Making it to Billings took me longer than I’d expected it to. As it turns out, hitchhiking on a remote road during the middle of the night isn’t the safest thing you could do. Go figure, huh? It was fine, though. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
With that said, my real problems were still ahead of me.
I didn’t quite remember what the agent who’d slipped me the paper looked like. When we met up, they were all already wearing gear. He was definitely white, though. About six feet tall. Fairly muscular build. Shouldn’t be too difficult to spot.
The paper also specified that he’d be in the lobby, so that’s where I headed once I found the motel. Once in, I looked around. The place was nearly empty, with only four people sitting around. An older couple, a single woman, and a single man. He was white. Tall. Probably in his thirties. Most likely who I was looking for.
“Tell me you’re the guy I’m looking for.” I said, approaching him.
The man looked up at me, as his expression morphed into one of confusion. He shook his head. “I think you’re mistaken sir. I don’t know what you mean.”
I muttered out something along the lines of “my bad”, before getting ready to walk away. But before I could, the man started chuckling. Yup. This was the guy.
“You looked so worried there,” he said, in between laughs. “Jesus, that’s funny.”
Safe to say, I was starting to get pissed off.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
The agent wiped a tear from his eye as he calmed down, before checking the time.
“Twenty minutes left.” He said.
It was pretty obvious what he was talking about. Had it really been close to twelve hours?
“What the hell’s gonna happen in twenty minutes?”
The man grabbed his jacket and got up. “Nothing good. Follow me.”
“Follow you to where? I’ll kick your fucking ass if you don’t tell me what’s going right now.” I said, anger rising in my voice.
“Right here? In the lobby? That’s a bad idea. Come up to my room and do it there instead.” He responded.
Before I could say anything else, he was already walking up the stairs. I followed close behind, nearly fuming at how shady he was acting. Once he opened up the door to his room, I couldn’t stop myself from lunging in and grabbing his throat.
He didn’t fight back. But at the same time, it didn’t seem like he needed to. His neck inexplicably felt like a thick, steel pipe. The harder I gripped, the harder it hurt my hand. Soon enough, I just let go. I stepped back, a dumbfounded expression on my face.
The agent checked the time again. “You done now?”
I didn’t respond. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the mini-fridge and poured out two big glasses, sliding me one while downing his at the same time.
“I’d recommend you drink that quick.” He said.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. “What did you inject me with? What’s gonna happen to me?” I asked.
“Well you’re gonna find out if you keep asking questions,” he said. “And trust me, you really don’t wanna fucking find out.”
He opened up the closet and unlocked the safe inside. He took out a briefcase, flipping it open to reveal four syringes. This time, they were filled with a blue liquid.
“Drink up,” he said, gesturing towards the liquor. “Cause this is gonna hurt.”
“If you think I’ll let you inject me with something else, you’re a fucking idiot. Tell me what the hell is going on right now.” I responded.
He laughed obnoxiously. “You’re calling me an idiot? The same guy who put enough trust in the government to take one of the most blatantly sketchy jobs of all time is calling me an idiot? That’s rich. You guys should’ve jumped out of the fucking truck when you had the chance.”
I considered responding but bit my tongue instead. I really couldn’t argue against that. It certainly wasn’t my brightest moment.
“Doesn’t fucking matter,” I finally said. “You still need to tell me what’s going on.”
“Trust me, I will. But you need this first.” He said, holding up one of the syringes.
I shook my head. “No. What I need first is an explanation.”
The agent sighed, checking the time once again. “Ten minutes,” he said. “You really want to make this more painful than it needs to be?”
“I guess so.”
I wasn’t budging. Again, not one of my brightest moments.
The man shrugged, sitting back in his chair. “So be it. We’ll wait.”
The stern, confident face I was putting on certainly didn’t reflect how I was actually feeling at that moment. The agent had a stranglehold on me in just about every conceivable aspect. I hated that fact. I never could accept people having power over me.
I if were a smarter man, I would’ve jut listened. But here we are.
Ten minutes passed and nothing happened. I nearly breathed a sigh of relief until I felt my arm starting to itch. I scratched at it, only to feel my finger quite literally digging into my flesh. I looked down and nearly choked. It looked like my skin was rotting away. And it was spreading fast.
“So,” the agent said, holding up the syringe. “You want it now?”
“Fuck it!” I spat, catching it as he tossed it to me. The pain was starting to become unbearable. I stuck the needle into my vein and pumped the mystery fluid into my bloodstream. At that point, the rot had completely consumed my forearm. It was horrifyingly disgusting to look at.
In my mind, there was no fate worse than that shit spreading to the rest of my body.
“That’s rapid necrosis right there,” the agent said. “And you just injected the antidote.”
I felt immense relief immediately after. I watched as the rot slowly crept back down my arm, before disappearing completely. In that moment, a wave of euphoria washed over me. I’ve never done heroin, but I imagine the sensations would be comparable.
“Enjoy that feeling,” the agent continued. “Cause the hard part is coming up soon.”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant by that. It was as if a flip had suddenly switched. The euphoria was immediately replaced with the most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced in my entire life, even worse than when the rot was consuming my arm.
“This is why I made you a drink,” the agent went on. “The pain will only last ten minutes. Try and keep it down, though. We don’t need any noise complaints.”
Those ten minutes seemed like twenty hours. If you were to ask me exactly what I was feeling, I would’ve had a hard time describing it.
Hell. Simply put, it was sheer hell. As if every molecule in my body was being tossed into an industrial meat grinder before the remnants were dropped into molten lava.
I laid on the ground for a few moments after it had passed. To tell you the truth, I wanted to lay there for a lot longer. But then I remembered where I was. I leapt up, rushing back at the agent. If I was pissed before, I was about to explode now.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” I screamed in his face, as I began trying to strangle him again.
It was strange. His throat didn’t feel like metal anymore. It just felt like regular flesh. I could even see his face starting to turn red. I grinned. I was finally getting the upper hand.
It seemed like the “antidote” had more than a few side-effects.
But that didn’t last long. He grabbed my arm and elbowed me in the face, before somehow managing to reverse our positions and mount me. From there, he put me in an arm-lock.
“Alright,” he said. “You got that out of your system? Can I explain to you what the fuck is happening now?”
I tapped the floor, signaling “yes”.
“Well, alright,” he said, letting go. “We can finally make some progress.”
He pulled up a chair and sat down. Still panting from our short grappling match, I did the same.
“Why’d you kill my team?” I asked. “If we’d told anybody about the UFO, nobody would even fucking believe us. Hell, why’d you hire us in the first place?”
“Slow down there,” he said. “One question at a time. The first thing you need to know is…”
He paused for a moment, almost as if an uncomfortable thought had just crossed his mind.
“There was no UFO crash. No aliens. That was all fake.”
I buried my face in my hands, trying to wrap my head around what the hell he’d just said.
”What?”
“Before I continue, you want that drink now?” He asked.
I nodded. It seemed like I was going to need it.
---
Credits
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