The Greeny at Old Smokey Lake – Larry Hodges

The Greeny at Old Smokey Lake
by Larry Hodges

Jeb’s black Outback hiking boots were his pride and joy, but now they just lay there on the passenger seat, vacant, dripping mud all over the place as I drove my pickup away from the lake as fast as I could. It was not near fast enough.

I glanced back at the bloody mess in the back of the truck. What was I going to tell Earth’s leaders?

What have I done?

I’d picked Jeb up early this Saturday morning, and after stopping off at the bait shop, we’d taken off for Old Smokey Lake. Jeb and me been fishin’ there for thirty years, ever since I arrived. My rowboat, almost that old, lay in the back of the pickup. We usually came back Sunday night with a good collection of bass and a few ‘ole catfish for the wives to cook. Fishin’ was ’bout the only thing I used to do back home that I could do on this here planet.

We set up camp by the lake, putting up Jeb’s two-man pup tent. The tent had seen better days, but with a few patches here and there, it kept out the rain and mosquitoes. It felt good to be out there, with nobody round for miles ‘cept critters with fins, wings or four legs. We got the boat outa the truck, carried it over the muddy shore—it’d rained that morning—and lowered it into the murky water. And fishin’ we went.

If only we’d known we weren’t the only ones fishin’.

The morning sky was bluer’n my pickup after a rain, the temperature a bit cool, a perfect day. You could near smell the fish in that lakeside aroma. Old Smokey Lake was kinda small, maybe thirty acres surrounded by forest, but it was pretty much our personal lake in grand central nowhere.

Jeb, in a red plaid hunting jacket that nearly matched my green one, sat on his side of the boat looking somber. Come to think of it, I ain’t rarely seen him look any other way. Course, when he got a nibble, a little flicker of interest would cross his face, and sometimes he’d even let on a bit of a human grin when he landed a big one.

We was patient, willing to wait all day for a nibble. Sometimes we had to do just that. Other times the fish would like jump in the boat as fast as we could reel ‘em in. Today was beginning to look like one of ‘em days when the fish all went on vacation. We coulda stayed home and fished out of a bathtub.

We passed the time talking and sipping Tabasco tea, my own invention. It was very much like something from my own planet. ‘Course Jeb didn’t know nothing about that.

“What was that?” he asked, pointing. I looked, but didn’t see nothing.

“Whatcha mean?”

“Something did something over there.”

“A fish musta surfaced,” I said. “Maybe we’ll have better luck thataway.”

But Jeb was more somber than usual, which is like saying granite is looking rockier than usual. “Rick, it came from above the water. Like a bird diving in. Only—it was bigger, and had lights.”

“Whatcha mean, lights?”

“Colorful ones. I saw it go under, I tell you. It weren’t a fish.” Jeb stared at the spot.

“Another UFO?” I said, reminding Jeb of the weather balloon some university chap had flown about a few months ago while we was out hunting. Jeb thought it was from outer space, and shot it and near shot the feller too. I knew that most UFOs were hoaxes, though not all.

“Not like that,” he said.

“Well, let’s go see what it is. The fishin’ can’t be any worse there.”

“I don’t like it,” Jeb said. But I revved up the motor and made for where Jeb was staring. As we got close, I turned the motor off and Jeb rowed us into position.

“Don’t see any little green men floating about,” I said as I dropped anchor. We got our worms back into the water.

It didn’t take long for the first nibble, maybe ten seconds. Our bobbers began going up and down like jumping beans. There musta been a dozen fish swirling about near the surface.

“Play them fish smart now,” Jeb said, letting out line. He was always one for lecturing. “Let ‘em have their fun. Gotta hook their minds before ya hook the rest.”

There was a tremendous yank on Jeb’s bobber. Jeb pulled the line taut, a slight grin on his face, and began to reel it in, not giving the fish any slack. Soon we could see the thing flopping about by the side of the boat. As Jeb pulled it up, I put my rod down and grabbed the fish with the net. It was the biggest catfish I’d seen in years, a real prize. Only it didn’t give much of a fight, just sort of sat in the net, its whiskers drooping, and looked at us while it worked its gills in and out. I tossed it in the fish bucket and went back to my line.

But the fish stopped biting after that, as if they’d learned not to go for our bait. Me and Jeb sat sipping Tabasco tea and staring at our bobbers, but they just sort of stared back. It was a mite depressing.

I spied something in the water. “Look!” I said, pointing.

A twenty-dollar bill floated in the water not ten feet off, right by my bobber. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. Jeb got on the oars and pulled us closer. The bill looked fresh and clean like it was right out of an ATM.

“I dunno,” I said. “That weren’t there a moment ago.” This reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite place it. Where had I read ’bout something like this? Something from long ago.

“So?” Jeb said. We pulled up alongside it and Jeb reached for it with an oar. When the oar tapped the top of the bill, it went underwater for a sec, then reappeared. It wasn’t the oar that sunk it, he’d barely tapped it—something had pulled it under the murky water and then pushed it back, closer to the boat.

“You see that?” I asked.

“See what?” Jeb asked, reaching for the bill.

“Wait a minute,” I began, but Jeb snorted and grabbed the bill. He lifted it just above the surface and studied it.

Then he leaned over the railing, ‘cept he wasn’t leaning. Something was pulling him. He looked at me sort of wild eyed, which was strange for him.

“Something’s got me!” he cried.

I grabbed him by the waist and pulled him back on the boat. His hand came back above the water, still clutching the bill. Something was wrapped around his wrist, and pulling hard. I saw his face, and it was like the guy in a movie that had just seen the shark that was about to eat him.

I got my first good look at the thing, a pulsating, green rope, ’bout two inches thick. I recognized it even before my human body—I’d nicknamed it “Data” after a famous fictional android—began yelling in my ear.

“Enemy alert! Uniarmo Viridis detected.”

A greeny! ‘Course Data had to use some Latin term. It had been a long time since I’d seen one of them.

With Jeb around, I couldn’t say anything back. Jeb had no idea I was a blue, ten-armed spider from Antares, ’bout the size of a house cat, living in a fabricated human body that was half machine.

What was a greeny doing here, out on the fringes of a spiral arm? Some of my arms started to quiver. What were the chances of the two of us meeting out here? Perhaps it had been going to lots of different lakes for a long time, or maybe we just had the same preferences. Or maybe it had come to the region after detecting one of my messages home.

I stared with all four eyes at the screen next to where I was strapped in at the controls inside the human body’s chest. The image came directly from the human eyes.

I had to stay calm or we’d be dead soon.

Jeb put his feet against the side of the boat and pulled back. The green rope went taut, disappearing beneath the surface almost directly under the boat. I was still holding Jeb, but there was a lotta resistance. Jeb dropped the twenty-dollar bill, which disappeared into the water.

“It’s alive!” Jeb said. I leaned forward to get a better look at the greeny. Near the tip of the rope, where it wrapped around his wrist, its wriggling tentacles stuck out, finger-thick but tapering to points that dug into Jeb’s flesh like a hook in a fish. Blood poured out of him and onto the bottom of the boat, mixing with the Tabasco tea we’d both spilt. I heaved hard, Jeb yelping in pain, but I couldn’t pull him free.

“Use the knife,” he said through gritted teeth.

I brandished my fishin’ blade with my free hand and leaned forward to cut the greeny. I’d never fought one of them things in person. Then one of the green tentacles shot out and snatched the knife away. It was much stronger and stretched out more than something that thin shoulda been able, and it caught me off guard. The knife disappeared into the waves.

A second later the retractable tentacle returned, but instead of grabbing hold of Jeb’s wrist like all its cousins was doing, it waved about for a moment. That’s when I saw the eye.

It was in the side of the tentacle, like a big knot in a tree, yellow and perfectly round, ’bout the size of a marble. The black dot in the middle was staring at me. It’d been a long time since I’d stared eye-to-eye with a greeny. It couldn’t recognize me in my disguise, and yet it kept staring.

I reached for the tentacle, and it slapped at my hand. The thing looked slimy, but it was like sandpaper, and left an ugly red mark on my wrist. It went back to Jeb and hooked onto his wrist with the others. Jeb’s blood trickled down his arm like little rivers, dripping into the water, which was rapidly turning red.

It yanked Jeb forward real hard. I grabbed him around the waist and tried pulling him back, like tug-a-war. Every now and then, I caught a glimpse of its eye, always looking at me.

“I can’t hold on much longer!” Jeb exclaimed, his voice cracking. He grabbed an oar with his free hand and beat the thing with it, but that didn’t do doodley. “There ain’t nothing on Earth like this.” He jabbed at the greeny with the oar.

He had no idea, I thought.

A tremendous yank pulled us both forward. Jeb’s legs buckled and lost their footing. His body went out over the water, and I barely grabbed hold of his legs. His head was almost underwater.

There was another yank. “No!” Jeb cried. He looked over his shoulder at me. I didn’t know that granite face of his could show such horror, eyes wide, mouth an “O,” like something outa Halloween.

There was another yank, and his head went under. I pulled back, but the greeny didn’t budge an inch, like a fishin’ line and reel with no give. Jeb struggled like a worm on a hook. Or a fish. The tentacle with the eye—or perhaps another one—kept staring and waving about at me, like it was gloating at its expected victory.

My grip slipped, and I only held Jeb by his feet. The thing pulled ‘em closer and closer to the water, and then Jeb’s feet pulled right out of them muddy boots and slipped under the water with barely a ripple.

It was over. I sat in the boat, holding Jeb’s boots, staring at the calm water where Jeb had gone down.

“Dammit!” I said. The Earth colloquialism fit the circumstances. Sometime during the fight, the fish bucket had overturned. I tossed the struggling big catfish overboard while I thought furiously.

“Uniarmo Viridis ship detected below,” Data said in my ear.

I’d been living comfortably inside Data for thirty years, only occasionally leaving it. But the human form ain’t so good under water. My front split open, and I crawled out of the chest of what Jeb thought of as Rick.

After disentangling myself from my shirt, I took a deep breath—Earth’s atmosphere is almost identical to back home, with a relaxing 0.8 gravities—and dove into the water. Thankful for my amphibian ancestry, I swam straight down, pushing at the water with the flippered ends of my back four arms. The water was murky at the top, but once I was a few feet down it cleared up.

I could see the ship on the bottom of the lake, one of them basic one-greeny ships I’d battled many times. It was no bigger than my pickup, black and spherical, with a series of colorful lights circling its middle. It rested on a pair of skids underneath. The greeny’s retractable arm stuck out of the open hatchway, and was pulling Jeb down to it. Fully extended, them greeny arms can run fifty feet.

Us spiders—there’s no direct translation from our language, so that’ll have to do—have been fighting the greenies all over the local galaxy for roughly forever. Wherever their fleets went, they left behind ravaged planets, till there weren’t no more intelligent life in this sector of the galaxy but greenies and us. One greeny was bad news. A fleet of ‘em meant extermination for some unsuspecting race.

I didn’t want the human race to become one of those unsuspecting races.

After I’d done my tour of ship duty, ’bout a hundred human years, I’d picked Earth to retire to, and never expected to see another greeny. This one musta done the same, ‘cept I fished for fish, it fished for humans.

I grabbed at Jeb with six of my hands and yanked. The greeny held tight. It was wedged inside its ship, and I couldn’t pull it or Jeb out. I needed something more, and I needed it quick, since the greeny was about to pull Jeb inside the ship. Plus Jeb needed air.

A glint of light from the lake bottom drew my attention—my knife. If I could grab that before the greeny pulled Jeb in. . . .

I let go of Jeb and swam for the knife as fast as I could. I grabbed it with one of my front hands, and started back. But I was too late. Jeb’s feet disappeared into the ship’s hatch, which closed behind as I approached.

Jeb was as good as dead. Dammit!

I glanced up and could see my boat outlined against the bright sky. The anchor rope snaked down to the lake’s floor, a dozen yards from the greeny ship. There was no point in hanging around. Still clutching the knife, I grabbed the anchor rope and pulled myself back to the surface and onto the rowboat.

I sat there a few minutes, trembling like a human, a habit I’d picked up these past thirty years. What should I do now? Run away? What was I gonna tell Jeb’s wife, that her husband was the prize catch of a creature from another arm of the galaxy?

I glanced at the water and saw it. The twenty-dollar bill was floating right where Jeb had gone under, all fresh and clean.

Like nothing had happened.

Anger’s a good motivator for all walks of intelligent life. I don’t think I had any clear plan in mind when I jumped into the water and followed the anchor rope down. It took only a moment to tie it to that greeny ship’s skids. I swam back up to the rowboat.

It was only a quarter mile to where we’d left the pickup. I started up the motor and eased forward. The anchor rope drew taut, and then slowly moved forward, dragging the greeny ship along the bottom.

I kept it slow, not wanting to alarm the greeny so much that he’d take off, dragging the rowboat behind. I held my breath as we moved, half expecting the greeny ship to suddenly shoot outa the water, carrying me with it, into outer space.

As we approached the shore, I put the motor to full speed. We still moved at no more than a crawl, dragging that ship behind.

I shot the rowboat right up the shore, not bothering to slow down. As it came to a stop, I jumped out and scuttled on all ten limbs to the pickup truck.

Thirty seconds later I had the pickup backed up to the water, right next to the rowboat. Then I was back in the boat, cutting at the anchor rope. It was thick and the knife weren’t too sharp, so it took too long.

I heard a splash. I looked back, and watched the greeny ship rise out of the water. I was too late!

With one more slash of the knife, I cut the anchor rope. I grabbed the end that led up to the greeny ship just as it shot upwards. It jerked me outa the rowboat and into the air like a fish on a line. I hung onto the rope for dear life as the greeny ship rose. It stopped and just hung there, the colorful lights circling its middle flashing like an angry police car. I could just make out the outline of the closed hatch.

I probably should have just let go, knowing I was seconds away from a forced atmospheric trip, but I held on. The greeny ship hung there for a moment as I swung out over the water, then back over the rowboat and toward the pickup.

I shinnied down the rope as far as I could, holding it with a few hands, and reached for the back of the pickup. With a painful lunge, I grabbed it with two arms.

For a moment I wondered what would happen if the greeny ship suddenly took off right then. I didn’t want to think about that. I like my arms.

I pulled myself closer to the pickup, giving myself barely enough slack to tie the rope to the back of the pickup with a third arm. Having seven-fingered hands, two of ‘em opposable, helped. I let go and dropped to the ground.

That’s when the greeny ship decided to move. It shot upward a few yards, and then, like a dog that reached the end of its leash, snapped to a stop. The back up the pickup lifted a foot into the air, then dropped back. The greeny ship circled about at the end of the rope, jerking the pickup about some, but unable to get free.

I had snared the greeny ship like a tetherball!

Greenies are water creatures, and the inside of the ship was full of water. Jeb was still inside, maybe drowned already. I had to get him out. But how?

Data was still in the rowboat, and he can’t move without me inside. I got back inside it and climbed it into the back of the pickup. It would only slow me down, so I crawled back out of it and hopped into the driver’s seat. I’d only driven in my spider form a coupla times, but it’s much easier with ten limbs, even though I gotta stretch some to reach the foot pedals.

With the greeny ship following like a kite, fighting every step of the way, I drove to a spot a mile back where the road went by a rock cliff on the left. It was a simple matter of physics: I swung the pickup sharply left.

Like a mace on the end of a chain, the greeny ship shot about in a circle and slammed into the cliff. It fell to the ground, rolled away from the cliff a few rotations, and stopped. The closed hatchway faced the road.

I’d lost track of time—how long had Jeb been in there, under water? Ten minutes? Maybe more. He probably had drowned, but I had to make sure.

I put the pickup in reverse and drove to the far side of the road. I put on the seat belt, which was a bit clumsy over my spider form. Then I gunned the pickup forward, crashing into the hatchway of the greeny ship as hard as I could.

There was some give, but the hatch was still closed. I backed up and did it again. And again. And again. The front of the pickup begun to look like an accordion.

On the eighth try, the hatch broke and fell inward. Water gushed out explosively, as did Jeb and the greeny.

The greeny flopped about on the ground like an oversized green football, ’bout the size of a small bear, but now literally like a fish outa water. Its arm, which came outa one of the pointed sides, lashed about for a moment, then stuck up like a periscope and looked about.

Jeb lay still on his back on the ground. His face was pale and bloodied, his lips blue, and he weren’t breathing. He had no pulse.

I’d picked up a little CPR from hanging around humans. A series of chest compressions, then mouth to mouth, and repeat.

“C’mon, dammit!” I cried. Then I was stunned by a blow to the head. The drowning greeny wasn’t quite drowned yet, and had smacked me in the head. It wrapped its arm around me and tossed me against the pickup truck.

How long could it live out of water?

I jumped back on my ten arms and scuttled away. The greeny pulled in its arm and rolled after me, and we went about the truck in circles a few times. It shot out its arm, and almost grabbed me, but I jumped away and took off down the road, away from the lake. It started to chase me again, but maybe it realized it couldn’t live outa water much longer. It stopped and looked at me for a minute, then turned away and rolled off down the road toward the lake. I went back to Jeb.

It was too late. He was off to meet The Great Lord of the Universe. Assuming he takes humans.

I got back inside Data and put Jeb in the back of the pickup. What would I tell his wife? I tossed his boots in the front seat. Spiders don’t cry, but Data is attuned to my emotions, and it did.

The greeny was outa sight now. I turned the truck back toward the lake. Soon I saw it, rolling along, a few seconds away from the lake. One of its tentacles twisted about, and its eye saw me for a split second before I plowed into it.

I didn’t want to leave the body just lying there. Some human might find it, or something might try to eat it, and I wasn’t sure how palatable it was to Earth critters. So I put it in the back of the pickup with poor Jeb. I’d have to come back later for the ship.

“Tachyon message detected,” Data said.

“Who’s sending a message?” I asked.

“It is an automatic message, repeating over and over, coming from the greeny ship.”

“What’s the message?” I asked.

Data’s next words would forever tear me apart, leaving me a shell of a spider with only tortured memories to remind me of what I had done to the species I’d befriended. The words would ring in my mind forever, both before and after the total destruction of the human race.

“Homeworld, have detected hostile spider on Sol 3. Send fleet.”

Larry Hodges, of Germantown, MD, is an active member of SFWA with over 40 short story sales, over half of them since summer 2008. The 2010 grand prize winner at the Garden State Horror Writers Short Story Competition, he’s a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers’ Workshop, the 2007 Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers’ Workshop. He’s a full-time writer with four books and over 1200 published articles in over 100 different publications. He’s also a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame — Google it! Visit him at: www.larryhodges.org

The Greeny at Old Smokey Lake – Larry Hodges, 4.1 out of 5 based on 15 ratings