An Alien's Guide to the Human Species

by Deb McEwan

  He crossed two legs behind his back and looked up to the sky. ‘Say goodbye to your parents and come with me.’

  Vicky was terrified but knew that her parents were only trying to keep her safe. Both parents cuddled her and she felt the wetness on her, despite trying her hardest not to cry.

  As her parents walked off into the distance, slumped and dragging their legs, they seemed to age before their spiderling’s very eyes. If Vicky had known that the next time she would see them would be to bury their husks, she would have ran after them and told them how much she loved them.

  *****

  Vicky brought herself back to the present. Did she want to be made a laughing stock and risk losing her position, or was she prepared to do something about Geraldine?

  She approached Max and lowered her voice to stop the others hearing. ‘Don’t you ever undermine my position again. I’m going to have to work very hard to regain their respect. She indicated to the other spiders and Max sensed inner depths that he hadn’t witnessed before.

  ‘But I was trying to help, Vic. I know how awful Geraldine can be when she puts her mind to it.’ All Max wanted to do was to protect Vicky and he was a bit put out.

  ‘I’ll fight my own battles thanks.’ And with that Vicky strode purposefully to the door.

  ‘Where you going?’ Max found this new side of Vicky both exciting and scary.

  ‘I have unfinished business.’ And Vicky seemed to disappear before his very eyes.

  Max could feel all eyes on him and wasn’t in the mood to answer questions.

  ‘Right, you lot, get on with your work. We can’t afford to take our eyes off the ball.’

  None of the spiders had heard this saying before but knew when they could joke with the boss, and this certainly wasn’t the time. They got on with their work in complete silence.

  The hospital corridor was perfect. Dark, narrow and quiet. Vicky had seen Geraldine make her way to her team’s Ops Room and it was only a matter of time before she returned. Vicky had been absolutely furious before recalling her Kerfong training with Uncle Porgi, and now she was calm and both mentally and physically prepared. She had a job to do and aimed to teach Geraldine a lesson without massaging her own ego.

  Vicky heard a scuttling noise, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She emerged from the shadows.

  ‘Arrghhh.’ Geraldine jumped then giggled when she saw it was only Vicky.

  ‘You silly cow. You didn’t half give me a fright then.’

  Geraldine looked at Vicky. The last time she’d seen the same staring lifeless eyes had been when the Bundrils were harvesting her family on Phoenix. The hairs on Geraldine’s abdomen stood on end and her heartbeat quickened. She decided to ignore the warning and brazen it out. Geraldine smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

  ‘Max send you to give me details of our date?’

  Geraldine didn’t see a thing. Suddenly, she was in the most pain of her entire life and one of her legs was on the other side of the corridor. She started screaming then something hit her abdomen and she couldn’t scream or move. All she felt was excruciating pain and she was powerless to do anything about it.

  ‘You owe me an apology.’ Said Vicky and Geraldine was amazed at the matter of fact tone. One of Vicky’s front legs shot out hitting her hard and Geraldine was able to move again. She could just about manage to string a few words together.

  ‘I’m really sorry. Please don’t hurt me any more.’

  Vicky wasn’t satisfied. She sat quietly for a moment, contemplating her next move.

  Geraldine mistook the silence and believed the one-sided fight was over. She decided to get out of dodge.

  ‘Please let me go.’ She started to slink away, moving as fast as the pain would allow.

  Three steps later her body was flying through the air. She landed and Vicky was on her instantly. In a nano second Vicky’s fangs were in Geraldine’s abdomen and the blood started flowing. Vicky jumped off Geraldine and watched dispassionately in the knowledge that she hadn’t injected a lethal dose of her venom.

  ‘Arrgggghhhhh, nooooooo, I don’t want to die!!!’

  Geraldine screamed the words. It took a moment for her to realise that she was screaming in her head and couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t breathe or move and it dawned on her that her last moments on Earth would be in a dark hospital corridor staring into the black eyes of her victor.

  Her life flashed before her very eyes. All the horrible things she’d done came back to her in slow motion with visions of the spiders she’d wounded and tormented. The pain was unbearable, and equally awful was the feeling of utter helplessness, shame and humiliation.

  Vicky gave Geraldine a swift kick and her body shuddered and came back to life. The pain lifted and Geraldine started shaking, praying to no one in particular that this was the end of her ordeal.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Geraldine’s apology wasn’t only to Vicky and the tears came, like monsoon season, shortly after.

  Vicky knew that this time the apology was genuine.

  ‘If you tell anyone what’s happened here tonight I’ll find out. I’ll come for you and I’ll end it. Understand?’

  Geraldine wasn’t planning on sharing this experience with anyone. ‘Yes, Ma’am, understood fully.’

  Vicky disappeared into the night and Geraldine exhaled, knowing her life would never be the same again.

  *****

  A Sunday five weeks later in the Gibson household and Junior was filming Caroline and Phil. Phil had finished his breakfast. Caroline couldn’t eat due to suffering from morning sickness. Even the sight of food made her retch. Phil looked at his lovely wife. The dark circles under her eyes and her pale face told him how tired she was. Perhaps she’d feel better after a bit of fresh air.

  ‘Fancy a walk in the park love?’

  A lone tear trickled down Caroline’s face. ‘I’m going to be podgy and sick and smelly all the time and you won’t love me any more.’

  Phil knew that mood swings were often a symptom of early pregnancy, but this was so out of character for Caroline.

  ‘Of course I’ll love you, darling, I’ll love you for ever, you know that surely?’

  ‘You won’t, you’ll go off me and find someone without a bump and prettier and I’ll be on my own and …’

  ‘Caroline, you’re beautiful and I love you and I’ll love your bump when it shows.’ Phil had never known Caroline to be so insecure and was upset. He held both her hands,

  ‘I love it already and I don’t even know if it’s a he or a she. Please don’t upset yourself.’

  ‘Oh, OK. I suppose you’re right. Shall we do something then?’ Caroline brightened instantly.

  Phil couldn’t fathom how Caroline’s moods could change so often and so suddenly. He would find this hard to cope with for the entire pregnancy, but hopefully, things would settle down after the first trimester.

  ‘Fancy a walk in the park then?’ Phil was trying to lighten the mood after all that emotional stuff.

  ‘Come on then, hurry up, let’s go.’ It did the trick, Caroline was back to her normal enthusiastic self and raring to go.

  *****

  Now 12 weeks pregnant, Caroline was curled up on the sofa with Phil watching ET.

  ‘This is sooooo dated but such good fun. Oops, sorry did I wake you.’ She didn’t realise that Phil had nodded off.

  ‘Mmmm, wasn’t really watching, darling. Hope they don’t look like that if they do exist.’

  Vicky turned to Max. ‘They’ve really no idea have they?’

  ‘Never mind that. It says here that as well as sickness, mood swings and extreme tiredness, pregnant women may also experience constipation, headache, heartburn, weight gain or loss, the need to pass urine more often and cravings or distaste for certain foods.’

  ‘You can’t believe everything you read, Max.’ Vicky had read quite a lot of novels and knew for a fact that there weren’t always happy endings.

&nb
sp; ‘No, Vic this isn’t romantic fiction nonsense.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘This is fact.’ Max flipped the book to the cover which read facts about pregnancy.

  ‘Fair enough. What else does it say?’

  ‘This bit’s about cravings.’

  They both read quietly hoping to understand more about Caroline’s condition.

  *****

  ‘Fancy a snack?’ Phil was a bit peckish and wondered what his wife would want this time.

  ‘Sorry but a marmite and strawberry jelly sandwich would be lovely. If we haven’t got any jelly, jam will do.’

  Phil went to the kitchen to make the snack and Caroline smiled to herself. She loved it that she could eat all the things she had thought about when she was young and use pregnancy as an excuse. Poor Phil. How many other husbands thought their wives over-imaginative food wants were pregnancy cravings?

  *****

  Caroline was in the 2nd trimester of her pregnancy and blossoming. She felt good and lots of people smiled at her and told her she looked great. She arrived at the hospital for her scan and booked in at the reception. Max clicked his radio button.

  ‘Green Vulture this is Zero, copy over.’ The radio on receive, Max awaited the response, dreading the flirtatious comments that she always made.

  ‘Hello Zero, Green Vulture here, send over.’

  Max was pleasantly surprised at Geraldine’s professionalism.

  ‘Caroline is en route to your location for a scan. Take your team there now and film the action. Acknowledge.’

  ‘Acknowledged Zero. We’ll do our best to get you great footage. And, err, say hello to Vicky and give her my best. Out here.’

  Geraldine ended the conversation and Max looked at Vicky who shrugged. Along with the other spiders he wondered what was going on; he’d never understand females.

  *****

  Caroline took a seat in the waiting room hoping that Phil would arrive in time for her scan.

  A number of other pregnant women were also waiting. One named Adele Jones was sitting opposite Caroline.

  ‘Miserable weather, love isn’t it. First one for you, love?’

  The conversation brought Caroline out of her reverie. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thought so, you look so young and not tired at all. Look at me, on me sixth and only 28!’

  Caroline was amazed. With her sagging body and face, she thought this woman was a lot older.

  ‘Erm, why didn’t you stop at 3 or 4 then, if it’s not a personal question?’

  Caroline was aghast at her own bluntness, of course it was a flaming personal question. She was never this forward before getting pregnant, what must people think of her.

  Adele didn’t seem at all bothered. ‘Very fertile family love, do the deed, forced to breed, ha ha ha.’

  Come on Phil, hurry up please. As if he could read her thoughts, Phil walked through the door at that precise moment.

  ‘Cor, he’s a bit of all right, love, you wanna hang on to that one.’ Adele looked Phil up and down like he was merely an object of sexual pleasure.

  Phil reddened. As soon as the receptionist called their name he grabbed Caroline’s arm and rushed her towards the examination room, escaping Adele as if she had something contagious.

  ‘Make him user-friendly, love, you don’t want to end up like me.’ Adele called, laughing to herself.

  ‘What’s user friendly?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘The chop, love make him have the chop.’

  ‘Who on Earth was ...’

  ‘Don’t ask Phil, unbelievable. Let’s go and see whether we’re painting the nursery blue or pink.’ Caroline sat on the bed and they waited for the sonographer to arrive.

  Geraldine and her crew had discreetly scurried into the room to carry on filming.

  Caroline was lying on the bed with her stomach exposed. The sonographer ran the ultrasound scanner over Caroline’s stomach and Caroline and Phil saw their growing baby on the screen. Phil was overcome by emotion and was fighting to hold back the tears. Caroline took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Is it a boy or girl?’ Asked the father to be.

  The Sonographer looked at the screen. ‘Not sure, Mr Gibson, I’m afraid it’s inconclusive. But I can tell you that there’s only one in there.’

  Phil was confused. ‘Inconclusive. But it must be a boy or a girl, what else could it be?’

  ‘Darling, all she means is that they can’t tell yet.’

  ‘Ah, sorry about that. Bit emotional all this.’ He felt like an idiot.

  ‘No problem, Mr Gibson, I can understand you wanting to know but we should be able to tell at Mrs Gibson’s next scan at the 20 week point.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  Caroline looked at her husband. ‘I think now might be a good time to talk about your fingers.’

  The sonographer waited while Phil put his thoughts together. ‘There seems to be a genetic problem with some of the males in my family.’

  ‘To do with your fingers?’ Asked the sonographer.

  ‘Yup. I was born with my index and middle fingers fused together, and the same with my fourth and little fingers. My father tells me that this has been the case in our family for generations.’ Phil took a deep breath. ‘I’m frightened that if we have a boy, he’ll have the same defect.’

  ‘OK, Mr Gibson, all I can say at the moment is that it’s too early for us to detect any err, abnormalities at this scan, but we’ll be able to at the next.’ The sonographer smiled. ‘In the meantime I’ll make an appointment for you to see the consultant so that he can, hopefully, allay any of your concerns.’

  Although Caroline was worried about this so called abnormality, she wasn’t overly concerned as it was the skin and not the bones that had been fused together and she wouldn’t have known about it had Phil not explained it to her. If she was having a girl it wouldn’t be a problem anyway. She wanted to change the subject and talk about happier things.

  ‘I want a natural birth by the way.’ Caroline had a determined look on her face.

  ‘That’s something you need to discuss with your midwife, Mrs Gibson, but childbirth can be extremely painful and I’d advise you to think very carefully about it.’

  ‘OK, but it can’t be that bad, look at how many people are on Earth.’

  Phil nodded at his wife’s logic.

  The Sonographer laughed nervously and hoped that Caroline would make the right decision. It was always the first-time mother who asked for a natural birth. Those on their second or third time very rarely did.

  Caroline dressed and they make their way back home, putting off their visit to the DIY shop for paint, until after the 20 week scan.

  *****

  Geraldine radioed Max. ‘Hello, Zero this is Green Vulture Leader, copy, over.’

  Max acknowledged and Geraldine continued. ‘Human females can have multiple births but there’s only one in there this time. Gender unknown until next scan.’

  ‘Roger that, Green Vulture. Anything else?’

  ‘No major problems with the baby.’

  ‘I sense a but, Green Vulture?’

  Geraldine had a sense of theatre and was saving the best until last. ‘Zero, it appears that the males in this family are born with Terry type fingers.’

  Max thought he’d misheard. ‘Repeat.’

  Geraldine repeated and waited for the response. None was forthcoming. ‘Radio check. Say hello to Vicky please. Zero this is …’

  ‘Yes I’m still here.’ Max interrupted. ‘Good job to you and your team, Green Vulture and I’ll say hello to Vicky again, over and out.’

  Vicky had heard the entire conversation and looked at Max. She ignored the greeting from Geraldine and concentrated on the important information.

  ‘I wonder if they have any telepathic abilities?’

  ‘It’s a coincidence, Vic, pure and simple.’ Max grabbed a pencil and tapped it on the floor. ‘Saying that, we’ll include the information in the broadcast and the Terries can make up their ow
n minds.’

  *****

  Caroline was trying to get comfy on the sofa and Phil was in the kitchen, making her the fruit tea she’d recently starting drinking.

  Max and Vicky were in the TV corner of the room filming. Max enjoyed spending time with Vicky and where possible, organised the rosters so that they covered the same shifts. The other spiders found it unusual that the commander and his second in command were always working together at the same time, until they realised the strength of attraction between them.

  ‘Phil, Phil, come here quick.’

  Vicky quickly turned on her webcam.

  ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ Phil rushed into the living room, panicking. ‘What’s wrong, what is it. Caroline, shall I phone the doctor?’

  ‘Come and feel my stomach. The baby kicked.’

  Phil collapsed onto the sofa next to Caroline. ‘Sweetheart, I do wish you wouldn’t shout like that, I thought something was wrong.’ He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself.

  ‘Stop panicking and come and feel my stomach. I’m having a baby, there’s nothing wrong with me. Millions of women have done this Phil, it’s perfectly normal.’

  ‘But I haven’t been a father to millions of babies, Caroline, this is all new to me.’

  ‘Are you sure there’s no little Phil Gibsons running around? If there is, now’s a good time to tell me.’ Caroline was teasing Phil and trying to get him to lighten up.

  ‘You what? How could you say something like that?’

  Sometimes Caroline could be more like her mother than she realised and Phil didn’t like it.

  ‘Joking, honey, lighten up please. It’s all new to me too. Remember we’re in this together so let’s try and calm down and do what’s best for the baby.’

  ‘OK, but can you try not to shout, it makes me panic and think something’s wrong, and obviously this is my first child as well.’

  ‘You’re a wuss at times Phil.’

  That started tickling each other and Caroline eventually used the baby as an excuse to stop.

  The 20 week scan revealed that their baby was a boy. Caroline and Phil were excited at the news but nervous about seeing the consultant.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Gibson, do come in and sit down, and please don’t look so worried.’ Mr Baxter smiled reassuringly.