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.

The Revival, Part 1

The first chills of autumn were curling around my toes, and it was lovely. I was barefoot on the sidewalk and still in my pajamas, and the best part was that the air smelled fresh like a forest.

Our group had just pulled into a parking spot in front of a small hotel in a valley from a fairy tale. Sara, Courtney, and Teia jumped out and inspected the grounds while Leandra and I talked to the front desk with the other two hanging out behind us.

"I hope you girls won't be bothered by the convention," the lady at the front desk said as she eyed my ancient t-shirt, which had a red hand print creeping over my shoulder.

"There's a place for a convention here?" I asked. I hadn't seen any signs of a large convention center on our way into town. Maybe it was on the other side of something?

"Oh, they just built it! It's a lovely building, too; looks just like a big church," she said. "Shouldn't bother you, though, I think it's mostly young people down here."

Leandra and I exchanged looks and shrugged, and then we gathered everybody and dropped our stuff off in our rooms. The beds went from pristine to upset in a matter of three seconds. Bags were zipping and unzipping all along the line of rooms, which were connected now by unlocked and open doors. Everyone freshened up while I put on some real clothes, and we went out hiking and exploring the town after lunch.

When we got back just before dinner time, our rooms were in an even greater mess than we had left them. Sara tapped me on the shoulder while I was staring, open-mouthed, at the contents of my duffel, which had all been pulled inside-out and dumped on the floor.

"My hoodie is covered in cat hair," she said when I looked at her. I would have laughed, but she had been wearing the hoodie earlier, and it hadn't been covered in fur that morning. Similar reports came from the other rooms. Ava and Natalie were so mad that they stormed out and went to confront the front desk lady. Courtney sat on the side of the bed and then stood up right away.

"Ow! Something poked me!" she yelled. The rest of us watched as she flung the covers off and revealed a rather impressive arrangement of knives under the covers. They were pointing blade up. We all were staring at the bed, trying to figure out how the knives had gotten there, when Natalie fell through the door, pulling Ava through after her. Both girls had thin streams of blood running from small cuts all over their arms, and they were soaking wet.

"Natalie!" I said. "What happened?"

"She tried to kill us!" Natalie gasped. She and Ava were on the floor, wheezing as they tried to catch their breath. Suddenly Natalie sat up, pointed at the door, and screamed, "Shut the door!" Teia reached over and slammed it shut with one arm.

"Are you alright?" Leandra asked Ava. She put her finger tentatively on one of the scratches on her sister's arm, to see how deep it was.

"We're ok," Ava said as she glanced at Natalie, who nodded. It was hard to look at them with so much blood trickling out of their tiny wounds. I sat on my feet in front of them, and everyone rallied behind me so we all could see their faces. Ava was still breathing hard, but Natalie had finally gotten control of herself.

"We went down and asked who'd had the audacity to mess with all of our stuff," Natalie said. "And the old lady just looked at us, stiffened, and screamed at us. So we started backing up, you know? We said we'd come back later." She wiped her nose and left a red smear on her cheekbone. "But when we were walking away she threw something at us."

"What'd she throw? Ninja stars?" Teia asked. I turned to glare at her, and she shrugged. "What?" I shook my head and turned back around.

"No, she didn't throw ninja stars," Ava said. She looked at Nat with wide eyes. Natalie looked terrified. "She threw her cats at us."

The other five of us chuckled until we realized that they were perfectly serious. Courtney took in the myriad of red cuts on their arms and said, "Wait. So...what you're saying is, you were attacked by cats?"

Ava and Natalie nodded. We were silent.

"But why are you wet?" Sara asked.

"We jumped in the pool," Natalie said. For the first time since she'd fallen through the door she looked slightly happy. "And then we got out of the pool."

"What happened to the cats?"

"They didn't get out, we're pretty sure," Natalie said. A moment later, something large thumped on the window. All seven of us practically jumped out of our skins, and Courtney leaned close to the glass to see what it was.

"Hey, guys?" she asked. "By any chance, were there more than two cats?"

"No," said Ava. "Why?"

"Because there are two very wet cats and about sixty very dry cats hissing at our front door," Courtney said. I pushed myself up off of the floor and joined her by the window. Sure enough, there was a legion of angry felines crowded around our door. I spun around and looked at everyone else, not sure if I should be laughing or screaming.

"Did anyone bring a gun?"

Brute, Part 3

Hold it. Whoa, yeah, OK, so in case you didn't notice, this is PART 3. That means you may have missed the other two installments of "Brute". I'll give you a few minutes to catch up. You're welcome. -m
Brute, Part 1
Brute, Part 2

Leandra and Jeremiah were in the backyard talking, and I watched them from inside the house with an eyebrow raised . I had left the glass door open so as to avoid any comedic accidents in the event that Jeremiah went berserk again.

The sun was gone now, leaving only a few pinkish remnants of light over the mountains. If I stood on the very edge of the threshold I could see the orange moon rising higher in the sky. Now that Jeremiah was sitting there being all canine-like, I made a face at the moon, feeling ridiculous for thinking it was somehow responsible for all this.

Bouncing on my toes, I watched Leandra pat her new dog on the head, smile, and say something in his ear. I didn't really feel like venturing out there, so I stood on the brink of inside and outside, waiting. The first thing I had done when I'd gone inside was grab my phone out of my bag on the couch. I was flipping it over and over in my hand; it was strangely reassuring to hear the plastic smack against my palm. The time for helping my sister move out was way past; I had already texted her and explained things. Sort of. I hadn't been very specific.

Leandra suddenly stood and came toward me. I moved aside and she brushed past me as she wiped her cheek with her hand. The look I gave her must have been sufficiently quizzical, because she made a face as she got some water from the kitchen.

"He licked me," she said as she wiped her hand on her jeans. I couldn't help it -- I started laughing. She glared at me. "It's not funny."

"No, of course not. I'm sorry," I said. I tossed my head to get my hair out of my eyes and straightened up a little, trying to look the very image of seriousness. But then the thought of Jeremiah slapping a wet doggy kiss on my friend's face made the smile come back.

"Stop it!" Leandra said, whacking me on the arm. She sipped at the cool water and hesitated a moment more before saying, "What are we going to do?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. What do you wanna do?"

"I...I don't know." She looked out to the yard and grimaced when she saw Jeremiah scratching his neck with his back foot.

"Well, what do you want me to do? Should I stay? We could call someone..." I looked at her from the corner of my eye, gauging her reaction. Leandra simply shrugged at everything I said and stayed silent. I leaned back against the door. If she wasn't going to want to call the police or animal control or something, there really wasn't much I could do. I looked at Jeremiah, who was sitting silently outside. "What's he doing?"

"He said the stars were really pretty and told me to go grab some blankets so we could lay out and look at them," Leandra said. She sounded pretty miserable. I hid a smile by focusing on my confusion.

"Oh," was all I said that time. This was followed by an eloquent, "Ummm." Leandra looked me in the eyes and then patted me on the arm.

"You should go home," she said. I raised my eyebrows, thinking she was just trying to be nice.

"You're sure?" She nodded and looked out at Jeremiah, who was still waiting.

"He won't hurt me or anything. We'll just stargaze a while and then I'll go home, too," she said. I pursed my lips, thought for a sec, and then decided to do as she suggested.

"Call if you need me, lady," I said as I walked out the front door. I didn't hear her answer.

---

Teia was amused my my late arrival, as she proved when she bounded into me when I got home. I barely had time to keep my keys from stabbing her in the stomach.

"You deserted me!" she said dramatically, throwing her head to one side and pretending to be distressed.

"Hardly," I said, struggling to breathe in Teia's death grasp. "Leandra had some problems. Problems worse than you being physically unable to throw away junk." Teia dropped her arms and grinned mischievously.

"Junk you gave me," she said as I moved past her into the kitchen. Natalie , the other little sister, was standing in front of a mixing bowl holding a whisk in one hand and a spatula in the other.

"Because you asked for it!" I yelled. Teia laughed and I heard her thunder up the stairs to her room. It was probably mostly empty by now, and I did feel a slight twinge of guilt as I plopped into a chair by the counter, watching Natalie navigate a recipe. Just as she was leaning past me to grab an egg sitting in the spoon holder by the sink, she made a face.

"You smell weird," she said.

"Gee, thanks."

"And you're covered with black hairs. Stop leaning on the table!" she added suddenly when I put my elbows up. "Out! Out of my kitchen! You're going to get fur in everything!" I stuck my tongue out at her and went to flop on the couch in the living room, but I only made it to the floor.

Laying there on my back, I stared blankly at the vaulted ceiling and decided that stretching would feel really good. I straightened out and lifted both of my feet, keeping my legs straight as long as possible. When my feet were nearly touching the floor behind my head, I held them there and marveled at how wonderful it felt. Teia came pounding down the stairs.

"That looks comfy," she said sarcastically and giggled.

"Shut up and try it yourself before you judge me," I said. "I am comfortable." She shook her head and went into the kitchen for a moment. I heard the fridge door open and close, and then she was back, but moving toward the front door.

"Meeting Isaac," she said. I dropped my legs and rolled over, mouth open to question her, but the door slammed shut and she was gone. I rolled again so I could see Nat and I propped myself up on my elbows.

"Do we know Isaac?" I asked, though I knew the answer. Natalie shrugged and shook her head. "Didn't think so."

I had just made it back down to my room when I heard my phone start to ring. Every happy thought inside of me that had been thinking about reading and then going to bed jumped off a cliff when I glanced at the caller ID. Leandra. I knew I shouldn't be rolling my eyes at a time like this, but hey, I was tired, and, I remembered at that moment, I hadn't eaten dinner.

"Hey," I said as I flipped the phone open. "What's up?"

"Oh, god, Meli, you have to come back," Leandra said. I immediately ran back up the stairs. That was real terror in her voice.

"What? What's wrong? What happened?" I scrambled to find my keys. Where had I put them? The table? No, not on the table. Crap. Maybe in my...no. Shoot. OK, keys, call to me, I thought.

"I...I don't know! One minute we were just lying there, talking, and the next....oh, Meli." I found the keys were they always are -- on the hook in the front closet.

"What?!?" I yelled. Leandra was obviously not thinking very quickly. She was speaking quickly, but only in groups of three or four words at a time. And then she just stopped like that, and everyone knows that when someone stops before telling you something that made them call you with horror haunting their words, well, you just know it's not gonna be good.

"He killed a bunny!" I stopped suddenly on my way out the door, my fingers on the handle. I thought for a few seconds, sure that Leandra had said something else. My phone had to have messed that one up. Either way, I was much calmer and prone to patience, and since I couldn't come up with anything else that she might have said (Killed the money? What? No.), I asked her to repeat what she'd said.

"We were on the grass, and I had my hand on his back, and then...and then....he jumped up and he killed a little baby bunny!" I almost dropped the phone I was laughing so hard. Needless to say, it's a good thing she couldn't see me at that moment, because, oh man, did I lose it. Completely.

"Did he save some for you?" I asked. I heard her gasp.

"Meli! That's disgusting!"

"Hey, now, I'm just sayin'....if the man wants to put food on the table...." I said.

"Could you come over? Please? It's getting worse."

"What do you mean?" I asked, swallowing my laughter as I heard her new, quieter tone. I used her pause to yell at Natalie that I was leaving again and shut the door.

"Can you just come?" I nodded even though she couldn't see or sense it and started my car.

"Ten minutes," I said. Leandra thanked me and I flipped the phone shut and dropped it in my cup holder between the front seats. I don't usually speed too terribly, but I shortened the ten minute drive to Jeremiah's place to about six minutes, which is impressive, I think. Just as I pulled up, I mused that maybe by "come over" Leandra had meant to her place, but I shook my head at that one, because of course she wouldn't have left him yet. I got out of my car and found myself walking very, very slowly up to the door.

Leandra met me there; her hair was running loose and looked a little static-y, and the free strands made her wide open eyes look profoundly stricken. Without a word she led me through the small home and to the back yard where, illuminated gently by the moonlight, I could see tufts of white fur scattered all over the grass. Jeremiah was lounging in doggy form against the step, and he was gnawing on something.

The smell of blood suddenly hit me, and I dry retched a little. When my second grade class had gone on a field trip to the Natural History Museum downtown to watch a lamb's heart dissection, I had swooned -- yes, swooned -- and barely made it out the door before fainting full out on the disgustingly decorated, unpadded carpet of the Hall of Life. Blood and I aren't friends.

Jeremiah heard me (probably smelled me, too) and looked up at me, grinning with teeth covered in baby bunny blood. "Hey, Meli," he said. Weird to hear your name coming from the murderous fangs of your friend's fiance.

"Hi, Jer. Uh... whatcha got there?"

"Dinner. Cooked up some rabbit." I glanced at Leandra with my eyes squinted, hoping for an explanation. She looked at me with a look along the lines of "I told you so" and then motioned for me to pay attention. As if I wanted to miss any of this.

Leandra knelt down near his head, so that he still had to look back at us a little, and said, "Jer? Honey? Is your fur keeping you warm enough?" Jeremiah looked at her with so much confusion brimming in his eyes that my jaw dropped as I began to comprehend.

"Fur? Oh, you mean my jacket? Sure, it's fine. Still pretty warm out." Leandra stood and looked me in the eyes. The light from the kitchen door swathed her face in a slightly yellow glow that almost made her brown eyes look gold. I doubt she could see me very well. I stared at Jeremiah for a second, trying to piece things together, and then I shot my hand out and yanked Leandra inside with me. I pulled her into the kitchen and made a lot of noise by pulling a cup out of the cupboard and turning on the sink for water.

"He doesn't know he's a monstrous, furry brute of a fanged killer thing!" I hissed, trying to get all of my feelings into one sentence. I think I succeeded. I didn't even hesitate before adding, "He killed a baby bunny!" Oh, yes, I said it. And without laughing, too.

"I know!" Leandra said. "What did you think I meant?" I took a few big gulps of water, trying to calm myself by filling my belly. I stared out the window.

"How can you not know that your body popped itself out of human mode and into wolf mode? How? It's not possible, I tell you! It's not!" Leandra put her hand on my arm, and I stuck my nose in my glass again, briefly wishing that Jeremiah believed in liquid stronger than caffeinated coffee.

"SShhhh! He'll hear you!" Leandra said, throwing a glance toward the back door.

"'Oh, you mean my jacket?'" I mumbled, imitating Jeremiah's voice. "Oh, it's very warm. Hi, guys, I'm a black-eyed killer from your nightmares, if you don't mind please would you set the bunnies loose?" I flexed my fingers in front of Leandra's face and made wild hand motions to emphasize key points of my tiny monologue, but she ignored me. At least, she pretended to.

"Shut up! We have to figure out what to do," Leandra said. She pinched my arm and I snapped out of my little reaction just in time to stave of the hyperventilating. I put the glass down and lowered my arms at the same time, as though pressing my irrationality into the nether regions of the house.

"Well," I said, weighing my words. "Do you have any silver bullets?"