“Brains!!”, Zoe screeched in an inhuman voice that chilled Zed to the bone, even as he tried to fight her off. She had become insanely strong, and clung to his clothing as he shoved her off his body.
Unfazed, she jumped at Zed again, hissing grotesquely and gnashing her bloody teeth. This time, he managed to roll back and get his feet under her. He kicked hard with both legs, launching her backward through the air.
Zoe landed headfirst into the metal bed frame, cutting her head wide open. By the time Zed had stood and pulled his pants up, she was running down the hallway at him, the fresh cut on her head spilling blood into her eyes.
Zed was in the kitchen, and he reached into the sink for something- anything- to defend himself with. As she closed in, he wrapped his hand around the handle of a frying pan and swung it hard. It connected with her head, sending her sprawling into the kitchen counter, hitting her head and falling to the floor.
Zoe lay motionless, and Zed backed away from her carefully, expecting her to jump up at any moment. Suddenly, Zed’s heels hit the edge of their couch, and he fell backward into it. His feet hit the flimsy coffee table, flipping it over and sending bottles and shot glasses crashing across the floor. The sound seemed to rouse Zoe, who raised her head slowly and rested her insatiable eyes on Zed.
Zed reached for the blaster in his ankle holster, and aimed it at Zoe. She began to crawl in his direction, raising her body to all fours.
“Braaiiinnnsss”, she hissed.
“Zoe”, Zed said, his gun hand shaking. “Zoe, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you gotta stop. You gotta stop or I’m gonna have to pull this trigger.”
She continued to crawl toward him, sneering. Zoe reached the broken glass, and it sliced her palms and her knees as crawled through it, leaving a trail of smeared blood behind her. Zed noticed she was naked for the first time, and her lack of concern for the pain of the cuts scared him. Zoe was a wuss when it came to pain.
“Zoe, I mean it. I’m going to shoot.”
She continued to crawl, getting closer…
“ZOE!”
She jumped to her feet and dived at him, screaming violently. Zed pulled the trigger on the blaster, and a burst of light filled the trailer. Her momentum brought her on top of him, and he threw her off in fear. She rolled over, and Zed saw that she’d been shot in the head, her hair blackened and smoking from the energy of the blast.
“Goddamn it Zoe! What the hell’s gotten into you!?!” He bent down and tried to shake her and slap her face to rouse her. No response. He checked her pulse. Nothing.
“Shit, SHIT!”, he screamed.
Zed lifted her limp body off the ground and ran out of the trailer, tossing her over the gas tank of his Harley and firing up to the engine. He ripped out of the clearing and onto the highway with a speed he’d never managed before, not thinking so much as acting on instinct.
The familiar landmarks that appeared relatively normal from the air only minutes before looked strange to him. Cars were smashed against trees or abandoned on the highway. The windows of the houses he passed were broken and the doors pulled off their hinges. Zed weaved through the stalled cars on his bike, and ran over the body of an old woman before he had time to swerve. Her arm had been ripped off and he could see that her skull had been cracked open an her brain missing completely.
“What the hell is going on?!?”, Zed yelled, once again speeding full tilt toward town. He could see the smoke rising from Main Street in the distance, and remembered the burning building. He wasn’t going downtown, though, he was headed to the hospital uptown. It was the only hope for Zoe.
Zed ripped up the hill toward the emergency room. He noticed there were none of the usual cars on the road or pedestrians on the sidewalk. It was as if the whole town had gone missing.
Pulling his bike into the roundabout outside the emergency entrance, he let his idling bike fall to the ground behind him as he carried Zoe into the hospital. The doors zipped open automatically. There’s still electricity, he thought to himself as he approached the check in counter.There was a woman behind the glass.
“Lady! My girlfriend needs help!”
The woman- middle aged and wearing a set of scrubs with overly-cute teddy bears and balloons in a gaudy pattern- looked up at him with the same dead eyes that he’d seen on Zoe. She lunged at Zed, banging her face hard against the glass pane and breaking several teeth. Momentarily disoriented, she picked herself up off the counter and threw herself at him again, smashing her face even worse and screaming, “Braaainnns!” at the top of her lungs.
Zed threw Zoe over his shoulder, and drew the blaster from its holster. Ignoring the receptionist, he ran through the double doors into the emergency room, where he encountered a large group of men and women feeding on the corpses of the unfortunate patients and staff members that had succumbed to their violent attacks. Zed stopped, and heard the doors swing shut behind him. The men and women- no, the zombies he thought- looked up from their meals and hissed at him. Within moments, the entire hoard were running at him, bloody faces twisted into grimaces of hunger and rage.
Zed opened fire, sweeping the blaster back and forth across the zombies with a continual stream of energy. Despite zombies in front dropping to the floor, faces melted off from the heat of the blaster, the zombies in the back kept running toward him, at times tripping comically over the bodies of their counterparts.
Backing through the double doors, Zed spared a moment to weld them together with his blaster, as the crowd of zombies piled violently against the doors, sneering at him through the glass windows. Zed heard a hiss behind him, and spun just in time to shoot a zombie in the chest and face as it closed in.
That one was just a kid, he thought to himself, what the fuck happened here?
Zed’s bike was too damaged to ride, so he ran to the ambulance, opening the back doors, shooting the zombie EMT inside, and throwing Zoe in the back. She was dead. He knew that now. He’d come to his senses and made the decision to get the hell out of town. He’d give her a proper burial out in the country, and when he got some goddamned help, he’d do the same for Amber, laying them in the ground together like they were meant to be.
The engine in the ambulance roared to life, and Zed took off toward Main Street. It was the only real way out of town on the old highway, and he was curious about what was going on down there. He wondered if there was anyone normal left, perhaps fighting zombies the way he was now. He decided to flip the ambulance alarm on to try and draw their attention, if they were out there.
The ambulance tore down Medical Avenue, screeched around the corner to Main. What Zed saw their caused him to stop the van.
There before him, wandering aimlessly down the street in every direction, stood a crowd of thousands of zombies. The businesses along both sides of the street were smashed open, and merchandise was pulled out on the sidewalks, mingling with broken glass and pools of blood. The zombies, sensing that some form of intelligent life must be driving the ambulance, stopped in unison and turned to look in his direction.
Zed’s eyes narrowed, he grinned, and he revved the ambulance engine.
“I’m getting through town one way or another”, he said, “Might as well be through you”.
With that, he slammed the ambulance into first gear and rammed the accelerator to the floor. Zed had reached fourth gear by the time he hit the crowd, traveling at a healthy fifty-six miles per hour. The sound of the first couple zombies smashing against the grill made him laugh, but soon, the hoard became too much for the ambulance, and it lost speed. Zombies bounced up and over the van and piled up sickly against the grill. Every other second, the van lurched upward as a pile of zombies slipped beneath the wheels of the vehicle. To Zed’s surprise, the front of the ambulance was caving in from the constant barrage.
Mere seconds after he’d begun his campaign to plow through the zombies on Main Street, the van came to a stop in the middle of the crowd, front grill smashed in and hissing clouds of steam and the front wheels twisted in different directions.
“Fuck!”, Zed yelled.
The zombies crowded up against the sides of the ambulance. Zed locked the two front doors just as zombie fists began smashing against the windows. The back doors of the van swung open, and zombies poured into the ambulance from behind. Zed blasted them easily, flinging them backward into the crowd with the force of the blasts. More zombies climbed in to replace them, and Zed moved toward the doors, sweeping the blaster back and forth across the crowd to keep the ambush at bay.
Behind him, the driver and passenger side windows were broken inward, and zombies began to clamber into the vehicle through the broken shards of glass. Zed knew he couldn’t hold them off on both fronts, so he blasted the crowd outside the back door of the van until he had enough space to climb on top of the vehicle without being pulled down.
Once on top, he spun around, and saw that there were still thousands of zombies surrounding him in each direction. It was as if the entire town had wound up here. Zombies climbed up the vehicle, and he shot them one by one. He didn’t know of the blaster had much energy left, and he intended to stay alive, so he spared as little fire as it took to kill.
The vehicle began to rock back and forth as the zombies on either side pushed. I’m not gonna make it if this thing tips over, he thought, and he shot the zombies along the sides of the ambulance. More zombies raced up from behind them, and their momentum raised the ambulance to rock even more dramatically.
That’s not gonna work, he thought, I’m fucked.
More zombies clambered up the side of the ambulance. Zed spared more blaster fire. The van rocked back and forth, and he could barely keep his balance. In one sickening lurch, the vehicle tipped over. As if in slow-motion, the ambulance rolled onto the zombies below him, and he heard their bones breaking as he himself was thrust out over the hoard of zombies like a crowd-surfer at an ass-rock concert. He saw their blank eyes and their bloody mouths open wide as their next meal descended on them.
Only Zed wasn’t descending. He was being pulled upward by a green beam of light. One zombie in the crowd had been caught in the beam with Zed, and he spared one blast from his laser gun on it, sending it spiraling down into the crowd in his place.
The familiar cargo doors spun open above him, and he was back on Jim’s ship.
“That was too fucking close”, Jim said over the intercom, “Get your ass up here”.
Zed rode the lift up to the control room, and there sat the tentacle-laden protoplasmic green blob that Zed had begun to think of as a friend.
“Jim!”, Zed laughed, “Why the hell did you come back?”
Jim turned toward him as he came out of the lift. “Jim Croce appeared on the ship and told me I had to go back and get you.”
“What?”, Zed asked.
“Don’t make me explain bro, I don’t understand it myself.” Jim's tentacles whipped across the control panel, and the ship began to move down main street toward the town’s only grocery store.
“We’re not going up?”, Zed noticed, “Where are we going?”
Jim grew angry. “You were right about those goddamned heads”, he said, more angry than Zed had ever seen him, “Those little fucks got into my beer downstairs and exhausted the entire supply. I went down to grab another six-pack, and there they were all drunk and rolling around. It’s enough to make you sick.”
Zed laughed, but Jim remained serious.
“We’ve got to pick up some more beer and get the hell off this planet in a hurry”, he continued, “I just haven’t worked out how we’re gonna get that beer outta the store with all those zombies running around.”
“Leave that to me Jim”, Zed said, “I’ve got an idea".
<<<<<>>>>>
The saucer hovered over the street outside the grocery store parking lot, and the cargo doors spun open. Zed, knelt down and peered at the parking lot. There was a group of zombies randomly criss-crossing the parking lot, peering in cars and hunting for human brain-flesh.
This should do the trick, Zed thought to himself, and pushed the bag full of live human heads out of the cargo door. They fell to the street below, and the net holding them together burst open, sending them rolling in every direction. One of them looked up at Zed, yelling, “We supported you!”
Zed shifted his attention to the zombies in the parking lot and yelled, “Here’s your brains assholes! Eat up!”
The zombies from the parking lot broke into a run toward the heads, and the heads flailed their necks in a vain attempt to get away. The pile of heads was a zombie smorgasbord, and Zed knew it would keep them busy long enough for him to get the beer they needed.
Jim flew over the entrance to the grocery store and Zed rode the green beam down to the ground... pulling his blaster out and running into the store. He knew the layout well, and ran straight into the back room to grab a large box cart, rolling it directly the the beer aisle. A stray zombie or two jumped out at Zed, but he made quick work of them with the blaster while loading the cart to the hilt with Bud Light, Miller High-Life and a variety of the fancy micro-brews he loved to blow his paycheck on. Running out of the store, Zed saw that the crowd of zombies out on the street had grown exponentially, but they weren’t in the least bit interested in him or the flying saucer. Not with the pile of easy brains right beneath them.
The green beam pulled Zed and the beer into the ship, and without a second to spare, it rose through the clouds and into space, picking up massive amounts of speed as it went.
Zed reached the control room, and sensed that Jim was frantic about something.
“What’s going on man? Why are you so freaked out?” Zed asked.
“When Croce told me the Earth was suffering a zombie apocalypse, I knew what we were up against. I’m hoping we can get the hell out of dodge before they show up.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“Just sit tight and let me fly us out of here”, Jim said, “I’ll explain later.”
Zed sat in one of the chairs and watched Jim work. It’s tentacles were crawling over the complex control console, performing the tasks of an entire crew of pilots.
“Is there anything I can do man?”, Zed asked.
“Yeah, you can shut the hell up”, Jim replied.
The saucer buzzed out of Earth’s atmosphere and continued to pick up speed. They were approaching the Earth’s moon, when it appeared suddenly, as if blinking into existence. It was a ship nearly a fourth the size of the moon. It looked like a flying city to Zed, and the intricacy of its sleek black towers and brilliant lights transfixed him.
“Shit!”, Jim yelled, “This is what I was afraid of!”
Jim elbowed Zed in the chest with a tentacle to get him out of the way, and Zed’s chair fell backward, spilling him across the smooth metallic floor. He was about to protest when he got a look at what Jim was doing. It’s body had spread horizontally, and it’s tentacles were a blur, working every machine in the room.
“Hold on Zed”, was all it spared.
The saucer took a sudden and sickening u-turn, pressing Zed into the floor despite the artificial gravity correction. He could hear the alloys of the saucer groaning beneath him.
In the view screen, Zed saw thousands of fighters pour out of the impossibly large ship and head in their direction.
"What the hell are those?" Zed yelled.
"They're fighters!"
“Why so many!?!”, Zed exclaimed.
“I don't know!”, Jim answered, despite the blurred movements of its extremities as it controlled the ship. "They must know what I am!"
“What the hell are you?”
“At the moment”, Jim replied gravely, “I’m fucked.”
(to be continued...)
Showing posts with label flyng saucer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flyng saucer. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Episode 04 - You Don't Mess Around with Jim
The slimy creature piloting the saucer had the blaster trained on Zed, it’s tentacle having stretched nearly 30 feet to disarm him in a matter of milliseconds. Zed marveled at the speed on the alien, which from its appearance looked slow and stupid and cumbersome. It was no more than a bag of gelatinous goo, moving tentacles in and out of its body at will like a gigantic amoeba.
"I'm not your friend", it said, "But I could be". .
The creature loosened its grip on the gun, and it rotated forward until the barrel was pointed at the floor.
“Take it”, the thing said, offering the grip to Zed.
Zed reached out tentatively, suspicious at this strange turn of events. “Why?”
“Because bro”, the creature said as it shoved it into Zed’s hands, “I don’t need it. If I did, I’d just take it from you again.” The creature motioned at the security screens with a free tentacle. “Besides, you did me a favor.”
Zed took the blaster and bent down to shove it in his ankle holster. It fit well.
“How’s that?”, he asked.
The creature looked at the security monitors and reached a tentacle to a nearby button on the console. As it began pressing it, the screen showed view after view of broken and mangled grey aliens.
“These dead bastards owe me money”, it said bitterly, “Been holding it over my head too, trying to blackmail me into flying this heap longer than I wanted to.” The alien continued to flip through the security screens until it reached a view of the surgical room, where it was suddenly confronted by piles of dead alien bodies and exploded human heads. Zed saw a visible ripple pass through the creature. Was it revulsion?
The creature turned toward him. “How the hell did you kill all these Zanara?!?”
Zed was taken aback. “Uh, well, I shot some… and I turned the gravity off and on till the rest were dead.”
The creature just stared at him blankly for a moment, making him nervous. Suddenly, it burst out laughing, and hooked Zed with a tentacle, pulling him into the chair next to it.
“You’re alright man” it said, still laughing. "I got it TIVO'd, so to speak, but it ain't like watching it in the moment." It turned Zed’s chair toward the security monitor, Flipping through the scenes, Jim was greeted with a view of a live soldier alien hiding in some kind of munitions room, strapping weapons to its body. “Looks like you missed one buddy".
Zed began to bend over to grab the blaster from the holster, and a tentacle swept across his chest, stopping him.
“Nah, don’t sweat it”, it said, “We’ll just take care of this one from here.”
In a blur, the creature’s tentacles swept across the console, and Zed saw a cargo door begin to open behind the soldier alien. Cargo from the store room began sliding toward the open door, and he watched the alien on the screen panic and grab at the floor and walls. It didn’t work, and as the door continued to open slowly, Zed watched the contents of the room, soldier alien included, sucked violently out the door.
“Blew it out the airlock”, the creature said. This time, they both laughed out loud.“
"The name’s Jim”, the creature said through its laughter, holding out a socked tentacle.
Zed grabbed it and shook. “Mine’s Zed.”
<<<<<>>>>>
Zed and Jim made a deal.
Jim would take Zed to Earth, as long as he cleaned up the dead bodies. Jim would fly him right back to where he’d been abducted, let him down, and the two of them would go their separate ways, forgetting the whole thing ever happened.
Zed thought that was just fine, and he felt the ship make a deep u-turn before he’d even reached the stairs to head back down to the surgical room. This whole clean-up thing would be nasty work, but it wasn’t much different than the shit jobs he’d done back at home… especially the one’s in prison.
Walking down the stairs, thinking about Amber and Zoe, Zed was suddenly confronted by the sound of cheering as the bottom of the stairwell came into view. There, below him, lay a small crowd of human heads, clustered together awkwardly. Some of the heads were still struggling down the hallway, necks flailing desperately in an attempt to roll themselves toward the stairs. Zed had completely forgotten about them.
As the cheers subsided, Zed stepped into the sea of heads and began to wade through on his way to the surgical room, a chorus of conversation floating up to his ears as he went.
“Hey man, where were you?”
“Como estas amigo!”
“What were you doing up there?”
“You’ve been gone so long!”
“Why didn’t you take us up there with you?”
Zed grimaced as he made his way through them, and upon breaking free from the hoard, he noticed a head clinging to the cuff of his jeans with her teeth. With some difficulty, he wrestled her off.
“Wait! Don’t leave me!” she yelled after him as he walked down the hallway, “I love you!”
As soon as the doors to the surgical room slid shut behind him, a hatch spun open in the floor at the center of the room. Jim’s voice came on over the loudspeaker.
“Just through the trash in there”, it said. Zed could hear the faint sound of “Time in a Bottle” playing in the background, and then it was gone. He began pulling bodies across the floor and throwing them awkwardly into the hatch. There were a few body parts here and there, and he just tossed those in nonchalantly. Jim’s voice was back.
“Don’t worry about all the blood and shit”, it said, “The cleaning robots will get that”.
Zed made his way to the outer hallway, and began dragging bodies into the hatch from there. Before they even appeared, Zed could hear the semi-rhythmic thump-swish, thump-swish of the heads making their way slowly back to the surgical room.
The first head appeared around the curve of the hallway as Zed pulled the last mangled body into the surgical room.
“Hey, there you are!”, the man-head yelled to him, “I think you forgot to take me with you!” It struggled toward Zed, lurching and lolling its way down the hallway. “No worries though! It’s cool! Just so long long as its not like a trend or anything…”
“Hey, Jim”, Zed called out, “We got any more stiffs to dispose of?”
The intercom buzzed to life. “Yeah, there’s a few more down in the galley and in the living quarters”. The hallway next to Zed began to sink downward and become stairs, revealing a lower level he had not seen before.
Zed made his way down, and Jim guided him to each body, instructing him to throw them in a similar hatch to the one above.
“Where the hell am I throwing these bodies?”, Zed asked, tossing the last dead alien through the hatch.
“It’s a digestion chamber”, Jim answered, “It’s where the ship gets its energy.”
Zed chuckled, “The treehuggers back home would love this shit.”
Just then, he heard the distinct sound of a head tumbling down the stairs. It was the same man-head he’d ignored in the hallway.
“Dude!”, it began, “We fucking help you kill the aliens, and all you can do is ignore us? You owe us man!”
More heads tumbled down the stairs, piling up randomly at the bottom. Many landed with their faces against the floor or wall, and the sight of them flailing their necks in an attempt to find a better position turned Zed’s stomach.
“Don’t you appreciate everything we’ve done for you?” one of them asked.
“I thought you were cool”, said another, disappointed. The intercom buzzed to life again, and Zed was happy to hear Jim’s mellow voice.
“Zed, get up here! You gotta see something!”
Zed started up the stairs, when Jim’s voice reappeared. “Oh, and grab me a six pack from the galley behind you. Second compartment on the left”.
He slid the compartment door to the side, and found a large cooling unit full of Bud Light. Zed grabbed a six-pack for himself and one for Jim, and tried to make his way up the stairs. The heads had piled up substantially in the last couple moments, forming a rough pile at the bottom of the stairs which completely blocked the doorway and the first couple steps going up.
Zed couldn’t deal withy the heads any longer, and he attempted to scramble over the pile. It wasn’t easy. The heads were angry, and squirmed rigorously, causing him to lose his balance and fall once or twice. Each time he fell, a head or two would latch onto his sleeve or bite his hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”, one of them yelled, and Zed tried to ignore it, finally reaching an actual stair. There were a couple heads latched on to the cuff of his pants, and he swung the six pack down, beating them until they let go. “That was a dick move”, one of them said.
At the top of the stairs, a couple heads were still trying to make it to the stairs, and Zed helped them along, kicking them down the hallway like a soccer ball until they tumbled down to join their friends below. The last thing he heard was a head calling him an asshole as it bounced down the stairwell.
“Those goddamned heads are driving me nuts!”, Zed yelled as he scrambled up the stairs. Once there, he threw himself into the chair next to Jim and tossing it a six pack.
“Don’t worry bro, I’ll take those shitheads off your hands and sell em’ on the black market.”
Zed began to pull a beer off the six-pack he grabbed for himself, when a lightning-fast tentacle swept the whole thing out of his hands.
Jim looked slightly irritated. “Who said you could grab a six-pack for yourself? This is premium shit!”
“What, Bud Light?”, Zed asked.
Jim ripped a can off the plastic rings and shoved it through it’s thick mucous-laden skin. Zed could see the can dissolving inside until beer began to spill out in a cloud through a hole in the aluminum. Jim shuddered as the beer dissipated through it’s body.
“Ahhhh”, it said, “Nothing like a cold beer and some Jim Croce. Best shit Earth has to offer.” With an extra tentacle, Jim tore a beer off the rings and tossed it to Zed. “I guess I can spare ONE”, it said, “For cleaning up all those damned Zanara”.
Jim turned his attention to the console, and its tentacles began to crawl across the controls. “Now to show you what I called you up here for”.
Jim pressed a couple buttons, and the entire wall above the console became transparent. The planet Earth spread out dramatically before them, filling the Zed’s vision completely. The sight of the glistening blue and green planet nearly took his breath away, and he suddenly realized how tired he was… how much he longed for Amber and Zoe.
“How long before we reach the surface”, Zed asked, “I gotta get back to my chicks”.
“Won’t be long now”, Jim answered, “I’ve got us on a course to the spot where we picked you up”.
Already the planet loomed larger than it had moments before, and before Zed could comprehend the transition, the landscape began to look like a broad flat surface rather than a globe. Layers of clouds whisped by, and when they broke, Zed recognized the landscape below. It appeared to be midday, and as they flew over town, Zed noticed smoke billowing from one of the old buildings on Main Street.
“Shit, I wonder what’s going on?”, he wondered out loud.
Following the highway out of town, Zed recognized the houses and landmarks that were so familiar to him. Soon, the saucer had come to rest over his property… a small clearing in the woods with his trailer resting off to the side.
“Here we are bro”, Jim announced. It turned to Zed and offered a socked tentacle, and he took it, shaking. “It’s been interesting”, Jim continued, “I’ll be telling the story of how you killed all that Zanaran scum for years!”
“Thanks for the ride back man”, Zed said, and he walked toward the lift that would bring him down to the cargo bay. The lift began to lower, and Zed spared a small wave in Jim’s direction.
The lift buzzed down to the cargo bay, where the green beam of light suddenly took over, lifting him up while the cargo doors spun open beneath him, and letting him down slowly. Inches from the ground, the beam switched off, and Zed fell the remaining distance.
Above him, the doors on the cargo bay spun closed, and the saucer moved silently away over the treetops. Zed watched until it disappeared, and then dropped his eyes to his trailer.
There it was. His Harley was parked off to the side, and the girl’s SUV sat next to it. They’re not at the strip club, he thought excitedly, they’re home!
Zed burst through the front door, yelling, “Hello ladies, I’m home!” There was no response, and the smell in the trailer almost knocked him out. “What do you girls do when I’m gone?”, he asked loudly, “Let the garbage pile up?”
The bedroom door was open slightly, and Zed could hear the sound of soft moaning and the gentle smacking of wet flesh. Sweet, he thought, they’re doing it right now!
“Hey, wait for me!”, he announced, unbuckling his pants and letting them drop to his ankles as he burst through the bedroom door.
Zed stopped in his tracks, and it took him a couple seconds to comprehend what he was seeing. The bed sheets, the walls and the floor were soaked with blood, and Zoe lay on her stomach with her face buried in the open abdomen of Amber, eating her entrails.
“What the fuck is going on?!?”, Zed yelled, and Zoe looked up from Amber’s dead body slowly, blood dripping off her chin and eyes lost in a deathly haze.
She rose off the bed, and lunged toward Zed, one arm stretched out in front of her. “Brains”, she moaned, “BRAINS!!”.
Zed’s pants bound his ankles as he attempted to dodge her, causing him to fall on his back. She was on top of him then, gnashing her teeth and snarling wildly.
“BRAAIIINNNSS!!”
(to be continued...)
"I'm not your friend", it said, "But I could be". .
The creature loosened its grip on the gun, and it rotated forward until the barrel was pointed at the floor.
“Take it”, the thing said, offering the grip to Zed.
Zed reached out tentatively, suspicious at this strange turn of events. “Why?”
“Because bro”, the creature said as it shoved it into Zed’s hands, “I don’t need it. If I did, I’d just take it from you again.” The creature motioned at the security screens with a free tentacle. “Besides, you did me a favor.”
Zed took the blaster and bent down to shove it in his ankle holster. It fit well.
“How’s that?”, he asked.
The creature looked at the security monitors and reached a tentacle to a nearby button on the console. As it began pressing it, the screen showed view after view of broken and mangled grey aliens.
“These dead bastards owe me money”, it said bitterly, “Been holding it over my head too, trying to blackmail me into flying this heap longer than I wanted to.” The alien continued to flip through the security screens until it reached a view of the surgical room, where it was suddenly confronted by piles of dead alien bodies and exploded human heads. Zed saw a visible ripple pass through the creature. Was it revulsion?
The creature turned toward him. “How the hell did you kill all these Zanara?!?”
Zed was taken aback. “Uh, well, I shot some… and I turned the gravity off and on till the rest were dead.”
The creature just stared at him blankly for a moment, making him nervous. Suddenly, it burst out laughing, and hooked Zed with a tentacle, pulling him into the chair next to it.
“You’re alright man” it said, still laughing. "I got it TIVO'd, so to speak, but it ain't like watching it in the moment." It turned Zed’s chair toward the security monitor, Flipping through the scenes, Jim was greeted with a view of a live soldier alien hiding in some kind of munitions room, strapping weapons to its body. “Looks like you missed one buddy".
Zed began to bend over to grab the blaster from the holster, and a tentacle swept across his chest, stopping him.
“Nah, don’t sweat it”, it said, “We’ll just take care of this one from here.”
In a blur, the creature’s tentacles swept across the console, and Zed saw a cargo door begin to open behind the soldier alien. Cargo from the store room began sliding toward the open door, and he watched the alien on the screen panic and grab at the floor and walls. It didn’t work, and as the door continued to open slowly, Zed watched the contents of the room, soldier alien included, sucked violently out the door.
“Blew it out the airlock”, the creature said. This time, they both laughed out loud.“
"The name’s Jim”, the creature said through its laughter, holding out a socked tentacle.
Zed grabbed it and shook. “Mine’s Zed.”
<<<<<>>>>>
Zed and Jim made a deal.
Jim would take Zed to Earth, as long as he cleaned up the dead bodies. Jim would fly him right back to where he’d been abducted, let him down, and the two of them would go their separate ways, forgetting the whole thing ever happened.
Zed thought that was just fine, and he felt the ship make a deep u-turn before he’d even reached the stairs to head back down to the surgical room. This whole clean-up thing would be nasty work, but it wasn’t much different than the shit jobs he’d done back at home… especially the one’s in prison.
Walking down the stairs, thinking about Amber and Zoe, Zed was suddenly confronted by the sound of cheering as the bottom of the stairwell came into view. There, below him, lay a small crowd of human heads, clustered together awkwardly. Some of the heads were still struggling down the hallway, necks flailing desperately in an attempt to roll themselves toward the stairs. Zed had completely forgotten about them.
As the cheers subsided, Zed stepped into the sea of heads and began to wade through on his way to the surgical room, a chorus of conversation floating up to his ears as he went.
“Hey man, where were you?”
“Como estas amigo!”
“What were you doing up there?”
“You’ve been gone so long!”
“Why didn’t you take us up there with you?”
Zed grimaced as he made his way through them, and upon breaking free from the hoard, he noticed a head clinging to the cuff of his jeans with her teeth. With some difficulty, he wrestled her off.
“Wait! Don’t leave me!” she yelled after him as he walked down the hallway, “I love you!”
As soon as the doors to the surgical room slid shut behind him, a hatch spun open in the floor at the center of the room. Jim’s voice came on over the loudspeaker.
“Just through the trash in there”, it said. Zed could hear the faint sound of “Time in a Bottle” playing in the background, and then it was gone. He began pulling bodies across the floor and throwing them awkwardly into the hatch. There were a few body parts here and there, and he just tossed those in nonchalantly. Jim’s voice was back.
“Don’t worry about all the blood and shit”, it said, “The cleaning robots will get that”.
Zed made his way to the outer hallway, and began dragging bodies into the hatch from there. Before they even appeared, Zed could hear the semi-rhythmic thump-swish, thump-swish of the heads making their way slowly back to the surgical room.
The first head appeared around the curve of the hallway as Zed pulled the last mangled body into the surgical room.
“Hey, there you are!”, the man-head yelled to him, “I think you forgot to take me with you!” It struggled toward Zed, lurching and lolling its way down the hallway. “No worries though! It’s cool! Just so long long as its not like a trend or anything…”
“Hey, Jim”, Zed called out, “We got any more stiffs to dispose of?”
The intercom buzzed to life. “Yeah, there’s a few more down in the galley and in the living quarters”. The hallway next to Zed began to sink downward and become stairs, revealing a lower level he had not seen before.
Zed made his way down, and Jim guided him to each body, instructing him to throw them in a similar hatch to the one above.
“Where the hell am I throwing these bodies?”, Zed asked, tossing the last dead alien through the hatch.
“It’s a digestion chamber”, Jim answered, “It’s where the ship gets its energy.”
Zed chuckled, “The treehuggers back home would love this shit.”
Just then, he heard the distinct sound of a head tumbling down the stairs. It was the same man-head he’d ignored in the hallway.
“Dude!”, it began, “We fucking help you kill the aliens, and all you can do is ignore us? You owe us man!”
More heads tumbled down the stairs, piling up randomly at the bottom. Many landed with their faces against the floor or wall, and the sight of them flailing their necks in an attempt to find a better position turned Zed’s stomach.
“Don’t you appreciate everything we’ve done for you?” one of them asked.
“I thought you were cool”, said another, disappointed. The intercom buzzed to life again, and Zed was happy to hear Jim’s mellow voice.
“Zed, get up here! You gotta see something!”
Zed started up the stairs, when Jim’s voice reappeared. “Oh, and grab me a six pack from the galley behind you. Second compartment on the left”.
He slid the compartment door to the side, and found a large cooling unit full of Bud Light. Zed grabbed a six-pack for himself and one for Jim, and tried to make his way up the stairs. The heads had piled up substantially in the last couple moments, forming a rough pile at the bottom of the stairs which completely blocked the doorway and the first couple steps going up.
Zed couldn’t deal withy the heads any longer, and he attempted to scramble over the pile. It wasn’t easy. The heads were angry, and squirmed rigorously, causing him to lose his balance and fall once or twice. Each time he fell, a head or two would latch onto his sleeve or bite his hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”, one of them yelled, and Zed tried to ignore it, finally reaching an actual stair. There were a couple heads latched on to the cuff of his pants, and he swung the six pack down, beating them until they let go. “That was a dick move”, one of them said.
At the top of the stairs, a couple heads were still trying to make it to the stairs, and Zed helped them along, kicking them down the hallway like a soccer ball until they tumbled down to join their friends below. The last thing he heard was a head calling him an asshole as it bounced down the stairwell.
“Those goddamned heads are driving me nuts!”, Zed yelled as he scrambled up the stairs. Once there, he threw himself into the chair next to Jim and tossing it a six pack.
“Don’t worry bro, I’ll take those shitheads off your hands and sell em’ on the black market.”
Zed began to pull a beer off the six-pack he grabbed for himself, when a lightning-fast tentacle swept the whole thing out of his hands.
Jim looked slightly irritated. “Who said you could grab a six-pack for yourself? This is premium shit!”
“What, Bud Light?”, Zed asked.
Jim ripped a can off the plastic rings and shoved it through it’s thick mucous-laden skin. Zed could see the can dissolving inside until beer began to spill out in a cloud through a hole in the aluminum. Jim shuddered as the beer dissipated through it’s body.
“Ahhhh”, it said, “Nothing like a cold beer and some Jim Croce. Best shit Earth has to offer.” With an extra tentacle, Jim tore a beer off the rings and tossed it to Zed. “I guess I can spare ONE”, it said, “For cleaning up all those damned Zanara”.
Jim turned his attention to the console, and its tentacles began to crawl across the controls. “Now to show you what I called you up here for”.
Jim pressed a couple buttons, and the entire wall above the console became transparent. The planet Earth spread out dramatically before them, filling the Zed’s vision completely. The sight of the glistening blue and green planet nearly took his breath away, and he suddenly realized how tired he was… how much he longed for Amber and Zoe.
“How long before we reach the surface”, Zed asked, “I gotta get back to my chicks”.
“Won’t be long now”, Jim answered, “I’ve got us on a course to the spot where we picked you up”.
Already the planet loomed larger than it had moments before, and before Zed could comprehend the transition, the landscape began to look like a broad flat surface rather than a globe. Layers of clouds whisped by, and when they broke, Zed recognized the landscape below. It appeared to be midday, and as they flew over town, Zed noticed smoke billowing from one of the old buildings on Main Street.
“Shit, I wonder what’s going on?”, he wondered out loud.
Following the highway out of town, Zed recognized the houses and landmarks that were so familiar to him. Soon, the saucer had come to rest over his property… a small clearing in the woods with his trailer resting off to the side.
“Here we are bro”, Jim announced. It turned to Zed and offered a socked tentacle, and he took it, shaking. “It’s been interesting”, Jim continued, “I’ll be telling the story of how you killed all that Zanaran scum for years!”
“Thanks for the ride back man”, Zed said, and he walked toward the lift that would bring him down to the cargo bay. The lift began to lower, and Zed spared a small wave in Jim’s direction.
The lift buzzed down to the cargo bay, where the green beam of light suddenly took over, lifting him up while the cargo doors spun open beneath him, and letting him down slowly. Inches from the ground, the beam switched off, and Zed fell the remaining distance.
Above him, the doors on the cargo bay spun closed, and the saucer moved silently away over the treetops. Zed watched until it disappeared, and then dropped his eyes to his trailer.
There it was. His Harley was parked off to the side, and the girl’s SUV sat next to it. They’re not at the strip club, he thought excitedly, they’re home!
Zed burst through the front door, yelling, “Hello ladies, I’m home!” There was no response, and the smell in the trailer almost knocked him out. “What do you girls do when I’m gone?”, he asked loudly, “Let the garbage pile up?”
The bedroom door was open slightly, and Zed could hear the sound of soft moaning and the gentle smacking of wet flesh. Sweet, he thought, they’re doing it right now!
“Hey, wait for me!”, he announced, unbuckling his pants and letting them drop to his ankles as he burst through the bedroom door.
Zed stopped in his tracks, and it took him a couple seconds to comprehend what he was seeing. The bed sheets, the walls and the floor were soaked with blood, and Zoe lay on her stomach with her face buried in the open abdomen of Amber, eating her entrails.
“What the fuck is going on?!?”, Zed yelled, and Zoe looked up from Amber’s dead body slowly, blood dripping off her chin and eyes lost in a deathly haze.
She rose off the bed, and lunged toward Zed, one arm stretched out in front of her. “Brains”, she moaned, “BRAINS!!”.
Zed’s pants bound his ankles as he attempted to dodge her, causing him to fall on his back. She was on top of him then, gnashing her teeth and snarling wildly.
“BRAAIIINNNSS!!”
(to be continued...)
Episode 03 - Zed's Heads
Blaster fire rained down around Zed as he searched frantically for a way to survive. The operating table that served as his shield continued to heat up, and began to feel too hot for comfort. He was sure the soldiers were approaching strategically, and he knew he had to do something quick. Even a deadly mistake would be better than letting them walk up and kill him.
Glancing around, Zed saw the body of the Master laying dead on the floor, and felt a slight twinge of hope. Maybe Hammerhead carried some kind of weapon, he thought to himself, inching his way toward the corpse and drawing a steady stream of blaster fire.
Upon reaching the body, a quick pat-down told him there were no weapons hidden under its sparkling cloak. “Damn”, he muttered, feeling defeated. At that moment, he noticed the Master’s glowing bracelet.
The soldiers were approaching quickly. He had to do something fast.
Zed slipped the bracelet off the wrist of the alien and tapped randomly on its surface, mimicking the movements he'd seen the Master perform earlier. Quite suddenly, the pull of gravity in the ship disappeared. He kept the rudimentary shield in front of him as he rose from the ground, but he noticed the blaster fire had ceased. A quick look around the edge of the table told him the soldiers were floating haplessly in the air in the middle of the room, too far from a solid surface to control where they were going.
This was the window of opportunity Zed needed.
Almost instantly, he spotted the Surgical Ray that the aliens had planned to decapitate him with only minutes ago. It was a heavy-duty laser cannon, something straight out of an old sci-fi movie complete with glowing barrel rings. Tightening the grip on his shield, Zed pushed off from the wall and floated toward the ray. Sporadic blaster fire told Zed the soldiers had not recovered from their surprise introduction to zero gravity, and when he reached the Surgical Ray, he spared a few reckless moments without the coverage of the shield while he ripped the device off its robotic arm.
The ray was huge, and Zed could barely hold it under his arm. A quick test of the button on the body of the ray told him he’d found the firing mechanism. He also noticed the gun had some kick, pushing him backward through the air.
“Now to kill me some aliens”, he said, smiling at his good fortune.
Just then, he felt blaster fire hit the shield in several places. Glancing around, he saw that three of the soldiers had made their way to the far wall, and the rest were still floating helplessly.
Zed pointed the gun in opposite direction of the three soldiers, and pushed hard on the firing button. The blast of the raygun sent him hurtling across the room toward the soldiers. He held the table up behind him, blocking the blaster fire that came from them. The thrust of the Surgical Ray caused Zed to build up speed, and when the table slammed into the far wall, the sickening crunch of bonesl told him his aim was true. He’d captured all three soldiers behind the table in one fell swoop!
This left him completely unshielded to the aliens floating and spinning uncontrollably throughout the room, and random blaster fire began to land around him.
Zed aimed the huge Surgical Ray at the closest floating alien and pulled the trigger. “Eat raygun bitch”, he snarled, and hit the button. The ray sent- emitting a blinding beam of razor-thin red light- cut the alien in half like a hot knife sinking through butter.
Zed laughed, and swung the laser through the rest of the floating aliens, cutting them to pieces. The constant kickback of the laser cannon kept the operating table at his back pressed firmly against the wall, pinning the three soldier aliens behind him.
Despite that, he felt the table move as one of the aliens managed to free its blaster hand, snaking it around the edge of the table and firing at Zed. The shot was close, too close, and Zed let go of the surgical ray to wrestle the blaster out of the soldier's hand. Pressing the table firmly against the wall with the force of his legs, Zed reached over the top of the table with the blaster and fired on the three aliens, sweeping the barrel back and forth until he could feel no more movement.
Suddenly, the table collapsed against the wall, and plumes of black soot appeared around him, filling the air like cream in coffee.
“Holy shit”, he said, looking at the blaster in his hand with an expression of awe, “I cremated em’!”
There was little time to celebrate. Hatches in the floor slid open all around the room, and soldier aliens in thruster packs- nearly a dozen in all- flew out of them, scanning the room. Zed spun the operating table around in front of him again and reached in his pocket and tapped the Master’s bracelet, desperately hoping for something useful to happen.
He didn’t expect what happened next.
The sound of human cheering filled the chamber, and Zed spared a glance around the edge of the table just as the human heads that filled the glass cubes were ejected into the zero gravity room! Zed had forgotten about them, yet here they were, screaming cheers and causing utter chaos!
The soldier aliens found Zed behind the operating table and tried to organize an attack, but the heads were too thick. Hundreds of severed heads floated in every direction, blocking blaster fire and clinging to the soldiers with their teeth.
Zed gazed upon the fiasco and smiled broadly. Impulsively, he put his feet on the wall, and thrust himself right into the middle of it.
“Whoo hoo!” he screamed, leveling his blaster at every soldier alien he could find as he sailed across the room.
“Dude, you rock!”, yelled one of the heads as it floated by. As Zed flipped, head over heals across the room, the world spun around him. Enjoying the sensation, he picked off the soldiers one by one, some above him, some below, others lurking off to the side. His entourage of enthusiastic heads protected him from stray blasts as he reached the other side, and he launched himself again. The cheers of the heads and the wild chaos and the screaming aliens were intoxicating, and Zed felt alive.
That was, until the gravity came on.
The heads, the soldiers and Zed all tumbled violently to the ground. Although he’d landed painfully on his head and shoulder, Zed used his new blaster to finish the last two soldier aliens struggling to their feet. Both were covered from head to toe in snarling human heads, and Zed considered it a mercy killing. The room was filled with the painful moans of the heads as they lolled around on the ground, some spitting out chunks of alien flesh.
“What the hell happened?”, Zed asked no one in particular.
Somewhere in the room, a head answered, “The gravity came back on”. Somewhere else in the room, another head said, “No shit Sherlock”.
The door to the room slid open with a sudden hiss behind Zed, and he whirled around, ready for anything. The sight that greeted him was that of a horrendously large soldier alien, angry and rippling with muscle. It leveled its eyes on Zed, let out a tremendous roar, and began to stomp its way toward him, crushing human heads under its feet as it went.
Zed heard the sound of screams in the room as he raised his blaster. In a blur, the creature whipped a lasso-like cord in his direction. The tip wrapped around the barrel of Zed's blaster and the alien ripped it from his hand.
Zed backed against the wall in fear, not know how to stop the creature. Once again, he slipped his hand into the coat pocket holding the bracelet and tapped it. The gravity disappeared, and the monstrous creature floated into the air. Unfazed, It dug its claws into the ceiling and continued its relentless approach. Zed tapped the bracelet again, and the gravity came on, sending the large alien smashing into the floor.
Zed remembered how soft the alien at the portal had felt when he’d punched it in the face. He felt its tissues ripping and bones cracking at the impact He also remembered how badly the operating table had crushed the three soldier aliens when he'd slammed into them.
Finding the pattern, Zed turned the gravity off again. The creature floating upward, and before it could find purchase, Zed turned the gravity on. The creature fell unprepared to the ground, and before it could stand up, Zed turned the gravity off. The fifth time he turned the gravity on, Zed heard the distinct sound of bones breaking when the alien hit the floor. By the 18th time, the creature was little more than a gelatinous husk oozing fluids in the center of the chamber.
A few of the heads cheered despite their own broken noses and bruised lips.
For the first time, Zed stepped out of the surgical chamber and into the hall outside the main door, leaving the human heads and the aliens corpses behind him. "Hey, where're you going? Take me with you!", a woman-head said. and Zed ignored her. The metallic hallway curved gently inward in both directions, and Zed guessed that it skirting the circular operating room as well as the hull of the saucer. As he made his way down the hallway, blaster raised in anticipation, he came across the broken and mangled bodies of several soldier aliens who had been waiting to storm the surgical room.
Looks like that gravity trick worked on the whole damned ship, he gloated to himself.
Zed continued down the hallway, not taking any chances with aliens that may have survived. There were no doors or floor hatches that he could see, and when he began to wonder if he’d end up back where he started, he found an arched doorway leading to a stairway curving upward. There was an alien laying crumpled and broken at the bottom of the stairs moaning in pain.
"S'cuse me", Zed muttered, and shot it in the face as he began to climb the stairs. Ascending slowly, the room at the the top of the stairs began to come into focus. It was filled with chairs, flashing consoles and screens, and it looked to Zed to be the control room.
Cool, he thought to himself, now to get my ass back home to Zoe and Amber.
Zed cleared the last stair and stepped into the room, scanning the complex equipment. There was a low percussive sound coming from the corner of the room, and when his eyes landed on the source, Zed found a creature sitting there, working the console with dozens of gelatinous tentacles. It was huge, horizontally-speaking, and sat in an extra-wide chair. It’s skin was slick and green, and covered in a film of mucus. The end of each tentacle had an odd sort of sock over it, presumably to keep the equipment free of the slime the creature produced. It seemed to expand and contract slowly, and Zed could the lights of the console through its body. The percussive noise, which Zed found vaguely familiar, was coming from a thick black cable snaked directly into the side of the creature’s head. Zed could swear the sound was "You Don't Mess with Jim by Jim Croce.
He raising the blaster and aimed it squarely at the alien, “Hey you!", he yelled, "Turn around!”
The creature continued to work the controls of the ship, completely oblivious.
Zed reached in his pocket, found a quarter, and flicked it at the creature. This time, the alien pulled the black cable out of its head with a loud popping sound. When the end of the tube cleared the creature’s skin, the sound became clearly audible. Zed had been right, it was definitely "You Don't Mess with Jim".
The creature turned toward Zed, revealing dozens of dark splotches along the front of its body. They resembled eyes, thought he couldn't be sure. When it saw the human being had a claster, it turned toward the security screens. Alien corpses lay scattered in every corner of the ship.
The creature turned back to Zed. “You did this?”, it asked in amazement.
“I sure as hell did”, Zed replied, “And you’re next unless you turn this ship around and head back to Earth”.
The creature paused, seeming to absorb its new set of circumstances. Finally, it spoke.
“Put the blaster down my friend”, it said.
Zed raised it higher, "I ain't your friend".
Too fast for Zed to comprehend, the creature stretched a tentacle 30 feet across the room, pulled the blaster out of Zed’s hands, and turned it on him.
“Your right, I'm not”, it answered.
Once Zed's mind caught up with the situation, he raised his hands high in the air, not sure what to do next.
(to be continued...)
Glancing around, Zed saw the body of the Master laying dead on the floor, and felt a slight twinge of hope. Maybe Hammerhead carried some kind of weapon, he thought to himself, inching his way toward the corpse and drawing a steady stream of blaster fire.
Upon reaching the body, a quick pat-down told him there were no weapons hidden under its sparkling cloak. “Damn”, he muttered, feeling defeated. At that moment, he noticed the Master’s glowing bracelet.
The soldiers were approaching quickly. He had to do something fast.
Zed slipped the bracelet off the wrist of the alien and tapped randomly on its surface, mimicking the movements he'd seen the Master perform earlier. Quite suddenly, the pull of gravity in the ship disappeared. He kept the rudimentary shield in front of him as he rose from the ground, but he noticed the blaster fire had ceased. A quick look around the edge of the table told him the soldiers were floating haplessly in the air in the middle of the room, too far from a solid surface to control where they were going.
This was the window of opportunity Zed needed.
Almost instantly, he spotted the Surgical Ray that the aliens had planned to decapitate him with only minutes ago. It was a heavy-duty laser cannon, something straight out of an old sci-fi movie complete with glowing barrel rings. Tightening the grip on his shield, Zed pushed off from the wall and floated toward the ray. Sporadic blaster fire told Zed the soldiers had not recovered from their surprise introduction to zero gravity, and when he reached the Surgical Ray, he spared a few reckless moments without the coverage of the shield while he ripped the device off its robotic arm.
The ray was huge, and Zed could barely hold it under his arm. A quick test of the button on the body of the ray told him he’d found the firing mechanism. He also noticed the gun had some kick, pushing him backward through the air.
“Now to kill me some aliens”, he said, smiling at his good fortune.
Just then, he felt blaster fire hit the shield in several places. Glancing around, he saw that three of the soldiers had made their way to the far wall, and the rest were still floating helplessly.
Zed pointed the gun in opposite direction of the three soldiers, and pushed hard on the firing button. The blast of the raygun sent him hurtling across the room toward the soldiers. He held the table up behind him, blocking the blaster fire that came from them. The thrust of the Surgical Ray caused Zed to build up speed, and when the table slammed into the far wall, the sickening crunch of bonesl told him his aim was true. He’d captured all three soldiers behind the table in one fell swoop!
This left him completely unshielded to the aliens floating and spinning uncontrollably throughout the room, and random blaster fire began to land around him.
Zed aimed the huge Surgical Ray at the closest floating alien and pulled the trigger. “Eat raygun bitch”, he snarled, and hit the button. The ray sent- emitting a blinding beam of razor-thin red light- cut the alien in half like a hot knife sinking through butter.
Zed laughed, and swung the laser through the rest of the floating aliens, cutting them to pieces. The constant kickback of the laser cannon kept the operating table at his back pressed firmly against the wall, pinning the three soldier aliens behind him.
Despite that, he felt the table move as one of the aliens managed to free its blaster hand, snaking it around the edge of the table and firing at Zed. The shot was close, too close, and Zed let go of the surgical ray to wrestle the blaster out of the soldier's hand. Pressing the table firmly against the wall with the force of his legs, Zed reached over the top of the table with the blaster and fired on the three aliens, sweeping the barrel back and forth until he could feel no more movement.
Suddenly, the table collapsed against the wall, and plumes of black soot appeared around him, filling the air like cream in coffee.
“Holy shit”, he said, looking at the blaster in his hand with an expression of awe, “I cremated em’!”
There was little time to celebrate. Hatches in the floor slid open all around the room, and soldier aliens in thruster packs- nearly a dozen in all- flew out of them, scanning the room. Zed spun the operating table around in front of him again and reached in his pocket and tapped the Master’s bracelet, desperately hoping for something useful to happen.
He didn’t expect what happened next.
The sound of human cheering filled the chamber, and Zed spared a glance around the edge of the table just as the human heads that filled the glass cubes were ejected into the zero gravity room! Zed had forgotten about them, yet here they were, screaming cheers and causing utter chaos!
The soldier aliens found Zed behind the operating table and tried to organize an attack, but the heads were too thick. Hundreds of severed heads floated in every direction, blocking blaster fire and clinging to the soldiers with their teeth.
Zed gazed upon the fiasco and smiled broadly. Impulsively, he put his feet on the wall, and thrust himself right into the middle of it.
“Whoo hoo!” he screamed, leveling his blaster at every soldier alien he could find as he sailed across the room.
“Dude, you rock!”, yelled one of the heads as it floated by. As Zed flipped, head over heals across the room, the world spun around him. Enjoying the sensation, he picked off the soldiers one by one, some above him, some below, others lurking off to the side. His entourage of enthusiastic heads protected him from stray blasts as he reached the other side, and he launched himself again. The cheers of the heads and the wild chaos and the screaming aliens were intoxicating, and Zed felt alive.
That was, until the gravity came on.
The heads, the soldiers and Zed all tumbled violently to the ground. Although he’d landed painfully on his head and shoulder, Zed used his new blaster to finish the last two soldier aliens struggling to their feet. Both were covered from head to toe in snarling human heads, and Zed considered it a mercy killing. The room was filled with the painful moans of the heads as they lolled around on the ground, some spitting out chunks of alien flesh.
“What the hell happened?”, Zed asked no one in particular.
Somewhere in the room, a head answered, “The gravity came back on”. Somewhere else in the room, another head said, “No shit Sherlock”.
The door to the room slid open with a sudden hiss behind Zed, and he whirled around, ready for anything. The sight that greeted him was that of a horrendously large soldier alien, angry and rippling with muscle. It leveled its eyes on Zed, let out a tremendous roar, and began to stomp its way toward him, crushing human heads under its feet as it went.
Zed heard the sound of screams in the room as he raised his blaster. In a blur, the creature whipped a lasso-like cord in his direction. The tip wrapped around the barrel of Zed's blaster and the alien ripped it from his hand.
Zed backed against the wall in fear, not know how to stop the creature. Once again, he slipped his hand into the coat pocket holding the bracelet and tapped it. The gravity disappeared, and the monstrous creature floated into the air. Unfazed, It dug its claws into the ceiling and continued its relentless approach. Zed tapped the bracelet again, and the gravity came on, sending the large alien smashing into the floor.
Zed remembered how soft the alien at the portal had felt when he’d punched it in the face. He felt its tissues ripping and bones cracking at the impact He also remembered how badly the operating table had crushed the three soldier aliens when he'd slammed into them.
Finding the pattern, Zed turned the gravity off again. The creature floating upward, and before it could find purchase, Zed turned the gravity on. The creature fell unprepared to the ground, and before it could stand up, Zed turned the gravity off. The fifth time he turned the gravity on, Zed heard the distinct sound of bones breaking when the alien hit the floor. By the 18th time, the creature was little more than a gelatinous husk oozing fluids in the center of the chamber.
A few of the heads cheered despite their own broken noses and bruised lips.
For the first time, Zed stepped out of the surgical chamber and into the hall outside the main door, leaving the human heads and the aliens corpses behind him. "Hey, where're you going? Take me with you!", a woman-head said. and Zed ignored her. The metallic hallway curved gently inward in both directions, and Zed guessed that it skirting the circular operating room as well as the hull of the saucer. As he made his way down the hallway, blaster raised in anticipation, he came across the broken and mangled bodies of several soldier aliens who had been waiting to storm the surgical room.
Looks like that gravity trick worked on the whole damned ship, he gloated to himself.
Zed continued down the hallway, not taking any chances with aliens that may have survived. There were no doors or floor hatches that he could see, and when he began to wonder if he’d end up back where he started, he found an arched doorway leading to a stairway curving upward. There was an alien laying crumpled and broken at the bottom of the stairs moaning in pain.
"S'cuse me", Zed muttered, and shot it in the face as he began to climb the stairs. Ascending slowly, the room at the the top of the stairs began to come into focus. It was filled with chairs, flashing consoles and screens, and it looked to Zed to be the control room.
Cool, he thought to himself, now to get my ass back home to Zoe and Amber.
Zed cleared the last stair and stepped into the room, scanning the complex equipment. There was a low percussive sound coming from the corner of the room, and when his eyes landed on the source, Zed found a creature sitting there, working the console with dozens of gelatinous tentacles. It was huge, horizontally-speaking, and sat in an extra-wide chair. It’s skin was slick and green, and covered in a film of mucus. The end of each tentacle had an odd sort of sock over it, presumably to keep the equipment free of the slime the creature produced. It seemed to expand and contract slowly, and Zed could the lights of the console through its body. The percussive noise, which Zed found vaguely familiar, was coming from a thick black cable snaked directly into the side of the creature’s head. Zed could swear the sound was "You Don't Mess with Jim by Jim Croce.
He raising the blaster and aimed it squarely at the alien, “Hey you!", he yelled, "Turn around!”
The creature continued to work the controls of the ship, completely oblivious.
Zed reached in his pocket, found a quarter, and flicked it at the creature. This time, the alien pulled the black cable out of its head with a loud popping sound. When the end of the tube cleared the creature’s skin, the sound became clearly audible. Zed had been right, it was definitely "You Don't Mess with Jim".
The creature turned toward Zed, revealing dozens of dark splotches along the front of its body. They resembled eyes, thought he couldn't be sure. When it saw the human being had a claster, it turned toward the security screens. Alien corpses lay scattered in every corner of the ship.
The creature turned back to Zed. “You did this?”, it asked in amazement.
“I sure as hell did”, Zed replied, “And you’re next unless you turn this ship around and head back to Earth”.
The creature paused, seeming to absorb its new set of circumstances. Finally, it spoke.
“Put the blaster down my friend”, it said.
Zed raised it higher, "I ain't your friend".
Too fast for Zed to comprehend, the creature stretched a tentacle 30 feet across the room, pulled the blaster out of Zed’s hands, and turned it on him.
“Your right, I'm not”, it answered.
Once Zed's mind caught up with the situation, he raised his hands high in the air, not sure what to do next.
(to be continued...)
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Episode 02 - Zed's Head
The grey-brown haze that had settled over Zed’s mind began to lift, and he became vaguely aware of high-pitched voices chattering around him. He tried to move, but his limbs would not respond. His body felt far away and inaccessible, and all he could do was lie in wait.
The world around him grew steadily bright and loud. One by one, Zed’s senses returned to him. An inhalation came with the sudden awareness of a foul and alien stench, like the smell of stagnant water. He realized that his eyes were seeing the pale red haze of his own illuminated eyelids. The chattering- once muffled and distant- grew sharp and clear, and Zed guessed there were four or five aliens standing in a circle around him.
Without warning, something cold and metallic pressed firmly against his temple, punching a needle through his skull and into his brain with a loud mechanical hiss. Zed’s eyes flew open involuntarily and he let out an uncontrolled moan of pain.
Six gray figures, blurred and hazy, stood over Zed, shining a kind of surgical light into his face. His eyes adjusted quickly, and the beings became more clear to him. They were short with gray skin, thin limbs and large heads with unblinking black eyes… almost the exact image Zed had seen on so many sci-fi shows and abduction documentaries in the past. They wore loose blue robes that hung like oversized hospital scrubs and sparkled in the dim light. These weren't the aliens Zed remembered killing in the portal room.
One of the aliens held a small device that seemed to draw the attention of the others. It spun a small knob, and Zed heard impossibly loud sounds of crackling and distortion in his mind, as if a shortwave radio was being tuned in his head. When the sound disappated, Zed could hear the high pitched voices of the aliens along with a loud, clear voice in his head, translating in perfect English.
“I have found his biofrequency”, the alien with the device said formally, “We are comprehensible to him”.
“Good”, said another, “Alert the Master”.
As one of the aliens left the circle, the remaining aliens turned their attention to Zed.
“Earth man”, said one, “Can you understand me?”
Zed tried to sit up, and realized that he was held down with restraints. Turning his head as far as he could, he saw that he was laying on some kind of operating table. “Fuck… you…”, he said, struggling with each word.
“Comprehension affirmative.”
“Are his reflexes and muscle control returning?”, asked another.
An alien standing at the end of the table drew a small cylindrical object from its pocket and touched it lightly to each of Zed’s knees, sending them flailing involuntarily upward.
My legs are free, Zed thought excitedly.
“Reflexes normal”, the tester said, “Nerve damage unlikely”.
On the opposite side of the room, a large door slid open with a hiss, and bright light spilled into the dim room. Zed watched the silhouette of a figure- taller than the others and wearing a flowing red robe- approach the operating table. The smaller grey aliens bowed as it approached, and whispered the word "Master" to show their respect. As the large creature neared the table, its face was lit by the operating lamp, and Zed could see that it was different from the others. It was more muscular and had a t-shaped head with slitted black eyes peering down at him from each end. It reminded Zed of a hammerhead shark.
“So this is the Earth-man that gave us so much trouble?” it asked to no one in particular, glaring down at Zed and scanning him intensely. “No matter”, it continued, “This one will draw a large sum when we reach Garantua-3.” The large alien turned and began to leave the room when Zed spoke suddenly.
“What are you gonna do with me?” he hissed.
The Master turned. “It speaks”, it said sarcastically, taking a step toward Zed. “Well since you ask, Earth-man, let me show you…”
It pulled the right sleeve of its robe back a few inches revealing a glowing bracelet with glittering lights. It tapped the bracelet quickly, and rows of panels on the each side of the room began to pop outward and slide toward the ceiling. As the panels slid upward, they revealed dozens of dark glass cubes. Zed could see shapes in each of them, but could not discern what they were.
The Master tapped its bracelet again, and bright light flooded the cubes. To Zed’s horror, each cube held a single living human head! The heads, each fitted with a strange metallic life-support collar, seemed to span every possible race, age and gender. When the lights came on, many of them woke from sleep and screamed in fear.
The Master smiled broadly at Zed.
“What the hell is this sick shit!?!” Zed cried in anger, struggling to free himself from the restrains.
The Master smiled. “Why, it’s our bread and butter Earth-man”, it answered. “There are wealthy collectors all over the galaxy who pay handsomely for specimens such as these. Think of them as living trophy pieces."
The alien drew closer to Zed, and leaned in to meet him eye to eye, “You, my lucky friend, were our last catch before we left the system. When the bidders see how hard you fought back on the holograms”, it continued, “They’ll be falling over themselves to add you to their collections”.
With that, the Master spun and barked orders at the small gray aliens as it marched toward the door. “Ready the Surgical Laser! Double check the life support systems! We want to keep this one alive!”
The crew of aliens turned their heads to watch the Master leave the room, and Zed saw his opportunity, sliding his foot toward one of his restrained hands. Fumbling only slightly, Zed lifted the jean cuff and pulled his trusted semi-automatic pistol from its ankle holster. He knew he had at least nine shots, counting the one in the chamber, and he had to make them count.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
The first three shots took the crew by surprise, and two of the aliens flew to the ground, brains spread violently across the walls of the room. The third shot hit an alien in the shoulder and spun him backwards against a tray of medical tools, one of which sent a brilliant laser flying randomly around the room as it fell to the ground.
One of the lasers cut across the left eye of an alien who seemed tfrozen in fear, cutting it open and spilling its wet contents down the front of its surgical smock. As luck would have it, the laser whipped across the surgical table, cutting the restraint of the hand without the gun.
The remaining crew members- four including the Master- finally began to comprehend what was happening, and rushed the table. Zed reached across the table and grabbed the pistol with his unrestrained hand, firing on each of them moments before they reached the table. Each alien fell dead to the floor, and Zed aimed the at the Master, who stood before him with a wide-eyed expression of fear.
“Stop!”, Zed yelled, aiming the gun at the Master's head. The alien listened, staying where he was. Zed took a deep breath, and began to speak slowly. “Now step toward the table and pop these restraints. I don't plan on laying here while you sick fucks cut my head off and stick it in a cage.”
The Master hesitated.
Zed grew impatient. “Listen", he said, "I’m gonna get outta these restraints one way or another, and I got no problem shooting you right now”. As if to illustrate this, Zed spared a bullet for the alien with the spliced eye… its cries of pain annoying him.
The Master looked over its shoulder and watched the latest victim fall to the ground- half of its face missing- and began to move slowly toward Zed.
“You realize if you kill me you’ll never get back to Earth” the Master said, taking slow and deliberate steps toward Zed, “We’ve already traveling at light speed”.
“We’ll see about that”, Zed growled, keeping the gun aimed at the Master’s head.
“I can make you a deal”, the alien continued, “I’ll bring you back to Earth, and you let me move on with my cargo…”
Zed was careful to remain alert as the Master grew close to the table. “Pop these restraints, and we’ll talk”.
The Master reached the wrist of his restrained hand and tapped its fingers quickly across its surface. The restraint fell open. and Zed urged him onward. The alien continued, working around the table and opening the chest and head restraints.
"You're an odd human", the Master said as it worked, "You destroy our robotic defenses on the way into the ship, you take twice the dose of sedative to put down, and you kill, what, eight or nine members of my crew? Who are you?"
"Just a hick with a gun", Zed answered, and the last restraint popped open, allowing him to sit up
Out of nowhere, the alien he'd shot in the shoulder ran out of the dim light and tackled him to the ground, shreiling a wild war cry. Zed shot the alien in the chest, and its body fell limp on top of him.
Struggled to get out from under the alien corpse, Zed caught a glimpse of the Master tapping quickly on its bracelet. He flew to his feet, and aimed the gun at the Master's face.
“What’d you do?” he yelled, "What the fuck did you do?"
“You might as well give up”, the Master answered, “My soldiers are on their way up. You have no way of escaping”.
“We’ll see about that”, Zed answered, and shot the Master in the head. While its body crumpled to the ground, the main doors slid open, and short stocky aliens poured into the room, raising their blasters.
Zed slipped his arm through the open restraints on the table and yanked up. The table came free, and Zed raised it in front of him just as the blaster fire began to rain down around him.
Zed attempted to fire his pistol at the oncoming aliens, but the pistol was empty. Moments later, the gun was shot out of his hand, and it flew against the wall behind him, melting slightly as it went.
Glancing around for a way out, Zed wondered if these would be the last few seconds of his life. He wanted to get back to Amber and Zoe, to crawl into the sheets between them and pretend none of this ever happened.
Unfortunately, the steady stream of blaster fire landing violently around him- heating table he used as a shield and melting the wall around him- told Zed that survival was very unlikely...
(to be continued...)
The world around him grew steadily bright and loud. One by one, Zed’s senses returned to him. An inhalation came with the sudden awareness of a foul and alien stench, like the smell of stagnant water. He realized that his eyes were seeing the pale red haze of his own illuminated eyelids. The chattering- once muffled and distant- grew sharp and clear, and Zed guessed there were four or five aliens standing in a circle around him.
Without warning, something cold and metallic pressed firmly against his temple, punching a needle through his skull and into his brain with a loud mechanical hiss. Zed’s eyes flew open involuntarily and he let out an uncontrolled moan of pain.
Six gray figures, blurred and hazy, stood over Zed, shining a kind of surgical light into his face. His eyes adjusted quickly, and the beings became more clear to him. They were short with gray skin, thin limbs and large heads with unblinking black eyes… almost the exact image Zed had seen on so many sci-fi shows and abduction documentaries in the past. They wore loose blue robes that hung like oversized hospital scrubs and sparkled in the dim light. These weren't the aliens Zed remembered killing in the portal room.
One of the aliens held a small device that seemed to draw the attention of the others. It spun a small knob, and Zed heard impossibly loud sounds of crackling and distortion in his mind, as if a shortwave radio was being tuned in his head. When the sound disappated, Zed could hear the high pitched voices of the aliens along with a loud, clear voice in his head, translating in perfect English.
“I have found his biofrequency”, the alien with the device said formally, “We are comprehensible to him”.
“Good”, said another, “Alert the Master”.
As one of the aliens left the circle, the remaining aliens turned their attention to Zed.
“Earth man”, said one, “Can you understand me?”
Zed tried to sit up, and realized that he was held down with restraints. Turning his head as far as he could, he saw that he was laying on some kind of operating table. “Fuck… you…”, he said, struggling with each word.
“Comprehension affirmative.”
“Are his reflexes and muscle control returning?”, asked another.
An alien standing at the end of the table drew a small cylindrical object from its pocket and touched it lightly to each of Zed’s knees, sending them flailing involuntarily upward.
My legs are free, Zed thought excitedly.
“Reflexes normal”, the tester said, “Nerve damage unlikely”.
On the opposite side of the room, a large door slid open with a hiss, and bright light spilled into the dim room. Zed watched the silhouette of a figure- taller than the others and wearing a flowing red robe- approach the operating table. The smaller grey aliens bowed as it approached, and whispered the word "Master" to show their respect. As the large creature neared the table, its face was lit by the operating lamp, and Zed could see that it was different from the others. It was more muscular and had a t-shaped head with slitted black eyes peering down at him from each end. It reminded Zed of a hammerhead shark.
“So this is the Earth-man that gave us so much trouble?” it asked to no one in particular, glaring down at Zed and scanning him intensely. “No matter”, it continued, “This one will draw a large sum when we reach Garantua-3.” The large alien turned and began to leave the room when Zed spoke suddenly.
“What are you gonna do with me?” he hissed.
The Master turned. “It speaks”, it said sarcastically, taking a step toward Zed. “Well since you ask, Earth-man, let me show you…”
It pulled the right sleeve of its robe back a few inches revealing a glowing bracelet with glittering lights. It tapped the bracelet quickly, and rows of panels on the each side of the room began to pop outward and slide toward the ceiling. As the panels slid upward, they revealed dozens of dark glass cubes. Zed could see shapes in each of them, but could not discern what they were.
The Master tapped its bracelet again, and bright light flooded the cubes. To Zed’s horror, each cube held a single living human head! The heads, each fitted with a strange metallic life-support collar, seemed to span every possible race, age and gender. When the lights came on, many of them woke from sleep and screamed in fear.
The Master smiled broadly at Zed.
“What the hell is this sick shit!?!” Zed cried in anger, struggling to free himself from the restrains.
The Master smiled. “Why, it’s our bread and butter Earth-man”, it answered. “There are wealthy collectors all over the galaxy who pay handsomely for specimens such as these. Think of them as living trophy pieces."
The alien drew closer to Zed, and leaned in to meet him eye to eye, “You, my lucky friend, were our last catch before we left the system. When the bidders see how hard you fought back on the holograms”, it continued, “They’ll be falling over themselves to add you to their collections”.
With that, the Master spun and barked orders at the small gray aliens as it marched toward the door. “Ready the Surgical Laser! Double check the life support systems! We want to keep this one alive!”
The crew of aliens turned their heads to watch the Master leave the room, and Zed saw his opportunity, sliding his foot toward one of his restrained hands. Fumbling only slightly, Zed lifted the jean cuff and pulled his trusted semi-automatic pistol from its ankle holster. He knew he had at least nine shots, counting the one in the chamber, and he had to make them count.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
The first three shots took the crew by surprise, and two of the aliens flew to the ground, brains spread violently across the walls of the room. The third shot hit an alien in the shoulder and spun him backwards against a tray of medical tools, one of which sent a brilliant laser flying randomly around the room as it fell to the ground.
One of the lasers cut across the left eye of an alien who seemed tfrozen in fear, cutting it open and spilling its wet contents down the front of its surgical smock. As luck would have it, the laser whipped across the surgical table, cutting the restraint of the hand without the gun.
The remaining crew members- four including the Master- finally began to comprehend what was happening, and rushed the table. Zed reached across the table and grabbed the pistol with his unrestrained hand, firing on each of them moments before they reached the table. Each alien fell dead to the floor, and Zed aimed the at the Master, who stood before him with a wide-eyed expression of fear.
“Stop!”, Zed yelled, aiming the gun at the Master's head. The alien listened, staying where he was. Zed took a deep breath, and began to speak slowly. “Now step toward the table and pop these restraints. I don't plan on laying here while you sick fucks cut my head off and stick it in a cage.”
The Master hesitated.
Zed grew impatient. “Listen", he said, "I’m gonna get outta these restraints one way or another, and I got no problem shooting you right now”. As if to illustrate this, Zed spared a bullet for the alien with the spliced eye… its cries of pain annoying him.
The Master looked over its shoulder and watched the latest victim fall to the ground- half of its face missing- and began to move slowly toward Zed.
“You realize if you kill me you’ll never get back to Earth” the Master said, taking slow and deliberate steps toward Zed, “We’ve already traveling at light speed”.
“We’ll see about that”, Zed growled, keeping the gun aimed at the Master’s head.
“I can make you a deal”, the alien continued, “I’ll bring you back to Earth, and you let me move on with my cargo…”
Zed was careful to remain alert as the Master grew close to the table. “Pop these restraints, and we’ll talk”.
The Master reached the wrist of his restrained hand and tapped its fingers quickly across its surface. The restraint fell open. and Zed urged him onward. The alien continued, working around the table and opening the chest and head restraints.
"You're an odd human", the Master said as it worked, "You destroy our robotic defenses on the way into the ship, you take twice the dose of sedative to put down, and you kill, what, eight or nine members of my crew? Who are you?"
"Just a hick with a gun", Zed answered, and the last restraint popped open, allowing him to sit up
Out of nowhere, the alien he'd shot in the shoulder ran out of the dim light and tackled him to the ground, shreiling a wild war cry. Zed shot the alien in the chest, and its body fell limp on top of him.
Struggled to get out from under the alien corpse, Zed caught a glimpse of the Master tapping quickly on its bracelet. He flew to his feet, and aimed the gun at the Master's face.
“What’d you do?” he yelled, "What the fuck did you do?"
“You might as well give up”, the Master answered, “My soldiers are on their way up. You have no way of escaping”.
“We’ll see about that”, Zed answered, and shot the Master in the head. While its body crumpled to the ground, the main doors slid open, and short stocky aliens poured into the room, raising their blasters.
Zed slipped his arm through the open restraints on the table and yanked up. The table came free, and Zed raised it in front of him just as the blaster fire began to rain down around him.
Zed attempted to fire his pistol at the oncoming aliens, but the pistol was empty. Moments later, the gun was shot out of his hand, and it flew against the wall behind him, melting slightly as it went.
Glancing around for a way out, Zed wondered if these would be the last few seconds of his life. He wanted to get back to Amber and Zoe, to crawl into the sheets between them and pretend none of this ever happened.
Unfortunately, the steady stream of blaster fire landing violently around him- heating table he used as a shield and melting the wall around him- told Zed that survival was very unlikely...
(to be continued...)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Episode 01 - Abduction
The morning light streamed through the gap between the towels that served as makeshift curtains in Zed’s trailer. Through his half-drunken stupor, he shielded his eyes and swung his legs over Amber, sliding over her body on his way out of bed.
“Ow!” she yelled, managing to slap him in the ass.
“Morning to you too”, he muttered in return, stumbling through empty beer bottles and leaning on wood-paneled walls on the way to the toilet. He was completely nude, and his wild bedhead and the itchy feeling downstairs told him they’d had a great night. Zed smiled at the thought, though his hangover made the simple act of smiling hurt his brain.
Zed swept the accordion door that hid the toilet to the side and let go, groaning with relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pack of cigarettes and a lighter laying by the sink.
Must be Zoe’s, he thought. Her fault for leaving em’ here.
Zed lit up as he finished draining himself, and the rays of sunlight streaming through the vent on the ceiling became visible in the cigarette smoke. As he shook himself, he noticed that the rays were moving slowly from left to right through the haze…
“Are you smoking my cigarettes Zed?”, Zoe yelled from the bedroom, “Those have to last me till' next week!”
Zed stood in the bedroom door and looked down at the two women laying in his bed. The sheet hung loosely over their bodies, and Zoe had already snuggled up beside Amber in his absence, her black mane mingling with the platinum blond hair of the woman next to her. As the sunlight moved slowly across Amber’s face, she lifted an arm to shield her eyes, exposing one of her breasts.
Money well spent, Zed thought to himself, heading to the living room and collecting his clothes from the floor as he went. He found a half-drunk bottle of beer on the coffee table, and took a swig before pulling on a pair of jeans, a mechanic's jacket with the word "Zed" written in cursive on a small white patch, and a pair of steel-toed boots. He had to get his ass to work. The gas station was a bitch, but it was the only place in town that would hire an ex-con.
“Why don’t one of you whores get up and make me some breakfast”, he said, smiling as he took one last drag from the cigarette and tossed it on the floor.
“Fuck that”, Amber yelled back, “It’s three in the morning.”
Smashing the cigarette into the moldy linoleum, Zed noticed a beam of light moving quickly across the floor as he registered her response. Suddenly, he realized the bright light streaming through his windows wasn’t sunlight at all.
“What the hell?”, he said, jumping off the couch and looking out through a gap in the blinds.
Hovering over his trailer, glowing brightly in the night sky, a gigantic flying saucer buzzed softly above them. Zed saw colored lights spinning in circular patterns around the perimeter of the ship. Lights swung back and forth from a central portal, exploring his property and crawling over the trailer.
“Come back to bed”, Zoe pleaded from the bedroom, “We miss you”.
Zed ran toward the bedroom, tripping over furniture and slipping on beer bottles as he went.
“Zoe, keep quiet, there’s something outside!”
“What, the cops?”
He was in the bedroom, throwing closet doors open and thrusting his hands into the piles of debris inside. “Where the hell is it?” he yelled, kicking the wall and busting a new hole through the paneling.
Amber stirred suddenly and without opening her eyes, she reached under her side of the bed and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun. “This what you’re looking for?” she asked, holding it out in front of her.
“Yes”, he said, swiping it out of her hand and heading for the front door.
“Shells are in the breadbox!” Amber called after him, and fell back into bed. She heard Zed rattle the small tin door and grab a handful of shells before tearing out through the front screen door.
As the shotgun blasts began, Zoe rolled out of bed and peeked through the small bedroom window just in time to see Zed lifted into the flying saucer by a bright green beam of light. As he ascended, he pumped buckshot into the hull of the ship, destroying several of the robotic arms which pecked at the gun in an attempt to disarm him. Zed continued to rise, and Zoe saw him reload the gun before disappearing through the portal. Moments later, the portal twisted closed, the lights dimmed, and the ship rose up through the atmosphere and out of sight.
“I think Zed just got abducted by aliens”, Zoe said to Amber, still scanning the heavens.
“Well, I hope he goes easy on them”, she replied, reaching an arm around Zoe’s waist and pulling her back into bed.
<<<<<>>>>>
Zed saw the portal doors close beneath him, and in the same instant, the green beam that had been pulling him upward switched off, blanketing the room in a veil of darkness and dropping him into a strange kind of adhesive slime below. He’d anticipated the trap, and held his shotgun arm above him as he fell.
Doors hissed open all around him, and Zed knew instinctively that beings were entering the room. He could not determine their positions in the darkness, so he fired a shotgun blast into the ceiling. In the flash of light, he saw that three aliens approaching fast, and he fired shots in their direction.
A sickening screech and the sound of a body hitting the floor told him at least one of the shots was successful. A bright beam of light struck him in the shoulder, numbing his arm, and Zed leveled the shotgun in that direction, pulling the trigger. He could see the frightened face of the alien ripped apart by the buckshot, and heard the body collapse to the ground.
A sharp stab of pain in his back told him he’d been injected with something from behind, and as he spun the shotgun in that direction, he lost strength in that arm, and dropped the gun into the pool of adhesive goop. Fortunately, the powerful tranquilizer left Zed with enough strength to clench his fist and punch the alien in the jaw. Zed felt fibrous connections tearing and bones snapping under its cold spongy skin.
Another screech, and Zed was shot with second injection of the tranquilizer. This time, his strength left him completely, and he collapsed fully into the adhesive substance.
The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the sound of doorways opening and several pairs of feet approaching in the darkness.
(to be continued...)
“Ow!” she yelled, managing to slap him in the ass.
“Morning to you too”, he muttered in return, stumbling through empty beer bottles and leaning on wood-paneled walls on the way to the toilet. He was completely nude, and his wild bedhead and the itchy feeling downstairs told him they’d had a great night. Zed smiled at the thought, though his hangover made the simple act of smiling hurt his brain.
Zed swept the accordion door that hid the toilet to the side and let go, groaning with relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pack of cigarettes and a lighter laying by the sink.
Must be Zoe’s, he thought. Her fault for leaving em’ here.
Zed lit up as he finished draining himself, and the rays of sunlight streaming through the vent on the ceiling became visible in the cigarette smoke. As he shook himself, he noticed that the rays were moving slowly from left to right through the haze…
“Are you smoking my cigarettes Zed?”, Zoe yelled from the bedroom, “Those have to last me till' next week!”
Zed stood in the bedroom door and looked down at the two women laying in his bed. The sheet hung loosely over their bodies, and Zoe had already snuggled up beside Amber in his absence, her black mane mingling with the platinum blond hair of the woman next to her. As the sunlight moved slowly across Amber’s face, she lifted an arm to shield her eyes, exposing one of her breasts.
Money well spent, Zed thought to himself, heading to the living room and collecting his clothes from the floor as he went. He found a half-drunk bottle of beer on the coffee table, and took a swig before pulling on a pair of jeans, a mechanic's jacket with the word "Zed" written in cursive on a small white patch, and a pair of steel-toed boots. He had to get his ass to work. The gas station was a bitch, but it was the only place in town that would hire an ex-con.
“Why don’t one of you whores get up and make me some breakfast”, he said, smiling as he took one last drag from the cigarette and tossed it on the floor.
“Fuck that”, Amber yelled back, “It’s three in the morning.”
Smashing the cigarette into the moldy linoleum, Zed noticed a beam of light moving quickly across the floor as he registered her response. Suddenly, he realized the bright light streaming through his windows wasn’t sunlight at all.
“What the hell?”, he said, jumping off the couch and looking out through a gap in the blinds.
Hovering over his trailer, glowing brightly in the night sky, a gigantic flying saucer buzzed softly above them. Zed saw colored lights spinning in circular patterns around the perimeter of the ship. Lights swung back and forth from a central portal, exploring his property and crawling over the trailer.
“Come back to bed”, Zoe pleaded from the bedroom, “We miss you”.
Zed ran toward the bedroom, tripping over furniture and slipping on beer bottles as he went.
“Zoe, keep quiet, there’s something outside!”
“What, the cops?”
He was in the bedroom, throwing closet doors open and thrusting his hands into the piles of debris inside. “Where the hell is it?” he yelled, kicking the wall and busting a new hole through the paneling.
Amber stirred suddenly and without opening her eyes, she reached under her side of the bed and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun. “This what you’re looking for?” she asked, holding it out in front of her.
“Yes”, he said, swiping it out of her hand and heading for the front door.
“Shells are in the breadbox!” Amber called after him, and fell back into bed. She heard Zed rattle the small tin door and grab a handful of shells before tearing out through the front screen door.
As the shotgun blasts began, Zoe rolled out of bed and peeked through the small bedroom window just in time to see Zed lifted into the flying saucer by a bright green beam of light. As he ascended, he pumped buckshot into the hull of the ship, destroying several of the robotic arms which pecked at the gun in an attempt to disarm him. Zed continued to rise, and Zoe saw him reload the gun before disappearing through the portal. Moments later, the portal twisted closed, the lights dimmed, and the ship rose up through the atmosphere and out of sight.
“I think Zed just got abducted by aliens”, Zoe said to Amber, still scanning the heavens.
“Well, I hope he goes easy on them”, she replied, reaching an arm around Zoe’s waist and pulling her back into bed.
<<<<<>>>>>
Zed saw the portal doors close beneath him, and in the same instant, the green beam that had been pulling him upward switched off, blanketing the room in a veil of darkness and dropping him into a strange kind of adhesive slime below. He’d anticipated the trap, and held his shotgun arm above him as he fell.
Doors hissed open all around him, and Zed knew instinctively that beings were entering the room. He could not determine their positions in the darkness, so he fired a shotgun blast into the ceiling. In the flash of light, he saw that three aliens approaching fast, and he fired shots in their direction.
A sickening screech and the sound of a body hitting the floor told him at least one of the shots was successful. A bright beam of light struck him in the shoulder, numbing his arm, and Zed leveled the shotgun in that direction, pulling the trigger. He could see the frightened face of the alien ripped apart by the buckshot, and heard the body collapse to the ground.
A sharp stab of pain in his back told him he’d been injected with something from behind, and as he spun the shotgun in that direction, he lost strength in that arm, and dropped the gun into the pool of adhesive goop. Fortunately, the powerful tranquilizer left Zed with enough strength to clench his fist and punch the alien in the jaw. Zed felt fibrous connections tearing and bones snapping under its cold spongy skin.
Another screech, and Zed was shot with second injection of the tranquilizer. This time, his strength left him completely, and he collapsed fully into the adhesive substance.
The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the sound of doorways opening and several pairs of feet approaching in the darkness.
(to be continued...)
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