Written by: MikaelaBender
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, USA
August 17, 8:32 PM
Crouched in the back of his boat, Cletus Mac knew two things for certain: the big dark alien ship of impending death in the sky had shifted its number from fifteen to fourteen and his wife Beth had left him to screw one of those darn alien creatures. They probably had a forked tongue and two dicks. What human could compete with that?
He had to reach past Perch, the baby alligator he'd found as a hatchling in his retention pond, to grab his wrench. Perch opened his maw and made a sound that sounded like a blaster in one of those video games his nephews had made him play.
"Hush." He waved his hand at Perch, dismissing the gator's thoughtful contribution to how he might have sped things along. "I'll be done soon."
Perch squawked at him again.
"I'll feed you before we leave . . . What's that?" Cletus looked at his watch. "There's plenty of time." There were still over three hours till midnight when he had to be in position to take advantage of the witchcrafty thing the gravity did every night.
As he hooked the wrench around a bolt, the static sounds of a radio drifted through the quiet night. He was used to hearing bugs chirping, having them buzz around his forehead and arms. But over the past few nights, those sounds had softened until he rarely heard them now. The radio waves carried the voice of the cult leader who had enraptured his wife. Cletus had told her not to listen to the man who called himself Pippin. He had turned off the radio each time he'd caught her, but then one morning, she was gone.
Cletus jerked his elbow side to side as he tightened the bolts, attaching the poles onto the back of his boat, and Perch crawled along the rubber boat's edge to avoid Cletus's deadly elbow.
Cletus rolled his eyes. "I wasn't gonna hit you, but maybe if you didn't practically sit on top of me when I worked, it wouldn't be an issue in the first place."
Perch made the gruntiest of grunts, a disgruntled one, and glared.
Cletus glared back for almost a whole minute before returning to work.
The edges of the wrench pressed into Cletus's calloused palms, but he hardly felt it. Pain didn't matter if he got Beth back. When he had realized she was gone, he'd immediately gone to the cult's compound but was told his wife wasn't there—that she had already gone to find her way to the aliens.
Above him, attached to the poles was a yellow canvas that blocked out his view of the alien ship. The hang glider had belonged to his wife, though she had never used it. Positioning it on the boat had been difficult as he had had to avoid the propeller he had salvaged from his buddy's abandoned airboat.
The sound of the radio grew louder, and two women, draped in gray robes walked down the street. Their hands were pressed together before them as if they were in the most devout of prayers to their alien masters. Hanging from the wrist of the one was a portable radio. Gritting his teeth, forced to listen to the voice of Pippin, he continued tightening the bolts.
Perch opened his mouth and hissed, and Cletus rubbed two fingers down his scales in praise. "Good boy."
He was glad Perch hated listening to Pippin as much as he did; Pippin who was content to lead hundreds, if not thousands to their deaths, as long as his pockets got lined. It wasn't clear if he was accepting cash or only things that would be useful once the number above them hit zero.
The women turned and walked up his driveway. "Good evening, weary traveler," they said in unison.
He couldn't tell them apart. They both had long blonde hair and skin as pale as the white of his buttcheeks.
"Unless you have news about my wife, you have five seconds to get off my property." He didn't have much in the way to threaten them with right then so he picked up the baby gator and held him out before him like Perch was some ravenous creature.
Perch hissed, really selling the act.
Backing up a couple of steps, the two women glanced at each other.
"Pippin sent us," one said.
"He thought you may wish to follow in your wife's steps," the other said.
"If I become brainwashed and enslaved to those snake-tongued aliens, then who is there to save me?" He stabbed outward with Perch like he was a fencer. "En garde, you doughy-eyed charlatans."
As one, they titled their heads to the side. "Doughy?"
"Doughy." After all, they looked like deers in headlights before the might of Perch. "You can tell Pippin that when we meet, I'll be kicking his offer up his ass."
Perch hissed again, and the two women scurried off.
"Yeah, you get on out of here, you lizard-loving disciples."
They picked up speed after that, and Cletus set Perch back down, feeling smug.
"And that's how you get rid of a cult."
Perch stared up at him.
"You really should be writing all this down."
By the time he finished attaching the hang glider to his boat, the two women were long gone. Now he just needed to load up his truck with the necessary supplies and pour his remaining supply of gas into its tank.
He set his wrench in his toolbox and vaulted himself over the edge of his boat. The trailer it rested on was rusty, nearing the end of its usability. He had planned to replace it in the next few months.
He crouched down so his shoulder was in line with the edge of the boat. "Come on, Perch." And just like that, the baby gator crawled onto his shoulder and hung on to his shirt, hence Perch's name.
As Cletus walked up his driveway, Perch's claws continued to dig through his shirt and into his skin, but Cletus was used to it by now. He bent down, pulling two keys from his pocket, and unlocked his garage, first undoing the latch on the main lock and then on the deadbolt he had installed a few days ago. His muscles strained as he rolled the door up, and the overhead light flickered on, illuminating the forms of long-dead bugs stuck to its clear surface.
For a moment, he could imagine that tonight was like any other night he returned home late from a long day of work. It was like he could hear the TV set to the Hallmark channel. The white fridge near the door leading inside seemed to tempt him to open it and check for leftovers of the dinner Beth had either made or had delivered. On nights like that, he'd pop the leftovers in the microwave, and as the timer counted down, he'd go into the living room and kiss Beth's cheek from behind.
But she wasn't inside. And the TV was definitely off. He had made sure of that. Earlier today he'd chucked the remote at the screen and shattered it. That was after he'd gotten fed up with the news anchor trying to reassure his audience that everything was going to be all right when it all very clearly was not going to be all right. They were probably going to die and anyone who survived would have to pull out any and all skills they had learned from The Walking Dead. A segment like You've Survived the Apocalypse, Now What? is what they should be featuring.
Cletus had tried turning off the TV, but no matter how hard he jammed his finger down on the power button, the news anchor kept staring into his eyes, practically whispering sweet nothings to him. So he chucked the remote at the screen, put a nice spiderweb in the glass, and yet the anchor's voice still came through the TV. But now he looked distinctly like the AI Cletus had always suspected him of being, all pixelated and all evil. After that, the only thing left to do was to chuck the TV in the retention pond outback.
Cletus opened the fridge, but not for himself—rather to grab a couple frog legs for Perch. The gator swallowed the first down in only a few gulps, so Cletus grabbed a handful of them and stuck them in his pocket.
In the corner of his garage was a large metal cabinet. He'd recently attached three padlocks to it. After all, inside was one of the most precious commodities known to mankind right now.
Not toilet paper.
Not weapons.
But gasoline.
Three jugs of it. It would be enough to get him to the St. Johns River.
Above the gas and up on a shelf were his remaining cases of beer. Long ago, he and his buddies had figured out a way to make their boats run on the stuff. That way if they ever ran out of gas while on a fishing trip, they had a backup.
Frowning, he pulled the first case off the shelf and walked it to his truck. He'd probably never find another can of beer after today. The stores had run out back on day three. But he always had a hefty supply. Especially since Beth didn't even drink the stuff. She preferred ciders or rosé.
He might never again taste the sweet nectar of alcohol, but for vengeance, he would sacrifice every last drop. And if he got his wife back, they'd ride off into the sunset (he wasn't yet sure on what) for whatever little time they had left.
He hesitated as he went to open the back door of his truck. What if being with the cult and its alien overlords kept Beth safe when the countdown struck zero? What if rescuing her was wrong?
"Shit, Perch." He set the case of beer on the roof of his truck and pushed back his trucker's cap, running a hand through his sweat-dampened brown hair. Perch shifted uneasily, trying to maintain his balance. "Am I making a mistake?" What if rescuing Beth was really only sentencing her to death?
Perch stared up at him with those beady black eyes of his.
Letting out a growl, Cletus yanked open the back door of his truck. "You're right, Perch. Of course, you're right." He shoved the first case of beer inside the back row of his truck. "We're gonna get your mom back."
What had he even been thinking just then? Those hadn't been his thoughts. Those had belonged to the cult leader who had convinced his wife to give herself to the aliens. If he survived rescuing Beth, his next step was paying Pippin a visit. "What kind of a name is Pippin for a cult leader anyway?"
In response, Perch tilted his head.
Cletus finished loading in the cases of beer, keeping an eye out for any thirsty neighbors. It may not be the zombie apocalypse—or the vampire apocalypse—yet, but he wasn't going to act like his neighbors weren't dangerous. Most had evacuated, but some remained—those who weren't as lucky or as prepared as him to have gas on hand for emergencies.
Cletus wouldn't call himself a doomsday prepper. At least not a serious one—his wife would never have let him. But he did like to keep a few necessities on hand at all times. He returned to the garage for the gas and grabbed two of the jugs and poured them into his truck's tank before going back for the third.
His truck guzzled up all the gallons his three jugs offered and still could hold more—the greedy monster truck that it was. Lowering the last jug to the ground, Cletus took a moment of silence to mourn the abrupt end of any and all Monster Jams. The world would end in only a few days, and it seemed highly unlikely that January, the month he had tickets to attend the show in, would ever come again.
Fall also probably wouldn't come. He and a group of his friends had planned to chuck pumpkins with a catapult and a canon this November. He hadn't heard from any of those friends since day four.
He locked up his garage and climbed into the front seat of his truck. As the engine rumbled to life, his headlights flickered on, illuminating the parts of his driveway the lights on his house didn't reach. He tucked Perch in his cup holder and scratched his head. "Your mom will be back soon." Cletus gave him a few more mushy frog legs.
As they drove through the suburbs of Jacksonville, they passed very few cars. In the beginning, there had been a mass exodus. Those who had stayed were the ones who knew they wouldn't have had enough gas to make it out of the Twilight zone. Most of those who had left were probably stranded, still under the ever-present shadow of the ship.
Cletus and Beth had stayed mainly because he had been certain the ship would disappear in a few days, that it wouldn't actually stay for the entirety of its countdown. It had seemed likely it would move on to another country, another continent. But that number staring down at them every day seemed to say that the aliens wanted to pass judgment on their country. And who did they think they were to judge them? They weren't gods. They were probably made of slime or goo. Or maybe they looked like cockroaches. Cletus had killed enough of those to no longer be scared of the pests.
The gas stations they drove past looked like the apocalypse had hit them. Overturned and broken barricades were strewn across the concrete from when the military had taken over the stations. Gas handles lay on the ground. Bags, marking a pump as empty, only covered a few nozzles even though no gas remained in any.
Some of the gas stations and convenience stores had signs tacked to the walls that said, "CASH ONLY." Credit had no value when the world was ending. Cash would have none either for any survivors who made it through the month. Goods would be the only thing that held any value. A bartering system would be formed. Food. Supplies. That's what would be needed. People had to eat. People had to have shelter. Paper labeled with numbers would have no value because everyone would finally have to give up the illusion that it ever had.
He'd have to figure out what he'd be willing to trade. That was if he survived till tomorrow.
Out front of the last gas station he passed before his turn was a man sitting in a purple camping chair with a red gasoline jug chained to his wrist. A sign was propped up against the jug that said:
Gas
1 Gallon = $100
The man waved at him, and Cletus slowed down.
"Need gas?"
"Does it look like I need it?"
"Well you do have a mighty big truck. And you've got to fill up that boat somehow."
Perch crawled up Cletus's arm to see what was causing the holdup. When he saw the man, the gator let out a hiss.
The man's eyes widened.
"As my associate here has so nicely put it, we don't need your watered-down gas, we've got beer!"
Perch hissed again, and Cletus floored it, his tires squealing as they took off, leaving the man with only the smell of their exhaust.
A mile later, Cletus turned down a dirt road that ran parallel to the St. Johns River, his headlights and the giant blue fourteen in the sky were the only sources of light to illuminate the way.
Ahead, there was what looked like a log in the road, but Cletus knew better. He swerved and threw his arm down, holding onto Perch so the baby gator wouldn't go flying. Cletus narrowly avoided the gator's tail. If he hadn't seen the gator in time, the jolt of going over it would probably have been the thing that finally did his trailer in, not to mention that Perch would be highly offended.
He finally reached the boat ramp, the only bit of concrete to be seen in miles. Lining everything up was second nature to him at this point, and he backed the trailer down the ramp slowly until he heard the light splash of his tires hitting the water. He eased back a few more feet before he threw his emergency brake on and opened the door, grabbing his flashlight and putting Perch back on his shoulder.
He walked down the ramp and into the murky water. The air clung to his skin as beads of perspiration formed. Still, something about the air felt cleaner. Smelled cleaner even through the scent of dirt and brine. But even by the river, the bugs were far too quiet. He hated it.
He shined his light over the trailer, making sure everything was where it needed to be before he began loading the boat.
It didn't take long to finish. He made sure to strap one life vest and two parachutes under one of the chairs. The only way he imagined him and his wife getting off the spaceship was by jumping. He had a third parachute, but this one was much smaller than the others. Perch squirmed and wriggled as Cletus tugged it on him.
"Hold still. You don't want the aliens to think you're unprepared, do you?" Perch made the blaster noise. His parachute wouldn't actually deploy, but Cletus didn't want Perch to feel left out. During the jump, he'll have already been safely tucked into a special strap on Cletus's parachute.
In the past, Cletus had always had at least one other person around to help handle either the boat or the truck, but tonight, he wasn't particularly worried about leaving his truck parked on the ramp. After releasing the boat from the trailer, he gave the boat a good push before hauling himself carefully over the rubber side. The boat swayed under him as he made his way to the back and pulled the first beer from its case. He popped the lid of the can and froth foamed at the opening with a hiss. He was tempted for one sip, one last sip, but resolutely he held it away from him and poured it into his boat's tank. One after another he emptied what could be considered a substantial portion of the world's remaining stock of beer down the drain.
At least it was going to a good cause. No more sticking it to the man. It was time for the man to do the sticking and stick some aliens.
The tank was full before he ran out of beer, and he carefully stacked the rest of the cases to the side before moving to stand behind the wheel. It was off to the side of where he'd sit later behind the bar of the hang glider.
The motor sputtered as he backed the boat away from the ramp, and he glanced down at the map taped to the wheel. It would guide him to the spot he'd designated for his lift off. Fitting this would happen on Florida's east coast. It wasn't like NASA had figured out how to get rid of the giant thing of death floating over their heads or even how to make contact. He was going to do what they could not.
In the corner of the map, he'd taped a photo of Beth. He'd gotten it from her Facebook profile picture. He kissed two fingers and pressed them to her face.
"We're coming."
His red checkered shirt was cut at the shoulders and yet still not one single mosquito had bit him. It felt wrong. Especially being on the water. He used to come home covered in light pink bumps that Beth would patiently put ointment on. Sometimes they'd sit in silence. Other times she'd chastise the bugs, not him. Those were peace—
There was a plop from out in the water. Probably an alligator dipping below the surface. The wind felt good on his face, though he found the all too quiet of the river eerie. He'd been out late on this river plenty of times but never without another person.
"It's just you and me, Perch."
The gator made that video game blaster sound again.
When they reached the spot marked X on his map, the clock showed they had fifteen minutes until midnight, but they would already have to be moving before the clock struck twelve. On the bank of the river, cattle grazed, most likely abandoned by their farmer. They stared at Cletus while chewing their grass, and Cletus saluted them. After all, he was about to embark on a dangerous mission.
Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his headphones and tugged on one of the parachute vests, buckling the straps across his chest. Next, he carefully tucked Perch inside the strap at the front of his vest, fastening the little gator in place.
"Nice night we're havin'."
Cletus startled. If Perch hadn't been secured in, he would have dropped him. An old man wearing a straw hat rowed his wooden boat alongside Cletus'. A piece of straw hung from his mouth bounced as he chewed on it.
"Could be better. What are you doing all the way out here this late?"
"Fishin'." The man stroked his long bushy white beard thoughtfully. "Why are you out here?"
Cletus pointed to the sky. "I'm saving my wife."
The man looked him up and down. "You have a wife?"
Cletus flipped him off. "She was hypnotized by those aliens."
The man shrugged, nodding his head, unbothered by Cletus and his middle finger. "I wouldn't worry too much about her. I've seen a lot: bigfoot, lizard people, cattle mutilations." Hopefully the cows didn't hear that. "Yet I'm still here. When the aliens are done with your wife, they'll return her. I'm sure they're just probing her. I went through that back in the 60s, and I'm fine."
Cletus saw red. "So they are screwing my wife!"
The man continued to chew on his straw. "Nahh. They're just poking her brain."
Cletus didn't like that either.
He checked his watch. He only had a few minutes left to get set up. "Well, I'm going to be carrying on with my rescue mission . . . if you could just steer clear of my boat."
The man tipped his hat to Cletus and rowed his boat closer to the bank near the cattle.
Cletus added a few more cans' worth of beer into the tank until it was full again, and at a minute to midnight, he started up the propeller. His headphones did little to drain out the intense, heavy noise that the blades created.
He took a seat behind the bar of the hang glider and hit play on his MP3 player, an old model that held up better than any of those newer generations. Don't Stop Me Now was queued up and ready. He took hold of the bar and pushed his foot down on the lever he'd connected to the gas pedal.
The old man was off to the side, fishing in the shallow water, paying no attention to Cletus as he started gaining speed and the propeller grew louder. His watch struck midnight, and Cletus pulled the bar toward him. His boat rose into the air as the old man and his rowboat and the cows on the bank floated up as well. The cows kicked their legs side to side, in and out, trying to get down as the old man grabbed his straw hat and waved at Cletus.
The propeller blades whirled, and he climbed higher and higher into the air, leaving the cows and the old man behind. "Yeehaw! We did it, Perch!"
Perch opened his maw, but whatever noise he made was lost to Cletus.
The numbers above grew larger and when he looked down over the edge of the boat, the river was so dark he couldn't make it out. But in the distance, he saw the glittering lights of downtown Jacksonville. Not as bright as it would have been a few weeks ago. He would—
The boat dropped, and Cletus gripped the handle, his stomach lurching into his chest. The propeller slowed, and he let out a cry. "No!" Not yet. The ship was still too far away even with the hocus pocus that gravity was doing. He pulled back on the handle, urging the wind to catch the tarp of the glider and lift him back up.
But the propeller continued to slow, and as it did, he could hear the wind whipping past him. It swiped at his face and whisked his hat away, but the wind wasn't strong enough to take him higher, the gravity wasn't light enough. None of it was enough to keep him airborne.
His boat continued to fall.
He needed to abandon ship, but doing so felt like he was giving up on his wife. Cletus looked down at Perch. The baby alligator stared up at him.
"You're right, little buddy," he agreed. They couldn't save her if they were dead.
So Cletus stood from his chair, holding tightly to the bar, and in doing so, caused it to go up and down, changing the direction of the glider and making the boat bounce.
He had one chance to clear the boat. Once he'd let go of the handle, he'd probably become airborne, and he couldn't release his parachute while under the glider.
"Hold on, Perch!" His warning to the gator was lost to the wind.
With a last glance at the ship above, Cletus shoved himself away from the bar and barreled over the edge of his boat. He yelled, and the wind shoved its way down his throat. He grappled for the release, his hands brushing against Perch, and after a few dizzying seconds when it looked like he wouldn't manage to grab it, he at last snagged it and pulled down as hard as he could. Immediately, he was yanked up into the air as his parachute deployed.
For a brief moment, he thought that maybe it would work like a hot air balloon and take him and Perch up to the ship.
But, instead, the Florida Man and his gator hovered in the sky caught in the magical doodah going on with the air while his boat fell to Earth and a big shiny thirteen now glowed above them. The wind whipped past them, and something smacked Cletus in the face.
He reached up, peeling away the piece of paper that had formed around the shape of his nose.
It was his picture of Beth.
Surely this was a sign. A sign that she was waiting for him, that she didn't want to be with the aliens any longer.
Cletus placed his hand on Perch's head, shielding the gator from the wind. He had to make sure that nothing would stunt Perch's growth so that if they made it through the apocalypse, he'd have a nice big gator to go visit Pippin with.
"This isn't over, buddy. We'll try again tomorrow with–" Cletus racked his brain. "A jetpack! You hear that, you gooey-dick wife stealers? I'll be back! Cletus Mac will be back!"
<<<<< END >>>>>
Find more stories by MikaelaBender on Wattpad.
Mikaela Bender has been a Wattpadder since 2012 and has been sharing her stories with readers since 2014. She is a fantasy and sci-fi author who loves any chance to write about aliens or fairies. In 2019, her Wattys-winning novel Expiration Date was turned into a pilot for SYFY. Born and raised in Florida, she knew she had to be the one to tell the Florida Man story. She now lives in New York where she works in publishing.