Alien Space Tentacle Porn

by Peter Cawdron

  There’s no response.

  I make more of a show, humming as I tap out an imaginary beat on an invisible bass drum with my right foot. Although my arms are strapped to the chair, my hands are free, so I make as though I’m holding drum sticks, beating at the air. I’m sure to swing quicker with my right hand than my left, giving my wrists a good flick to complete the picture, and make as though I’m tapping a snare drum and alternating with a cymbal. I’m loving this, at least, that’s what I want to portray.

  “What about Black Sabbath?” I ask. “Iron Maiden? Megadeth?”

  I’ve got a good wobble going on with my head. Funny thing is, the masquerade is helping me deal with the deafening wall of noise. Giving my mind something to do allows me a little respite from the insanity pounding in my ears.

  “But please, no Metallica. That would be torture.”

  And I laugh at my own joke.

  Suddenly, the noise stops, but my ears don’t register the silence immediately. The ringing in my ears is so bad it’s easy to confuse that with more external noise, and it’s not until the headphones are removed that I realize the music has stopped.

  “Hey, not fair,” I say, pretending to protest.

  “Very funny, Joe,” a voice says. I can barely hear him over the buzzing in my ears.

  “What was that you said?” I ask, hamming it up and yelling in response. “You’re going to have to speak up.”

  A black bag is ripped from my head. I thought I was wearing some kind of blindfold, but it was a loose hood, not unlike those worn by kidnap victims when they’re led to an execution. My skin crawls at the thought.

  A chair scrapes across the ground and a military officer sits in front of me. He has the chair facing backwards so he can straddle the seat, leaning on the chair back as he stares into my eyes.

  “You want to answer some questions for me?” the officer says. “Or should I leave the music blaring until the boss arrives?”

  “Suit yourself,” I say. “I was just getting into the groove.”

  He tosses the headphones into a black duffel bag sitting on the floor. I try not to look relieved.

  “They say we shouldn’t talk to you, that you can weave magic with words. Is that true? Are you some kind of Harry Potter from another planet?”

  “Hah!” I laugh. “I wish.”

  He clenches his jaw, not saying what he’s thinking. He thinks I’m one of them—an alien like Sharon and Mark. He’s sizing me up, trying to make sense of the subtlest quiver in my response.

  I can’t help myself, I have to add, “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” Only I mean that in an entirely different manner to how it’s received. Which is good, I hope.

  There are two black-clad soldiers standing by the door. At a guess, I’m in a seedy motel somewhere remote. There’s an old rundown sink in the corner with a mirror set above it. Paint is slowly peeling off the walls, signaling decades of neglect.

  “What?” I ask. “No blinding lights? You’re disappointing, you know that? I mean, the whole heavy metal music thing to disorient me, and the spooky guards in black. You were on a roll. But no interrogation lights? What is wrong with you guys? You’re amateurs.”

  I’m talking too much. I’m nervous as hell and trying to cover that with a plethora of words. Calm down, Joseph.

  “Laugh all you want,” the officer says. “But we got you. We got both of you.”

  “You’re lying,” I say, snapping out those words without any additional consideration. I’m not sure how I know. Perhaps it’s because, if they had Sharon, I’d be dead. I’m pretty sure she’d tell them I’m nothing more than a bystander, not realizing that for these guys that makes me about as useful as a sandbag in the Sahara.

  The officer’s eyes narrow. Sharon’s escaped. He doesn’t admit as much, but if he had Sharon, he would have quickly figured out where I sit in the grand scheme of things and wouldn’t waste more than nine grams of lead on me, or whatever it is they make bullets out of these days. He thinks I’m one of them. I’ve got to play to that.

  “No imagination,” I say, putting up a cocky facade. Bluffing is all I’ve got. “Black cars. Soldiers wearing black. Crew cut hair and starched shirts. You guys are about as inconspicuous as a Bond villain. Honestly, you’re clowns.”

  The officer doesn’t bite, but I can see my comment is grating on him. I can’t figure out which branch of service he’s with as his uniform is nondescript.

  I clench my hands to hide my trembling fingers and ward off the cold, flexing my fingers by opening and closing my fists. Although I’m doing this to hide my nerves and get some blood circulating in my hands, it gives the appearance of someone spoiling for a fight.

  The crook of my left arm hurts, it’s as though I’ve been stung by a bee. Glancing down, I see a band-aid holding a ball of cotton in place, strategically set over the veins in my arm. Ah, that explains the music. They drugged me. Between being doped up and having Megadeth pounding in my ears, they must have been trying to keep me in a state of sensory overload. At a guess, they just stuck me with some kind of antidote, springing me back to consciousness.

  “It would be nice if you were wearing a name tag,” I say, pushing my luck. No response. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. Thanks for the ride, but do be a pal and untie me. I’ve got places to go. People to see.”

  Shut up, Joseph. I can’t help myself. If he’s not talking, I am. I have to. It’s self-preservation kicking in. Doing something—saying something—is better than nothing at all. Or is it? Am I tightening the noose around my neck? Stop overthinking things, you fool.

  “So you admit it—you’re one of them?” he asks.

  Without hesitation, I blurt out, “No, I’m not.” Inwardly, I curse myself for being so brash and honest. I really have to learn how to lie. Picking myself up from that slip of the tongue, I shake my head and say, “Actually, yes. I am.” Ah, there’s no words quite as powerful as a mixed message.

  “So which is it?” he asks, and I see an opening to plead the case to avoid more torture. The thought of being waterboarded is terrifying. In essence, it’s drowning on land. And if at all possible, I’d like to keep my fingernails and teeth intact, along with whatever appendages they might want to slice from my body.

  “Which answer do you want?” I ask. “See, that’s the problem with torture. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. True or not. So—No, I’m not. Yes, I am. The choice is yours.”

  He purses his lips. I can see he wants to say something, but he’s choosing his words carefully. Out of nowhere, he laughs. Not with the side splitting laugh of someone recoiling from a joke, but with a laugh that suggests something cunning has unfolded.

  “They were right,” he says. “You really do weave magic with words.”

  I don’t know who ‘they’ are, and I really don’t want to find out, so I change the subject, wanting to keep him off balance.

  “You didn’t find anything, did you?” I say. Being cocky seems to be working, so I run with it, finding myself relaxing as it becomes apparent these guys are ill-prepared to deal with a bonafide extraterrestrial like me. I thought Uncle Sam would have run these kinds of scenarios dozens of times. I guess they never thought first contact would actually ever happen. The more courage I muster, the better, so I guess. “You ran Mark’s body through an MRI and found nothing, right?”

  I hope Sharon’s correct about anything shy of an electron scanning microscope coming up empty. The blank stare suggests I’m correct.

  “How did you know about the trap?” he asks, employing my tactic and shifting the subject on me. Cat and mouse.

  Oh, that’s interesting. This guy doesn’t realize I didn’t know they’d set a trap for us inside the police station, but now I do. Makes sense. They must have followed us from there to the cemetery.

  I bluff.

  “In the morgue? You’d be surprised what we know.”

  We. That was a bit of subterfuge. I suspect my ability to bluff and p
retend to be an alien is all that’s keeping me alive. If they couldn’t find anything unusual about Mark’s body, they might just believe I’m one of them. If that tidbit of misinformation keeps me alive, it’s a feint I’m happy to pursue.

  “How does it work?” he asks, pulling a banana out of the bag.

  I can’t help but laugh.

  “Do you realize how silly you look?” I ask. “Oh, please. Tell me someone’s videoing this. Seriously, this is like an episode of Get Smart.”

  I turn to each side, but I’m not really looking for a camera. I’m trying to get a better idea of where I am. There’s a single bed behind me. The blanket is plain and the mattress is stiff, giving the bed a box-like appearance. Could be fake? Maybe? Perhaps this is one of those double bluffs and I’m actually on a movie set or something. There’s a window. Snowflakes fall outside. The dim outline of another building is just visible through the falling snow. My jacket is lying on the floor, but I try not to let him see how bitterly cold I am.

  “What do they say?” I ask. “When you appear behind closed doors before a senate appropriations committee. What do they say when you tell them there are aliens talking to bananas?”

  “Answer the damn question,” he says, apparently about to hit me with the banana.

  “You ran me through an MRI as well, didn’t you? While I was unconscious. Didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, right?”

  Not that he would in my case, but I’m not telling him that.

  I’m curious. The sound system they used to torture me is portable. There’s no television in the room, no bedside clock. No radio. No power cables. And the lights aren’t just off. The bulbs have been removed from their sockets, making it dim. Night is falling. They caught me early in the afternoon. Assuming it’s still the same day, we must be a couple hours north in upstate New York.

  My interrogator notices my eyes drifting around the room.

  “It won’t work,” he says. “We’re miles from any tech you can manipulate. No power lines. No phone lines. No wifi.”

  I nod knowingly, at least I hope he thinks it’s a knowing nod.

  “And no heating,” I say, watching as a fine mist forms on my breath. How the fuck am I going to get out of here?

  “Why are you doing this?” he asks.

  “Me?” I ask, incredulous. “Why the fuck are you doing this? I mean, seriously. Have you considered the possibility we could scorch the entire goddamn planet if we wanted to?”

  Hey, I like talking big. Funny thing is, if they caught Sharon or Mark, I doubt they’d ever say anything that provocative. As aliens go, they’re too nice. They need to add a little more Independence Day to their repertoire.

  The officer has a good poker face, but the guards don’t. They shift slightly, uneasy at what they’re hearing. They’ve bought my story.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I reply, which I’m pretty sure is true on several levels. Lie, you idiot. Lie.

  “Where are you from?”

  “The stars,” is all I say. Hell, apart from Orion the Hunter, and Taurus the Bull, I don’t know the names of any of the stars. Actually, they’re constellations, not individual stars. So, nope. None. I try to recall the name of the star Sharon pointed out from the bus, but I’ve got nothing. I could make something up, but then I’d need to remember that name going forward. At a guess, saying something like The Big Dipper probably isn’t going to sound scientific enough to convince him, so I stick with stars in general. Lies tend to unwind once specifics emerge, so it’s in my best interests to be cagey. Besides, there’s an air of mystique in being deliberately vague.

  “Which one?” he asks.

  My ears are still ringing, which is incredibly annoying.

  “One?” I reply, visibly catching him off guard. That was fun. I liked that.

  “Why are you here? What do you want from us?”

  Hell, I don’t know. Sharon’s told me a little bit about their motivation, but even I don’t know who they are or what they want in the long run.

  “Take me to your leader,” I say. Corny as hell, I know, and I struggle to keep a straight face, but it’s a genuine point, I think. “What? You think I’m going to divulge anything to you? If you want answers, I want to talk to someone in charge before you fuck this up and me and my homeboys torch the Continental U.S.”

  Please don’t call my bluff. Please don’t.

  Action Man, the supposedly All American Hero sitting before me with his chiseled jaw and high cheekbones, doesn’t blink. He’d be great at poker.

  He gets up, saying, “That’s the way it’s going to be, huh?”

  “That’s the only way it can be,” I say, hedging my bets on the fact this is some off-the-books black site. They’ve taken me off-grid for a reason—they haven’t taken me to a military base. They’re trying to keep this on the down-low. That tells me someone is extremely nervous about kidnapping unconfirmed extraterrestrial beings, as well they should. Given the way I’m being treated, with the caution one has when approaching a caged lion, unsure whether the bars will hold, I’m thinking shooting Mark was an accident. These guys know they’re out of their league. They’re scared. They’re making shit up as they go. I guess the prize of capturing an alien and catapulting American technology thousands of years ahead of everyone else on the planet is a little too tempting.

  “Don’t fuck this up,” I say sternly, reiterating my previous point and pretending I’m the one in charge.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a faint flicker of yellow through the window. There’s a light coming from what must be an adjacent, and presumably similar hut, not more than twenty yards away.

  G.I. Joe sees my interest and says to one of the guards, “Secure that window.”

  The guard opens the door slightly and slips outside. A flurry of snow comes rushing in. It’s a blizzard out there. Pristine white snow lies piled almost a foot deep against the door. Although I only got a brief glimpse outside, I could see the silhouette of trees in a dense forest. This isn’t a roadside motel.

  Boards are nailed over the one, solitary window. And again, I’ve learned something invaluable. They weren’t prepared for this—for me. Their supposedly black site is a little grey and murky. Someone’s commandeered a bunch of hunting lodges or something for my interrogation.

  “Low tech,” the officer says. “But effective against the likes of you.”

  Oh, he’s brought the lie hook, line, and sinker.

  The soldier thumps the hammer with a vengeance, nailing four boards in place and slowly blocking the view outside. They’re going to leave me in here. This is good. Time is the only ally I have, and I wonder about Mark and Sharon. I wonder where they are, hoping they’re planning a rescue.

  Rescue? Me?

  I’m expendable.

  If Sharon and her extraterrestrial buddies won’t intervene in a goddamn world war, what hope is there for me? I’m fucked.

  “If you tell us why you’re here, perhaps I can help you,” the officer says.

  “Actually, we’re here to help you,” I say. It’s the truth, but once again, the truth doesn’t appear to do much for me these days.

  “Why are you really here?”

  “We’re really here to help you.”

  At least, I think that’s the truth. There is the possibility Mark and Sharon have played me for a fool, but I don’t think so. Sharon is genuine. I’m convinced of that. After our conversation in the cemetery, I trust her wholeheartedly.

  The soldier returns to the hut, and snow again swirls inside, settling on the musty carpet. Cold air rushes into the room, chilling my exposed face. The soldier whispers in the officer’s ear before stepping back next to the door. I get the feeling there’s not that many of them out there.

  “President Harding will be here in the morning,” he says. “Until then, consider yourself our guest.”

  President fucking Harding?

  I must look shellshoc
ked as the officer says, “You have to understand. The President’s schedule is tightly controlled. We can’t just bring him here without the media gaggle getting suspicious. We have to coordinate with the Secret Service and the NSA, while offering the media a plausible explanation for the departure from his schedule. I apologize for the delay.”

  “You apologize?” I say, feeling somewhat incredulous. “You kidnap me in broad daylight, drug me, drag me god-knows-where, blast my ears with heavy metal music, imprison me, strap me to a chair, and you’re worried about the inconvenience of a slight fucking delay?”

  “We took the steps we felt were necessary in light of national security. We had to make sure we could control contact.”

  Typical fucking military. Why push a thumbtack into a wall when you’ve got a perfectly good sledgehammer at hand?

  I shake my head. What was once an act is now real. I’m incensed that this is the way my government, no, my people, humanity, Homo sapiens, react to the prospect of alien contact. I have to be careful to speak in the first person, not the third, as I don’t want to give anything away, but I’m glad to be siding with Sharon and Mark. I don’t care where they come from or what they look like, they’re a helluva lot more civil than we are–alien space tentacles be damned

  “National security?” I say, speaking with slow deliberation. “Well, you can take your national security and shove it up your—”

  “You have to understand,” the officer says, cutting me off. “There’s no precedent for this. We have to ensure security. We have a right to protect ourselves—our country, our people, our planet.”

  With a stern voice, I say, “You need to be very careful adopting a position that speaks for the entire human race. VERY. CAREFUL.”

  I’m deadly serious. What if they had taken Mark alive, or Sharon? What would Joe and the others have done? Dipshits like this could get us all vaporized. In some ways, I’m glad it’s me in this seat and not Sharon. I don’t know how long I can keep up this charade, and I have no idea what I’m going to say to the President of the United States of America, but it’s clear there’s a state of enmity, if not war, between us and the aliens. Perhaps cold war would be a better description, but war nonetheless. I have no idea how long they’ve been hunting Mark and Sharon, but they’ve clearly figured out they’re not from around here, and Uncle Sam is nothing if not heavy handed with illegal aliens—different country, different planet, what’s the difference?