Mercenary Abduction (Alien Abduction) (20 page)

A bitter chuckle made her body shake. “Oh, now there’s a post coital bedtime story. Why would

you want to hear that sad tale?”

“Curiosity.” A need to understand her he couldn’t explain. And so she told him her story – and he

made a list of beings to kill, new enemies he made a priority to eradicate – free of charge.

“Look, Mommy. There are lights in the sky.” A much younger Olivia craned her neck, fascinated

by the sight of a perfect ring of white light bursts hanging amidst the backdrop of a dark galaxy rife with stars. In the city, the stars rarely shone so clearly, and she’d never seen anything like the glowing circle.

“It’s probably just an airplane.”

Airplanes sported red taillights and moved quickly. This anomaly proved stationary. “But it’s not

moving. Actually, the lights are getting closer.” Definitely not typical aviation behavior, even ten year-old Olivia knew that.

“Sure they are,” mumbled her mother as she scrounged around inside the trunk of their car,

currently parked on the side of the road. Actually, calling it a car was an insult to vehicles on the road.

Try a piece of crap that should have retired a long time ago, sporting rust along the bottom edges of the doors, a muffler that chugged, and a crack across the windshield at just the right height to prove annoying.

Head still tilted, Olivia stared up at the sky, not at all offended by her mother’s inattention.

Sometimes, not being noticed was the best thing she could hope for. As her mother continued to mumble about the pigsty in the trunk while she tossed things around, Olivia peeked at the unlit road. Nothing distinguished it and Olivia couldn’t have said why they halted on this particular stretch. Her mother just suddenly swerved onto the graveled shoulder. Her queries of, “Why are we stopping?” “Are we lost?’

and, “Did we run out of gas?” were met with a “because,” “no,” and “no.” She also wanted to ask why

they needed to drive almost an hour from the apartment she shared with her aunt, but somehow kind of

figured she knew the answer. Just par for the course. In her usual fashion, dear old Mom showed up when she pleased, with a litany of
Sorrys
and a bright smile while she promised to make up for her absence.

Whatever. Olivia knew better than to put any stock in anything Mommy dearest said. Dozens of

broken promises later, she knew not to believe anything that came out of her mother’s mouth. Still, though, if she played her cards right, she might end up with something – a new sweater, a CD, dinner at

McDonald’s. Guilt presents, as she liked to call them.

Hopping up onto the hood of the sedan her mother currently drove – a loaner from a f
riend,

possibly related to a pig given the condition of the interior – Olivia leaned back and stared at the ring of lights hovering in the sky.

Maybe it’s aliens, come to kidnap us.
She should be so lucky. It would take a miracle, or her turning sixteen, before she could escape the hellish existence known as her current life. Living with her aunt wasn’t too horrible. At least she fed her regular meals, but sharing a room with her two young

cousins, cousins she babysat a heck of a lot more than their father did, really wasn’t her idea of fun. But it beat sleeping in a car. Her mother’s snores were impossible to escape in that case. And the group homes were even worse.

With a triumphant, “Aha!” her mother emerged from the trunk, clasping something baton-shaped.

Moments later, an amber-hued flare glowed. A second one lit up in a green burst of light. Waving them around in some weird glow bug dance, her mother pranced in the area beside the car. Strange, yet not the oddest thing she’d seen her mother do. Olivia was used to that kind of erratic behavior from dear old Mom. Actually, the glow stick dance was tame compared to the time her mother staggered home high on

something, and drunk to boot. She’d run around the front lawn of the apartment complex trying to catch invisible butterflies, naked, and covered in peanut butter. Child protective services didn’t find it as amusing as the neighbors did.

I guess I better hide the car keys again until she sobers up.
Olivia sighed. Fooled again. Olivia wondered how she’d missed the signs of inebriation. Usually, she could spot it when her mother had gone on a bender. Then again, despite her funny dance, her mother didn’t seem too high, or drunk. No singing or giggling. Weaving or falling. Actually, her mother danced around with a grace Olivia couldn’t recall ever seeing. “Whatcha doing?”

“None of your business.”

Hmm, possibly sober, but still her ever-delightful self. Snapping her gum, Olivia didn’t take

offense. Why bother wasting the energy? Back she leaned again, peeking up at the stationary ring of

strangeness overhead. As she stared, her breath caught as a single beam of brilliance detached from the larger mass and zipped down toward them. Not just at them, but right overhead, close enough a warm

breeze tugged at her loose strands of hair. Holy—word she dared not say aloud lest her aunt guess it and wash her mouth out with soap. Again. Possessed of super-duper auditory powers, Olivia didn’t know

how her aunt did it, but she always knew when Olivia did or said something bad. And she punished using old school methods. Blech.

With a hum, whatever flew by landed behind some trees. Mommy dearest tossed the glow sticks

on to the gravel. Grabbing her purse, she gestured impatiently. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“Would you stop it with all the questions?” snapped her mother. She grabbed Olivia by the arm

and yanked her off the hood. Olivia slid off the metal and her feet hit the ground with a scuff.

Shrugging free of her mother’s grip, she frowned. “I’m coming. I was just asking where.”

“To see the, um –”

“UFO thingy that landed over in the bushes?”

“Yes. And don’t argue.”

“Why would I? I want to see what it is too. Maybe it’s some super-secret government thing. Or

aliens. Aliens would be cool.”

“That’s just crazy,” her mother tittered. “Aliens don’t exist. It’s probably just a helicopter.”

Yeah. Okay. Olivia didn’t believe that for a minute and she could tell her mother didn’t either, but

given she wanted to know what landed, she didn’t exactly argue about heading off into a dark patch of forest to encounter who knew what. Couldn’t be any worse than the drug addicts and scum that lived in her neighborhood at home. Years later, Olivia still wanted to slap herself for the naivety she’d displayed that night.

Skipping ahead, Olivia made better time than her parent who tottered along in heels not meant for

forest treks. A normal child of ten might have feared adventuring in the shadowed woods. Olivia took

pride in the fact she was braver and worldlier than other kids her age. Street smart, she called it. The only legacy of her mother she could claim to enjoy.

Smart or not, though, nothing prepared her for the sight that met her eyes when she hit an open

patch. As if prepared ahead of time, a clearing existed, one hacked right into the forest, the brush and bramble of it stacked around the outer edges, forcing her to scramble over the impromptu barrier. She could have taken the time to look for a path, but she caught a hint of white. A glow. The mysterious object that flew overhead.

Weather balloon? Moron on a lawn chair flying with helium balloons? The possibilities excited

her. While she’d joked about it earlier, though, the last thing she truly expected to see was an honest to goodness spacecraft.

Holy crap.
Sorry, Aunt Ginny.
She ignored the imagined taste of Ivory and took a step, then

another toward the sphere hovering a few feet above the ground. Round like a Mentos, but giant-sized, it hummed softly above the ground! Olivia ogled it. Cool. She bent over to look under, but saw nothing to hold it up. The stumps and debris didn’t seem to bother it as it bobbed there, a gentle illumination

radiating from its shell.

“That is so freakn’ cool,” she muttered.

“I brought her.” Her mother’s sudden words startled Olivia. She’d forgotten she wasn’t alone.

Then the words penetrated. She whirled to look at her mother and didn’t see any surprise at all on her face. How did her mother know to expect a UFO? Unless it wasn’t an alien craft. Bummer. For a moment, she’d gotten so excited. Olivia peered at it again and let out a squeak as she noted the ramp leading into the probably not-so-candy shell. Standing on the ramp was a hunched, vaguely humanoid creature. Olivia swallowed hard as she stared at the piglike entity, surely a detailed costume, right down to the stench.

“I brought her like you wanted. Now where’s my money?”

Olivia whirled. “Your money?” Ten years old or not, she understood the gist of where this was

going. “You’re selling me? To that?”

“It’s for a greater purpose.”

“Getting high is not a greater purpose,” Olivia sassed, fear sending its tendrils her way.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“You will to the cops, though.”

“Not if I tell them you ran away.”

“But I didn’t run away.”

“Oh yes, you are. And they’ll believe me too.”

“But why?” Olivia didn’t cry or break down as she asked, but she couldn’t help years of curiosity

from imbuing her question. “Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you?”

“Exactly.” Her mother spat. “What have you done for me, you ungrateful brat? I birth you and what

do I get? A few measly extra bucks a month from the government. Not enough for the discomfort I went

through carrying you. And your damned father – he promised he’d help. The liar. He couldn’t leave town fast enough after you came. It’s your fault I’m alone.”

Olivia blinked at the tirade, too stunned to feel the pain. It would come later. “So why do you keep

coming back?”

“Because you’re my kid. I figured maybe one day you’d amount to something. That day is here.”

“You can’t be serious. You can’t sell me. And especially not to that. It’s not even human.”

“And? He’s going to take you to space. Think of it as an adventure.”

“No. You can’t do this.”

“I am.”

“You won’t get away with this. The cops will figure it out and you’ll go to jail.”

“The cops won’t do shit. I’ve already gotten away with it twice. Third time’s a charm.” Her

mother’s red lips, cracked with dry lipstick, split in a sick smile.

Olivia’s mind froze as she thought of the lies her mother told her about Joey, and then Lisa,

running away from foster care. Olivia had often wondered if her older siblings found new lives, happier ones that didn’t want or need a younger sister messing it up. But no. Her siblings never broke free. Her mother sold them.
Just like she intends to sell me.

“I’m not going,” she stubbornly reiterated. Olivia whirled to run, but something cold blasted her in

the back and her limbs literally froze in place. She could only listen and watch as the porky Martian approached, hitching his belt over a hairy belly, his short pants not covering his cloven feet or hairy ankles. Eyeing her in a way that made her skin crawl, the ugly dude paced around Olivia’s paralyzed

body. “She’s a tad young, but she’ll do.” The creature spat to the side.

“Of course she will. Now pay up or I’m taking her back to her aunt’s.”

“Do you have any more younglings to sell?”

“Nope. This is the last one. Now fork it over, pigman. I got people to see and things to do.” Her

mother held out a demanding hand.

“How unfortunate for you that we no longer find you useful. Please enjoy your final payment.”

Raising a gun, Olivia couldn’t even scream when the alien shot her mother, disintegrating her into a pile of dust that blew apart in the light breeze. Then she couldn’t care less as Stinky, the name she gave her jailor, carted her into her new home for the next few weeks. Not by any means the worst time of her life, but definitely some of the most frightening, especially since none of the orphans penned together knew what to expect.

She and the other misfits the aliens rounded up coexisted in a kind of weird status, a cross

between Peter Pan’s lost boys – and girls – and those savage kids on that island with the fly Lord that her aunt made her watch. In some ways, Olivia enjoyed her new life a lot more than her old, especially since she owned one of the top bunks. Life settled into a comfortable routine even if the mush they fed them left a lot to be desired.

And then a second group of pirates attacked their ship. Blood-thirsty bugs, they made no secret of

what they wanted humans for – the main ingredient in a supper dish.

Braised Olivia in a sautéed sauce wasn’t something she found particularly palatable, so she hid

from the new invaders first chance she got, the alien ducts on the ship vast and just the right size for someone petite like herself. She hid so well the pirates vacated the ship with all of her orphan friends and left her alone. All alone. Listing along on a dwindling life support system on a spacecraft stripped of everything they could lay their pinchers on, even at her young age, Olivia knew a death sentence, albeit a slow one, when she saw it.

Then came the morning she awoke, belly taut with hunger, breathing shallow, energy waning, to

see a funny-looking guy wearing something out of a history book sitting on the edge of the pallet she’d made for herself. Weak or not, she jumped up brandishing the rusty knife she found during her scavenging.

Fear made her young heart pound, but still she bravely faced the smiling guy and in a tremulous voice asked, “Who are you?”

“I am just the greatest of all deities. The be-all and end-all of gods. The one who decides who

shall live or –”

A radiant woman stepped up behind him and smacked him in the back of a head. “This is Murphy.

And I’m Karma. We
are
gods, but seeing as how the fates say we’re to adopt you, you can call us family.”