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

“Hot,” Jessica said. The girls didn’t hear. Now they were bitching at each other about disposable pads and something called a keeper cup.

We know. You’ll be okay. We can heal you.

“Don’t wait for me,” Jessica said as they pulled up to the campground outhouse. She flipped the door handle and nearly fell out of the truck. “I can catch another ride.”

Cold air washed over her as she stumbled toward the outhouse. She unzipped her long coat and let the breeze play though—chill air on boiling skin. Still early September but they always got a cold snap at the start of fall. First snow only a few days ago. Didn’t last. Never did.

The outhouse stench hit her like a slap. Jessica fumbled with the lock. Her fingers felt stiff and clumsy.

“Why am I so hot?” she said, leaning on the cold plywood wall. Her voice sounded strange, ripped apart and multiplied into echoes.

Your immune system is trying to fight us but we’ve got it under control. The fever isn’t dangerous, just uncomfortable.

She shed her coat and let it fall to the floor. Unzipped her jeans, slipped them down her hips. No panties. She hadn’t been able to find them.

No, Jessica. Don’t look.

Pubic hair hacked away along with most of her skin. Two deep slices puckered angry down the inside of her right thigh. And blood. On her legs, on her jeans, inside her coat. Blood everywhere, dark and sticky.

Keep breathing!

An iron tang filled the outhouse as a gout of blood dribbled down her legs. Jessica fell back on the toilet seat. Deep within her chest something fluttered, like a bird beating its wings on her ribs, trying to get out. The light drained from the air.

If you die, we die too. Please give us a chance.

The flutters turned into fists pounding on her breastbone. She struggled to inhale, tried to drag the outhouse stink deep into her lungs but the air felt thick. Solid. Like a wall against her face.

Don’t go. Please.

Breath escaped her like smoke from a fire burned down to coal and ash. She collapsed against the wall of the outhouse. Vision turned to pinpricks; she crumpled like paper and died.

“Everything okay in there?”

The thumping on the door made the whole outhouse shake. Jessica lurched to her feet. Her chest burned like she’d been breathing acid.

You’re okay.

“I’m fine. Gimme a second.”

Jessica plucked the pad off the outhouse floor, ripped it open and stuck it on the crotch of her bloody jeans, zipped them up. She zipped her coat to her chin. She felt strong. Invincible. She unlocked the door.

The two girls were right there, eyes big and concerned and in her business.

“You didn’t have to wait,” Jessica said.

“How old are you, fifteen? We waited,” the driver said as they climbed back into the truck.

“We’re not going to let you hitchhike,” said the tattooed girl. “Especially not you.”

“Why not me?” Jessica slammed the truck door behind her.

“Most of the dead and missing girls are First Nations.”

“You think I’m an Indian? Fuck you. Am I on a reserve?”

The driver glared at her friend as she turned the truck back onto the highway.

“Sorry,” the tattooed girl said.

“Do I look like an Indian?”

“Well, kinda.”

“Fuck you.” Jessica leaned on the window, watching the highway signs peel by as they rolled toward Prince George. When they got to the city the invincible feeling was long gone. The driver insisted on taking her right to Gran’s.

“Thanks,” Jessica said as she slid out of the truck.

The driver waved. “Remember, no hitchhiking.”

Jessica never hitchhiked.

She wasn’t stupid. But Prince George was spread out. Buses ran maybe once an hour weekdays and barely at all on weekends, and when the weather turned cold you could freeze to death trying to walk everywhere. So yeah, she took rides when she could, if she knew the driver.

After her Saturday shift she’d started walking down the highway. Mom didn’t know she was coming. Jessica had tried to get through three times from the gas station phone, left voice mails. Mom didn’t always pick up—usually didn’t—and when she did it was some excuse about her phone battery or connection.

Mom was working as a cook at a retreat center out by Tabor Lake. A two-hour walk, but Mom would get someone to drive her back to Gran’s.

Only seven o’clock but getting cold and the wind had come up. Semis bombed down the highway, stirring up the trash and making it dance at her feet and fly in her face as she walked along the ditch.

It wasn’t even dark when the car pulled over to the side of the highway.

“Are you Jessica?”

The man looked ordinary. Baseball cap, hoodie. Somebody’s dad trying to look young.

“Yeah,” Jessica said.

“Your mom sent me to pick you up.”

A semi honked as it blasted past his car. A McDonald’s wrapper flipped through the air and smacked her in the back of the head. She got in.

The car was skunky with pot smoke. She almost didn’t notice when he passed the Tabor Lake turnoff.

“That was the turn,” she said.

“Yeah, she’s not there. She’s out at the ski hill.”

“At this time of year?”

“Some kind of event.” He took a drag on his smoke and smiled.

Jessica hadn’t even twigged. Mom had always wanted to work at the ski hill, where she could party all night and ski all day.

It was twenty minutes before Jessica started to clue in.

When he slowed to take a turn onto a gravel road she braced herself to roll out of the car. The door handle was broken. She went at him with her fingernails but he had the jump on her, hit her in the throat with his elbow. She gulped air and tried to roll down the window.

It was broken too. She battered the glass with her fists, then spun and lunged for the wheel. He hit her again, slammed her head against the dashboard three times. The world stuttered and swam.

Pain brought everything back into focus. Face down, her arms flailed, fingers clawed at the dirt. Spruce needles flew up her nose and coated her tongue. Her butt was jacked up over a log and every thrust pounded her face into the dirt. One part of her was screaming, screaming. The other part watched the pile of deer shit inches from her nose. It looked like a heap of candy. Chocolate-covered almonds.

She didn’t listen to what he was telling her. She’d heard worse from boys at school. He couldn’t make her listen. He didn’t exist except as a medium for pain.

When he got off, Jessica felt ripped in half, split like firewood. She tried to roll off the log. She’d crawl into the bush, he’d drive away, and it would be over.

Then he showed her the knife.

When he rammed the knife up her she found a new kind of pain. It drove the breath from her lungs and sliced the struggle from her limbs. She listened to herself whimper, thinking it sounded like a newborn kitten, crying for its mother.

The pain didn’t stop until the world had retreated to little flecks of light deep in her skull. The ground spun around her as he dragged her through the bush and rolled her into a ravine. She landed face down in a stream. Her head flopped, neck canted at a weird angle.

Jessica curled her fingers around something cold and round. A rock. It fit in her hand perfectly and if he came back she’d let him have it right in the teeth. And then her breath bubbled away and she died.

When she came back to life a bear corpse was lying beside her, furry and rank. She dug her fingers into its pelt and pulled herself up. It was still warm. And skinny—nothing but sinew and bone under the skin.