Bea Cannon - A Small Gray Dot

“Wait, Tennessee,” said the doctor as he got up. “Let’s take my car. They know me and may believe what I tell them.”

“Hey,” said Percy, “I got an idea.”

I eyed him. “What do you have in mind?”

“You gotta take a little side trip and I’ll go with you.”

Side trip? Then I thought about it and took a guess at what he had in mind. “Bedlow?”

He grinned. “Yeah. Show ‘em that piece of shi—” he shot a look at Terry —“uh, show ‘em that. It oughta be convincing.”

“Yes, that’ll probably work, as long as Henderson hasn’t sent any of his people to pick up the body. We still need the doctor, though.”

The guards at the entry would recognize his car. They’d pull him over but it would get us close enough to deal with them.

“Won’t hurt to check,” said Duncan starting to get up. “Come on, we’ll give it a whirl. Lem, stay here with Terry, and keep an eye on the monitor. We’ll make it as fast as we can.”

The doctor drove. He had a nice car. It was a roomy BMW sedan, not flight capable but one of the new ground-only models put out a couple of years before the Event. I rode up front with him. We went past the house first, looking for vehicles parked out front or in the driveway. There weren’t any so we turned and went back. The doctor parked out on the street.

As Duncan, Percy, and I got out, I said, “Stay in the car, Doctor. If you see anybody coming, leave. We’ll be okay.” I pulled the mini .45 from a pocket. “I don’t know how good a shot you are, but—” I handed the gun to him —“use it if you have to.”

He stared at the gun but he nodded.

We didn’t have any trouble. Apparently, Henderson hadn’t bothered to check on Bedlow, or if he had, he simply left him there. I mused that the Binqua seemed to have very different thought processes from humans. On the other hand, maybe they simply weren’t as smart as the doctor thought they were.

It was a good thing Percy was with us. Binqua turned out to be damned heavy and it took the three of us to get Bedlow’s body out of the house. The alien was medium sized but he had to weigh three hundred pounds. I got one leg and Duncan the other but it was Percy, a big, strong guy, who grabbed hold of the upper part of the body and did most of the work of lugging the dead alien out to the car.

I checked the powder room and Harlow was sitting there looking terrified until he saw us. Probably thought Bedlow had come back to life. We took him with us though Duncan and Percy complained about how he smelled and sat as far from him as they could. If we all lived through this, the doctor was going to have to fumigate his car. We put what was left of Bedlow in the trunk. He fit nicely.

When in a car, one doesn’t get lost in Blue Heaven so it didn’t take long to reach the guardhouse. A guard stood in the middle of the street waving a flashlight to pull us over. The other guard stood on the side watching. I recognized them. They were the big goons who’d been there both times I’d come to Blue Heaven before.

The one in the street came around to the driver’s side of the car and leaned down. “Hey, Doc. Where you goin’ this time of mornin’? Who you got in there with you?” He leaned down a little further to look in but I was already getting out and so was Duncan. I pointed my .357 at the guard over on the side, and Duncan had the .45 on the one looking in the window.

The guy’s eyes widened and he made a motion toward his gun but Duncan shook his head.

“No, Earl,” he said. “Keep your hands where we can see them. We’re not trying to start a shooting match here. The doc’s got something he needs to tell you. We just want you to listen, and there’s something you need to see.”

I motioned with my gun for the other guard to come over. He stepped off the walk with his hands raised.

“Hey, I know you!” he said squinting as he came closer. “You’re the courier that came through here a couple months back.”

From inside the car, Harlow hollered, “He ain’t no damn courier, Jim! That there’s Tennessee Murray, th’ tracker!”

Jim said sounding startled, “Abe? What you doing in there?”

“Gitting away from a zombie alien, that’s what!” said the idiot.

Earl, looking confused, said, “Duncan, what th’ hell’s goin’ on here? Whadda you doin’? Mr. Henderson got us on th’ walkie-talkie a little bit ago an’ said to be on th’ look out for that girl what stole all that money from th’ drug store. Said she got away from Abe. We tried to call Mr. Bedlow but he never answered.”

I’d wondered what Henderson might’ve said to them. Now I knew.

“He was lying, Earl,” said Duncan. “She never stole anything. She was kidnapped.”

“What? Who’d do somethin’ like—”

“We don’t have a lot of time, guys,” I said. “Doctor, start talking. Earl, you and Jim come around to the trunk. What the doctor says will make sense once you see what’s there.”

The doctor popped the trunk and got out. He began to talk and, for a change, made it quick. Once they saw Bedlow, after the shock wore off, they were incensed and ready to go down to Semptor and tear off some heads. I explained we had a better plan and that there were some people on the way to help.

“Let them in. They are friends of mine and one is the sister of the kidnapped young woman. Tell them how to get to the doctor’s house. Better yet, come with them if you want to help.”

“You damn straight we wanna help!” said Earl, his eyes angry. “My brother and his wife and kids lived over in the Cherry neighborhood and when we went to check on ‘em…” he trailed off.

Jim said, “We all lost somebody that day, Tennessee. Family, friends – only a fool wouldn’t want to get rid of them alien fuckers.”

“Everybody will want to get in on it,” said Earl. “The only thing is, how we gonna let ‘em know? Semptor’s got all th’ phones bugged. I’d call out some of th’ other guards but we can’t use th’ walkie-talkies without them listening.”

I nodded. “We’ve got it covered.” I explained about Terry.

We left them there and went back to the doctor’s house. I put Harlow in the basement with Talbert and Slim, who obviously had been drinking ever since we left them there. Slim was nodding off in one of the lounge chairs and Talbert was sitting at the bar leaning over and working on getting even drunker.

Harlow was docile as I removed his handcuffs. He was eying the bar and licking his lips. I took a look at his arm. The small bullet lodged under the skin had caused some bruising and swelling but it appeared all right otherwise. It probably wasn’t even hurting him much and it looked a lot better than his foot had a few years back. He’d need to get the bullet removed but the authorities would get that done once they picked him up. Again, I had no sympathy for him. He was lucky I hadn’t broken his damned jaw again. He immediately joined Talbert at the bar where I’m sure he looked forward to getting stinking drunk.

Talbert didn’t notice his stained and reeking pants. No doubt, they’d all be pissy by the time I got back to them.

I went back up. The doctor left for the lab to prepare his letter and make copies. Terry went with him. I eased onto a stool at the counter. One would think I’d be nearing exhaustion by then considering I’d only gotten about an hour’s sleep in the last twenty-four, and had been subjected to quite a bit of physical – and mental – stress. In spite of it all, I was not. I actually felt downright hyper. I knew it was adrenaline. I would likely pay for it later but that was later.

Duncan, Percy, Lem, and I didn’t do much talking while we waited on the doctor and Terry to come back. I don’t know about them but I was lost in my own thoughts; in my remembrances of horror and loss, things I’d pushed deep inside because there had been nothing I could do about it and hiding it away was a method of coping, of not going completely insane. Still, no matter how hard I’d tried, the memories were a constant subliminal hurt, and like a rising tide, they were now pouring back into my open consciousness. But, I was not as helpless as I was seven and a half years ago, and now I had a target.