by Mia Mitns
In my refrigerator I found some apples and a few premade salads that I bought at the store. There was some chicken left over too, but I didn’t know if they could eat that. Did aliens eat chicken? I didn’t know why but the thought of aliens eating chicken was funny to me. Then again did their planets support growing fruits and vegetables? Sure, I told myself. That was the scientific rational I came up with.
I arranged the salad on a plate and cut up the apple into pieces while Lalo washed his hands and watched. He studied me until I decided to demonstrate that it was food. At least that was what I thought he was doing. Lalo could have been laughing at me the whole time for assuming he didn’t know anything about human life. And forgetting that perhaps he was reading my mind once again.
Lalo understood and ate some of the apple then moved me out of the way to grab the chicken out of the refrigerator. After a cautionary bite, I had to make him save half of the chicken for later. He tore through that meat and finished the salad.
At least I didn’t have to go on a quest for a specific food to feed him.
Now that he ate, it was time to test my theory on communicating with him. Instead of attempting to get him to understand me, I went to go find my computer and set it up on the kitchen table. I found out with every move I made, he would follow, so there was no point in wasting time to tell him what was going on.
I opened the search engine and began typing words to find a program to teach English. I kept running into language learning programs, which would be great if they had one that taught from an alien language. Spanish was a common spoken language. Did he speak Spanish?
There was no physical conformation from Lalo, so I kept searching. Learn to talk, learn to speak for babies, increase your vocabulary—nothing but futile searches. The programs and videos I found were too short to expand his knowledge. He needed a working English knowledge base for the ones that were more complex.
Running out of options, Lalo and I watched a children’s video. It took too much time for what I needed to accomplish, but at least it was something. I peeked over to Lalo, and he seemed amused. When the video was over, I scrolled through the videos. I needed another. As I was about to click on one, Lalo slid the computer in front of him. Then he used the mouse to click on random videos to watch.
Alright then.
Feed the alien, check. Pick up the leftover meteor, check. Work... I left Lalo to go into my room and call in sick to work before I forgot. Dr. Stevenson didn’t say anything out of the ordinary. Phew.
The moment I hung up, someone knocked on the door. My eyes lit up, and I rushed to Lalo. I stopped the video and had him follow me into my bedroom. I told him to stay the same way I did when I went outside. Then I closed the door.
What if my time with Lalo was already over? What if the FBI or some secret government alien organization already knew I had him? I couldn’t let them take him away from me. He was like a child. He wouldn’t understand. They could do horrible things to him. He would never see daylight or have the opportunity to go back to his home again.
I took a deep breath and remembered what it was like to act normal. I opened the door. To my relief, it was Kallen.
“Hey Kallen,” I said. “Why are you ...?”
Kallen was tall, strong, and determined to come into my house that morning.
“I just wanted to check to make sure you are alright,” he said.
“I’m fine, why?”
After glancing around the inside of my house for the twentieth time he said, “Something happened last night. Something woke me out of my sleep, and when I went outside, there was nothing. I was about to go back home when I saw this.”
Kallen held up a piece of the meteorite wrapped in a clear bag. I sucked in a breath.
“Amazing,” I muttered.
“I know you had to hear or see something Marli,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, I went to sleep much earlier yesterday.”
“Because you’re sick.”
I scrunched up my face. How did he know?
“You know Dr. Stevenson called and told me right?” Kallen said. But I just got off the phone with him. “If it wasn’t him, someone else would have told me. I find out everything.”
“Well, yes it’s true. I woke up feeling horrible today.”
“That’s it! What if the meteorite affected you? This was on your yard Marli.”
“It was?”
“Yes. You need to go to the doctor,” Kallen said.
“No, I—”
“What if ... what if something is happening to you because of this? What if it can kill you?”
“Looks like a meteorite Kallen. Out of all of the others that fell, why would this one have magical powers? And wouldn’t you feel bad too? You are holding it.”
Kallen let the meteorite drop back into another, darker bag. “Marli,” Kallen said and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll come and check on you at lunch.”
“I’ll call you, alright?” I said.
He nodded. “And I’ll have Dr. Telason come by.”
“No Kallen.”
“She’s my cousin. She’ll come. Don’t worry.”
“Okay, Okay,” I said, putting my hand up. “I’ll go. I’ll go see Dr. Telason.”
“Great! You ready to go now?”
“Kallen, don’t you have to go into work? It is the second week of the month. And this is the one day you actually go somewhere. Don’t you think they’ll take away your work from home position?”
“I told them I’ll be a little late,” he said. “Besides, you’re still new. You don’t know the area that much. I’ll take you.”
“Give me a few minutes,” I said.
“Okay.” Kallen took one last peek into my house. “You usually let me come in,” he said.
“I’m usually not sick. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Kallen reluctantly left, going back to his house. He must have been the one to see me picking up the rock that morning. He could have seen Lalo the night before.
Kallen was overall a good guy. I could trust him with most things, personal things. But he was so enthusiastic with new findings of alien existence that by the end of the day, everyone always knew what happened. And he was close with my boss, the tall and athletic Dr. Stevenson, who could not only take Lalo down, but make one call and have the Environmental Protection Agency and a few top astronomers, among others, at my house within 24 hours. With that much power, getting the FBI to arrive should be easy.
I closed the door, and Lalo came out of the back room to sit down and continue watching videos. How did he know it was safe for him to come out? Was it possible for him to hear our entire conversation? Could he read my mind regardless of the times he didn’t understand?
I sat down next to Lalo, took his hand in mine, and using my mind to speak I told him he had to stay inside. I’ll be back within a few hours. Don’t answer the door. And hide if someone tries to break in. I said these things out loud too. He flashed me a smile. I could only hope that my house would still be standing when I got back and that Lalo would still be there either sleeping or watching videos.
Chapter 3
Leaving was hard. An alien was in my house with no one to watch out for him. Something could happen. He could run away, be kidnapped... I needed the chance to help him find his way. I checked three times to make sure the front door was locked and got into Kallen’s truck.
“Early signs of OCD?” Kallen joked.
“Yeah, I guess ...” I said.
Being that Millsee was a small town, it took a few minutes of mile long, empty fields to reach downtown where all of the offices stood. To an outsider it was as though a string of little houses and parking spots lined the road. No office had more than one floor. No hospital cared for patients in our town. Just a little make shift clinic that Dr. Telason put together. For problems of greater proportion, we traveled over to a town named Greele, about twenty minutes away. All we were missing were little tumblewe
eds that were supposed to blow around deserted towns.
As I sat in Dr. Telason’s waiting room, I stared into a magazine and reflected. I was told there were changes in the habitat. Dr. Stevenson didn’t care if we were fresh out of school or seasoned ecologists; he needed more bodies. Five of us were hired. I was the last to join the team. And after happening to join that team to live in the middle of nowhere for a month, I came into contact with an alien.
“Marli,” Janene said, calling me out of the waiting room.
Kallen stood up. Why did he want to go with me?
“Kallen, I appreciate your help, but I can see her myself.”
“I need to talk to her,” Kallen said.
There was no use in fighting him.
—-
We both sat, staring at the door of a treatment room for a few minutes until Dr. Telason came in.
“Hey, Marli,” she said as she shook my hand. “Kallen.” She turned to give Kallen a hug before refocusing on me.
“Kallen tells me you have a headache,” she said. “One that kept you from work.”
Pretending to be groggy, I slightly nodded and closed my eyes. I was “too sensitive” to the light.
After Dr. Telason performed an exam, discussed the migraine that I “had,” and gave me some medicine to cure it, Kallen spoke up.
“Alana, the other reason why I had to come with Marli was to ask you...”
Alana studied Kallen with raised eyebrows. I glanced in his general direction. Kallen was about to go off on one of his strange rants again. Correction, previously strange. I hoped it wasn’t going to be about Lalo. Maybe he had to run the meteorite story by her.
The funny part was somehow I became part of Kallen’s insider group quickly. Kallen shared the details of his alien ideas and strange happenings exclusively with Alana, Ren, Dr. Stevenson, and me. Well, Dr. Stevenson received the watered down version, spiked with a few details here and there. The rest of the town just got the water but enough to know he was a little “different” as they told me, aka crazy.
“Go on,” Alana said.
“It’s no secret that strange things have been happening with the animals and plants lately,” Kallen said. “And we are late as usual, picking up on strange occurrences. But last night a meteorite landed in Marli’s yard. Now she has a migraine. Is there any coincidence?”
“Uh...” Alana began. “The meteorite isn’t causing her headache, no. At least I wouldn’t think so. Did you get a headache all of a sudden last night?”
“No, I said. “It happened this morning.”
“And you have a history of migraines?” Alana said.
“Yes,” I said.
“So it’s more likely to not be related,” Alana said.
“Have there been any other strange illnesses?” Kallen asked.
“No, not that I’ve seen,” Alana said.
“Strange people?”
“Everyone I’ve treated I knew. Are you suggesting there is something out there?”
Kallen nodded slowly. “I thought I saw one last night. An alien.”
Oh no. He saw Lalo. Wait, didn’t he just tell me he didn’t see anything?
A faint smile lifted the corner of Alana’s lips. “Kallen.”
“It was late night,” Kallen continued. “Around 2 a.m. I couldn’t sleep. So I dragged myself into my kitchen and...” His eyes drifted as if he was there again. “And a light made me look outside. It was only a reflection of the meteorite on the ground, but someone was hovering over it. I was about to go outside and ask them what they were doing, but they started sniffing as if they were a dog, following a scent. It sniffed the air and picked up a few pieces of the meteorite to inspect it too.”
Kallen laughed. “I saw its face, a woman’s face. Then it started moving fast around Marli’s yard—too fast for any human. It sprinted to different points to stop and sniff the areas. Before it left, it stared at Marli’s house for a few minutes. Seconds later, it was at her front porch. I guess it heard something and scrambled away.”
My eyes opened wide. This thing was trying to find Lalo. There was no way to tell if it was good or bad. Suddenly the FBI was the least of my worries.
Kallen locked his sight on me. “That’s why I was wondering if you were hiding something Marli. This thing, woman, whatever it was, circled your house a few times too. I was terrified even though it wasn’t hunting me. It basically gave me a really bad feeling you know.”
Hunting!?
“Oh Marli,” Alana said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “You can stay with me if you want. That doesn’t sound safe—being there by yourself.”
“I’d rather stay at home,” I said. Should I tell them? “This is weird and scary but...” I closed my eyes for a few seconds. “I should be alright shouldn’t I? It ran away. I have no idea why it came.”
“It’s looking for whatever came with that meteorite,” Kallen said. “There were pieces of meteorites in your yard, Marli. I think it was one big rock that broke apart. Whatever came is gone. But we need to find that thing, that woman I saw, before it comes back and tries to hurt someone, which would most likely be you Marli.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I said. “I just want to go lie down though. I can’t think about other stuff hurting me when this migraine is killing me.”
“But what are you going to do if it comes back today?” Alana said. “Marli—”
“I can watch out for her,” Kallen said. “I took off work today too. And I told one of my associates about the incident. With everything going down the way it has—he believed me. He is working on getting in contact with the government. Someone who deals with these things.”
I hope this is just one of Kallen’s delusions.
“There are people who do that?” Alana asked.
“Yeah,” Kallen said.
“Seems right up your alley,” Alana said.
“It is,” Kallen said. “That’s why I love my job.”
“You never told me what you do exactly,” I said, forgetting that I didn’t want to talk because of my pretend headache. If he worked with the government, I needed to know.
“Remember I told you,” Kallen said. “Contract work. You know. Writing. Most are scientific and medical papers. Sometimes I do technical...”
Why does he meet with his team once a month then?
“Alright, enough stalling,” Kallen said. “Let’s get you home to rest.”
Stalling? Was this was his way of getting me out of the way to check my house when I wasn’t there? Something wasn’t right. Either he was crazy or he had some deep connections. The type to get me in trouble and put Lalo in danger.
The secretary, Janene, knocked on the door, quietly but nonstop.
“My head,” I said.
“Yes Janene,” Alana said, opening the door.
“You have to come and see this,” Janene said. “There are some more homeless people missing. They lived close to the outskirts of Dallas. These kidnappings are getting closer to Millsee.”
We hurried into the waiting room to catch the last bit of news. The newscasters were finishing talking about a string of disappearances of homeless people. Shelters slowly saw less and less people show up at night and during the times they gave out meals.
Things became more serious that morning when the police were called. A large group of homeless people, who all congregated in the same area, didn’t show up for a free breakfast. To make things worse, a previous missing homeless person was found wandering the streets the night before. The person was brought into the station for questioning but was oblivious to their own kidnapping. They claimed they never were missing. This alerted the police to investigate further. They were now looking for kidnapping, cult leader, and murder suspects.
No reports of meteor sightings made it to the news. Not even on the running ticker. At least that was some good news.
After being stunned for a few minutes, we said our goodbyes, and Kallen led me outside. He opened the door and help
ed me get back into his black truck.
“Can you believe it?” Kallen said. “Our world is falling apart.”
“It’s always falling apart,” I said, slumping in the seat.
“But not like this,” Kallen said. He gently closed the door and strolled over to his side.
Kallen’s words stuck with me, making me question what was next. I didn’t think Kallen knew about Lalo, but even if he did, Lalo did nothing to destroy our world. But were these unreported meteor crashes becoming more normal? Were there many more Lalos out there? Was that woman one? And were these aliens dangerous?
There was no way the mass kidnappings could be the work of aliens, I argued. These odd things happened every once in a while. Humans did crazy things. But if this was the work of a group of aliens, it would make sense. A classic alien abduction—kidnapped and brought to their world. Or kidnapped and brought to another place on Earth. A place where more of them lived. A place where they were waiting to do something?
I really needed to find a way to communicate more efficiently with Lalo. He was kind. Perhaps he could ease the worry of an attack or help find out what was going on. Kallen was a heavy conspiracy theorist anyhow. I know I wouldn’t have been bothered by his words if an alien hadn’t fallen from the sky the night before. But the way he described that woman. She was scary. So why did I feel so calm? It was like she didn’t matter. The ocean waves? Did Lalo teach me to be calm when I subconsciously sensed another alien?
“What are you thinking about?” Kallen asked me.
I twitched, forgetting that he was in the car with me.
“Deep thoughts?” he asked.
“It’s nothing,” I said and peeped outside. I figured the medicine Alana gave me should have been working by then. The sunlight didn’t bother me as much anymore. The pill was still stuck under my tongue, partially melted away.
“You know we are lucky to have you,” Kallen said.
“What do you mean? I finished school not too long ago. You speak like I’m some kind of genius.”
“I just trust you will figure it out,” Kallen said. “You will discover what happened to those animals, and we will have greater insight to what is going on with our world.”
