ALIEN INVASION by Peter Hallett Page B

breathing was slow and deep, more controlled. It was nice having the cushion of her breasts as they rose and fell. I needed that comfort.
    “Maybe he isn’t dead. We’ve haven’t checked … I’ll go and take a look. You stay here, okay, my hero?” She was already slowly moving from me before she finished speaking. I liked being called a hero. It was a step in the right direction, the opposite direction of what I was usually called, a failure, a loser, bum. It felt nice; I’m not going to lie.
    I stayed seated, my legs tucked into my chest, feeling like a five year old hiding under a table during a thunder storm, as Sara slowly edged her way toward the body, her head tilted, trying to get a better angle on Bobby’s face.
    She took one slow step after another, pulling at the strings of my nervousness. My heart was in my throat, choking me. I prayed he’d still be alive. It wouldn’t only lessen the time I’d spend behind bars; it might lessen the repercussions from Bobby’s associates, although that was an anorexic chance.
    Sara stepped over Bobby’s legs and moved to the side he was facing. I could see blood pooling under the back of his head. I wanted to puke, but that didn’t seem like the response of a hero. A hero would say a witty one liner; well, they always did in the action movies I watched.
    Sara slowly knelt. I saw her swallow. Then she covered her mouth with her hand, like she was going to vomit. She wrestled the vomit back down and reached out a hand toward Bobby’s neck. She pressed two fingers to his throat, but had to turn her eyes from the macabre nature of what I’d created.
    “Is he dead?” I managed to whimper out.
    Sara placed her other hand to her mouth again. She retched a little but regained composure quickly. “I think … I think he’s …”
    Bobby’s left hand shot up and grabbed hold of Sara’s arm. I stood and ran toward them. Sara stood too. Before I was able to get to them, to snatch him from her, she stomped her foot down into his face, like I had before, three hard shots.
    His arm fell. His face was pulped. I put my arm around Sara’s waist. It was her turn to bury her face in my chest. “I think,” she started, “he’s dead,” she finished.
    There was no question of it now. He was dead for sure. No one could be alive with a face like he had. It was disgusting, sunken, bloody, enfolded, mangled, all fifty shades of shit not right. “Are you, okay?” I asked.
    “Not really, but I’ll live … thanks to you.” She looked up at me and smiled. “It was very courageous what you did, Brad.”
    “It doesn’t feel like it.”
    “It should. You saved us both. You might have saved more than just us two.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    “Because this asshole might have been going to pay someone else a visit tonight. God knows what he’d have done to them.” She gave Bobby another little kick. “We both don’t have any need to feel bad about what’s happened.” She pulled from me and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “We’ve done the world a service, we’ve rid it of scum … haven’t we?” She sounded like she doubted herself.
    “Yes, you’re right.” I wasn’t sure if she was. She hugged back into me. “What now? I mean what do we do, call the police?”
    She broke away from me again, placed both of her hands at the sides of my face this time. “No! No way. We can’t do that.”
    “Why? What else can we do?”
    “I’m not sure yet, but we can’t do that. Do you think it would go well for us if we did?”
    “You said it was self defense, that we might be okay. Won’t we be okay?”
    “You heard what he said, Brad. He said he had the police force in his pocket. They won’t take too kindly to us cutting off another source of income for them, especially with Christmas not far away.”
    “Fuck, you might be right.” She was. That fact was enough to petrify the shit up my ass let alone me. “What are you thinking then?”
    “I … I