The blood froze in Moni’s veins as she watched it unfold. Darren wrapped his finger around the trigger of the gun that aimed point-blank at Mariella’s forehead. She was a flick of his finger away from death. Darren let the weapon drop from his hand before he could fire. The dumbfounded expression on his face only lasted a second and then he reached for his gun on the floor. Moni quickly seized her pistol on the seat beside her. Darren saw it coming. Throttling her throat with one hand so she could hardly breathe, Darren sent his other hand after Moni’s gun instead of his own. He caught her wrist before she could aim it at him. Her strongest grip couldn’t withstand the way Darren bent and twisted her wrist. He snatched the gun from her contorted hand, and brought it up against her temple.
In an instant, Moni’s vision was clouded with blood.
Chapter 38
Moni wiped the blood from her eyes. Her sight became transfixed on the bizarre and gruesome scene in the back seat. Darren glared at her with his mouth agape. He still held Moni’s pistol to her temple, but his wobbly hand couldn’t fire it. Dark red blood spurted from the hole gorged into his neck. It bubbled out of his severed trachea and throat, both of which Mariella held between her slender fingers.
Directing a stone-cold gaze at the thug as he expired, the girl dropped the chunk of his neck from her hand. It splattered on the seat between them. The pistol lowered from Moni’s forehead as Darren’s hand went limp, along with the rest of his body.
Moni had seen what happened out of the corner of her eye. Mariella had sprung out of her corner and dug her fingers into the man’s neck. She had ripped it open as easily as peeling a banana. It happened so fast that Moni didn’t understand what she had seen until she saw Darren’s warm corpse gushing blood all over her back seat.
Without thinking, Moni started the car and sped out of the parking lot. Her hand reached for her cell phone. She stopped herself. If she reported this, Mariella would end up caged inside a government lab for the rest of her life. The girl—if she truly was a girl –deserved better than that after saving her.
I never got her tested for the bacteria. I shielded her from answering any questions. What kind of child have I been raising all this time?
Moni abruptly pulled the car over onto a dark shoulder of the road. She got out and walked around to Mariella’s door. She opened it. The girl got out obediently. She immediately snuggled up against Moni as if she had just witnessed a brutal killing rather than committed it.
No, Mariella didn’t kill Darren, Moni thought. She had saved both of their lives.
“You shouldn’t have to sit back there in that icky mess, baby,” Moni said. “Come up front with me.”
Moni got back behind the wheel with Mariella at her side. When she reached for the ignition, her hand trembled. She didn’t know where she should drive. All this time, she thought she had found a daughter. This poor innocent creature couldn’t defend herself, she had assumed. She needed her. Yet, Mariella more than defended herself against Darren. Someone capable of ripping a throat out couldn’t be a real child or a real daughter.
Tears streamed down Moni’s face. She bottled them up behind her hand, which screened out her view of the beautiful thing that resembled a child sitting beside her.
Nina told me something was wrong with her. I should have listened. Of course she’s not human. No human child would ever love a mess like me.
Tiny fingers gently, yet firmly removed Moni’s hand from her eyes. Mariella took Moni’s hands in both of hers as if she were channeling a dual electrical current through them. Moni’s head warped like the deck of the sinking Titanic. Through the thunder ringing inside her skull she understood a message. Mariella loved her more than any human child could. And she desperately needed her help.
Moni drew her hands away from the girl. The buzzing in her head faded into the background as if she had gone outside the arena during a hip hop show. The thoughts she just had weren’t hers, Moni realized. Mariella had planted them inside her head, but they sounded so much like her own thoughts that she couldn’t tell the difference. Even without talking, Mariella spoke louder than anyone.
She still felt the love radiating into her brain from Mariella. In her heart, she knew she loved the girl too. Whether human or not, the Mariella that had emerged from the mangroves was the only Mariella she knew. Still, she felt the sting of betrayal. The girl had impersonated Moni’s thoughts. How many times had Mariella “suggested” that she do something out of her character? She wondered whether it was her or the girl that had made the decisions that left Nina in the hospital and both Tanya Roberts and Clyde Harrison missing their heads. Mariella had survived the attacks and so did she, but why? Had she been protecting Mariella from the Lagoon Watcher and his minors like she thought, or did the girl’s drawings really represent death warrants written out in marker and crayon? She had sketched a boater tossed overboard like Kane, a cruel gator like the one who bit Robbie Cooper, a beheaded dog like what happened in the twins’ backyard and a burning man that resembled the teenager in the marina fire. Moni had ignored it all.
When she looked at that sweet face, Moni saw the same girl who had smiled with glee as she rode a horse for the first time. Her adorable expression completely masked what lay beneath. It didn’t work anymore. Moni knew it lurked inside the girl. She couldn’t drive on and pretend that part of Mariella didn’t just tear apart her ex-boyfriend’s throat. Moni didn’t feel threatened in the least by her, but she couldn’t say that she didn’t feel worried for other people. By the way she had killed so casually, she had a feeling that Darren hadn’t been her first victim.
“What are you, Mariella? Are you hurting people?”
The girl bowed her head for a few seconds. Instead of contemplating how she would answer, it appeared that she was deciding whether she should answer at all. Finally, Mariella clasped the top of Moni’s palm.
Moni’s head reverberated as if it were a giant tuning fork. She could feel every wavelength of Mariella’s thoughts sloshing against her brain and soaking in between its spongy crevices. Her speech didn’t sound like another voice inside her head. Moni recognized it as her own voice. It felt like a recollection of a story she had learned long ago being brought back into focus.
There was a distant planet in a place that Moni’s people call Orion when they gaze at the sky. Mariella’s people lived in the waters there, but they didn’t resemble the waters of earth at all. These acidic waters nourished life on their home world. Tragically, much of that life got destroyed following a massive meteor strike. Aware that their planet faced a calamity that would wipe them out, Mariella’s people created seeds that could sprout into their species if they found a new home with suitable conditions. They were carried by miniature “ambassadors” of their planet that were blasted in every direction and scattered among the stars.
A cluster of them heard the communication signals from earth and migrated here. They caught a ride down from orbit on a man-made rocket craft and then started sampling their surroundings. The ambassadors found that they could transform the lagoon into a habitable environment for their species, but it would take painstaking work and some “unfortunate concessions” on the part of the local life forms. The ambassadors didn’t have much choice. None of them have received a signal from a successful colony. Earth represented the only hope of bringing their species back from extinction.
“So you do really need my help,” Moni said. “But why did you kill so many people? Why take possession of animals… and a little girl?”
As Moni stared at Mariella, a heavy blink crossed the child’s eyes as if the “ambassador” inside felt guilty for stealing the girl’s body. Moni didn’t perceive that solely from her expression. When Mariella dialed into Moni’s head, Moni caught a faint signal of Mariella’s thoughts as well. They didn’t emerge in plain English but in feelings, concepts and unintelligible static. She knew right away that no human thought like that.
Mariella’s answer emerged within Moni’s th
oughts. The ambassadors came to replicate their home planet in a small section of the earth. Their species can’t tolerate the conditions in the lagoon until it’s finished, so they employed native life for the construction by taking them as hosts and utilizing their “resources.” They accessed the girl’s body as a conduit for interacting with humans and for the superior capabilities of her more advanced brain. The ambassadors had guessed correctly that a child could get away with unusual behavior better than an adult. Of course, they would rather complete their mission without harming anyone. They felt badly for Mariella and her parents, but their “sacrifices” would bring about the rebirth of a majestic species.
Moni felt their empathy wash through her mind. They hadn’t been murders at all. This was about survival for the species that created Mariella, who she loved like a daughter. She had been protecting Mariella the whole time, not from mutants, but from real monsters like her father, Sneed and the Lagoon Watcher. It turns out that she has done a great job, she thought.
Yet, she couldn’t shake the nagging sourness in her stomach. She remembered the faces of those who died: Matt Kane, Randy and Robbie Cooper, the burning teenager and his friends, Tanya Roberts, Clyde Harrison, the firefighter, Pedro and Rosa Gomez—Mariella’s parents.
They conquered the girl’s mind so completely that she didn’t care that her parents died. The snake that busted through my screen was after Aaron, not her. She called the pelican that nearly killed Nina because she knew about the drawing. She faked her kidnapping with the mutant gator to avoid being nabbed by the DCF. Then she had Agent Tanya and Harrison beheaded. And Mrs. Mint… How many other people will die when they take over the lagoon?
They hate taking lives even more than they hate taking land. Although she understood their sentiment, those words were not her own. Mariella had put them there.
The extinct species wants only a sliver of Earth. When standing on the lagoon’s edge, it may seem like a lot, but from the grand vantage point of space, the Indian River Lagoon is hardly a scratch on the blue and white marble of this planet. In much the same way, the tragic loss of life hurts deeply for those who knew the sacrificed ones, but in the grand scheme of earth’s population, the expected casualties from this operation will be “statistically insignificant.” As long as people accept that the visiting species has a right to exist and grants it the space it requires in the lagoon, further bloodshed and “involuntary possessions” won’t be necessary.
“That’s not how we think,” Moni said aloud so she wouldn’t confuse Mariella’s voice with her own. “Every single life is precious and has a right to exist, even if it’s one in 6 billion. Why can’t you reach out and talk to us? Maybe our government will give you uninhabited land somewhere if you teach us a few of your, um… tricks.”
That would never work, Moni realized, possibly with a little assistance. The ambassadors can’t communicate with people without taking hosts with similar brain power. By the time they revealed that they had inhabited bodies, they would have lost the government’s trust. Only constructing a “defensible environment” would give their species room for growth and eventually peaceful interaction with humanity.
Moni wondered how forgiving humanity would act after the business in the lagoon that Mariella and her friends had planned. No matter what other people believed, she knew that Mariella meant well. If she loved Moni, then this ambassador from an extinct species could love anyone. Her father had been wrong about the forces in the lagoon. They didn’t hunger for Moni and the girl. They were inviting them into the waters of rebirth.
Moni wrapped her arm around her. She knew that those slender shoulders and baby-soft skin didn’t belong to a little girl, but the familiar warmth ignited her heart all the same.
“We need to visit the lagoon, don’t we? For him.” Moni peaked in the rearview mirror at Darren lying on his side on the back seat. The top of his head rested on the seat thanks to the newfound flexibility of his mutilated neck. She took in the sight as if she were admiring a painting. She should have felt horrible about the death of the man she had shared so many passionate nights with—the man who had taken her to prom. Moni only remembered the times when he insulted her, screwed other women and smacked her around. Recalling how she looked in the mirror with her shiny black eye, Moni didn’t feel all that bad about Darren getting paid back in spades.
“If you want him, you can have him. I ain’t got no use for his sorry ass no more.” She pulled back on the road and headed due east.
* * * *
Even with much of his blood soaking her back seat, Darren still weighed a ton. Moni couldn’t exactly put all of her effort into moving him. When she touched his chiseled shoulders and they felt as cold as chicken left out overnight, she nearly threw up in her mouth. His vibrant black skin had started fading. His eyes rolled uselessly in their sockets. Yet, his handsome jaw line remained.
Darren did a lot of things wrong. I didn’t make a mistake by breaking up with him. But he didn’t deserve this.
A slender hand patted Moni on the arm. Mariella slipped around her and hoisted up Darren. The girl was barely as wide as one of his thighs, but she dragged him across the pavement effortlessly. Moni hurried over and scooped up his feet—not because Mariella needed help—but because she wanted to pay a part in this closure.
They stopped at the edge of what had been a pier at the burned out Melbourne Harbor Marina. Only a few charred wooden pillars protruded from the choppy water. With nearly all of the light poles destroyed, she could barely see. That gave her little comfort. Nearly a week ago, these waters had claimed the lives of three teenagers and a firefighter. Moni hadn’t feared water before, but since she rescued Mariella, her worst dreams had her running in the streets from freakish creatures only to find herself trapped against the even more terrifying murky waters of the lagoon. She had imagined that the source of all darkness lurked within it. It snatched body parts and corrupted the innocent. Now, her little girl called it home.
Moni approached the lagoon with her ex lover’s body as an offering. She couldn’t call it Darren’s resting place, for she knew that his remains wouldn’t be at rest in their hands.
Darren had betrayed her trust and caused her nothing but grief. He would have shot her on two occasions if Mariella hadn’t been there. Both times, the girl had implanted thoughts in his head that discouraged him, Moni realized. That last time, ever her most forceful orders inside his head couldn’t derail him from his bent on murder.
Moni gazed into the lifeless slits of Darren’s eyes as they dangled his corpse on the side of the cracked seawall. “Darren, you aren’t the man I fell in love with. I won’t stand for your abuse. I deserve better than you. Everybody who hurt me is gonna pay. And this time, you will help me, for real.”
Moni and Mariella released him in perfect synchronization. She listened for a huge splash when Darren’s body hit the water. She didn’t get the satisfaction of hearing it. Instead, it made a thud like a giant softball lobbed into a catcher’s mitt. A second later, she heard bubbling and then something sloshing through the water. It left nothing behind besides a noxious stench.
Mariella’s people have him now, Moni thought. They’re taking him where they took the others.
Moni’s legs trembled as she stood on the seawall that served as the ledge between humanity and an emerging alien world. One land had bruised, and battered her so much while the other held unfathomable opportunities and irreversible metamorphosis. She didn’t know which world she dreaded more.
“Those are your people out there,” Moni said as she clasped Mariella’s petite hand. “Let me speak with them.”
Gazing into her eyes, the little one sized her up. Mariella’s eyes flashed purple. Moni’s body vanished from existence. Her mind floated without a sense of touch or sight. She couldn’t feel the cool breeze on her face or smell the rotten lagoon any longer. But Moni felt. She felt like a single cog on an expansive electrical grid interconnecting thousands of minds. Moni coul
d make out the location of the lagoon in the same way a passenger on an overnight flight can spot land by the lights from the houses below. She recognized Mariella’s signature close by her. Many signals were small and simple—tiny creatures. Others were more complex but not on the level of conveying emotions. They were compulsive beings. The directions from their ambassadors became their new instincts. Many scoured for fuel and iron. Some were busy assembling things that they didn’t understand. Yet, the brain power of the hosts limited their ambassadors’ capabilities and control. The visitors hungered for mentally stronger creatures.
Moni detected a massive source along the center of the lagoon as if it were a freight train sitting in the street. She couldn’t access it like she could with the others. It contained something more powerful than the basic human mind.
She suddenly snapped awake. When her senses returned, the first thing Moni realized was that Mariella had let go of her hand.
“What gives?” Moni stepped back from Mariella, who responded with a shrug. “Don’t get me wrong. That blew my mind, but why’d you stop?”
Moni understood that she hadn’t been prepared for some things. If she had gotten drawn too deeply into their world, it could make her ordinary sensations feel dull by comparison.
“I am prepared,” Moni said. “I don’t wanna feel more pain or hear more intolerance. All my life, people have hated on me. Take me out of this. Please let me be with you.”
She took both of the girl’s hands in hers. This time, she didn’t pull away.
Chapter 39
Aaron never showed up early for school if he could help it. But this was more than a run-of-the-mill class, or even a mission.
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