Heroes Aren't Born, They're Made In Old Barns

That wasn't to say Zeke had some sort of plan. He didn't. Nor did he have superhuman marital prowess, untapped until this moment, that could prevent the scurrying hordes of rat-like alien monsters from bursting through the barn doors and eating Zeke alive.

They, just, weren't going in the old barn.

It had been hours since Zeke ran from Pete's sports bar. He and Dale watched the president being dragged to the press podium in front of a dozen captive journalists. Out came the leader of the Xenothon forces, wearing a green-tinted chrome cape over his coarse brown fur. He stood about two feet taller than the president, who managed to maintain his dignity even as the alien warlord took a ray gun from beneath his cape and slowly melted the president's head into a puddle of red, white and blue.

"Huh," said Dale, echoing the sentiments of the bar.

That Pete kept the TV on the news channel spoke to the severity of the situation. Nevertheless, once the greater part of the melting had been done, he changed it back to baseball.

"Whatd'ya think it means, Dale?" Zeke asked. Under Dale's Grateful Dead baseball cap loomed a strategic genius rivaling Napoleon or Machiavelli. He understood the complex machinations of the federal government and its plot against humanity better than anyone. No matter what was said or done, Dale could fit the piece into the puzzle that was the Illuminati conspiracy, even if he had to occasionally carve the edges.

"Well, as I had been saying for years now, the government has been developin' alien technologies they originally found at the base of the Egyptian pyramids. Not those Egyptian pyramids, the ones the Nazis dug up in 1943..." Dale said before the Xenothons burst in and blew off his head with a ray gun.

The five minutes after Dale's death had been a horrific blur of blood for the Pete's sports bar patrons, and an unhealthy snack high in saturated fats for the aliens. Through the screams and ray blasts, Zeke found himself outside. He started running and didn't stop until he arrived in the old barn.

And then, he sat in a pile of hay.

It's not that the aliens didn't know he was there. A dozen or so had sniffed at the entire perimeter of the barn, and then loudly chittered as rat-like creatures do when strategizing. But that had been all.

Zeke wished he hadn't dropped his phone at Pete's, giving the aliens a treasure-trove of contact information and dick pics. He assumed his wife Maribel was already eaten, which was sad. Not as sad as losing Dale, but still.

The aliens blew the locks on the barn door with a blow torch, and the doors slowly creaked open.

A cooked turkey leg tied to a string landed in the middle of the barn. The string led outside, which did not pique Zeke's suspicions as much as it should have. Instead, Zeke only thought about how the five-second rule could be extended if the food landed in clean hay.

Zeke approached, and the turkey leg skittered toward the door.

He started to think the Xenothons were behind this, and the only way to beat those aliens was by being much, much faster. Zeke ran at the turkey leg, and by a happy life-saving coincidence, slipped on a spot of mud just inches from the door.

The turkey leg was gone.

"Dammit alien, I ain't fallin' for that again," Zeke yelled and walked away.

A bundle of hundred-dollar bills tied to a string landed in the middle of the barn. That would buy so many items on the McDonald's dollar menu, Zeke thought. His vision quickly expanded to all the things in life he'd been wrongfully denied by the simple fact that he did not have a large bundle of money.

Zeke ran for it, but stopped short of the door, this time, voluntarily.

What good was money if Pete's was destroyed? Then it hit Zeke like a deep-fried butter heart attack. The aliens wanted him out of the barn, but they couldn't go inside. But why?

Zeke tried to think, but it was no good. Dale was the thinker.

"Hello handzome~!" said a chittering voice outside.

Zeke peaked through a slit in the barn wall. A Xenothon stood in the moonlight wearing a dress and high heels. Maribel wore dresses like that. He missed her. He'd cry if he weren't homophobic.

His wedding was seven years ago. Maribel wore a red wedding dress she ordered off Russian Amazon. It accentuated her tattoos and stretch marks, while standard wedding dresses seemed to only hide them. Dale was doing his job as best man, counseling Zeke through his doubts.

It wasn't that Zeke didn't love Maribel, because Dale said he did.

And it wasn't that Maribel was sleeping around on him, because Dale said she wasn't.

And it wasn't that Zeke wasn't ready for marriage, because Dale said he'd better do it now while Maribel was drunk enough to say, “I do.”

In fact, Zeke couldn't think of why he shouldn't marry Maribel, so he did. But now she was gone.

Perhaps, it was time to surrender. Even if he outwitted these mentally superior beings, he'd still be stuck in a barn, starving to death. How bad could being eaten be, anyway?

Then, a wisp of smoke drifted in front of his eyes. Burning hay. The ultimate get-something-out-of-something-else tactic: smoke it out. Zeke ran frantically to every corner of the barn looking to stomp out any fire leaking in. He wouldn't give up this barn without a fight.

But there was no fire. Zeke heard chittering outside and looked through another crack.

A stack of hay was on fire. The smoke blew into the faces of two rat people, and they fell down dead. But what did it mean?!

The gears of Zeke's mind creaked and groaned. He thought with all his might, meaning that he shut his eyes, grabbed his head with both hands, and screamed, "think! think!"

He sat, defeated. "I can't do it. What would Dale do?"

"Dale." For the first time in Zeke's life, he spoke that name with disdain.

Dale? Dale was dead.

Bein' all smart didn't stop his head from exploding. He wasn't right about the alien invasion. In fact, all those smarty pants thinky people were wrong!

First, them scientists and PbJs were saying UFOs weren't real, even though Zeke's uncle was abducted some 10 years ago and dumped him off drunk as a skunk with his pants around his ankles lying in a boat on Lake Misty. Then, they said if there was UFOs, they wouldn't be all evil and such. They'd be peaceful, they said.

Well, they weren't peaceful.

Zeke loved Dale, and not even death'd end that. But dammit, it was time for Zeke start thinking for himself, because, for all he knew, he was now the smartest man on the planet.

And with a feeling of power and confidence Zeke had never felt before, he picked up a handful of hay.

Zeke managed to tie a long clump of hay into the shape of a torch using some baling twine and lit it. He thought they were allergic to smoke, and it wasn't until the third alien puffed up and suffocated that he realized they had an anaphylactic reaction to hay.

Live and learn.

Zeke detailed his miracle method for defeating the aliens, first by screaming and then with the assistance of radio and TV stations. And, although thousands of other people had also discovered the aliens' kryptonite, Zeke was, perhaps, the first. At least in the top ten.

Probably not the top ten, but the confidence and charisma Zeke had when explaining the hay allergy went a long way in spreading the life-saving information.

When the last of the Xenothons were destroyed by a well-placed rolling bale of hay, the people cheered and celebrated. And in the center of parade was Zeke.

As they mopped up their political leaders, the people of America wondered who would lead them next. It seemed the old guard had been the first to die. Dale would have laughed.

In the election for the first president of the New United-er States of America there are a lot of smart candidates. People of means and ability and a genuine dedication to public service. But the frontrunner, the man to watch, is different. He’s a man who may not be particularly smart, but one who thinks for himself.