“Six months ago, your ‘eggheads’ had a breakthrough, and we determined that we must act to stop your people from destroying this planet. We built this lonely outpost to monitor your progress and report back to our leaders on Altara-Z.”
What the actual heck? Johnny’s heart was jumping. His all-American blood sizzled in his veins. Dots danced before his eyes. Then everything went hazy.
“Mzaabbeeht!” cried Flat-top.
And Johnny went down for the count.
***
WHEN JOHNNY WOKE UP, he raised his head to discover that he was lying off to one side on a soft silvery mattress in a vast cavern filled with pipes and whirling fans. Spacemen were racing around, shouting at each other; purple steam hissed and swooshed out of pipes. The aliens jabbered wildly.
With their attention elsewhere, Johnny seized the moment. He inched his way to the edge of the mattress. Then he slowly planted his leg on the floor and half-rolled off. No one noticed. Crouching down, he snaked away from the gang, completely unsure if he was sneaking toward or away from more danger.
Stay cool, he told himself.
He kept going, weaving around more pipes and a strange object that floated in the air, spinning and hissing. He crept farther. His hands trembled; bands of terror bound his chest.
The floor rumbled again. And then as he crept forward, the slide he had originally fallen down shot up from the floor at an angle. He hurried toward it, planning to crawl up it if he had to. But the moment he touched it, he was hurtled upward as if he had been shot from a cannon.
The panel was still closed at the other end! He was going to slam right into it!
He braced for impact—
—and found himself flying into the air and landing in a heap at the feet of Flat-top Agent-in-the-Nick. Johnny tumbled and rolled. The alien-in-disguise held out a hand and when Johnny hesitated, let out an impatient grunt, wrapped his hand around Johnny’s wrist, and hauled him to his feet. Johnny took a swing at him, but the guy ducked. Johnny tried again and the monster let go.
“Listen, Johnny, we don’t have much time,” Flat-top said. “As we feared, your people have exploded their weapon. Your atmosphere will soon grow too toxic for us. We are departing.”
“Okay, so, that’s good, right? For us? That you’re beating feet?”
“I can offer you sanctuary, but you must come back inside our vessel now.”
He reached for Johnny’s arm, but Johnny turned and—
His house—
It had grown, it had to be at least sixty feet high. It reached into the cloudless sky like something from Jack and the Beanstalk. His knees buckled and Flat-top grabbed at him as if to drag him back to the panel.
The porch door swung open with a mighty crash and there stood his own mother, now massive, terrifying, at least fifty feet tall! She scanned the horizon.
“Johnny!” she shouted, and the force of her voice knocked him flat on his back.
“Oh, my gosh, oh, gosh,” Johnny blubbered. “Ma! Ma, down here!” He waved his arms.
She froze and cocked her head. Then she bent over and stared down at him. The pores in her skin were like craters; her eyes were as big as the high school gymnasium.
“Johnny? Oh, honey, oh! What’s happened to you?”
His eardrums pounded. She reached out a hand as big as a car, about to pluck him up. About to squash him. Johnny scrabbled away from her enormous fingers. In a frenzy of horror, he got to his feet and began to run.
“Johnny!” Flat-top cried.
“Johnny!” Ma shouted.
He clapped his hands over his agonized ears and ran blindly. Around tumbleweeds, through tumbleweeds, over tumbleweeds. Kicking up sand. Lots of sand. Sand, sand, sand.
Losing his human appearance, the spaceman caught up to him, jogging alongside. Flat-top was panting hard.
“Earthman,” he said between gasps. “I must return to the mothership. We offer you a home—”
“He is mine!” a familiar but very, very, very loud voice reverberated across the landscape.
Johnny froze. Stared. Stared hard . . .
. . . and could not fathom what he was seeing.
Two titans were locked in battle—smacking, slapping, and batting at one another. It was Amalia and Peggy Sue, their shrieks echoing across what he realized had once been the town’s baseball field. Dozens of giants—Johnny recognized his fellow Sonrisans—were yelling, trying to break up the fight, panicking, running. The ground shook. Their faces were so huge! Their eyes blazed.
Something caromed through the air like a flying saucer—it was a gigantic cake pan, loaded with an avalanche of chocolate.
“Mewheebit!” the alien cried. He grabbed Johnny’s arm, pushed down on his bracelet, and unbelievable heat enveloped Johnny’s entire body.
I’m burning up!
Then he and the spaceman were back inside what had to be a flying saucer, a real honest-to-god spaceship, and he was surrounded by spacemen and, outside, his girlfriends were as big as dinosaurs. The cabin he stood in was vibrating like a huge purring cat.
Spacemen were strapping into seats and putting on cylindrical helmets. Johnny’s rescuer threw him into an empty chair, lashed him in, and slammed a helmet over his head. The aliens jabbered at Flat-top and he jabbered back.
What the heck, what the holy heck?
Whoosh whoosh whoosh, they blasted upward. Window panels flashed open as they somersaulted into the heavens. Then they whirled past the tubs of apples, as big as lakes, and the dunk tank, now the size of an oil rig.
And then Amalia caught sight of the saucer. Her eyes glinted through the windows, then narrowed. She stared straight at Johnny, who was strapped into his seat. He flailed, trying to free himself. The spacemen were going wild, jabbering and shouting at each other.
“He is in there!” the spitfire bellowed. The saucer dipped and wobbled. Amalia raised a hand to grab it. Johnny struggled. Her hand came closer. Flat-top began yelling louder.
“Let me loose, Agent Guy!” Johnny shouted.
Then suddenly the saucer zipped backward out of Amalia’s reach. Johnny heaved a sigh. But in the next moment, something massive crashed into the spaceship and sent it tumbling end over end over end. The view in the window blurred in a crazy-quilt. Then Johnny watched in horror as an enormous baseball mitt filled the panels. It was going to catch the spaceship!
But just in time, the craft zipped sideways, out of reach. A massive roar shook the walls. Spacemen who were not strapped down went flying.
Flat-top leaned over Johnny, a hundred percent pure green-blooded (probably) alien creature, and declared, “We have to stop them!”
“Let me up,” Johnny insisted. “Take me to your leader.”
“That would be Ultra Supreme Leader XQC,” Flat-top replied.
In short order, the spaceman unstrapped Johnny, took off his helmet, and hurried him past the windows. The ship was flying backward, out of range of Peggy Sue, who had hunkered into position with a Louisville Slugger over her shoulder and an expression of pure venom on her face. The girls were playing ball with the saucer!
Flat-top had Johnny by the arm and was hustling him toward a space creature sitting in a large padded chair. The alien jabbered at Flat-top, and Flat-top jabbered back.
“Ultra Supreme Leader XQC says that we do not wish to jettison you,” Flat-top said, “but we must break the atmosphere soon or we will not have sufficient fuel to make it back to Altara-Z.”
“How did this happen?” Johnny demanded. “Was it something we did? The weapons test?”
Jabber-jabber-jabber.
“That is a topic for another time,” Flat-top said. “We are in a life-or-death crisis. Your girlfriends seek revenge on you.”
“We gotta stop ’em,” Johnny concurred. He thought a moment and then he snapped his fingers. “The power plant. They’ll be zapped.” Guilt and sorrow panged through him. This was all his fault. This was happening because he was so irresistible to girls. “See,
electricity will kill them. It kills humans, even giants!” He wondered for the flash of an instant if it killed space aliens. He was dazzled by stupefaction.
Flat-top and his leader spoke in Alienese back and forth, back and forth, in bursts, and then Flat-top said, “We have decided on a plan. You stand in view so that your girlfriends can see you. We will lure them to the power plant. They will then be . . . zapped.”
“Yeah, that could work.” He pulled out his comb. “I gotta look as good as possible to make sure they follow us. Do you have a mirror?”
***
PEGGY SUE GOT ELECTROCUTED.
Once she hit the transformers she danced and shuddered and when she fell over, the saucer bounced on the shock waves. Amalia saw what was going on. She could have saved herself, she could have, but she stared up into the window of the saucer, where Johnny stood, tears gushing down her cheeks. Geysers of tears. A flash-flood. He reached out a hand and murmured, “Oh, baby. Baby, I’m sorry.”
And then she reached out a hand and gripped one of the transformers. Zzz-zzzl-zzz! And the mystery train of sweet backseat love stopped dead in her tracks.
Free from threats, the saucer soared into the stratosphere.
***
JOHNNY SIPPED WHAT TASTED LIKE pineapple juice in a shimmering glass as Flat-top said gently, “Don’t blame yourself.” Around them, the aliens were repairing the ship. Outside the window, there was a black sky and zillions of stars.
“I got questions,” Johnny said. “Lots of them. So how did everybody get bigger except me? What weapon was that?”
Flat-top cleared his throat. “The timing was a bit . . . off. There were errors. But you were secured.”
“I was what?”
“Rescued. Drink your nutrient beverage,” Flat-top urged. Johnny took a sip. Then, almost to himself, Flat-top said, “I panicked. I almost ruined everything. Your courage . . . it was everything.” The alien smiled at Johnny. “Of course.”
Johnny raised a brow. Flat-top blinked and raised his chin as if listening to words that Johnny could not hear. Then he took the shimmering glass from Johnny and held it between his own hands. “Ultra Supreme Leader QXC has ordered me to reveal everything to you.”
Johnny wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that, but he stayed loose. Flat-top set down the pineapple-nutrient-thing and took a deep breath.
“Your people were not turned into giants. They are the same size they’ve always been.”
Johnny reeled. He blinked. “Then that means that, what? That we shrank?”
“Yes. We of Altara-Z are able to manipulate matter in that way.”
“But why? Why did you do that to me?”
Agent Traitor hung his head. “Because we needed to find a way to make you less irresistible to your females. We overshot. We apologize.”
“You made me little?” Johnny stared at Flat-top. “You made me little so Amalia and Peggy Sue—”
“—and all the other human girls, yes.” Flat-top nodded.
“Why?”
“So that you would come with us willingly. The mission was bungled—”
“But why?”
Flat-top began to pace. “Because I was nervous. I couldn’t think straight.” The spaceman turned away, turned back. Then he raised his hand and pressed the buttons on the metallic bracelet on his wrist. Gone was Flat-top, gone was the green spaceman, and in his place, there was a her—a va-va-va-voom girl. Curvy like Amalia and blonde like Peggy Sue. With freckles like his first kiss, Gina Sanatello, and lips like Doreen McKenney, his first trip to second base.
“Flat-top?” Johnny cried.
“You see me in my true form,” Flat-top said softly. “We have maintained disguises until we were given the all-clear signal by the homeworld. We Altara-Zians are a race of females. Females devoted to you.”
The gorgeous babe lifted up her chin and closed her eyes. All around her, the spacemen stopped what they were doing and gazed at Johnny. Then in a split-second, they transformed into beautiful, beautiful girls of all shapes, shades, and sizes.
“While monitoring your world, we found you,” Flat-top said in a come-hither voice. “We formed a daring plan. And now, here you are.”
“Wow,” Johnny said huskily.
A tall redhead approached. “We had to move up our timetable. Not only because of the weapons test, but because Amalia and Peggy Sue posed real danger. We didn’t know what would happen once they realized that they were rivals.”
“Yeah, about that,” he began. But what could he say? His two best girls had been fried to a crisp because of him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Flat-top interjected. “Your civilization has not yet learned to share, as we of Altara-Z have learned to do.” Beside her, the redheaded nodded. “And you are, after all, completely irresistible to women.”
Johnny looked around the room at the spacemen—correction, spacewomen. At all of them—dozens of them. Also nodding.
“Yeah,” he said, “I am.”
He pulled out his comb. The spacegirls sucked in a collective breath. In the gleam from Flat-top’s bracelet—whoa, he had to change that nickname for sure—he pumped up his pompadour. As one, all they all sighed.
One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock rock . . .
“Well, there’s plenty of me to go around.”
“Yes, oh, yes,” the spacegirls said in one happy voice.
In a blaze of glory, the spaceship shot toward home on a bruise-free cruise starring dreamboat Johnny Morris, red-blooded American teenager in love.
* * *
NANCY HOLDER is the New York Times bestselling author (the Wicked series, with Debbie Viguié) of over 80 novels and 200 short stories. She has received five Bram Stoker awards, a Scribe award, and a Young Adult Fiction Pioneer Award. She is the former vice president of the Horror Writers Association and currently sits on the HWA board of trustees. A recent work was the novelization of Crimson Peak, the classic gothic film by Guillermo del Toro. Her current ongoing project is the comic book series “Mary Shelley Presents” for Kymera Press, adapting the work of women writers of the supernatural from all over the world. She presents lectures and presentations on Mary Shelley whenever possible. She is on Facebook and Twitter @nancyholder. She lives in Washington state and travels to Italy whenever possible.
* * *
UNIVERSAL MONSTER
by Duane Swierczynski
When you’re desperate, you turn to desperate people. People like Marvel Whitehead.
* * *
“TAKE MY CAR. THE REELS ARE ALREADY IN the trunk. Bring the new girl—she’ll help. Get going now. We ain’t got much time.”
This is what my boss, Robert “Bobby” Fordyce told me the moment I stepped onto the lot this morning. I hadn’t slept much last night. None of us had, I’m sure. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it sure wasn’t this.
“Get going where?”
“Jesus, Tommy. What we talked about.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“No, I was not joking. I just got off the phone with my guy in Defense. We’re all set. All you have to do is drive. Get it out there, get it underground. Not too deep.” He gestured to the new girl. “She’ll give you a hand.”
The new girl blinked. I didn’t know her name. I’m not sure Fordyce did, either. She was deathly pale and wearing white. Bad combination, honey.
I extended a hand. “Tom Parks.”
She stared at my hand, unsure of what this was all about. Steaming mug of coffee in one hand, steno pad in the other, as if she were an extra who had been suddenly nudged into a speaking role. And already she’d forgotten her line.
“Explain it to her on the way,” Fordyce said. “I’m late for a production meeting. C’mon, get going already.”
“Okay. Follow me, new girl.” She’d get around to telling me her name eventually.
Fordyce’s car was parked in his usual spot. It was a ’58 Lincoln Continental convertible, Mark III, just a fe
w weeks old. A gorgeous bombastic machine. Ordinarily, I’d be thrilled to sit behind the wheel for a while. But now my stomach was already churning; this always happens when I don’t sleep. I was glad he’d had some lackey shove the reels into the trunk—I didn’t want to touch them.
New girl stood by the car door, staring at it, mug of coffee still in her hand. The poor dear. I took the mug from her hand, whip-dumped the java into the nearest bush, then placed the mug on the curb. Somebody would return it to Fordyce’s office. He counted the fucking things, I swear.
I opened the big slab of a door, guided new girl into the plush mint green seat, then walked around and took my place behind the wheel. I’ll admit it; I was a little intimidated. I’d spent the last five years knocking around Burbank in a second-hand Nash. This was like being in charge of a Navy destroyer.
On the way out of the lot I waved hello to Benny, head of security. I used to have his job. And someday, he would have mine. This is how it worked in Hollywood.
I hung a right and drove up Lankershim, which was a diagonal slash mark across the floor of the valley. After a while I stole a glance at my companion for the day. The new girl had a large head resting atop a tiny body. Pretty, of course; Fordyce doesn’t go for any other kind. But not exactly my type.
“Bobby tell you what this is all about?” I asked, mostly to get a conversation going. If I was going to spend most of the day with this girl, I’d like to know what I was up against.
She held my gaze for the longest time before shaking her head.
“You don’t know what’s in the trunk?”
There was another awkward, long pause before she twitched her oversized head, indicating no.
“Well, honey, you’re in for one hell of a story.”
***
IN THE TRUNK of the Lincoln were five reels of a new movie. My job was to take these reels deep into the Nevada Test Site—Fordyce apparently called in a favor with an old war buddy—and bury them. There was an A-bomb test scheduled for this coming weekend. The moment the count reached zero the reels would be blasted from the face of the Earth forever.
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