Chapter Ten
Indy removed the Russian soldier’s uniform in favor of his usual outfit. He lamented the loss of his bullwhip, but it wasn’t irreplaceable - unlike his hat, which he wasn't surprised to find on the ground a few feet away. He scooped it up, dusted it off, and placed it on his head.
Elaine looked at the ground, up at the sky, and back at the ground. "How?"
Indy shrugged. "Someone up there must like my style."
In one direction a trail of smoke marked the plane's final resting place; in another, a swarm of buzzards marked what he presumed was Bernard’s. From the angle of their landing and the position of the sun he determined that they needed to walk south-southwest to get back to New Mexico. They had no hope of getting there in time on foot, of course, but even a car probably wouldn’t be fast enough. They would need to get hold of the Army base and have another plane pick them up. That would raise the little issue of him resisting arrest and escaping, but he could deal with that when the time came. The highest priority now that he had Elaine was to save the world.
They walked in silence for a few hours, keeping up a moderate pace to conserve moisture, each unwilling to broach the discussion of what they had just seen. Indy was less sobered by the existence of extraterrestrial life per se – it seemed logical that other planets somewhere in the universe would be inhabited, after all – than by the fact that it was here, and by what it had shown itself to be capable of.
Elaine was the first to break the silence. "You have family around here, yeah?"
Indy winced. "I'm not sure where 'here' is, exactly, but yeah. I'd like to visit them when all this is over, but they might still be upset about the wedding..." He cursed herself when he saw the look of guilt that came over her face, and changed the subject quickly. "I met another guy too, an old Indian who called himself Aguila or Changing Man." He told her about the vision quest and the transforming and the eagles. He hadn't mentioned it before because telling her that an eagle told him to marry her, in a manner of speaking, might have come across the wrong way.
Elaine raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like quite a character," she said. "After so many run-ins with the supernatural, you must not even get surprised anymore."
"I shouldn't," Indy agreed.
"So why were you so skeptical about the aliens?" Elaine said, getting a little huffy. "They're not even that strange compared to some of the things you've told me. You acted like I was some kind of idiot for taking them seriously."
"I apologize," Indy said. "The thing is, Elaine, I'm a scientist. I will always be a scientist. That means looking for the rational, logical explanations first, and only falling back on the supernatural when I have no alternative, no matter how many supernatural things I've run into before. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, it does," Elaine said. "I don't think there's a distinction, though. Not in the mind of God, anyway. Someday our science will figure out the things we now deem 'supernatural.'" She thought about it for a moment. "Really, the aliens are just beings like us with more advanced technology. No unscientific fallbacks necessary."
"Are they really like us at all, though?" Indy wondered.
They lapsed back into silence. He was tired of thinking about it, and he was tired in general, and he was hot, and he was thirsty. As yet there was no sign of civilization. He hoped Bernard's buzzards didn't come after them.
The sun was low in the sky when they started trudging up a deep hill and Elaine broke the silence again. She clutched the device, on which two more rings were already lit. “If they wanted it that badly, they’ll keep hunting for it,” she said.
“No, they won’t,” Indy said, trying to reassure himself as much as her. “They’ll think it was destroyed.”
“Maybe, and maybe not,” she corrected him. “Who’s to say they don’t have a way of tracking it? These creatures are too powerful, that’s all we know. I don’t think they’ll give us time to learn much else.”
With that, Indy’s attempt to reassure himself had failed. “We’ve got to find a phone and call the base, before we run out of time.”
They reached the top of the hill and finally saw below a cluster of shops and a two lane blacktop. Most of the buildings were dark, but as they approached, they found a decrepit trinket shop with a flickering neon light in the window announcing “We have authentic Indian moccasins!” The actual name of the store was so worn and faded as to be rendered illegible. No sign indicated that it was closed, and the door was unlocked, so Indy and Elaine climbed the steps of the porch and went inside.
“Hello?” Indy said. “Anyone here?” No answer. “Great, not another Boomsburg.” At least the Army wouldn't be conducting tests this late in the day.
They looked around. An eclectic scattering of knickknacks lined the walls, piquing Indy's curiosity and making him wish he had the luxury of an afternoon to spend sifting through them. A coffee cup stood on the desk in the center of the room, still steaming, and Vera Lynn's optimistic voice drifted from an old radio in the corner. The place had an eerie feel that Indy had only experienced in tombs and sepulchers, not a bad feel per se, but an unnerving one.
“Indy...” Elaine said. “I don’t like the feel of it. Too deserted.” Right, she was a linguist, not as used to it.
“Got to be someone here, coffee’s still hot,” he pointed out. “They must have just stepped out for a minute. Or maybe the aliens already abducted them.”
She reached over the desk to punch him in the arm. “Not funny. I –” She froze as a noise of moving clutter reached them from the back of the store.
“Hello?” Indy called out again. Again no answer. He looked behind the desk for a phone. What he really wanted was a drink, but that could wait a few minutes longer. He'd take the coffee if no one claimed it soon.
“Hello?” Elaine echoed, sounding a little more worried. “Indy, maybe we should leave?”
Something crashed in the back as if an entire stack of shelves had fallen over. Indy reached for his gun, only to remember that he didn't have it. A little dog trotted out of the back, a black Labrador with a tan underbelly, larger than a puppy but not yet fully grown. It stopped and panted, looking at them as if delighted to make new friends.
Elaine let out a huge sigh of relief. “Hello there,” she said, reaching to scratch its head. “You’re a cutie.”
The dog wagged its tail, thrilled with the attention from the nice lady. Indy smiled; he loved dogs immensely, but there was no time to play with this one just now. “Ask him if he’s got a phone.”
The dog gave a friendly bark, then trotted into the back room.
Indy gave Elaine a look. She shrugged. “Stay here, in case anyone comes back,” he said, and followed the dog as she continued to look around.
It led him through the room, where indeed an entire stack of shelves had fallen down. There were authentic Indian moccasins and various assorted junk in which even his archaeological sensibilities would be hard-pressed to find value. The dog headed out the back door, around to the front.
Indy didn't want to leave Elaine too far behind. He had already lost her once. “You know where you’re going?”
The dog paused and gave him an affirmative-sounding bark, as if it understood his words. He marveled. It reminded him of Loki, another dog he’d met in Mongolia, who had seemed almost human in his behavior and the look in his eyes. One of his companions had claimed, in fact, that Loki was the reincarnation of a human, and if true that was hardly the strangest thing Indy had encountered. But there was no time to ponder that, as this dog kept going and moved toward another building across the street.
Indy entered, and as his eyes adjusted he saw what hadn’t been apparent from the outside; it was a garage. His hunt among the scattered tools and automobile parts for a phone had no success, but he found a sink and gorged himself on glorious cold water. He would go back for Elaine as soon as he figured out what the dog wanted. It was barking now, wagging its tail, drawing his attention to the old pickup truck still up on a jack.
"This is what you wanted to show me?" Indy said. "Hey, you're kind of a genius. Wish I had some dog treats. You're not a Commie dog, are you?" He laughed at his own stupid joke and realized he was too tired.
Indy walked to the truck and gave it a quick once-over to see how well it would run. It looked like it just needed a new tire, and someone had been in the process of putting it on. He decided to finish the job so they could get the hell out of here.
As he got on his knees and started to unscrew the nuts, the dog wandered over to him, panting happily as if pleased with itself for leading him here. “When I was a little boy,” Indy told it, “sometimes people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And never, not once, did I ever respond ’Steal vehicles.’ But somehow I’ve ended up doing that a lot.”
He almost imagined he could hear it laugh.
He paused to give it a scratch behind the ears and check for a collar, but it had none. “What’s your name?” he said. “Have you got a name? An owner? I might just steal you, too.” He pointed to himself. “I’ve got a dog’s name. Elaine doesn’t know about that yet. She said to wait until we were married before I told her... Seems like so long ago...” He gazed back in the direction of the shop, suddenly feeling a stupor of thought.
The dog whined, sounding sympathetic.
“I don’t want to wait any longer,” Indy said, not sure if he was talking to himself or the dog. “I’d just as soon elope while we’re out here in the middle of nowhere, but that wouldn’t be fair to all my friends who came so far on such short notice. Of course, most of them have already gone home...” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Why couldn’t those damn aliens have waited one more week to show up? One more day, even?”
The dog whined again, but this time nudged his hand that was holding the wrench.
“Right,” he said, turning back to the truck and suppressing his suddenly unruly emotions. “Back to work.” He fumbled with one of the nuts, and it rolled off into the darkness. The dog groaned along with him as he realized this project might now take a little longer than he had hoped.
***
Back in the trinket shop, Elaine was just beginning to relax, though she still clutched the device as tightly as a newborn child. It had dawned on her a while ago that she would have to get used to adventures if she was going to spend the rest of her life with Indiana Jones, but it seemed more real now. Being kidnapped by Communists and falling out of the sky wasn't her idea of a swell time, but it was worth it to be with him – right? Did the other women who had shared his adventures think so too?
She couldn't help being flattered that he had come after her. He shouldn't have come to White Sands in the first place, shouldn't have interfered with her work. And yet, if he hadn't, she would be in Moscow right now. She shivered. This shop didn't seem so bad compared to that.
And after all, maybe she had been wrong not to tell him before she left. Relationships were built on trust, weren't they? Bolander would have been furious, but now that she thought about it, she could have lived with that. He wasn't the most pleasant guy to work with in the first place. Pretending to be married had been his idea, and she had gone along with it out of duty, but he wouldn't have been her first or second or thousandth choice. From now on, she decided, including Indy would be a condition of her continued employment, and if Bolander had a problem with that he would just have to get over himself. She figured General McIntyre would be more amiable about it. He usually was.
She didn’t notice a slight wind picking up outside the window, rattling the wind chimes on the porch. She didn’t notice the buzzing neon sign blink and go out. She didn’t notice the rising steam from the coffee mug suddenly vanish.
She noticed the radio crackle and go dead, and she didn’t like it.
“Indy?” she said, her earlier unease returning in a rush.
There was no verbal response, but her ears picked up a deep humming, so deep that the items on the shelves began to dance and rattle like in an earthquake. As the humming grew louder, a trolling shadow slowly passed over the shop, and outside, familiar fingers of green probe lights struck the roof.
Elaine stared at the ceiling, which groaned and creaked as if someone were walking over it. Dust filtered down and the light fixtures swung. “Innn... dyyy...” she whispered, hoping that he would somehow hear her from wherever he’d gone off to. “Forget the phone... let’s just leave...”
Just then the humming stopped. In the silence, she caught her breath and heard the sound of the back screen door creak open, followed by the dog growling.
“Indy?” she said, a bit louder this time. “Are you back there? I said, let’s leave.” She took a few cautious steps toward the back.
As she turned the corner she saw the dog, but no Indy. It gave her an idle glance; then its growl erupted into full-out barking at something behind some shelves. She clutched the device more tightly to her chest as if it could offer some form of protection.
“Indy...” she whispered. “Is that you? I said –”
The dog yipped like a chihuahua and jumped back as the apparition emerged from behind the shelves and extended itself, an enormous spidery creature with seven foot long arms and bony fingers. Its pale wet skin appeared translucent and reflected every bit of the meager light in the room, giving it the appearance of glowing. It looked like the corpses they’d recovered at the crash sight, but so much larger and so much uglier.
It turned a long, gaunt, and decidedly sinister face toward her.
Elaine did what any rational person would have done. She screamed.
Next: Chapter Eleven
Elaine looked at the ground, up at the sky, and back at the ground. "How?"
Indy shrugged. "Someone up there must like my style."
In one direction a trail of smoke marked the plane's final resting place; in another, a swarm of buzzards marked what he presumed was Bernard’s. From the angle of their landing and the position of the sun he determined that they needed to walk south-southwest to get back to New Mexico. They had no hope of getting there in time on foot, of course, but even a car probably wouldn’t be fast enough. They would need to get hold of the Army base and have another plane pick them up. That would raise the little issue of him resisting arrest and escaping, but he could deal with that when the time came. The highest priority now that he had Elaine was to save the world.
They walked in silence for a few hours, keeping up a moderate pace to conserve moisture, each unwilling to broach the discussion of what they had just seen. Indy was less sobered by the existence of extraterrestrial life per se – it seemed logical that other planets somewhere in the universe would be inhabited, after all – than by the fact that it was here, and by what it had shown itself to be capable of.
Elaine was the first to break the silence. "You have family around here, yeah?"
Indy winced. "I'm not sure where 'here' is, exactly, but yeah. I'd like to visit them when all this is over, but they might still be upset about the wedding..." He cursed herself when he saw the look of guilt that came over her face, and changed the subject quickly. "I met another guy too, an old Indian who called himself Aguila or Changing Man." He told her about the vision quest and the transforming and the eagles. He hadn't mentioned it before because telling her that an eagle told him to marry her, in a manner of speaking, might have come across the wrong way.
Elaine raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like quite a character," she said. "After so many run-ins with the supernatural, you must not even get surprised anymore."
"I shouldn't," Indy agreed.
"So why were you so skeptical about the aliens?" Elaine said, getting a little huffy. "They're not even that strange compared to some of the things you've told me. You acted like I was some kind of idiot for taking them seriously."
"I apologize," Indy said. "The thing is, Elaine, I'm a scientist. I will always be a scientist. That means looking for the rational, logical explanations first, and only falling back on the supernatural when I have no alternative, no matter how many supernatural things I've run into before. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, it does," Elaine said. "I don't think there's a distinction, though. Not in the mind of God, anyway. Someday our science will figure out the things we now deem 'supernatural.'" She thought about it for a moment. "Really, the aliens are just beings like us with more advanced technology. No unscientific fallbacks necessary."
"Are they really like us at all, though?" Indy wondered.
They lapsed back into silence. He was tired of thinking about it, and he was tired in general, and he was hot, and he was thirsty. As yet there was no sign of civilization. He hoped Bernard's buzzards didn't come after them.
The sun was low in the sky when they started trudging up a deep hill and Elaine broke the silence again. She clutched the device, on which two more rings were already lit. “If they wanted it that badly, they’ll keep hunting for it,” she said.
“No, they won’t,” Indy said, trying to reassure himself as much as her. “They’ll think it was destroyed.”
“Maybe, and maybe not,” she corrected him. “Who’s to say they don’t have a way of tracking it? These creatures are too powerful, that’s all we know. I don’t think they’ll give us time to learn much else.”
With that, Indy’s attempt to reassure himself had failed. “We’ve got to find a phone and call the base, before we run out of time.”
They reached the top of the hill and finally saw below a cluster of shops and a two lane blacktop. Most of the buildings were dark, but as they approached, they found a decrepit trinket shop with a flickering neon light in the window announcing “We have authentic Indian moccasins!” The actual name of the store was so worn and faded as to be rendered illegible. No sign indicated that it was closed, and the door was unlocked, so Indy and Elaine climbed the steps of the porch and went inside.
“Hello?” Indy said. “Anyone here?” No answer. “Great, not another Boomsburg.” At least the Army wouldn't be conducting tests this late in the day.
They looked around. An eclectic scattering of knickknacks lined the walls, piquing Indy's curiosity and making him wish he had the luxury of an afternoon to spend sifting through them. A coffee cup stood on the desk in the center of the room, still steaming, and Vera Lynn's optimistic voice drifted from an old radio in the corner. The place had an eerie feel that Indy had only experienced in tombs and sepulchers, not a bad feel per se, but an unnerving one.
“Indy...” Elaine said. “I don’t like the feel of it. Too deserted.” Right, she was a linguist, not as used to it.
“Got to be someone here, coffee’s still hot,” he pointed out. “They must have just stepped out for a minute. Or maybe the aliens already abducted them.”
She reached over the desk to punch him in the arm. “Not funny. I –” She froze as a noise of moving clutter reached them from the back of the store.
“Hello?” Indy called out again. Again no answer. He looked behind the desk for a phone. What he really wanted was a drink, but that could wait a few minutes longer. He'd take the coffee if no one claimed it soon.
“Hello?” Elaine echoed, sounding a little more worried. “Indy, maybe we should leave?”
Something crashed in the back as if an entire stack of shelves had fallen over. Indy reached for his gun, only to remember that he didn't have it. A little dog trotted out of the back, a black Labrador with a tan underbelly, larger than a puppy but not yet fully grown. It stopped and panted, looking at them as if delighted to make new friends.
Elaine let out a huge sigh of relief. “Hello there,” she said, reaching to scratch its head. “You’re a cutie.”
The dog wagged its tail, thrilled with the attention from the nice lady. Indy smiled; he loved dogs immensely, but there was no time to play with this one just now. “Ask him if he’s got a phone.”
The dog gave a friendly bark, then trotted into the back room.
Indy gave Elaine a look. She shrugged. “Stay here, in case anyone comes back,” he said, and followed the dog as she continued to look around.
It led him through the room, where indeed an entire stack of shelves had fallen down. There were authentic Indian moccasins and various assorted junk in which even his archaeological sensibilities would be hard-pressed to find value. The dog headed out the back door, around to the front.
Indy didn't want to leave Elaine too far behind. He had already lost her once. “You know where you’re going?”
The dog paused and gave him an affirmative-sounding bark, as if it understood his words. He marveled. It reminded him of Loki, another dog he’d met in Mongolia, who had seemed almost human in his behavior and the look in his eyes. One of his companions had claimed, in fact, that Loki was the reincarnation of a human, and if true that was hardly the strangest thing Indy had encountered. But there was no time to ponder that, as this dog kept going and moved toward another building across the street.
Indy entered, and as his eyes adjusted he saw what hadn’t been apparent from the outside; it was a garage. His hunt among the scattered tools and automobile parts for a phone had no success, but he found a sink and gorged himself on glorious cold water. He would go back for Elaine as soon as he figured out what the dog wanted. It was barking now, wagging its tail, drawing his attention to the old pickup truck still up on a jack.
"This is what you wanted to show me?" Indy said. "Hey, you're kind of a genius. Wish I had some dog treats. You're not a Commie dog, are you?" He laughed at his own stupid joke and realized he was too tired.
Indy walked to the truck and gave it a quick once-over to see how well it would run. It looked like it just needed a new tire, and someone had been in the process of putting it on. He decided to finish the job so they could get the hell out of here.
As he got on his knees and started to unscrew the nuts, the dog wandered over to him, panting happily as if pleased with itself for leading him here. “When I was a little boy,” Indy told it, “sometimes people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And never, not once, did I ever respond ’Steal vehicles.’ But somehow I’ve ended up doing that a lot.”
He almost imagined he could hear it laugh.
He paused to give it a scratch behind the ears and check for a collar, but it had none. “What’s your name?” he said. “Have you got a name? An owner? I might just steal you, too.” He pointed to himself. “I’ve got a dog’s name. Elaine doesn’t know about that yet. She said to wait until we were married before I told her... Seems like so long ago...” He gazed back in the direction of the shop, suddenly feeling a stupor of thought.
The dog whined, sounding sympathetic.
“I don’t want to wait any longer,” Indy said, not sure if he was talking to himself or the dog. “I’d just as soon elope while we’re out here in the middle of nowhere, but that wouldn’t be fair to all my friends who came so far on such short notice. Of course, most of them have already gone home...” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Why couldn’t those damn aliens have waited one more week to show up? One more day, even?”
The dog whined again, but this time nudged his hand that was holding the wrench.
“Right,” he said, turning back to the truck and suppressing his suddenly unruly emotions. “Back to work.” He fumbled with one of the nuts, and it rolled off into the darkness. The dog groaned along with him as he realized this project might now take a little longer than he had hoped.
***
Back in the trinket shop, Elaine was just beginning to relax, though she still clutched the device as tightly as a newborn child. It had dawned on her a while ago that she would have to get used to adventures if she was going to spend the rest of her life with Indiana Jones, but it seemed more real now. Being kidnapped by Communists and falling out of the sky wasn't her idea of a swell time, but it was worth it to be with him – right? Did the other women who had shared his adventures think so too?
She couldn't help being flattered that he had come after her. He shouldn't have come to White Sands in the first place, shouldn't have interfered with her work. And yet, if he hadn't, she would be in Moscow right now. She shivered. This shop didn't seem so bad compared to that.
And after all, maybe she had been wrong not to tell him before she left. Relationships were built on trust, weren't they? Bolander would have been furious, but now that she thought about it, she could have lived with that. He wasn't the most pleasant guy to work with in the first place. Pretending to be married had been his idea, and she had gone along with it out of duty, but he wouldn't have been her first or second or thousandth choice. From now on, she decided, including Indy would be a condition of her continued employment, and if Bolander had a problem with that he would just have to get over himself. She figured General McIntyre would be more amiable about it. He usually was.
She didn’t notice a slight wind picking up outside the window, rattling the wind chimes on the porch. She didn’t notice the buzzing neon sign blink and go out. She didn’t notice the rising steam from the coffee mug suddenly vanish.
She noticed the radio crackle and go dead, and she didn’t like it.
“Indy?” she said, her earlier unease returning in a rush.
There was no verbal response, but her ears picked up a deep humming, so deep that the items on the shelves began to dance and rattle like in an earthquake. As the humming grew louder, a trolling shadow slowly passed over the shop, and outside, familiar fingers of green probe lights struck the roof.
Elaine stared at the ceiling, which groaned and creaked as if someone were walking over it. Dust filtered down and the light fixtures swung. “Innn... dyyy...” she whispered, hoping that he would somehow hear her from wherever he’d gone off to. “Forget the phone... let’s just leave...”
Just then the humming stopped. In the silence, she caught her breath and heard the sound of the back screen door creak open, followed by the dog growling.
“Indy?” she said, a bit louder this time. “Are you back there? I said, let’s leave.” She took a few cautious steps toward the back.
As she turned the corner she saw the dog, but no Indy. It gave her an idle glance; then its growl erupted into full-out barking at something behind some shelves. She clutched the device more tightly to her chest as if it could offer some form of protection.
“Indy...” she whispered. “Is that you? I said –”
The dog yipped like a chihuahua and jumped back as the apparition emerged from behind the shelves and extended itself, an enormous spidery creature with seven foot long arms and bony fingers. Its pale wet skin appeared translucent and reflected every bit of the meager light in the room, giving it the appearance of glowing. It looked like the corpses they’d recovered at the crash sight, but so much larger and so much uglier.
It turned a long, gaunt, and decidedly sinister face toward her.
Elaine did what any rational person would have done. She screamed.
Next: Chapter Eleven
