The Plastic Man
I wrote this for amusement over the course of several minutes, so I apologise if it is bad. However, it should be pointed out that I was NOT writing in anything resembling my standard voice. Besides, this is intended to be a bit silly.
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"Well, it ain't like it's cannibalism," muttered the bearded man, "and I'm sure it'd do for me twice as Damned quick."
The bearded man smelled strongly of putrescence, or perhaps his body odor had finally gone over the line and become a completely different olifactory offence. A length of fishing line had been wrapped around the bearded man's thigh to keep him from bleeding to death. It probably wasn't necessary any more, since the wound appeared to have frozen in the bitter Canadian winter.
The bearded man's name was Joe, and he'd had a close encounter of the sixth God Damned kind, as evidenced by the dead man in the biggest piece of the wreckage of the little DHC-3 Otter that the dead man and Joe used to go on hunting trips in. The dead man didn't have a name. He was dead.
The Otter'd been a good plane. Joe and the dead man had been flying it up from Texas every year for seventeen years, and the Otter never gave any trouble. She'd been freshly painted this year, a project that had kept Joe out of his wife's hair and the dead man away from the bottle. The dead man had a dead wife, but she was still in Texas.
The front third of the little Otter lay at the end of a furrow in the Earth about thirty yards from Joe. Joe had been thrown clear of the wreck, catching several sharp pieces of Damned airplane in his leg and torso in the process. Joe had felt suddenly cold all over his body, and had looked up in time to see the dead man trying to lift his head, which was very difficult since there was a four inch shard of glass attaching the inside of the dead man's neck to the airplane.
"God Damn! Goddammit! Damn," Joe had said, repeatedly.
The dead man had lifted his head, and then had fallen back forwards through the Otter's broken windhshield and coated the Otter's freshly-painted nose with blood.
A close encounter of the sixth kind is an encounter with a space alien that results in the death or mutilation of a human or an animal. Joe's close encounter had happened at a bit over nine thousand feet above the Canadian wilds. The close encounter had impacted the DHC-9 in the dead center of the fuselage at just about Mach 3. The close encounter lay in a deeper, wider furrow that was roughly perpendicular to the dead man's furrow. Joe had been dragging himself towards it for a long Damned time. Years, probably.
The God Damned flying saucer had cracked open like an egg would, if you could find an egg shaped like a discus with a dead alien inside. Joe had now invented a whole new category of close encounter, the eight kind: one where an alien was killed or mutilated. If Joe had known this fact, he would probably have gone mad, but we will never know because Joe was alone in the middle of the woods with a dead man and a dead alien and a gangrenous leg, and no one could tell him about his suddenly elevated state within the ranks of people who've had really weird experiences.
Joe was God Damned hungry.
"Well, it ain't like it's cannibalism," muttered Joe, "and I'm sure it'd do for me twice as Damned quick."
Joe began chopping at frozen meat with a sharp bit of aluminum. Joe couldn't feel it, but his fingertips, black from frostbite, were sloughing off of the God Damned bone, bit by bit. Joe stuck the larger pieces one by one into his mouth, holding them there until they had thawed enough to chew. Joe was crying, but he didn't know it.
The meat was brackish and tough, with a texture not unlike a rubber eraser's. It tasted of metal and burnt tires and something that Joe just couldn't put his finger on. Joe chewed and chewed and swallowed and then vomited ferociously for several minutes. Joe chopped off a second piece, slightly smaller, and tried again. Joe gagged again, but this time everything stayed down.
Chop, thaw, chew, swallow, gag. Repeat until sated.
Joe ate a respectable amount of one of the Thing's God Damned tentacles. The tentacle had bones in the middle. Joe curled up on the lee side of the saucer and nodded off to sleep, not knowing he'd just pulled a close encounter of the seventh kind, in which genetic material is transferred from an alien to a man. Joe had pulled off a hat trick.
Joe dreamed about a story he'd seen on the Television News back in Texas about a house whose walls had been colonized by honeybees. The bees spread through the walls until the hive filled all the walls and a large chunk of the attic, at which point the ceiling had caved in during the family's Sunday dinner with grandma. Grandma and all of her blood descendents had died of multiple bee stings. The State had to burn the house down to get rid of the bees.
Joe woke up with his entire digestive tract broadcasting a million God Damned watts of screaming blue agony straight into Joe's living room. Every muscle in Joe's entire body cramped simultaneously.
Joe screamed for several minutes as cancers that would not be seen in another human being for two hundred years ravaged every cell of his body. Joe's hair began smoking from the heat of his body. His heart grew six new chambers over the course of three minutes, the raw material mostly being scavanged from Joe's lungs and blood. Joe's liver mounted an offensive against both kidneys simultaneously, and spent the following ten minutes converting them into factories for intelligent carcinogins. The big muscles in Joe's good thigh began wrestling one another like giant slugs would, if your leg was full of giant slugs. Faster and faster the competing tumors ate at Joe's bodymass, sucking the meat and skin closer in towards the bones now looked more like pumice than bone.
Joe stopped screaming long before he died. Death did not slow the cancers, though. They tore and ravaged and leeched every molecule of raw material from the second dead man. After about an hour, the cancer wars finally ground to a halt, leaving behind a vaguely manshaped slick of oily toxic waste.
God Damn.
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"Well, it ain't like it's cannibalism," muttered the bearded man, "and I'm sure it'd do for me twice as Damned quick."
The bearded man smelled strongly of putrescence, or perhaps his body odor had finally gone over the line and become a completely different olifactory offence. A length of fishing line had been wrapped around the bearded man's thigh to keep him from bleeding to death. It probably wasn't necessary any more, since the wound appeared to have frozen in the bitter Canadian winter.
The bearded man's name was Joe, and he'd had a close encounter of the sixth God Damned kind, as evidenced by the dead man in the biggest piece of the wreckage of the little DHC-3 Otter that the dead man and Joe used to go on hunting trips in. The dead man didn't have a name. He was dead.
The Otter'd been a good plane. Joe and the dead man had been flying it up from Texas every year for seventeen years, and the Otter never gave any trouble. She'd been freshly painted this year, a project that had kept Joe out of his wife's hair and the dead man away from the bottle. The dead man had a dead wife, but she was still in Texas.
The front third of the little Otter lay at the end of a furrow in the Earth about thirty yards from Joe. Joe had been thrown clear of the wreck, catching several sharp pieces of Damned airplane in his leg and torso in the process. Joe had felt suddenly cold all over his body, and had looked up in time to see the dead man trying to lift his head, which was very difficult since there was a four inch shard of glass attaching the inside of the dead man's neck to the airplane.
"God Damn! Goddammit! Damn," Joe had said, repeatedly.
The dead man had lifted his head, and then had fallen back forwards through the Otter's broken windhshield and coated the Otter's freshly-painted nose with blood.
A close encounter of the sixth kind is an encounter with a space alien that results in the death or mutilation of a human or an animal. Joe's close encounter had happened at a bit over nine thousand feet above the Canadian wilds. The close encounter had impacted the DHC-9 in the dead center of the fuselage at just about Mach 3. The close encounter lay in a deeper, wider furrow that was roughly perpendicular to the dead man's furrow. Joe had been dragging himself towards it for a long Damned time. Years, probably.
The God Damned flying saucer had cracked open like an egg would, if you could find an egg shaped like a discus with a dead alien inside. Joe had now invented a whole new category of close encounter, the eight kind: one where an alien was killed or mutilated. If Joe had known this fact, he would probably have gone mad, but we will never know because Joe was alone in the middle of the woods with a dead man and a dead alien and a gangrenous leg, and no one could tell him about his suddenly elevated state within the ranks of people who've had really weird experiences.
Joe was God Damned hungry.
"Well, it ain't like it's cannibalism," muttered Joe, "and I'm sure it'd do for me twice as Damned quick."
Joe began chopping at frozen meat with a sharp bit of aluminum. Joe couldn't feel it, but his fingertips, black from frostbite, were sloughing off of the God Damned bone, bit by bit. Joe stuck the larger pieces one by one into his mouth, holding them there until they had thawed enough to chew. Joe was crying, but he didn't know it.
The meat was brackish and tough, with a texture not unlike a rubber eraser's. It tasted of metal and burnt tires and something that Joe just couldn't put his finger on. Joe chewed and chewed and swallowed and then vomited ferociously for several minutes. Joe chopped off a second piece, slightly smaller, and tried again. Joe gagged again, but this time everything stayed down.
Chop, thaw, chew, swallow, gag. Repeat until sated.
Joe ate a respectable amount of one of the Thing's God Damned tentacles. The tentacle had bones in the middle. Joe curled up on the lee side of the saucer and nodded off to sleep, not knowing he'd just pulled a close encounter of the seventh kind, in which genetic material is transferred from an alien to a man. Joe had pulled off a hat trick.
Joe dreamed about a story he'd seen on the Television News back in Texas about a house whose walls had been colonized by honeybees. The bees spread through the walls until the hive filled all the walls and a large chunk of the attic, at which point the ceiling had caved in during the family's Sunday dinner with grandma. Grandma and all of her blood descendents had died of multiple bee stings. The State had to burn the house down to get rid of the bees.
Joe woke up with his entire digestive tract broadcasting a million God Damned watts of screaming blue agony straight into Joe's living room. Every muscle in Joe's entire body cramped simultaneously.
Joe screamed for several minutes as cancers that would not be seen in another human being for two hundred years ravaged every cell of his body. Joe's hair began smoking from the heat of his body. His heart grew six new chambers over the course of three minutes, the raw material mostly being scavanged from Joe's lungs and blood. Joe's liver mounted an offensive against both kidneys simultaneously, and spent the following ten minutes converting them into factories for intelligent carcinogins. The big muscles in Joe's good thigh began wrestling one another like giant slugs would, if your leg was full of giant slugs. Faster and faster the competing tumors ate at Joe's bodymass, sucking the meat and skin closer in towards the bones now looked more like pumice than bone.
Joe stopped screaming long before he died. Death did not slow the cancers, though. They tore and ravaged and leeched every molecule of raw material from the second dead man. After about an hour, the cancer wars finally ground to a halt, leaving behind a vaguely manshaped slick of oily toxic waste.
God Damn.