Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #18 September 2015 | Page 70

I hit the lights for the sake of the few
pedestrians gawking at the conglomerate, but knew
better than to waste my time with sirens or the
loudspeaker. These, as all the others, would have to be
removed by hand. We donned our plastic gloves and
slowly made our way to the edge of the tangled, slimy
mound of aliens.
Belches and wet slaps spouted from all over
as they wriggled and romped through the mire and
over one another, all the while depositing more bodily
fluids and laughing hysterically. “Check that out!”
wafted out from somewhere inside of the swarm of
bodies. “Look at that stuff on their heads...”
“What is that?” another visitor questioned.
“They call it har,” one of the little drunkards
confirmed, “Get it? Har, har, har...” and the entire
mass erupted into mad laughter. Wet slaps and the
gurgling of disturbed pockets of slime crept out of the
pile as the contorting forms slid over and passed one
another.
I hated them...
“These things are going to start drowning in
their own fluids if they keep this up,” Charlie absently
commented.
I started to agree, but something slammed into
the forefront my mind and stuck there, and I stared
at the side of the rookie’s head with my mouth open
for what seemed like a very long time. “Call for some
wagons and extra cuffs, I’ll get started with them...” I
told Charlie and nodded towards the pile.
A questioning look slipped over Charlie’s face,
but he followed my instructions diligently. I took off
my overcoat and leaned down as close to one of the
visitors as I could without getting their mess on my
shoes and began to whisper, “Hey, you know what? If
you guys think this is fun,” I waived my hand at the
air around me. “You should teleport to the ocean.”
“If you get this drunk from the air, just think

of how buzzed you will
get in deep water. The
bottom of the ocean
is made of the same
stuff as our air, but
there’s more of it, and
it’s in much higher
concentrations.” I
paused, “It’s more
potent, is what I’m
saying.”
At the word
‘potent,’ the eyes of many of
the
lethargic creatures snapped open, and they began
to disappear two and three at time. Within minutes,
the last of the stumbling and laughing aliens had
vanished, leaving a pile of malodorous goo covering
the intersection. “What are you doing?” came from
behind me.
I turned to see Charlie standing at the front of
the cruiser with an uncharacteristic frown distorting
his brow, “I’m solving our problems.”
“What are you talking about? They’re just
teleporting somewhere else to do the same thing, and
you know it.”
“Not this time,” I revealed. “This time they’re
teleporting to the bottom of the oceans.”
Charlie’s expression changed from one of
confusion to shock, “You can’t do that, the Alien
Rights League will be all over you. It’s against the law
to kill them!”
“Take it easy. The ARL can’t do anything,
because I’m not killing them. They don’t drown, they
don’t even breathe like us. They’ll go to the bottoms
of the oceans and get even more wasted than they are
now, but they’ll stay there.” I smiled as the realization
fought its way into Charlie’s head, then offered,
“Problem solved...”
Over the next hour the reports started to
flood the airwaves and the ether; the aliens were

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