Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:12:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Stephanie Silver Subject: I Was Abducted By Sex-Crazed Space Aliens in Burley, Idaho I Was Abducted By Sex-Crazed Space Aliens in Burley, Idaho by Stephanie Silver Chapter 1 When I was a little boy... Now, see? This story's already off to a bad start. My name is Chris Thomas, and I spend so much time, it seems, denying that I was ever anything but female, that It feels a little awkward to start off a story by admitting that I used to be a little boy. But a little boy I once was. With little boy parts, no less. The ones I work so hard now to keep hidden. Anyway... When I was a little boy, I used to go on summer vacations to Burley, Idaho, with my dad and Charlene. Charlene is my dad's girlfriend, although now that they're married, I guess she's technically my step-mother, but I still think of her as his girlfriend. Or like the big sister I already had. Nobody ever asked me where I wanted to go for summer vacation. When you're just a kid, you don't get asked; you get told. But Burley is where my dad wanted to go. That's where he grew up. That's where his parents lived. So every summer my mom would pack me up to go live with my dad for a couple months, and the first thing we always did was get in his car and drive up to Burley. I guess for him it was like going back home. For me, Burley was like... something else. There's not much to do in Burley on a hot summer day, really. Or on a cold winter day either, for that matter. I guess. Maybe. I don't know. I don't recall ever being there in the winter. But in the summer, when I was there, there wasn't much to do. Grandma and Grandpa lived in this two-bedroom brick rambler in a treeless subdivision. It wasn't completely treeless, of course. There was a tree - a big tree - over on the opposite corner of their block. And lots of little trees. Nothing you could sit in the shade of, though. Oh, and, duh, how could I forget that big huge monster of a tree right outside their front room window? Because it was on their neighbor's property, I guess. And Grandma and Grandpa's house didn't have any windows looking out that side of the house, except for the one that had the air conditioner in it and some opaque glass stuff that was supposed to keep the heat from the sun out. And then there were these small, wide windows, really high up on the wall, up near the ceiling, that, being twelve and short for my age, which even had I been twenty-four and tall for my age, probably wouldn't have made any difference to my ability to see anything out of them other than the sky. There were signs on the fence next to the great big tree, and all along the fence, saying that trespassers would be prosecuted! I didn't know what a trespasser was in those days, and I wasn't really sure what it meant to be prosecuted, but it sounded like being electrocuted, only more painful. And if that was the case, I didn't want to have anything to do with it, so I made sure to stay well away from that particular tree. Besides, it was there on the side of that narrow little sidewalk, and not really convenient for a good climb. If you were inclined to climb trees as little boys often are. All that left me, then, was Grandpa's back yard and his great big vegetable garden. 'Cause inside all there was was talking and visiting and looking through old photographs of old people that I didn't know and didn't much care that I didn't know them. I suppose I could have gone up and down the streets searching for someone my age to play with. But the truth is, I wasn't really that good at making friends under the best of conditions, so the idea of compressing the whole process into a single week in unfamiliar territory had just about as much appeal as trespassing on the neighbor's yard and getting prosecuted. To be sure, I did take walks around the block. I dare say I was even trying to make friends. As in, if some lonely kid about my age had suddenly jumped out and asked if I was in need of friendship, I would have said, why, yes, I am, and how good of you to notice. And, in my imagination at least, we would suddenly become the best of buddies, and would look forward to my yearly visits with extreme joy and fondness. But that never happened. And, okay, I can see by now that you're sitting there reading and wondering when the heck the space aliens are going to show up, but I really need to tell stories at my own pace, and all these details are important, so just bear with me and I'll get to that part pretty soon. Ah, that block of houses in Burley. I tell you, in hindsight, knowing what I know now about space aliens and what passes for normality in this world, it's no wonder they chose that particular block in that particular city to visit and conduct their experiments. Let me start with the church. It was... I don't know. I think it was a Catholic Evangelical Episcopalian Protestant. Or something like that. All I know is it had stained glass windows and steps leading up to it that were like ninety feet long and fifty feet high, and if you were so brazenly brave as to sneak up to the door - to trespass, I guess - and so much as lay a finger on the door latch, you would instantly turn into a Catholic. At least that's what my brother told me. `Cept, he wasn't there the summer this story takes place. My sister, neither. `Cause they were both in high school, and I was just out of elementary school, and so they had important things to do at school and couldn't be hauled off to Burley as easily as me, so for that summer it was just me. Now, I wasn't really sure what a Catholic was either, but I knew I didn't want to be one. I could only imagine what my dad would say if I snuck up the stairs, touched the latch, and had to go back home and explain how I'd suddenly turned into a Catholic. So... I was always very careful to not linger too long on the sidewalk there in front of the church. Then there was the home of the former ABA basketball star down on the corner. I wasn't old enough to have ever seen him play, but I remember his name. It's just that for this story, I think it's better if I don't mention his name. Plus, if I did, you might say, Who? 'Cause he wasn't exactly world famous or anything, which is probably why he was a former ABA basketball star and not a former NBA star. But anyway, he was like the local celebrity, and everyone was quite proud that he lived there on their block and every once in a while even came to their barbecues. Did I mention that most of my Grandparents' neighbors were old? Yes. Ancient. I'm pretty sure most of them were in their forties and fifties, and some were even older than that. I think there was one neighbor - I don't recall his name and I never knew exactly where he lived - who was rumored to be in his eighties. And another one, his last name started with a Z, but that's all I'm going to say, because these otherwise fine people probably wouldn't like it if they knew I was throwing their names into my story. 'Cause you know how some folks are about their names appearing in erotica stories. Not you and me, of course, but some folks. Anyway, Mr. Z, I understood to be in his nineties. Nineties! Think of that! Okay, I'll wait while you scrape your jaw off the floor. Yeah, can you believe it? I mean, that's like... He was born around the turn of the century old. The turn of last century, not this one we just had. And that's kind of how the whole neighborhood was. Which kinda explains why I was never accosted by kids my age asking if I was looking for a friend. Wouldn't it have been something if Mr. Z had jumped out one day wanting to be my friend? And they all kept these tidy, immaculate yards, just like my grandfather's, only I'm pretty sure my grandfather's was the immaculatist. Heaven forbid anything that wasn't a blade of 2-1/4" Kentucky Bluegrass should ever have reared its ugly head in his yard - he would have had it immediately exterminated. Or possibly even prosecuted, I don't know. Okay, so... where was I? Down to the corner, to the ABA basketball star's house. From there it was mostly unremarkable until you got to the next corner, where there was a mostly vacant lot with the other big tree I was talking about and some more No Trespassing signs that again threatened violators with potential prosecution. Here I would purposely linger. I was pretty confident I couldn't be prosecuted as long as I stayed on the sidewalk, and I was curious just how prosecution worked. I imagined they had sensors embedded in the ground that would detect a trespasser's footsteps and immediately send a prosecuting bolt of electricity or something that would incinerate - and properly prosecute - anyone foolish enough to disregard the signs. But I didn't linger too long, because there was a tree there that omitted a strange odor that would sometimes literally turn my stomach. So I'd study the signs, and the ground of the vacant lot, and watch my step to make sure I didn't accidentally get any of the droppings from the stink-tree on my shoes, until I was safely around the corner. I don't recall a whole lot about the next street and half of the one after that, other than what I've already mentioned - old houses with immaculate yards and lots of old people. Which leads me back to the house with the big tree that I didn't dare climb. I think it took up half the block, almost. A fourth of it, at least. The yard around the house, I mean. Not the tree. The yard was well-maintained, I guess, but not as well-maintained as Grandpa's. I'm telling you, Grandpa's yard never, ever needed mowing that I could ever tell, even though I saw him mow it every couple of days while we were there, even though he said he tended to let it go while he had company like that. The neighbor's yard, on the other hand, occasionally and typically looked like it was about ready for a good trim. Plus, not that I was really inspecting for lawn defects or anything, but my casual, untrained twelve-year-old eye easily picked out non-uniform patches of grass as I walked by. Gasp! I know. Just imagine how it made Grandpa feel. Anyway... a big yard with a big house. And I seriously doubt that anyone lived there. Not that I could ever detect. It always had that look of having been recently and suddenly vacated. Like the front porch swing would still be rocking, but there'd be nobody sitting in it. Or the grass always right there on the verge of needing to be mowed. Or no driveway and no garage and never a car parked outside that I ever noticed. Never any movement in any of the windows. No sudden closing of the drapes as I walked by to make sure I didn't see something I wasn't supposed to see. Oh! And they had one of those big shiny blue mirror balls in the flower garden out front. Which is how I knew aliens lived there. Which gets me back to the whole point of this story. Now, the reason you and I don't have one of those big shiny mirror balls in our own flower gardens is because you and I aren't space aliens. To us they just look like kinda reasonably cool garden decorations that, on second thought, we don't really need or want. But to space aliens, they're some sort of extra-terrestrial communications device. Don't ask me how they work - I'm not a space alien. And so it was that I came to be playing baseball in Grandpa's backyard one day. By myself. Without a glove. Or a real bat. Although I did have a plastic one and a plastic ball to go with it. Well, you know, there was a chance I might break a window or something if I had a real ball. And chances were, as bad as it would have been if I'd broken one of my grandparents' windows, I knew I would pay even more dearly if I broke a neighbor's window. Except, now that I think about it, the only window I could even see from what I thought of as home plate was in deep, deep, deep, deep, deep left field, and well protected by an awning that Grandpa had installed there to keep the evening sun from blazing into the back storage room. Yes, the biggest windows in the house were in the storage room. Unless you count the front living room window, which was pretty big, too. And maybe my grandparent's bedroom, which was also there in the front of the house, just on the other side of the front door from the living room. It must have had a big window too -- for symmetry reasons - but since I was never inclined to spend much time in my grandparents' bedroom - unless I was sneaking through on my way to the bathroom, using the alternate route that way instead of the normal route through the kitchen - I don't really remember a window there. But I'm sure there must have been one. I mean, it just makes sense that there would have been one there. A big one. Maybe they had that one covered with opaque sun-blocking material, too. I mean, you wouldn't want people out on the front porch being able to watch you sleeping or changing your clothes, right? Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. A line drive with a plastic bat into deep, deep, deep, deep, deep left field if I had any hopes of ever breaking a window. All the other windows that I could see, including all the neighboring houses, were small, high windows just like the one I told you about that you couldn't look out of at the neighbor's No Trespassing tree, unless you were a really, really tall, former ABA star or something. I don't know. There was just something about that particular neighborhood that seemed to discourage windows and the views they might otherwise provide. Like I say, it was space alien paradise. So, I was in the backyard playing baseball. And unless you have a very vivid imagination, I don't recommend playing baseball by yourself. It requires... concentration. And... I was only twelve, so don't expect anything like a full-season schedule with a couple dozen teams and full rosters. I only played a few innings of a couple of games each year with just two or three different teams with about a half-dozen players on each team. Simple stuff. On the other hand, my field of dreams had... Well, there was a scoreboard in deep, deep, deep, deep, deep left-center field that rivaled the scoreboard in Boston's Fenway Park. I had to move my scoreboard to left-center because of the window in left. There was a hedge-trellis in right field, twenty feet high. Center field was the general direction of the No Trespassing tree, which was just past the clothesline pole. First base was three-fourths of the way along the cement retainer that led to the right field hedge-trellis. Second base was the other clothes line pole. Third base was at the corner of the garage on the cement retainer that marked the left foul line, and home plate, of course, was at the corner of the two retainer walls. The cement retainer walls... I call them walls. They really weren't, but I don't know what else to call them. Four inches wide, with the top at ground level. More like sidewalks, really, except if I said sidewalks you'd think something wider. I guess they were more like concrete dividers, marking the boundary between where it was acceptable and appropriate to be a blade of grass, and the area where your life-expectancy was longer if you were a vegetable or a flower. Heaven forbid a wayward cucumber vine or tomato plant should trespass onto the grass. Grandpa would have it quickly and appropriately prosecuted. To the full extent of the law. Fortunately, I was safe playing on the grass and even on the cement retainer sidewalks, and mostly safe if ever I needed to retrieve a foul ball from the vegetable garden, provided I went directly in and directly back out and didn't linger any longer than necessary. And the stands. Of course you couldn't see them, but they surrounded the entire field. Three decks of screaming, rabid fans, all crying for the home team to be victorious. And they often were. Probably more often than often. Victorious, I mean. As in I don't recall the home team ever losing a game there. What I can recall not ever recalling were home runs. With a wiffle-ball and a plastic bat, home runs over the left- or center-field fences, a distance of approximately seventy feet, was nearly impossible. Although I judged that anything that hit the house, should that have ever happened, would have been considered a home run. What was possible, but still extremely unlikely, was a home run over the right field fence and the Emerald Giant. The hedge-trellis. I named it Emerald Giant because Boston's Fenway Park had already taken the name Green Monster. It wasn't so much a problem with distance as it was with height. A long, deep pop fly with a favorable wind was what you really needed. But for most of my life, that exact mixture of conditions never materialized, and I settled for games being won on the basis of hitting and strategic base running. Until one day. One magical day, when the wind was gusting from home plate to right-field, and the home team trailed by three runs with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. That day, I knew the time had come. It was time to treat the crowd, my beloved fans, imaginary as they may have been, to something they'd never witnessed in that park before. A home run. And not just a home run, but a grand slam. A game winning grand slam. No, I just then remembered, it was game seven of the World Series. And I was at bat. I mean, I was always at bat, unless I was running the bases. What I mean is I was batting as myself, and not as one of my imaginary players. When you're not just the star player but also the manager, bat boy and hot dog vendor, you have to wear a lot of hats. So I was up. Me. The star player of my imaginary team in my imaginary stadium. Star player of the entire league, in fact. World famous. I mean, this was like Casey being at the bat, from the well-known poem. You just knew something was about to happen. You could feel it in the air. Or smell it. Or something. Okay, even at something like forty feet, clearing a twenty foot trellis with a wiffle-ball and a plastic bat requires a little help, even on a windy day. I'm not saying it wasn't a legitimate home run. I only stepped out of the batter's box a little. But the umpire - that would be me, too - didn't see it. At least he didn't call anything. Perhaps he too wanted to see something that was sure to go down in history as the stuff of legends. With the wind at my back, I hit the ball high and deep... Okay, wait a minute, that one didn't count. I waited for the wind to gust again. And then I hit it... No, wait, let me try... Just one... more... Yes. Yes! It's... going, going... It's gone! It's a home run, folks! A grand slam! The Emerald Giants win the Series! I trotted the bases, basking in the roar of thousands of adoring fans. I was mobbed at home plate by the rest of my team. I was sprayed with champagne in the club house later. Microphones were shoved in my face by the media. Long lines of fans waited patiently for my autograph. It felt good to be a winner. I even did the commercial. You know the one. "Chris Thomas, you just hit a grand slam to win the World Series. What are you going to do next?" "I'm going to..." Uh... I'm going to have to go get my ball. And guess where it was. That's right. Somewhere on the other side of a fence splattered with warnings that trespassers would be prosecuted, in the yard of confirmed space aliens. Okay, they weren't actually confirmed space aliens. But, you tell me, what else could they have been? I mean, it was either that or give up baseball for the rest of the trip. And there were still five days left to go. Once the champagne stopped flowing, and the media had disappeared, and there were no more autographs to sign, I ventured over to the Emerald Giant. In all my twelve years, I'd never been behind it. I wasn't sure what I might find there. Hundreds of lost baseballs, perhaps. Or a dead body. Or buried treasure. No, wait, if it was buried, I wouldn't be able to find it, so maybe it would just be sitting on top of the ground. Like a pot of gold, with a leprechaun perched on top of it. What were the rules about leprechauns? I didn't know. It probably didn't matter. Pushing aside a few branches, I looked behind the hedge-trellis. It looked like a jungle. It looked like a job for Indiana Jones. Or his across-the-border counterpart, Manitoba Thomas, there in Burley on secret assignment. What I really needed, I realized, was a safari hat. Or at least a fedora, like Indiana Jones would wear. And a leather jacket. All Manitoba Thomas had was a baseball cap and cut-off levis. With the baseball game now a distant memory, I turned my attention to jungle adventure. The leaves and branches were thick as could be, and I had no idea what I might be stepping on. I was pretty sure it was just good old traditional earth, but who knew? I tried to recall just where the ball might have gone, but truthfully, in all the excitement, I hadn't been paying that much attention to trajectories. I was pretty sure it was on the other side of the No Trespassing fence, which was covered in some kind of vine growth of its own. I wasn't sure what I'd do if it was, but the first job was just to find the darn thing. There was a spot about halfway down where it looked like all the leaves and branches were a little thinner. Probably because there was too much shade for anything to grow really well there. No matter how much Grandpa might water it. I could see portions of the redwood fence through the leaves, and thought there was a chance I could climb up a few feet and look over the fence. That wouldn't be trespassing, technically, since I'd still be on my side. I made my way to that spot, climbed up, and started looking around. The neighbor's garage - no, I guess it was more of a bungalow since there was no driveway leading up to it - was about six feet from the fence, and in between was a thin ribbon of green grass - recently mowed. And I just realized I have to back up and tell you one more thing before we get to looking around in that forbidden area. Really, what would a Chris Thomas story be if I ever managed to get the whole thing told in one continuous and logical sequence from start to finish? You'd probably think space aliens had abducted me. Okay, so the night before I'd been outside watching the stars and stuff before climbing into my tent for the night. I guess that was another reason for going to visit my grandparents in the summer. With only two bedrooms, there was no place for me to sleep. So I brought a sleeping bag and a tent, and as long as the weather was nice, I slept outside in the tent, only moving indoors if it looked like rain. So, while I was watching the sky, a UFO appeared. I'm not making this up! A real UFO! It was... Well, grandma and grandpa's house is miles from the closest airport, and doesn't lie on any flight path leading to it. So, whatever it was, it was too low and too far off course to be an airplane. Plus the lights were all wrong for it to be an airplane. Trust me, it was a UFO. And it flew right over home plate in the same direction as my grand slam home run, stopped, in mid-air, and then landed somewhere just beyond the bungalow at which I was now looking. And, not coincidentally, when I walked past their house the next morning, the lawn looked like it had just been mowed. And I'd never, ever seen it look like that. So I knew the space aliens had finally come home. Or maybe that was where they went for summer vacations. So... back to that fence. And, you have to admit, that was a pretty short interruption. Only six paragraphs. Very brief. So... I climbed up on the fence and looked around. The vines to my right were still taller than my head, and obscured most of my view to that side. But the vines to my left weren't so tall and not so thick, so if I pulled them back and leaned over, I could get a pretty good view of the yard to my left. And to my amazement and relief, there was my ball, practically right at my feet. All I had to do was climb over and get it. Climb over a fence that said No Trespassing and warned that violators would be prosecuted. And, just my luck, the owners were home. But maybe if I hurried. I felt the voice before I heard it. "You're trespassing, you know."