The Bovine Connection (17 page)

The guys yelled back “Goodnight, Angelica!”

Matthew looked down at Angelica’s droopy eye lids. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.”

Matthew got Angelica in the passenger seat and shut the door. Angelica slid her hand down to find the handle and lowered her seat, pulling at it too hard. The passenger seat dropped, causing her to bounce and giggle. Matthew looked over and smirked
as he shut his door
. “You okay over there cowgirl?”

“Just fine, thank you. Your seat must be broken – you should get that fixed.”

Matthew laughed and shook his head while he watched her shuffle around trying to get comfortable.

“Interesting day, huh
,
”
he said, inwardly laughing.

“Yes, very.”

“So
you
got a boyfriend back in D.C.? You said you weren’t married, so I…”

Angelica interrupted him, “No time for men. I’m too busy for nonsense. Thought we covered this already. It’s chilly in here – do you have heat?” Angelica wrapped her arms around her body and shivered.

“I see – a little high-strung- are we?” Matthew asked, as he prepared himself for her response.

Angelica shot a look at Matthew. “I am well aware of your perception of me, and you may view me
differently than I view myself; however, while I appreciate your effort to lift my layers, some people don’t want their layers lifted. Ha! That sounds like a tongue twister. I couldn’t say that if I was really drunk,” Angelica announced, slurring her words before she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Matthew cut a sharp glace at her just before he backed out of the parking lot.

Matthew cocked his head toward Angelica amused and somewhat glad she had fallen asleep. “You are a high-strung woman,” he murmured.

A
ngelica screamed as she abruptly felt the weight of her body. She was shaking. As she looked down she noticed she was naked and lying on a cold metal table under a bright light. She quickly raised her hands to shield her eyes from the light. Feeling a strange sensation in her belly, and then pain, a sharp stabbing pain, she placed both hands over her stomach and started to rub as she moaned out.

She
looked up into the room and saw it coming towards her. Angelica gasped. She began to tremble uncontrollably. “What are you?”
She
screamed. The light was too bright… the details were too hard to make out. Suddenly,
her body was
frozen stiff
and she was only able to move her head
. “What do you want with me? Please, please, someone help me!” The tears were running down her cheeks and she could feel their warmth as they ran into her ears. She rapidly turned her head side to side, trying to find someone to help her. She screamed
out
, “Someone please help me!” She tried to move but couldn’t. “Let me go, please!” Angelica continued to probe the room for an exit or someone to help her. She looked back and the figure was standing over her. When she saw his translucent skin, she screamed uncontrollably. “Please, what do you want?” Angelica
whispered through her trembling lips.
The being touched her neck and she felt a sensation of heat run down and along her collarbone, as it tilted its head
and peered at her with large dark, vacant eyes, presenting no emotion.

Angelica was moist with sweat and shivering uncontrollably. “Please let me go!” She pleaded… but she could see it was unmoved by her. It peered at her, tilting its head, as if it were studying her. Its long fingers moved down her chest, between her breasts and along her breastbone to her belly, then stopped. As she looked down trembling, she noticed it only had four fingers as they extended out across her belly.

The being tilted its head back toward Angelica and then, suddenly, images started to race through her mind… Images of a baby, then a young boy, the same boy growing older… Image after image like an ancient eight millimeter film projected on a wrinkled cotton sheet hanging from a wall. Static… vague… yet familiar. Angelica shook her head. The being was somehow putting images into her mind.

Angelica looked around the room again, looking for anyone to help her. She could make out several of them moving from the shadows but they appeared not to notice her. Angelica caught sight of what looked like test tubes filled with a viscous green solution containing human fetuses. She let out a blood curdling scream. She was incapacitated. She looked towards her feet and saw another pale, grey being approaching her. It was holding something shiny in its horrific long, skinny fingers. She thought it was a scalpel, but she couldn’t fully make it out. “No, please don’t!” She begged and pleaded while squinting, trying to get a better look. “Please don’t hurt me!” Suddenly she saw a flash of lig
ht.

A
ngelica gasped for air as her eyes popped wide open, right out of a deep sleep. The room was dark. She didn’t feel alone. “Who’s there? Is someone in here?” She rose up and promptly hit the button on the lamp, slowly pulling the covers back, and looked around with grave eyes. She was disoriented and her hair a mess. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest. She got up from the bed and slowly walked toward the bathroom.

“Is someone in here?” There was no reply, so she continued to the door, reached her arm around the bathroom door, and cautiously turned on the light. The shower curtain was open. There was no one in the bathroom. She turned off the light and looked in the closet again as she passed by it, noticing only the metal luggage stand and her clothes neatly hung on wooden hangers.

Angelica glanced around and saw both doors were still locked. Her head was pounding so hard she felt as if it were vibrating. She was still intoxicated and she realized her balance was off. Mildly anxious, and wide awake, she realized she was hungry. She thought about calling room service, but noticed it was two thirty-three in the morning, so she went over and got back into bed.

After pulling the covers back up, she leaned over and turned the light switch off. Snuggling into the goose down and repositioning herself, she closed her eyes and drifted back off to sleep.

Angelica woke up after feeling as if she had another strange dream but she was not lucid enough to remember it. There was, however, a lingering sense that she had been violated. Angelica placed her hand on her pelvis as she looked over and noticed the message light was blinking on the room phone beside her. She turned on the lamp, picked up the receiver, and listened to the voicemail.

The message was from a male voice she did not recognize. “You may be in danger, Angelica. You need to meet me as soon as you get back to D.C. I will leave a note with instructions under the front door of your townhouse. And in the meantime, please be careful.”

Angelica hung up the phone and looked at the clock. It was eleven thirty-three in the morning. She sat there for a moment trying to collect her thoughts. Her mind was still in a fog and she was having a hard time processing what she had just heard. She vaguely remembered Matthew’s comment about his experience with threating phone calls. However, this wasn’t a threat, it was a warning. She picked the phone back up and listened to the message again. This time she listened carefully to the voice inflection and tried to determine if she could recognize the voice. It was deep, authoritative, and confident. Her instincts told her that the person on the other line was sincere and it was not a prank. Without a doubt, she did not recognize the voice of the mysterious messenger. And he clearly didn’t want to tell her who he was on a voice message.

Angelica looked around the room and saw sunlight shining through a crack in the heavy curtains. It looked like it was going to be another warm day in Elberton. Angelica suddenly remembered she was to meet with Michael Anderson on his ranch at two-thirty that afternoon. She quickly jumped up, rushed over to the mirror above the desk, and examined her complexion. Her face was red and dull after all the tequila. Surprisingly, there were no bags under her eyes, and although the corners were slightly dark, and her mascara was smudged down her cheeks, considering her night before at the billiards hall, she didn’t look as bad as she felt.

Angelica started to get snapshots of the night before and suddenly remembered dancing and singing aloud to a country song in the bar. Immediately, she felt embarrassed and turned crimson, wanting to get back into bed and hide under the heavy duvet. She made the decision never to drink Tequila again.

Angelica glanced down and noticed she had her hand against her pelvic region, just below her belly button. She was applying pressure in the way she often did with menstrual cramps. Feeling a dull heaviness in her uterus, she shivered and thought back on the evening before. She remembered coming to her room alone after Matthew had dropped her off and breathed a quick sigh of relief.

What that must have looked like as she stumbled through the lobby… Oh God
, she thought, as she raised both hands to her open mouth and blushed. She may have been intoxicated and made a fool of herself, but she was certain she went to bed alone.

Angelica slipped off her panties, dropping them at her feet, and walked into the bathroom. She turned on the bathtub faucet to let the water warm up.

T
he elevator opened to the front lobby. Angelica looked refreshed and beautiful after a long hot shower. She immediately noticed most of the attention in the lobby was on her. She felt a sudden nervousness in her stomach and ran her hands down her thighs concerned that she should have picked looser fitting pant. The black leggings and brown lace up ankle boots might have been too much for an interview with Michael Anderson, she thought.

She had matched it with a cream-colored knit blouse trimmed in sheer cream lace exposing the top portion of her back. Gail had convinced her to buy it while shopping at a boutique in Georgetown. Gail said it was youthful and slightly sexy.

Her wavy light blonde hair rested on her shoulders. She had added an extra dab of perfume. Angelica had prepared carefully, as she did when she was going on a date, battling with her subconscious each time it snarled at her. “It’s a business meeting, Angelica!” But she ignored it.

Angelica made eye contact with each person as she passed by. She learned through her years of fighting to be a respected journalist that you must never appear insecure.

In D.C., it was a battle of the superior, like animals in the wild, she had concluded. Angelica wasn’t the type of person interested in feeling superior to anyone. To her it was all a silly game.

At the hostess stand, Angelica raised her index finger, announcing gracefully, “Just one.”

She was seated at a small table on the veranda. A petite white ceramic vase with a pink peony was placed squarely in the middle.

She took her laptop out of her satchel. She moved the silverware over and sat it in front of her on the white tablecloth. She then pulled out her cell phone to call Gail.

“Hi, how are you?”

“Hey you! I’m good. How’s it going?” Gail asked.

“I’m still here, but planning to leave tomorrow. I’m actually working on my flight right now as we speak,” she said, while logging in to the airline’s website on her laptop, holding her cellphone between her shoulder and neck.

“How’s the story coming along?”

“Well, as you know, it’s unusual… I’m still tying it all together. There are some wild theories out there, Gail, and some are quite extraordinary, to say the least.” Angelica went on, “Listen Gail, here’s the deal… Some folks around here think it’s a race of ETs or as some call them non-humans. It’s crazy! And I…”

Gail cut her off. “Look, Angelica, you’re a journalist. Write it all! Remember, you write from a neutral perspective. Plus, it will make a damn good story. Readers love crazy stuff like this!”

Angelica took a deep breath. “Okay, I have one more interview here in ‘The Twilight Zone’, and then I’m planning to fly to Colorado tomorrow for an interview. That’s only if I can arrange the interview on such short notice.