Frankentown by Aleksandar Vujovic

step he took toward the refrigerator echoed in his head, like a nail of pain into the base of his skull. He reached for the freezer door to find a large frozen shapeless mass covering the pizza boxes where a body of unknown species lied mere hours earlier.
The finding was followed by a sudden drop of heart.
It seemed that his evidence first liquified, then froze. The evidence he worked so hard to hide last night, the specimen that might have just proven existence of as of yet undiscovered species was now the consistency of a spilled frozen milkshake, with just about as few barely recognizable features.
    He took the top pizza box out of the freezer and carefully lifted up the frozen flat puddle of remains. It promptly broke. There were no skeletal pieces and the puddle separated with the inks from the box, parting with a print stuck to the alien from underneath.
    Broken up into pieces with images of the ‘Little Chef’ pizza mascot, he fit it into a large beer glass before he returned it to the freezer. What a letdown.
    The phone rang but Frank hadn’t the slightest interest in picking up. First he needed to collect his thoughts and figure out where to go from here. When he saw where it lay, he was suddenly reminded of last night’s kitchen alien autopsy video.
The voice on the phone was Kathy, who was calling because Frank hadn’t called her in a while.
She’d have to address the answering machine.
There are bigger fish to fry right now.
    His hope for evidence quickly shattered when the video only showed a blobby silhouette and Frank, sweaty and dressed fit for washing the dishes, before falling over and recording only his voice. No proof. Then his heart once again sank to the fathoms of his pants along with his hope for standing on the path of discovery.
    Lost again. Rotten luck.
    Much like his father, when stressed or agitated, Frank would walk out of the house for a brisk walk.
Whenever he inquired as to where Walter was going, he was given the most scientific answer he could muster so he wouldn’t have any explaining to do.
    They were always on familiar terms, at best.
“I have a lot of potential energy built up inside, so I have to go spend it. Otherwise I might be ill.”
    Such pseudo-scientific explanations motivated young Frank to pursue science so he can understand his own dad, but they also helped him avoid explaining anything in terms he could understand. Over the years, this built up a void in their relationship and essentially alienated Frank from his father, until, when one day when he realized that his dad might not be able to do otherwise, it was already too late. Frank’s dad had vanished along with his brother and their research on an archeological dig in Peru.
    Before he vanished, Lyle, Franks younger brother,
had developed a keen interest in Archeology.
When he came back several years later, he hould never even recall what happened to his dad.

The brisk walk helped clear his mind and to relieve his stress at all; not in the same way alcohol had served in the past decade, but it helped him bring a fresh perspective on the situation.   He realized, that although he would surely be scrutinized for bringing attention to something as seemingly ridiculous as an “extraterrestrial-in-a-puddle”, he could use the severe resources at his disposal and conduct some tests on the recovered tissue. Surely the tissue would provide some sort of a scientific oddity, perhaps enough to fund an expedition out to the coordinates where he along with his colleagues tagged the Humboldt squid so successfully just the day before.
The Research Lab would not have even had time to review their findings from Saturday. And he wondered if either Steve or Allen bothered to email the records to them anyway. Come tomorrow, he would inform
Dr. Harding of the routine squid sampling and he could present his case to reinstate the research.

    It was no secret that when any scientist mentioned the abbreviation UFO, their career turns