An Alien in an Alien Land, Page 2

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  Once at the road Prosper looked about so wildly that her vision spun into a dizzying blur. She paused. Trying to find and draw out an inner stillness. Eventually she spotted the creature squatted to the right of the radiator. It hasn’t followed. She let out a lungful of air so deep that it occurred to her she may have held it in since the bonnet had flung open.

  No sooner had Prosper drawn a shallow breath, she saw it poise itself to strike. It reared its front legs, displaying a writhing belly and two metal-mesh covered tentacles uncoiled. They extended rapidly over the ground towards her, wrapping about each of her frozen legs.

  In an instant she was on her back, dress over her waist, being dragged across the earth back to the car. She shrieked and reached out to grab anything she could cling to: sand...sand...rock...sand...

  Prosper could see the creature above her. She caught herself thinking it could not be of this world. An alien? No way! But what else can it be? Oh my God! Be cool. Don’t freak. Okay. It’s just an animal—a far out space animal. It’s okay. Just get the story—REPORTER CAPTURES ALIEN IN THE OUTBACK.

  It unravelled another tentacle, and her jaw unhinged as she watched it split into two thin sections. Lights protruded from each division like snail eyes bubbling from their stalks. Crick-crack sounded lights as they zigzagged towards her face. Prosper felt the tendons in her orbital socket strain as her eyes widened with terror. She leaned away. Another tentacle emerged from its underbelly, lengthened, and twisted tightly around her neck.

  Prosper tugged on the tentacle around her throat and gripped her other hand over a rock. She leapt up and brought it down hard onto the helmet with a KER-CLUNK. The Alien’s armour emitted a long, high pitched sound, making her cringe as if someone had poked her eardrum with a hot metal needle. Over and over, she smashed it—CLUNK-CLUM-CLUNK—until the cracks spattered and oozed a fatty-yellow puss, and the alien’s tentacles retracted.

  The ringing continued from its broken helmet, louder now, doubling her over in agony. Prosper dropped to the sand and her hand fell on the lighter. She flicked the lid open and spun the spiral roller with her shaking thumb. Crawling and clawing her way up the front fender, she released the flaming lighter onto the helmet and dropped to the ground before dragging herself away. The alien caught fire, followed by the engine, and then the Gemini.

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  At sunrise Prosper sat on the roadside and watched the young man. He could have been returning, for all she knew, from a spiritual walkabout. Her attention then shifted to the burnt-out wreck; its open bonnet looked like a school chalkboard.

  He paused at the engine, ‘Wicked!’

  Her neck felt stiff as she looked upward at him. He wore stubbies and an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a singlet. His large dark eyes had an unusually glossy lustre. He flicked his eyebrows and gave her a wide cheeky grin.

  ‘You had a run in with one of them bad spirits, hey Miss?’ he asked.

  Prosper wanted to tell him that it had not been ‘bad spirits’ because she did not believe in those. She then reconsidered. After all it had only been a day earlier when she had not believed in aliens either.

  ‘It’s Prosper,’ she nodded, ‘and yes, I did.’

  ‘Soul-Eaters,’ he said, ‘they use them lights to lure your soul out, then eat it. We’re good tucker for them.’

  ‘Soul-Eaters,’ she echoed while mentally surmising that the alien was one of many: ENTIRE COMMUNITY SAVED AS REPORTER LEADS ARMY TO ALIEN BASE—EXCLUSIVE.

  ‘Where do they come from?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno, they’re always watching people, waiting to catch them when they’re stuck,’ he told her.

  ‘Stuck like us?’ Prosper stood up stiffly.

  ‘Yeah, but people get stuck in other places too, like in front of the telly, in bed, on the dunny—’

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked him, wishing she had her notepad and pen. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘I’m Eddie, from the mission, Miss,’ he replied.

  Prosper gasped as she recalled the name on the cross. It can’t be. She bent her head down to look over her oddly, luminous hands. These were the hands that had crushed the creature when the probe-lights were at her eyes and the tentacle had wrapped around her neck. Reaching slowly to her throat, she felt the remnants of the mesh-cladding embedded in it.

  Prosper turned and limped over to the burnt-out car. There, behind the blackened-bonnet, the charred body of a woman lay slumped over the steering wheel.

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  Wendy Beach lives in Perth, Western Australia. She studied writing at Edith Cowan University. Several of her short stories are published in the Green Egg and the Dark Eclipse Magazine. Her influences include Stephen King and Robert A. Heinlein. She lives in an old house on a large tree-filled block near the Swan River. She shares her home with two children, her cats and a blue tongue lizard. In her spare time she tends her organic vegetable patch and assorted fruit trees. She also enjoys painting impressionist landscapes.

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