Adaptation: book I

by Pepper Pace

  They sat in a café together, a regular hangout away from school and family, watching one of the big-screen televisions that constantly stayed tuned to news coverage of the hovering mother ship. It had been hanging over the Atlantic for six months, and interest mounted with each passing day.

  “I’m going to Atlantic City after graduation.”

  Carmella’s head turned in his direction.

  “Well, there are all these parties going on up and down the coast—”

  “Parties?” she interrupted. “You don’t even do parties here. You’re going all the way to Atlantic City to party?”

  “No. I mean, not for the partying. I want to go to show support to the aliens. We just want to welcome them.”

  Carmella rolled her eyes. “If this was a movie, the aliens would eat you supporters first!”

  Jody drummed his fingertips along the table nervously. “I was going to … um.” He cleared his throat and glanced away. “I was going to ask you to come.” His eyes darted to hers quickly, his face bright red. “I know you don’t like the idea of aliens, but, well, I thought it would be fun.”

  Carmella stared at him and felt new emotions well up inside of her. Soon school would be out, and they would go their separate ways. His trip to Atlantic City was testament to that. Beyond that was the knowledge he wanted to be where the aliens were at the same time she was desperately afraid of them. She wasn’t excited about their arrival or the sharing of knowledge. She felt they meant harm to them, and she didn’t want Jody anywhere near them.

  “Don’t go, Jody.” She reached out and grasped his hand on the tabletop. “If you stay here …” She swallowed, leaned forward, and placed her lips on his for the first time. When she pulled back, his eyes were glazed.

  He gripped her hand gently in his. “Okay.”

  Carmella and Jody’s love bloomed in a new age where the speculation of aliens and world domination and doomsday prevailed. And still they found joy in their budding romance amid the chaos and fear that formed a cocoon of security around them.

  The doors of the mother ship opened one day when Carmella’s belly was full and stretched with their baby. Strange signposts appeared all over the world in the most desolate tribal villages in the deepest rainforest to Trafalgar Square in London and Takeshita Street in Japan. No one saw them go up, and even cameras didn’t capture the event, which helped to fuel the rumors of world government conspiracies. Later, the world would know of an international government conspiracy, but by then it was too late and the trials and executions for crimes against mankind were too little too late. By the time there were repercussions, Jody and Micah were buried for years, and Carmella no longer cared.

  The signposts appeared with security cameras aimed at them and concealed by structures manned by government officials. They couldn’t be removed or destroyed. A year later, the Blobs began to communicate from inside the mother ship.

  But even that was a lie.

  They had been communicating all along.

  The Blobs blew the lid on the subterfuge that had been pulled by world leaders, and this led to mistrust that would finally destroy society.

  Carmella felt it was their plan all along.

  At first, the communications were almost childlike in their simplicity: “We are friends. We come from far away. We mean you no harm. We want to learn and to teach. We want to meet you.”

  Scientists spent a great deal of time interpreting messages and questions, but ultimately there was nothing of importance that the visitors ever communicated.

  Or at least nothing that was revealed to the masses.

  Several months after the posts appeared and three years after the arrival of the mother ship, the aliens finally revealed themselves. They were introduced with worldwide broadcasts. The first sight of them caused another wave of mass suicides although the Blobs made assurances to the public that they were not here to fulfill a prophecy or to take any humans with them.

  Micah was only a baby, and Carmella had put him to sleep before the broadcast. She and Jody had sat on their secondhand couch and watched the broadcast—he in excitement, she with trepidation. The aliens looked like gray Blobs of slimy flesh. Their bodies had no legs, arms, or head. They had protrusions that could elongate and were called sensors, but they looked like tentacles. When not in use, these tentacles retreated into their bodies, the only indication of their existence a slight swollen area. They had eyes, but they were concealed beneath their skin. They had a disgusting ability to elongate like an engorged slug, and if they chose they could form appendages that looked like arms and legs. They moved like inchworms or slugs, but without the use of slime, and they could move fast when they wanted to.

  There was no discernable skeleton, and the difference in gender was based on the difference in their tentacles. The males had probes that could burrow into the female. The probes were not purely sex organs but also their way of communicating.

  Then the purpose of the signposts became apparent—connecting to it was the way they communicated with their mother ship.

  ~***~

  Carmella knew that the Blob was aware she’d seen it. They could move fast, but she was closer to the house. She dropped the milk pail and darted across the yard with her heart thumping in her chest, afraid that it would be right at her heals with tentacles reaching for her neck. She bounded up the stairs and with a squeak she slammed the door and secured the locks.

  Locks? What good were they when there were windows all throughout the house? She grabbed one of the rifles. She kept one loaded beside each door in case something chased her into her house. She was breathing hard when she eased toward the front window and moved the curtain back to look into her yard. She was sure the thing had followed her up onto her porch, but her porch was empty. She tried to see through the trees edging her yard but couldn’t make out the form of the Blob. She shook her head. Could she have imagined it? No. She might one day lose her mind from solitude, but she wasn’t there yet. She’d seen it standing behind the big tree.

  How she wished for Wolf because she couldn’t stand the idea that there was nothing but her and it. Carmella gnawed her bottom lip, not feeling the skin crack and not recognizing the salty taste of her blood. She hurried to the kitchen, checked the windows, and made sure the door was locked. Then she grabbed cartridges for the rifle.

  She was not going to be a prisoner in her own house. And if that thing wasn’t after her, it meant it was going off to rat out her location. She had to go after it and kill it before it could get to one of the signposts.

  Despite her decision to do this, she didn’t feel fearless and brave. She was terrified. But long ago she’d had to face unpleasant things because there was no one else she could call on to fight her battles for her. She had no one else to turn to. She’d had to enter darkened stores and face the corpses of the long dead.

  And she had survived until now.

  Before she could lose her nerve, she pulled back the front door and stood in the entrance scanning the yard. She knew where the nearest signpost was located in the middle of a field several miles away.

  Her eyes tried to take in everything at once as she hurried to her motorcycle. She had long since replaced the one she had when she was with Maggie. This was a comfortable, well-used Harley, and while there were probably bikes better suited for her, the Harley was what she wanted.

  With her rifle strapped across her back, she threw her leg over the bike and heard the unmistakable sound of shuffling. Instinct told her to duck, even if it meant that she and the bike would hit the ground—and she did.

  But so did the monstrous Blob.

  It was on her, its elongated tentacles circling one leg, and she was trapped by the heavy motorcycle. With a scream she scrambled back and kicked with all of her might.

  It was disgusting the way her foot sank into its flesh. It was almost like kicking Silly Putty with a tough yet pliable outer skin. If she hurt it she couldn’t tell. Its tentacles kept reaching. Its mot
tled skin and black disc like eyes that appeared beneath its translucent skin revolted her.

  She kicked and scrambled as several more tentacles appeared, all grabbing for her.

  “Stop.”

  She heard its distinct command-request—she didn’t care which. She had heard them speak on television broadcasts and later when they gathered the humans for transport to Earth 2. They spoke with voices that reminded her of synthesized sounds. Since they had no need of voice boxes, they communicated through a complex system of sensors. They recognized the modality of their explanation, but it was so far removed from how humans interacted that it always sounded vague.

  Blobs had no skeleton, vocal cords, or ears and yet they could speak and hear.

  They also had stingers.

  They tried to explain that the stingers were their natural defense, like a human forming a fist. But Carmella didn’t buy that. She knew their stingers carried poison that could kill. Blobs said they didn’t kill with them. “It renders the victim immobile,” they said, but that was another lie …

  The Blob’s stinger appeared, and Carmella knew this moment would mark the end of her life. The Harley had impaired its movements, but now both of them had cleared it. She remembered the rifle strapped to her back, and with a fluid motion that would have impressed Clint Eastwood, she pulled it forward and fired pointblank into the “face” of the beast.

  The Blob made an ungodly sound and recoiled into a ball the same time she saw the bullet exit the Blob in a spray of brackish dark fluid. All of its sensor tentacles drew back into the mass of its body.

  Carmella scrambled to her feet and barely registered the quivering mass as she turned to run. But then she stopped. She had to end this …

  She turned in time to see it slithering away, this time leaving a trail of that disgusting dark fluid in its wake. Swallowing back her disgust, Carmella shot again and again with the rapid-fire rifle.

  The Blob emanated a distressed sound before curling into a tighter ball and remaining motionless.

  Carmella backed away, panting and shaking until she almost tripped on the porch stairs. Was it dead? She was afraid to take her eyes from it, but she had fired at it about eight times and it didn’t flinch. Her eyes darted to the barn. Kerosene!

  She stared at the unmoving Blob and darted to the barn, giving the Blob a wide berth. Her mind pictured it reaching out with its stinger for her, but it didn’t move. Adrenaline caused her to sprint the distance without tiring. She grabbed two partially full kerosene lamps and ran back to her farmhouse. A stitch had begun to build in her side, but she didn’t slow. Her eyes scanned the yard, but even before she reached the farmhouse she saw that it was empty.

  The Blob was gone.

  Chapter 4

  ~Micah~

  All that remained was the ink-like fluid that had soaked into the ground, a scattering of bullets, and a trail that headed back into the woods. Carmella reached for the bike and noticed that one of the bullets had punctured the gas tank.

  “No no no!” she screamed. She couldn’t drive the damned truck into the woods! Why didn’t she have two motorcycles? Carmella forgot about the stitch in her side. She ran as fast as she could, following the Blob’s bloody trail.

  How could it move so fast after being shot eight times? She knew its nervous system was not localized in one spot but spread out within a matrix of that inky fluid, but eight shots should have done it in. Unless she hit its brain or heart, it probably would be able heal itself. Her lips formed a grim, yet determined line.

  Let’s see if this bitch can survive being burned.

  In her haste, Carmella didn’t consider other dangers that might be awaiting her in the woods. She carried two of the kerosene lamps in one hand and a nine-millimeter in the other. The other gun was in her waistband for easy access. Her eyes were mainly focused on the black trail. It had to deplete itself at some point. It was a huge Blob, but eventually it would have to run out of that fluid.

  She knew it was heading for the signpost and began jogging in that direction, her eyes still on the alien’s trail. The chase made her remember the reason for her hatred, the reason that she was alone, and the reason that the world was now devoid of humanity. Now the chase was less about making sure that it didn’t bring back others but about dishing out some payback. Just a little bit, on behalf of all mankind.

  “I’m gonna kill you,” she muttered. “Kill you!”

  An unwelcomed memory caused her eyes to water. Micah’s laughter. God, it was so crystal clear, as if it was twenty years earlier and her toddling baby boy was right there. She almost stumbled to a stop at the idea of him, a memory that she did not relish. A memory of Jody was one thing but not Micah.

  Thinking about her baby hurt, even twenty years later.

  ~***~

  Micah was born nearly two weeks overdue. He was a big pink baby with a head full of ink black hair. She cradled him in her arms in surprise because he was white. How did she have a white baby when she was nut brown? I mean, yeah Jody was white, but …

  Jody kissed his son’s forehead and then kissed her, a look of awe on his face. “Is … is he going to turn brown?”

  She grinned in relief. Yeah, okay so she wasn’t the only one wondering. When Mama came into the room to meet her first grandchild, she examined the baby’s ears, his little nails and scrotum, and pronounced that he was white. She predicted that he might get toasty if he played in the sun, but that was it. For a moment an unpleasant thought flashed through Carmella’s mind—if he doesn’t look black, will he accept the fact that his mother is? Will he wish that he had a white mother? Will he accept his multiracial heritage?

  When she kissed his silky curls, nuzzled his cheek with hers, and felt his responding yawn, those thoughts disappeared and never returned. Her focus was on loving her baby, and whether he would have ever had those feelings about his heritage would never be known.

  He only lived to be two.

  Jody was one of those fathers who happily wore a baby sling or pushed the baby carriage whenever they went out. He talked to Micah, he sang and told stories to his son, and he showered love on his new family.

  “We should go to New Foundland.”

  Carmella’s head had whipped around. “What?”

  She likened it to a zoo, where aliens—or Centaurians, thusly named because their origins were from the Alpha Centauri star system—could interact with the humans in a controlled environment.

  Jody always frowned at any derogatory comments made against the aliens. He completely believed the Centaurians would usher mankind into a new age of technology. He didn’t like the term “Blob” and likened it to the ‘N-word’, which he also wouldn’t dream of using.

  “Why do you think we should go there?”

  Jody had matured and didn’t shy away from conversations that might create a difference of opinion. “I want Micah to grow up knowing that the Centaurians are a part of his life. As he gets older, he might want to visit the starship. Hell, I want to visit the starship.”

  “God, you nerdy guys,” she had muttered. “I don’t want my baby anywhere near those aliens. They are ugly, and I don’t trust them.”

  Jody smiled. “They aren’t ugly. There is beauty in the Centaurians, just as there is beauty in sea creatures.” He rubbed her arms.

  She tried to roll her eyes but found herself listening to his impassioned beliefs.

  “Honey, they are the first step in creating a new existence of star travel. With their technological know-how, we can leave this galaxy and explore new ones. We will learn what the Centaurians have seen. This is so exciting!” He calmed when he saw that she seemed less than thrilled. “And it’s scary, yes I admit that, but they have made no threats against us. Mankind needs this, Mel. We need to move into the future.”

  She knew she couldn’t continue pushing her fear off on him, so she reluctantly relented and agreed to visit New Foundland. They planned for the trip the way people made plans for Disneyworld. It woul
d cost them a lot, but Jody’s excitement couldn’t be ignored. She wouldn’t back out if it was this important to him.

  Each continent had several places similar to New Foundland where humans could visit the aliens and see them up close. She’d seen them on television many times. A Blob had even been in an action movie. They were a part of pop culture. Songs and stories were written about them, and late night TV hosts referenced them often in their monologues.

  Carmella wasn’t alone in her distrust. There were many hate groups formed whose purpose was to rid the world of the alien menace. Terrorists groups rose up attempting to close down visitation centers. The world was a mess because of the alien visits.

  But six months after she relented, the family visited the aliens for the first time.

  She remembered Micah’s pudgy fingers pointing at the display area beneath them where two Centaurians roamed. “Bubbie!” he yelled in excitement.

  Jody had bought him a Centaurian stuffed animal so that he would feel comfortable at the sight of them. It was fondly named Bubbie. Carmella watched the excitement on her son’s face with trepidation. She was afraid, and maybe it was strange to be. Looking at Jody, all she saw was excitement, and it was mirrored in the faces of the others who had waited hours for their turn to be ushered through the observation area.

  The Blobs were with human guards. Yes, the guards were armed, but you couldn’t see the weapons. That day there were two Blobs, and they were in a green “natural” environment where they moved around easily. They didn’t ignore the throngs of humans and often waved tentacles or approached the borders of their “display” area. There was no glass barrier or cages, but you couldn’t move easily from the observation deck down to the display environment. If you did, you would fall into a moat that would surely cause shattered limbs.