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)

Maggie Peterson, professional Ex-Girlfriend

It had been a lousy night.
God, Men sucked! they sucked at romance, love, hell- if Maggie was going to be straight they sucked at sex to boot it all in the butt.
What had she been thinking?
Luke had been so promising. He was hot. He was going to college. He had a job. His family was from Indiana - so no chance of inbreeding?
Luke had been a colossal mistake. She could see what Billie Sue was going to say in the morning.
"I tol' you so."
Maggie hated Billie Sue at that moment. She gripped the steering wheel harder as she drove home.
The shame of getting dumped by Mr. Perfect was that it had to happen in front of a titty bar. What had she been thinking?
She was an idiot! That was it. There she was, thinking that Luke was all that and then here he comes flying out of Bambi's face first. Drunk as a skunk.
She had stood there looking at the guy she was supposed to be meeting in 4 minutes at Frank's Grill for a late night moonlit meal and a trist in the nearby lake. She was a big fat idiot. Luke was a fake.
He had flunked out of college- about a week ago- she found out as she had picked the gravel out of his stained shirt. Hell, apparently Luke had been lucky to get into that Junior college after the State University had given him the boot. But hell with them he still had her - he had drunkenly slurped up in hopes she would kiss him there on the park bench by the bus stop.
Maggie resisted the urge to hammer her head on the steering wheel at that moment.

His "job" was washing headlights at a dealership which he had just lost since he had kicked in an annoying customer's headlamps-right before he had said fuck it all and gone to the titty bar- which he apparently was a regular at and had run up a tab and would she pay it so he could go back there tomorrow since Shalance (or some shitty dog-name ) could dance for him.

Maggie the doormat!

If this loser wasn't inbred he must have been adopted.

Then Shalance had showed up and bitch-slapped her to the ground!

Shalance was a tall and very pissed off Black woman with huge breasts that barely fit into that tee shirt that Maggie had given Luke for his birthday.

Then that asshole had slung his arm around that whore and strutted off in direction of his car. Well-his new car, a junky car that looked like it had seen it's best days before 1944. The old one had been a Mustang convertible. Probably repossessed.

She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't! It wasn't the end of the world, Maybe if the asshole got hit by a meteor then things could get better. Yeah, she like that idea- a big burning chunk of three nude guys standing beside the road. WTF!

Then she was swerving around struggling to keep her Geo on the road and not flip it.

What in the hell were three guys doing out here with no clothes in the middle of the night?

No wait she didn't want to know.

She didn't.

Did she?

She looked back down the road where the three men stood looking at her.

Oh crap.

she did.

Mars and Roads

There is something about  a road. For  one thing, they are one  of the oldest creations of Mankind. In the beginning of things  it was little more  than a line imaginary for the most part in  the minds of those who walked  upon it. It was preceded by paths and similar  concepts of routes from one point to  another that people could use. By the time a "road" was  introduced the paths were well worn but the idea of the road caught on fast and has remained  in our  collective minds since.
Mars knew that this was such a line, although he did  not know what traveled  on it yet. He instinctively knew that the road was his future and that wherever he had originated from- he had gotten here (wherever that was) by a version of this non-natural thing that  lay  before him. Back there (wherever  there was-if it still was) he had walked those routes. Walked was  synonymous with Walker in his mind. He knew he had not "walked" like he was now but he did know  he had moved upon lines like this  one back where  he had come  from. He  stared down at the first thing he had recognized  since finding himself here. If only the Trace would come back and speak to him. (was it speaking that the Trace did?).
He stared at the black asphalt for a time as the  other two came to stand on either side of them. Together the two others stared down at it. Mars had crouched down awkwardly longing for something he could quite place or find  on his body  to give him the balance he needed. After a moment, he  reached out one appendage and touched the asphalt. The feeling  made his muscles jump as the sensation sent  its signals  to his brain  and  he processed the warmth of it and softness of  the matter under his  appendages. The result was something foreign to him and he found that he liked touching  the matter so he did not move for a long time.
No he did not know what this liking was but he could deal  with it better than he had expected.
The lights appeared down  the road floating out of the night. Fijbold made to step  forward onto  the road. Something he could  not explain made him stand up and use the other appendage to stop Fijbold's  movement. Fijbold sputtered but came to a stop. He glared over at Mars as the lights became clearer.
So, other things travel on the road, Mars thought.