The Heavens Keep a Body Count
I was dreaming of a knife plunged to its hilt in a manâs chest. My hand grasped the blade that slashed his heart again and again, splashing blood on myself, tasting it in my mouth. Fury surged through me. I felt alive.
Then my phone buzzed and the disappointments of the waking world crashed through my fantasy. More real-life violence, more gore, more senseless death, more darkness where once a light burned free of extraterrestrial brutality. Not even my day off could be spared.
Through my phoneâs speaker blared Staglianoâs gravely voice asking if I was asleep. The clock showed ten thirty in the morning so I lied. He wouldnât say what had happened, only to hurry the hell up. I could tell it wasnât the usual horse farm mutilation or silo attack.
On the ride there, my carâs speakers rattled with the news report of a mass shooting that morning in Old Hill. My stomach sank. That was my destination.
My worst fears were confirmed when I arrived and stepped over the police tape. The street market was littered with dozens of bodies sprawled in pools of blood. Tables pitching clothes and pastries were speckled with chunks of pink flesh. The dead ranged from elderly to infant, indiscriminately blasted through torso or head by the laser pulses of eight UAPs that had dropped from the sky without warning and, after almost two minutes of carnage, disappeared just as fast.
This would be the third such incident. Jakarta, Indonesia was the first, sixteen months ago. Similar modus operandi: outdoor venue, crowds, few exits. Bystanders recounted how the cityâs thick blanket of smog concealed the spacecrafts. âThe sky is killing us!â people cried as they shielded their loved ones and trampled over the dying. The official story was one of a crazed gunman already captured by police so we could rest assured his crime wonât be repeated, they said. Lacking credible answers, conspiracists had a field day.
Of course, these so-called âanomalous eventsâ never slip through the hand of the stateâs intelligence arm that writes my paychecks. As anomaly investigators, our agency was accustomed to animal dissections, electrical tower attacks, the occasional abduction/maiming and a couple of freighter sinkings. The looming question in our minds was whether this escalation in savagery marked a new trend.
Seven months later, the sky added to its body count. Its next target: the city of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. A UAP fleet appeared from thin air over the Inner Harbor to fire upon a sold-out music festival atop one of the piers. Two hundred and thirteen people perished, mostly teens and young adults. Many of them climbed over fences to jump for the waterâs safety but not even the deepest divers could evade the bloodthirsty laserfire. The official, whitewashed narrative could no longer hold against verifiable media of discs above a field of corpses floating in a harbor dyed crimson. I pondered whether these slaughters were as much fun for the ETs as blowing up grain silos or if a more sinister agenda was at play.
Now fate had turned its ire on Old Hill, a tiny municipality bordering the Seattle city line, only thirty minutes by car from my bachelor apartment. Security cam and cell phone footage, once compiled, would rein in my focus but for now I absorbed the scene, letting grisly reality assault my senses, avoiding the trappings of assumptions and premature focus. Still, some facts didnât sit right with me.
An overcast afternoon shielded the sunâs warmth from the city. By then I had burdened my memory with every second of the UAP mass murder from multiple camera angles paired with recordings of eyewitness testimonials. Those peopleâs eyes beamed with absolute terror. I doubted yesterdayâs normality would return to any of their lives.
The market stood in a square courtyard enclosed on three sides by a hotel, warehouse and crumbling tenement, surrounded by more industrial properties and rent-controlled apartments. That patch of smokestack slum was already bleak, marred with graffiti, covered in trash, laced with the sulfuric stench downwind of Puget Sound. A woeful place to both live and die.
Every direct or tangential fact about the incident, plus my admittedly ill-informed appraisals of alien intent, would compose my final report â the sum total of wrenching an objective account through a head still echoing with the thwack of laser punching through flesh. Those reports get sent up the chain and, with any luck, maybe theyâll yield an important discoveryâŠone day. In the meantime, the mass shooting story will be recycled to no oneâs belief.
âHuang. Over here,â ordered Stagliano.
His interruption was a welcome reprieve. We had visitors â the team from the Maryland office. I bristled at the thought of working closely with some stranger until he introduced me to Theresa Blackwell: expert researcher of UAP craft, lead investigator of the Baltimore incident, two master degrees, four teenagers, credited with linking rates of disappearance/drownings to sightings of submersible-type crafts. She won my immediate respect.
First, she and I discussed the patterns common to all three mass murders. Cities with average levels of anomalous events, daytime with no precipitation, a mix of Saturn discs and Trinidad-class domes, a barrage of red death beams that never missed a target, one shot per victim every time, varying numbers of casualties, completion in under ninety seconds.
I told Theresa what bothered me: most of the victims in Old Hill were Somali immigrants. The street market was run and patronized by the local Somali-American community, one that was disparaged and marginalized in the Seattle area over sensationalized crime statistics drawn from some bigotsâ invented world. Why not target bigger crowds next door in Jet City? Also, the US had tallied two of the three incidents which, considering the planetâs sheer size and population, was statistically improbable.
âA coincidence is still likely,â she retorted. âOr maybe theyâre emulating our gun violenceâŠour xenophobia.â
I hate spitballing theories and so did Theresa. She gathered data from forensics while I left the bloodbath to give my sanity a breather. Also, I wanted to hear from the locals.
Across the street, an elderly man sat outside a pawn shop. When I approached, he spoke without looking at me. âThem things wasnât huntinâ. And they wasnât exterminatinâ neither. So their real purpose ought to be even worse.â
A morning appointment across town had spared him witness to the ghastly spectacle so instead I asked about the neighborhood (generally quiet), recent UAP sightings (none) and anything unusual as of late. His only recollection was, from the previous night, a convoy of high-class SUVs â ârich folkâ â parked outside the hotel, guarded by a security force toting assault rifles, which lit the whole neighborhood in gossip. The SUVs stayed overnight and left right before his appointment, after breakfast. I jotted notes in my phone and thanked the man.
Before carrying the agencyâs shield, the face in my mirror was molded by the city police ranks. I toiled there for years, clawing my way to a detectiveâs desk. I learned to sniff out inconsistencies, cull dead ends from the leads and to close every loop. Imagination was a tool but decisions were forged with facts and logic. Still, emotion is a beast which canât be caged, and in my case, injustice is its provocateur. The police force booted me but a global rise of UAP activity and a bureaucratic appetite for answers soon carried my desperate resumĂ© to the inbox of a spook headhunter. During my interview, no one at the agency even mentioned my previous termination or the rapistâs body discovered with markings across his crushed face that matched the tread of my black Oxfords. And I got lucky that my new role didnât require a holster â I merely document now â but a detectiveâs heart still pulses inside me.
A grave shade of night lowered upon Old Hill. Eateries and dives sat in gloom behind locked doors. No oneâs soles clapped the sidewalk except mine. When I arrived at Cedar Inn, the hotel clerks were genuinely happy for something to rouse them from boredom until realizing my line of inquiry.
Damp rot suffused the air. Any charm manufactured by the decor had faded decades ago. The two young women said they felt fortunate that their graveyard shift avoided the trauma etched on the faces of the daytime staff. I asked if they had worked the previous night and about any armed bodyguards outside. According to one clerk, some tech bro and his posse were visiting a guest in the presidential suite.
âMy shift ended before they checked out but I was told they left completely wasted. The suite had tons of puke in the rug.â
âWho?â I asked.
The other clerk answered, âIt was that AI douchebag whose company killed those schoolkids.â
I showed them a picture on my phone of a bearded man in a three-piece suit. âScott Coulter?â Their recognition emerged as disgust.
Coulter was an executive of the grimly named Headshot Industries, an AI military weapons company, but his notoriety sprung from his brash, controversial opinions, particularly on minorities and immigrants. He was a local Seattle celebrity and his public outbursts and drunken brawls often went viral. Lately, a deeper contempt had been earned for his companyâs role in the cluster bombing of a school over eighty kilometers from a warzone due to rushed, untested drone firmware.
Behind Cedar Inn, the courtyard had been emptied and wiped clean but a ghost of the dayâs horrors lingered like heavy vapor. I spotted the balcony of the presidential suite overlooking the square. Coulter was originally from Baltimore, I remembered. He was a billionaire; why would he hang at a three-star hotel in Old Hill? What would he have to do with aliens anyway? Probably nothing. Nevertheless, these were loose ends. I hated those.
My impression of Theresa proved true the following morning when she briefed Stagliano and me on a theory conceived during a restless sleep: UAP mass murders, she said, were competitions.
Dread turned to icy fear as the soundness of her claim unfolded. As we knew, victims fell into two classifications based on their wounds: one groupâs flesh had round entry points, singed by the beamsâ high temperatures, while the otherâs were jagged and a microscope could reveal a lighter burn. One group or the other was always slightly larger. Lacking prior research of these lasersâ effect on humans, the difference was chalked up to a presumption about factory calibrations in Trinidads versus Saturns. However, the Old Hill footage, the clearest yet, showed laser fire originating solely from the Saturns. The thought of UAPs in the same class varying their calibrations bore resemblance to the paintball games her husband and kids played at the range on weekends. Each team is assigned a certain color paintball to differentiate their hits. A player is eliminated after one strike. And matches are timed, a fact that sent her back to the video footage. For all three incidents, she calculated the time from first to last shot, rather than the oft referenced total span of the craftsâ appearance. A curious equivalence surfaced: each period of shooting lasted exactly 73.3 seconds.
The theory was damn good and that was the best we could hope for in a line of work that doesnât even pretend to deliver answers. Even Staglianoâs spirits were raised, as perceived by his relaxed brow.
Alone with Theresa in my office, door closed, I told her about Scott Coulter and his hotel stay adjacent to the murder scene. Also, my poking around had discovered a close relationship between him and Old Hillâs mayor, Jerry Zimm. I showed her photos taken of them side-by-side onstage at right-wing nationalist hatefests. Zimm would likely know why a good friend was staying in his jurisdiction. I had other reasons to meet him and figured he could help me avoid the inevitable stonewalling by Coulterâs staff.
She asked if anyone else knew about my lead. âNot until it grows legs,â I said.
An analyst helped me identify the men in Coulterâs entourage based on surveillance recordings and collected their recent social media posts. Pictures from that Saturday night boasted of a good old fashioned bromantic soiree: dudes in posh threads, arms around each other, toothy smiles. No drinks, no smoke, but their cheeks glowed pink and huge black moons floated in their eyes. They posted comments like âfun trip!â with green leaf emojis. The bodyguards â mean-looking lackeys â stayed outside all night with the cars. The guests were close friends of Coulter except for some small-time, anti-immigrant podcaster. None of their backgrounds raised any red flags. An honest deduction pointed to some douchebagâs bachelor party stocked with LSD instead of booze. Regret over misplaced suspicions almost drove me to cancel the mayorâs meeting. Good thing I didnât.
The next day, Theresa and I arrived separately at Old Hill City Hall and sat before the mayorâs executive desk, something Italian-made, immaculately polished. We were ceded ten minutes of his time and that would be plenty.
âItâs just awful, so awful, what happened to those people,â said Zimm, reclining in his leather chair. âI keep worrying itâll happen again. So awful.â When speaking, his eyes darted from wall to wall.
I requested a direct channel to the cityâs zoning and construction records to research a theory on how the three mass murder sites were selected. He referred us to an assistant on his staff, writing a name and email on a sticky note and passing it across the desktop. Then he lifted his phone to check his alerts.
âI heard Scott Coulter was at Cedar Inn right before it happened,â I said. âI couldnât find any statements from him about the attack though. Have you talked to him?â
Zimm straightened his back. He looked at my face, pausing before answering. âScott was out of state over the weekend so I donât expect heâll have much to say. Now if youâll excuse me, I have another guest coming to see me.â
Afterward, Theresa and I stopped at a cafe for a bite to eat. She agreed that both Zimm and the hotel âpartyâ smelled fishy but challenged any connection to UAPs; what role could any human possibly play in some aliensâ killing contest? My doubts mirrored her own except I kept returning to last yearâs headlines of a Somali teenager shot by police in the back nine times, the bodycam videos from multiple angles, the absence of charges, the incendiary rhetoric from those who would excuse a million more teen deaths to claim the city for their dreamed ethnostate, the marches sponsored with oligarch cash where masked men waving semi-automatic guns decried the rumored violence of refugee families, Coulterâs racist barbs in front of a pale-faced audience alongside that lying mayor.
âI need to be sure.â
She lowered her voice. âBe careful, Huang, in case you really are on someoneâs tail.â She wrote something on a napkin: a chatroom ID and alphanumeric code. âKeep this. An encrypted channel. In case you ever need to message me.â
During my fifth mug of coffee, the computer chimed with the arrival of Cedar Innâs guest list from Saturday night. When I confirmed Coulterâs checkout time, I discovered the room had in fact been rented by another of the partygoers: Tristan Barnes, a high school buddy of Coulterâs from Maryland. Barnes had been making a name for himself in the psychedelic drug industry as an executive of Charmzy, an edibles company popular on the east coast, though outrage was growing over suppressed reports of trace metalloids in their products. Before that, he climbed the ladder at an AI medical records company charged with selling its customersâ data on the black market. Before that, he was a sharply attired staffer for a senator who later resigned over sexual assault allegations. He and Coulter had recently registered a joint venture, Evolved Defense Corporation, whose details eluded mention but the name alone seemed to dispense of any seriousness.
This guy was clearly as toxic as the polluted West Virginian farm soil that grew his companyâs ingredients. But, buried under a mountain of compulsive online activity is what made me spill the rest of the coffee: Barnesâs apparent obsession with extraterrestrials. His thumbs-ups of articles reporting alien vandalism, cryptic status updates like âTHEY are listening find their frequency tune your consciousnessâ followed by flying saucer and green leaf emojis, lectures at fringe science conferences detailing meditations meant to enable contact with transdimensional beings. One such speech was summarized by an attendee in an internet forum, portraying Barnes as a breathless supporter of the drug DMT, a natural psychedelic. Whereas others likened DMT to a bridge between minds terrestrial and non-terrestrial, Barnes was quoted as saying, âWhat if we treated it like a genie?â
I closed my laptop, crawling out of the VPN-tunneled rabbit hole burrowed into the online slough where Tristan Barnes wallowed. I was erecting my own bridges of straw to connect a mass murder â just some game for heartless Martians â to a gold-digging crew of chuds simply because I instinctively hated them, because of sensitivities rubbed raw in a city divided by racial dogma or because deep down I longed for closure, at least once, on these anomalous events that increasingly hollowed out any hope I still harbored for human civilization.
The next morning, freshly sprouted questions dragged me from bed and back into my suspicions. At the office, I noticed that the social media accounts of everyone from Coulterâs hotel entourage had gone private. Only Coulterâs was still viewable and his latest post pegged him in the Virgin Islands even though he had been hyping a scheduled appearance at the companyâs annual review that day. An ominous cloud cast a shadow over me.
Stagliano called me into his office. âWhat brought you here so early?â Before I could answer, he told me the Old Hill investigation had been shut down. Theresa was already boarding a plane back to Maryland. âWe got all we need. Just send me your report and all your notes. I need you on that silo blast in Mansfield.â
No one ever asked for my notes. Not even my finished reports drew interest beyond their abstracts. I made sure to send Stagliano everything except for the Coulter research, just to see.
Before I left for home, he caught me passing his door. âDidnât you pull a file on Scott Coulter?â he asked. âIt wasnât mentioned.â
âI pulled everyone at the hotel. Nothing checked out.â
âOf course. Because there werenât any aliens staying at the hotel. Now stop hounding Coulterâs people and drive out to Mansfield tomorrow.â
Despite his typical disposition, I could usually trust Stagliano. Then again, he was too cozy with the top brass and the surrounding suck-up culture who trade autonomy for access to power. The kind of circle vulnerable to the influence of a billionaire government contractor â one whose mayoral pal may have tipped him off about nosy investigators. I never âhoundedâ Coulter but maybe that talking point was pushed down the chain.
My grasp on reality slipped from the dissonance of its fragments strewn before my eyes with no logic to bond them. Yet, a clearer image shone through the lens of paranoia. Although Mansfield kept me busy during the daytime, the Old Hill investigation continued at night in an unofficial capacity and in lieu of sleep until I could prove my nagging instincts either wrong or right.
If a road lay between Coulter and the murders, it was paved with Tristan Barnesâs obsession over DMT. Enough clues connected the drug to the hotel party. Digging further, I learned of a whole subculture of DMT enthusiasts who drank it in tea brewed from ayahuasca leaves, claiming it as a cross-psychosphere conduit to consciousnesses from other worlds. Barnes was a rock star to them. They lauded his ideas for fine-tuning this psychic communication and echoed his belief that they stood on humanityâs next evolutionary stepping stone. The genie quote popped up a few times with coy flair.
Credibility was difficult to discern from walls of text about hyperbolic beings unveiling to the authors vague existences beyond the comprehension of the sober. Their experiences differed from my nearest point of reference: annual retreats to a campground outside of Olympia with nothing but my gear, food, books and magic mushrooms. Years ago, a therapist had casually recommended psilocybin microdosing to treat the violent impulses I fought against my nature to restrain. To my surprise, it did succeed in grounding that inner rage, or maybe just enough. Still, I couldnât imagine letting any drug fool my senses into believing intergalactic travel behind my eyelids ever took place, even after clarityâs rebound. The idea was silly, yet the plausibilities shaped in my mind while I laid in bed, when idling in traffic, when hammering on a punching bag at the gym, when studying vaporized grain and soil heated to glass while the farmer wept over his ruined labors.
I would know the truth only by walking the same road as Coulter and Barnes, to glimpse what they had seen.
Throughout DMT-friendly states stretched a network of neo-shamans advertising guided âjourneysâ to the fringes of spirituality where non-human intelligences mingle with those who pay in cash. Most of them were booked months in advance but, after a dozen calls, I found one with an open slot for that coming weekend. Their website touted a safe atmosphere for first-timers and a âjester-free zoneâ.
After work on Friday I drove I-5 South with my overnight bag, watching the heavens for zigzagging lights â a common pastime of mine even though I had never encountered anything alien beyond the evidence they leave behind. The thought of communicating with them, as absurd as that sounded, sent chills over my skin. But no expectation could be guaranteed. Maybe old hippies would sell me nothing more than trippy entertainment. Or maybe I would be taught to lure a squadron of UAPs into committing a hate crime.
Four hours later and the Oregon border was far behind. My GPS failed to find itself on the pot-holed back roads. Luckily the gravel driveway was marked by the sign of a pyramid with a single eye in its center and I parked beside the old farmhouse in which Higher Pathways Oregon, LLC was run.
Dead leaves blew through the grass like rats retreating. At the door, the woman with dreadlocks introduced herself as Angel, one of the co-owners, and she checked me in. My reservation was under the name Phil Marl.
âWhat do you hope to achieve from your ceremony?â she asked after I signed the waivers.
âUnderstanding.â
She ushered me down creaky steps into the basement â a dim, underground hall of plain beige cast green and orange by cheap LEDs. I was the last to arrive. The others sat on couches and recliners arranged in a circle: two middle-aged couples covered in tattoos and piercings, three smirking twenty-something finance bros in search of kicks, a husky guy with shaggy hair and Cody, the other owner of Higher Pathways and our âtrip captainâ, wrapped in the stars and galaxies of his patterned robe. In front of each seat was an empty bucket. A tough-looking man stood guard at the door with lapsed interest. I took my place in a cushiony lounge chair next to the shaggy guy, Greg, fidgeting in his love seat.
Angel handed out mugs of red liquid as Cody explained the basics. The effects of the ayahuasca tea would range from forty-five minutes to an hour for onset after which the ceremony would formally begin. With eyes shut we were to follow Codyâs voice leading us beyond the walls of our senses to a new perception of the universe but with prudence because meeting its true essence can overwhelm. He repeated the waiverâs warning of the drugâs nauseous effects. âDonât be afraid to use your bucket.â
We were certain to rub cosmic shoulders with alien beings, he said, among other possible entities that loiter the DMT hyperspace (except jesters, to the relief of the two couples). Aliens could appear in any number of fantastical forms seemingly as real as Cody and his wiry beard but they should be disregarded as hallucinations â an attempt of the mind to manifest something tangible from the sensations washing over it. What we were to see, hear and touch would be false-ish. The feeling had to be our mainstay. This base function of the mind was to be the pen to sketch our desires on the canvas of hyperspace. A back-and-forth of these psychic fluctuations defined the communication method which Cody and Angel claimed to master. With practice, he said, the exchange of feelings could be refined enough for rich conversation.
Our trip captain gave a toast, giving thanks to Mother Earth for providing the keys to unlock the spiritual realm as well as to our interplanetary brethrenâs assumed benevolence. We drank the ayahuasca tea and I gagged. It tasted like dirt. I forced it down anyway.
We chatted, waiting for the effects to kick in. Greg, another first-timer, listed for me the questions he prepared for our new hyperspace friends: about famous UAP sightings, cryptids as discarded DNA experiments, lizard men in the White House â failing to heed Codyâs set expectations.
âCommunication is supposed to be simpler than that,â I said. âLike, basic impressions and someâŠsomeâŠâ
Sickness bubbled in my throat. One of the finance bros retched into his bucket. I grabbed mine just in time. I could hear Greg laughing as I spat out chunks.
âThis is good,â said Cody, all smiles. âThis is the purge. Youâre cleansing your spirit. Let yourself free.â I puked again.
He spoke soothing platitudes of encouragement as more buckets were filled. I got up to rinse out my mouth just as the strangeness of the world began to unmask itself. Shrooms had a similar effect when that hidden sense would awaken right before patterns began undulating in the campsiteâs trees. Familiarity melted away. Mercury water poured over my bucket while the slop sink danced. I tottered back to my chair.
Soon, eye masks were passed around. I laid back and blocked all light from my sight as instructed. Cody announced the start of our journey, drawing the sensory and emotional picture to be shared among our imaginations. I tried to follow along but my mindâs eye was flooded with other imagery: impossible geometric shapes, uncanny faces, memories. I saw my mother, younger, still with traces of happiness. I saw my father, different from the two times that I remembered â a memory either long-lost or invented. Then I saw my grandparents, immigrants from China who sought a brighter future for their daughter who ultimately found unhappiness by other means. The weight of the past saddled my trip until I recalled my purpose, crashing my thoughts in the shape of a hot air balloon that whisked me away to rejoin the tail of Codyâs celestial hiking party.
âWe are all one. One with each other, one with Mother Earth, one with all of the entities spread way out across this beautiful universe. Let me show you what I mean.â Cody explained that our minds could sense each otherâs company beyond our physical connection in the room. Someone was going to feel a warm hand on their own, he said, but only within hyperspace. Suddenly, one of the tattooed ladies yipped in surprise and marveled at this psychic touch though Cody never left his sofa. In spite of the drug, my inner skeptic snickered at his parlor trick but then a jolt of some vague awareness hugged my own perception â something friendly and known. âPhil, is that you?â
I heard his voice with my ears but his intent also pressed directly against my understanding, from his mind to mine. I could sense the others, tethered to Codyâs aura. Greg buzzed with nervous energy. Pulsing lanterns passed before me, representing each of us, and I was one too, obviously a ruse the ayahuasca painted across my synapses but to my astonishment their presences rippled outward with the most sober realness.
We drifted like dumb fish in a pool while Cody taught us to untangle the root of our feelings from the illusions contrived by stimulation. He would radiate an anonymous sensation like warmth or elation or calm, giving us time to absorb it, then he could correctly name it afterward. Is this really happening?, I wondered, and those words inflated into a thought bubble over my head. Even if it were visible to the others, their attentions were submerged in their own parallel realities.
Something crept into the edges â cold and sharp. Tiny, vantablack shapes like ants squirmed across my lantern, shrouding its glow. âYou feel that?â I heard Cody say, somewhere distant. âOur friends are here.â
I felt nothing friendly. A nosy malevolence flocked around me, scratched at my surface, peered through my windows, sniffed my ass. I was unmatched and exposed in that bizarre plane that gave their consciousnesses such deftness to navigate. Vague humanoid outlines emerged through the mist of transcendence, a patchwork of colors from alternate spectra. Heavenly gyres carouseled through the skies with an oppressive nature that made me cower.
Falling into a trance of chanted phrasings, Cody petitioned our new friends to spread positive energies of peace and harmony as they pilot their vehicles through our skies and oceans. He encouraged us to reach out to them. âSummon your desires and send them into hyperspace. Our friends will listen and respond. Go ahead, try.â
I imagined stretching a hand out in the dark, unsure what may lurk inches away. Something must have come in contact because exotic scenes with vivid perspective flooded my senses: the smell of nickel in a rocky cavern where mucus patches grew egg-headed creatures like weeds; endlessly deep pits dotting a gaseous tundra menaced by the flight of poison ice bubbles; the unbearable radiance of a black hole, destroyer of stars, devouring all possibility from existence for light-years around; thousands of worlds in every possible color and an ingrained callousness toward the inferiority of their native life forms.
âOpen yourself to them.â
The thought (rather, the feeling) of a question mark stamped over victims of alien violence slid from my essence into the ether. All around, a reaction spread through the chorus of hidden friends. It came to me as the sour tastes of condescension, of mockery, of just deserts. Some primitive conversation seemed to be ping-ponging between us â me and whoever/whatever, real or imagined â but it was either too fragmented or too advanced for my understanding.
âA lot of good vibes in here, people.â I wasnât hearing Codyâs words anymore as much as receiving them like transmissions. âKeep it up. You can also give them requests. Watch.â A growing ease among the beings had emitted a gray-green ambience, but when Cody projected the kaleidoscope of colors from their arrival, their excitability returned.
What wishes could be granted?, I wondered. Games of murder? The idea slithered out of me to great relief of its loss. The response was accusatory: why would I care? Somehow, recollections of my worst moments were freed from the locked basement of my subconscious (men I despise, swelling anger), 3-D replays whirling through infinite-D space around my head (fists thrown, broken ribs, bloody teeth), forcing me to suffer their retelling (the crunch as his face flattened) for their amusement. The sentiment was laced with indifference, either for me or the victims or all of us.
Nausea rebounded and the universe behind my eyes spun. I tried to steady myself, spiritually and gastroenterologically, by remembering the hot air balloon of determination that compelled me to take this journey. But a different, creeping sensation drew closer, nibbling at the fringes of my thoughts, stealing them with no concern for my discretion. My lantern burned brighter and hotter like a beacon for the entire astral realm to witness. The light was the message: liar. I knew that feeling, the sting of an untruth, just like everyone but even more so in that instant with my false name and pretenses, infringing on societies human and non-human that wished to coexist in stoned euphoria without bad vibes like death, justice and especially guilt.
The fabric of hyperspace folded in on itself and I had fallen out like a rocket breaking orbit for an empty void where no sound or light dwelled. Either interdimensional bullies or the sentience of the space itself had ejected me, rejected me, a crasher holding no invite to their party. I floated alone. Did Cody and the rest know I had gone missing? My mouth had no voice to call them. Every last thought in my head had been eaten away. Nothingness was my new environ as the faraway pinprick of light from our hallucinogenic playground receded in the black. Panic gripped me like a child separated from his parent in public. Where do I go? How will I leave? Or will I not?
I landed in a sea of soft timber. It emanated a nasty funk and, looking closer, I realized the logs were actually limbs of dead corpses. Descending from above came countless gray-skinned elves with insect eyes lodged in lightbulb heads. Their cold little hands grasped my neck and squeezed. I choked but could do nothing to stop them; their decision was final, immutable.
Sights and discord were carried to my awareness from their slimy grip â a fresh reliving of the Old Hill massacre. Before my eyes, peopleâs guts exploded, lasers with ineluctable accuracy blew holes through the heads, mothers and fathers shielding their children died one-by-one. The alien faces betrayed no emotion but their hubris saturated the atmosphere, broadcasting a carnival of disturbed acts, colored by a joviality of disregard smugly chosen, like buck hunters blowing off steam and flaunting their kills. But they werenât hunting or exterminating and the purpose really was worse: it was a game. They couldnât resist playing it, their devious pride made known, delivering the message through nailless fingers to my throat and the rest of me, replacing oxygen in my cells with its cancer.
Invite us, they beckoned, invite us to play.
In the real world I was convulsing and gulping for breath. Angel removed my eyemask and tried to talk me into relaxing but the strangling, whatever caused it, was real and I struggled for its release. The guard held my arms while Angel injected a dose of ketanserin into my shoulder to offset the DMTâs effects. My lungs still cried for air but in seconds the little hands loosened and musty basement reentered my nose. In a minute I was breathing easy with a muddied sobriety settling in. The other customers seemed unperturbed, still wearing their masks and their idiot grins. Cody, however, watched my recovery with loathing.
Angel escorted me to a room with baby blue walls and sat me on a cot. She left me there to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes, a humanoid shadow climbed into my psyche. Only a stream of external stimuli could flush it out so I lay awake all night, each hour replenishing lucidity and melting away doubts.
In the morning, Angel returned with the guard. âItâs time for you to leave,â she said. âWe hope the ceremony was able to provide the understanding you were seeking. But you wonât ever be allowed to come back.â
Contrary to the zen-like warmth after a mushroom trip, the ayahuasca (or maybe the ketanserin) only darkened the cloud that followed me. The city also sulked under a veil of drab and rain all week. I occupied myself with the Mansfield report and a missing persons case that landed in our office after the victimâs doorcam footage from the night in question revealed orb formations. Still, my thoughts stayed focused on disclosing the truth about the sick wish that I believed Coulter and his crew DMT-grammed to their ET genies. My own narrow exposure to those creatures felt just as real as the moment Codyâs will coaxed them into agitation, offering certainty that someone with more experience, like a notable expert in alien-DMT communication, could push this power past moral limits, to conjure the right impression, to invite them to play. I hated the occult, conspiracy theories and drugged up delusions, yet this case had become all three. Shining a critical light only uncovered more certainty, more hunger for justice, more reason to risk my reputation and my life. After all, no one else would.
I had first used Theresaâs encrypted chat right after our investigation was buried and we briefly exchanged frustrations. Now I was sitting in the terminal at SeaTac, letting her know I would be in her city for the weekend in a hunt for answers. I stressed her absolute uninvolvement. She was only being clued in to safeguard the truth because an honest assessment of my chances looked grim. Tristan Barnes wasnât mentioned explicitly but she knew enough to connect the dots.
The preceding weeknights had been spent on a meticulous plan, securing a false identity (an uncomplicated task for agency employees) and studying Baltimoreâs street grid. The GPS wasnât even needed in the rental car as I turned onto Pratt St., passing tourists photographing the Inner Harbor, following the traffic to Fells Point where Barnes lived alone in a swanky waterfront apartment. The place was less than a mile from the pier where, months ago, all that blood was spilled â a coincidence now dubious in my eyes.
I rolled into his neighborhood as the sun set in the rearview and soon found parking in sight of the apartment building. Barnesâs social accounts, made public once again, had divulged his plans to spend the weekend in town. I was counting on Mr. Social Butterfly to keep his regular schedule of clubbing and drinking, otherwise a forced entry would have to be improvised.
While waiting, I opened my suitcase and transferred some belongings to my pockets: foam earplugs, clear tape, signal scanner, tube sock with racquetball inside, toy voice synthesizer, ski mask, handful of zip ties and switchblade knife.
Worry rose with the clockâs hour hand but, around eleven-thirty, Barnes finally appeared, leaving his building with two friends who I didnât know, walking right past my car. I lowered the bill of my baseball cap.
They headed for the Charm City brilliance that washed out the starlight and I followed at a distance. A few times, someone on the street recognized Barnes and he would stop to talk for a minute. He was an unassuming type who squirmed in the spotlight, unlike Coulter, the football champ, but also the kind whose alternate life path, without wealth and privilege, would have languished under the authority of anyone else. Iâve seen that disposition before, facing the world with his same dull eyes.
Barnes and his buddies turned onto a side street, then down some stairs to a cellar door. Muted bass frequencies leaked from within. The bouncer dapped Barnes and let the three men inside. When I approached, he made me pay cash to enter and patted me down, missing the knife. The door led into an old, rundown hallway with few working lights, down a narrow staircase, closer to the music, past another bouncer and through steel double doors. Like crossing dimensions, I entered a massive, posh nightclub with hundreds of people. The place had crystal chandeliers, LED flooring, cushioned booths, aquarium walls and suspended kennels whose prisoners writhed in their underwear. A dance pop song pounded inside my chest. The bartenders danced, a horde of men danced, the caged men danced and I realized the place contained no women at all.
At the bar I ordered a drink while keeping an eye on Barnes. He and his friends had joined a larger group in one of the booths, sharing a bottle, singing, laughing and flirting. Barnes twirled his wavy, collar-length hair while talking to another man â some young, brawny type. They stood up to dance. I waited for an opportunity but Barnes wouldnât even go alone to the bathroom. The alcohol had already lightened my head so I nursed it slower.
Some chubby guy with a mustache tried to catch my attention and, when that didnât work, he shimmied closer.
âSorry. Not dancing tonight,â I said and lifted my glass in goodwill.
âJerk,â he scoffed, then spun on his heel and walked off.
At that point, a gloomy Barnes was draped across a chair in silence, consoled by his two buddies. His beau and the others had left. Whatever happened had soured the mood. Barnes pulled a silver flask from his coat pocket and they took turns sipping it while tapping their phones. Their body language spoke of a restless urge for fresh air and soon they marched to the exit.
A half-block of sidewalk stretched between them and me, their inconspicuous stalker, as they meandered the back streets of Fells Point, past cafes and dives and greasy spoons, straying further from Barnesâs home. We turned onto Thames St., bumpy with ancient Belgian block pavement, bustling with twilight revelers on the last leg of their crawls. A quiet tension clung to these strangers like an odor, or like trauma that still haunted.
I followed Barnes into The Horse You Came In On Saloon, the famous âlast stopâ of Edgar Allen Poe before his death. Its wood double doors opened to a narrow joint, fashioned from wood and neon, mobbed with adults of all types and ages. At a table in the back, the trio joined more friends, a mellower set. I squeezed through the crowd and, upon seeing Barnes approach the bar, I slid next to him. He stood a little shorter and reeked of booze. His focus flitted around the room with unease.
The bartender, muscles bulging under his t-shirt, asked for my drink order. Barnes and I replied at the same time but out of politeness I let him go first, then I ordered a whiskey.
A ruddy indignation filled Barnesâs cheeks. He turned to me. âI guess I thought he was talking to me. He has a lazy eye or something.â
The bartenderâs eyes were fine but I played along. âThe view is better from behind anyway.â
Barnes saw me watch the bartender scooping ice, bending over in his tight pants. He chuckled. âIâll drink to that.â
We made small talk at the bar and he kept drinking. I spoke in quips, aloof. He couldnât get enough. I lied about my hometown, my profession, a motorbike I never owned. An aggression emerged in his motions. His hand squeezed my shoulder. His knee brushed my thigh. His eyes twinkled.
âLetâs go sit, daddy,â he said.
We took chairs at the table alongside his friends. They left us alone but snuck curious glances. I kept my back to them.
From under his shirt Barnes removed a necklace. He smiled. âI want to see what you think of this.â
Hanging from the chain was an eerie glass of murky forest green, two inches square. Light bounced off it unnaturally, like wisps of steam, truly unearthly. In doubt, I rubbed my eyes.
âItâs a mirror,â he said. âKind of. Here. Look into it.â
He held it up for me to see. I expected a reflection of myself, probably warped, but instead I saw another live image: a great pit, unfathomable in depth, quivering along its brim. It seized my consciousness. Shadowy beings scaled up the pit, extending bony arms. They swarmed me and their hands crushed my throat and I was choking, just like the DMT trip, and I realized it was causing a scene.
âWhoa!â Barnes was laughing. âYou alright?â He told the others not to worry.
The illusion vanished as soon as my stare broke from his mirror. I drew breath again but my heart still pounded. âWhat the hell is that?â
He tucked the necklace back under his shirt. âI was, um, taught how to make it. Everyone sees something different in it. Like a mirror to your soul, yâknow? Some people see awful things. Some see beautiful images and canât look away. Now youâŠwhatever you saw, you must have a dark side. I kinda find that hot.â
The impossibility of his item confounded me. âHow do you learn to make something like that?â
He smiled wryly. âEver heard of DMT? Ayahuasca?â I feigned ignorance. âItâs one of those experiences that opens your mind, like, to the universeâs true nature. It connects you with all life in the universe. You can learn a lot of things this way.â He relished being enigmatic.
âTell me more.â
He showed me his stainless steel flask and sipped from it. Carved on the side was the same cyclopean pyramid from the sign outside Higher Pathways. âDiluted ayahuasca tea. I like to microdose.â He put on a sultry tone. âWhy donât you come to my place and try it? Or have a regular drink. OrâŠyou know.â He reached under the table and grabbed my crotch.
âLetâs do it.â
Outside, we walked by the water where boats bobbed in the wake against a factory skyline. Barnes, too plastered to stand straight, leaned on my shoulder. His phone buzzed. Peeking at the screen, I saw a message from Scott Coulter: When are you going home? Prying, but why?
Ahead of us, Barnesâs luxury apartment building rose over the bars and brick townhomes. I pulled down my baseball cap and slid on my gloves. His fob let us into the lobby where we boarded the elevator. He caressed my arm. His gaze was hunger.
We stepped off at the top level. Unlocking his front door, he giggled. âI just realized I donât know your name.â
Following him inside the darkened penthouse, I removed my hat and pulled the ski mask over my face. As soon as the door shut, I clutched his jacket and threw him to the ground face-first.
âWhat the fuck?!â he yelled.
I jumped on his back, forgetting how tough and audacious drunks can be. He bucked me off and we grappled on the floor. A wild determination sprung from deep in his id. However, the alcohol weighed on his reflexes and I overtook him. Straddling his slim frame, my fist bashed his face so continuously that he had no chance to scream. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth. His hands flailed uselessly.
Then, from under his shirt he lifted the alien mirror and thrust it in my face. Frozen fingertips crept out of oblivion to smother me until I remembered to shut my eyes and I slapped the mirror from his hand. My other fist knocked out his wind. Standing above him, I raised a shoe over the guyâs head. He was gasping, vulnerable. My primal instinct was to kill, to destroy this virus infecting the decency left in this world. Nonetheless, his cooperation held an important key to my plan. That despicable life of his needed to be spared.
I zip-tied his wrists and ankles, shoved the racquetball past his teeth and tied the sock behind his head. Squirming and muffled shrieking was met with another blow to his gut. I dragged him into the living room with its harbor view, fastened him to a chair with my belt and placed books beneath the rear legs, precariously balanced to dissuade bouncing while I combed the place. The signal scanner found two cameras whose lenses I obscured with a few layers of tape to prevent tripping their tampering sensors. Torn bits of foam earplugs were taped over the mic pinholes. In case he had a well-shielded third cam, the ski mask stayed on with hopes that Barnes hadnât also invested in AI threat-detection with a direct line to emergency response. Just another risk, I thought. Maybe Poeâs curse rubbed off on me.
Blood dripped from Barnesâs chin. His nose was crooked. He cried pitifully in the windowâs orange city glow. I stood my phone on the coffee table and began recording. Speaking through the voice synthesizer, set to Robot, I instructed, âYour gag will be removed and then you will tell me everything about your involvement in the Old Hill mass murder. Do not scream.â I put the tip of the switchblade knife behind his chin. His eyes went wide but he showed no sign of defiance so I carefully untied and removed the sock.
His face grimaced with fright that seemed not for me. âOh shit oh shit oh shit oh shitâŠâ The knife pressed harder. âOk ok Iâll tell you Iâll tell youâŠIâll tell you that you have no idea what youâre getting mixed up in. You have noââ
I clocked him across the jaw. âWrong answer.â
His lip dribbled red phlegm. âDonât you know I like it rough?â
I hit him again. My knuckles throbbed. âWhy were you at the hotel the night before?!â
He moaned. âListen. Listen. IâI donât know why youâre asking all this butââ I held the knife against his throat. âAaahhâI canât tell you! Really, I canât! Even if I could, Iââ
I beat his face again and again. Teeth flew out of his mouth. His eyes swelled. When I stopped, a more pathetic wretch of a human had never sat before me. Still, you couldnât scrape even a speck of compassion for him from the bottom of my shoe.
He cried, blabbering about stupid decisions, immoral influences, a syndicate of corruption. âI swear to you, whatever you do to me, Scott would do a thousand times worse. You could kill me and I still wouldnât spill a thing. Iâm being honest, man. Please.â
I could sense this was the truth. Barnes knew Coulter well enough to dread his reckoning more than anything. A different tactic was needed.
The flask in his coat pocket was nearly empty so I checked the kitchen. The fridge held exactly what I sought: a glass growler filled with an earthy smelling brew. Upon seeing the growler in my hand, Barnes clamped his mouth shut. I pulled his hair, tilted back his head and spilled the tea into his nostrils. When he gagged, more was poured down his throat and I forced his jaw closed until he swallowed.
âYouâre gonna kill me! That was too much! Oh my god! Iâm gonna fuckinâ die!! Iâllââ
The ball and sock went back around his mouth. He shook in protest until the chairâs teetering threatened a second faceplant, then he slumped in defeat against his ropes, red-eyed, blood-drenched, whimpering like a trapped varmint. I dragged a chair in front of him and waited.
No police or concerned emergency contacts had yet arrived â a positive sign. His wealth should have afforded and even warranted a state-of-the-art security setup but fortunately his fecklessness came through for me. Barnes, the typical spoiled byproduct of career-absorbed politicos, was failing upward in life, obsessed with the fruits of success without bothering to feed the tree.
We sat without dialog in the dim communion of his expensive slacker pad. He reeked of piss. At one point he spasmed so I removed the ball gag and let him vomit on himself. He whined and mumbled, growing more erratic as the hour dragged, watching unseen torments form around the room.
Finally I stood and restarted the phoneâs recording. When I approached Barnes, he cowered and began yelling so I reminded his neck of my knife. His voice lowered. âGo away! The darkness around youâŠso much darkness⊠Stop looking at me! Leave me alone!â He wailed like a toddler. âThis is so bad. Everything is so wrong. Everything about you is wrong. I feel something bad comingââ
âDid you make those murders happen?!â my robot voice accused him.
He spilled no words, only tears. His pupils eclipsed the irises.
âYouâre complicit in their deaths,â I continued. âFifty-seven people. Families. Children. Fifty-seven lives lost because of you.â He moaned. âWhatever you and your buddies did, all of those deaths are on you.â
âI knowâŠI knowâŠâ Tears and snot ran over dried blood. âI donât know whyâŠwhy I got into this.â He sniveled. âWe made it happen. We willed it into happening. It was my idea. HereâŠright in this spotâŠwhere it all started. Oh god, why did I get into this shit? I shouldnât have told Scott. I shouldâve justââ
âYou killed the people in Baltimore too?â
âNo! No way. That was the ETs, man, one hundred percent. I just happened to be tripping that night, right here, and the whole hyperspace was, like, different. Like, the ETs were having a, uh, a carnival or something. Thatâs what it felt like. Just, weird. A couple of hours later, they attacked the pier. I donât know why. They just did. Like in that Asian country. So the Baltimore thing wasnât me. I just felt it, thatâs all. IâŠI didnâtââ
I grabbed his collar. âOld Hill.â
His breath quickened as if racing a marathon. âOld Hill. Right. That was our prototype. Scott and me. âEvolved Defense Corp.â That old racist Zimm was happy to give us cover as long as we got rid of some Africans for him. We, uh, did a ceremony. In the hotel. I showed everyone that same carnival feeling so we could replay it together. Like making a wish. It was that easy. And it worked. Oh my god, it actually worked. But we went too far. Too far. Because of Scott. That fuckingââ
âWhat do you mean âprototypeâ?â
âScott wanted this to be, uh, a service. On the black market. We could sell it to certain governments so they could, like, use it in warfare, put down rebellions, or whatever, but then shift the blame to ETs. Perfect cover story. Oh god, I didnât know⊠This stuff sounded wild when we talked about it, like being the first to scale a mountain. Well, we reached the top, man, and itâs really fucking scary. Now everything is so fucked. Even more than it was. Weâre all fucked, yâknow. The whole planet. ETs are gonna fuck up everything. Theyâre only getting started. Thereâs no way we stand a chance. Everything is fuckedâŠâ
My only desire in that moment was to snuff out the life of this psychopath, this architect of genocide-for-hire, disposing a minority community to test-drive his sick discovery, replicating one tragedyâs cruel aura to spawn another. Murder was a game to the aliens but apparently a money machine for rich and powerful earthlings. I shuddered with outrage. My fists ached to deal more punishment. But, his complete reduction was well underway. The volume of ingested ayahuasca would sweep him to the brink of hell, and if he returned, Iâd make sure an electric chair would send him back.
As the effects heightened, his doom-mongering became rants about apparitions of the dead phasing through walls and floor and ceiling, seeking their reparation. Brown-skinned faces with neatly bored holes judged him and he lashed out, calling them nativist slurs, deflecting fault for their deaths, then fearing an eternity of their retribution. Invisible fingers seemed to caress his nerves.
The sight of Barnes, both body and soul, repulsed me. I retied his gag. His faraway mind no longer registered my presence. A ruined man.
On the way out, I caught a glint of light from the floor â that mystifying mirror of his. I snatched it up and walked out the door.
In the hall with the mask off, bright light revealed blood on my clothes. Too late to fret about that; a transnational conspiracy of military-industrial proportions lurked in the shadows. Safety required haste and care. That paranoia saved my skin when, entering the stairwell, the point of a long hunting knife dove from above.
The man had been waiting. A fraction of a second sooner and his patience would have netted a punctured heart but I dodged too quickly. Then, in a swift motion I pulled his outstretched arm while tripping his ankle, sending him to the hall floor. I was already on the stairs before the thud of his landing.
Outside, a frigid ghost town flew past, every soul driven off from the witching hour except this mad runner. I realized too late that confusion had steered me further from the rental car. With nowhere else to go, I turned at the end of the block just as my near-assassin burst out of the lobby doors. He was a young man, average height, Black, muscular, with a goatee. The connection to Barnes wasnât clear. His face rang no bells, though I could identify the resolve of a huntsman numb to carnage but not the thrill.
He gave chase, catching up to witness me round another corner, slowly closing the distance. Deeper into Baltimore City we ventured. Turning onto a residential street, I wedged between a dumpster and brick wall. Mr. Goatee, with caution, crept past the parked cars and front stoops where his quarry could be hiding, missing me completely.
Once he disappeared from view, I opened Theresaâs chat on my phone. My fingers typed a warning of a possible silencing operation that had ensnared me so, by extension, she needed to watch her back, if it wasnât too late. Realizing it probably wouldnât be noticed until morning, I called her phone, let it ring a few times and hung up. Then I turned my phone off; no point taking chances with a trackable device when youâre up against the powerful and connected.
The assassin took time checking around each vehicle. When he moved to the next block, I retreated in the opposite direction, clinging to the wall, knife in hand, past unlit stores shielded by locked gates, ducking for the occasional car or box truck that passed. Soon I approached an intersection when, coming from around the corner, a tall, bald man nearly bumped into me. Peering down at this nuisance before him, his expression cycled from surprise to recognition to angry resolve.
This time, my reflexes were late. The manâs fist across my cheek sent me sprawling to the pavement. A friend of Goateeâs, I realized. Towering over me, he reached for something inside his parka but it got stuck on the way out. I tried to stand and, when his boot kicked at me, I rolled out of the way and leaped to my feet, swinging the switchblade upward. It sliced his face from lip to brow, not sparing the eye. Just in time; his glock had finally been drawn. Lucky for me, his instinct dropped the weapon in favor of covering the fresh wound.
I took flight from his crazed screams, down the sidewalk and into an alleyway with no pursuit. Twinkling factory lights over the harbor were my North Star. In my head, Baldyâs face conjured an image from Cedar Innâs camera footage of Coulterâs personal security chief: big, burly, knobby headed, light-skinned, leaning against his bossâs SUV, wearing an AR-15 like an overcompensating purse. The same man. I made no assumption that he was in town to protect Barnes â in fact, likely the contrary.
Barnesâ apartment building loomed two blocks ahead. I sprinted across another road when a resounding POP broke the cityâs stillness and, next to me, the rear window of a parked van exploded. Without slowing, I glanced over my shoulder to see Goatee down the block in a firing stance. A second blast and, on my other side, the brick wall blew a puff of dust from the ricochet.
I took the corner onto a long avenue with little cover. My best option was behind a hundred black garbage bags stuffed with old insulation and drywall, stacked against an abandoned shop. I pulled some of the bags over me and camouflaged myself in the dark. Through the crevices I watched Goatee cross the block with care while, from the other end, Baldy staggered, one hand over his eye. They met in front of the trash pile.
Speaking low, Goatee asked, âDid you see him?â
âDid I see him?â Baldy snapped, âLook at this shit!â Blood gushed down his cheek to his parka. âWeâre not done âtil Iâm carryinâ his severed fuckinâ head.â
Goatee showed no sympathy. âHeâs gotta be right here. Thereâs nowhere else for him to go. Come on. Help me move this shit.â
âYou move this shit! Weâre payinâ your ass.â
âNot for this guy!â
âOh yes. Youâre doing him now, since I just did what we hired you for.â
Goatee began pulling down bags. âBecause this guy got in the way! Who the fuck is he anyway?â
âHe wasnât supposed to be there,â said Baldy, âbut heâs on the list.â He dressed the laceration with a torn chunk of shirt. âHe fucked Tristan up pretty good. Did most of the work for me.â
As Goatee broke down the pile, the headlights of a white SUV approached. My mind whipped up a plan of distraction but, to my dismay, the SUV slowed and found parking at the corner. More trash bags fell, closer to me. I readied my knife for our last futile defense.
Baldy told his associate to stop. A blue Honda Civic rolled slowly along the avenue. As they eyed its passing, I burst through the garbage mound and into the road. The driver, a middle-aged man in glasses, stopped his car in front of me, startled. Despite his obstruction, the assassins unloaded their clips, shattering the passenger window and dotting the hood but missing me. The driver shrieked and his tires squealed as the Civic zipped away.
I kept running. The men werenât far behind. Bullets whipped past me. No help was going to come. Street names had lost familiarity. I ducked into a narrow alley with enough clutter to shield my back, then emerged onto a broadway. Bordering the opposite side was a park with dark contours for cover and evasion but separated from me by wide, open blacktop. I had no other choice.
I was almost on the grass. In the corner of my eye, Goatee stood at the mouth of the alley, aiming his pistol. I braced for the pain, or worse. Instead, a frantic car horn drew his attention to the grill of a white Grand Wagoneer bearing down on him. The SUVâs impact flung him a dozen feet into a storefront window, cracking the glass with his head. He landed in a contorted heap, gasping for air, flopping on the sidewalk, revulsive.
I didnât stop. The Wagoneer did though. âHuang!â called the driver through the open window. I knew that voice.
I went to Theresaâs car and climbed into the passenger seat. âYou just saved me.â
She was clearly shaken. âIâŠI hit that guy.â Goatee vomited and then quit moving altogether. âHoly shit. Did I kill him?â
âWell, theyâre trying to kill us. I guess you got my message but you werenât supposed to come here.â
She cast one last sorry glimpse at her handiwork and hit the gas pedal. âLike I wouldnât come. I knew from your message youâd be in Fells Point. Then I saw them shoot the blue car and I followed yâall.â
âThe other guy is Coulterâs top bodyguard. He came out east to cover their tracks and it sounds like weâre on their hit list. Whereâs your family?â
âSafe at a friendâs house. Now what you and I are gonna do is go see my boss, Blair. Heâs our best chance toââ
âYou need to keep moving,â I said. She had stopped at a red light. âBaldy is still around somewhere.â
She made a right turn. âWho?â
But I didnât get to explain the nickname because her brains suddenly splattered across the windshield.
I screamed. She let go of the steering wheel and slumped onto me. The Wagoneer, unable to complete its turn, cruised toward some cars parked on the cross street, picking up speed. I braced myself; my seatbelt wasnât buckled.
The Wagoneer crashed into the side of a minivan with a loud crunch. The force was enough to deploy the front and side airbags, walloping my face and Theresaâs limp torso. As the air deflated, I lifted her head.
âTheresa?!â
It was a grotesque sight. She was already gone.
My emotions were tempered by vertigo. I strove to anchor my spinning vision when through the back window I noticed Baldyâs figure crossing the intersection, gun in hand. I slipped out the passenger door, wobbly on my feet, readying for another wild dash. At that instant, a rowhouse door opened. The woman â bedclothed, baggy-eyed â took one glance at me, then noticed Baldy, the blood-soaked giant. By instinct, I assume, he pointed the glock at her. With his focus diverted, I made a run for the parking garage across the street. The womanâs door slammed shut and Baldy audibly cursed his missed chance to collect my head.
The garage was closed for construction. Not a single light shone. I hopped the mesh fence and blended into the concrete void, trying to reclaim my equilibrium, trying to hustle, trying to watch my twelve and six simultaneously. Baldy dragged himself and still kept up. He shared a monsterâs silhouette â bent gait, pointed dome, a lumbering bulk. His course never seemed in doubt, suggesting experience in tracking and more feed for my worries.
The garage opened to a pedestrian lane lined with upscale restaurants and boutiques, all deserted until brunchtime. The promenadeâs twists and bends kept my pursuer just barely out of eyeshot. But this delicate dance couldnât last forever. Darkness offered him an advantage; why not me?
I slipped through a railing and onto a pier. Sailboats and floating cabins groaned, tethered to their slips. Light was scarce. Not even grizzled, old mariners bother hitting the docks at that unholy hour.
Baldy soon came skulking from the shadows to hop the boatyard gate. One hand covered his eye and, in the other, his firearm led the way forward. He moved carefully, examining every nook around the attendantâs booth and stopping before the first slip.
âI know youâre here, motherfucker,â he sneered at the night. âIâm gonna make sure this shit hurts extra for what you did to my face.â He spat blood. âIâll fuck you up.â
He poked around the first ship with the gun barrel. The boards creaked under his boots. Holding the rail, he pulled himself onto the shipâs deck, then he checked the empty cockpit before hopping back down.
I was on the neighboring boat, behind the helm. When he landed on the dock, I took two steps and leaped onto his back, thrusting my knife into him. He toppled to the ground but the blade pierced him hardly at all. Hollering in pain, he tossed me off like I weighed nothing. His hands scrambled for the glock, dropped during the fall. I kicked it into the water, then lunged for the knife, still stuck in him, and we scuffled until losing it somewhere on the floor.
His strength and weight pinned me down. He pummeled my face with colossal fists, shedding his blood on me like a drooling hound. I couldnât hold him back. A bundle of rope sat next to us and he wrapped it around my neck, all the while smiling on his mouthâs good side. I couldnât break free. The rope was pulled taut like a hundred alien hands wringing my throat. I clutched at it and kicked my legs in a useless fit, desperate for breath. My nightmare, manifested.
âStupid fuck,â he hissed at me. Hatred smoldered in his unharmed eye. âGo on. Die. Just like all the others.â
The world, its petty cares, my unfinished work, my rage â all of it began to fade. The god of this universe would finally unveil to me her true face of either heaven or vacuum or maybe a hyperspace of eternal DMT bliss.
All of a sudden I remembered. From my pocket I grabbed the mirror and shoved it into Baldyâs face. He raised a hand but, before swatting it, he paused. An expression of pure horror immediately descended over him. He let go of the rope, unable to move or to pry his gaze from the weird glass. With my last ounce of strength, I held it inches from his eyes while unwinding the coil from my neck. Fishy air refilled my lungs at last.
Now the prey was Baldy. Awful nightmares in the mirrorâs image had regressed that behemoth of a man to a terrified tot. Who knows â maybe he saw himself: a wicked, one-eyed henchman for fascist terrorists, killing bystanders to revel in a whistleblowerâs murder. Deep within I felt pity for him but not a trace of mercy.
The switchblade lay on the planks, begging for my hand. I picked it up and jammed it into his chest, right through his heart.
The fatal sting plus the mirrorâs abrupt absence dealt him twin shocks. He stared at me, bewildered, then looked down at the knife and fell backward, splashing into the harbor.
I watched the water. The manâs body rose to the surface with no struggle, glistening under pale light. I thought the same watery grave suited the mirror, that spooky talisman I could swear was throbbing in my hand. Its presence in this world felt like some violation of natural law â a glitch to be patched. I wound my arm, threw the mirror as far as possible and listened for the plunk of its sinking.
At that moment, the cries of nearby police sirens filled the air, rising in volume. Without thinking twice I dove in the water and swam toward the blue band forming on the horizonâs rim.
My waterlogged phone wouldnât power on after that but it never needed to. The device was a burner and the video taken in Barnesâs apartment was stored in the great computing cloud. Before my return flight departed, Barnesâs confession was attached to anonymous messages for Theresaâs boss, Blair, and trusted contacts at several law enforcement agencies.
Avoiding home, I checked myself into a motel outside of Seattle with a different alias and a second suitcase stashed in my carâs trunk with work clothes and a firearm. On Monday I headed back to the agency, blaming a nasty bicycle crash for my cuts and bruises. Stagliano eyed me funny all week but I played it cool, kept my head low and waited.
News broke on Friday afternoon that notorious tech exec Scott Coulter was arrested at Paine Field on board his private jet as it taxied for takeoff. The international flight plan had been filed at the last second and, without coincidence, Coulter had shaved off his beard, dyed his hair and covered his tattoos. Details were fuzzy but corruption charges seemed likely. Also netted were the rest of his entourage from Cedar Inn, Mayor Zimm and even the agencyâs chain of command from the top down to Stagliano. FBI agents frogmarched him out of the building in handcuffs. As he passed me, I sipped my coffee.
I wish justice could have finally won its credit instead of Blairâs political machinations (he earned a higher pay grade and a transfer to DC) and a government eager to wash its hands of the school bombing (Headshot Industries collapsed after their contracts were canceled) but progress always seems to be a quarter-step. I even found the official allegations â bribes, betrayal (Barnes found with two bullets to the head), crypto laundering, prostitutes â were easier pills for the public to swallow than the bitter possibility that the truth could one day be repeated.
In the agencyâs restructuring, my bossâs vacant office was offered to me. I declined. Iâm not ready to sit on my ass all day. Also, guilt over Theresaâs death has wilted a good chunk of my spirit. Lacking the millstone of religion around my neck, my penance must be continued subservience to my fellow citizens, collecting the pieces left by anomalous events in order to, one day, hopefully, learn enough to assemble the defense our world needs â a job few can do and even fewer would.
A new case landed on my lap: aliens entered a manâs rural home, sliced open his abdomen, dumped his organs on the floor and tore off his scalp, probably for the hair. The poor guy witnessed his own mutilation, cut by cut, until the last of his life petered out. My appointed task is to document and ascribe some purpose to this unspeakable terror. But as with humans, neither does ET violence need to stem from reason. Now everyday, everywhere, I watch the sky, because I know the heavens keep a body count.
Thank you for reading! This story is from my debut novella Vile Aliens. Visit keithvile.medium.com for more info.