Take Me To Your Alpha

In my family we only eat organic because my mom says they use too many chemicals on farm animals. I was thinking, what if it got out of hand? This is my science fiction story about that. (The characters are a little like my cousins in North Carolina.)

"Juss look at 'em." Zeb Horoway tilted his hat and spat tobacco juice with a buzz into the electrified moat. "Would you believe, each one o' them makes over two an' a half times as many Mickey D's half-pounders as an old-fangled beast?"

Cousin Hal looked at the shaggy brown and white Herefords lazing in the shade.  One gnawed on a chunk of commercial food, which it had buried after their sunrise feeding and dug up recently.

"TeknoGen's Bova-Meal," said Zeb's boy Jake. "They gotta eat it, or they quit makin' immy-no-bodies an' die of a cold."

 

A subordinate bull stalked the contented eater, his tail disrespectfully high.

 

Isaac Horoway whistled. "Epsilon 'ginst Delta. This oughta be good."

Epsilon lowered his horns with a snort. Delta clenched the artificial meat between his hooves and mooed don't-cross-me. It wasn't threatening enough. Epsilon charged.

The two slashed and gored. Their manic bellows shook the earth. The Bova-Meal rolled aside, forgotten. A cheeky rankless calf took the chance to snatch it.

 

Still the bulls fought. Cousin Hal watched in fascination. "How long will they keep it up?"

"Till one of 'em falls," said his Uncle Zeb, "or till Alpha shows up."

Hooves thundered over the hill. An unrivaled bellow split the air.

"By gosh," Jake gasped, "that's him!"

The Alpha Male appeared in all his curly-polled, bulgy-muscled glory. His tracking collar outflashed the Beta's by 200 watts. He didn't need to bellow again. He did anyway. Delta and Epsilon backed apart, their horns dripping red. But Alpha was after the meat.

"Nooooo contest,” said Isaac.

The calf dropped his prize and dashed for cover with his tail between his legs. Alpha seized it. He trotted triumphantly under his personal bark-peeled tree to rend it in his massive jaws and share the pieces with his favorite cows.

Epsilon and Delta, meanwhile, slouched their separate ways in search of more prey.

A bell clanged from the distant farmhouse. "Soupson! Come an' git it!"

Unless the rabbits were sluggish today, the cattle had a while to wait. They weren't fed until the humans had eaten. It was one way of keeping them in line.

 

"How did they get that way again?" Hal asked, as they trudged up to the house.  His new cowboy boots were killing him.

Zeb Horoway wasn't real clear on nuclei or gene splicing or hormone activators, so he said, "Same way yew ain't lactose inn-tolerant like your daddy and grandaddy, an' yer a skollership plast-ick surgeon while the rest of us shovel cow pies like we have fer ginny-rations.  Gee-net-ick en-gin-eerin’. Three, four ginny-rations Homoziggous Altered, and them Herferds breed true to type--bigger, beefier, butchou better stay on yer side of the moat, or yer Bova-Meal."

"I had no idea they'd gotten that far. I hope they don't start coding for perfect noses before I’m fifty-five. ...Don't you need some kind of license?"

 

Zeb spat again. "TeknoGen owns the gene-alt'rin' thingubobbers. Few years back we had the vet come an' stick altered em-bree-yos up our ol' grass-eatin' cows so's they gave berth to carnyvores. All we gotta do's renew our Ag Deepartmint permit ev’ry April. We can do it on them Intarwebs."

A pigtailed girl met them on the porch. "Daddy! Mama sez you an' Jake an' Isaac better wash up good. We don't want Cousin Hal to think we's a buncha beasts."

"Thank ye fer passin' that on, Letty Sue.

"Yer welcome." Her denim overalls whisked back into the kitchen.

"Daddy, it sounds like Mama ain't talkin' to yew agin!" Jake exclaimed.

Zeb shooed a panting quintet of possum hounds away from the pump. "Ah held onta her weekly allowince. Ah knowed she was juss gonna hitch a ride to town an' buy the Midnite Star agin."

"Are you a skeptic, Uncle Zeb?" Hal inquired.

"Nothin' of the sort! Ah juss happen to thank that ladies havin' green-skinned babies an' Elvis walkin' among the livin' at 150 years old iand suchlike s morally wrong. If Zeldy ain't gonna guard herself aginst that kinda stuff, Ah'm gonna guard her like a dutyful husband."

He and his sons slicked their hair back with pump water, wiped their hands on their overalls, and clumped into the kitchen, followed by Cousin Hal. A large woman with streakily bleached hair and a calico apron gave a final stir to several pots. She switched off a mini TV in the middle of "Anomalies & Bizarrities" as the deep-voiced announcer was saying, "When placed under regressive hypnosis, the abductee--"

"Whut’s fer supper, Zeldy?" asked Zeb.

Zeldy avoided his eyes. "Isaac, tell yer daddy it's coon casserole, hush puppies an' red-ah'd gravy."

"Daddy, it's coon casserole, hush puppies an red-ah'd gravy."

"Sounds good, Mama!" Jake piped.

The men sat down.  Zeldy and Letty Sue carried the food to the table and joined them. "Will ye say the blessin', Isaac?" Zeldy asked.

Isaac folded his hands. "Thankyew, O Lord, fer thy giffs to man, of large brain and uhhh, 'posable thumbs, which enableth him to cree-ate the plants an' animals which provideth us with this bounty. A-men."

Feeding commenced. After a few minutes: "Jake, ask yer daddy to pass the gravy."

"Daddy, please pass the gravy to Ma."

Zeb passed it, glowering. "How's yer day, Zeldy?"

"Jake, tell him it was fair-to-middlin'."

 

"Daddy, Mama sezher day was fair--"

Jake was cut off by his father's elbow as he dove across the table to seize Zeldy by her throat. "Now see here, wommin, Ah'm sick an' tahr'd o' yew not talkin' to me!"

Zeldy’s blue-gooed eyes cut sideways. Her bosoms rose and fell ponderously. "Kids...tell this man I'm sick too."

The kids were silent.

Zeb sat back down. "Yer right.Yer still gettin' over yer ab-duction. Hal, did Ah ever tell yew Zeldy here was ab-ducted by one o' her flyin' saucers?"

"Not really," said Cousin Hal.

"Reely!  She was out weedin' her flah'rs one day, when this hoverin' thingummer up an' beamed her into a shahny silver hospittle room. Li'l green men drilled holes in her head an stuck an im-plant up her nose. They might even have trans-fused her with moonshine."

Jake slapped one knee. "Good one, Daddy!"

Zeldy's hands clenched in her lap. Her eyes bored straight ahead. Her lips pursed as if some alien power was slowly taking up residence in her. Suddenly the dishes began to jump and jitter. The floor vibrated.

"D'you feel a tremmer, Dad?" asked Isaac.

Zeb reached up to hold his hat on his head. "What in the hay-ell? Thar ain't no earth-quakes in the Carolahnas!"

"Ah don't thank it's no earthquake. Sounds more lahk a jet plane."

"It's them blasted A-rabs!" Zeb grabbed his shotgun and sprang out the door. Jake, Isaac, Letty Sue, and Cousin Hal quickly followed.

Zeldy Horoway sat lumpishly in place.  he heard Zeb holler, "GOOD JUMPIN' GOSH AL-MIGHTY! WILL YE LOOKIT THAT!"

It was no A-rab fighter-bomber that floated above the tobacco field. It looked more like an electronic Great Pyramid. Lights blipped and tubes hummed all over its bronze-plated body. A pink pool of energy encased its underside. Tobacco stalks flared like temporary torches in its shadow. The gravel driveway glowed. It loomed larger than the barn.

"ONE O’ YOU BOYS RUN GIT THE CAM'RA!"

Jake's feet pounded inside. The pyramid swung casually over the barn, then over the house. The trees bowed before it. Jake leaned out an upstairs window, brandishing the camcorder like a weapon. He leaned too far. His belt buckle snagged on a nail, and he hung there helplessly.

Jointed exhaust tubes huffed green glittery gas into the country air. The pyramid sprouted a foot at each corner and set down in the cow pasture.

"FER HEVVINSAKE, JAKE, CALL THE PAPER!"

"Cain'tchou see Ah cain't?"

The summit of the pyramid flipped back. A blood-red crystal ball swarmed out on a metallic tendril.

Hal could barely squeak. "What is that?"

"Dang whut it is!" cried Isaac. "Whut's it doin' on our property?"

"Daddy, it's lookin' at us," said Letty Sue. "Why's it lookin' at us?"

"It won't fer long." Zeb glared through his gunsights. BOOM!

Squizzzing! The bullet ricocheted. It drilled through the door of an ancient 2006 Dodge Ram where it sat up on blocks. The tendril recoiled like an ambushed copperhead. Its red eye brightened.

Jake had managed to scramble free. He stood on the porch in his long johns, clutching the cordlessphone. "Carolsville Herald? Have Ah got a story fer yew!"

Had anyone been brave enough to look into that red eye, they'd have looked straight into another--that of the crew member currently at the viewfinder. They were green, but they were neither little nor men. Rather they were homogenous blobs of neuron-dense protoplasm, evolved for maximum adaptability. Half a dozen of them sat, adjusting three-dimensional viewpyramids with their biomechanized hands. "Dominant lifeforms appear to be the hoofed quadrupeds, all right."

 

"Not the bipeds as Amorphio-Zeta and his vacuum-heads hypothesized."

 

"Can't a Blob be wrong once a century?"

 

"Amorphio-Zeta. Chlorocyte-Eta. You two can establish dominance hierarchy later. I'm the Alpha and I say we suit up and go outside. Okay, pack! The suits with the horns!"

 

A hatch opened. Miasmic emerald and ruby glows silhouetted seven cumbersome shapes. Seven silver suits, ballooning as if they were filled with liquid, floated to the grass. Each perched on four robot legs. Their heads were highly reflective glass domes with horns.

 

The cattle had no awe of them. They flaunted their horns in warning.

 

"Smmlugooooosh mkrgneep," said their leader. (Which was Blobby for, "Greetings, natives, we come in peace.")

 

The natives didn't buy it. They knotted into stomping clusters. Every few moments one would bellow, start to charge, and change its mind. They'd swerve from the sunflash off metallic hooves or glass horns. The bulls paced instead, posturing aggression.

 

"Fractrino-Gamma? Who's our interpreter?"

 

"Yes sir, Alpha sir." One of the silver suits pranced in carno-bovine body language. Insecure stance--We're not from around here. Lowered head and tail--We will abide by your rules. A single step forward--Take us to your Alpha Male.

 

The Beta bull cocked his head in suspicion. Then he bellowed thunderously. He tossed his nose toward the hill. The visitors activated their quadrafoot drives and were promptly led to Alpha's shade tree.

 

They rolled over, flashing their bellies. The huge bull lifted his leg like a dog. Thus anointed, the Blobs were accepted by the herd.

 

The Herald had immediately sent a van full of reporters to the Horoway farm. So did the papers from three neighboring counties. Channel 224 News sent five helicopters, three support vans, and Misty McLure.

 

"Hiiiiii! I’m Misty McLure and this is Channel 224 Action News, live from the Carol County farm of Zebulon Horoway the Fifth, where a UFO has just landed. Mrs. Horoway comments--"

 

"It's no Unidentified Flyin' Object," said Zeldy. "It's an alien spaceship. Like I told you TV people before, they're carryin' out exper'ments on Earth life. First people, now cows."

 

Misty's fake white smile half-blinded her. "And these are the same aliens that abducted you last September, Mrs. Horoway?"

 

"Ever'body wants to see a good dawg at work, commere!" Zeb hollered.

 

For once in its life, the ugly, wrinkle-snouted possum hound was in the spotlight. Zeb whacked its rump. "Siccem, Blue!"

 

The hound streaked over the moat bridge and under the gate, toward the milling herd of brown, white, and silver cattle. He focused on a fuzzy calf and nipped its hock. It bared its toothless gums. The possum hound darted tauntingly, and nipped again.

 

The calf's mother swiped her horns. The hound flew 30 feet. She mooed a call to the hunt.

 

That made for some magnificent shots with a backdrop of smoky blue-green North Carolina hills. Dog running...herd galloping...dog running...herd trampling. "And it's a kill!" screamed the overexcited reporter from the Bunkum County Bugle.

 

The Alpha Male dictated precedence in eating from the kill. The smashed but still succulent brain he claimed for himself. Beta through Lambda, then Mu through Omega got to lock horns over a few stringy bites for their cows. Last of all, the glossy new guys were tossed a femur.

 

Lenses zoomed on the lead alien crouched beneath a bush, discontentedly sucking marrow into a nourishment tube. "It arrived so recently. Yet we stand in admiring awe of its swift adaptation to our planet and the ways of our creatures. Surely there is some great lesson for man here."

 

Sunset. The reporters were reluctant to leave. Zeldy stirred an outdoor kettle of barbecue-'n-bugs for the bustling camp that had formed. All of a sudden the old dinner bell clanged. "Mercy, this stuff still wants half an hour to cook!"

 

"It's the guy on watch!" someone yelled.

 

Floodlights illuminated the foot of the hill. Alpha was facing the alien leader. They circled, tails high, both pawing the ground.

 

"If I know my Nature Channel, we're about to witness an establishment of dominance," said the Bugle.

 

The real bull bellowed and charged. The silver suit dodged. The bull bounded awkwardly after it, slashing his horns back and forth.

 

A spark shocked his sensitive nose.  He roared in pain, then bounded again. Those dazzlingly reflective horns gored his curly chest, dyeing his fur red. He backed away. One dazzling horn, though, was bent and crackling.

 

Alpha faked left. The alien lunged.  lpha swerved at the last instant. He reared up and pummeled the Blob’s bull-shaped suit beneath his hooves, with a chorus of hideous sloshing sounds.

 

"Is he gonna kill it?"

 

"I kind of hope not. EARTH SAVED BY COWS...now there's a bringdown."

 

The suit's forehead split open. A wand extended weakly. A lime-green laser bisected the night. Instantly the bull was vitrified into a hairy, glasslike statue.

 

The alien rolled to its robotic feet. It bellowed tinnily in triumph.

 

"In your opinion, Farmer Horoway, what significance does this confrontation have for the situation at large?"

 

"Waahl, he done killed our Alpha Male. That makes him the new Alpha."

 

The alien blustered among the cows, calves, and other bulls. One by one he made them roll over. Beta refused--and was greenly turned to glass.

 

"As you can see, he's now taking over your herd. Is he going to move up to us?"

 

"Waahl, Ah don't raghtly know."

 

"I do," said Zeldy. "He's gonna move down to us."

 

A novice anchor spoke up. "Mrs. Horoway, can you expand on that statement?"

 

"It's obvious we're the lower lifeforms here. Why else wud they live out in them big open feelds, an' keep us crammed in itty-bitty houses?"

 

Another microphone shoved into Zeb's face. "You're licensed to own genetically altered livestock. What steps are you, as an agriculturist, going to take?"

 

"They is altered, ain't they? If we hold their TeknoGen BovaMeal, they'll die in a day or two."

 

News cameras followed Zeb through the barn as he deprogrammed all the feeder-bots. "Are you sure this will work, Mr. Horoway?"

 

"Absotively, posolutely."

 

"I'd like to give my life insurance guy a call anyway."

 

"Cell reception's kinda spotty," said Zeldy. "You may hafta form a line for our phone."

 

Within a few hours, warnings went out over the radio. "Attention, all listeners. You've gotta hear this. Aliens (ha! ha!) have allegedly landed in Carol County.  They have shown themselves to be indifferent to the welfare of humanity. Steps toward their incapacitation are being taken. You are advised to enter the county with (ha!) caution, it's obviously full of nuts."

 

No one on the Horoway farm was listening. With one flush toilet for about a hundred people, they were busy learning to survive in the rough.

 

"Rough" can be defined as any place where bells ring at 4 a.m. Zeb leaped to the window in his convict-striped pajamas. "Rise an' shahn, ever'body!"

 

Zeldy was already up and fully dressed. "It's the watch agin," she said.

 

For possibly the first time since her birth, Misty McLure's hair was imperfect.  Smudged ruby lips curled nervously back from her famous teeth. "We have a striking new development. They're hooking the cattle up to what appears to be some kind of--of device."

 

"Good Lord, they's killin' 'em!" cried Jake.

 

The humans gaped at the apparatus that stood beside the spacecraft like a robot octopus. One by one, the suits prodded the real cows onto a bronze mattress and hooked them up by the jugularEvery ounce of blood in their bodies was drawn, hissing, through a latticework of clear tubes and bubbly cylinders. Then they were heaped, comatose, to the side.

 

"Cud be our cow problims is over," the newly-famous farmer said on camera.

 

"Cud be our alien problims is just beginnin'," said that cheerful wife of his.

 

By noon the last cow was on her feet, happy and healthy and--though no one would guess to look at them--Bova-Meal independent.

 

The humans got a clue when they were still alive the next day, which happened to be Sunday. That night, led by Alpha, they pawed rocks into the electrified moat until it shorted.

 

By midafternoon, the chickens had been trampled into submission.

 

On Monday, cattle native and alien began feasting on the fields and vegetable gardens.

 

On Tuesday they took all the tractors and the reporters' vans joyriding. They crashed them up until the roads were completely blocked in both directions.

 

When the engines started revving, the humans crowded into the farmhouse. And Alpha decided to keep them there.

 

On Wednesday, Carol County was declared a disaster area. Planes flew overhead, dropping survival supplies by parachute. The horned beasts tore the packages open and ate what could be eaten.

 

On Thursday, automatic rifles were heard firing in the woods. They didn't get very far.

 

On Friday morning the telephone rang. "Farmer Horoway? This is the President. Our ground invasions have been to no avail. Will you authorize a very tiny nuclear strike? You'll have up to a 20% chance of survival if you have a basement."

 

"Absotively not!" said Zeb. "D'yew know how hard it is to sell yer crops once that gits started?"

 

Cousin Hal had long since become a plunger-wielding member of the High Priesthood of the Bathroom. Zeldy and Letty Sue were fussing with a box, a length of fishing line, a forked stick, and a scrawny carrot the Cellar Police had overlooked. “We best tie the string to the side," said Letty Sue, "so's the rabbit won't see it."

 

"It don't matter. Ither way it'll come down on him."

 

"He won't go underneath if he thanks it’s a trap, Mama."

 

"With them space cows runnin' rations, he'll risk innythang."

 

Zeb spat on the floor. "That durnfool gadget won't never work."

 

"Wanna bet?" Letty Sue sassed.

 

"I'll betchou the drumstick of whatever yew ketch."

 

"Fine," said Zeldy. "If we don't ketch it, you git the drumstick."

 

No cows were in sight. Letty Sue darted into the yard. She squared the box over the carrot and propped it up with the stick. Then she skedaddled back to the porch, where a dozen hungry souls had convened.

 

A ribby rabbit creep-hopped out of the bushes. "C'mon, supper...c'moooon..."

 

It couldn't resist the temptation. Zeldy yanked the clothesline. The box toppled. "Whooeee! We's eatin' tonaght!"

 

Letty Sue lifted the box. Her mother grabbed the rabbit and snapped its neck. She handed it joyfully to her daughter.

 

At the sound of the crick! something snorted. Hoofbeats pounded around the house. It was the original Gamma and he was feeling like a snack.

 

"Back!" cried Letty Sue. "Git back!"

 

"Toss it here, sweetie!"

 

The girl flung the carcass back to her mother.  She somersaulted under Gamma's shaggy belly. By the time he wheeled around, the two of them had taken refuge in the rusted stock trailer still hitched to that '06 Dodge.

 

Zeldy drew a steak knife from the waistband of her skirt. She raggedly skinned the rabbit and tossed it to the floor. The fragrance of fresh blood lured Gamma up the ramp. Zeldy and Letty Sue slipped through the small front door.  hey sneaked round and slammed the trailer shut.

 

"Haha! We gotchou now!" Letty Sue cried.

 

When Gamma realized he was trapped, he forgot the rabbit. He bellowed with fury and kicked up a storm. The rest of the Earth cattle came galloping to his aid. They crowded around the front of the trailer and mooed in consolation and inquiry.

 

Zeb and his sons tiptoed off the porch. "Yew ladies crazy? C'mon in the house while they's dis-tracted!"

 

"You crazy?" Zeldy retorted. "We got us a chance to trap 'em!"

 

"They’ll chow us down!"

 

"Not if they's in there." Zeldy leaned around from the fback of the trailer. She pulled the pin that dropped the ramp.

 

Now the whole herd smelled the bloody rabbit. Gamma had no right to squat in there and hog it! They crushed their way aboard, shaking the old trailer half to pieces.

 

"Zeb, you fool! Help me shet the door!"

 

The trailer jounced and juddered as the cattle fought viciously over a mere shred of fuzz and blood. "Whadda we do now?" asked Letty Sue.

 

"Yeah, Daddy," said Isaac, "whadda we do now?"

 

Alpha and his six fellow aliens emerged from the tractor shed.

 

"Run!"

 

The house was too far. Zeb snatched Letty Sue's pigtails and hauled her into the Dodge's cab. Jake and Isaac tumpled in on top of them.

 

Zeldy struggled to flatten herself against the trailer's rocking side. As the suits trotted closer, she let it down.

 

Alpha led the stampede into the fray. Zeldy started to heave the ramp back up. Too soon! Catching sight of the round, red-faced human hopping around the corner, the other six spooked backward, out of the trailer.

 

Inside, Alpha proceeded to break up the fight.

 

Zeldy hurled herself into the cab. "Drive, Zeb! I dunno how long that rusty crate'll hold 'em!"

 

The geriatric pickup's keys had rusted into the ignition. Zeb shoved it into gear. It lurched forward on its half-congealed gasoline. The trailer jolted after it. The road being clogged by mangled vehicles, he ploughed across his prize tobacco field. Then a field of beans, then a field of corn.

 

The aliens galloped behind, alternately mooing and squooshing in alarm.

 

They jarred onto the main road. The fly-specked speedometer twinged up to 70. The silver cows pulled up their legs and kicked on their rocket-packs.

 

Smoke burped from the Dodge's every crevice. It crashed through orange-striped barricades into the ghost town that had been Carolsville. The trailer zigged and zagged. Past the corner store, the used car lot, the slaughterhouse...

 

Zeldy pointed. "G'win there!" she yelled.

 

The loading doors to the cold-storage room hung open. Sublimed white dry-ice drifted out like horror-movie fog. Zeb spun the wheel. The bald tires wailed.  In they went.

 

The aliens had floated effortlessly on their tail for miles. One whiff of dangling beef carcasses, however, was one whiff too much. Three of them, stricken with horror, bawled and retrorocketed. The other three, less quick to empathize with every species they mimicked, fell upon the carcasses and began devouring them.

 

The truck and trailer smashed through the rear loading doors, throwing pieces of the doors and themselves in a wide circle, and careened through the back streets of Carolsville. Abandoned dogs howled in their wake. They crushed trash cans and Big Wheels, kerbumped over slow or stupid dogs, trailed lines of laundry into the dirt. They were briefly airborne over an embankment before crashing (with an agonized groan from under the hood) down on the red dirt of Five-Mile Drive, heading out of town.

 

Zeb finally stopped on the steep side of Mica Mountain. The family piled out to wave away choking black fumes and survey the situation. The local creek lashed through a stony gorge 300 feet below.  The trailer hopped and snarled, creaked and bulged.

 

"Kin we push it?" Zeldy murmured.

 

"Ain't no way." Zeb pushed back his hat. His eyes were oddly bright. He spat. "Jake...Isaac... yew tek good care of yer mama an li'l sister, now, yew hear?"

 

"Daddy, don't go nowhere!" Letty Sue wailed. She threw her arms around him.

 

"Good-bye, dear," said Zeldy.

 

"G'bye, Zeldy Rae Fancy Jae Horoway. Ah'm awful sorry Ah didn't believe yew."

 

"Thank nothin' of it."

 

"Ah won't." Zeb got back in the truck. He floored it.

 

The truck nose-dove off the side of Mica Mountain. The trailer arced after it, mooing in rising terror until its 300-foot plunge ended with a shattering of orange fire on the rocks of the creek.

 

"We kin save ye some grief, Mama." Jake patted his mother's stolid shoulder. "Isaac an me'll fetch his ashes."

 

The boys started the hike downward. The women waited. Letty Sue seemed to be braiding her fingers. Her thin young body was frozen straight and still, her back to the gorge where the flames crackled and the creek sang. Her pale blue eyes were riveted ahead.

 

"That ain't the way, sweetie." Zeldy gripped her daughter's forearms. "Yew cain't let these things tek hold of yew."

 

Letty Sue whispered. "It ain't that."

 

The rolls on the back of Zeldy's neck prickled. She slowly turned around. Six silver suits were just hoofing it up the road, their fuel-depleted rockets slung across their backs.

 

The two humans clung to each other. All they heard was an indecipherable series of squelches and beeps as the Blobs conferred. "I smell burning meat."

 

"It's coming from down there."

 

"Well, we can't climb with all this junk." Chlorocyte unslung his useless rockets and not-so-useless green vitri-laser guns.

 

"What about the bipedal females?"

 

"Didn't you read my previous report? They're not the ones that shoot."

20 minutes later, Jake and Isaac...who hadn’t trooped the terrain of a thousand strange planets, and took longer to find a safe path down into the gorge...stumbled upon the scene of a Blob smorgasbord. Bovine suits hunched about a scorching scrap heap. The three that had initially wavered out of sympathy had been goaded by the other three into partaking. They slurked the charred flesh of the engineered cattle, the hapless bipedal male, and their own Alpha into their tubes, and talked among themselves.

 

"This is incredible. It actually tastes better cooked."

 

"Sure smells funny, though."

 

"That's not the meat!"

 

Before the boys could make a run for it, glinting horns prodded them out from the rocks they had crouched behind. "Will you look at this?" Fractrino, the interpreter, gloated in English. "A pair of spies!"

 

"Let's flash-fry them."

 

"Hexes!  We left our weapons up above."

 

"Why don't we try domesticating them? Maybe they can cook for us."

 

Fractrino translated. The Horoway boys were only too quick to agree. "In-in-innythang yew s-say, Yer Beta-ness!" Isaac stuttered. "Ah mean, now, Yer Alpha-ness! Ah mean, Yer Alien Majisty!"

 

"Yew done lost yer mind?" Jake yelped. "We cain't cook!"

 

Two desperate screams echoed up the mountain: "MA-A-A-MAAA!"

 

"Mind yerself, Letty Sue." Zeldy stuck a laser gun in her calico bosom, and started walking down the trail into the gorge.

Reviews

[UncleFossil]

Overall this one just blows for s**t. Stick to writing twilight fan fiction.

[Rebecca Rogers]

Your writing is good for a 13 year old. However, I'm afraid the slang became a bit tedious and I actually got tired of trying to read it. I hope you don't think people like me, who live in the South, actually talk like this.