Everybody Scream! by Jeffrey Thomas

Author:Jeffrey Thomas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press
Published: 2009-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

“Blast me,” breathed Bern Glandston, blindly inserting a dilky into his mouth, then chewing it unconsciously. He stared, mildly awed, at the leg.

It was a free attraction; putting a tent around it and charging admission had been considered but would detract from the effect of the great spider-like appendage emerging out of empty air. Lights illuminated it and there was a sign nearby with information. Two years ago it had appeared, at first just the mechanical-looking claws at the end and a bit of leg, high in the air. Slowly, imperceptibly, more had emerged as the foot lowered toward the ground. After two years the foot was still two inches from touching ground. It was as black, glistening and reflective as obsidian, with cruel barbs, odd mechanical joints, tough bristles, and the words “Toby Fucks” sprayed on the upper part of the leg in the nearly impossible to remove paint favored by graffiti artists.

Bern stepped around to the back of the leg. He craned his neck. He thought the cross-section where the leg emerged from thin air might show an actual cross-section; bones, nerves, veins, whatever. The surface was just a flat black disc. Bern moved around front to read the sign further. It had been suggested that this extra-dimensional creature had been drawn to the site by the color, noise, or activity. “By the smell of dilkies,” Bern muttered to himself, cramming one in his mouth. The sign went on that the leg was seven feet in length this year. Scientists had taken samples of this one, and in the air over a certain bank here in Punktown two hundred and forty-three of these legs had materialized. They had been fitted with lights to keep helicars from striking them at night, and a disintegrating unit had later been attached by brackets to two legs to catch a dribbling liquid which had started to rain out of the blue sky onto the bank, and which scientists later identified as a kind of waste product. The dribble had stopped after four months. It still remained to be seen whether or not those legs would have to be sliced away by the authorities in the future, pending further developments. The origin or nature of the creature was still unknown.

“Two hundred forty-three,” muttered Bern, wagging his head, chewing. Staring. What kind of thing loomed above him now, cloaked in invisibility, standing in this same space but in some other dimension? What did it want here? It was enough to make even Bern Glandston ponder a few more moments, even if nobody else seemed interested, too busy rushing from ride to game to food stand.

But he did sense a presence close behind him now, and he turned.

Though he had never seen an alien of this type before he was more curious than startled. It was huge, almost as tall as the leg, and sturdy, muscular. The head was like a hornless cattle skull with intelligent human-like eyes set in the deep cups of the sockets, the teeth devoid of gums and covering lips.

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