Jeremy stared at father hunched over mother, his hands cupping his scalp. Blood dribbled from between his fingers. He whimpered like some wretched animal.
The boy struggled to free himself, to finish what he had begun.
“They’re aliens!” he screamed, over and over, until his throat burned and his mouth frothed.
*****
Jeremy figured he had been in the room for two, maybe three months. He’d thought it would have been a faster trip. Their home planet must have been very far away.
His cell was small, even smaller than his bedroom on Earth, its walls painted a powder blue, with a single entryway and a skylight. The door was always kept locked (they never let him roam the ship unsupervised) and the skylight was secured with thick metal bars (though he couldn’t reach it anyway). The furnishings were spare too—just a bed, a nightstand, and a desk and chair. No closet. They brought him fresh clothes and three meals daily. And the white pills to make him a more docile captive.
Jeremy presumed he had been replaced by one of them on Earth. He wondered what would happen to him on their world. Science experiments? Slave labor? Zoo exhibit?
Whenever the human-clad aliens entered his room, he’d ask them how much longer would he be in there. Until the doctors believed he was well enough to be discharged, they told him.
The “doctors” met with him a few times each day. They would ask him why he did this, how did he feel about that. Jeremy told them nothing but his name, school grade, and street address. He was a loyal soldier. He knew his mom and dad would be proud of him.
Every night, Jeremy looked up through his skylight, at all the stars that never seemed to get any closer, trying to guess which one he was bound for.
PET
“Every living thing requires something on which to feed in order to live. A pet depends on its master to feed it; therefore it is the master’s burden—at its most fundamental—to maintain the pet’s life.”
Jusita Lu Yeffar, COO
Mhurian Empathy for Organism Welfare
(MEOW) Int’g
Pinky’s master is Stacia Moz, perhaps the brightest and positively the prettiest roprogrammer at the Gamma-One Automaton Designworks. She has natural blonde curls, double-dimpled cheeks, and the beautiful ovoid eyes characteristic of native-born Pyzureks. And her body, flawless by all current standards in the Mhuri Galaxy.
Stacia is, as they say, hot as Hoggra!
Her boyfriend Dex ranks only a Level C-5 Engineer in Gamma-One’s Exo-Skeleton Department—he failed his C-4 certification twice—but he is handsome, charming, and devoted. Good enough for Stacia, most of their fellow plant workers agree. (And even those who don’t can understand the attraction.) By all appearances they are a well-matched couple.
Stacia and Dex had met in the south wing commissary at lunch during the summer. He accidentally spilled her jollup juice. Not only did he buy her another cup, but also a cocoanut pudding, which she shared with him.
By autumn, they’d moved in together into a luxury skyrise apartment in downtown Trivicon City. He made her breakfast every day, and she made love to him every night.
They were happy then.
*****
Stacia was never allowed any pets growing up at her parents’ home on Nabaru, because her papi didn’t ever think she was responsible enough, and her mums was allergic to near about everything anyway. Stacia had told Dex again and again how she’d always wanted a pet of her own. He got the hint.
Dex bought the creature from an interplanetary trading freighter and brought it home as a birthday gift for Stacia. Commonly called a fluffox (its zoological name is ridiculously long to spell and near impossible to pronounce), they are popular companion animals among the upper castes, prized for both their docility and cuteness.
A fluffox most resembles the brindle-fleeced head of a male Wixian lion, minus the snout. Its eyes are large, round, and rheumy—adorable sad puppy eyes. Lacking the prototypical mammalian mouth, it can only ingest liquid nutrients through the hairless, sea anemone-like stalk protruding from its shaggy face. It also has bird-like feet, and bald rosy-hued hindquarters much like the baboons of Earth. For this reason Stacia named it Pinky.
Stacia plays games of fetch with Pinky and its vulcanized toys whenever she has the spare moment. She takes it out for short conveyor-walks, cleans up after it, scolds it when it misbehaves. And she feeds it, mostly scrowz milk, but occasionally treats it to snow viper broth if she remembers to pick up a carton from the market.
In contrast to Stacia, Dex is not much of an animal person. He has never really liked Pinky. But he likes how much Stacia seems to like it. That’s enough for him.
For a while it was anyway. Dex scarcely bends a finger to help care for the creature. It’s your damn fluffox, he tells Stacia. It’s your job to take care of it.
Taking care of Pinky eventually becomes too taxing a chore for Stacia. It constantly grovels for food and whines for attention. It knocks things over, messes the floors, wakes her up in the middle of the night.
Some of Stacia and Dex’s coworkers believe this was the spark that had lit the fuse to what ultimately detonated their relationship.
But most think Stacia was just too good for him. They could never last.
*****
Nobody is quite sure when his boozing began, but a year after Stacia had settled down with him, Dex was terminated from the Gamma-One plant. He had a tough time finding alternate work and soon gave up trying. Instead he aimed to drink himself every day to the brink of insensibility, until he could feel nothing anymore.
Nothing but anger.
Dex often comes home battered and bruised from starting fights at the local saloons with whoever happened to provoke him that evening for whatever reason.
He raises his fists to Stacia if she nags him about it. Or if she tries to calm him down. Or if he just has the urge to strike something.
One day Stacia decides to break it off with Dex. She no longer loves him, she tells him as the transporters haul her stuff from the apartment. She is fed up with his raging and rampaging. He’s unambitious and lazy and worthless. She doesn’t see a future with him.
Dex begs for her to stay. Promises he’ll change. Yells she’ll regret dumping him. Smashes a full bottle of ninety proof Krevvar against the wall.
Unswayed by his pleas, Stacia departs Dex’s life.
And leaves poor Pinky behind with him.
*****
Three days later, Dex staggers over to Stacia’s new place of residence. He’s learned she has become romantically involved with Mr. Bogg’ins, the Vice President of Sales at Gamma-One, and now shares his uptown manorplex.
Dex bangs on the front door. Bawling, he asks her to forgive him, to please come back, to give them another chance.
Mr. Bogg’ins calls the constables on him.
I need you Stacia, Dex sobs as they escort him, wrists shackled, into the raptech cruiser. From the backseat he looks out at the expensive home, his eyes ricocheting from one window to another. He never sees her.
A night in the drunk cell humbles Dex.
From then on, when all the saloons have closed for the day and he returns to his lonely home and crawls into his empty bed, all Dex craves before drifting off to a fitful sleep is to hurt something as badly as Stacia hurt him.
*****
Pinky naps in its corner by the photonic stove. Dex sits at the kitchenette table, finishing off a Quilq eight-pack. He glares at the fluffox flopped on his floor. He is already sick and tired of filling its feeder and wiping up its muddy poop.
Yet it is the last thing he has that connects him to Stacia.
Oh how he misses her.
Now that she’s gone, maybe it’s best to get rid of the hairy beast. Ditch it on the crossway. Let it fend for itself. Or get whacked by a jetbus. Whatever.
Dex rises from his chair and looms over Pinky. He sets the sole of his foot on the creature’s head and slowly applies pressure. Pinky’s big eyes widen,
then wince. It scratches at Dex’s chaffan pants and squirms its plump body, struggling to wriggle out from under his djarvian leather workboot. Dex pushes down harder. The creature is trapped there, at his mercy. He wants to crush it. He wants to see its brains burst from its skull.
But when Pinky whimpers pitifully, Dex lifts his foot. It scurries away, cowers beneath the kitchenette table.
Dex lights a cigarella and tries to think about nothing.
*****
The next night, Dex arrives home earlier than usual—though still much later than most people who work regular daily shifts—his nose busted and his bottom lip split from another brawl. He slams his door shut upon entering.
Pinky, sniffing at a dead myl beetle, swivels toward Dex, alarmed.
Dex kicks the creature, launching it across the room. It hits the bookcase, bouncing off and rolling halfway over the parlor rug. It scampers into the bedroom, hides beneath his bed.
Dex laughs, licking his bloodied lip.
*****
The following morning, Dex chases Pinky throughout the apartment, gleefully flinging knives and tines at it. It darts under his bed again, panting and trembling.
Dex flips on the Tel3V and plops into his lounger to catch the end of The Greco Granite Show.
*****
Dex has not fed Pinky for a week now. While he is out at the saloons, it digs through the kitchenette waste bin for any rotting food soft enough to consume. It also learns to suck up the green mold growing along the baseboards.
*****
Twice a day, if he remembers, Dex leashes the creature on the balcony where it can do its business. Often he leaves it out there for hours, even in the rain, until it whines and howls and scratches at the sliding window. Once he gets annoyed enough, Dex will let it back inside.
Pinky always runs away from him.
*****
On Wednesday or Thursday—what does it matter anymore?—Dex brings home a bag of cheap Oongolese food. He sits down at the kitchenette table, eating from the styroweave containers.
Pinky observes him intensely, its stalk wagging, saliva dripping from the tip.
Dex, enjoying his meal, ignores it.
The creature pounces onto the table, overturning a box of biomac stew. It spatters onto the floor. Pinky leaps down and siphons the gravy greedily.
Dex smashes his fist down on its spine. Pinky grunts, then whips its stalk out and snatches the barbecue woplings from the tabletop. Dex attempts to grab them from it, but Pinky honks at him and dashes underneath the bed, slurping up the sauce, watching him with wary eyes.
Frik you too, Dex grumbles.
*****
Another day.
After going through a pack of Quilq ale and a book of cigarellas, Dex rises to use the lav.
He discovers Pinky perched on the toilet rim, drinking from the basin.
With the palm of his hand, Dex shoves the creature down into the water. He holds it under the surface until the air bubbles taper off. He then yanks it up and hurls it into the shower pod beside him.
Pinky gasps for breath as Dex relieves himself. Grinning, he blows cigarella smoke in its face.
*****
Dex is almost out of funds on his savings stick. He’s already pawned most of his furnishings except the bed, lounger, and Tel3V. Any money he has left he spends on cigarellas and penny liquor from the quick-shop.
He can’t afford the saloons anymore. He is five days late paying his rent. They had shut off his visiphone the week before, and yesterday the power company sent him a FINAL NOTICE memtron.
He figures he’ll just bail from his apartment right before they jiglatch his entry lock. He will then live in the shelters, or on the streets, surviving by his wits. Free of all obligations.
Dex pops one of his porn-x cards into the media slot on his Tel3V and, wearing nothing but a pair of dirty white boxies, leans back on the lounger. He takes a swig from his last bottle of Krevvar and gazes at the viewer screen.
Soon he begins touching himself. How long has it been since he plugged a fem? Too frikkin’ long. His passions swelling, he desperately wants release, but his hand refuses to bring him the gratification he so much desires.
His nethers ache. His mind burns.
Dex glances over at the fluffox lying feebly by the front door. Focuses on its bare pink rump.
That’s why she named it Pinky.
Oh how he loves Stacia still.
Still aches and burns for her.
And she had once loved him. And Pinky.
Aching and burning.
Pinky never hears him approaching.
Dex straddles the creature from behind, seizes two clumps of its fur, and hoists it from the floor. He then sinks himself into her.
Pinky shrieks like rusty whirling gears.
Dex closes his eyes, plunges deeper.
Stacia… I love you… sooooo much…
Pinky’s stalk flails. Its talons claw the air.
I!
Love!
You!
Dex peaks spectacularly.
He collapses onto his bed sometime after midnight, passing out whilst staring at a crack zigzagging along the ceiling. It reminds him of a lightning bolt, far away and fleeting.
*****
Dex awakens to a flash of pain.
Sharp tiny nails dig into his chest, a warm weight pressing down on him. He groggily opens his eyes to see Pinky’s face in front of his own, looking at him.
It is a little known fact—one certainly unknown to Dex—that a small percentage of fluffoxes possess a second vestigial orifice approximately two inches beneath their stalk. When feeling extremely threatened or stressed or angry, they may pry apart the fused flesh to reveal a fully functional gullet and a mouth sporting a broad set of jagged teeth. Meat-eating teeth.
Pinky smiles at Dex.
Then sinks its jaws into his throat.
*****
A week elapses before the building manager, Mister Zevnök, comes to check on his tenant Dex Volga, who reportedly has not been seen for days. And the month’s rent is way past due.
Mister Zevnök uses his passpunch to gain entrance. He calls out Dex’s name as he creeps into the apartment.
The fluffox greets the lessor, hopping excitedly and tooting its stalk. Zevnök pats its head, notices a brownish crust matting its muzzle. Disgusted, he wipes his hand on his trunks.
“Mr. Volga?” he hails again.
With the fluffox following on his heels, Zevnök surveys the kitchenette, leisure room, lav. Nobody.
Finally, he inspects the bedroom.
He peers into the dimly lit space from the hallway. It takes a moment for his vision to adjust, to recognize what he’s seeing. There on the gore-soaked bed is what remains of Dex.
The pet has been well fed.
IN MEMORIAM THE OSTRICH
Everyone on the island showed up that morning for the reading of Professor Thacker’s last will and testament, though not everybody stayed until the end. Most did. But not all.
Pastor Higgsby was one of two early departures. Not even the crisp briny air could assuage the nausea churning his belly. As Thacker’s final wish went against God and basic morality, the clergyman was especially affronted. Almost as disturbing, the majority of the townspeople seemed to be considering it.
Pastor Higgsby was now certain. Thacker had had the Devil in him. Which wasn’t really surprising. He had had lots of things inside him at one time or another, much to the delight of his fellow islanders.
“Are you alright, Pastor?”
Pastor Higgsby turned away from the sun-glistened bay and faced Ewan Mavensmith, lifelong fisherman and oldest inhabitant of Edessa Island. Everything about him was thin—arms, legs, torso, neck, lips, hair—and while well into his 80s, and looking every year of it, he remained as sharp and spry as someone half his age. He smoked a carved bulldog pipe.
“Yes, yes. I’m fine,” Pastor Higgsby answered the patriarch. “Just needed some fresh
air.” He spotted Lania Cox, bless her soul, disappearing over the knoll in the distance on her way home, away from that abominable assembly.
“Lovely day, aye?”
“It is.” The pastor cleared his throat. “Did you leave early too?”
Mavensmith shook his head. “The reading’s done. Everybody’s just sorting out the details.”
“So then… they’re all on board with this?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say everybody’s quite cozied up to the idea yet, but it is Professor Thacker’s last request. Seems disrespectful to deny him it, and it won’t hurt nobody none. Besides, it seems right fitting, don’t you think?”
Pastor Higgsby found his whole body had gone rigid from outrage, which made sense for him as a disciple of the Lord, but surely the others would come to their senses and recognize the depth of depravity they were being compelled to undertake. God help them if they didn’t.
Professor Thacker professed to have once been an instructor at Fausbröt University, teaching global economics. He never presented any proof of this, but that did not matter to the islanders. Thacker was a very wealthy man who retired to Edessa a decade ago, purchasing Gowie Manor on the northern bluffs, and ever since then had spread his wealth among the locals. Daily he bought their homemade foodstuffs and their homespun clothing and their handmade crafts, and he bought them all drinks every night at Vernon’s Olde Tavern. Yet Thacker had not only been beloved for his generosity. He possessed a unique ability, a curious talent that had endeared him to most.
Everyone Is a Moon Page 4
