Man’s Best Friend

Lightning danced between the thunderheads as dusk fell across the cotton fields.  “Looks like a storm coming in from the east, ol’ boy.”  Farmer Jack Fransconi secured his green tractor in the rusty-roofed red barn as he talked to his little brown dog.

The dog, a terrier named Harvey, scratched behind his ear and watched the storm with a wary eye. Not a big fan of storms, the dog noticed that the clouds rolled across the Mississippi Delta in an odd way.  “They look artificial,” he thought.  “Not of this world.”

Little Harvey was more right than he knew.

A cylindrical space craft was hiding behind the clouds. It was the scout ship for a massive alien invasion force.  Like Independence Day, War of the Worlds and a thousand other stories about alien invaders, these aliens weren’t visiting in peace.  They were looking for a new home.  And ground zero for their attack would be a small dried-up town in the Mississippi Delta.

Quint, Mississippi had a population of 150 humans and 78 dogs.  There were dogs of all sizes and breeds. Big dogs. Little dogs. Hunting dogs and stray dogs.  The town had 36 buildings, a town square, four churches and a small gas station on the main road.  The scout ship landed behind the gas station, not far from the Fransconi Farm.  When the ship touched down, four massive figures emerged from a ramp.

The speeding pickup truck holding the farmer and the dog didn’t see the aliens until it was too late.

If the workers in the gas station hadn’t had the radio cranked, they would have heard the impact. The truck struck the fourth alien, hitting and killing him instantly on impact.  The other three pulled their guns from their suits and fired, halting the Chevrolet in its tracks.

“Get out,” the lead alien commanded. The farmer, who was on the verge of having a heart attack, and the small dog fell out of the cabin.  A flash of light lit the oak trees and brush.  The farmer lay unconscious next to the truck. “Take him to the ship,” the lead alien commanded.  Harvey growled.  “Easy boy. We’re one of your kind.”  The lead alien took off his mask, revealing a canine head.  “We’re here to conquer this planet for all dogs.”

Harvey looked up at the tall alien and said, “You’re not my kind. I wouldn’t have hurt the farmer.”  The alien grinned and said, “Tell your friends we are here.  We are here to liberate dogs from humans.  We’re from the fourth planet from what you call the dog star.”

Harvey ran away.  He wanted to help the farmer but he knew he couldn’t do anything about it right now.  He ran toward Quint barking his head off. Like Paul Revere, he was warning the world. “The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming!”  The world, however, was not listening.

By the time Harvey made it into downtown, he saw that all the humans had been rounded up and put in a pen in the town square.  Dogs barked nervously as they ran around the chain link fence.  The three aliens carried the farmer’s unconscious body into the grass and threw him down. He groggily started to move.

The dogs all gathered around the aliens, growling.  Rex, the police dog, ran at the second alien, wanting to rip him to shreds.  The third alien pulled his pistol out and shot Rex, stopping him in his tracks. The lead alien stepped on the limp German Shepard. “You can do this one of two ways. I would recommend you choose peacefully.”

The dogs slumped. They had to rescue their humans but they didn’t know how.

Dottie, the town Dalamatian, looked at Rex’s body and said, “If you can’t beat them, join them. And when you join them, find their weakness.  We have to stop these guys somehow. We have to find someone who can get aboard their ship. But who?”

Harvey stepped forward. “I will. I know where their ship is.”  He stopped for a moment and scratched behind his ear. “#$%# fleas!”  The other dogs nodded. They agreed 100%. In a way, the aliens were as bad of parasites as their arch enemies the fleas.

Later that night, the aliens were searching trailer to trailer, looked for any remaining humans.  Harvey ran back through the darkness to the Fransconi farm. The alien craft was illumanted and abandoned.  Harvey ran up the ramp and into the hold. What he saw disgusted him (and he was a dog).

Hanging from the ceiling was a stripped cow.  Bones and meat lay on heaped the ground. Pools of blood were everywhere.  He realized that these alien dogs had a taste for blood.  And he knew what the aliens would eat when they invaded. Time was short. His master was about to become lunch.

He scratched his ear again.  And then he began looking around.

Nothing made sense. The aliens spoke dog, but the dog didn’t read alien.  He flipped a few nobs and tried to see if he could sabotage the ship. No luck. He scratched one more time.  Then he looked out the window. The aliens were coming — he had to get off the ship.

He ran down the ramp and into the darkness. The other dogs would be disappointed.  As he ran toward the town, he realized that he had failed.

The next morning, the dogs approached the alien ship quietly. There was no sign of movement on it as the snuck around to the ramp. Harvey quietly crawled up the ramp. Still nothing.  He looked into the room where he saw the cow and saw the three aliens lying on the floor.  All seemed to be unconscious.  Harvey walked up to them and was shocked.

They were dead.

He called out to the other dogs and they came aboard the ship.  Ralphie the Lab looked at the bodies closely.  “They have hundreds of red welts on them.”  Sadie the Jack Russell, also examining the invaders, said what they all were thinking, “Fleas. They’ve been killed by fleas.”  All the dogs started barking and laughing.  Their worst enemy had become their best friend.

When they got back in town square, Frank the Great Dane pushed open the gate.  The residents of Quint found their dog and cheered their freedom.   And high above their heads, the alien invasion fleet tucked tail and headed home.

It was on that fall day in a small Mississippi Delta town that a motley group of dogs truly became man’s best friend.