I closed my eyes, hoping against hope that this whole alien invasion thing was some kind of stupid misunderstanding. But if I was indeed going to be abducted and whisked off to planet Krull, well, by God, I was going out in style—and with a ready supply of high-fructose corn syrup.
“You ready?” I heard Grayson ask.
I opened my eyes. He was standing in the hallway of the RV, talking to Earl.
“Yes sir, Mr. G.,” Earl said, and saluted.
My lip snarled. “What are you two doing?”
Grayson reached into his potion cabinet. “I’m giving our trooper here something to make him feel invincible.”
My eyebrows inched closer. “Jack Daniels?”
“No.” Grayson pulled out the Windex bottle and spritzed Earl from head to toe with Alien Parasite Remover. “Now you’ll be untouchable, my good man.”
“In my book, he already was,” I muttered.
Earl grinned and studied his arms as if he’d never laid eyes on them before. “Cool!”
I shook my head. “You really think that’s gonna work?”
Grayson shrugged. “It can’t hurt. I give it a thirty percent chance.”
“How do you figure that?” I asked, watching Earl flap his arms like a water turkey, trying to dry himself.
“I extrapolated from placebo research,” Grayson said. “Like any sugar pill, if you think it will work, it works.”
A twinge of pain shot through my head like a stray bottle rocket. I closed my eyes. Either the Boone’s Farm was beginning to talk, or the little twin inside my brain was trying its best to kick me in the ass.
For once, I had to agree with it. This whole situation was a disaster looking for a place to happen.
I opened my mouth to voice my objection one more time, but was drowned out by an unearthly wail only slightly worse than one of Grayson’s shower soliloquies.
“Okay, troops,” Grayson said, lowering the bugle from his lips. “Let’s move out.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I was surprised by the number of cars in the parking lot of the former 7-11 that was now Juanita’s Casa del Tacos.
Then I remembered it was Tuesday night.
Straddling Bessie’s gearshift, I shifted my weight to the right and glanced over at my typically taco-crazed commander in chief. His eyes were fixated on the road ahead. He hadn’t even given the neon sombrero a passing glance.
I nearly choked on my Tootsie Pop. I’d never seen Grayson so ... focused. Either that or the green-eyed taco fiend had finally gone mad.
I sat in silent contemplation and listened to the monster truck’s tires whine as we passed the restaurant and turned onto the dark, rural road leading to Edward Medard Park—the Hi-Ho.
Earl began humming an unrecognizable tune. I turned toward him and my jaw clamped like a vice grip. I was caught between a madman in black and a redneck in camo spritzed with alien parasite remover.
By any rational measure of sanity, all three of us were stark-raving nuts.
“Do you see anything?” Grayson asked, staring out the passenger window through a pair of binoculars.
Only my future skittering away like a three-legged dog in ice-skates.
“Nope,” I said, even though I’d spotted the glow coming from the woods about five seconds earlier. I guess my will to live was stronger than I’d planned on.
“Hey! There it is!” Earl said, pointing a beefy finger at the windshield.
“Excellent,” Grayson said. “Pull over here.”
LIKE A LOW-BUDGET VERSION of Survivorman with an all-idiot cast, the three of us tromped through the swamp, filling our galoshes and feeding the mosquitos.
Silently, I prayed the ominous glow we’d spotted on the roadside would skip making an encore tonight. But against all odds—and forsaking all my hopes and dreams—that damned luminous ring and its glowing portal of doom had reappeared at the ridgetop, right on schedule.
I couldn’t make out the spaceship in the center, and there was no sign of either the Conehead or Medusa alien life forms. I wondered if Earl’s ALF training had been all in vain...
“You know the drill,” Grayson said.
“Yep,” Earl replied. “I’m ready, Chief.”
“The drill?” I asked. “I don’t know the drill!”
Before my eyes, my big, bear of a cousin saluted, drew himself up six inches taller, and flexed his muscles like King Kong.
“Step aside, Bobbie,” he said. “I’m going in. If anything happens, save yourselves!”
“Wait!” I called after him.
But it was too late. Before I could stop him, Earl ran past me and headlong into the portal.
He disappeared with a metallic, gong-like sound.
“Earl!” I screamed, and took a step toward the glowing ring.
“Ouch!” Earl hollered. “Well, would you look at that!”
“What is it?” I yelled, running toward the intergalactic portal. “Are you hurt? Are you trapped in some kind of other dimension?”
“You might could call it that,” Earl said. “Don’t rightly know what to make of it.”
“God help me,” I screamed as I closed in on the portal. “Hold on, Earl! I’m coming after you!”
I took a step back, preparing to make a giant leap.
“Wait,” Grayson said, grabbing my arm from behind.
“Let me go!” I screeched. “I’ve got to save Earl!”
“Shh!” Grayson said, putting his hand over my mouth. “Look over there.”
He turned me around.
I gasped.
Then I couldn’t breathe.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Grayson and I stood side by side, stunned to silence, staring out from behind the thin strip of forest that hid us from an army of pointy-headed aliens.
I held my breath and watched helplessly as my camo-clad cousin stumbled down the ridge where the portal hovered, then barreled directly into a circular clearing at the bottom.
The tamped-down clearing was eerily similar to the one we’d discovered yesterday in the woods right off Whirlwind Trail. Except instead of a dark circle in the center of it, a bonfire blazed.
And it was occupied with an army of otherworldly beings.
All around the fire, Conehead-like aliens in white robes stood motionless, staring into the blaze like pawns in an intergalactic game of chess. They would’ve appeared harmless—perhaps even friendly—except for the fact that each of them was wielding a shiny, sabre-like weapon.
“Uh ... howdy,” Earl said, standing up and dusting himself
