A Human Element

by Donna Galanti

  She touched his face then pulled her fingers away. "When you look at all your parts, you're not so bad."

  "A monster."

  "No. I've been with monsters."

  "Like me?"

  She shook her head. "Monsters on the inside."

  Even in the garish light she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. He wanted to touch her, but was afraid of his urges. To hurt and maim and kill. Good guys don't do those things. And she had called him by his name. As if he was a good guy.

  No! No good guy Charlie!

  He was evil to the core. And hate spurred him on. Hate would help him survive. He forced himself to run faster through the night. Why did Laura get to live a normal life? He vowed to make her end not normal. And in that end, she would wish she had never been born.

  A lonesome dog bayed in the hills above X-10 as if approving his plan. Streaks of moonlight and shadows fell across his face like whip lashes over and over, creating a living painting from darkness and light. He would show Laura darkness like she never experienced, and pain. There would be so much pain. He howled back at the creature that rode alone through the woods as he did. Perhaps they would meet along their journeys.

  He hoped so. He was getting hungry again.

  Jim reached the hospital lobby and scanned the area for an ATM machine. He peered past the reception area to find a man staring at him. A mammoth man in black with bright green eyes. Jim stared back at him. Was this Laura's man in black? The man walked toward him. Jim froze. The man was real. He never doubted Laura, but to see this person she spoke about since childhood unnerved him. The man stood before him, enormous.

  "Jim?"

  All Jim could do was nod. His tongue couldn't move to form words, which didn't matter, as his brain had no idea what to say.

  "Laura needs you. And I think you have something to show her that will help, don't you?"

  Jim nodded again, still speechless.

  "Come. I have a car."

  People swarmed around them, in a constant stream coming and going. Jim reached out his hand to touch this man. He needed to make sure he was real. He gripped his massive arm. It felt indeed real, strong and muscular.

  "Yes, I'm real," the man huffed. "And I won't hurt you. Come on. Time is precious."

  Jim nodded again and followed him out the front entrance. The man led him to a brown sedan parked in the corner lot. He motioned for Jim to get in and he did. The man started the car and they eased out onto the main road.

  "Your name is Felix."

  "Yes."

  "Laura left me a note last night when she visited. But I was asleep."

  The man looked at Jim, who continued to stare at him. Felix seemed larger than life to Jim. The myth was now real.

  "And she gave you a gift, didn't she?"

  Jim was startled. "I think she healed me. But how could you know that?"

  "I see things, things that are yet to happen."

  "And you saw Laura come to the hospital and make me well?"

  "Yes. And much more."

  "Do all things you see actually happen?"

  "The things I see are floating out there on a breeze, waiting to connect. Sometimes events can change the course of their direction, or what it is they connect to, leading to a different outcome. Sometimes not the outcome we desire."

  Jim's head reeled with what this stranger told him. "And you can change the outcome to one you desire?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Then sometimes not, correct?"

  "Correct."

  Jim pondered this information for a moment and watched the traffic flash by. They headed toward the mountain. It hung there, a giant rock watching them come closer and closer.

  "Who are you?"

  Felix glanced at him, his knotty hands covering much of the steering wheel, and gave him a half smile. On his craggy face it looked more like a sneer. "I will tell you what I can on the way to your cabin. Laura and Ben are there now. And the evil one heads our way."

  Felix told him everything and Jim was fascinated. All the questions he had about Laura were being answered in a single conversation. His life was about to get as exciting as it ever would be. For an old man, he still felt a thrill. He took in every detail Felix told him, accepting it as truth. Adrenalin coursed through his aged body. He was ready to fight for the one person he loved so she could survive.

  Even if he didn't.

  CHAPTER 29

  Laura stood at the edge of the crash site and closed her eyes. She wanted to feel her connection again to this alien father of hers, Feo. She wanted to see him again, moving with fluid grace through the wall as she had in her dreams. She looked up at the sky. Up there, somewhere, millions of miles away, hung another planet bearing intelligent life.

  She walked down the valley slope to where the space ship had impacted, and knelt to the ground. She sank her hands in the wet earth. She had to get down where the spaceship came to its final resting place after plunging deep into the ground. She had to be as close as she could to where she came from. If her twin was coming then he would find her here where they both began.

  She clawed at the earth and a crazed urgency came over her. She flung dirt aside and stretched her arms outward to command the elements around her. She channeled her energy to dig into the ground. Wood and rock crashed together in a mechanical race to find the location she sought. Deeper she went. Sweat whipped off her as she moved her body in time with the objects she commanded. Soon the tunnel reached over fifty feet deep below her. She flung her hands down and caught her breath. Rocks and logs hung in the air for a second and then fell.

  Laura smoothed her hair back and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She peered into the hole she created. It was four feet wide and six feet tall. Enough for an average man to walk in. She felt lightheaded and hollow inside as if all of her inner self had been emptied out.

  She stepped toward the hole and looked around her. The lake and woods surrounded her like family. She had not visited them for so long. The trees bent their branches to the earth as if paying homage to her presence. It was her home. She belonged here. It's where she had been created, deep in the earth from an alien form in his dying moments to a curious runaway girl. She looked down again at the hole, and taking a deep breath stepped into the darkness below.

  Ben woke up, alone. He shook his head to ward off his drowsiness. His dream came back to him in a vivid rush. He had stood before his parents' cabin by the lake. It looked just as he remembered. A shadow crossed the window and his parents stepped out onto the porch. They held hands and smiled at him. He wanted to believe they were still alive, although he was not a child anymore. He walked toward them and up the steps. They each took one of his hands and stood with him in a circle. He felt immense love flow through him. Then his father spoke.

  "Don't be afraid of love. It's here. You must embrace it."

  Ben nodded, unable to speak. He had so much to tell them but didn't know where to begin.

  "Ben, you must love yourself," his mother said. "Do you love yourself?"

  He shook his head, unsure. He felt uncomfortable talking about it.

  His mother squeezed his hand. "Love grows from the inside. Only then can you share it with others."

  He nodded. "But I don't feel worthy of love."

  "You've punished yourself enough, son," his father said. "Stop being your own jailer. The future is here. Don't waste it living in the past. Don't turn your back on the chance to have happiness."

  What he said was true and Ben felt a great weight lift off him. He felt unencumbered by his own chains for the first time in years.

  He stared into his parents eyes. "Don't go, please. Stay."

  His mother smiled and shook her head. "You don't need us anymore. You haven't for a long time. Love yourself and you can love another. You are stronger than you think. Remember that."

  Then they were gone and he was left with his hands stretching out, holding the air.

  He shook away the dream. He hadn
't meant to sleep at all. He had stayed awake long after Laura fell into a troubled sleep, the gun held tight to his chest. He wanted to be on guard. He had watched her much of the night turn and mumble. Once she shouted out in anguish. He knew who tormented her. Then tiredness overcame him and he must have closed his eyes.

  Damn himself for falling asleep! He called out to Laura but she didn't answer. He threw back the covers and pulled clothes on, then jumped down the loft ladder two steps at a time. Finding her note didn't ease his anxiety. They needed to stay together. How could he protect her if she was gone? Why didn't she wake him?

  He had an urgent feeling time was running out. He ran out the door and down the mountain path to the lake. He hoped he would find her alone.

  Laura walked steady along the tunnel she had created, her hands feeling along the soft earth walls. At first the light from above filtered down to lead the way, but after twenty feet or so she was in complete darkness. She felt herself floating outside of her body in the deep black. It consumed her as if she had disappeared, along with the world from above. She stopped and stood still. If she couldn't see herself or anything around her maybe she didn't exist.

  Could she hide here and no one would find her, not even her twin who sought to kill her? It was a giddy thought and in the far corners of her mind she knew it was illogical. Then again, some might say she, as an alien, was not logical either. That she could not exist. But she did.

  She put her foot out and stepped again on the earth floor and found the wall. It jolted her back to reality and she began to jog deeper into the ground. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Something glittered. She ran faster toward it. A draft blew around her. Then the wall she ran her hand along disappeared. The glimmer became brighter. She found herself in a cavernous room with walls that gleamed with a low burning light. The room engulfed her and Laura felt so small. The ceiling rose above in sloping hollows.

  This had to be where the spaceship stopped when it hit the earth. She could imagine it diving deep into the rock and mud to rest here. Perhaps the government took it out in pieces and the shell of its space remained here down below. If so, there could be another entranceway from another side of it. That must be where the draft came from. An entrance they filled in to hide when they deemed the project over and fenced the area in. Perhaps it had crumbled over time and air rushed in from widening holes.

  She walked to the walls and ran her hands over it. She pulled her hands away to see them pitted with specks of light. It could be the coating of the spaceship left on these walls. A reminder it was here. It shed enough light for her to investigate the cavern further. Here and there formations appeared in the earth and ceiling where the ship must have been. It was now molded into the earth as a permanent fossil imprint left behind.

  She wanted to connect with this strange being again. Feo. Her real father. She sensed all those years ago that they were connected. Laura placed her hands again on the walls, as she had in her dreams, and stared into the dim light pulsing like stars all around her. Warmth seeped into her although the walls were cold and moist. Her ears honed in on the soft drip-drip resonating from water falling through the mud ceiling above.

  Like in her dreams, her hands moved with the wall. She swayed to its beat as a face grew before her. The face of her real father. A father unlike any other, from far away in space. It was a strange face, yet kind. His yellow eyes turned down at the corners, and he tilted his round head at her. White hair melted into his pearly skin. It framed his face.

  Then the girl appeared alongside the strange face as in a movie screen. Feo turned to watch her. So did Laura. The girl ran through the woods, stumbling along. She looked just like the girl in the photo. It was her real mother, Sarah. The ground shook beneath Sarah. She reached out to grab onto tree branches when the earth caved in. She opened her mouth to scream and fell into the darkness below.

  Laura watched Sarah fall through an earth pit to land before a door. It opened. Sarah paused for a moment then walked through it. Inside a large room the strange being lay on the floor. It was this very room she stood in. Sarah put her hands to her mouth, staring at the being in fear. She shrunk back toward the door but the being raised his head and reached out his pod fingers to her.

  Sarah hesitated then stepped toward the being who pleaded for help with his outstretched arms. His yellow eyes shone bright, his round forehead wrinkled in pain. Another body lay across the floor on the far side of the room but this one did not move. Sarah knelt before him and touched his hands. His fingertips pulsed with a soft green glow in a steady, fast rhythm. She held his hands and wept for his loss. Then the pulsing light from his fingers grew slower in its beat, it dimmed then disappeared.

  The being's hands fell and his head dropped to the floor. Sarah ran out of the room and back through the darkness from where she fell. She climbed up on mud and rock, clawing her way back to the surface. The earth collapsed behind her, filling in the hole, as she frantically climbed. When she reached the top she stumbled on, continuing her original journey. Then the screen went dark.

  Laura cried out. She had witnessed her creation, and her twin's. Feo had passed on his essence to her real mother here in his fallen spaceship. She felt Feo's physical pain and sorrow at leaving his home. He had left behind everything to start over, continue their people. His partner had died. He was all alone. His quest must not be in vain.

  Laura understood. She accepted. She had life because of him. But her real mother had died as a consequence. Ben's parents had died as a consequence. But it wasn't Feo's fault. It was fate and the fault of a greedy doctor and nurse, and the U.S. government.

  "Feo," Laura whispered staring at his round face. "Father."

  He nodded. Then he closed his eyes and was gone.

  Laura banged the wall. "Come back! I need your help. I need…something."

  She sat on the cavern floor and cried. For his pain, for hers. For the pain her twin must harbor at being locked up all his life. Somewhere inside she had hope she could convince him to be with her, as a brother. She could convince him he could be loved and he was not alone. They could have a life together, somewhere.

  She could forgive him. She didn't have to kill him. She didn't want to be like him. She hadn't met him and he raced toward her to kill her, but perhaps she could change their destiny. They carried the same blood, the same genes that collided one night by a desperate accident. He was her twin. Felix had to be wrong. He couldn't be the monster he described. Everyone had worthiness inside them, didn't they? Some piece of redemption they could claim?

  A stabbing pain exploded in her head. She fell to the floor, writhing in agony. This time the headache attacked her with a spiteful vengeance. She hugged her sides, cold from the mud floor, and shivered as snakes of pain curled around her. She closed her eyes and sank into a deep pit of darkness within her mind. Far away she heard someone call her name, but she couldn't answer back. Her mouth wouldn't move. She became paralyzed with pain, tormented by something she couldn't see.

  X-10 ran faster and faster over the rocky trail seeking a place to hide and rest in for the day. The sun was rising. But he was also famished and needed food for fuel. A sagging farmhouse appeared through the trees and he broke in the back door to raid the fridge. He had ripped apart a turkey half carved when an old man thundered down the stairs with a shotgun in hand. X-10 laughed as he chewed on a turkey leg and grabbed the gun from him.

  The startled man stood there in disbelief at the grotesque creature standing before him. X-10 took the opportunity to crack the gun against his head with a forcible swing. He surprised the old woman, too, as she followed down the stairs, with a sharp blow on the top of her head. She crumbled alongside her husband and X-10 finished his meal in solitude.

  When he finished gorging himself he ransacked the entrance closet by the kitchen to find a thick winter coat. His meager clothes from the fat guard were not enough to protect from the cold moving in as he headed north. He found a thick barn jacket with
patches on the sleeves, a wool brimmed hat, and a pair of wool gloves. His arms stuck out of the coat and the hat sat like an absurd bird atop his monstrous head.

  Something in the living room caught his eye and he stepped over the two bodies to get a better look in the dark. The fading moon shed long shadows across the room, making way for the sun coming up soon. He had to get back to the woods and hide for the day in a warm spot where no one would find him. But he was drawn to an oversized worn, green recliner in the living room.

  He had always wanted a recliner. Locked in his cell with a hard bed and stool, he had been forced to grow accustomed to the Spartan life but still yearned for a place to call home. A place full of comfortable chairs, warm rugs beneath his feet, and a fireplace by which to warm himself.

  In all the books he read and pictures he flipped through in magazines it looked like what a home should be. Laura had one, so he made sure he took it away. A sweet satisfaction stole over him remembering when he had torched her home. He recalled the wisps of smoke curling up, then the flames bursting into a wild blaze of power, sucking up the air around it, fueling its hungry belly.

  He eased himself into the rocker recliner, his long body stuck out of it in awkward angles. A purple and yellow afghan covered the back of it and he pulled it around himself. In the wall mirror he could see his pod fingers and bulbous white head sticking out of the throw like a freakish doll dressed up by a little girl playing tea party with her brother's monster toy.

  But he could pretend. He pretended this was his home he came to each night, after working some corporate job in the city. To his country home he would travel. It would be his farmhouse he renovated as a showcase home. And Sabrina would be in the kitchen making him a feast of meat and potatoes and gravy. And apple pie for dessert with vanilla ice cream on top. And he would lick her after the food was gone, over and over tasting her golden delicious skin.