The conversation began just as he closed the bathroom door - hardly a casual coincidence - and although
Eric needed to go, and badly, he paused, straining his ears for a stray word or two. He could make out nothing.
Maybe the pounding in his head was to blame. Maybe the conversation would be about nothing more than the
drinks last night that had been the cause of his headache. He took a step towards the toilet, and then halted
again.
"...sure he knows what we..."
He frowned. The pain compacted. Damn. Their voices dropped again. Comprehension blurred.
Knows what? What were they talking about? Him? The pamphlet? He should never have kept the thing
anyway. He should never have even talked to Jed and Lily, never mind buying them all those drinks. They were
nuts, the both of them. Never mind that Jed had been his Daddy’s best friend all those years ago. Everyone
in town sniggered at his crazy talk about conspiracies and the lizard people.
By now, Priscilla would have found the pamphlet. She went through his pockets every morning. Not because
she was suspicious. Well, she had to, right? Men were sometimes careless, forgetting precious dollar notes in
the laundry where they got ruined, which was a waste. He appreciated her doing it. It meant she cared. But the
thought of her finding that pamphlet made him uncomfortable. Afraid, too.
Especially after what happened last night.
Did it really happen the way he remembered it?
Maybe they knew he was trying to listen. Priscilla and her twins. Man, those twins creeped him out the first
time he saw them. Their eyes – four identical pools of forbidding black water – watching his every move as if
to say, What do you want with our momma. Not exactly a turn-on in the romance stakes.
He squinted at the mirror. He was lucky to have a woman like Priscilla in his life. People kept telling him that.
House of her own. Job that paid the bills and then some. Forty-four years old and still sexy enough to turn heads
when she walked down the street.
He was thirty-five, almost thirty-six and on bad days he looked that and more. Longish, light-brown hair that
already had bits of grey sneaking in. Skin like re-used parchment after a night like last night. And his father’s
watery blue eyes. That was what he hated the most – seeing bits of his Daddy slowly claiming his features. He
needed a shave.
By the toilet, the pounding in his head escalated. He closed his eyes as he relieved himself, hoping his aim
was good on instinct. Otherwise…
When the pain subsided, he looked down. And nearly puked his guts out. The contents of the toilet bowl was
bright red blood. Had that come out of him? Eric blinked.
So that was what it did to him. It really happened and he was gonna die just like his Momma did, God
bless her soul.
There was a rap on the door. “You okay in there?” That was Priscilla. Eric’s stomach contracted. He knew
guys who would have called the wife in with a hearty Will you look at this?
Or maybe he had imagined everything. It was that pamphlet playing tricks with his mind.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll be done in a moment.”
He looked at the toilet bowl again. Still bright red, a few drops splattered against the side. The sight of it
made him queasy. It was just so wrong. He did not want to die, but he did not want to go to a doctor either.
They always went on and on about his drinking and his smoking, never mind what was really wrong with him.
Her footsteps receded. His heart was pounding. She must not see this. Without looking again, he flushed.
It was gone, except from his memory.
His hands trembled too badly for shaving, but he lingered in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath
trying to get his courage up. It was insane. Here he was, too scared to leave the bathroom because of some…
hallucination.
Only the thought of her knocking on the door a second time got him going.
In the kitchen, he greeted the twins with a falsely cheery “Hi guys”. They ignored him. They were about nine.
Both were eating cereal, the girl something pink and the boy something brown.
Eric made his way to the coffee machine. He was halfway through pouring himself a mug when he saw it.
The pamphlet lay on the sink, just above the rubbish bin. His heart did a painful little skip-jump. He spilled a
few drops of coffee. So she had seen it. Was she going to throw it away? Should he beat her to it? She would
know that he knew she knew. He knew the contents by heart. Jed had been printing them for over twenty-five
years and his Daddy had never been without.
On the front, in very lurid letters, the pamphlet said, LIZARD PEOPLE – THE DEVIL’S SPAWN: THEY LOOK
JUST LIKE YOU DO!
He had not meant to stay at the bar as long as he did, but it was a surprise to run into Lily and Jed after all
these years. Lily had a bruise above her eye that was halfway between purple and yellow and she wore a
summer dress that looked like someone’s cast-off, but that was Lily. Not right in the head, folks in town said,
but that was mean. Nothing to look at, other than her eyes, which were green and large, like a cat’s. When he
was a kid, he and Lily had spent many hours on the sidewalk waiting for their daddies to finish their drinks,
inventing their own worlds to live in. Lily was the only person he had ever known, who looked up at him as if he
could be the king of the world. He had seen more of Lily, when he was growing up, than of his own flesh and
blood sister Elaine, who spent most of her days and nights at her friend Michelle’s house.
For old time’s sake, he’d bought them a few beers and asked how they were doing. He couldn’t resist
mentioning Priscilla. She was the classiest woman he had ever been involved with, but Lily’s face filled with
horror and she said, “Ricky, you can’t stay with her! She’s one of them.”
She immediately handed him one of his dad’s crumpled pamphlets. Eric’s good mood plummeted. With
his dad long dead and buried, it had been easy to forget that they existed, but suddenly it all rushed back.
The times they sat there together as kids – just him and Lily – their bums getting stiff and cold on the tarmac,
trying to spot one of them. That woman, no, not her, but look at that tall skinny man behind her, definitely not
human. And beware the moment, if one of their targets glanced their way. More than once Lily wet herself in
fright, and then the game would turn miserable, with Eric caught halfway between shame and pity, trying not to
notice the spreading circle of wet, trying to inch away without being too obvious about it, trying not to think
about the next time, when there would probably be fresh bruises on her arms, by her jaw…
Memories were not the best thing to digest, first thing in the morning.
The twins were not paying attention. Eric sidled over to the offending piece of paper. He was about to reach
over to crumple it up when Priscilla came in again.
“Want me to fry you some bacon and eggs, sweetheart?”
Eric groaned.
“Toast, then?”
“Okay.”
It took getting used to, being well cared for. He abandoned his attempts to destroy the pamphlet and took
a sip of coffee. Watching her move about the kitchen, just a red-headed woman with freckled skin and a curvy
body that filled a pair of jeans just right, it was easy to dismiss Lily’s paranoia.
But this morning he’d peed pure blood. Surely that can’t be right.
She glanced up, caught him watching her and smiled. A smile that warmed the heart and somehow negated
the twins’ sullen demeanour.
Except, he began to remember points from the list in the middle of the pamphlet. There was a section headed
HOW CAN YOU TELL THEM APART. Jed gave seven points. Freckled skin. A tendency for red hair. Families
with a propensity for twins. It was creepy how none of those ruled Priscilla out.
How did the rest go? He longed to reread the pamphlet, however familiar he had been with its contents.
Instead he made himself sit down and take another sip of coffee.
She put the plate of toast in front of him, pausing to stroke his shoulder. He felt the ice of her fingers right
through the shirt. Cold hands and feet. Another tick to add to Jed’s pamphlet. Four out of seven.
“Anything wrong?” Priscilla inquired.
“I’m not feeling so good,” Eric admitted.
“Perhaps you’d better lie down after this,” she murmured. She released his shoulder after giving it an extra
squeeze. The ghost of her touch lingered. The place where her hand had rested, began to itch.
Eric stared at her. Not a word about last night. Not a word about the state he had been in. It was not natural.
He thought about what happened later, in her bed. He had not thought he was in any state to make love even to
a Penthouse Pet of the Year, but then, but then... a flashback streaked through the pain... Priscilla, and then,
something else, something that was not Priscilla, something hungry, scaly and abhorrent. and that turned him
on even more.
Was that his mind, his intoxication playing tricks on him?
The rough skin chafed him. But it turned him on. Something out of a horror comic and he could not get
enough of it.
Although the thought of food still made his stomach lurch, he took a bite of toast. Impossible to miss the thin
margin of red outlining the imprint of his teeth on the bread. More blood? Surely not?
Priscilla now had her back to him. She was rinsing some dishes in the sink. Right where the pamphlet lay.
The next breath he took seemed tinged with bile. The twins were still methodically spooning up their gooey
cereal.
He had been inside that… that thing. That’s why his whole body was contaminated, coming apart. Why
he was pissing blood. Just like his momma before she died.
He glanced back towards the sink one more time. Priscilla had moved away from it, wiping some crumbs
from a counter top, but going back for the pamphlet would not escape notice.
Abandoning the toast half-eaten, he took his coffee to the living room. His mind was racing. What else had
the pamphlet said? What did they do to you? How did you fight them? He had not heeded the warnings.
His guitar leaned against the wall next to the window. He picked it up, strummed a few chords, and then gave
up.
Okay, he did not really expect her to say listen, I’m sorry if my natural shape alarmed you, but her silence
made it his guilt, his crime.
He was still lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, when she left to drop the twins off at school. Slowly - it
took a while for the fog in his head to clear - he realized that this was his chance. Ignoring the nausea, he rose
and went back to the kitchen.
The pamphlet was gone. He searched the bin. Nothing. The drawers. The stack of mail. Finally he realized
that he was wasting time.
He went to the phone and dialled the only number he knew off by heart. His sister's. Although they had not
parted on good terms the last time he saw her, blood was supposed to be thicker than water. Even if it was the
blood of someone who had wiped her behind on family loyalty long ago, to quote their father. He heard the phone
ringing. Twice. Then it went over the recorded message. He swore and hung up. A bout of coughing overtook
him. He cupped his hands over his face. When he removed them, they were splattered with blood. He thought
of his mama. Streaks of blood on the towel, on the pillow. Now it was happening to him.
Frantically he pressed the redial button. Waited. This time, he spoke almost before the recorded message
ended. "Elaine? Are you there? Can you call me back please? As soon as possible? I need your help. It's
happening to me."
He dropped the receiver with a sob. Maybe she was out for the day. He began to pace. He should finish
the coffee, but found himself opening a beer instead. Hell, what was he going to do? What if Elaine never
called back? If he knew where to find Jed and Lily, but they moved around so much, and besides, he never
liked to watch the way Jed treated Lily and talked down to her.
If he had some money... he searched a few drawers and closets. There had to be money. Big Red had paid
him last night. He distinctly remembered that. As distinctly as... the other thing. All he found were a few stray
coins. Barely noticing, he opened a second beer. How much time did he have left? How long did she normally
take? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?
His stomach contracted with pain. One way or the other, he knew he was going to die.
He closed his eyes. He saw it clearly again. That thing writhing in the bed. Amused at his arousal. Leering at
his shame. That, for those few moments, he actually wanted it.
He recognized the approach of her car. It was too late. At that moment, the phone rang. His sister. Relief
blended uneasily with anxiety. Why couldn't she have called sooner? The timing was really bad. Keeping his
eyes on the window, he reached for the telephone receiver. Maybe if he talked very quickly...Elaine's voice, that
tone of weary resignation, made him falter, though. "What's up, little brother?"
He took a deep breath. "Hey, listen, can I come stay up at your place for a few days, I'll mind you all and not
get in the way and..."
"Why? What's wrong?" He could almost hear the corners of her mouth dropping.
"Nothing... um..." His tongue suddenly felt like lead. Outside, Priscilla had brought her car to a standstill.
"Look you gotta believe me. You of all people. I'm in great danger... she's one of them..."
"Have you been drinking?"
"No...well, yes... but only a few beers, honest."
"At ten am in the morning?"
He sighed. "It's not like that. Besides, I'm off today. I'm cool. Really. I just need to come over to your place.
A few days. Promise. Remember what Daddy and Uncle Jed used say..."
"You have been drinking... Look if it's like that again, I'm only picking you up, if it's to take you to rehab."
"No, Elaine, remember those pamphlets... that Uncle Jed used to print about the lizard people, people who
are not like us good folk... well, she's one of them, I swear..."
He ran out of breath and Elaine cut in, "You listen to me, Eric. After the dog's breakfast you've made of your
life, you don't deserve someone as good as that woman. You need to get your drinking under control. Stop
smoking that funny stuff too. Think I don’t know about that?"
Eric glanced at the driveway. He thought he could still see Priscilla sitting in the car.
Elaine said, "If I'm taking you anywhere, it's to rehab to sort out your life."
He said, "Remember Mama? How she died, after ... um... going with one of them?" Daddy had always
declared their mama's transgressions in proud defiance of them, but Eric felt shamed, especially now.
Down the phone, Elaine laughed harshly. Not a pleasant sound at all. "Listen to you. Do you really believe
that crap he fed us all those years ago?"
Some movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his head slightly. Priscilla. He
stiffened. How long had she been standing there? How much had she heard? Certainly too much.
But his sister went on. "You poor stupid fuck. You never knew what was going on, did you?" Eric's nose ran.
He wiped it. More blood. "Look, I'm sorry. Now's probably a bad time, if there's ever a good time for this sort of
thing. You were such a little dreamer. Another boy in your position would have turned into a worse monster than
our father or a serial killer. You just lived in this fantasy world of your own. Totally out of touch with reality, but that
was your salvation."
He stared at a blank spot on the wall.
"Are you still with me, Eric?"
"Yeah, sure," he mumbled.
"Look, Daddy beat up our mother. All the time. He had a drinking problem. Like you. But unlike you, it made
him violent, too. The last time he beat her, it caused internal damage. She literally bled to death from the inside
and no one lifted a finger. I only found out... they only told me later..." Her voice seemed to break.
Eric was silent. He thought of that last afternoon, sitting with Mommy, wiping the blood from her face. She
coughed and coughed and he felt very bad, both sharing and not sharing her agony. Then she appeared to
recover. "Hey, Ricky boy, go fetch your guitar and play me that new piece Mr Amos gave you."
He left the room, grateful to be out of the sight of such misery for a while. When he returned, she seemed
asleep, but he started playing softly anyway. Whenever he made a mistake, he would begin all over again. After
the third time, she opened her eyes and said, "Now, Ricky boy, I need you to do a favor for me..."
Later, after the ambulance people had gone, Daddy took him to one side. "Let this be a lesson to you, Eric.
What happens to true human beings when they lie with the lizard people. You hear me?"
He was inhaling mostly the beer from Daddy's breath, but he nodded. "Yes sir."
"Let that be a lesson to you. They could be anyone. Cops. Doctors. Teachers. They look after their own, and
after this, they might well be looking for a way to get back at us. Don't you tell them anything!"
"No sir," Eric whispered. And Daddy had been right. For a while there were these two cops hassling Daddy,
trying to cosy up to him with sweets and chocolates. For a while he was terrified that Daddy would find out that
he had been the one to call the emergency number. He wasn't sure whether Daddy would feel it was a good
thing, but he only wanted to help Mama...
"You still there, Eric?" his sister asked.
He tried to say yes, but it was as if his tongue had forgotten how to work. Priscilla was standing right beside
him, her long fingernails digging into the flesh of his lower arm like the claws of a predator. "That your sister?
Lemme have a word with her."
Silently he handed her the phone, got up. Moments later, he heard Priscilla chatting amiably, as if to a dear
friend. He felt betrayed. Perhaps it was better to just try to take care of himself. If they were such good buddies,
Elaine might keep Priscilla occupied while he did what he had to. With deliberate casualness, he sauntered to
the door. If she asked where he was going, he would say that he was going out to buy cigarettes. He reached the
door, touched the handle and at that moment, Priscilla turned to meet his eyes. The door was locked. Her smile
was barely there.
Eric shrugged and walked to the drinks cabinet instead.
Despite the fact that he could hear the neighbours' kids splashing around in the pool, he shivered violently.
He opened a bottle of rum, daring her to say he could not do that. The freckles on her skin lifted, became little
bumps. Scales.
He drew a coppery tinged breath. Elaine he wanted to say. Come and get me. I'll go anywhere you take me.
Even to rehab.
Down went the scaly hand, dropping the phone receiver back into the cradle. The skin became soft, smooth,
human again, but in his mind's eye, he could still see what it had been.
He coughed violently, no longer caring about the trails of bloodied saliva slithering down to the carpet. He
clutched the bottle of rum as if it was a teddy bear.
Later, he lay on the couch with the comforter pulled up to his chin, sipped rum neat from the bottle and rocked
himself. Sometimes she was human. Sometimes she was not. Sometimes the haze of tears made it hard to tell.
I wrote this story more than two years ago. The first editor I submitted it to, sent back the following response:
Thank you for submitting "The Lizard People" to xxxxxxxxxxxxx (name of publication).
This was an exceptionally difficult call, but ultimately I decided to
pass on this story.
I was very involved in the story, in the suspense and paranoia, the
question of the reality or unreality of the lizard people, the sanity
or insanity of the protaganist, but personally, when the story takes
its turn into alcoholism, it loses some of that magic, that surrealism
that made the first half so mystical and fascinating. This is just a
personal issue, however, and not a reflection on the story itself - I
would just have preferred to have seen the story continue down the
same surreal, "are they or aren't they" path it began on.
This disturbed me a little. For me, a large part of the story was about the fact that Eric's drinking problem isolated him
from so-called 'good regular people' and the help that could have saved him. To remove that element felt like a kind of
betrayal against the Erics of the world, and seemed to me to underline, the fact that if someone like Eric was in
trouble, no one wanted to know.... So, this is dedicated to an 'Eric' who touched my heart, as well as to all the silent
ones, who are unseen and at risk... Carine
Eric needed to go, and badly, he paused, straining his ears for a stray word or two. He could make out nothing.
Maybe the pounding in his head was to blame. Maybe the conversation would be about nothing more than the
drinks last night that had been the cause of his headache. He took a step towards the toilet, and then halted
again.
"...sure he knows what we..."
He frowned. The pain compacted. Damn. Their voices dropped again. Comprehension blurred.
Knows what? What were they talking about? Him? The pamphlet? He should never have kept the thing
anyway. He should never have even talked to Jed and Lily, never mind buying them all those drinks. They were
nuts, the both of them. Never mind that Jed had been his Daddy’s best friend all those years ago. Everyone
in town sniggered at his crazy talk about conspiracies and the lizard people.
By now, Priscilla would have found the pamphlet. She went through his pockets every morning. Not because
she was suspicious. Well, she had to, right? Men were sometimes careless, forgetting precious dollar notes in
the laundry where they got ruined, which was a waste. He appreciated her doing it. It meant she cared. But the
thought of her finding that pamphlet made him uncomfortable. Afraid, too.
Especially after what happened last night.
Did it really happen the way he remembered it?
Maybe they knew he was trying to listen. Priscilla and her twins. Man, those twins creeped him out the first
time he saw them. Their eyes – four identical pools of forbidding black water – watching his every move as if
to say, What do you want with our momma. Not exactly a turn-on in the romance stakes.
He squinted at the mirror. He was lucky to have a woman like Priscilla in his life. People kept telling him that.
House of her own. Job that paid the bills and then some. Forty-four years old and still sexy enough to turn heads
when she walked down the street.
He was thirty-five, almost thirty-six and on bad days he looked that and more. Longish, light-brown hair that
already had bits of grey sneaking in. Skin like re-used parchment after a night like last night. And his father’s
watery blue eyes. That was what he hated the most – seeing bits of his Daddy slowly claiming his features. He
needed a shave.
By the toilet, the pounding in his head escalated. He closed his eyes as he relieved himself, hoping his aim
was good on instinct. Otherwise…
When the pain subsided, he looked down. And nearly puked his guts out. The contents of the toilet bowl was
bright red blood. Had that come out of him? Eric blinked.
So that was what it did to him. It really happened and he was gonna die just like his Momma did, God
bless her soul.
There was a rap on the door. “You okay in there?” That was Priscilla. Eric’s stomach contracted. He knew
guys who would have called the wife in with a hearty Will you look at this?
Or maybe he had imagined everything. It was that pamphlet playing tricks with his mind.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll be done in a moment.”
He looked at the toilet bowl again. Still bright red, a few drops splattered against the side. The sight of it
made him queasy. It was just so wrong. He did not want to die, but he did not want to go to a doctor either.
They always went on and on about his drinking and his smoking, never mind what was really wrong with him.
Her footsteps receded. His heart was pounding. She must not see this. Without looking again, he flushed.
It was gone, except from his memory.
His hands trembled too badly for shaving, but he lingered in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath
trying to get his courage up. It was insane. Here he was, too scared to leave the bathroom because of some…
hallucination.
Only the thought of her knocking on the door a second time got him going.
In the kitchen, he greeted the twins with a falsely cheery “Hi guys”. They ignored him. They were about nine.
Both were eating cereal, the girl something pink and the boy something brown.
Eric made his way to the coffee machine. He was halfway through pouring himself a mug when he saw it.
The pamphlet lay on the sink, just above the rubbish bin. His heart did a painful little skip-jump. He spilled a
few drops of coffee. So she had seen it. Was she going to throw it away? Should he beat her to it? She would
know that he knew she knew. He knew the contents by heart. Jed had been printing them for over twenty-five
years and his Daddy had never been without.
On the front, in very lurid letters, the pamphlet said, LIZARD PEOPLE – THE DEVIL’S SPAWN: THEY LOOK
JUST LIKE YOU DO!
He had not meant to stay at the bar as long as he did, but it was a surprise to run into Lily and Jed after all
these years. Lily had a bruise above her eye that was halfway between purple and yellow and she wore a
summer dress that looked like someone’s cast-off, but that was Lily. Not right in the head, folks in town said,
but that was mean. Nothing to look at, other than her eyes, which were green and large, like a cat’s. When he
was a kid, he and Lily had spent many hours on the sidewalk waiting for their daddies to finish their drinks,
inventing their own worlds to live in. Lily was the only person he had ever known, who looked up at him as if he
could be the king of the world. He had seen more of Lily, when he was growing up, than of his own flesh and
blood sister Elaine, who spent most of her days and nights at her friend Michelle’s house.
For old time’s sake, he’d bought them a few beers and asked how they were doing. He couldn’t resist
mentioning Priscilla. She was the classiest woman he had ever been involved with, but Lily’s face filled with
horror and she said, “Ricky, you can’t stay with her! She’s one of them.”
She immediately handed him one of his dad’s crumpled pamphlets. Eric’s good mood plummeted. With
his dad long dead and buried, it had been easy to forget that they existed, but suddenly it all rushed back.
The times they sat there together as kids – just him and Lily – their bums getting stiff and cold on the tarmac,
trying to spot one of them. That woman, no, not her, but look at that tall skinny man behind her, definitely not
human. And beware the moment, if one of their targets glanced their way. More than once Lily wet herself in
fright, and then the game would turn miserable, with Eric caught halfway between shame and pity, trying not to
notice the spreading circle of wet, trying to inch away without being too obvious about it, trying not to think
about the next time, when there would probably be fresh bruises on her arms, by her jaw…
Memories were not the best thing to digest, first thing in the morning.
The twins were not paying attention. Eric sidled over to the offending piece of paper. He was about to reach
over to crumple it up when Priscilla came in again.
“Want me to fry you some bacon and eggs, sweetheart?”
Eric groaned.
“Toast, then?”
“Okay.”
It took getting used to, being well cared for. He abandoned his attempts to destroy the pamphlet and took
a sip of coffee. Watching her move about the kitchen, just a red-headed woman with freckled skin and a curvy
body that filled a pair of jeans just right, it was easy to dismiss Lily’s paranoia.
But this morning he’d peed pure blood. Surely that can’t be right.
She glanced up, caught him watching her and smiled. A smile that warmed the heart and somehow negated
the twins’ sullen demeanour.
Except, he began to remember points from the list in the middle of the pamphlet. There was a section headed
HOW CAN YOU TELL THEM APART. Jed gave seven points. Freckled skin. A tendency for red hair. Families
with a propensity for twins. It was creepy how none of those ruled Priscilla out.
How did the rest go? He longed to reread the pamphlet, however familiar he had been with its contents.
Instead he made himself sit down and take another sip of coffee.
She put the plate of toast in front of him, pausing to stroke his shoulder. He felt the ice of her fingers right
through the shirt. Cold hands and feet. Another tick to add to Jed’s pamphlet. Four out of seven.
“Anything wrong?” Priscilla inquired.
“I’m not feeling so good,” Eric admitted.
“Perhaps you’d better lie down after this,” she murmured. She released his shoulder after giving it an extra
squeeze. The ghost of her touch lingered. The place where her hand had rested, began to itch.
Eric stared at her. Not a word about last night. Not a word about the state he had been in. It was not natural.
He thought about what happened later, in her bed. He had not thought he was in any state to make love even to
a Penthouse Pet of the Year, but then, but then... a flashback streaked through the pain... Priscilla, and then,
something else, something that was not Priscilla, something hungry, scaly and abhorrent. and that turned him
on even more.
Was that his mind, his intoxication playing tricks on him?
The rough skin chafed him. But it turned him on. Something out of a horror comic and he could not get
enough of it.
Although the thought of food still made his stomach lurch, he took a bite of toast. Impossible to miss the thin
margin of red outlining the imprint of his teeth on the bread. More blood? Surely not?
Priscilla now had her back to him. She was rinsing some dishes in the sink. Right where the pamphlet lay.
The next breath he took seemed tinged with bile. The twins were still methodically spooning up their gooey
cereal.
He had been inside that… that thing. That’s why his whole body was contaminated, coming apart. Why
he was pissing blood. Just like his momma before she died.
He glanced back towards the sink one more time. Priscilla had moved away from it, wiping some crumbs
from a counter top, but going back for the pamphlet would not escape notice.
Abandoning the toast half-eaten, he took his coffee to the living room. His mind was racing. What else had
the pamphlet said? What did they do to you? How did you fight them? He had not heeded the warnings.
His guitar leaned against the wall next to the window. He picked it up, strummed a few chords, and then gave
up.
Okay, he did not really expect her to say listen, I’m sorry if my natural shape alarmed you, but her silence
made it his guilt, his crime.
He was still lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, when she left to drop the twins off at school. Slowly - it
took a while for the fog in his head to clear - he realized that this was his chance. Ignoring the nausea, he rose
and went back to the kitchen.
The pamphlet was gone. He searched the bin. Nothing. The drawers. The stack of mail. Finally he realized
that he was wasting time.
He went to the phone and dialled the only number he knew off by heart. His sister's. Although they had not
parted on good terms the last time he saw her, blood was supposed to be thicker than water. Even if it was the
blood of someone who had wiped her behind on family loyalty long ago, to quote their father. He heard the phone
ringing. Twice. Then it went over the recorded message. He swore and hung up. A bout of coughing overtook
him. He cupped his hands over his face. When he removed them, they were splattered with blood. He thought
of his mama. Streaks of blood on the towel, on the pillow. Now it was happening to him.
Frantically he pressed the redial button. Waited. This time, he spoke almost before the recorded message
ended. "Elaine? Are you there? Can you call me back please? As soon as possible? I need your help. It's
happening to me."
He dropped the receiver with a sob. Maybe she was out for the day. He began to pace. He should finish
the coffee, but found himself opening a beer instead. Hell, what was he going to do? What if Elaine never
called back? If he knew where to find Jed and Lily, but they moved around so much, and besides, he never
liked to watch the way Jed treated Lily and talked down to her.
If he had some money... he searched a few drawers and closets. There had to be money. Big Red had paid
him last night. He distinctly remembered that. As distinctly as... the other thing. All he found were a few stray
coins. Barely noticing, he opened a second beer. How much time did he have left? How long did she normally
take? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?
His stomach contracted with pain. One way or the other, he knew he was going to die.
He closed his eyes. He saw it clearly again. That thing writhing in the bed. Amused at his arousal. Leering at
his shame. That, for those few moments, he actually wanted it.
He recognized the approach of her car. It was too late. At that moment, the phone rang. His sister. Relief
blended uneasily with anxiety. Why couldn't she have called sooner? The timing was really bad. Keeping his
eyes on the window, he reached for the telephone receiver. Maybe if he talked very quickly...Elaine's voice, that
tone of weary resignation, made him falter, though. "What's up, little brother?"
He took a deep breath. "Hey, listen, can I come stay up at your place for a few days, I'll mind you all and not
get in the way and..."
"Why? What's wrong?" He could almost hear the corners of her mouth dropping.
"Nothing... um..." His tongue suddenly felt like lead. Outside, Priscilla had brought her car to a standstill.
"Look you gotta believe me. You of all people. I'm in great danger... she's one of them..."
"Have you been drinking?"
"No...well, yes... but only a few beers, honest."
"At ten am in the morning?"
He sighed. "It's not like that. Besides, I'm off today. I'm cool. Really. I just need to come over to your place.
A few days. Promise. Remember what Daddy and Uncle Jed used say..."
"You have been drinking... Look if it's like that again, I'm only picking you up, if it's to take you to rehab."
"No, Elaine, remember those pamphlets... that Uncle Jed used to print about the lizard people, people who
are not like us good folk... well, she's one of them, I swear..."
He ran out of breath and Elaine cut in, "You listen to me, Eric. After the dog's breakfast you've made of your
life, you don't deserve someone as good as that woman. You need to get your drinking under control. Stop
smoking that funny stuff too. Think I don’t know about that?"
Eric glanced at the driveway. He thought he could still see Priscilla sitting in the car.
Elaine said, "If I'm taking you anywhere, it's to rehab to sort out your life."
He said, "Remember Mama? How she died, after ... um... going with one of them?" Daddy had always
declared their mama's transgressions in proud defiance of them, but Eric felt shamed, especially now.
Down the phone, Elaine laughed harshly. Not a pleasant sound at all. "Listen to you. Do you really believe
that crap he fed us all those years ago?"
Some movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his head slightly. Priscilla. He
stiffened. How long had she been standing there? How much had she heard? Certainly too much.
But his sister went on. "You poor stupid fuck. You never knew what was going on, did you?" Eric's nose ran.
He wiped it. More blood. "Look, I'm sorry. Now's probably a bad time, if there's ever a good time for this sort of
thing. You were such a little dreamer. Another boy in your position would have turned into a worse monster than
our father or a serial killer. You just lived in this fantasy world of your own. Totally out of touch with reality, but that
was your salvation."
He stared at a blank spot on the wall.
"Are you still with me, Eric?"
"Yeah, sure," he mumbled.
"Look, Daddy beat up our mother. All the time. He had a drinking problem. Like you. But unlike you, it made
him violent, too. The last time he beat her, it caused internal damage. She literally bled to death from the inside
and no one lifted a finger. I only found out... they only told me later..." Her voice seemed to break.
Eric was silent. He thought of that last afternoon, sitting with Mommy, wiping the blood from her face. She
coughed and coughed and he felt very bad, both sharing and not sharing her agony. Then she appeared to
recover. "Hey, Ricky boy, go fetch your guitar and play me that new piece Mr Amos gave you."
He left the room, grateful to be out of the sight of such misery for a while. When he returned, she seemed
asleep, but he started playing softly anyway. Whenever he made a mistake, he would begin all over again. After
the third time, she opened her eyes and said, "Now, Ricky boy, I need you to do a favor for me..."
Later, after the ambulance people had gone, Daddy took him to one side. "Let this be a lesson to you, Eric.
What happens to true human beings when they lie with the lizard people. You hear me?"
He was inhaling mostly the beer from Daddy's breath, but he nodded. "Yes sir."
"Let that be a lesson to you. They could be anyone. Cops. Doctors. Teachers. They look after their own, and
after this, they might well be looking for a way to get back at us. Don't you tell them anything!"
"No sir," Eric whispered. And Daddy had been right. For a while there were these two cops hassling Daddy,
trying to cosy up to him with sweets and chocolates. For a while he was terrified that Daddy would find out that
he had been the one to call the emergency number. He wasn't sure whether Daddy would feel it was a good
thing, but he only wanted to help Mama...
"You still there, Eric?" his sister asked.
He tried to say yes, but it was as if his tongue had forgotten how to work. Priscilla was standing right beside
him, her long fingernails digging into the flesh of his lower arm like the claws of a predator. "That your sister?
Lemme have a word with her."
Silently he handed her the phone, got up. Moments later, he heard Priscilla chatting amiably, as if to a dear
friend. He felt betrayed. Perhaps it was better to just try to take care of himself. If they were such good buddies,
Elaine might keep Priscilla occupied while he did what he had to. With deliberate casualness, he sauntered to
the door. If she asked where he was going, he would say that he was going out to buy cigarettes. He reached the
door, touched the handle and at that moment, Priscilla turned to meet his eyes. The door was locked. Her smile
was barely there.
Eric shrugged and walked to the drinks cabinet instead.
Despite the fact that he could hear the neighbours' kids splashing around in the pool, he shivered violently.
He opened a bottle of rum, daring her to say he could not do that. The freckles on her skin lifted, became little
bumps. Scales.
He drew a coppery tinged breath. Elaine he wanted to say. Come and get me. I'll go anywhere you take me.
Even to rehab.
Down went the scaly hand, dropping the phone receiver back into the cradle. The skin became soft, smooth,
human again, but in his mind's eye, he could still see what it had been.
He coughed violently, no longer caring about the trails of bloodied saliva slithering down to the carpet. He
clutched the bottle of rum as if it was a teddy bear.
Later, he lay on the couch with the comforter pulled up to his chin, sipped rum neat from the bottle and rocked
himself. Sometimes she was human. Sometimes she was not. Sometimes the haze of tears made it hard to tell.
I wrote this story more than two years ago. The first editor I submitted it to, sent back the following response:
Thank you for submitting "The Lizard People" to xxxxxxxxxxxxx (name of publication).
This was an exceptionally difficult call, but ultimately I decided to
pass on this story.
I was very involved in the story, in the suspense and paranoia, the
question of the reality or unreality of the lizard people, the sanity
or insanity of the protaganist, but personally, when the story takes
its turn into alcoholism, it loses some of that magic, that surrealism
that made the first half so mystical and fascinating. This is just a
personal issue, however, and not a reflection on the story itself - I
would just have preferred to have seen the story continue down the
same surreal, "are they or aren't they" path it began on.
This disturbed me a little. For me, a large part of the story was about the fact that Eric's drinking problem isolated him
from so-called 'good regular people' and the help that could have saved him. To remove that element felt like a kind of
betrayal against the Erics of the world, and seemed to me to underline, the fact that if someone like Eric was in
trouble, no one wanted to know.... So, this is dedicated to an 'Eric' who touched my heart, as well as to all the silent
ones, who are unseen and at risk... Carine