by Mel Corbett
Nate sat up, his strength returning after the food. He searched the darkness for Rachel. Her voice sounded close.
“I’m fine, I guess. The food is amazing. Rachel. I had this turkey thing, but it wasn’t turkey—”
“They fed you, that’s good. And you feel better?”
Nate shrugged, then realized she probably couldn’t see him.
“I do.” This was weird. Why had they been singled out for the luxury treatment? The rest of the abductees were all in that terrible holding cell.
“Rachel, what’s going on?” Nate asked. Why weren’t the lights coming on?
“I’m something of a… translator now,” Rachel said. The outline of her form moved in the darkness just past the table. She had something strange on her head. They must have given her a hat to show her rank as a translator.
“A translator?”
“Yes. It’s very exciting. Because they’ve given me the honor of helping convert humanity to their cause, they will take care of us both. Nate, you’ll never be hungry again.”
Nate didn’t like the way she said honor or how she stopped several feet away.
“God, Nate, when you got sick, I was so scared.” Her voice shook when she spoke, and the lilt of India she got from her parents sank into her words.
“I’m fine now,” Nate said.
“I’m glad. You’re worth it.” Rachel made a lowering gesture with her hand. The room got even darker. Why had she signaled them to turn off the lights?
“Worth it?” Nate swallowed. Something was terribly wrong, even worse than being abducted to an alien home world.
“I chose the aliens. I figured they wouldn’t let us starve, and I was right. I gave up my freedom to save you.” Rachel’s hand caressed Nate’s cheek. She must have been kneeling in front of him, but why did she make it so dark?
“You turned us in?” Nate asked.
She said nothing, her fingers tracing along his face like she was blind. Maybe she was. Could be whatever they’d done to make her a translator had made her eyes sensitive to the light.
“Rachel, are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Nate. I’m better than fine. I’m honored.”
Nate’s stomach turned. That didn’t sound like Rachel.
“Honored?”
“Honored because I surrendered. Honored because I found something very special in the mines. I’ve been given a gift, Nate.”
Nate turned his face away from her probing fingers, but she pushed his face back towards her.
“Why is it dark, Rach?” Nate asked.
Instead of answering, Rachel pressed her lips against his. Her kiss was soft and gentle. Nate kissed her back, and she grew more fervent. Her hands slid down his arms and pulled him tight. She pressed herself against him.
No. Nate needed to think. He pushed her off.
“Rachel, why is it dark?” he asked again.
“Oh, Nate. Can’t you be glad we’re together and safe?”
Nate shook his head in the darkness. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t see him because something was wrong. This wasn’t Rachel. Were they trying to steal his sperm to make alien babies? Like in all those abduction stories? Nate wondered if aliens really were abducting and probing humans before.
“Are you Rachel or an alien?” Nate asked.
She pulled back, and he felt her grow stiff beside him.
“Of course I’m me,” she said. Her voice echoed her parents’ accent like it always did when she was angry. “What kind of question is that?”
“Prove it,” Nate said. “Turn on the lights.”
Rachel said nothing for a long while. The lights didn’t turn on. Nate searched the darkness for her face, but it was useless.
“I’m Rachel Devar,” she said. “We met in O-chem freshman year. We hid at Jenna’s parents’ place when they came. Our first date was watching the Leonid meteor shower on the roof of Emerson Hall. You kissed me while we watched the stars fall.”
“Then why can’t I see you?” Nate asked.
She sighed.
Nate waited in silence for an answer.
“They had to do something to me to make me a translator. I don’t think you’ll like what you’ll see.”
“If you’re still you, it doesn’t matter what kind of machine they put into your head,” Nate said. Maybe the weird shape to her head hadn’t been a hat to show her special status. Maybe it had been a brain implant to make her able to understand their language.
“It’s not a machine,” Rachel whispered. Her hands clutched at his arms. “I’m still me. You have to understand, no matter what, I’m still Rachel.”
“I get it,” Nate said, but, then, what was the problem?
“I have all my memories. I have my body. I’m still me. I’m honored to serve.”
Nate frowned at hearing that word again.
“I’m…” Rachel hesitated, then continued. “I’m more than I was before. You’ll still love me, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Nate said, but he wasn’t so sure.
She made a strange clicking noise like the language the blue men had counted in.
Light eased into the room. Slowly, Rachel appeared in front of him. At first, she was little more than a silhouette in the darkness, then her eyes sparkled as the lights became brighter. Next, her teeth shone brightly against her mouth. Nate stared at her face, and his eyes moved up towards the strange hat-thing that wasn’t a machine or a hat. White teeth pressed into the brown skin of her forehead.
A second set of eyes gleamed about three inches above her forehead.
There was a thing eating her head!
Nate jerked back, away from her.
Rachel’s face fell. The lights came on even brighter, and Nate could finally make out the blood colored head trying to swallow Rachel’s head whole.
He screamed and scrabbled back, but hit the wall.
“It’s still me,” Rachel said. “Remember when we saw Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along on campus and you—”
“What are you?” Nate asked, cutting her off.
“I’m still me. Only now, I’m a liaison between humanity and the Queen’s people.” The thing knelt in front of him. Tears trickled down its face. Rachel’s face.
“You’re not Rachel.” Nate stood, pressing his back against the wall. His eyes flicked to the door, searching for an exit. He needed to escape this thing.
The door opened and two blue men entered the room. Nate shoved her and ran towards the corridor, thinking that maybe he could squeeze past the blue men.
“Please Nate,” not-Rachel said. The lilt of India tinged her voice as if she were the real Rachel. “Please. Love me still.”
Nate ran for the hall.
This wasn’t Rachel. It talked with her voice, with her face, but it wasn’t Rachel.
“If you don’t love me anymore, then how can anyone trust me?” not-Rachel sobbed.
The blue men caught Nate before he made it to the door.
The first blue man growled at her in the strange language, a deferential tilt to his head. Not-Rachel shook her head, but turned to go with him. The other shoved a needle into Nate’s arm, and the world went dark.
FOUR
MIKEY
“What the hell are you doing?” Jordan snapped from the driver’s seat.
“Looking for the strings for my guitar,” Mikey said as he dumped the armload of stuff from his suitcase and backpack on the RV’s kitchen table.
“Why?” Jordan snarled. “You should be helping me.”
“What else are we doing?” Mikey plopped down into the seat. “It’s not like we can go anywhere.”
“We shouldn’t stay here so close to town. You need to help me–”
“Help you do what?” Mikey asked. His voice was cracking again and his hands shook as he pawed through his belongings, looking for the guitar strings. “I don’t have the keys. You don’t have the keys. Even if we could somehow get it started, driving the RV isn’t like driving
the dirt-bike or mom’s car.”
“Maybe I can figure out how to start it without–”
“You’ve been trying to crack open the dash for the last hour. I’m not going to figure that out for you and even if I could…” Mikey shrugged and went back to pawing through his belongings.
“Even if you could what?” Jordan asked, abandoning his efforts at the driver’s seat to harass Mikey.
“Neither of us knows how to make this thing work.”
“So what? It’s better than just sitting here waiting to—to—”
“To be taken? To be abducted and maybe go where everyone else is? To maybe find Mom and Dad?” Mikey shook his head. “They’ll either get us or they won’t wherever we go.”
“Just help me.”
Mikey finally heard the desperation in Jordan’s voice. He realized that for Jordan getting the RV running and going somewhere was keeping him sane. It was his way of controlling the panic.
“Alright Jor,” Mikey said. “I’m gonna check on the trailer outside to see if I can’t find some tools to help you.”
Outside, he ran a hand over his face. Mikey and Jordan were just kids. He didn’t care if he were in high school, he wanted his mommy to come and save him. The aliens had already taken her, so that was out of the question, but he wished someone, anyone, would come and rescue them.
He glanced up and gasped–a big military transport was driving towards them.
“Jordan! Soldiers are coming!” Mikey yelled, pounding on the side of the RV.
Mikey took off running towards the transport. He didn’t care if Jordan were behind him. God or someone had heard his prayer. They were getting rescued.
The transport stopped in the middle of the road and the driver leaned out the window.
“What’re you doing out here, kid?” the soldier asked.
“The aliens took our parents!” Mikey could hear the quiver in his voice. He needed to get it together so he wouldn’t cry in front of the soldier.
“We really could do with a ride to your base, sir,” Jordan said, running up behind Mikey. “We’ll just climb in the back with–”
The driver shook his head, running a dirty hand over his head.
“Thing is, Al took the others and this here truck’s about out of gas. Might be we could drive your motorhome back.”
“We got gas, but no keys,” Mikey said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Don’t you worry about that, old Poole here will hotwire that baby for you in a jiffy.”
FIVE
NATE
Nate groaned. Light pummeled his eyes. His shoulders ached and his shins cramped. Something chafed under his arms. His eyelids fluttered as he struggled to return to sleep.
“Good. You awake,” a man with a smoker’s rumble growled. He sounded foreign, but Nate could not place the accent.
Nate groaned and hung his head. He tried to move his arms, but they were pinned to a wall out to his sides. He was kneeling—why was he asleep, kneeling, and pinned to a wall? His eyes shot open only to squeeze shut again at the bright light.
Nate blinked at the figure in front of him. It didn’t match the voice. A blue woman, no taller than three and a half feet tall, stood in front of him. She wore a sheer, green dress and had a nasty expression on her face.
“I been waiting long time you wake,” she growled in a gravelly baritone.
Nate shook his head. This didn’t make sense. The last he remembered, he’d been with Rachel… The blue men. They’d given him some drug. He jerked against the cords holding him in place, but he couldn’t move. His ankles underneath him were also pinned to the wall, and there was another cord around his middle. He screamed for help.
“No.” The blue dwarf-woman slapped him.
Nate’s head rocked to the side, and he stopped screaming.
“You done?” she growled.
“You speak English?” Nate asked.
“Dumb question.” She slapped him again.
Nate said nothing and studied the tiny woman in front of him. Her dress was tiny and so sheer he could see that her faintly green nipples matched the green of her mouth. Was she wearing lipstick? The men hadn’t had greenish lips. He tried to control his thoughts, but he wasn’t used to women being basically naked in front of him. She spoke English despite being an alien.
“How do you know English?” Nate asked.
“Better question. Not matter, but I tell. We leave Earth alone long time after planting. Study dominant languages before harvest.”
“Planting? Harvest?” Nate asked.
“Shut up.” She slapped him again. “We not talk history.”
Every time she did that, the tiny dress strained against her tight breasts. Nate tried not to stare. He looked away.
“Look me.” Slap.
Nate did, trying to keep his eyes on the tiny woman’s face. The room was carved from rock like the others he had seen. This one, though, opened to outside, and the light pouring in was sunlight.
“You hurt Honored One’s feelings.” Slap.
“Honored One?” Nate echoed.
“Her name Rachel.” Slap.
“I hurt Rachel’s feelings?” Nate asked. “That thing was not Rachel.”
Slap.
Nate’s cheek burned and his eyes had begun to water.
“You companion,” she growled. “Companion job make Honored One happy.” Slap.
“My job is to make Rachel happy?” Nate asked.
“You make Honored One sad. You punished.” Slap.
“I get it. This is my punishment for rejecting Rachel,” Nate said.
“I no punish. I companion, too. I warn be good companion,” the woman growled. “Next time, others punish. Understand?”
“I understand.” Nate tried to bring himself a little higher so his arms wouldn’t burn quite so much.
“Punish not easy,” the woman said. “After punish, you not serve same Honored One. You serve all Honored Ones.”
“What do you mean?” Nate asked. Would he be some sort of waiter or something for all the red-skulls?
“I serve all Honored Ones.” She ran her hands down her body, cupping her breasts, tracing her abs, and down her thighs. “I do all for them. They give me much honor.”
Nate swallowed. He understood his place now. He was Rachel’s whore. If he didn’t measure up, would he have to be a whore for all of the other red-skulls? He didn’t like the thought of that.
“All they ask? Everything?” Nate asked.
The blue woman nodded. “You will make Rachel happy, yes?”
SIX
MIKEY
“You did real good, kid,” Poole said as Jordan pulled the RV to a stop. “Just next time, make sure you press that clutch hard and ease onto the gas.”
“Thanks, sir.” Jor put it into park, and stood beside his seat, waiting for Poole to take over driving.
Mikey supposed Poole was done with Jor’s stopping and stalling a million times over again. He tugged on the guitar string with a pair of pliers. Mikey’s guitar was a sad thing. He’d finally gone out and bought himself new strings, but he was having a hell of a time pulling the old string out.
“Now, why don’t you hop in that driver’s seat?”
“I’m not old enough, sir.” Mikey’s voice cracked. He’d thought it had finally finished changing, but with all the chaos of today, his voice had started squeaking all over again. Besides, something about Poole didn’t sit quite right with him. He supposed Poole was just doing the right thing by them, showing them how to get by rather than leaving the two boys alone in the desert.
“Don’t think that matters anymore, kid.” Poole gestured towards the driver’s seat. “When Al comes, it doesn’t matter how old you are. You got to be able to fend for yourself.”
Mikey nodded, returning the unused guitar strings to his pocket. Poole had shown them how he’d busted open the ignition and twisted the wires together to drive. Mikey could, if he had to, at least try to hot-wire
a car now. He may as well try to learn to drive it, too. He settled into the driver’s seat, glancing nervously at Poole.
“Learning to drive in an old RV like this is the best,” Poole said. “This thing’s a stick and a beast, you’ll be able to drive anything else.”
###
They switched off driving a few more times. Jor was behind the wheel when Poole grinned a strange, dead smile. Mikey didn’t like it one bit. Poole’s eyes seemed flat. They didn’t shine or crinkle up at the corners the way that a normal person’s would when they smile.
Jordan pulled off the road just like Poole asked. Mikey knew Jor was concentrating on driving, but he didn’t like this. He’d been half struggling with the busted guitar string again and watching Jordan learn to drive. Mikey stood and inched backward, away from Poole. This was wrong.
“Now then boys,” Poole said. “I’ve done you two a big favor. Taught the both of you to drive stick.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Jor said. His voice sounded rushed. Was he nervous, too?
“Well… You need to pay me back for all I’ve done.”
Poole kept his hand pressed against his thigh, playing with one of the cargo pockets on his pants. Mikey had thought the time for stranger danger was past. Besides, why would anyone want to hurt another human being when the aliens had come, and everything had gone crazy? Still, Poole was setting off all sorts of stranger danger triggers.
Mikey reached for one of the kitchen drawers, but Poole caught him.
“Stay right there, Mikey. Don’t you move,” Poole said.
Jor’s eyes widened when he finally noticed the way Poole studied Mikey in the mirror, had been studying the two boys for the last twenty minutes or so. Mikey tried to bolt out the main door, but Poole yanked Jor into his lap. Poole yanked a little gun out of the cargo pocket of his pants and pressed it to Jor’s head.
“You boys owe me for teaching you how to drive.”
Mikey’s heart sank. What could he do? Poole was twice his size and a soldier, and already had Jor in his lap. Mikey just stared at Poole and Jordan. He blinked what felt like a million times and realized he was crying like a little girl. What the hell could he do? They were stuck with Poole. Some rescuer.