Her Heart

They come all the time now. Can’t stop them. Our world, well it’s gone. Food is scarce. Heat unbearable. Waters rise in Florida. Cover Miami. Volcanos erupt in the North. Earthquakes and flooding in California. We have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. And not from them.

Some of us would see hundreds of them moving across the sky just before. Just before the worst of it happened. Our government told us they knew they were here, but they didn’t know who they were. They lied.

I know who they are because they took me. Took me right out of my bed just before we had to leave. Took me through the walls and up into their egg-shaped craft. They stripped me naked.

I saw them all around. Small figures in strange clothes. Gray suits, big eyes. Just stared through me. Some grunting like animals.

The woman beautiful, naked on top of me. Blonde hair slapping my cheeks, slanted blue eyes, narrow face and a heart-shaped locket around her neck. I responded. She never spoke. She would not kiss me but bit me on the face. I was a good stallion to her. Even though I got rough and tore the necklace from her throat. She tried to get it back but I shoved it in my mouth and swallowed. She smelled strange. Neither good nor bad. Tasteless, different.

Later they let me go. Pain, nausea, headache. Red lesions with yellow discharge. Radiation poisoning. I passed the locket later. Hid it in a shirt pocket. Ruby red with strange markings.

Took it with me when we left the house. Didn’t carry much with us my wife and I. Our boy already dead from heat. Had to find water so we headed North. Took the old dodge. Drove for miles across brown fields. Passed abandoned houses. Torn stars and stripes drooping from poles and fences. So much for patriotism.

So hot we can’t draw breath. Last of our water in four gallon containers in the back of the truck. The old well gave out weeks ago. The wife’s canned goods in glass jars rattling around in a single cardboard box. A few clothes thrown into two suitcases along with photographs. Our son’s face buried in her best dress. The locket, it’s in my pocket.

Can’t breathe. We suffocate under a yellow sky. We sleep in the truck sweating against the leather seats. Nights, dark, starless, endless.

When the gas runs out, we leave the truck. We walk to nowhere across the hot earth, which burns the soles of our feet through our shoes. Our breath, stinking, burning, rasping across our dry throats.

In the distance a farmhouse, shade. It sits rattling its bones in the hot wind. We walk inside. Open the fridge. Smells of rotten vegetables. The wife turns on the tap. A thin trickle of brown water jerks and moans its way into our waiting mouths. We could only carry one can of water with us.

We throw ourselves across the unmade bed upstairs and sleep. Sweat rolls down our dusty faces. We toss and turn. Used up with wild dreams and a sweet delirium.

They come. I recognize them, she is with them. Her slanted blue eyes find mine. I have the locket in my hand. She smiles. Touches her bulging stomach.

I understand her even though her lips don’t move. I see a child curled up inside her body. Then she is gone.

A few days later two vehicles stop by the house. The men and women inside are friendly. We go back with them to where our old truck stopped and get our things. Pile them into the back of a white van. Heading North they tell us. “We heard it’s better there.”

“What about the borders?” I ask. “Heard the Northern States have closed them.” They nod their heads and smile as they put their fingers to their lips. I guess they have a plan.

When the shit hit the fan, those Northern States brought out their guns. Their water was liquid gold. They weren’t giving it up to nobody. Not us Texans who hadn’t ever believed jack squat about the climate changing. Thought they had nothing to tell us. We wanted to cede the Union anyways.

Well, we got our guns with us now. Still hanging onto those second amendment rights I guess. We’re going to find a way in, even if it turns into a shoot out. That’s what I guess will happen anyway.

My head rolls back in the heat. The truck heads North. I see the child. Its hands and mouth move. It smiles. I can’t tell if it’s male or female.

We find food. We take food from others. We haven’t killed anyone yet. But we will.

We drive up to the borders of Minnesota. We drive across them. We hear gunfire in the distance. No one stops us. We raise our weapons over our heads and dance in the moonlight. It spreads across our camp like some kind of hope.

It’s still green here. It rains some, so they say. It came so fast to the South we had no time. Anyways we didn’t believe. I heard Elon Musk and his kind have gone underground. Used his cash along with Bezos to build fortress cities. Our government somewhere in a mountain in Virginia.

Life here in the Twin Cities ain’t too bad. We squat in an old building. No power just candles when we can get ‘em. Cook our food outside in an oil drum. Waiting for the cold, but it ain’t coming. Rain and summer is all we got. Humidity and mossies. Big as small planes.

We got water though from the good ol Mississippi which trickles along, but rushes when the hurricanes come.

Got to fend for ourselves now I guess. Use our Texas guns to take what’s left.

Sometimes at night I hear the trains roaring underground. That’s where they’re living like gophers in their high-tech cities. They got it all. There wasn’t nothing money couldn’t buy them.

And still they come. Every night now I see them flying high. Moving across the city like wild birds of prey. Checking out the real estate, I guess.

I still got that locket. Something I took from them they didn’t want me to have. Something that made me real sick.

She comes most nights now. I can’t stop her. She don’t take me anywhere. Just stands there looking at me. But now she got that little itie bittie girlie with her. She looks like me. Real eyes, not Chinese eyes. Not slanted like her mother’s. Big, dark hair.

Some days we go outside the city and kill the wild dogs and anything else we can find. Don’t taste half bad. All the cats gone except for the lucky ones. Next, we’ll move North to Canada.

They got their borders real locked up. No way to slip through unless you pay the goddamn smugglers. Just like those Mexicans. The ones who kept crossing our border all the time. We’ll find a way. Have to. Heard they’re still growing their own food up there. Lucky bastards.

Went North and found some Chippewa camped in the woods. Seemed to be doin’ alright hunting an all. They gave us some kind of meat, bear they said. Tasted good. We hadn’t chowed on anything like that for a long time.

Asked them ‘bout crossing the border but they just shook their heads. Pretty women with them too. Looked like they did in the old days in their deer skin dresses. Guess they were the few that knew how to make out okay. Got their land back anyways. That is until it isn’t good anymore. Guess they’ll cross the border when that happens. Here its guarded fiercely. Seems like every gun in Canada is out.

Still smells nice in the forest though in those big ol pine trees. It’s so damp and wet. Water on the needles. Small streams running. Big trees swayin.

She keeps coming back. I can’t do nothing ‘bout it. She just stands there and the girl gets bigger and bigger. Can’t say I know what it is they want from me.

Things getting bad in the city. Food running low and people stinkin and dead in the streets.

Guess we’ll move on soon. Try and find them injuns in the woods. See if they’ll take us over the border.

Can’t find them at first so we make camp by ourselves. Shoot a few rabbit and some squirrels. Keep the fires low at night so no one comes. We aready lost two of the women. One died when she cut her foot bad and the other just disappeared.

She still coming to me at night. Won’t leave me alone. Standing where the fire was burning. See more and more of those silver disks flying all over the sky now too. Hundreds of them. I guess they know what they want and it ain’t us.

She come to me last night. I could hear her in my head ask me for the locket. Not a chance I say out loud. Not a chance.

Some nights I sit and hold it in my hand. It’s warm and glows bright red. Seems like it pulses in time with my own heart.

Finally, we’re moving on. We’ll try to cross the border. It’s goin to be tough, but this ain’t no kind of life. Better to take our chances and die if we have to.

We move up to Lake of the Woods. It’s pretty. Also, it’s right by the border. Guess we’ll make a run for it when we can.

I can tell she knows her Daddy’s leaving. She’s not like me. She can go anywheres she wants. I know she got her eye on that locket. But I ain’t giving it to her.

One night she takes my hand and leads me to the Lake. The waters shining like a silver dollar. She pulls me down beside her, putting her head on my shoulder. She speaks to me slow and soft like.

“It’s okay Daddy. We’ve been here for thousands of years. We’ve been watching you. We really didn’t want you to mess things up. But you did. I’ve been made special to replace you.” She smiles up at me and I realize that she might look human but she aint. Her eyes are black, set deep, and she can talk to me in my head.

I notice she smells good. Like rain and flowers. Her skin is soft but it ain’t like mine. It’s a bluish color and it don’t feel real to me.

“Don't worry Daddy, I can easily live on your planet,” she tells me as she reaches into my pocket and takes out the locket.

She presses it into her chest where I swear it disappears. Doesn’t leave a trace. “It’s my heart Daddy, I needed it back” she says, as she gets up and takes my hand.

We float back over the lake dipping and gliding above the water to where I’m still sleeping by the fire. She kisses my forehead and then she disappears.

As we trek up closer to the border, we meet up with the same injuns we saw before. They agree to take us through this time. Don’t know if we’ll make it, but we sure will try.

Don’t see her no more. Can’t say I’m sad. I never really got to know her.

Night before we leave, I’m sitting by the fire. An old injun guy comes up. He rests himself heavy next to me.

Points to the sky, “We Ojibwa came from the stars,” he says in low singing kind of voice. “To the stars we will return. The bridge has opened up.”