Frankentown (17 page)

Yeah right. Of course, the majority never knew that he was making jobs for drug dealers, illegal prostitutes, legal prostitutes, even a few murderers and several other well-to-do thieves.

This man was now standing at the foot of the bed, smiling a snake smile down at Al, who was on the bed in a hospital gown, freaking out. He opened the box of cigars and looked inside.
There was a note.

We’ve heard about what happened to you.
I wanted to talk to you a little bit when you’re feeling better. In the meantime, I hope I’ve made your stay more comfortable.
Warmest Regards,

Michael Venoman

 
This was all the introduction he felt he needed to do, except for brochures and a t-shirt with his campaign logo on it to remind him who to vote.

After the initial 8 hour checkup was done,
Al was released as completely healthy. Nobody had to see his body crushed with their own eyes to know that it happened. Some still carried bruises from the bloody hail, but nobody could believe that this man was the consistency of raspberry jelly, mere hours earlier.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
He had no visible marks, scuffs, tears or dents, except the small cut on his face from shaving that morning. He was simply returned to original condition prior to the crash. The big scar from his childhood dog was still on his hip.
It was tim to check out. He was fine.

When the nurse wasn’t coming back for a minute or two, he put his shirt and warm-gray slacks back on and went for the main lobby.

Outside, four television stations awaited his exit from the building along with newspaper reporters for hours now. Two reporters were having a heated fight over the closest spot to film from, when Al finally walked out of the hospital’s automatic door, he was quickly overwhelmed by the number of TV cameramen, moderators and boom operators, swarming him like a pack of velociraptors out on a hunt.
The overwhelming quickly faded in favor of what the most shallow of Al’s pleasures centers recognized:

Fame.

He enjoyed it and posed for the camera, then went home to tell his dog about the day he’s just had. It was minutes after 8pm that he entered his warm but bare house with high-end furniture.

A small red blinking light in the dark illuminated the hall of his 1 bedroom apartment, signaling not only his lack of socializing but also his loneliness.

Today, however, he was Mr. Popular.

The light on his answering machine blinked green with rapid tempo. There were quite a few messages, most looking for an interview. PB&J news, NPR and the SF Chronicle.
He had no idea that the military was out to find him as well,
but those guys just don’t call.

Next morning he had just enough time to retrieve a day-old bagel from a cabinet in his kitchen and prepare it with his favorite toppings, before the doorbell rang twice and hard.

When he opened the door he met a tall gentleman with a lame toupee and a dark trench coat. Before Al could even ask

“What can I do for you?” he was cattle-prodded and fell to the ground like a sack of wet bricks. Whether he’d had it coming or not was not the army’s concern.

Chapter Nineteen

Voluntary Induction

Al Cohen never fainted, but wished he had. Paralyzed and in a puddle of his own piss, curled up on the floor of his soon to be ex-apartment, he was aware of everything around him.
The tall dark figures were accompanied by two even bigger ones. Through the haze of his saliva bubbling and tears, he could only make out ominous dark silhouettes looming over his helpless body; the foremost in a jet-black overcoat and black hat resembling a fedora, like the death itself came to settle matters of the past.

The two blurry guards grabbed him each by a shoulder and dragged him away into a huge old truck parked outside his apartment complex. He couldn’t struggle; he was as limp as raw fowl and the only resistance he could give was the weight of his body scraping with his heels into the concrete patio. Once inside, they threw a blanket over him where he lied to keep him from going into hypothermic shock. It was freezing.

The driving and the agonizing pain churned inside his head and stomach, swashing bright lights and many turns head and stomach, reminding him that he is in a helpless situation and can’t fight back, much like his problems with drinking.

About halfway through the ride his arms went all pins & needles, reminding him that he wasn’t bound and could actually move a little, maybe even get up. It was dark but it seemed that he was in the back of a large outdated cargo truck.
It would be an effort, as the rest of his body was still helplessly tired from the high-voltage his hip sustained with a military-grade cattle prod.

The only chance he had was to distract the drivers, though he barely had any strength for any heroic acts. At last, he mustered all the strength he had to slowly get up and stumble toward the thin sheet of canvas that separated him and the driver. The element of surprise was on his side; they did not expect he could get up so fast.
The ride was anything if not noisy, and each of his steps was carefully calculated despite the situation and fading muscular paralysis.

His hand flew out away from his body almost involuntarily and in the general direction of the driver, hitting him in the face and poking him in the eye all at the same time. Steering wheel was ripped aside and the truck headed for the side of the road. The other guard panicked and reached out to grab Al-

THUD

A road edge pole went down, jolting the doomed vehicle, taking the guards by surprise and ripping Al out of the guard’s grip.
Then, with just enough time to jump back into the cargo area, Al hold on to the wooden railing on the side.

THUD

Another pole went down and the two drivers screamed their last screams as the car flew through the air, rotating midair to land on its other side.

Car smoked and any minute it might catch on fire and light up the night. Al has gotten drunk watching enough action flicks to know that was how it happened.
He quickly composed himself and crawled out of the wreck of the truck. The drivers did not move.

To Al’s surprise, it didn’t pan out like in the movies - the car did not catch fire and there was only volumes of white steam rising skyward.

When he approached the front of the vehicle, the two guards still have not moved. It had appeared that by some coincidence, perhaps divine intervention, he was spared while the other two were taken away and on. To death and beyond.

The truck lied not far from the road, and despite that it was already almost midnight with few clouds in sight, the starry sky was unpolluted by any of the radioactive glow of a nearby population.
A gray might’ve used the glow as a good-enough torch and navigation.

Al moved away from the road to avoid being seen and headed toward the only point of light on the horizon, halfway up the mountains above. Perhaps he could ask for directions there. If you were somewhere in the desert at night without a map, the only place to go is toward the light.

Walking through the desert is ordinarily quite dangerous, especially at night, when the sandy plains and tiny desert shrubbery is riddled with rattlesnakes and scorpions.

It wasn’t long before his legs started hurting, though the boots he wore were really comfortable and were made for exactly that kind of terrain. Night in the desert offered one a unique opportunity to marvel over the beauty of the world. Little bunny families hopped around in search of what scraps the desert might’ve offered them to eat.
 

And somehow they still made it.

If bunnies can live through the unforgiving searing rock bed, Al could surely make it to safety. Then he heard the familiar rattle. It sounded close.
He paused but figured ‘better keep going’.
The elements were on his side as it was night and it was nowhere near as hot as it got during the hours of the orange afternoon.

The whole walk to the light took longer than Al could estimate, yet the beauty of the prairie did not make it an unpleasant journey at all. And he hadn’t gotten killed by night-fauna yet. Soon, the sand and gravel turned to finer sand and a ten-foot fence previously cloaked by the dark stood between him and his way on toward the light on the horizon.

The light suddenly went out and the fence, unforeseeingly jolted Al with over 750 volts, leaving him to rest on the scraping floor of the Nevada plains. Within minutes, when consciousness partially resumed, he could once again breathe with the occasional chest pains. The light on the horizon, now wisps in his tired watering eyes, reappeared followed by two further points up above. Unable to get up and barely conscious, he was only awake enough to hear helicopters approaching before he blacked out entirely.

He came to with a sudden inhale of water through his nose which came from being splashed on by a blurry contour.

“What makes you think this will work?” said an unfamiliar voice belonging to Hector.

“I’ve seen it in a movie once. He should come to right away.” Said another, more familiar voice, belonging to Frank.

Al was placed on a hard flat surface that passed for a bed in the militant confines, with Frank and Hector left in charge of reviving said individual. They were, now, forced independent contractors. Despite the fact they had little to no choice whether to join or not, their pay wasn’t all that bad (double UC salary) and the alternative: being turned into fish food, did not sound all that appealing or inviting.

Al was now facing the same deal. As soon as he could sit and curse at Hector (who was given the glass to hold) for throwing water in his face, Frank handed him a towel to dry off.

Chapter Twenty

Levitation

The hangar was now silent. All the crafts were docked by their stations and there were only two guys standing guard at the exits. Al, Frank and Hector were now being escorted by a couple of guards wearing beige jumpsuits and carrying semi-automatics over their shoulders.

Al was mostly silent since arriving and felt threatened and sober, to his displeasure, as opposed to Hector who wasn’t as scared as he was plastered. He carried a flask of scotch with him wherever he went. This was of course never known to any staff at the university.

He was a very functional drunk.

If he ever did have to defend himself, which he wouldn’t anyway, his rationale was that it made him feel ‘in control’.
Obviously, the effect was just the opposite.
To Frank, there has been a surplus of control for quite some time. Two guards stood at the south end of the giant cavernous hall, guarding the doors to a very dark corridor. Not that he’d be afraid of the dark, but he didn’t really have any idea where they were.
 

Door in the far corner of the hangar opened silently, very slowly at first, then it swung ajar, all by itself.
A short, melty looking old gray alien entered the hangar and approached them with its every move pre-calculated, but it didn’t look like the other grays. Not as tall, somewhat broad shouldered and skin sagging, it seemed like a foul and cold creature. Its face seemed wicked, twisted and very carved into its cranium. Its condensed lips were chapped a hundred times over, as was the vast majority of the remainder of the gray’s face. It was old.
The being was glowing the color of singed red wine against the dark corner of the open hangar, overlooking the caverns. The air around it somehow appeared brighter.

It radiated a moderate amount of dimmed light. A 40w lightbulb.

Frank couldn’t look away. He couldn’t get over that he is looking at a real alien, this close. Somehow it didn’t even seem possible. The air around Him turned to vivid rainbow aura which appeared to cycle as He moved.

The being finally reached them.

It immediately entered Frank’s mind.

Don’t worry.

Before Frank realized this wasn’t his own voice but a telepathic transfer from the gray, he watched Al and Hector, stiff as boards, levitating toward the south exit, headfirst, at extreme speed.

Al’s limp body halted 30 feet away, while Hector’s flew toward the wall at full-speed.
 
To Frank’s relief, Hector slowed down right before he hit the wall, tipped on its side and floated down to the ground, sleeping and unconscious.

The old gray squinted at Frank, apparently to acknowledge His sense of humor.

When Frank turned around, three more grays appeared out of thin air.

Not them. You. We sought you.

The four beings arose and stood taller than previously, towering high above him.

His head spun around, constantly bringing out the illusion of falling.

Everything gained color. Enormous bright light appeared and blinded him.

His vision has momentarily returned and he could see things sharper than ever before.
At once, he felt considerably taller as well.

Then he started hearing what the alien was thinking. To itself.

“There is no way around. I have to say.”

Frank thought about this for a second.
 

He suddenly heard himself speak exactly what he was thinking.

“What the hell is going on?”

“You are one of us.

 
Now you are in your natural body shell.”

It wasn’t too difficult for Frank to not believe what was happening. It was, in fact, already pretty crazy when he saw the first extraterrestrial. To think now that he was actually given an alien body to be in and operate, as amazing as it was, somehow didn’t feel surprising. Then for a brief moment he wished he could take a look at himself, even though he’d soon regret it. Immediately, he had an out-of-body experience much like in a dream, only this was not the pleasant, flying type of dream.
So I’m dreaming. Thank God!
His body was tall and his aura pastel pink. Each muscle was extremely well defined on his body, and though the structure looked a little slimy, the figure barely resembled a bipedal skeleton, not unlike that of a human.

Frank started rising higher, but not by his own will. The glowing sexless creature extruded its head up from its neck, displacing his location from afar.

Not unlike telekinesis.