Backyard Aliens Read online

  “I can’t watch this,” she said.

  ***

  “He said ‘hello’,” Kek-ta said. “See who that is.”

  Chit-Chit-ta held to the chimney and stretched to his full height before stepping into the open. “Greetings, Alien.” Chit-Chit-ta turned his head slightly. “It appears to be researching in its communications link.”

  “Why did you call it ‘Alien’? We are the aliens here,” she said.

  “Nottabek,” Kek-ta heard from below. “Holy one?” she said.

  “Natt-ahh-buk,” Chit-Chit-ta said loudly. Then he waved toward the aliens and stepped back behind the chimney. “It has a weak grasp of our language. This is a waste of our time.”

  “They’re trying,” she said.

  He peeked around the chimney. “They’re talking. And now their protectors are on the move again, probably with nets and weapons.”

  “They haven’t used weapons yet,” she said.

  “If we continue to elude them, they’ll resort to weapons,” Chit-Chit-ta said. “We can’t stay here. We’ve got to send a signal and move on. Oh, no…”

  “What is it?”

  “The ones you trust are walking away. I don’t like this.” He stopped peeking at them.

  She touched her stomach. “It’s growing quickly.” She tried to engage his eyes, she scuffed his ear, but he was preoccupied with the situation.

  “I don’t trust them like you do.” Chit-Chit-ta pulled her hand from his ear. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 10

  MAVRA STOMPED AWAY FROM THE SOLDIERS. It wasn’t like they were collecting zoo animals. These were real-life aliens, and the soldiers were going to hurt one of them. She couldn’t watch. In fact…she grabbed Neil’s hand and led him across a lawn, taking them out of the sight and the attention of the soldiers.

  “Where you taking me?”

  She tugged his arm to follow her faster. “Around back. I want you to look up how to tell them they’re in danger.”

  “There’s nothing like that in here,” Neil said.

  “What do we have to work with?” They traveled through someone’s yard and over a small fence. A dog barked from inside the ranch-style home to their right. Near the rear of the house, the moon held to the sky like it was pinned there. A quarter moon. Enough light for Mavra to see the soldiers advancing with their long handled nets. “Seriously,” she said, “do they expect this to work?”

  Three of the solders had M-16s. She shivered at the thought of what they might do.

  “They don’t care,” Neil told her. “Okay, I have ‘follow me’ or ‘come on,’ something like that. It looks like a few words. Takki lomo ebb.”

  “I’ll try this time,” Mavra said. “They probably won’t follow the idiot.”

  “Thanks. Love you too.”

  She sneaked closer to the building, hoping the soldiers couldn’t see her behind a small hedge. Neil was on all fours next to her. She grabbed his wrist, lifted, and turned it so that she could see the phone he held. “Takki lomo ebb,” she said. “Looks easy enough.” She rose up slightly and in a high-pitched voice yelled, “Takkiiiiii lomo-ebb. Takkiiiiii lomo-ebb.”

  “Holy shit,” Neil said. “Here they come.”

  The aliens ran across the peak of the house. The ground soldiers turned their attention and ran after them. At the edge of the house, the aliens scrambled down the side of the building as though they had suction cups on their hands and feet.

  “I don’t know how they’re doing that,” Neil said from beside her.

  A shot rang out and Mavra started to rise up, but Neil grabbed her by the back of her pants and pulled her down. “This way.” He rushed back the way they’d come and rounded the building. “Keep yelling,” he said.

  “Takkiiiii lomo-ebb,” Mavra yelled behind her. In a moment, Neil pointed to the peak of the next house. “Still coming. And there’re two of them, just the right number.”

  “Are those soldiers that bad a shot?” she said while running.

  “A warning.” Neil said.

  “How would the aliens know? Unless a bullet hit them, it would just be a loud sound.”

  “I know.” He stopped near a small backyard shed. “They’re still coming.”

  “I’ll bet those soldiers are too.”

  “Yep, around that corner. What now?” Neil said.

  “Divert their attention. I have an idea.”

  Neil rushed toward the soldiers and yelled for them to follow him as he ran between two of the houses. “They’re circling around.”

  Those were the last words she heard Neil say. The soldiers curved around to follow him. She opened the shed and peered inside. An old lawn mower, tool box, a rake and shovel. Not much in there. She turned around. The aliens stared at her from the ledge of the house in front of her. She motioned for them to come down then patted the building. She cocked her head. “Takki lomo ebb,” she said.

  The aliens looked at each other, then climbed down the siding. Their claw-like, three-toed feet appeared to squeeze under the siding; their two-thumbed hands seemed to do the same. They’d make great mountain climbers with hands like those.

  Mavra stepped away from the shed as the aliens walked across the yard toward her. The male alien stood slightly shorter than the female, and walked ahead of her. Obviously, he was expendable, where the woman was not. After all, she was most likely pregnant, wasn’t she? Their skin looked soft; the light fuzz over their bodies lay flat, while the longer, darker hair on their heads rustled in the breeze. The female shivered. If it hadn’t been for the direction they walked, Mavra wouldn’t have known which of their faces was real. Their features—half-human, half-monkey—were eerily familiar. They stopped to look around. Their necks turned almost completely around in a quick jerk, confusing her about their orientation. For all she knew, both sets of eyes could see, both noses smell the sweet scent of grass. Maybe neither face was a dummy.

  When they stopped advancing, she noticed them frowning at her and stepped farther away from them, backing up one step at a time. This rhythm of motion continued until the female slipped inside the shed. The male picked up a rock that must have been lying inside the shed and placed it at the door so it couldn’t be closed. He hunched down, glared at Mavra for a moment, then scuttled backward into the shadows.

  “You can trust me,” Mavra said under her breath. She sensed their fear. The female struggled to follow the male. Perhaps it was the tension between their duties. She could understand that.

  She turned and rushed away from the two-faced things, heading in the direction Neil had led the soldiers. The aliens would be safe for now. She just hoped that no one from the house came out to shut the door of the shed and saw the little guys. At that point, the cat would be out of the bag.

  She needed to catch up with Neil. They couldn’t leave the aliens in that shed all night. What if they ran off? And the soldiers probably weren’t going to let her or Neil out of their site for long. Harkins wasn’t that stupid. She agonized over the situation while weaving her way back to the sidewalk where she saw everyone had gathered. But before she caught up with them, Neil waved the soldiers back toward the woods. Good idea. Mavra crossed the street and traveled back to the car. She used her phone to text Neil. “Getting too tired. Went back to car. I’m safe.” She knew he’d get it.

  It didn’t take long before she sat in the passenger seat and reclined the seatback. She breathed better. Relaxed. Then, in a rush of concern, she put the seat back upright. Would the aliens stay put? Did they trust her not to come back and try to capture them? The male had parked himself near the opening, on guard. She rolled to her side. Could she get any information from them directly?

  She closed her eyes. Nothing dangerous or evil came through, but that could be her exhaustion blocking information she didn’t want to deal with. It could be what she wished for and not what was real, too. She took three deep breaths and let the air out of her lungs in long slow exhales each time. While doing so, she repeated,
“I am still.” When she felt relaxed enough, she allowed her mind to wander aimlessly, starting with thoughts of the soldiers, of Neil, of the man and his dog earlier that evening, of the coolness of the night air and the mystery of life. When the images became more abstract, she let herself flow into the work, let her mind follow one strand of images or thoughts, all jumbled together like a surrealistic painting by Dali. Shadowy images, crackling sounds, the scent of a strange fruit, all combined and rolled around inside her.

  It was difficult to stay in her trance when she saw what looked like space ships appear. She strained a moment to realign her breathing, make sure her pulse rate didn’t jump. She told herself to take a deep breath. Just observe. Let everything show up the way it needed to. Again, the images were fleeting, but she clearly saw spaceships of some kind. Why? She asked gently. What is their purpose? Mavra let her mind empty and the spaceships disappeared. She knew this was necessary, as though her mind tested her commitment to truth. When she felt comfortable moving on, the images returned. This time other aliens appeared, disconnected to her previous images, larger aliens, but not much larger, and similar to the ones hatched from the egg. These aliens dressed in loos-fitting clothes, uniforms of some kind. Everyone dressed the same: pants and shirts, pullovers, a mustard-colored material, some uniforms cut slightly different from others. Other colors, too. She couldn’t tell which were male and which were female, but it didn’t matter. A sense of equality came through.

  She asked why again. This time she saw plants, not like Earth, green and blue, strange, but plants nonetheless. A terrible heat burned them. She didn’t see it happen, she just knew it had. She glimpsed burned piles of brush, strange buildings ablaze. Then snow and cold came. A frozen planet. Then plants again. Was she going through seasons with them? No. Her next sense felt like a dying out. They died out. The spaceships again. Empty. Just floating in space. Just…

  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Her phone buzzed from inside her pocket. She pulled it out. “Yes?”

  “Got your message. You still…” he paused for her to understand his meaning, “…safe?”

  “Absolutely. But we need to talk soon.”

  “Are you feeling ill?” he asked.

  She got it. His message was clear. “Yes, Honey. It’s been too long a day without much to eat and I’m not feeling well at all. Can you take me to the hotel? I don’t have keys to the Spree or the room with me.”

  She heard him cover the phone and mumble something to someone. Was that Harkins’ voice she heard in the background?

  “I saw the aliens head back into the woods. Harkins has all his NVD gear and believes they’ve got this covered for now. Don’t worry. We’ll be back tomorrow, at least to check in. I’m on my way.”

  “Just take me home,” she said into the phone, knowing that the others could hear. He agreed and hung up. Mavra waited. She didn’t try to get any more information. That’s not how it worked. She couldn’t overstress her abilities or ask too much of the universe. It was just occult law, how she understood it. Ask for too much and you get nothing, or you get misinformation. She knew her limits.

  She was half-asleep when Neil popped the car door open and dropped into his seat. She reached toward him and touched his shoulder. His hair poked out in all directions, like some little kid who had been out playing all day. She straightened in her seat and smoothed his hair down. “I am tired,” she said.

  “I know, but we can’t leave yet.” He started the car.

  “Then where we going?”

  “I suspect someone followed me, so we’re going to take a short drive then come back. There’s got to be another entrance, even if we have to jump a fence or two.” He pulled onto the road and flicked on the car lights.

  “They don’t suspect anything?”

  “Not that I know of. I’m not crazy about this, though. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize my chances of getting more work.” He shrugged. “Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve gone my own way.”

  She reached over and touched his side where he’d been shot once before. “You never play by the rules, and look where it gets you sometimes.”

  “Only once,” he said.

  “Close enough.”

  Neil made several turns then headed back toward Tree Breeze. “Let’s try this road,” he said, making a quick right.

  “Looks familiar,” Mavra said. She pulled up a map of the area on her phone. “I’m guessing this will work. The development’s so new. The maps haven’t been updated. On here it looks as though it’s smaller than it really is.”

  “Let me see,” Neil said, leaning toward her.

  She held the phone up, knowing that his other eye was on the road as he drove.

  “Yeah, let me swing down the next left. That should get us close enough. I don’t remember there being a road from this direction, but we should be able to get close.”

  Mavra took a deep breath. “We’re going to be up all night, aren’t we?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Not fair. You can let half your mind sleep while the other half pushes through. I can’t do that. I hope you know my abilities will weaken. I won’t be as accurate. Probably shouldn’t try anyway,” she mumbled, recalling her recent trance.

  “You can nap in the car. I can call you when they’re on the move again.”

  “No. I’m going.”

  He pulled over and parked, then turned in his seat to look at her. “Then I’ll stay awake.”

  “Both sides?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t want you to do that if it’s going to compromise the mission.”

  “I don’t know what our mission is at the moment. But, I’ll let you know if that starts to happen. Fair?”

  “I love you,” she said.

  They got out of the car. Mavra retrieved a light jacket from the trunk, and they took a short walk around some construction equipment parked in a half-developed lot, past two partially framed homes. Neil then led her into someone’s side yard.

  “You know where we are?” she asked.

  “Yeah, just follow the idiot.”

  “Not fair. That’s not what I was thinking.”

  “You said it,” he said with a grin.

  “You are not funny.”

  When they got within sight of the shed where she’d left the aliens, Neil sat on the grass. The light of a television in someone’s upstairs bedroom flashed into the yard every once in a while. “This is rather peaceful,” he said.

  Mavra nestled close to him and he put his arm around her. “I could fall asleep.”

  “Go ahead, honey. I’ll let you know when they stir.”

  Mavra warmed next to his body and quickly dozed off. When she awoke, Neil held her in his arms while she stirred. “How long’s it been?”

  “An hour or so,” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “One of them left and headed toward the front of the houses. I wonder if there’s a garage that’s open.”

  “Cars are parked along the street. If the gear that soldier recognized was really a car stereo like he thought, it makes sense.”

  He stared at her.

  “What? I pay attention.”

  “He’ll be back, then,” Neil said.

  “Did you get any sleep?”

  “No.”

  “You could have. I broke the agreement first.”

  “I was thinking. It’s okay. I’m wide awake.”

  “And?”

  “Call me crazy, but I want to know where they’re going to point their signal. It’s not to talk with us. They believe something, or someone is out there. Our telescopes would have seen something. I’m not so sure…”

  Mavra didn’t tell him about what she saw in her trance earlier. She didn’t want to influence his thinking. “You’ll figure it out.” Her input could wait.

  “Nope.” He pointed at the shed. “They’re going to show us. That is, as long as we can keep Harkins and his crew out o
f our way. I just hope these guys don’t go back into the woods.”

  “Look,” Mavra pointed. Sure enough, the alien was dragging a car radio by some cables in one hand and an antenna in the other.”

  “Unbelievable,” Neil said.

  “You called it.”

  “Not a difficult call.”

  The first alien whispered something and the other alien bounded from the shed. The first alien dropped his stash and jumped as they got close. They slapped hands and touched each other’s heads and then hugged. It looked like a reunion. Each picked up a piece of equipment and headed back toward the shed, passing it before heading farther into the development.

  “They’re headed toward our car,” Mavra said.

  “Good a direction as any,” Neil said. “Let’s go.”

  They crouched as they ran behind the aliens, and tried to stay out of site. “I have a feeling this isn’t the end of it,” Mavra said.

  ***

  Kek-ta couldn’t believe how easily Chit-Chit-ta was able to find the equipment he needed, but she was glad he could. All she wanted at this moment was to be done with it all. She had bad feelings about the whole idea of sticking around as long as they had, and wanted to be gone from the area, to be somewhere safe, somewhere she could give birth. She had no idea how long it would be before that happened. She looked toward the sky, searched her mind for data, but nothing came alive for her. How long were their nights and days? What was their weather like? It was slightly warmer inside the small metal chamber with all the tools, but they had to stay on the move.

  She ran out and greeted him, and they hugged. She liked that. She liked that he was there with her. She recalled briefly the heat that finally reached the labs where they worked. She had had a full and wonderful life, and he was only a few turns younger than her. Still, he seemed out of reach as a mating partner, and she couldn’t have mated anyway, having gone through her changes. She looked down at her new body. Now they were to start over. It was frightening and exciting. But first, they had to escape the natives.

  “It helped us,” Kek-ta said.

  “And they are following us,” Chit-Chit-ta told her.