Here is another of my original short stories entitled ‘IT’ — a fiction piece in the Science Fiction genre. Enjoy!
SHORT STORY:
‘IT’
By: Mariecor Agravante
I remember when I officially met ‘IT’ – how could I forget? ‘IT’ had overtaken my aunt’s body, ‘possessing’ her for some time before I even knew anything at all.
All I saw in the gray mid-day light that streamed into our apartment windows was my aunt pulling this man I had never seen towards her bedroom. I was seated in the living room, in full view of the two of them as they made their way beyond the entrance door. The behavior seemed rather uncharacteristic of my aunt, for I had never known her to be lustful. She was the quintessential staid librarian, with glasses and hair upswept into a 1950s-like bun. If ever there was any guy she’d have been interested in, he would have to compare in some way to all her literary favorites – such as Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy.
“He’s no Mr. Darcy,” my aunt would often say as she explained why she rejected someone. She thereby hardly ever went on any dates, for no guy seemed good enough for her.
That’s why seeing her bring a guy to her bedroom in the middle of her work day was extremely odd. Indeed, that moment was a red flag signaling something was way off-kilter. But I assumed she finally listened to her biological clock and was in a state of mid-thirties desire.
After they closed the door behind them, there was a period of time when one could hear excessive knocking sounds followed by shouts and screams – from him. Hearing that then made me feel astonished at how my aunt could even be as unbridled as that. Little did I know that those screams were not of ecstasy but of something more sinister.
At any rate, I didn’t leave our shared two-bedroom 1200-sqft apartment despite all the racket emanating from my aunt’s room. Why? For one, it was raining outside. I thus didn’t feel like traipsing through that, especially on a lazy late summer day. Besides, after hearing all the sounds from my aunt’s bedroom for a good eight minutes or so, I decided to wear headphones to drown the sound out as I played games on the desktop computer.
I played several computer games one after the other, and during that whole time I was engrossed in them I did not see my aunt’s door open. I naturally assumed they were still busy at their ‘biblical knowledge exchange’ session. But I eventually got hungry in the early evening hours, which necessitated the pausing of my computer game activities.
When I removed my headphones I noticed that the sounds had stopped from within my aunt’s room, which is understandable, since several hours had already passed. Perhaps they were dozing off and enjoying their après-session nap. To me it did not seem unnatural, for I had shared a house during my undergraduate days with some feisty and active roommates. Ho-hum.
I was in the middle of making myself a sandwich in the kitchen, when in walked my aunt. She was heavily covered in blood. I just about dropped my sandwich on the floor when she spoke, “Dear, I need your help to clean up what’s in my bedroom.”
Silent from shock, I followed her, wondering why she hadn’t called out as this guy attacked and harmed her. But her bedroom revealed something far more gory than I could ever imagine.
What was left of him were his head, hands, feet, and skeleton. Aghast, I looked at my aunt.
She disclosed, “Dear, I am no longer your aunt. I haven’t been your aunt in a while, in fact. I took over her body about two weeks ago while you were busy enjoying your summer vacation here in Boston.
“I’m actually what you would call an alien from outer space. Does that seem hard to fathom or believe? Don’t worry, that’s a good thing, because the other humans would never suspect it. They would merely dismiss it.
“My crew and I have a cloaked ship in orbit around your planet. We’re a scouting party sent ahead of our fleet to search for food resources. My fellow crewmates and I chanced upon your planet and have found human males to be rather tasty. That has been a very pleasant surprise.
“We tried every organism at least once here on earth, but the tastiest morsels have been human males. Of course, we mustn’t alert the rest of humanity that our fleet will be joining us soon. Hence, all of us in our scouting party have recruited human females to assist us with cleanup.
“These human females have been chosen to be our keepers. The keeper’s role is to protect our secret until our fleet arrives. And in exchange for the keeper taking on the duties we’ve assigned, each keeper shall be spared her life.
“So, what do you say, dear? Would you like to be my keeper? I’ve been staying here with you for a couple of weeks now and have observed how you are. You’d make a wonderful keeper, dear. Remember, just as you protect me, I shall protect you, too, when the time comes.”
And that’s how I met ‘IT’ – ‘IT’ the extraterrestrial. Ironic that one of my childhood daydreams was to have a close encounter of the third kind. But now, as an adult, hindsight has revealed to me that there are far better aspirations to have than that.
