She told him she had been orphaned in Washington during the second wave of attacks that had fanned out from Seattle. She had headed to Los Angeles with her kid brother, Charlie, hoping to find a military presence or some semblance of order. They had only found chaos. Her brother had saved her from a band of men who were using the Invasion as an excuse to rape and loot. One of the men had cut her with a knife, and now she fingered the scar and looked nervously at Dillon.
Dillon took her hand.
“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said, and meant it.
She smiled shyly and went on with her story. The men had been dragging her into an burned out dry cleaners when Charlie and their cousin Jack had attacked, killing one with rifle shot and another with a section of pipe. The other men had run off, but the noise had brought a tripod, which had vaporized Charlie and Jack just as they reached the relative safety of City Hall. Hope had hidden inside and stayed quiet. Ironically, the other men who had molested her had run into a bipod, and this caused the tripod to move off. After that, she only left her little suite of offices to forage downstairs for food and water. It was on one of these trips she had run into the Martian in the stairwell.
“I’m lucky you came along,” she said.
The smell of the creature was beginning to reach them, now, and Dillon figured they would need to find another sanctuary. He was worried about the band of rapists she had encountered. Were they still in the city? Were they heavily armed?
She was delighted he was so concerned for her, and told him she had seen her attackers killed by the same tripod that killed Charlie. It was the very same tripod now resting against the building like a drunken sailor on leave.
Dillon was relieved her attackers were dead. Although he hoped they might find others who were resistant to the AV strains as he and Hope were (so far), he was glad not to share her company just yet.
“Since the city seems deserted I was going to make my way to the ocean. It would be great if you came with me,” he said. That had been his plan, but he was ready to scrap it in a moment if she didn’t want to come.
“I want to be with you,” Hope said, and he found himself smiling with his whole face. It felt good and strange all at once.
“Great, we can leave at first light,” he said.
“No, silly, I mean I want to be with you… now,” she said, taking his hand and leading him to the couch.
He wanted to say something clever, something sophisticated and grown up, but by then she was unbuttoning his shirt and his throat became too dry to talk.
Dillon had only made love to two other girls in his life. Both had been frantic, hurried episodes before their groups moved out. He knew one had died, crushed under the foot of a tripod. The other girl… Gillian? Her group had headed for Colorado where her brother was supposedly stationed at NORAD. Dillon’s Uncle had told them that he had heard NORAD had been one of the first targets of the Martians in America, but they had gone anyway. He never saw her again.
Those experiences were nothing like his encounter with Hope. It was everything he had ever dreamed of, and much more. She was gentle but ardent, patient but desperate to hold him, feel him. By the time the sun had risen over the city, he decided he was in love with her.
They made their way toward the coast, following the path of the freeway system and taking shelter in abandoned offices or shops. It was the hodge-podge of cataclysm that Dillon had seen in other large cities: buildings reduced to rubble by the Martians, others burned by secondary fires or arson, roadways alternating between ash-filled craters and masses of congestion where AV had left scattered cars full of corpses, panicked refugees running from Martians and succumbing to an earthbound bug. The streets were littered with trash and bones, while many vehicles had become hermetically sealed coffins, filled with bloated and liquefying bodies.
Hope was tireless and brave, but she wouldn’t go near the tripods. He knew it must be the loss of Charlie and didn’t push it. In fact, he wasn’t sure why he had been going into them, except for the possibility of finding a live Martian to kill.
Neither one of them talked much as they made their way through the wasteland. Once they reached Fifth and Santa Monica the damage was less severe, this area emptied by plague rather than death rays.
In a small park they actually spotted a live doe with two small fawns, and Dillon kissed Hope and told her it was a good omen.
It took them two weeks to reach Malibu, and it too was deserted. Some had died in their homes from AV-25, but others had left to be cared for in hospitals, leaving their homes pristine and practically sweet-smelling.
They chose a home of redwood and glass perched over the ocean. The pantry was well-stocked with both food and bottled water, and Dillon figured neighboring homes would offer more of the same.
They created a home there before the blue Pacific, sunning on the beach and making love whenever and wherever they felt like it, eating canned delicacies like oyster and lobster bisque, Dillon slowly learning about wines from the home’s vast cellar.
“Have some wine with me,” he say, “I found this Bordeaux from, like, a hundred years ago, and it’s really good.”
As always, she would make a face. “I hate wine,” she said, “besides, you just want me drunk so you can take advantage of me.” Then she would stick her tongue out at him and run away, and he would chase her, finally catching her in a cascade of shrieks and giggles that slowly became a passionate embrace and usually more.
At night, staring at the stars or into a campfire on the beach, they made plans for the future. Dillon liked the home they had, but Hope wanted to move far away, somewhere where there was no evidence of the conflict, no trace of either civilization. Dillon broached the subject of children, and she tearfully told him she was unable, a botched medical procedure had resulted in an emergency hysterectomy. He held her and kissed her tears away, and told her children were not necessary, that he was deliriously happy being with her and her alone.
Still, when the moon was low and she was deeply asleep he wondered about the children in the tower of Excalibur, and whether he and Hope might cobble together a family with other feral children.
The summer passed, and the skies over Malibu grew gray with storms out of Hawaii. Dillon wondered if any islands had been left undisturbed. Perhaps there were people in Fiji or Micronesia. Communication had broken down so thoroughly that they might never know how many survivors there were without actually making the journey.
“What… what if it’s just us?” Hope asked nervously, watching the rain outside the window with a fascination that seemed a little creepy to him. She explained that her parents had been washed away in a flash flood when she was little, and she had come to think of rainstorms as haunted phenomena, bearing the spirits of any killed by water.
“There were those kids I saw in Vegas. I would think they would have already been dead from the AV if they were susceptible.”
“But so many things could happen, even without AV or Martians.”
That was true. What if one of the kids accidentally set a fire, or they ate contaminated food?
He pulled her close and kissed her.
“If you are all I have, then I guess I’m the richest man on Earth.” It came out both macabre and corny, but she giggled and kissed him back.
They made love, sweetly and with a patience and deliberation born of months of practice. As she slept, he sipped scotch and thought of Marie.
He had lied to Hope. Although he was exceedingly happy with her, he still missed his sister terribly, as well as his parents. He guessed it would be a long time before that ache in his heart eased.
He looked over at Hope, sleeping curled on the floor, and saw her face flicker.
For a split second, her face was Marie’s, then flicked back to Hope’s.
Dillon dropped his glass and backed away as she sat up with a start.
“Dillon, what’s wrong?”
&n
bsp; “Your face… it changed.”
“Darling, you must have had a nightmare. Come to bed.”
“I know what I saw!” he shouted, his mind a jumbled obstacle course of fears and conjecture.
“It’s me,” she pleaded, “it’s just me.”
And now, he could smell it, so faintly, that odor he had come to associate with every loss, every shred of misery visited upon his short life.
Martian.
“You… what are you?”
Tears began to spill from her eyes, and it nearly broke his heart. If she had said nothing, he would have decided the alcohol and his own melancholy had played tricks on him, making him see a face he yearned for.
“Please, just love me,” she begged, and in her eyes he saw something.
Guilt.
He always kept a gun handy in each room. They hadn’t seen a Martian since they had come here, but he vowed never to drop his guard. He trained a chrome .45 on her now, one of the previous owner’s many firearms.
“Tell me,” he screamed, and she flinched back more from the fury in his voice than the gun in his hand.
“I came to your planet two years ago,” she said, looking for all the world like a tearful blonde girl just shy of eighteen. “We’re part of a psychic infiltration unit that has been training since the aborted invasion a century ago.”
“Psychic?”
“All Martians have powerful minds, it’s how we control our machines, and how we can sometimes attack you with just a thought. I… I was one of the more gifted ones, but my heart has never been in this war.”
Dillon’s mind was racing.
“Why pick me? I’m not of any tactical use to you.”
“I was lonely,” she said. “I found you sleeping and could sense that you were kind, that you had a good heart… but only if I was human.”
“So you brainwashed me.”
“I gave you what you wanted.”
“Then I…” The full realization of what he had been kissing, touching… making love to for the past four months twisted his guts and tore at his heart. His mind was filled with revulsion and loathing, and it was all he could do to keep from vomiting.
“You were lonely, too,” she said, her human eyes brimming with tears. Were those dead, triple eyes underneath crying? Did Martians weep?
He thought of how sweet she had been, how it had been so wonderful to laugh with someone, hold them…
But it was all a lie.
“Both our worlds are dead,” she said, sobbing. “We received the reports from our world about a year ago. Troops contaminated with AV made it back home. Our resources were stretched to the limit because of the invasion, our scientists had no means to fight the plague. Mars is dead.”
“Why didn’t you leave me alone?” he cried, the gun wavering in his hand.
“I was lonely,” she said, weeping. “My last sweep of the planet showed only one human left… You.”
He shook his head. “Las Vegas,” he began.
“One of the children ruptured a gas main. They were all killed.”
“The Outback… Africa… the Aleutians…”
“The secret installation in Australia was easy to find once we arrived.” She sounded almost proud of this. “As for the other continents, your virus was very thorough. There may be some who are immune, but they are nowhere near a major land mass.”
Dillon wiped at his eyes and inhaled furiously through his nose to try and clear it.
“I can be anyone,” she said. “I will, to stay with you. I love you, Dillon, it may sound insane but it’s true. I can even be Marie…”
At the sound of her name his decision was made. The report of the gun was deafening.
“I loved you, too,” he whispered.
The rain had stopped, and the house was a blazing inferno by midnight. He had been exhausted, but he couldn’t stay.
By the time the sun came up, he was moving north up the coast, and what he had left behind was just another ruin on the ravaged landscape.
A SWEET GIRL FOR TODD
“Here you go,” she said, handing him a brochure for a tanning salon.
It read Aztec Tan , and featured a tanned and muscular jaguar warrior surrounded by pretty girls in bikinis.
Todd gulped. One of the beauties in the photo was standing before him.
“So, how about a tan?” she asked.
Todd was embarrassed by the attention, especially from a beauty with such large blue eyes. She wore a turquoise silk blouse, open just enough to tempt his gaze. He tried to concentrate on her blonde hair, which shimmered in the sun like spun gold.
Like Sif, the wife of Thor, he marveled.
“Mama never let me go out in the sun,” he said. His mother had always made dire predictions about what would happen if he ventured outside, so he had grown up in a world of perpetual dimness. Then, three months ago, she had been installing new blackout curtains and had fallen off the ladder, breaking her neck. After she was gone Todd took his first tentative step outside. Once he discovered that he would not burst into flame or melt like a waxwork figure, he had reveled in the feel of sunshine and open air.
“No wonder you’re so pale,” she said, shaking her head sadly. Todd felt his heart break to see her unhappy while at the same time his spirit soared because she really seemed to care for him.
“I also had bad skin, but I’ve been using Skin-Alive and Chum-Scrub.”
“I think your skin is beautiful,” she said, shyly. “My name is Mandy.”
“I’m Todd.”
“You have family here in L.A., Todd? I can tell you’re from out of town by your accent… Chicago?”
“Detroit,” he said, happy she was interested. “No, it was just Mama and me, and she’s dead. I wanted to go someplace… sunny.”
“So now you’re here, seeking your fortune… And maybe… love?’
Todd blushed a bright crimson, and felt it travel all the way from his cheeks to the tips of his toes. It was not an unpleasant sensation.
Mandy took his arm, and her touch sent a shockwave of electricity through him. He willed himself not to sway, lest she break her grasp.
“So, Todd from Detroit, how about that tan?”
“I’m… uh… too big for a tanning bed,” he said, as if imparting a secret.
“Not ours,” she said sweetly.
Todd hesitated. He was 6’2” and tipped the scales at just shy of 400 pounds. Todd had come to learn that what might serve most men was either too small or too fragile for him. He was sure it would be that way with her tanning bed, and wasn’t sure he could take the embarrassment.
“Tell you what,” Mandy cooed, “you try a tan and you can join me for dinner.”
“You mean, like a date?”
She giggled, and it was not the cruel laughter he had heard as he had waddled down Hollywood Boulevard, or the hateful snickers as he ate lunch at the House of Pies. No, her laughter was melodious and magical. Aphrodite might have made such a sound.
“Of course, silly. You think I’m going to let a handsome, robust man like you get away?”
Handsome! She found him handsome!
Was love beckoning to him? His mother’s voice, unbidden, reminded him that sunlight was bad for her little man and that he had a ticket back to Michigan.
Todd banished her from his thoughts, a first on this day of many firsts.
She led him down the boulevard, and again he was struck by the dizzying array of colors and textures, of people from every country, some pierced and tattooed into tribal fetishes or creatures Conan or John Carter of Mars might have fought.
“First trip to Hollywood?” Mandy asked.
“My first trip anywhere,” he confessed. “I thought it would be like the Clark Gable days.”
Mandy giggled again, the sweet notes making his heart flutter. He suddenly caught her scent, flowery and clean with a hint of something animal underneath, and felt a stran
ge stirring along his spine and down into his pelvis.
Maybe that’s love, he thought.
Mandy escorted him all the way to a strip mall down on Sunset near Vine. Even when his hand became sweaty from exertion, she didn’t let go, and Todd was sure he had found the sweet girl he had been yearning for since he first read of Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars.
The shopping center seemed deserted, and weeds had started to sprout in the parking lot. In amongst several failed businesses sat a cheery little storefront with a mural of a Mesoamerican pyramid and a smiling sun with sunglasses. The sign read “Aztec Tan, the Sun Experts!”
Inside it was cool and brightly lit, with posters of Mexico covering the walls. Todd was introduced to the staff, which included Lila the massage therapist and Derrick the “tan master”. This title was delivered by handsome Derrick with a self-deprecating smile. Todd envied Derrick his heroic muscles and dark curly hair. He looked like Apollo.
He might have been jealous, but Mandy introduced him as “my Todd”, and he again felt that pleasant heat suffuse his body.
Then Todd filled out a medical history (no illnesses, no next of kin) and a release (“in the unlikely event…”), which Mandy assured him was just for “those stuffy lawyers.” She shyly gave Todd a kiss on the cheek and that removed any fears he might have had.
After much coaxing, Todd stripped down to his shorts. While he drank a soothing herbal tea, Lila covered him in spicy ointments and buttery creams. By the time she was done, he smelled like Christmas morning.
They helped Todd into their largest tanning bed. Todd chose a recording of ambient forest sounds and they all bid him sweet dreams.
Night birds sang sweetly, but it was the crickets Todd found soothing, restful. He suddenly felt a longing for home and… and… But the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come, and he thought of sweet Mandy and their date when he emerged bronzed like a jaguar warrior.
As it grew toasty warm, Todd felt a sharp pain in his gut, and then along his spine. As he was about to panic, a warm calm settled over him, and he thought he remembered his father, lifting him high, high up in arms long and strong.
Dark Valentines Page 4