Contact
Ethan finds an alien in the crashed wreckage of a UFO. This close encounter will not have a happy ending.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives).
Contact
by Trevor Mendham
It was a warm Sunday afternoon and Ethan was riding his bike along the footpaths and dirt tracks between the fields. Sometimes he would simply try to see how fast he could go, every so often he would deliberately aim for a bump and see if he could propel himself into the air. It wasn’t that he particularly liked cycling or had dreams of becoming an Olympic athlete. Nothing like that. It was simply that both his best friends from school were away this weekend. He lived in a small village surrounded by miles of nothing, which meant there wasn’t a lot else for him to do. Unless he wanted to spend the afternoon at home with his parents - and for a ten year old boy who had used up his gaming hours allowance, that was a fate worse than death.
So he zoomed his bike up and down, pretending he was a superhero racing to the scene of a crime or a daring criminal escaping the police. It was during one of these getaway rides that he heard the explosion.
It wasn’t massive, just a short whizzing sound then a dull thud and a bang. Ethan’s first thought was that a car had crashed, but when he turned to look in the direction from which the sound had come he realised it was something more interesting: the cloud of smoke and small fireball demonstrated that.
The thought that it could be dangerous never occurred to him, all that mattered was that it was exciting. So he turned his bike in that direction and headed straight across the fields towards the area from which the explosion had come.
What he found wasn’t the remains of an explosion or a meteor but something far more interesting.
Before it had crashed, the wrecked metal cylinder had probably been about the size of a double decker bus. Now it was embedded several feet in the ground. The outside was a smooth, shiny grey and, where pieces had cracked off, Ethan could see that the inside was bright white. He had an occasional glimpse of what looked like complicated machinery, much of which was smoking. The air had a sharp, pungent smell that made it unpleasant to breathe.
Of course it might have been a satellite, Ethan had no idea what they looked like. Or it might have been a top secret military experiment. But Ethan was convinced it was actually an alien spaceship.
The reason for his certainty was the strange creature laying on the ground near to the broken cylinder.
The thing would probably have been about six foot high if it was standing up. It was skinny and had two legs and two arms, but each seemed to have an extra joint. Its skin was dark green and covered with lumps and bumps about the size of Ethan’s thumb. The head looked a little too small for its body and although it had a thin lipped mouth and two small eyes there was no sign of a anything resembling a nose. It wasn’t wearing clothes but there was a metal band around its head that was clearly some sort of technology and from which occasional flashes and beeps emitted.
Ethan didn’t know much about medicine but the creature didn’t look well. It was laying on its back writhing around and making a soft twittering, a little like bird song. Its left arm had clearly been badly burned.
Excitement fought with fear in Ethan’s mind and excitement won easily. Leaving his bike on the ground he walked over to the alien creature. He wondered what he should say: “Welcome to Earth” perhaps? That’s what they said in the movies, but it sounded a bit cheesy. “Take me to your leader”? No, the alien was meant to say that.
Unable to decide on the right words, he stayed silent. It was the creature that made the first move, raising its right arm and extending a webbed, three fingered hand. Ethan hesitated a second then held out his own arm in response.
The alien’s hand glowed. Then it grasped Ethan’s hand and squeezed. As it did so, the headband glared brightly.
Ethan’s mind was instantly flooded with images: underground tunnels housing huge complexes of rooms, creatures like the one here, creatures like nothing he had ever imagined, stars, planets, space... Then came emotions. Surprise at the failure of some machine, fear as he hurtled out of control towards the surface of the planet below.
Then physical sensation. Pain. The whole body pain of impact followed by a sharper, more intense pain in his left arm.
Ethan gasped and pulled his hand away. “You poor thing,” he said, rubbing his own arm as if he had been the one in the crash.
At that point there was another sound in the distant sky, a human one. Looking up Ethan could make out a rapidly approaching helicopter. This time fear won out over excitement. He ran back to his bike, jumped on and rode home as fast as he could.
Colonel Winthrop stepped out of the helicopter and looked round, taking in the whole scene with experienced eyes. “Looks almost intact,” he said to his companion.
“Yes, Sir,” the younger man replied. “The Geek back at the facility should be able to get plenty out of this one.”
“I would remind you that Captain Anders is your superior officer, Lieutenant.”
“Yes Sir. Sorry Sir.”
“But he is a bit of a geek.”
The Colonel walked over to the alien on the ground and gave it a nudge with his foot. “We’ve got a live one here. OK, call it in. Usual routine. Set up a one mile exclusion zone until we can get the craft and the eety airlifted to the facility. Tell the PR people to prepare some sort of cover story, whatever guff they think will work.”
“Yes Sir. And what about the kid on the bike?”
“Forget him. Nobody’s going to believe a kid on his own.”
“But what if he’s taken pictures? Kids these days all have phones.”
“Like I said, nobody’s going to believe him. Hell, I’ve seen dozens of videos on the internet that look more lifelike than the real thing!”
Ethan didn’t have a phone and he didn’t tell anyone what had happened. Even at the age of ten he understood that there were some things it was unwise to have seen.
Not being able to play games gave him an excuse for watching the television more than usual, switching between the news and cartoon channels. As he’d expected, there was no mention of an alien spaceship crash-landing. However there was a small piece about an underground gas main exploding: the report said it was lucky it had happened in an isolated field so nobody had been hurt.
His left arm was stinging and when he got ready for bed that night he saw that it was red and sore with the skin peeling in places. He assumed he must have grazed it falling off his bike at some point, so he simply washed it carefully and said nothing about it.
In an deep underground facility the alien was laying on the floor of an empty room. Six CCTV cameras kept watch over it and three armed guards stood outside at all times.
Doctor Anders snapped off the communications system and stared at the alien through the thick, reinforced glass window from the corridor. Nothing. Just like the other two they’d found alive over the ten years he’d been working on this project. They’d tried every known human language, even artificial ones such as Esperanto. They’d tapped out mathematical sequences. They’d tried different frequencies from sub to ultrasonic. They’d modulated every form of electromagnetic radiation. They’d even resorted to drawing pictures and holding them up to the window.
Nothing. Not a single response. The creature just lay there immobile as had the others. It offered no resistance when they moved it, it didn’t seem to sleep and it definitely didn’t communicate.
Of course it could be that the alien simply didn’t have sensory apparatus to understand any of their attempts. But Anders didn’t think so. Just looking at it, the similarities with human evolution were sufficient to suggest they should have at least some common channel. No, Doctor Anders had come to the conclusion that the aliens didn’t communicate simply because they didn’t want to.
A metal door at the end of the corridor opened and the guards snapped to attention as Colonel Winthrop entered. “Stand easy,” he nodded, then turned to Anders. “Good morning, Captain. Anything new?”
Captain was an honorary rank, Anders had never been in the military before joining this project. He’d rather have been called ‘Doctor’ but Winthrop insisted on military protocol.
“Nothing, Colonel. Just like the others.”
“How long have we got?”
“Well it’s difficult...”
“I know, I know. Best guess?”
“Maybe two days, three tops.”
Winthrop shook his head and sighed. “Open up,” he gestured to one of the guards standing by the door to the cell.
“Sir...” Anders began but Winthrop cut him off.
“Yes, Captain Anders, I know. Objections noted and warnings heeded. This is on my responsibility.”
The guard opened up the heavy steel door to let Winthrop through then closed it behind him. Anders ensured the communication system was on.
The Colonel walked up to the alien creature and circled it. “So, what is it you want? What are you up to? Why are you on our planet?” There was, as expected, no response. “Answer me dammit!” Winthrop lifted the creature up and slammed it against the wall. “I said answer me.” When no reaction was forthcoming he slapped the creature across its face with the back of his hand. He let it slide to the ground then sighed and walked back to the door.
Out in the corridor he turned to Anders. “I’ve had enough of this. We’re getting nothing from interrogation and I’m damned if I’m going to let this one get away. We’re going to get something from it before it dissolves into black gunk like the others. Get things ready. We start in an hour.”
At the primary school, Miss Jenson was trying to teach mathematics to a class of mainly bored nine and ten year olds. With her back to the pupils she was writing figures on the whiteboard when she heard a cry from behind her. Looking round she saw that Ethan was on his feet and holding one hand to his cheek.
“Ethan! What’s going on?”
“She hit me, Miss!” Ethan pointed to Clara who sat next to him. “She slapped me in the face!”
“Did not!” Clara retorted loudly. “He’s lying Miss!”
Miss Jenson frowned. Ethan and Clara were both good kids, neither was the type to mess around during class. Ethan didn’t habitually tell lies and Clara definitely didn’t start fights. She looked round the rest of the class, eyes resting for longer on the children sitting immediately behind Ethan. “Did anyone see what happened?” No response. She sighed — even if they had seen anything, pupil solidarity would have kept them quiet. She walked over to Ethan and gently lowered his arm. His face definitely was very red, it really did look as if someone had hit him. But the mark looked too large to fit the hand of any of the children. Maybe he’d dozed off and had hit his face on the table? He had seemed tired and irritable all day.
“OK Ethan, go see the school nurse. Then get back here as quickly as possible. These fractions won’t simplify themselves.”
Doctor Anders looked down at the alien. It had been brought here from its cell under a heavy guard which had proved unnecessary - it hadn’t made any attempt to escape. Even when it had been strapped down there had been no resistance. Still, Anders checked the restraints again. Once he was sure everything was ready he turned and looked at Colonel Winthrop who was standing in the observation room on the other side of the protective glass.
“I’m really not sure about this Colonel. This is an intelligent alien being, we can learn so much...”
“This is the third live one we’ve had and we’ve learned zilch. They’re playing us. The impenetrable headbands appear to be fused to the skin, and their bodies have got some sort of built-in self-destruct mechanism. They just stay quiet until that cuts in. Then they dissolve into a pile of organic gunk which tells us nothing. Well I’m not playing their game any longer.”
Anders sighed. “Yes, I understand. But still... Could I at least administer some anaesthetic?”
“Negative Captain. We don’t know what effect that would have on its metabolism. It could render any information we gain invalid. You should know that.”
The Doctor nodded. He did know that of course. The Colonel was right, at least this way they’d get some information about the alien’s physiology, information that could prove useful in the event of a confrontation. Even so... vivisection...
“Is there a problem Captain?”
“No Sir.”
Anders zipped up the helmet of his hazmat suit, picked up a scalpel and made the first incision down the alien’s stomach.
Ethan began screaming.
The End
Author’s Notes:
This story originally appeared in my self-published collection “Rest In Fear 2”.
One of the most famous cinema posters is for “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), which shows Elliott touching fingers with ET. In the film, ET’s touch heals Elliott. The starting point for this story was wondering what would happen if the alien had been the one to be healed. Which led into the idea of the boy taking the alien’s pain and what the result of that might be.
Oh, and the kid in my story is called Ethan for the same reason that (I assume) the kid in the film is called Elliott: the letters ET.