Route 66

16 My Performance

I firmly planted hands to hips and took a wide, commanding stance. Then I threw my head back and started to laugh like Santa Claus but substituted "HA!" for "HO!"

"HA! HA! HA!"

Steve looked utterly confused.

Then I pointed my finger at him and laughed even harder, this time throwing in a couple "HO!"s for good measure.

"HA! HA! HA!   HO! HO! HO!"

"Shut up space vermin! What's so funny? Stop it!" Steve yelled.

With an expressionless face and saucer wide eyes, I spoke in a robotic tone and said, "How can you earthlings be so perceptive yet such fools at the same time? We don't look anything like you humans. If we had taken the skin of this female and pulled it over our form, how would it fit so perfectly?"

Steve lowered the revolver and scratched his head.

"We have simply overtaken her mind with our advanced telepathic methods from our base, miles from here," I said arrogantly.

"So, why her? Why not me you lily livered cowards?"

"Her mind is weak and easy to infiltrate."

"Oh, I know what your plan is now. You want her to go to a city so you can find other weak minded folks to...'infiltrate', huh?"

I furrowed my brow as if impressed and said, "We have underestimated your intelligence. We cannot hope to win a war against such intelligent beings. We will leave your planet and search for a new one where the population is easier to control. "

With a shudder, eye roll, and blood curdling scream, I collapsed to the ground, motionless.

Steve immediately dropped his gun and knelt beside me. He checked my pulse and then shook my shoulder.

I twitched my eyes and slowly opened them with a moan.

"mmmm...what happened? Where am I? Who are you?"

"My name's Steve, missy. Is your name Veronica?"

"Yes it is," I said, appearing dazed and confused.

"What was the last thing you done remembered?"

"I...I was driving around and enjoying the beautiful landscape. It was almost twilight so I stopped for a moment to admire the sunset. I heard something to my right, something I'd never heard before. Then I opened my eyes and here you are."

Steve appeared more excited than ever and exclaimed, "Your mind was being controlled by space creatures!"

I feigned an expression of complete surprise and gasped.

"Now, don't you worry, I got rid of 'em. Think hard, Veronica. Do you remember what they looked like?"

I shook my head and said,"I never did see anything, just heard a sound like the pitch of a guitar string going up and down, over and over again."

He nodded and said, "Well, let's get you into town and find a doctor. It doesn't look like them aliens treated your body with any kind of respect." Then he reached for my hand and pulled me up.

I breathed a sigh of relief and maintained a steady pace to avoid raising Steve's suspicions again, even though the temptation to dash ahead and scream for help was intensely frustrating. Soon we were close enough that I could see people milling around the streets of town.

We looked like quite the pair; Steve with his out of control beard, wild eyes, and backpack walking next to a girl with oversized shorts and hair snarled into dirty knots.