I can’t believe it’s the third week of December already!
Here we are with another short story for you. We wish we could say it was holiday themed, but alas, we have yet to write something like that.
Instead, we have a tale of alien contact. We always see stories (and TV shows, and movies) showing the grand entrance of aliens, or them secretively coming to Earth and leaving things behind like crop circles. These aliens are sometimes hostile, and sometimes benevolent. We wanted to do a story of a hostile alien contact, but we didn’t want this entrance to be secretive, nor grand. So, we started off with just one guy, a little nerdy (kind of like us here) who happens upon a signal for alien contact, and the alien turns out to be the girl of his dreams… or is she?
Anyway, enjoy the story!
The alarm blared loudly with a series of beeps, waking me from my unexpected catnap. I’d been staring at the screen for so long, pouring through streams of data and listening to static, that my mind needed a quick restart.
Alert I glanced at the screen the alarm was coming from and noticed what the fuss was. After all this time, I had a contact.
The screen read simply:
Signal Confirmed
Jumping up, causing the Doritos on my lap to spill on the floor, I tapped the keys on the keyboard to confirm. The tiny room’s air was thick with anticipation while the computer worked a few seconds to check. Then it lit up, and so did I.
I whooped and hollered, jumping into the air. It was confirmed. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their sorry faces when they saw this.
They’d cut my funding almost five years ago, telling me I was wasting my time searching for flying saucers, but I set up shop in my basement and continued my work. Now I had the data—I had an actual contact—and I was going to rub it in their faces.
I saved the data onto the drive before I lost it, and then went back to analyzing it. It wasn’t enough that I’d gotten the contact, now I wanted to know where it was coming from. Taking a sip of the half-can of energy drink I’d been working on the last few hours, I checked the coordinates from the dish when the contact occurred, and did some math. I had to backtrack the signal, to find its origin.
I stared at the numbers on the page, trying to make sense of the data. “That’s impossible,” I muttered. Then I went to double-check it. The math wasn’t wrong.
According to the data, the signal was close—too close. It had come from just inside the orbit of the Moon, which was impossible.
My excitement faded. It must have been a satellite or something—nothing extra-terrestrial. I knelt and began sweeping up the fallen Doritos with my hands. I had to have been stupid to think that after all this time I’d finally gotten a ping from somewhere beyond.
I’d considered quitting several times over the years, but I’d always pushed through, telling myself that one day I would find something. Maybe this false contact was just the kick in the ass I needed to finally admit defeat.
Then, the alarm blared again. I shot up, hitting the back of my head on the desk. Rubbing it, I looked at the screen again.
Signal Confirmed
Another contact.
There was no way I accidentally gotten signal from another satellite—not so soon after the first, anyway. I jumped back into my chair and poured over the data. The dish had picked up another signal, and crunching the numbers, it was closer than the last contact.
I did some math. If the signal was from the same source, then I wanted to discover its trajectory. I repositioned the dish again on where I calculated the signal would now be coming from.
Signal confirmed
My eyes went wide. Not only did I have a confirmed contact, but it was moving. It was coming.
“Holy shit,” was the only thing I could utter, and it was probably with less enthusiasm than the situation deserved. But I was frozen. I’d confirmed an extra-terrestrial presence, only moments before it arrived.
I could have called someone to tell them, but by the time I got to someone who mattered, it would be too late—they’d be here already.
But, there was something I could do. I didn’t know if anyone else had detected the signal, but I had to assume that I was the only one. I loaded the greeting program I had written more than a decade ago, repositioned the dish, and transmitted.
The code in the program was nothing more than a series of math equations—since math was supposed to be the universal language. I hoped that it was true and that some form of higher intelligence—I had to assume they were—didn’t have a system of math that was totally alien to us. I set the dish to track the signal and to transmit the greeting on a loop.
I prayed they—whoever they were—picked up the signal.
For a moment, nothing changed. The craft… probe…whatever it was, stayed on course. Then, without warning, something shifted. I lost the signal for a moment as the dish continued tracking on the given trajectory. I instantly seized the computer and had the dish return to the coordinates it had last received contact.
It found it. The object was stationary.
“What are you doing?” I asked to the string of numbers on the screen that represented the object.
I checked to make sure my greeting was still transmitting. It was.
They’d heard it!
It remained at the same coordinates though several cycles of my transmission. Then it moved again—right toward me.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I cursed as if some sort of mantra.
Overjoyed as I was that some extra-terrestrial being had heard my greeting and was coming to investigate, I was not at all prepared to meet one in the flesh. I looked down at my clothes—a stained Batman t-shirt and ripped jeans, and an old pair of Nikes that had seen better days. Match that with my long-overdue-for-a-haircut mullet, unshaven face, and Dorito dusted fingers, and I had to be the definition of white trash. I was definitely not the first human being these people should be laying eyes on.
Based on its speed, I only had a few minutes. I cleaned up as best I could—nothing to be done about my clothes at the moment—and I left my basement sanctuary and ran outside.
My house sat on a couple of acres, so there should have been plenty of space, unless we were talking about a city sized ship—which I doubted. If it were something that size, then I wouldn’t have been the only that that detected it.
I stared up at clear night sky, blemished only by a small streak of fire that could only be a craft entering the atmosphere. When the fire disappeared, a bright light still lit the sky. The non-distinct craft, began slowing down in what I could only imagine was a landing pattern.
After a few minutes, I could see the thrusters.
I cursed again and ran back inside. I should have known better. I grabbed my camera and ran through the door once again. I was going to document as much as I could.
The craft was closer, a flame from the thrusters was clearly visible at this point. If it continued on its trajectory, it would land about a hundred yards away from the house. I estimated the size of the craft to be about the same size as my SUV, which meant there wouldn’t be more than a couple of occupants.
My heart was racing. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept thinking how I might still be asleep in front of the computer monitor and this was all just a dream. But my body felt hot from the engines, the roar was deafening, and the acrid smell of burnt grass assaulted my nostrils
I waited, not daring to get any closer as the ship powered down. Even from a hundred yards away, I could make out some details. What I was looking at was no flying saucer. It was shaped more like a fat, white sausage with wings, and horizontal lines of gold and silver glinting on the side.
The ship remained motionless for several minutes, as I took picture after picture. All of those naysayers wouldn’t be able to disprove these photos. There was no amount of CGI that could recreate this.
I inched toward it, making every attempt to look non-threatening.
I had been waiting for this moment my entire life. Since I was a child I dreamed of meeting someone from another planet. What could they tell us? How would they be different? How would we communicate? These and a thousand other questions that I’d had for decades boiled to the surface in my brain. And I was going to get many of them answered in moments.
There was no movement, no other sign of life, from the craft as I made my slow trek across the distance. It had to have been the longest, most exciting trek of my life. Yet, my heart felt like it was in my throat it was beating so hard. What if whatever was inside the craft defied my expectations?
Everything was quiet, as if even the animals and insects knew there was some foreign intruder present.
I got within thirty feet of the ship, not daring to get any closer. The hull still appeared hot, though now I was up close, I also couldn’t identify the material. I couldn’t say it was metal, but at the same time I also couldn’t say it. The material appeared fluid, yet solid. No matter what, the beings who made it were definitely more technologically advanced than we were. Who knew how many centuries behind them we were?
A loud hiss screamed through the silence, causing me to jump back. A hatch I hadn’t even noticed opened, and a yellow/green light spread across the ground, coming to a halt only a few inches from where I stood. Transfixed by the light, I only noticed someone emerging from the craft when their shadow appeared before me.
I snapped another picture, then my shaking hands could no longer hold the camera and I dropped it. This was what I’d been waiting for. It had been my communication that had drawn it here. It was me it was coming to see.
And at that moment, I wished I was someone more important as I genuinely imagined the alien ordering me, “Take me to your leader.” It was going to be such a disappointment when it realized I was essentially nobody.
Then I thought. Someone had to have seen the ship. Someone else must have detected it. It was only going to be a matter of time before someone came looking for it. What would I do then?
The being stepped out of the ship, wearing a very form-fitting bodysuit, covering its entire body. It was a woman, there was no disguising that fact. She was also humanoid—two arms, two legs and a head, all in their proper place. The helmet covering her head didn’t look unlike something a human might wear either. So, whoever this creature was, she was of a similar size and shape as I was.
She didn’t say anything as she approached me, slowly. It could have been she was getting used to our gravity, or maybe she didn’t want to spook me, as if I were an animal that could be easily provoked. Or maybe she was afraid of me.
I raised my hands in a gesture to show her I was unarmed. For all I knew, I was showing her a gesture that would be the equivalent of our middle finger.
I really shouldn’t be the one doing this. There should have been some expert who knew a thousand languages, and was schooled in diplomacy. Instead they got me, a middle-aged astrobiologist who barely spoke proper English and knew only a little Klingon.
“I mean you no harm,” I said, knowing that the likelihood of her understanding me was less than one percent. But the only way to communicate was to put words out there.
She didn’t make a sound. Instead, she lifted her own arms in a gesture like mine. I closed my eyes tightly, cursing myself. I hoped I hadn’t started an intergalactic game of “monkey see, monkey do.”
I tapped my chest to indicate myself. “Tyler.” When she made no movement, I did it again. “Tyler.”
Instead of mimicking me again, she brought her hands up to the sides of her helmet. She released a latch, letting out hiss of air and then lifted the helmet off her head.
I stared open mouthed in astonishment.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting to see under the helmet—something green and slimy, perhaps? Maybe something with scales? Talk about having expectations completely defied. What stood before me was a full-fledged human woman—at least she could pass for human in a heartbeat.
She had a cute, young-looking face. Her hair was red—almost an unnatural shade—and pulled back behind her head in a tail. I’d always loved redheads.
What was going on here?
According to everything I’d been taught, statistically it was near impossible for there to be species identical in appearance to humans out there in the cosmos. It was more likely that I would meet a race of giant talking ants before I met a human from another planet.
Yet, here she was, in the flesh. And what wonderful flesh it was. Her face, and the body underneath that suit, I’d have expected to see her posing in the centerfold of Playboy before I saw her stepping out of an alien ship.
After my shock wore off, I decided to try again. Tapping my chest once more I said, “Tyler.”
She smiled. My heart melted. She even had a cute smile.
I smiled back, shaking my head. “You don’t understand, do you?”
She continued to smile and approached me. I didn’t even think about keeping my distance from this angel from the skies.
The problem was, I needed to communicate with her somehow. And I didn’t want to do the wrong thing and risk offending her. So, I tried to keep it simple.
I pointed to the ground. “Earth.”
Her eyes followed my finger, and she stared uncomprehendingly for a moment before looking back up at me, amused.
She didn’t understand.
Again, the thought of how I shouldn’t be the one making first contact with an alien species hit home. I was sure someone else would have some clue on how to handle this.
Then an idea hit me. I had to treat this like I would a child learning for the first time. I needed pictures, some kind of visual medium. I had plenty at the house to try and make her understand. Anything else I needed, I could always Google.
Motioning her toward me, I began to back up toward the house, trying to get her to follow me. “Come with me,” I said a few times. “I want to show you.” Maybe if I showed her a map of the galaxy, I could get her to point out where she was from.
She stepped toward me. Each backward step, she would take one toward me. She smiled silently, it was like a game to her—like a dance the two of us were doing in this field behind my house.
Eventually, she got the idea and began following me. I walked normally, quickening my pace, with her following. Every few steps I would check over my shoulder to make sure she was still there. I even tried slowing down a bit for her to catch up and walk beside me, but she seemed content to stay behind me.
I shrugged it off, and continued my walk.
When we reached the door, I smacked my hand on my head. “Dammit,” I cursed. I realized I’d left the camera laying in the field near the ship. I’d never find it in the darkness. I’d have to wait until morning. How could I have been so stupid? My visual evidence was at my fingertips, and I’d left it laying in a field.
It was a boneheaded move that only someone like me would ever do. I hated myself.
I opened the door and turned to motion for the alien woman to follow me inside, but she wasn’t there. Instead there was a creature, with a shark-like demeanor, staring me down, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“Where…?” I began, but never finished the thought.
Confusion barely set in before the creature snapped its jaws over my head, biting hard into my flesh. Other than a few quick jabs, that felt like a thousand needles sticking into my neck, I have to say I barely felt anything.
The attack was over as quickly as it had begun. The creature had no need to continue it. I was dead after the first bite, but my brain didn’t know it yet. Warm liquid ran down my neck and onto my Batman t-shirt as my body crumpled to the ground.
It felt strange, knowing I was dead already, but still being able to see and feel the world around me. As I lay face up, blood leaking from the gaping wound that used to be my neck, I gazed up into the face of my murderer. It looked down on me with an expression of ambivalence, as if I was insignificant.
It’s funny, because my thoughts again ran to the fact that I really shouldn’t have been the one to meet this alien for the first time. I wondered whether I had done something wrong, or if this was the intentions of this creature all along.
Maybe both.
The last thing I saw in my physical life was the great shark-like head of the creature morph into something familiar—very familiar. It was like looking into a mirror. At first the creature had a gaping wound in its neck like I had, but it quickly healed and it looked exactly like me—right down to the Batman t-shirt and the overgrown mullet.
And for my last moments of life, I pondered: was I truly dead if there was someone out there who looked exactly like me?
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