Chapter Four

"I understand your concerns, truly I do. I even see the merit in a small number of your actions. The rest, however..."

“Holy fuck,” Clenard said, sitting on the couch beside Von and Gina.

They’d stopped the girl’s assault on the glassware by rushing down to the recycling bin on the curb and grabbing a huge bag of old beer bottles. Now, the girl was sitting in a nest of glass, chowing down on bottles, eating some slowly and popping others in her mouth whole. Occasionally, she’d repeat something one of them had said, before going back to her meal.

“Is she, like, an alien?” Von asked. Gina had no idea, but that sounded about right. Frankly, she wished she’d just taken the girl straight to the hospital, but now she seemed to be stuck watching this girl consume bottle after bottle, entranced by the horrifying sight.

“Maybe?” Gina said. “Or some kind of mutant? She didn’t have any clothes on when I found her, so maybe she escaped from a secret lab or something.”

“And wound up in Eston? How many labs do you know of in Eston?” Clenard said.

“That’s why I said a secret lab,” Gina said. “Fuck, it was bad enough when she was being trafficked—what do you do with a weird, alien, mutant experiment thing?”

“Holy fuck!” the girl said, biting off the neck of one of the bottles.

“You said it,” Von said.

“Brovar’s ashes, I’m serious. What the hell are we gonna do with her?” Gina asked.

Clenard shrugged. “I still think the hospital would be the best place to take her.”

“Maybe I should have called an ambulance or something, but now… I mean, she’ll end up being some weird government experiment if we take her somewhere like that! I mean, she’s a bit odd, but she doesn’t deserve to be poked and prodded for the rest of her life,” Gina said.

“What the hell? Secret lab? B-Brovar’s a-ashes,” the girl said. “Ashes B-Brovar, what t-the hell?”

“Did you hear that?” Clenard said. He elbowed Von. “Babe, she’s learning.”

“She’s just repeating stuff,” Von said.

“G-Gina? What… is… Gina?” the girl asked between nibbles of one of her beer bottles.

“Okay,” Von said, “maybe not.”

Gina took a tentative step forward, rounding the ratty coffee table and approaching the pile of bottles, locking eyes with the girl.

“I am Gina,” she said, pointing at herself.

“I… am Gina,” the girl said, pointing at herself.

“No—uh—you are… you. I am me.”

Cocking her head, the girl pointed at Gina. “Me. Gina.”

“Okay, almost. I am me, but you are also ‘me.’ But only to yourself, though. If that makes any sense. I guess it doesn’t—fuck, I’m so bad at this.”

Clenard snickered, and Gina shot him a dirty look.

“Me,” the girl said, pointing to herself. “You,” she said, pointing at Gina. “The Gina.”

“Oh wow, you actually got it,” Gina said, a swell of pride bubbling up in her chest.

“All thanks to your brilliant teaching, I’m sure,” Clenard said.

“Shut it, Nard,” Gina said.

“Shut it, Nard!” the girl said. She pointed right at Clenard. “The Nard!”

“Wait, no—” Clenard began.

“Yes,” Gina said. “That is Nard. Please call him that.”

“Fuck you, Gina,” Clenard said.

“Shut it!” the girl said, pointing at him.

“Well, I like her already,” Gina said.

“Don’t bully my boyfriend,” Von said. He walked up beside Gina and knelt down, gently speaking to the girl. “Gina,” he said, pointing to Gina. “Clenard,” he said, pointing to his boyfriend. “Von,” he said, pointing to himself. “My name is Von. Name. Von. Your name?”

The girl cocked her head once again, her curly, black hair dancing across her shoulders. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Your name?”

“I. Um.” She glanced this way and that, the gears turning in her head. Then, she gave them that toothy grin again. “Name! Callanambulance!”

“You want to be ‘Call an Ambulance?’” Von asked. He looked around at Clenard and Gina, frowning. “Uh, okay—Call an Ambulance. Hmm. Alright, why don’t we call you… Callana for short?”

“Uh! Okay!” Callana said.

Stepping back for a moment, Von, Gina, and Clenard huddled in the corner while Callana sat off in her pile of bottles, cocking her head the same way she always did.

“Okay,” Von said. “So, people don’t learn languages this fast—either she’s a native Boraki speaker with amnesia, she’s psychic, she’s a super-smart alien, or she’s fucking with us.”

“Pretty wide range of options,” Clenard said.

“Yeah. We could be dealing with just about anything here,” Von said. “But, I mean, she seems nice enough, just a bit… confused, maybe. I don’t know if she’s really into glass, or if she just doesn’t know what humans eat, but either way, I think we can work with this.”

“Hold on,” Clenard said, “are you guys considering keeping her?”

“Brovar’s ashes, Clenard,” Gina said, “she’s not a lost puppy, she’s a person. Or at least, something very close to a person, in which case, we’ve still gotta treat her like anybody else. She’s homeless, she’s lost, and she doesn’t even have clothes of her own. We’ll help her as long as we need to, right, Von?”

“No doubt,” Von said. “I’ve been on the streets before—I know what it’s like to live without a roof over your head, and I’m not gonna let that happen to someone right in front of me. Especially when they’re that… vulnerable.”

Clenard scratched his head. “Fuck, I guess you’re right, but, like, this is pretty big. It must be, right? She’s downed, like, fifty bottles in the past half-hour. That doesn’t physically make sense unless she’s got, like, a black hole in her belly or something. By Brovar, imagine if she tried to eat a person.”

“Nonsense,” Gina said. “She wouldn’t eat a person—she only likes shiny things. I think.”

Taking a step back into the kitchen, Clenard shook his head. “Guys, I’m really proud of you for stepping up like this—and I’ll do my best to help, I swear—but I’m honestly freaking out. I know I don’t express a lot, so I might not look it, but guys? I’m—I’m like halfway to having a panic attack right now. I—I’m gonna go sit in my car for a while, okay?”

Von glanced between Clenard and Gina. “Here, I’ll go with you.” Since the soup was just sitting on the coffee table, decidedly uneaten, Von scooped up the bowl and took it with him as he escorted his boyfriend outside.

Now, Gina was alone with Callana once again.

“So,” Gina said, sliding back onto the couch. “You… uh… wanna watch TV?”

Hello, friends! If you're enjoying this story, consider supporting me on Patreon! If you'd like more stories, I post new chapters to my mainline series every Monday and Friday, and I upload a new short story every other Wednesday! Below are some of my other stories.

The Old Brand-New: Lena lives in a lonely mansion, but one snowy night, a vengeful clone of herself comes to make her pay for the life she never got to live.
Little Comforts: The world ends, and two men, Dan and Andrew, must rush to the shore for safety, pursued by a vengeful soldier and the remains of her family.