To say that Effrom was not a particularly good cook was an understatement akin to saying that genocide is not a particularly effective public relations strategy. He had decided that Tater Tots would provide as good a meal as anything, without challenging his culinary abilities. He read the cooking instructions carefully, then did some simple mathematics to expedite the preparation: twenty minutes at 375 degrees would mean only eleven minutes at 575 degrees. The results of his calculation resembled charcoal briquettes with frozen centers, but because he was in a hurry to get to bed, he drowned the suffering Tots in catsup and ate them anyway. Little did he know that their spirits would return carrying nightmare images of the zeppelin attack. He had never been so frightened, even in the trenches, with bullets flying overhead and mustard gas on the wind. That shadow moving silently across the hills had been the worst.
But now, sitting on the edge of the bed, he felt the same paralyzing fear. Though the dream was fading, instead of the relief of finding himself safe, at home, in bed, he felt he had awakened into something worse than the nightmare. Someone was moving in the house. Someone was thrashing around like a two-year-old in a pan-rattling contest.
Whoever it was, was coming through the living room. The house had a wooden floor and Effrom knew its every squeak and creak. The creaks were moving up the hall. The intruder opened the bathroom door, two doors from Effrom's bedroom.
Effrom remembered the old pistol in his sock drawer. Was there time? Effrom shook off his fear and hobbled to the dresser. His legs were stiff and wobbly and he nearly fell into the front of the dresser.
The floor was creaking outside the guest bedroom. He heard the guest room door open. Hurry!
He opened the dresser drawer and dug around under his socks until he found the pistol. It was a British revolver he had brought home from the war - a Webley, chambered for. 45 automatic cartridges. He broke the pistol open like a shotgun and looked into the cylinders. Empty. Holding the gun open, he dug under his socks for the bullets. Three cartridges were held in a plate of steel shaped like a half-moon so the pistol's six cylinders could be loaded in two quick motions. The British had developed the system so they could use the same rimless cartridges in their revolvers that the Americans used in their Colt automatics.
Effrom located one of the half-moon clips and dropped it into the pistol. Then he started searching for the sound.
The doorknob of his room started to turn. No time. He flipped the gun upward and it slammed shut, only half loaded. The door slowly started to swing open. Effrom aimed the Webley at the center of the door and pulled the trigger.
The gun clicked, the hammer fell on an empty chamber. He pulled the trigger again and the gun fired. Inside the small bedroom the gun's report sounded like the end of the world. A large, ragged hole appeared in the door. From the hall came the high-pitched scream of a woman. Effrom dropped the gun.
For a moment he stood there, gunfire and the scream echoing in his head. Then he thought of his wife. "Oh my God! Amanda!" He ran forward. "Oh my God, Amanda. Oh my. . . " He threw the door open, leapt back, and grabbed his chest.
The monster was down on its hands and knees. His arms and head filled the doorway. He was laughing.
"Fooled you, fooled you," the monster chanted.
Effrom backed into the bed and fell. His mouth moved like wind-up chatter dentures, but he made no sound.
"Nice shot, old fella'," the monster said. Effrom could see the squashed remains of the. 45 bullet just above the monster's upper lip, stuck like an obscene beauty mark. The monster flipped the bullet off with a single claw. The heavy slug thudded on the carpet.
Effrom has having trouble breathing. His chest was growing tighter with each breath. He slid off the bed to the floor.
"Don't die, old man. I have questions for you. You can't imagine how pissed I'll be if you die now. "
Effrom's mind was a white blur. His chest was on fire. He sensed someone talking to him, but he couldn't understand the words. He tried to speak, but no words would come. Finally he found a breath. "I'm sorry, Amanda. I'm sorry," he gasped.
The monster crawled into the room and laid a hand on Effrom's chest. Effrom could feel the hand, hard and scaly, through his pajamas. He gave up.
"No!" the monster shouted. "You will not die!"
Effrom was no longer in the room. He was sitting on a hill in England, watching the shadow of death floating toward him across the fields. This time the zeppelin was coming for him, not the base. He sat on the hill and waited to die. I'm sorry, Amanda.
"No, not tonight. "
Who said that? He was alone on the hill. Suddenly he became aware of a searing pain in his chest. The shadow of the airship began to fade, then the whole English countryside dissolved. He could hear himself breathing. He was back in the bedroom.
A warm glow filled his chest. He looked up and saw the monster looming over him. The pain in his chest subsided. He grabbed one of the monster's claws and tried to pry it from his chest, but it remained fast, not biting into the flesh, just laid upon it.
The monster spoke to him: "You were doing so good with the gun and everything. I was thinking, 'This old fuck really has some gumption. ' Then you go and start drooling and wheezing and ruining a perfectly good first impression. Where's your self-respect?"
Effrom felt the warmth on his chest spreading to his limbs. His mind wanted to switch off, dive under the covers of unconsciousness and hide until daylight, but something kept bringi
ng him back.
"Now, that's better, isn't it?" The monster removed his hand and backed to the corner of the bedroom, where he sat cross-legged looking like the Buddha of the lizards. His pointy ears scraped against the ceiling when he turned his head.
Effrom looked at the door. The monster was perhaps eight feet away from it. If he could get through it, maybe. . . How fast could a beast that size move in the confines of the house?
"Your jammies are all wet," the monster said. "You should change or you'll catch your death. "
Effrom was amazed at the reality shift his mind had made. He was accepting this! A monster was in his house, talking to him, and he was accepting it. No, it couldn't be real.
"You're not real," he said.
"Neither are you," the monster retorted.
"Yes I am," Effrom said, feeling stupid.
"Prove it," the monster said.
Effrom lay on the bed thinking. Much of his fear had been replaced by a macabre sense of wonder.
He said: "I don't have to prove it. I'm right here. "
"Sure," the monster said, incredulously.
Effrom climbed to his feet. Upon rising he realized that the creak in his knees and the stiffness he had carried in his back for forty years were gone. Despite the strangeness of this situation, he felt great.
"What did you do to me?"
"Me? I'm not real. How could I do anything?"
Effrom realized he had backed himself into a metaphysical corner, from which the only escape was acceptance.
"All right," he said, "you're real. What did you do to me?"
"I kept you from croaking. "
Effrom made a connection at last. He had seen a movie about this: aliens who come to Earth with the power to heal. Granted, this wasn't the cute little leather-faced, lightbulb-headed alien from the movie, but it was no monster. It was a perfectly normal person from another planet.
"So," Effrom said, "do you want to use the phone or something?"
"Why?"
"To phone home. Don't you want to phone home?"
"Don't play with me, old man. I want to know why Travis was here this afternoon. "
"I don't know anyone named Travis. "
"He was here this afternoon. You spoke with him - I saw it. "
"You mean the insurance man? He wanted to talk to my wife. "
The monster moved across the room so quickly that Effrom almost fell back on the bed to avoid him. His hopes of making it through the door dissolved in an instant. The monster loomed over him. Effrom could smell his fetid breath.
"He was here for the magic and I want it now, old man, or I'll hang your entrails from the curtain rods. "
"He wanted to talk to the wife. I don't know nothin' about any magic. Maybe you should have landed in Washington. They run things from there. "
The monster picked Effrom up and shook him like a rag doll.
"Where is your wife, old man?"
Effrom could almost hear his brain rattling in his head. The monster's hand squeezed the breath out of him. He tried to answer, but all he could produce was a pathetic croak.
"Where?" The monster threw him on the bed.
Effrom felt the air burn back into his lungs. "She's in Monterey, visiting our daughter. "
"When will she be back? Don't lie. I'll know if you are lying. "
"How will you know?"
"Try me. Your guts should go well with this decor. "
"She'll be home in the morning. "
"That's enough," the monster said. He grabbed Effrom by the shoulder and dragged him through the door. Effrom felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and a grinding pain flashed across his chest and back. His last thought before passing out was, God help me, I've killed the wife.