This is an attempt for National Novel Writing Month. It is not perfect. It's probably not even especially good yet. Xen is not going back to revise anything until he is completely done. So, deal with it.
Hours later, when the night the preceded the diner could almost be forgotten, Dylan dropped the sisters in front of their house receiving, for his chauffeuring, only a kiss on his cheek from Chrys. They did not know what he had be shooting the rearview mirror glances, making certain they were pursued neither by the police nor any hangers-on from the UFOS meeting.
As Jasmine inched out of his back seat, making certain none of it clung to her in her escape, Dylan said, "Jazz?"
"I prefer Jasmine, actually."
"Ah. Well, Jasmine, you really should check out that book I left."
She sighed at being reminded of the less sane world into which she had dipped her toes. "Why?" she asked, preemptively frustrated at his answer.
"It isn't because I believe it. I don't, not a bit of it, it's pretty ridiculous. But they do, the people at that meeting. And, at the worst, it is a hilarious read. The author seriously claims that there are secret tungsten mines under Pine Bush and that Bigfoots act at security guard to them. Oh, and that lemurs are aliens. Seriously, all lemurs everywhere. Actual space monkeys."
Jasmine raised her eyebrows, but this wasn't a joke. "Fine, I will skim through it," she promised.
"Take it with a whole shaker of salt, a grain won't be close to enough."
True to what he said, as Jasmine thumbed through it before bed, the book as rife with not terribly subtle conspiracy theories. The author, Eileen Diamond, purported to be a doctor, but Jasmine felt certain it was a degree in basket weaving. Not only had these ships chased her down conveniently deserted suburban streets since she was a little girl, no one else had ever seen them. Diamond did, indeed, mention her theory that lemurs had an extraterrestrial origin, but claimed the same birthright for Bigfoots and something called Mothmen. Supermarket tabloids seemed to be more skeptical than this author. Diamond also made mention of finding "angel hair" that melted went touched but was so radioactive as to break a Geiger counter and having been shot with lasers coming from the graves in the Jewish Cemetery.
Just as Jasmine was getting to the invisible bubble ships and underground factories, Jasmine's phone on the nightstand buzzed with a call. She checked the ID and saw it was Kathleen.
"Hey, Kat," she said. "It's late, what's up?" She normally wouldn't have answered, even if she considered the person interrupting what should logically have been her sleep a good friend, which Kathleen was not. However, Jasmine still felt indebted for the ride the other day and, she admitted to herself, was a little curious how Kathleen's encounter with the dreadlocked guy went. Vicarious make-outs were better than none at all.
"We are not Kathleen, Ms. Woods. We are not pleased," grunted a robotic voice.
Jasmine's body tensed a moment before her mind identified the owner of the voice.
"Where is Kathleen? What have you done with her?"
"She is safe. If you wish her to continue to be, you will do what we say and delete the picture," Admiral Erikson demanded flatly.
"I did not take any picture!"
There was a second of high pitched interference on the line, then Admiral Erikson said, "We know with whom you've been. We know about the meeting. You will refuse to associate with them ever again. End communication."
The line went dead. Jasmine grabbed a yearbook from her shelf and found Kathleen's home number under her signature.
"Hullo?" asked a groggy voice after the third ring.
"Kathleen?" Jasmine said, incredulous.
"Wha? Jasmine?"
"You haven't... no one strange visited you today, did they?"
Kathleen cleared her throat. "It's... 1:34. Why are you calling?"
"Did anyone, did men dressed in black visit you today?"
Kathleen adjusted the phone loudly. "Ninjas? You called me at this hour to ask me about the ninjas?"
"So they didn't?"
"No, Jasmine. I was in New Paltz all day. Why?"
How to explain? It seemed best not to even try. "Just be careful. I got a weird call from your cell number and... please be careful, okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be careful. Goodnight." Kathleen hung up without waiting for a reply. Jasmine could only hope that Kathleen would remember this as a dream in the morning, as the other option was this dormouse thinking Jasmine was losing her mind. This, in fact, seemed like a valid possibility at first. Then, it occurred to her that it was far more likely one of the members of UFOS, that it had always been them. But why? Did they just need to feel important by harassing her? Did they think this would convince her of the objective reality of UFOs by scaring her?
She thought of the man in the diner, the one spouting his conspiracy theories and trying to convince Jasmine that she was somehow special. She searched through her jeans for the card he'd slipped her, a white rectangle only bearing the word "Sterling". No first name (or, possibly, last name), no phone number, no physical address, no email. She said the word aloud and, a second later, her phone rang. She shut it off before looking at the number and tried to fall asleep in hopes that, when she awoke, this would all have been a dream.
"You look like hell in a toaster," Chrys said when Jasmine walked down the steps.
"Thanks," Jasmine said grumpily, then took a deep breath and continued, "I didn't sleep well last night. I got this call from Kathleen's number, only it wasn't her. It was one of those agents, who told me he knew where I'd been and commanded me to delete a picture I never took." Jasmine didn't see cause to tell her sister about the card or the other phone call. It was just a creepy coincidence and this was absolutely the sort of thing she didn't want her sister getting carried away about.
"What did he say about the picture?" Chrys asked, nervously.
"Oh nothing, just that I had better delete it. Why?"
Chrys turned her large, green eyes on her sister, who realized how wet they were.
"What's wrong?" Jasmine asked, but, remember this look from countless broken lamps and failed tests, clarified, "What did you do?"
"I took a picture of something, that night that you and Dylan saw that first UFO. I'm sorry, I didn't think it was anything and you don't believe in things like UFOs anyway and I thought you'd think it was stupid and I'm really sorry."
Jasmine sorted through her many emotions before saying, "Show me."
Chrys led her to her laptop and opened up the dark photograph. She could make nothing out in great detail, just some lighter patches in the foreground. "You should have told me sooner," Jasmine said. "But we can delete it now and that should be the end of it. It's nothing incriminating."
Chrys's eyes grew improbably larger. "Um. We could delete that one, yeah."
"But?" Jasmine prompted.
"See, I uploaded it. To a forum. About UFOs. Specifically, UFOs in the Hudson Valley... Um... most specifically, UFOs in Pine Bush. And... um."
Jasmine's fingers tensed on her sister's shoulder. "And what?"
Chrys keyed in an address. The original picture appeared with some commentary. Then, below that, people had begun playing with the brightness and contrast. At the bottom of the thread, in near crystal clarity, was a crop of the original picture, brightened and cleaned up. And it was, without a doubt, a picture of several large eyed, stick thin, gray beings staring back at the camera, standing on the bridge of what was categorically a ship. One was pointing directly at the camera. It was impossible to read emotion in their insectile faces, but they looked vexed to Jasmine.
"How many people have seen this?" Jasmine asked, her breath shallow.
"Um." Chrys answered, scrolling to the top, where a counter on the thread pronounced that it had been read 11,251 times. There was no way to take this back, no way that it hadn't spread around the internet.
"You are--oh my god--so stupid!" Jasmine shouted, turning from her sister, suddenly claustrophobic at the sight of how many windows pointed in. Her footsteps echoed off the linoleum floor into the otherwise silent house.
"I am not! You didn't even believe in this stuff a few days ago, you can't blame me!" Chrys said.
"You uploaded the picture. You are the reason those men are harassing me. So, yeah, I can absolutely blame your because it is your fault!"
"It's probably nothing, like Dylan said. Just crazy people playing games," Chrys said.
"You think I am scared of aliens or any of that crap? I am terrified that you are right, that it is just crazy people and they won't know when to stop playing. That you just gave them ammunition to keep this going."
"Then we call the cops," Chrys said slowly. "We call them and you tell them everything that happened." Chrys paused, biting her thin bottom lip. "Well, everything with the men. You should leave out, like, the space ships."
The sisters heard movement from upstairs, their mother finally rousing for work. Until she left, the sisters spent an awkward hour pretending things were normal, so as to not give their mother any reason for concern.
"Okay," their mother said. "I give. What's up?"
"Hm?" Chrys said.
"You two. You are being nice to one another. What did you break?"
Jasmine huffed, a decent show of indignation. "Mom, we're adults. We don't have to bicker all the time." She swallowed another mouthful of yogurt and granola. "Seriously."
Her mother narrowed her brown eyes at Jasmine. "Now I know you did something. But you are right, you are adults. So, whatever you did, just make sure you two have it cleaned up by the time I get home." With that, she finally left them to their own devices, hopefully to clean up this mess so she would never have to know about it.
Before Jasmine could summon the police to their house, Chrys rapidly pointed out that, given their run-in with the law the prior night, they'd be best served going to the police station. This, Jasmine said, was one of the first sensibly things to come out of her mouth.
Chrys called Dylan, who groggily agreed to pick the sisters up as soon as he showered and shaved, but didn't tell them the ultimate destination.
Dylan arrived within the hour, looking scruffy and with an oily sheen to his shoulder hair. Chrys greeted him with a tight hug and a kiss on his stubbly cheek. Jasmine settled for a wave as she slung her purse over her shoulder.
"So, what is exactly the haps?" Dylan asked.
"Jazz got a harassing call from the Men in Black, so we are going to report it to the police in person," Chrys said.
"Bad idea," Dylan said, backing away. "I told you, the cops don't want to hear about this stuff."
"I'm pretty sure they cover stalking and harassment, so, yes, they do. We will just leave out as much about UFOs and we can," Jasmine said. "Or we'll just totally blame the UFO cultists, since the cops don't like them anyway. They're probably the ones doing it anyway, right?"
"I reserve the right to stay in the car," Dylan finally said. "The less contact I have with cops, the better."
"Deal," Jasmine said, starting for the door. She then stopped, noticing she was the only one at the door. Turning back, she saw Chrys beckoning Dylan to the computer.
"No!" she shouted.
"What?" asked Chrys.
Jasmine tried to shut the computer. "You need to take that thread down, you can't keep letting people see that you posted that picture!"
Dylan looked the Chrys. "What picture?"
Chrys turned the computer, on which was one of the cropped and lightened copies.
His mouth opened in shock. "Holy... is that for real?"
"I took it a few days ago. Other people played with it a little, but that is definitely there."
He took the computer and stared at the picture, his eyes glimmering between pleasure and horror. "These... you have an actual picture of aliens. That's the Holy Grail. And they are looking at you! How did you manage this?"
The slightest blush came to Chrys's high cheeks. "I was... taking pictures of things. In my room. And I heard you two outside, so I opened my window to take a picture, you know. So the flash would surprise you? And then there was this silver thing, just floating there. And I pushed the shutter button and, when I looked at it later, that was there."
"What a minute," Jasmine said. "You don't have a digital camera, do you?"
"Um. No. I borrowed Dad's."
"Dad's ungodly expensive, professional camera for work? He would be so pissed if he knew you took it," Jasmine said.
"I put it back! He never knew it was gone. Don't be a total bitch and tell him, please?"
Jasmine huffed. "Why did you have it in the first place?"
The scarlet grew a shade deeper in reply.
"Ew! You were taking pictures of yourself, weren't you?"
The scarlet turned to a crimson bordering on purple.
"That's so gross, Chrys. You used dad's camera to take slutty pictures of yourself again."
Chrys's expression combined mortification that Dylan was hearing this and profound annoyance that Jasmine was saying it. Yes, she'd gotten admonished when pictures of her in a less-than-decent turned up on her father's memory card a year ago, but that is why she bought her own memory card and used that. Jasmine made it seem like she was trying to be some porn starlet, when the pictures were mostly artistic nudes.
"Listen, we don't have time for this, Chrys. I won't tell dad, okay? Let's just get to the cops now."
Pine Bush is a serialized novel being written by Xen. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
He is syndicated throughout the internet and will write for you if you pay him.
