Chance Encounter

Music means everything when your lives depend on it.

I almost hit him. I came barreling over a hump in the desert road and there the dude was. He didn’t move, just stood facing away from me. I jerked the steering. The car growled back at me in protest, wheels biting into a cloud of desert dust as I left the tarmac.

“You better have your own car nearby, stranger. Mine isn’t going anywhere.” My all wheel drive Rav 4 sunk deeper under the sandy crust as I tried rocking it. We could syphon out my gas if his car was empty.

Otherwise it would be a long wait before we got any service. I looked around, eyes stinging,coughing as the dust cloud started to settle. We were on the loneliest road in Nevada. I hadn’t seen another car in hours. A shadowy figure emerged back on the road.

“Still just standing there.” I rubbed my eyes. The dust made them tear up.

“Hey,” I shouted, spitting grit out of my mouth. No response.”Hey you. Over here.”

My door didn’t want to open. I had to crawl out the open window. I’d been using the hot wind to stay awake. “What on earth is wrong with you?”

I lost a shoe in the sandy furrow of one of my tire tracks. The dude was softly humming part of a tune over and over again. He had to have a car. No way was he out here without one. “O.K. You’ve got to have your car keys in a pocket. We’ll get you off the road. You can sit in my Rav while I hunt yours down.”

I wiggled my shoe back on as I talked and made a beeline towards him. Patting his pockets down got me a wallet, a pack of menthol cigs, and the keys. He didn’t budge. “Thanks, pal. Now let’s get you off the road.”

“They’re coming.”

It made me jump. “Who’s coming? A tow truck?” I felt relief wash over me.

“The old ones.”

I didn’t get it. “Old ones?” He moved in slow motion when I tugged at him. His eyes were a strange shade of yellow.. I felt if I stared into them any longer, I’d fall into the same trance state he was in.

It made me shake my head to clear the dizziness out. “I never should have come alone. Hal warned me it could be dangerous.” If I’d waited a week my friend could have come with me.

“Come on. Let’s get you to my car. I’ve got water there. We both could use some.” Time ticked silently away accompanied by the desert quiet. When we got to my Rav I folded the stranger into the front beside me.
He swallowed when I brought an open bottle of water to his lips. “It’ll be soon now..”

I ignored him. My cellphone was more important. It was my connection to Hal, back in Law Vegas, and help. “No signal.”

I’d heard rumors of there being problems around the turn off to Death Valley, too much emptiness. There was no need for towers or satellite access. Almost an hour had slipped away. Dusk was threatening arrival soon. “Stay here,” I said needlessly. “I need what light there is to find your car.”

There was no hint of reflecting glass or metal when I got out and did a three-sixty. I went and stood where the stranger had been, trying to relive his arrival. Dry wind picked up, humming the same mindless tune of the stranger. “No way.”

I pushed away the impulse to hum it back. I heard the stranger say, “Move.” He’d followed me back.

“This is creepy,” I said as he pushed me aside and planted himself into position.

His wallet had identified him as a licensed private investigator named Henry Jackson, out of L.A. He was single, thirty-six years old, and willing to donate his body when the end came. “What were you investigating?” I asked.

Silence, and then that humming from him began. The dry desert wind picked up, curling around us, and joined in. The air vibrated with the sound. The dizziness returned and it knocked me off my feet, rolling. Dust and grit again, stinging, bringing me to my senses.

I sat up, not bothering to check my torn clothes and bleeding bruises. “All right, have it your way. Me? I’m getting out of here.”

I’d have to be careful, keep him or my Rav in sight as I searched for his car. It would be too easy to get disoriented and lost without any other landmarks to judge direction by. The only hint I had was the direction he was facing. He had to have come from behind it. I started walking. Along the side of the highway. I couldn’t get lost staying on it. His car couldn’t be too far off the side of the road. I was surprised I’d missed it. Too tired, I guessed.

It was a rusty old pickup about the same color as the desert. The old beast started right up. It had been awhile since driving a stick shift but old habits die hard. Within minutes I was back to where my Rav was. “All right. Just a little more luck is all I need.”

I found the tow chain behind the front seat. “I could use a little help here,” I called out to the approaching night sky. It would be a spectacular star studded vision when it got dark.

The chain was short, but there was additional rope tugged under an old coat and first aid kit. The guy had been prepared for anything except what had happened to him. Dusk doesn’t happen long in the desert. Darkness settled in as I worked on connecting up my Rav.

I’d just finished and put the Rav in neutral when I heard the sound of another car coming towards us. Its headlights blinked as it rode the small up and down bumps along the way. I didn’t like how fast it was coming. “Fool.”

I knew how slow the live manikin that was my stranger friend moved even with prodding. This was going to take guts. A deep breath and I was on my way. ‘Maybe if I knock him off his feet and roll him.”

It was worth a try. The darkness made things worse, then my man was highlighted by the headlights. The sound of a car horn blared. I was there. I tackled him in a glancing blow and rolled to a stop, still on the tarmac. The car couldn’t miss us if it stayed on the road. “Please, God.”

It didn’t. The driver did what I had done. The sound of him hitting the pickup was devastating. I heard secondary crunches when it became a pileup including my Rav. “Now, look what you’ve done,” I screamed, frustrated at the stranger standing like a statue in the road.

The driver was a woman. She’d been wearing her seatbelt. The air cushion had exploded. She had a bloody nose smearing her face but here pulse felt good. “You’re going to be O.K. Let me get that guy’s first aid kit. I’m sure it has some pain killers in it.”

“Is he trying to kill himself?” She asked, shaking her head as the air cushion deflated.

“Worse. I think he’s kind of possessed or hypnotised. His mind isn’t working right, that’s for sure. Here. Let me help you.”

She winced, the soreness of strained muscles making her hiss. “What did I hit?

“That is going to be a problem. You struck his pickup which hit my Rav. There’s no cellphone signal, either. Is there any traffic behind you?”

“What? No. All the semi traffic peeled off for the night at the last station. Food, whores, and sleep would be my guess. What were you doing out here?” She pushed away my help and leaned against her ruined Malibu. “You just going to leave him there?”

The small cut on her forehead above her left eyebrow had stopped bleeding, as had her bloody nose. “You’re lucky, traveling as fast as you were going.”

“Answer me,” she sounded mad.

Our attention turned to the guy on the road. There was a dusty whirlwind picking up around him. He disappeared into it. It rose towards an empty dark circle stuck in the star studded sky. “That’s impossible,” I said, feeling the woman stiffen against my side.

The darkness gobbled him up. The humming stopped, then slowly started up in a whisper coming our way. “Do something,” she screamed.

“We’ll die out here if we run,” I said. All I could think about was the humming. It was intentional. If we could break that up, then maybe. . . “

I started clapping my hands in counterpoint, then snapped my fingers in a jazz rhythm. The woman surprised me, catching on. She adlibbed jazz sounds instead of words, She reached for me dancing us erratically away from the rising dust storm. The humming slowed, hiccuped, acting confused.

I didn’t know how much longer the two of us could do this. My partner took control of the situation, dancing us towards the dust storm. She laughed wildly, singing louder, encouraging me to do it also.

“Bah da bing,” and we were alone in a slowly disappearing cloud of leftover desert wind. She collapsed in my arms. A glance above us showed no dark circle. The stars were back in place.

“I don’t think we were what did that. Whatever it was ran out of energy, lost interest, or something.” My words were intended to give her time to gather her strength.

“Too much in one night. I’m Diana Stanford. You are?”

“Rich Robertson. I’m a little dazed myself.” My heart was still pumping twice as fast as it should have been.

“What did we just witness? Was that some kind of alien contact?” Diana leaned her head against my shoulder for comfort.

“All I know is that guy said the Old One’s were coming. He wouldn’t leave when I wanted him to.”

“We didn’t imagine what happened.”

“It happened.” I don’t think it is a wise idea to stick around. Let’s see how bad the Rav is.”

The crash had knocked the Rav out of its rut, is all. “If I drive an inch at a time the desert crust might hold.”

“Let’s put the floor mats from the other cars under the tires for traction.”

“Good idea.”

We got busy. We took what we could from her Camaro and the pickup, loaded it in the Rav and didn’t look back. Diana wanted to talk. “You know that no-one is going to believe us.The sound of the wind passing the car has my nerves jumpy.”

“I wonder if the dude will come back as a changed man, a spy or something. They might send him after us. He was a private detective.”

Diana scrunched closer to lean against me. “We’ve got to stick together. She began singing our Do-wap-a-do song and laughed as I joined in. Comic relief.

It is so hard to tell anything substantive from the public reports about alien encounters. Diana and I have searched hard enough. We didn’t want to stir the waters enough to draw attention to ourselves. “The one good thing is it brought us together.” Diana repeats that when she sees a certain hollow look on my face.

We don’t require much other than each other to keep us happy. We’re both hyper vigilant to our surroundings. Our music pays the bills. Diana saw him first, the guy in the road. I verified he’s back.

“Ready, honey?” Diana stacked the recordings of our music close to our car’s console in case we need them. Time to leave.

Don’ t like Jazz you can dance to? If you are ever caught out in the middle of a road with the wind stirring around you, give it a try.

Word count 1998