Episode 01 - Abduction

The morning light streamed through the gap between the towels that served as makeshift curtains in Zed’s trailer. Through his half-drunken stupor, he shielded his eyes and swung his legs over Amber, sliding over her body on his way out of bed.

“Ow!” she yelled, managing to slap him in the ass.

“Morning to you too”, he muttered in return, stumbling through empty beer bottles and leaning on wood-paneled walls on the way to the toilet. He was completely nude, and his wild bedhead and the itchy feeling downstairs told him they’d had a great night. Zed smiled at the thought, though his hangover made the simple act of smiling hurt his brain.

Zed swept the accordion door that hid the toilet to the side and let go, groaning with relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pack of cigarettes and a lighter laying by the sink.

Must be Zoe’s, he thought. Her fault for leaving em’ here.

Zed lit up as he finished draining himself, and the rays of sunlight streaming through the vent on the ceiling became visible in the cigarette smoke. As he shook himself, he noticed that the rays were moving slowly from left to right through the haze…

“Are you smoking my cigarettes Zed?”, Zoe yelled from the bedroom, “Those have to last me till' next week!”

Zed stood in the bedroom door and looked down at the two women laying in his bed. The sheet hung loosely over their bodies, and Zoe had already snuggled up beside Amber in his absence, her black mane mingling with the platinum blond hair of the woman next to her. As the sunlight moved slowly across Amber’s face, she lifted an arm to shield her eyes, exposing one of her breasts.

Money well spent, Zed thought to himself, heading to the living room and collecting his clothes from the floor as he went. He found a half-drunk bottle of beer on the coffee table, and took a swig before pulling on a pair of jeans, a mechanic's jacket with the word "Zed" written in cursive on a small white patch, and a pair of steel-toed boots. He had to get his ass to work. The gas station was a bitch, but it was the only place in town that would hire an ex-con.

“Why don’t one of you whores get up and make me some breakfast”, he said, smiling as he took one last drag from the cigarette and tossed it on the floor.

“Fuck that”, Amber yelled back, “It’s three in the morning.”

Smashing the cigarette into the moldy linoleum, Zed noticed a beam of light moving quickly across the floor as he registered her response. Suddenly, he realized the bright light streaming through his windows wasn’t sunlight at all.

“What the hell?”, he said, jumping off the couch and looking out through a gap in the blinds.

Hovering over his trailer, glowing brightly in the night sky, a gigantic flying saucer buzzed softly above them. Zed saw colored lights spinning in circular patterns around the perimeter of the ship. Lights swung back and forth from a central portal, exploring his property and crawling over the trailer.

“Come back to bed”, Zoe pleaded from the bedroom, “We miss you”.

Zed ran toward the bedroom, tripping over furniture and slipping on beer bottles as he went.

“Zoe, keep quiet, there’s something outside!”

“What, the cops?”

He was in the bedroom, throwing closet doors open and thrusting his hands into the piles of debris inside. “Where the hell is it?” he yelled, kicking the wall and busting a new hole through the paneling.

Amber stirred suddenly and without opening her eyes, she reached under her side of the bed and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun. “This what you’re looking for?” she asked, holding it out in front of her.

“Yes”, he said, swiping it out of her hand and heading for the front door.

“Shells are in the breadbox!” Amber called after him, and fell back into bed. She heard Zed rattle the small tin door and grab a handful of shells before tearing out through the front screen door.

As the shotgun blasts began, Zoe rolled out of bed and peeked through the small bedroom window just in time to see Zed lifted into the flying saucer by a bright green beam of light. As he ascended, he pumped buckshot into the hull of the ship, destroying several of the robotic arms which pecked at the gun in an attempt to disarm him. Zed continued to rise, and Zoe saw him reload the gun before disappearing through the portal. Moments later, the portal twisted closed, the lights dimmed, and the ship rose up through the atmosphere and out of sight.


“I think Zed just got abducted by aliens”, Zoe said to Amber, still scanning the heavens.

“Well, I hope he goes easy on them”, she replied, reaching an arm around Zoe’s waist and pulling her back into bed.

<<<<<>>>>>

Zed saw the portal doors close beneath him, and in the same instant, the green beam that had been pulling him upward switched off, blanketing the room in a veil of darkness and dropping him into a strange kind of adhesive slime below. He’d anticipated the trap, and held his shotgun arm above him as he fell.

Doors hissed open all around him, and Zed knew instinctively that beings were entering the room. He could not determine their positions in the darkness, so he fired a shotgun blast into the ceiling. In the flash of light, he saw that three aliens approaching fast, and he fired shots in their direction.

A sickening screech and the sound of a body hitting the floor told him at least one of the shots was successful. A bright beam of light struck him in the shoulder, numbing his arm, and Zed leveled the shotgun in that direction, pulling the trigger. He could see the frightened face of the alien ripped apart by the buckshot, and heard the body collapse to the ground.

A sharp stab of pain in his back told him he’d been injected with something from behind, and as he spun the shotgun in that direction, he lost strength in that arm, and dropped the gun into the pool of adhesive goop. Fortunately, the powerful tranquilizer left Zed with enough strength to clench his fist and punch the alien in the jaw. Zed felt fibrous connections tearing and bones snapping under its cold spongy skin.

Another screech, and Zed was shot with second injection of the tranquilizer. This time, his strength left him completely, and he collapsed fully into the adhesive substance.

The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the sound of doorways opening and several pairs of feet approaching in the darkness.

(to be continued...)