by Marie Dry
A draft from the entrance sent chills through her body. Shivering, she dragged empty boxes to the cave opening. Gritting her teeth, she fetched some supplies from the storage cave to put in the boxes, making them heavy enough to withstand the wind. So tired she could barely stand, she grabbed one of the survival blankets from her tent, and draped it over the boxes, hoping the modified wind-break would stop the icy wind from reaching the alien. It would have to do for tonight.
Natalie glided her palm over the crinkly texture of the survival blanket. It tickled her skin and reminded her of her father. Like the good third-generation survivalist he was, he'd always prepared for the worst case scenario. If he'd captured an alien, he would be preparing for a full scale invasion. Her hand fisted, her nails gouging the silver blanket. But he'd died and left her alone to deal with raiders and arrogant aliens.
Still shivering from the cold draft seeping in, Natalie turned away from the entrance. She had to get organized or some unlucky explorer would find the skeletons of a stupid woman and a poor, tied-up alien come spring.
Desperate to focus on anything but Zacar, she walked to the circle of stones, where the coals were glowing red and inviting, and carefully knelt down. She held her hand out over the embers to the welcome warmth and studied the burning coals. Her grandmother told her that coal used to smoke when you burned it. Imagine. Seeing smoke coming out of those glowing coals.
Turning so that she could see the alien, she asked, "Why'd you kill those men? Was it to help me?"
She'd given up on him answering when he finally said, "Hurt Natlia."
"Do you mean you killed them because they hurt me?" Her heart beat sped up. Maybe he wouldn't hurt her. Maybe she could let him go. She snorted. And outside it's a beautiful summer's day.
His lip curled, flashing a fang. "Kill woumbers."
A fang. She edged a little closer to the comforting warmth of the fire. "Woumbers? What does that mean?" she asked while combing her fingers through her wet hair.
He stared at her for a long time while she pretended to relax next to the fire. "Not warrior," he said at last.
Did he mean the raiders weren't warriors? Like an insult? And why did his language improve every time he spoke. "How do you know English?" When he didn't answer right away, she got the impression he was thinking over her question.
"Head learn."
Well, that makes a lot of sense. How could his head just learn?
Natalie shifted uncomfortably as he looked at every inch of her figure. As if he'd run a finger down her spine, hot shivers crept with slow agony over each vertebrae. For a long disconcerting moment, his eyes rested on her chest, as though he could see her unbound breasts through her sweater. She concentrated very hard on appearing oblivious.
"You know, if you would just talk to me, maybe I could let you go. But you'd have to tell me why you're here first." Maybe a gullible personality lurked underneath all those menacing muscles. "Won't you tell me about your planet?"
She loved looking at TC casts about other countries. Her project of replanting trees left no time for exploring even her own country, let alone imagine seeing a new planet. He simply looked at her with that expressionless face.
"I never met an alien before. Can you blame me for being curious? Maybe we could exchange knowledge." Not that she would tell him anything, especially if it would help him harm humans. Just in case he's got a whole invasion force stashed somewhere nearby. She trembled at that thought.
Still, no answer.
With a sigh, she gave up. If only she was heartless enough to kill him. Then she could forget about the whole thing and get some sleep.
Fed up with him, she turned on the TC. Passing her palm over the small pink box, she watched as the menu sprang up to hover in the air. It always irritated her that the menu would appear, even when the only thing she could watch, after her monthly allotted time had run out, was the news. The news was free and limitless, the government wanting to make sure it always had a way to alert citizens of emergencies.
As the news came on, the anchor woman was in the middle of reporting about a huge raider camp that had been destroyed by government forces. Natalie smiled in satisfaction.
About three years ago, homeless and jobless men started banding together, under the infamous Murdoch, and terrorizing everyone. According to the reporter, a hundred and fifty raiders, that had terrorised the countryside from Washington to Montana, were killed by an elite new government force.
Maybe now Murdoch won't miss the raiders that came to her mountain, she thought. And if her luck held, they wouldn't come after her.
"About time the government did something," she muttered.
The raiders had been acting as if they were untouchable for months. Their reprisals, for any attempt at stopping their looting and killing, were brutal.
Zacar turned his head and stared at the three-dimensional holograph projected in the air in the middle of the cave by the TC, his red eyes slowly bleeding back to black.
She peeked at the alien. Did he understand that the newscaster was talking about men like those he killed earlier?
When nothing was said about an alien space ship she leaned forward to press the off button but paused when a human interest segment came on. An image appeared of a tiny baby, almost entirely wrapped in casts, held in the arms of his mother as she cried soft, relieved tears. The newscaster intruded, reporting how the baby was born deformed, how it had taken more than a hundred operations to straighten his bones and give him the chance to walk one day. He looked so small and frail, to have to endure such suffering. Natalie had to wipe away her tears.
"Why no kill baby?" the alien grated over the newscaster's report.
Natalie nearly screamed in fright. Spinning around, she was about to yell at him for startling her when she noticed him watching the scene in the hospital as it played out almost eerily in the middle of the cave, the mother crying and the father stoic.
"Why would they kill the baby?" she asked, confused.
"Baby weak," he said with his usual gravelly, shiver-inducing voice.
Her stomach turned. Nauseous, she jumped up and glared at him with her hands on her hips. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard anyone say. Do you kill babies on your planet just because they are weak?" she asked.
"Yes." There was no hesitation or shame in his response.
She stumbled back from him. "I can't believe you'd do something so...so disgusting." Natalie held up a hand. "No, wait. After seeing the way you chopped off heads earlier today without even flinching, I can believe it."
And now she knew for sure he hadn't done it to help her. He probably saw all humans as weak. Walking toward the corner of the cave where she'd put up her survival tent, she said bitterly, "I'm trapped in this cave for probably six months, with an alien who kills babies. You'll probably kill me, too, the first time I get an asth--"
Natalie bit her lip and rushed into her yellow, top-of-the-range, survival tent. Images of murdered babies flashed in front of her eyes. Would he find her weak because of her asthma and kill her as well? She fell onto the patchwork quilt draped over her narrow bed while shudders racked her body. Touching the quilt, she tried to think of happier times, times when she used to snuggle next to her mother as she hand-stitched quilts.
The cave was only supposed to be her workplace, made comfortable enough for her to sleep in if she worked late. Yet, that was the only reason she still had one of her mother's handmade quilts. Everything else had been consumed in the fire.
A teary laugh escaped her lips. With his typical paranoia, her father had immediately started to turn the cave into a backup retreat, in the event something should happen to the ranch house. She and her mother had just smiled at each other and helped him with his crazy plans. But time had proved him right. Everything he'd predicted had come to pass. The government had lost its grip on nearly everything. Water was rationed to two litres per household per day, and electricity was cut several times a week. An
d now, on top of all that, she had an alien infestation.
She shook her head, clearing her melancholy thoughts, and moved to the corner of the tent to put on her pyjamas. Once dressed in her thick, insulated pyjamas, she trudged over to her bed and lifted the blankets and quilt to climb into the sleeping bag beneath. Laying her head down on her pillow, she tried to enjoy the warmth of her sleeping bag. After the worst day, bar none, she was ready for a good night's sleep.
She tossed and turned for a few moments then groaned and got up. Her conscience wouldn't allow her to let the alien to freeze to death overnight. Even if he came from a race of baby killers. She could feel his gaze on her as she walked sluggishly to the storage cave to collect the silver survival blankets she kept there.
The alien hadn't moved when she returned.
"This will keep you warm." Keeping a watchful eye on him, she moved to slide it under him. When his lip curled back, showing a fang, she said, "Don't be so stubborn. It will protect you against the cold of the cave floor." It took every scrap of courage she had to ignore that flashing fang.
"Warrior not cold," he said with arrogant disdain.
She turned her back on him, making sure to exaggerate the shrug of her shoulders. "It's okay to kill babies, but I get my head bitten off for trying to keep him from freezing to death," she muttered, not caring if he heard her, then went back to the dubious safety of her tent, shivers racking her body. The long-life coal that had kept the cave comfortable through autumn was now as effective as old fashioned bullets against the alien. Putting the shotgun beside the bed, she lay down, facing the clear plastic entrance of the tent. But even when she closed her eyes, his unblinking stare burned through her eyelids.
Every time she drifted off to sleep, she would jerk awake, convinced he'd gotten loose and was on his way to kill her, only to find him in the same position, staring at her. That night for the first time in months she dreamt of her mother's death. She stood by helpless, while her mother fought for every breath she managed to take into her lungs.
When the TC came on for her normal eight o'clock wake up, Natalie groaned then lit a solar lamp to dispel the early morning gloom and recoiled when she found him still watching her. Didn't the dratted alien ever sleep? Had he stared at her the whole night? Did aliens not need to blink, or sleep?
She hurried to the cave door, desperate with hope that the weather had changed overnight. Lifting the canvas, she peered out. Snow lay thick on the ground. Her fingers instantly stiffened from the cold, and she quickly put them under her shirt to warm them.
When the hair on the back of her neck stood up, Natalie turned to found Zacar's eyes roving her figure. They'd been focused on her hips but now they lifted to stare at her breasts. Natalie swallowed and his gaze moved to her throat. He was looking at her as if she was some kind of delectable fruit.
She resisted the urge to squirm. "Good morning, alie--Zacar," she said, pleased at how chipper and normal she sounded.
He grunted.
Determined not to show him how much he'd rattled her, she kept her head high as she walked over to the bathing area. Warmth climbed up her cheeks when she remembered her last attempt at bathing, and she hesitated. Perhaps it was better to get breakfast going first. She couldn't deal with much before coffee, let alone an alien.
After the warmth of her tent and sleeping bag, the air in the cave felt icy. She quickly splashed cold water over her face and brushed her teeth while shivering in her pyjamas. At last dressed in her warmest clothes, she hurried to the kitchen area. She sliced the bread, she'd baked the previous morning, for breakfast and doled out a miniscule amount of coffee into a small pot. With a sigh, she put down the slice of bread she'd been about to take a bite of.
He was back to silent staring. She sighed again and went to the tunnel leading to the storage cave. Her teeth chattered from the cold wind blowing in. She quickly lowered the red canvas her father had helped her attach over the back entrance. Last night she'd been too tired and frightened to even think about it. She retrieved a tin of meat from the storage cave and returned to the main cave.
She'd bought tinned goods in bulk relatively cheap when the grocer in town went out of business. The synthetic meat and vegetables was supposed to last twenty years. The best feature was the way it instantly heated when opened. The lid made a small scraping sound when she pulled it back, the heat heavenly to her cold hands. He looked like a meat eater. She could sacrifice a few tins of meat until the TC came online again. Then she would hand him over with gratitude to whatever authority had a working hovercraft to collect him.
"Do you eat meat, b--" She gasped. Oh, God, she'd almost called him baby killer.
He only stared at her.
She grimaced. "All right, Zacar. I hope you like canned..." She turned the tin over, eying the long list of unpronounceable ingredients. "...whatever this is. It's supposed to taste just like real beef." She shuddered. "Heaven only knows how people ever used to eat real beef."
Kneeling next to him, she carefully speared some meat with a fork and held it in front of his mouth.
He turned his head away. "Zacar warrior."
She held the fork against his tightly pressed lips. "Yes, we've established that, but even warriors have to eat."
His head suddenly lunged forward, his teeth snapping at her fingers. The sound echoed around the cave, along with her startled cries. She jerked her hand back and meat went flying everywhere as the tin clattered to the floor.
Scrambling away from him, she held her hand against her chest, her blood instantly freezing as if she'd just done a swan dive into the snow bank outside. Afraid of what she would see, she held her shaking hand in front of her face and blinked furiously. All her fingers were still attached. She blinked again. No blood.
Her legs had turned to the consistency of cooked berries, and she sank down on the cold cave floor, the sound of those snapping teeth still echoing around her. "You miserable, rotten...You could've bitten off my fingers." Glaring at him, she lifted her foot to kick him but stopped herself. What had she ever done wrong to deserve this? "You ever do that again and I will kick you, tied up or not."
He cocked his head. "I warrior. Woman no hurt." His face might be expressionless, but his voice could fill books with its disgust.
"I don't need your permission. And if I kicked you, it'll hurt." Feeling at about the same emotional stage as a five-year-old she walked toward the kitchen area then turned back to the irritating alien again. "When you can promise me decent behavior, I will feed you."
For the next two days, he sat without moving against the wall, his hands tied above him. Natalie worried about his arms going numb, but was too scared to untie him. If she had any sense, she'd kill him and bury his body where no one would ever find it. But she couldn't make herself do it.
She tried talking to him every once and awhile, but it was as difficult as hauling in snow to melt for water. "Do you really kill babies on your planet?" Such a thing was still unthinkable to her and she hoped she'd misunderstood.
"Weak babies." He growled it, with no inflection in his voice that she could interpret as reluctance or disgust.
"And women. Do you kill women, too?" Would he consider a woman suffering from asthma too weak to be allowed to live?
"Weak," he said again.
"Why?" She turned her back to hide her reaction, putting the bread she'd just prepared in the oven.
He remained silent for a time and she had the impression he was searching for the right words. "No breed," he said finally.
She bunched her hair and twisted it until it pressed against her scalp. "No, no, I don't want to hear this. I can't talk to you anymore." The implication of his words was just too terrible to contemplate.
Rushing to the storeroom, she sank down on one of the boxes and clutched her roiling stomach as she rocked back and forth. Her mother had died from an asthma attack.
If he ever got loose--
***
For the following three
days, Natalie started the long, back-breaking preparations for winter under his ever watchful gaze, which included canning the last of the vegetables. Having her every move observed with relentless menace put her constantly on edge. She would drop things and bump into the kitchen table. The number of bruises on her arms and legs steadily grew.
The fact that he hadn't eaten or drunk so much as a crumb since he'd woken from his coma made her feel like the worst kind of torturer. Every time she came out of the bathroom, or woke up, she expected him to be gone or waiting for her with his sword in hand. At night, she would wake up screaming from nightmares, dreaming he'd cut off her head at the first sign of an asthma attack, only to find him watching her through the sheer plastic door of her tent, his gaze unblinking and hot.
By the morning of the third day, her nerves frayed, she was jumping at her own shadow. The only thing he would stare at besides her was the TC. Luckily, he seemed to like the news, which was the only program she could receive until next week. Like her father would say, it was nothing but government propaganda and depressing nonsense.
Making jam to use during winter and to sell in town come spring, she lifted the pot of glistening red berries from the stove. She'd been carefully nursing berry-producing shrubs in the greenhouse for the last two years and couldn't help smiling at the delicious results of her hard work as the fruity sweet fragrance filled her nose. So different from the almost medicinal smell of her pine trees. If all her trees made it through the winter, the mountain would be in good shape come spring. It would take a lifetime to plant enough pines to replace what had been decimated by the beetles, but she had to try.
"What you do?" he asked as she set the heavy pot of berries on the table.
She glanced at the alien. He constantly flexed his muscles, but she couldn't see how it would help the blood flow to his hands. But she didn't feel guilty enough yet to do something stupid--like untying a monster three times her size. Still, if someone tied her up for that long, she would have been begging for a bathroom by now. Either he had the bladder of those long extinct elephants, or he was too proud to use the bucket she'd brought him. Trying to explain its use to him had been an adventure in itself. He hadn't even blinked an eye to acknowledge what she was saying to him, so she'd let it go. If he felt the need, he would no doubt make himself understood.