Walt vs the Space Flunkies

steel bars and smoke stacks sticking out of it. It kinda reminded me of an old steel plant. Anyhow, that’s the only way I can describe it; it looked like an old factory sitting down there in the quarry.

  The green light we saw was coming from round windows like the ones they have on old battleships. It had maybe five or six of them, bolted on with rivets. We tried to peek into one, but they was too high off the ground.

  Sheriff Haas said, “One o’ you boys climb up there and get a better look.”

  “Here Arlin,” I said, “stand on my shoulers.”

  So he got up there and we handed him a flashlight. “Whatchoo see?”

  “Hold on, Fellers. I can’t seem to get this thing to work.”

  His heels was digging into my shoulers. “C’mon, Arlin, just push the button!”

  His face was only a couple of inches from the window, but it was so dark in there he couldn’t see nothin’. Then I heard a click when the flashlight came on, and he screamed like something I aint never heard before.

  “Arlin, what in the . . .?” He started wiggling around and I couldn’t hold on no more. He fell backwards off my shoulers and landed right in the muck. I almost fell over, too.

  “Teeth!” he was yellin’. “Things with big, long teeth! Oh, Lawd!”

  Haas said, “Whoa, calm down, boy.”

  “My Gawd! Oh Lawd! We gotsta get outa here!”

  “We’re not leaving until we figure out what this—”

  Arlin jumped up. “No! I aint stayin’!” And he started climing the wall all in a panic. “I aint stayin’!”

  It took Arlin a while to clime up becuz them quarry walls is steep, but he made it out. We all just stared after him, then Haas said, “Whatchoo boys was doin’ back there in the trailer? Smokin’ wacky weed?”

  “Course not!” I said.

  Ledo looked up at the port hole. “Wonder what he seen in thet winda?”

  Then we heard a creaky noise, like rusty hinges. “Where’s that coming from?” said Haas.

  Ledo puffed on his cigrette. “Hard to tell. Thet things got beams an’ pipes everwhere so’s you can’t hardly see nothin’. No, wait. Lookit there!”

  A hatch started opening on the underside of the thing, sorta swinging down like a trapdoor. There was a hiss of steam that came out. Then, as it opened wider, we could see green light inside.

  It swung down all the way until it rested on the ground, making a kind of ramp leading up into the thing. There was a steam pipe blocking my view, but just when I leaned to the side so’s to see around it, the green light sizzled and went out with a pop.

  Everthing was real quiet and creepy, and we were starting to get scared. I had decided that maybe Arlin had done the right thing and I was gonna join him, when these things started jumping out.

  It was like a flood. They were just falling out of the hatch right on top of each other. Little guys, maybe three feet tall with fat bellies, short little legs and thick, stubby, pointy tails. They was orange and all naked! They had perfickly round heads with big puffed-out lips and two spikes sticking out the top they heads. Best way I can describe it is like somebody glued an inner tube to a basketball. And their teeth! Their whole mouth was full of big pointy tri-anglar teeth. But that’s all there was. No nose. No eyes. Just a mouth full of nasty-looking teeth.

  It was like somebody had turned on a spigot, the way they just kept pouring out of that hatch. Hunnits of ’em. They didn’t get hurt, neither. They just bounced off each other and the ground like water balloons.

  Then they started coming toward us with their long arms in the air, swinging them around. They had a weird way of walking that kinda reminded me of chimps.

  By this time, the four of us was backed up to the quarry wall. There was no place to run. We was surrounded by little orange guys, to the right, to the left, everwhere.

  I said, “I think we in a sticky sitchuation.”

  The dimwit deputy said, “What we gonna do, Sheriff?”

  “Keep calm, Boys. We aint got enough bullets for all of them. Maybe we gonna hafta see if we can talk to them. Show them we’re friendly.” Haas held out his hand and said, “We come in peace.”

  The little guys stopped and looked around at each other. Then one turned to Sheriff Haas and said, “Mluk Glumma B’luk.” It sounded like thick mud bubbles popping.

  Ledo shouted, “Haw! Thet’s all I needed to know, Boys!” and ran up and bashed one in the head with a shovel.

  It just wobbled like it was made of rubber.

  They were quiet for a second, then it was all over—they rushed us. I swung my shovel at the first one that jumped at me. Hit him right on the top of his head, but it didn’t do nothing. It was like they didn’t have any skull bones at all.

  Ledo was bashing some with shovels, kicking others in the gut. “Haw! You see that one, Fat Wote? I mussa sent ’im flyin’ fitty feet! Whoa, looky there! He gonna have a headache come monin’!”

  The space men musta scared the dimwit deputy half to death, becuz he was frozen like a statue. Then one jumped on him and he screamed and dropped his gun. It fired when it hit the ground, and the bullet caught my shovel and knocked it right out of my hands.

  When I went to pick it up, a space man jumped on my back. He couldn’t of weighed more than ten pounds, but I couldn’t knock him off. He was scratching and clawing and being a general noosance. Finally, I managed to grab him by the tail. I swung him around like a sack of potatoes, knocking over at least twenty others before I tossed him into the crowd and sent them all flying like bowling pins.

  But there were so many of them, it was like fighting an army.

  The sheriff fired off a couple of shots, but these little chimp-men was so fast he didn’t hit none of ’em.

  I picked up my shovel, hoisted it over my shouler, and noticed it felt kinda heavy. I looked behind me and saw one of them hanging from the shovel by one hand and holding a pipe wrench in the other. Then everthing went dark.

  When I woke up, I could hear something running. It sounded like an old cement mixer. Timing musta been off, becuz it kept missing. Steam was hissing out of a pipe somewhere, and there was a strong smell like diesel fuel. My head hurt. When I went to rub it, I noticed I couldn’t move my arms.

  “’Bout time you woke up, Fat Wote,” said Ledo. I looked around. Me, Haas, Ledo and the dimwit deputy was all tied to a rusty steam pipe in a big room. It was all cruddy with pipes, beams and greasy machines everwhere. The little spacemen was all around, hunnits of them. They was talking to each other, and the sound they made was like listening to tar pits.

  “Where we at?” I said.

  “Looks like we’re in their ship,” said Sheriff Haas.

  Ledo said, “This place a rat hole! What kinda spaceman would build a buggy what look like this?”

  “Must be a bunch of flunkies,” Haas said, trying to work his hands free.

  “I tell you what, I get loose, I gonna bash they heads in! Haw!”

  I was still a little groggy. “What they gonna do with us, you think?”

  Haas nodded his head toward the other side of the room, toward a Flunky sitting in a throne. He was twice as big as the rest of them and had a bigger gut than me. He musta been their king or something, becuz he wore a crown and had a long wand. His crown looked like tin foil with a bunch of feathers sticking out, and the wand was made of cast iron pipe.

  A bunch of the other Flunkies were gathered around him and now and then he’d smack one upside the wobbly head with his staff.

  Then I saw what the sheriff was nodding at. In front of the king was a huge cast iron pot setting on a coal stove. Little trails of steam was rising from it. “Oh,” I said.

  The king Flunky pointed us out to a little guy wearing a cook’s hat. They talked for a little bit, then the cook waddled over to us.

  “Watchoo lookin’ at, tubby?” said Ledo. “Go on, untie these ropes an’ I show you how I gonna cook up some stew! Tha’s right!”

  The cook said some bubble t
alk to Ledo, then looked us over, nodding now and then. He finally stopped in front of me, jabbing my gut with a fork and bubbling likes he was all excited.

  Ledo said, “Hey, Fat Wote, I think they plannin’ on having you fo’ fo’th July barbecue! Or mebbe they say, ‘we save this one fo’ when cumpny come ovah!’ Haw haw!”

  The cook turned and waved some other Flunkies over. Now I was gettin’ a little scared, becuz these Flunkies were carrying long knives, and I got the impression the cook made up his mind which one of us was goin’ in the pot first.

  They tottered over to me and were bubbling to each other where to make the first cut, when a hush fell over the room. The Flunkies all turned toward the door. I looked to see what was up, and there in the doorway stood Arlin. He was holding his big five-gallon stew pot. He had a ribbon wrapped around it holding the lid on tight, and it was topped with a bow.

  He looked a bit nervous but was trying to hide it best he could. “Howdy fellers,” he said, speaking to the Flunkies. “I brung you a little welcome present, sort of a peace offerin’ you might say.”

  Slowly, Arlin walked through the crowd toward King Flunkie. “I hope you like it. Little something I came up with kinda last minute.”

  He sat the pot right in front of the king, then did a little bow and a waving hand thing like they do in fancy restrants.

  As the king looked over the pot with his mouth in a big O, and all the other Flunkies gathered around him, Arlin backed toward us through the unsuspecting crowd bowing now and then to keep up the act.

  By the time he got to us, all