EnEmE: Fall Of Man Read online

  ENEME

  Fall of Man

  By: R.G. Beckwith

  Copyright Rod Beckwith

  Beckwith Publishing

  13130 Central Ave. Box 8008

  Boulder Creek, Ca 95006

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 – Daddy Issues

  Chapter 2 – Shrink Time

  Chapter 3 – Let’s Play Doctor

  Chapter 4 – Armored Soldiers

  Chapter 5 – Keep Running

  Chapter 6 - Allies

  Chapter 7 – Hauer’s Story

  Chapter 8 – Here Comes the Boom!

  Chapter 9 - Rubble

  Chapter 10 – Flying Saucers

  Chapter 11 – Kiebler’s Team

  Chapter 12 – Host Lacy AKA Kexa-183

  Chapter 13 – The Tenachai Are Coming

  Chapter 14 – The Beginning of the End

  Chapter 15 – Oh, Brother

  Chapter 16 – The Coliseum

  Chapter 17 - Bro

  Chapter 18 – Elvis and Other Surprises

  Chapter 19 – Agendas

  Chapter 20 – Block the Signal and Resist

  Chapter 21 – It’s A Trap

  Chapter 22 - Traitor

  Chapter 23 – Do Or Die

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1 – Daddy Issues

  There he is. Face cold, unmoving. Eyes closed. Not looking, not staring, but if they were open, they still wouldn’t hold any spark of the man he was. He looked waxy. Stiff. Dead. Dead as it gets. Alexander Bradley, aged 78, poet, drunk, lecher, embarrassment. My father. Lying there with his arms crossed over his chest, surrounded by polished oak and brass, in a suit I’m sure I never saw him wear and that he could never have afforded in life. His white moustache perfectly trimmed, hair slicked back, gaunt, thin sunken cheeks and the same harsh, angled features I’d inherited through genetics.

  I’m Jace Bradley, son, LAPD detective, dying for a smoke. It’s no secret that my father and I didn’t talk-- kinda hard to do that when he spent the last seven years of his life locked up in the looney bin.

  I know it sounds harsh, but so was growing up without seeing your womanizing drunk of a father for years at a time, so hold your judgment will ya?

  I look at my old man and can’t believe that he finally did himself in, especially the way he did. I would have had my money on booze, suicide, cancer, even a bar fight, but not, of all things, his appendix.

  The past aside, I can’t help but feel a tinge of pity, imagining his final hours. Apparently his appendix burst in the middle of the night, leaving him writhing in the floor in terrible pain, crawling toward the door for help, but passing out. The doctors said that the blood poisoning would have killed him, even if he hadn’t smashed his mirror and tried to cut the source of the pain out himself.

  And then I remember his life, and I can’t say that that the lack of dignity and warning of the whole situation could be any surprise at all.

  It’s hard to feel too much sympathy; after all, I did grow up the abandoned son of the famous poet, enrolling in the police academy straight out of high school, taking the responsible route, working my way up to detective in just three years. The white sheep of the family, so-to-speak.

  “I can understand having to stare at him so long. You spent so little time with him, you probably didn’t recognize him” said a bitter, sarcastic voice behind me. “Heh, you probably weren’t even sure if you were at the right funeral.”

  Fuck. My brother.

  I slowly turn my head over my shoulder to see my brother, complete with frosted tips and sunglasses hanging over my shoulder at the foot of the casket.

  “Save your high and mighty shit for another day, Max.” I manage to hiss quietly enough under my breath that I’m sure it caught no one’s attention. “This is not the place.”

  I turned and saw the full vision of my brother. A stereotypical Hollywood douche bag. Christ, he looks like Don Johnson from Miami Vice. Unlike me, he was the pride of the old man. Same shitty childhood, but somehow it inspired him to become a famous screenwriter. The old man loved it. Especially when he adapted one of the old man’s poems into an indie film. When it won a couple of awards and started getting a lot of attention, the two became more like long lost pals, Pop suddenly embracing his son with open arms, never mind that he barely acknowledged us for the first 20 years of our lives.

  “Right, put off anything uncomfortable until the other person forgets about it, right?” replied Max. “Just lived in your shadow, frightened of looking at the ugliness that is your own shortcomings…you could’ve shown him a bit more that you cared, if you did.”

  “Seriously. Fuck. Off.” I said, loud enough that I’m sure others could hear. “Keep your wanna-be hipster, new-age judgemental bullshit to yourself. I live in the real world.”

  Ok, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but then again, I really didn’t care if other people knew what I thought of my brother, in fact I am more comfortable with people knowing exactly what I think of him and that I see through his bullshit.

  Whether or not I should have said it, it worked. Max looked around and noticed a number of awkward stares, people who had heard our exchange and didn’t know how to react. A number of others were purposely looking away, trying to look like they weren’t looking, making it even more obvious that they were.

  Max looked back at me, glaring and slinking back to his seat with his wife of the week. This one was Asian.

  As I walked back to my seat I caught a couple sly grins directed at me, as if to say “Way ta go, man!” I barely knew the people grinning at me, but my brother’s fame and success had made him the target of a lot of people’s jealousy. They wished bad on him simply because he was known. One thing that I could honestly say that my brother didn’t deserve was the ire of these near strangers. They had no right to have a problem with him; I’m the one who knows what a fake bastard he is.

  People knew about the creativity and fame of the family. The writing and the movies, but they didn’t know about the last seven years. It was one of the few times that I was a very active part in my father’s life. I’m the one who had him committed. He showed up to a rare family gathering, in one of those periods when we were all trying to make amends and be a normal family. He was drunk, and likely high on something. He was babbling and screaming incoherently, trying to convince us all that aliens were real, going on about conspiracies and that they were already living among us or something. We took him to the hospital that night and by the next morning, after a long and heated debate, Max conceded and we committed him to an asylum. I visited once or twice.

  Finally, the pastor came out and began the proceedings. Talking about the fame of my father’s work and how he contributed to the lives of people all over the world. My brother took the podium afterward, delivering a touching eulogy.

  “My father was a not only a man, but a great man. His words touched the lives of thousands, maybe millions of people. It is people like my father who bring dreams to life and help inspire the common man to strive to bring his own dreams to life… when he visited the set of “Nothing Grows Here,” the award winning movie that I made, based on his poem, “Wilted Stems,” he hugged me and said “You did good, kid. I’m glad I made you.” And that’s the kind of man my father was, a man who could use the simplest words to express the deepest emotions of the soul. The…the…world is poorer for not having him here! I…I miss you, Dad!”

  And then he broke down sobbing. New Asian wife consoled him. He smothered his face somewhere between her shoulder and her too-large-for-her-frame-to-be-real breasts, generously revealed by her low cut, deep-V black dress with lace trim.

  He recovered and continued with the conclusion of his speech around the sam
e time I silently slipped out the door and lit up a smoke. Max and the rest could take it from here. I came to pay my respects and that’s what I did.

  I worked my way through L.A. traffic, took a quick detour through a drive-thru liquor store, then made my way back to my over-priced, under-maintained and crumbling apartment where I spent the rest of the day with a bottle of gin until I passed out on my couch in front of the TV.

  I bolted upright in the wee hours of the morning, startled with searing pain at my side. I touched it, and immediately recoiled, as if the mere contact of skin on skin doubled the intense stabbing sensation I was experiencing in my left side.

  My mind immediately settled on the memory on my father in his final hours, trying to cut his appendix front his own body.

  “Oh my God, my appendix is going to bust!” I thought to myself.

  I panicked, suddenly very concerned about suffering a similar fate as my father. I shifted, planning to get up and scramble to the phone and call for an ambulance, and something moved under my skin. I froze. Was I dreaming? Had I gone crazy? Was my imagination getting carried away with me? A lump moved under my skin, pushing outward from the inside, at least two inches. Nope, not crazy. The movement was accompanied by intense, searing pain that left me cringing and immobilized, groaning desperately.

  Then, one razor sharp talon punctured me. Outward. From the inside. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing, silently frozen in fear. Think I went into shock, as the talon tore a four inch opening down my side. Moments later a bloody yellow mass burst out of me, birthing itself through the new opening it had just created. It was the general size and shape of a newborn baby, with the same pudgy round head, but much thinner and bonier, yet wrinkly, body. It had long bony legs and arms, with long talons on each finger. The face had both very small and shrunken nose and mouth, and large black bulging eyes with tight, thin yellow eyelids.

  The creature that had just burst forth from my innards turned, looked at me, and in a raspy voice said “Hi, Jace!” The gleeful look on his face suddenly twisted into anger, he hissed and dug his talons deep into the skin and flesh of my stomach. Blood poured from my wounds as this being from my own body started to laugh evilly.

  That’s when I noticed that I was suddenly no longer on my couch, but sitting nude on the slab in the morgue. My blood continued pouring, pooling on the stainless steel table and trickling to the floor.

  Panicking, I woke screaming, covered in a cold sweat and clutching at my side. I looked around. I was in my crappy apartment on my crappy sweat-soaked couch. I looked at my side, brushing my hands over it. Nothing. Not even a hint of pain. No mark or tell-tale blood spray from the experience I had just had. It was a dream.

  Maybe I was going crazy.

  Chapter 2 – Shrink Time

  Two nights later I woke up screaming, in a cold sweat. That made three nights in a row, since my dad’s funeral.

  I got dressed, got in my car and drove over to my shrink’s office at Vermont and Venice. It was too early for her to be open, so I chatted with Mick at the all-night news stand and grabbed breakfast from Sal’s, the food truck that was permanently parked next to Mick’s news kiosk. Great guys both, good old boys in their late 70s, real old-fashioned, stand-up guys like they don’t make any more.

  They were so old-fashioned, in fact, that most of their friends and none of their customers had any idea they were a couple. These guys had grown up in times where staying in the closet was a rule, not the exception, like it is today. How you could hide something like that inside yourself from people your entire life, I’ll never know. They were good; they were well-practiced at not drawing attention to it. They were just themselves; genuine old-timers, no blustering or macho over-compensation, which worked to their favour. The average person would have no idea, but to a trained detective little things added up over time; a look, an absence, an awkward pause in conversation. I’d finally put it together a couple years ago, but never said anything of it to either Mick or Sal. They didn’t feel the need to share their personal lives with any and all around them, and I’m sure that they felt that if there were inquiring minds, it was none of their goddamn business, and I agreed.

  I saw a spindly redhead in neat professional attire working her way across the street through the slower pedestrians, holding her paper coffee cup high, so as not to spill it as she squeezed past. Her limbs were long and thin, and seemed able to bend at extreme angles that shouldn’t seem possible, like a praying mantis, in order to get through the obstacles of the Los Angeles streets. She didn’t notice me at my street-side picnic table vantage point as she slipped into an alcove in front of a tall glass archway, pulled out a key and quickly slid into the doorway of my psychiatrist’s office. The redhead’s name was Lacy; she was Dr. Kiebler’s receptionist.

  I finished up the last of my hash browns. Sal made the best in the city, which I thanked him for as I returned the plate. I tossed a buck and some change to Mick for the paper I’d been reading and wished them both a good day. I carefully watched the traffic for several seconds before choosing my time to cut across the street without going to the crosswalk. A few quick strides and a near collision with an ’87 Buick Skylark later, and I was safely gliding into my doctor’s office just in time for the 10 am opening.

  I speedily crossed the foyer, eyes the office door just past the appointment desk, and grinned, making direct eye contact with Lacy behind the desk as I quickly strode right past her.

  “Is Doctor Kiebler in, Lacy? Surely, it would be out of character for the good doctor to not be here first thing in the morning.” I said wryly.

  Lacy fumbled from behind the desk, tripping over her little blue plastic waste basket. She valiantly attempted to catch up with the long quick strides I was making, but to no avail. The 3-inch heels and narrow knee-length business skirt probably didn’t help.

  “Oh…Mr…Mr. Bradley…you must be mistaken...you’re appointment isn’t until Wednesday.” She stuttered, desperately trying to delay me. “Dr. Kiebler has…a very busy schedule today.”

  “Oh, no bother, I’ll just be a minute!” I replied with a sly grin as I slipped into Dr. Kiebler’s door, locking it behind me.

  I waited a full second, until I heard the thump of Lacy hitting the door in full stride. A quick rattle proved to her that the door was locked.

  “Whatever, the doctor can handle it.” I heard her say in resignation before she turned and marched back to her desk.

  Lacy was good at her job, but she knew I was a regular and no threat, not like those nutters out in the waiting room.

  With that, I turned to look at Dr. Kiebler, who was leaning against a desk, looking none too impressed and glaring at me.

  Kiebler was an old family friend, had even counselled my father through several difficult stages in his life, had helped get my brother into film school, and been counselling me once a week since I was 17.

  The fact that she was gorgeous and only 7 years my senior wasn’t bad either. For a woman in her late 30’s she was sure put together well. She was the kind of sophisticated woman who had lived clean and had aged gracefully, able to pass for 10 years younger, I would say. Her long auburn hair was pulled back in a pony tail

  “To what do I owe this pleasure, Mr. Bradley?” she asked in a seething, sarcastic tone.

  “Well, I was in the neighbourhood, thought I’d pop by and thank you for coming to my father’s funeral,” I replied.

  “Your brother did that two days ago. I hadn’t thought that you stuck around long enough to have noticed I was there,” she replied.

  “Well, you know I just can’t stand to see my brother use every opportunity to talk about himself and compete with others to prove that his pain is more “significant” than theirs.” I said that last part with little air quotes.

  “I saw that exchange the two of you had next to the coffin,” she said, glaring sternly. Then a wide grin broke through and across her face from ear to ear. “You restrained yourself very well.”r />
  “I’m glad someone appreciated it,” I said, chuckling.

  “So why are you here?” Kiebler asked, cutting through the chit-chat. I liked her style.

  “Well ever since my father’s funeral I’ve been waking up screaming every night because of nightmares that my appendix is a fuckin’ monster chewing its way out of my body,” I replied.

  “Sit,” she ordered.

  After I explained the story of the last few days since my father’s death, she stared at me and slowly drew in a deep breath.

  “After a traumatic experience, especially one involving repressed emotions of love and anger, the mind can start taking us to strange places,” she said.

  “No, shit,” I replied. “My mind is taking me to a place where the scene from Aliens is repeated nightly, but with more pain and gory detail.”

  “Your mind is taking you to a place to show you a truth. A truth about yourself in order to help you heal,” she said, exasperated. “Sometimes your conscious just isn’t ready to hear what it needs to hear directly, so your mind has to create hidden symbols and messages in your dreams for you to figure out on your own.”