Testors Grey Alien Figure

KIT #:	?
PRICE:	? Long out of production
DECALS:	None
REVIEWER:	Steve Budd
NOTES:	No models were harmed in the making of this review

The Y Files – (Trust No Instructions…)

 It was a little after midnight. Fax Mouldy sat quietly thinking, alone in the pervading darkness of his apartment. Without warning he stood up and moved across the floor towards the window. Picking up a nearby roll of masking tape, he tore off three long strips and stuck them to a lower corner of the glass in a rough ‘Y’ shape.

 Switching on his desk lamp, he tilted the light towards the taped window, returned to his sofa and sat down. Time seemed motionless. Fax woke with a start. How long had he been asleep? The dull red digital display next to him flicked from 3.34 to 3:35am. He struggled to focus. Where was ‘Y’. Would he even come? The strange and enigmatic benefactor was unreliable at best and had been careful to make it clear from the outset that his decision to help Mouldy was always merely to serve and further his own interests.

 Mouldy felt his eyes becoming heavy again. His gaze moved towards the door. The light from the corridor diffused softly beneath it, gently illuminated the polished wooden floor a short distance. Out of the thick, heavy silence came a faint scuffing sound and in an instant the shadow of someone standing outside briefly interrupted the glow under the door.

 Mouldy drew his gun with smoothly unconscious ease and approached the door from one side. He paused and cautiously leaned across to look through the spy hole. Nothing. Opening the door, he checked left and right. Whoever had called was gone. At his feet, bathed in the soft warm tungsten light of the corridor, lay a small package discreetly wrapped in plain parcel-paper. Puzzled, Mouldy picked it up and withdrew back into his apartment, gently closing the door behind him.

 Seated at a low table Mouldy carefully removed the covering. Inside he found a box. His heart stopped – across the lid of the grey and otherwise unadorned card box was a discreet pale yellow label bearing the inscription ‘Y’ File: 7856124 in a small font. Placing the top to one side, Mouldy peered in. Enclosed in a single clear and sealed bag were what appeared to be the plastic parts of some kind of figure, attached to a couple of frames.

 Mouldy couldn’t accurately discern what was obviously intended to be the head and removed the bag from the box. Turning it over, he felt a sharp stab of adrenalin at the unmistakable sight of a classic gray alien face. The huge almond shaped eyes, the disproportionately large cranial cavity, the slit mouth and vestigial nose – it was all there in chilling detail.

 In that instant, he found himself transported back in time some twenty years, to the night when his entire collection of Tamiya kits had been ruthlessly abducted. Memories of several small figures moving with sinister purpose in the room, backwards and forwards through a blinding wall of pure white light, invaded his mind. “They could’ve taken the bloody Airfix stuff instead” he mused regretfully. The creatures had clearly recognised advanced technology when they saw it. Mouldy shuddered at the horror of the recollection and his terrible loss.

 Snapping free of the repressed memory, Mouldy checked the box again and noticed a crudely folded sheet of A4 paper still tucked inside. The single page contained instructions obviously designed to guide the construction of the figure. Mouldy hadn’t assembled a model kit since that traumatic night in his childhood but knew with absolute certainty that he finally held in his hands a clue; proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life.

 As he sat and mulled over the parts he became aware of a strange sensation. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Although it had been quiet it seemed that a new and oppressive hush had descended on the room. Mouldy felt with increasing power, the sense that something was about to happen.

 The two large windows on the south side of his apartment disintegrated in a blazing mass of piercingly cold white light. He was aware of his gun, only a couple of feet away on the coffee table but try as he might he was unable to move anything other than his gaze. The floor reverberated beneath his feet. He knew they were coming.

 Silence. Fax woke with a juddering start. Mouth dry and his face sweaty, all he could determine was that he was reclined on the couch in near darkness. He attempted to move but his limbs remained immobile. Strange. There was no sense of fear, of time or of any direct contact with the physical world, beyond a sensation that vaguely reminded him of floating.

 It may have been minutes or hours before the dawn light of the breaking day began to illuminate the apartment. With it returned Fax’s mobility. Drained of energy, Fax’s attention was drawn to the low table. The box he had opened was still where he’d left it. A little to its right was his gun. Between them was a new object; the now fully assembled and finished grey alien kit he had been handling the night before. A peek in the box confirmed it was nearly empty – no parts, just the instructions.

 “I wish modelling had been this easy when I was twelve” Mouldy thought before picking it up to examine it closer. The construction had clearly been varied from the art work in the small illustration on the sheet; that showed a figure with some kind of space suit on and a distinct collar in evidence. Whoever or whatever had pieced it together had been careful to engineer certain important changes. All sign of the suit had been removed, presumably by sanding, thus rending the little intergalactic tourist effectively naked “Can’t be legal where he comes from” Fax pondered, immediately uneasy at the idea that aliens might simply be travelling to Earth in order to enjoy the freedom to run around their victim’s living spaces in the buff.

 Mouldy’s mobile buzzed as it raucously threw out the Pussycat Dolls tune ‘Don’t Cha’. “Mouldy” he answered. “Oh, hi Scally – get over here; I’ve got something to show you – no, not that; something else. Yes, it’ll be worth the trip – see ya soon; bye”. Slipping the phone back into his pocket his gaze settled once more on the model.

 Comparison with the instruction sheet indicated that the left arm had been modified by lowering it about 20 degrees. Intrigued, Mouldy looked closer at the nose and mouth. “Hollowed out” he observed; the work was carefully and precisely carried out, as if by laser.

 A familiar double knock at the door and Mouldy found himself ushering Scally into his apartment. “It’s a little early for house calls isn’t it Mouldy”? “It’s still my favourite way to start the day Scally” Mouldy replied laconically – “Coffee”? The petite red-head nodded and moved across the room to the sofa, Mouldy’s eyes taking in every tiny individual movement of her lower body beneath that skirt. Sitting down, Scally crossed her legs, forcing the hem to ride up and reveal part of a stocking top. “Sharon Stone’s got nothing on this” he mused silently as the smaller of his two brains screamed at him to just lock the door and ring in sick…

“Maybe later” he thought as he picked up the figure. “This is it”? Scally looked sceptical. “A model; you called me over for a model”? “It’s not just a model Scally – it’s an alien figure”. Mouldy recounted the events that preceded his possession of the kit. “Look, I just want you to autopsy it – tell me if anything other than plastic’s been used to produce it”.

 Scally returned the request with a resigned expression and reached into her jacket to produce a narrow tube of material tied closed with a thin lace. Slipping the knot, Scally smoothly unrolled a small collection of instruments, each in its own neatly stitched sleeve. Snapping on a pair of latex gloves Scally’s slender fingers selected a fine bladed razor saw. “The left arm looks different Scally – start there”. Carefully cutting down into the joint Scally immediately repeated it a little further along before lifting out a small ‘v’ shaped portion from the elbow.

 “It looks like the arm was sawn half way through before being bent down to lower the angle – I’d guess cyano was used as filler a afterwards”. Scally’s eyes were intense with concentration. Replacing the razor saw she withdrew a scraper and gently drew it across the back of the figure. A thin layer of paint came away. “Tamiya acrylic I’d say Mouldy – one of their greys, possibly Deck Tan. Looking at what’s underneath it seems your figure’s been pre-shaded with a darker paint too, probably from the same range”. Mouldy looked up from Scally’s cleavage, tantalisingly revealed under her loose buttoned, light cotton blouse.

 “But why have they removed the suit Scally”? “I don’t know Mouldy; I guess they’re just a-sexual and proud of it”. There was a faint note of sarcasm in her voice. Mouldy felt a little stab of excitement in response to Scally’s dominant tones. “Take a look inside the skull Scally”. Resorting to the razor saw again Scally began the first incision. The blade bit deeper and deeper, becoming strangely harder to move back and forth. Scally’s breathing quickened with the unexpected effort; the material of her top tensing and relaxing against her chest in a compelling, hypnotic rhythm. Mouldy’s gaze was transfixed.

 Small beads of sweat appeared on Scally’s forehead as she struggled to penetrate the cranium. The blade suddenly relaxed and momentarily confused by the change in resistance Scally withdrew it from the channel. For a second or two nothing happened until, without warning, a glossy black, viscous fluid leached rapidly from the cut in quantities that startled her.

 “Oh my God, Mouldy! Black Goo!” Scally exclaimed. “Isn’t that the stuff that invades and infects any human host, turning them into a raging sexual animal with an unquenchable desire for anyone with a pulse?” “Certainly is Scally”. Mouldy’s tone was now decidedly upbeat as she felt his hands gently restraining hers while the dark liquid ran smoothly over their skin.

 “Just go with the flow Scally….”.

June 2007

Steve Budd

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