by Arlene Webb
David shook his head along with the roll of his eyes, and Aaron exited. He’d barely settled in the computer chair before David joined him, choking down his sandwich.
Before looking for clues, Aaron decided her dress had pretty much had it. At a local shop’s website, he ordered a black shirt, a green one, two pairs of black jeans, black underwear, sandals and a pair of black sunglasses. They guessed at sizes and hoped she’d be pleased. With an extra charge, the shop agreed to deliver pronto. After spending an hour searching fruitlessly for anything to explain her existence, he left David scrolling news clips.
Oh God. Submerged. No trace of air bubbles.
Water splashed, arms soaked, he lifted her. Her dazzling eyes flinched open. Damn. As usual, he’d frightened her. He jerked back and released her. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d drowned.”
“Drowned? You thought I was gone? You’re afraid?”
“I didn’t mean to grab you but you weren’t breathing.” What the hell had David found? Why was Aaron doing everything wrong trying to help this skittish angel?
“Water won’t hurt me. What’s breathing?”
“You’re breathing now.”
The adrenalin rushes never ceased, from plunging devastation, thinking for a few seconds her breath had stopped, to the seductive high of breasts rising and falling. Wet silk clung—I’m such an idiot—the object was to lower her fear.
Her limp hand felt so small in his. She should be able to hear, let alone feel his heart trying to break through his ribcage. He clasped his hand over hers, flat on his chest. A deep relieved gulp from him, and comprehension filled her eyes.
“Yes, I’m breathing, but not in water,” she said. “I don’t need to now, but do anyway.”
“Interesting. We’re never going to figure you out.” His heartbeat settled, he lowered her hand from his chest—and green eyes widen with the return of anxiety? Could he conclude she liked touching him? Beyond interesting!
“I need you to figure me out, Aaron. Why’d David have wrong water on his face?”
“You mean blood?” He tugged her up out of the tub and fell into the teacher role.
Anything to distract from the wet dress. “Humans have fluid flowing through their bodies. When we’re cut, our blood leaks out until we heal or have a beautiful angel make it all better. David antagonized a bully. A punk insecure enough to hit a younger kid.”
“You-you look awful, outside and inside?”
Uh oh. She made no attempt to hide her distaste, and drew back from the large monster. Had she even listened past understanding he had red flowing through him? Xenophobic behavior was unacceptable. He dropped her hand.
“You think you’re surrounded by cruel beasts, filled with hideous blood,” he said. “And because I’m not beautiful green, I’d harm you. How many ways can I say I won’t?” He bent to the water and filled his cupped hands. “I’m not a child. If I cut my lip, would you kiss me? Or am I too ugly?” He raised his hands over her head. “Don’t answer. You’ll break my repulsive red heart.” He dumped water on her head and chuckled as her fear dissolved in a giggle.
“David, your dad wants to fight with me.”
David? More alien abilities allowed her to see behind her? A mere human, he begrudged having to flick his bemused gaze toward the door. Yep. Glued to clinging silk, just like his dad.
“We got some clothes for you,” David said. “Want me to show you?” The shy boy smiled, ignoring Aaron’s frown.
“No, thank you. I can understand clothes,” Jade whispered. “It’s awkward for Aaron if you help me.”
It hadn’t taken this demure goddess long to figure out Aaron’s insecurities. David already had one up on him. A first kiss for her also? Would it be really immature if Aaron chewed through his lip? Risk the flare up of crimson-phobia to even the playing field?
“Sorry, son, she’s kicking us out.” He tried not to scowl at David’s disappointment.
“Jade, when you’re ready, come join us. I’ll close the curtains. David could teach you to read while we continue to search on the computer.” Aaron opened the tub drain. The refuge of water might keep her from facing the dread light and colors in the living room.
“Let’s go, kiddo.” Careful to hide his whack on David’s back from the timid creature behind him, he pushed his son forward.
There must be answers out there somewhere.
Chapter Nine
Confused, disoriented, and in need of many answers, Malcolm slowed his approach at the manned state border. If the authority in the little booth prolonged communication, he worried he’d blurt the truth. I’m an alien capable of murder with one touch. He’d pulled away from the epidermis, luminance hidden. Just another Caucasian on his commute into hell, but all confidence lay shriveled in the darkest corner of his mind.
The man handed him a paper without a glance. Repulsed, Malcolm dropped it on the seat.
The man looked up. “Welcome to New York.” He jerked his fingers forward. “Now—move it.”
If only he could achieve escape velocity, he’d “move it” fast enough to spin this guy’s head off. Malcolm obliged, rubbing his desecrated hand on his thigh.
Time flowed.
11:48 AM. He neared the Rochester exit and studied the paper without touching it. It required a monetary exchange. He handed the ticket wrapped in a five-dollar bill to another bored man. He brushed Malcolm’s hand as he deposited return coins, no words exchanged. The horror of physical contact burned through his skin, and he brooded as he “moved it.”
Thoughts of a non-spatial continuum, in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession, flittered on neurons sparked in sapphire. While steeped in the misery of the contaminated present, and stewing with a dread of the yellow future, desire for his enlightened past consumed Malcolm.
Time reversal—not possible in this constrained existence…or was it? Group and phase velocity dispersions, with a different sort of focus. He’d noticed while understanding increments, philosophers had worked out crude examples. The peak of light pulse exiting a cesium vapor cell before the originating peak entered, for instance. Not much of an accomplishment, really. Apply him, his unique form, and causality would be violated.
He sighed and twisted the wheel back into the fast lane. Superluminal information exchange wasn’t enough to take him backward into desired nirvana. He remained stuck on this plane of existence, for now. It’d be more realistic to create the only thing he knew of his past. It’d involve a monochromatic room of lovely blue. Yet, as much as he wanted to deny it, his isolationism would surely precipitate catastrophe upon this world. He had to face facts. I’m incomplete, lacking, and trapped in colorful hell.
When he reached the hospital zone, traffic slowed further. He could run faster than this. But he’d be conspicuous if the breaking and entering didn’t go as planned without the car close by. A corpse in his arms, hopefully not torn open, and no immediate place to hide her would be problematic in the least.
At the unmanned parking garage entrance, there wasn’t another moving vehicle in sight. A machine on the side would release the boom gate, if he cooperated and took the ticket stub of impure hue. His patience vanished. What was the proper response? Screw you? Up yours? Fuck off?
Malcolm swallowed hard and got out of the car, his stomach churning. He kicked the obstructing orange gate and sent it flying into the concrete wall.
Feeling slightly better, he got back in the car and “moved it” through the darkened garage. He ignored empty spots and the few humans gaping at the vehicle’s seventy miles per hour plus velocity until the 5th level. He parked over the yellow NO PARKING letters, exited, and ran. Ninety-one percent odds he’d return before they noticed the vehicle.
The fluorescent lights over his head aggravated him. The pale green walls of the hospital corridor made him want to curl into a chromophobic ball and scream. He ran faster, pushing to the limit of the human body.
Disturbed molecules of air swirled to
slow around him as he came to a stop. He listened to the absence of breath and concluded that only the dead lay beyond this door. A sharp twist broke the morgue lock.
Bypassing three stainless steel gurneys, he crossed the room. The first two wall units he opened were empty. He pulled a stretcher from the third. His trembling fingers tugged the sheet and exposed the face of a man.
He yanked the sheet off the next. The body was so ugly. Jaundiced-white skin, dull blonde hair, female—uncut—the autopsy hadn’t proceeded.
His whisper of relief was drowned, consumed by a wave of nausea. His vomit would contain DNA evidence, but who cared? If Malcolm survived this ordeal, he could erase his corpse-stealing path. He retched blue fluid onto the death sheet by his feet. His face felt wet. Sapphire tears overflowed from his eyes, and he shook them from his skin.
Five droplets fell to become absorbed into the full spectrum of the sheet. It’d be so easy for him to flow out completely. Suicide into muslin fabric? Why not. His frequency had the control to bleed out through any orifice.
But enough. Malcolm James—man-being on a mission. Yellow needed him to stop being a sniveling fool and “move it.” He wiped his face, approached her feet, and read the tag. One sharp rip removed it, and he allowed it to flutter to the floor.
Yellow now had a name.
The scent of soil and clean sweat radiated from Jane Doe. He had to, he must—oh my—teeth gritted, he picked her up and held the slender body away from his chest.
A burst of rage flooded through him. He almost dropped her in his need to slap himself upside the head. He utilized over forty-eight percent of brain sections simultaneously, but he’d forgotten a blanket he could have wrapped her in.
The morgue door closed behind him, three minutes after he’d entered, and his luck held. Not a human in sight. Two minutes later, he dumped her on the pavement. A sob escaped him as he opened the trunk. This time more gently, he settled her inside.
He floored the sedan backward through the garage, avoiding the manned exit station. Before twelve minutes elapsed, he headed west with the thruway ticket on the floor.
Halfway to the city of Buffalo, he decided one or two additional minutes wouldn’t matter. His non-stop obsession with time frazzled his nerves. He’d taken the path of least resistance and removed—Jane Doe—without conflict. If he hadn’t rescued her corpse in time, whatever rotting results happened, so be it. Therefore yes, he’d sacrifice a miserable moment for himself.
The engine protested the slammed brakes. He pulled onto the shoulder and exited.
His nausea overflowed and splattered so prettily onto the grass. Malcolm shuddered in the garish sunlight. The sounds of passing vehicles encouraged him to straighten and return to the car.
He could clearly visualize the molecule he desired. Two hydrogens bonded at a forty-five degree angle to one oxygen. Fool that he was, he hadn’t thought to bring water, and he feared to stop and purchase some. Why tolerate another woman with wanting eyes? The autopsy was no longer an issue, but Jane Doe deteriorated. He needed shelter and one dead being on ice.
A simple math calculation soothed him for a minute between Erie and Cleveland. He could “move it” 8.6 further miles than required, before fuel ran out. Time flowed slowly, and finally, his home. The device clipped to the driver visor was an obvious door opener.
He braked. Smashing into the garage wouldn’t be good.
The door from the garage to the kitchen closed behind him, while the garage door still rattled closed.
The computer hummed to him. He allowed himself one pat of the top of the monitor, undressed as he moved, and stacked the clothes neatly on the bed.
Six precious minutes and he stepped out of the shower and turned the water valve open over the tub. He might as well admit defeat concerning his compulsion with time. Counting seemed to be an integral part of his thought process. Sapphire droplets glistened on his naked body and then abandoned him. He stole a handful of water falling into the thankfully black, sunken tub and dumped it on his head.
Almost to the garage, he stopped. Ran back, grabbed the black blanket, and hastened to open the trunk.
Still here, still ugly, still my problem. Delusional of him to hope she’d have gone—poof—to a dimension of non-existence. Closing his eyes, he covered Jane Doe, scooped her up, and used his elbow to close the trunk.
He spilled the body into the tub, and wrapped the security blanket around his waist. His shudders stopped when he reached the computer.
He waited twelve seconds before the calculated tub capacity, her weight estimated at 115 pounds, and returned to the master bedroom.
Without looking at her, he turned the water off, and fled back to the keyboard. He completed the order for a yellow bedspread, four fleece blankets, jeans, shirts, underwear—all black. Rush delivery, drop it by the door, and he’d accept responsibility without signing.
The next website didn’t advertise delivery. He sighed. Another alien-human conversation, here goes. “Yes, please, I hoped you’d spare an employee to deliver two gallons of canary yellow paint and a brush. I’ll pay cash, an extra service fee as I require prompt delivery…”
The stock market transactions for opening day Monday went smoothly, and he proceeded with his primary dilemma. Without a database to calculate how long a mutated body would remain stable, his net search on animating dead tissue took him to fictional scenarios. Frankenstein, mummies, zombies—it added up to a steamy pile of frustration.
It was also illogical to make assumptions without fact. He didn’t know the rate of organic tissue decay without the flow of sentient energy within the mass. Jane Doe would provide the first subject. That is, if no others lay dead. Malcolm should either open that refrigerator and find out if it held ice, or brave another interaction with humans to purchase some. He compromised with a time limit. Three more hours, and he’d ice her as needed.
The approaching vehicle that pulled into the cul-de-sac had a skip in its engine. He darted for the bedroom. Twenty seconds and he’d re-dressed, minus the deadly socks.
He stood by the front door, armed with sunglasses and baseball cap, wallet in hand.
A whistling youth, wearing blue jeans and a black and navy shirt, got out of his black pickup truck. For an entity trapped in an impure hell, socks excluded, Malcolm seemed to be on a run of luck.
He changed his skin, while the lanky, dark haired male strolled up the sidewalk, carrying two cans and a brush. Malcolm opened the door. Despite the fact that he no longer needed food to fuel his survival, he felt like a cauldron of acidic nerves.
The soft brown eyes that faced him held a slight trace of curiosity, no fear, and a wondrous innocence. A spontaneous sweet smile crossed the young man’s face.
“Hey, mister, your paint has arrived. I drove my usual maniac speed. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your promptness.” Malcolm thrust the wallet out. “Take what you need.”
The human shrugged, and removed two twenties. “That includes a small tip for me stopping on my way home, okay?”
A gullible man-child not expected back to work—oh my. How could Malcolm contemplate taking further advantage? Opportunity presented itself, but the risks of prolonged interaction were staggering. And yet, upon sight of this carefree male, Malcolm’s need raged into full-fledged lust. With a forced smile, he left the wallet in the youth’s hand. “If you want more than that tip, you could paint a small room.”
“Huh? You need help—”
“Yes. Move some items out and paint the walls in record time. I don’t care if there’s a mess on the floor, and you can have all the money in that wallet.”
The man raised his eyebrows, indicating he’d noticed the four additional twenties. It seemed manipulating another for one’s selfish gain came easy to Malcolm. Muscular frame, cheerful vigor—it’d be finished quickly. This sweet youth, so attractive with his lack of defenses, didn’t have a ray of suspicion. The invite would be acc
epted.
“You aren’t some sort of pervert? You just don’t like to paint?”
Pervert? Negative connotation. Would I admit it, if I were? Was the human mentally challenged? “I don’t like the color. You can also have any surplus decor.”
The man shrugged and handed the wallet back. He stepped inside. “Let’s take a look. My name’s Evan.”
“Malcolm.” Finally, he shut out the daylight. “This way.”
Malcolm opened the door to the spare bedroom for the first time. His assumption had been correct, the walls reflected white. The brown dresser held a green shaded lamp, but otherwise was bare. A rowing machine claimed the corner. A single bed pressed against the wall, and the bedspread shone blue. Two colorful paintings hung on the walls.
“Please keep the paintings, machine, lamp, and rug. Leave the dresser and bed. Paint the walls so there’s no trace, not a single dot of white.”
“You got yourself a deal.” The young man, Evan, glanced around before fastening his apprehensive gaze on Malcolm. “Um…remember, they expect me back at work. Don’t try anything weirder than asking me to paint.”
Malcolm’s stomach hurt. Innocent brown eyes that had been so amiable now held worry. Evan had forgotten he’d said he was on his way home. Such an error could be expected from one this immature, but what was this feared behavior?
He turned away from the nervous youth. “Understood. And you must remember I need this done fast. Put the things in your truck, paint, leave.”
Malcolm picked up the rowing machine with its green seat and pedals—and stifled his groan. The surprised inhale behind him told him he’d erred. Malcolm didn’t look back as he left the room. Idiot. He’d provided weird behavior upon demand. Beyond stupid, forgetting how strength-limited humans were.
