“Maggie's dead?” Levi stood small against the gray sky and the luminous flying saucer above them. He looked straight at Brad, unblinking. The others...it wasn't that he didn't care about them, he did, they just didn't seem quite so real, like characters he had made.
Brad breathed heavily and nodded.
“Let's get out of here,” Linh bounced with anxiety as the four of them stood around at the end of the drive. Pathik reached for Levi's arm and slid his fingers along the underside of his palm, intertwining them with Levi's. Pathik gripped tightly and tugged.
“Let's go,” Pathik said with urgency. It was suddenly so cold outside. The four of them stood and shivered.
“You saw her die?” Levi pulled his hand out from Pathik's and crossed his arms, holding close to himself against the wind.
“Yeah, I..saw it,” Brad stepped forward towards Levi. “I had to get out of there, you understand.”
Levi looked up at the immense ship above them. It looked photoshopped into the familiar landscape. Its edges were sharp and thin where it tapered out. The bulk of it shimmered in the overcast light of midday, as if flickering in and out of a camouflage grayness. It was parked, so to speak, above the back parking lot and adjacent alleyway between the other business park warehouses, and it cast a faint gloom over the dock and the drive and the front of Miller Industrial.
“I don't understand any of it.”
Linh looked frantically over at Pathik who hadn't moved from where Levi pulled away from him. She looked between the three of them and silently urged them all to turn and run. She was seconds away from bolting when a quick angry glance from Brad held her still. He could probably catch her.
“Levi,” Pathik began.
“I don't understand any of it!” Levi shouted. “You all see that's a fucking space ship right!?” Levi gestured wildly into the air and gaped at the ship above them. His eyes widened and he almost short circuited in the overload of information. All he had ever dreamed, in all of the stories and all of the shows, was coming fast at him full nightmare speed. “No. We have to go back for Maggie.”
Levi shifted his focus and walked towards the opening in the wall for the dock. He reached up and tried to heave himself upward when the other three rushed forward and Brad and Pathik both grabbed hold of Levi's thin frame and yanked him easily backward.
“She's dead!”
“We have to help her.”
Izen looked up from his feast fully sated at the now emptied warehouse. He could barely hold onto the memories of long ago when he hadn't needed to devolve quite so far in order to feel this full, in order to gorge himself quite so satisfyingly, back when just a bite would do. Now the rest of their prey had run off. In this temporary albeit happy stupor it didn't matter anyway. Their long, final journey would continue and this too would eventually be a oft forgotten memory, replaced with a return of the hunger. Always a return of the hunger.
They had promised the others they would bring back a taste if they found anything in this wind-whipped nothingness of the Midwest. That's what they called it, the middle west, a flat and ugly place sparsely populated. But tasty, full of the adrenaline that spiked in the blood of frightened creatures, and therefore worth exploring in depth when they returned to the ship and calculated their next quick stop. The hunger would return for Idec an Izen, and was always there for the others. But here, if they could find the cities, they could have a go of it and then the waiting and the urges wouldn't be so burdensome for a time.
He just had to bring back a taste. And as luck would have it, a taste was crawling back inside.
Levi's hands clamored at the edge of the dock and his curled brown hair peaked out over the top of it before it was yanked away by the others. Izen stood up and straightened out his lengthy body. He looked around him for Idec. In the haze of a meal he hadn't kept track of him and wondered if he had gone and gotten himself knocked out again—was lying on a cement floor somewhere with a stake in his heart. Izen rolled his eyes and looked at the edge of the open door and listened to the humans argue among themselves.
“Come on Levi, she's gone!”
“Levi please.”
“Fuck, guys, let's get out of here. Just fucking drag him!”
“Levi!”
Levi held tight to the edge of the dock, his finger tips white and digging into the brick. Izen stood now, looming above them all. He smiled and slowly stepped on top of Levi's hands, grounding down. Pathik actually reached forward and tried to pull the alien's foot off of Levi and the four of them all tumbled backward when Izen suddenly released. Linh was pushed to the ground by Pathik and Levi and Brad lay over the top of the other three, quickly scrambling to his feet. Linh and Pathik and Levi crawled backward and up onto their feet and the four of them turned to run but Izen dropped down after them and his thin arms, which hid the true strength of his power, wrapped around Brad's chest, pinning down his arms and holding him back.
“GET OFF!”
Izen felt so full. Warm blood, the taste of innards, they revitalized a guy, alien vampire, whatever. He could do almost anything. Brad was strong, he pushed against Izen and struggled to get out of his grip, but in vain. Izen darted back to the edge of the building and scaled it with Brad under his arm, now holding on for fear of being dropped as Izen's claws gripped into the brick and sent pieces of it flying away to the ground.
Pathik, Levi, and Linh watched in horror as Brad was carried away. A clanging metal door opened in the side of the space ship and a short kind of ramp unfurled from inside. Izen ran inside, Brad dragged along with him, screaming obscenities into the wind.
The three looked at the open dock half suspecting the other creature to be standing there but the doorway was nothing but empty darkness. Wind whipped through the area and they stood still taking the brunt of it for a moment of shock and fear.
“Brad,” Levi whimpered. Brad had moved in across the street twenty years ago. They weren't expected to stay friends past the second grade. Brad played baseball and football and grew up tall and loud and full of himself. But Levi was his best friend, through high school and coming out. Brad was a fixture in every single movie Levi had ever made—even the embarrassingly bad ones. Brad was the guy who drank all of the Schullers' wine on holidays and random Friday nights when they snuck through the back door of the Picture Show in Bloomingdale or when Brad had convinced Levi to crawl behind the pins at the bowling alley and fuck with people. They went to NIU together, took most of the same classes. He could be real dick sometimes, like his dad, but it wasn't his fault Levi reasoned. When it was just them two, it was fine.
Levi turned around and looked pleadingly at Pathik.
“Fuck that guy,” Pathik threw his hands into the air and took several steps backward away from Levi. “We have to get out of here.”
“We can't just leave him! We have to go save him.”
“What are we going to do!? Levi IT'S A FUCKING ALIEN SPACE SHIP,” Pathik shouted at Levi. “You saw what it did,” he swallowed hard and his voice lowered to a whisper. “to that girl.”
Linh looked down at the concrete drive beneath them. She felt numb from the cold and the sight of Kelly's blood stained shins and the gash in her neck pouring life out of her.
“I'm not going to die saving fucking Brad Miller.”
“He's not his dad.”
“He's just as bad, and you know it Levi. I've been telling you this whole time. He believes in all of that junk, what did she fucking say about Nazis!? You were there.”
“It's not like that! It's different!”
“How?”
“He can change.”
Pathik stared incredulously at Levi, his eyes welled with tears. He hated Brad with every last neuron. “But he won't.”
“We can't just leave him.”
“Like he left Maggie?” The last of Pathik's resolve washed away with his tears. She was so strong, he knew deep down that Brad had used her to get himself to safety.
“Pat,” Levi stepped towards him. Linh looked up at the boys, her own face streaked with tears. As much as she wanted to run, she felt a kind of guilt build up inside of her and knew she had to stay, to help.
“Fine. What are we gonna do? Just walk in?”
“We should, find weapons.”
Linh nudged Pathik in the shoulder. “We found a handgun.”
Pathik pulled the Glock out from his jacket pocket and held it with a shaky hand. What's the scariest thing you can think of? Pathik looked down at the gun and wrapped his fingers around the butt of it. Gun violence in Chicago. Nazis. A lingering terror, like a shadow.
“We also have this,” Linh held out her taser and the three of them looked up at each other, total fear washing over them where they stood.
Andy and Camille Schuller stood at window in their dinning room looking out across the street at the crime scene. Several flashing police cars were parked outside of the Miller's home, yellow tape stretched around their front yard and across their front door. Officers walked in and out of the house and an ambulance crew wheeled in a stretcher but everyone knew it wasn't for taking someone to the hospital. It was taking someone to the morgue.
Camille gasped and gripped her husbands shoulder. “The boys! They don't know. Brad was here all evening and they went first thing in the morning to Miller Industrial.” Andy just nodded and moved to the living room where the breaking news had been broadcast all morning. All across the northwest suburbs, a string of murders. He grimaced looking at the scene play out. It looked almost identical to what was just across their own street. A middle class home hidden behind police tape and stern faced officers.
Camille picked up her cellphone from the kitchen counter and called Levi. His phone was usually on silent when they were filming, but Brad couldn't come home to this not warned. “He's not picking up.”
Andy nodded and narrowed his focus on the TV, trying to listen to the broadcaster and catch all of the names of the many victims.
“Levi, honey, it's your mother,” Camille's voice wavered as she left the voicemail. “We think you better come home now. Brad, too.” She teared up and tried to keep her voice clear. “Something's happened. Dick and Debra...”
Andy turned up the volume of the television and Camille looked up from her voicemail, phone still against her ear, her breath coming in heavy.
“We're being informed that all of the victims identified so far have all been linked to something called The Order of the Rose, a local white supremacist group.” The broadcast switched cameras to a panel that had been brought in. A young man spoke up.
“Look, we have to tell the truth here. This is not unrelated to the rally last night. That was a Nazi rally right here in Libertyville. Rioting and violence!”
“No hold on. I think both sides contributed...”
“Nazis! You're defending Nazis!”
Andy turned and looked back at Camille with wide, serious eyes. He always knew Richard Miller was the racist next door, but this... Camille wiped her tears and continued the message.
“Just come home.”
Pathik, Levi, and Linh stood at the bottom of the ramp that lead into the ship. There was a small space between it and the rooftop they stood on but with a little bit of courage they could jump it and walk inside. Just walk right in.
“Come on,” Levi lead the way and the three of them climbed quickly inside, sure that if they wavered they would slip and fall right off the edge.
Inside, everything was silent and still. The lighting was dim but they could see most of the room they were in. It sprawled out into several hallways and chambers, with little in the entry hall. Levi could tell that the central corridor must lead into a kind of cockpit or command center. He watched enough Star Trek growing up. Linh was the first to step forward and peek down a corridor to the right. Lights were on brighter further down but still they could hear nothing but a low, machine hum and their own rapid heart beats.
“Maybe we should--”
“We are not splitting up.”
“Right.”
Levi looked up and around. The ceilings were tall and the whole space felt cavernous and empty. Below them and all around slender reptilian alien vampires waited and lounged and waited some more. They moved slowly around their rooms, fluttered in and out of the baths and the bedrooms and the quiet room and the exercise center and the study at an arduous pace. Time was really rather not on their side, after all. Pathik and Levi and Linh didn't even register to anyone but Izen who happened to be paying attention.
“Idec, come on,” Izen tucked Brad into a small cylindrical chamber with straps across his torso binding his arms down, and his legs. And he shut the door and looked through it's glass surface at Brad's stricken face. He wanted to keep him fresh for when he had rounded up the other three and Idec had returned so they could present them to the others. If only Idec would return. Izen wanted to avoid having to go out and get him, whatever state he might be in. That was the one rule to temporary landed visits, don't lose an alien on a foreign planet—it would cause all kinds of ruckus that would reverberate throughout the universe. No one liked a task force to end vampirism in the galaxies did they? They might be chased, the one thing they were not equipped for. Izen wasn't even sure their command center was made up of a functioning interface. This ship was designed to pilot them in a great, grand loop, forever, that's all.
Izen patted the glass door and turned away from Brad, leaving him in the room alone. Through the door of the chamber Brad could see several similar pods along the opposite wall. They're going to get all of us. He thought to himself.
“Guys,” Pathik pointed down at the floor leading into a corridor just to the left of the main one. There was a trickle of blood and what looked like a few pieces of viscera leading down it.
Levi looked worried, “do you think it's Brad's?”
“I think it's Kelly's.”
Levi really looked at Linh for possibly the first time. She was short, like him, but fast and strong and he realized that Kelly had been someone that mattered to her. Gary Stu, too, had a real name and people who mattered to him.
“I'm sorry.”
“It's not your fault.”
“It was my movie.”
“No offense, but I don't think your movie has anything to do with this.”
“You're probably right. It's just a stupid movie.”
“Guys,” Pathik gestured down the corridor and they each followed him, taking care not to step into the blood path along the floor. In just a short time they passed through an open doorway into another room.
Brad started forward when he saw Pathik and shouted. He tried to move his arms to pound on the glass but was too tightly restrained.
“HEY! HELP ME!”
The three of them rushed forward and Levi ran his hands all around the pod that Brad was in looking for a latch.
“I'm trying! Hold on!”
Linh looked around the room they were in, at all of the empty pods. She shuddered.
“What if this is a trap?”
“Yeah I thought about that, too. Levi, hurry.”
Levi found a latch at the top of the pod and jumped to unlock it. The door unlatched and swung open on its own. Levi jumped forward to untie the ropes.
“Thank god!” Brad smiled at Levi. He knew he'd come for him, he wouldn't leave. He hadn't even questioned it. After he had gotten his arms loose he helped Levi with the rest of the binds and then stumbled out of the pod.
“That thing went down that way.” Brad pointed to the right, where the corridor continued deeper into the ship.
“Jesus, let's fucking get out of here.”
The four grabbed hold of each other and started back down the hallway that lead out to the ramp and out into the world they knew.
“Wait!” Linh was in front and held out her arms to stop them all. “Shhhh!” They all fell silent and listened.
Idec lumbered up the ramp with a limp body thrown over his shoulder. He was not as adept as Izen at anything remotely physical, but he managed. He coughed and spit onto the floor and heaved the heavy body up again, shifting it on his back to try and make it easier to carry.
They all could hear what sounded like another of those creatures, the other from the warehouse, and the sound of a large, heavy door closing, presumably the ramp that let them out again.
“Go back!” Linh turned and pushed the three boys back down from where they came, into the pod room and further into the darkness of the ship. They ran down a long corridor in almost complete darkness, not daring to look behind them. The corridor slightly curved to the right and soon they stumbled into a large lit room filled with monitors and panels of buttons and a towering network of blue and white glowing cords in the center.
“How are we gonna?”
“Shut up!”
“Did they close the door?”
“What is this shit.”
“Ow! What the fuck!”
“We're all going to die for your ass.”
“Shhhhh!”
“Idec, finally.” Izen reappeared at the edge of the entrance hall from a far hallway. He was clean now, pinned and dapper in a dark suit that clung to the angles of his body and shimmered against his scales. Idec struggled to hold up the body on his shoulder.
“What's this?” Izen gestured to the figure that Idec clung to. No matter how heavy the burden, it was clear that Idec wasn't letting go. He looked up sheepishly at Izen and gripped tighter. Izen crossed his arms and rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Insufferable. You know that? Take her to the pods.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Somewhere, more comfortable.”
Izen waved Idec off and he slowly made his way down a corridor leading into the great lounge. It was comfortable there, Idec and Izen's favorite waiting place, a room full of windows with which to look out into the darkness of their journey. When Idec disappeared, Izen returned to see after his own guest.
“What was she saying? About a race war, or...something...” Levi was walking along the side of the command center, his fingers toying on the edge of the panel of buttons before him. Above the panel was a series of monitors, all showing strangely stagnant readings—perhaps because they were still parked, that was a good sign. “It just doesn't seem real.”
“Does it matter?” Pathik asked, looking around for the best exit out of here. If what they had heard was correct, if both creatures were back on board, what would stop them from taking off any second.
“Of course it matters,” Levi turned and looked at Pat.
“Why?”
“Because,” Levi huffed. “There has to be a reason. It can't just be...random.”
Levi picked at an arbitrary button on the console. What would happen if he pushed it? Nothing was labeled, not that it would be in any way he could understand. It wasn't a movie set. It looked like one though. The monitors looked like you could push them over with a single finger. The screens could be stickers, drawings for all they didn't blink or move. Under his fingers felt like cheap plastic, felt like he couldn't believe where he was standing.
“I mean, it can't just be all made up. Otherwise, what was the point of all that death?” Levi didn't expect any of them to answer. He pushed down on the button and instantly regretted it.
The lights above them clicked into a deep red that flooded the whole space with a sinister, bloody glow. An blaring alarm sounded and Pathik and Linh and Brad held their hands up to their ears and hunched into themselves to escape the sound. Levi's eyes widened and he looked all around him, as if trying to ascertain the source of that pounding, terrible noise.
“Levi, let's go!” Pathik looked up and screamed at Levi over the sound. Levi stood where he was, momentarily paralyzed by what he might have just done. What he didn't know was that any button would have done it. The ship simply piloted them in a great, grand loop. The command center was a ruse. Anyone who didn't know that was an enemy.
And in an instant the floor and the walls and the ceiling all around him opened and a series of spikes shot out and into Levi, piercing through him and pinning him to where he stood. Pathik lunged forward but Linh and Brad caught him round the waist and held him back. Levi's head dropped lifelessly to his chest and a pool of his blood slowly spread long the floor.
Brad carried Pathik and him and Linh ran down the center corridor to their right back in the direction of the front hall. Linh sped before Brad as he was slowed by Pathik scrambling to free himself and go back for Levi.
“Levi! LET ME GO!”
“He's gone!”
Linh reached the hall first and skidded out into the center of it, looking frantically around her for the doorway out. Everything was locked up and the walls looked seamless—the silver metal wrapping around and around.
“There!” Brad caught up and pointed to a break in the metal where what looked like a door was framed in a faint light from the outside. Linh and Brad threw themselves at it and it broke open, the ramp and themselves tumbling down and down and finally falling roughly on the roof of Miller Industrial.
Izen stood framed in the doorway of his ship. He looked at the three small human figures and heaved a long, frustrated sigh. They weren't worth it. They had their taste waiting for them. He was sure they could all smell it by now. So he cut his loses and he switched the door closed. The ship rumbled to life and slowly began to rise until it was blinked out of sight by the white, March sun.
Linh watched it go, clutching at her chest. If she hadn't trusted her own eyes, she never would have believed it.
“Get offffff!” Brad kicked and pushed at Pathik who was on top of him and trying to swing at him.
“It was supposed to be you!”
“Fuck off it's not my fault!”
“Pat!” Linh scrambled forward and tried to pull him off of Brad. He shrugged her off and slammed Brad into the rooftop by his collar.
“Fuck you! It was supposed to be you.”
To be continued...here.
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