Chapter 20: Wolf Comes Home

Over the course of a week, Bilal and Carmella formed a routine. Routines were what Carmella had become accustomed to, and Bilal began to gauge the passage of time by the meals she left for him. Each day he would bring her milk and eggs, and a few hours later she would leave him a morning meal on the porch, often an omelet made with the fresh cheese, butter, and eggs. Sometimes it was an egg and biscuit sandwich. Bilal always ate every crumb before continuing with his chores.

At midday he would leave whatever vegetables he thought were good enough on the porch, and another meal of bread and cheese or soup would appear on the porch. It was always good, and it always made him feel more energized. While he ate, he would sometimes look up and see the human in the window watching him and eating her meal. She didn't seem to like him looking at her, and he would move out of sight and "watch" her with his other senses. He was aware that she spent most of her time in front of various windows watching him. It didn't bother him, but he was anxious for her to understand that he really did not mean her any harm.

After lunch, Bilal would disappear, knowing that the woman would not venture outside until he made himself scarce. Once he was out of sight in the barn or the woods, she would carry her slop bucket to the outhouse before pumping fresh water. She would check some of the chores he had done and then return to her home.

Bilal took that opportunity to watch her from his various hiding places. She seemed healthy and looked well, but he still worried.

When the sun began to set, he received his final meal. The evening meal always contained fresh vegetables, sometimes chicken, sometimes a thick stew. He would sit on the porch and gobble it up while resting from his chores. He liked evenings because he wasn't checking the fences or fixing any holes the animals made. He wasn't shoveling animal waste or feeding the chickens or letting the cow and bull graze. He wasn't weeding the garden, mowing the lawn, or wiping the outside of the windows clean.

Once fortified, Bilal explored the twilight world around him. He picked blades of grass and studied them with his new and improved eyesight. He tasted everything from rocks and rusted nails to paint chips and dust. When he wasn't putting objects into his mouth, he ran his fingers over everything that he could, relishing the way things felt.

He sensed the world with delight. The feelers in his tongue amplified the sounds muted to his human ears. Smells were more prominent to him as a human, and the sensations his body experienced were stronger. When he had accidentally scratched himself on a bit of wire from a fence, a bead of blood appeared on his fragile skin. The pain was sharp and uncomfortable. As a Centaurian, he would have never noticed, but humans had a much more acute sense of touch.

Bilal stared in the direction of town for about the hundredth time. The air was cold and would only get colder. He needed provisions. He needed clothes as well as things for a child. He didn't know as much as he should about caring for a human child but had seen human mothers with their infants. They often nursed from their breasts or used baby bottles, and the infants wore cloth or disposable diapers. Babies were wrapped in blankets even when it wasn't cold.

He didn't want to do it, but he had to.

He was going to leave the human.

II

Carmella saw Bilal come up the walkway for his evening meal. She hurried to the kitchen where she had kept her plate of food warming in the oven. She carried it to the window, settled in her chair, and waited until he was sitting on the floor before she began to eat. She wondered why he didn't sit in the rocker instead of on the floor but shrugged. Not her problem.

She noted that he seemed to like the chicken the most and nodded in approval when he cleaned his plate. She didn't like to admit this to herself, but she liked that he enjoyed the meals she cooked. When he was gone, she collected his plate and fork and then washed the dishes. As she stood at the sink, she thought about the baby growing in her belly.

What was it going to look like? Would it be Black and Asian? Would it have skin that wasn't skin but a covering that was like an alien-chameleon? Carmella rubbed her head, trying to rid herself of the headache that developed almost every evening. Because she didn't take prenatal vitamins, the baby sucked the nutrients from her body. Maybe an alien baby needed more nutrients than a human baby did. Maybe her freaking hair and teeth were going to fall out! She scowled and climbed the stairs to turn in early.

Carmella tossed and turned and fell into a restless sleep. She dreamed that her belly was full with an unborn baby. When the first dream-cramp hit her, the dream-Carmella realized she was in labor. Afraid and alone she strained and screamed in pain until the searing pain reached its epoch and the baby had found its way out of her body.

Only what came out were tentacles, long gray tentacles that waved in the air.

Dream-Carmella screamed at the sight of the hideous thing, and then the real Carmella sat up in bed soaked in her sweat with her heart thumping within her chest. She trembled so hard that her teeth chattered. She jumped up out of bed and hurried to her slop bucket where she became ill.

Please God. Please don't let this happen to me.

III

While Bilal did not dream, his sleep was also restless. He wrapped himself in one blanket, placed a quilt on the ground, and covered himself with the other. This was it. Tomorrow he would tell the human that he would need to leave for a few days but would return. He needed to get his supplies because for the first time he saw snow flurries and the birth of the child was growing nearer. He needed to be present because a human's body was not predictable, and he wouldn't take a chance that he would not be present should she go into labor.

The next morning he milked the cow. He would tell her about his plan when he had his morning meal. He felt worried about admitting that he was going away. What if she ran away? He frowned. She would be foolish to do such a thing. And besides, whether or not she tried to run away would be based on how much she despised him. She fed him. That counted for something, even if she hated him and all Centaurians.

Bilal was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't sense two approaching animals. The cow became nervous, and he rubbed her flank. "Its fine, girl. I'm nearly finished."

His nostrils flared suddenly, but by that time the wolves were in the doorway. Bilal scrambled from the stool only to land on his backside. He could move faster than a human but not fast enough to come to his feet before one of the wolves was on top of him.

Bilal knew there was no way that he would survive, not when he was on the ground with two wolves on top of him.

Yet, the smaller wolf only stood and watched.

Bilal clasped his hands around the attacking wolf's neck, but the animal was much too strong. The wolf whipped his head back and forth with his teeth bared and dug claws into Bilal's delicate flesh, leaving ribbons of torn skin in their wake. Bilal screamed in pain, a sound he had never made before, and the pain seared through him as his adrenaline rose.

As the wolf growled and barked and snapped its massive teeth mere inches from his face, Bilal gripped the animal's fur. Mustering all of his strength and with one last scream, he rolled the animal from atop of him.

It was a mistake.

The wolf found his footing on the packed earth and managed to shake loose from Bilal's grip. A split-second later, the wolf's teeth sank into Bilal's shoulder as Bilal beat uselessly at the animal. The wolf released its grip to go for his throat. Bilal's arm went up reflexively, and he felt teeth sinking into his forearm. Bilal kicked the wolf's underbelly, but the wolf wouldn't let go, his teeth clamped tight and causing bone to shatter. Bilal peeled off scream after scream.

"Wolf!"

Bilal saw the woman standing outside the barn door holding a rifle.

"Down!" she shouted.

The wolf clamped even harder onto Bilal's arm, growling in renewed fervor.

Carmella glared at her son in disbelief. No, he did not just stand there and defy her! She stormed toward him with fire in her eyes, and Wolf released Bilal's arm and backed away.

"Bad puppy! You don't bite! No no no!" She shook her finger at him, and Wolf whined again and averted his eyes, walking a restless circle until Carmella's attention focused on the writhing and bleeding man.

Carmella dropped carefully to her knees and pulled back the alien's ripped shirt. "Jesus …"

Bilal clutched at the torn flesh of his shoulder, face twisting in pain. He rolled into a ball onto his side.

Carmella chewed her lip lightly. "Can you fix this?" she asked. "Can you, because … this is pretty bad."

Bilal shook his head. "No," he whimpered. "I cannot."

"Fuck …"

Bilal concentrated on his injuries. His stomach and chest burned from the clawing, but it was the blood pouring from his shoulder that would kill him. He concentrated on making the repairs, going through the steps as if he was totally Centaurian instead of mostly human. He tried to slow the heart, slow the blood flow, and repair the artery.

The cells, he thought. The cells need to reproduce quickly …

Bilal lost consciousness.

IV

There was nothing but quiet, and then he realized that this was not true. There was something more than the quiet.

There was pain.

Bilal tried to block it but couldn't, and then he tried to move but his body felt strange. He was no longer himself but a human hybrid with limbs and a neck—and a shoulder that was in searing pain.

"Try to keep this down. If you throw up again I swear I'm going to let you stew in your own filth."

The words were harsh, but the voice wasn't. There was a soothing quality to it, and Bilal's eyes opened. The woman. She was close to him. She held a cup to his lips, but he didn't want anything. His stomach felt empty but queasy, and his body shivered with sickness.

She put her hand behind his head and held it up and not too gently.

He grimaced as the movement caused his torn flesh to throb, but lukewarm liquid slipped between his lips, and the taste was good. He swallowed some and then more until he was drinking it steadily.

"Good," she said. "Broth."

He didn't know what that meant and didn't care. He only wanted more in his body. Soon he felt sated and drifted back into unconsciousness.