Frankentown (8 page)

“Can we cut through the anonymity rituals?
Frank was getting a little annoyed with the anonymity and the voice didn’t sound quite as mysterious as irritatingly british.
“The University has more than students and teachers on campus. There are other interested parties in the research done in your labs. I am one of the interested parties.”
Had Frank not been under the influence of Jen’s nana’s peaceful pot, he might’ve thrown a few uncalled-for curses at the man.

“Listen; I don’t know who you think you--“

“Meet me at Remillard park on Poppy Lane in 20 minutes. I’ll answer all your questions then.”
Frank was lost for words.

He was just about to tell the guy go get screwed
“And drink those Prussian Blue tablets, Frank;

if
you want to survive----

Which is completely up to you.”

Dial Tone.

Frank got dressed while Allen patiently waited in the hallway. He had wanted to see the remains of the alien almost as badly as he was afraid of radiation poisoning.

Frank finally came out of his bedroom.

“Dressed to kill
……………
sorry.”

Allen didn’t mean the pun, but he was stoned. Frank observed him longingly staring down the fridge, as though he could see through it, if only it let him.

“It’s no use pal, it looks like soggy blue cornflakes anyway.” This explanation was enough to satisfy Allen’s curiosity for the time being.

Frank initially wanted to walk to the park, but Allen insisted on driving.

Even though the nausea’s calmed down

,he argued with himself,

I’m still not in any condition to go out for a trek up the hill
.

They arrived at the park with time to spare. The few street lamps that covered the playground with light weren’t enough to light the huge rock that the surrounding residents were so fond of climbing.
Time came and went and the person they were to meet was nowhere to be seen, so they waited additional twenty minutes before Frank thought to call the number on the card again.
“Number you have dialed has been disconnected.” the evil phone kept saying.

“Screw this, let’s go back.

 
I’m freezing my ass off.”

 
Frank ran out of patience.

When they pulled up to the house again, Frank noticed that the kitchen light was on. When they left, it was definitely off.

“Let’s call the cops.” Allen suggested.

“No. The molten alien is still in the fridge.
I told you it’s basically liquified human DNA.”

Allen started silently snickering at him.

“It wouldn’t look good on my resume.”

“You said yourself it looks like corn flakes. Are they really going to sequence a sample from your fridge?

“Stay in the car.”

He did, while Allen slowly walked up the steps, listening for every sound.

Someone was inside.

Maybe it was the guy from the card,

maybe it was just a robber.
Or had they forgotten to lock when they left?
After several minutes of not having heard a thing except the wind hitting the trees, Allen took a deep breath and entered the house.
Frank got a little worried when he heard a gasp from inside, and started imagining worst case scenarios.
Alas, the gasp was the sound of the door closing with the wind, and within a few seconds Allen emerged back out from inside.

“It’s gone. It’s all gone.”

  
Frank sought hope.
“All of it?”

“NOW can we call the cops?”
“And an ambulance.”

Chapter Eight

"Recovery"

It had now been four weeks since the alien incident and Frank was beginning to start looking like his old self again. Both him and Allen agreed to keep what happened only between the two of them. There was no way to tell who was behind the phantom phone number or who stole the alien remains, though the question never quite faded from Frank’s mind.

He wasn’t really all that eager to find out, either. He was just glad to be rid of it and on his way to recovery with proper medical care, from what seemed like certain death at one point.

The MD examining him was content with the explanation that Frank had improperly used the DNA sequencer and was exposed to radioactivity for longer than is healthy without any further explanation. Frank begged him to keep it to himself out of fear of a committee hearing and possibly losing his tenure due to ‘gross incompetence’. Not only had the MD assured Frank that all medical records were strictly confidential, he suggested Frank to become a medical marijuana patient.
 

“This,” the MD said, “statistics show significantly reduces the risk of tumors forming.”

It was a young, smiley MD.
“All I’m saying is, I’d rather medicate than get cancer.”

From then on he’d worry about a potential tumor, though his worries quickly faded once he filled his prescription that afternoon.
The MD had warned him that extended use of marihuana may have negative side effects, but by that afternoon he’d already forgotten all about it.

In the two weeks since, Frank had significantly cut down on alcohol intake. The way he saw it, he may have had a drinking problem, but more importantly, had he not been so drunk, he would have left the alien there in the first place. Or at least so he thought.

Whenever outside, he was convinced that wherever he went, security guards appeared.

And each time, he could’ve sworn they were talking about him. Almost every sentence had the indefinite directive- “he”.

Right before his next lecture, as he was about to walk into a classroom full of students, he stopped at the door. Frank suddenly wasn’t very fond of crowds.

He literally had to get places before everyone else and leave either before or after everyone else.
He became a recluse.
Always leaving work late.

Allen and Steve were guessing whether he had a new girlfriend, or if he’s running home to meet with Kathy.
 
This got him to start grocery shopping at night.
 

Once on his way to buy yoghurt and bake-at-home bread, he saw a large pickup with the county security badge. Three tall men, cloaked by the shadow of the juniper tree above, were parked mere two cool spaces over. The bored security guards were just making smalltalk to pass the time.

“He came in to get groceries.”

“What else did you think he was gonna do?”
At times like that, Frank couldn’t help himself not anticipate getting taken away.
They were after him.
And they weren’t subtle: they’d follow him everywhere.

There was no way to decipher what had happened a month ago. Could he had been a witness to the answer to all the countless movies, books, comics and whatever else concerned itself with the UFO phenomena?

The body sure didn’t appear human, nor has he ever heard of a body decomposing so quickly under such mild conditions. There was no denying that there was much more to the picture that Frank had not had the time or opportunity to actually observe.

When Frank returned to work, two weeks after the ‘incident’, news of his condition and its radical treatment had already been murmured around the class. Though he always showed up to work sober, students would swear he wasn’t and actually weren’t entirely mistaken. Effects were usually entirely prominent after 8 hours, but given the mellow status of their teacher’s mood of late, that might’ve not been the case.
Everything was kind of a blur. Memory were a mess.
As with everything else in his life, Frank blamed somebody else for that; the MD.

He might’ve mentioned to him that cannabis clubs don’t require specific strain prescriptions from the doctor. Actual dosage was a mystery.
He only asked what was good and he didn’t understand what was available.

‘Sativa’ medicated and didn’t leave him drained of energy, it also excited him to be proactive and raised his heart rate and induced delusional paranoia, but that wasn’t part of the sales pitch.
Frank’s great aunt was diagnosed with cancer, though he has only heard about her from his dad when he was a kid and never actually met her. She died before he was born.

In the evenings, the internet had helped him familiarize himself with the UFO phenomenon.

He had seen hundreds of videos, but only a few of them even remotely resembled what Frank had seen. In fact, despite the assurance of authenticity by some strange man, most of them were proven fakes.

One rainy November afternoon, about a week and half later, there was a report of UFOs on the news. Having a sorry time deciphering his student’s tests, Frank had missed the first reports, but there it was on the news.

He was just short of ripping his hair out when he finally found his keys. The PBJ news channel had just reported large glowing objects above Oakland Docks, when Allen’s name appeared on Frank’s phone. Frank wished he could’ve hung up the phone before he heard about the fucking apocalypse. Allen went on and on about the how the end of thew world is coming. Frank stayed quite cool. Would today be the day he would meet the other species and maybe be the first; shaking hands, greetings, intergalactic hug?
If this is the apocalypse,
did I have something to do with it a month ago?

 
The sky turned a curious shade of purple and green. Frank walked down to his bleached old Chevy, once sky-blue, now covered with patina; as beautiful as only he could appreciate.

There was a strange fractal rumbling on the air.
He set the gear and rolled out in a sharp U-turn. There were absolutely no cars anywhere,
even cars that would stay parked there days on end
were suddenly gone.

Down in the town few people walked around and every parking space was empty.

Even so, he never ran a red light. When he finally got downtown Emeryville, he saw the lights in the sky. The guy on the radio reported about the hundreds of thousands of people heading to Oakland, jumping over fences, getting closer to the docks.

There was no leaving this traffic jam.
 
The cars moved so slowly Frank couldn’t stand it a moment longer. He got out of the car and stood up to stretch while the Slavic lady in the car behind him seemingly fell asleep on the car horn.
Frank’s head felt thick and heavy.

The slow onset of a crashing headache came, reminding Frank that he was dehydrated, but buying water was unlikely. The air was hot and humid and clouds swirled around the bright glowing points in the sky. When the cars haven’t moved more than several feet in the last few minutes, Frank chose to exemplarily park in the empty spot right next to him and go on-foot instead.

The BART station was packed too; there was no going down, let alone waiting several hours for a train that he could actually get on.
Walking was now the only, and unattractive option left.

After over an hour of walking in the direction of Oakland docks, he walked past a backyard with a bike.

Frank’s adventurous spark ignited the stealing of the bike. After all, life owed him a free bike after his got stolen when he was 16. And it wasn’t like he wasn’t going to return it. Pedaling wasn’t nearly as hard as walking, and it made Frank’s feet bleed a whole lot less. After another hour and half of more and more repetitive pedaling, he realized he can no longer feel his feet, but the urge to press on had not subsided one bit.
Perhaps where he’s headed, he’ll find answers to the questions that have been plaguing him for the past four weeks. Every moment of seeing the creature was on a loop in his head, as if to learn something new about it from his fading memories, but there was nothing.
 
The lack of initiative he’d taken was regrettable, and he wouldn’t stop blaming himself for not finding out more about the creature before it got stolen out of his freezer. He decided to take responsibility for the dead alien body. The only comfort to such a loss was the fact the bastard gave him radiation poisoning, so it was a good thing it disappeared. None of that mattered now.

When he finally got to Oakland it was almost dark, but there were plenty of people, all now heading to a singular location. Second wind came over him and Frank felt energized enough to run to Los Angeles if he had to.
He couldn’t feel his legs, but they served him just fine.

In dire situations, the human body is capable of performing extraordinary acts that defy both logic and the individual’s strength capacity.
Like a survival instinct.

 
But if it was -

-why was it serving him to go see a UFO?

People snaked along the seventh street. Confused cops were trying to block the way but had not managed. Nobody came with the intention of harming anyone and nobody was harmed. No panic. Nobody trampled.

People of all ages, races, colors, religions, beliefs now marched as one, eager to get front-line seats
*
for what might very well be the first inter-galactic greeting. The bright rainbow lights above pulsated beautiful colors and put everyone at peace, despite the anxiety of anticipation.

A horrible thought now struck Frank square in the head; If everyone is here, if there indeed is any contact, who’s to say it will be in peace? Then it occurred to him that it felt particularly unorthodox for people to congregate in this way.

Americans are usually afraid.
They usually fire first and then ask questions.

As he drew near the exact unoccupied patches of light, the crowd got thicker, people were eager and pushed, held up their signs and waved them to be the first to see if aliens can speak english.

During another forty-five minutes, Frank squeezed through the multicultural mosh-pit, getting closer to the lights.

The sky turned jet black under the coat of clouds, which condensed in a ring around the lights in the sky that everyone was heading toward. There were three; beautiful and as magnificent as anything else mother nature makes or causes. There were three and their heat punched holes into the clouds. Each burned itself into the eyes of every person in the massive crowd below.
 

 
The one southmost was slightly larger than the others and each was pulsating all the colors of the rainbow.
The sight was perhaps the most beautiful Frank had seen.