Alien Deception Read Online Free PDF Page A

the weather would soon turn into the usual unbearable heat and humidity so typical of the New Orleans area.
    Finally feeling somewhat relaxed, he let his thoughts wander aimlessly, trying to find something else to focus on other than the near-mishaps. This usually worked for him because when he dove into his thoughts, he might be looking directly at someone as if he was listening to what they were saying, but his mind would be centered on some other plane out in space. He closed his eyes momentarily, as was customary in the calming process, and then opened them.
    To his shock and surprise, he was back in the 1940s-era bar again, standing next to the woman at the bar. The spotlight he remembered earlier was now bathing them both in a bright white light and slowly moving. She was still looking away from him, her face hidden from his view. But the rest of her was there, in the wonderful shape and form he remembered. As he tried to think of something to say, her mysterious voice reached out to him.
    "Tell me about yourself," she said, her voice warm and inviting. "Tell me about your life."
    Greg knew full well that he had been standing in the parking lot a few seconds ago, but he could see none of it now; only this place and this gorgeous woman. He struggled with what or which reality he was in, but as earlier, a sense of calm settled over him, and he felt so relaxed that he didn't want to be anywhere else at the moment.
    "Who are you?" he asked.
    "I asked first," she murmured, still denying him a glimpse of her face. "You go first, now, please. I want to know all about you."
    His soul melted at the warmth of her words and her voice. "Well, where shall I begin?"
    "At the beginning," she said and lightly laughed.
    "I grew up in New Jersey," he began as his eyes scanned every inch of her. "Went to school there, not that there was anything exciting about that." He raised his hand to block the spotlight. It was beginning to interfere with his view of the woman and he felt an annoyance with whoever was changing its location.
    "Friends?"
    "Friends? Well, not a lot. Heck, I wonder if anyone from high school even remembers me. They didn't even know I was there. No senior prom, no sports jock, just plain old me." He closed his eyes tightly to block out the bright spotlight that had changed its angle again to glare into his face. He shifted position his position but the light followed him as if it was intentionally preventing him from seeing clearly.
    "Don't let the light bother you," she said, her face still turned. "I'll bet you had a lot of girlfriends."
    "Not exactly. I remember getting a bad start, and I think it dampened my whole outlook toward dating. I asked this cheerleader out on a date. I think I was thirteen or something like that at the time. You know, she wasn't the best-looking girl in the school, but she still was kind of cute in her own way. She turned me down flat, in front of a bunch of kids in my algebra class. That was embarrassing."
    "Her loss," she responded, reminding him of what his father had told him after that incident.
    "My father told me the same thing," he said, as this thought, tied to another by the closeness of time, brought back memories of his father's sudden death just a few months after this event. "He died not too long after that."
    "I'm sorry," she said sincerely.
    "I was devastated. My dad had always understood me. We could always talk things through, regardless of the sensitivity of the subject. When he died, I became very depressed. Mom tried hard to help, but I really missed the conversations Dad and I used to have. He always seemed to know how to make sense of things. Hell, he could probably even figure out what was happening to me now with all these almost-accidents."
    "Don't let those concern you right now," she said, as she sipped her drink. "They're just distractions."
    "Distractions? You know about them? But how can you? You're just a dream in my mind, some kind of fantasy that I'm