The Time of The Cat 58

A PLACE TO REST

While we were talking, both the Sheriff and the Mayor came out of the building. Neither was armed and they’d been keeping out of sight until the alien was finished. It turned out that both of them had been in the back with the store owner, taking a quick nip from a bottle that he had back there, too, but it didn’t seem to have had any negative influence on their behavior.

They wanted to know about us, and the rangers both chimed in with, “We found them coming down out of the park, and they brought us into town.”

I started to give my story, but the Mayor held up his hand and stopped me. He thought that maybe he’d better get most of the citizens together over in the park, and I could tell everyone at once what was going on.

“Mayor, Liz and I are exhausted. We’ve been on the go, fighting these things for days straight, and there’s nothing that I can say to your people that will make any difference right now. Please, just let us find a room somewhere and get some rest.” I was practically begging him not to force us to go through what would surely turn into a long and drawn-out meeting.

Liz reinforced my plea by tiredly nodding her head and adding, “We’ve been working solid to try and stop their invasion. It looks like we’ve finally got them stopped for the moment, and we need a break.”

“I see that you need rest. Y’all look like ya’ been dragged through a knot-hole. We can get you a room, but at least tell us here what’s happening. We need to make some kind of plans,” he was begging in his turn.

I stood there on the sidewalk and briefly summarized the situation as I now understood it. It didn’t take long because I was concise and didn’t pull my punches.

“Here’s what’s happened,” I started. “The Earth has been invaded by aliens. They have been working behind the scenes to destabilize our society and disable our ability to strike back at them. They’ve exploded at least one nuclear warhead over Kansas, maybe others. The electromagnetic pulse has done more to hurt us than anything else. There’s likely to be immense population loss from starvation and lack of water and disease in the next two weeks, mostly in the cities. We’ll have to plan on how we’re going to survive.”

The Sheriff commented, “We’re going to need information more than anything, but if what you say is correct, we’ve got a little time, and I expect that you-all could use the rest. It looks like you’re plumb tuckered out.”

I said, “We are. Let us get some rest, and meanwhile you can think over what I’ve told you. When we’ve slept some, I’ll be happy to explain at length in a large meeting. Maybe as a first step, you could start to list resources and people who have survival skills. We’re going to need a complete inventory of everything that could be an advantage.”

The woman ranger seemed suspicious despite our driving her to town. She said, “Wait a minute! You’re a stranger. Why should we trust what you say? Why shouldn’t we send you off?”

The Sheriff, the Mayor and the others disagreed. Their general consensus was that Liz and I were too valuable to run off, and the dead Pug-bear was evidence that we were correct. They all felt that we’d add a lot to the survival chances of the town. I think that they also were feeling like they had been hit with a huge problem with which they weren’t prepared to deal, and they hoped that I’d be able to provide more guidance and leadership.

The Mayor waved at an older couple who had just come out of the building behind us. They came up, and he asked them if they knew of any condos in their building that were vacant.

“Mayor, nearly the entire place is vacant. Most of the summer people went back to Denver when the announcement came about the Secretary of State being missing. The news said that there might be some kind of national emergency like a terrorist attack or something. The ones we spoke to said that they weren’t going to try and wait out a national emergency in this small town. Most of them simply wanted to get back to their own homes,” he said as his wife nodded in affirmation.

The couple was from Florida. They hadn’t seen any sense in trying to fight their way onto an airplane when everyone else was trying for emergency flights. They readily agreed to take us over to their place and see if we could get into one of the vacant units for some rest. It wasn’t far and they gave us directions, saying they’d walk back as long as no more of those dangerous alien things showed up.

That was a good point and I’d been so concerned with resting that I’d ignored my discovered ability to sense the Pug-bears. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. It was hard to do, standing there in the sunlight surrounded by other people, but I was able to mentally verify that there weren’t any of them in the immediate vicinity.

“I think we’re clear of them for a while. You should be fine to walk back,” I said as I opened my eyes.

We got in the truck and drove over to the building they’d described. They showed up about five minutes later, and we were soon inside a nicely furnished vacation condo. While Liz and I cleaned up, Jefferson explored the place, helped by a can of tuna that had been left in the pantry. In short order, we were snuggled in bed, feeling more secure than we’d felt in days. Sleep was marvelous.