Chapter Four
The spaceship had taken off just over twelve hours ago. Since then, many interesting things had happened.
First two large helicopters landed in the street, blocking traffic from both sides. Then about a dozen men from either helicopter dispersed between the convenience store and the computer store.
The men assessed the situation and offered aid to those that needed it. They also photographed and documented all of the surroundings.
When Hubert’s corpse was discovered it wasn’t where it had become a corpse. The suction from the ship had dragged the body twenty feet hen it was wedged under a car with the skull poking out the other side.
As strange as a skull protruding from underneath a sedan was, Helga was being even stranger. Upon seeing the helicopters, she began screaming as loud as her lungs would allow. She would only stop to take a quick short gasp of air and then she would continue her horrified screaming. One of the men in suits walked over concerned. He tried to ask what was wrong between screams but every time he was interrupted by a harsh bellow. Finally he retrieved a megaphone, got in Helga’s face, and screamed. Helga was silent relatively quickly.
After medical attention had been given to those who had suffered any injuries, the men in suits began interviewing people.
I had long since been freed from my captivity in the back of the truck. I now sat on the ground against an evergreen with my computer on my lap. I couldn’t hear everything that was going on but my computer could. My laptop was recording every sound perceptible. As it recorded, it translated the language into text, noted the speed and tempo at which each conversation took place, tried to find a pitch, filtered through the sound to separate each individual group of sounds, and saving the information on both the computer and internet. All of this was done instantly.
Most of the interviews were pretty boring but the interview with Helga was interesting enough, especially when Hubert’s name popped up.
“What was your relationship with the deceased?”
“Relationship?” Helga must have been blushing. “What relationship?”
“You said you knew the man. Is that right?”
“Oh! You mean that relationship! I was his lov-erm-lawyer! Yeah, that’s it! I was his lawyer! I went to Harvard and everything! Do you know Harvard? They have a great law school there!”
“Do you personally know anyone else here?” The man in the suit asked, seeming to ignore the obvious lie.
“Yes!” Helga was surely relieved to be on another topic. “That girl over there is Herbie’s daughter.” Helga pointed to me.
“Herbie? Do you mean Hubert?”
“Yes! Yes! She’s Hubert’s daughter!”
“What is her name?”
“I think it is Sally, yes, that’s it.” Sally? Why such a common name? Was she bound by the confines of personal indistinction?
I saw the man thank Helga and start to leave but Helga called him back with a question of her own. “What are you going to do about the buggy-aliens?”
“I’m going to advise you to forget about them unless you wish to lose your job, be shunned from society, and treated as a lunatic.” He started to leave again but in a sort of dejavu, Helga stopped him again.
“The policemen won’t forget. Are you going to rescue them?”
“They don’t exist anymore.”
“You mean they’re dead?”
“They were never born.”
“But I saw them!” Helga was in shock. “How can you write them off so quickly?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that.” This was the classic way for a federal agent to evade a sticky situation, only it didn’t work.
“This is a free country, you can say anything you like.” She uncrossed her arms to display her shirt. “Do it for me.”
“This information is classified.” He walked away leaving the conspiracy theorists’ cliché to fend for itself.
“Hubert’s body was dragged out from underneath the car. I wasn’t surprised when the body found its way into a body bag but I wasn’t expecting the body to be taken into the woods. I would’ve expected the body to go to one of the helicopters so an autopsy could be performed. One of the men moving the body ran to the helicopter and to retrieve a spade. I couldn’t believe it, they were already burying the body. I didn’t care Hubert wasn’t getting a proper funeral or even being buried in a cemetery, although I was confused by the dire need for haste. The stench of a cover-up fouled the air with its rank perfume.
Upon witnessing the occurring events, I uploaded everything my computer had just saved onto a public website designed to provide inexperienced amateur musicians with an audience. Although the site had thousands of users, it wasn’t commonly used; people didn’t like sifting through millions of mediocre songs to find one worth listening to. I had an account on the site but this time, I posted on a friend’s account for safety.
The man who’d conversed with Helga kneeled in front of me. “Hi, Sally, your dad’s lawyer told me your name.” He waited for a return “hello” but one never came. In fact, I didn’t even acknowledge his existence. It was ironic how this man could wipe a person’s existence yet in my mind, he didn’t exist four feet from me.
“Sally?”
Silence became a forceful reply.
“Is that your name?”
Like the movie theatres always say “Silence is golden.”
“Okay, maybe we started off on the wrong foot.” He pushed his sunglasses up on his face even with the clear darkness. “I’m agent SW72B. What is your name?”
I looked into the man’s hidden eyes. “I am Sruun Borealis.” I said my name proudly.
The man pressed a few buttons on his palm computer. “I’m truly sorry for the loss of your father.”
“It is sorrowful but my father has been dead for years.”
“Then what was your relationship with the deceased?”
“He married my mother.”
“Where is your mother?” He asked ina monotone.
“She’s also dead.”
“Do you have anywhere else to stay?”
“Not that I know of.” I replied truthfully.
“Here’s some advice on how to get and keep a home, never speak of what happened today.”
“Why?” I had a hunch why but I wanted to appear ignorant to this man, at least for the moment.
“The things that happened today happened in a plane of existence far from our own.” I understood perfectly now. Existence was being defined as everything within the boundaries of an elect group of people. Everything outside of those boundaries existed, but in an almost separate reality; one outside the rule of the typical tyrannical overlords.
“Who is to say we, as a people, need to exist merely in one plane of existence?” I asked, still playing the role of ignorant innocence.
“What are you saying?” He sounded concerned.
“Would it really be that bad if a few people found out?” I asked in a very girly tone; the same voice I so utterly detested.
“Trust me, your story, no matter how believable, will be rejected as blasphemy or exaggeration.” His answer to my question was less harsh than his response to Helga’s question of the same nature. “Besides, no one will believe the story of a meager teenager.”
Here was where I lost both my ignorance and innocence. “People will listen to this teenager and they will panic from the morbid truth revealed in my voice.”
He raised a single eyebrow curiously. “What makes you special enough to be heard?”
How little he knew. “First I have dozens of witnesses.”
He sneered, “Is that all? People can be fed scripts. It’ll never work.”
“I’m not done yet. I have a body and a lack thereof in many cases.”
“That won’t hold up against the word of the government.”
“People don’t trust the government, now let me finish. I have a recording that shows the arrival of the aliens, the death of Hubert, and most of all, a massive cover-up.”
The man tugged at his collar. “Your computer, right?”
“You could wipe my hard-drive and delete my personal connection with the internet but you still wouldn’t be rid of the curse plaguing national security.”
“I could arrest you right now.” He threatened.
“You could but that won’t stop anything.” I replied calmly.
“I could even have you shot.” He was really scared.
“Do you want a martyr on your hands? Would you like to be a symbol for corruption in the free world?” He scowled more heavily than before. “But I have good news.”
“What?”
“I will remain silent if my conditions are met.”
“It’s a conspiracy.” He mumbled.
“No, it’s an anti-conspiracy. Now are you going to hear my demands?”
“I will only hear them if they are reasonable.” He seemed somewhat empowered now that he had a potential edge over me. What he didn’t know was that my demands weren’t necessity. All they would do would make my life easy no matter where I stayed.
“They’re fair enough.” I answered. “I want Hubert’s house put up for rent with me as the land lady, Hubert’s bank accounts transferred to my name, and lastly all of Hubert’s possessions sold and the money sent to charity.”
“That’s all? You didn’t say anything about a place of residence.”
“I don’t care where I stay as long as my demands are met, but if I’m in anyway dissatisfied, the press will have an intriguing cover story.
“You’re bluffing.” He stated confident in his opinion.
I pressed a button on my computer to replay what he just said. “Am I?”
He was beyond frowning now. He stood up and started to leave but stopped to tell me one more thing. “My wife and I’ve been talking about adopting a child and I was going to take you home with me but now that I’ve met you, I’ve reconsidered.
“Then I should count myself lucky.” I replied.
He left me in solitude for almost an hour. When he returned, he didn’t bother me with small talk. Perhaps he was afraid of more blackmail. “I’ve found you a place of residence.”
“Oh?” I didn’t look at him but I was remotely interested.
“Your father left in his will that if anything were to happen to he and your mother, you would go stay with your grandparents in the Appalachian mountains.”
“Okay, how am I getting there? It’s on the other side of the country.”
“You will be taken there in our helicopter.” When he left me again, I gathered everything I’d packed for Hubert’s camping trip.
It wasn’t long before I was told to climb into a helicopter. The speed of the helicopter was faster than any I’d ever seen or been in. As much as I’d wanted to stay awake, I fell asleep. I was shaken awake when the helicopter landed.
“Your grandparents’ house is just down this road. It is about an hour drive but you can handle it if you stay on the road.” He was trying to intimidate me but it wouldn’t work. I thanked him and left with an insouciant gate.
After a half hour of walking on a red dirt trail, I saw a man in overalls on a tractor. When he saw me, he asked what I was doing and offered me a ride. I accepted, grateful, and rode on a tractor to my grandparents’ house.
My grandmother told me I could sleep on a couch or the spare bedroom upstairs. I ook the bedroom and was warned to watch out for the demonic spirits haunting the house. I was told the ghosts always attacked people who’d never been in the room before.
As I passed by one of the rooms downstairs, I saw a lump under an afghan on a couch.
When I opened the door to the bedroom, I wondered what I’d find or who I’d meet…
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