When both her feet were firmly planted on the ground below me, the beam sucked back into the ship, and she looked up at me and said, “I care so much about you, Garran. I always will. I, I…”
“I love you, America,” I said confidently. Yes, I loved her—an alien female I’d never see again.
“And I love you, too,” she shouted up at me. My body warmed beneath my shell, and the urge to leap from the cruiser and follow her were so strong that I gripped the inside of the doorframe in order to keep my body still.
A small path cut away from the clearing below, and America jogged toward it. Where the shrubbery met the path, she stopped to face me and give a final wave. I waved back, and the cruiser door slowly closed as she disappeared down the trail.
But what was that? A scream?
“America!” I shouted and commanded the door to retract and the ship to become invisible.
With a running start, I jumped from the ship, almost falling when my boots hit the hard earth. Leaves cracked and twigs snapped under my weight as I cranked my arms and sprinted down the path. My soft boots were no match for this hard alien terrain. Broken sticks stabbed at my ankles, and sharp stones cut into my soles. Stray branches jutted into the trail from the left and right, and I batted them away with my open hand as they poked and scratched hard against my shell.
“Stop. Garran. Don’t move,” America ordered. She stood in the center of the dirt path as still as one of the statues in the Ring of Reverence. “Don’t speak.”
The air was thick with the odor of the towering trees lining the trail, arborous giants with needles for leaves and the knobby, brown balls they dropped to cover the floor of the forest. I longed for the sweet smell of jessom moss as my lungs continued to feed upon the strange alien air.
A breeze caught America’s hair, and a strand danced in the wind like the broken yellow crime tape behind us, but she remained frozen, her eyes fixed on something to her right, something I couldn’t see.
There was a sound, something to my left, a crunch of leaves, the snap of twigs. Our light source, the alien moon above our heads, was just a sliver now, shining between the thick canopies of trees, making it almost impossible to see.
The noise came again, the same crisp gnawing against the forest floor. What was it? Why was America’s face full of fear?
“Garran,” she whispered. “Go back to your ship. You shouldn’t have followed me. Don’t turn around. Take each step backward slowly.”
“I don’t understand—”
Something sprang from America’s right, a flash of yellowy brown. She fell to the forest floor, and I rushed forward and threw myself upon a furred creature. It twisted and clamped the back of my neck with something pointed and penetrating. America rolled, screaming among the dead leaves, and I collapsed, falling forward with the weight of the heavy, menacing beast upon my back.
After jabbing my elbow behind me and pushing up onto my knees, I turned to face my foe, but became momentarily blinded by a swipe against my head, a paw knocking me back to the ground.
The beast’s claws reached for my neck. I heard the crack of shell before I felt the claustrophobic sensation of its shattered pieces pressing against my raw, vulnerable muscles underneath.
America? Where was America?
The creature’s teeth embedded in my shoulder and yanked its jaw away, ripping my tunic and taking bits of shell with it. Through the blur of a great paw ready to make another blow, I saw the flash of America’s face in the moonlight, her eyes wide, her lips curled and showing teeth.
“No, stay down, America,” I ordered.
She rose, wielding a tree limb above her head, bringing it down upon the beast’s back. The branch flaked into two pieces as the animal shrugged it from its shoulders and crouched down on its raised haunches. Turning its attention to the thin-figured girl who crumpled to the ground, having used any last bit of strength she had, the cat readied for a pounce.
“No!” I shouted, waving my crippled arm.
In the moonlight, its fur casting a pale yellow, the great beast changed its mind and made its strike, leaping in my direction. Catching it by its thick neck, I planted my foot against the mighty cat’s chest. One push knocked it aside where I made my final attack, hurling myself onto the animal’s back.
Bringing my forearm around its neck, I locked its wide head against my chest and squeezed. Another crack came, the splitting of shell at my torso, each plate disengaging from its socket at the joint, but it didn’t stop me from increasing the pressure I put upon the animal’s throat.
The creature kicked and pawed, jerking left and right until its massive body became limp and all was still. As I straightened my arm to release the alien beast, the shell on the inside of my elbow bowed and split, biting into the exposed muscle underneath.
I sank to my knees in pain as the beast fell with a thud against a cushion of dried leaves at the edge of the trail. I watched as the released dust and minute particles of plant material rose from the forest floor to dance in the moon’s weak glow, where they remained suspended mid-air by a light breeze.
My eye plates heavy, flickering opened and closed, the trees swirled in the distance as my head lolled from one side to the other. Every part under my shell burned, and I became aware of a widespread pain working its way through my limbs and into my chest.
“Garran?” said America, her voice faltering.
“I’m here. The creature is dead,” I huffed.
And what a creature it was, so soft, yet so brutal. So innocent it looked now with its legs wilted and its mouth slightly ajar.
“It’s never my desire to kill,” I said, with shortened breaths, “even an alien animal such as this. But I had no choice.”
“You had to do it.” America’s sweet voice fell flat against the night air. “It was a mountain lion. They’re known to attack and kill humans.”
“I still am not proud of it,” I gasped, lowering to the ground with a clatter of bloody shell.
America’s delicate hand came first, her fingertips gliding over the fragmented plates on my face before she spoke again.
“Your shell,” she cried with a voice that trembled.
“I know. It is far beyond repair.”
America winced, and I saw that she was broken, too, at the shoulder, the skin ripped and hanging in shreds. Her arm thick with blood, she bit her bottom lip and clasped her other hand against the wound.
“I need to get you back to the ship. You can call for help.” Her words were desperate, full of hard swallows and sobs. “Someone can come for you and take you back to Enestia. They can try to fix your shell.”
“I, I can’t walk. The sharp edges of my broken shell will cut into my muscles and internal organs if I move. I have to stay as still as possible.” I knew the drill. Something Enestian’s learned from the day they could walk.
“Then I’ll go to the cruiser. I’ll call for help. Just tell me what to do.”
“I made it invisible. You won’t be able to find it, and even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to reach it.”
“I can do it. I’ll find a way. How do I get inside?”
“The door— It should still be open, but its interior is invisible, too. You won’t—”
“Yes, I will. I’ve got to. I have to,” she cried. “And once I’m inside, what do I do? Tell me,” she pleaded.
“You’d need to send an alert to Enestia. The round, red key below the left panel. It will signal my location, and then someone may or may not come after me. It’s not worth you risking your own health.”
“Yes, it is! I can’t leave you like this. I won’t do it!” She broke into a cry that clipped the dry air, each sob and deep draw of breath almost Enestian in nature.
“But you’re injured. Leave me here and find help for yourself first.”
“No, I’m going to your ship to signal for help. I’ll hide you, here in the brush, so no one will find you when I’m gone.”
“But you need to get t
o a hospital. You’re still bleeding. It hasn’t stopped. Humans can only lose a certain amount of blood.”
“I know, but I’m okay. Don’t talk and try not to move.”
My eye plates closed. I had no strength left to hold them open, so I used my ears to visualize America’s strained movements. Scraping sounds, pulling sounds, and the huff and puff of America bringing a collection of shrubbery to cover my faulty shell. Thick, dusty twigs strategically woven into a camouflage of foliage by her hands in order to conceal my broken body.
“America? Are you still there?” I asked when the last handful of leaves settled against my torso.
“Yes, I’m here. No one should be able to see you now. Try not to move or make any noise. I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.”
Straining to open my eyes against a knitting of twigs against my face, I saw the glint of her tunic as she disappeared down the trail.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
America
“Where the fuck are you?” I whispered into the night and looked up at where I thought the ship was floating.
I threw another rock into the void, hoping to hear a ting this time. No ting. Still holding my torn shoulder, I picked up another rock and gave it a hurl. Using my left hand made it difficult, and the pain in my right shoulder was to the point of being almost unbearable. Blood continued to drip, running first down my arm and then to the tips of my fingers. As I wound up and made the throw, I felt a pulse in my shoulder and the patter of blood on the dirt at my feet increased.
Ting.
“Yes, I found you, you son of a bitch.”
I fell to my knees and loaded my left hand with a barrage of pebbles, and pelted them one at a time, up and down, left and right, to get a sense of the ship’s exact size and location.
There were two trees next to where I predicted the open door was located, and with a quick scan of the tree’s limbs, I determined the tree on the left would be the better climb.
But could I do it with only one arm? I had to. I couldn’t let him die.
Keeping my right arm bent and pressed across my stomach, I grabbed the lowest branch with my left hand and pulled as I set one foot against the trunk and pushed off from the ground with the other. Every muscle ached with the strain. My head spun and my vision blurred, but I made it to the next branch and bent over it at my stomach, then caught another limb with my toe.
But as I reached for the branch above me, my toe gave and I dropped the ten feet I had climbed, landing on my back and shoulders. A shower of pine needles with a Christmasy scent settled around me, a cloud of stale dustiness. I rolled onto my knees, still holding the rags of flesh on my shoulder, and crawled back to the tree, determined to try again.
“America?” came a male voice from behind me. “Is that you? Oh my God. I can’t believe it! What a relief!”
Was that Attie’s boyfriend? “Logan?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve been coming here every day at midnight ever since you disappeared, hoping that thing we saw would bring you back to the same spot where… You’re bleeding! What happened?”
“A mountain lion. It just attacked me.”
“I need to get you to a hospital right away. And call the police. Everyone’s been looking for you.”
“No, not yet. I need to help…” I tried to explain, but I was so lightheaded the words didn’t come.
“My truck is parked where it was that night. It’s not far.” He took me by my good arm and steadied me.
“No, you can’t! Don’t take me away from here. I have to do something first. You don’t understand. Please. I need to get to the—”
“Leave you here? No way! You need help, and I need to call the police ASAP.”
“No!” I screamed, my hurt arm dangling as Logan held me against his side, forcing me to cut through the clearing with him. When we reached the remaining crime-scene tape, he ripped it from the tree, and we entered the thick woods.
His flashlight, held awkwardly while having me in his grip, was practically useless, its beam hitting everywhere except the ground beneath his feet. He stumbled twice, the second time as his tennis shoes met a blackened log at the center of the campfire, a branch that was probably left from our own makeshift fire on the night I disappeared.
“You’re not thinking clearly. You’ve lost a lot of blood. I’m not leaving you here.”
“No! No! I don’t want to go with you,” I cried and swung my good arm, landing a punch on the side of Logan’s face.
“What the fuck,” he shouted, and with a jab of my knee to his groin, he doubled over, and I sent him to the ground with another fiery kick to his ribs.
He scrambled to get up, but I was on top of him, my injured arm dangling while I hammered blow after blow into his back with my other fist.
“Stop it, America. You don’t know what you’re doing. Too much blood loss. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”
He grabbed my fist and rose. I fell from his back, defeated, my shoulder hurting too much to even stand.
“I’m sorry I had to do that, America, but you’re coming with me no matter what.”
He lifted me from the ground and took all my weight with one arm while he dug into his pocket. A second later I heard the double beep of a key remote and the click of a door. He huffed. “This isn’t my truck. Do you know why?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I imagined Garran’s deep green tunic patterned with gold thread.
“Because,” he continued, “the cops have mine. It was taken as evidence. We need to clear up what happened to you. Right now. You have no idea what bullshit Kevin and I have been put through over the last weeks.”
“But you don’t understand,” I slurred as everything spun, the truck, the pine trees, the leather seat Logan sat me upon, and the milky dome light above as the door slammed shut.
“You can’t tell anybody what you’re about to hear,” I said, a little louder than I meant to.
“Okay, I promise.” He lifted his head, and the boom of his voice made me tremble. “I won’t tell. I promise—for now.”
But could I hold him to his promise? What if he told the police where the space ship was located in the woods? What if he wanted to use Garran as evidence to further prove that he had nothing to do with my abduction? “For now” had to be good enough.
“Do you remember the ship hovering over us that night?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he answered with more composure, each breath long and slow like he was trying to calm down. “I mean, I don’t know. I’m not sure anymore. Everybody keeps telling us we were crazy. That we’re lying. That it was just our imagination.”
“It wasn’t your imagination. That ship took me away to another planet where I was held a prisoner in a research lab. They did things to me like run tests and take samples of my blood. I think. I’m not sure, really. I was unconscious when they conducted most of their so-called research,” I admitted, looking down at my hands in my lap.
“Bullshit.”
“I am telling you the truth, and I can prove it,” I said, remembering the container of tarla in my pocket and eyeing a crushed bottle of water on the floor by my feet. “Hold out your hand.”
“What?”
“Hold out your hand, please!”
I dropped a trio of beans in Logan’s hand, and he watched as I shook the last bit of water from the crumpled bottle into his palm. He flinched when the seeds sprouted, sending one bean to the floor. By the time I found it and held it up, it had already blossomed, and the pool of water in the center of his palm was stained amber with tarla’s essence.
“What the fuck?”
“Tarla beans from Enestia. The planet where I’ve been held captive this whole time.” I plucked each blossomed bean from his hand, dropped them into the empty water bottle, and screwed on the lid. “Now do you believe me?”
“Oh my God! You really were abducted just like Kevi
n, Atlanta, and I’ve been saying?” He turned in his seat to face me.
“They were going to keep me there and let me die, but one alien felt sorry for me. He brought me back to Earth.”
“I told the police a space ship took you that night. Kevin and Atlanta told them, too, but no one would believe us. Now we have proof. You have to tell the cops about this.” The excitement in his voice made me sick to my stomach.
“But there’s, um, someone who needs help. Just take me back, and I’ll find him while you get help.” That could give me enough time for me to get to the ship and signal Enestia.
“No, fuckin’ way. I’m taking you to the hospital first, and then when I call the cops, I’ll tell them there’s someone else. I am not letting you out of my sight until the cops see that you’re alive and know that I had nothing to do with your disappearance.” When he motioned to put the car back in drive, I caught his hand abruptly in mine.
“The police can’t search the clearing because the ship is still in there, and so is the alien who saved me,” I whimpered.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”
“No, I’m not. The ship’s hovering above the clearing. It’s disguised, but the alien isn’t on it. He was going to drop me off and leave, but when I was attacked by the mountain lion”—I took a deep breath—“he saved my life. He killed it, but he was injured. Badly.”
“This is fuckin’…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what the fuck to say.”
“I left him hidden next to the trail,” I continued, “but I need to get back to his ship and send a distress signal back to his planet. Someone will come for him. That’s why we can’t call the police—not yet. Even if we don’t tell them about the alien or the ship still being there, they’ll go back to that spot, and they’ll find Garran.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? Right now there are a set of police detectives and a district attorney who think we raped and killed you that night, and that Attie knows but is covering for me. Do you know what they did to us? They hauled Kevin and me to the police station for questioning,” he said sarcastically, “and put us in separate interrogation rooms. After drilling me for over an hour, the detective left, came back, and told me I might as well give up the act because Kevin just admitted to the other detective that we raped and then murdered you. And guess what? They did the same thing to him. We were so mentally tortured at that point, that we almost confessed just to get them to stop.”
Gamma Rift Page 22
