Chapter 9

We spent the rest of the day packing, and loading the van for our trip. Casey spent a good portion of her time on the phone making arrangements for this or that. Just before bedtime, Casey and I took the van down to the local gas station and filled both tanks. Casey bought snacks and drinks while I checked all the fluid levels and tire pressures.

I helped her fill the fridge and put the rest of the munchies away. The rest of our stuff, minus my 'girls', was already packed, so when we got home, we climbed into our big bed and cuddled to sleep.

Getting up at four a.m. should be considered a cruel and unusual punishment banned by the Geneva Conventions. However, I pulled my ass from the bed and got in the shower. My beautiful and loving mother, bless her soul, made coffee while I was in the shower, and had a warm mug of it ready for me when I opened the bathroom door. I think she should be granted Sainthood for that.

I drained the contents of my cup before I even started getting dressed, and my cup was magically refilled while I dressed. I felt almost human as I came down the stairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

Thirty minutes later we were on the road to see our new home. I don't know when I started thinking of it as our new home, but sometime over the last few days, that's what it had become.

It was official ten minutes after we walked in the door. The place was palatial, but had the feel of a much smaller home. It overlooked Lake Mead, and had its own little harbor and secluded, private stretch of shoreline.

Life settled down for us. True to his word, Ray got the order and everything was transferred to Barbara. Admittedly it wasn't much, but almost everything, including the house, was sold within a month. The movers brought all our furniture and whatever we had left behind, including Casey's Dodge Viper, which didn't get sold.

Casey made him a deal, and Bill bought her old house. We managed to schedule both house closings for the same time Casey and I needed to be back to testify against Herb. The trial was ridiculously short. Arguments lasted only two days, and the jury deliberated for less than an hour. Herb screamed obscenities at the court, the jury, and us as they took him away. A week later he was sentenced to fifteen years. It was a life sentence since child molesters are not looked on very highly by the rest of the inmates. Herb was killed in prison a week after he arrived, and his first day in general population. Somehow, it didn't seem to bother us very much.

Erin transferred to UNLV. She changed her major to physiological studies, with a minor in electronic engineering. It was a strange combination, but made perfect sense to us.

Barbara began studying holistic medicine and homeopathic treatments. She claimed she was too old to go to school to become a doctor, and this held more interest for her anyway. Besides, I think she was trying to get a license as a midwife. We'd need one of those soon.

Casey did what she has always done: sunbathed, swam, donated money to worthy causes, and made sure the rest of us were well cared for, and well loved. When she wasn't busy, she took to sitting with me in the room in the basement we made into a music room. One new thing she added to her routine was growing our baby. Shortly after we returned from Herb's trial, morning sickness started. We bought a home pregnancy test, and sure enough, it came out positive. Our little Casey was going to become a Mommy.

We had decided that Erin should stay on birth control for now, but Barbara had never been on it. When Casey's condition was confirmed, she seemed a little sad. "I guess I'm just too old to have another baby."

We cuddled her and showed her that we loved her. Casey told her that we all were having a baby, as the one she was carrying was a product of the love we shared. That seemed to help Barbara some, but she still seemed sad at times. However, almost one month to the day later, Barbara ran to the bathroom to throw up. When she returned, she was a little pale, but seemed to be radiating love and happiness. "I guess we're going to have two babies."

Barbara had missed her last two periods, but she said that wasn't all that unusual. Both ladies found a doctor to get on some form of prenatal care. With Casey this was only prenatal vitamins, but Barbara was watched much more closely because of her age.

I had taken to performing in parks and on the UNLV campus for free. I did leave Princess' case open after I counted up the money that had been dropped in it. Casey always went with me, sitting next to the open case. I teased her that I had gotten such a good following more because of her than the music. She was even more beautiful now than she had been when I first met her.

Everything was going wonderfully until the Night of Thunder. It was late, and my wives and I were lying out looking at the stars in the crystal-clear night sky. Suddenly, almost directly above us, the sky flashed brightly, and ten bright orange streaks seemed to be coming straight down at us.

"Oh my god! Jon, what are those things?" Erin said

That was when the sound hit us. It was almost deafening, the loudest clap of thunder I'd ever heard, except the sky was clear. The bright streaks of fire seemed to be in formation as they descended. Nothing like a meteor would be, which left only a couple of possibilities.

"I don't know, love, but they aren't meteors. See how they seem to be in formation? Either we are being invaded by aliens, or the government just screwed up a weapons test. Either way, I don't know if it's going to be safe out here much longer."

The rolling sound of thunder was slow in fading, and the ten streaks suddenly split up, heading in slightly different directions. They weren't coming down over us, but were farther south and a little east of us.

Once they reached the lower atmosphere we lost sight of them, and it was once again quiet.

"I wonder what's going on? Let's go turn on the TV to see if they know," Casey said.

We grabbed our stuff and headed for the house. Before we got there, we felt the ground start to shake and then we heard it, the high-pitched whine of aircraft engines. There were no lights visible as they screamed over the lake, but the ground shook, and two windows in the house shattered from the wave front of the supersonic craft.

Then I heard a sound I'd never imagined I'd hear in real life: the extended 'burp' of a high-speed minigun. "In the house! Now! Everyone in the basement! Hurry!" I yelled, trying to herd the girls into the house. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a really fast moving streak of light that could have only been a missile chasing a target. The missile found its mark far out over the lake and the explosion was heard clearly. Whatever was going on, I doubted it was an exercise since they were using live ammo over a populated area.

My ladies scurried into the music room, and we turned on the TV to see if we could find any news. So far, there was nothing being said. I found myself praying that whatever was going on, the collateral damage would be very little.

Finally, about an hour after it had become quiet again, the talking head on the local news channel mentioned that there had been an unusual atmospheric disturbance in the skies over New Mexico. Scientists were baffled as to the cause of the strange thunder and lightning. In an unrelated story, a military tanker plane had crashed into a small town in New Mexico during routine operations. There was no word on casualties or the reason for the crash. No mention of the battle we had witnessed was made. No one said a word about it, like it hadn't happened. Luckily, no one had been hurt, and no property had been damaged.

For the next few days, it felt like the whole planet was simply holding its breath. I stopped by the local police station to ask them about the incident. I was shown into a detective's office, and the harried man closed the door behind us.

Instead of sitting behind his desk, he sat in the chair beside me. "Son, I know what you saw and heard, because I live out that way myself. I've been trying to look into it, but I've run into nothing but stonewalls. I think I might have an idea of what's really going on. I can take your report and file it, but I think it would be a waste of time. No one is going to be investigating it. The government has completely clammed up on it, and soon it'll be as if it never happened."

"Can I ask what you think is going on?" I asked.

"Well, I can't answer to the particulars, but this whole thing reeks of a cover-up. Something major, that the feds don't want us to know about, happened out over New Mexico. The battle was pretty widespread and far-flung, but considering the speeds that those craft had been traveling that's not too surprising.

"I normally wouldn't tell anyone this, but I've heard your music, and feel that if you're calm, you'll help keep everyone else calm too, so I ask that you don't repeat any of this, okay?" When I nodded he continued. "I've a friend that works at Las Vegas International as an air traffic controller. He told me that of the craft he could track, our F-16s were the slowest. That whole battle was fought at supersonic speeds! That's unheard of! We don't have weapons that can function at those speeds. The other thing he told me was that it was obvious that there were at least nine other craft involved in that fight that he couldn't track. At first he thought that maybe the Air Force had put up some of those F-117 fighters, but as he watched, he discounted it because of the speeds involved. He was later told by the FAA that the whole episode didn't happen and he was to remove it from his logs. They confiscated all tower records for the night, and no one has seen them since.

"Now, I don't usually believe all that crap about the 'men in black' or aliens and all that, but the Night of Thunder has certainly challenged that theory. I'll put your name on the list of witnesses, but frankly, I doubt we'll ever know what really happened," he finished.

"What about those ten craft that looked like they came from outer space?" I asked. "If you saw them, you know what I'm talking about, the ten craft that seemed to come straight down, then broke off in different directions."

He shook his head; "Those would be the craft that he couldn't track. He said his scopes indicated a very high altitude disturbance of some kind, but it was short lived, and matched the profile of an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere," he said.

"I understand, detective. Please add my name to that list, and rest assured that I won't pass this information on to anyone else," I said.

"I'll do that Mr. Weist. Thank you for listening; I guess I just needed someone to tell all this to, because I'm sure having a hard time with it. Either way, it's not in my jurisdiction anymore."

Slowly, gradually, life returned to normal for us. Well, as normal as could be expected considering. On December 21^st, Casey gave birth to an eight-pound, six-ounce baby boy. We welcomed little Gregory home just in time for Barbara to go into labor with our first daughter, Wendy. Those two little bundles were the highlight of my life.

The following February, I officially married Casey in a small private ceremony at our home. Though it wasn't legal, the priestess also joined Barbara and Erin with us. Adrianne was a very open-minded lady who practiced Wicca and had become one of Barbara's tutors in the homeopathic arts. She was a family friend, and understood the special dynamics we all shared. Erin and Barbara signed the official marriage license as witnesses.

Once again, life settled down into a routine. The children were growing like weeds, Erin was finishing her bachelor's degree at UNLV, and Barbara finally received her Midwife's license. The events of the Night of Thunder were indeed forgotten.

Just over two years after the birth of our kids, Erin arrived home with the news that two of the strange building projects reported on the news had been spotted in Las Vegas. At first, I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. I had been ignoring the news since all they ever seemed to report was what the government wanted reported anyway. Now however, with Erin rolling her eyes at me, she plopped me down in front of the TV and turned on CNN. Our whole family was present when the broadcast was interrupted by a familiar face from our past.