Invasion at Bald Eagle

by Kris Ashton

Derek stared out the windscreen for a while, and a while after that cleared his throat. “I don’t really see how, man. She decided to cheat on you with no proof. She did what she did based on hearsay. Now, I’m about the last person who should comment on marriage, but it seems to me that if you make that kind of commitment—”

  “I cheated on her first, just in a different way.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “For the past three days I’ve been trying to figure out why she would do something so over the top. (When I was sober enough to think properly, anyway.) A girl like Denise wouldn’t do something like that for no reason.”

  Hank paused, apparently trying to think up the right string of words. Derek did not break the silence.

  “It was a cry for attention—like a child misbehaving to get her parents’ attention, or a dog that’s left alone all day digging up the garden. I’ve always been career-orientated, but as soon as I got the idea for the Rolling Stone article I never thought about anything else. We were supposed to be holidaying in Aspen during my two weeks’ leave. Did I mention that?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We were. But the moment I got the idea for the story on your commune, I canceled our trip without consulting Denise. She didn’t kick up much of a stink, even though she probably had every right to. I guess it wasn’t the first time I canceled something in the name of work. But then when she found out what I had in mind…that was the final straw, I suppose. You take the world’s most loyal dog and kick it in the ass enough times, it’s going to turn around and bite you. I shouldn’t have—”

  A short burst of static came through the radio, followed by Sheriff Grayson’s low-register voice: “Woods, Brolin, do you copy? Over.”

  Derek took the mike from the rack. “We copy, Sheriff. Over.”

  “Have the government munchkins secured the area at your end?”

  “They sure have. Men in suits and army fatigues all over the place. They told us to go away about half an hour ago.”

  “Okay. Come back into town and meet me at the Methodist church on Archer Street. You know where that is?”

  Hank nodded to show he knew.

  “Sure thing, Sheriff.”

  “Over and out.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Derek said, racking the mike again. “You know, I actually wanted to be a cop when I was a kid. I think my mother must have dropped me on my head as a baby.”

  Hank smiled at that. Derek turned the car around and the movement woke Stan from his exhausted slumber. “Where are we going?” he said.

  “Back into town,” Derek said.

  “Okay,” Stan said, putting his head down again.

  Derek waited for Hank to restart his monologue on Denise, but he only gazed out the window.

  1:31 p.m.

  For fifteen minutes Bert had held the floor as he related Richard’s fantastical tale—verbatim, or as close as he could manage it. When he delivered the tasteless finale, his small audience of adults stood dumbstruck for a full three seconds.

  “They…they wouldn’t,” Father Bronson said at last.

  “Oh, man, I am not in the least surprised,” said Brolin, standing up and taking a few steps away, as if to escape a foul odor. “Goddamned government assholes.”

  “I thought this government guy was supposed to be a friend of yours,” Hank said.

  “Me too,” Bert replied. “I guess he’s a government guy first and a friend second.”

  Derek rounded on him. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to defend this jerk? He’s sentenced us all to death.”

  “I’m not defending him. I’m just saying I can see where he’s coming from, even if I hate it. We’re worrying about ourselves, he’s looking at the big picture.”

  “Yeah, it’s real easy to look at the big picture when you’re not about to get blasted out of existence. I can’t believe Mr Hardass Sheriff is just going to bend over and take it right up the—”

  “Just shut your goddamned yap, Brolin!”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Father Bronson said, inclining his head toward a few children who had tuned into the argument.

  “Standing here and yelling at each other isn’t going to save us,” Hank said. “I mean, if this is my last twelve hours alive, I think I’d rather spend it doing something productive.”

  “Like what?” Brolin asked. “Darning socks? Making Jello?”

  “Yeah, that’s a real helpful attitude,” Bert said. “If you’re going to whine, why don’t you go and sit by yourself in the confession booth.”

  “Oh, you’re so funny, Grayson. You’re as responsible for this as Warland is. If you’d listened to me in the first place instead of locking me up to satisfy your own prejudices, we might—”

  “Will you two give it a rest!” Hank screamed. The children fell silent and most stood up to look over at him. “We’re facing annihilation and you want to continue on with your petty arguments and play the blame game. Are you really that thick? None of that bullshit matters anymore. We have half a day to save our skins, and if we’re to have any hope at all, we need to work together. Do you think you two can manage that?”

  Bert crossed his arms and looked at Brolin. “I can if he can.”

  Brolin shook his head to pronounce his disgust. “Desperate times,” he said.

  “I know you’re pissed,” Hank said, softening a little, “and you probably have a right to be, but as it stands now, all you’re doing is cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

  “Cutting off all our noses,” Father Bronson put in.

  “All right, fine,” Brolin said. He offered Bert his hand. “Truce.”

  “Truce,” Bert agreed. They shook hands.

  “But that doesn’t invalidate my point,” Brolin said. “What are we going to do?”

  “Well, the sheriff said Warland would give us anything we needed, right? If we go in there with some sort of explosives and obliterate the nest, destroy the thing that fires the spores, surely then they’d have to—”

  “There’s no ‘have to’ with the government,” Bert said. “No matter what we did, they’d still argue that there was a risk. Besides, there must be fifteen-hundred or two-thousand of those things now. Do you honestly think the four of us would stand a chance, even if we were armed to the teeth with bazookas and TNT?”

  “You never know. I mean—”

  “No, I do know. I fired at—at Digger’s leg from point blank range and it only dented it. He must have taken another eight or ten rounds before the bullets penetrated his skin or his skeleton or whatever he has now.”

  “Exoskeleton,” Barkley suggested.

  “Whatever. They’re stronger than we are—far stronger—and they outnumber us three or four hundred to one. It’d be like trying to wipe out a nest of hornets with a twig.”

  Hank put a thoughtful finger to his lips. “So what are our options then? What would we have to do to get Warland to call off his air strike?”

  “Sounds to me like nothing short of a cure would do,” Brolin said. He sat down on a bench while the others took this in. “Any ideas how we might manage that? Maybe we could take one of those spores down to the lab and look at it under the microscope. You know, run a few tests, take a few—”

  “Sarcasm isn’t going to help our cause, Derek,” Hank said.

  “It sure couldn’t make it any worse.”

  “I have an idea,” Barkley said.

  The others looked at him.

  “This might sound a bit silly…I mean it’s not very scientific.”

  “I’ll take what I can get right now,” Bert said, “Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay, Warland said these things turn us into them by modifying our DNA somehow, right? Well, radiation can alter a person’s DNA as well. I wonder if exposure to radiation might somehow…I don’t know…counteract the alien toxin or whatever it is.”

  Bert, Hank and Brolin all looked at one another, but no one offered a comment.

  Barkley
looked at his shoelaces. “I guess it was a pretty dumb idea.”

  “I haven’t heard a better one,” Bert said. The others, including Father Bronson, nodded. “Do you really think it could work? Is there some sort of scientific basis for it?”

  “Radiation disrupts DNA at a molecular level. I figure it could work something like radiotherapy works on cancer. The people would be sick afterward and probably take a long time to recover…if they recovered at all. But at least the alien ‘disease’ would be destroyed as well.”

  “But how could we be sure that it’d work?” Brolin said. “We don’t want to find out that your theory’s a bust when we’ve got a pack of aliens all over us.”

  “And besides that,” Bert added, “how do you propose we give these aliens a dose of radiation without cooking ourselves? It’s not like we can ask them to line up for an injection.”

  Barkley had never looked so serene—he could almost have been stretched out on a Hawaii beach with a cocktail in his hand. “The last point is easily solved. In the reactor, we have tanks that contain what’s called ‘heavy water’. It’s the common name for the radioactive wastewater. There must be thousands of gallons of it. We just put on radiation-proof gear and take what we need.

  “Now as for Derek’s question, that’s simple too—we get ourselves a test subject. I suspect there must still be women around town who have not yet gone through the complete metamorphosis. We spray one of them with the heavy water and we’ll soon have our answer.”

  Bert and Hank gave a murmur of satisfaction, but Brolin wore a scowl. “You’ve forgotten one thing, Barkley. If this heavy water of yours does the trick, we still have to go down into the nest and spray it around. How long do you think we’d last? They’d kill us all before we got closer than a mile off.”

  Barkley furrowed his brow and gazed through a stained-glass window. When he looked back at Brolin his eyes had regained their dreaminess. “We’ll send some of the children,” he said.

  “We will not!” snapped Father Bronson. “I’ve never heard such poppycock! Sending children in. Deplorable.” He looked Barkley up and down and clucked his tongue.

  “Wait, hear him out,” Hank said. “I think I know what he’s getting at.”

  “Look around you,” Barkley said. “We’re outnumbered ten to one here as well. The aliens aren’t interested in the kids. They don’t see them as a threat and they don’t see them as an opportunity to breed.”

  “That’s probably true,” Bert said, “but how do we know these things don’t just kill anyone who comes within a hundred foot radius of their nest?”

  Barkley shrugged. “We don’t know. We can’t know everything.”

  “He’s got a point,” Hank said. “If we stand around trying to formulate a foolproof plan, we’ll still be here yakking away when the bombs rain down on our heads.”

  Bert had to concede this. “What about Bald Eagle’s water table? Will your radioactive water affect that?”

  “It depends how much we have to use, I suppose. I mean, I wouldn’t plant carrots in the area for a couple of generations and I guess some could seep into any nearby rivers. But unless we succeed, there’s going to be no one left in Bald Eagle to worry about contamination, right?”

  Bert breathed deeply, almost a sigh. “Well, it’s better than standing around, I guess. Now—”

  “Uh, there’s one small detail you’ve overlooked,” Brolin interrupted. “You haven’t actually asked the kids if they like this plan. You know, wander alone into a dark nest of alien killing machines. One or two of them might have an objection.”

  Bert wanted to clobber Brolin—but only because he was absolutely right.

  “We can’t very well force them to go,” Hanks said.

  “No, we most certainly can’t,” said Father Bronson.

  “I’ll go,” a small voice said.

  The band turned as one to see Stan slumped and nearly hidden in a second-row pew, an enigmatic glint lighting up his otherwise troubled eyes.

  “Have you heard our whole conversation, son?” Bert asked.

  Stan nodded.

  “You could be in terrible danger, Stan,” Father Bronson said, walking over and crouching to rest his elbows on the pew’s armrest. “You could even die. Do you understand that?”

  Once more Stan nodded. “My mom and dad have been turned into those alien things. Mr Barkley thinks his heavy water can fix them and that a kid would have the best chance of spraying it on them. It makes sense.”

  The adults looked at one another. Bert could not speak for them all, but he felt discomfited at the premature maturity he saw in the child’s face.

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Brolin said, perhaps playing angel’s advocate. “You’re only young and you shouldn’t put your life at risk just because a bunch of grown-ups say it’s the best thing to do.”

  “If my folks are gone, I don’t think I want to live anyway,” Stan said.

  The plastic surety fell out of Barkley’s face and he put a hand to his mouth as if he expected to be sick. “Oh, God,” he whispered.

  “Right, let’s get started,” Bert said, before the kid’s nihilism could blanket them all. “Barkley, how many people do you think you’ll need to collect your heavy water?”

  That beatific officiousness had departed altogether and Barkley glanced from face to face as if he hoped someone else had the answer. “Er—well, it depends. We have to decide how much we want and then there’s the question of—”

  “Never mind. You, me and Brolin will go. Hank, you stay here and hold the fort with Father Bronson.”

  Brolin punched Hank in the arm. “Not a bad job if you can get it,” he said.

  “It won’t be much of a job if those things decide to attack this place. I’ve got six bullets. The father and I will be throwing cans of asparagus at them.”

  “God will protect us,” Father Bronson said.

  “We’ll bring back some more weapons as well,” Bert said. “God helps those who help themselves, right Father?”

  Father Bronson inclined his head a little. “And those who have faith in Him. Hank and I will pray for your safe return.”

  “I’m not religious, Father,” Hank said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Father Bronson said with a clever smile, “you can pray for them even if you don’t want to pray for yourself.”

  “Come on,” Bert said, “let’s get this operation underway.”

  As a pack of five they made their way to the church doors. Bert poked his head outside to make sure the way was clear, then led his trio out to the cruiser.

  “Godspeed,” Father Brolin called after them.

  He closed the door.

  2:05 p.m.

  The afternoon brought with it clouds and a whippy wind that flapped their collars and rippled their shirts. Bert and Brolin took the front seats in the cruiser; Barkley did not complain about riding in the back.

  They drove out of the church’s small lot, and when they came to the Main Street T-junction Bert stopped, the cruiser’s indicator indicating to nobody. “Do you think we’ll need to pick anything up, Barkley, or will we have everything we need at the power plant?”

  Barkley squinched up his face as he considered this. “We’ll have all the drums and radiation suits we need. I’d suggest we pick up a trailer and a tarpaulin, though—you don’t want to risk tying barrels of radioactive water to the roof-racks. And whatever you plan to pump it with, I suppose.”

  “I know Fletch Carter had trailers for hire at his gas station,” Bert said. “We can pick one up from there and see if there’s anything in his garage we can use for a pump.”

  Bert checked both ways before turning left onto Main Street—even though the closest things to traffic were the leaves dancing and tumbling in the wind. The trio had driven about a quarter of a mile when they saw the woman standing by herself in the gutter. She appeared worried and somewhat lost and Bert slowed a touch to get a better look at he
r.

  “What do you think?” he said as they crept up alongside her.

  Brolin studied her through the glass and frowned. “I don’t know, man. She doesn’t have that dazed look most of the others had, but still…”

  Bert could appreciate the hippie’s uncertainty. The woman stared fretfully at something above the roof of the cruiser—in fact, she did not appear to have noted their arrival at all. With a pair of binoculars pressed to her eyes, she could have been mistaken for a birdwatcher admiring a rare specimen in the copse of trees opposite.

  “I don’t like this,” Barkley said.

  He was about to add something when the woman’s head split down the middle.

  The crack started just above the bridge of her nose and then opened up like a yawning mouth wrenched vertical. Her eyes pulled away from one another and the skin of her nose stretched wider and wider until it flattened out into a rubbery pink sheet. It finally split and threw out a gobbet of blood and gristle that slapped against the cruiser’s rear side window. Barkley yipped and scrabbled along the seat until his back was pressed against the opposite door.

  Bert’s mind projected an array of images as it tried to match this incidence with one similar: The splitting lips of a dried seed pod; the bursting skin of an overripe melon; a coconut cleft in two with a tomahawk. But none of those pictures came close—the difference was the difference between being told about a limbless freak and seeing one for real.

  The two spheres of the woman’s skull dropped away and bounced off her shoulders, falling to the pavement like wooden bowls filled with blood. The human eyes, the birdwatching eyes, had made way for a set of those chilling alien orbs Bert had last seen beneath Richard’s van. Deep eyes with all the beauty, mercy and pity of black opals; dark gems with a red flash of malice.

  Bert’s foot fell on the accelerator and the car bucked forward. He had not felt such fascinated horror since his earliest years on the beat, when he had attended his first fatal road accident in Denver. He couldn’t help but take a final glance in his rear-vision mirror—and he was thankful that what he saw was in micro-sized proportions. The alien thing stripped off its flesh, first one side and then the other, as if it were peeling a red-meat banana.