The Jeeling Arrival
by Ben Bielert
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
“Will it matter if I say no?” John asked.
“Of course it will. We will respect your wishes, but having us may be a better option. Our residency here could be very lucrative for you,” Denji answered.
John frowned. “What do you mean, ‘lucrative’?”
“We have certain technologies. Our technologies will be able to produce resources, resources that your race values. We could make you a very wealthy man in a very short time.”
John shook his head. “Why don’t you just buy your own property then?”
“Either way, we need a human to broker our affairs. We took a chance on you, John, but we’re hoping you’ll work with us. To show you our goodwill, we have a gift for you. We hope that this can compensate for our rude intrusion.” Denji made a low croaking noise.
Four more of the small and scaly people emerged from the shed, carrying between them two large gold bars.
“One, Mr. Dowler,” Denji said, “is a gift for our intrusion.”
John’s eyes widened to the point where they resembled crop circles on the landscape of his features. Denji clicked and clapped his hands together. “So the gift is acceptable then?”
John nodded. “What about the second bar?” He managed to ask, despite his mouth feeling as though it were full of cotton.
“Ah yes, the other bar, if you should choose to take it, it is to serve a dual purpose. If you can acquire the cash value of that bar, we will be needing some resources. Half of the value of that bar is for you, so long as you use the other half to buy what goods we need.”
With a shaking hand, John reached for one of the bars. The Jeeling that held it offered it up to him readily, letting it go as soon as he took it from their outstretched hands. He was surprised at the weight of it, heavier than he expected. It gleamed in the low light, and, even knowing as little about gold prices as he did, he knew that he was holding more money than he ever had in his life.
“Heavy, no? They are both as close to pure as any gold sold here on Earth, but not so much as to arouse suspicion,” Denji croaked.
Slowly, John reached for the second bar. The two aliens holding it lifted it up, grinning at him. Their little teeth were the colour of slate and looked like rows of tightly packed needles. He tried to say that they could stay and that he would look into selling the gold, but the words caught in his throat.
He simply nodded.
“It’s a deal then?” Denji said.
“Yes,” John managed. The word was little more than a croak, and he sounded quite like a Jeeling himself.
“Very good. We will have need of some items and resources soon enough, but that can wait for now. We will need more in the future, but we will be able to provide more gold then. What is it you humans say? There’s more where that came from.” With this, the little alien smiled, exposing his dagger-sharp little teeth.
“Right,” said John, marveling at the two bricks of gold. “I should really go to bed.”
Denji nodded. “Very well then. Thank you, John. Our survival hinges on your cooperation, and you shall thrive in our company. Sleep well, new friend. We have much to discuss yet, but for now you should rest.”
John plodded back to the house in a daze and, to his relief, Max followed without being called. When John crawled into bed, he shivered uncontrollably for a good ten minutes before drifting uncomfortably off to sleep.
* * *
He skipped work the next day, waking up well after ten. He hoped it had all been a dream, but as he opened his eyes he spotted the gold sitting on his dresser. He shut his eyes again and kept them shut as long as he could, hoping he might just will the situation away, but it was no use. The gold remained shining and sitting on his dresser as plain as ever.
When he finally rose from his bed, he felt like he’d aged a hundred years in one day. His head was foggy and his limbs weighed down like they were laden with lead. Could it really be true? Had he seen what he thought he had? He had to be sure. He ran his fingers over the gold bars. They seemed real enough, by God.
John made his way outside, and Max bounded past him eagerly. He looked in the direction of the shop, but it was the same structure it had always been, nothing had visibly changed from the outside. Nothing looked out of place. He was still wearing his clothes from the day before but had kicked his socks off during the night. Without bothering to find a fresh pair of socks, he slipped on his boots and plodded across the yard and into the field.
First, he checked the flattened area his visitors had created on their arrival. The area looked untouched; the grass was back to normal, tall and shifting in the wind. It was as if the ship had never landed there. John was taken aback and frowned. Had this all really been just a hallucination, a delusion? But the gold on his dresser... No, he wasn’t convinced.
He made his way out to the shop and found it as he feared it would be, locked. He was about to bang hard against the door, but he stopped, and instead stood outside, listening. It sounded like a swamp on just the other side of the door, like a choir of bullfrogs croaking.
He couldn’t stand to face them again, but he was curious. Creeping carefully to the little hole in the bay door, he knelt down. He expected it to be dark inside, but it wasn’t. Inside, soft blue lights illuminated every corner of the shop space. There was a bustle of activity. He counted at least thirty of the little forms milling about, though it was hard to tell exactly how many of them there were.
A steady stream of the little creatures was moving into and going out of tunnels that led below the concrete floor. They had built platforms so that the shop was now four storeys; of course, each storey was built to suit their stature. It was impossible to tell how far they had dug down. Within one bay he saw three metal ovoids, each identical to the ship he had seen on the first night.
Then he saw something that made his whole body stiffen. They grew like thick vines along the back wall and every makeshift floor was packed with them. They were covered in a mucus that made them glisten in the soft blue light, but he could see that the stalks were dappled like the scaled flesh of the Jeelings.
The central stalks ran the height of a Jeeling-made floor. Each one supported about seven or eight offshoots, and every offshoot split in three divisions that terminated into a small pod. Hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands of these stalks grew along the back wall. A bustle of activity was going on about the stalks as twenty or so Jeeling were tended to these odd vines, picking the pods, but the pods weren’t perfect circles. They, too, were shaped like eggs, perfect ovoids, one and all. As John watched, one of the Jeeling held up a little egg pod, and John saw the outline of a tiny Jeeling in the fetal position within.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of the egg pods growing off the glistening vines.
He would have screamed, but his tongue suddenly felt thick, as though covered in cobwebs. He backed away from the door, shaking his head in disbelief. Despite the cool night, sweat ran down the back of his neck in thick rivulets. What had he agreed to? Certainly not this.
John ran.
When he got to the house, he didn’t know if they’d seen him or not. He had no idea where Max was, but he didn’t care. Racing to the phone, he was grateful to find a dial tone. With shaking hands, he dialed the police dispatch as quickly as he could. It rang three times, but felt like twenty.
“Hello,” the dispatcher said, but John was speaking before she could even finish.
“This is John Dowler!” He practically shouted into the receiver. “You need to send a whole unit out to the old Mueller place! They... they’re in my goddamn shop and there’s maybe a hundred or more and about to be a lot more.”
“Mr. Dowler, please calm down, what seems to be the emergency?” The dispatcher spoke like a weary adult talking to an unruly child.
“A goddamn invasion in my shop, the town soon, maybe the whole goddamn—”
“De-da-doo,” he suddenly heard. “We’re sorry, your call has been disconnected. Please hang up and try again.”
He held down the switch hook, releasing it and pressing it down again and again. Only dead air greeted him on the other end. He slammed down the handset, a dry sob escaping his throat.
A little voice behind him croaked, and John jumped a foot in the air. “I wish you hadn’t done that, John.”
He spun around, and nearly fainted at the scene behind him. Both doors to the house were wide open, the kitchen was flooded with Jeeling, and more were streaming in through the doors by the minute. Front and center, there stood Denji.
“I didn’t have a choice. I can’t just let you set up an invasion in my shop!” John shouted.
Denji shook his head sadly. “There is always a choice. If you’d just asked us to leave, we would have gone, but this is us or you now. This is you or our offspring. You don’t want to force us to choose between our offspring and anything else because, John, our offspring will always win.”
“Please,” he pleaded. “I was scared, I won’t do it again.”
“John, I wish I could believe you. I argued for you in the first place, told them that we could trust you,” Denji said. All around, hundreds of unblinking green and blue eyes were locked on John. The little slate-coloured teeth were bared but this time in snarls instead of smiles. “They told me I was being foolish, and we should make sure, but I didn’t want it to come to that.”
“I’m sorry. Denji, please. I’ll be good. I’ll cooperate,” John said.
Denji nodded his head and smiled weakly. “Yes, John, you will.”
Then they descended on him. Hundred of little figures writhing and climbing on him, forcing him to his knees and then the ground. He tried to fight, but a beam of yellow light hit him, and he lost all motor control. In no time, little hands, little cold and scaly hands, were all over him. They were lifting him off his feet, hoisting him up into the air, hauling him outside his house to where the morning sky was drifting by overhead. He tried to scream, he tried to plead, but he was frozen, completely unable to move, and all he could manage was to blink, allowing salty tears to stream down his cheeks.
They were carrying him to the shop.
* * *
Dan couldn’t believe he was coming out here again. Goddamn Dowler kid. As he pulled up in his squad car, nothing looked out of place. Dowler was sitting on his porch, but he stood up and walked down the steps calmly as Dan arrived.
When John was a few steps away, he spoke. “I’m sorry for calling you again, Officer Clarkson. Turns out that I’ve been the victim of some trespassing, is all. I know I must be annoying you, and I’m sorry. It turns out that some local teens have been using my abandoned field. I found them out there. They came again tonight, and it spooked me some. That thing, turns out it was just a funky looking European car. Damn thing looked like it was out of an Ikea catalogue.”
Dan looked at the kid, sliding his glasses down his nose and peering at him. “The operator said that you told them to send a lot of backup.”
John shrugged and stuck his hands into his pockets. “I was overreacting, thought that maybe I couldn’t handle them. Again, I’m sorry. I went out there and told ’em to clear out. They hightailed it in their little foreign car. I don’t think they’ll give me any more trouble.”
“You get the plate? Make and model?”
“You know, I didn’t get the plate. As for the make and model, I don’t know... maybe a VW or something like that... kinda bubbly, but I haven’t ever seen one before. It was blue,” John supplied.
Clarkson chuckled. Dumb city kid doesn’t know anything about cars. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Right as rain,” John said, smiling widely. “Again, sorry for making you come out here.”
Dan shook his head and started towards his cruiser. Maybe he could make it back in time for Katey to make him some breakfast. “Right. Well, if they come back you try to get that plate.”
“I most definitely will, sir,” John said, but his eyes flicked for a second towards the shop out in the field.
Dan’s cop instincts caught the gesture and, like a bloodhound catching a whiff of game, he was unable to resist. “You know, on second thought, I think I might wanna have a look at that shop for myself. Just see if I can turn anything up. I drove all the way out here, after all.”
“There’s really no need,” John said, that same plastered smile on his face. “They were having parties in there, I’m pretty sure. I’ve poked around a bit, but it doesn’t look like they did any real damage. No harm, no foul.”
“All the same, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look.”
“There’s really no need for that,” John said, a touch too quickly. “It’s like I said, there’s nothing to see. They didn’t leave anything behind and nothing’s wrecked.”
Dan Clarkson cleared his throat. “Well, to the untrained eye maybe... I might be able to turn something up if I look.”
John shook his head. “This whole ordeal has been embarrassing enough, and I’ve wasted too much of your time. Really, there’s no need. Even if we could figure out who the kids were, I wouldn’t press charges. It wasn’t too long ago that I was doing the exact same kind of stuff.” He laughed lightly.
Clarkson spit and locked his gaze on Dowler. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to hide something out there.”
“Not at all, I’m just trying to save you some time,” John said, looking unfazed.
“Then you won’t mind if I take a look. I’m a small-town cop; believe it or not, things like this are my job,” Clarkson said, grinning. After a few moments of silence, he added, “I can come back in an hour with a warrant if I need to.”
“There’s no need, Officer,” John conceded. “I’ll take you out there.”
“Thanks, John,” Officer Dan Clarkson said.
* * *
The townsfolk often talk about it, but that’s the way it is in a small town.
Most townsfolk never see him much anymore, John Dowler. He quit his job, and he makes trips down to the city every so often, but he’s never in town. When he goes, he leaves with an empty truck and comes back with it loaded to the gills. Some people think he’s up to something, growing weed or maybe something worse. He doesn’t work, but he managed to buy the old Mueller place that he had been renting.
Some folks think that old Dan Clarkson is in on it, too, but what do they know? He may go there sometimes, but it’s cuz he thinks the kid is up to no good. Some folks say it’s more though, say that the two are gay for each other. Kate Clarkson says he’s been strange since last summer, distant-like. The worse part, she told Patty Bell, Dan’s different, he don’t never touch her anymore.
Maybe it’s time someone else goes out there and sees what the hell is going on.
Copyright © 2018 by Ben Bielert
