10 Things Aliens Hate About You (Alienn, Arkansas Book 4) Page 6

  Truthfully, he wasn’t certain what would make Daphne Charlene sorry for anything she ever did, but if she pushed him any further, he’d do his best to find out.

  Two seconds after his promise of retaliation, he found out one thing she definitely didn’t like. Daphne Charlene, apparently unused to being spoken to in such a sharp manner, showed her true personality in the heated moment. She huffed, she puffed, she threatened to blow his house down if he didn’t cheer up and take advantage of what she offered.

  In an overloud tone, she said, “Don’t you understand, Wyatt? Now that Valvoline has turned down your marriage proposal, I want to be your girlfriend, then your fiancée! I plan to marry you one day very soon. We will be the perfect power couple in this town if you would just cooperate!”

  Wyatt, highly aware that his staff had just gotten an earful about the reason he’d been so unhappy, said nothing, but he may have rolled his eyes.

  Unfortunately, Daphne Charlene decided this was his way of issuing her a challenge.

  “I will not be thwarted. Valvoline doesn’t want you, I heard her myself. I don’t understand why you won’t at least meet with me. It’s been two weeks! Get over it! Get on with your life…with me! Lots of people have told me what a catch I am. So catch me already!”

  There was not a single sound in the sheriff’s office after her loud declaration regarding his failed love life with Valene and Daphne Charlene’s plans for his future.

  Wyatt frowned, letting her know he was unhappy with her declaration.

  She didn’t seem to care. “Eventually you will see things my way, Wyatt Campbell. Just see if you don’t.” She stormed out of the sheriff’s station, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the panes of glass. It was a miracle it didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces. Like his heart.

  After his failed love life was broadcast to his staff with as much delicacy as the cover story in this week’s gossip news tabloid, Wyatt retreated to his office, expecting that no one would dare bother him unless the place was on fire. He was right. They left him alone all day.

  At the end of a long, quiet workday, Wyatt still didn’t care about any repercussions that might come from his lack of interest in a relationship with Daphne Charlene or her threats. He was numb through and through. He saw his life as a lonely tableau of endless, isolated and joyless days until he died, alone and miserable at long last.

  As the staff had after Daphne Charlene’s shocking announcement, Hunter had left Wyatt alone for a time, too, but called to guilt him into joining a few of their buddies for the monthly poker night in a few days.

  Wyatt said he’d think about it, but he had no intention of going. He wasn’t ready to face the world without the possibility of Valene being part of his life. At least not yet.

  He watched his television, torturing himself with memories of each and every moment he’d spent with Valvoline Ethyl Grey set on a repeating loop in his mind.

  The sharp knock at his door startled him out of his funk. He almost ignored it, but then a series of speedy blows on the solid wood came again, along with a muffled voice that sounded like Valene’s brother, Diesel.

  Wyatt peeked out the front window to see Diesel’s truck parked behind his vehicle.

  “Wyatt! Are you in there?”

  Wyatt snatched open the door. “What’s up?”

  “I need your help.”

  Wyatt was about to say, “Of course, whatever you need.” Then he noticed Valene standing behind Diesel. He spoke without thinking. “What’s she doing here?”

  Diesel’s expression remained civil even as disapproval flashed across his face. “She was the one who told me where you live so that we could come get you.”

  Wyatt glanced at Valene’s beautiful face. She looked as miserable as he felt. “Valene,” he said curtly.

  “Wyatt,” she responded in an equally brisk tone. He didn’t know how she could be more beautiful than he remembered. Valene looked like she was trying to be stoic, but her lip trembled before she turned away, heading back to Diesel’s big SUV.

  He was still clueless as to why they couldn’t be together. But he wanted her even more, as if the past two weeks had only made his love for her grow with an out-of-control exponential force.

  Diesel started talking. It took a moment for the urgent tone of his voice to penetrate Wyatt’s distraction. “Wait. What are you saying?”

  Diesel let out an impatient growl and repeated, “There’s been an escape. I need you to help me track down some prisoners in the woods outside of Alienn.”

  “A prisoner escape?” Wyatt looked toward his police radio on the desk tucked in the corner next to his dining room table and wondered why this was the first he was hearing of any kind of prisoner escape. “Federal, state or local?”

  Diesel started to say something, but stopped. Then he said, “None of the above. It’s…well…other.”

  “Other?” Wyatt went to the hall closet where he kept his gear. Automatically, he grabbed his jacket and badge and retrieved his gun from the locked safe on the top shelf. His mind raced trying to understand the word other. “Like a foreign escape?”

  “That’s closer.” Diesel motioned Wyatt toward his SUV as he locked his front door. “I’ll explain everything once we get back to Alienn, okay?”

  “Okay.” Wyatt had no idea why he was going along with this. As sheriff, his first response should have been to check in with the deputies on duty to see if any notices had come into the station. Instead, he’d grabbed his stuff and followed Valene’s brother out the door.

  “Cam’s riding shotgun. Hop in back with Valene, okay?”

  Oh no. “Um…okay.” Was this about to be some sort of comeuppance because he and Valene had broken up? Would he be surrounded by all of her brothers once they reached Alienn and forced to explain why she looked so miserable? Did they not know he was miserable, too?

  Wyatt climbed into the back seat of Diesel’s big, black SUV where Valene was already putting her seat belt on. He asked in a low voice, “What’s this all about?”

  She didn’t look at him, staring at the space on the seat between their legs. “You’ll see. And then you’ll understand everything.” The last part of her sentence was said in a whisper, but he heard her.

  Cam Grey nodded at him from the shotgun seat in front. He didn’t look particularly angry to Wyatt, but definitely worried about something.

  They drove in silence for several minutes until Wyatt started seeing the billboards for the Big Bang Truck Stop and Maxwell the Martian as they reached the last five miles to Alienn.

  Diesel pulled into the main parking lot of the Grey family’s Big Bang Truck Stop, but parked around the side near an employee entrance gate to a fenced-in area at the back of the convenience store. The four of them exited the SUV as the gate opened.

  Axel Grey stepped into view. He noticed Wyatt and asked, “Hey, Wyatt. Ready to go down the rabbit hole?”

  Wyatt’s lids narrowed. “I’m sorry. A rabbit hole? What does that mean?”

  “We haven’t told him yet,” Cam said.

  Axel rolled his eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

  They all stepped through the gate and into the fenced-in area. Wyatt noted it was actually a very solid-looking metal door. There was a clicking sound as some mechanism bolted solidly in place behind them.

  “To get him behind a locked door so he won’t be able to run away screaming when he finds out what we all are.” Valene stayed well out of Wyatt’s reach as she answered Axel, but her attention was on Wyatt.

  “What you all are? What do you mean?” Wyatt didn’t get what was going on. Abruptly, a horrible thought occurred to him. Were they felons, hiding in plain sight at a truck stop to keep a low profile?

  “You aren’t about to tell me you all run some sort of criminal enterprise, are you? Because friends or not, I will arrest you.” Wyatt’s tone was light, but he wasn’t kidding.

  “We aren’t criminals. We’re aliens.” Cam stared at him. They
all stared at him, waiting for a reaction.

  “Aliens,” he repeated. Not a question. A statement. That was not at all what he expected. “Like from another country?” he ventured a guess, but his sixth sense told him that was not at all what they were saying.

  “Nope. Like from another galaxy. We are from the planet Alpha-Prime, two galaxies away.” Diesel stood tall, arms crossed, his expression expectant.

  “Another galaxy. A planet called Alpha-Prime.” Wyatt looked at each of them, a smile poised on his lips as he waited for the punch line. His fledgling smile died as their expressions remained serious. Apparently, they weren’t kidding. “So, are you all hideous, slimy creatures with a dozen tentacles, but you’ve taken on a human form to hide in plain sight here on Earth?”

  “Not all of the species from our galaxy have tentacles or are slimy. Alphas are humanoid, but we are taller and stronger than the average earthling, plus many of us can read human minds.”

  Wyatt laughed. This was crazy. “You can read my mind. Sure.”

  Diesel turned to Cam. “I’m not good at it, but Cam is.”

  Wyatt tilted his head to one side and eyed Cam. The other man seemed preoccupied, as though studying something complex.

  Wyatt was about to tell them to let him in on the joke when Cam said, “The only thing on your mind beyond what we’ve just told you…is Valene. For almost a year now.”

  Wyatt lifted one shoulder in half a shrug. “I like her. That’s not a secret, is it?”

  Diesel didn’t smile as Cam continued, “When you are alone together, you call her Vee.”

  Wyatt’s eyes widened.

  “Cam! Stop it.” Valene sent Wyatt a miserable, wounded and betrayed gaze.

  “No. He needs to understand, Valene.”

  Valene crossed her arms and looked forsaken.

  Wyatt took a single step closer to Cam, staring him in the eyes with a particular thought in his head. “What am I thinking right now?”

  A half smile shaped one side of Cam’s mouth. “Daphne Charlene Dumont makes your skin crawl every time she talks to you and especially when she touches you.”

  “That’s right,” Wyatt said. “And it’s the truth, too.”

  Cam looked at his sister. “You asked Valene to marry you, but she turned you down and broke your heart, right in front of Daphne Charlene, and now the woman who makes your skin crawl won’t leave you alone.”

  “Cam!” Valene warned.

  Wyatt nodded. “True again.”

  “I’m so sorry, Wyatt.” Valene’s soft tone hit him at a visceral level. He took a step in her direction.

  “Now that I know the truth, will you say yes?”

  Diesel inserted himself between them. “No.”

  Cam continued, “You also want more proof. You want to see a spaceship or a slimy creature with tentacles.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Very good. I’ll definitely have to guard my thoughts around you.”

  Diesel said, “You’re taking this pretty well, Wyatt.”

  “Not really. I’ll wake up in a minute. I’m probably asleep in my chair in front of the television after watching the SYFY channel.” But this doesn’t feel like a dream.

  “It’s all true, Wyatt. It’s why I can’t marry you,” Valene said. “If I say yes to your proposal—and I really want to—then we’d have to move to Alpha-Prime and live there for the rest of our days. Your family would never be told where you were. They would have to live with your unexplained disappearance forever.”

  Valene sent him such a look of longing, he took another step in her direction. Diesel also took a step closer. He looked grim about the whole situation. Whether the escaped prisoners or Wyatt and Valene’s heartfelt relationship was his primary concern remained a mystery.

  “This is all really charming and everything,” Axel said in an uncharacteristically snarky tone. “But we have fifteen escaped prisoners on the loose as we speak and we need to go after them!”

  Diesel grabbed Wyatt’s arm, keeping him from moving any closer to Valene, and asked, “Will you help us?”

  “Of course. What do you want me to do?”

  Cam and Axel shared a look. Can they talk telepathically?

  “No. We can’t talk telepathically,” Cam said. “We’re just brothers.”

  I still haven’t seen the spaceship. If there really is one, Wyatt thought hard as he stared at Cam.

  Cam rolled his eyes. “Let’s show him the ship the prisoners escaped from and then he can help us track the ones who got out of the building.”

  Would it do any good to tell you to stop reading my mind?

  “No. But I’ll make a special effort to stay out of your head, given that I don’t want to be treated to any more images of you kissing my sister. Gross, dude.” Cam went to a wide door at the back of the building.

  Wyatt shook his head, still half ready to believe this was all a dream. He winked at Valene and followed Cam. Valene, Diesel and Axel trailed him. On the other side of the door, a set of normal-looking stairs led down. Interesting. Most structures in this area didn’t have a basement. The water table was too high. As he descended the stairs into a rather cavernous space, he noted there was not a speck of water in sight. He followed Cam to the left as they walked into a long, large room. Wyatt tried to get his bearings. He figured the large underground space extended behind the truck stop and possibly into the woods.

  It looked like an underground mall. There were eateries, shops selling all manner of earthly goods and kiosks filled with trinkets and baubles.

  They passed a store window that displayed every type of Maxwell the Martian paraphernalia he’d ever seen in one place, save the truck stop’s gift aisle upstairs.

  Wyatt never would have believed there was such a large underground area under the truck stop if he wasn’t seeing it with his own eyes. They continued down the central walkway toward a platform against the wall at the end of the cavernous space. Two staircases led off the platform, one a little grander than the other.

  “You’re exactly right. One is for first-class passengers, the other is for everyone else.” Cam didn’t bother looking contrite for reading his mind and Wyatt decided it would save time to ignore any intrusions into his mind.

  “What is this place?”

  “This is where the spaceships’ passengers disembark.”

  Cam headed for the non-first-class stairs, went up them and opened the door to outside. Wyatt reached the top of the stairs and crossed the threshold. He saw the spaceship immediately. It was dark outside, but the large black ship—which hovered several feet above the ground—looked like some sort of alien battleship with metal plating and gun turrets in strategic places. The ship’s lights were purple, green, blue and dark pink. Four thick metal chains ran from beneath the ship to hook onto iron rings driven into the ground. A piece of equipment that looked like movable airport stairs was snugged up to an open door on the alien spacecraft.

  Behind the hovering ship, Wyatt saw the woods he’d learned tracking skills in as a kid. Never once had he ever seen any alien ships hovering around anywhere.

  “How do you keep it from being seen by anyone on Earth?”

  “Alien technology. It blocks any kind of human radar and field dampeners keep local earthlings from seeing anything except what they expect to see.”

  “Right. What happens if someone does see it?” Wyatt did his best to curb his fantastic thoughts regarding aliens being in his life without his knowledge all this time. Even in his mind he likely sounded like a hayseed from the hill country, wide-eyed and awestruck by the thought of proving aliens truly existed.

  “We have to erase their memories.”

  “Erase memories? You can do that?”

  “Yes.” Cam pulled what looked like a megaphone the size of a small water gun out of his pocket.

  “I’m going to set this for ten seconds.” Cam pointed it at him.

  “Don’t, Cam,” Valene’s impassioned voice said.

  Wyatt’s vis
ion went black for a full count of three. When the black screen in his brain faded, he couldn’t remember what he’d just said. What had they been talking about? The awesome spaceship?

  “How do you keep the ship from being seen by the locals?”

  Cam wore a Cheshire grin. He gestured with the small megaphone in his hand. “I shoot you with this and you forget. In fact, I just did it.”

  “You erased my memory?”

  “Yep. Only ten seconds’ worth, though.”

  “This time,” Valene said under her breath.

  “This time? You’ve used this on me before?”

  “Not me. Axel blasted you the last time,” Cam said, his tone matter-of-fact, like erasing memories was standard practice. From the sounds of things, it was.

  Axel sent his gaze to the sky, shaking his head as he dropped it to stare at everyone with a hostile expression. His agitation was clearly visible in his posture. “Focus, people. Fifteen escaped prisoners, remember? We should already be out there looking for them.”

  Diesel asked Wyatt, “If you were about to look for fifteen escaped prisoners from the gulag prison ship you see here, what would you need to know to track them down in the surrounding terrain?”

  Of course. He should have realized that was why they needed him—he had experience with tracking and knew these woods like the back of his hand. Or thought he had. Wyatt considered. “How long have they been gone? Are they wearing shackles or handcuffs that might slow them down? Do they have any weapons? Have any calls gone out to the local population for sightings?”

  “Almost an hour. No. Not that we know of, but it’s possible they appropriated weapons during their escape. And absolutely not,” Axel said.

  Wyatt thought about slimy tentacles. “Are they all humanoid like you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Any aliens with super-human speed or the ability to go through woods faster than the average human?”