Chapter Twenty-Five #2
The cube of lights was on the prep table beside Jake’s head. A wire trailed from it to behind Jake’s ear. She thought it was a different type of wire but it was attached to Jake in the same way as the other one.
To her right, Beryl saw Ian creep from a short hallway that must lead to the rear of the business. He stopped short of entering the kitchen, nodding at her once. He turned his attention to Jake and the almost invisible alien.
Then she heard a siren spinning up in the distance. Beryl wasn’t the only one startled by the sound. The undulating heatwave shifted and something grunted.
Beryl gave Jett a single nod. He got to work. She hoped they had enough time to do what needed to be done. She was surprised the alien hadn’t grabbed his ball and left the sandbox in a huff like last time. Perhaps he wasn’t finished doing whatever he intended to do. Perhaps they weren’t too late.
The siren was getting closer. Was it coming here? Surely there were not any security tripwires in this abandoned building.
“Ready,” Jett whispered.
“Strike now!” Beryl shouted.
Jett threw his missiles fast and hard, his arm rearing back and launching, over and over, striking the undulating heatwave with the small bundles they’d created at lunch.
They struck the being’s head, neck, one shoulder, one forearm, one biceps, his belly, a few on his back and a couple on each thigh.
And, as they planned, each packet stuck to the invisible being exactly where Jett hit his target.
Perfect. Her plan was working!
The being turned toward the brightly lit cube and Beryl thought he adjusted the buttons or the lights or maybe nothing. His movements were not completely clear even with the Operation Diabolical packets attached to his body, moving with him when he worked.
The wail of the siren was definitely headed here. Beryl hoped whoever showed up was not a human. If they were, they were not going to be allowed to remember this situation.
She glanced at Ian, who watched the scene with rapt attention. He’d definitely need a blast from a Defender. She made a mental note.
On the table, Jake groaned. His head lolled left, then right, as if he were in pain.
“Stop it!” Beryl shouted at the being. “Stop hurting him!”
Ian moved into the room. Before she could warn him away, he lifted his arms and pointed what looked like a weapon of some sort in the alien’s direction.
From somewhere at the front of the store, an official-sounding voice called out. Then there was the sound of running footsteps and the shaft of light from a flashlight shot into the kitchen area.
The being snatched the cube, tugged the cord from Jake’s head and turned toward Ian. Abruptly, it lunged at him. Ian cried out, clutching his chest. His weapon, whatever it was, fell to the floor as he staggered and fell, leaving the back hallway wide open for escape. The alien hesitated.
“Now?” Jett asked, excitedly.
“No. Wait until he gets outside.” Beryl moved to Jake’s side. He had stopped thrashing. She checked for a pulse—and could have fainted with relief. There it was, a strong one. Jake was alive. Unlike last time, however, he didn’t wake when the wire was removed. What had the being done to him?
“Beryl? Jett?” Sheriff Wyatt Campbell pushed through the swinging doors, flashlight in hand. “What are y’all doing in here?”
Beryl ignored the sheriff’s questions, watching as the alien, bundles stuck to his form, ran down the short hallway to the open back door. “Now! Do it now, Jett!”
Jett pulled the remote control they had fashioned out of his pocket and pushed the big green button in the center of it.
From right outside the back door came an odd noise.
She could have described it as the sound of a heavy cardboard paper tube, like the kind for wrapping paper, striking the top of a counter several times.
Or possibly the sound of a bunch of water balloons bursting all at once. Or both.
Jett and Wyatt hurried to where Ian appeared to be out cold on the floor.
Wyatt felt for a pulse on Ian’s neck. “He’s alive.” He then moved quickly toward the back hallway. “What did you do? Did you just blow him up?”
“Of course not!” Beryl said. “We just made it more difficult for him to escape this time.”
Wyatt stopped at the open back door. “Great googly-moogly. Is that what I think it is?”
“That depends,” Jett said, sounding very proud of himself. “What do you think it is?”
Beryl thought her brother had reason to be proud. Operation Diabolical had worked exactly as they planned. Maybe even better.
Wyatt, a tad of awe and fear in his tone, said, “I don’t think it. I know for a fact that you just deployed a glitter bomb. The…culprit is on the ground and down for the count.”
Jett said, “Actually, we took that idea and we improved on it.”
“Improved on a glitter bomb?” Wyatt asked. “I have two small children. Trust me, I know about glitter. Glitter is forever.”
Beryl said, “Well, we call our version the Sticky Glitter Bomb, because that stuff is never coming off. It might not even wear off. We didn’t have time to do much testing.”
“Unless we provide the antidote,” Jett said with a laugh.
“Antidote?” Wyatt asked. “Wait. Does that antidote work on regular glitter, too?”
Beryl didn’t have time for glitter appreciation. “Please call an ambulance, Wyatt. It looks like Jake is headed for the hospital again.” She eyed Ian’s body spread out on the floor. “He’s going to need one, too.”
Since she’d been put out for an hour when the alien attacked her at Jake’s house, Beryl figured Ian was in for the same thing.
He must have been made of sterner stuff than her. As if Ian heard Beryl talking about him, he sucked in a deep breath and sat up, putting a hand to his chest. Beryl saw a drop of blood right below his collarbone had stained his shirt.
“Space potatoes! That hurt a lot,” Ian said with a groan, eyes only half open.
Space potatoes? How does he know Alpha swear words?
Wyatt looked surprised. Jett and Beryl exchanged a wide-eyed look.
“Relative of yours?” Wyatt asked.
“He’s not,” Beryl and Jett said at the same time. But they were likely both thinking Wyatt might be on to something.
Beryl took Jake’s hand. It worried her that he had not regained consciousness.
When the being had pulled the wire away from him, Beryl had expected Jake to wake up or at least rouse a little. She would rather see him coming around, even if it caused problems and meant they’d have to use a Defender on him.
Wyatt said, “An ambulance is on the way. And backup should be here in a minute. I made sure it’s not anyone who will have to face a Defender wipe.”
“Good.”
Beryl saw movement outside, and realized the glitter-bombed alien had leapt to his feet. Clutching the light cube like a receiver with a football, it sprinted toward the edge of the forest.
“And there he goes,” Wyatt said. “Thanks for the assistance, you two. This time, the foot race is going to be easy to win.” The sheriff raced after the fugitive.
As Wyatt predicted, it did not take long for him to capture his prey. The glitter-coated being was handcuffed and placed, carefully, in the back of Wyatt’s cruiser as an ambulance arrived with two Alpha EMTs to check over Jake and Ian.
“I’m going to take the prisoner to the brig in Cam Grey’s office at the Big Bang Truck Stop,” Wyatt said. “I don’t expect him to talk easily, but maybe Diesel can put the fear of the Fearless Leader in him. Kudos to you two on your diabolical plan.”
“Thanks,” Beryl said. “I’m going to ride with Jake to the hospital, even if they won’t let me in his room until regular visiting hours.”
“Another ambulance staffed by Alphas is on the way for Ian,” Wyatt said as a Skeeter Bite patrol car pulled into Krab’s Cookie Palace’s parking lot. He sent a deputy Beryl hadn’t met inside to secure the building.
Wyatt glanced through the back window at the glitter-covered being he had arrested. “That glitter is never coming out of the back of my cruiser, is it?”
Beryl looked at Jett and Jett looked at Beryl. Neither one of them wanted to tell Wyatt the actual truth because they hadn’t tested their antidote and the chance it would work was fifty-fifty at best.
Glitter was forever. Sticky glitter was forever plus more.