The Gallows

All I wanted to do was scream.

Scream until I could no longer.

Scream until everything else went away and it was just me, in the dark, wailing into the abyss.

But I couldn't do anything but keep . . . swallowing.

Or choke. I should have let myself choke but damn it all, my body wouldn't let me. It fought to take the burden being forced upon me by the Hybrid. It fought to keep me breathing and prevent me from gagging.

I wagered the Hybrid wasn't going to let me have a choice in the matter, either.

With my thoughts growing ever fuzzier and my lungs burning, the strength was seeping from my limbs. My will to live was failing quickly. The Hybrid lacked the air sacks the facehuggers had to keep me from suffocating.

My consciousness was fading.

And then everything stopped.

The Hybrid went rigid. Her tusks dug into the back of my scalp, then suddenly released and she threw herself off of me with a shriek. She left behind a sour, coppery taste that was cloying on my tongue.

I wheezed. Fresh wounds on my face and scalp stung, caused by the Hybrid as she tried to keep her face attached to mine.

Then, I took a deep, gasping breath that sent me into spasms as my ribs threatened to crumble into dust. The added weight of the Hybrid had almost collapsed my entire chest cavity, and now I couldn't catch my breath.

Coughs racked my body. Tears streamed down my face and I almost passed out from the agony. Somehow, I clung to life and rolled once over the gravel-covered, soaking rooftop until I was on my stomach, hacking up my own blood.

I clawed at my chest with one hand, the other propping me up on my elbow. Nausea swept over me and I dry-heaved a couple of times, trying to crawl away from the awful alien stamping her feet next to me.

She got two of them in me. I had counted.

Despite my physical fatigue, injuries, and disgust, I managed to flip myself over and spotted Wolf grappling with the Hybrid, lit up by the construction lights behind me. He had his blades wrist-deep in her back, trying to drag her away from me, but she had dug her heels in and refused to leave.

She had chosen to let go over dousing me with her blood and killing the things now inside me. Desperately, I wished she hadn't.

With a solid kick to her back, he sent her stumbling an extra step or two away from me, ripping his blades from where they nested by her spine. Before she could turn on him, he held up his plasma cannon and point-blank blasted a hole in her head the size of a basketball.

Her body remained upright for a few prolonged seconds, and Wolf left marched past her toward me, not once looking back as she fell to the ground.

Never before had I been so happy to see him. I kept my eyes on his wrist blades, eagerly awaiting the sweet embrace of death. I could see him putting me out of my misery like he had those on the ship.

The men and women stuck to the walls, incubating their own personal demon.

Like I now was.

However, when he neared, the blades slid away into his gauntlet. My heart dropped into my shoes when I realized that hadn't been his intention at all—how could he hesitate?

/Do it—do it—you need to do it—/ I silently pleaded, unable to find my voice to say it aloud.

I could barely draw a breath to fill my lungs let alone form words.

As he kneeled by my side, the weight and realization of what had just happened hit me like a truck. I sat up and grabbed my chest, tearing at my collar until I could scratch at my skin, determined to dig into my own chest and neck to rip the parasites out with my own hands.

Held-back sobs clogged my throat. Adrenaline kept me lucid through the pain and fear, but only barely.

Wolf grabbed my hands to stop me from inflicting more wounds on myself and hooked his arm around me. I hadn't noticed, but now that he was so close, I realized that he was missing his mask as if it had been dislodged in the fight.

He held me still, pinned my arms down. Though he was saying something to me, I couldn't hope to understand. I let him support me, seeking any ounce of comfort I could from him warmth, from his strength, from his presence.

At last, I found my voice: It was muddy and hysteric. Speaking burned my throat and tore at my chest, but I was able to find my words.

"No, no, no! No no no no!"

Well, I found one word.

Panic squeezed my heart like a python, constricting my battered ribcage and making my stomach churn. I gasped and clawed at my abdomen with one hand, the other scraping around to find Wolf's arm in an attempt to pull myself upright.

My mouth worked like a fish out of water and I fought to ignore the taste of bile and blood at the back of my throat.

Jess was in the forefront of my mind, curled up on the floor while one of those monsters chewed through her sternum. I thought of the soldier who had helped me escape my cocoon; how he had bucked and seized on the wall.

All the blood—pain twisting their faces —the sound of them taking their last breaths—the squealing—crunching—

That is going to be me.

"What do we do?" I sobbed.

In the end, I wished I hadn't spoken: my voice was shrill and hoarse in my ears, slicing through the sound of rain pelting around us.

My nails dug at the fleshy part of Wolf's bicep. He inclined his head toward me, his mandibles pressed tight over his mouth. His brow was furrowed, his muscles tense and coiled. Vibrant green blood mixed with the rain and I remembered: he was hurt, too.

Had been for a long while, through hell and high water.

I wished I could be as strong and infallible as he, but true dread had sunk its fangs into me. My body and mind were at their limit. It tore at my insides and drew fresh tears to my eyes.

It was too much. All of it was just too much.

At last, Wolf made a move. With a growl, he swept me up into his arms. I held tight to his shoulders, choking back sobs. I scanned his face, looking for some kind of answer. There was nothing there, nothing that I could read, anyway. His expressions were too foreign.

Were his mandibles pressed in anger or concern?

"You can't—you can't let this—you have to—please—please—put me out—ki—" Hysteria won and I babbled at him, trying hard to ask for mercy but unable to say what I wanted.

'Kill me.'

The rain poured without relent as he moved me to the edge of the roof. I wished the weather would swallow me whole or tear me apart. Anything would be better than this.

/Yes . . . yes. Throw me over. Drop me. It's high enough,/ I thought, eying the ledge with hope.

It wouldn't be pretty, but it didn't have to be. It just had to work.

Once he reached the roof's end, though, the ship's cloak was dispelled and it shimmered into view. It spun around, the door opened, and Wolf leaped across the three-foot gap to land safely inside.

He let me down while the ship closed up and headed away from the building—it vibrated and shifted, making me lose my balance. I tried to hold on to him so I wouldn't lose my pillar, my rock, but he pulled away with a gentle command.

"Wait—wait. What are you doing? Where are you going? Wolf—you can't let me—"

He put his hand up to tell me to stay, but I didn't want to.

I didn't want to be alone.

However, when I tried to follow him and beg him to use those blades of his on me, my legs refused to move. I attempted a step and my knees buckled; I dropped to the metal floor like a rock and could do nothing but stare after him.

I'd forgotten how hot their ships were. The heat had already chased away the chill from the rain, but I couldn't stop shaking. I was certain that I would rattle myself into pieces at any moment.

The pain . . . there was so much pain. My broken hand, by battered abdomen, my throat, my face, my legs . . .

Wolf could have killed me right there, in the rain, but he hadn't. He could have easily pierced my heart or tossed me over the edge of the roof—but he hadn't.

Why?

Why, why, why, why, why?

Fuck, he could have even left me on the rooftop to die from the missile strike. Why would he bring me aboard the ship?

If I attacked him, would he kill me? If I threw myself at him with the intent to hurt him, would he retaliate?

Yeah, right. I could barely stand.

As I was thinking of dueling to the death with him, I realized that I had left behind my blade. The one that I'd used back when I was in high school. The one that Wolf had kept for me all this time. It had been knocked from my grasp by the Hybrid, and then—and then I'd forgotten all about it.

Then I remembered.

My pistol.

With my hand shaking, I reached for my belt and unclipped the holster. I checked the safety, looked in the chamber. One bullet inside, a full clip loaded.

When I closed my eyes, I saw the police officer. I saw the flash of the muzzle firing. I heard the sound of their bodies hitting the floor, saw the blood pooling underneath them. My lip quivered and I raised the gun to my head.

I swallowed my saliva and pitifully thought, /If he won't do it . . . then I'll . . . ./

Before I could finish the thought, the ship lurched and I was thrown against one of the walls, my sidearm dropped along the way. Over the various sounds of the moving ship, I could hear the faint concussion of an explosion and my heart almost stopped altogether.

The town . . . the citizens . . . all gone.

Groaning, coughing up more blood, I tried to pick myself up. My arms refused to support my weight and I slumped back to the floor, face-down on the metal. I couldn't even reach for my sidearm, scant inches away from my fingertips.

With a heavy, painful grunt, I used my elbows to drag myself across the floor toward my gun. Even the small amount of pressure against my chest sent blinding agony through my entire body, making my vision go white.

Fine. I didn't need to see—I already knew where my gun was.

When my fingers touched the grip, I willed myself forward another millimeter and pulled it closer. However, a growl met me and I was hauled up onto my feet, the gun left behind on the floor. I cried out in pain and despair, and Wolf loosened his grip but didn't let go.

He demanded something in his language and it didn't take a genius to know what he was asking. It was something I heard him say often enough— something like "what are you doing?"

"Just let me die!" I bawled, doubling over and wheezing from the effort of saying even that much.

Wolf stared at me. He had donned a new mask, and it made me realize an important thing: I could breathe the air on his ship. I hadn't had a single issue since coming aboard—well, besides the broken ribs.

This whole time I'd thought he'd been flying the ship or something, but he'd been adjusting the life support system to suit me.

The ship must have been on autopilot, flying in any direction to escape the nuke.

He should have just let me suffocate.

"Please," I muttered, slumping as exhaustion finally caught up with me. My head was swimming, my chest on fire, and he wouldn't let it all end. "Just . . . let me . . . ."

Wolf cocked his head to the side and regarded me for a moment, then picked me up like a doll and carried me through the ship bridal-style. All my strength had left me, so all I could do was go along and hope he knew what he was doing.

"What are you going to do?" I asked meekly, too tired now to continue sobbing.

He carried me through a set of doors and into a small room with nothing but a handful of canisters that looked big enough to fit a large man—or, perhaps, a Wolf-sized man. Wolf had been muttering and clicking to himself the entire walk over.

Maybe he'd been trying to talk to me. I hadn't been paying much attention: my mind was a million miles away, imagining all the ways this could have gone right—only to have it fucked up by a god damn alien desperately in need of a sexual harassment seminar.

Then, finally, he said something that I could understand.

In choppy, gravelly English, he told me, "You . . . be okay."

I looked up at him with a screwed expression, wondering if he'd said the wrong thing. He wasn't looking at me, however, and merely brought me over to one of the pods.

After appraising them with a critical eye, I looked up at Wolf and asked, "What is it for?" in a raspy whisper.

They didn't look like any kind of magical surgery machines, and I had a hard time believing he'd have one. Mostly because he didn't seem like the doctor type and that would be far too convenient to be real.

Ignoring me, he shifted my weight so he could free up a hand and he slapped his fist against the glass casing, popping open the container. He gently put me inside it. The thing left me with enough room to turn around comfortably.

"Wait . . . wait, I don't understand . . ."

He growled in exasperation and gently pushed me back inside when I tried to come out. I let out an undignified, pained squawk and the glass shut, encasing me inside.

A new wave of fear, this time at the unknown, threatened to take over and I leaned forward to push my hands against the glass and watch him punch in a set of commands, as if the surface was also an interface.

I didn't have enough to strength to push it open, but it was latched shut anyway. It probably wouldn't have mattered how strong I was.

"What is going on?" I wheezed, grimacing at how much pain that caused.

If I hadn't had more adrenaline than blood in my veins, I probably wouldn't have been conscious anymore. Adrenaline's a hell of a drug.

Wolf moved his fingers across the window as if he was typing. I couldn't see the display, so I figured that it was only in a spectrum visible to him. I pushed my good hand against the glass, hoping that the heat from my palm would disrupt his work long enough so that I could get some answers.

"What are you doing?"

However, my attempts didn't seem to delay anything he was doing.

At last, when he turned his attention to me, he spoke. His English was broken and rough, but I could make out the meaning of them without much struggle.

He must have really wanted to make sure I understood what he wanted, considering he had never spoken to me in English at length before.

"Sleep," he told me.

My mouth gaped in confusion and I shook my head back and forth slowly. "You . . . are you going to . . . ?"

/Fix me?/

I didn't dare say it out loud and simply fell back. There was no way that was the plan. I wished he could offer more, wished that I could ask more, but I didn't want any false hope and he wouldn't be able to explain through the language barrier.

I knew I was lucky enough to get the words he had given me.

Maybe he was just euthanizing me. Just going to . . . put me to sleep.

That, I could live with.

He put in one last command before taking a step back. I swallowed a cough, trying not to make my discomfort any more terrible than it already was.

All I could do was wait for the gas, or whatever they used, to lull me into a forever sleep.

At that moment, my thoughts went to my mother, to my father. To my sister and brother. A black car would pull up to the house, then the agency would deliver the news and all my family would have left to remember me by were pictures and a folded flag and a "we're sorry".

As my personal coffin was lifted off the ground by unseen machinery, I knocked on the window and Wolf brought it back down to look at me. If he could even see me through the glass.

"Wolf, don't . . . whatever happens to me," I started, pausing every few words to catch my breath. "Whatever . . . becomes of me, please just . . . just let Devon know that I'm okay. They'll, they'll probably declare me dead, anyway, but so long as . . . one person at least thinks that I'm okay, then . . . then I'll be alright."

He stared at me a moment, then let out a breath that made it look like he was deflating.

Then, he started the machinery back up and I was swallowed up into the wall. My heart started to pound when I realized that I was sitting in unyielding darkness, but I closed my eyes tight and tried to realize that it was all I had to look forward to now.

All that was left for me.

Nothing but the black void of nothingness.

The capsule—which I was certain was actually a cell—was slanted back so I wasn't quite standing but nor was I lying back. It was solid and rigid: as if comfort hadn't even been considered in the design.

As I felt around and fought for a good position to minimize the pain, I discovered restraints.

Whatever this thing was, it was meant to keep someone inside.

To keep someone prisoner.

In my wiggling and pained throes, I managed to smack the back of my head against the wall. If it was meant to keep someone prisoner—then it was probably meant to keep that someone alive. If that was the case, what was the plan?

The chamber was filled with a faint hissing sound from all around. My breathing became even more labored with a medicinal aftertaste left on my tongue.

He was going to drug me.

So, exactly what I had thought. He was going to put me to sleep. In a portable jail cell. For them, it was probably a sedative that knocked them out. For me, it was probably a lethal gas that would put me down.

It didn't hurt to breathe—well, any more than usual. Whatever the gas was, it wasn't burning me or causing any other responses. It was heavy, like trying to breathe in high humidity, but it was also mostly familiar to when I'd gone under for my surgery.

At least, for now, I wasn't as miserable.

Except for the broken ribs, the broken hand, the burning in my pride, and nervous bleeding in my brain.

My lip quivered and I turned on my side, wrapping my arms around myself. I couldn't quite curl up into a ball, but I had just enough room to double over.

Now that he couldn't see me, and now that he might not be able to hear me, I let loose. I released every pent-up emotion that I had pent up to save my dignity and composure. As much as my shattered chest would allow, I wailed and bawled.

The effects of the drug slowly calmed me down, subduing me and forcing me into a semi-conscious, torpid state of whimpers and sniffles. It didn't stop me from thinking about everything I regretted now that I was at death's door.

I should have called my mom a little more often. It was a small solace that, in those early moments, I'd realized that I was never going to see her again. I'd called her—one more time—to tell her I love her. To hear her tell me she loved me.

One more time.

Everything had gone so wrong, though. I'd always thought I'd have a little bit of extra time before Wolf and I disappeared into the sky.

It had all been planned in my head. After we'd successfully eradicated the remaining bugs, I was going to say . . . something, anything, to Devon. I hadn't really thought that part through. In my perfect world, he and Wolf would have been getting along fine and we could have all—laughed about the whole situation together.

Then I would have called my mom again. I still hadn't hashed out my speech, but I was going to improvise something to let her know that I wasn't coming home or calling again.

But it would have worked out.

All my loose ends tied up. All my worries and fears cast aside. I could have followed Wolf on his ship with nothing holding me back. The future would have been waiting, warm and welcoming and everything would have been . . . fine.

Fine.

Because this was what I'd wanted.

The Hybrid had ruined it all. The government had ruined it all. Everything had fallen apart. I had too many loose ends. Too many regrets.

And the future was now cold and rigid.

My thoughts started to turn to static. I'd exhausted all my energy into crying, and the sedative had free reign of my systems now.

Though I wasn't quite suffocating, I could tell that Wolf had upped the dosage when I hadn't immediately passed out: the air was even thicker and a stronger, sterile taste coated my tongue and throat.

Well, I was done with fighting. I was done trying to be strong. I wanted this last moment of weakness, this last moment of emotional upheaval.

I dug my fingers into my chest again. My muscles were relaxing, my mind fading. The pain left me and I could take deeper breaths. Vision fading and thoughts petering out, I closed my eyes and relaxed. All the tension just seemed from my body.

Good.

Let oblivion come.