Touched by an Alien

necks. Even though they were bigger than me, I could lift them easily off the ground. Mephistopheles laughed and clapped, as if this were a funny game.
    I squeezed their necks, cutting off their air, killing them slowly.
    Martini just looked at me sadly. He didn’t even try to stop me.
    Christopher managed to speak. “Where’s the fight in you when we need it?”
    Then I snapped both their necks, and Mephistopheles said, “We have won.”
     
    I woke up sobbing. I wanted to be sick but couldn’t remember if I’d had anything to eat since yesterday morning, when the world was normal. It wasn’t even twenty-four hours ago, but it felt like forever. There was only bile in my stomach, and though it churned, it didn’t try to come up, preferring to sit there and cause pain.
    I grabbed one of the pillows and screamed into it. I was too frightened and horrified to even try to leave the bed. I didn’t know where I was, couldn’t find anyone’s room even if I had the courage to get up. I didn’t want to look and discover some jellyfish thing was on me, turning me into what Mephistopheles wanted. I wanted my mother and father, someone who could hold me and tell me everything was all right, but they were somewhere else in this vast complex, maybe next door, maybe miles away. And I was as afraid of the dark as I had been as a little girl.
    There was urgent knocking at my door, but I was crying too hard to say anything. Part of me was afraid it was a monster, Mephistopheles or something like him, but I managed to remind myself that monsters didn’t knock.
    I staggered out of bed and banged into the dresser, the wall, and the doorway. I could hardly move normally, and I couldn’t stop crying.
    Before I could make it there, the door opened and Martini ran inside. He didn’t say anything, just picked me up and held me. I wrapped my arms around him and cried even more.
    “It’s okay, baby,” he said softly. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
    I tried to tell him what was wrong, but I couldn’t talk. He carried me into the bedroom, pulled the coverlet off the bed, then went back to the living room area, murmuring comfortingly the whole time. There was a lounger in there, and he settled us in it, with me curled up in his lap. He wrapped the coverlet around us.
    “You don’t have to tell me right now,” he said in a low tone. “I have a good idea of what’s wrong.”
    I shook my head. “It was horrible.”
    “I know, I could feel what you were going through.” He kissed my forehead. “Cry as much as you need to, then calm down. No rush.” He tilted the lounger back, so we were pretty much lying down.
    He stroked my head and hair the whole time, kissing my forehead gently from time to time. He was wearing the standard issue nightclothes, and his T-shirt was soaked from my tears by the time I cried myself out.
    “I feel like a stupid, scared little girl,” I admitted through my last few tears.
    “You’re scared, and size-wise you’re a little girl,” Martini said with a chuckle. “But stupid? No, you’re not stupid. At all.”
    “It was a dream, but it felt real.”
    “Most dreams do. We’ll have Paul interpret it tomorrow.”
    “Is that what his special skill is?” It was so nice to talk about Paul rather than my nightmare.
    “Yep.” Martini kissed my forehead again. “So if you don’t want to talk about it until then, that’s fine.”
    I took a deep breath. “I think I can interpret it without him.” I told Martini everything about the dream I could remember, including what Christopher had said right before I killed the two of them.
    Martini was quiet for a minute or so after I finished. “What’s your interpretation?”
    “You mean other than I’m a lot more scared than I thought I was?”
    “Yes. Being scared isn’t stupid, Kitty. It’s smart. This is scary stuff we’re dealing with. World-ending kinds of things. Only idiots or the insane feel no fear in these sorts of situations, and you’re neither.”
    “I think …” My voice trailed off while I tried to form what I felt into words. “I think my subconscious is trying to warn me about something.”
    “Seems pretty clear.” He shifted a bit. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you mind if I take my shirt off? It’s kind of wet.”
    I managed a laugh. “Go ahead.”
    He moved me around a little and stripped the T-shirt off. A glow from the hall came through the bottom of the entry door—I could see his muscles