11
JOANNA
I flew from the bed as if my life depended on it, landing softly on the wooden floor. Quietly I dressed, stepping into my panties and jeans but not bothering to look for my bra before pulling the shirt over my head. I strode to the door, remembered what was going on, and turned around.
"Stay here," I said, then slipped into the hallway.
Daylight still shone through the windows of my cabin. I leaned a head around the corner and remained there, listening and looking. The snow-covered landscape out the window of my kitchen remained still, and so did the two windows in my living room.
But I knew what I heard. Snow crunching. Branches cracking.
The ten seconds that I stood there lasted ten thousand.
Movement, to my left. A dark shape passing from one tree to another out in the woods by my driveway. The motion was unnatural, stealthy. Not a deer or other wild animal. Someone who didn't want to be seen.
Instantly, my pulse raced. My heartbeat was like a drum, making it impossible to hear anything else. I took three deep, deliberate breaths to collect myself.
There's an intruder outside.
And their intentions are almost certainly not innocent.
There was a short list of people who might visit my property out of the blue: Leslie, and Andy if I had a request from the general store. But the latter was rare, and neither of those people would skulk around in the woods.
I kept a shotgun by the front door, but it was unloaded, and I'd need to cross the living room space to reach it. The floorboards in here creaked loudly, and anyone outside would be able to see me through the windows. How far away was the shape? If I cast aside silence and sprinted across the room, I thought I could reach the gun and load it before someone came through the door. But that would be escalating the situation, an remaining veiled in silence and secrecy felt safer. Once I let the intruders know I was aware of them, there was no going back.
When faced with a difficult decision, always put off the choice that's irreversible. My dead husband's words in my ear, a piece of wisdom Fred liked to impart when someone was at a crossroads. A pang of guilt sprung up at the memory of his voice. I was suddenly very aware of the nude stranger in my bed.
Sleeping with Eric was irreversible.
I hadn't had actual sex with him, but that was a hollow technicality. I'd taken a man to bed, the first one since my husband's death, and had intended to do more.
It was my right. And I'd waited long enough. And yet I still felt guilty for the act.
Emotions were stupid.
Focus, I told myself. Making a run for my gun was irreversible, and would eliminate any element of surprise I had. That might be my only advantage: that they didn't know I knew they were out there. I sure as hell didn't want to give it up right out of the gate.
Movement to my right, out the window in the kitchen. Only for a second, between two distant trees.
Shit.
There were two intruders, coming from two separate angles. Any presumption of innocence I'd hoped they had disappeared in a puff of optimistic smoke.
Calling Leslie would make too much noise. And it'd take her too long to get out here. Scratch that off the short list of options.
I needed a weapon. I was a hunter; I felt naked without one. And I need to move now.
I left my relative hiding place by the hall and pawed across the kitchen, grabbing a carving blade from the knife block as I went by. The shotgun beckoned me from across the room, but I would need to go around the outside of the room to avoid the loudest floorboards. I ducked low and took one careful step at a time, eyes flicking back and forth between the two windows.
I reached the far wall and pressed against it. I whispered a prayer that the boards would remain silent as I slid sideways, inching closer to the door and gun. From here I had a perfect view out the window where I'd seen the first person, but there was no further movement. That scared me more than seeing them; it was like the spider in your bedroom that suddenly disappeared. Not knowing its location was worse than seeing it right in front of you.
With startling abruptness, the man moved across my view. And it was a man, wearing a black coat and black beanie. He was right outside the window, close to the house, moving around the back. He never looked inside, and was gone in an eye blink.
And he carried something black, and long.
A gun.
He was moving away from the front door, which was good. But I didn't know where the other person was, which was bad. The front door could open any minute and he'd barge inside, with a gun identical to his comrade's, and that would be the end of Joanna.
I stepped closer, and closer, the impulse to jump the final 15 feet growing stronger with every step.
Silently, I prayed that Eric would obey me and stay in bed. He would ruin everything by choosing that moment to get up, walk around, ask me what was wrong. I gazed at the door to my bedroom and hoped my willpower alone could keep him silent and inside.
Please trust me, I told him with my mind. Stay there. Let me handle this.
Ten feet. Five feet.
Finally I lunged at the shotgun, simultaneously reaching up the shelf for the box of shells. My fingers trembled as I opened the box and fed them into the chamber, two, then three, then four. I shoved another handful into my pocket and pressed my back against the wall.
Chest heaving with adrenaline, I aimed the gun around the room, waiting for a target to appear.
When none did, I twisted the lock on the front door. The click it made sounded like gunfire in the silence.
I breathed, and aimed my gun across the expanse of my living room, and breathed some more.
I had a weapon. Time to think strategy.
If I were alone, things would have been easy: walk to my left a few steps to the coat closet, crouch down inside, and wait for an intruder to enter my cabin. He'd have to pass right across my vantage there, where I'd have a clean shot, and then it would be me against the one guy that remained. If it were just one other guy.
But Eric complicated things. Whatever these guys intended, I had to protect Eric. I had a weapon and he didn't. This was my cabin, where he was a visitor. The burden and responsibility fell on my shoulders.
I always felt like I had to protect Fred, too, I thought with a wry grin.
So I couldn't just hide and wait for danger to come to me. I had to go on the offensive.
I slid past the front door toward the window, staying back from the glass. Slowly I leaned forward until I could see most of the front of my property: my truck and the four-wheeler over by the shed. If the first man who'd walked past the window was moving carefully, he should be by the back door any moment, which meant--
Suddenly, the second man walked across my driveway.
He came into view without care, swinging his long rifle in a wide arc around him like he expected to be ambushed at any moment. He was walking parallel to the wall of my cabin, not even looking in my direction.
Without further thought, I unclasped the window and swung it open a foot. I leaned down and rested the shotgun on the window sill, aimed it at his chest, and spoke in a commanding voice.
"Drop your gun or you'll soon hear mine."
He flinched and yelped as if I'd already shot him, and his weapon fell to the snow. It was a strange shape, and looked like rot against the perfect white powder.
"Oh God," the man said, quickly thrusting both hands in the air. He rotated in a slow circle, looking for the source of my voice.
Good.
"Slowly turn to face the cabin, keeping your hands in the air." I kept my sights trained on his chest and my finger hard against the trigger. "No sudden movements."
"Oh God," the man repeated, a quiver in his voice. "Please don't shoot..."
"Max! What is it?" the other man shouted. He burst into my view to the left, chubby and slow, a long rifle in his hand.
"DROP IT!" I roared, switching my aim to him. He whirled to face me, bringing the gun around...
I almost shot him. My pressure on the trigger grew dangerously close, but I stopped myself a fraction of a degree short. Because something was unusual about this man's gun. It was too long, too skinny, with other things coming out of the back. I squinted at it, the brightness of the snow making it hard to see.
"I SAID DROP IT!" I repeated, and this time he obeyed. The gun clattered to the snow.
Both men remained frozen, their hands in the air. Waiting for my command.
I relaxed a fraction, but no more than that.
"Stay right there." I moved quickly from the window, unlocking the front door and striding out into the cold. My bare feet protested at walking on the frozen snow, but that was far from a concern just then. I approached the men, stopping when I was ten feet away.
I squinted. "Liam? Liam Jones?"
The chubby man nodded, and removed the beanie from his head. His brother, Max, did the same, and I recognized them then. They looked just like they had in Andy's store yesterday, though a touch more scared. Stupid conspiracy theorists.
I lowered the shotgun a few degrees, but no more than that.
"You two are lucky I didn't blow a hole in you wide enough to spit through," I muttered, trying to steady my breath. "What in the sweet fuck are you doin' snooping around my cabin like a pair of redneck ninjas?"
Both of them kept their hands in the air. "You, uhh, ain't gunna shoot us?" Max asked.
I lowered my gun until it pointed directly at the ground. "I was gunna ask the same of you. What were you carrying there?"
Slowly, after asking my permission with a gesture, Liam leaned down and picked up the black object. Up close I could see that it was more of an antenna than a gun, with wires running down what I'd thought was the barrel. I'd nearly killed them because of a fucking toy. A shiver went up my spine.
"This is an EMF and EVP meter," Liam explained, as if that made any goddamn sense to me. He stiffened with pride. "These are the tools we used to snoop out the ghosts in Andy's old barn."
"Wow," I said patronizingly. "Well I hate to break it to you, but there aren't any ghosts on my property. No barns, neither. Just little old me."
And Eric, naked in my bed with a cock as hard as this shotgun.
The two brothers looked at one another. "See, here's the thing," Max said.
"Our equipment disagrees," Liam added.
Max bobbed his head in a nod. "That's right. But it's not ghosts we're--"
He cut off as his brother elbowed him. They looked awkward for a few seconds.
"We'd like you ask you a few questions," Liam said carefully. "Do you consent to our inquiries?"
"Consent to your inquiries?" I barked a laugh. "Good lord you two. If you've got a question, ask it, but make it quick because I'm freezing my toes off out here."
"Mind if we go inside, then?" Liam asked.
"As a matter of fact, I do mind. Right here's just fine."
Liam handed his EMF whatever to his brother and pulled out a notepad and pencil as if he were a beat cop from a 1950s TV show. "Have you seen any strange lights in the sky recently? Specifically, in the past 72 hours?"
"What, like flying ghosts? That's a mighty bit scarier than regular old ghosts. Glad you boys are here to help me."
They stared at me, blank-faced.
"No, I haven't seen anything like that," I muttered.
"Are you certain?" Max insisted. "No blinding lights? Like a shooting star, only closer?"
"I'm sure I would remember if I had."
Liam scribbled something in his notepad.
"It sounds like you're asking if I've seen a UFO." I snorted to let them know what I thought about that.
Both of their eyes widened, but then they visibly tried to relax. Tried, and failed. It was like I'd wafted catnip in front of a herd of kittens.
"What made you use that term, Jo?" Max asked carefully. "Have you seen something?"
I rolled my eyes. "Good lord, I was only reacting to your questions."
"What about strange men?" Liam blurted. "Or women, I suppose. But a stranger, not from around here, acting abnormal."
I opened my mouth to laugh at him, then stopped.
Eric.
Eric was the goddamn definition of a strange man. Appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the night, looking like a cut-and-pasted copy of my book cover. And there was that bright light I thought I'd seen, a few feet tall in the middle of the road...
But that was silly. Eric acted strange because I'd hit him with my car, had rung his bell so bad he barely knew who he was.
The Jones brothers instantly recognized my hesitation. "Who's been here, Jo?" Max said, stepping forward. "You can tell us. We'll protect you."
"Protect me with what, your plastic radio antennas?" I barked another laugh. "Nobody's been here. It's just me, like it's always been."
Liam's eyes narrowed like he'd caught me.
"We spied two sets of unique boot prints along your driveway. Care to explain that?"
I shrugged one shoulder in annoyance. "Probably just Leslie come out to check on me."
Liam flipped his notepad back two pages. "Actually, these boot prints were approximately size eleven. Most likely a man."
"I'd love to watch you tell Leslie to her face that she's got dainty lady feet," I joked. But of course they were right: the prints were Eric's, wearing Fred's old boots.
"We found these identical prints farther up the road, traveling into the woods and back." Max look at the ground and shifted his feet. "We, uhh, found something there yesterday."
"Something very interesting," Liam added.
"How far up the road?" I asked. "Still on my property? Because I'll happily let this misunderstanding here slide, on account of I very nearly shot you both, but if you've been snoopin' around the rest of my property without my permission then we're gunna have a problem." I pointed at them with a cold finger. "Now, I know Leslie's warned you two about doing some such nonsense around other pieces of land. If I call her and tell her what you've been doing, I doubt she'll be lenient this time."
Liam stepped forward, eyes so intense that I almost raised my shotgun. "You can't hide it from us, Joanna. We have the craft itself. Whoever you're hiding, all you have to do is turn them in and we'll be out of your way. You have a responsibility to the human race."
The human race? Craft? Good God, these two were nutjobs. And I was at the end of my patience. "Whatever you say. I'll take that under consideration, thank you very much."
But neither of them moved.
"If you've nothing to hide, then you won't mind us taking a look around your cabin?" Max raised his electronic toy, and I saw the lights on the end begin blinking rapidly. That excited him for a heartbeat, before he covered it up. "We'll be quick. Just a simple look around, then we'll be out of your hair."
"You'll do no such thing." I raised the shotgun lazily across my body, and stood up straight. "Time for you two to leave. And I will be making that call to Leslie."
They looked like they wanted to argue. Like I was a blockade they would not accept--hell, they looked like they wanted to jump me, even though I had a shotgun and they had plastic toys. But then the courage drained from Liam's face, and he grabbed his brother by the arm.
"You can't hide forever," he said, picking up the other device from the ground. "The truth always comes out."
They retreated down my driveway, an urgency to their shuffling steps.
*
I watched them until they disappeared in the distant woods and feet began to ache from the cold, then finally turned to go back inside.
What the actual fuck? The Jones boys were strange, but they'd never bothered me before. They were always an abstract phenomenon, something Leslie or Andy told me about in annoyance. I couldn't believe I'd almost shot them.
Something must have happened to pique their interest. Maybe a meteor had landed, or the boys up at the Warren Air Force Base in Chayenne were testing some new drone. Conspiracy nuts were always latching onto something reasonable and warping it into the exciting.
I closed the door behind me and savored the warmth of my cabin. And when I opened my eyes Eric was standing in the far doorway, an unmoving sentinel. He'd put on his jeans, but nothing else.
"False alarm," I said, shaking out my hair. "Just some idiots from town snooping around."
When Eric spoke, his voice was low and urgent.
"Did they know I was here?"
I shook my head. "Don't worry about them. Conspiracy theorists with nothing better to do. Think life out here in Wyoming is more exciting than it really is."
But Eric still stood across the room. "Jo. Did they know I was here?"
I gave a start at his tone. He looked more alarmed than I'd ever seen him, like fear was radiating from his body. A cornered animal whose options were dwindling.
I considered him for a long while.
"So you are running from someone," I said carefully. "I figured that was true, but wanted to wait until you were ready to say so. There's no shame in that, Eric, so long as you tell me the truth."
"Yes."
I wanted to come around the couch, to put a hand on his chest and comfort him, but something stopped me. Nothing seemed right, then. A strange aura hung in the air like a smell.
"What are you running from?" I asked again. "What made you go out in the snow without proper clothing? I need to know, Eric, and you need to tell me now."
He stood dangerously still, like the moment in a duel before the first man drew his gun. He's a criminal, my imagination conjured up. Or a thief.
"Tell me," I said, a quiver in my voice. "Whatever it is, I'll forgive you. I promise."
I didn't know if I could keep that promise, but I wanted to. Oh God, did I want to.
Nothing could have prepared me for the truth.
"They took my craft," he said in a small voice.
My mouth hung open. "What craft?"
"I crash landed. I was confused. And when I sensed you coming, the light of your vehicle like a beacon of safety, I shifted into a form you would accept." From across the room I saw him blink slowly, almost in slow motion. "And then you hit me with your truck."
My brain bucked against what I was hearing. "Are you a pilot? From the base up Cheyenne way?"
"I am a pilot," he agreed, but then he shook his head. "I am a scout. From somewhere else, a world you have never seen. I left yesterday to return to my craft, but it had been taken. Stolen by the men you saw today. They are searching for me, as you have seen, and I cannot let them find me." His face turned determined. "I cannot let anyone find me. I will die before that."
A world you have never seen. A scout. A question came to my lips, the same one that had plagued me again and again.
"Where did you come from?" I asked. "What are you, Eric?"
"You misheard my name when we first met," he said, barely more than a whisper but clear as if he spoke directly into my ear. Directly into my brain. "My name is Arix, and I come from a planet called Karak."
A planet called Karak.
A planet.
Another planet.
A thousand emotions ran through my head, and the defense mechanism of humor won out.
"A planet?" I laughed. "So, what. You're telling me you're an alien? A hot, chiseled alien hunk come down to pleasure me?"
"I was never meant to land here. I crashed, and now I fear I am trapped."
"You don't have you make up some crazy excuse," I said, running a nervous hand through my hair. "If you're running from the law, I won't turn you in. At least, unless it's something really bad, like murder or rape or something. But somehow I doubt--"
I cut off as if I'd been muted.
Across the room, Eric... changed. There was no easy word for it. One moment he was a tanned man with bulging muscles, and the next he was being rearranged. Like the pixels in a photograph being disconnected and shuffled around, swirling in some silent wind. The pixels whirled and changed colors and began to glow, until what stood before me was nothing remotely human. It was like a beam of light, roughly the same height as before, concentrated light suspended in the air. The core was bright and long, like an Ibuprofen pill, with two dimmer appendages on the side.
And I remembered the beam of light that night on the road, what I'd seen in the flash instant before hitting Eric with my truck.
This is my true form, the light spoke into my mind, the voice the same as Eric's. This is what I am, Jo.
If I were any other woman, I don't know what I would have done. I might have fainted. I laughed at women who were weak-hearted like that, but if seeing an alien materialize before you wasn't cause for fainting then I didn't know what was. Another woman might have screamed, pushing the air from her lungs in the evolutionary cry for help, the sound coming automatic and without thought. Or worse, whimpering and begging for help. As weak an action as that was, it certainly would have been understandable right then.
But that's not what I did.
In a flash, I grabbed my shotgun from where it rested, aimed at the alien light, and fired.
Buckshot crashed into the wooden walls around and behind it, throwing splinters chaotically into the air. I fired a second shot, then a third, ignoring the deafening sound in such a closed space. The smell of sulfur stung my nose as I waited for the thin smoke to clear.
The light remained, unmoved and undamaged.
Why, Jo? Eric's voice demanded in my ears. Inside my brain. Why would you do that?
The voice wasn't angry. It sounded hurt, like a puppy who'd been kicked and couldn't understand why.
When fight didn't work, flight was the only option that remained. My chest aching with guilt and confusion, I sprinted from the house and jumped in my truck before I could change my mind.