Ahead, the low glow of fire gave the Nadir Mound’s summit a sinister shape, and car roofs, like headstones, dotted the cutaway leading up to it. The man crossed into the easier terrain to grasp the full extent of the festivities. Boisterous students were pushing up the side of the hill in waves, prompting the interloper to stay close to an outcrop of padlocked portapotties. A Streamline Trailer was obstructing his view of the eastern approach, and on identifying the vehicle by its decals he proceeded incredulously to its rear to find his mother and father hosting a tailgate party. A grill was on hand, and several college-age students were lining up for broiled burgers.

“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?” he exclaimed.

Michael’s mother was decked out in Purcell College’s blue and orange. She threw her son a grin. “Hey, Son! Grab a paper plate!”

He was peeved. “Why didn’t you tell me you were passing through town?”

His mother was flustered. “We had no idea you were living here, Michael. You never tell us anything.”

His father chimed, “We’re here for the Homecoming Game!”

The son looked back towards the hill, unable to see the top of it for students. “I thought the Homecoming Bonfire was a couple of days ago?”

His mother flipped a bratwurst and snickered. “No. This is a special bonfire because of the spaceship.”

“Spaceship?”

Dad explained, “They were going to have the regular old bonfire this year but—out of the blue—this flying saucer crash-landed and saved them all that money on firewood.”

The son was confused. “But I thought it was a meteorite?”

The father reminded him. “The spaceships come down in meteorites in The War of the Worlds. Remember?”

Jubilant, Mom pointed her spatula at the spectacle. “You better get up there or you’ll miss the best part! They won’t be using a burnt effigy this year! They’ll be using the alien they pull from the wreckage!”

“Alien?” Michael grumbled.

“In a manner of speaking,” the father added.

The son could not cope with the surreality of his parents, so mustered courage against his fear of crowds to march toward the versant.

Halfway up, a reveler, facing the wrong direction, grabbed him by the shoulders. “I was told it would be the black monolith from 2001!” he gibbered. “That’s what I was told!”

The painter tried to negotiate a way round the dithering man.

“It’s not 2001!” the fellow complained, spinning off into the throng. “It’s not!”

Michael had little time to think on the encounter, for directly in front of him on the summit was the flying saucer from the film, The Day the Earth Stood Still. More amazingly, Gort, the huge metallic robot from the movie, stood along side it like a prop from a Nineteen Fifties gas station. The whole scene looked as if it had been reassembled from a Hollywood back-lot.

He was aghast. “But this is the wrong movie!”

The raucous students paid no attention to him; the lifeless robot was an easy target for their beer bottles and ribald insults.

The door of the saucer was open and a ramp protruded out to the edge of the bustle, where a burly frat boy popped out. With fist pumping in the air, he addressed the assembly. “We’ve got one!”

A roar rang out, and only got louder when the limp body of someone in a phony spaceman costume was pulled from the mouth of the spaceship. Several fraternity types proceeded to nail him to a readymade crucifix. A cheerleader came up the ramp with a cardboard placard that read, “State Can Suck My Slong,” and placed it around the man’s neck. The cross was then hoisted up and dropped into a hole with an indignant thud; Michael scowled at the sight. A fire was set to a pile of cheap student apartment furniture, which swiftly spread to the foot of the crucifix. School colors frothed like sea foam at the unwitting spectator’s back, barring any escape.

The alien wailed from his smoldering pulpit. “Christ could have called ten thousand angels to save him from the cross and lay waste his persecutors! But in his dying breath, he chose to forgive them and became Nietzsche’s Overman!”

“This is nuts!” Michael yelled. “This is the wrong movie!”

The cheers grew to a deafening pitch when the fire started licking the crucified man’s sneakers.

The painter screamed, “This is the wrong movie!”

The spaceman’s agony made the students madder with excitement, yet no one but Michael was looking at the world-destroying robot. The metal visor that covered Gort’s one gigantic eye was slowly lifting. Wanting to end the insanity, the desperate man pushed closer in the excruciating heat to get within earshot; several college boys endeavored to restrain him. He struggled to free himself—to be heard.

“Gort!” he called out. “Klaatu barada nikto!”

The surging crowd was ready to pour into the space vessel; all were oblivious to the robot’s dark glassy eye as it began to flicker with a thin line of intense cobalt light. Michael’s body was being sucked deeper into the frenzy, as if the ruffians were about to raise him as a bludgeon. He could think of nothing but Patricia Neal in the movie, fearing for her life as she fell backwards over folding chairs to utter once more the words that would save the spaceman and the world.

“Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!” he cried.

The inebriated mob finally focused on the event unfolding before them; a hush backwashed through their number. Everyone was now looking up at the robot. His particle beam was growing ominously brighter, and the frightened horde responded to it by shrieking as they turned and ran. Thundering shoes blasted back down the cutaway to leave Michael at their mud-flinging heels. Gort’s death ray never reached full force, for having heard the command he was programmed to obey. Impervious to the conflagration, he pulled the lifeless man from the cross and walked haltingly up the ramp into the flying saucer. Michael followed, yet was quickly losing sight of the robot. The mirrored corridor curved in front of him like a chamber inside a nautilus, and was growing smaller with each step. Gort’s lamplight eye occasionally sent blinks back down the tunnel, though the delay between each pulse meant he was not only shrinking in size but also getting further away. The trespasser was soon hyperventilating on all fours and falling behind. The last glimmer from his walking lighthouse passed back down the whorled shaft to leave him stranded in darkness. Still, Michael was compelled to keep moving forward. The deep glow of another color gradually emerged: the orange of candlelight. It was seeping out around a jamb and keyhole to mark the last crook in the chamber; shin-tingling tremors were emanating from the same door. His eye, following a bead of sweat, rolled down the door face to the keyhole and mapped out a room on the other side. A silhouette on a far wall placed Klaatu on a slab; Gort’s shadow, slower taking form, was quivering over his master's body in an effort to reanimate it. Michael leaned away to escape the violent current surging through his own body. The corner of a black rectangular object was adjacent to him and nicked in the low-pitched light. 2-0-0-1 was prominently etched in its surface, and on detecting metal hinges protruding from one side, the frantic man threw open the cover of the fuse box to find two numbered breakers:

1-9-1
9-1-1

Guessing, Michael flipped the breaker that silenced the subterranean drone. He peeked again into the room; the robot’s jellied outline was now abruptly rigid; the spaceman was sitting up—having somehow become female since he last looked. Her morphing shadow swallowed the keyhole before a darkly jeweled iris and pupil peered out.

“Why are you invading my dream?” she whispered.

The candlelight pinched out with a bat of eyelash.