Jon Merz - Prey

“But none of those ever turned deadly.”

“No. But they did provide the visitors with ripe subjects for experimentation. They were doing a type of tag and release program back then. They wanted to see how the abductions would affect the lives of the victims they experimented upon. Quite fascinating.”

Julia found it hard to believe everything he was saying. She found it even harder to maintain the control over her bladder. The steel gurney was so very cold. It tickled the inside of her stomach. It made her desperately want to relieve herself. The warmth of her own urine would at least take some of the chill away, even if only for a moment.

Kendall must have noticed the look on her face because he smiled. “That gurney’s awfully cold, isn’t it?”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“No? That’s interesting because I could swear you look ready to piss all over the place.”

“I’m not.”

“There’s no shame in it, Julia. You should have seen Nung when he woke up on the slab. The poor lad sprayed so much urine everywhere, the visitors had to stop the operation and clean it up. Terribly impolite of him to do so, too.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the talking to.”

Kendall laughed. “I marvel at your sense of humor even now. Even as you know what’s coming next.”

“I’m just waiting for Mick to get here and kill everyone in this place.”

“Really? You think he’s coming back for you? Do you think your promise of passion after all of this is over is enough to lure him in here? You really think that you have that much allure?”

“Allure’s got nothing to do with it. Mick’s a good man. He wouldn’t leave us all here to die.”

Kendall sighed. “That’s the problem with people. No one’s pragmatic anymore. All this ridiculous emotion certainly musses things up. If people could just see the big picture, they’d realize the futility of their quests.”

“You think a lack of emotion is a good thing.”

“Absolutely. The visitors do, too.”

“That why I don’t hear any laughing?”

“Make a joke while you can,” said Kendall. “The time is fast approaching when you’ll scream for your mommy and daddy to come and rescue you from the twisted fate they have in store for you. But you know what?”

“What?”

“It will be too late. Nothing can help you now. The visitors will see to that. You belong to them now.”

“Don’t count me out yet, Kendall.”

“I already have.”

Julia frowned. “When Mick gets here, I’ll ask him to leave you alive a little while longer so I can kill you myself.”

Kendall smirked. “You don’t have the guts to kill me, Julia. If you did, you’d just be exactly what you despise about me. A cold-hearted killer.”

“I think I’ll be able to live myself,” said Julia.

Kendall looked at her for another second before sighing. “Perhaps.” He looked at his watch. “It’s time for me to leave now.”

“Where are you going?”

Kendall smiled. “Things to do. People to see. Places to go. You know. Very busy being what I am.”

The door slid open behind him and Julia could see two visitors enter the room.

Kendall smiled more. “Besides, I think our hosts want to spend some quality time alone with you. Can’t say I blame them.”

Julia struggled against the straps. “Kendall!”

His smile oozed across his face and he waved at her. “Good bye, Julia. Enjoy the procedure.”

He left the chamber.

The door hissed shut.

And Julia saw the two visitors move closer to her.

She screamed.

Their eyes sucked her in.

The deep black pools of obscurity that at once seemed to grow and then shrink within her mind. She saw her reflection in them, stretched out and naked on the cold metal slab beneath her body. She felt herself gripped by such fear and anxiety.

Then strangely, it vanished.

A wave of relaxation slipped over her. She felt her muscles slacked. The tension in her body seemed to melt out of her.

She felt a bit drowsy.

Where had the visitors gone?

She tried turning her head but found she couldn’t.

Her sense of control over her body was gone. Almost as if she’d been so anesthetized that she could no longer control her nervous system.

A small glimmer of fear resurfaced. What were they doing to her? What were they going to do to her now that she couldn’t feel anything? Was it true what Kendall had told her? That they were going to impregnate her and speed her along to birth?

No!

She could hear the sound of a machine running. It reminded her the mail-sorting machine she used to work with back in high school at the post office in her town. That steady sh-shoop sound.

Memories flooded her head. She was sixteen again. Back in the mailroom with the ceiling fans turning in the slow summer humidity. Sweat soaked through her uniform. She wiped her forehead and her hand came away wet.

And next to her, old Bettina Clark, the heavyset Alabama transplant who used to talk to Julia all the time about life, men, and cooking with lard — the only way to really cook.

“This here’d be some fahn weather for smokin’ ribs like my old daddy used to make in the barrel smoker he had made up from an old oil drum he got out of Sked James’ junkyard in Birmingham.”

And Julia would just smile and nod and agree with it all. Bettina had taught her a lot that summer — in her own way of course that Julia had never forgotten. And most importantly, Julia’d learned the preciousness of family.

Bettina would run on and on all day. Long sentences that reminded Julia of translating Cicero would amble out of Bettina’s mouth and hang in the bloated air, full of history, mirth, and a refreshing outlook on life.

And at the end of each and every workday, Bettina would step away from the mail sorter, wipe her brow, say a small word of thanks to the Lord, and head on off home to cook for her grandkids.

Julia would wave and walk home in the evening breezes that dried her uniform shirt. At home she’d wash the shift, hang it out to dry, so it would be ready to wear the very next day.

Again.

Sh-shoop. Sh-shoop. Sh-shoop.

Her mind switched back.

Bettina disappeared.

Julia saw more inky darkness. The visitor eyes swallowed her again.

More images slid on to the screen of her mind. The summer when Julia was nineteen. The first year she’d come back from college.

Heartbroken.

After a full academic year of chasing after Scott Johnson, Julia’d finally secured a date with him. But all Scott wanted to do was hang out, drink, smoke weed, and bang her brains out — not necessarily in that order.

The realization that everything she’d built him up to be fell far short of the reality of who he was, crushed Julia’s heart like never before. And even hearing the soothing words of Bettina telling her that “It’s just a man, baby. Ain’t nothing worth getting yourself all caught up over,” did little good.

Julia came home, dejected.

And that first evening home, she wandered out beyond old man Crawford’s cornfields to the abandoned husk of a barn that had burned partially twenty years previous. Julia had climbed up to the loft, dangled her legs over the side and watched the sun chase the horizon in slow motion while the fireflies danced in the fields far below.

She wondered then what her life would hold for her. Still a virgin. Still unsure of the ways of the big wide world.

Scared.

That’s what it was, she decided. She was scared of life. The uncertainties of what she might become. The reality that this place she’d called home for so long would invariably be left behind and she’d have to find new places to feel secure.