Chapter 45
I CAN OUTRUN hummingbirds and Japanese bullet trains. My personal best speed used to be 438 mph. Nobody was clocking me on this particular night, but I think I topped that as I shot across the half mile of open field to the farmhouse. My sonic boom shattered a couple of windows in Agent Judge’s antique pickup truck.
I had seen a swarm of scuzzy bats plunge down the chimney pipes and knew, instantly, what was going on: Number 2 was sending in his creeps from the cave. They’d morph out of their flying mammal mode and switch back into their hideous alien selves the instant they were inside.
But why? What did they want in the house?
I was out in the yard. My face was the one on the WANTED poster. I was the Alien Hunter with an unbelievably hefty bounty on his head.
So why did the bats storm into Agent Judge’s house?
Unfortunately, Agent Judge soon gave me the answer.
I burst in through the front door and saw him in the parlor, swinging a laser-sighted blaster right, left, up, down—searching for a target.
“They grabbed her!”
“What?”
“The aliens took Mel!”