The Martian
Artie Vreeland listened to the tires hum as he drove along the highway toward home. He had left Richmond, Virginia, early that morning and driven straight through Maryland and Delaware and into New Jersey without stopping. When he crossed the border between Cape May and Atlantic counties, he knew he would be home in a couple of hours.
The roads through the South Jersey Pine Barrens were pretty much deserted at the end of October. No tourists were heading to or from Atlantic City, Cape May, Wildwood or any of the other summer communities along the shore. The few cars and trucks that were on the road were, like Artie himself, just passing through.
As he watched the white broken lines painted down the center of the highway pass by him with an unflagging regularity, the trucker began to grow weary. He yawned and opened the window to let in some fresh, cold air.
"What I wouldn't give for a cup of coffee right now," he said, his voice echoing through the silent cab.
Something up ahead broke the darkness of the night. Artie put his foot on the brake to slow the truck, afraid a deer might run out in front of his semi. The pressure on the brake increased and the eighteen-wheeler came to a screeching halt when Artie saw a person standing alongside the road with his thumb in the air, hitching a ride.
"Where in blazes did you come from?" he shouted to the young man, who seemed to appear out of nowhere.
"I was driving down one of the back roads, and my car broke down," the young man replied as he climbed into the cab next to Artie. "I knew I'd never find a ride over there, so I walked here to the highway."
"You're lucky I was driving by. You're a million miles from nowhere, son."
"I do appreciate it. Would you mind dropping me off at the next service station you pass?"
"I wouldn't mind at all, young fellow. Of course, most of the places, like just about everything else down here, close up after Labor Day. We might not find an open gas station until we get up to Burlington County."
"Would you mind if I rode along then?"
"Not at all. Be glad to have the company," Artie said. "I was afraid I was going to fall asleep at the wheel back there."
For close to twenty-five minutes the two men talked about the weather, a subject that seemed to inevitably crop up between strangers who knew next to nothing about each other. Growing bored with the banality of their conversation, Artie switched to one of his favorite topics: sports. He found it odd, not to mention disappointing, that the hitchhiker knew little about the New York Yankees and Giants and even less about the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame—Artie's three favorite teams.
"I don't really have much time to follow sports," the young man admitted. "I'm a student, and I spend my days in class and my nights and weekends studying."
"College boy, eh? Want to be a doctor? Or maybe a lawyer?"
"No. I hope to be a writer."
"You don't say?"
Frankly, the trucker was not impressed. To him, writing was not much of an occupation—at least not for a man. There was no work involved in sitting at a desk, hitting the keys of a typewriter.
I may be old-fashioned, Artie thought, but that sort of thing is best suited for women.
During the ensuing lull in the conversation, Artie turned on the radio although he was doubtful he would get reception in the rural area. He caught the tail end of the following day's weather forecast: "...rain, accompanied by winds of light gale force. We can expect a high temperature of fifty-six degrees with a low overnight of forty-five."
"Not too bad for this time of year," Artie commented. "Tomorrow's the last day of October already. Soon we'll be looking at snow instead of rain."
The young man did not answer. His head was resting against the passenger window, apparently having dosed off.
"Some company," the trucker muttered under his breath and then turned his attention to the music that was now playing on the radio.
Again, Artie's eyes became heavy. He yawned and stretched his legs and arms as best he could in the cramped cab of the truck. Then his attention was drawn back to the radio. The music stopped, and a news broadcaster interrupted the station's regularly scheduled programming with a special news bulletin: there were reports of unusual activity on the planet Mars.
"What was that about Mars?" the young hitchhiker asked, waking up from his catnap.
"Beats the hell out of me," Artie replied. "Something about an explosion. Haven't we got enough problems of our own down here on Earth without worrying about outer space?"
The hitchhiker shrugged.
Although Artie had little interest in Mars, he kept the radio on for his passenger, who was listening intently. Most of what the newsman said went over the trucker's head. He knew nothing about meteorites and radiation levels, so he kept his eyes on the broken white line of the highway, ignoring the radio until the music program continued. He was humming along with one of his favorite tunes when the newscaster broke in with another bulletin announcing that spaceships from Mars had landed in Burlington County, New Jersey.
"Burlington County?" Artie echoed, all signs of exhaustion having suddenly left him.
Yes, Burlington County! The problem was no longer forty million miles away; it was right there in New Jersey.
Artie's attention was riveted on the radio in his dashboard, and he almost drove off the road. Only the hitchhiker's call of "Look out!" prevented a serious accident. The trucker pulled over onto the shoulder. He was too enthralled by the news broadcast to concentrate on driving. Apparently, intense heat from the wreckage of the spacecraft was preventing a scientific team sent by Princeton University from examining the ship.
Artie could hear a loud hissing sound coming over the radio, followed by a humming that increased in intensity. He could barely make out the terrified broadcaster's words above the noise.
"The door is opening. Something is coming out. It's ...."
There was a woman's piercing scream, followed by silence, and then the announcer's voice came back, blaming the loss of transmission on technical difficulties.
Artie looked at his passenger who had remained silent throughout the broadcast.
"What do you make of all that?" the worried trucker asked.
"It seems Martians have landed in Grover's Mill," the student answered, displaying no sign of emotion, "and they don't appear to be very friendly."
Artie turned the key in the ignition and steered the truck back onto the highway.
"I want to get home," he explained. "I'm beginning to worry about my family. If Martians can land in Burlington County, they can get to Morris County, too."
"Is that where you live?" the young man asked.
"Yeah. And you?"
"I'm not from around here," he said mysteriously, offering no additional information.
Artie glanced at the hitchhiker out of the corner of his eye. It suddenly occurred to him that he knew nothing about the person sitting next to him in the truck's cab. The stranger had appeared out of nowhere, claiming to have walked from a side street, but was he telling the truth? Student or not—it was odd that a man his age did not know who won the recent World Series.
"Where were you headed to then?" Artie asked with growing suspicion.
"Nowhere in particular. I was just driving through New Jersey."
"What college did you say you went to?"
The trucker waited but did not get an answer.
Then the radio announcer broke in again with more alarming news: the Princeton scientists who had been sent to investigate the wreckage were killed by the aliens. The governor of New Jersey ordered everyone away from the crash site and called in the National Guard. Additionally, all citizens in and around Grover's Mill were advised to evacuate the area immediately.
"My God!" Artie exclaimed, pulling the truck off the road again. "What in the hell is going on?"
His passenger remained silent, and Artie looked at him with mistrust.
"You got any ID on you, son?"
"Excuse me?" the hitchhiker asked.
"You must have a driver's license and vehicle registration."
"I left them in my car."
"You got a wallet? A set of keys? Anything to back up your story?"
The hitchhiker was perplexed and somewhat offended by the trucker's line of questioning.
"Surely, you don't think I'm a Martian?" he asked with disbelief.
"To be honest, I don't know who or even what you are. That's why I'm asking you for some form of identification."
The student shook his head in amazement and chuckled with amusement at the older man's ridiculous suspicions.
"Do you see any tentacles or antennae?" he asked sarcastically, raising his hands above his head. "Is my skin green? Do I have a third eye in the middle of my forehead?"
"That don't mean a damn, boy. I figure a race of people intelligent enough to travel from one planet to another is clever enough to blend in with the people of Earth."
"Why would they have to?" the hitchhiker asked with a wry smile, seemingly enjoying the argument. "They're obviously powerful enough to wipe us off the face of the planet."
"That idea doesn't seem to upset you any. Why is that, I wonder?"
"You really believe ...? Aw! Forget it," the young man declared, growing weary of the trucker's groundless doubts, "I'll just get out here and wait for someone else to come along."
"No," Artie said, feeling foolish. "We'll stay on this highway as far as we can go. We may run into trouble when we cross into Burlington County, though."
"At least with all this excitement, we should see quite a few cars on the road as we get closer to the crash site."
Artie turned the key, put the truck in gear and began driving north. Suddenly, he lost radio reception.
"Why don't you see if you can pick up something on another station?" he asked the hitchhiker.
The young man turned the dial, going from one end of the bandwidth to the other.
"Nothing but static," the passenger declared.
"Funny how the radio went out like that," Artie said.
"The Martians must have taken out the transmitting tower."
"How could you know that?"
"Just a wild guess. Hey, don't start looking at me like that again. I'm not a Martian. I was born in Philadelphia, and until a week ago I was attending the University of Pennsylvania."
"What happened a week ago?" Artie asked.
"If you must know, I had a personal problem," the young man said defensively. "My girlfriend is pregnant."
The boy's story sounded plausible. But what proof was there?
"We went to see a doctor in Maryland, one who could help us out of this predicament."
"Then what were you doing in New Jersey? And where's your girlfriend?"
"Listen, I don't have to sit here and put up with this third degree. Who do you think you are, my father?"
The boy acted human, at least.
"If I were your father, I wouldn't be wondering if you were going to vaporize me."
Laughter broke the tension in the air.
"My name is Dan," the young man said. "Dan McAllister."
"Nice to meet you, Dan. I'm Arthur Vreeland. Folks call me Artie."
"Artie?" Dan echoed with a smile and teased the trucker. "Got any ID on you to prove you're Artie Vreeland?"
"Okay. Let's call a truce, shall we?"
Dan nodded in agreement.
"So, what kind of writer do you want to be, a newspaperman? A sportswriter?"
"No. I want to write books. Science fiction novels."
"You mean all that stuff about robots and time machines?"
"And interplanetary travel," Dan added. "I'm working on a short story now about creatures from Venus who want to invade the Earth, but first they send an advance force of scouts to the planet. These scouts have been interbred with Earthlings, so no one would guess they weren't human."
Artie was glaring at him. Too late, Dan realized his mistake.
"Venus?" the trucker asked. "You sure you don't mean Mars?"
"Not that again!"
At that point, the engine on the truck began to sputter, and then it died. Artie managed to steer it onto the shoulder where it stood like a beached whale, helpless beside the deserted highway. The two men climbed down from the cab, and the trucker delivered his prognosis.
"We're not going to get any further in this rig," he declared solemnly.
"Well, Artie, thanks for the ride," Dan said as he began to walk, ready to raise his thumb should anyone else pass him by.
Artie was angry, tired and—although he hated to admit it—frightened.
"Where do you think you're going off to, college boy?" he yelled. "To join up with your friends in Burlington County?"
Now that Dan no longer depended upon the older man for a ride, he was not going to tolerate his absurd accusations any further.
"No. I'm on my way to New York to meet up with the Martians there. When I do, we'll soon take over the city. Then we'll head north, west and south. And once we've conquered the United States, we'll head for Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. In no time at all, Artie, the people of Earth will be as extinct as the dinosaurs."
Dan laughed, turned away from the open-mouthed trucker and continued walking.
Artie Vreeland may not have been concerned with all the people of Earth, but he was an American through and through. The laughing young man walking into the darkness a few yards ahead of him represented a threat to all he held dear: Old Glory, the Bill of Rights, apple pie, the New York Yankees and Giants and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.
Artie opened the driver's side door, reached into the cab and grabbed the tire iron he kept beneath the seat.
"Hey, you," he called out angrily to the hitchhiker. "Martian boy!"
"Get off my back, old man," Dan yelled over his shoulder, still laughing at the disgruntled truck driver. "Heed my warning. Stay away from me or I'll shoot flames out of my eyes and barbecue you like a chicken leg."
Dan McAllister's disrespectful laughter was cut short when Artie brought the tire iron down on his head.
* * *
It was nearing midnight when the long-haul trucker hit his brakes after he saw the man walking along the side of the highway with his thumb in the air. His vehicle, carrying a heavy load of farm equipment destined for upstate New York, eventually came to a shuddering stop.
"Is that your rig broken down on the side of the road a few miles back?" the trucker asked the hitchhiker.
"Yeah," Artie Vreeland replied. "I was driving up from Richmond, Virginia, and the engine went and died on me."
"Come on in. I'll give you a lift to the next open gas station."
"Thanks. I appreciate it. It's been one hell of a night, what with all that commotion up in Grover's Mill."
"Oh, you heard about that, did you?" the trucker said with an amused smile on his unshaven face. "You gotta hand it to Orson Welles. That was some hoax, huh?"
"Hoax?" Artie echoed. "What are you talking about?"
"That radio broadcast he did on Mercury Theater earlier tonight. It was an adaptation of H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds."
"You mean there are no Martians in Burlington County?"
"Not a one! It was all fiction, a special radio broadcast for Halloween."
"I don't believe it," Artie said, staring out the truck's passenger side window into the darkness of the night.
"From what I hear, a lot of people actually believed the Martians landed in New Jersey. The police damn near had a panic on their hands. You mark my words. There'll be hell to pay for this little stunt."
The trucker continued talking, glad to have company on the lonely stretch of highway; however, Artie was not listening to him. He was too engrossed in reliving his recent encounter with Dan McAllister, the young college student whose body he had buried in a shallow grave somewhere out in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
When they find the boy's remains, Artie realized with despair, they will be those of a human being and nothing more.
The awful truth devastated the fifty-seven-year-old trucker. Arte Vreeland was no hero saving the good old U.S. of A. from an alien invasion. He was simply a man whose fear and ignorance at a time of crisis had pushed him over the edge and caused him to commit murder.
This story was inspired by Orson Welles' October 30, 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast (Mercury Theater).
This is definitely my favorite Martian. (For those of you who are too young to remember, My Favorite Martian was a popular TV show in the 1960s.)
