Pod

by Stephen Wallenfels

  “Maybe your husband can use it to bribe the guards for water.”

  Her eyes mist over. I can tell she’s about to cry. Definitely not good. “My husband died last night.”

  I think of the man slumped against the wall. I’d like to say something, but this conversation has to end.

  “Who are you?” she chokes out.

  But I’m already moving. Weaving my way to the door, reaching for the handle. Someone grabs my shoulder from behind. A voice wheezes, “Hey, you can’t—”

  I twist down and away, then I’m out the door. I head for the stairway, breathing hard through my mask, walking fast but not too fast. I’m just about there when Vladi yells from down the hall, “Hey! Stop!”

  Should I run? Go for it? It’s ten floors. He’d probably catch me. And he has a gun. He might figure things out and take the pills from Mary.

  Walking toward me, Vladi says, “You must give me something.”

  My brain is screaming, Run! I wrap my fingers on the door handle.

  “Not so fast,” he says. I smell him behind me. Then he’s touching my hair. I look to my left. Hacker’s eyes are smiling, like he’s seen this before. Like he’s about to have some fun. I let go of the door. My hand creeps inside the pocket with the pepper spray. Vladi whispers in my ear, “I let you go, little girl,” he says, “after you give me something.”

  My fingers find the can, search for the top.

  He says, “Give me mask. Then you go.”

  I fly down the stairs, realizing that I have no plan. My mind races through the options as I run. The kitchen escape route—blocked by Black Beard. The access door on floor six—locked. The lobby access door—guarded. The door to the long, dark hall—Richie. The hotel lobby entrance—alien death ray. There’s no way out. By the time I reach the bottom floor I’m like a hamster running on a wire wheel, totally exhausted and totally trapped. I can’t just stay in the hotel. Sooner or later someone will figure out that no one recognizes me and tell Richie or Mr. Hendricks, hoping to trade food or water for the information. Or even worse, Richie figures it out by himself, which means all kinds of bad news for me, and probably for Mary and the baby. Like Zack would say to Mom, Sure you have options, but they’re all bad. I decide my best play is to do what I do best: hide and wait. So I go out the door, turn the corner, and …

  Richie isn’t there.

  He’s on the other side of the lobby arguing with Black Beard. They’re really into it, Richie poking an angry finger in the big man’s chest, Black Beard smiling but not really. The door to the long, dark hall is unguarded. It’s ten feet from where I stand. There’s maybe twenty people in the lobby, but only one seems aware of me. It’s that freckle-faced boy again. I take a couple of steps. He’s definitely watching me. I put my head down and walk toward the door. Richie and Black Beard are still at it, Richie yelling that he’s as stupid as a sack of hammers. I’m at the door, pressing down on the crash bar. Two seconds later and I slip like a shadow into the hall. I guide the door until it clicks softly behind me.

  The hall is dark, but I remember my way. The garbage can, the fire extinguisher, a right turn, six doors down—all locked. The next door should be the utility room. It swings open, the piece of tape still where I left it. I peel off the tape, which gives me an idea. I tear it into small pieces, jam them into the lock, dart inside, and pull the door closed. It may not stop Richie, but it will definitely slow him down.

  There’s light framing the bottom of the exit door. My eyes adjust to the darkness enough so that I can make out shadowy shapes. The ladder is under the access vent, but something isn’t right. The vent cover is on the floor. That’s not where we left it. Someone has been in here after us. And whoever it was, they chose not to take the tape off the lock. I walk quickly across the small room, then stop and listen. No sound. I open the door enough to stick my head outside. The stairway is clear and empty. I remember the look in Richie’s eyes, and that crawling-insect feeling returns. My escape has been too easy, too smooth. But as far as I know, he’s still fighting with Black Beard. I take a breath and walk up the stairs.

  The first thing that hits me is the air. It smells … different. Maybe it’s because I spent too much time in the sickroom, or too many hours in the LTT, but the air has a cool crispness to it that feels good in my lungs. I can’t get enough of it. I still see a couple of floaters outside but nowhere near as many. I don’t remember seeing them leave. Where did they all go?

  There’s no sign of Aunt Janet. I hope she’s sleeping in the SUV. I take a step in that direction—

  An arm wraps around my neck and jerks me off my feet.

  A raspy voice whispers in my ear, “So the pirate is a girl. Ain’t that a bitch!”

  I can’t breathe. The tendons in his arm feel like ropes digging into my throat. I kick my legs and try to scream. Nothing comes out but a pathetic squeak.

  “Feels like your lungs are on fire, don’t it? Like your eyeballs are gonna pop right out of your head?”

  I can’t reach my pocket to get the pepper spray. I try to scratch at his skin, reach back to gouge his eyes. He laughs. I’m starting to black out. My arms are losing their strength.

  “You fight worse ’n your scrawny little cat!”

  Richie throws me to the ground. I fall like a broken doll, struggling to take in ragged gulps of air. He walks over to me, looks down from underneath that hood with those black empty eyes. There’s a car about ten feet away. Maybe I can get underneath it long enough to catch my breath, get out the pepper spray. I start crawling. He kicks me with his boot, knocks me over. I start crawling again. He reaches down, wraps an arm around my chest, and scoops me up. He walks toward the exit, carrying me against his hip. A floater cruises by. My arms are pinned to my side. The pepper spray, six inches from my right hand, is useless.

  I try to scream. All I manage is a hoarse “Help me!”

  “See, there’s an art to squeezing a throat just enough so it spasms. That way they can sort of breathe, but they can’t talk.” He laughs. “Best invention ever. You know where I learned it? From a cop that tried to strangle me.”

  He drops me to the ground, pins me with his boot.

  “Check this out,” he says.

  I look up. He folds back the hood. I see his face for the first time. His hair is black and spotty like it only grows in patches. There’s a curving white scar from his forehead to the middle of his right cheek. And there’s just a dark purple lump where his right ear should be.

  He picks me up and says, “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Well, you should’ve seen the cop.”

  We’re almost at the exit. Three more floaters are spinning in the street.

  “These things are amazing. How do they always know when it’s time to eat? A minute from now they’ll be swarming like ants on ice cream. I mean, it’s not like I’m ringing a dinner bell.” He squeezes me, hard. “Hell, you’re so damn bony they may just lose their appetite. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.”

  We’re at the exit. The floaters are a car length away. There’s a crowd of them now, spinning like evil tops about a foot off the ground. I go limp, hoping that Richie will have to adjust his grip. He shifts his arm just enough for me to sink my right hand into my pocket.

  “Did you know the mother ships are com-mu-nicating with me? I’m one of their whatcha-call-its … a disciple! I bring them sacrifices. Thanks to me, we get to survive a little longer. But do I get any credit for saving the human race? My work is so misunderstood.”

  The pepper spray is in my right hand. I’ll have to be quick. I won’t get a second chance. I dig the fingernails of my free hand into his arm.

  He laughs. “You think a little scratch is gonna work on me?”

  But his grip loosens for just a second. That’s all I need. I twist out of his arm, land on my feet, and bring out the can, spraying as I go. But he’s faster than me. He blocks the spray with one hand, grabs the canister with the other, and yanks it away. The air bur
ns with the smell and my eyes sting, but Richie is untouched. He tosses the can into the street. The floaters swarm over it.

  I have nowhere to go. I’m on the edge of the exit. Two steps back and I’m in the street. It’s floaters or death rays; either way I’m gone. Richie is blocking me from escaping into the garage. He wipes his hands on his pants. Water leaks from his eyes. I try to dart past him, but he grabs my shirt, pulls me back. I’m amazed at how fast and strong he is.

  He pushes me toward the street. It’s jammed with floaters.

  “Where’s the gun?” he says.

  Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t tell him. He’d feed Aunt Janet to the aliens for sure.

  “I’ll bet you’re hiding it with that little bitch friend of yours, the one you stole from me.”

  Stall for time. Figure something out. That’s the only plan I have.

  My voice is coming back. I could scream, but what good will that do? I say, “I … I don’t remember.”

  “Maybe this’ll help.”

  There’s that sickening chicken-bone click. Like magic, the knife is in his hand. He does the spinning move around his finger. Even in the shadows the blade seems to shine.

  “Now I’m only gonna ask nice one more time. Listen close, my little friend. Where … is … the … gun?”

  “It’s behind you,” says a calm, familiar voice.

  Richie reaches out, pins me against his body, and turns toward the sound.

  Aunt Janet steps from behind a cement column. She stands maybe twenty feet away, arms out straight, holding the gun with both hands. Her target seems to be Richie’s chest, about four inches above my head.

  The gleaming blade is one inch from my throat.

  “Let her go,” she says, her eyes never leaving his.

  “Why would I do that?” he says.

  “Because I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  “You kill me? That’s perfect!” He takes a step toward her. “You know what I think?” The gun is shaking in her hand. Richie takes another step, pushes me forward. More shaking from Aunt Janet. The stink from Richie’s arm, a mix of sweat and pepper spray, burns my nose.

  Aunt Janet says, “I don’t care what you think.” She adjusts her stance. I know the gun is empty, but does Richie? Can he tell just by looking at it?

  Richie says, “I think you got yourself a little situ-a-tion here. Just like in the movies.”

  He takes another step. She’s really shaking now, all the way down to her legs.

  “There’s no point in this getting ugly, right? Hell, I bet that thing isn’t even loaded.”

  Her face clouds. I know that look. She’s fighting one of those cramps.

  “So, my friend, here’s how we’re going to do this …”

  Another step. We’re fifteen feet away and closing.

  He points the knife at her and says, “You’re going to give me the gun, then you’re—”

  The shaking stops. Aunt Janet’s shooting hand is as steady as a rock. Richie freezes.

  I twist down and away from the blade. As I’m moving there are two quick explosions. Richie shudders like he was kicked. He lets go of my shirt, I lunge out and away. He stumbles backwards toward the street, clutching at his right shoulder with his left hand. There’s red seeping out from the bottom edge. He’s starting to get his balance back, rage filling his eyes.

  I charge at him. He swings the knife at my head, but it’s slow and easy to duck. I ram my arms into his chest, pushing him backwards with everything I’ve got. He stumbles, tries to stand up—but can’t. Screaming, he falls into a sea of floaters. They swarm over him. There’s an arm, a foot, another short scream.

  Three seconds and Richie isn’t Richie anymore.

  I stare at Aunt Janet. She stuffs the gun into her waistband.

  “What just happened?” I ask, still not believing what I saw.

  She walks over, gives me a long hug. Then she steps back, looks at me, and says, “You remember when I told you there weren’t any bullets?”

  “Yeah.”

  There’s a hint of a smile in her eyes. “I lied.”

  DAY 28: PROSSER, WASHINGTON

  Bathtub Man

  It takes me a few heartbeats to figure things out.

  I’m in the Camry. A bright light streams in through a side window in the garage. It’s so intense I have to turn away. My mouth feels like I’ve been sucking on cotton balls. My legs are covered with the green blanket from my bed—how did that get there? All this information is confusing enough, but it doesn’t come close to answering the two questions that are burning a hole in my brain.

  Number one: Why am I alive?

  Number two: Why am I alone?

  Last thing I remember, Dad and I swallowed a boatload of pain pills. In fact, the now-empty glass that we used to wash down the pills is still on the dashboard, right where Dad put it. I remember feeling numb, drifting off, Dad mumbling all that emotional stuff you expect to hear on your deathbed. But here I am, alive and alone. Alone in my very own 1997 gunmetal-blue Toyota Camry with 197,000 miles and a brand-new kick-ass stereo in the dash.

  I can think of only two explanations. Well, three, I guess. Either I’m dreaming—but you don’t have headaches in dreams, so that’s definitely out—or for some reason the pills didn’t work. They sure felt like they worked. Explanation number three, that Dad secretly owns and knows how to operate a stomach pump and wasn’t too drugged to use it, is about as likely as me growing a second head. I’m going with the pills not working, which means Dad is still alive. Which also explains why I’m alone. So where the hell is he? In the house, probably fixing breakfast. Oh yeah, there is no breakfast. So he’s in the kitchen counting PODs and drawing graphs. Or equally productive, cleaning the counter.

  I walk into the house. The shades are down, so there’s none of the blinding POD light in here. Only a soft yellow glow filtering in through the beige cloth.

  I yell, “Yo, Dad! Nice job with the pills!”

  I wait. No answer. Okay, be that way.

  I follow that up with “Next time, read the bottle!”

  Still nothing. He could be upstairs taking a nap, but this isn’t a big house, and I yelled loud enough to wake the dead. A voice in my brain is whispering PODs. Like, he went to them, or worse, they came to us.

  My heart speeds up a beat. This is beginning to feel like the horror movie where you want to scream at the guy on the screen, “Get out of the house, you idiot! Get out of the house!” Only in this case I’m the idiot and exiting the house is not an option.

  I check out all the usual suspects: Dad’s black leather chair in the den, the couch in the living room, the dining room chair facing the window, the kitchen.

  All spotless, all empty. My eyes drift to the wooden block of butcher knives. Something seems wrong. I look closer. The biggest knife, the one Dad uses for carving a turkey, is gone. He has a hissy fit when someone doesn’t put it back in the block. This isn’t making any kind of sense. I whip out the meat cleaver. I mean, that’s what the idiot would do, right?

  I walk up the stairs that now seem to have an eerie squeak. And of course there aren’t many windows, so it’s darker than downstairs. The meat cleaver makes my shadow especially big and menacing. I’d laugh if my teeth weren’t chattering.

  “Dad,” I say, in a voice barely more than a whisper, “whatever it is you’re doing, it’s time to stop.”

  I’m at the top of the stairs. The hall goes left, to my room, or right, to the master bedroom. Dad’s door is wide open. Nap or no nap, he should hear me. My door is closed, so that’s where I go first. Even though it’s my room, I feel the urge to knock.

  I tap my knuckles on the white wood and say, “Dad, you in there? Dad?”

  He doesn’t answer. I turn the knob and step inside.

  All my stuff is put away. The bookcase is organized, my desk is clear, my clothes are folded and stacked on the dresser. My shoes are paired up and in a tidy row under the window. My bed looks so pe
rfect it could be in a Marriott ad. And on top of that perfect, wrinkle-free bed is a white envelope with my name on it.

  I put the meat cleaver on the windowsill, knowing that this is the point in the movie where the psycho jumps out of the closet. Strange thing is, I’m more afraid of this envelope than I am of closet psychos or POD storm troopers. My hands shake as I tear open the flap. There’s a letter inside. I recognize Dad’s meticulous engineer-style handwriting. His voice echoes in my head as I read.

  Dear Josh –

  If you’re reading this letter, that means you survived. Great! Believe it or not, that’s my plan. Two of your pills were pain pills. The rest were filled with powdered milk. It wasn’t a mean trick. I did this because I’m your father. I know I’m being selfish, but I want you to live. This invasion won’t last forever. Mom may still be alive. If there’s even a small chance that you can survive to the “after” when the PODs leave, you should take it.

  A tear falls on the paper. It makes a dark, wet stain.

  I’m hoping you change your mind about what we discussed earlier. Eating me is the right thing to do. But you can’t think about it for very long; otherwise the meat will spoil. I also understand if you can’t do it. It’s a tough decision—one you have to make alone. All I ask is that you please don’t toss my carcass to the PODs. I’m in the master bath either way. I love you.

  Dad

  PS: The drugs from your pills are in a baggie under the book on my nightstand. But use it only at your darkest hour. Don’t let the PODs take you. I don’t trust them.

  The meat will spoil? Carcass? Just thinking about those words makes my stomach flip. I’m crying so hard I can hardly breathe. But maybe he’s still alive. Maybe I can stop him!

  I crash through the doorway, sprint down the hall and into Dad’s bedroom. More of that bright light is pouring in through the window. The bathroom door is closed. I yell, “Dad!” and kick my way in.

  He’s in the bathtub, naked except for his black boxers. There’s a skylight in the ceiling above him. A rectangle of sunlight stretches across his motionless face. I can tell he’s dead. The chalky white skin, the stiffness, the silence— I just know it. There’s no point in taking his pulse. My father is dead.