Chapter Twenty #2
In the distance, the wail of more than one siren signaled the approach of help. Wyatt retrieved his stun gun and detached the leads. He wrapped the loose wires around the taser barbs and shoved them into his front pants pocket.
“All right,” he said. “Here is the story we are all about to tell whatever medical and law enforcement entities show up here. We arrived just as Sheriff Hollister went inside. He didn’t see us.
We heard a scream and I alone went inside to investigate it.
I found the sheriff on the ground and Jake on the table.
That is all we know. That is all we saw.
We didn’t see anyone else in here. And that is all we will say.
The light cube and the invisible being stays between us for now.
The information of a previously unidentified otherworldly presence here on Earth stays just between the three of us! ”
Beryl and Jett both nodded.
“Thank you, Wyatt,” Beryl added. “Sorry we came inside when you told us not to. I was really worried about Jake.”
“That’s okay. I’m sort of glad you didn’t listen. I’d likely be questioning my sanity right about now if you two hadn’t witnessed the same weird thing I did. Still, we tell no one until we can discuss it with Diesel, right?”
“Right,” both Beryl and Jett said.
Beryl showed them the wire attached behind Jake’s ear. “Should I remove it?”
“No. Wait until the medical folks get here. The human EMTs will have to make the call. I don’t know what his condition is and I don’t want to make it worse.”
Wyatt turned and looked at Sheriff Hollister. “I’m wondering what Hollister saw when he came in here, what made him scream and what he will remember.”
Jett made a face. “It could be bad if he starts talking about invisible beings and the light thing we saw.”
Wyatt nodded. “I’d hate to use the Defender on him, but I may have to, once he wakes up and is coherent enough to give his statement. I’ll be sure to stand by his hospital bed if and when that happens.”
Beryl frowned. “Is Sheriff Hollister wearing a body camera?”
Wyatt whispered a curse word under his breath that his wife and mother likely would not have approved of, even though Beryl agreed with the sentiment. He glanced at the prone shape of the sheriff and pushed out a long sigh.
“Let me look.” Sure enough, clipped to his shirt was the bodycam most law enforcement now wore as standard tools of their trade.
Wyatt squatted next to the sheriff and unclipped the body camera from Hollister’s uniform.
Black bits sprinkled free as he turned it over in his hands.
The back casing of the bodycam looked like a piece of charcoal.
Hollister’s uniform was scorched where it had touched the bodycam and the angry red of burned skin was visible.
“I think it’s safe to say that if the bodycam recorded anything, it’s been cooked beyond retrieval,” Wyatt said.
“The invisible being must have zapped it with something,” Jett said.
“Perhaps. If that’s true, then the good news is, it didn’t record anything we just said; the bad news is that we don’t know what the camera saw before Hollister went down. I’ll find out.”
“Do you think his memories will be gone?” Beryl asked.
Wyatt shrugged. “Can’t say. I guess we should consider that a possibility.”
“What about Jake? Do you think his memories might be gone again?” Beryl couldn’t help the despair coating her tone. She was so worried about Jake.
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I sure hope not.” Wyatt clipped the sheriff’s bodycam back in place exactly as he’d found it.
Beryl couldn’t stop worrying about Jake. Would his memories be gone again? Was this what had happened to him before? The invisible being she was trying to talk herself out having seen, even though she definitely saw it, circled her brain a couple of times.
She shook her head to dispel the wavering almost-image. That was for later. Not now. Wyatt was right. They needed to clam up about that strangeness until they could speak to Diesel.
A short time later, an ambulance with two EMTs showed up, along with two more police cars, one from Alienn, the other from Old Coot.
Sam Brody and his partner stepped out of the vehicle from Old Coot.
Together, they joined the circle with Wyatt and the two deputies from Alienn.
If Sam noticed Beryl, he didn’t acknowledge her.
The two EMTs split up, one stopping to look at Hollister and the other went to Jake, who remained strapped to the table.
“We’re going to need another ambulance,” the EMT next to Hollister said. He clicked his collar radio on and requested one.
Beryl showed Jake’s EMT the wire attached behind his ear. He decided not to remove it, opting to wrap the wire into a circle and place it next to Jake’s head for transport.
“That decision is above my paygrade,” he told Beryl as he prepped Jake to be moved out to the ambulance.
By the time they loaded Jake into the first ambulance, the second one had arrived for Hollister.
Beryl asked if she could go with Jake and no one stopped her. She nodded once at Jett and Wyatt before the doors on the ambulance closed.
At the hospital, Jake was whisked away on a stretcher. Since dating for a week, no matter how much they cared for each other, didn’t qualify Beryl as family, she was not allowed to join him.
She was resigning herself to camping out in the waiting room for however long it would take to get some answers when her phone rang.
“Are you okay?” Ivy demanded the instant she answered. “I thought I saw you jump into an SUV and drive away with your brother. I’ve been warring with myself all night about whether to bother you or not. I guess you can see which side finally won out.”
Beryl tried not to cry, but a wordless sob escaped.
Voice softer, Ivy asked, “Where are you?”
“Hospital in Alienn,” she said. Over a few more hiccups and sobs, she told Ivy about seeing Jake being snatched right off the street, and how she and Jett had gone with Wyatt to an old barn in the woods and rescued him.
She added that the last she’d seen of Jake, he’d remained unconscious and she wasn’t allowed to be in the room as they assessed him because she wasn’t family.
“Don’t move,” Ivy said. “I’ll be right there.”
Beryl collapsed into an uncomfortable plastic molded chair in the emergency room’s waiting area. It wasn’t too long before Ivy showed up with two cups of coffee and a shoulder for Beryl to weep on.
“Thank you for coming,” Beryl managed before more tears fell. She usually wasn’t such a crybaby. She figured, if not now, when? This whole invisible alien business with Jake being kidnapped had really gotten to her.