Chris Lowry's Blog, page 4

Moon Men Chapter 10

The cab pulled up to the edge of a private airstrip hunkered down at the end of a private road.

“Here,” Jodi ordered him to stop.

She paid the cabby with neatly folded bills and climbed out of the cab with Rob. She led him to a hanger over to one side.

The door was open and a small Gulfstream Jet was parked half out of the hanger, the stairs folded down.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“So you said. But my orders are-”

“Screw your orders.”

Rob marched away from the empty hanger. He searched the empty runway, the deserted tarmac. Jodi moved past him toward the plane. She studied the cockpit window for a moment, then whipped around to Rob.

“Don’t say it,” he sighed as he saw her eyes.

“Run!” she screamed.

She sprinted toward him and grabbed his arm. They tripped over each other as he tried to turn around and match her momentum, and she struggled to drag him up to speed with her.

Behind them, black clad commandos spilled out of the body of the plane. They tramped down the steps and raced after Rob and Jodi.

She spun Rob toward the gate at the long private road.

Two black vans squealed to a stop and formed a V shape that blocked the gate and road.

Jodi hauled Rob toward the field.

Commando’s popped up from hidden foxholes and started herding them.

“Hanger!” screamed Rob and pointed to another hanger across the way.

Jodi pulled her gun to cover him.

“Go!” she shouted.

She chased after Rob for a moment and noted the Commando’s weren’t shooting, they were keeping a path to the hanger open.

“It’s a trap!” she yelled at his retreating back.

The Hanger doors rolled back. A line of eight Commandos stood there, guns up and pointed at Rob. He stumbled to a halt.

“It’s a trap,” he said in a dramatic whisper to Jodi as she stepped up next to him.

“Genius.”

They stared as a man stepped from behind the wall of guns facing them. He was tall, bald and scarred. Lines crisscrossed his head and face like a net of knives had landed on him. They were thin, narrow and uneven.

He smirked at the duo and waved them through the door.

“I’m glad you could make it,” he said in a gravelly voice that made Rob want to clear his throat.

“Come on in.”

Rob and Jodi raised their hands up over their heads and walked into the dark hanger.

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men Chapter 9

Rob spent the next few minutes staring out the window and watched the dusty countryside whiz by.

“What next?”

“My orders are-” Jodi started.

“Your orders are going to get me killed. Just tell me where I’m supposed to be. I’ll meet you there.”

“You don’t leave my sight.”

“Come on, you can trust me.”

“Like you trust me?” she said.

“You haven’t been shot at yet.”

“They’re not shooting at me.”

He started at her while that sank in. No one had taken a shot at her except when she put herself between him and the guns aimed his way. He wondered why anyone would shoot him. Sure, he could be a bit belligerent, especially in traffic which was one of the reasons he cycled to work.

That and the suspended license for one little incident of road rage.

Still being an asshole in traffic wasn’t a reason to kill anyone.

He went back to the landscape outside of the window as his mind raced.

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men Chapter 8

Jodi and Rob sat on the curb outside of a dusty phone booth. Jodi pulled a locket from under her shirt, wiped dirt off of the edges and opened it up, looking at the smiling black and white photo of a man inside.

He’s ruggedly handsome with tired eyes, and that chin thrust so common in G-men.

“Who’s the suit?” Rob asked.

“Dad.”

“Where is he?”

She didn’t answer him.

“Oh-” he said.

“He was with the government too.”

“He glanced it. No offense.”

“He never followed orders,” she told him.

“Subsequently, he was killed in the line of duty.”

“That explains it.”

She hid the locket under her shirt.

“You may think so, but it’s more than that,” she said.

“There’s a pattern in everything, if you look hard enough to find it. Orders simplify the pattern.”

“I think it’s the chaos theory. Everything that can go wrong, will.”

“That’s not chaos theory, that’s Murphy’s law.”

“That too,” he said.

A taxi cab pulled up. The driver glanced over at them, then laid into his horn.

Jodi slipped the hem of her coat aside as she stood and revealed her holster to him. The cabbie stared at her with wide eyes.

She reached over and moved the other side of her coat to show him the silver badge clipped to her belt. He nodded.

Jodi reached down, hauled Rob up and shoved him into the back of the cab. She did a good job at ignoring his protests.

 

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men – Chapter 7

Headlights cut across the flat expanse of the pitch black desert. Rob stared through the window and tried to track where they were going. He noticed a pale green reflection of the woman driving floating like a ghost on the windshield.

“Who are you with?

“You wouldn’t know.”

“I know them all.”

“Government Department on Extraterrestrials.”

“GDET. You guys lost funding in the last Congressional Oversight meeting.”

“We were absorbed by the Treasury.”

“Secret Service? Is the President in on this?”

“In on what?”

“Does he know they are coming?”

Jodi glanced in the rearview mirror.

“No one is coming. We’re not being followed.”

“Not them. THEM. All Caps. Isn’t that why you came for me?”

Her hand gripped the wheel until her knuckles turned white.

“Our instructions were to deliver you to DC. Everything else is need to know. And I need to know who killed my partner.”

“I’m sorry about him.”

“There were two others.”

“I’m sorry about them too. But,” he said. “I am need to know. Or rather I know.”

“You know? What do you know?”

“I know that this is all about. Except the men in black. If they weren’t with you, who are they with?”

“Another government? Rogue CIA? Maybe you’re late on the electric bill. We were just here to pick you up.”

Rob adjusted in his seat as he absorbed the information.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Robinson Crow, amateur astronomer, 28 year old grad student with an Internet hobby on UFO’s and aliens, and an overactive imagination.”

“Close. I’m a multiple abductee.”

“What’s that?”

“You know, alien abduction. Unidentified Flying Objects. I have been visited?”

He smiles at her frown.

“No one believes me at first. Except your bosses. Someone at GDET knows. They know what it means,” he said with pride.

“It means you had a lousy childhood. It means you have low self esteem. It means my partner died for some stupid make believe BS.”

Rob sank lower into the seat.

“You don’t believe me? Have you ever seen a UFO?”

She shook her head.

“And you work for GDET? They never took you to Nevada? I thought that would be an initiation ritual for you guys.”

“I’ve been to the SETI set up, but my division is tasked like the US Marshals. We’re highly specialized.”

“Crap, even I’ve been to Nevada. I wasn’t supposed to be there of course, but I went. What kind of agent are you?”

“I’m a delivery person. I show up when you have to get there asap.”

“Absolutely, positively, huh?”

“And need to know.”

“Can you pull over?”

“Why?”

“I have to…pee. You need to know I have to pee.”

She keeps the van cranked up to ninety and smirks at him.

“Right. Nice.”

“I had a huge bottle of water just before you showed up. Seriously we’re lucky I didn’t leave a long trail when all the shooting started.”

“Just relax Mr. Crow, you’re safe with me.”

“Could you just pull over and let me out?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said.

The van motor made a high pitched coughing sound and seized up. Jodi gripped the wheel and wrestled the van to the side of the road.

“Did you do that?” he asked.

“We have gas. Have-” her eyes popped open. “Get out! Get out now!”

She shoved him through the passenger door and scrambled out behind him.

They scrabbled through the scrub brush, Jodi pushed him forward ahead of her.

“Get down!” she screamed.

The van exploded.

The concussion blast radiated out and slammed them both off of their feet. Debris rained down from the night sky.

Rob sat up and shook off the effects of the explosion. His ears were ringing and dirt smudged his face. He patted a smoking spot on the shoulder of his shirt.

He couldn’t see Jodi.

“Agent Johnson?”

She loomed up out of the darkness behind him.

“Are you hurt?”

“What did you do?” he asked and tried to stand. She held his arm but they were both so shaky it was hard to tell who was holding who up.

“Kill switch, remote, I think. It’s a good bet they know where we are.”

“And by they you mean the men in black?”

“More men in black.”

“They were way more fun in the movie. Forget me sticks beat bombs any day.”

She led him back toward the road, but angled away from the van so they could gain some distance.

“We better keep moving.”

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“No time for questions. We need to put some distance between us and their van.”

“There’s always time for questions,” said Rob.

“You ask too many questions.”

She kept them off the road but marched parallel to the black ribbon in the darkness.

“That’s why they picked me.”

“For your multiple abductions?”

“You know,” he said. “I never considered that, but you could be right. No. GDET picked me.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“About what?”

“All of this. Any of this. My partner’s dead, someone tried to blow us up. I’ve shot people tonight. I’ve never drawn my weapon before,” she said.

“You’re holding up very well,” he said. “Except for the gunshots and explosions, I feel very protected.”

“I’m just supposed to get you to a plane.

They walked in silence under the canopy of winking stars. Rob paused and stared in wonder.

“We could get picked up out here,” he said.

Jodi walked past him and kept going.

“Are you going to phone home?” she snarked.

“I don’t think I can. You want me to try?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Knock yourself out, flyboy.”

Rob closed his eyes for moment and tried to center his thoughts. He pictured a ship in his mind, tried to reach past the cobwebs of foggy memory to reconstruct what he could remember from abductions. He hummed, tried to match the frequency and thrumming of the engines through the smooth walls of the alien vessels. He thought a very simple command, help, and opened his eyes.

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.”

He sat down beside a small scrub brush and twirled a piece of grass between his fingers. Jodi walked back to stand over him.

“Do we have to wait here? We’re a little close to the van.”

“I’m not a homing beacon. This is where I told them I’d be.”

“Tell them to follow you. I don’t like it.”

Rob was about to argue when he caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. Something blazed through the night sky, lights dancing as it swept across the horizon.

“Look,” he pointed.

Two bright circles bobbed and hovered across the terrain. They swept past the van and twirled back, like predators seeking out the metal on the sand.

Rob jumped up and waved his hands.

“Hey! Over here!”

He started running toward the lights.

“No!” shouted Jodi. She took off after him and tackled him to the ground.

“Those are Apaches,” she hissed.

The lights shot away from the van and raced across the desert floor toward

Rob and Jodi.

“I suppose they’re not with you,” he sighed.

“Run,” she screamed as she shoved him up.

He took off away from the van. Jodi pounded the sand behind him, her breath echoed in his ear.

The spotlights bisected their trail as it the roar of the helicopter drew closer. The lights blazed across them and settled back. A minigun whirled and bullets shredded the dirt in front of them. Rob tripped and sprawled. Jodi crashed over him and knocked her head against a rock.

“Are you hurt,” she gasped and held a hand to leaking wound to her forehead.

“Not yet,” he shouted over the whirring blades.

“Good,” she said and collapsed across his lap.

A spotlight zeroed in on them. Rob could see the pilots through the windshield as the minigun adjusted to aim directly at them.

The sky cracked with an explosion of screeching metal as a giant black saucer crashed into the hovering helicopter. It spun out of control and smashed into the ground in a fireball that lit up the surroundings.

“We regret to inform you your son was killed in a training accident,” Rob grunted.

He waved at the saucer.

Rob rolled Jodi over and checked her head and her pulse.

He stood up and started walking toward the saucer.

“Hey!” he screamed. “Thanks for coming.”

The lights outside of the saucer twirled around in a pattern that made him smile. A streak of fire split the sky. A rocket exploded into the spacecraft. Rob screamed.

The second Apache hovered into view. It fired a full volley of five more rockets into the black saucer. Rob shrieked as they plowed into the UFO and created a series of expanding explosions.

He leaped back toward Jodi and covered her body with his. The UFO turned on end and smashed into the ground. Metal and flaming debris rained down over them.

Jodi started to come too with Rob across her.

“Get off me, pervert,” she grunted and tried to elbow him away.

“I think we’re in trouble,” he said and rolled off of her.

Jodi noticed the Apache spin around to target them. She sat up and pulled her gun as it approached. Her finger clenched the trigger and sent three shots into the helicopter canopy.

The pilot jerked the stick as the chopper spun out of control and smashed down next to the blazing remains of the saucer.

Jodi pulled a fresh magazine out and slammed it home.

“How long was I out?

“Just a few minutes.”

“What did I miss?”

Rob pointed to the large pile of flaming debris.

“That was our ride.”

“Another helicopter? I only saw two.”

“UFO.”

She studied him for a moment and touched the tender gash on her forehead.

“Maybe I’m not the only one who took a mild concussion,” she said.

“Come on,” she climbed up and offered him a hand. “I guess we’re walking.”

Jodi and Rob stirred up dust walking down the dirt road.

A mud covered pick up truck pulled over onto the shoulder and they hopped in back.

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

Moon Men Chapter 6

Washington DC at night was a very different creature from Los Angeles. LA was a city that rarely slept with activity at all hours of the night. By comparison, DC after ten was a city of the dead after ten pm.. The only activity occurred behind closed doors and in dark rooms with blacked out windows, and double panes of glass to minimize vibration, just in case directional microphones were directed toward those rooms.

Isaiah Thomas strode into just such a room. He was a tall man, with a thin build and pallid complexion that hinted at way too much time in dark rooms.

Almost on his heels was his assistant, Baker, an oily looking man with a constant sheen of perspiration and a lip licking habit that most found annoying after only a few moments.

Thomas stood at the head of long conference table and glared at the man sitting comfortably across the expanse, one hand on the table, the other holding a large bottle of water.

“So you failed.”

“Sir,” said Thomas. “I had nothing to do with-”

“Exactly my point,” Harris cut him off.

“I clearly outlined your objective and by passing the duty to a subordinate, you failed.”

“He assembled the team-”

“I didn’t order Him to do it.”

“Sir, look-”

“No excuses are necessary, Thomas.”

Harris reached under his lapel and pulled out a small Glock 17 from a padded holster. He shot Thomas twice.

The man grabbed his wounds and started at Harris before he fell to the floor and whimpered. Baker froze.

“Mr. Baker, would you like a promotion?”

Baker looked at the leaking body on the floor, the barrel of the gun with it’s tiny curl of blue smoke and licked his lips.

“Yes Sir,” he squeaked.

“Clean up this mess. Wrap it up in a pretty bow.”

“And him sir?

“Put Frederick on it. That would make me very happy.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Harris stood up and holstered his weapon. He stopped in front of Baker to clap him on the shoulder, but one look at the oily sheen on his face dissuaded him. He nodded and left.

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men Chapter 5

Inside the van Rob watched as cop cars raced around the corner behind them. Flashing lights strobed through the windows, but Jodi quickly outpaced them.

“Are you hurt?”

“No thanks to you,” he muttered.

“I saved your life.”

“What’s the saying? With friends like you?”

Her knuckles popped out as she clenched the wheel.

“Those were real bullets, Mr. Crow.”

“Blanks.”

“Excuse me?”

“You work for the government. This could be a set up. It probably is a set up.”

“My partner’s dead,” she said in a flat voice.

“Blood packs. I’ve seen it all before. You guys set me up.”

Jodi wiped her hand across the headrest behind her and held it up for him to see. It was covered with thick syrpy goo.

“Does that look like a blood pack to you?”

“I’ve seen better effects in my college play.”

Jodi shook her head and concentrated on the road. Her mind was spinning as she played back what happened on the rooftop. How did a simple pick up go so wrong? And better yet, who was after this man?

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men Chapter 4

The thing about dancing, especially when you are dancing as if noone was watching because you are pretty sure no one is watching, is it’s pretty darn liberating. Millions of humans were graced with the ability to dance, to turn movement into art and poetry, to jump and jive in beat with the music so that the only option anyone watching has is to stare in wonder.

Unfortunately that left billions of humans with no innate ability to dance. Not even a close approximation. Rob fell squarely in that category. His dancing look like a controlled fall, a twitching twirling dervish of out of sync bounces and fist jams.

There may have even been howling.

“Mr. Crow?”

Rob stopped dancing. He stopped howling. He nearly fell off the roof, but caught himself at the last moment. He settled in from the edge, just to be safe and cleared his throat.

“Yes?”

Anson approached him with one hand extended to shake. But Rob didn’t notice him. He stared transfixed by Jodi.

It was Anson’s turn to clear his throat to get the young man’s attention.

“I’m Agent Anson. This is Agent Johnson. We’re with the government.”

Anson reached into his jacket pocket and flipped out his badge for Rob to see. A hole popped open in the laminate.

Anson’s eyes grew wide. He let the badge slip from his fingers and revealed a mirror hole in his chest. As Rob watched, crimson stained the hole in his white shirt and widened.

Anson collapsed.

Jodi whirled around before he hit the rooftop and squeezed off two shots from her Glock 17. Rob saw a ninja collapse in the skylight. At least it looked like a ninja, covered head to toe in black as it was.

Jodi ducked low and scurried over to Anson. She placed two fingers on his neck and bowed her head.

“Damn,” she growled.

“Is he dead?”

Jodi tracked the skylight and rooftop with her pistol.

“You’re the genius, figure it out.”

“The ninja’s gone,” he told her.

“Get down!”

A bullet whizzed by his head. She dragged him down next to her.

They watched as a cannister arced out of the skylight and landed on the roof with a clatter. It rolled in a straight line toward them.

Jodi calmly reached out and covered Rob’s eyes with one hand, her eyes with the other holding her gun.

The can popped with a loud flash and a bang. Smoke poured from the end of the cylinder.

Two figures ran across the roof through the smoke.

Jodi lifted her pistol and dropped them with two shots.

Rob screamed. She lowered her hand from his eyes to his mouth.

“Quiet.”

“What in Hell’s name is going on?”

Sirens wailed in the distance. A neighbor heard her gunshots and called the police.

“Come with me.”

Jodi hauled Rob up and surged toward the corner of the roof.

“Ninja!” he screamed.

Jodi whirled and fired off a shot. The last commando collapsed across the edge of the skylight.

“Jump,” she shouted.

Rob glanced down at the shrubbery two stories below. The bushes looked painfully small.

“I can’t. I’m afraid of heights.”

Jodi scanned the roof. She didn’t have time to appeal to logic or reason.

“Are you more scared of bullets? Then jump!”

Rob teetered on the precipice. Jodi reached out and lightly pushed. She leaped right after him.

To his credit, Rob didn’t scream the whole way down. It was more like a whining grunt that ended when his feet hit the bush that broke his fall. He rolled across the ground and came up sputtering.

Jodi grabbed him by the collar and shoved him forward.

“See that sedan? Run for it.”

She noticed two slumped figures in the sedan as they approached.

“Damn it.”

“You say that a lot,” said Rob.

Headlights sparked on behind them. The panel van squealed down the street in a pall of smoke and burning rubber. Jodi used her hold on Rob’s collar and shoved him across the hood of the sedan.

The van sideswiped the parked car in a whirlwind of sparks and shrieking metal. It slid around in a u-turn, and aimed for them on the sidewalk.

Jodi planted her legs and raised her pistol.

The van gunned it’s engine and roared straight for her. She fired a shot into the windshield. It starred and cracked. She fired two more and the van suddenly lost momentum as the driver slid sideways in the seat, his foot off the gas. The van sputtered to the curb, bounced twice and stopped.

Jodi reached down and hauled Rob up.

“Are you hurt?”

“I think so,” he said as he felt his arms, torso and legs.

She half carried him to the van and pushed him against the side.

“Stay,” she commanded.

She popped open the driver’s door and leaned in with her gun. The van was empty.

She hauled the driver’s leaking body out and dumped it in the street.

“Get in.”

Jodi shoved Rob over into the passenger seat and climbed in after him. She dropped the van in drive and gunned it.

They made the corner as swirling police lights raced into the street behind them.

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men Chapter 3

“Is he okay?”

Anson and Jodi peered through the windshield at the loft skyline. They watched a silhouette of Rob as it jerked and shimmied along the edge of the roof.

“I think he’s being electrocuted,” said Anson.

Jodi shook her head.

“I think he’s dancing.”

“That? I took dance. That’s not dancing.”

“You took dance?” she shot an incredulous look at her partner.

“What? My mother insisted. I did the whole Arthur Murray catalog.”

“You don’t look like a dancer.”

“I can out foxtrot you any day of the week.”

“You’re on and we’re putting a ten spot on the bet,” Jodi held out her hand for Anson to shake.

“You’ll probably look like him,” Anson smirked at her.

She held the radio to her lips.

“Sit tight,” she keyed the microphone. “We’ll handle this.”

“Come on,” she said to Anson. “Let’s go cut in.”

He shifted his bulk out of the passenger door and followed her across the street.

“I’ve got point,” he said.

He unlocked the strap on the Glock that rested to his belt.

“Next time,” she said and led him through the door to the loft lobby.

“One of these day’s someone’s not gonna let you lead.”

“You’re the dancer, partner. You can lead then. Until that, I go first, I get shot first.”

“That’s what you tell yourself.”

 

A car whipped around the corner of the street and rocketed toward them. Jodi spun around, her Glock in hand and tracking the driver. Anson leaned against the wall to clear her line of sight and aimed with the weapon he drew a second slower than her.

They both watched as a flustered soccer mom raced past the loft, screaming at two towheaded boys in the back seat. They couldn’t hear her, just see her mouth moving through the closed window.

Jodi slipped her pistol back into the holster on her waist.

“Scared you?”

“You blinked first,” Anson grinned.

“Let’s go see what this dancer is doing,” she said and led him through the door.

 

Neither of them noticed a black panel van pull up beside the other Sedan across the street.

The agents in the sedan looked left as the cargo door rolled back. They didn’t have time to react as a silenced handgun slithered from the dark interior and spat twice. Both agents slumped in the car seats.

Four black clad commandos hopped out of the van. The passenger side window rolled down and the driver leaned over to the lead commando.

“It’d be nice if you made it look real.” His voice was oily and sinister delivered over dead eyes that made the hard core commando wince.

“No problem, Sir,” he said and licked his lips. “Move out.”

The four men hustled across the street, dipped in and out of shadows and disappeared through the doorway entry.

 

If you like what you’re reading and don’t want to wait for the rest to pop up on the blog, you can grab a FREE Copy HERE and find out what happens to Rob and Jodi.  This link takes you to Amazon where you can download your own copy.  Check out the first page where you can sign up to get a copy of EPOCH, my futuristic sci fi thriller just for joining my mailing list.  Then, I’ll send you free stories and updates on my next series in the works; PHALANX, MOONFALL and GALAXY DEFENDERS. I hope you join the party.

 

Moon Men Chapter Two

Rob rolled up the quiet street in the small neighborhood of Los Feliz and chained his bike to the side of the stairwell. He had a top floor apartment in an old Victorian converted into four units w…

Source: Moon Men Chapter Two

Moon Men Chapter Two

Rob rolled up the quiet street in the small neighborhood of Los Feliz and chained his bike to the side of the stairwell. He had a top floor apartment in an old Victorian converted into four units with a rent he could barely afford. He liked the street though, because it felt safe, and his bike hadn’t been stolen yet. His apartment wasn’t much, just a second floor unit, but there was a spiral staircase he had installed that led to a skylight and a rooftop deck he built piece by piece. It was unpermitted and the landlord hadn’t found it yet, but Rob liked to spend some of his nights up there watching the sky.

He planned to go up there tonight, after he grabbed a beer and checked his email.

He didn’t turn on the lights after he unlocked the front door and moved across the apartment. He slammed into the coffee table with a small crash.

“Damn it Jim,” he muttered.

The computer monitor lit up at the sound of his voice. His UFO screensaver moved back and forth across the screen.

He flipped on a lamp and massaged his bruised shin.

The walls were covered with alien posters and pictures of UFO’s. The rest of the decor was simple, spartan even. There was a couch, a small television, and the assaulting coffee table. The primary focus of the room was the computer set up resting on a giant desk that dominated an entire wall.

Rob walked over and nudged the mouse.

While the computer opened up to his Gmail program and loaded his correspondence, Rob walked to the fridge set against one wall. He opened it and pulled out a Corona Light from a six pack that was the only occupant in the refrigerator.

He settled into the stuffed executive chair in front of the computer and opened up one of two new pieces of email.

“Star changes course. Western quadrant, Cassiopeia’s armpit. Notice? Tell me true. Capt. Sam Michaels.”

“No way,” he breathed and sucked down two quick swallows.

He moved the mouse to the second email and clicked it open.

“The heaven’s move! Can you see it? Selkirk, ICP.”

Rob nodded and hopped out of the chair. He stumbled over to a nook under the spiral staircase and fumbled a telescope case up the stairs.

 

He gazed through the eyepiece at the prescribed coordinates. A star was indeed moving slowly across the indigo sky. A comet would have a different glow, the light signature a shade hotter than this cool blue white blob of energy. A meteor or shooting star would be a white hot streak of energy skipping along the atmosphere. This light was different. Steadfast and relentless.

A tickle danced up his spine as he shivered..

“Son of a fudge…” he whispered with an edge of awe in his voice.

He backed away from the telescope, his body shaking, trembling. One leg kicked out, his foot spastically twisting and twitching. He leaned all of his weight forward onto it, and his booty started shaking. He was dancing, and awkward gyrating mess of rhythmic imbalance. Perhaps it couldn’t even be called dancing, more movement with intent. No matter though, because Rob was celebrating. Years of ridicule, countless hours being taunted and accused of being a crackpot, or worse, insane were released in five minutes of vindicating dance.

 

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