The rough metal bit into my fingers as I held on to the shovel with all my strength. Pain shot up my hand as a sharp edge dug into my skin. I ignored it.
David pulled back on the shovel, his eyes meeting mine. A stormy look of fear, desperation, and sadness passed between us. I shook my head, furrowing my brow in concentration. Our feet slid forward as we battled over the rusty relic. Dirt crunched against the pavement, straining against our weight. Wisps of dust flew up to meet us.
The alien stepped forward one more time, its liquid metal appendage morphed into completion. A blue light pulsated from the corner of my vision. David and I snapped our heads toward it. A weapon, a gun of some sort, pointed directly at us. It looked like a pistol, tipped with a blue point that pulsated outward. The weapon’s sight.
My mouth fell open. David took advantage of the moment and yanked the shovel away from my hands. He swept it low to the ground, into my thigh. Its pointed edge sliced into the muscle. I toppled over. He shoved me in the direction of the group. A shout escaped my mouth, and at that exact moment, the alien’s weapon fired. A blinding beam exploded into David’s chest, where he still leaned forward, pushing me away. The sunlight flickered above me as he collapsed into the dirt cloud.
The alien’s weapon disappeared with another flicker of sunlight, and the creature made a dash for his point of entrance. Matt lunged again, this time toward the alien. It should have been a direct hit. Matt’s body whooshed through open air, landing against the wall with a sickening thud. The alien’s hologram had disappeared.
Concrete grated against my skin. Screams echoed above me, twisting and churning with the distant sound of Julie’s howls. I didn’t know how much she had seen. It somehow didn’t matter.
I tried to crawl to David’s body. My leg throbbed. Kisana appeared above me, her shadow flickering against the sun. “Stay put,” she said. “You’re losing a lot of blood.”
“Is David…?” I murmured, squinting up at her.
“He’s gone.” She knelt low to the ground. The sun receded back over her head, and her mouth pulled tight into a straight line. Her eyes glittered. “Let me find something to stop the bleeding. Stay put!”
She hurried off, leaving me with the sun that seemed too bright. I had the urge to shield my eyes against it. My arms wouldn’t obey. My vision blurred, and bright beams of sunlight unfolded into angular shapes that reminded me of a kaleidoscope. The kaleidoscope rotated with each of Julie’s howls, pulsating with all of the sky’s colors. I wanted to curl tight into a ball and howl right along with her.
Chapter 22
“She’s gone. There’s nothing more we can do.”
The voice razed the insides of my brain, reminding me.
“She’s been gone for at least an hour. I’m sorry.”
Our dining room had been lit by the warm afternoon sun. The giant bay window behind my mom’s crumbled body didn’t seem to flinch from the howls taking place inside the illuminated hallway. It was as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Outside, the birds chirped as they hopped between our street’s power lines. The bees hummed in front of the front door, where a giant hydrangea shrub guarded the porch.
The paramedics slipped out the door, leaving behind two uniformed cops, a confused neighbor, and my collapsed, sobbing form. The cops paced in front of the doorway, discussing whether they needed to call the coroner. The neighbor gossiped on his cell phone.
I stared at the wall in front of me through moist eyelids as I hunched down on the ancient, evergreen carpet. The wall was stained with years of cigarette smoke and chipping paint. I ran my fingers across the chipped edges as the howls escaped my mouth. The sounds even scared myself. I’d never had a reason to howl in my entire life until that moment, when I’d walked into my mom’s living room to find her dead of a heart attack. She’d only been fifty-four.
I had wanted my howls to reach into the past and yank my mom back into the present. I wanted them to let me go back in time and arrive an hour earlier. I wanted them to let me have one more conversation with her, share one more embrace. I had wanted them to do something, anything, to stop the pangs of agony coursing through me.
I knew Julie wanted her howls to do the same.
When I awoke later that night, the sounds of Julie’s familiar howls seemed to echo against my eardrums. I felt lost inside a cavern. I groaned, my head pounding with the same resonating sensation. Maybe I am in a cave. Maybe the aliens brought us aboard their ship.
“Welcome to the world of the living, handsome,” a voice whispered, close to my face. A soft breath caressed my cheek. I tried to open my eyes but found them caked shut with half-dried tears. A warm cloth wiped them clean. Kisana’s gorgeous face loomed above mine when I was triumphant.
“How long have I been out?” I croaked. My tongue felt swollen inside my mouth. The taste of dirt lingered, making me want to gag.
Kisana smiled then squeezed my hand. “All afternoon. Most of the night. It’s just after three a.m.”
The soft glow of our lanterns against the walls of the tent reassured me that we were still being held captive. That we were still alive. I met her gentle gaze. “How’s everyone holding up?”
“Not so good.” She sighed. “After David…passed…all hell broke loose. Matt went crazy. The alien disappeared. Cut off all contact with us. Matt spent all night screaming up at the box, with no response. Julie finally fell into an exhausted sleep a couple of hours ago, after spending all day crying. We had to place his body in a cardboard box.”
A thick swallow passed down my throat. I tried to say something, but croaked again instead. Kisana handed me a glass of water.
“I like how you don’t even ask about your leg,” she said, tossing me one of her cute, crooked smile.
I washed away some of the grime from my mouth, then set down the glass. “Thanks for reminding me.” I tried to move my leg. Searing pain shot up my thigh and into my torso.
“We did our best,” she said. “It needed stitches, so Donna tried her best to sew you up. I wrapped it up pretty good.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And I slept through all this?”
“With a little help. We uh, had some morphine left over from your father. Kinda guessed at an extra-high dosage.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’m not sure whether to feel impressed or scared of what may happen the next time I fall asleep.”
Kisana laughed nervously. “You had us worried. My dad and I got into another argument. He seems to think you’re a bad influence on me.”
“Oh, hold on. Let me get my motorcycle gang. And my keg of beer. Damn, probably can’t ride a motorcycle with this leg. Gonna have to make do with a beer gang.”
She whacked my arm, giggling. “Shut up.”
“Did you put him in his place?”
She stared down at the sleeping bag suddenly. “I tried. It’s hard for me to speak against him. I’m not sure he realizes how close we are.”
“I thought you told them?”
“I kind of did. My words may have gotten scrambled at some point. It’s just so hard. They’re old-fashioned.” She played with a loose thread on my sleeping bag.
The fact that Kisana appeared to be dodging the issue with her parents bothered me, but I couldn’t really say much. I’d been just as bad with my father. “I know,” I said. “What happened to parents being progressive?”
“Everyone’s but ours, apparently.”
“My mom understood.” Within my thumping headache, the image of Sara’s smiling face replaced the one of her slumped body. The same bay window framed that warm smile. “You two would’ve gotten along fantastically. She loved everyone. And well, you can cook, so she would have loved you even more. She could have actually taught you things.”
“Didn’t have much luck with you, eh?”
“Not really. I did what I could. I took over the cooking duties when she went blind, but I was pretty awful. Spaghetti noodles flew all over the kitchen on more than one occasion
.” I swept my arms out wide. “Made a whole gallon of milk explode once, too.”
“You seem so…proud,” she laughed.
“Hell, yeah. Why make a mess of the kitchen when you can make an absolute disaster of it?” My mom’s kitchen had always been well-lit. Two tiny, white-curtained windows and a back door that was always open highlighted every feature of the small room. The seventies-style sea-green cupboards. The ceramic bowl she made that held oranges and bananas.
The smile must have plummeted from my face, because Kisana cupped her hand under my chin.
“I used to stand in front of the stove, trying to figure out how to measure crap,” I said. “She’d be sitting in her chair at the dining room table, in front of the bay window. She would try telling me what to do, like I somehow understood what a ‘pinch of that, and a blob of this’ meant.” I met Kisana’s gaze slowly. “Didn’t matter how many times I cooked something. I still never knew how to do it the next time around.”
“You dreamt about her tonight, didn’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“You cried out for her in your sleep. I wanted so badly to wake you, hold you close, but you were pretty out of it.”
“Julie.” A warm tear slid down my face. “She reminded me of when my mom died. All my prophetic dreams. Then I have a stupid one about my past. Go figure.” I turned away from Kisana, searching for Simon. He was curled up next to my gigantically-bandaged leg, sound asleep.
“It was about her dying, right? I thought you said you couldn’t remember how she died?”
“I did. I just didn’t want to remember the details. Funny how dreams tell you all this crap you didn’t even want to know, or remember.” The memory of David howling into the dome-rimmed sky sent a shudder through my spine. “If it weren’t for that goddamn dream about the boat cabin, David would still be alive. I didn’t have to tell him. Why didn’t it occur to me earlier that it might’ve been about his family? Why was I so stupid?”
Kisana cupped my chin again, forcing me to face her. “Sam. Listen to me. It’s not your fault. Neither was your mother’s death.”
“I…” I tried to speak, but something inside me crashed and fell to the floor, like a dusty hurricane lamp shattering during an earthquake. Have I been blaming myself all these years?
“I know you’re thinking both things. I also know that David would have wanted to know.”
“No, he wouldn’t have.” I rolled away from her, causing my leg to spasm in pain. I stared at my tent with its flickering light-patterned wall. The shadows attempting to make their way through the thin canvas seemed darker than usual. Our compact prison was quickly losing any trace of light it once had.
“Leave me,” I said. “I think I need to…sleep.” I kept my face stubbornly turned away from Kisana, and closed my eyes tight.
“Sam? What did I say? I’m not sure you should be alone right now.”
“Please.”
Another tear trickled down my cheek. When I finally opened my clenched eyes, I was alone with a snoring cat, a tent full of shadows, and a racing headache that I knew would do anything to keep sleep at bay.
Hours later, when the shadows began to creep away to hide from the sun, the sound of flapping fabric made me watch the entrance expectantly for Kisana’s return. Instead, Naomi stuck her head inside, her eyes puffy and hair a mess.
“You dead in here?” she asked.
I shook my head and patted the empty section of my sleeping bag.
She climbed in, handing me a bowl of dry cereal. “Eat,” she said. “We’re out of powdered milk, but at least it’s something. You look terrible. How you feeling?”
“About the same,” I croaked. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
“You can say that again. We’ve lost all contact with the alien. We’re on our own now. The little window it used for deliveries is now completely sealed shut by that molten goop.”
“What about food, water?”
Naomi shrugged. “Like I said, we’re on our own. We’ve set up a ration system. We might last a few weeks before water runs out.”
“Shit.”
“We’re also gonna have to use that dirt mess you guys made to bury our waste in.”
I munched on a few stale Cheerios.
“Everyone keeps asking me if the aliens are gonna kill us.”
“What do you tell them?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know what to tell myself, let alone them. I tell them we’ll make do. Carry on. Get outta here. Feel the sun.”
We stared up at the roof of my tent, neither of us wanting to admit the fact that we weren’t sure we even believed it anymore.
“Why’d you kick Kisana out?” she asked. “You two need each other more now than ever. She came to me, crying.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure what to believe about anything. I wouldn’t want to dream some crazy ass dream about her long-lost cousins dying.”
“All because David died? He’s the one who acted out, Sam. He didn’t have to. Poor Julie’s all alone now, and—”
“—I know. That’s the problem.”
She snapped her mouth shut. “Oh. Now I see.” Her eyes met the green canvas of my tent.
“Does she have any other family?”
Naomi looked directly at me. “Sam, it’s not your fault.”
“Does she?”
“Kinda. An aunt in New York. All she knows about her is that she’s a waitress or something. If the aunt isn’t capable of taking her, Donna or I may adopt her. She’s taken a liking to both of us.”
“Good.”
“Sam.” She reached forward and grabbed my hand.
I stared into my bowl of Cheerios. The little holes in them reminded me of the holes a termite would make in an old pile of wood. Cheerio holes wanted milk. Termite holes wanted to be full of wood again, to be whole. To find a home where someone varnishes and oils each surface, sets the piece proudly in the sun.
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
I shook my head again. “I feel bad about Kisana, but I need some time to myself. To let everything register. David and I were good friends, you know.”
“I know. I also know this is bad time for any of us to be alone.”
“I’ll be fine, Naomi. Please.”
“Well…” She heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’m going to give you this, then.”
A cool weight landed in the center of my palm. David’s watch. Silver, with a digital water-resistant display. It must have cost him a pretty penny. “Julie should have this,” I said softly.
“She’s too young for something like that. You and he shared a…bond. I think he’d want you to have it.”
A faint smile tugged at the edges of my face. “Yeah, it was a rather geeky bond. Thank you.”
She leaned over to give me a hug, and then wriggled out of my tent. “Get some sleep.” A rustle of fabric later, she was gone.
I shoved aside the Cheerios for later. Tempers were going to flare high with a ration in place. A good excuse to hide away from the others. I ruffled a hand through Simon’s fur.
As I peered through the tent’s sun roof, the edges of dawn started to creep into the sky. I took it as a sign to finally try and get some sleep.
I had almost succeeded when the brush of fabric and scraping of shoes on pavement awakened me. A groan escaped my lips. “Who’s there now?”
“Hello? Samantha?”
I suppressed the urge to groan again, and scooted up on my elbows. “Come in, Pablo, Marie. I can’t move my leg. Otherwise I’d meet you outside where you have more than ten inches of space to move around in.”
“We will stay out here,” Pablo said. “It will only take a minute.”
“Okay,” I said.
“We have discussed this at length and decided that you must stay away from our Kisana.”
The hand that was in Simon’s fur curled into a fist. “You do realize she’s twenty-six, right?” My mouth formed a few extra cu
rses afterward. I was glad they couldn’t see my face.
“Of course. But it’s important to our family that she remains religious.”
“And she still can.”
“No, she cannot.”
Another silent “fuck” passed from my lips. “What happened to you guys kind of being okay about us?”
“Your actions yesterday proved us right. You are irrational, prone to violence, and helped put us all at risk.”
My mouth fell open. “Wha—? Excuse me? David’s actions caused Matt and I to try and stop him from being violent.”
“The being did not appear until you two physically attacked him.”
A part of me realized he was right. My mind flashed crimson. “It would have come after David eventually. It tracks all our moves, actions, and words. Still does.”
“We don’t know that, and we do not want violence in our daughter’s life.”
Another flash. “That’s her decision,” I said.
“Yes. And she seems quite indecisive about the whole matter, frankly. She’s obviously confused. You’ve already began to influence her.”
Marie sighed and uneasily shuffled outside the tent.
“I…” I stopped my words short. I couldn’t defend Kisana if she wasn’t able to commit herself to being honest. Maybe she was second-guessing her sexuality. My head swam.
“We don’t know that for sure, Pablo,” Marie said. Her voice sounded desperate. “We need to speak more to Kisana.”
“No. It’s clear to me,” Pablo said, his voice gaining volume. “She will find a nice man to marry when we are free, and she will forget all this nonsense.”
A final tendril of crimson flashed in front of my vision, despite my confusion. “When? Try if. All bets on release are off.” My headed pounded with every word. I focused on the orange and white strands of Simon’s fur in an attempt to clear my head. The cat had his head up now, eyes wide.
Long sobs rang out from behind Pablo’s stoic frame. Marie’s. “We will be free!” she shouted between tears. “We have to be!”
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