Sheriff Fleming were talking. I went blind then, my eyes felt like they were swelling out of my skull making me almost bug eyed, and also burning. What the hell was this thing trying to do to me?
I saw the four cops by the road, I saw my car drive off and the cops talking amongst themselves. I heard a boom and watched them all tear off into the woods with their guns and rifles ready.
I couldn't make out what was being said. Maybe it too, was trying to understand what was going on. Since it was tuned into me, it was looking for translation, and through me it could achieve this. The more it showed me a replay of everything that had transpired up to this point, I felt a stabbing pain in my head, like it wanted to know more.
I saw the cops open fire on one of the aliens own kind. This shock it had over my body ached so bad, the feelings of seeing a loved one killed right in front of you, was too much for me to bear. Everything I was experiencing at its hands, everything it showed me, everything I was forced to feel was too much. I started to cry, I mean really weep like a baby.
It studied me for a moment and released me from its hold. I rolled onto my side and continued crying and pulled myself into a fetal position. When the hurt began to subside a bit, it poked into my brain again and showed me Dougie wandering the woods, alone.
I cried over what happened to Missy, it was my fault. I had to get up and find Dougie, before that thing back there, did. I rolled to my stomach and crawled over to one of the dead officers and worked on pulling the gun from its holster. The alien stayed watching me, as I struggled to get to my feet and try to make a run for it again.
It appeared right in front of me and stared me down. something weird was happening to me, I could feel it, like it was giving me something of itself. Then the stare broke. It left me exhausted and out of breath.
"Gooooooooo".
Holy shit!! It spoke to me!! It was telling me to go. I still wondered what happened to these guys laying here. I still hadn't seen the fallout from that yet. Ah well, I didn't have time to think about it. I sprinted into the woods calling for Dougie.
A short time later, he returned my whistles with gunfire. I followed it past a deep ravine. I called out to him one more time, and in response came the gunfire. I was almost there.
By the time I caught up to him, I understood why he hadn’t answered. His throat had been ripped open and ate out. His torso apart from his body laid several feet away laying up against a boulder. He was dying. I yelled my rage and dropped to my knees beside my buddy, my brother, my childhood friend.
I didn't care if he was torn to bits, I took him into my arms and cradled him there. He deserved his transition from this world to the next to be with someone who cared, not left alone and scared. Something strange took place, and I realized in that moment exactly what that alien had gifted me with. The power to see so much more.
I saw what had happened to Dougie. I saw that slimy bastard that got its fangs on Missy too. I rocked my friend back and forth gently till his eyes closed. I fell asleep there next to him.
******
"Boomer !! Boomer??" Lance, the bartender called my name, while Missy stood next to me trying to shake me awake. I bolted straight up in my seat and looked at her bewildered.
One exchanged glance told her all "Oh Lance, get the coffee ready, Boomer needs it, STAT!!" she told him.
Before she could walk away I reached out to hold her forearm. "What are you doing here, Missy? I thought you were dead?".
She scoffed and tousled my hair before turning loose from my grasp "Sweetie, you were a million miles away from here. But I'm fine and so are you. At least you will be after we get some coffee in you. But I kinda need you to drink fast, it's closing time".
I had my coffee and went to the restroom to splash cold water on my face to wake up. When I walked out I was bidding them both goodbye and thanks, till Missy got ahold of my arm.
In that moment I saw what she had been through that whole night, while I sat there at the bar asleep, why she had smelled worse than a brewery than I did. I felt her sadness and all the indignities she had to endure just to make a paycheck.
"Boomer, will you give me a ride home?" she asked politely.
"Sure".
Tonight, I wouldn't be an asshole with her and I would make sure she got home safe.
We came up to the roadblock, but for an entirely different reason. There had been a two car accident, and Dougie had to steer me around all the mess then waved me off. Missy asked if I could pull over so she could pee.
Recalling my nightmare, I shook my head no and told her "There's a truck stop a lil ways further up the road. Just try to hold it till we get there". I got no argument from her, thank God.
When she went in, I stayed outside in the parking lot. Leaning up against the car, I pulled a cigarette from the pack in my jacket pocket and lit it up. Taking a couple puffs I stared up into the night sky, when in the distance I saw some lights flashing. A few moments later I heard gunfire from a distance. My cigarette dangled between my lips before it fell to the ground.
"Oh shit!!" I thought. I looked back towards the truck stop, then swung my attention back to the woods. 'She'll be safer there if she stays put, I thought of Missy.
I fired up my car and drove back as fast as I could, back to where I'd left Dougie and help him if I could.
