Fear and Loathing, Part 4

Crusty took both of the aliens by their heads and smashed them into each other.

“Stop!” Fenrir yelled, “Crusty. You don’t have to fight anything. There’s nothing there! Just stop.”

“She can’t hear you, Fen,” was all Merc could say.

Seven aliens encircled her. She took one of them and spun it in circles. Its squeal was high-pitched, and she could swear her ears were bleeding. But that was no matter, as she was knocking all the other aliens away from her. As long as they were away from her.

“You’ve got telepathy,” Fenrir said, “Do something.”

“I can’t,” she yelled, “I don’t know how to use it.”

Fenrir leaped off the staircase and near Crusty, changing into his half-wolf form. He came up from behind her and grabbed her arms, trying to prevent her from moving.

“Crusty. Get a hold of yourself.”

The aliens had grabbed her arms. She was impressed. They weren’t even bipedal. They must be telekinetic. But it wouldn’t work. Not this time. She threw herself forwards, thrusting the alien in front of her. When she saw it, she beat it into the ground. Punch. Punch. Punch. She threw in a headbutt to make sure.

Finally, seeing it would stay there for a second, she took the sofa she had and threw it onto that disgusting freak of nature.

“I’m in control!” Crusty yelled, “You can’t do shit against me, you got that, you damn aliens? I can kill all of you!”

That’s when she felt it. She grabbed on tightly to her stomach. The alien was inside of her.

On the verge of tears, Merc looked at her crazed friend. She couldn’t even tell if Fenrir was alive or not. She grabbed onto the stone as hard as she could. She concentrated, trying to channel all of her energies into it. There was so much fear in this place. There was so much terror. Why weren’t her powers working?

Back in the kitchen, Phantom heard the scream, “What was that?”

“Sounds bad,” was all Allure said.

“That wasn’t the television. We’ve got to go outside and--” Phantom felt something sharp rip through one of her lungs. On instinct, she turned intangible, but it was too late. She gasped for air. Turning around, she saw Allure grasping the knife. She attempted to say, “Why?” but she was out of breath. Only her lips could form the word, as her vocal cords stayed silent.

“Why?” Allure mimicked, “Why else? Money. Power. Survival.”

Phantom stumbled out of the kitchen, into the living room, only to see the carnage of Fenrir under a sofa, Crusty flailing around like a maniac, and Merc crying into her necklace.

“Traitor,” Phantom tried saying but failed, “Traitor.”

Nobody could hear her. Everyone was too busy to even notice her enter the room. Except Allure. Allure swung open the kitchen door and giggled, “Deary, you’re almost making this fun for me.”

Running out of energy, running out of the will to live, Phantom turned into her corporeal form. Allure reciprocated by stabbing her in the chest. Once. Twice. Three times. It was a back and forth motion that had become so natural, by the time Allure was done, she’d noticed seventeen stab wounds on Phantom. She wiped the sweat off her brow. Now her scent was at its most natural, and her pheromones were being given full reign. That made her all the more alluring.

Crusty felt the alien clawing inside her, trying to make her one of them. She knew how parasites lived and how they treated their hosts. She wasn’t going to be a part of it. She took the table her soda rested on. Throwing the soda out the window (she was surprised to hear the window break), she grabbed one of the table’s legs and ripped it off.

Looking at it, she simply said, “You aliens could use some fiber.” She jammed it into her stomach and felt the alien die. A smile spread across her face and she sighed. Finally, the aliens were gone.

Allure looked up in time to see the sixth room mate walk in through the broken window. For an alien, she looked surprisingly human, “I can’t kill Mercury Stone,” the alien said, “She’s weakening my power. Allure, finish the job.” Merc, looking up and seeing her efforts were getting her nowhere, fled up the staircase. Allure’s knife ripped through the air and into Merc’s back.

“You’ve done good work, Allure,” the alien said, “I placed the artifacts from my home world under your bed.” Allure nodded her head, smiling. They would sell for a high price, on the black market. The alien walked towards Merc, “Now, I can get back my stone that damned Phantom stole from me. With that--”

“You’ll augment your powers, rule the world,” Allure said, “You’ve been waiting so long for this moment. If that damned Phantom hadn’t taken your stone you could’ve called your leaders and taken over the planet sooner. Etc. Etc. You really can be predictable sometimes.”

The alien walked towards Merc, ignoring Allure. Her smile grew wider every second. Finally, she would have the power. She leaned in to rip the stone off of Merc. Merc’s eyes snapped open. Using her last bout of telekinesis she took the lighter from her pocket and put it in front of the alien’s face. She lit it. “Fire,” Merc mumbled, “You’re afraid of fire.”

The alien shrieked as it fell to the floor. It fell down a couple of steps and writhed in agony. Then, there was silence.

Allure looked around in all the chaos of nothing. She looked at all of the cadavers, many of which she had caused. Seeing few other options, she moved to the phone to call the police.

In the hospital, Fenrir woke up. He looked around the room and saw Julia, sitting on a chair beside his bed.

“Where--”

“You’re in a hospital, Mr. Fenrir. For two days after the incident in the dorms, you were knocked out. It looks like it was Crusty who did it to you. So I have a question for you. Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Fenrir muttered, “Fine. But what happened?”

“One of the girls was a member of the Skarilians, a group of parapsychologic aliens whose power comes from the fear of others. That girl, Merc. Her stone was stolen from the Skarilian, who was attempting to collect information on the human race. When Phantom found out, she stole the alien’s stone and kicked her out of the dorm. The alien hired Allure to kill her room-mates. She did so.”

“Kill? You mean--”

“Yes, Mr. Fenrir. Only you and Allure survived the fiasco. I’m sorry.”

“Does this mean--”

“You have a reduced sentence? I’m sorry, but your task was to protect the girls. Clearly you failed.”

“I s’pose that’s fair. But how did you figure all this--”

“We’ve had xenologists working on this for two days and we found Allure’s DNA all over one of the murder weapons. I’m not incompetent, Mr. Fenrir. In fact, the only thing I’m not sure about, is how you survived. Those were some pretty nasty blows you took.”

“Do you believe in fate, Julia?”

“No.”

Fenrir smiled, as he drifted back to sleep.

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