Bait

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

That’s where the rich went, and I, personally, would love to hear them scream.

Quite uncanny, really.

Just as it sounds, the rich city-folk took themselves up into space.

The rest of us paused our monotonous days and watched as their ships ascended, and that was it.

No rhyme or reason was sung, and the rest of us couldn’t afford hoity-toity crafts to travel the space between our planet and the sun. We did well with our sun powered jalopy’s.

But as the vessels shrunk into the sky, we resumed as normal.

Or so we thought.

Vagabonds, the lot of them, the rich. The mayor didn’t rule from the City Hall, or from a Cabinet anymore, he kept up Earthly appearances by video call on these massive, unsavoury, pull-down screens, almost a football field wide. He announced that none of us were allowed to leave without special permissions, like a bullshit step-father making rules for kids that aren’t his.

Heavily sus’ though; we were goldfish in a bowl, being fed crumbs every now and again by our leader, who forgets we exist betwixt feedings.

Then things started to get abnormal, even for me.

I can’t run.

I can’t flinch.

I can’t express emotion.

As if I want to anyway; if I do, I’m a prawn in a fish shop. I’m a juicy little morsel buttered up and filleted for a platter surrounded by dill and lemon. I’m a dead squirrel on the roadside, plump for ravens.

But aren’t we all.

I tuck my rough hands into my jacket pockets. I’m not very big and I’m not very small for a chick—probably tip-toeing the two. Medium. The in-between that everyone skips over, like left over potato salad.

Imagine if you will, my attire as gothic with grandpas hand-me-down war jacket, big go-go booties with black hair short enough to make my jawline sharper and crisp bangs that I cut in a bar restroom. Oh, don't forget the ball cap and septum piercing. I like black lipstick and fishnets, too. I’m an anomaly but normal at the same time, go figure.

Because I can’t be myself anymore. None of us can.

My teenage angst days are over, so this is me. But conformism isn’t high on my list of does-that-make-you-feel-better-sweeties.

I’m a city girl no less, unhinged really. I liked to bark at men that spoke to me. But men don’t speak to me while I walk anymore.

I turn down a long stretch of downtown road lined by shops and boutiques and skyscrapers. If I were walking down here a few weeks ago, the ladies would hold their purses tighter, dubbing me a pick-pocket or five-finger-discount type. Shop keeps would eyeball me the entirety of my stay, too, begging me to give them a reason to kick me out. But not now.

Now we’re all NPC’s, aimless but persistently trying to prove that we aren’t.

No murder.

No theft.

No B and E’s.

Nothing.

Oh and food shops don’t charge us anything to order anymore—I couldn’t live on ramen and Kraft Dinner so praise the higher power.

I feel a rumble in my stomach, thinking about burritos, as I walk past a forty-story building.

Then I see her.

It was impossible not to see the confusion. Nobody showed confusion anymore.

Wearing a floral print skirt, her auburn hair swept by the cool breeze, innocence galore, she looked like a B. Ed student. She would be in for a rude awakening if she didn’t cool her jets with the perplexed expression though.

Then I saw it.

Across the street, hiding from her view by a clothing donation bin, lay a headless body. Torn in half from the hips to the torso, guts spread around as if on display. If she walked across the street, which it looked like she would, and rounded the corner, she’d see it.

Oh for fucks sake.

I don’t alter my gait, but make a beeline to her as she stands, waiting for the red light to blink green.

“You should come with me,” I whisper, hardly moving my lips.

She didn’t move, but her eyes went to her peripheral. I can sense she already had a feeling something is off, she smells like fear.

Before she could respond or I could elaborate, a man came running on the other side of the street. To our right, he ran, sprinting, nearly falling down on the sidewalk in a panic. He was coming to the body.

It gave me a chance.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her with a swift motion to the alleyway behind us, slapping my hand over her mouth. We were lucky the alley was no more than ten feet away. I sprawl myself onto the ground beside garbage cans, and pull her to sit in my lap with my hand squeezing as tightly as I could.

“You have to shut the fuck up or they’ll find us too,” I hiss.

She squirms for a moment, but stills as the man screams. I could feel the horror and the panic that boiled over and poured out of him like an alarm. It was like listening to an over-filled balloon draining.

“What the fuck is wrong with everybody! There is a dead body right here and everyone is acting like they can’t see it!” He yells, to no one.

I exhale sharply. This was the third body since last Wednesday that I’d seen while walking in the street. It’s Monday.

Then I heard them, the sirens.

I don’t know how they knew, but they always knew.

Two police cars tore around the corner, making their tires burn and halting with a screech before the man. He looks at them in disbelief, as if watching the ending to a shitty horror film where the cops let the murderer get away. The confusion in his eyes pulled on my heartstrings. The poor cretin.

The officers step out of their vehicles, totally in-sync, no guns or batons, and grab the man. They take a needle longer than my forearm, and slide it into his spine at the nape of his neck. He screams and kicks and fusses, and they carry him into one of the cars like a misbehaving child, not removing the needle. I close my eyes.

This is the third person I’ve seen taken. The third to fall for the bait.

The girl, now shaking in front of me, would have been the fourth.

I don’t know what kind of a conscience I have or what kind of plan I can share with her, but I know that we’re awake. And whatever kind of sleeper agent crap the government put on our city, I can’t figure out. I just know that we have to blend in or we’ll get taken too.

Too bad that’s something I’m not the best at.

I listen to the cars peel away, goblins with shiny loot. Watching the kidnappings felt like being shelled out, becoming more and more hollow each time. The girl pulls away from me and I let her go without struggle.

My hat is slick to my forehead from the anticipation, stress sweat. And I watch her as she dry heaves.

“You’re in for a whole world of hurt if you think that shit is the worst thing you'll see,” I say.

I stand and look into the street. The shop keeps carry on as normal and their ‘customers’ seem unfazed, as usual. Our city became a nuke town. What a crap hole. I could only guess it was some kind of mind control, or MK-Ultra fuckery, but I couldn’t be sure.

The girl followed my gaze and shook her head like a basket case on her knees.

“I’ve seen them, and I know what they are. They’re aliens,” she says hoarsely.