38

Sparrow Lea Index 

Randy Joyce Locke and the incident at Sparrow Lea   38 We took the van to the Lichen farm. Eve saw some of her friends from the roadhouse and ran off. I paid the fee and climbed the scaffolding. I bit my lip, recalling Bennie Manson’s map and where the cattle mutilations had been. Other than the one newspaper piece Eve found, nothing official appeared about the occurrences; yet, the mutilations were common knowledge in Sparrow Lea. Manson had a map. Obviously, Manson had gotten his information indirectly from Sheriff Templeton, most likely though Templeton’s sister, Mrs. Pratt. Knowing the information came from the sheriff, Manson was sure of his theory. I put the locations on the landscape in front of me. I’m not a farm girl but I’m not stupid, either. All the mutilations occurred at night, of course. Everyone knows space guys don’t like sunlight.    I know: the cows come home. An old saying tells me that. Cows don’t stay out at night. They come home. I reasoned the cows had no incentive to be out at night. The locations I could remember from Manson’s map were poignant, few of the locations fell in any of the wired-in pastures. If I were to plant landmines to discourage interlopers and the curious, each site of a mutilation would be where I’d place the explosives. The location bulwarked was so obvious, I thought I should get in the van and go home. “Find him?” Eve asked as my feet hit the ground. “I think so.” The displeasure with myself sat obvious on my face. “We gotta a lot of ground to cover.” “No problem.” She took my hand and dragged me off, introducing me to the, the gang, the teenagers from the roadhouse. We huddled. “Randy’s pretty sure Mr. Kent went exploring and got lost and hurt up there.” “We were told to stay out of there.” One of the younger girls gave Eve the wide eyes. “With the space aliens and all,” someone else said. “Yeah, right, the Grays.” An older boy stood tall. “There ain’t no such thing and if there is, we should kick their butts back home if they’re killing cows and hurting people.” With nods of agreement and the promise of adventure on a late August day, we had a posse. Taken with tense excitement, the kids led us casually along the road toward Sparrow Lea proper. About a half a mile from the Lichen farm, the older boy looked up and down the road, nodded hard and we disappeared into the cornfield. With thirty minutes of a dancing run and two fields later, we broke into the forest toward the back of the Corning farm, past the locations of the cattle mutilations and around where Jack Corning had reported seeing the aliens. Eve spread everyone out about twenty-five yards apart and we swept up the bluff. We didn’t find any aliens. The adventure became less fun for the kids when we found Jeffery Kent. Eve fell to her knees, ripped Kent’s shirt open and put her hands on his chest. With a yelp and deep breath: “This is bad,” she said through her teeth. “Stretcher!” the older boy hollered, snapping everyone from a daze. They scrambled, found two long branches and the guys stripped their shirts off. I had to surrender my denim jacket. One of the younger girls pointed to my back. “You got a gun.” “You’re so dumb,” the older boy said. “She’s the chick that kicked butt at the Kitchen last night!” “Oh!” The girl gave me wide crystal blue eyes. “You’re the secret agent!” “We should have hung out,” the older boy mused. “Yeah, right. Shotguns come out, I’m breaking for the backdoor!” “Always a good choice.” I nodded. Eve hummed into the hot summer air. “This is bad. I can handle it.” Someone suggested she run ahead to find the sheriff. Collectively, she was shouted down, bringing a red hue to her face. The teenagers, somehow, knew. I took off ahead and retrieved the van, meeting our posse on the road as they came from the corn. Quickly, Kent and Eve were deposited in the back. Eve crashed into her work, not wasting a motion hanging an IV.

 

Author's Note

I started posting this on another site. I'm posting the final chapters here.

Reviews

[Georgiakevin]

Your story gets better and better my friend.