I suffered through the worst ordeal anyone could ever experience, and look what it got me. An all expenses-paid trip to the Nuthouse, with a padded suite and a complimentary straight jacket. Will Malto, the crazy alien guy they called me. Even the other patients think I’m Nuckin Futs (at least the ones with just enough mind left to be able to think do, anyway). I guess I shouldn’t be bitter, since this was my fault. Most people who tell their stories about their experiences with abduction are left alone. Maybe interviewed a time or two, but left to their own devices all the same. But then again, most don’t wake up and find they’ve been missing for two weeks. Most of them don’t insist as I did in front of a jury, after murdering somebody. So yes, this is my fault, but I guess it’s theirs to. I am referring, of course, to those things that took me from the woods and into a hellish nightmare of fear and confusion.

It was on a hot summer night when I was taken. I was going through a bad divorce and my ex-wife Margaret, being the b**** she was, was trying to get out of it with as much of my stuff as she could. Naturally, I was a stressed out man. I decided to take a camping trip to try to forget my worries. See, ever since I was a boy, being out in the wilderness had calmed me, and believe you me, I needed calming. So I loaded up my old Ford, used three of my vacation days from work, asked my buddy George to check up on my fish for me, and headed out to a camping spot that my old man had always taken my brother Jim and I to during the summers of my childhood. In order to get to the spot, I had to turn off the highway and attempt to drive my old Ford down a nearly non-existent dirt road that was closely surrounded by trees. It was hard to get to, but quiet, and you could be sure that no one would be there. That was perfect, because I needed some alone time badly.

The camping spot was a clearing concealed by bushes and trees. I parked my Ford on the shoulder of the dirt road (Barely anyone used this road, but I didn’t want to be the jacka** who parks his truck in the middle of the road in case someone did come along.) unpacked my tent and cooler, and pushed my way through the trees to the clearing. I hadn’t been there in years, but it was just as beautiful as I remembered. The pine trees that encircled it were tall and green. It was almost perfectly circular, the ground covered with flowers and other assorted vegetation. At night you could hear the crickets play their lullaby tunes as you looked up at the night sky, watching the stars. That was another thing that calmed me, the stars I mean. Whenever it was too dark for me to wander through the small woods that was practically in the backyard of my childhood home, I would sneak outside after everyone was asleep and watch the stars. Sometimes I would fall asleep out there, and sometimes I’d just be so transfixed that when I broke the trance, dawn would be approaching. There was just something about the night sky that interested me like nothing else when I was a child. Even now, at 35, when most things that fascinated us as children no longer make us wonder, the night sky still instills inside me a feeling of mystery.
I set the tent up in the middle of the clearing, then I went and gathered firewood, as it had taken a few hours to get out here and dusk was fast approaching. By the time I had finished, the sky was dark purple and the stars were blinking into existence. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. As I observed the sky, I took from my pocket some dry moss and twigs I had gathered as kindling, along with some flint and steel. I had also gathered some large rocks, and I arranged them into a circle to make a fire pit. I arranged some wood and kindling, then scraped the steel against the flint, throwing sparks onto the pile. it caught, and in about ten minutes I had a small fire going. Within the hour I had a roaring fire.
I pierced a hot dog with the metal hotdog roaster I had brought with me and began to cook it. I took a soda from the cooler ( I don’t drink.) opened it, and took a sip. Refreshing. After a few minutes, I judged that my hotdog was ready to be introduced to my stomach, so I took out the buns from my backpack and the ketchup and mustard from the cooler. I made my bun, then pulled the hot dog off the roaster, nearly dropped it (it was very hot) and put it in the bun. I ate it, added some wood to the fire, then lay back and watched the stars for awhile. Eventually I sat up and reached for my backpack. From it I took The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Margaret had given it to me for my birthday last year. “It’s a classic Will!” she had said to me, as if I were an idiot. She was the idiot. I had read it in high school. THREE times. She, on the other hand, had read it once in her bookclub, and she had to have the other ladies explain to her the meaning of every other word, and when she finished, she didn’t even understand the story. It occurred to me that by the time she had given me the book, she had started sleeping with her yoga instructor. Yeah, that’s right, not only did she cheat on me, she cheated on me with a cliché.
But anyway, I took the book out and began reading it. It was one of my favorites. I hadn’t had time to read lately, what with the paperwork from the divorce and all, so it was good to be able to. I had finished half the book when I dozed off by the fire. I must have slept for a couple hours, because when I woke up, the fire was nothing but embers. I doused it out with my half empty can of soda, then crawled into the tent and fell asleep to the cricket’s tune.
I couldn’t have been asleep thirty minutes when a sound awoke me. It was a low droning sound, and when I opened my eyes, the tent was filled with pale light. I unzipped the tent flap and crawled outside. I looked towards the trees to my right, and that’s when I saw it: a large disc-shaped object at the edge of the clearing. It was bathed in light that emanated from its underside. It was black, at least thirty meters long and was supported by long metal legs. But what really startled me was that there appeared to be something over there that was moving outside of it. I couldn’t make out what it was for sure, but I knew that it and the disc were definitely not of this world. You can say I was jumping to conclusions, but when I saw that thing, I just knew.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was moving towards the disc. Stupid thing to do, I know, but I was entranced. It was as if I wasn’t in control of my legs. It was almost like the disc was beckoning me. As I drew closer, it was clear that there was some sort of creature moving outside of the object. It appeared to be walking around in a circle, occasionally bending down and picking up a twig or rock, examining it closely, then setting it down again. It was wearing some sort of suit that covered it’s body from the neck down, and on its head was a large, round helmet with a tinted glass faceplate. it looked up at me when I was about ten feet away. The creature jumped back as if I had startled it. I stopped where I was (I had regained control of my legs, at least for the time being,) and stared at it. It seemed to be staring back, though I could not see its face through the helmet. It moved towards me, and I let it. I don’t know why, and I think I would have been better off had I run, but I let it get close. It walked towards me until it was five feet away, then stopped. It grabbed something from its waist and pointed it at me. That was when I tried to turn and run, but by then it was far too late. I had just turned around when I felt a small pain in the back of my neck. I stopped and touched where the pain was, and felt something sticking from it. Then darkness crept into my vision as the ground rushed up to meet my face.
When I awoke, I didn’t know where I was. My head was pounding and the back of my neck stung. I found I was laying down on some sort of table with my limbs restricted. I turned my head and the whole world seemed to topple on its side. I closed my eyes and tried to hold down the contents of my stomach, but it was no use. I vomited off to the side of the table. I could hear it slap wetly onto the floor. After a moment, the flow stopped and my stomach settled down.
I opened my eyes and let out my breath. I moved my head again and this time the vertigo wasn’t as bad. I looked around to try to get an idea of where I might be. I found that I was in the middle of a brightly lit white room with no windows. There were no remarkable features to the room. Nothing adorned the walls, and there was no furniture, save the table I was restrained on. I looked to the left and saw a sliding door.
Then I looked down at myself.
At first I couldn’t tell what I was looking at. My shirt was off, and I saw that I looked normal until my abdominal area. Then, the skin changed to pulsing masses of red and brown. Then what I was seeing sunk in, and I screamed. I watched as my organs pulsed and moved under my ribcage. They moved faster as I shrieked and this only made me scream louder. There was the sound of pressurized air being released and then that of somebody’s feet crossing the room to me. I turned and the two monsters I saw running up to me made me shriek even louder, louder than I thought humanly possible. It filled the room and resounded off the walls. The creatures coming over to me stopped and put their hands to their heads, as though the sound hurt their ears, or rather, the holes on the sides of their heads that seemed to be ears. Each had on a jumpsuit. One was a dull gray, the other deep black. Strange symbols were printed onto the left breasts of their garb. They were tall, spindly creatures, both at least seven feet tall. They had large, ice-blue, insect eyes that sat above large nasal slits and small, fine mouths. Their skin was a bright purple, with darker spots around the tops of their bald, small, round heads that sat atop too-long necks.
Finally, my throat became to hoarse for me to continue screaming. I looked at the creatures, breathing heavily, my eyes wide with fear. I tried to block out the image of my open abdomen from my mind, but it was impossible. Then, I realized something. I should be in terrible pain, but I could feel no agony. Why couldn’t I feel the gaping hole in me? It wasn’t that I was numb to feeling or anything. I could feel the cold metal of the table I was laying on (I had come to the conclusion that it was an operating table) and I could feel the restraints on my arms and legs. I could even feel the places where the skin that was peeled back to show my organs touched the skin on my sides. Yet, pain was not existent. I decided this must be a dream, some terrible nightmare I would wake up from at any moment. But if it was just a dream, I wouldn’t be feeling all the other things. Maybe the creatures had drugged me with some kind of pain suppressant. That seemed possible. I mean, they had obviously planned to, or already had, operated on me. I decided that was the answer.
The creatures, meanwhile, had removed their hands from their ears, or whatever those holes were, after I had stopped screaming. They looked at me a moment, then crossed the few remaining feet to where I was laying. They looked down at me with their large eyes, studying my organs. They poked and prodded with their fingers. Again, I felt no pain, but I could feel their touch each time they made contact. It was a very strange sensation, like being touched with ice. Then, they looked at each other, and the one in black, who seemed to be in charge, said something in another language. It sounded sort of like this: “Nish, cor la gart loff.” The other nodded and left. I could hear the pressurized air being released once more as the door opened and closed. The sound repeated again a moment later as the alien in the gray returned.
The creature appeared beside the other and handed it something. It was black and looked like a ballpoint pen. It had a red button on the side, and at the tip there was a small, vicious looking, circular blade. Held the object like a pen in its left hand and pressed the button with its thumb. The machine began to emit a whirring sound as the blade started to spin quickly. The creature began to lower the blade toward my organs. When I saw what it was attempting to do, I began to struggle against my bonds, trying hopelessly to get away. The one in black stopped what it was doing for a moment and looked me dead in the eye. At once my muscles froze. I tried to break eye contact and found I could not. Somehow, the monster’s gaze had frozen every muscle in my body.
The creature looked at me for a minute or two that seemed like decades, then returned to what it was doing. I was still paralyzed, and as I looked on in silent terror, the blade of the instrument began to cut through one of my ribs. Even though I could not feel pain, the horror at seeing my insides be cut through was too great a strain for me to bear. The last thing I saw before passing out was the one in black picking out a rib tip from my abdomen and examining it closely.
When I awoke, I was on my back, looking up at a clear blue sky. A bird was singing a sweet song somewhere nearby. My mind was hazy, and I didn’t remember anything at first. Then, it all hit me at once like an ocean wave. I jerked to a sitting position and felt around my torso, looking with my hands for the opening. I only felt skin, and realized my shirt was still gone. I looked down at myself, still feeling. The opening was gone. In its stead was a long, white scar going vertical from just below my chest to just above my jeans.
I stood up and looked around. I was back by my campsite. I l turned to the trees where I had seen the spaceship. There was no longer anything there. I didn’t care though. As far as I was concerned, I was not safe until I was back in town and inside my home. I ran from the clearing, not bothering to pack up my cooler and tent. I would come back for them later, I decided. I reached my truck and wrenched open the door. I felt in my pockets for my keys and couldn’t find them. “Come on, where are you, you little b****rd,” I said quietly to myself. I checked the ignition and let out a sigh of relief when I saw them hanging there. I turned them and my truck started up with a roar. Throwing it into reverse, I backed up the dirt road, sending up a large cloud of dust as I went. I reached the entrance to the highway, Shifted into drive, turned around and tore down the highway back towards town, passing each car I came upon.
Upon reaching the outskirts of town, I slowed just enough so as not to be pulled over by a policeman. A few minutes later, I turned onto my street. As I approached my house, I saw that a police car was parked outside. I pulled into the driveway, turned off the truck, and stepped out. Opening the door and walking inside, I saw a policeman in my living room, looking around. He looked up and noticed me. He pulled out his gun immediately. “Freeze!” he yelled. I put my hands in the air just as another officer came in from the other room.
“What are you doing here, sir?” the first one asked.
I was a bit annoyed now. “I live here,” I replied, trying to keep from yelling, “Why are you in my house?” What right did these men have, pointing guns at me in my own home? It was outrageous.
“Wait, so you’re William Malto?” the officer asked.
“Yes, I am. Now, I ask again. Why are you in my home?”
“I want some ID.”
I sighed. I reached for my wallet and the policeman told me not to move.
“Well, if you want some f***in’ ID, I kind of need to get my wallet, officer.” I spat the last word at him. I was freakin’ p*ssed. Though, now that I think about it, I can see why he had his suspicions. I mean, a disheveled, shirtless man comes through the door of a home being investigated by cops. Not normal stuff.
“Fine,” the officer said, “But do it slow, and toss it over here.”
I rolled my eyes and did as he asked. He looked at my license and then put his gun away. His partner did the same. I put my hands down. “Okay, we good?” I asked, “Can I come into my own house without getting shot at now? And also, can you tell me why the h*ll you people are here?”
“We’re sorry sir,” one officer said quickly, “It’s just that normally missing people don’t waltz into their home while the police are investigating.”
“Wait, did you just say I’m a missing person?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“But I’ve only been gone a day.”
“On the contrary, sir, you’ve been missing for two weeks.”
Those words hit me like a slap to the face. I fell back against the wall behind me, suddenly lightheaded. “Are you okay sir?” the officer closest to me asked. His voice was distant, as though he were far away. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to steady myself. When I opened them, I felt as though I had fallen into a nightmare. I was no longer in my home. Instead I was back inside that operating room. That terrible table that I had been strapped to was in the center of the room, ten feet away, and those creatures, those monsters that had essentially dissected me, were coming from the table, toward me. The one that was in the lead was reaching out, as if to grab me.
I knew what they were trying to do. They wanted to put me back on that table. They wanted to cut me open like a frog in a high school science class. Well, I wasn’t going to let them, not again. I ran at the one reaching for me, All the while letting out a battle roar so ferocious that it would put the Rebel Yell to shame. The creature’s features twisted into a look of shock as I reached it and tackled him down to the ground. It screeched with pain and fear as I grabbed it by its throat. I punched it over and over again all over its face. “Die Monster!” I shouted, “I will not go back on the table! No, No, No!” I never stopped screeching and roaring for blood as the creature went limp and silent in my grip.
All of a sudden, I felt arms grab me from behind. The other monster pulled me off its companion, shouting something. At first, I couldn’t make out the words, but they slowly became more audible. It became clear that it was shouting at me to get off. I struggled against its grip, but to no avail. It pushed me down to the floor with such force that I hit my head hard on the ground.
The impact was what brought me back to reality. I wasn’t in some sort of futuristic torture chamber, I was in my living room. The creature that had shoved me to the ground was really one of the officers. I felt cold metal bite into my wrists and heard a click and knew he had put handcuffs on me. Angling my head, I saw the other officer. He was knocked out cold on the ground next to me. I couldn’t hear him breathing. His nose was shattered and his lip swollen and purple. Blood poured from cuts all over his face. I could see the red imprint of my hand on his throat where I had grabbed it.
“What happened?” I asked to the officer who had put the cuffs on me.
“You attacked my partner and killed him,” he replied in a quiet, barely restrained voice, “I’m going to radio for an ambulance. Stay here. Move and I swear to God I will blow your head off.” He left me laying there on my stomach for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, he came back, pulled me up gruffly, and took me to the police cruiser. He shoved me in the backseat. When the paramedics arrived, they loaded the officer I had maimed into the back of the ambulance and drove off within a span of five minutes. After they left, the remaining officer drove me down to the police station.
There really isn’t much to tell after that. I guess to make a long, boring story short, I was interviewed about where I had been and why I had attacked the policeman. After telling them, they kind of just gave me this incredulous look, like I was freakin’ crazy. It still makes me laugh when I think about it. But, getting back to the matter at hand, I was to go to court on charges of assault on an officer and murder. I consulted with my lawyer. After hearing my story, he thought that I should plead innocent by reason of insanity. At first I didn’t want to do this, but he convinced me that it was the only way to get me out of prison. He also told me to use my alien story and the hallucination that caused me to attack the officer. Big mistake. The claims got me out of prison, but convinced the court that I was mentally unfit for human company. They had me put into a mental hospital to waste away with the crazies while I sit around and color all f***in’ day. Yeah.
That leads us up to today. I’ve been here for about two years now. It’s lonely here. The doctors are cold, and most of the inmates either can’t or won’t speak anything but gibberish. The few who can talk coherently are nothing but conspiracy theorists who only want to discuss how we faked the moon landing, or schizophrenics who only talk to and argue with the voices in their heads. Oh well. I find that silence makes a better companion then most people, anyway. It is patient and is always there to listen. I hear the doctors coming now. I had better put this pencil away before they catch me with it. I’m not supposed to have sharp things, can you believe that? It’s like they think I’ll just stab someone with it and escape… actually, I can see why they’re worried.
I’ll leave you with this. I am a changed man, believe you me. From now on, I will never go camping again, and when I look to the stars, it won’t be with wonder, but with fear.