The dogs barked, they strained at their chains, mouths foamed, teeth snarled as they followed the scent of the escapee. Two men with double barrel shot guns held their restrains, urging them onward towards their prey. It was a bright night, a full moon lit up the dense woods as the dogs pulled their masters through the thick underbrush. They knew they were close, the dogs barked loudly and growled fiercely and ran even faster through the woods.
Willie Johnson, doing twenty years of hard labor on the chain gang, had escaped over the fence earlier that evening, hoping to make it to the river and ultimately to safety under the cover of darkness. Once he made it to the river, the dogs would lose his scent, that was his plan, the only one he had. He hadn't really thought his escape out fully, he just had an opportunity to run and he ran. He ran for the river, but he could hear the dogs behind him. He could tell they were gaining on him as he felt himself growing weaker as he ran through the woods towards the freedom of the river.
Freedom, that was all that was on his mind. He had already did five years of his twenty for murdering a man down in Louisiana. He killed him all right, but it was a fair fight, over a woman of all things. Five years was long enough to pay for what he'd done, that was all he was going to give the man, if he had anything to say about it.
The two men with the dogs could see Willie in the moonlight, but he was still not in range of their double barrels. They didn't want him to reach the river, they would lose him for sure, so they pushed themselves and the dogs, harder and faster.
Willie was nearing a clearing, he could see the river up ahead, he could smell it, feel it in the moonlit night. Picking up his pace, he sprinted for the river, freedom blessed freedom, he was going to make it.
When out of no where a group of lights appeared in the northern skies, strange lights that seemed to dart back and forth in an unnatural fashion, lights not of our world. They grew larger and seemed to be attached to some sort of craft that was heading downward. Willie didn't notice the lights at first, his full attention was on making it to the river. But, as the lights grew closer and larger, he looked up in the skies. Even though he was being pursued by a pack of dogs and two men with shot guns, he stopped dead in his tracks to look up at the lights and marvel at them.
The two men chasing Willie also stopped to look at the lights in the moonlight that grew closer and closer. As it appeared in clear view, the lights were beaming from a craft, a spaceship or some sort of weird airplane the two men had never seen. Even the dogs stopped, completely mute, trying to understand what in the sky had gotten their master's full attention away from the pursuit.
A strong cyclonic wind blew from underneath the craft as it approached the ground, clearing a circular landing zone for it to gently set down. It hit the ground with a metallic thud, blinding lights shone from the craft lighting up the night like it was noontime. The craft had damn near landed on Willie Johnson who held on to a tree to prevent being sucked up in the whirlwind.
Willie and the two men who had been chasing him stood in awe as a door opened up in the side of the craft. Two creatures rapidly flew out grabbing Willie who was the closest and quickly drug him inside, the door seamlessly shut.
The two men watched not knowing what to think or do, their prisoner was inside a UFO, that's all they knew or the only way they could describe the situation they found themselves in. So they decided to wait to see what was going to happen. They had to, their prisoner was inside and they were determined he was not going to escape. If they had known what was going on inside the craft they would have ran for their lives, screaming in terror, but they didn't know so they waited and watched.
Inside the alien creatures were busy at their work, discovery was the motivation behind the tasks they were performing on poor Willie, strapped naked on a table, his mouth sewed shut, his eyes wide with fear.
The creatures were diminutive in size but had unusually large heads and bulging red glowing eyes. Their bodies were covered by some type of metallic armor, they communicated without words, somehow telepathically mind to mind. They worked quickly exploring Willie's body with electronic probes of some sort. Willie was not harmed, not yet at least, but that would change as the procedure continued.
Soon they had all the information they needed but found the human species was inadequate for their needs. There was work to be done transforming this human into a creature made in their own image, but better. A being with their superior intellect, but one with extraordinary strength and agility.
Life as this human knew it ceased as they snuffed out Willie's life without consideration and began ripping out body parts like they were from a machine and replacing them with new better, stronger, replacements. They sucked out his brain through his nose like it was pudding and replaced it with a computer, his arms and legs they replaced with mechanical ones.
The whole procedure took about an hour. The new Willie laid on the table, God only knew what they had in mind for him, this Frankenstein like creation built by aliens to their specifications. Now their work was done, Willie or what used to be Willie was released from his restraints, he sat up on the table, eyes lit up like a pinball machine.
His head turned on his shoulders, left then right, then all the way around. Standing uneasy at first, but then more steady he took a few steps, his creators looked on happy with their creation. Now it was time to put the Willie creature to work, there was a whole planet teeming with fresh meat to be harvested, there was no time to waste.
The Willie creature had been programed to decrease frail humans and other earthly creatures into vaporized molecules, suck them into his tank until full, then deposit their remains in a holding tank on board the space craft. Later these molecules would be reconstituted into a form that would be food for their hungry planet.
Outside the spacecraft the two men with shotguns and the dogs waited patiently, wondering what had happened to the prisoner they had been pursuing. They didn't have long to wait.
The door of the craft opened, the new and improved Willie Johnson stood at the top of stairs that seemed to be steps illuminated in midair. He stood for minute, looking, red eyes beaming ultraviolet rays. He started to glide in air and quickly was at the bottom of the stairway heading towards the two shot gun carrying prison guards.
The two men were shocked momentarily but also started in the direction of thing coming at them, urging their dogs onward, but the dogs who had more sense than they did, wanted no part of the creature.
It was over in an instant, as Willie with his new vaporizing powers turned the two men and their dogs into mist and sucked them into his hulking mechanical body.
The door of the spacecraft shut and just as quickly as it landed it took off, lights getting dimmer and dimmer as it faded away. Their creature turned and headed into the woods.
So the story goes of what happened that summer night back in 1955 in the woods outside of Oxford, Mississippi. Some say it is pure myth, a story concocted to scare small children or even superstitious adults. A story that was told to dissuade other inmates that might want to try and escape the prison farm, perhaps. Truth or legend there have been many strange disappearances in these woods since those days and the guards, their dogs and Willie Johnson were never seen or heard from again.
Once Upon A Time in Vietnam
Simply Shorts Page 2
