Craved by an Alien

by Amanda Milo

  “Is it safe for her to keep?” he asks.

  “Who?” I can’t keep up with this alien!

  He points to the tiny girl clinging to his leg.

  “A cat? I-I guess it’s safe. If it’s a nice cat.”

  “Is it nice?” He growls, clearly frustrated. “How can I tell?”

  The boy speaks up. “If it doesn’t bite and scratch it’s probably nice. But she doesn’t need a cat, she just wants one. Like I said, you can't give her everything she asks for—you’re going to make her spoiled. Plus, we don’t know if someone already owns that cat.”

  “Females should be spoiled,” the alien points out in clear consternation.

  “It doesn’t have a collar,” I don’t know what my mouth is doing without me. Am I encouraging the abduction of a cat? “And it looks like she might be pregnant.”

  Calmly, the alien reaches down. The cat seems incapable of moving due to the sheer shock of what she sees heading for her.

  I strongly relate.

  He grimaces slightly as she evidently sinks all eighteen claws in.

  I peer closer to get a better look at her feet. Her fronts look like mittens.

  “See something you like?” he murmurs, and I nearly rear back.

  Instead, I narrow my eyes, refusing to meet his even though he’s bending himself a little strangely, like he’s trying to look at my face.

  Maybe he has trouble reading human expressions, or maybe he thinks I look funny.

  I certainly don’t look at all like him: hulking, horned, and scaly. I blink until I recall his question. “I believe she’s a polydactyl cat.”

  “Does this mean she will make a good child’s companion or a bad one?”

  “It’s not an indication of either,” I return clinically. “It just means she has extra toes and claws.”

  “I assure you I can feel them.”

  My snort catches us both by surprise, as does the tiny smile that stretches my lips. “I bet.”

  I retreat, stepping back.

  After a moment, the alien asks the boy, “Your sister has a companion. What do you want?”

  “He wants a dog,” the girl says.

  The boy’s face screws up and—honestly, it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard as he expels a heartfelt, “I just want us to be safe.”

  The alien drops a hand—a huge, huge hand—over the boy’s thin shoulder, and in reaction, the boy starts to flinch and shrug it off—but he stops, and meet’s the alien’s gaze.

  The alien nods. “You are.”

  CHAPTER 6

  JENNIFER

  Watching my brand-new traveling companions interact, I can admit: I’m intrigued.

  “What is your trade?” the alien asks, and now that I’ve heard him talk to the kids, I realize he’s not trying to intimidate me with his voice; growly-and-deep is just his voice.

  It’s not a bad sound. Not at all.

  “Do you have ear injuries?”

  I stop walking and look up at him, wondering if he’s insulting me—but I see he’s genuinely asking. Possibly due to the length of my pause. I answer him. “No, sorry. I was just thinking.”

  The flat side of one of his tail blades presses against my lower back. “We have much ground to cover, please continue walking.”

  Weirdly, I feel my lips curling upward. “Sure.” I try to remember his question. I swear, my thoughts have never been so scattered. I feel like my world’s been upended and shaken—not stirred. “I’m a doctor.”

  “A physic?”

  “I guess. But not for people.”

  He sounds honestly curious. “For what then? It was my understanding there is only one lifeform on your planet.”

  “Oh no, we have animals, lots and lots of animals.”

  He rumbles something that sounds like he’s surprised—pleasantly so. “Can you understand this?” He gestures to his underarm, which looks excessively hairy with half the cat’s rear end and fluffy tail showing. The cat hasn’t stopped informing him how she feels about her treatment, yet she hasn’t tried very hard to escape from his hold. “Or are your animals like our animals in that they don’t speak for themselves?”

  “Ours can’t really tell us what’s wrong, or what they’re feeling, no.” I chuckle, and the alien seems to trip—the first not-surefooted move I’ve seen him make yet.

  When he looks at me in askance, I gesture to his arm. “I was thinking this one seems to be speaking for herself just fine.”

  He hums. And he also clicks; I haven’t figured out what this means yet. He does it a lot. It reminds me of the subtler sounds some parrots and other exotic birds can make. “It seems to me that caring for creatures that have no advocate is a highly decent calling. Admirable.”

  An alien’s opinion of me shouldn’t matter but… it does. My cheeks heat and I bring the backs of my hands to them in shock. I can’t remember the last time I blushed.

  Maybe—and I’m unrestrainedly postulating here—maybe it has something to do with my abduction by an alien today.

  This is what happens when you switch to decaf tea. The world gets crazy. I’m so glad I packed my Classic Earl Grey.

  Classic Earl Grey gets you through the day with no alien abductions. For years and years, I was oblivious, living proof.

  To think that I’d been struggling with a severe case of ennui. Not just today. Not just this week.

  Not even just this year.

  I don’t know exactly when it happened. I worked so hard to get through school. To get hired at a good clinic.

  Then my pattern became: wake up, open the clinic, see patients, close clinic, sleep, repeat.

  When did my life become a routine in monotony?

  “What are your thoughts?”

  I dart a look up at the heavy scaled brows that slash down over his incredible eyes, and I realize he’s really asking me. “I was thinking that very suddenly, I became anything but boring.”

  He guides us to a crosswalk, unconcerned with the gawkers around us.

  His brows do not get less slashy. “You couldn’t be boring if you tried.”

  I wave a hand at his loaded-down spider cart. “Ah, but you haven’t seen me on non-abduction days. You could say today’s a bit of a deviation for me.”

  We follow the flow of the crowd when the light changes, and we no more than step down from the curb when a cab pulls out, honking as if this warning forgives his maneuver.

  The alien leaps in front of us.

  The driver stomps on his brakes, the screech deafening—terrifying!—but he still slams into the alien.

  The hood crunches around him.

  A relieved gasp escapes me when the alien peels the grill and bumper away from his body and SHOVES the car back with an indignant-sounding roar. “You nearly harmed these younglings and their mother! Do you have weak eyes or a weak brain? I will rip them from your skull and help you examine which one caused your mistake.”

  The driver falls out of his car, and does the impossible, literally hitting the ground running, leaving the cab steaming and leaking in the street.

  The alien releases a breath that smokes almost as much as the cab’s hood. “Riddance.”

  The little girl slips her hand into mine as I ask him, “Don't you mean ‘good’ riddance?”

  He prowls back to us, his eyes locking on mine before he reaches into the tiny bag that’s slung over his shoulder. “No.”

  It’s one of my purses. A bright, cheery yellow thing with quilted sunflower patches.

  I certainly wasn’t going to tell him it looked too feminine for him. A water buffalo carcass or a lion pelt or half a caribou cape would look at home strapped over his shoulder, and I was fresh out of those, so I just shut my mouth and I’ve been secretly entertained ever since.

  He pulls out what he’s kept stored in it: somewhat tubular-shaped sleeves filled with a clear jelly-looking substance.

  “Drink,” he tells the kids as he presses them into their hands and urges us to march on.r />
  “Say please,” the little girl—Kaylee—corrects him.

  The massive creature stops walking and stares down, down, down at her.

  She doesn’t so much as wilt.

  A giant clawed finger nearly taps her on the nose. “I just gave you sustenance. Why must I say ‘please?’”

  Kaylee heaves a sigh and dramatically puts a palm to her head, as if she’s really being put-upon having to teach this killer creature manners. “You have to say please when you ask someone to do something. It’s polite.”

  “I told you to take it. I didn’t ask.”

  “You should have asked,” Kaylee points out. “And you have to say please.”

  The boy, Levi, shifts—not nervously, but definitely keeping an eye on the temperature of the interaction.

  The alien’s scale above his nose lifts because his nostril expands as he sniffs. He snaps his clawed fingers, gesturing for Kaylee to hand him back the gel packet.

  Wisely, Levi’s already drinking his.

  Rather than complying, Kaylee holds hers in both of her hands, and her little eyebrows raise up high. “If you want it back you have to say please.”

  “Oh Lord,” I breathe as I cover my mouth. “She’s going to die…”

  Crystalline-blue eyes flick to me and I snap-freeze in place.

  He stares down at the brave, brave, impervious, oblivious little girl. “You say I have to plead for you to drink as well as plead for you to give my drink back?”

  Kaylee appears to consider this before she gives him a firm nod.

  “That’s ludicrous.”

  “That’s manners,” she concedes, shrugging her small shoulders.

  His claws spread—but this alien who was only too willing (and maybe more than a little eager) to snap a creepy man’s neck doesn’t move to crush her itty bitty, fragile skull. His voice is even genuinely polite when he asks, “May I please have it back for a moment?”

  A huge smile spreads across her face as she presses it into his hand.

  Patiently, he holds it back out to her with two of his large fingers. “Here. Drink this, please.”

  Kaylee claps, and takes it back with an enthusiastic and heartfelt, “You’re a fast learner. You’re doing really good.” Her hand flies to her cheek. “Oh! I almost forgot to say thank you.”

  I’m so taken with her genuine, effervescent brightness that I startle when a packet nears my own face and he growls, “Please. Drink.”

  Blinking, I carefully accept it, and I’m so moved, I can barely hear myself as I croak, “Thank you.”

  Proving he either has excellent human-lip-reading skills or he has excellent hearing—or both—he tips his horns.

  CHAPTER 7

  JENNIFER (aka Doc)

  Outdoor diners gawk at us as we pass, but nobody stops us.

  But then again—who the heck would get in this guy’s way?

  The alien is scoping out the leftovers left on plates at empty tables as if he’s considering taking a bite.

  “We’re going to have to find shade,” Levi blurts, worry etched on his face as he looks at his sister.

  The big alien rumbles, “Why must we?”

  Levi points to the little girl’s arm. “See how she’s turning pink? She’s getting sunburn.”

  The alien looks like he’s been hit by another car. “The sun can BURN her?”

  Levi nods, and I pipe up, offering, “We can get her sunblock.”

  The alien’s intense ultramarine gaze snaps to me, his ears pricked, and he’s just intimidating enough that under his full focus, I literally gulp.

  The boy says, “We can’t afford sunblock.”

  “Let me just run and—”

  Lunchgoers gasp when the alien reaches out and snaps the umbrella off one of the restaurant’s little tables.

  “May I take this?” he asks them—and he’s absolutely serious.

  For a horrifying minute, it’s dead silent.

  Everybody just stares.

  Then a man whips out his cell phone. “Can you do that again? That was awesome!”

  For the first time, I touch the alien, grabbing his arm and murmuring, “This would be a really good time to go.”

  When an alien only slightly smaller than Godzilla—

  All right, that’s an exaggeration.

  When an alien even larger than a silverback gorilla—

  Now that’s the truth.

  —presses through a crowd, the crowd will make way. Speedily. With their cell phones out and recording of course but I can’t even blame them. An alien like this charging past you isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. “Do you need to stop for food?” I finally voice what’s been bothering me. I almost offered back at the outdoor diner, but I was afraid to stay after he defaced their table—plus he’s still walking around with the umbrella positioned above Kaylee’s and my head.

  He offered shade to Levi but the boy was too proud to take it, and the alien looked at him a long moment—so long I wondered if he’d just force Levi under—but then he gave him this nod, this strange, approving, man-nod—there’s no other way to describe it.

  Levi’s chest had inflated a little and he’s walked taller ever since.

  Instead of a simple yes or no answer to my question, the alien stops so fast I nearly collide with his back. “What are you hungry for?”

  “I meant you.”

  “Well I asked you.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t expecting you to, so I’m unprepared.”

  The alien shocks me with a mega-watt smile.

  I move around him quickly and address the kids. “Who’s hungry? And for what?”

  I efficiently take orders, and leave two hungry children and one very anxious (and probably starving) alien to run inside a nearby cafe to get food.

  There’s only one entrance and exit to this little shop.

  I think that’s what finally settled the alien enough to let me go.

  He very nearly sent Kaylee in with me.

  “Can you please help me?” calls a tiny, tremulous voice.

  He did send Kaylee in after me. Despite myself, I smile. “Right here, sweetheart. I’ve got the drinks, I’m just waiting for the food.”

  To my surprise, Kaylee was sent in not (only) to act as insurance that I won’t beg staff to slip out the kitchen door, but because she has to use the ladies’ room.

  I set our drinks down and lead her to it.

  “I need help with my snap,” she warns me anxiously. “Levi normally helps me before I go in.”

  She’s dancing in place, trying desperately to hold it. “Sometimes my teacher. But she says I should be able to do this for myself. I can’t though. The snap hurts my fingers,” she murmurs and she’s so earnest and so articulate and so… well I don’t know what it is about her, but I want to tell her teacher to have some compassion or I know of an alien who will pay her a stern visit she won’t soon forget.

  “Hang on,” I tell her, easing down on arthritic knees to work at her pants, trying not to feel anxiety myself. I’ve never helped a child and it’s obvious that time is of the essence.

  She hustles into the stall, squeezing her little legs together. When she comes out, I help her fix her pants, before I too make use of the toilet.

  I come out of the stall to find her struggling at the sink.

  “How do you normally reach it?” I ask, trying to remember when I was her age.

  I sort of… can’t. Gosh, I feel old.

  “Levi takes me in the boys room and holds me up,” she explains.

  Levi. Such a good young man. He has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders.

  “Did you have a foster family?” I ask her.

  “We’ve had them,” she says with a weary sigh, sounding much older than her years.

  I don’t press.

  When our order arrives, I find it’s a good thing I have assistance. I ordered fifteen hamburgers, and although I’m unsure if it will even half-fill our alien, it turns out to be quite
a lot to carry, even between the two of us.

  But the relief on the alien’s face when he sweeps Kaylee off her feet and uses his tail to haul me closer to his side the moment we exit the swinging door is more than worth the trouble.

  Why it should feel good to have my alien captor relieved to see me… I decide it’s best not to examine it. “Levi, let’s find a shady spot and see what our friend thinks of grilled cow.”

  Levi grins. “Yeah!”

  CHAPTER 8

  HOTAHN

  Proving she has excellent mothering instincts, the eatery’s containers that held drinking rations are drained so that all that’s left are crushed ice pieces, and these she combines in a single vessel and applies to Levi’s bruises.

  He sighs in relief—and on his behalf, my dorsal spines sink low care of the same emotion.

  They are all awed when I apply a layer of saliva to Levi’s skin, which helps reduce some of his discoloration as well as a degree of his discomfort.

  When I see her collecting the children’s wrappers, I collect all of mine, balling them up just as she does, and stuffing them in the flimsy paper sack that ripped the moment I tried to lick the cheese from the inside of it.

  I stopped my attempt to lick it out, obviously.

  Instead, I used my claws to capture the escaped cheese.

  Having the attention of the three humans as I did it made it mildly uncomfortable, but cheese coated in the juices of cow and a red sour sauce called catch-up was worth it.

  Human bread though was disappointing.

  No grains, no flavor, no crunch.

  The tiny fur bearing creature heating my underarm didn’t care for it either—her furious vocalization needed no translation—though with patience, she eventually accepted meat from my clawtips.

  I’d never be so rude as to say anything against the quality of the bread to the woman who provided it to me though: and I certainly appreciate that she fed me.

  I find I very much like that she did so, just as I appreciate that she obtained an extra quantity of it specially for me.