Captive by the Fog

by Laura Hardgrave

  She dug her hand into my hair again and groaned a long, luscious growl. “Oh, God, Sam. Guys never know the trick about doing this more than once.”

  I grinned at her above a dark nipple as I fell into a rhythm that sent her screams up through the sunroof twice more.

  Chapter 21

  I awoke the next morning to Kisana staring into my eyes, a giant grin plastered on her face. My head was nestled in between her bare breasts. I lifted it up just enough to lazily kiss a nipple.

  “Mind if I stay here a while?” I asked. “I kinda don’t wanna move. Ever.”

  “Morning, handsome.” She brushed aside a loose strand of my morning-crazed hair.

  “Handsome, eh? I like the sound of that.” I tossed her a bashful grin.

  “No one call you that before?”

  I shook my head. My grin widened when her breasts wobbled slightly at the motion. “I could get used to being called that.”

  “Well, good. You were amazing yesterday, by the way. And last night…” Her face flushed.

  “You were pretty good yourself.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed. “Yeah, right. I barely knew where to uh, go, let alone what to do.” The flush hue on her face deepened.

  “Really. You did great. And might I admit to you, I haven’t been with many women.”

  “Seriously?” Kisana cocked her head in my direction, raising an eyebrow. “I had you pegged for a total lady-killer.”

  I laughed. “There’ve only been two others besides you. The most recent was the result of my first disastrous venture into a lesbian bar. The other was back in high school.” I grimaced at the reminder of my first time with Jamie. “Remember when I said I had a bad habit of falling in love with straight girls? I wasn’t exaggerating.”

  She ran her hands through my hair. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah…twice.” I grimaced again. “Once in college, with my boss. That went over well.”

  “I imagine so,” she laughed. “And the second?”

  “A girl I met at a book club I belonged to a couple years ago. I thought for sure she was gay. I asked her out, and she ran for the hills. Turns out my gaydar sucks ass.”

  “It didn’t go off with me at all either, did it?”

  I shook my head, smiling. “No ma’am. I thought for sure you were straight. Naomi kept telling me to ask you, but I kept saying, ‘Nah, she’s straight!’”

  Kisana grinned down at me. “When I was a little kid I was always keeping secrets. I guess I’m pretty good at it still.”

  I returned the grin and raised my head to kiss her lips. As our lips met, soft beams of morning sunlight poked their way through a large cloud overhead.

  As our lips parted, a commotion sounded from nearby. Muffled voices. “What’s that?” I asked.

  Kisana shrugged, sitting up.

  I gave her nipple one last lick and stood up, sticking my head outside the tent.

  “Why the hell did you wait until now to speak to us?” a voice yelled. David. I swallowed hard, and turned to face Kisana.

  “The aliens finally got back with him?” she asked.

  “Sounds like it.” I started fully unzipping the tent.

  “Um, Sam.”

  I glanced back at her.

  “Clothes might be good.” She smiled. “Not that I’m complaining. I kinda like you naked.”

  I felt my face redden. “Let’s get dressed and join everyone.”

  Moments later, Kisana and I stood behind the ring of people gathered around the intercom box. David stood at the center of the ring, his features stony.

  “We thought it best to simply ob-serve,” the voice from the box answered.

  David’s eyes darkened. A crimson hue began to creep over his cheeks and forehead. Despair in its primal form. “Excuse me?” he said. “You wanted to observe? I’m suffering. I’m in pain. Sam’s confused as hell, and you wish to observe? Are we a fucking TV channel?” His voice cracked. “You know what? Forget it. Just tell me where my family is.”

  The voice seemed to hesitate. “I will not answer about these dreams you speak of. But your family has not sur-vived. You are correct on this matter.”

  David slammed a fist into the wall. The sound resonated through the gym. We held our breaths in unison, as if anticipating a tidal wave.

  A second slam echoed out. Naomi stepped forward, glaring up at the intercom. “What the—? When did this happen?”

  “Recently.”

  “So why make this man wait, in anguish? You’re not human, but surely you can see the sense in not holding back news like this. At least tell us the details.”

  Minutes ticked by, and the box didn’t offer a response in any form. David pounded the wall again, providing one.

  I ran toward him, and Julie’s eyes met mine from Marge’s desperate grasp that held the girl back. I squeezed David’s sweat-covered shoulders. He flinched at my touch.

  Naomi held a shaking hand to her forehead, continuing. “So, you’re killing people out there, then. We have no choice but to assume this. You lied to us. When’s our time coming?”

  Marge gasped. The group began to murmur.

  “If it’s the truth, no sense in beating around it,” Naomi said. She stared up at the intercom box, daring the voice to deliver an answer.

  The murmurs slid into resounding silence. David shouldered away from my hands and slammed the wall again, throwing his entire weight into the aged stucco. When he moved his hand away from the wall, it shook. He stared at it.

  “I cannot answer that,” the voice said. “You are best to re-main calm.” A click sounded, the voice leaving us to our own trembling images of San Francisco’s destruction.

  David’s shaking palm clenched into a fist again. In one swift motion, he stormed to the pantry. He shoved everything off the benches that served as our tables and counters and flipped over the utensil box. Spoons, forks, measuring cups, and knives rattled across the gym floor. I watched him, dumbfounded.

  Naomi heaved a sigh, attempting to gather herself. “What the hell are you doing? I hope you plan on cleaning that up.”

  He refused to look at us. Diving to his knees, he tossed handfuls of cutlery across the room, rummaging through the mess that remained.

  I stared at a pile of spoons, searching for words I could possibly come up with to comfort him. The flames inside the dream from two nights ago reached into my brain again, reminding me that I was the reason David had tossed away any shred of hope burrowed inside his chest.

  A spatula skidded past my gaze. David sprinted toward it, adding it to a pile of utensils he was collecting.

  “What are you doing?” Naomi insisted. “Do I need to ask for lockboxes for the cutlery?”

  “Daddy!” Julie shrieked. “You’re scaring us!”

  I glanced at the group of exhausted faces. Julie was right. Every face was drawn tight, confused. Terrified.

  David continued his mission. Satisfied with his collection of kitchen accessories, he stomped past us, averting our worried eyes. His strides fierce, he entered the outdoor corridor, grabbing Naomi’s garden trowel along the way.

  Naomi and I shared a desperate glance as Marge attempted to quiet Julie, who had broken down into tears. We followed David.

  Kisana placed her hand in mine as we made our way outside. I gave it a squeeze, but deep inside of me, the hand around hers seemed weak, trembling. We stepped out into the shinning sunlight. I took a deep breath. A part of me already knew what was going through David’s mind.

  He was on his hands and knees in front of our decrepit tree, flinging small handfuls of dirt behind him. We’d had little success in our attempt to bring the tree back to life. The soil wasn’t as caked as it once was, and the first few trowelfuls came easy.

  Naomi ran up to him, shouting. “David, dammit. What the hell are you doing? Do you think you’ll actually be able to dig to the other side?”

  He growled at her in response as another chunk of dirt made its way to our fee
t.

  She walked around him and knelt in front of his face, where he was forced to hear her. He bent his head stubbornly toward the base of the tree. “No, God dammit! You’re not blowing up on us. Listen to me! Your girl needs you. Stop this nonsense. No good will come of it.”

  David stopped shoveling for a moment, the trowel frozen in midair. “Take care of her, please,” he growled, still refusing to face her. “She can’t see me like this.”

  “Well, then stop.”

  “I can’t. Please. Just go.”

  Julie’s cries echoed from inside the gym. Naomi fitfully looked over to the entrance. “God dammit.” She got back to her feet and tossed him another frantic glance. Her face was bright with the sheen of sweat. “I wish I never brought that goddamn trowel here.”

  She stormed back inside to help Marge with Julie. I gave Kisana’s hand another squeeze, signaling to her that I needed to speak with David alone. She nodded and made her way to my makeshift fence, grabbing Simon along the way, who had surfaced from all the ruckus.

  I made my way toward David, still unsure of what to say to him. I sat down in the dirt quietly, waiting for him to speak. He continued slamming the trowel into the ground.

  The sun shone down on the sparkles of mica and quartz within the tiny dirt patch. I rolled a granular pebble between two fingers. Julie’s cries quieted, and the group behind David began to disperse.

  I started building a little pile of dirt beneath my fingertips. It looked kind of like a destroyed sand castle, defeated by the tide’s onslaught then left out to bake in the sun. The tiny specks of dust and rock gave me something to focus on, something to feel against my skin. The coarse grains bit into the lines running across my fingers.

  “I’m going to need that space, you know,” David said finally. “The tree’s gonna have to go too. We’re gonna need a large space to get everyone out of here.” He glanced at me for one brief second, his eyes fierce, edged with redness.

  “Want some help?” I asked, grabbing a hold of the nearby spatula.

  “No. I need something. Anything. Get my mind off…” He stopped stabbing the ground and hung his head above the dirt. Violent sobs escaped from beneath his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I wish I’d never told you about that stupid dream.”

  “Don’t be. We know the truth now.” He sniveled loudly and then cleared his throat. He went back to his task. His head bowed down in concentration as he scooped, stabbed, and shoveled. “Don’t we have any type of larger tools?”

  “I, uh…Let me look.” I stood up and looked around the corridor. Everyone had left except for Matt. He sat against the far wall, pretending to be absorbed in a bowl of ramen noodles.

  A rusted glow caught my eye. It was a metal bit on my fence, what most likely used to be a rusted top edge of a shovel. I grabbed it, peering for any glimpse of Kisana. She was probably inside the tent, listening.

  I tossed David the shovel edge and went back to my dirt castle. He got to his feet and hauled out shovelfuls of dirt from his hole, which was now larger than the base of the tree.

  A cloud of dust floated through the ventilated air, directly toward me. I breathed in the grainy texture, felt it against my forearms. It was like the first, subtle breeze preceding a windstorm. A memory grabbed me by the shoulders.

  Long Santa Ana gusts trailed through the cemetery, stirring the short hairs on the back of my neck. A pile of darkened soil loomed next to my mom’s burial plot. The breeze caught a wisp of soil and spun it in the air, spraying it across the grass. Ants scurried around the edges of the perfectly square hole in the ground. I watched all this instead of the faces around me.

  The sounds of a mariachi band trailed through the air alongside the dust wisps. Some huge ass Mexican funeral two blocks over. I laughed at the idea of a mariachi band serenading us during my mother’s funeral. It was something to listen to other than the silence. Something to focus on besides the voices of family members attempting to remember bible verses.

  The struggling psalms, the whiney trumpets, the dust-covered breeze, the trail of ants, and the remains of my mother in a clay jar I discovered in her pantry.

  It all seemed so ridiculous. Like being coated in an inch of stucco dust and knowing I was losing a battle against a wall. Like David flailing dirt behind his head with a century-old shovel. Like knowing I may very well die without feeling a real breeze tickle the back of my neck again.

  David’s groans caused me to open my eyelids. He’d dug all the way down to the roots surrounding the tree, and was straining to pull the slender tree up from the center of its dirt patch. A layer of sweat-stained dust covered him from head to toe. His mustache looked like it was covered in cobwebs.

  I stood up to give him a hand. This wouldn’t be an easy task without a chainsaw or pickax. The tree wasn’t humungous, but its roots had to run deep to have survived this long. The sound of Julie shrieking again caused David to stop straining against the tree. He spun around.

  Marge shouted a moment later, followed by three more people. A figure came bursting through the gym’s door. Our alien. It wore the same holographic disguise and had the same jerky movements. Its head was cocked to one side unnaturally, black eyes shining directly at David.

  Everyone else followed at a safe distance. Donna, Marge, and Charles clutched each other as if expecting a snowstorm. Naomi held Julie. The little girl’s blotchy, tear-streaked face matched her father’s, except cleaner. Naomi looked as though she’d been crying as well.

  A thick wad that tasted and felt like dirt passed down my throat. “Now you speak to us in person?” I said, my voice hoarse. “You refuse all our questions for days, and now you show up?”

  The alien ignored me and thrust its hand forward in the direction of David’s beat-up shovel. If it had been human, the gesture would have snapped the elbow into two. “Where did that come from? You did not have that on a list.”

  “We found it,” Matt said, closing the gap between the throng of people and the alien. He still clutched his bowl of soggy noodles.

  David grabbed the dirty bit of rusted metal, wrapping his arms around it protectively. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

  “There’s a hole in the gym,” Naomi said. “We find bits of junk floating in. From outside, I guess. The ruins. It’s where you entered from.” Her voice sounded completely void of energy.

  “You cannot have that,” the alien said, its arm still pointed forward. “Return it. Cease your activ-it-y.”

  Matt inched forward another step. “Why the hell do we need your permission to own a goddamn rusted piece of trash?”

  The alien’s eyes remained focused on David. “Digging will get you nowhere. You cannot have tools for digging.”

  David met its beady eyes with his own darkened gaze. His body fell into a defensive pose, knees bent, ready to strike. “Screw you.” A sort of primal desperation took control of his limbs, actions, and words.

  The alien shuffled forward. “Cease your actions.”

  A muscle in David’s forearm twitched. His gazed flipped to mine suddenly, as if questioning the frantic thoughts that had to be speeding through his grief-stricken mind. Beads of sweat peppered his forehead.

  “Come on, David,” I said, “The plan probably won’t work anyway. Their technology is too advanced compared to ours.”

  His gaze snapped back to the tree behind his shoulder for an instant. He spun around, thrusting the shovel edge deep into the dirt again. He emitted a low grunt that reminded me of a caged beast.

  “I am warn-ing you,” the alien said, taking another step toward us. Its holographic arm glowed with a sudden silver sheen. A metallic-looking liquid began coating every surface of the false appendage. The silver liquid shone in the bright sunlight, glinting like a stack of newly-minted nickels. I stared at it, marveling at how it reflected the light. The liquid formed a tip, roughly the size of an index finger. It pointed at David.

  Matt lunged forwar
d, knocking David into the tree. Both men toppled onto the dirt. “Dammit, stop it!” Matt yelled. His bowl of noodles went flying. “We need to fucking stick together!” Several people joined Matt in shouting.

  Another curtain of dust rose up through the sunlit dome as David shoved Matt underneath him, flipping the younger man over. “Get out of here!” David shouted. “All of you! I need to finish this.” He got back to his feet, his breaths ragged, and shoved Matt’s scrawny frame away from the dirt pile. “They’re lying to us! Holding the city captive, killing us off while we sit and hope for the skies to clear. If we can get out of this shit hole, we can reach the others. Save them!” David grabbed the shovel edge again and turned back to his hole, Matt’s crumbled form forgotten.

  “Fuck you,” Matt groaned, attempting to recover from the blow. “They’ll kill us all before we even get a chance.”

  “I will not hesi-tate to use this as a weapon,” the alien announced. “Calm down im-mediately, all of you. Put down the instrum-ent. If you do not, I will strike you down as well as another companion.” Its beady eyes remained fixed on David, unblinking. I knew the being wouldn’t hesitate.

  I glanced back to the group behind us. Most everyone circled Matt, who was still trying to climb to his feet. Kisana clutched Simon. Both pairs of eyes were large and terrified. I wasn’t sure who was more afraid between the two of them. Naomi’s frame was shadowed inside the gym, where she was attempting to keep Julie away from the whole mess. The outline of her shoulders looked strong and reassuring, but I knew from her previous tears that she was as frightened as the rest of us.

  Another grimy lump traveled down my throat, and my hands balled themselves into fists to stop from shaking. Blood roared in my ears. The memory of Naomi’s strength during these past months gave me a couple of seconds of courage. I let them flow over me, like waves straight from the sun.

  “We can’t die here today,” I said. “We gotta live.” I threw myself forward to grab the shovel from David’s hands.

  He saw me coming. “Dammit, Sam,” he growled, his voice wavering uncontrollably. “Don’t interfere.”