Aliens motorcycles and b.., p.1
Aliens, Motorcycles, and Bad Decisions, page 1
ALIENS, MOTORCYCLES, AND BAD DECISIONS
AN INVASION DAY SHORT STORY
SCOTT MOON
Copyrighted Material
Aliens, Motorcycles, and Bad Decisions Copyright © 2024 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2024 by JN Chaney
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.
www.jnchaney.com
http://www.scottmoonwriter.com
1st Edition
CONTENTS
Aliens, Motorcycles, and Bad Decisions
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Join the Conversation
About the Author
ALIENS, MOTORCYCLES, AND BAD DECISIONS
1
Craig Paxton aimed his 2019 Harley-Davidson Road King away from the Twister City dealership in Wichita, KS. He was tired of everything—of being an accountant, a rancher, and most of all, of being a family man. I-135 might not have all the answers, but I-70 and the mountains the highway led to certainly did.
Peace. Tranquility. Solitude. Those were the things he needed before losing his mind.
He was sick of his wife sleeping with his best friend. The drama of his kids and grandkids, who only called when they needed money, exhausted him. Or maybe his fatigue was a product of sleepless nights wondering what he’d done wrong as a man.
Fleetwood Mac blared from the motorcycle’s speakers. Wind and road noise subtracted from the high-fidelity experience, but he knew all the words by heart, could feel the bass lines in his bones, and loved those guitar hooks.
Best of all, it was FM, not a streaming app.
On impulse, he pulled his cellphone from his jacket and flung it across the northbound lanes of I-135. At eighty-five miles per hour, in this traffic, the outdated iPhone didn’t stand a chance.
Traffic was backing up. He couldn’t see what was turning the highway into a parking lot and didn’t care. Passing on the right shoulder was illegal and dangerous—and felt like the best decision of his life.
Rumble strips vibrated his bike as he pulled onto the shoulder and gunned it. A parked Kansas Highway Patrol cruiser caught his attention, but the trooper was standing in traffic, staring at the sky.
Craig flew by him like a lightning bolt of well-deserved freedom.
He noticed hundreds of contrails reaching across the blue midwestern sky. On a normal day, there would be a crisscross of patterns. Flights from Denver to Chicago or Los Angeles to St. Louis and all the other variations were common. In Kansas, there wasn’t much to look at but the sky. He’d done a lot of that from the accounting firm he’d helped build. No office view compared to sunsets on his ranch or mountain vistas where he did nothing but ride, eat light, and sleep on the ground.
This wasn’t a bad town. He’d come here for the chance to build generational wealth that would give his kids, grandkids, and their grandkids choices. The Navy had taught him two things—that hard choices in the present made life easier in the future, and that he would never have sea legs.
His speed slipped. He angrily cranked the throttle until he was past the traffic jam and cruising at a satisfying 115 miles per hour. The road was his now. Everyone was stopped, turning around, or driving through fields in panic.
Heat filled his gorge.
Nothing was right about this scene. Why were all the contrails reaching in the same direction, and why were there so many? Hundreds were turning into thousands. Had someone forecast an apocalyptic meteor storm?
Maybe he should have paid for more of the news apps.
His hand relaxed on the throttle, and his dream bike coasted slower and slower until he stopped. His boots planted on each side of the Harley while he decided what to do. The engine rumbled and felt good. For ten years, the only peace he’d found had been on motorcycle trips or ranching. Most of the former were with the guy who was banging his wife and pretending they were still best buds.
Hank had always talked about just jumping on his Dyna Glide and leaving it all behind. The guy could really spin a great story. Craig was a doer.
“You’re a poser, Hank. All talk,” Craig muttered without monitoring what was coming out of his mouth. His attention was on the shapes coming nearer the ground. They didn’t look like meteors. They looked like ships. It occurred to him that Hank’s gift had always been talking, and that was why the man knew all the right things to say to lonely, middle-aged women whose husbands worked too much.
When Craig was angry and bitter about investments going south and his accounting firm pushing him out despite all he’d done to make it one of the biggest success stories in the Midwest, Hank was listening to Jolene and complimenting pictures of Craig and Jolene’s grandkids.
“Why am I such an asshole?” his hand went to the anchor tattoo on his left forearm. His life before The Big Second Chance threatened to return. Pushing it away was harder than it should be.
He let out the clutch and rolled slowly forward. The instant the bike was in motion, his feet came up and planted themselves on the footrests. Assholes dragged their feet for balance. Craig refused to ride with the skill of a Cheeto-stained beanbag.
Assholes also left their families in the middle of a crisis.
An older version of himself, the one from before the Navy, before night classes and AA meetings, would have sworn up a blue streak and threatened the universe. There didn’t seem to be a better target right now. What could he do, shout at the meteor-not-a-meteor storm?
They would listen. They would fear his wrath.
The grim chuckle that escaped him wasn’t surprising. “Craig, you’re an idiot. You really are.” He turned in a slow circle and headed back the way he’d come. The trooper pointed at the side of the road, ordering him to stop, presumably. Craig smiled and waved as he cruised by.
The iPhone was nowhere to be seen. That had been a brilliant move. Jolene was probably calling him on repeat. Hank made her feel good, but she always unloaded her real problems on him, and he took care of that shit. No bill was too out of control, no appliance too broken, and no personal crisis too much to face.
Maybe his approaches had been too direct. Maybe they knew who he really was. Crunching numbers didn’t hide the fact that he had once crunched other things—people sometimes when they weren’t acting right.
Dread filled him. He couldn’t lose her or the kids, despite the huge pains in the ass they could be.
The exit ramp was just as packed as the highway, but he had no trouble weaving his way through the SUVs, pickups, and utility vehicles. A line of Kansas National Guard Humvees took over the grassy median and tore off toward something important. That worried him, but it wasn’t his problem. Dust and dry grass filled the air of their passage.
The only thing that mattered now was getting back to everything he had been running away from five minutes ago. Once he reached a surface street, he twisted the throttle and roared toward his comfortable suburban neighborhood.
That was when the ships opened fire on McConnell. The Air Force base was on the southeast side of Wichita, close to Derby. He was as far north as a person could be and still witness the attack. This was the most elevated part of Sedgwick County. The view wiped away everything he had been angry about.
Craig wasn’t a movie guy and mostly read Westerns. But he recognized an alien invasion when he saw one. This wasn’t CGI. Reality always left a metallic taste at the back of his mouth.
It was almost time to do the hard work.
2
The gate into his neighborhood was closed. He punched the code and cursed when it didn’t open. Dropping the kickstand for the Road King felt dangerous—like maybe he’d get swarmed—but he swung one leg off the bike and soon strode toward the chain box that operated the barrier. There was no one around. Thirty seconds later, he confirmed there was no electricity to operate the largely cosmetic barrier.
He rubbed his weathered face and glanced at the ink on his forearm but kept his eyes moving. They shouldn’t have moved into the city—not even a small one like Wichita. Right now, the only place he wanted to be was on his ranch and that was practically in Alpine. West Texas had to be the last place to be hit.
Should he call them aliens or invaders or something else?
The sky was full of action. Looking at it grated on his nerves, but not for the reasons most would expect. Change brought dangerous opportunities—something he’d always played to his advantage. But that was over and done with. He’d made his mark a decade ago. Riding for a few weeks in the mountains would have soothed his restless spirit, brought him back to who he was, and given him the strength to carry on.
“But you sons-of-bitches couldn’t have waited until May.” He pulled a battered cowboy hat from the saddlebags on his bike and beat it into shape. “Just once a year—just once—I run away. Christ help me. This is some unfair bullshit.”
The homeowner’s association had warned never to open the gate manually because of the damage that could do to the entire system. Craig grabbed h
Her heart was in the right place. No one wanted street racers and Harley-Davidson enthusiasts creating unwanted noise pollution or running over dog walkers. Craig didn’t get in many accidents because he watched far ahead and anticipated what other drivers were doing. Maybe he hadn’t been riding his Road King as much as he wanted, but the thought process was ingrained no matter what kind of vehicle he drove.
And there it was, the culmination of everything he’d worked for. Over twenty years of accounting jobs with three different firms, including the one he’d helped start. Good investments, delayed gratification, smart lawyers—that was what it took to get even a little bit ahead in this economy. He’d known since high school the value of investing early and letting the mutual funds grow. In practice, that had been much harder than it had seemed on paper. Cars, motorcycles, swimming pools, trips, private schools.
How the hell had he kept his head above water?
Craig shook off the stress of a life that no longer mattered. There were explosions in the distance and airships that were not helicopters patrolling several nearby neighborhoods. McConnell was a smoking ruin. How long had that taken, ten minutes?
He pushed aside current events and stared at the large, sprawling ranch home. A lot of people would kill to have his problems. From the curb, it seemed he and his family were living the American dream. Three large SUVs, two King Ranch pickups, and several smaller cars were parked bumper to bumper in the passthrough driveway. One of his nephews had a thing for tricked-out Hondas. Some of the vehicles he didn’t recognize took space along the curb—boyfriends and girlfriends of the older round of grandkids, most likely.
“Dad!” His son Joshua Paxton shouted from the front door. “Get inside. There’s been an invasion. We called you.”
Craig drove around the cars and trucks and parked in the front courtyard. He grimaced. The bank wasn’t getting paid for the third refinance on the property. Searchlights cut through the post-sunset dusk. Smoke stretched toward the sky in great, dark pillars. The old ways were over, like it or not.
He eased the bike onto the kickstand, dismounted, and stretched his back like he’d ridden her from Colorado hundreds of miles to the west. The engine made ticking noises as it cooled.
“Mom is crying her eyes out. Everyone is scared. Where were you?” Joshua demanded.
“You’re a man.”
“What’s your point, Dad?”
“Can’t you handle this? I remember a conversation we had.” Craig hated himself for bringing up the argument. His kids had told him he was a relic they no longer needed and threatened him with a conservatorship like he was ninety and senile instead of sixty-four and bitter.
“That’s a shitty thing to say, even for you.”
For no reason he understood, Craig hugged his middle son. Joshua was speechless. Moments passed before they went inside together.
I haven’t been the man I should have been.
Joshua talked. Craig tried to listen. The entire family, plus a few others, had come here when things got bad. Craig thought the situation would get a lot worse but didn’t say so. Now wasn’t the time.
The living room was packed. All of his kids, their spouses, some friends, and a few cousins of his in-laws were crowded into the living room and around the island counter in the kitchen. The grandkids and a few adventurous adults were in the pool, pretending nothing strange was happening.
Silence gripped the room. All eyes turned to him. He felt like more of a jerk than ever. Not long ago, he would have said no one here would have missed him, and he might even have been right. Now, the weight of the world, of all their futures, was back where it seemed to belong—on him.
Outside, by the pool, a radio was playing Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. Classic rock, real country, anything from the seventies was better than the digitally sterilized crap millennials and Gen Z listened to.
“Joshua,” Craig said.
His son stepped forward and seemed changed. Random hugs did that, apparently. Who knew?
“Make sure we’re watching the neighborhood, but also events farther away. Pay attention to whatever happened south—at McConnell—and highways. We may need to leave and I already saw the mother of all traffic jams.”
“Sure thing, Dad.” Joshua took his wife, kids, and a few other volunteers and went to the roof with binoculars.
Craig was only slightly surprised someone had brought useful items like that. His oldest grandson, Keith, had his science telescope. He wondered if that would reveal things none of them wanted to see.
“Jolene,” he said as his wife rushed into the living room from wherever she’d been. They hugged and he smelled Hank’s cologne but said nothing. He did, however, seek out his best friend.
“Shouldn’t you be with your family?”
Hank’s face reddened. A lot of eyes were on him now. “They’re sheltering in place. My stepson is a cop and told me not to risk driving until we know more.”
Craig didn’t give a damn about that and dismissed the backstabbing, fast-talking moron.
There were a lot of things that needed doing. He assigned tasks and thought some of the important stuff had already been done. No one complained. The alternative was to face what was out there. Staying busy kept people from crying too much or freaking out.
Jolene slipped toward Hank when Craig strode to the pool and stared at the sky like it held the secrets of survival. A beach ball flew at him. He caught it, smiled, and flung it at kids who were playing a bit more enthusiastically than necessary. Craig’s favorite grandniece was entertaining all of the younger family and friends, and some of the adults as well.
As long as they were ready to move when it was time, Craig thought that was a pretty solid idea.
Joshua came back from setting up the observation posts. “What now, Dad?”
“I’m going down the street to check on the Cunninghams.”
3
The Road King would be too loud for stealth, and the neighborhood was quiet. That meant he would need to drive slow and go easy on the throttle. He smiled at the sounds of the pool party in the backyard but was especially happy with his daughter, Amy, who was checking how much fuel each vehicle had and planning ways to get more.
“Dad?” Amy asked from between a pickup and an SUV.
“Gotta check on the Cunninghams. They’re old.”
“Like you,” Amy said, busting his balls as usual.
“Well, I guess you’re in charge if I keel over on the way back.” He adjusted his hat, started his bike, and steered toward his destination. Driving conservatively cut down on the noise the muffler made. Restraint was the key right now. It felt like too much time was passing, but some things couldn’t be rushed.
Martha and Vincent Cunningham owned one of the oldest and largest houses in the neighborhood. They’d built it when the area was farmland but for a few newly minted streets. Twenty years later, the suburbs spread even farther from downtown. This city expanded like there was nothing but cleared farmland around it. Craig took his time and thought through a dozen scenarios.
There was no news. Static was the only opus playing on his radio now. Strange, turbine-powered airships patrolled in the distance. He watched each pair of the ugly things and braced for their approach. None of them had chosen this part of the city yet, for which he was thankful.
Why wasn’t the Emergency Alert System broadcasting? No news was bad news in this scenario. Right then, exactly as he pulled up the Cunninghams’ driveway, he decided no one could stay here. The air patrols were proof. Wichita, and probably other cities, were being locked down. Whoever had come from the stars—damn, it was weird even to think that—would not be benevolent. If they had wanted peace and cooperation, the invaders would be talking to the national and international leaders.
