(Author's Note: My entry for the Creature Feature round)
Sam pressed the tinfoil hat closer around his head. Was it tight enough, were there any gaps? Maybe he should put on an extra layer just to be on the safe side. In fact, perhaps he should make an entire helmet, like for diving or going into space. He pulled the industrial-size roll of foil towards him and started making the helmet almost absentmindedly, his fingers working without supervision, like his grandmother had used to knit while she watched the television. After all, he had had years of practice now.
The television had been the first thing he had got rid of. Even the average person in the street knew that THEY watched you from behind the screen, monitoring your every move. You couldn't take any chances with those radio waves; they could penetrate just about anything, but not tinfoil for some reason. And he wasn't about to have anyone messing with his brain, no siree!
He shivered, the spaceman image was rather uncomfortable. His boyfriend Dan insisted the radio waves were sent by the government—a secret department—set up to control the few free thinkers left in Australia, but Sam knew better. It was the aliens. He had seen them at night, tall shadowy figures in the garden, scouting out his house. So far they had been unable to penetrate through the locked doors or the foil-covered windows but he feared it was only a matter of time. All it would need was a moment of inattention on his part. The thought of his hat falling off while he was asleep gave him nightmares.
Knock, knock!
Sam froze in terror. Had they come to get him? He huddled further back into his cubby under the kitchen table; the red plaid rug draped over it reaching the floor, cutting out most of the light.
"Sam? Open up, it's Ricky!"
It sounded like his brother, but was it?
"Sam, are you there?"
More banging on the door.
"Sam for God's sake! Let me in!"
Sam remembered the last time Ricky had come to see him. He had brought a bottle of pills. For the first half hour he had spoken patiently to him, explaining that there were no such things as aliens, or mind-controlling radio waves; that he was suffering from schizophrenia. He had gently reminded Sam about what Dr Slater had said, that his illness needn't be totally debilitating, that it could be managed with medication.
Sam knew better. He had tried to tell Ricky about the aliens, almost frantic to make him understand, to make him wear the tinfoil hat he had made in advance, but Ricky hadn't listened to a single word.
In the end Ricky turned to leave, irritated with his brother's refusal to admit he was sick and needed help. He put the bottle of pills between them on the table.
"Take them goddamn it! Or give them to the aliens," he had added in frustration, unable to cope any further with his brother's irrationality. Not to mention the smell. It was unpleasantly evident that Sam hadn't changed his clothes or showered in quite a long while.
"You don't care do you?" Sam had accused. "You just don't care that aliens are about to take over the whole country. And they will you know, if we don't stand up to them."
Ricky had looked down his nose and replied in that irritatingly pedantic voice, "I'm leaving, now. I'll come back later, when you're in a more reasonable frame of mind."
"Maybe they've got to you already!" Sam had shouted after him, rather childishly. Ricky had always managed to rub him up the wrong way, even as kids.
That had been a fortnight ago and now it seemed he was back. Maybe Ricky was ready to put on the helmet or maybe the aliens had got to him. How could Sam tell?
He wished Ricky would give up and go away, just leave him alone, but he wouldn't.
"If you don't open the door in one fucking minute, I'm going to put this brick right through your fucking window!" yelled Ricky, getting angrier by the minute.
No! Sam couldn't let that happen. The aliens would come straight in through the hole. Frantically, Sam crawled out from under the table, stretching painfully with the unaccustomed movement and made his way to the door. Like most of the interior surface, the back of the door was covered in silver foil.
"What do you want?" Sam yelled back, from the inside. "I'm fine!" Maybe he could persuade Ricky to leave, maybe he wouldn't have to open the door.
"I want you to open the fucking door!"
It didn't sound like Ricky was going anywhere until he got inside and saw for himself that Sam was okay. Sam sighed.
"Alright. Give me the password."
"What bloody password?"
"You know, the one we had when we were kids." Sam could remember it as clear as yesterday. "The one we used as a secret code."
There was a slight pause. Sam imagined Ricky standing there, impatiently searching his memory.
"Green Zombies Rule. That's right, isn't it? Now open the frigging door!"
Sam smiled. That sounded like the real Ricky. He opened the door.
The alien who looked like Ricky smiled. And came inside.
