“It’s looking a little dry, Wanda. I’m gonna go and run the water one more time.” Otis shouted into the farmhouse. Yields had been diminishing more and more over the few years prior.

“Just get back before the sun sets. I don’t want ya out there in the dark at your age. We had enough trouble the last few times.” Wanda requested.

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

 

Otis walked across the farm to the water main and stood as his crops were replenished. While he deemed it was enough and turned the valve, lights shone above him. The sun had gone down, and just as Wanda warned against, the past was repeated.

The farmer turned slowly, took off his hat and gripped his pitchfork tight. He wasn’t out there for nothing.

“Come on ya little freaks.” Otis murmured inaudibly.

Light poured out of the ship and suspended the human in place. Wanda watched from the farmhouse and went to sleep, knowing there was nothing to be done until they returned her husband.

Otis was stuck in place for a time and then released, but in complete darkness. He felt the small ship ascend and dock at the mothership, where he’d endured much experimentation.

Though still dark, Otis heard doors open and creatures move. His hand was still grasping the pitchfork, which one of the creatures touched. Like a spider on her web, Otis used this information to strike. He turned to where the creature was and stabbed confidently, feeling the connection and penetration of the spikes. Its death was unusually silent, all that could be heard were the physical thuds and squishes.

Odd voices whispered around the ship and an alarm provided the only light Otis needed to eliminate his enemies. White light strobed in circles around the massive ship. It reminded the old man of the very first movie he saw. It was as if one picture was shown to him of an alien running, and the next of it dismantled by his farming equipment.

Further from him, Otis noticed a different light source. A strange gun was being shot at him by an alien unlike the others. As he approached it, it backed into one of the smaller shuttles and evacuated the ship, leaving its comrades to their eradication.

Otis breathed the labored breath of an old working man and returned to his massacre. Little gray beings were coming in swarms, and Otis was having some trouble cleaning off his pitchfork. Full bodies and body parts were stuck on the shaft and the spikes.

Without the sharp points available, the farmer casually resulted in bludgeoning the rest of the aliens. He used the pitchfork as it was, taking out the remaining enemies with the already deceased ones. 

Covered in strange blood and guts, Otis entered the control room of the mothership, where a larger alien sat. It raised from the floating chair, turned towards the human and started to run. Otis simply held his pitchfork out and allowed it to impale itself, helping him also clear all the debris from it.

He pulled the tool from the creature and approached the control panel. It appeared that the pilot set a destination. Otis had to escape before heading to another part of space. In the room, he pressed a bright button to illuminate the ship and stop the deafening alarm he’d forgotten about. When he returned to the main room, he tried to count quickly how many aliens he had eliminated. As he entered one of the smaller ships to leave, he was already in the tens of thousands.

Otis laid down his pitchfork and sat in the pilot’s chair of the vessel, which didn’t have much room. Just as he pushed the first lever on the ship, the larger ship vanished. He calmly played around with the controls until he figured out how to move clumsily.

Eventually, Otis brought the ship home. He didn’t know how to get out, so he flew right outside the window and spoke loudly outside.

“Wanda. What do you want me to do with this thing?”

“Otis?” she opened the drapes. Otis noticed a man lying in his bed.

 

“What is he doing here?”

“Do you know how long you’ve been gone…?” Wanda asked, seeming baffled. “It’s been three days, Otis.”

“Oh…. you made it sound like it was longer...welp. Enjoy the farm sir, and enjoy my wife. I’ve got an alien to stab.”

Otis flew away from the farm, wondering if the alien that got away was somewhere on his planet. Stuck in the ship, on a mission to find the only survivor of his wrath, the farmer would from then on be known as U.F.Otis.

Otis’ foe had eluded him for far too long. Even with the advanced capabilities of the craft he was trapped within, finding the alien felt an impossibility. An enticing thought came to him as he hovered above a small town; what if the ship could locate members of the alien species who built it? There were certainly enough buttons and switches for that to be one of the functions.

With a sigh of resignation to this idea, Otis flipped a switch he hadn’t tested before. The ship instantly started to move. “First time’s the charm” he thought. A few hundred feet away, the autopilot stopped in front of a restaurant and Otis looked below. Could he have been that close already?

A beam projected from the center of the ship’s bottom, lifting something up and holding it there. Otis grinned and piloted the ship to a rooftop where he landed and moved the tractor beam so it would hold his victim in place.

“Hey man, my whole family watched that. Everyone saw you and your ship, you should probably just go. They’re very litigious.”

Otis shook his head and flipped what he thought was the same switch. This one sent out a drone that probed the man, who was left stranded on the rooftop as Otis found the correct switch.

Again, testing out the different abilities of the ship, one of the buttons was actually slightly different. There seemed to be an opening beside it with a slot for liquid. Otis rubbed his fingers on the edge of his pitchfork and dropped some of the dried alien blood down into the slot. He pushed the button and autopilot began. A screen showed up, showing a bulbous figure on a radar. He had done it.

Otis zoomed across the planet and toward Big City. It was so obvious the alien would be in the metropolis, more space to blend in, more cover from the tall buildings, and enough freaks where it would fit in.

The target neared and the ship’s tractor beam was about to make contact with something below, when Otis heard a voice.

“Otis. Otis is that you?”

He would recognize that voice if it was ten miles underwater. It was his wife, Wanda. He stopped the beam and moved the ship to hover beside her. She wasn’t the same, however. The alien experiments on his crops had changed her into something.. Alien. Some kids walking by pointed and shouted to their parents, “Hey look, it’s Wumpus!!” They took a selfie with the purple monster and carried on.

“Honey, come home. I’m sorry.” Wumpus pleaded. “We can’t throw away a lifetime together over one mistake.”

“Wand- Wumpus, I can’t. For so many reasons, I can’t.” Otis let out a long breath and lowered his head. He was mainly referencing being stuck inside the small ship with a jammed door, unable to exit, even if he wanted. Wumpus believed there was more to it.

The purple monster rooted into the ground, her feelings deeply hurt by Otis’ swift rejection. She grew a few sizes and then rose from the pavement. “Let’s go home, Otis.” Wumpus had a surprisingly commanding voice, for an alien eggplant beast.

“Sorry, honey.” Otis piloted the ship away, engaging the hyper thrusters to make a quick escape. A moment before release, he saw something odd on the sidewalk. A noodly alien in a jumpsuit with a laser blaster in one hand and an ice cream cone in the other sauntered by. He checked his radar, nothing. The one that got away was not of the same species, that was clear to him now by its appearance. He disengaged the ship and attempted to get closer.

“HOME!”

Wumpus screeched like a space whale, wrapping the ship in her stalk arms. She lost herself in her love for Otis. The target below noticed the commotion and panicked, running away immediately. Frustrated, Otis reengaged his thrusters, burning the dry arms of Wumpus, though they grew back instantly.

Through the city the craft weaved, chasing down the alien, not letting it out of sight for more than a moment.

Wumpus screamed, rampaging behind, rolling through the street with no concern for civilians below. 

“OTIS! I LOVE YOU OTIS!”

The ruckus and damage drew the attention of nearby heroes. Out of a bakery BakeSale blasted towards Wumpus, propelled by delicious buttercream.

“Take a sec, sis!” she yelled to the monster, though she didn’t slow a bit.

From an alleyway leapt Butters, standing in front of the giant purple bulb, holding strong with kitty force. He grabbed from his shorts a ball of yarn, unraveling it to wrap Wumpus in place. With Bakesale’s braids of dough as well, the monster was held still. From above, Duperman descended, smiling as if he helped.

“Great job, team.” BakeSale and Butters heaved for air, looking at Duperman with puzzled expressions. “I feel like I missed something.”

“You missed everything.” BakeSale responded. Butters licked his paws and returned to the alley beside the bakery.

“I hope she didn’t kill anyone, yikes. I know from experience, that is bad for your image.” Duperman stated.

“Hey, why don’t you go check on those other guys?” BakeSale suggested, ready to return to civilian life.

“Sure.” Duperman looked around for a bit to find who she was talking about. She pointed down one street to give him direction. 

Otis finally reached his foe. The noodly alien was caught in the tractor beam and the farmer could finally finish what he started.

“You’re not like the others, what are you a mutant or som’n?” Otis asked.

“I am not. I had infiltrated their ship.” the alien replied.

“Is that right? Well, to me, an alien’s an alien unless it’s human.” Otis moved to press a button and eliminate the alien.

“Wait, wait. I have to return to my family. I shouldn’t be here.”

“What’s your name, son?”

“I am Limbis Kwungo.”

“Well Limbo, I know something about family. Those are the only ones who can really hurt ya.”

Otis again moved towards the button, this time interrupted by more than words. The tractor beam retracted and Limbis ran away quickly. The ship slammed into the side of a building, and Otis looked to see what happened.

Outside the window, Duperman floated with a smirk, he fixed his cape and looked Otis in the eye, smiling wider. They’d encountered each other on numerous occasions and had become acquainted.

“It’s so funny I was just talking about killing people, and I know, I KNOW you were going to kill that guy. I saw it in your eye. You were gonna press that button there and kill that guy.”

“Sure as heck was.”

“Otis, look.” Duperman’s face became elated. He flew to the side of the ship where the door was. “I broke it open. You’re not stuck anymore. You can leave the ship!”

Otis pulled the door shut as hard as he could and the ship started to ascend slowly.

Duperman drifted alongside slowly. “But, Otis, it’s open.”

“No. No it ain’t.” Otis replied with a cold stare, jetting off into the sky. As he flew, he grabbed from his pocket a picture of himself with Wanda many years before and wiped tears from his eyes.