I stood and spent a few moments practicing the breathing exercises again. I noted but avoided focusing on the warm air, the rhythmic buzzing of insects in the background, that single drop of sweat running down the middle of my back. When I could no longer hear my heart, I pulled my phone out of my hip pocket.

I made several false starts composing a text, typing then backspacing furiously, then typing again. Finally, I muttered, “Screw it.” This couldn’t be boiled down to a few typed sentences. In a louder voice, I said, “Siri, call Patrick.”

“Calling Patrick,” the phone replied. I waited, a sinking, gnawing feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.

“Hi. You’ve reached Patrick Jordan. I’m not answering the phone, most likely because I don’t want to talk to you. But feel free to leave a message anyway.”

I couldn’t suppress a snicker as the recorded message played. The sentiment infuriated almost everyone who heard it, which Patrick was quick to explain was exactly the point. To be honest, Patrick could be a bit of a dick, but he and I had been friends for as long as either of us could remember, and with Natalie, we were the Three Musketeers against the world. One for all and all for Patrick. At least according to Patrick.

“Patrick, it’s Jack. Something’s happened. Something very weird. Even by your standards. Give me a call as soon as you get this.”

I hung up and re-pocketed the phone, then reached down to check around the corpse—wait, was it a corpse? What if it was just unconscious? Injured? Did it bite? Did it have stabby, stingy parts?

I grabbed another double handful of dust and repeated the sprinkling process, but more methodically, paying attention to each section of the body as it briefly appeared. Once I was sure I had the chest located, I placed a hand on it. No movement. No breathing. No heartbeat. But did that actually settle anything? I rocked back on my heels and stared at the, uh … well, stared at where the body should be.

It wasn’t human. It wasn’t an animal. It wasn’t—

I shuddered as I finally, consciously acknowledged the thought.

It wasn’t from Earth at all. Unless it was Bigfoot, which really wasn’t any better.

Or Chewbacca. Once you got past invisible and extraterrestrial, why not?

So I’d just killed an extraterrestrial. Maybe even the first one ever to visit Earth. Great. But why was it out here in the middle of nowhere? And why didn’t it have the sense to avoid getting hit crossing the road?