Alien Days Anthology

by P P Corcoran

  “Forget it. My parents are the real militant types who would be proud enough to declare that their son died in battle. As for loved ones . . . There’s no one.” I turned my head away as I said this. She probably thought I was upset about not having a wife or lover, but this wasn’t the case. I lied. There was someone. Someone very special. So special that I couldn’t bear for her to see me—Wait . . . that’s not the reason, nothing so noble. My real reason was a selfish one. I didn’t want to see her and not be able to put my arms around her, to tell her the things I didn’t get the chance to before I left. In fact, there was a good possibility she forgot about me already. We had only been going out for a month when I received the call to serve. I don't know if I meant as much to her as she did to me, but I like to think back fondly on the expression on her face when I told her I’d been drafted. She was devastated. I must have meant something to her.

  “Well, if you’d still like visitors, we have numerous volunteers who spend their days consoling and entertaining . . .”

  “I’m sorry. I just want to be alone right now.”

  “Well all right, but . . . if you think that you’re starting to stiffen up, press the button behind you and I’ll be here to take your decision. Remember, don’t take too long. And move around a lot so you know you still can. You don’t want to lose the opportunity to express your wishes.”

  I rolled over on my side, ignoring what she said, and drew my legs up into a fetal position. My first impulse was to buzz her and tell her to kill me immediately. But that led me to wonder just what would happen to me then. I didn’t much believe in an afterlife. I mean, I hoped and prayed, just like everyone else, that there would be one, but I had resigned myself to an acceptance that maybe there wasn’t anything afterward. My faith was not strong enough to provide comfort, and so I had to find something else to look forward to. But what?

  I lay for a week, refusing to see or speak to anyone, just sorting and resorting things out in my head. I guess you could say I was doing some interior decorating to see if I could live there. At times I could feel eyes upon me, and I would spring around to catch Miss Strawberry Blonde Dorothy watching me. As soon as I’d turn to her, she’d make a note on her pad, an impressed expression on her face, and walk away. Why was she watching me, though? To make sure I don’t harden before filling out her organ donor cards?

  I knew I was running a risk by not telling them what I wanted done with myself. If I waited too long, the decision would no longer be mine. And maybe that’s what I wanted. For someone else to decide. But who had the right to decide? That was what was bothering all the higher officials, doctors, and clergy involved. No one wanted to take the initiative, or the blame, and it was apparent that it would eventually be put before legislature, but that would have to wait until the secrecy program was scrapped.

  So, all those poor souls who were already immobile when they were salvaged had to just sit and rot. Occasionally one would be put out of its misery. Periodically, machines were carted around to each body to determine its state of mental activity. And if the readings suggested that the person was in excruciating mental anguish, the brain of that person was destroyed. What got me was that every one of these victims probably went through periods of extreme anguish, alternately followed by periods of calm, and the doctors just happened to get them during a bad spell. It seemed normal to me; there was probably a cycle one went through. I would find out soon enough. And I grew determined that the decision—whatever it would be—would be mine.

  I just needed more time to think it through.

  #

  As I approached the two-week mark, I began to feel invincible. I imagined that maybe I was different, maybe I would avoid losing my mobility, maybe I was the one exception to the rule. The scientists could study me and learn why I was immune to the rigor mortis. An antidote could be developed, and we could cure everyone who had ever been afflicted or ever will be!

  Sure, and maybe the Progellics would forgive us, throw down their weapons, and provide the cure for us. Not likely. And I was still another two weeks short of setting any records.

  When I was officially dead two weeks, I received my first visitor outside of my social worker. A major. He had a proposition for me. The major was putting together a special task force made up entirely of dead men to go on suicide runs. One objective might be to cause as much damage and take out as many Progellics as possible (after all, once they killed us, their weapons were useless against us); another mission might be to collect and send back data. A trial run had already provided a pathway that we could use to sneak into their base of linked ships. And it also sent back information that would disturb the world if it got out: they had POWs. Dead soldiers just heaped together in rooms, awaiting God-knows-what kind of mental torture. If the higher-ups had been divided in their views of whether or not to kill the helpless dead in our own camps, they were united in their views concerning the dead prisoners of war. They should be mercifully killed. It was unanimous. We would all rest better knowing that they didn’t have our dead. Our imaginations cooked up all sorts of terrors that our boys must be going through, and we wanted it stopped. And yes, I mean we. That was how I felt, and upon hearing about them I knew what I wanted to do with myself. I wanted to go on a successful suicide run.

  They approached me, as they approached anyone who retained movement after two weeks. Seems that if we made it this far, we’d probably last the whole month before freezing up. I would spend the next week in training, along with the rest of my task force, and then we’d be off on our assignment. We may have already had combat training, but this was different. We had to learn the art of espionage, to sneak around without being seen, to spy. Hell, we even had to learn how to move!

  Since our bodies were devoid of feeling, we had to get used to using them to their fullest, now that we didn’t have pain to worry about. We could work our legs harder, throw our bodies around more efficiently, give little care to how our heads got banged around—provided we still protect our eyes and ears, our only working sensors.

  We practiced scrabbling about with bound appendages (any two picked at random) to simulate what it would be like if we were discovered and had some of our limbs shot off. We could train day and night without ever feeling fatigue. We would not feel compelled to eat or go to the bathroom. We were beginning to feel good about ourselves—the super soldiers! —as long as we didn’t think about how temporary it all was.

  We were assigned partners. This was so that if one of us got overzealous and ended up hardening before he could off himself, the other could do it for him. Pretty grim business. It was naturally agreed upon (an unspoken agreement, in fact) that we would not get to know our partners too well. All I knew about mine was that he was young and gung-ho about our mission. (But then I guess I gave off the same outward impression.) And that his name was Williams.

  Normally you vow to protect your partner’s life to the end; we vowed to take it.

  Three weeks dead, we embarked on our mission. Ten Special Task Force units, each made up of six soldiers. The units were ordered according to their objectives and were sent out at hourly intervals. I was in Unit Three, and we were the rescue team, as were Units Four and Five. The first two had already left to secure positions for following units and provide them aid. The later units were each made up of three assassins paired with three demolition men.

  Don’t confuse the rescuers’ mission with the assassins. We were going to kill our fellow fallen soldiers in order to save their souls (an assignment I insisted on), while the assassins were going to exterminate as many lizards as they could. They were being sent after us so as not to interfere with our work, which was given a higher priority. It was apparent that once they set to work killing and destroying things, our force would be discovered. That’s why the earlier teams were to be more discreet, hiding the bodies they take out and only causing damage that could not be discovered at once. By the time Unit Ten arrived it would be a free-for-all, bombs going up
and lasers going off in an attempt to blow the aliens right the hell back to Progell!

  It would be glorious. But I wouldn’t be there to see it. After our unit finishes its objective, it was to eliminate itself. Remember, the driving force behind this Task Force was to keep our captured dead from existing in some hell or limbo. That’s why the later units had to make sure they didn’t get shot up so badly they couldn’t finish themselves off. Hence all that training. We all underwent the same training, naturally, since anything could go wrong at any point and we may all be called upon to fight our way in to do our job.

  So as Unit Three was sent off, we didn’t know what to expect. Units One and Two may have failed in their secure-and-hold missions, and we may already be expected. We all carried walkie-talkies—the old-fashioned kind, whose low-range weak frequencies were expected to go undetected by their high tech—and if we walked into a trap, we were supposed to send off an emergency signal. But that blanketing force field overhead even had a way of interrupting our ground communications once we were past its perimeter.

  Our route was a tunnel beneath the ice, and since neither breathing nor freezing was a concern for us, we progressed easily. After twenty minutes we reached our hidden passage into the ship’s hull and entered the framework of the Progellic Pentagon. We found every member of Units One and Two where they should be as we moved further into the enemy base. They pointed out which ventilation shafts passed over the rooms with the POWs in them and informed us that they had already removed the gratings that covered the entrances we were to use. We then split up into our teams of two and told the first units that we didn’t need their help and to look out for the next team.

  I jumped and pulled myself up into the overhead hatchway with ease and glanced back to see that Williams was having difficulty and fell back down. The hatchway was only nine feet up!

  An older-looking soldier from the last unit helped Williams to his feet and steered him back beneath the opening. With a steadying hand at my partner’s back, he peered up at me and a silent dialogue passed between us. I nodded and looked down, signifying my understanding. Williams wouldn’t make it.

  With the vet ready below in case Williams should slip again, I reached down and helped my partner up. I could see in his face how strenuous the effort was for him and how frustrated he was becoming. He avoided my eyes and I turned and trudged ahead on my elbows and knees, muttering an encouraging word on how the rest of the way should be easier and how he should make it without any problem.

  I lied. Five minutes later he called out to me and you know the rest. Job is done and now what?

  Yeah, I know what I’m supposed to do, but I am still as uncertain as I was in that tent, lying on my side on my bed, pondering the mysteries of the universe and all that shit. I still don’t want it to end.

  I stare down again at all the victims in the room below me. A voice next to me makes me practically leap out of my skin. “Clean job. Hell, we didn’t have nearly as many bodies to mind-wipe in our cell. So, what are you waiting for? You want to live forever?” I turn and recognize another member of my unit.

  “What if I do?” I ask innocently, a disarming smile on my face.

  “Can’t let ya do that,” he says as he reaches for the laser pistol in the holster at his hip. Mine is still in my hands.

  I turn it on him and fire at point blank range, searing the whole top of his head off.

  Now what’d he go and make me do that for? Why was he wandering around after finishing his job? Looking for “just the right place” to die? Or maybe he took it upon himself to make sure everyone else was dead and not frozen in place in these ventilation shafts, unable to finish themselves off. I enlarge the hole I made in the grating and shove his body through. It now lies with the rest of the corpses.

  Am I a murderer? He was dead anyway, just like the rest of us, ready to turn the trigger on himself at any moment. I regard what’s left of his face. He would have to fall face up! I watch his eyes for some sign that maybe he’s still alive. They did admit that this might not do the trick. They only believed that killing the brain would end our consciousness. They didn’t know. I cannot pry my eyes away from his, hoping against all hope that his soul was freed from its earthly vessel when I splattered his brains all over this shaft.

  It’s funny. Whenever I refer to anyone else, I mention his soul as if I have no doubt that he has one. But when I think of myself, I’m not so sure. I’m afraid. Of not having a soul or any promise of an afterlife. Of living as a conscious corpse. Of our mission being for nothing if this doesn’t work. Of everything at once.

  Oh, why didn’t I stay at the camp? Why didn’t I request visitors? Would it have been so bad? To see Lonnie’s face again . . .

  Then Lonnie’s face disappears, and I once again see the half-face of the man I killed. I hear a voice, drifting up the shaft from behind me, but the words are meaningless to me now. “Hey Rogers, where’d ya go?” it says.

  That must be the name of the man I just shot. Rogers. I say a silent prayer to help his soul find its way, and the voice speaks again, closer this time, the words barely working their way into my distracted thoughts: “Hey, get a load of this poor sap. Let himself freeze solid right over his targets. Hang on, buddy, I’ll be right with you. And then it’ll all be over.”

  I had been wondering about this Rogers person wandering around these shafts . .

  I had forgotten about his partner.

  - THE END -

  About Anthony Regolino

  With over twenty years' experience in the publishing industry, mostly as an editor, Anthony Regolino has acted as ghostwriter and contributing writer, as well as creating professional blogs for company websites. While studying on scholarship in NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program, he enjoyed seeing his first sketch performed before an audience—on Broadway, as he likes to say (which is technically correct!) Participation in local theater, both on and off stage, allowed him the opportunity to create an adaptation that was cleverly translated for the stage.

  His novel, Canis Sapiens: The Dingo Factor, was released in 2016, while his short story “The Mystified Morpheus” was included in the 2018 horror anthology Fierce Tales: Shadow Realms. In addition to the publication of his short story “Dead Reckoning,” 2019 sees the addition of Anthony Regolino into the ranks of Arthurian scribes, as his story “Curse of Avalon” and his first published poem, “The Duty,” offer two different takes on the same legendary event: the delivery of Excalibur to King Arthur by the hand of the Lady of the Lake. Perfect companion pieces to each other, these can be found in Left Hand Publishers’ Classics Remixed and Dragon Soul Press’s Organic Ink, Volume One, respectively. He is currently working on having more of his works brought before an audience, in the form of prose, screenplays, teleplays, and comic book scripts.

  Connect with Anthony here:

  www.castrumpress.com/authors/anthony-regolino

  After the Crash

  by Jason J. McCuiston

  Resnick opened the glovebox, grabbed his .45 and an extra magazine. One could never be too careful in “Bat City” after dark. The Noctu weren’t the nastiest of the Guests, but they were pretty high on the list. Particularly those who had blended into the criminal underbelly of New Orleans.

  “Why couldn’t this be a Nolphid case?” Tossing a still smoking butt to the gutter, he stepped out of his old Packard and onto a dingy stretch of Alabo Street. Resnick didn’t like any of the Guests, but at least the Nolphid weren’t ugly. Their chattering voices could grate on the nerves, but they always seemed to be smiling. The Noctu, on the other hand, resembled giant bats about to take a bite out of you. And here he was, in the heart of Bat City looking for Jaxtifar M’Koth, a Noctu gunsel responsible for breaking a couple skulls while stealing something from his client, the wealthy philanthropist Archibald Perigeaux.

  Skirting a trio of young Noctu hoods—their eyes glowing red in the streetlights—Resnick headed across the trash-lined street to the one place in all of
New Orleans he wished to never see again. Lilly’s Place. Despite being in the heart of the Lower Ninth Ward it remained a favorite hangout for the city’s well-to-dos, Guest and human alike.

  Resnick recognized the man at the door and hoped the familiarity was mutual. He had downed his fair share at Lilly’s back in his bootlegging days. Before the Twenty-First Amendment forced him to turn the skills he’d learned in the Great War and Prohibition to legitimate ends; before he became ‘respectable.’

  “Big Jim.” Resnick smiled and offered his hand to the towering black man. “Been a long time.”

  The bouncer narrowed his dark eyes, jaw clenched, before recognition washed over his rugged face. “Billy. Billy Resnick. It has been a long time, sure ‘nuff. Not since I seen your picture in the paper for saving them Beaufort twins. Shaking hands with the mayor and everything. What brings you down here? You on a case?”

  Resnick grinned, acknowledging the double-edged sword of fame. It opened doors, but it also hindered keeping a low profile. Not necessarily the best thing for a gumshoe. “Just wanted to make the rounds, see some of my old haunts, y’know?”

  “Sure, sure.” Big Jim replied. “Well you come right on in, Billy. Marquez will set ya up at the bar, and Miss Lilly’ll be going onstage any minute now.”

  “Thanks.” Resnick walked inside, pausing at the hat-check to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Relishing the scent of expensive booze and tobacco mingling with soft jazz on the heavy air; the flavor of money and decadence. From the outside, Lilly’s Place appeared to be a rundown conglomeration of boarded-up storefronts. But inside, it could have been a swank Hollywood movie set. Resnick half expected to see William Powell and Myrna Loy dance through the crowd of tuxedoed gents, gowned ladies, scantily-clad cigarette girls, and waiters in ties and tails.