Nasferas: The Begotten

27

Katelyn got out and joined them.

Matt opened his door. His heart beat rampantly and he almost didn't want to know what Jimmy Boy had fixated on.

Eve pushed him out the door. "Let's check it out." She nearly knocked him over when she exited the truck.

Matt sighed. "Okay."

Eve grabbed him by the hand and led him to the front of the truck. In the distance, at the other side of the canyon, the butt end of a vehicle poked from a grove of smashed pine trees. Lights flashed and lit up the area around it.

"What the hell is it?" Eve said.

"A ship." Jimmy Boy shared his binoculars with Katelyn.

Katelyn said in a frightened and hurried voice, "Check out the back ..." She gulped. "... it's opening."

Jimmy Boy took the binoculars back. "Let me ... holy hell, she ain't joking. The damn thing is opening up."

Matt still couldn't believe his eyes. Was he witnessing a downed alien spacecraft? Were they about to have their close encounter of the fourth kind? A light from inside grew brighter as a door opened near the back or possibly the front, he couldn't tell which.

"Take this." Jimmy Boy handed Matt a 9mm pistol. He opened a bag and gave a shotgun to Jason, and another rifle to Brett. Dustin also got a .35 caliber pistol. "We can't make any mistakes here. If these aliens are hostile, we need to be ready. Everyone got that?"

They all nodded.

"Those can't be aliens," Brett said. "Has to be a new shuttle or some shit N.A.S.A's testing and the damn thing crashed. Easy enough. We should call and get some army guys up here or something."

Katelyn pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

"No use, Kitty. I already tried." Nancy held her phone up with empty bars in the upper left-hand corner.

"Can you hear me now? My ass," Katelyn said. "Now what?"

Jimmy Boy handed the binoculars to Matt. "Looks like they're dropping a ramp of some sort."

Matt took the binoculars and looked down the ravine. Everything had a bright green tint and when the lights from the ship flashed, it became a total whiteout. He did agree that a ramp had extended from the ship, but he didn't see anyone on their way out.

Jimmy Boy turned the safety off on Matt's gun. "You can't shoot anything with that on now, can ya?"

"Probably not." Matt hadn't shot a lot of guns, though, he had gone to the range with his dad a couple of times. He remembered hitting the bullseye once out of about twenty tries.

Jimmy Boy quirked his right cheek into a half smile. "I'm headed down the hill a bit. Need a better place to spot from. But I need someone to approach the ship. Any volunteers?"

"We're up." Jason punched Brett in the arm.

"I got your back."

"Are you two insane?" Nancy pushed Jason's chest. "Don't leave us up here without a weapon."

"That's my girl," Jason said. "Jimmy? Got a gun for Nancy?"

"7mm rifle in the back of the truck. I left the case open. Can you shoot?"

Nancy smiled and crawled into the bed. "Locked and loaded." She perched on the roof of the truck. Dustin joined her.

Jason smiled. "That's my girl. She can shoot better than most of us put together."

"You guys hold the fort down," Jimmy Boy said.

"I'm going with you." Katelyn wrapped her arms around Brett's left arm.

Twigs snapped and shrubs rustled as the armed group headed down the hillside.

Matt kept the binoculars. "Wait, guys."

"They're already down the ravine," Eve said. She then gently took the gun from Matt, popped the clip out, inspected it, and slapped it back into the butt of the gun.

Matt didn't care. Eve had probably used guns way more than he had. But as he watched the ship and the group moving down the hill, he saw a shadow. An ominous group of human shadows spread down the ramp.

"They're not aliens." Matt handed the binoculars to Eve.

"No?" She re-focused the goggles. "They're exiting the ship. And they're ... people, Matt. We need to stop the others from opening fire on them."

"Come on." Matt took the binoculars and hung them around his neck. He snagged Eve's hand and dragged her behind him. They skidded down the snow-covered hill, into the depths of the canyon, to hopefully prevent a massacre.

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