An Alien Rescue (59 page)

His demob came and went, being presented with a
whisky-filled decanter and glasses by his RAF chums. He left feeling he had done his bit for Queen and country, knowing the life he was heading into would be entirely different. He would now work for an employer who was concerned with making a profit, distanced somewhat from the military where profit was never an issue, although cutting costs to save money was. He stepped into civilian life with a confident stride, never looking back.

The memory of his past extraterrestrial exploits were still quite unknown to him, although he always had a niggling sensation there was
much more to his past than he actually knew. The book he had been writing had also taken on a new meaning as it gave him hope.
Perhaps he could make it as an author
, he sometimes wondered.

It was while working a
s a civilian he was badly injured, seriously damaging some vertebrae in his neck. He simply walked out of that job without giving notice. He didn't think they deserved any! Following goodbyes and farewell handshakes from trusted colleagues, he accepted their best wishes and thanks. He thankfully left an occupation that one day might have cost him his life. He was more than ready for a change.

When Scott walked out of that job he also left his wife, heading off towards an uncertain future.
There were lots of reasons why he decided to leave her, more than he would ever admit to. It saddened him to be leaving, knowing his daughters would be affected, while also feeling deep pity for his wife. He knew his daughters would suffer from his leaving, but hoped they would become reacquainted later on in life, probably when they were old enough to understand how badly he'd been treated and also how he felt. He was going to miss his girls, he knew. His heart was broken as he left for a new life... somewhere. Anywhere!

He had bought a caravan, loading it with his most precious possessions and clothing
, hitching it onto his sporty car. He departed for warmer climes without a word of his destination to anyone. He felt awful doing it, hating himself for the way he was cutting and running, but it was essential for his survival, he believed. He was a fighter but felt punch drunk after the damage from his last place of work and the miserable way he was treated by his wife. He still couldn’t get over a recent and heated argument about which way round the toilet roll should be on its holder, where her boiling-over anger lasted for about seven days. It was as if she was on drugs, he sometimes considered, but knowing full well it was hormones going haywire. The menopause had hit her badly, but she didn't recognise its effects or affects. He believed it was the best thing to do in the circumstances, to clear out and make a fresh start. His biggest regret was leaving his little girls, hoping the fury and the hatred that would surely spout from his wife’s mouth would not taint the love that he and his daughters shared. He wept at the thought of losing them, but go he did. His once-upon-a-time local friends deserted him too when the news of his departure spread among them like jungle drums. His wife had got the verbal knife in first and he’d been judged by them all. His life had been in turmoil and he was trying to find a new one to replace it, somewhere different and out of the way. How many people would love to have the opportunity to do the same, he asked himself? The United Kingdom’s government was already taxing anything and everything under the sun, and the police were making life impossible for the country’s drivers. As for the criminals, they just seemed to get away with anything and everything, but go over the speed limit by a single mile-per-hour and you were in the deepest and stickiest pooh. Scott was both pleased and relieved to be getting the heck out of a country that looked more and more like a sinking ship with each and every passing day. He laughed at the thought of him being one of the lucky rats, imagining himself crossing the English Channel on a roll-on/roll-off ferry, while looking over a shoulder to observe the White Cliffs of Dover disappearing beneath the waves of bureaucracy gone utterly mad.

He drove south
through England, France and Spain, then eventually ferried across the Gibraltar Straits to Morocco, North Africa. He didn’t know why he chose that country, he had no reason to go there, as far as he was aware. He had never been there before and it was a seriously long way away from where his journey had begun. But deep inside his mind was a strong desire to visit it, and as his job and marriage had turned sour, why shouldn’t he?
What the hell
, he thought, and beamed a smile of relief.

The journey had proved harrowing, where his wife would constantly phone him with words of hatred and curses.
No change there then
, he registered. Scott thought he deserved the anger from her as he was the one doing the running away, so believed he was in the wrong. She would never understand he wanted to do something with his life other than be shouted and screamed at.

The drive
had been long and arduous, where parking in purpose-built stopover areas to rest or sleep had become the norm. He reflected on his escape and the pain he was leaving behind, trying to console himself with the knowledge he was going somewhere better. It was during his travels that he discovered there was an immense difference between the UK and the continent. UK motorway parking areas wanted to charge a lot of money for overnight stops, threatening to slap a hefty fine on anyone who didn’t comply. He found the rest of Europe provided excellent serviced areas, specifically for stopping over; including clean toilets and showers in most places, and all for free. It just reinforced Scott’s belief in the sinking-ship syndrome. He was glad to be free of it, looking forward to another future, in another country, but still sad at leaving behind his beautiful and loving little girls behind.
Will they ever truly understand why?
he often worried.

After
several thousands of miles he eventually arrived at his chosen destination. It was the garrisoned town of Ouarzazate. A desert town where the sun shone brightly and untethered donkeys and goats lazily walked the streets. A magnificent movie studio was seen to stand on the town’s outskirts as Scott arrived, welcoming tourists and locals alike, and quite famous for making classic movies like,
Lawrence of Arabia, Sahara
and
Gladiator
, to name but a few. It provided welcome employment and finances to the local community.

Scott
parked his caravan in a municipal campsite where there were plenty of continental Europeans, all enjoying holidays with glorious weather that could be relied on. They tended to travel in convoy between destinations, resembling a segmented snake of vans when viewed from an elevated distance or overtaken. He was pleased he chose to visit there, a country that proved warm and friendly and a town with interesting geology surrounding it. He wasn’t entirely certain why he chose that specific area, but felt more than happy with his choice. There were plenty of fossils on sale by the side of the roads with locals holding them high and demanding you stop to view and hopefully buy one. Colourful boutiques were plentiful, and they too sold fossils as well as touristy trinkets. He was excited by the sight of so many fantastic geological specimens, hoping to locate the fossil beds from where they originated. But something within him kept pounding away behind the scenes, a nagging sensation of really wanting to drive into the mountains. Having stayed on the site for a little over three weeks, finding his bearings while getting to know the region a bit better and learning some of the language, his feet started to get itchy for adventure.

It was while staying at the campsite he
chanced to meet two lovely ladies with a spacious Fiat campervan. They were, Ann and Marion, who incidentally turned out to be British. Ann was from Liverpool, with quite a broad accent and a quaint turn of phrase and brilliant sense of humour, especially after a few vodka tipples. Marion was Welsh, being very polite and slightly more restrained, although just as likeable in each and every way. It turned out they were retired school teachers who simply wanted to live a more comfortable life in the warmth of North-Africa instead of what they might have had in an over-taxed and freezing Britain. The lovely ladies were a tonic for Scott, where they would produce delicious meals while serving excellent wine. This would be followed by evening drinks that positively ensured a healthy amount of sleep. Scott was extremely thankful for their generosity and kindness. It helped him get through the times where he badly missed his children. He wished he had met them sooner.

He managed to
purchase a map that showed the local area in detail, and this was when he methodically planned his first venture into a desert. He wasn’t bothered  about driving into a great unknown, entering a furnace when compared to what he had left behind in cold old Britain. He instead looked forward to the heated challenge. The Atlas Mountains seemed to beckon him as he packed the geology equipment and essential bottles of water into the car. It would certainly make a difference from the Isle of Skye, what with the clear blue sky and fantastic heat, which incidentally helped the pain from his industrial injury to feel better. It was like having constant deep heat treatment on a permanently high setting.

As the mountain range grew closer, and when he thought he was almost at its roots, another valley would open before him. It was the little single track road that seemed to catch his eye, a road he never intended to take as he turned
onto it. It wasn’t even shown on his map, and then again, he considered,  there had been several other roads missed-out too. This one, however, seemed particularly special to him.

The
frequency and sight of broken glass attracted his attention, the shallow glistening mounds that lay almost haphazardly by the road’s course verges. He promised himself to pull-off the road should another vehicle approach him, allowing it to safely pass thus reducing the risk of a shattered windscreen or anything else. The lesson had been learned from a small convoy of 4x4 off-road vehicles that had earlier sped past at a frightening speed, where rocks of all sizes were thrust into the air with a defiant gesture against any who would dare to share
their
road. The Mad-Max drivers wore light-blue coloured headdresses with fried-egg wide eyes staring hard at any who might get in their way.

He hadn’t actually driven very far when he decided to stop, parking his pride and joy as far away from the road as was safe to do. The towering mountain seemed to shimmer in the day’s
furnace-like haze, giving Scott the impression he was nothing more than a termite. Looking around him he felt as if he had seen this before, practically recognising a rugged-looking plateau, which was far above him on the way to its summit. There was nothing especially interesting about the place in itself, but a particularly small and hardly visible bordering bund looked unusually artificial. Nothing really caught his eye in a geological sense, and in normal circumstances wouldn’t have given it a second glance; but something about it made him… curious.

His car sat in the same place for four full days before a young gendarme in
a patrol car drew of the road to make a closer inspection. Cars would sometimes stay-put for a few days, particularly those with European registrations. The owners and passengers were well known to leave it parked while they hiked into the mountains for a spot of wild-camping. But Scott’s car was different from the others. It was a flashy sports car with personalised number plates that bore his surname, or as close as he could get to it. The gendarme was highly impressed by the mean and fast looking machine, wishing he could own something like it. He would certainly attract the Mademoiselles with a nice auto like the one whose windows he was peering through, wiping away the settled dust for a better look. He saw it a couple more times afterwards, with the thought of the owner having perhaps suffered from an accident in the mountains and falling victim to injuries and dehydration. He officially reported its presence.

Scott was never seen again, his body was missing and believed to have been devoured by wild animals after sustaining fatal injuries while climbing
in the dangerous mountains. Local townspeople whispered the long since heard rumours concerning the devils that were reputed to live in the mountains, and how they had taken another poor soul. No one doubted the disappearance was connected with the ancient legends of demons and devils, all inhabiting the forbidden crags and passes, waiting to snatch any unsuspecting traveller or badly kitted-out tourist.

The organised search lasted two days as those who took part would cower from or avoid anywhere that looked hostile or remotely suspicious. No one in the search team wanted to go looking for him, all believing he
had
been taken by the spirits who jealously guarded the mountains.

His beautiful Toyota Celica was
eventually dragged from the desert before being unceremoniously dumped without reservation at the rear of a police yard where it would attract even more dust and sand. It was destined to provide shelter for the town’s feral cats. The racy-red metallic paint bleached itself into a much lighter shade while the vehicle’s presence became all but forgotten beneath am aged and paint splattered tarpaulin. The cream-coloured Abbey caravan was manhandled into an overgrown corner of the campsite and deposited next to another. By pure chance, their doors were directly opposite each other, where Scott’s British right-hand drive caravan had its door on the left, while its counterpart European model had its on the right. The fact that both doors were only an inch apart meant tighter security and no-one would have access into either. The contents of Scott’s cupboards and fridge had already given rise to smells of decay, but the violent temperatures to which the caravan was subjected to meant stench wouldn't last very long. Buzzing flies inside the windows were common with untold numbers of dead bugs darkening the window ledges. The other caravan had previously suffered from the same fate. It too, had seemingly been left behind by its affluent European owner, where it had been deemed they must have left the country, dumping the van to avoid paying the costs of camping for as long as they had and maybe cheaper than hauling it back to Europe. And until either owner returned, the vans would remain tucked away in the quiet corner behind the toilet-block out of harm’s way and prying eyes. It hadn’t stopped the rear lights and reflectors being removed during darkness, one night, possibly to service another; and it would only be a matter of time before the wheels and other parts followed suit.

Scott’s family didn’t want to know about the car or the caravan, they had been the vehicles he had used to leave them
by. The equipment he had taken with him from their home, all his most prized possessions; his wife hated them with a passion.

As for Scott, he was just another missing person whose out-of focus black and white photocopied picture was stapled onto
local Moroccan police station notice-boards; until his face became boring or the print faded. The A4 sized pictures would eventually end up as crunched balls of paper in trash cans. His family never visited the country where he disappeared, he had already left them so was considered gone. Written-off. His wife insisted his daughters should never refer to him again, preferring them to forget he had even existed.

As for a local shepherd boy, he foolishly told his family what he had seen
and heard about the time Scott disappeared, that he had witnessed Allah’s passing overhead, flying towards the forbidden mountains. And like others before him, he too was threatened and beaten into silence. He was forcefully persuaded it was not their beloved god which the young one had heard, but the devil’s own disciples coming to steal infidels - as was their firm belief in all such matters. As long as they did not venture into the mountains, Allah would protect them, they felt. Should they ignore the ancient myths, disaster would befall them all in an instant. The locals feared to discuss what might have befallen those who went missing, never referring to the mountain that towered above them as anything else but evil and haunted.

The wonderful sight of a
streaking meteor was shared by a young couple on their honeymoon, both looking at the twinkling stars through love struck eyes and emitting sounds of surprise and glee as it shot... upwards. “It looked as if it might have been going up instead of downwards,” suggested the girl, feeling a little confused by what she had just seen. He agreed, though commented they must have got it wrong somehow. They both blamed their error on too much champagne and not enough sleep, smirking at their embarrassment. They each made a wish for a married life of happiness, sealing it with a kiss. They joked about what they thought they had seen regarding a shooting star in reverse gear, suggesting they should perhaps return to their hotel suite and go to bed.

As for Scott, his name faded from memory and no one spoke of him
again, except his two growing daughters, but only in the privacy of their own company. They, at least, missed him. As for Scott, no one ever saw him again, on Earth.