Wyatt squatted next to the sheriff and glanced down only long enough to put his fingers on the man’s neck to check for a pulse. He found a strong one and almost sighed out loud in relief.
He stood and, starting from the left, swung his gun arm slowly to the right. He had the strong feeling that they were not alone, that someone was watching them.
His eyes landed on the small table next to Jake’s head. On it was a rounded cube-shaped something a little larger than a basketball. Without warning, it lit up and started making noise. A hundred small, multicolored lights all over the thing started blinking haphazardly. It was a bit mesmerizing. Wyatt shook his head to clear his vision, deciding not to look directly at the object.
Behind him, someone sucked in a breath of surprise. It sounded like Beryl, but could’ve been Jett.
The noises the device made sounded, well,notof this world. Not quite whale song, not quite synthesized music—Wyatt couldn’t think what it sounded like.
Wyatt started walking toward the table. As he watched, he thought he saw what looked like a heat wave in the shape of a large man ripple next to where Jake lay helpless.
He felt Beryl and Jett come to stand on either side of him. Did they see the ripple in the substandard light, too, or was he imagining things?
“Do you see that?” Jett whispered.
“The wavy see-through shape next to Jake?” Beryl whispered back.
“Yep.” Wyatt kept his gun pointed at whatever it was as he reached for his taser. Without warning, he whipped it off his utility belt and shot directly into the center mass of the wavy air.
Two small barbed darts trailing wires shot from the taser and imbedded into…nothing. An invisible wall in the rippling air. Two little purple spots appeared in the air. A loud, unearthly shriek filled the room.
The two taser barbs flew backward and dropped to the ground as if an invisible hand had ripped them out. The heat wave moved toward the small table with the light cube. The pungent scent of cinnamon filled the air.
The device rose up and started moving, fast, toward another gap in the wall, and headed for the woods on the opposite side of where the vehicles were parked. With it went the rippling, invisible being.
“Did you see that?” Jett said again in awe.
Wyatt didn’t have time to rearm the stun gun, so he set it on the ground, tightened his grip on his firearm and called over his shoulder, “Call for medical and backup. And for space potatoes’ sake, stay in the barn until I get back. I mean it.”
Wyatt didn’t wait for a response as he chased after the light cube. The smell of cinnamon remained strong as he followed the brightly lit device as it bobbed through the forest for almost fifty yards. It winked out.Dang it!He’d been a car’s length from the thing when it went dark. He sniffed the air. The cinnamon scent was fading.
He snatched his flashlight off his utility belt and snapped it on, but a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree slow flashlight beam search around Wyatt’s location yielded nothing. He’d lostthe…light cube, or whatever it was. And he’d most assuredly lost the invisible being carrying it.
Trying to find any good news in all the bad news of tonight, Wyatt now had a pretty good idea of what the organic, cinnamon-scented purple goo they’d found at Jake’s house was. The blood of an invisible alien.
The further bad news was it was likely the lifeblood of an alien species Earth had not encountered before. Space potatoes.
Beryl was beside herself with worry for Jake and Sheriff Hollister. Jett had called 911 for an ambulance and reported that Sheriff Campbell had requested backup. As soon as the dispatcher confirmed the address of their location, Jett ignored the request to stay on the line and disconnected the call.
Jake hadn’t roused yet. Beryl was thankful he was breathing evenly as she looked him over from head to toes. A flash of blue caught her eye near his head.
She leaned closer. A tiny sticker held a thin blue wire against the skin behind his ear. The wire, which was a few feet long, trailed off the edge of the table. The other end lay on the small table where the brightly lit object had been. Was it some sort of connection? Analienconnection?
Less than ten minutes later, Wyatt came back in. He looked spooked.
“What happened?” Jett asked.
“I followed the bouncing cube in the air deep into the woods until the lights went out. I can only guess it became as invisible as the being carrying it.”
“Crazy,” Jett said.
“Understatement.” Wyatt holstered his gun.
In the distance, the wail of more than one siren signaled the approach of help. Wyatt retrieved his stun gun and detached the leads. He wrapped the loose wires around the taser barbs and shoved them into his front pants pocket.
“All right,” he said. “Here is the story we are all about to tell whatever medical and law enforcement entities show up here. We arrived just as Sheriff Hollister went inside. He didn’t see us. We heard a scream and I alone went inside to investigate it. I found the sheriff on the ground and Jake on the table. That is all we know. That is all we saw. We didn’t see anyone else in here. And that isallwe will say. The light cube and the invisible being stays between us for now. The information of a previously unidentified otherworldly presence here on Earth stays just between the three of us!”
