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Mario Delvechio: Storyteller.

It was the usual Saturday-evening scene at the local tavern in the remote little village at the northern perimeter of the Swiss Alps. Drinks were being served, and soft music provided by a coin-operated record player, while Mario Delvechio, a short, pot-bellied, dark-complexioned man in his late sixties, and the only son of an Italian couple who had immigrated to that locality, was at it as usual, telling others these incredible stories which had initially fascinated them, but which now were being listened to either out of courtesy, or merely to humor him.

Mario Delvechio usually told his stories in a laid-back, tongue-in-cheek fashion. Just barely audible enough for those sitting nearby to hear above the music, if they chose to. But on this particular night, Mario was being especially effusive. This time, his story went like this:

He had once been a member of a scientific research team which was attacked by the very creatures that they had created via gene-splicing.

This time, there was only one customer paying him any attention. A newcomer to the village who had just arrived seeking shelter from the snowstorm outside. He sat at the stool next to Mario seemingly mesmerized by his story, which went like this, in Delvechio's own words:

"One day the creatures escaped from their steel cages and we were forced to hide in one of the laboratory’s ventilation shafts for days. From there we could hear the terrifying pandemonium of shattering glass, and some of our colleagues frantically pleading for mercy. Yet we forced ourselves to remain silent lest we be detected and suffer the same horrific fate

During our hiding, we urinated and took dumps in that small space. Breathing wasn't easy, and some wretched and vomited. After several days, we couldn't take it anymore, and we left the safe-haven. The creatures, were surprised to see us suddenly appear among them, and just kept staring as we passed. It was some kind of an alien stare. Impossible to tell if it was just interest or appetite. Yet, they let us pass unharmed through the semi-dark corridors out the front door, and into the glaring sunlight of a bloated sun.

When we looked back, we saw their luminous red eyes watching us from the semi darkness. Serrated teeth swiveling from side to side in unison, and their long saber-like claws were making reaching and grasping motions like this!" Mario motioned with his hand in imitation of some kind of claw, in our direction.

"So we broke into a run..." he continued, "...and almost immediately, we heard them scampering after us. We knew that we had no chance. They were faster, they were stronger, and more numerous. Yet, they were prolonging our agony before they struck.

"Then what happened?” the tall, and exceedingly pale fellow at the bar, who had been paying undivided attention to the village-drunk's story, asked while sitting next to him at the counter.

“Then they killed and ate us. That's what happened. Of course!" Mario responded with a wry smile on his gaunt, tanned face, and a mischievous look in his beady brown eyes after a dramatically-extended pause. Then after blinking his bloodshot eyes several times, he slowly reached for the half-full glass of whiskey, gulped down the remaining portion in one swift swig, casually slid off the barroom counter stool, and sauntered out the narrow barroom door on unsteady feet, as he usually had been doing for the past twenty years.

Meanwhile, the man he had been talking to was watching him intently and caught the attention of one of the regulars.

"Were you really believing all that crap?" the regular customer, Bill Cunningham, a tall, muscular, balding man in his early fifties, and owner of the local village butcher-shop, asked the seemingly gullible fellow after having taken a seat on the barroom-stool that Mario Delvechio had just vacated.

"Well, he described it all quite vividly," the man responded softly.

"Of course he did. Heh! Heh! Of course he did! Mario describes everything he claims happened vividly. It's a sort of gift-of-gag ability-you know? We? Well, at first we fell for it hook line and sinker, just like you just did. But then, after a while, we began suspecting that he was just funning, you know, pulling our legs just for the heck of it.

Everyone at the tavern agreed effusively.

"So how did you finally discover that he wasn't being honest? Did he say something ridiculously impossible, as he did just now? You know, that he was eaten?"

"Oh, he claimed many absurd things that set our Bull-shit-detector alarms going off big time! Didn't he boys?" the obese man said turning to the other customers. In response there were grunts of agreements from everyone present.

"Some were really humdingers!" the fellow continued, after taking a long swig from his half-empty wine-bottle, and then slowly wiping perspiration from his face with a handkerchief.

"You know, like the time he told us that he was kidnapped by this humanoid Venusian who had three extra eyes his forehead. Of course we immediately tagged it as BS, and from that point on, never trusted in anything else that this compulsive liar ever said. Isn't that right boys?"

They all agreed as before.

"So that's the reason you don't trust anything he tells you now?" the tall lanky, pale fellow asked calmly.

"You're damned right, friend! We just listen to humor him. Nothing more. You know, just to hear him gabble and strut his garbage. Thinks he's being believed when he is actually the laughingstock of this whole damned village. A genuine curiosity piece of sorts. But it does help a bit with the tourism, and the barroom business, you know? People come here in droves every weekend just to hear him gabble. They have their pictures taken standing beside him as souvenirs. Three-eyed Venusians? Ha! What does he think we are? Idiots?"

"Well, he certainty did have me fooled until that last outlandish claim, of having been eaten." the tall, gaunt stranger said smiling broadly, as he slowly got off the barroom stool and removed his black, wide-brimmed, Fedora hat, suddenly exposing a large bulging third eye right smack-dab in the middle of his broad pale forehead and causing a stampede towards the entrance door while the fellow he had been conversing with urinated in his trousers before passing out.

Outside, of course, a large, lone, black wolf on a nearby snow-covered hill immediately howled at the full moon. Rumor has it that it was really Mario Delvechio.

Inspired by two twilight zone stories written by Rod Serling.

The Twilight Zone eposode: "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up" (1961)

Twilight Zone Episode: Hocus-Pocus & Frisby - which was itself inspired by and adapted from a story written by Fredrik Louis Fox.

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