"Watch out, Eliza!" Cezar screamed as the body flew past them and into the fiery inferno behind them. "You can't stop me, Cezar," Drakin dropped to ground—still in his true dragon form, "No one can. This realm needs a king. And now, I'm all that remains. Give me the girl."
Cezar swept Eliza behind him, "You'll have to kill me first!"
"Very well."
Cezar turned to Eliza, "Run from here," and charged at Drakin on all fours. Eliza watched as he took a bit out of Drakin's wing, and just as swiftly had his head bitten off. Eliza shrieked at the sight while Drakin feasted on Cezar's remains.
She ran into the church, expecting death. There was nowhere else to run.
***
The inside of the chapel was now engulfed in flame and falling apart—piece by piece. Eli had been strewn across the front of the altar. He was impaled by one of the support beams, that had fallen due to the fire. He was dying—drowning from the inside on his own blood, and coughing up bits of internal tissue.
Eliza went to him. She didn't fear the flames or the threat of a fiery death. The only the hell that she'd ever truly known was: her own time on the altar and the monotony of her former life. She curled up beside him, resting her head on one of his loose arms. It was the closest that she could get without burning alive. "My queen," he squealed and tried to pull the thick beam out of himself. He didn't have the strength. "You have to get out of here, Eliza. You'll perish along with me."
"I'll perish without you, my king" She placed his hand on her face, "I remember everything. I remember dying. I remember watching you die. I promised that you'd never have to die alone again. Through this life, or the next."
"My love."
"Don't speak."
Eliza pulled herself into the flames beside him. "I love you, my queen."
"I love you, my king."
As the roof collapsed in, the blazing debris consumed them. Eliza could see nothing but darkness and the welcoming of the afterlife.
There was no fear.
She was at peace.
***
The French windows knocked against the brick-wall on the inside of Eliza's one-bedroom apartment. The glass had shattered and been blown about on the floor by the ongoing storm. A flash light and bang of thunder startled Eliza awake. Cezar had been curled up on her chest—hiding under the blanket that she'd nearly forgotten was there. The couch that she'd been laying on was soaked wet, as was she.
She jumped up from the couch and checked her shoulder for the scars. Nothing was there but smooth olive colored skin—the same as it always was, unharmed. "Cezar!" She called. Her cat had run-off, likely fearful for its owner's sanity.
She frantically searched the apartment for any indication that what she'd experienced the night before was real. There were no signs. No clues. No anything. The only thing consistent with what she'd experienced was the immensity of the ongoing storm.
She shut her window doors and chained the handle shut with her bike lock. It didn't help much—concerning the wind, but it would be workable until such a time as the storm was over. She spent the next hour or so cleaning up the broken glass that had been scattered around the floor, and revisiting the details of the dream she'd had.
It all seemed so real, she thought, as she finished and plopped herself down on the squishy couch. The winds had finally relaxed. Their whirring, whistling noises calmed, and she was finally able to think—clear of distraction.
Cezar hopped on the couch next to her, nestled his head in her lap, and purred—as he always did whenever he was hungry. Eliza took it to mean a bit more since she'd awoken. She lifted him up and hugged him tightly, "You saved my life little guy. Do you know that?" Cezar was despondent. He licked lips and swatted at her face. He wanted to be let down.
She compromised and brought him to the kitchen. For the first time since she'd adopted him, she gave him tuna, instead of the generic cat-food that she'd gotten in bulk. "You earned it," She said. Still, Cezar paid her little mind. He'd gotten what he wanted.
Eliza checked the time. It was three in the morning. She had only been asleep for an hour. "How the mind works, huh Cezar?" She looked around her. Cezar had run-off again. "Okay, little guy! I'll remember that." She washed his bowls and took a shower.
As the water ran over her head, she thought of the lake that she'd dipped her fingers into, she thought of the fire at the camp, she recalled the names. "Eli," she whispered to herself. The memory had caused her grip on the bar of soap to slip. Images of the "dream" flashed rapidly through her mind. She could still see, smell, feel, and hear it all—as if it were all right in front of her.
Eli, she thought again. My dragon king. Eliza jumped out of the shower and snatched her towel from off of the bathroom rack—she didn't want to waste any good writing time with getting dressed. She ran to her desk and flung open her laptop.
The power was unreliable, but she'd had a full battery, "The small gifts of being paranoid," she joked to herself. Cezar sprung out from the bedroom—he'd grown accustomed to sleeping in his master's company. He laid beside her foot as she smashed the keys of her computer at a rate that would have impressed her, should she not have been so fascinated by her own imagination.
She typed through the remainder of the storm—rarely pausing for food or liquor breaks. She worked on the document for the remainder of the storm—stopping when she had to eat and nap.
For the first time in her life, she'd been filled with exceptional levels of motivation. She pictured being in Eli's embrace. She fawned over Cezar's loyalty and commitment. She even found Tomlin, a suitable role as the comic relief. It all seemed to fall into place before her eyes.
When she'd grown too tired to type, she saved the document. "What the hell do I call this thing, Cezar?" She said. Eliza thought back to her dream. To her and Cezar's time in the woods. She thought of how special she was and the near-fruition of a prophecy fulfilled. "And he shall arrive on a winged sky," she said to herself.
She titled the document and went to bed as the sun pierced through the blanket of dark gray clouds.
A Winged Sky, she thought and was pleased.
No words were deleted that day.
***
She was woken up by the ring of her doorbell. It'd been going off in rapid succession for minutes before she'd finally gotten up to answer it. She'd hoped the annoyance would simply go away. "I've got work to do," she scowled, stomping toward the noise. Even Cezar seemed a bit peeved—hissing with every wretched second of dinging repetition.
"What is it!" She swung the door open, only be surprised by a man she didn't expect.
"Hey. I'm..."
"Eli," she said, after a long a staggered pause. She gulped down the stunned emotion that had clogged her throat when she'd seen him.
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
Eliza stared deeply into the man's fiery eyes and perfected stature. Once again, she'd thought of the dream. "Just a hunch."
No words were deleted on that day either.
The End
Sold To Be Eaten
~ Bonus Story ~
An Alien Abduction Romance
Stella is drop dead gorgeous, but she doesn’t want anybody to know. Because these days, since the Aliens arrived, if they see you are beautiful, you get taken. Nobody knows where, but the rumor is it’s for sex, and when you’re no good for that anymore, you get sold for food.
So drop dead gorgeous is about right.
For the last year Erickson, a bad-ass son of a bitch who spent fifteen years with the British SAS, has been building up a resistance teem with the aim of sending the Aliens back where they came from. But with a fleet of ships, each one three miles across, and thousands of troops at their disposal, the task is not easy.
And it gets a damn sight more complicated after Stella gets taken and the God-like Thorval sends down the Cube to lure Erickson to his doom…
A doom that will be shared by the entire planet!
* * *
One
It wasn’t cold, but she put on a woolen hat pulled down over her ears, and a big, amorphous coat. She checked the mirror. Her combat pants made her legs look shapeless and the steel-capped boots, two sizes too big, made her walk like Godzilla. She looked awful, but still she put on a pair of big glasses and fitted some false buck-teeth for the sake of completeness. She was only going to the bookstore, but you couldn’t be too safe.
She stepped out of the house and hobbled down the steps from the stoop to the sidewalk. It was eleven AM and there were not many people about. She waved to Angela across the road in the flower store. Angela was wearing a trench coat over a couple of dirty fisherman’s jumpers, her dad’s jeans and a pair of Wellington boots. She also had glasses and buck-teeth.
“Hi Angie!”
“Morning Thtella!”
That was the trouble with the teeth, till you got used to them they made you lisp. Stella walked on and glanced up at the sky. There were no patrols. She wondered if the Olympians ever wondered how come overnight all Earth women had suddenly grown fat and ugly, with buck teeth and short-sight. She had an uncomfortable feeling pretty soon they would grow wise, like they’d grown wise to the balaclavas. These days it was enough to be seen with a balaclava to get taken.
Stella turned from Windsor Place into Prospect Park West and headed for the bookstore. She stopped for a moment to stare at a kitten in the pet shop window. It looked back at her in alarm. Catching sight of her own reflection, she wasn’t surprised.
Peggy in Stepped Books looked up as the bell chimed and Stella walked in. Peggy had on a prosthetic nose which was pretty convincing, and some stick-on warts on her top lip.
“Hey Peggy. Did my book come in, How to Conquer Your Inner Fish?”
Peggy reached down and pulled it out from under the register.
“It just arrived. I was gonna call you. Did’ya hear? They took Susanne.”
“Susanne?”
“You know! She woiked at the Lesbian History Archives on 14th. Cute goil. You’d never guess she was a dyke. I almost fancied her myself, only I ain’t that way inclined. But if I were, she’d be my type. Petite, feminine…”
“Oh, Susanne!”
“S’what I said. You don’t listen. That’s your problem. Always with your books. You don’t listen.”
“That’s going to be tough for her…”
“You mean they’ll have her screwing guys? Sure they will. But we been doin’ that all our lives and we don’t complain, do we?”
She laughed and Stella smiled nervously.
“How was she dressed?”
“That’s the thing! That’s what’s got everybody noivous! She was dressed like you…” Peggy gestured at Stella with an open hand. “She looked a mess! Like you! Like we all look!” She leaned over the counter, ominously, “But they saw through the disguise, to the real beauty within, know what I’m saying? I figure they developed some kind of scanner…” She made a scanning movement with her hands and narrowed her eyes.
Stella stepped out into the street with her book and hurried back towards Windsor Place, seeking the cover of the chestnut trees, glancing through the foliage at the sky. As she turned into her street her heart thudded hard and fear twisted in her belly. There was a patrol shuttle and four guards positioned in the middle of the road, just outside her apartment block. She hesitated a fraction of a second only, but it was enough for one of the guards to notice. As she approached he stepped across her path.
Like all the Olympians he was boringly perfect. He had olive skin and big brown eyes, a flat belly and a muscular chest. His arms and legs looked like they’d been turned out of mahogany. He wore the Olympian Guards’ uniform of a short skirt and a breastplate. Stella thought he looked ridiculous, but the automatic weapon he was holding didn’t.
He said, “Let me see your face.”
She stared at him. He held up something that looked like a cell phone and seemed to scan her features. There was a bleep.
“Take out your teeth.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she spluttered.
“He sighed. “Your teeth are false, woman. Take them out. Also, your glasses. You are not myopic. Take off your glasses.”
She had a terrible, sinking feeling. She knew she was gorgeous. What the hell would happen when they saw what she was really like?
She took off the glasses and pulled out the false teeth. He smiled and reached over to pull off her hat. Her auburn hair tumbled out. His smile deepened and he gestured her to remove her coat. She did.
She said, “Please don’t do this. Please let me go. I have a life…”
He raised an eyebrow at her that said, “Really?” He gestured at the shuttle.
“You are going for closer inspection, legs and skin. If you have no blemishes, I know exactly who is going to like you. I can feel a promotion coming on! Yessir!”
He tagged her and shoved her toward the shuttle.
Two
There were about thirty other women, all dressed roughly like her. But you could see that under their unattractive clothes they were all pretty good-looking. She was pushed into a seat and strapped in. The guards climbed off and within a few seconds the doors sealed closed and the craft took off.
As they rose above Brooklyn the great mother ship came into view. It was an awesome and terrible sight, sitting just above the stratosphere. It was an almost featureless domed disk, about three miles across and almost one thousand five-hundred feet high at the center of the dome.
They hurtled toward it at speed and as they approached, one of many hundreds of docking ports opened in the side. They slid into a long, featureless tunnel with dark gray walls and the door closed behind them. There was a loud hiss and the sides of the shuttle folded up like wings, and their harnesses were released.
A sexless voice spoke over a concealed PA system and said, “Stand in a line beside the shuttle. Await further instructions.”
They shuffled out, glancing at each other but not wanting to speak in case it drew attention to them. Stella was aware that her clothes now instead of making her feel safe and invisible, made her feel vulnerable and demeaned. She desperately wanted to go home.
After about ten minutes three panels opened in the wall at the end of the tunnel. Four guards came in. There were dressed in what to Stella looked like paramilitary dress, nothing like the guards you saw down on the planet. They wore black combat pants with big lace-up boots, black shirts and black caps. They had automatic rifles over their shoulders. The metal floor clanked and rattled under their tread. They looked the women over. Their gazes were impersonal, like they were choosing tools off a shelf. The one at the front pointed at ten women in turn, saying, “You, you, you…”
They stepped out of the line and followed a guard through one of the hatches.
Then he pointed at ten more, “You, you, you…”
Same thing, they followed another guard out through a hatch that closed after them.
That left ten girls including Stella, and two guards. The same one said, “Come!” and marched toward the remaining hatch. They followed and the second guard fell in behind them.
They found themselves in a white-tiled room with a rubberized floor and gullies leading to what looked like a drain. There was a large, plastic sac at one end that lay open. The women were lined up and opposite them stood one of the guards holding a hose. The one who had spoken before now said, “Strip!” They hesitated, glancing at each other. The guard roared “Strip!”
They hurriedly began to remove their great woolen jumpers, their tweed jackets and thick trousers, their big woolen socks and clumpy boots. Everything went in the sack. Bit by bit attractive, slim, even gorgeous bodies began to emerge. The guards glanced at each other and began to grin.
The vocal guard suddenly barked, “Hey!” and tossed Stella a plastic bottle. She caught it and saw it was an expensive brand shower gel. He threw over two more and grinning said, “Share, yuh?”
Then they
turned on the water. It was gently warm and the jet wasn’t too strong. The sensation was actually agreeable, but to her horror she saw that the guard was now stripping off and climbing out of his pants. He ran over with flapping pink feet to the blond girl three down from her and picked up her shower gel. The girl looked alarmed but he was laughing and making yelping cowboy noises as the stream of water hit him. He filled his hands with the liquid soap and started lathering the girl in front of him, running his hands over her breast and her hips, whooping loudly.
The girl looked like she might freak. He didn’t seem to notice. The other girls stood and stared. The guy shouted something to his companion who was laughing. Stella couldn’t understand the language, but the guy with the hose fixed it on some kind of holder, pressed a button and music started blaring over the PA. Then he started taking his clothes off too.
Soon he’d joined the party. To her dismay Stella saw that the two guys were sporting huge erections. The vocal one was gently turning the blonde girl around while the other soaped her, massaging her breasts and her ass. The other girls were forming a chorus, half scared half curious. One of them giggled and the guards whooped and drew her in, started lathering her too. She giggled again, louder and stuck her arms in the air, swinging her hips. The vocal guard shouted, “Party time! Woohoo!”
Taken Hostage Page 11
