Copyright © 2017 by Clarissa Lake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
GTQ LLC
PO Box 540375
Orlando, FL 32854
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Alien Alliances/Clarissa Lake -- 1st ed.
ISBN
CONTENTS
ONE
Ithad been a slow night at the Deer Crossing Mini Mart and gas station. Jenna Harper didn’t know why Mr. Potter would never let her close early. But he always said that the community expected the store to be open. The one night they might close early, someone might have an emergency and need gas to get a sick kid to the hospital. Someone might need a few groceries or a 6-pack of beer on the way home from work.
That hardly ever happened. Usually, it was a sheriff’s deputy on patrol or a trucker needing to use the john or to buy a fresh coffee so he could keep driving through the night. Tonight, absolutely nobody stopped. Jenna had spent the last two hours reading a sexy romance novel on her smartphone. One more slow night would finish it.
She sighed as she leaned hard against the glass and steel door and turned the lock. Reading her novels was the closest she had found to real romance in months. The flirtation with the new night deputy sheriff wasn’t going anywhere now that he switched to nights on the other side of the county. He never even asked her out.
Well, screw him! He probably thought he was too good for a convenience store clerk. It was the only job her two-year business degree would get her in the hamlet of Deer Crossing, population 900. She should just sell Grandma Parker’s house in the sticks, move to someplace where she could get a better job, and maybe meet a nice guy for a change. Administrative assistants made good money in the city.
Nothing was happening for her here in the middle of nowhere West Virginia. Time to make a new plan. Grandma Parker died last spring and left her the double wide on six acres. It was the only home she’d ever known. She didn’t know her father and her mother left her with Grandma one evening and never came back. Screw her too! Jenna thought.
With everything cleaned and the meager amount from the cash drawer locked up in the hidden safe, Jenna went out the back door and set the lock car keys in hand. The two times she’d forgotten her keys locked inside the store, Mr. Potter was not amused that he’d had to drive ten miles to unlock the back door so she could get them. Jenna didn’t blame him and had apologized profusely. Potter opened the store at 6 a.m. He never gave any of his employees the keys.
The fifteen-year-old compact was the only car in the back lot. It used to be Grandma’s. It was still registered in her name. Jenna hoped it would start. It was getting finicky lately. She needed to get it looked at---but she never had the extra money. The house was paid off long ago, but there were still utilities and taxes. Jenna’s income barely covered that and food.
Grandma was her only family. Now that she was gone, there was no more reason to stay living alone in the mountains. She would call a realtor when she woke up later in the morning. Then she would spruce up her resume and see where she could send it. She hated her life and her nowhere job.
The car door made a hideous creaking sound when she opened it. She made a mental note to spray some of that lithium grease on the hinge before work tomorrow. The can was in the trunk, but she was tired and just wanted to get home to bed. The first two tries the starter whirred and then just clicked. The third try the engine turned and started immediately. It needed a new starter. Two new tires on the front would be nice, too. A tire could go at any time, and the donut spare in the trunk was flat.
Tomorrow. I’ll worry about it tomorrow. Car, just get me home tonight, and I will get you fixed.
The ride home was going well until a giant whitetail buck jumped in front of her car ten miles from home. Jenna swerved to miss it and lost control. The car went off the road and hit a tree. Fortunately, she always wore her seatbelt and the airbag expanded on impact, so Jenna was stunned but unhurt.
“Damn deer!” she muttered, her whole body was trembling. She simply sat there for a few minutes, taking slow, deep breaths. As the airbag deflated some, she could see that she had center punched the tree and her hood was compressed into a wrinkled mess. Now the car was totaled with no insurance to pay for the loss. It wasn’t worth insuring, so she only carried liability. The car’s primary value was as transportation and secondary was sentimental value because it was Gram’s car and Jenna had learned to drive in it.
Now how would she get to work or look for a new job? Could her life possibly suck any more? Oh, yeah! She was ten miles from home and didn’t know anyone to call after midnight to come get her.
Oh, wait. She should call the sheriff’s department to report the accident. Maybe she could catch a ride with the deputy they would send to investigate. Jenna unfastened her seatbelt and reached for her purse. Her cell phone was low on power from reading on it. There was enough power for a call, but she had no reception. She was in a cellular dead spot on the winding mountain road. Fuck!
She had to walk out of the dead spot before she could make a call. Jenna turned off the engine but left on accessories and plugged in her phone to the charger. Smoke, steam or both were billowing from under the wrinkled hood. Then she smelled something electrical burning, she turned off the ignition key, grabbed her phone, and opened the driver’s door. It made that horrible noised again, but it opened no harder than before.
She got out in time to see flames coming from under the hood. She turned and ran for the road not bothering to shut the door. She kept running once she got to the road. The car was already a total loss, but the fire could spread through the heavily forested hills. She had to call 911.
Jenna had to jog down the lonely, winding road for ten minutes before she got service on her phone. She got through to the 911 operator immediately and explained what had happened with her car and the fire. They told her to go back to the car and wait. They were sending a deputy and the fire department. So, she turned around and headed back down the road. She moaned out loud when she lost cell service again. “Why me? I just want to go home and get some sleep.”
A couple of minutes later, Jenna heard a car coming from behind her. As it came closer, it started slowing down. The deputy must have been closer than she thought. The car was a dark color SUV. She stopped as it pulled up beside her. Seeing it was unmarked, she frowned. A sheriff’s vehicle would have been white and blue. Then she realized it had blue flashing lights on the top and started to relax as the window opened. Probably volunteer firefighters.
Jenna didn’t recognize the scruffy looking bearded man who grinned at her. “You the girl who called about the car fire?”
“Yeah, up ahead. I couldn’t get a cell signal, so I had to go to a better spot.”
“Well, hop in, Missy. We’ll give you a ride back to the site.”
“Oh, no thanks, the deputy will be coming along. I need to walk,” Jenna stepped back from the side of the vehicle as his mouth compressed. There was something off about him.
As Jenna backed away, he pointed a device at her and she crumpled to the ground.
“Got her,” he told his partner as he jumped out. He opened the back-passenger door then scooped her up from the pavement and heaved her into the back seat. “That’s our quota. Kill the flashing lights and let’s get out of here.”