“In the Criminal Justice System, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups….” said Bon Jovi, remaining prone in the net when Bedford dropped it to use both hands to open the barn door. The night sky was gorgeous in this atmosphere. He could see four of the systems they would be visiting on their tour. “You had me at ‘Hello…”
Bedford kept a spotless barn. At least his attendants did. Four of them were legal, two were not, and all were well-paid. One side of the building housed the cows. The first room of the other half was a dairy where the cows were hand milked twice daily and the milk was stored in a walk-in refrigerator when not delivered directly to clients. The second room on that half of the barn was an abattoir. The abattoir didn’t get much use, but Skunkwater County had its fair share of hunters and Bedford would allow his neighbors to use the facilities to dress their kills and store them in the sub-zero freezers along the back wall. Bedford dragged the happily chatting Bon Jovi the length of the dairy to the abattoir’s door, leaving a trail of dirt and dung on the pink concrete floor. He punched the combination into the door’s electronic lock. The lights inside came on when the lock clicked open.
“Luke, I am your….” Bon Jovi stopped when he saw the meat hooks attached to the ceiling and the knives and cutting equipment along the walls. This didn’t look good. Curious at the start of his adventure in the net, Bon Jovi had activated his anti-grav to lighten himself so that the human could carry him easily. Now, he dialed it all of the way down to make himself as heavy as possible and called for his friend. Hitler. Please come. Now.
Bedford was halfway across the room when the net became very heavy. He checked to see if it had snagged on something. It had not. He looked at the alien, its huge emotionless eyes staring up at him through a tangle of rope and long limbs. The alien said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
“What woman?” Bedford asked.
“I saved a ton of money by….” the alien ventured.
Bedford picked up the end of the net, took a deep breath and redoubled his efforts to drag it across the smooth concrete floor. Bon Jovi was horrified that he was still able to be moved. Beginning to panic he said, “Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me!” He dialed his anti-grav all the way up and began to rise like a misshapen hot air balloon. Annoyed, Bedford yanked him back down. Bon Jovi was unable to compensate for the sudden movement, and his head banged against the concrete floor. His eyes closed and he went limp.
“Crap!” said Bedford. He gave the net a tug and said, “Hey.”
No movement.
Bedford peered through the ropes at the alien. Its eyes were closed. He poked it with his foot.
Still no reaction.
Bedford had no idea whether it was dead or simply unconscious. Hoping for unconscious, Bedford stepped over to a large industrial sink just a few feet away where he turned on the cold water and doused the alien with a hose, hoping to shock it back to life. After a few seconds, Bedford dropped the hose and went to the alien’s side. He squatted in the puddle of water, looking for signs of life. There were none. His plan to show off a real live alien was rapidly falling apart. A dead alien was still a decent prize, so Bedford decided to put it on ice to keep it from decomposing. He opened the closest freezer and began taking out chunks of wrapped meat in order to make room.
Hitler arrived at the barn and followed the trail of dirt into the abattoir just in time to see Bedford lift the motionless body of his companion into the freezer. He called to him telepathically, but Bon Jovi was in too deep a state of regeneration to reply. Hitler rose into the air so the human wouldn’t see him. From his higher viewpoint Hitler could see all of the processing equipment in the room. He realized with horror that the human actually was planning to kill and eat his companion. He looked around the room at the knives and saws but the idea of using any kind of weapon was alien to him. He searched his memory files of action movies. What would Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, or Will Smith do?
Bedford took one last look at his prize on ice and with some regret, closed the lid of the freezer. He checked his phone. No one had returned his calls or texts. “What the f….” he began but was interrupted by the sound of chains clanking in the pulley system overhead. Hitler had decided to capture instead of conquer. Moving faster than Bedford thought possible, Hitler dragged one of the meat hooks from the pulley system on the ceiling over to the human, dropped to the floor with it and slipped the hook through Bedford’s belt. “What the f….” Bedford was cut off as Hitler flew back to the wall and hit the lift switch, hoisting Bedford six feet into the air.
Hitler pulled his captive along the ceiling track to the other side of the room. “How do you like being caught?” he asked the human.
Most of Bedford’s body mass was above his belt so he was dangling face down above the pink concrete floor. His awkward position made speaking difficult. “I don’t…” he managed to say.
Neither of them noticed that the freezer containing Bon Jovi was starting to smoke.
“Maybe we’ll take you back with us,” said Hitler. “Put you in stasis and show you to our friends before we cook and eat you.”
Terrified, Bedford tried to get his cell phone out of his pocket, but it fell to the floor in two pieces, the battery pack separating from the main unit.
Hitler was feeling empowered. “Maybe you’d like to see our probes. We don’t just have anal, you know,” he lied.
Both their attentions were drawn to the furiously smoking freezer on the other side of the room. The smell of burning meat began to permeate the air. And then….
BOOM!
The door of the freezer flew across the room followed by half-burnt, half-raw bloody meat from every species legal to hunt in the woods of Florida—and a few that weren’t. Wallace, having just arrived, ducked barely in time to avoid being hit by the freezer door. Bits of meat showered down around him.
Bon Jovi was unhurt. His regeneration process had produced chemicals that mingled badly with the gasses already inside the freezer, causing the explosion. Regenerated, rejuvenated, and finally free from the net, he exclaimed, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”
Hitler flew to his friend’s side. Are you alright?
Bon Jovi looked around at the mess. “I feel grrrrreat!”
Good for you, Hitler said. I think our tour is over. It’s time to get back to the ship. The aliens floated together out the door, Hitler guiding his slightly unsteady friend by the hand.
“Aren’t you even gonna say goodbye?” Wallace asked, rising from his crouching position to watch their hasty departure.
He turned to his brother, still hanging from the meat hook. “You pissed him off, didn’t you? He used his ray gun, didn’t he?”
“Just get me the hell down from here,” Bedford said.
***
The brothers walked across the pasture in silence. They were both sprinkled with blood and smelled of charred barbeque. Bedford had retrieved his phone from the floor of the abattoir and replaced the battery pack. It now rang every couple of minutes. He turned it off.
As they neared the deck, Bedford saw something moving near the electronics module. It was Suzie’s retriever, lifting his leg and pissing on the quad hi-def video recorder.
“Hey!” he yelled, running over to the dog. “Hey, hey, HEY! You goddam mutt! Stop that! Get away from there….” Startled by the sparks and acrid smoke pouring from the electronics, the dog did indeed stop and get away from there. Bedford ran up to his steaming equipment. “It’s ruined! You ruined it!” He tried to pick up one of the Adirondack chairs to throw at the dog but it was too heavy. Bedford flipped it over anyway. Then he kicked the chair for added measure.
“Feel better?” asked Wallace.
“No,” said Bedford.
Wallace picked up the remote and called up the mini fridge. He took out two beers, handing one to Bedford who took it silently. They sat on the edge of the deck.
“Maybe the CDs are ok
,” Wallace said.
“No CDs. Hard drive.”
“Maybe one of your geek friends could salvage something.”
“It smells pretty fried.”
“You smell pretty fried too,” Wallace pointed out.
Bedford opened his beer, and took a long swig.
Wallace sighed. “I’m such an idiot. I never even thought to take a picture with my cell phone.”
A ray of hope. Bedford pulled out his own phone and punched up the photo he had taken, while Wallace peered over his shoulder. It was slightly blurry and the flash had distorted the image, but it was clear enough to make out something caught in a net. Part of the image was perfectly clear: a tiny grey foot. A foot that looked exactly like a young child’s foot. A young, dead child’s foot attached to a body caught in a net.
“Well,” said Bedford.
“Yeah,” said Wallace. “That would get you 10 to 25, even if they didn’t find a body. Better not show it to anyone else.”
“Too late,” said Bedford. He looked mournfully out at his beautifully maintained pasture, soon to be torn up by CBI vans and cadaver dogs.
“How many?” Wallace asked.
“Twelve messages.”
“Crap.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why your phone’s been ringing…”
“Yeah.”
Wallace stood. “Well, when they all show up, we can have a BBQ with all that meat in the barn.”
Bedford stood. “Sure,” he said. “The CBI loves it when people eat the evidence at a crime scene.”
“Hey, guess what, these aliens weren’t they same guys as before,” Wallace said. “They weren’t the ones that did the cow.”
“They weren’t?”
“No.”
“How do you know that?”
“I asked.” Wallace said. “The one that hung out with me was pretty cool, you know.”
“Was he?”
“Yeah. His name was Hitler.”
“No way.”
“I shit you not. Yours was named Bon Jovi.”
“Now I know you’re lying.” Bedford’s eyes caught movement in the sky. A tiny light moved through the constellation of Orion and then receded into the inky distance.
Wallace watched as well. “That them?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“Once this whole thing blows over, you wanna watch for them again?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll bring the beer.”
###
About the Author
Linda Hull grew up in Miami, Florida, spending much of her time playing with her imaginary friends. As an adult, she moved to Central Florida and graduated from Rollins College where she was inspired to write down her imaginary exploits with the hope of turning them into a lucrative career.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Dave Robinson for his editorial contributions to “Cooter.”
“The Extraterrestrial Anthology, Volume I: Temblar”
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