Simon Sellars: Sleepy Brain Archives

by Dennis McDade

images by Billy Vasilios Mavreas
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DRAGGING A COMET TAIL OF RED DIRT, the battered El Camino left the narrow road with a groan of tortured metal. Sailing over a barbed wire fence, it came to rest in a shallow pond of stagnant water. After a few weak sputters, the fatigued engine fell silent as oily exhaust fumes and a rancid-smelling steam filled the night air. Eunice sat at the wheel, searching herself for possible injury. Finding none, she breathed a sigh of relief and slumped heavily in her seat. Just as she began to wonder what had caused her to lose control, a bright blue glow emanated from beyond a brace of pine trees in the distance. “What the fu…”

Three unearthly wraiths were gliding towards her. Eerie shafts of undulating light behind the small creatures obscured their features. Eunice’s terror manifested itself as a long, laboured wheeze.

“Eeehhhhnng…”

Suddenly she was outside her battered car, enveloped in a strange energy that heightened her senses to the point of nausea. Honeysuckle and conifer smelled as acrid as creosote smoke in the warm evening air, yet the nearest sweetvines and pine trees were over a hundred yards away. Anguished sobs rising from the tiny blades being crushed underfoot mingled with the peaceful murmur of Kickapoo Creek miles away. Sensory overload made Eunice feel as though she would retch, yet the urge vanished abruptly as the creatures surrounded her.

“Sure is a purty thang, ain’t she?” the leader thought/spoke. His three-fingered hand pushed back his green and yellow “John Deere” cap, revealing his large, pupil-less eyes.

“Yup,” replied a second creature, as it splattered a nearby tree stump with a thick stream of tobacco juice. “Wish I had a sister that looked half that yummy.”

“Sheeyut,” piped in the third with mindspeak, as his serpentine fingers hooked through the bib straps of his faded overalls. “Don’t have to be a sister. I’d even settle for it being a first cousin or a niece.” The resulting ESP laughter of the three humanoids appearing in her head reminded Eunice of thousands of party balloons rapidly expanding, then exploding into showers of glistening, irridescent confetti. Simply beautiful.

“Don’t be afraid, Sweetie Pie,” the leader mindsaid. “We ain’t gonna hurt ya none. Just gonna examine you, then we gonna letcha go.” He clasped Eunice’s forearm with his grey reptilian hand. And then, like cottony tufts of dandelions at the mercy of the wind, she felt herself floating through the air. Helpless to resist, she could only hope she had on a clean pair of step-ins. If her bloomers were found littered with skid marks during the standard anal probe, she would be absolutely mortified.

“Don’t worry bout that, darlin’,” the leader read her mind. “We been studyin’ your species for centuries, and we knows all about involuntary rectal leakage. Damn, you oughtta take a gander at the stains old Cletus has in his drawers.”

Eunice actually managed a smile when Cletus, the second creature, snorted at the jibe. But her humour vanished when she saw where the strange lights were coming from: the metallic disc sat in the centre of a melon patch, rattling and lugging off-kilter like Eunice’s old Laundry Queen washer. The disc appeared seamless, except for a few rusted tin sheets pop-riveted to the smooth surface and the “No Fat Chicks” and “I Brake for Pussy” bumper stickers. Then a portal slowly opened, and a new terror forced Eunice into a very welcome unconsciousness.

She awoke in a brightly lit room, and although her body was immobilised with some strange paralysis, her eyes weren’t. On the wall to her right she saw a “Coors Light” sign sputtering noisily, casting a sporadic neon glow over the black velvet painting of Elvis hanging beside it. On the left wall of the examination bay were two vividly coloured tapestries.

As her vision slowly focused, Eunice realised she wasn’t seeing planetary heralds or interstellar maps, but dogs. Ordinary Earth pooches. In one tapestry, a group of canines were shooting billiard. In the other, the dogs were playing poker. Clearly her captors were not only of impressive intellect, they were also classy.

“Glad you woke up, Honey Pot,” the leader ’spoke’. “While you slept we probed your body and implanted a tracking device. Now we gonna take ya for a quick spin before taking ya back where ya came from.”

The bright interior lights illuminated the leader, and Eunice liked what she saw. His red flannel shirt was tucked neatly into a pair of faded Roebucker jeans supported by baby-blue suspenders. Along with the farm equipment cap resting smartly on his bulbous head, the pleasant erotic scent of Hai Karate cologne was the true crowning touch. With his large, almond-shaped eyes, smooth grey skin and thin slit of a mouth that never moved except to spit Beech Nut tobacco juice, the UFO commander reminded Eunice of her youngest sister’s oldest boy, the good-looking one forever eating dung beetles and stuffing chinaberries up his nose.

Flushed with the same carnal feelings she experienced from being around her nephew, Eunice hoped the leader had felt the need to personally perform a uterus inspection as well.

“Cletus, make us go up there,” the sexy leader ordered, his serpentine thumb pointing upwards. His long, pale finger then pointed forwards. “Then make us go yonder way.”

“Cain’t,” Cletus shrugged helplessly. “The radiator overheated again. Ran smack outta water and we ain’t got no more on board.” Stumped for a moment, the arrival of an idea quickly eased the perplexed look on the leader’s cute reptilian face.

“Why’ncha try to find a creek around here someplace to fill up. In the meantime, get a couple of the others to start pissing in the tank. That should hold it till we can get back to the ma ship.” Cletus disappeared with a plastic bucket, leaving the leader’s attention focused on Eunice. Still hovering above the examination table, her chunky varicosed legs were bent at the knees, her stained muu-muu bunched around her paunchy waist.

“Sorry ’bout the ride, Sweet Meat. But don’t fret yourself none, we promise to take you up next time.” A lizard-like hand waved over her relaxed body, and Eunice felt a comfortable darkness creeping in. “We’re coming back soon, too, cause there’s a shitload of unexplored trailer parks round these here parts…”

Eunice, jarred awake by a warm trickle of urine between her legs, pulled her head up from the passenger-side floor. With a painful grimace, she realised she must have wrecked her car…again. But she really didn’t drink that much last night. Only a jelly jar of moonshine, a quart of Kentucky Gent and three six-packs of Jaxx Premium beer, all the bootlegger would give her in trade for food stamps.

Digging sluggishly through the spewed ashtray, Eunice found a crumpled butt beneath the brake pedal. There was at least two good drags left in it. Fumbling for a cheap plastic lighter in the glove box, she lit up, took a long pull of smoke and relaxed somewhat. As the calming nicotine filled her lungs, she scratched her swimming head and felt a tiny bump behind her left ear. It was a warty knot, approximately the size of an implanted tracking device. As painfully bright and chaotic as lightning flashes, the details of last night returned: three strange creatures; a silvery spaceship glowing with weird blue lights… Eunice fought down a rising flood of whiskey-flavoured bile.

It took three frantic attempts on the ignition before the car’s tired engine miraculously coughed to life. Belching fumes of greasy black smoke, Eunice floored the gas pedal, fishtailing onto the potholed blacktop. Jerking the wheel hard to the left, Eunice aimed the vehicle towards town with a bald-tire screech. She had to find the nearest phone and call her psychic advisers, and then check in with her parole officer. Then she’d swing by County Lockup to tell Skeeter, her common-law husband, what had happened.

Going before the Justice of the Peace for his third domestic assault charge in a month, Skeeter would need something to cheer him up. Of course, all the tabloids would want to hear about it too – this was first-rate stuff. But which one to call first? Too many decisions. Eunice suddenly realised she would also have to get her picture taken for the town’s Wall of Fame. Taking the hair pin curves on two dangerously slick wheels, she practiced her smile in the dirty rear-view mirror. Finally catching her full reflection, Eunice saw she needed to stop by a Quick-E-Mart, to thieve a box of Chiclets to replace the teeth Skeeter knocked out last week.

If it was to hang beside such esteemed local celebrities as “Retard Pete”, the 12-toed hollering champion; armless Ruby Sue Pritchard, who painted pictures of Jesus with her feet; and Calvin “The Pygmy King” Gentry, the only midget impersonator in Sabine County; Eunice Idamae Roswell knew her photograph would have to be a pretty damn good one.

..:: THE END