Alien Pregnant by Elvis, page 2
“No, no! Not Mister Ghoul! He’s likely to eat whatever is in there.”
“That nice Mister Ripper, reincarnated and all? Not on your life . . .”
We went through everyone we could think of. We even considered going down to the lake and asking shy Nessie, but none of us knew how to speak plesiosaur.
Sighing in dejection, we sat and watched Igor some more. And as kids all over the world do, we began talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Rikki wanted to be a leading man in religious movies, playing the part of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Tikki on the other hand wanted to be a psychiatrist and work with mentally disturbed people, in particular those who hallucinate. Tavi wished to be a professional football player, a triple threat, so to speak. Then they asked me what I wanted to be.
“Oh, a writer, I think . . . that, or a newspaper reporter.”
“What’ll you write about?” asked Rikki.
“They say that you should write what you know,” I answered.
“Hell,” sneered Tikki, “you don’t know much about anything other than the neighborhood.”
Somewhat stung, I shot back, “Well, I’ll write about that, then.”
Tavi’s eyes widened. “You’d write about the neighborhood? Bah, who would be interested in a bunch of ordinary homespun tales?”
“Why, lots of people, that’s who,” I spat.
“No-brain idiots, you mean!” shouted Rikki.
I jumped to my feet. “You leave the kid on Mulberry Street out of this!”
Rikki leaped to his feet, too, of necessity bringing Tikki and Tavi up with him. “Oh, yeah!” he shouted.
I balled my fists. “I’m gonna beat the tar out of you, Rikki,” I growled, stepping forward to take a swing.
“Oooo noooo!” wailed Tikki and Tavi simultaneously, struggling with Rikki as to whether they would cower or fight.
BLANG! came a loud clang from the hole. In our heat we had completely forgotten about Igor. We spun around and peered down into the pit. Hell, he’d dug down past the foundation of the great pyramid and had struck something metallic.
“Igor, wait!” all four of us shouted.
Obediently, Igor straightened up and waited as we slid down into the crater, now one hundred fifty feet deep, all of us wondering what he had found. Even so, I was still burning over Rikki’s remarks about me being a writer. Especially those concerning me writing about neighborhood events. One of these days I’d show him. And as to my reading public, well, we’d just see whether or not they were no-brainers.
We scrambled around to where Igor stood, and we looked down at what he’d uncovered.
Hmmm, maybe I could write about this. Yeah! This could be my first factual newspaper article—“Giant Robot Finds Alien Spaceship Beneath Great Pyramid.”
Then I’d go on from there, writing about Gramps and Bram and Beautiful Alice and the kid on Mulberry Street, and all the rest of the folks and doings in the neighborhood. I don’t care what Rikki says, I’m certain that there is an intelligent public out there just waiting for true-to-life, homespun, backyard tales like this.
No-brainers, ha!
The Bride of Bigfoot
by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Hugo Award-winner Lawrence Watt-Evans answers the Fiction Writer’s Eternal Question (“Where do you get your ideas?”) by acknowledging inspiration from a genuine tabloid headline: “Bigfoot Stole My Wife!”
The author of numerous SF and Fantasy short stories and novels, a few of his more recent titles include The Spell of the Black Dagger, Out of This World, and Split Heirs (written in collaboration with me).
Lawrence adds, “My feet are 11D, which is not particularly large. I’ve never written for tabloids, and I’ve never been to Oregon.”
July, 1990:
Rodney MacWhirter had drunk a very pleasant little lunch back at the rest stop, and was feeling the aftereffects. He was of the opinion that the six-pack of Bud had not impaired his driving skills whatsoever, and would gladly argue the matter with any state cop who thought otherwise, but there was no denying the pressure in his bladder.
And the next rest stop, according to the sign, wasn’t for fifteen miles.
Rodney blinked thoughtfully, then announced to no one, “Guess it’s time to water the trees.” He found the brake pedal on the second try, and managed to bring his battered Plymouth to a stop on the outer edge of the paved shoulder.
He was zipping his fly when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned around, and the world seemed to vanish into a brown blur. Startled, Rodney stepped back, tried to focus, and found himself staring at a broad expanse of shaggy brown hair. He blinked, decided it was a coat of some kind, then raised his eyes, looking for a face.
He had to go much farther than he expected, and when he arrived he wished he hadn’t.
There was a face there, as he had expected, but the face was brown and furry, with deep-set brown eyes, a broad black-tipped nose, and a wide, lipless mouth with stubby fangs protruding from the upper jaw. The heavy browridges were a good eight feet from the ground.
“Whoa!” Rodney said. “Hi, there, fella! You’re a big one, ain’cha?”
The creature smiled, revealing several dozen yellow teeth, and nodded. Then it held up a stack of mismatched sheets of rather used paper in one hand, and pointed to it with the other, which clutched a handful of battered crayons.
Rodney squinted at the top sheet of paper and read, in large, shaky, red letters, I NEED RIDE TO OREGON WOODS.
“Whoa!” Rodney said again. “That’s a mighty long way, friend; I can’t take you that far.” From the comer of his eye he saw the thing’s smile vanish, and he hastily added, “But I can get you partway, I guess.”
The smile returned, and together, Rodney and the creature walked to the car.
“So, you got a name?” Rodney asked.
The creature shook its head, and hair scraped audibly against the car’s roof lining. A Plymouth Duster might have more headroom than the typical modern car, but it was never intended for anything the size of Rodney’s passenger.
“No?” Rodney said, mildly surprised; he turned to stare, then snapped his attention back to the road at the sound of a horn blaring. A car coming the other way roared past, the driver’s fist waving in Rodney’s direction.
For a moment Rodney concentrated on his driving, then he suggested, “How ’bout I call you Bubba? You remind me of a fellow I useta know went by Bubba.”
The creature shrugged as best it could while squeezed into the Plymouth.
“Bubba it is, then,” Rodney said. For a minute or so he hummed quietly to himself.
“So where you going in Oregon, anyway?” he asked, still watching the highway unroll before him. He waited a few seconds, to give the creature time to write, then glanced over.
The beast didn’t hold up a paper; instead it shrugged again.
“Just tired of Wisconsin, huh?” Rodney said, with a sympathetic smile. “I can understand that. You really need to go all the way to Oregon, though? You couldn’t just check out Minneapolis?” He watched the highway, then added, “But I guess you’re not the city type. Still, there’s plenty of nice country in Minnesota. Or up in Maine; might be more traffic that way. Why’s it got to be Oregon? Got family out there?”
The creature hesitated, then pulled a wrinkled piece of newsprint from its pile of scrap paper and held it up. Rodney glanced at it, and saw a battered fragment of tabloid—specifically, the Midnight News for October 1, 1987, featuring the headline, “THE BRIDE OF BIGFOOT! Scientists Report Sighting Female Creature in Oregon Woods!”
There was no photo, but a drawing captioned, “Artist’s Rendition of Creature, from Scientists’ Description,” accompanied the article, and depicted a stooped, furry, apelike figure with ragged, waist-length head hair and immense breasts.
Rodney slowed the car slightly and looked the clipping over again.
“Bride of Bigfoot,” Rodney read aloud. “That your wife, then? Mrs. Bubba?”
The creature shook his head.
“But you’d like her to be, maybe? You looking for a date out there?”
Bubba hesitated, then nodded.
“You don’t like the local girls?” Rodney asked.
Bubba found one of his crayons and scrawled quickly, then held up a paper saying, CAN’T FIND ANY.
“What, none?”
Bubba shrugged again.
“What about guys? You got friends around here, might want help?” Rodney thought he might have a money-making idea here—a dating service for bigfoots!
Or was it bigfeet?
While Rodney was trying to puzzle out the correct plural, Bubba wrote, ALL ALONE. NO OTHERS.
Well, Rodney thought, so much for that idea. “Wow, tough,” he said. “No family? Nothing?”
Bubba held up the same paper after underlining ALL ALONE.
“Jeez, no wonder you want to get out there,” Rodney said. He thought for a moment.
There ought to be some way to make money off this, he told himself. He couldn’t make a career out of matchmaking if Bubba and the lady in the picture were the only ones out there, but there had to be some way to cash in on picking up a mythical creature as a hitchhiker.
He intended to just drop Bubba off, but as he sobered up other possibilities began to occur to him. As they crossed the Minnesota state line he said, “Look, I was only going as far as St. Paul, but maybe I can . . . I mean, I might be able to take you clear to Oregon, if you’re not in a hurry.” He glanced over.
Bubba nodded, smiling.
Smuggling something Bubba’s size in and out of motel rooms was an art Rodney had never acquired; fortunately, despite his bulk, Bubba could be amazingly stealthy. He moved in utter silence, and could hold so still that a bored motel maid might pass within a yard of him without noticing his presence.
That at least explained something of why the scientists still didn’t believe in Bigfoot, or sasquatches, or whatever Bubba was.
Feeding him turned out to be simple enough—fast-food salad bars provided everything Bubba needed. Cherry tomatoes seemed to delight him no end, and Rodney made a point of getting as many of those as he could, despite the dirty looks from restaurant staffs.
Bubba had no idea what a bed was for; he was perfectly happy curling up on the motel-room carpet. He didn’t understand indoor plumbing, either, but finding a few out-of-the-way bushes was usually easy enough. Rodney gathered, from a conversation that was largely grunts or nods on Bubba’s side, that the creature had learned English from spying on campers, and taught himself to read and write from studying the newspapers, labels, and other scraps they left behind—a project that had occupied most of the past ten years, inspired by a discovery of a “bigfoot” photo in an old tabloid. Bubba, however, had never been inside a building before, and was not much interested in human civilization—except for picking goodies from its trash, and using it to find himself a mate.
That first night Rodney, now thoroughly sobered up, was a trifle uneasy about sleeping in the same room as this immense beast. Even though Bubba had made it clear that he preferred salads to burgers, Rodney still worried about all those teeth and claws.
When he awoke the next morning, completely intact, at first he thought he’d dreamed or imagined the whole thing; he came within inches of stepping on the still-sleeping Bubba, who had rolled over close to the bed.
By the second night they were both old hands at it.
And on the third night they made it as far as Walla Walla, Washington, just across the Oregon state line—Rodney had decided the fastest route was to leave the Interstate and take U.S. 12.
He didn’t tell Bubba how close they were, for fear he’d want to go on that same night—Rodney was tired of driving.
When morning rolled around, though, the two of them got rolling as well, and had gone just a few miles when Rodney pointed out the WELCOME TO OREGON sign.
“We’re in the right state,” he said with a smile. “So where’s this lady friend you’re looking for?”
Bubba handed him the clipping.
Rodney glanced at it, then pulled over to the shoulder atop the next ridge and read through the clipping carefully. As he read, his smile slowly faded, to be replaced with a worried frown. “Bubba, ol’ buddy,” he said, “It doesn’t say where she was anywhere in here. There’s no dateline or anything, it just says ‘somewhere in the Oregon woods,’ and that doesn’t tell us enough.”
Bubba growled, and tapped a claw-tipped finger insistently on the word OREGON.
“Bubba,” Rodnev said, “hop out of the car for a minute, okay?” ‘
The pair climbed out and stood by the road; Rodney waved an arm to take in the entire surrounding countryside, a broad vista of hills and forests extending seemingly forever.
“Bubba.” he said, “That’s the Oregon woods. Everything you see, and a lot more besides.”
Bubba stared for a moment, then made a noise that Rodney could only liken to a strangled kitten. The huge creature turned and stared helplessly at Rodney.
Rodney thought for a moment the sasquatch was going to cry.
“Hey, don’t worry, Bubba,” he said, “We’ll find her somehow. You just come with me.”
“I tell you, Bubba, I felt really stupid buying this thing,” Rodney said, as he thumbed through the latest issue of Midnight News. The two of them were seated in the Plymouth, parked in front of a drugstore in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. “Oh, here we go, page 6—Midnight News, editor, managing director, yadda yadda yadda . . . telephone! Editorial, area code 407 . . .” He lowered the paper. “Where the heck is area code 407?”
Bubba just stared silently at him.
Area code 407 turned out to be central Florida; the address was farther down the block of tiny print on page 6.
“Figures,” Rodney said in disgust, as he dialed the motel-room phone. “The damn opposite comer of the whole damn country, is all. This call is probably gonna cost more than the damn room.”
Bubba didn’t answer; he sat and stared.
The phone on the other end only rang once before a female voice said, “Midnight News. ”
“Hi,” Rodney said. “Look, I need to know more about something you ran in your paper—it’s very important to a friend of mine.”
“What is it, exactly?” the voice asked warily.
“It’s about this piece you ran in October ’87, about seeing a female bigfoot in Oregon . . .”
Before he could finish, the voice cut him off. “ ‘87!” the woman exclaimed. “Mister, are you crazy? That was three years ago!”
“Yes, I know,” Rodney said patiently.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t keep . . .” She stopped, thought better of whatever she had been about to say, and instead asked cautiously, “What did you want to know?”
“I want to know where in Oregon this bigfoot sighting was,” Rodney explained. “It just says ‘Oregon woods.’ Oregon’s a big state.”
“I suppose it is,” she agreed.
“So where was this sighting?”
“Mister, is there a byline on the article you’ve got there?”
Rodney blinked, and squinted at the yellowed clipping. “Uh . . . yeah,” he said. “Special correspondent Maurice Betterman, it says.”
“Moe Betterman?” The voice sighed. “Well, at least I know who that is; he’s a free-lancer, still writes for us sometimes. Lives in Eugene.”
“Eugene, Oregon?”
“That’s right.”
“So, can I reach him . . .”
“Listen, Mister, that’s all I can tell you. It’s probably more than I should tell you.”
“But . . .” Rodney began.
Then he realized he was talking to a dead phone; she had hung up.
“Eugene,” he said. “That’s the other end of the state.” He hesitated, then dialed again.
“Directory assistance,” said the voice. “What city, please?”
There was a listing for an M.C. Betterman; a few minutes and a dozen rings later Rodney finally heard someone pick up the phone—then drop it; Rodney winced at the clatter.
After assorted bumps and rattles, a bleary voice said, “’Lo?”
“Is this Maurice Betterman?” Rodney asked.
“Who wan’sa know?”
Rodney sighed. “I’m looking for the Maurice Betterman who writes for the Midnight News” he said.
“Why?”
“Are you him?”
“He,” the voice corrected. “Are you he.”
Rodney took that as a good sign; in his experience only teachers and writers corrected people like that. “Are you?” he asked. -
“Migh’ be; why?”
“We need a little more information about an article you wrote back in 1987,” Rodney explained.
For a long moment there was no answer, and Rodney was beginning to wonder if he had been cut off, or if Betterman had fallen asleep, when the voice finally asked, “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me’n Bubba,” Rodney explained.
“Bubba.”
“Well, that’s what I call him.”
Click. Betterman had hung up.
Rodney dialed again, and let the phone ring twenty-two times, hoping the motel operator wouldn’t notice and cut him off before Betterman answered.
The motel operator didn’t.
“Yeah?” Betterman’s voice asked.
“It’s me again,” Rodney said. “Look, please don’t hang up . . .”
“You’n Bubba?”
“That’s right.”
“Why should’n I hang up? You got three seconds to convince me.”
“Money,” Rodney said quickly. “Lots of money.”
For another long moment the line was silent—but no one hung up. Then Betterman sighed.
“Okay,” he said, ‘Tell me about it.”
Rodney told him.
“You got a sasquatch there?” Betterman asked when Rodney had finished. “A real one?”
“That’s what I said,” Rodney replied. “And he wants to know where you saw that other one in ’87.”
“And suppose I tell you—then what?”
