Earth Man Read online

  Danny burst out laughing but Phil kept on, deadly serious.

  “Why am I the main character here? Maybe YOU are!” Danny said.

  “No. You’re the white guy, you’re the hero. More power to you man. I don’t want all this shit following me around. I don’t want all that responsibility and commitment. I just want to keep my head down and get out of this alive.”

  “I think you’re over-reacting a bit Phil.”

  “I mean it, you tell me what is going on, to the best of your ability, so I can make an informed decision about which path I take. Otherwise I am just walking blindly into the jaws of death.”

  Danny continued to chuckle until he realized that Phil was truly afraid. Whatever that voice was in the woods, whatever was happening, Phil was a part of it. Danny didn’t even know where to begin with all the odd and terrible things he’d seen. There was no way to put into words what he was experiencing but he owed it to his friend to try. After the monster he’d faced in the morgue he couldn’t ignore the danger all around him. If he was going to protect his friends and family, he’d have to start by telling them the truth. Phil was right in that regard; the more people knew the better prepared they would be. Something big was happening that much Danny was sure of. It was as if something was picking at the edges of the world, trying to peel back a loose piece of reality and climb through.

  “Can we at least get some beer first?” Danny asked.

  Phil smiled and started the car engine.

  After picking up a twelve pack at the Beer Store, Danny and Phil headed for their favourite drinking spot; the curb at the base of Knox Mountain Drive. They parked the car on the dirt shoulder on the opposite site of the intersection and with their beer between their feet they sat on the gray stone curb.

  “You heard the voice too?” Danny asked.

  Phil nodded as he cracked his beer bottle open.

  “Yeah it sounded like T-Pain. I thought there was a car parked somewhere nearby but I didn’t see anything,” Phil replied.

  “I did. I saw a light. A red beam, flashing somewhere in the forest.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw anything. I followed it and I found the dead deer we’d shot and,” Phil cut him off quickly.

  “When I found you there was no deer.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Yeah man. Just you and your face, all messed up in fear and shock.”

  Phil stretched open his mouth and eyes, hiding his teeth, to show Danny how he’d looked when Phil had found him. Danny just shook his head.

  “Is that what I looked like? Really? I don’t remember anything other than the deer. The voice didn’t sound like T-Pain either.”

  “Well not like T-Pain, exactly, but it was definitely auto tune.”

  “It didn’t sound like that to me at all. If anything, it was more child-like, higher pitch. More alien.”

  Phil finished his beer and walked over to the garbage can and threw it out.

  “You mean like those little bug-eyed things?” Phil asked.

  “Yeah, the ass-probers.”

  “Did you get probed?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Well there’s some good news right there. So what happened in the hospital?”

  “Did you see it? The thing, the creature?”

  “No, but I overheard the nurses talking about it. Some kind of burn victim, or deformed freak or something.”

  “It was a man; at least it was at first. I could see it happening, the change, like right in front of me. From a man into something else, something horrible. It tried to kill me. It chopped off my arm.”

  “What??”

  Phil grabbed the arm as Danny held it up. Unable to pull Danny closer from a sitting position, Phil stood up, took off his hat and tossed it on the curb and took Danny’s arm in both his hands.

  Taking the thumb, Phil moved it around, rubbing the skin.

  “Where’s the scar?” Phil asked, turning the hand back and forth.

  “I told you it re-grew, I lost the whole hand, man!”

  “This is totally and completely crazy. It’s impossible.”

  Phil sat back down, put his hat back on and opened another beer. Danny stood up while Phil tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. Regeneration. That was more serious than just hearing voices; this was a serious breach of the rules of the universe. People just did not grow limbs back. People did not get attacked by monsters either, but the exact nature of this monster was still up in the air. A mutated human was not that far outside Phil’s realm of possibility, after all people were born with defects all the time. A new hand meant something else; it meant that things were changing in the world and that the rules were being remade.

  The missing injury on Danny’s old hand was caused by a violent football accident. As the quarterback Danny was hit hard by a strong offensive rush. Phil had been one of the linebackers and had slipped in the mud, letting his man slip past. The horrible weather caused his whole defensive line to crumble and Danny had been mobbed by multiple members of the opposing team. Even with his teammates helping, he was buried beneath a mass of bodies. One of the players had stepped on his thumb, bending it back and snapping the bone. The skin had stretched back and torn open and the surgery to repair the muscle tissue and regain use of the thumb had left a scar as well. There had been no permanent injuries but it had taken months before his hand recuperated. The scar was there long after their football careers, and their career aspirations had moved on. To see that scar, that childhood reminder of the boys they were, wiped away by some strange supernatural force, really hurt Phil in a way he could not explain. It was a piece of their shared history that was now gone forever.

  “The voices I keep hearing, they aren’t mean or scary. They’re distorted and distant, but they seem more frustrated than anything else.”

  The two men sat silently for a moment, watching a pick-up drive slowly by. The driver of the Ford truck, a woman, gave them a curious glance but kept on driving.

  “I’m going to have to explain all this to Helen too when I get home.” Danny said, sighing deeply.

  “How’s she doing? Is she pissed at me?”

  “No. She’s been an angel, actually. I figured she was waiting until I was up and around and back home before she went off.”

  For some reason Phil found himself thinking about God as Danny paced back and forth and that was when an idea struck him.

  “Angels. Satan. God and Satan.”

  Phil jumped up, spilling his beer slightly as he grabbed Danny.

  “Now you’re sounding like the voices, Phil.”

  “No I mean look, we heard voices in the forest and SOMETHING happened to you. Now you are drawn to this weird thing in the hospital that is somehow connected. There are TWO things here, Danny! Something in the woods and another thing here, in the hospital. With you in the middle.”

  Danny knew what Phil was talking about but he was sceptical. Yet in the hospital hadn’t that voice from the woods talked to him, told him to reach out to the crawling things around him and show him how to heal? Had something been trying to protect him from the mutated monster?

  “Angels in the forest, devils in the city. Men, women, life, death. It’s a two-sided coin.” Phil was so happy with his sudden brainstorm he finished off his beer and threw the bottle. The bottle smashed on the rocks on the side of the road.

  “Whoops.” Phil said.

  “What if you’re wrong?” Danny asked, looking down at the ground.

  “What if it IS two different things and they are both demons?”

  Phil took out two beers, twisted the caps off both and handed one to Danny.

  “Well if that’s the case, we’re all fucked.”

  Phil was laughing and Danny tried his best to see the lighter side of the moment. The best he could do was to give Phil a weakly reassuring smile.

  They finished their beers and spent a few more hours talking, trying their best to c
ome up with a plan of action. Danny did not tell Phil everything and they made little progress, other than getting a bit drunk. There had been something between him, the voices and the insects in the room. Something in him had connected him to the spider. When they bonded, he was aware of its entire being and the energy within him latched onto it somehow. With the alcohol in his system he felt stranger than ever, the whole world seemed to be increasing in intensity and he could not seem to block it out. He could feel a tiny power inside him, growing bigger with each hour that passed.

  Danny’s body had duplicated the abilities of the insects in the hospital morgue; his speed and strength had been increased for the brief time he was in danger. Without that ability he’d certainly have died. Even as he sat and talked with his friend he could feel a weird pull at the corners of his mind. There were things out in the world he was suddenly aware of, that his strange new power seemed to react to. He could sense a caterpillar tasting the sap of a nearby maple tree. A stray cat sniffed around a dumpster, wondering if the scent of the home it was born in could ever be found again. Accepting that reality was changing was one thing, accepting the core of his being was changing was far too much for him to handle. Sharing that would be like stepping away from his humanity, he felt as if verbalizing it would give it form and substance, but if he remained quiet perhaps it would all fade away. Danny was afraid of what was now inside him. If he told Phil and Phil saw it in him, saw that he had changed too, how could he trust Danny anymore?

  The guy in the hospital basement, his name had been Norbert. Danny felt terrible for the man and wondered if anyone in the world would ever look for him. Within a minute Norbert had turned into an alien ant creature, snapping and hissing at him. It happened so fast the man couldn’t have even known what was going on. If whatever was in that man was in him, then he was a danger to everyone around him. It seemed so farfetched, so impossible, that he couldn’t talk about it. It was too horrible to contemplate so Danny kept to himself.

  Phil tried to come up with some sort of plan but all he was really looking for was a way to cope with what he’d experienced. Danny simply nodded and agreed with his ideas until Phil sobered up and drove him home. Phil had given up trying to get any more out of his frind, in the end they’d decided to let Danny handle it. If anything happened he promised he’d let Phil know, but Danny wasn’t sure that there was much Phil could do.

  When Danny walked in the house Morgan had just gotten out of the bath and she ran to him with soaking wet clumps of curly red hair flopping about. The blonde streaks were more noticeable when her hair was wet and Danny adored the almost platinum blonde streak that ran down the center of her hair.

  “Daddy!” Morgan shouted.

  Danny scooped his daughter up in his arms and looked around for his son.

  “Where’s Ray?” Danny asked Helen as soon as she appeared, towel flung over one shoulder.

  “Hi. He’s in his room.”

  Helen seemed relieved that he was home, which surprised him because he’d spent more time with Phil than he’d intended to. His wife was still wet from taking Morgan out of the bath and she wore only a pair of black shorts and a white tank top. Helen smiled at him and he smiled back, still madly in love with her. He ignored the wrinkles that were appearing at the corners of her eyes. It made him feel guilty whenever he thought of her aging; he always felt like a burden to her whenever he saw her tired or weary. His masculinity could handle the fact she was a carpenter, working with tools he couldn’t even name. It was the children he felt guilt over; no matter how much he tried it always seemed they relied on their mother the most.

  Danny carried Morgan upstairs to her room, his wife trailing behind. As she climbed quietly under the covers he sat down next to her and read Morgan her favourite book, Where the Wild Things Are. Helen left to get ready for bed and Danny read his daughter the story as she curled up under the blanket.

  “And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.”

  By the time he finished reading Morgan was fast asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling with each little breath. Danny placed a hand over his daughter’s heart and then leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  As he crept quietly out of Morgan’s room, he looked down the hall. He knew his wife was waiting in their room and he walked with his head down in shame. More than anything else that had happened, this was what he been dreading the most. If the choice was offered to him, he’d fight three more of those mutated monsters if it meant he would not have to hear the disappointment in his wife’s voice. Helen had asked him not to go hunting in the first place; there was too much that needed to be done around the house for him to take off for the night on a camping trip.

  After everything he had been through the last three days Danny did not have the energy for a fight even though he knew he deserved what was coming. How many times was she going to have to tolerate his stupidity? For how much longer could she carry the responsibilities of their family alone? Things were changing all around them and during the brief walk down the hall Danny swore to himself that this was going to be the last time she had to yell at him. The universe had opened itself and revealed to him a small fragment of something amazing and terrible, how could he possibly go back to being the same irresponsible ass he’d been? It was his job to keep them safe, all of them.

  As he touched the bedroom door he could almost feel the anxiety and concern flowing out from his wife, through the wood and into his chest. When he stepped into the room he was prepared for anything. Instead Helen ran to him and threw her arms around him, tears bursting out as she sobbed heavily. Somehow seeing her cry was worse than the anger, this was out of character for her and it shocked him. Of all the strange things he’d recently experienced, the tears streaming down Helen’s face and her sobs against his chest made him feel the worst. Even the pain of losing a limb, of watching it regrow in front of him, did not damage him the way his wife’s tears did. To see Helen, who was always so strong and confident, suddenly reduced to a sobbing mess hurt him more than anything he’d ever known. In the back of his mind he could not help but wonder if she too was changing, just as he was. The idea that something might have happened to her stirred the fear that had been growing in his heart since the minute he’d shot the deer. That fear finally overwhelmed him and he clutched Helen tight. They clung to each other for comfort, just two small human hearts beating as one, afraid for their tiny, inconsequential lives that held so much wonder and potential.

  They kissed each other gently at first, through tears and Helen’s soft sobbing. Soon the passion between them ignited a fire and they began to stroke and caress each other roughly. Danny covered Helen in kisses; across her shoulders and neck as she pulled his shirt over his head. Wrapping one arm around her body he lifted her up off the ground and laid Helen on the bed. The strange red energy crackled through him but neither of them noticed. Their eyes were closed and they let their hands find and explore each other as their bodies began to move together. Danny could feel the life force flowing out of her and into him and back like an electrical circuit charging them both. His heartbeat quickened to match hers and she opened her legs for him to climb on top of her. Danny kissed her as he lay chest to chest against her, their hearts beating in unison. Her arousal and hunger was an aphrodisiac to him, it fuelled his own fiery passion like gasoline. Every part of him wanted her and yet as they lay naked, moments before he entered her he stopped and took her head in his hands.

  “I love you Helen. More than anything in this world,” Danny said as he kissed her bottom lip gently. She smiled and let out a breathy response.

  “Show me. Show me how much you love me.” Instead of speaking Danny thrust into her and as she sighed she pulled him deeper in.

  Dr. Rue sat at his desk, nervously tapping his Carmio loafers against the tile floor, his eyes locked on his office phone. He’d never been good with anxiety, it was the reason he was a general practi
tioner and not a surgeon; his nerves just couldn’t hold up under pressure.

  The Third watched him, eager for his flesh. The ant that served as its host had the ability to grow wings inside its DNA, so it had activated the gene earlier. It buzzed around the corner of the room, a fat bloated mutation of its former self on withered wings. It had purged itself of the fear it had felt before, a side effect of the weak human it had inhabited. It would not accept fear, it had faced defenders before on planets that were stronger and more powerful than Earth. They had all crumbled beneath its black touch. It was adaptable and versatile, free of the restrictive instincts of lesser life forms; it would not be brought low by the basic brains of evolved mammals. It flew toward the doctor and settled on the corner of his desk. This time it would not rush the change; it would wear the human and savour the transformation into a warrior form.

  Just as the phone rang the Third flew into Dr. Rue’s ear. The doctor felt only a slight itch as he placed the phone against his head.

  “You were correct. There were no traces in the subject’s bloodstream.” The voice on the other end of the line said.

  “Exactly! Whatever it is you are looking for, Mr. Boyle isn’t carrying it.”

  The doctor drummed his fingers on the desk.

  “What do you want me to do with the other body?” Dr. Rue asked nervously.

  “We’ve already sent over a team to clean the contaminated areas and remove the body. Just do your part, Mr. Rue, we’ll handle the rest.”

  “It’s Dr. Rue,” even as the words left his mouth he knew he’d made a mistake. His ear was ringing but he could still hear the voice clearly.

  “No. Doctors have morals and ethics. You have neither, Mr. Rue.”

  “When do I get my money?”

  “Soon.”

  The phone clicked and Dr. Rue breathed a sigh of relief. As he placed the phone down he rubbed his earlobe to relieve the pressure that seemed to be building in his head. Finally he got up in search of some painkillers, thinking it was a migraine coming on. The Third nestled into the soft flesh, burrowing deeper inside as it released a neutralizing painkiller into the doctor’s bloodstream. Comfortable and warm, the alien waited patiently for an adversary worthy of its abilities.