Marilyn Peake - The Other

The guy at the check-in desk seemed to hate his job. He didn’t smile, just robotically went through everything he had to do for each customer. Name? Looking at his computer: Yes, we have your reservation. Here are your keys. Breakfast is served in the room across the hallway from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM every morning. I’m required to warn you to be careful about a virus that may be spreading in this area. If you feel exceptionally dizzy or experience hallucinations, we suggest you contact Public Health to report your symptoms and find a doctor. He pushed a pamphlet toward me. Here’s a list of local Urgent Care facilities. Anything else I can do for you?

Wow. How many times had he repeated that spiel? He seemed positively bored by it all. Hello. You might catch a virus here that will infect your mind and drive you crazy. But, hey, have a nice day. Most likely, he didn’t believe all the rumors about the alien virus. Not everyone did. Also, he seemed fine. When you feel healthy, you tend to think you’re invulnerable to stuff.

I took the key and found my room. It was OK. It had a bed and a chair and an air conditioner/heater unit. That’s pretty much all I needed. I hoped to God there weren’t any bedbugs. Those were definitely real and they could give you some pretty nasty bites.

I lay down on the bed just to take a short nap, but fell asleep for hours. I was woken up by the most intense pain I’d ever experienced in my right side. I felt petrified. I was in a strange town where I didn’t know anyone and didn’t have a regular doctor. I curled up into a fetal position and rocked back and forth, trying not to scream or moan too loudly. When the pain finally lessened enough to stand up, I went into the bathroom and took a shower, letting the warm water relax my muscles that had tensed up while I fought through the pain.

The next day, I took a taxi to The Astral Plane compound. I should have watched the local news first. There was police tape across the front yard and cop cars everywhere. The police refused to let me onto the property.

Two guys in orange astronaut-looking jumpsuits were hanging around outside the area marked off by the tape. They seemed to be deep in discussion. They kept gesturing emphatically with their hands. I walked over to them and said, “Hello. I’m looking for my mother, Dr. Cora Frost. I have a very important message for her. I’ve been trying to reach her, but haven’t had any luck. I flew all the way across the country to find her. It’s a family emergency.”

I hoped to God they’d never repeat exactly what I’d said to her. She’d think I was a lunatic, probably refuse to ever have anything to do with me.

The taller of the two guys said, “Yeah. Reception’s really bad out here. Plus I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the police haven’t blocked our signals. They’re treating us like we’ve all committed murder.”

I was going to ask if someone had been murdered, but I decided against it. I really didn’t want to know. I was scared to death over this whole trip and I didn’t need anything else making me too frightened to go through with finding my biological mother. I was here. If I didn’t do this now, I’d probably never do it.

The shorter guy said, “I can take you to your mother if you want.”

I asked, “Is she inside?”

He said, “No. She’s not here. She’s just down the road a bit.”

I said, “Sure. Thanks.”

I followed him to an old beat-up black van with desert dust all over the lower half. I climbed in. Normally, I would never hop into a van with a stranger, but these weren’t normal times.

He drove to a barn out in the middle of the desert. I couldn’t see another building anywhere in sight. He pointed at it and said, “She’s in there. I gotta get back, but I’m sure she’ll take care of you.”

I hesitated a moment. What if she wasn’t in the barn? What if this was a trap? What if there wasn’t any cell phone reception out here? I’d be stranded. This was the desert. I’d die from dehydration.

Then I have no idea what came over me, but I said to myself that it was now or never and stop being such a coward. I opened the van door and climbed out. The driver turned off the engine, walked me over to the barn and opened a side door. I heard voices inside the building. The driver said, “Go on in. I have to get back.”

I stepped inside. The floor was covered with straw, which felt soft under my shoes. I walked around a stack of hay bales and came out into the open area of the barn. There were three people there… and two aliens.

Oh, my God. They were real…

I froze. My heart raced out of control. I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go, other than to die running across an empty desert. I felt desperate. I shouted, “Is Dr. Cora Frost here?” There was only one woman. Either she was Cora Frost, or I had made a terrible mistake getting in that van and coming over here.

The woman said, “I’m Dr. Frost. Who are you?”

I said, “I’m your daughter, Jade Whitaker. I need your help.”

She literally rolled her eyes. She said, “Are you stalking me? I have no legal connection to you. I’ve received your text messages. I was ignoring them on purpose.”

At that moment, it felt like my abdomen was going to rip wide open. I grabbed my side and screamed bloody murder. The pain had gotten progressively worse. It was now unbearable.

One of the aliens placed her hand on my mother’s shoulder. In a gentle female voice, she said, “Wait. She really is in trouble.”

She walked over to me, this tall green creature with enormous black eyes, and said, “I can help you. I’m a doctor. Do you mind if I touch your stomach, to see what’s wrong?”

In too much pain to speak, I shook my head no . I meant: I don’t mind. If that had been interpreted to mean the opposite, I would have shook my head yes . Tears streamed down my face.

Apparently, the creature knew what I meant. She placed her hands on my abdomen.

Images flew up into the air in front of me. No one else seemed to notice them. There was a doll-like baby, only partially formed, with hair down to its knees. A beating heart stopped beating. Women were giving birth to green-skinned babies; nurses kept taking them away. Black people and one of the aliens hung from a tree, nooses tightened around their necks. Dogs snarled, barked, bared monstrous teeth. I saw windswept lands and rising seas. People begging for food. There was a spaceship hurtling through an explosion of light.

The alien said, “I’m going to focus. Do the same. Tell me what you see.” Her fingers felt warm and comforting against my stomach.

All the images disappeared except two: the partially formed doll baby, straggly hair flowing like a mop down to its knees, and a beating heart which stopped beating. I described what I saw.

The alien said, “That’s what’s inside of you. It’s a vestigial twin.”

What?

When I didn’t answer out loud, she said, “Your mother… Dr. Frost… had been pregnant with twins. The other twin became absorbed into your body while you were both forming inside the womb. It’s been there since before you were born. It’s been growing, even though its brain isn’t formed. The cells have just kept multiplying. It has to come out or you will die. It’s on your ovary.”

I felt extraordinarily dizzy. I said, “I’m going to faint.”

The alien said, “You’ll be OK. I’m a medical doctor. We have a surgical room inside our spaceship. I can remove the twin right now with techniques more advanced than any other you have access to. You’ll have a better outcome. You could do us a huge favor as payment. You saw images of dying lands, am I right?”