Perhaps the fire’s been abandoned.
As soon as they made it past the sand dune to see the beach, they all froze except for Frank, who kept walking, confident to reach the bonfire and get toasty.
Steve ducked and Allen hugged the ground.
There was no bonfire.
Nobody else was on the beach except for the three of them and a large glowing orb that hovered in place, unaffected by the wind, casting an burnt orange glow onto the dunes, shallows and shrubs. As soon as it moved, Frank went into a stricken panic an threw himself down to the nearest dune, scurrying out of sight behind an old corroded tree trunk.
He peered over the wood to see the large ball of light, hovering, pulsating, moving slowly until motionless. Blood froze in Frank’s veins, then adrenaline rushed like boiling water, but Frank remained frozen.
This is what he and his family saw when he was only 7 years old. And what they just saw on the boat.
What is it? His mind sped around explanations, none of which fit any known rationale. He turned to see if his colleagues may have a better idea of what they’re looking at and discovered he was alone.
Shit.
By this time, Steve and Allen were already a quarter mile away, speeding north as fast as the old car allowed.
Frank could only cower behind the old tree carcass, hopelessly trying to reduce the adrenalin for a few good minutes, before he could move and sat up. As soon as he did, however, the orb's light went out into a dim glow, until it disappeared altogether.
The beach was now too dark to make out anything and the glow of the orb was burned into his retinas. Panicked and blind, he could only hear the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and dull sandy sounds.
His eyes adjusted within a minute, but it was too dark even for being adjusted. He couldn’t really see well at all.
Only tops of the wavy sand dunes were crested with the diluted light of the moon on the eggplant sky, hiding behind a thick veil of clouds.
Frank picked up the nearest rock to defend himself, should he have to. For the last quarter century he had been alone, thrown around by life from loss to loss. He even fell out with Allen once, but he’s a hugger.
Involuntary rage, possibly brought on by the alcohol, drew him closer, inch by inch. Using up any courage he had left on each next step, the sounds of the ocean were suddenly interjected by someone else, vividly struggling against the sand,
moving closer and closer.
Frank stopped dead in his tracks.
A ground squirrel ran into the shrub to his left, taking shelter from the cruel ocean wind.
He could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The sounds of the sand were his own.
A murky silhouette of a small human or chimpanzee shuffled away toward the water. It moved surprisingly swiftly and fast, with its weight distributed on its toes, inhuman, striding short and imbalanced strides, drawing nearer and nearer.
It would’ve been a time to think first, had he been able to.
But he couldn’t.
It was fight or flight.
No more pain. It’s gone too far. He’s not going to die. Certainly not tonight and not like this.
He wasn’t going to get bullied by life or even aliens or anyone else. Adrenaline is a cruel mistress.
The figure scurried its way in a blind panic, moonlight revealing a bulbous head with a pair of enormous black eyes. The stuff of nightmares.
He threw a defensive punch that never landed because he aimed too high up at the tall-looking but in fact short alien being, which gave away undeniable fear and suddenly made every attempt to flee, but for it, there was nowhere to flee to.
It made toward the water, and fell to the ground. A brief moment later it gasped for air and fell down to the sand to land with a loud wet-sounding crack, like snail on a rock, gurgling liquid, creaking, clutching for the last of the seconds it had, grasping out with its crooked hands into the night.
Frank could only stand in disbelief, breathless.
Before his eyes, all his worst nightmares were being rolled into one. His childhood nightmares, which had always seemed so threatening then, were combined with his fear of injuring, let alone killing anything.
The small figure fell in last agonizing moments of its life that he’d cut short.
Once again he was frozen, feeling deadly fear, unable to move a muscle. When his breath finally returned he reached for his phone and used the screen as a flashlight. Reluctantly and slowly, he stepped closer to the dead figure helplessly sprawled across a small driftwood deposit. Black clouds boiled over the sky.
There lay a short, indescript, light colored figure with a bulbous head and enormous black eyes. Not bleeding, not moving. Not anymore.
Frank knew; he had made a terrible mistake.
The body lay still.
It was clearly dead.
Terrified, Frank mustered what little leftover adrenaline he had to look.
The spirit was present.
It watched Frank reluctantly, and though Frank felt its presence, he did not believe it, and could not see it, behind him, watching him with patient eyes.
If it didn’t bleed, could it still be alive?
Is this some kind of defense mechanism?
Questions came flooding, replacing one another to answer, or even register.
The clouds hit the moon again and with only the light of a tiny LCD screen, he couldn’t make out more than its warm gray matte skin. Alone and under pressure, he liked to speak to himself aloud.
The sound of his own voice usually comforted him;
kept him grounded in reality.
He was scared so much he could break out in a song. Instead a realization came.
There are infinite variables∴
Then he thought again and realized he may never get an opportunity such as this to investigate ever again.
Looking at the lifeless shell made him wonder whether such a being may too have a spirit or even a ghost, the thought of which didn’t frighten him as much as the real thing lying on the ground where he’d just killed it dead.
Guilt made him feel it should be moved to a more respectable position. All the while, its separated spirit, an etheric body, hung next to it.
Just as he was about to touch the lifeless creature,
he withdrew his finger to and look around for something he could poke the body with. An elongated piece of driftwood would be sufficient. It was time to poke it to find out whether the animal, or whatever it was, is still alive or whether he had really killed it.
So far it was pretty clear, nonetheless.
Unless it plays possum∴
The poke produced no reaction.
It seemed the creature was no longer alive.
He turned it over to reveal its face, same skin all over, with large black-lensed eyes across its small-featured face, now encrusted with sand.
He was speechless.
Right then he heard a car pull into the parking lot and Steve and Allen yelling.
In a panic, he took off his coat and wrapped the alien in it so it could not be seen.
Thanks to his oversized pea coat it all fit. In a rush, to avoid being seen, he rested the coat over his forearm, careful not to squash its bulbous head. He was ready.
When, after a few minutes he saw no signs of either of his colleagues heading towards him, save for the occasional shout, he started back.
Steve felt slightly frightened.
“Maybe he’s nod dere?”
Allen lost his temper.
“Bullshit, what, you think he was abducted by aliens?”
He was unwilling to admit it might’ve been a distinct possibility, even though that’s why he’d really offered it. Both were far too scared to try to go to the beach to look for Frank, so they yelled for him instead.
They’ve just seen a UFO. Not only once, but thrice in one night. Allen kept asking Steve to slow down so they don’t make as much noise. Steve knew it was beca
use he was scared, but he too was scared.
The two men returned to the car to talk about what to do next and got in as quietly as possible.
Scared university professors.
When the car’s interior roof-light went out after a few seconds, they both jumped. Few seconds later they jumped once again when Frank finally came back to the car, coat in hand.
Allen rolled down the window with the manual lever. “Get in! Where the hell have you been?”
“Oh, I was just taking a stroll on the beach…”
Frank replied mockingly.
“What about you two scarecrows, where’d you run off to? You left me behind!” This amused them both.
With their wits returning, they realized they were just basically afraid of the dark.
“What about that…light?” Allen spoke as if he wasn’t sure the topic was okay to talk about. Frank was so quick to come up with an answer he gave himself chills.
“Oh, it went out just seconds after you guys hit the road.” His eyes fluttered. ”It flew off towards the sea.”
Somehow, nothing was more important than averting the suspicion off him. But why?
His actions seemed to contradict his feelings.
Then he caught himself gazing off toward the beach, or as Allen might’ve seen it, the ocean. Steve was the first and only one to return to rational thinking*.
“Let’s go guys. We’re already coming way late.
And our phones don’t work.”
Shudders waved through Frank’s vertebrae when he remembered what he had just used the phone for,
and what was now hidden in the sleeve of his coat.
He didn’t even realize he was freezing cold.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. No reception.
Went completely out. Might’ve happened on the boat.” Allen nodded.
Frank almost would have pulled his phone out to check for signal bars, but his phone was in his pocket, next to a dead body of an alien.
“You have reception, Frank?” asked Steve.
“Look, I don’t care about the phones, can we just get out of here?” Frank said, unwilling to give anything away.
At that time, this actually made sense.
Frank sat in the backseat, and started to pretend to be falling asleep from overexcitement, even though what he believed to be a dead body of extraterrestrial origin was tucked away in the sleeve of his pea coat.
There was a lot to talk about on the way back to the East Bay, but neither Allen nor Steve could find any logical explanations, so they didn’t speak at all.
The drive went on for what seemed like forever, which gave each of them plenty of time to contemplate their scientifically sound world, which they held so dear, being so violently penetrated with new, inexplicable forces of nature. Most of all, Frank, who sat alone in the back seat silently, his heavier-than-usual pea coat on his lap. Steve whiffed and smelled something he hadn’t smelled in the car before.
“What smells like shoe polish?”
It was Frank, and he knew it. He could smell his coat, indeed smelling like shoe polish, but he didn’t budge, and decided to keep it hush-hush for now.
It wasn’t out of greed; it was not for his own fortune and glory that he wanted to keep it secret…Hopefully.
It was not yet time for it to go out yet.
He’s seen the movies. He’s read the books, so he had a pretty good preconceived notion of how it all could play out, if he’s not careful,
He couldn’t wait to get into the lab to examine what might very well change science forever. He would tell Allen and Steve once he knows for sure. But first, he must learn more. The car pulled up to the house on Euclid Avenue at quarter to 4am. Now was the the only 15 minutes that the bay area stops polluting the sky with streetlight while it’s still dark, casting the most honest colors, exposing the Bay to space.
“I’ll call you guys tomorrow…when I get some sleep.” He said sleepily as he was exited the vehicle, readying to get out. Surely the guys will want to discuss the events of that evening once they’re a little rested.
The night shook them up.
The car started pulling away just as the streetlights lining the street turned off. It was an amazing sight, that he’d become quite accustomed to from his bachelor lifestyle.
The realization that he had left his coat inside the car, which was now in motion, struck him bluntly on the head and was then met with appropriate panic.
Utilizing his family instinct for saving desperate situations, he jumped up and down and yelled for the car to stop while waking half the neighborhood.
The tires came to a screeching halt.
Few lights came on in the neighboring houses. Frank ran to the car and without much of an explanation went straight for the coat on the back seat, then looked over his shoulder; both Allen and Steve looked at him as if he’s lost his mind.
“Um..goodnight.” Frank said, trying to pass it off as a shaky post-traumatic event reaction. Both gentlemen bid him goodnight as well and continued down way, shaking their heads in disbelief. The rest of the way home they talked about how Frank’s coat could have been soiled in such a way that it would smell of shoe polish.
Chapter Five
Investigation
The break lights waved Frank goodbye and disappeared uphill, behind the scantily lit street corner.
Frank turned on his heels and briskly made his way for the rear entrance to the house, through the kitchen.
They hardly ever used the front.
He fished for his keys in his lower coat pocket, carefully avoiding more direct contact with the lump in his sleeve. Nothing.
The keys were in his fishing gear, forgotten in the trunk of Allen's car.
The car which could’ve been two miles away by now.
No matter; he could use the spare which was tied to a string, hanging down the moss covered garden drain pipe in the tucked away corner of their backyard, where he knew he couldn’t be seen, as did his dad who often came out there to smoke.
As soon as he entered he laid his burden on the kitchen nook and went to the downstairs bathroom.
The mirror made him look groggy, but perhaps it was the lighting that gave him the duffel bags under his eyes. The cold water made him alert, though the rapidly decreasing adrenaline caught up with the high level of alcohol he had consumed and he felt wasted.
Either he felt a little drunk, or sick, but it did not matter. He had no time to feel either. He slowly walked back toward the kitchen, half expecting his coat to start moving and the dead stuffing of his coat to suddenly reanimate,
but it did not.
Frank paced impatiently for several minutes before working up the courage to reveal the wearer of his coat. The drinks from the afternoon still had their hold on him, but that didn't stop him from opting for some more liquid courage, as though he hadn’t had much bigger things to worry about at that moment,
such as the poor creature stuffed in his coat,
lying on the breakfast nook.
Slowly, he opened the jacket with a fire poker, horrified at what he may discover with actual lights on. The top of the creature's cranium was bathed in dim yellow light, but beyond that, nothing showed. It seemed, even, that it had burrowed even deeper down into the coat, and was perhaps bent at the knees,
assuming it had knees.
Then his worst fears came true. Before him lied a skinny, lanky, impish body of a creature, remotely human in appearance. Clearly, unlike any recorded by science (but not science-fiction). Its head was slightly disproportionately larger and its eyes were large and black.
The whole body was covered in velvety warm gray skin, which has started reacting with the air in Frank’s kitchen and had enormous boils that may pop at any second.
Frank had a scalpel ready. It was to be a makeshift home-made autopsy.
As he was about to burst the boil, the spirit of the being rejoined with its shell to make for one last attempt to flee.
Frank jerked back in fear and started looking for the nearest thing to defend himself with, which was a hammer.
The creature stretched out its gnarly, boil covered arm and grasped for air, clutching for the last of the seconds it had. Frank in another fight or flight situation was quicker with a hammer in his hand and bashed the poor goblin-like alien like snail on a rock, gurgling liquid, creaking, until dead and his frightened hand smashed the hammer into the wooden kitchen surface.
With the damage, the boils on its head tore and the creature’s true flesh burst out through the broken skin at the neck.
With another glass of rum down, he put on a pair of black surgical gloves he used for washing dishes, and with a fork, tried to pry the skin loose from its wearer. It came right off.
With the suit unpeeled, the horrible creature underneath had context.
Two great black demonic eyes focused, with large eyes that could look through your soul, but had no more life behind them, threatening nor peaceful. His breath slowed down to a near halt.
The alien’s suit broke.
It kept him under pressure.
Quickly coming to his senses, he closed his mouth and moved away.
It may be releasing fumes∴
A strange and yet familiar smell pierced his nasal passages. It reminded him of shoe polish and train stations. Without an idea what he was inhaling, he decided to step away and protect himself. He opened all the windows but drew all the blinds, locked the front door and went to the garage to find a leftover mask.
He knew there was a blister-pack of masks on the middle shelf,
under a twelve-year dust veil.
He put on a pair of black surgical gloves
(that he used to wash dishes in)
to avoid direct contact with any unknown agents,
then walked back behind the kitchen isle.
Underneath his mask, his mouth was opening. Sweat already collected on his forehead and began running down his face. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, he pushed the loose skin of the suit. The soft exposed slimy muscles underneath were bruised, swollen and turning a deep maroon.
Frankentown Page 4
