Dominant Species Omnibus Edition

by David Coy

  “Eight, maybe nine thousand.”

  “What are they, do you think?”

  “No idea.” As Phil looked he noticed that the rack on the left was not quite full. The top three shelves would need sixty or so more objects to be a twin of the right-side rack.

  “No idea at all,” he said.

  * * *

  The thing that was Gail Hollister felt no remorse, only the deep itch of desire. The desire created grinding anger. She stood in the living room of the house and pulled the limbs off the frail one because she knew it was dead and the cool ones should have the meat. The tearing soothed her. Before she’d killed it, she’d smelled it and knew it was sick and unfit for capture, so she’d killed it by crushing its head between her hands. She did this because she had no choice but to do it and it soothed her. Some of the hot desire died as the sick prey’s fluid ran down her arms.

  She threw the limbs out the open front door of the house and they landed with a spray of gravel on the driveway just a few feet from the hunters. They moved up and bent their long necks to the meat and tore at it and fed.

  Her partner had a good, healthy one trapped on the roof of the house but the opening to the roof was too small for her partner to fit through. She’d feed the cool ones then go outside and shoot the prey off the roof. Perhaps the fall from the roof wouldn’t kill it.

  When she got outside, she turned her bulk around and looked up at the roof and could see the prey crouched on the very top of the house. It was making loud sounds—prey sounds—trying to attract the attention of other prey, but there were no others in the area, only the ones in the house. They had already captured one and had it in the net. Capturing this one on the roof would be good—provided they didn’t kill it. If they did, they’d have to wait until the next hunt, and suffer the pain of desire, before they’d get another chance. The thought of going without food angered her. She unslung the burr weapon, brought it to bear on the flank of the prey, and fired.

  The prey flinched when the burr struck and she watched it slip down the steep roof until it dragged itself to a stop. She moved up close to where she knew the prey would roll off the roof when the burr numbed it and waited there. She heard the prey tumble and roll down. When she saw the limbs flop off the roof not directly where she was, her lightning reflexes bolted her over and under it in plenty of time for her to catch it. The prey had not crashed to the ground and died. This was good.

  She carried the prey under her arm over to the porch and stuffed it in the net with the other one. She batted the head of one of the cool ones with a huge hand when it sniffed at the back of the prey. She walked into the house and was joined by her partner when it lumbered down the stairs. Together they walked through the house and gathered up prey-stuff to take back to the ship. She gathered up bedding and other stuff and put it into another net bag. Going through the prey’s house and gathering up things and putting them into the bag gave her an odd twitch of pleasure. She picked up a small figure of an animal from on a low platform and turned it over and over and round and round and could not remember why she should do this. Confused by her own actions, she put the figure in the bag. The thought came to her then that she still didn’t know how much it was, but probably had enough money to buy it.

  A moment later she forgot what money was.

  There was a box on the wall with a clear cover that contained long weapons, and she knew that these were never to be taken back. She moved around the room picking up one object after another and turning them over and around until she saw a small object in the seat part of a sitting-thing. It had some special appeal to the creature that had been Gail Hollister, and she picked it up and turned it this way and that. Using the very tips of her huge fingers, she pulled it open and saw a group of raised symbols she could push with the very, very tip of her smallest finger. When she pushed them they made a single long and pleasant sound. She seemed to know that the itsy dark knob on the end of the object would pull out into a stick if she pulled at it with her finger nails. She knew she could push it back in with her finger tip and if she did it gently, it would not break or bend. This object gave her pleasure and she closed it up and put it in the net bag with the other prey-stuff.

  A moment later she forgot that the object ever existed.

  They left the remote house carrying the food and the stunned prey in the net sacks. She looked down at the remainder of the limbs on the gravel drive and decided to leave them there. It was not a clear thing whether or not she should do so, but the limbs were old and thin with little meat left. Her partner had more experience in hunting prey than she and he too walked past the limbs with not so much as a look. She would not be punished for leaving the meat behind.

  The craft had spotted some large animals in an enclosure over the hill earlier and she decided that they would gather some before they flew back to the ship—just to be sure.

  As they walked through the brush, a mosquito, attracted by her mass of just-right warmth, landed on the thing that had been Gail Hollister and bit. She remembered how much she hated mosquitoes and slapped it perfectly flat with a huge hand.

  * * *

  Linda had slept for twelve hours again.

  She’d awakened to Phil’s scent on the pillow and drew it in with a long, slow inhale. She’d been in his house for three days now, wanting to surround herself with his things, his clothes, his papers and bills—and his scent. She hadn’t cried in a while but thought she could at almost any time. Yesterday, she’d cleaned his house top to bottom, unstacked the dishwasher, vacuumed the floor and scrubbed out the shower. She’d done this as a way to touch all the things that were his, to touch and arrange his shirts and his jeans. She’d washed the clothes and stacked his underwear neatly in the dresser. She’d changed the bed clothes but left the weird old paisley pillow case—the one Phil refused to throw away—on his pillow. It had his scent on it.

  Her team leader, Joe Smith had called last night and done his best to do his duty and asked her what the hell was going on. She’d been vague on purpose, telling Joe only that Phil was missing and that no one knew what had happened to him. She’d used the phrase “I don’t know” at least a hundred times in the conversation. That was the only blatant lie she’d allowed herself. She was sure she’d left Joe with more questions than he called with, but she couldn’t help that. At the end of the conversation he’d stiffly asked her when she thought she’d be back to work.

  “I don’t know,” she’d said.

  That time it wasn’t a lie.

  After Joe’s call, she thought about going to work the next day, but finally decided against it. Her work ethic chafed her constantly.

  I wouldn’t be worth a shit anyway in this state of mind, she thought. I’ve got to get over this. I’ve got to put it behind me.

  She’d been thinking about how to do that all day and had come up with a couple of options. It was one of those decisions that didn’t have a favorable side because it was dull and murky and gray no matter which way you went. It had to be done, though, and with the water from the shower head pounding her neck, she made her decision. She’d find one of those geek-laden UFO groups and tell her story. She was sure that if nothing else, she could vent her story there and be believed.

  She couldn’t carry the weight of what had happened alone. It weighed her down mentally and was draining her physically, too. The long sleep, the loss of appetite and the general malaise were all symptoms of traumatic loss. She knew that. But it was the sheer freakishness of the abduction itself that pressed down on Linda Purdy’s psyche the hardest. It was bizarre, inexplicable and unfair. The fact that these aliens came from who knew how many light years distant and landed right on top of her Phil was just unbearable in it awfulness. The catharsis of telling her story, of getting it out without ridicule, might do her a world of good. She was sure Lynch would have agreed with her.

  She’d booted Phil’s computer, went out on the web and found a local group that had regular meetings by open invit
ation. There was little fanfare and no dues or fees. Perfect. She just wanted to spill her guts. She was prepared to relate the facts, calmly and objectively and when she was through, she’d leave. Doing that would cleanse her and revitalize her. What she didn’t want to do was get caught up in some cluster of oddballs who used UFOs as a pretense or front for a social club or as a source of income for somebody. This one claimed to be small and met locally—another plus—in Hawthorne on Wednesday nights. She’d gotten lucky. She didn’t think she could have found a more convenient group for her purposes.

  It was Wednesday and she figured the sooner she got this over with the better. She’d go tonight.

  She went back to bed about noon and slept until three. When she woke up the second time, she had a little appetite and made herself some frozen waffles. She couldn’t finish them. They had no taste.

  The address was a really nice two-story hacienda off Crenshaw. That surprised her. She hadn’t known what to expect, but in the back of her mind she’d envisioned one of those two story, flat-sided apartments with concrete and wrought-iron stairs and a big name in raised script on the side. The appearance of the entry way suggested a good deal of money on the other side of the door. The driveway and the street in front of the house were jammed with parked cars. She wasn’t crazy about the implied size of the gathering, but she could live with that. There would probably be booze of some kind and if she felt her resolve fade she wasn’t above giving it a lift with a shot of something with alcohol in it. She parked the Jeep a few houses down, gathered up her notes, photos and drawings and walked back. She walked fast and with a purpose. She’d get this thing behind her real quick.

  The portico was beautifully finished with Mexican pavers and turquoise and red wall tiles. The big double door gleamed with a thousand coats of varnish. The pots that held the plants on either side of the door weren’t the big cheap, plain ones available at WalMart but the big expensive, ornate ones available at the better nurseries in town.

  The woman who answered the door seemed normal enough. She greeted Linda with an even smile and extended a well-manicured hand.

  “I’m June Williams,” she said smiling.

  Linda took the hand and felt the strong grip and hardy handshake, but she wasn’t too crazy about the way the woman seemed to pull Linda in through the door before letting go.

  “Linda Purdy. Hi.”

  “I’m glad you came. We like seeing new faces.”

  “Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.”

  June led Linda through the hardwood hallway and into a large sunken living area overlooking the pool. The pool was bordered by an immaculate floral garden that blossomed with flowers. The decor in the living area was homey, but rich and extremely tasteful. Linda knew something about good taste and how much it could cost. In order to put herself through school, she’d worked for her aunt Margaret, an interior decorator with some notable clients. This woman obviously had an ample supply of both good taste and money. The largest sectional sofa Linda had ever seen wrapped around a huge sandstone coffee table. It occurred to her that the sectional was in fact two identical sectional sets pieced together to achieve the enormous size.

  Good idea, Linda thought.

  She counted six or seven guests dispersed evenly around the table. There were coffee cups and tall iced drinks on the table.

  “Everyone, this is Linda Purdy,” June said with a big grin. “Linda Purdy, our group of weirdos.” Linda lifted her hand into a “how” and mouthed a smiling, silent “hello.” First names came at her so fast, she couldn’t have remembered them if she’d tried.

  “There’s nothing wrong with associating with geeks, June,” one of the male names said. “Didn’t your mother tell you that?”

  “Just the opposite,” June replied. That brought some chuckles. Linda smiled painfully and headed for the sofa.

  “We’re very informal here, Linda. Help yourself to the kitchen. There’s soda and wine and some beer, I think, in the refrigerator and a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “Thank you. Maybe later,” Linda said a little stiffly. She hoped she hadn’t seemed abrupt with June, but she had a lot on her mind and wanted to get started.

  “Notes, huh? Looks like you’ve brought some interesting stuff,” the man named Jim said, leaning over to take a look.

  Linda thought the remark somewhat intrusive and gathered her stuff up into a neat pile. She could feel him admiring her face. She’d felt that sensation from strange men her whole life. He would come on to her before the night was out, she was fairly sure. Her right eye was showing, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. She could almost hear the words forming in his head.

  “That’s the most interesting eye I’ve ever seen . . . ” he said.

  “Heterochromia. Just my right, see,” she said, straining for politeness and turning so he could see both. “See,” she said, letting him get a good look. “It’s a familial trait I’m told. It shows up in the women in my family every few generations, they say.”

  “That’s amazing . . . ”

  Oh, please.

  Her right eye was exactly half dark brown and half pale, translucent blue. The blue portion formed an electric, moon-shaped crescent that framed the brown part. It gave her a decidedly witchy look, she knew, especially in the right light. It was downright disconcerting if you weren’t prepared for it.

  “I suppose it is. I’m used to it. But thank you.”

  She fumbled with her stuff a little more, hoping he’d get off the subject of her freak’s eye. He seemed to get the point and said nothing more about it, but she could still feel him poking at it with his own eyes, feeling at it like some antique-shop curio.

  “You seem to be well-prepared for something tonight,” he said, finally putting the curiosity down.

  “You could say that,” Linda said, trying to be polite. “I have a story to tell.”

  There, she thought, that wasn’t so hard. See?

  She’d said it just a little loud, loud enough to carry over the background chatter, and she searched the faces of the others to see if she’d gotten anyone’s attention. She had, all of them. “It’s a pretty good one,” she added with a stiff grin.

  “I love a good story,” a handsome man named George Greenbaum said. “I say we let Linda tell it.”

  “Hear, hear,” someone said.

  “Works for me,” added another.

  “Story! Story!” someone else said kindly.

  Linda shuffled her stuff around and looked around the room and smiled like a statue. The faces were open, eager, smart and attentive. More than anything, they were concerned and willing to listen.

  “Okay, here goes then . . . ” she said.

  She looked down at her notes and photos and didn’t see them at all. She tried to get it all into some order anyhow, pulling the photos out of the folder and laying them out in neat rows. Before she got the fifth one down, she stopped and stared at its nothingness. She was aware that the photo was shaking in her unsteady hand but couldn’t make it stop. She dropped the photo and watched it float out of her hand like a leaf. She started to cry.

  She cried so hard and so loudly that she had to bury her face in her hands to hide the sound and the tears from the eyes and ears of the kind onlookers. She cried from the hurt and she cried from the injustice and she cried from the anger and she cried from the loss of it all. She cried so wetly that she could feel the tears pooling against her palms and running into her scrunched up mouth and down the inside of her wrists. Try as she might, she couldn’t say it, so she spoke the word goddamnit clearly in her mind, over and over while she cried.

  June was there and put her arm around her and helped her up without saying a word. The others sat stock still and watched with worried brows or pursed lips as June led her away. Bent and crying, she let June lead her down the hallway and into the bedroom. June sat her gently down on the bed and Linda sat there and cried until she couldn’t cry any more.

  After the cr
y she got slowly up and found the bathroom. She wiped her face with tissue because she didn’t want to leave mascara on June’ towels. While she was straightening up, she could hear conversation coming from the living area so she knew the group had managed somehow without its sobbing new member.

  Christ, I feel idiotic, she thought. Cool as a cucumber, that’s me.

  When she walked out of the bathroom and down the hall, the conversation stopped before she could even see the living area and she knew it was because they could hear her coming down the noisy hardwood hall.

  “Sorry about that,” she said taking her place on the sofa again. “I guess I’m still a little shook up.”

  “It’s okay,” someone said.

  “You bet,” said another.

  She fiddled with her drawings and photos. She realized that the group was giving her the right-of-way with their silence, waiting for her to begin her tale again.

  Linda took a deep breath.

  “My . . . my friend . . . my good friend . . . was abducted by aliens last Saturday night from a hilltop cabin in Kern County.” She coughed and let that sink in and just to be on the safe side, she studied a few of the faces for what she considered to be the normal, but to her the unacceptable reaction of mirth to what she’d said.

  For the amount of disbelief she received, she could have said “I drive a Jeep,” or “I like toast.” Nobody twitched.

  Linda continued for the next two hours, presenting the evidence in great detail. They asked questions about every aspect of Phil, the terrain, the weather, the cabin, the guns. Linda responded to each one with an iron certainty.

  “There were no other tire tracks at all?” Jim asked.

  “None at that end of the canyon. Just Phil’s. I followed them all the way up and the last mile of the road had only one clear set. It rained lightly Thursday night, just enough to smooth out the road. There were some other tracks down below, and nothing but Phil’s up at our end of the canyon.”

  “And there is no other way into the canyon—by car or truck that is?” A thin woman named Vivian asked.