Derek had half expected to be propelled to another silly so
called ‘Axis of Evil’ country such as Iran but he couldn’t have
been anymore wrong; his alien abductors had plans a bit further
field.
He and Chin could not believe the scenery. It was beyond
fantastical; the best efforts of warped artists who normally painted unicorns running across silver streams could not have imagined in
their wildest dreams such a place, even after munching a dozen
gold top mushrooms.
They were standing on what appeared to be a beach, underfoot
was a very fine light blue crushed substance which looked like
flour and immediately behind them stood an abundance of white
wispy feather like trees with fat stumps that ascended into almost a fine point. The breeze made the branches dance about and sway in
rhythm.
What was surprising was the translucent body of water that
spread out unimpeded to a distant horizon, the light blue sand
underneath made it appear quite dazzling.
Derek was the first to speak, “Where the hell are we my
friend?”
Chin was mesmerized by the sheer beauty and pointed at the
creamy sky where a sun, not dissimilar in size to Earth’s, blazed
away. He finally spoke as he caught his breath, "Not sure, hope plenty good fish in sea.”
It looked to Derek like a set straight out of Star Trek and he
hoped he wouldn’t have to start beating up the locals. He favoured the later episodes that tried to make friends with them but he knew in his heart that Captain Kirk was right, fists first, talk later.
It was ridiculous to believe he was still on Earth, no Kuoni
brochure had ever displayed a place like this; he could however,
see the same crash of waves in the distance as it relentlessly
battered a wall of something that must have resembled coral,
maybe the same as what he was now standing on.
His Korean friend decided to walk up the slope to investigate
the trees, he was a practical man at heart and it could be strong
material for building anything from a boat to a new tree house.
“My friend! Be careful, you don’t know what’s out there,”
called Derek as he decided to see what the water felt like; for all he knew it could be acid. He dipped his tripod into the clear liquid and saw that it hadn’t sizzled or dissolved into nothingness and decided to put his foot in.
The liquid felt warm, just like the temperature you would find
on Tonga, but he decided not to step into it in case there were the same kind of monsters that appeared on old sailors maps with tusks and ridiculously sized heads.
A lonely frightened Derek started visualizing instant death and
ran off up the slope to find his friend; it was so unfamiliar it made him feel completely uncomfortable.
Trevor and Petunia were sitting in their pristine living room
trying to get over the shock of their neighbour’s revelations. They were quite relieved that number 43 didn’t exist any more in case
they were sucked into a lurid world of debauchery and perversion.
Both were devout Christians and had no intention of growing
Pampas on their front lawn as an invitation.
Trevor was sipping a large whisky in his comfortable reclining
armchair next to the window and noticed something rather unusual
happening outside near the earth mound.
“Petunia, there’s a man in an anorak with some sort of
electrical device he’s prodding into the dirt!”
Petunia peeked through the net curtains at the sight of a rather
large bald man in a kagool taking notes and using what amounted
to an oversized microwave meat tester.
“Strange, what on earth is he doing?” she said but Trevor was
none the wiser.
“Darling. do you think I should go out and investigate?” he
answered as she carried on staring.
“Trevor, you will do no such thing! He could be one of
Derek’s friends and you have no idea what he might do with that
prong if you get within one foot of him, we’re safer here.”
He took another sip of his whisky and continued to watch.
Meanwhile, outside number 43, Bob Spade had been joined by
some elements of his counter-invasion group made up mostly of
traffic wardens, rail controllers and retired model aeroplane
builders. They each had brought along similar probes and even
something that looked like a box with red and green flashing lights you wore as a backpack. It was obvious to anyone that they meant
business.
“Right, team, we need to spread out, quadrant formation, we
can cover this whole area in less than half an hour and be gone
before we raise any suspicions. You know what to look for; I think this could be the breakthrough we’ve been looking for.”
The whole nerdy team nodded in unison. They were a very
serious bunch, as alien hunting was a serious business. The six
strong group split up into pairs and covered the front, middle and back quadrants of number 43.
“Darling, I’m sorry but my curiosity has gotten the better of
me, if I’m not back in a few minutes ring the police.”
“God speed, dear,” replied Petunia as she watched her devoted
husband walk towards the front door.
“Trevor!” she cried as if she had just witnessed a very close
call indeed.
He turned back and was caught by surprise as she hastily
grabbed his collar and began to fumble with it. “Your cravat,
darling, you can’t go out looking like that!”
Bob’s metal detector started to beep in the very heart of the
crater; he hadn’t expected anything quite so soon. He started
digging the freshly disturbed soil and just as he was about to
retrieve the item he heard a shout coming from the back of the
garden.
Placing his position stick into the ground, he ran up and over
the slope to see one of his friends holding something that appeared to be a jumpsuit; he nodded to his colleague and looked at the
striped outfit with amazement.
It was human sized with prison type striped patterns that
wrapped around from front to back but what really caught his
interest was some strange looking symbols written on the front.
“Thanks, Colin, these symbols look almost like hieroglyphs,
this is an amazing find.”
Another shout rang out from the front of the garden; someone
had found a matching pair, a little smaller but with the same
curious logo on the front.
Bob couldn’t believe his luck. “Bag them up guys, they’re
coming with us!”
He walked back into the pit where his stick lay to dig up his
find.
A sharp looking, tweed wearing local suddenly appeared from
nowhere. “Hello, can I ask what you’re doing here?”
The group leader jumped back with a start but quickly nodded
to his friends to hide the items they had found before turning to
Derek’s neighbour with a smile that only a poker player could pull off. “Local council, sir, we’re on a clean up operation.”
Trevor eyed him with suspicion, “But you’re not wearing the
regulation green overalls that council workers normally wear, do
you have some ID on you?”
A shout came up from the back garden as another find was
called out. “Would you excuse me, sir, for just one second?”
A nervous looking Bob Spade strode up the bank again to find
out what the item was. “Colin, we’re rumbled, we need to get out
of here, what have you found?”
His friend lifted up a pair of y-fronts with much excitement,
“Bloomin’ amazing find this Bob.”
“It’s a pair of pants, Colin? What’s so spectacular about
these?”
The nerdy understudy was still beaming and pointed with a
twig to the back of the dazzling blue pair, “A stain, Colin, but not what you think. It looks like green ooze, hard to say but it’s dried now, worth a closer look?”
“Bloody hell Colin, amazing; I think this investigation goes
deeper than we first thought. Bag them too and make your way to
the cars before the real council gets called!”
An enquiring voice came bellowing out from inside the pit
once more, “I say sir, could you come back here and tell me what
the hell is going on?”
Bob, still smiling, returned once more to meet his suspicious
on looker.
“Nothing to worry about, sir, everything is under control.”
A flustered Trevor became a little angrier at the shroud of
mystery over the whole operation. “I can see that, sir, but I would like to see some credentials please or I will be forced to phone the authorities immediately!”
“I have them right here in my bag, I won’t be a moment.”
Bob knelt down to feign the rumbling of his satchel contents
while he carefully turned his back to dig with his hands and pull up whatever was hiding under the soil. He only had to scrape a few
inches before he stumbled across something so out of this world it raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Will you please hurry up or I am marching back into my
house and calling straight away. This is preposterous!”
Bob grabbed the item and pushed it into his rucksack before
pulling out something he’d packed to aid his getaway.
“Found it, it’s right here, sir.”
With a quick spin and a lunge of pure, raw fear, he dislodged
the inside of his fresh peanut butter sandwich into the face of a
startled Trevor, who fell back into the soft, dirty pit with a shriek.
Bob ran for his life up the slope and back to the waiting
getaway cars as Trevor desperately wiped crunchy peanut butter
from his eyes to focus again. “You maniacs!”
The group leader jumped into the car quickly and, with a
screech of tyres from the old Fiat 500, it was gone, although from a standing start it took about 20 seconds to reach the end of the short road.
“Colin, you wouldn’t believe what I just pulled out! I couldn’t
believe it myself, look at these, twisted but unmistakable.”
Colin almost lost control of the tiny car as he tried to take in
the enormity of the item that now lay in front of him. “Aviators!”
Bob grinned with satisfaction, he knew like the rest of the
carefully controlled group that they weren’t your everyday
sunglasses of choice, these particular specimens had turned up in
virtually every alien abduction novel ever published. They could
only point to the mysterious group of people who came to every
scene of abduction to subdue witness statements and make them
forgot they ever saw green men prancing about on a picnic.
“Colin, get that suspicious sample analyzed, I fear from the
looks of it that the Government have already got a hold of this
case. I’m going to come back tonight for a closer look, see what
else I can dig up!”
Derek and Chin had trekked into the wispy forest through
enormous foliage, the most common of which was a blue and
white speckled flower that looked like a cross between a lily and a daffodil. The petals alone were bigger than Derek’s head; he didn’t stand too close to them just in case they spat out something toxic and evil.
He called out to his friend who was making good headway
through the brush, “Be careful, Chin, there could be anything out
there!”
His friend just waved his arm up in the air as if to call Derek a
sissy. He was trying to find a well worn path made by the locals
but he couldn’t find any. Suddenly, something that resembled an
orchid closed its petals and began to run away from him along with a few other spooked plants.
“Plant that walk!” said Chin. It was incredible, he watched as
their root feet made haste to hide behind another giant blue flecked monster. “I hope that not walk,” as he looked up to take in its size.
Eventually they came out onto a beach that looked exactly like
the one they had left. Derek sat down on the fine sand to take in the view once more.
“It’s not exactly big, is it my friend?” said Derek.
Chin began to survey the coastline and could make out, from
this side, the curvature of a bay. “From guess, I say not very big at all.”
“Thank you my friend, very accurate guess it was too. Shall we
carry on and explore the rest?”
“No bother, we find food, we eat, we make shelter.”
Derek loved his way of speaking, it didn’t require many
syllables but he managed to get the point across very well. “One
thing you missed though, what about water?”
His Korean friend didn’t have a clue, that was a tricky one
indeed, but he was very skilled in scratching his head.
Derek was reminded of the Ancient Mariner rhyme as he
looked out across the light blue bay, “Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
Chin just looked at him and started laughing, “Derek, I
fisherman and you one very strange fish, we go.”
There was one thing that Derek did remember; at some time in
the history of man, for every edible morsel that had ever been
tasted, someone had died tasting things that were not. It was going to be a lottery to see who would choke first to save the other.
They both ventured back into the creamy coloured forest, it
was so white, in fact, that only a polar bear could blend into it …
luckily they hadn’t met any just yet.
What was eerie though was the clump of walking plants about
knee high that followed in their wake about ten yards back. Each
time Derek looked round they would assume the painted statue
pose and wait until he turned back to venture further.
There was not a single cloud in the sky, it could be the height
of summer as far as they both knew, it did feel warm but not humid which helped. The planet’s sun was going down over the horizon
and it would be dark soon.
Chin eyed a rather nice clearing almost halfway between the
two beaches. The foliage was quite sharp, looking a lot like palm
leaves but harder, like wood with huge fingers. He walked over to
one and tested its strength with a slap of his hand. “Like balsa,
strange wood.” he called and he pulled a big leaf from its root and joined it in an interlocking way with another next to it.
Leaf after leaf he joined until it looked like an igloo hut but
with the kind of pieces you would find in a toddler’s play set.
“Ingenious,” cried Derek, who knew that his expertise lay only
in watching plastic bottles run down a belt. He was lucky to have
his friend come along or it would be curtains.
“Something missing, Derek,” called his friend as they now sat
within its wooden confines with a view to the sea.
“Women, beer, guitar, steak?”
“Insects.”
It was not the answer he expected but Chin was right, they
hadn’t come across a single alien ant, fly, mosquito, caterpillar or anything creepy apart from the runner plants.
Derek and Chin peered out of their narrow entrance and could
make out a group of plants, not rooted, just standing there because they had walked there of their own accord.
They both looked at each other with a slow rising fear, “Chin, I
think some plants eat insects!”
His friend nodded and decided a door was needed so he took a
spare leaf and locked it into place.
They could hear the rustle of roots brushing past in the sand
and could see through the tiny slits created between leaf joins as a large band of curiously hungry looking flora descending on the
hut.
A ridiculously large eye peered through a magnifying glass at
a bright blue specimen that was so musty it could have stood up on its own accord or even climbed a wall.
“Donald, I’ve never seen a green stain on the back of
underpants before,” said Colin to his friend.
A bearded senior trekkie played with his hairy growth before
delivering his verdict, “Just be glad it’s not any other kind of
stain!”
“Thanks, Donald, for that insightful offering. We need to get
some sort of result before Bob rings in again.”
“Could be an exclusive for our club; wipe a smile off the other
group’s face!”
“Indeed, Donald, indeed, we had better take a sample.”
Colin and Donald were moonlighting a shift at Runcorn’s
pathology lab, everyone else had gone home. A pathetic table lamp
cast a sickly glow over the medium sized underpants and Colin
scraped at the sample to deposit the dried green mass into a Petri dish.
Donald eyed the sample with a keen interest. “Colin, this could
be the greatest breakthrough of our time, this could put us on the front cover of Seti-World.”
His colleague nodded enthusiastically in agreement, “I never
thought I would see the day. I always believed it, like we all did, it could have happened anywhere but there’s no reason why our alien
friends wouldn’t want to visit Runcorn.”
“Quite right, Colin, an alien visitor wouldn’t simply travel to a
human’s favourite landmark as it is, of course, alien to this world, so it would be a random visit. The outstanding beauty of Runcorn
must have enticed it here.”
The tension and excitement filled the small confines of the lab
as the dish was placed into the sample analyser ready for the
verdict, they knew that a negative result would signify alien matter and make them very famous. It was like watching the last National
Lottery ball drop through the hole after they had marked off the
previous five.
Meanwhile, a lone figure was treading very gingerly up the
remaining mound of dirt left by the council workers in Blossom
Meadows.
Bob Spade had parked his Fiat 500 around the corner out of
sight of the angry neighbour he had assaulted earlier with the
peanut butter sandwich, in case the well dressed man appeared
again. He couldn’t afford a visit by the police, they would ask a lot of awkward questions and he was afraid of getting his friend at the nick embroiled in what could possibly be something as important
as Area 57.
The moon had decided to go on strike and it was an impossibly
dark night. Bob was busy scouring the site with his faithful torch which threw a red glow over the remaining debris. The air was
quite still and he could smell something not altogether pleasant as he made his way over to the back of the garden to look for more
clues.
“Just stay calm, gather what you can and get out of here, Bob,”
he whispered to himself.
Over at the lab, the machine whirred away for what seemed
like eons but eventually its digital display spewed out the results.
Colin and Donald looked tentatively over at each other in
astonishment, they couldn’t fathom it, none of it made any sense
whatsoever.
A surprised Donald stroked his beard once more and shook his
head in an act of bewilderment.
“Better make the call, Colin. Bob won’t believe this one bit.”
A small vibrating sound erupted in Bob’s black anorak jacket;
it seemed that there was an anorak for all occasions and this one
was suited for night time foraging. As a safety measure, Bob had
smeared boot polish over his pink featureless face in case he was
forced to hide in a crevice away from an angry cravat wearing
lunatic, hell-bent on revenge.
He flipped open the phone just like Captain Kirk would have
done on the Enterprise. “Colin, I hope this is important, do you
have the results?”
“Affirmative, Bob,” came the eager reply.
A few seconds ticked by as Bob stared at his phone waiting for
the answer but he had suddenly become aware of a faint growling
sound, a deep guttural rumbling he had not heard before. It was
followed by the same intense stench he had caught a whiff of
earlier but this was singeing his nostrils. Whatever it was, it was coming closer to where he was standing.
“Colin, there’s something here, I can’t make it out, tell me the
results so I can be on my way.”
His friend loved the theatrics but his silence was broken by
Bob’s impatience so he delivered his results as best he could.
“Bob, it’s ridiculous to say the least, but the sample seems to
have indicated that the stain is in fact …”
A growl erupted a little too close for comfort as Bob lifted his
red torch to finally illuminate the dark object that was now within five feet of his existence. Bob’s hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he took in the sheer enormity of the shape as it sidled up to him in the most fear inducing and horrifically menacing way
possible.
“Sorry Colin, say again…”
“As I say, Bob, the sample is in fact nothing more than a …”
Colin was waiting for another impatient reply but all he heard
was a blood curdling scream on the other end of the line as a
purple tentacle had shot out from the dark and stunned its helpless victim into paralysis.
Bob’s mobile dropped to the ground along with his trusty one
megapixel camera that had managed to flash off a shot and
illuminate the ugly great beast for a millisecond.
All Bob’s bulging eyes could do was watch in horror as the
long snouted brute moved in closer for a sniff, huge swathes of
saliva drenched his face before it finally realised that humans could be a tasty alternative to a Pongwart and less dangerous too.
There was an almighty crunch as the Drakapod’s teeth
slammed down onto its helpless victim and in a split second, there was no more Bob Spade.
“Bob, can you hear me, come in Bob?” cried Colin on the
other end of the line.
The great beast sniffed at the strange sounding device before
lifting it up with its elephant like snout and crunching down on that too.
The line went dead and Colin turned alarmingly to his cohort,
“Donald, I think Bob’s in trouble, I never got chance to tell him the stain was nothing more than harmless camel spit!”
Donald begrudgingly nodded to his friend, “You know as well
as I do that he’s always playing practical jokes on us. Leave him
be, let him come to us, he’s always trying to keep us in suspense.”
“I think you’re right on this one. I don’t know how dromedary
spit came to be stuck to someone’s underpants but it’s definitely
not what we thought it was. I had high hopes that, for once, this
was going to be a great find.”
Donald placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Never mind, Colin, let’s wrap up for tonight and go and get a well earned ale down at the Flag and Lamb.”
The dim light was switched off as two depressed looking
individuals shuffled out the door of the lab and decided it was time to drink away their disappointment.
Over what appeared to be a trillion light years away, a couple
of frightened humanoids were bunched up inside their balsa like
igloo awaiting their eventual fate.
“What are we going to do, Chin?”
They both sat entombed within the belly of their makeshift hut
and all the while the sun was relentlessly beaming down through
the slats and baking them like a Walkers crisp. Derek felt like all his water had drained out of his body, leaving something dry and
unpleasantly brittle in its wake.
His equally parched Korean friend had run out of answers. He
had about as many solutions as he himself had, which was none.
“I do not know, I very thirsty, place is hotting up!”
Derek nodded in agreement as he peered out through the slits
to gawp, in fear, at the crowd of walking orchids that were busy
running around the hastily constructed home, trying to find a way
in.
“I’m glad you built it well, my friend, otherwise we would be
toast by now but we can’t stay here to rot.”
“Not build good, Derek, look in corner!” cried his friend.
Derek turned his head in horror as he saw a group of white
orchids slowly scratching away at the soft, fine sand as if they
were dogs hastily burrowing into next doors’ garden.
“Oh my God, Chin, this is it, we’re going to die!”
His Korean friend gave a shrug of deathly acceptance as they
huddled together to await their fate. It was no use filling in the holes as, by now, all around, the plants were digging in unison. It was only a matter of time before they managed to get in.