Surrogate

  "Look at me, Robbie," Shoshan commanded.

  Robbie didn't want to, so he clenched his eyes shut.

  "There is much more you need to see." Shoshan's voice filled his head and her hand gently took his. Part of him wanted to stay in the darkness. It felt safer there, and he could conjure past moments with Carrie, yet some part of him knew that no matter how diligently he might choose to hide from what he’d lost, it would find him in the end, and for everything Shoshan had tried to do, she deserved his attention.

  Taking a deep breath, Robbie eased open his eyes, grimacing as the harsh brilliance overwhelms him once again. It was like the rest of the world had ceased to exist in contrast to her Majesty beauty.

  Robbie's eyes watered, and he tried to clear the haze. Yet each time he looked at Shoshan, she was staring back. He was the only being in existence. The rest of the world didn't seem to matter.

  As Robbie brushed the tears from his face, part of him wondered whether it hadn’t just been the brilliance that had made his eyes overflow but instead the emotions swirling dangerously within him, threatening to surface yet again. He had no defenses against the pain – – none- - and it claimed him completely.

  "I can't see anything new," he whispered, wanting to close his eyes.

  "Then look with your heart instead of your head," she whispered. "What you seek is there, waiting for you."

  His heart? All it could focus on was Carrie. Didn't Shoshan even know that?

  "Of course I do," she replied into his thoughts. "Now look closer."

  Robbie blinked a couple of times to clear his vision before he really willed himself to find whatever it was Shoshan felt he needed to see. Although he doubted the importance of it, Shoshan was far too adamant. She wasn't just going give up, so he might as well humor her.

  All he saw was the light, but soon things slowly started to shift. He expected to find some sort of skeletal frame, maybe not composed of bones, but something else, something just as strong, when he discovered what was combined with that framework. He gasped.

  Carrie. Her body seemed fused in the brilliance, almost as though the two would become one.

  I'm seeing things, he thought, blinking rapidly a few times. It's what I want to see. My mind is causing this.

  Yet Carrie’s image remained in the center of the burning, and when he looked down at Shoshan's hand, she was now the ghostly apparition of Carrie's.

  "I don't understand," he whispered, his voice breaking.

  "I didn't know what would happen when I took Carrie's body into mine. I knew only that I could save the baby. Now Carrie is a part of me. Sometimes I forget where I end and she begins."

  In that instant, as Robbie stared through Shoshan to the faint glimmer of his wife, he recognized that the alien wasn't really using a disguise to make people think she was Carrie; no, she was actually hiding herself and letting Carrie show through. When he made this connection, he felt his chest tighten. He knew that Shoshan was telling the truth. Carrie was still there.

  He looked into Carrie's eyes. Her mouth curved into a soft smile, and her eyes were fixed ahead in a dreamy stare; perhaps she saw things Robbie couldn't imagine, and for all the stillness within her, she seemed at peace, something he wished he could find in her absence.

  "She loved you," Shoshan affirmed. "You have no idea just how much."

  As Robbie could manage no words, he nodded to indicate he'd heard her and let her lead him from the darkness back to the house. They'd almost made it to the porch when a shooting star zipped across the sky, leaving a dusty trail in the blackness, almost as though the heavens were made of chilly, dark water.

  Normally, people made wishes on such things, but Robbie didn't bother. The one thing he wanted more than any other was for Carrie to be alive again, not that she ever would. As such, this was the best he could hope for.

  As they walked, the glow from Shoshan's natural form slowly faded until, by the time they'd returned to the bedroom, all that remained was Carrie’s outer appearance, the disguise that kept Shoshan safe in a world far from her own.

  She eased herself onto the mattress, one hand touching her swelled abdomen, the other reaching for him. Her eyes were large and luminous in the moonlight, and her nostrils flared with each breath. Her long hair looked a dark gold as it spilled over the front of her nightgown.

  Taking a deep breath, Robbie sat down on the mattress. He automatically chose his side, and he drew his body close to Shoshan’s as she lay on her side with his body echoing her position. Closing his eyes, he rested his head next to hers, so close its strawberry scent completely filled him. A few of the strands tickled his nose until he smoothed them away.

  "What's it like for you?" he asked softly, drawing an arm around her. Shoshan's hand quickly found his and set it atop her belly so he could feel the child kick.

  "What do you mean?"

  He scooted closer to her. "Our forms are so different. What does it feel like to carry them inside of you?"

  "Noisy."

  Robbie frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "It's like I'm filled with thoughts that aren't mine, yet our existence has become one of co-dependence, as though the thoughts all come from me."

  Intrigued, Robbie lifted himself to one elbow. "You mean you can tell what the baby's thinking?"

  She nodded. "Sort of, though I really wouldn't consider them thoughts--just blurs of color and sensation."

  Inasmuch as he tried to imagine such things, he couldn't. "And where does Carrie fit into all this?" He tried to keep his voice even, but even he could hear the pain in it. "If she's dead, how can she contribute to the noise?"

  Shoshan frowned and studied his face, reading his thoughts. "Perhaps you think it's quiet because you only hear what is spoken, but the words she never uttered didn't die with her, just like the little girl on the swing."

  Robbie felt Shoshan staring at him as he grappled with that possibility. Could it be that everything Carrie had felt even at her death was still out there on some frequency so that someone like Shoshan could hear?

  Shoshan nodded. "Yes, Robbie--that's how I know how much she loved you." She watched his expression carefully, her own just as thoughtful. "The one thing I didn't expect was that her feelings would overflow into me so deeply, I could become so human so soon just by being her surrogate."

  Her fingers stroked his face, and his hand caught hers as he tried to sort through all the feelings rushing through him.

  "Shoshan--"

  She lightly touched her finger to his lips, silencing him. "Please--just let me say this before it's too late and I lose my courage." Her eyes glowed with tears that suddenly pooled there. "Before I came to your world, I never knew humans existed. I'd hoped you did. I even dreamed about it. But the one thing I didn't dream was falling in love with you. My people don't feel such things, and I never would have felt this had it not been for Carrie."

  Robbie flinched and stood. "You need to stop now--for both of us."

  Shoshan, too, eased from the bed, and stumbled to her feet, uneven with the emotions burning through her as she watched him walk to the window, slowly turning his back to her, shutting her out.

  "I know you're afraid Carrie's gone, but she won't be, not so long as I exist and you keep her memory alive."

  His shoulders stiffened, and she stopped inches from him, her hands reaching out slowly, fingers trembling. For a few seconds, her hands stayed there in midair, as if she didn't quite know what else to do with them, but then, as she exhaled softly, step took the last step, closing the distance that separated them, and gently wrapped her arms around his torso while laying her head against the smooth warmth of his back between his shoulder blades.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Shoshan lay with him, waiting until he’d fallen fast asleep before she detangled her body from his and slowly rose from the bed. She’d been so tired lately, considering just how much of strain it had been maintaining both her disguise and the welfare of the child within. But t
he nights were too beautiful to stay cooped up inside these walls.

  She padded over to the window and looked out at the landscape below. That’s when she saw them—the little spots of light that flittered around. There were so many of them, and she found herself mesmerized, thinking of her natural form. For that reason alone, she felt a kinship with the small beacons of brilliance, and they quickly lured her down the stairs and out into the open night.

  She savored the feel of grass on her feel, a sensation Carrie had loved. So many impulses from Carrie, and she was starting to wonder which of those belonged to the mortal she’d felt die within her and which were her own from experiencing this world so filled with wonder and beauty.

  She smiled as the wind gently tousled her hair, and once she found herself where the lights seemed thickest, she eased herself onto the ground and tucked her legs up under her as best she could with such a mound of a belly. Then she held her hands out, palms up, in front of her, waiting to see if the magic would touch her.

  To begin with, it was just one little creature which landed, the small globe of light burning against the night, but the longer she sat there, as still as possible, the more of the insects landed on her. It was only then that she realized, some of the brilliance she tried so hard to hide was showing through. Whether it was that they, too, sensed a sort of kinship within her, she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t read their tiny minds. It was enough that she found so many spots of light collecting on her. And she laughed, amazed once again by the beauty she’d never thought she would find.

  “What are you?” A strange voice asked from behind her.

  As Shoshan turned, all the life forms which had collected in her hands, her hair, her skin, all lifted and swirled away. She focused, trying to hide the glow so that only the form that Carrie had would show through, but she didn’t know what the stranger saw.

  “I don’t understand.” Shoshan slowly got to her feet and tilted her head to the side, trying to understand the sudden burst of emotions that filled her as he came closer. She squinted and realized she knew him. He was the one who’d first found her.

  “You aren’t what you seem. You can’t be.” He took another step closer.

  “I’m Carrie, Robbie’s wife.” She frowned, sensing the same sadness that dwelt within Robbie, except while Robbie’s felt like a small tide rushing toward the shore, this man’s pain was a violent tsunami. Just being this close hurt, and she wanted to help him. She had to. Maybe if she touched him, she could find the broken place inside and ease it somehow.

  “No, you’re not Carrie. Carrie would never have been able to survive that wreck.”

  He took another step closer, and now Carrie could smell something different about him. It was a sour odor in his breath, and she didn’t understand it.

  “You don’t mean what you are saying,” she whispered, trying to read him and understand. That was the key to healing him.

  “Oh yes, I do. So how did you survive? How did you manage that trick?”

  He was so close to her that she could reach out and touch him. But she couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from. It was like it radiated throughout him. Still, the most vital part of the human was in his chest. Perhaps she could start there.

  “There was no trick.” She reached out, intending to touch just above his heart. He stood so still that she thought perhaps he understood she was trying to help. Her fingers had almost reached him when she felt pain tear through her.

  “Let’s see if you can do it again,” he seethed, his eyes glittering with tears.

  Shoshan looked down and saw a knife sticking out of her chest. Had she been human, it would have been in her heart, and he knew it.

  During the middle of the night, a crash of tree branches outside woke Robbie from a dream. It wasn't a nightmare exactly, though it left his heart racing. No, it was actually just a dream of a normal day before his life had become so painfully abnormal that sometimes even breathing hurt.

  In the dream, he and Carrie had been swimming amid a sultry summer day, their bodies tangling in the water as if they shared one body.

  Carrie's body was long, her stomach flat, indicating this was before the pregnancy, and even though Robbie tried to crystalize it into a particular memory, he couldn't so he had to assume that while it felt so damned real, it was just a product of his wishful thinking and nothing more. Yes, there had been many such days they had spent swimming, but this one wasn't real. His memory was just trying to create more memories of the happiest time in his life, a time that was over.

  He closed his eyes, wanting to drift back to the darkness, back to his world of dreams--the cocoon where everything made sense to him. He'd almost gotten to the point where he was asleep again, his body weightless and drifting down the stream of dark water, when he reached over and touched the bed where Shoshan should have been.

  He stood and quietly padded to the window where the full moonlight flooded into the room. As he looked below, he spotted tree branches waving wildly, partially obscuring his vision. Still, he squinted harder, waiting for the leaves to lift past, and when they did and his eyes adjusted to the darkness below, he finally Shoshan and someone else standing there. He just didn’t know who. Or why.

  "What in the hell is going on?" He frowned and watched for a couple of seconds before he whirled, grabbed his cell, and headed out of the room and through the living room and paused only long enough to grab the poker from beside the fireplace before resuming his stride.

  By the time he reached the front door, the anxiety had turned to frustration, and he had to remind himself to stay calm until he knew what was going on.

  He threw the door open and stepped out into the night. The air was warm and sticky, thick with the hint of rain. Even the breeze was too warm for comfort, but he stopped thinking about it as his fingers eased off the poker handled and then re-wrapped around the grip, prepared to swing, if necessary.

  The wind shifted, blowing his hair into his eyes, and he shoved it back while creeping around the house, slowly swinging the poker back and forth to bleed off some of the nervous energy pent up inside.

  In that instant, Robbie saw Shoshan standing close to the man, and even though it was dark, Robbie was pretty sure it was Dallas Stanton. Robbie stiffened abruptly.

  "Hey! What the hell are you doing!" he growled, gripping the poker even tighter.

  He saw Shoshan falling and knew something was wrong, dreadfully wrong. He started running. Dallas just stood there, staring at Shoshan, waiting for something.

  “What did you do to her!” he screamed, bending over her. Then he saw the knife in her chest. Her eyes were wide and she was gasping for breath.

  He wanted to move, but he couldn’t. His body just wouldn't move. A bloody flower blossomed on her left shoulder, growing with each second. Her eyes widened in fear and pain.

  "What have you done!" Robbie yelled, gently taking her into his arms.

  Dallas stood there, watching in horror as Shoshan writhed in pain. That she did not suddenly seem invincible shook him and he staggered backwards, confused. It made no sense. He wanted to understand the miracle, but this was no miracle. It was just more of the pain.

  It was then that they both saw a glow touch her skin, betraying her true nature. Yet even as part of her disguise slipped, she did not heal. She could not.

  “I don’t understand,” he whispered.

  Robbie looked up at him. “You did this. You. And now my child is going to die and so is she. You have to help her.”

  Dallas couldn’t help but look at the knife and the way she was still bleeding. Finally, he nodded. He’d believed she was immortal and know she might die because of him.

  Robbie tried not to panic as he felt more of her blood cover him while he hoisted her into his arms, carefully avoiding the knife protruding from her. He didn't dare pull it out, not until he could deal with the bleeding. The breath caught in his chest, and he felt he'd been sucker punched. Part of him wanted to double over, b
ut remembering that loss was a luxury he couldn't afford.

  He felt he were losing her all over again, and he knew if that happened he would never in a million years be able to forgive himself. he had to make this right.

  Shoshan groaned loudly, one hand reaching toward the knife was. He could see her long fingers trying to ease around the grip of the blade. Before Robbie could stop her, she yanked it free, allowing the blood to ease out more freely.

  "Why?" Shoshan whispered, her head slowly turning toward Dallas. Her eyes glowed brilliantly as she looked at him. "Why did you do this?"

  Although Robbie knew she was in pain, it struck him that the agony in her voice seemed to result more from not understanding why a human would hate her when she'd done nothing to deserve it. She'd tried so hard to help, only to have things to end like this.

  "I don't know." Dallas whispered, falling to his knees, stunned by all he saw. He turned to Robbie. "What is she?"

  "Does it matter? She didn't come here to hurt anyone least of all you."

  Robbie cringed at her wound and her ability still to believe in people, to want them to be good. He didn’t want to tell her the truth. How could he ever tell her that all her dreams of meeting his people were wrong, that all she had done was endanger her people in the process? How could he convey the evil humans were capable of, not that she would have any doubts if she survived this ordeal.

  No, she would survive. He would make damned sure of that one way or another.

  "The baby." Her hand slipped to her belly. "It has to come out now or it will die inside." She coughed and blood trickled out of the side of her mouth. She could barely keep her head upright, and Robbie knew that the baby might actually be the end of her. She didn't have limitless strength.

  "Wait," he said, settling his hand over hers. "You have to wait. You're not strong enough for this."

  She stared at him, her eyes heavy with pain and fatigue, and he could feel her trying to read his thoughts, but he concentrated on nothing, hoping that all the fears trapped inside of him would stay as they were. One of them had to be strong, and he was the only candidate for the job.