Star Angel: Awakening (Star Angel Book 1)

by David G. McDaniel

  Big things.

  “He dented the ground,” Bianca’s voice sounded numb. “He was on fire, and he dented the ground.”

  Jess moved closer, looking the man over.

  Then he stirred.

  Bianca screamed and ran, losing any courage she’d managed to regain. Jess jumped but held her ground; forced herself to breathe. Somewhere out in the woods Bianca stopped when she saw no one followed.

  And slowly, impossibly, the man rose to his knees. Steadied himself and … rose all the way to his feet.

  Jess swallowed. Hard. A hard, painful, lump in her throat.

  Meteor Man was not only alive, he was standing.

  She felt her mouth hanging open. Drying in the cool, evening air. There he stood, back to her, bits of debris falling here and there, leaves and dirt, leaning a little this way and that, getting his balance but otherwise unbroken. The shaft of fading light shone down on him through the hole in the trees above like a weak spotlight, highlighting him on this impromptu forest stage. Jess blinked. Deep in the woods Bianca crouched, ready. She could see her friend, barely, just able to make her out, staring back so hard the whites of her eyes were bright circles against the darkness of her terrified face.

  Yet, she noted Bianca’s expression also held a certain hint of not-quite-horrified fascination. Like, as she really began to see the man, she began to feel a reluctant sort of …

  Attraction.

  Jess realized she felt it too.

  This was no monster.

  Now that the man was standing she could tell her assessment had been right. He was easily over six feet. Probably several inches over, with proportions to go with the height. Lean like a fighter, muscular, broad shoulders …

  Once again she caught her rambling thoughts.

  And for the first time in her life actually pinched herself. That’s what people did, right? It sounded silly but never before had she been confronted with anything like this. None of it made sense.

  It was like a dream.

  But if the trick was supposed to work it didn’t. She didn’t wake up. In fact it got worse.

  The man turned.

  She gasped. Totally involuntary, and only as she heard the sound come from her own mouth did she realize she’d gasped at all. The guy was … young. Short, dark hair, face smooth like the rest of him. Probably in his late teens, now that she saw him, not much older than her—like a young college guy or something, though he could easily have been a high-schooler. So young! Bigger than an adult man, though, and … the most piercing blue eyes she’d ever seen. Like pale ice. She realized at once it was those eyes that brought the gasp, flickering as they did in that first instant when he turned.

  In the half-light they almost glowed.

  And as she stared at him, bits of tattered clothes singed and clinging to his body, no doubt burned to him during the impossible, flaming re-entry, she found herself mesmerized. By this living, breathing impossibility. A sort of out-of-body experience, like an oscillation of self; a flickering of the senses, and for a scary moment she felt as if she was about to float completely away. Presently she found herself stuck, staring into his eyes; a smoky handsomeness, even in his youth, one she could scarcely process in her overwhelmed state, and as she wavered, trying to hold her balance, she realized her breathing was coming in pants.

  Bianca was beside her. Jess had no idea when she got there, attention just as fiercely locked, and Jess tried harder to regulate her breathing.

  But the boy didn’t seem to notice. He regarded them, gaze empty, gathering his wits. Standing as if on display. Until, finally, a grasp of the situation seemed to wash over him all at once and, in a single, clarifying instant, he snapped to the present, noted the two girls staring at him and came into focus. Then he did the most amazing thing yet.

  He spoke.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  Bianca’s mouth fell open.

  “He speaks English!”

  Jess snapped to her, making an involuntary Duh! face.

  She looked back at the boy. Man? Was he even old enough to be a man? Physically he most definitely was. She found herself thinking of him that way. She swallowed twice; found her voice.

  “Are you,” cleared it, “hurt?”

  He thought about it. Looked himself over.

  Somewhat surprised he said: “No.” His own voice was low and strong; the voice of an older boy, maturity in it.

  Jess couldn’t stop swallowing. Her throat was so dry. “We saw you fall from the sky,” she said. It felt so strange to say it.

  At that he looked up through the ragged hole in the forest canopy, directly overhead. Stars were starting to show, twinkling in the near night. For a long moment he seemed to ponder something, something deep, it seemed, considering the heavens, searching them expectantly with far more confusion than seemed appropriate—even under the circumstances. Then he inhaled, deeply, and looked away, down at the ground. He studied the indentation of his body in the dirt. Jess tried to read any expression she could. What was he thinking?

  Where did you just come from?!

  “I … fell from the sky?”

  Both girls nodded.

  Jess made a conscious effort to pull it together. “Yes.” To deal with the situation they very suddenly found themselves in the middle of.

  Get a grip!

  “Do you remember anything?” she asked.

  He thought on it, then: “No.”

  Bianca leaned in to Jessica’s ear and whispered loudly: “His bones should be broken! He should be burned! He should be dead! This isn’t right!”

  Jess whispered back harshly: “He can hear you!” Then, looking between Bianca and the strange visitor: “Right now we need to figure this out,” she said to her friend. “However it happened, he’s here, he’s alive, and he needs our help.”

  “I can’t remember who I am,” he said. “Or where I just was.”

  “We should go,” Bianca insisted. “Call someone.”

  Jess shook her head. “We can’t just leave him.”

  “Jessica. We’re standing in the woods, alone, in the dark, with a guy who just fell out of the sky in a ball of flame. We can just leave. We ran out here. It’s time to run back.”

  “Would you stop?” Jess implored. “He’s right there. He can hear you.”

  “It’s okay,” the guy said. “She’s right. I don’t know what happened, but I can tell this is a very unusual situation.

  “If I were you I’d probably run back too.”

  Bianca nodded enthusiastic agreement.

  But Jess wasn’t so sure.

  “Listen,” she said. “I mean, you fell out of the sky. Out of thin air. There was nothing up there right before you popped into existence.” For a moment the reality of that—of everything—made her swoon. She steadied herself. “Clearly there’s more to this we need to find out.”

  Bianca was beside herself. “What do you mean ‘need to find out’?!”

  “You ever watch TV?” Jess tried to make her point. “The movies? If we go tell someone they’ll call the FBI. The X-Files. Whatever. They’ll take him off and put him in a lab, interrogate us—this is not just a simple missing persons thing. He came from somewhere.”

  “He came from thin air! Why is it our job to find anything out?”

  The guy interrupted. “I don’t want to go to a lab.”

  They both looked at him. Bianca with a burning sense of urgency, on the verge of bolting again, Jess trying desperately to capture her scattered attention.

  “Look,” she said. “He’s not hurt. He doesn’t need medical attention. However impossible that is,” and she drifted again; recovered her train of thought. “He’s coherent, talking. All I’m saying is let’s think about this. Let’s see what we can do before we run off and tell the grownups. That’s what we always do. Go tell the grownups.”

  Bianca just stared at her, mouth open. Dumbfounded by her friend’s continued insistence on this ridiculous fantasy.
>
  Jess took a deep breath. “Let’s start by getting him something to wear, okay?” She turned to him. What tatters of clothes the guy had left were making looking at him a distraction. There were just too many things to process. “Let’s start there,” she kept her eyes on his. “Then we’ll see if there’s any more you can remember.” She turned back to Bianca, trying to engage her. “Okay? Then we’ll think of a plan.”

  But Bianca was losing it. “… Something to wear?”

  “We can’t leave him like this.”

  Jess turned back to the guy, who continued to stand there patiently.

  “We’ll go get you something to wear, okay?”

  At that Bianca threw up her arms and walked around in a circle. “This is insane.”

  “We’ll just get him something!” Consciously Jess calmed her voice. “His clothes are all burned up, okay? It’s the right thing to do. Then we’ll talk to him.”

  “This is really weird.” Bianca was talking to herself now, as no one else seemed to be listening. “I mean … this is really weird.”

  Jess went closer to the guy, feeling a little thrill as she did. A rush of danger.

  Other things.

  “Can you wait here?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I’ll wait.”

  She paused. “Are you hungry?”

  “Hungry?” Now Bianca was convinced her friend had totally lost it. “Is he hungry?!”

  Jessica scowled. “I’m just trying to be polite!”

  “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  Bianca reached for her.

  “Come on!”

  CHAPTER 4: OUT OF CONTROL

  Night had fallen. Sitting at the top of the hill in the near distance Jessica’s house looked inviting, windows illuminated in soft light, back porch-light on and welcoming. At nearly four-thousand square feet the house was practically a mansion compared to their last and, in that moment, a cozy contrast to the bizarre, waking nightmare through which she found herself moving.

  “You can wake up any time,” Bianca echoed Jessica’s thoughts as they hurried across the last of the dark field.

  But her mind was made up.

  “Jess—”

  “I don’t know why you had to be so rude,” she admonished.

  Her friend groused along beside her, barely keeping pace. “I don’t know why you chose tonight to lose your mind.”

  Jess jogged up the hill, past the swings and the little playhouse, Bianca trailing. Her friend split off and walked around in the yard, looking for her flip-flops while Jess went up to the porch and wiped her feet on the bristled door mat. Bianca came up, flip-flops in hand, threw them down and cursed under her breath as she slipped them on. For a moment both paused, staring at each other in the warm glow of the porch-light.

  Jess opened the door and went inside. Bianca followed.

  The kitchen was empty. Jess hurried through to the living room and began hunting her own flip-flops, found them tossed off in the corner by the couch and slid them into view with a foot. She was slipping them on when Amy came down the stairs, heading for the front door.

  “Amy!” Jess called, too urgently, trying to get the left one turned round the right way. She rushed to intercept her sister, dragging it along, hanging off the wrong toes.

  Amy! Yes! Amy, who was a Senior and had her own car. Amy who, while your typical, annoying older sister was, at least, better than Dad or, especially, Mom. Amy would mostly ignore them. Mom and Dad would ask questions.

  “Amy,” she repeated as her sister kept walking. “You’re here.”

  “Not for long,” Amy didn’t even look at her. “I’m going to Chad’s.” She was dressed nice, careful not to look too dressed up—wouldn’t want Chad to think she was trying—and suddenly Jess realized it probably took more time to look that way than it would’ve to really get dressed up. Which meant the odds of Amy doing a favor right then were even less than usual.

  “We need a lift,” she implored. “To the mall.”

  Bianca, who had wandered into the room, still in a mild state of catatonia, seemed all at once to get the magnitude of what was happening. “The mall?” she blurted, then looked to Jess and hissed: “I thought we were just getting him a sheet or something!”

  The statement caught Amy’s attention, but only briefly.

  Pointedly Bianca looked herself over. She was a wreck. “I can’t go to the mall!”

  But Jess ignored her, focus locked to Amy. “Tomorrow’s the first day of school,” she begged. “We need to get some stuff.” Then: “Please?”

  Amy shrugged. “You should’ve thought of that before. I’m not spending my last night running you guys around.”

  “You just have to drop us off. Wait, like, fifteen minutes, then bring us back. We know exactly what we want.” Jess hunched her shoulders a pleading gesture. “Please?” Then: “I’ll fill up your tank.”

  Now Amy stopped to look at them. Really look at them. Curious at all the fuss, their intense expressions—noticing their appearance for the first time. Both were disheveled. Harried.

  Dirty.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What are you guys up to?”

  “Nothing. I just,” Jessica debated what to say, then an idea hit her. “I’m freaking out, okay?” She feigned desperation. “I don’t know how else to put it. I’m freaking out. I didn’t want to spend any of my money so I’ve been debating all week and now, on the night before school, I’m freaking out. I didn’t buy shoes.”

  Amy looked at Jessica’s flip-flops. Definitely in need of replacement. She couldn’t even seem to put them on right.

  “Sorry,” said Jess. “I know it’s not like me. But can you help? We’re sophomores this year. Sophomores. First year in high school. First year at your school. You don’t want people laughing at your little sister, do you?”

  “You are so strange sometimes.”

  Jess kept up the plaintive face.

  Amy relented.

  “Fine,” she turned for the door, exasperated. “Get your stuff. You’re lucky it’s on the way.”

  * *

  Amy wheeled up to the mall driving fast.

  “Make it quick,” she repeated for the tenth time as Jessica and Bianca jumped out.

  “I’ll call you.” Jess slammed the door and Amy peeled out, heading off to run an errand. Jess could tell it wasn’t just a show of impatience; Amy really did want to spend as much time as she could with Chad. He was her latest boyfriend and, like all those that went before, Amy was swooning over him.

  Jess hurried to the mall entrance, Bianca reluctantly in tow. Several other kids were hanging out, talking or cutting up on the last night before school. No one she knew, thankfully.

  They entered walking briskly. Inside Jess covered the wide, well-lit halls with long strides, Bianca barely keeping up, the absolute normalcy of the environment impressing upon her. People shopping, living their lives, nothing unusual to worry about. Just the typical issues. What to wear. Where to go for dinner. What to do.

  Not her. Now, quite suddenly, she and Bianca were outside the norm. Far outside. They were on a mission to help a very strange visitor indeed.

  “What’s this all about?” Bianca wanted to know. “The mall? What possessed you to come to the mall?”

  “I said I’d get him something to wear.”

  “You—”

  “He’s too big for Dad’s stuff.”

  “You’re going to buy this guy actual clothes?”

  “No. I’m going to buy him fake ones.”

  “You’re out of control.”

  They walked on in silence, Jess searching store fronts for just the right one. Just the right place to shop for this handsome boy/man. Wondering to herself all at once:

  What is this all about?

  “What if he’s an alien?” Bianca broke the brief silence, a hint of curiosity in her voice for the first time that night. Jess looked over at her as they walked. Bianca’s hair was a mess from the romp with Toby, grass stain
s on her shirt, even her shorts. Both of them had dirty legs, filthy feet; like they just walked out of the woods. Which, of course, they had. They’d taken no time to do any clean-up. It was a tragedy in the making to risk a trip to the mall looking like that—which made Jess appreciate her friend all the more.

  Despite anything else Bianca was always there for her. Sure, B seemed like a typical superficial teen, blessed with great looks and all the right connections, but that was only part of the picture. It was Bianca who welcomed Jess when she moved to Boise. Bianca who made her feel at home, who introduced her around. Bianca who, in many ways, had become the best friend Jess ever had.

  “Maybe he’s from the future,” she continued, thinking aloud, the moment ripe for speculation. Jess studied her, wondering if she was just being a smart-ass. She wasn’t. All at once it was like Bianca’s mind was consumed with the possibilities of what they’d actually stumbled on.

  “Maybe he popped through a rip in time,” she mused. “Maybe he’s not an alien. Maybe he comes from a future Earth.”

  Jess led them into a clothing store.

  Inside was dimly lit, the latest “interesting” music playing, smells and all else meant to create a “hip” setting. Meant to make you want to buy. Jess typically shunned these sorts of places, but tonight was different.

  What is this all about? she asked herself again as she breezed past a few other teenagers, no doubt shopping for their own last-minute back-to-school gear. Why am I doing this?

  She began scanning racks of clothes, spotted a bunch of shirts and headed for them. Rapidly she flipped through the selections, sliding the hangers harshly on the rack.

  “Slow down,” Bianca looked furtively at the others in the store. “You’re making a scene.”

  Jess kept flipping, single-minded of purpose, stopping now and again to consider this or that option.

  “Can I help?” an effeminate male clerk asked from behind. Both girls whirled. The clerk recoiled at their reaction. “Whoa. In a hurry, ladies?”

  Then he noticed the men’s shirts.

  “Shopping for a boyfriend?”

  Jessica swallowed. “Not exactly.” Then, reconsidering: “Actually, yes. A boyfriend.”