Chapter Seventeen

Confronting the Past

Her clawed hands shook, not a lot, but enough that she noticed. The terror of where she now stood was too overwhelming to suppress and her body was reacting. This was truly the last place she wanted to be on this planet. She would rather be back in the labs than near this place, at least there she was taken care of. Given proper food and water with a room to herself. She took a long, deep breath to calm her body which only helped a fraction of what she had hoped. The chill of the night was also nipping at her body. Her head fell to the ground, looking at the exact path that she had taken when first running away from this place. Her head came back up, looking to the top floor of the apartment building where she had been caged by that dreadful man for so long.

She looked, noticing that the windows had already been replaced, and that there were cameras in various places on the outside of the roof. The man must have feared her coming back or feared losing another one of his pets. The ironic part was that here she was, wanting to get back in. Astarte, from her dark and hidden position across the street, studied the building and its security system. Memorizing the angles of the cameras and their fields of view. It seemed that they were covering every approachable path to the building. She had to sneak around the city block to circle the apartment to study every side, but she could see no good way of making it inside without at least one camera seeing her. She would need a different plan. She rumbled a few ideas around in her mind as she stayed in the shadows with no real good plan formulating. A minute or two later, while she was looking at the building, a simple thought came to mind…where did it get its power from?

She smiled a razor sharp, toothy grin.

(Thirty minutes later, inside the apartment.)

Jeff was sitting within his apartment clicking away on his computer, sipping a rather expensive port while he looked over his emails. Some were from other colleagues; others were from his investment groups with their bi-monthly reports. Jeff always enjoyed getting told how much money he was making. Thankfully, the money he had been left by his parents when they had died meant he had never really had to work a day in his life. He invested most of it and had been making good money ever since. He loved it, stress free and not a care in the world.

He could buy what he wanted, when he wanted, and no one could tell him otherwise. He did not have to hear the words 'no' when every human had a price. He continued to open emails and smiled as the numbers within them were all very positive. He sat back in his chair and took another sip of his drink. Maybe he would look at buying another house or two so he could rent them out and a ridicules price, someone was usually desperate enough to pay it. He smiled at the thought of someone wanting a place to live so bad they would give him outargues money to do so.

What a bunch of losers.

It was at that moment that everything went dark. The lights, computer, his record player, all disappeared in silence. He let out a sigh of disgust. What use was it to pay for a luxury apartment if the power was a pile of garbage! He stood up, drink in hand, and walked to the nearest light switch, flicking it on and off a few times just to make sure. Taking another sip of alcohol, he began the walk to the closet under the stairs to check the electrical panel, wanting to make sure it was not a breaker that had simply tripped. He was pulling a lot of power with all his electronics on at the same time.

He swung the door open and unhinged the door of the panel. Thankfully there was enough light from outside the apartment coming through the giant windows that he had recently replaced, that he could see that every breaker was still in their 'on' position. This time he let out a disapproving grunt and slammed the panel closed. Like a toddler, he stomped his was over to his kitchen and opened his liquor cabinet, grabbing the bottle of port to refill his glass.

He brought the bottle to the island and set it down to pop the cork, coming loose with an audible pop. He tilted the bottle into his glass and filled it to the rim. If he was going to be in the dark, he would at least have a buzz. He brought the glass to his nose and took in the sweet smell of the liquid. It was then that a noise caught his attention. His eyes snapped open at the sound of a door slowly creaking open. It sounded like it was his front door. It had to be the building maintenance crew come to fix the problem.

"About bloody time." He thought to himself. He quickly put the bottle of port away and grabbed his drink to make his way to the door. He didn't want these people going anywhere in his apartment that they shouldn't.

"What, you guys can't keep the building up and running?" He spoke into the darkness as he turned the corner of the kitchen to the hallway that went to the front door. "It can't be that hard."

As he turned the corner and looked down the long hall, there was nothing. No maintenance crew, no janitor, no front desk clerk. Just darkness. He froze, where were the maintenance guys? They should have a flashlight on or something. Jeff stared into the void where his front door should be, waiting for someone to appear. Nothing came.

"Hay, what the hell guys? You just barge in without a knock? I'll have your ass for that." He yelled, thinking they were just being pricks and playing a trick on him. It was when the hallway stayed silent that he began to suspect something was wrong.

"Fuck." He dropped his drink and sprinted towards his computer desk, right to where he kept his pistol. Nearly slamming into the glass desk, he scrambled to pull the drawer open, push the papers aside and open the hidden compartment. He palmed the pistol and grabbed a loaded magazine, almost dropping it. Sliding the magazine into the pistol and racking a round, he then pointed the weapon back towards the pit of darkness that was the hallway. The gun was shaking in his hand.

He stood frozen, fearing the worst. Perhaps it was someone come to kidnap him and take his money. He had heard stories of billionaires being taken from their homes and held for ransom. It could also be one of thousands of people he had put out of work from one of his many money-making scams that put smaller businesses out of work. He had heard stories about that too. So what if they lost their jobs? He made millions off the insurance claims. They could go work somewhere else. Regardless of who it was, he would put a hole in them. But he would try a bluff first.

"I just hit my panic button! The cops are already on the way you pricks! You might as well scram!"

No response.

His mind started to play tricks on him, suggesting that they were already in his apartment. He snapped the pistol to the living room to his right, making sure they had not gotten past him while he had not been looking. No one was there, not that he could see of anyway. There were so many shadows being cast by the bright streetlights outside that anyone could be hiding right in front of him and he would never know. He snapped the pistol up to the loft where his bedroom was but could only see the rail that lined the edge of the floor. Coming to the conclusion that there was no way anyone could have made it up to his bedroom without him knowing, he brought the gun back to the darkness of the hallway. As a minute went by with utter silence, his hands began to relax, the shake dissolved with the realization that he was alone.

He let out a quick laugh, the power shortage must have just popped his security lock on the door, that's all. He dropped his hand towards the floor, lowering the pistol. He let out another laugh, thinking about how stupid he must have looked, and turned to put the weapon away.

As he turned, fear tensed every muscle in his body as he looked upon the dark silhouette of a monster sitting on top of his desk. The darkness of the night hiding almost all the features on its body, leaving him with a nightmare of darkness only a foot away. His jaw shook, his breathing stopped as the xenomorph before him slowly drew up her elongated head, only to stop with her razor-sharp jaws only inches from his face. Even in the pitch black of the night, those teeth glowed like metallic knives.

It slowly opened its jaws, revealing a second set of teeth. Jeff realized he had to do something or he was about to die. The pistol! He still had his pistol! He snapped up his hand as fast as he could, looking to get the weapon pointed up at the bottom of the creatures' jaw and blow its brains out. Jeff was fast, but the creature was faster. His hand had only made it halfway up before the snap of a tail blade came from behind.

The pistol fell to the floor, along with the hand that had been holding it. Jeff had not even noticed the attack and still brought his hand up to bear. It was only when he went to squeeze the trigger that he noticed something felt odd. When the pain started to grow, he was able to pry his eyes from the creature's maw, down towards his hand. Or where his hand should have been. He took a quivering breath when he realized that there was only a stump where his hand should have been. He let out a howl of pain that increased over the next few seconds as he fell backwards onto his rump. The blood was spilling forth as he brought his hand into his embrace, a feeble action to stop the pain that was now searing down his arm.

From the floor, he tore his eyes away from his missing hand to the creature that was sitting silently upon his desk. In fear that it was about to end his lift, he struggled to get to his feet, slipping a bit in the splatters of blood on the concrete floor. He turned towards the front door to the hallway and made it a few steps before something flew over top of him and landed in the darkness in front of him. He came to a sliding halt, falling to the floor in the process. He could not take his eyes from the void of darkness in front of him, a void that he knew the creature was hidden within. He crawled backwards, trying to put as much room between him and the nightmare he knew lay in wait. As he did, he watched as those teeth emerged from the darkness, nothing else could be seen but those deadly devices.

"No. No no no!" He screamed and quickly stood and ran for the stairs leading up to the bedroom. He was successful in taking the first few steps before something snared his foot from between the steps, causing him to fumble and fall hard into the concrete that they were made of. His jaw slammed into the corner, making his head spin like a top. Dazed, Jeff did not move, not being able to even if he had wanted.

It was then that he felt something grab his ankle and began to pull him down the steps, his elbows and tailbone slamming into the hard surface as he went. Then, across the cold floor he was pulled, his head still spinning violently, leaving a trail of blood as he went. Then, he was being lifted, set onto something and he could feel something warm and slimy being smeared across his chest. Something then fumbled with his wounded arm, the spike of pain clearing a bit of the fog from his concussion. He blinked to clear his vision and looked down at the creature's hands as it stretched something over the sump of an arm he now possessed. He let out a scream of pain, which was quickly silenced by a rather large, clawed hand. It nearly covered his entire head as the hard plates of its exoskeleton were pushed into his soft flesh, keeping him from making a sound.

He tried to struggle and was surprised when something held his upper body in place. It was almost like a giant rubber band, snapping him back to where he had been. He could do nothing as he listened to the sound of the creature vomiting something out of its throat and then spreading it all over his legs. He struggled again but found that his upper body moved less than it had before, the substance that had been placed on him was growing stiffer by the second. He tried to lash out with his feet to attack his oppressor, but a large clawed hand held them both in place while the sticky substance began to harden. It only took a few moments for the man to be completely immobilized. Only then did the creature pull its hand away from his mouth, letting him take a deep breath. Jeff let out a loud, rough cough. Spit flying from his mouth and onto his lap. He gasped for air as he recovered from being slightly suffocated. It did not take long. He found the strength to bring his head up to once again be face to face with the monster in front of him and completely at its mercy.

Astarte stared at the man who had kept her prisoner for what seemed like a lifetime. In reality, it had maybe only been nine or ten months, but each day seemed to never end with his constant torture and treatment. She considered ending his life, here and now, just to be done with him. However, she remembered the words from her mother. She had to do everything she could to not become the monster they thought she was. As much as she wanted to.

It was so very tempting.

She drew in her own breath and let out a low hiss at the bound man, wanting to make sure he understood that she was the one in control now. No hand gesture would be performed to stop her, no cage would be used to contain her. She was the one holding all the cards now. After the display of dominance, she turned to the desk that she had been perched upon earlier. She pulled out the main drawer that she knew would contain a pen and paper. She had seen him use them many times to scribble notes while she had been trapped here.

The items were easy enough to find. She removed the cap from the large sharpie and wrote a message upon the note pad that she had also found. She turned the chair of the bound man to face the desk and pushed him in so he could better see the paper. She used a clawed finger to point at the message and waited for him to read it. She watched as his head moved from the alien to the paper and back again. Through whimpering words, she heard him speak.

"W-w-w-what does it say?"

Astarte looked from the man to her message, had she not spelt the words right?

"Where did you purchase me from?" No, she was sure that they were correct. Perhaps he was playing dumb. She violently tapped the paper, trying to tell the man that she was not in the mood. Yet again, the man looked to the message and back to her.

"I c-c-can't see it." He whispered in fear.

She paused. Well, now she felt a bit silly. She had completely forgotten that she had killed the power to the apartment building and that humans had very poor eyesight in the dark. She turned to face the empty apartment, scanning the rooms before her. She had no idea where he would keep a flashlight and had never seen the man use a candle while she had been here. So, she went to the kitchen and started to open drawers, digging through their contents in search of anything that might help.

One after another, she went through drawers, cupboards, cabinets and closets with no success. She had done quite a number to the large living space, having started to throw items in frustration. It looked as if a bull had run through the place. It was no matter to her, she did not care for any of this man's personal items. After throwing another drawer full of shirts onto the floor of the bedroom, she let out a huff of frustration. She moved towards the stairs and leapt down to the area just in front of the still bound human.

She landed with a thud which startled the man who had not been paying attention to the xenomorph. She had been ransacking his place for well over a half an hour. So, she had lost his attention after the period. He made a startled sound when he realized what had landed in front of him. Astarte began to pace back and forth, trying to think of a way to find light. Eventually her gaze found itself upon the outside world, through those large planes of glass that had been her source of freedom. She looked out at the landscape that was before her and wondered what her life would have been like if she had been free to do as she pleased. If her family had been here to live with her. If her mother had been here. A wave of sadness fell upon her mind. She shook it off, wanting to get back to the task at hand. Her gaze came upon the streetlamps that lined the road and parking lot below her. If only she could use those. And that's when she had an idea. Now that the camera's should be dead, there was no one watching the building.

She turned back to the man and considered her new idea. He should be small enough to survive. She walked over and grabbed the back of the chair and began to pull it towards the glass wall.

"Wh-what are you doing? Hay! What's going on?!" He screamed in protest. She stopped him ten feet or so from the thick glass, turning him to face the outside world. Jeff was a relatively smart person, he was a jerk, but not stupid. He put two and two together and knew he was about to go for a ride. Astarte went behind the chair, placed two hands upon the back and started into a full sprint. The human's adrenaline spiked and he panicked, screaming out the first thing that came to mind.

"Wait! Wait! The lights! I can see! Stop!" He closed his eyes as the glass continued to move towards him at an alarming rate. "STOP!" He closed his eyes and tensed his body for the impact that would happen at any moment.

A sudden jerk brought him to a violent stop. When he did not feel the sensation of freefall, he slowly opened his eyes. All he could see was the glass of the window, a mere inch from his face. He untensed his body and let out a sigh of relief. However, the event was not over yet. Astarte, wanting to hear him out, so she whipped the chair around quickly and stopped so her mouth was now the closest thing to his face. She waited in silence. The man shook for a few second before explaining himself.

"Th-the lights…f-f-from the streets. I-I-I can see the paper. P-put it on my lap." Astarte watched as the man's pheromones changed, mostly to that of fear, but she did not see anything to indicate that he was lying. So, she walked over to the deck, scooped up the note pad, and dropped it into his lap.

The man dropped his head down to look at the message and snapped back up to look at her. He had come to the realization of who it was that had broken into his home.

"It's…it's you. You're the one I bought. Shit, they told me they were going to kill you. That I didn't have to worry." He slowly raised his head as he talked, looking back up at his previously owned pet. Astarte flashed her teeth at the man.

"You should definitely be worried." She thought to herself.