Diary 2, DeYtH Banger [recommended ebook reader .TXT] 📗

that the Salkumbries preferred healthy and pretty humans—those who possessed strong lean muscles and shiny hair and teeth—over fat and aging ones. Xoan and Quax’s clan were often paid to take pretty humans. Generally, after such abductions, the human’s clan made a fuss and sent radio waves across their lands asking for the person’s return. Of course, when an earthling was abducted by Salkumbrie smugglers, they never saw Earth again.

 

Overall, humans were the hardest of all of Earth’s millions of creatures to handle but they were also the most desired and valuable. Thus, they were the primary concern of the clan that Xoan and Quax belonged to.

 

Xoan and Quax came from a family that didn’t value the same rules and regulations as most Salkumbries. They lived on the fringes of society and defied the High Council regularly. For eons they had run circuses and sideshows containing many exotic beings from across several galaxies. Their great ancestor, Elocx, had been a smuggler and he had started trading in humans early.

 

At first, humans had been traded for meat since a lot of Salkumbries loved their flavor. Yet many abducted humans were scrawny and tasted strange. Hence, over time, they were trained as slaves instead of being cooked as meals. Unfortunately, true to their nature, humans often rebelled violently. Finally, there was the pet trade. Many Salkumbries—generally young females from wealthy clans—thought humans were cute, especially the little ones and so they were frequently requested as pets. Such shady deals had to be made in secret, of course, but it was a thriving business.

 

The human pet trade was particularly lucrative since most of the richest aliens wanted humans to show off; even some high-ranking council members’ families owned humans illegally. In fact, quite a few clans owned more than one…some even needed constant replacements since they were incompetent owners with a high pet mortality rate. Most pet-owning Salkumbries made multiple orders for earthlings since they liked to “collect” different ones and Earth had many species. A handful of Salkumbries specialized in collecting only humans since that one species came in an alarming array of shapes, sizes, and colors.

 

Back when interest in humans was first starting to peak, Elocx had built a secret shop underneath the jagged cave that he called home. In that shop, on the far outskirts of Salkumbrie society, he kept numerous live humans and sold them to anyone who was willing to pay for them. Elocx had passed the illegal business onto his sons and his sons wanted to eventually pass it to theirs…but Xoan and Quax didn’t quite have the temperament for handling live creatures.

 

Neither one was gentle. Neither one was caring. Neither one was particularly interested in the well-being of earthlings. Since early life, both Xoan and Quax had enjoyed tormenting humans any way they could. Humans were generally regarded as dangerous and terrifying but they could also be funny, especially when they cried and screamed and shook. Xoan and Quax had learned how to speak human dialects just so they could correctly use the right words to maximize the humans’ horror. This had been a surprisingly challenging task since humans had various dialects—“English” and “Chinese” were the most common—but it had been worth it. Nothing was more fun than watching them quiver.

 

Before Xoan and Quax were even old enough to journey to Earth, they had gotten into trouble for scaring one of the humans in their clan’s shop to death. They had simply been playing with it—an adult male—and watching it act more erratically and unpredictably with each passing second. Suddenly, the human had grabbed its chest and fallen to the ground, dead. Apparently it had suffered a heart attack; a shut-down of one the body’s main organs which apparently happened when humans got over excited, or intensely frightened. Their clan had been furious; humans were valuable goods and rare merchandise. When one was lost it marked a wasted, and very risky, mission to Earth.

 

On the bright side, Xoan and Quax learned how to successfully dispose of a human body that day. Human remains were easily discarded since they evaporated when they were propelled towards the sun. It was important for smugglers to know how to successfully get rid of a corpse without raising suspicion. After all, if they were found in possession of humans they could be sent to Durkaark, the most notorious intergalactic prison in the universe.

 

Since then Xoan and Quax had been careful not to push any of the captive humans too far.

Xoan and Quax didn’t particularly like humans. They had been bitten, punched and kicked by the unpleasant, noisy, and messy creatures. They never understood their appeal as pets, or even slaves—why would anyone want one at all?—yet they were also undeniably fascinated by them. The human species had the most wonderful ways of making mischief!

 

Xoan and Quax had diligently researched everything about Earth and they knew that it was full of life forms, not just humans. One type was called “dogs” and humans frequently kept them captive as pets. Some humans were good to their dogs but others were cruel. Some humans trained their dogs to fight to the death as other humans rooted them on and even bet valuables—what they called “money”—on which beast would win. The fighting pit idea enthralled Xoan and Quax and they told their clan about it. Subsequently, they started to arrange fights among particularly violent and difficult humans. The bloody events caused many casualties of the precious human cargo but they were also popular—and profitable—occasions among members of the Salkumbrie underworld.

 

When Xoan and Quax had neared full growth their clans eventually let them come along to secret missions to Earth, dodging Salkumbrie security measures to visit the planet and smuggle a handful of earthlings back to Saturn—humans among them. By the time Xoan and Quax were full grown they had memorized several uncharted routes to Earth and that was precisely how their “secret missions,” and all the bloodshed, started.

 

* * * * *

 

Unlike some species, Salkumbries were not telepathic. They could not control humans’ minds. Instead, all they could do was threaten them, or startle them, or make unsavory suggestions to already unhinged individuals. Telepathy would have been easier, but not nearly as sporting. Over time Quax and Xoan had developed a taste—an obsession, an addiction—with harassing humans.

 

They kept this obsession a secret between them, fearful that it could jeopardize their future standing as smugglers and the wealth that they were sure to accumulate as part of their clans’ activities. Yet, as rebellious and reckless as they were, they couldn’t help themselves and the more time they spent together the more one egged the other on. It was an endless cycle of provocation.

 

Xoan and Quax repeatedly lied to their other clan members and claimed that they were exploring other galaxies. In reality, they were secretly patrolling Earth, searching for victims. Generally, they monitored Earth from afar and chose a vulnerable human. Then, from their ship, they tracked that human wherever it went. They would start to beam down messages—suggestions that sounded like mumbles and whispers and murmurs—to their victim until it started to mentally crack, just like all the ones in the shop had eventually cracked if they put enough pressure on them. It often took more time to crack a non-abducted human but it was also far more fun.

 

Initially, Xoan and Quax had only intended to see if they could drive humans crazy without actually abducting them or showing themselves. It had merely been a game until their third victim had killed both herself and her husband. Then Xoan and Quax realized that they could make humans turn on each other. Apparently, if they drove one crazy it could be persuaded to injure or destroy others…and, since most earthlings were ignorant enough to believe that they were the only life forms in the galaxy, aliens were never suspected. Instead such rampages were attributed to mental illness—an all-too-common trait in humans.

 

For four years Xoan and Quax had been venturing to Earth solely to toy with humans. So far they had claimed six victims: two killed themselves, one shot her husband and herself, one shot a deli clerk whom he was convinced was an evil robot before getting fatally gunned down by police, and two ended up permanently committed to asylums—one after she killed a family of four neighbors who she thought were alien monsters. That particular occasion resulted in ample media attention which Xoan and Quax had enjoyed immensely. It was an ultimate rush of exhilaration.

 

Xoan and Quax were proud of what they had achieved yet they wanted more—something bigger, something awful…something truly horrific. Their last “project” had killed itself which was a most unsatisfying result. Of course, part of the problem had been her lifestyle and demeanor. She had been a quiet bookkeeper at a location that humans called a “library.” She had also been 64 years of age, which was older than average and therefore far less prone to violent outbursts.

 

To make maximum impact, Xoan and Quax selected their next victim very carefully.

Humans were apparently aware of their unsavory characteristics. They had prisons—not unlike Durkaark—where they kept the most violent and unstable residents of Earth, who also tended to be extremely susceptible to suggestion.

 

Humans kept detailed records of the individuals who had been in jail or asylums, what they termed “institutionalized.” All humans were identified with a first and last name and, when one got institutionalized, their name was automatically entered into certain databases. Salkumbrie technology was far more advanced than earthling’s and, without even leaving their spacecraft, Xoan and Quax had successfully hacked into various law enforcement and medical systems across numerous countries. That is how they found Donald Urbank.

According to his file, Donald Urbank was an outpatient of a mental institution who had multiple arrests for erratic behavior. Donald also happened to live in Arizona, the same area where the ill-fated Mission 7987 had crashed all those years ago. Xoan and Quax had diligently studied human weaponry and they knew that Arizona was a territory where it was very easy for any earthling to purchase a gun—one of the deadliest weapons on Earth.

 

Despite his life-long record of weird behavior, Donald lived alone and largely unmonitored in a small apartment. He didn’t work and had to take several medications daily. Twice a week an adult female—whom humans called a “social worker”—came by to check on him. Xoan and Quax thought that Donald was the perfect victim; they assumed that an earthling who was already mentally ill to begin with was a sure-thing when it came to causing mayhem.

They were not mistaken.

 

* * * * *

 

They watched him buy the gun. They snickered as he loaded up on ammo. They greatly anticipated the impending event. They liked blood. They liked gore. They liked chaos. They wanted to see a show. With Donald they were sure to get one—a big one.

 

It had taken them less than three weeks to send Donald—who was already perpetually teetering on the edge of sanity—completely over the edge. They started by tuning into the frequency on his radio and exposing him to murmurs that no one else could hear. In fact, they made a special point to only communicate with him when no other earthlings were near him. Then they started tuning into his television set; they made it go on and off randomly, tune to static-only stations, and then they whispered (murmured) to him in clear English through the ceaseless hiss of the static.

 

First, they convinced him to stop taking his medication. Then they told him all about outer space and all the terrible creatures with sharp teeth and claws that existed in other galaxies. They told him about the abductions and the human meat, slave, and pet trades. They described Saturn’s landscape and the Salkumbrie cities. They said they could (would) take him there, whether he liked it or not. They told him they couldn’t wait to taste his flesh. Then, as he wailed and held his hands over his ears, they turned up the static’s volume to