I walk to the center of the hole and now the noise of the crowd is muffled. I figure it's the barrier, which I can detect now that I'm under it. There's a faint kind of shimmer above me like motor oil on water, and it continues in an arc over the crater. I continue on until I'm a short distance from that crazy ship, which is the only other thing I see in here.
Suddenly a hatch springs open and I see the spaceman emerge. He steps out and I'm getting my first view of him in person. He plants his feet in the dust and eyes me with his little black eyes, flicking his tail every now and then. I half expect his tongue to dart out and lick his eye like a chameleon.
His chest and feet are bare, and he's got nothing on except these colorful shorts that shimmer lie aluminum foil and reflect every color depending on how the light hits them. Maybe they're intimidating where he come s from, but they're a little too fabulous to threaten me. He stares me down and I see his little needle teeth exposed. I don't even give him the satisfaction of mean-mugging him back.
“Let's get on with it, space-man, what do ya say?”
I think it narrows its eyes at me, but it could be my imagination, maybe they're already as small a they get, and it really is a very human gesture. But anyhow, he looks pissed.
I tell thing to hang on for a second while I kneel down and press my hands flat into the red dust and work the grit real good into my palms so I got sometime to grab the space man with and it ain't too slippery. I proceed toward him and he waits for me while I try to stretch the rust out of my shoulders and arms. When I'm done, I get into a stance and nod once. That nod is all the croc-man needs. He's eager, I can tell. After that we get it on.
We circle each other a bit to start with. There is always an anticipation when fighting an unknown opponent. You may have seen him fight before, but you don't really know what's it like being in with him, not really. You're never sure of how fast the other guy is or how hard he hits until something connects. He throws a left from range at me and I doge it pretty easily. I have a feeling after a little, neither of us are going to be throwing blows from outside too much. It'll be ugly, with lots of inside work if I can have my way. I'm a little concerned about the boots at first because they might make me lose a step or two, but up close I see how the things tree trunk legs are thick and he doesn't have the dance in him that I do. I can use my footwork to get in and out, while he'll mostly have to be flat-footed. He'll be able to sit down on his punches, but I'll be faster, even in these clunky boots.
I test this strategy, and try to work inside with feints and head movement. I'm successful. I throw a good uppercut into the region under his armpit that Ortega point out. I feel good getting off first and maybe take too much satisfaction in the involuntary shudder I send up the dude's body. I admire my work, which is a mistake. Take a picture, and flashbulbs go off, is what the old timers say. They do. The spaceman lands a brutal left hand on my jaw that staggers me, and then he grabs me around the chest, and draws me in for the bear hug.
Whatever he's got in mind don't work out, and I wriggle away. Lucky I'm greased up like a pornstar's asshole and I slide out of his grip. It's a horrible sensation, road rash is instant and the thing's scaly skin is like asphalt but rougher. I make a skin deposit that I'm not soon able to withdraw.
I'm on the back-foot now and the space man is coming forward. I don't mind it so much, and I bob, weave, feint a jab and send the straight right down the pipeline, which connects with the bottom of the croc's face, where a man's chin should be. I realize immediately that the instinct to land blows like he's human is a mistake. The chin is like granite, and I'm lucky if my hand isn't broken. I see the thing's teeth bared at me in what might be a smile. I shake the pain out of my hand and smile back. His little black eyes are inexpressive, and I wonder what it'll be like when I pop one out with my thumb.
I'm pissed about the pain, about his dumb look, and all I can think about is wiping it off his face, which means I'm thinking nothing about what I should be. I lunge in with a left hook, which is a pretty stupid thing to do from the outside, and I get punished for it. The spaceman smashes me full in the mouth, and then launches a knee into my solar plexus. All the air rushes out of me in one huge breath, and I'm sucking in blood from my busted mouth. I think some of my teeth are wiggling. The croc man senses my vulnerability, momentary as it may be and mercilessly positions himself behind me, and despite the grease, wraps his arms around me, picks me up, and proceeds to bounce me off the ground like he's spiking a football.
I spit blood on the already red dust and have a moment to notice the fascinating contrast of the colors from my vantage on the ground before a foot comes down on the small of my back. Again and again the think stomps me while I curl up defensively. Strangely I hear the crowd in between my own involuntary whimpers, and they're all collectively cringing at the sight of me. I'll admit, a naked, bleeding man whimpering on the ground as he's stomped repeated by a crocodile from space isn't the most heroic image. I decide to do something about it.
I roll hard,as fast as I can, and get some distance before staggering to my feet. I'm up and wobbling, and getting my balance back, and the space man is rushing in for the kill, always coming forward, this guy. I leap in the air and deliver a double drop kick, letting him have it with a move rarely attempted outside of professional wrestling. Ha! He sure as hell wasn't expecting that, and he runs right into it. He drops like a sack of space shit and I hear him wheezing loudly. Mark a point for the Earthling.
Since the space man ain't too shy about hitting when his opponent is on the ground, I figure I shouldn't be either and I let him feel the weight of my boots, focusing particularly on his face with my heel.
His face is a mask of thick yellow blood oozing out of his scaly skin like pus through cracked eczema by the time I'm done with him.
I get carried away, and I fail to notice when the croc lashes out with his razor sharp claws and digs them into my upper thigh, way down deep in the muscle. I draw back, blood pumping down the length of my leg, and I'm in some serious trouble.
Skin is hanging down in a gory flap, and suddenly I'm not able to put too much weight on my left leg. The space man gets to his feet and works his way in toward me. By this point, neither of us feel we have much to fear in one another, and we start swinging toe-to-toe. We trade blows, and right then and there we've decided it's a war of attrition. There isn't any strategy or finesse or art to what we're doing, if there ever was to begin with. We go at it like two angry drunks outside a dive bar. I drive a straight right into the space-man's solar plexus, he sends a left hook into my kidneys. I scramble to work inside and smash him in the face with a headbutt, he steps on my foot and shoves me down. We roll on the ground in a maelstrom of flailing limbs and missed punches and gnashing teeth. I suddenly find myself on top and I'm beating his head into the ground while pinning his chest down with my knees. He kicks out from beneath me and smashes his elbow into the back of my head.
Fuck stars. I'm seeing galaxies. Another blow thuds dully into my head and I'm down. I look up from my back, dizzy and barely conscious, and I see the croc-man leap what must be ten feet vertically, and he's coming down with his knee aiming straight for my head. Time seems to slow down as the space-man descends and his knees gets bigger and bigger, eclipsing my view.
It takes everything I have to whip myself up, but I manage, and I watch as the spaceman comes down, as close to a look of surprise on his face as he's capable of. He crashes down into the dirt, knee first and gives a grunt of pain. I'm on him in a second, and now I'm going for the kill. We're both at the point f exhaustion, desperation is setting in, and now it's either him or me.
I grab him by his fat throat with one hand and hold his head while I unload on him again and again with my other hand. I smash my knuckles into his scaly mug until may hand is dripping with his yellow, snot-looking blood. Pieces of his scales break off and get embedded in my fist, and still I'm driving my hand like a pylon into him. This is it for him. In my mind he's alre
ady dead. All I have to do now is put him down.
A strange sensation forces me to lower my head and examine by own tender flesh. I'm shocked by what I see. God damn, how could I have not have felt it before? The brain damage? The shock? The adrenaline? The overall numbness of constant pain? Some combination of these things. I want to scream, looking down. The whole time I've been working him over, he's clawed out a space in my chest, like he was hollowing out a jack-o-lantern. Blood is pumping out of me like a busted hose pipe. Everything below my chest is slick with hot red, and I'm suddenly aware of how woozy I've become. I feel like I'm about to collapse in my own blood puddle and I reach out to the scaly mess of pus-yellow blood staring back at me. I let go of his throat and jam both of thumbs into the little beads he uses for eyes. I don't care what species you are, what galaxy you came from, if you've got soft organs hanging in the middle of your face, it's a liability.
I spit blood and laugh as the thing makes a bizarre howling sound and removes it's claws from my chest to swat at its wounded eyes. I take the opportunity to pick up a good sized rock, and make toward the flailing space man. A rock, in my opinion, is nature's perfect weapon, depending on who's skull its going up against. I give the bastard one last loose and bloody-toothed grin and raise the rock over my head.
And then it happens. The moment I've been waiting for. The thing that ruined every other good fighter, if they even made it as I got. He only stoops to use it when he's in danger of losing, I knew, and all I had to do was bring that out in him and get him to that point. Well here it was, cheating, scaly bastard. And I was ready for it.
The instant I see the tail flick out at me I drop the rock and grab it. The being register's surprise as I move behind it, still clutching the tail firmly. My theory, if he's like a common Earth lizard, is that this appendage will snap off as a defense mechanism. And if it doesn't? Well, too bad, space man, because it's coming anyway.
The tail squirms and thrashes as I bend it back against the croc-man, but it's no use. I wrench it back, and I feel it loosen at the base of his spine.
The space man lets loose a scream like nothing I've ever heard before and there is a terrific ripping sound as the whole back part of him comes free in my hand. The spaceman falls forward with a massive bloody hole in the back of him. He looks like he's going to be there for a while in my professional opinion, and that's all right with me because as many times as I've bee surprised today, I'm about to get one more.
It takes me awhile to figure out what I'm looking at. The fat end of his tail, that moments ago was connected to his spine, while being caked in yellow gore, also has a number of thin wires hanging out of it. Right away I can see it's not part of his anatomy at all. It's not even organic. The little cheat. His tail was a weapon all along. Some sort of cybernetic appendage that connects to living tissue. Ripping it off the dude must have hurt like hell. I think a part of his spine still might be attached to the wiring. I look over at the space man and he's still conscious, but seriously wounded and lying face-down in the dirt.
I heft the tail in my hand, and wonder how I could ever have considered it part of the being. It's long and segmented, and nothing like his scaly hide at all. It doesn't feel like anything living, and it's incredibly light, but tough.
The adrenaline takes a steep dive at this moment, and now I'm very aware of how much blood I've lost. The rough area in my chest is throbbing. It's a pain that eclipses any wound I've received, and that's saying a lot as I'm certain to a high degree that both my jaw and skull are fractured, and the torn muscle in my thigh is going to keep me limping until the day I die.
Suddenly the appendage twitches in my hand and snaps forward, writhing like the spasms of a dead snake. I hold it by the thick base and exam it. I can't believe my eyes. There's something in it, some part of the machinery that recognizes my flesh. The little thin wires at the end are growing, reaching out to me. The next second, I know what I must do. I take the tail and shove it at the bloody wound in my chest.
The wires take hold instantly. I can feel them becoming a part of me. They're fusing with my nervous system, becoming one with my brain, my organs, flesh of my flesh. I am part machine, and it feels wonderful! I stick out my chest and draw my arms back, reeling with the intensity of this newfound power. I can feel it fused deep into my musculature.
I test the tail out and it moves without me thinking, as easily as a can curl my finger or raise my arm. The new appendage swings with a deadly agility, whip like speed built to kill cleanly and smoothly.
I walk over to the space-man, or what's left of him. He's trying to lift himself from the dust and I stand over him victorious.
“I guess you didn't see the sign before you got to Earth, asshole. It said: no vacancy.”
I flick the tail hanging from the center of my chest, relishing the power. The space-man cowers in my shadow, and he looks up at me with a pleading look on his ruined face. Whether he wants mercy or a swift death, or both I'll never know. Not that it matters, because he ain't getting either.
I wrap the end of the tail around his flabby neck and start to squeeze, slow and steady. I apply pressure and watch his eyes bulge. I squeeze harder and his tongue is hanging out over his little silver needle teeth. I squeeze harder and first one eyes explodes out of its socket followed by the other, both in a fantastic burst of raw gore like a ripe plumb being squashed. I apply the final squeeze, testing the limits of my new limb, and it severs the thing's head with no problem.
The space-man's body slumps forward into the dirt and I make the tail toss the head away. The audience roars in triumph as they watch it roll.
It's done.
The man from the stars has been put down in the dirt.
With the spaceman goes the barrier, somehow it was connected to his consciousness. It's down and the crowd rushes toward me. Millions of screaming idiots wanting to be the first to express gratitude. Every newsman in the world is screaming questions at me, wanting to be the first to interview me. Every leader of every nation in the world racing to be the first to shake my hand.
And out in front of them all, the tide of humanity threatening to wash over me, I see Miranda. Captain Ortega. She's running full speed, smiling at me. It's hard to turn from that smile but I do it.
Fuck 'em all.
I'm nobodies hero, I think, as I board the space-man's ship. They want to give me a parade or whatever. I don't need it. I got better ideas. I watch my tail, deft as a finger as it pushes in coordinates, and depresses buttons and levers. I tell it to take me back to the thing's home planet.They got a big surprise coming to them when I get there. I look down at Earth one last time before I blast off into the infinite galaxy. My former home planet turns into a tiny blue speck floating in nothing. I turn away from it. I'm not looking in that direction any more. I'm going somewhere new. And God help them if they don't have a stronger son of a bitch than the one I just killed.
If this ship can broadcast a message, tell them: The Earth man's coming.
Make Thy Body a Temple
People were always wondering whether Allen Palin fucked dead bodies. They didn't just come right out and say it. They said 'You ever want to fool around with any of those stiffs,Al?' To which he'd say, 'About as much as your accountant wants to fuck your taxes.' It wasn't such an unusual, question, not for him anyway: a forensic pathologist working for the county medical examiner's office. But the people that asked, he almost pitied them. Their realities were shaped by television cliches. Maybe on TV the pathologists were ghoulish corpsefuckers, but this was real life, and in real life Allen Palin kept things strictly professional. After all, he was sort of strict and professional.
He was also thin. Alarmingly thin. His wrists bones jutted out like sharp rocks from a narrow stream. His long, spindly fingers, delicate as spider legs, made men visibly uncomfortable when they shook hands. He looked out at the world with too-big sunken eyes ringed in brown against his pale skin. He was paranoid about obesity. He measured his food in p
recisely calculated portions. He exercised every day, and never ate anything remotely unhealthy. Looking over his meager frame in the mirror would convince him that there was weight gain when there was none, no matter what the scale said. He would skip meals or alter his diet afterward.
But still, he had to eat something. Along with the notion that pathologists were secret necrophiles, he even more resented the depiction of them as always having their lunches sometime during mid-autopsy. The characters were forever slopping pizza slices and dribbling cheeseburgers over cadavers with their chests splayed wide open. He had no idea where this came from. He certainly didn't know anyone who ate like that. And for any reason anyone could think of, on top of being disgusting and unsanitary, it just wasn't professional.
Allen Palin was having his lunch (outside of the operating room) when his phone rang. It was Errol Weaver, who delivered bodies to the morgue in a van that smelled of rotting flesh. Errol was a charismatic sort of dirtbag who would more than likely be dead or unemployed within three months. Allen liked him okay. He demonstrated extraordinary flickers of intellect in various sophisticated topics that Allen respected: a sort of trailer park marvel, but without any formal education. Allen was in a kind of awe about the way he carried himself and his protruding beer gut. He had no shame. If Allen had a belly like that, he'd try to carve it off with a filet knife.
“Hello,” Allen mumbled into his phone.
“I can hear crumbs spewing against the receiver so hard. Sounds like a landslide. Like Stevie Nicks, you know?”
Allen sometimes wondered if Errol smoked marijuana. He swallowed. “Sorry, I'm having my lunch.”
“What's for lunch? You treating yourself to a tomato or something? Is that like chili fries to you?”
Stranger Realms Page 10
