Alfie ran a hand through his hair, cleared his throat, and stepped up to one of the mounted cameras. Assured by the red light, he looked directly into the lens and began to speak.
“My name is Alfred James Monroe. It is August 21st, 2016. I have recently returned from a sample-gathering trip near Athena National Forest, just outside the federal perimeter, where I discovered what I immediately deduced to be a meteorite. Subsequently, I brought the meteorite back to my lab for further study and, in order to analyze the rock, I proceeded to chip off a sample of the exterior shell. Having done this, in no great extreme, I produced what appeared to be a small fissure leading to a hollow in the interior of the meteorite. Stunning, I realize.” He paused for effect. “Even more stunning, and still hard to believe, is what’s inside.”
He turned slowly, hand laid out like a game show model revealing the Grand Prize, letting the tension build for future generations, and pointed at the white, fat larva. As the camera recorded the moment for posterity, the larva finished its expulsive journey through the rock’s shell and fell with an inglorious plop to the lab table’s surface, a trail of clear goo thin as a spider web stretched between it and the hole it had burrowed through.
“Shit!” Alfie yelled, immediately forgetting the camera and lunging for one of the petri dishes and a glass stirring rod on the counter behind him. Grabbing the items, he spun back to the steel table on which the meteorite sat and gently – oh so gently – rolled the larva into the petri dish where it lay, relatively docile, slowly squirming and bending this way and that.
“Hello,” Alfie said, mesmerized, holding the clear dish and its lone occupant so close to his face he could almost smell its dank alien excretion. “My name’s Alfie, what’s yours?” he said, and laughed at his own stupidity. “I’m sorry? What was that?” he said, putting the thing in the dish close to his ear, “it’s hard to hear you because you’re so very small. Wait, let me guess,” he said, setting the dish down on the work table, anxious to get a closer look, “take me to your leader, am I right?”
The larva squirmed like a living slick white thumb as Alfie put it under the microscope, beyond curious to know the detailed makeup of the bug-like creature. He would need to extract tissue, study its composition. He’d have to send it off for analysis, but how to do it without letting the proverbial cat out of the bag? He shook his head. A problem for another time, he thought, and stuck his eye to the microscope’s eyepiece, his hand absently reaching for a notepad and pencil.
“Rub-a-dub-dub, there’s a grub in my tub…” he mumbled, and began making notes.
He was so immersed in studying the alien that Alfie did not see the emergence of a second larva head, protruding from the same slick crack of the meteorite, push its way stubbornly, and with great purpose, toward a new world.
3
IN THE DAYS that followed, Alfie was forced to leave the house twice for supplies and equipment. Otherwise, he did not sleep, or shower, and hardly ate. He had called his supervising professor at the university and given a cock-and-bull story about his mother (long deceased) being gravely ill, saying that he’d be leaving town a few days, maybe a week, maybe longer. The professor had given his regards and assured Alfie to take all the time necessary. Which was just peachy for Alfie, because since that first larva had poked its head out from the meteorite, he had forgotten about anything other than studying the strange creatures, going through the identification process, and seeking madly to positively identify them as truly, undeniably, extraterrestrial in origin.
Now, as he stood and stretched after a short nap on the cold steel mortician’s table adjacent to the one that held the meteorite, Alfie thought the lab looked more and more like an incubation chamber. There were now six rectangular aquariums lined along the full-length of the counter, each holding about a dozen of the alien larvae. He had filled each aquarium halfway with thick, dense black soil, roots and other vegetation, hoping the creatures would be able to feed off the earthen offerings.
After those first two larvae had wriggled free of the meteorite, many more followed, and followed, and followed. Alfie decided to cut to the chase and, as delicately as he could, split the rock with a hammer and chisel. Inside he had found two nests, each containing a giant’s fist of squiggling, slimy larvae, feeding themselves on the carcasses of who Alfie assumed had been their parents, for lack of a better label. Once he had moved each of the larvae to the incubation aquariums, he was able to better study the remaining husks of the host creatures.
His initial thought, followed quickly by a stomach-dipping surge of disappointment, was that they weren’t alien creatures at all.
They were beetles.
Large beetles to be sure, and most closely resembling the scarabaeidae or, more commonly known, Scarab beetle. The carapaces were a foot in length, wide as a hand, and heavy as brick. Alfie was no entomologist, but he knew enough about the science of insects to know the hosts had likely given birth only very recently, possibly upon the discovery by James and his team just a week or so prior. Something triggered the birthing process, he thought again, knowing it impossible but too intrigued to let it go. Like they were waiting, dormant, in some sort of hibernation…
Alfie allowed the scenario to work its way around his head as he studied the creatures, whose biology was so similar, but also so very different – very alien – from earth’s own insects.
They were much denser, for one. The gravity on the world they came from must be vastly different from Earth’s, and when he looked at the meteorite he began to think of it less as a rock and more of a spaceship of sorts, despite it being composed of mineral versus machine. Primitive, and yet, somehow superior to mankind’s technology. It had landed five thousand years ago, struck the earth hard enough to be deeply buried, hidden, all that time. What remained of it, anyway; what hadn’t burnt to ash upon entry through earth’s atmosphere. And there the inhabitants had lain, for thousands of years, awaiting discovery…
Awaiting release.
He knew it was true. There are no coincidences in science. The beings had lain stagnant, been unearthed, and when something released inside the chambers… a ticking clock had begun. The four creatures, two of separate sex in each chamber, had procreated, laid eggs… given birth to the masses of larvae, then been slowly consumed by them, nourishing the offspring with their own flesh until the time for release came.
A release Alfie had single-handedly manufactured.
By studying the remains of the host creatures, Alfie figured the larvae could have likely sustained themselves another six months, perhaps as long as a year. Keeping one of the hosts for his own research, he dissected the other three, dropped them into each of the aquariums, unsure of whether the nutrients were essential to the successful growth of the larvae, in addition to the decomposing vegetation and soil he himself had provided. They were so similar to grubs, down to the shining extended buckeye head and protracted limbs, that he assumed they could consume similar nutrients. And so far his theory proved correct. The grubs seemed to be thriving – not one had died – and the pieces of the adult hosts were being devoured as greedily as the roots and vegetation he’d provided. He knew it would be months before any of them developed into pupa, and possibly years before they reached the full imago stage. But he would be patient. He would make sure his research was thorough and held to the highest scientific standard, so when he revealed his findings to the world he would already be the leading (if not exclusive) expert for the first alien species ever discovered. Books, guest appearances on every major talk show and news program, speaking engagements… he’d have to hire a publicist, a manager, an agent. Perhaps even a movie deal… Why not? His story would be one told throughout the ages. His name would be in every textbook, on the lips of every scientist throughout what remained of the history of mankind.
Sitting on a hard stool at the long counter, Alfie scratched at his unruly beard, watched the aliens thriving in the aquariums, and thought hazily of all the possibilities the future held. All he ever wanted was to be remembered.
To be immortal.
ALFIE WORKED THROUGH the day and into the next. Not eating, not sleeping, driven by thoughts of fame, by the excitement of discovering new life from another world. Finally, his body yielded to its limitations, his vision grew fuzzy and his hands shook when he tried to write. Eventually he collapsed across the work table, midway through writing a note on the alien’s feeding habits.
He slept, but not deeply. There were whispers in his mind, whispers that crawled through his subconscious like a million microscopic lice. They were words… but not any that he could understand. The words were constant, consistent in tone, a steady flow of instruction, of knowledge, being delivered to him in a rhythmic fashion, driven directly into his brain. Whispers, so many whispers… too many… thousands of voices, all speaking at once, all telling him something new.
Images pulsed through his mind as well: sunbaked vistas, hazy pyramids in the distance; an expanse of outer space, colorful galaxies flowing like cotton candy in black ether; a broken army of strange, stalk-like savages, swarming to escape a ravaging enemy attacking from above and beneath; bizarre cities razed to the ground, planets reshaped, civilizations destroyed by an army with countless numbers…
The whispers and images quickened, faster and faster, driving into his head, erupting like a supernova in his mind’s eye.
The frantic, overwhelming invading thoughts were hurting. His sleeping body began to shake, blood spat from his nose as he groaned and coughed. In the half dream-state (if it was a dream at all), his head felt like it was swelling, his brain bursting apart, bubbling with the acid of alien thoughts, visions of unknown worlds no human mind could comprehend. He winced and barked broken denials, as if in a nightmare… fighting the whispers, the voices, now wanting them out of his head… Stop! he screamed in his mind. Please, he begged, afraid, please get out… it hurts… you’re hurting me… you’re HURTING ME! GOD DAMN YOU I SAID STOP!
With a jerk he woke, raised his head from the cold surface of the laboratory counter on which he’d been dozing with a gasp. His temples pounded viciously, a migraine behind his eyes so sharp and painful that the room wouldn’t come into focus. His stomach flipped and gurgled as if filled with acid, its meager contents wanting, quite badly, to rush up and out. He lurched drunkenly off the stool. His legs immediately buckled and he fell hard, cracking his forehead on the concrete. A stack of notebooks and papers filled with notes, sketches and data collapsed on top of him, scattered across the floor. He moaned, rubbed the butt of one hand into an eye that felt like it might very well explode.
I need a drink, he thought, and then, more rationally, and some fucking food.
Alfie wasn’t sure the last time he’d eaten anything of real substance… didn’t think he’d eaten anything at all for days, other than the dregs of a giant bag of greasy chips, whatever beer had remained in his fridge and a couple granola bars he’d dug out of a dusty backpack he’d found tossed into a corner, remains of a former expedition.
He slowly, carefully, got to his feet, one hand resting on the lip of the counter, and let the room sway a moment, then, after a few deep breaths, steady. He wiped a line of drool dangling from his lip, scratched at the week’s growth of beard growing like unruly moss just below. Jesus, he thought, I’m a mess. I’ve got to…
Then he heard it.
He froze, listening, holding his breath. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, heard only the beating of his heart throbbing in his ears, the sealed room devoid of all other noise… except for… and there it was…
Scratching.
