Homebound

by Lydia Hope

  “It’s a protein. It’ll do.”

  “Yes, Your Highness. It’ll have to do.” She was pensive for a spell. “You need more than this. I wish you could at least eat the rolls.”

  He flexed his shoulders. He no longer sat all hunched up in the chair; he lounged.

  “The yogurt is enough to sustain me. Rix can survive on very little food. The quantities you humans have to consume to live are frightening. No wonder your planet is dying - you ate your way through it.”

  There was some truth to his statement, but Gemma couldn't resist rolling her eyes at his haughty tone. “I agree, Master Simon. You are superior to me in every way.”

  “I am.”

  Knucklehead, Gemma thought with affection, pondering ways she could sneak out an egg or two to supplement his yogurt. Protein, he said. She’d think more on that.

  After Gemma returned Simon to his cell, she went to the courtyard in time to line up the rest of the inmates. Arlo was yakking with the guards. The Perali congregated together. The Sakka found some rocks and was arranging them into a neat square with the precision of a surgeon performing open-heart surgery.

  Ruby chose a quiet moment to approach and leaned close. “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Sure.”

  “Cricket felt funny this morning. All flushed up and coughing. She’s been under the weather all week and I’m afraid a major attack is coming.”

  “Oh, no, Ruby. I hope not.”

  Ruby looked resigned. “I need to sneak out for a few. An hour tops. If I report it, they’ll take my pay…”

  Ruby wanted Gemma to cover for her.

  “Okay. Please don’t get caught. It’ll make it worse.”

  “I know, believe me. I won’t. It’s going to be cleaning time now, easy-peasy and quiet. Don’t tell Arlo. I’ll be right back.”

  When the last inmates were taking their cells after the outing, Ruby disappeared. Gemma and Arlo went downstairs together to get cleaning supplies and received scrapers.

  Arlo groaned, “Not again!”

  “What is this?” Gemma turned the scraper in her hands.

  “This is to pry dried up crap off the floor. Food and old snot. Who the hell cares about it in a slammer? Monkey work.”

  He was grumbling the whole time it took the two of them to take the stairs to the third floor.

  Gemma tried to reason with her outraged partner, “Sanitation, Arlo. To prevent bacteria from spreading.”

  “To hell with sanitation! And where’s Ruby, anyway? Did she know about it? I bet the crafty bitch knew and found something else to do. I just know this is it.”

  Gemma shrugged and said nothing.

  They agreed to divvy up the floor in threes, leaving Ruby her portion, and to tackle the corridor in front of Little Green Man together. If there was a spot where harmful bacteria could find fertile breeding grounds, it was the area in the vicinity of the crazy alien’s cell.

  They were almost finished with the floor crust picking-upping when the Obu moaned and banged something loudly, making Gemma and Arlo jump.

  “What the hell!” Squinting, Arlo pointed. “He still has his mug from this morning. Dumb Ruby, she must’ve missed his cell when she picked them up.” Arlo was still irritated at Ruby’s no-show.

  Not wanting to aggravate his offended sensibilities and intensify his interest in where Ruby had really gone to, Gemma rose from her kneeling position.

  “I’ll get it from him. He’ll be wanting a rub anyway.”

  “I don’t know how you can bear to touch him. That hide is probably flea-infested.”

  “We all have our flaws, Arlo.”

  Seeing her approach, the Obu squeezed his massive arms through the bars, making them available for Gemma’s attention. Smiling, she gently ran her fingers over his thick short fur. Why couldn't she take a shine to him instead of the disagreeable Rix? The Obu, at least, was sweet and liked to cuddle.

  “I need your mug, bear-man. And what is it that you did to your bed? Why bother with sheets if you use them for twisty toys?”

  She pressed her hand to the scanner to unlock the door and went into his cell where she quickly made his bed for him. Technically, bed making by inmates was supposed to be enforced but, as with many other prison rules, the alien block got left out of inspections because dealing with the aliens required more effort than the prison officials wanted to put forth. Little Green Man, for instance, never made his bed.

  Gemma picked up the empty dented mug from the floor and was on her way out of the Obu’s cell when she felt his hot breathing on the back of her head.

  “Another arm rub? Maybe later.”

  He pressed at her from behind, his entire bulky body now flush with Gemma’s. She was about to tell him to back off when his gorilla arms came around and engulfed her in a crushing embrace. And he was unmistakably aroused.

  In one hot second, fear drenched her in sticky sweat. She lunged for the door but with the Obu glued to her back, it was like running while strapped to a sweeper. He was huge and terribly strong, and he was licking the back of her neck with sloppy swipes of his slippery tongue, his warm drool sliding down under the collar of Gemma’s shirt.

  “Get off me, you pig!” she screamed, working to free her right arm to reach for her stun stick.

  But his hold imprisoned both of her arms, and no matter how much she squirmed, the Obu’s muscles never relaxed. He started undulating, rubbing his erection against her butt, his intent painfully clear.

  “Arlo!” Gemma screamed.

  Acting on instinct now, she kicked her feet wildly backward aiming for the Obu’s sheens. Something connected and he jerked loosening his hold on her. Gemma dove for the open door of his cell, but he lunged after her and caught her mid-flight.

  She crashed on the corridor floor she’d scraped minutes ago. The Obu came down on top of her, hard, knocking all the breath out of Gemma’s chest. Struggling for her lungs to expand, she writhed under the furry, smelly mountain of a male who was grunting mindlessly, blind with unchecked sexual arousal.

  The cells were now alive with the aliens lined up next to their barred doors hopping, whistling, banging on the bars and yelling. Gemma’s numb brain picked up a stray thought that they were about to catch an explicit reality show featuring her in the main role. The maiden and a monster. Lucky for those who were into this particular fetish, which seemed to include the entire population of the third floor.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Gemma saw Arlo scramble toward the door that led to the staircase. He fumbled with the alarm button on the wall and immediately lights started flashing and sirens pierced the air.

  Undeterred, the Obu shook her, and miraculously she could breathe again. As oxygen flowed into her body, she renewed her struggles, trying to get him off.

  Throughout her fight, an image of Simon standing to his full height, hands wrapped around metal bars to hold himself up, imprinted itself into her brain. Like the others, he was watching her being mauled by the Obu out of distant eyes that shone with a black sheen. The natural color of his enormous eyes was black, sparkling, deep, and beautiful. And very, very cold.

  Her hand closed around the end of her taser. She shoved it up without taking it out of its strap, sticking it into the Obu’s side, and pressed the trigger. The alien stiffened and gave out a brief grunt of pain. At the same time, the door from the stairs burst open and guards came running, loading his bulk with more taser zaps and hauling him off her.

  She sagged against the cold hard floor breathing raggedly and feeling her limbs tremble.

  “Hey, girl, what a fright.” Arlo crouched next to her, and, for once, he looked genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”

  Gemma heaved herself into a sitting position and tested her arms and legs for motion. Her right ankle responded with a painful twitch but no worse than the usual.

  “I’m fine. Thank you for calling for help.”

  “Sure. I about shit my pants when I saw the bigfoot jump you. The beast
is huge. Did you see his cock? Like a baseball bat.”

  Gemma could've gone without his waxing poetic about her attacker’s equipment. “I didn’t see it, but I felt it. I get the idea.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad you escaped.”

  She nodded. She was glad, too.

  A guard came over and helped Gemma to her feet. The Obu was now locked up in his cell, slumped in the center of it. Making sure that he was contained and that Gemma was okay, the guards let her be and departed.

  Case closed.

  The only concession she received was to go home early. Remembering that she would have to take Uncle Drexel to his doctor’s appointment, Gemma gratefully accepted.

  Besides, going back to cell 35 and looking into Simon’s aloof eyes was more than she could handle right now.

  She might cry, after all.

  Chapter 14

  The McKinley’s fortunes had taken a huge hit when Aunt Herise paid for Uncle Drexel’s doctor visit, and hiring even the cheapest transportation to deliver him to the appointment was out of the question.

  The situation was growing desperate.

  Drexel wouldn’t make it to the hospital on foot. Waiting for him to regain strength was counterintuitive as his mangled arm continued to fester. And, most importantly, no one dared to postpone his visit with Dr. Delano out of fear of not being able to book another one.

  Their next-door neighbor, feeling sympathetic toward the McKinleys’ misfortune, offered Gemma a buggy he used in warmer months to haul dirt and manure for the garden.

  Seeing no alternatives, Drexel sourly agreed to ride in it.

  With the help from Ravi and Desh, Gemma lined the cart with an old rug for warmth, bundled Drexel up in several blankets to protect him from subfreezing temperatures, and set out on a four-mile trek to the hospital pushing the contraption in front of her like an oversized baby stroller. She tried to walk fast, but the cart’s small wheels were getting caught in the endless ruts and lumps of ice covering the uneven pavement. Large portions of the road were shrouded in complete darkness forcing Gemma to slow down to a crawl, probing her way carefully to avoid falling into some invisible ditch.

  “How much longer, Gemma?” Drexel sounded weak. All that rattling along in a frigid air must have drained her poor uncle of his last reserves.

  Gemma shook off her encroaching weakness and pushed ahead. “Halfway there, Uncle Drexel. Are you in too much pain?”

  “I’ve been in nothing but pain since the evil Perali tore into my arm. The pain’s never going to end.”

  “It will, Uncle Drexel. They have drugs at the hospital. They will help you feel better.”

  “What’s the point? I’m useless.”

  “We’re going to see about that.”

  “No one can fix me.”

  “Dr. Delano can. He’s a great doctor, one of the best. That’s why he’s so expensive.”

  They hit a particularly nasty pothole, and Drexel groaned out loud.

  “I’m so sorry, uncle. It’s hard to see…”

  But Drexel ignored her, too caught up in his misery.

  “My life is over. Who needs a one-armed mechanic? To what purpose?” His voice sounded emotionless and bleak as if he had already surrendered to the fate of being thrown out of life.

  Gemma trundled along the best she could, her heart breaking for Uncle Drexel. He didn’t deserve this agony.

  “You’ve so much experience, it’s hard to replace,” she soothed. “You matter down there, at the docks.”

  Gemma hoped her encouraging words were true. Drexel was a valued mechanic, but the pressure put on repairmen to complete jobs on time was too heavy. His foreman may have no choice but to let him go in favor of a more efficient, and possibly a younger and healthier, replacement.

  Uncle Drexel laughed bitterly, releasing white puffs of air from his breath. “No one will miss me. No one cares.”

  “But they do! Your friends are worried about you, uncle. Some wanted to know when they can come by.”

  “Why bother? I’m an invalid, a cripple,” he cried out. “I’m worth as much as that pile of garbage over there.”

  He angrily adjusted his blanket with his good hand and fell into a morose silence.

  So much walking on a slippery uneven road while propelling forward the heavy load aggravated Gemma’s bad ankle, and the pain was reverberating up her calf with every step.

  A cripple? Why, yes, she was one, too.

  Her life, her dreams had been shot in the split second when her foot twisted under her, when she came down hard landing on her side, and a bull of a man disoriented in the human stampede brought all his weight on that one point of her body: her right ankle. She never knew who he was. She doubted he had even been aware of stepping on her during the flight from the explosion and the earthquake that followed, much less damaging her for life. But she could still remember vividly the physical pain and the dark pit of depression after the accident, the hopelessness, the feeling of being unworthy, a burden, and yes, like so much garbage.

  Ultimately, she had found the power and will to survive. So must Drexel.

  At long last, the bright hospital lights appeared, drew nearer, and finally Gemma, by sheer force of her will, pushed the cart containing Uncle Drexel into the overcrowded lobby. They checked in and she wearily slid down to sit on the floor as all available benches were occupied by a throng of groaning, complaining people.

  The hospital ran the only clinic in the City staffed by trained doctors where the sick could walk in hoping to be seen. Many came every day and waited in line, but only a few received a visit. The clinic closed every night before the curfew. Along with the regular security tasks they performed, every night the clinic guards cleared the waiting area from the bodies of the patients who didn’t make it to an appointment.

  The atmosphere in the lobby felt tense and toxic. The day was nearing its end, and hope was fading fast among the waiting room occupants. Every single soul in here was desperate and hurting.

  When Drexel’s name was called, Gemma didn’t waste time pushing her uncle’s cart through the tight crowd feeling looks like daggers in their backs as they went through the heavy door that reminded Gemma of the prison. The looks were full of envy for someone else’s good fortune. For having a hope of recovery.

  Inside the doors, the nurse showed them the way to the examination room. Her uncle was ordered onto the table and told to undress from the waist up.

  Unwrapping his multiple layers of clothing with minimal disturbance to his hurt arm took a long time, but by the time Dr. Delano walked in without knocking Drexel was good and ready if only half-lucid from pain.

  “Mr. Drexel McKinley,” Dr. Delano greeted him reading from his chart. “With an arm injury complaint.”

  Delano sounded perfectly civil with a hint of gentle amusement that spoke of his high tolerance for the stress he no doubt dealt with daily. He looked very distinguished and in perfect order: hair neatly combed, lab coat a pristine white. Middle-aged but trim and with a healthy sheen to his complexion, he projected an air of capable confidence and Gemma gradually relaxed. She was suddenly filled with hope that against all odds, her uncle might catch a break at the hands of Dr. Delano.

  Drexel bleated a greeting and proceeded to tell the story of being cornered near the docks and maimed by Perali, those spawns of demon seed. While he poured his heart out, the doctor hmm’d and tsked as he leaned over and carefully unwrapped the homemade bandage to reveal angry red, festering meat.

  Gemma swallowed thickly and averted her eyes.

  She heard the doctor warn Drexel about needing to probe his arm and, after a tense moment of silence, her uncle yelped, then howled, then whimpered weakly.

  “Okay, it’s over with,” the doctor said calmly. “Let’s numb your arm so I can put things back together.” He called a nurse to bring in medicine and instruments needed for the operation.

  Gemma, noticing that the arm was again seeping blood, addressed Dr. Delano, �
��Can you fix my uncle’s arm, Doctor?”

  Dr. Delano looked at her with some surprise as if only now registering her presence. “There will be an improvement. He might be able to use his arm again.”

  It wasn’t what Gemma had hoped to hear but then she hadn't realized how much worse Drexel’s arm had gotten.

  “It looks worse today than it did when it first happened.”

  “It isn’t surprising. Perali’s saliva contains bacteria that the human body can’t fight off. Their bite wounds always get infected.” Delano shook his head sadly. “Good thing he’s here. He has to be treated.”

  “Oh. We didn’t know that about Perali.”

  “After all the years, there’s still a lot we don’t know about aliens. Some of them carry diseases we, humans, have never encountered before. Others possess a miraculous capacity for self-regeneration. Supernatural almost. We must know more. Research is everything.”

  Dr. Delano’s eyes went aglow as he spoke to Gemma about the aliens and their differences from the human race. There was a subject that intrigued him, and Gemma thought about how lucky they were to have gotten him as a doctor. He must have a lot of knowledge in that area, and therefore had to be the best choice of a doctor for treating alien-inflicted wounds Uncle Drexel had sustained.

  The nurse returned with another nurse and the supplies Dr. Delano had requested. The three of them clustered around the table with Uncle Drexel leaving Gemma to herself. No one asked her to leave and so she stayed, moving out of the way. With nothing left to do, she started pursuing wall art abundantly decorating the spacious room.

  There were two or three framed certificates of distinction in Dr. Delano’s name praising his contributions in research on alien anatomy. The rest were pencil drawings depicting aliens. And what artful depictions they were! They showed full-body naked aliens, some even without skin to demonstrate their muscle structure and skeletons. All were beautifully done, gently colored and masterfully shaded, too jarringly whimsical for the clinical subject they portrayed.

  Gemma moved from one picture to the next using the rare opportunity to both learn more about aliens and enjoy the art she so dearly missed ever since fleeing The Islands.