Here

by Zolendz, Christine

  Our eyes meet for a second and dart away. Does he think we should share the bed? Like, next to each other?

  We eat in silence.

  When the fire is down to embers, I pull out an extra blanket from the closet and curl onto the corner of the bed. The room is bathed in a dim orange glow, and even swaddling myself with the blanket isn’t enough to ward off the cold.

  I groan softly as exhaustion starts unraveling and fraying my thoughts. I wonder where Claire is. I hope she’s not hurt.

  Next to me the mattress dips down. I swear the blood in my veins turns sluggish and heavy, as if drunk.

  He makes no sounds. I can barely hear his breathing. But I can feel the heat of his body. The bed is small, less than a Queen-size, I think. His arm brushes softly into mine but he yanks it away as if he’s touched fire. Even though my eyes are closed, I squeeze them tight. The thought of him being this close to me is confusing. Instantly, I’m well aware of the hard planes of his muscles, how they dip and curve and move just under his skin. I’m aware of his scent; it’s somewhere between leathery and metallic. And I’m very aware that I could have died so many times in the last twenty-four hours, but he hasn’t let me. He even rescued my backpack for me.

  The springs underneath our bodies creak harshly as he recoils away from me. My chest hitches almost painfully. I clutch my hands together, trying to ease the burn. My thoughts shatter into thousands of pieces and the only feeling that remains is being somehow less than dirt to this thing lying beside me.

  The rejection stings and I’m horribly confused by it. What is so wrong with me that something would be so utterly disgusted when our arms accidently bump into one another?

  The emotional overload drains me, and the room sort of fades to nothing as sleep pulls me under.

  16

  Kate

  I’m awake before the first hint of light seeps through the dark room, but I remain silent, staring at the figure sleeping next to me. Before long, the gray dawn slowly creeps through the drapes, landing in chaotic patterns over his face. He looks peaceful now, and if I really think about it, handsome.

  He’s quite striking honestly, with high cheekbones and one of those chiseled-from-marble jaws.

  I flip up my middle finger and stick it in his sleeping face.

  I’m still feeling crappy about the flinch-back he had when he touched me last night, and you know, the whole taking over the world shit. Today, I want to find my sister and be done with him. I don’t know why he and his minions are here, but I just want to get Claire and find a safe place with someone in charge. Somewhere with food and medicine.

  I manage to sit up without screaming out in pain. My body hurts all over, but it doesn’t feel like something a few pain relievers can’t quiet down. I’ve rested and I can eat some of the food I found yesterday, I’ll be fine.

  I have to be.

  Dangling my feet off the bed, I stretch into a loud yawn that comes out more like a roar. I stomp out of the room, bumping and clanging everything in sight. He’s slept enough. It’s time to get up and find my sister. Another night stuck with him would piss me off.

  I knock off a half a dozen metal bowls from the counter onto the tiled floor of the kitchen. The noise is raucous.

  I sigh and open one of the long counter drawers. Utensils, rattle against each other. I slip out the sharpest steak knife I see and slide it in my back pocket to hide in my backpack later. It may not be much, but it’s something. God only knows where my father’s pocket knife went.

  There are packets of instant coffee I find in the second drawer. It makes me yelp out a cheer and dance around the kitchen. Immediately, I pour it into a mug of water. It’ll be cold, but that’s fine by me. I wonder if I could somehow warm up a pot of it in that fireplace we used last night. There’s a box of chocolate-flavored cereal I jam my hand into and eat dry while thinking about warm coffee. The cereal tastes like rich milk chocolate. My hunger insists it’s literally the best thing I’ve ever shoved in my mouth.

  I hear Rune moving in the front bedroom so I make my way back in, sipping on my room-temperature coffee and chewing on a fistful of cocoa-flavored breakfast food.

  Rune stands facing the window. He’s not wearing a shirt; it’s crumpled on the floor at his feet, which are also bare. His shoulders tighten and flex as he looks over them at me. His eyes look almost colorless in the grayish light, making him look as supernatural as I think he really may be. His features seem hard; jaw clenched, neck corded, some heavy weight pressing down on him that’s invisible to me.

  For a few moments we linger, silently watching each other. Then the skin around his eyes softens and his hands gently fall to his sides. He shifts slightly, turning his body in a way that I don’t even realize he’s moved until he’s completely facing me.

  I don’t like that I keep forgetting he’s not supposed to be here. Or that he’s not really on my side in whatever’s going on in the world. I don’t like the fact I keep forgetting he’s not human. Or whatever my definition of human is—whatever the hell that meant.

  I look away first, dropping my gaze to the floor. “What’s it look like outside?” I ask, speaking to the discarded shirt.

  His attention turns toward the window again and he silently shakes his head. When he looks back at me his gaze is ice-cold and made of steel.

  The expression makes me rush to the window and shove the curtains fully open. Rune tries to stop me, pushing in front of me and hissing something under his breath. But I tighten the grip on the curtain and press forward anyway.

  I struggle to keep my breakfast down.

  I almost fail miserably over my new clean shirt.

  A strange sound chokes out from the back of my throat and my eyes begin to cloud with tears.

  At the edge of the curb, where slush and blood mix together, there are still bodies. The dead bodies we ran past the night before.

  My first impulse is to scramble away, close the curtains, and hide. Instead I freeze in terror, my heart nearly pounding out of my chest.

  Every inch of uncovered skin is pocked with a revolting trypophobia-inducing effect—clusters of darkened holes that make my skin crawl. Their heads are all severed, pulled apart from the rest of their bodies, limbs separated at the joints, and all of them are dressed in that alien armor.

  Is this what his kind does to humans? Does that mean Claire doesn’t have a chance? I swallow back my anger before it robs me of the ability to reason. My vision narrows to slits when I look back toward Rune. “What happened to them?” Panic bubbles up in my chest and I can’t control it. I rip the kitchen knife out of my back pocket and hold it between us. There’s no thought to it—just instinct—if they are killing humans, they must have killed Claire too and he’s been lying to me.

  His lips turn down as his eyes fix on the knife then back to me. “I don’t think our armor and your…bodies are very compatible…not with your dead, at least.” He brushes my hand away before I can see him move, and I’m instantly in some pro-wrestling hold, unable to move. The knife drops to the rug soundlessly. “Or maybe they’ve programed them to destroy your people. I don’t know.”

  He spins me around to face him, my wrists still locked in his tight grip. “What I do know is you don’t have to fear me. I promise you, I will take you to where I think your sister is.”

  I move my mouth, but words evade me. I’m torn between wanting to scream at him for lying or breaking down and hugging him.

  “Truly. I will not hurt you.” His words settle in my chest and I breathe a little better.

  He steps away, releasing my hands. “Gather your belongings. It certainly looks like you’re strong enough to go out.”

  I nod, and force myself to speak. “Fine.” It’s all my anger and humiliation will allow.

  Then he’s walking away, leaving me in the room alone, and as he does, I watch him wipe the palms of his hands down the side of his pants, once more letting me know how disgusted he is from having to touch me.

>   17

  Kate

  My finger brushes over the cold bricks of the buildings, tracing their ridges and serrated textures as we walk past. We’ve been walking for ten minutes and the quiet and unknown doesn’t sit well with me. “What is it that they were doing?” I ask softly. Mom always used to tell us you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so approaching the subject sweetly might help.

  Definitely no steak knives this time.

  Rune lingers a few steps behind, in the middle of what was once a busy intersection of the city. Surrounding us are gnarled structures that used to be offices and restaurants. Now they’re stone structures of crumbling rock and dust. My pulse pounds in my temples waiting for his answer.

  He doesn’t, of course. Instead, he turns down a side street and walks ahead of me.

  “Why do you think they tried to put the metal suit thingys on them?” I try again, sighing in frustration. “I mean, those guys were dead, so why bother?” I can’t make sense of it and not understanding bothers me.

  He continues to ignore me, silently scanning the ruins of the streets.

  I stare up at him, as sparks of anger dart out over my cheeks. He’s acting like I’m not even here—like my questions and feelings don’t matter. “Do you even know where you’re taking me?” I ask. He promised to get me to Claire, that’s where he better be taking me.

  Still no answer.

  “Do you even know why your people are here?”

  Nothing.

  “Do you know anything?” My tone is sharp and angry. “Or are you just some dumbass outer space asshole whose own species doesn’t even like him?”

  “Do you ever stop talking? Or irritating people?” he snaps back, his eyes flashing with something that looks a lot like rage.

  Oh, looks like I hit a nerve.

  “No. Do you?” I narrow my eyes at him. He has no idea, I haven’t even begun to start trying to annoy him. I run my tongue along my teeth and fantasize about toothbrushes and other aggravating questions. “How old are you?” I ask.

  He sweeps way ahead of me now, in long maddening strides, and I find I’m becoming quite happy getting under his skin. I feel somehow accomplished. Pleased.

  “How about a family?” I ask, biting my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing. “Is there a mama and a papa alien?”

  He looks back at me, lips pressing into a tight white slit.

  “How about a girlfriend? Nah. A boyfriend maybe? Husband?” I smile, batting my eyelids. I take pride in annoying people.

  Rune comes to an abrupt stop and whirls around on me. He draws a long breath and releases it. “We don’t have interpersonal relationships like your kind does.”

  “Yeah? Really? The fight between you and your three metal amigos there looked pretty interpersonal to me.” I step closer to him and jab my fists on my hips. “What about a significant other? Your personality is so magnetizing I find it hard to believe that your—”

  “There aren’t any women,” he says quietly.

  “Say what now?” I ask, stumbling over loose gravel.

  His voice is colder than before, raw. “The female population of my kind are extinct.”

  I feel my eyebrows hit my hairline. “They must have been bored to death.”

  His entire body tenses and he swallows hard.

  There’s no way I’m keeping my mouth shut now. My mind is running with all the questions I know everybody would want the answers to. Questions tumble from my lips. “That’s impossible. How are your people made? How are there babies? Do the males have babies? Do you have sex, like, ever? What—”

  His shoulders fall and his eyes practically roll up in the back of his skull. I’m satisfied I’ve hit my annoyance quota of the day. But I’m also intrigued as anything.

  “There’s no physical contact,” he says nonchalantly. He looks away, devoid of any emotion, like he didn’t just drop the abstinence bomb.

  “What? How the hell do you reproduce?” I ask, stunned. “You—I mean, you never—“

  Something moving fast flashes across the sky, far above our heads, and for the first time I realize I haven’t seen any birds for weeks. Manhattan used to be throttled with pigeons, now they’re all gone.

  I haven’t seen subway rats either, or squirrels. That just proves the world is done.

  Rune’s eyes meet mine. “In the past my people reproduced in a sterilized laboratory once a month, where we secreted into vials to create newborns. They used to be mixed with female eggs, but we have none left. We haven’t created newborns since my generation was bred.” His words are even, unaffected by emotion.

  I want to laugh at the absurdity of what he just said.

  “That’s ridiculous! No wonder you have no more women. You genetically cut them out. You made no more need for them.” I stand still, flabbergasted. He comes from a testosterone-dominated world. A society of men living without women? What the hell was that like? A world full of messy, aggressive, egomaniacal assholes, obsessively watching sports while trying to see whose dick is bigger? The body odor on his planet must be atrocious.

  “Everything had to be done robotically. We…there are…diseases and procreating…it was too dangerous any other way.” He looks off into the distance, shrugging.

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” I say more to myself than Rune. “It’s something you would only hear about in movies or books—it’s unrealistic, you get that, don’t you?”

  His eyes flick back to mine. “You are the first female of a species I have ever seen.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Of all the females of this world, I’m the one he got stuck seeing as the first one? “I don’t truly represent the female population accurately. We’re all different. Different body types, colors, personalities. All females are amazing, though. Girl power.” I’m pretty much in the homeliest, single, haven’t had a date or social life in months portion of the species, but I didn’t want to say that shit out loud.

  “Are you telling me your females are not all scrawny, brazen, and knife wielding?”

  Maybe I’ll save that idiotic question for later, especially the scrawny part. A thought hits me about something he just said. I step back with concern. “You mentioned diseases. Is that why people are getting sick? Do you have something airborne?”

  “No. I’m not sick.” He shakes his head and gestures to the buildings and streets ahead of us. “I don’t know why this is happening to your planet. I was always told being here without our armor would kill us immediately.”

  “And yet, you’re still breathing and my planet is decaying like a peeled banana on a hot summer day.”

  We walk across Second Avenue and still there aren’t any people. There’s no one anywhere—I’ve never heard the city this quiet. It’s disconcerting.

  It’s simply terrifying.

  “So where you come from, there’s no sexual contact, no women and—”

  “I’ve never even touched anyone. I’ve never felt skin before.”

  I think about all the times Claire and I sat shoulder-to-shoulder, arms hooked at the elbow, sharing secrets. My parents always willing to give me a hug. My first kiss with a boy. My first… And suddenly I feel bad for the asshole standing in front of me. “Your world sounds like it sucked.”

  “We were created into our armor. I’ve never taken it off. It grows with us and it’s how we govern and stay in communication and control.”

  We walk over rubble and loose stones. Where I need to balance with my arms out straight, Rune steps with ease.

  “So, humans are the superior species after all,” I smirk, then laugh at the absurd thought of what’s probably an entire species of virginal grown men.

  “Yeah, why is that?” he asks, folding his huge arms across his chest.

  “We have condoms here.”

  18

  Kate

  I steal another car.

  This one’s a little black sports car that has the keys dangling in the ignition and a glorious tank ful
l of gas. I wonder if the owner was about to turn the car on and then poof, they just vanished. It pisses me off. Why was I left behind? Why did no one take us? Not everyone got sick, most people just vanished.

  “Why are all the people gone?” I ask, weaving in and out of lanes slowly. “And which way am I heading?”

  “East,” he answers.

  “Like, straight into the river?” I snap, gripping my fingers on the wheel.

  “Toward the bridge. The big one, near your military base.”

  “What military base? What bridge?” I say, jamming my foot down on the brakes. His body propels forward, his arms slamming out against the dashboard. I laugh. “Wearing seatbelts is a law here, dicknibbler, you might want to abide by it. Now, this military base you’re talking about. You mean in Brooklyn, near the Verrazano Bridge?”

  He shrugs. Because, well, I don’t truly dislike him enough and he’d like me to dislike him even more.

  “There’s a large bridge and water.”

  “Thanks, that helps bunches,” I say, pressing my foot down on the gas pedal. “The only base I can think of east of us is Fort Hamilton. I’ll take the tunnel. It’s a bit of a ride without your special flying fucker ability, so answer my question.”

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out obnoxiously loud.

  “Oh, am I bothering you in any way?”

  “Which of the thousands of questions would you like me to answer?” he says.

  “Why are all the people gone?”

  He shakes his head and looks out the window. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. It’s the same answer he’s given me before, but I can’t help thinking that he knows what’s going on and can help me in some way.

  I take the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the Gowanus Expressway, a route that on the best of days is packed with cars. Now, there’s only a handful. Maybe these alien dweebs came in the middle of the night. I wish I knew.