













  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  BOX OF DEATH
    by J. Alec West
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  
    
    I hit the power-panel master switch at eleven PM Saturday
  night, April 1st. My CB radio died with an audible pop. I jumped 
  to my feet, swatted the comms room light off and raced up the 
  basement stairs with a half-full coffee cup in hand. Five steps 
  from the kitchen floor an unexpected silhouette cast its shadow 
  down the stairwell. My right hand jerked, the coffee went every
  where and I fell to my knees with a thud.
    
    "What on Earth's going on?" said the shadow.
    
    "Jesus, Joanie. Thought you were in bed already." My momentary
  terror fizzled. "No time to explain. Gotta meet Doc Talbot." I rose
  to my feet and limped the remaining steps into the kitchen. "Where's
  the camcorder?"
    
    "I think it's in the closet, dear. Why?"
    
    "Doc told me about this great nudie bar in Canyon City," I
  joked. I heard Joanie gasp as I opened the closet door. "Just
  kidding, dear. Doc told me to bring it with me. Don't know why."
    
    "But . . ."
    
    "We'll talk about it later . . . tomorrow, maybe. Gotta rush."
    
    With the camcorder and empty cup in one hand I extended the
  other to a kitchen counter. I grabbed an old aluminum kettle and
  filled my airpot with hot, black coffee -- the five-hour-old kind
  that sticks to a man's ribs. "Don't wait up for me, love."
    
    I saw Joanie look out the picture window as my red '72 Skylark
  spun from the driveway to the street. It was one of those worried
  looks. Lord knows I'd lived with her long enough to tell. Lord 
  knows she'd come to recognize my own worry, too. But I couldn't 
  tell her what I didn't know, and what I didn't know was what 
  worried me. Doc's CB call played itself over and over in my head as 
  I turned from the street to U. S. Highway 26, westbound from John 
  Day, Oregon.
  
    "Cecil Knox comin' back atcha, Doc. What's up? Over."
    
    "Cece. Remember where we camped out last year? Over."
    
    "Yeah, sorry I couldn't make it with ya this time. My damned
  arthritis is acting up again and you know what cold mornings do 
  to it. Over."
    
    "Cece, just listen. Get yourself out here right now. Don't ask
  me any questions, just do it. And, yeah, bring your camcorder.
  Over."
    
    I could tell when Doc was in trouble. I'd known him longer than
  Joanie -- known him since we both went to Grant Union High School.
  Class of '48, we both were, him going on to be the county coroner,
  me going on to be a janitor for the school district. I remembered
  they called us Laurel & Hardy back then, him being short and stout,
  me being a stringy beanpole, but both of us being the best of
  friends. Yeah, I knew when Doc was frightened. I pushed the gas
  pedal further down to the floorboard.
    
    "Doc, this is Cece. Come back, over."
    
    My car's CB speaker returned only static and whine. I continued
  to call him as my car sped westward through Mt. Vernon and then
  Dayville. Just before the John Day River gorge I saw a familiar
  rancher's road off to the left. It wound its way up into the
  foothills. My tires grumbled over a cattle-guard and left a trail 
  of dust in the half-moon twilight as I sped up the dirt road. When 
  I reached the summit, I saw Doc's Dodge pickup off to the left. He
  stood near the back and looked into its lighted canopy bed. When he
  saw me pull over to a shoulder and stop, he ran in my direction.
    
    "Dammit, Cece, what took you so long?" Doc scolded. He stopped
  in front of me, panting and heaving. "You missed it."
    
    "Missed what?" I held him by the shoulders to calm him down.
    
    "Spaceship -- flying saucer -- Christ, I don't know what the
  hell it was."
    
    I checked my watch to be sure and smirked. Sure enough, it was
  still April Fools Day. Not only that but Doc's breath had the smell
  of beer to it -- a heavy smell.
    
    "Jesus, Doc." I laughed. "Look, I know I buggered out on this
  year's camp-out and I'm sorry. But, if you really wanted me to join
  you I'd have ignored the arthritis. All you had to do was ask." I
  laughed again, more robust this time. "You don't have to invent
  Martian invasion stories for Christ's sake."
    
    Doc sneered back and grabbed me by the collar. Staggering, he
  led me over to the back of his pickup, told me to look onto the bed,
  and removed his camp blanket from something covered up. I nearly wet
  myself. There, lying still and naked on the pickup bed was a nearly
  four-foot tall human-looking creature. In the grip of both hands 
  was a black box, a cube measuring about six inches on each side.
    
    "Is -- is it dead?" I asked.
    
    "If my eyesight is a good judge the answer is yes," Doc replied. 
  "Decomposition seems to be setting in fast. Strange, though. No 
  smell of decay." He covered up the body and stumbled to the pickup 
  cab to flip off the canopy light. When he returned, he put a hand 
  on my shoulder. "Look, I'm drunk as a piper. Leave your car here. 
  We'll pick it up later. We've just got to get this thing back to 
  town fast so I can examine it."
    
    Doc handed me his pickup keys. I went to my car and retrieved
  the empty cup, airpot, and camcorder. With my car locked up tight 
  I jogged back to Doc's pickup and hopped into the driver's seat 
  next to him.
    
    "The camera . . . thank Christ you brought the camera," he said. 
  "Get a picture of it before we leave." He flipped the canopy light 
  dash switch back on.
    
    I faced the lighted canopy, removed the blanket, aimed the
  camcorder and pressed the record button. My viewfinder went black.
  "Shit," I yelled, "the damn battery's dead." I could hear Doc groan.
  He turned off the canopy light as I covered up the body and returned
  to the cab.
    
    I was eastbound on Highway 26 when Doc noticed my airpot and cup.
    
    "Is that regular or unleaded?" he asked.
    
    "Silly question, Doc. You know I'm a night owl."
    
    "Thank Christ for small favors." Doc served himself the first
  cup of black brew. "I've just got to sober up -- got to get my wits
  back -- got to think clear on this." He took his first gulp. "That
  creature's dead and I want to know why."
    
    The pickup windows were rolled down. Blasts of frosty air
  buffeted our faces as mileposts flickered by along the roadside.
  When we finally got back to John Day I turned South on Highway 395
  for the two-mile trip to Doc's Canyon City office. He broke the
  silence.
    
    "Oh, Hell . . . coffee's gone. There's a pot and fixins in my
  office. Make me some when we get there, okay Cece?"
    
    I pulled up in front of Doc's office, a few blocks away from
  the county courthouse. Even though it was the coroner's office, 
  we decided the suspicious nature of two men unloading a body from 
  a pickup at one in the morning was clear. We sat for a moment and
  listened for stirrings on nearby streets and sidewalks. When we 
  were confident of not being observed, Doc walked to the front door,
  unlocked it and propped it open with a doorstop. With the corpse
  still wrapped in the camp blanket, we carried it through the office
  and into the autopsy exam room. Doc remained in the autopsy room
  while I returned to the office. The exam room door swung shut. I
  closed the front door, locked it, and turned off the overhead
  lighting. The red light of the brewing coffee pot became the only
  illumination left in the room.
    
    I sat near the office entrance door and fingered an opening in
  the front window blinds. I looked nervously for signs of activity
  outside. The streets were dead quiet. No traffic. No movement. Only
  a faint glimmer flickered from streetlights near the courthouse.
  Then suddenly the office was bathed in light. I bolted to my feet.
  The blinds clattered shut as I yanked back my fingers.
    
    "Coffee ready yet?" Doc asked, apparently unaware his entrance
  from the exam room had startled me.
    
    "Jesus, Doc!" I masked my shout in a whisper. "Don't do that!"
    
    "Oh . . . sorry." Doc laughed. He reached for the coffee pot
  and poured himself a cup. "Any chance of getting that camera
  running?"
    
    "Check your watch, Doc," I barked, still shaking. "Ain't no
  stores selling camcorder batteries at this hour, and I haven't 
  seen my power cord since I lost it last year."
    
    "I'll have to begin, then." Doc took a long, hot sip. "Body's
  decomposing fast. Rigor mortis had already set in by the time I
  found him. Couldn't pry that box out of his hands for the life of
  me." Doc raised his stare from the floor. "I'll need some help,
  Cece. Can't do much cutting with that box held to his chest."
    
    "_His_ chest?"
    
    "C'mon, Cece, you saw him too. Male genitalia were unmistakable. 
  But that's about all I do know about him. His ship, saucer, whatever 
  took off without him before I had the chance to ask any questions."
    
    My expression took on awe and curiosity. I suppose Doc realized
  he'd told me nothing of what had transpired before my arrival at 
  the campsite. He said a brief explanation would have to suffice if 
  he was to examine the alien's corpse before it corrupted itself
  further.
    
    Doc explained he'd been zipped up in his sleeping bag, fast
  asleep after two six-packs of generic beer had dizzied him into a
  slumber. A whirring sound disturbed that slumber and light filtered
  into the pickup canopy where he slept:
   
     "_Morning? Already_?" His head throbbed when he checked his 
  watch. "_What the hell_?"
    
    The sound and light were coming from about a hundred yards to
  the South just over a short rise. Walking up to the crest and
  concealing himself behind a juniper tree, he'd seen a metallic-
  silver craft only a few feet away. It was circular, about fifty 
  feet in diameter with a height of twenty feet. As the craft rested 
  on triangular pod-like legs a hatch door swung downward. Six 
  humanoid figures emerged. The frequency of the sound reached a high 
  pitch and then became inaudible as the six figures stood beside the 
  hatch door.
    
    "_Three animals approaching -- looks like a forked-horn buck, a
  bobcat, a coyote -- entering the craft. Wait! Crew going back
  inside. Hatch closing. Christ! Cecil! He'd still be up. CB radio 
  -- channel 13's his favorite. My pickup radio -- got to get 
  through_."
    
    After Doc got through to me, he'd run back up the rise to the
  juniper tree. The craft remained quiet and motionless for several
  minutes. Then . . .
    
    "_Hatch opening again -- the three animals, running out, back
  into the junipers. Wait! One of the crew -- carrying something --
  leaving the ship. Staggering -- falling -- getting back up but
  falling again -- not moving. Hatch closing again -- noise -- loud,
  louder. Damn, Cece! Where are you_?"
    
    The craft had made a slow vertical rise above the treetops,
  banked northward over the gorge -- then straight up, out of sight.
  
                                 *  *  *
    
    Doc finished his update and noticed my nausea as we stood
  together over the autopsy table. "Not a pretty sight, but it'll 
  only take us a second," he reassured. "Then you can go back to the 
  office and catch some sleep."
    
    Doc was right. A quick tug by both of us freed the box. Doc
  placed it on a counter near a sink. I made a quick exit as Doc 
  began his work. I moved a newspaper to the side of Doc's office 
  desk, placed my feet up and stretched back in a steno chair. The 
  caffeine from my CB watch had worn off and I found myself drifting 
  off to sleep.
    
    _Bang . . . bang . . . bang_!
    
    The noise from the exam room woke me with a start. Sunlight
  filtered in through the gaps in the office blinds and the wall 
  clock said six. I walked to the exam room.
    
    "What's going on?" I stared curiously at Doc. He was on his
  knees holding a hand-sledge over the black box.
    
    "Scalpel won't cut it. Drill doesn't work either. Got any
  better suggestions?"
    
    "Wait . . . wait just a minute." I ran back into the office and
  returned with the Blue Mountain Eagle. I paged through the weekly
  newspaper and scanned the text.
    
    "This alien appears to have died from asphyxiation but that's
  only a guess," Doc said. "Never seen anything like it. No digestive
  system to speak of. No means of solid waste discharge. Massive lungs
  if that's what they are. Perhaps his kind _breathes in_ nutrition."
    
    I nodded absentmindedly and directed my attention to the paper.
  Doc continued.
    
    "Those lungs were inflamed, tissue probably hard and dry at 
  the onset of death. The inflammation was spreading, too -- from 
  the lungs into the surrounding tissue. Chemical tests revealed 
  some kind of bacterial action, high tissue concentrations of four 
  chemicals; indole, skatole, hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans. Those 
  chemicals are unremarkable. You and I come into contact with them 
  every day. The spreading inflammation suggests that, perhaps, he 
  was trying to absorb those chemicals as nutrients."
    
    Doc rose to his feet and placed both the box and hammer on a
  counter behind him. "Hell, more questions than answers, really.
  Perhaps that box holds some answers."
    
    "Give me fifteen minutes, Doc."
    
    I handed the Eagle to Doc, pointed out an article, and rushed
  out the office door. I sped off in his pickup. When I returned he
  still held the paper.
    
    "Good thinking, Cece. Damn good thinking."
    
    "Thought it might have been packed up and gone by now," I
  replied. "Lucky you had that Eagle." The paper story confirmed it.
  The new portable diamond drill on display at Grant Union High 
  School was to be held one more week. I shut the office door and set 
  the upright drill device on Doc's desk.
    
    Doc retrieved the black box from the exam room as I plugged in
  the drill. With the box positioned under the device, I powered it
  up. The descending bit made contact and, slowly, an indentation
  formed on the surface of the cube. I applied more pressure to the
  handle.
    
    _ThhhhhHHHHHHH . . ._
    
    A bluish, smoky gas escaped the interior of the box as its
  casing was breached. The whooshing sound continued for a short 
  time. Then, as Doc and I looked on, the box itself began to corrupt 
  and dissolve. Doc backed away from the desk. I withdrew the drill 
  bit upward and yanked the power plug from the wall socket.
    
    "Say, Doc, maybe this wasn't such a hot idea."
    
    "Wait a minute -- look." Doc pointed to the desk top.
    
    The box itself was no longer there. It had either melted or
  just evaporated into the air. What remained on the desk were the
  contents of the box, a mound of foul-smelling matter.
    
    "Do you smell it, Cece?" Doc smiled. "I think I understand now.
  It's beginning to make sense. This was my box of answers."
    
    "Uh, Doc, this wasn't your box of answers." I giggled. The
  hunting and tracking experience of my youth came back to me. I
  turned on a desk lamp to illuminate the mound. My suspicions
  appeared true. "What you've got here is a pile of shit. Lessee --
  you've got yer deer shit, yer bobcat shit -- looks like some coyote
  shit mixed in too."
    
    "Exactly," Doc replied. "Remember those four chemicals I found
  in high concentrations in the alien's lungs? Bacterial action 
  caused by those chemicals give fecal matter its distinctive odor."
       
    "You've lost me, Doc." My forehead wrinkled. "Try English."
    
    "Those chemicals are what makes shit stink. Think for a minute.
  We're dealing with an alien lifeform with no digestive system as we
  know it, a lifeform that probably has no experience in dealing with
  feces, no experience in the odor of decay. The bacterial action --
  the chemicals -- they're probably unknown to his kind. I suspect
  that to his species, the odor is fatal."
    
    I was mesmerized.
    
    "My guess is that they came to Earth to examine animal subjects, 
  perhaps using some kind of sonic hypnotism to lure those three 
  animals into their craft. Once inside, the aliens released their 
  sonic hold over the animals. Can you imagine the terror those 
  animals felt? Trapped? Defecation is not an uncommon reaction among
  animals who find their lives in peril. By the time the aliens
  noticed the deadly effects of those chemicals, one of their crew 
  had already been overcome by the odor. They realized it was time to
  withdraw -- cleaned up the feces -- placed it in an airtight
  container -- consigned to their dying crewman the duty of removing
  it from the ship."
    
    "Damn." I shook my head. "Your box of answers was their box of
  death."
    
    "That's about the size of it, Cece."
    
    Doc shifted his gaze from the desk to the interior of the exam
  room. A frown stained his face. He walked through the open doorway
  with me close behind. Decomposition was near complete. The purulent
  ooze left on the autopsy table bore no resemblance to anything that
  had once lived.
    
    "Nobody's gonna believe this, Doc," I said. "We have no proof
  of any of this."
    
    "You're right." Doc nodded. "I suppose there's not much left to
  do but clean up the mess and dispatch it to the exam room
  incinerator."
    
    Doc drove me home, stopping along the way so I could return the
  drill. He assured me he'd be by later in the day to ferry me back 
  to my car -- suggested I tell Joanie I'd had a flat tire. It seemed
  like a rational excuse -- more rational than the truth, anyway.
    
    Joanie cast a suspicious glance my way and handed me a cup of
  coffee as we sat at the breakfast bar.
  
    I must have looked dead tired. Joanie agreed I should go to
  bed. Mercifully, she let whatever questions she had slide for the
  moment. As I approached sleep I recounted the night's experience.
  Doc's reason for the aliens being here seemed logical. But, what if
  my earlier retort to Doc was true? What if their visit was indeed a
  prelude to some sort of alien invasion? My last lucid thought was
  comforting. If these aliens planned an invasion, it was nice to know
  that nearly every creature on this planet came with a built-in 
  weapon to use against them -- or at least a renewable supply of
  ammunition.
    
    "A flat tire, eh?" she said.
    
    I nodded and took a deep sip of coffee as she continued.
       
    "Sounds like a load of shit to me."
    
    My mouthful of coffee went everywhere. I laughed and blushed at
  the same time as Joanie patted me on the back. "You have no idea." 
    
  
                                 (DREAM)
                                 
  Copyright 1995 J. Alec West, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.                      
  -------------------------------------------------------------------
  J., a freelance writer, resides in Vancouver, WA. He likes feedback 
  from his readers, so drop some email in his box and let him know 
  what you think:  alecwest@teleport.com
  ===================================================================
  
