The Ghouls' Review Winter 2014 | Page 14

stop. I started kicking and punching every one of the little parasites, but they kept coming, kept grabbing, kept clawing. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so… I don’t even have a name for it. Or for them. In hindsight I guess the way they are is a matter of genetics. You throw a bunch of stuff in the blender and this is what you get. They didn’t want to hurt me, maybe. I mean, maybe the way they are is the only way they know. Maybe the clawing and biting was innocent, really, like your new puppy. But my reaction changed things. I guess you reap what you sow. I don’t know what they are going to do to me. They let me make this recording and promised they would send it. They want someone else to come. They want me to ask someone else to come. They’re smiling at me right now because they know that word: come. But please don’t do it. These things can’t be allowed to get to Earth. I’m glad now that they burnt the rocket down but next time they might try to fly it. And they’ll crash, but they’ll learn from it and the time after that, they might get it to fly. Please tell my family I love them. And if one day you feel a tug at your trouser leg and there’s something that looks like a frog-man-rat hybrid at your feet, kill it.