Abduction

The sun was shining down cheerily on the dirt path when the father turned his head to glance at his family’s progress on the path behind him. He was satisfied when he saw they seemed to be doing alright, his wife and two youngsters moving quickly and easily on the trail. With any luck, they’d be at the top of the mount in half an hour. There they would rest and eat and take in the view. His mouth watered at the prospects of the cool clean spring water burbling happily in the distance. The family had set out on their hike in the early morning and it was now near the afternoon. The father smiled thinking of how close they were to their destination, and how beautiful the forest looked under the rays of sunlight poking through the leaves, and it was then that he heard a sound. A sound that immediately alarmed him. A twig snapping under a heavy footstep, about five yards to his left, behind a big gnarled tree trunk. “Everyone, get close” he said through clenched teeth, and his wife, the mother, immediately herded their offspring and placed them between the adults. The parents would protect their children at all costs. There was a sound from the same direction, but closer, and more whistle-y, like air rushing out of an irregular balloon. What ever was there, it seemed to notice that stealth was no longer necessary and stepped out from behind the trees unto the dusky road. The family’s eyes widened in shock and fear, and the mother noticed the beings carried with them a disturbing new scent. The aliens, as the father had no other word for them, were the most terrifying beings the four of them had ever seen. They were hairless and sort of shiny, but seemed to have a weird patch of uneven vegetation on their tallest point. Their eyes were small and close together and their color was incredibly ashen. The eyes very divided by a sort of half snout which was somewhat wide and stuck out, but was only as long as half the face, or what appeared to the father to be the face. They were incredibly tall and large, giants, and had long gangly limbs, though the pair touching the ground ended in two shapeless blocks, and the one above ended in a spindly shape which reminded him of spiders. The face part was the very ashen one in color, maybe like old meat, and the body was all sorts of different colors, which differed between the three creatures. Two had blue lower limbs, the other black, and the block parts were black for one, brown for another and white for the third. The top halves were a dazzling array of colors, like white, blue, green and red. The third also seemed to have more pale bits. He’d never seen anything more terrifying. “Stay back!” he growled at the monsters, stepping back slightly “I’m warning you!” meanwhile his kids shivered and whimpered behind him and his wife whispered to no one in particular “My God, what are they?...Aliens?...Demons?...My God…” the father yelled again, and tried to look threatening, but the things didn’t seem scared or even nervous. They were too big and muscle-y to feel threatened. The father then saw the turn to each other and make noises, which he thought meant they were talking. They way they talked was like nothing he’d ever heard, the things barely used their throats, and used many “s” and “r” sounds. The its made clicking noises occasionally, and he noticed how much of their face parts contorted and shifted when speaking. He noticed they had a fleshy thing in their mouths, which he was nearly positive was a tongue, and noticed it repeatedly struck and moved against a white stripe near the top of the mouth , which he thought had to be teeth, but were unlike any teeth on anything he’d ever seen. As he stood his ground, attack posture ready, his mind cataloguing his foe, he didn’t notice the beast seemed to come to a decision, and one suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck. His mind went into shock, and was unable to process things for a minute, but his body reacted, thrashing and wiggling and eventually cursing when his brain caught up. He tried to get free with all his might, but the spider part was like steel. The monster held the father away from itself, so that he could not scratch it, or held his neck firmly, so the father could not twist around and bite the abomination. Finally, his brain fully caught up, and he realized his family was in jeopardy. “Run!” he yelled to them, and noticed for the first time how far he seemed to be from the ground. “Run!” but it was far too late. The other two being had taken advantage of their shock and fear and fluidly caught his family and also cautiously held them away from their disturbing bodies. The father watch in horror and the beings held up little metal enclosures. They packed his wife into one, even with her crying and screaming, and both his children into another. His mind found comfort in that, seeing they at least had each other. He also realized, with a dreary sort of hit of reality, what was happening. They were being abducted to serve whatever dark purpose the beings had set aside for them. Most likely, he and his family were going to die. The thing holding him looked down and parted his fleshy lips, exposing two rows of white teeth. Then it turned away from him and spoke to its friends. “Good catch, eh, boys? Sorry, boy and girl. Four beauties, a family of foxes. The professor is just gonna love ‘em, foxes are his favorite study subjects. Isn’t that right, lads?” As he was packed into his own box, the father fox realized he did know the word for these monsters. His mother had warned him against them long ago. The word was “human”.

Written for both Thursday and Friday.