Eclipsing Vengeance Read online

  Eclipsing Vengeance

  Star Ascension – Book Four

  Jeremy Michelson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  What Happens Next?

  Thanks for reading

  One

  Now, most people might look sideways at a fella riding the top of a rail tanker car going fifty miles an hour in a driving blizzard. But then most folks tended to look sideways at Buck DeHaas anyway.

  It wasn’t because he had a luxurious and lustrous beard that he braided into three long, ropey strands. Which he did. Or because of the thick, gray flecked hair that flowed out from under his black cowboy hat. He had that, too. Or that he tied that mane in a pony tail behind his head with a strip of leather. And it wasn’t because he dressed like a deranged cowboy with a long, zebra striped duster and crocodile skin cowboy boots.

  No, this was Montana, where folks were conservative, but in a live and let live kind of way. They weren’t uptight like them people next door in Idaho.

  People looked sideways at Buck when he talked about aliens. And not the type from south of the Rio Grande. No, the outer space kind. The E.T. phone homers and the War of the Worlds blast-your-ass-to-oblivion ones. When Buck started talking aliens, people tended to find places to excuse them to right quick. Lots of his conversations ended with folks yanking out their cell phones, saying they had to take an important call.

  It didn’t bother Buck none. It shouldn’t bother me, neither. But I’m his brother, and momma told me a long time ago it was my job to watch out for him.

  Not that the crazy sum-bitch needed watching out for. He could take care of whatever came at him himself.

  Which is probably why Ken Corbin, the oil guy, came to Buck.

  And that conversation with good ol’ Ken led the two of us being atop this fool train near midnight, with fat flakes of snow slamming into our faces.

  Me, I was shivering like a Chihuahua that just had a double shot of espresso. The thick ski gloves I had on might have been preventing my poor fingers from getting frostbit, but gloves couldn’t stop the cramps they was getting from hanging on for dear life.

  The top of the oil tanker car was slippery and stank like, well, a tanker car full of crude oil. Every now and then I’d get a sniff of cool evergreen from the forest we was passing through. It was a literal breath of fresh air.

  I hunkered close to the top of the car. Part to lessen the wind blasting my poor face. And another part because I was afraid one of them overhanging evergreens would flat knock me off the train. I had visions of landing under the wheels and getting slice-o-maticed like hog fresh outta the bbq pit. Or maybe landing on my noggin and freezing to death by the cold, steel rails while Buck chased aliens.

  He wouldn't notice. He was after them alien rustlers.

  Momma said to look after him. She didn’t say nothing about looking after me.

  “I can smell ‘em,” Buck said.

  I heard boots thumping on the can we was on. They bonged on the metal like a giant robot heartbeat. I squinted. I could just catch a glimpse of him through a break in the snow. Fool was pacing back and forth on top, like he was in his living room. He wasn’t afraid of nothing. Not even slipping on an oil and snow slick rail car wearing his dumb-ass crocodile skin boots.

  “You can’t smell nothing but crude,” I shouted back at him.

  Buck came and crouched down next to me. I could smell the cinnamon gum he always chewed. Snap, snap, snap, it went. Man liked spicy. He liked to slice up ghost chili peppers and put them on his Rocky Road ice cream.

  Me, I’d take vanilla any day of the week. Though right then I’d put them ghost peppers down my pants if I though it’d warm me up.

  “We’re gettin’ close to the pass,” Buck said, “I’m bettin’ that’s where the ambush’ll be.”

  I could barely hear him over the clacking of the wheels on the rails and the chugging of the big diesels. We was only a couple cars down from the engines. The snow-scattered light from those big lights on the front was the only reason I had even a hint of Buck squatting down there beside me.

  He had his favorite pump action shotgun in his hands. The one he’d sawn the stock off and made into a pistol grip. Before we left the truck down at Baker’s Crossing, I’d seen him load up fistfuls of shells, stuffing them into the deep pockets of his stupid zebra stripe duster.

  The shotgun didn’t bother me as much as the modified Remington 700 rifle slung over his back. Buck had tinkered with it to the point that it was a lot like the military M40 sniper file the Marines used.

  Buck had used M40s when he was in the Corp. I still remember sitting with one of his old Marine buddies, visiting at the house. The guy was staring at the Remington mounted high on the paneled wall of Buck’s single wide. This dude tipped back his beer, then pointed at it. When Buck puts his hands on that, death follows him, he said.

  I didn’t like to think about it. Buck doesn’t talk about his time in the Corp. And I don’t ask him.

  “This time I’m gonna get them,” Buck said. He fingered the shotgun. I couldn’t much see his face, but I knew he had that mean squint in his eyes.

  “You said that the last time,” I said, “And we rode that dang train all the way to Pasco.”

  “This time’s different,” Buck said, “I can feel ‘em. They’re close.”

  “This is still nuts,” I said, “What good’s a shotgun against spaceships.”

  Buck racked a round into the shotgun. “Guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

  He stood and paced up to the front of the car. The wind whipped his striped duster around him. The snow was thinning a bit. The flakes were getting smaller, and stinging more as they drove into my bare cheeks. The big diesels ahead of us revved up as we started up the last stretch to the pass. I got a blast of diesel soot in my face. I was going to be tasting it for a week. Assuming I lived.

  Two

  Aliens stole Buck the summer he was twelve.

  At least, that’s the story he told us when he came back. He’d been gone for a whole week. Momma was losing what little was left of her mind looking for him. Pappy didn’t seem too concerned. Boys just gotta roam sometimes, he'd say.

  Momma was certain Buck’d been snatched by serial child rapists. Or white slavers. Or maybe rogue circus clowns.

  She had a vivid imagination.

  Our house was just a junky little two room shack overlooking the big river. Summer nights
, me and Buck used to sleep on the front porch. If we was lucky there’d be a breeze that kicked up a bit of cool air from the river. The skeeters would eat us alive on those sweltering nights, but we didn’t care. It was all we knew. It was summer and we could run around barefoot and shirtless all day and all night if we wanted. We’d fish down by the river and play army in the trees.

  Until that one night when Buck went to the outhouse and didn’t come back for a week.

  And when he did…that’s when things changed.

  It was about dinner time. Me and pappy was already at the rickety wood table in the kitchen. Cool air came through the open door by the old wood-fired stove. Momma was whipping up biscuits and gravy. The gravy, with little bits of bacon in it, was bubbling away on the stove. It smelled so good. Made my stomach rumble and my mouth was water like a miniature Niagara Falls.

  Momma had just pulled the biscuits out of the oven when the screen door creaked open.

  We all looked up. There was Buck.

  Momma screamed and dropped the biscuits. Pappy said some swear words, but that was mostly because he was hungry and half his dinner was on the floor.

  Momma leapt over them biscuits and grabbed Buck. She pulled him to her and sobbed and sobbed, going on about how Jesus and brought her little boy back to her. Pappy and I just kinda sat and watched. Maybe we was both a bit on the annoyed side. Not that me and Buck weren’t close, but it was pretty plain that he was momma’s favorite. Not that I really minded all that much. Buck was first born and all. I was just a second helping of mouth to feed.

  Least, that’s what pappy always told me. I think he woulda been happy to not have any kids.

  When momma finally let go of him, she pushed Buck to the table and made him sit down. She got busy whipping up another batch of biscuits. Fresh ones for Buck. Pappy and I got the ones that was on the floor.

  Buck had a look in his eye, like he’d growed a few years inside while he’d been gone. There was the thin set of his lips and how he held his head up and shoulders back. Something about his eyes. They looked over everything, not with wonder or joy or boredom, but like he was calculating how things might be used to beat the crap out of someone.

  It was like he’d disappeared a boy, but come back a man.

  Pappy seemed to notice the difference too.

  Where you been, boy? He asked.

  Somewhere else, Buck said.

  Normally, a remark like that would us a slap upside the head. This time pappy leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrow. Buck gave him the same stare back. Pappy’s jaw worked back and forth as he scratched at his chin.

  Somewhere else got a name? Pappy asked.

  Not that I got to know, Buck said.

  Your momma was worried something fierce.

  Wasn’t my choice, Buck said.

  Pappy kept looking at him. Like he wanted to smack the crap outa him, but like he was kinda afraid to. I looked back and forth between them. I wanted to ask Buck where’d he been, but I didn’t want no attention from pappy, neither.

  So why you back? Pappy asked.

  Buck shrugged. I was hungry.

  You didn’t get no food where you was at?

  Wasn’t the kind of place that had none.

  At that momma started fussing again, moaning that her poor baby hadn’t ate in a week. Buck kinda jumped when she said how long he’d been gone. For a second there, a little bit of something flickered across his face. Might have been fear, but more like was anger. I’d never seen Buck afraid of nothing.

  How long I been gone? he asked.

  Pappy put down his forkful of gravy and floor biscuit. Was a week ago tonight, he said, How long you think you been gone, boy?

  Not so long, Buck said.

  He stood up from the table. His face seemed a little pale, but maybe it was just the weak light from the single electric bulb overhead.

  I’ll be out on the porch, he said.

  I didn’t excuse you, boy, Pappy said. He had the tone in his voice. That low, dangerous sound that made me and Buck stop what we was doing and pay attention. Except it didn’t work on Buck this time.

  Didn’t ask to be, did I? Buck said.

  He walked past pappy, outa the kitchen. A couple seconds later the screen on the front door banged shut. I kept my head down, staring at my biscuits and gravy, hoping pappy’s anger would find somewhere else to spend itself on. There wasn’t no sound but the crackling of the fire in the wood stove and the clink of the spoon on the bowl as momma mixed up more biscuits.

  Pappy went back to eating his biscuits and gravy and I let out a quiet breath. I didn’t dare look up and I took my time, making sure I finished my dinner a little after pappy. He got up and went across the room to sit in his broken down rocker chair to watch the little black and white TV we had. I asked momma in a low voice to be excused. She told me to go out to feed the chickens. I cleared the table and went out the back door.

  I pulled out some grain from the barrel back of the house and threw it at the chickens, who scratched and squawked, flapping their useless wings.

  Then I ran round front to the porch. Buck was lying back on his cot, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. There wasn’t much light to see by. Just the flickering of the TV coming through the narrow window.

  Hey, I said, real quiet so Pappy wouldn’t hear, What happened? Where’d you go?

  He shook his head. Wouldn’t believe me, he said.

  Why not?

  Just wouldn’t.

  I sat down on my cot. I didn’t know what to say. I was bursting with questions, but something about Buck made me hold back. I set there for a while until momma came out with a heaping plate of biscuits and gravy. It smelled so good I was hungry all over again. Buck sat up and took it from momma with a thank you. He was always polite to women. That much of pappy’s teaching stuck with him.

  Momma gave him another hug. I’m so happy you’re back, baby. Don’t ever give us a scare like that again.

  Wasn’t my choice, momma, he said.

  She gave him a funny look, like she wanted to ask him something. But she just gave him another hug and turned on me. You look out for your brother, you hear? she said with a wag of her finger. You keep him safe.

  I didn’t know what to say to that other than, yes ma’am.

  I was the baby brother and I was supposed to look after him? It seemed unfair at the time and still would years later when we was atop a rumbling freight train in the dead of winter. Chasing aliens.

  Buck wolfed down the biscuits and gravy, along with a big glass of milk momma brought out. He finished, set the plate on the floor and let out a big belch. He sat back on the cot, sitting up with his back to the wall. I kinda fidgeted. I wanted to ask him more, but there was something about him that kept me from opening my yapper.

  Finally he turned his eyes on me. Was I really gone a week? he asked.

  Yeah, whole week, I said, How long you think you been gone?

  He stared off into the night. The crickets were chirping up a storm, almost so loud that I couldn’t hear the river rustling by down below the shack.

  Not really sure, he said, Mighta been a day or so. Or maybe it was forever. Things were kinda confused out there.

  Out where?

  He looked back at me. His jaw was working. He wanted to tell me, but something was holding him back.

  I’m not crazy, he said.

  I didn’t know how to reply to that. Whatever it was, it was eating him up not telling. He finally let out a big sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. Even back then his hair was kinda long. But he started to let it grow even longer after he came back. Pappy made a comment a couple times, but Buck just gave him a look, and there wasn’t nothing more to it.

  I’ve been in space, Buck said.

  That just flat didn’t make no sense. I kinda blinked at him for a few seconds. What you mean? I asked.

  He got an exasperated look on. He pointed a finger up toward the sky. I mean up there. Out beyo
nd the Earth. You know, outer space.

  Like in Star Trek? I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. Yeah, like Star Trek, only not so nice.

  And then I said the thing that put me on his side. He was waiting for me to call him crazy, or laugh, or go tell pappy. But I said:

  What was you doing there?

  His face relaxed. Just a little bit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Buck relaxed. Not since he came back.

  Aliens came and took me when I went to the outhouse, he said.

  Before or after you went? I asked.

  He gave me a mad look. What does that matter?

  Just asking.

  That got me another eye roll, but he went on with his story. These aliens, they took me to their spaceship.

  What did it look like? Was it flying saucer?

  It didn’t look nothing like that, he said, I’m not sure it even had a real shape, least not on the outside. It changed whether it was on the ground or in the air. Anyways, they took me to their ship, and–

  Did they stick things up your butt, I asked, I seen this TV show once where–

  No, they didn’t stick anything up my damned butt, Buck said, They wasn’t those kind of aliens.

  Then what–

  You shut up and I’ll tell you, Buck said.

  So I shut up and Buck told me how these aliens took them to their ship and made him sit in a room while they ran colored lights over him. Buck said the aliens kinda looked like people, ‘cept their skin was dark blue and they had thick tentacles sprouting from their heads like hair. They smelled like rancid meat and had orange eyes that never seemed to blink.