《Liftoff: Interstellar Garbageman Book 1》 Chapter 1: Orbital Entry Detected Being a railgun operator wasn¡¯t all it¡¯s cracked up to be. Sure, I had the great honor of firing off the most powerful gun humanity has ever created in the auspicious year of 2018. The pay was decent for government work. I received free laundry service, it came with a hydrocar paid for in full by the USAS, and the benefits were second to none. But at the end of the day, I was still little more than an upjumped garbage man. Seated at my desk, I checked the waterfall gauge for only the second time in the seven hours I¡¯d been on duty. Watching that little gauge and finding creative ways to hide my day drinking made up the vast majority of my work. When it ticked over the ninety-five percent mark, I was supposed to hit the big red ¡°launch¡± button. This would happen about twice per week on my shift, three times if I was lucky. In response to that trigger, the garbage capsule would be sealed off at its top and loaded into firing position. Another button press would make a big hammer whack the explosive flux compression charge at the base, and then the magic happened. The charge would explode, generating an EMP, and this energy would be transmitted directly into the rails which held the capsule. Just like that, the gigantic, sealed can of garbage would be fired off into space on a degrading orbit into the sun. Technically it was a weapon of war. The railgun itself was mounted atop a huge gimbal mount, which allowed it to maintain constant aim on a proper trajectory toward the sun. If some fool managed to park something in orbit which needed taking care of, I had a separate button to load a tungsteel penetrator, and a sophisticated targeting computer to change the enormous device¡¯s aim. In that case, I would have an extra few buttons to press. Select my target, confirm that yes, I really wanted that thing dead, and then, finally, punch the firing button. This was why they needed a veteran of the Third Indonesian Police Action to man it. Not any ol¡¯ schmuck could be trusted with access to this much firepower. I took another sip from my rum and coke. Despite that the railgun represented a thousand times more power than I had ever had at my disposal as a gunnery sergeant, it was about that much less useful for actually destroying anything. Nobody else on the planet had the authorization, ability, know-how, or sheer balls-out insanity to even try to launch something into space, much less threaten the American Sovereignty, and anyone who did was swiftly gifted with a faceful of atomic hellfire and a hot, heaping helping of marines dropping from space to break shit, steal all the liquor in sight, and burn down every research facility and library in a five hundred kilometer radius. I should know; That had once been my job before I was sidelined by injury. Nearly all of my favorite memories were of blowing things up, burning down small towns, and getting drunk off my face with my buddies, typically not in that order. Us drop marines were the very best of the very best, a tiny brotherhood. Though we all trained hard and observed formalities on base, when the the time came to kick ass and take names that rigidity would be cast aside, and only the unthinking ferocity of our training would remain. Sadly, it had all come to an end the night I got myself grievously wounded. It hadn¡¯t even been a good fight. All I¡¯d done was step on a little improvised mine, possibly the most boring way to be taken out of an active fire zone. Doing nothing more than walking through the thick jungle that seemed to stretch ceaselessly over the whole indo theater, my foot had dropped through the forest floor without warning. That was the last thing I could recall before waking up in the hospital, strapped to a clean white bed, a half dozen cords and wires hooked into my flesh, covered in stitches from the neck down, missing my left leg from the knee down, and one testicle. Honestly, the leg hadn¡¯t been a huge deal. I had required only about six months¡¯ time to perfect my stride with the new prosthetic, but my left nut? I still haven¡¯t forgiven whichever rat bastard had planted that mine, and I sincerely hope that the low-yield airburst A-bomb my guys called in on the little rebel village they found in the jungle caught him unawares and converted him permanently into a shadow. Better yet, I hope it didn¡¯t, and he was treated to the prolonged agony of a lethal dose of gamma radiation. A beeping noise brought me out of my reminiscing, and my gaze snapped down to the console I sat before. ORBITAL ENTRY DETECTED It was an alert I¡¯d never seen before. I raised an eyebrow and pulled my lunchbox off the glass face of the targeting computer to drop it beside me, activating the display with the tap of a finger. In an instant a query showed me an object hurtling through Earth¡¯s atmosphere. It was merely a hunk of rock, only a couple hundred feet wide, rapidly breaking up and falling apart. The computer said that it would be rendered harmless by atmospheric friction before it hit the ground, and though I wanted to target it and obliterate it for fun, the munitions would come out of my pension if I wasted them. Instead, I marked it as unimportant after confirming what the computer had told me and leaned back in my chair. I had two hours left on-shift and a goodly portion of chilled rum and soda remaining in a two liter bottle. I intended to drain the latter so that the former would pass faster. - - - That night, as most nights, I found myself at Lefty¡¯s, my favorite little pub. Though at first their name had irritated me given my unique circumstances, the owner was a fellow veteran who granted me a huge discount on my drinks. The inside was smoky, with a low ceiling, dark wood paneling covering nearly every surface, and quiet music drifting through the air. It was some poppy tune, popular with the college kids in the little town next to my railgun. I didn¡¯t recognize it, but it wasn¡¯t actively offensive to listen to. ¡°Another one, Melvin?¡± the bartender asked. I nodded. ¡°You know me so well, Chad,¡± I responded. The bartender was a short, stocky man, built like a fireplug. He was easily the strongest man I¡¯d ever met, and among the ugliest, but he was also one of my best friends. He¡¯d finished his own stint with the drop marines a few months after I¡¯d been medically forced out, and a short few weeks after his return, his uncle had kicked the bucket and left him the little hole-in-the-wall. One night while we were drinking, he came up with the new name for the establishment. ¡°in honor of you, my seminally challenged friend,¡± he¡¯d told me. ¡°Hey, that gal at the end of the bar is making all sorts of eyes at you,¡± he said to me in a voice somewhat lowered. I glanced around, trying not to be obvious, to get a look at the woman. I nearly did a double take. She was gorgeous. Short, blonde, and fit, but not so much that it took away from her curves, which were of the highest quality, taut but not unwelcoming. I could have bounced a quarter off of her ass and gotten a silver dollar and three nickels back for my trouble. ¡°Well, get her a drink on me!¡± I said with a chuckle. I started toward her, but after a few steps she turned and gave me a wide smile. Seeing her face from the front, I could tell that she was no older than twenty five. She was probably a college girl, which gave me pause, but only for a split second. This was one of the college kids¡¯ bars, but I wasn¡¯t too worried. The students could be upset, but making too much trouble for a decorated member of the USAS armed forces was often a great way to earn a trip straight to a labor camp for six months. ¡°Hey, big guy. How you doing?¡± she asked before I could so much as open my mouth. ¡°Better now that I¡¯m talking to a pretty thing like you. What¡¯re you doing in a hole like this?¡± If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Looking to see if I could meet anyone interesting, and you wanna know something?¡± ¡°Shoot,¡± I said, taking a swig of my beer and meeting her mischievous green eyes. ¡°I think I found someone very interesting,¡± she said, taking a little step closer to me. Now, I may not be the brightest guy, but I know a signal when I see one, and she was firing them out like a double barrel loaded with flares. To make a long story short, we had a pretty good night, and she showed me exactly how interesting she found me. - - - Some time later, I awoke feeling a weight on my groin and a veritable fountain of vomit welling up within me. My eyes flew open, and I looked up. The girl was straddling me, and as much as I would have liked to go another round, my gut demanded to be vacated. She seemed surprised by my sudden liveliness, but I didn¡¯t have time to spare. I tossed her off of me, pulled myself out of the bed and ran to the bathroom. Before the inevitable could happen and ruin my bath mat, I dropped to my knees before the porcelain throne and began to upchuck the whole contents of my stomach. Never in my life up to that point had I ever vomited so. It seemed like everything in my guts came up, but just as I thought the onslaught was at its end, something caught in my throat. It was huge and solid, and my esophagus burned with agony as my convulsions forced it up. I couldn¡¯t remember what the hell I had eaten, but whatever it was, it must have congealed into a singular thick and rubbery mass. My eyes watered, my body shook, and I gripped the toilet, white-knuckled, as I heaved and retched. Finally, through tears and snot and the pounding in my head, I could feel it pushing up into my mouth. Reaching in, my fingers probing wildly, I grabbed at the rubbery thing with my hand repeatedly, my grip slipping on its squishy mass before I got a firm hold of it and yanked in a growing mix of desperation and horror. The worry struck me that my clogged throat would come up with the mass, but something in me was certain that I needed to have this thing out of my body. What seemed like a horrible tug of war ensued. It felt as if, deep down in my esophagus there was something latched onto the inside of my guts, refusing to let itself be expelled from me. I was the stronger of us, though, and its grip eventually slipped and let free, letting me reel it out until I had what looked like a purplish squid, small, disgusting, and with tentacles, still slightly wriggling on either side of its body. It¡¯d become sticky in contact with the air, and as soon as I could make out its form in my watery-eyed delirium I shook it loose from my hand, tossing it into the toilet to swirl among the rest of my projected bile. ¡°What the actual fuck,¡± I coughed out, pulling myself, with shaky legs, to my feet. ¡°You¡¯ve got to be pissing into my-¡± I was cut off by the sound of a mournful shriek and a sharp pain in the back of my head, accompanied by the sound of something shattering. ¡°Agh!¡± I shouted as I spun around and delivered a backhand with all two meters of height and one hundred and twenty five kilograms behind it. The blow caught the girl in the side of the mouth, tossing her to the ground. ¡°That lamp was an heirloom!¡± I shouted at her, but she lay limp on the floor and didn¡¯t respond. She seemed good and stunned, so I left her there. I¡¯ve been clubbed over the back of the head once or twice, so I¡¯m something of an expert in being conked on the noggin. This was a good, solid whack, but definitely not a professional one. Still, I knew that I probably had a decent gash in the back of my head, and I¡¯d have a good headache going when I was a bit more sober. The real insult was my poor lamp, my favorite one, which had never hurt anybody, and was an innocent in whatever fight I¡¯d gotten myself into. Feeling a warm flow of blood down my neck, I stumbled to the kitchen in search of my medical kit. I rummaged around in the cabinet until my hand closed on it, but before I could pull it out I heard the sound of bare feet clapping on my wood floors. ¡°Don¡¯t make me-¡± I started, turning around and seeing that she had my pocket knife in one hand, raised over her head. There was a crazed look in her eyes that didn¡¯t spell anything good for me. I shouted in surprise. Definitely not terror. It was a manly scream, perhaps a warrior¡¯s yawp. Either way, instincts hard-won from years of fighting kicked in. I stepped forward, grabbed her wrist and twisted around to toss her over my shoulder. She was, generously, sixty kilos soaking wet, and I was still slightly drunk, so I tossed her a bit harder than intended. Like an oddly bony sack of potatoes, she sailed straight onto my dining room table, bouncing once and breaking the table¡¯s legs beneath her, then rolled off, landing splayed on the floor unnaturally like a discarded doll. ¡°What the hell¡¯s got into you, you crazy bitch?¡± I raged at her, shooting her a hateful look. I¡¯d thought we¡¯d had a damned good night, and a man was allowed to drunkenly vomit in his own home if he damn well pleased. This time she started to recover much faster, raising her broken face toward me and steadying clumsily on her elbows. There was a feral look in her eyes as she started to pick herself up. One of her arms wasn¡¯t working right and it took her some time to rise. As she pushed herself to her knees with one dislocated shoulder, I decided I didn¡¯t want anything to do with her anymore. I grabbed my keys from a bowl on the kitchen counter and bolted out the back door towards my truck in the driveway. Turning the pickup on and throwing it in reverse, I reflected only briefly that perhaps driving in my current state of intoxication wasn¡¯t the wisest decision. The alternative, however, was staying in the house with some knife wielding bar slut, so despite her great ass I floored it in reverse. My escape was short-lived. Fifteen feet down my driveway, I felt and heard a loud bang. With a heavy foot, I slammed on the brakes, bringing the truck to a screeching halt. ¡°Oh, come on!¡± I groaned. The damned woman seemed to be doing her best to damage every last thing I owned. I grabbed a flashlight out of the dash, one of those big heavy ones that you could use to beat a horse to death with, and looked around briefly before I found what I was already grimly certain I was looking for. The girl was prostrate on the ground, face down, as dead as a stone. One of her legs appeared to be broken, or maybe both, along with a head that definitely wasn¡¯t supposed to be twisted that way, and she wasn¡¯t getting up. ¡°Son of a bitch,¡± I muttered. ¡°Hey, lady, you alright?¡± The woman, whose name I realized I couldn¡¯t remember, didn¡¯t stir, and that was an answer all its own. I went back to the house for my cell phone and some pants to keep my remaining ball from freezing off in the cold wind. In a flash of clarity I also grabbed my trusty shotgun. It had never been used against anything but the occasional duck or deer, but I figured it would serve me well enough in this instance. As I went back outside, I flipped my house¡¯s front floodlights on to illuminate the yard. I was a good twelve acres from my nearest neighbor, so they wouldn¡¯t mind the light. The woman was still there, now lying flat on her back, some blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. There was something wrong about that, but I couldn¡¯t quite place it as I walked up to her. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m gonna check to see if you have a pulse,¡± I said, leaning over her. She probably wouldn¡¯t mind one way or the other. It was a strange thing, checking the pulse of a woman with whom I¡¯d been intimate just a few hours ago, but I tried not to let it bother me too much. After all, she¡¯d tried to kill me. Fair was fair if she ended up dead. When I touched her neck I didn¡¯t feel anything but cooling flesh. She was dead as a doorknob. I straightened up and fumbled my cell phone out of my pocket. Drunk as I was, it took me three tries to enter my password correctly, and I mumbled a curse each time as I failed. I managed to bypass the infernal lock screen but before I could dial the non-emergency police number the girl spasmed. I let out a little yelp and dropped my phone, my eyes widening in surprise. ¡°Holy shit, you¡¯re alive?¡± She didn¡¯t respond, only convulsing again. ¡°You¡¯d better stay down. I swear I¡¯ll shoot your head off.¡± I pointed my shotgun at the half-animated body, but she didn¡¯t seem to mind that, if she even noticed it. When she jerked again, I realized something was strange about her motions. More strange than a dead person twitching, which was more common than most might think. It wasn¡¯t a muscular twitch, rather, it was as if she was getting jabbed in the back. Then, something began to poke out of her belly, as if someone was pressing a finger to the inside of her stomach. I took a couple steps back, eyes widening in surprise and terror as I watched with perhaps more than a healthy amount of fascination. While I looked on, the skin pressed and stretched outward, her skin becoming strained and white as the protrusion grew. ¡°Whatever the fuck your game is, I don¡¯t like-¡± I began, when the skin of her belly split open and long, spindly tentacles began to reach from her cadaver. For the second time that night, an amazed, terrified scream escaped my lips as I watched the girl I¡¯d been inside of a few hours ago burst open like an overfilled blood sausage. Chapter 2: Where theres a Swine theres a Way ¡°Don¡¯t you dare do it!¡± I shouted, when I got my wits half back together. She decided that she would rather keep kicking and wiggling those freaky tentacles, though. I aimed the shotgun down and let a blast go, the roar of the gun accompanying her head being torn off. All at once, the tentacles retreated within the gaping vertical slit they¡¯d torn through her lightly tanned abdomen. Now, one might wonder why, exactly, I would shoot her head and not her belly, where this monstrosity was making itself evident. The answer to that is obvious. Everyone knows that the undead only stay down if you shoot them in the head. ¡°You crazy zombie bitch! Stay down! I¡¯m not anyone¡¯s chow tonight, hah!¡± For a few moments I carried on like that, whooping like I¡¯d won the Ultra Cup. ¡°Please, hairless ape, cease your shrieking!¡± A tinny voice came from the belly of the zombie I¡¯d just confirmed my kill of, and I stiffened in surprise at the interruption. ¡°What in tarnation, who the hell are you?¡± In response, leastaways as far as I could tell, the thing made a noise that was full of blatting wet slapping, vaguely obscene. It set me even further on edge. Muscles in my shoulders grew tight, and I could feel the world growing sharper, more well-defined. If I let myself get carried off by the combat high, I¡¯d find myself acting completely without thought, probably in violent fashion. It was a result of the USAS¡¯ tinkering when I¡¯d joined the marines, and one that wasn¡¯t welcome right then. I turned to a well-worn path of tuning myself down, ridicule and alcohol. ¡°Well, that sounded like it ended with a ¡®Blart¡¯ so that¡¯s what I¡¯m gonna call you,¡± I quipped as I backed up toward my truck¡¯s bed, not taking my eyes off the alien varmint. My grasping right hand sought out my cooler, one of the fancy atomic ones that kept working for a few decades, and went with me everywhere on the general principle of ¡°just in case¡±. Inside it, I felt out the remains of my last six pack, which was calling my name. I snagged a lucky one, cracked it open with a fingernail and took a long enough pull from the fizzling dark brew that half of it found its way into my belly in one gulp. The cool feeling on my sore throat brought me back down to Earth, wearing off the edges of the combat high. ¡°Now. You better climb all the way out of there and show yourself before I gun you down.¡± It vaguely occurred to me that I was likely making first contact with a bona fide extraterrestrial, but that didn¡¯t seem terribly important to me besides the fact that this particular extraterrestrial had erupted out of the toned, flat belly of a gorgeous woman. At any rate, my threat worked, because the tentacles bunched together to get a grip and let¡­ something pull itself out of her eviscerated midsection. ¡°I am groveling. Do not kill me.¡± Its emotionless voice was much clearer now that it was outside the body, though a slightly robotic drone remained as an undertone. I tried to see the source, but it didn¡¯t seem to have a mouth or anything of the like. It must have been using some sort of artificial voice box, but a well-hidden one. ¡°You are clearly a superior combatant, I submit to you, and have no more weapons to use against you. In addition, I have been rendered incapable of fleeing.¡± In the light of my dim porch bulb its body was cherry red, and I realized with a start that it was almost identical to the squirming mass I¡¯d yanked from my throat less than a half hour ago. One central body, a bit longer than my hand, and several appendages which were two or three times longer. Curiosity and disgust warred within me. ¡°What in the sam-hell are you talking about?¡± ¡°Please,¡± it begged, ¡°I need somewhere warm and wet to live. If my flesh dries out I will perish.¡± Several tentacles reached out exploratively, and while the ones that touched the gravel of my drive drew back, those which probed into the dewy grass latched on. It began to pull itself onto the grass and towards me. ¡°Let me climb inside you.¡± ¡°What?¡± My response came automatically, a stuttering misfire of the brain which passed my lips without thought. ¡°I beg you, let me climb inside you. I can move through either of your major orifices, it won¡¯t-¡± I dragged my shotgun up to point directly at the disgusting little creature, which stopped moving towards me at once. ¡°Absolutely not.¡± I said in flat refusal. I tossed the now-emptied beer can over a shoulder towards my fire pit and grabbed another out of the cooler. Only one beer left. What a tragedy. ¡°There is no possible way that I am going to let some alien squid thing sodomize me right on my own front lawn. Or in my house for that matter. Anywhere, really.¡± ¡°There will be no sodomy, I have no carnal intent-¡± ¡°Look,¡± I interrupted the wriggling pervert again through a mouthful of booze and then swallowed. ¡°how long will you last?¡± ¡°Maybe another three hours.¡± I studied the boneless form. Its flesh was already starting to turn from its earlier cherry red to a lighter pink. I frowned, thinking to myself. Maybe the little creep was telling the truth. I leaned an arm on my pickup, laying the shotgun on its edge to keep it vaguely pointed towards Blart and the girl while I gave a little more attention to the beer in my left hand. ¡°And you need any ol¡¯ living thing to climb inside?¡± I asked after another swig. ¡°Any living thing with a large enough digestive tract to hold me, though I¡¯d prefer¡­¡± My mind began to wander as the creature detailed the particulars of its parasitic nature. The smell of ruptured intestines had wafted over to me with a change in the wind, and it brought me back to a battle in the Middle Eastern sector, a few years back. Getting her buried was climbing further toward the top of my list of priorities by the minute. ¡°...thirty of your kilograms or so should do,¡± Blart finished. I snapped my attention back to the present. ¡°Why should I help you? You tried to kill me after one of your friends tried to turn me into his flesh puppet!¡± ¡°I am an enemy combatant and I have surrendered. I am now your prisoner of war. By your own doctrine you are legally required to provide such amenable living conditions as to sustain my life. You are a soldier of the world government on this planet you call dirt-¡± ¡°Earth,¡± I interjected. ¡°Yes, dearth,¡± it went on. ¡°and so you are subject to those laws and must treat me according to their stipulations.¡± ¡°Prisoner of war?¡± I couldn¡¯t help but laugh at the idea. Everyone knew there hadn¡¯t been proper PoWs since the mutual liquidation started by the Soviets and Chinese during the Last Wars. ¡°The USAS doesn¡¯t have any active wars, just police actions. Police actions against insurgents who, by the way, have precisely zero rights when captured. We could grind them up into hamburgers and feed them to each other if we wanted. Would be perfectly legal, too.¡± The last of the second can¡¯s contents had finished running its way down my esophagus, so I tossed it to join the first and pulled my third and final drink out of the cooler. ¡°I¡­ appear to have made a miscalculation,¡± the thing responded. It had made its way back to the girl¡¯s corpse and pulled its rapidly drying mass back inside her ruined abdomen. I couldn¡¯t help but gawk at the bizarre and disgusting sight. ¡°I shall attempt another line of reasoning,¡± I heard the girl¡¯s stomach say after the schlorping and sucking noises had fallen silent. ¡°If my appeal to your notional greater authority has been unsuccessful, perhaps I can appeal to your more base self interest. If you help me, I can get you wealth beyond your wildest imagination.¡± ¡°I get paid pretty well as-is,¡± I said to Blart, turning back to look now that its voice was once again partially muffled by the woman¡¯s guts. ¡°More money, more problems. I already have enough problems, and now I¡¯ve got a pervert alien to boot.¡± You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°I¡¯m not a pervert,¡± it delivered quickly from its reeking place of cover. I got the feeling that it wanted to shout, but the translator made any would-be exclamation sound flat and monotone. Unimpressed, I took another pull. ¡°Either way Blart, I¡¯m not interested in wealth.¡± ¡°How about power? You could be the ruler of this whole planet. You should be the ruler of this planet, it¡¯s in your blood.¡± I scoffed and shook my head. I might have been amused had it not been for the circumstances leading to the creature¡¯s proposition. ¡°Wow, that sounds like a lot of effort. Try again.¡± ¡°I can give you¡­¡± the parasite faltered as he thought. ¡°Knowledge! Technology, advancements in chemistry, physics, such scientific revelations that even the greatest of your primitive, backwater ape theorists will be awed!¡± ¡°Do I look like some sort of nerd to you?¡± I asked. I put down another mouthful of beer and cleared my throat. ¡°And how about you cut the ¡®primitive¡¯, and ¡®ape¡¯ shit? Some more ¡®recognizing your superior being¡¯ and a whole lot less of your pompous blathering will keep you alive a little longer.¡± ¡°You¡¯re- but-¡± the alien stuttered, with that fuzzy undertone rising in volume during its indecision. I shook the can a little, sloshing its half-depleted contents about in its general direction. ¡°What sort of prim- the value of the knowledge on off-¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t come up with something I actually want by the time I am finished with this, I¡¯m gonna shoot you and bury you with the girl you rode in on,¡± I delivered my ultimatum. The sun would be up soon, and I¡¯d need to be on-base shortly after. I didn¡¯t have time to go back and forth with a talking, overly horny plate of calamari from space. ¡°I could¡­¡± The extraterrestrial seemed to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, because it took a good long time to figure out its next offer. I was gracious enough to drink slowly. When it had perhaps a sip¡¯s worth of time left, it finally spoke up, speaking rapidly. ¡°I could give you your leg back. If we go back to my ship I can engineer a course of nanites which will regenerate your limb.¡± I looked down and contemplated the metal prosthetic. I¡¯d been walking on it for nearly three years and it had served more or less as well as the original. Better in some ways, in fact, as it was never sore, blistered, or tired. Still, regeneration did offer another interesting possibility¡­ ¡°How about my left nut?¡± ¡°You desire¡­ a leftward single-seeded, hard shelled fruit?¡± ¡°No, my left testicle, dumbass. It got blown off in the Indo-Sector. I wouldn¡¯t mind having my leg back, but what I really want is my nut.¡± ¡°Fine! The briefing said that you degenerates were repulsively obsessed with your genitals and copulation, but I wasn¡¯t quite convinced until now.¡± ¡°One more smart remark,¡± I growled with menace, brandishing the shotgun at the squid. ¡°And you can keep my nut.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have your-¡± the alien began, but paused and thought better of its comment upon seeing the business end of a twelve gauge and then went on. ¡°Fine, we have a deal.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I said, lowering the weapon and starting toward the cab of the truck. ¡°I gotta run into town. You just stick right there. I¡¯ll be back¡­ when I get back¡± ¡°No, you can¡¯t leave me here,¡± it pleaded, but I did so anyway despite its continued whining. I wasn¡¯t overly concerned about the needy little butt-squid. Being on its own might do it some good- maybe it could find some other tired drunk to climb inside. My truck started up with a roar that drowned out its voice and I drove off, careful not to hit what remained of the dead girl. The rim of the horizon was beginning to glow with the creeping sun. It was going to be a long day. - - - An hour or so later I was standing behind Dale¡¯s Pet Shop. With one foot I turned over a rock and stooped to retrieve Dale¡¯s hidden key before rising to insert it into the back door¡¯s knob. One turn of the knob and the door came open silently, on well-oiled hinges. Dale and I went way back. He¡¯d been my brother¡¯s best friend back in the day, and though my brother had fallen in love in the South American theater and taken our Ma with him to stay in what used to be Chile, Dale and I had stayed friends. Even so, I still felt slightly bad for what I was about to do as I walked up and down the aisles, keeping an eye out for a suitable animal. The birds he had, though pretty, were all too small. I moved on to the next group of animals, a bunch of cats. While adorable, they, too, were all not much bigger than the squid himself. Frowning, I kept on with my circuitous route around the pet shop. Rats and gerbils were too small, Dale was fresh out of ferrets, and I knew I wouldn¡¯t be able to live with myself if I were to take one of his dogs and jam a squid up its butt. Finally, I came to the last group of animals. They were in a big pen that took up nearly a quarter of the store¡¯s floorspace, sleeping, save one of them that stared at me with beady, hateful eyes. They were pot-belly pigs, and of course, the only one awake was Jibbly. Now, a lot of people, when they hear ¡°pot-bellied pigs¡±, think to themselves about something along the lines of a little miniature dog-sized critter. Don¡¯t get me wrong, they¡¯re little pigs, but only in comparison to a normal pig. A pot-bellied pig will still grow to be nearly a hundred pounds on average, and can get up to twice that or more. Dale had eight of them, and was asking for a few hundred bucks each. They were a favorite for pets around these parts, and they¡¯d probably go pretty quickly. All except for Jibbly. Jibbly had been in Dale¡¯s pet shop for a few years now. He was massive, didn¡¯t like baths, and behaved in a downright rude fashion. His coarse fur was mottled black and white, and just as sure as everyone in town knew him, they also knew that Dale would never get rid of him. For Dale¡¯s part, he¡¯d continuously lowered the price until simply asking his increasingly unlikely customers to cover the cost of shots and paperwork, a measly hundred dollars. By now he was probably no more than a month or two from making Jibbly into bacon bits and short ribs. I pulled a couple crisp hundreds out of my pocket and left them on the counter with a few twenties alongside, then grabbed a handful of pig feed. Ill-tempered and rude though he normally was, Jibbly¡¯s demeanor changed and his beady eyes tracked my hands intensely as soon as they were full of food. He was smart enough to know that he had to be a good little piggy if he wanted chow, and greedy enough to keep quiet about it so his fellows wouldn¡¯t find out. I moved over to his cage, unlatched it, and gestured for him to follow me. Dutifully, he did, and I led him out of the store. I had to give him a taste of the pig feed to keep him following me, and finally I spread some out on the floorboard of my truck to get him to hop in. The little bastard hopped his front legs up and began chowing down on the bits of the little pile he could reach, so I went behind him, grabbed his fat ass and heaved him into the truck. He turned to nip at me, but I slammed the door before he could manage it. Looking at him through the window of my pickup, I felt some kind of way about it. His temperament notwithstanding I had to admit that the little guy was cute. Though I¡¯d done my share of nefarious deeds, taking charge of any animal just for it to be violated in this way seemed somehow worse, but I dismissed these momentary sympathies and told myself that in the end every sodomite squid, ornery pig, and one-legged drunk had a part to play. Without another thought I banished these inconsequential worries and got in, threw the truck into drive and hurried home before anyone could uncover my big bacon heist while it was still in the making. - - - Forty minutes later, I pulled back into my lot. The sun was well and truly starting its journey across the sky, a finger¡¯s width above the horizon. Jibbly of course had pissed on the floorboard of my truck, which admittedly helped me to feel vindicated in what I was about to subject him to. I hopped out and slammed the door shut behind me, neglecting to shut the truck down in my hurry to get Jibbly out before he relieved himself again. ¡°C¡¯mere,¡± I barked once I¡¯d crossed over to the other side of the truck and opened the door. Jibbly stared out at me with glossy, porcine eyes, clearly content to stay exactly where he was, and I groaned. I¡¯d given him the rest of his pig feed after he¡¯d nipped my thigh to keep him busy, and so I didn¡¯t have anything else to bribe him with. I went inside and grabbed the oldest still seemingly edible thing in my refrigerator, a plate of miniature pulled pork sandwiches I¡¯d nabbed some weeks ago from the mess on base. For a long moment I stared at the plate¡¯s contents in contemplation, then shrugged. If coaxing a domesticated animal to commit cannibalism was the worst thing I did that day, I¡¯d kiss my uncle. I unwrapped the plastic cover and tossed it into my garbage can as I walked out and carried the tray warily down the driveway, giving the corpse a wide berth. Finally, I placed the tray strategically next to the girl¡¯s body. Jibbly watched from the truck and I could see in his eyes that he knew I wanted him to get out, but stubborn as ever, he¡¯d decided to stay. I grabbed one of the sandwiches and took a big bite. Perhaps ¡°still edible¡± was going a bit far for the sandwiches, but I thought of the president and intimated an ¡°mmm¡± noise so as to not let Jibbly know what I actually thought of the poor quality pulled pork. Jibbly, true to his nature, let out a little hork and hopped out of the truck in a dash to the tray of sandwiches. If it bothered him at all that he might have been eating his near cousin he did not show it, and I wasn¡¯t about to make any attempt to chane his mind. His backside was to the girl¡¯s open guts, and just seconds into his pigging out, Blart¡¯s tentacles whipped forth and latched onto his flank. Out of an inexplicable urge to give either Jibbly or the horny extraterrestrial some privacy, I¡¯m honestly still not sure to this day, I turned around. Jibbly shrieked and began running around like¡­ well, like a foot long squid was forcing its way past his sphincter. I went and found my garden hose and another beer. Sipping and thinking over the chaos of the morning, I sprayed out the inside of my truck¡¯s cab while Jibbly became acquainted with someone who was as much a pain in the ass as he was. - - -