To celebrate Halloween!
(Really just an excuse to promote my book Monster Laughs.)
What do you do
when your own planet
turns against you?
What do you do
when your own planet
turns against you?
ILLEGAL ALIENS
FROM OUTER SPACE
Worlds turn against the Mystery Hunter,
including his own!
The galaxy cries out:
“Bring me the Hunter!”
It all began with a yak. It always begins with a yak. A yak had a heart attack and fell on its back. Midsummer’s day. Monkeys everywhere chattered like crazy. Pet owners around the world reported dogs meowing and cats barking. Some reported goldfish bowls bubbling like Jacuzzis. At the North Pole, a lone scientist Nicholas C. Kringle detected intergalactic activity on his monitors. In the Outback, a tribe of aborigines whooped and hollered with greater fervor than ever before. And in Pascagoula, Mississippi, hillbillies claimed space aliens violated them, but not in a good way.
With his equipment on the fritz, Nick couldn’t signal out. The aborigines failed to communicate with anyone who could understand them. And although Jethro and Bubba swore on their Mama’s grave, no one believed those country bumpkins; the fact that Mama Rutherford still lived, only cast further doubt upon her less than sober sons’ stories.
Since Neil A took the initiative to bring me a banana cream pie on my last case, I figured I’d let him tag along. (Plus, he found me this assignment, so I felt obligated.) Why not? Who says the Hunter has to prowl alone? Okay. I did. But what did I know?
This is the city: Hamilton. The capital of Bermuda, a.k.a. The Bermuda Islands, a.k.a. The Somers Isles, a.k.a. The Birthplace of a Style of Shorts Worn by Elderly Men with Metal Detectors, a.k.a. The Home of that Troublesome Triangle. If Bermuda banned clothing, they’d be called Bare-Nuda.
What attracted space aliens to the Bermuda Triangle? I’d rather fancy the Rhode Island Rhomboid myself. Or even the Singapore Circle. And for its paranormal activity alone, the Sasquatch Square. But a triangle? Seems a little too three-sided for my taste.
Reports of orange lights and little green men abounded. Fine by me. As long as nothing’s blue. I couldn’t handle anything blue. Besides, I ate a hearty helping of golden pecan waffles with organic maple syrup. And for our upcoming break, Neil A ordered a peanut butter chocolate pie. With added slices of banana. So I’m ready to take on the world. And perhaps, something from beyond.
Having encountered space aliens before, I can spot ‘em a mile away. Sometimes light years! Glowing in the dark and shooting lasers from their eyes are pretty big clues. My gut reaction to UFO reports? They’re hoaxes. In this case, an elaborate, global-wide hoax, but still a hoax. The problem with conducting effective research into UFO activity? Most reports are completely errant. But that doesn’t preclude the few that are only mostly errant.
Generally speaking, people who claim to see UFOs are the same as you and me in every respect, except for an excessive hankering for chewing tobacco, Nascar, and banjo music. (Actually, General Lee speaking would be: “Howdy folks, I’m General Lee; but you can call me Robert E.”) Moonshine entrepreneur Skeeter J. McCracker declared, “UFOs is as real as wrestlin’!” Odder still, the folks who say flying saucers are real, claim NASA faked the moon landings. But why would NASA do such a thing? Well, of course, to sell tons of Tang!
After arriving, unpacking, and eating half a pie. (I shared.) I napped. Jet lag. Laziness. Whatever. Most UFO activity happens at night anyway, so I needed to sleep the rest of the day. Neil A and I found two hammocks on the beach and rested in the shade. Dozing off, I dreamt that Neil A chatted with a hermit crab, reassuring him that he no longer needed to live alone.
I awakened when the light of a full moon shone on me. Did someone drug my pie? I saw double! Make that triple. Quadruple even! A water spout opened a vortex in the legendary waters off the coast of Bermuda; and outpoured full moon after full moon. Which was odd. Because the calendar said tonight’s moon would be crescent.
When I nudged Neil A to awaken him, he mumbled about not having to hide behind angry claws anymore. Poor Kid must’ve dreamt the same crazy dream I dreamt. Opening his eyes, he chanted like the little girl from “The Amityville Horror”: “They’re here!”
“Relax, Kid. UFOs are hoaxes.”
“Some hoax,” replied my favorite pie-ologist.
“Yeah, someone went to a lot of trouble for this one.” A lot of trouble indeed! Somehow these full moons appeared around the world, hovering over such famous landmarks as Stonehenge, the remains of the Colosseum in Rome, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower, the St. Louis Arch, the Opera House in Sidney, the Guggenheim Museum, Spaceship Earth at EPCOT Center, Mount Everest, Mount McKinley, Mount Rushmore, Pike’s Peak, Clingman’s Dome, Devils Tower, Bok Tower, Rock City Gardens on Lookout Mountain, Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash -- East and West, and, believe it or not, the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in St. Augustine.
One floated above the Great Pyramid of Giza. The same with pyramids in Chichen-Itza, at the Louvre in Paris, and at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. One even made the Leaning Tower of Pisa stand upright!
Hold your hoaxes! An odd hunch overwhelmed me. Maybe these UFO reports contained a smidgen of validity after all. I shared that notion with my youthful sidekick, who said, “Ya’ think?” I could be wrong, but I sensed a bit of sarcasm. “Why?” he asked. “Why don’t you believe in UFOs?”
“You never hear of anyone cool encountering UFOs. It’s always a couple rubes named Jethro and Bubba. Sometimes Smitty or Cecil. Never Sigmund, Karl, or Eduardo.”
Neil A nodded and lit another of his strange cyan-smoke cigarettes.
“If you were an alien from a so-called superior race, would you want to visit the back woods of Pascagoula?”
Neil A shook his head. “We can’t pick.” He cleared his throat. “They! Can’t pick their assignments.”
“Still. They never pick anyone cool. Hey, Kid! Why are you falling away?”
“I’m not falling; you’re floating!”
Sure enough, a tractor beam from a UFO lifted me. As the hatchway closed beneath me, I said, “Welcome to Earth.” After the beam released me, I gawked at the interior of the hovering sphere, lights flickered and flashed throughout the interior. For fun, I pointed and said, “There’s a penny in the corner!” Two of the so-called intelligent beings looked! “It’s a round room.”
The butt of a ray gun knocked me out cold. Those humorless punks.
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... Zany, quirky, funny, fun. For teens and adults.
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