A Powers That Be short story
EPUB 3 digital download
***
“Ben’s day started innocent enough with a ‘get-your-ass-in-gear’ call from his boss, an affable fellow known as Chief, hunkered in an underground Powers That Be nerve center somewhere deep in the heart of Texas.”
***
The fates of a veteran alien tracker named Ben, an old hermit who goes by Harvey, and Rose—a hostess with a dark secret—converge inside the Shady Oaks Diner, where the special of the day, and every other day, is chicken-fried steak.
Ben, a veteran PTB agent and elite alien tracker, exits a botched Alamogordo surveillance assignment and travels a lonesome New Mexican highway resonating atomic age lore on the trail of a cunning fugitive shapeshifter before hunger compels an impulsive stop at the Shady Oaks Diner to see if the chicken-fried steak lives up to its sun-bleached billboard hype.
Sitting in a booth inside the empty, off-the-grid establishment, Ben watches the aloof hostess ignore his patronage before a gnarled old man settles across from him with a devilish gap-toothed grin on his matted, bearded visage.
Ben’s high-stakes mind game with Harvey, the conniving old man, and Rose, the compromised hostess, uncover bitter revelations on human/alien coexistence while finishing his lunch before everything fades to black.
A Powers That Be short story
EPUB 3 digital download
***
“Ben’s day started innocent enough with a ‘get-your-ass-in-gear’ call from his boss, an affable fellow known as Chief, hunkered in an underground Powers That Be nerve center somewhere deep in the heart of Texas.”
***
The fates of a veteran alien tracker named Ben, an old hermit who goes by Harvey, and Rose—a hostess with a dark secret—converge inside the Shady Oaks Diner, where the special of the day, and every other day, is chicken-fried steak.
Ben, a veteran PTB agent and elite alien tracker, exits a botched Alamogordo surveillance assignment and travels a lonesome New Mexican highway resonating atomic age lore on the trail of a cunning fugitive shapeshifter before hunger compels an impulsive stop at the Shady Oaks Diner to see if the chicken-fried steak lives up to its sun-bleached billboard hype.
Sitting in a booth inside the empty, off-the-grid establishment, Ben watches the aloof hostess ignore his patronage before a gnarled old man settles across from him with a devilish gap-toothed grin on his matted, bearded visage.
Ben’s high-stakes mind game with Harvey, the conniving old man, and Rose, the compromised hostess, uncover bitter revelations on human/alien coexistence while finishing his lunch before everything fades to black.
