Spontaneous Combustion

By Thom Nichols

A werewolf doesn't transform into existence, it is exchanged into this world from a parallel universe ruled by evil magic. Greg spontaneously combusting finds himself in that world. Befriending strange people, Greg finds that he was brought here for a reason. Hunted by the werewolves, he has to learn to use evil magic to try to escape and return to his world. But, it exacts a terrible price.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thom Nichols
• Release date: Oct 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452379005

Thom Nichols

Thom L. Nichols was born under a mountain in Mt. Shasta California. He grew up in Arizona, but has lived all over the United States. Starting out in the Marine Corps, he has had a multitude of jobs ranging from overnight security guard to UNIX Senior Specialist and everything in between. He married his wife of nineteen years (So far) two weeks after meeting her. He has three children and one granddaughter (So far). He has been writing since he was born, but always for fun. He wanted to get his degree in English so that he could become a writer, but with a family he decided to go the safe way and went into computers. Now that the kids are pretty much grown and moving out, he decided to follow his dream.

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Spontaneous Combustion

Thom Nichols

Published by Thom Nichols at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Thom Nichols

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

01. Landing

I know what I saw! Greg glared over his shoulder. Pulling his hands from the water, Greg looked at the plate. He was at the sink washing the evening dishes. Mumbling under his breath, Greg remembered last night. He was outside watering the grass when it happened. An eerie green light appeared behind him lighting up the yard and turning the water droplets into a sparkling firework display.

Turning around in his robe and flip flops, he saw it glide through the air over his house. Stunned, Greg watched as the object teetered in the air for a moment and then zipped away toward the Phoenix highway. There was no doubt in his mind what it was. Rushing into the house, Greg tried to explain it to his wife. It wasn’t exactly an argument. She didn’t take him seriously at first. Then, over the course of the next day, she tried to convince him that he was wrong.

Amy came up behind him. Squeezing her arms around his waist, she stretched them to the sink so that she could feel the stream of rinse water under the faucet. Greg placed the plate in the plastic dish rack as her body pressed up against his. She squeezed him tightly with her elbows and leaned her cheek against his shoulder.

Sighing, Greg wasn’t going to let her get away with it. He was right and he wasn’t going to let her seduce him into giving in. Well, he might let her seduce him, but he still wasn’t going to give in. He twisted to the side and she slid in front of him. Her hands were thick with car grease. She grabbed the small bottle of dish washing soap and squeezed a liberal amount in her palm. Flinging off the excess water from his hands, Greg placed his hands over her hands and helped her lather up.

Unable to resist, Greg breathed in deeply. The smell of her hair was intoxicating. Pressing his body against hers, Greg could feel her snuggle into his arms. Amy twisted her head around and kissed him gently on the chin. I know you think you saw it. She shrugged as she turned back to her soapy hands. I’m just saying that it might be a helicopter or something. You said it was dark. Those things have lights that can be misleading.

It wasn’t a helicopter. Greg said firmly. And, it wasn’t that dark. I could see it clearly. It was a UFO.

Rinsing off her hands, Amy twisted around in his grasp so that she was facing him. Pulling her arms up, she wrapped them around his neck and stood on her tippy toes. Greg was much taller and she fit easily in his arms. Letting his hands fall to her waist, Greg hugged her tightly. Kissing him quickly, Amy darted out from under him. Think about it, She smiled as she walked out of the kitchen unbuttoning her blouse. Don’t you think it’s more likely that you saw a balloon or something? If it really was a UFO, don’t you think that someone else would have seen it? There wasn’t anything on the news last night or today, was there?

Groaning, Greg muttered a disgruntled No under his breath. Amy didn’t hear him. She had already turned the corner and was down the hallway not waiting for an answer. Greg looked down at the soapy water in the left side of the sink. He was almost finished. I know what I saw. He muttered again to himself. He rinsed off the greasy soap and grabbed the last plate and ran it under the rinse water. He glanced up at the small window over the sink. It was dark outside and he couldn’t even see any stars. Still, he peered out toward the left and right before he gave up. I know what I saw.

Determined to prove himself, Greg considered his options as he unplugged the left hand sink and watched as the dishwater drained from the basin. His best option was to stay up all night with his telescope and watch the skies. Amy would probably complain. Groaning, Greg imagined her coming out to watch with him for a while. He could already hear the endless stream of derogatory comments. She would most likely convince him to come in and then she’d win.

The only other option was to find some evidence. If the UFO came all the way out to this little out of the way town, it most likely landed somewhere. It wasn’t going fast enough to just be flying past. Pausing for a moment to think, Greg considered going out and driving in the direction it flew off into. He glanced at the hallway shaking his head. No, she’d never let me get away with going out at night without her.

Sighing in defeat, Greg turned toward the dish wrack. Reaching for it, Greg stopped and then smiled. His schedule was pretty light tomorrow. He knew which direction the UFO was going. He could easily sneak out and check out the area. If the UFO was interested in Wickenburg enough to fly so close, it probably landed fairly nearby, probably somewhere on the outskirts of town.

Wiping down the table, the stove, and the counter, Greg cast his mind toward the outskirts. What’s out there? He wondered. It might have landed in the rest area. That was only a few miles out of town and no one really went out there except for kids to make out. It was a Wednesday, which made yesterday a Tuesday and they were both school days. There probably wouldn’t have been too many kids out there either days and definitely wouldn’t be any during the day. The aliens could have easily landed without anyone seeing them. And, it was a big area. They would have a lot of room to do alien things.

Leaving the kitchen, Greg looked over at the computer room. He could probably look up maps of the area to see if there were any other logical places for a UFO to land. Amy walked around the corner. She was carrying a small basket of laundry. Shaking his head, Greg decided he would keep his alien quest to himself for now. Amy didn’t want to listen and she would just scoff unless he brought her proof. He followed her to the living room.

Sitting down in the recliner, Greg looked over at his wife. She had changed into her pajamas. It was only a long shirt that came down to her knees. He had gotten it for her on their first Christmas together. It had a picture of a fuzzy cat wearing a Santa hat opening a large present with a big blue bow. She was taking up the entire sofa as she matched socks.

Amy was a very attractive brunette. She had her hair pulled up into a ponytail. She had long curly hair, but she always wore it up. Her complaint was that it was much too hot to leave it down. She also constantly threatened to cut it, but in their three years of marriage and their two years of dating, she never followed through.

Shaking his head, Greg wondered how he became so lucky to attract her to him. They met in college five years ago. He was studying computer science and she was studying law. They were each in their last year and were set up on a blind date. They didn’t have anything in common. As it turned out, that was just what both of them wanted.

She came from a long line of lawyers and all of his friends were programmers and systems administrators. It was nice for both of them to be able to talk to someone outside of their fields. They found out that they were still people and not careers. They took the time to go out and do things that didn’t relate to law or computers, like walking down by the lake, watching movies, and miniature golf. They developed new interests that they could both share and in early spring, after they had entered into their respective fields, they were married.

The only thing Greg really hated about Amy was her stubborn streak. He wasn’t sure if it was just her or if it was a prerequisite for lawyers, but she could argue over anything. And, if she knew she was right, she would go to great lengths to prove her point. He knew that if he were to press his insistence that he really did see a UFO, she wouldn’t drop it until he gave in and admitted it might have been something else. Yes, He whispered under his breath and nodded. He was definitely going to have to get some kind of proof. Tomorrow was going to be the day.

Did you get all of the recordings? Amy asked casually without looking up at him.

Turning to glance at the TV, Greg grunted in the affirmative. One of their developed interests was TV shows. Neither of them watched much TV while growing up or in college. It was always something old married couples did. They had always preferred to go out and experience things in real life instead of just sitting on the sofa and watching someone else doing them. Then, without either of them realizing what was happening, they were hooked.

It began during flu season. They both were bedridden for nearly a week and although they were given work to do in bed, they kept the TV on continuously. It was miserable being sick. It was hard to read and difficult to concentrate when your head felt like it was going to explode. It was much easier lying back and watching the television where they didn’t have to concentrate or even follow along very closely. After a day or so, they completed their work. But, they found themselves doing it during commercials. It turned out that the flu wasn’t so bad when you were able to laugh at other people doing crazy things on the boob tube.

They developed favorite shows and after they recovered, they recorded them every week. They had to record them because of their work schedules. They liked watching their shows together and during the week, one or both of them could be called away at any time. Another problem was that, over the years, the shows sometimes aired on different days of the week and at different times than when they started. If they weren’t careful, they would set the DVR up to record at a certain time and end up catching something they weren’t expecting. If they ended up liking it, they had to add it to their list. Now they had so many shows that they spent a good portion of their weekend catching up on everything.

Grabbing the remote, Greg checked. He had them set up to automatically record, but he hadn’t checked them recently. After verifying, he flicked through the recordings they needed to watch. There were seven. Greg actually liked to watch the recordings better than when they aired. That way, he could speed through the commercials.

Stopping at one of the shows, Greg glanced over at Amy. She was still involved in the socks. He had watched this one without her yesterday. It wasn’t the normal cop or lawyer or doctor TV show. It was about an alien invasion. He thought for a moment. Could watching that particular show have influenced his mind into seeing something that wasn’t there?

Closing the option screen quickly, Greg looked back over at Amy. Wouldn’t that just suck? What if he went out to the rest area tomorrow and there was nothing out there? He didn’t even know if that was where the aliens landed. They might have flown by and moved off to Phoenix. Wouldn’t that be more logical? Wouldn’t they want to visit a large city instead of a small town? And, what could they possibly do at a rest area?

Sighing, Greg shook his head. He wasn’t going to find anything out there. But, he was so sure. Life just wasn’t fair. He glanced at Amy. He didn’t want her to win this one. Shaking his head, Greg gritted his teeth and argued silently with himself. No, they would want a small town so that they wouldn’t be seen. And, aliens did all kinds of weird stuff. They would want somewhere private like a rest area to do their anal probes and stuff. Yes, He told himself. I am going to find something out there.

Amy looked up from the sofa. She had just thrown all of the socks back into the basket. She winked at him and he moved over to the sofa with her. Pushing the basket to the side, he let her lean up against him and they spent an enjoyable evening watching their favorite shows.

In the morning, Greg watched Amy getting dressed. He was still in bed resting his chin in his hands. She put on an expensive business suit and spent nearly an hour fixing her hair and applying makeup. As she began picking out her accessories, necklaces, rings and whatnot, Greg crawled out of bed.

Stumbling downstairs to the kitchen in his bare feet and pajama bottoms, Greg turned on the stove. He pulled out pans and eggs and bacon. Within minutes, he had a nice breakfast ready. Amy exited the bedroom, came downstairs, and sat down at the table with him. They looked like an unlikely couple. She was impeccably dressed and his hair was pointing in eight different directions.

They chitchatted about their days and Greg kissed her as she set off for work. Standing in the doorway, he watched her as she headed for her car in the driveway. Overnight, he’d changed his mind again and decided against going out to the rest area to look for evidence of an alien landing. It would be fruitless anyway. He wasn’t going to find anything. He might as well let it drop. As Amy closed the car door, Greg reached down to pick up the newspaper.

Greg, Amy shouted through her open window as she pulled out of the driveway. Look an alien. She was pointing toward the neighbor’s yard. Greg looked over and saw the landscaper’s truck pulling up into the neighbor’s driveway. Amy snickered. An illegal alien.

That’s not funny. Greg shook his head as she drove away. He didn’t know if Fernando was illegal or not, but he worked on their lawn and yard every Monday and Friday and did a great job. Greg waved at the landscaper and stormed back into the house. That settles it. He growled throwing the paper on the hallway junk table. He changed his mind again. He was going to head out to the rest area.

Walking over to the computer room, Greg sat down at his desk. Swiping the mouse, he pulled up his email. There were several unimportant ones and one that was computer generated. He opened it and smirked. He had been working on a program to fix a queue problem for nearly two weeks. The email told him that it worked.

Greg was a UNIX programmer and a tier three technician. Tier one was the help desk. Tier two was the hardware guys. They replaced keyboards and monitors and fixed problems that the help desk couldn’t solve. Greg was the fall back guy. Anything that the other tiers couldn’t fix was his responsibility.

He worked at home unless he was forced to go into the office. Greg had six computers in his computer room. Three were for work. One was his to play around with. He was a gamer and had that system set up just for games. One was Amy’s and one was an extra for anyone that came over and needed to use it. He logged into his work’s network with one of his PCs and moved to his Spark20 UNIX box while everything was loading.

The UNIX box was a server named Hotlips. The naming convention at work required everyone to name their servers after characters from an old TV show called MASH. The original programmer who set the system up was a huge fan. Greg liked to tease Amy by telling her that he was going to go stroke Hotlips’s keys. She often called his computers ‘the other woman’.

Hotlips was an exact duplicate of Hawkeye, the main server that ran the SNAPS application, Strategic New Applications Processing System. There were over a thousand people using the SNAPS application, and it was Greg’s job to keep it up and running. So, whenever he needed to make a change, he would perform it on Hotlips first. That way he could test it and try to break it before he placed it into production. He always thought that it was funny that to put something into production from home, he had to do it from a Windows PC instead of from his UNIX box.

After spending thirty minutes checking the logs from the new program he installed, Greg turned back to his Windows PC. He opened a program called Putty which was a UNIX emulator. It actually opened a Dos window that acted like a UNIX screen. He logged into both Hotlips and Hawkeye though it and added his change. It only took about fifteen seconds. Then, he looked at his work email. There was about half a dozen things he should work on, but there wasn’t anything really pending.

Smiling, Greg leaned back. He felt a little nervous. He really shouldn’t just leave. But, everything looked good. Everything was running smoothly. He could probably run a health check to verify, but he had programs in place that would text him if anything was going wrong. Taking a look at his inbox, Greg scanned his upcoming projects. Nothing needed to be started this week. Most of them would only take a few days anyway. Butterflies began fluttering in his stomach. Taking a deep breath, Greg pushed himself away from the computer. All right, he convinced himself. I’m going to do it.

It only took him a few minutes in the car for his breathing to return to normal. The farther away from his house he got, the easier it was to forget about work. It was a warm spring day. Pretty soon, it would begin to get hot. Greg lived in a little Arizona town called Wickenburg. It was about fifty miles North West of Phoenix. It didn’t get as hot as Phoenix, but you could still cook breakfast on the sidewalks during the summer.

Crossing the bridge that led out of town, Greg moved into line with the commuters on their way to Phoenix. He was glad that he didn’t have to drive that stretch to work every day. As driver after driver passed him, he could see their deadpan stares. None of them looked happy. He smiled. He loved his job. Telecommuting was the way to go.

It took him only a few minutes to reach the rest area. Parking next to the little restroom building, Greg stepped out and began to look around. The rest area was a well manicured park. There was grass next to the building and a desert theme in the surrounding areas. The building had a main lobby area and bathrooms on either side. There were maps and leisure brochures in the lobby along with several snack and soda pop machines. Greg had been inside the lobby several times and he didn’t think the aliens had gone inside. So, he kept to the surrounding areas. Everything outside looked perfectly normal. There weren’t any other cars in the large rectangular lot, and no one sitting at the three benches.

Spending about twenty minutes wandering around the contrasting landscapes, Greg was about to give up. There weren’t any scorch marks on the ground or broken trees or anything that remotely looked like an alien landing. There also weren’t any alien artifacts lying about or amnesiac people wandering around after their abductions. Slightly depressed, Greg picked up a stick and began beating the brush that was built up behind the small park.

After making a passable section in the bramble, Greg took a few steps through. He knew that the Hassayampa River ran, or didn’t run, back there somewhere. The Hassayampa was a river with a dry riverbed on top. It only had water running in it a few times a year. The rest of the time, the water ran underground.

Greg didn’t want to venture too far past the manicured park area in case he accidentally fell into the river. Unlike the rest of the desert, the area in and around the Hassayampa was shrouded in trees and bushes. But, there were rocks, broken tree branches, and things he could land on if he stumbled. Since the water wasn’t that far underground, there were also a lot of wild animals that lived in the riverbed.

Greg was ok with the scorpions and the snakes. But, he was deathly afraid of Gila Monsters. They were huge venomous lizards that could reach two feet long. Their mouth muscles were so strong that when they bit you, they hung on with a death grip. You had to literally rip the skin off of your arm to remove them. They just wouldn’t let go. It made him shiver even thinking about them.

Finding a little clearing, Greg found the river bank. Making his way to it, he stood on the edge. The riverbed was about ten feet down and the other side was about a hundred yards across. He couldn’t see very far up or down the river, it was twisting around a small mountain.

Sighing, Greg shook his head. He knew that this was a long shot, but he was still hoping. Picking up a few rocks, Greg tossed them casually into the dry riverbed. Swearing under his breath, Greg threw the last rock as hard as he could. It didn’t even come close to reaching the other side. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to bring up the subject of UFOs with Amy ever again. It was very aggravating.

As Greg turned around, he only managed one step before a beam of blue light flashed past his shoulder. He jerked his head up just in time to see a burn mark materialize in a tree. A tiny branch fell from the spot the light struck and fell to the ground. Quickly, Greg turned around. There wasn’t anything behind him except for the riverbed.

Taking another step closer, Greg saw another small burst of blue light. This time, it flashed past his arm. It came from a large rock sitting in the middle of the riverbed and it passed him exactly where he was standing a second ago. What the..? Greg muttered. He ducked down and moved along the edge of the riverbank to see if he could get a better look. Could an alien be hiding behind that rock? Maybe it thought that Greg was attacking it when he started throwing rocks.

Again, a beam of blue light flashed past the place he was standing a few seconds ago. Squinting his eyes tightly against the sun, Greg looked closer at the large rock down there. It was dull colored and looked like sandstone. It was big, about knee high and about two or three feet wide. He was sure that it weighted more than he could lift. As he bent forward, another beam flew past him. It would have struck his head if he wouldn’t have bent forward. Someone really is firing at me? He whispered hunkering down even more.

Either curiosity or a desperate need to be right camouflaged his fear. Greg jumped down the side of the riverbank and moved a lot closer. He crouched behind trees and bushes as he crept forward. Suddenly, someone shouted. Stay where you are! The voice was mechanical and sounded a little nasally. It was coming from the large rock. Several more beams of blue light were fired in his direction, but they were nowhere near hitting him.

Who are you? Greg shouted back at the rock. He moved behind a small bank of sand and poked his head out to see. To his surprise, the large sandstone rock began lighting up. All along the side and on the very top small blinking green lights appeared. A hazy dark mist was forming around its edges. Greg noted that from the angle he was at now, the rock was more saucer shaped than round. But, it was only a few feet in diameter. Greg could have wrapped his arms around it if he tried. Whoever was firing at him wasn’t firing from behind the rock they were firing from inside it. But, that would only make them about… Greg held up his fingers less than an inch apart in confusion.

Shaking his head, Greg peered at the UFO again. He could see small windows alongside the side of the saucer and small legs underneath it with skis on them. Wait a minute. Greg said out loud, but to himself. That can’t be the UFO I saw. He scooted to a better location and looked again. The one I saw was huge… Wasn’t it?

Leaning back on the sand, Greg thought about the UFO he had seen. It was pretty dark. The sun had been down for about two hours when he went outside to turn on the sprinklers. He looked up and saw something coming over the house that he thought was way up in the sky. The green glow made it look strange. He glanced back at the small saucer. Could it have been that little thing over there? It did look kind of similar. Maybe it only looked like it was way up in the sky. Maybe it was only just over the garage and seemed far away. Movies sometimes used miniature objects in the front of something to make the other thing in the back seem huge.

Trying to wrap his mind around a pint sized space ship Greg realized that the aliens, if they were aliens, hadn’t answered him. He was getting a little impatient and curious. He wanted to get even closer, but he didn’t want to be shot at. Army style, Greg dropped prone to the ground and belly crawled around the sand bank. He kept his eyes open for whatever was shooting that blue light at him. He didn’t know what the light was but, he didn’t want to be struck by it.

About ten feet from the saucer, Greg spotted something. At first they looked like little statues, or toys like the little army men he played with as a child. There were about fifteen aliens. They were all carrying what could only be weapons. They were facing the bank where he was hiding before and they were moving incredibly slowly. They were in the process of turning toward his current position.

Jumping up, Greg took a step and vaulted the small squad of alien beings. Landing behind them, he saw that they were still turning toward the spot where he was just crawling. Their reaction time was so slow it was as if they hadn’t seen him leap over them. He bent down behind them and looked carefully at the squad. The aliens were very unusual looking. They looked mostly like caterpillars. They were only about three inches tall. Their upper bodies stood erect like a man’s. Their lower bodies crawled along the ground like a caterpillar. They had many legs and arms, and they only wore vest like shirts.

As Greg watched them continue to turn toward the position where he was crawling, he heard the voice again. Keep away, or we’ll be forced to open fire against you. At first Greg thought that the voice was coming from one of them, but it was squawking from a small device one of them was carrying on his back.

A few of the aliens stopped in mid turn and began turning the other way, toward him. They knew he was behind them, but their tiny little bodies couldn’t keep up with him. Greg chuckled. It was funny watching them move. It was like seeing something on TV moving in super slow motion. He thought about moving again, but that really wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Reaching down to the nearest alien, Greg grabbed the weapon from his hand. He carefully pulled it away so as not to hurt the tiny creature. The weapon was so small, Greg was forced to pinch it between two fingers and wasn’t able to inspect it very clearly. Shrugging, he placed it down near the space ship and quickly disarmed the others. He was going to try to talk to them and he didn’t want one of the weapons to accidentally go off.

He had seen Gulliver’s Travels, or a cartoon version of it on TV. He didn’t remember their weapons hurting Gulliver, but he didn’t want to take any chances. After all, a laser, even a microscopic one, was still a laser. And, one of them did snap that small branch off of the tree earlier.

I don’t want to hurt you. Greg said clearly and loudly. Kneeling down, he folded his arms and lowered his head so that he could rest his chin on them, on the ground. It wasn’t the best position. His head was angled down and his butt was in the air. But, it was either that or lying on the ground, and there were too many rocks right here to find a comfortable position. He didn’t want to move around a whole lot in case it made the aliens nervous. And, one of them might have a hidden weapon somewhere.

I only want to talk with you. Greg finished. He was sure that the little device the one near the front was carrying on his back was a translator. He was also sure that it would translate his words into their language if it could translate theirs into English. But, it was taking forever.

Waiting, Greg watched as the aliens finished turning. Then, they all expressed surprise as they looked at their hands to see their weapons missing. Greg smiled again as they moved at a snail’s pace to form a defensive stance. Then, he heard the translator squawk again. It wasn’t speaking English. It was spitting out a very slow chipmunk sound. Smiling, Greg knew he was right. That was his words being translated into their language. He was about to say something else, but stopped himself. He thought it better if he gave them a chance to respond. This was great. He couldn’t wait to make friends with these little people. He could bring them back to Amy and show her that he was right.

Smiling, Greg watched as several aliens turned toward the one with the translator. One of them pulled out a small device from some type of pouch Greg hadn’t noticed and pointed it at him. It didn’t look like a weapon. There were little lights on it and it looked more like a cell phone. After a few moments, it made an alternating buzzing and clicking sound. Even their machines move slowly. Greg smirked under his breath. He assumed that the small mechanism was some type of scanning device. Sighing, Greg continued smiling. He wanted to project a friendly nonthreatening atmosphere. He just wished it didn’t have to take so long.

Slowly, Greg saw the aliens turn toward each other. He assumed that they were talking amongst themselves. After a full three minutes, the voice from the translator spat out the word. Fire!

Looking at them with surprise and confusion, Greg furrowed his brow. He had taken their weapons. He could see that they hadn’t tried to pull out some type of concealed gun. He was about to ask what was going on, when he felt a stab in his side. In his periphery, he could see a light flash from the small space ship. Groaning in his head, Greg realized that he should have thought of that. The space ship had weapons too.

The sting of the ship’s weapons was like that of a bee. It was sharp and it hit him in the ribs. Greg’s body jerked as the pain caused a spasm. He tried to reach for it, but found that his body didn’t want to work. The sting was turning to pain and still his body wouldn’t function. It was frozen in place. He couldn’t move his head to see if he was bleeding or not. He couldn’t rub his side to massage the pain away. He couldn’t even roll his eyes toward the ship to see what was going on over there. Swearing, Greg realized that he was trapped.

02. Combustion

It took nearly an hour for the small squad of aliens that were on board the space ship to join the ones already on the ground. While they were disembarking, the first squad spread out around Greg. They found their guns and set up a perimeter. Greg could feel them touching him and climbing on him. It felt like ants crawling on his skin. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck bristling, but he couldn’t even shiver as their small bodies caused goose bumps to break out all over his body.

Greg continually cursed himself for the next twenty minutes. He couldn’t believe how stupid he was. Of course their space ship had weapons. They came a million miles away from who-knew-where. They probably had to travel through a lot of rough space. They would need some type of protection, especially because they were so small and moved so slow.

As the two squads converged, Greg wished they would say something to him. His joints were getting stiff and all the blood was rushing to his head. In retrospect, he wished he would have taken the prone position instead of this butt-in-the-air pose. Even with the rocks it would have been more comfortable.

As he watched the lead alien ordering around the others, Greg took a deep breath. Whatever they shot him with wasn’t affecting his insides. He was able to breathe and he could feel his pulse so he was sure his blood was flowing and his heart was beating. But, he couldn’t move even a finger of his outside body. Luckily, and unluckily, his eyes were open when they stung him. He was able to see what they were doing, but they had dried out and were really hurting now.

The only good thing that Greg had going for him was the translator. The aliens either forgot it was on or they didn’t think he could hear them in his current state. The alien soldier that was carrying the translator must have been some kind of communications officer. The leader of the aliens kept him near and was talking to the ship through another small device he was carrying.

I don’t care. A voice from the translator squawked. It was the voice Greg assumed was the captain of the space ship. It is too big to load and we can’t strap it to the outside. We’re going to have to leave it.

Greg knew they were talking about him. The leader of the soldiers was trying to convince the captain that this new species of creature needed to be studied. It was a little humiliating. They were talking about him like he was a deer carcass and they were the hunters trying to strap him to the fender of their car. But, The team leader insisted. The scientific advancements we could learn…

Immediately, Greg began cursing himself again. If they were talking scientific advancements, that sounded like they were going to perform experiments on him. The first thing that popped into his mind was an anal probe. He’d knew that was what all the aliens that snatch up people wanted to do. With his butt up in the air like it was, he was in the perfect position to be examined. Fortunately, he was wearing pants. And, these guys were much too small to force them off of him. Even if they tried to stick something in there, it would be microscopic and he probably wouldn’t feel anything. But, still, the thought of it sent more shivers down his spine.

After several minutes passed, the leader of the soldiers said. What are we going to do with it then? It’s much too fast to release. It would gobble us up before we could reach the ship and take off.

Anxious to find out what they were going to do with him, Greg suffered the agonizing wait it took for the ship’s captain to respond. He was feeling more and more happy that these guys were so small. He just wished they moved at normal speed. The interminable pausing between sentences was maddening. He couldn’t believe that people, even alien people, could move so slowly.

It must really suck for them to be caught out in a storm. Greg mused as he waited. They would be flooded before they could make it in out of the rain. As he imagined the little aliens stuck in a foot of snow, he wished he could spit on them just to see if they could get out of it.

Recall your troops. The ship’s captain ordered. We’re going to leave it like it is. The paralysis will dissipate after one or two of this world’s solar cycles.

What did that mean? Greg thought. Was a solar cycle a day? He couldn’t stay out here like this for a day or two. He’d starve or get eaten by something else that was starving. He looked down at the leader of the alien soldiers. It looked like he was about to raise his arm to call toward his troops. You can’t just leave me like this. He tried to shout, but nothing came out.

It took another hour for all of the troops to regroup. Then, at a snail’s pace, they marched back to their ship. As the leader of the soldiers boarded last, Greg saw him stop from the corner of his eye. The alien lifted up one of his many arms and gestured. At first Greg was sure that it was flipping him off, but he wasn’t sure if it even had fingers. He must have been waving or saluting or something. Besides, an alien wouldn’t know what ‘the finger’ was.

It took another thirty minutes for the space ship to begin moving. First, it began spinning around the edges. The center, which was spherical, remained stationary. But, the front panel opened on it and Greg could see four aliens standing there looking upward. It must have been their bridge and they were looking out the main viewing window.

After another ten minutes, the space ship lifted off of the ground. It didn’t move at a snail’s pace. It floated upward until it was ten feet off of the ground. Then, suddenly, it darted skyward. It had to be traveling about twenty or thirty miles an hour. Greg’s eyes watched it until it was out of sight.

Groaning, Greg tried to move again. It was no good. He couldn’t budge. Silently cursing the aliens, he wondered what Amy would say. If this was really going to last for a day or two, she would be out of her mind with worry when she came home and he wasn’t there. Glancing around, Greg tried to see if they had left anything behind. If he could bring her an alien artifact, she wouldn’t be so upset about him being out for two days. And, she would have to admit that he was right.

Glancing up at the sky again, Greg saw the sun. It was pretty much in the high noon position. He had never really gauged the sun’s position in the sky, but he was sure that it was at least close to twelve. Taking a deep breath, Greg sighed. It would be nice if he had a book or something to pass the time. But, he wouldn’t be able to turn the pages anyway. What am I going to do?