When he felt the corner of his car shaking, Jason wasn’t too concerned. Sure, he was on a pretty desolate stretch of 101 in Northern California in the middle of the night, but he had a full-sized spare in the back that he’d checked the pressure on before he’d started this trip five days ago. He pulled over to the side of the road and thanked whatever deities he could think of that this was the rear passenger tire – pulling to the side of the road in this state was fairly easy, and he’d be changing the tire away from traffic, shielded by the car. He briefly entertained the idea of using his AAA roadside assistance, but the “No Service” notification on his phone where he had hoped would be some signal bars dispelled him of that thought.Coming to a stop, he flipped on his hazard lights and opened the rear hatch of his VW GTI. No one on the road behind him – now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen many headlights for the last hours. But what did he expect? This wasn’t exactly a high-traffic area on a Sunday night. As an extra precaution, he lit the two flares he had and set them back away from the car, their red brilliance casting dancing shadows along the asphalt. Jason set the spare tire on the ground and pulled out the jack and tire iron. The sound of frogs croaking in some pond unseen in the darkness behind him played against the crickets on the cool summer night as he broke the lug nuts loose. He put an old towel from the trunk on the ground before dropping down to lie on his side to place the jack.
The cacophony of night sounds abruptly stopped. Even the gentle hiss of the burning flares faded to silence.
Jason shook his head and wondered with a mild sense of panic whether he was having a stroke or something when a bright white light lit up the drivers side of the car with the brilliance of the sun at noon, no, brighter. On the ground, he could just see the glow and feel the heat being generated. He tried to stare past the wheels of the drivers side under the car to see the source, but the stanchions and guard rail of the center divider blocked any view of the intense light that seemed to grow increasingly brighter. Jason felt more than heard a low rumbling bass note that grew in volume as the light kept getting brighter and brighter…
Jason rolled over and swatted at his phone on the nightstand beside his bed. His flailing hand knocked the silent piece of black plastic, glass, and metal off onto the floor. Heart pounding, he opened his eyes and immediately regretted it – the sun streaming through his bedroom window seemed to pierce his brain and he cringed back under the covers as he realized the noise wasn’t coming from the phone now on the floor, but was the ringing in his ears. He had just about settled down and the ringing faded into background noise when his phone erupted with the ringer on full. He literally leapt at the shock of the noise, half falling out of bed which did have the added benefit of bringing him closer to his phone on the floor.
“Hello?” he answered it without bothering to look at the screen.
“Girlfriend at the door!”
“Michelle?” he replied groggily. “Why don’t you just use your key?”
“You put the security chain on.”
“I… I did?” he managed to get upright and stagger down the hall to the front door. Sure enough, the brass chain hung secure between the door and doorframe. He slid the chain open and Michelle opened the door. “I never put the chain on….” Jason spoke to Michelle and into the phone he still held to his ear.
“Sweetie, you look like shit. Did you sleep in your clothes?” she said taking his phone from him and hanging it up. “What time did you get in last night? You said you would text me so I knew you were okay.”
“What time…? I… I don’t know…”
“Come on, sweetie, let’s put you back in bed…”
Jason obeyed, then stopped as realization hit him: the flat tire. The silence. The light… “Wait!” he abruptly stopped, spun, threw the door open and bolted out to the driveway where his Volkswagen GTI sat next to Michelle’s beat up Toyota pickup.
“Jason? What is it?”
Jason ignored her and jogged around to the passenger side of his GTI. The tire and wheel were fine. He opened the hatch and checked under the panel – the spare still resided in its recess, undisturbed. “I don’t… I don’t….”
“What’s wrong, Jason? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
He told her about the flat, about the light, about waking up in bed. To his relief, she didn’t think he was crazy. He thought she might not believe him one hundred percent, but frankly, he didn’t know what to believe in himself. She led him back to his room and took his shoes off and then helped him out of his pants and shirt. “Hey! When did you get a belly-button ring?!” she laughed.
“What? I’ve never had a…” and he looked down at his bare stomach to see a small silver hoop running through a slightly irritated fresh piercing. “What the hell?”
“It’s cute!”
“Where did it come from?!” he stared at the ring like it was a chest-burster from Aliens.
“You tell me!” she gave him an evil smile. “What else did you get up to over the weekend, hmm?”
he looked at her with a wild expression. “I’m serious! I don’t know how that got there. It wasn’t there last… before the light.”
“Jason,” Michelle said deadpan, “you’re telling me the aliens gave you a belly button ring?”
Jason leapt from the bed. “I don’t know!” he yelled. “I don’t know if there were aliens, I just don’t know. Here’s what I know: at two am this morning I had a flat. There was a bright light. I wake up here fifteen minutes ago, fully clothed, the door is locked from the inside, and I’ve got… a belly button ring!”
Michelle nodded sagely as she studied him raving in his boxers. “Hmm,” she started. “Definitely aliens.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me,” he flopped onto the bed defeated.
“No, sweetie, I’m not.” He glared at her. “Okay, maybe I am a little. But, hey, look, let’s go back out there – where did you say you got a flat?”
“Umm, it was north of Arcata… south of Crescent City, I think. On 101.”
“Okay, let’s go back up there and see what we can find.”
“Now?”
“No, not now. You sleep now. This weekend?”
“Okay,” and Jason dropped into sleep before his head hit the pillow.
The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Jason managed to get caught up after his vacation and followed Internet instructions for tending to his piercing. He didn’t want to keep it, but since he didn’t remember how it got there he thought the best course of action would be to at least keep it from getting infected – though part of him wondered if it was the aliens would they be so careless as to let it get infected? They had, after all traveled across lightyears… this was the point he dropped the argument because the next phrase would logically be “…to give me a belly button ring” and that was just stupid. They both left work early on Friday and drove north on 101 dropping their stuff off in the motel room in Arcata before continuing north to see if they could find the spot Jason had his encounter while there was still sun up.
“There! There! Turn around! Turn around!” Jason pointed, tapping Michelle on the shoulder.
“Hang on, I’m trying!” she pulled onto the shoulder, waited for traffic to clear, then flipped a U-turn and drove the short distance to where Jason had pointed.
Jason didn’t wait for her to turn on the hazard lights before he bounded out of the passenger seat. “Holy shit! Look! Those are my flares!” he pointed at small lumps of ash both with the unmistakable red nub of a flare still present.
“Yeah, I see,” Michelle said carefully timing her exit from the car with gaps in the cars rushing by. “So you were….?”
“Right about where the car is now,” Jason said, hurrying back to stand next to the car. He looked behind him, “There, through those trees — there’s a pond. I remember frogs.” He dropped to his belly and stared across the road from under the car. “This is it! I can see the way the center guard rail lined up…. This is the place!”
Michelle looked around, trying to find some sign that made sense of the location, but failing. “Well, there’s clearly nothing here now — other than your burned out flares.” She took advantage of a gap in traffic for both sides to hurry across the street with Jason following. On the northbound shoulder she looked over the guard rail to the field beyond, overgrown with vibrant green brush and wildflowers — all of which appeared undisturbed. “If something came down here, it didn’t leave any mark.”
“This is where the light came from!” Jason insisted, agitation creeping into his voice.
“Jas, I believe you,” she touched his arm. “I do. I’m just saying, there’s nothing here right now. Why don’t we go back to the motel, take a nap, and come back tonight around the time you were here?”
Jason processed her statements and nodded, looking only a little defeated. He nodded, “Okay.”
They crossed again and drove back to the motel in silence. Drapes drawn, they climbed under the covers and Jason spooned Michelle as they tried to conjure sleep in the middle of the afternoon. “What do you hope to find tonight?” Jason asked quietly.
“I should ask you the same question,” she replied.
He let out a long sigh. “I don’t know,” he said after a few moments. “I’m afraid… there’ll be nothing. I mean, that’s likely, right?”
Michelle turned over to face him. “About as likely as a belly button ring from an alien,” a trace of wickedness in her smile.
They both laughed. Then Jason pressed, “Seriously, though, what do you hope to find? Why’d you suggest we come back up here?”
He studied her face as she stared above his head, thinking. “I don’t know, but the flares were a good start.”
“How do you mean?”
“They prove you were here like you said. You still have the spare in your car, so if absolutely nothing else, there’s the mystery of your belly button ring and also how a flat tire was somehow repaired and you got home.”
“Yeah…”
She tucked her head under his chin and they both eventually drifted off into a fitful sleep.
Despite wake-ups, they managed to sleep until late into the night, getting up shortly before midnight. They showered and dressed and headed out to the car. Besides the difference between the summer daylight and dark night, a heavy fog had crept in over the the town while they had rested, chilling the night air considerably.
“You want to drive?” Jason asked Michelle.
“Sure. You navigate and spot, okay?”
They’d marked their stop earlier in the day on Google Maps, and endeavored to find it in the dark as they pulled out of the parking lot and onto northbound 101. Michelle noticed the road seemed almost deserted at this hour as she sped northwards. The fog that had enveloped Arcata broke up into patches by the copses of trees alongside the freeway. Faster than she remembered earlier, they reached the spot but on the northbound side. Michelle pulled over to the shoulder and they both looked across the freeway to where the nubs of the flares were just barely visible in the fog-dimmed moonlight.
“I’ll go up there and turn around like earlier,” she explained.
“Michelle, what the hell is that?” Jason pointed into the trees that bordered the field they’d looked onto earlier in the day.
Michelle looked into the darkness and suddenly saw two small jets of steam. The nose of an enormous elk poked from the dark, followed by its huge rack of antlers. “Holy shit,” Michelle said. “I’d seen the signs warning of elk crossing, but… goddamn that guy is huge.” Both watched as the elk sauntered into the moonlight slowly. Abruptly it stopped with a jerk. Almost mechanically, it turned its head and latched its black eyes on Jason and Michelle.
“Why is it looking at us?” Jason asked.
“Uh… I don’t know…”
The elk, a dozen yards from them, started towards their car slowly but determinedly.
“Go! Go! Go!” Jason yelled.
Michelle didn’t need the motivation, as she slammed on the accelerator and dropped the clutch, the front wheels spun briefly before catching and launching them forward. Michelle fought the rough shoulder and steered for the road, picking up speed.
“He’s following us!”
“How can he be…” Michelle started, but turned her head to see the Elk directly behind them. The speedometer already registered 35 and climbing. “That’s not possible!” she shifted to second.
“What the hell?! He’s gaining on us!”
Michelle looked over her shoulder to see the elk indeed starting to overtake them as the car sped past 60 and she shifted to third. She drifted towards the center divider, hoping to cut off the freak elk from overtaking them.
“Holy shit!” Jason said, and Michelle turned her head enough to see the elk bound over the center divider and pick up speed, starting to come even with them. Michelle negotiated a curve at 70, throwing the car into fourth as the elk drew even with them. Jason gawked and Michelle stole glances from the road as they both looked over at the elk. Mechanically, again, the elk turned its head and massive antlers to stare directly at them, black eyes locking with theirs.
“Aaah!” they both screamed in unison.
Their screams were drowned out by the air horn of a logging truck running southbound that slammed into the elk at full speed.
The elk exploded. Jason and Michelle continued their scream, but Michelle had the presence of mind to slam on the brakes and swerve towards the shoulder. The car skittered heavily as the ABS kicked in and they stopped with a slide on the dirt shoulder. As soon as the vehicle came to a halt, both jumped out of the car and stared back towards the logging truck. After slamming into the elk it, too, had hauled to a stop. The night air stunk of the acrid reek of hard brake use and the metallic smell of the elk’s blood. They could see the hazard lights of the trailer blinking as the driver climbed from the cab, and stared at the front of grill. They watched him in the wash of his headlights as he took off his baseball hat, shook his head, replaced the hat, then climbed back into the cab. The hazard lights turned off and the air brakes released with a creak and a hiss as the truck lumbered into motion with the driver working the gears. They both kept watching wordlessly as until the lights of the truck disappeared around the bend. Then they both silently climbed back into the car and closed the doors, shutting out the night.
“Michelle,” Jason started slowly.
She nodded vigorously.
“What in the hell did we just see?”
“I…” she stuttered, “I’m really not sure.”
Jason nodded slowly.
Michelle wordlessly started the car, put it into first and started forward with caution. She checked the road and maneuvered the car through a gap in the center divider and started back southbound. Approaching where the semi had met the elk, they both saw the carnage of the impact. “Ewww,” Jason said. While disgusted, sure, Michelle actually drove slowly through the gore with a little relief. Sure, the elk had managed to follow them at 70 miles per hour — which was absolutely impossible — but the viscera on the road declared that this was a flesh and blood animal, not some… Terminator elk.
As if echoing her thoughts, Jason remarked, “I’m glad that wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger in an elk suit.”
“No shit.”
They drove on southbound towards their GPS point, Michelle quietly surprised how far their flight from the elk had taken them. When they reached the spot, she pulled onto the shoulder, set the hazard lights, and they both climbed out again. Here the moonlight broke through the fog and bathed the roadway in a silver sheen. Like the week before, frogs croaked in the pond to the west and crickets chirped from everywhere else. The peacefulness of the situation belied the chaos just a few hundred yards north, but both Jason and Michelle were glad to breath in the calm summer night air.
They walked to the back of the car where Jason opened the hatch and retrieved a pair of flashlights and handed one to Michelle. She flipped hers on and cast the beam back down the road northward and remembered gratefully that a curve hid their position from the elk-splosion. Jason turned flashlight across the road towards the field, thinking how weak the beam was compared to the blinding light he’d encountered the week before. They both wandered up and down the shoulder keeping within a dozen feet or so of the car. Jason, approaching the car from the north, caught the lump of a burned out flare in his light beam and he instinctively kicked at it, scattering the ash into a small cloud and the remaining red nub careening towards the edge of the asphalt.
“What was that for?” Michelle asked.
Jason shrugged as they came together. “I don’t know,” he said with defeat. “What are we doing here? I mean, you were right before — what am I expecting to find out here? As if lightning were to strike twice in the same—“ He didn’t finish his sentence before he doubled over in pain. A sharp burning sensation started at his belly button and blossomed into his abdomen, his vision flashing white with pain. He reached for his stomach and the belly button ring felt searingly hot even through his shirt as he groaned.
“Jason?!” Michelle gasped. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m experiencing an incredible amount of pain in my stomach and my belly button ring is, for some reason, super-heated.” Or at least that’s what he wanted to tell her, but the only thing that came out was “Ergg-arg-ooh-fuck fuck fuck fuck owww!”
Several things happened in rapid succession. First, the pain in his abdomen disappeared as quickly as it came leaving him panting in relief. The piercing white light erupted over the east side of the road, just as it had a week ago. Turning towards Michelle to make sure she was seeing what he was seeing, Michelle wasn’t there. He could feel the light getting brighter and now he could hear the thrumming bass note like before. “Michelle!” he yelled, but his voice sounded hollow in his ears as the rumbling bass grew louder. “Michelle!” he tried again, but the light and sound overwhelmed him again. He turned towards the light, trying to shield his face, but the light seemed to penetrate through his hand and blind him, the sound pounding in his chest and blotting out thoughts.
“Michelle!” he tried one more time, but couldn’t even hear his own voice. Then everything went black.
