Alton One: Chapter Six

"Sarah?" Mike said into the bloody i-phone.  "Are you're parents still in Key West?"

"Yes," she said. "They're flying home tomorrow"

You can't be home alone.  "I need you to get over here right away," he said, "and I need you to be careful"  Did I do the right thing.  

"Mike Rove, what's going on?  And what happened to my Lance Goodman?"

"You have to come here right away.  I know this doesn't make any sense, but you have to come here right now.  Come here slowly and calmly.  You have to park at Wesco and walk here.  And I mean walk here.  Do you understand?"

"Mike, how am I to stay calm when you tell me to do something like this?"

"You have to, Sarah.  Lance wanted me to contact you, and I am.  He said you'd understand.  You have to.  Do as I say, Sarah. Please."

Mike ended the call, and typed in his blog password. Lance knew about his blog, and hopefully since he was updating his own blog he'd monitor Mike's blog, even though Mike hadn't updated it in six months.  He did all this while the bloody corpse seemed to stare at him.
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Seven days ago Lance Goodman disappeared off the face of the Earth.  He was my best friend, and the only person I told my story to.  He was (is) five years older than me.  The police have an all out search for him, involving over a thousand concerned men, women and even some children.

I have no intention of telling them they are on a wild goose chase.  First of all, if I did so I'd have to tell them my reasoning, and I know from my past experience that would just open up a whole new can of worms.  Second of all, that search is providing me a cover to do what I think needs to be done to find my best friend. 

On Sunday my brother Myles takes me with him to the Skitville Wesco.  I get out of the car and make my way through some shrubs behind Wesco, and a branch scratches me good just my left eye.  I took off at a full run, wending my way down an alley and between a couple houses, until I'm on Columbus Avenue.

I see your house from the corner, and right away things look different.  I see you got rid of the boards that wrapped your porch and cranked it up, leveling it out.  With the new railing, the swing, and the white paint, it looks great, perhaps the way it did in the Victorian era when it was built.

As I get closer I see all the odd stuff you did to it.  The large television satellite looks like something white trash would do.  And the wires, red, white, yellow, green, and pink, are strung from the satellite and wrapped around the posts, and along the north side of the house.  And here they seem to connect to an antenna that towers way above the house, and even above the trees. I can't help thinking, "Is this legal?"  It's obviously a neighborhood eye sore.

As I close in on the house I look in your front window, I see him.  A cool, shiver rushes up my spine.  I see his head clear as day: narrow, white, and with huge slanted black eyes. I look away, and I feel a breeze of something brushing past me.  A brilliant flash of light above directs my attention that way, and when I look back Tsatso is gone. 

I rush into the house and slam the door.  
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"Sarah?" Mike said.  "You got here quick."

Sarah slammed the door behind her.  She grabbed a book on the table by the door, breathing heavy as she did so.  She was pale, very pale.  She opened the book, and motioned Mike to the page.  As she did Mike saw that her hands and sleeves were stained with blood.

Alton One: Chapter Five

"I don't know what's wrong with you, I've been trying to get a hold of you for three days," she screamed into my ear through Lance's i-phone. "The way you acted the other day I though of leaving you, and then I decided..."

Mike cut her off, and whispered, "Sarah, I need you to pretend to be my mom.  I don't have time to explain.  I have to answer the door right now, and I have to have you pretend to be my mom."  There was a BANG on the door, followed by a muffled, "OPEN UP RIGHT NOW!"

"Why would you... Mike?  Mike? What are you doing at..." she said. And she continued to speak as Mike went on.

"I have no time to explain," Mike said, "I have to answer the door, and you have to pretend to be my mom.  My life, and your life, and Lance's life, depends on it.  Please! Please Sarah!"

"What in the world are you talking about?"

"I don't have time to explain."  Mike opened the door.

"I just talked with your mother, and she says you never talked to her.  What's going on in here."

Crap!  Was I that long reading Lance's blog?  "I gotta go," I said into the phone, and hung up.  Now I was facing an angry cop.

"Look," he said, "I don't know what you have going on here, but you have to listen to what I said.  you have to take care of yourself."

Hugh?  What's he talking about.  Yet as Mike thought that, he saw the blood on Officer Chuck's shirt, and unlocked the screen door, and opened the screen door.  And Officer Chuck stumbled into the living room.

"Sit down! Sit down!" Mike said, helping, the best he could with his meager frame, the office to the ground.  He sat in the middle of the living room, with the officer on the floor.  He was lying right over the spot Mike found the pool of blood and the gun when he arrived.

"Officer Chuck, I'm sorry.  I didn't know you were shot?"

"It was the aliens, Mike," Chuck looked up at Mike, grabbing Mikes collar.  "I just want you to know that Lance was right.  Lance was right, Mike.  I didn't want to believe him, but you have to.  You have to do whatever you can to prove Lance right, even if that means...," blood started pouring from Officer Chuck's mouth.

"Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it," Mike said, tears rushing over his face.

"Don't...  leave this house!"

"Please don't die.  Please don't die, officer Chuck." Yet despite his plea, officer Mike's eyes froze, as if in a state.  His breathing stopped.  And Mike thought about jumping on his chest, but there was so much blood, that even at his young age, he didn't think it would do any good.  Officer Chuck was dead.

Mike didn't know what to do.  He decided to phone Sarah, but he couldn't find the phone.  He reached into his front pocket, and his phone wasn't there.  His wallet was missing, and now his i-phone.  And now he had a dead man on his floor.  And then he saw Lance's i-phone lying next to the dead body, covered in blood.  And Lance's i-phone rang.