Government Men Page 17

CHAPTER 11

  VISITOR

  Fish and visitors smell in three days.

  - Benjamin Franklin

  At the K-MART Bates bought some top of the line things for his trip to meet Janet, including sexy new underwear for himself (Just in case!). He also picked up some dog biscuits for Milo and weeklong dissolving food blocks for his goldfish. After an additional quick stop at McDonald’s for himself and Milo, they headed home at last.

  When he parked in front of his apartment, it was already dark. Glancing at his watch as he rushed into the apartment building, he was astonished to find that it had taken more than an hour and a half to get home. He still had much to do; he would have to really rush to catch his flight!

  When he entered his apartment and turned on the living room lights, several things happened at once. First, he realized that the door was already unlocked. Second, he realized that his apartment had been broken into. There were all sorts of his belongings strewn over the floor, and some furniture was overturned and even broken. Actually, it didn't look very much different than it usually did, but Bates identified specific differences immediately. Third, Milo started growling, which was very unusual for Milo. Forth, and most noticeably, from out of nowhere a filthy, smelly, screaming lunatic dressed only in a fishing hat sprung out and tackled him, knocking him to the floor and landing on top of him with jarring force.

  Bates had only a moment to recognize in astonishment the face full of torment and rage that stared down at him as belonging to Dr. Barns, when Barns let out a piercing yell, lifted up and away from him, hopped awkwardly for a few seconds around the room in panic as he screamed in pain, and then fell heavily to the floor himself.

  Attached firmly to a chubby left Barns-buttock was Milo!

  Bates, who hadn't really been hurt, pulled Milo off of Barns in seconds. The usually amiable Milo then fled behind a chair whining and cowering, clearly upset and apprehensive after having committed the terrible sin of biting a human for the first time in his life, and began coughing and spitting, as if he had tasted something horrid.

  Meanwhile Barns, who clearly had suffered the worst from the brief encounter, lay cringing, shivering, and whimpering in the corner where he had fallen. Bates approached him with caution, and then growing horror, when he got a better look at his former boss. Barns was covered from head to toe with what looked like unhealed cuts, scrapes, bruises, and burns. Blood ran freely from several of the wounds, including the fresh dog bite on his butt. There were also brown globs of something smeared all over his nude body, from which a strange, horrific stench emanated.

  The fishing lures had evidently gotten their revenge on Barns also; around the edge of the battered hat, Bates could see that hooks from several of the lures were imbedded deeply into the poor man's scalp. It might take a surgeon to remove that hat from his bloody head! Further, though Barns was still chubby, Bates guessed that he had lost perhaps twenty or thirty pounds from his short frame. What on Earth had happened to the man? And what was he doing here in his apartment?

  "Barns, it's OK," comforted Bates. He grabbed a blanket from the sofa and approached Barns warily with it. "You look cold; here, let me give you this blanket.”

  Barns flinched away from the blanket and started to crawl away from Bates.

  "No! Wait!” said Bates. "Don't be afraid, I want to help you.”

  "No!” cried Barns. "I won't let you take me back there; let me die with everyone else!”

  Bates maneuvered himself between Barns and the door, wondering what he should say or do next. "Listen Dr. Barns, I won't hurt you! It's me, your friend Narbando T. Bates!” He smiled uncertainly at his former boss. “We have the same middle name!”

  Recognition showed in Barns' face. "You! You took my job! You're working for them! That's why I came here to get you! A quick death on Christmas Eve is too good for you!” Again he leapt at Bates, screaming. This time though, Bates was ready for him. He quickly wrapped the smaller man in the blanket, flipped him back onto the floor, and held him down. After a few minutes of squirming and cussing, Barns finally began to calm down, or to at least run out of steam.

  "OK Barns, that's enough of that; can you simply tell me what's going on? What happened to you? And what are you so scared of?” As he held down Barns in his tiring arms, Bates realized that he was probably missing his flight to Arizona and Janet. He didn't have time for this crazy stuff!

  Barns seemed to think for a moment. Then he started laughing and crying hysterically, while babbling semi-coherently something about man eating space bats with pig noses. In the meantime, Bates looked around his apartment. It was certainly evident that someone had been looking through all his things for something. Recently used stuff that used to be on top was no longer visible, and stuff he had forgotten he owned was in plain sight. At what seemed like a relatively calm moment for Barns, Bates asked him why he had ransacked his apartment.

  Barns looked at him blankly. "It wasn't me," he claimed. "I got here just before you came!”

  A coherent sentence! This was progress, thought Bates. "Well then, who was it that searched my apartment?”

  "Who searched your apartment? THEM!” yelled Barns after a few moments, with sudden insight. "It had to be THEM!” He started to struggle again.

  Bates held him securely. "Them who?" demanded Bates. "Who was it, Barns, and what did they want?”

  Barns took a deep breath and looked Bates in the eye. "You really don't know, do you!” he said quietly. "Twig and Renson, and that dirty rotten sneak Melberg! They're all damned SPACE ALIENS! Man-eating bat-pigs in disguise! They want me. They want me bad! Oh! And they will want you too then, won't they? Yes, you!” Fear again filled his eyes. "Why the hell did I look up THIS address in that phone booth? Of all the places I could flee to this is the worst! Yes, of course they would come here. Even if you aren't one of them, you're their dupe! If I could find you, so can they. Hell, they already have found your apartment and could come back here at any time!” He looked around in terror. "What the HELL am I doing HERE?”

  The man was completely bonkers, thought Bates. Twig and the others are alien cannibal bats? Kooks and weirdoes probably, they were after all U.S. Civil Servants, and maybe even cannibal Civil Servants, but space aliens? No way! Bates braced for another round of struggling from Barns.

  Instead, Barns suddenly started to laugh. "I don't know how the hell you did it, but you did it, didn't you?”

  "Did what?”

  "The SAFE my boy!” exclaimed Barns. "You somehow vaporized the contents of that safe, didn't you? It was that gizmo of yours, wasn’t it?” When smiling, Barns seemed more schizoid than ever.

  "You mean the safe you left in my office?"

  "Of course Bates, the safe full of goodies those aliens the Ra wanted!”

  "Well," apologized Bates, "I'm afraid that I may have accidentally damaged whatever is in that safe with the MX-84, that's true enough, but the safe will have to be cautiously opened to find out for sure."

  As though Bates had just told some hilarious joke, Barns started to laugh again. "Open it? Oh don't worry about opening it my boy! They already opened it! In their space ship! BARROOM! And you did it by accident, you say? That's marvelous! You should have seen them scatter and barf!” Barns laughed uncontrollably. "By God Bates we did it! You and me! Screwed them over royally! Why I even took Twig's precious data cubes too, though I must have lost them someplace between her place and here. Twig must be going crazy!” Barns looked at Bates fondly. "And you saved my life too Bates, when you rigged that safe to explode. I guess I was wrong about you Bates, you're all right!”

  Bates was glad that he still had Barns under control in the blanket; at the moment he looked downright affectionate. Bates had witnessed Barns kissing Twig and wanted none of that.

  But friendly now or not, the odor from the esteemed Dr. Barns was terrible. "Listen Dr. Barns, now that we have all that settled, why don't we just get you washed and take you to a hospital where they
can get you patched up?” Bates hoped to at least get the worst of that stinking brown slime off Barns as soon as possible. Then he would get the man some professional help.

  "What? Haven't you been listening? We can't lollygag around here taking baths! Twig and her crew could be back here any second! You don't want her to get her claws on you, believe you me! You can't hide from the likes of them in a hospital, either.”

  Bates didn't know what to say, and Barns suddenly understood why. "You don't believe me, do you? You think I've got a few screws loose, don't you!”

  Bates tried to be diplomatic. "Of course not sir, but you have to admit it's a pretty bizarre story. Put yourself in my place, Dr. Barns. Would you believe you?"

  Barns thought for a few moments, then sighed in resignation. "No, no I guess not, Bates. I'd think I was a raving lunatic. I can see your point.”

  "Well sir," continued Bates, "I actually do believe some of it. I do believe that something terrible has happened to you, and that Twig is involved. I might even believe in cannibals. But I don't believe in space aliens. Why don't we let the police sort this out?”

  The suggestion clearly agitated Barns. "No, no, no, Bates, we can't do that! The DC area police? Are you kidding? I wouldn't trust that crew with a Twinkie, let along my life!”

  Barns had a valid point there.

  "Listen Bates, I tell you, they will be after us! They have already been here for you once. There's Twig, and what's even worse, there's Renson. He's some kind of samurai high priest robot bat-pig or something; hard as nails Bates, heart cold as a Klondike Bar and arms strong as a bulldozer. The DC police wouldn't mean anything to the likes of him, Bates. He'll be on our trail like some hound from hell, believe me! You just don't understand what these creatures are like!”

  With his speech finished, Barns sank back in Bates' arms, apparently exhausted. Blood soaked through the blanket in several places. What had he really been through these last few days, Bates wondered? And what should be done now? He helped Barns up and walked him into his bedroom, where he had him lay down on the bed while he got him a Pepsi. He soon lay happily sucking on the bottle like a helpless hungry infant. All the while Milo nervously followed on Bates’ heels, futility trying to figure out what was going on with his little doggie brain, while keeping a watchful eye on Barns.

  Bates turned his attention to the bedside VISICOM. He decided to simply COM 9-1-1. The police, inept as they were, were still much more capable of dealing with this, whatever it was, than was he. As sincere as Barns seemed, his story simply had to be some sort of mixed up combination of imagination and reality. For instance, Bates knew for a fact that the safe was still in his office where he left it hardly two hours ago. And there was no real proof that Barns wasn't the one that searched his apartment, was there? If Twig or someone else was after Barns, they probably had no idea where to find him, right? As he reasoned this out, Bates began to breathe easier. After all, there was no real reason at all to believe that Twig or Renson or anyone else was closing in on his apartment, was there?

  At that moment, Bates heard his apartment door squeak open! Milo tensed, the hair on his neck stood out, and he started a low growl. Barns sat up and stared at the bedroom doorway with a look of utter terror on his face.

  There was no other exit to the bedroom. They were trapped!

  Bates, looking frantically around the room for a weapon, could only come up with an overdue library book. It was Moby Dick, the large font, fully illustrated, unabridged, hardbound version; thank the fates, at least three solid pounds worth. Maybe it was an inadequate weapon to use against deadly cannibal space aliens or Civil Servants, but it was the best that he could do. Grasping it desperately in both shaking hands, Bates listened to the sound of footsteps passing through the front room, and steadily approaching the bedroom. Those sounds were nearly drowned out by the pounding of his own heart.

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