"How much longer, Joe?" whined Margaret as she watched the white lines slip through the beam of the headlights.
Joe Dearden sighed and glanced at Margaret, his partner for the past few months. She was sitting next to him in the passenger seat of the aging mobile home he had borrowed from his parents. "About twelve more hours and we’ll be there," he said.
"God Joe, it’s been like nearly two days. You never said it would take this long."
"Dammit Marg," Joe snapped. "Do you wanna drive? Because I’m sick of driving this heap of crap! It’s like driving a tank! Anyways, if you’d read that map properly then we would have been there by now."
She ignored him, crossed her arms and sat looking out into the evening sky, wondering why she had ever allowed him to take her out here. After about half an hour of heavy silence, she spotted something in the distance. "Hey look Joe," Margaret desperately pointed ahead of them, "A café." Inwardly she groaned. She didn’t particularly like these kinds of places but she’d decided it would be good for both of them if they took a break from the driving.
Joe’s thoughts were similar, he was weary from driving so lifted his foot off the gas pedal slightly; he wanted to take a look at the café before he stopped. From a distance it looked like a small warehouse, but the few flashing neon lights that illuminated a banner proclaiming: "The Orbital Cafe. Best burgers this side of Pluto."
"Come on Joe," Margaret said softly, "I think we could do with a break, don’t you?" She gave his arm a good-natured squeeze.
Joe held his breath for a second and pursed his lips. He didn’t particularly like the look of the café and he couldn’t understand why anyone had built it out here in the middle of the Arizona desert on a road you were lucky to see two cars pass every hour. However, after a short pause he let the air out of his lungs and made a long weary sigh. "Oh alright then…on one condition though."
"Oh?" Margaret wondered what stupid idea was forming in his mind now. Still, she thought, nothing could be as bad as taking a mobile home all the way to Puerto Vallarta.
"I get to order two Titan Burgers, just for me."
"Oh Joe, you big ape. Where are you going to put it all?"
Twenty minutes later.
"Jeez, Marg," Joe whimpered. "Why did you make me eat all that?" His head lolled back and his left hand gently soothed his bulging belly as he slumped in his seat.
Margaret told him it served him right before finishing the remains of her milkshake. He let his eyes wander towards a figure sitting not too far away from them, a figure he’d spotted the figure when he’d took the first sip of his diet coke. He’d been surreptitiously scanning the room, allowing his gaze to drift across the few other travelers who had stopped off in the garish café. Despite its outer appearance it was spotlessly clean and quite spacious with bright red leather seats adorning small alcoves with round, white tables in between. The bright lights that hung from the ceiling provided an intense opposite to the inky blackness of the night sky visible through the windows. Perhaps that’s why the figure Joe had spotted was mostly shrouded in shadows. He or she was not too far away from them in the opposite corner of the room but all that was visible was the front ends of thick leather boots occasionally moving underneath the table and into the light.
Something reflected in the darkness as Joe was looked at it, there was the sound of rustling and then a throaty cough. He leaned forward and started to sip his drink, straining his eyes in an effort to pierce the shadows.
"Good day to you."
The voice surprised Joe and he swallowed his coke the wrong way. He started to go red in the face and as he fought to control his breathing a soft chuckle drifted out of the shadows. "Oh, I’m sorry. Heh, heh. I didn’t mean to startle you."
"It’s okay," was Joe’s strangled response. Margaret started to give Joe a few hefty blows on his back. The idea was to clear his airways but when Joe noticed the intenseness on her face he felt she had other motives. "T-Thanks Marg. Ooof. Yes, that’s okay, I can breathe now."
She reluctantly stopped.
"What are you folks doing out here anyhow? Long way from civilization, aren’t you?"
"Sure are," said Joe. "We’re on our way to Puerto Vallarta. Gonna spend a couple of weeks relaxing on a beach before heading back home."
"Quite a journey. No wonder you stopped by, there isn’t another establishment for miles around here."
Joe thought nothing about the implication of the statement. He glanced towards the other end of the room, past the kiosk where the android café waiter waited patiently for its next customer. Three dark suited men were sitting close together, leaning forward with their elbows on the table; Joe thought they looked dead ringers for sales reps with their fancy suits and greased back hair. They were talking in whispered tones, like they were telling a particular rude or dirty joke, until one of them turned and noticed Joe. The rep raised the glass in his hand and smiled thinly. Joe nodded back in response to the silent toast then turned back to the figure in the shadows. "What about yourself, Mr…."
"Harris. Devlore Harris. Please call me Devlore."
"OK Devlore, just to round off the pleasantries, this is my partner Margaret."
"Fine couple you make. Not on your honeymoon are you?"
"No. We’re not even married yet. We thought we’d try and squeeze a holiday in before I had to start my new job at the Research Institute."
"Ah, so you’re a scientist."
"Sure am. I’ve had loads of offers to go into the private sector but I guess I got to comfortable on campus."
"I wanted him to go to the Energy Ministry," Marg stated haughtily. "He passed all their tests you know."
"I’m sure he did," said Devlore, slightly amused.
Joe wanted to get off the subject quickly. The last time he and Marg had discussed this he had ended up cooking his own meals for a week. "So, what’s you’re story then? And err, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you sitting in the dark?"
"Oh, ha. No, I don’t mind you asking. In fact, the reason why I’m sitting in the dark is explained in ‘my story’."
"Yeah?"
"You see…" Devlore paused. "I’m a professor. An old one, probably a little-known one back home also, but a professor nevertheless. Do you have time to listen to an old man’s story?
"Sure. Go ahead."
"Well, just like you, I was singled out as being above average and soon it didn’t take me long to impress and progress up the scientific hierarchy. Trouble was, I was impatient, and more than once I questioned the wisdom of my superiors. So much so that eventually my loose tongue got the better of me when I offended one of my bosses. My fall from grace was as swift and spectacular as my rise. From being in a position where I controlled huge research budgets and legions of scientists I soon found myself posted to a little known place in the middle of nowhere. To me it felt like a death sentence, which of course was what they wanted."
Joe shook his head sadly and said, "What a bummer. How long ago was that?"
"Oh about thirty years."
"Thirty years!"
"I can assure you it felt like sixty, but I digress. It may interest you to know that my particular scientific expertise is biology."
"Oh," said Joe, slightly disappointed. Images of small mammals he had dissected in high school flashed across his mind.
"By your response, Joe, I take it Biology was not your favorite subject at school."
"Err no," said Joe sheepishly.
"Well perhaps you would be more intrigued if I told you that it’s alien biology that I study."
"No shit?" He shot a quick glance at Marg, who returned a similar look of amused disbelief.
"I trust you will keep this secret."
"Of course."
"My particular interest is the way which the brain transmits its commands to its host body. Different species use different chemicals to stimulate bodily actions; indeed some chemicals that are used by one are totally poisonous to others. It was my job, or should I say, sentence to analyse a new species that had been discovered. I had to document just about every single aspect of it and my superiors wouldn’t let me return until they were satisfied, no matter how long it took."
"Why?"
"Because they are petty and vindictive. I was a threat to them and they wanted me out of the way. There was no real use for my small team and I to be studying this species; it was a very young species, one that had, in comparative terms, only just learned to walk. But still, our observation lab was disguised so we could blend in to the environment and whenever a suitable specimen came too close we would trap it and take a closer look without any of the others knowing"
"Despite our hopes to the contrary, we soon realised that they offered no new technology, they have an inferior mental capacity and overall they still have a long way to go before they become a threat to us."
"I began to slide into a deep feeling of depression and I have to admit that on more than one occasion I thought about suicide. But one day I realized that the only way I could get back home, indeed, the only way I could repair my reputation was to find something useful, something so astounding that no one could ignore."
"And did you?"
"Not at first, but after a stroke of luck, yes. You see, I changed over the thirty years. I didn’t realise it but my drinking had got steadily worse. One night when my depression was at its lowest I got dangerously drunk and it doesn’t take much to get me rolling around the floor."
"Sounds like you and Joe have a lot in common, Mr Harris." Marg carefully slid her thin frame out from under the table. "Listen Joe," she said. "I’m going to take a nap in the mobile, I think it’s time we started making tracks, so don’t be too long." She lifted her handbag up and placed the strap over her shoulder. "Nice to meet you, sir."
"Ma’am," said Harris.
Joe watched her exit through the front door and then walk past the window by his table towards the parking area. Marg caught his eye on the way past and gave him one of those looks that indicated she meant what she said. Joe was actually glad for the excuse to go because there was something about the café’s atmosphere he didn’t like. The way Harris kept himself hidden in the shadows was unsettling and he also had the feeling that the sales reps at the other end of the room were watching him.
"I can see you want to go soon," Harris noted, "so I’ll make this quick."
"I’d be grateful," admitted Joe. "We’ve still got a long way to travel."
"Like I said, that night was a bad one. I was alone because I’d given the others the day off and I was left to brood and think about all the mistakes I’d made that led me to being in such a hopeless situation. Everything had just got on top of me and I was feeling so down that I’d drunk the house dry and, of course, when I realized this I got even angrier. I flew into a rage and started kicking and screaming at everything in sight. I trashed most of my cabin, destroyed half of my lab and then, when there was nothing else to destroy, I went to the room where I kept all my alien specimens."
Joe began to think about his old biology lessons again; he could almost smell the nauseous odors of dead animal innards.
"Between you and me, Joe. I’m glad Margaret isn’t going to listen to what I did but I’ve just got to tell someone."
Joe inwardly groaned. "Really, you don’t have to tell me. Honest."
"No," said Harris, quite sincerely. "I think I must. You see, when I entered the room the one remaining specimen I had left was screaming quite hysterically in its cage."
"Screaming?"
"Yes, and shouting for help."
"Shouting?" Joe’s too high voice cracked. "You mean it could talk?"
"Oh yes. They have a fully developed language, quite beautiful in fact. Probably its best attribute…until I found its other hidden treasure." Joe didn’t like the way Harris’s breathing had become more audible. At first he thought it was just because of his old age, but the more he talked the worse he sounded.
"Yes, the poor thing must have heard me trashing the room next door and it had obviously tried to escape. Its hands looked raw from trying to force its way out of the cage and tears were running down its face."
Joe could almost see Harris shaking his head sadly.
"Basically it was petrified and when it saw me lumbering into the room…well. It hadn’t seen me in the flesh before because I had always used a protective mask and overalls when I came into contact with it. But, you don’t care how you look after a few drinks, do you Joe?"
"No. I guess not." He glanced over his shoulder towards the car park. He urge to leave this mad professor was getting ever greater.
"I must have looked quite a sight because the poor thing just started screaming even louder and backed away to the far corner of the cage. I yelled at it and ordered it to stop screaming, but it wouldn’t. I started rattling the cage and still it would not shut up, and then, well, I guess I just snapped. I don’t know what happened in full, I must have blacked out or something, because the only thing I can remember is opening the cage, grabbing the alien and shaking it. After that, everything went black and I woke up on the floor sometime later."
Joe shook his head and smiled weakly, He didn’t know what to think so he laughed weakly and quipped, "Bet you had quite a hangover."
"I certainly did, Joe, but I was more concerned about why I was covered in blood?"
"B-blood?"
"From head to toe. I began searching for a wound but found none. I thought maybe the alien had overpowered me and stabbed me with something but then I began to remember bits of what had happened."
"I’m not sure if I want to hear this," Joe admitted.
"I want you to." Joe could hear Harris shifting his weight in the shadows and he noticed the large leather boot, the only visible part of him, disappear from view. "When I stood up, I looked around the room. The cage was still open, occupied even except this time the alien was obviously dead. Its body was all laid open with its internal organs exposed."
"Stop."
"I must have still been suffering from the effects of the drink because a compulsion came over me and I reached into the body and cut out what you would call the liver. I noticed a small piece had already been cut off and I think that accounted for the strange taste in my mouth, but I won’t go into detail."
Thank god for that, Joe thought. His hands by now were gripping onto the edge of the table to stop them from shaking and his knuckles were white. He glanced towards the sales reps and thanked god again for putting other people in the café. He desperately wanted to say ‘hello’ to one of them just to make sure that they knew he was still here sitting with a murdering professor.
"Murder and mutilation. Two things quite abhorrent to scientists such as ourselves."
"I really have to go now." Joe glanced to his right again and watched, panic stricken, as two of the Sales reps exited the room and headed towards the car park. Shit, he thought, if I don’t leave soon I’m going be the only one left.
"But I haven’t told you what I found." Joe took a deep breath and held it. For all he knew Mr. Devlore Harris might be sitting in the shadows with one of his favourite vivisection tools just waiting for him to make the first move. "This insignificant little alien race, that I had been forced to devote thirty years of my life to, did indeed have one amazing thing to offer our race and I’d found it. Yes indeed. I’d found that their fragile little bodies produced a certain chemical that flowed in their blood, a chemical that when consumed by our species had the effect of our most potent narcotics TEN FOLD."
"Don’t tell me anymore." Joe heard Harris move again.
"But I have to," insisted. "You see the special chemical the alien produces is created in the most copious quantities when they are under great stress. We’ve tested our theory out a number of times now and we’re very confident of our findings." His voice dropped an octave or two. "Aren’t we, Yentob?"
Joe wondered whom Harris was referring to when he heard slow footsteps to his right. He turned and realized it was the last remaining sales rep. "Yes, Professor" he said in an all too eager tone.
What’s he doing with his collar? Thought Joe. "Oh Jesus," he croaked out loud.
Yentob had removed a mask of synthetic human skin from his head and as he let it fall from his hand to the floor he said, "The other one is being attended to, Professor."
"Good, I will share this one with you," said Devlore from the shadows.
Joe didn’t have time to comprehend what that meant, he could only watch in utter horror as Harris’s huge bulk loomed out of the shadow. Those leather boots weren’t leather, in fact they were made of the same dark, light absorbing shell the rest of his insect like body was. He leaned forward over Joe’s table and flexed his great jaw muscles revealing impossibly sharp teeth. Dark liquid oozed out in anticipation of an end to its craving.
"That’s it," Harris gloated, "let the fear consume you, Joe. Let it run through your blood."
Iain McWilliam is the author of some other short stories appearing on Aphelion and has just finished his first novel. Despite being from the UK his main writing influences remain both Phillip K. Dick and Robert A. Heinlein.
E-mail: celltrax@yahoo.com
Visit Aphelion's Lettercolumn and voice your opinion of this story.
Return to the Aphelion main page.