Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders
Chapter 20: The Walking Dead

My team and I were later than usual leaving the lab to head back to Suburbia that afternoon.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, as we arrived later at the edge of town. I could hear screams and loud voices coming from the town-folk, who were already assembled at the Rabbit Hole

In a panic, and without hesitation, we ran to dive down the tunnel entrance. Jones was right behind me, holding on to her tail and the mini-binocs bobbed around my neck with my finger positioned on the emergency button—because it sounded like something horrible was happening to our friends.

We landed in a heap and looked out across hundreds of prairie dogs with paws over their mouths and their eyes transfixed on the entertainment devices around the room. Then more gasps and screams came, with blood-curdling screeches from the little ones. We looked at the screens and what we saw defied description.

There were creepy, disfigured and grotesque humans moving slowly into a room where children were hiding in terror as they tried to escape being mauled and eaten. It was worse than anything I had seen in my flashback nightmares.

Just then, the entertainment screens went black.

There were whispers, sobs and chitters throughout the crowd. Then Daisy stood up on the center podium in the middle of the chamber.

“Everyone calm down and remember, these programs are pretend stories made up by humans that are long dead and buried,” she said.

“Dead maybe, but they didn’t look too buried to me!” shouted Buster on the outer edge, sitting with Sally and their four full grown pups.

“It’s my fault!” shouted Daisy. “I found an unseen title that was labeled a very popular TV series, but I didn’t bother to preview it, because I thought The Walking Dead would have something to do with prisoners...you know...like The Green Mile? All of us loved the cute, little mouse in that movie.”

“My kids will have bad dreams,” shouted Ruthie-toothy, the town’s version of what we called child-sitters.

“Are you kidding?” yelled out Cricket the town’s head sentinel. “I will have nightmares!”

“Okay, let’s have a vote,” said Daisy. “All in favor of burying this series called The Walking Dead, due to inappropriate violence perpetrated by horrifying, undead monsters, say ‘yes’.”

“YES!” came the thunderous response.

“All opposed say ‘no’”.

Silence...

“When I said ‘bury’ this Walking Dead series, I meant it quite literally,” said Daisy. “Will someone volunteer to dig a hole in our movie cemetery, and shove it into the dirt where dead things belong?”

“Yo! You got your cemetery excavator right here,” said Buster, with a raised paw.

“I’ll help make the marker stone,” joined in Cricket.

“Okay, then,” said Daisy. “It’s settled. Tomorrow we will look forward to a few more Big Bang Theory episodes, okay?”

“YIP-YIPPEE!” shouted the crowd, with renewed enthusiasm at the idea of spending an evening with comforting, familiar, predictable, safe and normal looking characters.

I glanced at Moore, and he was giving himself a face palm.

I made my way over to Daisy after she came down from the platform. I whispered in her ear for a long time. She would nod occasionally, and when I was done, she had a big knowing smile on her face.

Daisy climbed back up on the podium, which was nothing, more than a 3-foot high, flat boulder.

“Listen, everyone! Our visiting cousin Stanley has something he wants to discuss with all of us, and since the entertainment for tonight didn’t work out, let’s listen to what he has to say.”

I hopped up on the boulder, but I wasn’t really prepared to give a speech, so I just went from thoughts off the top of my head.

“Thank you, my friends!”

“Most of you know that we spend a lot of time during the day exploring areas outside the edge of Suburbia, and I can assure you, there aren’t any undead people roaming around out there.”

That brought a round of relieved laughter, and everyone relaxed and quickly got back to their amiable selves.

“But some of you, especially the town’s sentinels, probably know that what’s left of the real, live human population lives in a big settlement not far from Suburbia.”

I looked at Cricket and he seemed perplexed at first, then the light-bulb of realization switched on and he nodded affirmative.

As I spent the next few minutes laying out the dire dilemma facing the planet, its remaining population, including the humans, the town-folk and the scant few insects or other things that might still be alive on Earth—it was so quiet in the chamber a dropped toenail would have been heard from one end to the other.

Hmmmm...maybe they aren’t going to react the way I thought.

After all, it would likely be difficult for a species of animal like the town folk to grasp the enormity of the situation, because their universe was pretty small, and limited to daily chores, surviving on what food they could find and the escape into Rabbit Hole entertainment at night.

But I underestimated our new friends.

“Tell us what we can do,” said Daisy, even though she already knew what I was going to ask.

“Yeah, what can we do about it?” shouted one voice, then more joined in. Soon everyone was talking between themselves, while some were shouting questions about how they could get involved, and how to be of assistance.

“This is our home, too, and we want to help save it!”

What I felt at that moment was a sense of community and pride I had never felt before. They were all ready to volunteer, and I hadn’t even laid out my plan or made my offer yet. It was probably due to that pride that caused me to say what I did next.

“We love you all like family, but I have a confession to make. We aren’t really your giant cousins in the traditional sense.”

I looked at Daisy, and she knowingly shook her head affirmative.

I explained that we were an investigative team from another planet on a mission to learn about human nature and we chose to masquerade as prairie dogs, because they had all the qualities we admired and needed for our assignment.

Suddenly, everyone cheered and crowded up to the podium to shake my paw-hand.

“What took you so long to tell us the truth?” Buster asked, with a knowing wink.

Yeah...who said animals were dumb...

“What do you think?” I asked the gang at the lab the next morning after I updated them on my speech to the town folk, and their reaction the night before. Especially, their reaction after I told them all they had to do to help save the planet was what they do naturally, which is to dig.

And, in exchange for digging a big-ass ditch the size of half their town, the reward they would get from people would be removable solar orbs to fit their entertainment devices. That meant they would only have to take pea-sized orbs to the surface for recharge, instead of the whole device.

“Sounds wonderful!” said Sara...and Cassie was also quick to agree.

“Yes, that’s what they thought, too, when they realized how much work they would be spared by using the small orbs,” said Jones.

But Wilder hesitated. He wasn’t so sure about the offer.

“How could we make enough orbs to fit all their devices, when we don’t have any aluminum left?” Wilder asked.

“Yeah, I’m ahead of you on that one,” I joked. “We have a lot of it on Rosen. How about giving us a ride?”

Wilder laughed loudly for a second, then a serious look of contemplation came over his face.

“If Suburbia’s prairie dogs can help us succeed in bringing water back to Earth, we will give them anything they want,” said Sara, casting a look at her husband that practically dared him to disagree.

“To be honest, the town-folk wanted to help anyway they could, even before I offered the orbs, but I think after they found out the scope of digging that would be required, they weren’t unhappy about being compensated in a way that would make their lives easier,” I concluded.

“From what you have told me about the entertainment devices, orbs to fit them could be very small, right?” asked Cassie. “That wouldn’t require a lot of material, would it?”

“Okay, first things first,” said Wilder. “How soon can the town-folk start the job?”

“As soon as we give the word.”

“Can they start tomorrow?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Okay, then let’s do it,” said Wilder, with growing enthusiasm.

“I hate to be a buzz-kill, but has anyone talked to Torie about any of this lately?” asked Moore.

“I suspect he has been ease-dropping a lot, because he hasn’t been himself since we learned about that deceitful bastard, Qualdron, and that we have no ability to get home safe. He only breaks form when I ask him to, and it’s always as the blue dragonfly, and never for very long,” I replied.

“I think he will be curious enough to snap out of his depression once things get started, and he is faced with the prospect of being the hero that saves a planet...even if it’s one he might get stuck living on,” said Davis, summing it up nicely.

“You know his intellectual curiosity will prevail eventually,” I said. “The grumpy old centurion might complain a lot, but he has never let any of us down.”

Cassie, Sara and Jones were busy updating Wilder on the critical part Torie’s bot-nytes would play in the water-extraction attempt, when I circled the rest of my team off to the side, so we could talk in private.

The mini-binocs were hanging around my neck as usual, and I silently signaled to the others, so they would know the conversation we were about to have would be for Torie’s benefit.

“I don’t know...the old guy just isn’t as sharp as he used to be,” I said, with a wink to Doc.

“YEAH, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe he has lost his instinctive touch,” said Moore, speaking louder than usual.

“Well, you know that they say about love,” said Davis...then looked at us to prompt a response.

“No...WHAT do they say about love?” I asked loudly.

“They say it can make a guy soft...make him lose his noive, see...” replied Davis, with a Brooklyn accent that came out of nowhere.

We had a good laugh, but the mini-binocs hung there around my neck perfectly still.

Hmmmm...my plan wasn’t working.

“Yeah, I wonder what Torie’s little girlfriend back on Rosen would think if she knew what a milk-toast he is becoming in the face of so many difficulties,” I said loudly.

That did it...

The mini-binocs started vibrating so hard it made my jaw mandible hurt. I quickly put them on the floor and within seconds Torie swirled up and stood there looking at us like he was ready to bite the heads off small kittens.

“Bloody bat-crap! Give a guy a break!” the bot-shifter shouted. “Laugh it up! Do you really think I’m so stupid I don’t know what you jerks are doing?”

Okay, there’s the grumpy guy we know and love.

In a huff, he swirled back into the mini-binocs, and dropped to the lab floor. But we could not wipe the self-satisfying smile off our faces for an hour.

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