“Slackers from the Stars”

 

by Steven Grogan

 

            Slacker. That label had haunted Nigel all throughout his teenage years. No surprise there, seeing how he had grown up during (and had been part of) the early eighties punk movement. Those were the glory years of anarchist rock and the romanticized vision of William S. Burroughs and heroin-addict-as-revolutionary-figure. Nigel misunderstood Burroughs’ anti-drug message (like so many punk other punk kids) and got hooked on the needle. For the longest time Nigel’s mom and dad couldn’t figure out why their son was such a lazy kid. It took ages until they realized they were lucky their son hadn’t died.

            But he had survived. Nigel came to grips with his problem and was cured by the apomorphine treatment (the same method that had rescued Burroughs). After the cure Nigel put his life back together. He finished high school, then went on to college. Even when life was the numb sensation of being constantly fixed Nigel had always loved the stars, so he studied the field of astronomy. Once cleared of all drugs Nigel found himself to be a rather ambitious young man, and before he knew it he was perched atop a stool in one of the world’s top observatories, studying the constellations and planets through one of the most powerful lenses ever invented. 

That was where he was sitting this evening, on a Friday far removed from his drug-addled days, jotting down observations and dwelling on the past. Tonight Nigel’s mind wasn’t preoccupied with those heroin years. Instead he found himself thinking back to an event that happened about five years ago. He’d been watching the skies through this powerful instrument as always when a mysterious cloud drifted toward Earth and wound up covering the entire planet. This gigantic blanket remained draped over Earth for quite some time. As the years went by, the color became more faint until one day the world woke up and its celestial shawl had faded from existence.

In the years since the cloud disappeared, many theories about what it was had come into existence. Some people believed it was a toxin that was slowly poisoning the entire human race. Others feared it was some bizarre radiation or fallout. A third theory, and surprisingly the most popular one, emerged about a year ago: there was a group of scientists who actually believed the cloud, a phenomenon witnessed by billions of people around the world, was no more than an illusion. The human race was witnessing a trick of the light as refracted through the black expanses of outer space. Nigel was stunned by how popular this theory was. Could everyone on the entire planet really have been seeing an illusion for five years straight? In a way Nigel guessed this was plausible because, after all, the cloud had left no traces. Crops hadn’t been eaten away. People hadn’t started melting or dropping dead at random. The cloud hadn’t made any of these cheesy sci-fi movie storylines come true. When the color faded, life went on as normal. To this day some scientists were still looking for any subtle effects the strange cloud might have had on Earth, but aside from this handful of men the cloud was a forgotten phenomenon. 

Nigel let his thoughts about the Lovecraftian color from space drift back into the dark recesses of his memory. Back in the land of the present he was more concerned about a woman named Tina, as well as all the interesting scenarios that tomorrow night could offer. For months Nigel had been pursuing his beautiful next-door-neighbor, and he’d met with one denial after the next. However, Nigel remained persistent (using all the old tricks…flowers, candy, cards, sweet talk, etc.) and, for whatever reason, there came a day when she finally agreed to a date.

At first Nigel had been foolish enough to ask why.  What made her change her mind? Was he at his best when he was annoyingly persistent? When all was said and done, the reasons for her reversal didn’t matter. Right now all that did matter was the telephone, because if tomorrow night was to yield anything positive for Nigel then his administrator would have to authorize a schedule change.

Tina’s change of heart had been quite unexpected, so Nigel hadn’t bothered to ask for the night off. While sitting on his stool, peering into the telescope but not really seeing the inky skies it revealed, Nigel remembered the panic he was in when he called his administrator to request Friday night off at the last minute possible. The boss told Nigel he would have to think about it.

Now all Nigel could do was hope that phone would ring. If it did, that would automatically signify his wish had been granted. (He knew this because no one else but his boss ever called the observatory.).

            So he sat there at the telescope, idling away the night with games of solitaire and hoping fate would be on his side while he waited for the call. He started to give up hope as the last hour of the night came around.

            But then, fifteen minutes before his shift ended, the phone rang. And the key to the Gates of Heaven had been handed to him.

***

The next night., Tina looked as glamorous as ever. Beautiful, healthy blond hair flowed from her scalp, reaching down to her shoulder like golden strands of silk. Emerald eyes that reflected the mysteries of the world yet clearly held immense secrets of their own. Olive skin without a blemish or show of age.  The comparison had become a cliché by now, but there was only compliment a stunned Nigel could say.

“You look like an angel.”

            She blushed. “Thank you. You aren’t looking too bad this evening yourself.”

            He smiled and turned his eyes back to the menu. The restaurant they were in was an Italian joint named Gialdini’s Place. It was far from the greatest place in town, but it was the best he could do while in-between paychecks. 

While Nigel and Tina focused all their efforts on deciding what to order, they were disturbed by a commotion from the kitchen. A waiter, sweaty and bug-eyed with fear, came charging into the dining area. Murmurs passed through the crowd like ripples across a pond as every patron wondered what this odd-looking man’s problem was. After catching his breath, the man addressed the shocked audience.

            “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not quite sure how to say this, but I guess the best way is to be blunt. The news has just reported some kind of…ship has landed on Earth, a ship from outer space.” Stunned whispers buzzed through the air again. Signaling that his speech was incomplete, the waiter held out for silence. Once the various dialogues faded, he continued. “It isn’t far away…maybe ten or fifteen minutes from here. Details are still being worked out, but there is one fact that all the reports agree on. They all say this object is definitely some kind of alien spacecraft.”

            More discussion followed, accompanied by a few outbursts declaring the waiter insane, before the man could silence his audience again.

            “Nobody knows if the aliens are hostile or not because they haven’t even come out yet, but all citizens have been ordered to evacuate public establishments and go home.”

            Tina leaned over to her persistent neighbor, the handsome but eccentric man who had been in pursuit of her for months now. As she moved closer to Nigel, she wondered what had taken her so long to come around to accepting his offer.

            “Nigel,” she said, “do you believe a word of this?”

            “Well,” Nigel said after a thoughtful pause, “I won’t know what to believe until I can somehow get a look at this spacecraft.”

            She gave him a smile and squeezed his arm lightly. At any other time her physical contact would have been arousing, but Nigel felt something in her grip that she didn’t want him to detect. It was fear, triggered by the fact that part of Tina believed what the waiter said was true.

            “What should we do?” Tina asked.

            “Only one thing to do,” he said, “and that’s go home.” He felt the tremble in her touch again and added, “You’ll feel much better when you get there.”

            “Not if I’m alone I won’t,” Tina said. “That is, if this is all true. Will you come to my place with me?”

            Normally, Nigel would have had ulterior motives pushing him to consent, but not tonight. His mind was preoccupied with too many thoughts of outer space and trajectories and windows of opportunity. Alien spacecraft? From where? Why didn’t he remember recording any unusual objects on an Earth-bound course? When did this thing’s journey begin? And what did it look like?

            Taking Tina by the hand, Nigel immersed himself in the crowd that had gathered at the front door. It took them five minutes just to get outisde. (If there are hostile aliens coming, Nigel thought, they’ll fry us all before we can even reach the sidewalk.) 

            Once they were out the door, Nigel knew the announcement was no exaggeration on the waiter’s part. The street was flooded with the patrons of every bar, nightclub, movie theater, and restaurant on the block. Most people were heading for their cars. Some were going for the subway. There were even a few folks trying to hail cabs.

Nigel noticed a couple of junkies twitching as they made their way through the crowd. People were so distressed and confused by what was going on that they had no time to notice the heroin eyes, sunken and hollow. But Nigel saw it; he could see things like that from five miles away. And he could also detect how the confusion helped the junkies make easy work of the crowd as they picked the pocket of every sap who was bitching about the unexpected inconvenience.

            Nigel didn’t want to alarm Tina, so he guided her away from the junkies without a word, leading her to the mouth of an alley. They stood there in silence, locked in an unflinching stare. He could read in her eyes that she wanted an explanation for this course of action, but if it never came that would be all right too. Nigel decided to let her dwell in ignorance; there was no reason to upset her further.

When Nigel looked around and saw no sign of the junkies, they continued toward the car. Most of the crowd had gone by, so the rest of the hike didn’t take that long. However, because they had delayed the trip to his car that would mean they’d have to deal with traffic conditions of hellish proportions; everyone else had been heading on to the road while they had been standing there,

            Once they were in the car, they were presented with further proof that the craft had actually landed; the event was being covered by every radio station that Nigel let the dial settle on. Not sure which report he ought to listen to, Nigel simply turned to his favorite station and left the knob alone. He came in halfway through the broadcast to hear the reporter saying, “…most definitely not a Hollywood-style flying saucer. This is shaped like a ball, maybe fifty feet in diameter, half-buried in the ground. There are no breaks along its slick black metallic surface to indicate any kind of door. Some scientists have approached to examine it, but the object is still too hot to be touched.”

            Tina’s attention rested entirely on the broadcast, but Nigel moved his to focus on nothing but the traffic. Not even a thousand rush hours could compare to this jam. Under normal conditions, Nigel’s apartment building was only ten minutes from Gialdini’s Place.  Tonight, however, they weren’t even halfway home after an hour. The roads were packed full of angry, scared civilians. Horns were blaring consistently; you couldn’t tell when one blast ended and another began.

Ahead of Nigel’s car, a man in his forties popped out of his vehicle. He was a giant man, at least six and a half feet tall and probably 250 pounds. In swift motions that didn’t seem possible to achieve with such bulk, the man stormed to the car ahead of him and yanked the door open. A scared wisp of a man leaned out, obviously intimidated just by the sight of the ogre.

            “Hey,” the gargantuan bellowed, “why don’t you get a move on up here? I got a wife and two kids I’d like to see before I fuckin’ die!”

            “Hey, I have a family too, you goddamn oaf! Do you think I’m sitting here because I want to?” the thin man screamed.

            “Oaf?” the ogre said, stunned. “You just called me a oaf? Listen, you scrawny fuck, you’re lucky you’re married or else I’d drag you outta that car and snap you over my freakin’ knee!”

            Obviously driven to the breaking point, the thin man was unable to keep his cool even in the face of this tower of a man who could very easily deliver on his promise. The stick figure human swiftly leapt to his feet and moved toward the giant, jabbing him in the chest with a finger and shrieking, “You know what? I’ve been pushed around by assholes like you all my life! Today, you listen to me, pal! I…”

            But today was not the day roles were to be reversed. The giant grabbed the scrawny man by his throat. His grip was so strong that the thin man’s face immediately started turning blue, and this hue was soon mixed with red as the tall one’s fist kept smashing his tiny adversary’s nose and mouth. Nigel moved to get out of the car, but Tina’s hand shot out to grab his arm.

            “Nigel, are you crazy? He’ll kill you!”

            Nigel knew she was right, but that realization couldn’t make the nausea disappear. Here he was watching another human being’s life slip away before his eyes, and he was doing nothing about it. The sad thing was, neither was anybody else.

            Then came the pounding noises. At first Nigel and Tina had no idea what was going on. All of a sudden they noticed some unexplainable sound, whump whump whump, growing steadily closer. They were completely clueless until Nigel heard something land on the roof of his car…whump! Then a smiling teenage face appeared upside down on his windshield. It was a young boy, maybe thirteen, and he gave both occupants of the car a thorough once-over. Apparently he had been leaping from car to car, but he was not alone. All around the thumping continued as dozens of people, all of them around this young man’s age, jumped from vehicle to vehicle unleashing banshee-like laughter, screaming almost with glee, “We’re all gonna die! The end of the world is here! Wheeeeee!” and went on into the night.

Tina tensed up and cuddled closer to Nigel. He put an arm around her shoulders and tried his best to comfort her.  As lame as the attempt was, it worked its magic (for the moment at least). By this point, the radio was saying the scientists could now touch the ship. When they tapped the hull it released a steady chime that lasted for several seconds, but nothing else of significance happened.

            Nigel’s attention shifted between the broadcast and the scene unfolding around him. He saw a van full of Dead-heads get out of their vehicle and set up their grill right there in the middle of the traffic jam, breaking out hot dogs and burgers when the broadcast once again lost momentum. Car horns continued to blare, and when they were silenced the air was filled by arguments and nonsensical shouts. But worst of all, the scene Nigel and Tina had witnessed earlier was repeated several more times, except different actors were cast for each new take.

So here it is then, Nigel thought, the face of humankind finally unmasked…the body and soul finally bare for all to see. Look at the truth. Far from beautiful, isn’t it? In fact it’s the mirror opposite of what you hoped it to be, Nigel. All these years you had prayed there was hope for your race, that deep down all humans were good, that we seemed to be bad only because that’s what the media paid attention to…but look. Here they are. This is what they have all been hiding deep down in the basements of their minds, and it took an alien invasion to bring it out. Does any of this look good to you? What do you pray for now, Nigel? Do you pray these aliens are hostile?

            Nigel tried pushing this train of thought aside with any means that were available to him. Take a whiff of Tina’s hair resting only inches below your nose…think about how lucky you are that you got this night off to be with her…be proud of the fact that you turned yourself around…that you’re even alive after all the hell you put yourself through.

But he couldn’t ignore that nagging voice. It said: listen to the broadcast, Nigel. Do you hear what’s happening?

            He certainly did.

On the radio, the reporter’s monotone and uncaring delivery shifted slightly. There was a hint of excitement in his voice as a new development arose: a glowing red circle appeared on the spacecraft and quickly expanded. A doorway? Oh, but the new information didn’t stop there!

The reporter said, “Movement is coming from the ship now. A gray, slug-like thing just came through the door. It…it has no eyes or mouth. I’m not sure if this is the alien itself or just one of its appendages.” A screaming for everyone to shut up ran across the string of cars, and to Nigel’s surprise the crowd gradually went mute. Now they were all focused on the broadcast. “…another, and another. I can see what appear to be joints on these things, so they must be limbs. So where is the alien itself? Oh…oh, God, there’s my answer. This creature has eight legs…but a humanoid torso! Four arms, blood-red skin, silver eyes…quite possibly the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Now one of the scientists is walking toward the alien, and he’s even waving hello to it. I just noticed, ladies and gentlemen, that the alien has an object in its right hand. It looks sort of like a wand. Now the alien is pointing the object at the scientist, and…oh my God!” The reporter could hide his emotion no longer; his voice was flooded with sheer terror. “The wand shot out a green beam of light, and it vaporized that poor man! He’s turned to dust now, and the crowd is panicking!  People are…”

His voice was suddenly overtaken by screams.

Then the radio was silent.

For a moment, everyone on the street followed the radio’s example. Then the screaming began, and after that the scene on this crowded city street went from nightmarish to apocalyptic. 

            Even though the cars were all still packed together, some people decided to step on the gas, trying to turn the traffic jam into a Monster Truck showdown and drive over the other vehicles. Others decided to get out and run for it, and Nigel saw three people get trampled in the mad rush to escape this extraterrestrial threat.

Out of all this, there was one sight that really caught Nigel’s eye: there was an old man, maybe sixty-five years old, walking slowly between the rows of cars as if he were on a Sunday stroll.  About twenty paces from Nigel’s car the man stopped.  He looked over the former heroin addict and his date. Then the man took his right hand out of his pocket to reveal he was holding a gun. Nigel was fast enough to shield Tina’s face against his chest before the man had even put the weapon to his head, closing his own eyes so that all he heard was the report.

            “Jesus,” Nigel groaned, “I think it goes without saying that we’d better get out of here. If any of these lunatics know where that gunshot came from, they’re likely to come get the gun.”

            Tina nodded in agreement, and they got out of the car. She scampered around to his side, grabbing on to his arm for security. Nigel covered her eyes as they passed the man and the remains of his head. Although it nearly cost him what little food he’d eaten, Nigel bent down and grabbed the gun from the suicide’s clenched hand. It took a bit of wrestling to get it, but eventually Nigel succeeded. When Tina opened her eyes again, she gasped at the sight of the weapon.

            “Nigel, no! What if you…”

            “I’ll use it only if there is no other way,” Nigel said. “I mean, look at this madhouse. We need protection.”

            Tina still didn’t approve of Nigel’s new possession, but for the moment her arguing came to a halt.

            Their home was only three miles, but it felt like they had to walk through Dante’s nine circles of hell to get there. Nigel saw more fights in that short distance than he’d seen in his entire life. Storefront windows were smashed out, their contents looted. A car finally broke free of the traffic jam, speeding across the sidewalk and mowing down several pedestrians.

            Nigel did his best to push these disturbing images from his mind. He had to concentrate on the task of getting home, mainly because he could tell Tina was breaking up. It was obvious she was barely holding herself together; she had to focus every fiber of her being on remaining calm, and as a result she was barely even conscious of the street, of Nigel, of the impending doom that surrounded them in every direction. Nigel prayed for the first time in years, extending his feeble voice up to God in the hopes that, if nothing else, He would let Tina emerge from this trying time unscathed.

Despite the catastrophe going on around them, they were able to complete the rest of the trek home without incident. As soon as they got through Tina’s front door, Nigel went to the television set while she collapsed on the couch.

            Nigel’s main concern now was to get a good look at the aliens. Once the television was on it didn’t take him long to find the face of a familiar anchorman. After he adjusted the volume, Nigel joined Tina on the couch.

The anchorman proudly declared his station had just received footage of the first alien strike. Then the camera cut to the field where the spacecraft had landed.

            While Tina sat there captivated, Nigel rubbed his eyes.

When the aliens came out of the ship, she commented on how ugly they were.

Nigel went to the bathroom and washed his glasses.

Tina shrieked when the scientist was evaporated.

The astronomer closed his eyes, counted to five, then looked at the screen again…but he still saw the same thing: a man who had dropped dead more likely from a heart attack than evaporation.

Mass hysteria followed the scientist’s collapse. People were running for their lives from an alien that Nigel couldn’t see. Some people fell and were trampled to death. All this madness and death transpired for no reason because, according to Nigel’s eyes, there wasn’t even a spaceship.

            He changed the channel until he found another station showing the same footage.  Once again Nigel saw a field full of scared human beings and nothing else.

            “Tina,” Nigel said, “this is some sort of strange game. There are no aliens.”

            “How can you say such a thing?” she said. “It’s right there!”

            Tina went over to the television and put her finger on the screen, pointing at an empty space where Nigel should have been seeing an alien.

Is everybody nuts, he thought, or am I? Are they seeing things, or am I blind? But how can it be imaginary when the vision of the landing was so widespread? How the hell could so many people have the same hallucination?

            And suddenly, the answers all crashed in on Nigel at once.

            The cloud from space.

It hadn’t been poisonous or radioactive. Could it have been a hallucinogen?

That would explain why Nigel didn’t see the aliens: for some reason his system was immune to the drug.

Was this the truth?  Nigel could think of nothing else, but to prove it he would have to find others like himself…others who also couldn’t see the aliens. That was the only way to prove his theory. But in that world beyond Tina’s door…a world gone mad…how could he hope to find such people?

            While he was considering this, another question came to him: who might have sent the hallucinogen, and why? As the night wore on, Nigel came to the realization that there was really only one real answer he could come up with. He didn’t want to admit it was true until he had more proof, but in the meantime nothing else came to mind.

            There really were aliens who wanted to invade Earth; they just hadn’t done it yet.  Perhaps they weren’t shaped anything like the creature described on the news, but that didn’t really matter. What was important, however, was that this was not your average alien invasion. Far from it. Instead of just barging in and zapping our cities with mega-weapons of destruction, the aliens were causing massive panic through these hallucinations, letting the enemy destroy itself while they sat home all warm and cozy, waiting until the human race had whittled its numbers low enough so they would have to use the least amount of effort to enslave or kill off however many people remained.

            Slackers, Nigel thought.