by Arlene Webb
David flipped his eyes up at the ceiling and then frowned at his father. “Why don’t we give her a name? I don’t think Green Goddess is accepted in San Diego social circles.”
Sure it is. Specifically, the strip clubs, along with Candy and Cinnamon. “Emerald or Jade comes to mind. Lady Greensleeves? Venus? She rose from the sea.”
“Jade,” David said.
Aaron smiled at the beauty twisting her fingers in her dress. “That okay with you?”
“Yes. Teach Jade where water is. Please.”
David grabbed the empty glass and ran into the connecting bathroom. She cast a hesitant look at Aaron and followed.
Behind her, Aaron paused in the doorway. A sharp shudder ran through her before she inched toward her reflection. Her large eyes became enormous, filled with horror. A visible tremor in her hand, she touched her face in the glass.
“Aaron, help?” She turned to him, pointed to her teeth, and gasped, “Take them away?”
Dear God. “They can’t come out. They won’t hurt you.” He stepped to her, grabbed her limp hand, and raised her fingers to touch her mouth.
She sobbed and wrenched free.
Jesus. A ninety-pound cutie. But his wrist throbbed like a gorilla had yanked at him. She stared at her hand, her face twisted in the now familiar anxiety.
“Aaron…Jade is here. Why?” She cringed from the mirror. Her head banged down on the black tiled counter, her thin shoulders heaved, and that soft sobbing began anew.
“It’s getting weird again, Dad.”
Understatement of the year. David needed super-dad to fix everything, even an angel disabled by fear. Teethphobia connected to albophobia? Weird wasn’t the word for it. Yet any excuse to hold her was sweet. Especially if he could make her forget about pulling teeth or ripping his arm off. Gently, Aaron guided her…Jade into his arms.
“Shh. Nothing will harm you.” He jerked his chin at his son. “Get her a drink.”
Even her tears, glittering their way down delicate cheeks, were green. Aaron raised her head, put the glass to her lips and smiled—with his mouth closed.
She drank. Droplets spilled over her chin as she gave a hiccupping sob.
“This is a shower.” David opened the glass door. “Water comes out, and you get cleaned.” Smart kid tried to distract her from the mirror.
“A lot of water?” Her voice shook.
David turned the shower on.
Jade’s shivering stopped, and surprise lit her face as the air around her ignited. Emerald photons sparkled from a stirring fantasy being, a being unable to be contained by a mere human. And escape Aaron’s arms, she did.
To his bemusement, the dress moved over her head in one fluid motion. Black panties and bra joined the pile of material on the floor, and she ran into the shower.
“Dad, she’s naked,” David croaked.
“Yep, I noticed.” Lord, how I notice.
He glanced at his flushed son. Damn. He pushed the boy into the bedroom and angled the door. The kid couldn’t see around him, and no way would Aaron forgo another look.
She’d left the shower door open, her eyes closed. Water splashed everywhere. Droplets slid over her upturned face and down. She was thin to the point of anorexic, yet that radiance emanated from her head to toe. Water reflected green, splattered off perky breasts, deeper emerald nipples and yes, if this forest nymph dyed hair she did everywhere. Jolts of desire shot through him. He forced himself to turn before his knees gave out.
After a few minutes, Aaron turned to his son perched beside him on the bed, studiously avoiding eye contact.
“Stop thinking about how pretty she is,” he muttered. “God, she’s gorgeous. And no, you can’t teach her anymore. I’m her exclusive instructor from now on.” He smacked the kid in the shoulder, and David sprawled backward.
“Grow up, Dad.”
“Will do, son. Hey. Go fetch some sort of food. We can’t bring her in the kitchen. The fridge might inspire things worse than tooth removal.” Aaron rubbed his wrist. “And, skip the spinach.”
“Why don’t you go?”
Further discussion? Nah. Brute force. His unhappy captive pressed into his side, Aaron shuffled David past the open doorway. “Think I’m leaving you alone with a naked goddess? Think again.”
A sheepish glare, a sigh, and David bolted for the kitchen.
Lovely. Beautiful. Surreal. Words failed to describe the being in Aaron’s shower. Of course, he’d have many hours in prison to contemplate superlatives. In a state with serious illegal-alien issues, they’d crucify him for keeping a phobic creature from outer space all to himself.
But how could he involve the Caucasian “good ol’ boys” that ran this world? He couldn’t begin to predict what she’d do, other than be terrified. He grinned. He could be wrong. Surely the lure of a green card would please, if she survived the police escort to Roswell.
That approaching sound would be the pitter-patter of excited boy feet.
Three peanut butter sandwiches, a clear plate and a brown bowl of pre-packaged salad entered the bedroom. David faced his father’s raised eyebrows with confusion turning to comprehension. They choked down the sandwiches made with white bread.
Unfortunately, they had plenty of time. Jade showed no sign of exiting the shower.
David gobbled every carrot, but left the romaine and iceberg. “Think I should make lime Jell-O?”
“How about that slimy cheese in the back of the fridge you refuse to eat?”
David rolled his eyes. “Whaddya think we should do with her?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.” Oh yeah, he lied. But all his inspirations started with giving a twelve-year-old his wallet and car keys.
An hour passed, and Aaron debated whether he had the self-restraint to check on her. His worries had been swept aside, while he obsessed about hers. She freaked out over the strangest things, and the shower involved a huge block of time in which she hadn’t wailed or clutched him. Had she dissolved down the drain, back to whatever planet she came from?
He’d let his guard down. Until she yanked his hand, he thought her as defenseless as a child. Aaron lay back beside his sleeping son, his revolver by his hand. Could she even be killed?
* * *
Aaron started to roll. David must have—she wasn’t David.
Wet and nude, the woman slept on his chest. Damp hair covered her shoulder and breasts, reaching past the curve of her hip. A sweet pure scent filled his lungs, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Weightless, Jade’s tiny body caressed him.
Sarah. It’d been awhile since his bed held a naked woman.
And now this…what the hell was she?
Jesus, he was only human. Why couldn’t she be one too?
It felt painfully pleasant, his careful ease out from under Jade. Legs threatening to buckle, he took the blanket off David and covered her, and scooped up his sleeping child.
He removed sneakers and did the head pat thing. He left David’s door cracked open and returned to his room.
Cold water splashed on his face helped. Of course, every deadly towel had been hidden. He shook free of water droplets and turned off the shower. Back at the bed, he picked up his revolver. How goddamn stupid am I? He’d left it right beside her.
He pulled a chair over. Long legs on the corner of the bed next to hers, gun in his lap, Aaron had no doubt. Dreams came in color.
* * *
Color would have permeated Malcolm’s dreams, if he’d slept. The sun rose, and day two of this miserable existence continued. Sprawled on a bed, he was filled with a rising sense of dread. Surely, survival odds plummeted with every moment he didn’t find answers, and he rolled to his feet. The blanket secure around his waist, he strode to the computer.
What to search on Google? Colored humans? Medical abnormalities?
Oh my. White supremacist vitriol. Horrible. He didn’t want to contemplate such hatred.
There—a search for blue skin lead to cyanosis.
Irrelevant, he didn’t need the oxygen he drew in. Argyria would have required colloidal silver. Dyed skin yielded more than ten pages of hits, nothing applicable. Smurfs equaled fantasy and built to a formidable conclusion. He couldn’t possibly be a mutant hero, but he did have an arch nemesis. In this moment, time raced on while he tried to understand his “abnormality.”
He’d created a local news clip by removing restraints thought unbreakable. The lack of a body beneath the shattered window of the hospital confused authorities. A number was given to call with information concerning a male in his early thirties. No release of his skin color. It seemed authorities kept information from the public.
I am not, cannot, should not be alone.
Maybe check out of the ordinary worldwide news based on arrival date?
A young woman in the medical center, Tucson, Arizona—he’d have to break into the clinic’s records for detail.
Rochester, New York? The following information whipped his dread into full-fledged panic.
Five minutes later, he’d accepted the need to act without a single error. He knew now the meaning of autopsy. The hourglass computer image nagged him. He’d learned the slotted increments of a workday and acknowledged he faced a ruthless enemy. No time at the present to delve into the philosophy of any abstract meanings of the four-letter word. Not if he wanted to control what future he may have, and return to another four-letter word he yearned for—his past.
He allowed himself a flash of a smile, understanding irony when his number search took him to the Yellow Pages.
Within ten minutes, he rivaled a mediocre lawyer’s knowledge. Typed with compulsive accuracy, his bogus legal brief called for a twenty-four hour autopsy suspension citing religious reasons. He didn’t follow the logic of organized religion, nor did he care to research further as minutes evaporated. He signed the brief with the name of a fictitious judge in Baltimore, Maryland and faxed it to the coroner’s office at Strong Hospital, Rochester, New York.
Someone would eventually notice the fax hadn’t come from Baltimore. He’d given out his location; but if what he feared was true, he had little time to calculate more intelligent options.
What to say? He knew nothing about the deceased woman, but his first human dialogue exchange would hopefully be one sided.
Oh my, I’ll try not to be alien. He picked up the recharged cell phone, and watched the change from 7:01 to 7:02 AM. A sigh of relief escaped when the anticipated answering machine clicked on.
“My name is Michael Black. I assume I’m the only living relative of the unidentified woman brought into your morgue yesterday, the aftermath of a police officer using a taser. My lawyer should have faxed my request to postpone her autopsy. I’ll arrive before 3 PM today to confirm my sister’s identity, and pray over her according to our beliefs. After that, you’re free to proceed with the autopsy and no personal lawsuit will be filed.”
He left the cell number, which would be logged in the machine’s memory, and disconnected. Hopefully, he succeeded in winning eight hours. Double his requirement, but who knew what horrors could delay him.
It took six minutes to create a history for Michael Black. Access to the Baltimore Police database was as numerically difficult to hack into as Cleveland’s. He gave his alias a schizophrenic sister with a violent history, resulting in Michael having power of attorney and guardianship. That information could be limited to lawyers and hospital records, yet irrelevant. He only desired a false trail for the authorities.
He broke into the phone carrier’s records, changed numbers, and altered the stored history to match. He wondered why the dead Malcolm bothered with a cell phone. The reclusive human had existed with apparently little contact with his fellow man.
The Malcolm-being that now existed preferred no contact at all. He wasn’t ready to handle a crowded airport, let alone the confines of a tight space. He could drive faster than a plane could fly, but would be limited by the six-cylinder sedan Malcolm owned.
Steal a twelve-cylinder? And gain what? Grand larceny couldn’t be worth the extra minutes.
A spare set of keys lay on the desk. A measure of hope thudded in his chest. If they belonged to the impounded vehicle, he’d be spared interaction with humans at the garage. Time to learn to drive.
Time-time-time to stop obsessing over t-i-m-e.
Three minutes later, he’d memorized motor vehicle laws, engine schematics, and principles of gasoline-powered combustion. He scanned a direct path and memorized the hospital layout. The moment loomed to face the daylight, sob, wrong hues everywhere.
He strode to the bedroom and tossed the blanket on the bed. Teeth gritted, he flung open the closet. White dress shirts shoved aside, he removed a pale blue one. Navy slacks, black socks, black dress shoes followed. Forget the tie, a useless adornment.
In the bathroom, he rummaged for scissors and trimmed his hair even shorter. With a deep sigh, he stroked the blade against the blue-black stubble on his face. The mental debate whether he needed to touch the white faucet took three seconds. Not leaving a mess won over his dread, and five seconds cleansed the sink.
He slapped a navy baseball cap from the collection in the closet on his head. Back at the mirror, he reassured himself that, yes, he appeared as a fit Caucasian—favorite color obvious.
He grabbed wallet, sunglasses, keys and exited the shelter.
Centered on the pretty sky as he ran, the sunlight bathed him. He had no problem staying pulled as far away from his skin as possible. With speed he allowed no human to witness, he reached the garage. Thank deities he didn’t understand, the key slid from his fingers into the ignition.
Like he’d been driving for a lifetime, he skidded off pavement, bypassed the exit-gate, and entered 8:48 AM rush hour traffic.
He exceeded the speed limit, passed in the correct lane, and zigzagged around jealous commuters. The car had a radar detector, and he could react with inhuman reflexes. His luck held, and he reached the interstate without incident.
The left lane belonged to him, and he forced the engine toward maximum capacity. He focused on the sky and tried to ignore the cloud wisps. He found it more difficult to overlook the lines in the road, trees, and many colorful vehicles he whipped past. The wind from the open windows calmed him as it battered through the car.
Enjoyable classical music grew tiresome, yet provided a foundation to build on. He began composing. Notes grew and soared, dancing into a riotous fantasy of distraction. His symphony provided a lovely background for imaginary engine schematics, a vehicle capable of reaching a more acceptable speed.
Forty-two minutes later, Erie, Pennsylvania and the fuel gauge ended his numerically precise composition. The notes tumbled into long-term memory. Two radar traps forced him to stay tucked between a red truck and a black sedan. He took the last exit and headed for the obvious gas station. Stomach cramped, droplets beaded on his forehead, he lined the car up and exited the vehicle.
Red, the damn pump handle has to be red. He sighed and closed his fingers around the metal. Five oblivious humans in the station eased his mind, but the female wearing a green shirt, tight jeans, pumping fuel ahead of him increased the tremble in his hands. Her stare burned into his peripheral vision. What had he—murderer of Malcolm James—done to interest her?
Finally, the level of sloshing liquid signaled the tank had filled. He’d rather leave a paper trail than place his back to the woman and enter the station. He rejected the pump’s option of a sure-to-be-white receipt, and swallowed hard at her deep breath.
“Hey, I don’t normally talk to strangers, but are you from around here?”
He shifted hidden eyes to her nervous smile. From around here? Understatement of a two-day existence. “No, only passing through.” Oh my, how I wish I was done passing through.
“Too bad, it’s just…you look like someone I’d like to know better.” She ran her hand through shoulder length hair, her muscles on edge. She seemed eager yet timid. Did she suspect something non-hum
an about him?
Words to communicate without increasing her fear eluded him. The solution—flee. He mimicked her shrug, dropped his chin, and closed himself off in the car.
New York State approached, and he tried to regain his serenity in the music. The sunlight sparkled off the shades covering his barely opened eyes, creating a constant nausea in harmony with his brooding. That woman had wanted something from him. Clarification would enable him to survive without harming, or most important, having his personal space evaded.
A rush of despair compounded his worry as he acknowledged his chronophobia. The hourglass ticked in his thoughts, an uncontrollable obsession. If he took too long understanding the means of escape from this confusing plane of existence, he’d fail. So, he’d left the computer and reacted to inconclusive data by hopping in a car? No. He’d made the correct move. If the woman in the morgue had a connection to him, her future autopsy made it certain he’d never see the pure light of his past again.
In this moment, he’d best forget the female he ran from and the one he headed toward, before his head exploded. Time for a concrete distraction involving speculative fantasy. He needed a force field to block rays in his imaginary super-car capable of instant velocity regardless of space curvature. Windows must be down, simple tinted glass ruled out…
Chapter Six
Demon had been trapped, wherever he was, for what seemed a very long time. The irritating light had disappeared. Darkness and the soft breeze demanded activity. He bounded up from under the tree and headed toward the glimmering in the east. He’d take more answers from the first thing that confronted him—such as the pretty, yet deadly threat looming in his path.
He crept closer and closer to the metal with the octagon shaped STOP image. Not a circle, it had eight equal sides and acted important perched on top of a thin pole. Arms crossed, he stood under it.
Nothing.
A long two seconds passed. He couldn’t wait forever. He reached his littlest finger to brush the lowest section of the dead-white S—he jerked back. He, Demon, remained wherever he was!
