As Jake Warner struggled to make his irrigation pump work he noticed a cloud of what he took to be insects blow across his fields. That was a helluva big cloud to his mind, but he paid it no more attention as the pump reluctantly thudded into action. Water at first sprayed nicely from the myriad holes in the long pipe, although as it should not be doing, it soon was issuing in jets and dribbles. Jake cursed and turned his attention back to the pump. The insect cloud grew larger, covering the entire field, then the whole farm, all four hundred acres.
Dale Watkins, a friend of Jake, was driving past and opened his pick-up window to holler some inanity about the drought at Jake. He got a mouthful of something like insects, although as he sputtered and mentally reviled the "insects," he swallowed and drove on without repeating the joke that he had so lovingly prepared for his friend.
Behind him, Alice Burton also opened her window to get some fresh air instead of the cool but stale air inside her car. She did not understand why her air conditioner wasn't working properly, but she was going to see Albert Kane at the garage as soon as she got to town. As her window completed its downward travel she drove through the almost invisible, expanding cloud and breathed some of it in, although she did not notice any insects.
When Alice pulled her overheating car into the parking space at Albert's Garage, she saw that her acquaintance, Dale, was already there, standing outside his car looking at what Albert's helper, Jimmie Gale, was trying to do change a tire. Alice parked as near as she could to the garage doors, then got out and went over to see what Dale was staring at.
Jimmie had wrestled the car tire and rim onto a hydraulic tire press and was just standing looking at it and the gauge on the press. Dale was saying something to him in a slow uninflected drawl, most unlike his usual incisive speech. Alice didn't have much of a mechanical flare, although she could fix her washing machine and Singer if they were not too fouled up, but she knew very little about auto mechanical problems. She could not quite understand why Dale would be saying such a foolish thing to an auto mechanic.
"Yew . . . need . . . a wrench . . . for that . . ., Jimmie."
« Why, what good would a wrench do? » thought Alice. She realised that the tire had to be deflated before any work could be done on it. There was a spoon-like steel piece, she saw, that was attached to a long bar. Alice's quick mind understood that by placing the spoon thingy under the bead of the tire, then pulling down on the long bar, the tire could be loosened from the rim.. Well, that was men's work, she had better not interfere. She did venture a question.
"Jimmie, is Albert around? My car's overheating and I need it fixed."
Jimmie looked slowly around from his contemplation of the puzzling tire mount. His face seemed blanker than usual, although Alice knew that he was a "good" boy although not the brightest in the town by a long shot.
"Who?"
"Albert. You know, Jimmie, your boss."
"Don't . . . have . . . a boss, lady." Jimmie was speaking strangely and Alice noted that his tongue seemed thick. Then she looked agin at the two males and saw that both their heads seemed swollen right around their temples. Some kind of . . . ?
"JIMMIE! You know me, I taught you in fourth and fifth grades. What's the matter with Jimmie, Dale?"
Dale seemed to snap out of a reverie.
"Huh? Jimmie? I was watching . . . what was I watching? Hm. Albert? Albert. Does he live here?"
Alice was beginning to be frightened by these reactions from two people she'd known almost all her life. She knew Dale for a very intelligent man, he'd been to State College, majored in agriculture, gotten good grades and ran a very successful sugar beet farm, unusual for the area, about three miles out of town. Hadn't that been Dale's car in front of her, coming into town? Yes, his head seemed swollen, and his speech was as thick as Jimmie's..
She took several hesitant steps back toward her car, her hand reaching for the door handle. A soft hand fell onto it, making her heart beat furiously and her body jerk in surprise. Frightened, she slowly swiveled her head to see . . .
"Sorry, Miss Alice, it's me, Bonny Travers. What the hell is wrong with the men, anyways?"
Bonny had been a good student in her classes, but none of the other teachers all the way through tenth grade had a good word for her. She'd constantly been at the principal's office, always in some sort of minor trouble. She'd quit school at age sixteen. Alice suspected her of now making a living by pleasing men in ways of which Alice could not approve, although she occasionally secretly envied Bonny for her insouciant attitude toward life. Her heart slowing, Alice turned her entire body to look at Bonny.
The girl was dressed as usual in a far too short skirt . . . no, it was a pair of . . . culottes? No, just shorts, definitely shorts. Alice's gaze, fascinated as it was by the shorts, suddenly disengaged guiltily and slid upward along Bonny's bare midriff, with some difficulty past her extraordinary upper works, barely contained by her bulging sweatshirt (and, Alice assumed, by a straining bra), to her sweet face. Bonny was really a very pretty girl.
"Why, why Bonny! I have no idea what's come over these two. I was looking for Albert, but Jimmie gives me crazy answers and Dale doesn't even know where he is! What is going on?" Alice really appealed to Bonny as the more worldly of the two of them.
"Miss Alice, I pure don't know. I drove into town and there was this big cloud of something that wasn't a cloud, know what I mean?"
That last had been a phrase that Alice could not abide when Bonny had it used incessantly at school, and really could not stand now, but she ignored her distaste in her quest for knowledge.
"Why, I drove through something like that, Bonny. You are right. It really wasn't a normal cloud, but I think it was a cloud of . . . bugs, insects, wasn't it?"
"Damn' 'f'I know, Miss Alice. Oh, sorry," she added, as Alice's brow clouded. "Hey, lookie, here's that cloud again, or another one like it!"
Indeed, there was a huge discoloration . . . no, a misty obscuration . . . of the sun, which had been very bright until then. So used were the two women to the beat of the sun's rays over the hot Summer that the sudden cool felt wonderful, like a huge air conditioner. Alice noticed that Bonny's nipples stood firm and felt her own harden. « My God! She's not wearing a bra! » thought Alice, and then blushed at her own thoughts. Why does that matter?
The two stood there breathing in the cloud as it surrounded them. Alice, then Bonny, could not help notice that the two males, boy and man, stood like statues, their chests slowly inflating and deflating. There was something increasingly odd about their heads, too, but she couldn't define it.
"What should we do, Miss Alice?"
"Perhaps . . ." Alice gathered her thoughts. "Let's get those two inside. I don't believe the mist is doing them . . . or us , , , any good."
Bonny looked askance at her for a moment, but walked with Alice to the two. Bonny looked up into Dale's eyes and said in her honey sweet, cajoling voice,
"Hey, Dale, honey, c'mon with me, hey guy?"
« M'god, » thought Alice, « I'd go with her just to hear her talk like that. When did she learn that? »
Dale didn't move, stood dumb and staring at nothing, until Bonny took his hand and led him slowly toward the gaping garage doors. As she pulled Dale inside, she shrieked and ran back outside, almost knocking Alice and Jimmie flat.
"Jee-zus, Miss Alice! There's Albert lying in there, he looks really weird an' he's beatin' his . . . he's not doing anything nice, Miss Alice." Her tone turned plaintive. "What the Hell is going on?"
"Albert is masturbating, eh, Bonny? And you don't have to keep on calling me 'Miss' Alice! I think we have a situation here."
"Miss Alice! Oh, hell, you're right. Something's very bad, all right. Albert's head's all swollen. Look, where can we get help? D'you think all the men are like these three? How about Jake Warner? He's real sensible, I know him pretty well ... " Alice shot her a look, "yeah, Alice . . ."
She savored the new right to call her former teacher by her first name, while at the same time she felt that she had to tell her the truth ". . . that way, but it doesn't matter now, does it? Let's get in your car and go see Jake."
Alice was about to agree. Her hand was in her pocketbook, feeling for her car keys, when she remembered.
"Oh, Bonny, I came to the garage because my car was overheating. I'm afraid if we drove back to Mr. Warner's farm . . . " Bonny was already looking in the two other vehicles in the yard, shaking her head at one, looking pleased at the other.
"Okay. We'll take Albert's tow truck, then, I see the keys in the ignition." Alice felt the thrill of an illicit venture run through her.
"Very well, can you drive such a large vehicle?"
"Yup. Drove a farm truck you know, growing up." Alice remembered now that Bonny had grown up on her "uncle's" farm. She was an orphan, adopted from the orphanage in the next county. Capable girl, really, had been a "nice" girl at one time, but not one to control her impulses. « Probably hadn't doped, » thought Alice. No matter now. Maybe they'd better find some more people, someone who could explain what was happening.
They climbed into the high cab, Bonny started the motor with a little difficulty and then backed into the road, turning the nose of the truck toward Jake Warner's place. Bonny put her foot down and they rumbled at increasing speed out of town, leaving a faint swirl in the almost invisible cloud which still hovered over the entire area. She changed gears without clashing at all. Alice held tight to the grab rail inside the right door, wondering if a state trooper would pull them over for speeding.
« State troopers won't bother us, they're male . . . oh, no they're not, there's a siren.. . . » Alice craned to look back as Bonny cursed under her breath. Alice couldn't see anything but flashing lights through all the towing gear in the back, but Bonny had her side mirror.
"That's a trooper, damn it, Alice! Oh, dammit, I thought we might find a sane man, but some of them are women, aren't they? I'm gonna pull on over."
The truck slowed and stopped on the berm as the trooper's car pulled up and slewed half sideways facing into the road behind them. Bonny rolled down her window and leaned out, both wrists resting on the window sill, her hands obvious. Alice took the clue and raised her hands to rest very visibly on top of her big pocketbook.
The trooper was an attractive, stocky, tough looking woman, possibly about twenty-five. The uniform did very little for her, but the automatic at her hip was authoritative.
"Okay, folks. What's the hurry? You been looking at the men? Is that it?"
"Yeah," said Bonny, a bit surprised at the last two questions.. "We saw three guys we know being real dumb . . . there was something wrong with their heads and the way they talked and we were going to see if another friend of ours had got like that, too."
"Ladies, if any man in this area is still using his brains, I can't find him. They're all gettin' queer lookin', like their heds are blowin' up, or somethin'. I've been on the horn to the barracks and I can't raise anyone there 'cept a civvie clerk, and she's scared sh . . witless and crying. I tried the patrol shift and got three, all gals. So . . . who's the guy you think might not be affected?"
Alice answered, as Bonny seemed to be shocked by the trooper's statement.
"Jake Warner, owns the farm about two miles ahead. But, Trooper, I was driving past there when I ran into the cloud . . ." The trooper interrupted.
"Cloud? You mean the insects?"
"Whatever it was. I didn't see any insects, but Bonny. . . ?" She looked at her young acquaintance, now almost her only friend in this situation, and realised that the girl was crying.
"Why, Bonny! What . . .?"
"No more men, ever?" the girl wept, her face slobbered with tears.
"Oh, my . . .!" exclaimed the trooper, her face crinkling. She barely restrained a grin, but straightened her face and tried to resume a proper police presence. Alice caught a look that flashed between the trooper and Bonny. Both brightened, possibilities apparently occurring to both at once. Alice, not all that old, felt a twinge of . . .envy?
Alice thought that they had better know each other in the "situation," as she still thought of it.
"I'm Alice Burton. I used to teach school . . . I quit three years ago." She got no farther.
"You quit, Alice? Bonny looked shocked once again. "How come?"
"Well . . ." It really was none of her or the trooper's business, but what the . . . Hell?
"I received a legacy, I was fed up with trying to teach kids who didn't want to learn!" Alice was more vehement than she had meant to be. She suddenly remembered . . .damn, she should have . . .
"Oh, Bonny, I didn't mean that so bitterly . . . I liked teaching you, even if you were a little . . ."
"Look, Ms. Burton does this matter? I'm Trooper First Class Irene Caspar. And you, miss . . .?"
"Bonny Travers, former student, now a whore, I guess." Alice watched her blush and a rush if fellow feeling washed over her.
"No, Bonny, you might have been a might freer with your favors than I used to think was right, but you're no whore, hon'." That word surprised both of them. They were looking right into each other's eyes, ignoring Caspar, who had mounted to the truck's running board, apparently to check for weapons, something she should have done as soon as she stopped them.
Her harsh tones broke up the interchange between ex-teacher and ex-pupil.
"Look, ladies, let's get over to this Warner guy's farm and see if he's one guy who's okay, huh? I'm gonna call the three troopers who seem to be still working and tell 'em to meet us there. What did you say the name if the farm is?"
"Heck, Irene. . . " Bonny pronounced it as an English word, "Eye-reen," while Alice thought of it as French, "Irčne." " . . . it's just called the Warner Farm, he raises grain, mostly, some garden vegetables."
Irene walked back to her car, leaned in and talked for a moment or two on the radio. Then she waved and jumped in, made the siren growl almost like a burp and pulled out around the truck, signalling the women to follow her as she turned off her flashers and drove at about forty along the same road on which Alice had come into town.
Alice contemplated Bonny's profile as the woman carefully followed the trooper car. She realised that Bonny was attractive, as a matter of fact, very attractive. Alice was, she realised, less than fifteen years older than Bonny, not yet thirty-five, which Alice, influenced perhaps by her young pupils, had always thought of as an "ancient" age. She still thought that was the end of much chance for romance, but her thoughts were changing even as she watched Bonny concentrating on her driving. Bonny was a lot more careful, Alice believed, than she had been on the hair-raising dash from town before Irene had pulled them over.
Bonny had been glancing over at Alice surreptitiously from time to time, thinking.
« She's not so damn' bad lookin', after all, is she? A bit of lipstick, some make-up . . . hell, why do I care? Damn, she is good looking. Take off that jacket an' I'll bet she's got a good figure. Why am I . . . ? »
"Say, Alice, can you cook?" That was a startling question, but Alice chuckled and answered calmly,
"Yes, Bonny, I'm a good cook. You know, there wasn't a lot for a spinster teacher to do otherwise, except go to movies, shop and maybe, for some of the older ones, knit, crochet gifts, or cook."
"Heck, Alice, you're sure not so old . . . sure not old enough to be an old maid." That startled them both, for Bonny had used her "come hither" voice. Bonny blushed, but her face broke into a smile.
"I gotta tell you the truth, seems like, Alice. Never felt like this before."
"I feel a while lot different, too, Bonny. You know, you're really a very good looking girl. It's a shame . . ." Alice quit before she said what she had begun to say without thinking.
". . . that I became a whore? Yeah, I could have paid more attention and maybe graduated, maybe got married, like I should have."
Alice was about to ask if Bonny didn't like girls at all, then thought better of it. There was a short silence punctuated by the squeal of brakes as Bonny stopped just short of the trooper's bumper. She jumped down from the truck before Alice could make up her mind what to say..
"So where's this Warner, Bonny?" The trooper was looking over the fields, beautiful fields, now apparently untended. The grain looked more than ripe for combining , but nothing stirred.
"Is he married?"
"Is he, Alice?" Bonny had no idea, of course, she had never known Jake. Jake had been a beau of Alice in high school. They might have married, but Alice went away to college and decided to be a teacher, not a farmer's wife, even though she later regretted not knowing at the time that the two could be combined.
"No, he never married. Stayed lonely, as I was . . ."
"But you had kids . . . in a way of speaking, Alice! He didn't." Alice grinned back at Bonny's assumed indignation and sparkling eyes. Oh, she was kidding.
"Looks like none of us is going to have kids, folks. No men, or all of 'em crazy or dumb as hell, how can we?"
"Unless," Irene added, "we find that Warner is in his right mind?" She grinned, and the thought took all three women as hilarious, as the ramifications of a lone man with three . . . or more . . . women matured. Alice managed to grin, but the other two laughed a bit, then sobered.
"Hey, here's more co . . .police, gals," cried Bonny as three more trooper cars pulled up and parked on both sides of the road.
Irene muttered something about, " . . . not from my barracks. Don't know 'em." She put a hand on her belt, close to the holstered automatic in a casual, strictly non-threatening manner.
"What's up, trooper? You finding any sane people?" This was a corporal, a chunky woman who looked as though she could take on a riot by herself, She was cradling a long barreled weapon of some kind over one arm, flashing an ID card in her unengaged hand.. The other two looked younger, about Irene's age. They were also troopers first class, the single gold stripes on each sleeve gold.
"Yeah, these two women, but so far, the only men, . . . I guess none. These ladies think there might be a man on this farm that isn't affected, maybe." Irene had surrendered her suspicions in the face of recognizable authority.
"Name?"
"Warner. What's his first name, Bonny?"
"'Jake,' isn't it, Alice?"
"Yes, that what's he's called, but Jonathan he was christened,.He hated that name, so . . ."
"Okay. Let's spread out and look for the man, in his right mind or not," commanded the corporal. "If he's nuts, I've got a tranquillizer gun here. Get yours from the cars and let's go, troopers. You two ladies better stay here."
"I don't think Jake would be dangerous, corporal, but wouldn't we be better off with one of you? In case there are others who might not know us?"
"Hm. Maybe there's others around you don't know, you mean? Yeah, but stay back a couple yards an' if there's shooting, drop to the ground real fast! Got it?"
"May we go with Irčne, corporal?"
"Who?"
"Trooper Caspar, corporal. We introduced ourselves back a few minutes ago."
The group spilt, Alice pointing out the direction of the house and barns, invisible from their present position. She and Bonny, with looks of appeal at Irene, followed her at a distance as she prowled through the knee high grain, peering down the narrow rows. Her "gun" pointed wherever she looked. They walked slowly over the almost level field, the two civilian women doing their best to search where it seemed that Irene had missed a spot.
The troopers, Bonny and Alice converged on the house, finally. They had seen nothing stir in the fields save for insects and a cat, maybe a rabbit or two. Corporal Haight, as Bonny and Alice had learned she was named, held her tranquillizer gun at the ready while the other three cautiously circled the house as though about to flush a hardened criminal from his lair.
"All right, Warner, come out, if you're in there!" bellowed Haight with surprisingly powerful lungs. Alice was astonished to see that she was carrying a tiny microphone in one hand and that the sound apparently emanated from that.
A shadow was discernible behind one curtained window. The shadow moved to the front door and a man stumbled from the house, a big headed man, looking surprised. His astonishment was as nothing to Alice's when she realised that he was naked and had an erection. She covered her mouth, unsure if she wanted to laugh or shriek.
Bonny doubled over, laughing hysterically. As Alice looked at her in amazement, starting toward her to help if she could, Bonny gasped,
"That's the biggest hard on John's had for years, Alice!"
"You know him? That's Jake Warner! I . . . think." Alice couldn't be absolutely certain, the man's head was so swollen. It was the size of a small . . . pumpkin.
"Yeah, I know him, but I never knew him as Jake, uh-uh!"
"Hey, Warner!" shouted Corporal Haight.
The man made no sign of recognition but started to stroke his penis as he stopped and looked dazedly around. His head lolled as though it was too heavy for his neck, From its increasing size, it might have been.
« He certainly does have a nice erection » thought Alice, suddenly wondering what it would have felt like sliding into her.
« Now why am I thinking that? » Despite her attempt at self control, she blushed and then blushed even more as she caught Bonny looking at her.
"Like that, Alice?" asked Bonny, trying to keep a straight face.
"Bonny, I thought I might marry the man I think's standing there, one day a while ago." Alice found she could talk at Bonny's level easily, then grinned and Bonny broke into a smile.
"No chance of that now. Look at his head! You can see it swell!" Indeed Alice could. She called to the staring Corporal Haight.
"Corporal, you were right. The heads do grow. What do you suppose causes . . .?"
One of the other troopers spoke up.
"Corporal! I think it's the cloud we saw twice this morning. I don't know what it does for men, but I know that it's making me feel real strange. How 'bout you gals?"
Alice looked at Jake Warner, now sitting on the ground and playing desultorily with his shrinking erection. « He must have ejaculated » was her thought for a second. Then the trooper's question got through to her
« Do I feel different? Hm. » She looked at Jake again, but decided that she had no feeling about him or his silly, flaccid penis. « He did come, by gum! » was her last thought about Jake.
She looked at Bonny, who was looking at her as though she were going to use that "come hither" voice on her any minute. Before Alice could make up her mind just how she did feel different, Bonny motioned to her with a raised eyebrow and a quick glance at the door to the house.
« Drat! Does she want me to go into the house and . . . ? »
She couldn't complete the thought consciously, but her subconscious yelled at her, « She's good looking, she's looking at me like a girl looks at someone she wants . . . »
Alice sidled after Bonny as the troopers gathered around Jake, exclaiming in low, horrified voices as they watched his head slowly but discernibly swell to the size of a big pumpkin. Jake lay quite still, his hands by his sides..
Alice saw no more as Bonny pulled her into the front doorway and up the stairs. She was tiptoeing, for no reason she could understand, as silently as Bonny.
"Alice," Bonny whispered, "There was more in the cloud I saw before I met you than just insects. There was a big grey shape and it landed right the other side of town. I was so scared I ran real quick and found you and the guys, and Albert, at the garage. I didn't dare tell those troopers . . They'd think I was crazy.!"
"A grey shape? What do you think it was, Bonny?"
"I don't know, but it was hissing and I think it was making the cloud then, Alice!"
"Oh, my goodness. Hah! 'Invaders from Outer Space,' you think?" Alice remembered that Bonny had loved "trashy" comic books and lurid fiction, even in fifth grade. She was half joking, but Bonny was serious as she said,
"Maybe something like that, Alice. I'm scared." She came close to Alice and murmured in a little girl voice,
"Hold me, Alice, hold me tight." Alice put her arms around Bonny and held her. Bonny's body felt firm and wonderful to Alice, and she moved herself so that their bodies were as tightly together as possible.
"Oh, Alice," muttered Bonny, "you feel so good. Can I . . . kiss you, please?"
Alice was just a little shorter than Bonny. She glanced just past her own nose at Bonny's lips and they were so appealing. As she raised her lips the slight distance to Bonny's she thought « Now what am I doing? I am not . . . but the men are all gone, or going. Let me see if I am. »
The kiss strengthened and after a few moments of their tongues' searching each other's mouths, Bonny leant back and said,
"Alice, we can't, not here! Those troopers . . . ."
Alice released her, but went to the window to stare down at the bizarre scene below. Her heart jumped. "Bonny, come here. Don't lean out, stay back, but look!"
Bonny could not repress a gasp as she saw what had startled Alice. The four troopers were lying open legged, naked, each one facing opposite the next, in a ring around Jake Warner who seemed oblivious to their presence. Their uniforms, their weapons, lay in a scattered circle around them.
"Migod!" grated Bonny, "a fairy circle!" Each trooper was licking and sucking at the wide open crotch of the one next ahead of her in the little circle. The two women above could hear moans and little gasps of pleasure, as they watched, fascinated.
Bonny's arms were suddenly around Alice and the two slumped to the big bed.
"I am so hot, Allie," moaned Bonny. Alice didn;t even mind the misuse of her name, her mind in a whirl, but she concentrated on how to get Bonny out of her sweater, shorts and panties while desperately shedding her own clothing. Her lower belly itched and ached at the same time. Her tongue kept licking and protruding from her open lips and she wanted very much to . . . what? She knew then that she had changed , . . was no longer confused.
« I am! I do, I want to make love to Bonny! Ah, God, she feels so smooth, so nice, so warm. . . She's hot! Ooh, so am I! »
Bonny was quicker than Alice to join them in a sloppy, torrid kiss and her fingers were first to go to Alice's sopping labia. Bonny rubbed and fondled Alice's labia for a moment or two, tongue wrestling Alice, no falls, Alice winning on points, by gum! Alice's movements convinced her that Alice had to have more than a finger.
Alice's body convulsed as Bonny moved her face down to her crotch. To her surprise and immediate, unexpected pleasure and thrill, Alice found herself between Bonny's legs, lapping at Bonny's cleft, the already damp labia becoming wetter as Alice's fevered tongue penetrated and touched the clitoris. Alice was astonished briefly by the increasing rigidity of that little nub, but her fervent lapping and sucking, the sloppy slither of their mutual embrace and the tension that ever mounted soon had Bonny writhing and squeaking beside her. Alice was panting between suckles, her body becoming more and more tense as she unwittingly approached climax, a climax which she had never before contemplated. The fact of it almost blanked her mind for seconds as Bonny screamed at the same time as one or more of the naked women below them climaxed noisily, as well.
"Oh, oh. Bon-ny, oh." moaned Alice as she felt suddenly different about everything B her body, her mind, her . . . her looks? The two staggered to their feet, Bonny gazing quickly out the window to check on the women below. Two of them lay sprawled, breathing hard, beside a supine, huge headed Jake, while two were just starting to attempt the long, long journey to their feet.
"Look, look, Allie! Look at their faces!" Allie thought briefly « I like that nickname » and then she witnessed the looks of astonishment and joy on the faces below. All seemed blissful. She looked at Bonny to see the same look on her face, while Bonny grinned and nodded, as if to say, "You, too!"
There was a sudden noise, so loud that it was like a explosion and both women in the upstairs bedroom staggered back to the inside wall as they were buffeted by the shock. Allie crept to the window, raised herself cautiously and looked at the four women and Jake below. The women were supine, one struggling to raise her head. The corporal was trying to reach her weapon.
"What the Hell was that?" suddenly yelled the corporal, at least Allie thought it was she by her deep voice. God, she as a good looking, slightly large woman, wasn't she?
Two strange creatures entered the farmyard. The were perhaps seven feet tall, bulky and slightly humanoid. Allie , as did the others, seemed to hear them, although there was no sign of lip movement.
"You have a mickerlon and we will care of it. Care now all mickerlon. Be safe!" The two looked at Jake. One turned and went out of sight for several moments while the other stood without movement, what might have been eyes fixed on Jake's body.
Jake suddenly jerked, then sat up. His eyes in that horrible yet absurd head were open, but Allie had the distinct impression that he saw nothing. The other odd creature appeared holding something suspiciously like a spatula, no, two spoons, in one long arm which ended in what appeared to the human watchers as tentacles or very flexible, too numerous, fingers. In the other hand was what looked very like two pie crusts. The odd feeling that they were being spoken to came again. "Mickerlon very good. We hunger, care all mickerlon. Mickerlon be us."
The creature with the "pie plates" walked over to the upright torso and held them spread apart in those long "fingers" next to Jake's head. There was no sign that Jake was even conscious, Alice thought as she watched, fascinated, yet repelled. The other alien « They must be space travelers, they are certainly alien » bent forward and tapped at the huge head, appearing to listen. Then it said something to the one with the "pie plates."
The sight was so oddly humorous that the six females could not help a grin or a smile, but they suddenly gaped in horror as the creature with the "spoons" swiped them across the top of the big round head and sliced it off.\ The two calmly dipped their tentacles into the pumpkin sized monstrosity that had been Jake's head and extracted . . . the girls knew not what, but whatever it was the weirdos transferred the gooey looking matter to the pie plates and then appeared to savor it, tasting little bits on the ends of their spoons, like interplanetary gourmets. They continued to dip their tentacles and transfer the goo until the pumpkin fell off the now headless shoulders and smashed on the ground. The inside was yellowy-orange. The corpse remained seated as though frozen in place.
The wordless communication came once more. "Do no worry. We care only mickerlon. You be make more no mickerlon. Two make one. Be calm."
With that the two were walking back the way they had come. A moment later the six gagging, retching women felt their ears pop and then a momentary hurricane.
"How . . . what? did they take all the men? Are they going to . . . ohmigod, I can't . . ." gasped Bonny as she wiped her mouth free of vomit. She held onto a door frame to steady herself. She retched.
Allie had mustered sufficient self-control to wipe the drool from her mouth and chin and answer the unspoken questions. "Yes, dear one. They changed and took or will take all the males. They will eat whatever replaced their brains, if they have brains left."
Bonny was sick again, but managed to gasp, "Then how . . . will the human race . . . ?"
"Parthenogenesis," answered her former school teacher, her lover. "Pregnancy in one of a female couple initiated by mutual sex . . . ," she paused, thoughtfully, ". . . or possibly one of a pair will be oviparous? I wonder if monogamy . . . no matter. All female descendants, though, but we know now how to make that a pleasurable existence, don't we, Bonny?"
Alice walked unsteadily to Bonny and cradled her head to her breast. It felt good there. Bonny gulped and looked up.
"I guess . . . it'll be different . . . but nice." She grinned.
The two chanted together, "You know what I mean?" and laughed immoderately.
© 2003 "C"
<cristl@dmv.com>
Please encourage our authors with email
· LB Collection · Story Links · Site Links · Poetry · Submissions · lbworlds Yahoo! · Donations · top ·