The Abduction (15 page)

Samantha opened her eyes to an empty
room, void of gunfire and soldiers. Rikist lay on his side beside her; his body still and eyes closed. She twisted on her knees at the sharp intake of breath behind her, and gasped at the sight of the surprised alien in a black uniform sitting at a computer-laden desk in the corner of the room.

The man stood
and reached for the weapon on his belt. Samantha yipped and lifted the gun Rikist had given her, and pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked
in her hand, and the bullet went wild and buried into the nearest computer screen. The man ducked and drew his gun, and Samantha fired again and again until she’d emptied the magazine.

She tensed, holding her breath as the man stared at her, and then sighed as the man’s eyes slid closed and he crumbled to the ground.
She stared at the spreading stain of blood on the center of his chest, and she swallowed back bile and dropped the empty gun from shaking hands.

Dropping to her knees, she ran her hands over Rikist. She
tested his pulse, found it to be weak, and then shook him.

“Rikist, c
ome on, Rikist. Please wake up!” She sat up, wiping at her brow with the back of a hand. She thought back to Krissik’s estimate of a twenty percent survival rate for an alien Rikist’s age, and her stomach clenched. “Oh God, I hope I didn’t kill him.”

Samantha stood and stepped around the
unnamed alien’s body to the desk, looking for a phone. She grimaced as she saw that most of her shots had landed on or near the desk, destroying most of the electronic equipment and leaving almost nothing of value in tact. She swallowed and rubbed at her face.

She glanced around the room. The only window had been boarded up, so that no
air came in or out along the sealed seams. The door was across the room, and had also had flaps added to the edges, but did not look sealed shut.

“Probably to keep the light out,” she muttered.

Samantha hesitated, and then crossed to the door and tested the handled. It turned, and she undid the deadbolt above with a slow click and then slowly eased the door open. She peered outside, froze, and then pulled the door open completely to the vacant hallway. The hall was under construction; plaster still visible on the walls and multi-colored carpet padding and nails lining the floor. Blue painters’ tape edged the ceiling where the beginnings of yellow paint were visible.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We’re
back at the hotel.”

She glanced back at Rikist, and then stepped out and quietly shut the door. She headed down to her right
, where she found the elevator and a directional map.

Second floor.

“So that’s how they got in,” she whispered. She hesitated outside the elevator doors, and then pushed the up arrow.

Nothing happened. She tried again, but the button did not even light up.

She frowned and pulled open the door to the stairs and headed up.

The doors to most of the rooms on Samantha’s floor were still open, making Samantha’s heart race. The shadowed hall was quiet – not a soul in sight. The morning light from the open widows it the room cast elongated yellow boxes in the hall, and Samantha paused before stepping through each illuminated space. She peered into the room as she
walked; surprised and panicked that they had not been touched since the abduction.

She spotted her room and quickened her pace. She paused in the doorway and looked around.

The room was as they had left it; open bags on the foot of the beds, the dropped TV remote on the floor and Carly’s cell phone on the dresser. Samantha nearly dove for the phone, and then froze when she woke the lock screen and read the date.

“Saturday?” Her heart dropped to her stomach. “I’ve… I’ve only been gone for two days?”

She looked around, wondering then where everyone was. If Krissik was right, and no one had been killed, then where was Carly?

Maybe everyone was taken to the hospital… That would make sense.

Samantha closed the door and slipped out of the dress. She pulled out a fresh change of clothes from her bag on the bed, and slipped on jeans and a t-shirt over underwear and a bra. She moaned happily at the support under her breasts, remembering how much she missed an underwire. Socks and tennis shoes followed, along with pulling her hair back in a low bun.

She dug out an envelope of cash
she had stashed at the bottom of her bag and stuck it in her back pocket, grabbed her car keys off the nightstand between the beds and hefted her duffle.

She knew she could leave the hotel; sneak downstairs past whatever security was in place and get to the parking lot where her car waited and get the hell out of Vegas. She could move on and pretend that the past week on another planet never happened and disappear in the hills of Colorado where no cat-like aliens could ever find her and
she would never leave her father’s farm again.

She stepped out in the hall and hesitated.

She also knew that Rikist had risked everything in order to save her, and that he now lay unconscious and helpless in a room downstairs. If he were to wake up and leave, or be found by a wandering maid, or the police…

“Shit,” she whispered. “They’d lock him up in some lab and he’d never get out.”

She turned back into her room and opened the small refrigerator. Inside were several cans of soda and a few apples and muffins from breakfast the morning of check-in. She stuffed the food into her duffle and hurried back toward the stairs.

Footsteps down the hall sent chills up her spine, and she froze, listening. The footsteps were even and casual, followed by the squeaking of turning wheels. Samantha stepped back in a doorway and peeked around the corner as a male janitor pushing a laundry cart appeared and walked down the hall.

Samantha took a deep breath and stepped out as the man neared. The man cursed in Spanish, and stepped back.

Samantha held out her hands. “Wait! I need your help!”

The man shook his head. “You not supposed to be here.”

“I know, I know. My friend is hurt, can you help?”

He shook his head and turned to leave.

Samantha fished out the envelope of cash and pulled out a handful of bills, gaining an interested stare.

“I can pay you.”

Samantha found Rikist just as she’d left him, and she quietly knelt beside him. She set the duffle and keys down, and checked his breathing
and pulse. Nothing had changed. She frowned and turned to the man standing in the doorway, who had paled and looked ready to bolt.

Samantha fished out three twenty-dollar bills and handed them over. She showed him the full envelope. “You help me and it’s yours.”

The man hesitated, looking between Rikist’s prone body and the envelope, and nodded.

It took a while, but together Samantha and the janitor got Rikist on the flat cart and down to the main level of the hotel. The janitor took her out the back service entrance, away from the bustling lobby full of angry patrons and reporters asking questions about the
gas leak that landed half of the hotel guests in the emergency room.

The wheels on the cart squeaked dangerously loud as they hurried through the parking structure
to the fourth floor; Samantha sweating as they crested each level knowing that they would surely get caught. Thankfully, the parking lot was quiet, with half of the structure empty.

Samantha nearly let out a sob as her gray SUV came into sight, and she quickened their pace to push them forward. She unlocked the car and reclined the back seat as far as it would go, and with the
janitor’s help they managed to lift Rikist into the car to lie on the back seat and strap him in. Samantha straightened up, stretching her back, and wiped at the dew of sweat on her hairline.

The
janitor’s tan face was pale and his eyes wide, muttering something about “el diablo,” and he took off at a run pushing the cart as soon as Samantha handed him the envelope.

Samantha took a shaky breath and tossed her duffle back into the passenger seat. She reached under the driver’s seat and sighed in relief when she dug out her purse. She unzipped the top to spot her wallet and cell phone. She got inside the car, locked the doors, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and Samantha leaned her forehead against the steering wheel as the tears came
in a sudden relieving rush.

She wiped at her face and put the car in reverse, unwilling to get this far and have someone stop her in the parking structure. She peeled out, her tires screeching against the smooth concrete, and followed the arrows to the exit.

Samantha turned on the radio as the SUV pulled out onto the Vegas strip. The glowing lights of the tall casinos blurred together as she stared out her window, refusing to blink, and turned north onto Interstate 15 North. She glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping Rikist and forced a smile.

“I’m ready to go home.”

It was late afternoon when the tires of Samantha’s SUV turned off the paved street on the outskirts of Grand Junction, Colorado onto a dirt road that led off the beaten path to her father’s farm. Dust billowed out behind her car as she sped along the path, eager for the safety and security of home.

Samantha slowed as she reached the front gate, stopped, and got out long enough to manually open the chain link drive gate, pull through, and lock it behind her. Her hands shook as she drove forward; her senses on high alert from an overdose of caffeine and her nerves shot from the reality of finally being free.

She pulled the car into the double garage and turned off the engine. She sat still for several minutes, listening to the end credits of a western audio book that had she’d snagged from her father’s extensive collection, and then shut off the radio and sagged against the seat. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes and pressed the remote clipped to her visor to shut the rolling garage door, then got out and turned on the overhead lights on her way into the door to the house.

Inside
, Samantha went through every room and closed all of the blinds and turned on all of the lights so that no corner of the spacious single-level ranch house was left in shadow. She flipped on the TV, turned on a national news station for background noise, and set her bag on the couch and looked around.

The house was simple, with a mixture of new and antique furniture that she’d salvaged from her dad’s use and the move from her city apartment. A TV sat in one corner with a collection of penguin figurines that her mother had collected, and no one had bothered to pack away.

She walked back to the garage and opened the car doors to let fresh air in. She knew there was no way she could move Rikist on her own, so she figured for now he could sleep where he was. She unbuckled him so that he was more comfortable, and undid his laces and pulled his boots off. She propped open the door leading into the house so that she could listen for him, and then plopped down onto the couch in the living room.

She pulled out her cell phone and searched for Las Vegas area hotels as she watched the scrolling news stories at the bottom of the TV.
Her first two phone calls to hospitals in the area were dead ends. She sighed and rubbed at her temples, pain building between her eyes, as she dialed the third hospital.

“Please be there,” she whispered. “Please…”

“Sunrise Medical,” the female operator answered.

Samantha sat up. “Hi, I’m trying to reach a patient there.”

“Room number?”

“I… I’m not sure. They didn’t tell me.”

“What’s the name?”

“Carly Michaels.”

“We can’t give out medical information over the phone—”

“Please don’t hang up! It’s my… sister. Step.”

There was a pause. “I’m going to transfer you to the nurse’s station. Please hold.”

Samantha closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. This was further than she’d gotten with the other two hospitals, so hopefully that was a positive thing.

“Nursing station, this is Adrianne, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m trying to reach Carly Michaels. She’s a patient there.”

“What room?”

“I don’t know. We were separated at our hotel during
the gas leak.”

“What relationship do you have with the patient?”

Samantha’s lips trembled. “Sister.”

“Your name?”

“Samantha Tucker.”

“Hold on a minute.”

Samantha stood and paced around the living room as she waited for the nurse to come back on the line. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she prayed that this would not be another dead end. She froze mid-step as the line clicked and she heard shuffling on the other end.

“Hello? Samantha?”

Samantha’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Michaels?”