The Alien Reindeer's Flight Read online

  She didn’t. One round of humiliating rejection was more than enough for Audrey. Besides, things weren’t going so bad. Against all odds, she was surviving in her suburban post-apocalyptic homestead. The gate around Colton Hills helped.

  But being too direct with Phoebe could only lead to a fight. So Audrey plastered a smile on her face and made a show of wiping the sweat and rainwater from her brow.

  I will not fight with my little sister. Not Christmas week. Not this Christmas.

  "My battery's gonna die, Pheebs, and I think the clocks on the ship are on the fritz again." When her big brown eyes flooded with confusion, Audrey’s smile became genuine. "You're four days early. Didn't you wonder about my lack of proper attire?"

  Civilization may have crumbled around them, but the Pope girls clung to one of their old traditions: the hot chocolate and holiday sweater chat. Aunt Ruth's Christmas sit and sip. There were only two rules: everybody wore the ugliest sweater they could find and no whiskey until one came of age.

  Audrey had never much been fond of the second rule. In her teens, she’d broken it every chance she could. But she would never violate the dress code. Aunt Ruth would haunt her from the beyond if she dared.

  "I wondered, but life's hard down there, right?" Phoebe shrugged her shoulders and gripped the coffee more tightly between her hands. "It's still Christmas without the sweaters."

  Phoebe's slight frown tugged at Audrey’s heart. She knew what her baby sister was asking. Will it still be Christmas if the sit and sip doesn't look the same as it always has? How much can we change before we've broken the tradition?

  Audrey didn’t know, but for better or worse, the Pope girls were going to find out.

  “Of course it will, Pheebs,” Audrey said, praying her smile didn’t wobble. “But I have to go. I love you, okay?”

  Audrey saw disappointment and hurt flash across Phoebe’s face a second before she cut the connection. That image would be burned into her mind until she spoke to Phoebe again. Knowing her, the younger Pope sister would have the same expression when they hung up on Christmas even though they both knew it would be the last time.

  You will not cry. You will change clothes. You will get dry. You will keep moving. And tomorrow, you’ll go back to the depot and get another battery. Then you’re going to have a Merry-freaking-Christmas.

  Audrey climbed to her feet numbly. She put one foot in front of the other, turning her mind to the series of little tasks she had to complete. It was safe to think about the tasks. They didn’t make her want to cry.

  No matter how bad things got, Aunt Ruth never allowed tears on Christmas. Audrey saw no reason to break that tradition, even if this one was her last.

  Haj’erel

  The foul sweetness of the healer’s tonic assaulted Haj’erel’s tongue. That wasn’t right. He shouldn’t taste the fluid nor be conscious enough to notice a flavor. He took a breath to verify that his senses truly detected what should not have been. A rush of the liquid filled his lungs in repayment for his foolishness.

  The frustration that burned in Haj’erel was unbefitting a warrior.

  His injuries are too severe. He won’t survive…

  He will live. He will.

  How did he get here? How long had he been here? Haj’erel’s brain ached as he tried to recall the first, but he had no doubt about the second. Too long. He’d been in the Seed for too long. He could taste it. He could feel it. Maybe it had only been a few minutes too long, but the pod wasn’t doing its job anymore.

  He clamped his hands over his mouth and struggled to open his eyes.

  Damned healers. They left him in there for too long. The healers did not train their craft for as long as warriors. It made their work sloppy, particularly if the patient did not by deed or status deserve their best.

  Death in service cleanses all—

  Grimacing, Haj’erel pushed the voices to the back of his mind and slithered his hands through the thick fluid. He braced them against the smooth surface of the pod. If there was an alarm, he could not hear it. No hands reached for his. No voice reacted to his attempted escape.

  Whether the healer assigned to Haj’erel was negligent or overworked made no difference. The treatment was no better than a failure of a warrior like him deserved.

  If he waited for someone to retrieve him, Haj’erel would wither to nothing.

  He pushed against the hard bed, piercing through the membrane above the tank like a calf from its mother’s womb. His gut roiled in fury as he took a desperate breath and glared around the room, fully prepared to unleash the wrath of the Joyful Mother at whichever healer had abandoned him.

  “Where were—” A fresh taste of the Seed on his tongue and a wave of nausea stifled the question. Haj’erel closed his eyes and shoved the back of his fist against his mouth. He would not add to this indignity by soiling himself. He would not!

  His chest ached with each breath, but the pain gave him focus. The stale air was unlike the antiseptic sweetness of a House of Healing. The acrid scent was familiar, but it wasn’t what it should have been. Nothing was as it should have been.

  The trip home will kill him.

  No!

  …the Seed, waijera. It is his only hope.

  The fog lifted. Haj’erel’s vision adjusted to the dim light, revealing half of the room. The left side remained a formless black void. He reached up with tentative fingers, brushing against the soft squish of a bandage impregnated with healing fluid.

  Then…he remembered.

  The crazed hunter shooting animals in his field–or so he thought.

  Das’hel’s tense, angry voice as she argued for his life.

  The reluctant expressions of the warriors with her. Haj’erel of Hidren Thule was not a worthy warrior, their gazes said.

  They left him behind. Of course they did. This was no Tarandian Hall of Healing. It was Earth.

  Haj’erel tore the bandage away. He blinked, waiting for the blurred half of the room to clear. It did not. He rubbed his right eye, pawing until the muscles burned and the bones protested. Then he peeled his eyelid open again, blinking rapidly as if to clear the organ.

  Nothing.

  His shoulders slumped. Cold realization settled over him. An injury the Seed could not heal would never mend on its own. Twice a failure as a warrior, now with an injury that made him unfit to serve.

  Das’hel would have died rather than leave her brother behind. The bond of her milk days held them too closely. On the Terran side of the portal, the warriors had no choice but to obey her. But on Tarandus, the decision belonged to ones more important than an unseasoned wajirae.

  We all serve the Hidren, their mother said. Even if our best service is our absence.

  A ball of smoldering metal burned in his stomach. His mother’s words were little comfort.

  Haj’erel struggled to his feet, gripping the edge of the pod to keep his balance. How long had it been since he had nourishment? Proper nourishment, not the trace nutrients in the Seed. How long had it been since anyone changed his bandages?

  He stumbled away from the medical room, following the dark path to the portal room. Mercy of the Mother, at least the vision in his remaining eye was still good enough to see in the dark.

  The portal room, and the stone portal within it, were covered in a thick layer of dust. He ran a finger through it to judge the depth. The granules clumped to his fingers as he pulled away.

  He had been gone too long. A full planetary orbit. Perhaps more if the instability in the Terran climate had increased while he was in the Seed.

  Haj'erel's second failure would have resonated through Hidren Thule. What had it cost Das'hel? He had to know.

  With trembling fingers, Haj'erel pressed the button to activate the portal and prayed the Joyful Mother's mercy would be with him.

  The portal remained dormant. Only chir could give it life. There wasn't enough accumulated in Haj'erel's veins to keep his own body going and nowhere near the amount needed to revi
talize the portal. Without a way back to Tarandus, Haj'erel had no way to acquire more. Only wajirae could harvest the sacred energy without touch. That was why their people revered them so.

  But there were a dozen portals like Hidren Thule's scattered across this Terran landmass. There were thousands more all over the planet. Haj'erel needed only to find one of them. Even that would take a miracle and the Joyful Mother seemed to have no mercy to spare for him.

  Then I will make my own.

  Hidren Thule had few accomplishments of note in their line and only a few wajirae to send to harvest. The base was small. It should have taken Haj'erel only moments to reach the front. Yet the beads of sweat gathered at his brow fur and burning in his chest told a different tale. A full orbital rotation spent in stale Seed had nearly starved him to death. It might have been the urge to feed that woke him, the desperate cry of his cells for nourishment before they gave out forever.

  The door slid open. Haj'erel stepped outside. A gust of fresh air rushed into his face, but he did not stop to savor it. If he did not find a way back soon, he would die on this wretched planet. Then he would have a third failure to add to his cursed name: leaving proof for the humans that other life existed in the stars.

  Haj'erel could not stand a third failure.

  He crouched low, calling his quadrupedal form forth. His muscles were slow to respond, throbbing painfully into position instead of smoothly lengthening and thickening. The bones in his face creaked, spreading out and forward, giving his nose additional room to warm the chill air. When it was over, he huffed a sigh of relief. Then he took to the air. His malnourished muscles protested, but he remained aloft.

  Below him, the Terran landscape was much changed from how he remembered it. For generations, the Tarandian harvest flight had been a dangerous mission. As their technology developed, the humans learned to fly on their own. Their metal birds trapped the Tarandians between the humans' transports. The powerful lights on the ground and in the air often blinded them, forcing them to dive toward the ground to escape detection.

  There were no lights in the air. Nor on the ground. An eerie silence settled on the world of humans. He saw no glows from dens. Neither artificial as the humans preferred nor natural as his people did. The emptiness stretched for kilometers in every direction.

  What had happened here? An invisible tether grabbed hold of Haj'erel. It happened so suddenly, he looked down at himself, afraid he had been attacked again. It pulled him toward the south. There was something there for him, the sensation insisted. Haj'erel turned his weary body in the direction the tether demanded. He had not the energy to fight it. He had nowhere else to go.

  2

  Audrey

  Audrey ran out of energy long before the rain let up. There were tarps somewhere in the garage she could use to protect everything that wasn't waterproof, but everything in danger was in the truck’s cabin already. Somehow, she was less enthusiastic about another trip through the deluge after the emotional weight of her chat with Phoebe.

  There was no getting around it, Audrey felt like shit. The only cure was a long nap followed by the hottest shower her solar powered water heater could produce. Hopefully, the storm clouds had stayed away from the lake long enough for the panels on her roof to get a proper charge.

  "You win this round, universe, but tomorrow's gonna be my day. I can feel it." Audrey grabbed the misshapen brown and orange afghan from the back of the couch and wrapped it around herself.

  Aunt Ruth had been dead for more than a decade, but the handmade blanket still smelled of the petite woman: strong black tea–her drink of choice–and mint from the salve she used to soothe her aches. A lifetime in service had been hard on her.

  Sometimes, Audrey tried to console herself with that fact that she didn’t labor for anyone but herself. The fruits of her labor went directly onto her back or into her stomach. She spent her days planting, harvesting, and patching to sustain herself, not to provide for rich people slumming it for the weekend in a crafted idyllic countryside.

  Sometimes she tried to tell herself she was lucky to be living at the end of the world and to not owe anything to anyone. Those lies never worked on the days where she ran out of tears.

  In her dreams, the world hadn't collapsed around their little family. Droughts didn't choke the land for months and years, forcing the growing seasons into segments too short for large scale production. In dreamland, a pile of snow blanketed everything outside of the window from the backyard to the boat dock.

  The cancer that had devoured Aunt Ruth–while she was too busy working her fingers to the bone for Colton Hills’ elite to notice–had never taken hold. Phoebe had still fallen in love and married early, because some things in this world never changed, but she was only a short drive away. Not on the edge of the solar system, getting farther away with every passing minute.

  In Audrey's dream, it was Christmas week, and they were all still together with Aunt Ruth's best roast in the oven and way too much mulled wine on the stove. At home, a family.

  Shivers rippling through Audrey’s body pulled her from the vision long before she was ready. She tugged the afghan tighter around her body. The old house wasn’t properly insulated when handymen still existed. Try as she might, Audrey could never find all the gaps and creaks in the old place.

  The more she tried to ignore the shivers, the more violent they became. Finally, she peeled her heavy eyelids open. A silence hovered over the house that made Audrey feel askew. Everything was still in its place, yet there was something different about the world around her.

  She pulled the afghan tighter around her body and climbed to her feet. The wooden planks beneath her bare heels were far too cold for a rainy day. That kind of chill meant snow.

  Excitement fluttered through Audrey's stomach. She rushed to the door and crammed her feet into her winter boots. It wasn't as perfect as her dream, but if snow for Christmas was the universe's idea of making amends, Audrey had to admit she was impressed.

  She grabbed her coat and flashlight. It wasn't the smartest idea to leave the house after dark, even in an area as off the beaten path as Colton Hills, but Audrey couldn't resist getting a look at the fresh powder.

  Phoebe's gonna die of jealousy when she hears we got snow just in time for Christmas.

  The first step went according to plan. A rush of bitter cold air stung her teeth and burned her nostrils, but she still couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a merry, white Christmas.

  On the second step, Audrey's foot connected with a patch of ice that lurked beneath the layer of snow. She fell to the porch shoulder first, her feet flying into the air like a rag doll. She braced, but it did nothing to dampen the pain that radiated through the left side of Audrey's body.

  I ask for snow and you send me an ice storm. This is why we’re not fucking friends!

  She took back every nice thing she'd ever said about fate or the cosmos or whatever the hell was running things on Earth. It was an asshole of epic proportions who liked to kick little people when they were down. Audrey was sick of being kicked.

  Mumbling a few choice curses under her breath, Audrey struggled to her feet. She stretched from side to side to work the kinks out of her back. Other than sore muscles, she was no worse for wear. Thank heaven! She didn't want to think about how she'd cope with a broken limb alone out on the lake.

  A bumpy layer of snow and ice blanketed the truck and front lawn. The trees were entombed in the stuff. Their upper branches sagged beneath the weight of it. While Audrey dreamed of a white Christmas, one had sprung up around her so fast it froze everything over. Even if she could get into her truck, the one-and-a-half lane road out of Colton Hills had nearly flooded when she drove in that afternoon. By now, it must have been iced over, as would be every road between Colton Hills and the supply depot.

  Audrey wasn't going into town for a new solar battery. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not unless she got off the lake. Her only chance w
as to hope the lake hadn't frozen over with everything else. She trudged through the snow and over the ice toward the boat dock, moving as slowly and carefully as she could manage.

  Colton Hills had seen its best days by the time the last resident moved out of the community. The owner and his family had been among the first on the ships out of the solar system, or so Audrey had heard. Nobody ever came to move her out of Aunt Ruth's house. Most of them never even came back to clean out their vacation houses. Those first few years, Audrey scavenged all of her canned goods and most of her clothes from rich people's vacation cast-offs.

  Looking back, civilization hadn't crumbled as quickly as Audrey thought it would, but the ride to the bottom has sure been weird.

  As evidence of its swanky past, there were still luxury boats of various shapes and sizes at the dock. They hung on rubber and metal suspension systems, waiting like abandoned puppies for someone to come and love them again. Several of the owners had left the keys to the boats behind, but Audrey didn't trust herself to get any of them through icy water. What if she hit something and sank in the middle of the lake? What if she ran out of gas? The water was far too cold to swim. There went that idea.

  It wasn't the end of the world, she had to admit. There wasn't anything at the depot she needed that she couldn't wait until the thaw to get. She only wanted the new battery, and after Christmas she wouldn't need that anymore either. There wasn't anybody in the solar system who would care about Audrey when Phoebe was gone. If she stayed alone on the lake, there never would be.

  Merry Freakin' Christmas, Audrey. She sighed and turned her eyes skyward. She would not cry. It would only make her face hurt more. It would only make her feel worse. She wished it were a clear night so there were stars or the moon for her to look at. There was only a thick curtain of clouds, the falling snow, and the flying reindeer.

  Flying…reindeer? Audrey narrowed her eyes at the shadowy figure in the clouds. It couldn't be, yet somehow, there was a deer in the sky. Instead of the graceful gallop Audrey had always imagined, the poor thing seemed to stumble across the air, unable to find its way across the air flows.