Three, Two, One, Wake Up excerpt

Chet stood on the stage with two other young men and three young women. They’d all just finished walking around the stage like a roost of chickens, and no one seemed the least bit embarrassed. His eyes were closed and he was relaxed. The performer who called himself Bartok the Magnificent spoke, filling Chet’s focus, nudging the other thoughts aside.

“When I reach one,” Bartok said, “you’ll all be awake, refreshed as if you’ve had a full night’s sleep. Three. Two. One. Wake up!” He snapped his fingers.

Chet’s eyes opened. He blinked a few times and stretched. He felt great. As the other volunteers started toward their seats, he glanced out at the audience. He froze, unable to believe his eyes. Eight or nine rows back, on the right, sat a… shit, he didn’t know what it was.

It almost looked human, but was a full head taller than the people on either side. Chet wiped his fingers over his eyes and blinked in disbelief.

The thing had two pairs of eyes, not one. A second set were above the normal ones, and on its forehead, which was proportionately longer to accommodate them.

Bartok the Magnificent stepped up beside him, ran his hand over Chet’s face and said, “Sleep.”

Chet dropped back into his relaxed state. The hypnotist said something to the audience about coming out of the trance being more difficult for the strong-willed, and moved in to whisper in Chet’s ear, “I’m sorry.” He slipped something into Chet’s shirt pocket. “When you awaken, act as though nothing is wrong. Come back after the show and I’ll explain. Tell your friends you have a headache and want to go home. Say nothing about anything you see or hear, or you and they will be killed.”

Bartok counted again and snapped his fingers. Chet’s eyes opened as before, but now when he looked at the audience, although he still saw the creature in the eighth row, it looked no more out of place than anyone else. At least a dozen similar individuals were seated here and there in the theater.

Chet moved shakily off the stage and returned where to his friends sat. After a few more tricks, the show ended.

The group left, pushing out into the neon night, Chet carefully avoiding staring at the humanoid creatures on the street on in cars. “Guys,” he said to Bill Armatige, Mike Flowers, and John Miller. “I’m getting a headache. I’m going to head home.” He left his friends and doubled back to the theater, determined to find out what the phony hypnotist had done to him.

A billboard on one of the buildings had a photo of one of those things with the extra eyes, and now that he looked closer, they had gill slits on either side of their necks. Under the image was printed “Work Eight Hours, Play Eight Hours, Sleep Eight Hours.” A few steps further he saw another that said, “Marry and Reproduce,” and “Consume.”

Chet sped up, following an alley around to the side of the theater. A man dressed in black waited, leaning against the building, partly obscured by shadows. Bartok. Chet approached the man.

“What the hell did you do to me?” Chet demanded.

Bartok raised a palm in Chet’s direction. “Shh. You can never know when one might be within earshot.”

Chet stopped. “You mean those things are real?”

Bartok pushed away from the wall. “Let’s walk.” Chet followed the older man through the alley and out onto a deserted street. They turned right.

Chet grabbed the man’s jacket. “I asked you—”

Bartok spun around. “Yes,” he said in a harsh whisper. “They are. Real. I’m sorry. Normally, I recognize someone who’ll likely wake up fully early on. I didn’t in your case.” He tore free from Chet’s grasp and studied the shadows across the street for a moment. “We must keep moving.” He resumed walking.

“What did you do to me?”

“What do you see?”

“I see these… things,” Chet said, his panic bordering on hysteria. “They almost look human, but they aren’t. They have an extra set of eyes and gill slits in their necks. The slits frigging move.”

Bartok nodded. “And the signs. The billboards. What do you see?”

“I don’t know, mottos, slogans, instructions. Saying things like have babies, and shop, and consume more.”

Bartok nodded again. “What you’re seeing is real. I accidentally woke you up. I’ll tell you everything I know. Do not let on that you see them. They’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

“No,” Chet said, his gut twisting. “You did something to me. Some kind of post hypnotic suggestion or something. Make it stop!”

“I’m not going to tell you again to lower your voice. You’ll get us both killed.”

Chet stood on the empty sidewalk, shivering, but not from the cold. “I want you to undo whatever you did. I won’t tell anybody, I promise.”

Bartok shook his head, slowly. “I can’t. Come on, you need to hear this.” He pulled Chet along by the arm. “They showed up about fifty years ago. Nobody knows where they’re from. They sneaked in, somehow creating the illusion they were human from the onset. They’ve gradually moved into positions of power.”

“You mean, like the government?”

“Yes, but also business, entertainment, the police.” Bartok jammed his hands into his pockets. “You name it, they control it.”

“So, the political crap, the labor unions, the—”

“Meaningless,” Bartok said. “They’re on both sides of almost every issue. Did you ever notice how politicians argue, stir things up, and then never change anything?”

“Well, yeah, sure, but I thought that was just politics.”

“Smoke and mirrors. They make us think they’re on opposite sides of an issue, and then it just dries up and blows away.” He held up his fist, opened it, and blew across his palm. “And we forget all about it and go on to the next thing, because we’re programmed to.”

“And you don’t know who they are?”

Bartok shook his head. “No one does.”

“Or where they came from?”

“No.”

“This is crazy. You expect me to believe we’ve been invaded by another race and we just forget to see them?”

The older man shrugged. “Illusion and expectation are powerful things. Studying its effects has been by life’s work.”

“Well, put me back. I don’t want to see them or hear them.”

“It doesn’t work that way. Once you know something, you can’t just unknow it again. The best I or anyone can do is to plant a suggestion, like I did earlier.” The two men approached an all-night diner. Bartok stopped and turned his collar up against the chilly breeze. “Look across the street and tell me what you see.”

“In the diner?”

He nodded.

Chet glanced in the direction and looked away. “Oh shit. There’s two of them in the diner. They’re dressed like policemen.”

“They aren’t dressed like policemen, they are policemen,” Bartok said. “You see what they’re eating?”

“Of course I see what… They’re eating donuts. Are you kidding me? Donuts?” Chet almost laughed.

“They love donuts,” Bartok said. “They’d sell their own mothers into slavery for donuts.”

“They have mothers?”

“I don’t know what they have,” Bartok said. “I can’t tell if they’re male or female, or even if the concept has any meaning to them. You want some coffee?”

Chet’s stomach turned. He looked away. “Are you nuts? I’m not sitting in the same restaurant with those—things.”

They started walking again. “You better get used to the idea, because there are probably half a dozen at your workplace.”

“What am I going to do?” Chet blew out a breath. “You have to do something.”

“I’ll tell you what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to acknowledge anything’s changed. If you do, they’ll take you off somewhere, and no one’ll ever see you again.”

“So this is it? Live the rest of my life seeing those things everywhere I look, but I can’t tell anyone?” They were almost back to the theater.

“The card I put in your pocket has a phone number on the back. Don’t look at it now or show it to anyone. Tomorrow morning, call the number. The person who answers will be able to help you. There’s a kind of underground, a resistance if you will. You’re a part of that, now, I’m afraid.”

“We have to do something.” Chet was desperate. He couldn’t go around like this. Not for the rest of his life.

“We’re doing all we can.”

They reached the front of the theater, again. “Go home,” Bartok said. “You’ve had a shock.” He held out his hand. “Welcome to the resistance.”

Chet took his hand. “I don’t know whether to thank you or punch you.”

Bartok laughed. It was a low, soft sound.

On the way back to his apartment, Chet passed by advertisement after advertisement in store windows. About half contained either likenesses of the creatures or slogans encouraging consumption, or both. He had to look away.

At home, in his one-bedroom apartment, Chet started to pace, unable to settle himself. At midnight, he headed down his front steps and onto the street in front of his apartment building.

Hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, he roamed the neighborhood, oblivious to the passing time. The ads grew oddly compelling, but Chet resisted them. Unable to keep moving, he ducked into an alley, leaned against the rough bricks of a building, and closed his eyes.

A long moment later, a harsh, rasping voice to his left said, “Shove off, buddy.”

One of them stood next to a dumpster. Its face shimmered in the gloom and morphed into that of a gray-haired, snaggle-toothed drunk. His threadbare clothes, dirty and tattered, hung loose on his emaciated frame. Chet stood, transfixed, as the alien’s face reverted back to its true form. It walked toward him, smelling of stale sweat.

“I said beat it, asshole. ’Samatter, can’t you hear?” When the alien reached arm’s distance, it shoved Chet, who stumbled and fell.

Chet sat on the dirt and grime in the dimly-lighted alley, surrounded by the stench of garbage as the alien started to laugh. Its laughter built on itself until the thing was doubled over, hands on its knees, cackling. The disgusting bird-chirp sound it made dug into Chet’s mind like blades. He rose and tackled the thing. They scuffled, rolling in the dirt, until Chet’s hand found half a brick.

He swung it.

The alien went down, dazed, and Chet was on him. He brought the brick down two or three times, and the creature lay still. Chet dropped against the rough surface of the wall, the horror of what he’d just done working through him as surely as the garbage stench filling his nose.

He sat, staring.

They would never let this slide. This creature’s fellow invaders would hunt down whoever did this. This wasn’t an old drunk, it was one of their own.

Chet struggled to his feet, checked his jacket. Sickly green blood was spattered across his chest and arm. He needed to get home, rinse it off, or better yet get another jacket. Chet crept to the mouth of the alley and peered out. It was late, and he might have a chance if he kept to the shadows. He took a deep breath and started into the night.

His mind churned to come up with a reason for the green blood on his jacket and skin.

He made it to his building and climbed up the front stairs, exhausted now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He reached into his pocket for his keys.

They were gone.

The alley. His heart skipped.

He needed in. He pressed the button to his neighbor’s apartment.

Nothing.

He pressed it again, held it down longer this time. He glanced around the deserted street, making sure no one was following him.

“Who is it?”

“Tiffany. It’s your neighbor, Chet. Let me in, please. I lost my keys.”

CONTINUED

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