Alien Roadkill-Homecoming

by Steve Zuckerman

  A few feet further on, he stepped over a fallen tree limb that lay directly in his way and tripped into the large hole in the ground. Camouflaged and partially covered by the leafy branch he didn’t see the trap until it was too late. Caught completely by surprise, even his unnaturally quick reflexes couldn’t stop his downward plunge onto the array of sharp spikes that lined the bottom of the pit. He twisted in mid-fall, barely managing to throw his weight over to one side before he landed, but it didn’t change the outcome. He came down hard, and while he avoided the center of the trap, several of the sharpened, wooden stakes had pierced his hips and thighs all the way through.

  Even before the curse left his lips, the tiny alien robots in his bloodstream went to work, repairing ruptured blood vessels and blocking his pain receptors. JB was trapped by the penetrating spikes like a pinned moth in the narrow pit, unable to squirm free. Thinking fast, he used his “Sawbonites”, as he called them, to modify his arms. On his command, they lengthened them as though they were made of elastic, so he could stretch them upwards until his hands could reach the top edges of the pit. Once he secured his grip, he began to lift himself up. He struggled as he worked to lift himself off of the slender, but wickedly sharpened wooden stakes by shortening his arms. His progress was slow. The varying angles of the spikes that impaled him made his extrication difficult. Bit by bit, he wiggled free and leveraged himself out of the eight-foot hole with his foreshortening arms.

  By the time he had escaped the trap and scrambled up, and out of the pit, the Sawbonites in his system had entirely healed all of his injuries. The bloody holes in his jeans were the only evidence of his ordeal. JB was now thoroughly convinced that “Mad Marvin” had to be totally out of his mind, and decided it was in his best interests to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. He rose to his feet and turned back towards the gate when he heard the unmistakable sound of a riot gun being cocked behind him.

  “Goddamn! You don’t look like an alien, but I’m not taking any chances!” said the voice. “Turn around, real slow and keep your hands where I can see them!”

  JB did as he was ordered and turned to face the man holding the pump shotgun. He said, “Y’all got it wrong, I’m no alien…”

  “Bullshit!” the man spat back. He looked old… Very old. His black skin was wrinkled and lined from years of sun damage, and his thinning, kinky hair was a tangle of grey and white. He was squinting down the sight of the rifle at JB with watery, brown bloodshot eyes. In younger years he might have been nearly JB’s height, but now he was hunched over with age. Even so, he hadn’t given himself completely over to his years. There was no loose skin on his wiry arms, and ropy muscles tensed hard and taut as he gripped the ten gauge. A large, black Labrador retriever stood by his side. Both man and dog were scrutinizing JB with cold, unreadable stares.

  “My equipment doesn’t lie,” he said matter-of-factly. “It clearly indicated that you are not a human being.” The old man’s eyes went to holes in JB’s blood-stained jeans.

  “That ain’t ‘xactly true, sir,” JB replied respectfully, keeping his voice calm and even. While he was convinced this man was batshit crazy, it was apparent to him that this situation could end badly were it to escalate further. Regardless, he found that he couldn’t resist pointing out the truth as he saw it. He added, “But if I was an alien, that there gun wouldn’t be of much use.”

  “Is that so? However, I have other means,” the man countered, his expression unchanged. He continued to keep JB in his sights but thankfully held his fire. Still staring at JB’s jeans, he said, “Explain then, how you managed to survive my first line of alien defense!”

  “I got some stuff inside of me that helped. Anybody else would’a been killed, an’ that there would’a been on you.”

  “I’m only protecting myself… From aliens, like you. “

  “Like I said, I ain’t no alien, but I got some of their stuff inside me… That’s what protects me.”

  “So, are you meaning to infer that you got off-world tech inside you? And you still claim you’re human? I’d say that’s not very likely.”

  JB could see the man’s finger tighten on the trigger, preparing to fire. He had no doubts that he could survive the blast, but he had one last card to play. He said, “It’s true I got alien critters in my blood, but Colin Trench said that you might be able to help me with ‘em. That’s why I came.”

  The old man, narrowed his eyes and JB could see the doubt forming there. “Trench? That bastard!” he said. Despite his retort, he did relax his grip on the weapon somewhat, though he still kept his finger curled around the trigger. “How is it that you know him?”

  “He an’ my cousin Terry is… Partners. Colin sent me here after he an’ Terry were almost killed by the aliens that were huntin’ me. Colin said y’all might be able t’ help me figure out how they keep on findin’ me.”

  The old man lowered his weapon, but only slightly and managed a humorless chuckle. He said, “Shit! That’s easy, boy. Their damn tech is broadcasting like there’s no tomorrow. How do you think Jansky and I knew you were coming?”

  “What?” JB said, sounding more surprised than he was. He had suspected it was something like that, but the old man made it sound so obvious that he couldn’t help but feel foolish for asking. “Well then, how do I make ‘em s…?”

  JB’s question was interrupted by the projectile that struck him from behind, soundlessly and without warning. It hit him squarely in the upper back, propelling him onto the ground like a felled ox after drilling a quarter-sized hole through his shirt and burrowing into his skin. Compounding his shock and surprise, JB experienced excruciating pain. A sensation he had rarely felt ever since the alien medical protocols that he called Sawbonites, had infected his body. The hundreds of millions of sub-molecular robots coursing through his bloodstream should have stopped the bleeding and prevented him from losing consciousness, but they didn’t… Or couldn’t. Instead, JB was lying senseless, face down in the dirt, as the alien revealed itself, gliding out from the cover of the nearby stand of trees.

  It ignored the dog and the old man despite the shotgun, and made no attempt to pursue them as they both quickly retreated out of sight. Instead, it made directly for JB, intent on completing the kill. It still held the weapon that fired the projectile, a weapon that was designed to debilitate, and not to kill. The being produced another device in its tentacles. It made the necessary adjustments to ensure that both it and the primitive would be teleported to its intended destination. There, the Abomination would be dissected and studied. Once and for all, it would reveal the mystery of how its stolen medical technology had evolved in ways never intended.

  Before the alien could initiate the transport, it was taken off guard by the fierce growls from the large, black dog that had suddenly materialized behind it. The off-worlder whirled around to confront its new adversary only to become aware of fast approaching vibrations that were coming towards it from the opposite direction. It maneuvered quickly on its tentacles, turning around again, but it was not quick enough. The immense impact from the massive tree trunk caught it head-on. The force of the wooden log, suspended by a chain from the motorized winch overhead, was more than enough to drive the crudely sharpened point, deep into the upper half of the alien. The impact completely macerated its torso and its small, triangular head.

  Knocked forcefully backward, the mangled mess of alien remains splattered onto the ground. “Mad Marvin”, came out from inside of the house, where he had released his pendulum defense missile. He approached JB cautiously and crouched down beside him, while mindful of the wooden log that was still swinging from the rope and chain from which it hung.

  “Maybe he was telling the truth, Jansky,” Marvin exclaimed, out of breath, addressing the dog. “Looks like he’s hurt bad!” He took off his T-shirt and balled it up to staunch the considerable bleeding. However, when he pressed it onto the wound, he felt a hard, flat object directly under the skin. “What the he
ll is this?”

  Marvin probed the wound, and his fingers found the edges of the thing that had penetrated the skin in JB’s back. He yanked the bloody projectile out without hesitation and spared it a brief glance. The small, featureless, metallic disc was shaped like a pointed egg on its leading edge, and flat and rounded on the back. Marvin tossed it aside and went to press his shirt into the wound again, but there was no need. The bleeding had already stopped on its own.

  The next sequence of events occurred in quick succession, causing Marvin to doubt his own eyes. First, the wound in the young man’s back quickly knitted itself together as he watched. Seconds later, his uninvited guest regained consciousness, and immediately rolled over and sat up, seemingly good as new. At the same time, a strange, shining cloud emerged from the corpse of the dead alien. It resembled a plume of sparkling smoke as it swiftly drifted over to his unwelcome visitor. Then as Marvin watched, the vaporous emanation appeared to be wholly absorbed into the young man’s body. More surprisingly, the young man was paying no attention to that, almost as if such a thing was a routine occurrence.

  JB, calmly got to his feet, deftly avoiding the large log still hanging overhead and studied the remains of the alien. He watched impassively as its body continued to rapidly decompose and dissolve away, like ice melting in the morning sun.

  “Was that the other means y’all were talkin’ ‘bout?” JB asked, pointing to the log as he watched the last of the alien’s remains evaporate.

  “Worked didn’t it?” Marvin replied. “Now, suppose you tell me what just happened,” Marvin said, one hand on the shotgun at his side.

  “Like I was sayin’, I ain’t no alien. Fact o’ the matter is, them is lookin’ t’ get me on ‘count of what I got inside me. That thing it shot me with, made ‘em stop workin’. Figure it was fixin’ t’ kill me… Or worse.’”

  Marvin cocked his head, giving JB an appraising stare. “Is that so?”

  JB noted Marvin wasn’t fazed in the least by the alien’s appearance, so he asked, “Y’all seen them things before?”

  “Yes… A long time ago, but I knew they’d be coming back. That’s why I’m ready. We’ve got an old score to settle.”

  “Well, it ain’t with me,” JB said. “Y’all nearly killed me with that there trap!”

  “An’ I still might. Depends on what you say next. How do I know you’re not one of them, trying to win my confidence?”

  “Y’all saw what happened. Them is trying real hard to take me down, an’ they probably would’a done it, ‘cept for you an’ your dog.” JB gave Marvin a sharp look and added, “But why would y’all think they’d be comin’ after you?”

  “That’s my business!” Marvin snapped.

  “If y’all say so. But they weren’t interested in y’all were they?”

  Marvin stood silently while the big, black Lab came over and sat down at his feet. Still eyeing JB suspiciously he said, “How the hell did you manage to get a hold of alien technology?”

  “Long story short, I ran over one of them aliens in the road, an’ the next thing I know a whole mess o’ little critters are all inside me. But, the thing is, they fixed me up… In ways you can’t imagine,” JB said. He looked Marvin straight in the eye and added, “Crazy part is, I’m a lot more human now than I was before them things got in me.”

  “So first, they shoot you with that thing to neutralize the tech in your body…” Marvin said, pointing to the blood-stained metal object lying on the ground. “Then what?”

  “Don’t know. I reckon the aliens are after my Sawbonites. Every time I kill one o’ them, more of them little critters join up with me.”

  “Is that what I just saw happen? You absorbing the alien’s tech?”

  “Yes, sir. Don’t know why, but in my body, they make me harder to kill than even them aliens are.” He paused, not knowing just how much information he should share. But at this point, he didn’t think it mattered, so he kept on talking. “I think the other reason they’re after me is to find out how it is that I can do plenty of other stuff with ‘em that they can’t. It’s the only reason I’ve managed t’ stay alive this long.”

  Marvin took a long sideways glance at his dog, who had cocked its head and returned the look with its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth. He said, “Well, Jansky here thinks you’re alright. I guess I’ll go with that… For now. You got a name?”

  “Jim Bob Tucker… My friends call me JB.”

  “Well JB, let’s get you inside and see what you’re all about. I think you should clean up first, ‘cause you look like shit.”

  Steve Zuckerman has had a long career as a music composer, orchestrator, and author. He began his musical career at nineteen, writing and creating the soundtracks for many “Sesame Street” animated shorts. He has also scored films ranging from the uber-campy “Spawn of the Slithis” to the super-sweet “Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore”. Additionally, he’s created literally hundreds of television commercials and has published numerous short stories and several novels. He and his wife make their home in California, and spend much of their time traveling and visiting family in Arizona and Alaska.