Jigsaw World (12 page)

The group itself was an even more unlikely set
of adventurers. They were traveling in an RV with a newly patched
hole in its roof, which were the proceeds from a roadside murder.
The group consisted of a very average looking guy named Tom, with
light brown hair and unremarkable eyes, the long blondish brown
kinky haired George, The almost black haired Afghanistan vet
Sidney, his relatively simple and pretty brunette squeeze Charla,
the body of the young man who was currently being piloted by the
Walk In known as Markus, the reddish brown frizzled-haired Vera,
who had recently been a demon hunter, and now was a member of the
band of adventurers, and last but not least, Bailey the dog, who
quite possibly was the sanest of them all.

What a group they were! One would hardly think
that a group of mismatched people such as these could hope to save
the world. On the other hand, Tom for one had never been privy to
the composition of any other world-saving groups, so maybe it was a
typical composition.

******

Tom took a hard right up the off-ramp past the
beat up looking lopsided sign which announced Grand Prairie, Texas.
Population 181,824. The home of Lion Country Safari. This was the
first city whose name he had recognized in the last one thousand
miles on this trip. He saw nothing of the other suburbs or of
Dallas itself in the surrounding area.

As he straightened out the RV on the two lane
blacktop, he found himself driving on, he noticed a few changes of
this town from the last time he was here. For one thing, there
seemed to be far fewer residences around than there should have
been. Like ten percent of what should have existed. Also, it
appeared that the lions from Lion Country Safari had tired of
sitting in their cages and habitats, and they were currently
strolling up and down the streets of this fair burg. As Tom
watched, a female lion brought down something about the size of a
transient, he couldn’t get a good view, but it did seem to be
two-legged.

Tom briefly considered taking a side trip to
Plano; to see if a lady who operated a mail-order business there
that he once had a fling with still existed. He decided that he
would wait for that mission until (or if) he finished the current
one and started heading back this way. Meanwhile, the group had
beer and popcorn, and the modern version of American Christians and
the Lions.

They were in a section of the road where one
family houses were present on both sides of the road. All of the
houses were of wood construction, typical houses such as what you
would expect to see in any 1950s movie, with a smattering of
A-frame houses spread among them. Perhaps this was a section of the
world that existed in the 1950s, but also had architect residents
that had smoked that ‘newfangled’ reefer cigarette; went crazy and
built A-frames. Or maybe not.

Just as the RV slid by one of the regular
houses, Tom saw the front door of the house sliding shut, with a
hand guiding it shut. Since this was the first sign of a human
resident of the town that he had seen, unless you count the
possible transient, he spun the wheel to the right, and skidded to
a stop in the front yard of the house.

While Sidney and George stood guard with
rifles, Tom and Markus walked up the front door of the house and
banged on it. They had to pound on the door for almost a minute
before the unseen resident decided the jig was up, and opened it.
Tom almost felt sorry for the somewhat ominous pounding he had
applied to the door, because he really didn’t want to spook such a
pretty, long-haired blonde model looking girl as the resident
turned out to be.

It turned out that this beautiful estrogen
driven creature was named Sally, and her family was missing in
Action after her brother, mother and father had gone out to find
some food after dropping her off in this house, which happened to
be the home of her grandmother, who also appeared to be missing.
After two days without seeing a soul, she actually was happy to see
the group, even if she was a little scared.

Tom wrapped his arm around her, ‘accidently’
verifying that her breasts appeared to be the genuine article,
well-shaped and without padding. He was so tired of doing without
that best of all possible exercises while all around him had
exercise partners. He was damned well going to claim this little
filly, and do a little calisthenics tonight himself. She didn’t
seem to object to the handling.

Tom walked Sally right into the RV, sat her
down at the table, and poured her a double shot of the best single
malt. He lit a Pall Mall for her and for himself, and sat down with
his own whiskey. He asked her about the town, and about
herself.

“
What has happened in this area
lately?’ He asked. “I don’t see any sign of the Dallas Metropolis,
just a Dinky little town with a tenth of the number of houses I
remember, and a bunch of open range ranches around it. You have
lived here all your life. What happened here?”

Sally looked confused by the question.
“Dallas?” She said. “I remember something about a little town that
used to exist, about a century and a half ago by that name, but it
burned during the civil war, and everyone moved away. Grande
Prairie hasn’t changed. It is still the same nice little Southern
town that it has always been. Only with Lions, now.”

Tom reflected that she seemed to have no idea
about what were even a few miles away from her. The sign that he
saw coming in was about right for the town he remembered, and ten
times what she thought existed.

“
So, do you want to come with us
down the Interstate, and see a little bit of the rest of the
country?” He asked.

“
Interstate? What is that?” She
queried. Tom explained what the Interstate was, and she listened,
but it was obvious that she was unacquainted with the concept of
Interstates, let alone that one existed within five miles of her
home. After a few minutes of talking, she finally and reluctantly
agreed to throw in her lot with the group. This relieved Tom no
end, as he certainly planned to host her to a long bout of bed
wrestling tonight.

He gave the group the high sign, from where
they had discreetly secreted themselves during Tom and Sally’s
summit. They all filed back into the RV, or out of the back room of
the vehicle, and clustered about the table to get caught up in the
newest details and other data morsels.

A half hour of conversation, suitable to the
streets of whatever city the tower of Babel existed in, completed
our initiation process for the angelic Sally. Tom would complete
her induction ceremony himself sometime that night. Markus
mentioned that the RV would need another full tank. They all made
ready to find the nearest station, and then they were
rolling.

The first gas station they came to was out of
gas, but they were delayed a few moments as the old geezers who ran
the station inquisitively examined the RV, motivated by why the
thing ran so quietly, and mystified by the absence of a carburetor.
Tom patiently explained that the vehicle had a fuel injection
system instead of a carburetor. It turned out that they had worked
on a few newfangled diesel tractors with fuel injection, but they
were unaware of any over the road vehicles using that
technology.

Tom extricated the group from the conversation
with the geezers with a remarkable lack of loss of life, and they
continued to the next closest gas station that the geezers had
described. A couple of minutes more travel found them at the gas
station, which as it turned out was on the very periphery of the
town, and next to a great expanse of range filled with cattle, and
close at hand was a large tank, where several cows were sucking up
water, and slapping their tails happily at the surrounding cloud of
flies.

When the RV ground to a halt, the men exited
the vehicle to see to the gassing, and to surreptitiously guard
against attackers, while the women relaxed and caught up on that
secret gossip that they had been holding back on sharing while the
men were listening. Bailey took the opportunity to dash out of the
RV and run happily into the nearby field to chase the cows grazing
and watering there.

Markus took charge of gassing the big vehicle
while the rest of them leaned against the side and watched the dog
chasing the cows and wagging his tail furiously. It was when the
herd split to avoid being subjected to the indignity of being
nibbled at by the canine that the guys noticed something strange.
There appeared to be several cows lying down next to the tank, and
from their positions it was obvious that they were very
dead.

Having a good fifteen or twenty minutes before
the fuel tank would be full, the men (sans Markus) made their way
over to where the dead cattle were lying. When they came upon them,
they noticed there were several parts missing on the corpses, and
other parts of the cattle were present, but stacked neatly in a
manner that suggested that they were superfluous matter in an
operation that had been conducted.

One cow had been dismembered entirely, with
the horns, ears and other head parts arranged neatly in somewhat
the same positions that they would have occupied if the head of the
cow had exploded neatly. It reminded Tom of the sort of labeling
and placement process that a shade tree mechanic would use to
disassemble and reassemble an automatic transmission.

The same neat stacking of body parts was
evident for the rest of that cow. Most of the other cattle lying
nearby were not treated the same, but were missing several of their
body parts, mostly vital organs. In every case that Tom could see,
the organs and body parts were removed and dissected with surgical
precision. None of the bodies had any insects on them, even though
the living cattle in the vicinity were besieged by all manner of
insect pest.

Bailey had abandoned his chase and approached
the bodies when the men had done so. He cautiously approached the
nearest body and sniffed it carefully. After he had sniffed it, he
backed away from the body, and refused to come near it again. It
was unusual for Bailey to be shy, so Tom took note of this
reaction, and filed it mentally under the label of ‘might be
important’.

“
Anybody have a clue what happened
here?” George asked the group. “I have heard of something like this
in the UFO weirdo blogs. Anyone here want to claim this has
something to do with aliens?”

“
We don’t have to, you already
have!” Markus gloated. “George’s aliens have been gourmet hunting
in the herd. A few onions, some peppers and garlic, and they could
sauté up a fine meal.”

“
Whatever happened here, I suggest
that we load up and head for the next town.” Tom stated. “We are
not charged with solving every little problem we encounter. Let the
locals deal with this.”

“
We have a problem with that.”
Charla chimed in as she came up. “I saw Bailey haul ass across to
that ranch house over there.” She said and pointed to indicate
which one she meant.

“
Okay, everybody, load up. We will
roll over to that house, pick up the dog, and decide if we are
leaving immediately, or if we want to stay the night before we head
out. That is assuming that we don’t meet opposition to that idea.”
Tom stated.

In about three minutes, everybody had loaded
up in the newly fueled RV, and they were rolling toward the
indicated ranch house. As they neared the homestead, Tom noted that
there were none of those indications of life in evidence, no
television murmuring in the background, no voices, and no movement.
The only life that could be heard or seen was the quiet sounds of
Bailey padding about in the area between the backyard and the barn
at the back of the house. He cautioned everyone to be on their
guard, and then they were there.

They pulled straight into the area where the
dog was sniffing about. Everybody got out and walked over to where
the dog was working. As they got near, they could see a family of
three, all disassembled in the same manner as the cows in the field
next door. As soon as the people got there, the dog backed out, and
ran to the backside of the barn.

The group settled in to examine the crime
scene in more detail. One of the strange differences in this scene
from that in the field was the presence of a circle of burnt grass
and dirt, surrounded by a strange geometric pattern composed of
grass which refused to lay any other position except where they
found it. If one dragged the grass it was made of to some other
position, it would return to its original position. It was Markus
who found a magnet, and showed the group that the grass now held a
magnetic charge.

The man, his wife or girlfriend and their
little girl had all been dissected and their body parts had been
neatly stacked systematically in piles, carefully arranged to
create three different sized pyramids.

The dog had done his job of alerting the group
to this pile of body parts, and he quickly lost interest. The meat
did not smell edible or interesting, and damn if Bailey was going
to mess around with body parts that not even the flies had any use
for. He wagged his tail in temporary farewell, and started sniffing
about for something a little more useful, or at least more
interesting.

A couple of moments of random searching, while
the silly humans did whatever it is that silly humans do, and
suddenly, Bailey came upon the mother-lode. In the back of the barn
there were more body parts, but this time, the body had been torn
apart normally, possibly by one of those lions that this town was
infested with. He spent a couple of seconds gobbling up some little
bits that had that scared pork taste, and then he found his
prize.