Space Aliens, Hillbillies, and Narcissists

Chapter 4(ish)

Billy

Billy had practiced waking up not knowing where he was, and usually when that happened he hurt like hell, so when he first came to he wasn’t all that worried. He remembered getting off work after a day of welding trailers together, then picking up Terry for a bit of fun tearing through the back roads, and then–oh shit!–something flying at him as he jumped his truck on ZZ highway!

Billy began to worry. He hadn’t practiced for this kind of bullshit, he knew that. He didn’t even know what kind of bullshit he was experiencing, precisely.

Billy took stock of his situation as best he could. He was lying on his back in pitch black darkness, on something hard and smooth. His head hurt from hitting the windshield. When his hand felt his forehead, he found something gauzy there, which both relieved and scared him. Apparently, whoever–or whatever–had put him wherever he was had bandaged him up.

Billy groped around him for some clue as to where he was. His left hand found what felt like a shredded tire. Before he could feel further to see if the rest of his truck was attached, a dim crack of light came from the direction he hoped his feet were.

The crack of light grew until something too tall to be human pushed a gurney through the door, only the gurney didn’t have wheels, or really anything other than a floating platform. Billy remembered what his grandfather had told him about hiding from Vietcong in the jungle: sometimes being still is the biggest part of staying alive. Billy played possum. He squeezed his eyes shut and faked like he was still out. He heard a hum and felt air moving around him. When he opened one eye a tiny bit, he saw Terry on the platform, lowered almost all the way down onto whatever floor he was on. There came a sound like a sack of feed hitting the ground, and something grunted a lot like Terry.

Billy stayed still until the light on his eyelids went out. After a few heartbeats, Billy whispered, “Terry, you okay?”

Terry’s voice faltered in the darkness. “I . . . I dunno. Billy, it probed me. Billy, I think we got abducted by spacemen.”

Billy considered the news. This was not the kind of bullshit he wanted to deal with. “What’s it look like?”

Terry’s voice choked in the darkness. “It’s really tall . . . I think all grey, with big eyes on top of a knobby head . . it was awful dark, so I couldn’t hardly see it.” Terry blubbered in the dark.

Billy sat up in the darkness and hurt all over for his efforts. “Don’t you worry, Terrence, we’ll get out of here. It’ll be just like in one of those movies. These spacemen can’t hold two red-blooded ‘Mericans and get away with it.”

Billy tried to both sound and feel confident, but he had to admit the situation looked pretty grim.