The Abduction!... A new free to read sci-fi story by Chuck Keyes...

The Abduction!

A short sci-fi story by Chuck Keyes

          "Caprese, did you enjoy the movie?" Kurt asked while firing up his new pickup's engine.

          "Yeah, it was a fantastic remake. More than once I've watched 'Them!' on late night satellite, and even though it was filmed in black and white, I immensely enjoyed it; however, 'They!' is like a trillion times better."

          "I agree." Kurt nodded his head. "One of my many favorite scenes was the chase through downtown Dallas. The special effects were astonishing; making the alien altered fire ants appear so real that they looked as if they were going to jump out of the screen and brutally attack the audience."

          Caprese glanced over at the lighted dashboard clock. "It was a long movie and you now have a long way to drive home."

          Kurt backed his Ford truck out the parking place and pushed the shift lever to the drive position. "We would've made the earlier showing If somebody I know hadn't spent over an hour in the bathroom, messing around with their makeup and hair."

          "Hey, it's not my fault the earlier showing of 'They!' was sold out."

          "I know," Kurt said with a chuckle. "I should've realized we needed to arrive at the theater an hour earlier for a five star blockbuster."

          "Okay…you can blame me," voiced Caprese, "but next time I screw up, I can blame you."

          "That's a deal."

          "Supper was pretty good."

          "I enjoy Chuck's Catfish Café. Besides, it's affordable on our depressed income. Maybe we should think of changing our professions. You being a freelance photographer, and me being a freelance writer, just isn't cutting it anymore."

          "Hey, I like my occupation as a photographer," sputtered Caprese.

          "I love writing, but after Obama's one term annihilation, it's going to take many years to float the economy up from the bottom of the deepest cesspool. Right now I'd probably make more money being a Walmart door greeter."

          Caprese giggled. "I can't picture you as a door greeter."

          "That's because you need to see me wearing my blue vest with a few hundred slogan buttons pinned on it.

          A few minutes passed by. "Hey, Doug, I just thought of a great idea."

          "What?"

          "Let's figure out a way to combine our professions. Perhaps we can publish a periodical magazine based on a subject that'll interest everyone. You can write the articles and I'll take the pictures."

          "Possibly." Doug nodded his head in thought. "The hard part is going to be finding the perfect subject, whether it'll be fiction or non-fiction based. I'll have to think about it for a few days."

          Caprese slid over to snuggle next to Kurt. "We live too far out in the East Texas country."

          "Now, after twelve years, you're complaining about it."

          "Well, it was both of us who wanted to raise our children in the country, but God didn't see fit to give us children."

          "Compared to living in a big city's sardine can of discomforts, I love the countryside; although a closer movie theater would be nice."

          Through the windshield, Caprese stared out and up at the moonless night sky. She can see a countless number of twinkling stars hanging in the blackness of the universe. A strange feeling of being watched brushed through her essence, but it quickly dissipated when she brushed the feeling off with thoughts of the sky being the same sky she looked upon almost every night for six years. Six long years while she looked up at heaven and prayed for a baby. She gave up praying after learning she had genetic defect that'll prevent her from ever having a child. "Kurt, my job is to make sure you don't fall asleep, so please make sure I don't fall asleep."

          "Don't worry, my dear wife, I'm wide awake."

          "That's what you said last time we went to a late movie, and twice I caught you dozing off on our sixty mile drive home."

          Forty-five minutes silently passed by. More than once, Caprese had to shake her head to keep from falling asleep. They are currently traveling along a winding country road through miles of cattle grazing lands.

          Unexpectedly, a bright blinding light engulfed their entire pickup truck. Doug slammed on the brakes, but his efforts only stop the wheels from turning.

          "Holy frog warts! We're hovering above the ground."           They helpless watched as their truck flew off the road heading out over a large flat pasture, and then they faded into unconsciousness while their truck dissolved into a ball of molecules.

          After being transformed back into matter, they woke up to realize they're still sitting in their truck; however, the truck is now sitting on a round orange pad in the middle of a strange room. The walls are silver, lined with hatchways and portals, and the entire ceiling is glowing like a soft florescent bulb. 

          "Where are we?" asked Caprese.

          "I don't know," replied Doug. "The last thing I remember is our truck was flying like a helicopter."

          "So it wasn't a dream…we were actually flying?"

          "Yeah, and I don't think the Ford engineers offered a flying accessory as a better idea."

          "We must've died and this has to be the entrance into heaven?"

          "I doubt it," said Doug. "Why in the world would God allow us to bring our plain Jane Ford pickup truck? We couldn't afford automatic windows, a CD player, or cruise control."

          "Good point. When my Uncle George died last year, he didn't get to take his fancy Cadillac with him."

          "Like most Texans, maybe God prefers pickup trucks."

          "Do you think it's safe to get out of the truck?"   

          Doug opened his driver door, stepped down onto the round pad, and then he reached in to help his wife out.

          "Let's go look out one of those windows," Caprese said while pointing her finger.

          They walked across the room and looked out the portal window. With a gasp, their eyes bulged, and their hearts fluttered with fear upon seeing the earth from space. It appears as a beautiful blue marble sphere hovering in a never-ending black sky. "We're aboard a spaceship. We've been abducted by aliens!"

          "This can't be real," said Caprese with a bewildered expression.

          Doug pinched Caprese's arm.

          "Ouch! Why the hell did you do that?"

          "To make sure I'm awake."

          "You're supposed to pinch yourself!"

          Doug laughed. "That would've hurt."

          "We've been abducted by aliens and you're screwing around like a man-kid!"

          "We're here, and there's nothing we can do about it, so I'm not going to panic until I see an anal probe the size of a baseball bat."

          "Hello, earth beings."

          Doug and Caprese spun around to see an eagle size bird with the head and tail belonging to a typical house cat. The creature is hovering directly in front of them. Its main body is covered with brown fur, and its eagle feathered wings are flapping, but they don't seem to be moving fast enough to support its size.

          "What are you?" asked Doug.

          "I'm a cute fury flying animal. A special puppet designed to remove your fears," said the weird cat-bird creature. Its mouth and lips moving in perfect sequence with its spoken words. "Am I not cute?" it asked while its cat tail vigorously wagged.

          "Yeah, I guess you're sort of a cute puppet, but your body parts are all mixed up," replied Caprese.  

          Doug chuckled. "It's not every day we see a big fury talking eagle with a cat's head and tail."

          "Please follow me." The alien puppet creature hovered around and flew across the big room. Doug took hold of Caprese's hand, and they followed the strange cat-bird into a room resembling a typical nineteen forties parlor you would find in a house built in the late eighteen hundreds. There's a colorful antique high back sofa, two matching chairs, dark stained end tables, and a matching coffee table. Hanging on the off-white painted walls are black and white pictures of humans dressed in old style clothing. Each picture has a wide antique frame. Off to the right are four room size windows with fancy white curtains. Beyond the windows is the blackness of space, dotted with countless stars, which gave the antique parlor an eerie ambiance. They also noticed an old grand piano, a bookcase lined with old books, and a roll top mahogany desk.

          "Please, sit down and make your human bodies comfortable."

          Doug and Caprese sat down side by side on the sofa.

          The alien cat-bird puppet landed on the high back of the chair sitting off to the front right of the sofa. He dug his long eagle claws into the upholstery. "Does this earth dwelling room make you humans feel at ease?" asked the creature.

          "This room is seventy to eighty years outdated," chimed Caprese. "It somewhat reminds me of my grandparent's living room."

          "The last time we visited your planet was seventy-four years ago. Now we've returned to further our studies of your unique race, thus making first contact, and offering technological gifts."

          "So how many humans have you immorally abducted?" asked Doug.

          "I do not understand your query."

          "I'm referring to the humans you've removed from the earth without asking their permission. The many people who claim your alien race enjoys using anal medical probes on them."

          "All our medical study procedures performed on aliens are noninvasive scans. You are the first two humans we've abducted to be our guests, and you're our first contacts. We have learned many things about your human race, including your smugness in believing your race is the only intelligence within the universe. We've been searching for a pair of humans who can bring our races peacefully together, including many thousands of other friendly alien races throughout the universe. Abducting both of you was our only logical method to prevent a mass panic upon your world. Our alien appearance far differs from yours. Upon seeing us without knowing us, your race would consider us as being monsters. That's why we consider your human race as being only one step above the classification of primitive. While scanning your earth from above, we overhead your conversation of wanting to be global communicators by way of what you call a periodical magazine. Therefore, Doug, we welcome you to write about our race, and, Caprese, we welcome you to take pictures of our race."

          Both Doug and Caprese smiled from ear to ear. "Thank you," they said in unison.

          "Although no one is going to believe us," voiced Doug.

          "Our gift for your race is being installed by my space boat's robots into your surface vehicle. This gift of a cold fusion engine well solve your energy crises, thus preventing your continued use of fossil fuel. This gift should be proof enough."

          "Why are you giving us such a magnificent gift?" asked Caprese.

          "We are all brothers and sisters from within the warm pools of creation. Every human's selfish needs for fossil fuel may lead to your self destruction, and we want to prevent this from occurring. Your race needs to advance and journey into space to take advantage of free trade economics."

          "We have a science fiction futuristic story called Star Trek," voiced Doug. "The key characters within Star trek have what's called the Prime Directive, where they do not interfere with the natural process of alien races. Obviously, your race does not have a similar Prime Directive?"

          "We do not offer our help until an alien race has stepped beyond their primitive stages, thus having the intelligence to learn that all life within the cosmos is a precious gift to be protected and loved. During a races primitive stages, only the great creator of life can interfere, for he is the ultimate being who nurtures the warm pools, and unlike a single entity, he dwells within all life."

          "Instead of communicating with you through your puppet, may we meet you?" asked Caprese.

          "Yes; however, my puppet is also my computerized linguistic translator."

          A door opened and a strange alien creature stepped into the remade antique parlor. Like a human being, he's standing on two long legs, and he's about seven and a half feet tall. However, his head is bigger and rounder then a humans head, with large bulging frog-like eyes. He has thin human-like lips, a wide Humpty Dumpty mouth, and  there's three nostril holes in place of a protruding nose. His yellowish brown head is bald, showing off two gray oval membranes that must be his lizard-like ears, and two long insect antennas, one sticking upward on each side of the top of his head. The alien has slender arms and hands, each having five long fingers moving about like the slithering bodies of snakes.

          Doug and Caprese can see that the alien's body is made up of many earth creatures.

          By way of long slow strides, the alien walked across the room and sat down on the same chair with his cat-bird puppet. It was a weird sight to see the alien comfortably cross his legs, lean his back against the chair, making his creature puppet appear as if it's standing on his left shoulder. "Being that no one screamed with fear is a good beginning," said the alien's cat-bird puppet.

          "Well, we just watched a fantastic sci-fi movie about alien altered ants with intelligence, and I think it mentally helped to prepare us for this alien abduction," voiced Doug. "Do you have a name?"

          "Yes…my name is Trumpper."

          "Are you like the captain of this spaceship?"

          "If I am, then I would be my own captain, for I am the only living entity aboard my space boat."

          "What about your flying puppet?"

          "He is a bio-robot. When I return both of you to earth's surface, I'm going to give him to you so we can stay in communication. When I'm not using him as a linguistic translator, he has a mind of his own. I know you'll enjoy his company."     

          Caprese removed her cell phone camera from her pocket book. "Trumpper, may I take a few pictures of you?"

          "Yes, please do." Trumpper's wide mouth became even wider as he formed a smile for the camera. Caprese took twelve pictures, and Trumpper happily posed for each one.

          Trumpper invited Doug and Caprese to stay aboard his space boat for a few days, or a week. He promised when they awake, his boat would be in low orbit around mars, thus allowing Caprese a photographer's dream come true.   Figuring his invite would be a trillion times better than voyaging on the Queen Mary Two, they accepted his vacation offer. Trumpper, with his bio-robotic cat-bird actually riding on his shoulder as if he's a seafaring pirate, showed them to their sleeping quarters, which is also a remake of an antique bedroom from within an old earth house. The large red oak framed bed has a white laced canopy, and beyond the foot of the foot of the bed is an extra large portal window, offering them a magnificent view of the universe.

          Before pushing the button to close their bedroom door, Trumpper gave the married human couple a wide warm smile, and byway of his cat-bird translator. He said, "Caprese, while I was using my bio-computer system to medically scan your human female body, I noticed you have a genetic defect, and I want you to know this defect has been non-invasively repaired."

          A stunned surprise of happiness exploded onto Caprese's  face. "I can now bear children?"

          "As many as you wish." Trumpper waved goodnight as he used his other hand to push the button for closing their bedroom door. 

The End!

© September 2011