by Mike McCarty
They figured, if they could hiss like Christopher Lee in all those Hammer films, then women would take off their clothes and let ‘em bite their necks. And all the while, the hotties would be moaning, whimpering, begging for more.
If only relationships were that simple.
The roaches also figured, they already had a bug-eyed stare like Bela Lugosi and John Carradine in their Dracula movies. That sexy stare would compel females to open their bedroom doors to them–and a few minutes later, the lovelies would be screaming with horror and ecstasy.
Well, at least they had the ‘horror’ part right.
And after all, they were pretty creepy–downright gruesome, even–so maybe the opposite sex would be attracted to them just for the novelty value. Victorian chicks swooned over that rat-faced goon in Nosferatu, who was equally ugly in both the black-and-white original and color remake.
Yeah, in the minds of those poison-huffing alien Romeos, vampires had it all going on.
Frank Langella’s version of Dracula didn’t even exert himself to tempt his lovers–all he did was burn some candles and look all pouty-lipped from different artsy camera angles. Gary Oldman’s Dracula even wore a prissy wig like Aunt Bea from that Mayberry sitcom, and he still got to do it with Winona Ryder.
The cockroaches were ambitious in their lust. They even wanted to find some lesbian vampires, so they could watch them make out, like in the movies Daughters of Darkness, The Hunger, Nadja, 30 Days of Nights, The Vampire Lovers and countess others–did I say countess? I meant countless.
Yeah, that’s all we needed–some big, horny bugs roaming Iowa City pretending to be vampires. Some coed would probably call both Terminex and the police and we’d be busted. The courts would lock us up for life. Harboring illegal aliens was against the law, so it stood to reason that the bigger the aliens, the worse the punishment. We’d probably be penned in with some big biker named Bubba, trying to explain that we were in the joint because of some roaches–and not the kind you smoke.
The cockroaches even started wearing our drapes as capes. They were old cast-off drapes our parents had given us, and those aliens looked pretty goofy, lurching around the apartment decked out in fabric patterned with ducks and purple polka dots. I had to tape black plastic trash bags over the windows so people couldn’t see into the apartment. That probably had the neighborhood talking. People probably thought we were running a crack-house.
We could deal with the bugs’ rap routines and Dracula fantasies, but it really tested our nausea-tolerance levels when we had to watch them eat our garbage.
Every night, the colossal critters would dump out our waste cans on the kitchen floor and devour our trash. It was sickening to view, but at the same time, it ended the fights Goose and I always had about whose turn it was to take out the garbage.
The last straw came when those horny bug-bastards got too excited watching Black Flag TV commercials, all crawling with naked insects. They stained the carpets and Rug Doctor couldn’t steam out that oily bug-juice of theirs. The place started to stink from their freaky alien hormones. The smell was a rancid cross between burning tires and maggot-ridden rotten hamburger.
So one night, while the roaches were dancing around in our drapes to the new Papa Roach CD, Goose and I locked ourselves in the bathroom to form a plan on getting rid of our alien invaders.
“Let’s think,” Goose said, taking a hit from the bong. “How do the aliens leave in the movies?”
“In Starman, the outer space folks just picked up Jeff Bridges, like they were his carpool or something,” I replied.
“That won’t work here.”
“In War of the Worlds, they were killed with germs,” I said.
“That won’t work either,” Goose said with a heavy, smoky sigh. “Have you seen the way they cram our stinky old garbage down their throats? They must be immune to our Earth germs.”
We talked about it, thought for a while, then talked some more. Soon I came up with a plan.
“Remember the movie E.T.?” I said. “The little alien guy phoned home and the aliens came back and picked him up.”
“Dude, our phone bill is already high enough.”
“They didn’t use a phone line, stupid. They used a transmitter and the signal was picked up in outer space.”
“We don’t have a transmitter, man.”
“No, but you’re the graveyard disc jockey at KRNA,” I said.
“So?”
“All you have to do is make an announcement. The signal could be picked up by some other aliens and we’d get rid of our bug problem. Just make sure you phrase the announcement just right, so only any aliens receiving the signal would know what you were talking about.”
“You think that’ll work?” Goose asked, quizzically bogarting the bong.
I shrugged. “It’s the only plan we have. Do you want to pick up some munchies before you begin your shift?”
Later that night, I sat in the kitchen, drinking Black Label beer and listening to Goose on radio. He kept jabberjawing about all kinds of stupid topics, but still no cryptic announcements for any passing UFOs. It was past two in the morning and I was starting to get impatient.
I called him up while a song was playing. “Goose, you haven’t said anything about aliens or bugs yet. What gives?”
“You can’t just blurt out that kind of thing,” he said. “I don’t want to freak my listeners out.”
“Listeners? What listeners? Me and a couple insomniacs? Just remember to phrase the message just right–real mysterious and subtle, like we talked about.”
“But how am I supposed to segue into a topic like that?”
“Oh, just hurry up,” I said, annoyed. “I’m almost out of beer.”
Goose finally figured out what to do. He plays mostly metal on his show, so it was surprising to hear the mellow pop-tune ‘Heartlight’ follow Ozzy Osbourne and Type O Negative.
“That was ‘Heartlight’ by Neil Diamond,” Goose said in his funky DJ voice. “That song always reminds me of the movie E.T., so it’s dedicated to an out-of-this-world trio stranded here in Iowa City. If any high-flying types are listening to my show, please pick up your friends because I don’t know how much longer I can stand listening to all those Papa Roach songs. Man, we’re never gonna get those bug-juice stains out of our drapes.”
For Goose, that was pretty subtle.
After Goose finished his shift, we sat on lawn chairs in backyard, staring at the stars. The night was still holding on as the morning light slowly started to creep onto the scene.
I finished the last Black Label beer. “I don’t think they’re coming.”
“Probably not,” Goose said. “I guess we failed. My show isn’t that popular here on Earth, so we probably shouldn’t have expected it to be a big hit in outer space.”
I heard some rustling in the grass behind us, and turned to see the alien trio strutting toward us, our drapes tied around their necks.
“Vee vant to meet some hotties!” the head alien said. He was chewing on a rotten banana peel and little bits of it flew out of his mouth with every word. “Vee vant to suck their blood! And vee vant to get out of that stupid apartment every now and then. It stinks in there!”
“Oh gee, I wonder why?” Goose said. “I suppose that stink has nothing to do with all that goo you guys squirt whenever a bug-spray commercial comes on. Not to mention the garbage you dump on the kitchen floor.”
“Yeah, you tell ‘em, Goose!” I said. “Now you three had better get back in the house before somebody–”
Before I could finish my sentence, a UFO as big as a dump-truck almost landed right on top of us. We all managed to scramble out of the way before it crushed us flat.
The ship had a whole bunch of colored lights blinking from the sides. Its silver doors opened up and a thirte
en-foot cockroach stood at the entrance with its uppermost arms crossed.
The three big roaches looked up sheepishly at the even bigger one.
“You three are in soooo much trouble,” the jumbo-roach said. “Just wait until you get back to the Juvenile Detention Center! Discipline Officer Thnarg doesn’t take kindly to escapees. I hope you haven’t been teasing the humanoids on this planet. Now get in this spaceship on the double!”
The trio waved goodbye to us as they boarded the ship. We watched as the UFO soared off into the sky. We then drove to an all-night pharmacy and bought five cans of air freshener–the apartment was in serious need of de-stinkifying.
To this day, I can’t listen to a Papa Roach CD or watch a Black Flag commercial without breaking into a cold sweat. The horror!
PART TWO:
DR. STRANGEBUG, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BUG-BOMB
As told by Dr. Strangebug from the planet Roachvylla
Stranded in Iowa!
You read that correctly. I was stranded in Iowa, the Hawkeye State in America’s Heartland, on the planet Earth with a couple of stoner college students … because my spaceship was out of plutonium.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. Tiberius Strangebug. I know, you’re thinking my first name came from Captain James T-for-Tiberius Kirk from the popular Earth show Star Trek. But my name was actually taken from Tiberius Julius Ceasar Augustus, the Roman Emperor who was noted for being dark, reclusive, somber and a big fan of my Earthly relatives. He was the only Emperor to have swarms of cockroaches in Rome.
I am a scientist from the planet Roachvylla and I was leading a five-year expedition to explore different worlds. We Roachvyllans have known about the Earth for quite some time, and have visited it many times in the past. My mother–Roach-God bless her bug-eyed soul–used to visit the green planet regularly, since the animal dung there is quite tasty. I was especially curious about Earth because of the stories she used to tell me, and also because it does have quite a healthy cockroach history and population.
You see, there are around forty-thousand species of cockroaches in the Universe and Earth alone has four-thousand different species. The things I discovered about our Earth cousins were quite intriguing.
The Earth cockroach has been around 320 million years. The rest of us have been around 400 million years.
During Earth’s World War II, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The radiation was high enough to kill people but not our resilient Earth cousins. If humans were ever wiped out by nuclear war, the cockroaches would own the planet by default. In fact, the Earthlings’ Bible even says: “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”
Earth cockroaches are pretty meek compared to cockroaches from Roachvylla. We are seven feet tall and weigh over three-hundred pounds. Meek would not be a good word to describe us–perhaps “friggin’ frightening” would be a more concise phrase.
My crew–two other Roachvyllans, Moe and Curly–and I were finally rescued by another spaceship from our planet, sent to find us after we’d disappeared. The trip back to Roachvylla was quite long and tedious, but I was glad to be back home.
The first thing I did upon arrival was visit a private day spa. I had just slipped into the bubbling sludge-pit, really enjoying myself, when a pretty brown lady-cockroach informed me that her name was Lady Bug, she was a masseuse, and she had orders from the Queen Mother to give me a massage.
Well, I didn’t want to disappoint the Queen Mother, so I pulled myself out of the sludge-pit and settled down on a nearby bench, where Lady Bug gave me an incredible rubdown. She told me to roll over on my back and started working her way down to a ‘happy ending’–when a nearby communications screen flicked on, revealing the startled face of one of the Queen Mother’s guards.
“Pardon me, Doctor Strangebug,” the guard said, turning three shades of red (which isn’t an easy task for a cockroach with a black shell), “but the Queen Mother wants to see you.”
I threw on a towel. “When?”
“Right now.”
“Damn! I mean–very well then. As Her Majesty wishes.”
The Queen Mother is a twenty-foot cockroach with a sumptuous palace beneath the surface of Roachvylla. Subterranean palaces are much easier to construct than those silly above-ground Earth palaces. Plus, they save power, since they are warmed by geothermal energy from the planet’s core.
I was escorted to the ballroom where I lounged on a plush divan, waiting for the Queen’s entrance.
About a half-hour later, the Queen and four of her guards entered the room. Royal families on all planets always arrive fashionably late. They’re royalty, so why should they rush?
One of the guards rolled out a red carpet for her, which she followed to her throne at the front of the room.
“My Queen,” I said with a bow.
“Dr. Strangebug,” she intoned in the high, shrill tones of truly sophisticated Roachvyllan royalty. “I have been reviewing the videos you brought back from Earth and I am quite disturbed by how the Earthlings are treating our cousins. Oh yes! Quite, quite disturbed! You must return to Earth with your crew of Moe and Curly.”
“How soon would you like us to leave? I just met a rather pleasant young –”
“Now!”
“But My Queen, I just got back! It takes two years to travel to Earth and I … I …” I sighed–I could tell by the way that her buggy eyes were bugging out ever farther that she was not pleased with my response. Resistance would be futile … and dangerous. “Whatever you wish, my Queen.”
“That’s better. You must stop the Earthlings from killing any more cockroaches!”
“But my Queen,” I said. “How do I do that?”
“Take Bong with you. He is quite powerful and should be able to help you accomplish your mission.”
“Bong!” I cried. “Yes, Bong! It’s always a good idea to have a Bong along!”
At that moment, a thirty-foot silver mechanical cockroach stomped into the ballroom. Glistening spikes covered most of his metallic body. In the center of his chest was a small control panel dotted with red and black buttons. His eyes were glowing crimson orbs and his mouth was a loudspeaker with huge mandibles on each side.
“I am the mighty Bong!” the robot cried, walking up to me, sending shockwaves through the room with each heavy step. He held out a shiny metal claw.
We shook claws. He almost crushed mine with his sheer brute strength.
“Pleased to meet you, Bong,” I said trying to conceal my pain behind a pleasant smile.
“Affirmative, smaller non-metallic Roachvyllan.”
PART THREE:
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD ILL
as told by Piers Blayloch, graduate of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
I had finally graduated from college, after–what had it been? Seven or eight years? I forget. It was all one big booze- and marijuana-fueled haze.
I had read Galileo, Darwin, Van Allen, Einstein, and lots of other boring dead guys. I think they all must have bored themselves to death. I crammed those science books between smoking beer bongs and getting drunk until I puked, until one day, unbeknownst to me, I’d earned a Bachelor of Science–a BS. I’d always known I was full of BS, and eventually came that day when I walked across a stage and they gave me a diploma, declaring it as official.
So Goose and I packed everything we owned–our clothes, our tunes (let’s not forget about the twenty-two Grateful Dead CDs) and our pot–into my hippie van, an orange and white 1972 Beetle Volkswagen Microbus. The hippie van looked a little like the one is the movie Little Miss Sunshine, but mine was covered with psychedelic paintings of flowers and peace symbols and even had a George McGovern for President bumper sticker. Inside it smelled like incense, candles and plenty of sweet leaves.
“Wow!” Goose cried. “I’m seeing all kinds of freakin’ lights!”
“Me, too! Give me another toke before–”
But before I could even finish that sentence, a silver spaceship, flashing with all the colors of the rainbow and/or an acid trip, landed directly in front of us. Its doors opened and a giant cockroach wearing a purple beret and lots of gold chains hopped out.
“What’s up, homeboys?” he said, flashing us the insect version of a grin.
“Hey, you’re that alien dude who lived with a few years ago,” I said. “What’s your name again? I don’t think you ever told us.”
“Dr. Strangebug,” the enormous roach-man said. “I told you both several times, but your pot-soaked minds probably forgot.”
“Guilty!” I said, “in the first degree!” Goose and I high-fived each other. “So what brings you back to Iowa City? Needle on ‘E’ again?”
“I need to speak to your President,” Dr. Strangebug said. “It is a matter of extreme urgency for the survival of this planet.”
“My President? You mean the President of the Student Body?” I asked, scratching my head. “That’s Cary Woods, but he just graduated from college with us. I think he’s going back home to Davenport.”
“No, you foolish dope-head,” Dr. Strangebug said, clearly annoyed. “The President of the United States of America.”
“Way-cool!” Goose and I said at the same time.
“Jinx!” I said. Goose and I high-fived each other.
Dr. Strangebug was not amused. Four of legs were crossed and he gave us a look of utter disappointment.
“Sorry, Dr. Bug-Man,” I said. “We’ll help you.”
“Good!” the giant cockroach from outer space said. “Now follow me.”
We followed him into the spaceship and its silver doors closed behind us. We said “Hey!” to the Doc’s two sidekicks and then we were introduced to Bong, a giant cockroach robot. He was even uglier, stranger and scarier than his alien buddies. You’d figure with a name like Bong, he’d look like–well, a giant bong or something. Soon the color lights started up again and we took off into the air.