The Way back home

She was driving, she knew that much for sure- as to the rest she wasn't sure. They were on the road, a road, wait a damn minute! They?
Now she was braking, and skidding and stopping.
Wide eyed she looked around to find the man she called Walker looking at her in puzzlement.
She looked back out at the road. she made herself relax her hand from their death grip on the steering wheel. her stomach churned. The road came into focus as did the houses on either side of it. Residential, they were in a suburb. Her suburb... she was driving these men back to her house.
Count to 20 Maggie.
Count to 20 and calmly turn the car around and go to the police station and tell them that she had found 3 naked men on the side of the road. Then for some reason felt compelled to take them to Walmart to buy them clothes and then everything had gone wrong- so wrong and now she was fu-
Walker put his hand on hers and she felt the heat jump into her arm. She glared at him defiantly but her sudden flare of anger melted and she deflated like a stuck balloon.
The police would find her on the side of the road later, Maggie the deflated beach float.
So she looked back at the road tried to count to two and gave up, leaned her head forward and sobbed.

Mars considered this odd creature that his mind kept insisting was a woman- which was something similar to... what? Then the word/thoughts formed into meaning. He would have told the Trace that his mind stopped being the other and became human- if the Trace had been there to talk to. The Trace was gone, perhaps to never return but it had told him that it would come with him before the exile before it had gone silent. He must be... patient, the word had meaning now. he considered it then looked back at the woman.

She was in pain, she needed something more that touch. What should he do? What would he have done for his own... mate (that was the word but it had no meaning for he had no such thing before the exile). He had one thing or rather one other thing before the exile. It had given him comfort when before had had begun the Walk. His new mind began to make associations of a human woman who had held him aloft when his life had begun and- sounded- no, spoken his name.

"Mags."
She continued to cry in a way very similar to Fijbold- perhaps this was like (sorrow). He had done this by now being able to adapt to this new world, new form quick enough.
"Mags."
'What?" She stopped making the noises. The woman, Mags leaned her head against the round thing that must control the transport.
"Mags." What do you say to an stranger (alien)?
She looked up, her face had gone from (nice) to look at to wet and with dark marks all around her (eyes) and (lips?) and other parts that were not translating. She looked at him for a long time then
"How do you know my name?"
"The other said that word and you responded in the container where you were looking through the coverings."
"Huh?"
"I do not know the- erm- words right. But he- the other who chased-" (it was chased he was sure of that)    "-Fijbold around the transport."

She blinked at him a few times, then suddenly reached out a touched the coverings he wore before leaning back in and making a new noise that was like the crying but harsher and more abrupt.

"Where did you get those clothes?" She said.

Quiz time or was it a riddle?

Hey, Maggie?
What?
What does one 4 door Geo, 3 naked men and 1 dumb women have in common?
What?
What?
What!
Oh, nevermind.

Shock was like this or so she thought as she was trying to take in the scene of Bill chasing Fijshbowl around the parking lot. She was in shock- what else could it be?
She knew there were at least six other people who had come outside to watch the display and stood there gawking alongside her. Would any of them have a camera in their cell phone? Would this be on the news in the morning? What in the name of Elvis Presley was she going to do now?

Nope, nothing was coming.
She looked down at the sweats in the bag in her hands.
What was she doing here? Wasn't her life in shambles anyway?
Go home Maggie. Go home now and leave the idiots behind.

So she did. Well, she tried to anyway. At least she made it as far as her car.
She had her keys out when Fishbowl plowed into her, sending her sprawling, the keys went scrittering away. The mercy was she fell on the bag of sweats which cushioned her fall. Not that it helped much since Bill who had been closing in for the kill tripped over her and maced them both in the collapse.

Someone was screaming.
Someone was crying
and someone was cussing.

Maggie sat up in the parking lot and closed her mouth- which was on fire along with her face.
Strangely the cussing stopped. She tried to looked around through the haze. Fishbowl was curled up a couple of feet away from her, there was blood on his face and he was crying in gasping sobs.
So who was screaming then?

Bill was.
Apparently his armed had turned inward after tripping over her and he had gassed himself full in the face with his can of mace. He was also nearby writhing on the pavement in very vocal agony. Idiot!
A shadow fell over her and pulled her to her feet- it was a tall handsome man in brand new clothing. This seemed as surreal as everything else. She tried to speak and opened her mouth but shut it immediately as the burning sensation began again. The man turned her around and propelled her towards the car. On the way, he reached around her, scooped up the keys and put them in her hand.
Somehow she got the door open and found the other man already sitting in the car- in a dress that was at least to sizes to short and had several "hello kitty" stencils on it. She blinked at him a few times before remembering that she was supposed to be driving. Absently she popped the trunk, heard something heavy being dropped in it and it slamming shut. Then the shadow which somehow translated into that Walker guy got in the car and laid a hand over her shaking ones which were on the steering wheel.

"We should go."

Later she would swear it was a dream. Later she was not sure that it had happened exactly like that. Later she would look at the Police Chief and shrug and say that yes, she must have been drinking.

Hey lady, there's a nekkid dude dancing on your car

Dilemma.
Do I go out and shoot the idiot on my car with the shotgun I don't actually have
or
buy the sweats and pretend like nothing is out of the ordinary?

Maggie looked at Bill the security guy and smiled.
"What man?"

Bill swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing, then reached for his radio.
"Control, this is Bill, over."
The radio squawked.
"Yeah Bill?"
Bill looked at Maggie and sighed. She could see him thinking how unprofessional everyone was other than him.
"Is the potential perpetrator still in the parking lot, over?"

Maggie could almost imagine Bill's supervisor, Marge McConnell looking across from customer service to see if anyone at the registers were still watching the display outside.

"If you mean the idiot with no clothing running around on all fours- then that would be yes."
"Copy that, control."

Why me?
Bill looked back at her and waited.
Maggie sighed, counted to five. Nope not working, she sighed again, took a deep breath and counted to ten. Yes that almost worked.
"Okay, thanks for the update, Cousin Eddy is up from Sparta and he is prone to doing weird things." She said as brightly as she could muster. Then shifted her load and began walking towards checkout. Bill almost ran to keep up with her pace.
"I didn't know you had a cousin, Mags?" Bill said trying to take her arm and failing mostly because she changed course so that he would have to put distance between them or run head on into the girl's tee shirt display.
"Oh? Well it's hard enough to keep up with all of them." She said airily. "What with him having that ATV accident and the brain injury and all."
Yes, she was going to hell in a hand basket like her mother constantly would warn her about. Her dad, the liar, would say it just takes one little lie to start a landslide. Well, he would know anyway- since he was still in the county lockup after his last lie landed him there.
"Oh." Bill probably would have said more but Maggie had steered herself to go down an aisle filled with restocking boxes, so Bill had to reroute and Maggie managed to make it to the checkout ahead of him.
She vague recognized the cashier as someone who was from town and smiled at him while handing her load of sweats over. Thankfully he was one of those cashiers who defied company policy and said nothing.
She thanks the heavens, then prayed that her debit card would go through and grabbed the proffered monster bag and then realized that Bill wasn't there.
Anxiously she looked outside into the twilight to see Bill and Figbold playing tag around her car. Bill had his radio out and was yelling something into it.
Defeated- Maggie stopped to consider her next move and then realized that the other two were nowhere to be seen. They were definitely not in the car.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap and double crap.

Walmart @ 4 am and life on other planets.

It wasn't until she drove into the Walmart parking lot at 4 something AM that several things occurred to Maggie.

1. She had three very naked men in the car
2. she had no clothes for them to wear into the store
3. what was she thinking?
4. Would they stay in the car?
5. She was glad no one was in the parking lot
6. what was she thinking?

She looked at the men. The two in the back seat had their whole attention on the store. The one called Fijbold had his face pressed against the window. The good news was neither of them looked like they had figured out how to use the door handle. The man in the front, he was so hot in a way- other than looking muscled and toned- but there was something about him she liked. For Pete's sake, you idiot- he's naked! and hot. 

Anyway, the other two deferred to him, called him something like Walker and he watched everything she did while driving and parking. She felt that he might drive off with her car save she had a feeling he would not know where to go at this point.

"Stay in the car- what you are currently in." This was when they gave her blank looks on car.

"I will come back with some clothes for you to put on." She sighed and rolled her eyes. Absently she pulled her shirt out a ways to show them. When she looked back the one called Fijbold was looking at the car roof.   She resisted the urge to smack her forehead against the steering wheel. 

"Stay." she made a point of looking at Walker when she said this. Said a silent prayer that was much the same and opened the car door as secretly as she could. Walker watched her closely. Dammit, but he was cute!

Stay focused Maggie.

She closed the car door and turned away from the car. 

Would it be large or extra large. What the hell did she think she was doing? Call the cops and be done with it. Go home and try to forget the whole night.

She found herself going through the doors, glancing at the disinterest clerks and creeping down the aisles to the men's section. Sweats, it would have to be sweats- they were the easiest for covering the body. Underwear? Should she buy underwear? What color? Did it matter? Where did these guys come from? Why were they naked? What were they doing out there in the middle of nowhere? Could they be criminals? Could they be aliens? 

Okay, that was a little too much X-Files. 

They were just 3 guys who obviously weren't gay- right? Just out in a field with no clothes and hardly any English who didn't know what a car was- there had to be a logical explanation- right? Oh God, she hoped there was an explanation.

She glanced up to find Bill the Security Guard looking at her.

She let out a muffled scream and dropped the boxer shorts she had been looking at.

Crap and double crap!

"Hi Mags." She hated that name, but he had called her that since they were nine.

She smiled and sucked in a breath. 

"Hi Bill."

Bill was about as average a man as you could get. he was 5 foot 8 inches, 195 lbs, a little dumpy from too much sitting, slightly balding brunette with a whisper thin mustache that looked more like it had been glued on instead of grown. His uniform was mostly clean except for the permanent food drop stain right below his chin which always told the women he talked to that he ate most of his meals in his car, a Mazda -black with a red racing stripe.

"So Mags-" Bill began then looked around and yawned.

Maggie waited.

"Heard you broke up." 

Yep, news travels at lightspeed in the south.

"Yeah" Maggie said shifting the three sets of sweats from one arm to the next then remembering to put the boxers back on the rack.

"If you wanna talk about it?" Bill said and shifted his radio belt. This appeared to be a "cop-thing" the belt shifting. Bill only had a radio and a can of mace or pepper spray. The store wouldn't let him carry anything else apparently. Small favors.

Thanks Bill, but its too-" she began.

"Soon. Yeah I kind of figured that- what with that nekkid guy standing on your car roof in the parking lot."

Crap, crap, and double crap!

Why are you Naked?

Maggie looked in the rear view mirror again.
Yes, there were 3 men, very, very nude men standing beside the road looking at her car. They were not even that bad looking, well with the exception of the one which kept bending over as if to start crawl on out-stretched arms and legs. The long haired one was particularly appealing. Her eyes strayed south and she had to remind herself that- at this point anyway- sex was out of the question. She looked at them and they looked at her.

Time passed and finally when it was clear they were not going to come to her, she put the Geo in gear and backed down the road to where they stood. She rolled down the window and made herself look up at the three men. They looked back with something like curious surprise painting their faces.
"Hi" She said in what she hoped was her most airy voice- it was more a squeak.

The long haired one looked back and moved his mouth but no words came out. The thin one took one look at her chest and then glared down at his and burst into tears. Then froze in place as the tears slid down his cheeks before throwing his hands to his face to rub at the wetness then his look of sadness turned to revulsion at the wetness on his hands and then he tried to vomit- well his mouth opened and he made the sound that some people make like when they're about to vomit. Nothing came out, at least. He turned away and collapsed in the grass mumbling something like "end me."
The other man- also attractive but not as much as the long haired one shook his head in disgust. He looked at the long haired man and then pointed at their companion. The long haired man shrugged then stopped and shrugged again as if he had just learned how to shrug, did the shrug a few more times before kneeling down next to the crying man. He placed a reassuring hand on the other mans shoulder and said something weird- another language or something but it didn't sound like any words she had ever heard before.

She gave her best smile at the remaining man.
"Where you fellers from?"

There was a long pause. The man considered her as if he were chewing each word carefully.

"Where- uhm, where are your clothes?"

More silence. Maggie was starting to reconsider her choices despite the view of these leanly muscled men.
Perhaps she should get moving? Go home like any sane person would.

"From far away. We are lost. We know not where to go now." Yep, that's what the naked man said to her on the side of the road at 3:30 am in the morning.

"How did you get here?" She said looking around for something, anything that would make this make sense. "Did you get robbed?"

"Does not matter- we need help, will you help us?" The man said instead.

Help? Oh crap! That meant exactly what she had hoped then dreaded then hoped he would say. Yes, she was certifiable.
Her defense was a light laugh. Stupid, I am going to end up dead- just you wait and see. Shut up and drive you idiot!
"Okay, I can help, just hop in and we can go to the police or something."
Oh God- she was so stupid, what was she doing? Why couldn't she just shut up.

Then the man considered her car for a long time. Well a few minutes- it seemed like a long time. Finally he shrugged and shook his head. He obviously thought this was a bad idea.
"How do we go?" He asked suddenly.
She blinked. What the hell, everyone knew how to get into a car- right? They had cars all over the world- right? Well she thought they did- how did she know. The farthrest she had ever been was Atlanta.
Before she knew what she was doing, Maggie had opened her car door and jogged around the car to open the passenger doors. She stood back.
The man walked around to where she stood and pointed at the seat. She nodded. He looked at the other two and made a weird noise, then stopped and then tried something else that amounted to blowing air out his nose, sighed and looked at her with- pity. Yes, pity it had to be pity.
"Kymat?" he said finally.
The long haired man stood up and dragged the crying man to his feet. The two men came around the car to join them. Kimat looked at the car and shrugged.
"You have to climb in somehow." the man said.
Kimat looked at the man puzzled then looked down at his body and moved his arms and legs as if trying to figure out how to bend in the right direction. The other man sighed and looked at her.
"(some kind of noise) you show him?" he said.
They all looked at her. Maggie rolled her eyes- why me God, why me?
When she looked back the three naked men were looking up. She snapped her fingers at them. What followed was like a really dumb movie sequence. The men all tried to mimic her snapping and failed. She almost rolled her eyes again, struggled not to laugh and succeeded. Then she climbed into the passenger seat as plainly as possible, buckled her seat belt and looked at them. Kimat and the crying man looked from her to the "normal" one and waited.
Maggie got out and gestured to them.
"Walker?" Kimat said.
The one called Walker nodded and then he followed her display by climbing into the car and buckling up. The other two waited until Walker was in before they attempted the back seat. Kimat made it after 2 attempts. He seemed to struggle to get his legs to bend right and finally succeeded. The other man was much, much worse. First he got in upside down- if that was even possible- she struggled to stop from giggling,
After that failed, he tried to get in backwards and by that she thought he was trying to bend in directions that no human being could bend. She decided that the thin one who the other two called Fig-bowl must be autistic. He did finally fit and she climbed back in the drivers seat after closing all the doors.
It seemed like it took an hour- it might have, but then she looked at the clock on the dash and it was only 4:16 am.
So what do you do with 3 very nekkid men at 4 in the morning in Crossville, Tennessee?
Get them clothes.
Of course, that meant Walmart.

"So, where are your clothes?" she asked again.

Updates

Spent today going back and editing, modifying the text with the idea of where the story will go next and to get a grip on what I had written so far.
Tomorrow, we plunge back in.

Commercial Break from Beyond

It took seeing I AM NUMBER FOUR to make me see that perhaps I should try to get back to my "public writing" 
Yes, it's been awhile. tonight I am going to finally watch DISTRICT 9. Talk about being behind on everything.

So what's next?

me trying to come up with a usable structure/outline to the Slipgate Exile. What I have is like Chapter 1 and 2 and 17. Now I will attempt to outline the story in hopes I can pull it into perspective (briefly)

Slipgate Exile the Outline
in 3-5 acts
Part I: Assimilation

Intro: Incoming Signal. How the Quantum Wave intersects Earth.

Chapter 1: Arrival. Mars and the other 2 Exiles introduced/translated into the middle of nowhere TN.

Chapter 2: Encounters
Mags introduced, 
Mars and the 3 Exiles meet a typical drunk redneck... the TDR (totally drunk redneck) then tries to kill them

Chapter 3: 3 nekkid men, a girl and her geo
What do you do with 3 nude men @ 3AM?
Go to Walmart... of course

Chapter 4: Going home
Mags takes the now mostly dressed men home to her place over her mother's house.
Things should go badly

Chapter 5: Homeless
Mags and co. end up evicted. Spend the night at the bus station

Chapter 6: Eggs and Breakfast Partings
Mars and the 2 exiles go their separate ways. Mars goes with Mags to her Dad's

Chapter 7: Only time will tell
Mars begins his assimilation. Tries to be human, get a job, get a place to live, deal with being human, tries to remember who he was before then.

Chapter 8: Mother's day
Mars remembers his mother in human terms and knows that whatever he was before coming here is irreversibly gone as is any hope of going back.

Chapter 9: Some things never change
Mags is having a bad day and Mars realizes that those back where he came from will not let "sleeping dogs lie." Danger is coming soon

Chapter 10: the trouble with letting sleeping dogs lie.
Mars ends up getting mixed up with Mags' problems and making them much, much worse

Chapter 11: All things come in 3s
Mags loses her job, loses her friends, loses her heart to an alien
Mars loses his job, loses his cool and loses the car (again)

Chapter 12: Who knows (haven't got that far yet)