Грегори Бенфорд - Not One of Us - Stories of Aliens on Earth

Outside, the dust flies like shrapnel. Noel hides his face in the peaked hood of the jacket and wishes he’d brought his goggles. The transplanted eucalyptus trees are lurching with the wind, near cracking, as he battles his way into the courtyard. Sand peppers his exposed calves and feet like a thousand tiny wasps.

Through the maelstrom, Noel catches a flash of angular silhouette: Danny, hobbling away toward the parking lot, through the archway of thrashing trees. Noel opens his mouth to shout and ends up chewing sand. He pulls the hood tighter and follows Danny, eyes squeezed to slits, fists clenched inside the balled up ends of his sleeves.

By the time he fights his way to the end of the tile and scuttles down the worn steps into the lot, Danny is sitting where they buried the water scorpion. His head is bent against the wind and his overlong arms envelop his knees, compacting him. Waves of dust belt across him, rocking him back and forth.

“What are you doing?” Noel demands, fists still clenched, chest still scalding. The wind scours his words away, but Danny notices him. He looks up with all of his glittering black eyes. Then he reaches into the dirt and pours a handful over his head. The puff of dust is nothing in the storm, but Noel understands. He understands even before Danny’s thin distorted voice slides under the windy howl.

“This is you,” Danny says, shaking another handful of dust. “Watch this.”

Noel’s stomach plummets. He reaches for his anger. “Get up,” he shouts. “You’ll get us in trouble. You’ll get me in trouble.” He tries to kick at him and loses his flip flop. “Come back inside!” His eyes are stinging from sand and now tears, sliding thick down his grimy cheeks. “Come on,” he pleads. He tries to haul Danny up by the shoulder, but his hand’s shrugged off.

Noel feels a panic welling inside, panic for Danny’s face crumpled purple, for a grave dug with one shovel. “Stay, then,” he hollers. “Stay and get sand in your lungs and die.”

Danny’s head cocks up at the last word. He considers the sand trickling through his fingers. “This is Maya,” he says.

Noel doesn’t realize he’s no longer standing until his kneecaps scrape the dirt. “I’m sorry,” he says, crawling forward, face level with Danny’s. “Danny. Sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It’s not your fault.” He goes to drape his arms over Danny, but is shoved off. “Come inside,” Noel begs.

Danny turns away. Another billow of dust blasts across them; Danny takes the brunt of it and every bit of him wilts. As the wind roars louder, Noel strips off his jacket and pulls it over their heads like a tarp. Danny stiffens, then allows it.

Their breath is hot underneath the nylon. Noel feels his skin press against Danny’s clammy back. He feels the puckered marks left by flying sand.

“Not your fault,” Noel mutters. The storm dances all around them.

He waits, and waits, for the echo.

Kelly Robson grew up in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. In 2018, her story “A Human Stain” won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette, and in 2016, her novella “Waters of Versailles” won the Prix Aurora Award. She has also been a finalist for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, John W. Campbell, and Sunburst awards. In 2018, her time travel adventure “Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach” debuted to high critical praise. After twenty-two years in Vancouver, she and her wife, fellow SF writer A.M. Dellamonica, now live in downtown Toronto.

“I rise today on this September 11th, the one-year anniversary of the greatest tragedy on American soil in our history, with a heavy heart…”

Jessica slumped against the inside of the truck door. The girl behind the wheel and the other one squished between them on the bench seat kept stealing glances at her. Jessica ignored them, just like she tried to ignore the itchy pull and tug deep inside her, under her belly button, where the aliens were trying to knit her guts back together.

“You party pretty hard last night?” the driver asked.

Jessica rested her burning forehead on the window. The hum of the highway under the wheels buzzed through her skull. The truck cab stank of incense.

“You shouldn’t hitchhike, it’s not safe,” the other girl said. “I sound like my mom saying it and I hate that but it’s really true. So many dead girls. They haven’t even found all the bodies.”

“Highway of Tears,” the driver said.

“Yeah, Highway of Tears,” the other one repeated. “Bloody Sixteen.”

“Nobody calls it that,” the driver snapped.

Jessica pulled her hair up off her neck, trying to cool the sticky heat pulsing through her. The two girls looked like tree planters. She’d spent the summer working full time at the gas station and now she could smell a tree planter a mile away. They’d come in for smokes and mix, dirty, hairy, dressed in fleece and hemp just like these two. The driver had blond dreadlocks and the other had tattoos circling her wrists. Not that much older than her, lecturing her about staying safe just like somebody’s mom.

Well, she’s right, Jessica thought. A gush of blood flooded the crotch of her jeans.

Water. Jessica, we can do this but you’ve got to get some water. We need to replenish your fluids.

“You got any water?” Jessica asked. Her voice rasped, throat stripped raw from all the screaming.

The tattooed girl dug through the backpack at Jessica’s feet and came up with a two-liter mason jar half-full of water. Hippies, Jessica thought as she fumbled with the lid. Like one stupid jar will save the world.

“Let me help.” The tattooed girl unscrewed the lid and steadied the heavy jar as Jessica lifted it to her lips.

She gagged. Her throat was tight as a fist but she forced herself to swallow, wash down the dirt and puke coating her mouth.

Good. Drink more.

“I can’t,” Jessica said. The tattooed girl stared at her.

You need to. We can’t do this alone. You have to help us.

“Are you okay?” the driver asked. “You look wrecked.”

Jessica wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m fine. Just hot.”

“Yeah, you’re really flushed,” said the tattooed girl. “You should take off your coat.”

Jessica ignored her and gulped at the jar until it was empty.

Not so fast. Careful!

“Do you want to swing past the hospital when we get into town?” the driver asked.

A bolt of pain knifed through Jessica’s guts. The empty jar slipped from her grip and rolled across the floor of the truck. The pain faded.

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “I just got a bad period.”

That did it. The lines of worry eased off both girls’ faces.

“Do you have a pad? I’m gonna bleed all over your seat.” Jessica’s vision dimmed, like someone had put a shade over the morning sun.

“No problem.” The tattooed girl fished through the backpack. “I bleed heavy too. It depletes my iron.”

“That’s just an excuse for you to eat meat,” said the driver.

Jessica leaned her forehead on the window and waited for the light to come back into the world. The two girls were bickering now, caught up in their own private drama.

Another flood of blood. More this time. She curled her fists into her lap. Her insides twisted and jumped like a fish on a line.

Your lungs are fine. Breathe deeply, in and out, that’s it. We need all the oxygen you can get.

The tattooed girl pulled a pink wrapped maxi pad out of her backpack and offered it to Jessica. The driver slowed down and turned the truck into a roadside campground.