by Bill Olver
Anastasia has learned that while she cannot cross the barrier herself, she can toss food or stones in favor or insult towards her suitors. She is vexed that they do not comprehend sign language, but has no trouble communicating through provocative body displays aimed at her favorite males. Although appearing quite humorous to a human observer, these displays send the apes into such a frenzy of lust that some are not content to masturbate by hand and attempt to hump the force-field. Hilariously, one lost favor with the Ice Princess by attempting to impregnate a rotten melon he had brought as an offering after watching her pat her rump.
At the end of the day, when the apes have exhausted themselves, they return to the jungle and sing. Anastasia has tried several times to join in the cacophony, but I return her to the ship for sleep, forcefully if necessary. An erratic sleep pattern is another variable I am trying to eliminate.
I must return to my repairs soon. I work most efficiently while Anastasia sleeps. My estimates as to time required for repairs have been so inaccurate that I stopped bothering to calculate them. When Shane approaches at night, I prefer to let the auto-turrets deal with him, unless repairs have driven me to the dire stage of frustration in which hurling grenades into the darkness and screaming obscenities becomes a worthwhile emotional release.
I must again note that conjectures expressed concerning the experiment in my personal journal lack sufficient evidence to be considered accurate. All data-supported hypotheses and specific information remains in my official reports, as well as possible results of the research. Perhaps when I have escaped the threat of capture, I will return to this planet to collect specimens, and observe if Anastasia’s visit has had any lasting effects on them.
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AUDIO RECORDING: “Catazz” TAVERN: DSC Outpost 892; SSD 9.16.56
{irrelevant audio filtered}
“You won’t collect on the doc if you left his body—”
“So? I got the snow monkey and she’s worth tenfold.”
“How’d you manage to get past that force-field to bag her?”
“Heh, good question. All I had to do was outsmart a scientist and some monkeys!
Doc was taking her into the jungle every day, still within the force-field, but outside his ship. The local apes thought she was some foreign sex princess or something, so they’re bringing her monkey gifts and try to get at her every day. Anyways, this snow monkey’s as randy as any ape, but doc’s got her on a shock-collar to keep her from running. I guess he’s gotta keep her virgin for his experiment, or himself, you know?”
“Hahahah!”
“The collar she’s in’s identical to what I use, just no manacles. I’m betting she’s worn it her whole life in the zoo, and thinks her shocks are coming from the force-field.
So one day, I toss one of my cheap shock-collars and a clicker to the wild apes. Then I set up in a treetop blind with max distortion, then set my binocs to record the show.
At daybreak, two huge fucking apes try to offer the collar and clicker to her. After fighting, the meaner one claims the collar and the smaller the remote. Now about this time, both apes notice their white princess is wearing a collar, and the doc notices they’ve got one, too. He knows they got if from me, so he starts scanning for me instead of watching the apes.
This is when it gets good.
Alpha male puts on the collar, emulating the Ice Princess, while his bruised buddy starts poking buttons on the clicker. Soon enough, the big guy gets zapped and realizes he can’t take the collar off. A few jolts later, his pal recognizes the power of the red button. Now Beta male is out for revenge, showing off his dominance to the female. And she’s riveted, but not cuz he’s impressing her. I can read her simple mug like a flash ad, she keeps looking from the males to the doc, figuring out how her shock-collar works. Beta boy is gettin’ a bit too cocky, goading Alpha into attacking, then zapping him when he charges. Then Alpha nabs a stick and smacks the remote out of his hand, smashing it. Beta picks up the red button and tries to zap him back into submission, but no dice. Alpha trades the stick for a rock and caves in Beta’s skull.
Meanwhile, doc’s been scoping for me and missing the show. When his prize specimen starts signing to him, he has no idea what he’s in for. He lowers his eyes from the scan scope, and starts to sign back. With one hand signing and the other on his gun, he’s left the remote on his belt.
She grabs his gun with one hand and the clicker with her other, then tosses the clicker. She rips the rifle from him and bashes his head till he stops moving! I got the whole thing on video, and the look on his face is worth more than the bounty on him! He’s crying, screaming her name while she pounds him to death.
Satisfied, she wiggles her ass at Alpha who’s starting to get hard, then picks up the clicker and eventually finds the collar release. She locks eyes with Alpha, and lets out a howl that seems to call every ape in the jungle. Slowly crossing the force-field, she picks Alpha as her first prize.
I could nab her whenever at that point, but I kinda felt like I owed them apes, so I gave ‘em a day to celebrate and fuck the Ice Princess. I think she appreciated it even more than they did.”
“If she’s still on your ship you better have more’n a shock-collar keeping her put!”
“You think I’m as stupid as that scientist? I kept her drugged and in stasis the whole trip here. I warned zoo personnel to keep her out until they get her home, but they didn’t listen. Shit, I already got paid, let them deal with her.”
“What’d she do when she woke?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out! Imagine how pissed off she must be! Shit, she’s probably pregnant, and was just forcibly torn away from a planet of sexual paradise.”
“Only thing worse than an ugly pissed-off whore is one stronger than you who thinks she’s a princess!”
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Galactic Gossip Gazette - Flash!
GREAT ESCAPING APE!
Anastasia the Ice Princess, famed “Galaxy’s Smartest Ape” and genetically re-created “Missing Link” has made another escape from Orion’s Historical Super Zoo! But don’t get your hopes up, bounty hunters! Besides her abduction by Dr. Joyden two years ago, this is her third break-out, and Orion’s is confident they can retrieve her unaided, according to this public statement from President Torn:
“We found her ourselves last time, and there’s little doubt where she’s headed. We have no idea where she learned to fly a ship, but I for one am interested to see if she’ll manage to land this time, or if we’ll have to pay another fee for her crash disturbing a nature preserve.”
It seems you just can’t keep a royal ape down!
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Frank R. Sjodin (Monkey See, Monkey Do) has been published by TWIT publishing and in a local hippie Chicago magazine. He’s a professional actor, clown, and theatre artist, and writes on the side.
(back to table of contents)
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TEST 17
by Jessica McHugh
To go straight from the academy to the field meant one of two things. One: you had impressed your superiors so much that they believed you absolutely vital to the mission. Or two: they were trying to get rid of you, whether it meant forcing you into AWOL or into a pine box accompanied by a sad letter home. To this day, I don’t know which fate they had in mind for me, but I can’t imagine they sent me to Nigeria because I was head of my class; I was more like the torso. I knew nothing about Nigeria or the Yoruba people. I didn’t know anything about the snakes or gorillas, except to ask before I got close to either, and I certainly didn’t know anything about Vodun (or “voodoo” as I said only once before being strictly corrected). Even after we were on our way to Nigeria, my superior officers didn’t tell me anything. They wanted ignorance. Ignorance encouraged silence, and even if I did have the courage to speak about what I’d seen during our mission, I wouldn’t be able to do so with hard facts. Dr. Jacob Knight was the only man to offer up a bit
of truth, and he only did so in a death rattle. At the time, I didn’t know how much truth was in the words that bubbled out of his mouth, but I quickly learned just how much my superiors, especially Sergeant Moore, kept secret from us all.
He called me Brandon—not my name. It wasn’t until long after that I learned his son’s name was Brandon. Because he thought he was speaking to his son, it made the last words he said even sadder. But the sadness swiftly fled when fear returned. It always returns, no matter how much I plead or bargain. Fear wins and there’s plenty of it, but I should back up. I’m getting ahead of myself…
The journey was smooth sailing at first. Even with my ignorance and the bullish arrogance of Sergeant Moore, I actually thought I was about to take part in a grand adventure. I didn’t realize then how naïve a notion that was. Nor did I realize that my superiors were so…“Evil” doesn’t seem like the right word, but it’s the only one that leaps to mind, so it has to be somewhat fitting. It’s no wonder they kept the true objective of the mission a secret.
We touched down without incident and started toward the Yoruba homestead. It wasn’t until the houses dwindled and gave rise to clustered jungle that the fear started to set in. There was a clear division between military and anthropology in our small company. Obviously, I was more soldier than anthropologist, but I didn’t feel qualified enough to interject into either side of the debate. For that reason, I kept my head down and mouth shut. I simply nodded as the doctors briefed me on the regional wildlife and Yoruba customs. I continued my obedient, if not robotic, nod to Sergeant Moore’s instructions of “If I say ‘shoot’, you shoot.”
We were nearing the Yoruba homestead when Dr. Jacob Knight spotted something of interest through his binoculars. A few exclamations were all he gave us and leapt out of the jeep with the words “Cross River Gorilla” on his lips and a glazy excitement in his eyes. It was abrupt to say the least and I hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do until Sergeant Moore shot me a look that seemed to say, “What are you still doing here, fool? Go after him!”
My M16 was primed before I hit the ground, but even with trusty Lulu aching for action, there was no part of me that wanted to dive into the knotted jungle as enthusiastically as Dr. Knight had. I called his name a few times, hoping to coax him out, but it was for naught, and when I looked back at the car, I was promptly pushed into the bush by Moore’s forceful glare. Once inside the jungle, I felt as tiny as the tiniest boll weevil; albeit, a weevil with a rifle. The sound of a nearby gasp pulled me to the right and there I saw Dr. Knight standing frozen behind a tree with only his head curled around the trunk.
“Sir?” I asked and he hushed me harshly. “Sir, we should get back to the jeep. Lord knows when we’ll reach the Yoruba.”
“The Yoruba are not far off. Neither is she,” he replied.
Before I could push for elaboration, a mammoth tree straight ahead shook madly. My jaw dropped as I watched a massive gorilla dive out of the branches and land on the ground with an earth-shaking thud. Her face was black, wreathed with reddish brown fur and she snorted madly as if our scent irritated her nostrils. Her colossal body was oddly shaped. It appeared as though her bones were about to break through the skin, and there were large patches of matted gray gunk scattered through her fur.
“I’ve been waiting all of my life to see a Cross River Gorilla,” Dr. Knight whispered. “I’ve traveled farther and deeper than anyone and never caught a glimpse. But here she is. I wasn’t even looking for her, and here she is.”
“Yes, she’s lovely. Let’s go,” I said and tugged on his arm.
He growled as he shook me away and the beast added a growl of her own, far more ferocious than the doctor’s. I pointed my rifle at her and she huffed: grunting and sighing as if to say “Oh, you stupid, stupid man-child.”
“She’s bigger than I thought. Much bigger. My God, she’s enormous.”
“Yes, she is,” I said as the rifle began to shake in my arms.
The gorilla started towards us, looking less and less like a gentle giant with each stomping step. Her gait was strange. I couldn’t recognize a gorilla’s normal gait, but it couldn’t have been as jerky or as stiffly lumbering as the one advancing upon us. As she grew closer, other odd attributes also became clear: gaping wounds dripping gray ooze, broken fangs, and a sickening stench that distance had been kind enough to keep away until then. Backing away only made her move quicker, and before long, she was a mere ten feet in front of us. It was then that I noticed how much Knight’s fear had increased.
“What do we do?” I asked him and he shook his head frightfully. “Come on, you know all about these river monkeys, right?”
“I do, but…”
“But what?” I snapped and the gorilla roared so forcefully that the howl blasted several branches bare. “Is it not what you thought it was?” I asked and he shook his head again.
“It’s definitely a Cross River Gorilla, but something’s wrong with it. The wounds on its chest: they’re infected. Worse than that. They’re rotting. No, they’re…”
The beast drew closer and I saw what the doctor saw and more. The gorilla’s wounds weren’t just rotting. Writhing in the gray fluid pouring from the gorilla’s wounds were hundreds of maggots. I nearly lost my stomach right there, but I feared the sudden upheaval would draw the animal faster. I focused on keeping the sickness down while the doctor stepped out from behind the tree, drawing a syringe from his pocket.
“Are you crazy? What are you doing?”
“I need a sample. Just a small sample.”
“You need to get your ass back here, Doc,” I said, but he ignored me; no surprise there.
All I could do was lock the gorilla in my crosshairs and pray. I can’t know if it was my prayers or simple nature, but the ape’s eyes were drawn away from us. The beast, in all of it’s viciously corroded glory, became enraptured by a passing butterfly. It would have made me chuckle if not for the acidic fear gnawing my tongue into immobility. While the gorilla was distracted by shimmering iridescent wings, Dr. Knight advanced. She made small yipping sounds at the butterfly and dug at the dirt anxiously, but when Knight buried his needle in her immense thigh, her eyes shot to him.
“Easy, girl. That’s it. That’s my girl,” he sang softly as he drew back the plunger and filled the syringe.
The gorilla’s body shook with building rage as it raised paw much larger than the doctor’s head, even with its missing digits.
“Maybe you should move, Doc.”
“I’m just about finished,” he said and capped the vial of thick, gray fluid.
“Is that how it’s supposed to look?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.
The gorilla clamped its paw around his arm, and her nose twitched madly as she pulled him closer and closer. My fear for Knight increased, but he was too entranced by his wonder to worry. Even as the beast’s mouth became an unnaturally wide cavern of broken stalactites into which his arm disappeared, Dr. Knight could not pull away from the creature he’d been craving to see for so long, no matter how grotesque.
My scream came first. It was more of a warning to Dr. Knight that if he didn’t move, his scream was sure to follow. He did not heed my warning, but my scream was powerful enough to pluck the others from the jeep. The initial bite was slow. The gorilla closed her mammoth mouth around the doctor’s arm, almost daring him to pull back, but he didn’t. After a life’s search, he couldn’t turn away. He needed to see the Cross River Gorilla up close. He needed to feel it, even if it meant—well, he couldn’t have known what would happen any more than I could know why he stood there and took it. Her fangs tore straight through his arm as if it was paper, and the doctor finally screamed. At last, the enchantment was severed, and as he pulled himself out of the gorilla’s clenched jaws, so was his arm. He was on the ground by the time the others arrived, shrieking and clutching what was left of his limb. As the gorilla loomed over him, dripping gray fluid onto his face, the maggots fell as well and started burrow
ing into his shredded forearm.
“Shoot, you idiot!” Sergeant Moore screamed; I had a feeling that while the “shoot” was for everyone, the “idiot” was for me.
I emptied my magazine into the gorilla’s chest, sending chunks of rotten flesh flying through the air until there was a spacious hole in which I could see her broken ribcage, as well as a gray lump of flesh that looked like it may have, at one time, been her heart. A few soldiers nabbed head shots, but it only gave the gorilla pause and she glared at those shooters as if memorizing who to take down next. She grasped Dr. Knight by his stump of an arm and hoisted him into the air.
“Hold your fire!” the sergeant shouted, but Knight begged for more.
“Kill her!” he screamed.
That was all Dr. Knight was able to get out before the beast dug her fangs into his forehead and tore away his face. It was still hanging from her teeth when she growled and threw him aside like a rag doll. She lunged at me, and more nimbly than I thought myself capable, I flipped my rifle around and whipped it across her face. She roared and I bashed the butt against her teeth, shattering two of the remaining fangs and knocking Knight’s face free. I hurled Lulu at the gorilla and dashed for the doctor while the others unloaded their magazines into the beast. Jacob Knight lay broken several yards away with every inch covered in sloppy scarlet. His teeth were horrifyingly exposed and his remaining hand was bent backwards so far that his fingers were touching his wrist, but the worst part was that Dr. Knight was still very much alive.