When Barbara woke up she assumed it would be a day pretty much like every other day. It was a Wednesday, the middle of the work week. Where most people tend to say they hate Mondays it was always Wednesdays that Barbara liked the least. It seemed somehow unfair to her that after busting her butt for two days she still had three more days to go. Mondays were usually good; she was refreshed and happy to take on the challenges of work. Tuesdays were generally light since she had cleared away all the beginning of the week nonsense. Thursdays and Fridays were a mixed bag, either everyone was winding down and sliding through to the weekend or the place was in panic mode to solve a crisis before Saturday. No one wanted their weekend ruined by unexpected work. By for some reason Wednesdays were almost always bad days. In fact it was usually a Wednesday issue that threw Thursday and Friday into panic days.
That particular Wednesday though had started off very well for Barbara. She awoke feeling refreshed a few minutes before her alarm was due to ring. She hated the jarring awakening she got from an alarm clock. Outside the weather was beautiful. It was a sunny warm early spring day in contrast to the rainy cold morning the weather channel had predicted. After her shower her usually difficult long brown hair easily fell into an attractive look. The outfit she selected fit well and looked good. This was confirmed in her mind by the appreciative good natured whistle she got from the nice gentleman that lived across the hall. There was even a cab waiting at the front of her building when she emerged into the city that day. As the yellow hack whisked her though the light traffic toward her office she thought that maybe Wednesdays weren't so bad after all.
That thought quickly disappeared when she was thrown forward by the sudden panic stop of the cab. As her head bounced off the seat in front of her she looked up to see a fireball streaking past the city sky line. In another instant it disappeared. Fortunately, it had landed harmlessly in the river. A cloud of steam quickly replaced the glow of the object's fiery trail. Though no real damage had occurred the sudden stoppage of traffic had left cars pointed in odd directions. The resulting snarl would take hours to untangle. Since she was only a few blocks from her office so she paid the cabbie and started walking.
Once at her office it became apparent that no work would be getting done that day. Everyone was a buzz about the meteor, or comet, or space junk, or UFO that had landed in the river. However, the combined efforts of NASA, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, city and state authorities could not find even a tiny piece of anything to suggest a solid object had impacted the river. A NASA spokesman theorized that whatever was at the center of the fireball crystallized on impact with the cold water. After which it must have simply dissolved. Of course the search was ongoing and water samples would be tested for unusual contaminates. However, in the opinion of the country's best scientists there was no cause for concern.
As is generally the case with such things by the weekend the incident was all but forgotten. Most people had moved onto the next news item. There were of course a few scientists still investigating the phenomenon, as well as many UFO conspiracy theorists that tried to keep the story going on the internet. The UFO folks as usual were dismissed as fruitcakes for the most part. The scientists as usual worked in relative obscurity. One of the scientists, Dennis Appleton had begun perusing the UFO blogs. He was convinced that the object that plunged into the river was not a natural occurrence. He had evidence that showed that it did not follow a trajectory that was consisted with a meteorite or even a piece of space junk. He also found it impossible to believe that an object producing a fireball of the size reported could have instantly dissolved. The fact that not even a trace of any unusual compounds was found in any water samples was further proof that it had not dissolved.
However, since Dennis had twice made claims that turned out to be incorrect due to the use of faulty evidence while studying for his PhD, the mainstream scientific community was not interested in the young researcher's opinions. He knew that if there was a danger out there he would need to find solid evidence before he could sound the alarm. Dennis hoped he wouldn't be too late. He had already checked every non-classified radar scan he could access to determine if there had been a missile launch or air craft mishap that could account for the object. He knew even a crashing plane might still be under a brave pilot's guidance. There was no evidence of a plane crashing. There was certainly no evidence of any missiles being launched. However, he knew that such things were often kept secret by the government.
He also knew that some of the bloggers had ways to access things that the government thought were secure. But the blogs contained nothing to suggest that a missile had been launched anywhere in the required time frame. Dennis was convinced that the object had to be of extraterrestrial origin. He was equally certain that it was somehow being hidden. What he needed to discover was how and by whom. It was conceivable that it was his own government that was hiding the remains of the object. Even though he wasn't a big Area 51 conspiracy type, he had no doubt that the government might do such a thing in a misguided attempt to protect the people. However, he was leaning toward the idea that some superior intelligence had arrived on Earth. Somehow they were hiding their conveyance.
Meanwhile, down river an unassuming gentleman had arrived almost unnoticed in the suburban village of Radcliff. The stranger simply blended in with the small throng of antique hunters that descended on Main Street almost every spring weekend. Though there were still a few real antique shops in the business district most of the store fronts had been converted to trendy places trying to get city folks to leave more money in the quaint village. The stranger stopped in a few of the shops as he walked along the street. He purchased an item or two here and there. The only thing at all unusual about the man was that he paid with cash instead of plastic. Few folks actually carried much cash preferring the ease of electronic payment. But no one paid much mind that all of the bills he used were so new it was almost as if he had plucked them directly from the press. After meandering along the street for a time he came to The Olde Town Boarding House.
In the days when the city street car line ended at Radcliff the old place had been a true boarding house. It was home to a number of young women who worked as typists or seamstresses or the like in the city but wanted the safety of living outside of town. The street cars didn't run any longer and young women seldom sought such accommodations. The place had been converted to a bed and breakfast. In the summer it was usually very busy. It had become a popular place with young couples that thought it was a romantic spot to fuck. The owners had had to add some sound proofing to the walls in recent years. The visitor knew nothing of these things but it seemed to him a good place to rest before moving on. He paid cash in advance for three days use of a third floor room in the front corner of the house. From the windows of that room he could see almost anything that happened in the village center.
When Barbara discovered that the sunny warm weather was continuing into the weekend she decided to get out of the city for a couple of days. Work was slow so her boss happily agreed to Barbara taking a couple of days of her back vacation. She was pleased that her life-long best friend was up for a reunion. Barbara had grown up in Radcliff. Her friend Cheryl still lived in the old neighborhood. Barbara hadn't been back to her hometown in two years. After her parents retired to Florida she just didn't have a reason to make the effort. Cheryl came into the city regularly and most of the rest of her old friends had drifted far and wide.
As she made the leisurely drive along the palisades down Riverside Parkway, Barbara thought about the little village where she had grown up. Though it had changed over the years it was still the same basic small town. There was still a sandy beach on the river. Conservation and clean up efforts had once again made it safe to swim there. Riverland, the states oldest amusement park had been renovated and was reopened after ten years of abandonment. The city fathers had stubbornly refused to sell the place. With the influx of weekend tourists they managed to convince the local business community to invest in the park's rebirth. Of course it didn't have any big new modern fancy rides. It was just a simple place to have fun in a small town. The carousel was over a hundred years old; the Ferris wheel shaky enough to cause a young man's date to snuggle close; and the roller coaster was so rickety it rattled the rider's teeth. The snow cones, funnel cakes and other treats were still homemade the same as they were in the 1890's.
The nicest thing about Radcliff was that it had avoided the fate of so many outer suburbs of the city. It had not become just another bedroom community with scores of tract houses filling acres of leveled land. You could count on your hands and toes the number of new houses that had been built in the Radcliff area in the last thirty years and have digits left over. There had never been a real highway there and the street car line was not replaced by subway.
Barbara felt a rush of excitement as she turned off the parkway onto Radcliff Drive. She was surprised when she encountered a barricade preventing her turning onto Main Street. The friendly Village policeman explained that Main Street had to be closed to cars on weekends for safety. It took Barbara a minute to recognize her old junior high boyfriend Chuck Stevens all grown up in his uniform.
"Chuck?" She asked more than said.
"Do I know you?"
"Well if you are Chuck Stevens you do. I am Barbara Kelly."
"Oh my god! Barbara! It has been a long time."
"Yeah sure has. I thought you moved away."
"I did. Became a cop in Michigan. Hated the work and happened to see an ad for a job here in Radcliff. Been on the village force for three years. I should have never left. Hey why don't you park in the lot down the block? I am due a break, we could get some coffee or something and catch up."
"Sounds good, want to ride along?"
