Watch the Prey

Watch the Prey

I was already here then. About three years ago, I packed up my belongings and moved to this abandoned town in Yeso, New Mexico. I had some ideas about a simpler life, closer to nature. I didn't have a clue.

I had an old radio. On a good day, I heard tinny, crackling static with a comprehensible word popping out here and there. It was almost a game to string the words together and imagine that together they meant something. Then, one day, I heard New York, Mexico City, Rio, and even Chicago as part of a rapid-fire list. Then more words, scary nouns that loomed in my head - invaders, aliens, foreigners, mobs, panic. After that, my little radio was silent. Even the irritating rattle of static was gone.

The first one to arrive was Muza. She was a thin brown blaze of a girl - fourteen years old, skinny, and defiant. She has been shoved from a big truck, wriggling as she fell on a hot still day in June. The truck sped off without looking back.

As I watched from behind a dust-coated window, Muza raised herself up and spat at the ground. She wiped one filthy hand across her lips, put her hands on her hips, and looked around. After a few minutes, I opened the door and ventured out with my Marlin tucked under my arm.

Muza stalked toward me, fearless. I imagine she had little left to lose.

"Who's that?" I asked, nodding toward the truck that had disappeared down the dusty road.

"Ain't nobody in particular," she answered.

We looked at each other, maiden to crone. I backed into the house, pressing the door open, and after a moment, she followed. Perhaps, this thin girl who had appeared out of nowhere brought news. I put the Marlin back in its spot.

I gestured toward a chair. Mazu sat. I made soup and placed it on the table. With an alarming lack of hesitation, she dug in.

"I heard something was happening – in the cities, but I don't know what, and it's been some time since … I've heard anything," I said as indifferently as I could manage.

Muza continued to eat, not looking at me. Finally, she said, "They just appeared. No one saw them comin. No one knows anything about them, really. They're electronic in some way, communicate with each other, and control stuff without touching."

"Are they human?" I asked.

"Some people say so. They don't look human. But some people say there are humans inside those metal bodies. And some people are sure they're people from overseas. Other people think they're like drones, controlled by humans for some reason."

"But you don't think so?" I asked, looking at her wide eyes and the wrinkle that arose in the middle of her forehead. Her hair was stringy; she'd not washed for some time. A layer of grime coated her brown skin, her loose grey tee-shirt, and her once white shorts. There were other stains too. Red, brown, and yellow stains marking this small hard girl like war paint.

"Nah. I don't think so."

She finished her soup and sat back on the chair.

"Do you have any soda?" she asked with a hopeful expression. I shook my head no but poured her a cup of water. She drank, grimacing at the taste.

"People can be pretty terrible, but they're not terrible in the same way that those things are if you know what I mean." I didn't know, but I nodded while she took another drink of water.

"They just killed the old and injured. People just fell to the ground and evaporated. Then, they started coming for the ones that were a trouble to them. Same thing. Over and over again in waves. Like we were being bushes or plants to be pruned."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Muza," she answered without giving her last name. Seemed right to me even then; even one name seemed like a lot to carry.

"I'm D," I said. My name was, I guess is, Deborah, but I'd started going by D when I moved out here – it was simple, like my new life.

"I know they kill loads of people in wars and stuff. But this was different; it could be anyone. In a second, you could just be gone. And, the domestication program - gave me the creeps. Didn't seem like something people would do to other people. And, some part of me just didn't feel like they were human. I mean, you know, don't you? You just know when something isn't like you. You just know," Muza ended emphatically, slamming her fist on the table.

I asked, "What is the domestication program?"

She looked at me; her deep brown eyes were cat-like - cautious and curious at the same time. Her eyes flicked around the room, taking in its poverty. We sat on two old wooden chairs, one with blue flecks of paint over a grey wood and the other simply a dismal gray. Between us, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a compact linoleum table with her empty bowl cracked at the rim and our two mismatched cups.

"The domestication program, D," she said, and I heard a bit of cleverness there. Well, she would have to have been a bit of a salesperson to have gotten this far on her own.

"The domestication program is voluntary. Ha! It's ridiculous, really - domesticate, leave, or die, but technically it's voluntary," she sighed.

"What do they mean, domesticate," I asked her, rising to get more water for us both. I felt hot and uncomfortable. This girl, there was the panic, but this girl - could she be trusted?

"Oh, they have pamphlets that explain it to you with lots of color and very few words. They don't think much of us. I guess, compared to them, we're like dunces or something."

I waited for her to continue, holding the heart-shaped locket on my chest. Inside, there were pictures of Sophie at ten and Danny at eight. Back when they were as thin as this girl who sat at my table, back when they were my little ones.

"Basically, it's pretty fuckin simple," her quick smile showing that she appreciated my start at the foul word. Not that I cared, but being on my own, I hadn't heard words like that for a long time.

"They'll inspect you. A complete inspection, and you ain't got nothin' to say about it," Muza looked at me to see my reaction. I raised my eyebrows.

"A complete inspection," I asked.

"Yep, no part untouched and nothing off-limits. They want to know if you can have babies, or have diseases, and other stuff about what kind of ..."

Muza looked at me furtively in the silence and then spat out, "pet, you'd make."

I looked at the black lines on her skin just visible beyond the sleeve of her tee. She shuffled so that her tattoo disappeared back under the sleeve. She drank the rest of her water and stood, pacing around the room.

"I didn't have to wait to find out how I'd do on their inspection, did I? I wasn't ever going to be somebody's pet. Are you the only one out here, D?"

I picked up the glasses and moved toward the small kitchen; Mazu followed me.

I answered her without concern. She'd gained my trust. She was right, some things you just know.

"Yep, I am the only one. This used to be a town about a hundred years ago. It's a ghost town now, and I am the resident ghost-keeper."

Mazu laughed and said, "Not anymore. That is if you'll have me for a while."

Eventually, more people came, and Mazu became my helper host. The new refugees confirmed what Mazu had told me, including that some believed that we had been invaded not by aliens but by a foreign country masquerading as aliens. Like Mazu, I tended not to think so, although I understood the tendency to want to believe it. It seemed less frightening to imagine that somehow the newcomers were human underneath it all.

And, it seemed that we were safe. Whatever they were, the invaders did seem to prefer our cities and care little for exiles living in rural outskirts and underpopulated areas. Perhaps, we're not worth their while, or as Mazu said, continuing her animal analogy, they're letting us be "in the wild."

The new people bring talents and gifts. Brent, a carpenter, works tirelessly to reinforce our old structures. Liza is a survivalist, arriving with a battered U-Haul filled with emergency water and food. Big R brought a ham radio and access to a limited network of refugees like us, who sit in bewildered solitude, unable to muster ourselves to rebellion against an enemy we can't understand. And, we are just too busy trying to survive.

After several months, it's Mazu who points out that it has been at least a month since a new refugee has landed at our door, and a weight settles on our tiny community. Her words lift the veil so that we must see what we have been willfully ignoring. No new refugees and when we try, no one answers our calls over the Big R's radio.

One day, a figure appears in the distance. I grab my Marlin, and others make ready with their own weapons. Mazu, almost a year older than when she first came, hovers behind me. I know without looking that she'll have the jagged knife she brought with her, concealed in her hand.

The figure appears suddenly, casting a long shadow that reaches the edge of the town. As it approaches, I see what has been described to me many times. A tall, metallic being. The sun glints off its long legs and arms. It appears robotic. Yet, once it moves, I can't fit what I see into the concept of "robotic." Its movements are fluid and appear to be spontaneous, almost playful. Gliding across the brown, barren land, it approaches. I hear a voice in my head, but I can't see its face. The voice coos, "I mean you no harm." I feel Mazu stiffen beside me, and I assume that the message has not changed from what she first heard back in New York. I feel love for her flood through me, love for her rebellious, instinctual soul.

Yelling erupts all around me.

"You're not welcome here," screams a male voice somewhere to my right.

"We're not hurting anyone. We want to be left alone," yells a young woman somewhere in the middle of our crowd.

The rest of us are like a hive, buzzing, shouting things we don't even understand out of terror. I, myself, am muttering, my children, my family, my Soph, and my Danny.

Mazu grips my wrist and shakes it. I understand that she means to silence me. But, it is a useless gesture as we are all silenced by the creature. A wave passes through us. Not hot or cold, just dense and permeating like metal water. Afterward, just a moment or two later, there are only a few of us left standing. And, I am not one of them. On my back, I open my eyes for the last time and see Mazu looking back at me, her eyes full of tears. She is bent over, her hand still locked on my wrist.

She leans down, whispering fiercely, "I won't be anyone's pet." I tug on the locket that holds the images of Sophie and Daniel, but I'm too weak to pull it off. Mazu reaches down, pulls it off, and deposits it in her pocket.

She gives me one last hard look and takes off running.