Starstruck

by S E Anderson

  I saw my canvas bag on the floor of the passenger side. He must have found it in the park and brought it along, which was very thoughtful for a rescue mission.

  “Thanks,” I said, pointing at the bag.

  “Oh, you're welcome.” Zander grinned. “Look, I'm sorry I wasn't around to stop that man. I … I … well …” He shrugged. “Actually, I don't have an excuse.”

  “You don't need one.” I backed up the car, pulling us out of the parking lot. “You're not my keeper.”

  “Still, I knew there was a chance this could happen. The second we talked, I put you in danger. I waited in your park just in case.”

  “Just talking to you gets people abducted?”

  “I have, well, I guess, um—” he stumbled over his words. “I have a few enemies. They don't like me.”

  “The mercenary dude said you were dangerous. He said if I didn't turn you in thousands would die.”

  “Sally, are you really going to believe the word of a man who tried to kill you over the one who stopped him from doing so?”

  It was the first time he had said my name, and for some reason, it struck me as odd. It was more than a name on his tongue. It was a spell, an incantation. Begging me, insisting that I believe him and trust him. It worked.

  “Is it because you're some kind of historic criminal? Or a hero?”

  “You've seen what I can do. The whole—”

  “Teleporting thingy?”

  “That thing, yeah.” He smiled sheepishly. “Blayde calls it jumping. It fits better. Spontaneous atomic displacement sounded sad.”

  “So, they want you for that?” I shuddered. “Because you can teleport here and there?”

  “I can go anywhere in the universe. Well, it's completely random, but hey, I won't bore you with the specifics. Some people are out to study me; some just don't want me out and about. But in a way, they're all asking the same questions. Who is Zander? Why does he heal so quickly? Why does he do those things the way he does? Why is it that every time he eats a pancake, half the universe suddenly thinks about whales?”

  “Really?”

  “It happened once, at least.”

  We turned the corner and arrived on my street. I pulled up onto the curb, and with a stutter, my poor car finally stopped. I didn't know if it would start back up again, but I patted the dashboard, thankful for it holding up this long.

  “I do have a question for you, though,” Zander said, fixing his gray-green eyes on mine. “What did I look like in the photograph he showed you?”

  “You looked … bashed up. Pretty badly bashed up actually.” Your nose was cut, and there were chunks missing out of your jaw, like, big gaping chunks. But that couldn't have been you, could it?”

  “Was it a mug shot or a vacation shot? Hold on, was I holding a turtle?” I swear he said all of this with a straight face. “Or was I wearing … plaid?”

  “Mug shot,” I recalled, “and you were wearing a pink button-down shirt. With a … a palm tree on the pocket. Gold sunglasses hung from the front.”

  “Thank the Almighty.” He sighed, a hand rising to support his head, fingers running through the greasy hair. He closed his eyes. “That's good.”

  “How is that good?” I tried not to be judgmental, but hey. “Why do you have a mug shot? Why was your face all—”

  “They're not Alliance.” He grinned. “The mercs were contractors. It means the bounty hunters are the only ones who know I’m here. No one's coming back for me. No one's going to bother you again—ever.”

  We exchanged smiles, and though I didn't get half of what he was saying, I understood enough to feel relieved. Hopefully, it meant no more alien abductions anytime soon.

  “But what's the Alliance?” I asked, breaking our grinning match.

  “Maybe we should get out of the car?” Zander suggested, unbuckling his seat belt. Why a man like him found the need for a seat belt, I’d never know. Maybe he assumed they were customary.

  “Sure,” I said and got out. Looking up at my apartment, I felt as if I had returned from a long, long trip. It was weird being home after everything that had just happened.

  “So, the Alliance is, um”—Zander waved his hand in the air—“a group of planets. They're the closest union to you guys here on Earth, so they tend to think of Earth as being under their wing. You know, Earth might get tourists from time to time, but really everyone thinks this place is the boondocks. They've got rules against showing themselves to civilizations that aren't ready for contact yet, though I thought they had already. Wasn't there some kind of contact at Roswell? Fifty … sixty years back?”

  “The jury is still out on that,” I answered. A smile crept on my face as I unlocked the front door to my building. “The government said it was a weather balloon.”

  “The weather balloon was a weather balloon.” He rolled his eyes. “The ship, though. Typical. I've been to a few pre-contact civilizations, and it’s always the same. If you find out too much and you’re too primitive, the Alliance will talk to your leaders to keep it hushed up. Don't worry. As soon as you guys settle down, lose the wars and such, they'll come to you.”

  “There hasn't been any sign of intelligent life out there. Well, yet,” I said as we climbed the stairs. “And you're telling me there are whole planetary alliance thingies?”

  “Not always very good ones,” he muttered. “But … yes.”

  “So, the ship in the park?” I shuddered. “It's not going to make the news, is it?”

  “Not if the agency has anything to do with it, no.”

  “The agency?”

  “Travel agency,” he said with a shrug. “Keeps the tourists coming, and keeps it safe for them to come back. Basically, it’s the Alliance’s branch out here.”

  “Right?” I unlocked the door to my apartment and was so, so glad I had cleaned up before leaving this morning. The place didn't look spotless, not by a long shot, but at least it didn't imply that I was a slob. No one needed to know that about me.

  “Shower's through there,” I said, pointing to the white door down the hallway. “And there are towels available, help yourself.”

  “Thank you,” he replied. He smiled, and I realized I was smiling, too, despite my exhaustion.

  I didn't have anything that would fit him, clothing wise. I could tell that under his layers of wrap he was a large man, even my baggiest clothes wouldn't fit him. I had to do something I dreaded—I had to bring someone else into this mess.

  I went to knock on Jules's door.

  He had always been nice to me. He'd been helpful from the first day we met when he carried my table and sofa into the apartment and I could only pay him in pizza. And he wasn't the type to judge, which was a definite plus. Though I had never really understood how he could be constantly cheerful. He was the kind of neighbor everyone wanted. If anybody could help, he could—and better than that, he would.

  So, I knocked on his door. He opened it with that winning grin he never seemed to lose.

  “Sally!” He said it like I had made his day.

  “Jules, it's good to see you,” I replied, his cheerfulness rubbing off on me already.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I'm sorry, Jules, I need your help. Do you have some clothes I could borrow?”

  “Like … your kind of clothes, or …”

  Of course, Zander decided to look out my apartment door. He was completely shirtless, probably only one step from shedding his bloody garments. My cheeks burned. He waved casually at Jules.

  “Ah, yes. Well, I can help with that,” Jules said. He grinned a sheepish smile and left for a second, coming back with a nice pair of jeans and a shirt, as well as socks and other helpful items. He even had a toothbrush on his pile of things.

  “I hope these fit. What happened to um, the …?”

  Well, he had me there. I couldn’t tell Jules that Zander’s clothes, if you could even call them that, were covered in blood. At least with what Jules
was imagining, there wouldn't be much of an inquiry, not that he'd believe me if I told him the truth.

  Jules winked at me. I winked back, feeling slightly embarrassed.

  “Thanks, bro,” Zander said, a perfect imitation of the boys on campus.

  Jules waved back. “Don't mention it, man.”

  I rushed back into the apartment, handing Zander the stack of clothes. He had peeled the wrap from his shoulders to reveal a heavily muscled chest, the likes you only saw in action films. It was more than just impressive. I could count every one of his abs—there was one too many, but I'll chock it up to him being alien—and his skin glistened with sweat. My stomach flipped.

  “Um, did you find the towels?” I said, walking to the bathroom and handing him the fluffiest one I could find while avoiding staring.

  “Thanks,” he said, reaching to undo the rest of the wrap bunched around his waist. Sand fell on my bath mat; it’d probably never come out again. I spun around. While he didn't care too much for modesty, I sure did.

  Come on, I’d had a weird day. I wasn't looking forward to adding alien genitalia to the list of things I'd seen.

  “I'll get out of your hair,” I muttered.

  I sat on my couch in silence, listening to the shower run. The water washing sand off an alien, the man who had saved my life.

  To think I had started this by running him over with my car. Now, he was getting cleaned in my shower, after doing who knows what to the aliens who had tried to abduct me.

  Maybe he had killed them.

  I realized I didn't care.

  “Right,” I said, pulling myself up. “This is obviously a crazy dream brought on by the shock of being fired from work. A panic attack on steroids. So, this? All this? It’s imagined. My subconscious is trying to tell me something.”

  “I can assure you, it’s real,” Zander said, stepping out of the bathroom, drying his hair with the fluffy towel. He was dressed, thank goodness, and he cleaned up well. “But don't ask me to prove that.”

  “A dream would say that.”

  “And what kind of dream would invent a person like me? Have you ever seen anyone who looks like me? Who dresses like me? Who can drive like me? Who can appear … hold on, I may fail to sound convincing.”

  “So, what happens next?”

  “I'm sticking around on this planet until my sister gets back,” he said, plopping down on the couch. “As I was saying, jumping long distances is difficult and pretty random. It isn't an exact science. There's no system of guidance. Space is so big, you know? There's a lot of empty between the places with solid ground. When I jump, it takes all my willpower to find a spot that’s safe to land. I never know where that is. Last night, we were in a bit of trouble, and I had to get off a planet in a hurry. Earth was in the right place at the right time, but I jumped before she did. I think the thwack with your vehicle made it impossible for her to lock on my arrival point. She has no idea where I am.”

  “But you left a message on her phone. She can track you down, right?”

  “Sure, once she jumps to Earth, which is one chance in … about one hundred and fifty-eight million. She has to get here first, right here, in whatever this town is. Consider space-time, and she might just make it in time to see your great-granddaughter buying her first house.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “Why that long?”

  “Ever hear about the theory of relativity? Time dilation?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It'll take too long to explain, but basically, when you travel at the speed of light—”

  “You can't travel at the speed of light.”

  Zander rolled his eyes “—or nearly at the speed of light, you age slower than those around you. We can go from one place to another in what feels like an instant, but sometimes years can pass between each pit stop. Like, I've been on Earth before, but ages might have passed for your people.”

  “So, what will you do now? Are you going to jump to someplace else, find your sister?”

  “No, I need to stay put. If I leave this spot—and by this spot, I mean this city, not your armchair—I could lose her forever. She needs to find me, not the other way around. She's better at jumping. She can't decide what planet to land on either, but if we get separated, she always tracks me down eventually. We usually jump simultaneously, so we don't end up in completely different galaxies. If she grabs my hand or if we're close to each other, at least, we tend to always end up in the same place. She must not be too far away. It might take years. Centuries. But I'll wait.”

  “Why can't you just go home?” I asked. “You can jump there, can't you?”

  “No, I can't,” he said. “The universe is so big. In space, there is an infinity of directions. I have no idea where home is at this point. Or if it's still there after all this time.”

  It hit me then how lonely he was. He was used to traveling the universe with his sister, but now, he was truly alone. Stuck on this planet. My planet. And it was my fault.

  The doorbell rang, and my heart leaped. You’d think after all the excitement, I would have learned to stay put by this point.

  But it was only Marcy. Marcy, who had been waiting for me in the park as I was abducted. Marcy, who was already worried enough about me as it was, whom I had forgotten to text.

  “It’s my friend Marcy, could you—”

  But when I turned around, he wasn't there. He had disappeared once again, leaving me to deal with a livid Marcy, with nothing but sand to support my story.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Messy Things You Can’t Clean With a Sponge

  Zander had disappeared, again. He was just gone. I guess I was starting to get used to it, but it still hit me like a blast of cold water. He hadn't even said goodbye. And, come on, who leaves a person alone when their world had been turned upside down?

  Marcy barged through my door, a bottle of inexpensive Chianti under her arm and a frown the size of the Mississippi river on her face. She brushed past me and through to the living room, depositing the bottle on the kitchen island before I could utter a word.

  “Don't,” she ordered, grabbing a glass out of the cupboard and pouring me a drink. She held it toward me, indicating I should sit down.

  “I'm really sorry, Marce. I've … I've had an awful few hours.”

  “You and me both, sister.” She scowled. “Why haven't you been picking up your phone? I've been calling and calling. I thought something awful had happened to you.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket—dead. It must have died after I used the map app. I had been very lucky to get Matt’s call when I did.

  “Something did,” I said, before realizing that there was no way I could tell her what really happened.

  Her eyes widened, her frown inexplicably growing. The Mississippi had breached its banks. “What?”

  What, indeed? I had been abducted—then saved—by aliens, and, yes, aliens did exist and were somehow living amongst us, enjoying Starbucks and getting outted on Instagram.

  Marcy didn't push. She ran to me, flying around the kitchen counter and wrapping her arms around my shaking body. I hugged her back, my grip tightening as I let the events of the day wash over me.

  Oh, Marcy. I don't deserve you.

  “You're one of those people that are only supposed to exist in fairy tales, Marce.”

  “Nope, just a good friend.” She forced a smile. “A friend who knows when her bestie isn't being straight with her. So, come on, tell me what's going on. Also, this bottle is all we have. I won't allow any more, all right?”

  “Got it.” I nodded. “Where'd it come from?”

  “Got it for my birthday. Thought you could use it more than me. So, tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Everything,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What happened today?”

  I let out a heavy sigh and waved her over to the sofa; this would take a while. Marcy grabbed the bottle and her glass and sat on the plush armchair while I collapsed on t
he couch. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she slipped it out, placing it on the coffee table next to the bottle without reading the text.

  “It started last night,” I explained. It was time to get this off my chest. Well, not all of it, but enough so my friend could help me. “I hit a … a deer or something … with my car.”

  “You what?”

  “A deer,” I repeated, going for a sip. The red liquid tasted strong on my tongue, making me frown. It was hitting me harder than it should have. “I think it was pretty bad, too, but it ran into the woods, so I never got to see it.”

  “Ouch.” Marcy shook her head. “Not good.”

  “So, today at lunch, I knew I couldn't take the car, so I started walking …”

  “Yeah?”

  “And got mugged,” I said, putting all the emotional punch into it that I could.

  “Holy shit on a crab cake.” Marcy flew to my side. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Don't worry, I'm not hurt or anything,” I said. “He had a gun, though, Marcy. I was really shaken up. I kind of, well, I know I should have called you sooner, but I went to the cops.”

  “Understandable.” Marcy nodded, ignoring her buzzing phone. “Are you okay? Did he …?”

  “Just my wallet, thank god.” I was surprised by how easily the lies spilled. “The cops found it, but they didn't catch the guy.”

  “Aww, honey.” Marcy reached over to give me a tight squeeze. “You going to be all right?”

  “I'm fine.” I smiled, trying to make the lie the truth and push the real events from my mind. “I love the fact you're here.”

  “Hey, that's what friends are for. But, um, last night—”

  “It's okay, Marcy.” I held up a hand. “I get it. And you're right—I need to get out more. Live my life.”

  “I didn't mean to—”

  “I get it. It's fine,” I insisted. “I've been in a slump for a little while, and—”

  “A little while?” Marcy scoffed and smiled. “It’s been two whole years, Sally. Since John …”