Category Archives: Sci-Fi

Shit’s Going Down on Main Street

A ‘So You Had to Build a Time Machine’ story

By Jason Offutt

The old streetlamp glowed yellow, just another pinpoint of light in the distance. A Cass County Disposal truck rumbled down a hill lined with trees, the black dome of night over the rural highway dotted with stars, the silky streak of the Milky Way hung like Elvis’ ghost tossed that big fluffy sash from the stage of the universe.

The King is still out there, somewhere. That topic had come up more than once on Route YY.

Chuck scooted forward in the passenger’s seat, staring through the bug-splattered windshield, his right boot pressed hard onto the cab floor. A fast-food wrapper clung to the heel, but he wouldn’t know this for approximately 35 minutes.

“It’s too dark out here, man,” he said, his eyes on the sky. “I hate this stuff. Makes me all jittery.”

“You say that every Thursday,” Jesus said, his arm out the window, the chill of early Autumn raising goosebumps. “I am, too, but that’s your fault.”

“I’m just saying, it’s dark, we’re the only ones on the road—”

Jesus shifted down as the engine struggle. “Where’re you going with this? Bigfoot or space aliens?”

Chuck shrugged. “Space aliens, but I’m good either way.”

The next five miles were going to be rough. Chuck wished he’d brought his Kindle to keep his mind somewhere else, but—no. “Communion” by that Strieber guy was on the Kindle. That would make the night even worse.

“I don’t believe in space aliens.” Jesus pulled a smoke from the hard pack in his shirt pocket and depressed the old truck’s lighter. “As physicist Enrico Fermi put it, ‘Where are they?’ The universe should be teaming with life, but if it is, why haven’t we seen any?”

“You read too much,” Chuck said. 

The lighter popped, and Jesus dropped his pack of smokes onto the seat. He brought the orange, glowing element to his cigarette, and sucked until the fire caught. He exhaled and said, “My friend, there is no such thing as reading too much. You should try it.”

“You do not immerse yourself into the right kinds of media,” Chuck said. “Science is fine, but there’s also personal experience.”

Jesus laughed. “Are you talking about that crazy radio show you listen to? My momma slept with a reptilian and all that shit?”

Chuck looked out the window until he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“It’s not crazy. Those people saw something. They experienced something. And, and—” he stuttered. “If it involved a reptilian alien’s reproductive organs, those things are like seven feet tall.”

“The reproductive organs?”

“No, damn it,” Chuck shouted then saw Jesus smile. That took all the piss out of his vinegar. “The reptilian guys. They’re tall. Basketball tall. With big feet, you know?”

Jesus’ right hand slapped Chuck on the shoulder.

“No worries,” he said, the corners of his mouth sagged, but didn’t sink all the way. “I saw something once.” His voice dropped, the volume barely audible over the roar of the diesel engine.

“Seriously?”

Jesus eyes remained on the highway; the smile now gone. “Yeah. It was a light in the sky, green. There are no green lights in the sky; not that bright.”

Chuck reached over the seat, took Jesus’ pack of cigarettes, and shook one into his palm. 

“It moved in a straight line, parallel to the ground. I thought it was an airplane, you know, a special airplane, like the president’s or something, then it shot up into the sky.”

The cigarette fell on the cracked vinyl seat. Chuck didn’t pick it up.

“It did?”

“Yeah, at like a 45-degree angle, and was gone, whoosh, just like that,” Jesus said. “Musta been a thing the military’s working on, or something.”

Chuck’s mouth hung open for a second, then two until he said, “That’s what they want you to think.”

“No way, man,” Jesus said, glancing at Chuck, nodding. “If aliens were here, we’d see one on every street corner beggin’ for change just to get the hell off this rock.”

When Jesus’s eyes slid back to the windshield, a small figure stood in road.

“Shit,” he shouted and swerved into the empty oncoming lane.

Chuck grabbed the dash and screamed, watching the headlights cut through the tall corn on the opposite side of the highway. Jesus laughed and eased back into the right lane.

“Take a breath,” he said, his own coming in hard bursts. “It was just a opossum.”

***

The truck turned onto a long gravel lane and ground to a halt before turning, its back-up beeper warning people who weren’t there the vehicle was about to run them over. The yellow oasis of the streetlamp surrounded a trash pickup at the back gate of Lemaître Labs, the farthest and best-paying customer on their route. Government pick-ups always were. The truck eased to a stop at the light’s edge. The brakes hissed and the men stepped out.

Jesus inhaled deeply and tossed the spent butt on the gravel before releasing a cloud of smoke. 

“What do you think they do in there?” he asked.

“Build time machines,” Chuck said, crushing the butt with the heel of his boot before lifting a trash can. “Or maybe wormholes.”

The long, low building behind the gate sat like a long concrete sandwich. Soviet-era construction had more personality. 

“In there? It looks like a warehouse, or a factory that makes boxes.”

Chuck upturned a cylindrical plastic trash can into the loading hopper, dumping in stuffed 30-gallon bags. “Jesus, Jesus. Think about it. It’s a government lab, way out in the country. That means they’re hiding something.”

Jesus laughed.

“Like a time machine? Sure. Whatever.” He held up a black trash bag. “What’s in here? A transporter from Star Trek?”

“No,” Chuck said. “Neanderthal heads or something.”

Jesus tossed the bag in the hopper. “Let’s get the big bin and get out of here. I don’t know if it’s this place that gives me the creeps or if it’s you.”

Chuck opened his mouth, but a noise slammed it shut; the slap of a body hitting metal.

“You hear that?”

The garbageman nodded and pointed to the big metal bin. “Yeah. It came from in there.”

A thick hand grabbed Jesus’ arm. He swatted it away.

“Stop it. You’re a grown man. Act like one”

“Yeah, but—”

Jesus took a step forward. “No buts.” More words wanted to come out, but they stuck in his throat. A shadow loomed in the top of the big metal bin. A wind picked up, and from somewhere far away a coyote howled. 

“Jesus—”

A pointed nose rose from the bin’s lip and sniffed. This time Jesus grabbed Chuck’s arm. A head popped up, gray and white and— 

“Oh, shit, man.” Chuck’s words came in a whisper.

 Jesus dropped his partner’s arm. “It’s just another opossum.”

The thin snout of the seven-pound animal stretched wide and a hiss streamed out. Chuck took a step back.

“These things are everywhere,” Chuck said, watching the creature drop to the ground and look at them, its black eyes gleamed in the streetlight. “This part of the county must have a opossum problem.”

“It’s called nature,” Jesus said. He got behind the full bin and pushed it toward the truck. The opossum waddled to the side, apparently in no hurry. “So many pizza joints deliver out of town now, the rednecks have stopped eating them. The population has exploded.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Chuck said, hand on the joystick that operated the hydraulic side lift. “Where’d you read that?”

Missouri Nature magazine. You should never stop learning, my friend. For example, I’m studying to become a conservation agent.” 

The bin clanked against the truck, and Jesus grinned.

“Conservation agent? Isn’t that a nature cop?”

Jesus shrugged. “You could say that. Jolly Green Giant, Private Eye.” A grin crawled across his face. “What did you think was in here, Chuck?” he asked. “Before our friend Mr. Opossum popped out? Aliens?”

The hydraulics moaned as a claw grabbed the bin and lifted it to the truck, dumping black garbage bags with questionable contents into the truck’s compression body. Chuck moved the joystick back, and the bin lowered to the pavement.

“That’s not funny,” he said, then paused, listening. So far out in the country, the fields that surrounded Lemaître Labs are always quiet, only the occasional low from a cow in a nearby pasture, the call of a night bird, and crickets break the silence, but as the two men stood there, the fat woodland creature waddling toward a road that might be the end of it, the only sound in the night was their own breathing.

“Something’s wrong here,” Jesus said, shoving the bin back into place. “I’m getting creeped out again. This time I’m pretty sure it’s not you.”

“Come on—” Chuck said, his voice drying to sandpaper in his throat. The opossum stopped at the edge of the road outside the halo of streetlight. Its body shimmered, the cat-sized marsupial’s form twisted, and thrashed before it grew, and straightened, its forelegs stretched into hands with long, spindly fingers. Its pelt grew into its body, underneath was a slick skin, gray in the night, the snout gone, leaving only—

“Holy shit,” Chuck wheezed.

The creature, now four feet tall, turned to face them, its bulbous almond-shaped eyes blacker than the inside of the truck hopper. A gray biped stood not ten feet away; what passed for lips curled into a grimace

“The aliens are disguised as opossums, Jesus,” Chuck screamed as the shock broke. He ran toward the cab of the disposal truck, beer belly wagging. “The aliens are disguised as opossums.”

***

Jesus Christ walked on water; Jesus Molina tripped over his own feet and fell on his chest, jagged bits of gravel skinned the palms of his hands.

“Yaaaahahhhhhh,” he howled. His feet churned, throwing up rocks and dust behind him. Not capable of much else at the moment, he screamed “Yaaaahahhhhhh” again.

“Get in,” Chuck shouted from somewhere above him. 

The splayed, four-toed feet of the space creature staggered closer, their movement chopped and jerky, like a 1970s cartoon. Jesus pushed up as his lungs fought for breath through the terror. A flash of an idea burst into his scrambled thoughts that maybe, just maybe, if he got away from this thing, he’d quit smoking.

“No. No, no, no, no. Come on, dude,” wheezed from him.

Jesus’ boots found purchase and he launched himself toward the truck, the space beast closer now, the smell that rolled off it metallic, tinged with oil. Sucking for breath, Jesus leapt onto the running board and threw open the door, the oval logo with the words “Cass County Disposal” in Brush Script caught the alien square in it’s ugly assed face.

“Merph,” leaked out, and the creature with a head like a frozen turkey dropped. Jesus jumped into the cab and slammed the door.

“Did you hear that?” he screamed at Chuck. “That thing said ‘Merph’. What does that mean?”

Chuck threw up a hand. “Take me to your leader.” He waved his hand like third grader who needed to use the bathroom. “No, no. We’ve come for your women. No, I’ve got it. I’ve got it. Merph. It means Merph. You hit him in the face with the door. That’s the sound I’d make.”

“Goorgrat,” growled into the open windows. 

“He’s standing, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, he’s standing.”

Jesus ground the truck into first gear, and it lurched into motion. The gray turkey-headed motherfucker leapt onto the running board and glared inside the cab with its black, almond-shaped eyes, each one the size of a beer can. Its breath brushed Jesus’ face.

“Yaaaahahhhhhh,” Jesus screamed, popping the clutch. “Gingivitis. It stinks, Chuck. It’s breath stinks like your mother’s.”

 The alien’s grip slipped as the truck lurched forward, and the creature dropped out of sight. By the time Jesus slammed the transmission into second gear, the monster was gone from the window, taking its bad breath with it.

The back driver-side wheel thu-bumped, and a slight vibration went through the garbage truck.

“Jesus,” came from Chuck. “Did you just run over a space alien?”

“I don’t know,” the man said, his eyes never leaving the lane that led to the rural highway, his voice as high and tight as a marine haircut.

“I don’t think it’s going to leave Earth a very good review on TripAdvisor,” Chuck said, fishing for another cigarette from Jesus’s pack. 

Jesus turned onto the highway. The faded, chipped asphalt surface of the road stretched back to the town of Peculiar, Missouri, a slight pinkish glow showing the universe where it was.

“I wouldn’t either,” Jesus said, shifting into third gear. “We’re fucking racist down here.”

***

The opossum on the road stood its ground while the garbage truck rumbled forward.

“Hit it,” Chuck shouted.

Jesus shook his head. “No. What if it’s a opossum?”

“What if it ain’t?”

The truck loomed over the marsupial and Chuck’s left hand shot out; he grabbed the big steering wheel and yanked it to the right.

“What the hell?” Jesus shouted.

Thu-bump.

The vehicle squealed when Jesus shoved both feet onto the brake pedal; the big truck jerked to a stop. 

Jesus’ head hadn’t budged, his eyes still focused on the road. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he said. 

“What?” Chuck snapped. “Save the world?”

Jesus turned. “No. Touch my steering wheel. That’s like grabbing another man’s privates.” He jabbed a finger at Chuck. “Abide by the Guy Code.”

Chuck nodded. “Sorry, man.” He held an unlit cigarette, his hands too shaky to operate a lighter. “You wanna go out and check? It might be one of those turkey-headed things.”

“If it’s not, I might make a citizen’s nature arrest for marsupicide.”

Jesus’ door clicked open first. He shot a look at Chuck, who swallowed and opened his own. Jesus didn’t move until his partner did, and they stepped out onto their respective running boards together. Jesus’ boots hit the pavement before Chuck’s, but Chuck followed. Jesus reached inside the truck and pulled a baseball bat from behind the seat.

“This is one small step for a garbage man,” Chuck said. “One giant leap for—”

“Goddammit, this isn’t funny,” Jesus snapped. “I either killed an innocent woodland creature or helped stop an alien invasion.” He paused, the click of a cigarette lighter silencing him for a moment. He exhaled and thought he may quit tomorrow. “Either way, something is dead on this highway, and I am not cool with that.”

They met at the rear hopper, Chuck holding a shovel handle in both hands. The wet streak on the road reflecting the moonlight may have been red, or green, or black. It was too dark to tell. The thing the truck ran over lay in a heap, its frozen-turkey head intact, black beer-can eyes open wide. The rear tires bisected the space being’s body, a tire had turned the area between its chest and pelvis into lasagna. 

“Oh, God,” Chuck wheezed, turning away. “It doesn’t have a dick.”

Jesus wanted to turn his head from the mangled result of another planet’s evolution but couldn’t. “Maybe it’s a girl.”

“It doesn’t have a vagina,” Chuck said.

“Maybe space people don’t have junk.” Jesus pulled the Cass County Disposal cap back from his head and scratched his scalp even though it didn’t itch. “Lots of things reproduce asexually.”

“Asexually?” Chuck asked, swallowing hard. “You mean up the butt?”

“What? No. Asexually means not sexually. Like they might make little aliens through spores, or something.”

“Like mushrooms?”

Jesus’ shoulders rose and fell. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Whoa,” Chuck whispered. “Matango, attack of the mushroom people.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Classic Japanese cinema, dude. Expand your horizons.”

A light sparked in the alien’s eyes, dragging the garbage men’s attention back toward the ruined creature.

“Gallagalla,” croaked from its throat.

“Run, Jesus, run,” Chuck screamed, and disappeared on the passenger side of the truck, the blade of the shovel banging along the side. “It said Galaga. I suck at Galaga.”

 Jesus hesitated at the unmistakable glow of intelligence in those cold, black eyes.

“What do you want from us?” he asked.

A slight grin pulled across the thing’s sliver of a mouth. “Everything,” it hissed. “Go fuck yourself.”

A shriek tried to burst from Jesus, but panic locked it inside. He ran to the driver’s door and slammed it behind him, tossing the bat into the passenger floorboard, and shifting the truck into reverse. The heavy machine beeped its warning and bumped slightly, running over the alien monster a second time. The truck screeched to a stop and Jesus shifted into first. He nodded at Chuck before popping the clutch and running over the gray alien again.

“The opossums may all be aliens,” he said. “You wanna save the planet?”

“Hey, yeah,” Chuck said. “Can I pee first?”

Jesus soft brown eyes grew hard. “Hold it.”

***

The Cass County Disposal vehicle, a 1987 Loadmaster hopper fitted onto a Ford LN8000 truck, growled as it sat idling on the dead-of-night road. A 2002 champaign Toyota Camry blew past the truck out of fucking nowhere and screamed to a stop, blocking the road, its lights off.

A man in khaki Dockers and a polo jumped from the passenger seat, his arms waving over his head as if there’d been bees in the car. Jesus shifted the truck into neutral and revved the big diesel engine. Dockers Man stopped, now holding his hands palms up. Jesus’s left boot sank slowly onto the accelerator again, and the engine roared, black smoke rolled from the twin smoke stacks on either side of the cab. 

The driver door of the car opened, and a man stepped out; Jesus nearly shit. The man, dressed in a black helmet, black Kevlar vest, black uniform, and probably black underwear, moved forward, stopping beside Dockers Man. He pressed the butt of an M4A1 automatic rifle to his shoulder.

“You got something red on you,” Chuck said, swatting at Jesus’s forehead.

The red dot there came and went between the sweeps of Chuck’s hand. “It ain’t coming off.”

Docker’s Man took a step forward, his hands now at his sides. Military backup is a great confidence builder. He motioned for Jesus to kill the engine—he did.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Docker’s Man said, his voice firm, in control, but at the same time, not. The soldier stood solid as mortared brick.

At that moment, Jesus wanted nothing more than to drive to the sanitation department, get in his pickup, stop at the convenience store near his apartment for a twelve-pack and some roller dogs, then watch two hours of Shark Week while getting seriously fucked up. Some days are like that.

The laser sight flashed near Jesus’s eye and he raised a hand to block it, the red dot now on his palm. 

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

“Mr. Molina, Mr. Gordon,” Dockers Man said, taking a few more steps toward the cab. The soldier didn’t flinch. “Would you please exit the vehicle.”

“Who are these guys, Jesus?” Chuck asked from the corner of his mouth; fear gripped him and told him he’d better not fucking move if he knew what’s good for him.

“Government, I guess,” Jesus said. Dockers man crossed his arms in full view of the truck headlights, a frown dominated his face. “Do what he says. There’s a red dot on me.” 

“Yeah,” Chuck said. “I tried to tell you.”

Jesus opened the driver door, then put his hands on top of his head like the cops always ask the bad guy to do on TV. He stepped out.

“I don’t think I can, man,” Chuck said after him.

“Why?” Jesus asked. “You still gotta pee?”

Chuck’s door clicked and slowly opened. “No. Not anymore. I’m good.”

It’s a long way down from a garbage truck, the distance stretched by the automatic weapon. Jesus and Chuck finally landed on either side of the cab. Dockers Man smiled in a way that looked like he had trouble remembering how, then waved them forward.

“Come on,” the man said in a voice he would use on a puppy, if a puppy would let this man get close to it, which it wouldn’t. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“That’s what people say who’re going to hurt you,” Chuck said, as he shuffled toward the guy wearing Dockers.

Jesus moved until he met Chuck at the front of the truck, about ten feet from Dockers Man and the soldier. That sounded like an ’80s sitcom about mismatched buddies who solved crimes on an army base, Dockers Man and the Soldier.

Dockers Man, his hair combed so precisely he looked like he parted it with a razor, waved Jesus’ arms down. “We’re all friends here, Jesus, Chuck.”

“How come you know our names?” Chuck asked.

The smile disappeared. “If I told you ‘the government,’ would you shut up?”

Chuck’s head bobbed like a novelty toy.

“Good,” Dockers Man said. “My name is Dr. Karl Miller, I’m a physicist, and the director of Lemaître Labs.”

Chuck’s mouth dropped opened.

Dr. Miller squinted. “Do you know what we do there?”

“I, uh, I—” Jesus stuttered. “My friend here thinks you, you know, build time machines, and wormholes, and stuff.”

A laugh as devoid of humor as an Andy Dick standup leaked from the scientist. “We do lots of ‘and stuff’,” he said. “Which sometimes brings forth friends like these bug-eyed xenoterrestrials from HD 13808 b.”

“HD 13—” Jesus began.

A hand waved him off. “It’s a planet orbiting the star HD 13808, which is 93.27 light years from Earth,” Dr. Miller said. “We, uh, accidentally invited them for a visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t know the people from HD 13808 b were HD 13808 bastards until it was too late. They say they want to conquer our planet. We can’t let them do that.”

“Okay, okay.” Chuck’s shout cut off Dr. Miller. “What do you want from us?”

Dr. Miller glared at him before nodding, his razor-parted hair didn’t budge. 

“Extermination,” he said, motioning back down the highway. “I want you to take care of my problem. No. I want you to take care of the world’s problem.” He reached into his front pocket; Jesus and Chuck flinched. When Dr. Miller’s fist came out it held a thick business envelope. He dropped it onto the pavement. “There’s $5,000 in cash. There’s $5,000 more for you when you return to the lab. All you have to do is run over opossums. Hell, they practically run over themselves, am I right?”

The night suddenly ignited with sound. Owls, foxes, coyotes, and things none of them could identify.

“These xenoterrestrials are the scourge of the universe, gentlemen,” Dr. Miller said, approaching Jesus. He dropped a hand on the garbage man’s shoulder. “Come on Jesus, be the savior you were born to be.”

“Wha?” Jesus couldn’t even finish the word.

Dr. Miller waved a finger in the air and turned toward the Camry; the soldier moved with him.

Chuck leaned toward Jesus. “Should we tell him we were going to do it anyway?” he whispered.

Jesus stomped his boot. “Shut up and go get the money.”

“Jesus Christ,” Chuck wheezed.

“Oh,” Dr. Miller said, turning back toward the garbage men. “And I don’t want to worry about separating the glass from paper from aluminum anymore. That’s a bunch of horseshit. Take care of it yourselves.”

A rifle crack split the night. A second later, the soldier dropped to the gray, cracked rural highway, his blood dripping from the mouth of gray xenoterrestrial from HD 13808 b.

Fucker.

***

It all happened in slow motion, like in the movies. The turkey-head space alien crawled over the roof of the Camry, its long, thin limbs and deft fingers making no noise at all. Jesus and Chuck stood as still as Han Solo frozen in carbonite, their eyes bugged, unable to spit out a sound. The space monster reached the edge of the car roof and leapt, pulling the soldier’s head back as it ripped at his neck with whatever it had for teeth. The soldier’s finger involuntarily squeezed the trigger and a bullet shot harmlessly into the air. He dropped after a moment of frozen time, the alien grinning like someone had told it a dirty joke.

Dr. Karl Miller turned and screamed, running toward the garbage truck, obviously as used to physical exertion as he was to smiling.

“Get in the truck,” he shouted, waving his arms over his head. 

The sudden movement broke Jesus’ shock and he slapped Chuck’s arm before bolting for the driver’s door. Dr. Miller dashed past Chuck and climbed awkwardly into the cab, Chuck right behind him.

Jesus’ foot jammed the clutch to the floor, and he turned the key; the truck growled to life.

“Kill it,” Dr. Miller screamed, his finger pointed toward the alien from a shaking hand. 

The truck lurched forward in first gear, the engine moaning as Jesus shifted into second before the truck was ready.

“Can’t this thing go any faster?”

The xenoterrestrial hopped off the bloody body of the solider onto the roof the Camry, then into the air and out of sight before the Ford crashed into the Toyota, pushing the car to the side of the road as it continued down the highway.

“Faster? It’s a garbage truck, Mr. Miller,” Jesus shouted.

Dr. Miller.”

“Are you sure this is the time for that, dude?” Chuck asked. “We’re into uncharted territory here with the space monster, you know. Maybe if we all just went by Chuck, and Jesus, and Mister, We’d all be a lot happier with life.”

The scientist folded his arms to hide his shaking hands. “It smells awful in here,” he said.

“As I told you,” Jesus said. “It’s a garbage truck.”

Dr. Miller tightened his arms over his chest, the only sound in the cab came from the truck engine.

“Where’s that Xena Warrior Princess testicle guy?” Chuck eventually asked.

“Xenoterrestrial, you buffoon,” Dr. Miller said.

Chuck stuck his arm out the window to do the airplane. “Gee, I liked you better that three seconds when you didn’t talk.”

A gray, four-fingered hand shot from above the passenger window and clamped onto Chuck’s arm, its clawed nails pierced his flesh.

“Oh, shit. Shitshitshit,” flew from Chuck. He yanked his arm backed into the cab along with half the monster, the creature’s face loomed inches from Chuck’s own. Its mouth parted, needlelike teeth sprang from its gums, its face still smeared with the soldier’s blood. The alien’s grip tightened.

“Yaaaaa,” Chuck screamed as his left fist clenched and shot toward the creature’s head. In the moonlight, Chuck marveled at the beauty of his dirty, scarred knuckles reflecting in the creature’s black, googly eyes. 

The fist cracked the monster in its big stupid forehead, and its fingers fell limp, releasing Chuck’s arm. The xenoterrestrial flew off the truck toward the side of the road, its forehead dented in the shape of Chuck’s sizable meat hook. Chuck brought his fist into the truck and turned on the cab light—it was covered in purple goo.

“Its head went,” he said. “My hand just sunk in. It was like papier-mâché. And, and what is this purple shit, Jesus?”

“You’re lucky,” Dr. Miller said. “You got the jelly kind. Some of these spacemen bleed aqueous formaldehyde.”

Chuck didn’t ask what that was.

***

The garbage truck rattled into town; Jesus drove over twelve more opossums on the way in. He flinched each time the truck hit one, but he didn’t stop to see if the waddling forest-dwellers were friendly little bundles of insect-eating, naturally disease-resistant fur balls, or foul-mouthed bastards from space. He didn’t want to know. To him, they had to all be Mr. HD 13808 b Go Fuck Yourself space aliens or he would regret this night more than he did not asking out Jennylee McGill in high school.

Cotton candy light bathed Peculiar, population 5,139, like it never had, because it never had. The garbage truck crawled into town on State Route YY to Peculiar Drive and toward the interstate. 

“Why’s everything so pink?” Chuck asked. He hung his head out the truck window, taking in the glowing dome over town, a beam of the brightest light shot from somewhere near the Sonic Drive-in. Maybe, he figured, those extra-testicles liked chili-covered coney dogs. “They summoning My Little Ponies, or something?”

“It’s a beacon,” Dr. Miller said. “They’re showing those on HD 13808 b where they can get free Cheetos, and a soldier sandwich.”

Jesus shook his head. “Too soon,” he said, downshifting. The truck rumbled louder. “What do we do now?”

Dr. Miller pointed at a spot next to the Casey’s General Store. 

“Park there,” he barked.

Goddamn, Jesus thought. This guy was used to getting his way.

The truck slowed, and Jesus pulled onto the street next to the convenience store that advertised two large one-topping pizzas for $8.99 each; Miller Lite was on sale, too. Jesus knew where he was going after work. He cracked the door, his eyes on the pink dome above that cast the night in a bubble gum haze. Chuck followed Jesus as the garbage men stepped onto the street.

Dr. Miller tossed the baseball bat onto the grass next to the curb, followed by the shovel. He sat in Chuck’s seat holding a tire iron. 

“Well,” he said. “Go get them.”

“Shit yes,” Chuck tried not to shout, but shouted. “Shit yes, shee-it yes.”

Jesus took the bat, Chuck the shovel, and Dr. Miller slammed the truck doors, the locks engaging loud in the silent night. 

“Hey,” Jesus mouthed.

Dr. Miller gave Jesus a thumbs up, then shooed them toward downtown while he rolled up the windows.

“What was that?” Chuck asked.

“Nothing changes, my friend. It’s up to us to clean up somebody else’s mess,” Jesus said, resting the bat on his shoulder. “Do you know you have a hamburger wrapper stuck to your shoe?”

***

Jesus had never seen a Peculiar Police cruiser like the one that sat at the intersection of Main and Center Streets, partly because the vehicle lay on its side, but mostly because it was on fire.

“Jesus,” Jesus said.

A thick hand landed on his shoulder. “Where are all those Xena thingies?”

“I don’t know, man.” Jesus slowed his step, and stopped, his eyes glanced skyward at the zenith of the pink dome, the beam of light in its center a signal, the Miller guy said. WTF? 

“These things are beings with intelligence,” Jesus said. “From ninety-something light years away, and without help from home, or Elliott, or Mr. Spock, and they’ve rigged up some kind of short-wave pink-ass Strawberry Shortcake radio thing to tell their buddies Earth is where the party’s at.”

Chuck nodded. “That sounds better than what that Mr. Dr. Dockers Science Guy said.”

The baseball bat rose in Jesus right hand and he grabbed the barrel in his left, bringing it to rest across his shoulders.

“So, if these guys are so smart, why is our first reaction to kill them?”

Chuck’s eyes bugged. “You saw that one dude go after the soldier. It was like a Romero movie.”

A long hiss escaped Jesus. “They traveled 92 light years,” he said. “I get the anger, but I don’t condone the action. We should try talking with them.”

“Talk to them?” Chuck swung the shovel handle and slapped it in his left hand. “It’s time to take out the trash.”

Jesus glanced at his friend. “You been sitting on that one?”

“You know.” Chuck shrugged. “I thought since we’re sanitation engineers—”

“I get it.”

“It would be—”

Jesus pulled the bat off his shoulders. “I get it.”

“—april pose.”

A figure, its slick, oily skin reflecting pink from the dome, dropped in the grass strip next to the sidewalk where the garbagemen stood. It shrieked.

“Now,” Chuck said. “That’s no way to act. If you’re going to be here, on our planet, you really need to work on your etiquette and social graces.”

The thing shrieked again, then grabbed its chest, a barking cough burst from its thin mouth. 

“Hey,” Jesus said. “It’s laughing.” Glaring at the alien, he pointed to Chuck and back to himself. “We discovered, just tonight, we had friends in the cosmos, and we’re not being rude, so, come on, man. Work with us here.”

The alien creature’s black eyes squinted; talons sprang from its fingertips. “I will eat human babies.”

The shovel swung in Chuck’s hands and collided with the frozen turkey skull of the alien creature. The sentient monster’s face disintegrated from the impact, and the beast dropped. It didn’t move again because it didn’t have a face.

Seconds of silence ticked by. “Now that, that was simply uncalled for,” Chuck said.

Jesus turned to him. “April pose? You meant apropos, didn’t you?” he asked as Chuck wiped alien goo from the shovel onto the grass. “Dude. I keep telling you to read more.” 

***

A hum grew in the night, the sky glowing under the dome like they walked in the light of an alien sun. A fuchsia one. The street was clear as Jesus and Chuck made their way toward the beam that invited more of these HD 13808 bastards to Earth.

“Hasta la vista, baby,” Chuck whispered. “Is that better?”

Jesus paused at the corner of a women’s clothing store and pressed his back against the wall. “It’s been used.”

Chuck saddled up next to him. “How about, ‘If it bleeds, we can kill it’.”

“Also used.”

“It’s not a tumor,” Chuck said, resting the blade of the shovel on the toe of his boot so it didn’t clank on the sidewalk.

“No.” Jesus squinted at his friend and shook his head. “Now you’re just quoting random Schwarzenegger movies.”

A grin grew beneath Chuck’s stubble. “Talk to the hand.”

“Shhhh,” Jesus hissed. “You don’t need a catch phrase. Please, stop.”

Then Jesus did something he would later consider a bad idea; he looked around the corner. The scene on Main Street something out of a horror movie. A horror movie with aliens. Or maybe a science-fiction movie about aliens. Or a dystopian nightmare, with aliens. Or— 

“Shit,” Jesus whispered as he leaned back against the wall.

“What’d you see?” Chuck asked, the shovel back in both hands. “Opossums?”

“Aliens, man.” The words came out less manly than Jesus wanted to admit. “And people, dead people. I’m pretty sure they’re cops. And there are opossums everywhere.”

“People? Yeah, where is everybody?”

Jesus’ fists clenched into balls; tears threatened his eyes. “Hiding, probably.” He sucked back snot.

Chuck’s hand patted Jesus’ shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy. Breathe, slow and steady. In through your nose, out through your mouth like you’re blowing out a candle. Now—”

“Damn it, Chuck. There’s dozens of those xenodudes out there. One of them may have seen me.”

The hand Chuck used to pat Jesus went to his friend’s chest and pinned him to the wall. 

“I don’t like this,” Chuck said. “I don’t like today. I don’t like smelling like garbage all the time. I don’t like baby-eating space aliens, I definitely don’t that Miller guy, and I’m sorry, man, but I fucking hate opossums.”

“What are you saying?” Jesus asked, struggling against Chuck’s hand didn’t enter his mind.

“I’m saying I never wanted to be a garbage man. I wanted to be a rock star and date Pamela Anderson, but here I am. Here we are. Garbage men clean up things other people don’t want. Nobody wants aliens to take over our planet, and we’re garbage men. This is our job, dude. Get your shit together.”

Pinned against the wall, Jesus’s eyes foggily glared into Chuck’s. The misty stare slowly cleared, and Jesus stood straight, pushing his friend backward with the barrel of the bat.

“The beam of light’s coming from this device they built in the street from a John Deere lawnmower, a car stereo, and a big meat smoker, probably from Padoolers’ Place,” he said, his voice steady. Jesus slapped a hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “We need the truck.”

***

Dr. Karl Miller didn’t know how to drive a standard transmission, although by the sound of gears grinding, he was sure trying hard to learn. By the time the garbage men rounded the corner to the convenience store, the hum had grown louder, the beam of light brighter, and shrieks of xenoterrestrials behind them angrier. The truck still sat next to the Casey’s General Store, Miller shouting words they couldn’t hear from behind the windows he’d rolled up, and the doors he’d locked.

Jesus leaped onto the running board, his smoker’s lungs begging for air.

“Hey,” he coughed; his right hand beat on the window. “Unlock the door, Miller.”

Dr. Karl Miller didn’t move his gaze from the steering wheel, sweat soaked his hair. He didn’t unlock the door; he revved the engine instead. 

Someone, or something screamed behind them; it was close. Chuck pounded the passenger window. “Open the door, man.”

“Chuck,” Jesus said.

Chuck dropped from view, and the shovel swung, shattering the passenger window; glass flew across the interior of the cab. Miller didn’t flinch, although glass stuck in his perfectly combed hair. 

Another screech, even closer.

Jesus leaned to the side and pulled a magnetic key holder from under the front wheel well. He slid the rusty lid open with his thumb, took out the spare key, and unlocked the driver’s door.

He pulled himself inside; Chuck held Miller in a headlock.

“I had a key,” Jesus said, rolling down the driver-side window. “And I am not filling out paperwork for what you did.”

The Cass County Disposal truck puffed and sputtered as Jesus steered it behind the convenience store.

“What are you doing?” Miller asked, his voice soft, shaky. Chuck held the scientist by the scruff of the neck with his left hand, the handle of the shovel that lay across his lap in his right.

“Taking out the trash,” Chuck said.

The night grew silent. A slight breeze blew a piece of paper through the cab. Jesus didn’t say a thing.

“I already used that one, didn’t I?”

Jesus shook his head. “You really have to stop.”

“It was derivative,” Miller said. “You’d never make it in improv.”

The truck groaned to a stop facing the convenience store’s dumpster. The front loader thunked against the metal trash bin, latched onto the hook lift bars and hoisted it off the pavement. When the garbage truck swung back toward the street, a gray figure stood in its way. Jesus shifted into neutral, the emergency brake clicked into place.

“What are you doing, dude?” Chuck’s voice shaking. “Ram it.”

“I’m following the lead of the Plastic Ono Band,” Jesus said, grabbing the baseball bat. “Giving peace a chance. Or, another chance.”

His heavy boots slapped the pavement, the xenoterrestrial from HD 13808 b not more than twenty feet away. The creature opened its slim mouth, its gums filled with teeth. 

“I’ve seen that trick,” Jesus said, his right hand gripped the bat handle hard. “Very nice. You could take it on the road, but, you know, I guess being here means you already have.”

The monster’s four-fingered hands rose, talons sprang out like the claws of a cat.

“Seen that one, too, buddy. You may need to work on your act. How are you with juggling?”

The space monster took a step forward; Jesus held up his left hand, palm first, and the xenoterrestrial stopped, the glow from the dome casting pink highlights on its cold, unfeeling eyes.

“What are you doing?” it asked, the voice a little too much like Christopher Walken for Jesus’s tastes.

“Not fighting,” Jesus responded, keeping the palm up. It seemed to be working. “I understand you were brought here against your will.”

The xenoterrestrial sneered. “Miller.”

“Would you go back to HD 13808 b if we gave you Miller?”

“Hey,” the scientist shouted from the truck.

“No,” it said. “It is not our way.”

The night shimmered and the space alien stood closer. It hadn’t moved, not in the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other way, the creature simply stood closer. 

“What is your way?” Jesus asked, his words stumbled through the hypnotic stare of the beast that came to Earth through 93.27 light years.

It’s fingers not so much waved as they wavered, moving as if through heat radiating from a summer road.

“We—” it started, then dropped to the street with a crushed skull. 

Chuck stood behind it holding a shovel covered in purple goo. “Too much yackin’ not enough whackin’,” he said, then shrugged. “Miller said it was psychically eating your brain.” Chuck waved Jesus on. “Let’s go. Sounds like shit’s going down on Main Street.”

“Hey,” Chuck continued as he helped Jesus back to the truck. “That’s needs to be the title of the story somebody’s going to write about tonight. ‘Shit’s Going Down on Main Street’.”

***

Small, thin figures milled around the device the creatures built in the street, the pink light that shot into space now diagonal to the horizon. 

“What’s going on?” Chuck asked.

“The Earth’s moving through space,” Miller said. “They had to change the trajectory of the signal to ensure enough of it reaches HD 13808 b the signal’s not considered simply a blip. They need a WOW signal.”

“A WOW signal?” Chuck scratched his head with the shovel.

Miller started to answer, but Jesus cut him off.

“It was a strong signal received by a radio telescope in 1977 that held the signs of being from an extraterrestrial source. The guy who saw it wrote ‘WOW’ on the printout.”

Miller slow clapped. “I guess I should say, wow.”

Jesus’ eyes didn’t move off the scene before them. He shifted into gear and pointed the garbage truck toward the device. “I’m well read.”

Unearthly screams—literal unearthly screams—sliced through the air; opossums launched their fat furry little bodies from business rooftops, their bodies churning in mid-flight. They hit the pavement on two four-toed feet. Jesus shifted to second, a mass of alien bodies rushed toward the garbage truck. 

The big diesel engine roared as Jesus pushed the accelerator deeper toward the floor and shifted to third.

The first xenoterrestrial exploded when the dumpster hit it. Jesus shifted gears again, and gunned the engine, the dumpster on the front loader plowed through HD 13808 b baby-eaters like, well, you know, a dumpster at 35 miles per hour.

“Whoooooooo,” Chuck howled from the shattered window, his middle finger high in the air.

Jesus downshifted and slammed the brakes of the old Ford LN8000; the squeal of brake pads that desperately needed changed sliced through the alien screams until the truck shuddered to a stop, the dumpster hovering over the pink beam. The steel garbage bin glowed red before Jesus hit the toggle, dropping the big trash bin atop the John Deere; the alien device shot sparks. He threw the truck into reverse; aliens dropped behind it, crushed under the wheels.

Then the truck stopped, and Jesus shoved the emergency brake to the floor. The alien signal died beneath the dumpster; the pink dome vaporized above them.

“Chuck,” Jesus said. 

Chuck’s eyes grew, a smile crossed his face. “Yeah.”

“You wanna take out the trash?”

The big man shot out the door before Jesus had a chance to grab the bat.

***

The rest of the night was boring. The few remaining xenoterrestrials transformed into opossums and tried to waddle into dark alleys, but that made them even easier to catch. After the dome disappeared, people flooded from their homes, apartments, and a few businesses armed with knives, 2x4s, garden implements, and a couple of deer rifles. 

Minutes later, the thoo-thoo-thoo of helicopter blades grew, and bright, white spotlights cut the night. Miller approached the garbage men and stopped between them.

“Those are my people,” he said. “They’re here to remove the evidence.”

“Evidence?” Chuck asked.

“The evidence our friends from HD 13808 b were ever here.”

Chuck and Jesus stood silently, watching a man in a waiter uniform chase down a opossum and beat it to death with a bus tub.

“Would you give me a lift back to the lab?” Miller asked. “My people are going to be a bit busy here for a while.”

“Why should we?” Chuck snapped.

Jesus lay the purple-goo-covered baseball bat over his right shoulder. “We will, on one condition,” he said, like Chuck hadn’t spoken. “Tell us what you’re doing out there in the lab, for real.”

Miller moved his arm like he was about ready to pat Jesus’ shoulder, but apparently thought better of it.

“Sure,” he said. “No one’s going to believe you anyway.”

***

The old Ford garbage truck pulled through the main gate this time, soldiers in black stood guard, cameras mounted along the top of the fence followed the truck. The body of the soldier and the Toyota on Route YY were gone. Neither Jesus nor Chuck wondered where they went.

“So, you’re telling us you have a supercollider that runs from here under the whole town?” Jesus asked? “And it opens what now?”

“Holes in time and space,” Miller said. “That’s where the our friends came from. You know how long it would take them to fly here from there? Voyager 1 moves at 38,200 miles per hour. For something cruising at that speed to cross 92 light years, it would take more than 1.5 million Earth years.”

Chuck whistled. “Whoa.” 

“You bet your butt, whoa,” Miller said. 

Jesus stopped the truck near what looked like the front door. “And you can remove that distance with the push of a button?”

“Not exactly, but close enough for government work, which this is,” Miller said. “So, you officially can’t talk about it, but like I said, no one’s going to believe you.”

He pulled an envelope from the deep front pocket of his Dockers and dropped it onto the dash.

“The rest of the money I’d promised,” he said as Chuck moved to let Miller from the truck. “You did your country, nay, your species a great service tonight, gentlemen. Those HD 13808 bers are jerks.”

Miller held onto the door as he lowered himself to the paved parking lot. “Oh, if you all see something big and hairy on your way home, please don’t run over it. It’s probably Oscar.”

“Oscar?” Jesus asked, but Miller had already disappeared between the sliding glass doors to Lemaître Labs.

The drive back to town was quiet, and a bit anticlimactic.

“We should wash the truck,” Chuck said. “It probably has alien goo all over it. Who knows what that purple stuff is doing to the paint?”

Jesus said nothing.

“Well, we at least should do something about that window,” Chuck said. “You think Mac can fix it up back at the shop?”

Silence.

Chuck sat and stared into the night.

“Holy shit,” he shouted, pointing to the side of the road. A dark, hairy two-legged creature tall enough to look inside the cab, stood on the shoulder. “I think that’s a Bigfoot, Jesus. A Bigfoot.”

Jesus jerked the wheel and clipped the beast. It spun off the hit and disappeared into the distance and the tall grass.

“Not anymore,” he said, not slowing down. “You wanna go grab a beer?”

“Sure,” Chuck said, his breath coming hard. “Anything but a Miller.”

Review: The Brass Queen by Elizabeth Chatsworth

Constance Haltwhistle, a headstrong young woman of unruly hair and suspicious tendencies, has a problem. More than one, really, such as the law demanding she marry someone respectable or lose the family estate, an error with a sausage delivery to the king of Sweden he’s not happy about, and the damn cowboy. Yes, the cowboy was definitely a problem.

Haltwhistle is the Brass Queen, an arms manufacturer in a steampunk Victorian England. She has been in control of Haltwhistle Estate since her scientist father, the Baron Haltwhistle, disappeared. Whether he be treasure hunting in Africa, or China or on another world is anyone’s guess.

Author Elizabeth Chatsworth
Photo credit: Sam Chinigo

The night of her coming-out party is a disaster, complete with an airship, a kidnapping, and the appearance of the cowboy J.F. Trusdale. Is all of this connected? Does Constance find a husband? And what happens when royalty comes to town? 

THE BRASS QUEEN is the debut novel of author Elizabeth Chatsworth, and is a dizzyingly fun romp through a world where modern conveniences are run by steam, and all our characters are run by hijinks and shenanigans. Palace intrigue, spies, and Prussian polo, THE BRASS QUEEN has a lot to offer, usually through a veil of cheeky humor.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the rules of Prussian polo,” author Chatsworth writes, “there are only seven hundred and thirty-seven, so it’s much easier to understand than cricket.”

Constance is irresistibly flawed. Brilliant, beautiful, self-centered, and endowed with serious trust issues. The man she butts heads with, J.F. Trusdale, is a mysterious, rustic American who’s a bit of an embarrassment to Victorian British society. These characters gel, even when they try not to. The twists in the plot kept me eagerly flipping pages to see just how the Brass Queen handles herself in this world of royal backstabbing.

Much like its namesake, THE BRASS QUEEN is funny, smart and smooth. Chatsworth’s writing style is tight, light, and easy to read. Even the secondary and tertiary characters are fleshed out, the villains believable and truly, truly unlikeable. 

The book, however, isn’t without a weakness or two. Chatsworth shows the reader a picture we’d like to see painted into a little more clarity. For one example, Chatsworth makes a point—more than once—that a character in Haltwhistle’s employ is an accomplished boxer, but we never see him box. This is in no way Chekhov’s gun, but the mentions made me expect he and the cowboy Trusdale (no small man himself) to square off. 

No matter, I thoroughly enjoyed the fast-moving, humor-filled THE BRASS QUEEN, and I’m sure fans of steampunk will love it as much as I have. 

The Brass Queen is a 448-page steampunk novel available at CamCatbooks.com and all major online outlets.

Jason Offutt is the author of sixteen books, including the novel So You Had to Build a Time Machine from CamCat Books. He teaches journalism at Northwest Missouri State University.

Get Jason’s New Novel

Live cockroaches not included.

Jason Offutt’s newest novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” is out and available wherever fine books are sold (and they’re selling Jason’s too). This 352-page humorous sci-fi romp has been described as “quantum shenanigans” in a recent five-star review that declares, “This book is a gem. A perfect blend of sci-fi and light humor.”

Pick it up in hardback, trade paperback, audiobook or ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or for an autographed paperback copy, right here:

About the book:

Skid doesn’t believe in ghosts or time travel or any of that nonsense on Syfy. A circus runaway-turned-bouncer, she believes in hard work, self-defense, and good strong coffee. Then one day an annoying theoretical physicist named Dave pops into the seat next to her at her least favorite Kansas City bar and disappears into thin air when she punches him (he totally deserved it).

Now, street names are changing, Skid’s favorite muffins are swapping frosting flavors, Dave keeps reappearing in odd places like the old Sanderson murder house—and that’s only the start of her problems.

Something in the world has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Absolutely &#*$&ed up.

Someone has the nastiest versions of every conceivable reality at their fingertips, and they’re not afraid to smash them together. With the help of a smooth-talking haunted house owner and a linebacker-sized Dungeons and Dragons-loving baker, Skid and Dave set out to save the world from whatever scientific experiment has sent them all dimension-hopping against their will.

It probably means the world is screwed.

‘So You Had to Build a Time Machine’ is HERE

Jason Offutt’s new novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” is available NOW from CamCat Books.

Skid doesn’t believe in ghosts or time travel or any of that nonsense on Syfy. A circus runaway-turned-bouncer, she believes in hard work, self-defense, and good strong coffee. Then one day an annoying theoretical physicist named Dave pops into the seat next to her at her least favorite Kansas City bar and disappears into thin air when she punches him (he totally deserved it).

Now, street names are changing, Skid’s favorite muffins are swapping frosting flavors, Dave keeps reappearing in odd places like the old Sanderson murder house—and that’s only the start of her problems.

Something in the world has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Absolutely &#*$&ed up.

Someone has the nastiest versions of every conceivable reality at their fingertips, and they’re not afraid to smash them together. With the help of a smooth-talking haunted house owner and a linebacker-sized Dungeons and Dragons-loving baker, Skid and Dave set out to save the world from whatever scientific experiment has sent them all dimension-hopping against their will.

It probably means the world is screwed.

Find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and wherever books are sold.

"So You Had to Build a Time Machine" Five-Star Review.

Jason’s New Sci-Fi Novel is HERE. Want a signed copy?

Skid doesn’t believe in ghosts or time travel or any of that nonsense. A circus runaway-turned-bouncer, she believes in hard work, self-defense, and good strong coffee. Then one day an annoying theoretical physicist named Dave pops into the seat next to her at her least favorite Kansas City bar and disappears into thin air when she punches him (he totally deserved it).

Now, street names are changing, Skid’s favorite muffins are swapping frosting flavors, Dave keeps reappearing in odd places like the old Sanderson murder house—and that’s only the start of her problems.

Something has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Absolutely &#*$&ed up.

Someone has the nastiest versions of every conceivable reality at their fingertips, and they’re not afraid to smash them together. With the help of a smooth-talking haunted house owner and a linebacker-sized Dungeons and Dragons-loving baker, Skid and Dave set out to save the world from whatever scientific experiment has sent them all dimension-hopping against their will.

It probably means the world is screwed.

Available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

For a signed copy, look on the right side of this page, or contact Jason and say howdy at: jason@jasonoffutt.com.

An Alien Feast

I wrote this story 20-plus years ago, then lost it sometime during a move, or after getting a new computer, or going through a funk. The story came to mind recently and I remembered I liked it, so I rewrote the thing. Let me know what you think – and if you like it, there’s a donation button on the home page. Thank you.

By Jason Offutt

The ranger glared at me from behind an old wooden desk, a Rocky Mountain National Forest coffee mug clenched so tightly in his hands I worried his knuckles might explode. The dangers of wearing a white shirt. Well, a once-white shirt.

“You know what this all sounds like, right?” he asked through a frown that made his laugh lines look like they wanted to punch me.

The past day had been an ugly slice of hell. I don’t know how long it took me to drive my Camry down to the little ranger station from the lake on the mountain, but it was a lot faster than when Denny and I drove up. Yes, I knew what my story sounded like to the ranger because it sounded the same to me. It sounded like a load of shit.

“It sounds like a load of shit,” he continued, plucking a pen from a wooden desk set, a Colorado flag on a little pole rose from its center. “You sure you want to stick with this story?”

I nodded. “Yes sir,” I said, my voice shakier than I would have liked.

He opened a drawer and pulled out a wooden clipboard. “Well, okay then, Mr. Smithmeyer. Tell me again exactly what happened to your friend.”

***

I saw Denny the moment I turned onto his street. He stood on the sidewalk, a duffle, a big Coleman cooler, fishing poles, tackle box, and a bag with a canvas camp chair at his feet. He leaned against his mailbox like he didn’t have anything better to do, the neck of a beer bottle pinched between his fingers. Cheap, domestic. The beer, not Denny. No, I guess that summed up Denny, too. His faded T-shirt read, “My Other Shirt’s on Your Wife.”

“You’re late, compadre,” he said as I came to a stop and rolled down my car’s passenger side window, his words slow and cool. Listening to Denny was like drinking Pepto-Bismol spiked with vodka.

Maybe that’s how he talked me into camping this weekend. Camping’s something other people do, people who don’t mind slapping mosquitoes in their sleep. At least we had a cabin at the Valley View Campgrounds somewhere near Rocky Mountain National Park. But he brought fishing poles. Just freakin’ great. If people were supposed to eat fish, catching them wouldn’t smell so bad.

“You don’t own a watch,” I said, punching the button to pop the trunk. “Or a cell phone. You wouldn’t know what time it was if you lived in Greenwich.”

He picked up the cooler, probably full of beer instead of food, and moved to the back of the car. “I don’t need a watch; I can feel time,” he said, shoving the big red box next to my sleeping bag that was still in its store packaging. “Like right now. As soon as I load my gear into this bucket, that’s completely unsuitable for camping by the way, I’ll know it’s time for another beer, and maybe a sandwich. I always get hungry when I go camping.”

Dear Lord. This weekend was a mistake. Much like Decca Records signing Brian Poole and the Tremeloes instead of the Beatles, spending two days in the mountains with Denny Lewellyn was trusting the government-level stupid.

***

The ranger cleared his throat. “How long have you known Mr. Lewellyn?” he asked.

Really? We didn’t have time for– aw, for Christ’s sake. I shrugged. “Fifteen years, or so.”

He scribbled some words, or a doodle, onto the clipboard before looking back at me. “And is Mr. Lewellyn prone to doing anything rash?”

I would have laughed if this situation wasn’t such a clusterfuck casserole. Rash? Denny never did anything “rash.” Rash meant considering the consequences before disregarding them. Denny never considered the consequences.

“I guess you could say that.”

The Ranger’s dark eyes and Bruce Campbell chin were imposing. As he looked at me over his desk, I suddenly realized this situation didn’t look good for me. No, it looked awful.

***

I guess it was more like twenty years. I met Denny the first day of high school. He sat behind me in Mr. Clarkson’s science class. “Cool Trapper Keeper,” he’d said as I walked by him to sit at the only empty desk in the room. There was a reason the desk in front of Denny was open, and my Trapper Keeper wasn’t cool. I told Mom I wanted a Power Rangers notebook and she got me one. The Pink Ranger. I’ve never lived that down and I’m 34.

“Mr. Clarkson,” Denny said from behind me. “Pink Ranger here said he’d like to panspermia all over Venus. Then he giggled.”

What?

“Well,” Mr. Clarkson said, rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt. “I’m afraid he’d find the 864 degrees Fahrenheit ground temperature, the carbon dioxide atmosphere and Venus’s sulfuric acid clouds a bit less sexy than they sound.” He grabbed a black dry erase marker and moved toward the board. “Now, if you’ll all turn your textbooks to page 48.”

I turned toward Denny, my face pinched in anger. He just smiled an idiotic “aw, shucks” smile and opened his textbook. We’ve been friends ever since.

***

Denny downed three beers before we left the foothills and took Highway 40 into the mountains, year-round snow decorating the rocky peaks like a sundae topping. I’ve always liked the mountains, at least the view of them from Denver, with its tall buildings and all that friendly concrete to keep me safe. The Rockies seemed jagged, cold and dangerous. Frostbite dangerous. Bear dangerous. Falling from a tall height to my death dangerous. My folks took my sister and I skiing a few times growing up, but I never left the resort’s lodge. I guess I liked hot chocolate more than the prospect of an icy, tree-inspired death.

The engine of my Honda Civic groaned as we wound up the highway that curved through the mountains.

“Shift to Low,” Denny said, his voice as relaxed as Casual Friday.

Okay, so I’d never driven in the mountains before. I volunteered to drive because Denny did all the planning. The dates, supplies, a cabin on a lake, and apparently a fishing rod for me. Whoo-hoo. Besides, I knew he’d be drunk by noon. It was Saturday.

“Do you want to drive?” I asked.

The hiss of another beer opening came from beside me. “Do you really want me to?”

No. Of course not. Denny would be into the beer all day. The driving was mine.

Mountain highways are up and down with more twists than a Slinky, but all I saw were guardrails, asphalt and runaway truck ramps of gravel and sand. Why would anyone want to drive here? About an hour in, the mountains opened and a long, slender valley spread out before us.

A blue road sign read ‘Valley View Campgrounds next exit.’ Dear god, we made it. “This is it? Valley View? There’s a lake and a Circle K across the road. This has to be it.”

The highway had gone straight, leaving the sheer hundred-foot drops behind, so I chanced a glance at Denny. His grin was like that first day in Mr. Clarkson’s class.

“This is it, right?”

He took a long, slow drink of beer before answering. “Don’t put on your turn signal just yet, cowboy.”

Cowboy, my ass. I put on the turn signal.

“Hey—”

“Shut up,” I shouted, my face grew hot. I guess I was pretty stressed at that point. The wheels crunched on the shoulder gravel as the Camry ground to a halt. I slammed the transmission into Park and turned on Denny. “What do you mean don’t put on the turn signal just yet? This is it. Valley View Campgrounds. That’s what you told me.”

If I’d been a little more riled, Denny’s grin would have been punchable. If mountain driving did that to people, why did anyone ever go skiing?

“Well,” he said, drawing out the Ls like a car salesman trying to tell me how important it was to add the undercoating. “I thought about that, and sleeping in a cabin isn’t really camping.”

“What?” For a person like me who considered the out-of-doors something as alien as, well, an alien, a one-room cabin was as camping as I was willing to get.

“And besides,” he continued. “Think of all the money I’m saving us.”

I might have bought his bullshit if he really was a car salesman, but I’d known him too long. “How much?”

His grin broke into a full smile. “All of it.”

***

The ranger stuffed the pen behind his ear long enough to take a drink of coffee. He hadn’t offered me any. Can’t say I wanted coffee, not now, but I needed something real, something sane to focus on or I was afraid I’d run screaming out of this little building in the trees.

“Excuse me, officer,” I stuttered.

He glared at me. “I’m not an officer, I’m a park ranger.” He sat down the coffee mug. “Although I can arrest you faster than you can tell me what a goddamned idiot you are.”

How did he know what I was thinking? “May I have something to drink?” I asked.

His frown told me I could go eff myself, but he pushed his tall athletic frame from behind the desk and walked to a white mini-fridge next to the bathroom door and pulled out a bottle of water.

“So you left the highway. Where did you end up?” he asked as he sat back down, setting the plastic water bottle on the desk, staring at me like he was daring me to pick it up.

“At a lake somewhere near Barr Pass,” I said. “At least that’s what was on the sign. It was old and kind of hard to read.”

The ranger’s eyes popped wide. “Barr Pass? That’s the backcountry.”

Backcountry? Damn straight. Dirt roads all the way up. “Yeah?”

His pen started scratching on the form again. “Did you have an overnight wilderness permit?”

Permit? No way in hell Denny got a permit. Damn it. The ranger began writing so fast I was surprised the paper didn’t catch fire.

“You said there was a lake,” he continued. “That would be Lake Campbell. Did you fish?”

***

“What?” Denny had said about an hour before dusk after he’d set up the tent and started the campfire. I sat on a log at the lakeshore, although why Denny’s canvas fold-up chair was still in its case, I didn’t know. That wasn’t all I didn’t know. “You don’t know how to bait a hook? All hail the Pink Ranger.” Those weren’t his last words to me, but they were close.

***

“Lake Campbell is restricted,” the ranger said, not looking up. “Did you catch any fish?”

After what happened, this guy is worried about fish.

“Yeah, Denny caught a few fish, I didn’t.” The ranger’s facial expression didn’t falter. “I just pretended to fish.”

“How many did you boys catch?” the ranger asked.

“I don’t remember,” I said, and I didn’t, because while Denny laughed at me, a load of shit happened. “That’s when I saw the light.”

***

The sun had just started to go down over the mountains, the pink pastels of dusk staining the sky like God had wiped it with a chunk of meat. The sounds of darkness had just begun; the cries of night birds hunting, the buzz of the few insects that had the balls to exist at this altitude. Then I almost toppled off the log. A light flared above a patch of trees on the other side of the lake and the noise of the approaching night died as if someone had flicked a switch. “Whoa,” I Keanued.

The light hung stupidly in the sky just over the treetops. Words formed in my brain. Words like, ‘I hate camping,’ but nothing came out. I reached out a shaking hand and pointed over Denny’s shoulder.

“What?” Denny asked. “You see a Bigfoot?”

Bigfoot? At that point I would have welcomed a Bigfoot. Bigfoot’s supposed to be a mammal. I’m a mammal. We’re like brothers. But reality sat on me like a weight as heavy that Bigfoot. Whatever this light was, it wasn’t from around here.

***

The ranger started to say something, but I held up my shaking hand. He didn’t want to, but he pinched his mouth and leaned back in the chair; the old springs creaked in protest. My throat was dry and the water bottle was within my reach, but I didn’t dare stop. If I did, I didn’t know if I’d finish.

“It wasn’t just me,” I said. “Denny saw it too. That’s how I found he had a gun.”

***

Denny swung around, following my finger, and the smile dropped off his face. “Wha?” he said. His half-full beer bottle and fishing pole hit the ground. “What the hell is that?”

I shouldn’t know, I couldn’t know, but deep down I did. I’d seen too many Saturday afternoon movies as a kid not to. What I didn’t know is how my legs had enough strength to push me to my feet. As I stood with the balance of a sock monkey, I noticed all sound had died. The night birds, cicadas, mosquitos, everything. The loudest noise was my heart beating in my ears.

“It’s, it’s—” I started, but stopped trying. The words were too stupid for me to say out loud. It didn’t matter; Denny had already walked away from me and disappeared into the tent.

“Hey,” I started to say, but he’d already reappeared, pulling a hunting rifle from his canvas folding chair bag.

“You have your cell phone?” he asked, pushing brass casings into the gun breech.

Phone? “Yeah, but I don’t have any reception, and—” The world began to spin out of control. “Where did you get that?”

His hand slammed back the rifle’s bolt and shoved it forward with a click. “Walmart.”

What? “No, today. How did a rifle—?” Shit. That wasn’t a chair. “Why did you bring a rifle?”

He leaned the weapon across his chest. “To protect our beer. Duh.”

“Our beer? From what?”

“Bears. In 2004, a black bear walked into a Baker Lake, Washington, campsite, tipped over a cooler, drank 36 beers and didn’t even offer to pay for them. True story. Bears are jerks.”

The light over the forest flared then dimmed and Denny’s smile grew into the most genuine expression of pleasure I’d ever seen on his stupid face. The glowing ball pulsated alternately from red to white to screw you. Mountains, fishing, camping, flying saucers? No. Oh, hell no. I wasn’t doing this anymore. My hand dove into my jeans pocket and pulled out the car keys.

“Come on, man. Don’t you want see it?” he asked.

See it? See It? We didn’t even know what ‘it’ was. “You mean that thing from ‘Alien’ that exploded from John Hurt’s chest?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I was thinking hot girls from Venus, but I’m good either way.”

I could have left right then. I should have left right then, but something about Denny’s smirk made me stay and see this thing out.

***

Sticks and last season’s leaves crunched as we made our way through the cover of quaking aspens and bristlecone pines. Denny walked straight, casual, the rifle on his shoulder like he didn’t plan to use it. That was it. Maybe he didn’t plan to use it. He brought the rifle as a safety precaution. It’s always good to be safe, right? Besides, there were bears in these woods, and bears were jerks.

The glow grew as we walked through the trees until it blotted out the night. Random thoughts that the light came from poachers, or a Hollywood documentary team shooting the nocturnal mating habits of wolverines, skittered through my head as we hit a tree line that opened to reveal a wide, grassy glade. A spaceship, a flying effing saucer, hung about six feet over a field of tall grass.

The shit was real.

Something bumped my arm, but I hardly felt it. My full attention was nailed to the B-movie saucer.

“Hey,” Denny hissed, hitting my arm again. “Check that out.”

I would have said, “huh,” if my mouth worked. It didn’t. At that moment I didn’t know if it would ever work again.

A figure stood in the grass of the clearing, its skin so pale it nearly became one with the light. It bent, extending a spindly arm into the tall grass and came up with a little, purple flower. The creature – and that’s what it was. It had two arms and two legs, but it wasn’t one of us – held the flower up to its enormous black eyes. A smile pulled across its narrow slit of a mouth. I’m not sure, but it was probably at this point I pissed myself.

“That, my friend, is an alien,” Denny said from beside me, but his words seemed too far away for me to really hear.

Dear god, it was an alien. A being that had traveled through the vacuum of space in a piece of cookware stood a football toss away from us. It looked like the kind of spaceman that took Richard Dreyfuss. A real frozen turkey-headed butt-prober. And it was smiling at a purple flower. Did it want to be friends?

That’s when Denny shifted his weight and a branch snapped under his boot. The thing’s huge, almond eyes swung toward us and narrowed. It hissed, revealing a row of sharp bone where its teeth should be.

***

“And?” The ranger leaned forward on his elbows, his jaw set tight.

I had stopped talking, my throat dry, my eyes wet.

“Denny shot it,” I said, my voice shaky. “He shot it. The think jerked backward and the little alien guy dropped into the grass, but it never dropped the flower.”

***

The light had blinked out before the echo of the gunshot died, and the ship was gone. It was just gone.

***

I wiped my face with the back of my arm and looked at the ranger. I couldn’t read his expression. Pity? Anger? Disgust? Maybe all three; I was pangusting.

The safety seal on the water bottle cracked as I twisted it off. The water should have felt good going down my throat, I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since I saw what I saw, but I didn’t feel anything. Did I see what I saw? I understood the look of pangust on the ranger. This sounded crazy.

“Well, what happened next?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, exactly. It was all kind of weird.”

The ranger leaned back, tapping his wooden pen on the desk. “I don’t appreciate being jerked around, Mr. Smithmeyer,” he said, his voice low.

I shook my head and said, “I’m not jerking you around. It’s what happened.”

***

The smell of burning meat dragged me awake, my stomach rumbling. I hadn’t eaten in hours and the smoky, wood-roasted scent climbed up my nostrils and bounced over my CB1 receptors. My stomach rumbled again, audibly. Geez, that smelled good. I sniffed the air. It wasn’t fish. Nope. Definitely not fish. I crawled from the tent.

Denny sat on the log he’d dragged from the lakeshore, pulling meat off a bone with his teeth. He looked at me and grinned, an orange flicker glistened off his greasy chin. Food. This day. This awful, awful day was over.

“Hey, Pink Ranger. I told you I always get hungry when I go camping,” he said through a mouthful of food. “About time you joined the party. We’ve missed you.”

We?

“What do you me—” Not for the first time today, my voice clogged my throat like an eating contest fail. Next to Denny, firelight danced across two enormous black eyes.

“Denny,” came out in a whisper.

He leaned to his right and patted a decapitated gray head. It leaned against the log, staring across the fire, at me. The alien he’d shot in the clearing was real. It was real.

Denny pointed the meatless femur at me before flicking it over my head into the darkness. “Their bones are hollow,” he said. “Like a bird’s. Which makes sense because they taste like chicken.” Then he laughed. He laughed.

Chicken? Oh, my god, it tastes like chicken. “Denny,” I said. Why was my voice so small?

He pulled a piece of meat off what was left of the alien carcass he’d wrapped in foil and cooked with onions and, what was that smell? Thyme? Who brings thyme on a camping trip?

“Hungry?” Denny asked, waving the gray meat at me, a glob of it wiggling like my third-grade teacher’s arm flap. “Come on, man. It’s finger lickin’ good.”

My once-growling stomach was suddenly as quiet as the night.

“You ate it?” I said, not understanding any of this. Not one damn bit. “It was an intelligent creature, Denny.”

He dropped the chunk of meat back onto the foil and wiped his hands on his jeans. “He started it.”

No. No, no, no. “That thing came from outer effing space, marveled at the wonders of our planet’s nature, and this is where you go? You killed and ate it?”

“Yeah.”

I stumbled behind the tent and threw up.

***

I don’t know what woke me up. Maybe it was the silence. I don’t know from experience, but I’ve seen enough 1980s action movies to know nature at night is full of sound, like Austrian grunting and explosions. The only thing I heard in the tent was Denny next to me snoring off all that beer and a bellyful of gray space alien. The thought just—.

Oh, shit. Something moved. I twisted my head toward the spot where Denny lay. We weren’t alone in the tent. If I’d had any liquid left in my bladder I’d have pissed myself again. A gray alien, just like the one Denny shot in the clearing, stood over him, staring at me with those great, black eyes.

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god.

It moved one slim hand toward its face and held its long index finger over its mouth. What’s it— It’s shushing me. It’s shushing me?

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god.

The gray creature lowered its hand and held it over Denny who muttered something in his sleep but didn’t wake. I opened my mouth; I had to say something. I had to wake Denny before, before what? The thing’s tiny slit slid into a frown and moved its other hand toward me. A flower, small and purple was pinched between its slim fingers. The gray being dropped the flower and it fell toward me in slow motion.

***

I looked up at the ranger who was no longer writing.

“So,” he said, his voice low, his patience forced as a parent’s. “You go out for a buddy weekend. You camp and fish in a restricted area without permits. Your buddy disappears and you’re telling me it’s because of space aliens?”

It sounded crazy, just batshit crazy, but it wasn’t. “Yeah.”

“And what proof do you have?”

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a purple flower. “This,” I said. “This is the flower the space guy dropped on my head. It made me pass out. When I woke up Denny was gone. The alien and the remains were gone. And the ground was covered in these things.”

The ranger barked a laugh. “That?” he asked. “That’s an Aspen daisy, son. There’s Aspen daisies all over these mountains.” He stood, his full height taller than I was comfortable with. He grabbed his hat.

“What are you doing?”

He nodded toward the door. “We’re going back up there.”

No. “Oh, no,” I said, my voice echoed in the small room. A hot wave washed across my face, and my chest pinched. Is this what a heart attack feels like? “I’m not going back up there. No way. No way in hell.”

The ranger walked around the desk toward me. “I’m not giving you a choice,” he said. “If what you’re telling me is true and your friend is missing, I need to see where everything happened. Capisce?”

A large hand dropped on my shoulder and encouraged me from the chair, the old wooden seat groaning as I moved. Denny was gone. He was freakin’ gone, and that thing took him because Denny ate its friend and I’m having a heart attack. Or not. At that moment, I think I finally realized the human race was screwed.

The ranger opened the door and ushered me onto the cabin’s porch. “What the—?” The big man froze as we stared into a world that didn’t look like ours. “What the hell’s happening?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. Stretching across the small front porch of the cabin, over my car and the ranger’s pickup, growing from the trucks of trees, over boulders, and cascading throughout the valley before us in an ever-growing wave, were purple flowers.

A New Short Story

This story was inspired by two news reports. In one, a Wisconsin technology company asked its 85 employees to be voluntarily microchipped. Forty-one did. The implant allows them to log onto computers, open doors, and buy snacks in the commissary just by doing some Jedi thing with their hand. In the other report, while studying the brains of violent criminals, scientists noticed there was a difference between the structures of a killer’s gray matter, and that of non-violent people. Reading these news reports, I wondered what would happen if this microchip technology met a bad brain.

A Bad Brain

By Jason Offutt

Court leaned his forehead against the cool glass and looked down on the city. His breath fogged the window, hiding the long park the hospital overlooked.

“How long do I have to be here?” he asked, watching a woman in a bright yellow coat walk toward the park and disappear into the condensation that stuck to the heavy gauge glass. Most of the people walking below him were too small to pick out individually, it was the yellow coat that drew his eye.

A pencil scratch on paper answered him. The doctor sat behind Court in a black, hard-backed chair, watching him, he presumed. What else was she to do? He was a Bad Brain, after all. That’s what the cops found out after his arrest. DUI, night in the drunk tank, six-month’s probation for a first offense and a court-ordered brain scan. The scan found it, an imbalance in the front part of his brain, the part that controlled emotions, an imbalance that could have been caused by a myriad of things Court had no control over. The problem with a Bad Brain like Court’s, they were as unpredictable as the pattern of the people who walked below him in the park.

“How long do I have to be here?” Court repeated. The scratching stopped, replaced by the scraping hiss of the doctor flipping a page of her yellow legal pad. “Dr. Anderson?”

“You know the answer to that, Mr. Davies.” Dr. Anderson’s voice was flat, emotionless. The pencil scratch continued.

“I just had a DUI,” Court said, the thinning window fog thickened anew by his breath.

“And that’s not a serious offense?” she said, rather than asked. “You could have killed someone.”

The woman in the yellow coat emerged from Court’s fog, then disappeared beneath a canopy of leafless trees, their bows thick with snow. “Of course it’s serious,” he said, turning and leaning against the white window sill. “I screwed up. I know that. I–”

Dr. Anderson looked at Court over her half-moon glasses. “How many times have you done this?” she asked. “Driven drunk. How many times have you gotten behind the wheel of your vehicle with your blood-alcohol content above the legal limit?”

How many’s too many? Court leaned back against the window, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know. A couple.”

The doctor made a note on her legal pad without taking her dark eyes off him. “A couple? Is that two? Is it two dozen? Is it two hundred?”

He punched his thigh with a closed fist. She scribbled more. Damn it. No emotion. NO emotion. Court took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Probably closer to that,” he said, his voice soft, controlled; too much emotion would keep him in here.  Bad Brains never got out of the hospital. ‘Mad is Bad,’ the online PSA preached, the video of a furious drunk throwing a fist seguing into a casket lowered into a grave. ‘Get your loved ones scanned before it’s too late.’ “The last one.”

Dr. Anderson rested the legal pad on her lap and stared at Court. “Thank you, Mr. Davies. Honesty will get you home.”

He unwrapped his hands and shoved them into his pockets, turning back to the window. “I am honest.” The words came out quietly.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Anderson asked.

Anger flared. She heard me. She HEARD me. Court took in another deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to bury the frustration building in him. He’d had a couple of beers at Wallbangers. That’s all, two beers, or maybe three. He’d been talking football with Denny, so he could have had four, but that was it. Four. Four beers and a California stop at a stop sign in front of a Kansas City, Missouri, cop, the patrol car obscured by a row of bushes, and BOOM, he was in this damn hospital with a Bad Brain scan and a doctor trying to push him into losing his cool. He turned toward her, his face emotionless. “I am honest,” Court repeated, no strain in his words. “This was my first offense. I don’t steal, I don’t make excessive noise in my apartment building and I didn’t cheat in school. I’ve never even hit anyone out of anger, or self-defense. I don’t put myself in those situations.”

Dr. Anderson folded her fingers over the top of the legal pad. “But you’re here now and I’m talking with you for a reason,” she said, rolling the pencil between the pad and her fingers. “Because of your—” she paused and frowned, her eyes biting into his, “—indiscretion, we have found a brain defect in your—.”

“Amygdala,” Court interrupted. “The part of my brain that controls emotion.” Damn you and damn your eyes. “I’m intelligent. I read, so don’t treat me like a chimp.” Court’s eyes shut. He immediately regretted the words. “People with an imbalanced amygdala have a better chance of committing violent crimes than people whose temporal lobes haven’t gone through a blender.” Court paused, pulling open his eyes. The doctor’s face was like stone. “But that’s not me. Just check my history. I’ve done nothing wrong. That is not me.”

Dr. Anderson shifted the pencil back to her left hand and prepared to write more, a smile with no joy touched her lips. “Let’s talk about your childhood.”

“What about my childhood?” Court said, choking back a snap. That’s what she wants. She wants me to lose my cool. That will prove everything. “What does that have to do with my brain?”

He immediately felt stupid for asking.

Dr. Anderson’s humorless smile never left her face. “Various issues in childhood could have led to your abnormality.” She reached a slim hand to a white end table and pulled a manila folder from the top of a stack, ‘Courtney Louis Davies: 08/01/1978’ clearly visible on the tab. She flipped back the cover and read. “Looks like your mother died of lung cancer. Is that right? A lifetime smoker?”

A tightness grabbed his stomach like he was ready for a punch. Memories rushed to the surface, his mother smoking in the car and young Court cracking the window, sniffing at the fresh air to keep from coughing. ‘Shut that damn window,’ his mother would yell in the winter, and Court rolled up the window in the Buick, confined to the hazy cab. Smoking is what his family did. People like Uncle Jim stood outside her visitation smoking and passing around a bottle of vodka. Just like Mom would have wanted.

“How do you know that?”

If Dr. Anderson heard Court, she ignored him. “Do you know if she smoked while she was pregnant with you?”

Pregnant? Maybe. No. Probably. “I don’t know, but yeah, she could have.”

The doctor made a note on the file. “Was she a drinker?”

Bottles of Windsor Canadian and McCormick vodka under the kitchen sink, a pitcher of screwdrivers in the refrigerator. Yeah. She was a drinker. Court nodded. “Yes.”

“Did she drink while she was pregnant with you?”

Mom. Oh, Mom. Helping Court with his homework, driving him to baseball practice, watching the Saturday afternoon Creature Feature on TV with him, teaching him to cook, slurring her words, the air thick with smoke. “My mom was good to me,” Court said. “What are you getting at?”

The doctor folded the file closed and rested her pencil on top. “Either of these activities could have caused the defect in your brain. Or a childhood trauma, such as physical or mental abuse, or even blunt force. Did you ever hit your head as a child, Mr. Davies?”

My head? Yeah. “Every kid smacks their head at some point, Dr. Anderson.”

She nodded. “Yes, of course, but most don’t cause permanent damage like—”

“Bad Brain,” Court said, cutting her off.

Dr. Anderson frowned. “Yes, of course. Bad Brain is what everyone’s calling it. It does get right to the point.”

Court sat back on the window sill, leaning on his hands. “And what’s the point in this, Doctor? To see if I’m going to flip out and go on some sort of killing rampage?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think you’re going to do something so dramatic, Mr. Davies.” She paused. “But with your brain structure, I know you’re capable of doing it. Do you see the difference?”

Yep. To the government I’m a ticking time bomb.

“Since you’ve now scanned positive,” she continued, “you’ll be in the police database. You’re a suspect now—for everything.” She paused, and looked at Court, her face somewhat sad. “Not that you’ll be convicted of something you didn’t do, of course. But the police will have to work their way through you and everyone else on the database, you understand. With your defect, you have a higher likelihood to commit a crime than, say—”

“You.”

Dr. Anderson smiled, honestly this time. “Yes. Me. You may go through life never once raising your hand in violence.”

Court audibly exhaled. The effect wasn’t wasted on Dr. Anderson. She shifted in her seat.

“But the system is going to keep its eyes on me just in case,” he said. “This isn’t fair.”

The doctor nodded, her smile gone. “No. Not at all, but necessary for—”

“—a safe society,” Court finished for her. “I surf the Net, I watch TV. I’ve heard the PSAs.”

“Of course.” She stood, scooping up the folders. “Well, we’ll keep you one more night,” she said, looking into Court’s eyes. “I’m sorry. Procedure.”

***

Snow fell outside the hospital window. Court leaned against it as he had the previous morning, the cold glass felt good upon his forehead. He turned when Dr. Anderson entered the room.

“Did you have a good night’s sleep, Mr. Davies?” she asked, standing this morning, two white paper cups of coffee in her hands instead of manila folders. “Any angry thoughts? Any desire to do harm to yourself or others?” She held a coffee out to him.

Is that how it starts? “No,” he said, taking the cup. “Thank you.”

“I’m ready to sign you out,” she said. “From my observations and our discussions, I see no indication you offer any immediate threat to society.”

“No powder keg ready to blow?” he said.

She ignored his comment. “However, given the potentially deadly nature of your offense, and the legal ramifications, you won’t be allowed to drive for quite some time.”

Six months’ probation. Yeah, I know.

The soft buzz of the white double doors unlocking reached Court’s ears. His eyes shot to the back of the room where a male nurse and a large orderly shouldered into the room, the orderly pushed an aluminum cart.

“What’s going on?” Court started, but Dr. Anderson cut him off.

“Before I can sign your release papers, Mr. Davies,” she said flatly. “We need to insert a microchip at the base of your skull.”

Microchip? What the hell? “I didn’t sign anything that allows you to do this to me.”

Dr. Anderson frowned, an expression that looked natural on her. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Mr. Davies. You yourself said you follow the news. Surely you’re aware of the President signing Senate Bill 1486.”

Anger grew in Court like a stoked fire. Yeah, he’d heard of it. The press called it the Bad Brain Bill. The Bad Brain Bill passed? He swallowed and took a deep breath, his anger fading just as quickly as it flared. Of course, the bill passed. It only made sense.

Dr. Anderson smiled her humorless smile. “It’s now standard procedure for people who have been diagnosed with a defective amygdala to have an RM chip inserted after an arrest.” She held up a hand and waved the nurse and orderly forward without looking at them. The orderly rumbled the aluminum cart forward, staring down Court. Whatever the cart held was covered by a white cloth. “Fortunately for you it’s nonobtrusive. Just a little prick and pop, in goes a device about the size of a toenail clipping. Oh, you’ll be able to feel it if you poke hard enough, I suppose, but you’ll forget about it in time. You’ll never know it’s there.”

“But—”

The nurse pulled on the center of the cloth to reveal a hand-held stainless-steel device that looked like an earring gun.

“But why? Mr. Davies?” the doctor said. “That’s simple. If the police need to question you for a crime you may, or may not have committed, they need to know where to find you.”

***

Dr. Anderson offered to call a taxi, but Court refused. He wanted to disappear from this place and he wanted to do it now.

His apartment building was across the wide, snow-covered park from the hospital. Fat, wet flakes fell lazily about him as he stepped from the hospital awning and onto the sidewalk. People were out, rushing from building to building, pinching their coats close to their necks, but Court walked with his head up, enjoying his freedom.

The paperwork to release Court took little time; Dr. Anderson didn’t have a good bedside manner, but she was efficient. She didn’t try to shake his hand, and Court was glad. He didn’t want to touch her. ‘I intend no offense with my next statement,’ she told him, ‘but I hope we never have to see each other again. Have a nice life, Mr. Davies.’

Have a nice life. I had a nice life until I met you. Court stood at a red light waiting for the little traffic light man to tell him it was okay to cross the street. I’m screwed. Can’t drive. Work thinks I’m sick, but somebody will find out about this. The office gossipers always do. A flash of color in the blanket of white moved across his field of vision and he shifted his focus to the sidewalk across the street. The woman in the yellow coat, or at least a woman in a yellow coat, had emerged from a bus and turned onto the snow-covered trail through the park he was going to take home. Like Court, her coat collar was flat as if she enjoyed the cold.

She’s pretty, ran through his mind as the light turned green and he crossed the street. Since she was going his way, his tracks followed hers.

***

A splash of canary disappeared behind a bend in the path, the concrete hard beneath his feet through the wet snow. The woman in the yellow coat was still in front of him, but the only part that registered to Court was the occasional change in the park’s color scheme when yellow peeked through the trees. She may as well have been miles away.

“Bad Brain,” Court whispered, his breath turning into a white cloud before drifting into the afternoon. Court was born five days premature, his skin as blue as a “Star Trek” alien. Was that it? Did lack of oxygen fry my circuits? Was it Mom’s Marlboros? Or the accident? Nobody saw it coming. Hell, nobody at the Little League park, not the players, not the coaches, not the parents and bored siblings in the stands thought a kid that little could have hit a baseball that hard. The line drive grazed Court’s temple and he crumbled like a stack of blocks. He didn’t remember any of it. The next thing he knew he woke up in a hospital two days later. Was that—

The feeling came on Court quickly, too quickly. A wave of dizziness swept over him and he staggered, his breath gone as if he’d been punched in the stomach. The world lurched; brown, leafless trees, fuzzy in the haze of snowfall, spun in Court’s vision. “Wha—” His head swam, strength disappeared from his knees.

“Help,” he wheezed and fell face-first into the snow.

***

“Hey, buddy.” The words were small and far away.

What? Buddy?

Something pushed Court in the ribs. At least he through it was his ribs. His body was cold; his fingers and toes numb. It pushed again. Someone’s foot. That’s someone’s foot. Court moved his head, a spike of pain lanced through it and he may have cried out, although Court didn’t know if the sound was real or imagined. What happened? Hands grabbed him gently and rolled him onto his back. His face throbbed in pain. Court forced open his eyes, the gray and white world around him confusing at first, then a face appeared in front of his.

“Hey, buddy,” the voice repeated, closer this time. “You okay? What happened?”

Okay? Happened? Yeah, what happened? “I,” Court started, pain lanced through his jaw. He gritted his teeth before responding. “I don’t know.” The man held out a hand and Court’s right hand instinctively moved to grab it. This stranger pulled him to his feet, his left hand on Court’s shoulder, steadying him.

“Whoa, there. Can you stand, or do you need my shoulder?”

Court nodded, the shooting pain gone, the fuzz that covered his consciousness fading. “I can stand.” The man was shorter than him, dressed in a Navy pea coat and red stocking cap.

“You must have taken a hell of a hit,” the man said. “Your nose looks broken. You get mugged?”

Mugged? Did I get mugged? No. He didn’t think so. “I just felt dizzy and passed out, that’s all.” Is that what happened?

The man grinned. “Well, you did it in the right place, buddy. There’s a hospital about a hundred yards from here.” He reached out to grab Court’s elbow. “Come on. I’ll take you.”

Hospital? No. NO. Court jerked his arm away from the man in the pea coat and almost fell again. A small splat of frozen blood stained the snow where his face had landed. ‘Your nose looks broken.’ Damn it. My nose is broken. He reached a hand tentatively to his face, the nose he knew was swollen and throbbing. Another moment of dizziness threatened to take over Court, but it quickly faded.

“No,” he said, waving his hands in front of him partly for balance. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine. I just want to get home.”

“Do you nee—” the man began, but Court didn’t let him finish.

“No.” He stopped and sucked cold air through his teeth. “I just got dizzy, okay? I’m going to be fine. Thank you.”

Court’s feet felt like bricks as he shuffled from the pea coat man. How long was I out? he wondered, although he knew it couldn’t have been long. This was a big city, people walked this park all the time. The first person who saw him stopped to help, the tracks in the snow told him that. Court trudged on dead legs, the walkway through the park nearly bare of footprints except the woman in the yellow coat’s. But why did I pass out? Did the doctor drug me? Could that be it? Then there was the chip she’d put in his head. Did—

A second set of footprints in the new snow joined the woman in the yellow coat’s. Court slowed his already unsteady gait. The prints larger than the woman’s, the steps longer, came from the side of the trail behind a row of hedges. Court slowed. Something was wrong.

He lurched forward and rounded a bend. “Oh, no,” pushed from his lips. The woman in the yellow coat lay in a heap on the side of the trail, her blond hair matted with blood. The big footprints disappeared past her into the brush leaving red-stained footprints in the snow.

Dear god. Court’s heart hammered under his coat and he slid to his knees. I just saw her. When did— But Court had blacked out. How long was I out?

Voices came from somewhere behind him. Someone else was walking the park trail. Court’s breath came fast; his mouth started to form, ‘Help,’ but his mind killed the action. ‘You’re a suspect now—for everything,’ Dr. Anderson had told him. A suspect. I’m a suspect for this. Panic pulled at him, threatening to explode from his chest. “I’m a suspect,” he whispered.

Court forced himself his feet, pushing his stiff, wobbly legs around the woman and down the park path. By the time he’d rounded the next bend he was running.

***

He could hardly taste the whiskey as he swallowed his second glassful. The woman was dead. But what happened? Was it me? His hands shook as he poured two more fingers of cheap liquor into a rocks glass he’d stolen from Wallbangers. Was it my Bad Brain? Did I kill her? No. He knew he was passed out when—. Was I passed out? He reached a tentative hand to his face and winced, his formerly straight nose bent and swollen, the pain he had just started feeling now dampened by the liquor. She might have hit me during a fight.

But he knew that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. He’d passed out and when he came to she was dead. Court’s fingers flirted with the TV remote control he kept on top of the microwave oven. The news would know. Somebody, maybe the man in the pea coat, walked upon the bloody scene and snapped a picture on their cell phone. They posted it on social media and the network wonks smashed their fingertips on their keyboards to get the story on-air first. He grabbed the black controller, pointed it toward the television in the living room and clicked the power button.

A movie featuring Bruce Campbell. Court normally would have poured himself another glass and dropped on the couch to watch it, but not today. He clicked the TV to CNN. The president was in Poland. The ticker that ran along the bottom of the screen showed how the Dow Jones finished the day. Court tuned the TV to a local station. Where are you? You have to be here. The mayor is running for re-election. The FBI is investigating a suburb’s city manager for embezzlement. The ticker highlighted a Kansas City Chiefs player signing a new contract and tomorrow’s school closings.

“Where are you?” Court whispered as he lifted the bottle and bent it toward his glass, the liquid just started to pour when the doorbell rang and he sloshed whiskey onto the kitchen counter. Damn.

His hand instinctively threw a dishtowel over the amber pool and tried to cap the bottle, but someone pounded on the door and Court’s shaky hands sent the cap careening across the kitchen.

“Mr. Davies,” a tinny voice called through the cheap apartment door. Court’s breath froze in his chest. “This is Detective Morris, KCPD. We know you’re home.”

Court’s heart hammered like the engine of an old Dodge, his fist tight around the rocks glass. Damn it. The police. ‘You’re a suspect now—for everything.’ And damn you, Dr. Anderson. His chest tightened, his breath coming in short, pained bursts. Court’s eyes drifted to his drink, his shaking hands sending a storm of waves across the surface of the liquid. But I didn’t do anything. The knock came again. “I’m coming,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, but it shook like the whiskey.

Court’s fingers ran across the small Band-Aid across the back of his neck. Of course, they’re here. I’m chipped. They know exactly where I am and exactly where I walked to get here. A spot of yellow, some white and red flashed across Court’s mind. He downed what little alcohol he’d been able to pour into the glass and walked toward the door.

The cop, about 50 and graying around the temples, wasn’t alone. A second police officer, a younger woman, stood in the hallway in street clothes. Each held their badge for Court to see, just like cops did on TV.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Davies,” the male officer said, tucking his badge in his jacket pocket. “This is Detective Allen. You know why we’re here, don’t you?”

Court nodded, his breathing dropping back to normal; the cops radiated calm.

“Good,” the officer said. “May we come in?”

Court nodded again and stepped out of the doorway. The police walked past him into the living room.

“Does this look familiar, Mr. Davies?” Detective Allen asked as she held her smartphone screen toward Court. It was a video that shook like the cameraman had been walking. The scene was a white forest.

“It’s snow,” Court said.

“Keep watching, please.” Detective Allen’s voice grew stern.

Court squinted. The forest may have been a park, he realized; the cameraman followed a well-defined path dotted with footprints.

“Where is—” Court began to ask, but Detective Allen cut him off.

“Just watch and tell us if it looks familiar,” she snapped.

It did look familiar. It looks like the park where I— The video stopped its shaky movement when a flood of yellow and red filled the frame. Court’s eyes grew wide. The video changed perspective as if the cameraman went to his knees. “Oh, my god,” came from the phone. It was Court’s voice. That’s me. That video came from me.

“It’s—” Court stopped. The question of a lawyer bounced around his head. Maybe that was just TV too.

“It’s what, Mr. Davies?” Detective Allen prompted.

“How did you get that video?” he said, his voice soft, weak. How is that even a video?

The detective tucked the phone into the inner pocket of her jacket. “I think you can figure that out.”

Detective Morris inhaled and folded his arms, trying to seem as big as possible before he spoke. “We know what happened. What we’re trying to figure out is if you had anything to do with it.”

Court’s legs grew unsteady again, the liquor in his stomach burned like he’d followed it with a match. They bugged me. They bugged my brain. They can see everything I do. Everything. He grabbed his easy chair for support, but didn’t have the strength to stay on his feet. He slid into the chair instead.

“Nothing.” The word came out in a whisper. “I had nothing to do with it.”

Detective Morris squatted on his haunches in front of Court and looked up at him. “Then why did you run, Mr. Davies? If you’re not guilty, why did you see a crime and not report it?”

“That’s a crime itself,” Detective Allen said, still standing, looming over him. “Please answer the question. If you didn’t commit the crime, why did you run?”

Because of this. “Because,” he said, then stopped and coughed. “I knew I’d be a suspect.” He looked up at Detective Allen, his eyes wet with tears. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We don’t know that,” Detective Morris said, standing. “That’s why we’re here.”

Court swallowed hard, the whiskey had left his throat dry. This isn’t real. This can’t be happening. There’s got to be some proof. Some— Then he knew. “Wait. If you can see through my eyes, you can see what I was doing before this. I was just walking through the park.”

Detective Allen frowned. It looked like she did that often. “Your video went black for a few minutes before you encountered the body of the woman in the yellow coat. We don’t know what you were doing leading up to this woman’s death.”

The video went black when Court’s world went black. What happened? “Are you arresting me?”

“Not at this time,” Detective Morris said, nodding to his partner who pulled a small black leather case from her jacket. “Detective Allen is going to take samples from under your fingernails, then examine your gray coat and the pants you were wearing. Please make them available.”

The Kansas City, Missouri, cops were thorough, although the male detective watched his smartphone during the time his partner gave Court a criminal manicure. Probably checking my vital signs to see if I’m nervous, Court thought. Hell, yes, I’m nervous.

After Detective Allen bagged whatever she’d swabbed from beneath Court’s fingernails and inspected his pants and coat, the police left.

“I wished you’d relax, Mr. Davies. We’re not your enemy,” she said to Court as he held the door open for her. The detective’s eyes narrowed for a moment, just a moment. “By the way, what happened to your nose?”

He stared at her hard, fear and apprehension replaced by a rage that had begun to burrow through him. “I slipped.”

***

Monsters. Where do they get the goddamned right? Court drank another two fingers of whiskey before slamming the rocks glass down hard on the kitchen counter. “I know you’re watching,” he said, the words coming out in a hiss. “I know you’re listening. And I hate every last one of you.”

He stormed into the bathroom, pushing over a living room chair that had been in his way. The bathroom mirror wasn’t kind. Bruising had already started to form around his swollen nose. The cops could see him look at himself in the mirror. They could watch him eat, watch him at work, watch him pee. When did this kind of voodoo become real? he wondered.

It was the chip in his head. He reached behind him and pulled off the Band-Aid, a spot of blood stained the pad. Dr. Anderson told Court he would be able to feel the microchip beneath his skin. He ran his fingertips over the spot where the bandage had been. Nothing. No lumps, no bumps, no cuts, no butts, no coconuts.

‘In goes a device about the size of a toenail clipping,’ she’d said. ‘Oh, you’ll be able to feel it if you poke hard enough, I suppose, but you’ll forget about it in time. You’ll never know it’s there.’

I call BS on that, Doc. He pushed hard. Something moved under the skin as his finger slid across it, a bump that could have been a pimple, but Court knew it wasn’t. It was a chip that not only told the police where he was, it could show them everything he saw and tell them everything he said. Can you read my thoughts? he wondered, his face red, his body shaking from anger.

“I didn’t do it,” he said to his reflection and to the cops, his voice tight, controlled. “I didn’t hurt that woman. I didn’t touch her.” But it didn’t matter, did it? The cops had him at the scene and they had him running from a dead body. Doesn’t matter what I say. I’m going to jail for this.

It was the chip. The chip saw everything. But only when it’s in your head, Court. The thought came from nowhere. In my head. It can’t see me if it’s not in my head. He closed his eyes and steadied himself against the sink; his stomach doing flips. It has to come out. An option for someone with no options. Court reached his free hand to the wall and switched off the bathroom light.

***

The chip came out easily. Court fished in the pitch dark for scissors he knew were in the top drawer to the left of the sink. He kept his right index finger on the chip, pinning it as he opened the scissors and ran one metal blade across his skin, wincing soundlessly at the pain. The chip simply popped out.

Strength dropped from his legs and he would have fallen if he hadn’t fallen against the sink. Dizziness spun through him as it had done in the park. Connecting, ran through his head. I passed out when the chip connected to my brain. He ran cold water and splashed some on his face. “And it just disconnected.” He turned on the light, the chip pinched between his fingers.

“There you are,” he said, his voice hard. “My own personal spy.” Court sat it on the side of the white porcelain sink and pressed a towel on the back of his bleeding neck. He folded the scissors and raised them to crush the microchip that sat on the lip of the sink in a pool of his blood.

“No.” He lowered the scissors and sat them on sink. If the chip still worked, to the police he was still in his apartment. If he destroyed it, they’d know something was wrong. And you can’t trust someone with a Bad Brain. A tiny green light blinked on the device. Are you recording? Can you see without my eyes? A trickle of blood wormed its way down his neck. Court pulled a tissue from the box on the back of the toilet and pressed it hard to stop the bleeding.

“If you can, I’m screwed,” he said toward the still blinking chip. Court turned off the light and hurried out of the bathroom.

***

Anger drove him. Court pushed through the now-driving snow, a knit cap on his head, his coat buttoned tightly around his neck.

Run.

Three days ago, he’d sat at a high table in Wallbangers, a cold pint of lager in front of him. The sounds of laughter, the clack of pool balls and the din of Friday happy hour conversation all around. Denny was there, Denny from high school. At some point, they’d moved to different parts of town and grown apart, but one night Denny came over to Court’s table in Wallbangers.

Run.

‘I just moved in down the street,’ Denny had said a year ago, or was it two? ‘And this is where you hang out? Freakin’ amazing.’ They talked football that night, then Denny said he had to get home. His wife would be home from work any minute.

Run.

Wife? Ha. Court had never been married. Never dated much. He angered too easily for anyone to stay around for long. But I never hit anyone. I’d never kill anyone.

Run.

A KC cop pulled him over two blocks away from his apartment complex and hauled him in on a DUI. The Bad Brain scan came the next day. ‘Mad is Bad, Mad is Bad.’ Then the hospital. Then Dr. Anderson. Then the chip.

Dr. Anderson. The name burned in his mind.

Run.

Court walked past the park, continuing south on Buchannan Avenue. Street lamps cast yellow pools of light onto the snowy sidewalk every 50 yards, the tracks of everyone but the bundled people walking in front of Court obliterated by nature. The park. The snow. Yellow coat. Damn it. Court’s nose throbbed and a sour taste lingered in his mouth. He wished he’d brought the whiskey, but it was too late to go back for it. There was always more; he just had to get it.

Court approached his bank’s ATM two blocks from the apartment building, his hat pulled low, his eyes avoiding the camera that recorded every person who withdrew money. He knew he shouldn’t be here. The cops would know everything, unless—

He slowed his step. The cops. Court’s eyes scanned the street, a wave of paranoia slamming into him. They could be anywhere. The police had hacked his brain, what else had the hacked? Snow covered most of the cars along Buchannan, but some had just parked, the internal heat melting the falling snow. People could be inside those cars, watching him. Cops? Are they cops? It didn’t matter. He had $10 in his wallet. Court had to have money. He had to use the ATM because he wasn’t going home tonight. Maybe never.

***

A man in a tie and shoes inappropriate for this weather approached the ATM, pulling out his wallet to go for his bank card. The anger that had erupted in Court during the police visit sat smoldering. I don’t have time for this, he thought, and quickened his pace, stepping in front of the man and turning his back toward him.

“Hey,” the man shouted just steps behind him.

“Piss off,” Court said, his words abrupt and hard. He’d never spoken to a stranger that harshly before. His mother had raised him better.

“No,” the man shouted in the still night, the only sounds were the occasional far-off car horn and the underlying whistle of the wind. Side streets like Buchannan Avenue got little traffic in a snowstorm. “This is unacceptable.”

Court ignored him and pushed his card into the slot.

“Hey.”

Withdrawal. Checking. How much? The limit was $500. He clicked $500 watched twenty-five $20 bills deal themselves from the front of the machine. He knew he may need more, but he didn’t have a choice.

A hand shoved his shoulder from behind and he almost fell into the ATM. Goddamnit.

“I need to see your face, asshole,” the man behind him shouted. “I’m going to post you all over social media.”

Asshole?

Court tucked the bills into his wallet and replaced his card. The rage boiling in his gut bubbled to the surface. He turned quickly, much more quickly than the impatient man expected, and landed a fist in the center of his face. Something crunched on impact. Court’s fingers or the man’s nose he didn’t know. The man’s head flew backward, blood spraying the front of the expensive winter coat. A sound, a cross between a curse and a grunt, escaped the man’s mouth as his legs gave way and dumped him onto the sidewalk.

“Wha? Wha?” the man shouted, blood running over his mouth.

A smile washed across Court’s face. “Hey, your nose looks like mine.”

“You assho,” the bloody man coughed and raised his mobile phone to take a picture, but Court kicked the device from his hand, sending it sliding through the snow.

Court shook his hand as he turned and walked away. It was slightly numb, but there was no pain. It wasn’t broken; the crunch had been the moron’s nose. The energy behind his smile faded, but the anger remained. He planted the heel of his boot on the man’s phone and ground it into the snowy sidewalk. Court stopped, took out his own cell phone and slammed it into the brick wall of the bank, then let the ruined phone drop to the sidewalk. The government could track him with that just as surely as they could with a microchip under the skin. He left the man moaning in the snow and disappeared into the snowy darkness knowing damn well Dr. Anderson had driven him to this.

***

Court knew he made a mistake the moment he walked into Wallbangers. This was his watering hole; the cops would expect him to go there. Or, he thought, maybe they’d think he was too smart to do something that stupid. But he had to talk with Denny and Denny’s Toyota was parked outside. Denny would help him. What are friends for, right?

“Hey, Court,” Janine said as the perky young blond in her tight uniform stopped him. All the waitresses at Wallbangers were young and perky. It was the restaurant’s shtick. “Haven’t seen you in a few days.” Then she noticed his nose and her face pinched. “Ooooh. Car accident?”

He nodded. “Something like that,” he replied, his eyes scanning the bar. “Have you seen Denny Stricklin?”

Janine smiled a shiny white smile. “You know, you’re the second person who’s asked me that question tonight.”

Court froze. Second? His eyes shifted from the pretty young waitress who put up with drunk old men to pay for nursing school. Nothing looked threatening; people drinking booze and eating supper, oblivious to the world. “Who was asking for Denny?” The words felt awkward as he spoke them.

“You think it was a cop?” she asked, her smile fading.

Yes. That’s exactly what I think. He shook his head and forced a smile of his own. “No. Denny’s a stand-up guy. I’m sure it was just the IRS.”

Janine paused, then laughed. “Yeah. Well, that’s where he was sitting,” she said, indicating a high table with a half-finished beer. “He must have gone to the bathroom or something.” She paused and pushed a thumb toward the bar. “Beer?”

“Yeah, sure,” Court mumbled as he made his way to Denny’s table.

Two seats were pulled out slightly. Two cardboard coasters sat on the table in front of each chair. One coaster held a beer, the other a water. ‘You’re the second person who’s asked me that question tonight,’ Janine had said. She didn’t say if that someone had found him, but Court knew he had.

Run, Court. Just run.

A sudden rush of panic grabbed him, but quickly melded into anger. ‘Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering,’ Master Yoda told Luke. After the last three days, Court realized he was fine with suffering.

Janine brought Court a beer and sat in on the table. She didn’t ask for money and Court didn’t offer. He didn’t intend to stay long; Denny could take care of his bill. Court’s head swiveled slowly, taking in the crowd. Some faces were familiar. Regulars. The other faces could belong to anybody, doctors, lawyers, or the police.

He wrapped both hands around the beer bottle until his knuckles turned white. Where are you, buddy? Seconds later, Denny emerged from the hallway by the bathrooms, a hallway that led to a back entrance to Wallbangers. Color dropped from Denny’s face as his eyes fell upon Court and Court knew he’d been right. This had all been a mistake.

“Hey, buddy,” Court said when Denny made his way to the table.

Denny tried to force his face into something casual and failed. “Yeah, hey.” His eyes darted, never landing on Court. Whatever they were looking for didn’t show. “What’s, uh, what’s going on?”

Heat flushed Court’s face. You bastard. “I heard somebody was in here looking for you tonight,” he said, his eyes boring into Denny. “Did they find you?”

Denny grabbed his beer bottle, the movement shifted the coaster slightly. “No,” he said then took a drink.

A sliver of white stuck from beneath the coaster. Court pinned the corner of the heavy stock paper with a fingernail and dragged it out. It was a business card.

“Detective Stanley Morris, Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department,” Court read. His eyes rose from the card and locked with Denny’s. “So, how is old Stanley, buddy? You guys have a nice chat?”

Denny sat the bottle down gently; his hands had begun to shake. “No, Courtney. I swear. I didn’t tell him anything.”

But you promised him something, didn’t you? Court’s brain swam, the anger welling inside him hurt his chest. “Of course not, bud-dy. Because you don’t know anything. But you would if I’d gotten here just a little bit earlier.” The panic was gone now, as if he had never felt it. “Did you tell him you’d call if I came in?”

Denny didn’t answer, his eyes wide as quarters.

“Did you?”

Denny’s head started to shake, but stopped. Court’s eyes locked it in place.

“Where is he, old friend?” Court asked, ‘old friend,’ sharp as a saber. Denny’s eyes shot toward the back hall.

Denny had promised him to the cops. Court knew he had no one. Damn it. He swung the beer bottle at Denny too quickly for him to duck. Unlike the movies, the glass didn’t shatter when it struck his head. The full bottle hit with a dull thunk and Court’s friend started to fall backward. Court helped him by flipping the table on top of him. Shouts came from everywhere. Court was through the front door before anyone really knew what had happened.

***

The city turned from rich to poor quickly. Coffee shop corners gave way to cheap taco and fried chicken joints as Court walked south; the wide plate glass business fronts along the street were now lined with metal bars. Court couldn’t feel his fingers from the cold when he stepped into the lobby of a motel that smelled of tobacco, a small chain knock-off called Ultra 8. The clerk turned from a baseball game on the TV that hung from the ceiling and looked at Court who cradled a plastic grocery sack in the crook of his arm. In the sack were cans of Spam, sleeves of crackers, chips and whiskey he bought pushing money through a slot in bullet-proof glass at a convenience store down the street. Court handed over enough twenties to have a room for a week.

“Will that be all for you?” the clerk asked handing Court a well-worn key that hung on a ring with a green diamond shaped plastic fob, the name and address of the motel still visible in chipped gold lettering.

“Go to hell,” Court said and walked away. No questions, no answers.

The clerk shrugged and turned back to the baseball game. He probably got that a lot.

***

Court scratched his growing beard, now more from habit than need after a week; the itching was mostly gone. He’d sat in the moldy room of the cheap motel for more days than he felt were safe, spending his waking minutes staring at the television. It gave him nothing. The woman in the yellow coat never made the news. How is that possible? She was dead. Court had seen her head split open. Or did I? It was just bloody. She could be alive.

“No,” he hissed, slamming a fist into his leg. “She’s dead.” The last words too loud for a small room with thin walls. The woman had to be dead, or why else was Court here?

He took a deep breath in air that tasted like cigarettes. Dr. Anderson caused this. A thought deep in his conscious knew this wasn’t true. It was because of Senate Bill 1486. The author of that bill, the elected officials who debated it and voted for it, the president who signed it. These people were to blame for the Bad Brain Law. They did this to him, but the president wasn’t in the police station to scan his brain; he wasn’t in the hospital room giving orders when the nurse stuck a chip in his head. A chip that recorded everything. Even my thoughts?

It was Dr. Anderson. That damned Anderson.

Court stood and left the motel room, the television still on, the heater blowing full blast and empty tins of Spam on the floor.

***

He saw the tire tool in the bed of a rusty pickup and took it with no reservations. He slipped the L-shaped metal bar easily into the sleeve of his coat and walked back toward downtown. The weather had turned during the week, melting snow, putting more people on the street. To hell with them. Something was wrong and Court had paid the price. He’d spent days seething over it, punching the lumpy mattress of his motel room when the anger grew too great to contain. This is wrong. I’m a citizen of the goddamned United States of America.

The first corner Have-A-Java shop told Court he was getting close to his part of town. Poor people didn’t spend $5 on a cup of coffee. A police car drove by Court slowly, but he kept walking like he didn’t notice, the cold metal tool in his sleeve heavier now. The patrol cruiser turned on the street in front of him, the driver never looking in Court’s direction.

He reached the hospital mid-afternoon, the gray stone building rose into the air like a dungeon master’s dream. Traffic on the street behind him moved quickly, drivers honking, music thumping. Normal. Everything was normal, except that it wasn’t. Court knew the world would never be normal again.

A red and white striped barrier blocked the entrance from the street to the hospital’s parking garage, a pedestrian walkway passing on either side. Court entered the garage in full view of the street. No screams, no sirens, nothing. They’ve forgotten about me. I am a ghost. He took the stairs to the lowest level of the parking garage, BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus and at least one Jaguar telling him this is where the doctors parked. Something in the back of his head told him to run, but he couldn’t. It was too late for that. Court sat in the shadows of the basement stairwell, the elevator doors visible outside the open doorway, and he waited.

***

The sounds of conversation dragged him awake. In a dream, Detective Morris had come out of the back hall of Wallbangers, gun drawn storming toward Denny’s table in slow motion. Denny screamed and jumped backward.

“That can’t be why he’s here,” a voice not in his dream asked. The voice was a woman’s. Court had heard it before.

“Why else would he be here, at the hospital, in doctor’s parking?” This voice was a man’s. He’d heard it before, too.

Dream Detective Morris closed in on Court, revolver hammer pulled back.

Something nudged his foot; his eyes slid open. Dream Detective Morris merged with a Detective Morris standing backlit in a dim parking garage. There was no gun in his hand; he held his badge. Detective Allen stood beside him.

“Courtney Louis Davies,” Detective Morris said.

Court looked up, his dream vanishing. Damn it, ran through his head now fully awake. How did they find me? His hand crawled toward the tire tool tucked into his sleeve. “How did you find me?” He repeated, his voice rough from sleep.

“Security cameras, Mr. Davies,” Detective Allen said, now holding a Taser. “The hospital called us when they realized the vagrant in the stairwell was you.”

They were close, close enough he could reach them if—

“I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Davies,” Detective Morris said, his voice threatening. “And I’d advise against it. You’re not under arrest, but we’d like to take you in for a few questions.”

That’s it. That’s what they want. Take me in and I’ll disappear. Bastards want me to disappear. Court’s body shook as he lifted himself to his knees, hatred seething. Just one swing and he could take out Allen’s legs. His hand still inside his coat gripped the metal tool.

“Please remove your hand from your coat, Mr. Davies,” Detective Allen said, raising the stun gun. “I will not hesitate to incapacitate you.”

Incapacitate? Court barked a laugh. Is that what they’re calling it these days?

He yanked the tire tool from his coat and lunged for Allen, but he never reached her. What felt like an invisible bat struck Court and he dropped to the dirty concrete floor of the parking garage, his muscles rigid, his body stiff as 55,000 volts surged through him. No, his mind screamed, then he remembered nothing else.

***

The light in the white room hurt his eyes.

“He’s awake, doctor.” The voice came from behind him. Court tried to turn his head, but couldn’t.

“I’ll be right there,” another voice answered, although the person didn’t sound like they were in the room. It came from a speaker. “Call in the detectives.”

He tried to turn his head again, but it was held fast. By what? Why? “Where—” Court started to say, but his face hurt. Where am I?

The sound of a door opening, followed by footsteps came from the direction of the voices. A face appeared over him and he knew where he was. It was a nurse and he was back in the hospital.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Davies?” the nurse asked, snapping on a latex glove. Without waiting for him to answer the nurse pressed a thumb on Court’s lower eyelid and pulled down. A penlight appeared in the nurse’s other hand and waved across Court’s line of sight. “Any headaches? Dizziness? Nausea?”

Court tried to shake his head, but couldn’t. “No,” he wheezed through a dry throat. He tried to move, to sit up, but his wrists were bound and he couldn’t move his legs. He jerked his limbs against the bonds. Why am I tied down? he thought, although he knew.

The door opened again followed by more footsteps.

“His eyes look fine, Doctor,” the nurse said. “No sign of head trauma.”

Dr. Anderson’s face appeared next to the nurse’s. “You’re lucky, Mr. Davies,” the doctor said. “You hit that garage floor awfully hard.”

A rage like Court had never felt flared as he stared into the woman’s face. “You’re a goddamned monster,” he said, his sore jaw barely moving. “If I could, I’d choke you.”

The nurse stepped out of Court’s vision and was replaced by Detective Morris. Allen appeared on the opposite side. “Is that what you were doing in the parking garage with a tire tool, Mr. Davies,” Detective Allen asked. “Waiting to assault Dr. Anderson?”

Damn it. He pulled against his bonds, but knew it was a waste of energy. A strap across his midsection kept him motionless. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Like physically assault a—” Allen looked in a notebook. “—Craig D. Peterson in front of the First Midwest Credit Union?” She lowered the notebook out of Court’s vision. “Broke his nose and destroyed an iPhone 7. Mr. Peterson is pressing charges. Mr. Dennis Stricklin, however, is not. You hit him with a beer bottle.”

“You also violated a federal law by removing your monitoring chip,” Detective Morris said.

Morons. MORONS. They made me do it. “I never did anything illegal until she put that goddamned thing in me,” Court shouted, staring wide-eyed at Dr. Anderson. “Anything.”

“Your DUI would say otherwise,” Detective Morris said.

“But—” Court said, but stopped himself. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know. But I didn’t kill that woman.”

“You mean Officer Parks?” Detective Morris smiled as he leaned over Court. “The woman in the yellow coat you found bludgeoned to death. It was a test. As was Officer Tillman, the man in the pea coat who found you in the snow.”

What? A test? “What do you mean a test?”

“Your Recidivist Monitoring Chip was the first one ever installed, Mr. Davies,” Dr. Anderson said, the look on her face so smug Court would have punched it if he weren’t tied down.

“First?”

“No one knew how it would work,” Detective Morris said. “This was an exercise.”

The scream from Court’s lips came so suddenly the doctor and detectives jerked back a step. “I was your guinea pig? Your goddamned guinea pig?” They did this. They ALL did this. “You ruined me. You ruined me. I did nothing wrong and you pushed me. You pushed me until I cracked.” He took a long breath then screamed again, the roar coming from deep in his chest. “Get me out of here. Get me OUT.”

Dr. Anderson motioned out of Court’s vision. The nurse quickly came into view holding a hypodermic. Dr. Anderson nodded and the nurse injected something into Court’s arm. Immediately his head grew light, the strain against the straps became impossible and he sank into the bed.

“This one’s too bad,” Detective Allen said. “He’s right. He had no criminal record before this. What’s the best course? Psychiatric hospital?”

“Oh, no,” Dr. Anderson said. “When his trial goes to court, I’ll have to recommend prison to the judge. He has a Bad Brain.”