You’ll Never Guess What Happened
Copyright© 2026 by TMax
Chapter 2: I Need to Know
Work finished at seven am. Only one phone call all night, and a wrong number at that. I waved goodbye to my colleague and drove west to investigate the crash, because, in a small town, anything with a tad bit of excitement brought, well, excitement to town. Yeah, I didn’t think that statement out.
I navigated some dirt roads, always going west, until I arrived at a flat, barren desert. Ok, more flat, barren desert, like everything around here. I wish I could say that my super directional ability or my magical fossil led me to the scene, but in reality, Sally’s police lights guided me.
I parked behind Sally’s cruiser, between an old pick-up with bullet holes and more rust than paint, and a brand new black truck with only a bit of dust on the under panels.
About a hundred feet in front of me lay a crumpled mass of twisted black metal, no fire, though. I didn’t see Sally, nor the two or more people who must have arrived in the trucks. I did see footprints, three sets, that led from the vehicles to about eleven feet in front of the pile of metal, the remains of the spaceship or a hoax, either way, excitement, the most since Sally puked on her crush Bill on Valentine’s Day. Even confirmation of extraterrestrial life would have trouble topping that, especially since they hooked up later that night.
The red and blue lights bounced off the slight hill to the north and the cacti around us. Birds sang while critters scampered. Pockets of cool air still hung around. The sun warmed the ground. The slight morning dew had almost evaporated, but the little that remained sparkled in the sun.
A black fin-like metal object of the alien craft waved in the slight breeze. A foul stench, a cross between rotten meat and sulfur, wafted from the ship. My skin itched as my nerves wanted me to make it solid, diamond hard, for you know, protection. Which I did. My skin doesn’t look different or anything, it just gets super hard, which, yes, makes it hard to move around, but also way safer.
I stood and rubbed my dinosaur bone while my hair whipped in my face. The footsteps just ended. They didn’t go anywhere. They just stopped. Totally odd. I did look to see if all three people walked backward to their vehicles, then hid somehow, because other than our tire tracks and the footsteps, I couldn’t see any other marks in the loose sand.
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