A shrill alarm pierced the night. I stood in the street and turned toward the sound, expecting to see someone fussing over a smoldering pot on a stove, instead, it appeared to be a house fire, well underway. From a second-floor window, a blinding light pulsed through a smoke-filled room. Two arms appeared, swatting air, fingers splayed. Trailing grey curlicues, they reached for the window, then vanished into billowing smog.
I lived two blocks away and passed the semi-detached home, atop Cedar Hill, twice every day, walking to and from work. I’d never met the residents but referred to them as the Freaks. It was December 30th, yet their porch was decorated for Halloween – and had been for years. Pumpkins rotted on the top rail. A plastic skeleton lazed in a hammock, above it hung four pink, hairless, baby dolls, suspended by black ribbon tied around their ankles. Makeshift crosses, wooden tombstones, and assorted undressed mannequin parts covered a short lawn that sloped at a forty-five-degree angle toward the street.
Whatever I thought of the gruesome display, a house was on fire and someone needed help, so I sprinted up the steps, unbuttoning my overcoat along the way, and rushed through an unlocked front door. The ground level was smoke free and smelled of latex paint. Music blared from somewhere upstairs. A dark staircase had a sloppy, white stripe spray-painted down the middle. The steps curved toward a blackened hallway with a spongy, uneven floor, as if littered with wrinkled yoga mats.
I faced the front room. The only light glowed from a thin strip beneath the door. There was still no sign of smoke, and the door wasn’t hot, so I pushed into a bright, purple-walled chamber. The air was clear and the sparsely furnished room was free of fire. Mr. Freak stood on a wooden, straight-backed chair, and struggled to disable the flashing, wailing smoke alarm. A carbon dioxide fire extinguisher lay sideways on the floor.
A heavy-boned woman with mint green hair danced next to me, arms flailing, singing along to “I Want To Be Sedated” by the Ramones. I recognized Mrs. Freak as the slow jogger who passed my house most evenings, wearing an absurd black unitard, looking like a diver who’d lost her ocean.
“What the fuck?” I asked Mrs. Freak, because she was closest.
She didn’t answer but tried raising my arms, enticing me to dance. I resisted. Her breath reeked of liquor and cigarettes. She wore ripped green tights, a pink tutu, and a ratty, red sweater. Two round silver studs clung to her right nostril, half a dozen more lined her right ear. She flicked my silk tie and bounced away, spinning in a lop-sided circle.
The floor, like the hallway, was spongy, matte black, and appeared to writhe like a living, flaccid thing. Appendages were visible, like skins shed by enormous lizards. A long, bronze zipper caught my eye and the shapes transformed into wetsuits. Dozens of them. Mrs. Freak’s jogging outfits carpeted the floor. Until then, I’d assumed she only had one.
Mr. Freak couldn’t remove the batteries and bashed the smoke detector with the bottom of his fist. It fell from the ceiling, followed by a stream of plaster dust. Sound and light continued until Mr. Freak leapt from the chair and smashed the unit under his heel. Atop his head, a greasy man-bun jiggled, seeking escape.
Satisfied that the smoke detector was dead, he looked at me and gave a powerful nod. “Glad you could join us. Are there others?”
I glanced behind me to confirm the hallway was empty. “No. I thought there was a fire.”
“I was purifying the air.” He tapped the fire-extinguisher with his foot. “Who’d’a thought this would set off a smoke alarm? Seems ironic, don’t it?”
The office building where I worked sponsored regular fire safety courses. My certificate sat in a filing cabinet behind my desk. “You could have asphyxiated yourself or frozen your skin. You’ll probably get a headache shortly.” I walked toward the window and opened it a crack.
The arm of a wetsuit covered my shoe, as if clutching my foot. I kicked it off. “Did a dive shop go out of business?”
“We can’t trust the ground or the air. CO2 densifies and regenerates the atmosphere, while neoprene keeps us from touching anything in direct contact with earth’s negative charge.”
I doubted his sobriety. “Wouldn’t rubber-soled shoes …?”
Before I finished my sentence, Joey Ramone’s vocals carried us to the end of the track. Silence ensued until a cymbal crash, and pulsing electric guitar, signaled the song was on a loop. Beneath her shock of lime green hair, Mrs. Freak bobbed her pale, pasty head and resumed her spastic dance. She screamed, “Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go.”
I brushed the dust off my tie. “I’ll let myself out.”
Mr. Freak tilted his pimply face. “You absolutely cannot leave.” He poked my chest. “There’ll be red laser sights on you the moment you cross the threshold.”
“What?”
“No one’s going anywhere until our friends from Lechlidar get here. Then we’ll go down the hall and out the bathroom window. That’s the only way. Anything else will raise suspicion and give the game away.”
“What game?”
“The ground floor exits are all being watched because it’s almost time.”
“For what?”
“For the spaceship. That’s why you’re here.”
“I’m on my way home from an office party. I thought someone needed help.”
“But we’re fine. We’re blessed. Lechlidarians arrive at midnight. You must know.”
“Who?”
“You came – yet you don’t even know who summoned you? You must’ve been subconsciously programmed. I should’a guessed.”
I blinked but couldn’t comprehend his meaning.
He ran a hand over the top of his head and adjusted his bun. “Oh man. This proves how powerful they are.”
Though the song continued, Mrs. Freak grew still, entranced by her husband’s voice.
“Let me get ya up to speed. God isn’t the creator. We’re subject to a race much more powerful: the hyper-galactic beings of Lechlidar. Earth is one small outpost in a universal colonization experiment. But it’s all gone wrong. We’ve succumbed to the anti-Christ. Consumed with greed, we’ve failed at love and charity. Signs of the apocalypse abound: Australia is burning, oceans are dying.”
He’d gone from the absurd to something that almost made sense. “You think the Book of Revelation is coming true?”
“It’s way, way more intense than that. Earth has been overtaken by sinister forces who think they’re against God but don’t even know he’s a false creation. The world is crumbling, though our rescue is at hand. At midnight, it’ll be twenty-four hours until 2020. Joey Ramone is a prophet. It’s time to go. We’ll soon be sedated for transport on the mothership.”
Mrs. Freak walked toward a clunky laptop opened on a paint-splattered, wooden desk near the window. Red cables connected the computer to four large, boxy speakers, one affixed to each wall. Next to the laptop sat a glass bong, large enough for a hamster to live inside. Its interior was smeared with thick brown residue.
Five years ago, my brother accidentally overdosed and became an opioid crisis statistic. Plus, a kid I grew up with suffered a cannabis-induced psychotic episode last year and remains unable to function in society. Though the Freaks were strangers, I worried they might hurt themselves – jumping out a window, maybe. The same instinct that made me rush into the house, compelled me to stay and keep them safe.
After pressing a button to silence the music, Mrs. Freak moved toward her man, concentrating on his words, gazing with a disciple’s admiration.
“The bible’s all wrong. It’s close, but all wrong. Our goal isn’t entering the heavenly kingdom. The chosen ones – that’s us – are going home to Lechlidar.”
I’d once been religious and found his theory interesting, but I wanted to hear more about the violence he believed awaited me outside the front door. The rest of his plan seemed peaceful, hopeful even, but some inner demon must have triggered this one frightening aspect of his hallucinatory world.
“I know it’s a lot to grasp but your presence here, at minutes to midnight, proves it’s true. I’m just sad there aren’t more among the chosen. I expected a steady stream of people. Come on. Let me show you the landing pad.”
Mr. Freak left the room and his partner gestured for me to follow. We walked in a line down the narrow, wetsuit-carpeted hall to the bathroom. He flicked on the light. The fixtures were seafoam green. Mildew desecrated a SpongeBob shower curtain. Sealed tin cans filled the tub – every label missing. A single wetsuit stretched across the floor.
Mr. Freak opened the window, stuck his head out, and invited me to do the same. His warmth radiated against my shoulder, while frigid air tingled my nostrils, reminding me how the temperature always dropped whenever I crested the hill and came even with the Freak’s grim porch. No matter the season, the difference registered on my skin. I’d suspected an altered wind pattern atop Cedar Hill accounted for the change, but my captor’s penetrating eyes made me wonder if darker forces were at work.
Behind the house was a small, cinder block garage with a grey, shingled roof. Beyond it lay an empty triple lot. I’d noticed it before and wondered how, in one of the oldest parts of town, it had escaped development.
Mr. Freak pointed toward a new feature on the property: massive, white, concentric circles, painted on the short grass. “That strip of land has the highest elevation in the city and has been kept clear by imperial decree. To make landing easier, my wife and I were out all day with paint and rollers, making that target.”
“Impressive. I figured whatever houses used to be there must’ve burned.”
“Nope. Look at the solid curb running the length of the landing pad. If houses had been there, there’d be curb cuts where driveways used to be.”
“That makes sense.”
“I’m glad it’s sinking in.”
It wasn’t but I didn’t want to argue.
“Show him the spaceship picture.” Mrs. Freak sat behind us, on the edge of the tub.
“Great idea.” He led me away, leaving the window open. “Now you’ll see. We’ve framed an old map of the area that actually shows the spaceship on its landing pad. It’s incredible.”
At the top of the stairs, Mr. Freak tied a wetsuit around each foot. His wife did the same. I wondered why they hadn’t bought matching scuba boots. Under a bare incandescent bulb, Mr. Freak’s improvised shoes flopped over the white stripe sprayed down the middle of each step, scattering particles like moondust across the wooden surface. What I’d thought was paint, was probably salt.
In the dining room, it appeared a breakfast feast was underway, with enough cereal to feed an elementary school. Seven mannequins were dressed in black leather jackets and torn, faded jeans. Their long wigs were dark and shaggy with poorly cut bangs. Four dummies wore sunglasses.
Mrs. Freak rushed ahead. “You probably didn’t get to meet Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, Marky, Richie and C.J.,” she said, pointing to each figure.
“The Ramones?” I asked.
Mr. Freak stood against the far wall. “Of course.”
“I hadn’t realized there were so many.”
“Not all at once.” His tone was curt. He’d patiently explained Lechlidarians and their grand design for the universe but seemed offended at my ignorance toward the kings of punk.
“This is what I wanted to show you.” He rapped one knuckle against a picture on the wall, the same image Dee Dee’s lifeless hand pointed toward. “This is an authentic historical document, more than a century old.”
Brown with age, the hand-drawn paper, large as a foldable travel map, portrayed a residential community with the name “Cedar Hill” written across the top in elaborate calligraphy. I recognized Courtland Avenue, the widest street, and spotted my house, opposite the school.
Mr. Freak pointed to the title. “Cedar Hill is an anagram of Lechlidar. It’s all part of the plan. That’s how clever they are.”
“So, the whole planet is one large experiment but Lechlidarians are only coming here?” I tapped the map.
“No. That would be silly. Every city has a Cedar Hill.”
“Or,” I envisioned the letters shifting into a new pattern, “a Chill Dare.”
He made a disapproving wet click with his tongue against his teeth. “Even if locals don’t know the proper name, Lechlidarians are sending hundreds of spaceships tonight to the highest point in every city across the globe.” He nodded at the Ramones, expecting affirmation.
Mr. Freak lowered his finger to the intersection of Peter Street and St. George, indicating the house where we stood. The map’s detail was impressive, every window and door carefully drawn.
“Do you see the spaceship?”
I leaned closer. Behind the house, along St. George Street, was an undeveloped patch of land – the same one we’d viewed from the bathroom window. An enormous black object was drawn upon it. Larger than a house, it looked like a fat rocket on stilts. “Huh,” I said. It vaguely resembled a spaceship but I recognized the structure. “That’s an old water tower.”
Mr. Freak lowered his chin and raised both eyebrows, like a teacher glaring at a student who’s given a disastrous answer to a simple question.
“It makes perfect sense,” I said, “elevation increases water pressure. This old tower must’ve been torn down after that massive new one was built next to the highway.”
Mr. Freak’s face contorted with anger. “I’ve made a mistake. You weren’t programmed by Lechlidarians, you’re an anti-Christ sent to disrupt the plan.” He pointed at my feet. “You’re unprotected, tainted by rotting earth.”
He signaled to someone behind me – one of the Ramones, I thought – but I turned to face Mrs. Freak, whose right arm, in mid swing, held a small, cast iron frying pan. A loud, metallic clang was followed by sharp, piercing pain that raced from skull to spine.
Everything went black.
I awoke in daylight, cold and alone, with the frying pan beside me on the floor. I had a pounding headache and a massive lump above my left eye. My necktie was missing and the Ramones had vanished, along with their cereal.
Upstairs, the rubbery carpet looked thinner, the bathtub was empty, and a rope had been fashioned from knotted wetsuits. One leg was tied to the chrome pipe behind the toilet, while the rest stretched out the window. Halfway down, fastened to a neoprene sleeve, my red paisley tie swayed in the breeze. On the wet ground, a dented silver can rested against a concrete step. Joey Ramone’s round sunglasses sat nearby.
Beyond the garage, the landing pad’s white circles had disappeared, and the lawn looked burned. Either heavy rain leached wet paint into the soil, and poisoned the grass, or a spaceship had landed, with blasters firing.
As I let myself out the front door, I glanced at my chest, anticipating red laser beams but none appeared.
I never saw the Freaks again, though I think of them often.
Mr. Freak had named two signs of the apocalypse – a burning continent and dying oceans – but more harbingers followed. Hours after the chosen ones departed, the Pope slapped a woman in front of devoted pilgrims, children, and video cameras. Four days later, a clown almost started a war with a religious republic. In February, a plague of locusts overwhelmed east Africa. By March, a deadly new virus encircled the world.
When May brought news of “murder hornets,” I was already sorry I’d missed the ride to Lechlidar.
The End