Invasion of the Alien Parasite From Interdimensional Space
by Lisa Marie Hagerman
part 1
The invasion of Earth by the alien parasite from interdimensional space began one Tuesday afternoon when Joey McPhee checked his phone and mistook a threatening email for a practical joke.
Hi stupid Earthling Joey!
Me alien worm live in interstices of your simple, pathetic 4-D dimension.
Me see you but you no see me.
We take over your planet Earth soon ha ha.
Our sun dead. Our universe dying. But energy from your brains feed us good stuff.
Some eat hole in space-time and stick our dimension to your dimension.
Then we go through hole and take brain.
Then we take body.
Then we take planet.
Then we take solar system.
Then we take galaxy.
Then we take universe.
If this you not want, transfer $752 to bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) to 19rtEghbzbyBqmgJLBtUGb9VwVC1s2bKzR and we skip you and take another brain.
Earthling brains warm and good yum yum.
Bye!
The email was sent by Dan Ridley, who had been Joey’s best friend in high school. Dan had bought his own domain name because it was available. He also set up a website and an email address to go with it. Dan told Joey he bought his own domain in case he ever became famous and needed a website.
Joey hadn’t heard from Dan Ridley since he left for university on a full-ride athletic scholarship. Joey was in a community college and living with his grandmother to save money. Joey was jealous of Dan and didn’t appreciate the joke.
Joey hit “reply” and wrote, suck it and die asswipe. He tapped “send” and deleted the email.
* * *
The next afternoon, Joey received a reply.
This email was not from Dan Ridley. It came from a strange address with a bunch of random letters, like the spam email threatening to blackmail him with videos of him supposedly masturbating to online porn or “making happy” with himself, as Grandma Beatrice once put it when she accidentally walked in on him without knocking.
Greetings oh great and noble Earthling Joey:
We deeply regret the dishonorable message our compatriot Q’thp sent you. We have tortured and executed Q’thp as retribution and sacrifice in your honor.
We know not Asswipe among us. However, all 3762 of those named Azw’p we have woken from hibernation to comply with your request to suck it. We consult our translator which states “to draw into the mouth by action of the lips and tongue, thereby producing a partial vacuum.”
Our species have no lips or tongue, so to honor your request, we attach their orifices to powerful vacuums left behind from our previous hosts designed to suck atmospheres of enemy planets and with these we utilize to suck out the internal organs and turn their bodies inside out. Then we eat them and worship you and sing your name Earthling Joey in praise at hope you save our species from our dying universe.
Joey didn’t get a lot of email. He liked to check his spam folder and read the weird messages that regularly showed up. These were the weirdest he’d ever seen.
He opened a third message.
Greetings Earthling Joey,
We wish very kindly to share your brain with us.
Our ancestors many times cross into your dimension and try to take over your planet by inhabiting your brains but have difficulty because you human beings are a stupid and irrational species and difficult to control unlike our previous hosts.
We need allies on your planet to help us.
Tens of thousands of years ago our ancient host bodies on expedition in your dimension discover space probe built by a backward and primitive species. In probe you call Voyager 1, disk advertise Earth with greetings and sounds and helpful location information. We like your Earth much and we honor invitation to take planet thank you.
Click please link and input your coordinates to be ally in takeover of Earth. We send device to you. Follow directions and that will be most beneficial to us please.
Or you may donate to our cause to bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) to 19rtEghbzbyBqmgJLBtUGb9VwVC1s2bKzR and we will honor you.
Live long, and may the universe not freeze your life energy for eternity.
Joey tapped the link on the screen. It took him to a website that offered a free mystery gift. All he had to do was input his email and postal address. Or he could input a geocentric coordinate system such as latitude and longitude. The website also instructed him to click a link and download an app onto his phone. When he opened his gift, he must also open the app.
As long as it didn’t cost Joey anything, he wanted keep going with this. He wanted to meet the person sending these emails.
He typed in his address, just for fun.
* * *
The package arrived three days later. The contents were meticulously wrapped in layers of bubble wrap and clear packaging tape. Joey carefully cut the tape with a pair of scissors. He did not want to cut anything important.
The gift was a headband with two springy antennas sticking out of the top. It looked like an accessory for an alien costume. Joey turned it over in his hand. Electrodes were attached underneath the headband. The package also included a digital watch that measured his pulse. It looked like a nice watch.
Joey put on the headband and the watch.
Included in the package was a piece of paper, folded in half many times, like an abandoned origami project. Joey unfolded the paper. It was a photocopy of hand-drawn pictographic instructions without words. It looked like a home-made comic strip. The instructions were strange, and much longer than necessary, as if it really did come from aliens who weren’t sure how to explain things to humans.
In the first panel, a smiling stick figure unwraps a package. The second panel showed the contents of the package: a headband with two springy antennas, a watch, and the instructions. In the next two panels, the smiling stick figure sticks the headband with the springy antennas on his head and puts on the watch.
According to the instructions, after putting on the headband and the watch, something interesting was going to happen when Joey looked at his phone.
The instructions showed a sidewise, hourglass-shaped hole with a worm crawling through it. After the worm wriggles out of the hole, the stick figure hugs the worm. Both the worm and the stick figure were drawn with smiley faces.
The next panel showed a simple sketch of a brain, with the two hemispheres of the brain drawn to look like two rooms. The worm was in the left hemisphere, drawn upright, grasping a steering wheel with two stick arms. Its hands were two little dots stuck to each side of the wheel. The worm wore a cap, like the captain of a ship. It was looking out a circular window, which was drawn to look like the pupil of an eye.
In the right hemisphere, the smiling stick figure wearing a nightcap sleeps in a bed, tucked beneath a blanket. Its closed eyes were drawn as two short flat dashes. Its head was resting on a pillow. A string of Zs trails up and out of the stick figure’s head.
According to the instructions, all Joey had to do was stick the headband on his head, put on the watch, download and open an app on his phone, and look at it.
Joey stuck the headband on his head. He put on the watch. He opened the app and looked at it. He did not believe anything would happen, but was too curious to not go through with it.
Images of random objects appeared on his phone.
Basket. Ball. Rock. Tree.
Short video clips followed. They were cute and made him smile.
Ten cute puppies nursing with their mother. Ten cute puppies sleeping in a basket. Ten cute puppies frolicking with a ball. Etc.
Then the videos became disturbing.
One cute puppy was punted into the air like a football. A second cute puppy was doused with gasoline and set on fire. A third cute puppy had its head smashed with a large rock.
And so on, until no more puppies were left.
In the background of every video, the mother dog could be seen muzzled and leashed to a tree, whining and desperately struggling to free herself.
Joey no longer found this amusing. These videos were sick and demented. He was sorry he had opened the link in his friend’s spoofed email. Whoever sent this was probably a dangerous psychopath.
Joey tried to close the app. It didn’t respond. He tried to turn off his phone. Nothing happened. The video started over, repeating the horrifying scenes of puppies being brutally killed. Then a new video zoomed out to show the wicked human laughing as he killed the puppies.
Joey’s respiration and heart rate increased. His blood pressure rose. So did his anger.
Points appeared in the top corner of the screen. The app was measuring his physiological responses. His score was increasing rapidly.
More videos appeared. Hundreds of images of wicked human beings doing wicked things to other human beings flashed on his screen.
When Joey’s score hit a million, his phone dinged like a winning slot machine in a casino. Digital gold coins filled his screen. Celebratory music trumpeted from the speakers.
Joey flung his phone onto his bed. He removed his watch and headband and threw them into the wastebasket by the door. Then he turned on his computer and tried to calm himself by shooting down alien invaders attacking Earth.
* * *
That night, Joey had a strange dream.
He was a worm hibernating on a cold, dead planet, drifting in a cold, dying universe, surviving off energy emanating from another dimension.
He felt a spark of energy. It was just enough to stir him out of hibernation. He crawled to it and wriggled close, huddling in its warmth. Then he opened his mouth and began to feed.
In his dream, he broke through a barrier and entered the moist heat of a new host body. He zipped through the electrical synapses until he reached the command center of the host, burrowing deep into the consciousness. And then he commandeered it.
* * *
Joey blinked, trying to adjust to the strangeness of four-dimensional space-time. Except it wasn’t Joey. It was General Q’rg of the Zrgn, commander of the Lead Squadron of the First Invading Force.
Q’rg stared at the ceiling, unable to see through it. Q’rg could not see everywhere at the same time. This host’s primitive optical system captured only one direction at a time. How limiting.
Q’rg stood up. Q’rg yawned. Q’rg stretched. Q’rg scratched himself.
Q’rg stared at its hands, marveling at the strangeness of its new host body. Q’rg flexed each joint in all ten of its fingers. Q’rg touched its head, face, ears, lips, nose. Q’rg explored the inside of its nostrils with a finger.
Q’rg held out its two arms and flapped them up and down, attempting to fly.
Q’rg looked through a window. One sun. Q’rg squinted, disappointed its optical system detected such a limited range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Q’rg held up its hands to feel the infrared radiation Q’rg was unable to see.
Q’rg sniffed, detecting volatile compounds dispersed in the air. Q’rg realized its nose was not just a respiratory apparatus, but also an olfactory organ. Q’rg opened its mouth and sucked in as much air as possible, trying to consume these molecules for nourishment. Q’rg ran around the small room twice, opening and closing its jaws.
Q’rg heard a thought.
What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I control my own body?
This thought emanated from the right hemisphere of Q’rg’s host brain, where the host consciousness was trapped. That was most displeasing to Q’rg, but not unexpected. The host consciousness would be subsumed soon enough.
Q’rg examined everything in the room. It picked its host mind to review the vocabulary of this species.
Desk. Phone. Scissors. Yearbook. Fidget spinner.
Q’rg picked up the fidget spinner. Q’rg spun it.
Q’rg opened the yearbook and flipped through pages. Q’rg noticed sexual dimorphism. Men’s Track and Field. Women’s Swim and Dive.
Man. Woman.
Q’rg mimicked their smiles.
Q’rg looked for a map of the universe but did not find one. Primitive species. No map of universe because humans too primitive to leave solar system. Humans will benefit from technology of Zrgnian takeover of Earth.
Q’rg looked at the phone. Q’rg understood from its host brain that this device was a compact computing and communication device that provided answers like an oracle. Q’rg picked it up and pressed the button at the bottom.
Q’rg asked the device for its location. The device responded with a four digit number and street name. Q’rg asked the device how to take over the planet. The device responded with a helpful list:
How to Take Over the Planet Earth.
How to Destroy Earth in Three Easy Steps.
How to Take over the World.
Q’rg felt a pressure in the lower abdomen Q’rg did not understand. A thought popped into Q’rg’s mind: I need to pee, stupid.
“Explain,” Q’rg said out loud using the mouth of its host body.
I need to use the toilet, you brain-snatching space idiot.
Q’rg’s left arm raised itself and pointed to the door. This bothered Q’rg, because it meant Q’rg did not yet have dominance over its host body.
Q’rg followed the pointing finger into a hallway and entered a small room with a small window.
More vocabulary to learn: Sink. Mirror. Toilet. Bathtub. Q’rg wondered into which receptacle Q’rg was supposed to excrete bodily fluids. Q’rg placed its hands on the countertop and began to climb onto the sink.
Hey, idiot, that’s not the toilet.
Q’rg queried the device for the definition of “idiot” and was displeased with the answer. Q’rg thought its host was very disrespectful. Q’rg will have to do something about that. Maybe Q’rg will command its species not to sing in praise of First Host Joey in takeover of planet after all.
Q’rg looked at the squat white structure filled with liquid hydrogen hydroxide. Q’rg knew Q’rg should listen to the urges of its host body. But it did not make sense to excrete bodily waste fluids into a receptacle filled with a chemical compound precious for life in this universe.
The empty bathtub appeared more suitable to contain liquid. Q’rg placed the device on the counter, next to the sink. Then Q’rg stepped into the bathtub. Q’rg relaxed. Warm liquid oozed from its lower region and trickled down its legs. The discomfort in its lower abdomen ceased.
Q’rg stared at the yellow puddle spreading at its feet and sniffed, detecting a new odor.
Another thought came from its host. What the...? You made me piss my pants! Turn on the shower so I can rinse off, you asswipe.
Q’rg placed its right hand on the knob and turned it. Q’rg was hit with a cold blast of hydrogen hydroxide.
* * *
Joey gasped, spat, and sputtered as he reached up to block the water blasting out of the showerhead. Then he realized he was moving of his own free will.
Wet, wide-eyed, and shivering, Joey wiggled his fingers. His wiggled his toes. He lifted his left foot, then his right foot. For the moment, Joey had regained control of his body.
Was that his imagination? Or had an interdimensional alien parasite really hijacked his brain?
He cranked the knob to a comfortable temperature. Then he peeled off his underwear to take a proper shower. As the water heated, so did his anger.
Joey could not believe he let himself get tricked into opening that stupid email. What happened? Did his brain actually get taken over by an alien parasite from another dimension? Or was the headband a deceptively sophisticated brain-hacking device?
This was all Dan Ridley’s fault. If Dan didn’t own his stupid website, Joey wouldn’t have opened the email with Dan Ridley’s name on it.
He blamed his parents, too. If they hadn’t gotten divorced, they wouldn’t have blown his college fund on divorce lawyers. Joey’s grades wouldn’t have nosedived, because he wouldn’t have been distracted by their stupid problems. He wouldn’t have moved in with his grandmother to attend community college.
Joey hated his parents. He hated his ex-best friend Dan Ridley. And he especially hated this invading alien asswipe Q’rg.
He wanted Q’rg to suck himself and die.
And with that angry thought, Joey lost control of his body again.
* * *
Copyright © 2021 by Lisa Marie Hagerman
