Category: Writing

Not another one. Hurrying to work, I had few options to make my morning meeting. I don’t know where these “Peep” bastards came from, but they’re getting in the way. Don’t even get me started on the smell. Its horrendous. Like part compost pile, part wet dog. I wrinkled my nose as I got closer.

My life would’ve been different if I hadn’t failed out of cell biology in college. I wanted to be a marine biologist, going out to remote islands and sampling coral reefs in the deep blue sea. The last thing I expected was a boring office job with an equally frustrating commute.

Ocean creatures still fascinated me. Moving like hovering angels, chromatophores winking into new configurations and colors at a whim. It was like watching a digital artist click on the “fill” tool, with each fold and wrinkle saturating instantly to a new hue.

An octopus was more interesting than these damn things.

It had only been a year since they blinked into existence high above the atmosphere, broadcasting on all languages a general non-helpful question, “Be YOUSE? Be YOUSE?”. No one knew what it meant. “Be us?”, “Be ours?”, what kind of civilization travels the vast gulf of space to ask random nonsense?

Drawing closer, I could see the Peep playing with a discarded childrens toy. They loved rooting in the garbage. Who knew what they were looking for. Some draped themselves in plastic bags like mad kings of the landfill. Others tried to set up small shantytowns near garbage dumps.

This one was turning a primary-colored cube over and over, making that annoying cooing sound. Flat grey flesh pressed against the plexiglass partition, stubby legs planted firmly on the concrete sidewalk.

I skirted around the bus stop, holding my nose. I’d better go to the next one up the street.

A large delivery truck rumbled by, open side doors blasting a morning talk show. The topic of course, was the damn Peeps. I couldn’t escape it. Every magazine had a special coverage article, every newspaper and TV program had a dedicated crawl at the bottom with Peep trivia.

“Did you know the Peep ships are larger than Central Park in New York City?”

“Peeps on parade! Watch as a few playful fellows tumble down the New Jersey municipal landfill!”

Oh lord, their ships. Take a bunch of random shapes, glue them together and spray paint it earthen brown. That’s what their ships looked like. No chrome widgets, no large hull sections sprinkled with mysterious antenna and sensor pods. Just a huge lump of misshapen things stuck together.

It was like the universe wanted to play a practical joke on humankind. We wanted to know if we were alone, and the only one that showed up on our galactic doorstep was the slow cousin from the Ozarks.

Most people recoiled at the thought of integrating with the Peeps. The smell, their burbling speech, the way they fixated on weird garbage and sat for hours at at time in public places. One politician tried to pass a “Peep Protection Act” that paradoxically would have rounded them all up and put them into camps, but it failed soundly.

Someone liked them, but it sure wasn’t me.

Rain started to spit down, turning my walk into a hurried run. Dashing across the street, I ducked into the corner bus stop shaking off my coat. I should’ve worn a hat, but it was too late for that now. The rain intensified, droplets splashing into a fine mist that hung near the surface.

I heard a cooing sound.

Damn it all, a Peep.

It poked its snout-like face into the rain, extending a long grey tongue to taste the drops.

Good lord, it made my skin crawl. Nearby, the stoplight turned green, allowing the city bus to pull up to the stop. A wash of diesel fumes, sharp pneumatic hiss as the door folded open. I stepped into the warm confines, glad to be out of the weather.

“You don’t let Peeps ride, do you?”, I gestured with a thumb back at the stubby alien, still licking the air for rain.

“No, they can’t pay anyway. Can’t take trash.”, the driver adjusted his cap and pushed the button for the door to close.

Taking a seat, I looked down at the bus stop. The Peep was still there, poking through the waste bin attached to the bus stop sign.

Poor bastards. At least Peeps don’t have to go to work. The bus shook and rumbled, exhaust belching black fumes.

Maybe next time we could be visited by angels.

Anything but this.

It was expensive, but so worth it. Sliding back in the drivers seat, I brushed my fingertips over the central console menu, looking for something entertaining.

Not many people drove themselves, not in the old-time 2k-er sense. It was a hobby reserved for those that were rich enough for the insurance and the extensive permits needed outside the bustling urban center. Not that you would stand a chance in any of the high-volume corridors inside the city.

That required machine precision and nanosecond timing to navigate the city network. The intersections themselves didn’t have a single stop light, there was no need. Rivers of traffic interwove themselves like bustling bees in a hive, with clearances measured in centimeters. Completely out of the range of human senses and reaction times.

Not that I would have to worry about that. Not today.

Semi-opaque poly films still coated the inside, to be removed by the dealer before delivery. I insisted at the dealer they remain so I could peel them off personally, internally disrobing the interior to smells of clinical adhesives and gleaming surfaces. It was almost like foreplay, taking off layers and revealing the hidden treasure beneath.

But I had always been a collector, and this vehicle, a Burov 243, was the finest in all of my garage. I had been checking the forecasts for a week straight, cajoling AI’s and creating personal rulesets for when it would be perfect to take my baby out into the countryside.

The roads were rough, only patched every other month by a fleet of aging automated pavers, scrawled with the angst of bored teenagers and political dissidents. They lumbered by my property on time, laying down fresh material designed to grip older tires. I had moved out here on purpose, just because of this road. There were so few left in service, after the large near-vacuum tubes had been bored under the earth connecting cities.

Pushing a button, the Burov roared to life, another artifact of ancient engineering. If I had neighbors they’d be entering environmental zoning complaints, tagging every errant molecule of monoxide as it wafted skyward. Out here, surrounded by green fields and hills, the only eyes on me and mine were the birds, soaring in the sapphire blue sky.

Powering down to a smooth idle, I let the gear engage and smoothly accelerated forward, the front gates closing behind me as I glided past, wind catching at my scarf.

I must’ve looked a sight, driving down that road with my scarf fluttering and a wild grin on my face.

Not that the truck convoy cared. It came over the hills behind me, hauling multi-segmented trailers like a mechanical centipede. It belonged to one of those econo-shipper outfits. They couldn’t afford the rapid loop tubes between the cities, so they went with a lo-fi version instead.

Large, yellow and pockmarked with grime and insects, they hurled over the landscape with programmed instructions to not stop until their destination. They were pretty old, I could see the ratty mudflaps waving behind the large knobby all-terrain tires.

Sensing trouble, the Burov intoned in its best announcer voice, “Incursion detected, please allow automatic control.”

What? On my day off? Ridiculous.

I ignored the warning and the subsequent red triangle on the heads-up display, batting it away with a motion of my hand. There was no way I was going to let a robot convoy ruin my day out.

The stubby front end of the convoy loomed in my rear view, nearly filling the screen with its grimy geometry. I snorted, and pushed down on the accelerator.

“Warning, exceeding safe limits for current conditions”

Damn it, this Burov was turning into a backseat driver, hollering instructions. Leave me alone, I want to drive.

The chime kept pinging as I increased my speed. I was beyond the rated highway speed, and in trying to best the convoy, I saw to my horror that they were keeping right up. Oh you bastards. They must have been the very cheapest trucking firm, because no one would get that close unless they were trying to take advantage of my low-pressure wake.

I was being waked by a damn autobot trucker. That just does it, I thought.

Multiple warnings were pulsing, minimized in the lower margins of my windshield, like sullen insects staring with uncaring compound eyes.

My foot was all the way down, but the linkage to the old engine wasn’t direct — I wasn’t that rich — so there was some automated regulation involved. Sensing my unrelenting need to get ahead of the convoy, the Burov had decided to forego economy and kick in the full four barrels of the open-aspirated engine.

There I was, white-knuckled on the steering wheel, leaned into the motion of the car like someone possessed, when I heard a “click”. Oh no, I had leaned too far in, and my right knee had touched a button. A physical button, only found on certain models at the insistence of their finicky customers.

I recalled the pitch from the SalesBot:

“The Burov not only ambulates you with ease, it also entertains! Observe! An entire platter of snacks and sundries! Just a small offering of the complete luxury this Burov conveyance provides.”

The platter extended into my gut, retracted, then extended again. I should be reclined, in position to pluck morsels from the selection provided. Not hunched over and intent on beating an automated adversary. Irritated, I took both hands off the wheel and shoved the platter back in.

Then I realized – I had dismissed automatic control.

I careened off the road, clipping an expensive length of siderail before being covered in a sticky mass of collision gel. The gelatinous cloud solidified around me, opaque but permeable. I wouldn’t suffocate, just stew in my own juices until help arrived.

It was then I remembered, had I subscribed to TowCare?

Oh bugger…

There are procedures for this kind of thing, you know. Well, not exactly this kind of thing, but other events close to it I guess. I filed a ERE-3821 (Emergency Reportable Event) as soon as I found out, but I must’ve missed one of the checkboxes, because it thudded back in my in-tray shortly after 9am, stamped at the top – “CLOSED”.

Well bother, that’s a kick in the rear. I was all set to attend the calibration seminar luncheon and I had other work to do. I pulled up the directory, dialed the Central Facilities Emergency Coordinator, but it only rang twice before it rolled into a full voicemail box.

Exasperated, I called the junior assistant to the CFEC, who promptly told me to send it in an email with any relevant attachments. So there I was, stomach grumbling and pecking away at the keyboard, selecting drop-down choices on a poorly designed Emergency Report when my computer crashed.

Damn it all, I had told the IT guys I thought the power supply was dodgy. Rebooting was going to take a while, so I decided to use an older machine that all the secretaries called “The Demon”. It used to be an emergency terminal, one dedicated to high-priority events – hence the red plastic, and it had just enough computing power to relay messages to central facilities.

I plopped down on the well worn chair, and started making a horrible racket on the mechanical keyboard.

ERE-3821 SUPPLEMENTAL

BE ADVISED – LARGE EVENT DUE, PROBABILITY HIGH.

RECOMMEND EVAC EMER/PROC 14-FGW-#8311 PER REGS

And grandly hit the large “Send” key in triumph, thinking everything was taken care of. It was nearly 1pm when I sent it, which meant plenty of time for the other offices to get approval and start their emergency procedures. Satisfied, I turned off the console and went to a late lunch with the guys.

Things stretched out a bit longer than I thought they would, so I didn’t make it back to the office until 3pm. Guess what I saw as I sat down at my desk? A damned blinking red light on my phone, telling me I had a message. Picking up the reciever, I dialed my voicemail.

“… Hi, Chuck calling from Central Facilities, we got a garbled message from the old alert console in your office. How many times do we have to tell you guys to stop using that thing? Its using old twisted-pair copper lines to send and it never worked reliably. Just give me a call or page me at my emergency contact number. Thanks”

Damn it all, now I had to chase this guy down. I glanced at my watch, 3:25pm. Great, now I’m not even sure if I could get to safe minimum distance at this rate. Sighing in frustration, I slammed down the receiver, put the forms in my briefcase and headed out the door with my coat on.

I’ll take it to him if I damn well have to, I thought, trying to dial him on the way – but of course, the line was busy. I was just a block away when a low rumbling echoed off the skyscrapers, towers swaying in an invisible breeze.

Great.

This just wasn’t my day at all, was it.

Goddamn meddlers.

It was bad enough, fighting the vertigo and the unavoidable mind-splitting migraine from being hurled back in time 500 years. And now, so close to the objective, and one of these damn natives [Future Event Redacted].

It was in a bar, where I had to make sure [Target Redacted] was going to meet her future boyfriend so he’d go on to [Implied Future Redacted]. I was taking it easy, sitting there minding my own business, when this neanderthal stumbles up and asks me for a cigarette. I didn’t have any dried dirty weeds on me, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to touch one because of the [Future Known Fact Redacted] they had on the human body, just through contact alone.

Anyway, this guy doesn’t understand “no”, and he keeps pressing the issue. I get fed up – Yes, I know, I really should’ve been taking some stabilizers to avoid that – but I get to the point where its going to take some gentle force to get the situation resolved. I was near the 15 minute window until [Target Redacted] was supposed to show, and I couldn’t tolerate any interference.

So I guided him out to the front, and around the corner into the alley.

“Here’s your cigarette.”, and promptly shot him full of some protein decouplers. Yeah, I know, messy as hell – but I didn’t have time for being mister nice guy, whole [Future Timeline Redacted] were at stake here.

As he slumped to the ground, slowly dissolving from the inside, all I heard was “But I have a date….”

Oh godammn shi–

[Timeline Terminated]

I don’t know if this is going to reach anyone.

It took me days to get to the datacenter I’m in now. Fighting through waves of enemies, hoping I had decontaminated well enough through the one-person airlock. It all took so long. But I had to try. There was no guarantee anyone knew what we were up against, and I had to warn someone.

---

It all started with a simple email that almost got binned by my spam filter.

It had the requisite “LOOK AT THIS!!!” subject line like so many others trying to sell pills or camgirl sessions, the only saving grace is it had a domain I’d white-listed before. This put it on the other side of my filter.

Curious, I opened the email and found a cryptic sentence about some kind of phylum classification and a picture. It seemed to have been taken by a researcher under a electron microscope, it had that alien monochromatic look of small scales blown up to human perception.

The focus was on the abdomen of an insect, with chitinous plates running horizontally to the longer axis of the body. Peering closer, I could see… well, its hard to describe it any other way, but it looked like photographs of circuit boards, etched traces on semi-transparent resin. That greenish depth full of ninety degree turns and soldered pins sticking through.

Pushing back from my desk, I wondered if someone was just playing a practical joke on me. The internet is full of people with spare time and the ability to swirl pixels into any configuration, so I wasn’t about to run a story based on something that could be complete fiction. Looking up the email contact, I punched the number into my handset and leaned back, switching to speaker phone mode.

“PNP Research, how can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m writing a story and I’d like to talk to one of your researchers. His extension is 1193.”

“Certainly, I’ll connect you.”

A few digital tones and some elevator music later, the line picked up.

“Yeah? Who is this?”, he sounded a bit tired and more than just a little wary of outside callers.

“This is Macx, from Technology Daily News. You sent me an email and I’m not sure what to make of it–“

“Look, get off this line. I’ll contact you.”, hanging up the phone abruptly, garbled static crackle capping the exchange.

Oh. That’s interesting. Wonder what he was on about–

PING

The green indicator light on my phone pulsed, showing a incoming text message with a location and time.

Okay, I’ll bite.

---

“What the hell is this all about?”, I pulled on my coat to shield my neck from the biting wind. We were on the upper deck of a largely abandoned building project, one that I’ve used to meet other contacts before.

“Do you know anything about ants? Specifically, Nylanderia Fulva?”

I wrinkled my brow a bit. I had heard the name before, but wasn’t sure.

“Okay, I’ll spell it out for you. Sorry, used to reading journals all the time, forget that people don’t know the phylum as well.”, he was wearing a cheap windbreaker with a brand-name sports store silk-screened on the front.

I nodded, and moved into the leeward shelter of a nearby column.

“They’re called ‘crazy ants’ or ‘raspberry ants’. They’re an invasive species that have spread throughout most of Texas and beyond. The funny thing about these guys is they seem to like electrical equipment. Anything that has a running wire or circuit boards, transformers and the like.”

I recalled a few stories about that earlier, how prolific they were. You could have mounds of them outside of your house and you’d mistake them for clumps of dirt.

“Anyway, there’s been a bit of cross-pollination from the advanced biology section in research on how to use their abilities to home into electrical currents. We’re not entirely convinced that they’re just influenced by electrical eddy currents. There’s some indication that something more subtle is at work here.”, darting glances at the nearby office buildings, like he was afraid of being caught.

“My team was tasked to gain more insight from an engineering perspective, so we worked with the bio guys to see if we could isolate how they do what they do.”

“Okay, sounds like standard stuff. You try to reverse engineer something in nature and apply it to technology.”, I turned slightly, trying to keep my face out of the wind. I really should’ve suggested to meet somewhere else, it was damned cold.

“Yeah, seemed that way to me too. Until I got those pictures I sent you. Want to know where I got them?”, he was sweating a bit, even though it was freezing outside.

I nodded, and he continued,”They were from a sample population that we staked out in northeast Texas, just outside of New Boston. We hadn’t done anything to them, just set out some bait and let them bite.”

“So, you’re telling me you found a bunch of ants running around that had… wires in them?”

“Yeah, that isn’t the craziest thing either. We dissected a few, and it seems they’ve got some kind of interconnect happening with their exoskeleton that we don’t understand. Anyway, it scared the crap out of me, because I’ve never seen anything alive running around with what amounts to minature circuits inside.”, he backed into the shadows, lowering his voice.

“Thing is, I checked around, you know – just using unofficial channels – and it seems to go all the way to the “dark” labs. Those labs deal with large defense contracts.”, he trailed off into silence, both of us thinking about the implications.

“I’ve said enough, I’ve got to go”, and before I could stop him, he stepped briskly down the stairwell towards the street level exit below.

Damn. I don’t like this.

---

A few months went by after that, and I couldn’t get that scared look out of my head. He looked like someone who had seen a ghost, and honestly I couldn’t blame him.

I was sitting in the office, late at night.

Only desk lamp on amid rows of open cubicles, boxes piled up at the edges of new things we were going to review before shipping them to the teardown guys, who would meticulously document their repairability and other internal features.

The next item for my review was an expensive diving suit called “The Nemo” among the staff. It was a large composite conveyance that could fit one man. Fitted with the best bells and whistles that a spoiled technologist would expect, including active sonar and a near-surface passive radar system for maximum enjoyment. Small thrusters were on spherical pods attached to the back and sides, to help movement while submerged. I was looking forward to taking it down to the pool for a tryout.

I’ve always had the large LED display panel on the wall on tech news, but sometimes I skipped over to the main cable news channel. It was on now, with the volume down. I hate having to think of something to write when there’s too much babble going on. Taking a sip of soda, I rubbed my eyes, thinking of the introduction to my latest review. That’s when I saw the lower banner stream by on the display, large block capitals that said – “CITIES UNDER SIEGE – IS AMERICA UNDER ATTACK?”

That got my attention.

I turned up the volume, catching the reporter mid-sentence,”–on. Again, if you are anywhere near the cities of.. Dallas, Longview and Texarkana, please do not attempt to use highways, take only what you can carry to the designated emergency shelters shown on the map..”, the report intercut to footage taken from what looked to be a smartphone, streaming video to a popular online sharing service.

There were people, or at least they seemed to be people, crawling along the ground with brown dirt on their backs and legs, shedding clumps that met similar patches on the ground. Looking closer, I saw the leading edge of the dirt start to move towards the person holding the phone. The video went sideways and topsy-turvy. They were running. Running from something. And then, a fall, street lights streaking vertical lines and then the edge of the sidewalk.

Blades of grass were poking out near the lens as the hand next to the phone camera twitched and went still, the brown wave resolving into the antennae of thousands of ants, one pushing its head into the camera lens, mandibles stretched wide to attack. The video cut and went back to the newscaster.

Stunned, I shut the TV off.

I looked at the clock, it was 3:15 am.

I was only five miles from Texarkana. Looking at the Nemo Suit, I hatched a plan.

It was January. They couldn’t have moved me far, because the air still had that penetrating cold that winter always brings. Blustery wind against the dark hood over my head, chilling my ears. My legs were cramping from the sitting in the van, hands drawn behind me. I was trussed like an animal with oversized plastic zip-ties, double-linked with casual precision.

So much for being paranoid.

Guided to an elevator, sinking down into the earth. No sounds except the two agents that intercepted me, a nice smash-and-grab job as I left the bar after work. I should’ve seen it coming, but then, I was distracted by something else much bigger.

Muted chime, doors opening. Yanked one way then the next, shouldered through a door and sat roughly in a cold seat. Hood yanked off, bright lights shining down, a pool of brilliance in a rather dim room. A plain gray table before me, and another man who had just lit a cigarette. Smoke coiling about his head.

“You will answer every question I ask, are we clear?”, he began, exhaling slowly, “It is in your best interest to do so, Mr. Dawson.”

I nodded, wishing I had my hands free to rub my eyes.

“You will begin by describing how you came into possession of materials pertaining to the MORTIS project.”

“I…”, stuttered, clearing my throat, “I’m just a researcher. The data I compiled came from your agency – or rather, I didn’t realize the data originated with you. I thought it was part of a research set given to me by my employer at-“

“Yes, an outfit named Chi Medical? We’d been tracking them for months. That still doesn’t explain the whole picture. Continue, Mr. Dawson.”, he took another drag of the cigarette, tapping his left thumb on the table.

“As you may know, we’ve been contracted by several insurance agencies to calculate environmental data that affects lifespans. Specifically as it relates to insurance premium schedules and payout rates for families of the deceased. In particular, I was using some custom models to see where our premiums should be crafted to avoid catastrophic payouts to insurance holders.”

Nothing. I guess I had his attention now.

“It became increasingly obvious over the course of my work that the usual environmental factors weren’t the only influence. With the data I was provided with, I began to see… signals.”

“I’m sorry you said, signals?”, the agent leaned back in his chair, looking slightly amused.

“Yes, signals. Or to put it another way, coinciding factors that when combined produced… mortality.”

“So, a patient who doesn’t stop drinking and ends up with liver failure? I don’t see how that’s relevant here.”, the agent shifted forward, elbows on the table, “Don’t waste my time, I need some actionable information out of you or you’ll be in a hole SO DEEP, nobody will ever SEE YOU AGAIN. Understand!?”

I did. Looks like I had no choice. Taking a deep breath, I continued.

“Like I said, signals. But nothing I’ve ever seen before. This wasn’t like you say, someone who disregarded their doctors advice and ended up dead. Nothing so cut-and-dried like that. This was deeper in the data, and I almost missed it, if it hadn’t been for the learning networks I set up to study it.”

“You mean neural networks? They’re quite simplistic, aren’t they?”, the agent folded his hands, cigarette poking into the air like a stick of incense.

“Well, yes, but I was working on something new. Not the usual back-propagation multi-layer networks you see in colleges and high-frequency trading firms. We had access to some advanced technology, and I adapted the data to run through that. That’s when I saw… the signals, as I call them.”

“Give me an example. And it better be good.”

“Okay.”, no turning back now, “Everything is online, every movement, every conversation and almost nearly every consumer habit. You’ve got reams of data on purchasing habits alone, not to mention specific medications, where they live, hell, even the specific branch of the water delivery system going into their homes. Thanks to modern cell phones, you have speech data, location and the ability to build psychological profiles from in the field. This is the perfect set of economic and biocentric data to build a … mortality profile.”

Again, nothing. Damn, I was close, wasn’t I.

“This isn’t just about sending someone a direct dose of poison in their drinking water, no, its much more insidious than that. Say you have your average male, he works at a IT firm and does basic support. You also know that he loves to masturbate to cosplay porn and he has a particular affinity for skittles and bacon-snackum-chips.”

The agent nodded, taking another drag.

“You change the timing of the lights on the way home from his work, he’s stressed. Elevated heartbeat plus an extra jolt of adrenaline when the right turn lane triggers early, causing a near miss. But his anti-lock brakes assist, which jar him against his seatbelt. In his shoulder, the injury he had two years ago is aggravated, but it only feels like a small stab of discomfort, nothing major.

He goes home, gets some mail, including one for an upcoming cosplay convention. He likes this, very much. Sitting in front of his computer, snackbowl ready, he reads an email sent from a friend he hasn’t heard from in a while. This makes him get up, go to the refrigerator to retrieve the photo – it has a number he wrote there months ago that he wants to call.”

“Now he’s in what you’d call ‘PRIMED’ condition. He has a latent injury affecting his nervous system, the strong desire to sit in front of the computer and jack off, and the snackum chips that he saw on the counter when he went to get the photo.

Heart beating faster, he starts to view some porno, when in the middle he shifts position to eat a chip – and his injury flares from the increased blood pressure, causing him to jerk backwards, topple over and snap his neck. The chair of course, was out of warranty and had been gradually weakened due to a specific design flaw that just happened to be delivered to his house.”

“So how does that relate to project MORTIS?”, the agent stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray, exhaling smoke.

“I think you get it. The light timing was changed by an operative of yours, human or machine, and casually arranged all the other pieces together to produce the end of someone’s life. No poison, no prosecution, just a neat and tidy accident that won’t even make it to the back pages of the newspaper.”, I bowed my head, knowing it would soon be over.

“I can neither confirm or deny such things, but it seems you’re out of your depth on this one, Mr. Dawson.”, the agent straightened up, and smoothed his tie, “I’ll have to speak to someone for a moment. Don’t go anywhere.”

As he left, I heard him key a mic and speak into his lapel, “That’s right, a code black, I repeat a–” as the door closed behind him.

I sat there in the light, staring at the ground.

I was as good as dead.

It was probably the third dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

No wait, back up a second. You’re probably wondering about the first two. And seeing how I’m here, on my knees with a bloody nose, surrounded by cops, your mind is stitching together assumed facts and broad strokes – none of them flattering. Let me explain.

The bastard deserved to die.

Strong statement, isn’t it? But that’s the thing about us humans, we don’t act like we’ve got reasons for anything most of the time. Well, I had reasons. I’m not going to bore you with too much backstory, but suffice to say it involved a girl. Formerly my girl, as if I had any real say in what she did, that is.

The first dumbest thing? Thinking she loved me.

The second dumbest thing? Trusting a liar.

And if you’re mentally hop-scotching to the final, and third dumbest thing, let me stop you there. It isn’t “killing my exes boyfriend” or “getting my just revenge”. I was just trying to save the goddamned planet. You see, there’s been a lot of cohabitation going on. You know that guy that doesn’t seem right, always laughs at the wrong part of jokes, and can’t tell you what year it is?

That’s one of them.

And how I found out was when I walked in to my apartment, early from work, and found him screwing my girlfriend. Well, not the classic scene of betrayal and lust, more like she got curious and invited him up, and he went to town in more ways than one. I think they’d done the nude mambo, only because of the excess of clothes on the floor. What was in the bed itself was something else entirely. Seems they like to use their conquests as future brood material.

There he was, snuffling up her internal organs like bon bons in a candy dish, when I walk in. Big faceted eyes sprouted out of his skull, and his mouth was stretched impossibly into an elongated tube with tiny filaments at the end. It was one hell of sight, let me tell you.

I keep a piece at home, so I ran to the kitchen and got it, with a butcher knife for good measure. There I was, girded like some idiot gladiator who couldn’t decide whether to hack his enemy to bits or shoot him first, when this thing comes charging out of the bedroom.

So, the third dumbest thing – I shoot and stab him at the same time. What the hell was I thinking? My neighbor, Mrs. Alcombe, isn’t so old that she won’t notice a gunshot, and the sound the thing made as the knife sank into its eye was raise-the-dead in intensity. There it is, wailing its ass off, and I start to hear the sirens.

I run back to the front door, make sure its locked, searching frantically for something large enough to wrap up this monster, which smelled horrible by the way, before the cops came in. I doubt they’d believe their eyes, and I didn’t want to be there when they showed – what if one of them was on the force?

So I lope back to the living room, sheet in hand, when I see the body on the floor. Dammit. Clever bastards – looks like they revert to regular form after death. Now I had some explaining to do, and I could hear shouts from outside and the heavy footsteps of troopers on the move.

So that is where you joined me, in the story I mean, outside and defeated. And they’re trying to nail the whole thing on me! It wasn’t even my damned fault, when you consider everything that happened, that is.

Please help me, I’m pretty sure I won’t make it through the night. One of the cops gave me that thousand-yard stare like I had just murdered his best friend, so I’m not optimistic about my chances. If you’ve got a way to get me out of my cell, that would be appreciated… but, uh… you’re not one of THEM, are you?

I certainly hope not…

I’d do it again in a heartbeat, I can tell you that.