This is the rough draft of a story that I'm working on. It's another "light" story. I'm hoping that the more of these blow off stories that I write, the better I'll get at my craft.

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Aliens
by Matthew McKibben

James screwed the lid back on his thermos, and put it next to his revolver under the seat. This was going to be a long night and he needed his coffee. His partner Ray Ray snored in the seat next to him. Earlier in the night, Ray Ray had eaten his weight in ribs, and was now giving up trying to stay awake. James tapped him on this shoulder.

“If I gotta be up, you gotta be up too.”

Ray Ray sat up in his seat, and rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Coming up on 1:30.”

“What?” Ray Ray asked. “I’ve only been out for…”

“15 minutes,” James finished.

“Felt like longer.”

James sipped his coffee and looked out over the dashboard. The warm coffee still tasted fresh despite being in the thermos for the better half of the day. Their squad car sat perpendicular to the darkened road, empty of interstate travelers. The radar gun display read two side by side dashes, glowing red and faintly lighting up the car.

“It’s going to be a long night,” Ray Ray said.

The only car that passed their way the first hour was driving five under the posted limit.

* * *
“Chief wants me to take Spanish,” Ray Ray said.

James looked over to Ray Ray who was spitting tobacco juice into an empty Dr. Pepper can. The smell of tobacco made the air feel weighted and salty. James had given up tobacco four months prior, and found partnering with Ray Ray quite the test of endurance. “Most of the state departments are requiring it,” James said. “All the Mexicans keep getting pulled over, and most of ‘em can’t understand what we’re saying to them.”

“I’m assuming you’re not going to need to take it,” Ray Ray said, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

“Si,” James nodded. “The wife’s taught me quite a bit.”

The radar display came alive and flashed a brilliantly red 204 across the read out. Ray Ray and James looked at each other. The road had been, and remained, pitch black.

“204! Holy Hell!” Ray Ray said, nearly choking on the wad of tobacco in his mouth.

“Did you see anything out there?” James asked.

“Nope,” Ray Ray said. “didn’t see nothing.”

“Damn thing,” James said, hitting the left side of his radar with his fist.

James and Ray Ray settled back into their seats and sat in silence for a minute or two.

“Spanish isn’t so hard,” James went on. “Mexicans can speak it.”

* * *
The point of saturation had finally happened, and James spent the past thirty minutes either at, or on his way to a tree to relieve his bladder. He looked at the night sky as he peed, and whistled a song that he had heard on the radio on his way to work. A song that his son had recently taken a liking too, much to the displeasure of James and his wife.

As he peed, a loud swishing sound came from up the road. He turned his head towards the darkened road to see what all the commotion was. A strong gust of wind came from behind, and nearly knocked him into the puddle of urine underneath him.

“206,” came Ray Ray’s voice from the car. He stuck his head out of the squad car window and repeated himself. “206.”

James zipped up his trousers and ran to the car. He looked at the radar display, blinking a red 206. He ran up to the road and looked in both directions. The dark road unfolded before him in both directions. There was no sign of a car either way. He tilted his Stetson back on his head and scratched his forehead. The ghost taste of tobacco wet his tongue. He'd kill for some tobacco right now.

* * *

They had moved the car further up the clearing, and virtually kissed the edge of the pavement with the tires of their car. They had called to the nearby town’s Police Departments to see if they had registered any unusual activity in the past few hours. They all responded negatively, but said that they’d be on the lookout for any strange happenings.

Ray Ray opened his pouch of tobacco and took out another fat wad of oily tobacco. He tucked it under his lip and resumed his steady watch out the passenger side window. James had the driver side window covered.

“Maybe it’s an alien,” James said, momentarily looking skyward in time to see a shooting star burn into oblivion.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Ray Ray said. He looked into the starry sky.

“Who’s joking?” James went on. “Just look at that great, big sky above us. You think we’re the only ones around?”

Ray Ray looked up into the night sky. A plane flew tens of thousands of miles above their parked car, a red blinking light being the earthling groundwalkers only sign that it existed. He thought of all those movies he's watched while alone in his apartment, and how they forced him to sleep with the lights on. James leaned in on the horn, startling Ray Ray six inches out of his seat. The tobacco came out his mouth and landed in his lap.

“You fucking bastard,” Ray Ray said. He grabbed the tobacco and threw it out the window.

James leaned forward, rested his forehead on the steering wheel, and laughed uncontrollably. In the commotion of the horn and ensuing laughter, both men nearly missed that the radar gun had flashed a red 200 across its display.

“Jimbo!”

James continued laughing.

“Jimbo,” Ray Ray said shaking James on the shoulder. “It’s gone and done it again.”

James abruptly stopped laughing and looked over to the radar display. They both looked out of their windows.

A fast, black object moved on the horizon road of him. “Got him,” James said.

He turned on the car and turned towards the spot where he last saw the object. Ray Ray had already turned on the siren and the squad car’s blues and reds.

“Better get the spotlight as well,” James instructed.

Ray Ray pointed the powerful spotlight down the road, stretching for miles ahead of them. A faint black object a thousand yards ahead of the car, disappeared on the road and reappeared again. James slammed on the accelerator.

Off in the distance, almost touching the horizon, a flash of brilliant orange light erupted from the side of the road. The small speckle of light coming from the side of the road became more pronounced as they got closer to it, until the point when they could see that a small fire had erupted from somewhere inside the tree-line.

They stopped their car next to the tree-line. Somewhere deep in the woods, a small fire was burning. James fastened on his belt and revolver, and pulled his hat down tight on his head. He was about to open the door when Ray Ray grabbed his arm.

“Wait.” Ray Ray said.

“What the hell is it, Ray Ray?” James asked angrily.

“Don’t go. What if they’re aliens?”

“Ray Ray. There aint no aliens,” James said. “Now get your damn gun and follow me.”

They hurried out of the car and towards the small fire meters ahead. A loud whirling sound, almost like the sound the Tasmanian Devil makes on Saturday morning cartoons, echoed through the woods.

Ray Ray pulled the hammer back on his .38, and had the gun firmly grasped in his sweat hand. He’d be damned if some nasty, green alien was going to get his grubby hands on him. He wouldn’t let himself be taken alive.

James and Ray Ray ran right up on the wreckage. James looked around and scratched his head. A muffled sound of moaning came from the wreckage.

“What the heck?” Ray Ray said.

“A fucking car crash, Ray Ray,” James said, holstering his weapon.

Ahead of them, a mangled black mess of an tipped over car hissed and let off small plumes of smoke. The fire which moments ago had been small, yet big enough to see from the road had already put itself out. A rotating fire, rubbed against a nearby tree making an almost deafening whirling sound. Its passenger moaned as he crawled his way away from the tangled wreckage.

Ray Ray sighed, and put his gun back into his holster as he looked for the passenger. James looked too, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the car before him. It was painted completely black with what appeared to be black spray paint. The windows were blacked out with the heaviest shade of tint that he’d ever seen. Even the headlights and taillights were blackened out. As best James could tell, the engine, which was lying on the forest floor below the car, had been modified numerous times, and had all kinds of pipes and wires jutting from it. Small streams of steam creaked out between the connections of the pipes.

“Found him,” Ray Ray called out to James.

James hurried over to Ray Ray, kneeling besides the unmoving lump on the forest floor.

“Alive?” James asked.

“Yeah,” Ray Ray responded. “Passed out.”

James nodded, and began to walk for the squad car to call for help.

“Wait,” Ray Ray said. “Check this out.” He flung a dark, black mass of cloth material towards James.

He turned over the mass in his hands. It felt clumpy, like their was something else hidden inside this mass of cloth.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know,” Ray Ray responded. “He had it on over his head.”

James stretched the cloth apart, and felt what he guessed were goggles inside of the hood. He held it close to his face. He pulled the hood over his face, and the dark sky became lit up green. Ray Ray, sitting next to the breathing mass on the ground, had a green hue around him, his beady eyes shone like a cat when it’s sitting in the sunlight. He turned around and looked towards the squad car parked way back on the road. The squad car lights flashed brilliantly green each time they rotated around.

“Night vision,” James said taking the hood back off.

“Night vision?”

“Yep.” Stunned, James made his way back to the squad car. He reached inside the car for the Dispatcher radio.

“Jimbo,” came a loud voice from the wreckage area. It was Ray Ray. “You gotta see this guy’s trunk. He’s got more cocaine than Tony Montana.”

“What? Cocaine?” James called back. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. Can’t say I am.”

James took a look at Ray Ray's pouch of tobacco, sitting open on his seat. He stuffed some of the sweet tobacco inside his mouth, and called in for the dispatcher.