Is That Dr. Pebba?

December 10th, 1997
Just Outside Wawa Ontario, Canada


Late one evening I find myself sitting on the couch, watching - or, trying to watch - a movie on the small CRT I had across from the little wood stove in my cabin. It seemed almost reluctant to work at this point despite my having tossed a tape into the VCR. Reception was practically non-existent out here, especially in winter. To catch any channels out here with the little crappy antenna I had to jerry rig was almost a waste of time, really only wanted it for weather updates mostly so I can prepare ahead of time if I'm going to have a crappy week or not. So yeah, not sure why it was on the fritz, the old "smack it with a hammer" trick wasn't doing much tonight.

You're probably wondering: "Why doesn't this ding dong just use the radio?" Well, you see, again, the reception thing. But also, apparently for the last 5 years or so, some wackjob lady over in the UP of Michigan is using some crazy powerful broadcasting setup that interferes and bleeds over frequencies so you're almost 80% certain to pick up her seemingly 24/7 radio show whenever you flick to a new frequency, drowning out other nearby broadcasts. Where she babbles about all sorts of conspiracy nonsense, mostly just Y2K warnings and other adjacent things, at least from what I've heard the odd time. Others in town have mentioned catching different segments and stuff.

Anyway I managed to pick up a copy of Maniac Cop 2 last week on my little supply run into town, along with other essentials. Bless the old man at the general store who imports the good stuff from Michigan. A few things at my personal request, specifically Cherry Dr. Pepper - always have cases of the stuff around on account that it's a pain to get and I ain't driving 3 hours in the winter to the Soo for them to likely not have it. As well as Chili Cheese Fritos, can only get original or BBQ up here normally (nothin against 'em, tend to cycle through them when I can) - which I've got a bowl of sitting next to me. Good stuff.

Same reasoning for the movie thing, the old man rents out tapes from the store, so you don't have to go all the way to the city to find a Blockbuster or something. I'm probably one of the only people my age living out here for a good ways (least not counting the summer cottage only, rich early 20-somethings), so I'm always requesting that he gets his contact to pick up whatever weird B-movies he can get a hold of on his runs into the States, on account that the people around here have pretty bland tastes for rental requests, so most of the selection is just overly cheesy romantic "comedies" or old 50s movies - not the good kinds.

Things were just getting good in the movie (the titular Maniac Cop had started to brutalize an NYPD precinct) when suddenly and Earth-shattering boom shook the cabin, causing the power to blink out. Only the crackling wood stove lit up the room now. The boom was followed by what looked as if a train had started to pass by the window, lights speeding by, couldn't make anything out. And then it went silent.

My bowl of Fritos spilled onto the rug. Damnit.

Without hesitating, I jumped into my boots and dashed out the back door into the dark snowy yard. Well, if you can call it that, it was only a few meters away from pure forest, not much "yard" to speak of. I looked up and saw that it was a clear night, almost a full moon, stars twinkling, and the strangest Aurora I had ever seen.

It was hard to call it an Aurora, aside from the pattern. It was a wide blue streak that went in a perfectly straight line up in the sky over the cabin - it narrowed towards the sky, seemingly having come from that direction - and widened out over the treeline towards a large smoky plume now billowing from the dense forest.

I went back and grabbed a bat I kept by the door and dashed into the woods to see what was up. Didn't need a flashlight since the Aurora-thing lit the place up quite well, incredibly... blue. More blue than blue really. From what I could judge it wasn't even half a klick into the woods and again, the Aurora made it really easy to follow. Within 5 minutes I could already see a clearing where trees had been totally annihilated, either pulverized or glowing with embers from heat of what I am only realizing this second, is a crash.

Not going to be stupid and clueless and be like "Huh, what kinda weird plane does this." No shit that wasn't a plane or anything normal. While I thought this, I realized I'm still holding a can of Cherry Dr. Pepper that I hadn't even opened yet, with the bat clutched in my other hand. Forgot to set it down in the commotion I guess.

My focus shifts back ahead of me into the clearing, where from the other end I can hear a hissing sound before what I can only describe as a hull door, blows off of... nothing? There is just empty space around a now glowing blue rectangle sitting about a meter off the ground. Which was then followed by a crackling white flicker before the "empty space" went all hexagonal for a moment and then, shut off? Revealing what was obviously some kind of space craft.

I exhaled sharply and walked closer. Smoke started pouring out of the door that had blasted open, and then I saw a figure drag its way to it from within, then fall the meter or so from it onto the ground with a thud into the snow-mud path that streaked through the clearing.

I approached silently, bat in hand until I could see it clearly, crawling in the mud in my general direction, away from the craft.

It was a Grey alien, like... an X-Files grey alien. I fucking hate greys so much it's unreal. Heebie-jeebies isn't even close to a term that could describe the primal... Fear? Disgust? Or whatever whenever I see these things.

It looked up at me with it's big black eyes, it had a wound over its right one, so it was half-squinting with that eye. It's left leg was almost completely mangled as well and it was bleeding all over. It was slightly under 4 feet tall from what I could tell, and very scrawny. It then kind of made a clicking-croaking sound and slumped face first into the mud.

I frowned and knelt beside it, setting the bat down, and rolled it onto its back, which apparently woke it up again from fainting. There was a massive puncture wound in it's ribs and it wheezed.

"Uh, most of the snow melted into muddy slush cause of your ship, so I can't give you water, if you can even have that. Um, would you like some of this?" I held the can of Dr. Pepper before its face, cracking it open with a crisp fizzing sound.

It clicked and wheezed again, trying to prop itself up, I then helped shift its tiny frame to rest its head on a mangled tree stump. I brought the can up to its very thin lips, and it seemingly understood the gesture and took a swig of Dr. Pepper. It's eyes shot wide, it licked its lips, made a series of louder but strained clicking sounds, before it all of a sudden exploded into slimy chunks, completely covering me and the ground in about a 3 meter circle in goop.

"Fucking hell not again man!" Stupid fucking things, hate them so much.

I got up, and walked back to my cabin, where thankfully the power went back on. Tossed all my clothes into the snow before going back inside, put on my robe, cleaned up the Fritos, grabbed another Dr. Pepper, and sat down to continue the movie. Taking a nice long sip from the wonderful Cherry drink.

"Damn things don't know what they're missing."