A Different Kind Read online

  The thought that I’d been abducted by aliens was absurd. The thought that Logan could do anything to help me was even more absurd. But as much as I tried I couldn’t shake those thoughts; they stayed with me through practice and along my drive home. They stayed with me as I threw my school bag onto the living room sofa and walked out the front door.

  I made my way across the street, looking in both directions for anyone who might gossip about me going over to the Reeds’. There was no one around. I did notice the same black sedan I’d seen days earlier. This time it was parked farther down the street. How odd.

  I scanned the street once more before knocking on the door. The seconds that ticked by while I waited seemed endlessly long. Finally, the door swung inward. Logan stood inside. He gestured for me to come in and I followed him, shutting the door behind me.

  “This way,” Logan said as we rounded a corner and came to a staircase. I followed him upstairs.

  We walked down the hall and into Logan’s bedroom. He had a large room with wood paneled walls and a full bed. He strolled across the room and sat at his desk while I hovered by the door. My arms crossed, and my eyes scanned the space around me. Posters, all with some kind of science or outer space theme, covered the walls and ceiling.

  “So, what are you, some conspiracy theorist obsessed with The X-files or something?” I tilted my head back to look at a circular star chart tacked to the ceiling.

  “Not exactly.” Logan laughed.

  “Right, so how are you supposed to help me again?”

  “I never said I could help you.”

  I let out a loud huff. “Well, you do know something, right? Because if this is all just a waste of time….”

  “Jesus, you are so….”

  “So…what?”

  He sighed. “Do you always talk to people like that?”

  I crossed my arms. “Like what?”

  He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “Guess that’s a yes then.”

  “All I want to know is….” Images of my dream, my memory – whatever it was – sped through my mind. I had to close my eyes and take a breath before I could speak next. “Why did you ask me about aliens?”

  Something about Logan’s features softened, and he leaned forward in his chair, causing its seat to squeak. “You remember some of it, don’t you?”

  I squeezed my arms tighter across my chest.

  “Been dreaming about bright lights, dark eyes, that kind of thing?”

  My eyes narrowed, and my stomach rolled. “How do you know that?” I snapped.

  “Any scars you don’t know how you got? Or been having weird headaches?”

  My eyes widened and I bit my lip. I was on the verge of tears, but I wasn’t going to let myself cry. I uncrossed my arms and sat across from Logan at the edge of his bed. My dreams suddenly felt incredibly real. I didn’t care how he knew what he was about to tell me. I needed answers.

  “What happened to me? I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  Logan shrugged. “That’s usually a symptom too.”

  “A symptom of what?” I yelled.

  “Being abducted.”

  A brittle burst of a laugh escaped my lips. He had to be joking. It sounded ridiculous, but his face was serious. He wasn’t kidding. Dread filled me, turning my insides to Jell-O.

  “Aliens don’t exist,” I said, my voice weaker than I intended.

  “If you believed that, you wouldn’t be here.”

  I bit my lip but refused to admit it out loud. Saying it would make it real. Brightness flashed behind my eyes again. Images of black eyes and grey creatures in a halo of light flooded my mind. I remembered that weightless feeling and felt sick. Suddenly my whole body was shaking. Then I felt a cool touch on my arm. I jerked away and swung out.

  “Whoa, hey. It’s just me,” Logan said.

  I blinked, forcing the memories away, and realized Logan was now standing before me.

  “You kind of zoned out for a minute. You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. I took a few breaths to regain some composure. “So what? Some creatures from outer space sucked me through my bedroom window with their freaky floating light beam and took me up to their spaceship?”

  Logan sat back down in his desk chair. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  I shook my head. “How do you know any of this?”

  “We are neighbors; I can see your bedroom window from mine. Which I’m sure you know because you always keep the blinds drawn.”

  Abruptly I stood. My fingers coiled at my side. “You saw those things take me, and you just watched.”

  Logan’s brow knitted together. “I’m not sure what exactly you wanted me to do?”

  I let out a huff of breath and paced the room. I needed to move, needed space. Logan was right; there wasn’t anything he could have done. I just felt as if I’d been taken advantage of, and I was angry no one had tried to stop it. I was angry I couldn’t stop it. After I’d released some energy, I stopped pacing and turned back to Logan.

  “Why? What did they do….” I gulped. “What do they do to people?” I said unable to ask, What did they do to me?

  All color drained from Logan’s face. I think he saw the fear in my eyes because he looked away. He didn’t say anything for a while. His silence scared me. Feeling woozy, I sat back down on the edge of the bed.

  “Different things,” he said in a low voice.

  For a moment when I looked at him, light reflected off his glasses, and I couldn’t see his eyes. When he sat back, moving out of the light, he had this faraway expression. Logan shook his head, snapping out of his daze.

  “Most likely they just tagged you,” he said.

  “Tagged?”

  “Yeah, like how we tag and track animals to study their migration patterns. Been having any headaches?”

  I nodded, but my mind was barely keeping up. This was too much to take in at once.

  Logan looked at me thoughtfully. “Do you have any…other symptoms?”

  “Like what?”

  Logan shrugged. Somehow I felt his question had been more important than he let on. He stood up.

  “Mind if I….” he pointed to my ear, and though I was hesitant, I pulled my hair back. A chilly finger ran over the skin behind my ear, and Logan’s hot breath made me twitch. “Yeah, they bugged you,” he said, then sat back down.

  My eyes were wide. “What?” I realized then that’s why I’d been feeling shocks behind my ear.

  “It transmits signals about the places we go, hormone levels, stuff like that, so they can study us.”

  “Well, I want it out.”

  Logan laughed. “That thing’s buried deep in your brain; it’s not coming out.”

  Feeling uneasy, I rubbed the skin behind my ear.

  “Look, you’re creeped out; I get it, but be grateful. Taggings are non-invasive for the most part.”

  “Right, except the part where they stuck something in my brain that’s now giving me headaches and shocking me.”

  “They could have done a lot worse, trust me…and those shocks should go away. The device will tune itself to your body, but it takes time…eventually it will be like it never happened.”

  I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. Part of me still couldn’t believe this was real, but somehow I knew it was. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about any of this. These memories terrified me, but Logan was suggesting I go on with my life like normal. I wasn’t sure I could do that.

  “You really think it’ll be like it never happened?” I asked.

  He nodded, and I took a deep breath.

  I didn’t want to think about aliens. I didn’t want to be afraid. I wanted to put this all behind me. It was my senior year. I should have been focusing on cheerleading, and Ian, and the Homecoming dance – not aliens. If there wasn’t anything else I could do about it, what good did being upset do? I took a breath and decided that was exactly what I would do. I would put it behind me – still, ther
e was one question that Logan hadn’t answered.

  “How do you know this stuff anyway?”

  Logan shrugged but didn’t answer. For some reason his silence sent an icy jolt down my spine. Is he hiding something? Why won’t he tell me?

  “Right, conspiracy theories and X-files, gotcha,” I said, but the way he had talked about aliens sounded like his knowledge came from somewhere other than some ‘90s sci-fi series.

  He seemed like he knew what he was talking about, but if he had firsthand experience with these things he wasn’t talking, and honestly I didn’t want to ask.

  “Well, thanks, I guess,” I said. “For the info – not that any of it makes me feel any better.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  An awkward beat of silence passed.

  “Well, I’m gonna go. I feel like I should lie down and think about all of this, or possibly pound my head against the wall.” I stood up. “But thanks for telling me what you know.”

  “No problem.”

  I walked to the door.

  “Oh, and Payton?”

  I turned back to him.

  “If you do notice any other symptoms, let me know.”

  His words sent a chill across my skin, but I simply nodded as I walked out. I didn’t want to know what other symptoms he was talking about; I just hoped all of this was over.

  CHAPTER

  7

  By Friday I pushed anything related to aliens and abductions aside. I focused on school, football games, and prematurely daydreaming about graduation parties. Ian had been texting me, and every time I thought about our date, I felt this lightness in my chest. My life was making sense again.

  Classes went by as usual. Logan returned to acting like I didn’t exist. Something about that bothered me, but it was better than his creepy staring.

  After class Jo, Hailey, and I went dress shopping. Hailey was trying on a tight black dress and talking about her back-up date options in case Darren didn’t ask her, while I pulled a pink dress off the rack.

  “What about you? Think you’ll go with Jared if Ian doesn’t ask you?”

  “That would be a no. Ian will ask me,” I said, feeling sure of it.

  “How about you, Joanna?”

  Jo had been in her own little world while we talked about boys, but now her attention snapped to us. She shrugged and ran her hands down the sides of the red dress. She didn’t look too impressed with it.

  “I might just go stag,” she said.

  “You’re not going to have a date to senior Homecoming?” Hailey asked, giving this little snort that was snottier than anything she could have said.

  Jo rolled her eyes, and I slipped into the dressing room to try on the pink dress.

  “Payton, what do you think?”

  “About what?” I called through the thin door.

  “About not having a date to your senior Homecoming dance?”

  I was quiet, unsure of what to say. “Um,” I sputtered and zipped my dress up.

  “Payton,” Jo said. “What would you do if Ian didn’t ask you?”

  I smoothed the dress into place. “Do you think he might not?”

  “No, just hypothetically, what would you do if you couldn’t go with Ian?”

  That was an easy question because I only wanted to go with Ian. I opened the dressing room door and stepped out. “Then I guess I’d be going stag too. You could be my date.” I smiled.

  Two things occurred to me about whoever Jo was seeing. First, she didn’t think he was going to take her to the dance, or that maybe he couldn’t. And second, he meant something to her.

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She held her hair up with her hands, as if trying to decide then and there how she would wear it on Homecoming night.

  “I think I might get this,” I said, turning in the mirror to see the bead detail better.

  Jo looked me up and down. “It’s really pink.”

  “No, it’s fuchsia.”

  “You look like Barbie.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, well Barbie’s got a dream house, pink convertible, and great legs. I think I’m okay with that.”

  Jo laughed, and Hailey smiled.

  “Alright, come here,” Hailey said, pulling her phone out of her purse. “We all look too hot right now not to document this.” She held her phone out. We all squished together and smiled as the flash went off.

  The bright light made me flinch.

  Hailey bought the black dress and I got the pink one, but Jo found this teal dress with a print that reminded me of peacock feathers. I liked it much more than the red one she’d tried on. Hailey left us, telling Jo she had a pair of shoes she could borrow that would look killer with her dress. Then Jo and I went down the street for coffee.

  My best friend sat across from me, tapping her fingers against the table while we waited. They called our names, and Jo rushed to the counter to get our drinks. I’d never seen her so fidgety before. She sat back down, handing me my drink and taking a long sip of hers. It was unnerving how jumpy she was. Jo was always the calm one, the down to earth one. I didn’t know what was going on with her.

  “So, spill,” I said. “Who’s the guy?”

  Jo choked on her coffee, then set it down. She took a breath and asked, “We’re best friends, right? No matter what?”

  “Of course,” I said without a second thought. “But you’re really freaking me out with all this secrecy stuff. What are you, like, dating a convict or something?”

  Jo laughed. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

  “Well then, what is it like? I’ve never seen you like this; whatever it is, I’ll understand.” Jo bit her lip as if she wasn’t sure.

  “Just gimme something – what’s his name?”

  “Nik,” Jo said. “And we’re great together, really. We like the same music and books and poorly made foreign movies.”

  I smiled. “Jo, that’s great, but why….”

  “Do I want to keep it a secret?” Jo took another sip of her coffee. “I just can’t tell anyone yet…it’s hard to explain.”

  My smile fell flat.

  “But maybe, maybe one night when my parents are out you could come by when Nik’s there so you guys can meet?”

  My frown lifted at the corners. “Yes, absolutely.”

  Jo nodded; she still looked nervous, but her eyes were sparkling now. The rest of the time we talked about school and cheerleading. But at the back of my mind, I was I still wondering who she was seeing. Maybe he was older, like socially unacceptably older, or maybe he was younger, like a freshman or something? I also thought about telling her about my strange dreams and conversation with Logan, but only briefly. The idea of putting it all behind me and trying to forget that it ever happened seemed far more appealing. It was over with, and it wasn’t like they’d come for me again.

  Later, while I prepared for the football game, the tingling feeling returned behind my ear. I was still creeped out about having a chip, or whatever it was, in my head. Now, looking back, the thought that we were nothing more than animals to them was even more disturbing. At the time, however, I hadn’t been contemplating the philosophical nature of what it meant to be human. Being spied on by a bunch of aliens was frightening, but all I cared about was forgetting about aliens and getting back to my normal teenage life.

  That night the dreams once again flickered through my consciousness, but other random things came as well. Normal dream things, like Ian and his light blond hair. In my dream he picked me up for the Homecoming dance in this God awful baby blue tux. We so didn’t match, or maybe we matched too well, looking like ‘80s rejected Barbie and Ken. Jared stood behind him on my front porch in black with a bloody nose, and standing in the yard was Jo. Except Jo’s dress was different.

  The bright teal with hints of gold and purple in her dress reminded me of peacock feathers. In my dream they were more vivid. The colors swirled and moved, and now red, orange, and blue mixed in as well.

  In the distan
ce I saw something move in the shadows. Soon I could see a person walking across the street. Logan came into view. His glasses were gone, making his eyes look deeper somehow. He wore a black tux with a grey vest and black tie. On the lapel of his jacket, where a boutonniere should have been, there was a pin. I stared at the bronze owl pin with its huge black eyes and took a step back. Logan walked to Jo and stood beside her. Then I woke up.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Ian picked me up at seven on Saturday. As I opened the door, my mind flashed back to my dream from the night before, and I envisioned him in that baby blue tux. He was actually wearing a long sleeve grey t-shirt with jeans, but for a moment thinking of my dream made me giggle.

  Ian took me to a movie, some romantic comedy I only half paid attention to. He bought popcorn and slyly slid his arm behind my back. Afterward we went for a drive down this thickly wooded road. I felt this excited chill rush through me, thinking about where we were going. Ian smiled, then turned off the headlights. For a few minutes we drove in complete darkness.

  I gasped. “Ian, we’re going to hit something; turn the lights back on.”

  “Just one more minute,” he said.

  I looked at Ian, staring at the thin white outline the moonlight created around his face. I saw him smile.

  “Ready?” he asked, but before I could respond we turned the corner, and there written in white Christmas lights was the word “Homecoming” with a question mark.

  Ian pulled the car to a stop. The white lights twinkled in the dark. A huge smile formed on my face, and I think I actually squealed. I loved how creative he’d been. I couldn’t wait to brag about it to everyone on Monday.

  “Do you like it? I had my sister help.”

  Instead of answering, I turned to Ian and kissed him.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said as we pulled away.

  “That’s a yes, and a yes, I’ll go with you too.”

  Homecoming invite; romantic dress, bought; best friend, sharing her secrets with me again; and crazy shocks across my skull from malfunctioning alien technology, gone. Life was getting back to normal. That night I found I couldn’t wait until Monday to tell everyone I was going to the dance with Ian, and I texted my entire squad in my excitement.