by Dan Dillard
*****
Today, it’s back. I see the piles shuffle occasionally as if something moves beneath them. At first I thought it might have been the dog, but he would come if I called. Whenever I speak, the shuffling stops. I know my monster is there, and he knows of me. I know he is biding his time, hoping I will feed him again, and I know what will happen if I do not. I’ve considered calling a neighbor or a counselor, someone to help me with my collection, to get things under control, to get the monster under control–or maybe to feed to my monster, but what then? They’ll stop coming on their own, and soon, a phone call won’t be enough to convince them. Police may come and that is more food, but I don’t know where the phone is.
Now, the recliner is where I spend all of my time. I haven’t moved from this spot since Thursday. My collection is closing in on me, getting ever closer and hanging like the limbs of a live oak over a dirt road. I know it wants more food, but I have nothing more to give. Nothing but myself. I’m certain it’s only a matter of time before the creature finds me. It is hungry.
..ooOOoo..
INFESTATION OF THE THIRD KIND
Things that come from outer space probably won’t be humanoid, and definitely won’t be friendly. And if they are, we’d screw it up.
February, 2021
AN UNCOMFORTABLE FEELING hung from the clouds like a turd that wouldn’t drop in the shitter.
That damned war tore the world apart and it was few and far between when folks ran into each other outside of the settlements. Towns were just starting to crop up again. Survivors came out of the woodwork once the bombs stopped falling. They were roaches in a new darkness. Eventually the planes ran out of fuel, the politicians ran out of lies and everybody else ran out of patience. We had killed our planet.
I was somewhere out west in what used to be the United States. I could’ve dug up a map or searched for some landmarks if I wanted to explore but I just didn’t have a crap left to give. We called our settlement ‘Ernest’ after its eldest member. He died a few weeks later, but the name stuck.
Some days, life was better than before the war. No internet, telephone or reality TV. There were no bills or taxes. No politics. No bullshit. Other days, it was like the war had never happened and we were still the same animals that had caused it all. People never learn.
There were always the nightmares that brought things back around. My wife was killed by a car bomb just before it ended. I traveled to avoid trouble after that.
I guess I could’ve been in Kansas, maybe Oklahoma. I would never have ventured as far south as Texas. I hated Texas. Everything in Texas was brown and dusty. I can only imagine it got worse after the war. That said, the climate changed after we knocked things off kilter. We were pioneers again, not knowing what we might find around the next bend, over the next hill, or when—if—the sun rose the next day.
I imagined it wouldn’t take long before some ass-hat decided he or she needed to be in charge and start conquering people. Not sure what they’d have wanted with the place. I just wanted to exist until I couldn’t exist any longer. Then I wanted to die in peace.
That brings me to another problem. In addition to the unpredictable weather and the shitty location, we had bugs. Not regular bugs. These came from someplace else and Raid didn’t even get them high.
I guess we finally made enough noise to catch their attention. Maybe we’d killed off enough of Earth’s natural creatures, that God flipped on the ‘vacancy’ sign.
Monday Morning
It was small as far as aliens went. I’d seen fifteen or more species and that one was scant. Ed pulled the shell aside and spread its wings. The back was round and shiny. It reminded me of a ladybug only with scaly lizard legs and feet.
“Where’s the rest of him?” I asked.
“Ha. Rest of ‘im? Nope, that’s it. Found him on the southbound lane of the highway this morning. Ain’t it the damnedest thing you ever saw?” Ed said with a laugh.
He let the wings go and spat on the ground. The dead critter’s parts folded back together like they were on springs.
“Yup. Damnedest thing. What’s it, about six inches long?”
“Thereabouts. Weighs a pound, I’d say.”
“Huh. Big-ass bug.”
Ed had pulled his old pickup in for a tank of gas and was kind enough to show me his find. Seems like driving was all he did those days, circling through the streets of our home-made town and picking up the little alien trinkets. I grabbed the squeegee to clean his windshield while he pumped. I didn’t normally do full service, but Ed was an old friend.
Gas was free until it ran out. That was always the plan. We only had four running vehicles in Ernest, so it would last a good long while. Folks never had too far to go, and anyone who left wasn’t coming back just for fuel. Everything else was on a take-as-you-needed basis and we shared as much as we could. Vanity and pride were dealt with, violently if necessary. There was too much uncertainty for people to go back to the old ways, the ways that brought us to that point. Simplicity was law.
We had enough. There was a pile of canned food in an old grocery store turned to rubble and even after settling Ernest and feeding our small group for several months, there is still plenty. Some folks hunted or fished the river. Some even took to eating the bugs. I couldn’t do it, hadn’t gotten that hungry yet, but there were plenty of the damned things to go around.
The filling station was my home. Its structure was sound enough, but you had to pump the gas by hand. No electricity. No running water. No crowds.
There were twenty-six of us living in the settlement, a few more on the outskirts. Ed was a caretaker of sorts. Ever since the war took his leg, he wandered around town taking odd jobs. No one asked him to and he didn’t get paid, but it kept him busy. Sometimes busy meant scraping up road kill.
“Kinda cute, but it smells like shit. How long you reckon it was layin’ there?” I asked.
He tipped his Boston Red Sox cap back to scratch his head. The poor hat was falling apart, held together by sweat and his remaining loyalty for a team that would never play another game.
“Dunno. Wasn’t there when I left for breakfast this morning, but it was there an hour later,” he said.
“Fresh? And stinks like that?” I asked, covering my nose with the back of my hand.
“Yup. He’s right tough to be around,” Ed said and smiled.
“How many does ‘at make?”
I’d seen a hundred or more since the end of the war. Those little buggers were commonplace and came in many shapes and sizes. They’d started herding and breeding like they were native to our planet and folks just grew accustomed to it. We were counting the different species, not population. Ed drew hash marks in the air.
“With the two furry ones from yesterday…three last week and the big’un out back, that makes seven different kinds, I guess.”
He finished scratching and pulled his hat back in place as we watched a swarm of them fly over our heads, headed away from the morning sun.
“Huh,” I said.
He tossed the carcass in the metal trash barrel and we looked at it for a second as if saying a silent prayer.
“Why they running, you wonder?” I asked.
“Dunno, Bill. It don’t sit right with me.”
“None of this sits right. What’s bothering you that I should know about?”
“Little fish don’t tend to jump unless something is chasing them,” he said.
0843 Hours
I poured a splash of gas on the bug in the trash and tossed in a lit match as I watched Ed drive off. The stinking contents caught fire and flames licked up just past the rim. It was time to find something for breakfast and maybe a little coffee. I walked over to Colleen’s place to see if she was cooking. She usually did each morning and usually the few kids went to see her for their morning meal and a story or two. I hoped she would be alone and that it wouldn’t be too hard to convince her
to shut the door behind us for an hour or so. Colleen was a good woman, and easy on the eyes.
A skip and jump across the road and past two or three crushed buildings and I saw the red roof of what used to be a Pizza Hut. That’s where she had taken up. I never did know why such a lady chose to be alone. I supposed trust was hard to come by.
“Coll?” I hollered, knocking on the door.
“Is that you, Bill?”
She was home and I didn’t hear any children bustling around or being loud. The thought made me warm in places.
“Yep. You decent?”
“Never, come on back,” she said.
I heard her hearty laugh from the doorway and scurried back just in case she wasn’t joking.
“Ed found a new one this morning,” I said and pushed through the swinging doors into what used to be a greasy kitchen. She was already dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that just hinted at her shape.
“Really?” she said.
“Looked like a big, green ladybug with weird legs. And it stunk. I burned it up it stunk so bad.”
“Mmm,” she replied,” smelled so bad you decided to come over here and eat? What’s that say about my cookin?” she said.
“I’m a fan of your cooking. Hell, I’m a fan.”
She turned with a mischievous face on and I give her a wink.
“Let me get some coffee first and then we’ll see how this morning turns out.”
Colleen was the first human I ran into after the war ended. It’d been six months of living that way. I came by to check on her about every morning. She’d curled my toes three times and it looked like it might be another good day. We made a fire out behind the old kitchen and tossed some canned sausage in a pan. As it sizzled I watched her purse her full lips to sip some coffee and she caught me staring.
“Bill. I thought you were hungry,” she said. There was fire in her eyes and her cheeks took on a lovely rose color.
The sausage burned.
One hour later I left, headed back to the service station and she called me from the doorway of the one-time restaurant.
“Bill!”
Her voice was rough hewn from years of smoking and drinking. I didn’t know how she lived before the war and we never talked about it. It was like an unwritten law. Everyone that survived got a do-over.
“Yeah,” I said and turned.
“Same time tomorrow?”
She opened her shirt to flash her breasts at me, just a glimpse. They sat full and impossibly high for a woman her age, but I wasn’t complaining. She was lovely. A warm smile curled on her lips as she waited for my response.
“Absolutely, but this time we won’t burn the food,” I said.
“Oh I don’t know. I kind of hope we do,” she replied.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
0940 Hours
I stood there grinning while it happened. Something so horrible, so surreal that I couldn’t wrap my head around it, couldn’t find an emotion that matched. Was it a joke? A creature I had never seen and couldn’t believe dropped from the roof of the Pizza Hut, grabbed Colleen by the leg and shook her like a dog shakes a stuffed toy. Her bones snapped and blood sputtered from her mouth onto the brick and windows of the building. She didn’t have time to scream, but she was coughing and gurgling, and the expression of horror on her face was something I don’t ever want to see again.
The animal looked like a big cat, five feet tall at the shoulder, only it wore red and purple scales instead of fur and dwarfed any tiger I’d ever seen at the zoo when I was a kid. My mind questioned how something so large could move so swiftly and so quietly. My feet didn’t care to wait for an answer. Colleen lay on the ground, still coughing and making that awful gurgling sound.
It broke her neck. I can’t help her if it broke her neck.
The hellcat, for lack of a better term, pawed at her, but looked up at me. I think it was judging me—friend or foe—threat or not. With a snort, it dropped its head down to sniff her body; she was still alive, but barely. Before I turned to run, I watched it mouth her head which it pulled it loose with ease. The skin of her neck stretched to its limit before ripping into wet flapping tendrils. Her body fell to the ground under the weight of its front foot. Again her breasts were exposed only with none of the sex appeal they’d held a moment earlier. Now it was all just meat. The beast gobbled. If only I’d closed my eyes sooner, at least the gurgling sound was gone.
I ran. Every ounce of strength propelled my feet to move toward the ruins of the old strip mall. I had to stay away from the filling station so that thing wouldn’t follow me home. The mall would provide much better cover and easier hiding.
God forgive me, Colleen, but I hope you filled that thing’s belly. Maybe it won’t follow. As soon as my own voice cleared out of my head, I heard a different, but familiar one.
“Jesus, Bill. Whatchoo runnin’ from?” It was Ed. He’d rolled the tires of the old pickup close enough to peel the shoe off my right foot and leaned out the window while he yelled at me. In my shock I hadn’t even heard the rumbling rust-bucket. He hadn’t seen the hellcat, but thank heaven for him being there.
I ran around the front of the truck and hopped into the passenger seat as he stopped.
“Don’t stop,” I said in between pants. “Drive. Most definitely drive.”
“What is it, Bill?”
I looked at the rearview mirror just in time to see it barrel down on us. Then it leaped. I stomped on Ed’s foot and mashed it and the gas pedal to the floor. Four clawed feet landed angrily on the truck bed and almost tore it loose under the weight. It hissed and roared as it swiped trying to keep its grip but tumbled backwards instead.
Ed slammed on the brakes and threw the transmission in park.
“What the hell are you doin?” I asked.
“I’m not gonna let that thing run wild,” he replied and grabbed a flare gun from the dash’s glove box.
Ed stepped from the truck and approached the creature at a steady, limping pace. It lay in a pile fifty feet away. He took a few more steps as I opened my door, no longer content to watch the action in the mirror. I stepped from the truck as the creature rolled upright, shaking its head to shrug off the daze. Its leg was injured and it favored it while trying to walk. I’d have sworn the creature was bigger when it killed Colleen. And wasn’t it red and purple? This one looked red and blue. Ed raised the weapon and steadied his aim.
“We should leave,” I said. “That thing is bad news. I’ve seen it work. We should leave.”
Ed took another step.
“That thing ate Colleen!”
Ed glanced at me, his eyes alight with rage. He immediately put his attention back on the monster. I looked at his leg and wondered if he’d seen a critter like this before, and I wondered briefly if he’d had breakfast with Colleen as well. It didn’t matter.
“Motherfucker!” he yelled and pulled the trigger. White-hot phosphorous blazed a trail between the barrel of the weapon and the alien critter making contact just between its shoulder and throat. The round exploded in a mess of charred entrails and alien goop. The hot breeze from the explosion blew Ed’s Red Sox cap off and the world went silent. My ears rang. Then slowly, the world’s noise came back.
My jaw dropped. I stared at the mayhem and then at Ed as he picked up his hat and pulled it back onto his head.
“Ed?” I said.
“Bill, I’ve made a modification or two to this here flare gun.” He never took his eyes off of the target he’d just decimated and simply spat on the ground.
“Huh,” was all I could manage.
“I think that might’ve been what’s chasin the little fish,” Ed said.
“Huh,” I repeated.
An angry howling noise brought us back from one bad setting to another. There was another creature, bigger than the dead one, approaching from the left. Its maw was smeared with blood and it licked its red and purple chops as it slinked in with
grace and determination. That was the one that killed Colleen. How many were there?
Ed jumped back in the truck.
“Bill, come on.”
“Why can’t you just shoot this one, too?” I asked scrambling for the door handle.
“I only modified one flare. A regular one’d just piss it off,” he said and stomped the gas.
I watched through the back window hoping the larger animal wouldn’t pursue us. It stopped to sniff the remains of its partner and as we turned the corner I saw it rear its massive head back and howl again. The noise shook the truck, rattled my insides and made my head throb. I heard the wail over the low rumble of the truck’s engine, even as we rolled the windows up.
“I think we may have pissed it off anyway,” I said.
1318 Hours
The locust’s whine started up slowly that afternoon. I’m not sure if it was from the explosion or the presence of the huge beasts, but the local bugs—the Earth bugs—knew something was off. Either way, we didn’t see or hear any more from the hellcat that day.
Ed and I set up camp just outside of Ernest in a thicket of trees beside what used to be a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The only part still standing was the side wall of the hulking building and a sign that said Tire and Lube Express with a yellow smiley face on it. I imagined it was probably a stronghold at some point during the war. The old building had lots of space, lots of supplies but unfortunately, it wasn’t sturdy.
I stoked the fire pit, trying my best to keep too much smoke from billowing out and blowing our cover.
“Can you tell me what in the blue fuck that thing was?”
“Ugly,” Ed said. “Ugliest sumbitch I ever come across.”
“Is that what took your leg?” I asked. It’d been nagging my gut ever since he fired the flare.
“Shit no,” Ed laughed. “This here was from mortar fire. Took it off at the ankle. Rest was amputated due to infection.”
“Oh. Thought maybe you’d run in with a beast like that…hellcat.”
Ed cocked his eye at me and smiled. “No. Nothing like that, Bill. I imagine we were lucky this morning.”
“Yep,” I said. “I killed me a lot of mean bastards back in the day. But I’ve never seen anything like that. You reckon it’s the biggest we’ll see?”
All the critters to date had been skunk-sized or smaller. Something you could kick out of your way or knock down with a baseball bat. And they seemed to stick with the local vegetation or small animals and bugs. Nothing like the hellcat, nothing we needed heavy ammo for.
“No,” Ed said. I reckon there’s always a bigger something.” He raised his eyebrows and watched the fire.
“They got Colleen,” I said, feeling something like sadness, but there had been so much sadness.
“So you said. She was a fine lookin’ woman.”
I nodded in agreement. “Almost got us too. Wonder who else they got?”
“What’s count last you checked?” Ed asked.
I looked at my fingers and tried to remember all the folks who’d settled in Ernest. We’d lost two to old age, one to sickness and gained two wanderers. That day we lost Colleen. “Twenty-four left as best I can tell.”
“Damn,” he said, “not much of a militia. Could be a dozen of them things out there. Hundreds. And if they hunt in packs, or even just pairs, we ain’t equipped for that.”
“No, but it could’ve just been the two, Ed. We should go back and check in the morning. Fill up the truck and go. You got any more of those flares you can modify?”
“Yup. A handful.”
“If nothing else, we can get out while the gettin’s good. Grab whoever’s left and some gear and get out of Dodge,” I said. We can hook that camper up to the pickup.
“Good idea. At first light we’ll make a ride through Ernest an’ gather folks up. If I see that damned hellcat again, I’ll put one o’ these homemade grenades up his happy hollow,” Ed said.
“G’night Ed,” I said.
“Bill,” he said, acknowledging me.
Ed leaned back into a stack of cinderblocks and closed his eyes. The night sounds were familiar again, crickets chirped and other insects sang. In the distance I heard the wail of that monster, like maybe it was calling for an ally. There was no reply to its call before I dozed off.
Tuesday, First Light
I woke and stretched, listening to my old bones creak and pop like rice cereal. Ed sat silently. I felt for the guy. The truck was old as well and would need a minute to warm up before we went barreling through town like St. George after a dragon. I gave it a crank and just like clockwork, its ancient American engine roared to life. Smoke sputtered from the exhaust.
Our fire had burned itself out and I filled in the hole instinctively with sand to make sure.
“Ed, let’s get a move on,” I said.
He didn’t budge.
“Ed?” I tapped him on the shoulder. He slumped over to his left. I checked his pulse. Nothing. Old bastard had died in his sleep. Other than that leg, he always was a lucky something. I left him there. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful. I didn’t see any use in disturbing a man during the most peaceful sleep of his life.
The truck’s glove box held the flare gun, but no other ammo. I needed to stop by my place to grab my rifle. There was a shotgun that worked as well, but shells were in short supply. I planned to stop by Ed’s place and raid his arsenal.
As I drove into town, things were all wrong. The few remaining structures in Ernest had been toppled. Even the service station I called home. Whatever that thing was, it had done a number on us. I didn’t see any signs of life, but signs of death were everywhere. I counted thirteen bodies and a couple parts that could’ve belonged to those poor souls, or some other poor souls. There was no sign of the hellcat.
I stopped at the ruins of my place and pumped the hand crank to fill the truck with fuel, but never shut off the engine. Once it was full, I kicked through the rubble of what, one day prior, was my makeshift bedroom and found my shotgun and several shells.
Pulling the lever from P to D, the truck rolled out of the parking lot and down the road past the strip mall. I passed the spot where the carcass of the dead creature lay. Then I turned and went up the other street to the old pizza place where Coll lived. There was no life anywhere. Her blood was dried on the front of the building and pooled in a sticky black puddle at its entrance. There were no other remains. I crossed myself as I drove by. Me and God weren’t on good terms, and I didn’t think we ever would be again, but that didn’t mean Colleen wasn’t…or that she didn’t still need my help.
I stopped at Ed’s, left the motor running and pushed my way through the door. On the only table inside, there was a box of flares and a handgun with some loaded clips. I took all of the above. There was also a tent and a few boxes of canned food that went in the truck’s bed and I got in the cab and had the feeling something was watching me.
The first low guttural noise blended with the engine of the truck, but the second was higher pitched, like the shriek of a bobcat, and proved my intuition. I stomped the pedal, letting the door shut on its own and the motor responded well, lurching and rolling forward with a screech of rear tires. The scaly cat jumped into my path and didn’t flinch as I barreled forward. It howled when the metal struck its hide and tumbled backwards. I opened the window with the hand crank and leaned out to level the handgun at it. Not a large caliber weapon, but it might wound it enough to buy me some time.
The weapon recoiled and barked. I saw a hole open in the shoulder of the creature and it howled again, but that howl sounded more like anger than pain. It rolled off of its side to a standing position and snarled, wrinkling its brow and bringing those yellow eyes to slits. It tossed its head back as it roared. The noise was deafening, terrifying.
I opened fire again and saw bursts of black blood and smoke erupt from holes in its face and throat. It raised one massive paw trying t
o fend off the bullets—as if it might bat them down—before it leapt to the roof of the damaged building Ed used to call home. There, it roared again. More bone-shaking vocals which carried enough bass to shatter the passenger window in Ed’s old truck. The bad news is: that time there was a response. It came from behind me, far behind me. And there was another shriek to its left. My rearview mirror showed me two hellcats in the distance, but gaining quickly.
I fired once more at the creature on the roof, hoping it would think before it pounced. Dropping the gun into my lap, I floored the gas pedal. I was heading west at sixty miles an hour before the other two hellcats caught up to the wounded one and didn’t stop until the tank was empty and the fuel gauge read E.
Tuesday, 1735 hours
Lights I had been watching in the distance as I drove turned out to be another settlement. Thankfully it was still inhabited and active, although with the flat lay of the land I was sure those alien-death-makers would find it in short order. The truck sputtered, taking the last sips of that vital fluid as it rolled its final hundred yards. I left the metal hunk on the side of the road and with a salute, thanked her for her service. If these folks had gasoline, however, I was on my way as soon as I could pay for it.
As I entered the town on foot, a gruff voice said, “You lost?”
A round man three days in need of a shave was there when I turned to meet the greeting. He held a shotgun in the crook of his elbow but didn’t point it at me. His brows were raised into a questioning expression, but his face was kind, not angry or accusing.
“Not if you have fuel.”
“No fuel,” he said.
He smiled and revealed teeth stained by decades of tobacco use, “Guess you’ll be stayin’ a while then won’t you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
I shook his hand, “Bill.”
“Roger. This here’s Shangri-la. Bout the worst name ever for a shithole like this.”
“I don’t know, Roger. It reminds me a little of home.”
Before my home was torn to shreds by giant-alien hellcats.
I thought it best to ease that tidbit into the conversation. I had no idea what kind of settlement he had going. Or if they took kindly to strangers.
“How many you got here?” I asked.
He squinted and looked at the heavens for the answer. Not making hash marks in the air like Ed always did, but something like it.
“Runs about one hundred give or take. Some leave, some come rollin’ in just like you did. What brings you?”
“Let’s say the aliens run me out of town,” I said.
That seemed a tactful way to not start immediate panic. He chuckled and I watched a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek. Oddly, it made me thirsty. I realized I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in more than twenty-four hours. The last thing I almost ate was eggs at Colleen’s place.
“Bugs? Harmless,” he said.
“No. There’s something else. Looks like a big-ass tiger…and it stays real fuckin’ pissed off all the time.”
“Huh. My wife had a cat like that once,” Roger said. He laughed silently, but I watched his rather large belly jiggle.
“Yeah, well these destroyed our whole village. Counted three of them when I left. We killed one.”
“And you came here?”
“I left at top speed and drove almost nine hours. I didn’t come lookin’ for this place. I haven’t seen one of those bastard cats since I left them in the dust back in Ernest.”
“Ernest?”
“My settlement. Well, it used to be.”
He shrugged and smiled. I hadn’t intended to lead the devil to his door. I think he knew that.
“Do you have weapons?”
His look fluctuated from hospitable to frustrated.
“We have weapons, but we’re sitting ducks here. There’s no cover.”
“I’m sorry to bring bad news,” I said.
“Hell, I guess you tellin’ me is now is better than waking up dead. The war just ain’t over,” he said. Then he patted me on the shoulder. “Tell me what you know.”
I gave him all the info I had: size, color, noises. I told him about Colleen and how she’d been eaten. I explained about how the flare exploded and killed one of the smaller ones and I told him how four of those things had appeared and none of us saw them coming.
They would make their way to Shangri-La eventually, of that I had no doubt. The only concern was when. And when they came, we would have to be ready. If I made it in that truck in seven hours…how far behind might those hellcats be? How much exploring did they do scavenging for food?
Shangri-La needed to find supplies, to train those who were able to stand watch and fire a weapon. To find better cover in the foothills to the north.
Aside from that, all we could do was wait.
..ooOOoo..
indiviDUALITY
I hate politics. I hate society. I hate the look-like-me’s and do-like-me’s or you’re wrong folks. There’s more out there to worry about.
It was high time for a change. He dedicated his life to questioning the establishment when he was ten years old. It just seemed that the teachers, preachers and all the parents in his neighborhood wanted the same thing: be like us. One of us. Like crazed cult leaders from a horror film. There were so many other ways to do things. As he grew older, he found laws that didn’t make sense, societal norms that didn’t make sense, and religion didn’t make any sense at all.
It was cool back in high school to be different. It was sexy in college. Then the real world reared its ugly head, and suddenly living against the tide proved to be more difficult than he had originally envisioned. People were less apt to follow in his civil disobedience once they had families to support and bills to pay. Life beat them into a socially acceptable mold and he was being childish and needed to grow up.
There was little style and no substance to the suburbs where he lived. Everyone screamed for excitement, but none did anything about it. Everyone prayed for changes, but they scolded anyone trying to make them. He noticed that the new batch of teens said one thing ‘be different’ but did another ‘look and act like everyone on television’. It saddened him. It brought back memories of his youth.
It didn’t help that every single person in southern Indiana, hell the whole Midwest, seemed to be a fucking blue suit, gun-toting, status quo republican. Not that he chose sides, the democrats bled for everyone, dumped money on everyone who wasn’t willing to work for themselves, made him uncomfortable with political correctness and equality for all…but if there was a greater evil, it ran with that blue suited crowd. Status quo may have kept things good for them and their smart ties, but it did jack and shit for anyone struggling. It also destined the future generations to have nothing but nothing. Drastic measures were needed. That’s when the bodies started piling up in his basement.
His electric bill strained his meager budget. The house was paid for, inherited when his grandmother passed away and he didn’t watch television or use the internet. To plant the tongue firmly in the cheek, it was the six deep freezers down there that cost him an arm and a leg. The hum they produced was enough to tip off a casual visitor. The compressors started and stopped constantly as their temperatures adjusted. There had to be a better way to dispose of them. He was pondering that very thought when a knock came at the door. He opened it casually, still scratching his beard.
“Hello,” he said to the stranger.
“Good morning, sir!” said a cheery female face.
She held a stack of papers and dressed smartly. One of them. What was it going to be? A referendum? Maybe a petition? Ooh, could she be a witness of Jehovah?
He looked back at her wondering what ‘sir’ she was addressing. His cut-off jeans and vintage t-shirt should’ve given him away, but if they hadn’t, the shaggy beard and long hair surely did.
“I am out today, talking with all the folks in the neighborhood. I’d like to get all of us on board w
ith a new youth organization. It will help keep our children engaged and off the streets. Provide them with some wholesome alternatives for entertainment. It might even keep them from staring at their smart phones and surfing the net so much. I wanted to…”
Her grinning, machine-gun delivery was giving him a headache so he raised his hand to her mouth, just brushing her lips. She took a half step away from his interruption with an uncomfortable look on her face.
“What are you selling?” he asked.
Her smile returned.
“Oh, I’m not selling anything, sir. I just wanted to hand you this brochure,” she said.
He took the paper from her hand and strained to focus his eyes on the flowery print and colorful paper. She stood with her smug, do-gooder look and waited for him to finish browsing.
“Says here that an annual membership fee will be required of all residents of the surrounding subdivisions,” he said never looking up from the page.
“True. To keep it non-profit, we’ll need a homeowner’s organization to collect fees.”
“What if I don’t want to participate? There’s no homeowner’s organization here now. I’m not sure you can just impose one.”
“Well, I can if everyone agrees. And so far everyone has,” she said, sounding a bit hurt at his opposition.
“You’ve spoken to everyone in the surrounding area?”
She nodded.
“Who will build the facility?”
“I’ve spoken to several local church groups who will raise money to renovate the old health club. It’s basically just a gymnasium. It will be staffed by volunteers and upkeep will be up to volunteers as well.”
“Sounds to me like it could be funded by volunteers then,” he said.
“We’re only asking a small fee paid yearly in order to pay for electricity and water, sewer and trash and the security charge for the alarm system,” she said, pointing to an itemized list on the brochure.
“Security system?”
“Well, we can’t have people breaking in,” she said.
“Who would break in?”
“There are always those unsavory types. We just want to avoid that possibility.” Her face stiffened up as she spoke.
“Isn’t that the point of giving the kids this option? To keep them off the streets and out of trouble?”
“Well, yes.”
“Not interested,” he said.
“But, sir, don’t you worry for the well being of our…”
He interrupted calmly, “I worry that this will be another layer of society forcing the youth to act like robots. To act like…well, to act like you.”
She placed her hand on her chest and wore a hurt expression. “You think I’m a robot?”
“You sound like a cheerleader or a pageant contestant,” he said with a smirk and started to close the door.
“I was a cheerleader, and I did compete in pageants. What’s wrong with that? It gave me a sense of self worth and of teamwork.”
“Everything is wrong with that,” he said and scratched his beard before he continued. “Don’t you see that you’re a cookie-cutter copy? A clone?” he asked.
“What does that mean?” Her look was part hurt feelings and part curiosity. He got the impression she had never been criticized in her entire gold-plated life.
It would be a pleasure to separate her limbs from her torso.
“Look, I don’t want to argue if this is going to get nasty,” he said.
“No. No, I truly want to hear your opinion,” she said, “If you think there’s something better for the children, let me know.” Her hands perched on slender hips and she waited for his explanation with blazingly cool eyes. He considered her posture for a moment and then exhaled.
“Fine, let me get a bottle of water. Would you like one?”
She cocked her head. “Yes. Thank you. But, I’ll wait right here.”
He hadn’t asked her in, not yet. He wasn’t sure yet if he had plans for her, or if she was to meet the inevitable conclusion. Maybe he should invite her back for further discussion on a different day when he wasn’t feeling so out of sorts.
For now they would keep things on his front porch where the neighbors could see. He disappeared behind the six-panel door and after a couple beats, returned with two cold plastic water bottles, handing her one. He gestured to the chairs on his porch, offering a seat. She sat and crossed her legs setting the water bottle on the small table to her left.
“You were saying?” she asked.
He thought for a moment and found his point somewhere between her eyes. “Cookie cutter. Look at any pageant where beauty is in the focus and you’ll see an assembly line of programmed children who grow to be programmed adults. I just think inner beauty should come from within. Not from a panel of judges or from a rulebook.”
“But it’s not like that at all,” she said.
He frowned. “Yes. It really is.”
She shook her head. “It’s about poise and about friendly competition,” she argued.
“And bullshit. Friendly? Come on. I’ve seen the way the moms go at it. Their catty attitudes. You see it on the soccer field, at the mall—in restaurants. Act this way, eat your food like this, walk like that,” he said. “It doesn’t take long before the children mimic that behavior and find it normal.”
His nonchalant demeanor seemed to engage rather than enrage her. “So, you’re saying everyone should look and act like you?” she asked.
“No. I’m saying the exact opposite. Everyone should discover themselves in their own way. Expression through art not opinion,” he said.
“Isn’t self expression just an opinion?”
“In a way. But it isn’t supposed to be influenced. Have you ever taken an art class?”
“Long ago,” she replied.
“Yeah, and they taught you about the classics, they put rules on it. They told you how to do it, and they graded you on your output, right?” he said.
“Yes. Something like that,” she said.
“You ever take a music course?”
“I play several instruments,” she said, smiling wide.
“Okay, but have you ever signed a recording contract? Have you ever written something original?”
“No.”
“No. You took some lessons and played from sheet music written and arranged by someone else, correct? And I’d bet you called that a talent in one of your pageants, right?”
“Yes, but you are oversimplifying things,” she stated curtly.
“Yes, you’re right. I am. But it’s still pretty dire. We spend the most important time in our lives learning about how things have always been done and why we should continue to do them that way. That’s programming, not learning. It’s regurgitation. It’s vomit.” He trailed off watching the traffic on the street in front of his house. Her gaze drifted as well, like he might be making some sense to her.
“Sir?” she said.
“Please. If we’re going to have this chat, call me Mike.” His name wasn’t Mike, but it was easier that way when she ran screaming to the cops. His total lack of emotion always garnered him attention. Anger, he thought, made people with revolutionary ideas seem like zealots, crazy people. He was unsure if his ideas were revolutionary, but when delivered with assured indifference, people listened. They chatted with him for hours. They came back days later for more. They became heated, but he never did. Sometimes they came inside his house. And sometimes, they ended up in one of his freezers.
Will she end up inside my freezer?
Eventually, they all reverted back to the old ways, blaming bills, citing responsibilities or the desire to live a fulfilling life. For them, things always equaled fulfillment. They would speak of duty to their children, to a husband or wife. They said society wouldn’t allow the anarchy he preached. Programmed. Unteachable. That’s when he fixed them. That’s when they ended up as frozen chunks wrapped in butcher paper and stored in the basement.
“Ok, Mike. Y
ou were saying?”
He took a swig from his water bottle and looked back at her. She needed fixing. He would wait for his in. An opportunity always presented itself. “Congress is the opposite of progress,” he said with a grin.
“You’re saying the government is somehow at fault for...I’m still not sure what they are at fault for.”
“They are the second largest example. What are they at fault for? Everything, lady. They’re at fault for everything.”
“Jennifer,” she said. “My name is Jennifer.”
“Of course it is.”
“You don’t like my name?”
“It’s fine, not your fault at all, but it also plays into my argument. Everything about you does.”
She sighed, a sour look on her face. “You said second largest example. What’s the first?”
He looked dumbfounded at her question for a moment before answering. “Church. Church is the most evil of establishments,” he said.
“I happen to be a devout Christian, Mike.” Her hand found the gold cross hanging from a gold chain on her neck. She rubbed it between manicured fingers.
“Then you know better than anyone that I am right.”
“I’m not sure I like you calling the church evil,” she said with a frown.
“I just call it like I see it. Ok, the idea of church isn’t evil. A place to worship and help others through trying times. An attempt to make sense of it all. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“So what’s your point?”
“It’s become big business. Televised religion with congregations of fifty thousand in house. Give money, give time, give, give, give. And it gets worse. Wear this, don’t wear that, don’t listen to that music or say those words, show up at this time, stay this long and interpret things this way, and don’t worship that god—that god is wrong. It’s bullshit,” he said, still with an even, monotone voice. There was anger in the words themselves, but it didn’t come from within him. Captivation oozed from her eyes. Her brow furrowed, but she wasn’t mad.
“I can agree with that to a point. But I’m not sure evil is the word. Misguided in some cases, maybe. Every organization has those who misinterpret.”
“The devil is the lord of deception,” he responded.
“Touché.”
“And so who gets to say what interpretation is correct?”
“I think that depends on the individual. We each find our own way,” Jennifer said.
“No. That’s what I am saying. Not what you are saying. Not what your church or your government is saying. Think about it.”
She had no response to that. That meant she was like all the others. She engaged his mind and tried to take his ideas as her own. Next she would leave. There would be similar conversations with her friends. They would scoff at her. They would accuse her of reading some strange philosophical or radical text and tell her it was cool, but treat it as a fad. She would back down and she would settle back into her place in the hive. He needed to bring her around, one way or the other. Then she surprised him.
“You may be right. The more I think about it, you may be right, at least about church. No doubt you’re right about government. What can you do, though? That’s why I want this outreach facility so badly. The kids need choices.”
The surprise was over. It was only a bad segue into her original sales pitch. He pictured her dismembered body. Her lifeless head unable to continue with the bullshit she was speaking, staring at him through cellophane and freezer burn.
She continued on with her purpose for showing up at his door. She reiterated everything she had told him already. She stopped when he began to look bored. “What?” she asked.
“That’s exactly what you aren’t doing. You are saying do what we want not do your own thing,” he said.
“Their own thing is sex and drugs and alcohol.”
“A little Hedonism. We all went through it. I’m sure you went through it. Why deny it to them? Don’t you think that might cause unsettling? Divorce? They didn’t get their rocks off as kids, so they do it later when the feeling becomes overwhelming. Your kind breeds them to want what they don’t have.”
He looked at her rings, gold watch and diamond studded earlobes. He looked at her immaculate hair, fingernails and clothing. He looked at the cross pendant she wore on a chain and the way it plunged into her cleavage, a religious symbol pointing there so others would look. She looked at him as if those thoughts never occurred to her, and then she looked at the wooden floorboards of the porch. Minutes passed like the cars on the street.
“Are you married?” he asked. “I don’t see a ring. Not that I buy into that either. It’s just a piece of paper. Love is love. Marriage is a law thought up by a church and required by the government for tax purposes. Separation of church and state, my ass,” he said, this time with just a little gusto.
“Divorced,” she said, deadpan.
“Would it be rude if I said I wasn’t surprised?”
“A bit, yeah,” she said.
Her foot on the crossed leg began to pump back and forth.
“Look, it’s nothing personal. You just seem very straight laced and controlling. I can understand where that might cause tension,” he said.
“You are just fascinated with yourself, aren’t you?” she asked.
“No. It’s not like that. I just think people should turn off the internet. Turn off the cable. Turn off the cell phone and talk to a person. Face to face. Learn about them. Travel and visit other cultures and quit accepting what we have here as the only way. I don’t mean research online or even in a book. Books are someone’s opinion. Someone’s interpretation of a culture, not the actual culture. Someone took specific pictures. Someone chose to show you that. Even the Bible is an interpretation, if not all together fiction.”
She stared at him like he was speaking food and she was starving. She stared at him like she was falling in love. Then she realized her water was empty and looked at her watch.
“Oh! I’ve been here for two hours.”
She appeared embarrassed when she stood up.
“Do you think I could use your bathroom? I had a lot of coffee before I left this morning and that water put me over the edge.”
There it was, the excuse he yearned for. It was that fast, the shift from civil conversation to her barbaric finish.
“Of course,” he said and opened the door, following her inside.
“Down the hall and to your right, you’ll be right there.”
He stood in the kitchen and waited for her. The freezers in the basement cycled off and then on, off and then on. He hoped she wouldn’t notice. He should slip back there and slit her gullet with a knife from the butcher block on the kitchen counter. He could drain her blood into the tub and dissect her as well. Easy cleaning. He could play with her, whole or in parts.
After just a few moments, she returned. “You have a really cute house,” she said, “I don’t see a television or computer anywhere.”
“I don’t have them. Like I said, someone else’s opinion.”
“And these paintings, the artwork is so unusual,” she said.
“Something I do when I’m not at work.”
“Where do you work?”
“I own a gallery in town. Not much but it pays the light bill. Otherwise, I live off of inheritance,” he said.
She leaned against the counter opposite him. He leaned against the stove and twisted the cap off of his bottle, taking a drink.
“I’d love to own my own business,” she said. “I’m a homemaker. I’ve been living off of alimony for the past couple years.”
“You sell yourself way short. You seem very smart. I think you need to break out and use that to your advantage,” he said.
“I’m trying to do that,” she said looking at the brochure he had laid on the counter.
“Think bigger. There’s already a YMCA, and you said yourself there were several churches. Don’t they have youth programs?”
&
nbsp; “I wanted it to be less preachy.”
“But, you’re a devout Christian.”
“But not all of the kids are,” she replied.
There was a moment of silence between them.
“Maybe you aren’t such a robot,” he said.
She looked at him with that same passion in her eyes again. He felt he was saying all the right things. Soon those eyes would be his, to have and to hold inside her lifeless skull.
“I can’t believe that in the past few hours, you’ve managed to obliterate everything I believe in, and here I am still talking to you. How did you do that without making me angry?”
“Good question,” he said.
He fantasized about her fluids draining into the bathtub. The simple way in which a saw removed the arm from the shoulder, the thigh from the hip. The look of a woman’s torso, the cold feel of the dead.
“I don’t get angry. It’s a wasted emotion, and believe me, I’ve spent my whole life having these arguments so I’ve seen every possible reaction. I’ve been beaten and put in the hospital,” he said. “It only proves my point.”
“That’s terrible.”
He smiled at her for the thought, and then silence took over for an uncomfortably long time.
“So, it’s been a great talk. Maybe we could do it again sometime?” he said.
It was his attempt at an exit. People annoyed him and she was the worst kind. Carved out of society’s marble and molded from the hands of politics, religion, and white-bred, middle-class-suburban America.
“Tell me something first,” she said. Her eyes had gone glassy and there was some desperation in her voice.
“Ok.”
“How do I change? How do I take my life back?”
The question they all asked eventually. It was usually right before they went back to their old comfortable ways. She progressed more quickly, but hit all the same milestones.
“That’s probably not something I can answer. It’s exactly my point, really. You have to figure you out.”
She tapped her fingers and cut her eyes away from him the way a teenager looks when their parents say something they don’t want to hear. Something that hits home. He could tell his calm tone was pissing her off. She was riled and wanted him to be as well. He had long since learned to control his anger. It always surprised him when strangers wanted to argue vehemently with other strangers. They lay in wait like snakes coiled for the strike.
“But you have all these answers. Tell me how to take it back!”
Her breathing increased and she was now visibly anxious. It excited him. Maybe she wasn’t one of the flock. Maybe she had it in her–he couldn’t wait to let it leak out, to bathe in it. He loved her a little. He loved them all a little.
Her eyes leaked but they were tears of frustration. She walked around the counter that separated them.
“So I shouldn’t be like them, but I can’t be like you?” She tapped her fingers again on the counter and stopped next to the sink. The drumming noise from her manicured nails irritated him. He continued to lean against the stove and sipped some water from his almost empty bottle–calm and cool as her tension increased.
“Look, Jennifer, I’m not trying to tell you how to be. I’m saying you should question when anyone tells you how to be.”
Tears streamed from her eyes now. Her face turned a brilliant red and she screamed, and then let out a short, high-pitched grunt followed by a deep breath, and finally with a wavering calm said, “Then you’re no help.”
She pulled a knife from the butcher block on his counter and stared at it momentarily. It was his favorite and had caused many a mess in that very kitchen. In a moment he became certain she was unlike the rest. He smiled. Jennifer, the homemaker, snapped and plunged the blade into his chest using both hands.
“That’s a start,” he gasped as he slid to the floor, maintaining his calm.
She straddled his body and pulled the knife from his chest with a THUCK! She drove it in again, and again … and again. Her chest heaved from the stress and the exertion. The golden cross swung violently on its chain.
Jennifer stood to catch her breath. Red spatter covered her skin and clothes like odd chicken-pox. She placed the bloody instrument in his sink and lay down beside his body. Her fingers brushed a loose lock of normally well-groomed hair out of her face while she kissed his cheek. Blood pooled on the linoleum as the freezers cycled, one by one, in the basement. His final breath hissed out, leaving only the distant hum of the compressors in the basement.
“Thank you,” she said.
..ooOOoo..
ANTICIPATION
We do harm, even when we don’t realize it.
THEY COME AT THE break of dawn. Horrible men with arsenals of weapons meant to do nothing but destroy and cause pain. We stand here, incarcerated, just waiting our turn. We will not fight back…we never fight back, as ours is a peaceful existence.
I eked out a victory of patience yesterday after watching many of my brothers and sisters fall in this one sided battle. The screams were deafening but the assassins would not hear. Night came and I was still standing, albeit worn from bearing witness to so much violence, death and destruction.
Last night was briskly cold, not that they will care. They shroud themselves in thick coats, lined hats for their heads, sometimes masks which reveal only their eyes and make them so much more horrific. The moon hangs tall in the blue-black sky, cruelly illuminating the gaps where our friends and family members once stood, solemnly awaiting their doom.
We are each at peace with death. It still doesn’t dull its edge or the anticipation as you draw closer to being next. Next is the most terrible place to be.
Dew has long settled on the sparse blades of grass in our encampment and the haze dissipates as the sun’s rays make their appearance. It glitters on the horizon with the yellows and oranges of a ripe peach. Such an odd beauty in the given circumstance.
I can hear the low rumble of the trucks that bring our dispatchers. It won’t be long before my sweet release from this life of dread. At least I can take comfort in the fact my suffering will be over and I won’t have to listen to the others writhe in pain, or watch as they go down…one after another.
I see one now. The evil vehicle crests first one hilltop, and then another, slowly approaching and growing larger. More slither behind it like the muscled body of a gargantuan metal python. The scent of diesel exhaust floats on the air and fear burrows deep inside me. I could weep but it would do no good. I will push my thoughts to happier times.
The engines growl and sputter as they park and shut down. All that’s left now is the horribly nonchalant sound of their conversations. They speak loudly as if no one is listening, but we hear them. Bird songs and breeze provide no comfort.
They’ve come to slaughter us.
A whiff of gasoline and the deafening stutter of the chainsaw mean I’m next. I have stood for over a century dreading this moment. Next. The history I have witnessed is astonishing, comforting as I wait for the blade. Next.
It burns as it slices, carving me from my roots. I feel rushing pain and heat as it stops half way through its deadly swipe. My opponent pries the weapon loose to apply lubricant and I scream, but he doesn’t hear, and only cranks the machine to barking life once again. The blade is successful this time, ending a century-long battle for survival in mere seconds. I fall, landing with a thud only to be stripped of my majestic leaves and branches, to be carved into lengths convenient for loading onto one segment of that snake.
As they move on to the next, light fades from my vision and in the darkness, I find relief.
