Disbelief

It was hot in the old, run-down barn. The air was thick and heavy. The two men, already tired from a long day of arduous labour, worked silently as they shovelled gravel into the old truck with sluggish fatigue. Dirt and sweat clung to every inch of their bodies as the afternoon wore on, relentless and unabating.

Pausing for just a moment to rest on his shovel, the older man looked wearily at the unshrinking pile of gravel. “Did you hear what happened to Old Lesley Jones?” He said, glancing up at his companion.

“Who?” The younger man replied, without turning his head away from his work.

“You know…the older gentleman who owns the farm up the road.”

The man nodded as a sign that he remembered Old Lesley, while laboriously dumping yet another shovel-full of gravel into the truck, grunting with the effort.

“He says he was abducted by aliens,” the older man added, knowing this news would come unexpectedly.

The younger man stopped and observed his companion, trying to judge the seriousness of the previous statement, which still hung in the air, heavy as the heat. He remembered Old Lesley. He had met him a few times over the years — a simple, hard-working man. Dependable. The kind of fellow everybody liked and admired. This news was jarring.

Leaning against the truck for a break, the older man lit himself a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, pensive, allowing the suspense to build, waiting patiently to hold his audience’s complete and utter attention before he commenced his story.

“It happened a few months ago,” he said at last, speaking slowly and deliberately. “It was late, on one of those suffocating evenings, where the heat hangs heavily in the air, sickly and stifling, inescapable.” He paused for dramatic effect.

“Now, according to Old Lesley,” he went on, “he and Melrose Brown were sitting out on the old porch, knocking back a few whiskeys and trading laughs and stories about their misspent youths. Those two had been friends for over twenty years and had never had a single disagreement, such was their friendship. Yet, that evening, sitting there, slapping off mosquitos in the oppressive heat is the last thing that Old Lesley remembers before he woke up, and when he did, both he and Melrose were on a planet named Dzeucozia.

As their eyes opened, they found themselves in a city incomparable in its beauty. The buildings themselves were works of art. Each minute detail, its own masterpiece. Every angle, every archway, every crevice — each material, chosen with specific purpose: to manipulate light and shadow. There is no word in any human language for such resplendent grandeur. It is what a city would be if there were no thought of cost-of-labour, and everything were made with the eye of a true artist. This city was an architectural dream. A utopia.

Old Lesley and Melrose were mesmerised by the beauty, but what enchanted them most were the inhabitants of this land — tall, alluring women. Enchantresses. Goddesses they were! Naked and unashamed. And that was everyone on this planet. When they awoke in this city, it was to divine women lining the streets, dancing and singing — praising them! There was a parade in their honour, and they walked down the streets as heroes to the cheering crowds.”

The older man paused to take a long drag of his cigarette, letting his companion imagine the exquisiteness of this alien world. Another puff, and he went on.

“The naked goddesses marched the men the entire length of the city. Then beyond. They marched into the surrounding countryside, until finally, they arrived at an old barn. It truly resembled those from Earth: made of timber with a high ceiling, and the inside, too, rustic and spacious — as any barn. It seemed a sad, miserable place compared to the radiance of the city, though it had an Earthly comfort about it. Inside were another eight men, all of different nationalities. No one else spoke English.

The door opened again behind old Lesley and Melrose, and into the barn also came ten of these most beautiful creatures. Now, these muses brought with them an assortment of Earthly foods and wines. Though, it is worth noting that the food had clearly been prepared by a person with no prior knowledge of how these extraterrestrial foods ought to be prepared and eaten (foods from Earth being alien to the people of Dzeucozia, of course). So, unfortunately, the feast consisted of rather unconventional dishes — chocolate-coated pickles, hotdogs with marshmallows, pasta with banana and soy sauce, and so on. Nonetheless, the men were gracious and they ate everything. And with this, they drank copious amounts of wine. They drank, laughed and danced with the women late into the day, until finally their eyes closed, both drunk and fatigued.

When Lesley awoke, the nightmare began. The nine other men lay unconscious on cold metal slabs, where they had been placed along the far wall. Nine beds in a neat line. From each of their stomaches, giant tubes connected them to machines that whirred and hummed. He rubbed his weary eyes to better make out what he was seeing, but his eyes had not deceived him. At the end of each tube was a liquid-filled bag containing what could only be described as a foetus. Yet, there was nothing remotely human or earthly about the vile creature that grew there. Attached to these machines, the men kept the babies alive, providing them with nutrients, and as they grew, which seemed to happen before Old Lesley’s very eyes, the more hideous and wretched they became.

Old Lesley let out a faint scream. He ran to Melrose’s bed, but all he could do was stare at the limp body that now fed the machines. A woman entered the barn, and ignoring Old Lesley, she attended to the machines closest to the door, taking notes, injecting serums, pressing buttons and turning dials. She walked about, composed and professional, observing this barbaric atrocity as commonplace routine.

“What have you done?” Old Lesley cried out, mortified.

At last the woman acknowledged his presence, smiling kindly back at him. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said — very nonchalant. “They will be fine. We just used them for milking,” she said, tapping gently on the chamber that contained the foetus.

Lesley was aghast, but he stood tall and determined, ready to take a moral stance. “You cannot force these men to have your babies against their will!”

The woman was annoyed by this emotional outburst. It was her opinion that men from earth could be so irrational. “Well, it’s too late now, isn’t it? As you can see, fertilisation has been successful. So, whether they planned for this or not, they now carry our future daughters.” She spoke slowly, as if she were explaining something of the utmost complexity, for which she judged Old Lesley not to have the intelligence to comprehend. “Now, I’m sure that you can agree that these babies are innocent in the matter,” she continued in her supercilious manner. “They have a right to life, just as you or I.”

Lesley stared at the foul creatures growing before him, and it sickened him. If there were a hell, these babies had escaped from it. He looked at his friend, whose fate was now tied to this leeching parasite and felt despair.

“When can they go back home?” He asked.

The woman looked at him incredulously. “Well, when the children are ready to undergo their complete metamorphosis, of course. So, that will take some years…”

With this, Old Lesley was filled with hot, burning rage. “I demand that you release these men immediately and allow them to live their lives. They have rights! They are not yours to be enslaved. They are not your experiments. You savage!”

The woman was taken aback both by this highly emotional, irrational outbreak and by the heartlessness of this proposition. She looked at Old Lesley as if he were the monster. Her eyes filled with contempt. “Please compose yourself. You need to understand that these men will be parents. They have an obligation to these children. A parent does not simply abandon their offspring after having given them life. One does not leave a helpless child to the mercy of nature. These men will care for the infants that they bear, as is their responsibility!”

This was too much. Old Lesley was maddened by the injustice — sickened by the horror, from the mere sight of tubes feeding in and out of his friend’s open abdominal cavity. None of these men had asked for this! Their bodies were harnessed to machines that gave life to monstrous beasts. Their fates were decided. He lashed out in wild fury. His friend would not die here a slave, destined to bear monsters and raise the grotesque spawns of these devils. He wildly tore at the cables and tubes. He tipped over machines. He smashed anything he could — a hurricane on a path of destruction. Within a moment, a group of women had entered the barn to restrain him, and next thing Old Lesley knew, he was back in his house on Earth, alone.”

The older man watched his friend’s face contort with simultaneous revulsion and intrigue as he imagined such sadistic brutality. He inhaled one last drag to finish his cigarette, then spat on the ground near his feet, knowing that soon the younger man would look up as if to ask what happened next.

“Anyway,” he said at last, “they charged Old Lesley with the murder of Melrose Brown. They said there was evidence of some sort of struggle. Forensic evidence — that’s what they called it —Melrose’s DNA on Old Lesley’s clothing and such. Then, they went and arrested him! With no body or anything! Next thing, Old Lesley is appointed one of those lawyers that the state assigns to poor folk, you know? And this lawyer tells him to plead guilty, so he could get a reduced sentence. He says there is no chance of winning at trial, and all that — that insanity pleas almost never work before a jury. That’s what he said. And well, of course, they asked questions, and Old Lesley couldn’t even explain why they hadn’t used his body for their deranged science experiments either, you see? It seems it didn’t occur to him to ask that! I tell you, that would’ve been the first thing I asked! Yep — if you ask me, there’s no doubt in my mind at all — he’s guilty as all hell!”

The younger man stood frozen, shocked by the news of something so disturbing happening at the hands of a man he, himself, knew. He struggled to match the two realities — his memory of the man he had met and liked, and the identity of a vicious killer, a possibly mentally unsound man. Both stories seemed equally unlikely to be true. “Can you imagine, though,” he whispered, wide-eyed with fear, “if what Old Lesley Jones says is true?”

The older man reflected a moment. “She-devils that condemn men to be tortured — helpless and bound to machines, while these women abuse their bodies…only to then be enslaved to raise their mutant creations. It would certainly be a fearsome thing to behold,” he confirmed.

The two men stopped and let the thought wash over them. The very idea gave them chills to their very bones, and they shuddered.

Then, closing the back of the truck, they walked out of the barn and up to the house for supper.