“I don’t always drink this much you
know,” said the strange man on the stool next to me, “normally I keep to
myself, trying to avoid these, eh…creatures.”
“Creatures?”
I curiously asked, “Maybe you should head home buddy; get some rest.” I
couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or his strange personality talking.
“Yeah,
all you hum… people runnin’ around, making problems for me, giving me more work
to do,” he grumbled at me through jagged, barred teeth.
“Sorry?
I don’t quite catch your meaning. What do you do?” I questioned politely.
“Nothing
you’d know ‘bout, I’m not from around here…Hey bartender, another shot over
here.” He demanded. The bartender cautiously drained the last of the bottle
into the small glass, while obviously hiding from the cold, lifeless stare that
the man gave everybody.
“Who’re
you working for? I may know ‘em, it’s a pretty small town. Where are you from
anyways?” Seemingly annoyed by questioning, he went on mumbling about things
that I couldn’t understand, in a language that I didn’t know. His head tilted
back slightly as he looked at the yellow, water-stained ceiling. I didn’t hear
another word from him after that; the last I heard from him was the loud
‘Crack!’ of his head on the floor that followed the toppling of his stool. Nobody
moved. We couldn’t. Somebody had frozen the clock above our heads, prevented
the taking of breaths, blinking, and thoughts of what to do next. A hundred
years passed by in a second; some cruel joke being played by an unknown force.
Then, just as if the clock began moving double it’s previous speed, everything
moved. There was cause to be panicked, but not enough for this chaos. A woman
screamed; tables flew different directions as everyone ran to escape. I didn’t
understand at first, why wasn’t anybody helping him? Then I saw it: the
luminescent puddle of green blood streaming in all directions. It moved around
at first, but then began to sink into the grimy, worn-down tiles as they melted
away beneath it.
I
contemplated going to him, to maybe check his pulse and resuscitate him if
possible, but the smoking and bubbling floor made me decide against it. The
liquid sizzled every time it made contact with any object.
It
happened slowly at first, but then the man began to deteriorate quickly in the
acid. His skin and muscles dripped from his body like butter and his bones
disintegrated to nothing. Within a few moments, there was nobody left in the
room except the acidic, green slime and me. The alien corpse was gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment