The Once-Dead Girl

by Laer Carroll

  Or tried to. The shapechanger landed on him. The force of her body leaping from 30 feet away drove him to the concrete. He screamed as he skidded, broken, his flesh abrading.

  Her two fists lashed out, crushing the faces of the two men who held the woman captive. She wilted as their bodies bounced off the wall at their back and fell. The shapechanger caught her, put her into a coma, and gently laid her onto the dusty street.

  A club crashed down on Bethany’s head. A knife struck her back. The only thing the club did was bounce. The knife, stopped by flesh as hard as tire rubber, turned in a man’s hand.

  She turned toward the two men. Her face was black as night and showed a high gloss like plastic. The visible parts of her body were the same hard shell. Her eyes glowed red.

  The two men screamed, dropped their weapons, and turned to flee.

  To no avail. Steel-hard hands with claw tips grabbed each by the neck. The monster crushed their wind pipes. Death was not quick as it was shown in movies. They struggled to get air, clawed at the vises gripping their necks. The odor of piss and shit rose into the air.

  The monster released them, turned to the three downed men. The man with his pants around his legs was looking up at her in horror from ten feet away.

  She plodded to him. He tried to scream, say something. She plunged claws into his gut and pulled his intestines out. He died but not quickly.

  The monster was not done. Savagely but methodically it pulled the men apart, arms and legs and heads from bodies, hands and feet from limbs, throwing each out of the alley into the dim, deserted street.

  Blood was everywhere, on the monster and her clothes, on the woman.

  That stopped her. She could not let the woman wake like this. A moment’s thought made a plan.

  Bethany’s skin melted back to that of a human. She strode to a wall and extended a hand. A bright blue torch flicked on and she burned deep into the stone a message in Spanish.

  RAPE IS A CAPITAL OFFENSE - THE WEREWOLF.

  Taking up the woman’s limp body she called her bubble and rose into the sky.

  Atop a department store building she lay down the woman, made her as comfortable as she could. The night was warm and humid. The woman was safe.

  Bethany opened an access door to the building, went in, found a bathroom with lockers and a shower. She removed her clothing, burnt it to dust, and showered. Then naked she found the women’s clothing department. Light shown dim but that did not balk her senses. She took clothing from shelves, enough for herself and the woman. She dressed herself.

  From another shelf she took towels. In a washroom she soaked some of the towels, kept others dry.

  Bearing her burdens in shopping bags she returned to the woman, carefully undressed her and cleaned her up, dried off her body, and struggled to put the clothes on without injuring her. This was not an easy task.

  She found the woman’s address in her purse but could not make sense of it. She did not know this city.

  So she woke the woman.

  The woman struggled awake. Then, remembering, lay still and looked all about from a prone position, saw Bethany sitting cross-legged ten feet away.

  Beth said gently in Spanish, “Are you OK?”

  Silence answered her. Then the woman spoke.

  “Yes. What happened?”

  “You were attacked. I dealt with the men and brought you here. What do you remember?”

  She remembered the one man forcing her face toward his “ thing” but nothing thereafter.

  “You’ll never have to worry about them again. That is, if their attack was random. Did they pick you out specifically?”

  “No. They were strangers. I was taking a shortcut home. I was stupid. Who are you?”

  “A traveler. I’m not human. You can think me an angel of sorts. Now, I need to take you home. Where do you live?”

  She did not want anything to do with Bethany, at first. The shapechanger had to use biochemical persuasion and patient argument to get the woman to accept her help. But at last she put her arms around Bethany’s neck and only cried out a bit when the shapechanger rose slowly into the sky. After a time she even peeked at the scenery below in wonder.

  The apartment building in which the woman lived had roof access. Bethany floated down beside the boxy entrance way, released the bubble, and plunked down to the roof surface. She held the woman up until she became steady on her feet.

  “One last thing. I’ve fixed your body so that you will never get sick again. That will not make up for your ordeal. But at least you come away from with some gain.

  “Now, have good life.”

  “Wait!” She kissed Beth’s cheek and fled into the stairwell.

  ·

  Bethany quit “patrolling” the world after the massacre. She was deeply ashamed. She had nightmares.

  ·

  During the Easter holiday she went to the Moon.

  She took a bus on the first leg of her journey. At a Quik Pik she bought a foam picnic basket and half-filled it with ice. The rest of it she filled with sandwiches, drinks, and other snacks.

  She also took an empty milk carton to pee in if she needed to. She did not expect to need to. Her shapechanger body did not pee much. What to an ordinary human body were impurities her body thriftily secreted away for some extraordinary use. Excess water expired from her skin.

  A few blocks away she walked down a narrow alley between two tall buildings. Halfway down it she disappeared. Only a mild swirl of wind was left behind.

  The stargirl rose straight up, invisible to eyes and radar. The basket floated beside her. She had found that anything near her when the bubble came on stayed with her, up to several tons of material. The robot was very smart about what to include or not. The side of a building would be left behind. An automobile if not too heavy would come with her.

  Her speed steadily increased. Clouds rushed down and engulfed her in greyness. For only a moment. She was already moving hundreds of miles an hour. Then she burst into bright day, blue sky above her, snow white clouds below her.

  The Earth revealed its curves. Far to the east some of those clouds piled high. In them spider-web flickers of light heralded lightning inside a massive storm system.

  The sky became dark blue, then black. The Earth was now a ball. It was early morning, so a crescent of black to the west showed where night still covered the Pacific Ocean and the world beyond.

  Free of the last vestiges of atmosphere there was no brake on the bubble’s speed. In a few seconds the Moon grew larger and rushed toward her. An idle query to the robot told her she was moving at a quarter of the speed of light.

  Now where was the nearest Lagrange point? There , said the robot, but not in words. The shapechanger knew what it meant as surely as she knew where an ear was.

  Stop . And the bubble did. Instantly.

  Approach it . Implicit in the command was a directive to slow as she did so.

  The Lagrange point closest to the Moon was filled with junk. Boulders the size of asteroids. Fragments smaller. Smaller still. To the size of gravel.

  Clustered around it were spidery machines. Most of them created in place out of the raw materials of the space junk. Three machines were white arrowheads, aerospace ships made and launched from Earth from the four nations with large-scale space flight.

  Bethany eased closer. Approached some of the spidery machines. Watched people work in suits and small and larger robot-like suits. And actual robots, controlled remotely by people in four large habitats positioned around the junk/treasure given to the people of Earth by some mysterious alien or aliens about 30 years ago.

  She approached one of the arrowheads. Spiraled around it. This one had emblazoned on two sides cryptic numbers and letters and the gold and blue Argentine flag. She wondered if any of those inside it could do the tango.

  Probably not. Tango was newly popular these last dozen years in the country from which it sprang. But it was still a minority folk dance.

&n
bsp; Time passed. Bethany wandered freely about the Lagrange area, watching the people and robots work, wondering what life was like for them. She opened the foam basket and took out a sandwich and a juice drink, ate and drank them down, did the same twice more. This was a bit tricky, because the juice wanted to flow out of the bottle. She followed it with five apples and a pear and a quart of milk.

  Curiosity satisfied she moved away from the area and directed her bubble toward the Moon.

  Now where was the American Moon Base? There . And in less than a second so was she. Out of atmosphere her bubble had no need to accelerate slowly.

  From 500 feet up the base was unimpressive. A few small outbuildings surrounded a mound of moon dirt and rocks up to the size of boulders. Underneath that was the habitat, large as a small town, an international effort, and with most of the amenities of a small town.

  She’d heard that a truly global culture was being created here. But so far it was in the very early stages.

  For moments she pondered how she could get inside. The robot told her of several ways. But even the sneakiest would reveal that a stranger had come calling.

  Time to go home. But she wanted to complete her trip with a visit to the Lagrange point farthest from the Earth. It was on the opposite side of the Moon, directly in line with the Earth.

  For a few seconds the surface of the Moon seemed to spin madly below her. Then it fell away and she was approaching another jumble of rocks. The human machines attending it were noticeably fewer. But there were some. Including another arrowhead-shaped aerospace ship.

  Bethany contemplated the area for several minutes but found no impulse to explore it.

  In seconds her bubble turned and rushed around the Moon to dive toward the Earth. To slow near it from a quarter of the speed of light to almost zero.

  Bethany floated there for long minutes. Looking at the cradle of the human race. She felt distanced from it by more than space.

  She was a superhuman. A human and more, holding inside her parts of the souls (or at least memories) of several dozen aliens.

  The loneliness was like a dagger in her heart .

  Then a thought sent her plunging downward, tearing the atmosphere into a whirlpool of air behind her as she fled for home.

  ·

  For a time Bethany retreated back into her human persona. She walked or biked or rode everywhere. She was extra attentive in class and practiced cheer routines almost obsessively. She contrived to see her friends every day of the week, at lunch at the very least. She persuaded them to meet at the mall on the Saturday after Easter for a shopping spree and lunch at the gourmet burger place in the outdoor mall next to the indoor mall.

  She got them to go first to Gay Paree for party dresses. Gerard of course went along to offer snarky comments and occasional good advice. They usually took the advice. The reputation of gays as esthetes might be stereotypical but it was true in his case. Only Brigitte could challenge his expertise successfully.

  She ended up buying three outfits including matching shoes and clutch purses. The others were more circumspect, including Lihua and Naomi whose credit cards had no limits. They never flouted their advantages.

  “Why do you need so many dresses?” Gerard asked as they sat down in the restaurant, arranging their bags around one side of the table out of traffic.

  “For tango. I’m really getting into it.”

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” said Gerard in a confidential aside to Brigitte. She nodded with a smirk.

  They acted as if they were going steady, Bethany thought. They always had, from the day they’d met as Freshmen. Sometimes she wondered about the dynamics, but had never come to a conclusion. That was just the way her two friends were.

  Lee and Naomi said almost in unison. “Sex.”

  “Yes,” said Gerard. “She’s in lust with some gorgy tango dancer.”

  Turning to Brigitte he said, “We’ll have to go with her next time and discover this Lothario.”

  Lee and Naomi said, again like echoes of each other. “We all will.”

  They turned expectantly to Bethany.

  She blinked. But she was not a loss for long.

  “OK. But first you have to learn how to do the tango.”

  There was a chorus of protests. But she was adamant. She was going to teach them the basics at, hmm, Lee’s place tomorrow. And they’d practice evenings.

  And so it was that Beth skipped Carlos Selaya’s milonga that Sunday evening. And four beautiful girls and a beautiful guy showed up at the next one.

  The Argentine Association was less than a mile from Burbank High. Inside Bethany paid her $10 entrance fee and stood aside while the others did the same.

  Carlos came up to her as they did so. He kissed her hand and said, “Bonita Bethany, we missed you.”

  “I’ve been busy with a school project.” (She gotten so easy at quick lies, she thought.) “And this last week I’ve been teaching my friends the basics.”

  “Then we’ll have a quick review at the beginning of the class.” He smiled at the quartet behind Bethany and walked quickly to talk to his wife and dance partner. It was well to court such a bounty of possible students.

  The fireteam took seats at a large round table at a corner of the ballroom, which was large but not so large it dwarfed the usual hundred or so dancers who usually attended. Beth greeted the several men and women who came up to her table, rising to kiss and hug them and say a few words to each. She also smiled at the two couples already seated at the table, whom she knew only by sight.

  “Speaking of gorgy tango dancers,” said Gerard to Brigitte, looking meaningfully at Carlos across the room greeting more guests.

  “No, too obvious,” said Naomi. Lee said, “He’ll come late and sweep into the room. Every woman’s eyes will be upon him. And some men’s.” She looked up at Gerard from under her long lashes. He pointedly ignored her.

  Brigitte just smiled. She was looking her usual almost shockingly beautiful self, all pale skin in an elegant white gown, golden hair tumbled in glossy curls over one shoulder. Blue eyes and barely pink lips added their ethereal touches to the picture.

  Nor were any of her other friends hardly less decorative. Naomi wore shades of gold on her lithe athletic body, her closely cropped hair revealing a boldly angled face which would not have shamed Nefertiti. Lihua was in red and gold that contrasted with her lightly tanned skin and cherry red lipstick. Gerard was very handsome in a simple black suit and purple tie over a lavender shirt. His shoes glistened.

  Soon the class started. True to his promise Carlos reviewed the basics, then taught a mildly difficult “step” and then an advanced one. Periodically he had the students switch partners; he and his wife occasionally filled in to correct a problem.

  At the end of the hour-long class the dancing began. Bethany smilingly turned down several dances to make sure her friends were having a good time. Seeing that they were she began to accept dance partners. As usual the tangos came in sets of four similar musical numbers and she danced the entire set with each partner.

  As the evening progressed she lost herself in the music and the sensations, checking on her friends between sets. Finding them happy she let herself get lost again.

  Afterwards they stopped off at Frank’s Family Restaurant for snacks or coffees or both. The next day was a school day but it was only 10:20, not too late even for Gerard whose parents did not allow him out after 11:00.

  “Well,” said Gerard. “I didn’t see any candidates for her sexy boyfriend. We must have missed him. We’ll have to go back next Sunday.”

  “Not me,” said Naomi. “I see the appeal but it’s not for me.”

  Lihua felt the same way. But Brigitte surprised Bethany.

  “I’d like that. There’s something about this dance…” She stared off toward something far away.

  Gerard nodded. Bethany could not tell if he felt the same way or if he was following Brigitte’s lead as he so often did.

>   Serious for once Gerard spoke to Beth. “I’ve always known you’re an athlete. But you amazed me tonight. You are not just good. You are God-damned terrific.”

  Beth had never heard him curse.

  She actually flushed with the pleasure of the compliment. Even though she knew her expertise was the result of an unearthly gift.

  Lee was staring at Bethany, a slight frown on her face.

  “I watched you for a while. Your movements were so precise but easy I could believe you’d been doing this dance all your life. But you just started it, what, four months ago?”

  Beth felt herself squirming in her seat. Though only a moment before her shapechanger self-control squelched it.

  “It’s all those ballet and modern dance classes I did as a kid. And ever since. I HAVE been dancing all my life. Tango is just another dance.”

  “I took all those classes too. With you. And I’m good. But not that good. You are almost supernatural.”

  This was getting too close to the truth. She smiled at Lee.

  “Why, thank you! But this is getting embarrassing. Let’s change the subject.”

  Gerard and Lee didn’t want to. But Bethany quit reacting to their comments. Finally Naomi and Brigitte told them to quit nagging at her.

  Shortly afterward it was time to go.

  ·

  Dropped off at her home Bethany went inside. Her mother and step-father were watching a replay of ice dancing from last month’s Winter Olympics. He switched the TV to freeze-frame and turned on the couch to face her. Her mother stood up and came around to hug her, then to put her at arm’s length.

  “My, don’t you look terrific.”

  “You like it?” She did a turn that swirled her dancing dress up around her legs, then fell into a model’s pose she’d seen Brigitte do during one of her modeling gigs at the L.A. Spring Fashion Show.

  “Very much. Do I detect some of Gerard’s tastes?”

  “He did make some suggestions. But there’s a lady who comes to the tango dances who’s really into clothing. She has a whole room full of dresses and shoes and everything. I take advice from her.”

  “We’ll have to go sometimes, just to see what you’re up to.”