As promised, here is the first of my stories inspired by these prompts. Does it qualify as spooky? Maybe not. Is it the silliest thing I’ve ever written? Quite possibly. Please enjoy. (Contains one scene of unrealistic violence.)
Like a lot of things in popular culture, the idea that men like Max live in their parents' basement comes from America. In the UK we might describe a man like Max as a basement dweller, but what we really mean is that he lives in his parents' spare room; and what we imply is that he does so not because of the cost-of-living crisis but because there's something wrong with Max.
In short, being a basement dweller is not generally seen as something to aspire to. But Max saw it differently.
Max became familiar with the concept of the 'finished basement' as a teenager, through American TV - if fact, not only did he become familiar with it, but he fell in love with it. He had to have it. And after many months of campaigning on this point with his parents, they gave in, because they - especially Max's mother - loved their son very much, and wanted him to have what he wanted. They renovated their cellar at great expense; Max moved in; and more than twenty years later, at the age of thirty-eight, there Max remained.
When news of a new plague started to spread, Max in his basement was dismissive. There was no such thing as the plague, he said, online. Or there was such a thing, but it was harmless and the government were using it as an excuse to control people. Do not comply! he tweeted; after all, he left his basement every few days, and he'd never caught any such plague.
(Max didn't realise that this was because no-one would come near enough to him to infect him.)
The plague Max didn't believe in had killed a third of the world's population, including his father, by the time the asteroid hit and wiped out another third. Fortunately for Max, he and his mother were in the basement at the moment of impact, and it turned out to be surprisingly robust.
No-one was sure what caused the infection that turned people into zombies - was it something to do with the plague? Or with ancient dust released into the atmosphere by the impact of the asteroid? - but Max read everything he could about it online, because here, finally, was an apocalyptic event he could believe in.
Now he stayed in his basement with intent, refusing even to go outside to forage for food. So his mother was forced to go outside instead, and for some weeks she was successful in finding food - until eventually she became food. She was the last meal of a hungry pack of zombies who - along with all the other zombies - starved to death soon after, because there were no humans left alive.
Except for Max.
So successfully had Max's mother stocked the house with non-perishable food that Max was still living comfortably off it some weeks after the final zombies had - unlike the food - perished. He was vaguely aware that there were no humans left alive - or undead - for many miles around, and had the occasional dutiful cry about this, but mostly managed to distract himself with masturbation.
It came as something of a surprise to him when the doorbell rang; and even more of a surprise when, on answering it, he was met with four aliens, who each wordlessly grabbed one of his limbs and bundled him out of the house and into the spaceship they'd parked at the end of the drive.
Once aboard the ship Max thrashed and screamed until he felt a needle go into his arm; and he woke up a while later feeling calmer. He was in a room not unlike the cabin of a private jet - not that he'd ever been in a private jet, of course, but he'd seen them on TV. He was strapped gently into his seat with an alien sitting either side of him and another two facing him. The aliens were vaguely human-shaped, except that their skins were a deep shade of purple, their heads were large and bulbous, and they had no arms or legs. Their bodies were fringed with tentacles. They were wearing clothes - identical outfits that looked like uniforms.
The aliens saw that he was awake, and made some wet, gloopy noises he didn't understand, until one of them reached a tentacle towards Max's face. He gasped and ducked away, but the alien made contact; and he realised it was only flicking a switch on a set of headphones that Max had only just noticed he was wearing.
The alien sitting opposite him made another gloopy noise, and a fraction of a second later a voice came through Max's headphones saying "There. Now we can understand each other."
"What - why - what - "
“Let’s save questions until the end, shall we? My name is General - ” here the alien made a what sounded like the noise of someone exaggeratedly spitting; evidently his name didn’t translate, but Max came to think of him as General Hoik. “I’m from the dominant species on a planet known as Red-73, and I’m afraid I must apologise to your people on behalf of mine.
“You see, all the recent tribulations humans have suffered on Earth - the plague, the asteroid and then the living dead - these were orchestrated by us, quite deliberately. We’ve done the same thing on many other planets, too. Through trial and error over many years we’ve found this to be the best way of assessing whether a sentient species such as yours was ready to - ” he lifted all his tentacles at once, which made him look rather like a lampshade - “ascend.”
“Ascend?”
“Yes. To ascend. To communicate fruitfully with other sentient species, for the greater good of the galaxy. Sadly it seems that most of your species were not ready. You’re the only one to have survived the many challenges we put you through.”
“The only one? On - the whole planet?”
“Correct. You must be a remarkable human - what is your name?”
“Max.”
“Welcome to the new world order, Max,” said General Hoik. “You are now part of something very special.”
Max had never been part of anything very special before. It might just have been whatever they'd injected into his arm, but the more General Hoik explained about the new world order, the more Max began to feel excited about it.
It turned out that Earth was not the only planet to have been suffering climate change at the hands (or feet, or tentacles, or suckers, or beak) of its occupants. Hoik's species had watched for many years as planet after planet had failed to govern themselves sensibly, and eventually, he explained, they had simply had enough and decided to take control of the galaxy and bring everyone else into line. They'd wiped out most of the galactic population and brought representatives of each sentient species to a small, neutral planet they were using to host an interplanetary senate from which they would rule what remained of the world. Max was to represent the humans.
Max hadn't previously believed that humans were causing climate change, but he had always believed he'd be rather good at ruling the world.
When they arrived at Planet Senate, however, he quickly realised he was out of his depth. Quite literally, because the planet was entirely covered in one enormous ocean. All the aliens, whatever their species, seemed either amphibious or tall enough to keep their heads - or whichever end they breathed through - above water; and although the helpful aides quickly fitted him with inflatable armbands, Max was forced to admit, as he floated glumly through the courtyards and cloisters of the newly-built Senate, that he wasn’t cutting quite the statesmanlike figure he’d imagined.
Things began to look up, however, once he was taken under the wing of Senator Wheezy.
This, too, happened literally: Wheezy was of a species that resembled a sort of underwater dragon. He breathed not flames but great plumes of water through his mighty nostrils, and moved through the water with a terrifying grace; but although the sounds he made turned out, when translated through Max’s waterproof headphones, to be words of great sagacity and wisdom, they nevertheless sounded very unfortunately like the asthmatic penguin from Toy Story 2, which was why Max thought of him as Senator Wheezy.
Max began to spend most of his days at the Senate paddling furiously in Wheezy's wake; and in due course he met Wheezy's daughter. Wheezy introduced her with a noise that sounded rather like a goldfish suppressing a burp, which Max translated, as best he could, as Flut.
If you or I had looked at Flut we might not have been able to tell the difference between her and Wheezy; but Max had not seen the female of any species since his mother had died (when choosing a few members of every species to represent their planets in a huge interplanetary parliament, Hoik and his people had mysteriously chosen only men, which they insisted could only be a coincidence), and to him Flut might as well have had the comically large and fluttering eyelashes of a 19th century cartoon character. Although Max was unable to imagine how he and Flut would overcome the logistical difficulties of a relationship between a minivan-sized water dragon and a human-sized human, he nevertheless fell deeply and inconveniently in love with her.
This love was the beginning of Max's downfall. When Senator Wheezy - who had really become quite fond of his small, prune-skinned human colleague - invited Max to a party in his cave, Max saw an opportunity to impress his oblivious beloved. In advance of the party he availed himself of the Senate Planet's version of the internet - CaveMind, a semi-telepathic network delivered by means of a set of goggles - and learnt as much as he could about the dragon creatures' home planet, Ra. He read about the food, the history, the culture - and the more he learnt, the more he became convinced that Ra was superior in every way to the planet on which he'd been born. In his soul, he felt, he was more water dragon than man.
Thus, on arrival at the very well-attended party, he doggy-paddled his way up to Flut and began, as he thought, to declare his love for her in her own language. It was only when she and the other nearby party guests began to scream with what he recognised as laughter that Max began to realise something had gone awry.
Wheezy - shaking with mirth himself - pulled Max away from his daughter with a gentle claw and explained that Max, having quite the wrong breathing apparatus for speaking the language of the water dragons, was getting the pronunciation all wrong. Although it was clear to everyone who could hear him that he was trying to reveal his feelings to the giggling Flut, it also sounded very much like he was saying that he wanted to…
“…well, I don’t know if it will translate precisely,” said Wheezy, apologetically. “I think the nearest word in your language is ‘vomit’. But it’s a little more specific than that. It’s a particular kind of vomiting that our species does - particularly the very young - when they’re very frightened. It is the…the vomit of fear, I suppose you could say.”
“So I said to Flut that she makes me…”
“Makes you want to vomit with fear, yes. Vomit with fear while screaming and crying. I apologise for laughing, but, well, it was very amusing. But don’t worry, everyone will forget about this quickly. Please do not be sad.”
The next day, it was all over CaveMind that the Senator from Earth - a human who was from a planet that was two-thirds covered in water, but could barely swim - had humiliated himself in front of the esteemed Senator Wheezy and his daughter and friends; and Max was indeed very sad.
Some days later, still unwilling to show his face in the sniggering corridors of power, Max was gloomily treading water in his office when there came a scratching sound at the door. He opened it to find himself face to face with a spiky creature that looked a little like an inflated puffer fish.
"Who're you?"
"My name is - " the creature made a guttural noise that sounded like 'Brug', and then made it again. "I've been assigned to work as your assistant."
"Huh. Bad luck. You might as well come in."
Brugbrug bobbed into the office and settled at the empty desk.
"Cheer up. You don't half look - " the creature squinted at him. "Miserable? I've been reading up on human facial expressions ever since I found out I was being assigned to one."
"Miserable is right."
"Oh, good! Sorry. Well, it's my job to make you forget your personal woes and get on with being a happy and productive member of the Senate."
"How do you suggest I do that?"
"As it happens," said Brugbrug, "I have a plan."
Brugbrug's plan turned out to be a simple one: to distract the vicious press from Max's humiliation and his reputation as a floundering land-dweller, he should propose a bill to Senate.
"I don't want to propose a bill," said Max, sulkily. "I want to go home."
"Your home planet does look beautiful," admitted Brugbrug, flicking through CaveMind images of rolling hills and what remained of the lush rainforests. "Shame about the environmental devastation. Hey - there's an idea. What if we proposed a bill to invest some galactic funds into restoring your planet?"
"Could we do that?"
"Sure, if we made a good enough argument for it. What if it could be used as a playground, or a campsite? Young creatures from all over the galaxy could spend time there. It'd be educational. And you could make the money back in tourism. It's bound to get you some positive press. Who could have a problem with that?"
Unfortunately, there were people who had a big problem with Max's plan. Even more unfortunately, one of them was Senator Wheezy.
Wheezy was a beloved public figure, but like a lot of politicians, he owed a lot of people a lot of favours. He'd agreed to repay one of these favours by putting forward a bill of his own - one that would see every planet on Earth's solar system destroyed to make way for a solar dam.
"Damn it," he muttered.
"That's what we're trying to do," said the other figure in his office.
"Very funny. Look, I'm damned fond of this Max kid. He's an idiot, but he's trying. Right now he's trying to do a good thing for his home planet. Isn't there any other way?"
"We didn't bring him here to try," snarled General Hoik. "We brought him here because he's an idiot. I need that dam, Wheezy. You wouldn't have this office if I didn't. Make it happen." He swept out of the office, tentacles trailing behind him like fronds of seaweed.
Wheezy sighed. He swam to Max's office and tried his best.
"Look, Max, this campsite bill - it's a lovely idea. But it's a bit ambitious for your first act in the Senate, don't you think? Maybe it'd be best to sit back for a few terms, learn the ropes, what d'you think?"
Max shook his head at once. "No way, sir. I know you think I'm an idiot, but I can do some good here. Sure, I'm nervous about presenting my first bill in the Senate. But I've got to face my fears. My days of vomiting with terror while screaming are behind me, hehehe," he added, with a watery grin.
"Hehehe," echoed Wheezy, dejectedly.
The following day, Max faced the many thousands of representatives in the galactic Senate chamber, holding onto the lectern in front of him to make sure his hands didn't shake and that he didn't float away, and he spoke about the beauty of his home planet. He described the mountains, and the rivers, and the Grand Canyon, and many other things that he'd only ever seen from his computer screen. He spoke movingly of his own regrets at never having experienced more of Earth while he was still there; and fervently expressed his wish that every young creature in the galaxy might have he opportunity to visit one of its greatest treasures. When he finished speaking and sat down he was physically and emotionally exhausted, but - for perhaps the first time in his life - he was truly proud of himself.
And then Senator Wheezy stood up.
"I'm afraid," he said, somewhat unsteadily, "that the young senator is being dishonest."
A ripple of gasp-like noises went around the Senate chamber; but Max himself was too shocked to make a sound. He only sat and stared as the water dragon he had thought of as his mentor told the assembled senators that, as the sole inheritor of Planet Earth, Max stood to gain financially from the income that his plan would bring in. It was only as Wheezy concluded that the Senate should not only vote against Max's bill, but should seek to investigate Max for corruption with a view to stripping him of his office, that Max recovered enough presence of mine to swim out of the room.
"How could he do that?" he said, again and again, floating in his office with a stunned expression. "Why would he say those things? What do I do now?"
Brugbrug was scrolling through the rules of the Senate on CaveMind.
"Well. If you don't want to be stripped of your office, one thing you could do is unleash a filibuster on the Senate floor - "
"Yes! Let's do that!"
"Really?" said Brugbrug, uncertainly. "Are you sure you want to do that?"
"Yes! Let's go for the nuclear option. After all, things could hardly get any worse."
"If you say so," said Brugbrug.
The next day in the Senate chamber, Max stood up once again. Ignoring the murmurs of disapproval that went around the chamber, he looked up to the public gallery, caught Brugbrug's eye, winked, and started to speak.
He'd barely begun, however, when his eye was drawn upward again by a flash of movement. Brugbrug had moved to the door, flung it open, and then begun frantically swimming away as something entered the chamber.
The something looked like a cross between a deformed spider and a giant, spindly man. It moved about on four long, bent black legs - neither walking nor swimming but skittering across the surface of the water like a hideous mockery of a dragonfly. It had a blank white face that split horizontally across the middle as the creature let out a piercing, spine-tingling shriek - and then it fell upon the members of the public sitting nearest the door and began to devour them alive.
Dreadful billows of blood clouded the water at once. There was suddenly screaming coming from every corner of the room, and Max realised that he was screaming too.
"Quick!" Brugbrug swam in front of his face. "This way!"
Max followed his assistant as fast as he could, frantically flapping his armbands. The two of them swam out of the chamber, down a corridor Max hadn't known was there, and through a door which they were about to pull closed behind them when they realised Wheezy was swimming towards them - swimming for his life.
"Please!" The word rattled from the water dragon's throat; and Max held the door open as the creature he'd thought of as his friend slithered inside. Then they slammed the door shut and leaned against it.
"We'll be safe in here, at least for a while," said Brugbrug. "There are stairs leading down to the basement - Wheezy and I can hide down there. Max, you'll have to stay on the surface, but you'll be fine as long as it doesn't get through that door."
"What is that thing?" said Max.
"The...the filibuster," said Brugbrug, bewildered.
"That's what a filibuster is?"
"It is on my planet!"
"Language skills fail me again," said Max, expecting at least a wry laugh from Wheezy; but the dragon was silent. When Max turned to see why, he saw Wheezy watching a TV screen that was mounted to the wall. It showed what was going on in the Senate chamber; and what was going on was a bloodbath.
Shots rang out.
"What was that?"
"The army's going in," said Wheezy, still watching the screen. "Look. There's Hoik."
They watched the line of armed, uniformed creatures, led by General Hoik, as they marched into the chamber. They watched as the first of them was picked up by the filibuster, and screamed as he was eaten; and then they couldn't watch any more.
Eventually the screams began to die down, and the three of them turned back to the screen to see the filibuster scuttle across the surface of the water and out of the chamber...towards the door to the basement where they were hiding. And then they heard that bloodcurdling shriek from the other side of the door.
"I can't stand it. I won't go like that," muttered Wheezy; and from within a fold of his wings he pulled something, something Max had seen before, because Hoik's soldiers had each carried one, it was their equivalent of a gun -
- and with a sudden, final, horrible bang, Wheezy was gone. His large, scaly body slowly began to sink in the water, as a puddle of blood on the surface began to spread towards Max and Brugbrug like oil.
Max whimpered; but there was no time to dwell on this horror, because another one was close at hand. With a dreadful scraping sound, the filibuster tore at the door to the Senate basement; and with only a few terrible blows, its claws emerged into their hiding place. The last thing Max was aware of, as he passed out, was the terrified screaming as the filibuster dragged Brugbrug away.
He awoke some time later, floating face-up. With a start he sat up, and immediately panicked at the sight of the filibuster, half in and half out of the door, only feet away from him. He splashed away from it, panting, and only realised after some minutes that it wasn't moving.
Eventually mustering the courage to investigate further, he discovered that the filibuster was dead. Its huge jaws were wedged open around the dead body of poor Brugbrug, who - it seemed - had got stuck in the filibuster's throat.
Max let himself float away from this macabre spectacle and towards the TV screen. It flicked from one scene to another, showing every room in the Senate building, but every one was the same: nothing but horribly mauled dead bodies.
Max had left his home and travelled millions of miles - a journey no other human being had ever undertaken - only to find himself where he'd begun. Alone in a basement; the only creature alive on the entire planet. Again.
He stared at the TV.
Thanks for reading! This story was inspired by the following prompt:
You survive the apocalypse purely due to a series of happy accidents. It turns out, an alien race orchestrated the doomsday events on Earth to see if humans were ready to ascend. As lone survivor, you’re selected to be the sole representative of humanity in the new world order.
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