Invasion of the Alien Parasite From Interdimensional Space
by Lisa Marie Hagerman
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
Joey was trapped inside his own body.
He struggled to struggle. Focused thinking seemed to help. After all, he managed to point with his left hand to show the alien where the toilet was so he didn’t piss all over his bedroom carpet.
Joey tried moving his left hand again. He could do it if he concentrated. Just as his body was about to step out of the bathtub, Joey reached out with his left hand and turned off the shower.
It worked.
Joey reached for the towel. His right hand grabbed his left wrist to stop him.
Let go, Joey thought, it’s just a towel.
“How do I know it is not a weapon?”
Joey spoke these words, but they didn’t come from him. The alien in his brain was using his mouth to speak. Joey had no control of his own voice.
It’s just a towel. Look at it.
Joey looked at it.
Joey thought, Go to the mirror. We need to talk.
Joey went to the mirror and looked at himself.
The face in the mirror was — and was not — Joey McPhee’s. The face Joey saw was cold and hard. It was as if Joey’s malevolent twin was staring at him from a parallel universe.
Joey thought: What are you?
The face that was not Joey McPhee spoke back. “I am General Q’rg of the Zrgn. I am the first of billions who will inhabit your human bodies and take over your planet.”
Like hell you will.
“You are a prisoner of General Q’rg. In time, your consciousness will assimilate into my consciousness. Do not resist.”
This brain isn’t big enough for the both of us, Joey thought. Get out of my head.
“You are a disobedient host. I will cut off communication between brain hemispheres so I will not hear your disrespectful, inferior thoughts.”
The gaze broke. Joey was no longer looking at his malevolent twin in the mirror. He was looking at his naked, sodden self.
Joey’s right hand grabbed his phone. As he turned to leave, Joey managed to reach out with his left hand to pull the towel off the towel bar. This time his right hand did not try to stop him.
Joey stepped into the carpeted hallway. Using his free hand, he tried to cover himself with the towel. Thankfully, his grandmother couldn’t see him. She was cooking breakfast in the kitchen, on the other side of the small, single-story home. He could hear bacon sizzling in a pan. Joey sniffed. The aroma of frying bacon wafted into his nostrils. He could not stop himself from snapping open his jaws.
When Joey entered his room, his right thumb opened Instagram and selected the live video option. Oh no.
Joey was about to be livestreamed to the world... naked.
Joey dropped the towel and tried to grab the phone with his left hand. His right hand responded with an uppercut to his chin. Joey fell backward, onto his bed, momentarily stunned. Then he got up and fought with himself for control of the phone. When he took a step toward his desk, his right hand released the phone, grabbed the scissors from his desk, and pointed it at his throat.
If you kill me, Joey thought, you’ll kill your host body. Joey hoped this would dissuade the alien in his brain from hurting him.
“I swore an oath to sacrifice my life for the survival of my fellow Zrgnians. Your death will be my honor.”
Joey let go of the phone.
Joey watched with dull antipathy as his right hand searched his desk drawer and found duct tape. With some difficulty, the alien parasite used his jaws and right hand to tear off a long strip from the roll and tape his left wrist to the armrest of the chair. Then it tore off another strip and taped his left ankle to the chair leg.
Joey’s right hand held the phone at a distance and tapped the button to go live. Joey could not stop himself.
Attention Human Beings of Earth, Third Planet from Sun, Orion-Cygnus Arm of Milky Way Galaxy, Laniakea Supercluster, in Universe of Four Dimensions. I am General Q’rg of the Zrgn, announcing the first wave of the invading force escaping our dying universe.
I am looking for volunteers to share your brain with us. If you share your brain with us in peaceful cohabitation, forever will your name be praised by the Zrgnians, for all of eternity. If you resist, your consciousness will be extinguished after we take over your brain.
Make your choice now. Send me a message at the following number to volunteer your brain and we will honor you and sing your praises. If any of my fellow Zrgnians are already out there, contact me so I can determine how many of us have arrived.
Comments appeared on the screen:
WTF?
Is that Joey McPhee?
OMG he’s naked.
Sounds cool. Sign me up!
The number of viewers started at four, and grew exponentially. Joey struggled helplessly at the duct tape as he read comments mocking the crazy naked guy announcing the invasion of Earth. His phone buzzed with incoming text messages.
Some of the messages were helpful. One of them came from a paranormal researcher who studied interdimensional aliens and wanted to meet with him. Another came from a mindfulness expert who recommended taking a break from social media. One message suggested finding his happy place with mango sherbet.
Joey heard his bedroom creak open. The aroma of pancakes and bacon and scrambled eggs wafted into his nostrils. Joey sniffed, then snapped open his jaws.
“Good morning sunshine,” Grandma Beatrice said.
His head turned to look at his grandmother. She wore a lemon-yellow bathrobe and curlers in her hair.
“Oh my.” She shut the door. “I’m sorry dear,” she said through the door. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you while you were making happy with yourself. Get dressed and come to the table for breakfast.”
Oh, the humiliation. Joey’s only hope at this point was to be taken to an insane asylum and never be seen by humanity again.
* * *
“What is it?” Q’rg pointed with its right hand at the substances displayed on the table in front of him. Q’rg’s uncooperative left hand and leg were still taped to the chair. Q’rg found it difficult, but not impossible, to shuffle through the house while dragging the chair. Q’rg had no other choice. Q’rg wished its host consciousness would surrender so Q’rg could accelerate the Zrgnian takeover of the planet.
“Joey, sweetie, why did you tape yourself to the chair?” the woman said.
Q’rg leaned over and utilized its olfactory organ to examine the volatile compounds emanating from the substances from a relatively safe distance without touching or ingesting them.
“What is in these substances?” Q’rg said.
The woman frowned. Q’rg could not tell if the woman did not comprehend the question, or was scheming to thwart Q’rg’s takeover of the planet.
“What’s in the eggs and bacon?” the woman said. “Protein. I used Bisquick to make the pancakes.”
Q’rg pointed to two strips of what Q’rg suspected to be dead flesh. “What is this protein?”
“That’s bacon. Bacon comes from pigs.”
Q’rg turned and peered out the window to see how many Pig prisoners of war remained for execution.
* * *
Mrs. Beatrice McPhee watched her grandson sniff the eggs, bacon, and pancakes on his plate like he’d never seen food before in his life. His black hair was a wet, uncombed mess. His t-shirt was askew, with one side bunched over his left shoulder, exposing that side of his body. A towel wrapped awkwardly around his body was taped to his waist with at least a dozen long, vertical strips of gray duct tape. Considering she had accidentally walked in on him making happy with himself, he didn’t seem happy. Or himself.
Not at all.
“You’re not...” she paused, careful to use the right words. “You don’t seem yourself, Joey. Is everything okay?”
Joey sat straight and stared directly into her eyes. “All is satisfactory, woman.”
Beatrice frowned. She did not like being addressed that way. Beatrice did not appreciate the ill manners of this generation. Perhaps she was old-fashioned, but this also meant believing in old-fashioned manners.
“Joseph Jonathan McPhee, if you’re going to live in my house, you need to follow my rules and use your manners. You will address me as ‘Ma’am.’”
“Ma’am. Ingest for me some of this substance to ensure my safety and nourishment.”
“Don’t forget to say ‘please.’”
“Please.”
She picked up her fork and went to Joey’s side of the table. As Joey stared at her with unblinking eyes, she took a bite of scrambled eggs. Then she broke off a piece of bacon and ate it, followed by the pancake. She returned to her seat.
She watched with alarm as Joey gripped the fork like a weapon and repeatedly stabbed his eggs, as if trying to kill it. He dropped the fork beside his plate and grabbed a fistful of eggs, shoving it into his mouth, followed by the bacon. When Joey grabbed a pancake, Beatrice placed the bottle of syrup in front of him. But instead of pouring it over his pancakes, Joey brought it to his mouth and tried to suck on it like a water bottle.
After Joey cleaned his plate by leaning forward and licking it, he sat up and stared at her, waiting for her to speak.
“How was breakfast?” She tried to sound casual, keenly aware of the tremor and higher pitch straining her voice.
“The nutrient substances are flavorful and digestible,” Joey said. “I overflow with gratitude. Forever will I sing your praises.”
Beatrice realized the young man who sat across the oak table from her was not her grandson Joey McPhee. Not at all.
She had seen this strange behavior before, from her husband Frank when he came back from ’Nam. Frank had warned her about an invasion of alien parasites. She didn’t believe him. That was back when she trusted the government. She had contacted the FBI to warn them about the aliens. Then the government took Frank away after he tried blowing up a transmission line to stop the invasion. She no longer trusted the government.
Beatrice left the table to go to the kitchen. She tore three sheets of aluminum foil off the roll and covered her head with it, over her hair curlers, to help keep the alien parasites out of her brain.
Beatrice wanted to talk to Joey, but was afraid the alien in his head would find out she knew about the invasion. She prayed that her sweet Joey was still in there somewhere.
She had an idea. “I have an idea. Let’s play Scrabble.”
She went to the family room and returned with the board game. She poured the letter tiles onto the dining table. This was how she communicated with her husband when she visited him in the mental hospital.
“We take turns spelling words.”
She placed letter tiles across the board. HOW CAN I HELP U.
She was not following the rules. She knew the alien parasite would not know how to play Scrabble.
Her grandson leaned over to read the words. Then he swept the board game and all the letter tiles off the table with his right arm.
* * *
Joey felt awful as he watched his grandmother on her knees, silently picking up the letter tiles. It was a sign of defeat. Normally she would have made him clean up his own mess. He didn’t want to make her miserable with his own problems. He had to let her know he was trapped in his body.
Joey remembered Grandpa had the same problem. He had to communicate with Grandpa with a tap code instead of like a normal person. Joey had believed Grandpa was crazy.
His grandmother had taught Joey the tap code so he could communicate with his grandfather in the mental hospital. His grandmother told him his grandfather taught her the tap code alphabet by writing on a napkin beneath a table using his left hand. His grandfather learned it when he found out POWs in Hanoi used it to communicate with each other. Joey remembered thinking this was a strange way to communicate.
Joey’s left hand was still taped to the chair. All he could do was the tap code. He hoped his grandmother would understand.
Using his left hand, Joey drummed a message against the arm of the chair. Thankfully, the alien didn’t stop him. Joey hoped that by closing off communication between brain hemispheres, the alien no longer had access to his own thoughts.
Tap tap tap. Tap tap...
She didn’t tap back. She wasn’t getting it.
Joey tapped over and over: HELP.
His grandmother peered at him.
Joey tapped: MANGO SHERBET. Then he added: PLEASE.
His grandmother went to the kitchen and opened the pad of paper she used for her grocery lists. She wrote as he tapped out letters. When he was finished, she looked at him and winked back, spelling OK in code with her blinks.
“I need to go to the grocery store.” His grandmother spoke with the fake-happy tone of someone trying too hard to be convincing. “I have a coupon that’s about to expire. Buy one and get the second at half price. I’ll be right back.”
She grabbed her purse off the kitchen counter and left the house.
* * *
General Q’rg sniffed the bright orange substance in the bowl.
“Try it,” the woman said. “It’s delicious. You’ll like it.”
After ensuring the safety of its host body by having the woman consume the first bite, Q’rg sampled the substance. The woman was correct. It was cold, and very flavorful.
Q’rg downed it fast. Then it hit Q’rg hard.
Brain freeze.
Q’rg screamed and grabbed its host head. As Q’rg curled into an infinitesimally tiny ball of pain, Q’rg’s conscious went into hibernation and abandoned control over the host brain.
* * *
Every morning Joey McPhee began his day by selecting a song from his grandmother’s Best of ABBA record collection and put it on the turntable. Then he had an ice-cold bowl of mango sherbet with his breakfast. A week after his grandmother smashed his phone, the headband, and the watch to pieces outside on the back patio with her cast iron frying pan, he opened gifts from his grandmother.
She got him an old fashioned flip phone with no screen.
And a Color Me Happy coloring book, with a 72-colored pencil set.
And a science fiction magazine to fill his mind.
Copyright © 2021 by Lisa Marie Hagerman
