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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jonrog1" data-source="post: 1107434" data-attributes="member: 189">GONE MISSINGChapter 10:Denis reached the front window of the first floor of Eliot's home, looked though it.Jo and some sort of goo-spewing, razor-jawed alien were running at each other at full speed down the center of Main Street, screaming, her guns blazing, some sort of whirring metal saw/drill combo in the creature's clenched claw.  Andy knelt on the street, soaked in viscous green fluid, struggling numbly for his dropped gun.  All around them, dozens of civilians and their impressionable children watched every moment in frozen horror.Then, three police cruisers squealed to a halt.  The local Sheriff leapt out with his men.  They screamed in terror."... subtle."  Denis flipped open his cell phone, dialed the Hoffman Institute.*************************************************Through sheer force of will, Ross got to his feet and stumble-sprinted for the door.  Eliot was already outside.  Ross had a long stride, managed to close the gap just as Eliot hopped on his bike.  "Better take him alive," Ross thought.  He swung the stock of his shotgun around.  Eliot looked up just as Ross closed on him.  The boy's eyes were now completely BLACK, with red irises.  He let out a SHRIEK that was not of this earth.Ross gently tapped the boy on the head with his shotgun.Eliot's skull cracked like an overcooked egg.  He hit the ground, dying somewhere on the trip down."Crap."  Ross stared down at the ragdoll corpse.  Stephen came up behind him. "His skull's paper-thin," Stephen pointed out.  "Psi contact with the alien caused some sort of mutation, brain-swelling.""In English?""Crap."  Stephen's cell buzzed.  "Hello? ... yes ... dead.  Be right there."  Stephen snapped the phone closed, started for their car. "Denis.  He's got something approaching a plan."Ross stared back at the shattered, limp form of Eliot.  The boy seemed even smaller in death.  "We didn't save any of them.""Welcome to the Hoffman Institute," muttered Stephen.********************************************Even a star-spanning alien can only cope with so much massive kinetic energy pounding into it.  Fading fast, the Alien swung the anal corer.  Jo nimbly rolled under it, came up again firing bang-bang-bang point-blank into the creature.  Her nine-mils CLICKED empty at the same time.  Sensing an opportunity, the alien LUNGED with its foot-wide razor jaws.BOOM.  The Alien skidded sideways, tumbling off its wide clown feet.  Andy, still mostly paralyzed, had pulled a shotgun from one of the cruisers.  The Alien mewed pathetically.  Andy limped forward.  Jo caught him just as he almost collapsed.  They bent over the Alien's twitching, dying form.  It looked up at them, eyes wide.  Full of love, and suffering, and pain.  It gasped, trying to bridge the gap between worlds."Be ... foooooood ..."Before either Andy or Jo could react, Ross pulled up in one of the rental cars, skidded across the road ---- and PARKED on the thing's head.  CRUNCH.Ross leaned out the window. "Is it dead?""If it's not, I don't want to deal with it anymore," Andy said.  "That was the anal corer with my name on it.""Get in!" Stephen called from the opposite side.  "Denis called for us to pick you up!""To do what?" Jo asked.From among the huge crowd circling the brutal showdown, Malloy and Sullivan appeared.  Malloy, transcendent with joy, fell to his knees.  Tears soaked his face.  He had his proof.  The truth was, indeed, out there.Sully swore like a drunken sailor with Tourette's.Denis, carrying something the size of a breadbox under a sheet, jogged out to meet them.  "Get in the damn car.  When I saw it going bad, I called Director Richardson, got permission for a walk-away."Ross surveyed the carnage and confusion around him.  "Are you serious?""Let little Miss Majestic 12 pick up the pieces."  And although his tone was brusque, Denis threw a forlorn look to Sully as they u-turned and sped away.  She was evil.  Oh yes.  And fine.Sully watched the Hoffman Agents disappear into the distance.  She looked to Malloy.  The Sheriff.  The now over-a-hundred witnesses gathered in the street. The dead alien sprawled in the middle of a suburban Main Street.  Gertie's severed head grinned impishly at her from the neighbor's lawn.She was so not getting her Christmas bonus.*******************************************EPILOGUE:"You will note that once again Denis had the presence of mind to grab the alien transmitter and the anal corer, snatching victory from the jaws of chaos."  Director Richardson nodded curtly to Denis.  From Richardson, that was the equivalent of a big hug and a sloppy kiss.Andy flexed his left hand.  He still had residual numbness.  "So, autopsy shows the first two were food --""Right," Stephen spread out a report on the desk. "The brother and his friends went to investigate the UFO.  Eliot followed.  The alien, sensing Eliot's weakness, formed a psi bond with him and cemented their friendship by eiliminating Eliot's tormentors.  Eliot at first hid the Alien in Gertie's closet, among her dolls, then moved it to the school basement where it performed its experiments.  Apparently, it was trying to build a signalling device capable of transmitting through n-space, for which it needed insanely complex circuitry.  The only Earth-equivalent is the complexity of human neural structure.""Whoa, whoa," Andy interrupted.  "Back to the food thing.  All these years, we had all these theories about the missing body parts ...""Apparently, these Aliens just think certain parts of us are yummy."Ross nodded, slid a look at Jo.  "How you holding up there?"Jo smiled. "Just great!  The sight of an alien wearing a five-year-old's severed head and a close-quarters gunfight with a toothy maw that could swallow my whole skull and a boom-box made of fried human brains didn't affect my therapeutic process at all!  I'm PEACHY!" The others waited for her to acknowledge whether that was sarcasm or not.  She instead just gave a cheerful thumbs-up and took more of her pink pills.Everyone sighed.  Back to normal.NEXT EPISODE: the Agents go on vacation to Toronto!  They meet a new friend!  Creepy houses of death, mad bombers and Catholic schoolgirls in DARK CANADA!</blockquote>

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