The Island Chapter 1, an ufo fanfic

A UFO Story

For our Shrew

In memory of Raymond Chandler

Chapter One: Dishpan Hands Life

Occasionally he allowed himself to think about the past. Not often, mind you, a mere momentary indulging in a luxury now and then. The rest of it was just by rote. The alarm clock went off, you rose, you did your toilet, you showered, you dressed, and you got into the used car. It ran the way you ordinarily felt, which was always badly. You merged with early afternoon traffic. You weren't all that conscious of the world around you other than the radio and the bracing air. Often, you didn't bother to eat. At the perimeter of your consciousness, you had to admit that such a practice was destructive. What the hell did it matter? You were a judge and jury of one. No one gave you rules for living your private life.

No one gave you anything.

You substituted the crisp spring air of Brighton cooling you through the open windows of the car for the sights and smells of a café called The Rock Bottom, which catered to the lunch crowd. You cast aside a cloak of privacy and you became Ed White. There were tables to clear and clean, supplies to replace, dishes to wash. No mod cons in this sorry existence. You worked hard. You had been working hard since the accident.

It seemed unbelievable that a year had passed since the accident, maybe two, three, but the calendar in the back room didn't lie. Neither did the lines, planes, and architecture of your face reflected in the bathroom mirror. The bathroom boasted a resident mouse you ignored even though U. K. health inspectors wouldn't approve. Besides, it had to be a vastly stupid mouse to choose this particular dump for a free meal now and then.

It drew the odd homeless person too, some of which you liked better than others. Certainly this place wasted more food than it served, so it really wasn't a gallant effort to bag it up and distribute it to those who needed it when the boss wasn't looking, which was a rare occurrence indeed.

The mouse, however, didn't beg as they did. Damn fat, arrogant mouse.

He dropped it a hunk of cheese, which it seized and then it disappeared into its hole with what seemed to be an attitude problem. You've really gone haywire Straker, he chided himself. You've given it a personality.

"So I'm a little late with your lunch?" he grumbled. "You want to catch food poisoning from eating here, its fine with me! "

A rare smile parted the straight pink slash of his lips for a second, illuminated the wide blue eyes. Straker bent over the sink to wash his hands, ignoring the offending mirror and its unwanted truth about the passage of time. He took the time to rub some lotion into his hands, which had become callused and raw from dishwashing, and all the other jobs he did in this paradise of a restaurant.

"God bloody damn it! Half hour before lunch and the bastard decides to have a bloody heart attack!"

That could only be his boss Mackey yelling. Mackey was a stocky, greedy fellow who would not only shoot Bambi's mother, but Bambi as well, sit there and take bets on how long it would take the creatures to die.

Ed Straker took a deep breath, dried his hands, and entered the skirmish. Undoubtedly, the boss was again cursing the cook George Fisher, whom Ed liked. George wheezed as badly as he turned out dishes for the customers, and did not believe in the National Health system. Now he was stuck in it. He and George shared a love of literature. Ed hoped he'd recover.

"What's wrong?" Ed asked, more to annoy the boss than needing explanation. The boss didn't like Americans. The boss didn't like anything that moved.

"What's wrong? Fool! George is laid up in hospital, and Wind's threatening to quit on me! You know anything about cooking?"

"I can do it when it's necessary. Want me to have a go at it?"

"Stupid American twit, what do you think? Do I look like I can afford to let this place lose money? Don't think I don't know you give food to the tramps that come round back. I'm going to start taking it out of your pay, do you hear me?"

Ed was not listening at this point; he had headed toward the kitchen area to prepare it for the business day. The predicted half hour later, in poured the not so distinguished clientele. Five hours after that, Ed was applying salve to a hand mildly but still painfully scalded from dropping fish and chips into hot oil, and then covered it with a questionable looking bandage from the first aid kit.

The bandage seemed a hand me down from Florence Nightingale's era, judging from how it had turned slightly yellow, he mused. Whatever worked, he told himself.

God he was tired, his eyes seemed permanently crossed for life from reading food orders, and he'd sweated away at least a pound, in the unventilated kitchen. He'd have to fix that damn broken fan himself if they expected him to take this job full time. Ed held no illusions that he'd be thanked or paid for it. He barely had enough vision remaining to see from the clock that it was closing time.

"I wouldn't have dreamed you had it in you, love. Customers loved the grub. I was getting tips right and left. Here! You've earned it."

Oh God, not her, he thought. I can't take her right now.

The woman responsible for his being employed there, with the Christian name of Wendy Wilson but known by everyone as Winds for her velocity of chatter thrust a tenner followed by a pair of bosoms at him. She'd been divorced twice, and he knew she imagined his head artfully displayed on her trophy wall of men I have known, seduced, swindled and suffocated. Ed trusted his mouse's morals more.

Still, she didn't ask questions, had collected him after the accident, believed all his many necessary lies, managed to produce a forged American I.D. for him in the name of Ed White, transplanted ex Air Force Yank, and found the bedsitter he lived in.

Working there for next to nothing (as an alien of all things!) Ed thought, appreciating the irony, had advantages. Ed realized that eventually she'd collect on his debt, and since he didn't want to be paying alimony or taking drugs to clear a dreaded bug she so generously had shared with him during a night of sex, he knew he would have to move on. Okay, escape was a more accurate term for it.

For now, it was just a unexpected job promotion, accepting his fraction of the tips he knew she actually had collected, and back to rote.

God he was tired. He never knew it was possible to get this tired.

The common people. The civilians that in another life he had sacrificed everything for so they'd be protected from the alien threat. Now he knew what life was like for them. He was one of them now.

That was all he was.

Except, most of them had ties to one another, friends, lovers, husbands, wives, life partners.

No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

He didn't have a soul in the world, nor did he need one, he had proved John Donne wrong, he truly was an island. He shoved his way past her, shutting his ears to her chattering, to collect his jacket and go home.

What home?

No, he wasn't going to think about what he'd said to Alec Freeman. Even though it was truer now than it ever had been in his history.

Now he scarcely could remember Freeman's jagged face and pair of warm blue eyes and a personality that flared like a friendly sun. A relationship needed and cherished more than either of them cared to admit.

On the other hand, was it that he didn't want to remember?

He knew the answer. That truth burned him as the oil had. He picked up a brown sack from out of the refrigerator, stuck it into his knapsack and kicked the door closed.

"You're a strange one, you are! Where do you think you're going?" Winds said.

"Home," he told her, shifting the knapsack onto a shoulder, zipping closed his thrift store acquired jacket and checking in his pockets for his car keys. I'm only strange because I won't go to bed with you, Ed thought.

"Take a second to rethink that, Eddie, boy. You have to close up for me. "

He'd been heading for the door, now he turned on a heel and stared at her. She actually backed a pace away, fearful, but managed a few words of bravado.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm off with Mac for the weekend. Friday night, remember? I've been working a long time to get him to put a ring on my finger and my old bones tell me it's going to be tonight. Don't sulk so. Cor, you're a strange one, Eddie. Seems I've known you forever and suddenly realize I don't know you at -. "

"I like it that way." he replied, and took an almost sadistic pleasure in how it blanched her face, stopped her customary gibberish in mid-sentence and scurried her out the door.

Wasn't he the ice cold, unfeeling bastard Commander Straker? Some things never changed.

Like being in pain, he told himself. That's never changed either.

Ed closed his mind and heart to pain, which had no resemblance to that acquired from working without a break for five hours. He began piling the chairs up onto the tables, then took the broom and swept the floor immaculately clean before he left.

Even then, he collected the bag of food out of the knapsack, and distributed it to the grateful queue of people collecting in the back of the restaurant. Ed had started a ritual on the second day he'd worked there. The Rock Bottom had a patch of land behind it which led to a far off winding path to the sea. Dotted by more weeds than spring wildflowers, it was still a place of calm for him. Ed had often gotten a book from his knapsack and sat on what grass remained, and read. Reacquainting with, and comforting himself with Raymond Chandler's stories, when Ed had gotten to work earlier and had time to relax outdoors before his shift. Just another of those luxuries he permitted himself now and then.

A stone wall surrounded the area. When the last beggar had vanished out its gate, he felt a sense of loss and he picked up his things and turned to go. A long wave of dizziness seized him and he found he had to grasp the wall to keep on his feet.

"Damn."

Charity begins at home, he reminded himself. When was the last time you ate, Straker? None of your business, he answered himself. It was then that he gave a start, because he realized people were watching him, had been for several minutes and he hadn't known it. He'd really allowed his tradecraft and training to go south. That thought amused him, because who would be interested in harming him now. He was a nobody. Preposterous.

The snap of a jackknife opening was a signal that he was dead wrong, with the emphasis on dead, he realised.

Peering at him was a scruffy, leather clad trio of youths, and that added up to nothing but trouble. Gang types, local bullies. Two that looked capable of doing him some real damage, one that looked as if he'd prefer to be anywhere else, but he still held the knife.

"Let's see. It's been a long time since I've been to the cinema. You lads want my wallet?" Ed asked in the local accent.

Oh, brilliant, Straker, the wise cracking, hardboiled sarcastic hero. Forget Phillip Marlowe, for Christ's sake! Two minutes ago, you couldn't even stand up straight without help. Idiot! Do you even remember how to defend yourself?

Does it even matter?

Yes, it matters, Ed decided. All I have left in the world is my pride and my life, and I'm damned if I'll allow some punks to intimidate me, he thought fiercely. He casually dropped the knapsack from his shoulder to his arm, and feigned fear. He actually was weighing his approach to each of them. Since he didn't have Alec Freeman or even Bogart as Phillip Marlowe, judo would have to get him out of this mess. Being skinny and a tad less than six feet tall forced a fellow to think in terms of various means of compensation, and it always had served him well.

"Shut up, you old tub of scum, and hand it over," one of them announced. "Friday's pay day so you'll have plenty. Hand it over. The lot. "

He seemed to be the ringleader, and was the closest to Ed.

"Oh, don't talk that way to Grandpa, where's your manners?"The younger, skinnier one said, toying with the knife, enjoying Ed's pretense of fear even though he looked none too brave himself. The others laughed and it seemed to reassure him.

The reassurance didn't last long.

Ed swung the knapsack in the leader's face with all his strength behind it, drawing a cry of pain, and a backwards stumble, plus momentary disbelief in the other two.

Grandpa was not following the script.

Ed had reinforced the knapsack with rocks sewn into its sides and bottom. He would have preferred carrying a gun for self-defence, but he was willing to guess Bogart's Marlowe would approve of the alternative.

The one with the knife came after him, but Ed jumped aside, and took advantage of the youth's momentum to grasp him hard, and hurl him straight into the wall. He folded like a Chinese laundry, and Ed swept down, picked up his knife and held it in a defensive position.

That left two.

Ed had miscalculated. One pulled out a gun.

So much for Bogart, Ed thought. He hurled the knife at the youth with the gun, with no time for a precision aim, and dived out of range of fire. The knife impaled the youth in the shoulder, drawing screams but Ed didn't bother to inspect his handiwork. He was too busy throwing himself at the third attacker's legs and both Ed and the kid came down hard. They struggled, and Ed found to his dismay that whatever adrenaline had gotten him through this was rapidly draining. The kid suddenly had him by the throat, he was holding on to the kid's hands, willing himself to be alert long enough to shake off the grip and then knee him in the groin, but the kid suddenly let go, wildly punched his chest then kicked him repeatedly. He obviously wants to do as much damage as he can to me, Ed thought, as his gut exploded with agony. Fine, his rage keeps me alive longer. The Brighton sky swirled past him after one particularly brutal kick and Ed's stomach readjusted itself as he painfully gulped air. He felt ribs crack. The old bloody-mindedness kept him going. Ed forced himself to get up, doing all he could to get his hands on the gun, but he was slower from his injuries. The other kid was hysterically screaming, and shouting at the third one to get help.

"Shut up!" he yelled back. He had turned around, giving Ed his chance. Ed dived for it.

Ed froze. What would Bogart think of the odds now?

The kid had gotten to the gun first.

Ed waited. He was surprisingly unafraid. He figured it was shock.

Goodbye, Alec.

The kid fired.

They stared at each other.

The kid Ed had hit with the knife was on his knees, crying and moaning. It occurred to Ed that being able to hear the kid shrieking meant he, Ed, wasn't dead.

Ed recovered first, rose up, chuckled softly despite his injuries, and fighting to keep from passing out.

"That's the inconvenient thing about owning a gun. It needs bullets to work."

"You knifed Stu, you son of a bitch." The would-be killer gasped, threw the gun in Ed's direction. It didn't come anywhere close, and Ed picked it up. As he'd figured, it was empty. The kid was shaking badly, as bullies tended to do when things didn't turn in their favor. Ed doubted he even knew how to load it. It had been for show.

"He's going to live, provided he doesn't try to take that knife out without a doctor's help. Forgive me for missing his heart. Now get the hell out of here. You're lucky I don't like police. Take your pals with you. "

"You come after us, old man, I'll kill you, you hear?" The kid got his last word in, didn't waste much time in getting out of there. There was no fight left in him, he was as empty as the gun.

"You're welcome to try." Ed replied. The kid yanked his screaming companion to his feet, slapped him a couple of times, and dragged him off.

Ed waited until they had gone, moved gingerly, examined the gun. The last scared kid, obviously not as important to his pals, began to groan.

Ed had temporarily forgotten him. Another sign of my getting soft, he thought. Maybe Grandpa was too accurate a title.

"Great, just great. " Ed sighed.

Ed moved to the kid's side, and prodded him awake with the gun. The kid's eyes opened and focused on the gun and he sat up, in terror.

"Shit, shit, shit! Mister, don't shoot me, okay, we didn't mean no harm, honest!"

"Take off your shirt, toss it on the ground, and then start running." Ed said, holding the empty gun on him. "You have three seconds before I shoot you."

The kid clearly didn't know the gun hadn't been loaded, if he'd known of it at all.

"Mister, please, I don't even like them!"

Little late to come to that conclusion, thought Ed.

"One."

"Mister, PLEASE!" He was terrified, and pulled his shirt over his head with difficulty and tossed it at Ed's feet.

"TWO."

Ed watched him begin to what vaguely resembled a run. For a moment, Ed considered clapping his hands loud enough to sound like a gunshot.

No, enough sadism for today, Ed thought, and picked up the shirt, tearing it into strips to wrap around his chest to keep the ribs immobile. It hurt like hell, but that too meant he was alive. Ed tucked the gun into his knapsack. At least he had that prize for protection. God only knew how the punk had acquired it in England, with the strict gun laws. It was a Glock too, weathered with use, just needed cleaning. The trick would be in acquiring the bullets Ed needed. He'd think of something. No doubt, Winds could find him a source for ammo, or she probably had it herself. If ever there was a black market expert, it was she.

Ed checked the runner's progress. The horrified kid was maybe a yard away, still falling, stumbling, or looking back more than he was running. It was annoying.

Really annoying.

"Oh hell." Ed said.

Ed clapped.

The boy screamed, dropped, realized he was still moving, rolled, jumped up and sped out of sight.

"Straker, you bastard." Ed said with a grin. He had to grab the wall again when the dizziness struck, almost like the universe punishing him for his macabre humor.

Damn it, you will NOT pass out!

"I don't know about that, Sir. The little fiend had it coming ." a voice said from behind Ed. Ed whirled, furious at letting down his guard yet again.

A short man dressed in brown tan cloak and what looked to be a bespoke gray flannel suit with a yellow shirt, pink necktie and polished tan shoes stood there. He was paler than Ed, had a headful of thick white hair which seemed genuine despite the man's age, and he possessed more arrogance than the mouse. He looked to Ed as if he'd been born into blue blood with his upper class accent, but there was unmistakable warmth in his blue eyes as he leaned on a cane and took in the sight of Ed.

"Who the hell are you?" Ed snapped.

"I'm Sir Percival Falcon, but my friends call me Perry. Don't worry, I don't like the police either, I'm not getting you in trouble for the gun. And you are?"

There was something about the man, Ed thought. Something familiar.

"I don't see that it's any of your business."

"You know me, you told me your name was Ed White when we first met," the man chuckled. "Yet you just used the name Straker."

"I've never told you anything, you're wrong. What do you want?"

Where had he seen the man?

"To do for you what you've done for others. I want to help you. I'm quite rich, you know. I'm a bit eccentric, I travel about using the gifts I've been given by the Goddess, and I look for extraordinary people, people like you, who get lost in the Between. Oh dear!"

Ed had slumped against the wall then pushed himself up when the man approached. Ed held up a shaky hand to warn the stranger off.

"Stay away from me; I don't need your help."

"How wrong you are, my dear Edward, but that's a practiced lie on your part, I fear. Now don't be difficult. Although wanting that from Ed Straker, is a lost cause indeed, isn't it?" he tittered.

"My name isn't Straker. Where the hell do I know you from?" Ed grumbled.

"Perhaps I'm your mouse. " Perry said knowingly.

"What?" Ed said, startled out of his tough manner.

The man chuckled again, delighted with Ed's confusion.

Clearly, he was dotty, but Ed instantly liked him. What was even more perplexing is that the man did look a bit like the mouse. Well, that proves it, Straker. You've lost your wits for sure.

"My dear Edward, you've been feeding me for weeks now. I've been coming when the other homeless do, and taking your food. Not dressed like this, of course, good heavens no." Perry chuckled.

"Why would you want to do something like that? " Ed scowled.

"Edward, enough of this, come with me, I'm taking you home with me and out of this hell hole you worked at. You're in pain, dressed in clothes not fit for the gentleman you are, plagued with self doubt, and half starved."

'Now see here, I'm not going anywhere with.."

Ed slid down the wall into a lump of unconscious ex- Commander.

"I do say that Alec Freeman of yours must be a saint, having to cope with you." Perry laughed. He drew out his mobile, and tapped in a number.