Avel and the Alien, Part 4

The story began in Parts 1-3! -mg

After Ezequiel's declaration, Avel and I stared at him.  I'm not sure what Avel was thinking, but I was thinking "&*$@#".  I don't know if there are actually any curse words with five unspeakable letters, but if there are, I was thinking them all.

I broke the silence with: "Come again?"

"Those buggers don't come off, man," said Ezequiel.

"I'm not sure I believe you," I said.  I didn't.  I didn't want to, that is.

Avel was still silent, taking it all in.

Ezequiel sighed and ran a thick hand through his thinning hair.  "I don't know, man.  Did you try cutting it off–"

"It broke my scissors."

"–with a saw?" Ezequiel finished as he glared at me.

I hadn't realized he wasn't done with his question.  I glared back, sullenly crossing my arms over my chest and giving him my best impression of a bouncer.

The alien squeaked, and we all jumped.

"What if it gets hungry?"  Ezequiel asked. We all looked at the alien.

"That would be bad," I said.  "Like, really bad."

Avel poked the alien, then prodded his red and purple-y skin where it met the tentacles.  The purple was spreading.  I mean, I could literally see it moving, like clouds across the sky on a windy day.

"Have you eaten anything today?"  Ezequiel asked suddenly.

"Ezequiel!  How can you think about food right now?  There is an alien poisoning your friend!"  I threw both of my hands out, gesturing to Avel.

"Yeah, so?  I'm hungry.  You hungry?"  he said to Avel.  Avel nodded.  They left me standing along in the bathroom, open-mouthed and making all sorts of surprised sounds: "Ah...uh...huh...oh."

After I recovered, I found Avel and Ezequiel eating triple stack roast beef sandwiches in the kitchen.  Ezequiel's woman of the week was there, wearing booty shorts and a tank top so small it was probably, in reality, a bikini top.  These things are often confused in some people's lives. Not mine, mind you.

"It's a garage sale," Ezequiel was saying.

As he spoke, a small group of teenagers walked through the kitchen, all with fumbling grips on a ginormous flat screen TV.  We waited for them to go through before speaking.

"Why...er, why are you having a garage sale?" I asked.  "Nothing going?"

Ezequiel shrugged and then grinned.  "I've gone straight."  His smile went even wider as the chick in the bikini top slid into his arms, gazed into his heartless eyes and smiled like a kid grabbing cookies out of the cookie jar.

"Ha!"  I said.  It came out as half of a snort.  Very ladylike, I know.  "No, really.  Why are you selling all your stuff?  And who are they paying?"  I turned slowly, my arms open to the clothes, furniture and knickknacks on display.

"I've got a man in the garage," said Ezequiel.

I rolled my eyes.  "Don't we all."  I didn't mean anything by it; I just couldn't think of anything more clever to say.

Avel was still quiet, carefully finishing his sandwich and being busy looking super thoughtful.

"Avel?  You OK?"

Avel nodded and took the last bite.

"Do you need anything else?"

Avel shook his head and swallowed.

Ezequiel and I didn't know what to do.  Usually Avel was the one with the right words or plan for a situation, so we were in completely new territory.  I didn't like it.  We waited for twenty minutes – TWENTY goshdang minutes of customer after customer walking through with stuff.

And then finally, finally! Avel cleared his throat. "I'll be right back," he said.  And he just got up and left the room.

"Where's he going?" I asked, appalled.

"Dunno."  Ezequiel turned in his chair and watched Avel for a second.  "Out back, I think."

"Should we go with him?"

"Nah, I think he's good."

I took a few steps in the direction Avel had taken, but Ezequiel grabbed my wrist – he had surprisingly soft hands.  "Let him alone, Meliora."

"But..."

"Alone."

So I had to actually sit there and wait with him and the other chick, which was awful, let me tell you.  Too many sickeningly adorable things happened in the next few minutes.  I'm not going to tell you a single one of them, because just thinking about that terrible time makes me want to throw up in my own mouth.  

Finally he came back in, looking a little more refreshed.

"Well?"  I asked.

"It's gone," Avel said.

Ezequiel and I exchanged looks, which was a rather uncomfortable bonding moment for me.

"What?"  Ezequiel said.

Avel shrugged and began to make himself another sandwich.  "I just asked it to go away.  It was very compliant once I explained the situation."

I grabbed the bottom of his shirt and lifted it up.  His skin was only faintly purple, and it was definitely minus one medium-sized shaved alien.  I dropped his shirt and looked at the cuts on my arm.  They were almost healed, and the purple was fading there, too.

"Weird," I said.  "Do you feel OK?"

"Sure," Avel said.

"So, where's the green bugger now?" Ezequiel asked.

"It crept into the bushes by the trampoline."

A moment later, we heard a woman scream from the backyard. Avel winced.

Ezequiel groaned.  "&*$@#."

I closed my eyes, then opened them quickly and grinned.  "Time to go!"


end.

Avel and the Alien, Part 3

I know you want to read Part 1 and Part 2 before you dive in...So go ahead! -m

The thing squeaked a couple of times when the shaver started clearing away fur, but it didn't fight me until I accidentally hit one of the tentacles.

"Skeeeaww!"

A free tentacle waved at me, nearly whacking first my arm, then the shaver.  I had about a third of the alien shaved and didn't really know what to do with the tentacle.  So I hit it back, slamming my hand into the tube.  Except...well, maybe I should have thought a bit longer about how to hit a moving object.  My hand didn't hit the tentacle, my wrist did. I yanked my arm back, cradling it against my chest.

"Ow!"  There were four tiny scratches on the inside flesh of my arm, right where it's nice and tender, and the skin around them was bright red and tinged with purple.

Avel twisted to look at me, so I showed him my wounds.  He grabbed my wrist and licked the scratches, smacking his lips.  "Poison.  Interesting."

"What?  Poison?"  The purple and red spread up my arm.  "Oh, *&$%."

"What's wrong?"

I pushed Avel closer to the back of the couch so I could get a good look at Avel's skin.  It was purple and red all over, and spreading quickly in the direction of his heart.  "I think it's getting into your bloodstream."

"So that's why this hurts so much," Avel said, trying to laugh.  He looked seasick and was covered in a sheen of sweat.

"You look like crap," I told him.

"Don't make me throw up on you, Meli."

"Right.  OK.  Do you want me to keep going?"

"Can you see the whole thing?" 

"No."

"Then keep going."

"Are you sure?  If it's poison, maybe we should call someone?"  Avel didn't answer, so I resituated myself, ordered my nerves to ignore the burning sensation spreading up my arm, and got to work.  Green fur fell in waterfalls, revealing green skin polka-dotted with black freckles.

"Still hurt?" I asked.

Avel cleared his throat and swallowed.  "Yep."

I finished shaving and sat back on my heels.  "Done."  I took the head off the shaver and smacked the entire thing against my thigh, knocking green fur onto the floor.  While I did this, Avel very slowly and carefully put his hand on the alien and inspected it.

"It feels like a dolphin," he said.  "I wonder..."  He pinched one of the tentacles and tried to pull it off of his skin.  The alien squealed and Avel winced.  It didn't look like the alien was going to budge.

"He's like a fuzzy dolphin-porcupine-octopus...thing," I said.  I reached out to poke it, but changed my mind when I saw the barbs.  I wasn't exactly keen to get nicked again.  "Now what?"

Avel sat up, carefully not touching or otherwise disturbing the formerly fuzzy alien.  "We're going to see Ezequiel.  Go grab your keys."

My stomach twisted.  I didn't like Ezequiel.  He didn't like me, for that matter.  Probably something to do with, oh, I don't know, the fact that I shot him in the shoulder once.  Twice.  In my defense, he was trying to mug me in the middle of a job.  In his defense...yeah, he deserved it.

I dragged my feet to get my keys and purse from my room, resurfacing by the front door just after Avel.  He was wearing a huge, ugly hoodie that hid the alien nicely.  We drove to Ezequiel's place in the southeast part of the city.

The neighborhood is all tiny bungalow houses on terrifyingly steep rolling hills.  It reminded me of San Francisco on steroids, if that's even possible.  Instead of parking by the house, Avel had me park at the bottom of a particularly steep hill, and we walked up.  By the time we got to the top, my legs were shaking and I was breathing like an asthmatic in a marathon.  Avel, of course, looked as fresh and relaxed as ever.  Well, I mean, if you didn't count the fact that he looked like he wanted to die.  Alien parasites do that do a person, I've learned. 

Ezequiel's house was usually darker than a seedy bar, and I always had felt like I was supposed to whisper a password to get in.  But today the house was surrounded by cars and people, and all of the lights were on.

"What the heck's going on here?"  I asked.  A nearby couple heard my comment and gave me a weird look, scowling as they looked me up and down.  "Can I help you?" I said to them, returning their scowl.  Avel didn't give me a chance to hear any response – he grabbed my arm and pulled me through the open door.

Everyone inside was crowded around tables piled with stuff.  Old stuff, new stuff, stuff in boxes and bags and cellophane wrapping.  Avel wove through it, still holding my arm, and got us to the back of the house.

Ezequiel was standing with his meaty arms crossed over a faded, grease-stained Coors t-shirt. "Brother," he said to Avel as they shook hands and pounded each other on the back.  He glanced at me.  "Meliora."

"Ezequiel."

"What can I do for you?"  Ezequiel asked.

Wordlessly, Avel led him into the bathroom and I followed.  It was the one place that wasn't full of people, and it was surprisingly roomy.

"I need your...expertise," Avel said.  He nodded to me and I shut the door, and then he pulled off the hoodie.

Ezequiel whistled and then cursed in Spanish.  At least, I'm pretty sure he cursed.  My Spanish isn't so great, but it sure sounded like cursing.

"That's not comin' off, man," Ezequiel said.

Avel and the Alien, Part 2

Check out Part 1 (or any of my other mostly fictional blog series) before you start reading! -m

We went into the house and I made Avel lay on the kitchen counter so Fuzz and I could be on the same level.  I grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and found one of the tentacles under the green fur.  I placed it between the blades.

"OK, brace yourself," I said, and squeezed.

Nothing happened.  Well, something happened, of course.  There was a ton of screaming from both Avel and the thing.  But the scissors didn't do their job.  In fact, they snapped in half.

"Crap," I said.

Avel was moaning.  "That hurt!"

"Sorry.  Want me to try again?" I reached for the tentacle again, even as Avel yelled at me to stop.  The green creature made unhappy sounds and dug its barbed tubies deeper into the side of Avel's waist.

"Stop!" Avel bellowed.

I let go and the fuzzy thing settled back down.  "What's your problem?"  I growled, annoyed with his tone.  "I'm trying to help."

"Well, you're hurting more than your helping."  He sighed heavily  and pulled himself to a sitting position.  He was really pale and covered in a shiny sheen of sweat.  Avel sat still for a minute, silently inspecting his parasite. 

It was dark green and covered in fur that was thick and coarse.  There weren't any eyes, or even an "up" or "down" end.  I had no idea where the noises were coming from.  The tentacles were about the width of my pinky and edged with sharp barbs, like thorns on a rose.  Around the mouth of each tubular tentacle was a ring of those barbs, which was how the thing had attached itself to Avel.

"Can I ask you what happened, exactly?" I asked warily.  I glanced outside, where the rain was beginning to let up.

Avel didn't look up at me as he continued to carefully prod at the green thing.  "There was some sort of box in the middle of the yard.  I went to check it out and this thing jumped out and attacked me."

I grunted and walked away, tossing the broken shears in the trash on my way.

"Where are you going?" Avel asked, sounding dismayed.

"I'm gonna check out the box thing," I said.  I slid open the door and looked around.  There was a black metal box sitting in a small crater in the middle of the formerly pristine lawn.  I whistled and went over, inspecting it with my foot.  The metal was hot and the whole thing was steaming.  I looked up, half expecting to see something else in the sky.  Stray raindrops tickled my cheeks.  There was nothing but gray clouds in the sky.

Back inside, Avel was on his feet and waiting for me.

"I think it's an alien," I declared as I shut the door.

Avel rolled his eyes.  "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not being ridiculous.  I seriously think it is."  He still appeared skeptical.  "Well, what do you think it is?"

We both looked at the thing.  It looked like Avel had glued a green, headless stuffed animal to his shirt.

"Mutant leech?" Avel ventured.  I almost laughed, but he shuddered and I held it in.

"Alien.  Leeches don't have tentacles."

"Fine.  Here," he said.  He handed me a small bag.

"Your shaver?"  I pulled out Avel's electric shaver and flipped it on, then turned it off again.  It took me a second to catch up.  "No.  That's just nasty," I said.  "You seriously want me to shave it?"

Avel shrugged, then grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled.  The tentacles had burned through enough of it that the shirt – which had been one of my favorites, by the way – came right off.

Even with a fuzzy green alien sticking its barbed tentacles into his skin, I couldn't help but grin at my bare-chested boyfriend.  Lord, was he attractive.  Is attractive.  Anyways.

"Why are we doing this?"  I asked.

Avel talked to me over his shoulder as he went over to the couch, which he had covered with an old sheet.  "I need to see what it looks like," he said matter-of-factly.

"Oh."  Of course.  All I could see was fur.  Without the fur, we'd be able to see what the thing really was. I tossed the shaver bag onto a chair and tried to grin.  "So, are we thinking 'buzz cut' or something a little longer?"

Avel snorted, which was probably as close to a laugh as I was going to get. "Just use the head that's on there."  He beckoned for me to follow as he lay on his side, full-length on the couch, but I was frozen.

All I could think was that something was going to go wrong, the shaver was going to slip, the alien was going to suck out all his blood, then go after me...I think they were very typical worries for when an alien leeches onto your boyfriend.

"Meli?"

"Yeah?"  I shook my head, clearing it of the mental image of a half-shaved green monster tearing me and Avel to pieces.  It wasn't very pretty.

"You gonna do it?"

"Oh.  Yeah.  Sorry."  I turned on the shaver and lowered it to the green fur.  I was shaking, my heart was pounding like crazy, and I was holding my breath.  Oh, yes.  This was going to go well.