President Connors faced Norman with a slew of questions. The President pondered the idea of peaceful aliens wanting nothing except for the exchange of information. It was a lovely thought, but never had he seen such a scenario in the thousands of alien-based movies he watched over his fifty years of life. What can they hope to gain with such a lie?
Norman was quite an attractive woman. The long, red hair and human features reminded him of an old flame from his high school days. I wonder?
“Norman?”
Miriam had moved to the side to study the connections to the chair without getting closer. Norman watched her with a slight shift of her head. She turned her dark gray eyes toward the speaker. “President Connors?”
“Norman, you are one hundred percent human, is that correct?”
“I am you.”
“You are . . . how did you say it, ‘Interfacing through this woman?’”
“I am Norman, I am you, we are Norman.”
Connors ran a hand through his graying hair. It made sense to him now. The woman must be human. The aliens were tall and thin and gray. “Tell me about the beheaded man.”
Norman fell silent.
Connors studied her nonresponse. He needed a new tactic. “To begin our communication, honesty and trust must be established. This body knows those things. Search it and confirm I have not lied.”
Norman’s eyes moved rapidly from side to side. They stopped and centered on Connors. They closed. Seconds later they opened to a softer blue-gray combination. “He is Norman.” Her voice matched her eyes, softer and more feminine.
“He touched one of you and the result was death.” He framed it as more of an accusation than a question. Go on the offense and keep them guessing, a strategy that paid off numerous times in the past.
“No.” Her simple, straightforward response.
Connors pointed at the metal wall to his right. Indignation spread over his face. He felt ten feet taller in his righteousness. “More or less, that man died as a result of his encounter with your species. Yet, you say you are peaceful and mean us no harm.”
It worked. The eyes softened and bluer shone through. Now, the hammer.
“I submit to you that your very presence harms us.”
“That is true, Mr. President.” Norman spoke with a pure feminine voice. The voice of the original fellow human being, he thought. She waved her hand and the wall to their right changed. It showed a picture of their alien laboratory. A human body lay on a metal table covered by a white sheet under floodlights. The small machines they saw earlier were present, performing delicate operations around the man’s head, arms, and legs. Others hovered in the air above the body.
Connors moved closer to the wall. The man had tattoos on his upper right arm at the shoulder, a sickle and a hammer. Below that he saw a band of barbed wire. It was definitely the charred man he saw earlier. He had to know. He moved closer, nearly touching the wall.
“He’s awake? My god, he is awake!” Anger rose in him.
“He sees, but does not feel.”
“How can you know that? He is awake!”
“We did not know until it was too late,” she continued, ignoring his remarks. “Norman was perfectly fine in quarantine. Our protocol places aliens in quarantine for two of your days. One of us entered the chamber after decontamination. All was well for the next three days.”
The images from the wall changed. They showed the man, Norman, in white clothing sitting at a table with an alien. Norman laughed, his stubby red beard made his face look kind. Miriam joined Connors at the wall. Both smiled at the tranquility they saw. The alien and Norman were discussing a floating map. Norman laughed jovially.
The scene changed again. This time Norman had an instrument in his hand. He cut his finger by accident. Blood flowed. Suddenly, bells and alarms went off in the room. The alien moved toward a self-sealing door. He couldn’t open it. Flashing red lights whirled in each corner of the room. Norman rushed to aid the tall alien, screaming and beating at the door.
Both stopped beating and pulling on the door. They began shaking violently and fell to the floor. Norman succumbed first. The alien held on a few more minutes and then he died.
“Our scientists believe our auras are incompatible. After Norman cut his finger, a new aura formed and mixed with each of theirs. The new mixture changed them both, reanimated them.”
The scene behind the wall changed.
The new scene showed another tall alien entering the lab. While he examined the dead alien body, Norman rose.
Miriam winced. “Oh my God!”
“It can’t be,” said a stunned James Connors.
They watched Norman get to his feet. He made no sound that they heard. Without effort, he opened his mouth wide and clamped down on the kneeling alien’s upper back, near his neck. The alien moved, caught off guard. It tried to get Norman off, but Norman’s grip was tight and he chewed the alien flesh with relish.
The alien fell to the floor. Norman feasted.
The first dead alien rose. Connors could see his distorted face: long, crooked teeth, red eyes, and a wide open drooling mouth. Sounds came from that mouth though Connors could not hear them through the wall. The animated alien seemed akin to reptiles with its elongated mouth and sharpened teeth. It turned and it too feasted on the fallen alien.
“Oh god,” screamed Miriam. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”
Connors held her as they leaned on the wall, trying not to look. “Stop it! Turn it off!”
“You asked for honesty, Mr. President. I give you honesty. Look.”
A new scene shone from the wall. A group of three aliens entered the room. All wore a type of decontamination suit with tank on the back. Connors believed them to be air breathers like us. The animated corpses were in a pool of green blood, devouring the last bits of their alien feast. They looked up and let out what Connors suspected to be a howl before charging at the aliens. The aliens fired laser-beamed weapons into their bodies. Each fell.
Without warning, the center alien began shaking violently. Within seconds, he fell to the floor dead. They picked their dead comrade up off the floor and carefully carried him to an adjoining room. They sealed him in what looked like a glass vault in the center of the room. They returned to the first room.
The bodies were again showing signs of life. Each moved a finger. The aliens grabbed weapons with sharpened ends, presumably axes, from the wall and chopped their heads off. They then sprayed the bloody floor with a substance and the blood disappeared. Next, they used flamethrowers to burn the few chunks of flesh that remained from the first victim and the area that once held gobs of green blood. Last, they burned the bodies. The wall went dark.
“We are close to finding a cure to solve the problem. Until then, I will interface with you.”
“And the other of your race? The one taken into the other room, is he infected with what they had?”
“It’s airborne,” said Miriam.
“Yes,” said Norman. “You speak of—”
A siren sounded, preventing Norman from completing her statement. The bells were loud, forcing Connors and Miriam to double over and cover their ears to drown it out. Still, they heard the ringing. Connors took a painful step toward Norman. Norman’s eyes repeatedly shifted from left to right. “What the hell is that?”
A force field went up in front of Norman. The ground shook.
“Oh god,” screamed Miriam, “we are not going to fall, are we?” She fell to her knees trying to keep her ears covered.
Norman’s face lit up. Her eyes turned deep gray. A look of concern flitted across her face. The bells stopped. “You are attacking us. Why?”
President Connors removed his hands from his ears and got to his feet. “What?”
“You have launched weapons at our entrance. Explain.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Connors. “We would do no such thing.”
He and Miriam felt a shaking as if moving. He felt that feeling of descending
in the pit of his stomach. They were going down. Seconds later the wall in front of Norman disappeared.
“Go, before it is too late. They must stop or they will rupture the containment field. Tell them! Go!”
Connors and Miriam ran.
An explosion shook the ground beneath their feet and they fell. Connors looked up to see the roof collapsing at the entrance of the cave. He heard a whooshing sound followed by a bang. Debris fell. He lifted himself and grabbed Miriam by the arm and together they ran for the narrowing exit.
It was in reach. Connors swallowed air filled with dust. Tears filled his eyes and made it hard to see. Chunks of rock and dirt fell all around them. The opening was fading into nonexistence. Fear took him and he ran faster, pulling Miriam. Miriam screamed and fell. He stopped, but didn’t see her.
“Miriam! Miriam!”
“I’m here, over here!”
James Connors couldn’t see her, the falling debris was too heavy. He heard another swoosh and then a bang. It flung him backward, away from Miriam. An electric shock went through him as he hit the ground. He hoped he hadn’t broken his neck in the fall. He was able to move his neck, thank god. He said his thanks too early. His vision cleared in time for him to see a huge slab of rock fall from the collapsing ceiling. It would finish him. He tried to roll out of its way, his right leg would not move, trapped under a boulder. He struggled to move to avoid his fate. Doom loomed in his future.
President Connors accepted his fate and closed his eyes. God be merciful and let it be quick.
A blue beam shot out from Norman’s chair. It was a force field low to the ground. It came above the President in time to stop the slab from crushing him to death. In astonishment, the President looked up and saw rocks hitting the field and stopping midair. He was saved. Hysteria overtook him. He laughed. Connors looked at the falling rocks and laughed.
“You can’t get me! You can’t get me!”
“Mr. President?” Miriam shouted. “Mr. President, are you all right?”
He laughed again. “I’m fine, Miriam. How ‘bout yourself?”
“Okay. I’m coming, sir.”
Connors realized he was being an idiot. He stopped laughing, disappointed with himself for not being stronger. He took his eyes off the rocks and followed the blue light. The light stretched ahead of him to what he thought was the opening. In the other direction the light went back to the metal box and to Norman. The President sat and looked in Norman’s direction.
The field was four feet off the ground. With the dust settling to the ground, everything became clear. Connors saw Miriam crawling toward him. No one could stand. The rocks pounded above them as she crawled. Her crawling brought a smile to his eyes. They had seen highs and lows together over the course of twenty years. Intertwined lives until the end. How fitting for it to end this way. Miriam stopped and coughed.
“Keep coming, Miriam.”
“I’m coming, sir.”
Miriam put her hands in front of her. She moved forward. She coughed but kept moving. When at his side, she stopped.
“About time,” said Connors. He gave a warm smile.
“I take a lickin’ but keep on tickin’.” Miriam stopped to catch her breath. She laughed with him, neither knew what to do next. She looked at his trapped leg. She frowned. “You don’t expect me to lift those do you?”
Connors chuckled.
Chapter Fourteen: Miriam