Aliens on Aventine Hill

Lola [Part 5]

Alice peered around the trunk of the tree towards the grassy slope. A lone figure stood silhouetted in blue moonlight. His shoulders were hunched over; his body curled in on the wound in its side. He kept a hand clamped to it, but even at this distance she could see the blood leaching through the bandage and dribbling through his fingers.

The color was surreal. Not red, not even crimson, but black. His side wept with it, and it dripped off the fingers of both hands. It shone in the moonlight as the silver glanced off his bone-pale skin.

He stumbled—his legs were failing him—and Alice darted forward to help him, only to scramble back as blinding light flooded the field. Ferns swaying around her shoulders, she held her breath as a low chittering echoed through the trees. Don't see me. Please don't see me.

The monster stalked past her on two stocky legs. Its long tail swept through the bushes and nearly caught her as she ducked away from it. Its head whipped in her direction; two blazing blue eyes pierced the dark. A low growl issued from the monster's throat as the line of red feathers down its back rattled threateningly. Alice's eyes stuck on its long razor claws as her own hands lifted her camera.

Just one picture. Then they'll all believe me.

The shutter clicked; the flash illuminated the sheer size of the creature. She got a good luck at its crocodile teeth before they clamped around her head and crushed her skull.

Alice sat up out of her dream, hands over her eyes. She felt her face for toothmarks, wincing at the lingering ache, before flopping back on the pillows with a sigh.

It was the third time she'd had this nightmare. The monster—except for that final bite—failed to scare her anymore. No, it was the wound in Grayson's side that haunted her now. She had never seen that much blood anywhere but TV. She blinked and saw him stumble, saw his numb feet threaten to tangle up under him.

I was worried you had died. Alice shuddered at what he'd told her: I thought I had too. She'd watched him at Milton's yesterday, walking with a slight limp and his face fixed in that permanent frown. Alice liked that frown. It expressed him—a little severe, a little guarded, a little self-righteous, more than a little stubborn and a lot tired—and to see him without it, even just for a moment at the restaurant, startled her.

He'd been without his frown that night too. Alice scrunched her eyes shut, trying to picture his face. The emotion, or rather, the lack of emotion, had disturbed her. Conscious but lifeless, staring unblinkingly ahead.

The mannerisms of his gait as he'd left the house—the way he'd leaned on the doorframe, the way he picked his way through the grass, the longing glance backwards and cautious glance upwards—had all been his, but something else had worn his face.

It had lurked there Friday afternoon. Through the panic, she saw it, calculating. It flashed through his features at the funeral. The more Alice thought, the more she remembered having seen it in him—the wraith.

Yet it hadn't been there Saturday night at D'Angelo's. The person she had met there had been an entirely different Grayson. Happy. Hopeful. Alive. As if something that had been broken or lost had finally been replaced. He hadn't even wanted the locket. No, in that moment, he'd finally been free of ghosts.

Alice felt the bare skin of her sternum and thought again of Grayson at Milton's the day before. She hadn't gone to say hello to him, had tried hard not to look at him. Jimmy hadn't noticed, but even if he'd said something, Alice didn't know what she would've told him.

It had all been fun and games—small town ghost stories digging up old secrets and playing in a secret world of ghosts and lights and monsters—and then suddenly, it had become something else.

Her stomach churned. The person she had met at the restaurant was Grayson. The creature the lights had taken, the son standing at the edge of the open grave, the boy hiding beneath the bathroom sink were shattered fragments of a hollow shell.

Alice understood now what she had seen on Joseph's face the night she'd first seen the ghost in the window and the lights overhead. She felt his pain at seeing someone he loved so reduced as strong as his urge to protect, and the relentless, overwhelming, compulsive desire to fix what had been broken.

And the fear that soon there might be nothing left.