by Safa Shaqsy
“Did you see that?” I said with excitement.
Kraig shook his head. “You’re one crazy woman,” he grumbled. Andie looked like he was shaking, or maybe just had goose bumps. “Isn’t this dangerous or worse?” Andie asked.
“Come on, you guys. Lighten up. I mean, look at this place,” I simply stated and walked further in the dim corridor.
“Nat!” Kraig called in a whisper. “Where are you going?” “To explore the spaceship,” I simply replied and ran to another corridor. I heard one of them curse behind me. As I walked further, I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned I saw the guys following me.
“Nat, we need to get out right now!” Kraig ordered. “Kraig, stop distracting me,” I snapped at him. Kraig and Andie’s faces were pale and their eyes were
wide from terror. They looked behind me, frozen. Their mouths moving like they were trying to say something to me.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I scolded.
“Uh, Nat?” Andie asked.
“What?!” I snapped.
He pointed behind me, terrified. The hair at the back of my neck rose and I knew what he was talking about. I turned carefully and to my surprise, I was face to face with an alien. An Exo.
Before we screamed, the Exo fired his gun that captured us with a fleshy net of sorts and the Exo pulled the nets that we were caught in on the floor. We screamed and tried to get free, but they were too thick and we just couldn’t tear through. The alien continued to pull us, as Kraig and Andie were moving in their nets, trying to get out.
The predator entered a big room with several operation chairs occupied the room. It stopped and let us out of the net and when we tried to run he signaled with his hands and our bodies froze from the predator’s mind control. He made us get in our feet and forced us to sit on the operation chairs. We screamed as loud as we could. We knew that no one could help us out, so we stopped screaming and watched the alien use a screen in his palms that projected a hologram screen with red glow. Just like the rock I had in my hand. The predator noticed the rock in my hand and snatched it from me.
“Hey! Hey you!” Andie called.
The predator turned to Andie and titled his head to the side. “Get us out or we will call the humans to kill you!” Andie threatened, but his threat didn’t make the predator change his mind.
Instead, it chuckled in a very aggressive voice, almost sounding like the devil and picked up some gun from a table and punctured us on the side of our necks. It was probably a knock out drug the Exo was using to subdue us. After a while, I felt dizzy and everything was blurry. Then it was darkness.
My eyes opened and I inhaled swiftly. I saw the sky and the day light, so it was still daytime, but I wasn’t sure what day it was. I was on the ground; my back was on the soft sand of the desert. The heat made me feel dizzy, it seemed like I was there for a long time. I pushed myself upward and sat up. The guys were beside me and were awake as well. We looked at each other, muddled of where we were.
“Guys, are you okay?” I managed to ask.
They both nodded and looked around them. “What happened to us?” Andie asked.
“I don’t know,” I responded and swallowed the dryness in my throat. My throat felt like I swallowed broken glass.
“Where the hell are we?” Kraig asked.
I got on my feet and started walking in the other direction.
“Nat, where are you going?” Andie called behind me. I turned around and the guys stood and hurried toward me. “I’m going to find a way back to the city,” I announced.
Kraig placed both his palms over his head and squinted his eyes, “How the hell are you going to find the way back alone?” he asked. “Don’t you know we work together?”
I turned and walked on the warm, soft sand without any shoes. “I don’t get it,” I said. “The predator took our shoes!”
Kraig chuckled beside me, “I guess he loved our sense of fashion.”
I huffed a laugh and Andie burst out laughing. “I think the sunlight effected our brains. No wonder we have a good sense of humor,” Andie wondered, “And the fact that we were left to die in the desert and everything.”
We all laughed for a long minute like maniacs and we denied that we were lost.
“Remember when you used to ask me out, Andie?” I started not making any sense, “You were in love with me.”
Andie continued to laugh hysterically, “You refused to go out with me!” he stated. “Oh, and remember when you stopped talking to us for a month, when your mom got injured?” Kraig reminded. “We thought you were dead!”
Andie stopped laughing, “Hey man, it’s not funny.” That made Kraig and I stop laughing. Kraig cleared his throat, “Sorry, man,” he apologized. I covered my forehead with my palm and looked in all directions. The city was nowhere to be seen. We weren’t even close to the borders.
The skin on my wrist felt like burning and I checked it for any injuries and I saw a weird mark engraved on my skin. A vertical line connecting to a square on the top of my wrist and two horizontal lines cross the vertical line on the bottom. I was shocked to see that mark on my wrist. I didn’t remember doing anything to my wrist. It was the predator who did it.
“Guys, you have to see this,” I said and touched the mark. They both took a look at my wrist and checked theirs. “Nat, I have the same mark on my wrist,” Andie said.
Kraig showed me his wrist, “I got one too,” he informed us.
“But why would the Exo do that?” I asked. Far away I saw something large moving in our direction. I squinted my eyes for a better view and saw a large alien moving toward us. It had a large body and walked on its four legs. There were large horns covering its head and sharp claws on its hands. It moved slowly, then gradually increased its speed on the sand. The guys looked to the direction that I was looking and saw the alien. They both froze.
“Run?” Kraig asked.
Andie nodded in a hurry, “Run!”
And we ran away from the alien with our feet sliding in the sand. The alien shrieked loudly and got closer to us. We kept running without looking back, when two other aliens appeared ahead of us. They ran toward us at high speed.
“Uh, oh!” Andie shouted.
“Turn left!” I ordered.
We turned left, running, but the aliens were getting close. We reached the end of the sandy land and into a more solid ground with rocks and nearly dead trees. My feet were scratched by the harsh surface of the ground. We reached the edge of a cliff and it was a long fall to the ground. We stopped abruptly before we went over. We turned to find the aliens surrounding us from all other sides.
The aliens were approaching us and gaping their mouth, revealing sharp teeth as a sign of aggression. The next moment we heard gunshots and screaming. It sounded more like humans’ screaming. And flars appeared with people aiming their guns at the aliens and shooting them down. The aliens were all dead by then, collapsed on the ground beside my feet. My feet were all soaked with sticky alien blood. I rubbed my feet on the ground to get rid of the blood. One of the aliens was still moving, but one of the rescuers shot it down and it died. The humans landed on the ground on their feet and approached us. The guys and I backed away from them.
The middle-aged man raised his palms to show peace, “We’re not here to hurt you,” he said.
They were all wearing a different kind of mission suit compared to ours, more like brown overalls. A girl with a very long blonde hair that reached her elbow and was cropped on the bottom, and had grey eyes put her gun in her holster and approached us with care. She searched our faces and asked, “You came from the city?” squinting her eyes. Her tanned face had freckles on her nose and cheeks. She was pretty, but seemed stronger than her looks.
“Yes,” I answered with hesitation. She nodded her head, “Well, welcome to the Gone Desert,” she introduced everyone, “This is my team. I’m Kathleen Hawks, but they call me Kat. And this is Burl, our old leader,” she pointed to the middle-aged
man.
“I’m Nathalie, and this is Kraig and Anderson,” I introduced. She smiled, “Well, nice to meet you Nathalie,” she spat on her hand and wiped it on her pants, then she extended her hand for me to shake.
I hesitated, but took her hand and shook it firmly. “Sorry, we’re used to spitting on our hands to get rid of alien blood. It’s a habit now,” she explained. I pulled my hand away and asked, “Why do they call this desert the Gone Desert?”
“Because if you stay out here in this desert you’re a goner, dead,” she simply explained.
“Now come with us. We have a place for you to stay and gather your strength.” We followed them to the floating vehicles and they drove us over the Gone Desert for hours, until we reached a large building in the middle of nowhere. The cars stopped and rested on the ground, and we got out of them following behind the rescuers to the entrance.
Inside the building there were trees and green gardens with different crops. A lot of people were outside talking to each other and some were gardening. Others were passing by and pointing at us and whispering to each other.
“This is our home. We call it the community,” Kat explained. “Here, we got everything we need, food, water, shelter. And most important is that we got each other.”
We followed her inside another building and the team split up. She escorted us to the cafeteria.
“Go get some food.” She advised, “I'll get back to check on you later.”
“You can get some rest as well,” Burl suggested, “If you wanted to.”
“Are any of you injured?” Kat asked.
“No,” I responded, “In fact we got these marks on our wrists,” and showed her the mark.
She held my wrist and examined it up close. “Who did this to you?” she said shockingly.
“A predator called the Exo. One caught us in their spaceship and gave us these,” I explained.
“Holy goner!” Burl shouted.
She shook her head, “Wait you're saying that you met an Exo?” She asked, surprised.
“Yes, she is right,” Kraig replied.
“No one meets an Exo!” She warned, “They're the most dangerous and intelligent species.”
“Does that mean we're going to die?” Andie snapped. “This has to be checked by our doctor!” she snapped, “who knows what that Exo did to you.” I pulled my hand from her grip.
“Kat, let them eat first,” Burl suggested.
Kat turned to Burl and inhaled deeply giving it a thought. “Fine, but we need to sort this out later,” she decided and walked away with Burl following her.
We entered the cafeteria and spooned some food on our plates. I wasn't feeling hungry, until I saw all that food that was lined up. My stomach was growling. After getting food we sat at a table, beside each other, and started gulping down our food. I was eating voraciously and thanked the heavens for the food.
We stopped eating when we heard people chanting, “Fight, fight, fight, fight.” We turned to see what was going on. Two guys were fist fighting in the cafeteria and started throwing plates at each other and people gathered around them to watch.
I gasped. Kat walked up to them and stopped them from fighting. “Knock it off!” she scolded and pushed them away from each other. “No one fights in here. This community will maintain peace or you two will get kicked out from this building. Do you want to get lost in the Gone?” she continued.
They both shook their heads with guilt.
“Get out of here!” she ordered.
They both glared at each other, their chests heaving
and walked away. The crowd spread and everyone got back to their seats. Kat walked up to us and sat at our table, across from me.
She shook her head, “This is what happens when we allow too much freedom,” she complained. I noticed that there was a guy at the corner of the room, leaning on the wall and watching silently with crossed arms on his chest. He had light brown hair and dark brown eyes and his expression was unfriendly. He caught me staring at him and he stared back for too long. My heart skipped and I looked away.
“Who’s he?” I asked Kat and indicated my head toward the guy. She glanced at him, “Oh, you mean Jarrett?” she said. “He’s one of our people. He’s not a sociable person. Well, not anymore.” She noticed me staring at him, calmly watching people around him. “He’s one of the people who met an Exo and he became very silent ever since,” she explained.
“What happened to him?” I said. She furrowed her eyebrows in distress. “He was tortured. He was lucky to escape and we found him on the Gone Desert alone and lost,” she said. “He couldn’t talk for months, until we sent him for therapy.”
“And now?” I said, “Is he okay?”
She licked her lips, “Well, he can speak, but not as much as he used to.” I was worried that the Exo did something to us like Jarrett. What if that alien inserted something inside us? Maybe a weapon?
“So, he’s gone mad?” Kraig said. Kat looked guilty about the topic, “He’s not mad, just not normal as he used to be. That’s why you have to be careful about your marks. Those Exos can’t be trusted,” she warned.
“You mean it’s dangerous to talk to him?” Andie reasoned.
“We don’t know for sure, but we haven’t noticed anything dangerous about him,” Kat answered. I was staring at Jarrett when Andie called me. “Nat.”
I turned and he looked me in the eye.
“Promise me you won’t go near that guy,” he warned, “I don’t trust him.” There was something different about Jarrett, like he had deep dark secrets that no one knew about. Like no one understood him and he isolated himself from everyone. I wanted to ask him some questions about the Exos he met, maybe he knew things about them. But I had to promise Andie I wouldn’t.
“Okay,” I simply said.
I had to find a way to talk to Jarrett alone.
Chapter Sixteen
“If an Alien Buster was away from the city for three weeks, they’ll be banished from the city.”
~Alien Busters Manual, section 12, page 44 We walked behind Kat to the doctor’s office. We entered the doctor’s office and Kat introduced us to Dr. Harris, a dark-haired man.
“So, you’re the ones who escaped from the Exo?” he asked as he examined our wrists. “This is very interesting,” he said, “I will do a full body scan and see the results.”
He escorted us to another room with tables and hospital equipment. He beckoned his hand for us to get in a position in front of a body scanner. It scanned our bodies and Dr. Harris looked at a screen on the table and read our results out loud.
“I see here you got that your bodies are perfectly normal. Your skeleton, untouched. Nothing weird except…” he trailed off.
“Except for what?” Kraig asked.
Doctor Harris inhaled. “Except for this metal inside your wrists,” he said and showed us his screen. We had a piece of metal with the shape of our marks on our wrists. The metal was connected to our blood vessels and flesh. I had no idea what these things were or what they were doing to our bodies. What if they were some controlling or tracking devices?
“What are those?” I asked. Doctor Harris took his glasses off, “I have no idea. I’ll have to do some research about this,” he suggested. “Meanwhile, you guys stay here, until we know what those are.”
Star. He was alone at home. I couldn’t stay there for long. What if he was hungry and alone? What if something happened to him? I know that R was there with him, but what if there was an error in the security system? I couldn’t trust a robot too long with an alien. My heart raced.
“We can’t stay!” I snapped.
Kat and Dr. Harris were surprised by my response and they tried to convince me otherwise.
“Nathalie, we can’t let you leave. You have that thing inside you,” Kat reasoned.
“I…I have a pet. I can’t stay here, I have to leave,” I explained. “Can’t anyone in the city look out for him?” Kat asked. She looked worried a
bout us more than I did about myself.
“I’m the only one who can take care of him,” I said, “I can come back to find out about my results.” “No, it’s too dangerous,” Dr. Harris insisted. “Who knows what that thing can do to you,” and pointed at my wrist.
My head was spinning. “I need to go,” I said and walked out of the office. In the corridor, I leaned on the wall and inhaled deeply to calm myself. I couldn’t call home, because I didn’t have the Inhab anymore. Somehow the Exo took most of our things, so we couldn’t reach out to anyone. The Exo apparently didn’t want us to survive.
“Missing home?” A male voice said beside me that made me flinch. I turned to look at Jarrett who gave me a look of sympathy.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
He didn’t smile and was very serious. He grabbed my wrist and twisted it to see the mark on my skin. “Don’t touch me!” I bashed and pulled my hand from his hold. He silently looked at me and for a moment I thought he was going to say something. But then he just walked away.
“Wait!” I ran after him into one of the outside gardens. There were a lot of people around with baskets of laundry and crops. I ran between them to follow him where he was heading. “Wait!” I shouted and followed him to an open land with green grass and trees. There was a wall surrounding the area. Someone tapped on my shoulder and I turned around to see Kat behind me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I was following someone” I responded.
“Who?” she questioned.
I looked around to realize that I lost Jarrett. He wasn’t anywhere around. “Never mind,” I responded. Kat wrapped her arm around my shoulder and said, “Come on. I want to introduce you to my people.” We walked together side by side to where women were doing laundry outside and they were placing clothes on the ropes. Everyone was wearing ashy brown overalls. There was a pregnant woman who wore a short dress; she approached us.
“You the new girl, huh?” she asked.
“Julienne, this is Nathalie, my new friend,” Kat introduced us. The woman spit on her palm and wiped it on her dress, then extended her hand. I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “You can come and do laundry with us anytime,” she laughed. She saw the shock in my face and said, “I’m just teasing.”
