Page 1 of Anna's Bounty
1
Anna
“Bye, Anna,” the security guard calls out from his perch next to the automatic doors.
Flashing him a tired smile, I wiggle my fingers in a wave. “I hope you have a quiet night.”
“Uh oh. Now don’t jinx me!” His boisterous laughter follows me out of the hospital and into the brisk November air.
The tang of woodsmoke is a welcome change from the sharp antiseptic hospital smells I’ve been saturated in for the last twelve hours. Breathing the woodsy scent deep into my lungs, I close my eyes for a moment and let the day’s stress fall away.
Exhaling a steady stream of vapor, I pull the sides of my jacket closed against the late autumn chill, grateful that tonight was my last shift for the next four days. With my thoughts on staying up late and sleeping in, I start toward the parking lot—until I notice a small group of hospital employees gathered in the ambulance loading zone. Everyone is looking up, while one draws an arc with his finger above his head.
Scanning the cloudless night sky overhead, I tuck a lock of blonde hair that’s escaped my ponytail behind my ear and make my way over to them.
“What’s everyone looking at?” I ask, tipping up on my toes and stretching my five-foot-two-inches as high as I can, craning my neck so I can look over the taller heads in front of me.
“One of the ER docs thinks he saw a UFO,” the girl in front of me scoffs.
“I did!” the doctor in question insists. “Or, at least, I sawsomething.It floated across the horizon, flying low and slow.”
Laughter peppers the gathered group.
“Isn’t there an Air Force base nearby?” someone offers in explanation.
“Oh, yeah,” another speaks up. “Maybe you saw something experimental?”
“Maybe,” the doctor says quietly with his head tilted back. “I was watching it for a minute or two before it just… vanished. It wasweird.”
A chill rolls down my spine, and I nervously eye the star-speckled sky. When everyone begins sharing their own unexplained stories, I turn and start making my way toward the parking lot.
I’ve always found the idea of aliens spying on us creepy.
Close encounters. UFO sightings. Abduction stories. Nope. Nuh-uh.Hard pass.
A queasiness gathers in my stomach, and I consider calling an Uber instead of walking home, which is silly since it’s only two blocks to my apartment. It will take longer to wait for a ride than the ten-minute walk itself. Besides, at twenty-two years old, I shouldn’t still be afraid of the dark. So, clenching my jaw, I force myself into a brisk walk.
I’m halfway home when a frigid gust hits me, cutting through the thin cotton of my scrubs and sinking straight into my bones. I shiver and push my nose into the neck of my jacket, speeding up my pace. I’m imagining a hot shower when I veer off the sidewalk and take the shortcut that cuts through an empty lot.
While trying not to trip over clumps of sage brush and brambles, I’m just about to the other side of the lot when I notice a strange humming. No, it’s not humming so much as a… a low-frequency vibration. My steps falter as I try to puzzle out the weird noise. Whatisit? It’s definitely not from any airplane or engine I’ve ever heard.
The sound continues to increase, and my feet shuffle to a stop. It’s all around me now, thrumming through my entire body, butwhere the hell is it coming from?
After turning in a circle, I pause—and then look up.
At first I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Except, where billions of flickering stars, planets, and satellitesshould be, there’s nothing but blackness. As if something very large has blotted them out.
Gooseflesh races up my arms, and my chest clenches around my pounding heart as the ER doc swearing he’d seen a UFO comes to mind.
No. No, this has to be something from the Air Force base. Or it could be a balloon. A Zeppelin? Maybe it’s a—
Wait.
I stagger back when a bright light snaps on directly above me.
“What the fuckis that?” My breath fogs the air as I bring my hand up to shield my eyes.
UFO sightings belong within the confines of science fiction, hypothetical jargon, and the ravings of crazy people. Not ER doctors. Or nurses standing in the middle of an empty lot.
