Mario Acevedo - The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

Could this secret go even deeper? Were there more alien bodies? Perhaps a survivor kept prisoner, much as a vampire like myself would be if captured by the humans. And had there been more alien contacts after this crash?

A helicopter roared overhead. A searchlight scanned around the back end of the trailer. I retreated behind the boxes and waited to see what happened. The helicopter sounded as if it was landing nearby. Rotor-wash blasted snow into the trailer, then settled, then blasted again as if the helicopter had landed and taken off right away.

Someone approached. A yellow glow illuminated the open end of the trailer.

My kundalini noir buzzed with energy. A second yellow glow? From whom? From what? I glanced to the boxes around me. I was aware of the three nymphomaniacs initially contaminated and the material in this vault. Who else would glow?

“Felix,” called the intruder. The voice I instantly recognized as that of my friend Gilbert Odin. “You’re safe for now. It’s just you and me.”

Gilbert? What was he doing here?

His tall frame came into view behind the trailer. Large eyeglasses sat on the bridge of his nose.

Incredibly, a brilliant yellow aura surrounded him.

I had to repeat the astonishing discovery to myself.

A brilliant yellow aura surrounded him.

I realized this was the first time I’d ever seen him without my contacts.

I waited for him, confused and stunned by his yellow aura. My own aura grew more intense, and the hairs on my neck and arms stood up in alarm.

Swaddled in a puffy down parka, Gilbert strode in his over-boots across the muddy tracks the semi had plowed through the snow. The cackle of radio traffic came from a receiver strapped to his shoulder. “Come out,” he reassured me. “It’s over.”

“What’s over?” I shouted. Anger displaced my confusion. Did he mean I was caught? If so, he was mistaken. I pressed against the steel wall of the trailer vault. Gilbert’s yellow aura wouldn’t make a difference-like any cornered beast I’d kill anyone or anything blocking my escape.

“I’m supposed to negotiate your surrender,” he said.

Gilbert had better have another plan if that was the case.

“Come out,” he repeated.

“Like hell,” I yelled back. I wasn’t about to get into the open and let a sniper measure my skull with the crosshairs of a rifle telescope. “You want to talk, you come in here.”

“All right,” Gilbert said. He climbed over the back end of the trailer. His aura looked like a boiling froth, signaling anxiety and fear. Good, he had much to fear from me.

I searched beyond him and looked for the telltale auras of any companions lurking in the darkness. He was alone. Easy prey for vampire hypnosis.

Gilbert stood and his large body filled most of the doorway. The thick, almost overpowering, odor of cabbage seeped from him. As he straightened up, he turned down the volume of the radio he carried. His right arm suddenly extended and in his hand he held a device that looked like a pistol-bronze-colored, open sights, and a pointed muzzle with rings around the barrel. The way he aimed it at me was proof enough that it was a weapon, something futuristic. Buck Rogers meets Dirty Harry.

His aura tightened close around his form. An occasional spike of heated emotion lashed out, like a flame shooting from a bed of coals. By reading his aura I could tell that he was trying to remain calm and keep panic from overwhelming him. Gilbert may have had this strange yellow aura but he still reacted emotionally like a human.

But not a human. Every nerve of mine pulsed and readied me for the attack. Not yet comprehending what I suspected, I waited for a moment before daring to say, “You’re one of them. An alien.”

FELIX, WHY WOULD YOU say that?” Gilbert tilted his weapon. “It’s the blaster, isn’t it? Well, I knew better than to use bullets against you.” He leveled the gun. “Step out here where I can get a good look at you.”

“Nothing doing,” I replied. “You want a look, you come back here.” When he came close, I would hypnotize him.

A wave of brash determination pulsed through his aura. He stepped into the trailer vault. His finger started to compress the trigger.

With vampire quickness, I jumped to the right.

A bolt of blue light shot from the muzzle of the blaster. The bolt struck the armored wall behind me and splattered white droplets of molten steel.

I had Gilbert by the throat while his blaster still pointed uselessly at where I had been. His eyeglasses clattered to the floor.

“What-? How?” he stammered as he sank to his knees. His aura blazed with fear and emitted spikes of terror that writhed like tentacles. The cabbage odor spewed from him. “Okay. Stay calm.” He lowered the blaster and pulled his finger from the trigger. “Let’s talk.”

I motioned to the glowing spot on the wall where his blaster had struck. “You call that talking? Drop the gun.”

The blaster fell from his hand. “I don’t mean to cause trouble.”

“A little late for that. Is that weapon proof of peaceful intentions?” I tightened my claws around his windpipe.

“Self-protection. Every species has that right.”

I kicked the blaster and sent it skidding into the far end of the vault.

“Careful.” He spoke in a rasped whisper. “That thing’s expensive, and I’m signed for it.”

“The only reason I won’t kill you is that I need questions answered.” I stared into his eyes. No effect. He was definitely not human.

This imposter had said nothing about his yellow aura. Or my orange one. He couldn’t see them. He didn’t know. I kept this advantage to myself. I knelt over him and cradled his neck in my talons as I read his aura. I loosened my grip slightly, but he knew that I could decapitate him in an instant.

“What happened to the real Gilbert Odin?”

The muscles in the imposter’s throat convulsed as he tried gulping. Finally he managed to say, “He was abducted years ago.”

“Then why are you here? To abduct me? To abduct others?”

“No. To safeguard the surveillance vessel, the UFO.”

“Safeguard from whom?”

The radio clipped to his shoulder suddenly cackled with traffic. “Hawk Vanguard. Hawk Vanguard. This is Eagle Team. What’s your situation? Over.”

The imposter raised his hand and motioned to the radio. “Please, they’re calling me. I don’t answer, they’ll assume the worst and open fire.”

I released my grip and let the imposter go. He withdrew, coughed and clutched his throat. After a moment, he unsnapped his microphone and spoke. “Eagle Team, Hawk Vanguard here.” The imposter gave me a conspiratorial glance. “Negative on the intruder.”

“Why are you here alone?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, I’m playing the hero. It pays extra.” He clipped the microphone back on his shoulder harness and massaged his neck. He found his glasses and put them back on.

“You asked who I safeguard the UFO from?” The alien imposter motioned out the trailer, back toward the security force. “From the humans. Normally when there is an incident like this, rescue teams retrieve the ship and cleanse the crash site. In Roswell, your government seized the surveillance vessel and occupants before we could react.”

“We?”

The imposter pointed toward the sky. “The Galactic Union.”

“There are more of you?”

The imposter rose to his feet and leaned against the wall. “Many more. It’s a galactic union.”

“Where is Gilbert?”

The imposter’s aura flashed nervously. “Your friend Gilbert Odin didn’t take the zero-point flux well.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You mean Gilbert’s dead?”