Striking It Rich[?]

When I first struck the ground, I hadn't noticed the liquid pooling at my feet. I raised my pick and bore it into the soil once more, the impact sending a slurry of wet dirt onto my face. It hadn't rained in a few days so I looked down to see where the water had come from. My eyes widened at the sight of black liquid. I screamed for my wife and she came out in a panic wondering what was wrong. The moment her eyes fell upon the oil, she shrieked. The excitement of quitting our jobs and retiring consumed us and we immediately started going over all the ways we'd spend the money. First and foremost was a boat on the lake like we'd always wanted, packed with all-new fishing equipment. Spending time on the lake instead of doing menial tasks at the office, that was the dream.

The next thing on our list was traveling abroad. We could finally take the most perfect honeymoon, albeit a few decades late.
Then it was all the other little things we wanted; those new golf clubs, that new brand-name jacket, those fancy sneakers we wanted as kids but could never afford. Getting our very own golf cart so we wouldn't have to share one with the neighbors was definitely one of the better things in life. We rushed out and bought everything we ever could have dreamed of wanting, signing papers and handing clerks our credit cards like there was no tomorrow. Being the coolest old people on the block was satisfying.

But we were old, and we forgot a very vital step in all this; calling the oil company. As soon as we realized our blunder, we panicked and rushed to the phone book to find the number. We breathed a sigh of relief after the call and they sent someone out to take a look at what we found. The worker showed up and was a very pleasant young man excited about his work, even more so about his wife's recent pregnancy. Of course, we congratulated him and shared stories of our children and grandchildren. My wife insisted on getting the man's address so she could send them a nicely knitted blanket for the baby. Once we got back on track, we took him out to see the black liquid pooling in our garden. He became very curt and refused to get closer to it, leaving in such a hurry that we didn't get a chance to ask why. We called the company and asked if they could send someone else, but they hastily said they couldn't help us and hung up. The other companies that we called gave us the same response.

Just as we gave up for the day, the phone rang and the man on the other end said they would be sending somebody out as soon as possible. Our excitement renewed, it was less than an hour before we heard a knock on the door. He came in wearing some type of hazmat suit and carrying a thick case with all sorts of tools. We were instructed to stay in the house while he conducted his tests in the backyard. Another man in another hazmat suit came in and started examining us, asking us questions and taking blood samples. He asked us how long we had been exposed to the "black blood," as he called it. But it was oil, we corrected him. We struck oil. We struck it rich.

He told us that, no, what was struck while tilling our garden was the corpse of an alien species. They don't decay as humans do and their blood remains toxic for an indeterminate amount of time. My wife and I had been exposed. The dread hit us immediately; we would have to be taken away, quarantined, and looked after by doctors. They didn't allow us to take any of our belongings. We weren't even allowed to call our children. My wife was in tears and somehow found reasons to make it all my fault; I couldn't find words to speak.

And that was the end of our dream. Our credit cards were maxed, our house turned into a biohazard zone, and we were carted off and quarantined in some government facility. The place was full of people just like us. Infected. Sick. Dying. My wife, bless her soul, gave up the fight before it even began. They didn't remove the body. There were no doctors here. The halls were full of agonizing screams that I couldn't ignore. I eventually joined their chorus as the toxins ravaged my body and tortured my mind.