Story Challenge: The June 26 Twenty-four hour short story contest A man driven mad by a ringing in his ears discovers it’s an alien signal. And he isn’t the only one who can hear it.

Alien Bait Boxes

Calls are coming into the National Park Rangers station reporting missing people.

Frank picks up the mic, and speaks into the CB radio “Bob, what is going on? ...Over.”

Frank responds, “Finally, the radio works; we are getting more reports of people missing... Over.”

Bob, “We need to close down the park. Remember Frank, it was you that said all those pill bottles meant a party, not me.”

Lines of people are waiting, to see the doctor outside the local clinic.

Doctor Sims looking out the front window, and sees a man pointing to his ear, “What is going on?”
Nurse, "Doctor we have others wanting to get in but no slots available. Their ears are ringing. What do you want me to tell them?”

Doctor, “Send them to the emergency room if it gets too bad.”

Within a day the emergency room has lines of people in the city and the doctor’s office is booked solid.

In the meantime, Mike who saw the doctor the day before is high up on the trail and has not heard reports of what is happening, in the nearby city or in the park.

Mike puts his hand over the pill bottles in his napsack, as he starts hearing loud ringing in his ears.

He thinks to himself, there it is again, that ringing. I can’t stand this and it always happens this time of day when I am hiking. Thank god the doctor gave me those pills.

He notices others on the trail coming toward him, some with their hands over their ears.

Hikers are trying to talk to him only Mike can’t hear them.

Mike, “What are you saying I can’t hear you?”

Someone yells, “The ringing!”

Mike yells back, “The doctor calls it tinnitus, would you like some pills he gave me for it? Here I have a big bottle of Valium. Most of them take multiple doses and begin to lie down on the trail. They fall asleep, Mike is snoring.”

Shortly after that, a Spaceship spotted overhead. Robots come over and take people to the spaceship. One alien says, “It works every time.”

He picks up the bait box after all the people are aboard, and they leave.

NASA hearing reports of the spaceship send a crew out the next day. While standing there one of the officials sees a shiny object drop to the ground near them. He says, “I wonder what this is as his ears start ringing.”

My ears won’t quit ringing since I started writing this. I look outside and there is a shiny object. I take my car and drive over it. All is well now. I wrote this in case others need help after doing this assignment. Good thing I took some Valium.

This story was written for @mctiller ‘s 24 hour writing contest

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@mctiller thanks for doing these

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