INTERLUDE—PART 2
‘SO LET ME JUST make sure I’ve got this straight...’ said Dr Lake from across the table.
He was leaning back in his chair again, his clasped hands once more propped just beneath his chin. He looked very wise. Like a yogi, or one of those people that live up in the mountains that are always very dirty and can supposedly talk to God or whatever. Maybe he was even in prayer. Man, psychiatry is so complicated. I had no fucking idea.
‘You and your friend found a “mysterious rock” that you say crash-landed in Ackerman’s Field?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A rock that “glowed red” and “sang” to you?’
‘We, uh, never actually heard it sing. That was all Beaner’s group. We only saw the lights.’ I hesitated. ‘And stuff.’
‘And you say it came from outer space?’
It was the most he’d said in a very long time. I knew there was a good chance his silence was nothing more than another of his sneaky psychiatrist-tricks, no doubt allowing me to talk myself into some kind of sudden revelation or whatever, which let’s face it would pretty much be me doing his job for him. When you looked at it like that, really he should have been paying me.
I nodded. ‘Probably outer space.’
‘So—and please correct me if I’m wrong, here—you found a singing, glowing rock, “probably from outer space”, and when the appropriate authorities showed up to claim it, you hid it from them?’
I cleared my throat.
This was not going how I’d planned.
‘I mean, sure, it sounds retarded when you say it like that—’
He held up a hand. ‘If it feels as though I’m doubting your story, Daniel, I apologise. That is not the impression I wish to convey.’
‘But you don’t believe me?’
‘Why, sure, I do.’
I blinked. ‘You... do?’
‘Absolutely—what’s not to believe?’
I wondered if this was a trick question.
’You feel your story is... strange. Unique,’ he continued.
‘Well—’
‘Would you be surprised if I told you I had heard far stranger stories already this week? For instance, only yesterday I spoke with a man who was convinced he was hearing the voice of his dead mother beckoning to him from his kitchen sink. Now, do I think he’s a liar? That he’s making it up? Not at all. As far as I can tell, he one hundred per cent believes his dead mother has chosen the kitchen sink as a means with which to communicate with him.’
‘So you don’t believe me...’
He sighed. ‘The brain cannot differentiate between an experienced event and an imagined one, Daniel. It doesn’t have bias. The brain receives stimulus—imagined or not—then proceeds to react accordingly, in most cases simply by flooding the body with adrenaline, or endorphins. It’s how PTSD works: the body constantly responding to a repetitive—and often negative—thought cycle.’
‘You’re saying I have PTSD?!’
Holy shit. Things were even worse than I thought...
He smiled. ‘No, Daniel. I’m saying you believe what happened. Therefore, its existence is beyond refute.’
I stared evenly across the table at him.
‘No offence, doc, but I think you should be the one sitting in this chair.’
He laughed. It was a completely genuine laugh, too, from deep in the belly. It caught me off guard. I didn’t know psychiatrists were allowed to laugh like that. Hell, I didn’t even know they could laugh.
‘Are you familiar with Pavlov’s Dog, Daniel?’
‘Is... that a friend of yours?’
‘Not quite. Ivan Pavlov was a famous physiologist—a pioneer in classical conditioning, you might say. Through years of studies and research, he was able to determine that, by pairing a biologically potent stimulus with a previously neutral one, a mental association can be established—one that has a perceivable effect on the body.’
He might as well have spoken Klingon.
‘Come again?’ I said.
‘He rang a bell at dinnertime and his dogs dribbled.’
‘Oh.’
Then why didn’t you just say that?
‘But then, after enough times of this, all he had to do was ring the bell, and the dogs would salivate—do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
I did not.
Lake leaned back in his chair and waved his hands. ‘Please—continue with your story.’
I did.
FIVE
THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed like this:
We returned to the apartment.
Almost immediately, Frankie began looking into the events of that evening, despite his solemn vow he would do no such thing. To be fair, though, I always knew that he would. It was just his nature—even if it did really piss me off.
That following morning I awoke to find Frankie sitting slumped over on the couch, surrounded by books he really had no business possessing, face once more deeply buried in the laptop screen in front of him. As he would swiftly go on to tell me (despite my constant urging that he please not do so), these well-dressed albinos, or “men in black”, as he called them, were not nearly as much of an unknown quantity as we had at first automatically assumed.
As it turns out, throughout history there have apparently been numerous reports of these “pale suited-men” appearing after a supposed alien-event and harassing people—some even dating back to the early nineteen hundreds.
Now, accounts vary with regards to exact details, but one thing that remains consistent with these reports is an overwhelming sense of dread felt on behalf of the visited. Why that should be an important point, I have no idea. I’m just telling you what was said, goddamnit.
I called Abby every few hours or so to see how her old man was doing, and so far, no change. He had been happy to see her, though, which I guessed was good—even if I admittedly had my reservations about the whole thing. But, whether I liked it or not, the guy was still her father—a fucking asshole, true, but still her father.
As the days went by (and despite knowing better), I eventually found myself becoming fascinated with the rock-thing from the late-Beaner’s truck. Even though I knew what a complete and utter hypocrite it made me, I still found myself joining Frankie at the breakfast bar each morning, watching as he poked and prodded at it, all in a desperate attempt to get it to do something. You probably think that makes me kind of an asshole. And you’re right. It does. But, seriously—alien space-rock? Like you wouldn’t have, too.
We tried cursing at it. Belittling it. Setting it on fire. A whole bunch of stuff, really—eventually culminating with us one drunken afternoon dropping the fucking thing off the roof of our apartment building, whereupon it was quickly decided that we should never, ever do that again.
And still—nothing.
Then, that following Friday, after a quick trip to the store, I returned home to find a note waiting for me.
Ordinarily, whenever I returned home I would find Frankie slumped in front of the couch in his underpants, watching TV or playing videogames or doing something else equally unproductive. Since the whole “incident of which we do not speak” a few weeks back, however, he had started going out. A little at first, then more often as the weeks went by. Exactly where he went on these occasions, I had no idea. All I know is, the notes he left continued to baffle me.
Dan,
Had to shoot out for a bit. Morgan’s guinea pig got into a fight with a squirrel at the park and we think it might now have rabies. Also, we’re out of beer. I hope you don’t mind, but I took some cash out of that box you keep under your bed—you know, the one you also keep all those “magazines” in that we don’t tell Abby about? I promise I’ll pay you back.
Also, Abby, if you’re reading this, Dan absolutely doesn’t have any porn magazines hidden in a shoebox under his bed. And if he does, they’re CERTAINLY not of Asian women.
—Frankie.
P.S.—Can guinea
pigs even get rabies? It just seems like it would be a waste on them, you know? Like they’re so small, who’re they gonna bite?
And so on and so forth.
It was but one of several notes he’d left for me recently. I had no idea what it meant. Hell, I didn’t even know he had any other friends besides me.
Deciding that to ponder over what Frankie got up to in his spare time would be a criminal waste of my own, I dropped the note and went to make myself something to eat instead.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention that our refrigerator has never contained much in the way of what one might consider “ordinary” food items. Honestly, it’s pretty much just beer. The odd meat-based snack or two. A kid’s toy-pistol hovering near the back somewhere, filled with some kind of dark fluid Frankie had put in there years ago, but that we both agreed was now most likely haunted.
Sighing, I pulled out a beer, popped the tab, was just about to take a swig, when—
VRRRRRRMMMMMMM.
My phone.
Goddamnit. Can’t a man drink a beer in peace? Just once?
It was Abby.
‘Hey!’ I said, slamming the phone up to my ear with such force it would leave a mark for a solid fortnight. ‘How’s everything going?’
‘Oh, you know, about as good as you’d expect. I mean, considering everything, and all...’
She sounded tired. And possibly malnourished—though, granted, that might just have been me projecting. I was very hungry.
I should probably also mention it had been established by this point that her father was suffering from a particularly aggressive form of Lymphoma. Supposedly, it was in the latter stages. He didn’t have long left.
I know I should have been left devastated by this knowledge, but if I’m being entirely truthful here, the most I could bring myself to feel for the guy was, at best, a kind of vague sense of apathy; the kind that comes wrapped in indifference, served with a generous side-helping of who-gives-a-fuck.
Because, seriously—this was a guy who’d cared more about the opinions of the townsfolk than the wellbeing of his very own daughter, who had let somebody he was supposed to have loved and protected be tossed out like yesterday’s trash.
As far as I was concerned, Lymphoma was the least he deserved.
‘Have they said anything else?’ I said.
A long sigh from down the line. ‘No. It’s just a waiting game at this point.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’
Forced euthanasia, perhaps? A long walk off a short cliff? Exactly how buoyant is your old man, anyway?
We talked like this for a while before the subject eventually moved on to home.
‘So—how’s everything on your end? You boys staying out of trouble?’ said Abby.
A pause from my side. Too long.
‘Dan?’
I cleared my throat. ‘Oh, you know. Fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Uh-huh. Fine. I mean—more or less...’
‘No weird stuff? Like with that thing the other day, you know with the...’
I’m sure she said more, but I’d stopped listening.
My eyes had just settled on the rock-thing sitting propped on the coffee table.
I suddenly went very still.
Every muscle tensed, like I was getting electrocuted again. I think I even stopped breathing. Hell, I might have just had a stroke.
‘Dan?’
I barely heard her.
It was the rock-thing. After giving up on trying to get it to do something the other day, we had since repurposed it as a kind of minimalist paperweight. That was the last I’d really paid any attention to it. Looking at the rock-thing now, there was definitely something different about it. Its shape was all wrong, for starters, and there were small bits of it lying scattered around on the carpet like debris from the world’s smallest explosion. I could see a hole in one side, about the size of an infant’s head, almost as if something had—
I stiffened.
Oh you have got to be kidding me.
‘I have to go...’ I said.
I could almost see Abby frowning on the other end. ‘What? What do you mean you have to—?’
‘Talk to you later!’
I hung up and immediately went into defence mode, snagging a spatula from the wall by the stove and brandishing it above my head like a javelin, or how I thought you were supposed to hold one of those.
I threw myself behind the breakfast bar and ducked low.
I peeked over the top.
Everything was quiet. Or at least, from what I could see from my limited vantage point. As far as I could tell, it was still just the living room, same as I’d left it that morning—save, of course, for the now-broken rock-thing, and the several different parts of it currently collecting dust on my carpet.
I ducked back down and considered my options.
Now, I had seen enough movies in my time to know a discarded alien-egg when I saw one. Which meant that there was now probably a little alien baby in my apartment somewhere—maybe even a whole litter of them—just waiting for me to fall asleep so it/they can go ahead and put alien-eggs in my belly. And if that was the case, shouldn’t I be getting the fuck out of there?
I thought it over.
Of course, on the other hand, if there really were a half a dozen miniature ETs running around my apartment somewhere, I couldn’t just leave them to get up to... whatever it was little ETs got up to. What if they got into my dirty laundry and ate all my clothes? Or made a succession of long-distance calls on my phone? Jesus, think of the charges. It would be a nightmare. And besides, they were probably only tiny things. Like babies. I could kill a handful of babies if I had to, couldn’t I?
Of course, then there was the whole “world being in danger” thing to consider, too. When you looked at it like that, there was really only one thing to do.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself.
Then I called Frankie.
‘Mike’s Abortion Clinic, you make ’em, we break ’em.’
I let out a breath. ‘Frankie! Oh, thank Jesus, there’s—the rock-thing, it—and then I—’
‘What? Slow down, Dan. I can’t understand you.’
‘The rock-thing, Frankie! I think it just... hatched.’
A moment of silence from down the line.
‘Hatched? You mean like a Pokémon?’
‘Like an egg, you ass! Why—?’ I caught myself. ‘Look never mind that, okay? Just get over here.’
‘Have you seen what came out of it yet?’
There was no mistaking the excitement in his voice.
‘Don’t you think I’d have mentioned that if I had?!’
But he wasn’t listening. The fever had taken him now. ‘Ooh, I bet it’s something gross, Dan. And scary.’ Another pause, then, ‘I wonder if it bleeds acid...’
‘YOU’RE NOT HELPING.’
‘Relax—it’s just been born, right? It’s probably only a baby. You can handle a baby, can’t you?’
‘Frankie!’
He sighed. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll be over as soon as I can. Just got to finish up here, first.’
‘Finish—what?!’
‘Didn’t you get my note?’
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed.
Somebody just fucking kill me already.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Frankie continued. ‘Just try not to die in the meantime, okay?’
‘But—’
He was already gone.
Balls.
I turned back to the living room, gripping the spatula so tight it would have taken a team of surgeons and the fire department both working together to be able to pry it loose.
Okay—you can do this. You’re brave. Remember when you ate that Jelly Baby you found under the couch cushion that one time, all because Frankie said you wouldn’t, but then you totally did? You got this, man.
On legs suddenly like rubber, I forced myself into the livi
ng room.
Immediately I could see that my initial observation about the rock-thing had been correct—in so being that, at the very least, this thing was seriously weird as shit. Also, that it was indeed an egg. Peeking into the hole, I could see what looked like a thin, membranous material coating the inside, almost like a shower curtain. At the bottom of the rock-thing was a collection of oozy fluid-stuff, not unlike sperm, if sperm was green and glowed in the dark. Charlie Sheen’s sperm, perhaps. I briefly contemplated reaching in and scooping a little bit of it up with my fingers. Then I remembered that I wasn’t an asshole, and so didn’t.
I straightened.
Hmm. Empty.
I looked down at the collection of rock bits on the carpet by my feet. It was funny; looking at them from this angle, they almost looked like a—
I stiffened as realisation suddenly hit me like a pie to the face.
It was a trail.
I stood there, fear rooting my feet to the spot.
Again, this was one of those moments where I really should have gotten the fuck out of there. Seriously, there’s a reason people in these situations always die in movies—and it’s not through using their brains.
But, like the idiot that I was, I didn’t get the fuck out of there.
Instead I burglar-walked across the living room, spatula held high, wondering if I was about to become another one of those tragic cases you’re always hearing about on the news about so-and-so getting murdered to death in their own homes. Solemn-looking reporters with nice hair and shiny teeth would later relay the fine details of my horrific and untimely demise to an—at best—indifferent public, all whilst in the background men in paper suits and funny shoes struggled with the logistics of ferrying what remained of my mangled corpse towards a waiting (and wholly too-late) ambulance. And the people of America would learn a valuable lesson about the importance of home security. My death would have meaning. I would be like Jesus, in a way.
I followed the rock pieces out of the living room and into the hall, before finally coming to a stop just outside the bathroom door.
I took a deep breath.
Okay. Now, remember—be brave. Besides, it’s probably long gone by now.
I pushed open the door and immediately let out a scream like a nineteenth-century damsel. I fell back against the wall and scurried back into the living room, farting the entire way.
Dan and Frankie and the End of Everything Page 6
