The Call of the Others

Chapter 28

“How many aliens are there?” Cary asked, lowering his gun.

“Nine,” Scott replied.

“And we’ve killed…Four?” Charles calculated on his fingers.

“It’s going to be five soon,” Scott said, smiling.

Cary’s eyes widened with realization, but Charles and Martin had to turn around to understand Scott’s meaning. Alien number five was the one in Frog’s cage. It looked somewhat like a lion from earth, only more alien-like. Charles frantically pulled on his trigger, but the gun wouldn’t fire. Cary tried as well, but with equal success. I.e., no success.

“How do you work this thing?” Charles yelled, waving his defective gun around.

“The safety’s on, you idiot!” Martin yelled, trying to figure out his.

Cary, in a wild attempt to murder a hostile being from out of space, started beating Alien #5 on the head with one of his crutches.

“Scott! Help us,” Charles demanded.

“No, guys, I think I’m going to sit this one out,” Scott said smugly.

With the most perfect timing, Alien #6 showed up out of the blue behind Scott. He and Alien #5 made eye contact, and immediately the two creatures tried to kill each other.

“What are they fighting about?” Martin asked. He regretted asking it, as it was sure to be met with some sarcastic remark. And it was, by Cary:

“Well, the way I see it, the one guy stole the other guy’s wife, and there was this wicked poker game that ended in a gunfight—”

“Is this all a joke to you?!” Scott yelled.

“Yes,” Cary said, confused. “You haven’t figured that out yet?”

Mr. Woodward climbed out the sewer, a cantankerous, pissed-off old man. Not only had he been drenched in alien blood, but he had stepped in dog poop, too. It was not a good day.

He figured that he had best go and find Preston before he killed himself or did something stupid. However, he couldn’t find Preston anywhere. He looked around the street momentarily before a smart car almost ran over him. Almost got run over by a smart car? Really? Of all the ways to almost die… he thought. It was really turning out to be a horrible day.

It got even worse when he saw not one, but two aliens fighting by someone who looked awfully like himself.

“Joe?”                                                                                                    

“Preston!”

Preston rubbed his eyes. “What the—”

“How you been?”

Preston sighed. “I’ve been better. I thought you were in a hospital…?”

“I left,” Joe explained, shrugging.

“But the one alien—”

“He’s dead.”

Preston changed the subject when he saw the sewer cover move out of the corner of his eye.

“We should run,” he said.

The two ran into an alley, peeking around every nook and cranny to make sure there wasn’t some violent extra-terrestrial creature trying to kill them.

“Where’s everybody else?” Joe asked.

“Alice is—Alice is… Alice isn’t important,” Preston sputtered. “Charles, Cary, and Martin are following around a Mr. Woodward look-alike, and I don’t know what they’re doing.”

“A Mr. Woodward… Look-alike?” Joe thought about Rod Serling again. Maybe he was in the Twilight Zone.

“Yep. And Mr. Woodward—the real one—well, not the real one, because the real one’s dead—his brother, that Mr. Woodward. The Mr. Woodward who isn’t a look-alike is cleaning up because apparently on Mars or something they had this purple plague and we didn’t so we would die, but I really wanted to find the look-alike Mr. Woodward—the bad guy—and find Charles and Cary and Martin—the real ones—well, they don’t have look-alikes, but you never know—because, you know, who knows what the look-alike, evil Mr. Woodward, was doing. But the real Mr. Woodward…the fake real Mr. Woodward didn’t want to, so I ran away and found you! Unless you’re a look-alike…”

Joe blinked. “What?”

“Let’s find our friends. What do you say?”

“Alright!”

And the two skipped off merrily in the ruins of an alien-invaded version of Cincinnati.