Rude Awakenings

Ramsey’s aching feet matched the tempo of his racing heart while running through the deserted cobblestone streets of Fairfax, England. His throbbing head, parched mouth, and empty stomach assured him that he was still alive, but it didn’t offer any clues as to his identity nor to his pursuer’s.

He ran a hand over his mud caked face, caressing a large bruise that twisted from a receding hairline to the nape of his neck. That morning, he woke with a start, afraid and alone, driven by some unknown force to leave this abandoned town; to stay away from The Factory. He looked from one side of the street to the other as perspiration covered his skin and engulfed his clothes. He stopped to catch his breath and leaned over from the waist. Looking at the surroundings, he studied the corner drugstore, newsstand, Achilles Dance Club, and Rack ‘Em Stack ‘Em Billiards. Maybe by slowing down, he could reclaim some lost memory and understand why he kept running to the same abandoned area of town. For the first time he realized that, he hadn’t heard a plane all morning. Not even a bird. Had everyone died leaving behind a cowardly amnesiac as sole heir to earth? He trembled.

A gunshot split the silence, instinctively sending Ramsey on the run once again. Another shot.
Louder.
Closer.

Mind racing with more unanswered questions, he took the nearest cover in an abandoned pool hall. Another shot nearly deafened him.

"Come out and fight like a man, you cowardly low-life!” The voice grazed familiarity. Not in a Mayberry RFD way, but in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers, vs. Night of the Living Dead kind of way.

Like everything else, his memory of the raspy voiced stranger lay just beyond the point of recall. Ramsey saw the man’s black alligator boots from under the pool table where Ramsey claimed sanctuary, hidden for the moment. The cockney had stopped in the doorway, tapping his foot not so patiently. Ramsey noticed a side entrance on one side of the table, a cue stick on the other. Perfect.

"Ramsey!" The voice screamed and another shot fired into the air, sending debris flying in Ramsey’s direction. He stifled a sneeze as dust tickled his nose.

Ramsey darted toward the door and grabbed the cue stick as his pursuer screamed and fired again. On the other hand, perhaps it was a roar. Out from his peripheral vision he caught a glimpse of his would be assailant. One thing he knew, Ramsey couldn’t go back to the Factory. To go back meant a fate worse than death. Ramsey could only remember his last name and no matter what, to stay away from the boogeyman, guardian of The Factory as if he were Cerberus, demon dog from the bowels of Tartarus. Until that moment, the boogeyman’s face remained shrouded in mystery. Before then, he felt a mix of intense anger and fear. But that brief moment was all Ramsey needed to send his pulse racing through hyperspace.

A moment.

Ramsey just wanted to be left alone so he could take a bath, grab a thick juicy steak- medium well, and an ice-cold lager sounded good, too. Ramsey didn’t know whether instinct or thawing memory told him that the boogeyman did not belong here on Earth. Cautiously, he backed out of the door, into the alley, only to turn around facing a gun and a laughing man. He could see the whites around the tops of his eyes. Someone had told him that was a sure sign of craziness. Funny, how he had never believed it until now. Ramsey backed up against the wall. Now he wondered if he would get back to the States without arriving parcel post. He dropped his cue stick and for the second time, he was caught.

The stranger’s oily hair glistened in the sunlight and he smelled of rotten eggs. He grabbed Ramsey by the collar with a six fingered hand and pulled him close, leaving Ramsey to wonder if the alien would suffocate him before taking him back to The Factory. "So, Ramsey, you are alive, after all. Too bad, eh?"

Ramsey feigned a smile and shrugged. God, he sounded corny. “No, shit.”
"I had hoped that that bump on your head would have taken you to your grave, where you belong."

"Sorry I disappointed you."

"Yea, me too." The stranger paused in temporal confusion. Briefly, it reminded Ramsey of one of those monster zombies that needed fresh brains for replenishment. Ramsey shook his head, shoving the morbid thought from his throbbing head. "I took you for a man with intelligence.” The alien continued. “It’s a shame that you had to interfere in Factory business. We weren't going to hurt them,” He sneered “just experiment a little. We had even planned to let you all go.”
Ramsey didn't show the confusion he felt. Experiment? What the hell was he talking about?

"You've disappointed me for the last time." The stranger pressed the cold muzzle of the gun against Ramsey's forehead as he tightly closed his grey eyes.

Seconds can last an eternity and often times they do. Those few seconds allowed his swiss-cheesed memory to access a couple of doorways. He could see The Factory in his mind’s eyes. A woman ran alongside him while being hunted down by more six fingered aliens that needed a good bar of soap and deodorizer. He diverted the guard’s attention as she escaped down a secret passageway to eventual freedom. He ended up outside of The Factory, chased by the boogeyman ever since. But he saw something that he chose to forget. Something on the tip of his brain, but his frozen thoughts prevented memory’s release. He figured if his brain was a ship, his memories would be the Titanic, sinking in a sea of ice. He wanted answers, but now it appeared those answers, like the Titanic, would remain forever lost. He faced the fact that his destiny lay at the hands of an alien maniac with a large chip on his shoulder. Ramsey opened cool gray eyes and faced the assailant who smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. He's really enjoying this. Ramsey thought.

When the killer pulled the trigger, Ramsey couldn’t believe his dumb luck when the pistol merely clicked.

“What’s the matter, you forget to reload your gun?” Ramsey smiled then, grabbed the cue stick, and delivered a blow to the man's abdomen, sending him reeling to the ground. As he ran from the alien assassin, fragments of memory began to offer more pieces of the puzzle; two female resistance fighters from another world asked him for help. Being merely an archeologist, Ramsey offered what help he could. After all, he felt powerless since he wasn’t a politician or with the military. The deeper his involvement with Twila and Fruitia however, led him farther from home and deeper into danger. They convinced him that the people of earth must be warned before suffering enslavement of the warmongering barbarians of Haspria. "Must find the other girl." He panted, forcing himself to go on.

He soon stopped, gulps of air filling his lungs. He licked dry lips, parched mouth turned to cotton. Another vague memory appeared in his mind but he tried to push it away. Perhaps, he dreamed it or saw it in a movie. Bur no sooner had Ramsey questioned himself, clear concise memories sprang to life like some abstract jack in the box. He envisioned dark haired men with hospital masks and syringes. Three of them forcibly strapped him to a cold and unyielding table and left. Ramsey screamed as he noticed others like him, long dead, sitting up in some kind of grizzly display. Ramsey struggled as they returned with knives and syringes. As the truth became clear, Ramsey remembered how The Factory reeked of rotten eggs and how the Hasperians repeatedly murmured amongst themselves; ‘we can't use him, he won't make a good host. ‘

“Lucky me!” Ramsey had pleaded as the creature dug his sixth digit into his upper arm. How he hated doctors in general, but these weren’t actually doctors. They were invaders. To his horror, Ramsey recalled that it wasn’t a sixth finger, but a parasite that needed to find a suitable host for its survival.

Ramsey snapped back to reality. The veil of recollection lifted again, and though his past remained laced with shades of gray -like the brief memory of parasites, the factory, and strange voices, Ramsey knew that he was missing something more important.

“Grays?” He questioned himself and stopped to analyze his surroundings. “Black and white?” He whispered. He looked at his hands and shirt. “No.” He muttered in disbelief. “This can’t be.”

The alien had disappeared and forgotten for the moment. The cobblestone streets were gray and the buildings; the newsstand, pool hall, and drug store, were an assortment of shades of grays and blacks.

Suddenly, Ramsey remembered the cause of his amnesia and the driving force that guided him to the same spot over and over again. Before his lapse in memory, Ramsey reunited with Twila who had informed him that Fruitia had died in The Factory. They made it to the outskirts of town and could not go any farther due to some kind of force field. Ramsey noticed a light shining from the corner of the pool hall. He and Twila turned around to find five aliens closing in from the other side of the street. Twila pulled at his collar, sending them both sprawling into the unknown. Later, he awoke alone with no memory of what happened.

He studied the building, from where the light originated, now was covered by duct tape. He ran a shaking hand over it and realized, that they were never meant to fall through.

It wasn’t in the script.

Ramsey knew how it ended. He had played it many times before. Ramsey would find Twila, and after our atmosphere proves too toxic for them to live, even by using earthlings as hosts, the Hasperians flee. Having no family and equipped with an insatiable curiosity about the unknown universe, Ramsey joined Twila in her quest to rid the universe of the Hasprians.

He didn’t know how long he had played this out. Eternity, perhaps. Next to the duct tape, he ran his hand along a force field, smooth like glass. He concentrated. The hills and valley beyond town only provided an illusionary backdrop to the world on the other side. He pressed his nose up to the glass and saw three men arguing, oblivious to anything around them. One of them held a book entitled; The Factory. Next to them lay a body draped with a sheet. A red boot stuck out from beneath it. He choked down a sob that rose in his throat. Twila. To the left of her, Ramsey noticed a hand cranked projector, a wooden face staring back into the screen that mirrored his own. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the various heads in the audience as they ate popcorn.

Not many people realize that hell has a basement. For Ramsey, this was the lowest level of hell- hell’s basement as it were. After all, what could be worse than being trapped in a really bad sci-fi B movie for eternity.