Nathan Hystad - The Event

“Oh, they have weapons. One of the ships ripped a massive trench across the landscape for miles to slow us down. A red beam, the same size as their green abduction ones, shot out and destroyed the ground on touch,” I said.

His eyes went wide. “You’ve seen ships since that first day?” He sounded like it was impossible.

“Yeah, a few times. It was like they were hunting us from the start. I saw them in New York, then the lasers outside of Washington. I swear I saw them when we got hit by a storm in the sailboat.”

“Sailboat? I can’t wait to hear your story. We didn’t know they were here still. Honestly, we’ve been moving as fast as we could. We had to come from Russia, and have been on a full tilt, twenty-four-hour schedule to get here. Took a damn boat across the ocean non-stop to Colombia. Just landed last night and here we are,” Magnus said.

Without the worry about being spotted by the ships, they made it all the way from Russia in four days’ time. I was impressed by their ingenuity. They were obviously good choices for recruitment.

“You may have been lucky, then. I was with my group until yesterday. I was in front of them with Carey in my own Jeep, and a ship hovered directly before me. I didn’t think it spotted them, since they were just another stopped van on the road. I bolted and drew its attention away for a while. I went back the next day and the van was still there, but they weren’t. I’m hoping they kept going and was thinking I might be able to catch up to them,” I said, the words sounding desperate as they left my mouth.

We arrived at the Peru border, and it was larger than the Panama one. Cars were parked everywhere, and the pass was open. There was a small town on the other side. Magnus elected to just push the cars out of the way where needed. The Jeep had a large grill bumper and I was surprised to see how easily we made it through. Where I would have tried to get around, a big man like him just pushed his way through.

“Tell us your story, my friend,” Magnus prompted.

I started from the beginning. About the day the ships arrived, my adventures to get the pendant; about James and being left alone. I told them how I went and got Carey from Susan’s house, and I noticed Carey look at me when I said his name in the story. I added the parts about Janine, her getting sick, and the deathbed promise I made. I kept some of it private; moments between me and my wife. I went on to my challenges of getting into New York, Yankee Stadium, then finding Ray near Central Park. Magnus seemed surprised by the bank’s safety deposit box. He said he knew the details of the location already, trusted to them by their friend before he died.

This irked me a little, that Janine didn’t feel she could tell me everything, but maybe I would have forgotten the details, or just not followed through. I told them about hearing someone on the CB radio and eventually meeting up with them. I retold the rope story, trying to pull Ray up, and Natalia’s eyes were wide as I shared the story about Vanessa sniping that man down at the pier. Then I talked about the boat, the storm, and landing in Panama. From there we caught up to the ship finding us on the road, and my racing down the mountain with a ship in tow.

“And then I found you,” I finished.

“That’s quite the story, my friend. You’ve been through a lot. What of Vanessa? You’re saying she is one of them? An alien?” he asked.

“From what I understand, she’s a hybrid born in a lab. They all were, even my wife, I suppose. They were bred to be able to live on Earth for a time period and recruit people to help. Vanessa told us that something about the equator was poison to them. Their job was to get people invested enough to save. She said there were around a hundred of them brought here almost a decade ago.” The thought that my wife had been one of these hybrids really hadn’t sunk in until I said it aloud.

I think Magnus could see the pain, and he patted me on the arm with his right hand. “It’s okay, Dean. It’s all about the greater good here now. You were chosen to help save the planet.”

Should I tell him? I wasn’t sure. I did anyway. “I wasn’t the one,” I said quietly. “He was a military guy. She was meeting him on a blind date that night at the Boathouse when I met her. She chose me, I suppose, but they didn’t.”

He smiled to this as we drove through the small town. “That’s even better. She did love you and gave her life to save our planet. Will you do the same if you have to?” he asked as he stopped the Jeep.

Would I? My thoughts went back to my instincts to save the others when the ship surprised us, and I realized that I was ready to give everything up to help them and to save the world.

“Yes, I will.” The words came out louder than I’d intended.

“Good. Let’s get some supplies and gas while we’re here. I have a siphon pump kit in the back. Do you mind? Natalia and I will grab some food. Anything in particular you want?”

I got out of the Jeep and Carey hopped over the console and onto the seat I had been occupying. “Anything but mangoes,” I answered with a laugh.

They headed to a small market and I ran the siphon line from a car beside our Jeep. In a couple minutes, fuel was transferring through the tube, and I hit the valve as soon as some gas dripped back and down the side of the Jeep. Carey was nowhere to be seen.

“Carey!” I called out. He didn’t come running to me; no bark to tell me where he was. I packed up the hose in its bag, sealed it, and put it back into the Jeep.

“Carey, where are you?” Still nothing. I glanced back to the market, and Magnus and Natalia wandered around filling up paper bags. The street was dusty, vendors’ carts lining the side of the street. They would be used to tourists coming from Colombia coming into Peru, and here they sold maps, magnets, authentic Peruvian food, and anything else you could think of to make money. Peru’s flag waved all over the place too, two solid vertical red stripes separated by a white stripe in the center.

I crossed the street, wondering if Carey had found some sort of food source, but he wasn’t behind any of the food carts either. I heard a distant bark down the road, and that turned into a cacophony of barks from all around the small town. No doubt there were countless outdoor dogs around here. I only hoped we could get their owners back soon, and that they all had a water source. But that first bark had sounded distinctly like my little friend.

The side street was littered with overflowing garbage bins, and a grease bin from the restaurant out front. I heard his bark again and called out to him, jogging down the cramped alleyway. My shirt was already unbuttoned, and still it was stuck to me everywhere. The heat was getting to me and I wished that the dog could have just stayed put.

I heard something behind me. Footsteps. I turned and heard more steps come from where I’d just been. I was surrounded. They looked just like the man who’d been shot at the pier by Vanessa: identical twins. The man at the waterfall, who’d called to me after chasing me down in his smaller ship, looked just like them too. Maybe one of these was that man. They were tall and thin, with matching brown hair that looked like wigs. It was a seriously peculiar sight.

Carey growled as he ran to my feet and lifted his paws up onto my thighs. I scratched his head and looked up at the men. They hadn’t said anything yet, but they both raised their hands in an attempt to show a calming demeanor. Whether they were trying to tame me or Carey was unclear.

“Mr. Parker, we aren’t here to hurt you. Quite the opposite,” the first one said.

“My friends are going to come find me, and they have big guns.” The threat sounded weak as I said it.