Chapter 1: The Accident

 

“No! Get it off! Get it off!”

            “What is it? What happened?”

            “Nooo! I dun wanna die!”

            “You’re not dying, Alex, okay? Now quiet down or they’ll hear you!”

            The beast trod over her shoes on four inquisitive paws and explored her ankles with its tongue. She flailed.

            “Oh my God it’s slobbering all over me oh my God get it off someone help!”

            “Stop moving! You’re kicking me!” Kent crouched onto the damp mud and gently lifted it with his hands. “There, I got it off.”

            “What’re you doing!? It’ll bite you!”

            “Hey, no worries. Look at it, it’s so cute and harmless.” He laughed, waving it in her face. She screamed. “What? It’s just a dog. A dog, Alex! Calm down!”

            “A dog? You sure? I can’t see in this darkness.”

            The beast whined, and Kent ran his fingers through the curly black fur. “Of course. Want to pet it?”

            On the other side of a rusted metal fence, a barefooted girl watched them from beneath the flickering branches of an overhanging tree. She hadn’t had time to put on warmer clothes in her rush to get out of her house, and she was shivering from the breeze, but she forced her arms to stay steadily crossed and her chest puffed out for an appearance of confidence.

            “Well that was a nice show,” she said sardonically. “Can I get a refund and go home now?”

            Alex flushed. “Nerves, just nerves,” she mumbled to herself, pulling up her hood. Its navy blue frame hugged her face closely, so that the white hockey mask she wore seemed to jump out of the night.

            “The show hasn’t even begun yet,” Kent said. He jerked his head at the run-down house near his side of the fence, a black shadow against the distant street lights. “We’re waiting for a few other actors to assemble, but once we get rolling you’ll have a first-row seat to the best Halloween prank in the history of Ironwood High. I suggest you stick around, love.”

            “Don’t call me ‘love.’ Gives me the creeps.”

            “Why would it give you the creeps? I’m a dashing young man who’s trying to flirt with you; and plus I’m dressed up as a playboy anime character. Like, what more could you be looking for? Just let me get rid of that scowl of yours before it’s permanently set, alright?”

            She shot him a withering glare. “I’m not like that loyal puppy-dog clinging to your side. I can tell who’s a jerk with a pretty face and an empty head.”

            Alex snapped open her mouth, but nothing came out.

            “Ouch, haha,” Kent said. “Frank, are you? I like that.” He waited uncomfortably for her to respond, but eventually cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder at the empty street beyond the house. “They’re kind of late, don’t you think?” he said casually.

            “Yeah,” Alex responded, relieved to be able to break the silence. “This anxiety is giving me a stomachache.”

            “Wait. I think I hear something,” he said. They listened. “Speak of the devil.”

            They heard it before they saw it: an artificial wail that shattered the neighborhood’s silence. From around the corner a house trailer roared toward the house, strobe lights flashing and sirens blaring. It was festooned from windshield to wheels as a maniacal clown. Perfectly at home in the front seat of his car, the driver waved and bounced to the beat of rock music in the background as he drove figure eights. The dog cowered into Kent’s arms.

            “Oh, no,” Alex groaned. “The idiot. Idiot!”

            The barefooted girl twisted her mouth in sarcastic fury. “Gee, I wonder who that is.”

            The driver finally finished showing off his oversized car and parked it by the sidewalk. The front door opened first, and he stepped out, accompanied by a wave of rock music that rolled with him onto the sidewalk.

            He was as heavily decked out as the trailer, laden with gold-painted chains, fake diamond jewelry, a purple baseball cap with the visor pointing backwards, and star-shaped sunglasses. But looking at him from where the three stood, it was even more painfully obvious than usual that there was a major defect in his characterization as a larger-than-life personality.

            The kid was short.

            “Hey, the Funk!” Kent called, his voice projecting easily. “Would it kill you to have a little more discretion!?”

            The Funk held up a hand. “Yolo!”

            “As if this night wasn’t bad enough already,” the barefooted girl hissed.

            He opened the passenger door and two more people appeared, one decked out in a white wedding dress and the other cloaked in black rags. The latter was clutching a tripod that strangely resembled a scythe.

            The girl squinted at the new arrivals. “Okay, this one’s surprising, I’ll give you that.”

            Kent didn’t respond. He was staring blankly at the girl in the wedding dress.

            “I’m amazed you actually succeeded in dragging Shelly here.”

           Kent mechanically diverted his focus to the ragged shadow with the tripod. He shrugged. “Well, I got you here, didn’t I? And you’re the most infamous Having a Life Is a Waste of Time believer I know. Plus you hate me.”

            She asked, “Why is she holding a tripod?”

            “She’s filming everything for us,” he replied, his eyes starting to glaze over. “Good with cameras.”

            “Kent,” Alex whined. “The Funk left the music and everything on.”

            “Yeah. He’s annoying, but that’s the price for creativity, no?”

            “Kent, people are gonna hear us and wake up! We need to get started.”

            “Oh. Right.” He shook himself. “Yes ma’am. Hurry up, everyone! Alex is sick of waiting!”

            “Hey! Don’t say it like that!” she cried.

            Shelly pushed away the wedding dress girl and slunk around to the back of the house, where she began to set the tripod up. The Funk followed, singing, “The giant’s here, the giant’s here / You better watch out, cuz Shelly-the-clammy-who’s-twice-my-glorious-height is heeeeere!” Shelly said nothing in response.

            Lingering by the trailer, the wedding dress girl looked in Kent’s direction and laughed. He looked down at himself. “Oh, yeah, the dog.” He called, “Marceline! Who’s the groom?”

            She said something that was drowned out by the sirens.

            “Come over here, we can’t hear you!”

            “And could you turn off the music!?” Alex yelled, her voice cracking from the effort.

            Marceline leaned into the trailer, tangling slightly in her long flowing dress, and pulled out the keys. Silence blanketed the night. Then she began to cross the barren lawn on wobbly high heels.

            And the lights in the house switched on.

            Alex yelped. The others froze. From inside the shuttered windows, a high-pitched babbling noise began and slowly mounted in volume. By the time it erupted from the back door, the Radley was screaming loudly enough to rival the trailer sirens. Shelly and the Funk were tackled to the ground before they could react.

            “Oh my God—”

            Marceline stumbled backwards, turned around. Her dress was snagging on the weeds.

            “Run! Run!” Alex screamed, jumping up and down helplessly. “It’s the Radley, the Radley! You’ve got to—“

            Kent tore off Alex’s mask and clamped a hand over her mouth.

            Marceline stumbled, regained her balance and was almost at the sidewalk again when the Radley overtook her. The next thing she knew, she was dumped onto the ground next to Shelly and the Funk, all three blinking dumbly at the naked light bulb jutting out from the back door.

            Under the orange incandescent light, the Radley turned, its pair of black beady eyes combing through its yard. It had heard Alex’s voice, and wasn’t going to leave before it had found the source. Kent eased himself and Alex behind the low-reaching branches of a tree, hiding the polished white mask behind his back.

            The girl watched silently, safely removed from all the action by the fence. “None of my business,” she mumbled under her breath, and started to go back home. Such an unsalvageable situation could only get more and more troublesome; and besides, she was cold. The idiots would have to suffer the consequences of their own actions.

            And the universe hiccupped.

            She stumbled, fell sideways, and crashed into the fence, grating against it until her body slumped onto the ground. Her brain struggled for a moment against its sudden invader, but it was a hopeless battle—life blinked out within seconds.

            In the darkness of the night, nobody saw her die.

 

            I woke up inside the corpse and adjusted myself to the alien feeling of flesh, blood, and bones. So this was my new house. I tried to make myself comfortable, since I would probably have to wear this skin for a while; but still, it was constricting, and rather sticky, being human.

            “We are so dead,” he murmured.

            The human’s heart throbbed. He had a voice like the ocean tide, a soothing, pulling mix of crushed ice and salt.

            “Oh my god, don’t say that!” a different, sharper voice wailed.

            “Shht!”

            There was a thick silence. Instinctively the human caught her breath and tuned into every detail her senses could capture—the wind and wet grass, hard earth against her cheek. Her mouth tasted grainy and felt cold. A canopy of leaves enshrouded her, and the violent wind drew a constant sound from it like the crashing of sea waves.

            “What do we do?” the sharp voice continued in a bare whisper. The two creatures in front of her were so close she could hear their panicky breathing.

            “We improvise,” he breathed.

            “Okay.” There was a brief rustle. “Wait, improvise what?”

            “Try hopping the fence.”

            I had no idea what they were talking about. I wasn’t even sure what kind of creatures they were. I had a horrible suspicion that I had made a mistake while taking possession of the body; hadn’t negotiated a truce with its intrinsic impulses, perhaps, or fully rooted myself into its control center. I fumbled for a metaphorical foothold.

            “I, I can’t. I want to get out of here, but I can’t.”

            “Of course you can. It’s not like humiliation can kill you. The Radley, not—that’s a different story.”

            I latched onto that immediately. Death was simple, familiar. It was either die or don’t die, and both the human and I much preferred the latter. We reached a tacit understanding to figure out what spelled death and what didn’t.

            I stimulated the appropriate neurons, and her eyes opened to a world of darkness.

            “But I can’t just leave,” the sharp voice was whispering. “It’s my fault you all got into this mess. I’ll see if I can…can apologize to the Radley or something.”

            “No. Bad idea.”

            “Well, you got anything better?”

            I turned over in the human’s mind this new information curiously. They couldn’t leave? The creatures seemed human, but perhaps they didn’t have legs? I tried to make the human roll over so that I could see what was behind her back; there had to be more than darkness on this planet, or her eyes would have been useless.

            But, surprisingly, moving was hard. Her body seemed entirely bent on inaction. Gravity weighed down on the human’s limbs with no sign of letting up, so they lay where I had found them, useless bundles of muscle and calcium and whatever other forms of connective tissue were bound inside.

            I heard the pair of creatures rustle against the tree leaves again. I squinted her eyes—yes, I had seen the movement just now. So it had been because of her eyes, not the world.

            “Here, for now just put this back on.”

            A shard of white flashed in front of me. It was connected to a hand—which was connected to a long white sleeve. The fence’s long black bars ran through the image, but as the creatures began to move, I managed to piece things together bit by bit. The sleeve was connected to a shock of straw hair—the hair sagged atop a diamond patterned coat that flared all the way to the ground. The hand was holding the smooth oval of white behind the coat. Because it was all so close to the human, everything else on that side of the fence was blocked out of her view.

            Gradually, solid shapes were materializing out of nowhere: moonlight glancing off the vertical bars of a fence in rough speckles; beads of moisture shimmering on grass as the breeze shook the short blades; the hazy outline of a cloudy sky.

            “Huh? Why? Won’t it make me stand out?”

            “Better than letting the Radley see your face.”

            The hand let go of the shard, and to the human’s bewilderment it stayed where it was, hovering above ground. Her brain struggled to find an explanation for the phenomenon.

            “Okay, Alex, you asked for it. I’m giving you a role.”

            “What?”

            “We’re about to execute a jailbreak that would put all crappy modern jailbreak movies to shame.”

            “Wait, wait, wait. Seriously?”

            “Of course.”

            The white sleeve flew up, and the coat billowed into the fence. I could no longer see anything besides the diamond pattern now.

            “Okay, this is what we’ll do. You’ll pretend to be a robber—you’re dressed up like one anyways—and freak the Radley out.”

            “Me? But, but is it even possible for the Radley to be scared?”

            “Sure it is. You’ve got the starring role—distract the Radley. I’d do it, in fact, but you run faster than I do. So in the meantime I’ll be bringing everyone to the trailer. Then at the last second, you hop on with us and we’ll make out getaway. Got it?”

            “Uh, I think so.”

            “Good. Now go!”

            “Go—go do what?”

            “Indian war cry. Murder in your eyes. Got the picture? Yes, that’s it! Give ‘em what for!”

            “But I don’t…”

            “Of course you do. Now hurry! We’re running out of time! Go go go!”

            A soft slapping of a pair of shoes on mud, followed by a shaky “Yaaaaaah…” reached the human’s ears. The diamonds shifted, and her eyes ached from the confusing movement. I closed them.

            Somewhere beyond the fence, a foreign, scratchy voice mingled with the sharp voice, and the slapping sound multiplied. I heard the coat flap in the wind as it left the fence. More voices joined the other two, and I assumed these belonged to more creatures that I hadn’t been able to see.

            Not that it mattered. They were too far away for their words to apply to me. Death, apparently, was not going to claim me anytime soon.

            I let the sounds fade into the background, sinking into the darkness behind the human’s eyelids. So long as the threat was yet to be imminent, there was no need to waste energy on gathering information. Moving was unnecessary as well. For the moment, I would just do what the human seemed to instinctively want to do—nothing.

            It was quite comfortable on the mud, actually. The wind had dulled, and the cold wasn’t as biting as before. Perhaps it would be alright to sleep right there on the ground, waiting for something to happen, something to push the both of us onwards with our lives.

            A faint metallic jingle.

           It took at least five seconds before I felt it: first a tingling sensation, then something larger, more pronounced.

            The dog was licking her hand, and it burned.

            I jolted the human’s eyes open. Bright lights hit them with a shock, and I covered her eyes with her hand and lurched to her hands and knees, wracked with a sudden onslaught of shivers. The creatures’ voices seemed to pierce into the human’s mind with ringing clarity, as the wind crashed against the tree leaves and made the world seem to spin. Nausea and confusion assailed her. She felt sick—I felt sick. Something had gone wrong inside of her, within moments.

            No, it wasn’t within moments; it had been like this for a while. I just hadn’t noticed it—just as I hadn’t felt in such clarity how the wind blew through her tank top and shorts, how the damp mud sucked away what body heat remained, how the shimmering grass was whipping against her bare skin until its surface was scratched raw. I clawed at the bars of the fence with a stiff, numb hand and leaned on it for support.

            This wasn’t right. I should have known the human was suffering. Her whole body was aching for relief, and yet I might have lain on the ground until she froze to death if the dog hadn’t licked her hand. We could have died.

            “Don’t you dare run now!” a hoarse voice screeched. “I practice tai-chi every day!”

            I opened my eyes again and saw brilliant orange rectangles shining beyond the fence from a few feet above ground. Two shadowed figures struggled in the light. Further back, thick smooth blacktop ran behind the lights, where white glowing spheres were held up by tall gray poles. Wet mud and patches of dying grass shone pale silver around me. I couldn’t see the coat.

            Her hand slipped on the fence, and she swayed, joints creaking. Frantically, I hooked my true form onto her limbs and took command of them directly. Straining against the gravity of her weight, I pushed her back upright and grabbed both hands around the bars, already fighting to breathe enough air. Her lungs were as weak as those of a newborn baby.

            I knew it—I had made a mistake going into the human. I’d missed a switch; botched a connection. Instead of being fully in sync with her every move, I had only partially attached myself, preventing me from accessing the core of its control enter. To make my host move, I had to physically spread myself out to every inch of her being and push and shove with my own power. I actually had to try.

            It was a strange experience. I had never really exerted effort before; I was evolved for the sole purpose of existing, and normally the bodies I take possession of can easily handle the actual living. They can already do everything necessary for existence—eating, breathing, moving—based on natural impulses alone, virtually on autopilot. All I ever had to do was be there.

            In front of me, the small black mass pushed its nose through the bars of the fence, but the gap was barely two inches wide and not big enough to squeeze its body through. I made out the whites of its eyes in the thick darkness and traced the outline of its gaze. Our eyes met.

            Carefully, I let go of the fence with one hand and reached it down to the dog. It gently gnawed her finger before letting go and rolling onto a patch of grass, and this time I felt its tongue distinctly: rough and icy when the wind blew, yet soft and warm when in actual contact.

            It’s funny. When I examined it closely, I realized that the dog was probably even sicker than the human. It looked like it was suffering. A thin whine kept leaking out of its broken lungs before it periodically fell into a strangled silence, and its tongue was becoming darker. Though the chances of contagion are lower between two different species, instinct told me quite plainly that it would be wise to get away from the dog.

            And yet I felt an overwhelming desire to be close to it as well.

            I wriggled my hand between the bars, but only the tips of her fingers could touch the fur. It wasn’t enough. Bracing her legs against the base of the fence, I molded her icy palms around the bars and pulled.

            Her shoulders popped into place, her spine stretched and arched as all the pieces inside her realigned themselves to move again. I kicked off with her feet and swung back a few centimeters before gravity returned her against the fence. I did this a few times for her body to remember how to climb, then threw one hand a couple inches higher and squeezed the bar. The square edges pinched her palm and her knuckles turned white, but my grip held. The other hand copied the motion.

            I tasted sour bile in the back of her throat, but now that she was off the ground her insides seemed to be sorting themselves out. Her stomach stopped churning. Oxygen pumped smoothly in and out of her lungs as blood coursed through her bloodstream, her heart sending hot energy to every last stiff joint in her body; my host was finally breaking free from the rigidity of cold and rigor mortis. All this was making me feel faint, but a satisfying change came along with the pain, a sense of purpose in each heartbeat and quick breath.

            Inch by inch, I wormed the human’s body up to the top of the fence. Anti-theft spikes crowned the tips, but they were blunt and meant mainly to intimidate. Still, when I reached her arms to the other side of the fence and tried to haul her over headfirst, they dug into her belly painfully. I retreated and paused at the edge of the precipice, her eyes just level with the spikes. Her muscles were quivering with adrenaline. Perhaps I wouldn’t make it across; perhaps the human would grow too weary and collapse back to where it began.

            I was vaguely surprised that I had found enough willpower to attempt the feat at all, actually. Within the folds of my body—my true form, the alien one—I knew that I was going against something embedded deep in my consciousness. Nothing good could ever come of pursuing the warmth of one pitiful dog, of indulging in such airy notions as “longing for companionship” or “wanting acceptance.” Desire led to action, action led to progress, progress led to change, and all proper parasitical aliens have it carved into them from the moment of their birth that change is a terrible thing.

           But it was what the human wanted. And nothing knows how to get around on Earth better than an Earthling, right?

            I sucked in a deep breath, leaned my weight sideways, and hurled one leg over the fence. I slapped both hands on the other side of the bars and pushed. Riding on momentum, I catapulted over the fence.

            The weight of the world hammered down on me in the form of air pressure and gravity, and my shoulder blade collided with the compact mud. Air whooshed out of my lungs. Bright flowers of pain blossomed down my back. And it was strange, because all I could think of was that I had conquered that short little fence and would be able to hold the dog soon.

            When I could breathe again I slowly dragged myself upright, my bruises smarting. I looked around. It was entirely different on the other side of the fence: the several rapid voices leaped into the foreground, beating at my ears with an urgency I hadn’t noticed before. “What do you think you’re doing!?” and “Oh my God, oh my God!” took on whole new shades of meaning. I judged that they were probably negative.

            I reached out a pair of hands to the dog, two white spiders in the black night, these hands—the human’s hands—my hands. They opened their palms wide to welcome the closest living creature to them, and with clammy fingers grasped the soft fur and gathered it to my chest. I wasn’t quite sure how to hold it at first—but the weight settled naturally into the crook of my arm. It was heavy and thick with age, and the weight grounded me to the earth and reassured me. I would stay in the human properly, if with a little effort.

            I could feel the dog’s heartbeat pulse against me erratically. Its breathing had already been choked into silence, and in silence it struggled painfully in my arms. My hold was too tight. But then my human self’s instincts welled up inside me, and ancient fears surfaced. I abruptly squeezed the dog.

            Something snapped. I dropped the dog into my lap and watched it under the moonlight. It didn’t move.

            After a moment’s deliberation, I took the corpse back into my arms. It sagged a little, but it was starting to turn as stiff as I had been when I had first awoken. I stood up.