Starstruck

by S E Anderson

  “Obviously.”

  Silence followed, during which we both waited for the other to speak until it became so unbearable that we both blurted out the words we were dying to say.

  “I'm sorry!” They came out almost simultaneously, and we laughed at each other and ourselves.

  “I shouldn't have blown up at you,” I said. “I know you were looking out for me.”

  “Yeah, but I shouldn't have tried to intervene at my birthday party,” said Marcy. “Look, Sally, I am sorry, okay? I was worried about you. You barely go out except to work or buy food. I just want you to be happy.”

  “I get it, Marce.” I nodded, though I knew she wouldn't see it.

  “Please tell me you didn’t go clubbing afterward,” she said, “I got so scared. I know what you’re like when you’re down, and I saw you with a beer, and I …”

  “I don’t do that anymore, Marce.” I shuddered at the memory, “Let's not do this over the phone. You want some lunch? I did a poor job celebrating your birthday.” I stood and stretched, feeling like I had just taken a hundred tons off my back.

  “So did I,” she pointed out.

  “So … lunch?” I asked, hoping it would benefit both of us. I tiptoed to look out the high kitchen window. The day was beautiful, incredible sunny October weather. Except for the man on the bench reading a newspaper, the street was empty. It was a wonderful day for a picnic. “In an hour? I'll buy the cake.”

  “Sounds fab.”

  “The Jitterbug?”

  “Nah, I'll make us sandwiches.”

  “That's perfect.” I grinned. “Picnic, then? The usual place? I'll provide the rest.”

  “See you there!”

  I hung up with a smile on my lips. Things were going to get better from here on out, I just knew it.

  That was probably the moment I jinxed it.

  Well, the conversation would be awkward. I wasn’t the kind of person to take help unless I've asked for it. Marcy and I were going to have some hurdles to work through, but we’ve been the best friends for years and that wasn't going to end anytime soon, and certainly not over a small spat.

  I got dressed in no particular hurry. It felt nice to wear a clean shirt, and I wondered why I hadn't taken the time to do my laundry for the past few weeks. I piled everything in the hamper, impressed by how airy it made the room feel. Somehow, that made me feel better, too. And yet, there was still no sign of my alarm clock. Weird.

  I brought my mind back to cleaning and sorting. Finally, I assembled a bag consisting of a small bottle of champagne—Rosemary must have left it here—and Marcy's still-wrapped birthday present, which had never left my purse, along with paper plates, knives, and napkins. I even left the house on time.

  First up—the bakery. Just across the park, it made the best cakes you could possibly imagine. Just perfect for Marcy. She would get the angel food cake she had sacrificed to cheer me up. I had even left with enough time to wait in line if it was busier than usual.

  I couldn't help but relish the amazing weather. We’d had a sweltering summer, but now, the city was cooling off, making it comfortable and sunny with a slight breeze. It had, however, rained through the night, leaving puddles in my path. I wove around them, keeping my feet dry.

  Had it washed away the blood on the street?

  The tightness around my spine was back, forcing a shiver through my body. No matter how hard I tried to keep it out of my head, my mind wandered back to the events of last night, but I didn’t want to see them again. I’d rather forget them entirely. With a deep breath, I reined in my thoughts and tried to ignore the images burned in the back of my mind.

  I crossed the road, smiling politely at the man on the bench. He rolled his eyes and went back to his column. My path took me through the park which, to my surprise, was practically empty. The gravel path was mine this morning, the full heat of the sun blocked by the thick, shady trees. I reveled at the thought of sitting near the river, Marcy’s famous homemade sandwich in hand, in weather better suited for May than October.

  As I walked further into the depths of the foliage, where branches hung so low and were so close together that the sun barely reached the path below, I realized that I hadn't seen anyone else. Even the birds were quiet. Okay, so maybe they migrated a few months earlier than usual. The squirrels, normally so noisy with their skittering along the branches, were nowhere to be seen. I could hear nothing but the quiet crunch of gravel. That and the quickening of my heart.

  And then, suddenly, people were there.

  Where the park had been empty seconds before, three people now stood, right in the middle of the path ahead of me. They chatted amicably, as if they had been there all along.

  Now I was seeing things. Somehow, they were just there, fully materialized out of nowhere, and all I could do was stand frozen, my jaw practically on the ground.

  Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

  Was I imagining it? Hallucinating? If I was, it was extremely convincing. They looked real, but they couldn't be. People don't just—

  Two of the strangers were female, both with their backs to me, but I was close enough to make out every separate hair, every fiber of their clothing. It was more than my mind could have conjured on its own. The third fixed his eyes on me, his face too detailed to be a dream.

  I knew who he was immediately. There was no way I couldn't. His face had been permanently engraved in my mind since the night before.

  Zander. The man in the bloody rags.

  The man I had hit with my car.

  His hair was different; that was the first thing I noticed. He was better groomed, each dark chocolate strand shouting a personal “screw you!” to gravity, reaching for the skies in a gentle swoop. He was dressed in a dark, formal suit with a battered black leather jacket, yet somehow, it didn’t seem to clash with his outfit. He had a strange half-smirk on his face, a mix of confusion and amusement.

  What was he doing here? And, more importantly, where on earth had he come from?

  He grinned. “Would you look at that.” The women spun around at his words, both wore varying degrees of shock on their stern faces.

  The taller of the two had hair as astonishing as the man's, a vibrant mix of reds, purples, and blues feathered over jet-black. She wore a leather jacket, too, but hers was brownish-red and in a much better shape, almost new. Her features were incredibly sharp, as if her sculptor had forgotten to smooth the edges of her face; she had a pointed nose, high cheekbones, and thin eyebrows, almost invisible. They contrasted with her wide lips. Something about her face made her ethnicity impossible to pinpoint, as if she were a mix of everything the planet had to offer.

  The woman beside her turned slower than her friend, but I recognized her as quickly as I had recognized the man—she was me.

  Another Sally—the same face, the same me. She was prettier, though, much prettier than I had ever been. All the pimples and scars were gone; even her fingers seemed longer and more elegant. She radiated confidence from every pore, her smile one of cheer and excitement. She scanned me with wide, surprised eyes, but her smile never wavered.

  “I remember this,” she said, turning back to Zander, who lifted an eyebrow. “But now? No, this isn't right. We should go.”

  “You sure?” he asked. “We're here, aren't we?”

  “Not the right here,” the other woman said. “We've overshot a little. Is this …?”

  “Before,” the other Sally replied. “We'd better go before we mess anything up.”

  As suddenly as they’d arrived, they were gone.

  Just like that.

  Of course, like the dumbass I was, I just stood there. I couldn’t move, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. My arms trembled, causing the plastic bag I still carried to rattle against the side of my leg.

  I did the deep breathing techniques I had learned in therapy, but they weren't helping. Focus, focus, I tried to tell myself, but I couldn’t ignore that I had seen another version of myself pop in
and out of existence like a glitching hologram.

  I didn’t know how long I stood there. It could have been hours. I probably would have stood there forever if a voice hadn't interrupted the silence.

  “Ms. Webber?”

  It came to so suddenly that I lost my balance and practically fell over if not for the stranger reaching out to steady me. Things just kept getting weirder. The man wore a trench coat and dark Fedora, the image of a noir movie cop. He stood in the middle of the gravel path, the shade obscuring his face. Even when I did catch his features, they looked like they were shifting around.

  His arm was on mine for far longer than I was comfortable with. I pulled it back, wary of the stranger.

  “Who's asking?” I said, relatively pleased that my voice wasn't shaking like my hands were.

  “Detective Madison.” He pulled a badge from his breast pocket and flashed it in front of my face too quickly for me to make anything out. “I wondered if you could answer a few questions?”

  “What about?” I asked. I slipped my hand into my pocket, wrapping my hand around my house keys. Not very effective if anything came to that.

  Maybe I was just paranoid, but there was something wrong with his face. Very wrong. So wrong that I kept wanting to look away without knowing why.

  “Have you seen this man?” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a large, glossy photograph. And there he was again, the man it seemed impossible to forget—Zander.

  He glared at me from the printed spots of ink, from the mug shot he was posing for. A thick cut crossed his nose, red and purple and bulbous, but it was nothing compared to the state of his jaw, which, though cleaned, was mangled beyond recognition. Even through the sorry state of his face, he seemed to sneer at the camera.

  “I haven't,” I replied truthfully. While it looked like the man called Zander, it simply couldn’t be him. Those cuts would have left scarring, but the man from last night had a perfect jawline.

  “Are you sure?” the detective urged. “Look closer.”

  “Never seen him before.”

  “It would have been in the past few days.”

  “No, I'm sure,” I said, forcing myself to keep cool. “I would remember someone who looked like that.”

  “It's a felony to withhold information from the law,” The man was adamant now, his voice harsh and cruel. “If you're not telling me something—”

  “It's a felony if you work for the police or the FBI,” I snapped. “You never said what agency you were with. I'd think you're supposed to tell me that. I know my rights. Well, the gist of them, and I don't have to tell you anything.”

  The man scowled. “This is a matter of life and death, Sally Webber. If you don't tell me, hundreds, nay, thousands could be in grave danger.”

  I felt a jolt of terror roll through my body. “And how do you know my name?” I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn't let me. He didn't respond. “Who are you?”

  “Don't say I never gave you a chance.” He tsked under his breath, reaching into his jacket again. This time, he pulled out a gun.

  Holy shit—a gun! An actual freaking gun!

  “Now, hold on,” I said, stumbling backward as he advanced, weapon drawn. I threw my hands up, even though I knew it wouldn't do anything. The trembling in my legs intensified.

  “Why are you protecting him?” the man asked, waving the weapon in my face, close enough for me to smell the pungent odor of a recently fired gun. “You don't even know him. Who he is. What he's done!”

  “Look, let's just talk this over with level heads, all right?” I said, my voice a high-pitched squeak. My panic level was out of control. “I don't know what you're talking about. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the truth. You have to believe me.”

  “Terrans are liars, and awful ones at that,” he replied, sounding bored. “Tell me where Zander is, and I'll spare your life.”

  I didn't believe a word he said, but I wasn't about to tell him that. “He asked for directions,” I lied, spurting out the first thing that came to mind. “He wanted to find his way to Chicago. Drove off in a red car, that's all I know. I swear.”

  And then he pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  All of the Abduction, None of the Probing

  I awoke for the second time that day. Only this time, there were no bed sheets and no comfy blankets. No, this time, I woke on a cold metal floor, and I was already out of breath.

  It was like waking from one dream into another, though I knew this was far too real. I had been shot by an Inspector Gadget look-alike. I quickly checked my body with trembling hands: I wasn't injured, and I didn't feel drowsy, just angry. I opened and closed my mouth like a fish out of water, and the putrid taste of an ashtray coated my tongue. And yes, I do know what one tastes like, but that’s another story.

  Had he used a … a stun gun on me? Were those things even real? I guess they had to be, seeing as how I wasn’t dead.

  I was in a dark room, lit by weak light strips lining the top of the walls. It wasn't very wide, about the size of my bedroom back home, but the walls were gross—metal, dripping with condensation, scratched in places, and covered with what I really hoped was just rust.

  And I wasn't alone.

  In the chair nearest the door sat a woman who could have been a student at U-Frank, wearing brown Ugg boots and a comfy sweatshirt. On the single bunk, against the wall to my right sat an androgynous person with a pixie haircut wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

  They looked absolutely terrified.

  I scrambled up and backed against the wall. Bad idea: the gross wall of water pressed against my shirt, slowly seeping through. I didn't know these people. I didn't want to. Had they been the ones to take me?

  That's when it dawned on me, a little late, you might say—I had been kidnapped.

  Well, shit.

  “Don't be cat,” said the Ugg boots girl. “Everything will be lemonade, just stool calm.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don't worry about her,” the pixie person said. “Her translator's on the fritz. Some words get jumbled. I'm pretty sure she wants you to stay calm. We're not going to hurt you—we're in the same position you are.”

  Ugg boots girl nodded. As she did, she lifted a hand to push some of her silky blonde hair behind her ear, flashing fingers that looked closer to an iguana’s than a human. It was as if her skin ended at her wrist: The rest of her hand was completely reptilian, a dark emerald-green tone. Her other hand and the rest of her body looked completely human.

  Holy shit. A lizard hand? I was dumbstruck. The reptilians really are among us? How high up does this go? My jaw dropped open. I must have looked terrified—I was, after all—because pixie person gave me an apologetic look.

  “What did they get you for?”

  “For?” I stammered.

  “I flew through the Ordran territory to get here, got a bounty on my head for that. And Miko,” they said, indicating the Ugg boots girl, “she skipped bail. She’s been hiding out here for years, though they wouldn't have caught her if her skin wrap hadn't gotten damaged and she ended up on Instagram. What about you?”

  “Holy shit!” I said, sliding down the wall and falling on my ass. “You're aliens!”

  Aliens. Real aliens. Okay, don't panic. That's the best place to start. But what else was I supposed to do when confronted with undeniable proof that aliens exist? My eyes were hooked on the lizard hand, if you could even call it that. It looked so … wrong.

  It looked alien.

  And yet, the two of them looked at me, exchanging quick, scared glances.

  “You're … Terran?” Miko squawked. “Flowers. This spelunking!”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” The pixie ran their hands through their hair. “They can't take Terrans. They're breaking—I can't tell you how many laws—”

  “Spigot?” Miko snorted. “You really think what they're doing to us is legal? We're free tiramisu. We should be
able to do what we please.”

  “No, they want you for tax evasion. That makes good sense,” pixie cut said, “but the Terran? They can't take Terrans. It's so many different shades of illegal.”

  “Excuse me?” I sputtered, trying to make sense of the situation. “But who are they?”

  “Bounty Hunters,” pixie cut explained, signaling for Miko to shush. “Or mercenaries. You know, the kind of people who don't care what side of the law they're on, so long as they get paid.”

  “I've been abducted?” I shuddered, the full realization dawning on me, “Oh shit. I've been abducted. I'm on a spaceship and I … I…”

  I had been abducted. By fucking aliens.

  Today was not my day.

  Yesterday wasn't either; I really hoped the rest of the week wasn't going to be more of the same. Then again, the past two years had been disappointing. It was entirely possible this was just the next step in my rotten luck.

  “Don't worry,” Miko said softly. “They don't flan you.”

  “Who are we kidding?” said the pixie. “They don't care. They've taken her anyway. Though what the Alliance wants with her, I don't know.”

  “Maybe it was an accident?” Miko suggested.

  “Maybe …”

  Pixie stared at me as if expecting me to do tricks or something. I wasn't going to give them the pleasure. I stood, propping a hand on the gross wall to steady myself.

  “We're on a spaceship,” I muttered, running my hand over the LED strip like a moth attracted to a flame. We didn't have a window and it didn't feel like we were moving, but it was a spaceship—and I was on it.

  Also, spaceships existed. Cool.

  Too bad I only knew this because I had become the most recent in a line of alien abductees.

  “Wait a second. You're both speaking English?” I spun around to face them. “Does everyone in the universe speak English? Is this like Star Trek?”

  “By gremlins alone,” Miko said. “Ugh. When they … um … grab me, my translate got … jumbled? Taylor, help.”

  “Miko got zapped in the head; it fried her chip,” the pixie, named Taylor, explained. “Some of the words come out backward.”