Category: Fiction Factor

Ben shifted gingerly, trying to straighten up as he began lilting to the right. The elevated head position of his adjustable bed helped him breath a bit easier, but comfort was hard to come by these days.

“Doris,” he said, “Do you mind straightening me up a little?”

The hospice nurse obliged with a gentle smile, and fluffed his pillow for good measure.

“Much better … much, much better, thanks. Sorry I’m so much trouble.”

“You’re no trouble at all, Ben. Whatever you need to be more comfortable, you just let me know.”

The end was very near for Ben now, and he was at peace with his fate. He figured 83 years – most of them filled with love and adventure – were plenty, and an eternal rest would mean an end to the infernal pain he had suffered over the past few months. But as his time slipped away, his mind was buzzing with memories – and one in particular kept popping up.

“I think I might be at that ‘burst of energy before I go’ stage, Doris. I just remembered something from way back. Can I tell you about it?”

“Of course,” Doris said, patting his right hand. “I’m all ears.”

Ben smiled.

“I had a bunch of dogs over the years – crazy about all of them – but when I was a little kid, I had this ol’ mutt named Estus. He had raggedy black fur and his left ear was always turned inside out. He wasn’t much to look at but, then again, neither was I. Guess that’s why me and him got along so well. Only thing, that dang dog was always trying to lick my face, and it drove me crazy. That was about the only time I ever got mad at him. Anyway, he was already an older dog when my folks gave him to me and when I started to get older, too, he slowed down. Couldn’t run much and didn’t like to chase balls or sticks. Idiot still tried to lick my face, though.

“One morning, I woke up and didn’t see him … he was always asleep at the foot of my bed. I thought maybe he had gone outside but when I asked ma, she said daddy had taken him off to live on a farm. Said he was too sick to stay in the city and the city was what was making him sick, but if he lived on a farm he could run and play all day … be happy again.”

Ben shook his head.

“I didn’t know they were just trying to let me down easy. About a week or two later we were going somewhere in daddy’s car and I saw this pretty red barn up on a hill beside the interstate, and I just knew that’s where Estus was living. I asked if we could stop and see him but they just ignored me. Wasn’t too long after that I realized Estus was gone and never coming back. You know what? I still miss that little guy. Shoot, I miss all my dogs.”

Ben coughed and then started wheezing.

“I think,” he said in a weak voice, “I’m gonna to go live on a farm now, Doris.”

Moments later, the nurse checked his pulse, and there was none. Ben’s breathing had also stopped.

“Goodbye, Ben,” Doris said, carefully covering his face with a sheet. “I’ll miss you.”

Ben couldn’t hear her, of course. How could he? All of his dogs were running around and barking. Plus, Estus was slurping the side of his face.

He didn’t get mad at the raggedy mutt this time, though. Ben just kissed the dog’s head, took a big stretch, and started walking toward that pretty red barn.

The bright silver alien patrol vehicle moved quietly through the street, occasionally emitting a red-yellow glow that prompted people to go inside their homes in observance of curfew.

For anyone under the age of 40, it was simply a way of life – they had never known a world that wasn’t ruled by the Sagittarians. Nations, governments and cultures had long since come under control of the humanoid beings, who arrived on Earth in the summer of 2043.

Sarah Nevins peered out the window as the patrol passed by, shaking her head.

“It’s been a lifetime ago, now, but it’s still hard to believe,” she said.

Her husband, Bart, looked up from his information cube.

“What’s that, hon?”

“I was just thinking back to before, when humans dominated the earth. Then just like that, because of our stupidity, it was over.”

On a late June night four decades before, a huge spacecraft had appeared above the Whittier Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary in California. For two days it hovered, releasing various sounds and color displays. Scientists could not determine what the chirps and whistles were meant to convey, but the series of radiant flashes seemingly corresponded with the American alphabet.

It was determined that the messages were “F-O-R-M-A” “M-E-T-H-A” and “G-L-U-T,” but what exactly any of those letters meant was unknown at the time.

However, the codes suddenly disappeared and the spacecraft went silent as it dropped to the ground below.

“Remember when we watched it on TV?” Sarah mused. “I never once thought it was an invasion or that they were gearing up for an attack. Admittedly, I didn’t know what to think, but that didn’t enter my mind.”

Bart nodded.

“Me, either. I wondered why they hadn’t landed in Washington or London or Moscow … you know, one of those, ‘Take me to your leader’ type places. A cemetery just seemed random … and odd.”

It didn’t seem random to the myriad conspiracy theorists who quickly decided the extraterrestrials were ghouls. And matters weren’t helped by the fact that President Chad Odiosa – a controversial former podcaster and verbal grenade lobber – was more than happy to spread panic to an already worried nation.

In a speech televised across the world on Day Three of the craft’s arrival, Odiosa claimed that the aliens had come to earth to reanimate the dead and create an army of zombies, stoking rage among those fueled by it. In years past such claims would’ve been deemed ridiculous, but ridiculousness had been normalized ever since the millennium had reached its teens. Once the fuse was lit, thousands of Odiosa’s well-armed followers converged on California. They were joined by military personnel, pushed into action by the commander in chief.

“That ignorant asshole,” Sarah spat. “I’ll never forget his rallying cry … ‘They might have come from the heavens, but we’ll send ‘em straight to hell.’ All the tiny brains loved it. Still makes me sick just to think about it.”

There was no way for humans and the Sagittarians to verbally communicate early on, which is why the aliens were attempting to do so with light and sound. But once the craft crashed, their only choice was to emerge in hopes of finding a way to explain their presence face to face.

“God, that was horrible,” Bart said. “Once the door opened and they came down the ramp, it was a massacre. The missiles didn’t do a lot of damage to the craft, but those poor Sagittarians were wiped out. That one guy little in front just held out his arms and  … boom. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”

Odiosa was quick to make a victory speech, and brazenly dared Sagittarians to return to earth if they “wanted more of the same.”

Odiosa got his wish in short order.

Before their ship lost power, a distress signal had been sent. But once the Sagittarian rescue vessel intercepted human communications – and determined an act of war had taken place – it turned back.

Within days, the skies over Earth were littered with a Sagittarian armada. After a week, they had wiped out every organized military in the world, and tens of millions of humans died in the process.

Then – just a few months after the takeover – the Sagittarians adapted to human language.

“That bastard Odiosa went into hiding, but if he survived, I wonder what went through his mind when he learned what the Sagittarians wanted that first day,” Sarah said wistfully. “’Forma,’ ‘Metha,’ ‘Glut’ – formaldehyde, methanol, glutaraldehyde. That’s why they were hovering over a cemetery … the ingredients to embalming fluid could’ve refueled their ship. If we had shown just the bare minimum of  patience, we could’ve helped them and they’d have been on their way. Hell, we might’ve even become our friends.

“Instead, we declared war on them and became their subjects … simply because they stopped for gas.”

Standing at the edge of the bed with the fur on his back standing at attention, Chester unleashed a series of ear-piercing barks. Those poses – and noises – were not uncommon for the high-spirited chihuahua, but such behavior at 3:45 a.m. on a Tuesday certainly was.

The ruckus caused both June Stockton and her husband, Belk, to rouse from their slumber.

“What is it, Chester?” Belk asked, rubbing his eyes. “What’s the matter, buddy?”

This time the couple heard the noise – three sharp knocks on the front door.

“Nobody should be knocking this late,” June said. “Or this early.”

Their “home protection system” consisted of an aluminum softball bat that occupied the corner of the bedroom near Belk, and he grabbed the weapon and raced toward the door. A look through the peephole revealed nothing, and when he returned to the bedroom, he saw that June had separated two blinds with her right finger and thumb to get a peek outside herself.

“I don’t see anything,” she said. “How about you?”

Belk shook his head.

“Not a thing. There was nobody out there … and it’s not like we have any bushes big enough for them to hide in.”

Chester had lost interest in the drama and returned to his spot under the covers.

“Could we be mistaken?” June wondered. “I mean, we both think we heard a knock, but we were barely awake. Plus, we’ve lived here less than a year. I suppose it could be house noises we aren’t accustomed to yet.”

“Well, Chester heard something … and I’m pretty sure that something was a knock on the door – three knocks. That’s a strange prank to play on someone, though, especially in the dead of night. I’m gonna go out the back door and sneak toward the front yard and look around.”

When he did, Belk spied nothing unusual. The cul-de-sac was quiet and, best he could figure, all the occupants were inside their own homes. He made his way back in to the bedroom, placed the bat in its customary spot and crawled back onto bed. He leaned over and gave June a kiss on the cheek.

“It’s way too early to get up,” he said. “Let’s try to get at least a couple more hours sleep … if they come back, I’m pretty sure Chester will let us know.”

By morning the incident had been mostly forgotten, and when the pair turned the lights out for the evening, it was never mentioned.

Then came the barking at 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday.

Just as had occurred the night before, Belk and June were startled awake by Chester’s frantic yapping, which preceded three more sharp knocks on the door. This time Belk wasted no time. He snatched the bat from the corner, raced to the front door and quickly pulled it open.

When he did, he was greeted by … absolutely nothing.

He ran several feet out onto the sidewalk and surveyed the yard, but no creature stirred.

He came back in, made sure to lock the door after slamming it shut, and shrugged.

“Gotta give ‘em  credit,” he said. “Whoever it is, they’re quite the speedster. The second they finished knocking they must’ve ran off like a bat outta hell.”

“Later today we should check with the neighbors and find out if something similar has been happening to them,” June said. “It’s just … just really unsettling.”

After breakfast Belk grabbed the trash bin at the back of the driveway and pulled up toward the street for pickup. His next door neighbor, Andrew, was doing the same.

“Morning!” Andrew shouted, giving Belk a wave.

“Morning. Hey, Andrew … have you guys had anything weird happening in the middle of the night?

“How do you mean?”

“Well, two nights in a row somebody has knocked on our door at a quarter of four. Chester starts barking like crazy, but by the time I get there they’re gone. I thought maybe somebody was pranking everybody in the cul de sac. Guess it’s just us.”

Andrew raised his brow.

“That’s funny … well, funny odd,” he said. “The old guy that used to live in your house – Paul Proctor was his name – he’d come home blind drunk in the middle of the night and couldn’t ever seem to get his keys to work. He’d wind up banging on the door so his wife would have to let him in. He had a dog, too, and it would start barking, and that’s what woke her up. She’d come open the door for him and man, she’d get so pissed. He drank a lot, so it happened a lot.”

Belk rubbed his chin.

“Drunks do stupid stuff. Could it be the guy still drinks at a bar around here? If that’s the case, maybe he thinks he still lives here.”

Andrew laughed.

“I seriously doubt that,” Andrew said. “Paul just passed away. As a matter of fact, I think his funeral was on Monday.”