The Bones Beneath My Skin

by TJ Klune

  She nodded. “He’s so awesome.”

  “Well, you need to tell your daddy he’s got a taillight out.”

  She gasped. “Daddy! That’s against the law.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Are you going to take him to jail?”

  The deputy looked taken aback. “No, no,” he said quickly. “Of course not. Your daddy is a hero as far as I’m concerned. Just going to let him off with a warning. No one’s going to jail. No one’s even getting a ticket.”

  A single tear tracked down Art’s cheek. “Oh, thank you, sir. We’re going on a road trip, and I know that would make my daddy feel so bad if you took him away from me.”

  “No need to feel bad,” the deputy assured her, and Nate could do nothing but stare in awe at the way she was playing him. They’d been lucky that he hadn’t run their plates. They wouldn’t have even matched up with the truck they’d stolen. “Just wanted to make y’all aware so you can get the bulb changed out before you get too much farther. Don’t want to get pulled over again now, do you?”

  “No, sir,” Art said with a sniff. “I’ll make sure he gets it taken care of right away. Daddy’s special friend here will make sure too.”

  The deputy’s smile faltered a little. “Right. That’s… that’s just swell. Y’all have a good afternoon, okay?”

  Art’s tears were gone as quickly as they’d come. “Thank you, officer!” she chirped.

  The deputy nodded and turned back toward his car behind them. He pulled out and made a U-turn, heading back toward the gas station.

  “Wow,” Art said, slumping in the seat. “That was close. It’s a good thing I learned how to work tear ducts pretty early on, right?”

  Nate didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe it was better that way.

  They didn’t stay in Havre. In fact, Alex made it a point to get them as far away from Havre as he possibly could. They’d stopped in the next town over at some local body shop and bought a bulb, cheap. Alex replaced it without a word, and they’d been off again.

  They were still on the road long after the sun had set. Nate didn’t ask where they were going because he didn’t think even Alex knew.

  Art had fallen asleep between them, head resting on Nate’s shoulder, snoring softly near his ear. He was pretty sure she was drooling, but he didn’t have the heart to shove her off, even if she’d somehow gotten inside his head.

  Alex had turned reticent again, the look on his facing making it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for any kind of conversation.

  Nate let him brood. For a couple of hours.

  But then he couldn’t take it anymore.

  He didn’t know how he’d lasted as long as he had. He was almost disappointed in himself.

  “I heard you,” he said, flinching at how loud his voice sounded inside the cab of the truck after the lengthy silence. “In my head. I heard her too.”

  Alex grunted.

  “That’s not a good enough answer. Not after this. You don’t get to be stoic. Not after everything. I heard you, Alex.”

  Alex’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I know.”

  “I saw things. Just—pictures. I don’t—”

  “It’s—the closest word she can use to describe it is bonding. It’s… familial.”

  “Familial.”

  “It’s how she—they don’t have the structure we do. They aren’t born like we are. But they have… families. Or at least a semblance of one. She’s—there was just me. And now there’s you. She’s bonded with you. Like she has with me.”

  “And now she can read my mind,” Nate said, sounding rather hysterical. “And you can too.” Nate tried to block out all the thoughts he’d had of seeing Alex naked, because that wasn’t something he was willing to share. But the more he tried not to think about it, the more he did think about Alex with sweat on his bare skin, chest heaving as he leaned down to— “Oh my god. No. Absolutely not. You stay out of my—”

  “I can’t read your mind,” Alex said with a sigh. “She can’t either. It’s a connection. Like a radio or a phone. Just… without the radio and the phone. I can’t see or hear anything you don’t want to show me. The same for you. For her. And it’s not on all the time. She facilitates it. I can’t do it now. And neither can you.”

  That… didn’t make Nate feel any better. “Did you ever talk about me before today with your voodoo mind spell?”

  Alex snorted. Nate thought maybe it was his version of a laugh. “Really. That’s the question that comes to your mind.”

  “It is. And you need to answer it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Aha! I knew it. When? And what did you say about me?”

  Alex glanced over at Nate. “That first night you showed up. Art was curious about you. And I wanted to shoot you in the head and bury you in the woods.”

  “Wow,” Nate said. “I’m shocked. Really. That’s so surprising, coming from you.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Thanks. Thank you for not putting a bullet in my head. I mean that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “I know.”

  Nate couldn’t reach over and slap him upside the head because he had an alien in the body of a little girl sleeping on his shoulder. “You’re infuriating.”

  “You’re annoying.”

  “Don’t be rude.”

  “Like a gnat in my ear.”

  “You’re still not funny.”

  And wonder of all wonders, Alex chuckled. Nate shouldn’t have liked the sound as much as he did. It wasn’t safe. Nothing about this was safe.

  “I heard her,” he said slowly. “And you.”

  “We covered that. You’re repeating yourself again.”

  “And you said that it’s a bond. Family.”

  “Right.”

  “So she thinks of me as… what?”

  “I don’t really know,” Alex admitted. “There’s—it’s complicated. No one understood it at the Mountain. Not really. There wasn’t… they thought it was metaphysical. There was no actual quantifiable evidence of it. It hadn’t happened before—before I was assigned to her. It was just another thing they didn’t understand. Nothing changed, at least not physically. She bonded herself to me, and they thought they would see evidence in my brain scans. That there would be physiological changes. But there was nothing there.”

  “That’s hardly surprising that you don’t have anything between your ears.”

  “Har-har.”

  Nate thought hard. “But now she sees me as part of… this?”

  Alex didn’t look very happy at the thought. “It seems so.”

  He didn’t know what to do with that. “This is stupid. Like, this is the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t even begin to express how stupid this all is. You have to realize that, right? How ridiculous this sounds?”

  “You’ll get past it,” Alex said. “I was where you are at one point. I thought the exact same things you’re thinking right now. Even more, probably.”

  “Yeah, okay. But you’ve had ten years. I’ve had two weeks.”

  “Fair,” Alex said, though it sounded begrudging. “She’s… complicated.”

  “You are too.”

  “Not really.”

  Nate considered letting it go right there. Letting Alex off the hook, at least for now. Instead, he said, “And you?”

  “What about me?”

  “It wasn’t just Art.”

  Alex’s body language was all but screaming for Nate to back the fuck up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  And since Nate apparently had no sense of self-preservation, he said, “You’re lying. I heard you. I saw… what you see.” About me was left unsaid.

  Alex was scowling again. Nate wondered when that had become comforting. “It didn’t—”

  “Does that mean you like me?” Nate wondered aloud
, as if Alex wasn’t capable of reaching over and strangling him with one hand. “Because I think that means you like me. At least a little bit.”

  “Absolutely not,” Alex retorted. “I don’t like anything about you.”

  “Well that’s certainly not true. You seemed to like how I look in the morning when I drink coffee. Saw that image a couple of times.”

  “Shut up,” Alex said through gritted teeth. “That’s not… I didn’t know you’d see that. And it doesn’t mean anything. All I was doing was telling Art that she’d be safe with you in case something happened to me.”

  “Wow,” Nate said. “You must really like me if you think that.”

  “I hate you,” Alex said.

  Nate grinned in the dark. “I don’t know that you do, buddy. What is it about sleepy me that gets you so—”

  “I will kick you out of this truck and leave you here without a second thought.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. You’ve had enough feelings for one day. Relax. You look like you’re about to break the steering wheel. We don’t have to talk about how much you think about me laughing or any other various images of me you apparently have stored up in your head—oh my god, I was joking. Don’t you dare pull over, Alex.”

  Alex pulled the truck back onto the road from where he’d slowed on the shoulder. “You done?”

  “I’m done.” He wasn’t, but he figured the rest could wait. There was still the woman he’d seen. The boy. They’d been mixed up with everything else. But he’d pushed Alex enough for one day. He had an idea of what that had been, but he wasn’t ready to force it upon Alex. “It’s just… a lot. You know?”

  “I know.” Alex still sounded wary. “I had time to process. To understand. You haven’t. You’ll get there. But everything can’t happen all at once. I forgot that, I think.”

  “Did that hurt?”

  “What?”

  “Admitting you were wrong.”

  “I didn’t admit anything.”

  Nate laughed quietly. “Sure, Alex. Okay.” He glanced down at Art. Yes, she was definitely drooling on him. “You love her, don’t you.”

  Nate thought he wasn’t going to get a response. Art had told him that Alex had a hard time showing any emotion, but Nate didn’t think that was quite right. Alex did show emotion, but most people just couldn’t see it. And that was okay. Because he remembered Alex’s hands deftly braiding her hair. That was enough for him.

  But Alex surprised him.

  He said, “She’s all I’ve got left.”

  That hurt to hear more than Nate expected it to. He’d felt Alex’s loneliness. Felt the way it wrapped around him like a shield. The way Art had been intertwined with him, like she was a part of him. Nate understood that more than he cared to admit. But wasn’t there more to it than—

  Things have changed. He’ll need someone like you. No. You know what? Not someone like you. Just… you.

  Nate had seen hearts break up close.

  It was the look on his mother’s face as she stood silently while his father screamed that he wouldn’t have a faggot for a son.

  It was the look on his own face in the mirror after he’d come home from being fired for doing something he’d never thought he was capable of.

  He didn’t want that for Alex. Not again. The dark-haired woman. The boy. Maybe he had more than a good idea of who they were. What they’d been to Alex. What the water guy had meant when he’d said the test had been to see what Art would do in the face of Alex’s grief.

  But it would happen regardless. If Artemis Darth Vader left, if she… returned to wherever she’d come from, it would happen again.

  Nate would witness it up close, no matter how much Alex tried to keep it locked up. If they stuck with each other.

  If they stayed alive.

  He understood now why Art had asked him.

  And he thought Alex knew that too. That he was already preparing to say goodbye.

  “You’ve got me too,” Nate said before he could stop himself. “I’m… okay? You just—you have me too.”

  Alex didn’t respond.

  But then Nate didn’t expect him to. He stared out into the night sky and the stars above. They twinkled brightly out here in the middle of nowhere.

  One seemed brighter than the others.

  And it looked to have a trail behind it.

  “Huh,” he said. “Would you look at that. That’s… What was it called? Markham something. The comet. I think that’s the comet.”

  Alex grunted, but that was okay with Nate. It was comforting somehow.

  He watched the comet for the longest time.

  Eventually he closed his eyes and slept.

  chapter thirteen

  They had another close call in Wahpeton, North Dakota, two days later. A cop had followed them for a couple of miles just outside of town on a straight stretch of road. Just when they thought they were about to get pulled over again, the cop turned off in another direction.

  Nate had breathed out a sigh of relief, unclenching his hands, his fingernails leaving marks on his palms.

  Alex hadn’t spoken much for the rest of the day.

  They headed south, and Nate knew they were floundering. From what he’d gathered in the bits and pieces he’d managed to get from Alex, the plan had only extended so far as to get Art away from the Mountain as quickly as possible. They’d initially meant to go farther than they had, but Alex had been gutshot and they couldn’t even be sure he’d survive, much less that Art could heal him enough for him to move. They’d found the cabin by a sheer stroke of luck. Nate thought the car they’d been in was at the bottom of Herschel Lake, though he didn’t ask.

  They’d just crossed into South Dakota when Art said, “What are the Badlands?”

  Alex glanced at her before looking back at the winding road ahead. Nate had offered to drive, but Alex didn’t seem to trust him to get them out of danger if they were discovered. He tried not to be too insulted about that. “What?”

  “Back at the gas station with the deputy. You said we were going to the Badlands.”

  “It’s a national park,” Nate told her because Alex was brooding again and Nate couldn’t be sure he’d actually answer. “They found a lot of dinosaur bones there. I think.”

  “We should go there,” Art said.

  That got Alex’s attention. “Is it…”

  She shook her head. “No. Not like that. I just want to see dinosaurs.”

  “Right,” Nate said. “You know that dinosaurs are all extinct.”

  She looked at him strangely. “Everyone knows that, Nate.”

  “So you know we won’t actually see dinosaurs, then.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you seem very smart.”

  “And other times?”

  She smiled at him. “Other times it’s a good thing you’re pretty. Isn’t that right, Alex?”

  Nate gaped at her.

  Alex frowned harder.

  “We should go to the Badlands,” she decided. “And please don’t say no. I don’t want to force you to do my bidding with the power of my mind, but I will if I have to.”

  Nate choked.

  “She’s messing with you.” Alex sounded extraordinarily grumpy. “She can’t do that.”

  “Hey! He didn’t know that. Why do you have to ruin everything?”

  Alex reached over and ruffled her hair. “You’ve already freaked him out enough as it is.”

  “I’m not freaked,” Nate said.

  Art squinted at him. “Sort of freaked. And no, before you ask, I’m not reading your mind. You’re just… twitchy again.”

  “I can’t wait for you to go back to your planet,” Nate muttered.

  Art laughed.

  They stopped at a small country store outside of Onaka to get a map. Art had demanded to be let out of the truck to go inside, claiming that she’d been a prisoner for three decades and she’d be damne
d if Alex was going to make her stay behind. Alex looked like he was going to argue, but Nate had headed him off, saying he’d take Art inside while Alex stayed behind.

  “Fine,” Alex said, though he didn’t sound like he meant it. He pulled out his wallet and handed Nate a couple of bills. “In and out. Don’t get sidetracked.”

  Art grinned up at him, climbing to her knees on the bench seat and leaning over to plant a loud kiss against Alex’s cheek. That soft look Alex seemed to get only with her made a brief appearance before it disappeared behind his mask again. She turned toward Nate. “What are you waiting for? Out. Out!”

  He did as the space princess asked, opening the door and getting out of the truck. She followed quickly behind him before taking his hand and pulling him toward the store. She was forceful when she needed to be. Nate managed to glance back at Alex. He was watching them through the windshield. Nate winked at him.

  Alex didn’t look away.

  The store was small. It had basic foodstuffs and toiletries. Coolers with soft drinks and cases of cheap beer. There was an older man behind the counter, his face wrinkled and kind. He greeted them as they came in, a bell dinging overhead as the door opened. An ancient radio crackled on a shelf behind him next to rows of cigarettes.

  “Hello,” the old man said, giving them a little wave. “Help you find anything?”

  “We need a map,” Art announced, pulling Nate toward the counter.

  “I can probably help you with that,” he said, smiling down at her. “Anything in particular?”

  “We’re going to the Badlands.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Good choice. I’ve probably got something here that can help a traveler on their way.” He looked up at Nate. “On a trip, are we?”

  Nate nodded. “Sure.” Better to say as little as possible.

  “Let me see what I can find,” the man said, starting to dig through a drawer.

  On the radio, a voice was speaking, sounding almost frantic. “…and they don’t want you to know. They want to keep it a secret. They don’t think you’re ready. But we know that’s not the case. We know what we’re capable of, what we want. And what we want is the truth. You really think Markham-Tripp is just a comet? Of course not! You heard what Johnny Brown said on this very show yesterday. He’s an astronomer. He knows what he’s talking about. And if he says there’s something in the tail of the comet, you bet your sorry butt I’m gonna believe him. The size of Saturn, he said. Why do they think we won’t find out the truth? Why does the United States government really believe we won’t see what they see? I’ll tell you why, friends. They think we’re sheep. They give you the fluoride in your water, telling you it’s to keep you healthy when it actually makes you docile. The men in Washington smile their politician smiles and say trust us. We’ve got your best interests in mind. And then they drop their pesticides and say it’s for the crops. You expect us to believe that? Man has been farming for thousands of years without the aid of poison. It’s only within the last century that they’ve started talking about insects that are damaging our way of life. You really think that’s the case? No. No. No. We’re being experimented on. We’re being tested. We are in the world’s biggest laboratory, and no one even knows it! Except you, my friends. Which is why it’s my duty to tell you that there is something in that comet. We’ve been visited before, you can take that to the bank and cash it. And we’re about to be visited again. Johnny Brown took photos. He can see it. They are coming, people. The question is what are we going to do about it?”