“It wasn’t enough. You should have done more. If she dies, this is on you. I kept your wife safe, you were supposed to do the same for mine.” He stared at Paul with naked hatred, his mouth curled into a half snarl, like a dog reacting to a wounded animal. Krista opened her mouth to interject that she didn’t need saving, but Paul beat her to it.
“I know. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry.” Always the peacemaker, Paul accepted the attack and made patting motions with his hands. “But now that you’re here, maybe we can move her and work together to look underneath the bandages to see what’s-”
“I fucked your wife.”
The words dropped like a falling building, sudden and violent, expanding to fill the room with silence. No one moved. The only sound was Sharon’s ragged breathing.
Krista’s stomach constricted. Beside her, Paul’s face drained of color, and he swayed on his feet. They stared at Martin, neither able to make a sound. Martin’s face constricted, his lips pulled back in a snarl. His guns were out, pointed at Paul.
“It was at the last barbecue after you went home.”
“Shut up.” Krista tried to yell, but she choked on the words. They fell from her mouth, listless and unsteady, no louder than a whisper.
“She wanted me to fuck her again, after it was over.”
“Shut up!” The lie gave her strength to move and she ran to the side of the bed to push him, make him stop, anything. “That’s not true. Shut your fucking mouth.”
“Which part isn’t true?” Paul’s voice was the dying wheeze of a wounded animal. She turned to see the rupture of this moment imprinted on his face. “Kris? Which part?”
“I never asked him to go again.” As soon as she said the words she wanted to die. Not in an abstract sense, but in a real, tangible way. Paul broke, and she broke, and their relationship broke.
“But you did fuck him.” It was a statement, and Paul tilted his head, as if trying to do a complicated math problem. “That’s the true part?”
“Paul, baby, please.” She rushed to his side and pulled at his arm, crying now, not in control of herself, wanting this moment to stop; wanting everything to stop so she could figure out some way to fix this, to end it. “It’s not what you think, it was a dumb mistake. I was drunk, it didn’t mean anything.”
“Ending our marriage didn’t mean anything to you?” He turned his head toward her, but she couldn’t find her husband in his stare. She reeled from the implication.
“I didn’t mean that. Just…” Just what? What could she do now? “Let’s go talk somewhere, okay?”
“I figure we’re even now,” Martin interrupted, dropping Sharon’s hand. “You killed my wife and I fucked yours. Not the best trade, but I’ll take it. Now get the fuck out of my room so I can be alone with my wife.”
Paul looked like he was going to say something, but instead, spun and left. Krista didn’t bother saying anything else to Martin. His part in this was over. She chased after Paul and stopped him at the top of the stairs. He turned, and she saw real anger.
“You did this? For real?”
“I’m so sorry.” It was difficult to make herself understood over her sobs. “It was a mistake, it was nothing.”
“How could you do this to me? To us?”
“I love you. Remember? No matter what, you said you’d believe me.”
A horrible distance found a home in his eyes, an indifference that trapped her, left her suffocating. He removed her hand from his shoulder.
“I don’t believe you.”
He walked down the stairs, leaving her behind.
Day 6: The Group
Heather
Heather hardly slept. She stayed with Liz through the night, sitting up with her back against the wall, stroking her hair. Even when the alarms went off through the night, she didn’t stop comforting Liz. Her friend seemed to drop in and out of sleep and didn’t even flinch when the alarms sounded. A troubling sign in a night that lasted forever. By the time the sun soaked through the curtains, a permanent headache had lodged itself in her skull. Another goddamn day.
Her legs tingled with pinpricks. She untangled herself, moving slowly to keep Liz undisturbed. Once out of bed, she stretched her good arm into the air, her back emitting several loud pops. When she tried to rotate her damaged shoulder, it creaked and groaned, and every movement caused shocks of pain to lance up her arm. Underneath her shirt, purple and blue extended down her bicep.
The scene from yesterday replayed incessantly. Liz’s mom being swallowed by the alien. How close Liz was to following. The mad rush across the street. Insanity, all of it, but it worked, and now they had a chance. The aliens could be killed. Hope lived in that fact, a tiny ember she needed to coax to life, and she kept it clutched it tightly to her chest.
An eerie silence blanketed the house, the usual hum of air conditioners and electronics gone. She never realized how much background noise accompanied societal progress. The air contained the silence of nothing, of a planet before humans, a primitive solitude that made her jittery and jumpy. As she made her way down the stairs, the wreckage from yesterday confronted her. The alien sat on the floor like a stone sculpture, immovable and remote. An alien. In the living room.
Cautiously, she crept toward it. Could it still hurt her? For all she knew, even touching it could kill her. But no, that couldn’t be right. She had a busted shoulder to prove that physical contact wasn’t fatal. Would the alarm still sound?
Up close, it seemed less ominous. More like a piece of furniture. Taking a breath, she put her good hand on the side of the creature and winced in anticipation.
Nothing.
The cool surface possessed no life; it was like touching the side of a car. She pushed a little but was unable to get it to budge. It seemed like it weighed close to two hundred pounds. Bending lower, she leaned into it with her good shoulder and shoved harder. It rocked, and with a final shove, it rolled over. The cavity was still opened, killing the alien hadn’t caused it to automatically close. She was looking at the internal organs of an alien creature.
The smell made her eyes water, a mix of stale feet, acid, and syrupy, rotten fruit. A viscous blue and purple fluid leaked out the sides, and it soaked the carpet where it had been sitting. Inside the cavity was a confusing jumble of circuitry, wires, and pulpy organic material. This thing wasn’t a pure robot, it was like a cyborg. Or a terminator? Matt would probably know the exact term, and she wished he was here with her to sort this out. He’d know what to do.
Nothing appeared active or functioning. She put her head as close to the cavity as she dared and held her breath while she listened. No sound, no low hum of working machinery. The thing was truly dead.
The knife Liz used to kill it was underneath the coffee table. Heather reached over and picked it up. The handle was sticky with alien blood. It coated the blade as well. She used the knife to poke at the inside of the creature, although she didn’t know what she was looking for. With the tip, she pushed through thin membrane to prod at something that looked like a motherboard. There was a wire and a breaker and… she had literally no idea what she was looking at. Computers were as alien to her as actual aliens.
Deep inside the cavity, buried underneath the circuitry, a flash of light caught her eye. It came and went so quickly, she thought she was seeing a gleam of sunlight, but no, there it was again. A blip. She pushed aside robotic components, trying not to get any of the goo on her hands while getting closer to the source of the light. Underneath a pile of wires, close to the edge, she saw it. A tiny, rectangular box, perfectly black, with a single pulsing green light on the exterior.
They'd be equipped with onboard transmitters or something.
Matt’s words came back in a rush and her breath caught. This could be it. This could be the thing that identifies it as an alien. It was the only thing functioning, and didn’t it make sense that it would continue to work after the alien was dead? Otherwise, wouldn’t the aliens eat each other?
So much guesswork and supposition went into this, but it made sense. She pried at the small blinking box, no longer caring how dirty her hands got, only wanting to get this thing out so she could examine it closer. It seemed to sit in a secure cavity, and by forcing the tip of the knife between the crack, she was able to get leverage and pry. After a moment, it popped free with a sucking noise and landed in her hand.
It was the size of a deck of cards and surprisingly heavy. Two or three pounds, at least. She wiped alien slime off it, turning it over for inspection. The only item on the exterior was the single, pulsing green light. She could detect a slight vibration, evidence that whatever this thing was, it still functioned.
She chewed her lip and walked to the front of the house, thinking about what this could mean. Transferring the device to her back pocket, she opened the door, letting in the morning air and sunlight. Across the yard, the junction box Abby had been watching lay on its side at the foot of the treehouse. What did that mean exactly? How did it get so close? What happened to the person inside it? She wished she had some way to communicate with Matt, but unless he stuck his head out the window yelled, they had no way to talk. All the phones were dead now.
Unless.
Unless this thing in her back pocket did what she thought. If this really was a device that identified an alien, would holding it protect her? Could she walk outside with this in her hand? If she was wrong, she’d be killed.
Outside, four aliens were visible in the sky above the houses. The closest was about thirty feet away, level with the roof line. She remembered Abby jumping outside to get the drone. Three seconds, that’s about how long it took before the aliens fired their lasers.
She thought about Liz, catatonic upstairs, her soul broken. She thought about her mom and how much she wanted to see her one last time. She thought about Matt and his lock of hair that wouldn’t stay in the right place. Her head hurt so much and more than anything, she just wanted to sleep. Her body screamed at her to get proper rest. There was almost nothing she wouldn’t try if it meant sleeping for longer than an hour.
She stopped thinking and jumped outside.
For half a heartbeat, she forced her feet to remain planted on the concrete of the front porch before leaping back inside the house, tumbling down to her backside, breathing heavily. Looking up at the sky, she couldn’t tell if the aliens moved or reacted. She needed to swallow back vomit that crept up in the back of her throat and her vision narrowed to pinpoints. Sitting up, she put her head on her knees and concentrated on not passing out.
She had done it. She stood outside for a second.
The truth swatted away her hope. She needed to stay outside longer to prove anything, a single second wasn’t enough time. Her good hand was slippery with sweat and she wiped it on her jeans. There wasn’t enough moisture in her mouth. This was crazy. It had to stop. But she knew she wouldn’t. If this meant getting out of here, she needed to keep going.
This time, she kept her eyes focused on the closest alien. She’d watch it the whole time, and if it so much as wobbled, she’d jump back in the house. She tried to convince herself she was being responsible and cautious. What if there was an alien about Liz’s house? No. Stop thinking. Her knees wouldn’t stop shaking. With a deep breath, she took a measured step out the front door.
One.
Two.
She couldn’t do it.
Her nerve broke and with a small scream, she jumped back in the house. Breathing hard, she clutched her chest, trying to settle her heartbeat. This was crazy, and she needed to stop. She was going to get herself killed. Only minutes had passed, but her hair stuck to her forehead, nervous sweat making her whole body slick. A sour taste filled her mouth, and she wiped her lips with her hand.
But the alien in the sky hadn’t moved. She was positive. Her eyes never left it and she would have noticed if it so much as twittered. Two seconds, it for sure would have moved after two. Wouldn’t it?
Could she do three?
A tiny whimper slipped from her mouth. She realized she was so scared she was lightheaded. If she was wrong, in the next thirty seconds she’d be dead. No more Heather. No more anything. But she couldn’t stop. She had to know.
With her good hand, she covered her eyes and prepared for the final step but stopped herself. If she was going to die, she’d do it with her eyes wide open.
“Fuck you.” She looked upwards at the nearest alien and stepped outside.
One.
Two.
Three.
Her eyes watered with the need to blink, but she kept them locked on the alien.
Four.
Five.
Six.
It wasn’t moving. It wasn’t reacting. Nothing.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten. Ten seconds. She was standing outside and not dying. With a shaky hand, she pulled the transmitter from her back pocket. It hadn’t changed, but was the green light flicking faster?
She held it over her head and took a step forward. And another. Another. Soon she was on the driveway. Her eyes never left the alien. It hadn’t budged. But she was walking.
She was outside.
She was moving.
Then she was running.
Paul
Paul read Matt’s note for the fifth time. He was in the kitchen where the morning light was the strongest, trying to absorb what happened, the message on the page. Somehow, the kids killed an alien. Somehow, Heather ran outside to Alexandra’s house. Somehow, Pete was alive, although weary and shaken. And here he was thinking of making crackers last two days was an accomplishment. The kids were running circles around him. He gripped a pen, thinking what to write back. First, they should —
I fucked your wife.
The thought boomed in his head and he flinched. A fresh shaft of ice drove through his heart. It staggered him. All night, he tossed and turned on the downstairs couch, Krista staying in their bedroom. The alien alarm only sounded once through the night, and after he woke up, he crept upstairs to listen outside their bedroom door. He heard sounds of crying but couldn’t make his hand work to open the door. Everything was a mess, and he didn’t know how to make them normal. He had no mental map for how to recover from this level of betrayal.
He shook his head and tried to focus and keep his mind clear. His head drooped with exhaustion. None of this mattered. There was still so much to do. It was a new day, and that meant a new set of problems, like how to make sure the kids had enough -
I fucked your wife.
“Fuck!” He jerked up in his chair, throwing the pen hard enough to break it into pieces. Nothing he did could stop the words from playing in his head.
I fucked your wife.
At some point, he’d need to confront everything those four words meant. The why and how of it. The shape they made, the contours of how they would envelope his relationship going forward. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw naked hips and intertwined legs. He saw Krista’s head, thrown back in ecstasy, her lower lip caught in her mouth. He heard Martin’s animal grunts as he pawed his inelegant hands over Krista’s body. His hands, moving lower down her waist, to find the perfect spot —
Stop. Enough.
He gripped his head and squeezed, like he was trying to extract the thoughts, so he could examine them. This would drive him to madness. He wanted to hit something.
No. Not something. Someone.
He should punch Martin right in his dumb, fat face.
The idea took purchase and gave him a container to pour his anger into. Who would blame him? Wasn’t he supposed to do something like this when another man went after his woman? It would be so easy too, and he sunk into the fantasy for a moment, how it would feel, the satisfying crunch his fist would make against Martin’s chin.
Paul had never been in a fight. They taught their kids to solve their problems with words. Turn the other cheek. Tell an adult. So much of what he told them wasn’t how the w
orld worked. Sometimes, it made sense to punch another person in the face.
A noise from behind got his attention, and he turned. Martin stood in the door frame, taking up the space, his shoulders flush against the frame. A big man, with easily six inches on Paul and at least sixty pounds.
They stared at each other for a moment, and Paul dropped his eyes first. Hot shame rushed into him.
“I hope there’s no hard feelings.” Martin crossed the threshold into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Despite there being no electricity, Paul still stored water there, more out of habit. Martin grabbed a bottle, opened the top, and took a large swallow.
“I mean, after what you did to my wife, we’re basically even, but I didn’t want bad blood between us. There’s no reason to get bent out of shape about any of this. We can be gentlemen about it.”
“Stop talking.” Paul closed his eyes, swallowing back the searing rage that threatened to burn any rational thought.
“Suit yourself. You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Deal?”
Paul opened his eyes to see Martin’s extended his hand. Unbelievable.
“You want me to shake your hand.” Paul’s voice was flat, the words coming out as a statement.
“No hard feelings. That’s all this is.”
Behind Martin, Krista appeared in the doorway. She looked horrible, like she hadn’t slept. Her sunken, red-rimmed eyes took in the scene, but she didn’t say anything. Her arms hugged her chest, and she chewed on her bottom lip. Inexplicably, the sight of her enraged him more than Martin’s absurd request for a handshake. His shaking hand closed into a fist as he looked at Martin’s placid face, who stared at him with impatience.
He rushed from his chair and punched Martin in the face.
In fantasies, that would be it. Martin would drop, he’d say something smart like, “That’s for fucking my wife,” and the punch would have helped something. The reality didn’t work like that. The punch caught Martin flush on the cheek and he staggered backwards into the fridge, but that was the extent of the impact.
Aliens and Ice Cream Page 21