Jerry Oltion: Space Aliens Taught My Dog to Knit!

“They’re using a dampening field!” Delmer squeaked. “They can stop engines and stuff from working.”

Sid nodded. “Well, then, let’s just see if they can repeal the law of gravity.” He released the emergency brake and the car began to roll down the highway toward the parked BMW.

“I think they can.” Delmer clutched the edge of the seat in panic, as if that might help hold them to the ground.

When they came under the UFO, all the loose pop cans and napkins and maps and stuff in the car rose up to bang against the roof, and both Sid’s and Delmer’s hair rose straight up as well, but their seatbelts held them in place. The camera shot up out of Delmer’s hands, but he snagged the strap and reeled it back down to his lap. The car rocked as if in a strong wind. Sid cursed as he fought for control, but the car didn’t leave the ground.

Then they passed out from under the disc and all the debris rained back down on them. “All right!” Sid shouted. “We’re too heavy for ‘em.” He straightened out the car so it was pointed down the center line of the highway, and they began to pick up speed.

The UFO floated along behind them, pinning them in its intense light and sweeping its anti-gravity beam across them time after time, but Sid kept the car on the highway and by the time they reached the first curve they were doing nearly forty miles an hour.

The road swept around to the left, and in the middle of the curve the car suddenly got light again. Delmer expected it to skid off into the trees, but instead it did the opposite, oversteering hard to the left. Sid corrected for it, batted a pop can aside, and said, “They’re playing with our inertia. Well let’s just see if we can play back.” He hit the brakes hard, and the car stopped instantly, without even squealing the tires or throwing Sid or Delmer against their seatbelts. The UFO swept on ahead, and Sid reached into his jacket, pulling out a snub-nosed revolver. He waited until the floating pop cans fell to the floor again, then leaned out the window and fired three rounds at the UFO. The report echoed off the trees beside the road.

It was like hitting a baseball. One moment the UFO was there; the next it was careening through the sky toward the northern horizon.

“Hah, thought so,” said Sid.

“What?” asked Delmer.

The engine suddenly coughed and rumbled to life, without Sid touching the key.

“Aha, their damping field must have a range limit. Hang on.” Sid stepped on the gas and the car sped down the hill.

“What made them zoom away like that?” Delmer asked, gripping the dashboard as Sid swerved the car around another corner. “They wouldn’t be afraid of a gun, would they?”

“I doubt it,” Sid said, “but if they can play with gravity and lower inertia, then I figured that’s what they use to keep themselves afloat. And by the way they supposedly zip around the sky and make sudden stops and all, I figured they probably don’t weigh more than a couple of grams. So I sent a couple more grams of high-velocity lead toward ‘em. Just like playing pool; the momentum has to go somewhere.”

Delmer wondered if that was such a hot assumption, but apparently it had worked. Not for long, though; the UFO stopped just as quickly as it had gone, and like a ball at the end of an elastic cord, it shot back toward them.

“Time to call in the cavalry,” Sid said. He pulled his cell phone from his hip and flipped it open, dialing with his thumb while he drove.

The road bottomed out and began to rise again. Sid punched the gas and the car shot up the other side, then the engine coughed and died again. He shoved in the clutch, and they coasted on up and over the crest of the rise.

Delmer was afraid that the dampening field might kill cell phone signals, too, but a moment later Sid said, “Marty? Sid. No, no time; listen, I’ve been following somebody, and I think I stumbled onto a major drug deal. I want you to send the chopper and as many cars as you can spare. Damn right they’ve spotted us; they’re chasing us down the side of Mount Rainier right now. On 410, right. Tell ‘em to get here quick; the dealers are faster than we are, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold ‘em off. Right. Thanks.”

Sid thumbed off, tossed the phone to Delmer, and laughed at Delmer’s surprised expression.

“But—why didn’t you tell them the truth?”

“What? Marty’s a nice guy who just happens to work dispatch at the Puyallup field office, but if I call him up and say ‘UFO,’ he can’t do a thing to help me. Say drugs and he can send half the damned force.”

The phone buzzed in Delmer’s hand. He nearly dropped it in surprise, but managed to flip it open instead, bracing himself against the door as the car swerved around a hairpin turn, and say, “Uh… Sid’s car.”

“Who the hell is this?” a deep voice asked.

“Delmer… uh, a friend of—” Delmer said, but Sid grabbed the phone from him before he could say more.

“Sid here,” he said. Delmer gasped as the UFO swept its spotlight and anti-gravity beam across them again and the car lurched toward the inside of the turn. Sid cursed and jerked the wheel straight again, then said into the phone, “Nope. Hold on.” He dropped the phone in his lap, pulled his revolver out of its shoulder holster, transferred it to his left hand, and leaned out the window to fire three more shots into the air.

The UFO streaked away again, its spotlight dimming with distance until it winked out among the stars. Sid holstered his revolver and picked up the phone again. “Sorry, I had to persuade ‘em to back off. Hell, yes, that was gunfire. Get your asses up here or you’ll be readin’ my obit in the morning.” He thumbed off the phone and tossed it back to Delmer.

“What did he want?” Delmer asked as the car’s engine started up again and Sid accelerated hard down the road.

Sid laughed. “He wanted to know if I’d seen any funny lights in the sky. Said they’re getting all sorts of calls about it from out this way.”

“Good,” Delmer said. “Maybe they’ll believe us now.”

“They’ll believe us when I show ‘em the photos,” Sid said. “Not before.” He leaned his head out the window and looked up. “You know, I believe our flying friends must have been listening in on our call, ‘cause it doesn’t look like they’re coming back.”

He slowed the car and continued driving down the mountain at a more normal pace. After a few minutes they saw a highway patrol car speeding toward them with its lights flashing, and Sid blinked his headlights to flag them down.

Delmer let Sid do the talking, and he was impressed with how few details Sid had to change in order to make the story sound completely believable. He even said straight out that the car full of drug dealers “took off like a rocket” when he fired on them the second time, and he and Delmer hadn’t seen them since.

The helicopter showed up not long afterward and began sweeping the roadside with a spotlight that seemed like a dim flashlight after the UFO’s bright beam. Sid and Delmer stuck around for a while, putting up a show of helping with the search, but when it became apparent to everyone that the bad guys had slipped through the net, Sid thanked the cops for saving his bacon and the two of them took off for Seattle again.

Sid dropped Delmer off at the parking lot in Bellevue where he’d left his car and they split up for the night, Sid to go download the photos he’d taken and Delmer to hole up somewhere until morning. He didn’t particularly like the idea of spending a night alone in a motel, but going home was out of the question, and as Sid pointed out, staying together made them a bigger target.

So Delmer waited until Sid drove away to the north, then went the other direction, eventually finding a cheap motel near the airport. He bought a copy of the National Revealer from a late-night grocery down the street and fell asleep reading the news.