Touched by an Alien

feet high and I guessed the span as double. They had feathers, but they were odd looking, which, I know, you’d figure would be a given in the first place. But they didn’t look like bird feathers—they gleamed, and not with blood. There was a viscous substance on them, and as I watched, the man turned toward his horrified, screaming wife and shot blades out of the feathers that lined the wings’ edges.
    She was cut to ribbons in a matter of seconds, and he turned toward the courthouse and let more blades fly. The main Pueblo Caliente courthouse, a nine-story building with mostly glass walls, was built a few years ago and was really very modern and attractive, doing its best to pretend the city hadn’t once been a pioneer cow town.
    I flinched as the projectiles hit. Glass shattered and flew everywhere—the courthouse went from sleek to rubble in a matter of moments. I could hear screams—the people coming out of the courthouse, those near the windows in the first few floors, anyone in his path, maybe more—were all being cut down, possibly murdered by this man. I couldn’t guess how far the projectiles went; for all I knew, they were going deep into the building.
    I don’t know why I didn’t try to run or hide. In hindsight, I could say maybe I just knew it would be futile. But at the time, that wasn’t what I was thinking. I was scared, but more, I was angry, and I just wanted to stop him. He wasn’t slowing the attack at all, and I realized he was enjoying it, enjoying the power, the fear, the death.
    His back was still to me, and I could see a spot, right between where his shoulder blades had been and wings now were. Something was there, pulsing, almost like a human heart, but it didn’t look like a heart. It resembled a small jellyfish, really.
    I tried to think of what I could use to stop this monster—it wasn’t as though they equipped marketing managers with Uzis. I didn’t take my eyes off the pulsing thing on the man’s back as I dug through my purse and my fingers found my weapon—my heavy, expensive Mont Blanc pen. It had been a gift from my father when I’d gotten a promotion at work. I doubted this was what he’d hoped I’d use it for, but I wasn’t holding any other options.
    I dropped my purse, kicked off my heels, and ran, straight for his back. He was moving closer to the courthouse but was still less than a hundred feet away from me, and back in school I’d been on the track team. I was a sprinter and a hurdler, and some things don’t leave you, even if you haven’t done them for a while.
    Because he was a little taller than me, I knew I needed to be airborne when I hit him. I judged it and leaped at the last possible moment. My pen slammed into that jellyfish-like thing on his back just as he started to turn. I could see his eyes—they were wide, glowed red, and no longer looked human.
    As I drove the pen into his back, his mouth opened, but he didn’t make a sound. His eyes, however, went back to human, and they glazed as I watched them die. Then his body fell forward and mine with it. I scrambled to my feet, covered with ooze from his wings and the exploded jellyfish thing.
    The police arrived. After all, many of them had been inside the courthouse. The scene was chaos—people screaming, glass and blood everywhere, sirens in the distance—but as I stared down at the dead body, all I could think about was whether I should retrieve my pen or not.
    A man appeared out of nowhere. He was over six feet, big and broad. I didn’t register much else, other than his suit, which I was pretty sure was Armani and looked excellent on him, meaning he probably wasn’t with the police. My eyes were drawn back to my pen, still sticking out of the dead man’s back.
    “How did you know what to do?” he asked, without any opening formalities.
    “It just seemed … right,” I answered, winning the Lame Reply Award of the hour. “Can I take my pen out?”
    He squatted down and examined the body. He pulled the pen out slowly. I got the impression he was ready to ram it back in if the body gave the slightest indication of coming back to life.
    “I saw his eyes. They weren’t normal, and then, as I killed him, they went back to human again. And I saw him die,” I added. I wondered if I was going to have hysterics and realized I wasn’t. I was somewhat relieved.
    The man looked up at me. I registered his face now—rather broad features, strong chin, light-brown eyes, dark, wavy