The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) (11 page)

I hit Earth running and flitted to my neighborhood, ignoring the calls from Mom and Dad.  It took a few minutes of aerial surveillance but I found swaths of cleared land quickly and followed them to the giant bugs.  I had only one chance to do this.  It might kill me but at least it would buy humanity some time.

I targeted one of the centipedes in the middle of a row of eight of the monsters hooked into a giant cat spider.  For better or worse, I was going to merge with it.

God help me.

It was crazy and stupid to merge with animals.  Merging with alien space bugs was an even worse idea but I didn't have a choice.  I'd let everyone down.  I felt as if I'd betrayed my best friend and humans in general.  In life I'd been one of those self-sacrificing individuals, it occurred to me.  I'd sacrificed going to parties and having fun to study and make my parents proud instead.  I'd thrown myself on Kyle's problems to save him from his parents' wrath more times than I could count.  I'd sprained my leg trying to keep Robby from falling out of his tree house.  I'd let a strange dog bite me to protect my dog, Licks, once.  Those sorts of events flashed through my mind in the short time it took me to reach the giant centipede.

This was a worthy cause to die for, right?

"Of course it is," I said aloud as fear threatened to overwhelm my quickly waning enthusiasm.

So I did it before I had much more time to think.  I wasn't sure where to merge and the closer I came to the thing, the more grossed out I was.  It looked horrible.  Slimy.  Bug-arrific and terrifying.  Two big black bug eyes stared blindly ahead and giant mandibles shoved everything into that frightening maw.  I almost crapped my ghost pants.

I chose a point behind its eyes, figuring if it had a brain, that might be where it was.  Biology was one of my strong classes in school but damned if I could remember a thing about the anatomy of a bug.  It didn't really matter anyway.  This wasn't a bug, it was an alien monstrosity.  It might not even have a brain, judging from its mindless preoccupation with gobbling everything in its path.

Just do it.
  Thanks, Nike.

I landed atop it, relaxed, and--nothing happened.  I tried again.  Still nothing.  This wasn't good.  My brilliant plan hadn't taken this into account.  I switched to another bug and tried again.  Still no good.  I looked on with horror as the creatures devoured a line of cars scattered on a once busy street.  The cars had bodies in them.  People were dying every second I failed.  Just a few hundred yards further along my house stood in the path of these things.

I frantically moved from one bug to another but my merge had no effect on any of them.  Maybe they were too alien for my ghost to mix.  I looked back at the giant cat spider.  It had a head with eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  It was alien, but it had to have a brain in that head somewhere, right?  I flitted to it and without a moment's hesitation, settled into it.

Heat seared into my body.  I screamed in agony.  Then I was sucked in.  I saw the world through amber-tinted eyes.  Rage burned through my mind.  Intense anger, sorrow, and a vengeful spirit fought against something, but not me.  I started to fade out but struggled against the weakness.  I detected an anomaly in the creatures mind.  It felt like a wall.  Consciousness faded again.  I screamed and heard the creature scream with me.

The wall in its mind.  I had to push it, fight it.  It wasn't really a wall, of course, but that was the closest thing I could compare it to.  I joined the creature's own consciousness and slammed against the wall, battering against it.  Blackness engulfed me.  Then I was back.  I could hear myself crying somehow.  Maybe I was going insane and was imagining it.  Something cracked.  Something splintered.  The wall collapsed.

I was exhausted.  Worn to nothing.  A triumphant scream emerged from the creature.  I saw explosions through its eyes.  Saw it turn to face one of the large vehicles driven by the octo-aliens.  It screamed again, like a banshee, high pitched and furious.  My spirit couldn't stay with it anymore.  I faded away to nothing.

* * * * *

"You should marry Jenny, Nick.  You two are perfect together," Rebecca Lanshire said, looking back at him from the front seat of the car.

"I agree with your mother," Randall Lanshire said.  He slowed the car at a rural intersection.  They were driving out to see Uncle Albert, Rebecca's brother in Keneton.

"Mum?  Dad?" Nick asked.  They were alive?  A feeling of incredible dread welled up inside him.  Something terrible was about to happen.

"You were such a miracle for us," Mum said.  "And to think the doctor told me I was barren.  Now our little Nick is about to get married and have grandchildren."  She laughed with delight.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Mum," Randall said with a broad grin.  "The kids need to have fun first.  You've got college ahead of you too, son."

"Stop the car, Dad.  Turn it around," Nick said.

"Have you decided where to attend?" Randall asked, seemingly oblivious to what Nick had just said.

"Stop the car!" Nick shouted.  It was about to happen.  He could feel it.

"Excellent choice, son.  We're so proud of you."

A searing bright blue light flashed in the windshield.  Rebecca screamed.  Randall shouted.  Nick flung his hands up.  Metal screeched.

Steam rose from the hood of the car.  A large tree stood where the dash had been, its bark scarred and bleeding sap.  Randall and Rebecca sat slumped over their seatbelts, bloody, and lifeless.  Nick screamed.

Something tiny, the size of a marble hovered over the broken windshield.  Nick stared at it.  A blue light flashed.

* * * * *

Sheep grazed in the distance.  A cold wind swept from the fields and up the hill into Nick's face.  A boy and a dog stared at him, their heads cocked to the side.

"Who are you?" the boy asked.  "What're you doing up here?"

Nick jumped to his feet.  "Mom?  Dad?"

The boy looked around, then down at a farmstead a few hundred yards down the hill.  "You need a phone?"

Nick didn't know where he was or what he needed.  Had everything been a dream?  "A phone would be nice.  Where am I?"

"A bit from Epwell.  You get lost on a hike or something?"

Nick walked down the hill and used the phone.  Nobody answered either of his parents' cell phones.  His guts ached with dread and sick worry.  It hadn't been a dream.  He knew that now.  His parents were dead.  He was alone in the world.

Uncle Albert picked him up a few hours later and drove him out to Keneton.

"Where the hell have you been, lad?  Your parents are two weeks in the grave and you're nowhere to be found."

"I don't know."  Nick wiped a lone tear from his eye and fought the others back with anger.  "How long have I been missing?"

"Three bloody weeks.  We delayed the funeral, hoping you'd turn up.  Police considered foul play, but nobody knew why you'd be kidnapped.  Jenny's been sick with worry about you."

"Jenny."  His heart swelled with joy at the mere thought of her.  She was waiting for him.  He needed her now more than anything.

They entered Keneton.  Nick saw people walking the streets, many heading to the pub.  He felt an overwhelming urge to stop and talk to them.  That was odd since Nick didn't make friends easily or often.  He stuck to his own.  His circle of friends was small but tight.

"I need to stop at the grocer," Albert said.  "Need anything?"

"I'll just wait in the car."

Albert went inside.  Nick watched people coming in and out of the small shop.  The urge to talk to them tugged at him again.  He resisted the urge until he could take it no longer and got out.  A woman approached the store.  He walked to her, extended his hand like a politician.

"Hello, there.  I'm Nick."

She raised an eyebrow, extended her hand, and shook his.  "You're new here?"

"I am."  He thought he should continue the conversation but no longer felt the desire to talk to her at all.  A man emerged from the store.  Nick greeted him the same way.  The woman looked slightly confused then went into the store as he ignored her.

Albert emerged a few moments later.  "You running for office, lad?"

"No, I just wanted to talk to people."

The urges grew worse.  When he went back to London with Jenny, it took all his willpower not to talk to every single person he came across which was quite a lot in the city.  Nick wondered if this was a coping mechanism.  Maybe his mind needed this.  But where had he been for three weeks?  Had he blanked everything from his mind?

* * * * *

Nick staggered a few feet from the pub before dropping to his knees and vomiting.  He heaved until he was dry then rolled onto his back and stared at the night sky.  Jenny was going to kill him.  He'd promised to be home before six for dinner and a nice evening together.  Instead, the bloody urge had hit him, dragged him into another random pub and here he was.  It was hopeless.  No matter how hard he tried or how much he drank, he couldn't fight it.  Couldn't overcome this bloody mental obsession of his.

He pushed himself up and checked the time.  Eight already.  After a sweaty nauseating jog through the streets he saw their place, the place they'd shared for a little under a year since Nick's parents had died.  He pushed inside, ran up the stairs to the bedroom. Saw her packing.

"I'm sorry, Jen.  Just a little late, love."

She looked at him, eyes red with past tears.

"Where're you going?" he asked.

"Nowhere.  You're the one that's going."

"Then why're you packing?"  He overcame the drunken stupor long enough to realize those were his bags she was packing.  "You can't do this to me."

"I own the place, Nick.  I pay for it.  You haven't paid a bloody thing for months.  You haven't held a job long enough."

"It's just a rough time for me.  You've got to understand."

"I understood.  Your parents died almost a year ago.  The Nick I knew before then was totally different.  You never drank, smoked, or felt the need to hang out at every random pub we came to.  Now it's like some disease.  You're not the man I loved.  I think he died with your parents."

"We can beat this, Jen, I know it."

"We tried to beat it.  Now you'll have to beat it on your own."

"God, no, Jen.  Please don't do this.  I love you.  I have a problem but I'm trying so hard to overcome it.  I'll do anything.  My therapist thinks I'm making progress."

"You're sick.  Don't you see that?  You need more than a therapist.  You need medical help, Nick.  I can't deal with this one more day.  Not one more bloody stinking day.  I'm sick of it.  Sick to my bones and tired of crying myself to sleep every night you're gone drinking."  Jenny slammed his suitcase shut.  "I fit your clothes inside.  Anything else you need, I'll have it shipped.  I want you out first thing tomorrow."  She rolled the suitcase to the top of the stairs.  He followed her.

"Please no."

She threw up her hands.  "I'm done."  She turned, slammed the bedroom door shut behind her and locked it.

* * * * *

"Come to the states," Tim said.  "You're a pilot.  This will be a good experience for you."

Nick hung up the phone.  Jenny was gone for good.  He had nothing left in London.  His social affliction hadn't improved and drinking himself into a stupor every night was no solution.  What better place to escape from it all than Antarctica?

Weeks later he was there.  After meeting everyone on the base, he no longer felt the overwhelming desire to talk to everyone.  He almost felt normal again.  But he missed Jenny.  He missed his parents.  Drinking was the only thing that helped.

Then the emergency evacuation took place.  He was all alone.  Except for his video camera, a few movies, and, of course, his imaginary friend, Lucy.  Soon all that would be left was his insanity.

* * * * *

"Meow."

Nibbles curled up next to me and purred into my ear.  I hurt all over.  Every part of me felt like it had been broken and reassembled.  Something else felt wrong.  I looked at my hand.  It wasn't my hand.  It was too large, too masculine.  I sat up and felt the weight of gravity pushing down on me.  Looked at the rest of my body.  I was inside Nick.

I relaxed and Nick's body released me.  He groaned and put a hand to his head.  Looked around the room.  "Are you here, Lucy?"

My heart lightened.  Did he actually believe I was real now?  I realized something else.  This place was different.  I flitted outside the building and took in the surroundings.  Snowcapped mountains cut off the horizon on my left.  I zoomed higher and saw ocean to my right.  The building below me stood next to a small airstrip.  A single-engine plane sat to the side of the runway. He'd escaped Antarctica.  He was somewhere in Argentina, I guessed.  I laughed, allowing this bit of joy to drag my heart out of the depression zone.

I was dangerously close to going emo and I didn't like that thought one bit.  Back inside the building, Nick was microwaving breakfast, humming to himself.  Bits of a dream drifted back to me in graphic detail.  How his parents had died.  How he'd lost Jenny.  What had become of him.  My joy quickly faded when I remembered how his parents had died.  That floating orb was not manmade.  Other pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.  Nick's overwhelming urge to talk to people had felt unnatural.  Like someone had forced him into that behavior.

A terrible suspicion blossomed inside me and I knew Nick could no longer remain a secret.  It was already strange enough that I'd merged with him after passing out.  A flutter of panic made me feel even sicker.  The aliens.  Had I stopped them?  Obviously I was still "alive" but I didn't know if I'd been out of it for hours, days, or longer.  I called Kyle.  He answered within a split second so I knew he was worried.  He showed up seconds later, Chris in tow.  Nibbles flitted around their legs, purring happily.

Chris hugged me tight and kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my mouth.  "I was so worried," he said.  "Don't ever do something that stupid again."

Kyle stood by, his face as angry as I'd ever seen it.  "I don't know whether to kill you or get down on my knees and thank you.  I knew immediately that you somehow made that spider thing do what it did.  Of course none of us found out about it until a day after it happened.  We were too busy possessing gorillas."

"What happened?" I asked, freeing myself from Chris for a moment.

"You don't know?"  Kyle shook his head.  "According to witnesses, they saw a crazy girl trying to do something to the centipedes.  Then the girl vanished inside the spider-cat thing.  A few minutes later, all the centipedes attached to it exploded, the spider-cat turned and tore into the vehicle that collects the glowing cubes and killed some of the Octos.  Then the girl's ghost drifted out of the spider-cat and vanished just before the blue orb on its back exploded and splattered it all over the place."

"Now we know how to stop them," I said.  "We can beat them."

"Maybe," Chris said.  "But so far nobody else has been able to merge with another one."

"And the aliens have shut everything down," Kyle said.  "We think they're trying to figure out what went wrong.  Another attack on the spiders wouldn't work right now since they're locked up in cryo.  We surveyed all the other cleanup zones and they're locked down as well."

I sighed.  "At least it bought us some time."  I paused and looked at them, my heart growing heavy.  I had to tell them about Nick.  So I did.  My voice quavered as I told them everything about him, leaving out some of the very personal bits, of course.  I could tell from their expressions they were righteously pissed.

Kyle slapped his forehead.  "Son of a bitch.  We can't tell anyone."  He paced in a circle, muttering under his breath, then stopped and glared at me.  "I won't pretend I'm not upset, Luce, but I understand."

Chris eyed me suspiciously.  His fists clenched.  "You feel something for him, don't you?"

I couldn't meet his gaze.  "I couldn't help it.  I wanted to help him."

"It's more than that, Lucy.  Now a few things make sense.  All those days you were away supposedly travelling, you were with him.  Merging with him, getting to know him.  Falling in love with him too, right?"

I wanted to deny it, but I couldn't.  I still cared for Nick, but now I knew there might be another reason for his survival.  A very dark reason.  "I never wanted to hurt you, Chris."

His eyes bored into me, his arms crossed over his chest.  "God damn, Lucy.  You merged with him.  That's more intimate than sex, don't you think?"  His voice rose and his fists tightened.  "I can't even look at you."  He glared at me, jaw clenched, eyes full of anguish.

"How can you say that?  It has nothing to do with sex."

"Yeah.  Right.  Screw this."  He flitted away.

"Are you saying you had sex with a gorilla then?" I yelled at empty air.  Tears pooled in my eyes.

  Kyle put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"Give him time, Luce.  He'll come around."

"I can't take anymore," I said.  "Everyone hates me, then they love me, then they hate me again.  Every good thing I do goes to crap."

"Oh geez, don't be so melodramatic.  It's not that horrible."

"Saving the world from aliens is not easy on the emotions," I said.  "You don't understand."

"I might as well fill you in on the latest developments so you'll stop feeling so sorry for yourself," Kyle said, moving a few feet away.  "You've been gone about a week.  We've trained thirty more people, all about our age, to help out.   Everyone was eager to duplicate your feat, but we decided to wait and plan it out better.  One guy didn't listen to us.  He merged with another spider-cat while they were herding it back into the ship and never came out."

"Well look at what happened to me.  I vanished too."

"Yeah but you drifted free of the creature just before vanishing.  He never came back out of it and the spider-cat didn't blow up."

"You sure his corpse wasn't vaporized in the meantime?"

"Positive.  His corpse is still rotting where it died."

"His ghost is dead?"

"We have no clue and no way to find out except to wait."

"This is bad," I said.

"That's not the worst.  We lost five more during their gorilla training."

"Lost them?  How?"

"Apparently some people can't handle it and their ghosts never came back out of the gorillas.  We don't know what happened to them or why, but it's worried us.  Harb went into the gorillas they'd possessed and didn't find anything.  In fact, the gorillas are acting normally."

"As if they were never possessed?"

"Exactly."

How had I been so lucky, I wondered.  I'd merged with a human, a gorilla, and a freaking alien and survived.  Had it just been dumb luck or something more?  I saw Nibbles lunge at a red feather from the corner of my eye.

"Speaking of rotting corpses, are we going to vanish when our bodies completely decompose?"

"I don't think so.  Otherwise there wouldn't be any old ghosts around."

"Something the aliens do to our bodies kills us off then?"

"They convert our former molecules into pure energy.  Somehow we're anchored to our bodies and once that anchor is gone, we're gone."

That was depressing.  I looked at Kyle.  "What now?"

"I want to show you something," he said.

We flitted to the alien cube that had landed near our neighborhood.  Fifty of the slimy octo-aliens had gathered around a large tub of green ooze.  Above the tub was a grated platform with the bodies of those aliens that, according to Kyle, had been killed by the spider-cat.  The aliens trumpeted in their strange language, touching the bodies of the dead ones and each other.  The trumpeting noises grew in volume.  At first it sounded random.  Then a haunting harmonic melody emerged.  For a few minutes, I was entranced as the music gathered force and crescendoed into a cry of what had to be grief.  Nibbles appeared and started chasing their tentacles.

"Are they singing?" I asked.

He nodded.  "They've been doing this for two days now.  I think they're mourning."

"Did alien ghosts appear when they died?"

He shrugged.  "I think we'd know pretty fast if an Octo joined us in Heavenly."

"That's what we're calling them now?"

"Yeah."

"Well this rocks.  We hurt the bastards."

Kyle nodded, but he didn't look happy.

"What?"

"Nothing.  I just hate all the killing."

"Are you serious?  They started it, don't forget that."

Bella appeared at Kyle's side.  Her eyes narrowed to slits when she saw me.  Nibbles didn't greet her.  He flitted to my shoulder and perched there.

"Well if it isn't little Miss Hero.  Guess your temper tantrum paid off," Bella said.

"What's your problem with me?"

"C'mon, guys, don't do this," Kyle said.

Bella flitted to my left side away from Kyle.  "Your secrets cost us thousands of lives.  That's my problem with you.  Too bad that alien didn't eat your soul for lunch."

"I saved lives in case you hadn't noticed."

"Not the right ones!"  Bella screamed.  Nibbles hissed and vanished.

I backed away, shocked.

Kyle forced himself between us.  "Bella, damn it, it's too late."

"Yeah, it's too late all right."  She shook her head.  "I should've known you'd defend her."  She blipped away but not before I saw the tears in her eyes.  I looked at Kyle, a question in my eyes.

"The rest of her family is gone, Luce.  The bugs got them just before you told us about merging."

I choked back a sob.  My chest knotted and I couldn't breathe.  It was all an illusion, of course, but it felt real.  "My fault," I said.  "My fault."

"Don't run off and do something stupid again," Kyle said.  "Please."

"I need to get away.  You guys don't need me any more.  You know how to merge.  You know how to stop the aliens."

"But you're the only one who's merged with an alien creature.  We need your knowledge, Luce."

"Then take it," I said, holding my hand out for him to merge.  "Take everything.  I don't care any more."

Kyle shook his head.  "Give them time.  Chris and Bella will come around."

"As if they're the only ones who hate me.  I'll bet they've told everyone else it's my fault."

He sighed and I knew it was true.  He took my hand and merged.  I felt everything flow from me.  How much of it he actually absorbed, I'm not sure.

"Nick," he said, eyes wide.  "You controlled him.  And his dreams."  He withdrew from the merge.

"You figure it out," I said.  "I'm done."  And I left.

Chris hated me.  Bella hated me.  Ms. Tate hated me.  The world against Lucy.  I can be so melodramatic at times, but knowing that I'm being foolish doesn't make it any easier to change.  I stood atop a mountain somewhere in China.  Nibbles appeared on my shoulder and nuzzled my cheek.  His deep purr vibrated in my ear.  At least he didn't hate me.  And somehow, he always found me when he wanted to.

"Thanks, buddy," I said and stroked his fur.  I felt pretty stupid running away again.  It was interesting seeing the world, but it was probably in bad taste to do it while aliens were snacking on my neighborhood.  What else could I do?  Pretty much everyone associated with Harb's project hated me or didn't trust me now.

I jumped off the side of the mountain and let myself freefall through the clouds and toward the ground.  Seconds before impact, I stopped my fall and zoomed through the valley below.  As I surveyed the craggy peaks around me, I saw a familiar sight.  Mount Everest lay just ahead.  Chris and I had come here once before but not stopped as we'd searched for an interesting new date location.  Instead, we'd settled for an old army bunker in North Korea.  Why?  Because we could, I guess.

I landed atop the mountain.  The day was crystal clear aside from a few cloudy wisps beneath me.  I saw something on the summit which definitely hadn't been there before, a colorful wooden shrine in the Tibetan fashion, or perhaps Chinese.  I couldn't imagine how such a thing had been constructed here with everyone dead.

Inside, a wisp of incense smoke drifted to the ceiling.  A young man with a shaved head sat cross-legged before the incense, his hands resting palms up on his knees.  He wore a red robe that Tibetan monks favored.  He looked my age, maybe a little younger.

"Hello?" I said.

No response.

"Yo?"  I snapped my fingers.

Still nothing.

Yet again, I'd done the impossible.  I'd found another survivor.  There was no other explanation.  But it didn't excite me, not in the least.  What good did it do the world with one more guy who had managed to survive?

"Well great.  Just you and me, baldy," I said.  I couldn't even muster the enthusiasm to merge with him at first but curiosity got the better of me.  I wanted to understand why in the hell someone would climb all the way up here to build a shrine.  I approached him, reached out my hand.

His hand shot out and stopped mine.  I screamed.

"Why is it I cannot find peace even here?" he said and stood up.

"Y-you're dead?"

"How else could I be up here without oxygen or warm clothes?  Not even the hardiest locals would dare that."