by John Skipp
The job is simple, but that’s not to say easy. It mainly consists of pushing or riding a mower or working one of those big industrial weed-whackers. The whackers are heavy suckers and can do serious damage in careless hands. That’s the first thing we learn around here; those things aren’t toys.
The boss only cares about two things: the grass gets cut and the grass gets cut safely. If your crew does those two things, the boss man pretty much leaves you alone.
There are six of us on my crew. Me, three wiry Mexicans we call Huey, Duey and Louie after the cartoon ducks, a barrel-chested redneck who goes by Tex and doesn’t talk all that much, and the only black guy I’ve ever known named Kyle. Kyle talks enough for all of us. The guy never shuts up, but it’s okay; he usually makes us laugh and helps the time pass quicker.
Some days out on the road are a cakewalk. We cut grass and crack jokes and sip lemonade spiked with vodka. Traffic is light and the breeze is cool. Other days are nothing but sunburns and thrown pennies and shouted cuss words from passing cars and nasty surprises run over and shredded by our mower blades. Trust me when I say you have never smelled anything quite as ripe as a loaded diaper—a shit sandwich, we call them—or a rotting, maggot-infested groundhog chewed up and spit out in 90 degree heat. Get some of that juice on your jeans and it’ll take three or four washes to erase the stink.
But mostly it’s boredom we fight on a daily basis. Cutting grass ain’t brain surgery—and I-95 is one long-ass road.
4
We call them ditch treasures.
The name came about from a lunch conversation we had one sweltering July afternoon last summer in the shade of a busy underpass.
Between big, sloppy bites of roast beef sandwich, Kyle (of course) expressed his sincere dismay that so few kids today would ever experience the wonder and joy of the rain-soaked and swollen girlie magazine (traditionally fished out of dumpsters or trash cans or ditches, but sometimes—on rare, lucky occasions—found right out in the open).
We all understood where Kyle was coming from and shared in his pain. When I was a kid, every fort and tree house we ever built was stocked with a couple of these puffy, pages-stuck-together treasures. We surely wouldn’t have thrown a copy of Playboy outta the old treehouse, but we all agreed the nastier the mags the better. Gems like Swank and Penthouse and Oui were especially coveted.
But, nowadays, with all the easily-accessed online porn, these ditch treasures—I’ll proudly take credit for that little phrase—had all but become an endangered species. Hell, we didn’t even see that many tree houses around anymore.
We all agreed it was a damn shame.
5
The rules were simple: finders keepers.
Any ditch treasures you found, you kept. If you were working by yourself when you stumbled upon it, the treasure was all yours. If you were working with a partner or partners, you split the goodies in equal shares.
Some guys tried to hide their finds if they were working with a partner—if the item was small enough, a stealthy kick of a work boot usually did the trick—so they could sneak back later and pretend to find it when they were alone.
But our crew wasn’t like that.
We were all grateful to have the job and liked each other’s company. Even Huey, Duey and Louie. We couldn’t understand a damn thing they were saying most days, but that was all right; they worked hard and usually did it with smiles on their faces.
The six of us rooted each other on and were genuinely happy when someone found something tasty.
Kyle’s all-time favorite find was a shoebox full of baseball cards. Rare baseball cards.
Tex’s was a saddle. A big, leather, scuffed up horse saddle.
Before today, I would have said my favorite ditch treasure was the Rolex—I mean, how else is a guy like me ever gonna hold a genuine Rolex watch?—or maybe the Buffalo Head nickels that reminded me so much of my father.
But all that changed this morning …
6
Before I get to that, I need to tell you about the ponds.
Although, in reality, very few of them are actually ponds; I think the technical term is run-off collection basin. You’ve probably seen them yourselves if you’ve ever driven the interstate. Narrow strips of muddy water sitting just off the shoulder, no more than twenty or thirty yards in length, varying in depth depending on recent rain totals. In mid-Summer, these basins often transform into dried out, sun-cracked depressions in the landscape, like footprints from a wandering giant.
But every once in a while, you stumble across an actual real life pond. Complete with plant life and fish and frogs and snakes and even the occasional beaver dam. Our cutting territory on 95 held two such bodies of water, both located flush against exit ramps. The first pond was small and shallow and held little mystery for us. The fact that it was often used as a depository for recent roadkill and smelled pretty rank didn’t help matters.
But the second pond was something else entirely. Tucked further back from the road, it sat in the shade of a couple ancient weeping willow trees. The pond itself was bigger and deeper and dappled with lily pads. Water bugs and dragon flies skated across the water’s surface. The occasional fish jumped. Turtles sunned themselves on exposed logs and rocks. If it wasn’t for the constant hum of traffic, you could stretch out a blanket on the grassy bank and enjoy a picnic lunch and almost forget that thousands of cars were hurtling past you a mere thirty yards away.
Kyle was the fisherman of the group, so the pond was his baby. He would often sneak a fishing rod and tackle box into the work truck on days he knew we’d be cutting nearby. He’d cast a line out during his lunch break, and although on most days he usually only caught a handful of fat sunnies, he once pulled a four pound largemouth bass out of that pond. I still have the picture on my cell phone to prove it.
But Kyle was home sick today. A summer cold, his wife said. Fever and the shakes.
So, I was working alone this morning. Pushing a hand mower in a wide, lazy circle around that pretty little pond. Humming to myself and paying extra attention to the ground in front of me, being especially careful of the weeping willow’s thick roots.
7
I thought it was a baby doll at first.
Laying half in and half out of the water, face and legs obscured by mud and weeds.
I stopped and stared for a long moment—and my heart skipped a beat.
It looked so real.
I switched off the mower and started down the bank. As I did, my mind flashed back to the evening I found the mannequin, and any desire to call out to Tex, who was weed-whacking up on the shoulder, dried up and died in my throat. Better to take a look myself first; I was in no hurry to be the butt of their jokes again.
As I carefully worked my way down to the water, I noticed something distressing: there was a very clear path of broken and pushed-down grass leading to the pond … leading to the thing in the pond … as if it had somehow dragged itself there, looking for safety. Or water.
I stopped and picked up a broken tree branch. Eased a little closer. I leaned over and poked at the thing on the ground. Once. Twice. It was mushy to the touch, sponge like, and it didn’t move.
Holding my breath, I poked it a third time. Harder. Nothing.
I inched closer and used the tip of the stick to flick away the weeds and cattails—and got a much better look at it.
It wasn’t a baby doll.
It wasn’t a baby.
It wasn’t even human.
For a moment, I thought maybe it was some kind of animal. Hairless or even skinned. A species of animal I had never laid eyes on before.
But then I looked closer—at the long, narrow head; the three slanted eyes, wide open and cloudy, lined up vertically in the center of the creature’s sloping forehead; there was no nose centered below, only a trio of small puckered indentations that could have been nostrils; still lower, a lipless and toothless pink slit for a mouth, stretching grotesquely across the entire length of
the thing’s lower jaw; no ears; not a wisp of hair; only pale, unlined ivory skin glistening and taut like a rubber wetsuit; and its arms, long, thin, boneless arms, ending in hands that didn’t belong to man or beast; the hand-like appendages featuring three slender fingers each, the fingers unmarked by nails or knuckles or blemishes of any kind; and then finally its legs, spindly and spider-like, almost translucent, at least six of them tangled underneath it and submerged in the pond, each leg tapering to tiny claw-like feet.
I stood there for a long time and stared and listened to the cicadas in the trees and my own heavy, quick breathing, my brain still fighting the reality of the situation, even as I put a name to the thing laying in the muddy weeds at my feet.
“It’s a fucking alien,” I whispered to myself.
A baby alien.
A dead baby alien.
I looked around and realized I had dropped the stick and backed away a short distance without even knowing it. I glanced at the stick on the ground, then back to the creature again. I glanced up the hill at Tex, still powering away with his weed-whacker, then quickly back to the creature again.
Had it moved?
Had it gotten closer?
I took another step back, then shook my head. Don’t start seeing things now, jackass.
It hadn’t moved. It wasn’t breathing. It wasn’t alive.
And it definitely wasn’t human.
I looked up at Tex again and thought about what he would say. Knowing Tex, probably not a whole helluva lot.
Thought about Huey, Duey and Louie … what would they say? Probably nothing I could understand.
I wished Kyle wasn’t home sick; he would know what to do.
And then I heard my own voice inside my head: finders keepers.
It belonged to me, and me alone.
It was my decision.
8
I sat down on the cool grass in the shade of one of the weeping willows, just staring up at the blue sky above the highway and thinking hard thoughts.
Tex and his weed-whacker had moved down the road a bit. I could still hear the distant whir of the whacker, but could no longer see him. I might as well have been a middle-class suburbanite stretched out on a hammock in his back yard, reading the Wall Street Journal and sipping iced tea and listening to a neighbor finish his yard work down the street.
Only I wasn’t a suburbanite, had never even been in a hammock before, hated iced tea, and had never laid eyes on a Wall Street Journal in my life.
I had a high school education (barely), cut grass eight months out of the year, moved snow the other four months, and lived with my pregnant girlfriend and our baby girl in a two-room apartment above a butcher’s shop on Tupelo Street. The shop smelled funny on hot summer days and wasn’t exactly located in the best part of town, but rent was cheap and the locks on the doors and windows worked.
I sat there and wondered how much the National Enquirer would pay for a story about a real life alien. A story and pictures. Hell, a story and pictures and the actual body of an alien. We sure could use the money.
Then, I wondered what my boss would say about all this. He was the cantankerous sort and very protective of his little grass-cutting kingdom. Like I said earlier, he mostly left us alone because the grass got cut and the grass got cut safely. What would he think if cops and federal agents (yes, I watch The X-Files; who doesn’t?) were swarming all over his territory? Searching for evidence. Interviewing his employees. Getting in the way of our grass cutting efficiency? It wasn’t a pretty thought.
And, finally, I couldn’t help but wonder about those cops and federal agents. Might they be especially interested in the guy who found the alien? Might they even look into that guy’s past and find some things that guy didn’t want anyone to find, especially that guy’s girlfriend and boss? These were troubling thoughts to ponder.
9
I pulled on my work gloves and followed the same winding path down to the water’s edge. I didn’t care about fingerprints; I just didn’t want to actually touch the thing.
I walked quickly, any caution from before gone. My mind was made up.
Across the pond, a fish jumped. A gust of wind rippled the surface of the water.
I arrived at the pond and bent down, then decided to take a knee. I reached out with one hand to grab the baby alien—and hesitated, my hand hovering inches away.
What the hell was I doing?
“The only thing I can do,” I answered before my mind could waver—and the words gave me courage.
I reached down and took hold of the alien’s torso and pulled—but it didn’t budge.
It was heavier than its small size indicated, and was stuck in the mud.
I reached down and seized it with both hands and…
… there was a sudden flash of blinding white light behind my eyes … and when my vision cleared I was no longer kneeling by a small pond alongside I-95 in Maryland, but was in a faraway place with a roiling, purplish sky overhead the color of old bruises, jagged lightning strikes etched along the far horizon, and in the foreground, a scattering of strange buildings that almost seemed to be alive and glistening in the flickering purple light, and emerging from these buildings, dozens of skittering creatures, larger versions of the baby alien at my feet, approaching and surrounding me, until a pair of them stand before me, beckoning with their strange hand-like appendages, moist eyes beseeching me, and I suddenly realize what they are and who they are searching for and …
The creature pulled free from the mud with a loud sucking slurp, and I tumbled to my ass with it cradled against my chest.
I quickly held it away from my body and got to my feet.
I hurried up the hill, and realized I had tears pouring down my cheeks.
I didn’t see anything, I thought to myself, shaking my head.
I reached the mower and said it aloud, “I didn’t see anything.”
I started to toss the baby alien to the ground, then bent down and gently placed it on the long grass directly in front of the lawn mower.
“I didn’t see a fucking thing,” I whispered.
And then I started the mower.
I AM THE
DOORWAY
STEPHEN KING
Richard and I sat on my porch, looking out over the dunes to the Gulf. The smoke from his cigar drifted mellowly in the air, keeping the mosquitoes at a safe distance. The water was a cool aqua, the sky a deeper, truer blue. It was a pleasant combination.
“You are the doorway,” Richard repeated thoughtfully. “You are sure you killed the boy—you didn’t just dream it?”
“I didn’t dream it. And I didn’t kill him, either—I told you that. They did. I am the doorway.”
Richard sighed. “You buried him?”
“Yes.”
“You remember where?”
“Yes.” I reached into my breast pocket and got a cigarette. My hands were awkward with their covering of bandages. They itched abominably. “If you want to see it, you’ll have to get the dune buggy. You can’t roll this—” I indicated my wheelchair—” through the sand.” Richard’s dune buggy was a 1959 VW with pillow-sized tires. He collected driftwood in it. Ever since he retired from the real estate business in Maryland he had been living on Key Caroline and building driftwood sculptures which he sold to the winter tourists at shameless prices.
He puffed his cigar and looked out at the Gulf. “Not yet. Will you tell me once more?”
I sighed and tried to light my cigarette. He took the matches away from me and did it himself. I puffed twice, dragging deep. The itch in my fingers was maddening.
“All right,” I said. “Last night at seven I was out here, looking at the Gulf and smoking, just like now, and J …”
“Go further back,” he invited.
“Further?”
“Tell me about the flight.”
I shook my head. “Richard, we’ve been through it and through it. There’s nothing—”
The seamed and fissured f
ace was as enigmatic as one of his own driftwood sculptures. “You may remember,” he said. “Now you may remember.”
“Do you think so?”
“Possibly. And when you’re through, we can look for the grave.”
“The grave,” I said. It had a hollow, horrible ring, darker than anything, darker even than all that terrible ocean Cory and I had sailed through five years ago. Dark, dark, dark.
Beneath the bandages, my new eyes stared blindly into the darkness the bandages forced on them. They itched.
Cory and I were boosted into orbit by the Saturn 16, the one all the commentators called the Empire State Building booster. It was a big beast, all right. It made the old Saturn 1-B look like a Redstone, and it took off from a bunker two hundred feet deep—it had to, to keep from taking half of Cape Kennedy with it.
We swung around the earth, verifying all our systems, and then did our inject. Headed out for Venus. We left a Senate fighting over an appropriations bill for further deep-space exploration, and a bunch of NASA people praying that we would find something, anything.
“It don’t matter what,” Don Lovinger, Project Zeus’s private whiz kid, was very fond of saying when he’d had a few. “You got all the gadgets, plus five souped-up TV cameras and a nifty little telescope with a zillion lenses and filters. Find some gold or platinum. Better yet, find some nice, dumb little blue men for us to study and exploit and feel superior to. Anything. Even the ghost of Howdy Doody would be a start.”
Cory and I were anxious enough to oblige, if we could. Nothing had worked for the deep-space program. From Borman, Anders, and Lovell, who orbited the moon in ‘6~ and found an empty, forbidding world that looked like dirty beach sand, to Markhan and Jacks, who touched down on Mars eleven years later to find an arid wasteland of frozen sand and a few struggling lichens, the deep-space program had been an expensive bust. And there had been casualties—Pederson and Lederer, eternally circling the sun when all at once nothing worked on the second-to-last Apollo flight. John Davis, whose little orbiting observatory was holed by a meteoroid in a one-in-a-thousand fluke. No, the space program was hardly swinging along. The way things looked, the Venus orbit might be our last chance to say we told you so.