Aliens, Tequila & Us: The complete series

by Michael Herman

  I walk to the other side of his bed, away from Forbes, to where a thin wooden chair is located and seat myself there. Studying the man, I note his features are like that of someone just released from a prison camp, skeletal and sharp. His lips are thin and almost colorless. Yet, his beard seems only days old, meaning he had been allowed to shave in the recent past. His hair is cropped raggedly as if the cutting was performed by an amateur or maybe by himself. While I sit there, he starts tossing and mumbling, obviously dreaming.

  When I bend closer to get a better look, his mumblings and turning cease and he becomes still. The only movement is the subtle rise and fall of his chest as he breathes in and out. The odor of horse manure is still with him, only very faint and not something that reaches my nose until I bend forward to examine him. And then, so very slowly, he turns his head towards me and opens his eyes to look directly into mine.

  The effect is startling. I jerk back and raise my hands reflexively to ward him off. Yet, he makes no further move. He just lies there; eyes open, looking silently into mine. It takes me a moment to gather myself and speak.

  “You’re awake,” I say, stating the obvious. There’s no response. He just stares.

  “Can you speak?” I inquire. His lips work as he considers what to say, so I wait, not wanting to rush things. Yet, he does not speak; he simply stares right through me. It occurs to me he might still be dreaming. To test that, I stand and walk to the foot of the bed. His gaze remains fixed in the direction where I had been. I’ve seen sleepwalkers in action before, but this is eerie. Whatever he is looking at exists only in his mind. I watch and wait for him to move again, fascinated by the whole thing. Finally, he mutters something, closes his eyes, rolls over, coughs, and then lies motionless in deep sleep with only the subtle rise and fall of his torso.

  I return to the chair and start feeling the itch of curiosity getting stronger the longer I sit next to him. Where has he come from? How did he get in the open field? And mostly I wonder about Forbes’ experience and his bizarre conclusions—a man both from the future and from the past. That’s what he said, didn’t he? I can’t exactly remember at the moment.

  While I sit there, I hear Messenger come in through the front door of the guest house. I listen to his footsteps without looking up from the man until he is at the bedroom door.

  “No movement from the mystery man?” he asks quietly.

  “He sleeps soundly,” I answer in a soft tone.

  “You’re dying to read him, aren’t you? I can tell by your body posture. Go ahead. I’ll stay right here in case something happens. The kids are fine for the moment. Do a short stint. You can always jump out if the going gets too tough.”

  I look at him and smile. “You know me so well, don’t you?”

  “You need to know. That’s how you are. I have no problem with that. Do it. I’ll be your big bad bodyguard.” He smirks.

  I move my chair closer to the bed, give Messenger an appreciative look and then reach out and place my hand on the exposed shoulder of the naked man. And then—I’m in.

  Soliloquy’s Sacrifice Chapter 4

  First Reading

  I wake. My face is pancaked to a chill concrete floor. My right hand and wrist, sandwiched between the floor and my chest, are numb. My right eye opens, but I see nothing. I think that the 24/7 ceiling lights must be off. I believe I have not gone blind. I hope I have not gone blind. I pray I am not blind.

  I’m burning with fever. The coolness of the concrete should be a comfort, but I yearn for a blanket, something warm and soothing. The warmth in my crotch means the dream I just had of relieving my bladder was a little too real. I’ve wet myself again. I’m not surprised. Not the first time here in this hellhole and probably not the last. I should feel some measure of humiliation, but I am long past that. A shiver traces its way down my torso.

  When I breathe deep, pain knifes through my chest. Broken ribs do that. Movement, any kind of movement, ranges from discomfort to agony. I lie still because I am a prisoner of my unwillingness to bear pain. I listen and hear only a thousand crickets of tinnitus caused by damage to my ears. The night-and-day blaring of speakers in my cell are mercifully silenced, but in the vacuum the crickets roar—unpleasant, but an improvement over the blasting speakers. Why the changeup, I wonder? What new means of discomfort are they preparing for me?

  It occurs to me that I may no longer be alone in my cell so I make a feeble attempt to speak. But when I do, my throat catches and locks up. Only a meager croaking comes out. I need water. God, do I need water! When I run my tongue over my teeth that are still sticky with blood, the sharp edge of a chipped tooth drags against my tender skin. I take inventory of my teeth with my tongue. All seem to be there and accounted for. I am lucky for that. The beatings could easily have left me swallowing jagged and sheared teeth chunks.

  When I slide my numb right wrist and hand out from beneath me, my ribs protest. Aagh! I flex my fingers. Wake up, wake up and feel the pain, I order them. (That’s how I am these days, mentally talking to my appendages—a negative indication of my mental faculties, to be sure.) I flex my fingers open, I flex them closed. Open. Close. Slowly, prickly and cranky feeling flows into them. A moan joins in with the cricket chorus.

  The moan is from me, I realize with little surprise. I cough and immediately wince. I clear my throat and merciful saliva trickles into my mouth. My left eye, swollen shut and sticky with blood, is glued to the concrete. I twist my head with a jerk and gain freedom from the slab. I slide my face towards my outstretched hand and become aware that the floor is moist from my breath. I shove my swollen tongue out past my lips to lap up what little moisture there is. It’s small relief. A jagged tooth edge digs at the bottom of my tongue.

  “Uh,” I whisper.

  I drag my hand back to my chest and push against the floor, peeling my face from it. I bring my other hand beneath my chest and push even harder against the floor. When my ribs cry out, I grimace. With painful effort, I arrange my body into a sitting position with my back against the cold concrete block wall that encloses my cell on all four sides. Now I sit silently and listen. I hear nothing except my tinnitus crickets. No birds. No real insects. No machine noises. No people sounds. Nothing. I try to take a slow deep breath, but phlegm catches in my lungs, forcing me to cough convulsively. Once, twice, three times, until out of sheer tortured desperation, I will it to stop. My ribs! My damned ribs! I slow my breathing. My heartbeat drops. I am passive once again.

  How long have I been unconscious? How long have the lights been off? All sound is silenced—why? The questions concern me for no reason except to fill my time. My thoughts are only of the immediate. Long-term considerations are gone. Moment to moment is how I live. I have no doubt that my future here is limited. I will die and that will be that. It is only the moments that occupy my thoughts presently.

  I try to think back in time. My last memory is my lungs on fire from the waterboarding. I must have passed out when I was choking. Who would have thought cool water could feel like searing lava? Or did I pass out during a beating? I’m confused. It’s all a blur of one prolonged nightmare: beatings, waterboardings, electric shock with a cow prod, constant bright lights and deafening noise in my cell. Distressed sleep. Beatings. Waterboardings. It never ends. Days. Weeks. No end in sight.

  I listen again. Only crickets. I know I am underground. The odor of mold permeates my every inhaled breath of concrete-block-stagnant-air that is filled with my stink. No bathing for me, just a piss pot in the corner for my urine and fecal matter. They don’t even bother to clean up my vomit or blood. The cell floor is putrid with my DNA.

  I wonder how deep below the surface I am. Deep enough to blot out all outside sound except what I hear in the corridor from the other side my prison door.

  Suddenly, there is a muffled boom from somewhere distant outside my cell, then nothing, just silence. I focus, trying to hear past the crickets, straining against their roar. Then I hear the unmistakable sound of a
utomatic gunfire far away, and then another boom, closer now. Minutes tick by silently. Then there is a big boom followed by a tremor that shakes my room. I hear one of the walls crack. Fragments hit the floor. Damn! Will I be buried alive?

  More gunfire. The explosions get nearer and there are voices yelling. The conflict is moving in my direction. Then there is an enormous explosion and the floor feels like it lifts up. Hellishly frightening. There are screams of men and women. More gunfire. More yelling. I hear something slam against my cell door. There is more gunfire. Bullets striking the metal door and concrete block wall. I slide down the wall and curl into a defensive ball. More gunfire nearby and then the conflict starts to move away from me. I am frozen with fear.

  I close my eye and tense my body waiting for the next onslaught. The gunfire and distant booms continue to recede. After a while, there is nothing, only me and my insect chorus. I listen for hours. There is still nothing.

  I weary, and then sleep.

  Soliloquy’s Sacrifice Chapter 5

  First Reading Continued

  The Next Day

  I am awakened by thick hands lifting me up by my armpits. This is familiar. I open my eye and find the room semi-lit by a huge flashlight aimed at my face. The ones on each side of me are dressed in their usual yellow rubberized bio suits. Yellow gloved hands pull me up from the floor. When they speak, their voices sound hollow through their bio hoods. Two more at the doorway are watching. One gestures for them to move me out of the room. This is more people than usual. One moves behind me and slaps on the usual restraints that glove my hands in mittens and bind them to my sides. In their minds, I imagine, it prevents me from breaking through their bio suits and infecting them.

  They bag my head as usual and then drag me out of the room. I hear more hollow suited voices. Apparently, I am getting the full treatment today, or tonight, or whatever it is. I can tell by their voices that many of them surround me and more are out along the corridor they take me through. I guess the attack must have stirred things up. This is probably bad for me. They will be desperate. Their measures will be extreme. I think it is unlikely I’ll survive this round of questioning.

  Judging by the different turns we take and the length of time we walk, I can tell that they are taking me on a different route. Finally, they set me down in a chair and, to my surprise, remove my hand restraints. When one of them pulls off my head bag, I am blinded by the harsh lighting in the room. I wince and hear the sound of a door to my left close as my eye adjusts to the stark ambiance. In front of me is a white porcelain wall. In the center of the wall is a chrome shower nozzle with water handles below. I’m in a shower, I realize. Every surface is covered in white tile. I am now alone in a room probably eight feet by five feet. I look down on my urine-stained blue jeans with no embarrassment and then I get the message. Shower, please, thank you.

  Slowly and methodically, with my broken ribs constantly making their condition known, I peel off my clothes and throw them off to a corner. I approach the shower nozzle and direct it away from me to my right. When I turn the hot water handle, water shoots out of the nozzle. When it heats up to steaming, I turn the cold water handle to mediate the temperature. Within 30 seconds, my shower is ready. I soap up with a bar I find tucked into a notch in the wall and then I rinse. The feeling is heavenly. I stand in the flow, basking in warm watery pleasure until it stops. Apparently, my allotted time is up. I watch, disappointed, as the water trickles down the drain. The door to the room opens and three bio-suited figures walk in. One has a cattle prod aimed at my groin. I don’t move. One removes my clothes from the room while the other places a towel and new clothes on a chair in the corner of the room. They leave.

  This is the first humane treatment I have received since my capture. I am confused. I assumed it would get worse, yet it just got better.

  I dress. The provided clothes consist of a loose clean black sweatshirt, boxer underwear, loose-fitting jeans and cloth slippers. Guess I won’t be running over sharp glass with these on my feet. When I am dressed, I look up to a corner of the ceiling and notice a camera. No privacy here. The door to the room opens and three bio suits greet me. The one with the cattle prod gestures for me to turn around. I comply. Gloved hand restraints are placed on me and I am head-bagged once more. Hands guide me out of the room and I am allowed to walk under my own power to who knows where.

  I am guided down a corridor for about a minute, I calculate. I try to keep track of time. We stop, I hear a door open and then I am guided through the doorway. I am seated once more in a chair and the hand restraints are removed. I hear the door close and wonder if I am alone. I smell food, good food, delicious food, the kind of food I have not had since I have been brought here. I make the bold move of removing the head bag.

  Before me on a table is a spread I have only dreamt of in my cell. Cooked vegetables, meat of some kind, cooked rice and beans, and a glass and a pitcher of liquid next to it. There is a spoon, a fork, and a knife. In front of me, beyond this banquet, set into the wall, is a five-foot-wide by four-foot-high rectangular steel frame with a shiny dark glass inset. A two-way mirror, most likely. I glance left and right and then manage to twist completely backward to find I am alone, just me and my food—the condemned man’s last meal. At least that is what I assume it to be.

  I savor my time cutting the food up and eating each bite. I am so hungry. It is everything I could hope for. The liquid is some tropical fruit juice blend that makes me grateful with each sip. When I am nearly finished, a light on the other side of the dark glass springs to life, illuminating its whitewashed room. Moments later, a woman steps into view, but her attention is not on me. She is speaking with someone off to her left. I hear muffled sounds. I study her face. She has tombstone eyes, ruby red vampire lips and evil dark hair with a reddish sheen that seems to have extorted the life from her skin.

  Tombstone eyes? Where does that come from? Vampire lips and evil hair? It’s been too long since I’ve had any real company. My exaggerated perception of her is unnatural; no doubt a product of my past treatment. As I consider this, my mood begins to lighten. This new treatment is such an improvement.

  She frowns, then turns towards me with a look of earnest concern. Her body becomes motionless, but her gaze takes me in from head to toe.

  I continue chewing the last of my meat in silence.

  Her apparel is not much different than mine. A thick loose black sweatshirt hangs from her shoulders and hides any womanly figure she might have. I see only the top of her blue jeans. She does not speak. I return in kind. We stare across the space separated only by the glass. I feel apprehensive as I always do prior to interrogations, which I assume this is the prelude to. She is new to me, as is this arrangement. I decide to wait for her to speak first.

  She does.

  She reaches up to something next to the window and flips it up. Voices are now piped into my room. The speaker is somewhere above my head. The sounds fill my room. “Can you hear me, David?”

  I nod my head “yes.”

  “Can you speak for me, David, so I know this is working on both ends?”

  “Yes.” My voice is hoarse and almost non-existent.

  She shakes her head in either dismay or pity, I’m not sure, then speaks softly with sympathy, “A little louder, David, so the mic can pick you up.”

  “Yes,” I say with projection. “Yes, I can hear you.”

  She smiles. Her eyes crinkle at the corners. Her face softens and her smile spreads. She is suddenly good cheer, suddenly familiar, suddenly endearing.

  “The food was satisfactory?”

  I drop my eyes and focus on the juice glass. “Drugged?” I ask. I assume my sudden elevated mood is something beyond the simple pleasure of having eaten a fine meal.

  “For your benefit,” she says patronizingly.

  “And yours as well,” I give back just as patronizingly.

  Her smile disappears. She is back to studying me. “What do you feel?” she asks, nar
rowing her eyes. “Does it make you nauseous?” Her voice sounds sincerely concerned.

  I shake my head “no.”

  Her face relaxes. I hear a whispered voice from her side of the wall somewhere out of sight. She turns to her left, raises her hand to her mouth, shielding my vision of her lips and then talks low in a way that is unintelligible to me. She turns back to me, makes a small smile and says, “I’ll return shortly, David. Make yourself comfortable.” She reaches out to the switch I can’t see on the wall, flips the sound off and I am, once again, bathed in silence. She walks out of view, leaving me to stare at the blank walls on the other side of the glass.

  As seconds tick by, the effect of the drug becomes more pronounced. I feel more euphoric. My ribs lighten up, as does my head. I sit back in my chair and actually smile. This is enjoyable. I realize I feel something like I felt when I came out of shoulder surgery years ago and was woken by some administered stimulant. I am giddy. I feel playful, imaginative, even childish, as I succumb to my altered state.

  To entertain myself while I wait for her return, I pretend my right hand resting on the table is some poor lost soldier, fallen and depressed. I pull him up on two fingers and start him marching across the tabletop. One, two. One, two. One, two. He stops midway to my other hand that is resting on the table. My left-hand perks up onto two fingers and marches across the space. One, two. One, two, to stop in front of my right hand.

  “Where is the Messiah?” my left-hand demands.

  “I don’t know,” my right-hand responds.

  My left-hand kicks the right hand in the crotch. My right-hand buckles over in pain, coughing and groaning. My left-hand kicks him again and demands, “Where is the Messiah?” My right-hand shivers in fright and pleads in a weak voice, “I know not. I tell you, I don’t know.” My left-hand kicks my right again and again and again until my right hand no longer moves. Then my left-hand turns and marches away, saying, “Maybe tomorrow you’ll know. We’ll try this again, then.” He laughs a loud cruel laugh that shocks me out of the game.