Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #18 September 2015 | Page 68

“I hate it when they do that...” was all I could say. The little shits could teleport at will, without any machinery or visible assistance. They constantly appeared and disappeared, and it was annoying. My mind drifted back to the first contact; one of them had appeared out of nowhere and found itself in the flight path of a commercial jet. The plane smacked it with a wing, immediately killing it, but the body fell and created quite a sensation. Within hours, more started to manifest all over the city, and days later, they were appearing all over the world. Not long after, the Green Unit was formed out of pure necessity. Charlie quickly pounced on his charge and pushed the being to the ground. He then rolled it onto its belly, where he secured handcuffs around the creature’s pudgy ankles. They had to be secured by their legs, because the things had no bones in their thin arms and could slide them right out of restraints. The cuffs also stopped them from disappearing; they couldn’t teleport with anything metallic in contact with their bodies, though it seemed as if they frequently forgot that fact. and dragging the stoned alien to the patrol car. The creature squawked and protested, claiming its face was being torn off, then erupted with laughter as it was tossed into the back of the cruiser. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on it anywhere. A rustling in the bushes just off the dirt road stole my focus, and I moved towards the disturbance. I heard the unmistakable sound of prolonged flatulence and followed the noise to its source; the escaped alien had reappeared not more than twenty feet away. It was common. The things were so wasted that they couldn’t teleport themselves with any accuracy or distance. Hence, once they were here, they never left. I reached into the pocket of my trench coat and retrieved my own cuffs as I approached the drunken alien. I looked down at the slovenly creature now coated in leaves, sand and pebbles adhering to the waste covering most its body. To hell with this, echoed in my head. “Ahhhh! You’re killing me! It hurts! They’re too tight! Ahh!!! I’m dying!!!” the creature wailed while grunting between its cries with the effort of attempted teleportation. “What is it?” Charlie called out. The rookie recoiled and looked at me, his dark eyes revealed a mixture of surprise and confusion, “Um, boss? I mean, Sergeant Morgan, sir. Is this for real?” “Nothing. It must have been an animal,” I lied, not wanting to touch the drunk, disgusting thing rolling around in its own excretions. I walked back to the cruiser and climbed into the driver’s seat, waited for Charlie to get in, and we departed for the station to drop off our prisoner. “Don’t buy into that crap, it’s just drama,” I confirmed. Short on theatrics the aliens were not, however, their skin was extremely tough. They didn’t seem to register physical damage as pain, even when their nearly fluorescent green blood was spilled. But they sure acted as if they were in total agony. If anyone were foolish enough to fall for the ploy, the reward was either a vanishing alien or an explosion of extraterrestrial excrement. “Just put him in the car.” Charlie obliged, grabbing the chain of the cuffs Within minutes of trading the dirt road for pavement, the obnoxious droning of the alien lush snoring in the back seat assaulted my ears. Charlie giggled, and I let my face drop into a scowl before glancing at him. His elation ran away, but I held his gaze for several seconds to convey my seriousness. The younger man cleared his throat and looked straight ahead. 68