Collector Ship

by Adam Moon

  She stared at him like he was from Mars. “Yes, that’s enough.”

  She turned the Humvee around and dimmed the headlights. They rolled along for five full minutes in darkened silence before David saw a glint from the orange fur on the little alien.

  He grabbed an assault rifle, loaded it and then waited for the others to catch up. His mistake was to assume he could count on them to act as a team. Olaf ran past his door, firing from the hip with two rifles. Gunner ran past Stacey’s door and fired an RPG, lighting up the area enough for David to see the stunned look on the taller alien’s face. He jumped from the truck and gave chase. He knew that the element of surprise was lost so he had to act fast. He fired a three round burst into the area he thought he’d last seen the aliens. Olaf and Gunner split up and jumped from the road a hundred feet apart.

  David rushed straight in and was rewarded with a surprise of his own. The fat furry alien flew through the air like a football and hit him in the chest before he had a chance to dodge it. He saw the taller alien in front of him moving to its side. He knew that the tall one had thrown the little fat one at him as a diversion and it worked. The fat one stabbed at him with its tongue but he managed to avoid each swipe. Its many footless legs kicked at him as he held it away from his body in the air. And then he felt the tall alien before he saw it. It had slipped in behind him, taken his rifle and had him held around the neck. It said something in an alien tongue to the fat alien and it stopped struggling. The tall one pried at David’s hands until he dropped its pet and then it started to back David into the darkness on the side of the road.

  Stacey ran up on them with her gun trained. She stopped in her tracks when she saw David in the alien’s clutches. She knelt down on one knee, took aim and fired. The bullet whizzed by David’s ear and he felt a wet hot splash. Then he was released from the alien. He heard several follow-up shots but by then he was too confused to know what was going on around him. The fat alien made a move to pounce on him again but it was riddled with bullets before it was able to spring into the air. Both aliens had died seconds apart.

  David felt hands beneath his armpits as he was carried back to the road. He was plunked into his seat in the Humvee as the team took care of the aftermath.

  Stacey’s head swam into view at one point as she checked him over for wounds. She said, “You need to let us handle these bastards. We had a plan and you nearly screwed it up.”

  He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what kind of plan they thought they’d implemented but as his thoughts clarified he realized they’d handled the situation perfectly. He’d told them to attack by surprise and take out the big guy first and that’s exactly what they’d tried to do before he got involved.

  Gunner’s face materialized before him and she spat, “Take the serum, dumbass. You’re no good to us like this. It’s a shame; you used to be our best.”

  Olaf said to her, “Maybe we should take away his weapons until he decides what he’s going to do.”

  Gordon chimed in, “We can’t leave an idiot like him defenseless.”

  David closed his eyes and felt the world shrink as the sounds of their voices drifted away into eternity. His fugue state was preferable to reality at the moment so he embraced it. He heard the others walk away. He felt his breathing slow.

  And then he jammed his eyes open and gulped a breath of air. He stood from the Humvee and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “”The little guy emits an odor when he’s frightened or if he dies. It’s toxic, and if you get close enough it’ll choke you to death.”

  Felix was doubled over fifty feet ahead, gasping for breath while Gordon and Stacey helped him back to his truck.

  Gordon said angrily and sarcastically, “Thanks for the heads-up. You’re a real asset to the team. Next time tell us these sorts of things before you get one of us killed. Felix is dying because of you.”

  David looked up at the night sky. He had always felt alone in the world but that was natural given that he was usually physically alone. But now that he was with others, that lonely feeling had never felt stronger or made him more despondent. A man was about to die because he didn’t have what it took to keep him alive. His epiphanies always seemed to come too late.

  Then a red hot memory flashed into his brain. He ran over to the fat alien on the side of the road. He put his sleeve over his mouth when he could smell the awful stench. He pulled his boot knife and kneeled down. He flipped the carcass and sliced open its soft underbelly. Organs and blood spilled out as did more of that awful toxic stench. He plunged his hand deep inside its exposed gut, closed his fist and pulled a red sac out. It was the shape and color of a human heart but it was actually an antidote. The alien wasn’t naturally immune to its own toxins, since it often used those very toxins on its own kind, so it had developed an antidote in case it accidentally gassed itself.

  He gagged and felt his throat begin to tighten. He sure hoped his memory was accurate or he would die soon too.

  He squeezed the sac and a strange purple liquid dripped from the end of it that smelled like lilacs and bleach. As soon as it hit his nostrils, he felt better.

  He stood and ran to Felix. Felix’s face was turning blue and Stacey was getting ready to make him a new airway when David waved the sac under his nose. He dripped the liquid on his fingertips and then slid them into Felix’s nostrils. Color immediately returned to him and he sat up like he’d been spring-loaded. He gasped and then filled his lungs with air. He snatched the sac from David and wiped it across his mouth.

  Finally, he said, “Thanks, man. That would have been a stupid way to go out.”

  Stacey looked at the sac and then at David. “Let us know next time you get a memory flash. We almost lost him.”

  “I only remembered the antidote organ just now. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. You made up for earlier. Good work.”

  Stacey ordered Felix to take the remains of the aliens back to base, partly because there was a slim chance this invasion could be thwarted and kept from the public but mostly she issued the order to give Felix light duty while he shook off the effects of the poison.

  The little toxic guy was double-bagged and kept near the open window at the back of the Humvee and the large skinny one was placed beside it.

  Felix took off first. Gunner joined up with Gordon and Olaf. Stacey radioed Murphy to let him know about the corpses that were headed his way and then she asked, “”Do you have any intel for us? We were lucky to even see these ones.”

  “We’ve been getting preliminary reports that sound like they fit the description of an escaped aggressive alien. A boat was capsized off the shore of Racine, Wisconsin. Three people are missing.”

  “What makes you think it was an alien?”

  “We’ve been monitoring cell phone and internet chatter in the area and we picked up some weird tweets and texts. There’s a tavern on the dock and several patrons witnessed the boat sink. They said that something flew straight at it like a missile. At first they thought it was a small plane but then they saw it ascend from the wreckage, and it was laughing.”

  “Is there anything more you can tell us so we can prepare?”

  “Yes. It had a suit on that emitted white flames. It was wearing some type of rocket booster.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “You can’t attack it from the ground. You’d fail. I am prepared to request a few fighter jets but I’d hate to do that and then it turns out that the story was just some hoax made up by a bunch of drunks. I need you to verify their story for me.”

  Stacey received the name of the bar and plugged it into her GPS. “We can be there in forty minutes.”

  “Oh. I assumed you were closer than that. I hope the witnesses stick around until then.”

  David had a flash of memory that Murphy’s story had jarred loose. He saw a thin alien with a weak body but it was protected by powerful technology. It had an exo-suit that protected it from most projectiles. A helmet with
a HUD that saw just about anything that moved or breathed, and a rocket pack that gave it the ability to fly. The rocket pack replenished itself by separating hydrogen from the air so they couldn’t even hope for it to run out and fall back to Earth. Its body was pure white, almost translucent, and its head was massive, but supported by a puny neck. In fact, without the exo-suit to support its head it would break its own neck. Other than that, it was slightly humanoid with a twisted sense of right and wrong. It would never stop killing until it escaped the planet. It would treat the Earth like a cage and fight for its survival. David could sort of understand that logic because if he was in its place he’d feel the same way. The difference was the degree of aggression and blood thirst. It had to be stopped before too many bodies piled up in its wake.

  He said to Stacey, “The story is legit. I just had a memory flash of a creature just like what was described.”

  She keyed her radio. To Murphy, “No need to verify the story. David says it’s legit.”

  “Is he sure?”

  She looked over at him and he nodded. She said, “Yep. He’s sure.”

  “I’ll request the fighters then. I hope he’s right.”

  Stacey asked, “So what should we do in the meantime?”

  “Continue north and I’ll let you know when I hear anything interesting.”

  “Okay.”

  David listened to the conversation but his main focus was on the plethora of memories washing through his mind. The problem was that he knew for a fact that he hadn’t personally experienced the memories that were stored in him. His mind was twisted into a pretzel; he’d had his real memories scrubbed clean by an evil government agency and then he’d had a bunch of insane memories about dozens of different aliens uploaded by a ship. He didn’t know if he could trust what he remembered.

  But now that he’d finally proven his worth, the last thing that he wanted was to have the team doubt him so he kept his reservations to himself. If he was right about the incident in Racine being of extraterrestrial design then he’d look great in their eyes, but if he voiced his doubts they’d insist on going there to verify his suspicions and in doing so, lose there most precious commodity: time.

  Anyway, if the fighter jets didn’t see an alien presence, all that would be lost would be jet fuel.

  He nestled into his seat as Stacey turned the key and sped out.

  They had no destination, per se, but they knew to head north until additional intel came in because the intel would likely send them north anyway.

  It wasn’t long before Murphy radioed through with delight in his voice. “I’m so glad you talked me out of sending you to Racine. From what I now understand, that alien demolished the boat in front of so many witnesses on purpose, to draw armed men and women to it. It had already confiscated two guns from the locals by the time the fighters took it out, but if you’d gone in alone, it would’ve killed you for your weaponry.”

  David had a minor memory flash that came too late. The alien’s main weakness was its own body. If unarmed, it could be easily taken out but with weapons it was deadly accurate since it could use the exo-suit to aim the guns with perfect precision. He didn’t mention the fact that the memory had only just come to him, after the alien was already dead.

  Murphy continued, “David, I now trust your intel with all of my heart and I’m glad you reached out to us. What you’ve done is amazing. The military now has an alien ship with all of its technology, and four diverse alien bodies. If you’d asked me yesterday if I believed in aliens, I’d have laughed at you. But now we have ample proof of their existence. If we survive this invasion, the knowledge that will come out of all of this will change the world.”

  David was now torn. He felt like a fool for unleashing the aliens upon the Earth but if this ended well, he might very well go down in the history books. He halted his train of thought because he was getting way ahead of himself. First they had to survive the invasion; then he could worry about the congratulations.

  Stacey asked, “Do you have any more intel for us?”

  “I do. We’re seeing chatter to the far north and a little to the south of us but the closest to you is in a town called Kenosha in Wisconsin. A meat packing plant was invaded during work hours. The last I heard, the alien was still eating, and not just the packaged meats, but people too. You need to go in hot before some dopey local cop shows up and screws things up.”

  “We’re just five minutes from the off-ramp. I’ll let you know when it’s over.”

  “Okay. Stay safe. I mean it.”

  Stacey relayed their new destination coordinates to the others and then she took the off-ramp towards the meat packing plant. They knew they were getting close when they saw the flashing lights of police cars and fire trucks. They pulled in to the dock area at the back and parked.

  A cop approached them and demanded ID. He looked their credentials over and then said, “Never heard of you. But we can use all the help we can get and your guns are bigger than ours. Follow me and I’ll fill you in.”

  Stacey let the cop take point, following obediently if only to gather information.

  Buddy stayed in the Humvee, shivering uncontrollably.

  The cop pulled his service revolver and let it hang at his side. He leaned on a wall and waited for the occupants of the other Humvee to join him. Once Olaf, Gunner, and Gordon caught up, he said, “There’s something in there that’s killing people and eating them. I know you’re going to think this is crazy, but it’s not human. I considered quitting the force ten minutes ago; that’s how terrifying the thing is.”

  “Did you see it with your own eyes?”

  “It reached out through a window and pulled a fellow officer inside with it. I can still hear her screams in my head. But worse, I can hear her bones crunching and the wet smack of her body being thrown around. You see, it plays with its food.”

  “What did it look like?”

  He looked at his boots. “What creature do you know who comes out at night and eats people alive?”

  No one answered so he said, “It’s a damn werewolf.”

  They would have laughed at the absurdity except that, having just seen several aliens, their consciousnesses had expanded exponentially; nothing was out of the ordinary now. But they knew it couldn’t be a werewolf.

  Stacey said reassuringly, “Pull your men back. We’re used to taking out werewolves. We’ll take care of this and get you all home safely.”

  “How many have you killed?”

  Gordon smirked. “Hundreds, and Vampires too.”

  Gunner said, “We killed a gargoyle just last week.”

  The cop knew they were mocking him but he wasn’t about to let a little light ribbing deter him from taking them up on their offer. “I’ll get the men back and inform them of the situation. Let me know if there’s anything else we can do to help.”

  They heard a snarl from within the plant that, had they to guess its origin, sounded like it came from a werewolf. But the sound triggered a much needed memory flash within David. He could see it in his minds eye like it was a statue on a rotating platform. It was, in fact, the spitting image of a werewolf from lore. It was ten feet tall and fifteen feet long. It walked on four legs and it was covered in thick black fur. Its mouth was canine but bigger, and held two rows of serrated teeth on top and bottom. Its jaw could dislocate much like a snake’s so that it could eat prey whole if it desired to do so. It had thick leathery eyelids to protect its delicate eyes from the thrashes of its prey while it ate. Its eyes were simply perfect. It could see a pitch black object in a dark sealed room. Its nose was unlike anything David could compare it to on Earth. The scent of any life form triggered a primeval response within it that set its hair on end and demanded the satisfaction of a kill.

  He was absolutely certain it already knew they were there and had probably smelled them coming from miles away.

  But it had a major weakness: it was as dumb as a box of rocks. Because it was so formidable, it had ne
ver had to develop a brain to aid it in life. It didn’t need hunting skills to guarantee a kill so it had never developed any complex ways of thinking.

  “It’s a dumbass but it’s basically unstoppable once it has us in its sights. It relies heavily on its acute senses. We need to outsmart it before it decides we’re its next meal.”

  The cop turned and walked away and Stacey asked, “So what should we do?”

  David cocked his head to the side. “We need to outsmart it. That’s all I know. You’re the gunmen, you tell me what to do now that you have that insight.”

  Stacey asked, “Do we need special bullets for it?”

  Olaf laughed. “Yeah, you mean like silver, right?”

  Stacey exhaled loudly and said, “I’ll go in through the door over there,” she pointed at a small door between two dock doors. “David will remain here, and you three find an open door each. Obviously, breach and clear if you hear anything on the other side of the door. Otherwise, on my signal we’ll go in hot.”

  Everyone nodded except for David. He asked, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You be ready to take it out if it escapes.”

  “It won’t try to escape. It wouldn’t even know how to run away. It’s never had to.”

  “Well if it gets wise all of a sudden, you’ll be waiting for it.”

  David knew he was being treated as a ride-along nuisance but that only made sense given how much better at everything they all were compared to him.

  To expedite the attack, he agreed. “Okay. I’ll cover you. Be careful. That thing could overpower all of us at once if you let it.”

  Olaf grabbed an RPG and Gunner had a flash-bang in each hand. She said, “Its acute senses won’t mean shit once I chuck one of these at it.”

  They dispersed around the building as David looked for a nice place to take a seat. He rested his assault rifle on his lap just in case he had to defend himself. He looked back at the Humvee where Buddy was hiding. Every once in a while Buddy’s snout would appear in the window and then abruptly vanish from sight again.