Hattie Mae listened to more of the alien’s dirty talk in her mind. “I’ll bet you say that to all of the girls. You’re a fresh one. What I am going to do with you, naughty boy?”
They could hear it, coming through the store. Cecil and Bubba tensed up. Bubba gripped the bug killing wand in one hand and the baseball bat in the other. Cecil twisted his anxious fingers on the crowbar.
It entered the garage, crouching to fit through the door. It walked past the boys slowly, oblivious to them. It was bigger, at least two feet taller and wider as well. Bubba looked to Cecil. Cecil held out a palm, urging Bubba to sit still.
The alien approached Hattie Mae. Her eyes opened and she stared demurely at it. The thing’s mouth opened and a series of hisses and grunts came out. Hattie Mae listened, intently.
“No,” she replied. “I don’t. What about you? Is there a Mrs. Ravager of Worlds back home?”
The alien uttered some more guttural noises, and Hattie Mae sighed in disappointment. “Yeah, yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before. Still together because of the kids, she doesn’t understand me; I’m going to leave her, blah, blah, blah. Well, sugar, I am not looking to become the other woman or a home wrecker.”
The thing reached out with its slithering tendril fingers and touched Hattie Mae. It gripped at her shoulders, and pulled her closer. Hattie Mae gasped, and pressed her hands against its chest.
Cecil looked at Bubba and could tell his friend didn’t like the display one bit.
“You are an eager one, aren’t you, sailor?” Hattie Mae said, and her eyes stared past it toward the boys. Her pupils returned and she suddenly seemed disconnected.
“I lost my hold,” she said softly. She fearfully reached toward Cecil and Bubba.
The alien shook its head, pulled her back and looked down at her. It hollered, freed of her grip, and its tendrils tightened around Hattie Mae’s throat.
Bubba took off like a shot. He screamed like a banshee and let loose at the beast with the suicide soda. The creature screamed and arched its back in pain. It tossed Hattie Mae into the tool counter. She bounced off of it and landed on the floor. Hattie Mae was knocked unconscious by the impact.
The alien turned to face Bubba. Bubba brought his bat down on the thing’s head. The bat splintered into two pieces. The creature fell back, and Bubba pointed the wand at its face. The thing reached out quickly and tore the hose loose from the pest rig. It shoved Bubba away. Cecil rushed at it, giving his own battle cry and bouncing the crowbar off of the thing’s head. It shrieked, and then lashed out with its strong leg. It caught Cecil in the chest and drove him back and into the stone wall.
Bubba shrugged off the rig and came back, punching the creature with everything he had. Its head snapped to the side from Bubba’s blow and it finally fell to its knees. Bubba hit it again. And again. Cecil gathered himself off of the floor and saw his best friend landing strong blows that would have crippled a normal man.
“That’s it, Bubba!” Cecil said, regaining the crowbar. “Tear his ass up, man!”
Bubba muttered curses incoherently and continued to pound on the monster. The big man breathed heavily and grimaced and Cecil knew there wasn’t much left in his friend. Cecil joined in, bringing the crowbar down on the creature as well. The thing bent over into a ball. Its skin gave a strange glow and a wave of invisible energy emanated off of it and knocked the men back.
Bubba charged again, quickly. He swung, but the creature caught his arm before the blow could land. The thing twisted and broke Bubba’s arm at the elbow. Bubba wailed and the alien tossed him several feet away.
Cecil, still trying to clear the cobwebs in his head, felt a grip tighten on his shirt. He looked up. The creature stared down at him. It raised its other hand. The tendrils on the end of it melded together and hardened into a spike.
“Cccceeeecccciiillll…” the alien said. It sneered as it spoke.
It drew back its deadly hand and aimed for Cecil’s head.
Cecil stared at it, defiantly.
“Kiss my Texan ass, you bastard,” he said.
Hattie Mae bolted up behind the alien. She gripped both of its temples. The creature froze and lowered its hands. Its eyes flickered. Hattie Mae gritted her teeth and her skin turned gray. Her eyes darkened and enlarged, and her nose smoothed into her face. The creature began to shrink and wither and its eyes dulled. It clawed desperately at the air, but Hattie Mae maintained the contact she had on it.
Finally, it gave a heave and Hattie Mae fell backwards. It hissed at Cecil. A shadow of its former self, the thing crawled away, quickly looking for a hole to dive into. Cecil lurched up and went after it. Gaunt and sickly as it was, Cecil knew it would merely find a haven and sleep for a hundred more years, gathering its energy as it did so.
Hattie Mae grabbed Cecil’s shirt collar and hauled him back. Her alien face bayed at him.
He stared at her fearfully and he was concerned that the thing would escape. “What are you doing? I thought you were on our side.”
“I have its strength. But I can only consume it. I can’t wield it,” she said, with a deep growl. “I can give it to you. You can use it to stop this thang once and for all.”
Cecil nodded eagerly. “How do we do this?”
Hattie Mae pulled Cecil’s lips to hers. The alien energy poured into Cecil’s body. His eyes widened and darkened. His body began to swell. His skin turned grey and he grew taller. Cecil’s fingers quivered and transformed into tendrils. Hattie Mae broke off the kiss, and her human face stared at him. Her eyes rolled back and she passed out.
Cecil stood up, his head scraping the short ceiling of the garage. He spotted the creature, desperately trying to raise a bay door.
“Where are you going?” Cecil said, but his words came out as unintelligible grunts.
“Spare me,” it spoke to him. And Cecil understood its alien words.
“You try to run roughshod on my planet, kill my Daddy and a bunch of kids, and you ask me to spare you?” Cecil said, reaching out and grabbing the thing by its skinny legs. He pulled it into the air, and held it upside-down. “You’re bowling down the wrong lane, man.”
The creature became indignant. It cursed Cecil and lashed out at him, weakly.
Bubba collected himself and clasped his broken arm. He looked over and saw Cecil and the thing going back and forth in a tongue that Bubba couldn’t comprehend. He panicked at first, and then he realized the more imposing of the two was his friend, mutated into a Cecil version of the alien.
Bubba noticed Hattie Mae, lying on her back. She was slowly coming to. He painfully hauled himself over to her.
“I won’t beg,” the creature said, as Cecil righted it and pulled it closer.
“Yeah, but I’ll bet you’re going to scream,” Cecil promised.
He grasped one of the alien’s arms and pulled it off. Purple blood pumped out of the wound and sprayed the garage. The creature sang in pain for a long time. This prompted Cecil to gleefully render it a screaming trunk.
Bubba cradled Hattie Mae and watched in horror as Cecil tore off and threw the remaining limbs of the alien around the garage. Cecil gripped the thing by its throat and held it up, studying it. A pool of the alien’s blood crawled down the sloped garage floor toward a drainage grate.
The creature, what was left of it, cried in agony and looked at Cecil. Waves of inescapable pain rocked it. “End it, now,” it pleaded. “Please.”
“So much for not begging,” Cecil taunted it.
Cecil held up a hand and turned it into a spike. He stabbed the creature through its eye, the point busting through the back of the alien’s head. Gore dangled from the tip of Cecil’s hand. He pulled his limb free, and dropped the dead carcass to the garage floor. His work clothes were completely drenched.
Cecil looked backed to Bubba and Hattie Mae. Bubba stared at his friend. Hattie Mae was drawn into Bubba’s unbroken arm and she looked at Cecil uneasily as well.
“It’s over,” Cecil
said, in the alien tongue.
Bubba shook his head. “We don’t understand what you’re saying, Cecil.”
Cecil looked at his hands and then ran them down the grey flesh of his face. He nodded and concentrated. Cecil didn’t know how he was able to dispel the alien energy from his pores, but he knew that he could. It felt like a jacket on him that he simply had to remove. He began to pale and shrink. The energy seeped out of him and Bubba and Hattie Mae could see it bend in the air like waves of heat. Cecil could breathe through his nose again.
Cecil stared at his friends with his human eyes. “I said, it’s over,” he repeated, standing and looking down at the torn apart creature on the garage floor. As if on cue, the electricity returned to the building.
“You okay?” Bubba asked his friend, as he and Hattie Mae approached Cecil.
Cecil nodded. “You two?”
Hattie Mae motioned to Bubba. “I’m fine, but Turner broke his arm. He needs a doctor.”
“And he’ll get one,” Cecil said. “But do you suppose you can bear the pain for a little while? We got some cleaning up to do, first.”
Bubba looked to Hattie Mae and then gave a stiff upper lip to Cecil. “Oh, hell yeah, man. Shit, it barely hurts.”
Cecil went to the storage closet and brought his father’s corpse out. He put the man gently on the floor. “Why don’t you get in your Pontiac and drive Hattie Mae up the hill. Go a safe distance, but find a good view of the building.”
“What are you going to do?” Bubba asked.
“I’m going to say goodbye to my daddy, and then I am going to burn this damned place to the ground.”
“What about your father’s body?” Hattie Mae asked.
“He always wanted to be cremated,” Cecil explained. “Besides, if the authorities find him wounded like this, it’ll just raise questions.”
“I just gotta say it, man,” Bubba said. “Do any of these encounters end without you starting something on fire? You got a compulsion we need to talk about?”
Cecil smiled, softly. “I don’t want a trace of that damned alien left, and there isn’t a surer way. Now go, man. Grab some aspirin off the shelf. It’ll tide you over until we get to a hospital.”
Bubba and Hattie Mae left through the store. They went outside and loaded themselves into Bubba’s car. Hattie Mae still had Bubba’s keys and she insisted on driving for the injured man. She drove the car up the hill and parked, backing into a spot on the gravel road and killing the engine. They climbed out of the car and sat on its trunk. It was cold. Hattie Mae shivered. Bubba put his healthy arm around her. She looked to him and smiled.
“Just keeping you warm,” he assured her.
“Thank you,” she said, resting her head on his good shoulder.
They waited a spell. Bubba’s arm throbbed and he swallowed a couple of aspirins to try and keep the pain tolerable.
Bubba and Hattie Mae could see smoke creeping from the building. Cecil’s truck finally inched up the hill. Cecil pulled next to Bubba’s car and climbed out. He was wearing clean clothes that he had stashed in his truck. Cecil had figured that he and Bubba would be going out after his shift. He had cleaned himself up the best that he could in the men’s room sink.
“How are you holding up?” Bubba asked his friend.
“I ain’t gonna lie. It hurts, man,” Cecil confided. “And it’s gonna tear me up all over again when I tell my sister Janie and her kids. But we gotta celebrate a little before I tend to that sad business. And we’re celebrating in my daddy’s honor.”
Cecil reached into the truck and pulled out two six packs.
“What you got there?” Bubba asked, feeling thirsty all of a sudden.
“My severance package, evidently,” Cecil said, tearing a beer can from a hoop and offering it to Bubba.
Cecil spotted Hattie Mae, and he stared quietly at her.
Hattie Mae sat up and looked back uncomfortably at Cecil. “I can’t explain what happened in there. Okay? It came out of me like a defense mechanism. I don’t feel it inside, now. And I sure don’t have that dark desire to unleash it on a human. But I’m sure you still hate me all the same.”
Cecil tore a beer loose. “You want a cold one, Hattie Mae?” he asked, offering her a can.
She smiled and took it. “Thank you.”
“You’re still on probation, though,” Cecil maintained, but he smiled back at her anyway.
Cecil knelt next to Bubba. “Guess I’ll be looking for a new job.”
“I can pick up the day shift at the Busty and Lusty, if it will help,” Hattie Mae proposed. “I can work doubles for a time.”
Cecil and Bubba immediately shook their heads.
“Oh, no,” Cecil said. “Those day-shift strippers are homely as hell. You are much too fine for that. You’re strictly prime time.”
“We’ll be okay,” Bubba told Hattie Mae. “Cecil is one of the best mechanics in Fort Worth. He’ll get a new job in no time.”
“Yeah,” Cecil chuckled. “Let me just polish up my résumé.”
“Besides, my mama has a settlement coming from a lawsuit and she promised me some of it,” Bubba said.
“Who did she sue?” Hattie Mae asked.
“Well, she bought one of them hypnosis CDs to try and lose a little weight,” Bubba explained. “She was listening to it in her car, and she went under and had an accident.”
Cecil shook his head and stifled a laugh, knowing it would set his friend off. But the story cracked him up every time he heard it.
“There was nothing on that CD package warning people not to listen to it while they were driving. There is now, though,” Bubba said, proudly. “So, some good came out of it.”
Cecil finished his beer and snagged another. “Bubba, I haven’t seen you put an ass-whipping like that on someone since high school. And I believe I was the recipient of that very ass-whipping.”
“You shouldn’t have talked about my mama,” Bubba sternly reminded him.
“No, man, I shouldn’t have,” Cecil agreed. “Your mama is a saint.”
“So what are we doing?” Bubba asked Cecil.
“Well, since I am watching my inheritance burn, I thought we could at least enjoy the spectacle of that fire hitting the gas pumps,” Cecil replied. “Then we’re off to the hospital for that arm of yours.”
“I’m talking about the curse,” Bubba said.
“We’re going to find Rosalita and she is going to take it off,” Cecil said, as if it were an easy chore.
“But what if she doesn’t want to?” Bubba said, fretfully. “Or what if she makes it worse?”
Cecil motioned to the garage, which was consumed in flame now. “My daddy is currently baking in that oven. We both have family, and obviously they are fair game in this. It can’t get any worse than that, man. Think of your mama and sisters.”
Bubba did that, and then he stared back at Cecil. “Yeah, okay. We’ll do what has to be done.”
“You know what, boys? I think we saved the world,” Hattie Mae chimed in, trying to switch the conversation to a happier channel. “You two are heroes.”
Bubba smiled at her. “That makes you one, too, lady. But honestly? Me and Cecil? Heroes? Now that there is a shocker.”
“Why does that shock you?” Cecil said, feigning offense. “I come up with ingenious shit and you put a little muscle on it. And now we got us a Super Friend with powers of her own. That’s just how we do, man.”
“Your daddy would be proud,” Bubba said, holding up his can.
Cecil tapped Bubba’s beer with his own. “How many fathers do you think can say that their son saved the world?”
“Not many, I’d bet,” Bubba replied. “Except for the good lord himself, of course. Props to Jesus, man.”
“Wow, that fire is really going now,” Hattie Mae said, surveying the blaze, which raged higher in the sky.
They all watched it together. And just as they finally heard sirens in the dark distance of the night, the fire fo
und the pumps and McGee’s Gas, Garage and 24 Hour Convenience Center blew up.
And it was finer than the Fourth.
HEROIN IN THE MAGIC NOW
Gary Hack was having the memory again. It always hit him when he was near the nod. He had hunkered down in an alley to smoke an A-Bomb and get the fuzziness back in his head. He was feeling daytime now, so Gary sat on a garbage can and settled back into the warmth.
He was in grade school. He wasn’t sure which grade he was in when this occurred or his age at the time of the incident, but he was very young. Gary was in the Principal’s office and he stared up at a heated debate going on between his female, hippie art teacher and the starch-collared, male principal. Gary couldn’t recall the names of the adults who were airing their philosophical views in front of him, but he remembered the source of their argument.
The Night is Long and Cold and Deep Page 11