By this time the second alien had put down its jug gun and picked up the unfortunate greeter he’d booted in the ’nads. Holding the man at arm’s length, it began to slap him back and forth across the face, using its dozen or so flexible digits like a handful of tiny whips. As he raced onto the meadow Ross Ed could hear the methodical slap-slap of tentacle on skin.
Caroline was shouting after him. “Ross Ed, dammit, if you get yourself killed I’ll never speak to you again!”
“Get the van!” he yelled back at her. “I don’t think they want to kill anybody. If that was what they had in mind, they’d have done so by now.”
“Maybe they’re just bad shots!” Seeing that she couldn’t dissuade him, she turned and ran toward the Ford.
Ross had to dodge a wave of panicked cultists and, in one instance, actually shove someone out of the way. As he drew nearer he saw that the glow from Jed’s suit was beginning to fade. Frequent sideways glances showed that the two aliens hadn’t moved from where they’d stopped. The second had finally put down his human, who was presently engaged in trying to evacuate the scene by crawling away slowly at the maximum speed he could muster.
Having been shaken until his eyeballs felt loose inside his head, Walter hung flaccid in the other alien’s digits. It was impossible to tell whether he’d been knocked out or had simply fainted. With what sounded like a disgusted belch, the creature tossed the unconscious store owner aside. Reaching into a leg pouch, it extracted another of the jug-shaped devices.
Together, the pair resumed venting their opinion on the surrounding countryside. A pair of sixty-foot pines came crashing down. More inoffensive meadow erupted skyward in comparative silence. The only time Ross Ed winced at the bloodless carnage was when a beautifully restored 1957 Ford Thunderbird became the focus of alien destruction. Taking a direct hit from one of the jugs, it shuddered like a movie critic at an Italian made-for-video film festival before exploding in a shower of fiery metal fragments and expensive restoration parts.
Preoccupied, the aliens ignored Ross as he darted forward, snatched Jed from atop the crude altar, and broke into an end run for the parking area. Cars continued to blow up in front of him. All were unoccupied, confirming his hypothesis concerning alien intent.
He’d expected the suit to be hot to the touch, or at least tingly, but the intense glow it had generated left no aftereffects. It felt the same as always. As he ran he took a moment to study the alien visage visible through the faceplate.
“I wish you could tell me what that was all about!” Unsurprisingly, Jed chose not to reply.
A compact Chevy went poomph as it heaved cheap upholstery moonward. Except for the carnival of exploding vehicles, the parking area was rapidly emptying. Ross Ed wondered at the nature of the aliens’ weapons but felt no overriding desire to linger in the vicinity to conduct a detailed analysis.
As the van screeched to a halt next to him, he wrenched open the side door and unceremoniously dumped Jed inside. Following a moment later, he squeezed himself through the opening and yelled, “Go, go!”
“What d’you think I’m trying to do? Thromp the brake?”
Hunched over and moving forward, he was nearly thrown into the dash as she slammed into reverse. After taking a moment to secure Jed, he fought his way into the passenger chair and sat down hard, gripping the foldaway armrests.
“Got him!” he told her triumphantly.
She wasn’t impressed. “Sure is a lot of trouble to go through for a dead alien.” Her voice rose as she abused a Honda. “Ger going or get out of the way!” Off to their left another couple of trees came crashing down.
One after another, those vehicles still in operating condition bounced, raced, or flew up the track in the direction of the main din road, their frantic drivers handling them as if they were trying for the checkered flag at Indianapolis.
Leaning out the window and looking back, Ross Ed saw puffs of haze rise as owners brought out fire extinguishers to cope with minor incapacitating blazes. The explosions seemed to have ceased. Those cars which weren’t burning and hadn’t been blown up were filled to overflowing with squawking cultists.
Grabbing at him, Caroline indicated the view out her side. “Look, they’re leaving!”
Ross turned just in time to see the two aliens reenter their cube-ship. The pink glow vanished as the strange doorway irised shut and the wail-whine promptly built to a complaint of stentorian proportions. Majestically, the great vessel lifted above the lakeshore.
He was distracted by a knocking on his door. The young couple that was running alongside couldn’t have been out of their twenties.
“Please, mister, let us in! Our car’s gone, blown up.”
“I dunno.” He considered the distraught duo.
“Come on, Ross, let them in.” Caroline smiled reassuringly. “It won’t be any trouble. We can drop them somewhere.” She eased off on the accelerator and the van slowed. The exhausted pair quickly climbed in back.
“There it goes.” She leaned into the wheel so he could see.
The cube-ship was accelerating. Soon it was a drifting piñata pinned against the stars, then a blocky smudge, and at last it was gone.
“Hey!” The woman, who was Hollywood pretty, lifted her legs off the carpet. “There’s the thing that caused all the trouble.”
“Oh no.” Reaching back, Ross Ed scooped up the alien body and cradled it protectively. “It wasn’t Jed’s fault.”
“So that’s what it’s called.” The husband eyed the corpse speculatively. “Walter told us it had a name.” He leaned back, resting on his elbows. His overcape was torn and filthy, with the everyday clothes beneath in not much better shape. The shoes he wore would have cost Ross several days’ pay.
“What d’you think went wrong, Sues?”
“I don’t know.” The woman was on the verge of tears. Ross supposed she was entitled. “Everything was going so well.” Turning, she hugged her husband close. “At least now we know for sure that they’re out there, Bobby.”
“Yeah, and they can stay out there.” Ross Ed shifted the uncomplaining Jed to the other side of his lap. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know.” The husband was inconsolable. “Maybe the Circle chose the wrong chant. Perhaps the phase of the moon had something to do with it.” He gestured at Jed. “Maybe that’s not a real alien after all.”
“But what about the glow from the presentation pod, Bobby?” his wife objected. “What caused that, if not the alien?”
The young man’s face twisted. “Walter and Martha always struck me as pretty slick customers. They could’ve rigged something up to fake it.”
She pulled away from him. “Well, they didn’t fake that ship, or those horrible mean creatures who came out of it!”
“That’s true.” The husband inclined his head back, as if he could see through the roof of the van. “There are aliens out there, all right.”
“Uh-huh,” agreed Ross Ed, “and we sure learned one thing from them tonight.”
Lightly shadowed blue eyes regarded him expectanly. ‘It’s that, mister? That interstellar travel is really possible, or that there are more than one intelligent species out there?”
He scowled at her. “We learned that they don’t want to be bothered. I figure that when Jed started up that light he must’ve also sent out some kind of signal that traveled farther. Maybe it interrupted the other aliens’ flight plan, called ’em off course somehow. Or maybe it just ruined their TV reception. Who can say? All I know is that you can’t just go around shooting off messages and signals and disrupting communications all over the place and expect folks to react with happy talk and big smiles. I don’t know where the hell they came from or how they found this spot and Jed, but I do know that they were mighty damn angry about it.”
