Most of the men who stood by their cars while Chief Lamar spoke said nothing, many of them holding expressions of disbelief until Lamar told them of what had happened at the station and the probable kidnapping of Sylvia.
It was one thing for a bunch of outsiders to play in the backcountry. It was something completely different if the stupidity made its way to town. As in all small towns, the men knew immediately who Lamar was talking about, a woman most of them had known for all their lives, someone they respected as children, even if she was a little opinionated.
The outrage of Maynard’s death would take a little longer to sink in, then they would be in a fine fighting mood. Lamar pitied the people at the old Armstrong house; they had never seen a bunch of good old boys ready for a fight.
Maynard’s body. He looked to his left to see Porter looking to the east. “What?”
“What the hell is that?” Porter left off the tapping and pointed at the far tree line.
Annoyed by the interruption, Lamar looked in the direction showed by his friend, and his jaw dropped open.
In the distance, perhaps two miles away, a glowing orb cruised sedately over the trees, an occasional bright light lancing from the orb to touch the ground.
“You got to be shitting me,” Lamar was stunned. Maynard had not been following a false trail after all; there were UFOs in the area.
He was aware of the men moving to stand in a line along the edge of the road to watch the light.
“Well, now, I’ve seen everything,” a voice said from further down the line of men.
“What is it?” Bert Simpson asked.
“Don’t you watch TV,” someone replied caustically. “It’s one of those alien contraptions.”
If it had not been for the absence of rotor noise, Lamar would have decided it was a helicopter. Whatever it was, he suspected it had a part in the foolishness occurring tonight. It jumped forward.
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“Gentlemen, get in your cars,” he ordered, then walked to his cruiser with Porter on his heels.
Shoes scuffed across the tar road as the men ran to their cars and started the engines, the roaring sounding like a race waiting for the start flag.
Porter slammed his door shut and reached for the radio microphone. “Are you going to call for backup?”
“Who’s going to hear us out here in the sticks?” Lamar asked and pressed the accelerator to the floorboard. “And who’s going to believe us?” he added and hung on to the steering wheel as the tires bit on the tar and the car jumped forward.
It was a straight shot parallel to the light for a few miles, then the cars would hit the dirt road and begin winding their way into the hills and gullies of the barrens. Using the fire roads and old dirt tracks of the barrens, Lamar suspected he could get the chase close to the light if it did not increase its speed.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Porter clip his seat belt in place and give it a short tug to check the lock. “Watch that thing and I’ll watch the road.”
“Gladly,” Porter leaned as far forward as he could. “Just remember to keep your eyes on the road.”
“Relax,” Lamar almost laughed at his friend’s discomfort. “I’m an old hand at this kind of driving.”
“You never caught me when it counted.”
“You were lucky.”
The car left the paved road, dropping several inches to the dirt while throwing up a cloud of dust. Lamar held the car firm when it tried to slip to the left and soon, they were traveling just as fast on the lesser road as they had run on the tar.
“I think we’re closing on it.” Porter watched the orb as it shot another bright light to the ground. It seemed to slow slightly, then pick up its speed. “I wonder if it’s searching for something?”
“Ask them when we catch up with it.” Lamar replied as he tried to plot the twists and turns in his mind. “Hang on, we’re coming up on the first turn.”
Lamar tapped the brakes as a wall of trees filled the windshield and the road turned abruptly left. He let the car swerve on the corrugation of the road, then hit the gas and powered around the tight corner.
The car came out of the corner speeding up. In the distance, Lamar could see the light as the orb crossed the road, lighting up the trees to either side in a brilliant green.
“What about Sylvia?” Porter asked as he turned in his seat to monitor the orb.
“I think this thing is going to the same place where we’ll find Sylvia.”
“What, are you psychic?” Porter’s head swiveled further as they passed the spot on the road the ship had flown over. “I hope we have a right turn coming up.”
“Intuition.” Lamar replied. “All the weird shit started happening when those people took over the Armstrong place. I think we lost the rest of the cars.”
“You told them where to go. Hopefully, they will remember.” Porter turned to Lamar. “There is a fire road ahead that leads to the road the Armstrong place is on. It will keep us close to the UFO.”
“We’ll use it.”