Free Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) by J. Bryan

belly.  Apparently nobody was bothering
     to keep it up.
    “You see a lot of towns like this, driving around,” Rudley said in the video as he
     looked at the boarded-up businesses. “You wonder what it was like, when a place like
     this was really alive.  You wonder where everybody came from, and where they went,
     and why they just left this husk of a town behind like a...like a hermit crab changing
     shells.”
    “Hey, that’s deep, Rudster,” Beauford said from off-screen.  Apparently, he was the
     one shakily operating the handheld camera.
    “Beauford, dang it, don’t interrupt my talking!” Rudley scowled at the camera for
     a minute.
    “What are you waiting for?” Beauford asked.
    “Just waiting to see if you’re done running your mouth or not.”
    “I’m done.”
    “Because if you got something to say, Beauford, go ahead and say it so we can get
     on with the dang show.”
    “I ain’t got nothing say.”
    “Yeah, you didn’t have nothing to say when you ate the last Twinkie in the box, either,
     did you?  Remember?  Right about the North Carolina state line?  Didn’t even ask me
     if I wanted that last Twinkie.”
    “You been sore about this since North Carolina?”
    “That was my Twinkie!  You ate two more than I did!  Can’t you do no math?”
    The video jumped again, showing Rudley from a different angle, calm again, still on
     the town green. “Anyway, sad little town.  And, according to some stuff I read on
     the internet, it was right here that all two hundred people just vanished into thin
     air.  No explanation.  Homeland Security even took over the town for a while.  And
     guess what the official story was?  This is the kicker, listen!  They said there was
     a little toxic leak from some old dye factory, which had been closed for like, what,
     forty years?”
    “Fifty-six,” Beauford told him.
    “Dang it, Beauford....Think about it, folks at home.  Two hundred people, vanished
     all at once.  A government cover-up.  No explanation.  Are you thinking what I’m thinking? 
     Because I’m thinking... abduction .  I’m not saying it’s aliens...” Rudley glanced around nervously. “...but I think
     it was aliens.”
    “Oh, that’s a relief,” Jenny said. “Nobody’s going to take this seriously.  How did
     you even find this?”
    “Somebody linked it to Fark.  Mainly to make fun of these two guys, but still.  If
     they know something strange happened, other people could, too.  And watch this next
     part.”
    Rudley sat in a front parlor, the sort of room some people’s parents kept well-decorated
     and unused. He was facing a very unhappy-looking couple in their late forties or early
     fifties.
    “Wait a minute!” Jenny said. “Aren’t they...”
    “Mr. and Mrs. Daniels,” Seth said. “Bret Daniels’ parents.  I’ve spent the night at
     their house before.”
    Jenny briefly remembered killing the jock using a cloud of pox spores in front of
     the courthouse.
    “...never made any sense to us,” Bret’s mother was saying. “He just drove off on Easter,
     and we never saw him again!  They said there was an accident...some people died...but
     we never saw him or his...his...”
    “His dead body?” Rudley asked helpfully, and Bret’s mother cried out as if stabbed. 
     The father  just stared at the floor, stone-faced.
    “Nobody would tell us anything,” Bret’s father said, without looking up. “Not a thing.”
    “Did you see any strange lights that night?” Rudley asked. “Were there any crop circles
     in the morning?”
    “He left a daughter behind,” Bret’s mom added. “With his high-school sweetheart, Darcy
     Metcalf.”
    “They weren’t exactly sweethearts,” Bret’s dad mumbled.
    “Don’t say that!  He wouldn’t have done that with a girl unless he really loved her.  He was such a sweet little boy.”
    Bret’s dad shrugged.
    “We almost never see our grandbaby,” Bret’s mom continued. “Darcy up and