-Tourist Trap-

“Maybe you need a drink.” The provocative woman made her way around the back of the solid wood bar and pulled out a sealed bottle. She presented the bottle to Ken along with a bottle opener, as a clear jab at his intense mistrust of her.

“Maybe I need you to tell me the truth, starting with where the body disappeared to!?” Ken probed, evincing his distrust of the young woman who ran the Saloon where the body was found just a few hours earlier.

“I told you, I have no idea, and this is a dreadful thing to have happened!” The woman followed behind him as Ken made his way to one of the many tables around the empty Saloon.

“You didn’t see anyone come into your own bar?” Ken asked her. He tried to elicit a reaction from her that might give him some clue to the dead girl’s current whereabouts.

“I’m closed right now, due to the murder of a dear friend; I’m not exactly manning the floor right at the moment.” The woman flapped her arms around a bit as she addressed an exasperated Ken.

“I’d have to say you are next on the killer’s hit list if it’s this easy to gain entrance to your establishment, when you are all alone here.” Ken said roughly, noticing an odd expression appear and disappear off her face in an instant.

“You have a point, maybe you could stay and keep me safe tonight?” The tone the woman adopted was more like the one she first addressed him with when he came to observe the crime scene a few hours before now.

“I’m not staying the night anywhere, I just spent 95 years in a spaceship making my way across millions of lightyears, and this is the most action I’ve had in a long time.” Ken stated begrudgingly and finished off his drink. The woman leaned over and exaggerated her breasts in her loose top again, remaining true to her original nature towards him. He much preferred this to the combative version of her, for more reasons than just the view.

“You sure? I’m positive all of this will be waiting for you in the morning.” Ken was ultimately put off by the advances and shook his head.

“Again, women only act like this when they have a reason, even you can’t have this low of self-respect for yourself.” The woman scoffed at the remark, while Ken turned and left the saloon without another word. The rain was still heavy and had turned the dirt roads to mud; he did not have a plan on where to go next, so he mulled over his options as he stood on the front porch. Eventually, he decided to check out the deceased’s house, remembering that he had been told she had no family here, and wanting to confirm that.

He got on his horse and just as he suspected, it carried him right out of town and down a side road for almost 20 minutes. Eventually a small house came into view. It was dark and uninviting, but Ken dismounted anyway. He walked around the outside of the house slowly, and then knocked on the front door. As expected, there was no answer. He walked the perimeter again just to look for anything out of place, but other than the feeling of being watched, he found nothing of interest at this location. He pondered his next move. 

Ken thought it was early in the evening, but it was made clear that he had no concept of time, after he made his way to the family home of the woman in the saloon. He did not knock loudly, but the door of the crude looking house promptly swung open in response.

“Yeah?!” The young boy said sarcastically, as he looked Ken up and down.

“I’m sorry, are your parents in?” Ken questioned, while looking inside behind the boy, as inconspicuous as he could manage. There were a lot of children awake in the front room playing games and doing various crafts, with no supervision other than the older kids.

“They’re asleep, like normal adults at this time of night.” The boy’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“I just wanted to ask them a few questions about Charlotte.” Ken had more to say but was cut short, when another boy made his way into the door frame and addressed Ken.

“Better not that Sir, pops all about disowned her, Sir,” he said eagerly, causing the older boy to force him back by placing his hand on the younger boy’s face and shoving him hard into the ground.

“Our sister is a hussy. If you are asking permission to marry, I’d think twice,” the older boy stated, almost in a mocking way.

“Not even remotely, there was a murder at her establishment, and I fear she might be next,” Ken elaborated to try and prompt the boy to go get his parents for him.

“Well you won’t find anyone here who cares.” The boy slammed the door in his face. Ken felt appalled by their disdain towards their own family over a matter so trivial.

He determined at this point that the girl’s family had no love for her, and the murdered girl had no family to even disown her. He found it all very confusing, so decided to make another visit to the town’s psychiatrist to ask him more about their local lore, and his meeting with the victim hours before the murder. The longer this affair lasted, the more he rationalized with himself that he had to follow the clues clearly given to him.

As always, his horse took him directly to his destination- this time, the doctor’s house, which was fortunate, since Ken did not have the best sense of direction. Up until now, he had lived off the assistance of Son, the computer his dad built to store the universe. He did not have his communicator, or any other way to access that information. He simply assumed whoever placed him in this situation took his personal effects as well. He arrived at the doctor’s office just as he was finishing his internal monologue.

This time, when Ken approached the house, there was a soft light emitting from the foyer, and a timely response to his sharp rasp on the front door. The doctor looked astute when he opened the door; he was no longer disheveled, like he had been a few hours prior. He looked as though he was ready for a session with Ken, rather than a late-night interrogation.  Once more, Ken was led into a front reading room, where he stood behind a chair and stared down the doctor.

“I assume you have good reason for this visit, inspector. Why not come out with it, and tell me what’s on your mind.” The doctor spoke smoothly, and Ken felt a certain influential pull on him that he immediately grew suspicious of. Ken was not immune to this pull, and that is a rare occurrence for any effect or poison.

“You can tell me more about your creatures of the night, these vampires that feed on blood,” Ken replied sternly in order to hide the effects of the doctor’s appeal on him.

“The markings on the girl’s neck match perfectly to the tales that have come to me from far away.” The doctor spoke in an almost dreamy manner, and the pull-on Ken grew a little stronger. He actively fought the urge to sit down.

“How did you know they were neck bites?!” Ken reared up, sure he had found his killer.

“Our friendly neighborhood saloon girl is a patient of mine…” The doctor cowed fearfully. Ken believed him, and threw his arms up, growing increasingly frustrated. 

“Will this nightmare ever end?!” Ken shouted into the air. “Wait, a patient of yours?” Ken halted to ask the cowering doctor. He nodded. “And where exactly are you from? You certainly don’t talk like the others here.” Ken queried, but not in as an intimidating manner as he wanted.

“Far away,” the doctor barely managed to say before Ken stormed forward and took him by the front of his suit. Ken lifted him into the air slightly, much to the doctor’s surprise. He lowered him to the ground while readjusting his hold behind his neck, to restrain him with less effort.

“Listen here you little—” Ken was cut short by the doctor’s squealing and violent thrashing. It was not until Ken looked at his hands that he realized it was because his sleeve had burned the doctor’s skin, a spot the doctor now nursed. Ken let out a long groan when he noticed his silver cufflink that resided in the corresponding spot on him to the doctor’s injury.

“You are a vile Gurinun!” Ken proclaimed, making himself big and blocking the exit. The doctor’s demeanor changed through Ken’s speech. “You infectious beasts are the mutant aggressors of the universe. You feed on all that is living, and you mutate into more monstrous things the more you eat, never dying unless deliberately killed.” Ken pushed the meek doctor back into a corner and waited for him to say something coherent.

“I just… I want it gone as much as you do, I am not a bad guy… I, I got a good thing here,” the doctor stammered. Ken was immensely confused, and losing focus, relaxed a little.

“What do you mean you have a good thing here?” Ken pressed.

“I mean, the girl was clearly killed by a vampire. It’s the young ones that love the aesthetics of neck bites,” the doctor stammered on.

“If the two are one and the same as far as predatory monsters, what exactly did you mean by you have a good thing going here?!” Ken switched tracks and placed a tremendous amount of pressure back onto the doctor. In turn, the man appeared to melt as he confessed his sins.

“I feed little by little on my patients here, no one misses the blood, and everyone just makes more!” The doctor stuttered.

“How do you just feed on people and no one notice?!” Ken exclaimed.

“I have a draw on others, and can seduce them! I promise, I did not kill that poor girl though! Sh-she never would succumb to my methods of seduction, so I never fed on her…” Ken backed off a bit and looked down at the doctor cowering in the corner of his own reading room.

“What else?!” Ken pushed the doctor to finish what he trailed off about at the end of his sentence.

“I think… I think she found out my secret…” The doctor yelped loudly when Ken approached him, looking as if he was going to rip his head off. “I didn’t kill her!” The doctor pleaded in the same squeaky voice.

“If you did not kill her, then the only other option is that she is a Gurinun, a Vampire as well! That’s the only way she wouldn’t have a pulse when I checked her! This is simply prepostero—” Ken’s claim was cut short when a loud shrieking was emitted into the room. Ken swung around in time to see the dead girl’s face mutated into a gruesome version of itself.

She came at him fast, but Ken was able to dodge her, for the most part. His arm received two large scrapes from her fingernails, as he dove over the short sofa in the room with its back to the exit. Ken rolled into a defensive position; the not-so-dead girl stood beside the doctor, with a huge grin on her mutilated face. Ken watched with ambivalence as she unsheathed a long sword and cut the doctors head off, and in one fluid move re-sheathed the sword. Ken sighed in relief at the sight of the weapon. The doctor’s head hit the floor and rolled away from the two of them into open view. Ken was able to confirm he was truly dead. 

The girl’s face quickly morphed to the normal face she typically wore, and she began speaking to Ken. “I don’t understand the relief,” was all she uttered, as she caressed the sword on her hip and stared him down.

“I had been wondering where I was going to get a sharp object long enough to chop his head off.” Ken indicated to the sword on her hip, and proceeded to gesture that she should just hand it over to him. She laughed loudly.

“You are a clever boy. I’ll have you in the back before you escape this house,” she threatened. “You ruined my plans, but what is one more body?” She then licked her long fingernails clean of the blood on the two of them. The sight repulsed Ken.

“Playing dead to frame the doctor, that’s clever. To what end? To rid the town of competition?” Ken asked rhetorically.

“Basically, but that doesn’t matter,” she responded.  Ken took it as a hint that she was going on the offensive and he wanted to make the first move.

Ken dove over the small couch in front of him as she lunged for him. He rolled on his back and thrust the heavy coffee table upwards, which in turn collided with the girl. Ken then further weaponized the unbroken coffee table by grabbing two sides of it and swinging it like a baseball bat. The edge of the table smacked against the side of her head, and a loud crack emitted from the injury. She did not go down til he hit her again with the flat smooth top of the coffee table. She flew back into the bookshelf hard enough to knock several books off, that then landed on her.

“You will not live to plague the world I know.” With those words, Ken began throwing books at her while he closed in on the sword on her hip, reaching for it with his left hand. The sheath pointed upright, pressed against the floor and shelving unit,  jutting out in an accessible angle. He cut her hands and head off as she tried to deflect the books from hitting her. As her head rolled to the floor, he was suddenly blinded by bright lights.

The sudden change in environment, from the walls around him backing up twenty or so feet, to his new wardrobe, all a bright color that was most often white, thoroughly disoriented him. Ken almost succumbed to a spout of dizziness when the change occurred. He looked around frantically for the voices he heard, but could not make out the sources, in his confusion. He did not notice anywhere for him to sit and he was not approached by anyone; nor, could he see anything other than walls or light. After focusing on keeping his balance and finding some roots in his stance, he finally started to understand the voices he heard, it was a language far and away from the English he had just been speaking.

“Our contestant stands proud of his victory!” One voice spoke gleefully.

“The first ever human on our show crushes the course!” A second voice added.

Ken recognized the language as a neighboring dialect to the one spoken along the course he  initially plotted, prior to this adventure. At the time he planned his trip, the republic controlling the area only charged a fee to use the space as an open highway. He remembered a note he made about that large expanse of dead space that had long been fought over by neighboring republics. It made sense that ownership would have changed hands over the many years it takes him to travel these vast distances.

“An astounding performance!” The first voice spoke again in a light tone.

“A worthy start to the human race!” The second voice followed up fluidly to its partner.

There was no other value to the expanse except the growing use for through traffic. When he had set his course, he had plans to avoid it entirely, but to save time he wanted to do it manually. Ken clearly must have crossed into the disputed area and was captured in some way, his present surroundings at least brought him back to what he was used to, and out of that odd clothing. He focused enough to label the voices as announcers, and could also now see them faintly on the other side of an almost completely transparent screen.

Ken did not second guess the situation, because more odd things than this had happened to him, and he had carefully learned to go with the flow. His arms and legs had not been bound, so he was free to go whatever pace he chose. He followed the hall down for a short while before he came to a door at the end. He entered the room slowly, and was met by a small group of individuals waiting for him. They appeared to have two arms, and two arms for legs, and they all seemed to walk in different ways as they paced the room or approached him.

“We want to celebrate your victory!” One of them said.

“We also want you to know that you can leave at any time!” Another added as he pointed towards the exit, which was appealing to Ken.

“Would you consider sharing knowledge you may possess to help future human contenders on our program?” The specific one who spoke had two hands in his face while standing fully erect on the other two arms.

“Your fans are outside sir! If that pleases you!” Another said as it reached out to touch Ken’s arm. He shot that one an odd look and they just laughed.

“You have many fans! You should be proud!” More and more voices added their input or questions; Ken barely had time to answer one, much less fifteen.

“I just want answers,” Ken expressed, trying to find the one who had asked for his help. When he locked eyes with that individual, Ken pointed at them, and it looked as if it sighed in relief. Ken was still figuring out the expressions of this new race, but some things looked and sounded obvious.

“Come with me sir…” It looked around the rest of the room with a quick glance. “They will all remain for you later, if not more by then,” it assured as it ushered Ken into a different hall where none of the other individuals could follow them.

“What is this place?” Ken asked calmly.

“This is what peace between the Franye and the Horia Republic looks like.” The creature seemed underwhelmed by the sentiment. 

“Which is…?” Ken tried not to be antagonistic with his impatience.

“A game show network, you gain passage by participating in a show of some sort, once you win… something, you’re free to go!” The last bit was forced as it grumbled a few times after it said this.

“There should be some warning for that!” Ken decried, his guide stopped dead and glared at him.

“That excuse is dead, we have put up ample signs and warnings of our intent, this entire quadrant knows about it as a household name.” It had a point, and Ken knew how incredibly spaced out he can get on a trip. Failing to be cognizant of his surroundings was a very real occurrence. He concluded it was possible he went straight through hundreds of warnings; he did not push the matter.

“So, what do you want my help with?” Ken dug as they entered another bright room.

“Are you familiar with chemical compounds…” It indicated as if to ask Ken’s name.

“Ken, and a fair amount yeah, but I don’t travel with anything like that other than what is needed to power my ship.” Ken’s defensive side kicked into high gear for a moment and he had to quell his indignation. 

“Not my concern anyway. We want to show you what we used on you to knock you out, see if it’s a compound you are acquainted with.” At that point, another person entered the room with a file and passed it along. Before leaving though they threw a shy wave in Ken’s direction. In return he waved softly back, and it giggled as it closed the door behind it. Ken only needed to glance at the picture before he laughed.

“Are you serious?” He chortled at the alien, and it did a sort of full body rocking motion which Ken took as a nod. “This will kill any human! I have something about me that keeps me from dying, or really being affected by anything. Using this on me though, phew! I can see how I got knocked clean out.” Ken said as he pushed the compound map away.

“Well, that explains a lot…” When Ken sat up interested in a reply, it quickly spoke up again. “We haven’t had much luck… subduing the few human subjects that we have gotten. Subduing them is the key factor to how it all works.” Its speech was labored, and Ken could tell it felt tremendous guilt over the truth it spoke.

“How many deaths have occurred with this compound?” Ken prodded.

“None! None, we change the compound every time it does not work. Certainly, the warning signs are new too, but I am trying to do this in a safer manner!” It pronounced the last two words dramatically, but seemed to calm down after that.

“I could show you a safe knockout gas for human use.” Ken said simply as he looked upon the defeated being before him.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” it stammered.

“You all look like carbon-based creatures, doesn’t this harm y’all as well?” Ken questioned, pointing at the deadly compound. It shook its head.

“It just gets us high, it’s harmless overall.” Ken laughed at the revelation and started to show them a good knockout gas to use that would not kill any more potential contestants.

KEN V