Chapter 85: [2] Close Encounters of the Bus Kind 2 [From Beyond Arc]

Close Encounters of the Bus Kind

[2]

Coach Erin and Paul hung around the brightest section of the parking lot. It was desolate after the team and their families left. A hint of fog tinted the farthest lights.

“Where are you parked?” Coach wiggled on her firm, renewed thighs as she zipped up her windbreaker and tucked her glasses away safe. Paul just had her old clothes swaddling her along with the loaner sweats and sports bra. Her shoes were about as useful as flip-flops with the straps missing but they managed to stay on.

Paul gestured to a lot quite a ways away. Coach shook her head. “No way I’m letting you walk that alone, even without aliens mixing things up. Come on. Let me give you a lift.” Coach Erin immediately grabbed Paul’s small, slender hand and led her to the section of the lot facing the main road.

This entire situation was daunting for Paul and filled with reminders that she was now several inches shorter than Coach and possessed a body that she barely knew how to wield. A jiggling mass shifted often, despite the best efforts of the sports bra. Her hips felt so squishy and soft and then the space between had none of the contours she was expecting. If not for Coach restricting her pace, Paul knew she would’ve taken a tumble right on the pavement.

Coach’s car was a gray Honda Civic. Paul noted that her car looked like the one she wanted to get back in high school. Coach sighed and laughed as she explained, “This is the car I eventually got in high school. Still surviving, no jinx.” The fog, which once had remained suspended in the distance, barely touching the far lights, now could be seen in all directions, washing out the details of the surrounding houses.

Popping the trunk, Erin offered Paul an old cotton jacket. Hesitantly, Paul slipped it on with everything else. As they walked over to the front of the car, Erin heard a single sound echoing in the night: solitary, clear footsteps in the distance that weren’t either of theirs. Erin looked around in all directions but couldn’t see where the footsteps were coming from. The parking structures nearby created confusing echoes.

Once they were in the car, Erin started the engine and turned on the heater. She rummaged around in her purse and handed Paul a small thing of mace. Paul looked confused. She explained, “It’s night, it’s a spooky parking lot. And we’re a pair of teenage girls. Nothing about this is giving me good vibes. Just peace of mind for me at least to know you’re okay. I have a concealed carry license, so I’ll be fine.”

Before Paul could ask a question about that, Erin swung her car around and out of the parking spot. She drove uncomfortably fast for Paul and dodged around several of the bumps. The other lot had about half of the lighting burned out with huge solar panels on cement pylons that blotted out the little illumination. Erin pulled right next to Paul’s car so that she didn’t have to go more than a few inches.

The fog was getting even thicker. As Paul undid her belt, Erin urgently declared, “I can put you up for the night. Please stay at my place. I have a 10-year-old gray tabby named Bubsy. I can stick him in one of the bathrooms for the night, if that’s a problem or if you have allergies.”

Paul took a slow, uncertain breath. “ that’s fine. I have an overnight bag in my car with my cell phone and charger. The clothes are probably pointless, but it would be really good to grab the rest. Otherwise, I have everything else with me. I’ve left my car here overnight before, but I wouldn’t want to trouble you…”

Urgently, Erin explained, “It would be trouble if we split up and you suddenly vanish, and then I suddenly vanish too. I just don’t wanna be alone right now. I’m like 14 years old again and I feel a fraction of that. Please…”

Drooping her arms, Paul accepted that. It was a methodical operation for Erin to unlock the doors and swing around to the back of the car while watching from all sides. She didn’t pull anything out of her purse as Paul tucked the mace in her nearest pocket. The fog looked even worse, clinging and blotting out the sections immediately around them to the point that neither could see the part of the parking lot they had just left behind but as a hazy mass.

To Erin’s horror, she could hear footsteps again when she pulled in a breath.

*Click clack click clack click clack click clack…*

A steady, unrelenting rush of footfalls. As though whoever was walking had a clear, confident goal in mind and they weren’t slowing down for anything. Paul just looked around in her trunk and casually pushed aside what was there while checking a modest, wheeled bag.

*Click clack click clack click clack click clack…*

She couldn’t tell if the fog was amplifying the sound of the steps, but they seemed to get louder and louder with the beating of her heart. With a look, she urged Paul to finish up but kept silent. The sounds didn’t relent.

Paul checked in the backseat and then went around to the driver’s side to unlock the door and put her key in the ignition. The car didn’t start the first or second time but turned over the third. She revved the engine as Erin checked again.

She hated this. It was bad enough with the alley behind her apartment where the superintendent never fixed the lights, and they were always on the fritz when she had to drop off the trash for pick up and had forgotten to do it before sundown. As a teenager, she had regular events and often found herself out late at night because her friends, her so-called friends, had so many mercurial streaks. One time, she wanted to cry for two miles of walking through an industrial area of town off the main drag. And it took four more hours after that for her parents to finally get home.

Paul turned off the car and set the alarm with a loud beep before rejoining Erin, who dragged her back and then practically vaulted over the car to open her door. Once they were driving again, Erin looped around the cavern of solar panels and towards the entrance. An apparition appeared to her left and she slowed.

It was one of those ugly, half-rotten trash cans that littered the parking complex. She lowered her windows slightly and paused. A ginger, moisture-wrapped breeze wafted through the window. CLICK CLACK

The damn trashcan rocked with the precise sounds of steady footsteps as that faint breeze tilted it just enough to produce a steady noise. Paul raised one of her pencil-thin eyebrows as Erin‘s shoulders relaxed. Sound explained.

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She didn’t linger there long enough to consider the fact that this faint breeze hadn’t been there earlier when she first heard the footsteps or that there were even more little oddities to debunk the trashcan as the source. Those were things she didn’t need to think about right then. She also chose to ignore the silhouette of a person at the edge of the fog right behind them as they made a left to exit. Paul was looking down at her cell phone.

On the road, Erin started out fast but then had to slow because of the poor visibility. Even with their youthful eyes, the red of the traffic lights could barely be seen and the street lamps were floating orbs. They weren’t as bright as whatever the heck they encountered earlier but the sight immediately made Erin think of random UFO photographs. She did her best not to flinch.

The landscape was strange, transformed by the fog. She had Paul activate Google Maps to make sure they got back to her place. The robot voice didn’t really mean much, but it made Erin feel like it wasn’t just the two of them all alone in the world.

For too long, there was no one else on the road. And no one else walking and absolutely no activity in any of the businesses. Her brain desperately penciled in the gaps with the nervous conclusion that an alien invasion spirited everyone away. Eventually, they neared a Walmart with people milling about and Erin finally found herself able to breathe again.

Paul asked if she was okay, and Coach Erin didn’t have an immediate answer. When they stopped in front of the next light, she told her, “It’s really spooky at night in that place. I hate it when we have to drop the girls off there. Plus, it’s three hours later than it would’ve been. I really expected their parents to have my head, but Tonya took care of it saying there was serious traffic and an accident. That was kind of weird too, right? I would’ve thought everyone had more questions.”

It did occur to Paul that things when dropping the team off had been unusual. She was thoroughly preoccupied with a variety of issues but aside from some initial alarm about the hour, she hadn’t really heard any surprise from those picking them up. When the cell phones and everything came back after that unexplained encounter, the girls said they were in contact with their families. Paul didn’t have time to process any of that, let alone really process how strange her body felt now.

The rest of the trip returned to an eerie late evening sense of normality with cars drifting through the fog. The weather abated once they got on the freeway but never really left them. As Coach punched in her gate code to the apartments, it was still hard to see beyond the first building.

Her place was towards the middle with a long, darkened alleyway around the back. Coach pressed an app on her phone and the brown garage door in front slid up and they pulled inside. After closing it, Coach led Paul to a side door and a small series of steps. Boots and several heels adorned a corner with a dusty telescope and a laundry room against the wall.

Paul noticed a room to the left that dipped down and had a variety of sports equipment strewn haphazardly with a treadmill and an old big box television. The cat that Erin mentioned napped in a small box that used to contain tennis balls. She greeted her kitty with a rub of his chin and a promise of food. Bubsy looked suspicious for a few moments before sniffing her fingers and giving a snort of approval. After squinting suspiciously at Paul, the cat soon fell back asleep without further complaint.

Down the hall was the main living room with a kitchen off to the side. An L-shaped massive couch filled most of the space with a large-screen TV set in front of some thick blue drapes. The kitchen looked like something out of the 1980s with plants dangling here and there and a tiny moth banging itself against the overhead fluorescent light. Erin swatted it with an electric racket and faintly apologized.

An even tinier dining room area with a wobbly table and two seats darkly overlooked the alley. At the other end of the hall were a shower and bath combo attached to a large master bedroom. Erin set her bags down over by the bed, dropped off her glasses, and then made her way back to the living room.

Paul just caught a mirror in her periphery but didn’t pay attention to it. Kicking off her tennis shoes several rooms too late, Erin snagged a knit blanket from the edge of the couch and wrapped herself up in its net-like texture. She appeared ready to go to sleep right there before lifting her head in a wave motion and announcing, “I can loan you some clothes. And wash some old ones that should work for you.” Paul nodded.

The clothes in question were not anything Paul would’ve chosen to wear on her own. It was a pair of black yoga pants which she had a devil of the time getting up around her hips. She kept the sweatpants around. The gray tank top that Erin found immediately highlighted their physical disparity. Paul knew it in several ways, but she absolutely had boobs. She had no idea where they sat on the scale of things but plenty of girls on the team were bigger. She still made a significant imprint and show of cleavage. Over top, Erin offered her a blue plaid shirt that buttoned up well.

In the mirror, she looked but try not to dwell on the visage that looked back at her. The girl was shorter than Paul could remember being for quite a while. She had much more of a tan but not so much of one that she didn’t recognize herself. Her face was slim and trim with pearl-white teeth and a perfectly straight nose. She had the look of a model or the best qualities of all the girls on the team fused into a single person. She had patches of baby fat and a clear sense of ongoing puberty. Her expression slipped between uncertainty and upset as she splashed her face and rubbed a hand towel against it.

She had no idea why aliens or whatever they were had decided to turn her into a pretty, teenage girl. She was fine and happy being a man. She had a life as Paul. What did she have now? The same could be said for poor Erin, who looked younger than half of her players.

There was a lot to address and even more to comprehend but neither of them wanted to look at the facts of all this. Instead, Erin turned on the first comedy flick she could find on the streaming box, offered Paul a nicer blanket than the net one she was wrapped in, and dug a sampler platter of cheesecake and a bottle of wine out of her fridge. Bubsy received a refill of his water dish and a can of wet food, which he calmly accepted, as though nothing were amiss, and his owner wasn’t less than half the age she was when she left in the morning.

Paul went with the lemon-flavored piece and Erin desired the triple chocolate. Eating off a wooden bench tucked half underneath the couch, Paul and Erin rested next to each other. The distance gradually closed as they sipped and ate.

The movie was a decent distraction in the background, but their attentions were subtly focused on one another. It felt like they were sending out pings of radar, trying to find the other’s presence while in a deeper fog than the one still stirring outside. Eventually, something shifted.

Paul felt warm lips on hers. Erin held her kiss and wrapped her arms around Paul. Faintly, Paul asked, “What…?”

Coach Erin shook her head. “I don’t know. I just…” Paul kissed her back, feeling a little wobbly with her body, the cushions, and the awkward position craning up. Their embrace and hold was desperate but not frantic. They clung to one another, as though shipwrecked on the sea and having nothing else to stay afloat with than one another. Each shivered but relaxed into their shared warmth. Soon, the movie was forgotten.

[I have a question at the end of the chapter again to help with suggestions for where the story should go. I'm actually not that far ahead this time and I am wide open for possibilities for this particular story. Feel free to add an idea which doesn't show up in the options. Also, if you see any random typos or uncapitalized starts of sentences, please pass them along. I have to cut down on my editing due to release speed and my programs don't seem to be catching lowercase sentences. Thank you for reading!]

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