Trouble In Paradise: A Psychedelic Encounter of the Extraterrestrial Kind

By Greg Wagner

Aliens have landed in the tiny town of Paradise, Alaska. It is their intent to bestow upon humanity great wisdom and god like powers. In an effort to understand the humans better, the aliens take on human form.
What could possibly go wrong?
Several things.
A major failure to communicate.
An annual Peace and Love Festival that draws hundreds of tourists to Paradise for the weekend.
A freak spring storm that wipes out the power and the only road in or out.
Oh and we almost forgot to mention the five million doses of Tryptosane, a very powerful psychiatric medication that accidentally finds its way into the town’s water supply.
Add a total collapse of society, super logical aliens developing bad human habits and a clown/zombie apocalypse and you have “Trouble In Paradise.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Wagner
• Release date: Feb 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463586822

Greg Wagner

Greg Wagner lives in a tree house with his wife Roberta and their dogs Abby and Olivia on the side of Wagner Mountain (more like a really big, really steep hill) in Maysel, West Virginia. When he isn't plotting to take over the world or in search of spiritual enlightenment, Greg manages to find time to spin yarns of wonder and amazement. In whatever time is left, he enjoys riding his motorcycle, reading, splitting firewood, making music and playing with melted glass. Greg is currently working on Atlantis Rising, another absurdist fiction about a mysterious island that appears off the coast of Northern Florida..

Book preview

Seventeen-year-old Darkarella Von Darkmoor, aka Daisy Jones sneered at the rising sun as she shuffled up to the school bus stop in her thigh high combat boots. The jock and the dweeb were already there waiting shrouded in puffy clouds of breath steam and cool early morning mists. When she reached the stop, she spun in place and stood with her arms crossed. After a little while, both boys turned to look at her.

What? She rolled her eyes, giving them her best maggot ridden corpse look.

The boys smirked, but didn’t say anything.

Look, I am not in the mood for this shit today. If you two worms have a problem, why don’t you just go ahead and get it off your wittle chests so we can go back to ignoring each other again.

When neither of them said anything, she threw her hands in the air, Ugh, why am I forced to associate with such ingrates?

Like dealing with Princess Dork and Scary is such a treat, Matt closed his mouth a fraction of a second too late.

Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot, Daisy turned her heavily eyelinered glare on him, you’re a jock, well that’s just soooo cool right? You run back and forth carrying an air-filled bladder and keep the other side from scoring by doing what…throwing them on the ground and dry humping them?

Matt stuck his chest out, What about you? Look how you’re dressed.

Daisy nodded and eyed her carefully chosen ensemble of black leather boots, black distressed tights, short skirt and a black bondage leather jacket with the cool spikey straps and buckles, mostly obscured by her full-length, faux fur hooded, zero-degree snorkel parka.

And?

Josh snickered and they both turned on him. He shrugged, I don’t understand why you two have to fight all the time. I mean come on, we all have our differences.

Shut up, they both snapped and turned away.

Just then a yellow silt covered Volkswagen Microbus with flowers painted all over came splashing up a road pocked with lake-sized frozen slush puddles. It pulled to a squeaking halt beside the teens.

Shotgun! Daisy laughed and ran for the passenger door, bopping Matt aside with her hip in the process.

Hey! He stepped back in terror like she had cooties and was afraid they were catching.

You snooze you lose, she giggled, slamming the door in his face.

The smell of cigarettes and spring flowers filled the bus. Wild shoulder length grey blonde curls flowed off the head of the old woman driving as she took her ear buds out, smiled and kept on nodding like she could still hear the music. She wore blue tinted John Lennon style wire rimmed glasses and even with her seat all the way back; she looked like she had been folded into the van.

That’s right my little blossoms, she laughed and waved her hand, hurry, hurry, it’s time to learn and grow.

Daisy smiled sweetly, Good morning Vera.

Good morning Mistress Von Darkmoor, the driver nodded, kissed any vampires lately?

Three, Daisy giggled, if you don’t count Dracula in my dreams last night.

Heh, heh, you have that dream too?

Can we get moving please? Matt frowned from the back seat where he sat with his arms crossed tightly, We’re gonna be late for school.

Cool your tool little dude, Vera pushed in the clutch and put the makeshift school bus into gear to the sound of slight grinding, we were merely exchanging light pleasantries until your negative vibes had to invade.

When Vera looked the other way Daisy stuck her tongue out at Matt. The van lurched onto the grey cinder covered road and they were on their way to another day at the Paradise Community Learning Center. Daisy dug her black lipstick out and pulled the sun visor mirror down.

Timing the potholes just right she was able to coat her upper lip without incident. She started on her lower lip, when out of nowhere the van busted through the surface ice of a pothole and bounced roughly out the other side. The force threw Daisy forward into the dash. The lipstick smeared across her cheek then broke off the applicator. It dropped to the floor and rolled under the seat. By the time she retrieved what remained, it was completely covered with hair and dirt. When she sat back up, it was to the sight of Matt smirking in the mirror.

You know, I guess it’s like they say, Daisy thought as she rolled her eyes and glared back at him, living in Paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

***

Enter Moose Stick National Wildlife Refuge, home to moose, bison, badger, grizzly bear, caribou, bald eagle, the rough-skinned newt and Alaska’s largest population of contraband smugglers, illegal pot growers, and end of the world crackpots. Two hundred thousand plus acres of arctic wilderness nestled in South Central Alaska and only a small team of overzealous park rangers to watch over it all.

Casually scan a tall expanse of trees just off one of the many dirt access roads. You see an abundance of green and brown foliage, with a few greys and yellows mixed in. Look closer and you’ll notice what appears to be a leaf slightly out of pattern with the rest. Zoom in on that spot and you realize the anomaly is the multi-layered oxide coated lens of a two thousand dollar sniper scope looking back at you.

A steel blue eye opens right beside the scope.

Pkirrrrr, forty-five-year-old Sam Philips mimicked shooting one of the dozen park rangers lined up along the road going past his secret bug-out-bunker/weapons cache.

Pkirrrrr, he mimed again. Oh man, right in the nuts, that’s gotta hurt. He cringed, I guess you won’t be procreating any time soon Buddy, if ever.

The rangers were intently focused on his bunker, while Sam sat comfortably positioned off to the side and up on a little rise two hundred feet away. He had been taking inventory of his supplies when the proximity alarm at the road went off. As soon as he spotted the rangers with their weapons drawn, he knew there would be trouble. Sam really didn’t want to hurt anyone, he just wanted to be left alone.

We know you’re in there, a whiney voice called through a megaphone, come out with your hands up and no one will get hurt.

This is how it always starts, Sam thought.

True to his prediction, in less than ten minutes with no surrender, the ranger’s half-hearted attempts at de-escalation quickly escalated to, We’re not fucking kidding asshole. If you make us come in there, I promise you someone's gonna get hurt.

They must have spotted the bunker from the air, Sam shook his head sadly, recalling a few weeks back when he found one of the camouflage tarps blown off. He wasn’t really worried, he had several doomsday caches located all over the park and for the most part, they’ve gone unnoticed, but this one had sentimental value, it was his first.

Sam couldn’t blame the rangers for doing their job, a man’s gotta put food on his table after all. He allowed a grim smile to spread across his salt and pepper stubbled face, but that don’t mean you have to be an asshole about it, and they are. Strutting around town like hard asses, when every day, poachers and rogue timber cutters get away with raping the American taxpayer by stealing our natural resources.

Hatchbacks flew up on the ranger trucks and Sam took that as his signal to move.

Well, I guess they aren’t going away.

The smell of damp loam hit him like a wall as he stooped and ran through the two-foot wide tunnel following the pinpoint beam of his tactical flashlight in the subterranean blackness. Old memories surfaced as the tunnel suddenly closed in on him. It was like being in South America all over again. A young Sam on an interdiction squad, raiding illegal drug runner tunnels for Uncle Sugar. Business as usual, he frowned and shook off the daymares.

Blinding light appeared at the end of the tunnel and Sam stepped out of a clump of bushes right behind the trucks just as the armor-clad rangers were starting out in the direction of the now empty bunker. After waiting until he was sure the coast was clear, he crawled up behind the closest SUV and pulled an object the size of a small tissue box out of his pack. He checked the wires and shoved it up under the bumper, where duct taped industrial grade magnets held it firmly to the vehicle’s frame. He moved stealthily from truck to truck setting his homemade sticky bombs.

That ought to do the trick; he smirked and hurried back to the tunnel. By the time he made it to his sniper spot again, the rangers had closed half the distance to the bunker. He watched through his sniper scope as the rangers made their way slowly across the open ground, huddled together like a mother goose and her peeps. They looked scared, even though they were decked out from head to toe in state-of-the-art battle armor and bristled with military grade assault rifles. The lead turtle stopped abruptly twenty yards from the bunker and his men all piled into him. He waved them off and brought the megaphone up to his mouth. This is your last chance asshole! Come on out or we’re coming in there.

When there was no response, they continued their solemn death march across the open ground. All of a sudden Sam heard one of the rangers yell, He’s got a gun! and he watched the lead turtle open his mouth a half a second too late as everyone else on the team opened fire on the bunker.

Bullets ricocheted off rocks and the pungent smell of spent ball powder wafted heavy in the air. The leader fell over backward like he’d been hit and the others crowded around his now prone body, firing with renewed purpose. Sam briefly felt sorry for them as he ducked down into the hole and hit the detonator for the sticky bombs.

The bunker was the first to go off. A great fiery blast ripped the air in front of the rangers as they turned away and dropped to the ground. A half a second later, the trucks exploded with a deafening boom. Two of the five black SUV’s did spinning cartwheels through the air and landed in the nearby ravine where the rushing water put the flames out with a loud hiss. The other three trucks burned and flared furiously. Caught in between the two explosions, the rangers picked up their leader and retreated in the direction of town.

Sam waited another half hour. When he thought it was safe, he walked over to an indistinct pile of brush and pulled back a camo tarp to reveal his battered old Dodge pickup truck.

It was a shame about the bunker, Sam shook his head, it really didn’t have much in it, but it was still a shame. It was a shame about the ranger’s trucks too. A damn shame, he chuckled deep in his chest as he started the engine and pulled away, but what the hell, some people just need to be taught a lesson.

Chapter 2

Dr. Bob Beasley stood on the second story balcony of his five thousand square foot marriage retreat lodge and gazed out at Paradise. When Bob and his wife first purchased the property, he was curious about the history, so he did a little research.

Founded in the fall of 1967, immediately following the death of the hippie, and the ill-fated summer of love, the town of Paradise originally began as a private commune built on an old abandoned mining outpost. In its heyday, the commune had over sixty residents. They fished, hunted and grew their own food in massive communal gardens and green houses. Everyone played their part, right down to the seven children who were born immediately following the first long cold winter.

All the water for the commune came from Fire Lake, a two acre reservoir the founders created by damming up a ravine on the other side of the mountain. According to the EPA, since the lake was supplied mostly by snowmelt, the water didn’t require treatment other than sediment screening and minor disinfection. It must have truly seemed like paradise to them, no interference from the outside world and all the seclusion money could buy. Unfortunately, no one could have foreseen the disaster that lay in wait when years later, in the mid-nineties, the hippies became conservative republicans and decided that they didn’t have anything in common and they really didn’t like each other anymore.

After earning his doctorate in Psychiatry Bob Beasley married his high school sweetheart and opened a practice. The first couple years were rough. They could barely pay the rent with all the student loans and operating expenses. There just weren’t enough crazy people out there who wanted or needed treatment. When Bob entered the field of sex therapy, his career changed completely. No longer was he dealing with people who only looked at therapy as something to do when you’re depressed, now he was helping desperate sexually deprived people who were willing to pay just about anything to get back in the sack again.

It worked too.

Word got around and the money started rolling in. In no time, Dr. Bob had a long list of famous and influential clients. The biggest problem he had was constantly outgrowing his facilities. In the year before moving to Alaska alone, he went through three locations. That’s when he got the idea of opening an exotic vacation marriage retreat.

It was perfect.

With the remote location, he could treat all his regular patients and offer a unique experience in the process. Guests fly in from all over the world and are shuttled to the retreat via helicopter. A roaring fire and a private ski trail with snowmobile shuttle service in the wintertime and all the untouched beauty of the wildest state in the country the rest of the year. While most clients only had minor marital issues that a luxury weekend away from the kids usually cured, other couples had more complicated issues that required a slightly longer and more expensive stay.

As if on cue, Herb Jamison, a wealthy accountant from Idaho came stumbling up the trail from the private cabins. He squinted at Bob through the midday sun. Hey Doc, you got a minute?

Seamlessly switching from daydreamer to professional mode, the world renowned Dr. Bob Beasley gave Herb a million dollar smile and waved him up, Sure thing Herb, step into my office.

Herb wheezed and smiled uneasily as Bob gave him a hand up the last couple of steps to the second floor of the lodge. They walked out onto the deck together and sat down.

Good to see you Herb, where is your wife, Bob quickly cycled through the names of the current guest list in his head, Lois?

I don’t know, he looked confused and shook his head. She was gone when I woke up. Actually that’s not why I’m here.

Ok, well what can I do for you?

I was wondering if you had any, he lowered his voice and glanced nervously over his shoulder, you know, those pills that’ll help me get it up in a hurry?

As a matter of fact I have just the thing, Bob smiled, but you need to be very careful. He went to his desk and retrieved a small bottle. These pills are powerful, so you only need one.

Yeah, yeah, great Doc, Herb stared at the ground and fidgeted, thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.

Just then, Bob spotted Lois walking up the trail toward the lodge. Her hair was disheveled and her complexion flushed.

"Oh look, isn’t that