Terror from Outer Space Page 3

  “Can I ask Mike something?” Rachel asked bashfully.

  “Sure, Rachel,” Mike said with a nod. “It’s okay, Mom. We’ll be right in.”

  Mike dropped his squeegee into the bucket and knelt next to the little girl. “So, what’s up, Rachel? What do you want to know?”

  She just stood there fidgeting bashfully for a moment, and then pointed to the B-17 parked beside the diner. “Um, is that your daddy’s plane?”

  “The Lady Liberty? No. That’s the plane my grandpa flew a long time ago.”

  Rachel looked at him, puzzled. “But my mommy said your daddy was a pilot too.”

  “That’s right. He is, Rachel.”

  “So, where’s his plane? And where’s your daddy?”

  “He, uh . . .” Mike stammered, not knowing where to start. He looked down into the water in his bucket. “That’s a tough question to answer, Rachel.”

  It was a question Mike had struggled with for most of his young life. He hadn’t seen his dad in more than seven years. The last time they had been together was at Mike’s sixth birthday celebration. His dad had given Mike a compass and a pocket Bible for his birthday and told him, “As long as you keep these with you, your path will always be straight.”

  Mike could still picture exactly how his dad had looked that day. “I may not always be here for you, Mike,” his dad had said. “But God will.”

  And that was the last memory Mike had of his dad. A few days later, John Fowler simply vanished.

  Mike’s dad had been flying a classified mission in an undisclosed area of the Middle East when his F-16 fighter jet went down. The wreckage of the plane was eventually located, but mysteriously, no trace of John Fowler’s body was ever recovered. Technically, the Air Force had him listed as “Missing in Action.” But it had been years now without any fresh clues or real answers.

  Most people in town thought John Fowler must have died in that crash. But Mike didn’t believe it. Somehow, he knew that his dad was still alive. He could just feel it.

  And that’s why Mike started the Last Chance Detectives. He thought that if he developed his investigative skills, maybe someday he’d be able to get to the bottom of the mystery and finally bring his dad back home.

  Mike looked up from the water in his bucket to Rachel, who was still waiting for an answer. “Hey, we better go inside,” he said. “The space shuttle transmission should start any moment now.”

  “But what about your dad and his plane?” Rachel asked, following him toward the entrance to the diner.

  “Well, you see, my dad is on this very secret mission.” Mike opened the door for her. “But soon, hopefully, he’ll be coming home just like your dad.”

  Inside the diner, Pop Fowler and Spence had set up a ham radio transceiver and large speaker on the lunch counter. A small group of locals huddled around Pop as he tuned the radio’s controls with one hand and clamped a headset tight against his ear with the other.

  “Are you sure this is going to work, Pop?” Grandma Fowler asked skeptically.

  “It should. I’ve tuned into the frequency NASA uses, but it’s not coming in too clear. I think our antenna just needs a little adjusting.”

  A wire from the back of the transceiver snaked its way to the far side of the room where Spence stood. Spence lifted the antenna over his head. “Is this any better, Pop?”

  “Higher, Spence! Higher!” Pop called back.

  Spence climbed up onto the seat of one of the dining booths. “How is it now?”

  “Stronger, but—” Pop listened intently to his headset and finally shook his head. “Nope! We need it higher still. Climb onto the table!”

  “The table? Are you sure?”

  “We can wash the tablecloth, Spence. Go ahead,” Gail assured him.

  Spence gingerly climbed onto the table. Under his weight it started to tilt, but he quickly moved to the center. Now somewhat balanced, he held up the antenna high over his head.

  “That’s better.” Pop nodded. “But if you could get it just a little bit higher!”

  Spence went up onto his tiptoes, straining to reach as high as his short stature would allow.

  Pop suddenly brightened. “That’s it! Perfect, Spence. Don’t move a muscle.”

  Spence’s eyes widened at the instruction to continue holding the awkward position.

  “Listen to this, everybody!” Pop flicked a toggle switch, turning on the large speaker on the counter.

  “—velocity reading: 12,802 per second. Range to go: 433 nautical miles,” a calm voice stated.

  “That’s Ron!” Rebekah Schaeffer exclaimed as a cheer arose from the small crowd in the diner.

  “That’s my dad!” Rachel stared, wide-eyed, at the radio.

  “Yay! It works!” Spence momentarily lowered his arms in all the excitement and the signal became distorted.

  “Quit moving, Spence!” Ben shouted, through a mouthful of cupcake.

  “Shh!” Gail held her index finger up to her lips. “Listen!”

  “Roger that, Explorer.” This voice sounded clearer and had the unmistakable, official ring of the flight director of NASA mission control. “We have twenty-five seconds and counting to reentry interface—”

  “Cabin pressure’s looking good.” Commander Schaeffer sounded calm and cool as he transmitted from over thirty miles above the earth’s surface. “H2 and O2 tanks are at a stable 700 psi.”

  Little Chloe let out a delighted squeal from her mother’s arms. Recognizing her father’s voice, she reached toward the speaker. “Daddyyyy!”

  “That’s right, honey. Daddy’s coming home!” Rebekah laughed.

  “Looking good from down here, Explorer. Your flight speed and trajectory are right on the bubble.”

  “Mission Control, with your permission, I think I’ll set her down right here,” Commander Schaeffer joked. “I can see my hometown of Ambrosia just down below.”

  Everyone in the diner went crazy, cheering.

  “That’s a negatory, Explorer,” the flight director joked back. “They tell me that bucket of bolts of yours turns into a pumpkin if you don’t get it back to NASA in time.”

  “Well, as long as you put it that way I guess—HEY!” The transmission from the shuttle suddenly cut off.

  Everyone in the diner looked at each other, puzzled. The voices they had been listening to had sounded so calm and casual up to that point. But was that a yell they had heard before the transmission cut out?

  “Explorer?” The flight director remained calm. He waited for several long seconds. After receiving no response, he tried again. “Explorer? Please respond. Over.”

  “Houston—be advised.” Ron Schaeffer’s voice was back but no longer calm. What sounded like shouting—and perhaps a struggle—could be heard in the background of his transmission. “We’ve got a—NO!—Get—”

  The transmission went dead again.

  “Go ahead, Explorer. Say again.”

  Everyone in the diner held their breaths and stared at the transceiver, which remained eerily quiet.

  Several moments later, they heard, “Mayday! Mayday! May—” Commander Schaeffer never finished his sentence. His transmission cut out with a loud snap of static electricity.

  Rebekah Schaeffer gasped and clutched her daughter tight. Pop checked the frequency, but the cutout wasn’t a result of the antenna.

  “Explorer!” It was flight control again. “Explorer, do you copy?”

  The diner was dead quiet as everyone waited for Commander Schaeffer to respond.

  “Explorer, this is Houston. Do you read me?”

  There was still no response. Rebekah Schaeffer’s eyes slowly filled with tears.

  “What’s the matter, Mommy?” Rachel asked.

  BOOM!

  A thunderous explosion suddenly rocked the diner. People screamed, dishes rattled, and the windows shook so violently that Pop thought they might break.

  Mike sprinted out of the diner to see what had happened. Pop was right beh
ind him. Several people followed, including Rebekah Schaeffer and the girls.

  Pop and Mike scanned the horizon and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But when they looked up toward the sky, their expressions turned to horror.

  Rebekah followed their gaze, and when she saw what they were looking at, she screamed.

  A large smoke cloud hung high in the upper atmosphere. Extremely bright burning fragments—that originated from the center of the cloud—streaked slowly across the sky, leaving trails of smoke.

  “No . . . No . . .” Rebekah collapsed to her knees beside her daughter Rachel. “Oh, Lord. No!”

  “What’s that, Mommy?” Rachel pointed to the burning fragments. They almost looked like fireworks.

  Pop and Mike looked at each other, anguish on their faces.

  Rebekah hugged her daughter with her free arm and tried to cover her eyes. “No, honey. Don’t look at it. Don’t look!”

  In Rebekah’s other arm, little Chloe reached for the bright burning lights in the sky and smiled. “Pretty!”

  Chapter 4

  LYLE AND SKYE WILSON lived in a trailer home far outside the city limits of Ambrosia. Their nearest neighbor was an abandoned military base nearly a mile away. They liked the seclusion because they thought it helped get their inner selves more in tune with nature.

  The Wilsons were flower children of the 1960s, and they still embraced the lifestyle and looked the part even though they were now in their late forties. Lyle hadn’t cut his beard or ponytail in years, and Skye was partial to beads, bandanas, and tie-dyed sundresses.

  They had moved to the desert to try their hand at gardening. Lyle had read a book about the Hohokam Indians, an ancient vegetarian tribe that grew various crops in the Southwest—or the “Valley of the Sun,” as they liked to call it. The theory was that minerals found only in the desert would give their squash and herbs a medicinal quality that supposedly slowed the aging process.

  The Wilsons’ trailer sat next to a modest garden. The garden was surrounded by a fence that was meant to keep jackrabbits out. A scarecrow making a peace sign with its gloved fingers kept watch over the vegetables. A wooden windmill painted to look like a sunflower stood off to the side of the trailer. It pumped water out of a natural spring and into the garden’s irrigation system. Lyle and Skye had designed the pump to blend into the natural surroundings as much as possible.

  But the Wilsons hadn’t turned their backs completely on all modern advances. Lyle had installed a large satellite dish on the top of their trailer so that they could watch PBS, old television reruns, and their favorite movies. He had painted the metal dish into a bright yellow happy face.

  As the last rays of sunlight dipped behind the horizon, Skye lit a fresh jasmine incense cone, and Lyle dropped into his beanbag chair to watch TV.

  “The nation mourns the loss of the seven astronauts on board the space shuttle Explorer,” a sober-looking newscaster reported. “On a routine mission to retrieve a data-gathering satellite, something went terribly wrong late this morning as the Explorer and her crew were attempting to reenter Earth’s atmosphere.”

  The image on the screen cut away to a replay of the terrible explosion.

  “What a bummer!” Lyle shook his head. “Can you believe it, babe?”

  “No word yet from NASA on what could have caused this disaster,” the reporter continued. “But we’ll be sure to bring you the latest breaking developments as this story continues to unfold. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.”

  The news program blinked off, and an old, black-and-white sci-fi movie filled the screen.

  “Those poor people,” Skye said in her small, timid-sounding voice. “What could have caused such a thing?”

  “I don’t know, Skye, but . . .” Lyle’s words trailed off as his eyes fell on the TV screen.

  In the old movie that was being televised, goofy-looking aliens that seemed to be a cross between humans and octopuses were marching out of their spaceships to begin their conquest of earth. Their foam-rubber octopus arms waved around wildly, clearly being animated with wires.

  Lyle’s eyes widened. “Hey, man! Maybe the space shuttle crashed into something!” He pointed to the screen. “You know, like one of the far-out flying saucers in this movie!”

  “Lyle, please.” Skye shuddered and turned away from the TV set. “You know that stuff gives me the creeps.”

  “Yeah, okay. You don’t dig the whole alien scene. That’s cool. All I’m saying is that maybe it was, like, an accident. You know?”

  Skye wasn’t so sure. She walked over to the kitchenette as Lyle continued talking. “See, these alien cats are probably pacifists. You know, conscientious objectors like us.”

  Skye was doing her best to follow Lyle’s train of thought, but as she stood there in the kitchenette, something caught her eye out the window.

  A thick blanket of green fog rolled across the yard, obscuring her view of the garden.

  “Lyle! There’s some sort of fog outside.”

  “Fog? No, baby, there’s never been any fog in this area. You’re probably just seeing condensation on the window from doing the dishes.”

  Skye leaned forward and rubbed the window. There was no condensation on the glass. Outside, the green fog continued to slowly roll in. It was getting thicker by the second.

  “Anyway”—Lyle was on a roll—“what probably went down is these little peaceful alien dudes were truckin’ down here to pick up something they had stashed earlier, when Bam! Outta nowhere, here comes the space shuttle!”

  Skye was barely listening. She couldn’t take her eyes off what was unfolding just outside the window. As she peered into the thick mist, she noticed that there seemed to be something moving around within it. Something that was alive and getting closer.

  “Lyle, I think there’s something out there!”

  Lyle continued watching the old movie. “Okay. See, you’re just trippin’ ’cause you’ve got a hang-up about these old alien movies.”

  The shape in the fog continued to grow larger as it moved closer. Skye could now make out what seemed to be a figure. It appeared to have multiple arms and legs that bent in unnatural ways. She couldn’t stand to see any more. She pulled down the window blind and backed away.

  Lyle turned to see that Skye was visibly shaking. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Can’t you hear it?” she asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “Listen!”

  Lyle leaned forward and turned off the television set. All was quiet. Then after a moment, he could clearly hear that, indeed, something was moving around just outside the trailer.

  A long, bubbly moan, accompanied by the sound of dragging footsteps, cut through the still of the night. Lyle slowly stood up, trying not to make a sound. Whatever was outside was now moving around to the front of the trailer.

  Lyle turned to look at Skye, who was starting to whimper in fear. “What did you see out there?” he asked.

  She was so frightened she barely managed to squeak out a single word, “Alien!”

  “I knew it!” Lyle exclaimed.

  To Skye’s horror, she noticed the doorknob behind Lyle was slowly turning. She desperately pointed at it and began backing away as Lyle turned to examine the door. The sound of the eerie moaning was still in the garden and getting closer.

  Skye climbed onto the couch, pulled her feet up, and clutched a pillow to her chest. Her shoulder brushed the window blind behind her, triggering it to open. The sudden sound of the rolling spindle startled Skye, and she spun around to look. Just inches away—on the other side of the glass—stood her worst nightmare. The creature looked similar to the octo-alien they had just seen in the movie. Only this one’s arms weren’t being held up by wires. And it had no zipper running up the back of a fake rubber suit. No, the thing that stood outside the window looked absolutely, horribly, real. Its hideous mouth gaped open as it reached for her with its slimy tentacles. Large suction cups pulsated against the glass. Skye
suddenly found her voice and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  “Skye!” Lyle yelled, looking around frantically. “What is it?”

  Still unable to speak, Skye pointed to the window, but there was no longer anything there.

  “What did you see? Was it like a cute little alien in the movie E.T.?” he asked hopefully.

  Skye shook her head no.

  The trailer was suddenly rocked like it had been picked up roughly by a corner and then dropped back down.

  Lyle steadied himself against the wall. “So, we’re definitely talking an acid-for-blood, scary-type alien, huh?”

  Skye nodded yes.

  Again, the trailer took a massive hit—this one felt more like a mighty blow from a semitruck. Lyle was knocked to the floor. Cupboards emptied their contents. Ceiling tiles dropped. A shelf of record albums dropped and spilled out across the floor. Plants hanging from the ceiling fell and shattered the records to pieces.

  “My vinyl record collection!” Lyle looked down at the carnage in horror. Albums lay shattered in pieces. It was then that something seemed to snap within him. “That does it!”

  Lyle began to rush to the front door, but Skye followed and jumped in his path. “Lyle! You can’t go out there!”

  “This has gone far enough!” He gently moved her aside. “Someone’s gonna pay!”

  Lyle let out a wild war cry and kicked open the front door of the trailer. But when he got a look at what was outside, his eyes went wide, and he froze like a deer caught in the headlights.

  In the middle of the garden, crushing the vegetables beneath it, sat a strange, silvery flying saucer. Lights strobed and pulsated on its fuselage as steam escaped from under its metallic base. The garden’s scarecrow lay in flames, having just been shot by a group of hideous, gurgling octo-aliens. Now turning toward Lyle, they lifted their weapons and took aim.

  Chapter 5

  NO ONE COULD REMEMBER a busier day in all of Ambrosia’s history. Since that morning’s space shuttle tragedy, national news crews and the curious general public had descended on the town like flies on a garbage heap.