Most men can't make it through even five words of what I'm about to tell you (5 page)

A birthday present from John. I yanked the cord from the wall and raised the turkey by the neck, holding it over my

shoulder like a quarterback photographed in mid-throw. I saw the creature move.

It skittered across the floor, out the door, into the living room. I got another quick look at the little monster. It had legs all over it, walking on half a dozen legs with another half dozen sticking up in the air like dreadlocks, like the thing was made

to keep running even on its back. The sight of the thing froze me. That awful, primal, paralyzing terror that only comes

with seeing something completely alien.

I lowered the lamp and forced myself to take a step forward. I tried to control my breathing, standing there only in boxer

shorts. I risked a glance down at my leg and saw a crimson stripe bleeding down from the bite. The little bastard.

I slooooowly peered through the doorway to the living room. Not quite as dark in here, the street light outside spilling half-

hearted ribbons of light on the floor, writhing among shadows of wind-blown tree branches. No sign of the creature. I

heard a scratchy rustle from the kitchen tiles to my left and felt my bowels loosen. It was the dog.

Molly stepped sleepily toward me, a knee-high reddish shape topped by two eyes reflecting bluish moonlight. I caught the

faint blur of a wagging tail behind her. She was looking right at me, wondering why I was up, wondering why I smelled like

terror sweat, wondering if I had any snacks on me. I looked to the wal across the room and squinted to find the light

switch over there. Ten feet of floor between me and it. My feet had never been so bare.

I brandished the turkey lamp and watched the floor as I took a tentative step toward the switch. Those little naked toes.

That bug thing probably looks at those like the ears on a chocolate bunny. A second step, a third, half way there-

Something heavy thumped onto my head, twitchy legs tangling in my hair. I threw my hands up and the monster climbed

over my ear and onto my shoulder. I felt itchy little legs all over my face and neck. I heard the turkey lamp hit the floor with a crash.

I grabbed the little monster around the body, rigid little legs bending under my hands. I tried to pul it off. I couldn't, the feet were sticky somehow and the skin stretched away from my shoulder with it. I heard a screeching sound, like steam from a

teapot, and vaguely realized it was me.

Sharp mandibles fil ed the view in my right eye and a second later I felt a stab of pain that seared through my skull. I lost

vision in that eye and thought the fucker had plucked out my eyeball. I let out a scream of rage and grabbed bundles of

legs with both hands, ripping them away from the skin. I felt wetness and realized the bastard had left one leg behind, the

foot still attached to my shoulder. But I was free of the monster now, the thing thrashing around in my hands like a

chicken.

Look at that mouth
, I thought, wildly.
You could fit a golf ball in there.

I looked around with my one good eye, trying to find a container I could cram the creature into. I thought of the laundry

basket I had in my room. I headed that way.

Into the bedroom. I kicked over the plastic basket, dumping the clothes. I dunked the beast inside and turned the basket

over, imprisoning it. I stomped a foot down on top of the basket and looked around the room for something heavy.

I reached over and knocked the shit off my night stand. I picked it up, the drawers falling onto the floor as I did, and laid it sideways on top of the basket. Good and heavy. There were vertical slots in the basket and the creature stuck a leg

through. It couldn't crawl out but I suspected it could bite through the plastic eventual y. I'd have to watch it.

I sat heavily on the bed, breathing through my mouth. Face wet and sticky. Cringing, I lifted a tentative hand to the right

side of my face, expecting to find a squishy eyeball laying on my cheek. I didn't. I winced as I felt around the eyelid, raw

skin stinging at my touch. Everything felt torn and ragged up there. I blinked and tried looking through the eye, found I

could a little bit. It was already swelling shut, though.

I looked around on the carpet among the stuff I spilled from the nightstand and found my cell phone. I dialed the only

person on planet Earth I could call in a situation like this. John's number rang twice before I glanced down, let out a

disgusted hiss, and dropped the phone to the bed.

The creature's leg, the one that broke off when I was pul ing it off me, was still stuck to my shoulder. I grabbed it and

pulled it and it would
not
come free, just pul ing up the skin like a circus tent. The foot was hooked in somehow, dug in like a tick. I pinched the skin between two fingers and tried to get a close look at it. Too close to my face to see clearly. I felt

the panic creep back in.

I couldn't tell the exact point where the severed leg ended and the patch of skin on my shoulder began. It was like the leg

had fused to it somehow. I pul ed and twisted. Nothing, like trying to pull off one of my own fingers.

I was getting seriously pissed off at this point. I stomped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. I yanked open several

drawers until I found a utility knife, just a handle with a little one-inch razor blade that extends from the end. Molly came

trotting in behind me, figuring maybe I was making a snack and she could get some scraps.

I pul ed out a long wooden spoon and stuck it sideways in my mouth to give me something to bite down on. I stabbed the

tip of the blade in at the base of where the monster's foot was wedged into my skin, and started prying. I growled and

cursed around the spoon. A thick droplet of blood ran down my chest like candle wax.

It took twenty minutes. At the end I had the six inch-long jointed leg in my hand, like a baby crab leg, with a little dot of

bloody skin and fat on the end that used to be part of me. I held a bundle of wet paper towels to the wound, smears of

blood making my abdomen look like a finger painting. I took the monster's leg and put it in a plastic container from my

cabinet. I leaned against the counter, eyes closed, taking slow breaths.

I had taken one step back toward the bedroom when a knock came at the door.

I froze, decided not to answer it, then realized it may be John. Probably saw my number on his caller ID and knew things

must have taken a turn for the shitty, since it's three in the morning and al . I went into the bedroom, glancing down at the

caged beast. It had two legs through a slot in the plastic but had made no progress toward biting its way out. I put on a

pair of sweatpants and opened the door.

It was a cop.

A young guy. I knew him, name was Franky something. Went to high school with me.

I straightened up and said, "What can I do for you, officer?"

He glanced down at my torso, where I was holding a pink and red wad of paper towels over a freely bleeding wound, and

then back to my face where one eye was swol en shut under a ragged eyelid caked with dried blood. He had a hand

resting on the butt of his gun, not tense at al but alert, the way cops are.

He began with, "Who else is in the house, sir?"

"It's fine. I mean, uh, nobody. I live here alone. I mean, my girlfriend lives here with me, but she's away at school right now. So it's just me. Everything's fine. I just have a problem with, uh-"

Think. Say the dog did it. NO, don't do that. They'd take her to the pound. Tell him it was a possum. No! A badger!

"-Something, uh, came into the house. Some kind of, um, animal."

"You mind if I come in, sir?"

No right answer to that, since he clearly thought I had a butchered prostitute in here somewhere. I stepped aside without a

word.
Sir
. That "sir" shit was irritating me. He was my age. I went to parties with this guy in school, watched him play teabag twister with underwear on his head.

Burgess,
I thought.
That's his name. Franky Burgess.

He walked past me and I flipped on the living room light. The place was a mess. I mean, it had been a mess before - the

blood I dripped on the carpet actually blended with a nearby coffee stain. But a few steps into the house gave a clear view

into the open kitchen, where drawers had been flung open and a rol of paper towels had fallen onto the floor and a pile of

plastic lids had spilled out of a cabinet.

A couple of steps after that and he would have a view of the main bedroom, where it looked like a bomb had gone off. And

where an alien monster was trapped under an overturned laundry basket with a piece of furniture piled on top of it.

He moved into the kitchen and I followed him. He stopped to pat Molly on the head in passing. I heard a skittering sound

from the bedroom, whipped my head around and saw the monster trying desperately to escape between the plastic bars

of his laundry basket prison. I glanced at the cop. He gave no notice.

Can't he hear that?

He looked at the bloody box-cutter on the counter, then glanced back at me and my several bloody wounds. I walked

casual y backward, stopping in front of the bedroom door, leaning against the door frame as if I wasn't somehow trying to

block the view of the room with my body.

"Yeah, that," I said, nodding toward the little knife, "I cut myself a few times, no big deal, I was... trying to get this thing off me. I think it was a possum or-"

-Badger! Say badger!

"-Something, I couldn't get a look at it. It was clawing me up pretty bad."

"Can you step aside, sir?"

Screw it. Let this thing bite his eyes out, what do I care.
Go right in, Franky.

I stepped aside and Franky the Cop entered the bedroom. His eyes flicked around the room, surveying the carnage, then

finally landed on the overturned basket. Five armored little legs writhed around between the plastic slats. The cop casually

looked away and glanced into my closet. He looked back at me, seeming bored.

"So, did you kill it or what?"

I glanced down at the beast in the basket. In full view. Jaws clicking against the plastic, a sound like a dog gnawing on a

bone. It had gotten a few legs entirely through the basket and was now pulling its body through. Strong for its size. All this

went entirely unnoticed by Officer Burgess.

He doesn't see it.

"Uh, no. I tried to trap it."

I looked down at the basket. The thing had its head out now. Franky looked down. Bored. Looked back at me.

"Have you had anything to drink tonight, sir?"

"Couple of beers, earlier. Six hours ago."

"Have you taken anything else?"

"Like meth? No."

"Can you tell me what day it is?"

The alien creature had a third of its body out of the basket. There was a thick piece of armor around its abdomen that was

wedged in the plastic now. It had four legs working on the problem.

"Tuesday ni- uh, I mean, I guess it's Wednesday morning. October 29th. I'm not high."

"Who's the president of the United States?"

Al Go-

"George Bush. Come on, I'm fine."

"The neighbors are worried about you. They heard a lot of noise in here..."

"You try waking up with some animal biting you in your sleep."

"This isn't the first time we've been out here, is it?"

I sighed.

"No."

"You put some weight on top of that basket there."

"I told you, I was trying to trap it-"

"-No, the basket was you trying to trap it. I'm thinking the weight is on there because you thought you
had
trapped it."

"What? No. It was dark. I-"

The monster pul ed the widest piece of shell through the bars. Half way out, the hard half.

"Is it possible you made all those cuts yourself? With that knife in there?"

"What? No. I-"

I don't think so...

"Why do you keep looking down there?"

I took a step back out of the room.

"No reason."

"Do you see something down there, Mr. Wong?"

I turned my eyes up to the cop. I was sweating again.

"No, no."

"Have we been seeing things tonight?"

I didn't answer.

"Because this wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

"That was... no. I'm fine, I'm fine."

I focused on not looking down at the basket. The sounds, the sounds of biting and of cracking plastic, had stopped.

I couldn't hold out any more. I looked down.

It was gone.

I felt my guts turn to lead. I glanced around the room, checked the ceiling. Nowhere.

The cop turned and left the room.

"Why don't you come with me, Mr. Wong, and I'll take you to the emergency room."

"What? No, no. I'm fine. The cuts are no big deal."

"Don't look minor to me."

"No, no. It's fine. Put it in your report that I refused treatment. I'm fine."

"You got any family that live here in town?"

"No."

"Nobody? Parents, aunts, uncles?"

"Long story."

"There a friend we can call?"

"I called somebody already. John."

I said John's last name and the cop recognized it. He asked me what John was doing these days and I mumbled

something, glancing everywhere trying to find the creature.

"And John's on his way?"

"Hopefully."

"Well, tell you what, I'll hang out here until John gets here. Keep you company. In case the animal comes back."

I couldn't think of anything that would make this guy leave, short of punching him and forcing him to haul me in. That

hardly seemed like a solution, though. I heard a thump on the floor nearby and realized Molly was curling up to go back to