No Aliens Allowed (Flight Knights, Book 1)

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Eyes

The smell was like none I’d ever encountered before. It was like a mixture of what I guessed hot molten metal might smell like, burning pine pitch, charred wood, and a hint of burned meat.

I stopped walking.

“Burned meat?” I whispered. “Okay, maybe I can’t do this.”

And that was the first time I saw it.

I froze instantly, mostly out of shock, not to mention a little bit of fear. Okay, maybe a whole lot of fear. After all, I’m only human, right?

My eyes panned left to right and then back again.

“No way,” I exclaimed, trying to convince myself I was seeing an illusion.

Then, in a weird kind of way I felt excited, like I’d discovered something no one on earth had ever seen before. I quickly turned and ran out of the cloud of dust, ripped off my red jacket and waived it as furiously as I could so Hanna and Mark could see it.

“It’s all clear,” I yelled and dropped the jacket to my side.

All I saw were their heads turning toward each other and then looking back at me.

“What are they waiting for?”

Then finally, they stood and started running toward me along the edge of the tree line.

I looked over my shoulder into the cloud of smoke and dust and debris. “This can’t be real,” I said to myself as my urge to go back in grew stronger and stronger.

No, I thought, I better wait for Mark and Hanna to see it too.

But I couldn’t wait. I had to look again. I had to see it with my own two eyes, all on my own. So, I turned and disappeared into the cloud of dust without a second thought.

“Amazing,” I whispered as I attempted to wrap my mind around what I was seeing.

“Is this some kind of joke,” I whispered again. “How can this be?”

I looked at the black structure from one side to the other. I guessed it was about 20 feet wide. But it was impossible to tell how long it was because a good portion of it was stuck in the ground.

I took a few steps closer.

I could feel heat radiating up from the ground through the soles of my shoes. And the structure itself was radiating heat too. As a matter of fact, it was so warm I had beads of sweat forming on my forehead, and the back of my hands and arms.

Again, I took a few steps closer.

Then, in one heart-stopping moment, I froze. I saw two deep-blue glowing eyes in the middle of the structure. They moved in unison as if scanning; slightly left, then slightly right. And then without delay, they scanned back in my direction and locked in a stare with my own eyes.

Then they disappeared.

I panicked.

Where’d they go, I thought—still not moving a muscle.

My chest swelled and my breathing doubled. I felt immobilized.

Just then I heard Mark and Hanna’s voices coming through the smoky air.

“Parker?” Hanna called out, cautiously. “Where are you?”

“Parker?” called Mark.

And suddenly something grabbed my arm.

In theory you could say I came undone. All the nervousness, anxiety and freakishly weird excitement and fear just came out of me.

I jerked my arm away and spun around.

Thank goodness it was only Mark and Hanna.

I grabbed them by the arms, laughing nervously and mostly out of fear. Then I began jumping uncontrollably in an excited panic. And finally I pulled them both to the ground as I squatted and calmed myself down.

I pointed in the direction of where I saw the blue eyes.

“Look,” I said. “Do you guys see what I see? Is it real? Do you see it too?”

Both Mark and Hanna said nothing they just stared.

“Holey buckets,” I yelled, running my fingers through my sooty brown hair. Do you know what this means?

Still they said nothing.

“This is it,” I declared. “This is the galactic discovery of a lifetime. No. This is the biggest discovery in all of mankind. Right here. Right now. Do you get that?”

Then finally Mark spoke up, “Parker that’s not a plane.”

“No kidding, I know it’s not a plane, Mark. I know. I know. It’s a spaceship.”