Travel Bug (31 page)

“The world doesn’t know what kind of mess our country could become,” said Harold.

“They think we’re fucking utopia, old man.”

“Stop using that kind of language, son.”

“Sorry about the F bomb, Harold, we just got back from the future…”

“No, dumb ass, I mean calling me an old man. You can say fuck all day long until you pass out.”

“Alright, old man, let’s save the world…”

This was the task at hand and it was time to face the music, it was a tall order when your faith had been shaken again and again but we had to succeed.

“We need to be heroes, Andrew.”

Sometimes even heroes didn’t know they were heroes and this sure as hell was the case with the two spoiled, filthy rich elitists who pretended to be devout Christians. So many men have had so much more faith… we saw Jesus and his mother and we didn’t have a mustard seed between us. That’s why I could actually have some sympathy for this miserable wretch who murdered my parents. She was a survivor who never had a single real accomplishment in her entire miserable life except staying technically alive. She never lived one day in that pathetic excuse for a life but she did manage to stay alive and worship a false Jesus thanks to the crooks who took advantage of ignorant folks everywhere. Her mother died. Her father and sisters resembled something out of a wicked fairy tale. I don’t know why or how or even if it was grace from God…… there was sympathy there. I just wish there wasn’t.

“The answers are all hidden,” said my great grandfather.

“Not necessarily,” I answered him.

“No God, no devil, no afterlife…”

“Oh, you mean…”

“Andrew, no evidence we have life after death or Hitler or Bin Laden suffer in Hell… none…”

“We have more answers than most and yet we still complain like spoiled children,” I said.

“Really?” he asked.

“Harold, give me a damn break. We saw Christ give his toast at the last supper and his mother die right before our eyes. Many an angry atheist love to argue they never even existed. We got that much more of a jump start… We should be thankful for that…”

“Life is never what you expect.”

“It’s always much more absurd. I had an awful lot of fun having sex with knock out women. It was actually better than I expected in many ways and fell short in many other respects. Understand, old man?

How could he understand? The man had fun his whole life; even now that he was an old coot. Granted, he was a tough old coot but also a wealth geezer, a lucky old man and a man who cheated time itself.

“Don’t give into hate and anger,” said Harold.

“You’re e reading my mind.”

“No, I’m guessing the emotions of my own flesh and blood.”

“No… this is something more… can you read my thoughts?”

“Yes,” he answered me.

Dear reader, just in case you didn’t figure out, hate and grace are themes of this book. Well, let’s be honest, hate, doubt and grace are. I suppose one could throw in a little eating the unnamed species to travel through time and still not find out anything that means much into the equation. I am only making slight gestures here. The real meaning of it all remains as mysterious as why that bitch would work for a Catholic family to begin with. Oh, wait… the church is always the one who will bring about the end times, the tribulation and the new world order. She was merely preaching the true words of the grape juice drinking, American flag waving, short haired, clean shaven Jesus who died on the cross to save about four or five white folks……

The need to evolve and move on……

“Andrew?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you think we need to move on?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to be a psychic, old man?”

“Yes, I have bigger fish to fry,” he answered me. Harold laughed.

“Good,” I said.

“Why is it good, Andrew?” he asked.

“I think the future is not predicable, old man.”

It wasn’t. We were dealing with a slimy, terrifying, humongous insect that could do only God knows what to its intended victims once it woke up. I mean you talk about the sleeping giant. An unconscious monster that was probably on some subconscious level getting pretty pissed off; angry about being eaten by the elite class who called themselves time traveling crusaders. Okay, we never actually referred to ourselves that way but it sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?

That filthy beast, that appalling bug thing was making us mad… It cost me my mom and dad and that crazy woman her soul. It made us rape the time space continuum for our own selfish reasons and delude ourselves into thinking we were heroes.

“Perhaps we need to take it easy for a while,” the old man said.

I stared into the eyes of the thing, that wretched monster that belonged in a B movie, crushing some village who sacrificed virgins to appease its wrath. What did it want for the price of being eaten alive?

“We need to pace ourselves,” said the old man.

“I agree.”

It was obvious. The unnamed species, this God damned time travelling bug had to fucking die! This damned thing, this monster had to die, and I mean I wanted to either light it on fire or make the freeze machines turn the thing into ice. Fuck the unnamed species and God bless humanity!

“You want to kill it?”

“God in heaven, yes,” I answered him. “I don’t want to give a long speech. It’s like evil Jinn that make you think your wishes will come true. It cheats death and time and I think it sucks souls dry. It took a terrible woman like Jezebel and turned her into an absolute monster. It can hurt us, too.”

This ugly, hideous thing was haunting us. Perhaps if we killed the unnamed God damn bug, I could call my mom and dad and they would be alive right now.

“Let’s kill the fucking monster!” said my great grandfather.

“Okay…”

“No, seriously…… ……”

“Okay, “I said, let’s…

“I mean for real…! You’re full of God damn passion right now, son.”

“Harold, I know that……”

Sometimes we imagined monsters in our childhood and sometimes they weren’t a work of dark fiction. They were fucking real. This bug……

“Stop blaming the bug and blame her… Andrew…”

We could over freeze it with these machines. We could kill it by burning it alive and hoping that it’s death didn’t reveal some secret poison from eating it like a cannibal.

“It’s hidden,” said my great grandfather.

“What is?” I asked him.

“The secrets of this damned bug, the unnamed species, and the giant monster that you are apparently thinking of as the devil. Well, it’s not. It’s not a monster, just another living organism on this planet. It is innocent as far as the death of your mom and dad.”

I didn’t care about how much great grandfather rationalized the whole situation. I made up my mind to kill the bug, someday.

“We will kill it if need be but let’s not make decisions when we are emotional or delusional…”

“Fair enough, old man,” I said.

“I hope that the stupid Bible witch is fed to the bug alive. I hope he eats her slowly. Then I will turn up every frozen button in our little secret basement and freeze that monster’s ass off!”

“Sounds like a plan, old man.”

“Andrew, concentrate, come back to me; don’t let your mind wonder into the dark.”

My mind was indeed wondering in the darkest of places. What if the Jesus I met was merely a con man or worse yet a raving lunatic? That was one of the C.S. Lewis choices and if it was good enough for the man who created a mysterious land of magic I loved as a child, it was good enough for the awful likes of me.

More thoughts came.

I wanted to drink the blood from the miserable fat girl who became my mortal enemy. She would have known her place as a servant wench if she did not taste the forbidden fruit of bug meat. Perhaps the unnamed species was not the monster and the real monster was hidden. It was inside of man, in our souls, in our psyches, deep down in the darkest corners of our hearts.

Suicide was so unoriginal.

Time to let the creative juices flow…

“The monster is inside of us,” I said.

“It surely is,” Harold answered me.

“I meant all of us,” I said.

“I know what you meant,” he said again.

“It’s hidden!”

“The real nature of evil often is, Andrew…”

IT’S HIDDEN!

“It’s hidden!”

“What?” he asked. The man was tied to his desk and he was terrified…

“That damned thing inside his chest, they hide you know.”

“No.”

It had been less than ten minutes since Tommy Grey had tied up the detective. The man being held in the jail was Ridley Weaver. He was the assistant sheriff. The sheriff was gone. It was too late to save him. Grey had already cut open his stomach and found… nothing.

“It’s hidden!”

“No.”

Detective Jack Smith had been helping out Weaver and the sheriff with a murder case. He was used to working in the city of Philadelphia where the real crime was. Smith had never seen anything like this. Davistown was a small Pennsylvania town where nothing ever happened. A madman was cutting people’s stomachs open. The twelve people he had already killed could do nothing to persuade him that these creatures were not real. The killer found Smith and tied him up. He was very convinced that tiny alien creatures were using humans as hosts. The selected humans were holding tiny, infant aliens in their stomachs. When the creatures escaped, the hosts would die anyway. Tommy figured that he would beat them to the punch and exterminate these insidious monsters.

“Tommy, please leave the man alone. Don’t kill him, please,” said Smith.

“It’s hidden!”

“No.”

Weaver was trying to scream but he couldn’t. The gag in his mouth prevented him from doing so. Tommy waived his hunting knife around. It was the kind that had a jagged edge. He waived it around Weaver’s stomach as if he were searching for organic life.

“Look, Tommy, there is nothing inside of him. He’s just an ordinary man.”

“He’s just a man but they attach themselves to ordinary men.”

“Who are they?” asked Smith.

“They are Gongorites. They need to spawn their young. Then once this is done, they will invade us with their ships from their home planet.”

Smith shook his head in utter disbelief.

“It’s hidden!”

“No.”

Jack Smith could tell that this lunatic was getting pretty damn serious about cutting this poor man open. The look on his face explained it all. He actually believed he was doing these people a favor. He thought he was a… hero.

“It’s hidden!”

“No.”

“I know you think I’m crazy, Jack. I will not harm you. You can arrest me after this if you want but you’ll see that won’t be necessary. Once the monster comes out of him, you’ll know I’m sane.”

Smith had known Tommy way too long to think that he could be sane. He was already responsible for many killings prior to this alien hunt madness.

“What about the sheriff, Tommy?”

“That was a mistake, a fluke,” he answered him.

“All the other people you killed, what about them?”

“Oh, the creatures were inside them. You weren’t there so I can’t prove it but trust me…”

“You can’t believe this!”

“Look, I’m not sure if I believe in God. I do, however, believe in them, I’ve seen the Gongorites with my own eyes.”

“I don’t believe in them, Tommy.”

“You don’t believe in anything.”

“Yes, I believe in things.”

“It’s hidden!”

“No.”

Thoughts raced through Smith’s head. How could even a madman believe in such nonsense? Did he see too many movies? All of the horror films with tiny little things crawling inside of people must have had an impact. The parasites and alien species that made people drop their popcorn were supposed to inspire fun and not real life murder. No doubt about it for generations of horror fans, these unholy births seeped into the subconscious.

Smith knew that the aliens were no more real than vampires, ghosts, zombies or werewolves. Tommy, on the other hand was struggling to keep grounded in reality. Then he saw the look on the man’s face, the crazed look in his eyes. There was no doubt about it now. He was going to do it to poor Weaver. The knife, jagged edge and all came up in the air and was plunged… into Weaver’s stomach. The look of agony on the victim’s face was terrible… the worst thing Smith had ever seen.

You could hear him scream from space……

“For God’s sake, stop!” screamed Jack Smith.

Cutting deeper and deeper into Weaver’s stomach, it wasn’t long before the victim passed out. The jagged edge of the knife made it very easy for Tommy to dig deep inside Weaver’s torn flesh. The blood splattered all over Tommy’s face, hair and shirt. Jack Smith watched helplessly as Weaver bled to death before his eyes. Then he nearly fainted as he watched Tommy pull half of the man’s stomach out with his knife. It was as if he was waiting… for the creature to finally come out.

“I know you think I’m crazy, detective but…”

“You’re damn right I do!”

“Please be patient. Just have some faith, that’s all I ask. Once the creature crawls out of this man, you will doubt me no more. You would not believe the pain that I have spared this man. Not just him, either. I mean all of the people I helped. All of the people of this town owe me a debt of gratitude. They really do. You should see when the Gongorites come out of a man. It’s a terrible thing to watch!”

“You couldn’t just shoot him?” Smith asked.

“Sorry, no. This is the only way to be sure, I’m afraid.”

The two men starred at each other for a while. Smith was wondering if this murdering psychopath was really going to give himself up if the creature was a no show. How did he know who was infected? Tommy could change his mind and decide that the detective was also pregnant with an alien inside of him. Both men were in a state of high tension and rapid heart beating. It was just like an old horror movie. The two men would have to wait a while to see what would happen next.

“It’s hidden!”

“No!”

The monster was always me. I mean how else could I describe it? I recoiled at the idea of holding a knife and splitting people’s stomachs open but that was really all I could do.”