I Discovered An Alien Lifeform and All I Got Was This Stupid Rock

A short story by Rowan Lester (Co-Founder & Art Director of The Kingfisher Magazine)

When you yell, it echoes through the quarry. The sounds bounce off the lime kilns until they’re swallowed up by the yellow-green of the dying summer blooms. There, everything seems yellow-green: the tall grass, the water, the graffiti on the stones — even the bruises you get on your knees when you scuff your jeans.

You have to scramble around a bit to get there; hands and knees pressed with rock and bark. There are areas so steep that you’re practically scaling the trail, spider-like. And the trails get narrower and narrower, until you stop seeing boot prints, and are faced instead with the lines of mountain bike tires. But it’s worth it — the water is cool and there are swathes of starry, light purple blooms in the summer. I clear my whole day to go out there. I’ll stay propped against a rock, sitting near the water until the sky to the east turns a soupy blue.

This time, when I finally make it through the small gap in the heather, I can see a faint purple glow at the edge of the water. There’s this smell in the air, too: Overly sweet and faintly tar-like, there’s something about it that’s strangely intoxicating. There’s a winding pattern in the sand, radiating out from the source of the light like something was dragged across the shore. At the center, there seems to be a small lump, halfway covered in sand.

The lump is … microbial. Like, I feel like I learned about it in sixth-grade science class. It reminds me of a water bear. It’s got the same puffy body and spindly claws. Sort of. For some reason, my first thought was that my brother would hate this thing. Truly despise it. He hates centipedes, and this thing looks like someone took a bike pump to an insect.

Reader, it’s at this point that I start to shriek.

And, maybe… throw things? At the “water bear”? Like fight-or-flight, some instinct kicks on in my brain and I grab a stick that sails pathetically through the air before falling at my feet. Then it twitches, and I scream again.

In the short moment between when I finally run out of breath and heave in another, there’s a sharp keening sound that cuts through the air. I truly mean cut, too. The wailing has a light whistling sound crouching behind it as if a dart were flying past my face. And a cracking rush of wind accompanies each cry.

The air seems to pulse with each passing moment. There is something building in the quarry. Not quite energy, or at least not electricity. Maybe something more ephemeral. Maybe just something you have to see to believe. I can feel my heartbeat start to fall into time with the air. A silent sense of rightness, like when you realize you’ve synched up your steps when walking with a friend.

For a blinding, halfway hysterical moment, all I can think of is that styx song: A Gathering of A-angels. It’s honestly sort of fitting. There’s definitely something transcendent about being slowly bathed in light in a color that should not exist. Sort of an indescribable, soft pinkish-green. It made my skin itch, but my scalp felt suddenly very cool like I was on the verge of a brain freeze. The light leaves an afterimage in my mind and a stuffed-up, burning sensation between my eyes. Like menthol, or red Gatorade.

In nothing but a gasoline-tinged streak of light, the thing is gone. There is still this humming in the air, reverberating off the stone walls that are slowly breaking down on the edges of the water. It fades into a high whine, like a dying car, before dying out completely. In an attempt to resist the urge to start screaming again, I shake out my arms and legs like a track star about to start sprinting. I kick the toes of my hiking boots on the hard-packed dirt at the edge of the beach and watch as slightly fluorescent pink dust falls slowly into the sparse grass. Then I clap my hands once, just to clear the air of the lingering tone still circling the water.

When my legs start to feel less numb, I walk over to the spot the thing just left. Just to make sure it’s really gone. For good. As I reach the water, I start to see the sand sort of sparkle. Something between the shine of a diamond and the optical illusion of a heat wave. I am perhaps too sentimental of a person because when I see what it left behind, I don’t hesitate to pick it up.

There are shards of something like glass pilling in the sand. They’re already cool to the touch, and they smell sort of like cardamom and allspice. This is all that’s left. Maybe it’s not sentimentality if it’s the only evidence you have that something actually insane happened. Maybe it’s something a little more like gingerbread-scented survival. With just a hint of saltwater taffy disappointment.