The truck sat parked by the side of the dirt road, canted to one side with both cab doors open as the men reached into the rear bed of the truck and busied themselves with the cargo.
In the distance, Doc could see the lights of the house if he looked up from his task, but he did not want to see the house. He wanted to get the women out of the truck and get the hell away from the house. Every minute spent near the house put them in greater danger of abduction.
Bobbi rose easily in his hands, following the direction of his soft words and touch. She was pliant in her state of shock; whatever incident had left the blood on the woman’s dress had left an equally damaging stain on her mind. Left to her own, she would have followed the road until she passed out from exhaustion, then died of exposure.
Doc suspected it would have been kinder if he had let her die from the elements. He eased her over the side of the truck and led her around the back gate to Sylvia.
The older woman waited while leaning against the side of the truck for support as the circulation returned to her extremities. The driver stood guard over her, his shadow immense and ominous in the night. Light from the cab glinted off the metal of a gun held in his hand. But it was his presence that cowed the woman. He seemed to loom over Sylvia as she glanced to either side to understand what was happening.
“I want you to take this woman to that house,” Doc gave Bobbi a gentle push in Sylvia’s direction and joined the driver.
The women remained unmoving, Bobbi leaning her head against Sylvia’s shoulder, and the older woman instinctively caressing the silent Bobbi’s hair with a soothing hand. It was the act of a mother and it unsettled Doc more than he would have thought capable.
“Go,” he snarled and pointed at the house.
“What did you do to her?” Sylvia demanded in a soft voice harsh on Doc’s nerves.
“Not a damn thing,” Doc snapped, then steadied himself. “If you walk to the house, nothing will happen to you. If you stay here asking stupid questions, we will have to kill you. Do you understand? We do not want to kill you, but we will have no choice.”
She did not want to go to the house simply because these men wanted them to go there. They had the guns. With as much dignity as she could muster, she led Bobbi slowly away from the men and truck.
She whispered soft comforts to the young woman she supported, knowing in her heart they were going into a situation even more dangerous than the armed men who had kidnapped her. Sylvia had known Maynard was dead when the big man tied her into a bundle and taken her from the police station. Yet with that knowledge, she still felt the men were the lesser of two evils.
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They walked away from the truck, their shadows from the cab light fading fast. Night noise replaced the sound of the men’s breathing and shifting on the dirt of the road.
The lights of the house beckoned false hope. Sylvia tried to remain strong, but the fear grew with each step, her mind focusing on a simple question; what could frighten two big men armed with guns?
Bobbi had been sniffling against Sylvia’s shoulder, her steps gaining strength as she moved until it seemed the young woman would snap out of the silence that held her. Sylvia felt the woman’s head raise from her shoulder.
With a sudden piercing scream, Bobbi stopped in her tracks, pulling Sylvia to a halt as her hands gripped fiercely at Sylvia’s arm.
“Son of a bitch,” Doc breathed and motioned the driver to force the women down the road. He followed and considered the option of killing the women outright and dumping their bodies near the house. That kind of action put him too close to the house for comfort. They would have to force the women to walk the distance.
Bobbi bent at the waist over her hands, clutching her stomach, and twisted from Sylvia’s grasp. She stumbled away from the house with a keening noise that added to Sylvia’s fright as she tried to grab the young woman and protect her from the men walking from the truck.
The driver made a grab for Bobbi as he neared the women only to curse aloud as she eluded his hand.
It was a dark comedy as Doc watched the man try to coral the hysterical girl with the aid of the older woman. He could shoot the girl and take the body to the removal point. He was certain the older woman would walk to the house unaided.
Doc tracked the girl with his pistol, the luminous tip of the front sight barely able to keep up with her movements. The shot would have to be quick, then maybe another shot when she was on the ground.
A ball of flame rose into the sky from the woods beyond the women, followed by the deep bellow of an explosion.
A cold ring of metal touched Doc’s head behind his ear with enough pressure to make him understand any kind of movement would end in his death. He could smell gun oil and sweat.
“If either of you move, I will shoot and worry about asking questions later.”
A flashlight suddenly illuminated the road and the driver with a woman trapped under each arm.
“Drop the women and the gun, big boy,” Parker said and waved the business end of his shotgun in front of the light.
“Why don’t you take his gun, Sylvia?” Lamar suggested as his dispatcher freed herself from the driver and glared at him before planting a fist against his face.
“Prick.” she rubbed her hand as the driver edged away from his attacker. She claimed Doc’s gun and held it up to the man’s face.
A light in the sky arriving above the house cut Lamar’s comment short. It narrowly cleared the trees as it crossed the road in a dive, then came to a halt over the front yard of the Armstrong house.
A mile or so down the road, a group of cars rounded a corner and sped in their direction. The posse had arrived.
“Looks like we got here just in time,” Parker motioned the driver to the ground.
The UFO settled towards the ground, illuminating everything close in a bright wash of light. As Lamar watched over the shoulder of the man he had captured, a pulse of air seemed to break from the skin of the ship and push outward in compression that seemed like the pressure of an explosion.
He saw and heard the house rattle to the blow of the expanding bubble, then saw the trees whip and twist, and still the air expanded.
The prisoner backed against the gun and Lamar saw the people on the road except the young woman were edging away from the closing shimmer to the air. The girl was on her face in the dirt, hugging the road for safety.
“I think she has a good idea,” Parker’s voice shook as he glanced at Lamar.
“On the ground,” Lamar ordered.