It seemed like hours before they were out of the water, then he was set on his feet and commanded, with a push, to walk. His leather Oxfords didn’t work out well on the slippery rocks. His impatient captors dragged them off his feet.
His body was an ocean of pain and exhaustion. He no longer cared what was happening or why; he simply prayed that it would be over soon. He didn’t know that his journey had only just begun.
Nobody serviced Nishitsus like McGarrity Nishitsu in Apache Hats, Missouri. Mr. McGarrity had commercials made especially for airing, overnights. “It’s 2:00 a.m. and your Nishitsu needs a tune-up—where do you go? McGarrity Nishitsu! I’m Mike McGarrity, and I’m here to give you my solemn promise—nobody services Nishitsus like McGarrity, twenty-four hours a day!”
For a chronic insomniac like Jon Usumi, working overnights wasn’t so bad. Sometimes it was a drag when the second shift left him their unfinished work, but mostly you got easy jobs from other insomniacs. Oil changes, tune-ups, fix a belt, test an electrical system. But every once in a while some oddball would roll in with a really strange job, and wouldn’t you know it always happened when Jon was on the shift all alone.
Some sort of a sound caught his attention, and he dragged his head out from under the hood of the 2003 Nishitsu Grasshopper. The Grasshopper was the latest attempt by the Japanese home office to cash in on the economy SUV market The Grasshopper’s fuel pump was so flawed it could cause a fire when the vehicle wasn’t even running, and Jon could replace one without looking. He squinted at the open garage entrance as he worked.
There were people out there, but they were staying in the darkness of the lot. The inside of the repair garage was ablaze with bright light.
“Hello?” Jon called.
He heard growling.
“Who’s there?”
A man came out of the darkness wearing sunglasses—and nothing else. He was a hairy, filthy creature with flesh as white as death. He had an armful of rocks, which he dumped on the spotless floor of a repair bay. Then he started throwing them at the lights.
“Hey! Stop that.”
His aim was good. The second rock shattered an overhead lamp.
“Hey, asshole, what do you think you’re doing?” Jon grabbed his cell phone, which elicited excited grunts from the group still outside in the darkness. The one with the sunglasses sent his next rock flying at Jon. It slammed into his rib cage with bone-crushing force, and the phone clattered across the floor.
Jon crawled for the phone as he heard more fights being taken out by the rock thrower. The garage grew darker. The people outside became more excited. How many were there? Who were they?
Another rock sailed out of nowhere and knocked the phone away just as Jon reached for it again. The pain from the broken ribs was blinding, but it would be a lot worse after he’d been forced to march for forty-eight hours.
As the repair bays grew darker, the creatures outside entered and helped with the rock throwing until every bulb was shattered and only the Exit signs illuminated the place. Jon never did reach the phone.
They were albinos, all of them, just like the one in the sunglasses, and they were all as filthy. Jon might not have been so quick to judge them if he’d known he’d be just as dirty soon enough.
The albinos started grabbing toolboxes and equipment, and Jon noticed they were looking at their hands. As he struggled to sit up, he glimpsed one of the hands and saw a permanent marker drawing of a ratchet wrench toolbox. The albino grunted over the hand and searched until he found the toolbox, which he poked experimentally, then grabbed. Other albinos took tools of every description, and several went behind the parts counter, stuffing auto parts into sacks.
They’ll take what they want, then leave, Jon thought optimistically. But one of the albinos had to have had Jon’s picture on his hand. The albino grinned and reached for him.
“Don’t! Please!” Jon Usumi tried to run and found himself locked in the arms of the ugliest, biggest brute in the entire group. Jon shouted and straggled. The brute growled at him. Jon kept shouting until he found himself hanging by his ankles. The brute pounded Jon’s head on the once immaculate garage floor.
He had to pound Jon three times to make him shut up.
Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Charlie Roca didn’t trust what the system was telling him.
“Can’t fucking be.”
“You want me to play it again?” cried the system operator.
“Yes.”
“Fine.” The operator played the video, which was now forty-five seconds old.
The monitor showed the main compartment of Emergency Federal Command Authority Station #5. The nuke-proof bunker was deep underground, right below Roca’s feet and protected by eighteen layers of structural and radiation shielding. There was just one way in or out, and that door was bolted shut.
