The Bodyguard: an alien romance

by Tina Proffitt

  It's funny. I feel closer to my mother than I ever have in my sixteen years on Earth. I’m scared to death, I have no idea where she is, and I wish she was here more than anything in the world.

  I haven't thought about my mother's lab since I got home. It's where she keeps all of her rescues from work, the ones she was supposed to send to be disposed of. All of the cats have physical abnormalities of some kind or another, missing ears, eyes, limbs. At one time, she had a chimpanzee, but when her assistant got married and moved away, she had to give it up. She had a couple of chickens but had to give them up eventually. She also had a dog for a while, but again, when her assistant left, she had to give it up too. The only animals that don't seem to mind her long working hours are cats and mice. The cats she keeps because she loves them. The rest she keeps because she studies them. Now that she's down to mice, and according to her, we share most of our DNA with them, she says she's got the best research subjects.

  I used to give her such a hard time for bringing the animals home.

  “We officially live in a zoo,” I said.

  “Don't worry, I would never charge you admission to come visit these guys.” My mother smiled like she always does when she's teasing me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Why can't I have a normal life like Anna's?”

  “Normal is relative, dear.”

  “I know. I just wish my normal was closer to everyone else's.”

  Now, I look down at George, who's nestled against my chest, and I can understand why she brought them home.

  It's just a short walk downstairs to her lab. As I've pointed out numerous times to my mother, the basement would have made a great family room or game room. But in her house, it's part animal hospital, part habitat.

  I check the automatic feeders in front of the enclosures. Everything seems to be working just fine. Their gravity fed water bowls that are attached to the house's plumbing are full too.

  All the animals are particularly calm, none of them stirring even when the motion sensing lights turn on. One particular tabby cat rubs its face against the cage door. But she's watching George not me. Her soft eyes say she misses being with other cats.

  Back here, there are bars separating animals and humans, but on the other side of the enclosures, there is a natural habitat that tunnels into the back yard to a screened-in habitat for each of them to get sunlight and do their business.

  I stick my hand through the narrow bars to touch the cat. I know there is nothing really wrong with any of these animals. I mean nothing contagious. My mother never brought home the ones displaying unusual symptoms she couldn't identify.

  All I know is, they all have identical scars on the tops of their heads.

  I let the cat sniff George.

  One of her ears is missing, and she walks with a slight limp, but other than that, she seems intent on connecting with George. George doesn't seem to mind either. He squirms in my arms to reach out to her.

  I put their faces closer together so they can sniff each other. When that doesn't seem to be enough, I open the cage door and let George make the decision of whether or not to enter the enclosure.

  He does, and the tabby cat starts to groom him right away, as if she's found one of her long lost children. Then the two of them head straight for the screened porch. The door flaps behind them.

  I wait just in case George changes his mind and wants me to be there for him instead of joining one of his own kind. Minutes tick by on the wall clock, but he doesn't come back.

  I think about how I found George, and what Van said about George's mother having to abandon him because she couldn't feed him anymore. My heart aches. George has found a real mother who wants to adopt him.

  “I'll be back to check on you, George,” I say to the empty space.

  Was this how my mother felt when she and my dad dropped me off at Hawthorne for the first time back when I was ten?

  Suddenly, it's too quiet here. I can hear my own heart beating.

  I head back up the stairs, empty-handed, empty-hearted.

  Where is Van? Is he still out there somewhere? Or did he finally give up on me too?

  It's completely dark outside. I start to get that antsy feeling like a character in one of those horror movies where the girl's at home alone and someone is outside watching her. First, I go to each of the doors downstairs and make sure they're locked. Then I move on to the window locks. They always forget to check windows in horror movies.

  What my mother said on the tape, We are as safe as we know how to make ourselves, alarm systems, surveillance cameras, police protection, reminds me of something else I'd forgotten. We have surveillance cameras in our house. The major general put them in after he and my mother got married. That means there's video footage I can look at. Maybe I can see what my parents were doing before they left and get a clue as to where they might have gone.

  I find the set-up in the spare room above the garage. Like my mother's zoo in the basement, this room would've made a great game room. But instead, it's headquarters for the M.G.'s surveillance.

  The recording on the screen is in black and white but the picture is clear. The major general bought the good kind of resolution cameras. The last thing that it recorded was my mom in front of her dresser mirror. This was recorded today, this morning at 7:23. I know my stepfather wasn't at home because anytime there's movement in front of any of the other cameras simultaneously, the screen splits and you can view both at the same time. The camera hangs in the corner of their room so that it films the door. The bathroom door and the bed aren't in the shot. She is standing with her back to the camera, probably putting on makeup, getting ready for work. I can see her reflection in the dresser mirror.

  Sometimes I forget how beautiful she is. People tell me all the time that I look just like her, but I don't really see it. We're the same height. We wear the same shoe size. She's always borrowing my Converse when I come home. But my nose is different. And she has a crease between her eyebrows that I guess comes from being a research scientist.

  I've always wondered why I don't look at all like my real dad.

  She dabs at her lipstick with the tip of her middle finger then throws her phone and reading glasses into her purse. That's the last thing she does before she heads out the door. She was definitely heading for work.

  There is more film from the kitchen camera. She makes herself a cup of tea because she says coffee is too stimulating and leads to crashes later in the day. Sixteen-year-olds can crash without the aid of caffeine, so I'm not too sure about her theory. But she's usually right about everything else. She disappears out the kitchen door, then the shot switches to one of the exterior cameras. Her Mercedes pulls out of the garage. And that should be the end of the film until I show up this afternoon, but it isn't. The camera switches to inside my mother's bedroom. And what I see there makes my insides turn to ice.

  Forget little green men—this isn't a man at all. It's something I’ve never seen before, but I’ve heard about. And it's barely there for a second before it disappears. Then the camera switches to an exterior of the side of the house on the driveway. Standing there on the red brick pavers, watching my mother's 1979 Mercedes station wagon leave, is this thing, a goblin, or whatever. It's got grayish, bluish skin, but it doesn't seem scary. It's actually kind of innocent-looking, like Dobby or Sméagol. And it's the same critter I saw in her room. And it starts to shuffle off in the same direction as her car, like it's actually going to follow her to work. Then before I can blink, it disappears into thin air.

  Chapter 6

  ∞

  They're coming for me. I know it.

  I also know it's futile, but I frantically check to see if anyone's answered my texts even though my phone's been completely silent.

  Why didn't I get Van's phone number before I left? I could call him.

  I never thought I would actually need a...bodyguard, a ridiculous thought until now. But what I wouldn't give to have the safety of another person with me.


  I curl into a ball on my side and try to forget the image of what I saw. It's gone now, whatever it is.

  It's late. I'm trying to fall sleep in my bed, but the muscles in my legs and arms keep clenching and making my whole body convulse. I know it's the adrenaline in my system, but knowing that doesn't make it any less frightening.

  What my mother said on the tape keeps replaying in my mind over and over.

  I was in my bed alone. I was sixteen. I had just turned out the light. I’d been reading. I hadn't even fallen asleep yet. I remember seeing a bright light outside my window.

  This is not a bed I'm used to anymore. For the first ten years of my life, it was mine, and I loved it. Now my dorm room bed is more comfortable, more familiar anyway. For a room I only spend summers in nowadays, you'd think this one would smell musty or that it would be dusty, even on the lampshades. But I guess that there isn't is proof of how often my mother thinks of me, that she would have the maid dust in here instead of just shutting the door. If I were her, that's what I would do.

  I'm sure whenever she looks at me she must see my dad. The older I get, the more obvious it must be to everyone that my stepfather isn't my real father. And that can't be something my mother wants to be reminded of. Sometimes I wonder if that's why she keeps me at Hawthorne Academy, so she won't have to think about my dad.

  My room stays the same from year to year. I take my Christmas presents, usually a new phone, clothes, new laptop, and a pair of boots back to school with me, so nothing ever changes here. The same circular area rug sits in the middle of my room, the pink curtains hang on the window, the blue comforter covers my bed to match the canvas of The Starry Night hanging on the wall, and my desk is pretty much empty except for a lamp with pink daises on the shade to match the curtains. I thought about getting a print of The Madonna with Saint Giovannino, the one with the UFO hovering in the background, but it might frighten my real dad, and anyhow the sky in Van Gogh's painting reminds me of how much I love to look at the stars. It's still a little girl's room in a lot of ways, and right now, the shadows falling across the wood floor from the hallway make me pull the covers up over my ears the way I did when I was small and frightened.

  I never realized until now how much I'm used to the constant low hum of voices and doors opening and closing back at school to get me to sleep. Even the sound of the heat coming through the vents is different here, quieter. I can hear every creak of every branch as the wind moves in the trees outside, and it's unnerving.

  Why is it that when bad things happen to people I love, my first thought is, what if that happens to me too?

  Just last year, when my cousin got cervical cancer, for months, I was absolutely sure I would get it too.

  I don't know the answer to why, but now that I know that my mother was abducted, I'm sure that I'm going to be abducted too.

  I know I’m not going to be able to sleep. I shove my covers off. I have to check my laptop. Maybe there's something I learned from Van's Jedi mind trick that I can use to understand the signals I heard from the Space-Y satellite.

  I’m so glad now that I’ve taken coding classes every year since I started at Hawthorne. The code is binary, ones and zeroes. According to my mother, aliens speak at 11 kilohertz. I tune the frequency to exactly that. After only a few minutes, I start to hear something. It sounds like chatter at first, but as I listen, it becomes clearer. Whoever they are, they're using binary code. And thanks to Van's math lessons, I can decipher the message quickly. My hands shake as I write. The words sound like broken English, but they are definitely talking about peace and promise of friendship to come. The final message reads, “Earth not ready. Contact attempts will continue. Look to the sky.”

  This is confirmation of the existence of life on other planets in other solar systems. I can't believe what I just discovered! I wish there was someone around for me to tell. But I’m alone.

  I shake even harder now. I can't breathe for a minute. Then I realize that whoever sent this message can't mean that they want to hurt me. Not all aliens are the same. I know that. Some are good, just like people. These have to be friendly.

  I wait. I sit in the silence. I don't know what to do.

  I pop on my headphones so that at least I'll have music to focus on instead of the insanity that has turned my world upside down. I listen to my favorite angst-filled playlist instead of imagining what's just outside my window or right outside my bedroom door in the hall. I know there's a surveillance camera out there pointed at my door. So whoever it is that takes me aboard their space ship at least will be identified later by whoever finds the tapes, that is if they take me that way.

  My eyes pop open. I don't know how long I've been lying in bed or just what it was that woke me up. All I know is that my headphones are off and my heart is racing so there's no hope of me going back to sleep anytime soon.

  According to my phone it's 11:41.

  I pull back the edge of the curtain. It's pitch black outside. That's when I hear a rustling sound coming from downstairs.

  I freeze.

  They've finally come for me.

  I know I said I wanted to believe, but now that they're here, I don't.

  The sound from downstairs stops. My brain scrambles to identify it. I can't explain it to myself. Of all the abduction stories I've heard or read about, the victims have no opportunity to escape. They're asleep one minute and being taken the next. That thought gives me a modicum of hope, so I latch onto it. The sound could be one of the animals. My mother once had a Jack Russell Terrier who could open the latch on his enclosure, but he's been dead for years. None of the animals down there now seem like escape artists to me.

  As much as I don't want to, I have to go downstairs to see what made the sound. I take a deep breath and swing my legs out of bed. My bare feet find my fuzzy pink slippers. The fleece pajamas I'm wearing zap and snap so much that I can see the static as I get out from under the covers.

  Is this what Armageddon is like, never sleeping, never dropping your guard for a second because you never know when somebody or something could be coming to get you?

  The wooden stairs wind from the end of the hallway to the foyer. As I reach the middle of the staircase, for a second, I can see into the kitchen just as the refrigerator door opens.

  Someone is down there scrounging around in my food!

  Then I realize this can't be an alien abduction. I've never heard of an alien eating out of the fridge. This is a human being looking for a place to stay in what they assume is an abandoned house. But since all of the houses in the neighborhood are empty like mine, why did they choose this one?

  I tiptoe back to my room and snag my pepper spray from my bag. There's an uninvited person in my house, and I have to get them out, and this is the only way I know of doing it.

  As I reach the last three steps to the foyer, the light from the front porch sconces slants in through the side panels of the front door and onto the foyer table. There's a metal statue of a man on horseback who sits there next to a vase of fresh flowers. For a second I consider whether to pick it up. I don't want to kill whoever's down there. I just want them to leave, but I need to be able to defend myself if they don't want to. I pick it up. It's not big enough to do permanent damage, I think, just knock them out until the police get here—if the police get here.

  My hands shake as I hold the horseman against my chest. I slip my pepper spray into the pocket of my pajama pants. Only a few more steps to the kitchen. I can see the refrigerator door is still open. In the light just before it closes, I see that the invader is not a vagrant, and it's definitely not a goblin.

  Chapter 7

  ∞

  “Van!” I shout his name and run to him.

  I drop my make-shift weapon on the counter and practically jump on him.

  “Rasa, you were not going to hit me with that, were you?”

  He remembered the nickname he gave me. I’m so happy to see a familiar face, especially a friendly one
, that I wrap my arms around his neck and press myself against him. I hold onto him that way for several seconds before I realize that he's not hugging me back. He just stands there stiff.

  Then I remember that I’m in my pajamas, not wearing a bra underneath. I let go of him and stumble backwards. My head swims for a second, and I close my eyes against the swaying image of Van standing before me. When I open my eyes again, he's looking at me.

  “Now that you know the truth,” he says, taking a step towards me, not a menacing one, but urgent still, “I can tell you where I come from.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I hear what you hear. I am one of the watchers.” Van takes a step closer, and my heart starts to beat triple time. Somehow I think he's about to kiss me. “Your father hired me to protect you.”

  “The major general knows about the goblin?” My voice sounds breathy.

  “Special military personnel, like your stepfather, keep their existence a secret.”

  I hear what he's saying, but the words sound funny, like I’m in a tunnel. “Are they going to invade Earth?” I murmur, but I can barely keep my head up.

  “If their plan was to attack and take over, it would have already happened.”

  “How do we know they haven't already?” I whisper.

  Van chuckles softly and his arms slide around my waist. “Come with me, rasa.”

  I feel the vibrations of his deep voice against my chest, making me feel deliciously safe. He pulls our bodies together until our hips meet. Then his hands leave my waist and go into my hair. It spills around my shoulders, and with his fingers, he pushes it away from my face. His palms cup my cheeks.

  I hold my breath.

  My eyes don't leave his because I need something steady to hold me in place. My insides feel alive for the first time. He's the only person to ever make me feel this way, like electricity is zapping my entire body, and all from just his touch.

  His head lowers and his hands on my jaw bring my face up to meet his. We're close enough that I can feel his warm breath on my lips. It's sweet like whipped cream on top of a latte. I lean in closer not looking away because his eyes compel me.