iNK

The Buick Roadmaster rattled up the dirt road, looking out of place in the bleak desert of Chaves County, New Mexico. It parked at the base of a hill, and a man, dressed in a clean-cut grey suit, stepped out, his shoes polished to an almost metallic shine. With a click, he shut the door and squinted up at the unforgiving sun in an almost disapproving manner, as if shaming the sun for daring to shine in his presence. On que, a pudgy man scrambled down from the opposite side of the dune, stumbling over the scraggly underbrush in an undignified way. He trotted up, panting, to the impassive man in the grey suit.
"What do you have?"
Grey suit man's lips barely moved, but the words were spoken with precision and force in generic English that gave no clue as to what part of the country he may have been from. The other man, whose tweed blazer was dark with sweat stains, merely shook his head, panting. He rested with his hands on his knees for several moments, before looking back up at Grey suit man.
"I don't even know how to describe it...."
As if to contrast his grey-suited counterpart, the tweed-jacket man's words were twinged with a Southern accent. He rubbed his dusty hands against his pants, gulping.
"What government agency are you, anyway? Because I-"
"That's classified."
The grey suit man started off in the direction that the tweed jacket man had come from, his walk purposeful. The shorter man trailed behind him, fidgeting with his watch nervously.
"It's like nothing we've ever seen before....and those bodies...."
Grey suit man did not reply, but instead picked up a stick, hefting it appraisingly. Ignoring the other man, he used the stick to pull himself up the steep side of the dune. Tweed blazer fell silent, but still looked to be filled with nervous energy. They climbed in silence for less than a minute before the sand leveled out into a flat, circular area. In the center sat a wide unfurled blanket on which unrecognizable twisted pieces of metal sat, each tagged with letters and numbers that would seem like gibberish to any observer. Off to the side, looking very strange in the desert, were two identical ice boxes lying on their sides. A few scientists milled around the area, twiddling with large, bulky instruments.
Tweed jacket nodded toward the chrome-lined iceboxes.
"The bodies are in there. You said to keep them preserved."
The grey suit man acknowledged this with a slight dip of his head. He strolled past the white coated men, setting his hand against the cool surface of the refrigerators.
"Of course, there's nothing to power them out here, so we just packed them with ice. They'll need to be moved soon."
Grey suit man pulled down on the handle almost delicately before heaving the heavy door open. Below him, resting on a bed of piled ice chips, was a charred, discolored corpse. Its head was bulbous, seemingly much too large for its small, weak-looking body. It's arms were long, almost like an ape's, nearly reaching to its feet. The creatures pitch-black pupilless eyes stared sightlessly up into the sky. The grey skin was laced with swirling black designs.
"We think that one was killed in the crash. It's the other one that you really need to see."
Grey suit turned back towards Tweed Jacket halfway, an almost questioning look on his expressionless face.
"You see....it was still alive when we got here."
Grey suit stepped towards the other icebox, this time sliding the door open slowly, as if he was almost afraid of what might be inside. The door squeaked open, this time revealing possibly the most bizarre thing any human had ever seen. The left side of the creature's body was the same as the other's-large head, pupiless eyes, grey skin, but it's other side twisted into a completely different form-a very familiar, pudgy form. Grey suit glanced back at Tweed Jacket man. Sure enough, the right half of the creature's body was identical to him, the only difference being that the swirling black designs continued onto the human half.
"It just touched me.....and then it started to change. Like some sort of humanoid chameleon"
Tweed jacket grimaced, looking down at his thick-fingered hands.
"I shot it."
Grey suit man glanced down at the bullet hole that was squarely in the creature's chest. There was silence for several seconds.
"Pack them up. We need to get these back to the lab."