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Order this writing in the collection book Revealing All Your Dirty Little Secrets available for only $1995 |
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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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Worth Her While
Sandra E. Waldron
It was dark and cold outside, eerie shadows playing against the window panes.
Cindy Carlson didn’t care as she lay in her bed, staring out into the depths of night. The wind was howling strong, pausing only briefly now and then to groan and whistle through the cracks around the doors and windows. Would Robert come home before daylight? The answer was probably no. Normally, when he was called out during a storm, it was the next morning or early afternoon before he was able to finish up and come home. But such was the life of a linesman. And such was the life of a linesman’s wife.
There was a brilliant flash, all but blinding. She rolled over swiftly and instinctively covered her head with her sheet. A loud boom shook the house. And before she could take the covers down, a second, even louder, clap of thunder trembled her bed. “Crap!” She jumped out of bed and tried to switch on the light – but the power was off. She should have known. “Oh ...well,” she said to herself. “Something else to keep Robert from coming home tonight.”
There was a small nightstand to the right of their bed with one small drawer. She opened the drawer and found the flashlight, white storm-candles and a small box of matches. She’d recently purchased several glass candle-holders from Six Star and, after lighting the candles and dropping a few drops of hot wax on each holder, she stood a candle on each one and set them in strategic places: one on the nightstand by their bed, one in the hall on the small desk with the house phone (Robert had insisted on having one, though they each had cell phones) and one in the living room. She would use the flashlight for anywhere else she might need illumination.
Satisfied she’d done all she could, she crept back to bed and was just about to climb in when she heard a scratching at the window that was across the room from her bed. She looked and jumped back with a start. “Sssshit!” she cried. Looking in at her was a tiny little being, no taller than three inches, somewhat human in appearance but with very large eyes and dressed in a silver, looked like, a spacesuit. She shook her head. “What the—”
“Help us!” a little, vibratory voice cried. “Help us!”
This wasn’t happenening. She wasn’t seeing what she was seeing, nor was she hearing what she was hearing. She turned around, away from the window for a moment and then looked back.
Gone! Just lighting flashes and shadows dancing from the hedge outside the window. Damn! She thought. I am imagining things. She climbed back into her bed, as she was not the type to frighten easily, and just covered up her head. The wind was howling. Had to be the wind she heard, surely not some small creature’s tiny voice. And it had to be her imagination that had formed the shadows into what she thought was that little creature. “Yes! That’s it,” she said to herself and closed her eyes tight, hoping to fall back asleep. And she did, for a short while. But she was awakened again, this time, not by lighting and thunder, though it still persisted outside – It was the banging and clanging of pots and pans in her kitchen!
“What the friggin’—”
She got out of her bed and ran to the kitchen, flashlight in hand. Sure enough, in the middle of the floor was her large, porcelain soup pot, her wooden ladle, a large iron skillet and an assortment of lids. And standing in the middle of them were not one but two tiny creatures identical to the one she’d seen at her window. They stared up at her, bright eyed, crossing tiny arms over their faces. “Too bright...Too bright!” They said in unison. “Please turn out the light!”
“No! What are you doing in my kitchen? And...” she breathed, “What am I doing talking to you?”
Just then one ran up to her and bit her on the ankle, hard.
“Shit Shinola and save matches!” she screamed and kicked the creature away. “What did you bite me for?”
“Turn out the light!” the creature she had kicked across the room cried again.
“But then I won’t be able to see you!” she stated. Her ankle throbbed. She just knew it was bleeding, but when she reached down, she realized it wasn’t.
The second creature spoke up. “Then...please, at least, turn the light away from our faces?”
She stood there for a moment, considering if this was truly happening. She pinched herself. And felt it. That was silly. Hadn’t she felt the bite? And still felt it. She closed her eyes tight and then opened them again. The little beings were standing beside one another again, the one having scampered back across the room.
The light, Earth lady!” the one to the right reminded.
“Okay...” she said, and turned the beam just out of their faces, but not to the point that she couldn’t see them. “Now...what are you? And what do you want?”
“We need your help,” they said in unison again.
“How can I help you?” she asked, thinking to herself that this was some crazy dream and she’d wake up any minute.
“We’re from Largo...A planet from the far side of another universe. We came through a black hole and did a slingshot around your star to gain momentum to cross your universe and something went wrong with our ship...something about your star nullified our power supply. We lost our momentum just as we came around the other side. Consequently, we were forced to land here.”
Cindy knew zilch about this universe, let alone, any other universe. She only knew this was Earth and it revolved around the sun with eight or nine other planets. She couldn’t remember how many, for sure. Astronomy had not been her best subject. “Okay. Now, just how am I supposed to help you?” She studied the collection of her cooking utensils in the floor. “And how in hell are a bunch of pots and pans going to help you?”
“The elements, kind Earth lady. The metal.”
“Huh?”
“Yes! We need it for our reactors.”
“Don’t you need uranium or something like that?”
“Oh...that was thousands of your years ago. We can derive energy straight from your simple metals here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said and glanced to the kitchen window. “Where’s your spacecraft?”
“On your roof, Earth lady.”
“My roof?”
“Yes. That’s how we got in your house. We climbed across a drain pipe and through a small window you’d left open that goes to a large room just underneath the roof.”
“That would be the attic,” she said.
“Yes! Attic. Then we managed to open the door and came on down here and found your pots and pans...as you call them.”
“I see,” she said, still trying to process it all. Did she dare trust these creatures? They appeared sincere. But boy did her ankle smart. However, they had asked her to turn the light away.
“May we then...use your pots and pans?”
She blew out air. “Well...I guess you can. But do you need them all?”
“Maybe not all. But we will need most of them.”
“Most of them, huh?” She didn’t relish having to go out and buy all new cooking utensils. And how was she going to explain to Robert that her cookware had been turned over to tiny aliens from another universe. Nope. Strike that explanation...even if it was true.
“Yes, kind Earth lady. If you will let us have them, we will give you something in return.”
“Aren’t they really large for you? Shouldn’t one or two be more than enough?”
“In the process of changing the metals to fuel, their size will be greatly diminished.”
“I see.” But she really didn’t. She could not imagine what on Earth they could give her that she could use, some kind of weird electronic device that she’d have no use for, better yet, understand how to operate. “How long will this take?”
“A few hours. Maybe by your midday.”
“Noon...that would be. Robert should definitely be home by then.”
“This Robert is your Earth male?”
“Yes. Why?”
The one on the right cocked his little head to the side and said something in some weird language to the other. The other laughed, and then they both looked back to her. “Your answer, Earth lady. May we use your pots and pans?”
Brilliant lightning flashed, illuminating the room completely. She saw other creatures had joined the two. They were ready to start hauling the pots and pans off. Did she really have a choice in this? Should she comply with their strange request? Then the one that had bit her asked, “How’s that ankle, Earth lady?”
“Still smarts.”
“Sorry,” he said.
But she knew he had asked, not out of concern, but as a reminder. They could retaliate if their request was denied. She thought about it a moment. They were tiny, sure. But they were from God-only-knew where. And there was no telling what kind of technology they had. “Okay,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Okay. You may take my pots and pans. But, if it’s at all possible, I hope you can finish before midday.”
Both the little creatures stood tall and thanked her in chorus and, again, promised to make her donations worth while. Then they began carting the pots and pans upstairs. It was then that she offered to help, as she realized she could carry several to their one and greatly speed up the process. Soon, they had all the pots and pans and lids on the roof and she returned to her bed to get some shut-eye before the sun came up.
There was a lot of banging and clanging for about an hour, and Cindy hoped the neighbors wouldn’t hear. Although, she realized they might not, as the storm was still lingering on outside, with a loud boom every now and then, shaking the house. She was certain she would not fall asleep, but before she knew it, her eyes popped open and it was broad daylight.
“What the—?” It was really quiet. It was 12:30 p.m. Shit! And Robert still wasn’t home. Figures, she thought. She jumped out of bed and ran through the house. No sign of her husband and no sign of the little creatures that had visited her last night.
Maybe it all had been some kind of weird dream. “Yes! Must have been a dream. She ran back through the house to the kitchen and opened up the bottom of her range. Empty. No pots and pans there. She turned around and opened up the lower cabinets. No pots and pans there, either. Cleaned out! They hadn’t left her a one. Not a one!
“Why those little shits!” She just knew Robert was going to walk in that front door any second. He would want something to eat. “Dammit! And she had no way to cook for him. Popping something in the microwave wouldn’t do. Not after he’d worked all night. He’d want a steak and eggs, the works. “Crap!” She’d just have to run to Safeway and buy a skillet so she could cook a steak, at least. She quickly dressed and shrugged into her sweater and was just about to leave, having grabbed her purse and keys off the table, when she remembered that her visitors had promised they’d make her contribution worth her while. She looked around the house for a minute and, finding nothing, returned to the living room. “Well...where in hell is it?” she said to the normal looking room, not seeing anything new. She glanced outside at the sunny daylight and went to turn away and it hit her: Robert’s black Dodge Ram was sitting in the drive, right behind her white Focus.
“When did he come home?” she opened the front door and went outside. He wasn’t in the truck. The garage door was closed. Where the hell was he? Had to have just come home. She hadn’t heard him. She ran back into the house, expecting him to probably be in the bathroom. But he wasn’t. “Robert?” she called out. “Robert, where are you?” Silence. Shit...he had to be in the garage. Just then her cell rang. She answered it. It was Jim, Robert’s boss – wanting to know how Robert was feeling, since he’d gone home early with the flu. She was stunned. “I...I...” she couldn’t speak. She stumbled over to the kitchen and went to the door that led outside to the garage and went to open it. “How early did he leave?” she asked, now shaking from head to foot.
“Oh...right after he got here. He threw up...looked to me like everything he’d eaten for a week...Poor guy. Tell him to get well soon.”
And before she could respond, Jim hung up. Now, she was worried. She reached out for the knob to the door and slowly opened it, felt to the right and switched on the light. Just as she went to step down, she tripped and fell over something and went tumbling down the stairs. She landed on her hip. It smarted. She looked back up at the top of the stairs. On the landing, was a large bag of some kind. It appeared to be a metallic material. Must be what the little aliens had been talking about. But where in hell was Robert? She pulled herself up and worked her way back up the steps.
With shaking hands, she swiftly untied the bag and pulled it open. “My God!” she gasped. It was Robert! He was staring up at her with a fixed gaze, but he was very much alive. It looked as though he’d been heavily drugged. She noticed a note pinned to the collar of his shirt. She tore it off and read it. “We were going to eat this fellow, but quickly learned he belonged to you. Good thing his name was on his clothes. And since we made a promise to make your contributions worthwhile, we spared his life for you. Besides, he took up half our spaceship. Again, thanks.”
