Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1)

by J. F. Monahan

  “Spaceship?” he squealed, eyes fixed at this clearly mad man in front of him. “Pinwright… what is this man talking about?”

  Charlie considered lying. He considered fibbing. He considered saving Geoffrey George from the pain and suffering that he had already received on this night. “Actually he’s not a man,” he said, “he’s an alien.”

  “Alien is such a broad word,” muttered Greebol, “as a matter of fact I am a Gumthar. We are a very respected species in our galaxy.”

  “You’re a nut that’s what you are,” Geoffrey stammered.

  Greebol checked his Oxford English Dictionary for the word nut.

  -noun

  a dry fruit consisting of an edible kernel or meat enclosed in a woody or leathery shell.

  a block, usually of metal generally square or hexagonal, perforated with a threaded hole so that it can be screwed down on a bolt to hold together objects through which the bolt passes.

  The masked alien was puzzled. He didn’t understand these Humans. Very strange people. They had strange faces, wore strange clothes and said strange things. This particular language that he was speaking was incredibly strange, but even stranger was how easy he had managed to learn it. It wasn’t that Greebol was an unintelligent Gumthar, in fact he was quite clever for his species, it was just that he was hopeless at languages. He had vigorously studied the respected language of Joolpin at school. He got an F. It took him seven years to learn how to speak his own language and that was considered to be the simplest language in the universe. It only had five words.

  “I assure you I am not a nut,” he said proudly, “I will prove it to you.” He began to tug at the mask on his face forcing Charlie to rush forwards.

  “No,” he shouted, “it’s alright! I’m sure Mr George didn’t really mean to call you a nut!”

  “I bloody did!” shouted George.

  “Be quiet you,” Charlie spat.

  “Do not worry Charlie,” said Greebol with a chuckle in his voice, “I was getting hot in this thing anyway. We Gumthars like the feel of the air on our skin!”

  Before Charlie could stop him, Greebol had pulled the mask from his face, forcing out his strange, grey skinned, slit eyed features, which jiggled slightly in Geoffrey George’s direction. The double antennae that met at the top bobbed up and down on his head, strangely staring at him as though it had an eye when in fact it was an ear. It was Greebol’s one eared monster.

  Geoffrey George made a strange gibbering sound.

  Charlie Pinwright slapped his hand over his face.

  Then, before the two Humans’ eyes, Greebol revealed the rest of his alien form. Reaching to his back, fingers twitching, he found a small zip-like tag and began to pull. There was a loud zip-like noise. The clothes and the Human skin beneath fell from Greebol’s shoulders, landing in an untidy pile on the floor.

  Now, standing completely naked apart from a pair of uncomfortably tight shorts that disturbingly reminded Charlie of Linford Christie (distressingly proving to Charlie that the alien was in fact male), was the full unadulterated from of Greebol the Gumthar. An alien from another world. And he was an unusual sight.

  Below the already strange looking face, sat a squat body. Grey skinned, like the face, yet with dark patches in various areas that reminded Charlie of the terrible rashes that covered him when he was within viewing distance of small animals. He had a large pot belly that wobbled as he walked and consisted of three deep belly buttons. He had four scrawny arms, two at each side. The two arms connected at the wrists into one large, three fingered hand. His legs were as equally scrawny but he only had two of these. His feet were large and had two fat toes at the end of them.

  Whatever doubt there was in either Charlie or Geoffrey’s mind that this was some sort of elaborate hoax was erased. It was like the horrifying realisation that the Loch Ness Monster did indeed exist or that Father Christmas was a real fat man who crept around your house at night!

  Here was a being from another world!

  “Please don’t hurt me!” wailed Geoffrey George. “Take anything you wish… my money… my house… my swanky, fast sports car that makes me the envy of the neighbourhood. You can even take my gaunt wife if you must. Just don’t hurt me!”

  Greebol smiled that smile. The one that looked like his face was made out of putty. “You are a strange little man,” he said chirpily, “I can see why Charlie thinks you are a pompous arrogant son of a female dog!”

  Charlie laughed nervously. “I… I don’t think that,” he stuttered.

  “You will help me fix my electrical now?” Greebol asked Geoffrey.

  The tubby man, eyes still staring at the alien image before him slowly nodded his head. He opened his mouth to speak but only the sound of a strangled cat came out.

  “I don’t think he’ll know how to repair your spaceship Greebol,” said Charlie.

  “Well if he can’t… what further use do I have for him?” Greebol responded.

  Geoffrey George panicked. No further use? What did that mean? Would this grey skinned, yellow eyed, wide mouthed fiend kill him? Would he slice him up into tiny pieces like sushi and perform strange scientific experiments on his body? He had seen the films! Aliens are cruel. The only nice one was that long necked thing that befriended that boy, but Greebol was nowhere near as cute as him. In fact to call Greebol cute would be like calling a tin of red paint blue. Geoffrey could only imagine the horrific things that Greebol would do to him. Anal probing came to mind. Why anyone would want to probe via the anus always confused him. You never heard of mouth probes or ear probes or nostril probes. Oh no! When it came to aliens it was always the anus! The filth!

  “I can help!” Geoffrey shouted suddenly, feeling nervous for his big fat rear. “Let me look at your… spaceship… I might be able to help!”

  Greebol considered him for a moment. Then, without warning he dove over to the drawer in the wall and thrust it open. Diving his hand inside, he pulled out a large knife. The blade sparkled when it hit the light.

  Charlie cocked his head on one side like a dog hearing the word ‘walkies’. The drawer was only small but he had seen Greebol bring out and put in many items. More than he thought feasibly possible to fit.

  Geoffrey on the other hand had no interest in the drawer. His only interest was in the knife. It was the type of knife that could gut an elephant with a simple swipe. His throat went dry like he was licking sand and his palms began to sweat. This was it. As Greebol stepped towards him, swapping the knife between hands, Geoffrey prepared for the end of his life. The death of a King.

  Greebol swung the knife.

  Geoffrey gasped.

  “Please… see what you can do,” said Greebol smiling happily.

  Geoffrey stood. The alien had used the knife to cut the binds that bound him. He rubbed his sore wrists and looked to the door. Could he make an escape? He doubted it. The lock on the door looked like it could hold a stampede of rhinos.

  “Well,” he said at last, “let’s see what I can do!” He stepped over to the controls on the wall of the room. He opened several hatches and inspected the array of wires and tubes and flashing things. He looked on the ceiling, examining the round things, the square things, the hexagonal things and the things with so many sides that there was no word for its shape. He poked and prodded the thick vibrating things that looked like they belonged in certain ladies underwear drawers. He flicked a number of switches, turned a number of knobs, pressed a number of buttons. Lights flashed, noises bleeped and beeped. A number of times the electrical shook and even once it made a loud flatulence sound. He decided it best to ignore the strange fish in the hatch.

  Charlie was sure that he had no idea what he was doing.

  After at least half an hour of poking and prodding, Geoffrey George stopped, hands on his hips, and said to Greebol sternly, “When did you last have this spaceship serviced?”

  “Serviced?” came the confused reply.

  “Everything is in very bad condi
tion. Even the things I don’t know what the hell they are are in a bad condition! The whole thing needs to go to a garage. Do you have them in space? Space garages with over priced petrol? Do they too sell cheap flowers?”

  Greebol stamped one of his large feet and crossed his four arms. His bottom lip stuck out further than any lip had ever stuck out in the history of sticking out bottom lips. “The tight-fisted cheap bastard!” he moaned. “The cheap, cheating scoundrel! Dirty, thieving, lying moronic scumbag!”

  “Who?” questioned Charlie.

  “My brother!” shouted Greebol. “He sold me this electrical! Told me it was a bargain… the best electrical since sliced space rock! I always knew he was a lousy used electrical salesman. I do not know why I trusted him in the first place!” He turned to Geoffrey. “So that is it, is it? Ruined? I have to spend the rest of my life on this backwards little planet?”

  “Well I didn’t say that,” said Geoffrey pointing to a small gauge. Greebol took a closer look. There was a small arrow that was stuck at the edge of the gauge in the red zone. Greebol looked at Geoffrey questioningly.

  “You’re out of fuel,” said the plump man.

  Greebol smiled once again and squeezed Geoffrey until he nearly burst. “Fuel!” he shouted, “Of course! How could I have been so forgetful! The electrical needs fuel!”

  He bounded over to the small drawer, thrust his hand inside and pulled out a strange, curved red and black object that had a small spinning disk on the top if it, seemingly stuck on with some sort of spring. He gripped the handle in one of his large three fingered hands and rested a finger on what appeared to be some sort of trigger.

  “Is that a gun?” Geoffrey asked with a trembling voice.

  “No not a gun!” said Greebol. “It is a Fuel Converter!”

  Geoffrey and Charlie relaxed a little. However not for long. Greebol pointed the Fuel Converter at the two men. He considered them both, moving the Fuel Converter from Charlie to Geoffrey and back to Charlie once again.

  “What are you doing?” asked Charlie.

  “Converting my fuel of course,” came the answer. “Now… which of you do I like the best?” He stopped at Charlie. “I like you Charlie! I think we are one and the same you and I! We are good friends!”

  “We are?” said Charlie meekly.

  “Wait!” shouted Geoffrey with his hands raised, “if Pinwright is your friend then… then what am I?”

  Greebol grinned. However the grin was no longer the simple, happy smile that he usually had plastered on his face. This smile was sinister. It looked cruel. It looked like the smile itself could make a small child wet not only their bed but everyone else’s as well.

  “What are you?” he said with an odd sense of excitement. “You King George… are fuel!”

  He fired the Fuel Converter, which wasn’t a gun but fired a bullet very much like one. It was however, a bullet made of a bright green light that sparked and flashed as it left the end of the Converter and travelled, at a speed similar to that of a flying duck, towards the frightened Human making a scratching noise similar to nails on a blackboard.

  The light hit Geoffrey and quickly absorbed into his skin. An uncomfortable tingle sped down his spine that spread quickly through the rest of his bones. His eyes blurred. Saliva drooled from his mouth like a slobbering dog. It wasn’t just his mouth that began leaking liquid. Every orifice in his lardy body began to leak with a number of unmentionable and unthinkable fluids. Boils rose and burst on his skin. His eyeballs burst. His testicles burst. His head burst!

  Charlie watched in grotesque horror as Geoffrey George, King George of King George’s Electrical Repairs, began to melt before his eyes. Thick blobs of Geoffrey slopped onto the floor, dripping like fat from a burger. Soon all that was left of the once successful businessman was a quivering mass of fluid on the floor, bubbling and steaming. Charlie’s mouth hung open in the shock of what he had just witnessed. It was like putting a child’s plastic doll in a microwave… or a playboy bunny.

  “What the hell was that?” Charlie shouted as Greebol picked out a large shovel from the small drawer and began to scoop up the remains of the man. “What did you do to him?”

  “I have turned him into fuel!” beamed Greebol.

  “Fuel?” Charlie screamed. “He was a man! A man Greebol… not bloody fuel!”

  “One person’s pet pig is another person’s Sunday dinner.”

  “What?” Charlie continued. “What do pigs have to do with anything? True Geoffrey George was a bit of a pig both in looks and attitude but he was still a man! And you didn’t eat him… you melted him! I could understand it more if you ate him!”

  “Please,” chuckled Greebol, “I am a vegetarian.” The grey skinned alien opened the tube at the side of the room and poured the liquefied remains of Geoffrey inside. At once they merged with the green liquid within and power returned to the electrical. The lights all flashed and the room lit up like that bright light the dentist uses to stare inside your mouth.

  Charlie covered his eyes from the lights and headed towards the door.

  “Let me out!” he shouted. “Let me out of here right now you crazy, sick, cycle short wearing freak!”

  Greebol was stunned. The last time anyone had spoken to him like that was his ex-wife. She called him sick as well. Greebol never really understood why. He thought the things he was doing with Lousina the one-eyed prostitute were quite beautiful and moving. Some would call it art. However his ex-wife was a May’orn, a species that didn’t believe in the joys of love making. It is said that they conceive at opposite sides of the room when the male shouts ‘catch!’

  “You cannot leave Charlie,” Greebol almost begged, “we are friends! I thought you might… you know… stay!”

  Charlie tried to hold back a choke but failed and choked. “Stay?” he gagged. “Stay here? On this pile of junk ship? With you? There are too many reasons to mention why that is so not a good idea! The main one being that you are an alien!”

  “I don’t appreciate being called an alien Charlie.”

  “Another reason… you just killed a man!”

  “The word alien really hurts my feelings Charlie. You have to understand… I am an emotional being.”

  “And then there are those three frozen people in the back!” Charlie stopped. He had said too much.

  “So… you have been snooping?” asked Greebol.

  Charlie panicked. “Not snooping,” he said, his voice shaky, “I just got lost.”

  “Ah yes… when you were looking for the bathroom.”

  “That’s right,” Charlie lied. The guilt was written all over his face. Obviously not literally as that would have been a foolish thing for a liar to do.

  Greebol stepped over to Charlie and leaned in, until his large nostril almost touched Charlie’s nose. “If you wanted a tour of my electrical,” he said, “all you needed to do was ask.”

  “I’ll remember that… for next time,” the scruffy haired man stuttered. The curious side of his nature took over him once again. “Greebol… why are there three frozen people in the back?”

  “It is my job,” he answered proudly.

  “It’s your job to… freeze people?”

  “Oh no! I only freeze them for transportation.”

  “I see.” Charlie nodded and tapped his fingers on his leg for a brief moment. “Actually I don’t see. What is your job exactly?”

  “I am a bounty hunter.”

  Charlie knew bounty hunters of course. There were bounty hunters on Earth. He enjoyed watching a popular television programme about them. He also remembered his mother once telling him (one of the only times she ever spoke to him) that bounty hunters had hunted his father for many years. She had told him that he owed someone a lot of money and that the hunters had been sent to find him and retrieve the cash. When his father had refused to pay them, the bounty hunters had killed him, hanging him with a telephone wire and dental floss.

  Of course in later years Charlie d
iscovered this to be a complete lie. His father had actually died due to a factory accident, falling into a vat of lard. He had become trapped inside and was forced to eat his way out. It took him five days, masses of saturated fat and the remains of at least five hundred pigs to escape. He died a day later of massive heart failure.

  “I get paid to deliver people,” Greebol continued, “sometimes alive… sometimes dead. Sometimes somewhere in-between.”

  “And you are proud of this fact?” Charlie gasped.

  “It pays,” came the answer, “and money keeps me alive! Stay with me Charlie! I need a new partner after my last one came to a fishy end.”

  A thousand voices shouted in Charlie’s head and he was surprised at what the majority told him. They told him to go, to leave Earth, to travel the stars, go where no man had gone before. But how could he justify travelling with a bounty hunter, travelling with a murderer?

  “I’m sorry Greebol,” he said eventually in a calm tone, “I can’t come with you. Please… allow me to leave.”

  Sadness was in the alien’s eyes as he finally nodded his big grey head, the antennae bobbing up and down. “Very well,” he said, “I am saddened to see you leave Charlie Pinwright. It would have been fun to have you around.”

  “In some strange way… I’ll miss you too Greebol,” said Charlie. And it shocked him to realise that he was telling the truth.

  “Safe travels,” Greebol beamed as he unlocked the main door and it slowly slid open. Charlie nodded and turned to leave the electrical, making sure he remembered the steps this time.

  He took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp autumn night’s air and smiled. He was going home.

  Chapter 9

  ZZZAAAPPP!!!

  A blast of orange light flashed by Charlie’s face, singeing the end of his nose. He fell backwards, his nose smoking, into the arms of Greebol who pulled him back inside the electrical.