Gyft (Rescued by the Alien)

Chapter Nine

OLIVIA:

THE BODYGUARD DISAPPEARED in the early hours of the morning. I vaguely remember him getting up from bed, but he never came back. I thought for sure he’d return after getting a drink or something, but so far nothing.

I’m not about to go looking for him. The farm couple weird me out—staring at me like I’m a bug under a microscope—so I’ll just wait up here until he returns.

There’s faint giggling coming from outside. Heading to the window, I peer through the glass. Down below, the two kids are holding hands, poking at some flowers and sniffing. The girl says something to the boy, and he looks around as if to make sure no one is watching, then plucks a flower and quickly pops it into his mouth.

She giggles some more as he chews it. Apparently eating the blooms is a no-no.

The reflection in the glass of the window shows my mouth stretched ear to ear. I try to relax my cheeks so I’m not grinning like a loon, but I can’t help it. It’s like he’s showing off for her and she’s loving it. It’s adorable.

What would it be like to be raised with a playmate? I had Yvette, of course. But there were lots of times when Yvette had to go home.

But then something strange happens. The giggles suddenly stop and both children stand ramrod straight, facing the forest. Not talking... not even blinking .

Their hands fall apart and they stand side by side, unmoving. As I watch, they take a step and freeze, like they’re trying really hard not to move. But they can’t help it. Ever so slowly, they start to walk silently toward the trees.

It isn’t normal. I’ve only seen them twice, but both times they held hands.

Despite trying to avoid the strange caretakers of the place, I bound out of the room to find someone. I make my way to the inner hallway that leads toward the stairs, where I hear conversation—the deep drawl of my sexy bodyguard and the voices of both the farmer and his wife. I burst in through the door to find the three sitting at a table in what I assume is their kitchen.

“The little ones,” I gasp, when all three halt their conversation and instead gape at me. “They’re going somewhere and it’s like they’re in a trance. Not talking, not even holding hands. Weird for your little brats, right?”

All three aliens look at me like I’m crazy. Trying to make my point, I waggle spirit fingers in the air.

“The kids! Something’s wrong.”

My bodyguard stands. “Hiphysta marvot bunillela.”

He takes me by the shoulders, turns me around and pats my tush like I’m a toddler.

Con. De. Scending! And forward, considering I’m married to his boss, Gyft. I’ll be talking to my husband about the hired help.

But then I remember the importance of why I came down here, and spin back around. “You don’t get it! The kids! The mannerless little monsters! They’re heading toward the forest—all alone. Remember the man-eating beast? And the bat-bird?”

His words are harsher this time, barking out an unintelligible phrase before spinning me around to face the outer door again.

I look over my shoulder but he promptly sits down and continues talking to the farmer and his wife like I don’t exist. Huffing, I head to the living room. Out the front door, I stand on the porch where we’d entered from last night. Off in the distance, I can barely make out movement from the kids. They’re so far out ahead... in a few minutes they’ll be lost. We may not find them an no one here understands me... so I take off running.

By the time I catch up to the bratty monsters, I’m breathing heavy. But the two are dragging their feet, moving slowly, so it doesn’t take long. I can hear whimpers coming from their throats, but their mouths don’t move.

“Hey! I know you don’t understand me, but can you at least hear me?”

No answer.

I wave my hand in front of their faces and it’s like they’re both zoned out. Grabbing their arms, I try to steer them back toward the house, but they keep turning around and heading toward the direction where I think the bodyguard and I came from. Or, at least if I find the shuttle, I’ll know that’s the direction—everything’s so confusing with the thick tree canopies and lack of mountains. While we don’t run into the shuttle, the trees begin to grow more sparse than the thicker woods we were in... and some are dying. They’re no longer brown, more of an ash-grey, some look bone-white, the exposed roots resembling giant, creepy rib cages.

The air is thicker here, harder to breathe.

And then it’s like stepping into the Twilight Zone. Like an invisible barrier was crossed somehow and in front of us, everything is black and grey and... unmoving. There’s no noise, no rustling leaves, even the strange shade of their bluish sun has changed into a sickly, ashy shade.

“What the hell is this?” I mutter, mostly to myself because I’m the only one who understands me.

The kids have drifted further ahead now and I’m about to catch up when there’s some movement in a darker splotch of ground. It’s like a muddy spot, but then it rises into a spiral, a tornado-shape that isn’t spinning. I freeze in place.

What the hell is that thing?

It rises up until it’s a massive shape of an ever-flowing, mudlike creature of wet cloud. A stream of it flows out from where the mouth should be, a giant, thick tongue, and licks the little girl’s arm.

Licks. Her. Arm.

She shudders. She felt it. She freaking felt that, despite the trance she’s under. What must it have felt like if she could feel it through her numbed fog where she walked barefoot through the woods, not shivering nor stumbling, nor wincing, with branches and things whipping against her, yet she felt that one lick?

I barely notice when the tongue stretches further to lick the boy. But I realize what happens when he trembles from the touch too.

It wakes them from their trance, both stare in shocked silence at the monster, but they reach for each other’s hands. The creature immediately melts down again into a pond of mud, not five feet ahead of the children. The boy and girl begin to cry—it’s like they want to move but their feet are stuck in place. I slowly move forward until I hear a quiet whimper.

The little girl takes a step toward the pond.

Despite his frozen feet, the boy tries to pull her back and she hangs onto him for dear life, but her feet won’t stop moving ahead. Then his foot lifts.

I run forward and from my vantage point, I see the pond has morphed into a giant mouth, complete with teeth, open wide and just waiting to grab hold of the squirmy little bodies. It opens wider, and a little wider, and the girl sobs as she sticks out a foot like she’s going to jump in.

I grab their arms and jerk them back. They fall against me and the mouth in the pond opens wider, starts to snap up, angry that its meal was interrupted. I pull them again and then we’re running, half- stumbling, half-carrying, and then running some more as there’s a deadly roar behind us, the pond morphing back into the cloudy, monstrous, upright shape with legs.

“Run!” I scream, and the kids are wide-eyed, their alien hair standing on end, spiked out on top of their heads, screaming along with me. Without looking back, I know the thing is chasing, and I make sure the kids are right in front of me. It hasn’t licked me so maybe it will stop going for them if I’m between them? Maybe it doesn’t recognize me as food?

The boy turns around and his eyes widen when he looks behind me.

“Don’t look!” I yell, even though they can’t understand me. “Just run!”

They get my drift, because they turn, then stay looking forward as their little legs pump, knees high.

A horrific howl sounds behind me and something ice-cold sluices through my back, reaching inside my flesh, feels around in there like it can touch my kidneys, my lungs, whatever it can grab. It squeezes, almost like it’s gripping my organs about to yank me back—

And then the world pops, like we’ve stepped into another reality. We’re in the forest—the living forest with giant trees, not the dead one with skeletal trunks—and the world where the air moves. The trees rustle; the color is different. Like shades have been lifted from my eyes and suddenly I see blues, reds, purples instead of black and white and gray.

There’s screaming up ahead as the farmer and his wife run to reach us, my bodyguard way ahead of them. The farmer grabs his kids first, then the wife does, and my bodyguard comes to my side.

“Brmph makaide marq? Abrre mishti mohay?”

“Whoa. Not sure if you know what happened just over there”—my finger shakes as I point toward where the invisible barrier to the Valley of Death lies— “but there are mud-monsters! And one wanted to eat the monster children! And one tried to eat me.” I turn around so he can see where the creature grabbed me... which is still kind of numb, now that I think about it.

My bodyguard puts his hands on my shoulders, holding me still as he looks at my back and I hear his swift inhale of breath.

But when he turns me around, I see the farm-wife sobbing and touching the rope-like hair that used to match hers... and it’s completely white. On both of the kids.

“Huh? When did that happen?” I mutter.

I’m spun back around and before I can ask my guard, I’m locked into a bone-crushing hug. He’s babbling something, over and over, and rocking me. Aww. I guess the big guy is glad the mud-monster didn’t eat me.

“It’s okay. You won’t lose your job.” I try to console him, even though he can’t understand me. “It’s all good. You would have found me in time. Probably the kids would have been the appetizer and he wouldn’t have been able to eat me.”