by Pepper Pace
Bilal looked down at his form. His head began to swim, but he blinked in surprise. He had legs, arms, and a torso! His parents were connected to his nude body. He felt them repairing him, helping to complete him.
“Lay back,” Father-Tom said. “You are weak.”
He ignored his father, reached out with an unsteady hand, and ran it over his new skin. Human skin felt strange but in a good way.
“Why did you do this to yourself?” Mama-Baba asked.
“Not now, Baba!” Mother-Mina said.
“Then when?”
“Not now when we have worked so hard to keep him alive.”
“You are a stupid, stupid boy,” Mama-Baba said. “You nearly died.”
“Leave!” Mother-Mina shouted. “Get out, now!” Mother-Mina’s tentacles waved wildly about her head, and Baba retreated. No one wanted to make Mother-Mina into an enemy.
Mama-Baba left the room without another word.
“Sleep,” Father-Nile said. “You have more healing to do.”
“I don’t have time,” Bilal whispered. “I have to return to Earth.”
“Sleep.”
Bilal had no choice. His parents triggered his sleep and then he knew no more.
~***~
Bilal was alone in a room the next time he awoke, this time without pain. He actually felt good. He sat up slowly and noticed he was dressed in loose pants and a tunic. After swinging his feet to the edge of the platform, he studied his feet and toes. He felt a smile tug at his lips and reached up quickly to touch his mouth.
I have lips.
He laughed and marveled at the sound of his own voice. “I am Bilal Ayunkili. I am a human Centaurian hybrid. My son and I are the only two in existence.” My son and I. Bilal felt pride at those words.
He stood, and his knees nearly buckled beneath him. Walking on legs was a skill he had mastered in private, but walking with bones was a different matter.
~***~
Carmella picked at her meal listlessly. She had no appetite these days but kept eating anyway. She had to. When the food had magically disappeared, she looked at her empty plate and poked at her swollen stomach with her finger.
“Happy now?” she asked.
She used the slop bucket and then carried it outside to dump. She walked across her front porch and watched the fall leaves as they swirled around her feet. Later she would sweep. Soon it would be winter, and then what would she do? She sighed and walked down the porch stairs.
She nearly walked right up to the man standing in her front yard. She stopped in her tracks and stumbled backwards, nearly falling on her ass.
The man reached out and righted her.
“What the? Where did you come from?” Her hands flew to her mouth. Oh God, what was it? She thought he was a man, but … Carmella backed away. “What are you?”
“Please,” he said. “I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”
She threw the bucket of slop at him.
Bilal ducked, the slop flying harmlessly over his head.
Carmella stumbled up her stairs and into her home where she slammed the door shut and locked it. She backed away from the door and darted for the front window.
The man still stood in the front yard.
From a distance he looked like a man, but up close she saw that his eyes were black orbs with no whites. His skin also had a strange translucent quality. It reminded her of Dr. Manhattan from that Watchmen movie. His skin didn’t glow blue, but an undercurrent of color moved subtly from darks to reds to yellows.
The man seemed to know where she was located within the house because he looked right at the window. She ducked out of sight and peeked from behind the curtain.
He appeared to be Asian with long, sleek black hair that hung past his shoulders. He was quite tall with a toned physique and broad shoulders. He wore a white long-sleeved tunic and loose fitting pants, but she could tell that he was fit.
She knew—she had no doubt. It was that Blob, the one that kept coming back. But how? How did he make himself … human?
She took a deep breath before standing in front of the window. “What are you?”
He heard her clearly through the window though she spoke in a normal voice.
Carmella saw his lips move but was unable to hear him. She unlatched the window and opened it.
“I am Bilal Ayunkili, and I am a Centaurian, human hybrid,” he said.
She closed her eyes and swallowed. Remembering that Centaurians moved fast, she opened her eyes and found that he hadn’t budged. “Why are you here? Haven’t you done enough? Can’t you just leave me alone?”
Bilal clasped his hands in front of him. “I cannot.”
She was too tired for this confrontation. “Why did you do this to me?” She pressed her head against the windowsill and closed her eyes. “I know what you did. You raped me that night I thought I was having a nightmare. When my stomach kept getting bigger I figured it out. I’ve been pregnant before. Then I found the bullet from where I had shot at you.”
“No. There was no sex. But I did place a baby inside you.”
Hearing it made it more real and made her feel less crazy. “Why? Why would you do this?”
His skin color shifted subtly to an undercurrent of green. “Because I felt bad for you. I felt bad for your loneliness. I felt bad for your loss.”
“Really?” she snarled. “You did this for me?”
“Yes! But I had no right to do that, and I understand that. But that night when you told me to leave, I saw how much you hurt. I just thought maybe I could make your pain go away a little.”
“By impregnating me with an alien creature?”
“The sperm I used was of a man who looks like I do. He is human and my friend.” Bilal took a deep breath. “But yes, my DNA is there as well.”
Carmella’s hand tightened on the windowsill. “My baby has two fathers?”
“Yes.”
She felt sick and angry and afraid. She couldn’t find the words to tell the alien in her yard how devastating this was to her and how much she hated it for what it had done to her. This was no favor. This was no gift. This was only a monster growing in her belly.
“How much longer before it’s born? It’s not like a normal pregnancy. Everything is moving faster.” She calculated that she should only be five months along, but she was already huge.
“You are correct. A Centaurian gestation is only about thirty weeks.”
Carmella knew she was twenty-two weeks. She had two more months to carry it. She stared at the alien. Would he leave when the baby was born? He said he wanted to make sure she was okay. Would he try to take her to the ship to have the child?
“I’m not going to your ship or back to your fake Earth.”
“No, you won’t. You may remain here.” His gaze was intense. It would have rendered her a nervous wreck if she wasn’t so angry. “But I will remain here with you.”
Her body stiffened. “I don’t want you here.”
“You won’t be able to do this alone.”
“Don’t you touch me again! Do you understand me? Don’t you ever touch me!”
“I understand,” he said. “What do I call you?”
“You don’t call me anything.” She shut and locked the window.
~***~
The next morning the human did not come outside to tend to her animals. Bilal knew her routine. He had watched her often enough. After returning to her home to eat, she would then do a wide variety of chores outdoors. Sometimes she washed her laundry, sometimes she mowed her grass or took care of her garden, and sometimes she repaired fences and cleaned the barn.
It was obvious that she hadn’t taken care of her chores in several days. Bilal felt guilty for not being here. That night he slept in the barn, but sleep would not come. The smells assaulted his nose. The animal waste in the barn was in piles knee high! He had not processed smell in the same way in his old body. His belly was also becoming empty, and hunger was not a ple
asant sensation. His skin itched, and he felt cold.
Yes, humans needed more in order to keep their bodies comfortable. Luckily he had human friends and knew much about human needs.
When the sun rose, he went to the woman’s garden and ate lettuce, cucumbers, and onions. They were good, and soon he felt strong again. Being human took some getting used to. He didn’t understand the pressure building in his belly until he realized he had to urinate. Urinating was nice, though. He liked having a penis and liked the way it felt in his hands.
After finishing his business, he went back to the yard and stared at the house, locating the woman’s whereabouts easily. She was awake and in one of the lower levels. She was preparing food. Good. As long as she ate then things should progress nicely.
Bilal returned to the barn and retrieved a clean pail. He had seen the woman doing this several times and had even tried it once when she wasn’t around. Milking the cow was not an easy feat since the cow’s udders were full and she was skittish and kept stepping away. He used soothing words to coax her into stillness and soon began filling the pail with fresh warm milk.
~***~
Carmella darted from window to window in order to see what the alien was doing. He came from the barn and had done something in her garden. She closed the curtain and scrubbed her hands across her face.
She could run away—
No, stupid!
She looked at her swollen belly and peeked out of the curtain. Carmella spent most of the morning spying on the alien, and when she saw him come up on the porch, she ran to the stairs as fast as her wobbly body would allow. She could lock herself in the bunker, but he never came inside. After half an hour, she moved to the front window and carefully peeked out.
He wasn’t there.
But on the porch sat a basket of eggs, a pail of milk, and a puny green tomato.
Chapter 12
~Compromise~
Bilal was happy to see that the woman had taken his offering. When he checked, the porch was bare. He went about the daily chores the next day while she peeked out of various windows at him. He began to hope that she would invite him inside. It was cold during the day and even colder at night.
He thought of the clothes in the many department stores that he had visited over the years. Now he didn’t think he would have any problems wearing a big heavy coat. The clothes he had been given on the mother ship were simple linen pants and shirt and soft shoes. They were the normal clothing given to humans on the ship, but now they were filthy—and so was he. He washed his body a bit at the pump, but the water was cold.
That night as he huddled in the barn, he sneezed twice and swiped his forearm across his runny nose.
~***~
Carmella scrambled some of the eggs in the skillet with fresh butter she had churned that morning. There were too many eggs for one person to eat. It would be stupid to waste them when …
Her lips formed an angry line. I didn’t ask him to come here! I certainly didn’t ask to be impregnated, so he can just take his ass back to his ship!
Carmella carried her plate of eggs and a glass of milk to the window where she had set up surveillance. She settled down in a comfortable reclining chair and watched the alien as he went about the yard work. She scowled at the way he cut the wood. He was expending way too much energy! And why was he cutting the lawn in October? She craned her neck when he went behind the barn. What was he doing back there? When he returned, he was fixing his pants. Ah, so aliens pissed and shit, too.
She ambled to her slop bucket and used it. She had been opening the window and dumping it, but she really needed to get outside to use the pump to rinse it. She also needed fresh water. Carmella grabbed an empty pitcher and peeked out the window. He was shoveling animal shit. She grinned. Better him than her. She opened the door slowly and tiptoed out onto the porch. Damn leaves were building up. She had planned to sweep before he had come. She went down the stairs, keeping her eyes on him as she headed for the pump.
She figured he would hear it when she primed the pump.
He did, turning in her direction for a moment before returning to his work. Okay, so he wasn’t going to chase her down. She relaxed a bit as she filled her pitcher with cool, sweet water. She drank some and shivered at the cold in the air. It would be winter soon. Carmella went back inside with a frown on her face.
She sat in her rocker and read a book for a while then poked at her belly and felt the life inside poking back. She almost smiled, but then she remembered Micah and a sharp ache coursed through her heart. She peeked out the window but didn’t see the alien. Bilal. He said his name was Bilal. Strange because he appeared Asian. Okay, he wasn’t Asian. He was an alien living in some human’s body. Carmella frowned. No, he was an alien and a human both. Like her … her baby.
Carmella rubbed her face, went to the closet, and pulled out some quilts and blankets she rarely used. She opened the front door and placed the items on the porch. There. She’d done what any human would do for another being, even one who had helped kill everyone that she had ever loved.
~***~
Carmella checked the porch at dusk. The blankets were still there, and she didn’t see the alien. She chewed her lips and looked out the window until it was too dark to see. Then she made a cup of hot tea, hummed some long forgotten song, and went to bed.
That night she dreamed that the world was still present. She hurried to the window and saw cars driving down the street and kids playing in their yards. Erykah Badu was playing over the radio singing about seeing someone next lifetime, and when Carmella felt something nudge her belly, she looked down and saw that she was pregnant. She placed her hands on her swollen belly. Micah. Tears of joy streamed down her face. But where was Jody?
In her dream, she hurried down the stairs of the little townhouse that she and Jody had shared their first year of marriage. He was in the kitchen wearing slippers, pajamas, and a white T-shirt. He was yawning and flipping pancakes when she skidded to a stop at the kitchen door.
He raised his eyebrows, his dark hair a mop of messy curls over his head, morning stubble on his cheeks. “Mel, what are you doing out of bed? I told you I was going to make you breakfast in bed.” He came over and kissed her, and her knees went weak as tears pricked her eyes.
Her arms went around his body and she clung to him. “Jody …”
He gave her a tight hug, pulled back, and smiled at her. “Get back in bed. This is my gift to you.”
Carmella’s eyes opened and she looked around her darkened room. “No,” she gasped. “Jody?” She gripped her sheets in her fist realizing that Jody’s presence was only a precious dream. It had seemed so real …
Why couldn’t it have lasted longer?
Carmella rolled onto her side and felt tears slip from her eyes to wet her pillow.
Why did I have to live?
~***~
The next morning before using the slop bucket, Carmella hurried to her bedroom window and peered down to the porch below. The blankets had been replaced by a basket of eggs and some milk. She smiled and went to pee then hurried down the stairs and collected the items from the porch.
The alien was at the pump splashing his face and upper body. He had removed his shirt, and the water had streamed down his torso to wet his linen pants.
He looked so human … except that his skin was not the bronze color she would expect on an Asian man. It held an undercurrent of blues and grays. It was still obviously skin, but it was as if the alien was millimeters beneath the surface.
She realized that she was staring when he looked up and met her eyes.
“Thank you,” he said as he reached for one of the blankets.
She averted her eyes and worked her lips before words would come from them. “You’re welcome,” she mumbled then hurried back into the house.
Carmella paced for a few minutes before looking out the window. He had dried off with the blanket and was pulling on his shirt. Her face burned and her brow furrowed
as she stared at him. Long, black tendrils of hair ran limply over his shoulders, and his torso was very … nice. She scowled to herself as her eyes stared at his wet pants. Linen pants became translucent when they were wet, and she could see that he had no underwear …
Carmella gripped the curtains and pulled them closed.
~***~
Bilal felt too tired to do much of anything. He wrapped himself in two of the blankets and curled into a ball on the barn floor. He fell into a restless sleep. When he awoke, his body felt achy, whether from the cold, the hard floor and his unyielding body, or because he was becoming ill, he did not know.
Centaurians did not become ill in the same way that humans did. He would know what to look for if he was treating his friends. He would burrow his feelers into their bodies and locate the clusters of white blood cells for the illness and then remove them from their bodies.
Bilal still possessed his feelers, but now they were hidden in his tongue. He didn’t need to extract them to find and get rid of what ailed him because he no longer had the capability to heal himself. His human body was not built for such things, and even though he still possessed Centaurian know-how, he was unable to do it.
He would need to start a fire. Too bad he didn’t know how to do that without matches. He couldn’t make himself warm internally and he couldn’t heal himself, and he cursed himself for opting to make himself more human than Centaurian and being stuck being useless. Bilal wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and felt a pain in his stomach. Hunger. Damnit, why did he always have to become hungry? He went to the pump for water and thought about going into town for supplies.
The human would need things for a baby, and he would need things for his own comfort. He ran his hands through his hair and thought about Raj’s neat black hair. It was never greasy like his was now, and Raj never smelled the way he smelled. Raj and Lawrence had soap to cleanse their bodies, and all he had was frosty water.