Tall Whites by Ellis Michael

Author:Ellis, Michael [Ellis, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Drone Chase

Dog Bone Lake, NV. Present

It was dark, near dawn, when Mike shivered himself awake, still in the embrace of the sagebrush. Its scent permeated his borrowed clothes and his hair. He knelt and surveyed the area as best he could in the half-light. He was not far from the road. Against the gently glowing sky he could make out a power line stretched over the desert. He would find humanity in some form at either end. As it ran at diagonals to the road, he chose to follow it away from the direction in which he had come. He stood to test his legs and found they were steady.

The boots pinched but were better than the slippers he had been wearing. Damn, he thought as he realized he had left them in the trailer. Would they be spotted when it reached its destination? Would whoever found them figure that he had been aboard and where he must have jumped out?

He began walking as fast as could without tripping, mainly trying to watch the ground ahead but looking up from time to time to check his bearings. As he moved, he picked up more of the scent and he had a distinct sense of déjà vu. Was it an illusion or had he walked somewhere very like this before? Surely all the desert would look much the same in this light. When would he have been there and why? Wondering made him lose concentration and stumble. He felt weaker and suddenly thirsty. He found a rock to rest on and catch his breath, then began to piece together what he had been doing when he was last in a place like this.

He remembered they had been pointed out into the desert, the worse for having drunk a lot of beer, and had found a spot to watch the sky at some time around midnight. They had cooled off and sobered up. The conversation had taken a philosophical turn and… His memory jinked and Mike suddenly remembered Jemma. His Jemma. Her voice on the phone. His hand on her cheek just before he turned to take a taxi. He felt alone for the first time. It was not a sensation he had experienced in his cell but out here under the sky and so far from her, he felt more than alone: deeply lonely. Why was he here and she… at their home? Their home? Where? It would come. He knew it would come.

A light breeze made the grass riffle. And he remembered something else: the strange-looking kid and the red haired woman at the Space Station. ‘Oh looky here,’ she had said. ‘You couldn’t have had a close encounter by any chance?’

The overhead line ran as far as the eye could see across the range. It could stretch for dozens of miles but it was Mike’s best hope of finding help, so he followed it without deviating. He knew that wandering away from it would be fatal. The clothes he wore were tight and the boots were at least a size too small.

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