Chapter 1

Emmy hadn’t even seen him. Not in middle school. Not in high school. Not on his bike while she was doing sixty in a thirty. She hadn’t hit him. She just hadn’t shared the road like the ineffectual road signs asked her to.

Adam wasn’t even angry. Not until the sheet of the morning’s rainwater, muck brown from the ill-kept southside roads, carved up from her tires and slapped him across the chest. He flinched, twisted his hands, turned the handlebars, hydroplaned across the puddle and hit the guard rail. He hadn’t been angry; not until he had become airborne.

Shit. That bitch. Motherfucker. Ow. I’m too young to die. Man her top was low cut. Lots of words needed to be said but there was only room in Adam’s larynx for a panicked scream. He clipped the loose sod with his shoulder and tumbled down into the valley. The grass was slick, he slid more often than he rolled. That meant he hit the ground less and inched by the hardwood tree that had called dibs on his skull. It was a long way down, but not steep enough to break anything. His windbreaker was torn to shit and he had a bit of a scrape on his calf. He and his bones were each in one piece.

His breath! He climbed to his knees fighting to recover his breath. He stood up and looked up the hill to the road. His bike was still up there. Even if everything didn’t hurt and the ground was firm and dry, he did not want to make that climb. Then he saw the light again.

Now, Adam had to admit that he hadn’t seen Emmy either. This wasn’t the norm. He had in middle school, he had in high school, but not while he was biking home from his job at the supermarket. It was a rare event. He was purposefully on the lookout for girls at least a third as hot as Emmy. How many girls did he know that were tall, hot, brunette, and popular? That tall? A handful. That hot? Two besides her? Brunette? He actually knew dozens if not hundreds of brunettes. Popular? No one came close. He hadn’t seen her BMW. He should’ve heard it the way she was driving. BMW as an acronym? Not as engaging as a real Goddamned UFO.

It was like a star, but the size of a baseball. It had been a streak, zigzaggy but the zags had died and during the fall it looked like the zigs were finished too. The streak was gone. It just seemed to hover there and getting a little bigger. He looked on for a moment of stupefied idiocy. It wasn’t a streak because it was flying straight for him.

Maura’s face went double plus red to the familiar knock on her bedroom door. She scrambled off of her pillow and swung the panties hanging off her ankle. She managed to perfectly step in the leghole and drag them up over her hips and under her t-shirt. Not sure if she was breathing at human rates, she rushed to the door and yanked it open to find her mother’s face.

“Hi, sweetie. You alone in there?” She asked with a knowing grin. Stupid moms.

“Of course I am, who else would be here?” Maura asked. She let the door fall open and showed off her loose semi transparent white t-shirt and the sparkling black panties underneath it. “I’m hardly dressed for company.”

“Depends on the company.” Her mother smiled and Maura scoffed and shook her head. The daughter raked her bangs off of her sweaty forehead. She tucked the red hair behind her multi studded ears. Mom asked: “Have you had your friend Adam over tonight?”

“No, he had work.” Maura shook her head. The mirth went out of her mother’s face.

“If he calls you, call his mom. He hasn’t been home.” Her mother left and Maura slammed her bedroom door shut.

“Sorry!” She shouted knowing how much her father hated having his house rattled. She grabbed her phone, caught the whiff off of her pillowcase, and stripped the bedclothes as she texted one handed.

He didn’t reply. Not in the time it took Maura to make her bed again. She vetoed wearing a bra and put on a pair of shorts over her panties. She was slipping into a fresh shirt as she left her room.

“You’re basically an adult Maura, maybe put your clothes on and then come out in public.” Her father muttered as he looked back down at his tablet. Maura shrugged, hopped into her socks and found her mother in the kitchen.

“What happened?” The daughter demanded.

“His bike was at the bottom of the hill. Front wheel was bent.” Her mother’s worry transferred into Maura. “If he got in a wreck this afternoon, we figured he’d walk up here first.”

“I’m going down to see--” Her mother’s car keys hit her in the chest. She just managed to catch them.

“Wear boots, it’s still a mess out.”

“Is it?” Maura asked not knowing it hadn’t been just another sunny summer day. She shrugged and pulled on her galoshes. They were bright pink with what had been white soles until she had invested in some sharpies. The soles were now black and there were violet bramble vines and black dahlias all the way up her knees.

It was still damp out. She tied her hair in a ponytail as she got into the car. It was a short drive down the hill. A couple of cars were parked at the top of the hill. The sheriff’s lights flickered in her eyes. She recognized Adam’s mother’s Honda, his dad’s Ford, but what the fuck was that rich bitch’s BMW doing here? The cars were empty. The sun was setting and beams of flashlights cut up from the valley. Well, if he didn’t come back up the hill, he probably followed the creek out to Krysten’s place. You know, unless he was dead.

Maura didn’t stop.

Adam had pulled himself up out of the dirt. Fuck. He growled smacking the dirt and mud from his jeans. He tossed away his windbreaker shreds. His phone still in the pocket. Well, if it had survived the fall it didn’t take being thrown into a boulder well.

He hadn’t been killed. He had ducked. The UFO dodged him. Windburn raked across his cheek. The rocks in the riverbed had been cleaved apart down to the soil. The falling ship had skipped off the ground like a stone skipping across a pond. The splash of three belly landings left small craters. A final trough stretched on another sixty feet.

“Great.” He coughed. There was dirt and dust all over his face and up his nose. “C’mon Martha, let’s go meet Superman.”

He was excited. He would’ve been nursing his bruises and trying not to tear up if he hadn’t been ratcheted up by the crash. His sneakers skidded across the rocks and mud as he rushed over to the ship. A flat silvered disc was crumpling away from a seat.

There was a creature inside. It’s seat decomposed with the rest of the craft. Adam guessed the alien stood three and a half, three and three quarters feet tall. It looked like a long armed hairless monkey and quite a fat pot-bellied monkey at that. It had short thick legs down to three toed feet. It had a long bald head. The face too flat. Its underbitten mouth was under a fat upper lip. Its big dark eyes bulged out beyond a vibrating slit of a nose and held two concentric irises. The irises moved independently of each other, the smaller set moving faster. All four locked onto Adam’s.

“Nn-Nut!” It threw its head forward on a stretching neck as it spoke.

“Almond...” Adam answered suspiciously. The silvered craft was finished crumpling, decoloring, melting, deforming. It soon became indistinguishable from the rocky riverbed. The trough and craters its crash had left were soon filled with fake stones that felt like real stones under Adam’s feet. He frowned and stepped aside to stand on real Earth stones.

The expressions on the alien’s face looked worried and curious. Its head swayed left and right as it looked over Adam. The fatter irises stared quite intently at Adam’s crotch. Adam was only six paces away now. Their eyes flashed together again, the small set of irises stared straight into Adam’s soul. The other calculated his body. When the irises settled in concentric eyes again, it lifted a hand.

The arms, way too long, bent like there were two extra half elbows. It gestured in slow clear movements and then waved a tripodal hand over its face. The hands were strange. There was no palm. The thumb wasn’t on a plane with the fingers and closed into fist with the thumb nestled between the fingers.

“Nn-Nut.” He said after the wave.

Adam started to feel the pain from falling. He frowned. He waved a hand across his face and said. “Adam.”

Tires squealed overhead. He looked up, a car had parked near his bike. He lifted his hands up to wave and call out but found his wrist caught by the alien. The grip was strong but if Adam forced it he could have broken it.

Whatever the gestures meant, Adam figured the creature wanted to be unfound. The ship had broken down and camouflaged itself on the river after all.

“Alright, Nut. I guess it’s the long way.” But at least it was the flat way. “You’ll have to tell me about yourself as we walk.”

The long way should’ve taken about an hour. An hour on Adam’s long legs. His legs were all but taller than the alien. The alien waddled. It kept the big eyes forward, scanning the woods, the small irises stared up at Adam.

“So,” Adam tried again, he looked back over his shoulder. He couldn’t see the steep hills anymore. It was still a hell of a climb up either side. No, he figured he’d follow the brook and come out near the supermarket. He could call home and get a ride. If, well, if that was an option. “What are you doing on Earth, Nut?”

The alien blew out its upper lip and gestured wildly.

“Non verbal, eh?” Adam rolled his shoulders and cricked his neck.

“Braxtorp Jahdajahdo Nn-Nut.” The alien replied. He blew out his upper lip again. Adam did the same it was strong enough frustrated gesture.

“Well, I’m Adam. You landed in the great US of A. Thanks for not, uh, blowing up the White House and all of our major cities.” He shrugged. The sound of police cars in the distance caught his attention. Nut jumped. He scrambled forward, but his waddling was too slow.

“I get it!” Adam bent down and scooped the alien up. He wasn’t light. It was like lifting a five year old prone to fatness.

“Nn-Nut Braxchor Jahdojahda!” The hurried gestures aimed down the river. The big irises looked out the side of his eye domes. Those small irises focused deep on Adam.

“You come in peace right?” Adam asked. He started jogging. He used to run from cops when he was in elementary school. It was just fun. It was still fun. Nut started tugging on Adam’s ear. Adam picked the offending fingers away. He didn’t reprimand the alien. He was thinking of red hair and pale skin. “God, my phone. Fuck. I gotta show...”

There were the guys at jiu-jitsu. There were the drones at work. All of those boiled away in a flash. He didn’t really have any school friends. There was just Maura. Well, whoever saw Nut was going to freak out. Wasn’t like anyone else had the freaking out practice Maura had.

Nut had started on alien charades again. It waggled fingers, bent his arms crazy, tugged on Adam’s ear. There was no common grammar to their motions, let alone their words. This was all exacerbated by the times Nut flailed too far and had to grab Adam’s neck for support.

“They’re going to check out the valley. Call in another car and then follow us down the river.” Adam explained.

“Nn-Nut Jahdojahda.” This time all four irises stared hard into Adam’s eyes. Nut grabbed Adam by both ears.

It wasn’t just Maura who’d have to see the creature. There’s no way Krysten wouldn’t get drug into the whole thing. If she wasn’t Jiu-jitsu and video games with Adam, Maura was doing everything with Krysten. That blonde girl had much nicer curves. And a sister! Jen was at least as hot as Emmy. Maybe the only girl he had spoken to that hot.

He managed to still be angry at Emmy. That surprised him.

“Stop tugging on my ears.” Adam managed to focus forward and evade clipping a tree stump and pitching forward. “We hit the ground this fast, you’re going to break my fall. This is going to be E.T., not Alien Autopsy, capisce?”

“Kapeesh!” Nut startled Adam with the word. The alien let go of Adam’s ears. The pain and tiredness caught up through the excitement of Adam. He started huffing and puffing. “Kapeesh, Nn-Nut. Braxtorp Jahdajahdo.”

“I still don’t know what you’re saying.” Adam huffed and puffed as he lowered Nut to the ground. Nut regally scaled down Adam’s legs with its feet. They gripped almost better than its hands. This time, Nut took Adam’s hand.

“Fine, I was going to go down to work, but if we turn left when the hills flatten out we’ll be right behind Krysten’s house.” He gestured. It was basically sundown. “Fuck, I wish I had my phone.”

Maura pulled the car into Krysten’s driveway. No minivan, no motorcycle. Mama and papa bear had left baby bear alone. She texted a quick, “I’m here. Come outside” to Krysten. The sheriff had just gotten around to sending a second car to the end of the river. Still, it was a hell of walk and it’d be easier for Maura to cut him off here.

“Hey, why’re you here?” Krysten popped her head out the side door. “Did it go poorly! Does he not like me?”

“Yes, bad as it could go. And I never asked him so I haven’t a clue.”

“You promised!” Krysten frowned and stomped out. She was wearing pale blue pajama pants and white tank top. “Look, if you’re going to--”

“He crashed his bike and fell down the valley. Get a flashlight,” Maura’s mom had kept one in the car. Maura turned it on and hit unnecessarily as it worked as soon as she flipped the switch. “And let’s go get him.”

“What?” Krysten rushed over.

“Flashlight.” Maura waved to show that the sun had gone down and it was dark. “Now.”