“This was all I was able to find. I know its not much...but, anyway. Here's an old police report from 1966—a girl named Mary Ann was reported as missing by her friends. A man took her from the bar. Someone made a call that they'd seen someone taking her out to the sanitation building we were at last night, but this is back in the sixties, so who knows what they were doing—This is a letter to the editor, dated July 11, 1981. 'The Government Stole My Brother.' He accused the government of taking his brother to the base there too. I mean, obviously no details. But, anyway. January 2, 2003, there was this online article here posted by someone who claimed they used to work at a base somewhere in Texas, and they said it was hidden under a sanitation facility—well, they wrote down that they used to do mind control experiments, stuff like that. That's it.” Grace leaned back in her chair and sighed, tense. She didn't need to ask me how I felt. She knew. “What was it like this morning?”, she asked, in a hushed tone. I cracked my neck, and tried to straighten my back a little bit—I barely slept. I kept having these awful nightmares—the same dream, every time, of me following that Jack fella into the forest. “Didn't get much sleep.”, I said, sipping a bit of coffee I'd picked up at the local gas station—I stopped at the one where the kidnapper had turned himself in the other night, just to see if I could get any information about what had happened the other night. Just the same story about this guy seeing an angel—they'd checked the security cameras and it looked like he'd bumped into some homeless guy—maybe started having a migraine or something—that was all I got out of him. “Seemed like it rubbed off on my son, he was real--”
“Howdy Phillip, Grace. This is Ben. Do you read me? Go ahead. ”
“Copy that, Ben. This is Phillip. Loud and clear. Go ahead.”
“What are you guys doing right now? Got any time to check up on something? Go ahead.”
“Just on traffic duty right now, what's happening? Go ahead.”
“Well, some tweaker out in Poplar Valley Hill just called in for the twelvth time in the row about being attacked by a..uhm..let me check my notes. Ah yes. A telepathic alien, were his exact words. I don't know, just figured if you guys were getting bored out there. Go ahead.”
Grace and I both looked at each other, stupefied. With a long gulp, Grace spoke carefully into the reciever, “Well sounds pretty good. We'd love to go check it out. Go ahead.”
“Alright. Just go out there, see if you smell any—you know. Ammonia or anything. Much as I hate to call the SWAT team out to Poplar Valley again...”
____
“What are you doing?”
“Breathing.”
“Why? You nervous or--”
“I'm trying to get in the right state of mind. If I go in there all paranoid and looking for answers, someone in there is probably on something that's gonna mix with that and make up just snap. Go all crazy. I gotta relax. And then everyone else will relax too. That's the trick.”
Stretching and trying to think about the beach, I felt my body relax. Opening the door, Grace and I, both cool as a pair of uniformed cucumbers approached the entrance of the mobile home. Initially suspicious faces softened as we drew near, before giving way to weak smiles. “Unit 27” Grace looked down at her notepad. “27.”
“Alright.”
The faintest hint of what smelt an awful lot like marijuana passed through the air, making me cringe. “Dude the cops are outside.”
“What?”
“The police!”
Grace and I heard coming from a trailer. The two of us exchanged a look, and rolled our eyes. As much as drug abuse in our town concerned us, the two of us were both two anxious to hear about the sighting of the angel. Unit 27 was an old yellow mobile home with brown trim, a nice tin roof and a tiny chimney for burning wood in the winter. A tiny meth pipe and a handful of needles sat in the front lawn of the home. We knocked on the door.
Inside, a bright eyed and shaking man peered through a set of blinds. His hands shook, and sweat formed at the top of his brow. He'd certainly seen something—but I was making things worse. I tried to remind myself to keep a cool head. The fella opened the door and nervously greeted us in. “I didn't think they were gonna send anyone. I kept calling...I...Please, sit down.” he motioned to a nearby bed. A prescription for something called Haloperidol sat on his kitchen counter. “He started walking across the—the back of the house, and then—he came over to this window and—oh my god, oh my god. I can't...no. No! I don't want to...I don't want you to think—I'm—crazy.” He turned to glare out the window at a passing teenager and her younger sister, walking down the road. Over the entry to the door, there was a plaque commemorating his service in the Army. He tried to sneak a tiny bag of some kind of white powder off of the counter and into his pocket before sitting down on us. “You—you—you need to turn off your cellphones. I—think--I think they're watching me...” I put my cell phone on the table, indicating Grace to do the same. He looked around at the ceiling, and through the windows.
“I know what you're thinking. Oh—look at this crazy fucking white trash piece of shit—“
“No one's calling anyone crazy, sir.”, said Grace, “Can you tell me what made you call the police today?”
“It—it took you guys half an hour. Half an hour to get here. They should have told you, they should have told you.”
“Listen buddy--”, I reached my hand out to him, and tried to empty my mind of fear, concentrating as hard as I could—he started to tremble less intensely, looking in my eyes blankly and passively. I wanted him to trust us. The problem was I didn't feel like I could trust him, and I knew he wouldn't trust us just out of his own accord. But I tried to...I tried to trust him. I tried to remind myself, you know, just because someone smokes meth, I guess, it doesn't mean they automatically can't be trusted. That they're automatically crazy or something. He started looking into my eyes, and breathing deeply. “I know you're scared. But we're here to help. You aren't in trouble. You did the right thing calling us about this, okay?”
“--I don't know where to start with it.”
“What time was it that this happened?”
“Oh, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe...maybe...maybe 12? 12'o clock last night.”
“And what time did you call the police.”
“Well I—I thought I was—dreaming. But then I woke up and I—I realized it was real. So I called them. Six in the morning, I guess. And then I kept calling and calling and--”
“We've been getting a lot of similar reports, son, and mind you our department isn't very big.”
“It didn't sound like anyone was taking me seriously. I could hear them laughing in the background! I could hear them!”
“I'm really sorry--”
“What happened? You said you thought you were dreaming, didn't you?”
“I—I know it sounds crazy. You're gonna--”
“Try me. I've heard a lot crazier.”
“I was...in my bed...trying to sleep, and I heard this noise outside, and so I shut my computer, and I go to see what it is. I see someone...I don't know...they were...playing with my trash? Like going through it? So I went around, and I gets my shotgun. And I say, “Hell you think you're doing out there?”, and he turns around and there's...I mean...his eyes. They're glowing. He looks at me and he tells me that...that...he's from another world or something...he's like an...alien anthropologist, and he's trying to understand humans by going through my trash, and that...oh man. Fuck. He says that...he says that...there's a...prison. Full of other aliens that our government has been capturing and...and...torturing I guess. Experimenting on. And he said...he said...oh my God. He told me so much. He just kept talking to me, I invited him in and...it all goes blank. It's like he washed my memory. Well, when I woke up, someone had gone through all of my trash, and the cup of coffee I gave him was...was...still there...half full...I've...I've got it over here.”, he carefully donned rubber gloves and set it before us, “I think it probably has alien DNA. I don't know if I want to touch it...”
____
“How was it? Go ahead”
“Real good.”
“Oh yeah, yeah. Real good. Go ahead”
“Tenth call about an angel today. I tell you, one kidnapper turns himself in, and suddenly every criminal in the city thinks they're seeing angels. Go ahead.”
“Well, say, we're pulling into the Carl's Jr. to grab us some dinner. You gonna be at the station say about half an hour, want us to get you anything? Go ahead.”
“Sure, guess it couldn't hurt. Go ahead.”
“Alright, just regular cheeseburger and fries or what? Go ahead. ”
“Heck, I'll eat anything right about now. Go ahead and get whatever you want. Go ahead.”
“Roger that, we will go ahead. Go ahead.”
“Talk to y'all in about thirty minutes. Over.”
“Over and out.”
[they pull forward in line]
“You think he really saw an angel?”
“Well. I don't believe him. But. I don't—doubt him. I think we need to investigate.”
“Well I don't know how much the chief is gonna like us...”
“Not with the chief, Grace. By ourselves. We got to--”
[they pull forward in line, Phillip rolls down the police cruiser window]
“Hello, thank you for choosing Carl's Jr. What can we make for you today?”
“I'd like three classic third-pounders, fries and...uh...you want a milkshake?”
Grace looked up from her phone. “What—a--a milkshake? Oh. A milkshake. Yes.”
“Two vanilla milkshakes.”
“Not vanilla.”
“Strawberry?”
“Mmmmm. Sounds good.”
“Alright, one vanilla, one strawberry.”
I rolled up the window before he could give me the total. Grace put down her phone, sliding it carefully into her pocket and clearing her throat.
“As I was saying. This is serious. I think we need to—start our own investigation. I mean think about it. This is the United States government we're investigating. This could be serious--[they pull forward]--You don't look convinced.”
“Well I don't know Phillip. I mean, I believe you. I just don't know. It sounds crazy. You know. All of it. If we do stuff like this under the table, what are we gonna tell the chief?”
“Tell him—I don't know. He won't find out. He won't find out unless we have enough evidence, and then—I mean, the chief wants this town to be safe, just like you or I do. So crazy as it sounds, I think in the long run—if we're onto something—he'd want us to investigate it rather than to just sweep it under the rug, right?”
“Sure, I just...”
“That'll be 21.42.”, the drive thru cashier said, looking faintly annoyed, as though I'd interrupted him. “Thank you.”, I handed him the money.
“Thank you.”, he said, handing me back money as he listened to another driver read thei r order “Wait—sorry--I'm--Thank you—I'm--” Trying to revert to what I guess was a pretty practiced routine kept throwing him off cause whenever he did, he'd reverting to whatever I was doing. I rolled up the window and accepted my change. The employee turned around, explaining something to a manager and running off, handing the manager his headset. The manager peered out of the drive thru window, and studied our uniforms carefully
“Hello sir, you had the three thirdpounders with cheese, regular fries and—Thank you for choosing Carl's Jr. I will be right with you--he was supposed to ask you what you wanted for your drinks?”
“Oh shoot. I guess we didn't say...uhm. Coke is fine.”
“Yeah, sure, I'll take some Coke. Guess three cokes.”
“Three cokes—Sorry about that. What can I get for you--? [he is talking on the drivethru radio] Alrighty.--”, as he started punching in someone elses order, he turned to us to ask a question, “You folks been...up to anything interesting today?”, he asked, vaguely paranoid, “That will be $14.28, sir. Thank you.”
“Nothing...too interesting. How about yourself?”
He smirked—a little bit suspicious, sort of paranoid, like he...knew something. The two of us glared at each other with intense curiousity. “You know, don't you?”, he asked.
“Know what?”
He nodded, and handed us our food, followed by our drinks. As we drove off, he held a finger up to his mouth to hush us.
“That was weird.”
“I know. Wouldn't have thought they'd be so busy around 4 o'clock.”
“No, did you hear what he said?”
“No, sorry, I was—reading something—what did he say?”
“He—I don't know. He seemed like he was—I don't know Grace. Like, he looked out at me and—he said “You know, don't you?” I mean, what the heck is up with that, huh? Just stares at me...and...I don't know.”
“Pretty strange.”
“Maybe they're working with them, you know? The government?”
“Carl's Jr.?”
“Yeah!”
“I mean, if anyone was gonna be working for the government around here, it'd be the shitty Arby's across the road no one ever goes to.”
“Arby's huh?”
“Yeah, Phillip, Arby's, they've been conspiring against my digestive system for years. Are you serious right now?”
“I'm just saying, we have to be open to possibilities.”
____
[their car doors slam and they make their way across the grass]
“Phillip, you're going out of your damn mind.”
“This is the next one on the list, right?”
“...Yup. Looks like the right house. Are we really gonna be doing this all night, Phillip? My feet hurt. April was down here earlier today already, and she said that it was just a regular break-in.”
“But that's not what he said when he called in, is it?.”
“No.”
A small doorbell sat on a weathered telephone pole archway in front of the entrance to the house. The lights were on. I couldn't see if anybody was inside. I rang the door bell. “Do you have a warrant?” a voice spoke through an intercom. “We're here to follow up about a report you made earlier today, sir?”
“Name and Badge #”
“What?”
“Name and Badge #, and you will be on film.”
“I'm sorry but I--”
“I did not call for police assistance. I know my rights as a sovereign citizen of this country. Provide me your name and badge number or I will refuse you entry with deadly force if necessary.”
Both of us read off our badge numbers. The fellow on the other side of the speaker searched for our identity information in his computer, until he verified that we were real officers. A smart phone in his hand, he walked towards the gate—as he got closer, we recognized each other. It was the manager from the Carl's Jr, a flashlight in his hand. “You did know, didn't you?”
“Know about what?”
“Come with me. I'll show you.”
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