The Clifford Spock Incident

By M. C. Aquila

Clifford, a 20-year-old auto mechanic in the small town of Greenwood, TX, is an ardent believer in UFOs and aliens. The local group of fellow Believers is his pillar and strength through the ups and downs of life, especially their leader, Wilhelmina, who is as passionate as a fundamentalist preacher on the warpath and always knows best.

After being rejected by his long-time crush and childhood friend, Marisol, Clifford finally has a close encounter of the third kind when a flying saucer almost crash-lands right onto his truck. The aliens, two Greys calling themselves Nigel and Phil, happily accept Clifford's offer to fix their ship and help them escape Earth before they're noticed by the authorities.

But in a small town where gossiping little old ladies haunt every street corner and phone line, it's hard to keep anything secret. And when a reckless alien assassin begins to pursue the two Greys, not caring who or what gets killed in the crossfire, secrecy may be the least of Clifford's worries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. C. Aquila
• Release date: Apr 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223862055

M. C. Aquila

M. C. Aquila, a Catholic and born and bred nerd, graduated from Winthrop University with a BA in English. She grew up in Pittsburgh, PA but currently resides in South Carolina. Attending the Roswell UFO Festival at least once is top on her bucket list. Check out her personal author page (mc-aquila.com) for more information about other projects and books, including the Winter Fae's Blight YA Fantasy Series she co-wrote.

Book preview

Chapter One

IT ALL BEGAN IN MY hometown, Greenwood, in the state of Texas, where a lot of good stories start. But unfortunately it was the middle of summer—August, the month that no one really likes, mostly because it’s so dang hot.

To make matters worse, that afternoon I was underneath a large motorcycle, which was just gushing heat from its metal body. Of course, you might say that it was only hot because I’d just done a test run on it a minute before. But looking back, I’d like to think it was trying to warn me of things to come.

Clifford! A voice snapped through the dusty air. How is Officer Armstrong’s bike coming along?

I sat up to attention as Mrs. Regina Hernandez walked into the large garage of my family’s auto shop. Fortunately, unlike last time she’d barged in, I had my shirt on. Which meant that she wouldn’t whack me with her purse and shout things about public indecency.

I’m here, ma’am, I said as I stood up, quickly wiping a blob of grease off my arm.

Mrs. Hernandez was an old, spry, and short Mexican woman with bobbed hair dyed black and red-rimmed glasses resting on a nose that reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West (but without the bright green skin, of course. Her skin was more olive with a hint of sunburn). Her clothes were modest, topped with one of the pale green cardigans she always wore, even when it was well over a hundred degrees.

"This is Armstrong’s bike, isn’t it?" she asked, orbiting around it.

Yep, it sure is, I replied.

She nodded in a satisfied way and grinned broadly.

To be honest, how she could possibly tell that it belonged to Officer Armstrong was beyond me; it looked identical to the other motorcycles used by other policemen in the county. But I never put anything past Mrs. Hernandez. She had a downright uncanny sixth sense when it came to anything or anyone in our town.

For example, when someone’s brown dog got loose and was caught on Main Street last week, we had a hard time identifying it because it looked like a twin to all the other brown mutts in town. Heck, I almost claimed it as my own before remembering that my dog had died about five years ago. And everyone else was just as mixed up, rushing for their houses to make sure their pooches were still safe in their yards.

But Mrs. Hernandez took one look at the creature and declared, That’s old Mrs. Patterson’s dog.

And of course, she was right. She got me to go and drop the mutt off, and while I loaded it into my truck, Mrs. Hernandez happily told all the onlookers Mrs. Patterson’s extensive pet-related history, including the fact that she had twelve cats and had knitted sweaters for all of them last Christmas.

That was a waste of wool, if you ask me—it’s never cold enough here for any sane human or cat to be wearing a sweater.

So anyway, that’s why I wasn’t surprised when she correctly identified the motorcycle. She was now tapping the handles in a familiar way, as if the bike belonged to her own son.

He needed it fixed, of course, Mrs. Hernandez commented. It was looking and sounding like a stuck pig.

Oh, yes ma’am, definitely. I didn’t quite see how the bike could look like a stuck pig, but the sound it had been making when it first arrived on my doorstep was probably about the same.

But I’m not here to talk about this bike, she said, drawing herself up and looking me in the eye. I’m using the car tonight, and Marisol needs a ride.

My eyebrows shot up, and my heartstrings thrummed like harps being played by cupids. Or something like that.

The weariness of the day seeming to roll right off my shoulders, I exclaimed, Of course I can give her a ride, anywhere, anytime! I laughed and then blushed and hoped she didn’t notice.

Mrs. Hernandez just grinned. She’ll need picked up in one hour.

Yes ma’am. Uh, where is she? And where am I driving her?

She’s at the house, of course! And to St. Joseph’s.

Oh, of course! But why is she going there on a Tuesday night?

They’re doing some volunteering again. Probably to help a bunch of poor homeless women or something. She shook her head as if she was gravely unsure about the whole business, adding, At least it keeps her out of trouble.

Right, right. I’ll be there!

She gave me a slow smile, the sort with her eyebrows raised, her eyelids drooping. I know you will, Clifford.

After about three years of getting this look from her, I was used to it. I had figured out it meant she was just feeling extremely pleased with herself.

However, the first time I saw that smile, with the lowered eyelids and all that, it seemed really suggestive. I was horrified that she might be trying to flirt with me. After all, she has made passes on younger men, especially those white-clad bicycle-riding Mormon missionaries who were as old as grandsons. Of course, she didn’t have a chance there—not just because of the age difference, but because she always kindly told them how they were going to go to hell because they weren’t really baptized.

Marisol, thank goodness, never went around flirting with strangers. She was usually too busy either with work or church stuff to hit on random Mormons.

But now Marisol, and the upcoming evening, were on my mind as Mrs. Hernandez turned to walk out of the garage. I was about to say goodbye for now, but my words got stuck in my throat as it dawned on me that, yet again, I had been set up. Not necessarily set up with Marisol herself—I wasn’t really sure if Mrs. Hernandez approved of that match—but set up to do volunteer work at St. Joseph’s.

And this was the fifth time this month, and it was just the eighteenth.

And I like helping people and stuff, but this was a lot.

I considered getting up, following her and objecting but dismissed the thought with a sigh. I didn’t want to get on her bad list of undesirable degenerates hanging in her small office/art studio (she enjoyed dabbling in abstract acrylic paintings). The list was several pages long and had the full names and contact information of single men between 18 and 30 that she decided her granddaughter would never, ever marry. 

I really didn’t want to be on that list of shame for all my life.

In the end though, I couldn’t have followed after Mrs. Hernandez anyway. At that moment, Wilhelmina—a young woman a few years older than me who I considered a friend and free life coach—shoved past her and into the garage. Over her shoulder was slung an enormous paisley purse with her initials, W. D., sewn onto the side. Her face was lit up with glee, and I could practically see stars of excitement twinkling in her eyes.

Or maybe it was just the reflection of her gaudy star-and-flying-saucer earrings, which were covered with glitter and constantly sparkled like tiny disco balls.

"Clifford, tonight is it!" she exclaimed.

Behind her, I could see the barest outline of Mrs. Hernandez at the very edge of the garage door. She was listening. She was always listening. In this town, she was like everyone’s guardian angel, if a guardian angel’s job was to share every embarrassing thing you did with everyone else.

But I ignored her and asked Wilhelmina, Do we have a new pamphlet to print or something?

"Close! Although I do have some new ideas that must be written and published. My pamphlets are the only things expanding the narrow minds of the people in this godforsaken little town." She patted her large purse affectionately; she always kept an abundance of pamphlet copies in its depths.

But no, something else is afoot! She held up a dramatic finger. Tonight the Believers are all meeting out at the viewing spot north of town to watch the skies for UFOs!

I heard Mrs. Hernandez make a low clucking noise, like a disapproving hen giving a good scolding to a deluded chick.

Wilhelmina couldn’t have missed it; she raised her voice and continued, "You know that code that the police use that refers to drunk drivers? And how it actually refers to UFO-related activity? Well they’ve been using that code a lot lately, practically every minute!"

To demonstrate, she pulled out her illegally acquired police scanner and turned it on. There was dead air; she whacked it once or twice. Then someone began to talk about an idiot speeding down Main Street.

She turned the scanner off and put it back in her purse. It’s a sign that something big is going on! So we’ll be meeting at—she began to yell, clearly intending for Mrs. Hernandez to hear—"9 p.m. tonight to watch the skies. I think we’ll see at least a few saucers! And when I left home, Rosa was seriously meditating and communicating with her Pleiades contacts. They said we’ll be rewarded for our patience and have an Encounter tonight, maybe of the Third Kind!"

Mrs. Hernandez was clearly laughing now.

"Clifford, you believe Rosa, don’t you? Wilhelmina asked loudly, even as she looked back at the eavesdropper. You are a Believer, aren’t you?"

With the faith and promptness of someone who has just been questioned if he trusted in the leader of the cult he was bound to by a blood oath, I said, Yeah. Definitely. I believe all of it.

Wilhelmina tossed her frizzy black hair over her shoulder, grinning her abnormally wide smile. Of course you do. You have been coming to the meetings for years! And you’ve done a good job taking your parents’ place this summer.

Oh, I don’t know, I mumbled, trying to preserve some modesty.

"So, bring drinks tonight. Bring at least 5 bottles of different kinds of soda. And make sure at least two are diet!"

I really hated to bring it up, so I very meekly protested, Well, you see, I’m kinda running a bit low on cash. Getting close to going over my weekly budget, you know? So...

She considered, then said, Fine, you may bring just four bottles. She punched my arm, making me wince. We can always count on the Spocks! And it is so cool that that is your last name... ‘Spock’...

Well, we did legally make it our name, on purpose.

It was destiny. I bet you’re reincarnated Vulcan-like aliens. You can ask Rosa about that tonight. I’ll let her know about it when I get home!

I just nodded. Rosa was both Wilhelmina’s visionary for the group the past six years, as well as her roommate of five years.

"Don’t be late."

I nodded again.

Wilhelmina turned and headed back to her car. On the way, she passed Mrs. Hernandez, who didn’t even try to hide or pretend she hadn’t been listening.

Hello, Regina! Wilhelmina said brightly. She always referred to everyone by their first names, and even though she knew Mrs. Hernandez preferred for young people to not use her first name, but that had no effect. Heck, Wilhelmina would probably call the president Ronald if she ever met him.

Hello, Willie, Mrs. Hernandez replied.

Call me Wilhelmina. ‘Willie’...that sounds like some silly little girl’s name!

Mrs. Hernandez just smiled.

"How did you like that pamphlet on Area 51 and Roswell? I think one accidentally slipped into your bag at the store earlier today."

Oh, that! Mrs. Hernandez laughed her clucking laugh. "It accidentally fell into the fire my granddaughter made of the old garden clippings."

What a shame! Would you like another? Her hand dove into her purse.

Oh, no. I couldn’t. Really.

Well, have a good day, Regina. And feel free to come to our meeting tonight—you or any of your friends and family!

Mrs. Hernandez once again just grinned, her eyes uncharacteristically icy.

Wilhelmina headed back to her car. Mrs. Hernandez watched keenly as the girl passed her old Sedan. However, in the split second that Mrs. Hernandez sneezed, I saw Wilhelmina dump at least two or three pamphlets in the car’s open window. Then she walked over to her own car and drove away like nothing had happened.

Mrs. Hernandez rounded on me, her thick glasses flashing. "Don’t forget about Marisol, Clifford."

Yes, ma’am. I won’t.

She nodded gravely before going to her Sedan to leave. Opening the car door, she spotted the pamphlets on the seat; I heard her squawk a few curses in Spanish as she grabbed them and tried to tear them up. But Wilhelmina had been laminating them lately, so eventually Mrs. Hernandez just threw them down on the sandy ground and was sure to drive over them as she skidded off.

With a sigh, I headed out from the shade of the garage to retrieve the pamphlets, scraping them up. If I had a nickel for every time I retrieved literature of Wilhelmina’s that got littered and purposely driven over by non-Believers, I’d have enough to place a good bet in the next illegal drag race nearby. I always knew when they happened because Armstrong (whose bike I was fixing) always went to get in on the action. And he always told my mother (who enjoyed a good race as much as Armstrong did).

After carefully cleaning and getting the creases out of the pamphlets as much as I could, then placing them in a strategic location on the tiny waiting room coffee table, I went down the hall to the shop’s office. Opening the door, I was greeted by the hazy light coming through the lone window with blinds that were forever askew, illuminating the familiar sight of my father’s collection of UFO and alien-related posters.

The collection was mostly Star Trek, followed by pictures of Roswell, Area 51, and famous abductees. A few abductee posters had sticky notes next to them. My father and I made notes about the types of spaceships the abductee reported: how they looked, what they were probably powered by, how they were steered and controlled, etc.

There was one poster my mother found objectionable: a 1950’s alien-terrorizes-the-planet movie poster, the sort with crab-like aliens and one distressed woman wearing a skirt that was no longer than her mid-thigh. 

My father found it funny. My mother found it insulting because of how crudely the aliens were portrayed.

It’s just plain rude, she would sniff when she saw the poster. What if aliens made posters with us waving sticks around like a bunch of chimpanzees?

To that my father would reply, I’d probably find it hilarious.

And my mother would groan and look up to the sky, as if beseeching for her husband’s blasphemy to be pardoned.

Unlike my father, my mother believed in the spiritual side of Ufology. She and most of our group of Believers had long-term investments with the Pleiadian aliens, who were a bunch of blond guys from somewhere around the Pleiades constellation. Their sole motivation was wanting to help us better ourselves and stuff like that.

My mother thought it was mighty romantic and sweet. My father thought it was a load of garbage. But he kept quiet, especially when around our very own Pleiadian contactee, Miss Rosa. She was a native of Greenwood and had never shown any interest in Ufology until her Close Encounter of the Third Kind six years ago.

Every Believer knew every detail of this encounter by heart: how she was saluted by an alien while in bed, taken up into the ship, and given a tour around it. Finally, the Pleiadians had shared some of their big, generous plans for the future of humanity. She had been telepathic best friends with these Pleiadian guys ever since, making her a contactee to a Pleiadian contactor.

My mother believed Miss Rosa’s sudden, strong belief in aliens was a sign that she was an honest to goodness contactee. My father said (in private) that it was probably a side effect of losing her husband in a car accident and hitting her head real hard at the same time.

But most of the Believers were on my mother’s side, and so was I. But honestly, I didn’t think too much about the spiritual side of alien lore, especially now that my mother was gone for the summer. She and my father had gone to this gigantic Believers convention last month, followed by a long road trip that would take them to all the famous crash sites, abduction locations, and places like that all across America.

And that’s why I was left stuck in Greenwood for two months alone, looking after our auto shop.

As I sat down in the office chair, with no one looking over my shoulder or telling me to get a move on, I had to admit it was nice to be my own boss for a change after working for my Dad ever since graduating high school a couple years ago. I’d settled into a nice routine of working hard all day and then usually going to a meeting of the Believers in the evening. To be honest, I didn’t have much of a social life outside that group since graduating high school, and that definitely hadn’t changed in the past couple months.

Not that I minded. See, the Believers were family, united by a shared cause and faith. Because of this, it just never crossed my mind to reject Wilhelmina’s requests, such as her demands for four types of soda at the UFO-viewing picnic tonight. I knew she just wanted to supply what we needed and make us comfortable. Her concern for the Believers, as she often reminded us, was completely unconditional. All we had to do was regularly attend the meetings and other events, as well as help her uncover local conspiracies.

I believed in her, so I never objected. Plus, I had learned long ago to behave like a gentleman always, no matter how inconvenient a girl’s request might be.

See, I had been raised with good Southern manners, saying sir and ma’am and never slurping my spaghetti too loudly and so on. But it didn’t always help with handling women as I got older.

When I was finishing high school, Miss Rosa’s sister-in-law from Boston came visiting. She was probably the richest person to ever spit out the dust in the air onto the sidewalks of our little town, and she dressed and carried herself like Audrey Hepburn (shame she wasn’t quite as pretty). So I naturally opened the door for her when we crossed paths at the grocery store, like any Southern gentleman should do for a lady.

She responded by calling me a chauvinist pig.

Once I found out what chauvinist meant, I was speechless—completely speechless, as I sat there staring at the word in the dictionary. I was taught to treat ladies like ladies, but what could you do when they decided that wasn’t good enough?

So as my last year of high school began, I switched gears, deciding casual behavior was the way to go. There was a lot less door opening and ladies first and being sure to walk between a girl and the street and all that stuff.

It all came to a head when my date for the winter dance dressed like what might be called, in less civilized places like New England, a tramp. Thinking I was getting all the signals that came from a woman who didn’t think of herself as a lady or men as gentlemen, I said and did things that were against the code of etiquette I’d been raised with.

Because, I reasoned, this must be what she was expecting.

The evening ended with the punch bowl being dumped over my head.

Marisol wasn’t at that dance, but she still found out about it. I could tell by the cold look she gave me the next time we met, the sort that makes you feel physically wounded by the daggers she’s shooting with her eyes. She even mouthed several of the off-color lines I had used and then scoffed.

I’ll bet you Mrs. Hernandez was hiding under one of the tables at the dance and heard every single word.

But once again, I was speechless. Marisol was a childhood friend, and I’d always hoped we’d be more than that, someday. But after this incident, she gave me a bitingly cold shoulder.

So of course, I turned to Wilhelmina, Miss Rosa, and the Believers for help. Wilhelmina counseled me to amend my ways by being the gentlest gentleman the town had ever seen. And so I turned over a new leaf.

I not only opened every door, I also rushed old ladies across the road, even before they could ask for my help. I not only carried groceries for pregnant mothers, I also began picking up groceries for the Believer gatherings, taking the load off of Wilhelmina, who always had trouble keeping a steady job anyway. Before graduation, I even let a few of the girls in class copy my homework.

And most importantly, I cooked for my mother almost every night, until, when Marisol and Mrs. Hernandez both got the flu last year, I was good enough to cook every single meal for them and not get a single complaint.

All this apparently won back Marisol’s good favor, as she began speaking to me like a person instead of just looking down her nose at me like a snail. I soon realized, with a grateful heart, that Wilhelmina had steered me right and helped me fix the biggest problem of my teenage years.

So I