Careless

by Kelly Goode

  Lydia agreed with Freya. Don was acting weird. His mannerisms, his lack of expression, even his nicknames for the kids were wrong. She wondered if he’d taken something. Drugs were easy to come by if you had the right contacts. One of his rugby pals could have easily hooked him up.

  ‘What’s my nickname, Don?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s easy. You’re my honey.’

  She shook her head. He never called her honey. Only babe. And only with a sneer. Something was wrong.

  ‘Freya,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to take Billy upstairs.’

  ‘And I’d like them both to stay here,’ Don replied, and even though he hadn’t raised his voice, the children obeyed as usual. ‘I tried asking you nicely to take me to ISCU but I see I need to persuade you some other way.’

  Don still had his hand wrapped around Billy’s arm and he tried tugging it away.

  ‘It’s called the ICU, dad.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘No, you said I-S-C-U. ICU stands for intensive care unit, but mum doesn’t work there. She’s an accident and emergency nurse.’

  Lydia inhaled sharply and Don’s head whipped around far quicker than was humanly possible. His blank mask slipped, as Lydia’s vision blurred and returned clearer than ever. Sweat pooled on her top lip and she realised she wasn’t looking at her husband, but something inside his skin. Her heart rate accelerated, as a rush of adrenaline flowed to her limbs, making them tingle. She’d been fighting her mutation for almost a week, but now she felt the beast move closer to the surface and she welcomed it. The skin across her shoulder blades stretched and the bones in her arms cracked loudly. She waited for the usual discomfort to flare, but surprisingly she felt power rather than pain, and she had the feeling she was going to need the strength. Her stomach suddenly compressed, as she’d eaten something she shouldn’t have. She pressed her hands against her abdomen and felt her muscles move beneath the skin. Her teeth felt too big for her mouth and her jaw bone snapped to accommodate her lengthening canines.

  ‘Go upstairs and lock your bedroom doors.’

  Her voice sounded deep and gravelly and Billy opened his mouth to argue, but Freya intercepted.

  ‘Come on, Billy. You heard mum.’

  She tried to drag her brother from the kitchen, but Don still had a hold on his arm and they ended up in a sort of tug-of-war with Billy being the rope.

  ‘Let him go, dad,’ Freya pleaded. ‘You’re hurting him.’

  ‘No one is leaving here until I get what I want.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Lydia growled, keeping her face turned away from her children so they wouldn’t see what was happening to her.

  ‘I want access to ISCU.’

  ‘Let the kids go and I’ll take you there,’ she said, edging away from Don and hoping he’d lose interest in the kids and follow her.

  When she was close enough to the back door, she tugged on the handle. She’d planned to cause a distraction, but didn’t expect it to come in the form of an orange ball of fur, which raced inside the house and collided with Don’s legs. The commotion proved enough for Billy to yank his arm away and Freya pulled him from the room.

  ‘Go, Freya,’ Lydia shouted. ‘Get Billy out of here and don’t come back.’

  Don kicked the cat – the elusive Mr Harris none-the-less – and it meowed in distress. Even amidst the chaos and pain, Lydia’s relief at discovering she hadn’t eaten him was immense. Don grabbed a knife from the block and charged after the children. Lydia reacted without thinking and pounced on his back. It was only when she sank her teeth into the back of his neck, that she realised she was no longer human.

  49

  Jonah skidded to a halt inside Lydia’s kitchen. The ginger cat he’d frightened had already struck Don, throwing him off balance for a second. Only it wasn’t really Don. The signs were there. The jerky movements. The pallid skin. The scent of death and decay. While he might look human, there was an alien living beneath his skin. A desquamater that hadn’t been there last night when Jonah had stolen his wife away.

  Lydia suddenly doubled over in pain. The skin on her arms undulated, as if hundreds of tiny spiders were dancing beneath it. Her eyes glowed amber like a jaktten, as she panted hard and groaned. Hair sprouted from her pores and her fingers morphed into claws. She was shifting and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

  ‘It’s not Don,’ she managed to gasp at Jonah. ‘Help my children.’

  A teenage boy and girl had managed to break away and the protective nature of his jaktten surprisingly emerged, even towards someone else’s children and he knew he’d defend them as if they were his own. Don had a knife and Jonah didn’t hesitate to put himself between the kids and danger. He scooped them, one under each arm and ran for the front door. They screamed and resisted, but he didn’t want them to see their mother change into a monstrous hybrid, nor their father being controlled like a puppet.

  Fortunately, he’d called for back-up as soon as he recognised that feeling in his gut that told him Lydia was in trouble and Blake was already waiting on the front step with his gun drawn.

  ‘Is it what you suspected?’ Blake asked, eyeing the two teenagers under Jonah’s arms with suspicion.

  ‘Worse.’

  Jonah put the children on their feet and the girl immediately tried to run back inside the house.

  ‘No,’ Jonah said, holding her back while she thrashed and kicked out at him.

  ‘Take your fucking hands off me,’ she shouted in a very similar tone to Lydia’s. She even looked like her too with dark hair and stern features. ‘My dad is going to hurt my mum. She needs me.’

  ‘Your brother needs you more,’ Blake replied, holstering his gun and placing a hand reassuringly on the boy’s shoulder. He looked deathly pale and was breathing heavily. ‘Is there somewhere safe you can go?’

  The door opened on the neighbouring house and an old lady stepped out. She was hunched over a walking stick, but spoke with authority that belied her age.

  ‘I’ll take them in,’ she said. ‘Come on Freya and Billy. You’re safe with me.’

  Jonah stared down at the girl, sensing her reluctance to abandon her mother. Admirable qualities, but foolish given that a deadly alien had killed her father and now wore his skin.

  ‘Your mother would want you safe above anything else,’ he said. ‘I’ll help her.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  Jonah stared into her dark eyes, which were so similar to Lydia’s that it pained him to see her distressed.

  ‘Your mother is important to me. I promise.’

  That seemed to placate the girl who nodded and grabbed her brother’s hand. Blake guided them towards the old lady who embraced them both, but then let out an almighty screech when the ginger cat from earlier sprung out of the bushes.

  ‘Mr Harris. Where have you been? I was so worried.’

  The old lady scooped up the cat and rubbed her wrinkled face against his fur, as she cooed and stroked his fur.

  ‘Stand guard out here,’ Jonah told Blake. ‘Desquamaters rarely travel alone.’

  ‘You’ll need this,’ he replied, checking the safety on his gun. ‘You’ll have to make do with regular bullets, as grenades need a clearance distance of at least ten metres.’

  ‘Yes, General,’ Jonah said with a wry grin. ‘Just like old times, eh?’

  Blake slapped the gun into his hand as way of agreement.

  ‘I never thought I’d see the day when you put someone else’s life above your own again.’

  ‘I love her.’

  ‘Then go get her.’

  Jonah nodded. ‘Call the rest of your team. Tell them what happened.’

  Blake pressed a button on the communicator on his wrist and relayed Lydia’s address with his request for reinforcements.

  ‘Carson is going to be pissed that I left without her,’ he said, once he’d ended his call.

  ‘They’ll be plenty more aliens for her to kill. This son of a bi
tch is mine.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Protect those kids.’

  Jonah strode inside Lydia’s house with his gun raised. He stood in the kitchen doorway and took aim, but faltered when he saw a jaktten digging its claws into Don’s back.

  50

  Jonah’s reappearance distracted Lydia enough for the alien to land a blow to the top of her head and she slid from its back and landed on the floor. She’d stopped thinking of her adversary as being Don, even though it was using his body. The alien advanced and she tried to spring to her feet, but remained hunched over.

  ‘Jonah, help me.’

  Jonah’s eyes were fixated on her in a mix of confusion and awe.

  ‘He can’t help you,’ the alien said, lifting the knife again, ready to strike. ‘No one can help you now.’

  Jonah raised his arm too and Lydia glimpsed the gun in his hand. There was a split-second where she thought he was going to shoot her and she wondered whether it might be for the best. They’d run out of time and she’d fully shifted. She didn’t know what she looked like, but imagined a collapsed face and mutated body.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Jonah commanded.

  Lydia closed her eyes when he pressed the trigger. She waited for the pain of a bullet ripping through her body, but it never came. Instead, there was a thud beside her and when she opened her eyes again, Jonah was kneeling beside her.

  ‘You didn’t shoot me.’

  ‘I told you I could never hurt you, Lydia. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, but I’m a monster. Don’t look at me.’

  He smiled. ‘You’re not a monster. You’re beautiful.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She looked down at the fur covering her arms and legs, or more accurately four legs. That’s why she’d remained so low to the ground and couldn’t stand up fully.

  ‘I have four freaking legs,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘That’s because you shifted.’

  ‘Into a hybrid?’

  Jonah shook his head. ‘Into a jaktten.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Impossible or not, it happened.’

  ‘How am I able to communicate?’

  ‘Talking dog in the alleyway, remember?'

  ‘Maybe my cells fused with yours,’ she explained. ‘If I could run my blood and compare it to the previous sample, I could see exactly…’

  Jonah ran his hand down her spine and her voice trailed off.

  ‘Remember when I said your scientific talk was a turn-on? Well this is not the time to get me worked up. It’s not over yet.’

  Lydia glanced down at the body beside her and gasped. The bullet had ripped clean through Don’s throat.

  ‘He didn’t deserve this,’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Jonah replied, as Don’s body twitched like a corpse from a zombie movie. ‘But if don’t want to end up like him, we need to get out of the blast zone.’

  Lydia scampered for safety with Jonah on her tail - literally. Her hearing and eyesight were magnified to levels she could barely process. She glanced over her shoulder as the alien exploded from Don’s skin. Blood and gore splattered against the walls and ceiling, and Jonah tried his best to cover her from the impact. The desquamater stood in the centre of the room and raised its ugly, humanoid head. The segmented plates on its arms and legs clicked as it advanced towards her.

  ‘Your husband begged for his life,’ it hissed. ‘Now you will beg for yours.’

  The scent of blood stoked Lydia’s fury. Her survival instincts kicked in and she knew if she didn’t kill this alien, it would kill her and the rest of her family. Using all four of her legs, she pounced but collided with its hard, scaly body and fell to the floor again.

  Jonah morphed into his jaktten form; a truly magnificent sight now she was on equal footing. His silvery fur stood on end, as he prepared to fight.

  ‘Go for its neck,’ Jonah instructed. ‘Less protection there.’

  He charged at the alien, knocking it from its feet so she could leap onto its chest. She tried to bite through the thick skin on its collarbone, but using her mouth to fight didn’t come naturally and the desquamater punched her in the stomach. She whimpered and the sound seemed to send Jonah crazy. He attacked the alien with his claws, opening up the skin between the armoured plates and drawing blood.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what your husband’s final words were?’ the desquamater taunted. ‘If I die, you’ll never know if he left this world loving or hating you.’

  Jonah didn’t slow his attack and soon her kitchen floor was covered with the alien’s blood. He fastened his mouth around the desquamater’s windpipe and with several swift jerks of his head, he ripped out its throat. He morphed back to his human form and gathered her into his arms.

  ‘Breathe,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I’ve got you. Just breathe. He was only saying that stuff to mess with your head.’

  Bile swirled at the back of her throat, as she inhaled and exhaled to keep from vomiting. She reached up and covered her mouth with her hand and then recoiled.

  ‘I have hands,’ she exclaimed. ‘How do I have hands again?’

  ‘The moment the desquamater died, you shifted back,’ Jonah replied. ‘Didn’t you feel it?

  She shook her head and examined her naked body for any lasting mutations.

  ‘Has the tail gone? Please tell me the tail has gone.’

  Jonah slid his hand across her bare bottom. ‘Yes, it’s gone, but we have bigger problems than your tail. ISCU are incoming. What’s our story?’

  ‘Don’t tell them I shifted,’ she said. ‘Chief Melman will put me inside a cage. Or worse, he’s superiors will force me to spend the rest of my life as a test subject in some underground laboratory.’

  Jonah stood up and pulled her to her feet. He picked up his discarded clothing from the floor and handed her his shirt. It was long enough to cover her modesty if she didn’t move too much. He slid on his trousers and fastened his belt.

  ‘I’ll kill anyone that tries to take you away from me,’ he said, pulling her in for a kiss just as Carson and Blake entered the kitchen.

  ‘Geez, it stinks like rotten meat in here,’ Carson said, clearly unfazed at finding two half-naked people standing beside a dead alien. ‘What the hell happened?’

  Lydia tilted her head back and looked up into Jonah’s eyes.

  ‘We killed a desquamater.’

  51

  Lydia sat on the sofa with her feet curled underneath her. Carson had thoughtfully draped a grey blanket over her shoulders, silently signalling a truce between the two women. She’d also agreed not to mention Jonah’s involvement as long as he disappeared before the cleaning crew arrived. He hadn’t wanted to leave, but Lydia knew the other ISCU agents would be more interested in him than the dead desquamater if he stayed.

  As if confirming her suspicions, Matt Sheridan entered the room. His giant frame filled the doorway and his dark stare seemed to penetrate the flimsy façade she was trying to hold together.

  ‘You killed that thing.’

  There was a hint of a question in his statement and she nodded.

  ‘Ripped his throat out.’

  Again she nodded.

  ‘Did you use your teeth?’

  This time it was a blatant accusation and she lowered her eyes. Under the blanket, she was wearing only a white paper smock, similar to a hospital gown but less comfortable, as her clothing, or rather Jonah’s shirt had been taken as evidence. Lydia reached out and picked up her cup from the coffee table. Her hand shook, causing little drops to spill over the side as she sipped the tepid liquid.

  ‘I didn’t use my teeth,’ she finally replied.

  Sheridan smirked, as he ran a hand over his shaved head.

  ‘I was being flippant,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’

  He knelt down beside the sofa and she had no choice but to meet his eyes again.

  ‘I’ve been killing aliens for
years,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m glad there’s one less piece of scum on this planet, but if you’re covering for Blake and Carson in anyway, you can tell me.’

  Lydia frowned. ‘I’m not covering for them.’

  The look he gave her suggested he thought the opposite, but thankfully Adam came into the room and saved her from saying any more.

  ‘Hey, Lydia,’ he said gently. ‘I’m sorry to ask you to move, but we need to process this room next.’

  ‘I understand.’

  She put her cup down and got to her feet, ensuring the blanket stayed firmly wrapped around her shoulders. It felt surreal to be on the other side of a crime scene and it took all her resolve not to interfere, but she knew she needed to play the role of victim a little longer in order to satisfy Sheridan’s curiosity.

  ‘I want to see my kids,’ she said. ‘Have they been asking for me?’

  Sheridan stood up and held out his hand. ‘They’re safe with your neighbour. I’ll take you to them.’

  Lydia hesitantly put her hand in his and allowed him to lead her from the room.

  ‘Wait up, Sheridan,’ Adam called after them. ‘Chief Melman sent an alert to all agents about a possible lead on a missing girl.’

  Sheridan released Lydia’s hand and checked his communicator and cursed.

  ‘I’m sorry. I have to go back to HQ.’

  ‘That’s ok. I wasn’t expecting a babysitter.’

  ‘You don’t need a babysitter, Lydia. You proved tonight you have what it takes to defend yourself, but you and your children have been through a terrible ordeal. You might need someone to lean on when the shock catches up with you or the nightmares stop you sleeping.’

  ‘Why are you being nice to me?’

  Sheridan’s eyes darkened. ‘I’ve been called many things, but never nice.’

  ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘So am I.’

  She remained silent and he eventually sighed.

  ‘Maybe if someone had reached out to me after my grandfather’s murder, I wouldn’t still be carrying this ravenous rage around with me.’

  ‘It’s not too late to talk to someone.’