Secret of Mars

by Eric Johnson

  Tom grabbed Anidea by the shoulders. “What’s gotten into you? What happened to my buddy who says nothing will stop us?”

  “Aliens torture and experiment on humans,” Emmett pointed out. “It’s in all of the movies. Haven’t you seen?”

  Anidea’s lips curled into a crooked snarl. “Seriously. Think about it for a moment.”

  “I’m not afraid of that,” Tom said, “You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.”

  “You’re going to trust us?” Emmett asked.

  “The real question is are you going to trust me?”

  Winston climbed on top of a crushed police cruiser, “I don’t see anything that could be a hatch. It’s smooth all over the ship.”

  Anidea picked up a rock. “Hey, where’d that plant go?”

  “There it goes.” Winston pointed.

  “We might as well follow it,” Emmett said.

  “Why would we do that?” Tom asked.

  “Maybe that’s the alien’s pet. I think we should follow it and go in through its pet door.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, maybe you haven’t gone totally insane,” Tom said.

  “Our only idea,” Emmett said. “My idea.”

  Tom motioned them to follow. “Keep quiet, we don’t want to scare it.”

  The rumble of construction became louder as they followed the plant around the spaceship. It disappeared behind a crushed fire engine. Using the fire engine as cover they peered around it to see where the purple plant had gone. What they found was where all the creatures were going. Stretched out in a line longer than they could see they were being herded into a huge loading bay on the side of the spaceship.

  “What are they?” Emmett said, fascinated.

  “Aliens,” Tom whispered.

  Winston said in a hushed voice. “Whoa.”

  “Not aliens. Lizardmen.”

  Tom took the binoculars from his pack. The Lizardmen were striped green and red and they wore ornate body armor. Decidedly reptilian, they held long spears with round glowing balls on the ends. When thrust at the creatures they emitted a green disk of light. It crackled and buzzed, and smoke rose from the creatures when it hit. It must be some kind of force shield that helped to push them along.

  “It must be the whole town,” Anidea said.

  The sky above tinted green. “I don’t want to be out here at night,” Tom said. “I think we only have an hour of daylight left.”

  Anidea said, “We are going to break into an alien spaceship to rescue your dad because you are scared of being out here.”

  Tom scowled at Anidea. “We stick to my plan. We’re going to walk in there.”

  “With all the creatures?” Emmett said. “No way. We’ll be eaten.”

  “I suppose we could disguise ourselves,” Anidea said.

  “What about the food from the U-Mart?” Winston asked.

  “Stuff your pockets. We’re not going to be in there long enough to need it. It’ll be fine.”

  “No, I really didn’t mean it,” Anidea said, backpedaling furiously. “Why did I have to open my big mouth?”

  Winston raised his hatchet. “What if we hack them to pieces?”

  “Don't be stupid, Winston. Think about it, who will control the creatures?” Emmett asked.

  “Why aren’t the creatures attacking the lizard folks?” Anidea asked.

  “Lizardmen Anidea, call them Lizardmen,” Tom said. “Folks they are not. You don’t have to be politically correct when talking about invading aliens from outer space.”

  “Maybe the creatures are hypnotized,” Emmett mused, “Maybe it’s that awful smell in the air that’s doing it. That could be how they control them. Like a Venus flytrap attracts flies.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until dark?” Anidea said. “That way they won’t see us so easily.”

  “No, we’ll go now,” Tom said. “We have to walk past them no matter what. We’ll use the backpacks as a disguise.”

  Anidea unzipped her pack and put it over her head. “This is incredibly stupid.”

  “I’m surprised to hear that from you,” Tom said.

  Anidea buried her head deep in the backpack. Her body trembled as they hunched, limped, and shuffled their way into the line. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped.

  A creature pushed Emmett to the side.

  “Hold hands. Stay together,” Tom said, as he pulled Emmett back.

  “Wet creature smell is the worst,” Winston said. “It makes me want to puke.”

  “Don’t say puke,” Anidea gagged.

  “Well it does. I can’t think about anything else.”

  Anidea threw up. She pulled the pack off her head and wiped her mouth. Vomit dripped down her clothes and onto her shoes.

  “Hang in there, Anidea,” Tom said, “your plan is working. This maneuver is our lucky number.”

  “It could be worse,” Emmett added

  “Yeah?” She was still swallowing hard.

  Tom pulled his pack off slowly and let out a short laugh. “It really is working. We don’t need the packs over our heads. I think we’ll be alright. Anidea, you’re a good test monkey.”

  All around, creatures pressed against them.

  Anidea bowed her head and closed her eyes, “I can't look.”

  “We can do this,” Tom encouraged.

  Emmett pulled his pack off too and gulped. His voice shook. “I was right.”

  Following his brother’s lead, Winston took his pack off and slung it over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed and he kicked one of the creatures. “See? Hypnotized.”

  “No.” Tom panicked and pulled him away.

  The creature growled, turned and sniffed at Anidea, as tendrils protruded from a hole in its head and caressed her face. She screamed and tried to run. Acting quickly, Tom and Winston jerked her away.

  “Stop, Anidea, stop,” Tom strained to hold her still. “Don’t run. Don’t let them know we are here. Listen to me. Control your fear.”

  Anidea closed her eyes to keep herself from screaming as they shuffled closer to the ship.

  “I thought you killed your parents,” Emmett asked. “Why are you so afraid?”

  Slowly they shuffled their way in.

  “Did you hear that?” Winston said. “It sounds like shorting out electricity. What are those flashes of green light up ahead?”

  “It’s the lizardmen’s spears,” Tom pushed them to the center of the line to avoid the prods. “Stay tight, we’ll keep in the middle.”

  The lizardmen were clicking, chirping and chattering excitedly. “It sounds like they are laughing,” Winston said. “Maybe they are joking about the creatures while they work, maybe it’s how they communicate.”

  Shoulder-high partitions angled out from the sides of the ship’s bay, packing them in tighter. They were pressed into walking two by two. More lizardmen stood on either side.

  “Crouch down,” he said.

  Ahead, one lizardman howled in excitement as it jammed its spear into the passing creatures.

  “We’ll never make through,” Emmett said.

  “If we stop now, we’ll slow the line down and draw attention.” Tom pulled Winston forward and reached into his pocket, took out a pack of peanuts and threw it at the lizardman. He missed and the peanuts flew off into the dark of the ship’s bay.

  Emmett let go of Anidea’s arm and tugged on Tom’s. “What did you do?”

  “Distraction,” Tom explained. “Wait, here comes another one.”

  The new lizardman pushed the excited one, knocking it off balance. They faced each other off. The boss-lizardman shook its head and grabbed the spear away from the one who disrupted the line. The disruptor held its claws up in the air, and bobbed and weaved its head.

  “Hold hands. Form a chain,” Tom said, and led the way forward, deeper into the line past the arguing lizardman. "Now's our chance."

  They were drawing closer to the steady rhythmic drone of machinery. Tom popped up on his tiptoes to catch sight of what
was at the end of the line. He didn’t understand what he saw at first, but then his eyes widened. They were being herded like cattle towards the maws of a slaughterhouse. At the end of the line, the floor sloped upward onto a platform. There, a mechanical picker arm ending in a man-sized claw extended outward from a horizontal conveyor belt. The claw closed around the creatures on the platform and pressed them together in its grip. Arms and legs that stuck out were clipped off and fell onto a pile on the floor. The claw retracted back and moved into the next position, as another group of creatures were pushed up to the platform so the process could start over. The floor vibrated with the whir and push of pistons and the clank of metal on metal as they were herded ever closer.

  Winston and Anidea pulled Tom back down. Tom could hear the crunching of gears in his mind as he watched the creatures struggle to get free. “We have to get out of this. This is a processing plant and we’re in the feeder line.”

  “We can climb over the wall,” Emmett said.

  Anidea stepped away. “They’ll see us.”

  “They’re not watching where the claws are," Tom motioned with a nod. "We can escape there. Nothing changes, keep walking one foot in front of the other and get ready for my signal. Watch the claws; one - two - three - and - grab. It's every five seconds. When the claw closes, we go. Get ready.”

  The claws extended and snapped shut. Tom yelled for them to run. They made a break for it and surged forward, sliding through the piles of stinking offal underneath the claws and right over the platform edge. They tumbled onto the floor behind and hid underneath the machine.

  Black muck oozed over the sides of the platform, accompanied by occasional body parts. The taste of decay bit Tom’s tongue. Repulsed and nauseous, he wiped at the slime that smeared his face. Somehow, he calmed himself.

  They watched and waited. The whirring of gears and the hissing of pistons from the conveyor belt drowned out all other sounds. Not wanting to stay any longer, Tom motioned for them to move again. They slogged through the creature jelly and pushed past the piles of severed limbs, crawling along the wall in the shadows beneath the grabber claws.

  At the end of the bay where the grabber claw line feed began, they inched away with their backs pressed tightly to the wall. They were looking at a behind the scenes view of the slaughterhouse line. And they were held in the grip of the show.

  “Where do we go from here?” Anidea stammered.

  Tom felt the wall next to him, found a lever and pulled. “Here.”

  A large panel in the wall slid back and a cloud of steam rolled out, revealing a dimly lit passageway.

  They entered and the panel slid closed behind them. Pipes ran across the ceiling and down the walls; the humidity was worse than outside and sweat ran freely from their brows to sting their eyes. The air was choking.

  “It’s like 200 degrees in here,” Anidea said.

  “More like 100,” Emmett said, “with humidity.”

  Winston bumped into a pipe and recoiled away, holding his arm. “Spaceships don’t have steam pipes, do they?”

  Moving slowly, they passed the pipes and found rows of glowing circles lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Each row had different markings.

  “Buttons,” Emmett said.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Tom told him. “We don’t know what any of this is.”

  “They look like drawers,” Emmett felt compelled to press one of the buttons; he couldn’t resist. His finger found its way.

  The button clicked and the drawer hissed out from the wall. Inside the drawer glowed like a firefly, revealing shoe size copper boxes. Each had more of the alien writing engraved in dull red letters across the top.

  Emmett reached in and took out a box. He rolled it over in his hands, studying the red writing. As strange as the markings were, they seemed familiar; he was sure he could read the word pickles.

  “Put that back right now,” Anidea ordered, seeing the box.

  Emmett shook the box. “It says pickles. Let’s open it up and see.”

  “No, it doesn’t, knucklehead,” Anidea hit him. “Do you have an undiagnosable illness? Put it back.”

  Tom saw Emmett with the box and took it away quickly. “Come on, Emmett, this is a spaceship. This is an alien box. What if it’s the stuff that turns us into creatures?”

  “Turn the box sideways then the writing looks like the word pickle.” Emmett twisted the box in Tom’s hands.

  Tom pulled a lever at the end of the hall and another panel slid open. Conveyor belts, mechanical arms, and unnamable machinery roared in the room; it was deafening. They covered their ears and entered, mesmerized by the sight. Shoes, wallets, eyeglasses and tattered clothes blanketed the floor and crunched under their feet. Tom stepped back into Anidea. This was where all the creatures were taken. This was the processing floor.

  Giant pouches hung from a motorized track on the ceiling. They rolled by and stopped in position just below where the grabber claw assembly emerged from a narrow tunnel. Hooks on spindly arms took the creatures from the claws and spinning wheels with rubber fingers stripped them of their remaining tattered clothes.

  The naked creatures were sprayed with a mist that loosened their skin. Another arm extended with scissor and clamp, cutting and pulling at it. Once stripped clean they were dropped into the pouches, where a mechanical arm with two nozzles swung down. One nozzle released a red colored dry powder and the other nozzle squirted out a dark green liquid. The pouches were cinched tight and then passed to a third conveyor that carried them away through a narrow slot out of sight.

  Anidea gasped and shouted over the drumming of the machinery. “We have to go back.”

  Winston closed his eyes. “This is so wrong. I can’t look. What if we see our mom in one of those pouches, Emmett?”

  Tom pointed to an eye-shaped lens mounted on the ceiling. “If that’s a camera. They know we are here. No alien smart enough to come across space would let intruders run around their ship as easily we have. There’s another door.”

  The panel slid back and they entered another hall at a T junction. The air smelled like salty rotting fish, making them even more nauseous than the last room. The walls were devoid of any markings; there were no signs like in an office or hospital to indicate direction or where anything was.

  A thick pipe ran down the center of the ceiling; every ten feet or so steam hissed out of nozzles, making it feel unbearably humid.

  “We are so dead,” Anidea said.

  Tom moved to the right. “This way. Let’s move.”

  Halfway down the hall, oval submarine-style doors lined the walls.

  Emmett tapped on one. “We need to check every door if we are going to find your dad.”

  Tom nodded, and pulled the handle. “We have to start somewhere. I’ll go first, watch my back. It’s not locked.”

  “I don’t think they are expecting us.”

  Slowly he opened the door a crack and peeked through. “Stay here,” he said, then slipped in.

  Winston, Emmett and Anidea moved to follow him, but Tom emerged as pale as a ghost before they took a step.

  “What’s in there?” Winston asked, surprised by Tom’s sudden exit.

  “Don’t,” he pleaded.

  “We’d better go in and find out,” Emmett said as he reached for the door.

  Tom grabbed Emmett’s arm. “No way. You’re not going in there.”

  “We have to,” Anidea said, and pushed her way past sticking her head in. She pulled back immediately. Her face was as pale as Tom’s.

  “What did you see?” Winston asked.

  Tom couldn’t tell them s what he saw. “Don’t.”

  Anidea turned away. “They experiment in there.”

  “I told you not to.”

  Winston and Emmett pushed the door open before he could stop them. They froze, transfixed. Strange machines consisting of rubber tubes and gray metal hung in the air over a man whose skin had been peeled like an apple without him bleeding
. His muscular and vascular systems were revealed for display as if in an anatomy book.

  Assorted body parts floated in jars with curling tubes, spewing blood into beakers that bubbled over burners. On the table a stringed instrument like a harpsichord hummed.

  “What’s that for?” Winston asked.

  Gurgling caught Tom’s attention and he looked back to the man. His eyes moved. Gooseflesh shivers quaked across Tom’s body. “He’s still alive.”

  “That’s not possible,” Anidea said.

  “His eyes are familiar,” he said, then suddenly, horrified, he knew. “It was the school principal.”

  They skittered like mice down the hall, checking each door they passed. Tom noticed another eye-shaped globe in the ceiling. The tromp of boots, heavy and thick, echoed from down the hall. They froze.

  “This is it. We’re caught,” Anidea said.

  Emmett trembled. “If it were my ship, I wouldn’t let aliens run around either.”

  Tom pushed backwards with his arms held out, “Go back.”

  “Here,” Emmett said, “into this room.”

  They shut the door behind them quietly, Tom put his ear to the thick metal and held his breath. He listened but couldn’t hear anything. Like the other room there were many different types of mechanical devices. Orange and lime colored wires connected the black and gray and green machines together, beeping and buzzing in unity.

  A centrifuge in the middle of the room was racing so fast that it looked like it was standing still. Vertical pipes webbed up from floor to ceiling caught their attention, Flickers of orange fire snapped and sparked where wires were bound to the glass tubes.

  “See the pattern,” Emmett said. “Watch it, see it goes red, blue, red, red, blue.”

  “Like Christmas,” Winston said.

  “What does that mean?” Anidea asked. “In fact, never mind that, what if they come in here?”

  Tom crossed the room to a second door. “Wait, what was that? A sound came from over here too, quiet.”

  “I don’t hear anything. Let’s get out,” Anidea was close to panicking again.