Fire in the Woods (27 page)

One of the long, black floating ovals slowed and hovered above me. The glossy exterior spun, silent amongst the ensuing commotion. The surface rolled. Its hull shined like the patent leather shoes I used to wear for dance class.

“Hey,” I waved my arms. “You up there. Come out. David’s over here!”

The hull shimmered. The ship’s underside molded itself like animated play dough, teasing and kneading into a myriad of shapes. Light filled a hole centered in the flexing clay. Thousands of stars shifted and coalesced inside, forming into one solid sparkling band. My lips formed into an “O”, my mind allured by the light’s beauty.

“Owe!” A blinding pulse shot from the ship. I shut my eyes, but it hardly seemed to help. When my lashes fluttered open, swirls of white effervescence imprisoned me. My gaze trailed upward, and I grabbed my throat when I realized I couldn’t breathe. A piercing screech blotted out all other sound, filling my ears with brash resonance. I opened my lips to cry for help, and whimpered as what little air inside my lungs sucked out, stolen…propelled toward the light source.

I fell to my knees, holding my neck, struggling for a breath of non-existent air. The tarmac gravel bit into my cheek, and I realized I’d collapsed. The light became transparent and turned orange. Through its pulsing screen, hazy visions of soldiers falling and clawing at their chests seemed distant, unimportant.

My cheeks heated. My back stung. My body shook. Dread beyond measure wrenched a hole in my heart.

I’d failed, and as punishment, I would be the first victim of the scourge.

A heavy weight pressed me to the ground. Out of air, I had no energy to fight it. My mind whirled.

My first time horseback riding. Mom laughing on the Snow White ride at Disney World. Dad telling Grandma I never think of anyone but myself. Driving down Route 42 before waking up in the hospital. Mom laughing at my third-grade play. The look on Dad’s face when he told me she was dead.

My cheek scraped across the gravel. My body lifted, and strong hands flung me onto my back.

“Breathe Jess!” David’s voice filled my mind, circling and weaving around memories of camping in Delaware when I was eleven. “Breathe!”

I opened my lips and inhaled. My lungs filled. I blinked, and the world came into focus. Soldiers littered the runway, scrabbling, crawling—trying to escape the lights. The pressure continued to hold me down.

“J-just k-keep br-reathing.” David’s face came into focus above me. His lips stretched in a grimace.

I reached up to touch his cheeks. My hands singed as the orange sheen touched them.

“No,” he said. “K-keep under m-me.”

I drew my hands back, and placed them on his chest. David trembled, holding himself over my body, shielding me from the light. Dark fluid seeped from his ear, and dripped to my face.

Tears blurred my vision. “David, is this the scourge?”

His lips formed a straight line. Fear, terror, and pain coalesced in his eyes, igniting a dread inside me far more horrible than anything the suffocating light could manifest. He clenched his teeth, straining against a scream.

His body shook. His eyes glassed over, becoming less blue.

I choked back the fist of terror punching through my chest. “David! No, David!”

The weave of his sweatshirt liquefied, raising into the air and disappearing into the light. The remaining fabric from the front of his shirt fell into my hands. My mother’s necklace, free of the sweatshirt, fell down and dangled near my chin, the etching of the cross glinting in the light.

David glanced up, grunted, and returned his gaze to me. His left cheek smoldered, pearly lilac skin showing through a melted elliptic hole in his human skin.

His eyes opened wide, horror dripping from them as his gaze focused on me. “I—I’m s-sorry, Jessss.” His eyes faded to gray.

“No!”

The searing buzz around us ended in a resounding bass thud as the orange light disappeared. David collapsed on my chest, wheezing.

I reached my arms around his neck and touched damp heat. Steam rose from his exposed violet skin. I lifted my hand and shuddered. Indigo fluids dripped from my fingers.

“Is that blood? David, are you bleeding?”

David closed his eyes. The oval of exposed Erescopian skin glinted on his left cheek, the surrounding human skin hung in melted waxy globs. He groaned and leaned off me.

“David? David!” Tears streamed down my face.

I smoothed back my hair, my gaze meeting Bobby’s at the edge of the runway. The trees behind him cast an eerie glow from the fires both on the field and within the brush. His blank expression remained fixed on me as the pole and noose that had held David cascaded from his hand and bounced on the pavement.

Despite orders, Bobby had let David go, but the hurt in his eyes riddled my heart. He told me once that he’d always love me. I never believed him until that very moment.

David moaned, and I touched his cheek. “David, please…”

Holding my fingers over the burned flesh on his jaw, I brushed his other cheek with mine and kissed his forehead.

“David, I’m here.”

Bobby’s eyes lowered as he backed into the trees.

“Bobby, wait!”

I leaned up, but David stirred beside me.

“David?”

His eyes fluttered open. Blue. They were blue again.

“Thank God.” I kissed his cheeks, his eyes.

He smiled at me, straining as if it took the last of his energy. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“You saved me.” I brushed the hair from his forehead.

“Yeah, well, now you can call us even.”

I leaned away, grabbing my forehead. “I thought we were dead.”

David frowned and turned up onto an elbow. “I don’t know why we’re not.” He ran his thumb across my cheek. “I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

Strong fingers reaching from behind lifted me to my feet.

Dad’s arms enveloped me inside a hug. “I thought I lost you again.”

I relished his embrace, not remembering the last time he’d held me. “I’m okay, Dad.” I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and turned. “Dad, this is David.”

Officer Jerk dragged David to his feet. David winced, not fighting him at all. The jerk’s swollen red nose caught the light as he lifted the noose toward David’s head.

“No.” My father snatched it from his hand.

“What are you…” Officer Jerk gaped as Dad broke the noose over one knee.

Soldiers crawled out from the smoldering wreckage throughout the field, all eyes fixed on the sky.

David stumbled to my side and placed his arm around my shoulder. I braced myself, holding his weight as he leaned on me. The edges of his human skin along his back steamed, glistening like hot wax before it dries. His alien skin, now exposed, wept dark shiny ooze. I shivered, knowing he’d nearly sacrificed himself to save me.

My father threw the pieces of the noose to the ground, and hesitantly approached.

He stared at David for a moment. “You look like you’ve seen better days, soldier.”

David laughed, and his chest buckled with a wince. “That’s a bit of an understatement, sir.”

Dad put out his hand. “Thank you for saving my daughter.”

David glanced at my father’s hand, his expression blank.

“You’re supposed to shake his hand,” I said.

“Sorry.” David reached out his left hand, and shook the back of my father’s fingers rather than grasping his palm. Dad pretended not to notice.

A deep hum filtered through the airfields. The trees shook as dozens of huge, gleaming black ovals descended. They hovered, sparkling in the lights shining on them from jeeps and hand-held spotlights below.

I cowered beside David. “Are those nice, friendly, pick-you-up kind of ships, or mean nasty blow-us-up kind of ships?”

David flinched. “Those are the blow-you-up kind.”

“Great Lord in Heaven,” my father whispered, moving closer to me as more vessels appeared.

The ships hung like huge molten raindrops in the sky, as if someone had melted millions of black pearls, poured them into oblong lakes, and then rendered them weightless. The amorphous, liquefied masses contorted until slow waterfalls of shiny ebony drizzled from each craft, shifting and shimmering in the moonlight. The glinting and flexing cascades solidified as they touched the tarmac. Each filled into a dense rectangular pole, attaching respective liquescent masses to the ground.

A slice of light burst from the base of the first waterfall, followed by another and another. The landing strip pulsed in their amber glow as golden lights drew upward, illuminating the waterfalls and spreading until each pole shone brighter than a lighthouse beacon.

David’s grip on me tightened as dark figures appeared inside the lights. Long, lean, lavender Erescopians glided from the ships one at a time. Each held a silver saucer not much larger than their hands. As they touched the blacktop, they raised the instruments, pointing the shiny disks outward.

Across the field, human soldiers scrambled, readying weapons and taking cover behind any debris they could find. Dad stood beside David and me: tall, secure and serious. Major Tomás Martinez calculated the situation, while the man I knew as my father reached out and slid a comforting hand around my wrist.

David leaned toward my ear. “Stay beside me. No matter what, you don’t leave my side.”

More ships disseminated above the field, dropping black waterfalls below them.

My stomach tingled while my heart fluttered. “Where would I go?”

The aliens scattered themselves around us. They seemed to take no heed to the crouching and hiding soldiers. Their forms glided with each step, almost majestic in their gait. Violescent from bare head to toe, their bodies showed darker purple splotches in indiscernible patterns that seemed unique to each being.

My grip on David’s arm tightened as a few of his people came closer. While quite manly from a human perspective, I couldn’t tell if any of them were male or female. A tremor ran down my spine. The skin where their legs met seemed smooth and devoid of sexual organs. Glancing at David, I couldn’t help but wonder: did they have sexes where he came from?

One of the aliens touched his turquoise gaze to mine before turning his attention back to the ships as another Erescopian stepped out. The being appeared no different from the rest, but his bold carriage held him above the others as he moved past his predecessors. His eyes fixed on us. His gait quickened as silver-disk-carrying alien soldiers flanked him.

“What’s so special about this guy?” I asked.

David tensed. “He’s their commander.”

The being stopped less than a foot from David. Grimacing as he arched his back, David tried to stand taller. The commander’s bottom lip quivered before he reached out and pulled David into his arms, muttering something in a melodic dialect.

“
Oagnaribysso, oxhamata, est
.” The sound of David’s voice speaking the strange words startled me.

The alien touched David’s back. Dark liquid stained his hand. He showed the bloody tint to David.

A slight shrug brought a frown to David’s face as he uttered another series of words in the odd tongue.

The commander’s eyes quavered before he clamped David into another embrace. He whispered into David’s ear. The gesture seemed extremely intimate, even for an alien culture. The two closest Erescopian guards looked away, almost as if giving them privacy.

A flush of understanding overcame me. Could this alien be David’s father?

David leaned away. “
Xaqnon oxhamata. Oate zeplurs opoluus zmecit est
.” He pointed at my father before rattling off another series of foreign words, his eyes both pleading and hopeful.

My mind whirled, taking in their musical speech. The entrancing tones enlivened my senses, while the curious side of me itched…wishing I knew what they were saying to each other, especially when David’s tenor became anxious, unsure, and panicked.

After a brief interchange, David shook his fists and spoke with a harshness I’d never heard from him.

The commander’s eyes narrowed. The being’s gaze fixed on me before his hand darted out and snatched my wrist, hoisting me into the air.

My skin burned beneath his touch. “Ouch!”

Dad reached for his gun. Eight silver disks rose in Erescopian grips and shined on his face.

“No!” David raised his hand. “Jess’s father, please put your weapon away.”

“What is he doing?” Dad asked.

A hiss escaped David’s father’s lips as he shook me. My shoulder stretched, threatening to pop from its socket.

“Stop hurting her,” Dad screamed, moving toward us.

David yanked him back. “They don’t believe you are a thinking, feeling race. You need to prove it.”

The burning deepened. I imagined my muscles tearing. “Daddy?” I said, unable to force out another word.

Dad’s face contorted. He holstered his gun and dropped to his knees. His gaze lowered. “Please. Please don’t hurt my daughter. I love her, I need her, and I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to her.” He raised his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, carving a crevice into my soul. How long had it been since I’d seen him cry?

My toes hit the ground, releasing some of the strain on my arm, but the commander’s grip remained firm. He reached out with his other hand, and brushed a tear from Dad’s cheek. He rubbed the dampness between his fingers. All I could do was pray that tears had the same meaning in their culture.

David fell to his knees beside Dad and whispered a string of harmonious words. His eyes softened, pleaded, yearned for acceptance.

I balanced on my tip-toes, trying to find sure footing. Struggling for any positive sign, I held my breath, both terrified and encouraged by the hopeful yet acquiescent expression on David’s face.

The grasp on my wrist slackened, and I slipped gently to the ground. Relief charged me as I reached for my father and helped him to his feet. I hugged him, burying my face in his neck.

His grip tightened around me. Warm emotion coursed through our embrace. This kind of affection had been lost between us since Mom died. I slipped deeper into his hold, realizing these feelings had always been there. We just needed to reach for them.