Cattle

We all have that one relative. You know, the cooky one. The one that believes in any old conspiracy theory they come across? Aliens built the pyramids, Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer, vaccines cause autism. Standard run of the mill crazy that we all ignore because, well … they’re family. Unfortunately, my crazy relative may be right. On October 13th I got my birthday card just like I do every year. Ripping it open I expected to see the crisp 100$ bill that always accompanied a brightly colored card and a happy message about all my wishes coming true. There was no card though. Or money. When I opened the envelope all that came out was a gaudy, gold necklace. I held it in my palm for closer examination. It was heavy. Really heavy. A thick gold heart hung at the end of an ostentatious chain. I muttered in confusion shaking the envelope again hoping for an explanation. A small scrap of paper fluttered to the floor. Picking it up I read my aunt’s chicken scratch. They’re Coming for us all! 614899 For the truth! I stood confused unsure if this was Aunt Jackie’s idea of a practical joke. I looked at the heart again. This time noticing the small clasp on it. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I grabbed a steak knife from the block on counter. Sticking the tip of the blade in and wriggling it around until the little metal clasp opened with a pop. A tiny SIM card dropped to the ground. Baffled I picked it up taking it to our drawer of forgotten phones. I pulled out an old iPhone that still had some juice and stuck the card in. The screen flashed in a dizzying array of colors before finally settling into a background screen of my aunt and her siblings. Finally, the lock screen appeared. Asking for the pin code. 6 numbers. Damn it I thought. I looked at the scrap of paper again. Sighing at Jackie’s antics I typed the number in. It worked! A note was left open. Below is the message that I read:

My Dear, we humans have it all wrong. The great religions, the philosophers, the prophets. Humanity isn’t special, we aren’t made in any divine image, we aren’t clandestine for greatness. Our purpose is much simpler. Our purpose is destruction. They say at the end you remember your life fondly. That’s not always true. ..I should have done so much more. I suppose this is where I tell you that this is your wake-up call. To live what little life you have left the way you want to. On your terms. Smoke some weed, eat fatty food, make beautiful art, have passionate, Earth shattering sex, all of those clichés. And you should. But the truth is. It. Does. Not. Matter. From this moment forward your life, my life, the things that we did… the things we didn’t do. None of it matters.

They came on a Tuesday. At least that’s when we think it started. No one noticed. Not right away. They came under the guise of heavy rain. Rain that didn't stop. After the first few days of nonstop rain there was an uneasy currant throughout the city. When the power went out the tension could be felt but no one panicked…After all that’s what happens during severe thunderstorms. No, the panic came when it didn’t let up after 4 days the roads were almost unusable. At first radio personalities blamed the downpour on global warming. Of course, we have unseasonal rains! What could we expect with all our trash? Chiding us all for all the resources we waste and reminding us with fake outrage that our resources are limited! Then a week passed. The radio started to report a strange weather phenomenon. The radar showed that the clouds weren’t moving. They weren’t following a normal storm trajectory. In fact, they were completely unaffected by surrounding weather patterns whatsoever. They were stuck.

At this point the zealots started. They took over the radio waves, preaching the end of times calling on us to repent! Appease their god and this biblical rain will cease! It only spiraled from there. The main roads all flooded. People were using boats to get around, to try to escape. But there was nowhere to go. We couldn't get out. I TRIED. My neighbor took me on his boat. We went past Lakeshore Drive to where Lake Michigan should have been. We were going to head up towards the Michigan coast. But it wasn’t there. The lake wasn’t there! It was just more city. We didn’t know what to do. If we kept driving much further his boat would run out of gas. If we turned around there wouldn't be enough gas in the city to try and leave again. We decided to keep going but somehow ended up back on LaSalle. And then it happened. The sky opened up. The clouds ripping apart as the brightest light I have ever seen descended from the clouds. At first, I mistook it for the sun. Naively thinking this typhoon was over. But instead of warmth a blast of the coldest air I have ever felt accompanied the light. The air was so cold that everything beneath the light froze instantly. All of the water, the boats, the people directly under the beam were flash frozen. Then as suddenly as the light appeared an army of squishy, vaguely human shaped creatures began to walk down the light. I sat transfixed in utter horror as I watched this carnival of nightmares unfold in front of me. My brain breaking trying to comprehend seeing things that couldn't possibly exist. Things that were impossible according to the laws of physics. I started telling myself I must be hallucinating. I had to be as crazy as everyone had always said.

The further down the light they got the more terrifying they became. They sported bulbous heads and long thin bodies with skin stretched too tight over brittle bone-like structures that cracked and jerked at unnatural angles with every step they took. A long tail with shiny spikes that ruffled like a porcupines quill trailed behind them. A loud scream ripped through the air, and I realized that the city had fallen completely silent. The creature in front whipped its head all the way around to find who was responsible for the sound. Locking onto the terrified woman the way a bird does. Blankly, coldly, with eyes that gave away nothing about what it was thinking or acknowledged it was even truly seeing the hysterical woman. With one sudden, oddly graceful movement the creatures tail flicked up. Sending a spray of those shiny spikes through the woman pinning her dead body to the concrete building that stood behind her.

Chaos quickly followed as the reality of the invasion finally set in. Boats were speeding every which way to avoid the rapidly forming ice that spread from every step the creatures took. In no time at all they had taken us alive… well as many as they could find. Their ship is spacious.. I think. I can't quite make heads or tails of the things I'm seeing. It's like I'm looking at everything drunk, through a kaleidoscope. It's somehow simultaneously the largest and the smallest space I have ever been in. We’re kept in pens, squished together being fed a mixture of what looks like cornmeal and some type of fatty paste. It keeps us sluggish and docile. Every few days they come to take a dozen or so of us away. I don’t know where the group is taken too, but the taken never return.

It’s a different horror every day. Sometimes we are brutalized, beaten or made to fight one another for their amusement. Sometimes we are treated as caged animals. Poked at, prodded at, seeing what we stimuli we will react to. Occasionally they put stuff on us. Creams, chemicals, sticky unidentifiable liquids. To some of them it’s clear we hold little more value than a lab rat. Although, some of the creatures seem intrigued by us. A few of the nicer ones even engage with us. Patting different body parts to try and provide some comfort. These ones occasionally even answer some of our questions. They speak English…Sort of it’s hard to describe but it seems language is irrelevant to them. They have a very unique way of communicating. They don’t really talk. Since they have no mouths in a traditional sense the answer just sort of appears in your mind. It’s not like the movies though, there’s no disembodied voice… you just sort of know the answer all of a sudden. Like the way you just know 2+2=4.

That’s how I know you are in danger. Humans have run their course here on Earth. We’ve served our purpose. It’s time to make way for the superior species. We are nothing more than a warm up act. A device used to create a favorable environment. These creatures only survive in hostile environments - Ice Ages. The human propensity for greed and selfishness makes for the perfect storm. They have been cycling from planet to planet for longer than I have a word for. Letting evolution take its course up until a certain point then mixing a bit of their own DNA into low-level organism. This creates a consciousness that drives the organism to use natural resources, build civilizations, destroy the nature they are surrounded by. The unbridled greed and need for power always leads to the destruction of a planet. A living greenhouse to catapult whatever planet they want to inhabit into an Ice Age that can host their kind until the next planet is ready. Earth is just now hitting that point. With the acceleration of the warming planet, we are hitting the next phase in their plan. We are cattle. They’ll continue to farm us. Using us for food, fashion, science, you name it. The truth is you are already dead. The writing is on the wall, but you were always my favorite niece so I’m begging you to run. Run far, far away to a remote place and live as long as you can. They are not a merciful species. They are not letting me deliver this out of some moral code. They want the rest of the world to know they are coming. They just like the taste of fear. Apparently, it does something special to the meat.

****************************************************************

It’s been 2 and half months since I got that message. At the time I brushed it off. Just crazy Aunt Jackie being Jackie. I even chuckled thinking about what a good movie that would make…. But the thing is. It’s now been raining for 4 days. People are starting to panic, side streets are completely unusable, the main roads are severely flooded, and the power just went out.