Phase I:

The day creeps in through the disheveled blinds. Night seems to have just admitted defeat and given up the ghost but the smell of it lingers on. Yellow tobacco stain, sticky brown syrupy spills, sharp noxious whites and blues and pinks. Smell, an underutilized tool for gauging time. Time passes on and on, can be seen and heard, felt and reflected upon, but the smell of an event, the lingering stench of dying seconds succumbing to the next are often dismissed.

The telephone rattles and rings. A mechanical chirp.
“No Dave!”
Dandy slams the phone back onto the receiver.

Dandy Chase inhales slowly and let’s the dead moments of the night creep back in one last time in the morning glow. Has he slept?
His eyes mimic the barely parted blinds dangling atop the window as light squeezes through. Do his eyes project light? Are they a window as well?

It’s too early for this shit.

The telephone rings again.
“Fuck off, Dave!”
Dandy wraps the chord around his throat mocking a halfhearted suicide attempt before slamming the phone back from whence it came.

He fumbles to a glass and pours himself hard boiled breakfast. Rent is past due and he can’t seem to remember where he was last night but has a lingering feeling it wasn’t at all something he should have forgotten nor something that would forfeit the inevitable eviction.

The telephone rings once more as Dandy slides the entire instrument off the desk into the waste bin.

There’s a sharp clamor ascending the stairs leading to Chase’s door and anxiety sets in. It would be far too convenient to blame the impending doom on a slum lord ready to chop the head from any skinny neck that fell on hard times, but the honest answer was; Chase was behind as a result of his own malcontent for capital. Dandy Chase was a man of tangibility, trading legal tender for those big smelly moments was far more appealing than the assurance of shelter.

A tapping begins on the other side of textured glass scribed with a dyslexic “Investigator.” Chase slinks down in his splitting leather chair. Surely the enemy at the gates will grow weary with time and permit another day of refuge.

But the tapping persists.

Chase stabs the crust from his eyes and flicks it at the villain behind the door like a feeble warhead landing not far from its origin. He straightens his collar and swears to something he couldn’t possibly believe in.

Omnipotent being! Swoop down to the land of man. Carry away this morning intruder. 

If granted this one declaration, he would even pawn his gun and pay at least one bill.

But the tapping persists

Flaming chariot! Descend upon this door and banish the pounding cyclops to the far reaches of this astral plane.

If only this wish fulfilled, he would pawn his gun and not spend the earnings on any of those big smelly, messy moments.

But the tapping persists.

The telephone buzzes in the waste bin amongst the other discarded thoughts.

Chase answers with a swear and a boot across the room.

The tapping stops. It’s replaced with a verbal response, a soft unexpected voice.

In his surprise and confusion, Dandy Chase stumbles up and out of his chair and heads toward the door to meet the cyclops at the gate. On guard, Chase presses his ear against the door.

“Dave is that you?”
“Excuse me, is this the office of Dandy Chase? Can I please come in?”
“Dave, you sound funny… it’s too early for this shit.”
“Excuse me, mister Chase, can I please come in?”

Dandy unlatches the deadbolt, slides the pin free and releases a flood of light in from the outside world to untether what remained of the night before. Standing in the doorway wrapped in soft reds and blushing pink, a smell of floral and fruit envelopes Chase before his eyes can process the image. The light from the entryway is blinding to the sins of the night now passed. Chase has no other choice than to shield his eyes from the ultra violet storm.

This most certainly does not smell like Dave.


Dandy Chase lowers his hand from his face and finds himself in a swollen void. The walls are wet and throbbing. Veins pulse around him in a monotonous repetition as what appears to be a banana slug slinks toward him.

Chase falls backward clumsy and startled, mouth agape and eyes wide.

“What the…”

As he lands he feels his fingers sink into a pink curdled oatmeal intersected with pulsing filigree. An erotic mush of sticky wet blood and skin. His lungs fill with fiery adrenaline and the slug lurks further forward.

Dandy scrambles but can’t find footing. This waking nightmare, this horrible sequence, he can’t recall what brought him to this place. He can’t seem to remember where he was last night.

His gun! He hasn’t pawned it yet. A cold blued heavy barrel .38 Smith & Wesson Special should alleviate the lurching mass. A weapon produced to replace the .38 Long Colt in blasting through Moro shields in the efforts to dispose of the warriors in spite of treaty. Surely this implement of eradication could be trusted to vanquish the nearing shell-less terrestrial.

Chase attempts to free his hand from the soupy mess and reach for his holster. The massive slug now moves onto his wingtips and begins traversing the length of his leg. Dandy finally frees his hand from the wiry grasp of vein and chunk and in an instant draws his weapon. It’s too late, the slug has nestled upon his chest and is now staring up at him like a famished feline imploring for a dish of tuna.

Chase is shaking with terror but can’t seem to muster a sound. He stares down at the gelatin mass with its black freckled body and twitching stalks. If he hadn’t seen it move with such effort he would be sure life was nowhere to be found within the alien glob. The stalks begin grandiose gestures, whipping in seemingly random directions then suddenly straightening. Chase stares in awe. The stalks continue their motions, increasing in speed exponentially until the gelatinous yellow body begins to vibrate under the movement and things begin to blur. Dandy Chase feels like he is under water as he begins to notice an opening on what he can only presume to call a body between the base of the stalks. As the vibration increases the opening begins to gape and ooze more and more. Finally from the murky depths appears a glassy orb, an egg without a pan. The egg buzzes and crackles like a toaster that should be retired before a voice that has the cadence of someone halfway through a bite of mashed potatoes burps.

“You’f bpen we-assign’d”

“Are you okay Mr. Chase? I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Dandy lies on the floor of his office with a sweaty brow and notices his gun has fallen from the holster and made its way to his side. His gaze moves to meet a woman in a red dress with a concerned look leaning over him. He can’t seem to remember where he was last night.

The telephone rings.