by Strand, Jeff
I did neither. I kept searching the cabin.
"Hello?" I called out. "Is anybody in here?"
Nobody answered.
"I'm a cop," I said. "He's dead. You don't have to—"
I froze.
What the hell was that?
There were four artificial heads, the kind you keep wigs on, lined up on a shelf. Three of them were being used to display the cut-off faces of young women. But the second one from the left had a long, gray, oval-shaped face with enormous eyeholes.
It looked like an alien. Exactly like an alien, the kind you see in the sketches when attention-seeking whackos swear that they were abducted and probed.
I touched its cheek. It didn't feel like rubber, or plastic, or anything synthetic. It's not like I could say, "Yep, that's a real alien face, all right," but despite having no basis for comparison, it sure felt real.
Had one of the Lakeland Mangler's victims been an alien?
No. That was insane. I was quite understandably in a state of shock right now, and I could be forgiven for a brief moment of crazy whacked-out madness where I thought it had any possibility of being an actual alien face.
So what was it? A collectible? A practical joke for the inevitable police discovery of this cabin? Something to amuse him as he gazed into the lifeless faces of his real victims?
I touched it again. If he'd preserved it as he had the human faces, it wouldn't feel real anyway, so the fact that it did feel real meant that it wasn't real.
I was confusing myself.
The most crucial things to remember were that, a) my brain wasn't functioning normally right now, and that b) aliens did not exist. That second point was the most important one. Aliens did not exist. This was the equivalent of digging through a child's toy chest and believing that an action figure was incontrovertible proof of the existence of Bigfoot.
I was in a cabin surrounded by the body parts of a serial killer's victims, and somehow I thought I'd discovered life on Mars. This was not okay. I needed to pull myself together.
Or did I? Cloak was dead. There was no evidence of any prisoners that needed to be freed. Why shouldn't I focus my attention on the mystery of the weird alien face instead of the horrors that were all around me? Try to lower my therapy bill in advance.
I decided to keep looking. See what other souvenirs he had lying around. I knew, for example, that one of the hands nailed to the wall was Abigail's, because it was still wearing the sapphire ring that her grandmother, my mother-in-law, had given her last Christmas. So if he'd really stabbed an alien to death and taken its face and other parts back to the cabin, I'd find the other parts.
Another shelf had two large glass jars, side by side, filled with colorless liquid. And eyeballs.
Along with their faces, all of his victims were missing their eyes when the bodies were discovered. The eyeballs in the jar on the right all looked as normal as they could when no longer in their sockets. But in the jar on the left, mixed in with the normal eyes, were two much larger ones. They were shaped like eggs, though about twice that size. No pupils. Completely black.
If a pair of eyeballs had indeed been cut out of an alien head, they would look just like these.
They weren't real. No way were they real.
And even if I were inclined to unscrew the lid and plunge my hand into a jar full of eyeballs, as a police officer at a crime scene I couldn't be tampering with evidence. I really shouldn't have even touched the alien face.
A disgraced police officer.
On suspension.
Yes, I'd be a hero for bringing down the Lakeside Mangler, and I was sure I'd be completely reinstated, but the department had thrown me under the bus when our first attempt to capture him went bad. Somebody had to take the fall. It was me.
I continued looking around and quickly found a pair of alien hands nailed to the wall. They had long, grey, slender fingers.
I wished Cloak were still alive so I could ask him about this.
Where the hands had been severed, I could see a couple of exposed bones. The tissue was red. Apparently aliens bled the same color as humans, rather than black or green. Good to know. If this was phony, the attention to detail was remarkable. Maybe not accurate, but remarkable.
Screw it. Nobody could fault me for touching alien parts. When backup got here, they'd be whisked away and I might never get another chance. I didn't want to be lying on my deathbed, regretting that I didn't do my own little scientific investigation.
I ran my index finger down the length of one of the hands. It sure felt like a hand. Special effects artists could do amazing things, but their work wasn't typically meant to be examined up-close like this.
If only Cloak kept more of the bodies. Heads, torsos, arms, legs; the things that would be more difficult to convince me were real. I wanted to see the internal organs, touch them, find something that was clearly made out of foam latex.
I searched some more. There was a small television in the corner, and a shelf of videos. In addition to a surprising selection of romantic comedies and inspirational dramas, there was a row of VHS tapes labeled with names. Heather. Laurie. Nicole B. Nicole M. Abigail. (I clenched my fists and took a couple of long deep breaths to compose myself.) And, yes, one labeled Alien.
I picked up the tape and popped open the case. The front label, in Cloak's perfect, tiny writing, also said Alien.
This probably wasn't a bootleg copy of the 1979 classic.
Why did he use VHS? Had he always recorded his killings in this format and wasn't willing to break from it? Was it because a VHS camcorder couldn't get hacked? Was the Lakeland Mangler a hipster?
It didn't matter. I was going to watch that alien tape. Hell yeah, I was. The reason Cloak could have all of his souvenirs out on display was because this cabin was a bitch to get to, and I had plenty of time to myself before anybody else arrived.
I turned on the television, popped the cassette into the VCR, and pressed play.
A shot of a two-story house. The camera zoomed in on a second-floor window. The image went in and out of focus, but it seemed to be a teenaged girl in her bedroom, dancing. It was energetic, uncoordinated dancing, exactly what people meant when they said "Dance like nobody's watching!" Dance like a serial killer isn't recording you through your bedroom window.
I watched for a moment, then fast-forwarded. It went on for quite a while. When the bedroom light went out, he kept taping.
The scene switched to daylight: the girl walking down the sidewalk, wearing a backpack.
Back to night. Behind a strip mall or something. Even on fast-forward, this shot lasted for at least a minute, until a door opened. I resumed normal speed as the girl, in a dirty apron, walked outside with a garbage bag, which she heaved into a dumpster.
Then a park. Still night, but the girl had a different haircut. She was walking and bopping her head to whatever music she was listening to through her headphones, but frowned as she seemed to notice Cloak recording her. The camera swung away from her. The shot went blurry, though I'm pretty sure I was just watching the ground as he hurriedly walked away.
I fast-forwarded until the camera spun around. Cloak pointed it at his own face, then ran his hand over his forehead, doing an exaggerated "wiping off sweat" gesture.
"Whew, that was close!" he whispered. He winked.
Then there was a bright blue light.
The camera swung around again. The light, in the middle of a field, was so bright that I couldn't quite see the source of it.
"What the hell?" Cloak asked.
The light shot up into the sky. The camera tilted upward to follow it, but there was just darkness. The camera moved around in a motion sickness-inducing manner for a while, with Cloak clearly trying to locate the UFO.
Finally, he swung it back down to where the light had originated.
The camera jolted. There was an alien right freaking there. Cloak could've reached out and touched it.
There were no surprises in its appe
arance. It looked just like the alien I imagined from seeing the face, hands, and eyeballs. It held up its hand, as if to convey the classic message: We come in peace.
Cloak stabbed it in the chest.
He kept filming as it fell to the ground.
Then the scene switched to a new location. Cloak's cabin. The alien was tied to a bed, still alive.
And then I was watching a goddamn alien snuff movie. Torture porn.
I was fascinated for a couple of minutes, but then I had to fast-forward. Cloak, who took frequent breaks to mug for the camera, slashed away at the thrashing alien as if it were one of his human victims. It was alive throughout the process of mangling its arms and legs, not going still until most of its torso was skinless.
When he went at its eyeballs, I turned off the tape.
Holy shit.
Aliens were real.
I just sat there for a long moment, trying to process this knowledge. Though I very much doubted that alien spaceships were regularly landing on farms, probing butts left and right, somebody had been telling the truth.
I'd touched an alien face.
Unbelievable.
I stood up. This was my discovery. Nobody else's. I wasn't going to let the government spooks take this away from me.
I ejected the cassette and put it back in its case. I walked over to the sink and opened the cabinet underneath it. Nothing there but cleaning supplies, but after opening a couple of drawers I found a roll of garbage bags.
I tore off a bag and put the tape in it. Then I tossed in the head with the alien face. I pulled the alien hands off the wall and put them in the bag as well. I looked around until I found the alien feet, which I added to my collection.
Obviously, I couldn't reach into the jar for the alien eyes without potentially leaving DNA behind. Even if I put on a pair of rubber gloves, it was a bad idea. I was just going to have to take the whole jar of eyeballs. I felt terrible about that, but the victims could be identified from the other parts. It wasn't as if their families would experience less heartbreak if they knew their daughters' eyeballs had been recovered.
I did a careful sweep of the cabin, making certain I hadn't missed any evidence of visitors from other worlds. Then I took the bag outside and put it in the trunk of my car. Not a great hiding spot, but it wasn't like anybody was going to search my vehicle. If Abigail's hand was still displayed on the wall, ring on the finger, it was safe to say that nobody would accuse me of swiping any body parts.
Backup finally arrived. If any of my fellow cops thought I was acting strange, well, I'd just shot a serial killer dead and found parts of my niece in his cabin of horrors. Hell, after walking in there, they were all acting kind of strange, too. There was zero suspicion.
As expected, I was a hero. I mean, I did get chewed out for some violations of protocol, but Cloak was dead; it wasn't as if he was going to get off on a technicality.
I hid the bag of alien parts under my bed.
Then I bought a VCR from a pawn shop so I could rewatch the video.
I watch it every once in a while. Not the gory parts; just the moment where the alien appears. I freeze-frame it and sit there, studying my television screen.
I look at the alien face, hands, and feet. And, yes, the eyeballs. I threw up twice during the process of scooping out the human ones, blending them up, and flushing them down the toilet, but now I only have the alien eyes in the jar. When I stare at them I like to think that they're staring back at me.
Should I share this with somebody else? Maybe. And maybe someday I will. Until then, I love the idea that I may be the only one who knows the truth beyond any shadow of a doubt. I'm the only one who can prove it. It's not like I'm God or anything, but it does feel like I'm at a higher level than everybody else.
I could be rich and famous someday. But I'm in no hurry.
The only thing that concerns me? The alien probably wasn't here alone. What if the others saw Cloak stab it? What if that's how they see humanity? What if their entire perception of our kind is based on a psychopathic thrill-killer?
I lose sleep over that.
This whole thing might end really badly.
But for now, it's just me and my alien.
APOCALYPSE OF THE YARD GNOME
"It's just you and me," said Sammy. "You and me against the world. We'll show them. We'll show them all."
Milton, who was a yard gnome, did not answer. He was not a magical talking yard gnome, or a magical moving yard gnome, or even a cursed yard gnome whose active mind was trapped in an immobile stone body. He was just a standard-issue yard gnome, purchased from a department store, with nothing to contribute to the conversation.
"Soon it'll be the apocalypse," said Sammy, with a crooked-toothed grin that Milton's painted-on eyes could not see. "Soon they'll all be dead, and oh, how you and I will laugh! They'll all suffer for the way they've treated me!"
The truth of the matter is that Sammy was not treated with any notable amount of cruelty. His number of friends was well above the national average. He'd never spent his birthday or a major holiday alone. His parents lived next door, but they didn't meddle in his business; they merely invited him over every Sunday for a delicious brunch. His co-workers were all friendly and generally upbeat, and though Sammy wouldn't stock grocery shelves as a hobby, as a day job it really wasn't so bad. He was actually treated remarkably well, especially for a guy who talked to a yard gnome.
At twenty-nine, he didn't have a girlfriend, but it wasn't as if he'd never had a girlfriend. He'd had six of them, and four of them had indeed engaged in sexual intercourse with him. He and his last girlfriend, Chloe, had broken up several months ago, but it wasn't a particularly hostile breakup, and they'd even gotten together for a bonus tryst one night when Chloe was drunk, lonely, and suffering from temporary self-esteem issues.
So, really, his constant talk of laughing during the apocalypse was unwarranted. Many of the people who might be swept away in the river of lava were decent human beings, and to be honest, if people had treated him poorly, he would have been deserving of their scorn.
"Yes, Milton, the apocalypse will be here any day now, and I cannot wait!"
Milton was too un-alive to even think, "Why do you keep talking to an inanimate object?" There literally was nothing going on inside that gnome.
Ironically, Sammy had a perfectly good dog, a Yorkshire terrier, in which he could have confided. No, the dog did not understand the English language beyond its name (Waggy) and a few simple commands (sit, stay, fetch) but at least the dog was a living creature. It would have occasionally looked at Sammy while he spoke, and perhaps licked his hand when he was done sharing his venomous thoughts about the tragic fate of the human race. Waggy was a nice little dog with a sweet and feisty personality; a far better conversation partner than Milton. Yet Waggy sat inside, gnawing on a squeaky chew toy, while Sammy sat on the back porch, confiding in a yard gnome.
"Any day now," said Sammy. "Any day."
It's actually fortunate that Milton was such a complete non-participant in the dialogue that was currently occurring, considering the repetitious nature of what Sammy was saying. A cognizant being would have eventually said, "You've made your point about the apocalypse happening any day now; could we please move on to something else?" But Milton's demeanor did not change, no matter how tiresome Sammy's words became.
Milton wasn't even a very good gnome. He'd been on sale for half-price in the clearance aisle because he was kind of scraped up. There'd been a few others in the same condition, so presumably that shipment had been insufficiently packaged. There was nothing remarkable about Milton in terms of design, coloring, or anything, really, and Sammy's decision to purchase that particular yard gnome hadn't been based on any criteria beyond a cursory glance to see which one was the least scratched up. (And his choice had been incorrect; there were two others with less surface damage.)
So it cannot be overemphasized just how pointless it was for Sammy to be sitting there
sharing his apocalyptic desires to this gnome. "Get a life, you ridiculous loser!" is a rude thing to say in most social situations, but here it would have been completely appropriate.
"Yeah, when the—" Sammy said. His sentence was not cut off. It was, in fact, a rather lengthy sentence, but do you really need to hear it? It's just more of the same. Jesus H. Christ. If I could bash him over the head with a shovel to shut him up, I'd do it in a...
Hmmmm.
I am, as you've probably noticed, an omniscient narrator. I know Sammy's thoughts, and I know that Milton isn't alive. The part about Milton not being alive is common sense, of course, but to truly know that, you'd have to be an omniscient narrator like me.
However, omniscience isn't the same as omnipotence. If I were an all-powerful being, believe me, Sammy would be doing a hell of a lot more than sitting around talking to a yard gnome. There would be explosions. Unfortunately, my job is to observe and report, not to actually impact the things that are happening (or not happening, as with this pathetic little twerp).
Technically, I'm not supposed to be editorializing or using words like "twerp," but that's excusable in extreme cases. Believe me, I'm also tempted to use vulgar language, though hopefully it won't come to that.
I apologize for intruding upon the narrative. That was unprofessional. I return you to your story.
"Everybody dead," said Sammy. "Wouldn't that be fantastic, Milton? Wouldn't it be great? I'd write a song about it. Maybe I should write the song now, so I can have it ready to sing when the apocalypse happens." Sammy thought about that for a moment. "Nah, I'll write it later."
Oh, for God's sake. It would be different if he were actually taking steps to make the apocalypse happen. I'm not sure how one would go about such a task, but even if he had some laughable, inept, poorly conceived plan that was never going to work, I could respect that. But he's just being totally passive about it.
And here's something else: he doesn't even have a survival plan in place. That's right, he just assumes that when the apocalypse happens, he and his stupid little yard gnome are going to be just fine. Where did he get that idea? Hey, here's an idea: how about you at least keep a few extra cans of food around the house? If all of these people who have been oh-so-very mean to you are going to die horrible deaths, doesn't it make sense that you might also be in a smidgen of physical danger?
