| Transfection Chapter 2 |
"Kyle, I'm glad you're home. We
need you to baby sit Echo Page tonight. Cindy
and I are going into Fort Bragg for a company party, and Mrs. Tooley’s
arthritis is acting up, so she had to cancel on us."
Kyle felt the color drain from his face.
"Tonight?"
"Yes, tonight. Why, do
you have a more pressing engagement? I
thought you'd be happy Cindy and I were beginning to trust you more."
Kyle put his bike into the garage. Yeah,
I am, dad. It's just that. .
.." He thought for a moment but couldn't think of a good enough excuse to
use for not babysitting. He turned
and faced his father.
"Well, you were saying?" Pete
asked.
"Nothing, dad. It's not
a problem. I just wasn't expecting
you to ask me, that's all."
Pete turned and walked toward the front door.
"You've been here two weeks now, Kyle.
I know you coming here was your mother's idea, but you've tried real hard
to get along and become part of the family, so I figured it was time to give you
more responsibility. I'll work with
you, Kyle. If you'll try harder, I
will too."
"Cool, dad," Kyle said, as he followed his dad into the house,
while secretly wondering what he was going to do with Echo Page that night.
About two hours later, after his dad and Cindy had left, Kyle sat out on
the porch of his house with Billy and Maxi.
The ocean breeze, much cooler than it was only an hour ago, blew gently
across their faces, and the salty sea air tickled their noses.
"What the. . .you're babysitting?"
Bill asked in a tone overflowing with dis-belief.
"It's cool, we can just take Echo Page with us," Kyle said.
"I already told him I had to go into the forest with you to look for
the house keys you lost while you were out mountain biking today.
He won't know what we're really doing."
Bill glanced at Maxi. "Well
maybe Max can watch him while you and I scam the plants."
Maxi rolled her eyes and looked seriously at her brother.
"I don't think so, Bill. You
guys are too much. How can you even
consider taking a little kid with us?"
Kyle tucked a lock of hair behind his ear.
"No, Maxi, it's not a problem.
Echo's a good kid. He'll do
what we tell him."
Suddenly, Echo Page burst through the wooden screen door, swinging it
fully open and running excitedly up to Kyle.
His mop of blond curls, almost exactly the same golden shade and course
texture as his mother's, bounced randomly around his little munchkin face, while
his light blue eyes shined with inquisitiveness.
"Kyle, I finished my pizza. Are
we going up to the forest now?"
"Yeah, buddy. This is
Bill and his sister Maxi. Guys, I'd
like you to meet Echo Page."
Maxi knelt down next to Echo Page. "Hello.
Are you sure you want to go out into the forest at night?"
Echo Page jumped up and down, as if he was on a pogo stick.
"Yeah, I'm not scared. Kyle
told me that I'm old enough to go with you guys, and to keep a secret. I won't tell."
"That's right," Kyle said as he put his arm around Echo Page's
shoulders. "Echo's cool."
Bill glanced around nervously. "Okay,
lets get going then, before the whole kindergarten decides to join us."
He turned and walked toward his car.
"Are you guys sure about this?"
Maxi asked.
"Totally, lets go," Kyle said as he and Echo Page went after
Bill.
The four got into Bill's '56 Chevy.
Kyle sat in the front with Bill, while Maxi and Echo Page sat in the
back.
Bill started his souped up, 327 Chevy, small block engine.
It roared to life with confidence. He
immediately pulled onto the small, residential street, cruised out onto highway
1 and headed south. "We can
only drive up the logging road part way, then we have to walk. I don't want to take the chance of old lady Cooper hearing my
car."
"Who's old lady Cooper?" Echo
Page asked.
Kyle turned around to face Maxi and Echo Page.
"This mean old lady that owns the property where Bill lost his
keys."
Echo Page's big blue eyes grew even larger.
"You mean you were trespassing?"
"Yeah, kinda," Bill
said.
Maxi rolled her eyes and sighed. "What
grade are you in, Kyle? I'm going
to be a sophomore," she said, changing the subject.
"Oh, I'm just a freshman," Kyle said, suddenly feeling rather
inadequate.
"Really, you look older. And
not just that, you seem older, too," Maxi
said, giggling.
Kyle smiled and sat up a little straighter.
"Yeah, well, that’s what I hear."
Without warning, Billy steered his car off the highway and onto a dirt
road, which disappeared into the vast expanse of the dark forest.
The road was bumpy, so he drove slowly.
"I hate taking my car over this shit," he said as he carefully
steered around as many bumps and rocks as possible.
About five minutes later, Bill stopped the car and shut off the engine.
"The clearing's out that way about one hundred yards or so," he
said. He shut off the lights and
opened the car door. "Maxi,
you better stay here with Echo Page."
"No way, I wanna go too. I
can go, can't I, Kyle?" Echo Page whined.
"You'd better stay here, Echo," Kyle said.
"We won't be long."
"I wanna go too. I'm
gonna tell if I don't get to go."
"I thought you said he was a cool kid, Kyle,"
Bill said.
"I thought he was. But
maybe he's not. Shit, come on,
Echo, but no whining."
"Yaaah," Echo said, realizing he'd just won.
Bill grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment.
"Come on, let’s get this over with."
The four got out of the car and followed Bill out into the forest, away
from the security of the logging road. The
sun had completely set now, and a heavy mist of fog covered the ground, making
the forest look like a haven for wolf men and vampires.
The majestic pine trees had transformed into gigantic monsters with
hundreds of arms, while the animals that usually hid timidly during the day,
bravely emerged to re-claim their kingdom.
Kyle's first impulse was to run back to the car, but no way he would act
on it.
"I'm scared, Kyle. I
wanna go home." Echo Page
squeaked.
"It's okay," Maxi said. "It
is kinda scary. Come on, Billy,
let's forget this thing and go."
"No way, we're here now. Come
on, it's right through there," Bill said, as he pointed to a tight ring of
tall pine trees growing very close together.
Kyle thought the trees looked unnatural growing there.
They didn't match the other trees. They
looked as if they had been planted there to make a sort of wall.
Bill looked at Echo Page. “Kyle
and I will run right through there and find my keys in no time.
You wait here with Maxi, then we'll get an ice cream cone on the way
back. Okay?"
"Okay, but hurry," Echo Page said, without conviction.
"Lets go." Bill
pushed some of the branches apart and squeezed through, shining the flashlight
ahead of him.
Kyle followed, checking out the clearing as best he could in the
flashlight beam. It was gigantic. At
least the size of a football field. And
it looked unnatural, like the trees that grew around it. It looked man made. "What
is this place, Bill?"
"What, this clearing? I
don't know. Just what it looks like.
Who cares, come on, they're over here," Bill said.
Kyle followed him about one quarter of the way around the edge of the
clearing. He immediately recognized
the smell of skunk, but not the kind that came from the animal.
"Aren't they beautiful?" Bill asked
There, before Kyle's eyes, were two, very beautiful, marijuana plants,
each only about a foot or so in height, but loaded with buds.
He reached out and touched one of the thick, purple buds.
He rubbed his fingers together. They
were sticky.
The clearing suddenly filled with a thunderous rumbling.
"What's that?" Kyle
asked.
"Hell if I know. It
kinda sounds like an engine." Bill
grabbed one of the plants at the base and pulled it up by the roots. Then he unzipped his jacket, stuffed the plant in and zipped
it up.
The sound became clearer as it neared, echoing through the still, dark,
forest, and they could see headlights coming through the trees at the other end
of the clearing.
"Shit, it is an engine, come on, hide, quick."
Bill jumped into the thick clump of pines.
Kyle quickly grabbed the second plant, pulled it up, and stuffed it into
his jacket, then jumped into the trees behind Bill.
The boys stood close together and peaked back out, just as a big black
U-haul type truck came through the trees and into the clearing,
parking about five feet to the right of where they were hiding. The engine shut off and the headlights went out.
"Shit, what's going on around here?
Do you think it's the feds?" Bill
whispered.
"What do you mean?"
Kyle replied.
"These plants didn't just grow here on their own.
The seeds blew over from a pot farm real close to here," Bill said.
“ Maybe the feds are watching old lady Cooper's farm."
It made sense to Kyle. It
would explain the strange, artificial look of the clearing.
Just then, the entire area lit up brightly.
It seemed even brighter than the sun.
The boys looked into the sky and saw a huge, glowing light hovering above
the clearing.
"Whoa, what the hell's that?"
Kyle asked.
Bill didn't answer. He just
kept his eyes glued to the sky. The light lowered into the clearing and hovered
silently, about thirty feet from the ground, glowing and pulsating ominously.
It almost looked alive.
"It's huge, what is it?" Kyle whispered.
The light began to fade, and there, hovering silently over the ground,
was a gigantic, metallic, saucer shaped aircraft.
It looked forbidding, as it pulsated and glowed, panting as if it were
breathing.
Just then a bright, white, light came shining down through an opening in
the bottom of the ship. A stack of
metal boxes appeared on the ground, right in the center of the light.
Two men dressed in army fatigues got out of the truck, walked up to the
ship, went into the light, picked up some boxes, carried them to the truck, and
loaded them into the back.
"Kyle, is that a UFO, as in flying saucer?"
"Yeah, I think so. But I don't know for sure.
It might be some kind of top secret, government, military thing.
I don't think flying saucers come with trucks. Maybe the Air Force built it.
Besides, what would our guys be doing taking boxes from a UFO?"
As Kyle and Bill watched the men march like soldiers back to the ship to
retrieve more boxes, they noticed two different men, also dressed in army
fatigues, standing guard next to the truck.
They both had very big, military rifles.
Kyle parted the trees a little more and pushed his face closer.
The first two men were now carrying more boxes back to the truck.
"Hot dang, we're finished," one man said.
He pushed his box into the back, stepped aside so his partner could load
his box, then slammed the door closed. "Lets
grab a case of Beer and get a cheap motel with X-rated movies.
I'm beat. This shit doesn't
have to be back down the coast till day after tomorrow."
"Sounds like a plan, Sam. But,
someone has to check in with the head honcho first," another man said,
looking hesitantly at the spacecraft.
"I'll do it this time, Harry," Sam said.
"Good," Harry said. "They
give me the heebe geebies."
Kyle watched, as Sam walked back up to the light.
All of a sudden, the light became so bright, Kyle could hardly look at
it. He squinted his eyes and saw
another figure had appeared in the light, but he couldn't see what it looked
like. He put his hand above his
eyes to try and shield them from the glare.
Sam stepped back from the light a couple of feet.
The figure from the spacecraft came out of the light and moved hauntingly
toward Sam, like a ghost floating right over the ground.
Kyle put his hand over his mouth to keep from screaming.
What the hell was it?
The creature from the spacecraft was completely out of the harsh glare of
the light.
Kyle heart beat hard in his tightening chest.
He struggled to breath and tried to run, but was frozen with fear. The
figure wasn't human-not even close. It's
long, skinny neck held a huge head, which appeared to sway back and forth
slightly from the weight.
Kyle's eyes followed the creature's spindly arms, which extended almost
to the ground. It didn't appear to have a thumb, only four long, pencil thin
fingers attached to hands that looked more like feet.
He swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
For a moment, some of his fear left and his curiosity took over.
He began to study the creature closely, focusing on it's legs.
They looked very short and stubby, when compared to the rest of it's
willowy body, and it didn't seem to have any feet.
As the creature neared Sam, Kyle could see it was only about four feet
tall. It didn't look as if it were
wearing any clothes, but it didn't look exactly naked either.
He figured it's clothes must perfectly match it's dull, gray skin.
Kyle studied the alien creature's face.
He saw no nose or mouth, only eyes that were huge and black like
bottomless pits, or like the eyeless face of a human skull, except they slanted
out and upward. He felt as if he
was getting sucked into them--they were like a vortex.
In a slight panic, Kyle pulled his gaze from the alien's face, just as it
began to move toward Sam. Kyle
watched as the creature drifted up to Sam and stood, no, hovered, right in front
of him. It stared into Sam's eyes, and for about two minutes they
stared and stared deeply into each other's eyes, almost touching foreheads.
All at once, Sam turned, walked back to the truck, got in with the other
three men, and drove away. Kyle
watched as the truck slowly bumped out of the clearing and back through the
trees into the forest.
Kyle hesitantly looked back at the alien.
The creature was staring after the truck, when two more alien creatures
suddenly appeared in the light. They
began to float over toward the first creature, and he noticed all three of them
looked exactly alike. Why don't they just get into their ship and go home?
"Kyle, Kyle, where are you?"
Kyle quickly glanced over at the trees they'd left Echo Page and Maxi
hiding in. Before he knew what had
happened, Echo Page came running out into the clearing and directly in front of
the aliens.
"Kyle, where are you? I
wanna go home."
Suddenly one of the aliens aimed an object at Echo Page. A laser like streak shot into him and he fell to the ground.
Kyle, not knowing what else to do, remained crouched in the trees.
He felt dizzy and couldn't catch his breath.
The bright white light expanded way out from the spacecraft, covering the
three aliens and Echo Page.
Kyle watched helplessly, as the three aliens and Echo Page began to float
toward the craft, then directly up the bright light and into the bottom of the
ship. The light immediately shot back up into the craft, the
opening closed, and the craft took off without a sound, glowing brightly as it
shot straight up into the sky and disappeared over the ocean.
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