Return of the Aliens Read online

  When he reached the cell of interest, he cleared his throat at the guard who stood nearby and motioned to the closed door. The guard quickly hurried over and opened it for him. Alex entered the small windowless room. The prisoner looked up from a small cot in the corner of the room. The cot was the only item in the room. There was no toilet or sink, and Alex didn’t show his revulsion at the sight and smell of urine and feces allowed to accumulate on the floor at the other side of the room.

  “Get the thing I ordered,” Alex softly told the guard.

  The guard nodded and hastened out of the room.

  Clearing his throat, Alex set his gaze on a man he’d once respected above all others. A man whose eyes were sunken in. A man who’d lost considerable weight. A man who had some scars on his neck and probably more under his white prisoner uniform. Alex felt a sneer turn his lips up. “Dr. Reyes. How ironic it is to see you here.”

  Dr. Reyes stumbled off of his cot and approached him. “Alex, is it really you?”

  Alex laughed and slapped him on the shoulder with enough force to make Dr. Reyes wince. “You know, after you healed me, I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see you again. But here you are—and looking pretty good for someone who’s been to the re-education programs at this fine facility—and here I am. Only, this time I’m not the one who needs help, am I?”

  Dr. Reyes grabbed Alex’s shirt collar and whimpered, “Alex, I believed I was helping you. I didn’t know what they were putting in those pills. I thought the Annunaki came to bring us to a new age of enlightenment. I didn’t realize they wanted to remove us from the Earth. They don’t care about you, Alex. They don’t care about any of the people. They want to get rid of everyone so they can have the Earth for themselves.”

  Alex shook his head.

  He clung on tighter to the shirt. “It’s true! You’re not helping the good guys. You’re helping the bad ones.”

  “No,” Alex began. “The bad ones are the greys. You remember them, don’t you? The pills you gave me that were supposed to make that grey alien go away? Guess what? When I got my implant, I learned some things, and one of the things I learned was that those pills were to open my mind so I could receive more of the grey’s attacks.” Letting out a bitter laugh, he added, “Those pills were hallucinogens that were supposed to increase my anxiety. Is it any wonder why I was such a mess back then?”

  Dr. Reyes broke down and started crying. “I didn’t know, Alex. I’m so sorry. God, forgive me.” He leaned on Alex’s chest and continued to cry. “God, forgive me.”

  Rolling his eyes, Alex said, “How pointless it is for you to call on something that doesn’t exist.” He pulled Dr. Reyes away from him and looked at him. “Look, just to show you that I haven’t lost all of my humanity, I’m willing to offer you assistance, which is a lot more than you’ve ever done for me. All you need to do is take the implant, and you can get out of here.”

  More tears filled his eyes as he shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “If you don’t, you’ll die. I saw the report on you. You’ve failed the re-education program, Doctor. You’re set for extermination tomorrow morning. You don’t want to die, do you?”

  Dr. Reyes closed his eyes and whispered something, and it took Alex a good few seconds to realize it was a prayer. Alex didn’t understand Reyes at all. Here, the man stood in front of him, obviously terrified of facing the guillotine, but he insisted on clinging to an imaginary God instead of trusting in things he could see with his own two eyes. Pitiful.

  The guard returned with a bottle of pills.

  Alex took the bottle and held it up. “I’ve done all I can for you. If you insist on dying, I can’t stop you. But I’ve made an order to the cook. If you want to eat or drink anything before you die, you need to be a good boy and take some pills. You know how important it is that you take your pills, don’t you, Doctor?” He chuckled. “Of course, you do. You insisted I take mine. In fact, I remember being talked down to like a wayward child if I missed one.”

  The doctor’s eyes fell to the bottle Alex set on the floor by the door.

  “Considering this will be your last day alive, I thought it would only be fair to have the cook prepare something palatable to the taste buds. So I told the cook if you’re a good boy and take your pills, you can have an inch-thick juicy steak, medium well, with a baked potato and fresh apple pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert.”

  Dr. Reyes gulped before he sat back on the cot and put his face in his hands.

  Alex shrugged. “Either way, it matters little to me. I’ll have a full stomach when I go to bed tonight, and better yet, I’ll still be alive this time tomorrow.”

  Alex left the cell with no desire to look back. He motioned to the guard to shut the door, which the guard did. Dr. Reyes’ muffled crying was oddly comforting to him. He was glad the man chose to die. The jerk had it coming to him after allowing the grey to torment him. Alex smiled and headed down the hallway.

  Kill her.

  Alex halted in his steps and frowned. When did he hear that voice before?

  Kill her.

  Closing his eyes, he focused on it. Kill who? he wondered. A warm sensation spread over him as he opened his mind to accept whatever the voice told him to do. And as the blurry image came into focus, it occurred to him what the voice had been telling him all along but he’d been too naïve to accept.

  Autumn. The voice was telling him to kill Autumn. And was it any wonder? After how she’d betrayed him, the voice was trying to warn him, to protect him, to get his revenge. Had he understood that before, he could have removed the grey alien from his life a lot sooner.

  Opening his eyes, a smile slowly spread across his face and the feeling of pleasure throbbed through his body.

  Yes, I will kill her.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  A year later (October)

  Vanessa stopped her car at another guard checkpoint. Wincing, she rubbed her forehead, wondering why she continued to have the headaches when she was careful not to let her thoughts veer in directions it shouldn’t. She pulled down the sun visor and inspected her forehead in the small mirror. Rubbing the small red area located over her implant, she noted its tenderness and wondered if she should be worried.

  “Vanessa?”

  Forcing her eyes off the small mirror, she looked at Alex who glanced up from the checklist in his hands. “What?”

  “We’re next.” He motioned to the car ahead of them that pulled forward.

  “Oh.” She rolled down her window so the guard could scan her forehead and waited while he scanned Alex’s hand.

  The guard tipped his hat. “Thank you for tracking down terrorists, Ms. Hayden, Mr. Cameron. And congratulations, Mr. Cameron, on locating the most terrorists over the past four months.”

  Alex leaned across her and smiled. “Those greys won’t get another foothold on this planet.”

  “With men like you helping An, I don’t doubt it,” the guard replied.

  The guard motioned for them to drive, so she rolled up the window and continued driving down the road. She exhaled and rubbed her forehead again, wondering if she should be concerned about this thing. The implant was supposed to eliminate things like sores, so why was she getting one?

  “The next street on your right might be the location,” Alex said as he made an asterisk by the name on the sheet.

  Vanessa shifted in her seat. She didn’t particularly care for how eager he was each time they came up to a new residence where a terrorist might be hiding. He seemed more interested in someone named Autumn than anyone else, and every time she asked him about it, he told her it was none of her business. She sighed. He might have lasted longer than her other partners, but she didn’t care much for him.

  Sometimes she missed Devon but wouldn’t want him to be involved in this endless rounding up of people suspected of terrorism. She thought once the chip became a mandate, then her workload would decrease but the opposite was true. There had been a huge swell of r
esistance to it. The more she was afflicted with headaches, the more she didn’t wish the implant on anyone. She’d thought of quitting, much like Devon tried to. Except, with the implant, they could find her anywhere and bring her back. Devon was smart enough to avoid it. She hoped he was safe.

  Gritting her teeth against the throbbing pain in her forehead, she forced her attention on the road. Don’t think about Devon or the implant. Just do your job.

  She turned onto the street and drove half a mile before she parked in front of a doublewide. Catching sight of the curtain that moved a bit when someone peered out the window, she sighed and got out of the car with Alex. This wasn’t an easy part of the job. Her stomach tensed and tangled in knots as she followed Alex to the front door.

  Alex banged on the door, startling her. “Got to make sure they hear us,” he told her.

  She bit her tongue on the reminder that he didn’t have to act so intimidating. Instead, she crossed her arms and braced for the unpleasant confrontation.

  The door slowly opened and the man gulped. “May I help you?”

  Alex and Vanessa pulled out their IDs. “My name is Alex Cameron, and this is my partner, Vanessa Hayden. We work with the Global Organization for Security. May I see your mark, Mr. Tanner?”

  The man nodded and held up his hand.

  Vanessa spotted the pyramid glowing on his hand and slipped her ID into her purse.

  Alex tucked his ID back into his pocket. “We received word you’re hiding a family who’s refused to take the mark. May we search through your home?”

  The man glanced uneasily from Alex to Vanessa and ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay.” He stepped back.

  Vanessa couldn’t make eye contact with the man as she followed Alex into the house. In the living room sat a woman with a boy and girl who looked to be in college.

  “May I see your mark?” Alex asked.

  The three complied and lifted their right hands.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know a family by the name McConner, would you?” Alex asked, his gaze not wavering from their wide eyes.

  Vanessa thought she was going to throw up. Their guilt was evident on their faces. They were hiding fugitives. She rubbed her forehead, aware of the tender spot.

  Finally, the woman cleared her throat. “There’s no one here but ourselves.”

  Alex nodded as he turned and headed down the hallway. Not knowing what else to do, Vanessa joined him. His footsteps fell silent on the carpet, and Vanessa thought she might go crazy by the tension in the air. She hated this. The unbearable silence right before they found a fugitive hiding—usually in a closet, under a bed or even in an attic. She swallowed the lump in her throat and hoped this time the fugitives would manage to hide well enough.

  She decided to wait in the hallway while Alex checked all the bedrooms and bathroom. Closing her eyes, she tried to steady her nerves. How long could she keep doing this? Hunting people down and killing them as if they had no right to live? When she took the implant, she had no idea her job would take a turn for the worse. She thought the Illuminati were a threat and they had been, but the Annunaki were a million times worse.

  Alex left the last bedroom and passed her on his way to other end of the house. Not wishing to join him, she went into the bathroom to check her forehead and frowned when she realized the spot was redder than before. Something was wrong with her, and she was sure the chip was causing it.

  A door slammed, and she jumped. Clutching her stomach, she hurried down the hall and saw an upset Alex rush over to the man standing in the living room. Alex grabbed him by the collar.

  “I know you’re hiding them!” Alex spat. “You know the rules. If you give those who don’t take the implant even a drink of water, you could die! That chip can implode and kill you all if I order it! Now, spare yourselves and turn them in. We can re-educate them. Do the right thing for this planet, Mr. Tanner!”

  The three people on the couch huddled together, and Vanessa turned her gaze from them. Bile rose in her throat. There was no way Alex would let them live, no matter what they did, and she secretly hoped the fugitives would escape this time.

  The man took a shaky breath and shook his head. “I…I don’t know any fugitives.”

  Alex punched the man so fast that Vanessa barely had time to blink. The man fell back against the recliner, and Alex hovered over him, grabbed his collar again, and yelled, “Liar! You know where they are!”

  “Please, stop!” the woman cried. “He doesn’t know!”

  Alex paused, his fist in mid-air, and turned his attention to the woman. “He doesn’t? But you do?”

  The woman’s lower lip trembled and the boy and girl sitting next to her held onto her. Vanessa glanced at the man and saw him give a slight shake of his head in her direction, but the woman blinked back her tears and nodded. “They are under the house. A part of the skirt can be removed. It’s at the north side of the house.”

  “Thank you,” Alex said and ran out the door.

  Vanessa didn’t want to see what he’d do, but she also couldn’t bear to stay in the house with them so she decided to leave. She didn’t make it down the last step when the first gunshot rang through the air. Before she could talk herself out of not looking, she saw Alex fire another three rounds with his gun in quick succession. The people hiding under the house didn’t even have time to cry out for mercy like the others he’d shot in the past.

  Vanessa hurried to the car, taking deep breaths of fresh air to quell her nausea. She ignored her headache and made it to the car in time see Alex make a call on his cell phone as he strode in her direction. In many ways, he was nothing more than a monster to her.

  By the time, he reached the car, she heard him say, “Yes. Four of them. A man, woman, a toddler and a baby. They’re dead. I’ll set the signal for the others.”

  A family with young children? Those were the terrorists who posed a threat to global security? She couldn’t stop herself from crying. She was no better than him because she’d done nothing to stop him. She never did. All she ever did was go along with it.

  As soon as Alex hung up, he scowled at her. “Don’t sympathize with them, Vanessa. They want to resist the implant? They know the rules. The least they could have done was take it for their children, but they didn’t love their kids enough to do that. They deserved to die.” Then he made another phone call. “Yeah. I have order 894 to eliminate the traitors immediately.” After a long pause, he said, “Yes. Brian, Lillian, Jacob, and Regina Tanner. They are to be executed at once.”

  Vanessa grabbed the door handle and hopped into the car, unable to stand the screams from inside the house that followed.

  ***

  Devon stroked Autumn’s back as his lips caressed hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. This was everything he hoped his life would be like when he got his job—before he learned what it was he’d gotten himself into. As soon as he realized his role in the government, he gave up all hope he might have a normal life.

  But here he was. Sitting by the fireplace with his wife snuggled up to him on his lap. Enjoying the completion of loving a woman and being loved in return. Having a place to call home instead of just surviving from day to day in a world cut off from the things that made life worth living. How long they had, he didn’t know, but he’d been given a second chance in life—one he refused to take for granted.

  When their kiss ended, he buried his face in the side of her neck and clung to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to go for a walk with me?”

  “I want to get some reading done. I still have a lot to learn.”

  He glanced at the open Bible on the table and kissed her again. “Okay. As long as it’s for a good cause, I can handle the rejection.”

  With a roll of her eyes, she chuckled. “How great you suffer.”

  “I do. I have to go out into that cold weather all by myself.”

  “Well, when you come back, I’ll warm you up.”

 
; Figuring he better make his daily check of their property before it got dark, Devon stood up, set her on her feet, and got ready to head on out. With a smile in her direction, he pulled the hood of his parka around his head and left the cabin.

  He had several traps set up along the perimeter of their land to buffer them from intruders and a few pits to catch animals for food. Each day, he made his rounds to see if there was anything unusual in the area. Once in awhile, he drove the four wheeler, but he preferred to walk since it kept him in shape. The walk took him a full hour. He hoped his preparations weren’t needed, but he figured sooner or later Keegan might discover where he and Autumn went. On this day, like the ones before it, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw nothing to be concerned about.

  He collected a couple of logs and headed back to the cabin. Balancing the logs in one arm, he opened the door and stepped into the warm room. The fire was still going strong, but it wouldn’t hurt to add a smaller log now and add more later. His gaze fell to Autumn who’d fallen asleep at the table, the Bible closed beside her. He shut the door and made his way to the fireplace where he placed the log into it. Afterwards, he put the remaining logs next to the fireplace and shrugged out of his coat. Then he placed the parka and his boots by the door.

  He went over to the table, picked her up, and took her to the bed. Trying to keep quiet, he slipped in next to her and pulled the blanket up and around them. He gathered her in his arms and closed his eyes.

  He wasn’t sure how much longer they had to wait until Christ returned. From his study of prophecy, he estimated they had about six months left. If they could just hold out for half a year, then everything would be alright.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  3 months later (January)

  Keegan, in human form, went to level six at the underground base at Dulce and checked her watch. This better not take long. She had an important meeting with the Annunaki in charge of the three eastern major nations: Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. They were the kings of the east, and they controlled a significant portion of the Earth and its chipped population. With any luck, those without chips would soon be eliminated. Some unchipped people remained, and that bothered her to no end. She let out a low growl as she strode down the hallway toward the room containing all of the people who’d been taken in the second vanishing.