A Small Gray Dot

Side trip? Then I thought about it and took a guess at what he had in mind. “Bedlow?”

He grinned. “Yeah. Show ‘em that piece of shi—” he shot a look at Terry —“uh, show ‘em that. It oughta be convincing.”

“Yes, that’ll probably work, as long as Henderson hasn’t sent any of his people to pick up the body. We still need the doctor, though.”

The guards at the entry would recognize his car. They’d pull him over but it would get us close enough to deal with them.

“Won’t hurt to check,” said Duncan starting to get up. “Come on, we’ll give it a whirl. Lem, stay here with Terry, and keep an eye on the monitor. We’ll make it as fast as we can.”

The doctor drove. He had a nice car. It was a roomy BMW sedan, not flight capable but one of the new ground-only models put out a couple of years before the Event. I rode up front with him. We went past the house first, looking for vehicles parked out front or in the driveway. There weren’t any so we turned and went back. The doctor parked out on the street.

As Duncan, Percy, and I got out, I said, “Stay in the car, Doctor. If you see anybody coming, leave. We’ll be okay.” I pulled the mini .45 from a pocket. “I don’t know how good a shot you are, but—” I handed the gun to him —“use it if you have to.”

He stared at the gun but he nodded.

We didn’t have any trouble. Apparently, Henderson hadn’t bothered to check on Bedlow, or if he had, he simply left him there. I mused that the Binqua seemed to have very different thought processes from humans. On the other hand, maybe they simply weren’t as smart as the doctor thought they were.

It was a good thing Percy was with us. Binqua turned out to be damned heavy and it took the three of us to get Bedlow’s body out of the house. The alien was medium sized but he had to weigh three hundred pounds. I got one leg and Duncan the other but it was Percy, a big, strong guy, who grabbed hold of the upper part of the body and did most of the work of lugging the dead alien out to the car.

I checked the powder room and Harlow was sitting there looking terrified until he saw us. Probably thought Bedlow had come back to life. We took him with us though Duncan and Percy complained about how he smelled and sat as far from him as they could. If we all lived through this, the doctor was going to have to fumigate his car. We put what was left of Bedlow in the trunk. He fit nicely.

When in a car, one doesn’t get lost in Blue Heaven so it didn’t take long to reach the guardhouse. A guard stood in the middle of the street waving a flashlight to pull us over. The other guard stood on the side watching. I recognized them. They were the big goons who’d been there both times I’d come to Blue Heaven before.

The one in the street came around to the driver’s side of the car and leaned down. “Hey, Doc. Where you goin’ this time of mornin’? Who you got in there with you?” He leaned down a little further to look in but I was already getting out and so was Duncan. I pointed my .357 at the guard over on the side, and Duncan had the .45 on the one looking in the window.

The guy’s eyes widened and he made a motion toward his gun but Duncan shook his head.

“No, Earl,” he said. “Keep your hands where we can see them. We’re not trying to start a shooting match here. The doc’s got something he needs to tell you. We just want you to listen, and there’s something you need to see.”

I motioned with my gun for the other guard to come over. He stepped off the walk with his hands raised.

“Hey, I know you!” he said squinting as he came closer. “You’re the courier that came through here a couple months back.”

From inside the car, Harlow hollered, “He ain’t no damn courier, Jim! That there’s Tennessee Murray, th’ tracker!”

Jim said sounding startled, “Abe? What you doing in there?”

“Gitting away from a zombie alien, that’s what!” said the idiot.

Earl, looking confused, said, “Duncan, what th’ hell’s goin’ on here? Whadda you doin’? Mr. Henderson got us on th’ walkie-talkie a little bit ago an’ said to be on th’ look out for that girl what stole all that money from th’ drug store. Said she got away from Abe. We tried to call Mr. Bedlow but he never answered.”

I’d wondered what Henderson might’ve said to them. Now I knew.

“He was lying, Earl,” said Duncan. “She never stole anything. She was kidnapped.”

“What? Who’d do somethin’ like—”

“We don’t have a lot of time, guys,” I said. “Doctor, start talking. Earl, you and Jim come around to the trunk. What the doctor says will make sense once you see what’s there.”

The doctor popped the trunk and got out. He began to talk and, for a change, made it quick. Once they saw Bedlow, after the shock wore off, they were incensed and ready to go down to Semptor and tear off some heads. I explained we had a better plan and that there were some people on the way to help.

“Let them in. They are friends of mine and one is the sister of the kidnapped young woman. Tell them how to get to the doctor’s house. Better yet, come with them if you want to help.”