Chapter One

Honk! Honk! Hooonk! Carter bolted up but immediately laid back down as nausea hit her like a tsunami. Her head felt thick and fuzzy, and she clutched it in her hands to stop the pounding. HONK! She really wished they’d lay off the horn. The pounding was getting worse, making it really hard not to puke her guts out. She waited a few moments for her head to stop killing her and for her nausea to go away before taking in her surroundings.
The first thing she noticed was the fact that she woke up in a pile of leaves on the side of the road. Great. Just great. She pulled clumps of muck out of her hair but gave up when she realized all she was doing was smearing it. HOOOOONK! This time Carter looked in the direction of the noise and saw the silver-blue squad car pulled off the road. The driver, a police officer in his mid-forties, rolled down the passenger side window and leaned over the seat. “Hey! Hey, kid! Are you alright?” She tried to answer but her throat felt like it was coated in sand.
He rolled up the window, got out of the car, and jogged over to where she sat in the leaves. He was tall and thin, easily six feet tall. The beginnings of grey streaked his sandy blonde hair. He had it styled in the typical military crew cut, but had let it grow out just a bit on top. “You alright?” he asked again, concern showing in his light blue eyes. He held out a hand to help her up. Her whole body ached, and her joints felt stiff, but she was able to make it to the car without his help.
He had her sit in the back seat for whatever reason, but it’s not like she could protest. Once she got in she wished she had. She reached for the door handle but realized that there wasn’t one. It was cramped. Very cramped. Carter was suddenly thankful that she was smaller than average height, which was strange because she hated her height. Even as small as she was there was absolutely no leg room. The seats were this uncomfortable, bucket-style, grey plastic but at least they weren’t stained and smelly.
The officer pulled out onto the highway, killing Carter’s hopes of moving to the front seat. He was quiet for most of drive, except for the occasional humming, which was okay with her. Carter didn’t do small talk. He turned the radio to country and tapped his thumbs lightly on the steering wheel. Carter looked out the window as they passed a sign that read “Welcome to London!” in chipping red paint. Well, now she could cross that one off her bucket list.
It was a small town; sneeze and you’ll miss it. Or is it blink? Population: them and that creepy old guy muttering to himself on his front porch. He had a shotgun lying across his lap, and he gripped it protectively as they passed.
The officer broke the silence. “Not much happens ‘round here.” he informed her. “Ya’ know you’re likely to be the most interestin’ thing we’ve had all year.” His voice was slightly muffled by the bulletproof glass that separated the front and back seats.  “Luckily I found you before anyone else could. Folks lose their heads if anything out of the ordinary happens. And I mean anything. Last month the town went into panic when the grocery got plastic bags to replace the paper ones. You’d think we implemented Martial Law the way people acted.” He noticed that she wasn’t going to talk to him and fell silent.
They finally pulled up to what must have been the Police Department. Two other squad cars, identical to theirs, were parked out front, and an ancient fire truck sat beside the building. “Well, here we are. London Police and Fire Department,” he announced grandly. “It may not look like much, but it’s got charm.”  The stained brick façade was cracking in numerous places, and the roof bowed so badly it looked like a giant had sat on it. They had planted bright yellow flowers under the warping old windows, but it did little to cheer up the place.  He gazed at it for a moment before getting out of the car and opening her door.
Carter, glad to finally be out of the cramped backseat stretched and took a deep breath of fresh air. It smelled like honeysuckle and lavender. The air was heavy and stuck to her skin, and a warm breeze rustled the oak trees, carrying the buzzing of hundreds of cicadas with it.
The “charm,” continued on the inside. The walls had once been white but were now stained and resembled more of a blotchy tan and, it was peeling in several places. Flickering fluorescent lamps hung low from the water-damaged ceiling, giving the place a yellowish glow. The floors were the original hardwood stained a cherry color and were scuffed with years of use.
Behind the counter, protected by a Plexiglas barrier, sat a plump woman in her late thirties. She pulled her red curly hair back into a tight bun which made her head look too small for her body. She quickly hung up the phone and turned to greet them with a smile. “Well, what do we have here, Vic, another delinquent?” She said with disgust. Her brown, judgmental eyes narrowed, and she pursed her thin, purple-glossed lips.
“I don’t know, Sheryl. Hasn’t said one word since I picked her up. Found her just lyin’ off the side of the road under a pile of leaves, of all things.”
 “Probably a runaway,” she said with a sneer. She handed Vic a clipboard with several forms clipped to it, and a pen. “Dylan is in the interrogation room but he should be done soon.”
“Have a seat on the bench and I’ll be right with you. Just gotta fill out my police report and wait for the room to open up,” Vic said and pointed to a worn oak bench over by the corner. He disappeared down the hall next to the counter and Sheryl’s phone rang again.
The bench was not empty. Half of it was occupied by a tall, lanky boy with dark, messy hair and even darker eyes. He was staring at her intently. Studying her, she realized. Yeah, because that’s not creepy. Weirdo.
“Hun, you need to take a seat,” Sheryl said impatiently and pointed at the bench with a stubby finger.
Slowly she made her way to the bench, thinking of ways to hurt him if he threatened her. If he touched her she could punch him in the throat which would give her a few seconds to get to the door. Or she could grab his arm and pin it behind his back. But a good punch to the nose was always fun. She sat down and scooted as far to the left as possible.
Pointless, as it turns out, because he just slid down the bench closer to her. “Do you have tentacles?” he asked in all seriousness.
Was this guy on Crack or something? The question was so absurd she almost busted out laughing. “What"”
“You passed,” he said, a wide grin on his face. He held out a hand for to shake.
“Huh?” She asked, utterly confused.
He dropped his hand but the smile stayed. “Name’s Neon. And you, Babe, just passed my test.” He said coolly. 
“What test? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he waved his hand dismissively. “So, what are you in here for? Theft, arson--”he gasped with mock astonishment--“murder?” His eyes went wide and he scooted away a few inches. “You’re not one of those psychotic chicks who goes around murdering her boyfriend, are you? Cos’ that would be a deal breaker.”
“Excuse me?” Carter was offended that he just assumed that she--she gagged at the thought--was into him.
“I mean if this,”--he gestured to the both of them--“is going work out I need to know you aren’t going to go all ninja up on my a*s and kill me. I don’t date murderers. Neon’s got standards.”
Before Carter could answer Sheryl interrupted them. “Vic is ready for you in the interrogation room. Down the hall, second door on the left.”
“Hey, good luck in there, Babe,” Neon called from the bench.
It was the typical, T.V style interrogation room. White walls, white floor, metal desk and chairs, and the one-way mirror on the back wall.
“Have a seat,” Vic said, not unkindly. Yup, freezing chairs. Vic’s blue eyes looked darker in the harsh lighting. “I’m sorry if this seems a little much, but I’m just doin’ my job. How about you give me your name for the records?”
A jolt went through Carter as she realized that she didn’t know it. And not just that, she didn’t know anything about herself. She had no memories, at least not personal ones. Nothing to tell her who she was. She had all this knowledge of things like names of places, what things were, how things worked, but no clue who taught her these things, no idea how she knew them. It was like waking up one day suddenly knowing how to speak a foreign language, but having no memory of ever learning it. It left her totally shell-shocked. Vic stared at her expectantly and she realized that he was still waiting for her to answer. “I"I can’t remember.”
Vic seemed disappointed with her answer, almost like he didn’t believe her. “So you expect me to believe that you ended up on the side of the road with a leaf blanket and you can’t remember who you are? Tell me, what do you remember?”
She let out an exasperated noise. “Nothing! I already told you, I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.”
He gave her this look that said “Really with this? I don’t believe you.” It made her want to punch him in the face. “How did you end up on the side of the road?” he said slowly in a no-nonsense tone.
“I don’t know,” She said through gritted teeth, feeling both annoyed at herself for not being able to remember and Vic for that disapproving glint in his eyes.
“Do you not know, or do you not want to know?” There was something in his voice. She couldn’t place it. She felt suddenly wary of the all-American cop with the kind eyes and the easy smile. 
“I want to know, but…I don’t remember anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” She said, a hint of defeat in her tone.
“Very well, I guess I’ll just have to put Jane Doe in the records for now, until we find out who you really are.”
She was grateful that the interrogation seemed to be over, she felt her shoulders relax, tension leaving them.
Vic looked at her steadily. “Do you remember anything before today?” he asked, but she knew he knew the answer. He was, “Just doin’ his job.”
 
Damn it! Where was she? He had been searching for two days and no sign. The tracker was useless as far as Ashton was concerned. He couldn’t understand anything it was trying to tell him. She was a little red blip on a sea of blackness.
“You’d think that if they were so smart they’d know to put your ships location on the screen too so then you’d know ‘do I go left or right? Forward or backwards?’ But nooo, they have to make everything so damn confusing!” He let out an exasperated sigh. Why did everything have to be so hard?
He changed the ship’s direction. Again. Maybe he’d find her going whatever the hell direction he was going this time. Probably not. This was frustrating. He’d never find her at this rate. And this high up there was no way he’d see her. What he needed to do was move closer to the ground, but there were trees everywhere and he would also risk being seen. A small silver triangle in the sky is way different than a 500 square foot alien space ship hovering fifteen feet off the ground. People would be scared shitless, and he wasn’t even an alien. Just stole their ship is all.
Still, he lowered the ship by about 20 feet and hoped he wouldn’t come across any super tall trees. Ashton leaned back in the hard metal chair and closed his eyes. He needed to be looking out the window, searching for signs of her on the ground, but he hadn’t slept in three days and it was catching up with him. He stuck his feet up on the control panel and briefly thought that it would be a bad idea, in case he pressed the wrong button, but he dismissed that thought. Let the ship crash, it’s not like it’s very helpful anyway.
 
He had no idea how long he’d been out but he jerked awake when the ship started screaming at him. In a language he couldn’t understand, of course. “I can’t understand you! Why don’t you speak English? English!” he shouted at no one. Suddenly the ship went dark and the yelling stopped. Thank you. The emergency lights kicked on, lighting the room in a hellish red glow.
He studied the control panel, even though he couldn’t read it, trying to figure out what was wrong. Suddenly the yelling made sense. Oh, s**t, they were out of gas. Or rocket fuel, or whatever the hell this thing took.
He dashed to the supply closet at the back of the ship. No parachute and no gas. He didn’t know how to change it anyway even if there was any, but still. Of course, them and their big brains wouldn’t think to put parachutes on a ship that might crash! No, because this an escape pod, it was the parachute. That, or if it did crash, there was no way in hell you’d survive, parachute or no. He didn’t like that thought so he pushed it away and went back to the control panel, hoping to land it--yeah, right--before it ran out of gas.
Just then the ship gave a sudden jerk and it seemed to quiet as all the electricity died. The nose of the ship started to tip forward and everything that wasn’t strapped or bolted down slid to the front. He held on to the straps of one of the passenger seats that lined the walls.
Trees smacked against the hull of the ship, slowing their descent but only slightly. They were still going pretty fast when they crashed into the ground. He felt like his arms were being ripped from their sockets, which they probably were. They had just barely cleared the woods when they hit the ground and ended up sliding about 100 feet into a cornfield. The impact shattered the windows and he squeezed his eyes shut as millions of shards of glass rained down around him. He was ripped from the straps and thrown to the front of the ship. With a thud his head banged against the edge of the control panel. He blacked out with one thought on his mind; I have to find her before it’s too late.
 
Ashton came to consciousness a few hours later after night had fallen. He kept his eyes closed, wishing he’d fall back asleep. He thought he was still asleep in the chair on the ship. But no, something was wrong. Acrid smoke was thick in the air, and just under that was the smell of soil. Something was definitely wrong.
His eyes flew open as he remembered the crash. He tentatively touched the large gash on his head. Yeah, that was going to leave a mark.  He felt like he’d been hit by a train and he couldn’t feel his legs. The control panel had fallen down on top of them and it took all his strength to lift it just enough to drag himself out from under it. He sat up and put his arms behind him, leaning on them as he caught his breath and let the circulation return to his legs.
Well, the ship was obviously ruined. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was bad. The tracker on the ship was smashed to pieces. Now his only chance of finding her was gone. In a matter of seconds he’d gone from hopeless to totally screwed.
He forced himself up and went to the door, and of course the handle was jammed. He gave it a few good kicks and finally it banged open. He jumped down and landed in the soft dirt of the cornfield. Chances of survival: somewhere between ‘Nice freaking try,’ and ‘Don’t even think about it.’ “Great job, Ash. You’re going to die in a cornfield.”
Just one thing left to do before he left. He didn’t need word to get out about an alien wondering around, so he had to destroy the ship. One of the few things that survived were the alien-tech explosives he’d brought with him. Thank god they hadn’t gone off in the crash. He piled them up in the middle of the ship and set the timer on its longest setting. He had about thirty seconds to get as far away from the ship as possible. Ashton grinned at the thought of how big f an explosion this would be. And then he ran. 
Do you have any idea how hard it is to navigate out of a cornfield at night? Well, it’s not pretty if you happen to be Ashton. There was a clear trail of destruction marking his way out that rivaled that of the actual crash. He tried to go straight, but it looked more like the path you might take if you were in a maze.
“Yes! Thank God, the road!” Ashton wiped sweaty brown hair out of his face collapsed into the grass. Oh, it felt so good to be out of that cornfield. Everything went to hell after the bomb had went off and he’d gotten all thrown around. He didn’t think he’d ever find his way out. He let his eyes drift shut but only for a moment. He couldn’t sleep now; he still had to keep looking. He rolled over into a pile of leaves and pushed himself up.
Something about this felt…strange. He couldn’t quite describe it. He looked around curiously, trying to place what was off. And then he saw it. Tracks.
Two sets of footprints leading from this pile leaves to a pair of tire tracks. There was no guarantee that they were hers, it was actually absurd to assume so, but it was something. They looked about her size, and something told him to look for them in the first place. Plus, someone else had found her so she was safe. She was going to be okay. With a huge grin on his face he took off down the road in the direction of the tire tracks. 

Author's Note

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