Lost Cargo by Hollister Ann Grant, Gene Thomson

poisonous mineral and never made plans to dispose of their mineral-based trash. The mineral was in everything, even their toothpaste and their toys. It destroyed their water and their air and they kept selling it to each other and pretending they still had time and it wasn’t that bad. And then they became extinct. They ruined their planet and didn’t have the technology to leave. Chamion, the Crazy Planet.
    Bombs with nine mile wide fireballs and nobody was concerned about them. The alien blinked his cluster of eyes in the gloom and searched the sky for the stars he suddenly longed to see again, but the city lights masked everything except the planet’s single moon. The yellow orb rose above the trees.
    He’d allowed himself to fall in love with those trees and the childish comforts of food and hot water. The loneliness of the ship came back to him, but there were worse places to end up in the galaxy than an animal control vessel. He stared at his thin hands on the rail. He was nobody, really, just a government laborer, but he was probably the luckiest soul on this planet—because he could leave. Maybe.
    He had to kill his cargo or take it with him. He couldn’t leave it running loose.
    The Elemental crept through the dark woods, up a tangled bank, and over a low wall toward the light in a ground floor window. The creature pressed against the security bars, but they held fast.
    Memories, flesh, memories, flesh, flesh
. Strange blood and specks of bone and brain matter imprinted with a lifetime of experience coursed through its body. The creature drew on the knowledge of the woman it had eaten near the creek to make sense of the room behind the bars.
    Contemporary furniture. Lipstick red ceramic lamps. Four bottles of Guinness on a dresser, jeans and sweaters tossed carelessly over a chair, a white Persian cat with gold eyes on the bed.
    Light seeped under a door on the far wall.
    Faint splashing water.
    Voices. A man and a woman in the shower. Laughter.
    Mouth open, the creature rattled the security bars again, but they still held. The Persian froze in mid-lick, hissed, and slunk off the bed.
    Famished, the Elemental began to lengthen. Its muscles spread out as it wormed up the side of the building. It followed a drainpipe, exploring crevices for unsuspecting prey, searching for windows without bars, for the rattle of mini-blinds, for sheer curtains floating in the night air, for another cat, or an old man, or a plump infant napping near a windowsill.
    Minutes later, it reached the roof. Guided by instinct, it stole across the tiles, drawn by sleeping shapes with satiny wings and plump gray breasts. It sensed a heartbeat, seized a pigeon, and devoured it, and another, and another, before the flock awoke, shrieking, and fluttered away.
    The night wore on. The moon waned as the streetlights faded. The sky grew lighter. The Elemental’s pigment changed, muscles and skin adjusting to the light of the strange new world, and then it used all its energy to go into hiding.

Chapter 8
Monroe’s Door
    S even o’clock in the morning. Monroe Broussard was brushing his teeth when he saw the image of the door again, and like the first time the image appeared, it unnerved him to his core. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the cramped basement bathroom. Reality. No damnable doors. Just his toothbrush, his old striped towel, and the painted pipes overhead. The floorboards creaked while his roommate walked around upstairs. Safe, sane, familiar sights and sounds.
    A cup of coffee and he would be fine.
    But the haunting image was still there, as if it had seared itself into the back of his brain. Luminous blue light streamed through the doorframe. The door began to turn, spinning so far overhead in a black night sky that it was impossible to see what was inside it.
    He grabbed a white shirt and conservative red tie and fumbled for his shoes under a pile of laundry. “Socks,” he said in a loud voice to chase away the apparition.