Little Metal Cube
By Shain Knowles
Copyright 2012
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Little Metal Cube
Outside a small farmhouse off Route 4, John Hoping tossed a Frisbee to Rex. Rex was a five year old yellow lab with a leaping distance of six foot eight inches and a tail full of joy flipping behind him like a pompom shaken after a touchdown. The dog caught the blue disc and returned it to John before darting off for the next toss. One of the throws drifted on a gust of wind beyond Rex’s outstretched jaw. The dog chased it into a patch of undergrowth.
A low-pitched growl came from Rex. John ran to investigate. He imagined a snake. Rex had killed one of the scaly creatures a few days earlier. The growl grew in pitch as John neared the thick brush covering a small corner of his two-acre lawn.
John stomped down the mix of grass and thorny bushes. A series of pops and snaps sounded beneath his weight as he pummeled the ubiquitous twigs. As he neared Rex, he saw the dog’s jaw was drawn back exposing his fangs. The hair along Rex’s back stood up as if he were impersonating a porcupine.
John danced a hand along Rex’s back in an attempt to calm his four-legged friend. Rex remained poised for attack. John searched the ground for what Rex saw as an obvious threat. A foot in front of them, embedded in the ground, a metallic cube glistened under the few remaining sun rays the ending day had to offer.
John could feel heat coming off the strange two-inch wide object half-buried in the hard Southern clay. The red dirt around the cube was burnt black, and ash-covered dead grass lined the edges of the scorched earth in the small area.
John pulled Rex away, almost having to lift the dog up, to get him back to the house. Rex produced a deep rumble of sound from the pit of his canine gut. John tugged at his dog’s collar, “Rex! Come on boy! Let’s go!”
Their tug of war ended with a reluctant Rex turning to lick his owner’s face when they had nearly reached the house. Rex gave one last look and growled back in the direction of the strange object, and they went in.
The next morning Rex was waiting by the back door when John came out from his bedroom still in his boxers and white T-shirt. John ran tap water into a small coffee pot. Rex began to whine.
“What’s wrong boy?”
Rex turned in a circle following his tail until he faced the door once again and whimpered.
“OK…OK,” John opened the back door and Rex shot out into the dark morning air like a bullet from a hunter’s rifle.
John put the coffee maker to work and went to shower. He had gotten to the door of the bathroom when Rex began to bark frantically from the yard. John grabbed his bathrobe, flashlight, and shotgun. He fumbled with the flashlight as he peered into the dark attempting to locate Rex. He dropped his shotgun during his struggle with the light and cursed under his breath.
John finally shined the beam of light out into the corner of the yard and found Rex leaping and barking at black ashen soil that seemed to ripple like the surface of a lake under moonlight. As John scanned his yard further, he found that the blackened earth surrounded his home.
“Come here Rex…come on boy. Let’s go back inside,” John backed up slowly toward the safety of his home, not bothering to pick up his weapon.
John reached the door. “Rex, come here boy. Get a treat.” The pitch of his voice rose as he said “treat.”
Rex turned and looked back at his master. In the small circle of light, John could see the dark ground advancing inward toward them, the vegetation disappearing into ashen goo. Rex was too close to the blackness.
“Come on boy! Come get a treat!”
“Please, Rex come here…Rex come!”
Tears dripped in large droplets from John’s eyes.
“Rex!”
The animal took a few steps in the direction of John before he turned and dug his claws into the dirt. John continued to cry and shout for his pet as the black shimmering ground closed in on the growling dog. Rex barked one final time as he slipped away into the liquid darkness.
John closed the door on the horror that grew ever closer to his home. He wondered what he should do as he wiped the salty tears from his face. Rex was gone and John feared soon he would be too. Knowing he was surrounded by the darkness, he rummaged through his mind tapping into the root of his survival instincts and found only the fetal position and prayer.
John whispered prayers from his childhood with his eyes held closed. He awaited the blackness that had devoured his best friend. Seconds turned to minutes. John soon reached the end of his limited catalog of prayers. He repeated his favorite one about heaven on earth and hallowing His name…“amen.”
Unsure if he was still alive or if the darkness had found him with a painless death, John opened his eyes. He felt his muscles pull tight in a fight against his effort to sit up out of the folded position. His eyes focused. Before him stood a human-like figure glistening under the lamp light, its body silver shined to a high sheen. The figure reached out a gleaming mitten-shaped hand towards John. With his back to the wall, John had nowhere to go.
“Please…please leave me. I fear no evil…”
The silver man turned his head in a gesture universally meaning, I don’t get you.
John swallowed hard and pushed himself to his feet. Fear caused his legs to wobble under his trembling frame.
“Who are you?”
The strange being turned and motioned for John to follow him. His arm was made of what John believed to be plasma or some metal that moved like liquid. Regardless of the composition of the stranger, John was scared to the point that he was sure he would pass out or his heart would explode.
“No. I can’t…I’m not ready to go yet,” the words dripped off John’s trembling tongue.
The visitor walked out into the dim light of the sunrise. He stood on the surface of the rippling darkness covering the ground and turned to face the home. John unknowingly had followed the stranger to the door just inches from where the blackness began. A shimmer of sunbeams now traveled across the darkness, reminding John of Eagle Lake and his first kiss.
Again the shiny man gestured for John to follow him. Overwhelmed and amazed by the endless ocean of void he witnessed, John succumbed to his demise and stepped out of his home in one big stride.
A tightness wrapped all around John. He felt a crushing force pushing hard against his entire body. Air rushed from his collapsed lungs forced out by the pressure all around him. This must be what it would feel like to fall into the sun.
John awoke. His head pounded and he had all the symptoms of too much drink. He could remember his college days and the months following his divorce. The cold sweat, nausea, headache, and disorientation all pointed to the conclusion that he had hit the sauce so hard this time that he had gone completely mad dreaming up aliens.
John sat up with his head in his hands. He pushed hard against his forehead in a struggle to hold his brains and the contents of his stomach in. John held his eyes shut in an attempt to halt the sensation of spinning.
The dizziness faded, and John opened his eyes. A bright white light shone down on him. He was lying on a silver bed in a black room. The shiny man stood near his feet.
“Welcome, John Hoping.” A soft voice like a child’s spoke.
John eased himself away from the glistening being.
“Do not fear. I mean you no harm. None of us mean you any harm.”
Sure, why not? John relaxed. He realized the hung-over feeling was gone. He felt fine. In fact, better then fine, younger somehow, he thought.
“Where are we?” John inquired.
“Just outside your home, in what you call your yard.”
“Hmm, I don’t remember there being a room like this in my yard.”
“Well, not in your plane. In your plane, there are only green and brown organic materials and air molecules. But on our plane, we have built this facility.”
“Plain? I’m a farmer. I don’t follow. Are you from outer space? An alien?”
“No, I’m from another plane sharing particles with your plane. This, in fact, makes you the alien here.”
“How did I get here exactly? And why…why me?”
“I’m a scientist on my plane. My name is DeMark. I built this facility and your home happened to be in the same vicinity. Hence, you were the obvious first contact.”
“OK. DeMark is it? I think I follow…even though I have no idea how you did any of this. You’re a wacky experimental science-y guy who opened a plane jumping machine and you have abducted me. That about it, is it?”
“More or less, those are the facts. I have made many jumps, but have never expanded out like I did today.”
“Rex…what happened to my dog?”
“The lower-brained creature is fine. It underwent the same transfer you yourself did.”
“Show me. Let me see Rex.”
Behind DeMark, a corridor became visible and Rex stood in the center of a room at the other end. John called his dog and slapped the side of his leg. Rex barked and his tail brushed the air around his backside in fanatic strokes. John smiled, new wide tears flowing from his eyes and soaking his cheeks. Rex was alive.
John called again for Rex, but the dog just barked and did not move.
“Why won’t he come to me? What have you done to my dog?” John demanded with authority.
“Nothing has been done to your do’og,” DeMark attempted to repeat the word John used.
“Then why won’t he come to me?” John called to Rex again.
“He is behind a false wall. One only Rex can see.”
“What?”
“Here, I will let him see you.”
Rex wagged his tail and looked towards John. He hunched himself close to the floor, tail frantic behind him. John called to him one last time. Rex launched forward, bounding in full strides toward his beloved master. He leaped up onto John’s lap and licked feverishly at John’s bristled face. John hugged his friend close. He rubbed Rex’s belly and quieted the dog.
“Now, we need to get to work,” DeMark said.
“Work, what do you mean work? Is this where you probe me to find out what I got inside?”
“Probe, uh, no…we will not be doing any probing of your insides. We will just need you to tell us of your people and the way your kind live, how you protect yourselves, the knowledge that exists on your plane, and the worlds you’ve discovered. We have much to discuss.”
“We live on the land, protect ourselves with firearms, and we search our skies looking for worlds where places like this may exist,” John felt uncomfortable being chosen to speak on behalf of all mankind.
“Tell me about firearms.”
“Firearms are handheld devices that launch projectiles.”
“Have your people the power of a singularity?”
“A what-arity?”
“A singularity, a very dense mass of extreme power,” DeMark paced the floor.
“I don’t know. I’m just a farmer, not a damn rocket scientist.”
“How far into your space have your people expanded?”
“We have covered our planet. That’s pretty much as far as we have made it. Oh yeah, we did go to the moon.”
“The moon…? How far from your rock is this moon?”
“How should I know? I’m a farmer!”
“How many of your kind populate your world?”
“A few billion I think.”
“How many have firearms?”
“I don’t know, maybe a third, maybe less. Why do you need to know this stuff?”
“We wish to further our knowledge as explorers. We mean you no harm. We desire only knowledge of your kind. Does all of your kind live like you…isolated?”
“No, many live on top of one another in large cities.”
“Cities, what are they?”
“Cities are spots where a lot of people gather and live next door to one another. Large population areas where my kind build up instead of out.”
“I see, and are the others of your kind all of a similar physical build?” DeMark lifted his shimmering arm towards John.
“No, we come in all shapes and sizes.”
The questions continued then repeated. John found he recalled facts he previously had no idea he knew. Information from news footage seen in passing, data stored in hazy recollections of lectures he slept through in college. John flipped through these files of brain recordings to provide DeMark with the answers the glowing man desired.
“Very good, John. We greatly appreciate your free offering of information,” DeMark said.
“It’s no problem, but I really don’t know why I know this stuff.”
“Do you not remember where you collected the answers to my questions?”
“No, I can recall every detail. It’s just that I could never remember this much before.”
“That is an electrical wave we’ve created in this room to fire a greater number of your neurons. It gives you the best ability to answer our questions.”
“Wow, this would be great if I ever found myself on Jeopardy,” John stroked the panting Rex in his lap and felt his eyes grow heavy. He swayed.
“I have administered a sleeping agent to the air that will put both you and your small companion to sleep during the transfer back to your home.”
“Transfer ho…mm,” John fell back, holding Rex tight to him.
Rex appeared to float atop the steady wave created in the rise and fall of John’s chest. DeMark pushed the quiescent John and Rex down a narrow corridor on a floating gurney into a small silver room and pulled a heavy door closed behind him. The room filled with a black thick liquid. As viscous as crude oil, the fluid engulfed them.
DeMark pushed John and his dog across the black pool and into John’s home. He lifted both John and Rex with little effort from the gurney and placed the two gently down on the wooden floor. He crossed the small yard. The blackness receded behind him until he reached the little metallic cube. He grasped the cube in his glistening mitt. The remaining darkness that covered the ground vanished along with DeMark.
John awoke with all the symptoms of a hangover, spooning a snoring Rex. He pulled himself up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and discovered his back door was wide open. Rex stirred but did not wake as John took a step towards closing the door.
John stared out into his yard. The earth in a perfect circle around his entire home looked as if a back-hoe had plowed over it until the top layer had been removed. Red rock exposed beside swirled clay laid level, not a blade of grass to be found. Not the slightest rise to stumble on.
It happened. DeMark, the abduction. No one will ever believe.
DeMark sat across from the leader of his people. Their combined glow filled the room with a brilliant white light. The leader turned over the small metal cube on his clear desk as he listened to DeMark.
“The human, John, has told us more then we could have ever expected. I believe I should have the cubes ready within the decade. The replacement of their world will be easier than first anticipated. All of the details have been recorded in a file sent to your hard drive, sir,” DeMark stood.
“Very well. Get to work. We need the space for our new singularity power reactor as soon as the proper amounts of these are ready,” he tossed the cube to DeMark.
“As fo
r the inhabitants of this earth plane, we will keep the strongest of the humans for labor in the mines.”
In his lab on another plane, a few feet from John Hoping’s home, DeMark sits beside a large pile of small metal cubes building each one meticulously and keeping count.
***