“Turn the car on, I can’t find the keys.” Jenna sloppily kissed him in the dark. “Come on… you know I can’t when we’re not moving.” She bit his lip lightly.

“All right, all right.” Derek found the keys on the empty driver’s seat. He it in the ignition and shifted the ancient Tornado into neutral. They started to roll down the bumpy incline of the deserted parking lot. Derek fumbled with his zipper. Above him, Jenna’s face was a void.

“Come on and fuck me already.” Jenna’s voice strained. Derek stared into the shadow that should be her head, filling in the details with his mind: the shoulder-length hair, the black sleeveless dress, the skull tattoo on her shoulder, for all he knew he could be making out with a shadow—an alien—disguised to take her place as the light disappeared. He pulled the emergency brake.

“What, Derek?” She moved closer. He could only make out the faded carrion-red of her lips. He couldn’t even get hard the nights after she slept with Amy.

“Nothing.” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear. Her face was suddenly very close. He looked away.

“This isn’t about Amy, is it?” She looked out the window at a far-off car, her face lit up like a corpse under the harsh spotlights of a morgue. He didn’t say anything. “I thought we were through with this, Derek.” She got out of his lap, sliding herself into the driver’s seat. She sighed, taking out a cigarette.
“Isn’t it enough that we love each other?” The click of the lighter was abnormally loud. She left it lit and placed it on the green vinyl of the dashboard.

“But it’s not just us.” He mumbled, but she didn’t respond. He shifted in his seat, adjusting the mirror in an attempt see his face. He felt the gummy remnants of lipstick on his face. She blew smoke towards him.

“I believe in giving out and taking in as much love as possible, you know that.” She implored him with a smile. “Come on, let’s just go to the game. It’ll be fun. Only we have to give Amy a ride.”

“You told her? Why?” Derek frowned.

“She wanted to go. There’s gonna be some new people—Billy invited somebody even you would want to meet. She just wants to see the action.” She blew out the lighter on the dashboard and started the car. He climbed into the back seat. Jenna was staring at him in the rearview mirror. He looked out the back window. The elevated highway seemed like the decaying vertebra of a creature not from this world. Green lights were flickering high in the sky. His camera was on the other side of the seat. He reached over and stabbed the record button. The lights shot towards the car in seconds across the smog-filled sky. The first one shot a green beam at the car.

“Shit, Jenna, drive!” he threw himself down.

“What the fuck, Derek?” She stepped on the gas. The green haze was gone. He rose to look out the window again. The lights were gone.

“Nothing. I just…I thought we were late.” She shot him an annoyed glance.

In a half hour they were at the park. Amy, with her overblown make-up and threadbare thrift store corset, talked with Jenna in hushed tones in the front seat.
She peered over the backseat at Derek. “You remembered the X, right?”

“Relax your sphincter muscle.” He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a bag full of the pills.

“Look—there’s Billy and the crew.” Jenna pointed out the dirty windshield at the group gathering near the baseball field. “Let’s go.” They got out of the car, Derek pocketing his video camera.
Jenna went around to lock the doors, but stopped short. “What the hell is this?” She picked at a melted hole in the panel of her car. It almost looked like it was steaming. Amy walked over.

“Come on. Probably some bum shot at you with a BB gun. You, me, and smegma breath over there combined aren’t as old as this car. ” Amy put her hands on her hips.

“Fuck. Let’s just go.” Jenna kicked at the pavement. They set out across the park, Derek trailing behind Jenna and Amy. Someone had turned on the lights at the baseball field, casting huge shadows across the park from the few trees around the baseball diamond. The empty warehouses and idle factories loomed around the park. They could see Billy, at the gate in a pair of PVC pants and a cowboy hat, chatting up this New Wave kid from Encino. Derek could see the crowd of ten or eleven people on the other side of the chain-link fence. The crowd bristled with sleek and spiked hair, girls with big animal print coats, and guys with holey jeans and big combat boots. They soon reached the gate.

“So—I see Princess Bitch has arrived with her courtiers!” Billy removed his hat and elaborately bowed to Jenna.

“What the fuck? We haven’t seen you in like a week, you whore!” Jenna stormed him with hugs. Derek looked away, surveying the crowd again. Some of the regulars were here, the dropouts from Jenna’s community college days, the club kids that used to follow Billy around back when him and Derek were in high school together, and all their friends. There was one who was different, though. Sitting on top of the bleachers, a guy was listening to a walkman and watching the kids chatting over by home plate through a curtain of straight blond hair. He seemed out of place. Maybe he wasn’t invited.

“Come on, Derek. What are you looking at?” Jenna pulled him through the gate towards the crowd over by home plate. A hush settled over them as they scurried around. It seemed like Billy had given up on the New Wave kid and was making everyone get ready for the game. The boy from the top of the bleachers had slowly descended and joined the other side of the circle. He looked straight at Derek.

“Let’s dispense the refreshments.” Billy gestured to a chubby girl near him who Jenna had made out with at a party last year. She took the bag and went around giving the tablets to each person. Derek swallowed his quickly, avoiding the bitter aftertaste. Billy pointed at Jenna. “Jim was ‘it’ last time, I think it’s your turn.” She heard Amy’s giggle and saw them on the other side of the circle. She walked into the middle of the circle. Billy looked around at the new faces in the crowd. He grinned as he threw a can towards the center of the crowd, it bounced off Jenna’s boot. “Step one: we spin her. Step two: she has to kick the can around the bases to win, or she can tag someone else and make them ‘it’” He didn’t really need to say anything, the crowd had already begun to converge on Jenna, spinning her around and around. At twenty spins, the group ran, leaving Jenna stumbling around the middle of the field.

“Come on guys…I can totally do this, it isn’t even kicking in yet,” she insisted, tripping and falling near the can. Derek looked away, gritting his teeth. He ran towards the bleachers and through the door underneath to the old locker rooms. They were eerily dark, the only light came through a basement-like window opposite his side of the room. He heard a rustling from the other corner, then a giggle. She would be in here pretty soon, he had to find somewhere to hide. There it was: the perfect hiding place. It was a large nook in the corner between the banks of lockers, almost completely in shadow. He walked into it silently, blending himself in with the wall as best as he could. The place smelled of decades-old sweat and mold.

“Dude…dude.” Jenna knocked over a bench in the doorway, and there was that same giggle from the other side of the room. Derek closed his eyes, trying to remain as immobile as possible. Moving closer to the other side of the room, Jenna knocked something else over, it sounded like a bucket. Now the giggle was stifled. “I fucking see you Katie!” Jenna lunged towards a shadow in the corner, and the shadow ran outside, Jenna following. His underground lair was now silent. He could see dust moving in the shaft of light from the window.

Even though Derek was in almost total darkness, he could sense that he wasn’t alone. He heard a soft undulation, like the soft rhythm of music outside of a club. Unwilling to make a sound, he reached towards the other half of the corner he was near. He touched fabric, some sort of flannel—someone was there. A hand swatted his away. He the click of a button.

“You’re Derek, right?” The voice was much closer than he thought. There was a squeal of laughter from outside. He heard another click and a tape being rewound. In a few moments it was done.

“Did Billy invite you?” Derek strained to see in the dark, but could only feel the wet numbness beginning to seep through his body. The figure stepped closer, out of the shadow of the lockers for a moment. He could see a glint of straight blond hair.

“I’m Adrien.” He stepped even closer, further out of the shadow. The feeble illumination of the moon glinted off his face. This was definitely the one from the bleachers. Adrien took out a cigarette from a pentagram-inscribed holder. He looked for a lighter.

“Yeah, I know Billy.” He took his earphones out and let them fall to the concrete floor.

“Have we met before?” Derek studied the figure across from him, noticing that his heart was beating faster.

“I saw you one time before.” There was a noise coming from the small window, they both looked. Derek brushed against the concrete of the wall, he felt pins and needles.

“Where did you see me?” Derek offered him his lighter.

“Well, this is probably going to sound weird—but it was night before last, at Jujifruit’s party. I saw you and that girl and the other one—what’s her name?” He sat down, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

“Amy.” Derek dug his fingernail painfully into the concrete wall behind him.

“Yeah, her. Well anyway, after the party I went out walking in that forest thing behind his place, and I
started seeing this green light, you know?” He leaned in close.

“Serously?” Derek stopped playing with the lighter. “Like, two or three of them?”

“No shit. You’ve seen them too?” Adrien exhaled smoke through his nostrils.

“Hell yeah I’ve seen them. I tried to show my mom one time, she said it was a plane or something, but that’s bullshit.” Derek put down the lighter.

“You know what it was. It was fucking aliens. They took me in their ship and did a bunch of freaky shit to me.” He held his cigarette out of the shadow to ash it. The embers seemed to descend in slow motion, patiently writing their own laws of physics.

“I saw one today when were driving over here on the 405. It shot a hole in Jenna’s car, but I couldn’t get the camera out in time.” He remembered there was a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. It seemed like they’d been down there for decades. Looking toward the window made bright streamers cross his vision, so he tried to concentrate on the embers of Adrien’s cigarette.

“Yeah, they’re tricky bastards.” Adrien crushed his cigarette butt against the ground.

“You want to see what I have on here?” Derek picked up the camera and flipped open the screen.

“What is it?” He scooted over right next to Derek. Their knees bumped.

“It’s just about my life. Whenever I see something cool I film it. I’ll show you what I got tonight.” He worked the buttons, the gears whirred. Adrien had a faint odor of incense and essential oils. Now that they were closer, he could see that Adrien was wearing a green t-shirt on with a faded logo on the center.

“It’s from a thrift store…that’s why you can’t see what it is.” Adrien.

“I’m sorry…I just don’t hang out in the dark with many people…I mean…people I haven’t seen in the daylight. Derek felt his cheeks redden.

“Can I ask you a question?” Adrien brushed away a stray hair from his face.

“Sure.” Derek stopped the camcorder. He looked into Adrien’s eyes. They were dark and luminous. He fell into them, drowning in their ebony sea.

“Have you ever felt like you were truly loved?” Adrien slowly lit another cigarette. Footsteps quickly went by the entrance to the room, snapping Derek back to reality. He sharply inhaled.

“Um…maybe when I was a little kid or something.” He pressed play on the camcorder. They both tried to see the image on the screen and almost bumped heads. In slow motion they saw the blur of the seat, the green glow of the ships, and the street lights of the freeway.

“Look! Did you see that? Right in the last frame! It’s the alien!” Adrien moved Derek’s hand, adjusting the LCD. The alien looked like a bad Halloween costume, but there it was staring back at them through the screen. It had stood just under the street lights of the 405. The locker room was silent.

“Shit.” Derek looked up, their faces were inches apart. He stared into Adrien’s eyes again. It seemed like a century had passed down there in the room. An atomic bomb had killed off everyone else but them. “About love though…I never felt like that. I always wanted to, though.” He turned off the camera, not looking away. He swallowed hard.

“I never understood why it didn’t happen…I mean…aren’t we all capable of love?” Adrien didn’t move his hand away from Derek’s.

“I always wanted just one person…someone that wouldn’t judge me or tell me that I’m worthless, someone to…” Derek reached across the semidarkness, slowly stroking Adrien’s hair. They moved closer, lips inches away from each other.

“I want someone that would just hold me in their arms and tell me that everything will be all right.” He touched Derek’s face, letting his fingertips drift across his smooth skin. Lights were flashing in the window, but they were safe in the dark.

“Someone to wake up next to.” Derek looked over towards the light.

“Someone that will never leave you.” Adrien looked over too. A large shadow passed in front of the window. The light was now green. They didn’t move. Adrien started shivering.

“Are you okay?” Derek held him with both arms. The shivering became more violent. “Adrien!” His eyes had rolled back in his head. “What do I do?” He was now convulsing violently. “SOMEBODY HELP ME!” Derek shouted towards the doorway. Adrien screamed as small protrusions formed on the sides his torso. They burst and insect-looking legs emerged. The legs pushed him away and Derek fell on the concrete floor. Adrien’s eyes were clenched shut, his face contorted. He began to scream. The sound became more and more high-pitched—an inuman squeal. His body was transforming, limbs cracking and reordering, bony protrusions forming all over the torso. His head split in two and an insect-like mandible emerged. A thousand opal insect eyes stared at Derek. The body had become gigantic insect with the body of a centipede and the head of an earwig. It lunFged on its hundreds of legs full-speed towards the window. The glass shattered from the impact and the insect slithered out the hole.