“Thank God!” I yelled, and ran for my cousin’s monster truck. As I hauled myself up inside, I started to yell through the window for them to hurry up, but nearly choked on my own spit instead.
From my vantage point six feet above the ground, I could see the edges of that weird, glowing orb.
Good lord! It’s still there!
I waved frantically at Grayson and Earl. “Good, grief! Come on, you two! Get a move on!”
Earl shrugged. “What’s the rush?”
“Can’t you see?” I screeched. “The sky over there. It’s lit up like a freaking aurora borealis!”
Earl scratched his head. “You mean that ugly gal at church what had the mole on her eyelid?”
“No! That was Aurora Borillis. Now get your ass behind the wheel and get us the hell out of here! Now!”
“WHAT’D Y’ALL DO? NOT pay your parking tickets, or what?” Earl asked as he piled in behind the wheel of the huge, black monster truck he’d nicknamed Bessie.
“Not even close,” I grumbled, straddling the gear shift while Grayson got the passenger window. “Just go!”
Earl chuckled. “You got it, Cuz.”
I braced for liftoff, but Earl shifted Bessie into first and eased his foot gingerly on the gas pedal.
“What the?” I said.
“Hold onto your hat,” Earl said, then stomped the gas pedal like it was a fleeing cockroach.
Bessie’s engine roared to life. Above the din, I heard Grayson’s old RV groan like a geriatric dinosaur.
For a moment we all sat motionless in suspense, as if time had stood still. Then, suddenly, we jolted forward as if we’d been rammed from behind by a Mack truck.
Bessie had just yanked the old RV loose from the muck.
“Here we go,” Earl said, easing up on the gas. Slowly and carefully, he maneuvered the dilapidated Winnebago off the muddy shoulder and onto the asphalt of the narrow backroad.
“We’re free,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Now punch it, Earl!”
Earl eyed me curiously, the way a tortoise might inspect a suspicious lettuce leaf. “I still don’t see what all the rush is about.”
“There’s some kind of weird ring of light in the woods,” I hissed, my hysteria rising again. “It could be dangerous. Right, Grayson?”
Grayson shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Well, what exactly is it?” Earl asked.
I scowled and lifted my left foot. If my idiot cousin wasn’t going to hit the gas, I was!
“I’m not sure,” Grayson said. “I need to do some testing to be certain. But I believe we may have just discovered an intergalactic portal.”
My left leg went limp.
What the hell?
Earl shook his bear-like head. “They got port-a-lets in space?”
I stared at Grayson. “A portal? Are you serious?”
Grayson shrugged. “Only time will tell.”
My lip snarled. “Is that some kind of sick geek joke?”
“So, which way we headed, y’all?” Earl asked.
“To Operative Garth’s compound,” Grayson said.
“Woohoo!” Earl hollered. “Wait’ll that ol’ boy finds out we done found us an outhouse in space!”
“No!” I said, elbowing Earl in the gut. “We can’t tell Garth a word about this.”
Earl looked down at me. “Why not, party pooper?”
“Because he’ll broadcast it all over that ham radio of his,” I snarled back.
Earl shrugged. “So what?”
I turned to Grayson. “If Garth gets wind of this, every nutcase in the world will be tromping all over the woods trying to find your so-called ‘portal.’”
Grayson locked eyes with me. “And your point is?”
“Seriously?” I said, anger rising in my throat. “I’ve got three. For one, any evidence at the scene will be trampled. Two, if we’re wrong, we’ll all become laughingstocks—including Jimmy. And thirdly, if this thing really is a portal like you say it might be, we don’t want it falling into the wrong hands, right?”
“Excellent,” Grayson nodded.
“Geez. It’s just basic reasoning,” I said.
Grayson’s cheek dimpled. “I know. And you rose to the challenge. Good job, cadet.”
I frowned. “Happy I could jump through your hoops.”
“Still, we have to report something back to Garth,” Grayson said. “What should we tell him?”
“The truth,” I said. “That we got stuck in the mud and had to be towed by Earl.”
Grayson eyed me like a proud professor. “Hmm. A lie of omission.”
“A mission?” Earl said. “Hot dog! We’re on a mission!”
Please. Someone shoot me now...
Chapter Eleven
I flushed the toilet, then stared at my face in the miniscule mirror in the RV’s tiny bathroom. I felt slightly nauseated. My face seemed pinker than normal.
Holy crap! Did I get radiation poisoning last night?
“I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” I muttered.
I took a deep breath, braced myself, then yanked open the door. I padded down the hall and into the main cabin, where I could hear Earl and Grayson in the middle of some sort of discussion. Since Earl was involved, I knew it wouldn’t be an intellectual one.
“And that’s how Sally, my two-headed turtle, got her name,” Earl said.
Nailed it.
“Look who finally dragged herself up outta the sack,” Earl said with that cheerful, happy-go-lucky tone of his that, without sufficient caffeine, made me want to punch his teeth in.
“Drex suffers from dysania,” Grayson said.
Earl snorted. “Then I sure hope she flushed twice.”
A divot formed in Grayson’s cheek. “Dysania is the chronic inability to get out of bed in the morning.”
“Oh,” Earl said, and shot me a wink. “My momma called that being a lazy ass.”
“Ha ha, wise guys.” I shot them a sneer and grabbed for a coffee cup. “Anyway, I’m not feeling right this morning. Does my face look red to you?”
Earl chuckled. “No more’n normal. But then again, if’n I looked like you, I’d be permanently embarrassed, too.”
I picked up the carafe of coffee and snarled, “Might I remind you, I haven’t had my first cup yet?”
Earl winced. “Oops. My bad.” His eyes darted to Grayson, who was sitting in the banquette booth across from him. “So, Mr. G., what’s on the agenda for today?”
“The agenda?” he asked, putting a pinch of salt in his coffee.
“Yeah,” Earl said. “You know, our mission. To find out what happened to ol’ Jimmy boy.”
“Right,” Grayson said, tapping a finger on
