Invaders

by Vaughn Heppner

  I was shaking badly by the time I threw myself against a wall. I looked up, gulping air. This had been a terrible idea—

  I cursed under my breath and started moving again. I had the raygun in my hand, the trigger finger hovering over the stub.

  I stopped at the corner, peered around it and saw a tall alien exit a building. He held something up against his left ear. It must have been a communicator. He stopped, looked around, held the thing before his mouth and made soft noises I could not hear. Finally, he resumed walking, disappearing around another building.

  I darted out, rushed to a smashed door and zipped inside the building. I promptly crashed against a low box, sprawling over it. I lost the flashlight and raygun. They both clattered over the floor. I barely caught myself in time. If I hadn’t, I would have used my nose to do the landing.

  I panted in terror, certain I was about to hear aliens come running to inspect the noise.

  None of them did, though.

  I climbed to my feet and winced as I tried to move my left wrist. I must have sprained it. I crawled on my knees, using my good hand to search the floor. Finally, I found the flashlight. I kept looking for the raygun and had no luck, although I did find my shoes. I took thirty seconds to put them on.

  Afterward, I asked myself what was the best option.

  I clicked on the flashlight, playing the light across the floor. Ah. There it was. I clicked off the light, collected the alien weapon and headed for the stairs.

  Soon, I eased down the metal steps. I feared using the flashlight again, so I went slowly. I reached the bottom and fumbled around, finally bumping against a giant storage unit.

  This was no good. I didn’t even have starlight anymore. It was pitch-dark, the kind that made a hand in front of your face invisible.

  I clicked on the flashlight, and my hopes sank. I’d guessed wrong. Friction had reared its ugly head.

  As I moved past the first storage unit, I saw an alien contraption. It was square-shaped, about the size of a large dinner table and it was pulsating rhythmically as if it were a giant heart.

  I took several steps closer. The thing radiated heat. I noticed cables plugged into it. Those were energy cables from the batteries, but I didn’t see the ends plugged into the pulsating gray…thing. The flesh—if that was flesh—engulfed the plugs.

  I circled the gray, square-shaped, pulsating creature. I looked for eyes or a mouth, but found nothing like that. It seemed to be all one pulsating piece.

  What was the thing supposed to do? What was its function?

  I knew I had to get out of here. If the aliens had plugged this monstrosity into the storage batteries, they were going to come back eventually.

  I spun around and took a step toward the stairs.

  I heard buzzing. It seemed to come from inside the building on the main floor. Another alien seemed to reply to the first.

  Were they headed toward my basement?

  I flicked off the flashlight and peered from around a storage unit. I saw light up there. They seemed to be heading this way, all right. The footsteps drew closer—

  I held my breath.

  The door opened all the way, and a light shined down the steps. An alien put a foot down the first staircase.

  I had to make a decision. A second alien followed the first. They both had flashlights.

  I aimed the raygun and depressed the stub. The weapon whined, vibrated and shot a thin red beam. It struck the first alien in the chest. I held the beam on him as he began to smoke.

  The second alien dropped his flashlight. Faster than I had seen any of them move, the second alien pivoted on the stairs. This one moved like a lizard, leaping upward.

  I moved the raygun, sending the beam at him. The red beam struck the doorframe as the second alien darted out of sight.

  Now what was I going to do?

  -6-

  I think I realized it was over for me then. Depression welled up. I’d hoped to take them both out and get out of here.

  Likely, it was too late for that now.

  I snarled a curse, tightening my grip on the raygun. I wasn’t beaten yet, damn it. I had to think this through. I needed to act before it was too late.

  I clicked on the flashlight. The first alien had one hand on his chest, trying to stanch the flood of black gunk from the hole there. His other hand wiped at his belt, trying to drag out his raygun. His skin had turned a nasty shade of green. Did that mean he was dying?

  I raced for the stairs, trying to beat him to the punch. His other hand finally latched onto the raygun, and he began to draw it out of its holder.

  I pressed the stub, drilling him a second time with my beam. He smoked, and part of his upper body disintegrated. I quit firing, bounding up the stairs. Unfortunately, I slipped on black gunk that had dripped down several steps.

  I released both the flashlight and the raygun in order to catch myself, but it was too late. I slipped on the alien blood and went down hard, striking my chin on a metal step.

  I must have knocked myself out.

  The next thing I knew, my head and jaw were aching. A few of my teeth felt loose. I lay at the bottom of the stairs. When I tried to get up, I groaned in agony. I thought I might have broken one of my ankles.

  I didn’t hear anything from the top of the stairs. Was the first alien dead? I had no way of knowing. I tried to think, but that was getting harder by the second.

  If I’d broken an ankle, it was all over.

  I dragged myself along the floor, searching in the darkness around the stairs. After a time, I found the flashlight and clicked it on. Soon thereafter, I had the raygun again.

  I checked my left ankle. I couldn’t tell if it was broken, but it had swollen to the size of a grapefruit and the skin was discolored.

  I glared at the dead alien on the stairs.

  Friction had nailed me in the end. Those stupid little things one didn’t consider had ended my chances. Instead of feeling sorrow or pity for myself, I realized I still had to do my part for the human race.

  There was another factor to my next action. The aliens were going to kill me. Of that, I had no doubt. That made me angry. I wanted to hurt the bastards who were going to steal my life from me. I could lay an ambush for the next ones to show up, but maybe they had battle tech to take care of the situation. There was only one way I could see to hurt them now.

  On my belly, I crawled for the storage units. The light jiggled as I crawled. Finally, from on the floor, I stared at the pulsating gray matter. I’d like to know what the thing did. Why had they hooked it up to our power?

  I set the flashlight on the floor so the light was aimed at it. Afterward, I took the raygun in both hands. My hands no longer shook. They were rock-steady as I depressed the stub. The thin beam struck the pulsating gray thing that drank our collected solar energy.

  I expected it to glow, but that didn’t happen. The pulsating gray matter seemed to resist the beam. The flesh darkened around the spot of the beam, but that was it.

  I kept beaming the thing, hoping to wear it down. My raygun vibrated and whined louder than ever. I noticed that the gray flesh-cube pulsated less than before. That was something, at least.

  Finally, I quit beaming and dragged out my revolver. With a loud boom, I sent my last bullet into the quivering alien flesh. Then, I resumed beaming it.

  Everything was different after that. The thing quivered like mad. It began to glow this time, and awful smelling smoke billowed from it.

  “Die!” I shouted.

  The first piece of flesh disappeared soon thereafter. Black gunk spilled out of the area and gave off terrible fumes. For an instant, I saw lights inside the quivering square of table-sized flesh. Was this a weird, alien cyborg unit?

  I beamed until my raygun cycled off. Just before that happened, more of the gray-flesh square disintegrated. Gallons of black gunk jetted out of the rest, and the huge square began to deflate like a slowly leaking balloon.

  At that point, my raygu
n gave up the ghost. I heard it click several times, and then it stopped altogether. I’d used up its power pack.

  The alien gray square dying like that did something bad to the batteries, which should have been impossible. The huge batteries began to hiss and shake, and suddenly they discharged electrical bolts. A smell of ozone mixed with the foul alien odors.

  I climbed up and hopped away on my good foot.

  Something I couldn’t see began to crackle with fire. Electrical smoke added its stench. I had to get out of here before I burned to death or was electrocuted.

  I hopped several more times and crashed against the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t let that stop me, not now. I began crawling up on my hands and knees.

  Maybe the half-disintegrated alien still had his raygun. If so, I could use that. The slippery black gunk had already started to harden, but not enough for my tastes. It soaked through to my knees and got on my pants.

  The dead alien was still holding a raygun, but the weapon was melted in places and therefore useless.

  Carefully, I negotiated around him, continuing up the stairs until I reached the door. I heard aliens out there. They were coming.

  I hopped again, and took out my Smith & Wesson. I was out of bullets. I should have had extra rounds with me, but wishing wasn’t going to help me now.

  My bad ankle throbbed. Alien blood clung to my clothes. My time on Earth was rushing to a close. It left me bitter, I admit it.

  I reversed my hold of the .44, gripping it by the barrel. I would use it like a club. It was the best I had. If only I’d taken a flip-knife with me.

  The first alien hurried through the main smashed door. I clubbed him as hard as I could on the back of the head. It was a terrific hit. If he’d been human, I’d have dashed him to the floor. That had been my hope, as I’d planned to relieve him of his raygun.

  Instead, the alien stumbled forward without going down. He buzzed as if cursing with pain. I hopped at the bastard, but that only made me an easier target for the next thing through the door.

  “Stop,” an alien behind me said in English.

  I didn’t stop because I knew there were no percentages in it. This was it. I wasn’t going to go out trussed up or given a lecture before one of them shot me. I was going to go out fighting—if I could get close enough to the first alien who had ruined my chances for escape.

  I hopped on one leg as hard as I could. It would have made my old high school track coach proud. I had done the hop, step and jump in track, and had done well enough to go to the meets.

  The hops jarred me enough to click my teeth together. That might have alerted the first alien.

  He took his hands from the back of his head and turned around to face me. The second alien—the bossy one—buzzed a warning, I suppose.

  I snarled, raised my gun-club and found an alien fist smashing me square against the nose. Everything went blank after that.

  -7-

  I grew aware again as a constant vibration played along the length of my prone body. I felt it mostly in my hands, which were pressed down before my aching face.

  A hump of sorts on the floor caused my butt to stick up. A grinding noise up ahead made me frown, and my body lurched as gravel crunched somewhere nearby.

  What was going—?

  Oh. I was in a car. They’d put me on the floorboard in the back seat. I felt something in my good hand. I played with it in my fingers, crinkling…a hard candy wrapper.

  Slowly, I unraveled the wrapper and slipped the hard candy into my mouth. I wanted to crunch it. I was ravenous, but I sucked it instead. It was cinnamon flavored—

  Wait a minute. This was from Strings. I always grabbed a fistful of these as I left the restaurant. I felt the carpet, felt the way the vehicle moved—

  The bastards were carting me out in my own jeep.

  My anger brought a touch of greater awareness to my foggy brain. I felt something on my back. I lay there, trying to decipher the feeling. Finally, the thing on my back shifted.

  An alien was using me as a footrest. I must have twitched then. I couldn’t help it.

  The alien using me as a footrest spoke. “The creature is awake.”

  “Has the creature spoken to you?” the driver asked.

  “No. He is silent. I believe he is trying to understand the situation.”

  The alien was right about that. I desperately wanted to understand. My mind was sluggish, though. One thing made me curious. They didn’t buzz to each other. They spoke in slightly accented and stilted English. There was a reason for that, and I would have liked to know what it was.

  “Ask the creature its name,” the driver said.

  The alien with his feet on my back did just that.

  “Logan,” I answered.

  “Does the creature possess the customary two names or merely the one?” the driver asked.

  “Why not check my driver’s license?” I said.

  Neither of them spoke. Finally, Mr. Nasty Feet-on-my-Back dug out my wallet. He soon told the driver my last name.

  “How about letting me sit up,” I said.

  “The creature feels humiliated,” the one said.

  “That is interesting,” the driver said. “It makes my hypotheses even more likely. I submit it is the only answer to what we witnessed.”

  “Why would it wield such primitive weapons then?”

  “It used our weapons against us, which was an ingenious move. It also maneuvered skillfully to the most delicate point of our process. It rendered the achiever into a null state. That should make the reason for its apparent primitiveness self-evident.”

  “I do not understand,” the backseat alien said.

  “The primitive weapon aided its disguise,” the driver said. “The aboriginal-style assault almost deflected us from the true nature of its being. Luckily, I have a Class 5 understanding of the Galactic Guard’s deception techniques.”

  “The Organizer will surely add several percentage points to your haulage fee because of your greater education.”

  “That is my estimation as well,” the driver admitted.

  I frowned with my forehead pressed against the carpet. These two did not sound like deadly space invaders. It almost seemed as if the driver was bragging about himself. And what was this about a haulage fee? Were these two contractors for someone calling himself the Organizer?

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “The deceptive Earth-disguised creature is becoming demanding,” the backseat alien told the driver.

  “Cause him pain.”

  The alien dug one of his heels against my back, making me squirm.

  The squirming caused me to use my left foot and I yelled. That sent pain shooting through my bad ankle, which made me lurch upward.

  “He is attempting an escape.”

  “Shock him into submission,” the driver said in the same emotionless voice they’d both been using the entire time.

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  It was too late. A prod sizzled against me that sent electrical currents coursing through my body. I went rigid at the pain and collapsed in a heap once the alien removed the shocker.

  “You will not make demands of us,” the rear-seat alien told me. “You will await the next phase in docile contentment.”

  “Sure,” I gasped, “whatever you say. Just don’t shock me anymore.”

  “He is attempting to negotiate a better deal,” the backseat alien said.

  “Shock him again,” the driver said.

  “No! Wait!” I said.

  “He demands you desist giving me orders,” Mr. Backseat said.

  The driver slammed on the brakes. That threw me against the back of the front seats. The jeep skidded across the road until we came to a stop.

  I heard the front door open, and then a back door opened. With iron-like fingers, the driver grabbed my broken ankle. He dug those fingers into the tender flesh.

  I yelled loud and long, trying to kick my foot free of him. He d
ug harder, finally letting go.

  I wanted to whimper at the pain, but refused to give him the pleasure. My foot throbbed horribly and a cold sweat had broken out along my body.

  “You will not make demands of us,” the driver said. “We know about your deception. I realize you want to goad us into killing you. This will not happen. You will now serve us, or I will cause you endless torment.”

  I panted, remaining silent.

  “He is stubborn,” the backseat alien said. “He refuses to acknowledge your order.”

  “What do you want me to say?” I shouted.

  “Is that another demand?” the driver asked the other.

  “No,” I said. “Look. I’m different from you. I’m not trying to order you around or to disagree. I’m confused, and you’re hurting me.”

  “Is this more deception?” the backseat alien asked.

  “Yes,” the driver said. “The Galactic agent is exceptionally skillful. He seems very convincing. Listen to me, Guard-man. Will you do as I demand?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “This is your given bond?” the driver asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How can a guard-man have become so weak?” the backseat alien asked.

  “Perhaps they stationed him on this dirt ball for many cycles,” the driver said. “He has become lax like the aboriginals.”

  “How the mighty have fallen.”

  “Do not show so much awe toward the Galactic Guard,” the driver said. “If the Organizer ever heard you speak like that…”

  “I am ashamed of my words,” Mr. Backseat said.

  “It is forgotten,” the driver said. “Logan-creature, are you awaiting my speech?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You will remain stationary for the remainder of the journey. If you attempt any subterfuge, Z17 will administer pain. Do you acknowledge my command?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He has a great fear of the pain,” Z17 observed. “I would not have believed it before this example.”

  “We will use this fear to keep him docile until we reach the destination,” the driver said. “Then, he will deliver the ship into our hands.”

  “He would do this for us?” the backseat alien asked.