And Then There Were Two

~And Then There Were Two~

"Mark, that's the weirdest theory I've ever heard." Charles leaned back until the high-backed chair he was sitting on creaked with strain. "People getting abducted by flesh eating aliens...you're crazy, my friend." He chuckled and shifted to let June, his wife of twenty-two years, place his second piece of apple pie on the table in front of him.

"It'd explain why there'd been so many unexplained disappearances over the last hundred years," Mark said, feeling more defensive than he liked to admit. The theory was outrageous, but it really did provide answers. "I mean, think about it, there are records of births, education, marriages, jobs, and suddenly those people vanish, as if they'd never existed. Their families don't remember them, the schools where they had to have gone, show nothing, they simply aren't around anymore." He held his hand out and took the pie June handed him, nodding his thanks but otherwise ignoring her.

From the kitchen, Susan, Marks slightly overweight wife, yelled, "Mark, that's the last piece of pie you get, you're stomach's hanging over your belt. You'll be moaning all night with indigestion."

Raising his head, he rolled his eyes and replied, "Yes, dear, I know." He scowled at Charles, who broke up laughing at the interchange. It was the same comment she made every Friday night when the couple joined them for their weekly dinner and card game.

"I wonder," Charles said, then paused and gazed blankly out the window for a moment before going on in a dull voice. "How would they, the aliens I mean, how would they get rid of all the history: school records, marriage licenses, and what about the memories of wives or husbands, friends, children of the missing?"

Mark was ready for him. Opening his mouth to reply, instead he let out a shriek of terror. Through the window a nightmare approached.

"I wish you'd made a smaller pie, June, you and I will never eat this." She wrapped cling film over a good two-thirds of the pie and then put it in the fridge.

"I know, but I thought you could take it to the office tomorrow, see if that good looking new guy likes homemade pie." She smiled at her best friend, Susan, and settled into the seat at the dining room table so recently vacated by the man she no longer remembered, and which seemed strangely warm.

Neither woman saw the huge, grotesque, vaguely insect-like being dragging Mark through the window. Nor did they hear his screams of terror or the shattering of glass when he kicked over a vase of flowers he'd brought June earlier that day. Charles hung from the beetle-like mandibles of another beast, and shrieked in horror as he watched his wife totally ignoring his anguished cries.

The air had a strange greenish tint, and smelled of brimstone and vomit, but the women didn't notice, simply went about their evening's entertainment. Susan sat across from her, a forkful of pie in one hand, and a cup of coffee in the other.

"Susan, for God sakes!" wailed Mark, as he was crammed into a small metal holding cage just outside the kitchen window. He kicked and screamed, pounding his fists on the hard-bodied terror, but it was as if he was tapping them with a feather for all the good it did. The lid slammed shut, and he heard a lock engage. Beside him, Charles, unconscious or dead, was unceremoniously stuffed into another holding box, and locked within.

"Help! Someone, for shit sake, help!" Mark screamed, terror making his voice high and childlike. A large pool formed beneath him as his bladder let go.

"Are you going to that party at Joan's this weekend?" Susan asked, oblivious to the slathering alien beast carrying out a large armload of male clothing, another followed with shoes and an assortment of papers clutched in its multitude of arms. More scoured the house, taking anything that might be associated with either man and depositing it in a pile some thirty feet or so from the holding cages.

"Thought about it, but I'm not sure yet," replied June. "You?" She took another bite of pie and rolled her eyes in appreciation. "This is wonderful pie. You'll have to share the recipe with me. My crust never turns out as nice as yours."

"Yes, I'm going to Joan's. I'm still looking for that nice man who isn't married or queer. Lord knows I've checked enough of them out." She laughed, but it was a sad laugh and lasted only a few seconds. "I'll get the recipe for you before you leave."

Behind her, a huge slathering brute dragged out two large suitcases that were filled with the rest of Charles' belongings. It easily lifted them and tossed them through the window the two men had been forced out of. Mark had stopped screaming, but only because he'd been jabbed with an instrument that left him conscious, but unable to move, or speak. He watched in shocked horror as his wife and her best friend sat totally unaware to what, only moments ago, had been a theory, but suddenly, to his horror was all too real.

"Well maybe seeing as you're going, I will too. I have to admit, she does put on a nice party." June rose from the chair and went into the kitchen for more coffee. "What are you going to wear?"

"Don't know yet, nothing too dressy. The last time Joan had a party, we wound up playing lawn darts, and I'd worn an evening dress. Slacks and a blouse, probably."

The dozen or so beings gathered around the two immobile men and the belongings they'd gathered. A rod aimed at the window made a burping noise, and miraculously the glass was whole again.

Tears ran down Charles' face as he saw more aliens approaching from the direction of Mark and Susan's house, his friends' belongings in tow. The nightmare went on. More aliens appeared; people, dozens of them, cowered in holding cages: some dressed, some naked, all deathly quiet, were dragged into a large circle around him.

The enormous insectoid beings piled the captive's belongings into a huge mound. A flash of lightening struck and the pile was gone. An alien monstrosity perched on the bed of a pickup truck parked on the road, looked down at the terrified man and slide a long wet tongue over its maw. It belched; a fetid stinking breath engulfed the captives.

"Food!" The horrifying thought forced its way into Charles's mind.

The end

The author, Jude Mason, gives you the right to download the short story, And There Were Two, for your personal viewing only.

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