Mark McGinnis - The Simpleton

The craft continued following along in the same direction of the road. Kyle, too slow moving his foot from the gas pedal to the brake pedal, suddenly had all four tires lock, causing a painful screeching sound. Smoke from burning rubber billowed into the air. The Maxima finally slid to an angled stop. The spacecraft set down fifty yards ahead and he had almost plowed smack into it.

Kyle sat there, his hands still tightly gripping the steering wheel. The engine had stalled and he heard the tic tic tic of it cooling. Black smoke from the hot tires was slowly dissipating from around the car. Kyle continued to stare at the spacecraft and figured it was several hundred feet long—twice as wide as the two-lane road it rested on. Small jets of steam periodically spewed out from various points along the ship’s hull. Kyle could feel heat emanating from the ship’s stern, where two thruster-like cones faced the car.

“This isn’t happening,” he said aloud. He had forgotten to breathe and suddenly took in a lungful of air. The triangular-shaped craft was suspended on three metallic landing struts, and looked battered—beat to shit. At one time, it was probably orange in color but now was more a sooty gray.

“ What am I doing? I need to get as far away from this thing as …”

Suddenly, an underside section of the spacecraft began to lower. Amazed, Kyle watched as events transpired—he was paralyzed with a combination of fear and stupefied fascination—which kept him sitting alert in the driver’s seat—his hands gripped on the steering wheel. The lowering section of the ship seemed to be some kind of lift—a platform. It soon became apparent that three sets of legs were standing on the platform. Not human, they were thick as tree trunks—and furry. As the lift continued to lower, more and more of the three alien beings became visible and he found it difficult to breathe in. He’d seen pictures of big foot before and these three could pass for his much larger cousins. Except big foot didn’t carry advanced weaponry, like these aliens did.

The furry aliens jumped from the lift just before it reached the ground and, moving fast, headed straight for Kyle.

This can’t be happening…

Captain Holg unconsciously coughed up a galk from the back of his throat with a guttural choking sound, then began chewing the congealed secretion. Primarily composed of thick phlegm—mixed with hundreds of strands of snarled hair—the habit was similar to a cow chewing its cud. All Howsh found strange comfort indulging in the practice.

With a bridge crew of seven, the captain paced back and forth behind them, silently fuming. The venting of radiation into the atmosphere had been an ingenious tactic, and one, he was certain, instigated by the hiding lone Pashier. The indigenous savages of this blue world simply weren’t capable of that level of intelligence.

Captain Holg’s baritone growl filled the small space. The others mimicked the sound, a practice customary among subordinate Howsh crewmembers. Holg, now standing behind the tactical officer, Tee Ro, assessed the console readouts and his growl intensified in volume. The ship was called the Arm of Lia. Its sensor array was practically useless. Both long- and short-range scans were indeterminate in providing the specific location of the Evermore . But Captain Holg knew they were close… of that he was certain.

I O stood tall, twitching his shoulders and upper back. “Tee Ro… continue the search. I will be in the Containment Lab…”

Coming around, Kyle had the distinct sensation of movement—like a pendulum swinging back and forth. He opened his eyes to an upside-down view of a dingy metal wall in a place he didn’t understand. Where the hell am I? His head throbbed. With a profound sense of dread, he remembered driving Momma’s Maxima when a strange craft—a spaceship—landed in the middle of the road. Like something out of a movie, aliens exited the ship and were approaching the car. Scared shitless, Kyle sat frozen. If only he’d put the car in reverse and hightailed it out of there. Why didn’t I do that ? Instead, one of them raised a weapon and shot him.

Kyle tried moving his legs, but couldn’t. Hanging upside down, his legs were bound at the ankles to somewhere high above him, his arms bound behind his back. He found if he shimmied his hips left then right, he could build up enough momentum to spin his body around and face in another direction.

Snap… crack… snap… crack… crack… Instinctively, Kyle grimaced at the sounds. Unsure what they were, there was something familiar about them nevertheless. Perhaps it was the beastly grunts that came along with them —grunt… snap… grunt… crack. Exertion grunts! Like the sound you made removing over-tightened lug nuts changing a tire.

As Kyle’s bound body slowly spun around, one by one other hanging forms came into view. Suspended upside down—their legs bound and secured to something high up out of view—were three women and two men of varying ages, all naked. He realized he was naked as well. Three wires were attached to their abdomens—secured to bloodied metal probes that penetrated their bodies. The other ends were tethered into a small box, which swung free. A grizzly sight. Grunt… snap… grunt… crack. One of the big foot furry beasts, Kyle realized, was the chief source of the sound, at least the grunting part. The other sounds were of bones breaking within limbs. The male being tortured looked rubberlike—like a big Gumby toy. Although he seemed conscious, his screams were eerily mute in contrast to his desperately pleading eyes. His gaping, wide-open mouth was the most frightening sight Kyle had ever witnessed, and one he would never forget. He tried to control his own hyperventilating, but it was no use. He was beyond terrified. Oh God… when will they turn their attention on me?

Then something strange strode into the compartment. Clearly some kind of robot, it also was covered with long fur—nearly identical to the alien big foots . They had made the robot in their own likeness… sort of . The big-foot-like creature grunted something at the robot, which then bent over and moved its mechanical head close to the man’s ear. Its distorted robotic voice was beyond frightening. “Where is the spacecraft? Tell me… and your misery will come to an end.” The robot then touched something on the hanging box and the man’s bone-chilling screams reverberated all around. With a raspy voice, almost undecipherable, the man screamed, “Ahhh! ppplease stop… please… I… I don’t know anything about any spaceship!” The robot next touched something on the box and the man’s screams mercifully silenced.

Another furry bastard entered, wearing a red angled sash, and both the torturing alien and the robot momentarily bowed their heads. Must be someone in charge , Kyle thought, and tried to say something—to tell the one in charge there’d been a terrible mistake. That he wasn’t supposed to be there. But like the Gumby man, he was voiceless.

Kyle felt sick as he watched the alien in charge move from one upside-down prisoner to the next. Red sash hesitated then began to openly defecate, his excrement plopping down below onto a widely spaced metal grate. Disgusting . Kyle closed his eyes, the only aspect of his present life he had some control of, and trembled as the footsteps approached.

Deep in thought, Holg moseyed between the savages’ hanging carcasses. As disgusting as the Pashier were, these humanoids were worse. Their lack of intelligence… their pink, now exposed, flesh… so revolting. He symbolically looked upward and silently asked Thonna, the god of all gods , what he should do next. Above and beyond finding the Pashier ’s ship—destroying the wretched heritage pod—and exterminating the one called Tow, what about this world? At some point, like the others, would it too require extinction? To be cleansed of these vile creatures—these ungodly life forms? Not lost on Holg was their similarity to Mahli. Yes, dangerous to let the humans evolve much further. He contemplated what another cleansing would entail—weeks, if not months, of eradications. Relentless plasma strikes into primary population centers. Dispersion of Dirth, of which only so much remained within their storage canisters. He needed to decide if this foul planet warranted using that limited supply up.