Imagine a cobra about seven feet tall. Then imagine a humanoid face with mouth, nose, and two eyes. But what eyes-restless, always flicking about. Air holes for a nose, constantly opening and closing, scenting prey. And a round mouth, flexible enough to form speech, but hiding a forked tongue for darting out commands and threats.
If you can imagine that nightmare of a creature, you know the Jongs.
They had two strongly muscled arms that ended in seven-fingered hands on each side of their upper bodies. On their lower bodies, they had many small, jointed legs. As they moved on their many feet, they were swift and silent.
Their heads were hooded, just like the cobras here on Earth. When the Jongs prepared to attack, their hoods flared and rippled under their body armor. Unlike cobras, however, they weren't poisonous-except for their hateful hearts.
And for whatever insane reason, they spread their venom through the galaxy.
The Jongs had driven us from our homeworld of Hanzel, a shining planet of green trees and crystal skies. Though we left in a hurry, we brought as much of our home with us as we could.
Our spaceship, over a mile long and half that wide, was built for a long journey. The living quarters and work areas were grouped around fields and hills spotted with acres of trees, grass, and glimmering ponds.
Legions of Jongs stormed our ship. They took us by surprise. Maybe they had jumped hyperspace, or had found a wormhole to sneak through. I was playing in the fields when the screaming began. There was panic everywhere. People around me ran for their lives. But our spaceship was a little world and in the end, there was no place to run.
Someone snatched me from the flowering bush where I crouched. My rescuer shoved me under his arm and plunged into a pond. He kicked and paddled toward the bottom while I hung on, terrified. When my air ran out, I swallowed water and then began breathing liquid like a fish. It was cool and smooth in my lungs, and thousands of tiny bubbles trickled out of my mouth.
We pushed into a narrow pipe, tossed hard against the walls by a strong current. My rescuer held me tight until we dumped out into a holding tank. I spit up the water and breathed air again.
We were in a part of the ship I had never seen before-children weren't allowed on the flight deck. I rubbed water from my eyes and never saw my rescuer's face as he shoved me into a pod and strapped me in.
A mist formed over my face and I felt warm and drowsy, safe even though there was chaos all around. Just before I drifted off to sleep, the Jongs stormed into theroom. The commander snarled a order and, as the door to my pod shut, I saw laser fire everywhere. There was an explosion and ...
." . . and then, what happened?" Danny yelled.
"I don't know," I said. "That's all I remember."
"Come on, Mike," Danny moaned. "You're not going to tell us how the story ends?" What a whiner. I only put up with him because he idolized me.
"It's not a story," I said. "It's the truth. The confidential truth." I gave my audience a stern look. They knew they were not to repeat the Hanzel Chronicles to anyone. Anyone. Who knew if the Jongs, had agents here on Earth? Besides, I had enough of a reputation for being weird without my stories of aliens and space battles getting around Ashby Middle School.
"No one outside this circle must know the truth," I repeated.
Nick snickered from the comer of the treehouse. I smacked him in the head with a foam football, and he shut-up. I looked back to the guys sitting crosslegged in front of me: Danny Delude, Kurt Perko, and Ben McCoy, all ten-year-olds. And little Jay Loose, my five-year-old next-door neighbor. They were my greatest fans, which was the only reason I allowed them in my treehouse.
"Do you really know how to breathe water?" Jay asked.
Another rude snort from the corner. Nick Thorpe was thirteen, a seventh grader like me and my best friend. I kept him fed, and he keptme laughing. But sometimes I could just beat the heck out of him.
Kurt answered for me. "Mike already said, dumbo. His alien powers are, whaddya call it, Mike?"
"Dormant."
"Yeah, dormant until his people come back.."
"It would be too dangerous for Mike to reveal himself now," Ben added. "Who knows what the government would do with him?"
"Stick needles in him!" Jay said with a shiver.
"Cut him open and take out his guts!" Kurt added.
"Eat his brain," Danny said.
True believers. I had taught them well.
"Okay, everybody out," I said. "Story's over for the day."
"But, Mike," they chorused.
"Go," I said, and they piled down the ladder, one by one.
Jay was last and because he was little, I steadied him to make sure he'd get over the ladder safely. "Can we have another story tomorrow?" he asked.
"You're such a liar," Nick laughed, spraying me with crumbs. As soon as the younger kids had disappeared, we dragged the snacks out of hiding: potato chips, creme cakes, juice drinks.
"You're such an oinker," I said, grabbing the bag of chips away. A gust of October wind dashed through the tree, and the chill grabbed me again, as if more than winter was coming. "Nick?"
"Hmm?"
"The stories do seem so real to me," I told him. "Like I saw them all happening. And sometimes still see them happening."
Nick had grown up with me and the Hanzel Chronicles so he knew better than to laugh. "How could they be real? And how the heck could you be an alien?" he said. "Do you think your parents are in some sort of government conspiracy? Covering up a spaceship crash? Or did they just pick you up off the side of the road oneday?"
"Consider this: they don't have any baby pictures of me. Why not?" I asked. "The first one they have is when I went to nursery school. But they have tons of Jill, from the first moment she came home, to her first hot dog, and first Christmas and first steps. She'd burp and they'd take a picture. So why didn't they take my picture when I was first born?"
"Jill probably broke the camera," Nick said with a grin.
"And when I asked them if I could see my birth certificate, they said they couldn't find it."
"So, my parents can't find their car keys half the time," Nick reasoned.
"Yeah, but a birth certificate? That's like the most legal thing you can have."
"So, did you come right out and ask them if you were an alien?" Nick sputtered, slopping down the last crumbs from the chips.
"Yeah," I said. I rubbed my arms. The wind was picking up and I was covered with goosebumps.
"And?"
"They smiled and said, 'Of course not!' The
Kathy Mackel is a novelist and screenwriter. Her films include Can of Worms and Hangman's Curse. Kathy has coached Junior Olympic and Little League fastpitch softball. She lives north of Boston with her family.