The Visitor

The alien entity, a gelatinous mass the size of a small bus, approached the house slowly yet steadily in the quiet predawn beneath the crystal winter sky with Orion ready to hunt.  Robert Johnson, a mild-mannered and middle aged pharmacist, was still in his shorts as he stood barefoot on bathroom tiles, still squinting in the glare of the light above the mirror, a toothbrush angling from the corner of his mouth.

The faucet water broke an eerie silence--no wind, no rain, no rush of air from the now reticent furnace in its measure of pause before resuming its duty.  Bob looked through the small window above the bathtub, into nothing but blackness, and could not help but think of a CD he had played before going to bed, where a singer spoke of promises in the dark.

Bob continued his morning routine.  Suddenly there came a great cracking noise, like crushing an egg carton, and the smashing of glass.  Bob felt the house shake, and cold air rushed in like evil.  In an instant he was in the hall, curious yet panicked, his attention focused toward the back bedroom.  A sickening smell overwhelmed him, and the reality of something not of this world slapped every fiber of his being like a thousand whips.

It moved toward him.  It pushed furniture like a tsunami.  Bob recoiled in a snap, so hard that he hit his head and neck against the wall, knocking down the housing containing the doorbell.  He fell on cold linoleum, shaking as if he were a straw man in random seism.  And that which had invaded, that which was now tall and dark and oozing with the stench of destruction--that which was a hunger for anything and everything good, approached with a greedy hubris like it was bestowed this right from regions of the universe too perverse to consider.

Bob scrambled like loose change, getting to his feet but then falling headlong in the kitchen, banging an elbow and breaking it.  The contest was all but over, and despite the blinding fear and abject shock, Bob thought, briefly, that it was astonishing that anything of such bulk could move so fast.  He fell like a loose marionette against the kitchen counter, feeling the acidic ooze as it began to engulf his legs.  He reached out and grabbed an egg timer, and held it like it was a trophy.  And then, with his last cogent thought, he wondered with all sincerity why he had done so.


419 Words