Halloween Havoc

Part Five: Evil Lurks Close By

The room was dimly lit, that was the first thing she noticed. Then the cold breeze put out by a tiny air vent. Dark shadows decorated the bare walls and a thin layer of dust covered the floor.

"Where am I?"

The lights flickered and the sound of muffled footsteps echoed in her ears. It sounded almost as if someone were dragging themselves along the floor.

A shadow fell over the hunched over agent. Aileen moaned and dared to sit upright. Finally her vision cleared and allowed her to focus on the figure before her. "Kay?"

"You alright?"

"I think so." Aileen noticed her hands and feet were bond, Kay was tied up in the same fashion which accoutered for his difficulty in getting over to her. "Where are we?"

"I'd say we were in an old wine cellar." Kay responded. More voices came from the shadows and other agents wriggled into the light. "Everyone alright?"

"What happened?" Lucy said in a dazed tone.

"Alpha." Kay stated grimly.

"He's up to his old tricks again." S muttered as she struggled against her bonds.

"Kidnapping agents is one thing," hissed a voice, "but harassing cats is going TOO FAR!"

"Anna?" S called.

"This'll teach me to hang out with amateur agents."

"That's her alright."

Elle slowly opened her eyes and found herself in the shadows at the far end of the wine cellar with other agents dragging themselves into the dim light.

Yawning she tried to stretch out and found that she too had been tied up. Sometimes she seriously questioned her eagerness to get out of the lab and into fieldwork.

Just then she heard a moan from overhead. "Wh-who's there?"

With minimum effort she glanced up at the mysterious figure that she'd been using for a pillow. He started to stir and when his eyelids slid open he shouted.

"AAHHH!!!" X screamed. Elle was lying---in HIS lap! The nerve of these humans! "Go find a rat to lie on!"

Elle sneered and forced herself up. "I'd like to find a rat to stuff in that black hole on your face."

Kay shushed them and starred upwards to the cellar's ceiling. Footsteps could vaguely be heard coming from above. Once they reached the cellar door a brief moment of silence followed then the beeping of numbers on a keypad came from behind the door.

The MIBs looked on in defiant helplessness as the door opened and a cloaked creature stepped inside. His toothy grin shown out from beneath the wide brim of his tan hat. Then two yellow eyes looked on from a gray, sunken in face. "Ah, you're awake. Excellent. Now the real fun can begin."

******

Back at MIB HQ Jay was plotting revenge against Delia. Only this time, he'd pull it off with the help of one of the resident mad scientist's inventions.

Yazmine stood by a counter flipping through one of her favorite supply magazines, 'GIZMOS'. She was a bit surprised to find Agent Jay dashing into the lab. "Why Agent Jay, what brings you here? And so---willingly."

"Oh, hi ya Doc," he darted behind her and started searching the shelves.

Yazmine did a double take when she noticed what he was wearing. "Uh, Jay dear. Don't you think you should be tending to Agent U's class?"

"No problem," he assured her, "we're just out running a little errand."

We? Yazmine's jaw dropped when she saw Zeeltor enter the lab followed by U's entire alien class!

"Oh dear!" Zeeltor exclaimed to two children tossing around what appeared to be a beanbag full of goop, "Mustn't throw that around, it could-"

POW!!!

"-explode." a slimy Zeeltor finished.

Yazmine smirked and leaned forward on her hands, "And tell me doctor, what have we learned about combining rambunctious alien children with dangerous lab equipment?"

"Um…" Zeeltor grinned, "they're still less destructive than Agent Jay?"

Right on cue Jay darted out from behind them and rushed towards the exit, shoving something in his coat pocket as he ran. "C'mon kids, I'll--uh--show ya how to use the copy machine to make fake hall passes!"

"What's he trying to sneak out of here with this time?" Yazmine groaned.

"Perhaps we should overlook it," Zeeltor pleaded, "at least he'll take the children with him."

Shrugging Yazmine went back to her magazine as the last of the alien children put back the 'toys' they'd been 'playing' with in the lab.

******

Up in Zed's office the other agents stood before his desk hoping to get out of candy duty and out onto the field.

"Decided to send in the rookies?" Di asked.

"Actually," Zed sighed, "I'm afraid we've lost communication with our top agents."

"You mean, something's happened to them Sir?" W asked.

"This is an outrage!" U burst out, "Sir, I volunteer my services in aiding the MIB to apprehend Alpha and see to it that he's firmly dealt with for such blatant disregard towards our agents."

Lee mimicked U's every word from behind his back. Delia and Di found this particularly funny, which only served to enrage U further.

"It's just a shame that SOME agents aren't as dedicated as others."

"Yeah," Lee scoffed, "dedicated to being pushy jerks."

"Before we do anything drastic which could lead to the loss of more agents I think we should allow the first team of agents more time to contact us. This may all just be part of some plan they've surmised." Zed continued. "Drastic measures are often necessary when dealing with threats as dangerous as Alpha."

"So we're still on candy duty?" Chase frowned.

"For now. But I wanted to keep you on the up and up."

R felt like slamming his head in one of the desk drawers, "But Sir…how long before we get to take the case? I mean, what if the agents really are in trouble?"

"We'll have to give them another thirty-seven hours to check back with us." Zed answered, "If we haven't heard anything by then, the case goes to all of you."

Di flinched, in another thirty-seven hours they'd be taking the alien class out trick-or-treating with Commander Killjoy!

Agent U saluted and left the office with the other agents sulking behind him.

Agent Bea sat at her desk marking a few more dates in her calendar as the parade of sour faced agents walked by. "Back from your meeting with Zed already?" she questioned in her usual motherly tone.

"Yeah Aunt Bea," Di answered, it was typical of the other agents to refer to Bea that way. "We're going back to candy duty now."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Bea sighed, "are the other agents alright?"

"They're a lot better off than we are, that's for sure." Chase grumbled.

"I just hope Alpha hasn't gotten to them," Bea worried, "he can do some real damage when he wants to."

The agents continued on their way just as a Wenfeng from the Ifix galaxy approached Bea's desk.

"Why thank you Qualfsaur," Bea blushed as the Wenfeng handed her a bouquet of exotic flowers. While Bea was seen as a bit chubby on Earth she was a dazzling beauty in the eyes of several other alien races. So Bea had grown accustomed to getting lots of attention from visiting aliens in her twenty-two years of working with the MIB.

Qualfsaur placed his tentacles behind his back and muttered a strand of compliments to Bea in his foreign tongue.

"How sweet," Bea smiled, "and I'm sure that you're cousin Prolox has a birthday coming up soon." She took a moment to flip through her calendar, "Ah yes, one week from today. You be sure to wish him a happy birthday from me and have a safe trip home."

Once Bea was left alone at her desk again she found herself staring up at Zed's office with deep concern. The poor man hardly ever got enough sleep anymore and she had a nagging feeling that Alpha was going to see to it that the MIB would have several sleepless nights to come.

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*Yawn! Well, I've managed to crank out another chapter. Hope everyone's enjoying this story so far. Thanks for all the reviews! ^_^ Part 6 is underway!*