Page 19 - Extraterrestrials, Foreign and Domestic

The Hermits
(Fantastic Transactions 1, 1990)

It was an old man’s garden. Broken bricks barely bordered
uneven rows of carrots, beets, and zucchini. Weeds competed
successfully with vegetables for sun and soil, both scarce resources
along the side of a ramshackle garage. Neighborhood dogs, gaining
access through gaping holes in the backyard fence, often
conducted business in the precincts of the compost heap.
The garden’s sole proprietor and beneficiary, Al Osmoser,
could be stirred from somnolence when his failing ears detected
movement behind the house. Then he would stagger to his feet,
roll the old newspaper he might have been reading into a tight
cylinder, and go crashing out the kitchen screen door into the
yard. A few whacks of his newsprint cudgel against his free hand
usually sufficed to send the interlopers scampering off to their
next port of call.
On one such occasion, late in autumn, a series of scrabbling and
scraping sounds elicited the predictable response. Upon reaching
the top of the rickety back porch steps, Al pounded the paper and
croaked, “Godamn dogs! Get the hell out of here!”
Nothing stirred. Al waited, squinting into the darkness. It was a
warm evening; a gentle breeze wafted scents of rotting garbage
from the poorly-managed compost. Al descended cautiously into
his backyard, relying too heavily neither upon the creaking stairs
nor the swaying bannister.
“Godamn sneaky bastard. You can’t hide from me,” he
muttered, advancing slowly over the gravel and dirt clods in his
scruffy bedroom slippers. His eyes, aided by spectacles whose
scratchy lenses refracted glittering penumbras around every source
of light before them, rested upon a large object partially concealed
behind the compost heap.
“All right, I can see you now, you mangy mutt. Now, go on!
Beat it!”
Al slapped the newspaper. Still no movement. He moved a step
closer, trying to remember if dogs always growled before biting.
But it wasn’t a dog: the thing crouching before him had not a

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