“I still can’t figure out why I ever came on this wild goose chase with you.”

“Geese? Is that what you think we’re after? Shit, you’ve been here looking for birds the whole time? Sam, no wonder we haven’t found anything yet.”

He took his eyes off the road long enough to roll them at her, but that did nothing to stop or slow her down.

“We’re looking for aliens. UFOs. They both fly, sure, but what we’re looking for doesn’t have wings and doesn’t shit. Not as far as I know. They migrate a lot further, too.”

They were on Route 346, cutting through dusty fields interspersed with rusted oil derricks and two-ton tumbleweeds. Save for the occasional tractor, they had little company on the road with them.

“Real funny, Hil. The real reason we haven’t found anything yet is that there’s nothing to be found. We’re out here searching for ghosts.”

“Aliens, sugar. We’re searching for aliens. And don’t call me Hil.”

Their day had started up in Humboldt County. It was already almost sunset and they still had a drive ahead of them to get to Shadow Hills. And getting there was only half the battle. The only clue they had was to look for a white clapboard house owned by a Miss Letitia Harvey circa 1957

“We might as well be searching for ghosts. And what do you mean I can’t call you Hil? That’s what I’ve been calling you for over fifteen years.”

At least, Sam thought, the van was in good shape. He’d driven worse. Hillary had gotten a damn good deal on it, though she wouldn’t clue him in as to how exactly. Regardless, if he was going to be hightailing it across the country, at least he knew he could count on the damned rig not be crapping out on him every other mile marker.

“Yes, and we were married eight of them. And dating before that. Now? Now you’re just an old friend helping a girl out.”

“So that’s all I am to you then, Hil? An old friend who won’t wreck your pretty new toy?”

“Yes,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation,” and my name’s Hillary. You could have called me Hil all you’d wanted, until the end of time, if you’d kept your dick in your pants. Now keep your eyes open for a big white house, you dummy.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He scratched at his chin and yawned the yawn of a man who didn’t much appreciate having his doorbell rung a few minutes before midnight.

“Letitia? You’re here for Letitia?”

“That’s right,” Hillary stammered, ruffling through a manila folder. It would have been easier if it hadn’t been so dark. It would have been easier, too, if Sam had come to the door with her to help.

“Ring a stranger’s doorbell this late at night in the middle of podunk Kern County?,” he’d said, “I know you think I’m dumb, and I may be, but I’m not crazy. And anyway, you didn’t bring me along for my door ringing skills or my personality. I’ll stay right where I am, behind the wheel, since that’s all I’m good for.”

“Letitia Bolsa? You’re here for Letitia Bolsa?”

The sound of his voice told Hillary just about everything she needed to know. But, as she tried to explain to him, she had this report from well over half a century ago, and his was the only mailbox in the town with the name Harvey on it -- they’d checked. And, yes, they were looking for a pink clapboard and not an off-gray double wide. But, on the off chance, with the remote possibility that….would he mind if she just asked a question or two about Letitia Bolsa?

“Letitia Bolsa you said?”

Suffice to say, Hillary was convinced this was another dead-end. The fourth in a row. Grasmere. Star Peak. Shivley. And now Shadow Hills, too. It was a good thing the damned list was so long. She hadn’t counted on hitting a home run with every last one on the list; finding evidence of UFOs in each and every attic and basement along the way. But neither did she count on striking out four straight times. It was enough to question if the whole thing was worth it, if she was really willing to keep coming up empty.

“It just so happens,” the man said, at last, the beginnings of a grin forming on his face,” that Letty Bolsa was my grandma.”

“Really?”

He nodded. He had veins as thick as tree roots running up and down his neck. Even in the near darkness of his stoop, Hillary could see the blood pulse through them at uneven intervals.

“Now, she’s been dead since back before I had my own dentures put in, to be honest.”

“Of course -- I mean, I’m sorry about your loss. Losses. Counting the teeth, I mean.”

“Hell, that was at least twenty years ago, but thanks all the same. Grandma Letty was a real character. Smoked two cigars before breakfast each and every morning. Never read a book except the one the phone company used to send. Loved watching Lawrence Welk on the boob tube. Had a nasty case of sciatica, too.”

Hillary wore a look of resigned ambivalence. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the guy had a grim reaper in coitus tattooed on his chest. His tattered T-shirt left little to the imagination. The more she knew about this guy, and his Grandma, the less she wanted to be on his doorstep at that hour -- or any other time of day. But if she was going to get anything from him, she thought she needed to stand right where she was, for better or for worse, with an approximation of a smile on her face.

“But you aren’t here to listen to me ramble on about my grandma, her eccentricities, her proclivities. You’re here because of that there report. It’s about aliens, isn’t it? An eerie green explosion, not more than a hundred feet up in the air. A shaking in the ground not like an earthquake but like a god damned missile strike. That’s what you’re here for. Isn’t that right?”

A little too on the mark, frankly, but Hillary was in no position to complain.

“Yes. Yes. Yes. That is exactly why I’m here,” she said, though she wanted to add that, under no other circumstances, would she ever be there. “Now, please tell me you know something about this. I mean, just by listening to you I can tell you know something about it, but--”

“The name’s Hal Bolsa. I’m the last of the line. And I’ve got something in the barn out back that might interest you. Why don’t you and that pasty gentleman in the tour van who keeps fiddling with the radio dials come on back? I think it’ll be worth your while.”