The Case of the Curious Killers

By Louis Shalako

Brendan Hartle is taking names and kicking some nasty alien butt. The Case of the Curious Killers is a comic space-opera of epic proportions. Aliens abduct security guard Brendan Hartle but they soon discover he has no objective reality of his own. This has some unfortunate consequences for the Empire, and those who would usurp it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Louis Shalako
• Release date: Oct 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9780986687129

Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako is the founder of Long Cool One Books and the author of twenty-two novels, numerous novellas and other short stories. Louis studied Radio, Television and Journalism Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, later going on to study fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines over thirty years ago. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time. Louis enjoys cycling, swimming and good books.

Book preview

Chapter One

Things were tough all over…

Things were tough all over. It took Brendan Hartle a few days to find a job in Toronto.

It was far better than St. Thomas, where he had just left. Things were looking up after the defeated feeling of locking the front door for the last time, and walking away past the ‘Sold’ sticker on the real estate broker’s sign. It might be hard to survive on eight and a quarter bucks an hour in the big city, but he could live with his mother Beverly for months if necessary. With a healthy income as a financial planner to rely on, offering her adult son a room in her townhouse was only temporary. Brendan became a security guard. He worked the first two months in a shopping mall. The best part of the job was being able to say you had one. It was refreshing after the last two and a half years. The best part was having a purpose, some place to go when he woke up in the morning. He got to see lots of immaculately-prepared young women as well. None of them ever went out with him, but he enjoyed looking at them no less. He was too shy to ask. It was almost as if they didn’t even see him. He felt like he was part of the décor, part of the background, trusted but almost invisible.

***

The boss liked Hartle.

He’s seven effing feet tall. He always said it with a warm smile, although if you looked closely it never reached the eyes.

The boss considered all big, quiet men a little stupid, but then they were dumb enough to work for him. That suited Brendan just fine. He never gave anyone cause to suspect anything in the way of a superior intellect. Brendan was too quiet. The soft, hazel-brown eyes took it all in and reviewed it. His rather large, ovate ears sucked it all up, his brain filed it, and he kept his conclusions to himself. Those conclusions were filed away under a tight cap of grizzled, mouse-brown hair that was once auburn and still was in certain areas, yet it was awfully grey at the sides for one so young.

The boss soon offered a few overtime shifts to Brendan, who accepted them with neither rancour, nor effusive thanks. He just took it in stride and said little. He did the work and slept when he got the chance. Brendan had no girlfriend and no plans to get one anytime soon. He had few social outlets except a couple of buddies. Brendan kept no regular schedule, although he found a morning routine to be helpful. All of humanity has to get up in the morning and have a shower, put clothes on, so he was no different in that regard.

The overtime was okay. A guy could always keep gas in the car, or buy a hamburger combo, a twelve pack of beer, or a nickel bag of pot or something. Life, if not exactly thrilling, was bearable and the time passed quickly enough.

There were times when he felt this odd sense of waiting for something.

One day word went through the grapevine. The company would be hiring thirty or forty new people to handle a strike looming up on the horizon.

A couple of the ‘Old Guard’ sat in the lunch room. They were men in their fifties or sixties, perhaps even the low seventies. They worked not so much to make a living, as to augment meager pensions. A few former military people were employed here, a few ex-cops bankrupted by one too many divorces. The pair were having stale single-slice bologna sandwiches and rancid buck-fifty-a-cup coffee from the buzzing and rattling vending machine in the corner.

‘It’s as hot as hell and thick enough to float a bullet,’ people said.

The worst coffee in the world at any price. That was Brendan’s opinion, although they all drank it from time to time.

Hey, big guy, did you hear the news? Bert Russell asked as he came in.

Brendan just wanted to drop off a couple of dirty shirts and pick up some new ones.

Nope.

There’s a big strike coming up at McPhail Chemicals. Fred was the older one. They’re asking Slim and I, (Russell weighed three-fifty bone-dry,) to supervise.

Good for you! Brendan said it without much thought.

He vaguely looked around for Serena. She was a tall, straggling, young-old battle-ax who ran the office. He just wanted to get the shirts and get out of there. It was his day off, and a cold six-pack awaited in an ice-filled cooler in the back of the car.

I ain’t crazy! Some of them strikes get pretty rough. Russell belched firmly and unequivocally.

The other spoke now.

I hear the money’s going to be good.

Russell nodded. Apparently neither one would be doing the strike.

How much? You couldn’t escape these guys without a bit of conversation.

Twenty-six bucks an hour, was Fred’s startling reply. Although both Slim and I were offered significantly more.

But you’re not going? Brendan came alert now.

Not on your life, boy. They agreed on one thing, which was unusual for them old gomers.

Holy cow!

Hartle went looking for the big boss. Old Stirling Devonchek, (everyone was old around here,) would invariably be found in the capacious, but not airy back room, which he importantly called, ‘the ops room,’ to the silent amusement of his staff.

Stirling was at his desk, surveying through smoke-squinted eyes the big board where security and crossing guard schedules were worked out. The company was branching out as a kind of temporary, contract personnel service. While Brendan was skimpy on the details, the only contract they had was to provide labour for the city compost site. About three dozen employees, mostly Down’s syndrome kids, picked through the loads of compost, removing bits of plastic, rope and wire. Due to the fact they were all on disability pensions, they worked cheap and didn’t have too many demands. The government cut back on their benefits and didn’t ask too many questions. The company charged thirty-five bucks an hour for each of them and paid minimum wage.

Devonchek’s son-in-law was the foreman. A lazy no-good son-of-a-bitch, if gossip was any guide. He had a brand-new white pickup with the company logo, cowboy boots and a sparkling white hard hat with goggles slung on it like Rommel. By now, Stirling had noticed him.

Hey, Stretch, how’s the weather up there?

I hear you have a big strike coming up, said Brendan. I’d like a shot.

It was his longest communication since being hired. The boss took a good long look at him.

It’ll be a tough one. There is an ugly mood down at the plant. Management may lock them out before the deadline. Lockouts were worse than walkouts, especially right off the bat. Strikes tended to get uglier over time.

I’d like to be there, sir.

Well, we do need lots of people. You don’t have much time and experience in the security industry, Devonchek mused aloud, mostly for his own benefit.

Will you be running an ad in the paper? Hartle tried diplomacy.

Yes, we will, my boy, admitted Devonchek. Tell you what. If you want to meet Tom Anderson here at the office, six thirty a.m. tomorrow, you can have a crack at it. They meet in the parking lot. Now take off, because I have to figure out how to cover your job at the mall tomorrow. They really like you down there, you know.

Really? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. The older man just laughed.

Twelve hour shifts, three on and three off, Stirling said. Seriously, thefts are down about fifteen percent since we put you in there.

Awesome.

I heard you asked out Joanne, the one in the candy department at J-Mart. Devonchek winced. She’s stunning! Really, she’s the most beautiful one in the whole mall.

She’s going to marry the assistant manager. M-6. He’s in charge of house-wares.

For some reason, Joanne was the only one in the whole mall who interested Brendan.

It was just his luck, really.

Well, it’s her loss.

Brendan agreed inwardly, but let it drop as about this time he was overwhelmed by a powerful thirst.

Gripping the shirts by the hangar, he bid them all adieu.

Chapter Two

A night on the line…

Conditions on the strike were not too bad if you didn’t take it personal.

Sometimes, at night, a volley of rocks rattled, banged and bounced off the metal siding of the rail car unloading terminal near the front gate. When the spring nights warmed up, the beer came out. This happened mostly Friday and Saturday nights. On those nights, beer bottles were a kind of ammunition.

The strikers called them ‘scabs.’

Well, I didn’t have a job at all before! Brendan yelled right back, and took it with as much grace as he could muster.

Because the company refused to hire helicopters or feed them all three times a day, so they crossed the picket line twice daily. This happened while cops watched, and then after the shift change was complete, they drove away. There was a sense of the dangers, but the people on both sides also knew it was just a game.

A lot of insults, name-calling, threats, various harassments and provocations were offered to the guards. The strikers were just outside the fence and on the other side of the gate. Days were better, but also hot and boring. At least you could see them. At night when someone sneaked off into the darkness of the surrounding industrial blight, you had to try to keep track of them. Once the shift supervisor, Tom, was narrowly missed by a bottle thrown out of the mist and darkness. The men and women huddled around the fire barrel varied in mood, numbers and intentions. You had to be alert and take nothing at face value. One time a striker called Brendan over to the fence. It was a quiet shift on a Sunday night, with everything low-key and friendly. The strikers were settling down for the long haul. The strikers rotated shifts as well. Some of the older people seemed quite civilized, even mellow at times. The guy spat in Brendan’s face as soon as he came near. He retreated from the fence cursing, wiping off the saliva with his bandanna.

That’ll teach you!

His partner was a nineteen year old, a tattooed and ear-ringed, brush-cut and bleached-blonde crack-head named Lance.

Anderson, who was right there with them, took Hartle aside.

Do you want to see if we can get a picture, identify this turkey and maybe lay a charge?

Hell, no. I’ve got better things to do than hang around in courtrooms.

Anderson smiled.

Mind you, I never forget a face like that.

That’s the spirit. Save us both a lot of paperwork. Tom clapped a pudgy and flaccid hand on Brendan’s big shoulder.

Dusk was coming on, and the sky was ablaze.

Just about time to rotate the guys. Brendan tilted his head back for a long look at the clouds scudding past a waxing yellowy moon, down low in the east.

Why don’t you take the truck, you could use a bit of a break. I’ve been meaning to start training you as a supervisor.

You mean do the rotation? asked Brendan.

Yes. All you do is… Anderson began.

I know the routine! Take the guys from the lunchroom to the front gate, front gate to gate two, and so on and so on. And the guys out back return to the lunchroom. Dead simple, really.

Anderson was unaware that the sheer simplicity of his job made his bald, lumpy, buck-toothed figure unimpressive in the eyes of his crew.

And if it rains later, I have a couple of boxes of new raincoats in the trailer.

Right. Brendan turned and made his way through the gloom of the bulk-loading terminal, the pale glimmer of train tracks pointing off to the lighter rectangle of the door at the other end. The truck was parked out of the reach of rocks and beer bottles.

***

Later that night, Brendan and Lance were out watching the rear fence line, where a small piece of woodlot and prairie came right up to the fence. On the other side a pair of ruts running through the long grass beside the fence offered the vague suggestion of a trail in the dim lights of a chemical plant a quarter of a kilometre away.

With his bladder full of coffee, Hartle went down the berm surrounding the oil tanks and stood by a small bush. He took his time and thoroughly relieved himself. Only a half a dozen stars were visible in the haze and light of the urban sky.

After making his way back up the embankment, he was standing there chatting in a desultory fashion with the younger lad, not much intellectual content here, and was startled to hear a ‘ssip-sssip-sssip’ in the long grass near the fence. He grabbed Lance’s arm.

Shush. He interrupted Lance in mid-sentence.

He pointed in disbelief. A figure was moving away from the fence, in about the vicinity of the weeds and bushes where he was just standing. A dark, amorphous figure, slightly hunched over, was now turning away in the opposite direction along the path, sidling along in a slouch, furtive and casual at the same time. Lance giggled uncontrollably, stamping his feet and slapping his thigh, almost falling over in his glee.

Holy, fuck, I don’t believe it!

Is that him? asked Brendan.

Lance spent a moment watching the retreating figure through a cheap pair of night-vision glasses, a recent company purchase.

Goddamn! Lance chuckled. It sure looks like Murphy.

Is that his name? I was just wondering where the hare-lipped little sucker got off to. Brendan watched in amazement.

Then he started laughing too. He went down the berm again, where the fence still glistened with wetness. Shining his flashlight around, he reconstructed events and saw the flattened grass.

Holy crap, what a dedicated little fucker. He belly crawled all along the base of the fence! Just to hear us talk.

Sure hope it was worth it. Lance scratched himself in disbelief.

I swear to God, I didn’t know he was there, Brendan called into the darkness.

Did you get ‘em?

I don’t know. Maybe that’s why he left, theorized Hartle. Heh-heh-heh-heh.

Chapter Three

He just wants to sit and think…

Three months on strike duty and it became routine. Head honcho Stirling Devonchek called one day at about three in the afternoon. It was the first of Brendan’s days off.

I got a really good one. As usual, he said it without identifying himself, hardly necessary in light of his ten cigars a day habit and that gravelly voice.

No one else ever called since he moved to Toronto. His mom got plenty of phone calls, but he didn’t mind taking messages and soon learned to ignore the ringing and let the machine pick it up. He was expecting a call from Shakey Bill, a guy he met on a construction project. He was hoping to scoop up a quarter bag of pot. He picked it up without thinking.

You’ll like this one. You’re just the man for the job. You can study your school books and get valuable experience in different aspects of the security industry. Devonchek always talked like that.

All you have to do is sit at the airport and guard this big building.

The terminal? What the heck was wrong with Stirling? All the crew thought he was a closet nutcase.

One minute he sounded like a university lecturer and the next minute the village idiot. Maybe he was in the middle of three phone calls at once.

What? No, it’s a hangar, hangar forty-three.

Twelve hours?

Brendan honestly didn’t need it right now. For the first time in a long time he was simply awash with cash, and had no idea of what to do with it—no ‘life plan’ in effect! He needed the sleep, he needed to have some fun. He needed time to think. But he couldn’t just tell the big boss, ‘I don’t want to go.’

He had to stall, think up a valid excuse. That was why Stirling mentioned the schoolbooks, heading him off at the pass. It was no big thing. Brendan was trying to get his English 211, and was having a hard time with it. Every so often, he missed a night class due to work. It was the last credit he needed. Then he would have two years of college, a General Education Diploma. Not that I’m a lazy son of a bitch, he thought. You have to stall, and having just awoken from a three-hour nap, he was a bit slow on the uptake.

Well, the car’s not running too good and the airport’s way the hell out there.

No problem! I’ll have Tom drop off one of the pickups on his way home.

Devonchek meant that Tom’s wife would follow him to Brendan’s and the two of them could then go their own way. She often picked Tom up at the end of the shift, as the family only had one car. The fucker had him, damn it. Anderson lived only a few blocks away.

Tom? Doesn’t he ever sleep? Brendan tried to stall, wracking his brain in a whirl for something plausible.

He sighed at the inevitability of it all.

Do you want it? asked Stirling.

Okey-dokey. The minute he hung up the phone, he regretted it, as he remembered school was tonight.

Today’s Tuesday, right?

Why me?

It was the last stinking credit. He missed last week’s class as well. The clock by his bedside mocked him.

Damn it all to hell. In three and a half hours, he would be on duty.

What a wasted life.

***

He dreamed of being a bush pilot.

Brendan had always liked airplanes, but sitting in a truck on a dark and rainy night outside of a hangar was awfully boring. There were no windows, just two doors and a half a dozen mercury-halide security lights on the building’s exterior. One door was a three-foot by seven-foot hollow metal door. Unpainted, its zinc swipe-coat gleamed dully as the rain fell upon it. It was blank except for the keyhole, an aluminum knob and three hinges, or technically speaking, ‘ball bearing butts.’

The other was a fiberglass sectional overhead door about forty metres wide, twenty-five metres high and completely blank except the seams and a row of tiny slit windows.

They were simple horizontal slots about two metres up, one every three metres or so. It was white. When he got there, he tried to look in but an object obscured a dim glow from the rear of the building and he couldn’t make out what it was.

Not the most architecturally detailed of buildings, he mused wryly.

Very observant.

Yes, sir, you’ll go a long way in the security business, young man…long way. Long, long, way…

He grimaced and tried to hold off on eating all of his lunch too soon. The radio crackled with distant lightning bursts. The song was ‘Fool in the rain,’ by Led Zeppelin.

On impulse he got out of the truck and went to the small door. Security is like that sometimes. Nothing ever happens, but a man must keep busy, or fall asleep. This job only paid about twelve bucks an hour. The rate was based on whatever the traffic would bear. It was better than the mall, anyhow. He could fill in the logbook, detail the interior of the truck, or he could walk, just to keep from going quietly nuts.

Before it even registered that the handle was turning, he gave it a little jerk and it popped open. He paused for a moment. It wasn’t all that much of a surprise. He had found a few things on security patrols. He had heard all the stories of the other guards, even one story, perhaps apocryphal, of a bank leaving the doors unlocked over a three-day holiday weekend. Not too sure he believed that one. Imagine if someone came along and tried the door! All urban legends have a moral, he knew. Whoever did it was up shit creek, that is for sure.

If the door hadn’t opened, Brendan would have gone around the building, back to the truck and had another smoke. No doubt, some harried type-A personality forgot to lock it on his way home, briefcase in hand and coattails flapping as he worried about his next performance analysis. Or maybe George, the guy he relieved, fell asleep or went to the terminal for a dump. Maybe some kids got in while he was away. Kids do that sort of thing, he thought vaguely. Snapping on his flashlight, he eased the door the rest of the way open and stepped in quietly. He looked for the switch panel, ears and consciousness agog. He had a strong suspicion there was nobody here. The panel should be right by the opening, but it wasn’t.

Cursing quietly, he groped further. Nothing. Trying not to stumble over boxes of tools, air hoses and wires, a loading ramp, step-platforms on wheels, a small, box-like ground service vehicle loomed up. In spite of his flashlight and precautions, he banged a knee on something with a ‘whang’ sound. It was a pile of pipes, flat-bar, and lengths of aluminum angle, all on a rack with one sticking out.

‘Idiots,’ he thought, having been a helper in a welding shop at sixteen. He simply couldn’t point the light everywhere at once.

Shit. The word was swallowed in the silence.

He was getting the impression of a tool crib or fabrication shop.

Behind a welding flash-shield, a feeble glow came from a small office cubicle at the very back. There was a wide electrical panel on its left outer wall. Thick cables came down from the roof into the top of it. Taking an educated guess, he tried the breaker labeled, ‘lights.’

Big overhead amber pods glared and a soft hum came from them.

That’s better.

Turning, he was finally able to see the object that dominated the space of the hangar, and he came close, very close to shitting himself. It was a space vehicle. He knew it instantly, although it resembled nothing he had ever seen, either for real, on TV, or in a movie. It was huge, gleaming in the soft, overhead light as he stood there gasping like a beached carp.

Holy crap!

Time passed, maybe half a minute.

Holy crap, he repeated.

He was beginning to wonder if he might be in a little trouble. Other than the hum from the lights and the soft patter of rain on the roof, the building was dead silent. By now, he was sure there was no one else in the building. The small noises were confirmation of the emptiness.

Holy.

Still feeling that he had done something wrong, he headed for the door. Then he remembered that he couldn’t leave the lights on, and hesitated. He found himself unable to take his eyes off the thing. The beauty, the sheer size and complexity of it overwhelmed him! One good look and he was hooked.

Not that they ever tell you anything in this job. He spoke aloud. Although, most of the time they at least tell you the name of the company.

Devonchek hadn’t given him a direct order to stay out…only ‘guard it until relieved.’

And be careful not to fall asleep.

Brendan wasn’t going to fall asleep now, not with that thing in here. He went back outside, got his smokes from the dash, and his camera. He put his phone in his top shirt pocket. He locked up the truck. Calmer now, he returned to the interior of the hangar, locking the door behind him to avoid surprises.

He slowly walked around it, feasting his eyes, savouring the moment and the fact that he was all alone with it. It was the most awesome flying machine he had ever seen. It was so big he wondered how they brought it in without hitting anything, as large as the hangar door looked at first glance. It grazed the cantilevered roof girders, hulking there in the glare of the lights. Smooth-polished but dull, there was no problem finding the back end of the machine. It had four large blackened holes, nacelles visible bulging out from the razor-sharp line that was the trailing edge. There was a suggestion, a faint clue from certain very tight seams. Co-axial vectored thrust.

What in the hell was it doing here?

He gulped air, and kept moving. To Brendan, it most resembled a weapon, like an arrowhead, a spear point. There were canard fore-planes, viciously streamlined and sharp, drooping like on a B-1 bomber. The lower fuselage blended into the wing in soft compound curves. The thing sat on what looked like retractable skids. This thing wasn’t meant to be launched from a rail! It clearly had elevons or ailerons, flaps and elevators, rudder surfaces, twin fins starkly pointing at the roof, swept back and angled outwards for presumably, low radar signature. He saw a shiny little plate on the front skid support, a radar reflector for some landing system.

The craft was a thickened-up version of the classic paper airplane, only a million times more controllable.

You don’t need all this stuff in space. This thing flies in the air. He wondered how much it weighed.

There were other holes and projections, though not as many as one might expect. He took a look at a cluster of smaller holes on a wing tip, which was thicker than the main section of airfoil beside it. The holes went up, down, front, back, and on multiple angles. The hole in front was the same size as the hole in the back end.

Holy. He deduced, perhaps erroneously, some kind of reaction attitude control.

Here he found the same discolouration as the engine outlets. His jaw dropped a little when he realized there were no intakes visible anywhere on the machine. He rubbed with a fingertip but none of the stain came off. And the colour wasn’t black. It was more of a metallic, greenish blue. Sure enough, there were four big outlets on the nose, almost undoubtedly for braking. Again there was the same discolouration.

Something to do with the heat. It was purely a guess. Like when you weld certain alloys. Welds!

He looked for welds, but the lines on the body of the thing just looked like seams drawn on with a graphics pen. There were no rivets.

Just amazing, he thought. There were no ceramic tiles on the bottom—it was all of a piece, all one material, all one surface. He went out to the front by the door and stood looking at the thing in an overall view. He saw a pair of black shinier surfaces near the wickedly pointed front end. His impression of blended fuselage contours was confirmed above the wing as well, now that he could see it properly.

Those curved panels were possibly windows, or cameras or sensors or radar scanners or something. He couldn’t see through into the cockpit. His angle was wrong, maybe the cockpit was just dark inside, or maybe there was some radar-absorbing coating on the glass? None of this made any sense. This was just way too advanced for any Canadian space technology project. No one he ever heard of had a space program like this. Certainly not in a building like this, with dusty tools lying around in heaps, and with cobwebs in all the corners.

What is going on around here? He was in big trouble now…

He pulled out his digital camera and began to look at the ship from all angles, hoping the batteries wouldn’t fail him in his hour of need. Setting it up for the type of lighting, he began to shoot.

He wandered around under the thing, looking up into the landing gear wells, which looked like you would expect. After all, a Grumman Avenger has hydraulic rams, locking pins, tubes and wires clipped to bulkheads, rubber grommets where things came through from the other side. But he didn’t know how to interpret some things, a little black box here, a round red module about twenty centimetres in diameter there. Was it some kind of a gas bottle, maybe to pressurize a system? Would pneumatics work in space temperatures, close to absolute zero? The questions were endless, yet he kept asking them in his mind.

It was fascinating. His old man built model aircraft for him and his brother as kids. Even his little sister flew control-line planes at about ten years old, probably just to be with dad and her big brothers. He grinned a little in fond memory.

Continuing to poke and prod, sniff and nod, Brendan built a number of models, some of his own design. He had read hundreds or even thousands of books on aviation, flying, air power, as well as World War One and World War Two combat flying. He always wanted to get a pilot’s license.

He would have loved to own his own plane, maybe become a bush pilot somewhere.

It didn’t have to be in northern Canada, after all. It could be anywhere. Maybe if he got a better education and saved up a little money, he might own his own plane someday. Growing up, he was about eleven years old during the Apollo Program, and sitting there with dad in the living room watching black and white TV when the first ‘Star Trek’ episode ran.

For the most part, Hartle accepted his lot in life, but a man had to dream, or he had nothing. Everyone knew the destination wasn’t the important thing—it was the journey.

The struggle is its own reward. He snickered as he photographed the thing from a low three-quarter view.

He squatted in the furthest front corner of the vast room. Briefly, he thought of his struggle with Amy, who literally absconded with his credit cards, claiming, ‘he owed her…’ One of the reasons for selling the house, was that he figured