He was hiking in an unfamiliar forest with a friend
named Jeff, and the forest became eerily quiet.
The birds stop singing. The insects stop buzzing.
And there was a feeling of danger in the air.
He turned around to ask Jeff if he feels the danger.
And Jeff is gone, gone in a moment. No sounds.
No cry for help. Nothing.
He hears a slight hum above the trees.
He looks up and sees what appears to be a
V shaped UFO. Then it vanishes and the humming stops.
The forest becomes alive again with the sounds
of the bugs and the birds. And some birds fly out of a tree.
He runs to the Park Ranger’s office and reports Jeff missing.
Before long the forest is full of search and rescue dogs,
trackers, police and volunteers.
He tells the police what happened, but he sees in their eyes
and hears in their words that they think he murdered Jeff.
But although he’s a person of interest, they have nothing.
A year later, he hears a knock on his front door. He opens it
and Jeff is standing there, but he’s not the Jeff he knew.
His eyes are vacant and he’s acting and talking like a robot.
He fears the aliens in the V shaped UFO he saw after Jeff
went missing abducted Jeff, and now they’re after him.
He runs past what used to be Jeff, leaps into his car and speeds away
to a motel in the town next to the town he lives in.
He spends a week hiding out at that motel until he gets up
the courage to return to his apartment. It’s safe. Jeff is gone
and he never sees Jeff again. He reported the incident to
the police, but they never found Jeff or what was posing
as Jeff, and he never went hiking in a forest again.
Bob Boyd
