Tenderloin

by LD Marr

  I got out of the car and walked to the exit door. I remembered the new code, but it wasn’t needed to get out of here, only to get in.

  Then I went through the door into the small dark room with its staircase that led up to the subway. I climbed the stairs without bothering to pull the cord of the bare bulb on the ceiling.

  The door on the other side opened to my push.

  I made it! I’m out! I rejoiced mentally when I stepped out the door into the Bowery station.

  The door closed behind me, and I stood there blinking. Bright lights almost blinded me for a moment. I thought I was adjusting to the subway’s harsh lighting, but when my vision cleared, I saw people there. People in uniforms with guns pointed at me.

  Time! I started to give the mental order to slow it down, but this time I was too slow.

  Something sharp entered my stomach and burned there. The subway and the people in it spun around me, and the edges of my vision blurred and darkened. The dark edges grew in my eyes and in my mind until there was complete darkness. And then there was nothing.

  Chapter 30

  I didn’t mind being in jail. Because I knew Laz had made it out of the belowground place. The feeling that told me he was alive somewhere was always with me. He’d made it out, and the others with him had too. And I believed that Chloe and the pregnant girls had also escaped. I had to believe that.

  Some things in jail were a lot like I the underground place I’d come from. My cell had black bars, small hard bed, open-view toilet. But I didn’t have to stay in the cell all the time. And the jail food was served on a plate, and it was shaped like food and tasted slightly better.

  My uncounted days passed in a blurred sameness. Work in the laundry and kitchen, meals, showers, lights out, repeat. I didn’t talk much to the other inmates, and they left me alone for the most part.

  Or maybe they stayed away from me because I was a convicted murderer. Sentenced to life in prison. There had been no trial, just a conviction. The government no longer wasted its money and resources on cases of clear guilt like mine, I was told. And where there was a chance that a jury sympathetic to my young age might let me off the hook for my crime.

  I accepted the sentence without protest, but I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d killed anyone. After a while, I stopped worrying about that.

  I did what I had to, I told myself. I got people out.

  That thought gave me serenity and calmness. And even though I was only eighteen, I felt like my life was complete, over. I’d done the most important thing I’d ever do—accomplished my life’s purpose. So my days passed in a mental haze.

  Now the only thing that caught my interest was the government news program we were allowed to watch for an hour a day. Each evening, I watched closely, hoping for some sign that Chloe had given my photos to Sandra. That Sandra had given them to the news stations. But day after day, there was nothing.

  This station didn’t even show the film of Chloe and Claude with pale hair and skin—before his skin color change—walking in the subway.

  Is that because they know she’s safe now? I wondered.

  But my questions weren’t answered. All I saw on the news was politicians talking. Asking for votes, although we in the prison would never be able to vote for them.

  Today I watched the face of the current president, even more familiar after seeing him in person. The show’s split screen view meant that the president wasn’t talking from the news station. He was in another location. I thought I knew where that was.

  “Crime in this country is out of control. Vote for me, and we’ll raise taxes, so we can spend more money on surveillance,” he said.

  “What about food? People are starving,” the news host said.

  “We need to stop crime first. That’s the reason why there isn’t enough food,” said the president. “It’s criminals who are impoverishing our society.”

  “Thank you president,” said the host.

  The half of the screen that showed the president blinked away, and the newscaster’s face filled the TV. Then she looked at a prompt in front of her.

  “Speaking of crime, this story is just in,” she said. “Evidence of a heinous crime has been given to major news stations. Get ready for a big shock, people. Some unknown group of criminals has been kidnapping our teenagers and using them for food. That’s right—killing and eating them!”

  The prisoners around me gasped as the photos I’d taken displayed on the blocky old television that hung from the ceiling in front of us.

  “Oh my God!” I heard someone shout.

  And I heard retching.

  The news host continued. “We’ve been told that the person who took these pictures, a former drug clinic counselor named Myrna 627114, is now in New York City Prison charged with murder. For killing someone connected with this story,” she said vaguely.

  The picture on my work badge filled the TV screen—me from my life that seemed so long ago.

  “That’s her!” “That’s Myrna!” Some of the women prisoners yelled and pointed at me.

  “Myrna! You go!” someone shouted.

  Then everyone was shouting and cheering. I sat looking around, still in a daze.

  Sandra gave them the pictures! I kept thinking over and over.

  A feeling that I hadn’t experienced in what seemed like forever flowed through me—happiness.

  I smiled. But not for long. A large orange blur came flying at me. A heavy weight hit me and knocked me off my metal chair onto the hard linoleum floor.

  An enormous woman landed on top of me and began pummeling my face and head with huge fists. I knew I had to do something, but it was so hard to think.

  Meaty hands circled my neck and began to squeeze. I couldn’t breathe. My vision grew black with bright sparkles, and I felt myself losing consciousness.

  ⌛

  Time slow down! The words came into my mind from somewhere, but I didn’t think they came from me.

  The squeezing hands slowed to near stillness.

  Then the large body fell off me, but I hadn’t done anything. I gasped for breath. Just lay there gasping for more breath. The gasps were sharp and painful.

  Through the pain, I felt strong arms move under me. Someone lifted me up to a sitting position.

  I looked over and was shocked to see the large features of a familiar face. Huge blue eyes. A bigger than normal forehead. This face might have been attractive. Instead, everything was so oversized that it looked strangely out of balance. It was my former psychiatric counselor Gorg.

  I looked around the room and saw everyone else moving in slow motion. But Gorg was moving in the same sped-up time that I was in.

  Time speed up! I heard Gorg’s mental voice again in my mind.

  Orange-dressed women around me started moving again. And yelling. But the large woman lying on her back on the floor next to me wasn’t moving.

  “Can you stand?” Gorg asked me.

  I tried to speak, but my throat burned, so I just nodded.

  He put his hands under my arms and pulled. I drew in my knees and then pushed myself up with his help. With his arm still around me, Gorg led me out of the room.

  Chapter 31

  I sat on the hard mattress of a wheeled examination table in the prison’s small medical room. Gorg was taking my vital signs and running some other medical tests on me.

  I tried to speak and coughed. He handed me a small box with a straw in it. I drank a few sips of sweet, soothing liquid and then spoke.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I do volunteer work as a counselor at the prison,” he said. “And I’m also a medic since they’re short on funding for that.”

  “Oh right. I remember you told me that,” I said.

  Gorg held one of my eyes lids open and flashed a light into my eye.

  “Sandra told me you needed to talk to me,” he said. “I’d have made an appointment with you sooner, but I only found out a few minutes ago that you
were here in the prison. When I saw you on TV.”

  “I was going to talk to you after I finished doing some things,” I said. “So now I’m done, and we can talk if you want to.”

  “I wish we could, but there’s not much time now,” said Gorg.

  He held up an electronic device and pointed it at my stomach, chest, neck, and head. It beeped, and he stared at it.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because I need to get you out of here,” he answered. “There are people, powerful people, who want you dead. And if you stay here much longer, they’ll get to you—easily.”

  I was surprised that I wasn’t worried about being killed. I still felt like the most important part of my life was behind me. But I didn’t tell Gorg that.

  “How can you get me out?” I asked.

  “You’ve just been choked,” he said. “Sometimes people who are strangled don’t die right away. They die sometime later. I’ll say that’s what happened to you. I need you to play dead. Can you do that? Will you trust me?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Gorg put the scanner down on a shelf next to the gurney I was on. He pulled a phone out of his pocket, pressed numbers, and spoke in a bland, toneless voice.

  “The prisoner didn’t make it. She died from the consequences of strangulation.”

  A pause. Then Gorg spoke again.

  “Yes, I can take the body to the morgue,” he said.

  Gorg put his phone away. He crossed the small room, opened a cabinet, and lifted a dark green plastic bag off a shelf.

  “You need to get into this body bag,” he said. “I’ll leave it unzipped a few inches so you can breathe.”

  Again, I was surprised by my thoughts. I wasn’t sure that I entirely trusted Gorg, or anyone, but I was willing to go along with what he asked.

  He stretched the bag out on the gurney, and I climbed in. Then he zipped it up. I reached up a hand to check that a few inches were still open. Zipped almost to the top, just like he said.

  “Be still now and don’t talk,” said Gorg.

  And I complied.

  I felt the table I was on being wheeled away. It stopped at the door. I heard the door open, and then I was rolled out of the room and down the hall. Through more doors. Down in an elevator. Pushed up a steep ramp into a darker space that felt enclosed—like a vehicle.

  Gorg didn’t speak the entire time. But I heard doors slam. An engine started, and I felt the vehicle I was in drive away.

  I thought the morgue was close by, but the drive took hours. We were moving fast and straight ahead, so I thought we must be on a freeway.

  I was left alone with my thoughts in the stuffy darkness of the body bag.

  Where is he taking me? Where am I going? The question circled endlessly around in my mind, but I didn’t have the answer.

  Finally the vehicle made some turns, slowed, and stopped. I heard the sound of doors opening. Heavy feet climbing in. Doors closing again.

  Then the zipper in front of my eyes was pulled down. My bag opened, and I looked out. Gorg stared down at me in the dim interior light of the van we were in. I sat up and looked back at him.

  Gorg handed me some clothes.

  “Change quickly. I’ll wait outside,” he said.

  ⌛

  I stepped out of the van into a large parking lot. Gorg stood in front of me holding a small travel bag and a big manila envelope. He handed me the envelope.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and he started walking fast.

  I followed and kept up with him.

  “Your plane tickets and other directions are in the envelope,” Gorg said as we speed walked toward a sign that said, “Departures.”

  “Where am I going?” I asked.

  “I’m taking you to the gate for your flight to New Miami. I’ll wait to make sure you get on the plane, and it takes off. After that, you’ll be on your own. Open the envelope when you’re airborne. It’s your paperwork for your new identity, directions to where you’re going, and what I’d like you to do when you get there.”

  I was stunned. Wow! New Miami? I hadn’t expected that.

  I pictured myself lying on the beach, skin baking under New Miami’s hot winter sun.

  “I’m going to New Miami?” I asked.

  “That’s just the start of your journey,” said Gorg.

  The End

  Alien Pets

  (chapter 1)

  Xeno Relations

  by Trisha McNary

  Copyright © 2019 Trisha McNary

  Published by Trisha McNary

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Heather Hamilton-Senter

  Chapter 1

  A few short weeks after she graduated from space school, Antaska stood in front of a clear barrier, waiting and hoping to be selected. She held her small gray and white cat Potat in her arms. Energized with excitement and high-strung nerves, Antaska watched the gigantic green alien Verdantes. Crowds of them walked in the curved corridor outside her “viewing room.”

  The aliens, Antaska’s prospective employers, looked in at her and the other humans in similar “viewing rooms” built by the Verdantes to suit their purposes. The walls on the sides of her viewing room blocked Antaska from seeing the other humans and which aliens were taking an interest in them.

  Now one of the aliens looked at Antaska and paused. The eight-foot-tall giant approached and stopped right in front of her. Antaska looked up to see enormous slanting green eyes staring down at her. Above the eyes, green curly hair covered an enormous cranium. The alien lifted a large six-fingered hand and waved at her. Antaska waved back and smiled.

  Maybe I’ll be selected already! she thought.

  “Grrrr!!” she heard and looked down.

  Potat stiffened in her arms. She hissed and spat at the Verdante in front of them.

  The big eyes of the alien got bigger.

  “Stop that!” Antaska said to Potat. “Shush!”

  But the tiny cat wouldn’t stop.

  “Rrrowwwwwwwww!” Potat let out an endless angry meow.

  The alien shrugged big shoulders and shook his head. He lifted up his hands as if to say, “What can I do?” and walked away.

  Potat stopped meowing and settled back down in Antaska’s arms.

  “What is wrong with you?” Antaska asked the little cat.

  She didn’t expect an answer, of course, and she didn’t get one.

  “Are you crazy? You might have just blown our only chance to go to space! My life’s dream! Don’t you dare do that again.”

  Antaska talked out loud to the cat. It was a habit she’d got into. Sometimes, it almost seemed like Potat understood what she was saying.

  This had better be one of those times, thought Antaska.

  She felt a slight movement and looked down to see the Potat cleaning a snow-white paw.

  Antaska looked up. Another alien, this one female, was standing in front of the clear barrier. She wore the same bright blue space suit as the males. But she had a smaller, more delicate feminine body and features. Shiny bright-green hair brushed her shoulders. Large pale green eyes crinkled up as she looked down at Antaska and Potat.

  Maybe Potat will like this one better, Antaska thought.

  Antaska smiled up at the alien and waved. The female alien waved back and then made signals with her hands. She pointed at herself, then at Antaska and little Potat, and then up toward space.

  Antaska nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

  Yes! she thought.

  “Grrrrr!” Potat started growling.

  “Oh no! You bad cat! Not again!” Antaska admonished her.

  But the cat paid no attention.

  “Reyowwwrrrrrooowwwww!” Potat let out her endless howl.

  The Verdante female’s smallish mouth formed an “O” shape. She shook her big head from side to side.

  “No! No! Stop! Stop!” Antaska pleaded with her cat.

  But of course, Potat didn’t listen.

  The a
lien lowered her chin and closed her eyes for a moment. Antaska read that as disappointment. Then the large green female turned and walked away.

  Antaska’s hopes took a dive. She turned, walked a few feet back, and plopped down on the couch built into the back wall of the small viewing room.

  “Are you trying to stop me from going into space?” Antaska asked Potat as she set her down on the couch.

  Potat, now calm and settled, looked up at her with innocent gold eyes.

  Maybe cats just aren’t adaptable to new things, thought Antaska. Maybe they’re just not that intelligent.

  A tiny paw reached out and slapped her leg kind of hard.

  “That wasn’t nice!” Antaska told her.

  “Am I going to be stuck on Earth with a crazy cat?” she said out loud to no one in particular.

  Potat ignored her and began to take a bath.

  Antaska sighed and leaned against the back of the couch. With dimming hope, she watched the large aliens walking past outside her viewing room.

  A few minutes later, the nutty cat jumped off the couch and walked to the front of the viewing room. Potat sat down there and watched the Verdantes passing by as if she were the one they might pick. Then she looked back and stared hard at Antaska.

  I think she wants me to go over there now, Antaska thought. Or maybe this cat has finally drove me crazy.

  Grumbling about the problems with cats, Antaska got off the couch and walked over to Potat. She picked up the tiny cat and whispered in her ear.

  “OK. You’ve got your way once again. As usual. I hope you’re happy, whatever you’re up too.”

  Potat purred back in her ear.

  Among the other Verdantes, lanky, thin M. Hoyvil took long strides around the circle of rooms containing Earth humans. It was his second or third time circling around. So many of them! How was he supposed to choose? The humans stood near the front of their viewing containers, watching the passing Verdantes with wide, round eyes. Except at a few of the containers.