"--just crazy," a male voice said as the break room door opened. It was Maurice Schultz, current VP of marketing, talking to Elisha Berger, director of product development.
"A door-knob is one thing," Schultz was saying. "A door-bell is another. You don't go combining the two. It's unnatural." Maurice noticed Gerta at the fridge. "Oh, hello, uh…"
“Gerta.” Gerta had transformed back to her usual self, and she was closing the freezer door with a grumpy look on her face.
"Right," Schultz said. "Of course. Gerta. Must have slipped my mind."
"Can you believe they voted off Gary?" Gerta asked.
Maurice and Elisha exchanged looks.
"What do you mean?" Elisha asked.
"On Dancing with the Stars. He was my favorite. Didn't you watch?"
"Sorry," Elisha said.
"It's all rigged, I'll bet ya. They just want the pretty girl to win." Gerta lumbered out of the room, shaking her head.
Maurice and Elisha fell right back into their conversation, as if Gerta hadn't left the slightest impression on either of them. I thought of a vampire hypnotizing his victims. Or the flashy thing from Men in Black. I watched the two executives and waited for my chance to come out of the closet.
***
I didn't mention it to Stacy, or anybody, the next day. There was no way to explain it. Gerta wasn't human. She was some kind of space alien, maybe. But what kind of alien intelligence crossed the galaxy to spend years working in an office building? In Minneapolis? Maybe she was interdimensional. Maybe she was a supernatural horror. I'd read enough comic books to have plenty of ideas.
Friday, I decided what to do. We had a birthday cake for Hector, our security manager. As usual, the moment the knife touched the icing, a couple dozen visitors shuffled into the break room, women from all departments who didn't know Hector and didn't care whose birthday it was, in particular.
Gerta was among them, in no way distinguishable from the two women who accompanied her. They griped about the heaters on their floor, and didn't stop griping until they each had a fat square of cake on a paper saucer. They devoured their pieces, saying little, occasionally glancing at the large remaining body of cake on the table. Gerta's eyes tracked me as I closed the cake box and set it on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.
Back in our own department, I approached Stacy's cube and whispered, "I know who's been eating your lunch."
Stacy, absorbed in the numbers on her monitor, shrieked and jumped in her chair. She scowled at me over her shoulder.
"Sorry," I said.
"Don't sneak up. What is it?"
"I found out about your lunches."
"Really!" She swiveled around to face me. It was Friday, short-hippie-dress day. I struggled to keep my eyes on her face, feeling embarrassed. "Who is it?" she asked.
"I can't explain. I have to show you."
Her eyes narrowed. "Just give me a name." On her armrest, her hand balled into a fist. “Who's been eating my lunch?”
"Can you hang around after work a few minutes?"
"I'd rather not."
"I know, but you have to see this."
"I don't want to," she said. But she agreed.
***
"You're kidding, right?" Stacy asked. I was standing inside the supply closet, holding open the door for her. "This is really weird, Dave. You're creeping me out."
"Hurry up," I said. "It's almost five o' clock."
Footsteps approached outside the break room door.
"Come on!" I whispered.
Stacy shook her head, then stepped into the supply closet with me. I closed the closet door as the break room door opened.
I thought it was Gerta at first, but it was just a woman who resembled her. She crossed to the fridge, extracted a thermos, and left.
"Dave," Stacy whispered. "Why can't you just tell me?"
"I need a witness."
"A witness? I don't like this...”
"Sh!"
The door opened again. A few more employees gathered lunchboxes and rinsed coffee mugs. By five-fifteen, the break room was as quiet and empty as the rest of the building, like a hive after the bees get smoked out.
"This is stupid," Stacy began to stand up. "I'm gonna go. I have to pee, anyway."
The door opened again. I grabbed Stacy and pulled her down toward me, clapping a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide, and she probably decided I was a violent lunatic.
"Shhh!" I whispered. "Just watch. Okay?"
Stacy nodded her head, but the frightened look didn't leave her face. She was rigid, ready to fight back.
Gerta opened the refrigerator door and double-checked that she was alone. She extended her fleshy trunk again, and this time it stretched out until it was nearly three feet long.
Stacy squealed a little, and her hands clamped down on my arm. She'd gone from preparing to claw at my eyes to grabbing me for reassurance, or at least to help keep her balance.
"Shh," I whispered.
Gerta's trunk flipped open the cake box, then snorted up a fat red line of frosting along one edge. Her lips punched into the center of Hector's cake. As she sucked, the cake crumpled in from all sides. She slurped the cake up and away through her trunk. It looked like a snake swallowing a rabbit.
All ten of Stacy's fingernails stabbed into my arm, and I had to bite my lip not to yelp.
Gerta wasn't satisfied. Her trunk scooped up yogurt cups, squeezed them until they burst, then guzzled up the contents. She sucked a forgotten brown-bag lunch until the bag lay flat, then chugged a bottle of ranch dressing, which had the words PROPERTY OF AMY, DO NOT USE!!! written on the label in fat black marker.
"So many carbs," Stacy whispered.
Gerta cleaned out the refrigerator. When she was done, she backed up a few steps and stood in the center of the room. She raised her trunk and ejected a puff of dense yellow smoke.
"What's she doing?" Stacy whispered.
"I don't know."
Then the smell hit us, and my stomach surged. I swallowed back vomit. Stacy blanched and pulled the front of her short hippie dress up over her nose, which actually revealed her hips and her lacy green panties, which I forced myself not to look at. They seemed pretty skimpy for office panties, though.
Gerta belched and burbled, and I could hear splashing sounds deep in her stomach. Her face snapped back into human shape, and she turned around to face the closet where we hid.
Stacy and I held our breath.
Gerta opened her mouth, and it kept opening, as if her jaw had become unhinged. Her mouth expanded into a cavernous red maw lined with a ring of teeth. Then the entire mouth inched forward out of her face, and it looked like she was forming a much larger mouth tube. Maybe one big enough to consume humans.
I looked around for a weapon, but the best I could find was a six-pack of Diet Coke. I worked my fingers into a plastic ring, readying myself to bash the monster with it.
But Gerta backed off. She tilted her head up, and her tongue stretched out several feet and attached to the ceiling. The wormlike tongue segments that had been coiled deep inside her bristled with warts and stiff black hairs.
The tongue towed her body up after it. Her mouth pressed against the ceiling tile like a suction cup. She swayed there for a minute, a four-hundred pound mass of beaded kitten sweater, elastic pants and extra-wide orthopedic shoes, clinging like a lamprey eel at the belly of a fish.
Stacy drew close to me and whispered, "Do you think she knows we're here?"
"I don't know."
"Should we go?"
"Not yet," I whispered.
So we waited, huddling together in the dark, looking up at the bizarre monstrosity dangling between the fluorescent bars.
"What do you think it is?" I asked Stacy.
"I don't know," she said. "But it's a lunch thief."
Time did not move. We sat and watched, and eventually my legs fell asleep again. Stacy clung to me, and I don't know what made me more nervous, her bare
legs against my khakis or the alien monster.
"I think it's sleeping," Stacy whispered.
Then Gerta pulsed. It was like she was taking deep breaths, her whole body expanding and then shrinking. The pulses intensified, the legs and arms collapsing a little with each deflation, ballooning with each inflation.
Finally, Gerta exploded. Sweater beads fired off in every direction like bullets, ricocheting from the walls and linoleum floor. Her body burst like a water balloon, dripping a rancid fluid that reeked of rotten eggs.
Stacy puked onto my shoulder. She got some inside my shirt collar, too.
Two gray masses the size of beach balls dropped along with the foul water. They unrolled as they hit the ground. They were translucent, with shadowy muscles and organs visible behind their skin. They looked like jellyfish arranged in the rough shape of human beings.
Each had a long trunk, which they immediately used to suck the rotten-egg fluid from the floor. They scrambled around on all fours, first devouring all remnants of Gerta, leaving nothing for the janitorial crew to find. Then they headed for the coffee pot and slurped down the sugar, the powdered creamer, and an entire bucket of Folgers ground coffee.
They were ravenous.
Stacy squeezed both my hands. I'd long since abandoned my brilliant plan to use a six-pack of soda as a bludgeon.
After they'd consumed everything in the room, the two creatures stopped in the middle of the floor. They touched the palms of their hands together, and their translucent skin rippled. Clouds of flesh-colored pigment flowed within their bodies, and their loose shapes contracted. Their trunks drew inward towards their faces.
One moment, I might have been looking at a pair of giant, hideous amoebas. The next, they were a naked, hairless man and woman, their palms touching. Then a suit and tie formed on the man's body, and a pastel pantsuit with a pearl brooch formed from the woman's skin.
He looked like a low-level executive with male pattern baldness and a beer gut, while she resembled a bland administrative assistant in her mid-thirties, not much makeup, hair pulled into a tight bun. She even wore glasses.
They broke their hand contact and blinked at each other.
At last, the man raised his hand, index finger extended.
"I…would…like…to create...a PowerPoint," he said.
"Yes, sir." A bubble of translucent skin rose from her hand like a balloon, then resolved into a Palm Pilot.
"Title it: Restructuring Hierarchical Management," he said. "Proactive Solutions for an Emerging Paradigm."
The secretary typed. He continued dictating, his words in pure native corporate-speak, his thoughts pre-arranged into bullet points. They left the break room, probably off to colonize a corner office somewhere.
Stacy and I stared at each other for a long time. When we decided it was safe, we scrambled out of the closet.
***
Stacy faxed in her resignation. I kept the job at Deuschenhoffer for fifteen months, until I moved to Chicago. I never saw Stacy again.
I never saw Gerta's spawn again, either. Something tells me they moved on from manufacturing, perhaps into insurance or finance. They seem to be evolving.
As I move through the corporate world, I find myself wondering how many of them are out there, playing Solitaire, or lingering in the break room, grouching about their foot and back pain. I wonder where they came from, and how they adapted so quickly to our environment, living off coffee, stolen lunches and abandoned fruitcake.
I've never seen one again, as far as I know, but every time I hear an administrative assistant gush about her favorite chocolate cream pie recipe, or an executive sermonize about the need to strategize outside the box to meet a dynamic market environment, I wonder.
I just hope they don't start taking over the IT departments.
Spectrum
by JL Bryan
from The Knoxville Observer:
DIXIE LEE JUNCTION, TN—A meteroid crashed into a Shoney's parking lot at 7:15 PM, destroying cars and the Shoney's sign itself, while dozens of diners were enjoying the buffet.
“It was just a big whizz-dang-doo!” explained Corbelle Moobley, an eyewitness. She had just exited the Shoney's with her two daughters, Krystal and Karrie (7 and 9), when the object passed through her Chevrolet and several other cars before making a green, gas-filled crater behind the Shoney's. “It left a big smokey ditch right through the parking lot. Things was all melty and black. I'm having a heck of a time with the insurance and all.”
“The lights went out, and the whole Shoney's filled right up with an awful green glow,” recalled Mikey Stephens, 48, an auto mechanic who was eating dinner with an unidentified young woman. “Then wham! That thing hit the parking lot, and your spaghetti jumped right off your plate. Spilled my iced tea, too. Never did get my refill.”
Police and firefighters were called to the scene, but they handed it over to Homeland Security and experts from the National Institute of Exploratory Science, dispatched from the federal research facility at Oak Ridge. The entire area was sealed, with assistance from the National Guard, for more than twenty-four hours while NIES trucks drove in and out.
“The object in question was simply a large, unstable rock,” said Dr. Gabrielle Hernandez, a special projects manager at NIES. “It was coated in a layer of volatile chemicals that ignite in the presence of oxygen. That's why you hear reports of burning green gas. We've since removed the object from the crater behind the Shoney's, and health authorities are checking for any lingering hazards.”
Shoney's franchise owner Asif Patel plans to rebuild. “I will be open for business as soon as the government lets me repair the parking lot,” he said. “When that happy day comes, please try one of our early bird dinner specials.”
***
Text message from GABBY to EVAN:
Might be in Tenn longer than expected! Insane here! Sorry! Love Gab
***
NIES Internal Report #XB011 (classified)
FROM: Dr. Gabrielle Hernandez, Special Projects Manager
TO. Dr. Jamal Stephens, Director of Research
RE: Exobiological entity
Dr. Stephens,
The examination of the craft wreckage has been taken over by the Air Force. I can only say that it was small and contained four dead specimens.
One occupant survives. In terms of Earth species, it is most similar to a cephalopod, in particular a giant octopus. It can change color to blend with its surroundings, indicating the presence of chromatophores in its skin. The camouflage is rendered so well as to leave him invisible to the human eye, at times. Complex patterns of color have been observed, and our biologists suggest it may be a form of communication. These patterns are being documented for possible interpretation.
We found that he thrives in saltwater, and as approved by your office, we have furnished a ten thousand gallon saltwater aquarium for his habitat. Gradual introduction of seaweed and primitive ocean creatures has proven successful as a source of nutrition. We have developed his habitat with caution, introducing mollusks and crustaceans, on the hypothesis that the oldest forms of ocean life are likely to be closest to the most common organisms in our universe. He is omnivorous, and thus far our ocean plants and animals seem to provide adequate sustenance.
So the specimen continues to thrive. In response to your concerns, yes, we continue to work on the communication problem. We have yet to observe any sign of hostile intent.
***
Encrypted Email
FROM: Jamal Stephens, Director of Research, NIES
TO: Edward N. Gruber, Assistant Secretary of Defense
SUBJECT: Oak Ridge developments
Assistant Secretary Gruber,
Update on the Oak Ridge situation. Survivor stabilized. No communication with survivor as yet, but indications this will be possible. However, a timeframe cannot be predicted. Whatever the timeframe may be, it can only be accelerated with additional funding and staff.
The researcher in c
harge has observed no evidence of hostility, but it is impossible to know the thing's purpose or intent. Additional security measures are requested to keep the situation in lockdown.
The specimen is described as “like a giant octopus.” Per instructions, I cannot create or share digital pictures of the specimen.
***
Email
FROM: Evan Kurbow
TO: Gabrielle Hernandez
SUBJECT: Re: Extended stay in The Secret City...
Are you sure it's going to be MONTHS??
And I do understand. You're ears-deep in some crazy project you can't talk about. That's exciting, isn't it? I'm excited for you. Can't wait until you can come home and tell me about it. Does it have anything to do with that meteor? Just wink once if yes.
I miss you.
Love,
Evan
***
Lab Journal Entry--
Dr. Gabrielle Hernandez
More observations!
The specimen continues to enjoy its seafood diet, and we've introduced a few species of fish as well. Its ability to mimic other organisms is extraordinary. Through changes in color, texture and shape, it has taken the form of a giant-sized version of the crabs in its tank, as well as a large purple anemone with black spots. Once, it appeared to be a school of strange fish, with transparent skin and bioluminescent internal organs.
This led me to study the mimic octopus of Indonesia. The mimic octopus can imitate a number of species, including poisonous fish, jellyfish and sea snakes. It uses mimicry to hide from predators and to hunt prey in disguise, pretending to be either a harmless species or a potential mate. It is my hypothesis that Spectrum's primitive ancestors may have been similar to the mimic octopus.
Dark Tomorrows, Second Edition Page 5
