This choice: Flip to another part of the book • Go Back...Chapter #25The Puppetmasters: An Oral History by: Seuzz   As you turn the page, you notice that there's writing--upside down--on the back. You turn the book over and start to read.
* * * * *
I was in the den doing homework when the telescreen cut away. Not that I'd been paying attention. Dad was only watching his country-western music show while Mom was sewing up a new dress in the corner. I was doing math. I glanced up as the announcer's voice replaced a woman singer's warble, and felt a little chill at the "Special Report" graphic that had replaced her image. There were always crises in those days, and only a few weeks before Dad had restocked the fallout shelter after the President had been on to talk Communist revolutionaries making trouble down in Panama.
But it was a local story, apparently, so I went back to my studies, and didn't even hear the words "flying saucer" when the on-the-scene reporter spoke them. "That's out near Bill McLain's place," Dad rumbled from his easy chair after a few minutes.
"What's that, dear?" Mom said, looking up from her sewing machine.
"That spaceship," Dad said. "That'll be the woods out by his pasturage."
That got my attention, and I raised up from the floor to peer at the screen. You couldn't see anything, since it was dark out, nothing except some lights that's danced and shook as the camera wobbled. The reporter on the scene was jabbering excitedly, though, something about a door opening, and "Here they come. They are little creatures, about--" And then things cut out. After a few seconds the feed went back to the news studio, where a middle-aged man with gray hair sat behind a desk and frowned at something off-screen.
"We seem to have lost the feed," he said. News anchors are always telling you what you already know. "We will return to it when we get it back, but to recap, an unidentified object has reportedly been spotted landing --"
"Do you think it might be dangerous," Mom said, looking back at Dad with a worried expression.
"Oh, it's just Orson Welles having fun again," Dad snorted. "There really oughta be a law against--" He snorted and got out of his chair to change channels to a Western. "I'll drive out to Bill's tomorrow, get the real story." He grunted loudly as he settled back into his chair. "The real story'll be more fun than the hoax."
I watched the screen for a bit before returning to my homework. I could beat him to it, I thought. I went to school with McLain kids, the twins--Vine and George--and could bike out tomorrow, which was a Saturday, and get it from them.
* * * * *
But the hoax--or, as we all later learned (some of us sooner than others), the hoax that covered up the reality--was already busted when we got up the next morning. The paper had it all: Kids playing a prank in the farm country outside town had staged a "flying saucer landing." The report came with a chin-tugging editorial about the gullibility of "television reporters" who chased and spread false stories before nailing down any facts.
Me, I grinned while gobbling down my cereal as I read. "Kids", huh? That meant Vine and George were probably in on it, second- or third-hand at least, for they didn't seem to me to be the prankster type. Big, husky kids they were, with red-hair and freckles like their dad, and more for talking about hogs and latest improvements in tractors than in space travel. Dad read the same article I did, but he didn't say anything about it.
So after I finished my morning chores in the garden I pulled my bike out and rode it slowly up the back roads toward the McLain place. It was a hot, sunny day, and sweat was pouring off my face by the time I rode up to their weather-beaten house. There were a lot of vehicles out front, including some sheriff's cars, which certainly argued for the McLains being at the center of the hoax. A couple of deputies were standing by the kitchen door, silently gazing out at the empty horizon, but they didn't stop me as I squeezed past them and opened the screen door without knocking.
Mr. McLain was there, standing by the table, with two men in dark suits and a sheriff. No one was talking, and they all seemed a little blank, as though lost in their thoughts. Mr. McLain turned toward me, and it was a little queer the way his face seemed to come to life when he saw me. "You lookin' for Vine and George?" he grinned. "They're out in the barn. Go talk to them."
One of the dark-suited men stared at me in a watchful way, and for a moment I thought he was going to speak. But Mr. McLain made a small gesture, and his guest relaxed.
I didn't much like the scene--it all seemed very adult and official--so I just nodded and backed out of the kitchen as fast as I could. Again, none of the deputies spoke to me as I dodged them and trudged out to the old barn and its battered silo.
It was dark and musty inside the barn, and it took me a moment to get used to the lack of light. Then I saw Vine and George.
They were standing with their backs to me, and the first thing that struck me was that they had their shirts on. It was hot in the barn, and in my experience most farm boys will strip to the waist when doing manual work. But I didn't think much of it.
They were bending over crates stacked high on pallets. I call them "crates," but they were made out of a metal that gleamed oddly with a bluish light. Vine was at the bottom while George was standing on the stack, a few feet above him, rooting around inside. They both turned as I called out them.
Again, I was met by oddly blank expressions, and they didn't change even as I stepped forward. "Your pa said you were out here," I said. "Said to come find you. Is that the flying saucer?"
Vine just stared, and then grinned. "Sure is," he said. "Saw that on the news? Wasn't it great?"
"Great," I echoed without much enthusiasm. "Ticked my dad off because it interrupted his program."
"Come up and take a look," George said from the top of the pile. His grin--like his face--was a twin of his brother's.
So they are the pranksters, I thought, and didn't instantly step forward. Back in the third grade, one of the kids came back from Florida with a can, and spring-loaded "snakes" burst out when he gave it to me to open. And another time I found a real garter snake in the bottom of my gym bag when I changed out after P.E. I don't like practical jokes, and this one had been a humdinger. Vine and George might have other surprises up their sleeves.
But if there's one thing that kids don't like to do, it's to act scared in front of their peers. So I jutted out my chin and stepped onto the crates and prepared for the worst.
The worst is always worse than you expect.
George stepped back as I drew up next to him, and I looked down into the open top of the crate. It was filled with something I couldn't describe. Even afterward, when I knew exactly what it was, I never had the need to expressly describe it. Suffice it to say it looked like a huge blister pack made of a thick, translucent, plastic-like substance. But organic.
As I frowned down into it, I felt arms grasp me from behind--Vine, catching me in a bear hug. Even then, I didn't let it throw me, and just sighed. I didn't even flinch when George reached around and pulled down my collar in the back. Whatever this gag was--
I just had time to see the dark, blob-like thing in his other hand before he put it on the back of my neck.
* * * * *
A lot of people got ridden by the Titans, of course, and I've no reason to describe what it was like. It was like nothing, when you get down to it. I suppose a horse that's been saddled and had a bit slid between its teeth feels the rider's weight and presence, and feels his will in the tug of the reigns and dig of the heels into the flanks. But the horse is still the horse, and is a mostly unthinking thing, and does its horsey things even when it's being ridden hard. So I was still myself while the Titan was riding me. The difference is that I became like a horse after it was on--a thing without any real thoughts of his own. To the extent that I had thoughts, they were the Titan's thoughts. Or, maybe, they were my thoughts, being ridden and directed just as it rode and directed my body.
But there was a brief moment when I felt it going on: a hot, sticky feeling as it latched onto me and slid down my back under my shirt. I reared back in Vine's grasp, and then relaxed numbly. When I was steady again, Vine released me. George already had his shirt off, and he turned around, so that I saw the slug that had seized him. Vine pulled my shirt off, and my feet--at the direction of another intelligence--shifted as I turned my back on George.
* * * * *
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"   | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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