Unreal

It's hard to sort, reality.

Unreal

Sid had only one alien death he had to investigate, thank God. He might have quit sooner than he did.

It wasn’t an ICE alien. That would have been easy. It was a NASA/ Homeland Security/ WTF alien.

Sid knew dead things. Roadkill, human babies, elk, but this was different.

Earl stood there, since the sheriff’s department gets the call in these rural areas. And then they call him.

They were both standing before this dead thing and wondering. Bow hunter called it in. So the bones and goo were what Sid and Earl were here to try to figure out.

What is it?

Jesus, Earl, I don’t know. That looks like a bone. But not like any I have ever seen.

They were in the east county, where all weird shit happens. Sid had to run for office, and he paid attention to the votes. He always lost out here, even when he didn’t have an opponent. It seems folks out here didn’t want a coroner. At least, they didn’t want Sid.

The pile of stuff was very odd. No fabric, no clothes. Earl wasn’t going to go digging for ID.

It was about the size of a cooler you’d take on a raft trip. Bigger than your tailgate cooler, but maybe the same if you were really into tailgating. Jesus, dead things and coolers.

It was mostly the color of the duff and debris of the forest floor around it. But the bones sticking out were the thing that caught the hunter’s attention. And so they drew in Earl and Sid. Weird bones, weird shit.

Give me some gloves. I’m going to pull this apart. You got pictures?

Earl handed Sid some nitrile gloves from a back pocket. Yeah, I got pictures, but I’m gonna take some if you’re gonna take this apart. Go slow.

Sid nodded at his wise colleague. He muscled on the tight black gloves and looked down at the pile, where to pull?

There were two rounded ends like they might fit together. Like before this creature had died, they might have served some function. Sid couldn’t help but think of the humerus and the ulna and radius, our elbow. But instead this was just two bones like our tibia and femur. Sid couldn’t help but think of what he knew. Who can’t?

Sid placed his gloved fingers over the bones, the middle one between and the outers to clasp, and he gently pulled. Earl clicked his button of the camera as Sid drew it up.

It was an easy pull, to Sid’s surprise. It was like the husk below offered these up. Earl clicked and Sid pulled. They came out clean.

You got a bag?

Earl shuffled around and came up with a big baggie.

Need a bigger one than that. C’mon. The bones were about two feet long. So maybe 60 centimeters, Sid thought, as he waited for Earl to find the right bag. Sid then thought about measurement. What does one use to measure? Sid was going out there. This happened to him.

As he held them up, Sid appreciated their curve. There were places muscles might have attached as our bones have. Ridges and prominences that make no sense unless you understand the function.

Sid had done the human anatomy. He had even done some cow and dog anatomy back when he thought he might be a veterinarian. But Sid knew, as he held these bones for Earl, this didn’t make sense. These were not bones of anything he knew.

Earl bagged them. Now what, he asked.

There’s more in there. I can get more for you. But you might want to call this in.

Why Doc?

Because this isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen.

So who do I call?

Sid loved that Earl was asking him this. Usually it was Sid asking them for advice. Just say “extraterrestrial” and we’ll see who shows up.

The helicopters were there in 45 minutes.

It’s not hard to fill 45 minutes on a remote hillside in the Eastern County. Sid saw some little brown birds flitting around a bush. His wife would know the bush. Maybe even the birds. He looked at the trees. Most were pretty healthy, though there had been some blow down. Just a bit of white fir in with some white pine, hemlock and red fir and cedar. And lots of lodgepole. Sid guessed the place had been logged forty, fifty years back. So that would have been the second cut. The big virgin white pine forests would have been cut seventy, maybe ninety years back. They had eons to get to that size. Ever again? Sid was going out there.

Sid wondered about the blackish, brownish mound he had pulled the bones out of. But he got trippy thinking about that. Instead, he walked around. The road was down below, so he went up to the ridge. Probably a good view off to the west up there.

It was not steep here. Down below it sure was. Sid felt his strong thighs and weak, worn-out knees as he stepped over branches and downfall.

The ridge had timber, but it was shorter and fatter, gnarled by the western wind. The sun was in some clouds over there as it slid down. He almost didn’t see the shards.

The black pieces were angular. They had a bit of a curve to them. One was embedded in a red fir tree trunk. As he walked around it, not touching it, at just the right angle to the lowering sunlight, it disappeared. He kept circling and there it was again. Solid as steel, but surely not.

Jesus, this coroner stuff.

He heard the black helicopters coming in fast from the northwest. Two, dropping down, heading right for him. Sid went back down to Earl.

One put down on the lower road and the other kept hovering, so you couldn’t talk, couldn’t think.

A short guy in grey camo came up through the trees. Sid could see the others with the weapons dispersed around.

You called this in?

Yes. A hunter told us, so we came out here to investigate.

Has anyone else been informed?

Just our dispatch.

The little guy nodded. Okay, you can go. Take your stuff. We got it from here.

Sid had done this before. The black helicopters arrive and us local boys leave.

Sid and Earl left. Sid helped Earl carry the stuff down to the road. Earl loaded his and Sid got into the little Hilux, and they worked their way back to their homes.

Maybe in the next week or month he was walking down the Main Street on his lunch constitutional and the woman up ahead started speaking to him. Sid recognized her, but he only caught her speech as he passed. You still cutting up those dead bodies?

Sid remembered her anger from maybe a year ago, when he wouldn’t phone in the antibiotic prescription, she insisted her child needed. Sid wanted to examine the child. She thought him foolish on the phone. Now she mocked his coroner role. So it goes.

The sun was low as the winter approached. He turned around to look at her as he internalized her rage, her anger. A part of her seemed to disappear, just the side of her head as he looked back. But he went on.

Maybe three months later on a suicide in the north county Sid ran into Earl again. Say, Doc, how you doing? Earl was taking pictures.

He gave Sid the story. Sid looked at the scene. It all fit. Sad, but true.

Say, Doc, you ever hear anything more about that thing out east?

Sid laughed softly. Earl, nobody tells me shit. You get more info than I ever do.

So, do you know who those guys were?

The helicopter guys? Hell no. We aren’t supposed to know. They don’t want us to know.

So what am I supposed to do with the bones?

What bones?

Those two you pulled out. I bagged them up and they’re in evidence, but I got no case to attach to them. Earl smiled at Sid. Do you want them?

Sid looked down and smiled at the floor. Sure.

I’ll drop them by your place.

Thanks.

This coroner stuff.

After dinner Sid went out to his garage. It was chill, but not cold. Maybe there was something out there he could fix. He started straightening up the place. The screwdrivers here, the rags down there.

For some reason he looked up. The mule deer rack hung up there, dusty and crooked. It had been a good shot, a good kill, and good meat.

He wondered why he had screwed the antlers up there.

Maybe, someday, he would know.