“You’re the one gave me the lead,” I shouted back into the empty phone, Bernie had already hung up. What was the address he’d given me? 537 Grove Avenue or Grove Street, Fletcher Valley? That had better be it.
A disappointed Mrs. Edna Fosbert let me out of the house every bit as reluctantly as she had let me in.
“Are you sure you can’t tell me what it’s all about?”
“Secret,” I said. “My lips are sealed. But you can read all about it in the next Rev, Besides,” I said, hoping I was lying, “cheer up, I’ll be back to finish up your story.”
It was just turning dark when I pulled past the narrow drive leading off the road from the mailbox marked Ms. T. T. Jones 537 Grove Avenue. I breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good. As Bernie had taken pains to point out to me, this was my first big one. And only because I was the only Rev reporter close enough to get here on time. I had better not. . ., etc.
So I drove past and pulled up and parked off the side of the road and hurried up the rustic driveway on foot, sly reporter-style.
The door flew open before I could knock on it.
“Hurry!” she said “He’ll be here soon.”
I stood there momentarily stunned, mouth open. It was just too weird to see her here in this rustic environment, standing in the doorway dressed in red silk panties and brassiere, sort of bulging out of everything.
“Well for gawdssake will you hurry up and git in here? You spose to be used to this kind of stuff by now, ain’t you? Like a doctor or somethin’?”
“Yeah, right,” I mumbled, following her as she led me quickly through the front room and straight into her bedroom.
“You can hide in the closet there, and just leave the door open a little, see? He’ll be here just any minute now. See here, that’s his mark.” She tilted her head back and showed me two little puckered sores on her neck.
She shivered dramatically and squealed—“Ow, I jess love it!” And smiled. “Quick, get in there.”
Inside the closet, I set up my camera. Checked it out twice. I would have to use the flash. Great, right? I wished to hell they’d give me one of those cameras with the super film you can use with hardly any light at all, but fat chance.
I was checking out my camera for the third time when I heard a loud fizzy sound like steak sizzling on a barbecue, and I peeked out just in time to see smoke pouring in through the open bedroom window.
“Thet you, Count? Don’t you jest come in here thet way without askin’ or nothin’. I’m half nakid.”
Gradually the smoke took on the shape of a skinny little dark-haired guy, his hair plastered back and greased down flat as a pancake, wearing a tux.
“I like you zat way, princess.”
“I don’t know why you must insist on callin’ me a princess when I must hev told you a million times thet I am only a simple farmer lady. Tina T. Jones, thet’s me, is all.”
The little guy just practically swooped on her. But she pushed him away from her, playfully.
“You will always be zee princess to me,” he said in his phony accent.
Now I could get a pretty good look at him in the moonlight flooding in the open window, and I was amazed at how ugly he was. His nose was too big, his lips were flabby and sort of protruding like he was always on the verge of sucking something, and his eyes were tiny. He was one of those tiny teeny little guys who always look like they’re going to break into tears any minute. But he sure wasn’t shy. He snatched excitedly at her red brassiere, but she coyly slapped his hand away.
“Honestly,” she said, “I don’t see what it is you see in me. I’m jest a simple farmer lady. Not like some glamor queen you see in the National Revealer or nuthin’.” She leered knowingly in my direction.
Shit! I figured it better be now or never. So what the hell, I just kicked open the door, and popped the flash. The room lit up.
The little guy actually hissed, and held his arm up in front of his eyes in a dramatic pose.
Then the light faded.
“Jesus Christ!” he said in plain English. “Did you just take my picture, with a flash bulb? What the fuck are you, the village idiot?”
Suddenly it dawned on me. Shit, what was I doing? I dropped the camera like a rock, it bounced on my chest, luckily I still had it in the case, and I held my hands up in front of me, forming a cross with my index fingers. “Whooo,” I said, inadvertently trying to add a music score. “Whooo, it’s the sign of the cross."
The count stopped advancing; for a moment he looked puzzled. Then he said, “You’re kidding."
Suddenly he slapped me in the arm hard enough to spin me around, bounce me off the wall and down on the floor.
“Sanctimonious religious prig!” he shouted in a mean tone of voice. “What the hell do I care about your WASP sensibilities?”
“Ow, damn it, you really hit hard for such a little guy,” I groaned.
“Hit hard? Hit hard? I'm a vampire, you dunce. Get up and I'll show you hit hard!”
All this time Tina was pulling at his elbow. “Don’t hurt him, honey. Don’t break his camera, okay? I'll never git on the cover.”
“Get out of my way, you dumb bimbo.” He shoved her aside.
“Dumb bimbo? You said you loved me. You told me I was your princess. Now I’m just a dumb bimbo. Oh, God. You men! You all are just brute animals. You don’t care . .. you don’t...” She threw herself down on the bed and started weeping hysterically.
The count grabbed hold of my wrist and snapped me up onto my feet like I was a whip and he was cracking it. He grabbed hold of my throat with his other hand, then turned back toward the bed.
“Stop it, will you? Stop that crying. Listen, you are still my princess, of course. I just.. . lost control, is all. This was ... I mean, Zis was a crazy idea, princess. In zee first place, everyone knows you can’t take a photo of a vampire.”
“I didn’t know that,” I choked, genuinely surprised.
“Shut up, idiot,” the count said, clamping down a little extra on the throat.
“Ztop crying, my zweet. Et weel all be . . .”
“I thought you really loved me,” Tina bawled.
“I do. I do!”
“Listen,” I choked, barely able to get it out. “If you kill me she’s going to be issed-pay.”
“Then it’s going to be ater-lay for oo-yay. Where she can’t ee-say,” he hissed, dragging me toward the front door.
“Is thet pig Latin? Are you men talkin’ pig Latin around me? Damn you,” Tina shouted, sitting up on the bed. “Don’t you dare.”
“Listen, my princess, we are not speaking the ... how you zay . . . Latin pig talk. But we have to go outside for a moment or two, and . . . well, we have some important things to zettle.”
“You men!” Tina said disgustedly. “Well, hurry right back here, Count, because we’ve got some important things to settle, too, right here between us. And there won’t be no more don’t-you-know-w/^r till they’re settled, neither.”
I tried to cry out, but he had found just the right amount of pressure to shut me down, and was just dragging me out of the door when my beeper went off again.
“Vot is dat?” he said.
I pointed at my open mouth, and gasped like a fish out of water.
“For gawdssake, will you let go of his throat so the man can answer you?” Tina said.
“All right. All right.” He let go.
“Emergency beeper,” I said. “Quick, where’s your phone?”
I slammed down the receiver. I can't believe it, I thought. Twice in the same day. Me. Eddie Zuckos.
Tina and the count were staring at me expectantly.
“Flying saucers are invading earth,” I said. “They’ve just set down in a farmer’s cornfield a few miles from here. Wilmer Everett?”
“Why, I know him,” Tina said, “jest straight up Grove Avenue, take a left on Grove Place, but don’t y’all get confused and head on out Grove Lane, ya hear? Anyhow, ya jest go right out Grove
Place about half a mile, till ya come to thet great big oak tree, only ya won’t be able ta see it, it bein’ the pitch black dark middle of the night’n all. But if ya could see it, ya jest. . .”
“Oh for Godssake, will you shut up!” the count shouted.
Tina began to weep and mumble about men again, as if that little jerk had anything to do with men.
“Sorry,” I said in my sincerest tone of voice, “but this is a real Class A emergency here. We can only thank God that farmer had a copy of the National Revealer with the emergency number on the cover. He got through to us, and we’ve got to get through to him.”
I put out my hand to the count. “I guess we’ll just have to put aside our differences for now, so that I can continue the Revealer's policy of bringing the truth to the people.—The sometimes very weird truth,” I added.
Tina now had new tears in her eyes. “Thet’s beautiful," she said.
The next thing I knew, I was in the old Ford, racing up Grove this and down Grove that, with Tina shooting out a steady stream of complex, almost baroque, directions.
“Ya see that old shack over to the right? Course not. How could you see it, it bein’ dark as sin ’n all? But if ya could, you wouldn’t have wanted to turn there, that bein’ about three blocks too soon—hey, slow down, y’all just missed the turn you wanted while I was busy explainin’!”
We backed up.
“Wish I hed time ta change inta somethin’ nice and do somethin’ with this hair.” She looked coyly at the count, who ignored her.
“Cue,” I said. “Cue.”
“Ze hair looks great,” the count grumbled. “This had better be for real, Eddie.”
I slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a halt, swerving sideways. I locked my glance into his. “Are you questioning the honesty of the National Revealer?” I said between gritted teeth.
“Will you men stop squabbling like little boys and get on with it? Of course nobody’s questioning the Revealer, it bein’ the only paper in town prints the whole total weird truth without any regard for its reputation. You can’t get more honest then thet, can you? Now will you for gawdssake stop squabbling and drive?”
I drove. I had given up trying to ditch the count and Tina, who was now wearing some kind of huge pink puffs for slippers and a fluorescent pink bathrobe, and who looked as if she belonged in a flying saucer anyway.
“What flying saucer?” the old man said, in a slow, mechanical-sounding voice. “You must have created a mistake. Beings from another planet many universes away here have arrived only never.—Not even,” he added, just to be sure.
“Well, sorry to have bothered you, old timer. Must have been a crank call. Hard to imagine someone would do that to the National Rev, but sorry to have . . .”
“Ix-nay with the ong-wray umber-nay,” the count said. “You idiot, can’t you tell he’s been ossessed-pay?”
“Ossessed-pay?” I mumbled. That was a hard one.
“Being,” the farmer said, “ossessed-pay is no part of this vocabulary. Elucidate, please?”
“Possessed!” the count shouted. “Ucking-fay assessed-pay, get it? Possessed!” He was positively shrieking with rage.
“Possessed,” the old man said. “No, not! Neither controlled nor dominated am I. Not even now by beings from outer space who are not now here.—Even!” he added.
The count shoved the old man aside and rushed into the house. “Where are they? What’s going on here?”
“Be careful, honey,” Tina said. “He’s an old man.”
“Be careful, sure,” the count grumbled, wandering into the kitchen. “Be especially careful with the body of a host. Sure, that’s one of the vampire ten commandments, right?”
The old farmer followed us into the living room: “Do not, if I may advise, search out back in the cornfield for little men kneeling down controlling this flesh form with a remote control device. Find them there you will not,” the old man suggested helpfully.
And sure enough, that’s where we found them. Ugly little green buggers, giggling, one of them apparently controlling the poor old farmer from a device that looked suspiciously like a super-advanced TV remote control. A Sony, probably. The rest of them appeared to be busy constructing a larger machine, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. When they saw us they suddenly shouted “Oh oh! oh oh!” over and over again. Sounded sort of like a chorus of frogs.
“My Gawd, they’re ugly,” Tina whispered in awe. She ought to know, having a love affair with the count and all.
Pop. Pop. Pop. I lit up the scene with my flash. I had them. I had them now.
They dropped the control, and jumped up, hands over eyes, and stumbled about mumbling, ‘’Hurt. Hurt. Bad light! Too much. Bad bad bad. Now no more good behavior here. No more fun guys! Control everybody on Earth all the time. Hurt you bad and much of it.”
The old farmer stumbled and then shook his head. “What the .. .” he said. “Whew, thought I was a Martian or somethin’ there fer a minute.”
Then he looked out into the field at the little men and their machine, and past them at the saucer.
“What the ... ? You little basterds wrecked half a my cornfield, did you? Think it’s just about time to kick me some butt round here.”
He started rolling up his sleeves.
Now all the little green men were holding up their little green fists and backing off in a group. Muttering “Fight fight fight, kill kill kill.”
“Why, my Gawd,” Tina whispered, “they’re all stark stitch nakid.”
The count furled his cape and hissed dramatically. Then he rushed into the field, shouting, “These humans are my cattle, and no little green noseballs are taking them away from me!”
The little green men broke and ran for the saucer, all the time yelling “Oh oh! oh oh!” They barely made it, and they slammed the hatch just in front of the count’s rather large nose— if “slammed” can be used to describe a process whereby a lot of oddly shaped pieces of some kind of weird shiny silver metal fit themselves together like a crossword puzzle.
And soon we were standing there watching a small glowing light shoot across the sky and blink out.
“Romantic, ain’t it?” Tina sighed.
Still hissing and fuming in maniacal rage, the count was prancing about tearing the hell out of their strange machine. Finally, having trampled it to bits, breathing hard, but still looking pissed, he turned back to me. “And now, my friend, you and I have some usiness-bay to tend-ay to.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Count," I said. “I think we’ll both have to postpone it for some other time.”
“And what makes you think that, my little human?”
Little—me? I was damn near as big as him.
“Well,” I said, “see that light around the edges of those mountains over there? Guess what that means? I’ve got a busy day ahead of me; and as for you, well, you do know what they say about vampires and the sun, don’t you?”
“Shit,” he hissed, and threw his cloak over his head. “I just hate the sun!”
Tina put her arm around his shoulder and gave me a look of tender disgust. “Ah never will figure out why he makes such a big fuss over a little sunlight.”
“Oh yeah,” he mumbled from under his cloak, “try a little skin cancer sometime, princess, see how you like that.”
“Oh, thet’s not really true,” Tina said, leading him back toward the house, “thet’s just one of those scare stories the mainstream press is always printin’ to up their newspaper sales. Can’t trust none of ’em. ’Cept the Revealer, thet is.” She turned and smiled at me.
I looked at my watch. Yawned. No rest for the wicked. “Come on,” I said, “give you a ride. Gotta get this story off prontissimo.”
“Just hold yer horses there a minute, sonny,” the old man cut in, “How ’bout givin’ me a hint ’bout just what am I supposed to do with all thet.” He pointed to the broken parts of the alien machinery.
“Well, you probably shou
ld call the Army,” I said.
“And what will they do with it?”
“Probably label it ‘top secret,’ then hide it away somewhere where no one can find it, and then forget about it.”
“Figures,” he said, and turned wearily back toward his house. But then he grunted and turned back around, cupped his hand over his beard-covered mouth, and whispered in my ear, “What is he, anyway, sonny, a pansy or somethin’? Never did see a man so upset over a little sunlight.”
All the way back, the count huddled under his cloak, mumbling to himself.
“You all stop back agin sometime,” Tina said, when I dropped them off. “Sometime when we’re better company, a little later on in the evening. He’s probly jest gonna spend the whole rest of the day mumblin’ to hisself in the closet.”
A few days later I picked up a copy of this week’s Rev, shaking with anticipation, and just froze in disbelief at what I saw on the cover.
I charged to the nearest phonebooth and fairly threw the poor guy who was using it out into the street.
“Will you calm down, Eddie,” Bernie said. “It’s right there on page three. ‘Vampire Saves Earth From Flying Saucer Men.’ Photo of nobody chasing a bunch of little green guys through a cornfield. I repeat: ‘photo of nobody.’ ”
I slammed down the receiver. Broke it, I hope. I stared again at the cover of the National Revealer, and then threw it down. Picked it up again and called back. Hadn’t quite broken the phone, it just hissed a little in my ear.
“You calmed down a little now?” Bernie said.
“Jesus Christ!” I said, “Jesus Christ, Bernie: ‘Liz Takes Monkey Lover’? That’s the lead story? ‘Liz Takes Monkey Lover’?”
“Hey,” he said. “We’re an honest rag here at the Rev. We give people what they really want. Not what the government wants them to hear, like those other rags. ‘Vampire saves earth’ is great news, it’s just too bad both stories broke at the same time. Liz comes first. Pretty much no matter what happens, Liz comes first.” He paused.
“Besides,” he chuckled, “that monkey’s a pretty cute little guy.”
I just stood there staring at the receiver. Maybe I had broken it.
Isaac Asimov's SF-Lite Page 9