U.F.Otis

“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.