Earth Man

by Richard Paul Evans

  “Time to go.”

  “Can you guys give me a minute? I need to get dressed.” Danny threw the covers off and swung his feet down to the door.

  Ray leaned against the wall, playing his Nintendo DS, looking up occasionally just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. Danny was annoyed his son had brought his video games to the hospital but on the other hand, at least the boy had come.

  “Unless you want to see me naked.” Danny said. Ray shook his head in disgust at his father.

  “Being naked is completely natural, right Mom?” Morgan asked. Ray shoved her, fake puking on his little sister.

  “Yes Morgan, but your Daddy is a little shy.” Helen said, winking at her husband.

  Helen pushed Ray out the door, Morgan following behind them both, turning back to give her father a big smile. He loved his family so much that thinking about it often made his heart feel as if it would explode. Given his recent heart attack, he had to remember to keep calm and relaxed for the next little while. Instead of carrying that anxiety in his chest over his loved ones, he decided he would simply tell them how much he loved them.

  “Love you guys!” Danny shouted out loud.

  Helen had brought him a sports bag with a fresh change of clothes. What he’d worn on his hunting trip was long gone now, only his shoes had survived. Inside the bag Helen had packed a white University of British Columbia shirt and a pair of jeans one size smaller than what he was comfortable with. As he finished buttoning up his jeans he heard a noise that instantly caught his attention. It was very quiet, very distant, but it sounded like monkeys screaming. It was one of those things that you just assumed the movies portrayed accurately, he’d never personally heard animals shrieking madly but he recognized the sound when he heard it. Although the racket seemed distant it was unmistakable and it wasn’t just monkeys he could hear. There were other animal sounds, guttural growls and low roars that seemed to come at him from every direction. As he finished putting on his t-shirt he subconsciously rubbed his thumb scar, a habit he’d picked up during his stay in the hospital when the injury happened. Then he’d been worried about his sports career. Those days seemed very far away in the past.

  At the front desk Helen had decided to page the doctor, while she waited patiently for him to arrive the kids bought themselves treats at the vending machine.

  “Mrs. Boyle, a pleasure to see you again.” Dr. Rue said, extending his hand.

  Helen hadn’t seen him approach so she assumed he must have come out of one of the nearby rooms. It caught her off guard and it took her a minute to take his extended hand and shake it.

  “Thank you.” Helen said, stepping back slightly.

  “I was just wondering, you know is it really safe for him to be going home so quickly? What if he has another seizure or something?” Helen asked while still shaking the doctor’s hand. It seemed the young doctor was reluctant to release her.

  “I don’t think we have any reason at this point to be concerned. We’re not even sure what happened to cause his seizure in the first place. I’m still waiting for a few test results but Danny appears to be fine.”

  The doctor finally pulled his hand back and placed them both in his pocket.

  “Only your husband knows for sure what happened out there. We can do our best to figure it out but unless he’s going to be honest with us, there isn’t much we can do.”

  “What do you mean?” Helen said, narrowing her green eyes. “Are you saying he’s keeping something from me?”

  “No, no, not at all. Maybe he really doesn’t remember what happened. Whatever is going on, we’re not going to get any answers here in the hospital. And your insurance doesn’t cover a private room and I just felt you’d be better served letting him rest at home. But if you are concerned. . .”

  “No. No you are probably right.”

  Suddenly Dr. Rue’s phone rang a simple three tweet tone. The doctor pulled it out quickly and when he saw the number calling a dark shadow passed over his face.

  The Doctor gave Helen a slight bob of his head and left, heading back to the nurses desk. Helen checked her watch impatiently wondering what was taking Danny so long. Occasionally the doctor would glance over at her and finally Helen decided to find out exactly what the kids were up to. Handsome or not, the doctor’s overt attention to her was reaching the point of being creepy. Especially since he was keeping the phone stuck to his head the whole time.

  Two meters away Danny walked passed his family straight into the emergency stairwell. Nothing else was on his mind except following the noises he was hearing in his head. Suddenly a lion’s roar assailed him and he almost lost his balance, grabbing onto the railing as his foot slipped off the stair. Righting himself, he continued down, trying his best to dim the noises bouncing around in his head.

  RUN. RUN. RUN. RUN. INFANT.NEW. INCAPABLE!

  Finally reaching the bottom Danny slowly pushed open the door. The sounds he was hearing made one final cascade of noise that caused him to wince in pain. He fell against the wall, sliding downwards slowly as he gripped his head. Lashing out in anger he kicked the doors in front of him. As the doors flew opened the noise finally stopped.

  The room on the other side of the doors was coated with plastic drapes; there was some kind of construction going on and the smell of fresh paint was strong. Danny pushed past the plastic drapes into another room. It took him a moment to realize he was in the morgue and that although under construction, it was still being used to hold bodies.

  There was a noise under a nearby counter and Danny froze. Stepping closer, he slowly leaned over and came face to face with what appeared to be a homeless man crouched under the morticians table. There was a smell coming off him and his dark beard was patchy and dishevelled.

  “You the cops?” the homeless man asked. The man was dirty and unkempt and he appeared sickly, his hands were hidden inside his jacket.

  “No. I just got lost.” Danny replied, stepping back away from the man.

  The smell grew stronger and Danny recoiled from it, the stench was repugnant and inhuman. As the homeless man crawled out from under the table Danny saw the man’s dirty hands were purple, swollen and misshapen. The fingers looked ready to burst and the tips were black.

  “Somethin’ bit me. I jus’ wanted some help. You a doctor?” the man asked. Holding up his hands, Danny recoiled in horror. The skin was sloughing off of them, revealing large black pincers that unfolded like deadly scissors.

  “Help me!”

  The man lunged at him but Danny leaped away, faster than he’d ever moved before. As the homeless man landed head first on the floor his flesh make a sickly tearing noise as his face split in half. The skin separated as an alien-like visage pushed through the old human one and blinked its black eyes. When it turned on all fours to face Danny, the homeless man had come to resemble some kind of insect-like creature. The moans coming from its throat turned to clicking noises from its ant-like mandibles that jutted out from the place where it once had a mouth. It moved on all fours at lightning speed but luckily Danny was faster than it was.

  For a split second time seemed to slow down; in the corner of the basement a tiny spider weaved its web, unaware of the monster or the human who seemed to be watching it. Danny reached out with his mind, reaching into the spider and replicated its abilities. It all happened so fast that Danny did not even know consciously what was going on. The alien scurried across the floor toward him and Danny leapt, using the abilities of the spider to cling to the ceiling. Tiny scapulae made of red energy formed on the ends of Danny’s fingers and allowed him to stick to the roof, dangling above the former human that now hosted the Third. The alien creature was blending the insect and human DNA into various combinations, using the flesh as it saw fit. It scrambled around underneath Danny for a minute, its newly grown antennae twitching in the air, until it remembered its human form and stood up. Danny swung away, landing near the entrance to the morgue. The Third followed him quickly, chasing hi
m into the room of plastic curtains. Danny slipped on the floor, pulling down a plastic cover as he fell that wrapped itself around him. By the time he’d freed himself the alien hybrid was standing over him.

  “INSECTS. ANIMALS. THAT IS ALL. THAT IS ALL THIS WORLD IS,” the creature hissed with a human tongue.

  “WET STICKY CREATURES CRAMMED INTO EVERY ORIFICE OF YOUR WORLD. EASY FOR US. EASY FOR US TO CONSUME.”

  It lashed out with its left mandible, no longer even an arm, tearing through the plastic tarp and slashing Danny’s shirt with the sharp spikes formed on its carapace. The creature seemed to grow bigger, swelling and thickening at the same time. Danny did his best to duck behind the plastic as the creature swung at him. The alien’s human skin was quickly turning black and Danny knew there was no way he could ever help the man inside. The homeless man was nothing more than a cocoon for something otherworldly to grow in. The last thing Danny wanted was for it to touch him, or worse, infect him in some way.

  Danny felt a strange new strength surging through him again and he kicked the Third with both feet, sending it flying back into the wall. Landing like a cat he quickly scanned the room. The only way out was the emergency staircase behind him or the morgue entrance behind the monster. He was reluctant to flee back up the stairs; if it followed him to a more heavily populated area of the hospital many people would be at risk. His family was up there, he wanted to keep it as far away from them as possible. Whatever had drawn him to the monster, whatever was giving him these strange adaptive abilities wanted him to stand and fight. He believed he could destroy it, he believed he had to. There was no one else that could.

  Danny’s heart was in the right place when he decided to fight back, he faced his enemy with courage. But his bravery alone could not stop the monster. Leaping off the wall he used all his body strength to smash the creature with both fists. As it recoiled back its claw-like hands ripped across his chest and drew blood. Danny managed to dodge the second swipe with incredible speed and for a moment he believed he might actually win. But the alien fought with no sense of self-preservation, no fear of pain. As he swung his fist at it, the Third raised its arm and cut shear through Danny’s right forearm with the razor sharp edge of its armour. The limb fell to the floor with a dull thud. Danny stumbled backwards, his mind racing as shock set in. He thought it was raining and he looked around, then he realized it was his blood spraying on the thick plastic wall covers.

  A pulse of red energy burst from his stump and it blew Danny and the Third into opposite ends of the room. Danny’s blood had turned into pure glowing red energy, blasting out of his wound and his eyes like lasers. As the energy snaked out across the room it did not damage or burn anything, it simply flowed across the objects it came into contact with. The Third had gotten tangled in the plastic tarps and as it tore itself free it shrieked so loud it popped Danny’s ears. Danny crawled across the floor until his back reached the wall, then he gripped his bleeding arm tight. The Third was scared of the strange red energy, it burned and blinded it. Frightened for the first time in over a thousand years, the Third fled the body it inhabited. It took a few minutes for the corpse to fall over but in that moment the alien transferred its consciousness to one of the ants inside it. The instant the body hit the floor the energy faded from Danny’s body and he blacked out. The lights in the room flickered and went out and there was a high pitch whine as the building emergency lights kicked in.

  His eyes flickered open and he saw his own blood pooling around him. Danny heard voices coming down the stairs but he could not call out.

  “That you again Norbert? You know you can’t sleep down here. If you’re sleeping in here we’re turning you over to the cops this time.”

  ITSY BITSY SPIDER, EARTH MAN..

  Danny recognized the voice right away; it was the voice from the forest. The sound came from somewhere inside him and jolted him awake. He thought he’d heard it before but he ignored it, but now it was loud and clear. This time the voice would not be ignored and Danny no longer had the strength to fight it.

  ARANEAE. IXODIDA. HOME SAPIENS. ALL IS ONE.

  Danny’s skin began to ooze a thick clear liquid. The fluid filled in his wounds and tried to cover his mouth but he wiped his face with his good arm.

  A second voice chimed in, deeper than the first.

  “I don’t know why you keep giving this guy another chance, let’s just toss the bum out into the trash and be done with HOLY SHIT!”

  Danny couldn’t see them; his vision was fading in and out fast. He tried to call out to them but he couldn’t find his voice. They seemed to radiate a glow like a 3-D image. They were wasting valuable time inspecting the freakish corpse they’d discovered and by the time they’d notice Danny lying at the other end of the room they had already lost valuable seconds. His life was fading and Danny knew it, each beat of his heart sent his life’s blood pumping out onto the floor. The glaze of sweat continued to ooze from his pours and at it touched his wounds the bleeding began to slow.

  The security guards were out of their element and they quickly ran upstairs, yelling into their radios for police and paramedics. Danny couldn’t help but be amused by the fact he was dying on the floor of a hospital. Finally the song of the darkness overtook him and he closed his eyes. He could feel the moulting fluid covering him up and he had no more energy to fight.

  OLIGOCHAETA.HUMAN. ALL IS ONE.

  Suddenly Danny understood what the voice was saying. Araneae was spiders, Ixodida were also known as ticks. Oligochaeta.

  “Oligochaeta.” Danny whispered to himself.

  A common earthworm. What did they mean though? Why was it important? Danny opened his eyes and looked at his wounded arm. The bone had already grown back and he watched in amazement as the meat and skin re-grew over top of his skeleton. The moulting fluid worked as a healing agent, covering his wounds and regenerating them quickly. Danny had no idea if anything in nature could even heal that fast. It was like watching some kind of magical plant bloom before his eyes except he could feel the nerves and the sensations flooding through the new flesh. The paramedics and police burst into the room, waving flashlights in his face. As he held up his hand to block the light, the last pieces of his new hand knitted themselves together. The new bones cracked for the first time and the paramedics put Danny on a stretcher. All he could do is stare at his new arm, the skin pink and fresh. As they put him on the elevator they placed a breathing mask over his face. He moved the fingers on the newly regrown hand, marvelling as the muscles flexed for the first time. Danny held both arms up side by side and while they were mirror images of each other, there was clearly a difference in age between the two limbs. Then the shock set in and Danny fell back unconscious.

  When the hospital finally cleared Danny to leave it was Phil who came to pick him up. After what happened in the basement Danny and Helen both agreed that it wasn’t safe for the kids to come back to the hospital. They’d barely spoken about it and Danny had no way to explain it. People around the hospital started whispering about the guy with all the bad luck. Helen had missed too much work already and with Danny now unemployed, Phil volunteered to get him so Helen could keep her client happy. It seemed ridiculous to be building an oak wardrobe while her husband was in the hospital but her real estate clients wanted the houses ready in time for their potential buyers. It was a Wednesday anyway and the kids were off at school, whereas Phil’s son was off at college in Los Angeles.

  There had been a lot of questions about what had happened and what exactly the creature was they’d found downstairs. But with all Danny had been through and his general lack of cooperation, the police decided he was simply an unlucky guy who’d happened upon a very sick individual. The Center for Disease Control had been called in to remove the body and they could find nothing that could pose a risk to anyone else. The corpse was long gone before Phil showed up and the hospital wanted to put it behind them as quickly and quietly as possible. They even went so far as to wave Danny’s
single room costs, wiping it off the bill entirely. Danny said nothing as he got dressed, this time with a plain white t-shirt; his jeans had survived the encounter with the Third in one piece. Phil waited patiently for him to sign himself out and they walked side by side to the car. Phil opened the passenger door for his old friend who he’d known since high school. Although Danny gave him a strange look, still Phil said nothing.

  Inside the old Volkswagen that smelled like a dirty hockey bag, Phil took off his hat and tossed it in the back. Putting his seatbelt on, Danny watched Phil rub his balding, short cut afro. It looked as if Phil was going to say something, but instead he turned the key to start the engine. Then Phil turned to him, scratching his stubbly beard as the words came tumbling out.

  “Look are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on or not, man?”

  Danny was taken aback for a moment. “What are you talking about, exactly?”

  “Look I’m not your wife or that dumb-ass doctor. I was there, Danny. I saw things, heard things. I saw your face, when I found you. It was messed up. I didn’t come to the hospital sooner? Because I didn’t want to talk about it. But they just pulled a monster out of there, didn’t they? So rather than spend the next few days of my life trying to figure it out I’m going right to the source, right now. Whatever is happening is happening to you, Danny. So either you trust me and let me in, now, or I hit the road. I am not going to end up getting killed because you have communication problems.”

  “Killed? What are you talking about? Why would you get killed?” Danny asked wryly.

  “I’ve seen more than enough movies and TV shows to know how this is going to go down, I’ve even read a few books. You know what every science fiction and horror story has in common? The victims. Aliens land on Earth and half the town is dead before the guy who suspected they were aliens says anything. Dude sees a vampire eat his neighbour and he doesn’t call the cops until it’s his turn. Ninety nine percent of all movie plots could be shut down right away if the person who is the lead character just shared what the hell he knew with everyone else.”