by William Bebb
The Tiniest Invaders
Book One: Coexistence
Written by William Bebb
Copy editor Monty 'Danger' Hyman
Cover graphic artist Hadden Smith IV
This story is dedicated to the memory of my parents, William & Sally. Thank you for raising me to be the sick twisted man I am today.
This anthology of stories is a Hands on Productions & Publication, copyright 2013. All rights reserved. Any distribution of this anthology without the expressed written permission of the author is illegal, rude, crude, and subject to U.S. and international laws that don’t include decapitation of violators, but should. These tales are purely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents described are solely the result of the author's overactive imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual real companies, products, events or people; living or dead or undead, is a coincidence. So don’t get your panties in a wad if you see a name you recognize and find it offensive; it’s just a coincidence.
[email protected]
You can visit the Hands On Productions & Publications website for updates and more information at www.sites.google.com/site/hoppublications
Other works of fine literature by this author include
Valley of Death, Zombie Trailer Park (Keck)
Zombies of All Hallows Evil (Keck)
What the Keck!? Zombies of the Caribbean (Keck)
Chronicles of the Undead, Volume One: The Emperor of Bayonne Prison
Zombies & Other Unpleasant Things
The Tiniest Invaders Book Two: The Meandering Menace
Upcoming Novels:
Chronicles of the Undead Book II; Twisto's Town (Expected by Spring 2014)
The Tiniest Invaders; Book III Conclusion (2014)
KECK Legacy (Coming eventually)
PREFACE & VARIOUS OBLIGATORY WARNINGS
Sometimes I really believe I'm a masochist. Over the last month I've revisited and done revisions to both Valley of Death Zombie Trailer Park and Zombies of All Hallows Evil, and now I'm doing cleanup work on The Tiniest Invaders Book One.
This tale started with a simple short story which consisted solely of Chapter One. Then, like a fool, I went ahead and embarked on a trilogy without intending to do so.
I've seen a great many science fiction movies and have usually felt… unsatisfied by them. The question, “Why are the aliens doing the things they do?” is one that always bugs me. Okay, maybe not 'always' but it usually does.
I like The Tiniest Invaders and not just because I created it.
The newly arrived aliens would be content to live in coexistence with humanity, but they quickly realize something that I myself have long suspected. A disturbingly large percentage of people are nuts. And unfortunately, humanity isn't content to destroy themselves without taking the planet down with them.
WARNING, The Tiniest Invaders is a complex tale that could easily confuse people with limited intelligence and imagination.
Don't misunderstand me. I love the characters and the story very much, but quite a bit happens and it requires a good bit of intelligence to follow the story.
You know if you're smart. At least I hope you know whether you are or not. I think it would be sad if you were one of the many people who believe that they are smart but in reality is an idiot.
Not that I have anything against idiots. Many of my best friends are idiots.
The story examines what happens when very small (Some might say tiny) aliens come to Earth and discover humanity is largely made up of stupid people who do stupid things. I like this story because I witness stupidity, to one degree or another, every day.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER_ONE, It begins with a bang
CHAPTER TWO, Sugar and spice
CHAPTER THREE, All God’s children don’t need shoes
CHAPTER FOUR, As the crow flies
CHAPTER FIVE, True grits
CHAPTER SIX, Ghost stories
CHAPTER SEVEN, Things, great small and nasty
CHAPTER EIGHT, The new confederacy & dragons
CHAPTER NINE, Perverts and pigs
CHAPTER TEN, No deliverance
CHAPTER ELEVEN, Stormy weather
CHAPTER TWELVE, Hookers & autopsies
CHAPTER THIRTEEN, Bad dreams, worse reality
CHAPTER FOURTEEN, Dust to dust and singularities
CHAPTER FIFTEEN, Birmingham Blues
Closing thoughts & thanks
CHAPTER ONE: So it begins with a bang
The television played softly as Charles sat in the big, somewhat stained but nonetheless extremely comfortable, recliner with his eyes closed. His mind drifted away from the host of irritations that had marked his day which he spent working the cash register in the exciting world of Big Jimmy's Gas & More store. He was in the beginning of an extremely exciting dream about the two cheerleaders who came in from the high school down the block earlier that day. In the dream the young ladies were wearing cheer-leading outfits that would never meet the approval of the local school board and were much too short to be anything more than what they were: A middle aged man's best kind of dream. Unfortunately, just as the perky cheerleaders were bending over examining some items on the bottom shelf he was rudely interrupted.
A high pitched yet masculine scream echoed from somewhere in the house and he was once again thrust into a world sadly devoid of scantily clad cheerleaders and back into his living room where the television showed two politicians discussing how each were more liberal than the other. Jumping to his aching feet, he half stumbled half ran toward the screaming. He grabbed his baseball bat from the umbrella stand while stumbling down the hallway. Please be some dumb bastard trying to break in. Maybe a crack head or someone else I can beat to a pulp. Charles was thinking about the burglar who broke in a week earlier and stole several relatively inexpensive but hard to replace items. The fact he didn't have insurance that would cover the losses, fed his anger as he hurried down the hall.
The screams came from behind the bathroom door.
If a burglar broke in there I bet he's already sorry, Charles thought, relaxing his grip on the bat.
His wife Barbara was apparently having a fit over something in there.
Charles knocked and waited. He'd learned a lot over eighteen and half years of marriage. One of the most important things being that if the bathroom door was closed and she was in there you didn't open the door without her permission regardless of screams. He learned that a long time ago and still had the scar on his forehead where she'd hit him with a scented candle to prove it.
“Get your ass in here and kill this damn thing, you idiot!” Barbara's non-melodious voice shrieked through the door.
He took a deep breath of air and opened the door. Avoiding looking at where she was, he saw her flabby shaking arm pointing at the wall opposite where she sat. He quickly spotted the object of Barbara's screaming fit.
A small brown roach, maybe an inch long, was in the corner where the bathroom wall joined the ceiling.
Holding his breath he reached up and plucked it off the wall. It wiggled in his tightly closed hand as he hurried out of the bathroom desperate for fresh air.
“Close the damn door, you idiot. And wash yer hands when ya get rid of that nasty thing,” his dearly beloved wife suggested.
He shut the door and walked to the kitchen.
Charles wasn't the squeamish type about bugs. So carrying it in his hand, while deeply disturbing to many people, didn't bother him in the slightest. He stopped and considered tossing it in the trashcan. Then thought again as he felt it energetically crawling in his closed hand. He knew he had to kill it or she'd be scre
aming again in a few more minutes about a roach in the kitchen. I could just squeeze it till it pops. A thoughtful look crossed his face. But then I'd have to wash my hands. He shook his head. I'll just whack it, with her magazine, and toss it in the trash.
Charles always hated washing in general and avoided it whenever possible. He never bathed unless his wife had enough of his body odor (which cologne only partially covered) and forced him into the shower.
He released the roach and rolled up the magazine. It had a picture of a sexy teenage pop music singer who would have no career at all if she weren't the sexiest thing he had seen since his recently interrupted daydream. When he was ready to whack it, the insect scurried under the microwave oven. He sighed, heard the toilet flush and knew Barbara would be coming soon. She always washed her hands.
He set aside the magazine and lifted the microwave and put it on the floor.
Good God. What a nasty mess, he thought in disgust, looking at all the sticky stuff that had congealed under the microwave. Stuck in the goo were several pennies, a couple of dimes, a pen, a receipt from a restaurant and one slowly moving roach. He surveyed the mess, heard the bathroom door open and the elephantine steps of his wife and cringed involuntarily. Her footsteps were receding. She was going into the living room.
Charles relaxed and looked for the paper towels and spray bottle of window cleaner. When he got back to the mess everything was still there except the roach. He squirted a small tidal wave of blue tinted liquid over the gooey mess. After briefly considering trying to pry out the dimes he decided against it and wiped up the nasty mess. He took the soggy paper towel across the kitchen and tossed the whole mess into the trash.
It's probably cleaner than it’s been since we moved in here, he realized after wiping the counter clean. No wonder we got roaches. She hasn't cleaned this house, really cleaned it, for- he stopped and tried to think of the last time she'd really cleaned anything. Sighing again, he put the microwave back in place and went to wash his hands. A roach is one thing but that gooey mess was just damn nasty, he thought, turning on the kitchen faucet.
As he finished washing and began drying his hands on a paper towel he felt something in his palm. He tossed the towel in the trash and looked closely at his hand. Got a damn splinter, he realized after spotting a little brown thing sticking in the palm of his hand. A tiny drop of blood oozed out around it.
Using his fingernails he tried pinching it out and felt it go in deeper. “Shit, where are those damn tweezers?” He mumbled, as he dug through the kitchen drawers. There's the turkey thermometer, those little metal ties used to tie loaves of bread shut, lots of grocery receipts. Why dear Lord does she save grocery receipts? He wondered, closing the drawer and walking down the hallway staring at his hand. The aroma in the bathroom still reeked of its last occupant.
Charles breathed thru his mouth again and looked for the disinfectant spray. He grabbed the can with a pine tree on its label and shook it. Nothing covers the smell of my wife's shit better than pine, he thought, and wondered if the company who made the stuff would use that in a commercial as he liberally sprayed the small room.
“It's no worse than the ones you leave,” Barbara said, cackling loudly from the living room where she'd taken possession of the recliner and was currently watching a shopping channel. The volume on the TV was cranked up all the way. As Charles sprayed the bathroom he could clearly hear the host informing the audience there were only a few dozen Little Angel's Collector Plates still available for only $19.99, plus shipping and handling of course.
He opened the medicine cabinet and pawed through the contents. There was enough foil wrapped suppositories to last even the most constipated person at least five years. There was also a small box of adhesive bandages, an empty bottle of aspirin, a mostly empty tube of hemorrhoid cream, and behind a small glass bottle of iodine a rusty pair of tweezers. He found them stuck in another small pool of congealed goop and had to pry them loose. After turning the hot water faucet on he washed off the tweezers.
Charles flipped on the light over the bathroom sink and stood poised to pull out the splinter, but stopped. He stared at his hand and the splinter in a combination of confusion and disbelief.
In the sickly flickering glow of florescent light he wasn't sure he was really seeing something odd or not. He stepped into the hallway and looked again. The color around the splinter had gone from its normal peachy hue to dull dark gray all around the splinter to about the a size of a dime. The fuck? He thought, while trying to grip the splinter with the tweezers.
Never accused of being a graceful or even mildly coordinated man he fiddled and prodded at the splinter for several minutes. He grew more frustrated and mildly alarmed as the gray color around the splinter grew in size.
“Gotcha,” he grunted and pulled out the almost a quarter of an inch long splinter. No blood oozed out of the tiny hole as he stared at the splinter still held in the tweezers. His eyes opened wider as the small brown splinter slowly wiggled back and forth in the tweezers grip. Just flush the damn thing. Squirt some iodine on yer hand and go try to stop Barbara from ordering some stupid collectors plates. The thought was very persuasive as he heard her punching in the phone number from the living room and muttering to herself, “Ooh that's too cute the way the puppy is sitting up.”
He held the moving splinter in the tweezers and looked at his hand with the growing dull gray patch of skin as revelation hit. It's some kind of poison shit. Great.
After carrying the slowly waving splinter back to the kitchen, he got a small plastic sandwich bag and dropped it in. Charles prodded his discolored palm and was alarmed at how cool and numb it had grown. There wasn't even a tingle, but the discolored area was spreading into his fingers and was creeping around to the other side of his hand. The skin where the splinter had been was as black as his socks and the color faded up to the original gray in the slowly spreading area on his hand.
He hurried back to the bathroom and poured the whole bottle of iodine on his hand wherever it was turning those frightening gray and black colors. Charles tried to wiggle his affected fingers but they wouldn't move. They felt dead.
Breathing harder and scared he went to the living room and listened as Barbara recited the credit card number to the courteous operator who was standing by ready to take her order.
“Barbara honey, I need to use the phone. I think something-” Charles started to say before she glared up at him.
“Hang on one sec honey, my idiot husband is whining bout something,” she interrupted, fixed him with the look, and waited for him to say something else. The look she gave him made the prospect of his hand falling off seem rather unimportant. Her eyes narrowed, her crooked discolored teeth were bared back, and her breathing had started that unmistakable gearing up sound she made when she was about to start yelling.
He backed up and looked down sheepishly. “Uh, never mind honey. It will be okay. You go ahead and get your-” He pointed at the TV where there was an extreme close-up of a plate. The plate had a painting of a puppy, all brown with bushy hair and a pointy tail. The puppy was standing on its hind legs and its front paws were reaching up at several red, yellow, and blue butterflies. It was the most vomit inducing thing Charles had ever seen.
“You gonna shut up and not be a horse's ass while I'm on the phone?” It was phrased like a question, yet carried with it the undeniable tone of an order.
Charles nodded and walked out of the living room and back to the kitchen.
I'll get the bag and take the splinter to the hospital, he thought, nodding as he grabbed his car keys and started reaching for the bag and stopped. Rubbing his eyes, he stared at the counter unable to believe what he was seeing.
Three roaches, identical to the one from earlier, were sitting near the bag and one of the bugs was shooting what appeared to be a brilliantly bright laser beam at it. He faintly smelled burning plastic and saw the bag slowly being burnt open by the light coming from the bug. His hand forgotten, he
watched as the bug that had been firing the laser walked quickly in thru the hole it had made.
The other two roaches turned around and angled themselves so they were facing him. The bug that had gone into the bag lowered itself down and then a small bright light winked on near the bottom. Several tiny things came out of it and moved over to the slowly waving splinter.
He ran to his desk and tried to open the drawers with his numb hand, found it impossible and used his other one until he found his magnifying glass he used for building model cars. Or, as Barbara believed, he used while sniffing glue as he built model cars.
When he got back to the kitchen the one roach was still in the bag and the splinter was slowly moving back toward the bug surrounded by dozens of small moving figures. Another bug (or whatever the hell they were) was still sitting outside the bag pointing at him. He wondered briefly where the third one might be but had to see what the Hell was going on down there and lowered the magnifying glass.
Sweat covered his body in a thin sour smelling nimbus as he stared at the tiny moving objects. The little things were still much too tiny to clearly make out, but they had attached something that looked like shiny silver strings and were moving the splinter closer to the body of the bug, thing or ship? Could those really be tiny spaceships sitting on my counter, just inches away from a jar of extra crunchy peanut butter?
He stared in amazement and wonder as the little things began shifting the splinter against the roach. He shook his head and stared as bright lights flared where the splinter rejoined the ship. I should call the newspaper or the government. I could be famous. He saw, in his infertile imagination, a newspaper featuring his photograph with the words Charles Campbell discovers aliens in his kitchen!
He lost track of time, but eventually noticed fewer little people were around and realized they were going back inside the roach. In the several minutes he had been staring at the tiny recovery operation the third roach, the one he hadn't noticed disappear, had climbed up and sat on his dull gray hand. By the time the last of the tiny people were going back in their spaceship that looked like a roach his hand had slowly started changing shades back from black and gray to a much more healthy pink hue. He was watching the bug in the bag walking out when he felt the tingles of his previously numb hand. Charles glanced down and saw the third bug slowly bringing what looked like tiny hoses back inside.
