Chapter 40: Mysteries and Mayhem

Late-August, 1986

ON A TROPICAL-LIKE ISLAND ON A PLANET 350,000 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH

BOB POV:

Our little ‘Adventure’ has suddenly turned into a most curious mystery.

We’re looking all around, trying to figure out how this tiny baby got to this island. She was just lying here, wrapped in a furry skin of some kind, and crying. Ed and Greg, while admittedly not expert trackers, are looking to see if they might find some evidence of this child’s mother.

There’s no way she could have survived here for more than a couple of days without her mother’s milk, or food or water. She was a good distance from the big pond, although not that far if her mother is around here somewhere.

We really had no idea how old she might be, since the natives on the continent are all very small, themselves. They’re also nearly 500 earth-miles away and in all of our checking, we had never seen anything resembling a boat.

Linda offered her breast to the infant and she took it willingly and very hungrily. “Yeow.” Linda yelped, “This little munchkin bit me. Stop that or you won’t be getting any until I can express some.”

I smirked, “It’s too bad we don’t have any bottles or your pump. I think she’s older than our kids. You never complained about them biting you.”

She grumped, “Our kids seem to understand how not to bite too hard. CJ has six teeth now and he NEVER bites any of us very hard. The twins, as you know, have their two bottoms and their tops are almost all the way in. Erik likes to chew my nipple, but, this little munchkin was almost all of hers in and liked to bite my nipple off. That would make her at least a year old by our standards. Did we bring any cereal?”

I decided to cut a trail back to the big pond, then on to our proposed campsite. I figured that if we perhaps had scared the mother away, if we cut a clear trail, she might get brave and come to try and find her baby.

We weren’t going to leave her there!

Linda said, “This little one was really hungry. My guess is, judging from our kids, that she hasn’t eaten in nearly a day or more. She’s drained one of my breasts completely and is working on the other. She’s only 2/3 the size of Olivia or Erik and has consumed nearly what Olivia does in a day. I was nearly ready to get one of you guys to help me out, I was so full.

I flashed Greg and asked him to pace off my trail, so we’d have a rough idea how far we were away from here. I found some flagging in Linda’s backpack and tied a big swatch in a tree so we could find this spot later if we had to.

First, I flew up high, to be sure where our campsite was, then I looked for the path of least resistance back to our site. I hung some more flagging in the trees so I could follow it from the ground. Then I commenced to ‘machete’ my way back, with Linda and the baby following a safe distance behind me.

Ed and Greg kept looking for the mother, or father, or both.

When I finally broke through to our campsite, I figured we were roughly 150 yards from where we found the baby. I glanced at my watch and realized our shed would be here in less than 40 minutes.

I was just about to flash Ed and Greg, when Greg hollered, mentally, “Ohhh NOOO, holy shit! I think we found the mother ... Awww fuck. Something has mauled her to death.”

Ed was weeping, “And her two kids, too!”

I looked through their eyes and saw the carnage.

Something very ferocious had torn this small woman and her two little kids to pieces. They were near a cave that must have been where they were living. That would explain why we’d never seen them before and with the dense foliage, it would have been doubtful we ever would have, either. The question still remained, though. How did they get here AND now, are there more of their kind?”

AND ... what the hell did this to them and where is it now?

Our fun little adventure was quickly turning from a mystery into a nightmare.

Just then three loud shots rang out. BANG, BANG-BANG.

Greg flashed, “Nice shot Ed ... you got that big, ugly fucker!”

Greg flashed again, “I think we may have just killed that predator. The fucking thing just jumped out of the bushes and came after us. We’re bringing it back so we can gut the thing, to see if it’s what killed these people.”

Seconds later Ed and Greg popped into the clearing, along with this ... THING, that looked like a cross between a mountain lion and a wild hog. It had fur, the color of a mountain lion, but also had tusks with teeth and a long snout like a huge wild boar.

It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.

It also had three huge holes in its head, courtesy of Ed’s .457 Auto-mag.

I reminded them of the impending arrival of our shed.

Greg was now completely out of his earlier ‘funk’ and taking charge. “Okay, Bob, you’ve got some nylon rope in your pack. Toss it over that tree limb and let’s see if we can’t hoist this thing up so we can bleed it out and then gut and butcher it.”

“Do you know how to do that, Buddy?” I asked.

He chuckled, “I’ve read about it, now I guess it’s time to see if I learned anything. The question will be: will it taste more like Lion, which I understand doesn’t taste all that good or Boar, which can be mighty tasty.”

Ed added, “I’ve helped field dress and butcher a deer, so I can help. This is much bigger and uglier though.” He huffed, “It’s too bad I made such a mess of its head. This would be one hell of a trophy!”

They quickly started cutting and the smell liked to make me puke. When Greg separated the guts, then sliced open the stomach, I DID puke.

There were fingers and bits of undigested flesh still in its stomach.

This WAS our predator.

The next question ... were there any more of them? There almost had to be, as this one had to have come from somewhere. Judging from the genitals, this was a male. I was just hoping this was an adult, not a ‘young-un’ as they say.

I couldn’t imagine one bigger than this. This bastard had to weigh over 450Lbs. The humanoid inhabitants of this place may be small, but, this sucker was big.

I also felt like a heel having joined Charlie in mocking Greg about needing guns... I wanted a grenade launcher now! A couple AK-47s wouldn’t be bad, either.

I really wished we had waited for Big Willie.

His hunting and tracking skills would be supremely helpful right now. It’s just that, this baby would probably be dead. My guess is, that the mother had hidden her baby when she saw that big fucker coming. She then tried to lead it away from her little one. Unfortunately, she also led it to her cave. Since I’m not a forensics expert, it’s also possible this predator may have killed her kids previously. For us, there was just no way of knowing.

I just knew our shed was only minutes from arriving and we needed to get down there to answer THAT question. ‘Did the portal reappear at a given time before the shed appeared?’

We all popped down to the beach.

Sure enough, the portal was just behind Greg’s pin flags. I just knew Ibera would be watching and wondered what she would think of Linda’s new ‘baby’.

I felt we needed to send a message.

I just knew that Linda wasn’t leaving this little one behind. Could she take the baby into the portal with her? I was concerned, since we’d already discovered why we couldn’t hold hands. Would the baby get separated from her when she entered the portal?

While we were waiting I hurriedly scribbled a message on the back of our ‘photo-map’.

I was just hoping she could send a reply somehow.

I would check this area every few hours to see if it might show up.

We heard a weird whistling, then, like a stiff breeze came out of the portal. Seconds later, the shed materialized a few feet in front of the portal. I held my message over my head with everyone pointing at it. I just hoped she saw it.

Then we looked closely at the shed.

There was a note on the door:

Ed started laughing. He was laughing so hard he was doubled over.

“Ed, what’s so funny?”

He gasped, “Really? Open Sesame!? Like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves?”

Then I remembered a movie about a poor guy, a woodcutter or something, who figured out these thieves’ password, ‘Open Sesame’ to open a secret hiding place for their loot. When I read the note again, I started laughing too.

Greg and Linda failed to see the humor and looked at Ed and me like we were crazy.

Greg huffed, “Makes perfect sense to me. Since nobody here would know the language, we’re the only ones who can open it. It’s not like we need a special password!?”

He was so serious that Ed and I just lost it again.

Greg and I put our hands on opposing sides of the shed and teleported it to our campsite just like we’d done the pallets of cash.

Ed and Linda popped in behind us and Ed shouted, “Open Sesame!” ... and nothing happened.

Greg harrumphed, then said, slowly, “Open says me,” and we heard the latch unlock.

“You guys are strange.” He said with a smirk.

I’m going to have to find that show when we get home.

CIA Headquarters, McLean, VA

William ‘Willie’ Monte POV:

When I walked into the CIA building, I felt a strange vibe going on. Nobody was looking me in the eye and most people seemed to be avoiding me.

I saw the Agent who’d tailed us to the airport and had subsequently fallen asleep. He strutted up to me and got all huffy, “Hey, asshole ... just where the fuck did you and your two friends go?”

I tried to ignore him as I continued toward Maggie’s desk.

The bastard grabbed me from behind and tried to spin me around.

Bad move!

I grabbed him by his shirt and roughly foisted him up against the wall. “That’s none of your business ... ASSHOLE. I was on fucking vacation ... why the fuck were you following me, anyways?”

His eyes were as big as baseballs and he was trembling and pissing his pants, “Sorry! I’m Sorry. Franklin made us follow you. I was under orders not to lose you.”

I grinned, “Well, I see you fucked that up ... maybe you should look for a job as a mall cop!?”

(That was the biggest insult there was around the Agency.)

“I will, I will ... just, put me down. Please, Agent Monte!?”

That’s when I noticed his feet were over a foot off the ground. And I was only using one hand.

I’m gonna have to go to the gym to see just how strong I really am. I hadn’t realized just how easily I could have crushed his chest in.

I let go and he fell to the ground. He was looking up at me, with something between fear and animosity in his eyes. I bent over so he could hear me whisper, “If you ever touch me again, I’m really going to hurt you ... now get the hell out of my sight.”

With that, he scurried off like the devil was after him.

When I stood up, I heard Maggie giggling, “Holy shit, Bill! Have you been working out? That guy must weigh over 220 pounds and you lifted him like he was a feather.”

I sighed, “He really pissed me off, Mags. I WAS supposed to be on vacation, you know?”

She patted my hand, “Oh, I didn’t say he didn’t deserve it, after all, he grabbed you first. I’ll bet he never tries THAT again.”

I grinned at her, “It’ll suck to be him, if he does. So, I heard through the grapevine I was needed back here. Do you know who I’m supposed to report to?”

She frowned and looked at me sympathetically. “Agent Marek. I know, you don’t like the guy. This place has been in utter chaos since you left with your two buddies. You have no idea what all has happened. Chen has disappeared, Rodgers is in the slammer, awaiting trial for subversion, Franklin got promoted to Chen’s, Executive Director’s position and Marek got promoted to Rodgers’ position.

“Bill, be careful, please, scuttlebutt has it that Marek is trying to put a team together for some special mission. Your buddy, Bruce, has already been selected and I think they want you to lead the team. That’s all I know.”

Well, at least I had Bruce, Agent Bruce Bixby, with me. He and I had been on several missions together and we got along and worked well together.

That was the only good news though.

I looked at Maggie and tried to smile, “Mags ... about our date...”

She cut me off, “Don’t you dare say you were only kidding about that ... please?”

She was trying not to scowl, but instead seemed to be more hurt that I might be trying to break our date.

Nothing could have been further from my mind.

I took her hand, VERY gently and looked into her eyes, “Maggie, there’s no way I’m going to break our date. In fact, I was just trying to tell you that I haven’t been on a date in so long, I’m afraid I don’t know what to do.”

She broke into a tentative smile and I swear I saw a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “Oh, well, it’s been a while for me too. Why don’t we just go out to dinner after work and like, figure it out together?”

I looked around and since nobody was in sight, I walked around her desk and gave her a hug. Again, remembering not to accidentally squeeze the life out of her.

She giggled, “Now, that’s a good way to get a lady to say yes!”

I chuckled, then whispered in her ear, “Mags, there’s so much I want to tell you. I need this more than you know. Wait for me after work and you can ride with me, or I can follow you home to drop off your car, okay?”

She nodded, then her smile slowly faded. “Bill ... are you okay? I mean, I’ve known you for over three years and I’ve never seen you like this. I’m not complaining, just sayin’.”

“Mags, let’s just say that my two new friends have opened up a whole new world for me. I really need someone I can confide in, so I can talk about it.”

She pulled me into an even deeper hug, “I hope we can do more than just talk...” She was looking at me mischievously.

I swatted her ass, “If you don’t completely freak out about what I want to tell you, then, you can count on it!” I grinned seductively back at her and waggled my eyebrows.

She giggled, cutely and blushed, “Be still my heart! You best not be pulling my chain, William Monte, or I’m going to cry for a week.”

I know ... I’ve been hanging out with my new family too long ... especially Bobby, when I answered, “Would crying out in orgasmic bliss for a week be so bad?”

We both broke out laughing and she smirked, “Oh God, I’m going to have to meet whoever you’ve been hanging around with. They sound like my kind of people!”