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 alien 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.
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Have Teeth, Will Bite
(Prologue)
by LD Marr,
a pen name for Trisha McNary
Copyright © 2019 Trisha McNary
Published by Trisha McNary
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
London at midnight, 1886.
The tavern door blew open, letting in chill wind and an even colder customer. Natasha, a voluptuous blonde spilling out of a lightweight black cloak, stepped in. The door slammed shut.
The bartender looked up and frowned. He met Natasha’s gaze across the smoky, dim-lit distance. Then he turned away fast and began furiously wiping the rough wood bar.
Natasha sniffed the air, and her red lips curled up. She wove toward the bar through mostly empty tables with a strange sinuous grace for a woman so large.
When she reached one end of the bar, Natasha began to walk along its length. One by one, she scanned the occupants of each stool. In turn, they met her eyes, and she moved on, leaving the mark of varying degrees of nervousness or fear on their faces.
Finally, Natasha found an appealing target. She stopped at the side of a young pale-haired man. A roughly dressed workingman—big-boned, baby-faced, and reeking of innocence and purity. Natasha glanced once at the older man on the next stool, and he silently vacated it.
She sat down and tossed off her cape, drawing the young workman’s eyes to flowing blonde curls that brushed overflowing cleavage. Her impossibly tight girdle created an hourglass figure with a tiny waist. Not having to breathe had its benefits.
Natasha stared into the young man’s eyes. He seemed nervous, but he couldn’t break away from her gaze.
His pale skin became paler and somewhat clammy. She heard his heart rate speed up, and his breathing become fast and shallow.
“I am Natasha,” she purred. “And you are?”
“I am Sam,” he answered in the toneless voice of a person under compulsion.
“Come along, Sam.”
Natasha rose from her stool in one smooth motion and glided out of the bar. She didn’t stop to pick up her cloak from the floor. It was just a bothersome disguise anyway. Natasha didn’t feel the cold, but her husband, Dr. Vandergreest, insisted she wear it. Why go to so much trouble anyway? It wasn’t as if these people had the power to do anything to her even if they suspected what she really was.
Her husband’s tiresome rules were hard to live with—or be undead with—so much of the time. Was it any wonder that she needed a little fun in the evenings?
A black carriage waited in front of the tavern. The black-cloaked coachman and two enormous black horses blended into the night’s dark shadows.
On Natasha’s approach, the coachman climbed down from his seat and opened the carriage door. Sam had followed her out as commanded. Natasha turned to him. Sweat dripped down his face in the icy-cold London night. She lifted a pale, shapely arm and gestured toward the complete blackness within the open carriage.
“Get inside. I hunger!” she ordered.
Now Sam began to moan, but his feet took slow, shaking steps forward as if against his will.
Natasha sighed her irritation. Her victims didn’t usually resist her supernatural charms.
“Can you speed it up? I haven’t got all night,” she said. “Or you don’t anyway.”
Finally, after a most annoying delay, he climbed the steps to the carriage and got in. Natasha flowed up after him, and the coachman shut the door behind her.
Later that evening.
In comfortable chair by the fire, Dr. Vandergre
est waited with tireless patience for his wife’s return. Just after 3:00 a.m., he heard her enter the door to their townhouse, two floors below. When he heard the sound of her attempting to creep past his sitting room, he called out to her.
“Ah, my dear, you have returned. I have not seen you these long hours. Please join me for a few minutes before you retire.”
A pause in which he knew she was trying to think of some excuse. The ever-so-light sound of wiping. Then the door opened, and her beautiful blonde head peeked through.
“Come in, come in. I would see your lovely face this night,” the doctor insisted.
Natasha approached slowly, her face stained with guilt and microscopic blood cells.
“Tut, tut. There is blood on your face again, my dear! And it is the blood of the innocent!”
He sighed a huge sigh.
“I thought we had reached an agreement about the need to control your cravings. That you understood that preying on the pure of heart draws attention—negative attention that might be hard to deal with. But it appears that you have turned a deaf ear to reason.”
Another sigh.
“I have grown sick of your rules!” Natasha answered with spunk and defiance. “I am a powerful being, and I will take what I want. And what I do not want is the foul-tasting nasty blood of evildoers and criminals. I hunger for sweet delicious blood! Why should I starve myself because you are a coward?”
“But my dear,” answered the doctor, “you are certainly not starving. You are consuming much more blood than you need.”
“Huh! How dare you!” Natasha sputtered and fumed.
“Hark!” said Dr. Vandergreest. “I hear the shuffle of many feet approaching, the sound of shouts, the crackle and smell of burning torches!”
The base of a felled tree boomed against the downstairs door.
“Protect me!” cried Natasha.
“Au revoir, my darling,” said Dr. Vandergreest.
Then he lightly kissed her lips and disappeared.
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A note from Trisha
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Lost in Space. Please email me at [email protected] if you would like to be on my mailing list.
May your world one day know peace,
Trisha
Table of Contents
About Lost in Space
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Excerpt
Prologue
Lost in Space Page 9
