Five.

He heard whimpering, and realized it was his own.

This can't be happening, he thought. Why was this happening?

b.u.mp.

A sound. Coming from the pit.

The thing was climbing the ladder.

Phil forced himself to back up until he was pressed against the door.

"Hailmaryfulofgracethelordiswithyou -"

...b.u.mp...b.u.mp...b.u.mp...b.u.mp...b.u.mp...

"-blessedartthouamong -"

The noise crescendoed, then stopped.

The silence was horrible.

Phil couldn't see anything, but he could feel the presence of something large and warm coming towards him. Something that smelled like rotten eggs and wet dog.

He screamed, and kept screaming when it wrapped its p.r.i.c.kly tentacles around his face, a thousand hooks digging in and pulling. Phil's hands shot up to push the pain away, and similar barbs shot into his palms.

His screaming stopped when the barbs filled his open mouth.

Then, with a quick tug, Phil was dragged down into the pit.

There was a sensation of falling, skin burning and tearing away, consciousness blurring into a darkness as complete as the one that surrounded him.

And suddenly, Phil was watching a movie in his head. A shaky, black and white film of him and Rory breaking into Old Man Loki's mansion. Rory had the crowbar, and they used it on Loki, breaking his bones, bashing his face, demanding his money. Old Man Loki moaning the whole time, "The shed! The shed!" Repeating it over and over, even when Rory jammed the crowbar down the old man's throat.

The movie abruptly cut to Phil as a much older man, clad in an orange prison uniform. He was strapped to a chair, a guard swabbing electrolyte on his temples and his left leg. The switch was thrown and Phil's blood began to boil within his veins, every nerve locked in agony.

Phil watched the prison doctor p.r.o.nounce him dead, watched as his own soul left his body, transporting him to Loki's estate.

A terrifying deja vu ensued as he viewed himself acting out the same scenario he'd experienced only moments ago. Breaking into the shed - the thing grabbing Rory - getting dragged into the pit - When Phil finally caught up with himself, he discovered he was in a small, stone dungeon.

Next to him, a forty-year-old version of Rory was chained to a medieval torture rack, naked and stretched out until his shoulders had separated. His body was a haven of slithering, spiny worms, which burrowed underneath his skin.

"Hi, buddy." Rory offered a b.l.o.o.d.y smile, his teeth filed down to exposed nerves. "Be nice to have some company."

Phil remembered that Rory had been executed eight years prior.

"What's going on? What happened to the shed?"

Rory whimpered, a worm tunneling into his ear. "Old Man Loki didn't have no shed. That's why we beat him to death. Kept saying it over and over, when we asked him where his money was."

"But we just broke into the shed."

The worm st.i.tched out of Rory's nose, trailing crimson mucus. "The shed is the doorway to this place. I remember breaking in, too. Right after I died."

Phil squeezed his eyes shut. His temples still burned where the electrodes had been attached. But the memory of his own death dwarfed the fear he felt right now.

He opened his eyes and tried to bolt, panic surging through him. But, like Rory, he found himself tied to a rack. His eyes fell upon a fire pit, where a dozen branding irons glowed white.

A squat, hairy man entered the room. He had sharp horns sticking out of his head where ears would normally be, and his skin was a dull shade of crimson.

He picked up a hot iron and gave Phil a fanged grin.

"Welcome to eternity, Phil. Let's get started."

I had this terrible little story idea stuck in my head for almost twenty years, and finally put it down on paper for the collection Gratia Placente published by Apex Digest. One of my rare jumps into science-fiction, though this is more horrific black humor than sci-fi.

"d.a.m.n, Jimmy Bob, these are d.a.m.n good cracklins."

Earl's face - wrinkled and sporting three days' worth of gray whiskers - glistened with a fine sheen of lard. A hot Georgia breeze blew smells of tilled earth and manure, but the overpowering scent was pig skins, fresh from the deep fryer. Earl eagerly reached for the plate Jimmy Bob held out, a pile of pork rinds stacked onto a grease-soaked paper towel.

"Thanks, Earl," Jimmy Bob said. "Got me a new way of preparation."

"Tell me." Earl scooped two more into his mouth and chewed so fast he risked a tongue severing. "I been eating cracklins since I was weened off the t.i.t, ain't never had any this good before."

"It's a secret."

"Chicken s.h.i.t. Tell me or I'll beat it out of you."

Jimmy Bob snorted, a sound not unlike a fat bullfrog croaking. He slapped Earl on the back, hard enough to make the old man's dentures slup off his gums and out of his mouth. The teeth bounced onto the dirty wooden porch.

Jimmy Bob stared down at Earl, a man half his weight and forty years his senior, and smiled big.

"Well, I wouldn't want to take a beating, Earl. The secret, my good buddy, is skinning the piggies while they still alive and kicking."

"Doe thip?" Earl said. He'd been going for "no s.h.i.t" but hadn't stuck his teeth back in yet.

Jimmy Bob held up his hand, preacherman-style. "That's the G.o.d's truth, Earl. Something about them porkers struggling and squealing before they die, tenderizes their skins and imparts that extra tangy sensation. Longer they struggle, tastier they get."

Earl wiped his falsies on his bib overalls and slurped them into his eating hole.

"You're putting me on," Earl said.

"You got a dead spider in your bridgework, Earl."

Earl picked out a dry Daddy Longlegs and flicked it over his shoulder, then repeated his prior statement.

"I'm honest as the day is scorchin', Earl. Ain't just the cracklings, neither. Bacon comes out so juicy it melts in your mouth, and you can cut the pork chop with a spoon they're so tender."

"Now I know you're funning me, Jim Bob. Ain't no way you can carve up a hog while it's still kicking. It would run like the d.i.c.kens, and the blood would make it all slippery."

"I built me a hog rack, out of wood. Keeps it locked in place while I do the carving. Put on the salt and vinegar while they're still wiggling, so it soaks in. Louder then h.e.l.l, but you're tasting the results. Want another one?"

"h.e.l.l yeah."

Earl was reaching for more when the big silver saucer flew out from behind a fluffy white cloud, situated itself over Jimmy Bob's porch, and hit the two men with a beam of light.

There was a moment of searing hot pain, then darkness.

Jimmy Bob awoke on his back. His head hurt. His last memory was of Earl, who had come over with a mason jar full of his rotgut corn shine, and he figured he had himself a granddaddy hangover. But Jimmy Bob couldn't remember drinking any of the shine. All he could recall was eating cracklins.

He stared up at the ceiling, and realized it wasn't his ceiling. It was silver, and curvy.

Then he noticed he was naked. Even worse, Earl was on the floor next to him, similarly declothed.

"Oh sweet Jesus, how drunk did we get?"

Jimmy Bob reached for his nether regions, but nothing down there seemed to ache from use. Thank the lord for that.

He sat up, the metal floor smooth and cool under his b.u.t.tocks, and looked around. The room they were in was all silver. No furniture. No carpet. No doors or windows. No lights, even though he could see just fine. It was like being inside a giant metal can.

Then Jimmy Bob jerked, remembering the s.p.a.ceship in the sky, the blinding bright light.

An unidentified flying saucer. A UFO.

Lordy, him and Earl had been ubducticated.

He nudged his old buddy.

"Earl! Get your a.s.s up. We're in some s.h.i.t."

Earl didn't move.

"G.o.ddammit, Earl!"

He shoved Earl again. Earl remained still. Jimmy Bob noticed his friend wasn't breathing, and had taken on an unhealthy bluish tint.

Jimmy Bob knew about CPR from watching TV, and much as he didn't want to touch lips with the older man, especially since they both were nekkid, he forced Earl's mouth open and blew hard down the old geezer's throat.

His breath didn't go nowhere, no matter how hard he gusted, and Jimmy Bob squinted down and saw the big bulge in Earl's neck.

Earl has swallowed his falsies.

Jimmy Bob stuck his finger into Earl's mouth, tried to fish the teeth out, but they were down too far and Earl's throat was cold and slimy and disgusting and after ten or so seconds Jimmy Bob realized he didn't like Earl that much to begin with so he took his hand back and wiped the spit off on Earl's thick tangle of gray chest hairs.

Jimmy Bob wondered if he should say some words, but he didn't know no prayers and then he got really scared because he was alone - all alone - in an alien s.p.a.ceship, so he tried to give Earl CPR again.

It didn't work no better the second time, and then Jimmy Bob got up and started pacing back and forth, terrible thoughts bouncing around in his bean.

He'd seen all the movies. Starship Troopers. Independence Day. War of the Worlds. Alien. Predator. Alien vs. Predator. No good ever came out of being abducticated. The aliens were always bad guys who wanted to take over the world or eat people's guts or hunt humans for sport or get folks pregnant in their bellies or give painful probes up the brown place.

Jimmy Bob didn't want none of that to happen to him. He wondered why those guys that made movies never made one about an alien who came to earth and gave a lucky farmer a brand new plow. He'd watch that on the cable, for sure. But instead it was always death rays and cut-off heads.

Jimmy Bob yelled for help, loud as he could, so loud his ears hurt. No one answered.

He ran to the nearest wall, pushed against it. The surface was slippery, almost like it was covered with a fine layer of grease. He grunted with effort, but the metal was solid, immobile. Jimmy Bob walked around the room, trying to find some sort of seam, some sort of crease. Everything he touched was rock solid and perfectly smooth.

Jimmy Bob sat in the center of the room and hugged his knees to his chest. He wondered if they was still flying over earth, or if they was already in another universe, about to land on some weird planet with rivers made of acid and trees that looked like rib bones. He wondered what the aliens looked like. Tall and gray with big glowin eyes? Green and scaly with sharp fangs? Or did they have fish heads, like that commander guy in Star Wars? And what did they want from him?

Was it the b.u.t.t probes?

He looked at Earl. Earl got off easy, the lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Maybe Jimmy Bob could fish out those false teeth and choke on them himself. Not a bad idea, considering. He began to crawl towards his dead friend when he heard a buzzing sound.

It sounded like a p.i.s.sed off hornet, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. Jimmy Bob looked around, tried to find the source, and noticed a pinpoint of white light on the wall. First it was a real tiny, and then it grew into a larger and larger circle until it was the size of a manhole cover.

Death ray.

Jimmy Bob crabbed backwards, trying to get away from the death ray, but there was no place to go. He retreated until he was up against the opposite wall, fists and teeth clenched, waiting for the final ZAP that would make his skeleton light up then turn him into cigarette ashes.

The ZAP didn't come. In fact, the more he looked at the light, the more Jimmy Bob began to think it looked more like a door than a death ray.

Was this some kind of alien trick? If he went through the door, would he be hunted down like a deer, aliens in big orange coats chasing him through the woods? Would he have to fight in some alien gladiator battle? Would he be forced to squat on a probe the size of a fire plug?

Maybe none of those things. Maybe this was a chance to escape.

Jimmy Bob took a quick look at lumpy-throat Earl, then sprang to his feet and ran for the circle of light. He was almost upon it when something flew out the doorway at him.

It was large, and red, and hit him in the chest with the force of a football tackle. Jimmy Bob tumbled backwards, the weight of the thing pinning him down, blanketing him in a warm, wet goo.

Jimmy Bob screamed.

The thing on top of him also screamed, and Jimmy Bob bucked and pushed and got it off and scurried away, his eyes focusing on a creepy crimson alien, completely hairless, dripping head to toe with some kind of blood-like fluid.

No, it wasn't blood-like. It was actual blood.

And the creature wasn't an alien.

"No more," it whimpered. Its voice was thick and wet.

Like Jimmy Bob, it was naked. A man. A human man. Or what was left of one. Every square inch of his body was bleeding, thick and viscous like he'd been dunked in raspberry preserves. The man lay on his back, trembling, red smudges coating the floor where he had rolled.

"Hey buddy, you okay?" Jimmy Bob asked, knowing how ridiculous it must have sounded.

"No more...please...no more..."

Jimmy Bob chewed his lower lip and looked the man over. There didn't seem to be any main wound. Instead, his whole body was a wound. He hadn't been skinned - Jimmy Bob didn't see any exposed muscle or fat on the man. No, this man looked more like he'd been worked over with a cheese grater. Every square inch was raw and b.l.o.o.d.y. Even his eyelids looked sc.r.a.ped.

"What happened to you?" Jimmy Bob asked.