by Kondor, Luke
The other shape stood closer, hovering above — perfect chin, chocolate eyes. The familiar dusty grey hair brushed backwards in a perfect wave. Brown wingtip shoes she’d bought for him years back. It was Edward. Her husband. Still married, never divorced.
“Edward?” she said, still unsure what was happening. “Where am I?”
He bent down and helped her to sit up. There was a healthy dousing of wine on his breath.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“Yes, Edward, what is your estranged wife doing here?’ the woman behind said, her voice like fingers prying between them.
“It’s okay, I’m sure …” Edward began but didn’t know how to finish. He turned back to Nisha. “What are you doing here? Are you drunk?”
“No,” Nisha detested. “I’m not drunk at all, but …” Her head buzzed as she remembered arriving in the hallway. She saw the shopping bag by her side. The wine bottle inside had broken. “Wait, maybe … I don’t remember, but … maybe …”
The smell of wine all around her and a cold damp on her fingers. She looked down again and saw that she’d been lying down, her arm in the broken glass, in a puddle of the spilled wine.
Edward helped her to her feet. Her head was heavy and her legs didn’t feel like her own. She felt like Bambi on ice. She looked to Edward. A stag dressed up for his … oh God, his date.
“I called you, right?” she said. “I think I called you and then … I think I must have fallen over.”
“Sure you did,” the other woman interjected, looking at the puddle by Nisha’s feet.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Nisha said. “I better go. I shouldn’t be…”
“No wait, let me get a taxi for you, it’s late,” Edward said, not trusting Bambi to find her way home.
“No, no, it’s okay, I can do it,” she said. “I’m only around the corner anyway.”
“Are you?” the other woman said. “And how many times do you come round here?”
“It’s not, it’s not like that. I just …” Nisha climbed to her feet, scooped up the contents of her bag which were on show. “I’d better go before I embarrass myself further.”
Edward and his mistress looked at Nisha as she disappeared around the corner, stymying a hiccup.
***
The warm bubbles surrounded her. The steam danced upwards from the surface of the water and into the nothing above her head. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through the nostrils. She felt the weight of the world fall away from her shoulders like the fragrant bubbles around her.
Well, as much of the weight as possible. She’d kind of fucked it up a bit today. Somewhere lurking in the back of her mind was Edward her estranged, Tom her producer, and Alan the sweaty soldier. All of them looking down at her, through filters of light. All of them offering her a helping hand. A reassuring shoulder to cry on. What the fuck did they know?
A nice, warm bath. Nisha was sure that the path to world peace was in the bottom of a bubble bath. Some scented candles. The wine wasn’t compulsory, but it helped.
She opened her eyes, blew the bubbles from her fingers, and reached over the side of the bath, to pick up the glass of red she’d poured herself. She wasn’t supposed to drink red before a show-day. It made her blotchy and stained her teeth. Her perfect teeth.
She smiled out of habit and then drank a mouthful of the dark red. She tried to reach her teeth over the wine, biting the glass.
She held it on the back of her tongue. Let the wine simmer and sting her taste buds before swallowing. It worked its way down into the meat of her throat, but then, it went up. Where it should’ve found its way down into her stomach, it changed direction. It pushed up against the inside of her throat. It permeated her soft inner skin, traveled up behind her nostrils and into her sinuses. Up again like fish swimming up river, through to the backs of her eyes, and into the skull. She felt it attack the membranous sack around her brain, finding holes where none should exist.
She didn’t scream. She relaxed.
An inch above the surface of the bath water, droplets formed. They began to drip, upwards, splashing against the ceiling.
“What the—?”
The bath dripped towards the ceiling with increasing intensity and she felt her body become light. Did it rise in the water? Or did the bathtub fall away?
Either way, she was weightless now, her eyes and brain filled with red which darkened until she was back there again. Floating in space. The dark presence to her one side, and the lush galaxy to the other. But the lights of the stars were focused. No longer the burning of fires, but the glistening of eyes, thousands of eyes, and the noise. The crying. Oh God, the crying. Please no.
“Make it stop!”
The sound of millions of tears hitting a hard metal surface. The wailing of them all in pain, lost, alone. A sound to be heard across the universe.
“Please make it fucking stop!”
With a splash, she found herself back in the bath. The water, bathtub, her body, everything where it should be. She looked down and saw the wine glass was in the water. A small pool of blood red around it.
“Dammit. Again?” she said. “What the fuck’s wrong with me?”
She rubbed her eyes and splashed her face, but a sickening thought came to her. The tightness in her head fell away, and everything became clear. The red mist dissipated and she saw the children. Hundreds of them, screaming in pain: all of them, dying.
Luna Gajos
Luna pulled the Ford Fiesta up to the curb. A quiet suburb. The kind of place to which city-dwellers moved once they’d popped a child or two and were looking for somewhere quieter, safer. Winding roads that passed perfect, modern-built houses made of fresh red bricks with gardens trimmed, green and perfect, even in the night-time.
She could see the wind blowing through the beautifully sterile leaves of the tree in the front garden. It looked fake. Almost real, but not quite. It was too good to be real. And too expensive. The houses looked like they’d been set aside for a certain breed of human. Not the kind that Luna was. No, a different type.
“Which house is it?” she said as she pulled the handbrake up and let it click into place.
“Gary’s not sure.” The cat was in the passenger seat. His good paw was up on the car door beneath the window and his stub, now all healed, was tucked beneath his front. His head bobbed left and right, scanning the darkness outside. Stopping for a second on each window, a few lit up like lanterns.
“One day you’ll tell me how you even heard about this so-called kid in danger. I don’t understand how you would know about any of this?” she said, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. Duh-duh-drum. DUH-DUH-DRUM.
Gary turned to look at her, his eyes scrunched up. He looked pissed off.
“Sorry,” she said as she picked her hands up and placed them in the pockets of her chunky winter-coat.
“Gary is chipped,” he said, as he turned to look outside again. Across the road, there was movement by the lamppost. A couple of youths in hoods. A trail of smoke drifted upwards from a floating hot ember and Luna’s throat felt dry. She hadn’t smoked since the parasite. The youths soon moved on and disappeared down an alleyway.
“What do you mean, you’re chipped? Like, micro-chipped? Like, if I were to take you to the vets they’d know who your owner was? A lot of cats have that,” Luna was talking to herself — thinking aloud. “I guess I would love to know who actually owns you because you’re sure as hell not my pet.”
“Quiet,” Gary said as he as he spotted something. His tail perked up, pointing to the ceiling. “We are too late.”
“What?” Luna said, trying not to look at Gary’s bum. “What do you mean?”
“Open the door for Gary,” he said as he pawed at the window and meowed.
Luna sighed. Her coat scrunched as she leaned over and opened the car door. He jumped out of the car and ran into the darkness.
She did her best to watch as he ran, climbing benea
th a parked car, and then onto a driveway. She saw his shadowy mass disappear into one of the houses.
“Shit,” she said. She looked at her eyes in the rear-view mirror and shook her head. “I don’t think I can do this.”
She took a deep breath before climbing out of the car. Her coat was a fluffy red, cumbersome thing. Cheap from the supermarket. Half price. Every movement was paired with the rustling of synthetic fabric. She was like a cow with a bell.
As Luna crunched her way over to the house, she thought about how her body ached. No, not just her body, her mind ached. She was tired. Since the event at the farm, she’d felt like her soul had been zapped. She hadn’t been herself since then. Every morning had been a task to climb out of bed. Even to raise the toothbrush to her mouth. It was all too difficult. She’d noticed more grey in her hair than ever. The lines around her head and eyes had deepened. The bags under her eyes heavier. At forty-three years of age, Luna had realised something. She was getting old. Like, really old.
And what did she have to show for it?
A cat?
Gary wasn’t a cat. Not really. He was something different altogether.
In through the nose, out through the mouth. The air was cold against her nostrils and inside her chest. She neared the perfect garden and even in the dark felt a pang of jealousy for it. Why didn’t she have a house like this? She’d saved the world. Where was her goddamn house? Where the fuck was her—?
Suddenly a noise came from the house. She took another step onto the driveway and the security light came on. A shock to her eyes. Gary was right: they were too late. She could see the door of the house was open. The wood around the handle singed and smoky. Inside, the house was still enveloped in shadow.
Her coat rustled as she stepped inside.
“Gary is upstairs,” he said from the first floor.
Luna took another step forward and walked right into a glass table, nearly knocking it over. She grabbed it before it toppled and found a small lamp on the top of it. She pulled the string beneath and the hallway filled with light with a click. No demons. Phew.
She found the stairs and the wooden handrail leading upwards. She pulled herself up, still trying to be as quiet as she could be. Each step more difficult than the last. Her legs ached like it was the very end of the marathon. The finish line just ahead.
When she reached the top of the stairs she didn’t scream. She made no noise whatsoever. Even her coat was silenced. Fear ran down her neck, her spine and her feet, and back up again. She tried to breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth, but couldn’t find the energy.
She’d never seen anything like it. The blond-haired child, maybe ten years old. His face as smooth as she imagined the small of his back would be. This little kid wearing Spider-Man pyjamas. Asleep on the stair landing. Asleep for good. She didn’t know if she could do this. His eyes had sealed shut and his nostrils and mouth — the lips had gone, the eyebrows disappeared. The only imperfection was the ridge where the bone of the nose stuck out.
She fell to her knee and ran her hand across his face. It was cold. If he had breath and a mouth to breathe from, she imagined it would be a wisp of condensation as his warm child’s breath touched the cold air, but there was nothing. He was gone. She wiped the tear from her eye and turned to look over her shoulder.
A bedroom door was open. It was the master bedroom. She could see Gary standing on the bed of white linen and what looked like the mother’s body, and down on the floor the feet of the father. Still. Motionless.
Luna thought about what she was seeing. She felt numb. She remained motionless on the floor next to the child.
Gary began to inspect the bodies, sniffing at their faces. He told her he’d never seen anything like it. He threw out some potentials. Some alien names. Species. Assassins. Parasites. Abductors. Greys. All things that Luna didn’t even want to think about. No, Luna didn’t want to think about this anymore. She was done with all this now. She was done.
Moomamu The Thinker
“These are the Scrapping Grounds,” shouted one of the cats from high above.
Moomamu was standing, with the other prisoners, on a giant square of dirt and sand. All around them were rows layered upwards and outwards. Sitting places, occupied by the hissing and meowing cats. Some of them screaming vulgarities in human English and others spitting in languages Moomamu had never heard before.
“You worthless runts have been bestowed a great honour, to fight, scrap, bite, claw and bleed for your royalty.” The shouting big fluffy thing had an unreasonably loud voice. It echoed throughout the Scrapping Grounds, dwarfing the din of the crowd. He’d been introduced as Payton — the Prince’s Voice.
Moomamu looked around himself. He was surrounded by his fellow prisoners from the night before. His sleeping buddies — terrible snorers most of them. And a few of the guards too. Keeping everyone in line with their thump-sticks. The other human stood tall. No sign of fear on him. From the weaponry below he’d picked a curved blade. Now in the daylight, Moomamu got a better look at him. Golden brown skin. The hair tumbling out from his head-scarf was just as deep and dark as his eyes — which were far too wide for a normal human. It looked like he’d painted out the sides of his eyes to extend them, to make them appear longer. He was a strange human indeed.
And the others, a sorry bunch of street cats, moggies, strays. Matted fur caked in dirt and piss. They maybe had enough clean fur between them to sew a scarf, some socks, and one of those things that Carol put on her teapot.
Anyway.
These strays that were around him were talking to each other. They were making plans. Moomamu heard the odd word about teaming up and killing the humans off first. They had claws and teeth and had been armed further with weaponry, and there was one … one of the strays with three lines across his face, parallel, equidistant. He’d been marked by a fellow cat. A fight for dominance perhaps. A fight Moomamu was sure he’d won. The cat was a giant. He had a head like a boulder, was twice the size of the other cats and had a hundred claw marks covering his body.
Moomamu looked out at the audience. The sun was rising behind their heads and shining down onto the Scrapping Grounds, a perfect spotlight for what was about to come. He looked to where the loud shouting cat was standing. It was in a box that protruded from the rest of the sitting places. It was standing next to what looked like the royalty — a kitten, bored, completely hairless. Its skin like pastry folding over itself. It licked its paws between yawns. Its eyes still much bigger in its skull compared to an adult's, still with the glaze of blue — so vivid, Moomamu could see them all the way from the grounds.
Moomamu thought about what was about to happen. The alpha guard, Snuckems, had told them that they would kill each other. He had told them that they would be made to fight. What chance does a Thinker have in a battle like this? A Thinker isn’t made for battle. It’s made for thinking.
“I’m a Thinker, not a fighter,” he said under his breath.
No one heard.
“I’m a Thinker!” he shouted. The crowd quietened somewhat, the focus suddenly on him. “I’m a Thinker,” he shouted again. “I’m an ancient space-being, lost in time and space, trapped in the body of a human. I don’t belong here.”
“Quiet,” bellowed the shouting cat. “In the presence of cats, you look and smell like a human, and shall be tried as such.”
“But I did no crime,” Moomamu shouted back. His voice was weak and it broke a little mid-sentence. It had been a long time in those cells without talking. He was out of practice. “I didn’t wrong you. You have no right to keep me prisoner.”
“Guards.” The shouting cat waved to Snuckems, who walked over to Moomamu, thump-stick in hand.
“No, wait, no,” Moomamu tried to say as the thump-stick cracked him in the back of the head and he fell to the floor, dropping his blade. As he tried to catch his breath and make sense of it all, he saw one of the strays reach over and steal the blade, taking away Moomamu�
�s only weapon.
Snuckems stepped over, knelt down, and whispered, “One more word and we’ll cut your throat.” His rancid breath was warm and moist against his ear.
“No crime?” the shouting cat said. Not to Moomamu, but to the audience of cats around him, who were all now hissing with such violence that Moomamu could almost feel the spittle leave their mouths. “This human has done cats no harm?” The audience were bouncing in their sitting places, so angry they looked ready to pounce, storm the Scrapping Grounds, ignoring the fight completely and skipping to the kill, but the shouting cat waved them down. Now he looked at Moomamu and spoke quieter, as if talking only to him, his calm whisper travelling from the box all the way to his ears. The crowd were quietly listening in. Even the prince looked up from his perch. “It wasn’t so long ago that the cats of the Kingdom of Minu had a truce with you humans. We shared resources and knowledge and travelled between the worlds with the star-doors, now sealed and closed by law, and it was even a shorter time ago that you humans betrayed the cats. You took us for fools and stole from us. A crime that will never be forgotten. Yes, you may not be the same human that committed those crimes, but you were born of the same litter, and you will be tried the same as your brothers and sisters before you.” He pointed to the other human. “You will be killed, I don’t doubt it, and your remains will be ripped apart and dragged throughout the capital, and we will revel in whatever atonement your flesh provides.” The shouting cat stood straight and looked to the audience. “Enough of this. Time for the games!”
JoEl The Engineer
The Earth-pet was some sort of dog. It had outdoor sleeping quarters made of wood. Next to a mound of dirt where the creature had been digging. It barked at first so JoEl had to silence it with a dart from his Railer. It was quiet now, on its side, tongue out.
