Chapter 4: Close Your Eyes (Patreon)

The grocery store was chaotic. It wasn’t a mall on Christmas Eve or anything, but it was busy enough that Tessa felt safely anonymous as she hurried from aisle to aisle with a basket in her arm. She was grabbing food with a longer shelf life, while most other people seemed to expect the curfew situation to be temporary and were more focused on grabbing easy food for the next day or two.

The instant ramen and frozen veggies she piled into her basket left her feeling like she was an undergrad again. She wished the situation was as full of hope and wonder as back then had been. She also wished she’d been able to find her watch in the few minutes she’d looked for it, to have a better idea how long she was leaving that… thing unsupervised.

A brief mental image of coming home to a trail of ruin carved through the neighbourhood as the entity had gotten impatient flashed through her mind and the shiver it sent through her spine nearly had her drop the jar of jam she’d grabbed.

It was just a reminder to get the shopping done quickly. To minimize the time it was alone.

Getting in line at the check-out, she adjusted her toque, pulling it down a bit to better cover the dyed portions of her hair. She wasn’t sure if there’d been any reports about her appearance. She hadn’t had time to listen. She didn’t want to risk it, though.

Thankfully, no one seemed to pay attention to her, another stressed out shopper in a sea of anxious and panicked humanity. Tessa wasn’t sure if she envied the others for not knowing what was going on, or if the confusion they faced was worse.

She did know that the cashier seemed mildly annoyed she was using cash with the lines how they were, but she wasn’t risking anything traceable. She quickly shoved her groceries into the reusable bags she’d brought, and hurried outside.

There wasn’t any smoke rising over the city, so she took that as a good sign as she headed home. She wasn’t ready to risk running, not in a city crawling with police and soldiers on high alert. Not when she was…

She let out a tired sigh. Her girlfriend had been possessed by an alien parasite. Alien. She was dealing with a problem from outer space. And her most pressing fear in the immediate moment was some cop clinging onto racial prejudices against a fellow human and doing something stupid.

It was frustrating enough she had to let out a bitter laugh to herself as she made it the last block or so home.

The parking lot was still empty as she walked past. She had to guess that most of the other residents had left the city. Thinking back, the traffic had been pretty bad on the main streets. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to keep the entity in the city, then.

Getting inside, the building was quiet for her quick walk to her apartment. She grimaced briefly at the door, still having a hole where the knob had been. She was amazed that it hadn't been reported by anyone, but supposed it was easy to ignore compared to multiple city blocks being destroyed by energy beams. Or… whatever the official story was.

Tessa slipped into the apartment, closing the door behind her. She was then immediately pounced by the entity, being knocked off her feet as it peppered her with kisses.

“You were gone for 24 minutes,” the entity said. “That means 24 minutes of kisses.”

“I thought I said I’d do a kiss for every minute I was gone,” Tessa replied, shivering as she realised how alien the entity’s eyes were after time spent around humans again.

“You did. Maaaiiis… I didn’t realise how horrible you being gone for that long was. I should never have agreed to those terms,” the entity explained.

Tessa felt her eye twitch slightly. “That… ok. Ok. Since you behaved yourself… Let me put the groceries away first, though. The frozen stuff might thaw if I don’t.”

“Hmmm… non,” it said, before raising a hand and zapping the bags of groceries with a blue energy of some sort. “The food will not thaw now. Alors, we can kiss.”

“What do you mea—” was all Tessa managed to ask before the entity’s lips were on hers.

The kisses were determined, desperate, and somewhat clumsy. They’d have been endearing if they hadn’t been from the source they were from. And hadn’t left Tessa’s lips increasingly numb. The rest of her body also tingled from the being’s embrace, though it was the places it kissed her that felt the strangest.

She lay there, still slightly out of it, when the being finally stopped, floating up into the air and looking down at her with a soft smile.

After a few minutes, she regained her senses enough to sit up and head over to grab the groceries. Only to find she couldn’t move them. She couldn’t even make the fabric of the bags budge, no matter how much she pushed.

“Oh. Right. I time locked them. I will unlock them,” the entity said, flicking its wrist and pulling the blue energy away from the bags.

Tessa poked the nearest bag, and was relieved to have it respond like a bag should. She was also relieved that the frozen and refrigerated things were still cold.

Even if she was disturbed to learn about another power the entity had. Another thing to worry about it using.

-b-

Going to bed had been… awkward. Sure, getting dressed had already been weird, with the entity quietly watching, so she’d accepted that would happen again as she changed into her pajamas. She’d also accepted it would watch her brush her teeth, done in the soft red glow of the entity, as she didn’t want to risk properly lighting up the apartment.

What she hadn’t prepared for was the entity just floating there at the foot of the bed as she tried to get to sleep. A being with glowing red eyes sitting silently at the foot of her bed set off just about every primal fear instinct in Tessa’s body.

“I… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… I think I would be more comfortable if you slept beside me,” she said, trying to ignore how wrong that also felt.

“Pardon? I do not sleep?” it replied, tilting its entire body in the air instead of just its head.

“Lay beside me, then,” Tessa said, indicating Garcelle’s side of the bed. “You can watch me from somewhere else after I fall asleep, but… please. You’re mildly terrifying hovering there in the dark like that.”

“Can we cuddle?” the entity asked.

“Uh… sure. I’ll hug you.”

The entity nodded, looking excited as it floated over. It didn’t really sink into the bed, still hovering a little, but it was low enough.

Ignoring the part of her that was screaming about this being a terrible idea, Tessa pulled on the blanket so she could drape it over the entity and then pulled it into a hug.

The strange tingling was back, as she held it. With her eyes closed, though… she could still smell Garcelle. She could pretend she was just holding her girlfriend. The woman she’d wanted to marry.

She could pretend there wasn’t anything wrong.

Also, apparently the numbing aspect of physical contact with the entity, when combined with tiredness, was remarkably efficient at knocking one out, and Tessa was asleep in no time.

-b-

Self-imposed house arrest got boring fast. Even with a strange alien entity in the apartment. The city was still under an emergency curfew, though. She didn’t want to risk going out until that ended. Hopefully the politicians would get tired of it before she ran out of food. It would be easier to sneak out of the city that way.

While she was mentally running through escape plans, one issue kept popping up. Eventually, she decided rather than dismissing ideas based around stealth, she would see if it was possible.

“Can you turn off your glow?” Tessa asked, while the entity floated above her, quietly counting… something.

“Turn off my… glow?” it replied.

“To try to blend in and look like a normal human. We could get away from the city easier if you can,” she explained.

The entity nodded, drifting back down to put its feet on the floor. It closed its eyes, and slowly the strange aura of red energy it had faded. Opening its eyes again, the entity smiled. The eyes were still glowing, though not nearly as strongly.

“How is that?”

Tessa blinked. “Well, apart from the eyes and your hair seeming a little too fluffy… maybe if you were to wear sunglasses… let’s test it.”

She got up, heading over to the closet to hunt for a large pair of sunglasses. After a bit of digging she found a pair of mirrored aviators, which she then put on the entity.

And felt her heart flutter as it now looked so normal. She felt like she was just looking at Garcelle again.

Apparently the entity caught the joy in her eyes, and decided that was a good moment to pounce with a kiss.

It really liked kissing, and Tessa was starting to get used to her lips going numb.

-b-

The back-up office in Truro Nova Scotia was beginning to feel redundant as Dr. Montgomery listened to the CSIS attaché prattle on about his country’s inability to find the alien. The man was the most generic and forgettable human being she’d ever met, which made him easy to tune out.

The asset could be nearly anywhere on Earth at this point. In hindsight they should have realised the tracker they’d stuck in the host woman would have been fried by the blending, but it had seemed a good idea at the time. Now they had nothing.

Which meant angry phone calls from General Adams, shouting about the politicians yelling at him. They were going to have to fake some sort of resolution soon, to lift the curfew in Halifax. That part wasn’t her job, though. She was in charge of research, not the cover ups.

Unfortunately, earthly science wasn’t getting them anywhere. Which meant she’d have to speak with him again.

Their ‘benefactor’ gave her the creeps, which was saying something with what Dr. Montgomery had seen in her life.

While the CSIS agent moved on to the French portion of his briefing (which she didn’t even bother trying to understand), she made a call for a flight. There was no choice but to visit the benefactor.

The V-24 Snake Eagle landed shortly after the CSIS agent finished his rambling report. Which was about as what she’d expected. There’d been a carrier group in the Gulf of Maine since they’d started their experiment, so flights were easy to get.

She was sure the neighbours would complain about the noise, but it took more than that to stop Uncle Sam from landing where he pleased.

Most of the flight from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod was spent swallowing her pride so she might convincingly grovel to the pompous man she had to meet. She knew he was trying to con her. He had his own motives for providing the organism.

That was part of why they’d done their second round of experiments out of the country. They’d barely contained the first host, when he’d gone berserk back in Nevada. She was fairly certain their ‘benefactor’ had hoped to see significantly more damage.

Dr. Montgomery was confident they could figure out how to contain the asset, though. If they could just find the stupid thing.

Once they’d landed on the northern tip of Cape Cod, she got out of the plane and grabbed a cigarette, calming her nerves before the short drive to their benefactor’s mansion.

It was a sprawling modernist building, hidden from the road by a mile long driveway. She arrived to see the front doors opening. Walking inside, the foyer looked relatively normal, apart from the high ceilings. The doors closed behind her, and she walked down the hallway towards the living room.

The furniture there was mostly far too large for a human, but it fit the being standing in front of the window, his back to her.

“I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Your cover story on the news is rather clunky.”

The benefactor turned around to face her, and she shivered under those alien eyes. Black like a shark’s, with a smile to match. Even without the teeth, his ten foot tall well-toned build was intimidating. Ivory skin next to black eyes gave him an appearance that screamed ‘death’, and his long black hair did little to dispel the notion.

“You lost the M’tethon, didn’t you?” he asked.