Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“Demons!” Pastor Jay declares. “What sins have we committed?” Pastor Jay brings immediate and stupid attention to himself at what turns out to be the worst possible moment.
The three monsters have been scanning our small crowd with general interest, but as PJ draws attention to himself, he is grabbed by the largest and most cruel looking of their number. A large alien hand grips him by the throat and lifts him and his tan loafers right off the floor.
One of his shoes deserts him immediately, revealing a sock with a sad little hole in the heel. There’s something so mundane and vulnerable about the sight of an old man losing his shoe that will be burned into my mind forever.
Pastor Jay is right about one thing, it turns out. Today is his judgement day.
He is found wanting.
The alien monster looks at PJ for all of two seconds before coming to a terminal decision.
“He’s old. Useless. Throw him back.”
There is a clear hatch in the floor between the aliens and us. One of the aliens crouches to open it, and they drop PJ inside. There is a brief moment in which he is trapped between two pieces of plastic, like a specimen in a cheap child’s science project, then a hatch below him opens, and he is released like a fish back into water, except a fish can swim and a pastor cannot fly through the atmosphere.
We watch him fall, helpless to do anything to stop this cruel and awful turn of events. People start to panic. Ted tries to protect his mistress by standing up to the aliens.
“Now, you see here!”
He is grabbed the same way PJ was, but unlike the pastor, he passes muster. The aliens look significantly at one another for long periods of time, as if they are having a conversation only they can hear.
Ted tries to fight, but the alien holding him ignores his struggles. His struggles are irrelevant, the same way the struggles of vermin are irrelevant to the rat-catcher. They come to some kind of a decision, and Ted is taken by another of the aliens and dragged into the depths of the ship.
My mind is finally beginning to catch up to the reality of this situation. It is not a dream. We have been abducted by aliens who are sorting us based on criteria we do not understand, and they are willing to kill us.
I happen to glance behind me and see a hatchway open. It looks like the kind of panel that should probably be pressed into place on the wall, but has been left open for reasons. Maybe maintenance. Maybe sheer luck. I slide back through the group, which is already beginning to press away from the aliens as we all collectively realize we are being faced with the immediate prospect of death or something potentially worse.
I am first through the open hatch, squeezing myself into the open space and back-crawling away. I don’t think anybody else has seen it. They are too busy staring at the terrifying visages of our alien captors.
I figure I have a couple of minutes before they get through all the other people, or maybe less if everyone else works out that there’s an escape passage right behind them. I don’t know where I am going. I know there is no way off the ship besides down, but I do not want to be handled by those monstrous beings. I want to get as far away from them as possible. It is a small mercy that I have a head start into the bowels of this terrifying alien vessel which I can barely believe I find myself aboard.
“ONE IS MISSING! THE FEMALE WITH THE GENEROUS HAUNCHES.”
I hear the cry go out behind me, terrifying, but also accurate. I’ve never heard my big ass described as generous haunches before. No time to dwell. I have to escape as far as anyone trapped on an alien spacecraft can escape.
“FIND THE MISSING GIRL!”
I start running. At first, adrenaline makes it easy, but I have not run in twenty years. I have to hide, and quickly, because within about ten feet, I know I cannot physically run anymore. The aliens are gaining on me, and my body is already about to give way. At the very last moment, I see a little spot at the back of the cargo bay, a place tucked away where there’s just enough room for me to squeeze in and maybe avoid being caught. I rush for it, panting and sweating, and wedge myself in.
That is when my ass meets something warm. Something living.
I resist the urge to scream and give my location away, but I do immediately whip my head around to look at what I’ve encountered.
It’s an alien. An alien like the others who captured us, though he is differently colored. He puts a scaled finger to my lips, stilling the second scream that threatens to escape me.