The Milk Run

By Rick Hartford

“How long have you been doing this?”

The man in the charcoal suit sat ramrod straight in his chair, the lamp on his desk casting him in half shadow.

“Doing what?”

“Delivering milk.”

“Oh. A while.”

“What is a while?”

“I don’t know. A year?”

“Why do you do it?”

“Delivering milk.”

“Yes.”

“Job security.”

“It’s a menial job.”

“I’m not here to be insulted.”

“I only say that judging from the test we administered you are capable of so much more.”

“Like what? Murder?”

The man in the charcoal suit barked a surprised laugh.

“It just seems that driving a milk delivery truck might be rather monotonous.”

“Life is what you make it.

“How old are you?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Being of a certain age can mean reliability.

“I’m 35.”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Children?”

“No.”

“Significant other?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you like to do when you aren’t working?”

“I am building a ship in a bottle.”

“A ship in a bottle. What kind of ship?”

“A square rigger.”

“What kind of bottle?”

“A milk bottle.”

“Why a milk bottle?”

“There was one in the milk truck.”

“Where did the milk go?”

“I don’t know. Maybe somebody spilled it.”

The man in the charcoal suit folded his hands on the desk before him.

“Thank you, Mr. Jones. That will be all for now. We’ll let you know if you have the route.”

”Call me Smitty.”

“Is that your nickname?”

“Yes.”

“We prefer to be formal here at Area 51,” Mr. Jones.

“I can be Mr. Jones then. For formality’s sake.”

The man across the desk bowed his head.’

“May I ask you a question?” Smitty said.

“You may. I may, or may not, be able to answer it, since this is government facility.”

“How much milk do you want delivered?”

“All of it.”

Smitty Jones drove his el Camino through the security gate where soldiers wearing blank expressions and opaque sunglasses and carrying M-16’s waved him through.

He thought about calling someone, but there was no one to call.

There was the letter, from another time, spelling out precisely what he was to do and the reasons behind it.

He thought about the day that he sat in the desert and read his instructions, then setting them on fire and watching the ashes floating away in the air.

A metaphor for his life, he thought.

In one of the secret buildings in Area 51 there was a time machine which the military had recovered after an alien vehicle crashed in Roswell in 1947.

It was Smitty Jones’ job to find that machine at the secret government facility, hijack the time machine back to 1947, and then destroy it.

Smitty would be lost in history. There would be no way to get back.

He left the desert and went to the motel where he had been staying. It was obvious that they had searched his room, there was no attempt to disguise it. Everything had been dismantled: the bed mattress had been shredded. The ceiling tiles had been removed. Lamps were taken apart and dumped into the center of the room, the fridge had been ransacked, all the food left on the kitchen counter. A gallon of milk was gone.

Smitty left his room and went to the Star Bar across the way.

The place was gloomy and empty with the exception of one alkie passed out at the end of the bar closest to the door. He had a hand on an empty shot glass.

Smitty sat down at the bar. Stairway to Heaven was playing on the juke box.

The bartender had her back to him, cleaning a highball glass. She turned to Smitty, threw the towel over her shoulder and leaned over the bar.

'Sorry. Didn’t see you come in. What can I get you?”

“Six ounces of Bourbon with vanilla ice cream on top.

She moved away and brought back his drink.

“I saw you had company across the street,” she said.

“How do you know that?”

“You’re the only person at the motel. By the way, my name is Sweetness.”

“Smitty,” Smitty said.

“So, why are the feds interested in you?”

“How do you know they were feds?”

“They’re all feds around here.”

“Is this place always so full?”

“They come hundreds of miles just to see me,” she said. “After that they all turn up at the house of ill repute down the road. I have that affect on men. Why are you here?”

“To see you, of course.”

“You been down to Groom Lake?”

“Yeah. I was looking for a job.”

“Oooh, now you’re getting spooky,” Sweetness said. A job doing what?”

“Delivering milk.”

“Oh. Exciting. You’re giving me goosebumps.”

“And, saving the earth from being colonized by alien invaders.”

“That’s what they all say,” Sweetness said.

Just as she said that there was a screech and a loud thud outside on the street.

The drunk opened his eyes. And shut them.

Sweetness and Smitty ran through the batwing doors to the outside.

There was a man lying facedown in the middle of the street, right in the middle of the yellow lines.

Smitty ran over to the man. He gingerly pulled him over.

The man was now awake, looking around in terror.

“Are you all right?” Sweetness said.

“I nearly made it!” the man gasped.

Just then white fluid gushed from his mouth and down his shirt. Smitty could see that it was also coming from the man’s ears.

The man threw up some more of the white liquid and stopped breathing.

“I think he’s dead,” Sweetness said.

Smitty was already going through the man’s pockets, looking for his wallet.

“What the hell are you doing? Robbing the dead!” Sweetness said.

“We need to find out who he is,” Smitty said. But there was no wallet to be found.

Down the road a dust cloud was rising, a red flasher pulsing through the haze.

“Gotta go,” Smitty said.

“We have to wait for the cops,” Sweetness said.

“I don’t. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll split too. They will probably accuse us of killing him.”

“But he was hit by a car!”

“You don’t know that. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”

Smitty pulled her to her feet. “My motel room. Quick.”

They were nowhere in sight when the police cruiser pulled up. Two cops wearing white Stetsons got out.

The drunk had come to and was standing at the bar door, blinking into the late afternoon sun.

“You see what happened?” one of the cops said.

“No. I was taking a nap,” the man said.

“Bullshit,” one of he cops said, walking up to him.

He put the barrel of his 45 to the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gun going off caused Smitty and Sweetness to turn around.

Instead of going to his motel room, Smitty pulled Sweetness out the back door.

Sweetness pulled away from him. “I gotta get back to work!”

“There is no more work,” Smitty said. ”

They left the El Camino in the parking lot and jogged into the desert, the sun setting behind them.

“What’s your game, Smitty?” Sweetness asked.

They were walking now. It was dark, the air was cool, and an orange moon pushed their shadows ahead of them.

“I’ll tell you, because it won’t make any difference.”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you,” she said.

“Of course not. But you can’t go back. The guy who was hit by the car? He was one of them. He was from the future.”

“You’re really scaring me now, Smitty. It doesn’t make any difference whether you’re crazy and making this stuff up, or if you’re not and its really happening.”

“It is really happening,” Smitty said. There is a time machine at Area 51. Einstein predicted time travel. Hell, maybe he was there and helped to get it going. Regardless, aliens, or maybe even people from the future, have been using the time machine to send human replicas here since then. The replicas have been embedded into society: the politicians, the courts, the military, the sciences, you name it. They have completely taken over and are quietly replacing the human population, rewriting history as they do it.

The only thing about them is that, get this, the replicas have milk instead of blood in their veins. I know, it’s crazy, but remember the guy we found lying in the street?”

He was just foaming at the mouth,” Sweetness said.

“Think whatever you want, Sweetness. I’m going to Area 51, find the time machine, and then blow it sky high.”

Sweetness frowned.

“Just let me go,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” Smitty said. “It’s too late for that. You’re coming with me.”

Sweetness pointed behind Smitty in the dark.

“We have company,” she said.

He looked. He couldn’t see anybody. He smiled grimly as he turned back to see

Sweetness holding a pistol.

“I should have known,” he said.

“Looks like you’re not going to finish that ship in a bottle, Mr. Jones. But a better world is on the way. My barkeep days are over. They are going to make me the queen of this planet.”

“Hope that works out for you.” Smitty said. “ Fire away. It won’t bother me. I’m already heading back to 1947. Wish me luck!”

Sweetness got a shot off just as Smitty faded away.

Sweetness cursed as she walked back to the bar and got behind the counter.

A man she hadn’t seen before had just pushed some quarters in the juke box.

Sweetness went over to him. “What can I get for you, stranger?”

“A glass of milk.”

In the background The Who was playing Won’t Get Fooled Again.

“And the world looks just the same

And History ain’t changed…”

The music was interrupted by a loud boom that came from deep in the desert.

It sounded like the sound barrier breaking.

Sweetness and the stranger went to the door and looked out. They could see exquisite flashes of light like fireworks over Area 51.

Sweetness turned to the man, but he was gone.

That bastard had done it!

Sweetness screamed like a banshee.