65 Proof (44 page)

Earl has swallowed his falsies.

Jimmy Bob stuck his finger into Earl’s mouth, tried to fish the teeth out, but they were down too far and Earl’s throat was cold and slimy and disgusting and after ten or so seconds Jimmy Bob realized he didn’t like Earl that much to begin with so he took his hand back and wiped the spit off on Earl’s thick tangle of gray chest hairs.

Jimmy Bob wondered if he should say some words, but he didn’t know no prayers and then he got really scared because he was alone — all alone — in an alien spaceship, so he tried to give Earl CPR again.

It didn’t work no better the second time, and then Jimmy Bob got up and started pacing back and forth, terrible thoughts bouncing around in his bean.

He’d seen all the movies. Starship Troopers. Independence Day. War of the Worlds. Alien. Predator. Alien vs. Predator. No good ever came out of being abducticated. The aliens were always bad guys who wanted to take over the world or eat people’s guts or hunt humans for sport or get folks pregnant in their bellies or give painful probes up the brown place.

Jimmy Bob didn’t want none of that to happen to him. He wondered why those guys that made movies never made one about an alien who came to earth and gave a lucky farmer a brand new plow. He’d watch that on the cable, for sure. But instead it was always death rays and cut-off heads.

Jimmy Bob yelled for help, loud as he could, so loud his ears hurt. No one answered.

He ran to the nearest wall, pushed against it. The surface was slippery, almost like it was covered with a fine layer of grease. He grunted with effort, but the metal was solid, immobile. Jimmy Bob walked around the room, trying to find some sort of seam, some sort of crease. Everything he touched was rock solid and perfectly smooth.

Jimmy Bob sat in the center of the room and hugged his knees to his chest. He wondered if they was still flying over earth, or if they was already in another universe, about to land on some weird planet with rivers made of acid and trees that looked like rib bones. He wondered what the aliens looked like. Tall and gray with big glowin eyes? Green and scaly with sharp fangs? Or did they have fish heads, like that commander guy in Star Wars? And what did they want from him?

Was it the butt probes?

He looked at Earl. Earl got off easy, the lucky bastard. Maybe Jimmy Bob could fish out those false teeth and choke on them himself. Not a bad idea, considering. He began to crawl towards his dead friend when he heard a buzzing sound.

It sounded like a pissed off hornet, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. Jimmy Bob looked around, tried to find the source, and noticed a pinpoint of white light on the wall. First it was a real tiny, and then it grew into a larger and larger circle until it was the size of a manhole cover.

Death ray.

Jimmy Bob crabbed backwards, trying to get away from the death ray, but there was no place to go. He retreated until he was up against the opposite wall, fists and teeth clenched, waiting for the final ZAP that would make his skeleton light up then turn him into cigarette ashes.

The ZAP didn’t come. In fact, the more he looked at the light, the more Jimmy Bob began to think it looked more like a door than a death ray.

Was this some kind of alien trick? If he went through the door, would he be hunted down like a deer, aliens in big orange coats chasing him through the woods? Would he have to fight in some alien gladiator battle? Would he be forced to squat on a probe the size of a fire plug?

Maybe none of those things. Maybe this was a chance to escape.

Jimmy Bob took a quick look at lumpy-throat Earl, then sprang to his feet and ran for the circle of light. He was almost upon it when something flew out the doorway at him.

It was large, and red, and hit him in the chest with the force of a football tackle. Jimmy Bob tumbled backwards, the weight of the thing pinning him down, blanketing him in a warm, wet goo.

Jimmy Bob screamed.

The thing on top of him also screamed, and Jimmy Bob bucked and pushed and got it off and scurried away, his eyes focusing on a creepy crimson alien, completely hairless, dripping head to toe with some kind of blood-like fluid.

No, it wasn’t blood-like. It was actual blood.

And the creature wasn’t an alien.

“No more,” it whimpered. Its voice was thick and wet.

Like Jimmy Bob, it was naked. A man. A human man. Or what was left of one. Every square inch of his body was bleeding, thick and viscous like he’d been dunked in raspberry preserves. The man lay on his back, trembling, red smudges coating the floor where he had rolled.

“Hey buddy, you okay?” Jimmy Bob asked, knowing how ridiculous it must have sounded.

“No more…please…no more…”

Jimmy Bob chewed his lower lip and looked the man over. There didn’t seem to be any main wound. Instead, his whole body was a wound. He hadn’t been skinned — Jimmy Bob didn’t see any exposed muscle or fat on the man. No, this man looked more like he’d been worked over with a cheese grater. Every square inch was raw and bloody. Even his eyelids looked scraped.

“What happened to you?” Jimmy Bob asked.

The man’s chest rose and fell. “Kill me,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“Please…kill me. I tried to…kill myself…by breaking open my head…but I always knock myself out first.”

The bleeding man lifted his head then rammed it viciously into the floor, making a hollow pinging sound.

“Are we on an alien ship?” Jimmy Bob asked.

The man’s eyes opened, startlingly white compared to the redness of his body. His eyes locked on Jimmy Bob.

“I’m begging you…kill me…”

Jimmy Bob crawled over to the man.

“Answer my questions.”

“I want to die.”

Jimmy Bob slapped him. The man howled like a dog with a toothache.

“Keep it together. I need to know what’s going on.”

Rather than reply, the man began to sob. Jimmy Bob slapped him once more. And a few times after that. It was like hitting a wet fish.

“Damn it, tell me what’s going on! Answer me!”

“I’ll…I’ll tell you…if you promise to kill me after.”

Jimmy Bob considered it. He’d never killed a man before, but if anyone needed killing, this poor bastard did. He figured he could snap his neck, if’n he got a good hold of it. Couldn’t be any harder than breaking hog necks, which he did with tasty regularity.

“Deal. Now tell me what’s happening.”

“Appealing. It’s appealing.”

The man began to sob again, and Jimmy Bob smacked him on the chest to get his attention.

“What’s appealing?”

“They…pulled them all off.”

“You’re not making sense. Start at the beginning.”

“They…caught me when I was in the woods…hunting coon. Ship. A big white light. At first I didn’t know where I was…didn’t know what had happened. They left me in this room. I don’t know…for how long. But then…they came.”

“Who?”

“Aliens. Short…like midgets. Big heads and tiny mouths. Scales instead of skin. They took me…took me to the room and…”

The man began to cry again. Jimmy Bob dug his fingernails into the man’s shoulder to help him focus.

“And what?”

“And they put me…in the machine. It…it scraped my skin off.”

“But why? Why torture you? Did they ask you questions?”

“No.”

“Were you,” Jimmy Bob winced, “probed?”

“They…they kept me in there…just long enough.”

“Long enough for what?”

“For me to bleed. Then they took me here. I thought it was over. But they came back. They always come back.”

“For what? What do they want?”

The buzzing sound began again, and the pinpoint light on the wall began to grow.

“Kill me! You promised!”

Jimmy Bob backed up to the other side of the room, fear oozing out of every pore. Two figures stepped through the light. They were short, green, with heads like watermelons and tiny little black eyes. True to form, they wore little silver suits, and held little silver ray guns.

“Get away from me, you stinking space iguanas!” yelled Jimmy Bob.

They shot their little guns, and Jimmy Bob was paralyzed where he stood, his muscles locked by an unpleasant tingle of electricity. Space tasers. He strained to move but couldn’t.

The aliens approached, walking in a strange, waddling gait, as if their oversized heads were threatening to tip them over. Jimmy Bob noticed childlike, almost delicate, noses and mouths on their broad faces, and their black rat eyes had a glint of red to them. He watched as they went to Earl, poked him with their clawed fingers, and then spoke rapidly to each other in some foreign space language that sounded a lot like that singing chipmunk cartoon. They didn’t look happy.

Jimmy Bob tried to speak, but his jaw felt like it had been wired shut and he could only manage a few grunts. If only he could talk, maybe he could get out of this. Reason with them. Or bribe them. Maybe they’d like Jimmy Bob’s complete collection of state quarters, each coin in mint condition and sealed in a protective plastic case. Or maybe they’d want his grandma’s antique sterling silver serving set, complete except for a single salad fork that he broke adjusting the carb on his Chevy.

Jimmy Bob tried to say, “Silverware,” but only a grunt came out. They didn’t seem impressed. Their little iguana claws latched onto his wrists and pulled him forward with amazing ease. Jimmy Bob noticed for the first time that he was floating a few inches about the floor, and they tugged him along as if he were a balloon. The aliens maneuvered him through the opening, and he caught a last glimpse of his bleeding cellmate, who had resumed bashing his own head into the floor.

Jimmy Bob was pulled through a large metal tube, first right, then left, then down a gradual incline sort of like those tube slides at Chuck E. Cheese. The aliens kept chittering to each other, and one of them patted Jimmy Bob on the thigh and smiled.

Maybe this will be okay, Jimmy Bob thought. Maybe they won’t hurt me.

A few seconds later, Jimmy Bob was placed into a large upright box, which closed around him like a coffin and dipped him into complete darkness.

Then, agony.

At first, it felt like being burned alive. But there wasn’t any heat. The pain was the same, though, every nerve in his body firing at once. It was as if someone was using a power sander on his body, scraping every inch from head to toe. There was even a probe, but it felt more like a giant drill bit, coring out his unhappy place. Jimmy Bob screamed in his throat, screamed until he was sure it bled like the rest of him.

After an unknown amount of time, Jimmy Bob passed out.

He came to while being pulled back through the hallway, and then shot, like a rocket, back through the doorway and back into the original room. He hit the floor with a wet splat, and rolled onto his belly, the pain driving him mad, eating him alive. He was no longer frozen by the ray gun taser, but he dared not twitch because even the slightest movement was torture.

“Kill me,” someone said.

He glanced right, his eyes already crusting with dried blood, and saw his cellmate.

Jimmy Bob asked, “Why are they doing this?” but it came out garbled — even his tongue had been scraped raw.

“Been here…weeks…maybe months. They use…an IV…so we don’t die…”

“Why?” Jimmy Bob asked again.

“Snacks.”

Jimmy Bob wasn’t sure he heard right.

“What?”

“We’re snacks.”

“How? They suck our blood?”

His cellmate sobbed.

“Scabs. They wait until we heal, then peel off the scabs and eat them. Like beef jerky.”

Jimmy Bob moaned. Those little iguana bastards were going to wait until his scoured body began to scab over, and then tear off the scabs? He couldn’t bear it.

“A dozen of them come in with pliers,” the man said, even though Jimmy Bob didn’t want to hear no more, “They peel off every last piece. They’re slow eaters, too.”

“Jesus, no.”

“And…” the man became full blown hysterical, “they dip us in salt and vinegar so we taste better!”

Jimmy Bob squeezed his eyes shut. He could already feel the sores on his body begin to heal, begin to clot. The light on the wall appeared, and began to get bigger.

“You promised to kill me!” the man shrieked at Jimmy Bob.

A bunch of space iguanas filed in, chirping at each other like Alvin and the band, snapping gleaming metal pincers. One of them held up a bottle of hot sauce.

“NOOOOOO!” Jimmy Bob began to scream before the space taser froze his vocal parts.

Then the snacking began.

Jimmy Bob hadn’t thought his pain could get any worse.

But it did.

I wrote this when I turned thirty. I never was able to sell it, perhaps because it’s a bit too obvious. This is also one of the few shorts I’ve ever written with an omniscient narrator, popping into the heads of more than one person in the same scene.

“W
ere you nervous your first time?”

Robby didn’t break stride. He could clearly remember that smelly hotel room, Father paying the money, the girl naked and waiting.

“A little,” he answered his brother. “Everyone’s nervous the first time.”