Aliens 2035

Chapter 2-2

“Put your phone away, Joey all that social media bull crap that’s going on is going to rot your brain, feed all those conspiracies that have made us poor folks the laughingstock of the country” Bob Nitschke warned and waited while his nephew turned off his phone and stowed it in his back pocket. “You got the bear scent?” Nitschke asked

The ten-year-old wrinkled his nose. “Do I hafta? It stinks.”

Bob smiled. “Ya hafta. We might as well stay home without it.” He made a show of picking up the Archery Cruzer Lite hunting bow he’d bought as a gift for the young boy from the tailgate of the Ford F-350. “I can put this back in the garage and we can carve jack-o-lanterns with your little sister.”

The boy’s jaw dropped. “I’ll get it!” he yelled, and not wanting to miss out on his first bear hunting trip, he wasted no more time arguing and bolted into the garage. He emerged ten seconds later with a two liter plastic Pepsi bottle filled more than half way with a brown, orangish liquid that sloshed back and forth like a greasy tide. Even with the top screwed on tight, Bob could smell the week-old fryer grease he’d cadged off the MacDonald’s owner in Escanaba with the promise of a thick bear steak when he bagged his kill. Only fifteen licenses had been granted in Michigan and he’d won the lottery for the second time in three years. No way was he going to pass up a chance this fall. Two years ago he’d overshot the biggest bear he’d ever seen – a record in the UP for sure, perhaps for the whole state. Last year he’d returned to the same spot with a Reconyx MicroFire MR5 Covert IR Wi-Fi Trail Camera. With the help of his brother-in-law, who worked for the phone company, he had set up a satellite connection with his cell phone. The trail cam was rigged to send still images at one second intervals to Nitschke as text messages. At the same time it recorded continuous video on a 400 GB Flash card. Like most trail cams it sent out an infrared pulse for night recording.

The camera and truck had cost him more than his part-time work could afford. Like most of his buddies in the UP and throughout the rust belt of America, he was way in over his head in debt, and used his ‘toys’, as his wife called his truck, bow, fishing boat and trail cams, to have fun in order to forget about the region’s bleak economic future.

The camera set up worked perfectly. He’d recorded the bear three times within thirty yards of his tree stand. I ain’t going to miss this year, Bob vowed silently.

Joey carefully placed the bottle in the cargo area and patted his new bow twice before clambering into the cab to sit with Rusty. Eleven years old, the Alaskan Malamute wolf hybrid was still game for bear hunting. The dog licked Joey’s face.

“Eew!” the tweener said, wiping dog drool from his face. “Does he have to come along?”

Bob laughed. “Won’t go into the woods without him. Rusty can sense danger a mile ahead. He once save my life from a wolverine.”

Bob climbed into the driver’s seat. Before he started the truck he turned to his nephew. “You know the rules, Joey. You do what I say and you trust Rusty. Got it?”

“Yes, sir, Uncle Bob.”

“Good boy.” He pointed to his iPod. “Hit it.”

Joey looked at him blankly. “Hit what?”

“The button.”

“Can’t I just tell it to play?”

“This is old school,” Bob said with a chuckle.

Joey reached out gingerly and pressed the first song on the playlist. Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride blasted through the truck’s cabin speakers.