The Shadow King

Chapter 5

Chapter five

"My new what?" I asked, as the pain from the light was, very slowly, dieing away.

"Your new home," Said the man sitting in the corner, a smirk plastered across his face. He was an older man with a rough face full of scars. 5'10" give or take and maybe 200 pounds.

"This room, right here, is your home now. Because, Mr. Turner, you've seen too much. Know too much."

I started to reply in a week voice, "What are you-"

"Do you think we are fools?" bellowed, the man now standing, too close to me for comfort. 

"We know all about the alien from XR-73 and how you betrayed your own country, your own world even, to help him and his kind!" He fumed with slightly blood shot eyes, as he said all of this to me.

"XR-73?" I asked quite puzzled.

"The alien's home world, you fool! Or don't you even know your friend's world, traitor?"

"I'm not a traitor." I replied bitterly to the man. I could now open my eyes with only a little pain from the searing light.

"What did you tell him, Alex?" The man interrogated as he paced around my chair in circles, like a lion about to devour his prey. "Our history…about our government systems perhaps?" He stopped and put his two hands on my arm rests and looked me directly in the eye accusingly. "What did you tell him Mr. Turner?" He asked saying each world slowly, intentionally, and with purpose.

"I didn't do anything." I replied slowly. "Me and Ja-the alien," I left James out of it; hopefully they did not know about him. "were just there when you showed up. He broke in and attacked me. I tried to get away but he caught me. But before he killed me, you showed up and saved me." I lied.

He sighed, rolled his eyes and looked at me with disgust. "You stupid traitor." he spat. "We know everything. We know about you and Mr. Anderson. We know where the alien crash landed, about your alien friend that you nicknamed "Smoky," like some kind of sick pet." He turned abruptly, and started to walk toward the only door in the small, plain room.

"You see, we know everything Mr. Turner. Now, that you have proved that you are a traitor, you will never leave here. You simply don't exist anymore. I'm sure your girlfriend will be sad to hear you died”, he plotted while tapping his finger on his pursed lips, “in a horrible car crash. The body in your car will be burned beyond any hope of identification of course."  

"What?!" I yelled to his back as he paused at the doorway. "You can't just-"

"Oh, we can." He interrupted in a quiet, calm voice. "The rules simply don't exist for you and me anymore. We will continue this later, good bye Alex."

With that, he simply closed the door behind him as he walked out.  The light I had just gotten used to turned off. Pitch dark and still tied to this chair I let my head fall back. I had no idea where I was. I felt hopeless and, to be honest with myself, a little bit scared. I just hoped James and Smokey were ok. I tried to close my tired eyes and sleep, knowing I wouldn't.

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I ran as fast as I could, hoping it was fast enough. I'm actually a dog person, but I'm not a fan of being attacked by one. 

"You better move faster, James." Smokey said, running next to me. "From the way your wheezing I think your out of shape." He teased.

I was not out of shape, but after running for a mile and a half I was ready to fall over. 

"Hurry James," Smokey said as he stopped and pointed a few hundred yards away. "There is a car you can hot wire over there. I'll buy you some time."

He ran back down the hill we had just climbed. Too out of breath to ask what he was doing, I ran the to the car and tried picking the lock with my knife. A few moments later I gave it up and just broke the window. I unlocked the car by sticking my hand through the shattered glass and manually unlocking the car. 

I stopped for a second when I heard dogs yelping and people screaming. What ever that alien was doing it sure was working. I opened the car door and hopped in the drivers seat. After a moment of trying to remember how to do it, I got the car to start. I smiled and looked up to see Smokey sitting right next to me; I jumped seeing his dark face right there.

"Ready to go yet, James?" asked Smokey.

"Don't, do that." I scolded him. "Scared me half to death."

I started the car and drove away before anyone noticed that I, a officer of the law, just stole someone's car.

"Hey, Smokey?" I asked with just a hint of worry in my voice. "What was with the screaming and yelping?"

"Just me buying you some time." He replied with what I took as little grin. "Now step on it, we need to get of here fast. We'll ditch the car somewhere and steal another one later."

I sighed and kept on driving, just below the speed limit. If someone would have told me yesterday that, I'd be driving aliens to Area-51 and running away from the law, I would have laughed. Then again, truth is stranger than fiction, or so they say.