Shade and the Skinwalkers

by Marilyn Peake

  I almost choked on the potato chips I’d started munching. I coughed, took a swig of milk, tried to play it cool. I said, “What do you mean?”

  He said, “Where you came from. You rescued a whole lot of people.”

  My cheeks burned with uncomfortable heat. I felt dizzy, like the whole world had started spinning around faster on its axis. My thoughts raced about how to handle the situation. I decided at the new school I’d play the role of moody girl with a mysterious past. I didn’t want that identity, but I needed an identity and I wasn’t about to play hero girl or talk about Brandon the ghost or Annie or anything else that felt like raw pain. I said, “Well, yeah, but I don’t like to talk about it. One of the rescued girls was my best friend. She’s not in great shape.”

  Violet reached over and touched my arm. She said, “Don’t worry. If you ever do want to talk, just let us know. We’re always happy to listen.”

  Luke and Moonjava happened to be sitting on either side of wolf boy. They leaned in to read his cell phone. Luke looked up at me and stared, like he was trying to figure something out, size me up or whatever. Finally, he said, “Well, congratulations. You were very brave. Seriously, you did a good thing.”

  Moonjava said, “You should never hide who you really are.”

  Starshine changed the subject. She said, “We’ll have fun at the festival. Get ready for weird. More UFO-themed shit than you ever dreamed possible.” Thank God she brought the conversation back to where we’d been before my past took a dump on my present life.

  I said, “Cool! I’m looking forward to it.”

  After that, I headed toward the locker room for P.E. As if I didn’t hate P.E. enough, it was at the opposite side of the school. I ended up being late. Ms. Gill, a woman with eyes that reminded me of dragon scales—don’t ask me why; maybe because they were about five different shades of green in the murky light of the late-afternoon gym—glared at me as though she was about to spit fire. She puffed out her chest and announced, “You’re late! Two more times and you get detention!”

  Yeah, yeah. Well, at least I’d made her day.

  CHAPTER 6

  It seemed like forever until Saturday rolled around. I was never so thankful for a weekend. Well, actually, that’s not technically true, as I’ve had other weeks far worse than this one; but, still, I was happy to escape the freak show scenario of being the new kid at school when the week finally ended. Eventually, I wouldn’t be the new kid anymore and the novelty of bullies testing me and kids staring and whispering as I walked by should end. In the meantime, there were weekends—blessed, quiet weekends.

  Although this one didn’t turn out to be so quiet.

  I was dead to the world early Saturday morning. My cell phone started playing Adele’s Hello. I was so groggy, it took me a few seconds to figure it out. Oh, yeah, right, someone was calling me. Hello was my default ring for people I hadn’t assigned specific ringtones on my cell phone yet.

  I fumbled for it on the pile of books I was using as a nightstand and completely knocked them over. Grrrrrrr! I was not in the mood! I mumbled my own grumpy version of, “Hello?”

  Enthusiasm came rushing at me through my phone. “Hey, Shade! How are you? Today’s the UFO Festival! Moonjava has a car. He’s gonna pick you up in about an hour. ’K? You’re gonna love this festival...”

  Oh my God, she’s a morning person! I snuggled down into the covers with my phone against my ear and closed my eyes. I figured that whenever Starshine went quiet, the loss of sound should wake me up. I was wrong. Either she never got quiet or I missed it. I woke up, startled, when she blasted “Shade? ... Shade! ... Shade!” into my ear.

  I mumbled some kind of apology, then something about how I’d be ready when Moonjava came by.

  I went into the half bath I had claimed as my own. My mother had agreed to stay out of there except when I was in the shower in the main one and she absolutely needed a bathroom.

  I had taken a shower the night before. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and threw cold water on it, then slapped my cheeks a few times. There. Half awake now.

  I went into the kitchen, wolfed down the stuff my mom had set out for “breakfast.” I use that word lightly. Seriously, creme-filled blueberry cupcakes are not the same as muffins made with whole blueberries and real grain. Hopefully, I wouldn’t crash from sugar overload before we even got to the festival.

  I made myself a cup of coffee, poured it into a paper coffee cup and popped on the lid. Then I went outside to sit on the front step to wait for Moonjava. A pun passed through my mind: I’m taking my java outside in the sunlight to wait for Moonjava. Does that make it sunjava? I wondered how he got his name. I knew how I’d gotten mine. I had a crazy mother. Had his mother liked sipping coffee in the moonlight?

  A few minutes later, he drove up in a red pickup truck, creating a rolling cloud of dust behind it. Kind of looked like a contrail behind an airplane, but a lot dirtier. There was no way he was writing Marry me! or I love you! in that billowing mass of grime.

  Starshine, Violet Skye and Wolf Song were in the open back part of the truck.

  Moonjava yelled out the window, “We saved the front seat for you, just in case you don’t want to ride in the back!”

  I said, “Sure ... Thanks...” I waved hi to everyone else and hopped in.

  Moonjava had on some local radio show about whether or not aliens had ever visited us from outer space. He said, “Around here, that’s all anyone can talk about every time a UFO festival comes to town.”

  I said, “Oh. How often is that?”

  He smiled. “Often. Very often. You’ll see.” He was quiet for the rest of the trip, which I totally appreciated. I am not a morning person.

  The ride wasn’t long. We drove out into the desert in the opposite direction from the cave where Kai and I had made our gruesome discovery.

  As soon as we parked in the roped-off section of desert designated as the festival parking lot, Moonjava started snapping pictures with a beat-up digital camera. Violet and Wolf Song held up their cell phones, took a few pictures and uploaded them to Instagram.

  Starshine started organizing everyone. “How about we split up, maybe into two groups, to cover more ground?”

  We thought that was a great idea. My team was Starshine and Violet. All girls. Somehow, we had managed to divide ourselves up into a guy team and a girl team.

  After Moonjava and Wolf Song took off, Starshine said the obvious, “OK, it’s just us girls!” Then she added, “I sensed something here last year. The guys laughed at me. I want to see what you think, Shade. I think there’s something mystical going on here—our own local Stonehenge or Machu Picchu. I think so much excitement and willingness to believe in UFOs and visitors from outer space all concentrated in one area might attract them, or something else just as magical.”

  The U in UFO just meant the flying objects were unidentified. And, judging by the huge object dangling over the entrance, most of the FOs here on this spot were plastic with cheap blinking lights. I kept my thoughts to myself.

  We got our tickets and ambled through the festival for a bit. Starshine and Violet pulled sunglasses out of their pockets and popped them on. I squinted like crazy. I swore I’d never get used to the intensity of the sun out West. Noticing my scrunched-up face, Violet said, “You should always wear sunglasses. The sun out here’s too hard on the eyes. My aunt got cataracts kind of young from not wearing them. Back in her day, glasses weren’t cool. Same thing with suntan lotion ... Gotta wear it. Back in the old days, people got skin cancer like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Starshine stopped at a canvas tent selling all kinds of things. A part of the roof that stuck out like an awning, inviting people to duck into the rectangle of shade underneath it, wiggled in the desert breeze. The shade worked like a lure, drawing people inside.

  We walked through several aisles of outer space alien merchandise until Starshine found what she was looking for: sunglasses with neon green frames and dark al
mond-shaped lenses made to look like alien eyes. She read the tag dangling from them. She said, “Yup ... Yup ... These are what you want. They block 100% of both UVA and UVB rays. And, look, they’re so big, they’ll protect your eyes from getting wrinkles around them before your time. Trust me, you don’t want that. You don’t want to end up with pruney desert skin, right?”

  I didn’t have time to answer. She grabbed a floppy canvas hat with the neon green face of an alien and the message Believe! stitched in black thread on its brim. She said, “You want this, too!”

  Violet snatched one and tried it on. She peered into a mirror attached to the shelf. Checking herself out from every possible angle, she said, “We all want one!” She stretched out a freckled arm and told me, “I’m so pale, I need all the protection I can get!” She had black curly hair, along with blue eyes and pale skin.

  I panicked. My mom had only given me five dollars, for food. I said, “Sorry. I can’t afford this stuff.”

  Starshine said, “Don’t worry about it! I got you covered.” At the cash register, she took out a pile of twenty dollar bills. Jesus. I thought she had hippie commune members for parents. They must have discovered capitalism somewhere along the way.

  Violet grabbed three water bottles. She said, “Here. Get this, too.”

  So I started my first school newspaper assignment with alien bug eyes, a hat brim that flapped around like a struggling bird in the breeze, and a bottle of H2O.

  I felt embarrassed at first until we started walking through the crowd. Then I felt completely under-costumed. There was an entire family—mom, dad and three kids—all wearing huge paper-mache alien heads and full-body leotards made out of reflective silver material. Man, it had to be hot in there! A couple of girls wearing the same kind of sunglasses we had on had painted all their visible skin green. Again, how hot was that!? More people than I could count had gone steps further to embody the essence of alien. A guy who seemed drunk or stoned or about to keel over from heat exhaustion by the way he was staggering had had his entire body coated in some kind of wearable plaster that gave him alien skin from head to toe. A number of people ambled around (very slowly) wearing flying saucers around their waists. More than a few had blinking lights; one had a speaker system that kept announcing: Take me to your leader!

  Right after we passed a stand selling ice cream and slushies ... I remember because I was just about to suggest we stop and get some ... Violet ran into a guy she knew from school. Spotting him in the crowd, she yelled, “Hey, Science!” (Turned out later that was just his nickname because he’s a total science geek who’d won first prize in the Science Fair every year since elementary school.)

  He didn’t show similar enthusiasm at running into her. He had on a NASA T-shirt, shorts and normal sunglasses. He just said, “Hey,” when we were right in front of him.

  But he did stop to talk. He asked, “Did you guys see the UFO last night?”

  Starshine said, “What UFO?” Violet shook her head no. I just stood there.

  He pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket, tapped the screen a few times and handed it to Violet. She squinted at it; then took off her hat and used it to block the glare bouncing off the screen. Starshine and I leaned over to take a look.

  A bright ball of something against a black sky. That’s all. It could have been anything—a comet, a plane falling out of the sky, a special effect. It totally could have been photoshopped.

  Violet gasped. She said, “I saw something just like that last week!”

  Starshine commented, “My dad said the military tests things out here all the time—experimental fighter jets and stuff—and ’cause they’re new and top-secret and no one’s ever seen them before, everyone reports them as UFOs from outer space when they’re not that at all.”

  Science tilted his head. “Hey, you girls still in the Newspaper Club?”

  Starshine and Violet both said, “Yeah...” at the same time. I just stood there.

  Science said, “Want a scoop that’ll give you an interesting news story, something different than the same old, same old we always get?”

  Starshine said, “Sure. What is it?”

  Mr. Science said, “I know a guy here who claims he was beamed up into a flying saucer last night right in the area where this video took place, and he’s pretty messed up today. He’s here talking to some UFO experts about it. Whether his story’s true or not, it would be great for the school newspaper—certainly something I’d like to read for a change.”

  Starshine and Violet looked at each other. Violet shrugged her shoulders. Starshine said, “Sure. Why not?”

  The wind picked up, blowing a pile of pamphlets labeled The 1947 Roswell UFO Incident off a display table. A woman dressed in a flowery granny dress that whipped around her ankles went running after the booklets, snatching up as many as she could before they went sailing away, carrying her message far and wide.

  A bone-deep chill crept under my skin. I said, “I’ll go with you.” No one had suggested that I couldn’t go, but I felt a need to voice that I’d like to be included.

  Starshine said, “Oh, of course. If we go, you should go.”

  Science said, “OK, follow me.”

  We walked for about ten minutes past display tables and tents, jostled by people laughing and gobbling down festival food. I barely missed crashing into someone carrying a cup of soda the size of a bucket. When we reached a tent somewhat isolated at the edge of the festival, Science pulled the front door flap open. He stepped in first, then held the flap for the rest of us.

  We entered a place that was dark and filled with fog. The canvas walls were lined with cages stacked one on top of the other. Inside the cages were animals: cats and dogs, guinea pigs, rats. Through the fog, a couple of orbs bled blue and green illumination into the haze.

  Following Science, we walked toward the light. Two lamps sat on either side of a massive wooden desk. Next to the desk was a kid about our age sitting on a couch. He was covered in sweat and shivering. Sweat curled like liquid moons under his armpits and dripped like rain from his forehead.

  Science asked a guy sitting behind the desk, “How’s he doing?”

  The guy was middle-aged, had eyebrows as thick as caterpillars and a wild bushy beard. His eyes were dark and reflective. His stomach was so fat, he looked like a pregnant hippo ready to pop. After taking a few puffs on a cigar, he said, “He’s doing better. He’s been through a frightening ordeal. I think he’ll be OK.”

  Science said, “I brought some reporters from my high school. They’d like to talk to him about what he’s been through for the school paper.”

  The guy shrugged. He said, “Sure.”

  Science asked the kid on the couch, “You want to take a walk outside? These girls from my high school would like to interview you for our school paper. You could get a little fresh air.”

  The older guy intervened. He said, “No way he’s leaving this tent.” He cleared his throat. “He’s a little lost right now. We’re just watching him. I told his dad I’d keep him here. His dad’s working at a stand on the other side of the festival. I’m his uncle. Just ask him what you want. It might be good for him to talk.”

  Violet and Starshine sat on either side of the guy on the couch. He visibly trembled. His eyes were rimmed with red the color of dried blood. Blue veins snaked through his cheeks as though they were silently bursting underneath his white papery skin.

  I decided to remain standing. I refused to move any closer. Everyone was so caught up with the tantalizing idea that a UFO had scooped this guy up and done something to him, they were missing the most obvious explanation for his condition: he was seriously ill and his story about the UFO was a fevered hallucination. Chances were that whatever had gotten to him was contagious.

  Violet put on her reporter’s hat. She touched the guy gently on the shoulder. Seriously? She was not going to touch me until she washed and disinfected that hand. I’d slap her away if she so much as moved that hand in my
direction. The guy jumped. He looked at her with vacant, bloodshot eyes. Violet said, “So, we heard you were taken up into a UFO last night. Is that true?”

  The guy shook his head yes.

  Violet asked his name.

  The guy sitting behind the desk had started reading a newspaper. Without looking up, he said, “His name’s Bobby Huffman. My brother’s kid. Always been a little out there. He’s had all kinds of theories about electromagnetic waves passing through the air and affecting our brains.” He laughed. “Couple years ago, he blamed his swearing habit on that. Said they changed the nerve impulses in his brain and made him say things he didn’t want to. His psychiatrist says it’s Tourette Syndrome and he’s psychotic.”

  Starshine said, “We heard a UFO expert was talking to him. Where’s the expert?”

  The guy looked up from his paper. He said, “He’s gone. Left about half an hour ago. Asked Bobby a whole bunch of questions. Took a whole bunch of notes. Acted like he believed him. Nothing but a professional quack, if you ask me.”

  Starshine asked Bobby, “So, what was the experience like getting beamed up into the UFO? Actually, is that how you got into the spaceship? Were you beamed up?”

  Bobby said, “There were lights, lots of bright lights. Then I was in the spaceship; so, yeah, I guess I was beamed up. It felt like I was floating in those blinding lights for a while.” He lifted the front of his shirt and pointed to something on his stomach. In the darkness, it looked like a thick purple scar. He said, “That’s where they did the surgery on me. And up here...” He pointed to a scar on his forehead. “This is where they put the chip in my brain. That’s how they track me. They know everything I do and everywhere I go. I want someone to take it out ... Or I’ll have to cut it out myself.”

  His uncle interrupted. “Bobby, stop that! We don’t want you talking like that!” He sounded more angry than concerned.

  Violet asked, “So, why would they operate on you? What was the purpose of that?”

  Bobby said, “I’m not sure. I think they dissected me, then put me back together. They wanted to find out what’s inside of me. Same as we do with frogs, except we don’t know how to put them back together, so we just use dead ones. We slice them open just to see what’s inside of them. Maybe they’re making anatomy charts. God knows what they want to do with those...”