Izen heaved a great sigh as he stood in the open doorway of their space ship looking out on the sprawling warehouse below. Idec had gone bounding off after prey and, as usual, left a bit of a trail of muck behind him. Izen rolled his great, heavy head along the base of his neck from side to side and felt rather than heard it creak and crack. Then he stood up tall, braced his shoulders, and stepped out onto the Earth. One small step for, well.
He was genuinely interested in this game of theirs, as the most base of his instincts bubbled low in his gut and reminded him that he was terribly hungry, awfully terribly witheringly hungry, but when wasn't he tortured by the realities of his own existence? Still, chasing after Idec was getting boring. Idec always did this, always darted out first and got himself wrapped up in some kind of situation, or if not a situation, ate all of the available bodies and left none for the others. Rude. Izen thought to himself as he wandered along a cement pathway that wound from the back of the building where they had sort of docked themselves, their ship hovering over the ground with a faint, rhythmic humming, along to a doorway. Izen turned his head to the side to better position his ear canal and made out the sounds of a faint scrambling behind the walls, a struggle for control, or perhaps out of fear--he could smell it on them. They smelled so good.
They did travel the Universe in the very long way 'round, but as Izen flared his nostrils and took in the scent of his prey he had the brief idea that they had perhaps visited Earth and had a taste for humans before. It would have been many many revolutions ago, a sort of blip of a moment, but Izen was sure they had been good to eat then as they'd be now. They reeked. The sharp points along his shoulders shivered and stood on end, and Izen decided perhaps that today Idec wasn't completely useless. He could hear the sound of a body being dragged away from him and voices farther away starting up and shouting. A thud, a scream, silence. Izen rolled his eyes and pressed forward, opening the doorway and slithering inside.
“Levi, come on,” Pathik whined, practically begged for Levi to step away from whatever the fuck it was lying on the floor before him. He reached forward and tried to convince himself to tug on Levi's sleeve, or grab him by the shoulders and pull him back, but his hand dropped to his side before he even got close. He turned back and looked Maggie in the eye, pleading with her, but she was paralyzed by her shock, she kept staring at the bloody remains across the floor, her eyes flickering over the smeared innards and then traveling up Kelly's bare legs and simple costume, sticky and patches of blood starting to dry on her skin.
“Look at it,” Levi's eyes grew wide in excitement, danger falling away behind him.
“Uh, let's not.”
“Come on, it's an alien.”
“How'd you even know?”
“What else could it be?”
“I DON'T KNOW, why don't we pull it's fucking mask off and find out it's Old Man Jenkins?”
Levi looked back down at the creature and reached a tentative hand up to its face thinking he'd feel around its edges.
“SERIOUSLY!?”
“Shhhhhh!” a round of hissing whispers filled the space and Pathik looked in turn to each of the others.
“Are we sure there aren't more?”
“How can we be sure of anything?”
“It's definitely an alien.”
Kelly loosened her grip on Linh's upper arm and stepped forward. “He's right,” she said gravely, staring down at the creature with a sort of dejected acceptance of a truth she wished had not been real. “It's an alien, I've...heard of them before.”
Brad came out from behind Linh as well and crossed his arms, standing before Kelly defiantly.
“Really now?”
“You're not seriously still accusing me?”
“You seem to be the only one who knows what's going on.”
Linh glanced behind her at the front office door and saw the flicker of movement behind the rack to her right. She looked back to Kelly and Brad as they stood before each other trying to take control. Kelly's hands were on her hips, her whole being frazzled and alive and pulsating with adrenaline. Brad puffed out his chest, behind him an overturned lawn chair and some of the camera equipment which was likely still rolling. Linh looked back again and felt a steady fear rise up before her in the gulf of space between her and the door out.
“Mags?” Pathik worried between her and Levi, actively trying to ignore Kelly and Brad. “Are you alright?...Levi, please.”
“Uhm...yeah.” Maggie nodded slowly. Levi stood up and turned his back on the creature on the floor. “Yeah, I think, yeah of course.”
Levi rubbed a steady hand on Maggie's forearm and turned her away from the creature and the body and together they formed a tighter group around Kelly and Brad—Pathik and Linh lingering on the edge, each more concerned than the other that their friends were completely insane to keep trying to talk it out.
“Just hear me out, okay?”
“Brad,” Levi raised his hand and silenced his friend, “come on. You said it yourself, she's the only one who seems to know what's going on.”
Maggie pulled her arms in and wrapped them around herself, Levi looked up at Kelly expectantly, and Brad, incredulous, curled his hands into fists and bit his lower lip so hard it started to bleed.
“Well go on then,” Linh spoke up from behind the group and Kelly and everyone turned to her.
“Linh, I--”
“No, I want to know.”
“Nazis.”
“What!?” Brad wheezed in laughter. “Okay, I've had enough of Crazy Bitch,”
“Yeah you would, you're dad is one of them.” That shut him up for a moment.
“Look, this is going to sound absolutely bonkers. I didn't believe it either until, that fucking fell from the ceiling.”
“Jumped.”
“What?”
“That...jumped from the ceiling.”
“Whatever. It's like dead.”
“You're like really ridiculously okay with this.”
“Can I continue or?”
“Let her talk, man.”
Kelly stepped back from the group and took a deep breath before starting again, letting the calm optimism of Antony wash over her. He had been right, the whole time, she couldn't believe it. Jodi and Trent and Tracey and all of the others, they had been right.
“There's an old story, of a doomsday that's coming. Antony tells it,”
“Antony?” Linh questioned, “from the restaurant?”
“Yeah, umm, it's not just a restaurant. It's sort of--”
“It's a cult,” Maggie said matter-of-fact. “Everyone talks about it, thought it was some sort of sex thing for bit, but yeah no alien Nazis—definitely a cult.” Levi stared at Maggie. She looked down at him and shrugged. “I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts.”
“I get it,” Levi nudged his shoulder into Maggie's side and smirked. “Pretty sure I read an old sci-fi that was like this.”
“More like a group,” Kelly pressed on, “who all know the truth.” Kelly side-eyed the still figure of the creature. “There is an ancient alien race, that came to Earth long, long ago. Their purpose is to initiate and inspire the eradication of the impure of the human race so that Earth can join the other planets in the higher realm of the universe where only intelligent creatures roam. They are laying in wait for their chance.”
Kelly recited the sermons that Antony had told them time and time again, of the ancient race, of the men they became, of their goal to spark anew the race war and bring an end to inferior beings. And then Antony would turn it on to Kelly and the others to take up the mantle of the good work. Or, no, that hadn't been exactly it. Kelly tried to continue reasoning with the plans Antony had preached.
“Because people wouldn't understand, because they were unguided, we had to ensure that when doomsday did happen that...”
“That what!?” Linh and Pathik both stepped forward and pressured Kelly. Neither of them understood, how could they, it didn't make sense.
“I don't know, okay, we killed Nazis alright! Deputy Chief Donahue, the Nowaks, Dick and Debra Miller were top of the list. Because they're lizard people.”
The group was silent for a time, looking comically from one to the other as if to assess the stupidity of their friends. Linh thought perhaps she had walked into the middle of the movie, if only that grotesque mound of innards wasn't as real as it looked or if the high tensions didn't crackle and fizzle with every next move. Levi and Maggie furrowed their brows in confusion, Levi no doubt trying to make sense of the plot, Maggie still overturned by every event that had gone down since she woke up that morning. Brad was the only one who nodded along, his chin in his hand, focused and idiotically sure of what he was hearing.
“Makes sense,” Brad said, looking up at Kelly with the first genuinely kind glance he had ever given her.
“Oh, THAT you believe?” Pathik stared at Brad in shock. Brad the Holocaust-is-a-chemtrail-hoax-son-of-an-internet-troll-conspiracy-fanatic-nazi-fucking-imbicle-father.
“Yeah, except for the bit about my dad. My dad is NOT a Nazi, or a lizard person. I would have known.”
“Nazis are just Nazis! They're not lizard people they're just people, who do terrible things. And yeah, you're dad is pretty terrible by the way, but that's not the point right now, the point is What. The. Actual. Fuck!?” Pathik grabbed at his own hair and pulled it wildly into disarray.
“How else do you explain it?”
Pathik gasped, lost for words and stepped away from them all.
“You dropped it. Again. Idec, how many times have we discussed--”
“Well, they're slippery...on the inside.”
The twenty-somethings froze where they were, mouths open, hearts pounding. The deep voices of the otherworldly were just a step away. Slowly they each turned and locked eyes on the upright, yet disheveled creature from the floor and another just like it though markedly lacking blood stains.
“Now no one can have him, he's been spilled out on the floor too long the blood's gone cold. On the other hand,” Izen set his yellow-green eyes on the six trembling humans before him. “It was quite effective in rounding them up.”
Idec brought a hand to his chest and felt around the sensitive parts that the bolts from the taser had hit him. Rounding them up was one way to put it.
The filmmakers and Linh scattered. Linh and Pathik ran straight to the front office while the others went in various directions and were followed by the two aliens.
“Why are they going the wrong way!?” Linh scrambled into the front office with Pathik close behind her and they shut the door behind them. “They chased them!”
Pathik looked around the office for anything that could help them while Linh paced. There were two desks with computers, phones, help technically but Pathik was wary of the cops. He sat down at one of the desks and took several deep breaths. He should call, but if there was ever a moment he believed a single word Kelly said...
"We could go, we could get out of here. Go to the cops."
"We can't do that Linh."
"Why not? What's stopping us?"
"We have to figure this out, otherwise, you know what will happen don't you?"
Linh shook her head. She was mad that the others had run the other way, that they hadn't all gotten out when it seemed reasonable to do so.
"We'll get blamed. You know how they are, the cops. I mean, she mentioned Donahue by name as a certified skin head. And besides, I won't leave Levi."
Linh shivered knowing that she'd just as well leave Kelly behind if it meant she could send someone back for her.
"You get it, right?"
"Yeah." Linh nodded "Yeah I do."
Pathik looked around him and tried to calm his heart rate. The office was pretty basic. Spread across the desk he was sitting at Pathik saw piles of old paperwork, shipping documents, a giant calendar with each date marked off in black marker. The daily ins and outs of Miller Industrial Paints and Chemicals. The conspiracy would have made a lot more sense if it had started here and not with some ancient alien race from before the dawn of human history—or whatever she had said. Pathik did believe that there were Nazis planning a race war, because there would always be the kind of hatred that brewed in them. It wasn't cloaked in the Order of the Rose or in fairytale like heroes, it was doing business in the Chicagoland freight hubs and resting inside the man cave of the Miller's suburban basement. He mindlessly started pulling out the desk drawers and in the bottom right hand drawer, empty otherwise, there was a Glock handgun.
"We'll go get the others and we'll get out of here. Alright." Pathik pulled out the gun and felt it's weight in his hand. He had never used one before, barely knew if he was capable of using one, but hadn't expected this day to turn out any which way that it had anyway. "We're gonna get out of here," he said one more time, holding out the gun for Linh to see.
Linh reached forward and took the gun out of his hand, and he let her. She was the only one thus far that had shown any real good reasoning or had done anything remotely like fighting back.
"Okay."
The others had all ran in much the same direction as each other but opposite from Pathik and Linh. Levi gripped tight to Maggie's hand and Brad and Kelly bolted along side them and the four of them ran straight through the racks of the warehouse with the two alien creatures following close behind. Brad reached for the pails of paint that lined the racks on his right and he stopped to pull several of them down and back against the creatures as the others ran ahead of him. A few of the pails cracked open and various tones of liquid, some paint some other compounds, spilled across the floors and Brad watched as one of the creatures—the one referenced as Idec, struggled to deal with the obstacle.
“Help me!” Brad yelled at Kelly and she, too, stopped and together they tried to topple one of the racks. It was an older warehouse, sure, and likely very little budget went into its upkeep but it was still far too difficult to pull an entire section of the metal racks down on top of them, so they yanked out pail after pail and threw pallets behind them before giving it up and sprinting to reach the others.
Maybe they'd go out by the docks.
Izen reached out a long arm and held Idec back as he attempted to clamor over the top of a particularly hazard-filled stacked set of pails. He simply pointed up and the two of them eased back and climbed up to the tops of the racks to disappear into the darkness of the ceiling above.
Brad looked behind him and saw the mess of the aisle and no creature in sight. He knew somewhere deep down that that couldn't be right. Maggie was at the other end of the warehouse with Levi, her hand on the switch to open a gate leading into the annex. When Brad and Kelly were in sight she flipped it on and Levi waved them both into the other part of the warehouse. Brad kept glancing behind him but took this chance for what it was and the four of them rushed to the other side..
“Any idea where--” Levi started
“Levi!” Pathik's voice carried across the space between them. Him and Linh ran towards the other for, Linh speeding far ahead of Pathik and making it under the gate first. Pathik skidded in and Maggie let the gate down again. For a moment they were safe.
“We found this,” Linh pulled the handgun from her sweatshirt pocket and tried to catch her breath.
“That's my dad's,” Brad reached out for it but Kelly butted in front of him and snatched the gun from Linh's hand. She gripped it tightly and ran her fingers along the side of it, the corners of her mouth turning upward into a sort of grin. Linh felt afraid of her, more than she was of the creatures they had out run for now. The others seemed to feel it to. And then suddenly, as if she had known it all along, Linh recognized the way that Kelly looked in that moment.
“Have you killed people?”
Kelly looked up and into the eyes of her girlfriend, simply shrugging. “Only bad ones.”
“Coach Hansen?” Linh stammered out his name. “He wasn't a Nazi.”
“I did it for you, baby.”
“Don't—don't.”
Kelly hesitated for a moment and then pointed the gun right at Linh. “You're not going to tell anyone.”
“Kels?” Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes and Linh trembled with fear of what her girlfriend might just do to keep her secrets safe.
“We're going to leave here, together, and go straight to Antony. He has a plan.”
“Who are you?”
“I think,” Maggie spoke softly, “that this is the real Kelly.” Maggie moved from the side to stand in front of Linh, half shielding her from the gun. Levi took her cue and did the same.
“Kelly, put the gun down,” Levi's sure, directorial voice carried through for the first time since they had started filming.
“Yeah,” Brad gingerly stepped away from her and towards the other end of the sort of half room they were in, closer to the docks and away from the dark corner Kelly loomed out of.
Kelly gripped the handgun tighter and straightened her shoulders. Her gray tank top and shorts were both splattered with red-brown blood. She had some in her hair, along her arms, across her forehead where she had wiped sweat. Her chest heaved with thick, hot breaths, and she squared her jaw to ready herself.
“Kels..” Linh whimpered and closed her eyes shut tight. All of them, all of them except for Kelly, had seen it coming.
A thin and spindly hand with claw like fingers wrapped around Kelly's neck and pierced her skin. She dropped the handgun and it went scattering across the floor. New red blood spurted from her artery and began to drench the top of her simple gray tank. It gurgled up out of the corners of her mouth and drowned her wailing screams.
To be continued...here.
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