'But you fought aliens before,' said Julia.
Mick nodded. 'Yeah, but not up close enough like what we've run into on this trip. The times I battled the suckers, we were decked out in full chemical and biohazard suits. We weren't up close where you could smell their breath and hear them screech. No, this is different. Much different.'
Julia shook her head. 'I don't know if I understand exactly what's going on.'
Mick pointed at Kendall. 'This is our inside man on the job. He's not a human anymore. I don't know if he ever was. Maybe he made some sort of sick deal with the aliens to transform him into one of them. Whatever the case, he's one of them. He can disguise himself, sure. But underneath it all, he's a gray-skinned freak.'
'I am not a freak!' Kendall's words flew out covered with spittle. His face turned red and he shoved the gun at Mick. 'I'll kill you right now you overgrown muscle-bound soldier boy. You watch me.'
Mick's voice stayed low. Even. 'Show us, Kendall. Show us what they did to you. Show us what you wanted them to do to you.'
Kendall took a deep breath and began to change. Julia watched horrified as his face elongated, drawing out the frame of his jaw into an almost diamond shape. Then his skull began to grow like some bulbous entity on its own, stretching back and fanning out like half a sea shell.
She could tell the transformation hurt, too, because Kendall moaned long and low as if his very skeleton ached from its bones being twisted and turned in new directions. His clothes ripped and shredded themselves as his body began to grow and flesh out. At once, his back burst through his coat. And then Julia gasped when a large tail abruptly split his pants.
At the end of the long tail, were six long and seemingly deadly spikes.
But Mick didn't wait for Kendall to finish changing. As soon as Kendall's hands became unable to hold the pistol any longer, Mick charged him, knocking them both back and out of the communications room and onto the floor of the corridor outside.
Julia scrambled for the pistol, but it had clattered to the ground underneath the communications console.
She pawed on the floor for it, grasping at anything.
She heard Mick and Kendall grunting. Kendall's grunts soon resembled screeches and chirps rather than human language.
She turned her hand over and finally felt the pistol in her grip. She yanked it out, turned herself over and tried to aim through the doorway at the writhing mass of reptile and human.
But she couldn't get a bead on Kendall. And she wouldn't be able to shoot without fear of hitting Mick.
Kendall rolled off of Mick and was on his feet incredibly fast. His tail whipped around and Julia could see that despite the close confines of the corridor, Kendall might be able to bring it to bear on Mick if the timing and distancing was correct.
She squeezed off a shot over Mick's shoulder at Kendall.
Mick looked back at her. 'Be careful with that thing!'
He turned back and ducked just as Kendall's tail went sweeping past his head. Julia fired another shot at Kendall and he screeched at her now.
Mick charged in low like he was tackling a rival football player. He impacted with Kendall around the waist and brought them both on to the floor. Julia figured it was a smarter move than allowing Kendall to remain upright where he could use his tail.
Mick used his elbows on Kendall's chest. Julia heard Kendall screech again and again each time Mick impacted with them. Kendall tried to bring his hands to bear on Mick, but the thin limbs could do little damage.
Julia got up and moved closer.
Kendall was still trying to use his tail and got it close enough once to actually jab Mick in the upper back. Mick reared back and howled as the spikes dug into his back.
Julia aimed the pistol. 'Mick! Roll off!'
He didn't need to be told twice. He jerked himself off of Kendall's body and Julia saw Kendall's chest exposed. She fired the pistol.
All the remaining bullets plunged into Kendall's chest, tearing holes in the scaly skin. Blood jetted out of them followed by bits of yellowish pus and gray skin. He screeched now louder than ever.
His head reared back, his mouth fully exposed.
Julia kept firing until no more bullets came out of the gun.
Brass shell casing littered the ground.
Kendall stopped moving.
Mick moved closer. 'He's dead.'
Julia let the pistol drop to the floor.
And turned into Mick's shoulder.
Finally, it was over.
35
The sun-baked cherry trees that hung low over the eaves of the farmhouse made it look like all of Mother Nature was devoted to protecting the occupants of the home. The wooden clapboards were in the midst of being repainted and the gables themselves seemed to disappear in the thick branches hanging close to the windows.
A swing bench creaked in time as a warm breeze tickled the porch below. Julia sat with her feet barely scraping the porch floor and drank an ice-cold glass of lemonade while she listened to the buzz of cicadas in the nearby field.
They hadn't planted anything yet, but Mick said they would come next season. Julia leaned back and watched his tan muscles bulge and undulate as he slapped some paint on the side of the house. If she craned her neck back far enough, she could see where the brown of his flesh met the faded blue denim of his overalls.
She sighed.
Half a year. Half a year since all that cold and death down at the bottom of the world.
Damn, it felt good to be home.
They'd been rescued within forty-eight hours. The C-130 touched down and came complete with a squad of heavily armed soldiers, the likes of which Julia had never seen before.
But Mick had.
They'd welcomed each other like old buddies. And then most of the soldiers went skipping off across the ice toward where the space ship had burned up. Mick had mentioned the need to clean up things so other people wouldn't find out.
Julia wasn't sure she believed it was right to keep things like that from the public's attention. After all, how many other people had been hurt or abducted or even killed by the aliens? Didn't they deserve something for all their pain?
The truth was, Julia was far more interested in getting home than she was in following up with the aliens. All she wanted was to be far away from Antarctica.
Mick was as good as his word.
Within two weeks, he was out of the Air Force. He was a civilian again. His dress blues, adorned with more medals than Julia believed a man could wear, hung in their huge walk-in closet in the master bedroom.
They'd bought this home with Mick's savings and decided they'd settle here, where the warm sun would forever ensure that snow and ice wouldn't come calling. Mick had already relaxed so much that he seemed almost a different man.
A better man.
And Julia, well she'd changed as well.
After all, eating for two had a way of doing that to a woman.
She caressed her belly with two hands, feeling the firm protective womb that encircled her baby the same way the tree branches did over their home. Another couple of months and they'd have their first child.
Mick hadn't wanted to know and neither did Julia. Surprise, they both figured, would be a nice thing indeed. It
