Adaptation: book I (23 page)

She squinted into the sunlight. “Oh. I thought you’d be here five years.”

“I have to go back to make a report, and then I will return.”

“I see.” She felt relieved and then frowned. Bilal wasn’t staying forever, and she would do well to remember that.

Carmella pulled the truck into the Target parking lot after dodging several red shopping carts. It still felt weird to pull up at the curb and bypass the parking spaces. The glass entrance doors were nothing but crooked metal frames, and trash and broken glass littered the sidewalk.

“There could be wild animals inside, especially since it’s growing cold,” she said. “Since you don’t know how to shoot, you carry the baby and the flashlight and I’ll keep us all covered.”

Bilal appreciated Carmella’s caution, but he sensed no animals larger than squirrels nearby. He didn’t tell her, however. He was learning when not to speak around her. After putting the diaper bag over his shoulder, he and Raj exited the truck. 

Carmella switched the safeties off the two nine-millimeters in her holsters and grabbed her rifle from the back seat. When she got out of the truck, she was pleased Bilal had wrapped Raj in a sheepskin blanket. Raj protested until his little face peeked out and he was able to see the world around him. Bilal wore a parka, knit hat, and gloves, his long hair flowing down his back. The wind periodically blew his hair into his face, and Carmella had to resist the urge to reach out and push it back.

She adjusted her knit hat and scarf. The thin leather gloves she wore allowed her to pull the trigger easily, and the thick leather jacket she wore made her look like a badass. Thanks to whatever Bilal had done to her during the delivery, Carmella felt healthier than she ever had and nothing like a woman who had delivered a baby less than three months ago.

“Let’s go shopping,” Carmella said, and Bilal and Raj followed her into the darkened store. 

Once they were inside, the looting became obvious. Overturned cash registers, mangled display racks, and several limbless mannequins made for slow going only a few feet into the store.

“Turn on the flashlight.” 

Although he had no problems seeing in the dark, Bilal flashed the beam into the darkness of the store for Carmella. Raj seemed to know something important was happening because he watched everything wide-eyed. 

Carmella hung her rifle around her neck, rolled a cart to the center of the store, and grabbed two baby slings, tossing them into the cart. She frowned when she couldn’t find a baby swing.

Bilal rolled up with Raj in the front seat of another cart. “I need shoes.” 

They found him two pairs of work boots, and he wore one pair immediately, leaving his tattered sneakers behind.

“These feel wonderful,” Bilal said.

Carmella collected all the baby clothes she could. She picked out some underwear and also chose a cute nightie, which she shoved into her jacket pocket when Bilal wasn’t looking. Bilal found several pairs of pants. While she grabbed all of the candles, Bilal collected tools. Because the canned and packaged foods had long expired, they still had a great deal of room left in one of the carts.

“I guess it’s time to do some Christmas shopping,” Carmella said.

Bilal knew little about the human holiday other than it involved people spending exorbitant amounts of money on things they really didn’t need. “Where do we begin?”

“In the toy section.”

They filled the second cart with toys.

Raj especially liked gnawing on
a plush, stuffed wolf. 

They packed their items into the back of the extended cab. After Carmella gave Raj his pacifier to replace the soggy wolf, she pulled out of the Target parking lot.

“Maybe we should get you a truck for when you’re hauling those solar panels,” Carmella said.

Bilal’s eyebrows rose. “My own truck? Yes, I would like that. A big diesel truck like this one.”

“We’d have to get you something bigger to carry all those panels,” Carmella said, suppressing a smile. Bilal’s joy gave her a strange satisfaction that warmed her more than the heat barely flowing through the truck’s vents.

“I would like a bigger truck,” Bilal said.

“But a bigger truck requires more diesel fuel,” Carmella said. “We need to go across the Ohio River to Kentucky. There’s a truck stop I’ve used to get diesel. We can fill up the barrels and then go get your truck at a dealership somewhere. How’s that sound?”

Bilal smiled broadly. “I would like that very much.”

~***~

They decided
to
stop for a quick lunch before the exhausting work of siphoning diesel. Carmella had packed sandwiches spread with softened cheese she had made that morning. Homemade brownies and bottled iced tea rounded out the meal, and Raj enjoyed his mother’s breast.

They sat on the back of the truck and watched the Ohio River from the Roebling Bridge. Bilal had never been more content in his life.
This is what it is to be human,
he thought.

“Raj’s sensors haven’t come out again, have they?” Bilal asked.

“No, thank God.”

Bilal swallowed some tea. “I’m going to begin training him how to use them.”

Carmella frowned. “So soon?”

“Yes, he’s capable of understanding how to use them. Soon he will need to explore items with the sensors, so he needs to understand how to use them.”

“How old were you when you learned to use yours?”

“It is different for Centaurian infants. Parents keep a connection with their infants using their sensors almost constantly. Infants learn through that connection.”

Her nipple slipped from Raj’s mouth as he slept, sucking his thumb and relaxing in slumber. She slipped her breast back into her bra and put the baby over her shoulder to burp.

Bilal’s eyes lingered on her before he turned back to the river. He sighed in longing to be the one suckling there. He recounted the taste of her sweet milk and sighed again.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

His face turned a bright shade of yellow. “I’m sorry, I …” He was not good at lying. “I, uh …”

Carmella stared at him. “Well?”

Bilal sighed a third time. “Oh well.” He leaned over and kissed her.

It was swift and chaste, but she thought it was sweet—even sexy.

They both smiled, looking out to the water before them.

“We should go,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

Four miles down I-71 Carmella pulled into a deserted truck stop in Florence, Kentucky.

“Popeye’s,” Bilal said, reading a sign on the main building.

“My chicken’s better,” Carmella said.

She parked the truck close to what looked like a manhole cover set into the concrete. “You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get that thing open with a crowbar,” she said, setting the parking brake. “Let’s fill ‘
er up.”

After Bilal removed the cover, Carmella fed one of the fuel hoses into the underground tank. She inserted the other hose into the truck’s gas tank. “Get to cranking.”

Bilal cranked the pump.

For the ten minutes.

“My truck’s thirsty, huh?” Carmella said.

Once the truck’s tank was full, Carmella snaked the hose into one of the metal barrels on the back of the truck. “I’m taking Raj inside to get away from these fumes, okay?”

Bilal nodded and resumed cranking.

To stay warm—and to keep from thinking about the feel of Bilal’s lips on hers—Carmella gave Raj a tour of Popeye’s. There wasn’t much left to see. Animals had cleaned out the walk-in freezer and refrigerator long ago, and the condiment packs that littered the floor looked chewed. “This was a fast food restaurant, Raj. This is where people came to eat delicious greasy food and gain weight. I wish I could have an ice-cold fountain Coke right now.” She looked out at Bilal, who was moving the hose to the last barrel. “Your daddy is working up an appetite, isn’t he? Look at his muscles! I know you’re going to grow up big and strong like your daddy. Or daddies.
Centaurians would have to celebrate Fathers’ Day instead of Father’s Day, Raj.”

Raj blinked.

“I know those two words sounded the same,” Carmella said, “but you didn’t see where I put the apostrophe. An apostrophe is a flying comma.”

Raj continued to blink.

Carmella laughed. “As if the location of an apostrophe matters anymore.”
 
 

When Bilal finished filling the last barrel, he wrapped the hoses around the hand pump and stowed them in the truck box.

Carmella and Raj joined him, and she bounced nervously from one foot to the other. “Once we get you a truck from a Toyota place up the road, we can pick up more supplies from a Walmart about a mile from here,” Carmella said. “Then we can go home.” She chewed her lip.

Bilal’s nostrils flared as he scented the air. Her heartbeat had sped up and her eyes were dilated. He licked his lips. “Yes, we should be home by nightfall.”

She nodded shyly.

He smiled.

She returned the smile. “Yes, by nightfall.”

As she drove to Kerry Toyota, Carmella felt cocooned by feelings of warmth and love, and she couldn’t stop smiling.

Bilal smiled because Carmella smiled.

Raj smiled because he had gas.

She parked near a gray Toyota Tundra Dually Diesel. “What do you think of that one?”

“I like it,” Bilal said.

“We’ll have to go inside to find the keys,” Carmella said. “That’s how I, um, purchased this truck.”

Carmella decided to use one of the baby slings. She slipped off her jacket and holster as she fastened the straps around her neck.

Bilal scanned the rows of cars and trucks around them, his eyes zeroing in on the front of the building. The windows were all intact. “The windows …”

Carmella dropped Raj into the sling, and he immediately gripped her chest with his hands. “What about them?”

“They’re … there.”

“They must be bullet-resistant,” Carmella said, opening her door.

“I don’t think so,” Bilal said. “I don’t think we’re alone.”

“Nonsense,” Carmella said.

Bilal pointed at the holster. “I would feel better if you wore that.”

Carmella sighed, buckled the holster around her waist, and put on her jacket. “Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Bilal said, but he still felt uneasy. “But I still sense … something.”

Carmella opened her door and slid off the seat. “There’s no one here but us.” She stepped out into the parking lot and shut the door. 

Bilal got out of the truck, his eyes trained on the building as he followed Carmella. “Carmella, I sense other people.”

Raj snapped his head around and cooed.

“Raj does, too.”

Carmella reached her right hand to her holster.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you!”

Carmella looked up and saw a man on the roof of the building with a rifle trained on her and Raj. Her knees nearly buckled but she froze in place. “We’re only here to get a truck.”

“Ain’t none for sale today, lady,” the man said. “Take off the holster, nice and slow, now.”

Carmella unbuckled the holster and let it drop to the ground.

The door to the dealership opened. She saw a man and a woman exit. The man had a rifle but wasn’t aiming it at anything. He appeared to be in his late fifties, and his belly protruded from his unbuttoned down jacket. White tufts of hair stood out in a clownish manner around his face. The woman was old and dressed in a coat much too big for her. She hobbled toward Carmella with a look of wonder on her face.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Carmella said. “We only came to get another vehicle, that’s all.”

“Is … is that a baby?” the woman asked. She looked at the man. “Oh, Sonny. I wants me a baby. Can I have it? Please, can I have it?”

Sonny shrugged. “I ain’t seen a baby in ages. Yeah, Ma, we can keep it.”

Carmella wrapped her arms around Raj. “No …”

“Kill the man,” Sonny said.

Two shots rang out from the roof, and Bilal fell to the ground.

“Oh my God!” Carmella screamed. She reached for the holster, but something hard hit her in the side of the head. She cradled Raj as she fell.

A moment later, something hard struck her again, and everything went black.

Ma pulled Raj
from his sling and cradled the crying baby lovingly in her arms. Earl, the shooter from the roof, came down and exited the building carrying a duffel bag filled with tools.

Earl kicked the body of the man he had shot, careful not to step in the pool of blood around him. “What the fuck?”

Sonny put on Carmella’s holster before lifting and dumping her into the back seat of the Ford. “Nice of them to get us some fuel, huh, Earl?”